‘A little girl has been lost. She’s sobbing her eyes out in the Red Cross tent. Her name’s Lucy, and she’s wearing a blue dress and red wellies. If anyone …’
‘Poor sod, she’ll get trampled in the rush.’ Ned had demolished his cornet in half a dozen bites. ‘Hey, girls, let’s splurge all our cash on the donkey derby.’
‘Oh, yeah, Ned! Can I ride a donkey, Ned? Ned, d’you think they’d let me?’
All those Neds! Supposing Magda repeated them at home, made Charles a carbon copy of the whole mad afternoon. It was time to make a break.
‘Magda, we haven’t bought your shoes yet. Or your bras.’
‘Donkeys don’t wear bras.’
Ned and Magda giggled, clearly in alliance.
‘Magda, love, if you go and find the donkey man, he’ll turn you into Lester Piggott. He’s a pal of mine … just say Ned the Red. Here’s a pound to back you, and don’t you dare fall off. I can’t afford to lose my stake. It’s all I’ve got for Sunday lunch. Otherwise I’ll have to eat roast Rilke and mint sauce.’
Magda galloped off, with the pound in one hand and her cornet in the other.
‘See you at the tote!’ Ned yelled, turning back to Frances. They were suddenly alone, with a hundred other bodies pressing round them in the tent. It was almost frightening to have his full attention, to stop being a stepmother, and become something dangerous else. His sticky fingers were already stroking down her arm. She shook them off.
‘Relax, Fran. You’re all uptight and tense. It’s a lovely day, sun’s shining fit to bust, birds singing their crazy little hearts out. Why are you all screwed up?’
‘I’m not screwed up, I …’ Christ! She couldn’t cry. Not in an ice cream tent, not in front of everybody, not – oh, please God – not in front of Ned. Her face was crumpling up, losing control of itself. There were tears on the plastic table, tears on Ned’s red-checked arm. Somehow, she was holding on to it, and he was leading her to the back of the tent and seating her gently on an upturned packing case. She tried to pull her face back into shape, to make her voice behave.
‘Look, I’m sorry. Stupid of me. I’ll be all right in a … Oh Ned, it’s … it’s not a lovely day.’
‘Of course it’s bloody not, if you’re unhappy. It’s a swine of a day. What’s the matter, Fran?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Everything?’
She nodded.
‘Husband?’
‘No.’ How in God’s name had he guessed?
‘Really no?’
‘Well sort, of. It’s …’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Ned, I just can’t tell you. Magda might come back. Can you see her?’
Ned got up from his knees and peered through a gap in the canvas. ‘The donkey man’s flirting with her. Joe’s a shocker – teaches woodwork when he’s not chatting up the chicks. He likes them dark like that, and barely out of gymslips.’
‘She’s beautiful, Ned, isn’t she?’
‘Not bad. I prefer the older woman, actually.’ He had a store of grins in different colours – wild crimson ones for poly rave-ups, and soft blue ones for weepy afternoons. She smiled back.
‘That’s better. Now come on, girl, tell Uncle Ned what’s up.’
‘But, Ned, I hardly know you and …’
‘Good God! Haven’t we been introduced? I must have overlooked it. How terribly remiss of me. I do apologize. Edward Charles Bradley, DFC, OBE, Commanding Officer, Southmead Polytechnic.’
Frances dabbed her eyes. ‘Is your second name really Charles?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘That’s my husband’s name.’
‘Poor sod. He could always change it.’
‘He likes it, actually.’
‘And what about Magda? That’s an unusual name.’
‘Yes.’
‘Italian?’
‘No, Hungarian.’
‘She sounds English enough.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s the problem, isn’t she?’
Frances chewed her thumb.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me about it?’
The loudspeaker was booming out again, fighting with the rock music and the raucous laughter of the ice cream lady. ‘Lucy is still lost. She says she doesn’t know her other name, but she came with her granny. If there’s any grandma who’s lost a Lucy …’
‘Well?’ said Ned. He was almost whispering, but his soft voice swamped loudspeakers.
