Kansas in August

by Patrick Gale

  ‘I want to propose a toast,’ she said, smiling round the table, ‘to the latest addition to the one-parent-family statistics. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hilary and Daniel Metcalfe!’

  ‘Daniel Vaisey Metcalfe,’ corrected Evelyn, who had driven down with a case of port for when he grew up.

  ‘Sorry,’ Bridget continued, ‘Daniel Vaisey Metcalfe.’

  ‘Why Vaisey?’ somebody asked.

  ‘Old family name,’ said Richard.

  ‘All the men are lumbered with it,’ added Hilary, ‘and I thought it would appease Dad if I did the thing properly.’

  It was so touching. Everyone Hilary had rung on returning from Hampstead had dropped whatever they were doing and said they could come. This solidarity in the face of his decision to adopt Daniel had brought home to him the enormity of his new undertaking. Certainly a few of them – Rich for instance, and Poppy – were supporting his action as that of a fashionable freak. They thought it ‘perfectly marvellous’ for a single person to adopt a baby, but had no intention of doing so themselves. Evelyn and, surprisingly, Bridget were more earnest in their support. Bridget had come early, as she had been rehearsing at the television centre, and had watched him make a lasagne and chop-up salad. She had enthused about Dan’s prettiness, of course, but then her voice had filled with uncharacteristic gravity.

  ‘You do realize, don’t you Hil,’ she said, ‘that you may have to pretend to be straight?’

  ‘Surely not?’

  ‘Oh, yes. For men and for women now, they’re very hot on so-called domestic morality. That means that if you don’t have a live-in lover of three years’ standing at the time of adoption, they’d prefer you to stay single rather than risk a parade of one-night-stands through the nursery.’

  Now that the lasagne tin lay scraped bare before him, and Dan was asleep in the bathroom, he watched these good friends raise their glasses and felt almost weepy. To break up the sentiment, he jumped to his feet.

  ‘Party time!’ he declared and set a Julie Andrews record playing to unanimous groans of delight. As he put the plates to soak in the kitchen and went about making coffee, he heard voices singing along to ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’ and a few steps of a Charleston thumping on the floor. Evelyn shouted directions over the music.

  ‘No. It’s step-ball-change step-ball-change then the Suzie-Qs in a square!’

  He suspected that he had invited them so as to force a stamp of finality on his decision. With no witnesses, he would have been able to relinquish his parenthood to Henry’s jealousy and the machinations of the DHSS; now that he was socially and emotionally a father, the official part was reduced in effect to the thinnest of red tape. He had often harboured doubts as to whether Henry actually liked telling him what to do. Perhaps if he challenged her rule by standing on his own two feet for once, he would earn her respect and regain her love. She always scoffed at the mention of ‘settling down’, so by presenting Dad with a grandchild he was doing her a favour. Encouraged by Marie-Claude, Dad would find the whole affair uproariously funny, of course. As Evelyn said, once Hilary made it clear he was to drop teaching in favour of fatherhood, he would give the venture full financial support. At the final reckoning, Dad was more childish than any of them; a regular flow of cash had kept maturity ever at bay.

  In the living room, Julie Andrews was discarded in favour of some Shirley Bassey religious kitsch. The percolator gargled fragrantly. Hilary stacked cups on a tray and unwrapped a box of chocolates that Debbie had brought along instead of wine. And Rufus?

  Through the half-open door, he saw Richard cross himself and fall on his knees,

  ‘Fruc-ta ven-tris too-ooo-ees,’ sang Richard, pointing to the bathroom where the baby lay. As the ‘Slumbersoftie Man’ himself had pointed out earlier this evening, Hilary had given Rufus a badly needed emotional/moral slap by finally playing the turning worm. As Evelyn had pointed out, Rufus, like teaching English, was one of the things Hilary was allowing to clog up the path to freedom out of sheer force of habit. As Debbie, whose sister had conceived through the obliging agency of a gay boy friend, pointed out, children won hands down over men because they had to stay with you for at least sixteen years, after which time you could be sure they would never get you from under their skin. Hilary pressed a chocolate against the roof of his mouth with his tongue and sensed that they were right, all three. He was well-rid of a lover who was a walking mockery to the name and who brought him nothing but insecurity. Free of Rufus and teaching, he would enter a new phase of self-development. To give Daniel a happy home he had to be fulfilled in other realms than fatherhood, so he would divide his time between baby and career. As soon as he was old enough for the crêche at the dance studios, Dan could crawl around there with the other orphans of Terpsichore, while Daddy regained his former steel-edged technique and flung himself back into auditions. He would audition for straight plays, too, since twenty-five was a trifle old for a chorus boy. While child and parent glowed with felicitous vitality, Rufus could plough right on with the one-night-stands and piano lessons, and stew in his own dreariness.

