In a Good Light

by Clare Chambers

  I switched the music off and sat there, stunned, my heart galloping in my ribs. Donovan’s rant had left me completely winded. ‘Men don’t have feelings,’ I’d complained to Penny. I was inclined to prefer them that way, now that I had been on the receiving end of a tirade of masculine ‘feeling’. My legs shook as I walked towards the house. I closed the front door as quietly as possible, realising, with a fresh upsurge of indignation, that I would have to leave it unbolted in case he returned, and that there was nothing between us and our phantom enemy but a puny Yale lock.

  I crept up to bed, dodging the creakier boards, and lay sleepless and agitated for hours, wondering how I would ever face him again. I think in some unexamined corner of my mind I must have known it wouldn’t come to that.

  34

  MY SUBCONSCIOUS MUST have no sense of occasion. When I finally fell asleep, I slept soundly until mid-morning and awoke refreshed from a series of pleasant, rosy dreams. The quarrel of the night before seemed a distant event, trivial and easily remedied – an impression that wore off with the narcotic effect of the dreams. By the time I had showered and dressed I was fretting about my mishandling of the whole business again and wondering how it could possibly be resolved. Perhaps my remarks would have made some impression on his conscience and the money would, as if magically, reappear. But he had been so emphatic, so furious in his denials. Perhaps I should have told him bluntly what I’d seen. But I hadn’t wanted him to confess because he had no alternative. I’d wanted him to tell me because he wanted to tell me. Perhaps – a dark thought spread like spilt ink – I had made a terrible mistake.

  I tapped on his bedroom door but there was no reply, and when I looked inside it was clear the bed hadn’t been slept in. His car was still in the driveway where we had left it. He must have stayed out all night.

  I couldn’t hang around at home all day waiting for him to come back, so I borrowed Mum’s bike – Donovan’s restoration job a fresh reproach – and cycled over to Dawn’s. There was no one at home, so I rode right across the estate to Pam and Andy’s, remembering as I rang the bell that the family had gone to Minehead for the week. Andy’s car was not out front: I wondered if he had taken Pam to hospital. I was about to swing the bike round when Pam’s face appeared at the upstairs window, and she gestured frantically for me to wait while she scrabbled with the catch.

  ‘Oh, Esther, thank God someone’s come,’ she said, just her head and shoulders visible over the sill. My heart lurched. I’m going to have to deliver the twins! I thought.

  ‘You’re not in labour, are you?’ I quailed.

  ‘No,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’ve run out of biscuits.’ She disappeared from view and a moment later bobbed up again and said ‘Catch!’ and threw a small beaded purse down to me. Inside was a door-key and some change. ‘I can’t come down the stairs, or I’ll never get up again. Can you nip round the corner and get me a packet of digestives? Better make it two. And a bottle of Tizer.’

  I waved my assent, delighted to be of any assistance that was not obstetrical.

  ‘She’s not had the babies then?’ said the shopkeeper as she appraised my purchases.

  I shook my head. ‘Any time now,’ I improvised, pleased to be at the cutting edge of local gossip.

  ‘Oh, Esther, you’ve saved my life,’ Pam called out as I let myself in and climbed the stairs to the flat, which was identified even at some distance by the astringent smell of fresh paint. Through an open doorway I could see the nursery, newly decorated in shades of yellow with a border of rabbits running round the wall.

  Pam was propped on her bed against a bank of pillows, legs splayed, her once-pretty face set on top of a vast pyramid of flesh clad in grey jersey. An electric fan whirred in the corner, its head turning slowly from side to side in a disappointed fashion. As the breeze caught the hem of her T-shirt at each revolution, it lifted slightly to reveal a taut, shiny belly, strafed with red marks. Her navel bulged like an acorn. She received the bag of provisions with something close to rapture, tearing into the biscuits with urgent, clumsy fingers. ‘Big, aren’t I?’ she said cheerfully. This was the Pam who had lived on apples and yoghurt to fit into her wedding dress. ‘It’s all water,’ she went on, raising a puffy foot for my inspection.

