by Amanda Coe
‘Nigel?’
It was a boy, outside the cubicle. He knocked politely on the door.
‘Bilbo sent me to see if you’re okay.’
Bilbo, as in Baggins, as in the Hobbit, was Mr Hinton’s nickname, which the teacher himself celebrated, cheerfully referring to himself as such. The huge desert-booted feet visible in the gap under the cubicle door identified his emissary as Toby.
‘I’m fine.’
Nigel rattled out a length of the medicinal-smelling, waxy toilet paper from the wooden holder. Toby’s feet remained planted.
‘I’ll be there in a minute.’
The feet retreated, but the sounds from the other side of the door suggested that Toby was determined to hang around. Perhaps he had finished his pencil case already. When Nigel pulled the chain and opened the door, Toby grinned at him from where he perched perilously on the rim of the large mesh bin next to the basins, rocking experimentally and testing his balance by lifting his feet, then stopping himself at the last possible moment from falling back into the rubbish.
‘Christ, pongo,’ he remarked amiably, watching Nigel wash his hands. ‘Got the squits?’
Nigel said nothing. He knew that if he did, Toby would mimic it in a tin-eared version of a Yorkshire accent that sounded nothing like Nigel but gave Toby vast, unmalicious delight.
‘You should go to Matron,’ he advised, as Nigel tersely detached a paper towel from the holder. ‘She’s got all the potions. Get her to rub your face in her tits while you’re at it.’
Leering, Toby forgot to check his angle and caved down into the teetering bin, which tipped to the floor with Toby in it, his rump jammed.
‘Shit!’
He held his arm out for Nigel to pull him free. As Toby unselfconsciously grasped Nigel’s wet, washed hand with his hot, enormous paw, the shock of being touched hit him, worse than if Toby had kicked him in the nuts. Toby’s skin was surprisingly soft, the contact dismally lovely after so many physically isolated weeks. The last time Nigel had been touched was by Mum, her kiss at the station as she saw him on to the train, a hug that pushed him away more than it drew him in, bracing him for his new life. They had barely dared look at each other, because sharing what each knew of the other’s feelings was worse than saying goodbye. The new life. No touching. No Louise, whose embrace had been dogged and tear-stained. The very last contact had been Patrick’s brief, ambassadorial handshake.
As Toby staggered to his feet the bell rang—not an electronic bell, but a brass hand bell, serenely deployed by Guy, a retired teacher actually called Mr Fawkes, who also took on gardening duties. Nigel palmed his hand dry on his trouser leg and righted the bin, reinstating some of its scattered contents.
‘You tool,’ said Nigel. Out in the corridor, the smell of lunch being prepared hit him, brackish with vegetables. Already, his guts were cranking up to their next expulsion.
‘Oo’s tha callin’ a tool, ee bah gum,’ Toby said, trudging after him. A paper towel had stuck to the crepe sole of his desert boot. As Toby stopped to detach it by trampling it free with his other foot, Nigel left him behind and escaped to Latin.
BY THE TIME they were on pudding, Auntie B and Patrick were both more talkative. The two of them weren’t exactly having a conversation, but no one seemed to mind. Mum sat in the middle, talking to each as they needed and chatting to Louise at the same time, with Patrick’s hand on her thigh.
‘It’s never!’
Auntie B nudged Mum hard in the side, nodding over at a man who had come into the restaurant with his wife.
‘Micky thingy! Coulter!’
‘Oh my God.’ Although Mum continued to smile her new smile, Louise could see she wasn’t pleased.
‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’
Auntie B waved without waiting for Mum’s answer, which would clearly have been no. It was because she didn’t usually drink; she would never have waved to someone like that otherwise.
‘An old flame,’ B told Patrick, pulling a face.
‘Brenda!’ Mum tried to pull her back, but it was too late. Micky and his wife were coming over. Micky wore tight jeans and boots with a heel, but he was still smaller than his wife, who was what Louise’s dad called a dollybird. She was wearing a fun-fur jacket with her jeans, which were as tight as Micky’s but looked far better on her.
