‘No.’
‘Rotten, isn’t it? They both have masses of brothers and sisters, but they all went to live in India or Canada or Australia – I have an uncle in South Africa, even. He sent me a real-life Zulu’s shrunken head – would you like to see it?’
‘I don’t think Zulus shrunk heads.’
‘It wasn’t shrunk by a Zulu – it belonged to a Zulu, as it were . . .’ She trailed off, puzzled for a moment before her face brightened again. ‘Anyway, it is rather interesting. Horrible, but interesting. You’re probably right though, being a boy.’
I laughed, astonished by her because I had never heard anyone talk so freely, so happily about nothing very much. She wore a bright pink and green tartan tam-o’-shanter and a matching scarf and mittens, muffled up like a little girl, her cheeks pink with the cold. Her eyes were the clearest, most brilliant blue, as lively as the sunlight on the lake. A strand of her thick, golden hair fell out from beneath her hat and she pushed it back, smiling at me.
Later – years later – the day I was sent overseas, she told me that in the park that afternoon she had wanted me to say something, ask something, just so she would have to stop talking. ‘You know how much I talk . . .’
‘No.’ I kissed her. Held her face between my hands and kissed her again and again, her mouth, her eyes. She didn’t return my kisses. She was crying, and I tried to comfort her, to say that I would be home in no time, no time at all. She only drew back from me, placing her hands on my chest as if to ward me off, her palms flat against my chest, pushing gently, her head bowed because she couldn’t meet my eyes.
Quietly she said, ‘Keep safe.’
I laughed. ‘I will, of course. You know me.’
‘Yes, I know you. I know that you don’t realise how precious you are.’
Precious . As if I was a stone dug from the earth, a hard, inanimate thing without feeling. I should have told her that I loved her. That, in fact, I had loved her since the moment in the park when she first smiled at me. I thought she didn’t want to hear me say that; perhaps she did.
In the camps sometimes we would receive letters, rarely, but sometimes the Japanese would allow us a little contact from home. For many men it was a great comfort; they would go off on their own to find a private place to read their letters from wives and sweethearts, from mothers and fathers. Needless to say, I received no letter at all. She thought I was dead. That’s what she told me, that was her excuse. She thought that I wasn’t the type of man who could survive. I was a will-o’-the-wisp, a fey boy who drew ducks in the park. She looked so shocked when she saw me on the street a few weeks after my return. Her face paled so dramatically I thought she was about to faint.
I wrote earlier that when I came home, I didn’t feel anything – and that’s true, in essence. That day though, when Carol stared at me with such horror – I was quite a sight, let’s not forget – I did feel that it would be better if she no longer existed. It wasn’t a very robust thought. I didn’t want her dead – didn’t want to kill her or even Jack. I just had an idea that it would be easier for me if she didn’t exist. As it was, we had to go through the rigmarole of greetings, of explanations, the awful, embarrassing smiling and hand-shaking it all entailed. Jack cried when he saw me. He actually cried – hard to believe; a tight-lipped, manly crying, but crying all the same. Guilt, I thought then, not caring very much, not feeling very much, except of course that runt of an idea that it would be easier for me to live if Carol had never been born.
I got up from bed and went downstairs. I began to draw, fitfully, finishing the picture for Hope. In the end, I picked it up and tore it in two.
Chapter 7
Hope sat on the edge of the Redmans’ pale silk couch, a plate of birthday cake balanced on her knee. She watched as Irene and her friends danced to ‘Move It’. Irene was a great fan of Cliff Richard. His records were piled up beside the gramophone on the sideboard, his poster had gazed down from her bedroom wall, seen when Hope had gone to put her coat on Irene’s bed. She’d noticed how big Irene’s bedroom was, and how pink and frilled and smelling of a sweet, violet perfume. Perfume bottles, jewellery boxes and a silver-backed brush, mirror and comb set were laid out neatly on the dressing-table that was complete with pink velvet cushioned stool and triple mirror. Hope, lingering in Irene’s bedroom a little too long, shy of returning to the thronged rooms downstairs, had imagined Irene sitting at this dressing-table each morning, brushing her hair, dabbing her nose with face powder from the silver compact beside the perfume bottles. Standing in front of the mirror, reflected in triplicate, Hope had smoothed down her skirt and thought how young she looked. Young and nervous and uncertain of whether to be ashamed or proud of the way she had jumped out of Peter’s car and walked away from him.
