Cuckoo

by Julia Crouch

  ‘What is it?’ said Nico.

  ‘Looks like sick,’ Yannis giggled. ‘Or mushed-up brain.’

  ‘But it doesn’t taste like it. Go on, try a bit. Make sure you get a bit of the syrup on your spoon.’

  Yannis watched Nico as he put the edge of his spoon into his bowl and, shuddering, slowly lifted the porridge to his mouth.

  ‘Bleurgh!’ He spat it out, grabbed his throat and fell to the floor, writhing in agony.

  ‘Nico!’ Rose said.

  ‘It’s quite nice, actually,’ he said, getting up and shrugging. His timing was spot on.

  Yannis laughed, and the two boys tucked in. They were both so skinny, Rose wondered where they put it. Humming-bird metabolisms, she thought. Yannis ate messily, spreading it all about the table. A porridge battlefield.

  He stopped suddenly. ‘Where’s Gareth gone?’ he said, a slight panic in his voice.

  ‘He’s working. He likes to get going really early, before everyone else is up. He just disappears down there and gets on with it.’

  ‘Dad used to paint, too,’ Nico said.

  ‘I know,’ Rose said. ‘Do you know, I knew your father before your mum met him?’

  ‘Oh,’ Nico said, busy with his porridge.

  ‘Anyway, you’ll see Gareth at lunchtime. He comes out to be fed. Sometimes he comes out earlier, for more coffee.’

  ‘Aren’t we going to school today, though?’ Nico asked, trying to clear up his little brother’s mess with his spoon.

  ‘Leave it, Nico, I’ll do it,’ Rose said, fetching a cloth from the sink. ‘I don’t know. It depends on your mum.’

  ‘Please . . .’ Yannis pleaded.

  ‘Please, Rose. We’re going to be so bored stuck here all day,’ Nico said.

  ‘Thanks!’ Rose said.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Nico said. ‘It’s just that Mama will sleep all day and we’ll have to tiptoe round like mice, as usual.’

  Yannis jumped up and stuck his teeth out. ‘Eeek eeek,’ he said. He started scurrying around the room on tiptoe.

  ‘And look,’ Nico added, pointing at his brother. ‘I’m fed up spending all my time with that spastic.’

  ‘Oy!’ Yannis said, jumping at his brother, pulling him back off the bench by the hair. ‘Oy!’

  ‘Spastic.’ Nico got up and turned to face Yannis, holding him at arm’s length, his hand on his head.

  Yannis punched at his brother but, being a lot smaller, he couldn’t reach. His face exploded with fury and frustration. ‘Wanker!’ he yelled.

  Nico laughed at his brother’s anger, but then Yannis dodged under his hold and caught him in the belly.

  ‘Right, shit face. You asked for it!’ Nico cried, wrestling Yannis to the floor.

  ‘Hey, you two!’ Rose said, stepping in. She was a little stunned. Where in Karpathos did the boys learn all this language?

  The boys scuffled their way across the room, towards the corner where Flossie lay on her lambskin, gurgling at the shiny, pretty toys that dangled from the coathanger.

  ‘Cunt!’ Yannis screamed and lashed out at his brother with a kick. His foot narrowly missed Flossie’s head.

  ‘RIGHT YOU TWO, CUT IT OUT NOW,’ Rose cried, leaping over to separate the boys. This was worse than the worst class she had taught back in Hackney. And in her own kitchen, too.

  Getting the two boys apart was quite a job. Although they looked as if they were made of thin wire and paper, they had an angular strength that rendered them solid to the touch. The energy beneath their skin made them stick together like glue.

  ‘Right. You sit there,’ Rose motioned Nico to one end of the table. ‘And you go there, Yannis.’ The child-control techniques she had honed at work were being called on in a way that they never had been with Anna. Rose scooped Flossie up, feeling like an idiot to have exposed her to such danger.

  ‘Time out. Five minutes’ silence to calm down.’ The boys sat there glaring at each other. Rose sat in the armchair by the window and fed Flossie, studying them and thinking.

  She had planned that the boys would stay at home with her for a week or two while the school stuff got sorted out and they got used to being in England. She had thought about taking them for long walks around the hills that surrounded the village, showing them the British spring and the new animals at the farm down the road.

  But this fight made her think that this might not work out as she had planned. For all his crudeness of expression, Nico had been right: the boys needed to spend time away from each other, to be with other children. And school was the best place to start all that. There was also Anna to think of and, after what Rose had just witnessed, diluting the Yannis and Nico effect with some other children might be best for all concerned.

  ‘OK, look guys,’ she said at length, buttoning up her pyjama top. ‘I’m glad you’ve both calmed down. Let’s take you up to the school this morning and I’ll have a word with the Headmistress.’

  The boys cheered and punched the air, all animosity forgotten.

  ‘I’m not sure what she’ll say, but she owes me a few favours.’

  ‘Shall I go and wake up Mama?’ Nico said.

  ‘No, let her sleep. I’ll deal with it today.’

  ‘Hi.’ A sleepy Anna wandered into the kitchen. ‘What was all that noise?’

  ‘It was Nico’s fault,’ Yannis muttered, looking at his brother.

