by Janice Brown
Stooping, peering in, he recognised the parish minister, disguised in a shabby blue sweater and denim jeans. There was a young girl in the passenger seat.
‘‘I’m only going to Carbennie,’’ Duncan said, adding several thankyous and smiling in case his refusal might seem ungracious.
‘‘That’s on my way, jump in,’’ said the minister.
‘‘I’ll go in the back, Dad,’’ the girl said, getting out quickly, before Duncan could speak.
His hand thus forced, and constitutionally unable to be rude, he got into the front passenger seat. He felt that his dislike of the man was irrational. In theory, they had a great deal in common. They were possibly the only two in the village who could read both Greek and Latin. More importantly, they were both on the side of decency, both hopeful of improving themselves and the world. But perhaps this was where the problem lay. He himself firmly believed in doing good by stealth. Not letting the left hand know what the right was doing, as it were. To make a living out of this, as ministers of religion did, was, in Duncan’s eyes, to make the whole business rather more public and presumptuous than it ought to be. Moreover he had been told that this particular clergyman was happy to quote, in his sermons, from newspapers predominantly left of centre. Today’s denim trousers served only to confirm his doubts. The man was, after all, only a few years younger than himself.
‘‘Still on holiday, Duncan?’’ the minister began as they drove off.
When had they reached first name terms? Feeling something under his feet, he bent down, hoping he hadn’t trodden on anything valuable, but it was a brown paper bag, with the words ‘‘Burger King’’ on it. That would account for the rather odd smell then. He left it where it was.
‘‘The college closes for the whole two weeks, but I have some extra days,’’ he replied. He wanted to ask if they might drive a little more slowly, the lane being narrow and the hedges high, but politeness forbade.
‘‘And how’s your mother keeping?’’
‘‘She’s very well, thank you.’’ He gripped the side of the seat as inconspicuously as he could. Was this the right answer? Perhaps if she was ‘‘very well’’ she might be expected to come to church? She had not forgiven the previous minister for remaining on holiday when Captain Crawfurd died, meaning that the man from the next parish, a stripling in his twenties, had had to conduct the service. She still gave money regularly, of course and she had not transferred her lines, but she didn’t attend. He himself went faithfully to Communion three times a year, and to Remembrance Sunday.
The girl in the back seat was just visible in the side mirror. She was exceptionally pretty, and fair-haired like her father, but her face was spoiled by something Duncan could only describe as a disdainful expression. Not an easy child, he decided.
‘‘And your friend, Miss Crosthwaite. I tried to call in the other day, but there was no reply. She hasn’t gone away, has she?’’
‘‘No, I don’t think so.’’
Duncan felt a pang of guilt. He should have called in himself. Or at least dropped in a card. His mother had sent one, but he should have done something himself.
He hated visiting the sick. It was more than twenty years since his father died, but he still remembered vividly the hospital foyer where they’d sat day by day in that final week, waiting for visiting hour to begin: olive green fake-leather benches, a sludge-coloured carpet, potted artificial plants on either side. In the excessive warmth, he’d felt he was suffocating at the bottom of some murky pond, surrounded by underwater weeds.
He’d been shocked to see how drawn and pale Lesley was at the funeral. Black didn’t suit her at all. He’d fully intended to speak to her but she was constantly with someone or other, and when he caught her eye, she seemed not to recognise him. Besides, he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. It was so easy to say the wrong thing in such situations where conversations jumped and jittered around so.
The minister was talking about his son, home from university apparently, and how they couldn’t get him up in the mornings. Duncan felt for the sheet of paper in his pocket. There were very specific items on the list. Puréed lemon grass. Pastry shells. Rösti potato mix and raclette cheese. Those very small Belgian chocolates in the shape of Christmas puddings.
Days of servants were of course long, long gone, but Mrs Flaherty would attend the day before the party to help clean and set things out, and on the day after she would come to clear, load the dishwasher with all that was dishwasher proof, and carefully hand rinse the good china. She would be generously reimbursed, and would take leftovers home with her.
