by Gill Hornby
‘Right.’ She was back. ‘This is what we’re going to do. Whenever you find out the details of someone you’d forgotten you knew–i.e. everybody; do you recognise me every time or have there been a few narrow squeaks? I won’t forgive you, FYI… Anyway, you find the letter… see, N for Newsagent, write in the details: Carol, ex-babysitter, and in brackets any relevant info, e.g.’–she carefully formed the letters in her pretty handwriting–‘free pack of wine gums. See? And then, with a bit of luck, you might just stop making a total arse of yourself everywhere you go.’
He took the book from her hands and gazed at it in wonder. ‘So, a sort of starter information pack, you mean? For the rest of my own life?’
‘Well, I suppose.’ Araminta slumped, swung her arms low and groaned with what Bennett considered to be disproportionate despair. ‘If you absolutely must be a total drama queen about everything…’
‘This will come in very useful for my party planning. You and Casper are coming, aren’t you? Next Saturday, seven o’clock till silly o’clock. I’d really love you to—’
‘Aaaaagh!’ Araminta folded into the shelving with her hands over her eyes. ‘DAD. What did you just say? Jeez. Hell. What has got into you? Silly o’…? Where did you pick that up from?’
Bennett couldn’t remember now. It might have been someone in the basses–silly o’clock? That did sound very like someone in the basses. He had been making a conscious effort to update his vocabulary, to try to fit in that little bit more, and listened out for phrases and sayings that he perhaps ought to be using, rather like a German spy parachuted into the Home Counties during the war. And judging by Araminta’s response, not quite as successfully. Perhaps he ought to write them all down first, then run them past her before using them. Oh good, he would need another notebook. He turned back to get that tan one, then noticed she was looking very serious again.
‘But, hang on, who else will be there? Like out of your gazillions and bazillions of actual mates?’
‘Well, there’s all the Choir, and all the protestors, and the woman in the butcher’s is always very friendly—’
‘Oh, Dad. Dad, Dad, Dad. You’ve gone and ruined it now. Do you see?’ He didn’t see. He’d slightly lost the hang of things somewhere around the tan notebook. She tutted and let out a sigh of disappointment rather like her mother’s. ‘Are you quite sure she isn’t just being friendly because she’s the woman in the butcher’s? See, what happens when you take away the meat, or the singing, or the protesting, hmm? That’s what you’ve got to ask yourself. Like, is the woman in the butcher’s still friendly when she’s not getting rid of her chops and you’re not giving her your cash?’ Bennett felt unaccountably sad for a moment. There was so much in that little speech that he wanted not to know, that he wished he could go back over and unhear. He sensed, lurking within, a very unwelcome subtext–a suggestion that perhaps he was not after all the popular fellow he thought he was. Fortunately Araminta’s attention was suddenly taken up with something else. She was moving off, fast, past the greetings cards and pressing herself up against the shop window. ‘Oh, look.’ She pointed over the road to the Copper Kettle, where Casper and another chap were nailing a notice to the wall. ‘It’s actually happening.’
‘For sale,’ he read. ‘With planning permission for change of use. Potential for one desirable four-bed house.’
A small crowd was already gathering before they had even finished hammering. There were quite a few young mothers with buggies, and a couple of old people on mobility scooters. Lewis was holding Katie’s wheelchair and bending over her shoulder talking. Maria, in her carer’s uniform, driving past in her little blue car, slowed down to stare. Jazzy emerged from inside, took up position beside Katie and looked up at the notice without expression.
Bennett felt Carol at his elbow. She stood with them, hand at her neck, mouth open in horror. ‘Oh no, that’s all we need. They can’t do that. That really would be the end.’ She turned to Bennett. ‘So what are you going to do about this one?’
‘What was that?’ asked Sue loudly.
‘I said,’ Annie had to raise her voice just to make herself heard, even though she didn’t really want to; this was highly confidential information, ‘I’m starting to look forward to it now I’m getting used to the idea.’
The hammering started up again, just outside Menopause Corner’s window.
