by Jo Verity
Beyond the kitchen door, his father was ranting, his words indiscernible but their meaning unambiguous. Lewis closed his eyes and rested his head on his knees. In a few months Tessa would leave home, would be living by her own rules, free to break them whenever she wanted to. Why couldn’t his father see that dialogue was more effective than authoritarian rant? ‘Softly, softly, catch-ee monkey,’ as Uncle Frank would wisely, and graphically, put it.
Now it was Tessa’s turn, her voice getting louder and more belligerent as it all came tumbling out. Once she got the bit between her teeth, she never knew when to stop. So many times he’d seen her reach the ‘bugger it’ point, when anything and anyone was fair game.
Lewis tiptoed into his sister’s room and pushed the diary back in the drawer. She had enough on her plate without discovering that her brother had been poking around in her secrets.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed when his mother tapped the door and called gently. ‘Are you okay, love?’
‘Not really.’
She came in and sat next to him, putting an arm around his shoulder. She was hot, smelling earthy and sweet, like parsnips just pulled from the soil. His throat ached. ‘I wish I hadn’t told on her. But I was scared Dad would ring the police.’ He tilted his head, resting it against hers. ‘I can’t stand it when they fight, Mum.’
‘I can’t either, love. But it’s not easy, being a parent. Knowing where to draw the line. Dad wasn’t always like this. Maybe you can’t remember, but he used to be full of fun. Then … well … you know. It’s the responsibility, I suppose. You’ll understand one day.’
‘Yes, but she’s safe home. He’s told her off. Why can’t he leave it at that?’
‘You know Tess. She won’t let it go, either. She rubs him up the wrong way. They’re too alike.’ Suddenly his mother looked vague and panicky, as if the quarrel going on downstairs had breached the defences of the little pink pills.
‘Do you realise what time it is? Your mother and I have been worried sick. And don’t bother to give us a cock and bull story about friends and coffee bars. We know where you were.’
Tessa’s heart was thudding but it seemed to be located somewhere in her throat. Voices sounded amplified and distorted, like they did in the public swimming baths. She stared at her feet. Her left shoe was scuffed across the toe where she’d caught it against a kerb stone. She must get some navy blue shoe polish and try and cover it up. Why was he going on and on like this? She was home in one piece – well – what more did he want? She kept looking down because, were their eyes to meet, he would know.
‘I lost track of time. I thought it was better to run for the bus than waste time looking for a phone box,’ she said, tempted to add that she was only home now because she’d forked out half a crown for a taxi.
‘Who is this man, anyway? What’s he after?’ He came closer, lifting her chin with his forefinger so that she couldn’t avoid his eyes. ‘You’re drunk, aren’t you?’
‘What if I am?’ She gave him one last chance. ‘Don’t you remember what it’s like to want – to need – to try new things, Dad?’ She softened her voice, ‘Look. I could have left school two years ago. I could be working in Woolworth’s, then you wouldn’t treat me like a child.’
‘Whilst I’m paying for—’
‘That’s not fair, either. It’s not the dark ages. You don’t own me. You haven’t bought the right to tell me what to do.’
‘If you’re living under my roof, you’re my responsibility.’ He jabbed the air with his index finger.
‘Fine. That’s easily solved. I’ll move out.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Tessa. What about your exams?’
‘Fuck the fucking exams. I’m not doing any more exams. Ever.’ She rode the wave of recklessness. ‘And I’ll be gone by tomorrow evening.’
‘Watch your language,’ her father growled. ‘And stop being so theatrical.’ He paused. ‘Where would you go, anyway?’
‘I’ll rent a room.’ The wave rolled forward, gathering speed. ‘I’ll get a job and rent a room. Lots of people do that.’
‘And what’s that going to do to your mother?’ Again, the blackmail.
‘I don’t know. I can’t be expected to live my life for someone else. It’s not fair.’ She had to save herself. ‘If you need to blame someone for the state Mum’s in, perhaps you should think back to what started it.’
