The Litten Path

by James Clarke

  “Because I’m guessing this disaster wi’ school happened thanks to her,” he said. “Least in part. An’ I need to know what’s going on wi’ you. I’m your dad.”

  Build those stones. Knock them down. “What do you want to know?” Lawrence asked.

  Arthur reached out and ruffled his son’s hair. He’d missed doing that. “You’re like your mam you’re so guarded,” he said. “Just tell us how the two of yous met.”

  Gently does it.

  “None of that were her fault,” Lawrence replied, after a while. “Evie’s amazing.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “No, really. Her family came from London. You’ll have heard of the dad. I met her in the woods. Bend of circumstance, I suppose you’d call it.”

  “But you’re being careful . . . You know what I mean . . .”

  Lawrence blushed. “We’re just friends.”

  “How come? She have a fella or summat?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “She never mention no one? Someone from her past?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Old bloke, posh? Tell me who he is.”

  Lawrence stood and said sharply “Why don’t you ask her yourself if you’re that bothered?”

  Arthur thought fast. “Sit down. Reason I ask is I worry. Your dad does. ’Cause I know girls like her . . . No, wait, don’t look like that. Girls like this Evie. Not pretty girls, as such . . . I mean the compelling ones, the ones with summat beyond their looks—”

  “She’s not—”

  “Lawrence, you’re forgetting I’ve met her.” Arthur paused. Lawrence was finally listening. “And I know for a fact that ones like Evie are the ones you watch. Take your mam. Why else do you think I’m wi’ her?”

  Lawrence fixed him with a pointed stare.

  “Because of that,” Arthur countered. “Women like your mam have dimensions no matter which way you turn ’em. Diamonds. They’re the ones you’ll come back to when you’re an old duffer like me. I mean who wants to spend the rest of their puff running around with someone who’ll do anything you say?”

  Arthur had the impression Lawrence was just going along with this conversation, still, he’d say his piece – experience was worth nothing if you didn’t make use of it.

  “Evie’ll have a past,” he said. “It might give you an angle.”

  “She doesn’t tell me nowt.”

  “Nay, you just need to speak to her the right way.” Arthur threw one of the stones from Lawrence’s pile into the river. “Try that, and, if you want, when she opens up, tell us what she says . . . I’ll advise you.”

  “She thinks I’m an idiot, Dad. Daft and ugly.”

  “Oh, don’t do yourself down. It’s the eternal fortune of men that women aren’t that bothered about our looks.”

  It was a joy to see the way Lawrence’s face crinkled. “Course they are.”

  Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. “On the contrary, it’s your flaws they find appealing, kid. Which is part of the problem.” His smile faded. “As if you’re anything like the rest of us it’s your flaws you can’t get over and what will destroy you in the end.”

  The stones were knocked over for good. The owl called again, that mercurial silver tone. Arthur had long since realised the trouble he would have been saved if his own father hadn’t been too embarrassed to discuss some of this stuff when he was a boy. “I’ll tell you summat, Lawrence. As I’ve lived,” he said. Out came the canteen. “It’ll come in handy, whatever you might think of me, I never lie to you.”

  There was nothing Lawrence could say to that.

  “If a girl’s not got her face on around you, it isn’t because she doesn’t care, it’s because she feels that comfortable around you that she can be herself. If a girl says she doesn’t mind when you do summat wi’out her, she’s lying. If a girl says she wants nowt from you, she’s testing to see what you’ll do.”

  “But that’s—”

  “Shut it. You’re never not being tested, an’ you’ll never know what the pass mark is either. Fail though and you’ll find out. None of this a lass will admit to. Least at first.”

  Lawrence messed with his socks and swept the remaining pebbles into the Ogden. “They’re impossible,” he said.

  “Aye.” Arthur laughed. “That’s what keeps us coming back.”

