Play Dead

by Peter Dickinson

Nelson crooned to the tortoise. The three adults watched Deborah and Toby’s game.

  ‘Ah, isn’t that lovely?’ said Peony. ‘She doesn’t get on with other children the way she should, always. Mrs Capstone said try here, ’stead of Holland Park where we used to go.’

  ‘Mrs Capstone?’ said Nell, sharply.

  ‘’Sright,’ said Peony, inexplicably defensive.

  The social temperature had plummeted. This was clearly not the time to ask either of them about Deborah’s mother. In a moment Nell would take Nelson back to the other side of the room, and Poppy couldn’t decently abandon Peony and go with her.

  ‘How’s things at the commune?’ she said, trying to prolong the contact.

  ‘They’re going to close it down.’

  ‘Who are?

  ‘The Council, looks like. You’ll read about it in the papers when it happens.’

  ‘What’ll you do? Have you got anywhere else to live?’

  ‘I’ll find something. It’s different from before I had Nelson. I lived under plastic bags sometimes then. Hi, Sue.’

  ‘About dinner tomorrow,’ said Little Sue, who had appeared beside Poppy’s shoulder. ‘I’ve got Mrs Ogham-Ferrars staying—she’s Pete’s gran—and she’s having some friends in, so you best not come through the house. I’ll see the door’s open into the park.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Nell, beginning to turn away.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Poppy. ‘I’d have a bed for you for a few days, if you need it. There’s only me and my cat.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  Poppy didn’t hesitate. In a sense she had made the offer only as a way of prolonging the contact, building an extra strand into the tenuous relation between them. Challenged, she found she had told the truth.

  ‘Yes, of course. Gladly.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  A squabble had broken out by the paint-table, involving Sue’s charge, Peter, so she darted away to help peace-make before Poppy could introduce her to Peony. Nell picked Nelson up and carried him back to where she’d been sitting before. Deborah and Toby were still rapt in their game—a duet now, and sometimes they were stopping each other’s mouth to vary the notes, which were further modulated by their giggles. Poppy heard Peony sigh with simple pleasure as she watched them and realised that she had done the same. It was a parody picture of young love, of the exploration of delights and possibilities available to two human bodies. When you sigh like that, she thought, you sigh for yourself as well.

  2

  ‘… I spy Mother Hubbard,’ read Poppy. ‘Can you see her, darling? Where is she? Yes, there she is!’

  She let Toby turn the page.

  ‘Mother Hubbard in the …’

  ‘Mummy,’ he said and wriggled from her lap. She put the book down and thought, Perhaps I am getting a bit deaf. Please not. Don’t let anyone say it runs in the family or it’s only to be expected at my age.

  Toby was already through the door. Now Poppy could hear the noises of Janet bringing her cycle into the hall and stripping off her oilskins, mixed with Toby’s cries of welcome. She crossed the kitchen and switched on the kettle. Janet came in with Toby bouncing on her arm. Her face glowed with the lash of rain and her red-blonde hair exploded round it, with odd lank locks that had escaped her crash-hat straggling down. Exhilarated health streamed from her.

  Poppy’s main feeling for her daughter-in-law, apart from a mild unfocused resentment, was awe, awe for her beauty, intelligence, dynamism mental and physical—she stood six feet and at the cottage would split logs with a seven-pound axe. How Hugo could have dared involve himself with such a Valkyrie, how Janet could have been drawn to vague, cold Hugo, were mysteries—as all marriages are, in the end.

  ‘You must have had a wild ride, darling.’

  ‘One of those days when the wind is against you in all directions.’

  ‘I don’t know how you dare.’

  ‘It’s fun. Like white-water canoeing. The traffic’s the current you learn to ride.’

  ‘But Hyde Park Corner, for instance.’

  ‘Just a big eddy. How’s he been?’

  ‘An angel, as always. It’s all in his book. He’s fallen in love.’

  ‘Again? Who with?’

  ‘A terrifying little hussy with a scream like a steam-siren, called Deborah. Pushing two-and-a-half, I should think.’

  ‘The older woman.’

  ‘It’s coming down. Sukie was four. And at least Deborah was just as smitten with him, so he’s had a lovely time.’

