Devils, for a change

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘You can’t. It doesn’t end till midnight.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t be rude, Luke. I’ll count to ten, slowly, and if you don’t get off that horse by the time I’ve …’ The phone cut across her threat. She went to pick it up, annoyed to hear Joe Craddock’s beer-slurred voice. He always rang so late, disrupted Luke still more, sometimes gave her orders, seemed to forget she wasn’t Rita, or his young delinquent daughter.

  ‘Joe, it’s very late. I’m just getting Luke to bed. Perhaps it might be better if … What? Oh, wonderful! That’s really marvellous news. Yes, of course you can speak to him. He’ll be thrilled to bits.’

  Luke said very little, but she watched his face, saw it lift and brighten, as he hopped from foot to foot with the phone still in his hands. His mother was much better, had responded to the drugs, at last, would be home in just three days. Hilary collected up his toffee papers which were scattered on the floor, along with two burst crisp bags, ashamed to feel such sweet relief herself. It hadn’t been that easy to take the role of mother, with no rehearsals and no script, and she’d been especially nervous recently, with the completion date so imminent, the end of term so near. Whatever Rita’s state of health, she had no desire to drag a self-willed seven-year-old up to Scarborough with her.

  He was gambolling round the room now, mock-wrestling with imaginary opponents, his whole mood and mien transformed. The receiver was still off.

  ‘Luke, did you say goodbye?’

  ‘Yeah. Dad wants to speak to you, though.’

  ‘Well, thanks for telling me.’ She rushed back to the phone. Joe sounded half-embarrassed now, a new emotion for him. ‘We was wondering, me and Rita, if you’d like to come for Christmas. It would be our way of saying – you know …’ The words faltered and broke off, as if Joe couldn’t bring himself to say thank you directly, shied away from any fancy sentiments. ‘You won’t have to lift a finger. My daughter’s coming over and she’ll be doing all the dinner. We always eat well, Christmas, have a goose and that.’

  ‘Thank you, Joe,’ she said herself ‘That’s very sweet of you, but I’ve already made my plans. I’m going up to Liz’s, spending Christmas there.’ Her words triggered off a twinge of real excitement. She was longing to see Liz again, stay in a house which had cushions, plants and ornaments, in place of packing-cases; revive their friendship, catch up with her news; yet know she’d be returning to a complete new start, new job. The old bad year was over, Rita’s illness over, and she was almost free, at last. Free, but very busy. She had a house to strip in ten days’ time, all her Christmas shopping still to do, a wedding dress to make, and three more shepherds’ costumes to complete. She switched the lights and fire off, straightened up the hearth rug. ‘Come on, Luke. Upstairs! If you don’t need sleep, I do.’

  He didn’t move. He’d stopped his frisking now, was squatting by the rocking horse, fiddling with its tail. ‘D’ you think my Mum would come – I mean, now she’s better?’

  ‘Come where?’

  ‘To the play.’

  ‘Let’s invite them all – your Mum, your Dad, your brothers …’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. They won’t come.’

  ‘Not your Dad?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘He might if I ask.’

  ‘No, he won’t.’

  ‘Want to bet?’

  ‘Okay. How much?’

  ‘50p. No, make it a whole pound.’ She unplugged the television, shooed Luke through the door. Joe Craddock was already in her debt. He had offered her repayment in the form of Christmas dinner – a goose, a slap-up meal. That she didn’t want, preferred Liz and Harry’s turkey. But she could be tough for once and take a stand; insist he paid her back in the currency she chose.

  Chapter Thirtey One

  ‘Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Come on in, dear. You look loaded down. What have you brought – the contents of your house? This is Ron, my second, eldest son. Terry’s two years younger, though you wouldn’t think so, would you, the way he’s losing half his hair? That joker in the paper hat is Gareth. He’s married to my daughter, Maureen. And that body on the sofa is …’

  Hilary stepped into a fug of smoke, her cheeks burning from the cold outside, burning from embarrassment as four strangers turned to stare. Was she just imagining it, or did she sense a slight hostility, a shade of suspicion in the air, or even mockery? She felt very much the alien, the prissy goody-goody with the stuck-up voice, the over-fussy clothes; the weirdo who had been a nun, lived all on her own, and was now intruding into a strictly family Christmas. She put her parcels down, began to fret about those too. Money was still short, so she’d made most of them herself, but perhaps it was absurd to bring chi-chi patchwork cushions and a hand-embroidered tablecloth to such a shabby house. The room was still more cluttered than before, crates of drink piled behind the sofa, Ivan’s piebald rocking horse blockading the whole sideboard.

