Joe shook his head as though he didn’t have an answer.
‘I don’t know what else kind of thing I could do to earn my keep, though,’ she said.
‘You could join the police force.’
She laughed a lot at this suggestion. ‘I could compose their anonymous letters for them, right? I’d enjoy that,’ she said, adding, as an afterthought, ‘You’re lucky you have a good job.’
‘Ah,’ said Joe, ‘what does that mean?’
As they walked in through the door, into the stale air of The Forfeit, Kit squeezed Joe’s arm, acknowledging an intimacy now to be suspended.
‘Hello, beautiful.’
‘Graham.’
Up stood a tall, middle-aged man who looked as though he’d been forced to grow used to being portly. He kissed Kit and stroked her cheek. ‘Okay then? You doing all right?’
‘Great, yes, I am. This is Joe, Graham. Graham, Joe.’
Graham stretched out a manly hand. ‘Mate. Good to meet you. Been dancing, I hear. What’s anyone having?’
‘Have you eaten?’ Kit asked him.
‘Had a bite in town. A tasty baguette,’ he said. ‘All right, actually. Nice. I liked it. Grilled brie with, what d’you call ’em? Can’t remember. Tasty, though. Nice place too. Cranberries, yes. I liked it. What about you two? Order you something? Take you out? What does anyone prefer?’
‘We’ll wait,’ said Joe. ‘We’ll eat later.’
‘Sure?’
‘We’re fine. We’ll eat later,’ he said.
‘Well, so, what’s anyone having?’
Joe asked for a pint; Kit for a glass of wine. She realised it felt funny to her not to be sitting at the table at the back.
While Graham stood jovially chatting to the barman, Kit said, ‘I’m so sorry you have to do this.’
‘Not at all,’ said Joe. ‘How could I possibly object?’
She shrugged her acceptance of this reply. ‘You know I told you Michaela had been getting at me a lot recently?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
Why had she embarked on this? Kit folded her hands together, then continued, ‘It wasn’t really about my clothes.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s about you.’ No, no, no.
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about me?’
‘Don’t get cross.’
‘Do I appear cross?’
‘You know when we were in here with Dean and Donald and Pauly?’
‘Yes. They’re here now, Dean and Donald are, out the back at one of the tables under a burner.’
‘They’re here?’
‘Yes. When you come up the street, you can see the edge of the back patio through the railings down the side of the pub.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘What about them?’
‘No, yes. No. You know I went to the loo? You probably don’t remember, but when I came back—’ And two, and three, and four—Graham put their drinks down on the table. ‘Murruh!’ he said, spitting out several crisp packets that he’d had dangling by their corners from his teeth, before replacing himself solidly in his chair.
‘Thanks,’ said Joe. ‘Excellent.’ They opened the crisps. Joe looked at Kit, who had gone silent, then turned to Graham. ‘What brings you to Oxford?’ he asked. ‘Kit said you had something on.’
‘Did she tell you what?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Dozy girl,’ said Graham affectionately. ‘I’m attending a session adjunct to a preliminary Euro-region meeting ahead of a breakaway congress next year of seed crushers and waste grease and oil processors.’
‘Of—sorry?’
‘Seed crushers? Waste oil processors? You know, sunflower, soya bean, linseed?’
Joe glanced at Kit for confirmation that he wasn’t having his leg pulled, which he wasn’t.
‘I decided last minute I’d get here ahead of time in favour of having to drive down crack of dawn tomorrow,’ said Graham. ‘Thought I’d see Birdy here and take my leisure for once. Can’t take getting up early any more. Going to kip at a mate’s house off the Botley Road. Came by train. Handy for the station. Old friend, lives off the Botley Road. Handy all ways round. And there’s always ye olde Cotswolds to fill up the view out your carriage window. What a lovely part of the world that must have been before cars.’
‘Can I just mention that that’s rubbish,’ said Kit. ‘You have to think of the past as having been excessive hard work and extremely dirty. Think of dreadful infant mortality rates, goitres, bad harvests, deaths in childbirth, stinking rotten teeth—’
‘She’s off on one,’ said Graham.
