He went to her and she lifted him into her arms. She kissed him. She smelt of sharp flowers and smoke. Shyly he pressed his hand against her cheek. ‘Mummy,’ he whispered.
He thought he might say something so she would help him. He couldn’t think of the words he might use.
A car horn blasted behind him, a long, angry burst of noise. Mark jerked himself back in to the present, correcting the car’s veer to the right. Blood pounded in his head. The metallic taste of fear numbed his mouth. The other driver over-took him and Mark lip-read arsehole – stupid fucking arsehole! Aloud Mark said, ‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Advertisements chimed on the radio. He hadn’t noticed that Dock of the Bay had finished. Opening the car window he breathed in the rush of cold air and his cheeks felt tight where his tears had dried.
Two hours later he pulled in to Simon’s drive and parked beneath the last of the chestnut trees. Years ago Simon had had a tarmac drive laid and he remembered the smell of its hot blackness on the warm summer air, the labourers stripped to their waists, the sweat gleaming on their bodies as the nutty substance they shovelled shone like jet. He had watched them from the doorstep, afraid because the men reminded him of Danny who was still vividly stalking his dreams. Ben was bolder: he had talked to the men, carried them cups of tea and plates of biscuits on a tray, had his hair ruffled, was teased. The men had tattoos. Mark had wanted to touch the dragons and mermaids and anchors that coloured their flesh. But he was timid, a frightened little boy, and Ben would look at him as though he was something disgusting and pitiable, disgust winning out. His brother hated him for his feebleness, always had. To Ben he was nothing but embarrassment and shame.
The tarmac was breaking up now, strong and determined dandelions pushing through its cracks. Mark took his case from the boot of the car and walked up the path to the front door expecting Simon to charge out at any moment. For a man with a false leg, Simon moved fast; he had always been surprised by how quickly he got about. But the front door remained closed. Although he had arrived at the expected time, his father wasn’t watching at the window as he usually did.
His disappointment was ridiculous. As he walked into the house with its familiar smells and clutter he made himself smile to cover such a childish feeling, calling out cheerfully, ‘Hello? Dad? It’s me.’
Simon came out from the kitchen in to the hall. He grinned at Mark, at once putting his finger to his lips. In a stage whisper he said, ‘Mark – dear boy. Welcome home! We have to be quiet – Kitty’s just got Nathan to sleep.’
Mark felt his heart sink. ‘Kitty’s here?’
‘Yes, and Nathan – come through. Say hello to the little chap – just don’t wake him, for heaven’s sake.’
Kitty stood up as he followed Simon into the kitchen. She smiled at him, stepping forward and standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. ‘Hello, Mark.’ She coloured slightly and he was surprised again by how shy she was when she looked so bold.
Simon said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea? Or a drink? Kitty and I were just about to go out into the garden and enjoy this sunshine.’ He went to the fridge and brought out three small bottles of French lager. ‘I expect you could do with some fresh air after that long drive, Mark. And a drink, eh? Come on – I’ve set the deckchairs up on the lawn.’
There were only two deckchairs. Kitty sat on the grass, her legs crossed like a squaw’s, her back straight; she held her bottle of lager on the ground between her knees, her fingers loose around its neck. She was slight and slim; she had good cheekbones, beautiful, sharp, high bones and a full, soft mouth. Last time he’d seen her she had been eight months pregnant, the bump neat and hard looking. She hadn’t bothered trying to disguise it but had worn jog pants and tee shirts that barely skimmed her belly button. Her belly button was pierced and on her left shoulder blade was a pretty tattoo of a humming bird. Kitty’s tattoo amused Simon, who had once asked him if he thought it common. When he’d told him no, Simon had laughed. ‘Then don’t look at her as though you think it is! My God, Mark – my grandfather was more with it than you are!’
‘Saying with it means you’re not, Dad.’
Simon had clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Kitty’s wonderful! A breath of fresh air!’
Mark remembered how awkward Ben had been when he introduced this girl to him. Later, taking him to one side Ben had said, ‘Don’t say she’s too young for me, I’ve heard it all. Just don’t say what you’re thinking.’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘Don’t be gnomic.’ Ben had looked at Kitty who was talking to Simon on the other side of the room. ‘She’s lovely – fun. God knows what she sees in me.’