Her father closed his eyes and dragged the palms of his hands down his face. ‘Look, we’re both tired. Let’s leave it at that, before we say things we don’t mean.’ He attempted a smile. ‘Tessa…’ He reached a hand out towards her and, on any other night but this, she might have taken it.
Chapter 11
Lewis lay in bed, listening. First, Tessa’s footsteps stomping up the stairs, followed by the crash of her bedroom door. Next, the front door chain rattling into place and his father’s irregular tread on the landing. Voices, murmuring and urgent, from his parents’ room.
He rolled onto his front, jamming his folded arms beneath the pillow, closing his eyes to exclude the moonlight which penetrated the gingham curtains. And he went on an imaginary cycle ride, something he’d learned to do when sleep wouldn’t come.
He rode to Kirsty’s house and, hovering at first floor level, peeped in at her window. She was sleeping, her hair still loosely plaited, that delightful smile playing on her lips. He tapped on the glass and she opened her eyes, not appearing at all surprised to see him. They waved to each other then he dropped back on to his bicycle and rode on. He crossed Buckingham Road and turned down Medway Avenue. The lights were on and the curtains open at their old home and he braked briefly before deciding to give it a miss. He’d stopped on previous night rides, creeping in through the unlocked door, visiting the familiar rooms but never coming across any of the inhabitants. Dream cycling was effortless and he rolled on, up Cranwell Road to the very top, leaning his bike against the wall of Cranwell Lodge. The lights were on here, too, but the heavy curtains were drawn. He pressed his eye against the pane, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone through the chink, but all he could see was a white parrot on a perch and a table heaped with sweets.
‘Lewis’. Tessa’s urgent whisper jolted him from half-sleep. ‘Shove over.’ She switched on the bedside lamp.
He wriggled to the far side of the narrow bed, making room for her to sit down. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Midnight. I need to talk to you.’
He sat up, squinting against the light. His sister was still dressed. Her hairstyle had lost its symmetry and the make-up around her eyes was smudged. She looked as though she’d been in a fight. A trace of scent – What was it called? Something pretentious – clung around her, overlaid by the chemical smell of alcohol.
He waited, expecting her to berate him for informing on her but instead she said, ‘Guess what, Lew?’
‘What?’
‘I’m leaving home. Tomorrow. No, today.’
He giggled. ‘Don’t be daft. What about—’
‘Don’t you start. Dad’s been through the whole rigmarole. Mum. Exams. Getting drunk.’ She sounded not the least upset.
‘But … but he’s right, isn’t he? You should think about those things.’ He was no longer sleepy. ‘Anyway, what’s the point of leaving now? You’ll be going to university in a few months.’
‘The point is I have no intention of going to go to poxy university. I don’t want to spend another three years doing exams. Having to justify every little thing I do. Being dependent on him for money.’
Lewis tugged his ear lobe. ‘Where will you go? How will you live?’
She shook her head and sighed. ‘God, Lewis, you’re starting to sound just like him. I’ll get a job and live in a bedsit. Lots of girls are working by the time they’re eighteen.’
‘But you haven’t got any qualifications.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Actually, if you remember, I’ve got nine O Levels. Anyway, you don’t need qualifications to wor
k in a shop. Or a pub.’ She clapped her hands. ‘I’ll work in the day and write in the small hours. This is the best thing that could have happened.’ She fiddled with the tail of her watch strap. ‘I may even go and live with Tony Rundle for a bit.’ The light was behind her, making it difficult for him to see her expression.
‘Rundle? How come? Has he asked you to?’
‘Not exactly. But I’m sure he’d love me to.’ Another pause. ‘’Specially after what happened tonight.’ She spoke clearly and defiantly.
Dreading her answer, yet unable to stop himself from asking, Lewis said, ‘What did happen?’
‘Don’t be dim, Lew. Isn’t it obvious? Don’t I look different?’ She stood up as if to give him a better view. ‘It’s funny though. It wasn’t at all—’
‘La-la-la-la-la.’ He rammed his fingers in his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, filling his head with noise. ‘La-la-la-la. I don’t want to hear. It’s disgusting.’
