Kansas in August

by Patrick Gale

  His head sank forward and she opened her door. As she stepped out, one of her feet struck something heavy on the ice. She glanced down and saw a revolver gleaming against the snow. She closed the door behind her and strode in the direction of the advancing orderlies.

  ‘The door’s unlocked,’ she said, then stood warming herself by the kitchen windows. They took him, uncomplaining, away. As she climbed back into her seat, she slipped the revolver behind the 1972 AA manual in the glove compartment. Then she began to shake.

  Chapter thirteen

  The classroom was thick with the fug of damp wool and hot child. 15B was one of the smaller forms – thirty-eight pupils on the rare days without absenteeism – and was littered with empty desks. Shri Metcalfe encouraged them to spread out. It was less intimidating for him than a tight phalanx in the first few rows, and hindered cheating, terrorism and the passing-round of horrors.

  Sumitra sat at the back in isolation. No one had ever offered to sit by her and she gave no invitations. Of the three Asians in the room, she was the only Hindu and the sole girl. The Muslims sat at the front. She stank, they opined, like rotten pig. Her Anglo-Saxon classmates had been quick to brand her ‘Sue’ to deflate her exotic difference and so render her defenceless as any other twelve-year-old. Her quick mind had landed her in a class a year older than herself so that her slight form, sunk in the tomb-dark desk, was dwarfed by Tamsin, Kerry and the rest. Her legs, dressed at her father’s insistence in boy’s black polyester trousers, itched as they swung. Her spotless hands lay palms down on the wood as she stared across at her god.

  Overnight the prophecies had come true. As he paced the dais, discussing the dire effects of blood upon the guilty mind, pausing occasionally to cough or run a perfect hand through his dirty-blond hair, she thrilled to the thought of last night’s nativity. She had sensed that something was afoot when the music continued so late. He lived on the first floor of the main body of the house, so she could just see his windows from her own. As self-elected handmaid to the Word, she never rested until she could peer up from her bed over the chest freezers and see his light extinguished. Last night the light had burned, the music had continued until well after twelve. It had also started to snow, which tied in precisely with her prophetic dreams and the pictures in the shrine. Perhaps two hours after his light went out, she had leapt awake, certain she had heard a new baby’s cry. In the silence that followed she had convinced herself it was a dream, but the night proved restless. Repeatedly she had woken to lie watching down on the freezers’ green lights, her mind dwelling on the idea of his pain, her ears prickling in anticipation of further aural proof. Did gods bleed? Had he suffered greatly? Had he – perish the unworthy thought – died in labour?

  Washing before puja, she had glanced up to his bathroom window and been stunned. He was standing, quite naked, cradling a freshly-swaddled baby in his tender arms. Furthermore, the baby had been of her own race.

  The god had realized his perfection on earth. He was now Narendra Saraswati. Prince Goddess. All human potential in one body. But still her frail faith required a sign.

  His back was turned as he drew a diagram on the board. ‘Letter’ arrow ‘Welcome’ arrow ‘Duncan’ arrow ‘Murder’ arrow ‘Coronation’ arrow. He continued to write. Kerry passed a lewd sketch to Tamsin, who had to stick out her tongue in an effort not to laugh. Sumitra quickly tore a sheet from her notepad, scribbled across it ‘Sumitra 4 Shri Metcalfe, Narendra Saraswati’ and stuffed it in her mouth. Now he drew a vertical line from the left-hand corner of the progression of words and arrows and, switching to blue chalk, wrote ‘Marital Estrangement’ beside it.

  ‘What’s “marital” mean, sir?’ asked Josette, a skinny thing with blue patches in her cheeks.