Mark could have given him a list of things a girl like Kitty would see in a man like Ben.
Sitting in the old-fashioned, candy-striped deckchair, Mark sipped his lager, aware that his too-big feet were too close to Kitty’s knees. He shifted uncomfortably, never fully trusting of folding chairs; he wished he’d sat on the grass too, he might feel less staid.
Simon lowered himself cautiously into the other deckchair, his artificial leg stretched out awkwardly in front of him. He smiled at Mark. ‘Getting old,’ he said. ‘Old as the hills.’
Kitty asked, ‘How old are you, Simon?’
‘Don’t you know?’ He pretended astonishment. Winking at Mark he said, ‘I’m seventy.’
‘That’s not too old.’
Simon laughed. ‘No. Seventy isn’t too old.’ Looking at Kitty he said, ‘Where’s Ben today?’
‘Amsterdam. He’s back this evening.’ She glanced towards the house and the open back door. ‘Maybe I should have brought the buggy outside.’
‘He’ll be fine. You shouldn’t fret so. When he starts to cry Uncle Mark here will fetch him.’
Kitty bowed her head; she began plucking at the grass around her and making a miniature haystack. Mark noticed the dark rings beneath her eyes and remembered what Ben had said about the sleepless nights she endured. ‘Kitty manages,’ he’d said. ‘She’s a little trooper.’
Little soldier, little trooper. These were the words Annette had used; it was strange to hear such phrases from Ben. It was as though he had regressed.
Simon rested his head back and closed his eyes. ‘I’m going to go to sleep. You’ll excuse me, won’t you?’ Within moments he was snoring softly.
Mark glanced at Kitty, wondering if she felt as awkward as he did without Simon’s conscious presence acting as chaperone between them. They were almost strangers to each other, after all, and there was her surprising shyness. When he’d first seen her, her vest top showing off her tattoo, a fake diamond glinting in her abdomen, he’d thought such a girl couldn’t possibly be shy of anyone. She’d worn large hoop earrings and he remembered that her hair had been dyed blonde, her dark roots showing like a tiger’s stripe. Despite what he’d said to Simon, he had thought she was common, and had immediately felt ashamed of his snobbishness. It was at moments like that when Mark remembered most forcibly that it wasn’t Simon’s genteel blood that ran through his veins.
Kitty’s hair was dark now, thick and shiny as freshly shelled conkers. The change in her was Ben’s doing, he guessed, Ben’s taste and Ben’s money shaping her as though she was Eliza Doolittle. Her voice remained the same, though; she kept the Teesside accent he and Ben had lost years ago. Perhaps, given time, her voice would be moderated, too.
He glanced at Kitty who had begun plucking at the grass again. He wondered if Ben had told her about his search for Danny or if he kept secrets from his young wife. He had an urge to quiz her and he imagined her squirming under his interrogation, afraid of saying the wrong thing, of somehow betraying her husband. Suddenly he thought of Susan, who wouldn’t have been able to resist being cruel to a girl like Kitty, and the pain of remembering her made him draw breath.
Kitty looked up at him sharply. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Cramp, I think, from the drive.’
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, tha
nk you.’ He smiled at her but she looked away, spreading the little mound of grass out with the flat of her hand. She looked as if she was about to cry. Carefully he said, ‘Ben told me you’ve had some sleepless nights with the baby?’
She nodded miserably.
‘Why don’t you take a nap now, while he’s sleeping? Dad’s old couch is terribly comfortable…’
‘No. I’m all right. We’ll go soon.’
‘You don’t have to rush off.’
She laughed shortly. ‘No, I know.’
She was wearing jeans, low slung so that the white lace of her panties showed. Only a few months since the birth of her son, her belly was flat, its diamond stud winking in the sunlight below her cropped vest. Her breasts were small, as though they had been depleted by months of breast-feeding. The soles of her bare feet were blackened, her toenails painted pale pink, delicate like her. Sometimes Simon called her waif, his voice tender with love, unable quite to believe that he had been blessed with this girl and her baby so late in his life. He had all but given up hope of a grandchild, had begun to talk of regrets. Now Kitty was the love of his life and Nathan a small, spoilt god.
