The People at Number 9

by Felicity Everett

  “Er, not exactly.”

  Lou had the grace to look a little shamefaced. There was an awkward pause.

  “Nice coffee,” Sara muttered.

  “Isn’t it? It’s Guatemalan. I’ve got some breakfast treats too. Come up when you’ve shaken off your hangovers. We’re going to cook for you.”

  “Could you not do it down here?” said Sara. “Save us dragging the kids up the hill.”

  “It’s just a bit… public down here, isn’t it?” Lou demurred, “And we’ve got a guest for breakfast who might appreciate a little extra privacy.” She smirked mysteriously.

  Sara knew she was supposed to ask who the guest was.

  “Great,” she said. “Whatever.”

  All the same, by the time she and Neil were strolling up to Lou and Gav’s pitch, later on, Sara’s mood had mellowed. She was excited to see Gav, and curious, if she were honest, to know the identity of the mystery guest. For whom, after all, might privacy be an issue, at a festival of ten thousand laid-back stoners?

  They breasted the slope and discovered the answer, sitting in a camping chair, wearing an OCCUPY WALL STREET T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts.

  “Ezra!”

  Ezra shot them a wary glance, and Lou bent down and whispered something in his ear.

  “Sara! Neil!”

  “What brings you to these parts?” Sara asked, darting forward to give him a tentative kiss on each cheek.

  “I’m on the run,” he replied.

  Lou jerked her thumb at him.

  “Absconded from Budleigh Salterton Lit-fest,” she said, chuckling. “Put out an APB.”

  Sara and Neil sat down beside Lou and Gavin on the plaid rug and, over an undeniably delicious breakfast of fried eggs and chorizo, listened to Ezra hold forth.

  “You gotta hand it to the English chicks,” he said, egg yolk oozing from the corners of his mouth, “they love to read.”

  “They love to read you,” simpered Lou.

  “They love to read anyone,” said Ezra. “Misery memoirist, celebrity chef, deposed dictator, Deepak fucking Chopra. If you write it, they will come.”

  “Isn’t that a bit condescending?” said Neil.

  “I guess if you like Deepak Chopra…”

  Neil folded his arms implacably.

  “Yeah, yeah, I hear what you’re saying,” Ezra conceded, posting a last gobbet of bread into his mouth and proceeding to talk through it. “I exaggerate for effect. But if you’d been held hostage at a book signing by a line of chicks – and it is always ninety per cent chicks – stretching from here to fucking …” he waved his hand interrogatively.

  “… Hay-on-Wye,” supplied Gav.

  “Yeah, I gotta tell you, you’d be jaded too.”

  “I thought you liked women,” Lou said reproachfully.

  “I like some women,” he replied with a brazen leer.

  “So what are you reading at the moment, Ezra?” Sara ventured to ask.

  “At the moment, Sara, I am discovering the oeuvre of your own Doris Lessing.”

  “Oh! I wouldn’t have thought she was up your street.”

  “I have a street?”

  “Well, no, I just meant, wasn’t she a big feminist?”

  “On the contrary, I’d say she was refreshingly free of political correctness. She gives offence across the board, as any serious artist must.” He looked at her and raised a significant eyebrow.

  She blushed with pleasure and disbelief. Did this mean…? He held her gaze – his smile was knowing; provocative. He had. He had read her novel. She flushed with pleasure and tried to retain her composure. She was surprised and flattered. More than that, she was ready. Political correctness was the charge to which she was most susceptible, but she had rebutted this criticism in many an imaginary conversation with him. It was her second-favourite fantasy.

  “Oh certainly,” she said, a rush of adrenaline bringing colour to her cheeks. “I’m all for giving offence. I just don’t think you need to reinforce negative stereotypes to do it.”

  “You don’t?” Ezra looked at her quizzically.

  “No, I don’t. I mean, okay, my drug-dealer character is black, which obviously lays me open to the charge of stereotyping at best, racism at worst, but I’m unrepentant on that score, because it’s appropriate to the setting.”

  Ezra frowned and lit a cigarette.

