[Phoenix Court 02] - Does It Show?

by Paul Magrs

  ‘I’m like Dr Doolittle!’ Ethan had cried. ‘Aren’t I?’ he asked Rose, who came in with bowls of her home-made broth.

  ‘Oh, aye!’ She smiled. ‘Dr Does-bloody-nowt.’ All night she was waiting on the pair of them hand and foot. But she was proud. It always made her feel good to be surrounded by men. She had always wanted five sons. That was her dream. And she got just Jane.

  ‘Honest,’ Rose said, elbow-deep in ironing, pulling it out of her basket. ‘I can’t see how you can complain. He’s got the nicest nature I’ve ever seen in a bairn.’

  Jane’s headache was seeping back. ‘When he’s with me and it’s just the two of us, he can be a right little shit sometimes.’ But then, turning to see what he was doing, her heart went out to him, and she felt bad for what she was saying. Peter was crayoning at the kitchen table, looking angelic. Jane imagined heaven must smell like this, of Radion and Comfort. ‘Fetch your things, pet,’ she told him. ‘He’s good for you because you spoil him,’ she told her mother.

  ‘What else are grandmothers for?’ Rose grinned. ‘It’s parents who get the rotten part. When you’re a grandparent you have all the best jobs.’ Rose gave her daughter an appraising look. ‘So how was your night out?’

  ‘All right, I suppose.’

  Peter came over to get his hair ruffled by Rose, Turtle rucksack slung carelessly over one shoulder. ‘Aah, lamb!’ She smiled. As she kissed his face, her nose felt cold to him. ‘Any luck with finding him a new dad last night?’

  Jane tutted. ‘Don’t be daft. Come on, son.’

  ‘That’s what he needs. That’s how he’ll calm down. A bit of stability.’

  ‘See you, Mam.’

  Rose stared over the sheets as she folded them, flapping her hefty arms like wings. ‘He’ll have a granda soon. That’ll do him good. He took to Ethan right well last night.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake —’

  ‘We’ve set a date. November the thirtieth.’

  Jane pushed Peter out into the garden. Once he was out of hearing range she hissed at her mother, ‘How can you look for stability from some old bloke with one leg?’

  Rose just laughed in her face.

  Jane took a long, slow walk around the streets, Peter docile at her side. As they passed the park he watched the skiving kids clambering on a huge metal spider crouched on the asphalt. She asked, ‘Nothing to say?’ He shook his head, looking down, then gave her a shy smile.

  ‘We’ll go into the town centre, round the shops,’ she told him. ‘All the lights in the shops are off and it looks magical. It’ll be like one of those adventures when you go back in time to the olden days. You like all that, don’t you? Adventures?’ But the wind had dropped in time for the dinnertime rush. Town was noisy again and the electricity was back on. Peter looked at his mother as if to say she was a liar. We haven’t travelled back in time at all, he was saying. We’re still in the same rotten place.

  Inside Woollies was bright and dirty again. She took him to the toys and bought him a Real Ghostbusters toy, one of those she’d meant to save till Christmas. It was only the price of another shared taxi fare. In the queue her heart raced because she remembered her pockets were full of stolen sweets.

  Like a heron in a cobalt-blue trouser suit Liz strode across the filthy school field. She wished she had taken the time to walk the long way round. But she had dressed and done herself up in record time. She was worried. When she arrived home from Cliff’s flat this morning, there had been a note from Penny on the breakfast bar.

  What are you playing at? I’ve been worried sick.

  That daft Jane told me what happened.

  Why didn’t you phone?

  Why now all of a sudden?

  The mud was sucking at her silk slippers. She almost lost them. What am I doing, dressed like the mother of the bride, wading in mud? She looked up and cursed. The school seemed so far off. Oh, I wasn’t made for nature, Liz thought. But she was determined.

  The teachers and pupils outside the main entrance stopped to watch this elegantly dressed, if slightly muddy and distraught stranger slip past them and into Reception. She seemed to sail straight to where she was going. Once inside she rapped on the typing-pool window and commanded the secretary to find out where Penny would be now, and to take her there.

