Behind them, there’s hooting. Satish starts the car again; it’s barely worth changing up from first. Satish has been careful, scrupulous, about what he has told Maya. She was his fresh start, his clean sheet. So maybe it’s innocent, all this probing.
‘You must have some stories,’ says Mehul.
‘That child should be strapped in,’ says Satish. ‘Look at that! No seatbelt. On a motorway.’
‘Tell us about Cai. When you were naughty.’
Satish can see what’s causing the jam now: a van on its side on the hard shoulder, the driver in the back of an ambulance, blanket-draped. They crawl by, rubber-necking like everyone else. The kids go quiet.
‘Throw him a bone,’ says Maya. ‘Throw me one. Throw us a scrumped apple or something.’
‘All right. I once made Sima eat a grasshopper when she was a baby, in Uganda. She was too small to do anything about it and I made her eat it anyway.’
‘Urghh! Yuk!’
‘That’s, like, gross,’ says Asha.
‘Does she know? I’m going to tell her,’ says Mehul.
‘That’s naughty,’ Asha agrees. ‘But tell us an English one. Tell us about you and Cai.’
The traffic’s moving freely now. They’re on their way.
‘We listened to music together. We played football.’
‘No, Papa! What was, like, the worst thing you and Cai did? What was the worst thing Cai did?’
He’s nearly past the junction when he decides. He cuts across one lane, then the next, a neat piece of geometry that sends him sailing up the slip-road. When he reaches the roundabout he barely looks right. They wrap round it, passing signs to places he doesn’t want to go, heading back the way they’ve come.
‘Hang on,’ says Maya. ‘This is … Are we …?’
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I’m feeling rough. We’ll cry off.’
He can’t see Cai. Not yet. They’re back on the motorway and going to the only place he wants to be right now: home.
Chapter 24
Satish at home on Jubilee morning, waiting for the party to start. Up in his room and staring out of the window. He keeps remembering it, that one word: TROUBLE! scrawled on a big sheet of paper, a smiley face dotting the exclamation mark, and Mandy’s own smiley face gurning beside it. Satish watched her, pressed up against her bedroom window as he was against his. He’d flipped a quick thumbs-up and turned, then clattered downstairs and out of his front door.
Halfway across the road he checked: no one down his end. At the other end of Cherry Gardens he could see Mr Miller up a ladder, fixing a length of bunting that had come down. Mandy’s dad was talking to him from the street below.
Mandy’s front door was open, like his own – most were at this late stage of the morning – and Satish slipped quickly inside. He would have gone straight up to her, had in fact just placed his foot on the bottom step, but then he stopped because he could smell the cakes.
The air in the hall was heavy with their scent, and he knew that behind the closed kitchen door there was another wave of it, damp and glorious. Smelling it, he knew what those cakes would be like, fresh out of the oven, still warm, their tops darker than the sponge underneath, that thrilling contrast between the fissured, almost-crusty surface and the soft mouthfuls below. The golden circle at their base would still be shiny with melted butter. All that would go once the cakes had cooled down. Better to slip into the kitchen right now, see if he could talk Mandy’s mum round. Maybe she’d let him take one up for Mandy, too. Satish reached out for the door handle, then—
‘Take it.’
It was a man’s voice. Satish thought about who he’d just seen in the street: definitely Mr Hobbes. So who was this? He heard a little click, the sound of a tongue detaching itself from the roof of a mouth, the sound you hear when someone’s getting ready to speak. Then the voice came again.
‘Take it!’
The words came out solid and weighty. Satish imagined them shooting across the kitchen towards Mandy’s mum. And then he knew he shouldn’t be there. He looked up the stairs for a moment, deliberated: Mandy was waiting for him. Then he turned the other way, slipping in through the open sitting-room door. James Bond, he thought, and he wished he had his dressing gown on. There was a wall that divided the sitting room from the dining room, and an arch cut into it, just like in his house. He could peek through the arch into the dining room and maybe see through the serving hatch, if it was open.
‘Pete.’ That was Mandy’s mum’s voice. She said it quietly. Who was Pete? and then, ‘I don’t need it.’
