Sun Child

by Angela Huth

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘And don’t argue.’ Fen sighed, restraining herself. ‘Listen, why don’t you two go – ?’

  ‘ – why don’t you two go off and play?’ chorused Wolf and Emily together, interrupting.

  ‘Just for a while,’ continued Fen. ‘I haven’t seen Kevin for such ages.’

  ‘Just before Christmas, not all that long.’

  ‘Oh, Em. Go on, please. And then you can have sausages, whatever you want. Promise.’

  ‘Are you staying the weekend?’ Emily asked Kevin.

  ‘Heavens no. Back to the north.’

  ‘Poor you,’ said Emily.

  She started upstairs, Wolf following her, their footsteps heavy with protest.

  ‘Can’t think what grown-ups have to say that’s so private,’ Wolf grumbled, when they were out of earshot. ‘It seems to me their conversations are so boring.’

  ‘Terribly boring,’ agreed Emily, ‘but I suppose they don’t want to be interrupted.’

  ‘I’d have thought they’d have been grateful to have some of their boring conversations interrupted.’ They sat on Emily’s bed, kicking its sides with their heels, disconsolate. ‘I mean Coral, on the telephone, she’s awful.’ He put on a squeaky voice. ‘ “Oh, darling, and do you know what she said to me and I said to her and she didn’t? Honestly? Bla bla bla …” I can’t think. Hours of rubbish on the telephone. I’d rather listen to the guinea pigs chattering.’ Emily giggled. Wolf stood up. ‘Anyhow, let’s go and listen to their boring talk,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing else to do.’

  ‘Better not, had we ?’

  ‘Why not? Come on, cissy. They’ll never know. If it’s too boring we’ll come back.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Emily was reluctant. But not wanting to appear unwilling in Wolf’s eyes and lose his respect, she followed him back to the top of the stairs. There they stopped, rigid with quietness, certain they could not be seen. They could hear easily enough.

  ‘It was torment,’ Fen was saying.

  Emily raised her eyebrows questioningly to Wolf. He ignored her. She leant over to him, and whispered in his ear.

  ‘What’s torment?’

  ‘Torment’s torment, silly. Shut up.’

  Abashed, Emily rejoined him in listening.

  ‘Absolute.’ Fen’s voice was quieter.

  ‘Aren’t you being over-dramatic?’ Kevin.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘At least you look better.’

  ‘There was sun!’ Fen was scornful. ‘There was plenty of sun. But what did we do? He spent most of the time on the telephone, long distance calls to Africa. In his mind, he never stopped working for a moment. He can’t ever stop working. He’s afraid to.’ There was the noise of some heavy china thing being dumped on the table. ‘We can’t talk to each other any more. Well, only domestic things. He has no idea, no idea what’s going on in my mind, these days. Perhaps he doesn’t care. He used to.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s just a bad patch.’ Kevin’s voice was louder than Fen’s. ‘Don’t marriages have cycles?’

  ‘It’s a bad patch all right, for me. I don’t suppose he’s had time to notice anything’s wrong. And it’s not really helped by you.’ Her voice was smiling.

  ‘Shall I be off?’

  ‘Silly. All I mean is, my energy to make things work is no longer directed towards him, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what exactly you want. I seemed to drop into your life by accident, and felt compelled to entertain you a little, to take your mind off things. If I can be of some help, that would be good. But you won’t ever bank on me for guaranteed assurance, will you? Or, I don’t know, positive things. I’m no good at all that.’

  ‘Kevin!’ Fen’s voice full of alarm. ‘You’re miles away! Where are you? Why are we talking like this? Here. Come here, please.’ In the long pause that followed Emily could hear Wolf’s distinct, regular breathing. Then her mother’s voice resumed more softly. ‘Of course you’re a help, in one way. I don’t know what I was saying. It’s all this waiting business, the guilt, the expectation, moment to moment. It – ungrounds me so.’

  ‘You got that from The Dark is Light Enough.’

  ‘Of course I did.’ Pause. Laugh. ‘Quite right, entertainer. Why aren’t you still just an entertainer? That was how we meant it to be, wasn’t it? But somehow it isn’t like that any more.’

  ‘How is it, now?’

