Perfect

by Rachel Joyce

  It was clear Beverley liked his mother. She talked endlessly. She asked her about the other Winston House mothers; she had formed a shrewd picture of them, even in her difficult meeting with them in the tearoom. While Diana answered – explaining about Andrea’s right-wing politics or Deirdre’s difficult marriage – she watched with a smile as if his mother were out of a film or a book. When Diana coiled a lock of hair round her finger, for instance, Beverley’s hand scampered to her own black hair and she did the same. She told his mother how much she had hated her C of E school when she was a teenager; how she had flunked all her exams. She described once how her father had found her with a boy in her room and thrown him out of the window. She talked about running away when she was sixteen, how she had plans to work in a bar, how none of that had happened. She talked about men and how they always let you down.

  ‘But Walt seems a nice man,’ said his mother.

  ‘Oh, Walt,’ said Beverley, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m not like you, Diana. I’m not a looker.’

  His mother went on to compliment her black hair, her cheekbones, her complexion, but Beverley laughed as if they both knew better.

  ‘I have to take what I can get. One day, though. You watch me, Di. One day I’ll move on.’

  He only wished she wouldn’t abbreviate his mother’s name. It was like cutting her in half.

  When the women weren’t sunbathing or talking in the drawing room, they sat in his mother’s bedroom. It was more difficult to find excuses to follow them up there and sometimes he was afraid Beverley was doing it deliberately to get him out of the way. He had to sit outside or pretend he needed something. Beverley sat in front of the mirror at the dressing table while Diana curled her hair and trimmed her nails. Once she drew black liquid lines around Beverley’s eyes and painted the lids different shades of gold and green so that she looked like a queen. ‘It’s like you’re professional,’ said Beverley, staring into the mirror, while his mother merely wiped the brushes clean and said it was a thing she’d picked up. Then his mother commented red was not Beverley’s colour, what did she think about pink for her lips, and Beverley said, ‘I looked a right mess, didn’t I? That day I bumped into you at the department store. No wonder those women laughed.’

  His mother shook her head. No one had laughed, she said, but Beverley gave a look that was like sticking a knife through butter. ‘They did, Diana. They thought I was dirt. You don’t forget a put-down like that.’

  By midweek it was clear Lucy didn’t like Beverley and it was possible Beverley felt the same way. She told the children how lucky they were, growing up somewhere big and nice like Cranham House. They should appreciate it, she said; Jeanie would give her right arm to live somewhere like that. His sister said very little, she simply stood at her mother’s side with a scowl. ‘You should watch yourself,’ warned Beverley. ‘The wind will change and your face’ll get stuck.’ Sometimes Byron forgot she was a mother. (‘My face won’t get stuck, will it?’ he heard Lucy ask Diana later in the bath. Beverley was being funny, said his mother.)

  He overheard her tell Diana she was too nice, she let the kids run rings round her, she was surprised Diana didn’t get paid help. A gardener. A cook. People like that. And then the air almost gave a crack before she added, ‘Or a chauffeur maybe. Because that’s how accidents happen, you know. When people do too much.’

  The women were sitting in the drawing room when they began to talk about work.

  ‘I always wanted to be one of those Avon ladies,’ said Beverley. ‘I wanted one of those red suitcases with all the brushes and pots. And that lovely red uniform. It was my hands, though. I couldn’t because of my hands.’

  ‘Your hands are very pretty, Beverley.’ This wasn’t strictly true, but his mother was like that. She saw the good things in other people and sometimes she saw them when they weren’t there.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with how my hands look,’ said Beverley, a little impatiently. ‘It’s my arthritis. Sometimes I can’t move my fingers, the pain is so bad. Or they get locked. Like this.’ She held out her hands and Byron had to glance up because she was showing them like stiff claws. He could understand why she would not want people to see them. ‘But you could’ve been an Avon lady, Diana. You’d have looked lovely in that red uniform. You could have been a manager, if you wanted. You’d have been perfect.’

