‘She’s a bright little thing,’ I said to the teacher, pointing to the desk Cassie had recently occupied.
‘Oh yes, she’s a lovely girl,’ she replied, shouldering her handbag and opening the door for me. ‘She’s got a wonderful imagination.’
She locked the classroom, one of those Portakabins reached by a flimsy wooden staircase. The tiny, grey lobby in which I stood waiting was cold and cluttered. Padded jackets ballooned from a double row of pegs on either wall, almost meeting in the middle. Through a chink in the floor I could see the grass below. When I stamped my foot experimentally, the whole structure seemed to quake.
‘You don’t know the parents, do you?’ I said, as Miss Connor caught me up. ‘I only ask because I used to know her mother. Ages ago.’
Miss Connor shook her head. On the top of her open handbag lay a packet of cigarettes. She was obviously dying to escape for a smoke. ‘I don’t think the father’s around any more,’ she said, and then stopped, blushing at this indiscretion.
‘You couldn’t let me have her address, could you?’
She gave an apologetic grimace. ‘Sorry. Not allowed to do that. You understand.’
‘Of course. It doesn’t matter,’ I said, embarrassed to have asked. For all she knew I could be some mad stalker with a grudge. ‘It was so long ago. I don’t know what I’d say to her, anyway.’
I was taken back to the staffroom at lunchtime and introduced to those few teachers who were in there eating their sandwiches. Someone fetched me a plate of cheese flan and potato croquettes from the canteen and everyone laughed at my gratitude, which was genuine. I must be the only person alive who likes institution food: I find spam fritters comforting in a way that rocket leaves can never be.
The staffroom was even more of a hovel than the wobbly Portakabin I’d left behind. The chief comforts were twelve low, padded vinyl chairs without arms, arranged around three square tables, the tops of which were exactly level with the seats, so it was impossible to draw up to the table – to reach your coffee for example – without kneecapping yourself. The rest of the staff, already wise to this, were sitting back, eating off their laps and using the table as a footstool. The workbenches around the edge of the room were buried beneath sloping piles of paper and books and ring-binders. The draining board of the aluminium sink was crowded with unwashed cups. On the floor, the carpet tiles were starting to curl up at the edges, like stale slices of bread.
I’d brought two boxes of books along with me to sign and sell at the book fair in the afternoon. This was meant to be a golden opportunity for me to make a profit. I’d envisaged a hall full of affluent, book-loving parents, eager to demonstrate their support for the school’s literacy programme, but I had sadly misjudged the market. Most of the children seemed to be picked up by au pairs, who naturally carried no spare cash and were deaf to the demands of their little charges. I was in any case having to compete with the tie-ins for some new cult Japanese cartoon movie, which took care of most of the boys. One of my first customers, though, was Cassie. She was unaccompanied, and produced a crumpled-up ball, which turned out to be a five pound note, from her cardigan pocket. She spelled out her name without waiting to be asked, and I dutifully inscribed it on the title page.
‘Do you like reading, Cassie?’ I asked, looking up at her serious face.
She nodded. ‘I like Roald Dahl.’
‘Well, this will probably be too easy for you then.’
‘That’s all right. I like easy books too.’
‘Do your mum and dad read to you at bedtime or do you read to yourself?’
‘Mummy does. Daddy doesn’t live with us any more.’
‘Oh.’ Just as Miss Connor had surmised. I was on the point of asking what her mummy’s name was, but I lost my nerve. It seemed creepy somehow, to be prompting a strange child to divulge personal details. For all I knew it could be a criminal offence. Besides, once she’d spent her money Cassie didn’t linger to chat, but said goodbye with one of those frank, appraising stares that children often deploy to make adults squirm.
When the rest of the browsers had melted away I did a quick tally of my takings. The results were as follows: Sold – fourteen. Misappropriated/nicked – five. I reckoned the day’s receipts would amount to a loss of £2.50. Rather than lug the boxes of unsold books back to the car I told the teacher on duty I was donating them to the school – proceeds to the staffroom refurbishment fund. She laughed gaily as if I was joking. I don’t know why I suddenly came over all charitable. It must have been something of my mother rising to the surface at last.