  ‘How do you think?’ Fen’s voice was scarcely audible. Then, the swish of her skirt, the small shuffle of shoes on the floor, and more silence. Wolf stepped a cautious pace forward. Emily followed him. They peered down the stairs. They saw Fen clasped to Kevin, her arms thrown high round his shoulders, her head on his chest. He was kissing her hair, her eyes.

  Emily stepped back, pulling at Wolf’s shirt.

  ‘I’m going,’ she said. Her mouth was a downward line. There was a chill over her skin, a fine dew of sweat down her back. Wolf followed her back to the bedroom. He flung himself on to the bed, all-knowing, impervious to her distress.

  ‘So he’s your mother’s boyfriend.’

  ‘He’s not.’ Emily stood by the window looking out at the church, her face away from Wolf.

  ‘What were they on about, then?’

  Emily shrugged. She thought fast.

  ‘Kevin’s still an actor,’ she said at last.

  ‘So?’

  ‘They were rehearsing part of a play. All those things they were saying – they were just their lines.’

  ‘Don’t believe you.’

  ‘Really. It’s true. Mama often helps him with his lines …’ Emily turned slowly towards Wolf, her face a mask of honesty.

  ‘And does she often have to kiss him to help him with his plays?’

  ‘Sometimes. Not often, actually.’

  ‘Well, she’s a pretty good actress is all I can say.’ Wolf seemed almost convinced.

  ‘I told you, she’s good at almost everything, Mama.’

  They stayed silent for a while. Then Wolf said:

  ‘I hope they’ve finished rehearsing by now because I’m hungry. I’m going down.’ Mischief in his eyes.

  ‘You don’t still believe me,’ Emily said.

  ‘Oh, I do, if you want me to.’

  ‘You should, because it’s true.’ Behind her back, she crossed her fingers.

  ‘I’ll ask them about the play.’

  ‘Don’t do that.’ New panic stirred within Emily. ‘Because it’s a secret about their rehearsals. I shouldn’t have told you. Mama’d be furious with me.’ Emily looked directly at Wolf’s doubtful expression. She made one final effort to quell his suspicion and to suppress his curiosity. ‘I tell you what, when the play comes on, I’ll get you tickets. We’ll go, even though it’s a grown-up play and probably very boring. Then you’ll see if I’m not right. You’ll hear the bit about torment, or whatever the word was. Promise.’

  Wolf got up.

  ‘What’s the play called ?’ he asked.

  Some months before, Emily had written a play herself. Its title now did her a great service.

  ‘It’s called Will You Fall in Love?’ she said.

  ‘All right.’ Wolf rubbed his hand all over his face, a gesture which Emily had learned was his sign of agreement. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  Fen kept her promise and cooked them a good tea, but her spirit seemed to have gone out of its production. Her shoulders slouched, her head was bowed. It seemed difficult to believe that the enthusiasm that inspired her so short a time ago, her wonderful smile and laughter in the barn, had existed. Her body was sad, the cheerfulness in her voice a hollow thing. Emily, realising something was wrong but not knowing what to do, sat silently at the table. Wolf, less sensitive to atmosphere, made patterns with matches by his plate.

  Kevin, too, was subdued. Maybe because he had to go back to his horrible flat in the north, Emily thought. Anybody would be depressed if they had to return there. It was understandable, really, that he should sit in
a corner, reading a paper, legs crossed, mouth bent downwards. One of his huge feet twitched regularly – up down up, every few seconds. He said no more about the bird town.

  As soon as they had finished eating, Emily suggested to Wolf they should go out again. But he was in an unresponsive mood.

  ‘Whatever for? It’s freezing.’

  ‘I want to see the stream.’

  ‘It’s almost dark. You won’t see much.’

  ‘I’ll take a torch. Can we go, Mama?’

  ‘If you put on coats.’ Fen didn’t seem to care.

  ‘Come on, Wolf.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Wolf rose to follow her. What an adventure.’ Emily winced at his sarcasm, but reached for her coat with determination.

  Outside they stood on the garden path a few yards from the house.

  ‘What do you want us to do now?’ Wolf asked.

  Emily wondered. What should they do in the winter dusk? She suggested looking at the stream again, not that she had any real desire to see the stream. The only thing she knew, quite positively, was that it was essential to be out of the house for a while. She led the way to the field. Wolf, muttering complaints, followed her.

