Is This the Way You Said?

by Adam Thorpe

  These robbers never did, my mother reported the police as saying. Our kukri had disappeared, so that must have been the weapon. They had cut through the wire netting on the veranda with bolt shears.

  We arrived in England a few weeks later and lived with Gran and Gramp in Whitstable. I went to school in a blazer that made my neck itch. Gramp was retired and had a big white moustache and spent his whole time gardening with a cigarette stuck to his bottom lip. He put chicken-wire like tubes around the plants to stop the rabbits, though I never saw any rabbits. The house was in the middle of a lot of other houses and there were no rabbits, but Gramp was sure there were rabbits and that they nibbled everything unless you took precautions. I kept the borders neat with a clipper that was too tall for me, so I had to hold it halfway down the shafts. Gramp always said I did a better job than anyone else, ruffling my hair, and I wondered whether I should offer to clip the edges in the neighbours’ gardens for money – but not for Bob-a-Job and charity. I never had the courage, though.

  One day Mr Majhi turned up from Calcutta.

  I was ten, and Calcutta seemed so far in the past that it was as if it had belonged to another person’s life. Mr Majhi had worked for my father in B.O.A.C. and had come to pay his respects while visiting his cousins in London. I got back from school and Mr Majhi was amazed at how I’d grown, but I had no memory of Mr Majhi.

  My mother was poorly with her problems by now and wasn’t at home, so she missed Mr Majhi. Her problems arose, I was told, from the shock of seeing my father on the spare-bedroom floor. It had taken years for this shock to come through properly and now it was coming through and she had to stay in a special place where it was quiet and soothing.

  I was pretty sure he’d had no head when she’d seen him there. Every time I saw Gramp prune the heads of the roses I thought of my father and our kukri from Katmandu sweeping down in one long stroke. Now I wanted to ask Mr Majhi about this head business, but didn’t dare.

  We all went out into the garden after tea and Gran sat in her usual chair, watching Gramp mow the lawn, though he was getting a bit too long in the tooth, she said, to push the mower.

  Mr Majhi stood very respectfully, watching Gramp work, and he kept calling out, ‘I’m sure I should be giving you a hand with that, you know, Mr Lindsay.’

  Gran just sat there and said, ‘He will have his way, Mr Majhi,’ each time Mr Majhi offered to help. ‘He’s always been ever so stubborn.’

  ‘Like Terence,’ said Mr Majhi. ‘But in the nicest possible way, you see.’

  Gran didn’t say anything back because she was my father’s mother and talking about Terence upset her. She went very pale, that was all. That might have been the sunshine reflecting off her skin, which she’d rub cream into to keep it soft and tender. It was because of the sunshine that we’d all gone out into the garden: it must remind Mr Majhi of Calcutta, I thought. The taste of the jam sponge cake was still in my mouth.

  I never wanted to go back to Calcutta, though. My mother said there had been a corpse outside the house for two weeks before the police moved it. It was not my father’s corpse but a beggar’s. Calcutta was full of beggars who just died like that. You’d pass them when you went out shopping and step over them and it upset my mother. Even telling me about the beggars upset her.

  I wanted to ask Mr Majhi whether he was a member of the Tollygunge Club, which had a swimming pool and a bar with bamboo walls. Then I remembered my mother saying that it was British Only.

  ‘There’s a rough patch over there,’ Mr Majhi called out, smiling and pointing to a bit of the lawn that was completely neat. ‘What very nice grass you have here in the old country, by the way,’ he said to Gran. ‘Just like a bowling green.’

  Gran said thank you, as if it was her doing.

  I wondered whether I should tell Mr Majhi about the dream I kept having. I’d had it for years.

  In this dream I’d wake up because of a funny noise and call out for some water. I was sweating and it was dark. My father popped his head round the door and I could tell he was in his striped pyjamas. I told him how thirsty I was and he said he’d get me a glass of water. Then I’d really wake up, trying to stop him going but not being able to move.

