by Jo Verity
‘Sit anywhere you wish,’ Carl said, transferring generous slices of beef to four dinner plates and handing them around.
‘This looks wonderful,’ Elizabeth said.
Since Laurence had taken over cooking duties at weekends, it was a while since she’d had anything as ordinary, and delicious, as a ‘Sunday dinner’.
‘Help yourselves to vegetables,’ Diane said.
Jordan sat motionless, his hands clenched between his thighs, staring at the three slices of moist, pink-tinged beef fanned out on the white plate in front of him. He mumbled something which Elizabeth didn’t quite catch.
She leaned towards him. ‘What?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I’m a vegetarian.’
Quick as a flash, Diane whipped away his plate as if by moving speedily she could eliminate the trauma experienced by a vegetarian when presented with animal flesh. ‘Sorry. I should have checked.’
Elizabeth wasn’t going to let this go. It was something Jordan must constantly have to explain, and surely he’d smelled the cooking meat before even setting foot in the house. ‘It might have been a good idea to mention this earlier.’
‘I did,’ he whined.
‘When?’
‘In the car.’
‘Well I didn’t hear—’
‘Maybe you weren’t listening.’
‘No problem,’ Carl interjected. ‘If you can manage with only vegetables for now we can discuss later your requirements.’
The boy scooped a few scant spoonfuls of carrots and peas onto the clean plate that Diane had placed in front of him.
‘Is there anything else we should know?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘Like?’
‘Well … are you allergic to anything?’
He thought for a few seconds. ‘Face paints.’
Lunch proceeded.
‘You might have warned me that I’d be sharing a room,’ Elizabeth said.
Jordan stopped eating and, although his eyes were directed at his plate, her statement had clearly roused his interest.
Diane grimaced. ‘It’s a present from my final-year students. It was part of a project they did on pollution. She’s called Tainted Love. I’ve got to hang on to it. For a while, anyway. A few of them are coming round for a farewell drink sometime. But we can move it if she’s giving you nightmares.’
‘I’ll let you know in the morning.’
‘Apart from that, is the room okay?’
‘Great, thanks. It’s the one Laurence and I slept in, isn’t it? It looks a bit different now. I distinctly recall clambering over boxes to get to the bed.’
Diane looked puzzled. ‘Boxes?’
‘We came in November. You’d not long moved in. The lights kept fusing and we spent hours looking for a torch. Remember? In the end Laurence went out to buy one. Typical Laurence, he went for an elaborate top-of-the-range job and then we found yours inside a casserole dish.’
‘You have only been here that one time?’ Carl asked.
‘Yes. We saw you at the Barbican in the spring but we didn’t have time for a proper conversation.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Carl turned to Jordan. ‘And this is your first time in Cardiff, I think?’
Jordan looked confused, as though he’d been asked a trick question.
Alex had been a talkative boy – too talkative according to his teachers, who couldn’t wait to inform her that he disrupted the class with his non-stop prattle. This was perplexing because when she took him to the doctor or the orthodontist and they asked him something as simple as his name or date of birth, he was struck dumb. Or struck stupid. A look of panic would cross his face and he would turn to her, as if he were terrified of revealing something that he shouldn’t.
Jordan had shrunk lower in his seat and was looking at her in that same way. Her inclination was to snap for goodness sake but she instead she nodded, encouraging him to answer.
‘Yeah,’ he croaked.
‘You will like it,’ Carl nodded, ‘it is an easy city. There is plenty to do but it is a handy size.’
The boy’s unresponsive stare didn’t deter Carl. ‘I have lived in many cities. If you play an orchestral instrument – you know I play French horn? A German French horn player. Ha! – you have to go wherever the orchestras are. Cologne, Brussels, London. Before coming here we lived in Manchester.’
‘We used to go to Manchester a lot,’ Jordan said, standing up. ‘Okay if I use the loo?’
We? Manchester? It was the most intriguing sentence he’d uttered since they crossed the Severn Bridge but he’d gone before she had chance to follow it up.
