She’d always loved shopping, ever since she was a little girl looking through catalogues, playing ‘What would you choose on this page?’ Back then there had not been the money for her to have what her mother called ‘fancy’ clothes, and even if there had been Sophia wouldn’t have indulged Linda’s wish for them; such things were frivolous, they weren’t what was really important in life. Oh, but they were, they were; and Linda could still recall the shame of never having the right things, of always standing out at school. Nowadays she made sure that Daisy, at least, fitted in.
When she was a teenager it got worse; everything became a kind of code, everything somehow advertised your worth. For instance, the really smart girls at school had different make-up, not the kind that was advertised in Jackie, and their clothes were different, too. Where did they get them, and how did they know which were the right things to buy? It was years before she realised that it wasn’t the clothes that were ‘right’, it was the girls, and that whatever they wore would have been invested with the same allure.
Now she lingered in the fragrance and skincare department, her practised eye skimming over the displays, looking for new product launches. She could still remember the first time she realised that someone normal – someone her own age and not famous or foreign – used posh toiletries, the kind you got from department stores rather than the local chemist. She was staying the night with a friend she had made at her first job, a chic girl called Patricia who was now, Linda was slightly aggrieved to recall, chief exec of an organic baby clothes company – or possibly baby food, she could never remember. They were both in their early twenties then, and seeing the expensive pots and bottles in the bathroom had made her look at Patricia with new eyes – yet when she finally dared to buy some too she was disappointed to find that, while it was nice enough to have, it refused to confer on her the same . . . what was it? Class?
There was a person Linda wanted to be, stylish and effortlessly confident; she could get within a hair’s breadth, but the goalposts seemed always to shift slightly, and despite keeping up with the glossy magazines she could never quite get it right. Nevertheless, every trip to the shops was another chance to transform herself once and for all, and more immediately an opportunity to exercise her ability to choose. It was good to know which things not to buy, at least, and to understand the nuances of price and brand and positioning; it was good to play the game as well as you could. The alternative was invisibility.
Linda rose smoothly up through the atrium in a glass lift. The gardening section, when she found it, wasn’t huge, but the things in it spoke to her in a way that the racks of tools in a DIY hangar never would have. She chose a canvas trug full of ‘heritage’ hand tools with lathe-turned ash handles, a pair of floral gardening gloves, a wooden dibber and a set of copper plant labels, and arranged for a matching ash-handled border spade and fork and six distressed terracotta pots to be delivered to the house.
At home she took her purchases out to the shed. The tools that were already there looked reproachful and untidy, and she stacked them in one corner, making room for her new spade and fork when they arrived. She set the trug on the shelf; dusty sunlight filtered through the Perspex panes and lent it a look of something that had always been there. The floral gloves, though, looked brash, and she could see they would have to go back.
‘Glass of wine?’ she called to Steven as she went back into the house. He emerged from the study with the dazed, close-focused air of someone who had been staring at a screen for far too long. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘I’m about finished for the day, anyway.’
‘What is it?’
‘A bottle – you know, the sports type, to fit on a bike. Needs to have hand grips, but space for the fixings, too.’
‘Tricky.’
‘Not really . . . it shouldn’t be. I just hate working on weekends.’
‘I know.’ She handed him a glass. ‘Oh, wait – hadn’t one of us better collect Daisy first?’
‘Don’t worry, your mum’s going to drop her back.’
‘Really? When?’
‘Oh . . . sometime before supper.’
Linda put her glass down and turned away. ‘Well, I can’t start making it, then.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, Steve, she’ll see I’m cooking and she’ll want to stay.’
‘No she won’t. And anyway, is that so bad?’
‘Of course not, but you know I like to know. In advance, so I’m ready. And I wouldn’t have opened the wine.’
‘I’d’ve thought that would help,’ said Steven, smiling; but he could see from the set of her shoulders that it wasn’t going to be as easy as all that.