  What worried Liz about the note from her daughter was its curtness. The absence of the following words, which beat a tattoo in her head as she followed the grim secretary to Penny’s English class: Mam, love. Penny.

  TEN

  For a moment there had been lightness and air streaming in through the windows. The day was turning out all right. Penny was back in Mrs Bell’s yellow classroom and the conversation was easy and animated. They were having one of those lessons resembling a class chat, flipping casually through the first two hundred pages of their set texts, drawing up points, coming up with ideas. They had begun with a brainstorming session, and the board was full of words and phrases of different sizes and connotations, written by different hands. It was something Vince had learned from one of his seminar tutors at college and Mrs Bell was trying it out. Mrs Bell wasn’t convinced; to her the board just looked a mess. But Vince was leading this session, getting involved and agitated whenever somebody made a point, waving his arms and drawing arrows between the nouns and adjectives on the board. This was one of those sessions on the set texts that they taught together and sometimes she had to hold back from taking over and also from shouting out her own ideas. She thought he was getting too abstract. Now and then she would look at the pupils’ faces and they would appear confounded and cross. All except Penny, who seemed to be with him the whole way along. It was as if he couldn’t do wrong in her eyes. Then he would seem to gather the others up again, with some glib joke at the expense of the book or the writer.

  Mrs Bell thought that was all right up to a certain point, but you couldn’t beat a proper close reading. Nothing like getting right in there and reading line by line, pulling it all to bits like remaking a bed. Vince was just walking round and round it. The startling image came to her that, teaching, Vince treated the book and its author like a patient in a sickbed. A begrudged sickbed and he was one of those young, obnoxious doctors showing off. Whereas she wanted to give the patient a good scrubbing and feed them soup and bring them flowers. Her attention was straying. The lesson wasn’t moving fast enough. She would have to tell him.

  The lesson was making Penny forget her dismal start to the day, but then there was a smart rap at the door and the secretary shoved her head in to ask if Penny could be excused for a few minutes. Immediately she knew what this meant. When she stepped outside, into the dimly lit cloakroom and corridor, the secretary turned on her heel and left, duty done. Liz was standing there at the mouth of the corridor, looking immaculate and helpless.

  The walls were institution green, filled with reproduction van Goghs. The atmosphere was just like the dense, seaweedy feeling in her dream about being in the caves. She was back in her diving suit.

  ‘Hello,’ she said to Liz.

  Liz was admiring the reproductions. They were badly printed, too bright, and jarred against Penny’s nerves. She thought, This is how I dream, with volume and colour turned up too loud, like a telly that has to compete with the neighbours’. No wonder I can’t sleep at night.

  ‘I’ve been worried.’

  ‘That’s why I came to see you. I thought you might be. Silly!’ Liz avoided mentioning the note.

  ‘So. What’s happening, then?’

  Liz took a deep breath. Her composure was cracking; Penny could tell by the fact that she was blinking more often than usual, plucking at her false nails. ‘I won’t pull the wool over your eyes, Pen. I couldn’t do that. So… I’ve invited him to dinner tonight. You can meet him.’

  Her daughter nodded slowly. Then, ‘What brought it on?’

  ‘You’ve grown up. You can handle this now. It was an impulse thing. Like shopping. I felt the need.’

  ‘Like shopp
ing?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that to sound… frivolous.’

  Penny didn’t look convinced by this, but Liz was being honest. She wanted to say, but couldn’t quite, that shopping was one of the most serious things she knew. Anyway, Penny knew that already about Liz. But here and now there seemed to be no proper context to say it, to talk about the anxiety Liz felt about shopping. How serious she felt when the mirrors in shops caught at her attention, made her feel conscious or ashamed. How she felt the need always to buy something else, something she thought she needed. Penny should understand this compulsion of hers.

  Penny said, ‘What if I don’t want to meet him?’

  ‘He’s lovely. You will.’

  ‘Mam .. . you were careful, weren’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m not as stupid as I look. You can understand this, can’t you?’

  Penny was staring fixedly at the bed in one of the pictures. It was bowed under pressure. All the furniture in the Dutchman’s colourful room was warped by the use of its owner.

