by Maggie Gee
(They had found a cold chicken in the fridge, true, but it wasn’t Lola’s normal favourite kind. Faith didn’t understand how to shop. It was wrapped in bacon, with chestnut stuffing. They had flipped off the bacon, desultorily – ‘I’m a vegetarian, I don’t eat bacon’ – eaten some breast, got bored and abandoned it, on the kitchen floor where they happened to be sitting. ‘Is it free range?’ Gracie had asked, sternly, her mouth full of meat, eyes suddenly horrified. Lola had checked on the label. It wasn’t. ‘We usually only buy organic,’ she said, but both of them at once stopped eating.)
Mum at the City Institute! It didn’t make sense. She would never stick it.
Lola had spoken to her seriously. ‘Mum, you don’t have to do this, you know. We love you as you are. You don’t have to be clever.’
‘Thank you, darling. I’m not trying to be clever. I just thought I’d like to learn something new. I mean I do have quite a good eye for pictures. And I did, you know, get quite a few from Grandpa.’
‘But honestly, Mum. You will be home most nights?’
‘I can’t promise,’ Lottie said. ‘I’ll try of course. But I might make new friends. Even mothers do that. I might use the library. I might have classes. Faith will put food in the fridge, darling. I could even get her to come back in the evenings. I’m not quite sure about her cooking, though. And you two haven’t been getting on well.’ (Faith had been with the family ever since she came to the city, young and desperate, with a tiny baby. Yet Lola and she had never bonded. Faith, who was passionately partisan, tended to quote Kilda against her – ‘My Kilda always cleans her room’ – ‘My Kilda hems her trousers’ – though Kilda was nearly a year younger than Lola. The recent row, awesome, total, was because Faith had disposed of two of Lola’s toy animals, a huge golden lion and a metre-high bear, which Lola happened to have left on the floor.
For a year or so, admittedly.
‘She stole them,’ Lola had sobbed, broken-hearted. ‘She always does it. She takes my things.’ ‘Don’t be silly, Lola. She threw them away.’ ‘They were like my most favourite possessions, Mum.’ ‘Funny I never saw you with them.’ ‘I loved Leo Lion with my whole heart.’ ‘You still should not have called her a thief.’ This was the only insult that Lola had confessed to, but Faith insisted, ‘she used language, Mrs Segall. Awful. Terrible. Effing and blinding. The worst I’ve heard.’ In any case, Faith had demanded a large bonus before she continued working for them. Now she and Lola had a state of armed truce.)
‘No please, Mum, don’t, I’ll manage,’ Lola had said, hastily. Anything would be better than evenings with Faith. Still, Lola felt aggrieved. Her mum had always been there. What always had been, always should be.
Besides, Lola felt protective of her. Mum knew practically nothing of any use, except about paintings, and clothes, and money. She would surely fail, and be disappointed, and then she’d take it out on Dad. In the meanwhile, who would look after Lola?
‘I’m starving,’ Gracie said at seven o’clock.
‘Let’s go and get chips,’ Lola said. It didn’t seem much fun, on a February day. She cast about for something to cheer them both up. ‘And let’s do, you know, an action somewhere. A protest thing. Our first protest.’ (That would show her mother for not feeding her, and punish her weedy father, too, for skulking uselessly in his study.)
‘Oh cool, cool, that’s a great idea.’ Gracie thought for a moment. ‘What, though?’
‘We ought to, like, hit at commerce,’ said Lola, parroting the phrases she had read on the net.
‘What’s commerce exactly?’ Gracie asked.
‘Banks. Shops.’
‘But Lol, we like shops.’
‘Advertising, I suppose,’ said Lola. ‘It’s “The Great Evil”, like the web-site says. It sells powdered milk to Africa.’
‘Does it?’ This didn’t seem quite right to Gracie. Surely the powdered milk was something different. ‘So have they all got TVs in Africa?’
‘Yes.’ Lola didn’t believe in backing down. ‘If we were there, we could smash their TVs.’ Actions would be easier, if they were in Africa. Here things seemed more complicated. After all, she got her allowance from a bank. If they hit banks too hard, she might lose her money, just when she was planning on going to the sales.
