Roger pushed the boy over the threshold, kept his own feet firmly on the step. ‘Very good of you to have him,’ he said. ‘What with Frank away on his honeymoon and no other relatives the least bit handy.’
‘I’m on holiday too,’ said Grace, though she knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Clearly her function as Roger’s stepmother was to be available to mind his girlfriend’s child.
Within minutes he was back in his car, his hand flapping goodbye out of the rolled-down window, leaving Grace and the boy staring at each other.
Stubby fingers reached for a reel and began spinning it.
‘Put that down, it’s not a toy,’ snapped Grace.
He tugged at the handle. ‘How does it work?’
‘I’ll show you later. Don’t you want to unpack?’
He kicked his brand new sports bag with its shrieking yellow flash and said sullenly ‘I didn’t want to come.’
She’d given him the big bedroom, the one she used to share every summer with Frank. She’d chosen to sleep instead in a room so shaded it seemed as if it were underwater. No memories here, only an old bevel-edged mirror casting silvery pools of reflection around the walls. He wasn’t going to stop her coming back, but he wasn’t going to hover at her shoulder like a ghost either, especially when in reality he was idling about the French countryside with wife number three.
The boy turned the key in the lock, excluding her.
She shrugged and went outside, sat in the back garden in her slippers, swatting away the wasps with the Sunday newspaper. A long humid July afternoon: flies settling on the unwashed necks of milk bottles, aphids buried in the creases of rose petals – one touch and the entire bloom would scatter slowly to the ground. The fish would be sluggish until evening, gathering in the cool dark pouches of the river bed, around the footings of the arched stone bridge. Grace glanced through the paper and waited for the boy to leave his locked room. He’d surely come out when he was hungry.
At five she made a pot of tea and some corned beef sandwiches and called up the stairs.
Ryan, his name was. The first time she had met him, when Roger had brought the girlfriend round for display, she’d thought it was Brian – a solid, ordinary kind of name. God knew what the two of them would call the baby when it arrived.
At six when the tea was cold and the sandwiches had stiffened he came down.
‘You got a television here?’ he asked.
‘No. Are you hungry?’
‘What’s in them?’
‘Corned beef.’
‘Yuk. I don’t eat that.’
With her sharpest knife she began cutting the remaining sandwiches into tiny dice and he had to ask her why.
‘It’ll do for the fish.’
She was pleased with the look of incredulity he could not disguise. ‘Fish eat sandwiches?’
‘Some do.’
Ryan pointed at her box of flies, gleaming and iridescent, like the most fragile of jewels, glowing subtly in deceit. ‘Then what are they for?’
‘Oh, they’re just to fool the trout. I’ll be going out shortly. You can come if you want.’
Ryan kicked the table leg. Was there anything he didn’t kick? ‘Women don’t fish,’ he said.
‘Well I do.’
‘Roger says that’s only because of his dad.’
‘He got me started,’ acknowledged Grace. ‘But who’s holding the rod now, I’d like to know.’ Viciously she swept the chunks of bread and meat into a paper bag and slammed them into the fridge.
The glaring whiteness of the sky had softened, the cloud had lifted a little and a golden fringe of evening sunshine appeared around the edges of the trees. Each of Ryan’s passing kicks released the dry and dusty scent of flowering grasses.
Grace, ignoring him, swung her arm in a long langourous arc and cast her line across the current so that gradually, naturally, it began to flow back towards her and the glossy green fly slid rapidly through the water. She felt a slight ache across her back and shoulders, an ache which made her wonder how much longer she would have the strength and stamina for the sport and how much of her passion for it stemmed from her urge to hold on to something she had shared with Frank. As she reeled in and cast again she was aware of a silence behind her. No boy was snapping twigs, stamping puffballs to powder, or carving his name on a tree.
Later, much later, a leap, a tug, a trout slipping and jerking at the end of her line. Steadily she wound it in, gently feeling in its mouth to pluck out the hook, swiftly tossing it back into the deepest part of the river.
‘What d’you do that for?’
She began to pack up her things. ‘It’s what we usually do. Give it another chance.’
‘What’s the point of fishing then?’
‘The point is the hunt. Now, where have you been?’
His face was petulant, his voice quivered. ‘Wanted to ring me mum. Didn’t have no change.’
His pockets were stuffed with notes and nowhere to spend them. Grace lent him some coins and took him to the phone box along the main road, by the bus stop, but there was no reply.
‘She’ll be in hospital now,’ she told him. ‘They’re going to cut the baby out tomorrow because it’s the wrong way round.’
‘Babies,’ snorted Ryan. ‘They just poo and puke all day.’
Grace agreed. ‘Don’t care for them much myself.’
She gave him bread and jam when they got back to the cottage and an angling magazine to read. Peered into his room on her way to bed to see his bag still zipped to bursting and one hand poking from the cover of the satin eiderdown, stroking its silky finish for comfort. Then she lay down on her own narrow bed, stiff as a board, staring at the watery shadows on the ceiling while unpruned forsythia tapped at the window.
