Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  ‘So he must have told you about Gordon. Talked about … that day.’

  ‘Yes. He remembers it all down to the tiniest detail.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘The coat he was wearing and the headlines in the newspaper he’d gone to buy; how he felt as he was searching for change to phone your mother.’

  ‘And us? Me and Tessa? Does he talk about us?’

  She hesitated. ‘Sometimes.’

  But Lewis knew she was only being kind.

  It was bitterly cold. The daytime temperature didn’t rise above forty degrees Fahrenheit for ten consecutive days. It appeared that Dick Swinburne was coming back from taking breadcrumbs to the bird table when he caught the sole of his built-up shoe against the path edging. He fell heavily, breaking his hip and wrist. He was seventy-one years old when he died of pneumonia three weeks later.

  It was a blessing, really, in view of what lay ahead for his father. And poor Barbara, of course. That’s what Lewis kept telling himself.

  ‘How d’you feel about being an orphan?’ Tessa asked. They were at the bungalow sorting through their father’s papers and personal effects.

  ‘We are, aren’t we? Unless orphan-dom, orphan-hood, whatever it’s called, stops when you reach your majority. Technically, that is.’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘You mean you could be one day an orphan, the next day, not an orphan. That seems arse about face to me.’

  She lit a cigarette. ‘So would that make Gordon an orphan too? Lots of technicalities to wrestle with there, Lew. He’s way past eighteen – thirty-three, I make it – but he may well have a couple of living parents, if you want to define parents as the people we call Mum and Dad. Does that make him luckier or unluckier than we are?’

  Gordon, his mother, Gran and Mrs Channing had all been jostling around in Lewis’s head for days but he was in no mood to talk about them. Closing his eyes, he pleaded, ‘Could we concentrate on the job in hand?’

  ‘Okay. But even though Gordon went, he’ll never go away – if you see what I mean.’ Tessa held up a paperknife, a small dagger with a vicious blade and Toledo inscribed on the enamelled handle. ‘Any good to you?’

  Later, when Lewis took Tessa to the railway station, she said, ‘Everyone’s feeling sorry for Barbara but it’s worse for Uncle Frank, don’t you think? Barbara’s got her kids and enough money to live comfortably. She and Dad got on well but they were more companions than soulmates. Losing a sibling – the person who’s been in your life longer than anyone else, who’s shared the same experiences, the same family crap – must be the most devastating thing that can happen.’ She turned towards Lewis and gave a wry smile ‘So you and I will just have to go together when we go. Agreed?’

  He couldn’t let her inaccuracy pass unchallenged. ‘You and I have already lost a brother, don’t forget.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘But he wasn’t around long enough for us to share anything with him so it hardly counts.’

  ‘We shared parents.’

  Suddenly Lewis wanted once and for all to dump the stuff about ‘Christopher’ and his wonderful life. He wanted to talk about Gordon Swinburne. ‘I would have liked a brother.’

  ‘Really? It would have made you the “difficult middle child”.’

  ‘But it might have been better for us if there’d been someone else there when we were growing up. Diluting the mix. Shifting the balance.’

  ‘You really think things would be different between us – you and I – if Gordon had been around?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How different?’

  ‘Less intense. Less dependent. Less exclusive. I think that the manner of Gordon’s going, our … involvement in it—’

  ‘Involvement? You’re not saying we had anything to do with it?’

  ‘Not in real terms—’

  ‘In what then?’

  ‘Tessa, we wanted him gone. You can’t deny that. We must have felt – and must still be feeling – pretty damn guilty or we’d have told someone about the voodoo business. Our wanting Gordon gone, and then the way he went, drove us together. Then effectively losing Mum for the rest of our childhood glued us together. When we should have been out there making friends and acquiring social skills, we were becoming totally dependent on each other. It wasn’t our fault but I’m sure it’s affected our ability to form stable relationships.’

  ‘What if he’d never been born? Would we be any “less exclusive”?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s pointless discussing that.’

