Widows & Orphans

by Michael Arditti

  ‘This one may be a wind-up. It’s from a bloke who asks: “Does no one else share my horror on observing an elderly member of the fair sex stooping to pick up her dog’s doings in the park?”’

  ‘Doings?’

  ‘His word, not mine.’

  ‘What colour ink?’

  ‘It’s typed. On blue Basildon Bond paper with an embossed address.’

  ‘Check the name with the electoral register. If it tallies, run it. What about Mr Jonley? Don’t tell me there’s nothing from him this week!’

  ‘Two. One asking whether queue jumping has become a permanent feature of Francombe life and the other deploring the rudeness of bus drivers on the 101 route. Which should I go for?’

  ‘You decide. I can’t stand the excitement.’

  ‘Here’s one that’s more to your taste. A letter complaining about letters of complaint. It ends: “When will Francombe learn to be more tolerant?”’

  ‘I love it! Let’s make it Letter of the Week. No feedback from my leader?’

  ‘None that you’d want to use. Several objecting (if that’s not too mild a word) to your remark about the dog. Here’s one: “Shame on you for suggesting that an innocent creature who never harmed anyone” – I thought it’d bitten several ramblers but never mind – “is less precious than a dirty tramp whose way of life is an affront to the entire town…” Shall I go on?’

  ‘I get the gist. Send over the proof when you’re done.’

  Duncan left the room, dismayed that once again the communal conversation had descended into name-calling. Rather than return to his office, he went downstairs to the archives, seeking solace as so often in the large leather-bound volumes lining the shelves. As reverently as a priest lifting up the Gospel, he took down the volume for the second half of 1913, turning to the issue of 20 November in search of a suitable item for next week’s ‘On This Day’ column. He found it at once in the front-page report of the suffragettes arrested for daubing red paint on the statue of Queen Victoria. Quite apart from its inherent interest, the story gave him a sense of validation. Even if the Mercury no longer played a defining role in Francombe’s present, it was the principal repository of its past.

  Refreshed, he went back to his office and embarked on his long-deferred letter of apology to Sam Vernham. When, after weeks of rumour and speculation, the fire investigators announced that a melted paraffin stove and scraps of bedding had been found in the charred shell of the Winter Garden, their chief had laid the blame for the inferno on vagrants who had broken through the security fence to seek shelter. While resolved to keep an open mind, Duncan thought it a fitting moment to celebrate the service’s achievements and arranged for Brian to spend three days shadowing a crew at the Oswald Street Fire Station. The subsequent feature, complete with photograph of the intrepid reporter sliding down a pole, contained a faulty link, directing readers wanting to learn more not to www.eastsussexfire.co.uk but to www.eastsussex.fire.co.uk, the site of a male strip troupe who promised to ‘light your fire’ and ‘send the temperature soaring’ at ‘hen nights, birthday parties, girls’ nights out and other special occasions’. Vernham who, unknown to Duncan, had been fighting for years to have the offending website shut down, had taken the misplaced dot as deliberate mockery and threatened to sue.

  Cloyed with humble pie, Duncan turned to the window, where his gaze fell on a solitary figure on the far side of the road. His taut body and shuffling feet would have made him a sinister presence even if his face had not been obscured. Catching sight of Duncan he pulled down his hood, revealing that he was in his late teens or early twenties, with the distinctive mixture of aggression and vulnerability that shorn hair brought to soft features. Lifting a hand from his anorak pocket he beckoned to Duncan, who stepped swiftly out of view. If he wanted to speak to him, why hadn’t he rung the bell? Was he afraid of being recognised? Had he read – or, more likely, been told about – last week’s leader and come to sell inside information on one of the gangs? Eager to find out, Duncan walked to the door, only to double back and, with an instinct that shamed him even as he surrendered to it, placed his wallet in his desk.

  Pausing at Sheila’s door, he debated whether to tell her where he was going, ‘just in case’, but anticipating a fraught exchange about risks and knives and psychopaths designed, he suspected, to titillate herself as much as to safeguard him, he carried on without a word, exited the building and crossed the road, where the young man greeted him with grim satisfaction.

  ‘I knew you’d come.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I have powers, see.’

