Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The

by Gee, Maurice

  He marched her back, arm under her chin. Ken was sitting upright in the chair, his face purple and his eyes closed. The man had put the stick down and was holding him by the shoulders, but she thought that wasn’t necessary. ‘This old fucker’s passed out.’ It was more likely that he’d had a heart attack. ‘Oh, Ken,’ she said.

  ‘He shat his pants.’

  That would have been from rage not fear. She wanted to explain that much at least. But the man, the boss, kneed her into the bedroom and pushed her face-down on a bed. He rummaged through the dressing-table drawers and stuffed her rings and brooches into the plastic bag on top of the banknotes. In the bottom drawer he found Ken’s Kruger rands.

  ‘What are these, grandma? Are they gold?’

  ‘They’re Kruger rands. Yes, they’re gold.’

  ‘What else is around here?’

  ‘There’s nothing else.’

  He pulled her up. He took the slack of her stomach through her dress and gave a twist and she cried out, but the pain was too much for her to cry loudly. He let her go and took her head in two hands. ‘A little twist and it might come right off, eh?’

  ‘There’s no more. No more money or anything.’

  He let her go. His hands were white with flour from her cheeks. She could see from his open mouth and his teeth wet through the stocking that the gold had excited him.

  ‘It’s a pity you’re so ugly or I’d bend you over a table and screw a tail on you.’

  She does not tell Norma this; will tell no one. There’s no reason to spread ugliness and cruelty.

  ‘The police came then. It was Mrs Butler. She’s really quite fanatical with this Neighbourhood Support. They sneaked in from the right-of-way but she saw. The fighting downstairs, so much got broken. Ken would have loved it. It took both policemen to hold the big one so the bossman got away and ran up the road but they caught him later. And they were just boys, like I thought. Only nineteen and twenty.’

  ‘What were their names?’

  ‘Neil Chote was one. He was the one who held me. Stephen Cater-Phillips was the other. Just think of that, a hyphenated name. I imagine they’ll both go to prison for quite a long time, and I think they deserve it. They could have had our money, there was no need to be cruel.’

  ‘Clive said there was a girl in it?’

  ‘Yes. Ken fell down the steps in the morning so I called in two girls who were passing. One of them used such bad language too. It was her, I think. She saw the money.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘A pretty name. Shelley Birtles. I hope she didn’t go to your school, dear.’

  Norma drove to Saxton to sit with her father. It was after midnight – Monday, a new week. I need someone to touch me, Norma thought. I need someone to love. John Toft would dole out his spoonful of warmth and then withdraw. Someone else.

  I can’t be happy alone, I want to know someone. Oh that ambiguous ‘know’, what a word.

  She was ashamed to have needs so complete, with her father dying. She tried for – felt in surges, most unpleasant – hatred for those boys; but ended up with sadness, Shelley Birtles. Where are you from, Shelley, where will you go?

  I need someone to love. Being alone doesn’t work any more.

  She had forgotten cigarettes for Clive. He drove back to the berry farm to fetch some. Norma sat by her father and held his hand. She was alone with him when he died.

  13

  The publisher made her speech – moderately lively – and the girls started up in bands of five to get their prizes. There were the usual things: German dictionaries, Pride and Prejudice, popular science; but Asterix, marginal; and was that Hollywood Wives? Not the best idea to let third-formers choose for themselves. The publisher looked startled, handing it over.

  That’s right Tania, hold it so everyone can see.

  Now the big guns, top echelon. Each year they pranced up, fat or tall or thin; pretty and plain; blonde and brown; but what did anyone know of their minds?

  ‘Three cheers for the head girl,’ the deputy head girl cried.

  ‘Three cheers for the dux,’ cried the head girl.

  Wasn’t it time to get rid of élitism? (Were some of those fourth-formers crying ‘Quack’?) Get rid of prize-giving, in fact. In its place a big picnic, everyone in mufti. We can eat and drink and laugh and cry and swim in the sea (and Phyllis can stop fizzing and spitting at girls who wear scarves in their hair). Tonight, at the end of it, the prize mums and dads will sip their tea and shine with pride and half a dozen fourth-formers will jump in the pool in their uniforms.

