She took him upstairs. I washed up the coffee cups and rolled the plasticine into a neat ball. It was raining now, thick gloopy rain so you could hardly see out of the windows. Maybe I did take money from Mr Harcourt. Not a thousand pounds. Maybe this is how it happened: I said I wanted the money first. He said, ‘You obviously weren’t born yesterday,’ and laughed like a man of the world. He went out in his car to the cash machine. While he was gone my clothes finished drying and I put them on. He came in, put the money on the table and looked at me, a fat grin spreading on his face. I picked the money up. ‘Feels good, eh?’ he said. ‘A thick wad like that. I bet you never held so much in your little hand before.’
He reached out for me but I kicked his shin and ran. Ran out the door and down the street. Ran until my lungs were bursting. Then I went to the Botanies. I counted the money. It wasn’t a thousand pounds it was three hundred and seventy. So he had done me, just like I’d done him. Hahaha. Though he must have been mad. He could have had a girl off the street for twenty quid. But maybe it was a thrill, the thought of doing it in his very own house with the cleaning girl. The naked sylph. Who knows how his sick mind worked. Anyway, I had done him. And it served him right.
I was picking away at one of the scorched flecks when Mrs Banks came back. She saw me.
‘What happened here?’ I said.
‘God knows,’ she said. ‘But I’m after a new table anyway.’ She turned her back, making Roy a peanut-butter sandwich. ‘Would you like a snack, Lamb?’ she said.
‘Gotta go,’ I said.
‘Oh don’t go yet. I feel so awful for you.’
‘Nah,’ I said, ‘it’s not down to you.’
‘Still.’
She heated up some soup in the microwave. Bright orange tomato soup like my mum used to give me when I was ill. Roy got it all down his chin and made a butterfly out of his sandwich. In the end he went off to play.
‘What a mess.’ She tutted at the soup splashes and peanut mush he’d left behind.
‘Can I talk to you, Lamb,’ she said suddenly, as if she’d dared herself. ‘I’ve been feeling the need to talk to someone. If I don’t talk to someone soon I’ll burst.’
‘What, me?’ I said.
A cloud passed over her eyes. ‘I’ll tell you something, Lamb. Not many people know this, no one round here, for a start. I can’t talk about this to anyone else. Can I trust you?’
‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘I suppose so.’
She took a deep breath and started. ‘Neville isn’t my first husband. I was married before when I was only eighteen. I had two boys, less than a year between. Two under one, can you imagine?’ She left me a gap to imagine it in.
I couldn’t think what would be the natural thing to say. ‘Where are they?’ I said.
Now it was her time to cry. Not quite cry but go red and get that bright look in her eyes. She bit her lip. ‘You’ll probably think I’m a monster.’
I said nothing but I remembered Doggo’s words, how her hair brushed his cheek, the sweet smell of it, then she was gone. The sad shine in his eyes when he told me that.
‘I was a bit, wild as a girl. My poor parents, they did their best. I got expelled from the local school and they sent me to a private one and I got expelled from that too.’
I stared at her. ‘Mrs Banks! Why?’
It was the last thing I expected. She wasn’t wild at all. Her house was neat and boring and full of scatter cushions. If you ask me scatter cushions are the opposite of wild. She put her index finger in a splash of soup and drew a circle, over and over, round and round.
‘I don’t know what was up with me really,’ she went on. ‘They gave me everything. Riding lessons, dancing, holidays here, there and everywhere, whatever I wanted, but I just … I got in with a gang of … well. My father went spare when he realised. Said it was the limit, either I stopped seeing them and pulled myself together or I left. So I left.
‘To cut a long story short, I got pregnant. Seventeen and pregnant. Had the baby and another. It was a disaster. But did we do the sensible thing and call it a day? Did we heck. I loved the kids but oh God I was just a kid myself.’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
She told me the story that Doggo had told me, but her side of it. About how her husband had taunted her for being posh, bullied and beaten her till she could hardly think straight. About how she might have cracked up altogether or even died if she hadn’t left when she did. About how she’d still been a child. Just a little girl. She kept saying that.