7
SUNDAY: 5PM
It was five o’clock by the time they’d stacked the dishwasher. The heat was going out of the day and Elizabeth’s headache had been replaced by food-induced lethargy.
‘How about we take our visitors on a short walk?’ Carl suggested. ‘We must show them where to catch the bus if they want to go into the city centre.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ Elizabeth said, trying to sound keen. ‘I could do with stretching my legs.’
The four of them set off, she and Diane leading the way, Carl and Jordan a few metres behind.
‘It seems mean, lumbering poor Carl,’ Elizabeth whispered. ‘Jordan’s not a great conversationlist.’
‘Don’t worry. Carl can chunter for two.’
‘Isn’t it good to talk?’
‘Talk, yes. But that sort of implies two people exchanging ideas. With Carl it’s as though everything that’s going on in his head has to come out of his mouth. He doesn’t check whether it’s interesting or witty or pertinent. He simply keeps it coming.’
‘You must admit his English is fantastic.’
‘So’s mine but I don’t feel compelled to keep up a running commentary.’
Within five minutes they had reached the main road. Carl pointed to a bus shelter on the far side. ‘There is the bus stop. Buses run in to the city every twenty minutes.’
‘It’s less hassle than driving,’ Diane said, ‘and a lot cheaper.’
‘People will only stop using cars if it gets really difficult and really expensive,’ Jordan muttered. ‘Anyway it’s probably too late. Mum says the human race will be extinct in a hundred years.’
‘Your mother’s an expert, is she?’ Elizabeth said.
‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ Carl, the diplomat, stepped in. ‘How about we go back a different way so that you get a flavour of the area?’
They wandered on past a small park and a dreary rank of shops – Spar, newsagent, hairdresser, betting shop. Set back from the road and screened by high hedges, Elizabeth spotted a grand house, clearly built long before the clutches of new-build housing that had sprung up around it. She peered between the foliage to get a better view. ‘That’s a beautiful house.’
‘In the nineteenth century, this area was way out in the country. Iron masters and mine owners built homes here, well away from the Valleys and the poor sods they were exploiting.’ Diane raised her hands, ‘Don’t get me started. Anyway, most of them have been converted into care homes or flats and the grounds sold off for building plots. Usual story. A few still survive as family homes. In fact there’s one at the back of our house. Not anywhere near as big as this one, but it’s a very nice house. You get a good view of it from Jordan’s room.’
Diane’s resentment at the mistreatment of the working class was predictable but she’d never before shown any interest in real estate. Paul’s death had released a wanderlust in her. She’d not settled anywhere for more than a few months, making do with seedy accommodation, as if one place were as good as any other because she had no intention of staying there for long. Diane had reverted to her unmarried name saying that she couldn’t bear to be reminded of what she had lost and the ‘S’ page in Elizabeth’s address book had become a muddle of crossings out and changed phone numbers, a potted history of her friend’s wanderings. She’d kept her old address books and had, when she added the Cardiff
address last year, totted up the scored-through entries. In the space of thirty years, Diane had lived in at least eighteen different places – probably more – whilst, not counting college digs, she had lived in only three.
‘So who’s your neighbour?’ she asked.
‘A local celebrity.’
‘Really? Let me guess. Shirley Bassey? Tom Jones? Catherine Zeta Jones? Aled Jones?’
‘You’re on the right track.’ Diane paused. ‘Dafydd Jones.’
She shook her head. ‘Should I know him? Is he in a soap? Or a band? He’s not the singer in Stuff the Goldfish is he?’
‘Nuh. He’s the weather man on the telly. Known here in Wales as The Rain Man.’
‘Well, Mister Rain Man must be doing okay for himself. Mind you, he’ll never be out of a job, will he? War, famine, credit crunch – we can never get enough weather.’
‘Don’t know about that. But I do know he’s well fit. In a mature, rugged way.’
‘Well fit?’ Elizabeth grimaced.
‘Sorry. I’ll have to stop fraternising with my students, won’t I? Dafydd Jones is,’ Diane adopted a cultured drawl, ‘rather a handsome fellow.’
‘D’you have anything to do with him? Or d’you just sit drooling in front of the telly?’