Kitty seemed to force herself to look at him. ‘I saw your book in Tesco.’
‘Did you turn it so its cover faced out?’
‘No, I didn’t think…’
He laughed. ‘It’s OK. It’s just what Dad does.’
‘Ben wants you to sign his copy. It’s at home – I should have brought it…’ She took a drink from the bottle of lager. Quickly she said, ‘I’ve read it. I liked it. Although I hated the girl. Was I meant to?’
The girl was Susan, only thinly disguised so that Ben would still recognise her. Not that Ben read his novels. He kept them on his living room shelves, their pristine condition marred only by the author’s signature on the title page. Susan had called Ben a Philistine, a joke because she didn’t think his books worthy enough for it to matter if they went unread. Susan read Henry James and Virginia Woolf. She had once asked him why he bothered to write at all.
Kitty was watching him as though his silence disturbed her. Lightly he said, ‘What’s Ben doing in Amsterdam?’
‘A conference. He’s speaking.’ There was a note of pride in her voice that made her sound even younger. As if she thought she had been boastful she coloured a little and glanced away towards the house.
Her mobile phone began to ring. She took it from her handbag and flicked it open, immediately getting to her feet as she said, ‘Hiya!’ Turning her back on him, she walked away towards the summerhouse as she said, ‘No, I’m fine. I’m at your Dad’s.’
Mark took a drink and set the bottle down on the grass beside him. The lawn needed mowing, the flowerbeds weeding. A couple of weeks ago the daffodils that mobbed the borders would have made quite a display but now their trumpets were forlorn. He remembered how he used to help his stepmother Joy tie the flowers’ leaves into neat packages so that the garden looked tidy again. He’d heard years later that this was bad for daffodils and remembered being surprised. Joy always seemed to know so much about gardening. When he helped her weed or prune or plant out seedlings from the greenhouse she called him her apprentice and talked to him about how planting should be kept in time with the moon’s cycle. He’d suspected that this was just another story adults told to make children believe there was magic in the world; he’d hoped that it was not. He’d needed Joy to be as she seemed – sensible and honest.
Kitty had walked further away. She kicked idly at the frame of the greenhouse, her body hunched, her head bowed over the phone as if her conversation was top secret. He felt irritated by her; not for the first time he wondered how Ben could have brought himself to marry such a child.
He remembered his brother’s wedding day; Kitty’s family filling the small Norman church of St Hilda’s, the men standing around the graveyard in their cheap suits, smoking their Lambert & Butlers. At least some of them wore suits; some could hardly be bothered to dress properly at all. Kitty’s father and grandfather, her stepfather and brother wore hired morning dress, just as Ben and he did, cream rose buds in their lapels, cream silk cravats at their throats. Kitty’s brother still managed to look like a yob, her father like someone who had spent his life on social security, smoking himself halfway to death in dim pubs. The women put on a better show – some even wore hats. The fat cousins who were Kitty’s bridesmaids wore identical off-the-shoulder dresses made of some purple, satiny material. They bulged obscenely.
Only Kitty had surprised him. Standing behind Ben at the front of the church, he had turned as the bridal march began to see her walking up the aisle on her father’s arm. Her face was veiled, her white dress modest and simple and lovely. She looked like Audrey Hepburn.
From the deckchair beside him Simon said, ‘Little Kitty – so adorable. She reminds me of a sweetheart nurse who looked after me when they cut my leg off.’
Mark laughed despite himself and looked from Kitty to Simon. ‘You never talk about the war.’
Simon snorted. ‘Bloody awful time, that’s why. Anyway – you never talk about your war.’
‘So we’re even, then.’ Watching Kitty pace back and forth along the edge of the lawn Mark said, ‘Do you think she’s happy?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ Sharply Simon said, ‘They’re very happy. I’ve never seen Ben so contented.’ He was looking at him steadily, the same stern expression he’d use when he’d angered him as a child. ‘Do you think you can be happy for them?’
He gazed back at him. ‘I’ll do my very best.’
