Nimrod nods, grimacing, fag dangling from the corner of his lip, already distracted, his finger jabbing out a text.
Sheila is completing last night’s washing-up as Gene enters the kitchen. Mallory is sitting at the breakfast bar, hunched over a bowl of burned porridge.
‘Mum burned the porridge,’ she groans, ‘again.’
‘Yum!’ Gene smiles.
‘Enjoy your shower?’ Sheila glances over her shoulder, smiling.
‘Uh … Yes. Thanks.’
Gene pulls out a stool and sits down. He notices that Sheila is wearing her old, college-era red and black mohair jumper over her standard religious garb and that her hair has been washed and … Was that actually gel ? In the fringe?
He removes an orange from a nearby fruit bowl and tosses it, slightly anxious, from hand to hand.
‘She’s changed her mind about going away,’ Mallory tells him with an exaggerated eye-roll.
‘Has she, indeed?’
Gene looks over at his wife –
A hint of lightly tinted lip salve?
Sheila is wiping down the draining-board.
‘I’m leaving the pan in to soak,’ she says.
‘Then I suppose I should lug the case back up into the loft again,’ he tells Mallory.
‘Good!’ Mallory’s obviously still smarting from the whole Jamaica interlude. ‘Before some idiot breaks their neck on it.’
‘Right. If you’ve eaten all you want then you’d better finish off getting ready for school,’ Sheila tells her, reaching for the bowl. Mallory happily submits. She stomps out of the kitchen.
‘She’s delighted, really.’ Gene smiles.
‘I know.’ Sheila nods.
Gene digs his fingers into the orange and starts to peel it. He feels stuck for words.
‘I know,’ Sheila repeats, more emphatically. Gene continues peeling. Sheila returns to the sink.
‘And I’m actually fine about it,’ she adds.
‘How’s the leg?’ Gene changes the subject (although he isn’t entirely sure what the subject currently is).
‘I retied the bandage. It came loose overnight.’
Sheila carefully lifts up her trouser to demonstrate what a great job she’s done.
Gene tries to focus on the bandage, but he suddenly finds it hard to look at her, as if she’s bathed in a bright light or standing above him, looking down, the sun at her back, smiling, in a park, on a picnic, like in the old days.
‘It actually feels a lot better this morning than I thought it would.’
She rolls the trouser down again. ‘So what time did you finally get in last night?’
‘I can’t look at you,’ he says.
She doesn’t respond. He can’t look at her. He wonders if he’s about to burst into tears. Scream. Fall off his chair as though hit by a sudden burst of mortar fire.
‘Just after four,’ he eventually grinds out. ‘I must’ve fallen asleep over the steering wheel for an hour or so.’
‘Yes.’ Sheila nods. ‘I saw you through the window – dead to the world.’
He finishes peeling the orange and stares at it, helplessly. He supposes that he is now obliged to eat the damn thing.
‘You were still up?’ he asks, pulling off a segment.
She nods again.
‘Is there something …?’ he asks, then finds it impossible to finish his sentence so pops the segment into his mouth and chews.
‘Valentine’s converting to Islam,’ Sheila informs him, her tone studiedly casual. ‘She came over last night with a couple of friends. I was completely …’ She struggles to find the right word. ‘Banjaxed. It really was extraordinary – completely extraordinary –’
‘I found Jen,’ Gene interrupts her, after swallowing.
‘Yes. I got your text. What a relief!’
Mallory wanders into the kitchen to try and locate a lost hairband.
‘Will the police need to speak with you again?’ Sheila wonders.
‘Uh … I’m not sure. I shouldn’t think so. I suppose it depends on what they discover in the autopsy.’
‘So sad.’ Sheila shakes her head.
‘He seemed like a very sweet man.’
Mallory leaves the room again.
Sheila looks at her watch. Gene pulls off another segment of the orange and places it into his mouth where it sits on his tongue like a small, indigestible missile. The effort of working his jaw seems almost beyond him.
‘Just for the record,’ Sheila murmurs, her eyes focused on his lips, ‘I’m not angry about what happened – I mean I was upset at first – more astonished than anything – disappointed. And I’m not standing here and suggesting that I’m entirely blameless – I mean I’m hardly perfect – I suppose I must’ve deserved this at some level –’
‘Please don’t say that!’ Gene interrupts her, horrified, the lone segment blocking up his tongue, falling into his cheek, making him lisp. He stares at the orange in his hand. He hates the stupid orange. So bright. So tart. So complete.
‘I don’t want to apportion blame, Gene,’ Sheila sighs, ‘and I don’t want to pass judgement – in fact I don’t actually want to talk about it. I just want to …’
She throws up her hands. ‘To forgive you, I suppose. To draw this act of generosity from deep within myself and pass it over to you, like a gift. Sidestep all the rancour and the unpleasantness and just …’
She shakes her head. ‘Carry on. Battle on. Try and survive it.’
