by Fiona Gibson
‘Hi.’ Harvey’s face breaks into a grin as Kerry welcomes him in. ‘Thanks for making time to see me.’
‘That’s okay,’ she says, taken aback by the fact that his phone voice and appearance don’t entirely match. She’d figured mid-twenties tops, gangly and puppy-like, but the man who stands before her in her cluttered kitchen is towering above her, a proper strong-looking man with dark, almost black wavy hair, playful deep blue eyes and a hint of stubble. Buddy is now sitting obediently on his cushion in the corner of the kitchen, as if in readiness for being judged.
‘Nice dog,’ Harvey offers. ‘Loves people, obviously.’
‘We’ve only had him a few weeks,’ Kerry explains. ‘We’re still new to the whole dog business.’
He smiles, casting Buddy a fond glance. ‘Nothing to it, not once you tune into what they’re all about.’
‘You’re a dog person then?’
Harvey nods. ‘Always had them, until about a year ago when my flatmate moved in. He’s allergic, unfortunately.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘So how’s he settled with you?’
Kerry pauses, tempted to gloss over Buddy’s quirks, but decides there’s something about Harvey that compels her to be honest. ‘He’s brilliant with us, loves being off the lead and charging about on the beach. But he barks like crazy at other dogs and hates being left alone in the house. He has a bunch of neuroses.’ She shrugs. ‘I guess he’s just a little needy.’
Harvey nods. ‘Separation anxiety’s pretty common. Maybe he’s had some sort of trauma or loss.’
‘Er, yes, his previous owner mentioned something like that …’
‘But dogs are like humans,’ he adds. ‘Pretty resilient. It just takes time.’
For a moment, Kerry is stuck for words, as if it’s not Buddy he’s talking about, but her. It just takes time. How long, exactly? She hates it, the way she can be fine one moment and utterly grief-stricken the next. A hazy picture, of a smudge of baby in a womb, floats into her consciousness.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she says quickly. ‘Anyway, let’s go through to the music room and we can talk about what you’d like to do.’
As he follows her out of the kitchen, Kerry silently curses the Impregnator for turning her into the kind of woman who could, literally, blub at anything.
‘So have you played much before?’ she asks, clearing her throat as they sit side by side at the piano.
‘Er, only an old Casio keyboard I have at home. I know middle C and the C major chord but beyond that I’m pretty lost.’
She glances at him, deciding she likes this smiley, amiable man; his eagerness is refreshing, especially after the gloomy twelve-year-old boy she taught this afternoon.
‘So what kind of music d’you want to play, Harvey?’
He shrugs. ‘Oh, anything really.’
‘Really? You don’t have a preference?’
‘Well, maybe not death metal.’ He grins.
‘How about I play something now, and you improvise here’ – she indicates the upper reaches of the keyboard – ‘just to get a feel for it?’
‘Um … okay.’ She starts to play, and after a few moments’ hesitation Harvey starts to pick out notes, tentatively at first, then relaxing a little.
‘Mummy?’ comes the small voice from the doorway.
Kerry turns to see Mia, pink-faced and sleepy with pillow-mussed hair. ‘Sweetheart, what are you doing out of bed? It’s gone nine, you’ve got school tomorrow …’
‘Got a tummy ache.’
‘Oh, have you? Come here, darling.’ Mia’s gaze remains fixed upon Harvey as she strides over and hops up onto her mother’s knee. ‘This is Mia,’ Kerry adds.
‘Hi, Mia, nice to meet you.’ He smiles and raises a hand in greeting.
‘I know you,’ she announces with a sly grin.
‘I don’t think you do, Mia,’ Kerry says. ‘He’s just come to talk about piano lessons.’
‘I do, Mummy.’ She turns to him. ‘You’re Harvey Chuckles and you came to my school.’
‘Harvey Chuckles?’ Kerry repeats.
‘Er … it’s sort of my professional name,’ he says quickly. ‘They booked me last minute at school when the other entertainer couldn’t make it …’
‘But I thought you said you organised conferences?’
‘Well, er …’
‘These conferences are for under-eights,’ she says with a smirk.
‘Er … I suppose so, yes.’
‘You had a yellow wig on,’ Mia continues, clearly in her stride now, ‘but we saw you take it off, and your face-paint, and make yourself back into an ordinary man.’
