by Jo Verity
Although he had little appetite, he bought coffee and a sandwich and, assaulted by clamour and heat in the crowded café, he opted for a seat outside, with the smokers. A sleepless night in Dylan’s old room and yesterday’s clothes – he couldn’t face going in to their bedroom for clean things – combined to give him the sour, light-headed sensation of having been to an all-night party. Even in the fresh air, he was unable to stop recent events clattering around in his head, like lumps of aggregate in a cement mixer.
His phone rang and he was both disappointed and relieved that it wasn’t Fay. ‘Hello, Stan. Yes. I’ll be there. No, I hadn’t forgotten. See you tomorrow.’ Morris practice the following evening might be a welcome diversion.
The man at the next table rolled a cigarette, scooping tobacco from the green pouch and distributing it, with stained forefinger, down the gutter of flimsy paper. Two under-clad young women gossiped, simultaneously interrogating mobile phones. Another, not much older, read The Da Vinci Code and ignored the baby in the pushchair next to her, bawling and wriggling, trying to escape like its mother. All around, the human race puffed and prattled, drinking ‘skinnies’ or ‘smoothies’ or ‘grandes’. Evolution had been a terrible waste of time.
The ‘REPENT’ man was declaiming in his favourite
spot, half way between the Castle and McDonald’s. Passers-by, rather than pausing to catch his zealous message, sped up, averting their communal gaze. Then, from nowhere, an unremarkable woman, not unlike his mother to look at, marched up to the man and took a position directly in front of him, no more than two metres away. At the prospect of free entertainment, an audience began to gather, collecting in a loose ring around the pair. The would-be prophet continued to proclaim his message of doom but, after a few minutes, he showed signs of being rattled by her silent presence, glancing at her from time to time and faltering until he stopped altogether, muttering. ‘What d’you think you’re staring at, missus?’
She folded her arms, one of those patchwork leather shopping bags dangling from her bent elbow, brown shoes with Velcro fastenings across the instep planted slightly apart for increased stability. ‘A bloody charlatan, that’s what I’m staring at.’ Her uncultivated voice was frail but confident and Jack was surprised that she’d used such an elaborate word.
The crowd tittered, waiting for the next act, but they were disappointed. The man glared at her then unbuckled the harness that held his sign in place, lowered it to the ground and sidled off amidst faint jeers, like a magician who’d botched a simple trick. His adversary, finding herself the centre of attention, looked confused and she, too, melted into the crowd. How easy it was to puncture a dream.
Jack arrived home later than usual, then managed to find several gardening jobs that required his immediate attention.
‘How’s your hand?’ he asked politely as he and Fay sat down to a cold supper. These were the first words he’d addressed to her since they left the hospital the previous evening.
‘Painful. Inconvenient. Frustrating.’ She didn’t look up.
They continued in silence, not the sulking, childish silence that usually followed their tiffs, but a heavy-duty, ‘man-overboard’ silence. There was no doubt that they were drifting away from each other, caught by an undertow of mistrust, and there would come a critical instant when they were too far apart ever to link up again.
His mother came into the kitchen, carrying two dirty mugs. ‘There you are at last, John. They’re working you too hard at that place.’ Being one’s own boss was an alien concept to his parents. She jerked her head towards Fay. ‘Did she tell you?’
‘Tell me what, Mum?’
‘I thought she’d have told you. Neil’s coming to live with us when Dad gets out.’ She made it sound as though Harry was doing a stretch in Wormwood Scrubs. ‘No use arguing. It’s all decided.’
Jack glanced at Fay and she looked up, giving an imperceptible nod, confirming that the unlikely statement was accurate and instructing him to greet the suggestion with enthusiasm. For a few seconds, they were collaborators.
‘Sounds like a great idea, Mum.’
‘Well, you two don’t want us hanging around here, cramping your style, do you?’
Fay had left a sheet, pillow cases and duvet cover on the bed in Dylan’s room, making it clear where she intended him to sleep, but he needed clean clothes and he tapped gingerly on the door. ‘Fay?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ll just get my things for tomorrow, if that’s okay with you. And my toilet bag.’ He tiptoed in as though, if he made no noise, she might not notice him. She was sitting at her dressing table, still fully clothed and he realised how awkward it was going to be for her to change, shower or wash her hair. ‘D’you need any help?’ he offered.
