by Anne Fine
Christopher, hideously embarrassed, slid off his chair and crouched beside the quail’s cage, out of the blast. He hated scenes. He reached out for the tiny, fat, grey, warm comfort of his pet, and wondered what Hetty had made of all these endless outbursts since the day he first carried her home from the pet shop. First, there were all those truly terrifying rows in the kitchen at the other house, when plates, and even food, went flying. Christopher, cowering with Lydia elsewhere in the house – often under Natalie’s cot where for some reason they felt safest – would hear the thuds and bangs and hysterically raised voices, and wonder if Hetty were safe behind her cage bars. What if his mother or father lobbed something sharp, or narrow, or even just a little too hard? What if they crushed the bars, and Hetty? At calmer moments, Christopher begged to be allowed to move her cage up to his bedroom; but since he couldn’t bring himself to explain why, for fear of setting one or another of his parents off again, his pleas were ignored.
So Hetty had to sit through all those awful, awful quarrels; and then weeks and months of cold and grinding discussions about money and curtains and child support, and who would take which table, and who which photographs. Did all the arguments put her off her seed? Did they make her feel sick? And even now, ages after Dad had moved out to a place of his own and taken Hetty with him at Mum’s suggestion, just when she might have been hoping for a quieter life in her old age, still there were these awful, unpredictable moments blowing up out of nowhere – no longer truly frightening, but still unpleasant and unsettling.
Did she mind? He hummed to Hetty in a soft and tuneless fashion as he ran his fingers over her feathers. It was the noise he always made when things around were turning nasty. It was like putting himself away behind a wall, and the sheer drab and insistent idiocy of the sound always worried Daniel terribly.
It worked. As soon as the unmusical drone penetrated Daniel’s consciousness, he made a huge effort to rise above his ill-temper, and consider the children.
Letting the note that had so enraged him drop to the floor, he prised Natalie off his trouser legs, and carried her back to the kitchen table.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Slip of the tongue. Didn’t really mean it. I promise I won’t say nasty things about your mother again.’
‘Or say that you’ll cheerfully slit her throat?’
‘Or say that I’ll cheerfully slit her throat.’
Forcing herself to believe him, Natalie wiped her streaming eyes and nose across the sleeve of his jacket, leaving wide slug trails.
‘Some hopes,’ she said bravely.
‘There’s my own Natty.’
‘What’s in the letter?’
‘Never mind.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Not now.’
‘Tell me.’
Daniel glanced at the elder two. Lydia had gone back to reading this week’s pile of letters to various acting agencies, detailing his past successes and announcing his current availability. He was quite glad he had put out of sight all his handwritten notes to old friends in the theatre, asking if they had heard on the grapevine of anything hopeful. Christopher, too, seemed absorbed, petting his quail. In fact, neither of the elder two appeared in the slightest bit interested in the contents of their mother’s letter, and Daniel realized for the very first time that they must have worked out some way of getting access to them before he did. Wondering how, he explained to Natalie:
‘Your mother thinks Lydia and Christopher need some new clothes. So she is keeping you all over Friday night, in order to take you shopping on Saturday morning. So you won’t be getting to me until lunchtime.’
‘Teatime, more like,’ Christopher muttered bitterly; and when Lydia said nothing at all to defend her mother, he gathered up the courage to add: ‘It isn’t fair. It is Dad’s weekend. She didn’t have to leave buying clothes until now. I only need socks, anyway. Dad can buy socks.’
‘I can indeed,’ Daniel assured him. ‘I can buy skirts, too. And gym shoes, and woollies, and even girls’ knickers.’
At this appalling rudeness, Natalie sniggered. Christopher burst into song.
‘Anything Mum can buy, Dad can buy better!
Dad can buy anything better than Mum!’
He held his hands out to Natalie, and swung her round in a circle, singing raucously. Natalie reached for her father as she swung past him, and made him join in, too. To Daniel’s astonishment, Lydia joined in of her own accord.
‘Anything Mum can buy, Dad can buy better!
Dad can buy anything better than Mum!’