But Gracie had an idea at last. ‘Well didn’t you say that woman was in advertising, that one who yelled at you for having the party, who came in here and snatched the plug from the wall? And your mum called her a silly old fool?’
‘Oh, Gloria. Yes. Our next-door neighbour. They made friends after that. Mum said we had to. She sent her about a thousand dollars’ worth of flowers. But Gloria still moans if I play loud music.’
‘So why don’t we go and like do her over?’
‘Cool,’ said Lola. ‘Yeah, cool.’ But she didn’t move. She knew Gloria. Gloria had sponsored her on charity walks. Knowing her made her seem somehow less capitalist. Most anti-capitalist actions seemed to involve paint, or posters, or flour. She imagined flour all over Gloria’s sofa. And the indigo stair carpet, crusted with paint. Poor Gloria had only decorated last year. Couldn’t they find some capitalists who weren’t their friends?
‘You’re scared,’ said Gracie. ‘Anyway, I’m starving. Let’s go for the chips and like see how we feel.’
‘Let’s take off our uniforms and put dark clothes on.’
Giggling, looking at themselves in the mirror, jumping on each other to make themselves scream, they both dressed up in head-to-toe black, tights, roll-necks, gloves and hoodies. The gloves were cashmere, lined in silk; Lottie had two dozen pairs like that, in shades from black to ice-cream pink.
‘We look like cats.’
‘We look like burglars.’
‘We could be anyone, dressed like this.’
Suddenly they felt they could do it. If they weren’t themselves, they could do anything. Two panthers prowled into the darkening city. They left the lights on, and both doors open.
Ten minutes later, Dirk strolled through, after a cursory ring on the front doorbell. He had found something he was good at, at last. It no longer mattered if Dirk was wanted; he got in anywhere, and took what he liked, remembering tips he had picked up in prison and learning quickly as he went along, for his brain had always been good at some things, though life had never given him the chances. Small, wiry people were good at burgling. It wasn’t really burgling, since it was for God. Father Bruno had explained all that. They needed funds for their posters and leaflets, their fares and food, and the leaders’ salaries. In any case, Dirk only burgled rich ponces who didn’t deserve nice things in the first place. Now he had a profession, and a cause to believe in, the One Way, which made all things right, and a couple of knapsacks, which were filling up nicely.
Half an hour later, a fox arrived. He shouldered his way through the fuchsia hedge and splashed through the garden, angled, eager. He had woken up hungry, earlier than usual after mating vigorously last night. His eyes were a good deal sharper than Dirk’s, with an extra layer of light-reflecting cells which made his amber irises glow green in car headlights. He had eaten, to date: three worms, two of which he pounced on from more than two metres away, a thin mouse, and a schoolchild’s discarded packet of raisins. The raisins were his favourite, delicious, but it wasn’t sufficient for a rutting dog-fox. Nearer the house it smelled horribly of humans, but the door to the kitchen swung wide open, the electric human light glared out. On the floor, within view, a plump gold-pink chicken blushed beside broken rashers of bacon. Spittle dripped on to the polished tiles as his jaws snapped shut and crushed the carcass.
Lottie Segall-Lucas was not in her element: a golden Koi carp in ditch-water. On their way into the bar, which was more bar than wine-bar, slopping out cloudy pints of beer to scruffy students shouting at each other, Paul was hailed by a large, softish-looking man who introduced himself to Lottie as Thomas. For a micro-second he looked interesting – curly dark hair, olive skin – but he turned out t
o be a special sort of librarian who worked out theories of librarianship. Lottie thought, I bet you make them up, and this government gives you money for it. Besides, he was poor; he was drinking shandy. The two men discussed a forthcoming conference whose finer details escaped Lottie. She perked up a bit when the talk became personal. Thomas had evidently been let down by some pretty young woman who found him dull. Lottie chipped in with some words of comfort – ‘But that’s what today’s young women are like! My daughter and her friends are shockingly shallow. If you’ve got no money or looks, you’re a zero. I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to it.’ Oddly, the man didn’t seem cheered up. In fact, he had looked distinctly sulky. ‘Don’t worry’ she added, ‘you’ll be over her in weeks.’ ‘But Melissa left me a year ago.’ And Paul didn’t flirt with her at all (of course she would have discouraged it, if he had been man enough to do it, but still Lottie felt a bit disappointed). The young woman sticking up the silly posters in the café turned out to have been Paul’s daughter Zoe. ‘My daughter isn’t at all shallow. Rather too earnest, if you ask me.’ So was Lola’s shallowness Lottie’s fault?
