‘Anyway, what are you doing?’ Elaine asked.
‘Dry-stone walling,’ Mummy said. ‘I’m going to build a wall around the pond to stop somebody tumbling in.’ She nodded towards Huwie. ‘And I’ve always wanted to try this – want to help?’
Elaine pulled a face at me and shook her head. ‘We’re busy,’ I said. ‘What will Daddy say about the wall?’
She picked up a big flat stone and considered. ‘Look at the lichen,’ she said, ‘isn’t it pretty?’
Elaine and I went into the kitchen to make milk-shakes.
‘A small fence would surely have sufficed,’ was all that he did say. It was tea-time and we were eating one of Mummy’s inventions, a pork and stuffing pizza. We waited for more but he just pursed his lips and reached for the Tabasco.
Dear Foxy,
middle of the fucking night
I know you have been having an affair with Kris. Or is affair too grand a word? I know you have had sex with Kris. It doesn’t matter how I know, don’t ask. Maybe some of your friends aren’t so loyal as you think. I can’t believe you could have cheated on me like this while I’m having such a bad time. I thought you loved me, only last week you did say you loved me and then you went off and slept with her. You fucking bitch.
I screw this up so hard I twist my knuckles. I screw up the last letter too, screw and rip. I take all the screwed and torn up paper into the kitchen, open the bin and find an empty tomato tin, stuff it all inside, then throw the tin back in the bin.
Oh, but I am a selfish cow. Tonight of all nights all I can think about is myself and that fucking bitch and what she does behind my back. I go upstairs, pee, wash.
As I pass the room where Hazel and Colin are sleeping I am startled to hear a groan of pleasure from Colin. I thought they’d be asleep. Or maybe it was a sleepy sigh. No it was the sound of Colin coming inside my sister on the very night of my father’s funeral. I feel sick thinking of his red face, his … well I don’t like to think. I’m surprised at Hazel, doing it tonight of all nights. Shocked.
Oh Zelda, go to bed.
The following day when I got home from school, Wanda was in the kitchen with Mummy. She wasn’t having a cup of tea or even sitting down, I thought that was strange, Mummy always made people cups of tea. There was a sort of crackly feeling in the air.
‘Of course he can stay,’ Mummy was saying.
‘Who?’ I asked, knowing perfectly well.
Wanda smiled at me. ‘Hello stranger,’ she said. I smiled back. I couldn’t help liking her. She had done her hair ginger now and was wearing a green embroidered velvet coat that came right down to her sandals. The patchouli oil was particularly strong, but I had started to like it – except on Dog-belly.
‘Vassily’s staying the night,’ Mummy said, ‘Wanda’s busy.’ I could see she was annoyed.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, that int half a nuisance but … well …’
‘It’s perfectly all right,’ Mummy said, ‘just drop off his things before you go.’
‘Better run,’ Wanda said heading for the door. ‘Bye-bye,’ she shouted, waving to Vassily, who, I now saw, was on the swing. She blew him a kiss. ‘You ought to come round for a drink again,’ she said to me, ‘that was fun last time, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bye Astrid, thanks,’ she said, as she left.
Mummy slammed something into the sink.
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
‘Nothing at all,’ she said, and with a bit of an effort, smiled. Then, ‘How would you feel about moving house?’
‘Why?’ I sat down, quite shocked. We had moved several times when I was smaller but we’d been at ‘The Nook’ longer than we’d been anywhere and it felt like home.
‘Daddy’s going for promotion again.’
‘But why?’
‘That’s the way of the world,’ she said in a funny voice, ‘onward and upward. And …’ she looked around the kitchen, her eyes coming to rest on Vassily’s reading book lying on the table, ‘perhaps a change would do us all good.’
‘Foxy, I know about Kris.’
Pause. Foxy wary. ‘What about Kris?’
‘I know that you slept with her.’
Another pause. A decision. ‘What on earth makes you think that?’
‘I don’t think it, I know it.’
‘Well you’re wrong.’
‘No I’m not. Don’t lie any more Foxy, it only makes it worse.’
No, no. Just, ‘Don’t lie. It doesn’t work.’
Foxy disconcerted. Myself under control, voice a little husky maybe.
No, start again.
Direct and unexpected, coming in upon her working, standing beside her at her desk.
