by Rachel Joyce
Beverley shrugged as if to say she wasn’t sure.
‘She’s running about same as usual,’ said Walt. ‘Sometimes I can’t keep up with her, can I?’
‘You can’t, Walt.’
Diana let out a cry of relief. Byron wanted to stroke all the soft toys and pat their heads. He couldn’t wait to tell James. She said how worried she had been, how she had not slept for days; Byron reminded her she had been frightened too of his father finding out. It was a private aside but everyone heard.
‘And I thought you were selling that make-up,’ smiled Walt. They laughed.
There came a sound so sharp it was like a scissor-snip through the air. Everyone turned to Beverley. Her forehead was puckered as if she had received a blow and her green eyes twitched up and down the carpet. Walt reached for her hand though she whipped it away before he could find it. ‘What on earth are you talking about? She had a cut. She had a cut on her knee.’
Byron turned to Diana and Diana turned to Walt. He blew out his cheeks.
‘It would have been four weeks ago,’ she continued. ‘Now I think about it, it must have been that day. Four weeks is a long time, of course. But there was blood on her sock. It wasn’t a deep cut. I had to find a new pair of socks, remember? I had to fetch a plaster.’
Walt hung his head, apparently trying to get the past into focus.
‘He hasn’t a clue,’ she said to Diana, as if they were friends now. ‘You know what men are like.’ She smiled. Byron could see inside her mouth, the sharp tips of her molars.
‘What sort of cut?’ There was barely anything to his mother’s voice. ‘Was it serious?’
‘It was small. It was nothing really. On her kneecap.’ Beverley lifted the hem of her skirt and indicated her own. It was white and small, more like an elbow than a knee, and Diana stared. ‘She didn’t need a stitch or anything. As you said, it was an accident.’
At the door, they all shook hands. Walt kept nodding at Diana. ‘Don’t you worry,’ he kept saying, and she kept saying, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ She was so glad everything was all right, she kept saying. Was the bicycle damaged? Was it a present? She mustn’t even think about that, said Walt.
‘Cheerio!’ called Beverley, waving from her front door. ‘See you again!’ It was the first time she looked happy.
Driving from Digby Road, Byron felt a flush of excitement. His mother wound down the car windows so that they could feel the breeze on their skin.
‘I’d say that went terribly well.’
‘Do you think?’ She looked unsure.
‘They seemed nice to me. Even Father would like them. It just goes to show there are kind people on Digby Road.’
‘The little girl had a cut. Her mother had to throw away her sock.’
‘But it was an accident. They understood that. And the little girl is all right. That’s the main thing.’
A truck rumbled past and his mother’s hair blew up in her face like a spume of foam. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.
‘She didn’t like me,’ she said.
‘She did. And she reads the same magazines as you. I saw. The little girl’s father definitely liked you. He kept smiling.’
Suddenly his mother slammed so hard on her brakes he was afraid they were having another accident. She pulled over to the kerb, without indicating, and a passing motorist beeped his horn. When she turned to Byron he saw she was laughing. She didn’t seem to have a clue about the other car.
‘I know what we’re going to do.’ Waiting for a gap in the traffic, his mother made a swift U-turn and headed back towards town.
They parked near the department store. His mother was invigorated in a way he had not seen since she found the evidence. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she said in a rush, if they could get Beverley the entire Robertson’s gollywog band? As the doorman opened the glass doors for his mother, they were greeted with excited chatter and the opening chords of an electric piano. A new model of the Wurlitzer was being demonstrated to customers by a musician in a tuxedo. He showed how at the press of a button you could get different forms of accompaniment: drums, strings, samba. It was the new age of music, he said. And someone called out, ‘Not at that price.’ The customers laughed.
Byron whispered to his mother that they would have to eat a lot of jam and marmalade in order to acquire the gollywog band and his father might get suspicious. He suggested a soft toy instead.