  ‘Are you having the babies at home?’ I asked. I had serious doubts about her ability to get through the doorway.

  ‘No, it’s too risky for a first-timer. Especially with twins.’ She lifted her T-shirt and scratched her belly violently. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘It itches like hell.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ I said helplessly. I was conscious as never before of my twenty-four-inch waist, and resolved to make more of it in future. ‘It must be awful, just waiting.’

  ‘It’s not too bad,’ said Pam, taking a swig of Tizer. ‘I’ve got everything I need.’ She waved a hand at the comforts of her confinement: a pile of Danielle Steel paperbacks on the bedside table, a small TV on a bracket on the opposite wall, and a telephone.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ I said, encouragingly.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve had a few twinges today actually.’

  I jumped up. ‘Shall I phone Andy?’

  ‘No, no.’ She laughed at my anxiety. ‘It’s nothing major. You could give me a hand getting off this bed if you like. I’m dying for the loo.’ She tried to shuffle towards the edge of the bed, but ended up stranded on her back like an upturned insect. I had to roll her onto her side and hoist her into a sitting position before bracing myself against the bedstead so she could use me as a crutch. In the course of this clumsy manoeuvre I brushed against her belly and recoiled from its unexpected solidity. I had imagined it to be soft and doughy, but it was hard as a sack of rocks. By the time Pam was vertical we were both giggling and panting from our exertions. ‘You wait,’ she grumbled, hobbling towards the door on her bloated feet. ‘This’ll be you one day.’

  I just laughed, appreciating perhaps for the first time the many blessings of inexperience. Pam was someone whose independence and maturity Dawn and I had always envied: look at her now. I vowed I would never allow such an outrage to be perpetrated against me as long as I lived. If having children was compulsory, which I didn’t admit, I would adopt them fully formed.

  A while later Pam returned, looking calmer, and allowed herself to be repositioned on the bed. I had taken advantage of her absence to straighten the covers, brush biscuit crumbs out of the creases, and beat some air back into her crushed pillows. I took a couple of mouldering coffee cups to the kitchen and dumped them in the sink for Andy to deal with. For some reason I felt a simmering resentment against the man.

  Pam seemed overcome by these minute attentions. ‘Oh, Esther, it’s so nice to have some company,’ she said, grabbing my hand. ‘Will you come again tomorrow, if you’re not too busy? Only if you’re not too busy. I get so lonely with Andy out all day and Mum and Dawn away.’

  ‘Okay,’ I shrugged, unused to finding myself in demand.

  ‘Just ring the bell and I’ll throw the key down,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry if something comes up and you can’t make it.’

  ‘Nothing will come up,’ I assured her. ‘Nothing ever does.’ Prophecy was never one of my gifts.

  On my way home I took a detour to the craft fair at the church hall to find a present for Penny, whose birthday it was that day. She was coming round in the evening to receive due homage before Christian took her out to a Greek restaurant in Fitzrovia where they smashed plates for fun, a notion that appalled Mum, who considered it roughly equivalent to the excesses associated with the Fall of Rome.

  I had amassed plenty of babysitting money now, and wanted to get her something special, but most of the stalls offered nothing but pointless domestic fripperies that seemed to date from the remotest periods of antiquity. Crocheted antimacassars, quilted tissue-box covers and padded coat hangers were unthinkable, even as a joke.

  At one of the tables, Mrs Probert, one of Mum’s old adversaries from the Mothers’ Union, was
selling hand-knitted baby clothes, so I bought two pairs of bootees for Pam’s twins – primrose yellow to match the nursery walls. Mrs Probert raised her crayoned eyebrows as I handed over the money, and I replied with a mysterious smile. It would be all over the parish by tomorrow.