  “But if you think that’s the reason I decided to give him a hinterland – to make him a morally ambiguous character with a backstory that demonstrates his many redeeming qualities, that’s just not the case. He actually needs that duality to explain his fascination for Nora, who isn’t just your garden-variety masochist. You know, it would have been easy just to write him as a thug and have been done with it, but I would argue that my giving him depth isn’t knee-jerk political correctness, it’s actually good writing.”

  She sat back, feeling rather pleased with herself.

  Ezra took a drag on his cigarette, exhaled and shook his head.

  “You got me,” he said.

  “What, you mean you agree with me?” said Sara, a little mistrustfully. He might at least have put up a fight.

  “I guess I might if I had the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  Sara stared at him, and felt her cheeks grow hot again, this time with humiliation. There he sat in his canvas camping chair – a literary demi-god, cigarette pinched between his gnarly fingers, feet crossed neatly at the ankles, a look of polite bafflement on his face. What on earth had made her imagine he would read her manuscript? It was obvious now that he had never laid eyes on it, had no recollection of being asked to; had probably only the vaguest recollection of having met her before.

  “Oh, I had the impression you’d read something I wrote, that’s all. My mistake.”

  She threw Lou a wounded glance.

  “Would somebody please tell me what the hell it is I’m meant to have read?”

  “Sara’s novel, Ezra. I sent it to you.” Lou widened her eyes at him. “It’s fantastic. Really promising. Maybe you should check your junk mail. Homecoming, it’s called.”

  “Safekeeping,” Sara muttered.

  “Safekeeping, yes. Maybe the attachment was too big.”

  ***

  In the afternoon, the men headed off to watch a Bluegrass band and Sara and Lou took the children to a circus-skills workshop.

  “This takes me back,” said Lou as they stood in line, breathing in the Big Top scent of warm turf and canvas.

  “Lucky you,” said Sara. “We never went to the circus, my mum thought it was common.”

  “Oh, we never went either,” said Lou. “I was in one, though.”

  Of course, thought Sara, of course you were.

  “Did I never tell you about Full Fathom Five?” Lou seemed amazed at her oversight. “I suppose it wasn’t technically a circus, more physical theatre, back in the days before that was really a thing. We used to train in a marquee just like this. It was founded by Jerzy Novak – fantastically talented Polish guy. He’s married to Beth, you know, Little Creatures Beth, who’s coming to do the—”

  “Puppet-making,” Sara finished, nodding. She had been thinking about the puppet-making, and the guitar tuition, and all the other activities that she and Lou would need to plan and supervise, day in, day out, once the home-school was up and running. It had been on her mind.

  “He’s an alcoholic now, very sad,” Lou went on, “he was absolutely amazing back then – the things that man could do with his body. I was a little bit in love with him, actually. Freaked the hell out of my parents. Flunked my GCSEs. Never forgot how to walk on my hands though, look!”

  Suddenly, Sara was staring at the soles of Lou’s feet as she paraded up and down the line of bemused families, her dress flopping over her face, her modesty spared only by a pair of black leggings. She righted herself with an agile backflip, to a spontaneous burst of laughter and applause.

  When the children had been signed in, everyone s
at on benches and two imaginatively-pierced instructors, Hepzibah and Dave, explained which behaviours were cool and which uncool in a challenging health and safety environment such as this. As they listed the activities on offer, the buzz of excitement grew. A separate mat was allocated as a mustering point for each discipline – tumbling, stilt-walking, unicycling and so on. Dash and Caleb opted for juggling, but the younger boys darted this way and that, unable to commit, their options diminishing with every second wasted.

  “Tumbling!” Patrick yelled, finally, grabbing Arlo’s sleeve, but before they could secure the final two places, Lou headed them off, stooping in front of them, palms sandwiched between her thighs, to deliver some homily. Sara couldn’t hear what she was saying above the clamour, but she watched Lou turn her head repeatedly and nod in the direction of a different mat, one distinguished, as far as Sara could see, by its unpopularity. Patrick threw Sara a pleading glance. She half rose to intervene but, seeing that the last available spaces for tumbling had already been claimed, that all of the other mats were now full, she sat down again with a shrug of resignation.