‘I can manage, thank you.’ She fiddled with her bandage, making her difficulty more apparent and her obstinacy more infuriating.
When he had collected what he needed, he returned to Dylan’s room – perhaps he should start thinking of it as his room – leaving the door ajar so that he could see when Neil had finished in the bathroom, not wanting to reveal that he’d been banished.
Dylan had chosen this cosy room on the day that they moved in to the house – he must have been four – and he’d occupied it, throughout school and university days, until his marriage. There had been a spell of less than a year, when he’d shared a city-centre flat with two other ‘young professionals’, but ruinous quarterly bills and his accountancy training drove him back to seek fiscal security at home.
Jack undressed, placed the bedding on a chair and, taking pleasure in this petty defiance, got into the unmade bed. Despite efforts to resist, he began mulling it over again. There was no disputing the fact that Fay had been within her rights to berate him for keeping Kingsley’s correspondence from her – had he genuinely imagined that she wouldn’t find out? – but the abuse that she’d hurled at him, physical and verbal, had shocked him. He was horrified, too, that he’d pushed her to the ground but, if nothing had intervened to halt their quarrel, where might it have ended? Nor did he regret letting loose his salvo of accusations, although he knew she would blast him out of the water if she ever had an inkling of the Laura thing, or his summer escapades.
How long could they maintain this standoff? Forever, theoretically. Fay was unbelievably stubborn. When Neil and his mother moved out, there would be no need to keep up any pretence. They could stake out individual territory within the house and never speak to each other for the rest of their lives. Until yesterday Jack might have considered this a blessing – a sort of stepping-stone in his plan to escape – but having heard Non’s fond, but disparaging, comments regarding Iolo’s irresponsibility, he knew that, if he ran to her, she would label him as yet another flaky member of his untrustworthy sex.
He heard Fay flush the lavatory and checked the time. Two o’clock. Then, at four-fifteen it went again and he thought he could hear the strains of ‘Sailing By’.
A small, if nasty, cut on the palm of her left hand didn’t seem a valid reason to take a second day off work, especially as Neil had volunteered to drive her to school but, following a night of no sleep and very little rest, Fay doubted whether she was up to a day in the classroom. She waited until Jack left for work, then hurried down to the kitchen, desperate for a shot of caffeine before making the final decision about whether to go in. She was more than a little flustered when Jack reappeared.
‘Sorry.’ He apologised, pointing to the calendar, ‘Thursday. I forgot my kit.’
She turned away, peering out of the window, as if something fascinating was taking place on the lawn, knowing that he was watching her and waiting for her to say something.
He cracked first. ‘How’s the hand?’
‘You keep asking me that.’ She hadn’t intended to sound so harsh. ‘It’s not too bad. But I can’t face work. I had a shitty night.’
‘The hand?’
Is that all you can think of to say? It was as if her le
ft hand had become a cipher for everything that was wrong between them. ‘That. And other things.’ She allowed the narrowest chink to open up in her defences and he spotted it.
‘Ummm. Look. Ummm. Can we talk, Fay?’
She pointed to the clock: ‘You’re going to be late. Yes. If you want to. This evening?’
He grimaced, drawing air through his clenched teeth. ‘I really ought to visit Dad. Then I’ve got practice. But I can give it a miss—’
‘No. After practice will be fine.’ Having made a little headway, she didn’t want to lose ground.
‘See you about nine-thirty, then.’ He hesitated and she thought he was going to kiss her but, instead, he raised his hand in a clumsy salute.
‘Don’t forget your kit,’ she reminded him as he was leaving, for the second time, without it.
‘I did first aid as part of my Lifeguard certificate. I knew it would come in handy.’ Neil grinned. ‘Handy. Get it?’
The flesh around the stitched area was bruised but the cut itself looked clean and showed signs of healing, and Neil made a neat job of re-bandaging Fay’s hand. After that he prepared bacon sandwiches for both of them.