  ‘They’ll have forgotten about it by tomorrow.’

  ‘You can’t tell with Toby, can you, darling?’

  He had been nestling into Janet’s shoulder, relaxing his body into the luxury of mother love, but looked up at the sound of his name.

  ‘Who did you meet today, darling?’ said Poppy. ‘Deborah?’

  ‘Debba,’ he said, putting his hand in front of his mouth for a snatch of the yodelling effect.

  ‘Where’s Debba, then?’ said Janet.

  ‘Watch it,’ said Poppy. ‘We’ve got to call her by her full name. Mrs Capstone’s orders.’

  Janet was at the working surface making her tea with her free hand. The movement stopped with the kettle poised.

  ‘Capstone?’ she said.

  ‘Why does everyone get the horrors when her name’s mentioned? Ought I to know? It rings a bell, but there aren’t any Capstones in the telephone book. I checked.’

  ‘She’ll be ex-directory—she’s that sort. Don’t you read the papers, Poppy? Don’t you watch the telly?’

  ‘Of course I know her name—it’s just slipped. You aren’t being fair. I listen to the radio all day long.’

  Janet laughed. It was well known that Poppy listened to the radio all day long—Radio 3, switching off mentally for the news bulletins and on again when the music started. She watched the arts programmes and wildlife and travel on TV and read the review pages of the Guardian.

  ‘Mrs Capstone proposes to become our second woman Prime Minister. At the moment her Thatchering is confined to Ethelden.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course! But she isn’t really a Maggie clone, is she? There can’t be two of them. And she’ll have to win this constituency first, won’t she? D’you think she can?’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Did you remember to renew your Labour Party membership?’

  ‘Of course I did, darling. Well, the moment you told me.’

  Poppy didn’t feel she’d got the sturdy indignation right. It was often like that, talking to Janet, as if the conversation were being conducted on a slightly ill-tuned radio, the words clear enough, but the tones unreliable. All her life Poppy had voted Liberal but about fifteen months ago she’d happened to say she was thinking of going Labour because of the intransigent, self-savaging stupidities of the centre parties, and next morning Janet had pushed the membership form in front of her nose and demanded a cheque. Now Janet looked at her over the rim of her mug, her eyes mocking.

  ‘There’s every chance I and Mrs Capstone will be standing against each other at the next election.’

  ‘Oh. I mean Oh?’

  Janet ignored the note of doubt. She lowered Toby to the floor and gave him the egg-whisk and a bowl of water.

  ‘At least you’ve heard that Tom Charleswick has decided not to stand next time.’

  ‘Something to do with loans?’

  ‘Officially it’s health. In fact he used his contacts in Town Hall to get them to use a company which pays his brother a retainer to do some so-called creative accounting for them, which turned out not to be legal. The brother’s an alcoholic wreck. Anyway, the Tories are going to make hay with it, and that gives Capstone a chance, and that gives me more than a chance. They haven’t announced the short list yet, but I’v
e been told. It’s me and Bob Stavoli and Trevor Evans. Bob’s a good bloke, but a useless speaker as well as being gay—you can imagine what Capstone could make of that. Trevor’s not a bad speaker in a ranting kind of way, but he’s such a shit, he’s let so many people down over the years, and I bet he’s got just as many skeletons in his cupboard as Tom Charleswick—anyway, Trish Edwards who’s running my campaign says that Walworth Road want me.’

  ‘Walworth Road?’

  ‘Oh, Poppy! Labour Party HQ. In a few weeks’ time there’ll be a meeting of our constituency General Management Committee to select a candidate from the short list, so you’ve got to come along and vote for me.’

  ‘I’m not even on …’

  ‘Anyone who’s been a paid-up member of the party for a full twelve months is entitled to vote. That’s why I wanted to be sure you’d renewed your subscription.’

  ‘I see. Well, that’s very exciting, darling. What does Hugo …’

  ‘Hugo knew what I wanted when he married me.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Poppy, hearing beneath the words the tone she had known so well a few years back, like the creak of ice-floes in the spring, the quiet groan of a relationship beginning to tear itself apart. She looked at Toby, happily whisking sprays of water over his green dungarees and the blue lino. Hugo had been an easy baby to love, too, not as bright, but just as cuddly and forthcoming. The change had begun … when? He’d been nine when she’d first really noticed. You can never tell what they’ll become.

