‘I know sixty sounds quite ancient, Hil, and he’s balding, I’m afraid, but still quite a lad, it seems. He outdanced all the young ones, then turned up in the morning at the crack of dawn – well, before ten, anyway – with this huge great bunch of roses. God! It was embarrassing. My friends weren’t even up, so I went down, expecting just the postman or a canvasser or something, and looking quite unspeakable in my nightie and no make-up – came face to face with Harold, all smiles and aftershave, and with this bloody great bouquet done up in cellophane with yellow satin bows.’
Hilary smiled to herself. It was rather comic, really, both of them with suitors, both of them with flowers – Liz with roses, her with Easter lilies. And Harry, like Robert, had been phoning every day, though Liz was far less cagey about the content of the calls.
‘He’s really struck, he must be. That’s the sixth time he’s rung up. He says I’ve put the spark back in his life. Did I tell you he was widowed? Yes, seven years ago. He claims I’m the first thing that’s happened in those whole seven years which has made him truly happy. Isn’t that nice? I’m going up for the Bank Holiday again, staying at his house this time, instead of with the Jarrells. I must confess I’m feeling rather nervous. I mean, it’s all happening a bit fast. I tried to play it cool that first weekend, hardly let him touch me – well, just a cuddle and a kiss or two, but you have to be so careful nowadays. Mind you, the Jarrells say he’s safe enough – sort of pillar of the establishment, who’s always dipping in his pocket for local charities, and never seen around with floozies, or any women much at all. That could be a bad sign, of course – may mean he’s past it. Well, we’ll have to see.’
Hilary had mumbled some reply. Talk of sex always made her nervous, even more so now. Anxious thoughts of Simon began to gripe and fret again, as she dragged the spoon around her cornflakes. Supposing she’d caught some vile infection, the sort of thing the papers kept discussing? And what had made her bleed like that? Was …? She pushed both bowl and thoughts away, switched on the radio, tuned it to a Bach recital; refused to spoil her day with futile worries. Her marks had almost faded and she was determined that the whole memory of Simon should disappear as well, fade and pale to nothing.
She allowed the prancing harpsichord to change and lift her mood; tried to recall her small successes – as Robert said she must – not keep dwelling on her failures and her past. Di was really happy with her continued sewing skills, and she herself felt much less shy with customers – less shy altogether, could chat now fairly naturally, take part in conversations. She’d also learnt to set her hair without recourse to Delia or a salon, and best of all, had missed two Sunday Masses without drowning in a tidal wave of guilt. It still felt very strange, though, to stay at home on Sunday, lie around in bed; to change the pattern of nearly forty years. Even as an infant, she had attended Sunday Mass, dribbling in her mother’s arms, cooed at by the priest after the Ite missa est. It hurt – of course it did – to have Sundays hollow, vacant, but again she’d done her best to follow Robert’s thinking, impregnate that hollowness with mystery, opportunity.
‘And now Trevor Pinnock will continue his recital with Bach’s harpsichord concerto in …
The doorbell cut across the announcer’s velvet voice. Robert! Fifty minutes early. Thank heavens she was ready, in the blue dress that he liked, new blue matching earrings, and hair freshly washed in camomile. She’d despised herself a little, taking so much trouble, as if she were a teenager preparing for her first important date. That was all too near the truth, though. She dived out to the hall, feeling still an adolescent; stomach seesawing with a mixture of elation and sheer nerves. She opened the door, half-expecting some surprise; dragons in stiff cellophane with yellow satin bows. Her smile faded as she saw not six-foot Robert standing on the doorstep, but a small and grubby child, face defiant, hands thrust in the pockets of torn and faded jeans.
‘Luke! What are you doing? Why aren’t you at school?’
‘I hate school.’
As he spoke, she noticed that his two front teeth were missing. He looked strangely different with the gap, younger and more vulnerable, yet also sly, a Fagin.
‘What happened to your teeth? Did you trip or something, or knock into a lamp-post?’
‘No, they just felled out.’
She remembered now that children lost their milk teeth at round about his age. She still knew so little about children; was unsure even now what she ought to do with him – invite him in, or take him back to school.