  Hilary almost dropped the trayful of percolator and chocolates, for Rufus was standing on the opposite pavement, staring up at the living-room window. He had no umbrella against the driving rain and his hair was flattened. As he moved a few feet into the beam of light thrown out between the curtains, Hilary noticed a pronounced limp. He clanked the tray to the floor and thrust up the landing window.

  ‘Rufus! Hi!’ he called. His throat was dry with wine and it was a strain to project his voice. Raindrops stung his cheeks as he leaned further out. He couldn’t see Rufus’ expression. Perhaps it wasn’t Rufus? What the hell? ‘Wait a second, I’m coming right down.’

  He pulled the window down again with a force that sent paint splinters over the carpet. As he crossed the landing a pitiful wail arose in the bathroom. He started down the stairs but was checked by the cry. Drawn back, he ran into the darkened room where the cot had been dragged and snatched Daniel out of the bedding. He remembered that Rufus didn’t know about Dan. No more doorway shocks.

  ‘Brij,’ he shouted, causing Dan to bellow. ‘Bridget!’ Shirley Bassey was too loud. He ran into the room. ‘Brij, could you hold him a sec? He’s fed up and Rufus is at the door.’

  ‘What?’ shrieked Bridget, smiling. Richard thought they had come in to play and took Dan’s little hands in a parody of the Twist. Vowing he would never treat his child like a parcel again, Hilary thrust Dan into the nearest unpractised grip and sprinted down the stairs.

  Coats had fallen off their hooks and were blocking the door. He hurled them out of his path and tugged his way to the street. Rufus had moved. Hilary glanced along one way, then the other. Rufus had vanished. Putting the lock on ‘latch’, he pulled the door to and ran across the road to the nearest pub. Assailed by sudden noise and lights and the stench of smoke and spilt bitter, he walked rapidly across the saloon, trawling the crowd with his gaze. Hopeless. He drifted panting back to the flat.

  A boy scampered along the pavement, mimicking an ambulance siren as he went. He was scraping what looked like a windscreen wiper along the complaining brickwork.

  Richard met Hilary in the hall and hugged him. Patting his damp back he murmured kindly,

  ‘Come on, Daddy, come along. Just a vile dream.’

  Chapter twenty-two

  Henry picked up the wrapper of the chocolate digestives she had devoured in last night’s nervous fury. Smiling to herself, she tossed it into the bin. She poured a glass of grapefruit juice and glanced at her watch; it was absurdly late. If missing the start of morning surgery felt so good, she would try it more often. The imprudent lack of sleep heightened her exhilaration. She took a sip of juice to knock back her vitamin tablets, then tiptoed to the bed, crouching to kiss a handful of toes before guiding a straying foot back beneath the duvet.

  An anaemic sun lit a landscape hard with frost. The bitter chill had descended with the last of the rain f
ive or more hours ago. The roads would be a skating rink. He mumbled something incomprehensible and nuzzled deeper into his clutch of pillows.

  On her return from Walpole Tower she had staggered in, downed a tumblerful of Scotch and collapsed in the armchair with a refill in her hand, the packet of chocolate digestives on her lap and a heartful of renewed anger at Andrew’s childish behaviour. She wolfed several biscuits in fast succession, rang Marie-Claude, spoke to Dad’s answering machine, and had fallen heavily asleep half-way through her third fat Scotch and a radio discussion of the psychological necessity of urban green space.

