‘Animals,’ said the smaller one sympathetically.
Guy dried Hugo’s glasses on the edge of a soiled roller towel and handed them back.
‘And my shins,’ muttered Hugo, pulling up his trouser leg to take a look at the site of impact of the squaddie’s boot.
‘Come on, you’re okay,’ said Guy, nodding to the two witnesses to indicate that the situation was now under control. ‘Let’s go, shall we?’
‘What about that last drink?’ Hugo protested.
‘You can’t have it. You might be concussed.’ He urged Hugo out of the crowded pub, carving a path to the exit with an outstretched arm. In the Strand a cold drizzle was falling, making the pavement greasy, and releasing the smell of urine from the gutters. A red Routemaster shimmered to a halt at the traffic light beside them. ‘I’m hungry. Shall we go to Veeraswamy’s?’ Hugo suggested, as Guy took a step towards the platform.
‘No. This is our bus. You’ll have to come with me because I haven’t got any money,’ Guy said, impatiently. He wanted nothing more than to be back home. There was half a packet of bacon in the fridge which he could have on toast with mustard. His stomach gave a volcanic rumble at the thought of it.
They sat downstairs on the long seats, watching the blurred lights of the West End through the rain-streaked windows, the cold, damp air whipping at their ankles. Hugo seemed to fall into a trance, swaying gently with the rhythm of the bus, his eyes half-closed, then half way along Piccadilly he suddenly said, ‘I’m going to be sick’, in a voice loud enough to bring the conductor out of his lair. ‘Not in here, you’re not,’ he said, yanking on the bell wire above his head. ‘Off!’ As the bus slowed down Guy and Hugo stumbled off the platform on to the slippery pavement. ‘There’s a bin here,’ said Guy, pointing ten yards up the street.
‘No, it’s all right. I feel better now,’ said Hugo, momentarily regaining his balance, before doubling over and bringing up a torrent of watery vomit in the darkened doorway of Fortnum & Mason’s.
Guy felt his stomach lurch, and turned away, trying not to hear the heaving and splattering that continued behind him. Hugo straightened up, slack-jawed, groaning with relief, and Guy dared to look. Little threads of saliva stretched from his wet chin to the front of his jacket. He had tried to contain the flood with his hands and now they were dripping and foul. He held them out in front of him like alien objects. Guy felt in his pocket for a handkerchief, finally producing a compressed ball of used, dried tissue the texture of pumice. He passed it over apologetically, and Hugo grimaced before rolling it around his hands. Then he brushed his sleeve across his watering eyes and blinked hard. ‘It must be that blow to the head,’ he said at last. ‘Those bastards could have killed me.’
They probably would have done if I hadn’t come in, thought Guy. But don’t thank me. ‘Have you got enough money for a taxi?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps you’d better go home to bed.’
Hugo nodded. ‘You’re right. I’ll go and sleep off my concussion.’ He thrust a hand out into the road and within seconds a black taxi had detached itself from the herd and pulled up alongside them.
‘Is there anyone there to keep an eye on you, in case you go into a coma or something?’ said Guy over the clattering engine, praying the answer would be yes. The last thing he wanted to do was put Hugo to bed and play nursemaid all night.
‘Yes, don’t worry. My friends are used to looking after me.’ He settled himself in the back of the cab.
I bet, thought Guy.
‘Well, that was fun,’ said Hugo, through the open window, apparently without irony. ‘We must do it again some time.’ And then the taxi sped off, leaving Guy alone on the pavement to the realization that in his haste to be rid of Hugo he had forgotten to borrow his fare, and that he would now have to walk all the way back to Kensington in the rain.
Nina and Martin were still up watching the late film on Martin’s black and white portable TV when Hugo returned. Nina had cooked goulash and their half-full plates were still on the coffee table next to an empty wine bottle and a full ashtray. The meat had been tough and rubbery and neither of them had had the stamina to finish it. ‘I must have bought the wrong bit of the cow,’ said Nina. ‘I thought it was cheap. There are probably softer bits.’
‘The rice was all right,’ Martin was saying, kindly, when he heard a taxi pull up outside and a second later the sound of someone holding the front doorbell down.
