by Lissa Evans
The phone rang and she jumped. Fran answered it and handed it over. ‘Robin. Or Tom.’
‘Hi, Mum.’ It was Tom. ‘Where do you keep the sticking plaster?’
‘It’s in the bathroom cupboard, top shelf. Why? What have you done?’
‘Cut my hand.’ He sounded pathetic.
‘How?’
‘I dropped a glass.’
‘He was being a prat, Mum,’ shouted Robin, in the distance.
‘Well how bad is it?’
‘It’s about an inch long.’
‘Is it still bleeding?’
‘No, but I think there might be a piece of glass still in it.’ He sounded (as he always did when injured, or ill) about six years old.
‘Well hold it under the tap for a minute, and I’ll look at it when I get home.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
She put the phone down.
‘Emergency?’ asked Fran.
Iris shook her head. ‘He’s not exactly a stoic.’
‘Which one?’
‘Tom.’
Fran went to the fridge and took out another bottle. ‘You know, don’t mention it to the boys, but I still can’t tell them apart. I wish they’d get their hair cut differently.’ She uncorked the wine. ‘Where were we?’
Iris felt embarrassed. ‘I was going on about Dad. Sorry.’
‘No no, don’t apologize.’ Fran sloshed some more wine into her glass and sat forward keenly. ‘You were talking about his morals.’
‘Oh.’ The moment broken, she found herself suddenly reluctant to continue. Fran’s eager expression made her uncomfortable; it was as though she were listening to the plot of a soap opera. Iris herself had been the focus of enough gossip in the past – ‘fancy that happening to Iris of all people’ – to want to avoid doing the same to her father.
Fran saw her hesitation. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I’m being nosy, I know I am.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Iris. She felt mean, and smiled to soften the severity of the moment. ‘I think perhaps I need to mull it over for a while.’
‘Will you say anything to your dad?’
In her mind’s eye, Iris tried to construct a scene in which she and her father had a discussion about the presence of Mrs McHugh in his bedroom. ‘So, Dad, are you going to see her again or was that just a one-off?’ she’d ask casually, as she dried the dishes. Or ‘So, Dad, sex outside marriage – have you revised your position?’ as she emptied the contents of the pedal bin into the black plastic bag he was holding. Or on the phone: ‘Sorry I can’t come over on Thursday, it’s parents’ evening at the sixth form college. Incidentally, who made the first move, Dad? Did she pinch your bottom or did you ping her suspenders when she was helping you empty the boxroom?’
Fran was still waiting for her answer.
‘No,’ said Iris.
9
The glass bottom of the snail tank was no longer visible; there were now so many occupants that their shells formed a seamless cobblestone surface. Spencer nerved himself and dropped in a lettuce. For a few seconds it lay motionless; then with a gentle quivering it started to rotate slowly on the spot, dwindling horribly with every turn, and the air filled with the whispering champ of a hundred and thirty-seven sets of toothless gums. In less than a minute the last green shreds were just visible, drooping from the mouths of the slowest eaters, and all over the tank antennae waved in a desperate signal for more food.
Spencer retreated, fighting back nausea. The situation was out of control. Yesterday he’d emptied the lettuce section of his local supermarket in order to feed them; by next week he’d need to corner the European market.
The phone rang and he grabbed it.
‘Fran?’
‘Lo.’ Her voice was flat and rough.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Hungover. Peter just woke me up.’ She cleared her throat painfully. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Fran, I’ve got to do something about these snails. You’ve got to help me.’
There was a long pause. ‘Snails?’
‘You know, the African land snails. I used to have five and now I’ve got a million.’
‘Spence, it’s 9 a.m. on a Saturday.’
‘And it’s my only day off this week, I’ve got to do something about it today.’
‘God, Spence, I thought you’d killed them weeks ago.’
‘No. I know I should have but I didn’t.’ He heard a sigh. ‘I’m desperate, Fran. You should see them – it’s like something out of Dr Who.’
