“I can’t go on, Bray, is what I’m saying.”
“I know, love.” He gazed at a Norfolk wherry as it glided up river, its sunset sail clapping in the low breeze. “You’re with me to the end. I love you.”
“But for those circumstances?” She said it bitterly.
“I’m sorry. Yes.”
They stood facing a moment, then Lottie turned.
“I’ll get the hamper.”
Bray was about to apologise but thought better of it and moved with her to their separation.
“Clint’s done badly,” Lois Marquese told Judy Trabasco in the teachers’ common room. “The kid you and Donna Curme were talking about.”
“Clint? Impossible!” Judy was annoyed, more for her friend Donna. Trust the art teacher to nit pick. Lois and Donna didn’t get on.
The art teacher brought Judy her coffee. “Can’t follow a single story line. It’s bizarre.” She explained the details, adding, “The boy goes off at a tangent.”
Judy said sweetly, “You mean he actually invents, hmmm?”
“Plenty of kids are erratic, Judy. There’s a weird limit in Clint’s mind.”
Judy laughed Lois’s criticism off. “The assignment was to invent the end to a children’s TV story?”
“Reasoned conclusions, Judy!”
“You mean Clint’s ending was different? Art is difference, for God’s sake. They’re children, mah deah! It happens!”
“His group’s out of the competition,” Lois Marquese said. “I had to bench them.”
Trouble was, Lois knew Donna had a special interest in the boy, and Clint’s parents were big funders.
“With his parents contributing to the new sports facility?” Judy countered lamely.
Other teachers were listening now, including the athletics programmer Dale Porrino, a lanky Barbadian transfer via Miami.
He interrupted, “Clint ran the wrong way today.”
“Wrong how?” Judy wished Donna would arrive, help her out.
“Softball,” Dale said. “Whacked the ball, but kept hold of the bat and ran forward.” Dale described it. Everyone present was into the story.
“Was he sick or something?” The best Judy could do.
“No. In fact he was laughing. Did his hit, raced forward. Then suddenly stopped, looked around like puzzled. Stared at the pitcher – y’know, Farlow’s kid? – like he expected to see something else. Then ran back and round, too late. The kids went wild.”
“He looked okay?”
“Embarrassed. Said he just forgot.”
Somebody said, “Never heard of a kid forgetting a baseball pitch.”
“Sent him to the med facility.” Dale shrugged. “He was fine.”
After that, Clint’s art was out of the window.
They were in a car pool. That evening Judy told Donna about Lois’s remarks. Donna had seen Clint’s mistake at the softball game. Children did weird things, where was the problem?
Donna had her own viewpoint and gave it to Judy on the way home. “Lois is hooked on event sequencing. She’s totally in-course assessment. Okay, so the kid’s a dreamer.”
“What kid isn’t?” Judy said supportively.
After two days more Dale Porrino ran into Donna Curme outside the cafeteria. She asked if Clint had shown any more behavioural oddities.
“He’s academically patchy, give Lois that,” Donna admitted. “But he’s fine.”
“Didn’t he have some accident?”
“It’s on his record. He seems a normal seven-year-old.”
“They all mess around that age.”
Dale paused as Donna made to walk on.
“A couple of kids made that same mistake,” he said, grinning. “A Trinidadian. And that Nelson kid from Nassau, y’know, Bahamian kid last semester? Ran straight at the pitcher, kept hold of the bat. Like in cricket.”
“So it’s common?” Donna was relieved, still irritated by Lois Marquese’s decision to drop Clint’s group. Kids were grouped up to enter the competition. It was innocent, based on a children’s TV programme. It was receiving statewide publicity. Success would do the school no harm at all. There was media talk of a fantastic reward for the winning school.
“They played the wrong games when they were just out of the egg.”
They parted then, Donna happy now with one more remark with which to counter Lois Marquese’s scepticisms.
Chapter Forty-Six
Mom saw Clint’s holidays as a threat. Pop didn’t. Mom cooled, because the staff hadn’t left for the day so she had to be on her guard.
“Hyme, I want Doctor here for the holiday.”