  ‘You want to bring us together to see how we react to each other. How we affect each other. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You bring people together for experiments.’

  ‘I’ve asked you to grow up very quickly. Penny. But I have to ask you for this one last thing.’

  You provoke, Penny thought. On purpose. The person Penny’s father had become, the person he had wanted to be in order to be himself, not only partook of but also created life. It was his mothering urge.

  Penny turned to look at her. The composure was really gone now, as startling as if the wig had slipped off. The mascara was running, the flesh tones patchy, fake. Under her Obsession there was the faintest tang of sweat.

  ‘What last thing?’ She was fascinated by this face in the process of deconstructing before her. It was between states and its tears could have been from exertion.

  ‘That you accept this relationship. Accept that it is what I need now. That you will let go of that part of yourself that wants to keep me whole for ever.’

  ‘I’ll accept anything.’ Penny smiled. ‘That’s what I do. I accept anything.’

  ‘I want you to mean it.’

  ‘You sound like a soap opera.’

  ‘If I do, it’s because I watch soaps. I don’t read your kind of books. How would I say what I want to say… how would I say it in your language? The one you like?’

  Penny blinked. ‘Just say it as you think it. That’ll do, Mam.’

  ‘Well.’

  ‘I’ll accept it. I’ll meet your bus driver and I’ll give my verdict. I’ll give up my hold over you —’

  ‘I don’t want you to do that. You chose to stay with me. I’ll never lose you.’

  ‘No. You won’t.’

  ‘Your real mother —’

  ‘She wanted me too. I know. I remember. But you made her redundant. I’ve had both in you. And I’ve been grateful.’ Penny smiled, tasting salt. ‘I needed to tell you that. Before we move on to the next thing, whatever happens next. I’m glad I chose you, back then.’

  Liz was hunting out tissues. ‘You were five. Christ, how can you know, when you’re five? How could we have asked you to choose?’ Her hands were shaking inside her handbag. ‘Life’s never dull, is it?’

  Penny gave her some toilet roll. ‘Yes, it is, but the bits that aren’t tend to make up for the bits that are.’

  Gradually Liz drew herself back together and urged her daughter to go back to her lessons. Penny said, ‘Can you find your way back out of school?’

  Liz looked around as if she had forgotten that was where they were. ‘You seem at home here already. In your new school.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘I hate these places. I’m not used to being anywhere official and proper.’

  ‘I’ve got to get back,’ Penny said.

  ‘All right, pet,’ Liz said. As she hurried out of the school building she was planning a meal and rehearsing introductions, only slightly self-conscious of her make-up smudges. Mr Polaroid bumped into her at the main entrance.

  ‘Your daughter is being very difficult about this secretarial course business —’

  ‘Secretarial!' Liz cried, quite her old self.

  Jane let herself into Fran’s kitchen. There was no one about. She put the kettle on and watched Peter climb into his usual place at the pine bench. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she could smell wee in the carpet. Then she remembered Fran’s dodgy pipes under the sink. She couldn’t get the council to come out.

  It always struck Jane how funny other people’s houses smelled. Visiting people, she would pick up the scent of old dinners, the smell of the people themselves. She always ended up wondering if people were clean enough, especially when they offered you something to eat. She’d thought that round Big Sue’s house the other day. It was funny, too, after an hour or two somewhere, you stopped smelling their distinctive smell, as if you had yourself become part of it. And when you went home your own house would smell strange. Jane shook her head. Sometimes she thought she was obsessed with cleanliness.

  Then Fran came in through the front door with Lyndsey and Jeff. Peter jumped off the bench and the kids greeted each other loudly, shouting out each other’s names over and over, banging arms and blunt bodies.

  ‘Oh. Morning, Jane. Kettle on?’ They sat at the table.

  ‘Tell them to be quiet. My head’s coming back.’

  ‘I think it’s still warm enough for them to play outside.’ Fran tightened up their anoraks and shooed them out. ‘Still feel rough?’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘Never mind.’ Fran’s eyes were wide with a certain eagerness. She was brushing her wind-blown fringe away and ignoring the kettle as it gave out plumes of steam. ‘Nesta from next door has vanished.’