  Hayley Birtles isn’t with her form.

  How nice that Stella Round isn’t dux.

  She looked at the seventh-formers; girls no more, young women. Their only worry now was being free. Oh you’ll find out, she wanted to cry, good luck to you; and covered her confusion with a smile.

  How brave she is. Her father doesn’t get buried till tomorrow.

  There are men in stocking masks at everyone’s door. There are men in stocking masks hiding in your minds – hear me, girls – and one day, no matter where you turn, they’ll come leaping at you, absolutely rude. How many of you will survive the attack? Pink and happy, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, fair. You’ve had some luck tonight that Ms Johnson didn’t confuse you with advice. Don’t be advised by us sitting here, but don’t ignore us. The men in stocking masks come for us too.

  Tea and sticky biscuits. Make-believe coffee.

  ‘Norma, I was so sorry to hear.’

  ‘Norma, so brave of you to come.’

  ‘Gidday Norma, that’s bad luck about your old man.’

  ‘Thank you, Tom. My word, your girls carried off the prizes.’

  ‘Yeah. Stella’s going to be mad. Mandy was dux in her year and anything Mandy can do …’

  ‘It’s the science side that gets it, usually. She did well.’ What greedy eyes he has, greedy for everything, money, fame, sex, and the whole lot a second time, vicariously. His daughters are a three-course meal for him. And I’m a meal, with added flavour, sauced with grieving. He wants me before Dad’s in his grave.

  ‘Anything I can do, Norma, just sing out. Is anyone seeing you home? It must be lonely in that house, time like this.’

  Can he see that I need someone? Does he think he’s someone? At least he lets you know, and it’s bad luck he won’t do.

  It’s bad luck anyone won’t do.

  But good luck, great good luck, this heightened clarity in her moral sense. It makes startling pictures in her mind. Rutting stag! Beast in a wallow, urinating, defecating. The coat of ordure makes it large and dark and makes it smell … Tom with raised head and swelling throat … She moves away.

  ‘Oh, there’s the usual silly girls, been in the pool. I didn’t think Belinda would do that.’

  Drenched and lovely. Plump and clean. A vision too. And Norma sees Tom get the sight of her and get the scent. Blood rises higher. Blood beats in him and swells him up.

  Misshapen face. Face at the door.

  Then he shrinks and smiles and turns away.

  But it’s too late. Too late for Norma. She knows. And tries to turn and shake it off. But knowledge clings; it’s fixed in her and won’t let go. She could more easily shake off one of her arms.

  Run, run, run. She takes a step at Belinda Round. Her man in a stocking mask will be her dad.

  ‘Are you all right, Mrs Sangster?’

  ‘Perhaps I’d better sit down for a moment.’

  ‘Do you feel faint? You’ve gone very pale.’

  Where was evidence? And sanity?

  ‘Oh Mrs Sangster, I’ve just been told about your father. It’s really most extraordinarily brave of you to come. You know, we’ve got a little book on our list about coping with grief. You must let me send you a copy.’

  ‘That’s very kind –’

  ‘One mustn’t bottle up. One must let go. Scream if you like.’

  Shall I scream? Run, run, Belinda. Get away.

&
nbsp; ‘Josie, I want to talk to you.’

  ‘I want to meet Ms Johnson. Ms Johnson, Josie Round from Wimmins Werk.’

  ‘Ah yes, I’ve heard of you.’

  ‘I wanted to know – a book about our co-operative, not a weaving book or a craft book you know, but women working together, would it go?’

  ‘That’s a very interesting idea …’

  On Sunday it was a book about not needing anyone … Josie, I need to talk to you.

  ‘I thought if each of us did a chapter, there’s weavers and potters and jewellers and leather-workers, we’d get the feminists and the crafts people too.’

  ‘What a splendid idea.’

  ‘Emphasizing how we all work in and help each other – practically and ideologically as well.’

  ‘Absolutely splendid.’

  Stella Round is standing alone.

  Stella, Stella.

  ‘Congratulations, Stella.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  ‘You don’t feel too badly about the dux thing?’