  I wanted to ask Mr Majhi if my father had been found with a broken glass and a puddle of water next to him. I stood there in the garden watching Gramp push the lawn mower over the grass that didn’t need cutting anyway and tried to pluck up courage to ask Mr Majhi but Gran would have heard because she was between Mr Majhi and me and anyway maybe it would be better not to know. The robbers had been very quiet and they had tiptoed in and taken the jewellery box from right above my mother’s head and tiptoed out again. But I was always a light sleeper, Gran would say. She wouldn’t say this because I’d told her about my dream, she’d say it anyway. Sometimes it’s better to roll over and just close your eyes, even if you hear a noise. But it’s very hard to sleep if you’re thirsty. It’s what Gramp would always say about flowers: all flowers need water. You can tell by how they look whether they need a bit extra in the summer, or in any dry patch. Spring, summer or autumn. You just need to look.

  Mr Majhi stood with his back to the garden wall and he was paying us his respects, as if we were a gravestone. Gramp was pushing the mower. I was wondering whether to ask Mr Majhi about the broken glass and the puddle of water.

  Then Gran said, as if she’d been thinking hard about it: ‘Yes, you’re right, Terence was just the same, Mr Majhi. Stubborn as an ox.’

  ‘He certainly was, Mrs Lindsay. But oxen are sacred in our country, you know. Very special.’

  He gave a little chuckle. He had made a clever joke. I already knew about cows being sacred in India. Gran just sat there, watching Gramp. She hardly ever mentioned my father. I couldn’t think of him as ‘Terence’, in fact. My mother always said, ‘Your dad’.

  And then I realised that Mr Majhi was secretly telling me about this head business. Our kukri had been used for slicing the heads off special cows in Katmandu and that’s what he meant.

  And my thirst grew and is still growing and still no one has brought the water because they are all cut down. Sometimes it’s better to roll over and forget all about it, but I’m a stubborn person and I like things neat. Even now I’m like that. Even now I like things neat when I shouldn’t really worry at all. I was hoping Gramp would ask me to clip the edges so that Mr Majhi could ruffle my hair and say I was better than any gardener in Calcutta . . . but Gramp didn’t ask me, he just went on mowing as if he was giving a demonstration while we all watched without saying one thing more.

  DEAD BOLT

  They were stacking the chairs in the Community Hall. The chairs were grey plastic bucket types with little metal grips each side so they could be attached to each other in rows and the helpers were having problems ungrappling them. But they were laughing about it. The concert had been a success and everyone was high. Maybe the drinks after the concert had helped; there had been Kir Royale provided by Nolan’s wife, Andrea, and Duncan had brought along some bottles of Sainsbury’s green cider with brown-paper labels that made it look locally brewed. The younger chaps all wanted beer or lager, and Nolan asked Duncan why he hadn’t brought any along. Duncan had felt that beer or lager wasn’t right after a classical music concert, but he didn’t say this. He wasn’t sure of his ground.

  ‘If they want a piss-up,’ he said, ‘they can go to The Granary.’

  Those who hadn’t gone home were pitching in to help, now: there wasn’t even a broom free. They were all keen to do their bit. Duncan had some dirty glasses in his hand and he was waiting to get into the kitchen. A kid he didn’t know, about eight or nine, was blocking the door, trying to stack a chair. It was like It’s a Knockout. The kid was leaning back holding the chair and trying to get the metal legs to slide into the right place over the other two chairs already stacked together. Duncan watched. He was exhausted, almost hung over. Then someone else old enough to be the kid’s grandfather appeared in t
he kitchen door and helped him slide the chair into the one below.

  There was a trio of silver-haired women in the kitchen, tall county types in flowery dresses whose names he could never get right. And Marjorie, who cleaned the hall. People who used the hall had to clean up after themselves and then Marjorie came along and complained that they hadn’t done a proper job, although she was paid by the Community Hall Association to do the job. She was a thin woman with oversize feet and hands, and teeth that didn’t fit properly inside her mouth. The posh trio were wiping stem glasses and being over-nice to Marjorie, who was telling them something – complaining about something, it sounded like – in her raucous voice, the strong local country accent grating on Duncan’s nerves. The posh trio were responding but it sounded as if they were talking over her. It sounded as if everyone was talking at once, in there.

