A Question of Guilt

by Frances Fyfield

  By night, the garden was better than he remembered, heavily scented, completely quiet, another world from his own. Light from the basement’s uncurtained windows made glowing squares around the tubs, giving them new and brilliant charm in the spotlight. Peter ducked beneath a bush and lay flat on his stomach, sweating slightly, suddenly unafraid in nerveless contentment. Resting his head on his hands, he fixed his eyes on the windows and waited for nothing. A large cat surprised him with a soft sound of curious welcome which concerned him until he raised a tentative hand to touch her, the touch becoming a stroke as she purred and curled aginst his hip, warming him.

  Then she came to the window, sat looking at pieces of paper as if perplexed, familiar flimsy sheets which he recognised from his own household as bills. On the days when one of these windowed messages arrived from the gas or electricity, the adopted Jaskowskis and their cousins endured a range of angry noises from Uncle Peter and for some days after, heat was at a minimum, blankets were worn at supper, and light was rationed with such severity that Peter read with a torch and all of them washed in semi-darkness before Uncle himself lost patience with austerity, and the mood passed. Here, light glowed sinfully generous from every window, revealing rich colours inside, different materials in the half-mess of a bedroom, a kitchen of red and white with wood among it, chipped and cheerful as an old postcard, the small room she occupied full of books, an old desk, a green reading lamp, and herself as centrepiece. No comparison with the place he was obliged to call home, none at all, not even a passing resemblance to Mary’s gleaming surfaces, closed doors, the clean and comfortless froth of her bedrooms, and all the pale business of the papered walls. No plants like these in various states of growth in every room, no dozens of tantalising pretty details, no kind face. He imagined her waving towards him, and shrank back, half wishing she could see him, terrified she might, determined to stay where he was.

  Long after the chill of the ground had stiffened his limbs and the warmth of the cat had ceased to protect, longer after she had disappeared from sight of any of the windows, Peter moved out of his daze, returning silently over the wall, out of the playground, running the easy mile home.

  There was no need to explain his long delay with more than a mumble: football practice was regarded as flexible, but he was already rehearsing unaccustomed lies for use on the many other occasions he would need to excuse his absence from the house so long after dark. By nature a child of transparent honesty, Peter became cunning in his invention of friends and his appealing description of their families. ‘Nick’s mum works in a bank; he says, can I go there after football, but she says I have to ask you first,’ hinting at all the normalities they would have approved and were scarcely able to supply in so crowded a household. Without such approval or alibi, he simply retired to bed and left his room secretly by the front window, and unnoticed after football, after nightfall on other evenings, he kept his watch in the garden.

  Again, if asked why he continued, he could not have answered. There would have been the shrug. It was not perversity or vulgar curiosity which made him seek out the playground, climb the wall, stretch out his undersized body on the ground, or sit behind the shrubs looking into that world of warmth of which the garden was only an extension even in summer. It was herself which drew him, slender and beautiful in his eyes, graceful and untroubled, and it was to Helen he came to speak in silent dialogue as if he knew her; she who would welcome him without challenge, understand everything he thought, approve everything he did, whose acceptance he trusted with a blind, unreasonable instinct and loved in return with a fierce worship all the better for her unreality, the more intense for never being tested. Artificial, but truer than Jesus was his belief that the woman and he could look after one another entirely as fate decreed. Only another oddity of a barren life for this to be such an unspoken arrangement, or that he, so used to the stifling of affection, should be happy to dwell in this silence of intensity, but he was content. He loved the very sight of her, wanted to protect her, and although he longed to touch, feel her ruffle his hair as Mam had done in that other lifetime, knew his limitations and did not presume on dreams such as these. Prone in the garden night after night, warm or cold among tickling grass, whispering insects, unfamiliar earth and silent life, he was content to see all he could see, watch as he would, know what he knew and imagine the rest. Speechless guardian of her calm, he was Helen’s private army.