‘It’s Charles – that’s my husband. He, I mean, she – she’s his daughter. She’s my husband’s daughter.’
‘By another woman, you mean?’
Frances nodded. How could he sound so calm about it? Why didn’t he leap to his feet, or gasp in shock? She should never have told him, anyway – a stranger, an inexperienced bachelor. He could never understand.
‘Who wasn’t his wife?’
‘No-o.’
He couldn’t have heard her properly, just sprawling there, plying her with questions, as if they were filling in an application form.
‘I see. How long has she lived with you?’
‘About eighteen hours.’ A month, a century.
‘Christ! I’m beginning to get it. Where’s her mother?’
‘Gone back to Hungary.’ Bitch, deserter.
‘Permanently?’
‘More or less, as far as I can gather.’ How could she know, when Charles wouldn’t tell her anything?
‘But you knew about her?’
‘No.’ Nothing. Fifteen years of falsehood.
‘You mean, it was a complete bolt out of the blue?’
‘Mm.’
‘Fran, that’s really bloody tough. I’m sorry. She’s living with you, is she?’
‘Mm,’ she said again. Breaking up my life.
‘Well, it won’t be for long, I suppose. How old is she, seventeen?’
‘Fifteen.’ Still only a child. A child with a woman’s body. It might be years and years. Maybe she’d stay for ever, forcing herself between her and Charles, growing bigger and bigger, like a cuckoo …
‘It’s a funny age. I used to teach them once – here, in fact – between these hallowed walls. Give me the Poly any day! At least they’ve reached the age of reason. At fifteen, they’re emotionally in nappies, more or less. Maybe I could help you with her, Fran. I’m good with kids.’
If only someone could help – take the child away, make everything all right again. ‘I’m afraid not, Ned. It wouldn’t work. I hardly even know you, should never have really told you in the first place.’
‘’Course you should. You’ve got to talk to someone. You’re crazy, Fran, all tied up with rules, as if you’re following some formal book of etiquette. People aren’t strangers, even if they’ve never met. They’ve got the human condition in common, which is more important than the same Alma Mater and all that sort of crap. We don’t have to be formally introduced by our frock-coated fathers at the Hunt Ball before I’m allowed to care about you, Franny.’
A nice word, ‘care’ – and he did care. She could hear it in his voice. ‘Look, Ned, I’m sorry, but I’m not in a position to be friendly with you. I’m married, for one thing.’
Ned was still on his knees beside her, at the back of the tent. ‘So is Charles.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, he hasn’t treated you exactly handsomely, has he?’
Frances flushed. ‘Look, Ned, the Magda thing … He was still single when it happened, more or less.’
‘More or less?’
‘I’m sorry I ever said anything.’
‘I’m only trying to help. Why shouldn’t you be friendly with a guy, when your husband’s busy clocking up affairs?’
‘He doesn’t have affairs. Not any more.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Well … he’s too busy – he wouldn’t have the time. And he’s not the type, in any case.’
‘It’s not a question of types, my love. Anyway
, how about this other woman? Or did she conceive Magda via the Holy Ghost?’
‘Ned, please. That was ages ago and I don’t wish to discuss it. Now will you please move over and let me get up. We’ve left Magda quite long enough.’
‘OK, but promise me something first.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll wear your hat.’
He placed it on her head, almost tenderly, arranging the streamers on each side of her neck and kissing the space between. ‘Franny?’
‘What?’
‘You look quite beautiful.’
After the donkeys, they tried the rifle range. Frances won a pink plaster ashtray in the shape of a pig. Magda swapped it for an ancient parasol she’d bought for 20p at a stall marked ‘Odds and Ends’. The sun kept fighting with the clouds, and when it rained, they all three sheltered beneath its ragged flounces, pressing close together. The rain plopped through the rents and fell on Frances’ hat. She could feel Ned’s thigh warm against her own.
