The White Family

by Maggie Gee

  And then she blushed. And the children poured through, and pushed them apart.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said, coming into her classroom, beautiful, beautiful, yes, and frustrated …

  She’d made a palace from a room like a jail. A shoal of coloured fish swung from the roof, all shapes and sizes, catching the sunlight, and the walls were a mosaic of brilliant paintings that all but obliterated their dull yellow. Close up, he saw they were strips of hieroglyphics, long fish-shaped eyes, crouched figures, bird-heads, and a gallery of half-human gods. By the long narrow window, larger than the others, Thoth, god of writers, presided serenely, the head of an ibis on a muscular torso.

  ‘Settle down,’ she called. ‘Settle down, children. This is Mr Lovell. He’s a published writer –’

  ‘Is he famous?’ a girl asked.

  She hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  He began to demur; Melissa quelled him with a look.

  (This way they’ll listen. Of course I’m famous.)

  ‘When we’ve done the register, children, 4P are going to join us, and Mr Lovell will talk about writing.’

  It was very impressive, her control over the class. She strode about her classroom like a captain on deck, cheerful, confident, not missing anything, straightening a tie, removing some sweets, comforting a little girl who was crying because she’d forgotten to bring back her homework.

  He tried to look modestly down at the floor and not watch the curves of her slender back, bent over her register to make a mark. But she was so good at this, and he was so proud. The children’s eyes followed her as if she was God.

  ‘Samuel. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Simons.’

  ‘Adil?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Beena?’

  ‘Yes, miss …’

  And so it went on; thirty-three names, thirty-three children welcomed, calmed, and then the other class came in, and it was Thomas’s turn to take the baton.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Thomas Lovell. Some of you will know me from the library. Do you write stories? Who would like to be a writer?’

  And so they were away, and the time began to fly, the eager little faces turned up towards him, their hands growing up like mushroom stalks, nearly all thirsty, curious. It seemed they had never met a writer before. They stared at him as if he were an alien life form, especially once he told them he had been on TV.

  He took them back to the beginning of writing. The first marks on the first surfaces, feeling his own mind reel a little, watching their faces, so new in time, alive for nine or ten years at most, gazing through him into pre-history, following him back to the first human settlements big enough to need to write things down.

  ‘Please, sir.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a tall black boy, who had been listening carefully, chewing a pink pencil.

  ‘Where do words come from?’

  Thomas was silenced. That was the mystery, where language came from. It was part of us. Born in us.

  ‘I know! I know!’ A girl shouted out, her hand so far up she was almost climbing up it.

  ‘All right, Philippa,’ Melissa said, resigned. ‘Do you want to tell us where you think words come from?’

  ‘Do they come from God?’ the blond child asked, shining, shining with faith and enthusiasm. ‘Cos God made the world.’

  Melissa looked bemused, but Thomas nodded. ‘You might be right,’ he said, smiling. ‘Writers don’t know where their stories come from. They come like magic, in the middle of the night. I say magic, but you say God.’

  Somewhat thrown off his stroke, but also encouraged, he took some chalk and wrote ‘TIME-TRAVEL’, huge, squeaking and sliding across the chalk-board. ‘Writing is a way of bringing people together,’ he told them, feeling like a missionary, now. You can speak to people even after you’re dead. Writing is a kind of time-travel.’

  (But would it still work for the twenty-first century?)

  ‘Do you know who Thoth is?’ he asked them.

  ‘Please, sir! Please, sir!’ Nearly all the hands shot up at once.

  ‘He’s up on the wall.’

  ‘Yes’ – They all looked, as Thomas pointed. In the picture on the wall, Thoth’s body turned towards them, but his proud bird’s head gazed out across the world.

  Everyone had something to say about Thoth.

  ‘He’s like half a bird.’

  ‘Sometimes he’s a monkey.’

  ‘Sometimes he makes jokes, like a monkey.’

  They offered so many things, but not quite the one he wanted, till a tall Asian girl said, ‘The god of writing?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very good. Well done. And he was a peace-maker, did you know? After Seth killed his brother Osiris, Thoth made peace between Seth and Osiris’s son.’

