by Anne Fine
And that was when it first fell on him like a shaft of light: how much he wanted one. Not just that feeble, drippy wish that he were different. He’d had that all his life. But something tougher, something more like cussedness, that even he might think could power him off his tracks into the sort of extraordinary derailment his sister had dismissed out of hand. At least his mother had been good enough to imply he was capable of telling whoppers. She hadn’t meant it charitably, he was sure. God alone knew what she had meant. (Possibly she hadn’t meant anything at all, except not to let that toe-rag Perdita feel that she was one up on her for one single moment.) She clearly couldn’t have believed a word of it, or she’d have remembered to crucify him on his next visit. But he was grateful to her all the same. It was a vote of confidence – of a sort. And there was something so pathetic about the way he was living now – through a life no one cared about. If he fell in one of Turner’s illegally overfilled slurry pits and drowned tomorrow, who’d cry their eyes out? Who would crow?
No one would even miss him.
Except his mother.
‘I’m off now,’ he told Dilys. ‘Round to Holly House. Any messages?’
Did revelation bring some firm new tone? It seemed so, for clearly his sister was startled. And that in itself brought one advantage in that, even making for the door no more hastily than usual, he still found himself safely out in the hall before she could manage to bring out a crack along the lines of, ‘Late for the wife?’, or, ‘Congratulations to Granny!’
His mother opened the door in a cloudburst of tissue paper. ‘You took your time. I was about to give up on you and go round myself.’
‘To do what? Remind him of recent variations of the Nuisance and Noise Abatement Order of 1985, whilst taking care to make no actual misrepresentations of his legal entitlement to fair use and benefit?’
‘No. Stuff this up his windchimes.’
He took her flurry of tissue in return for the neat wad of newspapers under his own arm. ‘Here. Why don’t you go upstairs and start on these?’
‘Don’t bother bringing anything but a cup of weak tea. I’ve completely lost my appetite.’
Clocking the order, he went round the side of the house to stuff the tissue paper safely in the dustbin before going next door to do his imitation of a council warning. But once in sight of the windchimes, his mother’s plan struck him as one of genius. He took his time, crouching behind the still mysteriously burgeoning hydrangea while he tore tissue paper into strips. Then, pulling her precious Chilean flame flower’s support stick out of the ground, he leaned across the wooden slatted dividing fence and, making as little noise as possible, poked paper up as far as it would go inside each dangling metal tube. After, even when rattled together, the chimes barely pinged; and, thinking to celebrate with a few stolen minutes with Suzie in the woodshed, he was about to creep off further down the path when up shot a window and out poked a head he had known since his childhood.
‘Are you the dustbins?’
‘Yes,’ he said, furious at not being recognized after forty years, but judging it safer, in the circumstances.
‘Right,’ said the livid face. ‘Well, tell that mad old bat to put her lids on properly.’
‘I will,’ said Colin. Realizing it might raise even this singularly unneighbourly eyebrow if one of Priding’s cleansing operatives were blatantly to make off in the wrong direction down the path, he abandoned his hopes of a few moments’ carefree poolside frolicking, and, after a quick gnaw at the support stick so he could lay the blame for the flame flower’s collapse onto Flossie, went back to the kitchen to make a snack his mother would enjoy refusing and some tea she could criticize.
He found her knee-deep in obituaries. ‘The world goes none the lamer for this old bugger, that’s for sure.’
All his attention was on stepping over Floss without dropping the tea tray. He asked the first question to spring to mind. ‘So who was that, then?’
‘George Henry Besterton.’
‘Oh, I know him.’
His mother’s disbelief was evident. He flushed as he put down the tray. But on reflection he reckoned that, not only did he have every right to take a leaf out of her own book and make use of the facilities in the nearby Chapel of Rest, but his snippet of gossip might actually prove as welcome as his news of the weeds in Mrs Deary’s grass seed. So, as he sat down, he pressed on with his explanation. ‘It’s just that I happened to be in the funeral parlour when he was—’
What was the word for it? Surely not ‘on display’. Could it possibly be ‘resting’?