Harvey is laughing now, and blushing; the effect is curiously endearing, Kerry decides.
‘You weren’t supposed to see that part,’ he tells Mia. ‘Anyway, do you play the piano? I expect you do …’
‘Yeah, Mummy teaches me.’
‘We’re sort of doing it casually,’ Kerry explains.
Mia grins at him, swinging her legs from Kerry’s lap, stomach ache evidently forgotten.
‘We play together,’ she says proudly, ‘and it’s not boring learning like at school. Every time I get better ’cause that’s what Mummy does. She makes it fun.’
‘Well, that sounds great,’ Harvey says. ‘That’s exactly what I’d like to do too.’
‘D’you like being a clown?’ Mia asks him.
‘Um … I do,’ he replies, clearly fibbing, ‘although I wouldn’t say it’s what I’d like to do for the rest of my life.’
‘Yeah.’ She nods thoughtfully. ‘You don’t get old man clowns.’
‘Mia,’ Kerry cuts in, ‘you really must go to bed now. Come on, sweetheart.’ She lifts her daughter from her lap, carefully stepping over Buddy who’s been gnawing his rubbery hamburger toy at her feet. ‘Sorry about that,’ she tells Harvey as Mia reluctantly makes to leave the room, yet still lurks, clearly intrigued, in the doorway.
‘That’s okay. Maybe I’d better leave you in peace, though. I’ve taken up enough of your evening already.’ He smiles and, once again, Kerry finds herself warming to this affable man who seems to have attached some curious significance to a scrap of paper stuck to his wet windscreen.
‘See you next Saturday then,’ she says. ‘Is two thirty good for you?’
‘Yes, looking forward to it.’
‘If any conferences come up,’ she adds, ‘we can always rearrange.’
At least he’s able to laugh at himself, she notes as she sees him out, with Buddy barking in protest, seemingly grief-stricken at his departure. Still, that’s probably an essential quality for a clown.
‘I felt sorry for Harvey Chuckles,’ Mia murmurs as she and Kerry head upstairs. ‘Audrey-Jane was mean to him and I don’t want to be her friend.’
‘Oh, honey.’ Tucking her in and perching on the edge of her bed, Kerry gently brushes a crinkle of her daughter’s hair from her face. ‘I thought you liked Audrey-Jane. Didn’t you say she was being much friendlier at school?’
‘Yeah, sometimes. Dunno.’
‘Well, maybe we could ask her around for a playdate soon, or anyone else you’d like to play with – you don’t have to be friendly to someone who’s not very nice to you …’
Mia scowls, her bottom lip wobbling. ‘She doesn’t like me. Nobody does.’
‘Darling, they do,’ Kerry murmurs, aware of Mia’s beating heart as she holds her close. ‘You’re a lovely girl and you’ve got to know lots of people already …’
‘I don’t have a best friend.’ She sniffs loudly.
‘I know, but these things happen naturally when you get to know people properly. We’ll start planning your birthday party soon, okay? And you can invite as many people as you like.’
Kerry kisses her cheek, then clicks off the bedside light, aware of Mia’s large, dark eyes fixed intently upon her. ‘No one’ll come,’ she announces.
‘Of course they will. Why wouldn’t they? We’ll m
ake it really fun and I’ll do you a really special cake …’
‘Will Daddy come?’
‘Er …’ Kerry clamps her back teeth together. ‘I’m sure he will.’
‘Can Harvey Chuckles come too?’
‘Oh, darling, we hardly know him and it probably costs an awful lot to hire a clown …’
As Mia falls silent, Kerry gently strokes her hair, wishing she had the power to make everything all right.
‘Tabitha threw a sweet,’ she murmurs sleepily, ‘and it hit him on the head.’
‘Poor Harvey. That wasn’t very kind, was it? Come on now, love. I’ve got a song to finish tonight.’
Mia nods, but before Kerry has even reached her bedroom door, she calls out, ‘Mummy?’
‘Yes, Mia?’
‘Can I have my birthday cake from a shop please?’
‘Oh.’ Kerry frowns. Following the Egyptian theme which has gripped Mia’s imagination, she has started making tentative plans for a sarcophagus cake covered in gold paste icing and studded with jewels. ‘Why d’you want a shop cake, sweetheart?’