  The interrupted vigil became familiar as weeks passed a hot city into a stormy summer, days of rain, miraculously dry darknesses if he had noticed, which he scarcely did. He so relaxed in the garden that once, instead of the shorter nap he might share with his companion cat, he slept for three hours and woke so cold he could only move like a puppet as he scrambled up the decaying trellis over the wall in a slow, dazed, clumsiness, arriving home at a walk, legs too stiff for running, faint and sick as he half fell through the window. And on that rare once, Ed was in residence, sleeping or pretending sleep. Peter was exhausted beyond caring; if Ed saw, let him watch him aim for his own uncurling space, where nothing short of earthquake would keep him conscious.

  Ed had been waiting, simple procedure compared to the unthinkable alternatives of waking the household or alerting fussy adults by the sheer betrayal such a step would involve. Brother was part of no other lives and although he might not have wished to exercise care himself, would ensure no one else did. He turned as Peter’s sleep grew profound, and stared at the ceiling, his hands cradling his head. Little sod: where had he been?

  Wary laziness made him resist the impulse to shake his companion and pull from Pete an account of this rebellious independence. Laziness and pride in not displaying curiosity, accompanied by the sneaking fear that his authority might be questioned. Ed closed his eyes, listening to the noise of the other’s sigh. The kid was tired. A girl? Was that the explanation? No, too young: to say nothing of too small. Friends, mates of the late night kind, but what kind? Watching from his pillow as the curtain moved over the open window, Ed was jealous of the company his brother might have acquired by stepping outside the charmed circle of his influence. He did not want Pete’s needs supplied elsewhere, required no rivals for Pete’s irritating respect, and loathed Pete having secrets which were his sole prerogative. Anger quelled as only Ed could quell it, along with the anxiety which feared itself; as much an example of love as Edward knew towards any breathing creature, a love nevertheless capable of strict control.

  Enough. The questions would wait for morning: Peter was his and remained his. Ed ordered sleep, obeyed his own orders.

  The day was hot and breathless when Peter woke to notice the grime of his hands transferred to his face and the sheets of his bed, omen for a day of trouble. Ed was up first, watching as Peter sprang from bed, thinly naked, late, groaning, scrabbling for clothes.

  ‘Get in the bathroom, Pete. Wash your face. There’s no one in there. Be quick.’

  Peter jumped, struck by Ed’s laconic words which were less of advice than command, words which summarised all his own guilty awareness.

  ‘Go on. I’ll turn the sheets. She,’ spoken with the indifference of dislike, ‘won’t notice. Do your feet as well, for Christ’s sake.’

  Peter shot from bedroom to bathroom like a rabbit, stood in the bath splashing away the remnants of Helen’s garden in guilty fury and shallow water, bracing himself for further shock, bolting back to the room and into his clothes. Aunt Mary regarded it as the pride of duty to provide clean shirt and socks every day, and for once it occurred to him to feel grateful. Ed, sitting on his own unmade bed, smoking towards the window, glanced at the closed face of his baby brother, and debated the wisdom of silence.

  ‘You weren’t in till late, Pete. Where were you?’ Ed was sounding mild and disinterested, but Peter knew better.

  ‘Football.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. What do you take me for? Football finished by half-past eight, not bloody midnight. Where were you?’

  Mulish silen
ce, the face shut, Peter turning away, folding his clothes as Mary liked, stuffing pens and unnecessary bits into the bag for school. He felt Ed behind him, towering, hands on his shoulders, large hands on small bones.

  ‘Where were you, Pete?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  At the back of the house was the clatter of voices and breakfast arguments. Peter’s left arm was twisted, deftly doubled high over his back, pulled tightly, bending him forward with a low, quick, scream of agony.

  ‘Where were you, Pete?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  Ed sighed, pushed the arm higher with greater strength than it had ever been pushed even in all those playground and back-shed bashings which had been endured in the days and weeks after Dad’s well publicised arrest, days when pain at home was a relief from pain outside it. Peter’s shoulder ignited with agony, and even as his mind drifted into the vacuum of it, he remembered how Ed had saved him once from the same bullying, identical means of torture to those inflicted now, the same humiliation, and a similar gasping conviction that in a minute, the arm would snap.