  ‘I would have liked it. But I don’t think she’s going anywhere.’

  Old-fashioned malice, just as pure as water from a spring. Stella would make a marvellous wicked queen. But in one version wasn’t she made to dance in red-hot shoes until she died, while Snow White watched? Stella was in her red-hot shoes already.

  ‘You don’t need childish things any more. A name on the honours board doesn’t mean a thing.’

  ‘That isn’t what you’ve told us for five years.’

  Oh little girl, poor child, don’t try so hard, relax, enjoy. Could one give that advice? The stocking-man had his way in far too bloody a fashion. And this girl looks down her bony nose at my confusion. This woman on her way, going somewhere. She’s putting by her last bit of childish disappointment and clearing her systems. Poor child is wrong.

  Poor child, nevertheless.

  ‘Your father … Oh Belinda, there you are. I don’t approve of jumping in the pool.’

  ‘It’s kind of traditional, Mrs Sangster. Mandy and Stell both did, in the fourth form. I wasn’t going to be left out.’

  ‘Where’s Mandy? Didn’t she come?’

  ‘Home with Duncan. Watching the stars.’

  ‘Pure escapism, looking out there,’ Stella says.

  What caused her glass-sharpness, iron-hardness, her minimizing of herself? This falling back to a position she can hold, or believes she can. There must have been some other, larger person growing there. Now – an iron lady; or corrugated iron, for Stella will not endure. He will come for her. Or – that shock! – had come already? Had Stella seen her father’s face?

  ‘Belinda, you’d better dry yourself. Stella, if you’ve got a moment, there’s a book I’d like you to have.’

  What can she say? What possible approach? That dreadful acuity, that knowledge, is gone. There he is, all innocence and desire, predatory and naked, and no damned good at it, moving in, trying to, on Sandra Duff, who gives sharp answers from the look of it. Yet a force. He is a force. Because he believes in himself. There is ground for evil to take root.

  ‘I never thought I’d come in here again. Do you mind, can I sit behind the desk?’

  ‘Oh, help yourself.’

  ‘Feels good. What’s it like, being in charge?’

  ‘Not much fun.’

  ‘I can believe it. Can I give you a warning, Mrs Sangster?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Miss Duff read us a poem yesterday. And Julie Stanley went all, you know, white around her nose. I think you’ll get Mr Stanley calling on you.’

  ‘What sort of poem?’

  ‘One she probably shouldn’t have. I thought it was a bit juvenile. Quite funny though. Anyway, I’m not complaining, just warning you.’

  And enjoying yourself. Advantage is a wonderful thing, but Stella, you like the taste too much.

  ‘How are things at home, Stella?’

  ‘With Mum and Dad you mean? Is this going to be a little talk?’

  ‘With everyone. Stella – families …’ The worst things happen there, the very worst, in that hothouse fug. ‘There are lines that get tangled in families. And yours doesn’t seem, well, happy any more. There’s Duncan of course. And your mother and father becoming – not good friends …’ How arch, how prissy. I know she knows tough language, real words, but how can I say them? ‘I think he’s a fairly complex man. But childish too, in a way. And possessive. I mean, things in his family are his. A kind of dominion. And who knows how it gets tangled up? Proximity and ownership – and a confused sense of right –’

  ‘If you’re saying what I think, there’s no need.’

  ‘I don’t really know what I’m saying.’

  ‘It’s not a new thing, Mrs Sangster, it’s happened before. Or, just to set your mind at rest, it hasn’t happened.’

  ‘What hasn’t?’

  ‘He has to be drunk to try it on. And drunk makes him sentimental and he gets lost in, oh, the philosophy of it all. Our little Round fortress in a hostile world. And our special sense of right. Nothing happens. He goes all soggy before it can. There’s just a nasty smell around, that’s all. And of course, he forgets. He thinks he’s world champion at fathers.’

  ‘Mandy too?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mandy. Except I’m not so sure nothing happened there. She won’t say. But look, we don’t need you. Belinda is all right. Mandy and me are watching things.’

  She’s not so collected as she makes out or she wouldn’t get her grammar wrong. And that bad smell has poisoned her – and made her too. She’s terrifying and magnificent, and oh so sad.