‘Both. We’ve been on nodding terms since we moved in but we only got to know him a few months ago. His daughters are staying with him at the moment.’
‘The ones you mentioned on the phone?’
‘Yes. That’s how we met. The girls were messing about with a frisbee and it ended up in our garden. One thing led to another and Dafydd invited us round for drinks. Then they came to us for supper, and now…’ she grinned.
Elizabeth glanced behind. Jordan and Carl were deep in conversation. ‘I can’t imagine what they’re talking about.’
Diane patted her arm. ‘Don’t worry. They’re fine.’
They wandered on.
‘Remember how we used to dawdle home from school like this?’ Diane said.
‘Yes. And how you insisted on dragging me past every building site in the area. Some evenings it took me an hour to get home.’
‘After all those spotty boys, I needed to see some good red meat. What was that ad a few years ago? Those posh women ogling the guy in the vest and the hard hat?’
‘We were fourteen-year-old schoolgirls. In our uniforms.’
‘Those brickies always whistled at us though, didn’t they? All men fantasise about schoolgirls, you must know that.’ Elizabeth laughed. ‘They were sorry for us.’
‘You, maybe. And, correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t you keep dragging me into the local library so that you could “bump into” that teacher? Benson? Bartlett?’
‘Barton. Mr Barton. And that was only twice.’
‘And both times you asked him about the homework.’
‘Well, chemical reactions are … tricky.’
‘There’s chemistry and there’s chemistry.’ Diane winked and ran her tongue around her lower lip. ‘That’s really all you need to know.’
The streets were busy. Everyone seemed to be outside, making the most of what remained of the weekend. Cars were being washed, front lawns mown and wheelie-bins manoeuvred onto the pavement. Neighbours chatted over garden fences, pausing to nod in their direction as they passed. Elizabeth thought how different these people were from those who had colonised her own neighbourhood and who barely acknowledged each other, as if by doing so they might be committing themselves to something they would later regret.
She became aware that Diane hadn’t said much for a while. ‘Something’s bothering you, isn’t it?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘We met when we were eleven and I’ve barely managed to get a word in since. But today you keep going quiet and sort of drifting off. And you were hell-bent on getting me down here this week, in spite of Jordan. Then there was something Carl said …’
It was Diane’s turn to glance over her shoulder. Carl and Jordan had stopped some way behind them and were studying something in one of the front gardens. ‘What did he say, exactly?’
Elizabeth thought hard. ‘It was more the way he said it. “I’m really glad you’ve come.” It was sort of … loaded. As if he needed reinforcements.’
Diane looped an arm through hers. ‘You’re right. I do need to talk. But not now. It’s complicated.’
Elizabeth wasn’t one for arbitrary demonstrations of affection. She disapproved of the fad for kissing acquaintances and hugging workmates. It undermined genuine fondness, and it was embarrassing. But the pressure of Diane’s slender arm against her own, the sight of the blurry tattoo on her friend’s forearm, was a reminder of the friendship they’d shared since they were schoolgirls.
She frowned. ‘You’re not ill or anything?’
‘No. It’s nothing like that.’ Stopping, Diane called to the loiterers, ‘Get a move on, you two, before you get arrested for voyeurism.’
As they turned into Diane’s street, three girls who were perched on a garden wall, giggling and passing a mobile from one to the next, fell silent. The teenagers, who doubtless kicked up a fuss about wearing school uniform, were identically dressed. Each wore a strappy top, denim mini skirt, frayed at the hem, and fluorescent flip-flops. Their hair was pulled back in pony tails that clung to their skulls, a few strands dragged down and across their foreheads in rigid fringes. Chavs. That’s what the Phoebes and Candidas and Hermiones at Elizabeth’s school would call them. Three pairs of heavily mascaraed eyes weighed them up – weighed Jordan up. Did they think he was ‘well fit’? Did this lanky, loping boy with greasy hair and saggy jeans set their stomachs churning? It was a mystery what, in their bright, predatory eyes, constituted ‘fitness’.