‘Foxy, since we’ve been together have you been to bed with anyone else?’
‘Zelda! What a question!’ She stands, a kiss, a nuzzle, her scent in my nose, the softness of her hair, maybe her lips on my ear. I disengage myself, gentle but firm.
‘Well?’
But what if she said: ‘Yes. So?’ What if she chose to be belligerent rather than contrite? What if she’s been wanting to tell me, relieved that I’ve finally given her the opportunity? What if she said, ‘Yes, I’m in love with Kris and …’ No she wouldn’t say that, but what if she said, ‘I want to leave you. You are too clingy, too possessive, jealous, you cramp my style.’ No she wouldn’t be so crass. Foxy would be kinder than that.
But why, why, when I gave her the chance to finish it, why didn’t she?
The bed is narrow, the night-light is on, Mummy has kept it through all her moves, red toadstool with its white glowing spots, Hazel’s bubble-gum stickers peeling up at the edges.
If I’m going to confront Foxy then I have to have a strategy ready to counter any possible approach she might take.
Maybe she wrote about Kris in her diary hoping that I would see, expecting me to read it. Maybe she hid all the tampons knowing I’d look in her bag and see the diary…
For Christ’s sake, Zelda, get a grip.
5
I took an apple and went upstairs to change. I didn’t want to move, and change schools and have to find a new best friend. Elaine was the best friend I’d ever had, I knew I’d never find anyone else like her. I looked out of my window at the garden. There was blossom on the fruit trees and the grass around them was a juicy green. Vassily, swinging weakly to-and-fro, rocked the apple tree a little, making the blossom shudder.
At least he wasn’t in the tree-house. I didn’t think I wanted us to move and leave the tree-house behind but it suddenly looked ugly to me, a big lump in the branches of the tree with its front window like a round and empty eye staring. And the pond looked stupid with a wall all around it and a piece of corrugated iron propped in the gap for a gate, as if it was in prison. It wasn’t my pond at all, it was Daddy and Dog-belly’s. If we moved away there would be an end to all that.
Before Daddy had taken Dog-belly to get the goldfish, I had started just, just, not to like him but not to mind him quite so much. He had learned to read very well. He had a good joke book that he’d bring round. He’d point to a joke and I’d read it and – sometimes – laugh. I even did finger spelling with him sometimes. I tried to feel sorry for him – deaf, ugly, fatherless. But that didn’t help. Pitying him made me dislike him more. It was as if he was small and skinny and deaf on purpose. And Daddy liked him more than he liked me. The feelings that gave me were dirty like rubbish in the pit of my belly, or the sediment left in my head after a bad dream. It was as if I had a goblin’s face printed on my heart, ugly, far uglier than Dog-belly’s, that was transfigured with hate whenever he was near. If he had been big and strong I do not think I would have felt like that. But he was weak. He was grateful for any kindness shown him – even if it was fake.
I was upset that Mummy seemed upset. Now that she’d shown that she minded Dog-belly, it seemed that we were being drawn into sides: Mummy, Hazel and I against Daddy and Dog-belly. Us agains
t them. If it hadn’t been for Dog-belly, everything would have been all right. Maybe we wouldn’t have to move house. Not fair to blame that on him. But still.
I went out into the garden. I couldn’t see Dog-belly at first. I found him inside the wall, crouching by the pond, watching the goldfish gliding under the green weeds. I stood above him looking down at the thinness of the back of his neck and the roughness of his splayed knees where they poked out of his shorts; seeing the green of the flowering cherry reflected in the water; seeing the pale smudge of his face and my own, indistinct, looming above it. He saw it too and turned, grinning up at me. I bent over the pond beside him. A water snail was sliding upside down on the skin of the water’s surface like a grey tongue. A pond-skater dented the silky surface with its pin-prick feet.
It’s only an ornamental pond, I thought, thinking of the real, natural pond on the golf-course; feeling a bristle of cold travel all up my spine; swallowing against the memory of a taste; a sensation as of weed caught round my tongue; squeezing my fist shut against the sensation of something heavy under the water, something that will just sway when you prod it.
‘Grizzle.’ Mummy’s voice behind me made me jump. ‘I’ve made you some sandwiches.’ She held out the plate, thick white bread filled with brown jam, and some biscuits.
‘Thanks.’