He disappeared again the next morning. I don’t see why, muttered Grace to herself, I should be responsible for some child I hardly know. Why hasn’t his mother any relations to send him to? Irritably she took up her position on the shady side of the bridge where the water swirled deep and silent and there was nothing to disturb her solitude.
A soft imploding thud distracted her. Then another. The boy was kicking to pieces a rotten tree stump; stringy white fibres of decaying wood hung in the air.
‘Stop that,’ she hissed.
When she turned around he was gone.
Hoping he might be tempted, she brought her catch home for lunch. After she had filleted and grilled the fish, her hands still speckled with dark spots of blood, he merely picked at his plate and left a mess of flesh drowned in ketchup.
‘What’s the matter with you then? Why can’t you make the best of it?’
His large angry eyes were red where he had rubbed them. Once again he locked the door against her, lay with the smooth satin against his cheek.
Later she discovered why he never ate anything she put in front of him: he’d found his way to the post office and was spending his pocket money on crisps and chocolate bars. She came across him, scuffling disconsolately down the lane, shoulders hunched, laces trailing and pockets bulging with supplies. He was still wearing the clothes he had arrived in; thoroughly doused in dust and sweat they were now beginning to steam like an old tramp’s. Damned if I’m going to do his washing, thought Grace, greeting him, half-heartedly. It was too late in her life for this: playing a fish on the end of a line was one thing, coping with small moody boys quite another.
Blowsy with angels, trumpets and pink ribbon a greetings telegram arrived, announcing the birth of baby Laurelle and her weight of four pounds twelve ounces.
Grace got through to Roger at home. ‘The hospital want to keep her in for a bit,’ he said. ‘Can you hang onto Ryan for a couple more days?’
She was watching him through the misty glass of the phone booth, head bent, the back of his neck red from the sun. ‘I’m leaving on Friday.’
‘Even better. You can bring him with you. Come and see my wonderful daughter. She’s an absolute beauty. No one ever told
me I would feel like this – it’s fantastic, it’s—’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Grace. ‘And I’m running out of change.’
‘Friday?’ said Ryan in anguish. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘We could get the bus into town,’ she offered, dreading the plod around the shops and the mocking windows of the restaurant she and Frank used to go to.
But Ryan picked a café garish with jukebox and fruit machines, where he could have chips and a banana split sprayed with something pink and sticky.
Grace stirred her tea and had a brainwave. ‘Why don’t you buy a football?’ she suggested.
‘Nah. No point. Can’t play on me own.’ He hesitated. ‘Did he tell you what the baby was like? Does she look like me?’
Less pasty in the past few days, thought Grace, appraising him. Probably a nice smile if it ever came. ‘Well, actually yes,’ she said. ‘Coincidence, what?’
‘Same hair and eyes and nose and stuff?’
‘I think so. She’s pretty small though.’
‘How small?’
‘She was born early, so she’s not even five pounds.’
‘How much is five pounds?’
Grace thought for a moment. ‘A couple of good size fish, I suppose.’ She might get him interested yet.
* * *
The day stretched ahead, the pair of them in their separate pockets of existence. Grace was doing the crossword, willing herself to complete an anagram; Ryan was pushing the buttons of his Game Boy. The air was heavy with pollen, thunderflies and a sense of resignation. He went over to the fridge, in futile search of a fizzy drink, and spotted a crumpled paper bag. Suddenly he announced he wanted to see how fish ate sandwiches.
Hiding her astonishment, Grace got out her coarse-fishing tackle and encouraged him to set up the line himself. His small unfamiliar fingers trying to thread the shot, front teeth sinking deep into his bottom lip. Slow down, she would insist, every time a bubble of irritation threatened to break the surface: fishing cannot be hurried.
They sat side by side on a pile of old newspapers. Ryan clung to the rod as if it might somehow slip from his grasp, his face fierce with tension. Even so, it was Grace who noticed his float bobbing first.
‘Turn the handle gently,’ she said. ‘Gently as you can.’
‘I can feel something,’ he yelled, jerking backwards. ‘I got a fish.’ He wound cautiously and then more rapidly, but there was nothing.
His jaw set sulkily again.
‘You have to be patient,’ she told him. ‘It might take hours. Days.’
All of his last day he spent by the riverside. Grace, unfamiliar with the sudden whims of childhood, couldn’t believe the determination with which he sat there. Packing up her things, pushing all her unworn clothes and unread books to the bottom of the suitcase, she wondered where the week had disappeared, whether she would ever come again.
She heard him screaming when she was still several yards away, a bag of apples and a flask tucked under her arm. She thought at first he was being attacked: the ‘Help me!’ sounded so urgent she considered running back to the cottage for the poker. But when she saw him straining against the arching rod, trying to keep his footing on the slope of the bank, she rushed forward, gathering him into her embrace, squeezing his bony shoulders between her own.
His voice was squeaky with excitement. ‘I was just sitting there. Didn’t think I’d get a nibble. And it’s so strong. How can it be so strong?’
