by Unknown
‘Er . . . yes!’ snapped Frank sarcastically. ‘I am aware of that, I believe. If I wasn’t trying to work right now as well as babysitting, I might be able to keep my eye on your cheap tricks.’
Frank clasped his hands in front of his mouth. Nothing happened for quite a long time. Adrian counted his blinks. He had got up to one hundred and twenty-eight when Frank scratched the top of his head and grimaced before pushing a pawn forward two squares.
Adrian took his move and said, ‘Is it the snoring, though?’
‘I don’t snore in point of fact, Adrian.’
Frank sacrificed his white knight to tempt Adrian’s queen.
‘How do you know?’
‘I think I would know if I snored!’ snorted Frank. ‘I would wake myself up.’
‘But it’s unconscious. People don’t snore when they’re awake.’
‘Your aunt has been known to snore whilst gardening.’
‘That’s not snoring.’
‘What is it then?’
‘Panting. Grunting maybe.’ Adrian looked at his watch. He stood abruptly, flung both arms above his head, groaned loudly and sat down again. ‘Hurry up.’
‘It’s your turn.’
‘No. I’ve been. Look.’
Frank looked. Somehow Adrian had sneaked his queen across the board and was now menacing Frank’s king. The phone rang. Frank snatched it triumphantly and listened.
He looked up at the ceiling and opened and closed his fingers into fists. After a while he said, ‘Hello, Margaret.’ He rolled his eyes at Adrian. ‘No, Bea’s out. Yes . . . yes . . . hmm . . . Oh dear. I’ll get her to call you, shall I?’ He put the phone down.
‘Was that Granny?’
‘That was Granny. Something about a variegated shrub and a funny noise coming from the oven.’ Frank waved his hands in the air, shaking all that tedious detail off him. ‘Now let’s get this over with, shall we?’ He lifted his bishop and took Adrian’s queen, then got to his feet humming to himself.
Adrian took Frank’s queen with his rook.
‘Check,’ he said.
Frank stopped halfway across the room. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Checkmate, actually.’ Adrian unfolded his long legs and got to his feet.
Frank looked across at the board and nodded knowingly. ‘I taught you well. Not bad, not bad. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’ He walked to the door and held it open for Adrian.
‘I mean, Mum and Dad share a bed.’
‘And your point is?’ Frank craned his head forward, mouth turned down. Adrian looked faintly surprised, so Frank brought his head back up again and looked at the ceiling. What in God’s name had possessed them to paint it mushroom gloss all those years ago?
‘You should share a bed too. Marriage is like a game of chess.’
‘Marriage is like a game of chess, is it?’ Frank was doing the nodding again but he couldn’t stop himself. The boy was absurd. ‘Had a lot of experience yourself, have you?’
‘Identify the weakness. Fix the weakness.’
‘Well when you’ve been married for as long as your aunt and me, Adrian, I shall seek your advice again. In the meantime, just stick to chess, hmm?’ Frank waved him out.
‘Not sharing a bed is not nothing.’
Wanda passed the open doorway carrying the vacuum cleaner. ‘Hello, boys!’ she called.
‘And maybe just check the snoring,’ said Adrian, going out.
Urn
AT ELYSIAN Fields Garden Centre Bea had, over the years, spent a good proportion of her salary from Shire Hall. It was a place she often took the children, even when they were tiny. Nappy-wadded, Adrian and Laura tottered along winding paths between shrubs and perennials while she indulged her fantasy of a verdant garden filled with scented blooms. They preferred the garden centre to playgrounds for it had a raised pond with newts in it, a café and places a child could safely get lost in. Two weeks after she walked into the river, Bea took Adrian and Laura to the garden centre for the last time.