  ‘Having to do with marriage. Love, trust and sex basically,’ he said without turning. There was an explosive titter, although no one had found this especially funny. Sumitra chewed desperately, reducing the mulch to a damp, hard pellet which she then rolled between her palms. ‘Hysterical really,’ he said slowly, concentrating on drawing an unsteady diagonal to illustrate that the more one eggs him on to murder and ambition, the less attractive one’s husband is likely to find one. ‘And now, while you all copy this down, I’ll hand back those essays. Fairly dreadful for the most part. Tomorrow – no, it’s the day after that I see you next, isn’t it? Yes? Well, the day after tomorrow we’ll have a crash course on “How to Write Essays”.’ He started to walk amongst the desks, tossing books to owners. If she could only swallow the pellet in time, she should have a sign. Straining her tongue, she forced it to the back of her mouth. The ink was bitter. She hoped her lips were not blue. ‘Fair, er, Duncan. Fair. Not bad, Tracey. Wayne, see me. Tony, see me. Er …’ He forgot a Muslim’s name. ‘Yes. See me.’ The book was hastily tossed. ‘Mandy, awful.’ Mandy grimaced. ‘Tamsin and Kerry, I know the value of friendship, but team work is frowned on by examiners. I’ve shared your mark between you. One essay each next time, please. Sumitra? Ah, there you are.’ He turned and strode to her desk. Kerry giggled. Sumitra swallowed violently and the pellet ground its way down her throat. She parted her lips, unable to smile. Her book had fallen shut. He opened it to remind himself of his comments, then smiled and tossed it to her. She missed her catch and had to scrabble on the floor for the prize. He returned to the dais. ‘I was wrong,’ he said. ‘Not all the essays were awful; Sumitra’s was excellent. She’s a year younger than you and English is her third language. Since half of you can barely order breakfast in French, I hope that puts you all to shame.’

  A sign! His earthly powers in fruit, he had now acknowledged his handmaid. Sumitra dug a nail into her forearm to stop herself from grinning. Tamsin was holding a paper behind her back which read, ‘Sue is a Pakki slimer.’

  ‘Tonight you can draw another graph like this one,’ he went on, ‘to illustrate the fall and rise (or is it rise and fall?) of the powers of good against the play’s career of evil. Also – and this is more important, Scott, thank you – I want you all to learn Lady M’s first speech by heart.’ There were groans all round. ‘Not much. Just from the end of Macbeth’s letter to his entry on the next page,’ he countered. ‘Only a few lines. You’ll be grateful for them in the exams. Now, who did I ask to come and see me?’

  He had finished early. His preoccupation was forgivable. Not every man gives birth on his own, without a nurse’s hands or grandmother’s comfort, and is still able to come to work the next day. Still pondering on the marvel that was her parents’ tenant, Sumitra followed the back of the crowd as it barged into the corridor and hurried towards the yard. She took a different turning and sprinted to the locker room. It was empty. She reached inside her shirt and pulled out a key tied round her neck by a string. Making doubly sure she was unobserved, she kissed the key and unfastened the padlock on her locker door.

  On the outside it was no different from the others; a square wooden door, eighteen by eighteen. There the resemblance ceased. The inside was lined with cooking foil, pinned up with extreme care so as to keep the surface as wrinkle-free as possible. A bowl of spiced, dried flowers gave off a rich, musky odour. Behind it, in a plastic gilt frame stolen from her father’s store, stood a photograph of the Narendra Saraswati. His friend, the muscular, dark-haired one who gave her piano lessons, had let it fall when hurrying out of the house once. She had snatched it up. It was her greatest treasure. In it the Narendra was leaning against a tree, his arms folded, his shoulders dappled with sunlight through the leaves. He was smiling, his face less burdened with the cares of godhead than it was now. On the back some writing was pressed by a rubber stamp. Starbright Agency – returned with thanks. This added greatly to the relic’s power. In the prayer hall that she visited with her parents, there were no photographs of Rama and Sita, only crude paintings and ugly ceremonial dolls.

  The two side walls were adorned with a collage of images cut from the cards left around school before the festival they called Xmas. Babies in well
-lined cribs. Stars. Angels. Smirking ox and sentimental ass. The virgins’ heads she had cut off and replaced with heads of male models in colour magazines. She dared not cut up her only photograph of the Narendra, and these served as stereotypical approximations of his loveliness.

