Walking on Air

by Christina Jones

  Faith had replaced the receiver, scarlet with shame. She hadn’t given her surname – just in case Billie had done something really dreadful and Maeve and Declan had a fatwa out on all Pascoes. She’d just kept saying she was Faith, Stan’s wife, Pat and Miriam’s friend – you know – came in every Friday for cod and chips twice? Sometimes had a pickled egg . . . ? And eventually Maeve and Declan had seemed to twig. She went cold all over after the call, imagining the Squireses’ puzzlement as they stood in their Taunton bungalow staring at the telephone and trying to remember exactly which nonexistent customer at their chippy they’d just invited into their home.

  Well, she thought, heading towards the outer limits of the town, they were just about to find out.

  The bungalow, excruciatingly called ‘DunFryin’, was a blaze of bad taste. And that was just outside. Maeve and Declan must have got designers in to tart up Rustique. The Squireses appeared to have slightly overdone things in every area. There was an illuminated Santa Claus hovering sinisterly on the chimney pot, and several herds of reindeer strobing across the pebbledash with dizzying effect. At least, Faith thought resignedly, it was extremely cheerful.

  Unstrapping herself and instructing the children to stay put, she blinked at the pink and white chequered drive, the swathes of looped net curtains, and the army of primary – coloured gnomes doing everything imaginable amongst a dazzling perpetual shrubbery. No doubt, she thought, the garden would be neon bright with busy Lizzies during the summer. There also seemed to be a strange preponderance of black filigreed wrought iron.

  ‘Stay,’ she said again as Thad pinged his seat belt free with the ease of a junior Houdini and immediately started to release the others. ‘Stay for a moment and Granno’ll buy you some sweets later.’

  ‘McDonald’s.’ Thad’s fingers played with Lilac’s buckle. ‘McDonald’s, Granno. Now.’

  ‘Later, if you take your hands off Lilac’s seat belt. Nothing if you don’t.’

  Four pairs of eyes looked at her, then at each other. Four tiny Machiavellian brains ticked. Thad nodded and reluctantly moved away from his sister. ‘OK. But we can get out, can’t we? Delphi wants a wee.’

  Oh God. Faith counted to ten. She’d never had this trouble with her five. Never. They’d always seemed so placid.

  ‘Let me just go and see if Mr and Mrs Squires are at home first. I’m sure they’ll let Delhi use their loo.’

  ‘Lavatory,’ Mungo said. ‘Mummy says we should use proper words. Lavatory, not loo. And urinate, not wee, stupid!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lilac nodded fervently. ’S right. And penis, not willy. I haven’t got a penis, Granno. Have you got a –’

  Dear God alive! Faith slammed the door and sprinted up the dizzying checked pathway.

  ‘DunFryin’s’ bell played a few notes of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’. Three separate wind chimes clanged discordantly above her head. A whole shelf of crinoline ladies made from seashells peered at her. Faith just knew that there’d be a lava lamp in the lounge.

  The door opened. Declan – it had to be Declan – wearing a joke pinny with breasts and a suspender belt, and a pair of Marigolds, looked at her enquiringly. ‘If you’re from Save the Children, the dog ate the envelope.’

  ‘What? Oh dear. Is it all right?’

  ‘Dog’s fine. Envelope’s buggered.’

  Faith raised her voice a little above the onslaught of the wind chimes. ‘I’m Faith – from Willowbridge . . . I telephoned . . . ? Your wife – um – Maeve suggested I might pop in for a cup of tea.’

  This seemed to strike a chord. Declan nodded and peered closer. ‘Ah, right. Mind, I don’t recognise you meself, but don’t let that faze you. With all that grease and steam and what have you, we never really got a proper look at the customers. Never remembered any of ’em. Not the good ones anyway – it was only the ones that caused trouble that we remembered. Come along in. Maeve’s in the lounge area.’

  With the lava lamp, Faith thought, and probably something in fibre optics. She indicated over her shoulder. ‘I’ve left my grandchildren in the Land Rover. I – um – wondered . . .’

  ‘Bless ’em! Bring ’em in as well.’

  ‘They’re actually not very good indoors.’ Faith addressed the row of cross-eyed crinoline ladies. They all looked askance at this understatement. ‘Maybe they could play in the garden – oh, after they’ve used the loo – um – lavatory . . .’

  ‘Bit cold for ’em outside.’