‘Hurry up,’ called Hugo through the letter-box. ‘I haven’t got enough money for the fare.’ Nina and Martin had no money either, which was why they had stayed in with the TV and the cheap beef, but Hugo had no patience for Martin’s measured explanation. ‘There must be some in the house somewhere,’ he snapped. Finally Nina had resorted to opening the pay phone in the hall and paying the driver off in ten-pence pieces. They had promised themselves they wouldn’t do this: the money was supposed to be there to meet the bill.
‘What happened to you?’ Nina asked, when Hugo was back indoors, in the light.
He put his hand to his jaw. ‘I was set upon by two thugs in the Princess Louise. Out of the blue,’ he said solemnly. Nina and Martin glanced at each other. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened ‘out of the blue’.
‘You stink of puke, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ said Martin.
‘Well, it’s not surprising. I’ve got a serious head injury.’ And Hugo bent over and parted the hair on the back of his head so they could inspect his lump. ‘Anyway,’ he added. ‘It wasn’t a completely disastrous evening. I think I’ve found our Fourth Man.’
18
‘. . . Nineteen, twenty, coming, ready or not,’ came the singsong voice from upstairs. Erica and Jane were drinking tea in Jane’s sitting room while the four older children played hide and seek somewhere, out of sight. Baby Yorrick was propped fatly on the floor, supported by cushions, and twitching his arms in the direction of an activity cube, which he kept kicking out of reach. Every so often he would slowly sink forward, and Erica would stretch out her foot to intercept him before his forehead hit the carpet.
The two women had bumped into each other twice since Jane had called at the house a fortnight earlier – once in the supermarket and once at the school – though neither meeting could be called accidental, since both had involved a degree of contrivance on Jane’s part. Erica had made some remark about doing her shopping on a Monday morning, which Jane had remembered and followed up. They had nearly collided in the frozen food aisle. Will was standing in the well of the trolley, in an exact rendition of the pose illustrated on the handle and marked with an unambiguous X. Harriet was lashed into the seat, squirming, and whining loudly. It had not been practical for the two women to do more than exchange hellos and sympathetic grimaces before ploughing on. Since then Jane had walked down Erica’s road a couple of times though it was a cul-de-sac and therefore not strictly on the way to anywhere. And then today it was pouring, and Jane knew Erica was likely to turn up in the car to fetch Gregory, so she had loitered with a rather puzzled Sophie and Harriet near the Juniors’ entrance, in the hope of running into her again. All of which behaviour, Jane admitted to herself, was uncharacteristic and weird and not unlike the symptoms of infatuation. This thought had been brought before her again when, on finally seeing Erica emerge from a dented estate car in the rain without an umbrella and with two coatless children, Jane had felt her heart give one sudden syncopated lurch.
‘These spring showers catch a lot of people out,’ Jane said, as they drew level. It had poured relentlessly since dawn.
Erica gave a quick, wide smile. ‘My umbrella’s broken,’ she said, zipping the baby tightly inside her own jacket. ‘I used it for something else.’
Jane remembered the dead-crow-on-a-stick on the doorstep. ‘Walloping the mice?’ she inquired. Something about Erica suggested she wouldn’t be the sort to take offence at this.
‘No, no, nothing violent. Unblocking a drain, I think.’ She beckoned urgently to Gregory
, who was sauntering through the rain towards them. ‘I’d offer you a lift,’ she went on. ‘But I can’t fit you all in.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Jane. ‘We’re dressed for a monsoon.’ And they were – in raincoats, hoods, boots, and a huge golf umbrella which obstructed the full width of the path. Whatever she lacked in emotional resilience, Jane felt that in the practical matters of motherhood she more than compensated. ‘But come back for tea anyway. If you’re not too busy.’
‘You keep an orderly house,’ Erica said, absent-mindedly stroking the petals of the artificial flower arrangement on the coffee table. It was looking considerably less orderly since Erica and her children had arrived. The boys had brought several different games down from Sophie’s room and abandoned them half-assembled on the floor. Will had wet himself with excitement and was now running around in a pair of Harriet’s Minnie Mouse knickers while his trousers soaked in the bathroom sink.
‘I bet you’re the sort of woman who keeps change in the car for parking meters, and aspirin and plasters and spare tights in your handbag.’
Jane laughed. She hadn’t thought of carrying spare tights, but she would now.
‘If these flowers were in my house they’d have artificial greenfly,’ Erica went on.
‘I feel more sane if things are tidy,’ Jane explained, fighting the impulse to clear away the toys from the floor before the children had finished with them. ‘Perhaps that’s just the delusion of a madwoman.’