Satish crouched low against the wall and edged round to the arch. Wait till he told Cai. Cai would love this.
‘Just take it.’ Inside the kitchen he heard the man sigh.
On hands and knees, Satish inched along until he could see the hatch, one door bolted closed, the other open. The opening was blocked by the man’s back. He was wearing a red jumper.
‘Red jumper,’ Satish imagined whispering into Q’s communication device. ‘Please identify.’
Then the man turned and picked up something from the counter; Satish ducked out of the way. He’d seen the man, though. It was Mr Brecon. It was Cai’s dad. One side of his shirt collar stuck out of his jumper at a funny angle, and his signet ring caught the light when he moved his hand. What was he doing there?
‘Put it away,’ Mr Brecon told Mandy’s mum. ‘A nest egg. You might not need it now, maybe not for years. But if you put it away somewhere safe, then you’ve got the option. Leave yourself some options.’
Satish could hear movement in the kitchen: a step, a rustle. He dared himself to look. Mandy’s mum was leaning back against the sink, her arms folded. The cakes were next to her, lined up on a rack. She’d iced half of them in royal blue then she’d stopped. She tilted her head to one side and her dark hair swung down and touched her shoulder.
‘I have options,’ she said. ‘Plenty. You don’t have to provide me with any. And what about Don? How do I explain it to him?’
‘You don’t. You open an account and you don’t put his name on it. I won’t be around anymore.’
‘Of course.’
‘You understand? I won’t be back. It’s for good.’
‘I know.’ She smiled and reached out a hand, then withdrew it.
‘It’s three hundred quid. The only thing I’ve ever—’ And there was a bang! which made Satish jump out of sight. He sat for a second with his hand on his chest and his eyes wide while in the kitchen the bang happened again, and he realised Mr Brecon was hitting the counter. ‘God, you’re stubborn! Bloody hell!’ Mr Brecon – Pete – was saying, ‘What if you hit a bad patch? What if you needed … Bloody hell!’
At this point, James Bond would step in, Satish thought. There was a woman in there, and a man who was hitting things and swearing. Should he go in? He took another peek. She didn’t look worried. Her arms were still folded and she was watching Mr Brecon. He had moved closer to her, and his face looked hard, angry. He looked determined, the way Cai did sometimes, the way—
‘Pete, calm down. He’ll be back in a minute.’
‘I’m not taking it back. I’m leaving it here.’ He pointed to the counter. ‘You’re going to keep it.’
Mr Brecon turned away from her, facing the open hatch door, and Satish went to hide again but he realised he didn’t need to, because Mr Brecon had pressed his lips together tightly and shut his eyes. How angry was he, wondered Satish. What would he do? He looked as if he was trying to stop something bursting out. Then he turned round again and Satish could see only his back.
‘Mandy should have it,’ said Mr Brecon. ‘If you don’t want it, at least take it for her.’
‘Absolutely not. Now, you have to leave.’
This was impenetrable. Satish wondered, momentarily, if they were playing Spies too, if they were using some kind of code. The things they were saying didn’t make sense. Mr Brecon wanted to give Mandy three hundred pounds (why?). She’d love that, S
atish knew, yet her mum didn’t want her to have it (why again?).
‘Take it for her,’ Mr Brecon repeated. ‘She’s my girl.’
‘Shut up!’ Her words came out before he had finished. Satish flinched. ‘You just shut up and don’t say that again in here.’
He thought of Mr Brecon’s determined face, the way Cai looked sometimes. The way Mandy did, sometimes. He thought of Mrs Hobbes’s bedroom and the Indian bedspread, and Mr Hobbes’s with the closed curtains and no pictures on the walls. He thought of Mr Hobbes shouting into his own letterbox, asking to be let in. Then it was like a puzzle that you shook, and things rearranged themselves, and Satish felt stupid and clever all at once. Mandy. Mr Brecon. Mandy and Mr Brecon! Mrs Hobbes was really angry, so it must be true. His best bit of spy work ever – ever! – and he knew at once that he could never tell Cai.
‘Pete, you have to leave now.’
In the kitchen, there was a long silence. After a while, Mr Brecon spoke. ‘When I’m gone, will you send photos?’ His voice was low and tight.
