‘Perhaps I shouldn’t.’
I wait for him to say it.
He does a little cough. ‘The thing is. You should know something.’
‘What?’
‘I think Shane might be – close. To you. To us.’
Could he know about my hand searching in Shane’s pocket? About the feathers in my hair? About the way I nearly slipped down the bank into the pool last night when he shoved his fingers past the elastic of my knickers?
‘I mean, I think he could be related.’
‘What?’
‘You know. Family.’
‘Family?’ I look at Dad then. I see his hopeful, nervous smile.
‘I think he might be my son, love.’
The snot in my nose makes my face ache.
‘Sheila says not. But I think he might be.’ Dad stares into the orange gassy glow. ‘I think your mother suspects.’
I fix my eyes on the hole in his jumper.
‘It’s probably one of the reasons things went wrong for us.’
I think, stop talking. Stop talking.
‘I’m not sure. He looks nothing like me, of course…’
Stop talking.
‘But I’ve got this – feeling, you know?’
I can’t move.
‘I’d like to tell him. But I don’t suppose it would do any good.’
Then he puts his hand on my head. It’s heavy and hot. He strokes my hair.
‘So you two have to look after each other for me.’
Stop talking.
‘Understand?’
Each time his hand falls on my head it’s like he’s pressing me down a bit more. Pressing and holding.
thirteen
Howard
December, 1985
I’d always been better than Kathryn at Christmas. It was the planning, the anticipation, that I enjoyed. The lists of cards to send, food to prepare, presents to buy. Wrapping Robert’s gifts, I loved the sound of sellotape ripping off its hoop, the feel of slicing through paper with the sharpest edge of the scissors. Hiding Robert’s presents in the bottom of our wardrobe, I felt almost as much excitement as I had as a boy, discovering a child’s encyclopedia and a foil-wrapped chocolate Santa beneath Mum’s bed.
I even liked the shopping, as long as it wasn’t at the weekend. And so, that December, I arranged a day off work in order to take Kathryn Christmas shopping, as I did every year. This time, though, we went to the new complex in Swindon.
There was a pink neon sign above the entrance, framed by matching tinsel. ‘The Eastgate Centre’ it said, and for a moment the place seemed like a glamorous location.
Inside, the warm air felt very close to my skin. The walls were tiled in reflective grey. The ceilings were mirrored, which I thought was a bad idea, because groups of teenagers tended to gather and point up at themselves, pulling faces and laughing.
A Christmas jingle played, over and over. Every surface shone, and each shop window reflected the two of us back to me: Kathryn walking slightly ahead, her white scarf still wrapped around her neck so it looked slightly like a bandage, me a few paces behind, my heels worn, the collar of my jacket kicking up. The crease in Kathryn’s forehead sharpened as we walked further into the centre, and she held on to her patchwork shoulder bag like it was a shield, slung across her body. Her tweed belted coat looked bulky, as if she had been bundled into it.
‘When did you buy that coat?’ I asked, noticing the way one shoulder was skewed with the weight of her bag. She was walking slightly ahead of me. We hadn’t spoken since getting into the car that morning, and my voice sounded unfamiliar in the echoing shopping centre. ‘Isn’t it time you had a new one?’
‘We’re supposed to be Christmas shopping,’ she said.
‘We could get you a new one. For Christmas.’
Kathryn stepped out of the path of a child’s buggy. A woman with bags bunched up both arms pushed past me. Kathryn strode on. ‘It’s Rob’s present I’m worried about,’ she called back.
We reached the entrance to Boswell’s Department Store. Husbands waited in the doorway while their wives picked at shelves of multicoloured twinkle. There was a strong, almost nauseating, perfume. It took me a few moments to realise this was coming from the soaps that were piled in big baskets along one wall. Each one was shaped like a fruit or a flower, and was wrapped in new plastic. The whole place smelled like a just-cleaned bathroom. It gave me a headache.
We took the escalator to the next floor. As we glided upwards, we were greeted by layer upon layer of hanging snowflakes, each spike precisely cut from silver foil. A voice over the tannoy interrupted ‘Jingle Bells’ to promise us a Happy Christmas with Boswell’s own pine-scented artificial tree.