‘Are you sure you’re happy about moving in with Harry and Vi? It won’t be a barrel of laughs. And you’ve been to the house. It’s pretty pokey.’ She felt duty-bound to offer him the opportunity of changing his mind, whilst dearly hoping that he wouldn’t.
‘No. Really. I want to. And, if I shift a few things round, there’ll be plenty of room in that back bedroom.’
It was the first time that Fay had been alone with Neil since his revelation. ‘Any word from Kingsley?’
He gave a nervous smile. ‘I didn’t manage to check—’
‘My fault. Sorry. I did rather jump down your throat the other evening, didn’t I? It was a misunderstanding.’ She sipped her coffee and counted to ten before suggesting, ‘We could check now.’
‘Cool.’
There were several unopened mails in Neil’s ‘in box’ but nothing from Kingsley. ‘He doesn’t write often. And he doesn’t say much when he does.’ Could Jack have primed him in an attempt at damage limitation? ‘Here. Have a look. I’ve kept the most recent ones.’ He was right. They consisted of a couple of unfathomable phrases and no useful information. ‘D’you want to let him know about your hand? We can do it from mine – save you logging on.’
It was tempting but it didn’t seem proper without conferring with Jack – even if he’d shown no such scruples – and it might jeopardise future diplomacy. ‘No. Not at the moment, thanks.’
The morning post flopped through the letterbox and Vi got to it first. ‘Gas bill, by the look of it. Letter for Jack – looks like a circular. Something from the HSBC Bank. And a postcard.’ She turned it over. ‘There’s nice. It’s from Kingsley. Addressed to N. Bentley. That must be you, Neil.’
Neil read the card to himself, his lips moving silently, like a small child with a new reading book. He turned it over to study the picture then flipped it back, reading the text again. ‘Coincidence, or what?’ he asked Fay, who was standing very still, as though he were a timid animal and any movement might scare him away. ‘We were talking about King only a couple of minutes ago, and now this,’ he explained to Vi.
‘He sends us a card, now and again, too,’ Vi said.
Is my son writing to every sodding person in the world except me? ‘Where’s it from?’ Fay kept her voice light and casual.‘
Kefalonia, it says on the picture, wherever that is.’ Neil looked to her for help.
‘Greece. It’s a Greek island.’ A mere two thousand miles away. Four hours by EasyJet. She’d curled her fists tight, the left one pulsing inside the unyielding bandage. ‘Does he say what he’s up to?’
He handed her the card. ‘It’s all Greek to me. Ha-ha.’
Kingsley’s writing, small and leaning to the right, had if anything become more self-assured.
Neil, mate.
Folk techno fusion, eh? And Titch Rowson.
An irresistible combo.
Cheers. K.
Promise me though – no bells!
After lunch, Fay went back to bed and slept soundly, waking only when she heard them come in from the hospital. Neil helped her seal her hand inside a sandwich bag and, once he’d gone out to Jack’s practice and Vi was asleep in front of the television, she took a long, hot shower, revelling in the healing powers of expensive toiletries and the dream that Kingsley might be on his way home.
35
‘You feeling okay, Jack? You cocked that up good and proper.’ Stan never minced words.
‘Sorry, Stan. Must be low blood-sugar. Didn’t have time for tea.’ Try as he might, Jack was failing to lose himself in the dance.
‘Let’s take a break, lads, then we’ll go through the sets we’ll be doing on the twenty-seventh. We’ve got two spots,’ Stan took a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it ‘… the first session will be outside the pub and the second, on the school playground.’ He looked at Jack. ‘You’re familiar with Llangwm, Jack. What’s the pub called?’
Jack panicked, for a moment dreading that his secret was out, but then he remembered his encounter with Stan and Muriel on the day of the carnival. He pictured the jolly pub, decked with bunting, the charming painting of a rusty-red dog-fox hanging over the entrance. ‘I think it’s the “Fox”.’