‘You have no idea how this works, do you?’
‘You could write sometimes, tell me how she’s doing.’
‘How it works is, you’re gone. That’s fine, that’s your choice, but I can’t do letters. I won’t do photographs.’
‘OK. OK.’
‘Pete, you’re impossible …’ On the other side of the red jumper, Mandy’s mum moved. A second later her hand was on Mr Brecon’s arm. She rubbed it. Satish could hear the sound of a kiss being quickly deposited. Upstairs, floorboards shifted. Mandy had called him over ages ago. Maybe she’d seen him coming over. Maybe she’d wonder what he was doing.
‘She’s a good girl,’ Mr Brecon said.
‘I know. She’s a very good girl. She’s my girl.’
‘Keep an eye on her, eh?’
‘I always do.’
Up on the landing, a door opened. Satish jumped. He could hear footsteps coming to the top of the stairs, then pausing. If Mandy came down, she would see him spying. If her mum came out to see Mandy, she’d discover Satish too, and know what he’d heard. Only a few feet away from him was the kitchen door. It could swing open at any time. In the dining room, the yawning hatch waited to reveal him. Beyond the kitchen the front door was ajar, but it was too late now because (one, two, three) Mandy had started to come down.
‘Really keep an eye, though,’ said Mr Brecon.
Mandy’s mum answered slowly: ‘What do you mean?’
Four, five, six. He’d counted the stairs in his own house; they were just the same, so he knew where she was. She was rounding the curve of the banister.
‘Pete? What do you mean?’
Two more steps and Mandy would see him.
Satish waited, grimacing, but the steps never came. Mandy had stopped for some reason. Then there was the sound of friction, of a foot turning on carpet, and he heard her mumble something, and – yes! yes! – retrace her steps. He slumped down, reprieved, as Mr Brecon carried on talking.
‘She’s growing up, and she’s … Have you noticed how she …?’ Mr Brecon stopped.
In the quiet that followed Satish thought: that’s it, I’m off, and he rolled onto his knees, ready to ease upright and make his way upstairs. No cakes for him now, he realised, and even in the drama of the moment, hiding in someone else’s sitting room, hearing secrets he was never supposed to know about, he found that he was disappointed.
‘Do you know what I saw her doing this morning? Do you know where she was, Pam?’
Satish did. He let out a little ‘oh’ of fright, bumping back onto his bottom, and then was frightened in case they’d heard. That morning, Mandy had been with him, in his bedroom. They’d been kissing. In a hot rush he saw it all; him and Mandy together, and Mr Brecon (her dad!) seeing them. He pulled himself out of sight of the serving hatch as if his embarrassment made him more visible, as if Mr Brecon could keep an eye on him, even with his back turned.
From inside the kitchen, he could hear Mr Brecon telling Mandy’s mum what he’d seen, every word of it mortifying. Satish waited for her to be cross and she was, her voice sharp as she replied, but – the surprise, the relief – he found that she wasn’t cross with him. She reserved her anger for Mr Brecon – ‘I take exception to that, actually. It’s scarcely your business’ – but Satish put his face in his hands anyway. He had thought himself and Mandy to be completely enclosed for those few moments, sealed off from anything external. The news that there had been a witness wrenched his vision of the thing, and he suddenly saw the open door of his bedroom, the treacherous window. He imagined the front of his home hinging open like a doll’s house, exposing him and Mandy to view. Everything would be known; everything would be punished. And what else was public, if that was public? He thought of Cai’s hidden record, of Mrs Brecon crying in her room.
‘You want to be watching out for that. She’ll only suffer in the long run. Cheeky Paki bugger!’
‘Be careful, now. I take good care of her. She’s turning out lovely. You’ll be six thousand miles away in no time and you still think you’ve got the right—’
‘She’s my daughter. I think it’s fair enough.’
‘I said shut up about that! You can’t say that in here. Don could come in at any time. Get out now.’
As she said this, the garden gate banged back on its hinges. From inside the kitchen, there was a drawing of breath.