We stepped off the escalator and into the lingerie department. Kathryn had told me how to pronounce that word some months after we were first married. We’d been shopping for her birthday present, I remember, and I’d suggested that she might like to go to the ling-er-ree department. She’d laughed at my pronunciation, corrected me, and allowed me to buy her a peach-coloured silk petticoat.
‘If you don’t want a coat, what would you like for Christmas?’ I asked. A moulded female torso without arms or legs was perched on a shelf above us, its blank face topped with a red Santa hat. It wore a frilled bra printed with red love hearts. Each heart was round and full, as if it might burst.
‘I don’t want anything. Really.’ Kathryn glanced at the bra.
‘Not even that?’ I said, trying a smile, pointing at the love hearts.
She shifted her shoulder bag further across her chest. ‘Especially not that,’ she said.
In the menswear section, my wife ran her hand over a rail of red sweatshirts. I hooked one out. ‘Too bright,’ Kathryn declared.
I followed her to the next rail, where I selected a padded checked shirt, the kind you’d expect a lumberjack to wear. ‘Not smart enough for him,’ was her response.
I found a sweater with a single giant snowflake on the front and offered it to her. ‘Christmassy,’ I ventured.
‘A bit babyish.’
‘What about this?’ It was a white shirt with a button-down collar.
Kathryn stuck out her bottom lip. ‘It’s like his school shirt.’
‘It’s smart.’
‘I don’t think he’ll like it.’
‘I like it.’
‘I was thinking of something more like this.’ She displayed a turquoise-coloured T-shirt with a pair of lips, puckered into a kissing shape, printed on the front. The lips were big and black, and they pouted at me.
‘Will he like that?’
‘I think so,’ said Kathryn.
‘It’s a bit – loud. Isn’t it?’
‘Luke’s got one like it.’
‘So that means he’ll like it.’
Kathryn slung the T-shirt over one arm and sighed. ‘You’ve got to let him be himself, Howard.’
The pain behind my eyes had reached my jaw. ‘I know that.’
She shook her head and laughed softly.
‘What?’ I asked.
She looked over towards the escalator and bit her lip. For a moment we both stood absolutely still, listening to Judy Garland giving it her all over the tannoy.
I waited for a response.
Then Kathryn stepped closer to me and touched my elbow. ‘You’ve got to let him grow up. In his own way.’ She looked me in the eye, and I was surprised to see that her look was soft, almost pleading.
‘Do you know what I mean, Howard?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even if it’s not a way you think is – right.’
‘Let’s not talk about this here.’
‘We’ve got to talk about it somewhere.’
She tried to catch my eye again, but I stared at the sizing chart in front of me, which showed a man’s bulky silhouette marked with arrows. Large. Medium. Small.
A sales girl approached. ‘Can I help you with anything? We’ve got a special offer on boys’ boxer shorts.’
She can only have been sixteen. Her curly hair was arranged on top of her head and fell around her shoulders like a cascade of bubbles. On her low-cut blouse she wore a large badge in the shape of a reindeer head. Its nose flashed red. On. Off. On. Off.
‘He wants to leave.’ Kathryn’s voice was very quiet. ‘He told me. He wants to go as soon as he can.’
The sales girl looked at Kathryn, then at me. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ she said, and trotted back to her till, reindeer badge still flashing.
Kathryn held the T-shirt tight to her middle. The black lips rolled over her fist. ‘Howard. He wants to leave us.’
‘I heard you.’
We looked at each other. I took a breath. ‘What do you mean, leave us?’
‘Not right away. But as soon as he’s finished at school.’
‘What about his A levels?’
‘He wants to go to London. In the summer. He told me.’
‘London?’
‘I wasn’t supposed to tell you.’
The bright department store lights revealed the creases around Kathryn’s mouth and eyes. I noticed that the line around her full lips was not as definite as it once was. It was as if someone had smudged the edges of her mouth with a damp finger. But to me, her face was still soft, still curvy, like the rest of her.