  I was beginning to regret leaving my errand until the last minute, as there was clearly nothing suitable amongst this selection of chutney and old lace, when I noticed, stuck in the furthest corner, a man of about Dad’s age selling pieces of turned wood and polished stones, as well as chunks of rose quartz and amethyst. This was more like it. It didn’t take me long to settle on a dark green agate egg, which sat heavily in the palm of my hand, cold and smooth and reassuring. The sensation was so pleasant that I was tempted to buy one for myself, but to do that would somehow cheapen the gift itself, so I gave myself a good stern talking to, and found I could do without one pretty well. The man, who seemed delighted to have made a sale, put the egg in a sturdy oval box wadded with packing straw, as though there was a chance of it hatching, and I went on my way thoroughly satisfied.

  All these tasks had done an excellent job of filling up the day and distracting me from the matter of Donovan. The knowledge that he remained to be faced had been there in the background, ticking away with the insistence of a clock in an otherwise silent room. Nevertheless, as I rode home with the sun on my back, flying down Knots Lane at full tilt on the strength of those new brakes, I felt suddenly optimistic. Maybe it was the weather, or that buying presents really does confer benefits on the giver, or perhaps I was simply appreciating my freedom in contrast to Pam’s confinement: whatever the reason, I found myself laughing out loud. It may as well be recorded. It would be a long, long time before I was that happy again.

  Donovan’s car was not in the driveway. Reprieve! I thought, and then moments later, Damn! If I was going to have to endure another scene, or even dredge up an apology, it had better be sooner rather than later. It was only as I was stowing my presents in the wardrobe that I was struck by a bolt of belated intuition. I tore down the attic stairs to the landing and wrenched Donovan’s door open without knocking. The sound of my footsteps echoed in the empty room. He had gone properly this time. Barely a trace remained of his occupancy; even the bed was stripped, the sheets and blankets neatly folded. Only a faint pattern in the dust on the bedside table, discernible to my fanatical eye, described the former position of his few possessions. The clock, the notepad, the book-with-photo. I opened the top drawer of the chest, and for the first time the handle stayed put. Another thing he’d fixed. I’m not sure what I was hoping to find. Some clue, perhaps, that he intended to return. But everything I saw suggested otherwise. I dropped to my knees and peered under the bed. A dark shape squatted in the fluff: the Raskolnikov hat. I dusted it and hung it on the doorhandle, just in case.

  I found Mum in the dining room trying to wrap Penny’s present – a cast-iron bootscraper – in a small piece of much-recycled paper. ‘I didn’t know what to get,’ she said, nipping off a length of Sellotape with her teeth. ‘Do you think it’ll do?’ Poor Mum. She didn’t have a clue about presents. Not a clue. And poor Penny, who wore the sort of boots that required specialist dry cleaning, rather than scraping.

  I looked at my watch. It was well past closing time. ‘It’ll have to, won’t it,’ I said. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been left behind by the modern world of consumerism. If she had her way we’d still be bartering chickens. ‘Donovan’s gone. Did you know?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Mum. ‘He went off at lunchtime.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘I think he’d probably had enough of us. There wasn’t much point his being here once he’d lost his job. It’s a pity: he was such a good handyman, but I couldn’t very well keep him here against his will.’

  ‘I wonder where he’ll go,’ I said, fishing for information. ‘He can’t go back to Bath, can he? There are tenants.’

  ‘He said accommodation wasn’t a problem. And he gave me a lovely fuchsia for the front garden as a thank you. I hope I don’t kill it.’

  ‘That was kind.’

  ‘Yes, it was. You know, I’m surprised he didn’t tell you he was going,’ Mum said. She peered at my face as though trying to read small print. ‘I thought you two were friends.’

  I shrugged. ‘We were. But not that friendly, evidently.’

  ‘Ah well.’

  I could have blurted everything out then: it might have given me some relief. But Mum, although sympathetic after a fashion, tended to face down displays of turbulent teenage emotion with a bracing pragmatism that left you strangely unconsoled. Besides, I was reluctant to admit my part in Donovan’s exit. I knew that Dad, especially, would not look kindly on my accusation of theft, however well-founded.

  Mum had given up trying to make the ends of the wrapping paper meet. The gaps were bridged by a weft of Sellotape. ‘There we are. That’s the best I can do. What did you get her?’