Satish got to the bottom stair just as the handle started to turn. Leg it! He bounded upstairs, galvanised by contradictory impulses: Be quick! Be quiet! Have they seen you? Don’t look back! Shit! Fuck! Bugger! Bum! All the forbidden words tumbling in him like dice. Behind him, he heard it: Mr Hobbes coming in the back (‘All sorted now’), Mr Brecon diving out the front. Satish ducked down behind the low parapet on the landing and breathed, in, out, in, out.
Up here, behind her bedroom door, was Mandy. Cai’s dad was her dad, too. She was Cai’s sister – sort of. Satish tried to pull himself back to what was happening before he knew all this. TROUBLE! He remembered: she wanted to see him. Act normal. She must never know about any of this. Satish knocked and went in.
Chapter 25
Mandy was standing on her mattress, Sellotaping the corner of a poster to the wall. She heard him come in, turned and dropped onto the bed with a little bounce.
‘Blimey, Satish. What took you? You were ages.’
Her bare legs kicked rhythmically against the divan drawers. Satish watched her for a moment and found his thoughts sliding away from her mum and Mr Brecon and the panic of discovery. There was just the bang-bang-bang of her kicking pulling him backwards through the day to the moment of their kiss. He thought about the wet mystery of it, the softness and the taste, and the embarrassment. How did you talk about it to the girl afterwards? Mandy seemed to be taking it in her stride. A year younger than him, but looking straight at him without shame: no need to do as he did now, removing his gaze to something else, no wobbly hot feeling in her limbs or on her face. Then he thought that she had asked him a question, and that he had been quiet for too long.
‘Just my mum. Stuff to do – you know.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You said there was trouble.’
‘Real trouble,’ she told him. ‘Colette saw us earlier. And her dad. Now Sarah knows. She’s furious.’
Satish took this in. If Sarah knew then there really would be trouble. Sarah was furious, Mandy said.
‘Why’s she so angry?’
Mandy did look away now, down at her feet, which were still beating against the side of her bed: one-two, one-two.
‘I don’t know. She just is. She was surprised. She was cross I hadn’t told her.’
Did girls always go like this? he wondered. Angry. Furious. He saw, with clarity, the peril he was in. Colette, Sarah, Mr Brecon: the secret leaking out on all sides. Mummy and Papa would hear about it; that was furious, he thought bitterly. You want to see angry? Try my parents. It would leak down the street to
the school, trickle into the playground. Oh no! It came to him suddenly: Mandy would be in for it too. The unspoken rationale for their secrecy hung over him: she was a girl, and younger. He was an Asian. They were both liabilities. There were lots of ways they could suffer for this; she could be shunned. He’d watched her enough with Sarah to know what that would mean, and he couldn’t imagine – not for a moment – that she’d ever think it was worth it. As for him, he’d kissed a white girl, an English girl. He didn’t want to think of all the things that could be messed up by this. He searched for something to say to Mandy.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he offered, though it occurred to him that she scarcely seemed worried at all. ‘I’ll think of something. Go to the party. It might just – it might just be forgotten.’
Mandy snorted. ‘You should have seen Sarah. I’m fed up with her, anyway. I don’t care what she thinks. She’s not in charge.’
‘Yeah, I know. Look, Mandy, I’ve got to go home, get ready. I’ll see you in a bit.’
At her front door he paused, peering out to check that no one would spot him leaving. Over the way, his own house was quiet. No movement from Cai’s, either. Nobody, he thought, would see him slipping away from Mandy’s place and across the road to home. The door shut behind him with a click, and he legged it.
Chapter 26
They’re lying in the dark, each pretending they’ve drifted off, neither fooled by the other; it’s hard to fake that shallow-sleep breathing. Just a little longer, surely, until his dose kicks in. Around them, the house has closed down for the night. They’ve heard his mother’s bedside light clicking off, Mehul has shuffled to the toilet for the last time. There’s the ground bass, felt more than heard, of his father’s snoring.
Beside him, Maya whispers: ‘You can tell me anything.’
He thinks if he waits for a while, he might still get away with it. Then she says: ‘Chocolate?’ The family joke, the word you’ll always respond to, even through strategic deafness, and he laughs, despite himself. The mattress dips as she squirms onto her side.
Jubilee Page 20