‘Come in,’ she said, with a quick glance at her watch. She’d missed the boy these last few weeks. He’d gone back to his own home on the Monday before Easter, hadn’t reappeared. There’d been a fight with Stephen, which had somehow escalated, involving both Luke’s father and the school. Liz had shrugged the whole thing off, claimed children often quarrelled and they’d make it up eventually, and as for Craddock Senior, well, he’d obviously been plastered when he hollered down the phone, and was probably angry less with her or Luke, than with life in general or the VAT man in particular. Anyway, she said, it was probably no bad thing for Luke to spend more time at home, even with the problems there. So why had he turned up again, with the row still unresolved? Maybe fear of his own parents. From what she’d heard of boorish Mr Craddock, he wouldn’t be too merciful to any truant son, nor, for that matter, to any stupid woman who aided and abetted him. Unless she could dream up some excuse for Luke.
‘Are you feeling ill? I mean, you’ve not been sick, or hurt yourself, or …?’
He shook his head.
‘Well, I’m afraid you have to go to school, then.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘You do, Luke.’
‘Don’t.’
They were getting nowhere. She tried another tack. ‘What’s wrong with school?’
‘Everything.’
‘You used to like it, didn’t you?’
He didn’t answer, just kicked out at the skirting in the hall with one scuffed mini bovver boot. She winced for Liz’s paint. ‘Look, let’s go into the kitchen and have a cup of tea.’
‘I don’t like tea.’
‘Well, milk, then.’
‘Milk’s for babies.’
‘How about a nectarine?’
‘What’s that?’ He looked suspicious, was still punishing the paintwork. She’d never seen him quite so wilful.
‘It’s fruit. A sort of peach.’
‘Let’s see.’
She led him to the kitchen, picked out the ripest of the nectarines, the one she’d saved for Robert, held it out to him. He grabbed it rudely, squelched it in his hands, kept squeezing till he’d pulped it into mush, then chucked the soggy mess on to the floor.
‘Luke, that’s very naughty.’
He shrugged, wiped his juice-stained hands across his jersey.
‘Pick it up, go on.’
He didn’t move, just stood foursquare, defying her. And yet it was her he must have come to see, since no one else was ever in, at this time of the morning. She sat down at the table, pulled another chair up, patted it encouragingly. ‘Come on, love. Sit down.’ ‘Love’ was Liz’s word, felt forced and false on, her lips, especially as the boy refused to sit, just turned his back, kept whistling the same phrase.
‘We’re still friends, aren’t we, Luke?’
‘Nope.’
‘So who did you come to see?”
Another shrug, a scowl.
‘Have you been to school at all today?’
‘No.’
She wondered where he had been, and whether either of his parents knew or cared that he was roaming round the streets. Surely they didn’t let him out alone. ‘How d’you get to school, Luke – usually, I mean?’
‘My Dad takes me in the car.’
‘So what happened this morning? Was he ill or something?’
‘No, we went, but we was late, and I was scared to go in late again, so I waited till he’d driven off, then I walked back to the s
weet shop.’
‘And what have you been doing since?’
‘Dunno.’
Walking, she thought, with a sudden surge of horror as she remembered just how busy the streets around his school were, and how bad he was at crossing roads. He tended just to blunder off the pavement, without a glance to either side. She sat at the table, drinking her cold coffee, wondering how Robert would react to the prospect of a threesome. No, she couldn’t keep him here. His teachers would be worrying already and Joe Craddock would explode. ‘Listen, Luke, let’s go back to school together. We’ll take a bus and sit right at the top, and on the way we’ll play that game you like – you know, the one where you mustn’t tread on any paving stones with cracks in, or the tigers eat you up.’
‘Bears.’