The department store glittered with reflected light from the floors, the wide windows overlooking the street, the lamps on the counters and the jewellery and coloured bottles of perfume. Women gathered at the counters, testing scent and lip colour. Few were buying. His mother passed swiftly from one display to the next, her heels clicking the marble, tapping items lightly with her fingernail. If it weren’t for James, Byron knew he would never want to go to school again. He felt he had stumbled on something sweetly scented and forbidden, like the pictures in his book of the Arabian Nights that showed women with thin robes that barely covered their soft flesh. He wished it could always be like this, the worry over, and him alone with his mother, shopping for presents to make things good. In the gift department, they chose a blue lamb in a striped waistcoat with a pair of cymbals sewn to his velvet paws. It came in a box with a blue glossy ribbon.
‘Don’t you think we should get something for Jeanie as well?’ she said.
He suggested clackers. Everyone liked those. She was already flying towards the lift for the toy department when he had to stop her. Clackers were dangerous, of course. A boy nearly lost his eye once. James had told him all about it.
‘Well we don’t want that,’ she said. ‘She sounds quite a dangerous little girl.’ At this they almost smiled.
‘And not a space hopper either,’ he said. ‘She might bounce into all sorts of trouble.’
Now they actually laughed. They chose another lamb, this one with a small guitar. The instrument even had strings. It was only as they were queuing at the cash desk that his mother had another idea. She called to the assistant and her voice was so breathless it rang out like laughter.
‘Do you sell red bicycles?’
She already had the chequebook in her hand.
His mother offered to take Byron for something to eat. It was not quite lunchtime but he was ravenous. She chose the hotel in the middle of town. The tables were set with stiff white cloths and the floor shone so hard it was like ice. The air was thick with smoke and soft chatter, the clinking of cutlery on china. The staff moved silently, examining the cutlery and polishing glasses. Many tables were empty. Byron had never been there before.
‘Table for two?’ said a waiter, sliding out from behind a potted palm. He had sideburns that crossed his jaw like wool caterpillars and a dicky bow at the collar of a frilled mauve shirt. Byron thought that one day he would like to invest in one of those coloured shirts. He wondered if bankers could have sideburns or whether it would only be for weekends.
The customers glanced up from their coffees as Byron and Diana passed. They took in his mother’s slim heels and the way her body rustled inside her peach dress. They noticed her stiff band of gold hair and the rounded bump of her breasts. She moved like a wave, rippling its path over the glassy floor. Byron wished people would glance away but he also hoped they would keep looking. His mother continued as if she didn’t know. Maybe people thought she was a film star. If he were a stranger, seeing her for the first time, he would think that she was.
‘Isn’t this exciting?’ she said as the waiter slid out a chair for her, again without noise.
Byron tucked his stiff napkin into his collar because that was what the gentleman at the next table had done. The man had oiled his hair across his scalp so that it looked like a plastic cap and Byron thought he would ask his mother if he could buy some of that oil too and slick his hair.
‘No school today, sonny?’ said the waiter.
‘We’ve been shopping.’ Diana didn’t even flinch. Instead she glanced over t
he menu and tapped her mouth with her fingertip. ‘What would you like, Byron? Today you can have whatever you want. It’s a celebration.’ When she smiled she looked lit up from inside.
Byron said he would very much like cream of tomato soup, but he would also like prawn cocktail, and he couldn’t decide which. To his amazement she ordered both and as she did so, the gentleman at the next table winked.
‘And what can I get for you, madam?’
‘Oh, nothing for me.’
Byron didn’t know why the gentleman had winked at him and so he winked back.
‘Nothing?’ said the waiter. ‘For a lovely lady like yourself?’
‘Just water, please. With ice.’
‘A glass of champagne?’
She laughed. ‘It’s not yet noon.’
‘Oh you must,’ added Byron. He couldn’t help catching the gentleman’s eye again because now he seemed to be smiling. ‘After all it’s a special occasion.’