  The following Monday, with Shell at work, Arthur dressed in black and chain-smoked in the kitchen, aiming the smoke at the open back door. The way he went through with questionable plans was to first convince himself of their pragmatism. He’d once stolen the Yorkstone from a vacant house around the corner from his mam’s and spent the money he made on a family trip to Bridlington. He’d lifted up the underlay, levered the slabs out with the crowbar and carted them away one by one in the wheelbarrow, cursing his pit-ravaged back and telling himself that if he didn’t do it, someone else would. Later, watching Lawrence paddle in the sea and Shell lick melted ice cream from her wrist, he’d felt so distant from the choice and terms that had forced it that it was as if some other idiot had stolen the stone and no way would he ever do a thing like it again. And as it had been then, so it would be now. Arthur went to the front window when he heard the car arrive: Asa’s Fiesta. There was no greeting for him as he got in. Asa just shifted gear and drove them away.

  There are comfortable silences and friendships that can withstand silence. These are two different things. Then there was the quiet of that little red car. It was Sunday-dead, all the way to Threndle House. Asa and Arthur parked near to the property then hurried to its outer wall.

  It was six o’clock, no sound save their shoes scuffing the brick, tights capping their heads and a cricket bat shared between them. Asa and Arthur slid down the wall like a pair of tom cats and landed in the barked flower beds of the mansion.

  Dew flecked against their bare arms from the leaf tips. The two men crouched, hidden against the wall by a large, pink azalea. Surely no one had seen them. They were on their haunches, breathing. Arthur’s heart boomed. It was bright as anything today and he still had the lawn’s splendid fabric to navigate.

  Asa had his tights pulled over his face already, but the material was nearly transparent and hardly disguised him.

  “I can see your face,” said Arthur. “I said I can still make out your bloody face, Asa.”

  Asa squinted. “How’s that?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Put yours on so I can see.”

  Arthur did.

  “What denier are they?”

  “Denier?”

  Arthur still had the tights’ cardboard sheath. He drew it from his pocket, handed it to Asa and followed his friend’s chipped fingernail down the item’s description. Denier 10, it read.

  Asa stared. “You’ve bought the sheer ones.”

  “Have I?”

  “Arthur!”

  “All right—”

  “Fucking idiot.”

  “I’ll sort it, Scanny. Calm down.”

  Arthur yanked the waist lip of his own tights until it stretched to his breastplate, then doubled the fabric up over his face. Next he yanked the bunny ears of the legs, wrapped them around his head and tied them in a knot under his nose. The elasticated waist rested on his top lip, only half his face covered, mouth free. “Job’s a goodun,” he said.

  Asa said nothing.

  The two men peered at the greenish building. Asa seemed to have calmed a little, but Arthur was still worried. For a tried and tested yes man, Asa had taken a good deal more persuading down the Grey Grebe the other night than Arthur had initially thought necessary. He’d been forced to call upon fictional relatives who had been cruelly reduced to the alms houses, for good measure reminding Asa that he also had a wife and two young mouths to feed. The plan was to scare Swarsby shitless then drive him down the
bank, and Arthur had told Asa they were getting a grand each for their trouble. His friend was a man of simple tastes, a lower share of the spoils would surely do him.

  “But how legal is it?” said Asa.

  “Shove off illegal! After what we’ve seen on picket, don’t talk to me about illegal. This cunt’s blackmailing another cunt over his own kid, you know. Never mind that it’s his lot what started this mess.”

  Asa nodded.

  “An’ if I’ve the measure of him, Scanny, he’ll hand over the dough, no question, then that’s me, you and ours sorted till this strike blows over. Trust us, pal, MPs don’t want stuff like this coming out. You remember Profumo?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, put it this way: it didn’t work out for Macmillan. And Swarsby’s not about to call the pigs. And before you say ’owt, if it makes you feel any better.” Arthur laid a hand against his heart. “I’ll donate some to union from what we get.”

  He sprinted across the lawn to the French doors, where he was surprised to see the window still hadn’t been fixed. A wooden panel covered where the glass had been. Arthur forced it open with ease.

  The lounge had been allowed to breathe now the extra boxes had been unpacked. Daylight made the piano gleam. The oil canvas on the wall could have been freshly painted and the breeze clinked the chandelier, which resembled a crystal jellyfish suspended from the ceiling.