  ‘You started it, runt!’ And Nico launched himself across the table, knocking the milk jug over.

  ‘Enough,’ Rose said. Once more, she pulled them apart. It was only after she had sat them down again that she noticed that Anna, her little doppelganger, had got the cloth from the sink and was, very quietly, cleaning up the spilled milk.

  When everyone was ready, they set off for school. It was quite a cold morning after the clear night, so Rose found a fleece of hers that swamped Nico, but would at least keep him warm. Yannis wore the only warm top of Anna’s that wasn’t pink or covered in flowers. Rose made a mental note to get the boys wellies.

  The way to school was down to the end of the garden, then across the field at the back, skirting round the bottom of the hill that rose up like a lone breast from its middle, to the main part of the village about half a mile away. The earlier skirmishes had been forgotten and Anna, Nico and Yannis ran on ahead, jumping up to catch dewladen branches, shaking them and running away from the resulting shower.

  Rose walked along behind them, Flossie strapped to her front and carefully wrapped up underneath her Barbour. She looked at the boys with their sun-fed skins, their angles and lankiness under their too-big outer clothes. She compared them to Anna, who looked as if she fitted everything completely, from her skin outwards to her pink Puffa jacket. Her hair looked impossibly thick and shiny next to their long rats-tails, which Rose had earlier tried to comb out. She had met with such screams and resistance that she had given up. Looking at Yannis and Nico, the word that came to her was ‘waifs’. Poor waifs and strays.

  ‘Got some new children, then?’ Her neighbour Simon bounded up with his usual contingent of Labrador and two elfin children. Rose often bumped into him on the way to school, and he usually went back with her for coffee after. He was a writer and took the domestic role in his marriage to Miranda, who was a high-flying barrister well on the way to becoming a judge. Rose liked Simon very much.

  ‘These are Polly’s kids.’ She called them over. ‘Nico and Yannis, come and meet Liam and Effie and their dad, Simon.’

  ‘Come and pull the trees!’ Anna said to Simon’s children. Only Nico lingered as the others pelted back across the muddy field.

  ‘Who’s the dog?’ he asked, standing with his arms folded to show that he knew he was too old for the little kid stuff.

  ‘Trooper,’ Simon said. ‘Here, throw this for him,’ and he handed him a beslobbered ball. Nico took it and charged off with the dog.

  ‘Great lad,’ Simon said.

  ‘They’re a bit wild,’ Rose whispered.
/>   ‘So she turned up, then?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘When do I get the honour? I’m terrifically excited,’ Simon said. He had been a great fan of Polly’s back in her heyday, and ever since Rose mentioned she was coming, he had been on tenterhooks waiting for her arrival. He dressed up his anticipation with manly irony, but Rose could see through it.

  ‘She’s pretty blasted, I’m afraid. It’ll be a day or two before she emerges. I was quite shocked when I saw her.’

  ‘She’s lucky to have a friend like you, keeping the fans away,’ Simon grinned.

  The children had run on ahead and were playing a game of catch that seemed to involve the dog in a central role.

  ‘We go back a long way, me and Polly – since we were seven. See this? Blood sisters.’ Rose showed him the scar on her index finger.

  ‘I did that, too, when I was about six,’ Simon said. ‘Can’t even remember the kid’s name now.’

  ‘We did ours when we were sixteen. After my parents moved away,’ Rose said. ‘Poll made up this elaborate ritual. We had to put on long dresses and be very solemn. And she wrote this special music for it.’

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Don’t ask me that.’

  ‘Very gothic, teenage and intense.’

  ‘I know. But back then it seemed so important. We’d been together so much and, with her mother being so ill, her dad off the scene, and my lot disappearing, it really was just us on our own. It seemed like we needed something to underline all that.’

  Simon took Rose’s finger and bent to look at the scar. ‘Quite impressive. Must’ve been a deep cut.’

  ‘Yeah, it bled for ages. Her scar is much smaller.’ She glanced over at the children. ‘Yannis, no!’ she yelled as she saw him push Anna over into a ditch.

  She ran across to help her, but when she got there, she saw that Anna was laughing like a drain.

  ‘Get up, Anna! Look, you’re all muddy.’

  ‘So?’ Anna said. She skipped off to catch Yannis and get her own back.

  ‘Little madam,’ joked Simon, who had crossed the field behind Rose. ‘So she’s in a bad way then, Polly?’

  ‘Yes. It’s almost as if the grief has stilled her. She needs a lot of looking after. I’m sure we’ll get the old Polly back eventually. I’m working on it.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt you are,’ Simon said, touching her arm.

  ‘And those poor boys,’ Rose said, looking over at Yannis and Nico. ‘They must be waiting for their mother to return, too. She can’t really see them at the moment – she’s too wound up in losing Christos. Life never touches Polly lightly.’

  ‘I know the type. Trooper – come here!’ Simon turned to call the dog, who was getting over-excited and making Yannis scream. Rose was almost dazzled by the shine of the sun caught in Simon’s whiteblond hair. She would introduce him to Polly really soon. He was a good listener. He would cheer her up.