  ‘Where were you, Pete?’

  No louder than before, softer if anything.

  ‘In a garden. Hiding.’ Ed recognised victory, enough of the truth to release the hold. The pain was momentarily worse, and the water of shock in Pete’s eyes became tears of outraged sorrow.

  ‘Doing what?’

  Rubbing still averted eyes with one hand, moving the nerveless arm, keeping his face from inspection, Peter found a new cunning hidden in contrived hesitation.

  ‘Looking into windows. Watching girls. Those new flats in Sotheby Road, you can see in their bedrooms … I fell asleep.’

  ‘What were they doing?’ Ed was relieved rather than avidly curious since it was now the telling which mattered far more than the tale.

  ‘Larking around, three of them. Trying on clothes. I thought I’d wait until they’d gone, but I fell asleep.’

  ‘That good, was it? Good enough to make you sleep?’ Ed jeered. ‘Come on. What do you want with tits and bums?’

  ‘Only watching,’ mumbled Peter, content in his relief to feign shame.

  ‘You stupid sod. Leave it out, will you. Who do you think’d believe you if you got caught? Not the Old Bill, they’d beat shit out of you first.’

  He reached for another cigarette, a sign of relaxation and the cross-examination ending.

  ‘Happen often, this, does it? Spying on girls?’

  ‘No. Sometimes.’

  Ed snorted. ‘As if it’s worth it. Watch it. I’ll get you a video if you’re that bloody curious. And next time, don’t make me twist your bloody arm. Just tell me, right?’

  Peter had nodded, grateful for the end of the interview, the beginning of other endings, the shock of it driving him to school in a state of grief, edges tinged with disappointment, triumph, and loss. The loss of Ed, and the loss of himself to Ed was uppermost, as if Ed had wrenched away the arm instead of merely hurting it. Then there was the factor of fooling his omnipotent brother simply by using half a truth which was so far from the truth to achieve an easy deceit where he would never have tried to deceive. Peter would never become accustomed to lies; they made him twist and turn afterwards, and these unprecedented lies to Ed were the worst of the few he had ever told, but the greater misery was Ed’s behaviour. It was not the persistent stiffness of his arm which brought the disgraceful tears to his eyes in the privacy of the school lavatory, only the thought of Ed inflicting the pain, twisting the arm so thoroughly, Ed condemning him to that, treating him like the enemy, leaving them both diminished. All that trust exploded like a light bulb in the moment he had known one flash of hatred for the man-boy twisting his arm into pain and his mind into lies. If wavering before, he was lost now, if sinking, he was drowning: there was nothing but this aching confusion which he could not explain to himself and would never be asked to explain to anyone else. He would have liked to be allowed to cry, was all, to cry and be silly, to talk about anything at all, know someone would notice and not mind, not treat him as an obligation or threaten him to say what he needed to hide. He did not know what he wanted, except to know he had nothing he wanted, nothing at all. Except the garden and the Lady. He would be going back, whatever Ed did. There was nowhere else to lose himself, and the room, with or without Ed, would drive him mad.

  ‘Report: Family Jaskowski.’

  In a dark office, on a darker street, a large social worker shifted her seat, wished she could type, wished it was not seven o’clock, and wished she could read her own notes. One last thing to do, go through these scribbles, at least the headings, of one last overdue assignment before they became completely indecipherable. She would have to see them all again, the whole family: the report was interim, no one was being hit, nothing would change in a week or two, or three or four for that matter, no one on the ‘at risk’ register, no wrecks, no one drowned, yet, comparative luxury as families went, no right to interfere. Next week would do. Just read it through, and she’d be able to type it Monday; perhaps.

  ‘Mother and daughter well … mother taciturn, aggressive, but sensible, v. caring attitude to child … Listless when questioned about possible reuniting of family under one roof, doesn’t want to know.

