by Stephen May
Lorna writes SUNSHINE in capitals and then MEGAN and then ARMITAGE SHANKS and then pauses, sucking her pen. Seeing she is struggling Megan says, ‘You’ve got to factor in the exchange rate. This isn’t a one for one currency conversion. Our sunshine has got to be worth quite a lot of your English Liberal newspapers or whatever.’
Lorna smiles. ‘I never thought I’d say it, but sunshine gets boring after a while. I think I’ve been brought up to expect variety from my weather. Four seasons in one day that kind of thing. Am I spoilt?’
‘Totally. Jesus, girl, you’re some kind of princess.’
In the end the American list reads sunshine, Megan, Armitage Shanks, surf, hipsters, HBO, Ethiopian food, NFL, service, portion sizes, Michelle Obama and ‘a general attitude to life’. Lorna has been adamant in ruling out anything that was American but that she could get just as well in Yorkshire, and that turns out to be quite a lot of things. ‘You guys get proper squeezy mustard in England now? It’s not just tiny-weeny jars of that Colman’s crap? I’m impressed.’
When she was sixteen, Megan had toured Europe with her parents. England had been a blur of red buses, palaces, Shakespeare, surly desk clerks and shitty food served in tiny portions. And she’d loved everything except the food. Even the surly workers had had their olde worlde charm.
It is finally, as Megan says, a small list but full of high-quality big ticket items. Then there’s more wine and music that only they love. Music they can only play when it’s just them, when there are no guys around. The Carpenters. Grimes. Kate Bush. And then they trawl the net looking at random stuff. Megan shows her a gay porn site she’s found that specialises in very fat, very hairy men. Bears. It is as compelling as it is gross.
‘Do you have bears in England?’ asks Megan. ‘Because if not, you should add them to your list.’
And then they talk their way through a Woody Allen movie. One of the not so good ones. And just before bed they take a quick peek at some dating sites. It is very depressing. On one site six different men have described themselves as jazz-loving vegans. Megan puts her head in her hands. And then they count over thirty boys who somehow think it’s acceptable to say that the thing they most enjoy doing is ‘chilling with my xBox’.
‘Blooming heck, matey – we’re going to be single for ever.’
Lorna laughs. ‘Meg, no one in England has said blooming heck since 1955 or something.’
At some point Megan gets around to asking Lorna about her dad, about the whole reason she’d come out to America originally. And Lorna replies that it’s pretty hopeless, isn’t it? There’s hardly ever anyone in that bleeding office and when there is they won’t let her in. And in any case, even if she did see him it would probably end badly. The guy hadn’t given a shit about her for nearly thirty years, he’s hardly likely to come over all doting now, is he? Best thing is to go home and forget him, live her own life. And in any case she’ll have to go home soon when her visa runs out.
And, in the morning, when Lorna has to stagger from her bed to the living room to answer the insistent goddamn nagging of her cell-phone, which, it turns out, she’d left under her notebook, she finds that Megan has scrawled some things onto the end of her best of the US list. In the wonky scribble of someone who has consumed way too much pinot grigio, she’s written Bears, Dentists, Jazz-loving Vegans and, finally – in capitals – she’s put MEGAN’S FUNNY LITTLE WAYS underlining it many times for good measure. She’s also drawn rather a good cartoon of her own face. It’s way better than the sketches Jez does, and he fancies himself as a pro artist.
Whatever, it means that despite her hangover, Lorna is smiling as she says hello into her phone.
‘You sound cheerful,’ says her mum. And then does her unthinking best to put a stop to that.
They chat about this and that. It’s raining in Yorkshire. And the train drivers are on strike. And somebody they know has breast cancer. And they are trying to close the library. God, she misses England.
‘Mum are you sure you’re all right? You don’t normally call like this. In the morning, out of the blue.’
They usually make Skype appointments where they never quite judge the time delay, and so either speak over each other or leave unnaturally long pauses between sentences. Awkward. And also entirely fitting for the way her relationship with her mother has evolved.