  They got to school and Rose kissed her soggy, muddy daughter goodbye. Then, when all the children had gone inside, she took the boys to see Janet Jones, the Headmistress.

  The boys sat outside Janet’s office with a pile of books. Rose could see them through the glass door and was pleased to note that, instead of beating each other up, they seemed to have got themselves lost in Dorling Kindersley.

  As she had anticipated, her record with the school – parent governor, magazine editor, running the maths club and even doing the odd day’s sneaky unpaid supply teaching when someone was ill – meant that Janet was fine with letting the boys stay as visitors for the remaining two weeks, while the formal application for a place went through with the council.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of spaces in Reception and Year Four. How’s their English?’

  ‘Perfect. Polly – their mother – had only very basic Greek, so the family language was English.’ Rose resisted the temptation to add that the boys’ idiom tended toward the Anglo-Saxon.

  ‘Well, it’ll be good for the school. We’re pretty mono-cultural here and their experience of growing up in Greece will help broaden the other children’s outlook,’ Janet said. Rose hoped that the broadening effect wouldn’t be too wide, given the boys’ behaviour that morning, but she kept her mouth shut about that, too.

  ‘Of course, I’d like to meet their mother as soon as is possible,’ Janet said, handing Rose the forms. ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘I’ll bring her down this afternoon,’ Rose said. ‘She’s OK, considering.’

  Rose and Janet looked at the boys through the office window. Their faces were hidden in the straggled bushes of their hair as they bent their heads low into their books.

  ‘Poor little fellows,’ Janet said. ‘We’ll make them very welcome here.’

  Rose was pleased. That was the boys sorted, then.

  Nine

  She dawdled on her way back home. Polly wouldn’t be up yet, Gareth was working, and Flossie was fast asleep strapped to her front, so there was no hurry. The sky was an extravagant blue with small puffs of white clouds.

  She loved this walk home from the school. Knowing that Anna – and now the boys – were safe and happy in the classroom, that Flossie slept securely scooped into her sling, and that the finished house was over there in front of her – it all gave her a great feeling of completeness.

  She remembered the trudge through litter and dog shit that she used to take home from playgroup with Anna in Hackney. She shuddered as she remembered the underpass she used to run through each time – her heart in her mouth, the buggy crashing and splashing through the pissy puddles. Once, earlier, when she was seven months pregnant with Anna, she had been coming home from work late on a dark winter’s evening when a kid with a knife and a desiccated face jumped out in front of her. Rose thought she knew him – hadn’t he been in Year Six a couple of years ago? But if he recognised her as his ex-teacher, he didn’t show it. He demanded her purse, and she just gave it to him. There was no point arguing and getting herself stabbed for a tenner and an easily replaced Visa card. But her heart was pounding, and Anna was leaping around inside her, suffering electric shots of adrenaline.

  The mugging changed forever the way Rose viewed the streets around her home. That moment was probably the one that sowed the seed of escape and now, here she was, standing at the foot of a ridiculously rounded green hill that grew out of the field at the bottom of her large, burgeoning garden.

  She found the bench with the view; the one that she considered to be hers, even though it was actually dedicated to a seventeen-year-old girl called Martha who had died of cancer in 1985. She sat and took in the village and the far-reaching hills that rose behind the valley. There was still a little mist rising where the river wound its way through the houses and down towards the hidden city of Bath, fifteen or so miles away.

  Looking back, part of her felt sorry for that kid with the dry features. Unlike her, he would probably never escape those streets. More importantly, he would never get away from whatever it was that made him feel that he had the right to take other people’s things from them. But mostly she had to admit that she just thought he was a little bastard and hoped that he was locked up now. How could he have drawn a knife on her? She was pregnant, for God’s sake! And the money he had stolen she had earned working her arse off trying to save shits like him. She still shivered a little with the anger.

  Then she breathed and felt her shoulders settle back to their country level. She could sit here on this bench, a woman on her own, with her bag, and she didn’t once have to look back over her shoulder. She had brought her family to a place of refuge.

  And they were going to stay. They still felt the dirt of the city on their shoulders, but this was where they were going to dig in their roots. She knew that she and Gareth would grow old here, keeping the family home for their daughters, even after they left to start their own lives. Having not had this for herself, Rose felt strongly about it. Later, there would be grandchildren, who would long for their holidays wi
th Rose and Gareth in the big house in the countryside. Rose had an image of herself, grey-haired, at the head of the table, serving Boeuf en Daube like a Boden-clad Mrs Ramsay.

  She thought that once the dust had settled from the renovation work, they might dig a swimming pool in the back garden, though she wasn’t going to mention it to Gareth just yet. And Andy could come over again from France and help, even perhaps move into the Annexe for good in the end.

  In the end. If Polly ever left, of course.

  Rose got up, brushed herself down and set off towards the house. She wanted to check on the Annexe, to see if Polly was up.

  She stood very still at the bottom of the steps to the flat, and heard nothing. She pushed open the door to the cobwebbed ground-floor storeroom that sat right underneath the bed-sitting room, tiptoed in and stood in the middle of the room, listening with her ear angled up to the floorboards above. Nothing. Not a sound. Polly must still be asleep.