  “Mime!” Lou said, returning to her seat, with an air of satisfaction. “I’ve always thought it would be Arlo’s thing. Help him with his issues.”

  Sara was about to say that it was not necessarily Patrick’s thing, when he stomped back to the bench, bottom lip jutting.

  Sara tried to put her arm round him but he shrugged it off.

  “Come on, Pat,” she cajoled, “you used to love Mr Bean.”

  “Yeah, when I was five!”

  “This is going to be so great.” Lou scarcely seemed to have registered Patrick’s disappointment. She gave a little wiggle of delight and nudged Sara.

  “The guy leading this workshop is from Théâtre de Complicité! I mean, what a privilege. Patrick?” She stood up and held out her hand. “Not too late to change your mind.”

  He regarded her stonily and Lou shrugged and sat down again, with a pitying glance at Sara, as if she had raised a delinquent.

  They sat in a row on the bench and watched the various groups being put through their paces, yelps and giggles echoing under the Big Top. Sara was glad of the hubbub. She was not in the mood to talk, and nor, clearly, was Patrick. She was almost as angry with herself as she was with Lou. There was nothing she could do now to halt the approaching juggernaut of the home-school. It was happening. The world was watching. Carol was watching. But she would have to be a better advocate for her children than this.

  After a while, she noticed Lou fidgeting beside her – groping around beneath the bench and tilting her ear towards the floor, as if she could hear, above the din, some other intriguing sound. Sara did not respond. She would simply not indulge another pathetic bid for attention. The woman didn’t even know she was doing it. She was like a child. But Lou kept on. She was kneeling on the grass, now, peering between Patrick’s feet, her hand outstretched.

  “What’s the matter?” Sara asked, eventually.

  “Shhh!” Lou put a finger to her lips and smiled. Intrigued, in spite of herself, Sara watched Lou rub her thumb and forefinger together as if to entice some small creature. She clasped her hands protectively around her knees and inched her body away, in case it was a rat. Lou seemed apprehensive but unafraid. She was making a curious crooning noise. Patrick had noticed now, too, and although at first he feigned indifference, curiosity gradually got the better of him.

  “What is it?” he mouthed at Sara. She shrugged and they both looked back at Lou. Suddenly, she recoiled. Whatever it was, it was on the move. Patrick squealed, and Lou gestured downwards with her hand for calm. She crawled a metre or so along the floor and held out her hand as if offering food. Holding her breath, leaning forward, straining every sinew, she seemed close, now, to winning its confidence. She made a sudden snatch and, with an awkward writhing movement and a look of triumph, stood up. For a moment, Sara was confused. Lou’s ungainly stance, her rapt expression, the repetitive stroking movement of her right hand, all suggested the weight of a hefty creature in her arms – a rabbit most likely. Sara had to do a double-take, to make sure, but no, she was not mistaken – there was nothing there. She felt the prickle of embarrassment on the back of her neck, the heat of shame. She actually is mad, she thought. And then she glanced at Patrick, all pique forgotten, round-eyed, smiling, approaching at Lou’s tacit invitation to stroke the phantom creature.

  21

  Lou had been right about the festival being a field trip of sorts. How much the children had learned from it was moot, but for Sara it had been highly instructive; perhaps the chief lesson being that love and hate were intertwined. For every occasion when Lou’s behaviour had taken her breath away with its narcissism, there had been another when it had beguiled her with its charm. Each act of staggering insensitivity had been redeemed with one of generosity, every harsh word balanced with a tender deed. Watching Patrick learn the power of mime through Lou’s extraordinary performance had moved Sara. It had reminded her why she had set out, with such determination, to win Lou’s friendship. And yet it was the hate she took away with her.

  The journey back had only compounded it. It had been agreed that Arlo should travel in Sara and Neil’s car, in order to make room in the Humber for Ezra, a decision with which Sara had had no problem until, ninety minutes into the journey, Arlo projectile-vomited all over the back seat.

  “Couldn’t Ezra have gone on the train? It’s not like he’s short of money,” Sara had hissed bitterly to Neil, handing sheets of kitchen roll into the back seat.