‘Christ on a bike,’ Patrick said, before they reached them.
‘You bitch, B,’ said Mum, without disturbing her smile of welcome.
Micky seemed truly delighted to see Mum and Auntie B, but most of all to see Mum. His wife and Patrick were undelighted as he exclaimed, ‘Look at you!’ and gave Mum a wet kiss, moving on to B with more politeness and less enthusiasm. They didn’t talk for long, since it was clear no one had much to say to each other. Micky was doing building contracting, and he and his wife, who had been at school with Mum and B and was called Janet, had three boys. They were celebrating Janet’s birthday. Janet said it was pricey at the Berni but always worth it, and anyway, Micky was paying. She took a long, curious look at Patrick while they were all talking, but he remained unintroduced. Then she raked an even more curious look over Mum’s clothes, which were unlike anything else being worn in the room, and protectively stroked her fun fur.
‘Could have been you,’ said B, as Micky and Janet moved off to their table. Mum picked up her wine glass.
‘I don’t think so.’
B leaned over her to Patrick. At some point during the meal she seemed to have become more interested in him than she was in Mum.
‘He played the guitar. Mum and Dad hated that, their daughter going off with a pop star—they thought it was the end of the world!’
‘We were kids,’ Mum protested.
‘You were mad about him! Used to sneak out and all sorts!’
‘What was I supposed to do? They stopped me seeing him.’
Patrick kissed Mum on the ear. ‘Would you like me to challenge him to a duel?’
He was joking.
Mum leaned into him. ‘Go on then,’ she said, as Patrick moved his lips through her hair, smiling.
B dropped back against her chair cushion. Louise could see her disappointment. Something hadn’t worked. Things tended not to, for Auntie B.
‘You always had to be different,’ she said, to Mum, but for Patrick.
‘Me?’
‘She did! Always. Nothing were ever good enough. Princess and the bloody pea we used to call her at home.’
Mum made the closed-mouth bark that pretended to be laughter when something wasn’t funny. She never said much, but when she was angry she stopped talking altogether. She shook her hair out again and did the stretching thing with her neck. Squeezing her hand, Patrick called the waiter and ordered another bottle of wine.
‘But we’ve had our pudding,’ said Auntie B. She looked shocked, although the waiter didn’t. Mum made another bark and B wheeled to look at her, a fight ready in her face, but Patrick was too quick for her.
‘Brenda my love, if you won’t have another drink, the rest of the world will have to have it for you.’
And incredibly, Patrick picked up B’s hand and kissed it, so that B blushed and called him a daft bugger. He had won, just like that—Louise didn’t understand how. But Mum laughed, and Patrick kissed her, laughing himself for some reason, so that his mouth laughed against her laughter. Louise wished she could kiss Mum too, but there was no room. The waiter delivered the wine and Auntie B had some after all. Louise’s Coke was long drained, and she resorted to dry slurps of the straw. Still, everyone was happy now. Mum was happy. That was what Patrick could do.
Part Two
SARA sits on the outcrop. It’s starting to get dark. Sound of the sea beyond, behind her. She ignores the sea and looks straight out to the audience. She’s on the lookout for someone. Alert. NASH and GIL cross from SR, both smoking. They’re in uniform.
GIL: You waiting for someone, love?
SARA nods.
NASH: Sure it�
�s not us?
GIL: When’s it ever us, Nash boy?
NASH: Show us your tits.
Impassively, and still on the lookout, SARA pulls off the top part of her gown, revealing her bare breasts. NASH and GIL don’t see this, as they’ve walked DS.
NASH: Farting in the wind.
GIL: Speak for yourself.
NASH: The lot of them. Farting in the wind.
GIL: Pissing in the wind, isn’t it?
NASH: Fuck off.
GIL: Pissing in the wind, whistling in the dark.
NASH: Farting in the wind.
GIL: Shitting their kegs.
NASH: Fuck off. The lot of them, is what I’m saying.
GIL: We’ll all be shitting our kegs come tomorrow, Nashy boy.
NASH: Fuck off.
GIL: The lot of us. Them and all.