Daisy and TC were walking back from the common behind Sophia. Daisy had had a lovely time; one of her best times ever, probably. She thought about what TC had said, but she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to play after school, not unless it was all arranged. And although she couldn’t have said why, she didn’t think, somehow, that the arranging would be able to happen.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ she asked, skipping a bit as they went. ‘I’m going to be a spy, or famous. Or do parties, like my mum.’
TC shrugged.
‘Come on, you must want to be something. Is it a footballer?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes you do,’ she said, nudging him a little. ‘Go on, say!’
‘I told you, I don’t know,’ he muttered, something in his voice making Sophia look round.
‘Give over, Daisy,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t have to decide now.’
‘He could be a spy, too; I don’t mind. Or a soldier.’
‘Daisy!’
‘But I’m not even doing anything!’
It was too late. ‘I’ve got to go,’ TC said. ‘Bye, Daisy. Bye, Mrs . . .’
‘Sophia,’ Sophia supplied, as the boy slipped through the traffic on Litten Close and away.
‘He doesn’t want to be anything,’ Daisy pronounced conclusively. ‘Come on. Are you having supper at our house tonight?’
When Jozef got to the cafe he saw that the boy was already there. He was at the same table they’d sat at last time, the one by the window, which he held, eyes wide, looking very young among the garrulous Polish crowd. He looked relieved when Jozef arrived.
Znajda grinned indiscriminately at people’s legs and feet as they edged through the tables. She greeted TC enthusiastically, pushing her nose at him and wagging her tail ecstatically before subsiding with a thump onto her side and presenting her ribs for a scratch. Jozef liked the way she was with TC, and could see the confidence the boy took from being around the dog, how pleased he was that she recognised him each time. It was such a small thing to give the boy, and he wondered how little there must be in TC’s life that it would show.
‘You hungry?’
TC nodded.
‘OK.’ Jozef hung his jacket on the back of the chair and put his holdall on the seat, then made his way to the counter. While he waited to order he looked over at the boy and saw Znajda wag the stump of her tail at Agata, the waitress; she had once dropped a half-eaten blood sausage, only partly by mistake. Jozef was her favourite customer; he was polite to her, for one thing, and unlike many of the other regulars he had not tried to sleep with her.
‘Food is coming,’ Jozef said to TC, taking his seat. ‘First we eat, then we play. You remember how?’
‘Yeah,’ said TC.
‘OK, good. Because this is serious now. Man to man, OK?’
TC grinned and drank his Coke.
‘You want to know why it is so serious?’
‘Why?’
‘I show you. So. Today we don’t play with the usual pieces, OK?’ He slid a cardboard box from the plastic bag and placed it reverently on the table. ‘Today, we play with a new set.’ He turned the box to face TC, opening the lid and watching the boy’s face.
TC reached in and took o
ut a lynx, and then a hare.
‘They’re all animals.’
‘Yes.’
‘You made them.’
‘Yes, I made them.’
‘Are they wood?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you do it?’
‘With a knife – my father’s knife. He taught me. Is not easy – see these scars? And here? – but I have been doing it for a very long time.’
‘How long?’
‘Since I was your age.’
‘Will you teach me?’
Jozef considered the boy. ‘What do you think your mother would say?’
‘My . . . ? She won’t mind.’
‘Does she know you are here, even?’
TC put the animals down and looked past Jozef to the street outside. ‘Spect so.’
Jozef sighed.
‘Look, mister, you don’t have to teach me. I don’t care.’
‘TC, it is a different thing to have a knife here, in the city, than for a small Polish farm boy, OK?’
TC looked at his lap. ‘I’m not gonna do anything stupid.’
‘I know that.’
‘Well then.’
Jozef regarded him for a long moment. ‘I will think about it. OK? So. What have you been doing this week?’
‘Not much.’
‘School OK?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You know, when I was a boy I often did not go to school.’
‘Why not?’
‘My father was a farmer. He needed me.’
‘What, so he let you stay off school?’