Perhaps in future she’d go straight home.
Some time after sunset, the rain began. It beat against the window as Shirley cooked tea. We had the best of the day, she thought.
She got the boys into their bath. They were nearly too big to take it together, but they loved bath-times; with their clothes shucked off in a heap on the floor, they turned into one bucking and dipping body, giggling, slippery, deeply intertwined, spouting and gargling for happiness when they weren’t fighting for space or soap. She left them to it, usually, after standing and watching for a bit.
Sometimes a question came into her head unbidden as she watched her two naked babes at play.
They were very alike, but they weren’t identical.
Franklin was heavier and lighter-skinned, in company the shyer of the two: Winston was slighter, more imaginative, with light brown eyes like his murdered uncle; he made up stories; he was sociable.
Shirley had slept with another man around the time the twins were conceived. She had confessed to Elroy, but in general terms, not making a point of the dates or times, and he had been too upset to ask. They had never mentioned her confession again. But in her head, the questions whispered. The man had been white, but Mediterranean-looking, with olive skin and dark curly hair. Sometimes when she looked at Franklin, his powerful body reminded her of Thomas … but these were thoughts that she had to suppress before they leaked through and infected Elroy.
Today she was too tired to watch the bath. As she was washing up the tea-things, Elroy came home. He took off his jacket, called ‘Hello’, and stood in the doorway to the kitchen. ‘Kiss,’ he said. ‘I need a kiss.’
She pecked his cheek and asked, ‘How was your day?’
‘Oh, usual problems. There’s water in the basement. It might affect the electrical systems. I’m dealing with it.’ He was faintly dismissive. These days he didn’t bring his problems home. ‘Where are the boys?’ he asked, more warmly.
‘They’re in the bath.’
‘They’re early, then.’
‘Yes, there wasn’t any school today. I took them to the zoo.’ She didn’t add, ‘I went to college, and left the boys with Kilda in the Towers, and she may have taken them God knows where.’
He nodded, approving of her as a mother, which made Shirley feel fraudulent. ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked, commandeering the paper she’d meant to read after washing up.
‘I didn’t know you were coming home. I ate with the boys. But I’ll fix you something.’ Shirley was tired, and her voice was reluctant, though she loved Elroy, and the wifely part of her thought her husband deserved a hot supper after working all day in the hospital. Why couldn’t he ring, though, and give her some warning?
‘It’s OK,’ said Elroy, picking up her tone, turning away abruptly and making for the hall. ‘I might ring Colin. We’ll pick up some food.’
Which meant they would stay out till midnight.
He didn’t sound annoyed, just resigned; she was often tired when he came home.
Too tired to talk, or make him supper, but not too tired to study, she thought. She heard him talking on the phone. Then he dipped back into the kitchen, and smiled. ‘I’m going to go say hello to the boys. I’ll get them into their pyjamas.’
‘Take Winston Bendy Rabbit, will you?’ Winston adored his Bendy Rabbit. Much of life consisted in re-uniting them. Elroy took it through, waggling its ears at her.
She was left by the draining-board feeling guilty. Her mum had always cooked tea for her dad; it would be waiting when he came in from the park, and they ate together, at the little table; the children were fed earlier and shooed out of the way, for it was understood that Dad came home exhausted. And afterwards he always said ‘Thank you, May,’ and sank into his armchair for a read of the paper. And then she would wash up, and come and join him. They sat there, silent, in a circle of light. Somewhere, surely, they must still be sitting there, lit by the table lamp, stooped companionably …
Where? She would never go home again.
And it wasn’t perfect – Dad could be a bastard, and look at Mum now, so slight, so tiny, as if she only half exists, without him.
Shirley wasn’t May, and Elroy wasn’t Alfred, and twins were tiring, and so was study.