  ‘No more pointless than discussing the merits of your having a brother to “dilute” me.’

  She clearly felt belittled and he regretted having raised the matter. Pointing to the station clock he muttered, ‘You’d better get going if you don’t want to miss the train.’

  She got out of the car and before slamming the door she said, ‘Well call me a weirdo but I’m happy with the brother I’ve got. So screw you, Lewis Swinburne.’

  A few flakes of snow tumbled out of the colourless sky as he watched her disappear into the station concourse.

  VIII

  1988

  Chapter 35

  ‘How are things at school?’ Tessa asked. ‘All back to normal?’

  ‘Yes. Well. Not really. If I could just go in, teach my classes, mark homework, and come home again it would be okay. But the Head’s being sickeningly “hail fellow” and roping me in on various committees and steering groups. At the same time he thinks I’m “not quite ready” for the deputy headship that’s coming up at the end of the year.’

  ‘What about the rest of the staff?’

  ‘Oh, they’re going out of their way to be palsy but it’ll take more than a pat on the back and a pint to make me forget how stand-offish they were when I needed support. I used to think of school as a sort of home from home but that’s all gone down the drain.’

  Tessa’s mouth turned down in a grimace. ‘Might things improve?’

  ‘Who knows? I get the feeling they think I must have done something dodgy. No smoke, etcetera.’

  The solicitor’s secretary brought them cups of coffee, apologising for keeping them waiting.

  Tessa turned back to Lewis. ‘And how are things with Kirsty? I got the impression you were going through a sticky patch.’

  ‘Yes. She was getting impatient with me. She said I had to put the school business behind me. When I tried explaining how difficult it was, going on working with people who’d believed me capable of child molestation, she said I only had to work with them, I didn’t have to like them. I told her that might be feasible in her world but it wasn’t in mine.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Anyway, we ended up going to Relate. Our counsellor went on a lot about my “issues”—’

  ‘Sounds disgusting,’ Tessa wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Dad’s death and the Haldane fiasco.’

  ‘Gordon?’

  ‘No, thank goodness. The sessions would still be going on if she’d got hold of that. She told me it was perfectly natural to be feeling angry, guilty and inadequate.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Only after I realised I hadn’t been feeling angry, guilty or inadequate.’

  ‘How d’you feel now?’

  ‘Exhausted. In the end it was our mutual lack of confidence in the woman that got us back on an even keel.’

  Tessa smiled. ‘D’you reckon Relate chalks that up as a success?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  Kirsty was offered a partnership in the firm, something she’d been working towards for years. Lewis was delighted for her, even when he heard that the promotion was contingent on her moving to York. Things were no better at school and, for some time, he had been scouring the job ads. There was nothing to keep them in Bristol. Kirsty’s parents were living in Edinburgh now; her brothers in Glasgow and America. Now that his father had died, Lewis’s only ties with his home town were ghosts and graves.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time to make
a break; sell Cranwell Lodge. The property market’s strong. You’d get a good price for it.’ Kirsty ventured.

  ‘It’s something to think about,’ Lewis agreed.

  Anson gave him implausibly glowing references – ‘A sure sign he wants rid of me,’ he told Kirsty – and he had no trouble finding a job in York. The school gave him a good send-off but, driving out through the gates for the last time, the back seat of the car stacked with the dog-eared contents of his locker and a pile of unimaginative farewell gifts, Doreen Lane seemed the only person sorry to see him go.

  Their new home was a detached Edwardian house in a village to the west of York. It stood in a mature garden and the previous owner had converted the substantial outbuildings to a double garage and a spacious garden room. Everyone who visited the house – Kirsty’s parents, staff from her office, teachers from Lewis’s school – told them how lucky they were. Space. History. Fresh air. Yes, they had it all.

  What was the matter with him, then? Why did he feel so ‘temporary’?