While they waited for their drinks, Diana played with her hands. He thought of how Beverley had stared at his mother’s fingers as if she were measuring the size of her rings. ‘Once I knew a man who drank nothing but champagne,’ she said. ‘I think he even had it for breakfast. You’d have liked him, Byron. He could make buttons come out of your ear. He was funny. Then one day – he was gone.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’
‘I don’t know. I never saw him again. He said the bubbles made him happy.’ She smiled but in a sad, brave way. Byron had never heard her talk like this before. ‘I wonder what happened.’
‘Did he live in Digby Road? Is that why you went there?’
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘That was something else.’ Diana made a small flicking movement with her hands as if she had discovered a scattering of breadcrumbs on the tablecloth and needed to brush them away. ‘I’m talking about years ago. Before I met your father. Sit tall. Here come our drinks.’
His mother curled her fingers around the slim flute and lifted it to her lips. Byron watched the way the bubbles clung to the glass. He fancied he heard them crack as the buttery yellow liquid slid towards her mouth. She took the smallest sip and smiled. ‘Here’s to all that’s gone.’
The waiter laughed and so did the gentleman with the plastic hair. Byron didn’t know what any of it meant. The men watching his mother, and her blushing, and toasting all that had gone. She had never talked before about people who could disappear buttons from your ear, just as she had never mentioned a time before she knew his father.
‘I expect my soup will come soon,’ Byron said. He laughed too, not because the waiter’s hand was close to his mother’s, and not because the gentleman at the next table was staring at her, but because he was about to have soup and also prawn cocktail, when it was not quite lunchtime. It was like jumping out of ordinary time and seeing the world from a fresh perspective. And, unlike the adding of two seconds, this was his mother’s decision. It was no accident.
That afternoon the gifts were delivered to Digby Road. Diana telephoned the garage to enquire about a new hubcap. She spoke to his father too and gave her fluttery laugh. It had been another good day, she said. James was right. If you thought in a logical way, there was a solution to everything.
When Byron checked the next morning the glass by his mother’s bed was empty and the lid was off her bottle of pills. She slept heavily. Even when the alarm went off, she failed to stir. She had forgotten to close the curtains and a shower of glittering light fell over the room; outside, a fragile mist like a spider’s web clung to the moor. Everything was so still, so at peace with itself, it was a shame to have to wake her.
2
Angels
SOMETIMES, WHEN THE wind stops, the air carries music across the moor. Jim waits at the door of his van and he listens. He watches the last crack of gold light as it slips over the western rim of the hills. He does not know what the music is, and he does not know who is playing it. The sound is sad, songs with words he cannot hear. Somewhere out there someone is playing music to fill their loneliness and if only they knew it, here is Jim, listening too. We are not alone; and even as he has that thought it occurs to him there is no one with whom he can share it. He closes the door of his van and pulls out his keys, his duct tape. He performs the rituals smoothly and efficiently and then he sleeps.
He doesn’t know if it is his injury or the pressure of work but he finds that since the accident he is more tired. His stutter is bad and so is the pain in his hands. Things have got busier at the café too. Human Resources at Head Office have decided that in the run-up to Christmas, the general atmosphere in the building needs to become more festive. Due to the recent bad weather and also the recession, sales figures are down. Something must be done; a tree that flashes is apparently not enough. In response, HR have hired the services of a youth brass band to play carols at the store entrance. The store manager, who is not generally known for her warmth or her creativity, has come up with a further idea. Every week a soft toy snowman will be hidden in the store and the first lucky customer to find it will win a Christmas hamper. Meanwhile all staff have been issued with flashing badges that read, ‘Hi! My name is —! Season’s Greetings!’ Paula has painted her nails in alternate shades of red and green and stuck sparkling motifs on them. Her friend, Moira, has a pair of reindeer earrings. Moira’s flashing badge shouts from her left breast like an invitation while Jim wears his as if the rest of him is an apology.