‘You were right—’
‘Sorry?’ Sue cupped her hand to her ear.
Annie suspected she had heard perfectly well, but just rather liked the sound of the sentence. ‘YOU WERE RIGHT. I do feel rather lucky, now. It’s been miserable since Jess left and James started this, um…’–oh hell, she had walked right into this one–‘this rather engrossing…’
‘Ah, yes.’ Sue’s voice dripped with meaning. ‘The engrossing case.’
Annie stumbled on. ‘I mean, Jess won’t be able to look after a baby, will she? She couldn’t look after a pet rock. Bloody useless.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I said, JESS,’ Annie obliged, ‘is BLOODY USELESS. And a baby does fill a house somehow, doesn’t it? Do you remember when we used to run that playgroup in your front room? I miss it all.’ She sighed and looked over to a table in the centre of the café. There was a crowd of mothers from the primary school gathered around it and she knew exactly what they were doing because she had done it herself so very often: they were planning the Summer Fête.
‘Who’s that man over there in the middle of it all?’
‘Oh, that’s um–tsk, whatsisname.’
‘Clue?’
‘Head.’
‘Tom Orchard.’
‘And his wife.’
‘Gorgeous baby.’
Sue looked over but didn’t agree–she had never been heard to compliment the babies of others. Well, she had jolly well better be nice about my new one, thought Annie. Our new one. OK, Jess’s new one. Annie already felt so bonded to the little foetus. Every time she thought about her–it was definitely a girl, Annie was never wrong–her internal organs gave a little flip. She was something special, this baby. How could anyone not be nice about her?
The noise from outside brought her back to the room. ‘WHAT is that wretched banging out there?’ Peering out, she saw Casper with a hammer. ‘For sale? No!’ And then when she saw Sue’s impassive face: ‘You knew? Before me?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You heard.’
‘Well…’ Sue conceded. ‘I was told to keep it a secret. This is Casper’s career, you know.’
‘Hmm. And yet the news about the baby seemed to get out and I can’t quite think how…’
‘It’s so hard in this town. I mean, Bennett–Bennett of all people, a man who would not know a piece of gossip if it fell on his head and knocked some sense into him–even he had somehow got wind of Jess’s tattoo.’
Annie bit her lip.
‘I SAID, BENNETT KNEW ABOUT JESS’S TATT—’
‘All right, all right, keep it down, I heard you the first time. It just slipped out. It’s funny now that I see him once a week, without you. I mean, he’s a nice guy, isn’t he? I know you don’t mind me saying that, it being so amicable between you. He’s very popular down at the Choir, you know.’
Sue put a couple of sugars in her tea.
‘In fact, he’s just been elected treasurer!’
‘Marvellous.’
‘It was completely brilliant of you to suggest he joined–so nice and kind and thoughtful. He’s really coming out of his shell. He’s got a fabulous voice, hasn’t he?’
‘If you like that sort of thing. Jazzy, could I have another bun over here?’
‘And so much energy. He’s been quite the local superstar down at the protest. He’s a real asset. I really think he’s turning his life around, and it’s all down to you. I’m sure he’s grateful. You’re going to his party, I take it?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Sue. Joke’s over. The banging has stopped.’
&
nbsp; ‘Yes. I noticed. But I thought you said Bennett was having a party.’ She was very red all of a sudden. A thick white whisker shone, luminous, against the colour of her chin.
‘He is. For his fiftieth. Rather a huge affair, it sounds like. I somehow got the impression it was all your idea.’
Tracey swung out of the car park on to the roundabout and soared straight past the slip road of the motorway. It was the first Tuesday of the rest of her life–in the first full week of the new normal–and the new reality was that she was free. Perhaps for the first time ever in her forty-four years, she was not supposed to be anywhere and it didn’t matter what she did. There was nobody at home tonight, there would be nobody there for months, and it could well be that there would be nobody at home ever again. She had no demands to meet before the next morning and really, if she didn’t show up at ONS Systems ever again, then so what? After a bit they would stop paying her; they might promote a junior; the world would reliably turn. Perhaps sometimes, during a coffee run, catching the whiff of a skinny latte, they might be struck by an involuntary memory of that Tracey Leckford and wonder aloud what had become of her. But then again… To be fair, she had gone to quite a lot of trouble to make herself appear as boring and distant and anonymous as possible, so why should they? She would remain for ever a mystery that nobody could be arsed to solve; a jigsaw of a remote, bleak landscape–with too much cloud–that would never come out of its box. It was a beautiful evening. She wound down her window, inhaled deeply of the lead-filled air and took an A-road directly away from Bridgeford.
