‘You can tell me anything. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Nothing to tell,’ he says. ‘Go to sleep. I’m tired.’
‘Liar.’
‘Go to sleep.’
She moves closer. There’s the warmth of her – and those cold, cold feet. She hooks one over his, her arch across the front of his foot. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Stop me when I’ve got it right. You’ve gambled away all our money, you want to join a circus, you want to be a girl, you’ve lost your job—’
‘Stop it, Maya.’
‘Is it the job?’
‘Please. Sleep.’
She switches on the lamp and he slams his eyes shut, hiding behind his hand: dark red. He lifts his hands and it’s a screen of red-orange. Beautiful. He looks at it as long as he can.
‘Satish, talk to me. Open your eyes!’ When he does, she’s sitting up against the headboard, knees scrunched to her chest. ‘Come on.’
‘Come on what? What do you want me to say?’
‘Shush!’ She glances towards the door. ‘Don’t raise your voice. Why make this so hard?’
‘Well, I don’t know what you want from me.’
She pinches her nose and frowns. ‘There’s something wrong. I know there is.’
‘It’s …’ He looks over at the clock. ‘… one o’ clock in the morning and I’ve got work tomorrow. This is silly. It’s disproportionate.’
The wrong word, maybe: too cold, too pompous. It moves her up a gear.
‘I hate it when you do that,’ she says, slapping her hand down between them. ‘You treat me as if I’m stupid.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Yes! As if I’m really stupid. And this is not disproportionate. This is … evidence-based!’
‘Evidence-based? Am I some kind of patient, then?’
‘God! I’m just saying … I’m trying to do this in a non-threatening way.’
Something shifts in him. ‘Oh, are you? And if you wanted to be threatening, what would you do then, Maya?’
He turns away from her, his legs hanging over the edge of the bed, and doesn’t know what to do next. He can tell from her silence that she doesn’t know either. They stay suspended like this until he thinks she’s about to speak, and finds he’s afraid of what she might say. Then he propels himself forward and out of the room.
The fridge light spills out into the kitchen. He likes the darkness of the rest of the room, the privacy it gives him. It calms him down. He pours himself a glass of juice to give himself something to do, a reason to be down here so he can tell himself he hasn’t just walked out on his wife in the middle of an argument. He hasn’t. He’s thirsty. He puts the glass down and leans over, hands on the counter, head dipping down below his shoulder blades. He’s like that when she comes in.
‘Did you really just do that? Did you just flounce off in the middle of a discussion?’
‘Flounce?’ he says, addressing the glass, his hands. (Discussion?)
‘Don’t jump straight in and dismiss me. There’s something wrong. Let me—’
‘This is ridiculous.’
‘See, right there? Right there, dismissing me. Look: imagine you’re living with someone, and they start behaving oddly. They start … doing things out-of-character.’
‘This is me now?’
‘I think it is. Listen to me. Stuff like … not sleeping so well. You feel them beside you. They can’t sleep. They don’t talk to you so much. They’re withdrawn. Look at me, Satish!’
‘You are blowing this up out of all proportion.’
There’s no warning of his father’s approach, locked into each other as they are. He comes through the kitchen door and into the gravitational pull of their argument, a new satellite.
‘Oh.’ His dad stands at the door, not coming in, not leaving. ‘Sorry. I heard a noise. I wanted some water.’
Maya turns away and fiddles with something by the sink.
‘I woke up,’ his father adds.
‘Yes. We were talking.’
‘Yes.’ His dad edges forward slightly. ‘I’ll just … a glass.’ He moves round them both, leaving a wide berth, as if touching them would set something off. He gets his water then glances behind at them as he leaves.
‘So, I’m blowing this up out of all proportion?’ She enunciates with the kind of precision you use when you’re trying not to shout. ‘I’m sure your dad will enjoy mulling that one over. And your mum, come to that.’
‘That’s not my fault. I didn’t hear him.’
Maya steps closer to him. He tries not to step back.
‘Listen to me,’ she says. ‘Because this is important.’
‘Please, let’s just go to bed.’