Gene laboriously chews and swallows the orange segment as she speaks. The act of doing so seems like the most awful – the most crass and monstrous – offence against her dignity.
‘That’s very big of you,’ he mutters after swallowing. His voice sounds tighter – less humble and obsequious – than he’d expected it to.
‘I’m actually grateful,’ Sheila confesses, with a rueful laugh, ‘to get this rare opportunity to be the bigger person. After the initial shock there was just this … this immense – this overriding feeling of … I suppose I can only call it relief. Just …’ – she shakes her head – ‘this sense of calm, of certainty, that we’d be fine – that I’d be fine. In fact this act of betrayal – this horrendous show of weakness on your part – might actually be a kind of … a test – a way of drawing me still further into my faith – of bringing me still closer to God.’
Gene continues to stare at the orange. He imagines repeatedly stabbing at it with a fork.
‘Obviously to lose her to “the other side” …’ Sheila concedes, her smile faltering, ‘and I know it’s childish of me – pathetic, even. But to … Urgh!’
She smashes her fist on to the laminate in front of him. Gene almost jumps out of his skin.
‘Oh dear. How embarrassing!’
She withdraws her fist and stares at it, slightly confused.
‘I’m really sorry, Sheila,’ he mutters, ‘I just feel so …’
‘That was a difficult pill for me to swallow,’ she runs on, oblivious. ‘And it’s crazy because it’s the same God – you know – the same God – my God – our God – just viewed through a slightly different pair of spectacles.’
Gene puts down the remains of the orange. They both stare at it.
‘I still trust you,’ she adds, ‘weird as that may seem. I still have confidence in you. I still believe in you. And I want you to be happy.’
‘I love you too,’ Gene responds, automatically, then realizes that she hasn’t actually said that she loves him and feels ridiculous. Sheila stares at him, frowning slightly.
‘This feels odd,’ he confides, ‘to be having this conversation. Unreal. Like we’re not really … like we’re …’
‘But on the positive side,’ she calmly talks through him, ‘it’s like the boil has finally been lanced. This has been a major wake-up call. I’ve had to weigh up my priorities – move out of my comfort zone – no more faffing around. And it’s actually come as something of a relief …
‘Phew!’ She physi
cally demonstrates her relief, grinning.
Gene reaches out his hand and starts carefully separating the orange segments, as if the orange alone represents something actual – something tangible.
‘I mean I always thought you were so perfect – so good – so honourable. And now I’ve finally realized that you’re just a normal, flawed human being like the rest of us I … I don’t know … It’s as though this awful burden has been lifted. I feel like I can …’ She inhales deeply.
Mallory wanders into the kitchen again. She’s looking for her lunch box. Sheila removes it from the fridge and passes it to her. She wanders out again.
‘Maybe you’re still a little angry,’ Gene suggests.
‘You want me to be?’ Sheila asks, almost pitying.
Gene withdraws his hand from the orange.
What if I said yes? he thinks. What then?
‘You look tired,’ Sheila observes, ‘pale.’
‘I feel exhausted,’ he confesses, rubbing his eyes with his hand. A second or so later he realizes that his fingers still have citric acid on their tips. His eyes start to sting.
Sheila checks her watch again. ‘Go back to bed. I’ll prepare you a quick tray. Sweet tea. Cornflakes. Bring it up before we leave.’
Gene feels the straightness gradually leaving his spine. Something is being extracted. Something is being exacted. He’s just not sure how or why or what, precisely, just that it must be and that it is.
‘Killing me with kindness,’ he murmurs, trying to look up at her, but still, the light, and now, the sting. Sheila leans forward and picks up the orange peel, presses the pedal on the bin with a quick pump of her foot and tosses it away.
‘We should probably …’
Gene is going to say, ‘compost that,’ but then – for reasons he can’t quite entirely fathom – decides against it.
‘So Tiger Woods has just won the British Open.’ Ransom lowers the bugle and wipes the spit away from his top lip with the palm of his hand. ‘He’s wending his way down the Galway coast to the Irish Open in this stunning 3 Series 325Ci Rwd BMW Convertible –’
‘Hang on a second,’ Jen interrupts, lowering her trombone, ‘why would Tiger be in a car?’
‘Sorry?’ Ransom turns and glowers at her.
‘Tiger Woods would just fly into the Irish Open on his private jet.’
‘Anyway,’ the golfer staunchly continues, using the flap of his shirt to polish the bugle’s mouthpiece (no evidence of a tremor in either hand), ‘he arrives at this tiny, little service station in the middle of nowhere and this thick-as-shit Irishman comes toddling outside to fill up his tank …’
Jen cringes. Ransom pretends not to notice.
‘So he jumps out of the car to go get himself a bottle of water from the shop …’
‘A shop?’ Jen snorts. ‘I thought this was meant to be some tiny, primitive little service station in the middle of nowhere?’