This early, milky dusk of spring was rather magical and of the sort that Tracey had been deprived of since–when? Well, since her youth really. Before Billy, she had been locked into a relentless schedule that meant this time of day was all about sound checks, make-up and nervy rows–no time for standing and staring back then, that was for sure. And certainly, during the past two decades of single parenthood, this had been the point of maximum stress upon her strained schedule. Belting home to give Billy his last bottle, then to read his story, to have the last hour and then the last hours before she put him to bed; to relieve babysitters and collect him from clubs, her heart thumping against her ribs with the fear that something would happen on the road and she would be–sin of maternal sins, horror of infant horrors–late. Never in all that time would she have had the mental presence to look out of the window, witness the new green on the trees, keep an ear out for the birdsong.
And then in the last few years, when she should have been through all of that, she had a new and different worry: when she got home, would he even be up yet? There was an ever-present dread, as she had been slogging away earning their living, that her fit and able son had spent the working day snoring in his boxers, smelling rather ripe. And dangling off the side–of the worry, that was, not the rather ripe boxers–were the accessory fears that he was suffering from fatherlessness or clinically depressed or just born bloody idle to the marrow of his bones. Each of those theories held its own particular horror and, driving home on autopilot, she would wrestle with them individually, determined to prove them wrong and that no aspect of the disappointment that was the early-adult Billy Leckford could be pinned on her, his only parent. And yet, by the time she got back, her guilt was so overwhelming that immediately she started clearing up after him and indulging his every whim. She roared through a pretty little riverside village at break-limit speed, until an electronic sign flashed with fury. Taking her foot off, she drifted over a little bridge into a lay-by on the other side and parked. From that distance, with a fresh perspective, Tracey had to admit that the past five years of her relationship with Billy did take on the appearance of a right old mess.
She pulled her jacket around her, got out of the car and wandered down to the water’s edge. Her son had been in her thoughts every waking minute of every day since he had left. She longed to hear he was happy and useful and at last embarking on the journey to becoming the person he ought to be, and yet… If he was, would that be because of Tracey, or despite her? She sank on to a bench and hugged herself.
Nothing seemed to make any psychological sense any more. If there was a defining fact that she could take away from her years of parenting it was that one: nothing makes any sense. When pressed, she might add the supplementary wisdom that you just never know. And beyond that, there was nothing else to give. There were her parents–cold, repressive, occasionally downright mean–who had never expressed anything but a tetchy disappointment in their own daughter; and there was Tracey, who had worked nonstop since her sixteenth birthday and until now had never sat at the water’s edge at dusk in springtime. And there was Tracey again–loving, loving to the point of madness–who, on the birth of her son, quite willingly and literally surrendered her own identity; and there was Billy, a dope-smoking lump. And then on top of all that, wind-up of wind-ups, there was bloody Annie Miller, who seemed to be the only person capable of bringing him to some sort of life. That might even be the worst aspect of the whole business. All those brilliant teachers, his own brilliant mother, and yet the first signs that there might just be some human intelligence locked away in there were made for and received by Annie. How much humiliation exactly was Tracey expected to take? Were there any plans to stop it at any point, or was she to spend the rest of her life just sucking it up?
A mother duck swam out of the reeds and a fleet of little ducklings dropped into the water and followed her. She had that earnest, smug, know-it-all demeanour of new mothers of every species; that triumphant air of one who has just changed for ever the future of the planet by bringing forth the most magnificent specimen that the world has yet known.