  ‘Please, sir!’

  ‘Yes?’

  It was a tall, round-faced Asian boy with multi-coloured glasses and a cheeky smile. ‘When I kicked Christopher in the goolies, I had to write him a letter saying sorry.’

  Everyone laughed, but Melissa nodded. ‘It’s school policy,’ she said to Thomas. ‘When they’ve upset someone, they write letters of apology.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Thomas, pleased. ‘And did it make Christopher feel better?’

  ‘No!’ shouted Christopher from the back. ‘It smelled of Shiram’s pooey lunch.’

  But a small fat red-headed boy had his hand up. He spoke very slowly, and everyone listened. ‘I liked it when Praveena wrote me a letter because she always said I was fat.’

  ‘Why did you like it?’ Thomas led the witness.

  ‘Because she had to miss her play-time.’

  Praveena, a grave-looking girl by the window, saved him: ‘I felt better too,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ Thomas smiled at her encouragingly.

  Her answering smile was flushed and smug. ‘Because Miss said my letter was good. I did a picture of Patrick on it.’

  ‘It made me look fat though!’ Patrick complained.

  ‘Did not.’

  He stuck his tongue out at her, and grinned round at the class. ‘In any case, I frew her letter in the bin.’

  ‘Praveena, Patrick, please,’ said Melissa, but Thomas could see she was trying not to laugh.

  He decided to quit while he was ahead. ‘So remember: Thoth is a writer, disguised as a monkey, or a holy bird. And he’s very pleased when you children write things, here in the classroom, under his picture.’ And it did look to Thomas as though Thoth was smiling, his proud beak dipped in the edge of the sunlight.

  ‘Every one of you can tell stories,’ he told them, lifted by his own eloquence, especially now Melissa was smiling at him, approving of him, surely, her head on one side. ‘Miss Simons tells me you’re good at writing stories. Every one of you was born with that gift. Human beings live by telling stories.’ But now he was losing them, their faces clouding over. Too abstract, he told himself, and tried again. ‘It’s how we make sense of things, telling stories.’ A boy put up his hand.

  ‘Please, sir, we aren’t all good at stories. Me and Shiram are hopeless at stories.’ More laughter. Melissa looked at Thomas, inviting him to deal with it.

  ‘I bet you tell stories in the playground. I bet you tell stories to your friends. It’s just that some people are shy of writing.’

  ‘It’s because Shiram can’t spell,’ said a voice from the back.

  ‘No calling out,’ said Melissa, swiftly. ‘Put your hand up, Christopher.’

  ‘Well that doesn’t matter,’ Thomas said. ‘A lot of professional writers can’t spell. There are people called editors who check your spelling.’

  ‘So could I write a book?’ the first boy said, a radiant smile transforming his face.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Thomas, cautiously. ‘If you were prepared to sit still a lot and be very patient, and not give up.’

  He had been talking long enough, he sensed, but at least half the class had their hands up with question
s. The giant plastic clock on the wall ticked on. He was sweating profusely, with half an hour to go … How does she manage to do this all day?

  ‘If we send you our stories that we write, will you publish them?’ an Asian girl asked, self-possessed, pretty, serious.

  ‘He isn’t a publisher,’ Melissa smiled, trying to protect him. But Thomas saw an opportunity.

  ‘Have you got a computer in this classroom?’

  ‘It’s broken, sir,’ several of them said.

  ‘Please, sir, it did the spacing all wrong.’

  ‘All right,’ said Thomas, Father Christmas, ‘if each of you would like to write a story, or choose the best story you ever wrote, and give it to Miss Simons, she can pass it to me and I’ll –’

  Suddenly he wasn’t sure. How much was he letting himself in for here? He was used to working on his own, most evenings. But maybe, he thought, I’ve been too much alone. If I give up Postmodernism, I’ll have more time –

  Besides, Melissa was listening. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll print them out. We can make a book. Miss Simons might help me.’