  ‘Not really, no.’ He feared that the warning he had attributed to Sheila would prove to be timely.

  ‘I wanted you, and here you are.’

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘No one knows me. I know you, though. You’re Mr Neville,’ he said with strange formality.

  ‘Guilty as charged.’

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t want to mess with me, mate. I’m dangerous; I’ve been through the courts.’

  The claim made him seem all the more vulnerable. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘What’s that? No, I ain’t cold.’ He unzipped his anorak to reveal a flimsy T-shirt covering a puny chest.

  ‘Well, I am. So I’m going back indoors.’

  ‘Wait! I’m talking to you. Ain’t you ashamed of yourself?’

  ‘What for?’ Duncan asked, more perplexed than ever.

  ‘The way you treat women of course,’ he replied, as if it were self-evident.

  Duncan ran through a quick list of the women in his life: Ellen; Linda; Adele; Alison; Sheila; Rowena. With the possible exception of the last, he could not imagine any of them having denounced him. ‘Do you mean in one of our articles?’ he asked, although it would be hard to envisage a less prurient paper. They had barely featured a swimsuit all summer.

  ‘I’m talking about Mary.’

  ‘Mary? Mary who? Do you mean Mary the cleaner?’

  ‘Is that all she is to you? A cleaner? To scrub your floors and pick up your rubbish and … and … and …’

  He broke off, unable either to think of any other domestic tasks or to contemplate Mary undertaking them. ‘Who are you?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘Jordan!’ The question was answered by Mary herself, who raced down the road towards them. ‘Jordan,’ she said, fighting for breath, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘I told him – didn’t I tell you? – that if he didn’t treat you right, I’d kill him.’

  Although it was the first time that death had been mentioned, Duncan thought it wiser not to quibble.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Neville,’ Mary said. ‘Jordan, love, you shouldn’t have come here. Let’s go.’

  ‘You know him then, Mary?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you later. I’m really sorry. Really. Come on, love.’ She put her arm round Jordan’s shoulders and dragged him away. As he went, Jordan turned back and pointed two fingers at his own eyes and then at Duncan, the effect undermined by his squint.

  Duncan returned to his desk and the letter of apology, but the curious encounter preoccupied him. The name Jordan struck a chord and he wondered whether he were a nephew or cousin of Mary’s or, given his reference to the courts, an associate of her son Norman. He felt a pang of guilt, aggravated by Jordan’s charge, that she might have mentioned him one day while cleaning and he had drowned out her voice as if it were the drone of the Hoover. He impatiently awaited her arrival but when she knocked on his door, she was so on edge that he was obliged to spend several minutes assuring her that he did not hold her in any way responsible for Jordan’s threats. He insisted that she sit down and would have offered her a cup of tea had he not feared that she would see it as the prelude to bad news.

  ‘He says I’m his muse,’ she finally conceded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s like the inspiration for his
painting.’

  ‘I know,’ Duncan said, more confused than ever.

  ‘Yes, of course you do. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, I am.’ Suddenly everything fell into place. Henry had mentioned a young man doing community service in the church hall. ‘He’s the one painting the Garden of Eden.’

  ‘I’m his Eve,’ she said with a blend of bashfulness and pride. Although without precedent in his experience of Eden, Duncan saw no reason why Eve should not be a fleshy earth mother as much as a willowy Venus. Even so, he struggled with the image of a naked Mary before realising that, as a graffiti artist, Jordan would in all probability have used caricature. ‘I’ve always thought it must be the most wonderful thing in the world if you can paint,’ Mary said. ‘But I never realised how wonderful till I watched Jordan. The look on his face when he’s working. It’s like he can tell everything about you and at the same time you’re not there. I’ve never seen that look before except…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Perhaps on Bob’s face when … you know, we were first married.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see the result. How long till it’s finished?’

  ‘It’s finished now. At least I think so. Jordan’s never satisfied.’

  ‘The quest for perfection.’