He’d know it would happen one day and it was inevitable Tessa would tell him it had. Of course she was never going to be a virgin bride. She was too impatient for that. He’d been hoping it might be with one of her harmless boyfriends – Geoffrey or Mike, his predecessor. Or with a nice, straightforward student whom she’d meet at Exeter. But allowing a bastard like Rundle to do that to her… As soon as it got out – and it surely would – she’d be labelled as another of Rundle’s tarts. It wasn’t that he was a prude. He wanted to have sex with Kirsty, but not for a long time yet and only when they both agreed that it was right. It would be private and special. He wouldn’t even tell Tessa.
He pulled the pillow around his head, clamping it against his ears, as if by doing so he could eradicate her sickening words.
*
At three o’clock, hunger drove Tessa down to the kitchen. She devoured a bowl of Sugar Puffs and two rounds of toast and jam. Whether she stayed or went, nothing in this kitchen would change and she took mental snapshots, fixing every detail in her memory. Click. The pans on the shelf above the gas cooker, arranged largest to smallest, from left to right. Click. The decorative plates tilted back on the dresser; the peg bag hanging on the back of the kitchen door. Click. The sickly spider plant on the window sill. She rinsed her bowl and plate and stacked them in the rack on the draining board. Click.
She slid the battered suitcase from the cupboard under the stairs and took it up to her bedroom. Opening it, she caught the hint of suntan lotion and pakamacs, trapped there since last summer when the family had spent a tedious fortnight in Weymouth. By the time she took a second sniff, the holiday had seeped away, leaving only the mustiness of the stained paper lining.
In the thick silence of the summer night, she sorted through her clothes, only now facing the fact that she needed some sort of escape plan. If she turned up on Gran’s doorstep, she would be frogmarched straight back without the opportunity to tell her side of the story. Uncle Frank was a good sport and he would definitely put her up for a night or two, but he would nag her to patch things up and return home. Besides, he was probably ‘on the road’ as he put it. None of her friends’ parents would welcome ‘that Tessa Swinburne’ – an insurgent who might contaminate their innocent daughters with her free will.
That left Tony Rundle.
Generally on Saturdays his mother made a cooked breakfast – bacon and eggs or beans on toast – but, when Lewis returned from his paper round, his father was alone in the kitchen, standing at the sink, a bowl of cornflakes in his hand. ‘No doubt you’ve talked to your sister.’
‘Yes.’ Denial was pointless.
His father indicated the table and they sat down. ‘I don’t know what she told you, but I may have been a bit heavy-handed last night.’ He looked exhausted, the sallowness of his face accentuated by stubble on his chin and upper lip. ‘We both lost our tempers. Said things we didn’t mean. Tessa’s strung up about these exams. And I was worried because … well, one day you’ll understand. Neither of us was thinking straight.’
Lewis ran his fingertips back and forth across the embroidery on the scallop-edged tablecloth. Hundreds and hundreds of silky stitches – orange, yellow and green – traced out bunches of marigolds in the corners and a circular garland in the centre. Gran had presented it to his mother a few Christmases ago, proudly flipping it over to show that the stitching was as neat on the back as the front. It seemed ridiculous for an old person to waste their remaining days doing something so futile.
‘She’s threatening to leave home.’ He paused. ‘Is that what she told you?’
‘Yes.’ Lewis realised that his father was waiting for him to expand on this. ‘She’s pretty determined.’
Dick Swinburne dropped his head and massaged his temples. ‘I don’t like involving you in this, Lewis, but I was hoping … your mother and I were hoping … that you might talk some sense into her. She’ll listen to you.’
‘She’s made up her mind, Dad.’ Tessa was going, Lewis was sure of that, nevertheless, seeing his father’s stricken face, he tried to soften his assertion. ‘Perhaps she needs to get away for a couple of days, to think it over. She’ll probably see that she’s being hasty.’
His father shook his head. ‘If your sister leaves this house today, she won’t be back. Who’d blame her? Who’d want to live with a deranged mother and a crippled father?’ It sounded pathetically self-indulgent and Lewis might have laughed had his father not begun to cry, dry sobs, like a chesty cough, wracking his body.