I drove straight from school to the restaurant since there wasn’t time to go home first. I’ve worked five nights a week as a waitress at Rowena’s in Crystal Palace ever since it used to be the Grill Rooms. Back in those days there was sawdust on the floor and the music was so loud I used to wear cotton wool in my ears and lip-read the orders. I got quite proficient at it until the manager told me I could stay away until the infection had cleared up because I was putting people off their food.
There was live comedy on Friday nights, and live music on Saturday. It would be pleasing to think that I had seen some of today’s great comic turns in their infancy, but unfortunately none of the Friday night acts from the Grill Rooms has ever to my knowledge made it onto the TV. One old chap who used to do daft things with a sliced loaf was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe about five years on from his Grill Room debut – I think he won a ‘Best Newcomer’ award, but I haven’t heard of him since. The murky waters of obscurity must have closed over his head soon afterwards.
Nowadays Rowena’s serves pizzas and pasta and plays light opera. The comedians have gone, along with the rock bands and the cocktails. There’s more light, and less smoke and no sawdust. It’s a different clientele. Or maybe it’s the same clientele, now ten years older, married with children. We don’t get stag nights any more and I can’t say I’m sorry. Even lavish tips didn’t feel like adequate compensation for the harassment and groping.
Waitressing may not seem like a great job, but evening work suits me fine. I can be at home during the day if Christian needs me, and I can paint in the mornings when the light is good and I’m at my best. It’s physically tiring being on my feet from six until midnight, but my mind is free to wander and there’s no stress. Even when there’s been a scene and a customer has got drunk or belligerent it doesn’t carry forward to the next day. I sleep well and every morning’s a new beginning. The money’s terrible but I can usually double it in tips, and I’m an optimist by nature: I try to look at it as a wage-packet half full rather than a wage-packet half empty. Since I don’t have to pay for my accommodation my living expenses are small, and I’m not extravagant. Sometimes when I’m turning the pages of Vogue in the hairdressers I might find myself hankering after a pair of fuchsia pink beaded slingbacks for £600, but the moment soon passes. It’s the long reach of my mother again, jangling the charity tin under my nose and turning my thoughts to the Less Fortunate.
Elaine finds my lack of ambition hard to understand. It’s another area of my life she’d be keen to tackle if I let her. A fortnight ago she brought in one of those career profiling questionnaires designed for school-leavers. She had come out as an ideal headmistress or prison officer, so I couldn’t fault its acuity. I filled it in later when she’d gone and it turned out I was a born librarian, which depressed me. I must have overplayed the stuff about working on my own and liking peace and quiet. Another complaint Elaine levels against my choice of job is that it gives me no time for a social life. This is unfair: Rowena’s is my social life. Without it I wouldn’t have one at all. There’s Rowena herself, the chefs – who are generally young and male and never last more than six months – and the other waitresses, mainly students of nineteen or twenty, for whom the six to twelve shift is just a warm-up to a night of drinking and clubbing and shagging, if their conversation is to be believed. I’m occasionally invited on these raids, but never go. They are desperate to sho
w me a good time. Poor Esther, stuck at home with her crippled brother, they think, when I cry off, yet again. All this pity and sympathy are entirely undeserved. There’s no need for me to hurry back to Christian, who is well looked after. And if I want a date the restaurant is as good a place as any to meet men: people who are out for a meal are usually relaxed, in a good mood and ready to have fun, and the atmosphere at Rowena’s seems to be conducive to flirtation. It’s very different from the Grill Rooms, where the pounding rock music, and the whoops from the Tequila Slammer girl, not to mention my earplugs, made conversation all but impossible. I’ve met a few blokes that way, in the line of duty, though I never took any back home. Then for the last four years there’s been Geoff.