‘Birdy?’ said Joe.
‘Birdy? Christine. Skinny legs when she was a kid,’ said Graham. ‘Radio aerials. Bean stakes. A right little miss, too, sometimes. But yes, seed crushing, all in turmoil right now. Thing is, when I was young, obviously people older than me had authority as far as I was concerned, only natural. Then I hit my thirties, began to notice that—boy did I notice—certain people were starting to have authority over me despite the fact that they were younger—patronising, you know? Arrogant little twerps in their twenties telling me what to do, in the context of, that things move on and they knew more about it than I did, now. Fat lot of good, all those years of experience; and don’t talk to me about palm oil; and anyway, but now—’ whatever he was thinking about, it was borderline too much, ‘now,’ said Graham, taking a deep breath, ‘now that I’m firmly into my forties—’
‘More like firmly on the way out of them again,’ said Kit, with a little sister’s grin.
‘Now I’m this age, I’m finding people have authority over me because they’re younger than I am. Not despite—because. Which is like, I’m past my shelf life, is the general idea. Adjunct session. I tell you, this meeting’s not unimportant in respect of keeping my end up, between these four walls, in the revered world of international seed crushing. It’s not just going bald,’ he waved at his head, ‘it’s my private-parts hair’s going thin. I cough when I don’t need to. Hear myself do it. I drip after I think I’ve finished peeing. Day I hit forty-five, I said to myself, well done, mate, now you’re a has-been. You’re a has-been. I’m a great believer in carpeying the bloody diem but I thought, this is it. Past your shelf life, a has-been. I knew it. But was I right? I was not right. Was that it? That wasn’t it. By no manner of means, no. And how long did it take me to realise? Till just the other day, when I said to myself, shite, what am I on about? I’m not a has-been. I’m a hasn’t-been. I’m a hasn’t-been, never-was: a nothing, a resource hog. Willa’s doing it at school, resource hogs. The things they teach them, I’m telling you, steady on! Problem with my wife, Joe—I mean, don’t tell the resource hogs, will you.’
‘Graham,’ said Kit, caught between laughter and distress, ‘what on earth are you on about?’
‘Don’t ask me, Birdy,’ he said. ‘Not exactly roses right now. Feeling a touch rough, to tell you the truth. Drinking on my own,’ he said to Joe, pointing apologetically at his glass. ‘Don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve got my pubes going white, the ones I have left. Birdy here,’ he slapped her shoulder, ‘when she was a tiddler, cried the whole bloody time. Wouldn’t stop. Only way to get her to stop was to blow in her face.’
‘In her face?’
‘It surprised her, then it calmed her down.’
‘I don’t really know anything about babies,’ said Joe.
‘Well,’ said Graham, standing up, ‘they change everything.’ And he stumbled away to the toilets.
Kit and Joe sat in joint, surprised silence. It was Joe who ventured to speak first. ‘You were saying about Michaela?’
‘I, what—?’ said Kit, and then, ‘Oh, yes. No, never mind.’
‘Tell me.’
Kit, who was tired, hungry, over-warm and over-weary, and assailed by cares that she felt were beyond her, found that a moment for which she had been dangerously preparing herself had a
rrived. ‘Who was Dean Purcell referring to,’ she looked, just for a second, straight at Joe, ‘when he said to you about a quality-goods blonde? She was “quality goods”, was his phrase. He wanted to know what had happened to her. Michaela made me ask you,’ said Kit, ‘I mean, she thinks—’
‘Ask what you like,’ said Joe, ‘but ask me because it’s you who wants the answer.’
‘Yes.’
‘The “quality-goods blonde”?’ He pondered the phrase. ‘Clare, was she called? Clare. Yes. I had a date with her—must have been about a week before I met you. Dean cycled past us on Broad Street, saw us together and winked. She was—you know—blonde. I don’t think she noticed. Why would she notice?—a person like Dean? She was very uptight. Humpty and I couldn’t decide whether she meant a word she said. She taught art history somewhere or other. I don’t think she liked me all that much. But I doubt she’d have let it show if she was upset, I have to say.’