She also told me how it felt to leave your kids.
She talked very fast gulping her coffee and knitting her fingers together and bending them back till I was afraid one of them would snap. Tears started to race down her cheeks and I did something I would never have dreamt I’d ever do. I got up and put my arms round her from behind.
‘Oh Mrs Banks,’ I said. She sniffed and patted my hand and I felt a tear fall on my skin. It sat there gleaming and burning like acid. As soon as I could I took my hand away and rubbed the feeling off on my jeans. She was right on the edge of breaking down but then she sucked it all back down inside her.
‘Another drink?’ she said, getting up. ‘And, Lamb, would you do me a favour?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do stop calling me Mrs Banks, it makes me feel about a hundred. Call me Marion, please.’
‘K,’ I said even though that is well against my usual rules.
I asked her if she’d seen either of her other boys lately. I would ask that, wouldn’t I? Not knowing anything about it. I thought she’d say no. But she surprised me. She said she’d seen Martin, who is Doggo, about eighteen months ago. She stared at the window as she talked as if she was watching a film. She’d been in the park with Roy – he was playing in the sandpit and Martin came right up to the bench where she was sitting. She said he had two dogs with him and that made me smile, thinking he hadn’t changed. But these were British bulldogs and he looked a hard-case which shocked her because he’d been a gentle kind of child. They’d had an awkward conversation. She wanted to pour out her heart to him but instead it was just artificial small-talk then Roy came running up. Seeing Roy gave him a shock, you could see it on his face, she said. He just went pale, then got up and went. She called after him but she couldn’t chase after him because of Roy. And she just watched him walk out of her life again.
She slid her wedding ring off her finger, turned it round and put it back. ‘I suppose he felt replaced,’ she said. ‘I was going to say I hadn’t replaced him but maybe in a way I had. You can never replace someone in your heart but the fact is, in day-to-day life you can.’
I don’t know why that struck me as so tragic. I looked down at my scrubby hands and bitten nails. I wondered if she even knew that David was dead. ‘Have you heard anything since? From either of them?’
She opened her mouth to speak but Roy came in and started pushing his toy cars about on the floor. She put her finger to her lips and shook her head. I could have screamed. She went back to spouting rubbish like was it really worth getting a turkey or what about opting for roast beef which they all prefer but what about the mad-cow disease and blablabla.
The phone rang and it was someone coming round so I had to go. No cleaning at all but she still paid me. She lent me a brolly. ‘Friday?’ she called after me and I called back, ‘Yeah,’ as I slopped off down the sleety street.
Thirty
I didn’t go straight home. Just as I was passing a bus-stop a bus stopped and I jumped on. It was so steamy inside that you couldn’t see out of the windows and so packed I had to stand. Everyone doing their Christmas shopping. If Doggo and I were going to have Christmas then I needed to do some shopping too.
Clinging to a hand-rail I looked down at the tops of all the heads, all the hats and hair-dye, the dandruff, the scalps showing through perms, the bald heads and the baby hair. I knew my red streaks wouldn’t be showing because there was no sun. Do you ever think that everyone’s head is ju
st as important as your own head? To them I mean. Each head is the centre of a different world. It can make you giddy to think how many million centres of the world there are.
Debenhams stunk of tinsel. A sugary voice kept inviting customers to have a special seasonal hot turkey ’n’ cranberry baguette in the restaurant with a half-price hot beverage. I bought myself some presents, some brilliant things, even better than the stuff I’d lost. Levi jeans and cosy sweaters, nice underwear and some slinky white pyjamas. I hadn’t planned on these but when I saw them I just couldn’t resist. They are exactly like some that Zita is wearing in one of the photos. I’d never even dreamed of wearing such things before.
I floated down the escalator into the men’s department to buy presents for Doggo. It felt so weird. I have not bought a Christmas present for years. I walked round and round and couldn’t choose. What do you buy the man who has nothing?