She hadn’t waited for him to finish speaking anyway.
‘Well, you won’t have had to beat your way through the crowds to toss roses on his coffin, that’s for sure. That man would boil potatoes in a widow’s tears.’
And, having rendered his news flash otiose at a stroke, his mother went on to reel off all George Henry Besterton’s sins, public and private, during which disquisition it became obvious that civic corruption and personal venery had had to spend their time vying for attention, in between culpable poisonings of Chaffer’s factory employees.
‘They put all that in the obituary?’
‘Don’t be a twerp. They claim he was a fine, upstanding member of the community, beloved by all.’
He had a vision of the weeping wraith. ‘I met his widow.’
‘Well, that’s a pleasure you won’t have again.’ Rooting through her heap of discarded Priding Heralds, she showed him another obituary.
‘Florence May Besterton?’ For a moment he was thrown by her habit of going through the papers in reverse. And then he realized. ‘What? She’s died since?’
His mother pointed to the headline staring from the paper beneath. BROKEN-HEARTED WIDOW TAKES POISON. She sniffed. ‘Broken-hearted, my fanny! More likely a fit of pique at realizing she won’t get to trough at any more civic banquets at Joe Taxpayer’s expense.’
‘Come on, Mum! Poison!’
‘Nonsense! I expect the frail sap just stood too near the old bugger’s factory without her veil.’
He felt obliged to defend the gentle bag of bones whose hand touched his. ‘She looked’ – it was the only word – ‘bereft.’
‘Only one woman couldn’t get through,’ his mother said sourly. ‘And she got pushed.’
He put it down to memories of her own loss. Still, he sat shaken, listening to her black mutterings as she went back to her obituaries. ‘“Only in the next room,” indeed! Can these people not rake up a forkful of brains between them? “No flowers, by request”? How they must have hated the poor soul, to give her such a drab send-off. “Gather to celebrate the life of”! Ha! I certainly hope, after I’m gone, that no one will ever think of celebrating my life. I’ve spent a deal too much of it on sorrow’s path.’ If she had stopped for an answer, he could, he realized, have reassured her easily. After all, do as you would be done by, and he would hate to think no one would bother to wear black for him, or let even one day be given over to tears and to sadness. At least Florence May Besterton—
But she’d stopped grumbling to her invisible familiar, and was speaking to him now.
‘—parched as a summer’s drain.’
‘Would you like me to make more tea?’
Her mood lightened. ‘Not if it’s like the last lot, and tastes like sump oil.’ Burying her rotting slippers deeper in Flossie’s matted coat, she nodded at the window. ‘So. Speaking of people I’d like to celebrate the life of, how did it go with Windchime Willie?’
To deter her from probing for detail, he put on his official council air. ‘Oh, I don’t think you’ll have quite so much trouble from that direction in future. In fact, I think he took rather well to that notion of yours of stuffing them with tissue.’ He made a brave stab at forestalling an early enlightenment. ‘Though perhaps best not to crow – unless you’re prepared to be a little more conciliatory about putting the lids of your dustbins on properly.’
That shut her u
p.
They sat in a companionable silence as she returned to lifting one paper after another off the pile, and he drank tea. From time to time, she offered a liverish mutter. ‘Bank error? Ha! . . . In self-defence? Oh, yes, and I’m a Chinaman!’
Fearing she’d get bored and take to accusing him of making no effort, he had a go at turning her next outburst – ‘Fell off, indeed!’ – into the start of both a civil conversation and a way of assuring her she wasn’t a granny.
‘Talking of “falling off”, did I mention to you that I know a young trapeze artist?’
She glanced up. ‘We’re really diving in the waters of Lake Me today! “Oh, I knew George Henry Besterton.” “I met his widow.” And now, “I know a trapeze artist.” What were you doing? Slapping an unsafe scaffolding order on the poor bugger’s highwire?’
‘She doesn’t happen to be working at the moment.’
He saw the look. But all she said was, ‘So you haven’t actually seen this – artiste – of yours in action?’