  She had woken from a spirit-and-sugar-drugged doze some time after midnight, hearing the door buzzer insistently sounded. Still drunk, barely conscious, she had released the entry-phone lock and admitted a dripping, near-hysterical man who claimed to have been mugged by seven lesbian gypsies. As she sat in the armchair trying to focus, Andrew had cried apologies for a while, clutching her astonished knees. Then he had proceeded to explain that he had misled her with silence and actually was nothing more top secret than a piano teacher. Furthermore, he went on to confess, he was not, nor had he ever been, married. There was a fiancée of sorts, he said, but he had taken the liberty of breaking off with her for the sake of Sandy. Henry had asked who Sandy was. He looked up nonplussed, whereupon she had seen her mistake, shrugged her shoulders and heard herself launch into an improbable relation of how in real life she was a high-powered psychiatrist but that men were always scared off by this so she was forced to pose as something more erotic and less awe-inspiring. Oh yes, and her real name was Henrietta, but her friends called her Henry, her mother was dead and her father remarried and living in France. There was also a younger brother called Hilary who taught English. For some reason this had prompted a renewed tide of wordless lamentation on his part which she had stemmed in the first and most natural way that came to mind.

  As she burrowed in her desk for pen and paper, Henry recalled with fresh delight that it had been like making love with a quite different person – which, in a sense, he had been. Less overwhelming, perhaps, but sweetly reassuring and infinitely easier to live with. Did she say live?

  Unable to find a pen, she took a much chewed pencil and sharpened it with the bread knife. Then she gulped the rest of the fruit juice, consulting as she did so a letter with a French postmark. She sucked the tip of the pencil briefly, reaching for inspiration, then wrote.

  Darling Rufus, (A much sexier name than Andrew. So glad)

  Have had to race off to work. Coffee, fruit juice, bread etcetera on worktop. Help yourself. Ditto bath, telephone, radio etcetera.

  She hesitated, chewed the pencil for a second, then continued.

  Spare keys on hook behind bathroom door.

  Now listen. Have just got letter inviting me for interview at amazing new institut psychologique at Fontainebleau on Tuesday. Intend taking long weekend to stay with parents in Paris beforehand. They invite you, I merely demand. Forget ferry cost as I claim it back on expenses. Pack your bags. Night boat leaves Dover at 11.30.

  Having thought up lots of good reasons why you can’t possibly come, forget them, ring the number I have circled above and say yes.

  Love?

  Henry.

  Chapter twenty-three

  Sumitra waited disconsolate on Shri Metcalfe’s sofa. From downstairs came the excited chatter of Ba, Kamala and several women neighbours. His flat was silent save for the electronically simulated tick of his alarm clock to her right. Dan’s cot lay empty, but the paraphernalia that had become his was still scattered about the room. Sumitra had picked up a teddy which used to be hers; it was a dusty pink with a black leather nose and one eye was missing. She dangled the creature absently by a suedette paw.

  She had skipped the last period of the afternoon. It was English with her lord and master, so by rights she should have been there, but Kerry and Tamsin had made her life a misery so she had run away home. They had crept up on her when she was at her devotions and seen inside her locker. Though Kerry had tried to hold her down, she had fought like a tigress and managed somehow to padlock the door again. They had trailed her nonetheless all afternoon, jeering, parodying her father’s bubbling accent.

  ‘Oh my golly gosh, I am so very much in love with Mister Metcalfe,’ Tamsin kept shouting, rolling her eyes and holding her palms together.

  Sumitra had dawdled on the short journey back home so as to quell her mother’s doubts. Ba held a strict regard for punctuality and her views on truancy were severe. Despite her daughter’s trip around the block and in and out of the mobile library, her suspicions were aroused. No sooner had she begun her inquisition, however, when the doorbell rang and Kamala walked in with a handsome white man. They were both in expensive leather jackets. Ba had stood astonished, wiping her hands on her plastic apron. Kamala had stood on the threshold, all solemn, and said, ‘Hello, Ba. This is Brian, my husband. I thought it was time you all met.’

  Then Ba had greeted them both just as solemnly, like strangers, and gestured for them to walk into the sitting room. She shut the door on them, then raised a finger to Sumitra and snapped, ‘Not a word from you, layabout. Get upstairs to Shri Metcalfe’s flat and watch the baby for me. And send in your Baba from the shop.’

