Fly in the Ointment

by Anne Fine

  A car swept past, but not before I’d seen Guy stick out a thumb to try to stop it. Hastily strapping Larry in his seat, I took no notice of the arrows telling me which way to leave the car park, and cruised up behind him. I wound down the window. ‘What’s happened to the bike?’

  ‘Buggered. I’ve just been trying to start the bloody thing and sod all happens.’

  His cheeks were burning. He was clearly close to tears of frustration.

  ‘Hop in,’ I said. ‘We’ll take you.’

  Out came a little flash of petulance, Malachy-style. ‘No point. I’d cut it fine in any case, to see those bloody turkeys. We’ll never make it.’

  ‘Just get in, Guy.’

  Given the circumstances, anyone else would have climbed in the front. But even at a time like this, Guy took the place by Larry. ‘Hey, fella! How come you get that comfy seat with straps and I just get to sit on this old boring flat bit?’ All the way there, they played some stupid little slapping-hands game while I drove fast. He’d panicked quite unnecessarily. By ten to three we’d reached the stable entrance. A wrinkled ancient in a sentry box took his time finding Guy’s name on a list, then put a tick beside it and pressed the gate switch.

  ‘Good security.’ Guy nodded so proprietorially I knew that in his dreams he was already wearing the stables’ dark-green livery. ‘Some of the racers here are worth the earth.’

  We were waved through. A long, long shady drive finally spilled us out in sunlight. In front lay a wide stable block with elegant white-painted trim. Behind it was another and, for all we could see, there were more behind that.

  Guy stared, appalled. ‘Jesus! I knew the place was huge. But . . .’

  I pointed to a leafy glade that bore the sign Visitors’ Parking. ‘We’ll meet you there.’

  Guy hurried off, and I took Larry round the other way to look for horses. Security stayed tight. Twice I was challenged in that urbane, ‘Can I help you?’ fashion, and had to explain our presence. I asked the third man who stopped us, ‘Would it be better if we waited in the car?’ and he denied it. Still, after we’d taken a moment to admire a couple more of those noble nodding heads, I thought it wiser to steer Larry back.

  A shortcut lay between two low-roofed buildings.

  ‘Lolo, look! Ducks!’

  Larry was right, so we went closer, towards the slope down to a little pond. Just as we reached the corner, I heard a rising babble. A door behind us opened and several children Larry’s age rushed out to the play equipment in a fenced yard.

  Swings. Sandpit. Tricycles. A climbing frame. Even a little merry-go-round with three painted horses.

  Forlornly, Larry stood and watched. After a moment, the young woman supervising this outdoor playtime happened to turn. ‘Oh, hi! You’ve come to have a look? I’ll let you in.’

  Better not, I was thinking to myself. Best to explain. But already she was reaching for the safety bar. The gate swung open. It did occur to me that Guy might be another half an hour, or even more. So I changed tack and tried to look as if it were a sensible decision for someone who had brought a young man to an interview to spend her time checking the creche arrangements on the site.

  Holding my hand more tightly, Larry allowed himself to be led forward.

  ‘Safe fence,’ I said approvingly.

  ‘We’re very strict about it. Toddlers and duckponds don’t mix any more than children and horses.’ She hunkered down to Larry. ‘It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name, sweetie-pie?’

  ‘Larry,’ I told her, since he clearly wasn’t up to it.

  She nodded, keeping her eye on Larry. ‘And do Mummy and Daddy work here?’

  There are some things it isn’t worth explaining. ‘His dada might. With luck.’

  Larry paid no attention. His eyes were following the one empty horse on the small merry-go-round.

  ‘Fancy a ride?’

  He nodded, and she took his hand and led him over. ‘You hang on tight,’ she warned, lifting him into place. ‘Georgie can push quite fast.’ She turned to the small mite in pigtails who had been running round and round, holding the bar. ‘Now take it easy, Georgie, till you’re sure he’s safe.’

  She turned to me. ‘Go on,’ she told me. ‘Go inside and take a look. Even without the children in the room you’ll see the sort of place we’re running here. So take your time. I’ll keep an eye on Larry.’