She buttoned up her jacket. It was the first word he had spoken without that defiant angry hopelessness, so she must scoop him through the door before he changed his mood. She kept talking frantically to try to keep his interest – bears, tigers, magpies, dragons – while she grabbed her purse, did anxious calculations in her head, There was no chance whatsoever that she could be back by twelve o’clock, even if a bus came straight away. She could leave a note for Robert, tacked up on the door, but Liz hated them to do that, had already lectured Della on how dangerous it was, an open invitation to any passing yob or crook. There’d been two burglaries already in their street, one just a week ago. She glanced at Luke, saw he was about to speak, and, from the expression on his face, about to turn her plan down with an uncompromising no.
‘Quick! The bears are out already. I can hear them roaring just behind us. We’d better run. Bet I can beat you to the bus stop and still not tread on any cracks.’
She lost her bet, which helped. Luke insisted she had bet him 50p, and softened quite considerably when she counted out the coins. She, too, felt more relaxed when a bus loomed up in minutes, with a Niki Lauda driver who seemed just as keen as she was to cut the journey time. If she were as lucky on the journey back, she’d be home by ten past twelve, and if Robert were delayed himself, he wouldn’t even know she’d ventured out.
Luke was folding the tickets into tiny concertinas. ‘Will you come right in with me, take me to my classroom?’
‘Yes, all right.’ She could hardly leave the poor kid at the gate again, when he’d been scared of being late and was now much later still. It would only take five minutes if she found his teacher quickly; invented some white lie, smoothed the whole thing over, then pelted back again. She felt strangely scared herself, though, as they walked in through the heavy metal gates. She had seen Luke’s school several times, but only from the outside, had never heard that jungle noise yowling from the playground as children yelled and wrestled, charged like bulls with heads down, kicked dangerous balls around. They appeared to move in packs, like animals, surging one way, veering back; their bellow magnified by the cage of concrete buildings. How frightening to be unpopular, or shy; left out on your own while those cocky gangs swooped past you, cut you down.
She was suddenly as small as Luke, trembling in a corner, great louts twice her size advancing on her, threatening, trying to punch her face or trip her up. The girls seemed just as bad, many of them fighting, clawing at each others’ clothes or hair, quarrelling over skipping-ropes or sweets. And how strange their outfits looked – girls in football jerseys worn with skin-tight leggings; girls in baggy sweatshirts; girls as young as nine or ten dressed in slinky skirts and jewellery. Her own rustic convent school seemed a million miles away, both in distance and in time: no frightening asphalt playground with lorries thundering past, but peaceful grounds with trees and fields beyond; tall white statues of a protective loving Mother, instead of hulking boys; no boys at all, just quiet well-mannered girls, playing hide-and-seek or hopscotch in their neat blue uniform.
Luke led her through a side-door and they entered to a whole bouquet of smells – sweaty feet, old gym shoes, hot pennies, urine, chalk. They trudged along a corridor, with graffiti on the walls and fluorescent lights glaring overhead, despite the sun outside. A bell clanged through the building and suddenly the playground roar was swooping after them – a whole tide of jostling children stampeding in from break-feet pounding, voices rising, as they surged along the passage.
‘That’s my teacher,’ whispered Luke, pointing to a small dark girl in a crumpled denim skirt, her long brown hair escaping from its pony tail. ‘Miss MacDonald.’
Hilary nodded, had met her once before, when she’d gone with Liz to pick the children up; thought then how young she looked. Yet this casual girl, barely in her twenties, had the power to terrify her, as she skulked with Luke against the wall, watching all his classmates marching in. She felt embarrassed by her own clothes, which were too dressy for the school, looked fussy, ostentatious, beside Miss MacDonald’s denim. The teacher hadn’t seen them, was busy sorting out a fight – two small boys wrestling on the floor. Hilary stepped forward, introduced herself again, begged a few brief words.
‘I’m sorry. It’s really not convenient. I’m about to start the lesson. Can’t you wait till dinner time? Oh, I see. All right, then – just two minutes. But you’ll have to come in here, otherwise they’ll all start playing up.’ She steered Hilary into the classroom, shut the door on Luke. ‘No, not you, Luke Craddock. You can wait outside, and don’t you move a muscle till I come and get you. Right?’ She sauntered back to Hilary, voice lowered now, so the children wouldn’t hear. ‘Where’s he been?’