‘Yes, he can.’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘Yes, he can.’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘Yes, he can.’ ‘Yes, I can.’ ‘Yes, he can!’
They fell back, laughing, on the floor. Natalie climbed on her father’s stomach and bounced up and down until, in self-defence, he pinned her down firmly.
Losing his head in all the excitement, Christopher shouted:
‘Oh, go on! Tell her!’
Daniel let go of Natalie momentarily, in order to spread his hands.
‘You know your mother…’ he warned gently.
‘Phone her up!’
‘Tell her!’
‘Why should we miss all Friday night with you, and most of Saturday?’
‘You can buy socks!’
‘It’s only fair!’
‘It’s your weekend, not hers.’
The voices, like the directives, gradually weakened. They, too, knew their mother.
‘We could ask.’
‘Yes, ask her!’
‘She might. You never know.’
‘We could suggest it.’
‘Hint at it.’
‘She won’t let us, though.’
‘She never does.’
‘Never!’
‘It isn’t fair, is it?’
‘No, it’s not fair…’
Daniel looked round at his children’s faces, one raw with disappointment, two sourly miserable. He said to Lydia: ‘You knew when you came in here, didn’t you?’
She nodded, too dispirited even to dissemble.
‘You, too?’
Christopher shrugged.
‘But Natalie didn’t.’
‘She might as well have known,’ Christopher burst out. ‘It happens practically every time. Whenever it’s our turn to come to you, Mum manages to find some excuse. Rakes up some old great-aunt who hasn’t sent a present in years, but suddenly can’t last another weekend without having tea with us.’
‘Or she buys tickets for something, and claims they only had seats left for that day.’
‘Or she makes sure we have to come home to go to the doctor.’
‘Or the dentist.’
‘Or the optician.’
‘Or we get to you hours late, because she’s taking the car to be serviced.’
‘Or we get picked up hours early because she’s fetching it back.’
‘We hardly ever see you.’
‘And when we do, she’s on the phone all the time.’
‘Checking up on us, as if we were babies.’
‘Checking up on you.’
In the next room the phone, like a timely haunting, began to ring. They sat, unnerved and silenced.
‘I’ll get it,’ Daniel said finally.
‘Oh, no you won’t,’ said Lydia. ‘I can’t stand any more today. I’ll get it.’
Fiercely, she pushed back the chair against which she’d been leaning. The noise it made scraping across the floor set all their teeth on edge. They sat without speaking as Lydia banged out through the kitchen door and lifted the receiver, to stop the phone’s steady, insistent ringing. Daniel looked across at Natalie, who’d stuck her fingers in her ears. Gently, he prised them out, and kissed them. Christopher began his very unpleasant humming, but Daniel gritted his teeth and said nothing.
Lydia came back.
‘Well?’ Daniel teased. ‘Aren’t you going to tell us what sh
e said?’
It never occurred to him for a moment that she would. She never told. She’d walk back in scowling, but when you asked, she’d only shrug and say sulkily: ‘Nothing.’ She’d keep her peace for hours, sometimes for ever, and only tell Daniel if she happened to catch him alone for a few moments rooting for flowerpots in the hall cupboard, or hanging up laundry in the box-room, or coming out of the lavatory.
‘That phone call…’ she’d say, in a voice of stony detachment. Daniel would nod, to show he was paying attention. ‘She says your money came in four days late again this month, and please try to be a bit more regular in future.’ Or, ‘I’m to remind you that four socks that came with us a fortnight ago haven’t turned up yet. Two matching brown, one long red, and a school one.’
‘Righty-ho!’ Daniel would say as cheerily as he could between clenched jaws. But Lydia would already have walked away.
It clearly wasn’t anything quite so petty as socks this time, he suddenly realized. Her face was drawn and bloodless. She actually seemed to be swaying with rage. To his horror, he realized that this time, whatever it was her mother had rung up to say, it was so awful his daughter could not keep it to herself, even for a few moments. She was about to tell them all.
‘Lydia!’ he tried to stop her.