‘Yes, sometimes. But for work. Not for fun. And it was hard work, believe me.’
‘Is your dad dead now?’
Jozef looked out of the window at the row of backs leaning up against the Perspex bus shelter outside. ‘Yes. But what I am telling you is he shouldn’t have taken me out of school. Because if I’d had more lessons, maybe I would still have the farm today. Who knows.’
‘Why, what happened to your farm?’
‘The future came. And I was not ready for it.’
‘What do you mean? Because you hadn’t done your exams?’
‘We had to make big changes, for the EU. You know the EU? Well – don’t worry. But I didn’t want to learn the new ways. I wanted to do the same ways as my father, and his father. So. And when I had to change, I made mistakes, I get it wrong. I lost my farm.’
TC looked down at his lap. ‘But I don’t like school.’
‘I can see.’
‘I do go, more than I used to. I nearly always go.’
‘And other times?’
TC shrugged. ‘I got stuff to do.’
Jozef looked at the boy for a long moment. He was far from the only child missing lessons in the area, but the kids who hung around the park benches and the newsagent in the afternoon were loud and streetwise, and couldn’t have been more different from TC’s fathomless reticence and shy regard. It was as though he lived in a different world altogether from the one inhabited by his peers.
‘This stuff – it is more important than school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Does your mother know?’
‘She doesn’t care.’
‘But does she know?’
‘I don’t know, all right? Fuck.’
Jozef could see the boy was near tears. ‘OK, moje dziecko, OK. It is not my business. I would like it if you would go to school, that is all.’
‘Why?’
Jozef shrugged. ‘I think you are a smart kid. Other kids around here, some of them –’ he made a gesture like throwing something away – ‘they will do nothing all their lives. But you . . . you are different, I think. School is hard – OK. And even harder if you are . . . different. But the things you learn now, they help you learn other things in the future. And some of those things, I promise you, you will like. Then you can choose your life, because of what you do now. OK?’
TC looked down and said nothing. Jozef took out the king and queen and stood them carefully next to each other on the table, then leaned back and folded his arms. The boy picked them up slowly and examined them, turning the shapes carefully in his hands.
‘This one’s Znajda,’ he said, his voice soft.
‘Yes.’
‘And this one’s a wolf.’
‘Yes. The king. He is howling, you see. Do you like him?’
‘He’s brilliant.’ The boy’s eyes shone. ‘Can I set the board up?’
‘In a moment,’ Jozef replied. ‘Food is coming, look.’
After they had eaten TC got up to go to the toilet and Agata came and sat in his chair.
‘I didn’t know you had a son,’ she said, in Polish.
‘He’s not my son,’ Jozef replied. ‘He’s – a friend.’
‘A friend? What is he, seven, eight? You were here with him once before, right?’
‘He’s nine. Nearly ten.’
‘Somebody you know’s child?’
‘We just . . . I met him in the park, one night –’ She raised one eyebrow. ‘Don’t be silly, Agata. He doesn’t really have anyone, and he’s a good kid. I like him.’
‘His mother knows where he is?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. Because you’re not in the village now, Jozef. A single man, in his forties – people can be suspicious here.’
TC returned and stood uncertainly by the table. As she left with their plates Agata shot Jozef a look over his head. ‘Be careful,’ it said. Jozef looked away.
12
Hock Tide
The girls racketed out of the coach and into the car park, Miss Carter counting straw hats while Mr Baker waved them into a rough assembly. The coach’s engine wheezed and shuddered and was quiet, the driver climbing out of the opposite side and making for the facilities. Miss Carter began handing out pencils and paper; the girls were already in pairs from the coach, sticky hands held and only a little bickering.
Up the track was a chalk hillside prospected by children from six local schools for generations, barely a stem unmapped, yet each class pioneering it anew. The children had transects measuring a foot square, magnifying glasses and a laminated sheet showing all the plant species each pair was likely to find, and their job was to count the different kinds. The really sensitive habitat was further away, fenced off to protect it from trampling by hordes of children’s feet.