Again, it’s not a conventional arrangement, but it suits us remarkably well. Round about my thirtieth birthday I went through a low period. I couldn’t seem to work up much enthusiasm for anything; I was trying a new style of painting and it wasn’t going well; I found myself crying a lot for no particular reason. There was a bleakness about everything. Eventually I went to my GP but she was off on maternity leave so I saw the male doctor instead. Geoff. He was sympathetic and reassuring and let me ramble on for ages, well beyond my allotted time, so that every other appointment that day would be late. He looked about fifty, slightly overweight and absolutely not what you’d call good looking, but with a nice, interesting face. I noticed the pictures on his desk: a wedding photo, and a boy and a girl in their early teens, their smiles glittering with heavy-duty orthodontics. Anyway, at the end of our chat he prescribed me some mild anti-depressants and told me to come back two weeks later, or sooner if I felt bad.
It’s annoyingly hackneyed, but I started to entertain fantasies about him from that point. Not desperately ambitious ones: more romantic than erotic. He seemed so kind, so capable. I often find myself attracted to people who come to my aid in however humble a capacity: plumbers, AA men, the bloke from Dyno-rod. Perhaps gratitude is an aphrodisiac.
I went back to see him as arranged and we talked some more. He was interested to hear about my illustrating work, and my set-up with Christian, and wondered if my role as carer might be putting me under strain, so I was able to set him straight on that score. He offered to put me in touch with the community psychiatric nurse for a spot of counselling, but I didn’t feel my case warranted it. I said just talking to him had made me feel better, and I would persevere with the tablets.
A few weeks after my last appointment, he came into the restaurant with another bloke. When I went to take his order he gave me a discreet nod of recognition, but I made the mistake of greeting him openly with a cheerful hello, just to let him know that I was in good spirits, which I was, now that I’d seen him. His friend immediately pounced on this. He was a coarse, boozy type, as unlike Geoff as could be imagined. ‘She one of your patients?’ he said as I walked away. ‘Wouldn’t mind getting her on the couch, heh heh.’ I was suddenly conscious that in my black mini skirt and tight T-shirt I probably looked cheap and trashy, and cursed myself for having acknowledged him.
When I brought their food Geoff looked absolutely mortified and kept his eyes on his plate. His friend said, ‘Thanks, darling,’ and made an infuriating clicking noise with his tongue, as though urging on a horse. I felt like clubbing him over the head with the pepper grinder, but I just gave him a chilly glare instead.
He got progressively drunker and more lecherous as the evening progressed, and every time I approached the table he would come out with some innuendo while Geoff shifted about on his seat in agonies of embarrassment. It was hard to ignore now, as there were only a few remaining diners, and my relief when they finally paid (leaving a tip of exactly ten per cent) and left was immense.
Another twenty minutes had passed by the time I had finished clearing up and wiping down the tables, so when Rowena let me out of the now-locked front door I was completely taken aback and a little alarmed to see Geoff loitering in the shadows like an assassin. He was carrying a rolled golf umbrella, which he made no move to put up, even though a light drizzle was falling.
‘Esther!’ he said, hurrying over, and I was flattered that he’d remembered, until it occurred to me that I’d been wearing my name-tag all evening. ‘I’m sorry about earlier.’
I glanced around in case his friend might still be lurking. ‘I’ve put him in a taxi,’ he added, guessing my concern.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, congratulating myself on this unexpected reversal. I now had the power to reassure him.
‘It must have sounded as though we were discussing you. I promise that wasn’t the case.’
‘I know.’
‘Everything that takes place in the consulting room is completely confidential. I’d be struck off if I . . .’
‘Don’t worry. I shouldn’t have said hello. It put you in an awkward position.’