  “Well, I could hardly say that, could I?” said Neil. “Not with him standing there. We had a spare seat; they were one short. Maybe if I’d known Arlo was going to chunder, but I’m not a bloody mind-reader.”

  “Funny, isn’t it?” said Sara, bitterly, opening the window so that fresh air whipped through the car. “How we always get stuck with the kids? Oh, my God, he’s at it again!”

  “Fuck’s sake!” said Caleb. “You’ve got to stop, Dad. There’s, like, puke everywhere.”

  “Yes. Caleb. Language. Don’t you think I’m looking for somewhere to stop? We’re on the motorway.”

  Sara looked anxiously over her shoulder. Patrick was sitting worryingly still and had gone very pale himself.

  “The Staines turnoff’s coming up,” said Neil, doubtfully.

  “Oh God,” said Sara, “are you serious?”

  “Well of course I don’t mind,” said Sara’s mother, “come in, all of you. Only… What’s his name? Arlo? If you could just stay in the porch a minute, Arlo love, until I bring you a change of clothes. Oh dear, you really are in a bad way, aren’t you?”

  Sara’s mother loved nothing more than a crisis. She bustled about now, running the shower, fetching clean clothes, issuing instructions to Sara’s stepfather regarding the steam-cleaning of the car. For Arlo though, her overweening kindness was too much. He was used to a Spartan regime of hard floors and tough love, in which his needs came way down the pecking order. After a weekend when such fragile boundaries as he was accustomed to had all but collapsed, when he had eaten and slept erratically, hung out with rock stars, ridden an imaginary escalator and thrown up in a strange car, to find himself ankle-deep in Wilton carpet, being fussed over by a perfumed matron, was more than his constitution could stand. He shrank into a corner of the sofa and sobbed discreetly.

  “Poor little thing, he wants his mummy, don’t you, love?” Sara’s mother patted his shoulder and fished up her sleeve for a hanky.

  “He’ll be fine, Mum,” said Sara, “we’ll get off as soon as the car’s dried out.”

  But now that the idea had been put in his head, Arlo was not letting go of it.

  “I wa-a-a-ant my mu-ah-ah a h-ummmy,” he hiccoughed, until anything other than an emergency phone call to Lou seemed callous.

  “I’ll get the kettle on,” said Sara’s mother.

  “No need,” said Sara quickly, “they won’t be coming in.”

 
Richard shot his wrist out of his cotton twill shirt cuff and checked his watch.

  “They might as well, Sara, it’ll be nose to tail through London at this time.”

  And, with that, Sara’s last hope of preventing the collision of two remote and inimical planets fell away and she braced herself for impending catastrophe.

  Pulling up in the Chase, alongside all the BMWs and Audis, the Humber might as well have been from outer space. As the doors opened, Sara got a whiff of leather and the signature scent of the Sheedy-Cunningham clan – a mixture of the pleasantly dank smell of their house, Lou’s distinctive perfume and an un-nameable extra something, pheromones perhaps.

  ***

  “Quick cuppa and we can all be on our way,” Sara murmured apologetically to Lou, leading the way up the block-paved double driveway. “They just want to be hospitable.”

  But Lou seemed in no hurry.

  “Mrs Wells, what a gorgeous house,” she said, turning her charm up to full beam. “I can’t thank you enough for helping out with Arlo.”

  “It’s Mrs Wentworth-Wells, actually, since I remarried, Louise. I was old-fashioned enough to want to take Richard’s name. But of course I didn’t want to be disrespectful to Sara’s late father, so I’ve gone double-barrelled, which to be honest I do find rather pretentious, when other people do it, but there we are. You can call me Audrey.”

  “Hello Audrey,” said Gavin, with a winning smile.

  “And you’re the neighbours, are you?” Sara’s mother said, sizing them up with a practised eye. Sara had hoped she might not make the connection, but Gavin and Lou could not have looked more like an artist and a film-maker if they’d tried. In the interests of damage limitation, Sara prepared to head off any mention of home-schooling, lest the philosophical abyss that separated her mother’s views on the subject from those of her friends, might become all too yawningly apparent. There was only one saving grace so far in this unhappy turn of events, and that was that Ezra had decided to stay in the car.