by DH Smith
And watched her as she left the café and went out onto the concourse.
‘Breast cancer,’ said Mia quietly.
‘How do you know?’
‘I heard her talking on the phone. And saw her crying.’
‘Is she having an operation?’
‘What’s a biopsy?’ said Mia.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well she said that to someone. And an op or something.’
He thought some more. ‘Probably means tests,’ he said with a shrug. ‘And if they find something, well…’ He stopped, beyond the limits of his knowledge. ‘Could be more. I don’t know.’
She was thoughtful, gurgling the bubbles at the bottom of her glass.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘let’s get you back, if we are going to go stargazing tonight.’
Chapter 16
Jenny and George were in their youngest son’s room. There were posters round the room of super heroes, there were empty drawers on the bare mattress on the bedsprings. Jenny was emptying further drawers from a chest of drawers, first onto the bed and then putting the contents into large, blue plastic bags. George was on his knees filling a cardboard box with books from the bookshelf.
‘We’ve got far too much,’ he said wearily. ‘I don’t know how we’ll fit it all in.’
‘Could we leave some here? For a week or two,’ said his wife. ‘They’re not going to sell the house that quick.’
‘I can’t stomach asking him,’ said George.
‘You must.’
‘Jack wheeled him up to his house, you should’ve seen him – laid out like a dead pig in the wheelbarrow. I can’t get over that. He’d pissed himself. Utterly out to the world. What a state!’
‘I’d have spat in his eye,’ she said.
‘What’s the point when he doesn’t know?’ he said uncomfortably.
‘Stupid and childish it might be,’ she said, emptying another drawer. ‘But quite satisfying. Will you ask?’
‘I’ll have to.’ He looked wearily about the room, at their demolition. ‘Every time I see him, I want to snap at him, tell him exactly what I think of him. But I have to be on best behaviour, as if all we ever wanted was to be sacked and lose the house.’
‘You’ll need his reference,’ she said. ‘Don’t blow it, George.’
‘Bastard.’
‘What about the service company’s offer?’ she said.
‘What? Come back here for ten thousand a year less? Watch someone move into this house…’
‘A stopgap,’ she said. ‘It’ll be some money coming in.’
‘And see them DeNeuves every day…’ He sat on the bed. ‘It’d be so humiliating. They think they’re so much better than us. Born to lord it. They push us about like we’re sheep they can send to the slaughter whenever they snap their fingers.’
Jenny sat on the bed.
‘That Cathy DeNeuve has so much swank,’ she said. ‘She cuts me dead, unless it’s to tell me off.’ She turned to her husband. ‘What is it with these people? Why do they think they have the right?’
‘The next job I go for,’ he said. ‘A state school. No more of this top drawer snobbery. I’ll join the union, get some respect.’
‘I remember when we first came here,’ said Jenny, closing her eyes and wiping the lids. ‘I couldn’t believe it was all going to be ours. Before the boys were born… All these rooms, so many cupboards, the garden, the view over the playing fields and the lake…’ She sniffed, holding back a tear. ‘We’ve been spoilt here, George. But it was never ours.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘I do hope the next person looks after my garden.’ She wiped her eye with the back of her hand. ‘It’s no good thinking like that. It was never ours. This was always on the cards right from day one.’
George held her hand and squeezed it.
‘And here we are removing every scrap of evidence that we’ve ever lived here,’ he said. ‘So depressing. Packing seventeen years into boxes. And then taking them to the new place… Boxes, bloody boxes.’
‘It’s only temporary, George.’
‘So we’re going to be doing this again in a few months?’
She shrugged. ‘What else can we do?’
He stood up. ‘Let’s leave it for tonight. We’ve done too much already. And I can’t face any more. And you’re knackered too.’
She nodded. ‘Yeh. That’ll do for today. Get going again, first thing in the morning.’
‘I’m going to take the dog out. His nightly walk round the estate. I’m sure he thinks I own it. And he has no idea in his soppy head that he’s going to lose it all.’