‘You are withdrawn. You aren’t sleeping.’ She counts it out on her fingers. ‘When you do it’s this dead-to-the-world sleep, and when you wake up it’s like I’ve pulled you from the bottom of a swamp.’ She stops mid-flow, as if recalling something. He thinks she’s foundered, but she plunges on. ‘Something’s wrong. I say things and suddenly it’s the wrong thing, and I don’t know why. I mean, all these years together, and I’ve got used to you and this even keel of yours, and now … what about that time when we were boxing? What was that about? What happened on the way to Cai’s?’
‘You are overreacting. In the morning this will all seem silly.’
‘If you loved someone and you knew something was wrong, you’d do something about it, wouldn’t you? I love you, Satish.’
‘I love you, too,’ he says immediately. ‘Now let’s go back to bed.’
‘So is that it? Is that your response? Is that all I get from you?’
He doesn’t know what to say. He wants comfort, for himself as well as her, wants to do something reassuring but noncommittal. He reaches out to her, but she’s already leaving, and he doesn’t know who moved first, whether she knew he was reaching out and just didn’t want him touching her.
‘Fine.’ She goes over to the door. ‘Fine, but I’m not letting this go. If you won’t believe me in the middle of the night, then sleep on it – if you can. This won’t go away, Satish.’
He hears her treading back along the hall and up the stairs. He can plot her course as she moves above him: into Asha’s bedroom, into Mehul’s. Long silences, absences of movement. Upset as she is, she’ll stay a little longer than she needs to, getting a bit of comfort from her sleeping kids. Then finally back to their room, where she’ll lie awake for a while. There should be a way to make peace without giving her what she wants, but he can’t see how. It’s too delicate a navigation and he feels ponderous, clumsy. He’ll stay down here, keep himself busy.
Because Maya’s right about one thing: he isn’t sleeping, even with the diazepam. He makes himself acknowledge it: I’ve built up a tolerance. He hasn’t tried kicking it again, not after that last blackmail note, so he takes it each night and it keeps the jitters at bay, but that’s all it does now. What a bloody idiot, the worst kind: a doctor with a fool for a patient. As it turns out, his body is subject to chemistry, like anyone else’s. Like anyone else, he will suffer now if he stops, an ironic assault comprising just those things he needed help with in the first place – anxiety, panic – only much worse than before. He could raise his dose for some relief, but he can’t bear to – that’s what addicts do, and he’s not an addict. So he’s in limbo, prowling the house at night anxious and sleepless. And the threatening notes … he’s still waiting for the next one. With no idea who his blackmailer is, he can’t tell them: you win, I’m doing the photograph. He doesn’t know if they’ll hold off until the reunion, whether they’ll leave him alone after that.
Right now, he’ll find something useful to do; he’ll try to keep going until he’s ready to drop. That’s the key: distract himself for long enough to get tired, so that when he finally falls into bed he will sleep straightaway. No lying there in the dark, worrying over this present crisis, or slipping back into the past – and back, and back – to Jubilee Day.
; Chapter 27
Cai couldn’t wait for the barbecue. It was the burgers that got him. Even though they were all pinky-red with white bits of fat in them, and cold and a bit slimy, and you could squish them just a little with your fingers so that you left a dent in the greaseproof circle, even though they still had that dead-meat smell, you knew they’d be just lish really soon. The barbecue was burning, getting ready, and he’d asked his mum to get some of those cheese squares, the yellow-orangey ones that tasted creamy, and then he could squish tomato sauce onto it and squash the whole thing down in the bun. When the cheese and sauce dribbled over the edges he would take a bite and get all the flavours and textures at once.
He’d have the first burger. He always made his dad do that, and he didn’t let his mum see, because he liked the insides a bit pink, still a bit bloody, and she’d have said, no, that’s not safe, stick it back on, Peter. He liked to see the bite through the centre, to look at it side-on and see a thin black outside, a brown layer next and the pink right in the middle. That was a good burger. He couldn’t wait. They wouldn’t be on yet. His dad would still be poncing around. What have you been doing with yourself, then? Well, wouldn’t you like to know? That’s for me to know and you to find out. He imagined saying it, his hands in his pockets and his chin angled upwards. Dad didn’t like hands in pockets. He didn’t like you dragging your feet or saying what instead of pardon, or bu – er instead of butter. He didn’t like Satish. Ha! That was for sure.