“Jeez, Clodie! That man costs!”
“We gone through this!” Mom’s voice rose.
“You think there’s still a chance that Clint —?”
“You think there’s no chance?”
There was no answer to that, so Pop made the call. Two days before the school’s weekend break Doctor flew in, took the penthouse at Tain Herrome International Airport Hotel, with three “personal family”. Pop covered the entire cost. Mom rejoiced. She made Doctor promise to pay Clint daily visits right to the end of the break.
Clint didn’t like Doctor.
The man was real important. Mom and Pop said. He had to be nice to Doctor because Doctor saved Clint’s life in hospital. What Doctor said was always true.
He was always careful when Doctor came. He listened close, only saying what Doctor would think was right.
School was better than home. Whatever happened in school got back to Mom and Pop. At home Linda Hunger knew everything. It was easier when Doctor came, because Mrs Hunger stayed out and didn’t come home to her apartment along the top corridor. Clint knew this because she had a growly motor – auto – that made noises that made him smile.
Pop wasn’t as much fun as other kids’ dads. Pop didn’t run races. The second class cookout Pop stayed away, though he was home. Mom came with other moms.
Christmas was lovely, no, great, all those colours. Clint told Miss Curme his class teacher that blue and yellow were better than red and green. She asked him why but he didn’t know.
“Can I choose?” Clint liked drawing one particular colour.
“You certainly can!”
The class were creating a long picture called a panorama. Clint’s group had to draw a hill and trees covered in snow. Other groups in class had to do a stable, shepherds, animals and Three Wise Men and an angel with wings.
Miss Curme was nice and sometimes pretended she forgot words and sums when really she hadn’t, to make the kids think she was dumb. They had fun telling her the answers. She was thin, wore glasses, and had too much hair round her head. Clint wondered what she’d look like in a hat. He liked her.
Planning Christmas displays, Miss Curme put the drawings up on sheets. Two others in Clint’s group, Leeta whose daddy was a minister who shouted in a Baptist church and a boy called Carlson whose pop was a secret in the State Capitol. Leeta and Carlson were good at cutting, but Clint was better at drawing.
So they did the cutting out and he did the drawings. He asked Miss Curme if he could have more paints and she said fine. That was when she said about choosing colours.
The kids did their piece of the big panorama. Miss Curme said it was a quiet period so she could get on with her marking. Her tongue made a slow wriggle in her mouth, slow as a worm. Some kids called her secret names. Carlson called her Dozy Donna and Leeta said shhh.
Leeta cut out the shapes that Clint drew and Carlson cut out the people Clint drew. He drew on white then coloured them in. Once, Carlson cut across a part he shouldn’t have so Clint drew it again and Carlson cut it right this time. Miss Curme said it was okay if that was the shape Clint really wanted but try to save paper next time.
The second afternoon Clint spilled some water. It wet the floor. Miss Curme said never mind and everybody started wiping up the wet. Clint said he was sorry. Leeta said it was an accident so God would forgive it. Ca
rlson blamed the other kids for putting their papers down wrong. Miss Curme said none of that, please, or we’ll never finish before school’s out for Christmas.
Carlson liked Miss Curme. Carlson said she was cool. Leeta didn’t like her. She said she was too new to be any good. Carlson said she got great grades. Leeta said Miss Curme was from Delaware and that meant she was a reject and rejects were crap.
Clint said where’s Delaware. Leeta didn’t know. Carlson said it was back east so they went and stared at the Map of the Americas, shiny and too high up. They supposed it was on the right-hand side, this Delaware.
Miss Curme collected their drawings and made one big picture. Leeta said it would be wrong because her daddy in his Sunday sermons at the Tain Memorial Baptist Congregational Assembly on Bankstone and Revere said life was always wrong.
Miss Curme said “Really great!” as the last ones were handed in. She stared at Carlson’s and Leeta’s and Clint’s piece, eyes round as anything, and said, “Oh my! Won’t you looka here! This is something else, you three!” and they felt real proud because it was the best in the whole panorama.
“Boats, though, right there in the stable?”