  Arthur was admiring it all when Asa barged past. The far-right door led to the atrium and then the staircase. The master bedroom at the front of the house was located up top, overlooking the grounds and the countryside leading to Brantford pit, whose disused Grafton Belt was rumoured to stretch this far. Arthur could actually see a hairline crack in the nearest wall. Subsidence might be the death of this place, which was an irony not lost on him.

  They reached the stairs. Although the atrium was still undecorated, at least the mess Arthur remembered from the other month had been cleared away. The cricket bat felt horrid and heavy as he gave it a tester swing. He led the way upstairs to the master bedroom.

  All the doors on the upper floor were closed, thank fuck. Arthur arrived at Clive Swarsby’s bedroom, the door making a rustling noise on the carpet as he pushed it open, finding an empty bed waiting for him.

  He stopped in his tracks. He stowed the cricket bat under his arm and made a shape with his hands, as if holding an imaginary rugby ball. Asa tapped him on the shoulder. What? Arthur wanted to hiss.

  Asa touched the bed, signalled for Arthur to do the same.

  The sheets were warm.

  Arthur cocked his head and left the room, sliding, flush against the corridor wall, listening at every closed door he came to.

  He heard a noise, a rustle of paper on the other side of a third door to his left. Arthur held the cricket bat low, the first outing the willow wood had enjoyed since his declaration with it on a hundred and five in the summer of 1981. With grass stains on his whites, Arthur had been the king of the cricket pavilion that night.

  The door swung open to reveal Clive Swarsby, rotund in winceyette pyjamas, slippers on his desk, reading a newspaper. Arthur made a floorboard creak as he entered the room. That got Swarsby’s attention. The man leapt from his seat, sending his chair rolling on its casters until it struck a radiator fitted against the wall. That big sarcastic face didn’t even seem shocked by Arthur’s arrival. If anything, it looked resigned.

  15

  She wore a denim shirt with both sleeves rolled up. She wore black leggings and a chain of fool’s gold, flopped and gathering sweat in the crook of her neck. Clive’s credit card was paying for this hot box. Bold enough to turn her nose up at a coach, Evie had still been reticent to splash out on first class train tickets.

  Dabbing her brow with a tissue, she wished she could crack a window. No such luck. She amused herself by noting the sheepish happiness of a middle-aged woman aiding a toddler down the aisle; by listening to a man in the seat behind remarking on things only old people noticed: the amount of spires prodding between observable houses; a murmuration of starlings pulsing above the olive-coloured rooftops.

  Clive knew all about this trip, he just hadn’t been willing to pay for it. In fact it was his idea to begin with. It was best Evie and Duncan visit their mother. It was the summer holidays, and besides, it was high time Fiona lent a hand. “Only you’ll have to ask her to foot the bill,” Clive said. “Your mother’s still not talking to me.”

  Rather than ask anything of her mother, Evie had lifted the Mastercard from her father’s wallet and used it to purchase two open returns to London. She was a dab hand at forging Clive’s signature, having used it to fund various indiscretions in the past, and fortunately her face had boiled into such a contagious smile as she paid the man behind the counter at the station, that he didn’t look at the name on the card. After all it was the first time in months Evie had been allowed home. No wonder she’d been nearly overcome.

  In the aisle seat Duncan slept. He’d slept since they left Doncaster. Slept Britain by. Now there was one hour to go. One hour until the hiss into King’s Cross, the station’s clock tower rising above semi-circular windows that looked like amused eyes: a frontage that seemed to know something you didn’t.

  When they finally stepped onto the platform their mother was waiting for them. She wore a teal-coloured outfit and red-trimmed sunglasses. She was so thin Evie could have broken her over one knee.

  “What’s she doing here?”

  Already Duncan was tall enough to look down on Evie. “I called ahead,” he replied as they hurried towards Fiona. “Why slum the tube when we can have a lift?”