  They stood on the banks of the stream in the long grass, wet with a cold evening dew. They looked down into the dusky waters.

  ‘Very interesting, listening to stream water, I’ll say.’ Wolf had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched up. He was frowning.

  ‘Oh, Wolf. Shut up. What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you, more like?’ He turned to her. His face glowed damply, the freckles all blurred. ‘Ever since Kevin what’s-his-name arrived you’ve been mooning about. Couldn’t get a thing out of you. At one moment I thought you were going to cry.’

  Emily paused.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so silly.’

  ‘Anyhow, I’m bored out here. And cold.’ He stamped one of his feet, desultory thuds in the grass. ‘I’m going.’

  Emily knew she couldn’t ask him to stay. She shrugged.

  ‘All right. If that’s how you feel. I don’t mind.’

  Wolf moved away. She watched him. He only went a few paces, then stopped and turned back to her.

  ‘And anyhow I don’t believe that silly story about them rehearsing a play,’ he shouted, and turned away again. Above the mist that crouched on the ground his words spun in a solid ball, dropped, split the mist, disappeared, leaving a hole in the grey vapours. Leaving holes, threads, everywhere. Emily kicked at the greyness. Wolf was running up the hill, now. She wasn’t looking but she knew he was running. He’d probably go home and tell his father she was a soppy date and he didn’t want to play with her any more. He’d probably find another friend in the village – perhaps a whole gang. All because of this. All because of Kevin coming. It was all his fault. All Kevin’s fault. He was an interfering old nuisance, Kevin, coming to things he wasn’t asked to, turning up when he wasn’t expected, sitting in Papa’s chair, making Mama either laugh too wildly or almost cry. Emily stamped the ground, wishing it was Kevin she had trod upon. He should stay in the north in the future, or she wouldn’t speak to him any more. She would tell Mama and Papa and Tom to keep him out of the house, because it was his fault Wolf had run away.

  Emily climbed the hill to the orchard. There she stopped again, very cold, undecided. The trees were indistinct shapes in the thickening gloom. Under the hedge the first snowdrops were a thin scum of white, shining in the darkness of the ground cautiously as the first stars in the premature night sky. Lights were on in the kitchen : two squares of golden light in the black mass of the house. Comforting blocks of warmth and brightness, they were, in all this damp and cold and increasing darkness. Emily moved slowly towards them. When she came level with the first window she stopped and looked in. Kevin had not moved from his chair by the fire. Fen sat on the floor by his feet, her head thrown back on to his knees. There were flames in the dark satin of her shirt, and she was smiling, sleepily. Kevin was stroking her hair. He always seemed to be stroking her hair, or kissing it.

  Emily stood watching them for a while. Once, Fen lifted her hand to Kevin’s face, and rubbed his nose. This must have tickled him, because he laughed, and pushed it away. Fen laughed too, then, opening her mouth wide and showing all her teeth. But the laughs, from where Emily watched, were noiseless. She could hear no sound, and the silence of the laughter made her shiver. She realised that her hands and feet were very cold, and the hair round her face hung wetly from the damp. I must go in, she said to herself. I must go in, I must go in, I must go in. Perhaps they won’t notice me. I can slip up to bed and when I wake up in the morning Kevin will have gone for ever and Wolf running away from me will all have been a dream. She turned to go into the house, her feet horribly sluggish. Perhaps it was the cold.

  ‘You look like a ghost, Em,’ said Fen, in the kitchen. ‘What on earth have you been doing outside ?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘Where’s Wolf?’

  ‘Gone.’

  Kevin’s hand was still rummaging gently through Fen’s hair. Emily stared at it, but it didn’t stop.

  ‘Had a row, you and Wolf?’ he asked in a laughing voice. Kevin had a funny way of guessing things accurately. Emily drew herself up.

  ‘Not exactly. He was cold, that’s all, so he went home.’

  Fen stood up, slowly, sleepily, as if the act of rising was in itself a luxurious gesture. She went next door and put on some music. Chopin. The notes very fragile, very precise, winging into a frail melody that inspired Kevin’s twitching foot to move with some kind of rhythm. Emily flung off her coat and sat in her old place at the kitchen table.