A whole row broke out. Some kids said sure they had boats because Saint Somebody walked on water and that meant he was a fisherman like Al’s dad who’d won a fishing championship last Fall. Others said no because it was a stable and that’s only for horses. Carlson said the manger was probably a boat if you really went into it.
“And these towers and kites? It’s very imaginative, but…”
A girl called Perlina who had a horse in a field near Tannerville said Leeta and Carlson and Clint shouldn’t get marks because it wasn’t fair. Everybody started talking. Some kids said could they do colouring like that. Other kids shouted no, the Christmas Baby had only a white towel like all kids started off with. Carlson and Leeta and Clint shouted back. Others yelled about babies they knew.
Miss Curme stopped the whole argument by making them sit still for a count of a hundred while she figured what order pictures should go on the wall. Somebody lost her wall board glue so she set them counting another hundred.
End-of-term PTA classroom tours were a worrying time. Leeta said Miss Curme didn’t want the kids to have any Christmas because she’d been thrown out of Delaware.
Long after she had dismissed the children Donna Curme spent time trying to incorporate the Clint-Leeta-Carlson picture into the Christmas panorama.
Her friend Judy Trabasco, who taught fifth grade, found her friend almost in tears fifteen minutes before the Head Teacher Session.
“Christ sakes, Donna!” she exploded. “Do it in sections, any order. Let the little bastards’ parents guess.”
“But they’re so influential, Judy! It would be their group!”
“Then do a link drawing yourself. Here!”
Judy set to with a Magic Marker, filling in.
“It’s supposed to be children’s work!”
Judy withdrew, inspected the drawings already tacked to the display.
“You know, hon, there really is a hint of talent there. How about calling the odd chunks Christmas of the Future?”
They settled on this.
In ten minutes they had written out two huge titles, and the panorama was in two lopsided parts. Judy Trabasco said the odd figures, the kites, towers, the strange hats reminded her of something she’d come across in a magazine. But then Judy had hordes of nieces and nephews, the Trabascos breeding famously.
Donna Curme was relieved. Maybe Clint simply extrapolated images that entertained him? He read a lot.
Maybe she could incorporate that observation in his end-of-term report? She said this to Judy, who said she’d be stupid if she didn’t.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The celebration was held in the Romeo and Giulietta in Romsey Street, Soho. Several youngsters had a drink then left. To his embarrassment Bray found himself shaking hands with several. Three youths from former cabinet-making courses also dropped in. One had started an antiques business, repairs to Long Acre eighteenth-century antiques a sideline. Bray was quite moved. The lad had journeyed all the way from Bromley. “Making sure the old bugger’s gone,” one joked, getting a laugh.
Bray was glad when the talk became technical. Alice and her friend Josh were perennial jokers from two years before. They had brought with them a fragment of wood on which they couldn’t agree.
As the party grew and the waiters circulated, Bray told them he admired Australian Mountain Ash.
“Eucalyptus regnans,” he said, lovingly examining the piece. “Close cousins, they are. This light brown colour would’ve been almost pink. Looks like oak, doesn’t she? Easy wood, never picks up when you plane it. Did you polish this?”
“Me,” Alice claimed, staring hard at Josh, who laughed.
Bray squinted along its surface. “Look out a figured piece. It comes up lovely. I used it for veneers, four Regency copies.”
Josh shook his head. “How the hell d’you remember?”
Bray looked at him. “Just because wood lies still doesn’t mean it’s stopped living, Josh.”
“Mr Charleston recognises furniture he worked on as an apprentice,” Mr Winsarls claimed. “If I could do it, I could sack the lot of you!”
He was sweating heavily in the restaurant lights. His wife was chatting to Lottie and other wives nearby, discussing the menu.
“Only, we want to come back,” Alice said suddenly. “Me and Josh.”
“I said to wait,” Josh cut in under his breath.
Alice said, “Are there vacancies, Mr Charleston?”
She was a stocky girl. Bray remembered her as a vigorous worker, eager but careless. Josh was a promising youth lacking in patience. Bray suspected that they lived together at an antiques shop in Camden Town.