She smiled warmly at Dog-belly. It was not his fault, I could see her thinking that, poor little brat. He pointed to a cluster of tadpoles nuzzling the edge of the pond.
‘Tadpoles,’ he said. It sounded like ‘towels’, but Mummy said, ‘Yes, Vassily, good’, and bent over beside him to look.
When Mummy had gone back inside, I led the way up into the tree-house. Dog-belly seemed very happy. I had no plans to do anything. Why did I take him up into the tree-house when I hated him so much? Something seductive about such a strong pure feeling? I don’t know.
Dog-belly sat on the branch. I offered him a sandwich. He munched it noisily. I had no appetite for mine.
‘Knock, knock,’ he said, miming a knock as he did so. His speech was much better than it had been.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Lettuce.’
‘What?’
‘Lettuce.’
‘What?’
I knew what he was saying. It was quite clear and any way I knew the joke. If I’d said ‘Lettuce who?’ he’d have squawked, ‘Lettuce in and you’ll see!’ and laughed his squeaky laugh, his teeth all pointed and yellow. But I wouldn’t play. ‘Pardon?’ I said. He gave up, chewed the crust of his sandwich, looking down and stirring his toe around on the floor. The face on my heart contracted with spite and it hurt. I wanted to say, ‘Lettuce who?’ then but it was too late.
Hazel’s voice floated up, ‘Grizzle?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is he with you?’
‘Yes.’ The house bounced slightly as she climbed the ladder.
‘Let’s have a biscuit.’ Her neat blonde head emerged through the trap-door. ‘Hello.’ She smiled brilliantly at Dog-belly and hoisted herself in.
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
‘Oh sorry, do you want to be alone?’ She made a stupid moony face.
‘Shut-up cretin.’
‘Grizzle!’ She giggled, shocked.
The biscuits were lemon puffs. She took one and so did I and held out the plate to Dog-belly. Flakes of shiny pastry sprinkled down all our fronts, even Hazel’s. She brushed them off. Leaning back so that Dog-belly couldn’t see her face, she mouthed, ‘I want to see his nipples.’
‘Hazel!’ I started to laugh. Dog-belly, seeing me laugh, joined in.
‘How?’ I said.
‘Peasy, watch.’ She pulled up her blouse and vest. Her skin was very white in the underwater leaf-light of the tree, and laced with pale green veins. Her nipples were small pink ovals, risen just a little, just like mine. She took Dog-belly’s hand. ‘Touch,’ she said. Now I was shocked. She held his grubby hand against her luminous skin, his fingers stiff across her nipple.
‘Now you,’ she said, looking at me. I shook my head, my face burning. ‘Go on.’
I wonder if there is anything I would not have done for Hazel.
‘Go on,’ she said. I shut my eyes as I lifted my clothes. ‘Higher,’ she insisted. I was afraid she’d think I was more developed than her and be angry but she said nothing and I felt the rough jab of Dog-belly’s fingers as she pressed them against my chest. I had a sudden vision of his face pressed up against Wanda’s filmy green night-dress, against her voluptuous breasts. I opened my eyes and saw his face all flushed, the eyes bright, like a keen, excited little animal. I pulled down my clothes.
‘Your turn,’ Hazel said to Dog-belly. He hesitated. ‘Go on,’ she prodded the front of his jumper. I was afraid for a moment that somehow I had been wrong, seen or remembered wrongly, that his chest would be perfectly normal. I flinched imagining Hazel’s scorn.
‘No,’ Dog-belly said and folded his arms.
‘Help me,’ Hazel demanded. She got hold of his wrists and wrenched them apart. I looked towards the house. From the little window I could see Huw sitting on his new tricycle by the back door. ‘Pull his jumper up …’ I got hold of the edge of it, but he snatched his body away from us and the tree-house rocked. There was a moment of pause. I looked at Hazel. Hazel looked at Dog-belly.
‘Go on then,’ she said. She folded her arms, waiting. Dog-belly raised his chin and looked her in the eye. It wasn’t embarrassment I saw on his face, or fear, it was a sort of defiance. He pulled off his jumper and folded it neatly on the branch beside him. He loosened the knot of his tie, slipped it over his head and hung it over his jumper. Then he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, almost, it seemed, teasingly, fumbling over each button. He wasn’t wearing a vest. He pulled the shirt open and there, on his bony chest, where the ivory ribs showed through the skin, were the six nipples, just as I’d described, the usual two, two rather flatter halfway down his rib-cage, two colourless puckered circles of skin just above the waistband of his shorts. Hazel touched them one by one with her index finger. Dog-belly sat absolutely still. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. A little pulse was beating fast just above his collar-bone.