In the end I bought him a jacket, warm, padded and supposedly waterproof. I got him a pair of gloves too because his old ones are worn out. His knuckles have almost healed but when they get cold the scars go shiny blue. I want his hands always to be warm. They had sets of stuff like after-shave and soap with manly names: Brutus and Charge. He doesn’t shave so I didn’t buy one with after-shave in, just with soap and deodorant. I hope he doesn’t take it wrong.
I got carried away then. I went to the cosmetics department and bought some gorgeous soap, clear and pink like a big jelly sweet. It’s supposed to moisturise as it gently cleanses. You could see the woman was surprised when I asked how much for the bath milk – which is the same one that Mrs Harcourt had. She said, ‘Twenty-six pounds ninety-nine,’ in a snooty way-out-your-range voice and I said, ‘I’ll take it. And the matching body lotion,’ without even asking the price of that. She slammed it in the bag while I smiled sweetly and peeled off the notes saying, ‘Keep the change.’ I bought lipstick too, Damson Heart, some blusher and some smoky kohl.
I chose baubles for the tree which are like the bubbles kids blow, clear but streaked with shimmering colours. You wouldn’t believe how much they cost. Then I went into another shop to find a present for Gordon. I found a diamanté dog collar. It made me laugh to think of Gordon with his grumpy eyebrows wearing the sparkles round his neck. I got a squeezy feeling in my ribs every time the cash-registers rang my money up, part scared and part excited. I had to stop then. There wasn’t that much cash left and I had to save enough for dinner.
It was ten days till Christmas which is a long time to wait when you have presents to give. I didn’t know whether I could bear to wait or not. I walked back, my arms stretching nearly to the ground with all the carrier bags. I started going round the side of the house from habit before I remembered I had a right to be here now and I could just waltz straight up the path and through the front door.
Doggo was not there. He should have been. He was supposed to stay in except for after dark. He was supposed to stay in and hide. I was worried. Then I realised the dogs had gone. If they’d arrested him they wouldn’t have taken the dogs, I was pretty sure of that. But I was cross. He was stupid going out in daylight. It was too much of a risk.
It’s a good job he was out though otherwise I would have had to give him his presents then and there. I hid the things in the front room under Mr Dickens’ bed. It was cold everywhere except the back room where it was so hot there was sweat running down the window. It was too quiet with even the dogs out. I put the telly on for company. I walked about the house not knowing what to do. It was drinking coffee at Mrs Banks’ that made me so buzzy. Probably drinking coffee that made me buy all the stuff. I sometimes think the world would be a much more laid-back place if people weren’t drinking coffee all the time.
I couldn’t wait for Doggo to come back. To see him come back safe. I couldn’t imagine life without him. How I spent all that time alone. When I shut my eyes there was no balance left but that was OK. That is OK. You don’t need your own balance when there’s someone there to hold you up. I wanted to tell him what his mum said. How she had cried about leaving him and I was going to find out more. I had a plan growing in me about getting them together like one of those weepy old movies. Oh Mother, Oh Son!! Oh Happy Christmas and an orchestra suddenly striking up from behind the sofa.
The phone rang and I jumped but didn’t answer it. It kept ringing and ringing till it really got on my nerves. I didn’t answer it because it would only be Sarah or the hospital and I didn’t want to talk to either. I hate the phone. It gets under your skin like that, just when you’re happy it rings and it could be anyone calling to smash up your happiness or peace. Imagine a world without coffee or the phone.
I left it and went to pick up the post from the mat. The envelopes were covered in footprints. There were hundreds of Christmas cards for Mr Dickens. I opened them and stuck them on the mantelpiece. Lots of holly sprigs and old-fashioned coach-and-horses and snow-scenes with church spires, all filled with wavery old people’s writing. One of them had a ten-pound note in. Well he wouldn’t be needing that.