‘… and as he clambers out, a couple of golf tees fall from his pocket …’ Ransom persists, then pauses (although there’s actually no interruption from Jen at this juncture), ‘… so the little Irish …’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jen makes a ‘let’s just skip the racist bullshit, already,’ gesture.
‘… jumps forward and scoops them up off the forecourt. He holds them out to Tiger and says …’ (Ransom adopts a dreadful, Irish accent), ‘“Sure, what are those tings, there, Tiger?”’
‘Ha!’ Jen laughs.
‘That’s not the punchline,’ Ransom curtly informs her.
‘So we’re seriously meant to believe,’ Jen scoffs, ‘that this service-station attendant knows the identity of Tiger Woods – a golfer – but is still incapable of identifying one of the world’s most basic pieces of golfing equipment, the tee?’
‘… and Tiger says …’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
… and Tiger says …’
‘Completely ridiculous – and not in a funny way, either.’
‘And Tiger says, “They’re for balancing your balls on when you’re driving!”’
Jen gazes at him, blankly.
‘Then the little Irish … anyway’ – Ransom waves his own hand (mirroring Jen’s earlier gesture) – ‘he says, “My God, those clever people at BMW tink of everyting, don’t they?!”’
No reaction from Jen.
‘“Those clever people at BMW tink of everyting, don’t they?!”’ Ransom repeats.
‘I get it,’ Jen assures him, ‘I just think the joke would be funnier if it wasn’t so obviously the work of a puffed-up BMW marketing department somewhere.’
‘It’s not about BMW,’ Ransom objects.
‘It would be way better if the car was an Irish make.’
‘Irish?!’ Ransom scoffs. ‘What? Like the DeLorean DMC-12?’
‘Why not?’ Jen shrugs.
‘Because that’d be an altogether different kind of joke, you friggin’ idiot!’ Ransom protests.
‘We should go surfing,’ Jen suddenly suggests, catching sight of a distant – plainly frazzled – Del Renzio on the skyline, heading towards them, Terence Nimrod in hot pursuit.
‘Surfing?’ Ransom scowls.
‘Yeah. You and me. Take the brass. Pack up the motor. Buy a litre bottle of white rum. Head down to Cornwall.’
She starts to deconstruct her trombone and return it to its case.
‘We don’t have a motor,’ Ransom demurs.
‘We’ll get Nimrod to drive us in his car.’
‘I’m broke,’ he confesses.
‘There’s always my savings from the hotel.’
‘But I’ve just got my swing back!’ Ransom protests.
‘Exactly.’ Jen nods.
‘How d’you mean, “exactly”?’ Ransom demands, putting the bugle away, somewhat regretfully.
‘Delayed gratification,’ Jen opines, gnomically, ‘it’s the new black.’
‘What?’
‘Ever heard of the theory that walking away from something is actually the best way of walking towards it?’
Ransom thinks for a moment.
‘Nope.’
Jen fastens the clasp on her trombone case and picks it up. She’s ready to go.
‘You never told me what you did to your hands.’ Ransom is staring at her mangled fingertips, intrigued.
‘Let’s save that for the journey.’ Jen grins, then winks, then starts off. Ransom gazes after her, perplexed.
‘But I just got my swing back!’ he murmurs, hurt.
‘I’m certain the Irish have produced other cars,’ Jen yells over her shoulder, leaving the green and entering the rough, ‘way better than the DeLorean.’
‘Bollocks!’ Ransom yells. ‘Unless you’re thinking of the friggin’ Shamrock!’
He curls his lip, derisively.
‘How about the TMC Costin?’ Jen demands (full volume).
‘It went bankrupt in the friggin’ eighties, you twit!’ Ransom bellows.
‘They sold the chassis rights to an American auto developer,’ Jen bellows back, her voice getting lost in the gentle wind, ‘by the name of Daniel Panoz. The Panoz Roadster remains in production to the present day and is still based on the Costin design!’
Ransom struggles to process this information.
‘We’ll need a photographer!’ Jen adds (full volume). ‘For the holiday.’
‘What?!’ Ransom scowls (barely audible).
‘Bloody BMW!’ Jen cackles, gesturing obscenely. ‘You’re such an old, corporate whore! WHORE!’ she repeats (another gesture – in case he can’t quite hear her). ‘It’s so embarrassing! EMBARRASSING!’
Ransom remains where he is for a few seconds longer (deeply offended), then swears under his breath, shakes his head, picks up the bugle case (wincing slightly as he straightens up), inhales deeply, winces again, embraces the pain (C’mon! Embrace the pain you old fool! Embrace it!) and rapidly strikes out after her.
Also by Nicola Barker
Love Your Enemies
/>
Reversed Forecast
Small Holdings
Heading Inland
Wide Open
Five Miles from Outer Hope
Behindlings
Clear
Darkmans
Burley Cross Postbox Theft
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 8JB
Copyright © Nicola Barker 2012
1
The right of Nicola Barker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-00-747665-7
EPub Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007476688
Epub Version 1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
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