In a Good Light

by Clare Chambers

  His school uniform, now well into its second year, was starting to look shabby. The green wool blazer he wore every day was going bald at collar and cuffs and had a faded streak down the front where Mum had scrubbed at a spill rather than taking it to the cleaners as the label recommended. She had already sewn patches onto the holey elbows and had to be dissuaded from doing the same for the knees of his trousers. ‘There’s nothing wrong with wearing clothes that have been mended,’ she said in response to his protests. ‘I surely can’t be the only mother who darns.’

  Sports equipment was another source of conflict. The antiquated assortment of warped bats and home-strung rackets, which had served perfectly well in the privacy of our own garden, brought him a rather less welcome brand of notoriety at school.

  The extent of his unhappiness only came to light when Mum and Dad received a letter from the deputy head. Christian had attempted to forge a note from Mum, in a script that would fool no one, asking for him to be excused from games. This had greatly surprised the sports teacher, who had considered Christian to be an honest boy, and one of his more able and enthusiastic pupils. It emerged, under interrogation, that Christian was hoping to dodge games in order to avoid suffering agonies of embarrassment in the changing rooms over the state of his underpants, which were off-white, reached almost to his armpits, and had probably once belonged to Grandpa Percy.

  ‘The other boys laugh at me and go on about them all the time,’ he complained, during the family conference that was held to resolve the affair. ‘They call them my Mighty Whities.’

  I could see Dad trying not to smile, but Mum looked mortified. ‘I knew this sort of thing would happen,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘We should have sent him to Underwood.’ Underwood was the nearest state school, a bleak grey building on the edge of a large housing estate.

  After some more discussion it was agreed that there were two possible solutions to the predicament. One: Christian should embrace the opportunity to practise some character-building stoicism in the face of mockery. This option, though unpleasant, would serve him well in the long term. Two: the forces of materialism and conformity should be allowed to triumph and Mum should buy Christian some new underpants.

  ‘What sort of pants do the other boys wear?’ Mum wanted to know, when option two had emerged the victor by three votes to one.

  ‘New ones,’ said Christian. ‘From a shop.’

  As a direct result of this incident Christian was allowed to take up a paper round, with the proviso that his earnings should be used to defray the costs of any future ‘luxuries’. It was argued that he would be less likely to fritter away money on inessentials like new underpants if he had earned it by the sweat of his brow. Christian was delighted with this arrangement: at last a whole world of commercial possibilities lay spread before him.

  Naturally I accompanied him on his round, which took in most of the village and some of the outlying houses and covered a good couple of miles. At first Mum and Dad expressed some unease at my involvement. There had been several recent reports in the local paper of schoolgirls being troubled in the lanes by a ‘flasher’. I imagined this to be some species of monster with blazing green eyes, but it turned out to be nothing of the kind, just a man with his trousers undone. We were instructed to keep together at all times and not to take the short cut down the lanes or across the common, but to keep to the roads, until he was caught. This point was hammered home with the threat that any breach of the rules would result in Christian’s immediate return to the ranks of the unemployed. ‘We’re absolutely serious about this,’ Dad said, looking from me to Christian for signs of rebellion. ‘There are some funny people out there.’

  The morning paper round became the highlight of my day: up before dawn and into my school uniform in the blue chill of a November morning. Mist trails on the common and the crunch of frosted leaves beneath our wheels as we cycled along, and Christian waiting for me, keeping together as he’d promised, with only occasional signs of impatience.

  As an athlete and sportsman, Christian was forever looking to improve our performance and shave valuable minutes from the round. We had achieved our best time of fifty-five minutes door to door by abandoning my bike altogether so that I could sit on his crossbar and be tipped off into each driveway to post the paper. I could tell that this result wouldn’t satisfy him for long.

  ‘You know, if we split up we’d be finished in half the time,’ he said wistfully, as we set off one December morning in a shower of sleet.