Neil was ensconced in a corner, deep in conversation with Trevor and Malcolm. He’d brought his guitar along and was running through some of the tunes, jotting down chords and titles in a spiral-bound notebook. Jack was irrationally disappointed that the lad wasn’t showing more interest in the dancing side of the whole business but he appreciated that, for anyone interested in making music, the bouncy, cyclic tunes were compulsive.
On the way home, Neil was full of it. ‘It’s all kicking off. Titch is up for it and he knows a keyboard player. A girl from the College of Music. She’s great on the technical side and she can sing a bit.’ He prattled on, unintelligible with enthusiasm.
Jack recalled how, with Geraint, Griff and Jonesy – names that tripped off his tongue as readily as ‘Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ – he’d spent long summer days – probably the last perfect days of his life – on the scrubland above the village. They’d collect scrap timber and cardboard boxes to construct rickety dens, headquarters for the ‘Valley Victors’ or ‘Masked Avengers’. Concocting a name and formulating gang rules was always the best part. An image of the tough little highwayman who’d ambushed him a few weeks ago flashed through his mind. Perhaps things hadn’t changed so much.
‘Got a name for this band of yours, yet?’
‘Not yet. We need to have some kind of folk reference but we’ve also got to make it clear we’re totally twenty-first century. Kingsley’s sure to come up with something. He’s brilliant at that sort of thing.’
Jack concentrated on the road. ‘Kingsley?’
‘Oh, of course you haven’t been home, have you? He sent me a postcard. From Greece. It didn’t make much sense but it sort of mentions the band, so he may be—’
‘Does Fay know? Did she say anything?’ Their scheduled ‘talk’ suddenly promised a different agenda.
‘Yeah. No.’ Neil seemed jumpy about his role as informant. ‘Yes, she knows. No, she didn’t say anything.’
Vi was occupying the living room and Neil was doing something noisy in the kitchen.
‘Where shall we go?’ Fay asked.
‘Definitely not the shed.’ Jack was pushing his luck but Fay smiled.
‘No. And we’d best not chance the garage, either. So – your room or mine?’
Your room or mine. It sounded so permanent. ‘Why don’t we drive somewhere,’ he suggested. ‘How about the Bay?’
She nodded. ‘Good idea.’
He shouted towards the living room door, ‘We’re off out for an hour or two. Don’t wait up.’ He felt as if he were collecting Fay for a date and needing to keep her family sweet.
The restaurants and clubs, ringing the inky expanse of the bay, were bustling. Fairy-lights reflecting off the water, bobbing boats and urgent music escaping from the chi-chi bars, gave it an air of trying-too-hard, and he could see why he and Fay only came here when they had visitors to amuse. To be truthful, they rarely went out these days, unless it was a special occasion and then they played safe, returning, time and again, to familiar haunts. It was a shame, because there were so many things to try – and so many things that he never would. Scuba-diving. Learning Italian. Playing the piano. Come to think of it, their astonishing encounter in the bedroom had been something entirely new – but, considering subsequent events, it was most likely a one-off occurrence.
The evening was warm, without a breath of wind, and they bought coffee from a stall then wandered along the walkway until they reached the Norwegian Church, squat and plain and white, nothing to do with the illuminated fakery across the water. They sat side-by-side on a picnic bench, cardboard cups in front of them on the splintered table, facing the twinkling lights of Penarth Head, and now nothing was preventing them from talking.
‘I’m not sure how we got in this muddle,’ Jack began, Fay’s silence encouraging him to continue. ‘But if we don’t sort it out soon, I’m afraid it might be too late.’ The thought, once articulated, sounded melodramatic and by saying ‘I’m afraid’ he’d made it seem as if he wanted to patch things up. He still wasn’t sure what he wanted – so much would depend on her reaction – and he touched her bandaged hand cautiously, directing the conversation to something concrete. ‘I’m really sorry about your hand. I never intended to hurt you.’
‘I know you didn’t. And I never intended to use the c-word. It’s an obscenity too far.’ She might have been joking but he couldn’t be sure.If they were to achieve anything, they needed to get away from nit-picking about bandaged hands and foul language. He tried again. ‘I should’ve told you as soon as I found out about those emails. I don’t know why I didn’t.’