‘And the kids,’ she said. ‘They won’t be coming back here. Straight to the new place. Won’t that be a come down for ‘em.’
‘Don’t start me off,’ he said. ‘But you know, now there’s no choice, it’ll be a relief to get away from here. To get on with life, wherever we are, and stop moaning. Sod the DeNeuves. They don’t own the world. It’ll be a blessing to see the last of them.’
Chapter 17
Cathy drove her car to the gate of the big house. She didn’t lock up but left all the car doors wide open, before coming up the path to the porch where Vicky and Ellie were waiting. They’d managed to drag Mr DeNeuve outside. He lay untidily splayed out on the porch, mouth open, hair awry, his breathing almost inaudible, apart from the occasional sigh.
The two women were exhausted from their efforts. Dribbles of faeces lay on the hall carpet. Ellie sniffed her hands. This was a dirty business.
‘How are we ever going to get him to the car?’ said Vicky.
‘He came here by wheelbarrow…’ said Ellie.
‘I’ll go get mine then,’ said Vicky. And went round the side of the house.
The sun had set. There was a red hue through the trees over the lake. Shadows had gone. There were no stars in a grey sky streaked with charcoal. I will wash everything before I go to bed tonight, thought Ellie. Scrub myself all over.
‘Are you still game?’ said Cathy.
‘I am one minute,’ said Ellie. ‘Not the next.’
‘Can you contemplate losing this?’ Her arm swept across the playing fields, along the trees and lake.
‘No.’
‘Keep it to the fore,’ said Cathy.
Their mother came round the house with the wheelbarrow. It was less substantial than Jack’s, built for lesser weights, for less strong users. She stopped at the edge of the steps, the barrow waiting for its load.
They dragged and rolled Mr DeNeuve down the steps sideways, and managed to get him in the wheelbarrow. He was face down, almost like a dead fish, his head poking out the front as if watching the wheel, his legs between the handles, the black shoes mucky. Cathy took one handle, Ellie the other and they pushed him along the path to the gate.
‘Keep off the flowers,’ said Vicky.
‘It’s not easy,’ complained Cathy as the two of them bumped along the path, trying not to touch each other and to keep off the side flower beds.
Once outside the gate, Ellie went in the car from the far door, crawled over the seat and took her father’s arms and head. Cathy pushed from behind, grimacing as she had to grip his shoes and ankles. As he came further in, Ellie got under his armpits and dragged. She stumbled and fell over his chest, her hands landing in the wetness of his groin. Shower, soap, shampoo for a week, she thought. She gave a last haul, let go, and her father fell off the seat, into the gully.
‘Leave him there,’ said Cathy. ‘I don’t want his mess on the seat.’
‘Take the wheelbarrow with,’ said Vicky.
They put it on the backseat just above Mr DeNeuve, and the three sat in the front. Cathy’s car had been chosen as it was the roomiest, with four doors and room for three front and back. They all sat in the front, Vicky in the middle, Ellie by the passenger door and Cathy driving. Ellie automatically went to put her seatbelt on before stopping herself. This was a slow drive without traffic.
Cathy had the lights on low, driving barely ab
ove walking pace as if this were a car in a cortege on the way to a cemetery. The occupants were silent, they knew where they were going, they knew what they were going to do.
Ellie looked behind her. The wheelbarrow was on the seat. She couldn’t see her father laid out in his ditch, but could smell the sweet, shitty smell which she felt must be all over her. And deserved to be. She thought of the alcohol they had poured into their father, adding to the amount he’d drunk himself. They were poisoners. They would be worse, she thought, as the car glided down the hill along the line of trees. She could stop them. Perhaps. And regret forever. Perhaps. But the car was running, her mother and sister with her.
It wasn’t done, till it was over. Like Hamlet watching his uncle at prayer. More hesitation, worry about consequences. Heaven and Hell. The car rode on. She closed her eyes. It was a short journey, the whole family here.