  Diana shrugged and smiled. ‘I can’t work.’

  ‘You can’t work? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘It’s not because there’s anything wrong with me. It’s Seymour. His view is that women should stay at home with the children. I had a job before I met him but I couldn’t do that now.’

  ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Diana. She laughed and reached for her drink.

  Beverley pulled a face, as if she would not be told by a man whether or not she could work. It was a strange look, and Byron couldn’t tell whether it held sympathy for his mother and disdain for his father, or disdain for the two of them, and sympathy only for herself. He tried to sketch her expression to show James but drawing was not his strong point and she came out looking more like a small animal. He had to give the drawing ears and whiskers and pretend to James he had observed a stray cat.

  James agreed on the telephone that Diana could be an Avon lady if she wished. He asked if there had been any further conversation about the two stitches and Byron said there had not. He was still noting everything down, with dates and times and exact references to location; it was like doing history at school.

  ‘History is not true, though,’ said James. ‘When you think about it, it is just what someone has told us.’

  Byron pointed out that if it was printed in your history book, it must be true. Again James disagreed: ‘Supposing the people who wrote our history books didn’t see the whole picture? Supposing they lied?’

  ‘Why would they lie to us?’

  ‘To make it easier to understand. To make it look as if one thing leads to another.’

  ‘Are you saying history is the same as the lady at the circus with her feet falling off?’

  James laughed so hard Byron was afraid he had dropped the telephone. Byron had to keep whispering his name. Then James asked if he had mentioned the matter of the lighter yet, and Byron said he was building up to it, he just didn’t know how to introduce the subject. James gave a small sigh to indicate he was about to be very sensible. ‘Have you got a pen in your hand?’ He dictated the exact words Byron should use.

  His opportunity finally came on Friday afternoon. The women were sunbathing on the loungers. Diana had set the table with drinks and cocktail sausages on sticks, as well as celery slices stuffed with soft cheese. She was wearing a blue swimsuit but Beverley had rolled up her dress and sleeves to expose bony flesh so white she shone in the sun. ‘I would like to travel,’ said Diana. ‘There are so many things I would like to see. The desert, for one. I saw it in a film once. I’d like to feel real heat on my skin, and feel real thirst.’

  ‘But you get heat in England,’ said Beverley, flapping at it with her hand. ‘Why would you want to go to the desert?’

  ‘To be different. And I mean real heat. Blistering heat.’

  ‘You could go to Spain,’ said Beverley. ‘You could afford it. I know someone who went to Spain and she came back with a lovely tan. You have to take tablets before you go because the drinking water’s filthy and there are no toilets out there, only holes. But my friend came back with a toy donkey. It was wearing one of those hats. What are they called? Those Spanish ones?’

  Diana smiled but she clearly didn’t know.

  ‘There’s a funny word for them,’ said Beverley.

  ‘Do you mean a sombrero?’ said Byron. Beverley continued talking as if he hadn’t.

  ‘It was the size of a kid. The donkey, not the hat. She has it in her front room. I’d love a donkey with a sombrero.’

  His mother bit her lip. Her eyes were glittering. He knew what she was thinking. He knew she
was already wanting to find Beverley such a donkey.

  ‘Anyway your husband won’t let you,’ said Beverley. ‘He won’t let you go to the desert. Or Spain for that matter. You know what he’d say.’ She puffed out her chest and flattened her chin into her neck. It wasn’t a very accurate impersonation of his father – she had never met him, after all – but there was something suggestive of Seymour in the way she sat very upright and stiff. ‘I’m not mixing with wops,’ she bellowed. ‘Eating wop food.’ It was exactly what his father would say.

  Diana smiled. ‘You are awful.’

  ‘But I like you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s from the television. Do you not watch television?’

  ‘I sometimes watch the news on BBC1.’