She cleared her throat again and said, ‘Hang on,’ and he heard the clunk of the phone being put on the table. He perched on the edge of the sofa and looked across at the tank. The glass walls appeared marbled from this distance; it was only when you were up close that the pattern resolved itself into a mosaic of flattened grey undersides and their personal trails of slime.
‘Right.’ Her voice was clearer, and possessed a crisp edge, just this side of crossness. He knew she had a mug of tea in her hand.
‘Good party was it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s why I got drunk. So, snails.’
‘I phoned my pet-shop man during the week but he says he doesn’t like snails, never stocks them. I phoned the zoo, but they weren’t interested. In fact they suggested they were probably an illegal import in the first place. Then I phoned Reptile –’
‘Spence,’ she said levelly.
‘What?’
‘They’ve got to die. There is no way out.’
‘Well I was thinking, what if I released them on some wasteground somewhere, wouldn’t they end up –’
‘No, Spence. God almighty, talk about affecting the ecosystem! It’s the Himalayan Balsam all over again, only mobile this time – in six weeks there’d be more snails than people, they’d be standing for mayor.’
‘So they’ve got to die.’
‘Yup.’
‘They’ve got to pay for their crime of being born snails.’
‘Spence, it’s not as if Mark was fond of them. They didn’t even have names.’
‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t like them,’ said Spencer, defensively. Though he couldn’t actually remember Mark saying anything at all about them, favourable or otherwise.
‘Oh, please, Spence,’ she said fervently, ‘let’s not have an argument about fucking gastropods at the crack of dawn on the day I’ve got to carry a double bed up three flights of stairs.’
‘What?’
‘Look, I’ve got to get a top-up.’ She disappeared again. While he waited, Spencer looked behind the magazine rack to check on Bill. He’d tried offering him a snail as a little snack, but Bill was sticking firmly to his diet of magazines. The tattered remnants of Hung and Heavy had been consigned to the bin a couple of weeks ago, but Bill had moved smoothly on to The Lancet with barely a change in jaw rhythm. He was there now, tackling the editorial section.
‘I’m back. Feeling better by the minute.’ There was a loud crunching noise. ‘Toasht,’ she explained, her mouth full.
‘What’s this about a double bed?’
‘Sylvie’s been kicked out of her flat, Peter’s found her another one in Wood Green and I’ve agreed to help her move.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Three-line whip. She can’t lift things.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because –’ Fran brought her mouth close to the phone ‘– because she’s a bit fragile,’ she hissed. ‘She’s in the house. That’s why I’m whispering.’
‘Not everybody can carry six sacks of manure with one hand, you know. Your standards are unrealistically high.’
‘No, really. She has to protect her wrists.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s got delicate wrists and she says that if she yeah, the snails, anyway, we ought to talk about the snails.’
‘Just come in?’
‘Yup.’
Spence
r grinned. ‘Tell me some more about her delicate wrists.’
‘No.’
‘Oh go on.’
‘No. Snails. Easiest, quickest way to kill them is by squashing them.’
‘What, a hundred and fifty of them?’
‘You could put them in a bin liner and use a mallet.’
‘That is such a disgusting image that I can’t even think about it.’
‘OK, then your best bet’s water – boiling for a quick death, warm with lots of detergent for a slower one. Of course, you could get some slug killer from the shops, but the effect’s much the same.’
Spencer was silent for a moment. He’d actually tried the boiling-water technique on a slug that he’d found outside the flats. The result had been truly horrible, the creature letting out a sort of fizzing scream before dying frothily.
‘Tell you what, Spence, I’ll come round during the week and do it myself.’
He was touched. ‘Thanks, Fran. Why don’t I give it a try and let you know the result.’
‘All right. Well don’t feel under pressure. Oh thanks, Sylvie.’
‘What’s she done?’
‘Made me some fresh tea.’
‘So strong enough to lift a teapot then?’ He heard a door close at the other end.