Poor Mrs Flaherty. The wild thought had occurred to Duncan more than once in recent years, as some of their guests became too aged or infirm to come, that Mrs Flaherty might be invited to come to the gathering, might sit quietly in a corner with a plate of Tesco’s finest lemon cheesecake and enliven the atmosphere by her idiosyncratic use of the English language. (She had once assured him that the ‘‘module’’ under her arm had turned out to be harmless.) Her unintentionally droll commentaries on village life deserved a wider audience, he thought, but he had never mentioned this to his mother.
‘‘Lesley and her mother usually come to us at New Year,’’ he said, becoming aware of a silence. ‘‘We have a few people over. Not a late night.’’
Why did he say this? Was he afraid the minister would think they might be having a rowdy binge-drinking session into the wee small hours?
‘‘That’s good. It’s such a difficult time to be on your own. I’ve been worrying about her.’’
Duncan glanced at the man. What right had he to be worrying about Lesley? Lesley wouldn’t appreciate such concern. She wasn’t particularly religious. Furthermore, she was very capable. She had always been capable.
At school, in the double desk beside him, Lesley had worn navy ribbons to match her cardigan tied at exactly the same place on each braid, and her white knee socks had remained firmly in place over her stout little calves. Her jotters were covered in smart brown paper. The ordinary village children generally used wallpaper scraps or left-over Christmas wrapping.
‘‘She’s a very capable person,’’ he said, more loudly than he meant to. ‘‘Before the car park would be fine for me, if you can. At Kelseys,’’ he added.
‘‘The delicatessen? Right. Of course, I don’t mean to say she’s not capable. But she’s not had … Ah, well, de mortuis etc … It would do her good to get more involved in different things now.’’
Was this directed at him too, at his failure to get ‘‘involved’’ in things? ‘‘Thank you for the lift,’’ he said politely.
‘‘My pleasure. Hope your party goes well.’’
The smile ambushed him.
‘‘Perhaps you and your wife would like to join us,’’ Duncan heard himself say. To his relief he found his offer declined. The minister and his family were already committed elsewhere.
‘‘Big family thing. The men do the cooking so it’s a bit of a mess, but you know what they say, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.’’
The car drove off. Unfolding his A5 sheet, Duncan entered the delicatessen.
Fine art
Ryan Flaherty jumped down from the bus, welcoming the cold air after his long journey from the city. Barely half four and it was already dark. He glanced into the café as he passed. There they all were, the usual punters, buying ice cream. Raspberry ripple, chocolate mint, peach, and toffee shortbread. It never ceased to amuse him that people would eat ice-cream on the coldest days. Don’t let the doctor put the wee stick in your mouth till you find out who ate the ice cream. One of Papa Flaherty’s jokes. How old are you, papa? As old as my tongue and a bit older than my teeth. He hadn’t understood that either, his five year old mind just annoyed at not getting a straight answer. A sense of confusion and the strange sweetish smell of pipe tobacco was about all he remembered of the old man.
That would be some job though, being a doctor, putting thi
ngs into other people’s mouths, sticking things up their bums. Having to look at old people’s naked parts. He’d seen his mother’s breasts once by accident. She’d been up out of bed, making a cup of tea in the middle of the night, her nightie unbuttoned. He’d just come in. He became one with the coats on the back of the door as she walked through the hall. She’d not noticed him, thank god.
Let me die before I get old …
At the Fish and Chip shop he pushed open the heavy glass door and scanned the bright interior. There was a bit of a queue. No familiar faces, except for Sandro busy with the frying, and Michelle behind the counter. She wasn’t a friend, but she’d gone with one of his sisters’ ex-boyfriends for a while, so he knew things about her, and she knew, so she’d be nice to him. She’d been a couple of years above him at school. ‘Jail bait’ was his mother’s term for Michelle, but now she was older, it hardly applied.