Already they could see its tail, thrashing furiously, sparking showers of spray like fireworks. Grace kept her arms tightly around his – so long since she had held anybody. She could feel his heart pounding behind his ribs, his shirt sticking to hers, wet with effort and the splashing. She spooled out a little to give them all a breathing space.
‘In a minute,’ she said. ‘We’re going to pull him in. Get the net ready to catch him.’
In a streaming silver arc the fish rose, wavered in the air, but as Ryan pushed forward the net, the line snapped abruptly, plunging it back into the water.
Grace was afraid he would break from her, feared great shuddering sobs of disappointment. Keeping her voice even she said: ‘Too heavy for the line that one, never seen such a monster here before.’
Ryan, however, stayed within her encircling arms, seemed surprisingly content. ‘It was huge, wasn’t it?’
‘Five pounds at least.’
Now, as he twisted round to look at her, she could watch his smile come, see how his face shone.
INCENDIARY
Vernon Scannell
That one small boy with a face like pallid cheese
And burnt-out little eyes could make a blaze
As brazen, fierce and huge, as red and gold
And zany yellow as the one that spoiled
Three thousand guineas’ worth of property
And crops at Godwin’s Farm on Saturday
Is frightening – as fact and metaphor:
An ordinary match intended for
The lighting of a pipe or kitchen fire
Misused may set a whole menagerie
Of flame-fanged tigers roaring hungrily.
And frightening, too, that one small boy should set
The sky on fire and choke the stars to heat
Such skinny limbs and such a little heart
Which would have been content with one warm kiss
Had there been anyone to offer this.
READING NOTES
This story never fails to get people talking. Conversation has ranged from the delights or otherwise of fishing; to the effects of divorce; to the nature of loneliness; to children of broken homes; to junk food. It is the awkwardness of the pair, the suppressed anger, that usually interests people. What might happen to these two after they return to their own homes?
The poem prompts further talk of children in trouble – the James Bulger case for example or the effect of neglect on children’s behaviour or the reasons children end up in trouble with the law. The word ‘frightening’ is used twice in the poem and the boys in both the story and the poem are unattractive: ‘with a face like pallid cheese’ or ‘sullen’ and ‘pasty’. What does that do to our sympathies for them?
Ghastly Children
THE LUMBER ROOM
Saki
(approximate reading time 14 minutes)
The children were to be driven, as a special treat, to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk on the seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it. Older and wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk and that he was not to talk nonsense; he continued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, and described with much detail the colouration and markings of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas’ basin of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so he felt entitled to know something about it. The sin of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome bread-and-milk was enlarged on at great length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the whole affair, as it presented itself to the mind of Nicholas, was that the older, wiser, and better people had been proved to be profoundly in error in matters about which they had expressed the utmost assurance.
‘You said there couldn’t possibly be a frog in my bread-and-milk; there was a frog in my bread-and-milk,’ he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician who does not intend to shift from favourable ground.
So his boy-cousin and girl-cousin and his quite uninteresting younger brother were to be taken to Jagborough sands that afternoon and he was to stay at home. His cousins’ aunt, who insisted, by an unwarranted stretch of imagination, in styling herself his aunt also, had hastily invented the Jagborough expedition in order to impress on Nicholas the delights that he had justly forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast-t
able. It was her habit, whenever one of the children fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival nature from which the offender would be rigorously debarred; if all the children sinned collectively they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring town, a circus of unrivalled merit and uncounted elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would have been taken that very day.
A few decent tears were looked for on the part of Nicholas when the moment for the departure of the expedition arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who scraped her knee rather painfully against the step of the carriage as she was scrambling in.
‘How she did howl,’ said Nicholas cheerfully, as the party drove off without any of the elation of high spirits that should have characterised it.
‘She’ll soon get over that,’ said the soi-disant aunt; ‘it will be a glorious afternoon for racing about over those beautiful sands. How they will enjoy themselves!’
‘Bobby won’t enjoy himself much, and he won’t race much either,’ said Nicholas with a grim chuckle; ‘his boots are hurting him. They’re too tight.’
‘Why didn’t he tell me they were hurting?’ asked the aunt with some asperity.
‘He told you twice, but you weren’t listening. You often don’t listen when we tell you important things.’
‘You are not to go into the gooseberry garden,’ said the aunt, changing the subject.
‘Why not?’ demanded Nicholas.
‘Because you are in disgrace,’ said the aunt loftily.
Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the reasoning; he felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy. It was clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the gooseberry garden, ‘only,’ as she remarked to herself, ‘because I have told him he is not to.’
Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it might be entered, and once a small person like Nicholas could slip in there he could effectually disappear from view amid the masking growth of artichokes, raspberry canes, and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things to do that afternoon, but she spent an hour or two in trivial gardening operations among flower beds and shrubberies, whence she could keep a watchful eye on the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise. She was a woman of few ideas, with immense powers of concentration.
A Little, Aloud Page 5