  Duncan slipped the glasses carefully onto the furred wood surface next to the old sink without anyone noticing him. Or they chose not to notice him. He caught a whiff of Marjorie – sweat, old dishcloths, stale Avon perfume. Always keep the right side of Marjorie. Then he went out again. A couple he knew only as Rob and Gillie or Julie or Gillian thanked him very much and said goodbye, backing away in their snazzy coats from the clearing-up. They were thanking him because Nolan wasn’t there. They were rich and lived in a manor house, that was all he knew about them. He had tried to keep in the background, not drawing attention to himself in case people suspected. Maybe it didn’t matter if they suspected. It might matter soon, though, if the contract went through – suspicion working backwards as well as forwards. He couldn’t see David Wilkes. Maybe the man had left without saying goodbye. Maybe he’d only said goodbye to Nolan. That would have been a crucial moment. Nolan would have rehearsed it.

  The chairs made a deafening clatter and crash as they were being stacked. The hall’s acoustics were not good. He heard a tall attractive blonde – he’d noticed her in the audience – talking to the kid in Swedish or possibly Dutch. The only kid up late. Steve Jonson was starting to mop the floor, showing somebody how to make the right sweeping movements with the mop. To and fro, to and fro, in easy curves. Steve the expert in everything except in the way he dressed: always the SAS-style green roll-neck jacket, shapeless jeans, cheap trainers. He was a bird-watcher, too.

  Susan had gone home with the girls straight after the concert. They had walked it, taking the torch up the shortcut, the rough track they called the High Street as a joke. It was the hamlet’s main street, historically speaking; they had fought against it being tarmacked to avoid idiots racing up it. He’d felt very country bumpkin, fighting that battle against the tarmac – Nolan had teased him, he remembered, saying how he ought to don a green bobble hat and wellies. They hadn’t brought the car. The hired stem glasses and the drinks had been brought in Nolan’s car.

  ‘I’ll wait up,’ Susan had said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I won’t sleep until you’re back. I can’t help it. Don’t get at me about it, please, Duncan.’

  There were no more dirty glasses on the big table. Duncan roamed around, checking for any on the floor. Steve’s mop swept towards him and he had to perform a little hop over it. Sarah Livingstone and Jackie Coops were sweeping just ahead of the mop, and the chairs were getting stacked and dragged across the lino just ahead of the brooms. Duncan thought about saying to Steve, It’s a military operation, but couldn’t be bothered. He was too tired.

  ‘Looking for your bouncy ball, Duncan?’

  ‘Yeah, Steve. You’ve missed a bit there. I can see it through my microscope.’

  ‘That’s your pawmarks, mate.’

  Duncan found a dirty glass on a sill, behind the curtain to the right of the back door. He left it there: to get to the kitchen he’d have to cross Steve’s shining empire of mopped lino. Next to the curtain was an old framed photograph of the hall’s interior, dated 1928. Behind the 1928 Hall Committee (big-nosed and ugly in their silly hats and thick shoes, with the exception of a pretty girl in the front row), the hall looked like a different place, and not just because it was in black-and-white: wooden floor, plaster walls, beamed ceiling, curved wall-lamps under little glass shades burning to gas, probably. Only the doors and the placing of the windows were the same. A stove sat in the middle, with a thick pipe going up, and there were wooden chairs around the edge. Duncan had never noticed this photograph, or never paid it any attention. The interior looked very real, even in black-and-white. You could almost touch it, touch the glass shades or the shiny floorboards or stroke the rim of the chair-backs. For a moment, slightly pissed probably, he seemed to go right into the photograph, right into the past.

  ‘Fancy her, do you?’

  ‘Luverly, Steve.’

  ‘Bit like Nicole Kidman,’ said Steve, pretending to study the photograph.

  Yes, the hall looked completely different, now. It had been revamped a few years back, just before they’d come to the village. The local builder, a thuggish bloke by the name of Keith Glover, was responsible. False ceilings in agglomero, strip lighting, metal-framed windows, cork tiles on the walls that the youth group had tried to coat recently in pale-green emulsion. It now looked like a social security waiting-room from the 1970s. It looked less real than the old interior in the photograph, in fact.