‘Happy?’ he asked.
She nodded, astonished to be happy, wandering around a run-down comprehensive in a field of mud and litter, with a tomboy on one side and a shambles of a teacher on the other. She’d sent her mother packing to her split-level house in Cheltenham, and at last she felt relaxed. She must never see Ned again, though, especially now she’d told him about Charles. It could only be dangerous, disloyal, but there was nothing to stop her spinning out this one sweet afternoon. Ned had a knack for making things good fun.
‘Are you good at running, Magda?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Let’s go in for the three-legged race together.’
Frances sat and watched them pull each other over, panting and laughing. They came in last and won a booby prize, a little plastic brooch.
‘Shame! Give it to your daughter,’ yelled a man in the crowd, as Ned pinned it on his shirt front. Magda couldn’t be his daughter – he wasn’t old enough. And yet a casual onlooker had turned them into an instant family, a messy, happy family, munching toffee apples and sprawling on the grass. Strange to be a threesome like that, an ordinary family with no Charles to cosset and control her. Would she be happier, freer, or poorer and duller? Ned was everything she disapproved of – scruffy, casual, pushy, puerile. Yet already he’d changed the day from Rocky Road to Strawberry Fizz.
The sun came out and stayed out. Ned and Magda won the egg-and-spoon race. Ned was munching his box-of-chocolates prize. ‘You’ll get fat,’ said Magda.
‘I am fat. Open up, Franny, for a Brazilian almond whirl.’
His fingers tasted of candyfloss and hot pennies. He traced them along her lips, kidnapping the last piece of almond for himself. The loudspeaker was blaring out again.
‘The next race will be the Barefoot Contessa’s Mid-Fête Marathon. Any lady over eighteen who takes her shoes and stockings off is eligible to enter …’
‘This is it, Fran! Your big chance. Quick, take your shoes off!’
‘But I can’t run in this tight skirt.’
‘Put your jeans on then – quick – the catty ones. Come on, hurry! They’re all lining up.’
She hardly knew what she was doing. Magda unzipped her skirt for her, while she removed her tights and eased the jeans on underneath. She could see Ned looking at her, her bottom sticking out provocatively, the fabric straining against her thighs. She must be out of her mind – changing her clothes in public, running in madcap races. Supposing she were seen. There might even be people from the Golf Club there – Charles would never live it down.
Bugger Charles! She sprinted towards the starting-line and squeezed in between a pair of bunions and a bad case of pigeon toes. Everyone was giggling and joking – including the announcer.
‘Aren’t they a lovely lot, then? All those bare feet … Wow, what a turn-on! Right then, girls. Ready, steady …’
Frances was running like a lynx. The bare feet made it easier. So did Ned, shouting on the sidelines, ‘Come on, Fran, come on!’ as if he’d bet everything he owned on her. She willed her feet to go faster, could feel the grass skimming underneath them, cold and slippery. She was way in front, streaking ahead of all the rest. It paid to be small sometimes, small and swift and streamlined. She almost fell across the piece of string held taut by two PT teachers. The crowd was clapping wildly, as someone pinned a red rosette in the middle of her chest. ‘First’ it said. A camera snapped. She was a Brent Edge celebrity, a barefoot contessa with muddy feet and grass between her toes. Ned and Magda were slapping her on the back, as she collapsed in a heap between them.
‘Cor,’ said Magda, admiringly. ‘You can’t half run!’ Ned twisted a buttercup through her hair. ‘Beautiful and clever,’ he said.
They lay on the grass, still tangled together. Frances closed her eyes. The noise and glare slipped away and she was alone with Ned in an enchanted garden, running like Atalanta up Mount Parthenus. No, that was wrong. Atalanta lost her race; all the goddess gained was a suitor and three golden apples. Well, she had Ned and a plastic peg-bag as a prize. And a pair of cat-grey jeans.