  Evie quickly wheeled her luggage ahead so she could impart a brisk hug upon their mother. The rims of the pores on Fiona Swarsby’s nose were highly visible thanks to the over-slap of foundation they had received. She was a woman in her fifties. Growing up, Evie and her friends had called her The Versace Bag.

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were coming?” said Fiona.

  “Oh come on, Mummy, that was always Duncan’s job.”

  Duncan arrived, flinging himself against Fiona’s shoulder pads. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  “And I you.” Fiona sighed. “Oh, Duncan.” She glanced from Evie to the ceiling. She shut her eyes.

  They arrived at the car, which was parked on double yellow lines outside a taxi rank, its hazards flashing. Evie wished for cigarettes. It had been four hours without a smoke and now it would be at least another two. She had forgotten what heavy traffic was like. Buses coursed along the Euston Road and a set of sirens wailed nearby – at least that was familiar from up in Yorkshire – and there were so many people. The oblate tarmac shone.

  “Ready when you are,” said Fiona to the driver. “My babies are home for the fundraiser, what timing.”

  “Fundraiser?” said Evie, shifting in her seat. “What fundraiser?”

  Duncan chuckled. “It’s the garden party tonight. Mummy’s taking us.”

  Summer was in full flow in the south. It was summer up the Cally Road, summer en route to Holloway and summer in steep Highgate, where their mother was now based. Not far from the car park situated beneath Fiona Swarsby’s apartment complex, the flat level of the bus lane had been heat-manipulated into a strange and unsettling wave shape.

  “Tony Dallas is living around the corner, Evie. Clem’s always asking after you,” said Fiona. “Why don’t you pop round and say hello while Duncan and I catch up.”

  Clem was an old associate and would make a better time-killer than most. All the way back from King’s Cross Fiona had blathered on about Bram. How good he’d been to her, how kind he’d been to put a roof over her family’s poor heads. There was no way he wouldn’t be at the donor club party that evening, therefore Evie had to be looking her best. Clemmie Dallas had always been good at preparing for big occasions.

  Evie r
ang the doorbell of a palatial cream-coloured house located ten minutes’ walk from her mother’s flat. A stout-armed maid answered the door, demanding to know what business Evie had there, but before she could answer, a teenager strolling through the vestibule stopped in his tracks.

  “Swarsby,” he called, sliding a hand through his hair.

  “Felix.”

  “How are things?”

  “Oh, still standing,” said Evie.

  “And home without additional fingers, I see.”

  “There are no external changes, at least.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. Turn around.”

  Evie laughed, complying readily.

  Felix smirked. “And no sign of a tail.”

  With haste Evie was returning to the places she had missed.

  She was shown upstairs – built from eighty thousand pounds’ worth of solid oak, Felix said – and was soon smoking and drinking wine with Clemmie Dallas as if they’d been seeing each other on a daily basis for the past two years.

  Clem’s domain was the top floor of the house. Her room was split into two levels: a lower chamber where she slept when she wasn’t boarding at Cheltenham Ladies College, and a mezzanine area extending deep into the loft.

  Evie rested her elbow on the lip of the low window that opened out onto the mezzanine roof, admiring Clem’s fairy-tale hair and pertness. Her old foe reclined on one of the sofas, a foot resting on the head of a teddy bear the size of a small child, as she filled Evie in on the latest comings and couplings and embarrassments. Clem seemed only vaguely put out when Evie failed to engage in this commerce with any enthusiasm, angling a condescending look from the other side of the room.

  “What’s wrong, duckie?” she said. “You don’t still need to act like you’re a million miles away, you know.”

  The nib of the joint glowed enticingly in Clem’s mouth. So let her look. The fact was that the reputations and pliant victories of Evie’s old friends and their Tatler aspirations, together with the gossip she had been so eagerly awaiting, had meant almost nothing to her. So there had been another launch, another suppressed liaison in an alcove somewhere. It turned out that the happiness of others was dull and invasive. “I’m fine,” said Evie. “I just haven’t smoked in such a long time. I’m not as easy with the feeling as I used to be.”