‘It’s not a very big one,’ whispered Fran.
‘So what was this terrible party you went to?’
She groaned at the memory. ‘Claud’s fortieth. We went to one of those Greek places where you smash plates on your head.’
‘Retsina?’
‘Don’t even mention the word.’
‘So why was it bad?’
‘Because –’ he could sense her framing the sentence ‘– well firstly because Claud made a speech in which he thanked everyone he’d ever met in his whole life and people were practically slitting their wrists by the end of it, and secondly because Barry cornered me by the bogs and said that he worshipped me and that he’d split up with his girlfriend because he couldn’t get me out of his mind.’
‘I told you.’
‘I know you did.’ They’d had a long conversation about Barry a couple of weeks before, during which Spencer had unswervingly diagnosed lovesickness.
‘Classic psychology – you abused him and then you were kind to him. Now he’ll never leave your side.’
‘Fantastic. Two blokes I can’t get rid of.’
‘A poet and an apprentice.’
‘A sad old hippy and a complete dipshit.’
‘How is the sad old hippy?’
‘Seems to have got stuck in north Germany. He keeps sending me photos of factory chimneys.’
‘It’s a classic eternal triangle, Fran. They’ll make a film out of it.’
‘There’s no one in Hollywood short enough to play me.’
‘Danny de Vito?’
‘Listen, mate, you’ve got snails to kill.’
It took him half an hour to transfer them into a bucket. The repulsive sequence of events – grip shell, wiggle shell, prod snail’s front end to loosen its grip until at last it peels free, trailing a handful of glistening threads – quickly became routine, and after a while he put on a tape to relieve the monotony. It was one of Mark’s, a home-made compilation he’d designed specifically to get himself into the mood for going out. It started with a string of slushy show tunes (having a bath, smoking a joint, ironing a shirt), then moved on to Motown (getting dressed, undressed, ironing a different shirt, putting it on, taking it off, putting the original shirt back on again), and ended with some red-hot soul (cockily admiring himself in front of the mirror, knocking back a shot of tequila, hitting town). Spencer had played it so many times since Mark died that it no longer made him cry and in fact he was feeling quite mellow by the time Gladys was taking the Midnight Train and the last snail had relinquished its hold on the glass. He plopped it into the bucket and turned his back on the mucoid disaster of the tank, and it was as he was crossing the living room towards the doom of the kitchen tap that the front door buzzed. He pressed the intercom button.
‘Hello?’
‘Helloo! Spence-a!’ The small, piercing voice was like a knitting needle in the ear.
‘Nina?’ he said stupidly, wondering not so much what she was doing here, as how she could possibly have reached the buzzer.
‘Hi, Spencer. Sorry we’re late, really sorry, we had to go back for a teddy.’ It was Nick’s voice that jerked him back to reality, instantly filling in the blank diary page at which he had gazed uneasily this morning, sure there was something he’d forgotten.
‘You hadn’t forgotten, had you? You’re looking a bit dazed.’
‘I remember writing it down somewhere but…’ No doubt it was on one of the scraps of paper – invitations, appointments, reminders – that littered the top of the phone table and the floor beneath and which he daily intended to organize.
‘Had you arranged to do something else?’ Nick held Nina in mid-air, like a parcel that had yet to be signed for.
‘No, it’s fine.’ He held out his arms and accepted a bag of toys and the chunky figure of his god-daughter, before Nick disappeared back to the car for more supplies.
‘Hello mush.’
She wriggled round in his arms so that she could look directly at him. She had a round face, and marmite-coloured eyes behind pink-rimmed spectacles.
‘I’m Nina,’ she said, a little indignantly.
‘Sorry. I meant Nina. And who am I?’
‘You’re Spence-a.’ She ground an emphatic forefinger into his chest.
Nick wheeled the buggy into the living room. ‘We’ll only be a couple of hours. We’d take her with us but you know what IKEA’s like on a Saturday – she’d have to stay in the buggy the whole –’
‘It’s fine. Really.’