  Sumitra touched her forehead and bowed slightly in greeting; then, taking out a pair of embroidery scissors shaped like a stork, she opened her English book and carefully cut out the paper bearing the Narendra’s glowing praise of her essay. She replaced the scissors, took out a drawing pin and fixed the lines to the door beside other, lesser samples of his handwriting, including last term’s report and a discarded envelope he had addressed to a man who shared his name and lived in Paris. Finally she lifted the small saucer of Smarties set before the Presence, muttered a few suitable words, then slipped the sweets into her mouth. Before she locked the door once more, she restocked the votive saucer, this time with Dolly Mixture. She had learnt that variety in her domestic pilfering was good insurance against detection.

  As she slipped the keys back beneath her shirt, a gym class finished and the room was a bruising mass of gross white legs and arms. She skidded out, sheltering her face from injury and went her way.

  Chapter fourteen

  Hilary met Mrs Sharma in the hall as he opened the door. He started to say hello but she silenced him, pressing a finger to her lips and then pointing to the ceiling with such a broad smile that he wondered if she were not quite herself. With much gesticulating, and almost touching his arm, she let herself out. He dropped his briefcase at the bottom of the stairs, for it was one of the few nights of the week free of marking, and padded upstairs, snow-sodden shoes in hand.

  In marked contrast to his sister, Hilary tended to surround himself with objects. His impulse to collect was eclectic as a wealthy Texan’s and he had a twelve-year-old’s reluctance to throw things away. His flat, which took up the top floor, while the Sharmas spread through various extensions around the shop below, was cluttered with photographs, china and magazine racks. Miscellanea which had amused him from junkshop windows or market stalls were borne proudly home to find their niche in the companionable magpie nest. What to his sister’s eye represented a nightmare of interior design, however, had for him the precision, the ‘rightness’ of an ever-growing personal mosaic. In his absence, Dan had taken over the living room. The carrycot stood empty in a corner with a folded-up pushchair. What books remained on the desk had been stacked up to make space for a gaudy changing mat. Two packets of disposable nappies lay in the armchair; a third lay opened on the desk. Dan’s feeding bottle was soaking, dismantled, in sterilizing fluid. The top left drawer of the chest of drawers was pulled open and filled with carefully folded babygros, hats, bootees, disarmingly midget gloves joined with elastic, and an assortment of dwarf jerseys in various pastel shades. On the back of the door an efficient-looking anorak was hooked up, like the lagging for a Toytown boiler. Even by Hilary’s lumber-room standards, his home looked more than slightly bombed.

  The first cause of all this transformation lay, breathing deeply as ever, in an imposing blue cot in the corner where Hilary usually dragged a square of hardboard on which to practise his tap dancing. Hilary sat on the sofa and peered closely at him. Beyond question he was extremely attractive, probably clever, at present defenceless and decidedly domineering. Hilary reached a finger through the bars and stroked the back of one of Daniel’s hands.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he whispered. The telephone rang and he snatched it up before a second ring could wake the baby. ‘Hello?’ he whispered.

  ‘Hil?’

  ‘Richard. Hi.’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’

  ‘Long story. Thanks for a lovely evening.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’

  ‘I was meant to be dragging you to your dance class, remember?’

  ‘Oh God, Rich, I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Dan was making waking noises. Hilary threw him a rapid glance.

  ‘I just can’t. All right?’

  ‘Fine. I won’t ask. Give him my modified love.’

  ‘No. It’s not …’

  ‘Happy birthday, Hil. Speak to you soon.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’

  “Bye.’

  ‘Be like that.’

  Richard and Hilary had both taken their acting seriously from the start, although Richard had veered more towards the Shakespearean, his friend towards the ‘French Window’ school. Now Richard had an Equity card and was playing Lady MacDuff in a Kabuki Macbeth in a pub theatre, while paying his rent by appearing several times nightly on three channels in a mattress commercial. The one dramatic form in the ascendant at the moment was the musical. Revivals of inanities from 1920 and every decade since frolicked across West-End stages, leaving blank verse to the converted churches and Richard to sign autographs for being ‘The Slumbersoftie Man’, muttering darkly the while about a cultural winter. Hilary had procured his Equity card through a friend of his father’s but, disheartened by a set of dismal auditions, had taken on his teaching post out of greed. The original idea, as professed to Richard and a cynical friend Bridget, had been to regard teaching solely as a cash fund and to have no qualms about taking days off whenever a good audition came along. Things had turned out slightly differently, as had the dance classes. To be in shape for an audition he would have to go to classes at least every other night, and to limber up at home every day. In practice he rarely had the energy to ride down to Hammersmith after a day’s work, and his home work-outs had dwindled to an occasional bout in his tap shoes on the square of hardboard, with Geoff Bernardi and the Boomtown Tappers Band on the gramophone. Though a ‘serious’ actor, Richard had pledged himself to the jazz dance classes to give his friend moral support.