  ‘They’re definitely better out of doors,’ Faith reiterated. ‘They’re used to the fresh air.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about them,’ Declan nodded. ‘I’ll take ’em off your hands while you and Maeve have a bit of a chat. I love kiddies. Love ’em. I’ve got two grandchildren of my own.’

  Not like these, you haven’t, Faith thought, jerking her head towards the Land Rover.

  Declan smiled at the four tiny faces gurning from the vehicle’s window, then pointed towards a pink archway completely smothered with fat gilt cherubs and lavishly hung with tinselled garlands. ‘You go through to the lounge and I’ll go and sort out the little ’uns. All right?’

  Grasping this lifeline, and hoping that Declan would at least remove his pinny before releasing the onslaught, Faith scuttled across an acre of mauve and tangerine floral carpet and ducked through the archway.

  Maeve was relaxing on a leatherette chaise longue, her fluffy-slippered feet only just outdoing the candyfloss- pink frills of the cushions. The entire room twinkled and sparkled with festoons like Santa’s grotto. A cinema-sized television blared out in a riot of neon colours. Faith wanted to punch the air. A lava lamp, glooping globules of orange and indigo, sat foursquare on top of it.

  Faith held out her hand. ‘Your husband said it was OK for me to come through. I’m Faith. From Willowbridge. We spoke on the phone . . .’

  ‘Lovely to see you!’ Maeve slid the slippers to the floor. ‘Dec’s just made a pot of Earl Grey and we’ll put an extra cup on the tray. You sit yourself down and tell me all about home.’

  Faith sat on a chintz chair and immediately disappeared into a mass of fondant fancy cushions, while Maeve reached over to a black ash china cabinet and extracted a Royal Doulton Rosebud cup. Telling Maeve all about home was going to be pretty tricky seeing that Faith didn’t actually live in Willowbridge and had probably only been into the fish and chip shop twice in her entire life. Still, she wasn’t a member of the Townswomen’s Guild for nothing, and within seconds she’d started regaling Maeve with scurrilous second-hand stories about people probably neither of them knew.

  Throughout all this, Maeve nodded enthusiastically and poured tea. Maeve, Faith thought, must have a direct line to the Royal Doulton factory. There were at least four of the black ash cabinets crammed full of Royal Doulton figurines. Or maybe, she thought, remembering the seashell ladies in the porch, it was the crinolines she was fixated on. Whatever it was, they certainly caught the eye.

  ‘QVC,’ Maeve said, following Faith’s gaze. ‘I buy ’em off satellite telly. Always have such lovely things, don’t they? Smashing, aren’t they?’

  ‘Smashing . . .’ Faith murmured in agreement. ‘Absolutely smashing . . .’ Her eyes travelled further round the room. There must be something that she could use here to get her on to Rustique and Billie.

  ‘So – um – how are you enjoying your retirement?’

  ‘Loving it,’ Maeve said, munching a Thin Arrowroot. ‘Although, of course, we’re not out of catering altogether. We’ve got a share in a restaurant.’

  Hallelujah! Faith slopped tea into her saucer. ‘Oh? Really? What – here in Taunton?’

  ‘No, bless you. Still in Devon. Just outside Bideford. It’s more an investment, really, although we do pop down from time to time.’

  ‘Er – a fish restaurant, is it?’

  ‘No! Real posh! Frenchified. The boy bought it, of course, to lose a bit of tax, but we’re down as co-owners. You should go sometime.’

  Faith nodd
ed, staring at the lava lamp. ‘I’d love to. It sounds really nice. So – er – when it opened, did you have a lot of publicity?’ She winced. It was far too contrived . . .

  It apparently wasn’t. Maeve wriggled her polyester shoulders in indignation. ‘I should say so! Reporters everywhere! And not just because of the restaurant, either! It was because of our boy. Always want to dig the dirt on him, bloody scumbags! If our boy wanted to set his old mum and dad up with a bit of a business to see them through their autumn years, then why shouldn’t he, I say!’

  Faith nodded again. This time she really hadn’t got a clue what was going on. Fortunately an ear-shattering scream and some high-pitched yapping from the garden pre-empted her next question. Maeve was instantly on her feet. ‘Sounds like Dec’s having a bit of trouble with the dog and the rotovator – he’s a martyr to the new technology. We got it off QVC – the rotovator, that is, not the dog – and he never reads the instructions properly.’