  ‘What about the flasher?’ I reminded him. ‘Mum and Dad said you’ve got to stay with me.’

  ‘No one goes flashing in weather like this,’ Christian replied. ‘He’d freeze his balls off.’ We laughed so much at this that Christian nearly rode into the ditch, and for the rest of the round all he had to do to set me off was to call out, ‘Hey, Frozenballs!’ I was good for nothing after that, and we turned in one of our worst times on record and were very nearly late for school.

  Christian was not to be deflected from his mission, though, and the following morning he once more suggested splitting up and taking half the papers each.

  ‘Will you give me half the money?’ I asked. So far my role as paperboy’s assistant had only brought me the odd fifty pence here and there. This had never bothered me before: just being out with Christian was enough for me. But now he was proposing to send me off without him I thought it only fair to take a bigger cut of his earnings.

  ‘Half?’ Christian looked aggrieved. ‘I hadn’t really thought about the money side of things. Anyway, perhaps you’re right about sticking together,’ he said, backtracking hastily. ‘I’ll tell you what, though. We could take the short cut across the common. That’ll be way quicker. At the moment we’re doing two sides of a triangle.’

  ‘Well . . .’ I said doubtfully, remembering Dad’s stern warnings.

  ‘We’d be together. I’ll look after you,’ he wheedled. ‘If we see any old flasher I’ll just yell out “Oy! Frozenballs!” and ride off at top speed.’ I started to giggle and he pressed on, sensing victory. ‘It means we could get up twenty minutes later, or get back twenty minutes earlier and have more time for toast.’

  I wavered. The extra toast wasn’t a huge incentive: Mum always cut the bread so thin that it shattered into millions of fragments as soon as you applied any margarine. But the extra sleep appealed: I always hated that moment of emerging from body-warmed blankets into the icy clutch of the sleeping house, and would defer it if I could.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘As long as Mum and Dad don’t find out.’

  ‘Course they won’t,’ he said. ‘They’ll never know.’

  The new routine worked fine: we could get up at ten to seven instead of half past six, and we returned home in time for porridge and brittle toast, just as before, arousing no suspicion. We didn’t meet the flasher, or any other living soul on the common – a matter of relief mixed with disappointment. I was half looking forward to hearing Christian’s war cry ‘Frozenballs!’ echoing through the trees.

  On one occasion we thought we could hear footsteps in the undergrowth beside us, and then an Alsatian came crashing through the bushes and across our path, sending us skidding into a pile of leaves in a tangle of limbs and spinning pedals. When I got to school I discovered that I had lost the book of matches that Donovan had given me for rescuing Chewy. It went everywhere with me in my coat pocket, wishing me welcome to Biarritz, and now it was gone. Mum commented on my long face when I came home, and when I told her about my lost treasure, she suggested we retrace my paper round route until we found it. ‘I’ve got some envelopes to collect so we can kill two birds with one stone,’ she said, clipping her Oxfam identity card to the front of her shaggy Oxfam coat. ‘Why are you carrying matches around anyway?’ she asked as we set off, keeping our eyes on the pavement.

  ‘In case I need to light a fire in an emergency,’ I explained.

  ‘I should think you’re more likely to cause the emergenc
y,’ she said mildly.

  Our progress was slow because at every house we had to ring the doorbell and wait while the owner hunted first for the envelope and second for some cash to fill it. It was a standing joke with Mother that the occupants of the row of smart detached houses on the edge of the village were the least likely to give, and the most inventive with excuses. ‘A mercedes in the driveway and a miser in the house,’ she muttered as another door slammed in our faces.

  The sun had disappeared below the trees by the time Mum had called in the last of her envelopes, and I was eager to check out the site of my encounter with the Alsatian before it got even darker. I had an inkling that the matchbook might have fallen out of my pocket when the bike had flipped over in the leaves. Without thinking, I turned off the road along the forbidden path across the common, and strode on for several yards before I realised that Mum wasn’t following.