Simon sighed. ‘Mark, Ben has told me what he’s doing – poking about in the past –’
Mark looked away. His father’s concern made him feel pitiable; he had a horrible feeling that he might cry. Simon reached out and squeezed his hand briefly.
‘Mark? Believe me I tried to talk him out of it. All he kept saying was that he had a right –’
Kitty walked towards them. Smiling at Simon she said, ‘You’re awake.’
‘Oh, I was only dozing. Was that Ben on the phone?’
‘Yes. He’ll be home in an hour.’
Simon got to his feet painfully. ‘Then you should go. Come along, let’s get that little chap ready to welcome his Daddy.’
Chapter 5
Mark washed the supper dishes and put them away. He went through Simon’s fridge, discarding long out of date yoghurts and shrivelled, bendy carrots that had begun to grow fur in the bottom of the vegetable drawer. Jars of jam cultivated mould in the back of the cupboards and the shelves were littered with crumbs. He didn’t go into the pantry. Sorting out Simon’s pantry usually took a half-day, all the time Simon pretending bemusement that he was going to so much trouble.
His father read The Guardian in his armchair. Sensing that Mark had finished what he called fiddling about, Simon folded the paper and tossed it on the floor. ‘Is that wine finished?’
‘No. Would you like a glass?’
‘Will you have one, too?’
Handing him a glass Mark said, ‘You didn’t eat much.’
‘I haven’t any appetite these days. It’s natural at my age – besides, who wants to see an old man gorging himself?’
Mark sat down in the chair opposite him and Simon studied him critically. ‘You’ve lost weight. You look gaunt.’ After a moment he said, ‘I know you’re worrying about Danny.’
Mark had never heard his father mention Danny by name before. He was shocked by the familiarity of it, as though Danny and Simon had once been friends. Unable to trust his voice he kept silent. Simon sat forward. ‘This will blow over, Mark. Ben will lose interest…but if he does find him –’
Mark got up and poured himself another drink. Simon watched him anxiously.
‘Mark? Don’t you think you should talk about the possibility –’
‘No.’ He turned to face him. ‘There’s nothing to say. Ben can do as he likes – I don’t have to be a part of it.’
‘But you’re her
e – you could have stayed in Hampstead.’
‘I’m here to see you.’
Simon laughed shortly.
‘I’ve never neglected you, Dad.’
‘No. You’re a dutiful son.’ After a moment he said, ‘I think you should go home, Mark.’
‘Run away?’
He sighed. ‘Mark, if you won’t go home then you should talk to Ben, a real heart to heart –’
Hating the bitterness in his voice Mark said, ‘Man to man?’
‘Yes – if you like. For pity’s sake, boy! If you and Ben could sit down together, talk it through instead of always sniping at each other…just tell him how you feel.’
‘He knows how I feel.’ Mark paced the room, too agitated to keep still. So often lately he had tried to imagine talking to Ben about his search for Danny, knowing how contemptuous his brother would be of his fear. Ben didn’t know enough to be merciful. Merciful! As though he was a hapless criminal to be judged leniently. He remembered how Ben would silently pass him a hanky after Danny had given him yet another bloody nose. Ben would be angry with him, as though he believed he had deliberately caused their father to punch him in the face. In Ben’s opinion theirs would have been a happy home if only he had stopped provoking Danny.
Mark finished the wine. He went to the sink and washed and dried his glass, all the time feeling Simon’s eyes on his back, the old man’s anxiety too pressing to be ignored. Wanting to explain himself he turned to him.
‘Ben told me once…’ Mark laughed, feeling that he might cry, that he was being sentimental and foolish, but he realised that Simon had all at once become still, sitting a little further forward, the better to catch every word. This breathless interest in what he was about to say sobered him; it seemed indecent that Simon should be so curious. Coldly he said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What did he tell you, Mark?’
Mark gazed at him, wondering if his silence would hurt Simon more or less than what he was about to say. But keeping silent would only make his father think he was playing some kind of game, he would think even less of him and so he said quickly, ‘Ben used to tell me that Danny was going to buy him a bicycle.’
Say You Love Me Page 4