‘He means it, Howard.’ There was a slight tremble in her chin. We were both breathing hard.
I reached out and put a hand on my wife’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch or move away. Instead, she said in a quiet voice, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if he goes,’ and when she looked at me her eyes were wet.
I drew her towards me then, and held her. I put my arms around her and dug my fingers into the scratchiness of her tweed coat. She let herself go limp against me, and I felt the heat of her breath on my neck. Her shoulders sagged, and I held her tighter.
‘He won’t leave.’ I spoke into her hair, and she gripped my waist and nodded her head. I knew she was crying now.
‘He won’t leave.’
As we swayed together beneath the glare of the shop’s spotlights, I remembered the orange light that had surrounded us on the day she’d told me she was expecting Robert. I remembered how my whole body had felt suddenly warm.
Kathryn’s hair brushed my lips as I whispered to her. ‘He won’t leave. I promise.’
Kathryn was sobbing too much to speak, but I felt her tighten her grip. There was nothing to do, then, but hold on to each other.
fourteen
Joanna
December, 1985
It’s art and we’re doing portraits. We have to turn round and draw whoever’s next to us. I’m glad I’m sitting next to Rob. Rob’s good at art, everyone says so. He has a set of professional pencils: soft ones for shading, hard ones for fine lines. Each one is sharpened to an evil little point, and none of the ends are chewed. On the sides there’s gold lettering: HB, B, 2B.
‘Posh pencils,’ I say. ‘New?’
‘Not really.’
‘Expensive.’
Rob selects a pencil from the tin and examines it. ‘They were a present.’ He digs the point into his finger, like he’s testing it. ‘From my dad.’
‘What for?’
He looks to the ceiling. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Your dad buys you presents for nothing?’
He reaches for his sketchbook. ‘I should be drawing you.’
It’s always hot in the art room. There’s plants and skylights and sweaty boys and it’s a bit like a greenhouse. I take my jumper off and arrange my silk-touch blouse over my tits, glad that Luke McNeill is on the other side of the room, having his sketchbook marked by the teacher.
Rob rolls up his shirt sleeves. I watch his knobbly wrists move as he starts to sketch me in.
‘Wish my dad would buy me stuff,’ I say.
Rob doesn’t respond. He’s frowning at his page. Then he frowns straight at me and I wonder if I should look away. But his eyes go back to the paper before I can blink.
‘You must get some presents,’ he says eventually.
I notice the way his gold chain snakes around the base of his long neck.
‘My mum’s boyfriend tries to buy me things.’ I give my hair a shake.
‘Keep still.’
‘He’d probably get me anything I wanted, actually.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like anything.’ I try to think of something. Simon still hasn’t given me my reward for our tutorials. ‘He gave me the money for my coat.’
Rob’s eyes settle on mine. ‘That’s different.’
‘How?’
‘Just giving you money. It’s different.’
‘I got the coat.’
Rob gives a little smile, like he’s sorry for me. ‘But he wouldn’t know what to get you unless you told him, would he?’
‘Maybe.’ I lick my lips, lean forward. ‘But did you really want those posh pencils?’
‘Not exactly…’
‘So your dad might as well have given you the cash.’
He shrugs. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’
‘They never know what you want,’ I say. ‘Money’s better.’
Rob drops his pencil back in the tin and picks up another. Again, he digs the end into the tip of his finger and stares at it. I can see the skin there going white. ‘They never ask what you want,’ he says in a quiet voice.
‘Aren’t you drawing me?’ Luke sits down with a loud huff.
‘He’s doing me,’ I say.
Luke gawps over Rob’s shoulder. He’s got his blond fringe to stick up and stay in place now. He follows Rob’s eyes as they flick up at me, appraise, flick down.
‘Are you going to be an artist, then?’ I ask Rob.
‘Of course he is,’ says Luke. ‘He’s good enough.’
‘I bet that’s what your dad wants. That’ll be why he bought you those pencils.’
Rob gives a ‘huh’, but doesn’t stop sketching. His hands move across the page like they’re on wires.