‘She what?’
‘Like you do.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’
‘You give away more of yourself than you realise.’
‘Not usually, I don’t think.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment, then.’
‘Maybe it just means you’re incredibly annoying?’ said Kit.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘if you’re going down this road, the person you should be asking about is Evalina.’
‘Who could dance superbly on a brick?’
He was amused by the speed with which she made this rejoinder. ‘I nearly married her,’ he said. ‘Or rather, I refused, in the end. We broke up because she wanted to have children. She was—is, older than me. She’s the most selfish person I’ve ever held on a dance floor. She’s from Chicago. She isn’t here any more.’
He stopped talking as Graham swayed back into their orbit. ‘Who’s up for another one?’ he asked, leaning breathily over the table.
Joe began to fish for his wallet.
‘No, no, no,’ said Graham exhibiting the heaviness of a person who’s determined not to be resisted.
‘Why don’t I at least go up and get them?’ said Kit. She accepted without demur the note that Graham pressed into her hand.
‘Same again all round?’ she said.
Kit stood, confused, at the bar. She felt as though she’d just lost her grip on something. But what? Here she was, up at the bar, the quality-goods blonde, that bugbear, cast aside in a couple of sentences—and Evalina: phut. Nervously, Kit thought to herself, it’s just me and Joe now. That’s what it is. It’s between him and me, now. It’s all on me.
‘You still with us?’ said the barman. ‘There you are, love.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’ Kit, thinking that it was she who was dancing on a brick, gathered up the drinks and revolved slowly on one foot.
‘I was just telling Joe, here,’ said Graham, ‘thanks, wonderful, mmm—yes, thinking of investing in the double-handle toilet tank. Man of the moment, me.’ Kit sat back down, exchanging glances with Joe.
‘Thank you,’ said Joe to Graham.
‘It’s no more complicated,’ said Graham, ‘than the concept of a hot tap and a cold tap. Complex? I don’t think so. One handle’s a semi-flush—peeing, in other words—other one gives you the full cistern, say no more. Water savings, meters, of course, more and more prevalent. Make a tidy packet off it, I’m thinking. Neglection of green investments is bloody foolish—you just can’t deny it. Look at the weather we’ve been having. And there’s corners of this market the lightliest regulated you can imagine, given the bandwagon effect.’
‘I went to London today to do a research thing,’ said Kit, ‘the Public Record Office, Graham. Honestly, you know what? The girls’ loos, they have these circular mirrors over each sink, and they’re put on the walls so low down that if you’re standing normally, me, I could just about see the bottom edge of my chin. Perhaps they were installed by little Polish people, I don’t know. I mean, I may not be Rapunzel or Cinderella, but it comes off a bit pro-dwarf that someone my height, in a government building, should be beheaded by the public lavatory system. Hey, Graham,’ said Kit, ‘suppose you had to pay to have certain conversations, would you stump up a quid to be able to discuss the weather?’
‘Touché,’ he replied; and then, addressing himself to Joe, said, ‘Kid sisters, born to put you down. Oh, what?’ he jerked back to Kit, ‘—what, buy conversations at the supermarket, you saying? Two for the price of one? Buy “New Labour and Tory: what’s the difference?”—and get a free go at “If there’s another interest rate rise, I may end up defaulting on the mortgage”—?’
Joe dipped his head very slightly.
‘That’s it,’ said Kit, ‘except, I think if you wanted to have a really boring conversation—would it be cheap because it was so boring, or would that make it an indulgence, such that it needed to be extra expensive?’
‘Oh, boring, it ought to be expensive, definitely,’ said Graham.
‘So, a conversation about the weather in England—’
‘Luxury item. Cellophane and ribbons.’ He took a deep breath, and said, ‘If you’d shelled out big time for a conversation about the weather, you’d want to save it up for a rainy day.’
He was so pleased with himself that Kit clapped, which made him want to bow. He put his empty glass down on the table with the care due a full one, then tilted over his own belly.