  ‘I think it might be my grandchildren, actually,’ Faith ventured, being brave enough to place her cup and saucer on the mirrored veneer of the mock Queen Anne coffee table without dislodging a nodding Rudolph. ‘Declan said he’d entertain them.’

  Maeve sank down again. ‘Ah, that’s all right then. Lovely with kiddies, is Declan. We’ve got two grandchildren of our own. Would you like to see their photos?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Faith, who wouldn’t. She really needed to get back on course with ‘our boy’ and the reporters and Rustique before Thad or Mungo had someone’s eye out.

  Maeve wobbled her way across the room. Faith followed, carefully negotiating an obstacle course of spindly-legged tables and fat-cushioned stools. The photographs, all in ornate golden frames, showed a rather athletically handsome young man with his arm round a top-heavy blonde with corkscrew curls, and a boy and a girl of about Lilac and Thad’s age.

  ‘Super, aren’t they? That’s our boy, Kieran, and Fenella, our daughter-in-law. Lovely girl. Real class. Was top of the Sun’s Page Three list for years. Our boy spent a fortune on the breast implants. He’s got her down for her lips next. Halogen implants. And there’s our little Edward and Jennifer . . .’

  Edward? Jennifer? Huh! Faith thought. She wouldn’t be telling Stan . . . She peered at the photographs. ‘Our boy, Kieran’ looked vaguely familiar. Wasn’t he a pop singer?

  ‘The kiddies are really looking forward to Christmas. Dead excited.’ Maeve beamed. ‘Just like yours, I suppose?’

  Faith, still trying to work out why Kieran Squires looked so familiar, nodded.

  Maeve was unstoppable. ‘Me an’ Dec have spent a fortune on the kiddies this year, but then you can’t disappoint them, can you? The little ‘uns?’

  Faith shook her head.

  ‘They wants these things what’s on the telly and you just have to get them, don’t you? They’d give you hell on Christmas morning else wise. Opening their presents and not having what all the other kiddies have got. They’d never be able to hold their heads up at school, love ’em.’

  Faith nodded again. She wondered if venturing the opinion that children should be given only what their parents could afford, and enquiring whether Edward and Jennifer were even aware of the true meaning of Christmas, may be a little rash. What the hell –

  ‘Funny to think how it all started. I mean, I don’t suppose baby Jesus was thrilled to ribbons with what he got, do you?’

  ‘Bugger me, no,’ Maeve said with feeling. ‘Not if the poor little bleeder had been waiting for Buzz Lightyear or a Teletubby or one of them Furbies.’

  Faith bit her lips. ‘Er – you were saying about the – um – reporters and the restaurant . . .’

  ‘Ah, so I was. None of them reporters wanted to talk to us at the restaurant, you know. They all wanted to talk to the boy. With him playing in the Premiership and all. They all got the notion that he was playing away from home, the bastards. Said he’d been spotted in nightclubs with someone else!’

  ‘Shocking!’ Faith whispered. ‘How awful . . .’

  ‘As if he would!’ Maeve was bristling now. ‘With his lovely little family at home – and with a wife like Fenella, too. I mean any man would give his right arm to be married to Fenella, now wouldn’t they?’

  ‘They would,’ Faith nodded vigorously, pennies dropping like cents in a Las Vegas fruit machine. Billie had been one of the so-called scumbag reporters! Billie had discovered the identity of ‘our boy’s’ extra marital amour! Someone high up in the footballing hierarchy had put the frighteners on her! That’s why she’d skedaddled off to the anonymity of London and ended up in Amberley Hill! Bingo!

  Faith held out her hand. ‘Well, I won’t keep you. Thank you so much for your hospitality. You must call in and have a cuppa with us next time you’re back in Devon . . . Is it this way to the garden?’

  She headed for the back door to collect the children. She wasn’t looking forward to the journey home one bit – and she still had to endure the horrors of McDonald’s – but at least she’d found out want she wanted to know. One more port of call and the mystery would be completely unravelled.

  The Squireses’ kitchen, which was a rather strange mixture of distressed lime, stainless steel, and Shaker, opened out on to yet another chequerboard area. Green and yellow this time. Faith wondered if they did paving slabs on QVC.

  She looked over her shoulder at Maeve. ‘Your son . . . Kieran – he plays for one of the northern clubs, doesn’t he? Manchester United? Liverpool? Someone big like that?’