‘Lucy has been claimed and is now happily reunited with her Granny in the tea tent. And if anyone else wants teas, I’m told there’s a very good line in half-price sausage rolls …’
It was still warm, but the sun was nudging its way down the sky, looping long shadows across the grass. Frances opened her eyes, reluctantly. She didn’t want anything to move or change, just to stay ideal and immobile like a picture in a Greek frieze.
‘Ned, I simply must go.’ Her voice was a spoil-sport, detached from the rest of her.
‘What about the Dance Display? A hundred little Markovas pounding through Swan Lake. We can’t miss it.’
‘But I daren’t stay any longer. I’ve wasted the whole afternoon as it is.’
‘Wasted?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t …’ A Charles word, wasted. Charles would be back by now, wondering where they were, creaking into his father role, laboured and precarious.
‘My husband’s coming home early, especially to see Magda.’
Magda bit into her half-price sausage roll. ‘I’d rather see the dancing.’
‘Magda!’
‘Tell you what, let’s grab a beer and a hot dog, have a quick peek at the Nureyevs and then push off, OK?’
An obese and red-faced matron was pounding an old Bechstein. One swan had lost its feathers and another picked its nose throughout the Danse Hongroise.
‘You’ve got mustard on your chin,’ Ned whispered, as he leant across and licked it off. ‘And the most incredible blue eyes I’ve ever seen.’ He was murmuring in her ear. She could smell his warmth, his sweat.
‘Ned …’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ How could she tell him she felt different and peculiar? He seemed to have hatched some new and hidden part of her which had lain dormant for so long, she’d almost forgotten it was there. It seemed stupid to swap this shabby, scuffed school-hall for her elegant house in Richmond. But again her voice rebelled.
‘Ned, I must go. Now. Don’t argue.’
‘OK, love, relax. There’s no hassle.’
They sauntered back to Richmond Station. Ned was taking the Broad Street line to Acton. Frances felt sick and strange. They’d stuffed themselves with junk food the whole afternoon, rolled about like gypsies on the grass. Tomorrow, it was back to normal, with regular mealtimes and perhaps a museum, so that Magda could be shown life in its true, grey, sober colours. She was leaping ahead of them, jumping over cracks in the pavement. Ned dropped back behind.
‘Don’t forget, Fran, I’m around if you want me.’ He stuffed a piece of paper in the pocket of her jeans. ‘That’s my number. Phone any time. I’d like to help.’
‘Look, Ned, I don’t really think …’
‘OK, please yourself.’ He loped off towards the platform, the straw hat perched absurdly on his head.
‘Ned, that’s Frances’ hat!’ Magda almost threw herself u
pon him, snatching the straw hat and confiscating it. They wrestled for a moment, then he hugged her – a casual but affectionate embrace. Frances watched with envy. So, a hug was as easy as that.
Magda dawdled slowly back to her, passed the hat across. There was a short, embarrassed silence.
‘Magda.’
‘Mmm?’
‘I think I’d better change.’
‘Change? But you’re only a couple of minutes from the house.’
‘Yes, but Charles will probably be home by now, and he likes me, well you know …’
Magda shook her head. ‘No, I don’t know.’
Frances disappeared into the station Ladies’ room and re-emerged with her skirt on. It felt heavier and scratchier than she’d remembered it. It was also disgracefully creased from its sojourn in a plastic bag. She stuffed the hat at the bottom of the shopping basket, with the pink-pig plaster ashtray and the peg-bag.
They walked in silence back across the Green. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud, the colour seeping slowly out of everything – grass, sky, their own Cambridge-blue front door. Charles met them in the hall, his new paternal smile highly polished, wary. He was still in his pin-stripes and he too looked colourless. She could hear Stravinsky’s Orpheus weeping from the drawing-room, the plaintive clarinets accusing her. How could she have endured Brent Edge punk all afternoon, when there were harmonies like this?
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