But it was too late. Already she had turned on her brother, whose humming drone died to a faint, dried, staccato crackle at the mere sight of the look on his sister’s face.
‘The message was for you,’ she told him. ‘It couldn’t wait two hours till you got home. You had to be told now. She had to phone. You had to know.’
‘Know what?’ he asked her, terrified.
She took a deep breath.
‘Lydia! No!’
It was as if it were a taste so bad she had to spit it out at once.
‘The cat got at your hamsters. This time he really got at them. He tore them up. They’re dead, both of them, Henry and Madge. She says she walked into the house to see mess and gore spread all over the rug.’
Her ghastly message off-loaded, Lydia turned away in tears.
Christopher bent over where he sat, on the floor, and buried his head in his arms. His shoulders heaved.
Natalie’s fingers crept back in her ears.
Daniel looked round at his pale, miserable family.
‘Good old Miranda,’ he muttered softly to himself. ‘Another ruined teatime. So help me, one day I will slit her throat!’
And Natalie, with her fingers still crushed in her ears, didn’t hear him.
Chapter Two
Stark naked in front of the neighbours
At six o’clock Daniel realized he could no longer pretend he was waiting for the right moment to tell them his news. If he left it for very much longer, they would be gone. It would be four full days before they came again at the weekend, and at any time during those four days, any one of his children might hear his news from someone else.
He wanted to tell them himself. But on the other hand…
There was a bit of the gambler in Daniel Hilliard. Scouring the room for any excuse for a further postponement, his eyes fell on the quail who appeared to be fast asleep in a corner of her cage.
When she next peeps, thought Daniel, I’ll tell them my news. Definitely. No question.
He then sat very still indeed, fearing to startle Hetty into untimely wakefulness by any precipitous noise or gesture.
Christopher sneezed. The quail woke up and peeped.
That didn’t count, Daniel assured himself.
Christopher sneezed again. He was sitting on the floor beside a pile of wood shavings spilled out on newspaper, gluing the largest and curliest of them into a convoluted grave marker which he intended to stick in the ground above the last remains of his hamsters. Each time he rooted through the heap in search of the perfect wood-shaving for the next spiralling flourish, a little cloud of dust rose up and tickled his nostrils. He sneezed a third time, even louder.
The quail peeped again. Knowing when he was beaten, Daniel rose to his feet, straightened his tie, cleared his throat loudly, and announced:
‘I have some news.’
Christopher looked up from his grave marker. Lydia peered at her father over the tattered Beano she was reading for the third time. Up at the table, Natalie stopped crayoning.
‘I’ve got a job.’
There was a moment’s pause. Then Natalie giggled. The other two sucked in their cheeks and glanced at one another, but Daniel didn’t notice. He was too embarrassed, telling the quail:
‘Down at the Art College. Four mornings and two evenings a week.’
By now, Natalie was hugging herself, and rocking gently. Christopher bent his head over his grave marker to conceal a smile, his first since the phonecall. Lydia buried her face in her comic.
‘It’s not exactly a proper acting job,’ Daniel went on. ‘But it’s not badly paid, not badly paid at all, considering…’
‘Considering what?’ asked Christopher, and Daniel answered a little hesitantly:
‘Considering what I have to do.’
Lydia asked slyly, ‘What do you have to do, Dad?’
Now it was Christopher’s turn to giggle, and Natalie had to ram her fist into her mouth to keep from splurting with laughter. There was another short pause before Daniel answered airily, ‘Not very much. I just sort of sit about, really.’
‘Just sort of sit about?’
‘Or stand about.’
Lydia said, ‘And do you ever just sort of lie about, too?’
‘I might just lie about, yes. Yes, I might, on occasion, if specially requested. Yes, I might.’
Natalie could not contain herself any longer.
‘What do you wear?’ she called out. ‘Go on, Daddy, tell us! What do you wear to do this job?’
Flushing a rich, ruby colour, Daniel accused his younger daughter.
‘You knew! You knew already! You knew all the time!’
Christopher grinned.