  For a start, the house was too big. After they had distributed their belongings, the rooms still looked bare, as if a second removal van had been delayed by traffic and had yet to turn up. Wherever he sat, in whichever room, he felt lonely. When he was on his own in the house, he increased the volume on his record player to ‘max,’ inviting Miles or Charlie to help him take possession of this new world.

  The school was fine. The Head was enlightened, members of staff friendly, the pupils well behaved and their parents cooperative. But this didn’t stop him from feeling as if he were merely standing in until the permanent Head of Maths returned from extended leave. The thing that troubled him most was his reluctance to get close to the children, but he couldn’t afford to make the same mistake again.

  He kept busy. He joined things. Clubs. Societies. Choirs. He did everything he could think of to weld himself into this new life. Kirsty would never be able to accuse him of not giving it his best shot.

  ‘This house is vast,’ Tessa said the first time she visited. ‘You can take in lodgers if you’re ever short of a penny or two.’

  Lewis found the idea appealing. Guests, coming and going; muddy walking boots piled outside the front door; fried breakfasts and a visitors’ book on the hall table. But money wasn’t a problem. Kirsty’s promotion carried with it a considerable salary increase and pupil numbers at his new school pushed him up a grade on the pay scale. On top of that, Dick Swinburne had left an unexpectedly large sum of cash to be split between his two children. And there was the rent from Cranwell Lodge.

  While Dan and Kirsty were discussing the best place to site a garden pond, Lewis and Tessa walked to the village shop to get the papers.

  ‘It’ll take me a while to get used to your being a Yorkshire lad,’ Tessa said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘And I can’t say I’m crazy about the accent.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Indeed he found the local brogue depressing. He would get used to it in time but it was odd to think that, if he and Kirsty had produced children, they would have spoken with the broad, matter-of-fact intonation he heard every day in the classroom.

  His sister looked tired. Her cheeks were colourless and there was an angry sore near the corner of her mouth. Daylight revealed glints of grey at the roots of her dark hair. It was unthinkable that she was nearing middle age. They were nearing middle age. As they walked, he draped his arm around her neck and pulled her towards him, her shoulder digging in to his ribcage. ‘It’s great having you here, Tess. Confirmation that I exist.’

  ‘D’you doubt that?’

  ‘Sometimes. In a what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-in-Yorkshire kind of way.’

  ‘I don’t see anyone holding a gun to your head.’

  ‘Probably because it’s an invisible gun and I’m the one holding it.’

  Tessa stuck her foot out, tripping him, and they laughed as they struggled to stay upright.

  ‘Seriously, Tess, we’ve got acres of room. Don’t wait for an invitation. Come whenever you like. You should get away from London more often. Put some colour in your cheeks. I can picture you now, striding across the moors, plotting the great Twentieth Century Gothic novel. Dan must come too. That goes without saying. The garden room would make a great studio—’

  ‘Stop, Lewis,’ Tessa spoke solemnly, ‘you’re sounding embarrassingly desperate.’

  When they reached the shop, they collected the items on Kirsty’s list. Milk, double cream, toothpaste and an assortment of Sunday papers. On a whim, Lewis grabbed a bag of humbugs and dropped them in the wire basket.

  Tessa pulled the bag open and sniffed its contents. ‘It’s incredible how smells take you back.’ She held it towards him.

  He inhaled the minty scent. ‘I shall never forget Mrs Channing telling me how she hated Blanche.’

  ‘But she loved life, didn’t she? Not that hers was a bed of roses, reading between the lines.’

  Lewis raised his eyebrows. ‘So you admit you nicked her diaries?’

  ‘What if I did? I was going to return them but she died and there was no point. You got a house, I got a few diaries. Care to swap?’

  They started back up the hill. Tessa took a sweet from the bag. ‘I’ve never met anyone like her. She was cantankerous, supercilious, ruthless … and sort of sexy at the same time. Quite something in an old lady. No wonder we couldn’t stay away from the place.’