She’d gone downstairs and had hung about the edges of the dining room where guests helped themselves to the buffet that was spread over two large tables. She thought that perhaps she should take one of the stacked white china plates and a napkin and gather a few bits of food. But her nervousness had robbed her of her appetite, and besides, she believed she would look greedy, tucking into vol-au-vents alone in a corner. She smiled at a man who brushed past her, only to feel her face colour as he ignored her. Turning away to hide her embarrassment, she caught the eye of a boy across the room. He gazed at her. After a moment he raised his hand to his mouth and blew her a kiss. She’d felt her blush darken and had looked away quickly, bumping into Irene’s mother who had taken pity on her. ‘Come, my dear,’ she’d said. ‘Allow me to introduce you to some people.’
Some people had told her they knew her father and asked after him, asking too about those darling little brothers of yours. These people who knew her father knew also about her mother’s death. Hope couldn’t help noticing the expression in their eyes that over the years had become so familiar: pity, concern, curiosity all mixed together with a sympathetic smile so that she wouldn’t think them prurient. After all, the fact that she had lost her mother had been headline news for a few days that horrible winter. Young Mother Killed by Hit & Run Driver – Latest! Hope remembered how the newspaper-stands were full of it, at the time.
She had escaped from these adults and their questions to sit alone on the couch with her layered pink and white wedge of cake. Now she tapped her feet to ‘Move It’ and smiled to try and appear as though she was having a nice time. She wondered how she might dispose of the cake she couldn’t bring herself to eat because it looked so dry and sickly and because she knew the crumbs would spill down her dress. Thinking that she could perhaps slip the plate under the couch, she realised that the boy who had blown her the kiss was watching her. He turned to the boy beside him, said something and then began to weave through the dancing girls towards her. Irene caught his hand, laughing as she tried to make him dance, but he pulled away from her crossly, determined not to be stopped. As the song ended, the boy sat down beside Hope.
Watching Irene select another Cliff Richard record, he said, ‘I suppose you like him, too, don’t you?’
Hope glanced at him, only to return her gaze to the girls who had begun to dance again, not wanting to be polite to someone who had deliberately made her blush. Stiffly she said, ‘Like who?’
‘Whom.’ He snorted. ‘Cliff, as my cousin calls him.’ Suddenly he held out his hand to her. ‘I’m Guy Dunn, Irene’s distant, distant cousin. Hello.’
She took his hand and immediately he grasped it tightly and pulled her towards him. With his lips close to her ear he whispered, ‘Listen, and smile as you do. You see Irene’s brother over there? We have a bet that you won’t dance with me because you think I’m rotten for blowing you that kiss just now. He thinks you’ll freeze me out all evening.’ Letting go of her hand he sat back, his eyes searching her face. ‘You blush really easily, don’t you?’
‘No!’
He laughed. To her surprise he reached out and hooked a strand of her hair behind her ear. ‘I’ll lose half a crown if he wins the bet. So
– will you dance with me?’
He was gazing at her still; she noticed how bright his eyes were, as though he was laughing at her. Then she saw that there was something not quite right about his left eye; the green of its pupil seemed to have run in a jagged line into the surrounding white. She found herself frowning at him, fascinated by the eye’s strangeness. Instead of turning away, he touched his cheek beneath the damaged eye.
‘When I was six, a boy at my boarding school threw a dart at me. Bull’s eye! They thought I’d lose it, but as you can see . . .’
‘Can you see through it?’
He laughed. ‘Yes. I see you looking appalled and fascinated all at once.’ Softly he said, ‘What most people ask next is did it hurt?’