The thought of Satish made Cai feel sour. He drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them. This was a good place to sit. He could hunker down in front of the gatepost and no one would see him from inside the house, or from the back gate. He could look at other people’s houses and watch people going by but no one at home could find him. Right now he can see the tables all set out. He can see underneath, where the legs and feet will be, and the top, all neat, laid out ready for the party. God Save the Queen? Johnny Rotten would smash this party! He’d push all the stuff off the table onto the ground and bash it with his guitar. He’d gob and vomit onto the table. No future! No future!
There was going to be a ‘Stuff the Jubilee’ carnival in London today, Stephen Chandler had said. He’d talked big about it, said he was fourteen now and could easily go. Said he would catch a train and – stuff it! – just leave. But here he was in Cherry Gardens, and so was Cai, because he didn’t know how to get there and his parents would kill him, just kill him, if he did go. If Johnny Rotten were here he would climb a ladder, grab that stupid bunting and pull it all down. He’d swing on it, and rip the flags to bits. Dad would look on, horrified, but not be able to do anything about it. His hands would go up to his mouth, he’d wave his fist at the Pistols. Or he’d be like a teacher, all straight and disapproving, like Bill Grundy on that programme, and they’d all take the piss.
When that programme went out, Cai hadn’t even heard of the Pistols. In the months afterwards, he’d spent his time having Kung-Fu fights in his dressing gown and trying to look like James Bond. What a kid! What a fucking child! Thank God he’d woken up at last.
Over the road a door slammed, and he jumped: Mandy’s place. Mandy. He stayed still, hoping she wouldn’t see him. Mandy and Satish! He didn’t want to talk to her, but it was no good. A voice called to him: ‘Cai? Cai!’ and there were footsteps.
It was Sarah. Her face looked grim and her cheeks were pink. Her mouth was a hard line.
‘Cai. I’ve just seen Mandy.’ Her arms were crossed over her chest and she stood tall above him. Really tall. He glanced down; she was wearing high red shoes. She looked grown-up.
He got to his feet. ‘I’m off,’ he said, turning away from her and setting off down the road. He passed the Chandlers’ place and Sarah’s semi on the other side but kept going. She followed him down the corridor created by the newly set table in the centre of the street. He could hear the clonk-clonk of her heels on the road. It was hard for her to keep up.
‘I’ve seen Mandy,’ she tried again. ‘And I’m afraid I’ve got something not nice to tell you, only I feel I have to tell you, because it’s not fair otherwise.’ She lengthened her stride to come level with him. ‘I know you fancy Mandy.’ She waved away his protests. ‘She told me everything, and I’m really sorry to tell you this, but she kissed Satish this morning. I thought you should know.’
Fuck Mandy (she told me everything), and fuck Sarah (I thought you should know). He sped up, rounding the corner into the cul-de-sac, heading for the end of it, where they usually went to play footie.
‘I know she kissed Satish. So what? My dad told me.’
His dad had put a picture in his mind which he didn’t want there. In this picture, Satish had kissed Mandy and she had closed her eyes for a long time. Satish had touched her and she liked it. Maybe the worst bit of this picture was that his sister and father had seen it all.
‘Mandy said you’d kissed, and you fancied each other. It’s all right. I haven’t told anyone.’
‘You reckon? I don’t fancy her. I did kiss her but I don’t fancy her, and I don’t care if she fancies Satish.’
‘But you—’
‘I don’t care!’
They’d arrived at the end of the close. Through the gap between the tree and the fence he could see the front wall of his school, and the teachers’ car park. He sat down, wedging his bum against the base of the tree. Sarah hesitated – her clean jeans against that dusty earth, he guessed – and he looked away from her, willing her to leave. Instead she lowered herself, arranging the back of her top before she leaned against the trunk. Her feet stuck out in front of her.