‘Do you feel mad? I don’t. I always think it’s everybody else who’s mad,’ said Erica, standing up to inspect the framed photographs on the wall. There were half a dozen studio portraits of the girls from babyhood up to the present, and a picture of Guy behind his desk at work. He was wearing his reading glasses – which he never otherwise used – to make himself look mature and learned, but someone had obviously cracked a joke seconds earlier as he had an unforced and most unheadmasterly grin on his face. Jane was very fond of that picture. The mantelpiece was three deep in still more photographs of Harriet and Sophie, in christening robes or party dresses, or on the beach.
‘I’ve hardly got any of the boys,’ Erica said, her inspection complete. ‘Which is a bit ironic really. I was quite good when Greg was little. But I wasn’t so diligent when Will came along. And poor old Yorrick. I think I’ve got one picture of him with his hand in front of his face. I bet you’ve got all those baby books filled in, haven’t you? First tooth, first word, first tantrum, first hangover.’
Jane admitted that she had. ‘I like to get things down in black and white before I forget them. Then when I’m old and sad I can dig out all the albums and remember.’ From above their heads came the sound of squeaking bedsprings and several pairs of feet hitting the floor. Jane was at the bottom of the stairs in a trice. ‘Not on the beds, please,’ she called in a much milder tone than she was accustomed to use on Sophie and Harriet when unobserved.
‘There are no pictures of you here,’ said Erica, when Jane returned.
‘Well, that’s because it’s always me behind the camera,’ Jane replied. ‘Anyway, I don’t particularly like looking at myself these days.’
‘Same here,’ said Erica. ‘In fact I think there’s a horrible old witch living behind all the mirrors in our house. And I’m the only one who can see her.’ She tugged a hank of greying hair from behind one ear and pouted at herself in the mirror above the mantelpiece. ‘God, it’s even worse here without the dust.’
‘There is one of me somewhere,’ said Jane, plucking an oval silver frame from the back row of the collection. It was a photo of her and Guy, taken pre-children, looking young and happy.
‘That’s nice. That’s not a wedding photo, is it?’
‘No. A funeral actually,’ said Jane. ‘I know it sounds awful, but it was my grandfather’s funeral and my aunt brought her camera along to take pictures of the rest of the family while they were all together. It’s the best picture we’ve got of the two of us. Much better than our wedding photos.’
‘You’re looking very cheerful,’ Erica pointed out. ‘Did you stand to inherit?’
‘No. But you know how you always get the giggles at funerals,’ said Jane.
‘I met Neil at a crematorium,’ Erica mused. ‘We’re second cousins. I inherited £5,000 and picked up a husband. That was a good day’s work for me.’
Sophie appeared in the doorway, her hands behind her back, head on one side in the pose of a supplicant. ‘Can we have a biscuit?’ she wheedled. The others had evidently nominated her as the most likely to succeed in this quest. Normally she would know better than to ask so soon before tea.
‘Yes, all right,’ said Jane, sensing that at Erica’s the boys probably had the run of the larder. ‘Take the tin up with you. But don’t go mad.’
‘Sound advice,’ Erica nodded, as Sophie scampered out to the kitchen. ‘I do envy you having daughters,’ she went on. ‘I always wanted boys because I thought they’d be easier and I’d be able to foster the cult of the mother and be adored like a Sicilian. But when I was pregnant for the third time I started to hanker after a girl. I think it’s the names. I could name a whole convent of girls. But it wasn’t to be.’
Jane glanced at Yorrick, as if he might be eavesdropping and feeling slighted. Until now she had always felt superstitious about articulating, or even thinking too hard about any such dissatisfactions, preferring to let them fester unexamined. ‘I only ever wanted girls,’ she said. ‘Only with me it turned out to be a case of “Be careful what you wish for”. Now I wish I had a son.’
‘Really?’ said Erica, interested.
Jane leant forward. The urge to confide was too strong. ‘It’s Harriet,’ she said, out of the corner of her mouth. ‘We don’t get on. She is actually a Fiend in Human Form.’
Erica looked dubious. ‘From a short acquaintance I’d say she was only averagely fiendish. She’s three, isn’t she? I mean, look at Will. He’s a little savage.’
‘But he’s an affectionate savage,’ said Jane. ‘He’ll hold your hand and cuddle you. Harriet won’t let me touch her. She hates me.’
‘Some children don’t like being touched. Some adults too,’ said Erica.