  Ron and Terry shook her hand – both thickset swarthy men, smoking fat Havanas. The reek of their cigar smoke curdled with the queasy smell of goose fat, which filled the small squashed room. Multicoloured paper chains were looped across the ceiling, Christmas cards curling on the mantelpiece above a fierce coal fire. Gareth sidled up, a smaller shyer man, with a scraggy beard, damp hands; his purple paper crown clashing with his wiry ginger hair.

  ‘What’s the box?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s for Luke.’ She tried to shrug it off, wished it wasn’t quite so big and bright. Her Magic Lucky Dip Box, which had seemed such fun a week ago, was probably a bad mistake as well. Luke liked action toys, and preferably violent ones, not babyish bits and pieces. She had almost killed herself trying to bring it on her bike, with all the other parcels. The bike was very ancient, a gift from Joe, who had rescued it from a scrapheap, done a few repairs, fitted it with panniers and basket, then called it her Rolls Royce.

  ‘Where is Luke, by the way?’ she asked, unbuttoning her coat. The heat was overpowering.

  ‘In his room. He’s sulking.’ Rita took the coat, parked it on a chair.

  ‘Could I pop and see him?’ ‘Sulking’ could mean anything – despairing, crying, breaking up the place. She wished he’d come to greet her, at least said a brief hallo. She was only there for his sake; had come because he’d asked her, a week or so ago. He’d actually ventured out alone and found a call box, so he could talk to her in private; had struggled with the coins and the instructions, got through at last, after several failed attempts; said not ‘Hallo’, or ‘Is that Hilary?’, just ‘My face is hurting.’

  She’d been shocked to hear that forlorn and listless voice, dismayed to know he was still in pain. She’d heard about his face already; had thought of little else since his father had described it, just three days before – the closed and blackened eye, the purple bruising, swollen puffy lids. Joe had claimed quite casually that Luke had inflicted all that damage on himself, bashed his own face in, just to get attention. At first, she’d not believed him, suspected Joe was lying to protect himself. He had hit his son, most likely, and was scared of censure, frightened of reprisals and reproach. But Gill Lawley phoned herself, just minutes after Joe’s call, confirmed the tale was true. Her own son, Nicholas, had returned from school with some garbled story about what he called ‘that Craddock nut’ banging his face against a wooden desk. Apparently, Luke had left the playground in the lunch hour, thinking nobody would miss him, skulked back to his classroom, where he assumed he’d be alone. But his teacher had returned as well – returned too late – found the child already bruised and sobbing.

  It had happened on the final day of term, the day after the nativity play, which neither Joe nor Rita had attended, despite their promises. Rita was genuinely unwell; Joe simply got cold feet, had no desire to meet hostile stuck-up teachers, who might take this chance to grab him, berate him for his son’s deficiencies. She had gone herself, of course, but she’d been kept so busy makin
g last adjustments to the costumes, helping Gill with make-up, she hadn’t even realised that the Craddocks were not there, or not until the play was almost over. Naively, she’d believed they’d come. Hadn’t they given her their word?

  Now, glancing round the messy room, she felt a surge of guilt. Wasn’t it partly her own fault for trying to interfere, trying to work miracles and make Joe the sort of loving caring father who featured in Luke’s reading-schemes? No wonder Luke loathed reading, when his books chronicled those happy cosy families with two cute children only, not a brood of seven; a young and healthy mother instead of an invalid of fifty; a neat and shining house with roses round the door, home-baked cakes cooling in the kitchen. She should have come round sooner, offered Luke some help, tried to win his confidence, or at least showed him someone cared. But when she’d phoned the Craddocks, to suggest it, they’d been wary and offhand, still shaken from the social worker’s visit, unwilling to discuss things with anybody else. Perhaps they’d been just tired, or frightened she would blame them for this further bout of trouble, or maybe they regarded her as another sort of social worker – middle-class, childless, interfering.