Hilary heard herself prevaricating. Miss MacDonald’s tone, though low, had been as uncompromisingly strict to her as it had been to the seven-year-old, and she wasn’t finished yet.
‘That child’s been late every day this week and most of last week too, and, anyway, I thought it was agreed that he’d stay put in his own home, once he’d left the Kingsleys, at least for just this term. It’s not good for him to keep moving from pillar to post, never knowing where he’ll sleep at night. He needs security, for God’s sake, if ever a kid did.’
‘He … He’s not living with us. And it’s not his fault, honestly. It was his father who was late today and…’
‘Nothing’s ever Luke’s fault – not the fact he forced a small boy’s head right down into the toilet bowl, just a week ago – yes, even pulled the chain on him – and crashed another boy into the coat-pegs, really bruised his face.’
‘What?’ Hilary stared in horror, had always regarded Luke as the victim, not the vandal.
‘Oh, yes. He’s quite a bully. I assumed you must have known.’ Miss MacDonald spun round on her heel, raised her voice to holler at her class. ‘Be quiet, you lot, and get on with your work-books. I don’t want all this racket. No, Chris, you can’t have a drink of water. You should have thought of it at break.’ She turned back to Hilary, one eye on the children still. ‘Mrs Kingsley told me she’d filled you in on all the problems.’
‘Well, I knew about his home, of course, and his father’s spell in jail and …’ Hilary broke off. She couldn’t quite believe that the small quiet Luke she knew – or thought she knew – could act the brute, smash faces. And why had Liz not told her the whole story? Did she know it all herself, or was she so absorbed at present in her do-gooder sexagenarian that she had no time to spare for a hoodlum seven-year-old?
‘Look, forgive me. I’m sorry.’ The teacher suddenly sank down on her desk, seemed to collapse into herself like a rag doll with no stuffing. ‘It’s hardly your fault, is it? In fact, it was kind of you to bring him in at all. I didn’t mean to snap. Blame it on the flu – or perhaps it’s just a cold. I feel lousy anyway, but there’s no way I can be ill. I’m already doubling for a colleague who’s off with tonsillitis, and everything that could go wrong has done so, plus a few thousand extra things.’
Hilary was still standing like a naughty child, started to apologise herself.
‘No, it’s my fault, really.’ The teacher blew her nose, cautioned a small boy who was squabbling with his neighbour. ‘It was m
ost unfair to give you such an earful when I hardly even know you. Miss Reed, you said? Yes, I remember now – we’ve met before. Mrs Kingsley tells me you’re very good with Luke. I shouldn’t say this really, but I must admit he worries me, that kid. He’s got a reading age of five, yet no one seems to bother, and he’s obviously unhappy, as well as just plain cussed. I mean, I found him in the boiler room last week, shut up on his own and lying on the floor in all that grime. Things weren’t so bad last term, in fact, but he’s definitely been worse since he had that row with Stephen.’
‘Yes, it shocked me too. They seemed so close and…’
‘They were close. Stephen’s very popular and that helped rub off on Luke. I’m afraid the other children taunt him quite a bit.’ The teacher dropped her voice still further, to a hoarse and stagey whisper, her eagle-eye not shifting from her class. ‘You see, somehow it got out that his Dad had been in clink, and of course kids are merciless when it comes to things like that. With a chum in tow, at least he had some measure of protection, but now Stephen’s joined the opposition, so to speak. In fact, they were fighting like wild tigers only yesterday, and it was Luke of course who started it, gave far worse than he got.’
‘But he’s so much smaller, and so quiet and sort of …’ Hilary fumbled for the words. Those she might have used for Luke playing Ludo in his bedroom, or spooning in his Shreddies in the kitchen, seemed quite wrong in the context of his school. She kept seeing that wild playground in her mind; Luke no longer bullied, but lashing out himself with boot and fist. She switched back to the kitchen: Luke half-asleep at table, while Stephen rushed round like a steam train, knocking things off shelves. ‘I mean, if you’d seen him at the Kingsleys’, you’d have thought Stephen was the tearaway, not Luke.’
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