‘Did it?’
‘Can’t remember.’ He got to his feet in a quick, graceful moment and held out his hand to her. ‘Come on. There’s half a crown at stake.’
He was eighteen; he was only a little taller than her and slim. His dark brown hair was cut very short, showing off small, neat ears. She supposed he was handsome although she couldn’t bring herself to really look at him properly; she found herself glancing to one side of him, afraid that if she looked at him too directly she would seem too forward. And she had stared at his eye, and said ‘who’ instead of ‘whom’, so perhaps he already thought she was lacking in social etiquette. He held her lightly as they danced; his hand in hers was hard and dry and he smelled clean, like a beach that has had the hot sun on its sands all day. She wanted to lean in closer to him to inhale his warm, salty scent. Wanting this, she felt a softening inside her and was appalled to feel a blush spreading across her face and throat and skin exposed by her sweetheart neckline. When the music stopped, he stepped back from her and she thought he might tease her over this blush, but he only smiled. ‘Would you like to see the garden?’
Holding her hand, he led her through the crowded house and out onto a terrace, its steps leading down onto a huge lawn. Groups of guests stood about, laughing and talking a little too loudly; all evening, waiters had patrolled the rooms with napkin-wrapped bottles of champagne, filling the guests’ glasses so that no one was ever without a drink. Each time a waiter had approached her Hope had covered her half-empty glass with her hand; she thought the champagne tasted bitter.
Guy said, ‘So – this is the Redman mansion and grounds. Are you suitably impressed?’
She thought that he was the kind of boy who talked too much, confident that he wouldn’t be ignored or hushed. She was, she knew, intended to consider his showing-off as ironic whilst at the same time recognising his superiority, and so she made an attempt to smile at him as knowingly as she could. He only laughed.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m being an idiot.’ He gazed at her, his face becoming serious. At last he said, ‘I asked Irene to invite you to the party. I wasn’t going to tell you but I think you should know. I wanted you to come.’
She felt that same soft feeling inside her, as though he had touched her intimately. Imagining that he had, she found she couldn’t look at him, afraid of what her face might betray. He stepped closer to her and her skin tingled.
‘Hope?’ His fingers brushed against hers and she stepped back, stumbling as her heels sank into the soft grass. He caught her elbow.
Managing to look at him, she thought what a poor impression she must be making on this confident boy. Attempting boldness, she said, ‘Why don’t you show me the rest of the garden?’
There was a vegetable garden behind a high copper hedge where a square of bare soil had been dug over ready to be planted. There was a greenhouse full of plant pots, each stuck with a white marker to remind the gardener which seed had been poked into its compost, and against an ancient-looking wall an espalier tree traced its dark trunk and branches, clinging tight to its own shadow. Guy led her to a rough wooden bench beside the greenhouse. Taking off his jacket, he laid it over the wood so that it showed its blue silk lining. ‘I don’t want you to snag your dress,’ he said.
‘Really, there’s no need –’
‘Sit,’ he commanded. Then frowning he said, ‘You’re not really shy of me, are you?’
As she sat down carefully on his jacket, he sat beside her and took her hand again. Looking out over the broken ground he said, ‘This is my part of the garden. Uncle David allowed me to take over this little square. I grow things.’ He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and for the first time he himself seemed shy. ‘I grow vegetables, mainly,’ he went on. ‘Last year I entered the Biggest Onion competition at the allotment society.’
She laughed and felt him squeeze her hand briefly.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Idiotic, really.’
‘Did you win?’
He gazed at her. ‘No. You have to have been at it for years . . . I came third.’
‘Well done!’
‘Hope, are you laughing at me?’
‘No, honestly.’
‘Honestly?’ Then he asked, ‘Do you mind that it was me who wanted you at this party and not Irene?’ Quickly he added, ‘Of course, Irene was quite happy to invite you. She didn’t not want you here. Sorry, this is coming out all wrong.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Good. That’s good. Listen . . .’ His hand tightened its grip on hers as though he was afraid she was about to run away. ‘Why don’t you and I go to the cinema sometime?’