How could he say he’d seen a curtsy?
‘No.’
‘But you believed her?’
He didn’t bother answering. But after his recent glimpse into the tearful, nervy days to come, he found her cynicism rather cheering. This was the mother he preferred. The worst of the last few weeks had been that sense of his the two of them were on a see-saw: him going up, her going down. He wasn’t used to things that way. It didn’t seem fitting. It might be plain to both that this was the way their lives were headed now; that soon, this very unnerving state of affairs might even be permanent – well, at least till the end. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t still enjoy these soothing little moments of reprieve, flagged by odd scathing echoes of the cold comfort she’d offered so often after his childhood spats with Dilys. ‘And you believed her?’
That was the comfort in his mother, he decided: her tough, old-fashioned realism. He found it bracing. As when he’d pleaded with her to phone the fire brigade so they could rescue poor mewling Tabby-kitten, and she’d said scornfully, ‘Oh, grow up, Colin! How many cats’ skeletons have you actually seen up trees?’ Instantly, he had stopped fretting, and (if he had ever been able to master the skill) would have strolled away whistling. The trouble was, he thought, that gratitude for gifts of childhood came with timed release. And that might come too late. It might be only after someone’s death that you first came to realize just what it was that they had given you. You could, he thought, solve the problem with an adaptation of his television programme You Be the Judge. This version, though, would be a lot more interesting. And more demanding. Perhaps it would work best as some sort of face-to-face thing along the lines of that old interview programme, On the Psychiatrist’s Couch. (It might even be better on radio.) Those in the hot seat would be pushed into facing the truth about benefits they’d gained from their childhood. Not all that lightweight stuff like, ‘Yes, we ate gravel, so now I’m satisfied with a good crust,’ or, ‘Without that big strap of hers chasing behind me, I never would have realized I had Olympic potential.’ No. Things that ran very much deeper. This programme would examine all the qualities that people liked to think they’d forged themselves from their own character, and weren’t too happy to accept might have been things gained from their family. And there’d be few enough who’d be exempt. After all, wasn’t it generally from watching their parents that most people learned that irreplaceable upside-down lesson: that to live badly is a kind of death? Even just living wrong. Who does the son of the workaholic have to thank, if not his father, for the fact that he’s learned to take time to appreciate the glories of his garden? How would the child of the hippy get such a buzz out of paying the mortgage if it weren’t for those years being dragged round by mother? As for himself, surely the reason he was now so good at getting through department meetings without argument was—
‘Colin!’
He looked up, startled.
‘I said, while you’re at the shop, could you pick up that telly guide Mr Stastny’s put aside for me?’
Shop? He’d said nothing about going shopping. Still, mad to look a gift-horse in the mouth, and he could always make a little detour on his way back via the woodshed and Suzie. Stretching his foot towards the grey heap softly snoring on the rug, he said, ‘I’ll take Floss with me, shall I?’
‘If she wants to go.’
How would one tell? Levering up Flossie’s hind end with his foot, he watched with interest as it softly sank again, like a parachute settling. She didn’t even waken. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to this house,’ he found himself saying suddenly.
‘I’ll tell you one thing. It’ll be none the better for that tinny new toaster you’re planning on leaving.’
Alerted, he warned her, ‘I hope you’re not thinking of digging that old one back out of the dustbin.’ She sat with the enigmatic half-smile that told him, plain as paint, that he’d soon find his gleaming, safety-checked appliance back in its box. And, once again, he had the strongest sense her loss of confidence was in remission. She was pert. Almost herself again. And, cheered as he knew she’d always been by the discomfort of others, his unease grew . . .
‘Anything else, then? I mean, from the shop.’
‘Well, if he has any nice tomatoes— Oh, and a spot of plant food, unless it’s in one of those fiddly packets. And I wouldn’t say no to a couple of apples, just so long as they’re not French.’
Remember to peel the stickers off the apples.
‘I’ll leave Floss here, then, shall I?’