  ‘Daughter, Katy: well developed, well adjusted child, unaware of family difficulties … mum certainly not transferring bitterness … (plenty of it), in that direction. Benefits received regularly: apply for special allowance. She could definitely wait until next week …

  ‘Stanislaus Junior: housed, with other two children, with aunt and uncle. Happy, well adjusted, gets on well with cousins. No wish to return to mother, even if accommodation could be found (which it can’t). Child benefit would help … advised aunt how to apply … Home conditions, crowded, not bad. Unimaginative parents, but can’t do much about that either. Don’t like visits from social workers …

  ‘Edward Jaskowski: Same household. Not seen on visit, no longer our concern: has now reached seventeen. See separate report re his probation. Aunt and uncle say they have no control there at all, but not disruptive, tho’ once was; they would like him to go as soon as possible, rarely sleeps there. Advised them no hope council accom. for him, but they believe he will leave as soon as he finds employment … Ha, ha.

  ‘Peter Jaskowski …’ She squinted. No time for the optician, not this year. Perhaps it would be an advantage to go blind. ‘P.J., aged twelve …’

  Ah, the problem, the casualty. That was why she had called there in the first place en route to the other house where that mother was threatening to kill the baby. Now she remembered.

  ‘… traumatised? Tranquillised? Not glue, definitely not glue. Unduly quiet, obedient, not disruptive but difficult, lack of reaction to anything much. No hardship at home, well looked after. School reports suggest excellent attendance, no truant here, but Aunty would see to that. Concentration poor, academic results (what, on the Hackington estate?) poor, lazy and inattentive, but reading excellent. No problems with other children since move of school. Chief interest football, but otherwise, very severely withdrawn, acute problems in communicating … Suspect mentally subnormal some areas? But not physical coordination, or literacy. Possibly disturbed?’ What had she written next? Yes, there it was, ‘… strongly advised child psychiatrist: but aunt and mother will not permit …’

  Poor little sod. She could recall him now, the only one in the whole family not built like a bruiser. Sweet child, scarcely a word from him. He would survive: he would have to survive, no callousness in that, simply pragmatism. In comparison to all the rest, her worry about the report had been a bit unnecessary when she came to think of it. Nothing was going to alter, because with all the will and pity in the world she had no power to alter it, not in the space of a month never mind a week. She put the report back into the Out tray with a sigh of relief, and promised herself a taxi home.

  Helen had found the boots in the garden on the morning of the wedding when she had escaped the fl
at to delay the still not final decision of what the hell to wear, a conclusion postponed by too much thought, and complicated by the promise of blinding heat. In only the second summer she was too new in her garden to have survived the novelty, still guilty for her ignorance, besotted with the freedom and contrasts so swiftly formed between winter wilderness and summer promise, reluctant to leave on a free, dawdling morning.

  There were the boots underneath a bush, dampened by more than a day, the grass flattened around them: football boots, with laces tied together for easy carriage, neatly placed and forgotten until she hooked them over the branches where they hung oddly lifeless and decorative, toes turned in, dead without feet. It was the boots themselves which surprised her, not the implications of the boots, which forced no new conclusion on a mind already anaesthetised with the sun, since she had realised for quite some time, weeks in fact, that the province of her garden had ceased to be her own exclusive domain from time to time. What perplexed her more and nagged her still as she sat in the garden with Geoffrey the same evening, hoping he would not notice the bizarre blossom of the offending bush, was the fact that she could not bring herself to mind. Whoever he was, the intruder who flattened her plants and comforted the cat, he meant no harm, and although that reaction was entirely subjective, based to some extent on a fear of finding out otherwise, she had promised herself to abide by it. At first, the rustlings and the obvious presence had alarmed her long before the sounds of him, never close, always noticeable, merged with all the other sounds of the evening, less predictable but only as alarming as the worst of them, friendlier than many. Perhaps her determination to leave it at that and hope that the interloper would return to recover his boots was based on the clear impression, gleaned from she knew not where but confirmed from his footwear, that she was not dealing with anything fully grown: more like a child, and only one child. All right, maybe a juvenile burglar, or midget rapist, perhaps the height of folly to make any other assumption, but for now, she was content, much to her own surprise, to give him space, to believe better of him than he might have asked.