  ‘How did you find out, Mrs Sangster?’

  ‘I didn’t find out. I don’t know. It’s just, I’ve got a nose for things like this. Stella, there’s a book, I Couldn’t Cry –’

  ‘– When Daddy Died. I’ve read it. So has Mandy. Is that what you were going to give me? I thought you were just getting me here.’

  ‘Yes, I was. Does Josie know?’

  ‘She’s too dumb. Mum hasn’t got a clue.’

  She’ll pat my shoulder now and humour me and comfort me. Because I’m dumb like Josie, haven’t got a clue. I’ll promise to do nothing and tell no one. I believe, believe in her, in Stella Round. I’m going to leave the future to her. World to her.

  ‘You look as if you need some sleep. Why don’t you sneak out, Mrs Sangster. No one’ll notice.’

  No one notice if the principal goes? Of if they do, she’s got her father’s funeral tomorrow, it was very brave of her to come.

  Stella pats and kisses, bending down. A kiss from Stella! The door gives a click. She is gone. Beautiful and damaged and hard. Her limbs should be all broken and set wrong to signal the breaking and resetting in her mind.

  I can’t tell whether she is more or less.

  Norma finds a side-door and goes, leaving her school vibrating, brightly lit. She drives home and meets her cat in the garage. She sits on her chair, drinks a glass of sherry, with music insubstantial in the room.

  I want the dreadful danger. I don’t want to be alone any more.

  After the service Norma and Clive and Clive’s two daughters drove to the cemetery and watched the coffin lowered into the grave. They touched it before it went down and one granddaughter, Francine, placed a yellow rose on the lid. Deborah, the nurse, was the only one who cried. She had seen death many times but that lowering, putting away, was a thing she had not understood.

  Norma felt her own breathing stop and wanted to shriek. The hole, with shaven sides, was so far down; and earth and clay so solid, so close-packed. She could not breathe until she turned away.

  The jollity at Clive’s house made her uneasy. Was there some good thing she’d not been told? Not many of her own friends had come. Clive’s, eating sausage-rolls, seemed to draw away as she approached – too dark, too down-turning in the mouth? As for old-timers from the valley – she had to look ten seconds in their faces before they settled into shapes she knew; then e
xclamation seemed the only way to advance. Her mother sat in Clive’s big chair in the glassed-in porch and had them brought to her one by one.

  ‘I think your mother is enjoying this.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’

  ‘Sorry, I guess I put it badly …’

  She had always made Tony Hillman dither. Sharpness had been her part, and apology, redefinition, his.

  ‘What I meant –’

  ‘It’s all right, Tony, I know. I don’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘You’ve every right to be, on an occasion like this.’

  Did he want her still (or was it again)? She had not bothered lately to check on him. But his condition now – yes, no mistake, that soft pushing out of admiration and desire. She was grateful and amused and, as usual, unexcited. But perhaps this was a time for second-bests.

  ‘Norma, what I’m going to suggest, I’ll understand if you say no –’

  She laughed. Still he prefaced his attempts with an escape clause for her. Would a man so decent do?

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh nothing, Tony. Just a release of tension, I suppose.’ And that was true. She was a long way now from her near-shriek at the grave. Yes was the way to move in answer to whatever he might ask.

  ‘Some little place that’s quiet, so you can relax. And maybe start to put it all behind you. A thing as horrible as this …’

  ‘Yes, Tony, all right.’

  ‘Unless you want to spend the evening with your family.’

  ‘I said yes.’

  ‘Oh. That’s good. That’s great. You understand, I want nothing for myself. I know that once …’

  Oh no no no, he’ll never do. Why should I go backwards to this man, he’s a wet. Did I ever like him? A neat and tidy partner, that was all. Presentable. And once or twice we went to bed for the fun of it. But it wasn’t more than adequate as fun. Afterwards, my God, he always said, ‘Was that all right?’

  She wouldn’t, couldn’t, go through it again, not even for the hope of being in close company a while.

  Dinner though, dinner would be all right. He was a face.

  ‘I asked for a window table so we could see the sea.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘And the alcove so …’