  ‘My God. You’re so posh you haven’t a clue, Di.’ Beverley laughed but there was an edge; in the same way there had been an edge when she told Walt he had forgotten Jeanie’s injury the first time they visited Digby Road.

  ‘I’m not posh at all,’ said his mother quietly. ‘You shouldn’t judge people by appearances. And please don’t call me Di. My mother used to, and I don’t like it.’

  Beverley rolled her eyes. ‘Ooo,’ she sang. ‘Get her.’ She paused, apparently weighing up whether to say what she had in her mind. Then she gave a laugh as if she had thought better of her reticence: ‘You’re so posh, you thought you didn’t need to stop for my little girl. You thought you could get away with it for a whole month.’

  His mother sat up sharp. For a moment neither woman gave way. His mother held Beverley’s gaze long enough for her to know that she understood the exact implications of the words. Beverley stared back as if she had no intention of unsaying them. There was almost violence in the air. And then his mother’s head drooped. It was like seeing her knocked to the floor although she wasn’t, of course, she was side by side with Beverley on a new plastic sun lounger. Beverley continued to watch Diana and she didn’t say anything or do anything, she simply fixed his mother with that unforgiving look.

  Byron said in a rush, ‘I wonder where your lighter is?’ He didn’t think about it. He simply wanted Beverley to let go of his mother.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Diana.

  ‘Would you like me to fetch it? Your lighter? Or is it – is it still lost?’

  ‘But we’re not smoking,’ said Beverley. He could hardly look at her. ‘Why would we want a lighter?’

  It was only as the conversation progressed that Byron realized James had failed to prescribe what everyone else should say. There was nothing for it but to keep going and hope for the best.

  He said, ‘I haven’t seen the lighter for a whole week.’

  ‘Well it must be somewhere,’ said Diana vaguely. ‘Down the back of a chair or something.’

  ‘I have looked all over the house and it isn’t. I wonder –’ and here he spoke specifically to Beverley’s toes – ‘if someone has stolen it?’

  ‘Stolen it?’ repeated Diana.

  ‘Put it in their handbag by mistake?’

  There was a pause. The sun beat his head.

  Beverley said slowly, ‘Is he talking to me?’ Without looking at her, Byron knew her eyes were right on him.

  His mother almost yelped. ‘Of course he isn’t!’ She leapt up from her sun lounger and began smoothing her towel, though there was not a fold to be seen, it had been soft and blue beneath her. ‘Byron, go inside. Make another jug of Sunquick for Beverley.’ His sandals felt welded to the terrace. He couldn’t move.

  ‘I would never steal from you, Diana,’ said Beverley quietly. ‘I can’t think why he would say that.’

  His mother kept saying, ‘I know, I know, I know,’ and ‘He isn’t, he isn’t, he isn’t.’

  ‘Maybe I should go?’

  ‘Of course you shouldn’t go.’

  ‘No one has ever accused me of stealing.’

  ‘It wasn’t what he meant. And anyway the lighter was nothing. It was cheap.’

  ‘Just because I live in Digby Road doesn’t mean I steal things. I didn’t even have my handbag when you lost your lighter. I left it in the hall.’

  His mother was dashing round the terrace, picking up bowls and putting them down, straightening the plastic chairs, and plucking scraps of weed from between the paving stones. If anyone was showing Signs of Guilt, it was her.

  ‘My mistake, my mistake, my mistake,’ he repeated miserably, but it was all too late.

  ‘I’m off to the little girls’ room,’ said Beverley, seizing her hat.

  As she left, his mother turned to Byron. She was so shocked her face was pointed. She said nothing, she merely shook her head, as if she couldn’t understand who he was any more.

  The terrace wobbled and his eyes filled with tears. All over the garden, fruit trees and flowers sprang leaks and grew new edges. Even the moor spilled into the sky. Then Beverley appeared at the French windows with a laugh. ‘Found it!’ She held the lighter between her fingers and it glinted in the sun. ‘You were right, Diana. It was down the back of your sofa.’