On telly a woman was making a chocolate yule log out of broken biscuits. I opened the sideboard and searched but there was no money in there. I got out all the albums and scoured them for Christmas pictures but there was only the one. It was Mr Dickens and Zita standing by a tree all lit up with candles. They were young and she was wearing a flowery dress and a cardigan with sequins round the edges. Her hair was neat as a helmet and her lips like a Christmas bow. There was something at the side that looked like a pyramid of tangerines. Well, we could get a tree and tangerines. If we had a camera we could take a picture. I would get a camera, one of those with a timer, and take us by our Christmas tree, me in my white pyjamas, then one day someone would look at the picture and think, they were happy and maybe wish to be like us.
The phone rang again so I unplugged it.
I flicked through all the albums soaking Zita in. The more I look the more I see what they mean. I do look like her. I do look like her true descendant. I got to the album with the newspaper cuttings. I tried to put it back in the cupboard but I couldn’t help looking. It was weird of Mr Dickens to keep those cuttings, don’t you think? Kind of morbid, in the same way shutting off the room was. I thought that maybe I was starting to get phobic about that room. It was always coming into my head, it just bothered me so much.
I read very slowly the story that told me in fuzzy black words about how she died. The pathologist’s photograph showed me the burnt black space in the room and everything quite ordinary all around. A cup with a biscuit in the saucer. A beaded lamp. And the two shins, still wearing their shoes, lying on the carpet, silly skittles.
I was cold all up my back and the ash taste was in my throat again. How can it happen? I do not understand how it happens that a person can catch fire inside where it is wet and there is no air. Can burn from the inside out.
Confront your fears is how you beat them. If you’re phobic about something you have to face whatever it is, bit by bit. Like if you’re phobic about mice you have to look at a picture of a mouse every day, then a real one in a cage then in the end you have to hold the mouse or even put it up your sleeve. This cures you.
I went and stood outside and touched the door. It was just a cold door and there was no sign of burning. I put my hand against the plank that was nailed across. When I looked closely I saw that it wasn’t nailed on very well. Only two big nails, one each side that went through the plank and into the door frame, but I could pull and move it. The nails weren’t long enough to go very far into the wood of the door frame. If I wanted to I could pull it off.
I was standing and thinking this with a cold and sinking feeling in my guts when I heard footsteps and voices and the Trumpet Voluntary. The shock of it practically stopped my heart. I froze. Somebody laughed and pressed it again and then knocked and knocked. From the front the house looks completely dead. Lucky that Doggo had taken the dogs out so there was no barking. I glided along the wall into the back and switched
off the lights and the telly and lay down on the floor. Just in time because the people came poking round the back. They knocked at the door even tried it but it was locked. I could heard the stabs and wisps of their voices going up, questions, questions but not an answer in sight.
After a while they went away but I stayed on the floor till the dog-hairs made me sneeze. I lay there for ages till I was positive they’d gone. Just as I was getting up and putting the light back on, Doggo came back. The dogs stunk of wet and Gordon shook all over me.
‘What you doing?’ Doggo said.
‘Nothing,’ I said. True. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘I’d go fucking apeshit if I didn’t get out sometimes.’
I couldn’t tell him off. I was so pleased to see him I went right up to him, right into his personal space, and stood there thinking, kiss me kiss me. He looked at me as if I was cracked and backed away. ‘You’re covered in dog-hairs,’ he said.
I could smell the raw cold on him. If he had kissed me his lips would have been like ice. He went through and sat by the fire to take his boots off and then there was the smell of feet to top everything. I remembered socks. I should have bought him socks.
‘I was thinking about Christmas,’ I said. ‘We could get a tree.’
He grinned at me the way that makes my heart swoop. ‘Fuck off,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘We might not be here at Christmas. We’re only here till Mr Dickens gets back.’
‘But he’s in for a couple more weeks at least.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’ve been up the hospital, obviously. Yeah. He’ll be in a couple of weeks yet. And Christmas is only ten days away so that means …’
Doggo stretched out his toes and rested them on Doughnut’s back. ‘That’s ace. Why didn’t you say? Fetch us a cup of tea.’ I gave him the finger but went and filled the kettle.
Now You See Me Page 19