  ‘It affects you in another way too,’ said Janet. ‘Only if you want it to, of course. If I actually get in I shall give up NACRO, but till then I’m going to have to get my constituency work done in the evenings and weekends.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m not asking for your bridge nights, of course.’

  ‘When’s the election?’

  ‘Depends when Thatcher can dig herself out of the mess she’s in. It’s got to be by the summer of 1992, so it’ll be spring that year, most likely. Possibly the autumn before. You don’t sound too keen. I don’t want to ask Hugo.’

  ‘No.’

  Poppy knew the feeling well. So it had got that far, when even the most reasonable request becomes something you are going to be made beholden for, things you’d have taken for granted a few weeks back.

  ‘And I’ll have to find somebody for Saturdays—Hugo will want to go down to the cottage, of course.’

  ‘Why Saturdays?’

  ‘Because there are people around you can’t catch other times. It wouldn’t be every Saturday, Poppy.’

  ‘No, I definitely don’t want to commit weekends, I’m afraid.’

  Poppy felt quite firm about this, though it was months since she’d had much by way of weekends away, apart from visits to the cottage. But to close the possibility off would be another bar in the cell window.

  ‘I’ll think about evenings,’ she said. ‘Of course I could do it, but you see … well, I love looking after Toby, and it came at the right time for me, but now I’m not sure it’s been really good for me. It’s sort of narrowing. And ageing. I like the nannies and young mums, and they’ve been very nice to me, but they have such limited ideas—I know that sounds snobbish, and there’s all sorts of things they know and I don’t, but … and they don’t mean to, but they treat me sometimes as if I was a hundred and twenty. I’m going to be fifty in a couple of weeks. If I’d got a proper job it would be at least ten years till I retired. I refuse to let myself become just a granny, and nothing else any more. I need more in my life than baby-minding and bridge evenings and Radio 3. For a start I’m going to get myself a real job, and some new friends.’

  ‘You’ve stopped seeing Alex?’

  ‘Some time ago. You might as well know, I suppose. I gave him the push. I realised I was never more than a bit on the side for him. He kept telling me his marriage was dead, but really he wanted it still. It wasn’t just that he hadn’t got the guts to leave his wife—he was comfortable with her, used to her. At first he used to pretend, quite pleasantly, but then he stopped bothering. I wasn’t having that.’

  ‘Poor Poppy.’

  ‘Toby got me on the rebound, you might say. But now …’

  ‘What sort of a job, though?’

  ‘I’m not unemployable, whatever you may think. First I’m going to go to evening classes and get my German back—I used to be pretty good—and I’ll think about learning a third language …

  ‘Much better learn how to use a word processor.’

  ‘Oh, well … But just with good German I ought to be able to find something. If I start getting myself together when the courses start—just a few weeks now—I should be able to aim for a real job about this time next year. But I’m going to need regular evenings, you see … It’s none of my business, darling, but when I took Toby on you were talking about starting another baby around now.’

  Janet laughed and stretched and shook her wild hair.

  ‘Can’t you see me on the hustings?’ she said. ‘Size of a double-decker bus. Remember what I was like with Toby? Vote earth mother for a better Britain!’

  ‘I wonder how Mrs Capstone would counter that. I suppose there’s lots of different kinds of earth mother. Some of them are pretty sinister.’

  ‘Cruella de Ethelden. She’s a Pro-lifer. She’d manage to imply that by rushing round canvassing I was trying to induce an abortion. How long has her kid been coming to the play centre?’

  ‘This was the first time. The nanny said Deborah hadn’t been getting on with the children at Holland Park, so she told her to try ours.’

  ‘Fat chance. She doesn’t want people saying she sends her kid out of the constituency to play with a nobbier lot.’

  ‘Do you really think so? If Deborah had been happy there?’

  ‘That sort of woman does absolutely nothing that isn’t governed by how it can be presented in a press release.’