  She moved between Byron and Diana and picked up the sun cream from the table. Squirting a button-sized pool of it on to her palm, she offered to do Diana’s shoulders. She mentioned something about her figure, how lucky Diana was, but she made no further reference to the lighter or what had happened in Digby Road. ‘You have such lovely, soft skin. But look, you need to be careful with your colouring. You’re burning. If I ever get to Spain I’m going to get you one of those funny big Spanish hats.’

  This time Byron did not correct her.

  That weekend things got worse. His father was in a strange mood. He kept opening drawers, checking cupboards, hunting through papers. When Diana asked if he had lost something, he glared at her and said she knew what he was looking for.

  ‘But I don’t,’ she stammered. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  He mentioned the word gifts and Byron’s heart plummeted.

  ‘Gifts?’

  ‘There is a blank stub. In the chequebook. Have you been buying gifts again?’

  Diana gave a broken-up laugh. Oh yes, that was her mistake, she said. Her fingers flew like frightened birds towards her teeth. It was Lucy’s birthday present. The shop was keeping it until her birthday. She must have been so excited she had forgotten to fill in the chequebook again.

  Remembering she was not supposed to bite her nails, she gripped one hand in the other. Seymour studied her as if she was a new acquaintance. She promised she would be more careful with the chequebook in future.

  ‘Careful?’ he repeated.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she said.

  He said he didn’t. He hadn’t a clue.

  Diana mentioned that the children were listening and he nodded and she nodded and they went their separate ways.

  At least nothing could happen when Diana was in the garden and his father was in his study. Byron and Lucy played board games in the drawing room and he let her win because he liked to see her happy.

  Then things took another turn for the worse on Sunday morning.

  Emerging from his room, his father beckoned Byron to one side. After lunch he would like to talk man-to-man, he said, and as he did so a sad, sour smell rushed from his mouth. Byron was so terrified his father had found out about the hubcap he could barely swallow his roast dinner. It seemed he was not the only one who had no appetite. His mother barely touched her plate. His father kept clearing his throat. Only Lucy asked for extra potatoes and gravy.

  His father began the man-to-man conversation by asking if Byron would like a fudge sweet. At first Byron wondered if it was a test and he said he wasn’t hungry but when his father lifted the lid and said go on, one wouldn’t harm, Byron worried it was wrong to refuse the fudge, and so he took one. His father asked how he was progressing with his scholarship work, how his end-of-year report had compared with James Lowe’s, and Byron tried to say everything was going well without dribbling from the fudge or talking with his mouth
open. His father pulled the stopper from the decanter and poured a tumbler of whisky.

  ‘I am wondering how things are at home?’ he said, examining his glass, as if he were reading the question from inside it.

  Byron said they were jolly good. He added that his mother was a careful driver and then there was such silence it was dark as water and he wished he had said nothing. He wished he could swallow the words, along with the fudge sweet.

  ‘I suppose she is busy?’ said his father. Above his shirt collar the skin had turned so mottled it was like a shadow.

  ‘Busy?’ said Byron.

  ‘Doing housework?’

  ‘Very busy.’ He didn’t know why but his father’s eyes were wet and laced with red veins like netting. It hurt to look.

  ‘Seeing friends?’

  ‘She doesn’t have any friends.’

  ‘No one who comes to visit?’

  Byron’s pulse raced. ‘No.’

  He waited for the next sentence but it did not happen. In reply to Byron, his father looked back at his glass. For a few moments there was nothing but the steady ticking of the clock. Byron had never blatantly lied to his father before. He wondered when Seymour would see through him but he didn’t, he kept staring into his drink, not guessing the truth. Byron realized he wasn’t afraid of his father. They were men together. It was not too late to ask for his help. It was not too late to confess about the hubcap. After all, Byron had been out of his depth with Beverley and the lighter.