The prices had gone up again. Ten minutes wait for fish, Michelle said. It was worth waiting to get them straight from the fat. What an easy way to make money though, provided you had cash up front. The rich got richer and the poor got nothing. Some of the guys in his class came from his kind of background, but some were unbelievable. The cost of materials was nothing to them, it was like they were buying crisps. Some had even bought the books instead of using the library. It irritated him that he couldn’t just despise them. There was one quiet guy who, when he did speak, was so posh you felt like he needed something thrown over him, but his work was brilliant and mad crazy.
He’d not anticipated stuff like this. Ok, he’d assumed that Art School would be hard work, he’d been told that, he was up for that. He knew he had everything to learn. One of the lecturers had even complimented him on that. That’s what I like about you, Mr Flaherty. You know the extent of your ignorance. It was just that he’d thought life would be better; the guys around him would all be interested in what he was interested in, unlike school. And it was better, his mind insisted. But not simpler. Better did not equal simpler. So he was envious, but not sure of his envy. Were his thoughts getting deeper, or more shallow?
Sometimes it seemed like you only had to fool enough of the right people enough of the time to be successful. Anyone could end up winning the Turner Prize, given the chance. He himself had a cracker of an idea, which he’d been careful not to mention to anyone. Rows of soiled handfuls of toilet paper, dated by the week, sandwiched between upright slabs of Perspex. Kind of like the Viet Nam war memorial in America, but more visceral. He liked the word visceral. He wasn’t sure what it meant exactly, but he’d heard someone say it in a review of a Tarantino film, and the one time he’d used it in an essay, he got a massive pencil tick beside it from the tutor. So, right, toilet paper, pure white, no fancy colours. Production, he’d call it, with the appropriate year in brackets after the title. He was fairly sure it had never been done. It would be scent free, being encased. Visually stimulating, thought provoking, symbolic of both the waste of natural resources and the futility of human life … The reviews would be something along those lines except they’d put it better. Originally he’d thought about collecting his nephew Chrissie’s disposable nappies, A resounding call to abandon landfill sites and halt damage to the environment, but his sister would want to know why he was taking them away and there was the problem of storage. Which of course there would be with the toilet paper too …
Michelle, only just contained in her low-cut black sweater, gave him a big smile. She was very tanned. Her skin was orange all the way down her cleavage, thanks to free sessions in the tanning booth. Was this the only village with a tanning booth in its newsagents shop? For the first few days it had seemed out of place, but now it struck him as having a deeper meaning, making some kind of statement about society, he wasn’t sure what yet, but it would come to him.
‘‘Lookin’ good, Michelle,’’ he said.
She smiled again. Her false nails were immaculate, pale pink with square white tips. She was aware of him these days, he knew it. He was a lot taller than he’d been in school, his growth had come late. He wondered what she’d say if he asked her to pose naked. To help his Life Drawing. He wasn’t interested in her, she wouldn’t know something was visceral if it hit her between the eyes, but he couldn’t help wondering just how far the tan went.
‘‘So what are you up to these days?’’ she said.
‘‘I got into Art School,’’ he said. ‘‘Fine Art.’’
He was sure she didn’t know what he meant. Explaining would have lessened it. Even his sisters thought he was skiving. That’s our taxes keeping you. His brother-in-law, a plasterer in and out of work, had put it less politely. You’re up your own arse pal.
Were they right? It was one thing to fool about in the front of his head about Perspex and used nappies, and to join in the banter and arty chat between classes – he was learning how to do that as cleverly as anyone. But what was he trying to prove? And why? And who to? It could be the whole world was up its own arse.
He’d had a vivid dream once of a stretch of sand, like the one in The Beach. Everything was perfect – the sun, the waves slipping over the sand, their stranded bubbles vanishing with a faint ‘‘pkkk’’ sound, the breeze caressing the coconut palms. He was the only one allowed here. Even when he was in the dream he was aware of how clichéd it all was, but it didn’t matter, because it really was his island. He took off his trainers and walked for a while. The sand was firm at first, its colour like the tablet his Nan had made when he was small. Then it got softer and his feet slipped about. He stopped walking. He was scared to look ahead, scared to look back …
At last the fish was ready. He handed Michelle the money. When he got more change than he should have, he turned away and checked inside the wrapping. Two fish instead of one? She was taking a bit of a risk this time.