  I turned round and saw her standing at the verge, hands on hips, a stony look on her face. ‘So this is the way you come, is it?’ she asked. ‘After everything we said.’ I nodded miserably. I could see she was building up to a big lecture, and my heart sank. That would be the end of the paper round. Christian would be angry with me for giving us away; Dad would be, not angry, exactly, because he never got angry, but disappointed and hurt. There would be no more fifty pences coming my way and no more early morning outings with Christian.

  ‘It’s all because I lost that stupid matchbook,’ I burst out, lacerated by self-pity. And then, ‘It’s all Donovan’s fault!’

  Before the words had even dried in the air I spotted it, lying face down in the mound of mulched leaves at the side of the track. I snatched it up and wiped the dirt from its shiny cover. The cardboard felt spongy to the touch and the matches inside were soft and damp. It was in all probability useless as far as lighting fires in emergencies went, and I resolved to relegate it to the Germolene tin, where it would be unable to get me into further trouble.

  ‘I blame Christian more than you,’ Mum said, catching me up. ‘He’s older and he was supposed to be responsible. But you may as well learn this useful lesson: in this life you never get away with anything. Everything you do comes back and trips you up sooner or later. Just bear that in mind next time you feel tempted to do something wrong.’

  And that was all she said to me on the subject, though Christian was treated to a rather lengthier disquisition and had to resign the paper round.

  The universal truth of Mum’s warning was proved only a week or so later, when I arrived home from school to find a police car in the driveway. Mum intercepted me on the doorstep and ushered me up to my room with instructions to close the door and stay there until told otherwise. Something in her face told me it would be a mistake to challenge her.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, from halfway up the stairs.

  ‘Nothing,’ she whispered back. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  Shut in my attic room I couldn’t hear a word of what was taking place two storeys below, but the window overlooked the driveway, and from this vantage point I had a perfect view of the patrol car and the WPC who was leaning against it, biting her nails and spitting the pieces into the bushes. Presently her walkie-talkie spluttered into life and she leant down and spoke into it before resuming her nibbling. Then the front door slammed and Mr Spragg emerged, followed by a uniformed policeman, and the two of them climbed into the car and were driven away. I knocked on the window and gave Mr Spragg a wave, but he had his head down and didn’t see me.

  I waited for a few minutes to be summoned, and when no one called me I crept downstairs. Mum was sitting at the kitchen table, chin in hand, staring into space. Dinner had been abandoned, half-prepared on the sideboard. She jumped when she saw me.

  ‘Can I come down now?’ I asked.

  ‘What? Yes, of course,’ she said, vaguely, and put out one arm to draw me into her side for a hug. Her cardigan was fastened on the wrong buttons so that it gaped across her chest.

  ‘Why has Mr Spragg gone with the police?’ I asked.

  ‘They want to talk to him.’

  ‘Has he done something wrong?’

  ‘That’ll be for the court to decide.’ She licked a finger and wiped a smudge from my cheek.

  ‘Is he coming back?’

  ‘No, not to this house.’

  ‘Will we be getting someone else?’

  ‘No,’ said Mum emphatically. ‘No more visitors.’

  It was shortly after this that Dad took Christian aside and told him that he and Mum considered the whole matchbook incident over and done with, and that he could resume his paper round if it was still available. And this time, strangely, there were no rules and regulations about short cuts across the common and down the lanes.

  11

  DAD USED TO say that the only letters worth opening were ones with handwritten envelopes. Type seldom meant good news, and window envelopes were the worst of all. As someone who was only guaranteed to receive one piece of mail per year – a birthday card from Grandpa Percy – I found this attitude bizarre and ungrateful. It was just another example of the topsy-turvy values of the adult world, which claimed to prefer early mornings to late nights and giving to receiving.