‘I hope you’re not doing my nose too big.’
‘Keep still.’
I get sort of mesmerised by the whispery noise his pencil makes on the paper and I don’t say anything for a while.
‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘What are you going to be?’
‘Astronaut.’
He glances at me. Then he starts drawing again. ‘You could be an actress.’
I spit out a laugh.
‘You could,’ he says, not laughing. He looks at me with that photographing gaze. Snap. ‘If you could be bothered.’ Behind him, Luke sniggers.
‘Haven’t you finished that yet?’ I snatch the pad, turn it round, and see a careful line drawing, just like the portraits they sell in Oxford. The girl in it has massive eyes, pouty lips and a mane of hair.
‘Is that me?’
Luke looks over. ‘You’ve overdone her a bit.’
‘Perfect likeness,’ I announce.
Rob lines his pencil back up in his shiny metal box.
‘Are you coming down the farm tonight?’ Luke asks him.
‘The farm?’ I say, rearranging my silk-touch blouse.
‘Turkey plucking,’ says Rob. ‘I need the money.’
‘Your dad won’t give it to you?’ I have to smirk.
‘I can’t ask him for it.’ He looks straight at me. ‘I need it to get out. I’m leaving here. As soon as I can.’
‘Rob wants to go to London,’ says Luke.
‘We’re both going,’ says Rob. ‘To make our fortunes.’ He gives a short laugh.
‘Really?’
‘That’s the plan. Anywhere’s better than here, right?’
I flick my hair over my shoulder and nod slowly. ‘Definitely. In fact, I’m going, too.’
‘Yeah?’ says Luke, screwing up his eyes. Even his lashes are blond. His skin’s so pale it’s like you can see through it, right into the veins and muscle and bone beneath.
‘You’re going to Lond
on?’ asks Rob.
‘Of course. I’m not staying in this dump.’
‘Have you got the money?’
I look at Rob’s green eyes. There’s not a speck of brown in them. They’re clear green, like marbles. One of my primary school teachers liked to go on about people with pure green eyes. Saying they’re rare. Different. I told Dad about it once, and he said, ‘Irish, more like.’
‘Almost,’ I say. ‘I’m working on it.’
‘She should come and pluck a few birds,’ says Luke. ‘Sometimes their insides haven’t been cleaned out properly and they dribble blood and guts all down your hands.’
Rob gives him a look. ‘I wouldn’t,’ he says to me, ‘unless you really have to.’
‘I can do that,’ I say. ‘I already know someone who works there anyway.’
‘The spacky,’ says Luke.
‘Shane.’ Before I can stop myself, I add, ‘And he’s not really a spacky.’
‘How come he was in the Sin Bin, then?’
I think of the precision of Shane’s fingers in my hair. The way he knows all the words to every song he plays me on his cassette player. The way he knows exactly what to buy me. Or rather, steal for me. He was in the Sin Bin because the normal teachers couldn’t handle him, is what I think.
‘I can pluck a turkey.’
‘And the blood?’ asks Luke.
Rob rolls his eyes.
‘Blood’s fine,’ I say. ‘I can handle blood.’
That night after school, I’m the only girl in the turkey shed.
The corrugated iron door screeches as I pull it open with both hands. It scrapes my fingernails and sends a cringe right down my back. Inside, dead birds hang in two rows. Next to each bird, there’s a boy, plucking. White feathers fall all around like spiky, blinding snow. In the background, there’s a constant turkey racket from the birds who so far haven’t had their throats cut. It’s a weird gurgling noise that comes in waves, like Buggery’s stomach at the end of the day. And the place stinks like an old sanitary pad.
My skin flicks up its hairs in the cold air. I’m wearing my denim mini with red wool tights, red hoop earrings and red fingerless gloves.
I walk in and see Shane first. He’s standing with one hand round a pink turkey neck. His other hand goes in and out, in and out, in a blizzard of feathers. He’s doing it faster than I’ve ever seen him do anything. In front of him there’s a basket which looks like it should be full of washing. But instead it’s full of bald headless birds, all collapsed on top of one another.
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