She stood before the display of spring bulbs and considered its promise of snowdrops and crocuses. She moved away. No bulbs survived the squirrels in her garden, but here, in Autumn Colour, she could see some possibilities in fuchsia and chrysanthemum. No. They reminded her too much of her mother’s home in Hastings. She turned the corner and found herself in Conifers, Heathers and Alpines. Absolutely not. She didn’t want the north or the cold even though her garden was north-facing and overlooked by large trees; it was only a matter of time before she would have to surrender to the darkness and grow nothing but hostas. But what was the point? Hostas were immediately sacrificed to the slugs. Her own garden had become enemy territory. There used to be a sunny patch over by the fence where flowers could grow but shade encroached a little more each year, stealing more light and sky. And to make matters worse, she couldn’t read anything these days without a pair of glasses, and as she intended to resist, until the final moment, the wearing of glasses round her neck on a string, she had begun to find that the world of words was retreating unless she peered. Not a good look, sweetheart, Precious reminded her. Peering now at the labels on a display of Hedera helix, she stood upright and grimaced. Who in their right mind would buy ivy? It had invaded her garden; Hedera helix grew up the fences, along the ground and throttled everything in its path. It spread and clung with the tenacity of a malignant disease, however often she was out there with secateurs and gloves.
In the last aisle she found herself in Water Features. This was more like it. She could abandon the lawn and dig a lake. There would be frogs and newts, lilies and kingcups. It was the answer to her gardening problem. Look, here there was even a fountain and a low trickling waterfall.
‘Bad idea,’ said a voice. ‘All those leaves.’
It startled her, she hadn’t heard him approach. She turned to see a tanned, shaven-headed man. He wore yellow work gloves and an open-mouthed smile.
‘Oh,’ she said, smiling too because she recognised him. ‘Haven’t we . . .’
‘Urban,’ he said, with a faint trace of an accent that she could not place. He pulled off his gloves and dug his hands into his pockets. ‘Urban Feake.’
‘Of course!’ Bea laughed with relief and thought, what sort of a name is that? ‘You’re Wanda’s friend, aren’t you? You did my patio last year . . . I’m just looking for a . . .’ She was jabbering. He was very attractive . . . earthy. It had been joyous having him and Wanda work in her garden. Precious had come round one day after work and helped her cook for everyone. They’d stood at the sink, she and Precious, nudging each other like girls as they watched Urban wield the sledgehammer. And now here he was again, looking at her like an old friend. She stopped herself and glanced around her. ‘Now . . .’ She turned away so she could adjust her bra and straighten her blouse. ‘I think I’ve lost my children.’
She blushed. Urban must know the set-up. But even so, sometimes it was easier to pretend Adrian and Laura were her own children. It could be so complicated explaining they were her sister’s, and anyway, they looked like Bea. Well, Laura did. She glanced at Urban, who hadn’t moved. Stocky and muscled, he gave the impression of being wound tight like a spring. His English was good, she remembered that, but ‘nephew’ and ‘niece’ might be tricky.
Scattered gravel made them turn round. Chanel raced towards them, giggling as though she were having an asthma attack. She whisked past and took a running jump at a collection of faux-terracotta urns, four feet tall and enough to take a good-sized tree or teenager.
‘That’s not one of mine,’ said Bea, pointing. ‘She’s a friend.’
Laura skidded round the corner and looked wildly about her. ‘Where’d she go?’
Bea gestured at the urn. Laura ran up to it and looked inside. Snorts, shushes and guffaws ensued as she swung one leg up over the lip of it and hopped on the other foot.
Chanel started to giggle.
Laura said, ‘It’s not funny, man, I’m gonna wet
meself, innnit though?’ She carried on hopping.
Chanel stood up in the urn and gave Laura’s leg a yank.
Laura let out a shriek. ‘Mind me mufti!’
Chanel started to hoot.
Bea said, ‘Stop it, both of you,’ and looked shamefacedly at Urban, who had rolled a cigarette. ‘You’re going to damage the pot, now get out.’ She took a step forward and grabbed Laura’s foot.
Miraculously, Laura slid easily into the pot and the two girls fell silent, faces looking up at her from the inside, pleading with her not to tell.
Adrian wandered over. Bea leant back against the pot and smiled, running a hand through her hair. I am flirting with the gardener, she thought. So what? There was something about the outdoors, something about the non-Englishness of Urban that made her feel like her old self. Women of her age didn’t thrive in England. It was the damp and the dark and the tabloids. Urban lit his cigarette and watched her coolly.
She said, ‘Adrian, do you remember Wanda’s friend Urban?’