‘No. Second thoughts. Take her with you.’ Floss’s new status as a barely living floor cover was borne out by his mother’s next remark. ‘The smelly thing never gets much of an airing.’
He stooped to jack the old dog to her feet. There was a bit of wobbling, but finally the eyes did open and Flossie started on the long, long totter towards the door. Colin put out his foot to steer her safely round the spindly side table, then picked up the lead, more to give himself the means to tether her neatly to somebody’s gatepost than in any real hope of dragging her the whole way.
Outside, the light was failing, but still the gardening chat was filtering through hedges down the backs.
‘Well, that’s the trouble with potentillas, William. Like my late wife, they simply will not share a bed.’
‘They’re fierce atoms, these cotoneasters. They’ll do anything to get through the fence at your saxifrage.’
The conversations stopped as he hauled Flossie past the first gap in the Al-Khatibs’ privet. Unnerved, he glanced back through the next bare patch to see four separate pairs of eyes on him, all balefully staring.
For God’s sake! No wonder his mother had been sitting there with that glint in her eye and a fresh charge of energy. She must have passed on Perdita’s gossip. Now wasn’t that typical! The bloody woman manifestly didn’t believe a word of it herself, yet she’d still told them! He could practically hear the tut-tutting ricocheting, as it must have done all week, over fences and back gates: ‘Lord knows, it was bad enough when he was simply tormenting her with worries about toasters and insurance. But now it turns out, all this time, behind her back . . .’
‘Well, now you mention it, Ruby did happen to notice Colin only a while ago outside the Funeral Emporium. And he did have a small child in his car.’
The silence lasted down the backs. For the first time in living history, Mrs McKay failed to spring from her porch to add her list to Norah’s. No one appeared to be in need of bread. Or milk. Or cigarettes. And it was obvious that Mr Stastny, too, had heard the news because, instead of serving everyone else who had come in as usual, he turned to Colin as soon as it was his turn, and his respect was unmistakable. First Rizla papers, and now this!
Right, Colin thought. That settles it. He’d tackle Mother the minute he got back. ‘Listen,’ he’d tell her, stabbing a finger on the tray on which she would have placed one lonely sandwich in order to remind him she still had no appetite. ‘Wh
at are you playing at, telling the world I have a wife and a family? You know perfectly well that, whatever I might have told that booty-hunter Perdita, the whole thing is nonsense. Pure nonsense!’
And that’s exactly what he would have done, he realized afterwards, had he not been offered that second bag. For the tomatoes. On any other day they’d have been jammed in along with the apples and the leaking plant-food bottle. And this, Colin couldn’t help thinking as Mr Stastny hurried round to pass him the television guide he’d left on the counter instead of carelessly tossing it over to him at the door, was what it must feel like not to be a Colin. Light-headed. Powerful. Utterly different. And if he hadn’t already had to tether Flossie halfway along the backs when her poor little feet gave out, he might even have celebrated the transfiguration by breaking totally with tradition and strolling home the front way.
Inside the woodshed, it seemed mustier than usual. Across the work bench lay a few dry leaves, his candle stumps and one or two spent matches. All stuff of his, but still the little space seemed different somehow. Had she been in here, snooping? (Or even, to be fair, looking for paint?) Or was it him? Did things seem strange the way a room looks strange after bad news? As when that young policeman had to beg his mother, ‘Oh, please sit down, Mrs Riley,’ and, sensing what was coming, just like her, Colin had stared at that little painted jug on the sideboard and seen its colours glow more brightly than usual through air so still he could have touched it. Perhaps he was finished with the woodshed at last. Grown up. Grown out of it. Too old for spells.
Too old for Suzie, even? That would be a shame. He tugged at the drawer to pull her out from underneath the chisels, and have a look. Old-fashioned little creature. A real back-number – worlds away from all those knowing girls round lifts and water coolers who drove his married colleagues wild and left him cold. Should he be moving on and moving out? Close up the shed, shift the bolt back to the other side in case of temptation, and go and get a proper girlfriend like Helen Letherington, but, this time, make an effort to make it work? Even get married?