  I went in.

  This is the moment, said the Prosecution, when I decided. When I looked round that lovely light and airy room. That was the moment.

  What utter crap! The world is full of pleasant nurseries for children Larry’s age. If that had been the lure, I could have buckled down to half a dozen courses of action to get the same result. Remortgaged the house. Persuaded Trevor to lend me a stack of money. Even changed my job and embarked on a bit of embezzling. All I was thinking about in there among the painting easels and the huge bright toy bins was how nice a place it was. And what an awful shame that my new responsibilities would stop me bringing Larry up here every now and again for just a couple of hours to see his dada and enjoy the nursery.

  No. He would have to come full-time on any day we chose, and even so it would mean getting up at dawn. But it would still be worth it if it stopped this child shifting from who he ought to be to someone I could no longer salvage.

  And so, of course, I was absorbed in thinking about Malachy when, through the window, I saw Guy making his way to the car park. Hurrying out, I called him over. Clearly there was some knack to lifting the safety bar across the gate, so we spoke over the fence.

  ‘How did it go? Any luck?’

  He looked quite rattled. ‘Well, yes. I suppose so.’

  ‘So you’re still in the running?’

  ‘Actually, Lo, I think they might have given me the job.’

  ‘You think?’

  He stood, bemused and anxious.

  ‘Guy, what did they say?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I remember is them finishing up by asking me if I could start on Monday.’

  ‘So you have got it.’

  He still looked anguished. ‘Do you really think so? Maybe they only meant—’

  ‘Oh, nonsense! What else did they talk about? Did they talk money?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t remember. But it was more than I get now. And I get a place on site.’

  ‘What, free?’

  ‘I think so. I think they said I get my own shower room but have to share the kitchen with some of the other lads.’

  ‘What about the hours?’

  ‘Not brilliant,’ he admitted. ‘But then again, I’m sort of on probation. Right now they want me to put in time early in the morning, exercising horses, mucking out and stuff. Then I’m to start again in the late afternoon when all the kids who get to take private lessons pitch up after school.’

  It sounded rather good to me. ‘So you’ll have quite a block of time off free each day?’

  ‘Except at weekends. Then I’m working solid.’

  That didn’t bother me. I made my pitch. ‘If I could find some way of getting him here, could you put Larry in this creche?’

  For the first time, he looked around him. ‘Here?’

  ‘Why not? It’s for employees, isn’t it? And you’ll be an employee. Larry would enjoy it. And you’d still get to see him.’

  ‘Can I afford it?’

  ‘It can’t be all that much. And I could help you out.’

  We stood and watched as Larry gingerly lifted a hand from the bright-yellow mane he’d been clutching so tightly, and then, with growing confidence, waved at us both in triumph.

  ‘Oh, Lois,’ Guy asked. ‘Do you really think things might be coming right for me?’

  ‘Why not?’ I said, and thought about the countless times that Mrs Kuperschmidt had tried to comfort me by banging on about all the young people she’d known who’d finally pulled together a second chance at life, and thrived again.

  We stood together quietly, still watching
Larry. It was the exact right moment for the sun to do my bidding – slide out from behind a cloud to catch the coloured rinse I had been mixing, week by week, into the child’s shampoo. (‘Washes out grey.’ But could it wash out doubt?)

  I had to feel complacent. I had done a brilliant job. The little mop was flashing glints of perfect marmalade.

  ‘He is your son,’ I said to Guy. ‘How can you even question it? Look at his hair!’

  27

  ONLY ONE FLY in the ointment. Janie Gay. She lost her temper. ‘Fucking well nothing to do with you!’

  ‘He needs a bit of company.’

  ‘Oh, bog off home. It’s not your business.’

  ‘I know. But I just happened to come across the place. And it is perfect. He could sleep over at my house once or twice a week and I could drive him out there early, before I go to work, and pick him up after. It would give you a break.’ I took a risk. ‘After all, he does spend an awful lot of time with me anyhow.’