  It was a blustery day of bright skies and racing clouds. A rippling shadow chased the sun across the undulating landscape. Something – the wind perhaps – spooked two horses that had been grazing in a field next to the road and they took off, galloping in wild zigzags.

  ‘Remember when Mum and Dad took us to Llangorse Lake and that horse went berserk? It came from nowhere, straight towards me. I would have been trampled to death if you hadn’t swung at it with a cricket bat.’

  ‘Did I?’ Tessa frowned. ‘What was I doing with a cricket bat?’

  ‘We’d been playing French cricket. You almost certainly saved my life.’

  It wasn’t like Tessa to forget a drama, particularly one in which she’d played the heroine, and Lewis wondered if he might have daydreamed the whole thing one summer afternoon as he’d watched the Spitfire swaying on its thread.

  They walked on in silence for a few moments then she stopped, tugging his sleeve. ‘If I did save your life, Lew, promise me you won’t waste it. Promise you’ll put up a fight for what you want. Life’s not a dress rehearsal, blah, blah, blah. Don’t be too eager to please. The meek are never going to inherit the earth, or anything else.’

  Lewis raised his hands in the air. ‘Here endeth the first lesson.’

  Tessa seized his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back in an unconvincing half nelson.

  ‘Ouch. Gerroff. Put me down.’

  Two boys, maybe seven or eight years old, watched suspiciously from the safety of their front garden.

  ‘It’s rubbish being grown up.’ Lewis shouted, loud enough for them to hear.

  ‘How would you know?’ Tessa countered, ‘You’ve never left school.’

  Tessa presumed that Lewis had only agreed to move because he could find no reason not to. The business with the girl had knocked him for six and it was a good thing that he was out of the place, but it didn’t take an expert to see that, whilst Kirsty was flourishing in their new environment, Lewis was struggling. She would make an effort to see him more often but, ultimately, he would have to find his own solution.

  When their father died, there had been the inevitable sorting out and disposal of his things but, in the move to the bungalow, he had been ruthless and there was surprisingly little to do. His financial matters, too, were in good order. Originally Tessa had assumed Barbara was out for what she could get but time had proved her to be a caring companion to her father. When the will was read, it plainly came as no surprise to Barbara that her husband had left his capital to his children and the bungalow to her. She seemed happy wi
th that which made it easy for everyone. They’d promised to stay in touch but Tessa wasn’t sure that this would happen, not because she disliked Barbara but because Barbara had never been part of her world.

  When Dick Swinburne died, Tessa had experienced an immediate and deep sense of release. This might have been understandable had she cared for her father through a long illness. But she’d only seen him a couple of times after his dementia became apparent and, on these occasions, he’d seemed neither unhappy nor in pain, merely distant, as though preoccupied with a riddle. Then he’d fallen and it was over almost before it began. Finished. Her parents were gone and it seemed right for Gordon to accompany them, the three of them fading slowly into the past.

  Not long after that a story hit the headlines. A woman whose three-year-old daughter had disappeared from a swing park over ten years earlier had, through sheer tenacity and with the help of private detectives, recovered her missing child. The details of the case were all over the newspapers. The child had been abducted by an infertile couple who, in one moment of folly, had given in to their overwhelming need. They had raised the girl with loving care. Despite the furore, no one seemed to have asked the girl how she felt about it all or whom she wanted to be her ‘Mum and Dad’.

  The story occupied the front pages for days and Tessa couldn’t put it out of her mind. She had been too young to know what steps were being taken to find her brother. Her mother was suffering a breakdown; her father was worrying about his wife and trying to look after a young family. Neither of them would have had the energy or confidence to pester the police. Tessa had both and although it might be thirty years late, she made up her mind to find Gordon. If nothing else, Lewis would have the brother he seemed to think was needed to fill the void in his life.

  The police had never closed the case but they had effectively given up on it. Ex-detective Hulbert hadn’t given up though. Tessa guessed that he’d attended their mother’s funeral not so much out of respect as inability to let go of the mystery which had dogged him into retirement.