  ‘Aren’t all politicians like that? I don’t mean you, darling.’

  ‘I’ll rely on you to tell me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘But you’d tell me all the same. You can’t help letting people know what you think, even if you don’t mean to. I know you don’t want me to stand for Parliament, but I’m afraid I’m going to, all the same.’

  ‘Yes, of course … What will Mrs Capstone do? About Toby and Deborah, I mean? When she finds out?’

  ‘Get a picture into the papers with Toby in a tantrum and Deborah all smiles. Don’t worry. The love affair will have blown over before she finds out, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m standing as Janet Jones, of course, and Hugo’s keeping right out of it, and you and Toby are both Taskers, so she may never … What is it, darling?’

  The last four words were addressed to Toby, who had whisked all the water out of the bowl, and then spread it around the lino with a J-cloth by way of mopping up. Now, soaked and earnest, he was standing by Janet’s leg and beating his closed fist against her kneecap, like a gnome in a picture book rapping on an oak trunk for the resident gnome to let him in. As soon as he’d got her attention he headed for the door. They heard him rattling the gate at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Bath-time, evidently,’ said Janet. ‘How I look forward to the day when I can send him off to have his own bath.’

  ‘Oh, you’re wrong! You’ll find you long for the fun of bathing him.’

  ‘Not me, Poppy. I’m not really an earth mother inside.’

  ‘I must go, or Elias will be ripping the sofa to bits. Shall I ask around at the play centre and see if any of the girls would like to take on extra evenings? That would have the advantage that Toby would be used to them already.’

  ‘If you’re sure you don’t want to do it yourself. There’s no great hurry—the adoption meeting’s not till November—but I’d like to get it fixed. Coming, darling! Coming!’
>
  ‘Saturdays are going to be difficult.’

  But Janet was already out of the door.

  SEPTEMBER 1989

  1

  ’Scuse me asking, Mrs Tasker, but Sue says you’re looking for someone to babysit Toby. Is that right?’

  Laura was sitting on the bench just inside the playground gate. For once she wasn’t knitting, and the way she rose the moment Poppy reached the gate made it clear she had been waiting for her to come.

  ‘Do you know someone?’ said Poppy. ‘No, darling, you go and check the climbing frame by yourself. I want to talk to Laura. I’ll be with you in a minute. Sorry, Laura. The thing is I was hoping to find one of the girls from here, because he’s used to them, but of course none of them want to do Saturdays. So if you know someone reliable …’

  ‘I get Saturdays off.’

  ‘Oh. You mean you’d like to do it yourself?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘But that would give you no free time at all. I mean …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Laura. ‘Their age, Saturday’s bound to be difficult, what with them all having their young fellows to think of.’

  ‘What do you mean, their age?’ said Poppy.

  Laura stared at her, and she blushed. It’s always a mistake to make jokes to deeply serious people like Laura, but Poppy realised the misunderstanding was her own fault for another reason. She had got the tone wrong, meaning it. She had been whiling away the twenty-minute ritual between park gate and the playground—duck feeding, peep-bo round the rhododendrons, twig along railings, gravel scratching and so on—with a rather successful variant on her furry-lover fantasy, in a cave on some western shore with the sun going down and reflected wave-ripple patterning the rock above. Laura’s stare was not of simply surprise. It was as though she had come stumping into the cavern in full nanny uniform and found them at it. ‘Miss Poppy! How dare you! No supper for you!’

  Did Laura herself never enjoy any version of such imaginings? Perhaps that’s what being a devoted nanny did to you, funnelling your emotional drives into surrogate motherhood and suppressing what didn’t fit. Laura had never done anything else, starting when she was sixteen. She was now in her early forties, at a guess, and would go on looking after other people’s babies till she retired. Her current employers preferred her not to wear uniform, but she dressed as close to it as she could. It was typical that she should call Poppy Mrs Tasker, though Poppy had no idea what Laura’s own surname was. The two children she looked after, Sophie and Nick, were clean, obedient and beautifully dressed. Sophie, aged almost five, could be bossy towards other children, but Nick, a pretty two-year-old with curly, near-white hair, was vulnerably clinging.