‘Oh yes, sorry,’ said Kit. She pushed a few coins across at him. ‘I forgot. I had to put the change in my pocket so I could carry the glasses. Sorry.’
‘We’re all right,’ said Graham, refusing the money. ‘What’s a few pence?’ he said. ‘We’re all right—about things like that.’ There was a slight hiatus before he said, ‘So, what’s up with you two? I have to get in the old look-out-for-your-little-sister bit, right?’
‘Graham,’ said Kit in flattening tones. She didn’t want Joe to have to sit through any more of this.
‘Here’s a lad all shaven and shorn, that loves the maiden all forlorn?’ said Graham.
‘Please, please, please,’ said Kit, holding her hands up. ‘Apart from anything else, and it’s a big apart, I am no way forlorn.’
‘Raise a glass to that,’ said Graham, and did so, to find it empty.
‘I think we need to be off,’ said Joe, looking to Kit for agreement.
She immediately stood up. ‘Are you going to be okay?’ she asked Graham.
‘Only going to Botley,’ he said, staring at them both. ‘I’m staying with Henry. Jump on a bus.’
‘Why don’t I call him and ask him to pick you up?’ said Kit. ‘You have his number, right?’
‘Not to worry.’ He made a feeble attempt to stand.
Joe said to Kit, nodding at her for emphasis, ‘Sit back down a minute, stay here. I’ll go outside and call a cab. Kit and I need to go out to Botley anyway, Graham. We’ll all go. We’ll drop you off.’
Graham grunted.
‘You can catch all the buses you like in the morning,’ said Joe.
‘Shaven and shorn,’ said Graham. ‘Just take a piss.’ And he raised himself, this time successfully, to his feet.
At Henry’s house, all three of them got out of the cab together.
‘Striking moon, look at that,’ said Graham; for there it was still, magnificently huge and clear.
As Joe leant back in through the passenger window to pay, Graham added, in a hushed voice, ‘You okay really, Birdy?’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, his coins stowed in her pocket.
‘You’d think he was a hard nut from the look of him,’ he said in a whisper.
‘I know, but he’s—I’m fine, Graham, I promise you,’ said Kit.
Graham turned round to Joe. ‘Look me up sometime,’ he said. He scanned through his wallet, evidently wanting to hand over his card; but, much as he searched, he couldn’t find one. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘any questions about seed crushing, I’m your man. Want to come in and say hello to Henry?’
Joe and Kit set off along the street; Graham, within seconds, gone.
Kit sighed enormously. ‘Thank you for being so nice.’
‘Like I said before, I’m well practised in the wayward-brothers department, as you have too much reason to know. Anyway, there’s something endearing about him.’
‘I can tell you exactly what it is.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s the play between him recognising and not quite accepting that he’s a failure, as he understands it.’
‘Is it? I don’t know. Perhaps that’s what you like about me. Don’t worry,’ he said, as she responded to this remark with alarm. ‘Anyway, I liked him.’
‘I know. All the same—I can’t believe just when we’re shot of your zonko brother we get stuck with my rambling, half-drunk half-brother instead. You don’t mind me saying that do you?’ she asked.
‘It’s okay.’ Joe smiled. ‘It was a revelation, Birdy—with the radio-aerial legs.’
‘It’s different though, you know?—because Graham and I have very little to do with each other. I mean, I don’t feel responsible for him, is what I mean; not like you and Humpty. I mean, I would if he fell over in front of me, but I don’t just worry about him, generally speaking. Normally his main topic of conversation is about various meals he can remember having eaten since the last time you met. I guess actually I do worry about him from time to time, but what I’m saying is, I don’t do anything about it.’
‘That’s the position, at my weakest, that I’d like to be able to take with Humpty.’
‘Weakest or strongest?’
‘Ah.’ Joe brooded over her question, then said, ‘You know, I do find myself thinking that it’s only for my own sake, now, that I care much about whether Humpty’s coping or not.’
The Twisted Heart Page 17