She thought of sitting in the Odeon with him, in the darkness, in the back row perhaps – or would that be too fast for a first date? Her friends at school talked about first-date rules, the length of time a kiss should last, the number of blouse buttons that could be safely undone, how there should be no touching below the waist – either his or your own. She remembered how Janet Gibson had shrieked at this last rule, saying how she wouldn’t ever, ever want to touch a boy’s thing anyway! Something had stirred inside Hope then at the idea of a boy’s anatomy changing just because he wanted you. She had known that she would want to touch it; she had wondered if this made her odd.
Guy glanced at her. ‘Hope?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like to go to the pictures.’
He grinned. ‘Friday?’
She nodded, holding his gaze, until it seemed that they were moving closer as if some gentle, outside force was pushing them together. Her nose brushed his; she felt his lips on hers, dry and soft, and she moved still closer as she heard him groan, a part of her embarrassed at this noise he made, a bigger part wanting to groan too. As it was, eyes closed tight, she pressed her mouth harder against his until she felt his hand on the back of her head, his fingers curling into her hair and massaging her scalp. And then she did groan, wriggling still closer to him so that his mouth opened wider, his tongue searching out hers as he moved closer too, so close he was almost on top of her, his hand below her breast to steady himself. He drew away, breathing heavily.
‘Hope . . .’ He closed his eyes and kissed her again, his hand moving upwards until it was light on her breast.
She pulled away.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s all right.’
He laughed self-consciously, looking away. She wondered if he felt as she did, so sensitive and engorged that if he were to touch her again, she would guide his hand to that place between her legs that she sometimes found for herself, wanting him to press hard – roughly, even – until she felt that blissful, shaming sense of release. He only moved away from her a little, clasping his hands together as if to stop himself from reaching out again.
He cleared his throat, a noise so self-conscious that again she found herself embarrassed by his betrayal of emotion. She noticed that he had an angry red spot just above his collar and another high on his forehead. When he had blown her that kiss earlier, it hadn’t occurred to her that such a boy might have spots or ever feel as awkward and self-conscious as her. He had seemed arrogant. She found herself wishing that some of that arrogance would return.
Catching her eye he smiled a li
ttle, almost back to the boy she imagined he was, partly granting her wish. ‘I daren’t kiss you again – you know that, don’t you?’
She pretended to be a tease. ‘Why not?’
He looked away towards the house beyond the copper hedge. ‘We should go back inside. Not that I want to . . .’
‘We don’t have to.’
He turned to her, giving her a long hard look. At last he said, ‘You’ll get into trouble saying things like that.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘Inside, now. You didn’t eat your cake.’
Peter was standing in the dining room, a little way from the French windows Guy led her through. He looked shy and out of place, even though Irene’s mother was chatting to him, smiling and laughing her light, tinkling laugh, doing her best to put him at ease. Except Hope thought she saw a look of desperation in Mrs Redman’s eyes, as though this strange man was really too, too difficult.
Hope guessed that he’d been worried about her, her seeming absence from the party. His face changed when he saw her, his expression one of relief that she had appeared. It was this look that she hated most of all the things she suddenly hated about Peter, the look that implied she was his concern, his responsibility, signalling to these people that they were somehow related. More strongly than ever at that moment, with Guy at her side, she didn’t want to be associated with this man who looked so pathetically eccentric beside the Redmans and their friends. To her shame she saw that he was wearing his most ancient-looking jacket, the leather patches at its elbows cracked, a button dangling by a thread; worse, its sleeves were just that bit too short, so that his big, bony hands stuck out and appeared even bigger.
Peter smiled with all the force of his relief. ‘Hope! There you are.’
‘Mr Wright,’ Irene’s mother said, ‘this is my cousin, Guy – he must have been showing Hope the garden.’
Guy thrust his hand out at Peter, confident and smiling, superior again. ‘Hello, sir.’
The Good Father Page 7