  I fetched the agate egg and unveiled it with pride. Mum looked at it, perplexed. ‘Whatever is it for?’

  ‘It’s not for anything. It’s just a pleasing object,’ I explained.

  ‘How much did it cost?’ she asked, and blenched at the answer. ‘Good Lord. I didn’t know you even had that much money. I suppose you know the sort of thing young women like better than I do. Penny’s a complete enigma to me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mum seldom ventured opinions about other people, but even so I had formed the impression that she didn’t much care for Penny. I’d put it down to standard-issue maternal jealousy.

  ‘Well, she has all these theories about social justice and equality and what-have-you. But in practice she’s an out-and-out hedonist. I can’t quite reconcile the two Pennys.’

  ‘What’s a hedonist?’

  ‘How can I put it? A pleasure-seeker. Someone who likes the finer things in life.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ I said, exasperated. ‘Only you could make that sound like a crime.’ Mum acknowledged the truth of this with a laugh. ‘Anyway, you’ll have to get to like her,’ I went on, ‘because she’s probably going to end up as your daughter-in-law.’

  Mum looked wary. ‘Is this prediction based on any particular information?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But it just seems likely. Sooner or later.’

  Mum gave me one of those eyes-closed smiles, expressive of superior wisdom. ‘I’m sure I’d feel very affectionate to anyone Christian chose to marry,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think for one moment that it will be Penny.’

  This potentially interesting conversation was cut short by the arrival of Christian, straight from his labouring job at the new Holiday Inn. He clumped into the kitchen, shedding clods of dried plaster and a nimbus of fine brown dust, in his habitual quest for food.

  ‘You’re eating out later,’ Mum reminded him, as we watched him dispose of the end of a cottage loaf and a slab of Emmenthal. He stood at the fridge, still browsing. ‘And Penny’s due any moment. Shouldn’t you get changed?’

  Christian glanced at his watch. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Plenty of time to get ready.’ He took the rest of the Emmenthal and went upstairs, humming, and presently we heard water thundering into the bath, as pipes all over the house began to knock and groan.

  The next to arrive was Dad. He was supposed to have stopped off at a bakery on the way home to pick up a birthday cake for Penny, but had predictably forgotten, and was immediately turned round to be re-dispatched. ‘You’re looking all preoccupied,’ Mum said, as Dad stood on the threshold, patting his pockets and chuntering to himself. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Bit of an upsetting day,’ Dad said. ‘One of my prisoners tried to hang himself. We got him down in time, but it still leaves you feeling rather shaken. I hadn’t even picked up that he was depressed. More depressed than anyone else, I mean. And then there was something this morning. I wasn’t going to mention it. But when I went out to the car there was a dead fox on the bonnet. More than
dead – mangled, in fact. I had to wash the windscreen, and then bury the poor thing.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Mum exclaimed. ‘Poor you. Never mind the cake, we’ll find something else to put the candles in. Penny won’t mind. You go and sit down.’ She steered him back into the sitting room and pressed him into an armchair, where he sat looking thoroughly unrelaxed. I made him a cup of tea while Mum hunted in the larder for a cake-substitute.

  Christian sauntered in, preceded by a spicy gust of cologne. He was wearing a salmon pink shirt, snakeskin boots with Cuban heels, and smart trousers. The fabric had a blue-black sheen, like birds’ feathers. In one hand he carried the Raskolnikov hat. ‘Where’s Donovan?’ he said. ‘His room’s empty.’

  ‘Gone,’ I said. ‘Packed up and gone.’

  ‘Oh bummer,’ Christian replied. ‘We were going to play squash tomorrow. I’d booked a court. Why did he go so suddenly?’

  ‘Did you say Donovan’s gone home?’ asked Dad, catching up.

  ‘Yes. He left today.’

  ‘What a pity. It wasn’t anything we did, was it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, snappishly. ‘I don’t know why you all think I’m the expert on Donovan.’

  ‘Touchy,’ said Christian, pretending to quake.