‘Mum’s absolutely livid,’ he said with comfortable satisfaction. ‘She’s totally wild. I’ve never, ever seen her so angry. Not when you terrified all the toddlers at Natalie’s party, bursting in wearing that gorilla suit. Or when you pretended you had backed the car over Granny. Or even when you said you heard ticking coming from that shopping bag in Woolworth’s, and the bomb disposal team blew up that old lady’s groceries.’
‘I take your point,’ Daniel interrupted him coldly. ‘Your mother’s not pleased.’
‘She certainly isn’t.’
‘Well, maybe she should be. She’s spent enough time recently complaining her money’s late. Maybe she should be pleased that I have found myself a job at last.’
‘But, Dad!’ cried Lydia. ‘What a job! Honestly! Nude modelling!’
Natalie couldn’t help snickering.
‘I don’t have to be ashamed,’ Daniel insisted hotly. ‘It’s a real job. It pays good money. Somebody has to do it.’ He drew himself up. ‘Indeed, I fancy I am rather good at it.’
‘So does Mrs Hooper,’ Christopher told him.
Daniel stared.
‘Mrs Hooper? Mrs Hooper who lives next door to you? How would she know?’
‘She’s seen you.’
‘Seen me?’
Daniel was horrified.
‘Well, painted you, then.’
‘Painted me? What? Starkers? With no clothes on?’
‘So Mr Hooper said, when he came round to Mum to complain.’
‘I don’t believe it.’ Daniel clutched his head. ‘My own ex-next-door-neighbour seeing me raw!’
‘She almost didn’t believe it, either,’ said Lydia. ‘She said she hardly recognized you at first with no clothes on, because you weren’t a bit as she’d imagined.’
‘Imagined? Imagined?’ Daniel went pale. ‘Do you mean to tell me that all those years when I was standing there in all innocence in my wellies, chatting to her over the fence about carrot root fly and potato blight, the woman w
as actually propped on her rake, imagining me without my clothes?’
‘Well, that’s what Mr Hooper seems to think, because he came round complaining to Mum about it.’
‘He told Mum it was disgusting,’ Natalie reported happily.
‘Truly disgusting,’ the others chimed. Clearly the exact terms of the conversation were well embedded in their minds.
‘Oh, did he?’ said Daniel.
Without thinking, he lifted a few coils of imaginary rope from an imaginary heap on the floor, and idly started to tie a hangman’s knot.
‘And what,’ he asked in a dangerously casual voice, ‘did your dear mother have to say about that?’
Lydia and Christopher were both quick to frown at Natalie in a warning fashion. But not quite quick enough. Natalie told him:
‘Mum said she thought it was disgusting, too.’
Daniel pulled his imaginary hangman’s knot a little bit tighter.
‘Oh, did she?’ he asked in glacial tones. ‘Oh, did she really?’
‘Yes. Yes, she did.’
‘And then?’ prompted Daniel, fingering his noose.
Not heeding any of the danger signs, Natalie prattled on into ever deeper water.
‘Then Mr Hooper took Mrs Hooper’s painting of you with no clothes on out of the Sainsbury’s bag that he’d hidden it in to carry it over to our house, and he propped it up on the living-room table. Then he and Mum both stared at it for a little while. Then Mum started giggling.’
‘Did she, indeed?’
Natalie looked thoughtful.
‘You don’t often see Mum giggling,’ she remarked. ‘She’s usually far too busy to giggle.’
‘Oh, yes indeed,’ Daniel agreed. ‘Your mother is usually far too busy running the Empire to break off for a quick giggle. I’m honoured that she saw fit to make an exception in this case.’
‘It isn’t the Empire,’ Lydia defended her mother. ‘It’s the Emporium. The Lighting Emporium. And you can’t really blame her for giggling. Some bits of Mrs Hooper’s painting were very funny.’
Daniel began to lash his imaginary rope to an overhead fitting.
‘Oh, yes? Which bits, exactly, would those be?’
‘You know,’ said Lydia, blushing a little in her turn. ‘The funny bits. You were stark naked!’