Adrian said hello and Urban nodded, looking away at the stacks of larch lap fencing.
‘Like the pope?’ said Adrian, studying Urban.
Urban smoked silently.
‘Are they a band?’ Bea said, remembering that she hadn’t bought the meat yet. And the milk was running low when she left that morning. They would have to go to the supermarket on the way home.
‘The pope was a pope,’ explained Adrian. ‘During the Crusades. Pope Urban. There were lots of them.’
Urban looked none the wiser. Can’t be a Catholic thought Bea. She seemed to remember Wanda telling her he was Czech or Chechen, neither of which sounded like they’d have much truck with popes, but then Wanda was Catholic and she was from Poland. Bea shook her head. Personally, she welcomed the falling of borders on the continent. It widened everyone’s horizons and it gave her hope, but Katharine said the NHS was buckling beneath the strain. The urn behind them squealed and rocked on its base. Adrian looked at Bea. Bea looked at Urban.
‘Do you work here?’ she said, noticing a small tree motif on the pocket of his sweatshirt.
‘Parks and Gardens,’ said Urban. ‘I’ve come to pick up some masonry.’ He gestured at her empty trolley. ‘Find what you were looking for?’
‘Oh.’ Bea looked around them vaguely. ‘I wanted a water butt . . .’
A shadow of a smile crossed Urban’s face. ‘Ah yes. Wanda told me. Over here.’ He started to walk away, back towards the building. Bea followed him, pushing the ungainly trolley along the gravel paths like a mother who has lost her overgrown baby.
Adrian paused by the urn and looked about him. The girls’ whispers began to echo inside it. Soundlessly he crept behind the urn and lowered himself to the ground. The whispers got louder.
‘I’m gonna wet myself.’
‘You better not.’
‘I am. I so badly need a piss.’
‘You think he’s gone?’
‘Honest to God, it’s coming out.
‘Shush. I can hear him breathing.’
There was a silence, then a plaintive cry.
‘You are gross, man! I don’t believe it!’
‘I told you!’
Spiralling laughter looped up out of the urn and Laura’s head shot out of the top of it like a fast-growing tropical shrub. She tried to hoist herself free of the neck, her face a pantomime of horror and hysteria. Adrian put one hand experimentally against the curved side of the rocking urn and held it there a moment before giving it a little push and scrabbling away behind the garden pots. He heard the rumble, the screams and the laughter but didn’t hang around to see the damage.
At the checkout, Urban was lifting a water butt and a humane squirrel trap on to Bea’s trolley while she paid the assistant.
‘There you are,’ said Bea to Adrian. ‘Where are the others? Thank you so much, Urban.’ She was keen to be rid of him now. He was loitering and she sensed that Adrian was judging her. She shouldn’t really flirt in front of the children. ‘Adrian can help me get it in the car.’ Be bright and light, she told herself. Just be bright and light, Precious had told her. Patrick’s not going to want a weeping wreck on his hands, is he? And it was good advice. It had worked for years and years.
They wheeled their trolley out of the shop towards the car park, where they found Laura and Chanel, who had stopped by a stand of cyclamens with their pale pink and lilac flowers. Laura pushed Chanel towards the plants. Chanel squealed. Laura’s laughter made her whole body jerk and stagger. She tried to run but Chanel held her school bag so that she boomeranged backwards. Both girls half fell and found their faces inches away from the flowers’ purple-stained mouths. There was a silence.
‘They’re freakin’ me out. I’m serious, man, they’re pervy!’
Laura stared, then pranced back from the flowers. ‘Ik! Uggers! They look like them old singers my granny likes.’
Chanel got to her feet, stuck her hands deep into her pockets and backed into a table of pansies. She shook her head and said, ‘They ain’t natural, man, I swear. No way.’
Bea looked at the cyclamens and started to laugh. ‘Come on,’ she called. If they didn’t get back soon there would be no time for food. And she still hadn’t done anything about her mother’s birthday party. But she would definitely come back for a few trays of cyclamens. They’d look lovely on the patio.
When they reached the car, Adrian said, ‘What do you do with them?’
‘What?’ said Bea. ‘They’re just being girls. They’ll be women soon and they won’t find that so funny,’ and she added a laugh to let Adrian know she was only joking. Sort of.