‘’Cause everyone else has one.’
‘I’m sure they don’t.’
‘Yeah, they do! I’ve seen pictures.’
Pictures of birthday cakes – because she wasn’t actually invited to see them for real. ‘Um … whose cake did you see a picture of?’
‘Cassandra’s.’
‘Just Cassandra’s?’
‘Yeah.’ We’re not talking ‘everyone’, then. ‘Will you cuddle me?’ Mia whispers.
‘Of course I will.’ Forgetting work, Kerry slips into the single bed, surrounded by a soft toy menagerie and holding her daughter close until she is breathing deeply, fast asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It’s true, Harvey does know about dogs. Since he was a little boy, he’s instinctively known how to develop a mutual trust and understanding, leading to a sense of security: crucial for any animal if he’s to be a fine companion and not make a spectacle of himself, like Kerry said Buddy does from time to time. He seemed like a real character, though. As he climbs the steep hill with the huge, posh houses which leads up to the golf course, Harvey reflects how much he misses owning a dog of his own. The walks, the games and companionship – all those rituals are good for a person. However, it would appear that those days are over. Harvey has let his spare room to his friend Ethan, who leaves a scattering of worn socks, pants and other small, unsavoury items in his wake. A pain, yes, and Harvey would far rather have the place to himself. But unfortunately, dogs don’t pay a share of the rent.
‘How did your lesson go?’ Ethan asks, peering up from the sofa in the small, neat living room that’s lined with Harvey’s books, CDs and the vinyl he can’t quite manage to part with. Ethan’s wiry red hair is unkempt, his mouth full of last night’s home-made chicken curry which is visible as he speaks. On the coffee table, a gummy-looking bottle of mango chutney rests on Harvey’s treasured copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – original seventies edition – and a small bowl is perched on Ethan’s lap.
‘It wasn’t a lesson,’ Harvey says. ‘Just a chat to see how we got on.’ He senses Ethan studying him with small, dark eyes – the eyes of a creature who rarely ventures out into daylight – as he hangs up his jacket on the hook by the door.
‘What was she like?’ Ethan asks.
‘Nice, y’know. Friendly. Interesting.’ Harvey shrugs, registering his flatmate’s naan bread draped over the arm of the sofa like an oily antimacassar. He could ignore this or snatch it away, inspecting the inevitable greasy patch beneath it and give his flatmate a lecture about his slovenly ways.
‘Old, was she?’ Ethan enquires.
‘No, not old. About our age, hard to tell really …’
‘Not one of those craggy old teachers who slams the piano lid on your fingers when you play a wrong note?’
‘Jesus,’ Harvey sniggers, deciding to let the naan thing go. ‘Did you have a teacher like that?’
‘Yeah, old battle-axe. Stank of violets and death. Still have the scars here.’ Ethan waggles his chubby hand, which Harvey knows to be scar-less because they’ve been friends since they were eighteen and started at drama college together. ‘So why are you having these lessons again?’ he enquires. ‘I thought you were skint.’
‘Just fancied it,’ Harvey says lightly.
‘’S’pose it could come in handy with the act,’ Ethan teases him. ‘A little musical interlude, make a change from the old one-man-band …’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
Ethan wipes a blob of mustard-coloured sauce from his chin. ‘Was she fit, then?’
‘Who?’
‘The teacher.’
Harvey blinks at Ethan, wondering whether to mention Kerry’s lovely green eyes and dark brown, wavy hair that tumbled around her slender shoulders. He wouldn’t have hesitated when they were younger. He’d have mentioned that strange moment in her kitchen, too, when it looked as if she were about to cry. How fragile she seemed, despite her breezy demeanour. Now, though, with no escape from Ethan and his arse-scratching tendencies, Harvey guards his privacy jealously.
‘She was nice-looking, yeah,’ he mutters with a shrug.
‘Married?’
‘Er, no, I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, so you noticed then.’ A bit of chicken flies out of Ethan’s mouth, which Harvey also chooses not to comment upon. The little shits who pelted him with sweets at the last party he did had better table manners.
‘Only because I was watching her hands while she was playing, okay?’
‘And you just so happened to check out her marital status.’
‘No, I wasn’t really thinking about that.’ Harvey rolls his eyes.