Mum never managed to do a degree. I do my best, Shirley thought, as so often. She wiped the surfaces, washed the cloth, and went into the sitting-room to read her textbook, thinking, if I keep quiet, Elroy might do the boys’ bed-time.
Slowly the domestic fog slipped away and her mind began to tune into pleasure. Culture, to Shirley, still meant the far continent, the world away from this flooded city. Elegant voices, silver architecture, long straight roads, a world of luxury –
Though Shirley and Elroy were far from poor. She was a wealthy widow when she married him; Elroy, who had then been younger, less established, had a new job now, more money, more status, high up in hospital management. Both of them had grown busier, older. The relationship had changed, but then, Mum said that children always changed a relationship. ‘One day they’ll be gone, and then you’ll miss them.’
Briefly, Shirley thanked God for the boys.
Then she sighed, and lost herself in her assignment.
About half an hour later, Elroy came through. He looked harassed; his voice was accusing. ‘Winston’s crying. He wants his mother.’
‘I’m a little bit busy … Could you do it, Elroy?’
‘Thing is, I don’t know what’s up with him. He’s talking about you killing a cat, and a man shouting, and lots of people, and everyone will die, and I told him it must be something he’s seen on TV, it isn’t real, nothing’s going to happen, but it seems this Kilda girl has told him it’s true. Why she been looking after my boys? You tell me you take them to the zoo, Shirley.’
They were always his boys when he disapproved, though Shirley knew that the truth was more complex, he’d never be sure if the boys were his, because she, Shirley, was a wicked woman. She could never tell him. Her sin lay between them. One day, surely, he would pay her back. Or had he already? How could she blame him? Yet he was a doting, passionate father.
Later she was thoughtful as she lay in bed. Winston and Franklin had been hard to comfort. Perhaps the boys had seen some frightening news; most TV news was frightening, at the moment. Mr Bliss was banging the war drum again. We must have war, or there would never be peace. There was a lot of footage of troops moving, and reports of ‘liberated’ cities far away. Dark-eyed, frightened, liberated people stared back as reporters waved microphones under their noses and asked if they would like to thank Mr Bliss. Ragged, uncomprehending clapping.
Or maybe they’d heard something about the rains. The rising tide of water was scary for everyone. Or Kilda might have been talking wildly. To Shirley she seemed shy, but people were mysterious. Kilda hadn’t told her where she had taken the boy
s.
Guilt pushed up again, black, powerful. She should never have dumped the boys on Kilda. If she hadn’t done that, the boys would be sleeping. And that poor cat would still be alive. She had driven straight on; that really was wicked. She winced at the memory of its small squashed body. Somewhere an owner might be weeping.
One of the boys started crying again, and the rain hammered hard against the window.
Shirley prayed for the everlasting arms to bear her up, but it was one of those times when Jesus seemed distant, and all that came back was her own small voice, and the empty wind, and the night was black, wet, endless.
May sat in her kitchen trying to read, with darkness pressing against the pane. She loved poetry, and myths, and novels, but she didn’t really have an education. (Shirley was getting an education.) May didn’t understand about wood-boring insects, she didn’t know history, or geography. Maybe she had married Alfred too young, and too many things had been left to him. How old had she been when they took up together?
A kid, really. A chit of a girl …
She’d been driven to the kitchen by the throat-searing smell of the chemicals the woodworm men had used. Her kitchen still kept its old tiled floor; having no wood, it had not been treated. But there wasn’t any heating, and the air was chill.
Feeling slightly wicked, she had switched on the oven, and sat by its warmth, clutching her book, unable to rid herself of the worry that Alfred would tell her off for extravagance.
And yet, she thought, if he did, oh if he did, if I heard his feet coming down from upstairs and his voice, slightly gruff, calling my name, if his dear red face should appear at the door…
Unpredictable, familiar, the tears welled up, and the grief came back, the old hopeless stone, to press on her chest, crushing, stupid. How could anyone so real and particular – angular, awkward, his look, his smell, the little phrases only Alfred used, Alfred, love, my dear, my duck – how could Alfred disappear for ever?
Where had he gone? Alfred, Alfred.
‘Stay with me, dear,’ she whispered to him. ‘You’ll never be dead while I am alive.’