Lewis stood up and backed towards the door. ‘I’ll talk to her now.’
Tessa was rummaging through the drawer of her bedside table. ‘I suppose you’ve been sent to drum some sense into me.’ The contents of her wardrobe were heaped on the bed. Shoes, bags and books covered the floor. ‘Can I borrow your rucksack, Lewis? And, dearest, loveliest brother of mine,’ she jumped over the clutter, grabbing him in an exaggerated hug, ‘d’you have any cash? I’ll pay you back as soon as I’ve got a job. Cross my heart.’
He wriggled out of her embrace and studied the room. Her desk had been cleared of text books and the exam schedule was rolled up and jammed in the waste-paper basket. ‘Dad’s crying in the kitchen. It’s horrible. He’s asked me to stop you going.’
‘And how d’you intend to do that? Brute force?’ She poked her tongue out as if this were nothing more than a squabble.
Had she forgotten their pacts of loyalty, solemnly sworn and sealed with blood? Had she forgotten the days and weeks and months when their parents were out of their minds and they were everything to each other? ‘Please don’t leave, Tess.’
‘It’s okay for you. You’re happy sitting in your room, making model aeroplanes—’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Well you are,’ she snapped then wrinkling her nose added softly, ‘I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. We can’t all be the same, can we?’ She took his hand and kissed the back of it. ‘I’d be going in September anyway. You’ve always known that. So what’s the difference?’
There was all the difference in the world. He’d daydreamed of visiting her at university; sitting in smoky rooms with her student friends, discussing things that mattered; getting a taste of the life he might soon be leading. But, if she slammed her way out of their lives, his parents would pretend that she had never existed. He’d seen how easily that happened.
The curtains billowed out from the open window then sank back, as if sighing in resigned acceptance.
‘You can have my racquet money, if you like.’ He couldn’t bear to think of her begging Rundle for money.
‘Thanks, Lewis.’ She kissed him noisily on the cheek. ‘Cheer up. It’s the start of my brilliant adventure. I’m going to be a famous writer. I’ll make my fortune and buy a huge house and you can come and live with me.’
For a moment he was utterly happy.
Before Tessa reached the top of the road, the pressed tin handle of the suitcase had cut into her fingers and, in swapping her load from one hand to the o
ther, she had scraped her left shin. On the way to the bus stop she passed two neighbours, walking their dogs, both of whom enquired after her parents whilst taking in every detail of the bulging rucksack and the arm-wrenching case. It wouldn’t be long before the story of her leaving percolated through the neighbourhood. She found the prospect elating.
Tony Rundle might be dubious about sharing not only his bed but also his kitchen and bathroom with a girl whom he had met only twice, so it was vital that he liked what he saw when he opened the door to her. With this in mind she had selected a full cotton skirt with a stiff petticoat and a low-necked blouse which her father had once said was ‘unsuitable for a girl her age’. If she survived the first few minutes, she was confident she could charm Rundle into submission.
During the night, there had been plenty of time to reflect on what had happened. The ‘first time’ was supposed to be special but her recollection of it was indistinct, as if it were an out of focus film. The first part had been okay but what followed was ugly and crude. None of her friends had ‘gone all the way’ although they all bragged that they had come pretty close. She’d assumed that the truth about sexual intercourse – what it felt, sounded and looked like – fell somewhere between the flowery vagueness of romantic fiction and the bald facts set out on page eighty-three of the biology textbook. She’d dreamed that the act would be a combination of shared endeavour and gratification, all enveloped in some kind of spiritual enlightenment. How na•ve. Nothing had been shared. Rundle had rammed his way inside her and he might have gained satisfaction from the whole business but she hadn’t. On the plus side, it had been uncomfortable rather than painful, not unlike the discomfort she’d experienced when she’d slipped off the saddle of Lewis’s bike and straddled the cross-bar. Rather a small plus.
‘You got home okay then.’ Tony Rundle was staring at the case and the rucksack. He was wearing the tee shirt and jeans he’d had on last night, his hair was uncombed and his eyelids puffed with sleep.