‘Oh I’m fine . . . I’m just . . . you know, keeping on keeping on. But listen, are you still serious about getting in touch with your dad?’ Oh God. ‘Only I think I’ve found his address. His home address. It’s in somewhere called Russian Hill and I’ve street-viewed it and it looks very swish. Quite close to Nob Hill which might have suited him better. But not too far from where you’re staying. Lorna? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, Mum, I’m still here.’
Nine
POLLY
Irina calls Polly into the office. It’s a bit like she’s been called in to see the head teacher at school, though Polly was never one of those girls. Polly’s a good girl, but she’s pretty sure Irina wasn’t. Isn’t. You can tell by the way she looks, by the mean look in her eye. By the permanent frown mark above her nose. Her clenched bumface. She’s never said much about her life in Poland, but you can just tell she was more of a Rizzo than a Sandra Dee. Polly reminds herself that Irina isn’t a headteacher, a school bully or her boss. Polly tries to remind herself she’s just a volunteer. They can’t do anything to her.
Irina sits behind the desk and doodles for a while leaving Polly to stand, getting more and more nervous, until she’s sure she must have done something proper terrible. It’s probably only a minute, but a minute without any noise feels like ages. Polly likes to have noise around her. When she’s on her own, she likes to have both the radio and the TV on. Silence scares Polly and it’s like Irina knows that, so by the time she looks up and tells Polly that Mr Fisher’s son has died out in America and could she let him know, she’s relieved. Of course, she says, it’ll be fine, and she comes out of the office smiling because it’s turned out she’s not in any trouble. And she bumps into Daniel straight away because he’s seen her go into the office and has been waiting outside to show her this new thing he’s made.
It’s a really, really horrid experience actually.
He smiles because he sees Polly smile and he’s showing her this horse he’s carved out of wood which is a bit rubbish to be honest, looks like a deformed bear, or a dog, but he’s done it out of love. And probably because carving an octopus would be just too hard with all the legs and everything.
‘Very much a botch job, I’m afraid. They wouldn’t let me have a sharp enough chisel,’ he says. ‘Look all right when I’ve sanded it down.’
And Polly is so flustered she just comes right out with it.
‘Oh, Mr Fisher. Nicky’s dead.’
And she puts her hand over her mouth because she can’t believe it’s just popped out like that. And it gets worse because then he says, ‘Who?’ And she has to explain that his son, Nicky, has died on holiday in California, but he won’t take it in. Actually, he won’t even listen to her, keeps wanting to talk about the bloody chisel, so Polly ends up almost shouting. She’s like, ‘It’s true, Daniel! Nicky’s dead!’ And the door of the office opens and there’s Irina and she gives Polly a stinging look and she takes Daniel’s arm, leads him away and she’s murmuring into his ear, and Daniel is shaking his head. And then he starts crying, and even though they’re at the end of the corridor by now and just about to go into the library, Polly can hear his sobs and coughs and she’s just left there with this stupid wooden animal in her hands, and she feels all hot and dizzy and needs to run to the bathroom.
When she comes out, she goes straight to see Irina who’s back on reception and she’s quite casual, like it’s all no big deal, like she’s over it all. Polly asks her about Mr Fisher and Irina just waves her hand like she does. She tosses her viciously blonde curls.
‘Oh, we gave him a pill. He’ll be OK. Forget it.’
Polly tries to apologise and explain, but Irina just gets snippy. ‘I said, don’t worry about it. Really.’ And then she asks Polly to cover reception while she pops out, and, even though she’s a volunteer and doesn’t actually work at Sunny Bank, Polly says she will because she feels so bad about making a mess of telling Daniel about his son.
And so she’s on reception when a Russell Knox calls to ask how Mr Fisher had taken the news about Nicky. He explains that he is Nicky Fisher’s oldest friend, the person Nicky was staying with in California.
‘I feel responsible,’ he says.