Cathy stopped the car about five metres from the lake. The water was choppy and as dark grey as the cloud above. Three honking geese homed in and skimmed across the surface, wings drawing in as they lowered to lake level, the drag of the water catching their feet and slowing them until they were floating.
Ellie got out of the car. It had grown chilly, she wasn’t dressed for an evening by the lake, her arms goosepimply. Cathy in her suit was warmer, but her semi high heels not quite right for the task ahead of them. As if they had both come to the wrong party. Mother wore a sensible sweater and flat, sensible shoes.
‘Get the wheelbarrow out, Ellie.’
She did so, in machine mode, barely thinking ahead. She left it at the car door. Then she went round the other side of the vehicle to push her father out as Cathy, over the wheelbarrow, dragged at his legs until he was in the bowl of it. Ellie came round to join her, and the two of them pushed and pulled until he was better placed in the barrow.
They took a breather. A half moon glowed in the clouds. Their father lay face up like a manikin, arms, legs and arms splayed over the side of the barrow. The extra alcohol had done its work. He was a lump of flesh and bone, living you might say, with as much feeling as a sack of potatoes.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ said Cathy.
She took one of the handles, Ellie the other, and they pushed the wheelbarrow slowly to the water’s edge. As they got closer the ground became softer and muddier, and the wheelbarrow made a track with its single rubber wheel and became harder to push.
They stopped at the edge of the lake, breathing heavily.
‘Do you want to say a prayer?’ said Cathy.
‘Don’t be stupid.’
Cathy laughed. ‘We’re in this together, Ellie. There’s no backing out. Daddy is in a wheelbarrow, utterly paralytic, and we are about to tip him in the lake.’
‘Then we are both stupid.’
She caressed her father’s cheek. It was warm with bristles growing through. She could still walk away. Having filled him with liquor, having barrowed him to the lake… She could turn away and leave it to her mother and sister.
But it would still be done. With her or without her, he would be killed.
‘I’m getting cold,’ said Cathy. ‘Let’s finish this.’
Ellie joined her at the side of the wheelbarrow. They tipped it sideways and Mr DeNeuve fell out into a few inches of ebbing water. Once settled, he lay face up, almost as if sleeping. Ellie was tempted to do up the other buttons of his jacket as he would do himself before an assembly. Cathy stepped into the water and beckoned to her sister. And the two of them rolled him over and over, until he was in deeper water and lying face down.
The sisters came out of the lake, their shoes wet and muddy with splatters about their legs, their feet icy cold. Their father lay like a long island a few feet off the shore, the water bobbing about his half submerged ears, his hair wet and mud streaked.
Might he yet turn himself over, thought Ellie, as a border collie ran splashing into the water.
They turned. And saw George coming in rapidly. Vicky was leaning on the car bonnet. George stopped once he was beyond the car, and looked at the three of them, the muddy legs of the daughters, the upturned wheelbarrow, the new island in the water. He switched on his torch, though it was barely needed, and shone it on the headmaster, bobbing facedown in the shallows.
‘What are you up to?’ said George.
‘What do you think?’ said Vicky.
Ellie could almost hear the ticking of his brain as he attempted to make sense of the tableau.
‘This isn’t a rescue,’ he said.
He walked up to the wheelbarrow lying on its side, and stared at the headmaster facedown in the lake. Ellie waited for him to say the obvious.
‘You were drowning him.’
And felt relief. Now someone else could take over. It would no longer be the prerogative of her family.
‘Are you going to save him, George?’ said Cathy.
He was at the edge of the lake between the two daughters, the water inches from his shoes, all focused on the half floating headmaster. The border collie came to his side and he grabbed him by the collar and snapped the lead on. He looked at the three women in turn.
‘You know what this is?’
‘We do,’ said Cathy. ‘Are you going to pull him out?’
George took a step back with his dog.
‘After what he’s done to me?’ He looked to Vicky, she hadn’t moved from her resting point on the car bonnet.
‘What do you want, George?’ she said.
He scratched his head and turned his back on the lake, as if in that movement he’d made his decision.