  He slipped outside by the side door and lit his first cigarette of the night. The air was sweet and cool, even through the Marlboro. He let the cigarette tick over for a bit and drew in the country air through his nostrils; damp leaves, mist, something a bit – what was the word? Began with F. Meaning wild, savage, untamed. He searched for it, couldn’t find it. Not ‘fetid’. Certainly not ‘futile’. Or ‘flaccid’. Duncan Jolly on University Challenge. A bit late for that, though. Very mature student.

  It could still surprise him, this country air. Even after five, six years. Bats flittered about the outside lamp above the door. They must be bats, he thought. They were too big to be insects, this wasn’t Africa. He was a bit frightened of bats: their Orc faces. Radar ears. The hall had a bit of land, sandy and wet with a lot of birch trees on it, blending into the bigger woods around. These woods petered out up on the bare downland where he and Susan kept meaning to walk more than they did.

  It was amazing, that he lived in the countryside. That the countryside was his to live in at all. It was truly amazing. He was one of the people from the countryside. Yet he still felt a Bromley man.

  Nicole bloody Kidman. Who did Steve think he was? Sutton Dewey’s answer to Ronnie Barker. They hadn’t heard of anybody since Ronnie Barker, here. He tried to recall whether Ronnie Barker was dead or not. Amazing, how these things slipped one’s mind.

  He hardly ever did this. He hardly ever just stood outside doing nothing, appreciating the country air, indulging in a smoke. It made him feel young – in his twenties. Or younger. He wondered if he shouldn’t have spent more time in his life just leaning against a wall, smoking, contemplating things, ruminating. Instead of rushing about chasing money and all the rest of it. There was a verse he’d learnt at school that said that. Take time to stop and stare, something along those lines. A picture of a clapboard house in a Western, with a stoop and a rocking-chair and a grand view of the desert, came to him. He narrowed his eyes as hard men did in the films he’d watched as a kid; they’d lean on the stoop and look out into the deep dark desert, the canyons and the wotsits and the secret water-holes and the tiny fires of the Indians.

  He walked forward gingerly into the darkness until he was on the edge of the birch trees. He was wasting his life. Forty in two years’ time. The Big Four O. Duncan Jolly, forty years old. He breathed in deeply and heard his wheeze, pushed his shoulders back and felt the weight of his frame, his belly pressing against his shirt. He would start to slim on his fortieth. The day after it. No beers. No fried stuff. No Snickers bars. No cigarettes. He’d begun to wheeze a few months back. He’d thought it was a cold, at first. Running to catch the post office before it closed, he had wheezed. A defin
ite wheeze. But when he compared himself with other blokes of his age, he found himself nicely down the middle, weight-wise.

  He’d start worrying at forty. Derek Taverner of Elton Electronics dropped dead at forty, jogging. He’d not heard of anyone dropping dead like that at thirty-nine, it was always forty plus. The birch trees’ trunks were white enough to look quite bright, now his eyes had adjusted. Death meant you made no more mistakes.

  For some reason, the countryside made you think more about death.

  He looked up for stars. The sky was clear and dark, but it was a bit muddy, muddy-orange. That’d be the motorway, probably. Or retail parks, lit like prison camps. Or just towns. Something winked, moving slowly across. A satellite, or a plane. No stars visible. He’d read somewhere that only twenty-one per cent of England was dark enough to look up from and see the stars, these days. Funny, how he remembered figures like that.

  A few people were leaving the hall and laughing as they said goodnight. He wondered where Nolan had got to. Maybe he was talking to David Wilkes by the cars parked along the lane. Nobody had appreciated the cider. There was a lot of it left, now, to purloin.

  Feet scrunched up the track, up the shortcut beyond the hall’s wire fence. Pocket torches picked out the route; there was a slight mist that showed up the torch beams, like in a film. Apart from Marjorie, no locals had come along, he realised. By ‘locals’ he meant people born and bred in Sutton Dewey. That was disappointing. All having sex in the shower, no doubt.

  He kept stock-still by the trees, like a poacher, shielding the glow of his cigarette as the torches wavered up the track. He could imagine being a hunted man, the Gestapo or whoever after him with their guns and dogs and torches. He recognised Jackie Coops’s high voice in among the others. He’d quite fancied her when they first came but she’d suddenly got past it, letting her hair and knockers go and losing her style. It happened.