From the very top of the hill only a smudge on the horizon bore witness to the distant city fomenting beneath it. Occasionally the slopes gave up little whorled shells, impossibly old, that were lost in the grass or crushed to fragments of sand under walkers’ feet, while deep in its wooded lower slopes dank pillboxes and crumbling gun emplacements spoke of a less bucolic past.
Once at the site the children sat down cross-legged while Miss Carter ran through their task for the last time. Settling down beside Daisy, Susannah’s eyes grew wide.
‘Daisy!’ she hissed, nudging her furiously. ‘Daisy!’
‘What?’
‘You picked a flower!’ And it was true; tucked behind Daisy’s ear was a pink betony spire in full bloom.
‘So?’
‘We’re not supposed to! Miss Carter said! It might be rare!’
‘It’s not,’ replied Daisy. ‘I can see hundreds.’
‘Throw it away! Throw it away!’
‘But I’ve picked it now. I might as well keep it, hadn’t I?’
‘Oh . . .’ In her agitation, Susannah was as close to wringing her hands as an eight-year-old can be. ‘Please, Daisy! Daisy! Pleeease!’
‘Oh, all right. But I’m not throwing it away.’ Daisy took the flower from her hair and slipped it into the pocket of her school dress.
‘Daisy! Susannah! No talking please!’ called Mr Baker. The rest of the class looked over. Daisy grinned back, while Susannah looked down at their illustrated card, her hair falling around her face. After a long moment, Miss Carter continued, holding up the card and pointing out the different flow
ers and grasses on it.
‘I’m hungry,’ whispered Daisy, nudging Susannah in the ribs. ‘What have you got for lunch?’
Susannah didn’t answer.
‘Susie!’ Daisy’s whisper threatened to grow louder, and Susannah threw her a desperate sidelong glance. Their lunches were in the coach; it wasn’t as though they could have them now anyway.
‘I bet you’ve got cheese strings,’ muttered Daisy accusingly, kicking a little at Susannah’s foot just in case. She was not – would never be – allowed anything as garish or convenient as cheese strings, and as a result found them impossibly alluring. Their households were quite different, in ways that both of them understood, could not have described and attached no value to. Daisy no more questioned the fact that Susie didn’t go to Little Thesps or La Jolie Ronde French or Art Attack than she wondered why her own mother did not collect china animals. It was just the way the world was, and was no more mysterious than anything else.
During lunch break Daisy and Susannah made daisy chains, Daisy’s longer but Susannah’s more neatly strung. They gave them to Miss Carter, who smiled and draped them carefully around her wrist. Despite the profusion of flowers they looked somehow limp and defeated.
The afternoon’s activities were all about invertebrates. Mr Baker spread a white sheet under a tree and reached up to shake the branches. Some of the girls squealed to see the earwigs and crab spiders and other insects drop down, but Daisy and Susannah knelt on the edge of the sheet and brushed them carefully into little pots with paint brushes. The pots had special lids that let you see them up close, and Mr Baker had a laptop with a plug-in microscope for anything really tiny or really interesting. Some of them looked quite fearsome until you remembered how small they really were.
Daisy had decided she was going to find a stag beetle. There was a picture of one on their insect sheet, and it was the biggest thing by miles. It obviously wasn’t going to fall out of an oak tree, so she headed away from the group to poke around the tree boles. She hummed slightly to herself, and thought about building a house for a stag beetle. What would it need? Would it be underground? She decided on more of a cabin-style arrangement, partly because the handout said they liked wood and partly because it would be more fun to make. All it would take was some good bits of bark, and maybe some stones to make a front garden. And a stag beetle, of course; though if she couldn’t find one she could always make the house anyway, and one might move in after they had gone. Perhaps Susie could help. But no, Susie would want to follow the instructions, and anyway if she did find a stag beetle it would be nicer to have done it all by herself.
Clay Page 10