  Sumitra had done as she was bidden, and spent a happy ten minutes cooing over the Holy Child and walking around Shri Metcalfe’s rooms, touching his private clothes, looking at his pictures and thumbing through his glamorous record collection. Startled from this idyll by banging on the door, she had scampered down to the hall, enjoying the charade of ‘mistress of the house’ and assuming that her lord and master had forgotten his key.

  It wasn’t him. Two burly types were standing there with an empty carrycot and one of them asked, ‘Mr Metcalfe in then, lovey?’

  ‘No,’ she mumbled, starting to shut the door on them as she had seen Ba do. ‘He’s still at school. He’s teaching.’

  They pushed past her however and started up the stairs.

  ‘That’s all right. He sent for us,’ said the one who hadn’t spoken.

  Sure that this was all wrong, somehow, she had chased them upstairs just in time to see the bigger of the two slinging a loudly protesting Dan into their carrycot. She ran at him and attempted to tug the handles from his grasp, but his henchman swung her bodily off the ground and sat her firmly on the sofa. One vast, bristle-backed hand restrained the frantic efforts of her two small scratching ones.

  ‘You stay there like a good little darlin’,’ he said, ‘and when His Nibs gets in, give him this form. It’s so he can reclaim expenses.’

  ‘Cheerio,’ said the other. Then they had taken Dan and left.

  The whole episode had lasted barely three minutes and she had not moved since, save to pick up the teddy. Downstairs her father was striking a business bargain with his new son-in-law while the women – exclaiming the while – flicked through brochures for kitchen units and holidays in the sun. Downstairs there came the familiar jangle of Shri Metcalfe’s bicycle mounting the pavement and the clatter of his key in the lock. Sumitra frowned and swung the teddy slightly.

  Chapter twenty-four

  Not a good day. He had been cruelly over-hung, gulping fresh air and vitamin C at every possible interval. A glass of wine at lunchtime for a fellow teacher’s birthday had helped matters briefly, but had left him perilously somnolent all afternoon. The senior English class had been spectacularly unfair, asking impossible questions like why is A Winter’s Tale so boring and why couldn’t they analyse American soap opera instead? A session with 15B had followed, from which little Sumitra Sharma had fled as he arrived, in floods of tears. He had rounded on the more spiteful little white girls there and accused them of teasing her. An ugly scene had ensued, culminating in a disciplinary on-the-spot grammar quiz, which he would now have to mark along with a thickish block of commentaries on the least-favourite poem by his least-favourite Lake poet.

  Once outside school grounds, however, h
is spirits had begun to lift. There was his new-found freedom to consider. He had thought of handing in his notice in person today, but had shelved this plan in favour of a carefully worded letter next week; he could never tell when a reference might be needed and therefore wanted to tread on as few administrative corns as possible. He would feed Dan, bathe them both, then sit in a studious heap. Perhaps if he penned the resignation letter first, the marking would seem less of a labour. He stopped off at the newsagents on the corner to buy his first copy of The Stage in months. It bore the good news that a Croydon theatre was holding auditions for a new production of Kismet, with the distinct possibility of a West End transfer.

  Remounting his bicycle, he saw Evelyn’s torn-off windscreen wiper lying in the gutter, remembered last night, then suppressed the memory as quickly as he had conjured it.

  A flashy new car was parked outside the Sharmas’ shop; a yellow one with teeth and eyelids. Bharat Sharma was not serving – which was strange – and judging from the noise coming through the hall wall, his wife was throwing a party, which was stranger still. He wheeled his bike to its resting place in the hall, kicked the front door shut and went up. It was very quiet upstairs. He wondered how long Shanti Sharma had left Dan unattended, then was startled to find her little daughter waiting for him. Sumitra jumped up from the sofa, dropping Dan’s teddy as she did so. Her face glistened with tears.

  ‘Hello, Shri Metcalfe,’ she said.

  ‘Hello,’ he replied, crouching slightly. ‘Why weren’t you in class? Whatever’s the matter?’ He smiled, but she glanced away. ‘Sumitra, what’s wrong?’ He made as if to approach her but she ran to the cot and, before he could stop her, tugged it off balance and on to the floor. The effort caused her to grunt. A felt ball with a bell inside it rolled jangling out of the empty bedding.