‘If I get my job back,’ he said to Vicky, ‘then I’ve seen nothing. If I get my house back, I was never here.’
‘Agreed,’ said Vicky.
He looked to the two daughters. Cathy shrugged indicating her helplessness. Ellie nodded.
‘Come on, boy,’ said George, tugging at the lead. ‘We’ll go for a walk round the school. Then home.’
They watched him head up the hill. He did not turn, and was soon between the trees and lost to them in the shadows.
Chapter 18
Jack and Mia had driven out to Barn Hill by Epping Forest. The sun had set half an hour ago, leaving a long summer twilight barely quelled by the time the sun is ready to rise once more. They’d set up the telescope in the hope that the cloud would break. The lights of the city were a few miles away, beyond the farm lane and reservoir. This was a high point, a good viewing spot. On clear nights.
They were on a bench eating pizza. Jack had brought his thermos and two cups. The two of them were dressed for a night of observing with scarves, woolly hats and fingerless gloves.
‘There’s not a single star,’ said Mia dismally.
‘It’s getting worse,’ he said. ‘There were a few open patches when we left home, but now even they’ve gone.’
‘I wanted to see Jupiter and Mars,’ she said.
Before leaving Forest Gate they had looked in his astronomy magazine. And both planets were well positioned tonight. Mia knew the names of the four large Jupiter moons and had brought pencils and sketchbook to draw a picture of the gas giant.
‘I am so disappointed,’ she said. ‘I was looking forward to it as me and Mum were coming up by train. Watching the sky, thinking it’ll probably be OK. And it might even get better. Instead it’s got worse.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, as if it were his fault.
She concentrated on her pizza, he on his tea. He would of course have liked it to be clear up here, but it wasn’t a bad place for a picnic and a chat. It wasn’t cold, and he was well used to the vagaries of the English skies. His philosophy was practical; expect the night sky to be cloudy, and from time to time you get a pleasant surprise.
‘Do people die of breast cancer?’ she said.
He hadn’t brought up this topic earlier and wondered how long before she did. To test his ignorance.
‘We don’t know that she’s got it,’ he said, which of course wasn’t an answer. And add
ed, ‘If they catch it early then most people survive.’
He was pretty certain that was true. That was the way it was with most cancers, get it early, cut it out. Maybe radium treatment, maybe chemotherapy. But he was floundering. His knowledge of cancer was limited. Not so long ago it wasn’t talked about at all or in euphemisms. The dreaded ‘C word’ and the like. And of course, people did die of it. But for the who, the when, the how – you don’t normally ask a builder.
‘If she dies, then I’ll have to come and live with you.’
‘She’s not dying.’
‘I was just saying…’
‘Well, don’t kill your mum off just yet.’
He was finding this doubly, triply, uncomfortable. There was his ignorance, there was an eleven year old. There was his future and Mia’s if she died. Which she wasn’t going to do. But if, how would he manage with an eleven year old to look after?
‘She won’t talk about it,’ she said.
And he knew it had to be serious, as you would talk about it if it was trivial. If it was just tests. And he felt angry at Alison for keeping them in the dark. She wasn’t on her own. There were others to be considered. Then again, he wondered whether he would talk. Say, bowel cancer or, more embarrassingly, testicular. The human body had its surprises.
‘Let’s assume it’s not very much,’ he said.
‘Why?’
He wanted to say because it’s easier, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t an answer but a fob off. A pushing away of harder truths.
‘Because we don’t know,’ he said. ‘Because your mum is still young. 36 is young, relatively speaking. Her health’s been good up to now. And let’s hope they’ve found it early.’
‘And if they haven’t?’
‘Let’s hope they have.’
He needed a serious chat with Alison, as soon as she was out of hospital. To know where they were both going as parents. He occasionally wondered whether it would have been better to be childless. And the different life he’d now be living. If Mia wasn’t conceived twelve years ago. But it wasn’t really a consideration. He was here, where he was, with an eleven year old daughter. With no plans to kill her off.