Well, that was true, Jane agreed. Guy had said much the same thing not long ago – with her in mind probably.
‘I suppose what I’m really saying is . . .’ Jane lowered her voice, conscious that she was about to break a taboo, ‘. . . I prefer Sophie. I can’t help it. She’s just . . . nicer.’ There, she’d done it: said the unspeakable. ‘I’ve never told anyone this before. Not even Guy,’ she went on, quailing at the thought of Erica’s disapproval. ‘It’s such a terrible thing to say. Like cursing the Holy Spirit or something.’
‘I’m sure you’re not alone,’ Erica said finally, though without, Jane noticed, admitting to similar tendencies. ‘And anyway, it’s only temporary. When she’s five she’ll be as sweet as an angel and you’ll forget you ever felt like this.’
‘Or she’ll be at school all day and I won’t notice it so much,’ said Jane. She didn’t feel optimistic about the prospect of change. Harriet’s personality had seemed stamped on her from birth. The moment of bonding – the two-way surge of tenderness, which she’d experienced when Sophie was a few hours old – still hadn’t happened.
‘Shall I put the kettle back on?’ asked Erica, whose cup was empty.
‘Yes. Sorry, I’ll do it,’ said Jane, opening the sitting room door and almost falling over Harriet, who was standing just outside dressed in the Witch’s costume Jane had made last Hallowe’en. Someone had attempted to crayon her face green.
‘Oh!’ Jane gasped, reeling backwards, wondering how long she had been there and how much she could possibly have heard or understood.
‘We’ve been doing face paints,’ said Harriet. ‘Can you do me a black tooth?’ Her heart still hammering, Jane took the black pastel and smeared it on one of Harriet’s tiny front teeth. ‘Don’t lick it off. It’s not good for you.’
/> ‘Will I die?’ asked Harriet, who was becoming keenly interested in death and brought it up at any opportunity, however tangential. Only the other day she had asked Jane during the minute’s silence in church whether Jane would die before her. She had seemed much relieved when Jane promised to try.
‘No, of course you won’t.’
‘When are they going?’ Harriet added loudly.
‘Soon,’ said Erica, joining them in the hallway. She had picked up Yorrick who was starting to grizzle. ‘Tell the boys they’ve got five minutes,’ she instructed Harriet, who scampered back upstairs, delighted to be the bearer of bad news.
‘We’re out of milk,’ said Jane, after a quick glance in the fridge. ‘I’ll nip to the garage. It won’t take me two minutes.’
‘Don’t bother. I’ll take it black,’ said Erica. ‘Or better still, forget the tea.’ Jane felt her spirits sag. In a short while Erica would leave, having made no further arrangement to meet and it would be up to Jane to skulk and contrive if she was to see her again. She didn’t feel she’d made an especially good impression; chances to shine didn’t tend to arise in the course of normal conversation. She felt an urgent and irrational need to detain Erica.
‘No, no. Don’t go yet. I’ll need more milk for breakfast anyway. Two minutes,’ she said. And she was out of the door before Erica could protest.
Guy decided to leave the after-school drink-up early. He’d had a headache since lunchtime and could feel a rawness in his throat which heralded the start of a cold. There had been inspectors crawling over the place all week, interviewing staff and observing lessons and rifling through the children’s work and shaking their heads over his strategic planning file and racking their brains for something negative to say about the place. In particular there had been one supercilious bastard to whom Guy had taken an instant and fully reciprocated dislike. He had described Guy’s leadership style, to his face, as ‘somewhat informal and idiosyncratic, but satisfactory’. Guy looked forward to further condescension when the written report was delivered. Everybody else was equally exhausted and demoralized, and desperate to get home; he’d laid on drinks and nibbles in the staff room but no one had the energy to celebrate with any conviction. And then to make matters worse, this afternoon Guy had come out of his office and slipped on a frog. He had half crushed its back legs underfoot as he skidded on the lino. Guy, who couldn’t even kill a spider, had had to hop back into his office with it still hanging from his heel and finish it off properly, and then wrap it in tissues and hide it at the bottom of the bin. When he emerged again a few minutes later, pale and nauseous, he found six more frogs in the corridor, and was wondering what makeshift frog-catching equipment might be had from the caretaker’s stores, when there was a commotion in the nearest classroom and thirty pupils and their teacher erupted through the doorway.
A Dry Spell Page 17