‘The squirrels.’ Adrian wasn’t laughing.
Bea opened the boot and put the squirrel trap inside. ‘We release them,’ she lied. Actually she was going to lower them inside their traps into the water butt. The squirrels had decimated her garden. They were going to have to go. But humanely. Drowning was reputedly one of the easy ways – some struggle and panic but then a sleepy dreaminess.
‘Help me in with this butt.’
They heaved it into the boot and tried to shut the door.
‘It’s too big.’ She started to laugh again. Laughing was the other side of crying, she thought. You could go weeks without doing either, becoming more and more wound up and burdened, and then, snap, out it would come. They took out the water butt, put the squirrel trap on the roof of the car and tried the butt the other way. The boot door only half closed. Bea took a step back and looked at the car.
‘Damn,’ she said, laughing. She looked at Adrian. ‘Don’t say it.’
‘Don’t say what?’
‘What you’re about to say.’
‘What?’
Laura and Chanel danced up to them, their school ties pulled almost out, their skirts rolled over at the top so that they only just covered their bottoms and their shirts knotted just below their push-up bras. Urban watched from the Sand, Pebbles and Gravel section.
‘That geezer thinks he’s so sprung and he’s so not sprung,’ said Chanel.
‘He’s unsprung,’ said Laura.
‘Yeah, zero sprung.’ Chanel glowered in Urban’s direction and sucked her teeth.
‘Come on,’ said Bea. ‘Get in.’ She gave the butt a final shove. They would just have to drive home with the boot half open. She got in the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The children bundled in through the passenger door and Bea started the engine. She put the car in reverse and backed into the fence.
Adrian said, ‘Mind the fence.’
‘Whoops,’ said Bea. ‘I can’t see a thing.’
The car leapt forward and then stalled.
‘Laura’s boob just popped out!’ shouted Chanel.
‘Don’t look, Adrian, you paedo,’ said Laura.
‘Paedo?’ said Bea.
Adrian turned to Bea. ‘Your butt’s too big,’ he said.
Pray
THE NEXT Tuesday, Bea half walked and half ran up the hill t
o school, two bags of documents tugging her arms and a laptop banging at her hip. She prayed she hadn’t missed the children. She had promised to take them to the cinema, a promise she made before she realised it was the council inspection the following day, but she never cancelled a Tuesday or a treat with the children. Tuesday was their day together come what may, and so, breathless and sweating, here she was when she should have been in the office and getting the paperwork done. She heard Laura’s voice from twenty paces. She was arguing with Chanel on the other side of the hawthorn hedge. Bea waited out of sight. She loved their noise and their chutzpah. It enraged and dismayed Katharine and Frank, but she found that it made her glad. No one was going to grind these girls down. Well, not for a while anyhow.
‘No. Listen, right? It’s. Thing is. Everyone’s different. You get. You got your. Take me, right? Other. Other people. Other people, right? Other people might. Like other people might pray for. Pray for their daily bread. Right? But. But I. But I pray for. I pray. I pray for—’
‘Praying, Chanel. Praying. Praying’s gonna get you like. Nowhere. No. Where, Chanel. It’s a waste of time. Who prays these days?’
‘What you saying? That’s bad, man. What you saying?’
‘I’m saying. I’m saying, right? I mean, if there was a God? If there was a God then how come we’re not all millionaires?’
‘You saying there int a God? I’m movin’ from next to you, man. ’Cos something bad’s gonna happen. You say stuff like that. Something bad’s gonna happen.’
‘’S right though, innit? If there is a God then how come there’s bad stuff happening in . . . A God wouldn’t. A God wouldn’t do that.’
‘If there ain’t a God, then how come there’s prayers? Answer that. Answer that then. Answer that then ’cos you can’t, see! Can you? Can’t answer that one, can you?’
‘No, shut up, yeah? I dint say that. I dint say there weren’t. Didn’t say there weren’t a God. I said, right? I said how come, right? If you was listening. I said—’
‘You’re gonna get a thunderbolt, you are. I’m movin’ to here, man! I ain’t standin’ here to be struck down!’