‘You bloody wait,’ snarled Tracey.
A little one swam in the wrong direction; at one imperious quack it returned to its mother immediately.
‘That’s the easy bit.’
There was a cascade of what sounded like duck laughter.
‘You won’t be laughing when they’re six foot two and shooting cyber-hookers.’
The whole family turned its back on her and swam upstream.
‘Or flying off to sodding Rwanda and leaving you,’ she called after them. ‘You think it won’t happen, but it will.’ It was getting dark, and cold. Tracey looked at her watch. Ten to seven–not long until choir rehearsal. Not that she actually cared…
Bennett charged headlong towards the Coronation Hall, his briefcase clutched to his side and a bit between his teeth. A grave injustice had taken place, he had uncovered it and now he owed it to the world–or at least to the Community Choir–to bring it out into the open. But he couldn’t do that without Tracey. And though he had tried her number several times, just to make sure she was coming, she hadn’t actually picked up. He was sure, though, that she would be there. Wouldn’t she? Of course she was only teasing when she talked of other choirs in other towns. She couldn’t really mean it. Why would she do that? He picked up speed until he almost ran into the hall.
Annie was sitting alone on the only chair in the middle of the room, clutching a large ledger and a pen. ‘Ah, Bennett.’
‘Annie. You’re sitting.’ He felt disorientated, looked about him, wobbled a bit. ‘No tea urn?’
‘Huh. No point. Hardly anyone’s coming. I’m afraid the situation can be summed up in one word: kettle.’ She opened the book, and put a tick in a column. ‘So glad you’re here, anyway.’
‘Of course I’m here.’ He got himself a chair. ‘Hey, nice notebook.’
‘Thanks. From that place in the High Street.’ Annie loved stationery too. She held it out for him to stroke and for just a while there they were alone, with the book, in a mutually contented silence. ‘I got so many messages from people saying they weren’t coming, I thought I might as well go with the flow and accept that I’m secretary.’ Opening the back of the book, at the page marked Apologies, she started to read. ‘Lynn says she’s had it up to here; according to the basses there’s something big happening down at the council�
��though I’m not sure I believe them; Jazzy says–well, I’m not going to repeat what Jazzy says, really, that girl’s language, bad as her mother, but she’s definitely given us up…’
‘And what about Tracey?’
‘I haven’t heard from her.’ Annie looked up. ‘Anyway, what about Tracey?’
‘Well,’ he leaned over and dropped his voice, ‘I have reason to believe—’
‘Am I pleased to see you two!’ squealed Annie as Lewis came in, pushing a downcast Katie. Bennett had never seen Katie without a smile on her face before; she looked quite a different girl.
‘We’re here all right,’ said Lewis brightly. Then, pointing at his daughter’s head, he mouthed: ‘Bad day.’
And after that, there was a trickle: Pat came in, stood in the middle waiting for a chair, sighed and then actually got one for herself. Judith and Kerry arrived holding hands and sat, heads together, talking in low voices. And then Edward, Emma and Jonty swung in. The piano was opened, the music stand erected and the baton raised.
‘Good evening, all,’ boomed Edward. ‘I hope you’ve been working on your Tavener.’
Still free as a bird, Tracey glided past an industrial estate at a responsible 38 mph. She had been driving in this particular town for a good three minutes, yet its name had already escaped her. They were all so similar, these places, and their differences were so slight–it was a wonder, really, that anyone bothered to name any of them at all. Each had, somewhere at its heart, the architectural evidence of the settlement it had once been, when it was at a distance from all other towns and its identity was important–this evening she had come across an abbey, a windmill, an ancient grammar school, the railway. Each was now cursed by its own particular eyesore–this estate, other retail parks, warehouses, shopping malls. And then, all together, they had been swamped by so many miles of modern identical housing that there was almost nothing–just a field here or a dual carriageway there–between them. What were once the towns of England had somehow leaked, congealed together, and now formed one giant smear across the centre of the country. It was too late to separate them off now. House names and numbers she could see the point of; street names, very sensible. But really, place names? In this day and age? No point.