  ‘Sometimes I look at it for hours on end and I make out I’m looking at all the details, but I’m really looking at me. Isn’t that dreadful?’ The glint in her eyes belied the question. ‘He’s made me so beautiful. And I don’t know how. It’s the same face I’ve always had. And the same body. A body I didn’t even like showing to the doctor. Now it’s up there for everyone to see. And I’m not afraid and I’m not ashamed.’

  ‘He really has put you in Eden,’ Duncan said, moved.

  ‘I told him you’d understand.’

  ‘But why did he target me?’ Duncan asked, as the memory of Jordan’s tirade flooded back.

  ‘That’s my fault. I’m really sorry. I told him you were always putting your foot down, making me come in early and stay late. I had to, else he never would have given me a moment’s peace. He says he can only work if I’m there. But I have people to see to at home.’

  ‘Surely he appreciates that? Doesn’t he have a mother of his own?’

  A shadow crossed Mary’s face and for a moment Duncan feared that he had misconstrued their relationship. ‘His mother has MS,’ she said. ‘She’s in a wheelchair. He has to do everything for her, even things that … well, I wouldn’t want my Nick or my Norman doing them for me. He hasn’t had it easy, poor love. His dad buggered off when he was a kid. He’s been her main carer ever since.’

  ‘Henry – Father Henry – said he had trouble at home, but he didn’t elaborate.’ Once again Duncan found himself in a world of stark polarities. No matter how serious the domestic problems among his acquaintance, they would never land any of them in court.

  ‘All the stress meant that he fell back at school, except for his art. He always came top in art. Then he left and he didn’t even have the art lessons any more. He had nothing: nowhere to paint; nowhere to set down all his thoughts. That’s why he wrote his tag – that’s like his signature – all over the shelters. He knows he’s been given a second chance. He’s done twice the hours of his community order. He’s still on probation for nine months. He has to pay off his fine and make sure he keeps his nose clean or else the prison sentence will be activated. But the vicar’s promised to bring people to see the picture, people who’ll help him get to college. He’s worried what’ll happen to his mum, but I’ve told him how she wouldn’t want to hold him back. Now he has to think of himself first.’

  Duncan was suddenly conscious of the time. Thanking Mary for putting him in the picture, which made her laugh, he prepared to leave work, first looking in on the reporters’ room where Ken, still waiting for the Director of Housing to return his call, informed him that Jake was at the Ley Park bowls tournament, Brian at the Council Licensing Committee, Rowena interviewing a teenager who had delivered his baby on the kitchen floor, and – he added censoriously – Stewart gone home early to oversee the installation of a new Jacuzzi. Dismayed by Ken’s tone, Duncan hurried out and popped his head round Sheila’s door, but his ‘quick goodnight’ was predictably drawn out as she announced that she was off to see her mother in Castlemaine, where there was great excitement among the more lucid female residents ever since the arrival of Dragon Greenslade had doubled the number of available men.

  Duncan unlocked Rocinante and drove to Granary Lane, a journey he could have made blindfold and which, gazing misty-eyed at the well-loved landmarks, he rather wished that he had. Parking outside Swallows’ Nest, he fought the familiar urge to scratch out Swallows’ and replace it with Cuckoo’s, in a nod to Derek. While he had encouraged Linda to stay on in the house so as to minimise the disruption to Jamie, he had been surprised by Derek’s compliance. He longed to know – although after so many years it was impossible to ask – whether Linda had told him of the months they spent when first married knocking down the scullery wall and extending the conservatory. Had a childhood of wearing Geoffrey’s hand-me-downs made him doubt his own taste? Apart from the miniature golfer teeing off on the lawn, its only obvious expression was in the shelving unit in the sitting room that held his home cinema.

  The door was opened by Gabriela, the Argentinian au pair, whose request for Durex, which turned out to be Spanish for sellotape, had become a staple of Derek’s comic repertoire. Ever uneasy with Duncan’s nebulous role in the household, she led him into the sitting room where Rose was watching a cartoon featuring psychedelic elephants. Her neck was twisted and her arms and legs were flailing, which he had once compared to the fluttering of a butterfly but which now looked more like the death throes of a prisoner in an electric chair. She seemed to smile when she saw him, although with her mouth in spasm it was hard to tell. After kissing her cheek and stroking her tousled hair, he stood watching a short sequence in which the elephants, now a nuclear family, perched on stools around a dinner table, looking as awkward as Rose herself. Respecting Linda’s demand that no one should talk down to her (which wasn’t easy when she was four years old and her head level with his thigh), he crouched beside her and explained the difference between African and Indian elephants, whereupon she slowly, almost imperceptibly, shifted her gaze back to the screen.