“Perhaps when I come back from the USA,” Bray temporised, making a silent appeal to Mr Winsarls.
“How long will you be away, Mr Charleston?”
“He’s staying,” Suzanne said laughing. “He’s got a blonde.”
Bill Edgeworth was talking with Dick Whitehouse. He chuckled.
“Then I’m going too. We’re not sending young scruffs like you lot!”
There was general laughter. Loggo was already on pints even though the meal hadn’t yet begun, with James Coldren, third master joiner.
“Aren’t the publishers coming?” Mrs Winsarls asked her husband.
“No,” he said. “Lottie’s representing them. They’re sulking because Lottie did a better job than they ever could.”
Lottie edged into the conversation, smoothly dislocating Bray from Alice and Josh. “They were glad to stick me here with you lot.”
The meal went off in a melee, how the publishers should allow a third volume. Mr Winsarls worried about the restaurant’s arrangements. It was a starter/buffet, wives and friends allowed. Mercifully the talk never faltered. Bray found himself with Lottie as the meal ended. He had wondered if she had been trying to avoid him.
“Not long now, Lottie,” he managed to say.
They found themselves in a lacuna of quiet. One or two of the guests were slightly tipsy by then, Gilson Mather supply merchants arguing about coastal ports, nobody sure of the roads. Mr Winsarls was with Bill Edgeworth and the masters’ wives, discussing recipes. Everybody was slightly flushed. The restaurant was packed.
Lottie poured Bray a glass of red wine. He carefully did not sip.
“Still working the alcohol out?” she asked wryly. “You’ve only had one glass.” Bray coloured. She’d been watching. “In case your mobile phone rings?”
“Sorry.”
“Your endless apologies, Bray.” She seemed close to laughing, except it threatened to be something else.
“What will you do now, Lottie?” The place was becoming fairly raucous. “Stay with the firm, I hope?” Bray felt a near-panic. He’d almost said stay with us, leading to all sorts of heartache.
“For a while. U
ntil the anniversary escapade is done with.”
“You’d better!” Bray made light of it. “That third volume’s trends and specials. You’re badly needed.”
“Then what, Bray?”
Even as she spoke she could have kicked herself. Was anything worse than a petulant woman who couldn’t get her own way? He had a dream forcing him to sacrifice his life. Let him get on with it.
“I can’t see that far, Lottie.” He measured the quantity of wine left in his glass. The old predicament: half empty or half full? “Thanks for doing my itinerary. All those places with odd names, a thousand miles between. Hard to believe.”
“I wish you well, Bray. I hope it goes really splendidly.”
They could have been diplomats arranging sanctions. Lottie defiantly accepted wine from a pressing waiter. She had no particular reason to keep a clear head, and no crazy dreams either. His crusade was like all crusades, a lost cause. Reality was here, in some noisy Italian restaurant, not in jaunting across a vast nation neither she nor Bray knew. She would last out until Bray left for New York, and then pick some new job. Her old publishers, Cannon Endriss, had lately made cooing noises after the Gilson Mather success, sensing a market in which, she thought with a frisson of malice, they hadn’t her experience.
She said evenly, “All you have to do is turn up. Couriers will meet you, hotels are booked. Credit’s arranged.”
“I’ll be bewildered.”
“Worried about the public speaking? You’ll be fine. Antiques, joinery, they’re your subjects, Bray.” She smiled determinedly, adding, “James Coldren, Bill, Dick, even the auctioneers, all say you’re a natural. This year’s been one long success.”
Not quite, Bray thought.
It was getting late by the time they left. Mr Winsarls spoke a few words of caution to Harry Diggins about the youngsters and uncharacteristically shook Bray’s hand. He’d already done a congratulatory speech, raising ironic cheers. It was as they were saying their goodnights that Bray realised that they had all genuinely forgotten about his loss. To them today was merely another day. Perhaps it was the wine, but fright took over: if nothing came of his search, would he too sink into the same dull apathy where time was the mere now of existence, with no past and countless tomorrows? He thought desperately, I must meet Kylee. Now, tonight if possible.
Finding Davey Page 24