  She had also tried phoning Luke’s class teacher, tracked down her home number after a dozen false attempts, but the man who answered said Jean MacDonald had already left for Scotland, to spend Christmas with her parents. She’d stood motionless, still holding the receiver, seeing nothing save the grisly scene she’d run twenty times already in her head: Luke banging his own face mechanically, cold-bloodedly, as if he were punishing some crude inanimate object, not his own live and feeling flesh.

  How was he now, she wondered – still bewildered and resentful, still crying out for help? He wouldn’t get much help in this anarchic household, where they’d dismissed his pain as ‘sulking’, left him on his own on Christmas Day. Rita seemed reluctant that she should go up to his room; sounded more annoyed with him than anxious. ‘Oh, leave the wretched boy,’ she’d said already. ‘He’ll come down when it suits him.’

  She tried once more, edged towards the stairs. ‘But can’t I just …?’

  ‘No. He’s in a mood – forget him. Stop fussing and sit down. I’m gasping for a drink, aren’t you? Park your bones, and I’ll go and get our tipple.’

  Hilary submitted, did as she was told – sat, or rather tried to sit – since all the chairs were littered with presents, toys, torn and crumpled gift-wrap, discarded coats and mufflers. She removed a leather jacket, draped it on a chair-back, squeezed herself between a box of crackers and a large black cat with scurfy-looking fur. Floor space, too, was rationed. Kevin’s pram was parked beside a giant-sized Christmas tree, which seemed too grand for its surroundings and was already shedding needles, as if the noise and heat had overpowered it before Christmas Day was even halfway through. A dark man in an anorak was stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep, despite Les Dawson’s Christmas Party, which was in full swing on the television, his manic guests hurling streamers, gulping down champagne. Sudden wild unnerving bursts of laughter shook the room each time Les cracked a joke. The sound was turned up loud, though no one else seemed aware of it at all; not even Sylvie, who was crouched right beside the screen, playing with a plastic Mickey Mouse. She was decked for Christmas, like the tree; a red bow in her hair, a silver bauble pinned on to her nightie, strands of tinsel tangled round her neck.

  There was no sign of Craddock Senior, though both his elder sons looked like slightly slimmer copies of him; the same broad shoulders and sturdy compact bodies, dark eyebrows, stubborn jaws. Both had totally ignored her, after the first brief introductions. They were still standing by the door, engrossed in private conversation, perhaps an argument, judging by their raised and heated voices. She had also met Joe’s aunt, who was sitting in a corner and kept nodding at her, smiling, though she hadn’t said a word; an anxious-looking woman, whose timid smiles failed to reach her eyes. The eyes were caged in spectacles, her freshly permed grey curls fettered by a spangled nylon hairnet. Hilary fought an aching longing to see her own Aunt Eva, share her Christmas with her, claim just one relation who was hers by blood and right. There had still been no response from her, no answer to her letters, no scrap of news or hope. She had done her best to remove her from her mind; somehow knew her aunt was dead, as her parents were both dead, her Father-God stone-dead. She had no wish to dwell on funerals, weep and rage for what she couldn’t change.

  She was relieved to see Rita returning from the kitchen with a glass of sherry in each hand, filled so full it was spilling on the carpet. The men were drinking Guinness, Auntie Dot nursing a large tumbler of something red and fizzy. Rita turfed the cat off, sank down on the chair arm. She looked shockingly unwell, as if she had aged a decade in two months; her skin ashen grey and lifeless, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. Hilary had heard about her crying spells, which she suspected must be due to some hormonal change, triggered by the recent hysterectomy. Joe’s own diagnosis was less civil altogether. He was losing patience with his wife, fed up with ‘women’s troubles’; had told Hilary on the phone that if he’d made bloody women, he’d have made them without wombs.

  ‘Where’s Joe?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s working.’

  ‘What, on Christmas Day?’

  ‘Makes no difference to him. If he wants to drive out somewhere, booze with all his pals, and call it work, that’s his business, isn’t it? I don’t ask no questions. He’ll be back for dinner, anyway. Joe don’t miss his meals.’ She reached out for her cigarettes, fumbled for a match. ‘You don’t smoke, do you, dear? The doctors tried to make me stop, but I’m smoking worse than ever. I’ll stop tomorrow. I said that yesterday.’ She laughed, an unconvincing laugh, got up again to try to find an ashtray.