Word has flown round the supermarket café about his accident. Initially Mr Meade offered sick leave but Jim begged to keep working. He insists he doesn’t need the crutches. (‘Can I have a go?’ says Paula.) He has his special plastic sock from the hospital with which to protect the plaster cast. If he moves slowly, if he just wipes tables, he promises he won’t cause trouble.
It is the prospect of being alone in the van for nights and days on end that terrifies him. Since the hospital, he knows he wouldn’t survive. The rituals would get worse and worse. He also knows this is another of the things he can tell no one.
‘Health and Safety won’t be happy,’ says Mr Meade. ‘They won’t like you on the café floor with a broken foot.’
‘It’s not exactly his fault,’ pipes up Paula, ‘if a lunatic woman reverses into him and drives off.’
It is a source of pain to Jim that she has worked out Eileen’s part in the accident. He had not intended to tell anyone; it was bad enough to have a plaster cast. Only when Darren described the car and remembered the registration number did she twig. She had a photographic memory, she said. In fact what she said she had was a photogenic memory, but they knew what she meant. Since the trip to hospital, Paula wears an array of love bites like a necklace of purple and green stones. Jim sees Darren waiting for her after work in the car park. Spotting Jim, Darren waves.
Now the truth is out, everyone agrees. Eileen is the sort of person who should be put away. They cite her final exit from the café, her consistent lateness, her foul language. In the short space of time in which she worked as cook, apparently three complaints were made against her. Paula says that the problem is people like Jim are too good. And he knows the problem is not that. The problem is that people need other people – like Eileen – to be too bad.
‘You have to report her to the police,’ she tells Jim every day. ‘It was a hit-and-run. She could have killed you.’
Mr Meade adds that Eileen is a danger to the community. She should not have a driving licence.
‘You have to press charges,’ says Moira. Her reindeer earrings keep getting caught in her hair and Paula has to step in and unthread them. ‘These days they do witness protection and stuff. They put you in sheltered housing and give you a new name.’
It’s too much for Jim. It was an accident, he repeats. The girls fetch him lavatory paper to blow his nose.
The fact is that something has changed. It isn’t that he has become more likeable or any less strange, but the accident has accentuated the fragility of things. If this could happ
en to Jim, it could happen to any one of them. Consequently the café staff have decided that Jim’s strangeness is a part of themselves, and they must protect it. Mr Meade picks Jim up from the sign welcoming careful drivers to Crapham Village and gives him a lift to work. Every morning he says it’s shocking, what kids get up to. In turn, Jim looks out of the car window with his nose pressed to the glass. Sometimes he pretends to sleep, not because he is tired but because he needs to be quiet.
‘You have to confront your assailant,’ Paula tells Jim. ‘Otherwise you can’t heal. You heard what the nurse told you. You’re the victim of a violent crime. You will never get over this unless you confront it head-on.’
‘But my f-foot is healing. I don’t want to c-c—’
‘It’s the inner trauma I’m talking about. I knew someone who didn’t confront his assailant. No, no, he kept saying, I’m cool with what happened. And guess what?’
Jim admits he has no idea though he has a hunch the answer will involve personal injury and that it will be of a devastating nature.
‘He ended up stabbing a man in the supermarket. Just because he queue-jumped.’
‘Who? The assail—?’
‘No, the victim. He had unresolved issues.’
That word again.
‘The victim became an assailant,’ says Paula, ‘because of the trauma. It happens.’
‘I don’t u-understand,’ says Jim. ‘You knew—’
‘I didn’t know him as such,’ she interrupts. ‘I knew someone who knew him. Or I knew someone who knew someone else.’ She shakes her head impatiently as if Jim is being deliberately obtuse. ‘The point is, you will never get over this if you don’t confront it. And that is why we are going to get you some help.’
The visit takes place on Wednesday after work. Paula has arranged everything and both she and Darren will accompany him. They help Jim on and off the bus and he feels like an old man. He watches them, shoulders touching in the seat in front, and the way Darren lifts the pink curl of her hair to whisper in her ear, and it is like being left behind.