  ‘Delighted,’ she said, smiling, smiling.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Just one more question.’

  ‘Please, sir –’

  Then there was a lot of giggling.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ said Thomas. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Please, sir, please, sir. Praveena said to arks, are you Miss Simons’s boyfriend?’

  ‘Carly,’ said Melissa, blushing deep red. ‘And Praveena. Really. What a silly question.’

  They clapped him with great enthusiasm, and she was ecstatic, outside on the stairs. He was almost sure that she wanted to kiss him. And absolutely sure that they would kiss, later, when three hundred children weren’t streaming past on their way to eat popcorn in the playground.

  ‘Come and have a cup of tea in the staff room.’

  It was stuffy and small and smelled of stale biscuits, but he entered it like a homecoming hero. Not many people were in there yet. The Hillesden Trumpeter was lying on the table.

  ‘This is Thomas Lovell, folks. From the library. And a famous writer, as I told my kids.’

  After such a success, Thomas did feel quite famous. But only one person looked up from her marking, a harassed nod, a tired smile. They were only just keeping from going under. Writers weren’t going to save them, here.

  He picked up the Trumpeter while Melissa made tea. Perhaps there was a good film on at the local. Perhaps the two of them would go –

  But the headline story stopped him in his tracks. This must be the murder George had mentioned. He sat and read, his high spirits disappearing:

  MAN FOUND DEAD IN BRENT PRIZE PARK

  45 • Alfred and May

  ‘Read it to me, woman.I’m not stupid.’

  ‘It will only upset you –’

  ‘He’d be interested,’ Pamela insisted, from the next bed. ‘It shows him in a most flattering light.’

  ‘He’s not supposed to be upset,’ May told her. ‘He’s my husband. Mind your own business.’ She was never openly rude to people, but now she was cornered, defending her own.

  Alfred pulled himself up from the pillow, red-faced. ‘If it’s about the Park, of course I must read it.’

  May had come in to find him sleeping. That bloody Pamela was reading the paper. May touched his cheek; his eyes opened. He gazed at her, short-sighted, fond, coming back slowly from wherever he had been.

  Then the parrot started squawking in the next bed. ‘I say,’ she called. ‘Alfred, dear. You’re famous. This is all about you.’

  And quick as a flash, without conscious thought, May had reached out and palmed Alfred’s glasses which were lying on the bedside table, slipping them safe in the pocket of her coat.

  She had meant to keep it secret until he was better. When he was stronger, he would have to know. But now, thanks to Pamela, she couldn’t protect him. He was all het up. Red-faced. Furious. He might have an event, right in front of her eyes, if she refused to do as he told her.

  Pamela pushed the thing under her nose. Stumbling, nervous, May began to read.

  MAN FOUND DEAD IN BRENT PRIZE PARK

  A murder hunt is underway after a youth was found dead on Sunday morning following a suspected affray in Brent’s prize-winning Albion Park …

  She heard his sudden intake of breath. She saw his colour draining away. But she had to continue. What else could she do?

  The man was named as Winston Franklin King, twenty, a Humanities student at London University.

  Police are appealing for anyone with any information to come forward. Police spokesmen last night said they had ‘no reason to believe’ the crime had a racial motive.

  Winston King’s family were said to be ‘distraught’. ‘He was a good boy who worked hard and never got into trouble,’ said his mother Mrs Sophie King, sixty-nine. ‘We were hoping he was going to get married.’

  ‘The next bit’s not very nice,’ said May. ‘Then there’s a nice bit about you.’

  ‘Read it all, woman,’ he gasped, impatient.

  The lavatories at Albion Park have for some time been under police surveillance because of suspected homosexual activity there. Alfred White, who had been Park Keeper for fifty-four years, suffered a stroke last month, and his post was vacant at the time of the murder.

  ‘If Alf had been here this would never have happened,’ commented local trader Mr Ash Khalik. ‘Some of these kids get out of hand, but Alf knew how to handle them.’