‘It’s not your fault at all. My friend is a male chauvinist pig, especially when he’s had a few.’ The rain started to come down more heavily now, and he remembered the umbrella, which sprang open at the touch of a button. He held it over me so I was forced to take a step towards him to spare him an unnecessary drenching, and we stood, in awkward and unfamiliar proximity, blocking the narrow pavement so that passers-by were forced to step around us into the gutter. I glanced at my watch, a gesture that seemed to bring him up short.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s late and I’ve made you even later. Can I give you a lift anywhere? I’m parked round the corner.’
I couldn’t help laughing at such a recklessly unprovisional offer. ‘No. I live miles away. In Caterham. Near the surgery.’ What I didn’t say was that my own car was parked, like his, around the corner. Normally I would have considered this sort of feminine scheming to be beneath me, but I was intrigued to see just how far out of his way he would be prepared to go. It would give me an index of his concern.
‘Of course,’ he nodded. ‘Obvious really.’ And he started to walk in the direction of his car, so that I was obliged to do the same, drawn along by the overarching embrace of the umbrella. ‘It’s not far from me,’ he said. ‘Warlingham.’ Even without a map I could work out that Caterham would represent a detour and I felt a quite immoderate surge of happiness, so that I had to bite my cheeks to suppress a smile.
His car, parked an immaculate three inches from the kerb, was a newish Rover saloon, smart but not flashy; the car of a professional man who isn’t interested in cars and has nothing to prove. He opened my door first, a gesture which made me think of my father, who always had perfect manners. The interior was clean, but not fanatically so, and equipped with sensible things like a fire extinguisher, blanket, ice scraper and another small umbrella with a Liberty print.
On the journey we talked about impersonal things: the health service, the election, but without committing ourselves to a particular political allegiance. At one point he said, ‘How would you have got home if I hadn’t offered? Public transport’s hopeless down this way,’ and I wondered if he’d twigged.
I didn’t want to compound my deceit with an outright lie, so I said, ‘Oh, I’d have managed.’
There was a tape protruding from the jaws of the cassette player, and I was dying to see what it was. I would have put money on it being Neil Diamond, or someone similar. It was all I could do to stop myself having a look, but presently Geoff said, ‘Do you want some music on?’ and snapped the tape into place, filling the car with the unmistakable snare-and-treble sound of Oasis. Before I could register my surprise and approval he had shuddered and hit the eject button. ‘My son’s,’ he said by way of apology and went on to tune the radio until he hit on a wailing soprano, which was obviously more to his taste. ‘Do you know Der Rosenkavalier?’ he asked, and I was forced to confess my brutish ignorance of opera and all other branches of classical music.
‘I never go myself any more,’ he admitted. ‘I just sit slumped in front of the TV like everyone else.’
When we got close to home I asked him
to drop me at the corner. Ours is a private road and it wasn’t worth unlocking the gate for the sake of an extra fifty yards. As the rain was still scything down he insisted I take his umbrella. I noticed he didn’t offer me the ladies’ one.
‘Well, thank you . . . Doctor,’ I said, as I didn’t know his first name at this stage, and he gave me an oblique smile and raised his eyebrows.
‘My pleasure,’ he said. And although there hadn’t been the shadow of any flirtation between us, I knew.
The next day at the restaurant there was a bouquet of yellow roses waiting for me. There was no card, so I was able to answer Rowena’s inquisitive stare with unfeigned ignorance. The flowers lasted a week, but much longer as fuel for my daydreams. I still had the umbrella too. I’d kept hold of it deliberately to maintain that slender thread of connection between us: every time it rained he would think of me – though possibly with diminishing affection.
Then about a month after the flowers an envelope arrived for me at the restaurant. It contained one ticket to the Coliseum for a performance of Der Rosenkavalier, and no accompanying note, but its provenance was perfectly obvious.
He’d even gone to the trouble of discreetly obscuring the ticket price, an act of exorbitant courtesy, which again reminded me of Dad. Now and then I would take it out of my purse and be assailed by anxiety. Would he be waiting for me in the adjoining seat, or was it just a quirky gift from an opera-lover bent on converting the heathen? Was he, in fact, demented?
In a Good Light Page 2