  Dan moved his head slightly and yawned without truly waking. Hilary found himself an apple and a glass of milk in the kitchen and then returned, munching, to the telephone. Lying on the sofa, his socked toes rubbing on the bars of the cot, he dialled a familiar number. Rufus answered almost at once.

  ‘Rufus?’

  ‘Hi, Sandy. How did you … ?’

  ‘Rufus, it’s Hilary. Who’s Sandy?’

  There was a delay at the other end, then Rufus answered in a rush.

  ‘Hello, Hil. Sorry, Sandy’s just arrived. She’s a pupil.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’

  ‘Sore throat. Can we talk?’

  ‘Yes. She’s … erm … she’s in the bathroom.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Sorry I wasn’t in last night, I’d …’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry I didn’t make it. You see …’

  They had both spoken at once; now there was a silence which each waited for the other to break. Hilary took the initiative.

  ‘Roof, you can’t come round here tonight.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well … you see.’ He couldn’t tell him about Dan; Rufus loathed babies. ‘Oh, Christ, it’s sheer chaos. Mrs Sharma’s got relatives staying and I let her put one of the children to sleep up here.’

  ‘Well, that was stupid of you. Where will you …’

  ‘Well, I thought perhaps I could come over to you for once. We haven’t seen each other for nearly a week and I thought we could go out and …’

  ‘I told you,’ Rufus’ tone was weary. ‘Sandy’s just arrived. I’ll be teaching her until nearly half seven.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t come over until …’

  ‘Look, Hil, this is stupid. It’s no accident that we haven’t seen each other in a week. It’s more than a week, in fact. Look, I … Why don’t we just let it go?’

  ‘Let it go?’ Hilary became aware that he was holding the half-eaten apple hard against his cheek. As he raised his voice, Dan started to wake in earnest.

  ‘Yes. I mean,
you’re out teaching all day there, and I teach all day here and … well. Just let’s let it go, OK?’

  ‘But I thought you said …’

  ‘I’ve got to go now. Sandy’s waiting.’

  ‘Sandy who?’

  ‘Grow up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Look. It didn’t work. You could do better for yourself. OK?’ This didn’t seem either real or fair.

  ‘It isn’t OK. I’ll write to you.’

  ‘What?’ Rufus sounded bored. Hilary’s voice trailed off as he reiterated, ‘Could I write to you?’

  Rufus hung up.

  Hilary took several aggressive bites to finish his apple. Dan gurgled. Hilary stood and ran to the kitchen. He rinsed out the bottle, made up some milk and came back. Without flinching, he felt Dan’s bum and was rewarded by finding it dry.

  ‘Wonderbaby!’ he exclaimed and lifted the boy on to his lap. He found that if he sat in the left-hand corner of the sofa and leaned Dan in the crook of his left arm, he could feed him with his left hand, so leaving his right hand free. He chewed most of his apple core, then threw the fibrous rest into the bin. He stared dreamily at his borrowed son. As Dan fed, he fluffed up the child’s hair where the sweat of sleep had plastered it to his forehead. ‘Do you love me, mmm?’ he asked. ‘No? Not yet? Well, you should.’ He tapped the crocus bulb nose with his forefinger. Dan stared at him agape and hiccoughed, then returned to his milk.

  So … they were to let it go. There was little left to release. Love, Hilary reflected, was now largely force of habit. Love, in their case, had dwindled to making enough spaghetti sauce for two in case someone turned up. Love was having somebody to worry about besides oneself. Not very poetic really. Not much to miss.

  ‘The trouble with you,’ Rufus had once mocked, ‘is your pathological inability to separate sex from domesticity.’