  ‘Just wait till they all go to the seaside. That’s the best bit, isn’t it, angel?’ Linda said as she walked into the room. Duncan stood up to kiss her cheek, which was less yielding than Rose’s. ‘I’m afraid Jamie’s not home yet,’ she added. ‘I’ve left two messages on his mobile but he hasn’t replied.’

  ‘Never mind, I expect I’m early. Besides, it gives me a chance to catch up with Rose.’

  ‘We’ve spent the afternoon gardening, haven’t we, angel?’ Having named her before her diagnosis, Linda had been doubly delighted by Rose’s affinity with flowers.

  ‘Was it fun?’ Duncan asked Rose, who gurgled and dribbled with pleasure. Linda adjusted the wheelchair tray, bringing the communication book closer to Rose, who pointed the middle finger of her right hand to a smiley face above the word ‘happy’.

  ‘You were happy!’ Duncan said, at which Rose nodded her head.

  ‘What did you do?’

  Rose laboriously turned the laminated pages until she reached one marked Garden. Like everyone who came within her orbit, Duncan was familiar with her book, its first page of key words (I, it, he, she, you, mine, Mummy, Daddy, Jamie, Craig, drink, eat, like, see, feel, hurt, play, want, help, listen, good, bad, happy, sad, big, little) followed by pages relating to specific topics, such as Family, House, School, Stories, Food, Clothes and Television. Each time he asked her a question, she would point to one or more symbols, building up a sentence for him to repeat, whereupon she would either nod her head if he had interpreted correctly or shake it if he had misunderstood. He asked her what she had seen and she pointed in turn to Worm, eat and Butterfly, an improbable sequence that,
observing the etiquette, he nonetheless repeated. ‘You saw a worm eating a butterfly?’ he said, replacing his scepticism with excitement. As her tongue rolled about and her head wobbled like a toy dog on a dashboard, he was uncertain whether she were nodding or shaking, smiling or frowning, and felt deeply ashamed.

  ‘Don’t be a silly sausage, Uncle Duncan,’ Linda said, gently lifting Rose’s hand and directing Duncan to Bird, drink, and Pond, in each case one symbol to the right.

  ‘You saw a bird drinking from a pond? Of course. I’m such a ninny,’ Duncan said stiltedly.

  ‘It’s a new page and we haven’t fully got the hang of it yet,’ Linda said. ‘Who made it for you, angel?’

  Rose pointed to one of the stock symbols on the left-hand side of the page.

  ‘Daddy!’ Linda said. This time Rose’s smile was unequivocal. ‘Though if I were to ask her who read it with her,’ she added under her breath, ‘it would always be Mummy.’

  Duncan wondered how to respond to another hint that all was not well in Linda’s marriage. There was a time when, despite his protestations, nothing would have pleased him more than for her to admit that their divorce had been a mistake and ask him to take her back, not just for Jamie’s sake but for Rose’s. That time, however, had passed.

  ‘I saw Ellen this week,’ Linda said.

  ‘Don’t you see her every week?’ Duncan asked, startled by the mention of her name at this juncture.

  ‘Must you always nitpick?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘In fact I’ve seen her twice. She’s conducting a series of language assessments on Rose for the LEA.’

  ‘How’s she doing … Rose, I mean?’

  ‘Excellently I think – no, I know. Mummy isn’t worried about her clever little girl, is she, angel?’ she asked, drawing no response from Rose, whose gaze remained fixed on the TV.

  Rose would turn five in June and start primary school in September. That she was the first child with cerebral palsy ever to attend Ley Park nursery owed everything to the tenacity of her mother, who was now limbering up for the even tougher fight to keep her in mainstream education. The local authority wanted to send her to Haycock Road where she would receive customised care, but Linda was adamant that she should not be confined to a ‘special-needs ghetto’.