Polly starts to say how it went, but she starts crying so Russell has to comfort her and tell her not to worry and he thanks her for doing something so difficult, which just makes Polly feel even worse. But this Russell, he’s great on the phone. He’s like a top counsellor and he laughs and says that Polly is the first person to say that. He’s interested in Polly, asks lots of questions about her life. And by the time the conversation is over she’s smiling, plus she’s given him her mobile number and her email just so he can check in with her about Mr Fisher from time to time. She wonders about asking if he wants to be friends on Facebook, but maybe that’s too much, though at least she’s talked to him. Polly has quite a few FB friends that she’s never had an actual conversation with, and some of those people are the nicest people she knows. And sometimes they have really funny status updates which she always comments on, and then they comment on her comments and all that.
Polly has to ring off quick when Irina comes back because she’s making a face and hurry-up noises, but she’s OK after Polly says she’ll make her a coffee. Polly finds nearly everyone’s OK if you fetch them a cookie and a brew, or a bit of cake maybe. People are easy to make happy. Little treats, that’s what people need to get through the working day.
Polly finds Daniel sitting at the piano. He’s not really playing it, not a song or anything, just odd notes and funny chords. Polly doesn’t think it’s a real piece at first, it sounds like a soundtrack to a moody horror film, one of those where not much happens but there’s loads of tension and suspense. She asks him if he can actually play.
‘Bartok,’ he says.
And she says, ‘There’s no need to be rude.’
This is just a joke though. Polly knows who Bartok is, but then she remembers about his son, Nicky, and she feels her cheeks go hot. She says, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Fisher, I can’t get anything right today. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
He just says, ‘Please, Polly, call me Daniel.’
‘Sorry, I forgot.’
‘I’m meant to be the one with a hole in his head.’
‘I know. Sorry, Mr . . . Daniel.’
And he laughs at her, but not unkindly. And then he starts on the piano again and Polly doesn’t know whether to stay or go. She’s just decided to go when he starts to talk.
‘I didn’t see Nicholas until he was nearly a year old. I was in India, you see, and it was a big job, you know, laying the—’ He stops. Polly waits. But he doesn’t carry on.
‘Laying the?’ she asks. He looks straight at her. His eyes all glittery and wet.
‘I can’t remember the damned word.’
‘Pipelines?’ Polly says.
He is delighted. ‘Yes! That’s it! Pipelines! Huzzah!’ He’s grinning all over his face now. It’s scary the way his mind bungee jumps. Down and up, down and up, his moods on a great big piece of elastic. And now his face suddenly changes again. He frowns and his mouth goes wobbly. Polly thinks maybe he’s going to cry again and she’s not sure she can handle that.
Now Polly rescues him for a second time. ‘You were talking about not seeing your son? Because you were in India?’
‘In India? Yes, India, right. Yes, I was in India . . .’
‘Laying pipelines . . .’
‘I know, I know. I was in India laying pipelines . . .’ He tails off again. Prods at the piano. It needs tuning Polly thinks.
‘And you didn’t see your son?’
‘My son?’
Gosh this is hard, Polly thinks. Mr Fisher – Daniel – is not having a good day. She takes a breath and counts to ten, tries to be understanding. She reminds herself that he has just been given some kind of medication and God knows what that was – could be anything in this place.
‘Nicky?’ she prompts.
‘Nicky? Oh, yes, right.’
And somehow he gets the story out in the end. How the job was too big and too important for him to travel all the way back to England just to see his first-born son, his only child as it turned out. Things kept going wrong. Strikes and protests and bombs and murders and corruption, and Daniel was the only man who could keep everyone doing what they were meant to. He knew who to bribe and how much to pay. He knew who to threaten or blackmail. And he knew the most about pipes and pipelines, even though that was actually the easy bit. He had to keep the whole thing on schedule and there was no one else the company could trust.
‘Sounds amazing,’ Polly says. ‘Not much time for kite-flying though.’
‘Kites?’ he says, lost. And so she has to remind him about being a kite apprentice and even when she’s finished she’s not too sure he really remembers. She thinks he might be pretending just to get her to stop going on.
‘I’ve got a hole in my head, you know.’
‘I know, Daniel.’
‘Really. I have.’
‘I know, Daniel.’
‘I could show you the X-rays.’
‘I’ve seen the X-rays.’
‘You’ve seen the X-rays? But they’re meant to be private. Confidential.’
‘You showed them to me, Daniel. On my first day here.’
‘Oh, yes. So I did. Sorry.’