A ripple of wind made its way down the street. Cai felt the cold on the back of his neck, the hairs rising.
‘OK, so you don’t care,’ Sarah said. ‘But I do.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I do. Mandy doesn’t know what she’s doing.’ He stayed quiet and after a bit she carried on. ‘What does Satish do, at playtimes at school?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Where does he go? Who does he hang around with?’
Cai thought. ‘Dunno. Hangs around in the playground. He sometimes talks to my sister.’
‘God!’
‘Sometimes plays with Lee Davis.’
‘Satish is lucky.’
Sarah leaned across and touched him. He looked down at her fingers on his skin. The nails were short arches, varnished a pearly pink, and he could see where the polish had slipped onto the sharp, sticky-up bits at the side of her nail. He considered pulling her hand up to his mouth and biting off those little shards. They’d feel prickly on his tongue. When he tugged at them, the soft parts would come off, too. It would hurt her. Cai’s gaze skated down her fingers, along her hand and arm, and up to her face. She was looking back at him.
‘He’s lucky you even let him hang around with us. It is you that lets him, isn’t it?’
‘I—’
‘Maybe because you’re leaving, he thinks it’s OK to do this sort of thing.’
Behind them, in School Close, a woman suddenly raised her voice: ‘Pippa! It’s after twelve! Get a move on!’
Not much time left now. He’d have to go home and dress up: the navy shirt, the blue trousers. No rips, no safety pins, no black. No future. He remembered the shadowy swastika on his thigh. He’d drawn it with a Biro, pretended it was a tattoo, but watched it fade night after night in the bath, nervous in case his mum came in. What a joke! Stuck here today, making no difference to anything at all. Next to him, Sarah’s face creased in concern.
‘It’s outrageous,’ said Sarah. She pronounced the word – one of her mum’s, he thought – with relish. She was right, though, it was outrageous, and suddenly he saw it with clarity: this wasn’t about him and Mandy at all. He thought of Stephen Chandler trying to rub off Satish’s colour, and himself, Cai, laughing along with the joke. And here he was now, imagining Mandy and Satish together, when any time he could just, he could just …
Sarah w
as getting up. ‘I’m off,’ she said. ‘I bet Stephen will do something about this.’ And she pulled herself upright, her shoes raising her higher than usual, so that when he said, yeah, but you’re, he said it to her calves, and those calves strutted off as she walked up the road and turned the corner into Cherry Gardens. He didn’t see the next bit, but he knew what it would be. Can you believe what Satish did? What a Paki did? And Cai’s just let it happen.
He had two months to go in Cherry Gardens. It was hard to imagine South Africa at all, let alone what the kids there would be like, what kind of friends he might have. Two months to go as one of the gang. No, more than that: their leader. They listened to him, he decided things. But now there was Satish kissing Mandy as if it was OK to do that sort of thing, and Sarah going off to Stephen as if Cai didn’t matter any more, as if he’d already left.
Cai went straight over to Satish’s house. He was going to charge up to his room, he’d decided. If they made any noise Satish would have to tell his parents why and they’d kill him. As he got closer he glanced over at Mandy’s, at her window and noticed a movement by her front door. Satish! Coming out of there, preparing to cross the road! Satish! It was true, then. Bastard! Cai felt his muscles bunch up and he started to run, clenching his teeth, but making himself hold back, hold back until you’ve got him. Satish had reached the middle of the road before he saw Cai, and he didn’t look scared even then, not until Cai’s outstretched arm had grabbed him by the shoulder of his T-shirt and pushed him backwards so that he had to scrabble to stay upright.
‘Hey! What are you doing?’
‘You wanker, Satish! You fucking wanker!’
He’d backed him up Mandy’s driveway and against her garage door.
‘What?’
Cai checked for witnesses; nothing. The blank walls of Miss Walsh’s house, of Mandy’s. Everyone was inside now. He felt Satish’s heart banging against his hand. He held him against the door for a second, then let him go, then shoved him back into place again when Satish tried to move away.
‘Stay there! I’m going to fucking have you! You kissed her! You kissed Mandy!’
Jubilee Page 21