  A council spokesman refusing to comment on reports that Brent is about to abolish the post of Park Keeper in its latest cost-cutting exercise, pointed out this was the first major crime in the Park since it was opened a hundred years ago. ‘Of course we all deeply regret this tragic event, but we are very proud of our stewardship of the Park. Last summer we won the Steve Biko Bowl in the All-London Floral Displays Competition.’

  She laid down the paper on the bed and looked at him, full of apprehension. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to read it.’

  ‘You read it too fast,’ said Pamela. ‘You have to learn about pace, and diction.’

  May ignored her; hardly heard her. The last few weeks had been the worst in her life. A great lump of dread had settled in her throat. Since Dirk came home on Sunday morning she could not think, or sleep, or swallow.

  ‘Murder,’ said Alfred, slowly, hoarse. ‘Murder in the Park. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It had to happen one day,’ said May. She had no idea what to say to him. He wasn’t listening, in any case. Pamela was, though, blue-lidded, avid. May got up abruptly and drew the curtains round the bed, whipping the green stripes across the old woman’s face, rattling the curtain rings in rapid fury.

  ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’ Alfred said. ‘If I hadn’t got sick, this would never have happened. If I’d stayed at my post. But I got sick.’

  ‘Of course it’s not your fault,’ said May. ‘The council should have got someone temporary.’ She held his hand. It felt small and cold. He didn’t see her. He looked shocked, wounded.

  ‘I’ve got to have my glasses. I must read it myself.’

  ‘There they are,’ said May, and by turning her body she managed to shuffle them back on to his table. He put them on. He looked very old. He took the paper, and began to read, moving his lips slightly, as he always did, and it usually annoyed her, but today it meant nothing, for her world was tearing, breaking apart.

  Dirk, she thought.

  Fear; horror.

  ‘So they’re thinking of getting rid of my job.’

  ‘It’s just a rumour. You can’t believe the papers …’

  She tried to sound normal, but she sounded mad.

  ‘It’s all my fault. I should be back at work.’

  ‘Course you shouldn’t. Course you can’t.’

  But as she watched, he struggled out of the envelope of sheets and blankets, one leg, the other leg, and sat undecided on the edge
of the bed. Then he looked at her. Her eyes were full of tears.

  ‘Please don’t, Alfred. Please don’t. Please. You’ll kill yourself. I knew it would upset you.’

  ‘Trouble is, no one’s told them I’m coming back,’ he said. ‘That must be it. It’s a misunderstanding. I thought I would let them do a few more tests. But now I’d better get back straightaway.’

  ‘Alfred,’ she said. ‘Get back in bed. I’ll call Sister if you don’t.’ Then the tears began to flood; she could not stop them.

  ‘You’re crying, May. Don’t take on.’

  ‘It’s worse than you think.’ She was whispering. He held on to the blankets, swaying, uncertain.

  ‘What do you mean? How could it be?’

  ‘It’s Dirk,’ she said.

  ‘What about him? George said there would still be a job for him. If he plays his cards right with the Asian chappy –’ They looked at each other. Alfred was pragmatic.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it’s not that. Something worse. Something so dreadful … I can’t tell you. I can’t, Alfred.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell me.’

  She sat a long time. He leant back on the pillow. Slowly, he swung his legs back up on the bed. She covered him, tenderly. Was he getting thinner? His shins felt sharp beneath the cotton. They both waited. Then she began.

  ‘Are we in this together?’ she asked him, very quietly. ‘The family’s what matters, isn’t it, Alfred?’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course it is.’

  ‘Yes, but it matters more than anything? Anything at all?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He didn’t understand. ‘Get on with it.’

  ‘Dirk … the child.’ He had always been the child. ‘He didn’t come in on Saturday night.’

  ‘What? I can’t hear you –’

  She could hardly get it out; she was sobbing with terror. ‘He came in Sunday morning, at half eleven.’

  ‘Well that’s happened before. He got drunk again.’

  ‘He was covered with blood. He was covered with blood.’ It was a whispered scream, a terrible sound, and she clutched at her own hair, as she said it, her thin white hair, she would tear it out –