  ‘When are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘Why? Am I bothering you?’ Kevin stopped twitching his foot and kicked at the logs on the fire.

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’ He didn’t look at her. He drank from his glass of wine and shifted nearer the fire, as if he owned it. Fen came back and resumed her old seat beside him on the floor. He put his free hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t you want to watch television, darling?’

  ‘No.’ Emily looked her mother straight in the eye.

  ‘Done your prep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you just going to sit there looking cross?’

  ‘I’ll go up to bed when Kevin goes. Will you read me a story tonight?’

  Fen sighed.

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll read you the story. I’m the actor. I’ll read to you both.’ Kevin was being very friendly, considering. For a moment Emily felt guilty about her hostility. She said nothing.

  They sat there, the three of them, almost without moving, listening to the music. Watching the fire. The flames split and flickered like sun through the branches of the apple tree. Last summer. Mama stood under the lower branches calling to Emily. Emily ran to her. Looked up, like Fen. Sunbeams dazzled the leaves, burning out their edges. Mama, head tilted back like it was now on Kevin’s knee, had screwed up eyes to search among the greenery for a bullfinch. Where was it? Had it flown away? She hadn’t seen a bullfinch since she was a child. Would Emily climb the tree, try to see it? Oh yes. Eagerly. She hoisted herself up, branches warm and scratchy under her hands. She thrust her head into a cloud of sparkling green. No bullfinch. She turned, looked down. There was Papa, suddenly, close to Mama, looking too. Very seriously.

  ‘Jump, Em.’

  She jumped. He caught her with a huge safe grasp. She slid to the ground, aware again of the smell of warm grass. Papa’s arm went round Mama’s waist now, and a couple of white butterflies flirted about her head. Then, a simultaneous shout from them both.

  The bullfinch,’

  The bird spun away above their heads, his breast the briefest flash of scarlet, like sun on a cluster of falling rain, before he disappeared into the blue. Mama laughing, so pleased. Saying she knew she�
��d been right. Papa murmuring: ‘I like you excited by such funny things.’ Fen wasn’t really listening. She held Emily’s hand. Her eyes still followed the speck of bullfinch.

  Papa was looking down at her, amazement in his eyes. Then he began to shout.

  ‘My God, Kevin, what are you doing here? What the bloody hell are you doing in my house?’

  In a split second Emily fought to realise that her father was no longer the man in her daydream, but here in reality, unexpected, shocking them all with the surprise of his return, and very angry. Never had she heard his voice so fierce. Never had she seen his face so contorted, almost to ugliness. While he shouted, Kevin and Fen leapt up simultaneously, startled as new flames on the fire.

  ‘Idle …’ Kevin held up his hands.

  ‘Oh, Idle …’ Fen clutched at the neck of her shirt, surreptitiously doing up the top button. Emily was forgotten. She remained quite still, watching. Her father, in the doorway, seemed to sag. He ran a hand through his troubled grey hair. With reluctant eyes he looked at his wife and Kevin.

  ‘I’m sorry, forgive me. I thought the arrangement, though … I thought the arrangement?’

  ‘It was,’ said Fen, quietly. ‘It was.’ She walked over to Idle, her back very straight, her face flaming. She stopped a couple of feet short of him. The music had come to an end. There was a moment’s absolute silence. Then Fen said :

  ‘I’m sorry, Idle. We broke the arrangement this afternoon.’

  Idle gave a kind of smile.

  ‘Well, arrangements get broken. I’m sorry I shouted. It was the shock … I wasn’t expecting.’

  ‘I’ll be on my way,’ said Kevin, moving towards the door. But the door was blocked by Fen and Idle.

  ‘It was the first time, honestly,’ Fen was saying. ‘Just tea … He was passing by. It’s a pity he has to be in Oxford so often.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Idle. ‘I can quite see the temptation.’

  ‘All the same, we’ve broken our word and I apologise.’ Kevin sounded more confident now Idle had calmed down. Idle straightened himself. His face had resumed its normal calm.

  ‘Well, that’s all right, old man. That’s all right, really. Might as well stay now you’re here – mightn’t he, darling? Dinner or something. Perhaps we better talk it all over a bit further.’