‘OK.’ Nick’s perpetually anxious expression relaxed a little. ‘Giant teddy coming over.’ He slalomed a huge blue bear into the arms of his daughter, and Spencer’s field of vision was reduced to a narrow slit. He shifted the solid little package in his arms.
‘What’s your teddy called?’
‘Teddy.’ She leaned over and bit one of the bear’s ears.
‘What do you want to do while you’re here?’
‘Look at the photo book,’ she said, her mouth full.
‘Spencer –’ said Nick, tensely ‘– have you…?’ he raised his eyebrows, by way of finishing the sentence.
‘Yes, I’ve taken it out.’
‘It’s not that I disapprove or anything, it’s just that she kept talking about them in nursery, and you know how people –’
‘It’s gone. It’s in a drawer. Honestly.’ The man with nipple rings had been well in the background of a perfectly innocuous beach shot, but Nina had spotted him immediately.
‘Fine.’ Nick nodded. ‘I don’t want to be the fussy parent but, you know…’
‘Hey, Nina, what about feeding the animals?’ suggested Spencer. ‘You like doing that, don’t you?’
‘The big spider.’
‘Is he the one you like best?’
‘Yes.’ She and the bear swung round to check on her favourite and there was a clatter as the blue legs whacked the top of the lizard’s tank.
‘I’ve got it.’ Nick restored the lid to its usual position.
‘Bloody bear,’ said Nina.
‘Now then,’ said Nick, warningly, ‘we don’t say that, do we?’ He hefted his daughter from Spencer’s arms and lowered her to the floor.
‘Bloody bear,’ said Nina again, to test the effect.
Nick shook his head repressively. ‘It’s Niall’s fault,’ he said to Spencer, sotto voce. ‘I keep telling him but he claims it’s cultural so he can’t help it. You know his whole family swears? Even his granny uses the –’ he leaned forward and mouthed ‘– f word the entire time. It’s a nightmare when we visit, and of course I’m the one who has to be the bad-language policeman, doling out the disapproval. It’s not a role I enjoy…’ He folded his arms pr
issily, looking rather like Hilda Ogden. Spencer bit back a smile.
‘No swearwords here,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
‘Thanks. Hear that, Nina?’ She gave him an unfathomable look. ‘Why don’t you go and say hello to the spider while me and Spencer have a little chat.’
‘OK.’ She moved away a couple of steps. ‘Bloody spider,’ she said, very, very softly.
With a visible effort Nick ignored her. ‘So, Spencer. How are you doing?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Are you?’ Nick looked at him searchingly. ‘Are you looking after yourself?’
‘Yes Mum.’
‘You know what I mean. We never see you now. I wish we could get you out of the flat sometimes – we miss you, you know.’ He curled an affectionate hand round Spencer’s neck. ‘I mean, what do you do in here of an evening?’
‘Oh you know – sleep, study, watch TV.’ Lie on the sofa. That was the correct answer; lie on the sofa with his mind revolving around a single fixed point, a dismal satellite stuck perpetually on the dark side.
‘And look after Mark’s zoo, I suppose.’ Nick rolled his eyes.
‘They’re no trouble,’ said Spencer, trying not to think of the hundred and thirty-seven occupants of death row, sitting in their bucket in the kitchen.
‘And the list? How’s the list going?’
‘Oh.’ He could hardly bring himself to answer. ‘I’m still a bit behind on that. I did the Changing of the Guard last week.’
‘What was that like?’
‘Freezing.’ He had got there late and seen nothing but a row of heads and an occasional bobbing bearskin. ‘I don’t know that it really counted. I might have to do it again.’
Nick looked troubled. ‘You know, Spencer –’ He paused awkwardly.
‘What?’
‘Well… it’s just that the list doesn’t really seem to be… helping you. I mean, you’ve given it a good shot and I honestly don’t think that Mark would’ve minded if you didn’t do it all.’