You have to get used to this sort of thing in Sunny Bank. It’s still upsetting though, it’s always upsetting, and kind of worse this time because it’s Daniel who Polly really likes. She likes him so much that the fulltime members of staff sometimes tease her about it; they call him her boyfriend and tell Daniel, as a joke, to watch out, she might be after his money, and if it’s a good day he says that no, it’s his body she’s after. And they all have a good laugh about it.
Now there’s a pause, and Polly thinks that now she really should go because she doesn’t seem to be helping much today. They’re both having bad days, Daniel and her. Then he says something that people are never meant to say.
‘I never really liked him, you know.’
At first Polly is confused. ‘Who?’ she says.
‘My son. Nicky. I just never really liked him. As a person. I feel bad about it. But there it is.’
And she’s not shocked. Some people would be. Some people would be all, he didn’t like his own kid? Even when he was a little boy? Even when he was a baby? And they’d think it was an outrage and get themselves all riled up. But Polly knows about horses and she’s seen mares reject their foals. Happens a lot. They had one mare that was basically raped by a stud Paso Fino that got out from Mr Barker’s farm next door. He kicked down their fence to get at the mares and later the mare he did get to, Angelina, just wouldn’t have anything to do with her foal. Five of them – Polly, her mum, her dad, Mr Barker and his son Gerry – managed to restrain her and tie her up and get milk and colostrum from her, and they fed the foal from a bucket for a while but it – she – still died.
Quite often mares don’t just ignore their foals, they kill them – kick them right to death – and there doesn’t have to be a reason. People say that it might be because the mare was disturbed by people in the pasture when she was giving birth, or by other horses getting between her and the foal when she should be bonding. Or it might be that it was a difficult birth, or because her teats are sore and she associates the foal with the discomfort. But it could just be that the mare simply has an unpleasant personality – too dominant or something. Sometimes they say that a mare can sense if a foal is retarded or sickly and so just wants rid. And studs, well they never r
eally care about their foals anyway.
So it doesn’t shock Polly that some people can’t get on with their kids. She reckons quite a lot don’t, they just don’t feel they can admit it. She knows she won’t be like that though.
Daniel Fisher says, ‘I did try, but he just seemed annoying. Whiny, demanding, boastful. Generally petulant. Priggish too, as he got older.’
Polly’s not even sure what priggish means but it’s close enough to pig and to prick for her to get some idea.
‘Were you jealous maybe? I mean, he had your wife’s attention.’
‘I’m not sure Susan liked him that much either. He just wasn’t a likeable child. And later on he wasn’t a likeable adult either.’
Polly considers telling him about her horse experience but Daniel seems like he’s off into a dream and just sits there at the piano. And the silence goes on and on and Polly hates silence, but she tries not to panic or laugh or say something totally crap. Instead she thinks about sperm. Human sperm. She’s been looking at the internet and it turns out it’s pretty much as easy to order as horse sperm. There are even price-comparison websites to help you get the best value. She’s going to do some more research tonight. Daniel was right. Having a baby is very possible indeed. Who needs a boyfriend? Who needs a man?
She’s not sure how long they sit there. At one point Irina opens the door, gives her a sour-face stare, and goes again even though Polly is begging with her own eyes for her to come in and take over.
Later, at home, Polly googles Russell Knox but there are loads of them, more than you’d think. She’s only interested in Russell Knoxs who live in America, of course, but there are quite a lot of these too. There’s the real-estate agent in Fort Lauderdale, the Christian Science fiction writer from Arizona, an actor that used to be in Dynasty, a professional trombonist, and a Russell Knox who has a blog about derelict buildings. There’s a Russell Knox who breeds horses in Kentucky and wouldn’t it be great if it turned out that he was the right Russell Knox? But she doesn’t get her hopes up and two clicks later it turns out that Russell Knox Kentucky horse breeder is seventy-four, way too old to be a schoolfriend of Mr Fisher’s son. And why is she trying to find out about this Russell Knox anyway? It’s not like she’s ever going to meet him, is it? Myownbaby.com, that’s the site she should be on. It’s got lots of good reviews. That’s the site.