  ‘He fucking well does not!’

  I backed off hastily. ‘Well, you know. Quite a bit. And I thought you’d be keen on the idea.’

  ‘Well, you thought wrong.’

  I did a bit of grovelling in her doorway, and then I vanished. Give her a couple of days, I thought. Leave her to deal with her own son without a break and she’d soon change her tune. I took the chance to spend a couple of days away in Pickstone, and helped Guy move his few possessions into his room in Stablelads’ House. I didn’t mention what had happened back at Limmerton Road when I’d suggested the creche. The lad was nervous enough about his new job. I didn’t want to add another worry. Each time he asked me, ‘Do you really think that she’ll let Larry come to nursery all the way up here?’ I waved away his concern. ‘Of course she will. I just have to pick the right moment to ask her.’

  And I suppose things might have worked out that way in the end. They might. But something happened to throw me off the primrose path of patience. I’d reasons enough to want things settled. After all, in fewer than ten days I was supposed to be back in the office full-time. My rented house would be swept out from under me a fortnight after that. And when she saw the two of us carrying Guy’s boxes across the courtyard, the nice young woman from the creche had called us over. ‘There’s only one place left until I get more staff. Shall I keep that for Larry?’

  But I can swear that it was something else that tipped the balance. It was the afternoon that Janie Gay finally cracked – almost a whole week later – and dragged Larry to my door. ‘You take the little shit. He’s been an arse all day. He’s lucky that I haven’t killed him. You claim to like him so much. You sodding have him!’

  And off she stormed. I led him to the armchair and washed his maggot-white face. I made him toasted cheese – his favourite food – and let him watch cartoons until his painful hiccups stopped.

  I switched the television off. ‘Coming to talk to me?’

  He shook his head. I gave him a brief reassuring cuddle and left him in the armchair with Squeezy Owl, an engine and some books. Quietly I went back to work. Usually Larry found the rustle of my papers so soothing that often I’d lift my head from inputting some firm’s accounts to find he’d fallen asleep. On that particular afternoon I just pressed on, thinking I’d work a little longer before I took him off to bathe the sticky salt of tears out of his hair. Sometimes, as he sat in the deep warm water, building foam castles out of the bubbles I’d whipped up as a treat, he would begin to talk about whatever it was that started the fuss. ‘The light was off and I couldn’t turn the handle,’ or ‘Wilbur was stamping on Squeezy Owl, and she was laughing.’ He was so quiet sitting in the armchair, it was a while before I realized what he was doing. He’d pushed the books aside and picked up the battered advent calendar I had been given by one of our clients a couple of Christmases before, and which he loved. For what seemed to be the thousandth time, the child was opening and closing the little windows on the coloured card.

  Whispering.

  Suddenly suspicious, I slid back from the table and moved as quietly as I could till I was right behind. What was he saying? Even as I leaned over to listen, Larry was prising another window open to peer at the picture beneath.

  ‘My house.’

  I waited, barely breathing, as with his little thumb and finger he clumsily lifted the next flap. ‘My pussy.’ Then the next. ‘My toys.’

  Creeping around, I tried to read his face. Could it be wonder? After a year or more of his devoted fingerings, could that old battered card still seem to him a magical swirl of glittering bright colours?

  Not wonder, no. I watched that child laying his finger on the cosy fireside, the shining presents heaped up on the hearth, the steaming cups, the plump, contented cat curled on the cushion, and had to turn away. It seemed for just a moment so intolerable that someone his age – too young by far to give a jot for any calendar festivity – could be so obviously consumed with longing.

  For that was what was on his face. Longing. Here was a boy who, if he could, would crawl inside a tattered advent calendar to be in that safe, cheery room.

  Christ knows, a simple enough wish. A happy home.

  I blew my nose. I gave the child his bath. I took him back and told the usual lies to Janie Gay. Larry was ‘sorry’. I thought he might be coming down with a fever. He was very hot. That would excuse his behaviour. He had the sense to keep his eyes closed and she let me carry him up the stairs, into his bedroom. I shook the ghastly shark-ridden coverlet more warmly over him, whispered goodnight and shut the door behind me.