  ‘No.’ Maeve shook her head, trying to look modest and failing. ‘He started his playing career with Chelsea – did ever so well. He stayed at Stamford Bridge until his transfer three years ago. You may have read about it – it was a record signing fee at the time. We were that proud of him. He and Fenella and the kiddies still live in Chelsea Harbour, it being so handy for Putney . . .’

  Putney, of course. Faith nodded. She knew enough about football, because of Jon and Alex and Ben and Tom, to be aware that Putney were London’s latest Premier League glamour club. She wondered how Stan would feel about going to a football match . . . Maybe she ought to go on her own . . . Maybe she ought to – She paused in dismay on the edge of the bilious patio.

  ‘Delphi! Thad! You let Mr Squires and his dear little dog out of the greenhouse this instant or Granno won’t be buying you a burger!’

  ‘Do you know,’ Faith murmured sleepily against Stan’s back, ‘I really enjoyed today. Getting out and about.’

  ‘Hrmmph . . .’

  ‘So, I thought,’ she snuggled more cosily into the feather mattress, ‘that I might do it again.’

  ‘Hmmm . . . Pharph . . .’

  ‘Only next time,’ she slid her arm across the comfort of Stan’s ample waist, ‘it would be without the children, of course.’

  ‘Aahh . . . Hargh . . . Hmmm . . .’

  ‘And next time I thought I might be really adventurous and go to London. What do you reckon?’

  ‘Harph . . . Phrupp . . . Hmmm.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ Smiling, Faith reached over and switched off the bedside lamp. ‘I’m so pleased that you agree . . .’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Two weeks before Christmas, hurtling round the Spicer Centre’s shops, Jonah didn’t see the grey skies, or the pinched whey faces of the frantic shoppers. He didn’t even feel the biting wind, or hear Slade belting out ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ from a succession of in-store tannoys. Jonah was, as he had been for days, lost in a dream world of derring-do and gutsy bravado. Jonah was piloting the Stearman through summer skies of improbable blue, while some shadowy figure performed death-defying acrobatics on the upper wing.

  The figure had to remain shadowy, he realised as he grabbed a handful of CDs for his sisters’ children in the Virgin Megastore, because Billie had refused his wingwalking offer point-blank. Not that he’d been surprised that she’d said no, but the ferocity of her refusal had really stunned him. He’d had no idea that she’d find the concept s
o terrifying. During the last few months he’d thought he’d got to know Billie pretty well, and he cherished their friendship. He certainly wouldn’t want to alienate her by being insensitive to her fears.

  Her physical fragility always seemed at odds with her fierce determination, and he admired her hugely for taking on the warehouse and making a go of it. Also, knowing how frightened she was of flying, he’d admired her even more for her enjoyment of the impromptu trip in the Stearman. After all that, he’d honestly thought that she’d be up for a simple bit of barnstorming.

  He shrugged and battled his way to the checkout queue. Silly really, he should have realised that one short trip in a biplane wasn’t going to cure Billie of her phobia overnight. He supposed that would be as unlikely as someone dangling a toy spider in front of his face and then expecting him to welcome a houseful of tarantulas with open arms. He shuddered at the thought.

  ‘Ta.’ The assistant whipped away the CDs and his credit card, went through the motions, and handed him his carrier bag. ‘Happy Christmas.’

  ‘Uh? Oh, yes – thanks . . . You too . . .’

  Jonah fixed what he hoped was a festive grin and headed for Woolworths.

  Christmas, without Claire, had ceased to have much meaning. And Estelle, because of the casualness of their relationship, always took off to Austria on Christmas Eve and returned in the New Year. Siding, she said, with the girls she’d known since college. A rare treat for a crowd of single women who lived and worked in the mind-boggling, and male-dominated world, of engineering. Ten days of sheer enjoyment with no men, no sex, no problems.

  So, again, he’d be alone. A solitary Christmas was probably one of the most miserable times of the year. But this year, Jonah thought, once he’d bought the last of the presents to be sent home to his Isle of Wight family, Christmas Day would merely be a bit of a hiccup in his plans. Christmas Day, spent with several drinks, a seasonal meal of beans on toast and some very dumbed-down television, would simply be a time to stop and take stock ready for next year. Next year, once the festive season was over, he could start bringing his future into the present.