She’d always considered her sons – whether five or ten or fifteen years old – to be astonishingly attractive. Ben, with his curly hair, blue-grey eyes and open features. Alexander – dark haired, brown eyed and such a cheeky smile. But now, when she happened across their school photographs, shoved to the back of a drawer or abandoned between the pages of a book, she had to admit that their faces, frozen in that boyhood moment, might not have appealed to everyone. Motherhood was a mystery, too.
On reaching the house, they went out into the garden. There was an area of decking at the far end, complete with a set of green plastic furniture, and they sat there, sipping iced fruit juice, enjoying the evening sunshine.
‘Mmmm. This is nice.’ Elizabeth slipped off her sandals and spread her toes, the wood of the decking warm beneath her feet. ‘Are you two planning a break this summer?’
‘We are going camping in a few weeks’ time,’ Carl said, ‘maybe to France. Or even Spain.’
‘We’re thinking of going camping,’ Diane corrected him. ‘I don’t object to the concept of camping. Lots of fresh air, watching the sun set over the Med etcetera, etcetera. But it’s never like that, is it? For a start, you have to lug all that gubbins. Camping stove, air beds, torches …’ she waved her arms, scooping the air, gathering a mountain of invisible equipment. ‘And, let’s be honest, campsites are always horribly banal. And so … full of campers.’ She turned to Jordan who was unravelling his earphones. ‘Have you ever been camping, Jordan?’
‘Yeah. Loads.’
Elizabeth didn’t expect that reply. But of course he’d been camping. No doubt, every summer, Vashti Fry had hauled her son from one muddy festival site to another. He probably knew more about ground sheets, sleeping bags and tent pegs than she, Diane and Carl put together.
Her thoughts chased briefly north where she hoped that rain was transforming the whole of Scotland into a quagmire, and that, on the shore of every loch and the slope of every glen, giant midges were going crazy for human blood.
‘This camping obsession has come about because, last autumn, Carl bought a tent.’ Diane explained.
‘Yes. It was in a sale and it was a grrrreat bargain.’ Carl rolled the ‘r’ with gusto, emphasising the magnificence of th
e deal. ‘As a matter of fact, Jordan and I saw something very similar in one of the gardens that we passed on our little walk. It also was blue. But ours is larger, I think. Did you not see it, Di?’
‘I must have blocked it out.’ Diane rolled her eyes then blew him a kiss.
Raising his glass, he dipped his head towards her in an old-fashioned salute which Elizabeth found peculiarly touching. ‘It will be wonderful,’ he said. ‘You will love it. Lying in a beautiful blue tent next to your German lover.’
Jordan shifted self-consciously and Diane raised a finger to her lips, indicating to Carl that he should stop there.
A warble from Elizabeth’s handbag signalled the arrival of a text message. She was vaguely disappointed to see that it was from Laurence – even more so when she read it.
Best to all in Wales. Hope you are having fun. Tonight paupiettes de boeuf. Cherry clafoutis to follow. Trickier than it sounds! Fingers x-ed. L ×
His cheery words conveyed no hint of missing or longing or loving, merely concern that his paupiettes (whatever they were) might not make the grade; that his clafoutis might turn out to be soggy.
‘Anything interesting?’ Diane asked.
‘No. Unless you’re desperate to know what Laurence is cooking for supper. He sends love to everyone, by the way.’ She sighed. ‘I was hoping it was from Alex. I wish he’d get in touch. He and Vashti could be dead in a ditch for all I know.’
‘They’re not,’ Jordan said. ‘Dead I mean.’ He took out his phone, prodded it, and peered at the screen. ‘Mum rang at precisely … three-seventeen. Mmmm. I suppose technically they could be dead by now.’
Elizabeth wanted to shake the boy and grab his phone. ‘You’ve spoken to your mother today?’ It was all she could do to keep her voice steady.
‘Yeah.’
‘So they do have a signal, wherever they are.’
‘No.’
‘But you just said—’
The hint of a smile played around his mouth. ‘She was ringing from a coin box? They were on their way to the next gig?’ His voice rose at the end of each sentence, transforming statement into question. Ugly. Irritating.