  Safely back home, I started work again. But something was wrong. No matter how many times I ran the figures, the columns on the screen refused to come right. Simply to clear my head, I pulled a sheet of paper towards me and drew a line as usual down the middle, from top to bottom.

  And that is how it happened, I suppose. Something to do with thinking in debits and credits. The credit side filled up nicely. Poor Larry would be so much happier. The new responsibility would settle Guy for life (though he would have to get rid of the motorbike; I would insist on that). I could go back to the office. And back to Pickstone. Larry could come to me at weekends when Guy was working all hours. Larry would love the nursery. And no one on the street would ever have to hear that awful woman screeching ‘Larr-eee!’ ever again.

  And on the debit side?

  I sat there, sucking my pencil. If I am scrupulously honest, I couldn’t think of a thing. Even when I successfully dredged up some airy-fairy reason like ‘She is a human being,’ I’d find my pencil drifting to the other side and see I’d written down some counter-argument along the very same theme: ‘One fewer scrounger off the state.’ (I had the decency to cross that out.)

  So there it lay – the most telling of indictments: a neatly written list of all the reasons why the world would be a better place if Janie Gay were gone. A weight of misery and irritation and other people’s efforts that could be all so easily expunged.

  And on the other side – nothing. A total blank. This is the point, of course, at which the rest of the world falls back on all those lofty Thou Shalt Nots sprinkled from heaven. People are quick enough to drop their hypocrisy as soon as the deed is done. ‘I can’t say I’m sorry he’s gone.’ ‘No great loss there.’ ‘Bit of a blessing all round, if you want my opinion.’ But still they’d baulk if, two or three days earlier, you’d asked them to pitch in and help with the solution.

  No. I knew I’d be on my own.

  So I chose Saturday 29 November. (No point in hanging about.) I bought a sheaf of gift vouchers from one of the shops that Janie Gay could never pass without a wistful scowl. ‘Too sodding posh for me. I couldn’t even afford a pair of their socks.’

  Not daring to doctor the vouchers, I put them in a separate shiny envelope on which I printed ‘Expiry date: 30 November’. I took them round. ‘Look what I found at the bottom of a drawer.’

  She pulled the vouchers out of the envelope and fanned them through. ‘
Bully for you!’ she said sourly.

  ‘I thought you might want to use them.’

  She gave me a suspicious look. But in her scheme of things, of course, I was still trying to crawl my way back into her good books after our little tiff about the nursery. I saw her weighing her response almost as carefully as I’d weighed up the problem. On the one hand, the pleasure of shoving the vouchers back in my face. And on the other –

  ‘All right. I’ll take them.’

  She flicked through once again, checking that the amount was what she’d thought and made the bargain worthwhile. And clearly even Janie Gay could not disguise the fact that she was pleased because she said, ‘Thanks, Lois.’

  ‘Thanks, Lois’? This is, perhaps, what Mrs Kuperschmidt is getting at when she suggests that I should think about the choices I made. After all, this was the very first thank-you that I had ever had from Janie Gay. Should I have tried to build on it? To see it as a ray of hope, a stepping stone to improvement, a portent of a better future for every single one of us?

  Oh, yes! And we’d have all grown beards down to our feet waiting for paradise. ‘Now,’ I reminded her. ‘Just don’t forget the shop doesn’t open on Sunday so I’m afraid today’s the very last day that you can use them.’

  I waited.

  Sure enough, her next words were: ‘You’ll have to look after Larry.’

  So I did. And I got busy. First I settled him in front of a film I knew he loved so much he couldn’t put on Pause. I clattered round the kitchen to give him the impression that I was still about, then took the purple key and slid next door. I’m not a star on wires in a house, but it would take an idiot not to be able to find a place behind the furniture where someone’s phone line can be razored in two. Neatly I mopped up the almost invisible flakes of skirting-board paint with a damp finger, and pushed the cupboard back in place.