‘Oh, come on. Didn’t you want to make beautiful music with her?’ Ethan guffaws loudly and swigs from a bottle of beer. ‘You did, didn’t you? It’s obvious you fancied her …’
‘What’s obvious? Tell me one thing I’ve said that makes you think I was remotely attracted to her.’
‘That’s why it’s obvious,’ Ethan declares. ‘You’re being all guarded and secretive, going over there to talk about, um, Chopin or whatever. You don’t even like classical music …’
‘Oh, fuck off.’
Ethan smirks and picks up the naan bread, ripping a chunk out of it with his teeth. Harvey was right; the sofa arm now looks as if it’s been licked by a huge, oily tongue.
‘So are you going to ask her out?’ Ethan wants to know.
Harvey glowers at him. ‘How old are you again? She’s going to be teaching me, for Christ’s sake. It’s a professional relationship.’
‘Oh, is that what you call it?’ Ethan calls after him as Harvey escapes to his bedroom. ‘It’s about time you found yourself a decent woman, Harv. I worry about you. There’s got to be some desperate bird out there who’d be willing to do it with a clown.’
Sinking onto the edge of his bed, Harvey takes a moment to compose his thoughts. Lighten up, he tells himself. He doesn’t get out much. Don’t rise to the bait … Plus, Harvey realises, he’s bloody starving, having forgotten to eat in his eagerness to meet Kerry. He gets up and pokes his head around the living room door. ‘Any of that curry left?’
‘Huh?’
‘The curry I made last night. Any left for me?’
‘Aw, no,’ Ethan says, dumping his empty bowl at his feet. ‘Sorry, mate, that was the last of it. But if you’re heading for the kitchen, could you get me another of those cold beers?’
Chapter Thirty
Rob knew he’d been expecting too much for Eddy to keep Nadine’s pregnancy secret. There was no big announcement, no collective gasp: just the office grapevine yacking away, triggering the odd bemused ‘congratulations’, plus a sense, Rob notes, that he has finally been accepted by the new team. As if he’s not the stuffy old duffer after all, and that being a cheat and a liar and making a girl half his age pregnant has somehow made him more … interesting. He’s a
ware of Ava throwing him a bemused look as she stuffs her ‘Chocotastic’ Pop Tart into the office toaster, and Frank and Eddy halting their murmured discussion as he saunters past. Meanwhile, Nadine has acquired a dreamy demeanour. In fact, she seems to have given up working at all in favour of aligning her pots of pens with their various neon rubbers and fluffy gonks on their ends.
Although he tries not to stare openly, occasionally Rob sees her take a brush from her red patent bag and actually groom a gonk’s hair. I’m going out with a girl who collects novelty pens, he muses, although ‘going out’ doesn’t really describe it. For one thing, on the nights he stays over at her place, they rarely venture out. They still don’t have a great deal to talk about, he realises. But they’ve watched a few movies, and she has taken to cooking strange meals – not triggered by any particular cravings but because, as far as he can gather, she’s never actually cooked much before. Last night she made some kind of Mexican beany starter, leaving an explosion of vegetable choppings and little puddles of bean juice in her wake. ‘I love cooking for you,’ she announced, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand as his eyes watered from all the chilli.
Then they went to bed. Rob has felt so wretched these past two months, it’s been a relief to lose himself with a sweet, young girl with a beautiful, delicate little body who seems, amazingly, to want him. What will happen, though, when the Bethnal Green house sale goes through? Although she seems to expect it, the thought of living at her place full-time makes him uneasy to say the least.
It takes an enormous amount of willpower for Rob to switch his attention back towards the half-written feature on the screen. His intro reads: ‘It’s Spring – get a six-pack in the time it takes to scoff a burger.’ Despite the gaudy Christmas lights winking outside, the issue they’re working on now is all ‘spring clean your body’ and ‘put the spring back into your love life’. (Eddy, ever fond of a cliché, has gone overboard for the ‘reinvent yourself’ angle.) Two issues containing Rob’s sex columns have already been on sale. To Eddy’s delight – ‘see, I said you’d be a natural, Robster!’ – they’ve provoked a flurry of emailed questions from readers, some of such a technical nature that Rob is flummoxed as to how to respond.