  ‘She’s what?’

  ‘They reckon she’s been kidnapped.’

  ‘I’m flabbergasted!’

  ‘Isn’t it awful?’ Despite herself, Fran started to laugh.

  ‘Well…’ Jane glanced backwards to see what the kids were up to. ‘At least you’ll have your milk to yourself in the future.’

  Outside it was windy again. Lyndsey, Peter and Jeff were holding hands in a line, running around the tarmac play park, anoraks flapping as they tore into the wind, shrieking.

  Now Ethan was taking the bus into Aycliffe again. He was all over the place these days. But always going back to Rose, he reflected. That was home to him now, her cosy house in the old part of Aycliffe. He could sell up his old place and the shop in Darlington, and cut all his ties. They needed the money for the wedding and the cruise. The cruise! A lovely, long, luxurious word. It made him think of… what? Water the colour of forget-me-nots, as far as the eye could see, and flying fish zipping about and keeping pace with the prow of the vast ship. Taking a stroll at sunset. Bingo and go-go dancers and buffets with as much as you can eat. Stopping off in dusty, exotic bazaars and buying souvenirs for next to nothing. The thought of the cruise they were planning to take together was more exciting, almost, than the thought of the marriage itself. He could see them playing tennis on the deck, both in pristine, freshly pressed whites. And he had two legs in his.

  He did feel bad about Andrew. Until this morning he hadn’t given his nephew a great deal of thought in this. Now that he had seen him and gauged his reaction, the old man did have misgivings. Andrew looked so browbeaten. There was no zest in him, no desire to go out and challenge the world. Bless him, though, he’d lost his parents when he was, what? Eight? And God alone knew what that had done to him. Brought up by Ethan’s mother Jean and then, latterly, sort of looked after by himself. It’s a wonder the poor lad could function at all. He was always surrounded by old people, Ethan could see that now, and he wondered if they had done him damage, trying to get involved in his life. Well, anyway, he’d be looking after himself now. And he had friends. That bloke there this morning, he was a friend. It wasn’t as if he had no one his own age.

  No more fretti
ng, Ethan told himself as the bus came into the town centre. You sound like an old woman.

  Soon he was off the bus and walking slowly, doggedly, down the few streets to the house of his intended. Her front windows were fogged with the steam from her ironing. He stood by the garden gate and serenaded her with ‘Love is in the Air’. His voice was booming and off-key and people on the main road stopped to look. Ethan couldn’t care less. He sang at the top of his voice with his arms spread out wide.

  Rose wiped the condensation away with a tea towel. She saw him and mouthed, ‘Silly bugger!’ at him across the grass, grinning delightedly.

  It’s ridiculous, really, Ethan thought as she came out, stamping her winter boots on and fastening her furry coat. It’s only about two hours since we last saw each other. What’s making us carry on like this? She came up and linked arms with him. ‘Ha’way then, Captain Birdseye,’ she said. ‘Let’s get into town.’

  ‘You mean Long John Silver,’ Ethan said. ‘He was the one with one leg.’

  ‘Who was Captain Birdseye then?’

  Ethan frowned. ‘Wasn’t that Burt Lancaster?’

  Suddenly she laughed. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m thinking of. Fish fingers!’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Ha’way, Captain Birdseye!’ she cackled, and led him into the main street. All the way down the road she tempered her usual healthy stride and brought herself down to his pace. He struggled manfully to wield his wooden leg faster for her. Together they were keeping pretty good time.

  Seemingly overnight the big supermarket in town had changed hands. Cardboard signs swung from the ceiling, yellow spots on red backgrounds. Liz was confused when she walked in. Everything was in different aisles, just as she had learned her way round. At least the delicatessen was in the same place, its tiled walls covered in yellow and red posters. The woman serving on was in a new red and yellow uniform, scowling with her tongs held out. ‘Giving me bloody migraine, all those spots,’ she said. A tannoy voice announced, ‘Welcome to Yellow Spot!’