‘It’s really interesting, isn’t it?’ Hazel said.
‘Yes.’
‘Touch.’
‘No.’
‘Let’s tickle him then,’ Hazel said. I didn’t want to. I wanted to get out of the tree-house and go inside and watch television. I wanted to cuddle my fat little brother and blow a raspberry on his creamy neck. I didn’t like the expression on my heart. I looked at Hazel and suddenly saw her as a bully. But I had to help her. We tickled him all over his neck and chest and he gave a sort of shrieking laugh. ‘Let’s take his shirt right off,’ she said.
‘No. Why?’
‘Dunno, just let’s.’ Together we wrestled him out of the sleeves of his shirt. Then the game felt over. He sat on the branch, scrawny and pathetic, his skinny shoulders hunched, his hands pressed between his thighs.
‘I know what would tickle him properly,’ Hazel said, eyeing my formicary.
‘No!’ I didn’t want my ants let out and Dog-belly looked so defeated. Different impulses were welling up inside me, scrambling to win. I felt dizzy. Hazel had her determined look. I seem to be saying it was all Hazel, that Hazel made me do it. But that is not true. There was something in myself that wanted to be urged. If Hazel remembers this, I am sure she remembers quite differently.
‘Go on … it won’t hurt him.’ She met my eyes when she said the word hurt.
‘I don’t know …’ He sat there, uselessly, not looking at us to read our lips, not even trying to put his clothes back on. It was as if he would let us do anything to him, as if he almost wanted us to. I thought of the smug goldfish in the pond that he had chosen. I thought of all the times I’d watched him helping Daddy with the pond and how he’d been no help at all, not half the help I would have been. How useless.
‘It
would be funny,’ she urged.
‘We’d have to tie him up,’ I said.
‘Go on then.’
The only thing to tie him with was his own tie.
‘It would only be a sort of joke,’ I said. We lay him down on his back on the branch and I crawled underneath and tied his wrists together. He just fitted nicely, his chest splayed right out so that you could see all the ribs and the delicate spaces in between. I thought of a chicken carcass picked clean after lunch.
‘We could take his shorts off too,’ Hazel said, touching the button at the waist.
‘No,’ I said, ‘that would be too …’
She considered. ‘OK.’
Why did Dog-belly let us do what we wanted? He could have fought. There was nothing to stop him, really, before we tied him up, just shrugging us off, climbing down the ladder and going to find Mummy. If he’d cried or fought back we wouldn’t have done it: but he did nothing. He just let us tie him up and lay there looking at us expectantly. My heart hardened. All right then. He wanted this and he should have it.
There was jam on the plate from the sandwiches. ‘Let’s put jam on him,’ I said, ‘then the ants can eat it.’ Was that really my suggestion or was it Hazel’s? I was worried about my ants in this game, worried that they might get hurt or killed.
‘Brainwave,’ Hazel said. She opened up one of the remaining sandwiches and smeared jam on each of his nipples. His eyes were open very wide. They were light green flecked with brown. He looked at me with a sort of trust.
‘Go on then,’ Hazel urged. I lifted the top off the tank. I thought just a few ants wouldn’t do him any harm. He would hardly feel them.
‘You have to help me catch them afterwards,’ I said. ‘Promise.’
‘Course.’
There were several ants on the ramp between the sugar bottle and the nest. I picked the ramp up, wiggling it free from the nest and collapsing a portion of the careful structure. ‘Oh blow,’ I said. I held the ramp up, there were maybe ten ants on it.
‘Go on then.’
I held the ramp over Dog-belly’s front and flicked the ants off with my nail. They looked bigger against his pale skin, brown-red, shiny. I knelt down close to watch a couple pausing on the soft-beating skin of the diaphragm. I felt sorry for them, snatched from one world without reason to another. One of them ran right round his waist, underneath him and disappeared, then several found the jam on one of his nipples, gathered round it like a cluster of hair.
Easy Peasy Page 14