  One morning a letter arrived that made us all sit up. It was Christmas Eve, 1976 and I was eight years old. Mum was in the kitchen, reluctantly shelling chestnuts for stuffing. A rubbery ham was simmering in a preserving pan and a batch of mince pies was cooling on a wire rack. Christian was trying to light the sitting room fire using a base of fir cones, while Dad and I made crackers out of crepe paper and loo roll innards. I was trying to measure Christian’s skull for a bespoke paper crown, and he was cuffing me out of the way, when the letter box clanged.

  ‘Second post,’ said Dad, abandoning his task and going out to investigate. He returned with a stack of cards, and proceeded to flip through them, apparently able to divine the identity of the senders without even opening the envelopes.

  ‘Did we send a card to Doug and Betty?’ he called.

  ‘No,’ came the reply.

  ‘The Porters?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mrs Spiller?’

  ‘I thought she was dead. I crossed her off.’

  ‘Well, you’d better reinstate her. Oh, look at this.’ He started to laugh. The last envelope was postmarked Bath and addressed as follows in chaotic handwriting:

  Mr and Mrs G Fairchild

  The big red brick schoolhouse with the bell on top

  Down a lane with brambles near a church

  Next to the common

  Not far from Biggin Hill airfield

  Kent, I think

  Sorry.

  Within seconds of opening it and examining the contents – a scrap of paper torn from a school exercise book – he stopped laughing and strode out of the room, leaving the letter fluttering to the floor. From the kitchen came the sound of Mum and Dad in hurried conference, and then the front door slammed and we watched the car reverse erratically up the driveway with Dad at the wheel. A moment later, Mum, still in apron and slippers, chased after him, signalling urgently. She was carrying something – a mince pie – which she passed through the car window before waving Dad off.

  Christian and I exchanged puzzled frowns before our eyes fell simultaneously on the discarded letter, which Dad had flung aside in his haste. We lunged with one movement, clashing foreheads and ripping the page neatly in half. When we had realigned the pieces, we read the following message, written with the dying gasps of a red biro.

  Dear Uncle Gordon and Aunty Pru

  I hope you get this. I don’t know your proper address.

  Mum is ill again. Please come.

  Love from Donovan.

  P.S. You said if I ever wanted to stay I just had to ask.

  In the kitchen Mum was still pulverising a bag of chestnuts with a meat mallet. There were shells all over the floor.

  ‘Is Donovan coming for Christmas?’ I asked, waving the letter. ‘Has Dad
gone to get him?’

  Mum nodded. ‘Which reminds me, I’ll need your help to get the spare room ready.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Aunty Barbara?’ asked Christian, hanging over the rack of mince pies.

  ‘Good question,’ Mum replied, deploying the mallet with increased vigour. ‘If it’s not one thing it’s another. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all in her head.’ She abandoned the chestnut pulp and turned her attention to the ham, now steaming on a plate. ‘Don’t repeat that by the way.’ Writhing with distaste, she took out a sharp knife and cut away the layer of white blubber, dropping it into the bin with a shudder.

  ‘Why do we have turkey and ham?’ I wondered aloud.

  ‘You might well ask,’ Mum replied. ‘I’m glad it’s only once a year’ – a remark which struck me as another example of wrong-headed adult thinking.

  She had always been disappointingly lukewarm about Christmas, viewing it as an occasion of unnecessary extravagance and greed. It made her feel physically sick to walk into toy shops packed to the rafters with expensive trash. Anything colourful and tempting would be dismissed as cheap and plasticky. This led me to the puzzling conclusion that two words I’d considered natural opposites in fact meant the same thing. Cheap = bad; expensive = bad.

  It was Teatime before Dad returned from bath. The journey home had taken twice as long because Donovan insisted on bringing his fish tank. It was the usual story: there was nobody who could be relied upon to feed them, and no telling how long he might be away. Dad had been forced to drive at the speed of a hearse to prevent the water sloshing about and dashing the fish against the sides of the tank. Beside him in the front seat sat Aunty Barbara, shrunken and shivering in her gerbil coat. She tottered into the house and collapsed into Mum’s arms.