He heard her say ‘‘The prices are up. You’re two pound short.’’ and looked back. Right away he recognised the girl she was talking to.
‘‘I’m really sorry,’’ the girl began. Her voice had no sharp edges, only curves, like pink tulip petals beginning to open. ‘‘I haven’t got …’’
‘‘Here,’’ Ryan dropped a five pound note on the counter.
He feels the girl looking at him, stunned by his generous gesture. He holds out a hand, but instead of taking it she comes close. Her hair smells of honeysuckle. She leans against him, murmuring her thanks …
‘‘Excuse me.’’
The sense of unreality persisted. Nobody round here said ‘excuse me,’ or had flawless skin …
‘‘I can’t take your money. You can’t do that.’’
‘‘I just did,’’ he told her.
She stared at him. He was made of sand, and it was sliding, as if a hole inside him was widening like some special effect in a movie. And he counted for nothing, because she didn’t reply, just turned away, stiffly walking towards the door, her head proud on her neck above the cream scarf.
He followed her out, watched her half run along the street, the way girls always ran, knees stuck together. She got into a car. He kept walking, glanced in. The driver was male, his own age, ok maybe a bit older, with the well-fed, well-groomed, easy on himself middle-class look he now knew so well. He could practically smell the aftershave. Only when the car drove off did he remember his five pound note, lying pointlessly on the counter.
Jenny’s chickenpox
‘‘So you didn’t get anything? Not even chips? I told you I didn’t have any cash, Harriet. If you needed more, I could have got some out of the machine.’’
‘‘I didn’t know I would need more. I didn’t know the prices had gone up.’’
‘‘So why didn’t you just buy one?’’
Because of that horrible creepy boy with the weird hair, she didn’t say.
‘‘Are we going to sit here all night?’’ she demanded.
‘‘Oh sweetest of sisters, your every wish is my command. Where do you want to go?
‘‘New Zealand.�
��’
He started the engine. ‘‘I take it you just want to go home, then?’’
Back in the days when Dad had a real job, there would have been money enough for them all to go and visit. This morning’s e-mail had a picture of the latest beach picnic attached: Aunt Rhona and Uncle Malcolm, and the cousins, and Grampa next to Mum, everyone looking very brown and happy.
‘‘Don’t you hate this place, Kerr? After Aberdeen? ’’
They’d had this talk before. He sided with their parents. This was where their father had been called, he said, so that was that. Blah blah blah. A place was the people in it, he said, not the buildings, and people were much the same the world over. Which was so not true.
‘‘So fitya dee’in tonight? Coming with me?’’
The evening had unexpectedly become a blank sheet because of their cousin Jenny’s chickenpox. No family gathering. Behind their father’s back Kerr had punched the air, with a gleeful, yes, and made a couple of phone calls to see which of his friends were around, and where the best party was happening. Her father had decided to take up an invitation from one of his parishioners.
She made a face. ‘‘I won’t know anyone.’’
‘‘You know all of them.’’
‘‘They’re your friends Kerr, not mine.’’
‘‘They all like you.’’
Right, she thought, as in I really like children, but I couldn’t eat a whole one. She’d been at gatherings with Kerr’s friends before. Never again.
Vitrolite
It was still pitch black outside when Lesley woke. She filled the kettle to make tea and turned on the radio. She had grown up with this kitchen, had hated it for as long as she could recall; the egg-yolk yellow vitrolite tiles on the walls, bordered with black, the everlasting brown linoleum, the pulley overhead. The wood and metal were original, the ropes had been replaced twice in her memory. Everything perfectly serviceable and perfectly hideous. No tile would ever break unless someone swung a saucepan at it. At least she had scored a small victory there. Aluminium had been replaced with stainless steel, thanks to an article in the health pages of the Herald, which had convinced Mother that aluminium was dangerous.