  ‘Can I help with something, Rita?’

  ‘It’s mostly done, but come and meet my daughter. She’s been stuck out in the kitchen since eight o’ clock this morning. I’ve never been so idle in my life. I don’t like being idle, tell the truth. It only makes me restless. Mind that train-set, dear. I told Luke to pick it up, but it’s like talking to a brick wall.’

  Hilary eased up from her chair, tempted to cut upstairs to Luke, instead of following Rita. Her mind kept circling back to him: was he crying, still in pain? Had anyone given him breakfast, wished him ‘Happy Christmas’? She tried to hide her shock at the filthy cluttered kitchen, as she was introduced to Maureen, a flamboyant fat-faced girl, whose brilliant scarlet lipstick and tinted auburn hair made Rita look still paler and more gaunt.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Hilary. You’re the nun, aren’t you? I’ve heard a lot about you. Amber, put that bowl down. No, you can’t have a sweetie – they’re for later. You’ve met my Kevin, haven’t you? This is Amber, his big sister. She’ll be four in February.’

  Hilary forced a smile, to counteract the hostile stare in the huge blue eyes now fixed on her. Amber was dressed exactly like her mother, in a miniature version of her firmed and checked shirtwaister; even had her ears pierced, to match Maureen’s own gold hoops, and her tiny nails varnished in the same pearly shade of pink. Both wore fine gold bracelets, gold lockets round their necks. Could they really belong to that shabby shambling Gareth, with his crumpled slacks, his patchy scruff of beard? No one else had bothered to dress up: Rita in a baggy skirt and sweater, Aunt Dot in limp beige Crimplene, and both Ron and Terry in their jeans.

  She herself felt ill at ease in the smart cream suit she had chosen specifically for Christmas at the Kingsleys, hoping Di would admire her slowly growing dress sense, and not realise it was second-hand, from a highly useful shop she’d found, called ‘Second Time Around’. The state of Rita’s kitchen warranted a boiler-suit or a set of industrial overalls, not a pale two-piece which had to be dry-cleaned. The walls were streaked with condensation, the cooker clogged with grease, every surface piled with dirty pots and pans. The sink was leaking into an stained old plastic bucket wedged beneath it; a second cat was sitting on the table, its tail nicking over a b
owl of cranberry sauce. The lino on the floor was torn in several places, its pattern faded to a dingy greyish blur. The tiny window looked out on the backyard, a wasteland of defunct machines, broken rusting tools.

  Maureen seemed flustered, not quite in control. The sprouts were boiling over and an acrid smell of burning began seeping from the oven. She darted over, rescued the potatoes, already semi-black. Hilary glimpsed the goose, a huge hump-backed bird which seemed to jam the oven, its fatty smell now almost overpowering.

  ‘Look, please do let me help.’

  ‘No, honest. It only makes me worse to have people flapping round me. Okay, I’m not the world’s best cook, but I said I’d do the dinner and I will. I’ve told Mum a dozen times to go and put her feet up. What’s the point of us all trooping over, if she still wears her fingers to a frazzle?’

  Rita didn’t seem to hear. She was fussing with the sprouts, mopping up the hob. ‘You need the oven lower, dear. I told you that before.’

  ‘Look, scat, Mum, or shut up. If I turn it any lower, we’ll never eat at all. That goose is semi-raw still. God knows where Dad got it. It’s as tough as old boots.’

  ‘He shot it in the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club, way back in the summer. It’s been sitting in the freezer ever since. That always makes things tougher, and it’s a wild goose anyway.’

  ‘Shot it?’ Hilary looked aghast.

  ‘With a crossbow, so it wouldn’t make no noise. He and some old pal went out at five o’clock, when it was still just getting light, bagged a Canada goose and a couple of pheasants each. We’ve eaten both our pheasants, had them for Joe’s birthday. That golf club’s like a nature park, he says – every bird you ever saw, and some you wouldn’t recognise outside a fairy tale, and all so tame they almost say “good morning”, shake you by the claw. They was out again by half past five that morning, and no one any the wiser. He nicked the Christmas tree as well, dug it up from Oxshott Woods last week. No point wasting money.’