GIL and NASH turn back. They see SARA.
GIL: You slag.
NASH: Sure you’re waiting for someone, love?
SARA: He’s late.
GIL: Pull the other one—it’s got bells on.
NASH: Mine hasn’t.
SARA: I’m waiting for the colonel. Do you know him?
GIL: Oh, we know the colonel all right, don’t we, Nash boy?
NASH: We know the colonel like the back of our hands.
SARA: With bells on?
NASH offers SARA a cigarette from his packet. She declines it.
NASH: Go on, it’s good for your health.
SARA shakes her head.
NASH: Save it for later then.
He takes the cigarette and places it behind her ear. SARA takes it and offers it back to him.
SARA: It’s a waste.
GIL: Give it to the colonel. He likes a smoke, doesn’t he, Nash boy?
NASH: Not half. Fag-ash Lil, the colonel.
SARA replaces the cigarette behind her ear.
NASH: Do I get a little kiss?
GIL: For the snout?
NASH: Just a peck on the cheek.
SARA takes the cigarette and again offers it back to NASH.
SARA: I think the colonel smokes a different brand.
NASH doesn’t take the cigarette. SARA drops it to the ground.
NASH: Got it first time, Gil; she’s a slag.
GIL: Right little slapper, anyone can see that.
NASH: Tits hanging out for the world to see.
GIL: Flashing her lilies.
NASH: How much does the colonel pay you, love?
SARA: How much does he pay you?
NASH and GIL move in. GIL holds SARA as NASH rapes her. SARA doesn’t resist, but as the attack escalates, her cry pierces the air.
SARA: England!!!
END OF ACT 1
(From Bloody Empire, 1982)
Now
AUTUMN
THE MAGAZINE page had dropped from the pristine flyleaf of an unused recipe book. The book was part of a sparse collection that all looked, from the honeyed glazes and maraschino garnishes of the shots on their covers, to have been acquired at the same time—the 1980s—and never looked at. Sara was no cook. Mia would have known that from the state of the kitchen, even if Patrick didn’t often make the point himself when she served him a meal. Sometimes it was announced as a compliment, as he took the first approving bite, or as exculpation, when his palate faltered at an unfamiliar, and to his mind exotic, dish. That was his age, not Mia’s cooking. She was a really good cook. It was what she’d enjoyed most about the summer weeks, having the run of the clapped-out kitchen.
Mia shook the spine, expecting to release the article’s facing page, but all that resulted was the protesting crackle of elderly glue. Her fingers slipped along the sleek, still inky-smelling pages of Chicken Marengo and Spanish Puffs. Empty; this was all there was. Most of the magazine fragment was taken up by half a picture. Looking at it, Mia recognised young versions of Patrick and Sara. There was more of him than of her, their dark bodies invaded by white text.
‘He Doesn’t Even Like Me To Say the B-Word!’
Woman’s Own meets controversial playwright
Patrick Conway and his wife, Sa
their rugged Cornish retreat.
Mia replaced the page in the flyleaf, setting the book on the pile already taken from the shelf. Along with the others she had removed, the book’s negative was visible on the grimy wall behind. This reminded her about chasing up the last lot of painters for a quote: she already had two stored in her mobile, and it would be good to make a start.
The third painter never seemed to answer his phone. Mia decided not to leave another message. As she waited for the Yell app to buffer so that she could go about finding someone else, Mia retrieved the magazine page and chucked it in the bin. So much crap.
It was interesting though. Overall. Mia reminded herself of this whenever Patrick went on about things she found boring, or repeated himself; that to someone on the outside, her situation was very interesting indeed. Through July and August she had enjoyed imagining people on her course reading the artfully casual update she’d put on Facebook: ‘She’s got an internship with this old writer, he has this amazing house in Cornwall?’ For maximum impact, they’d have to know who Patrick was. Or at least they should know that Patrick had been famous, back in the day, if not properly, then at least famous enough to know some really famous people, the kind who were quoted and whose deaths got announced everywhere. It was old school, but Mia didn’t care. She was so used to being different, she not only liked it, she sought it out. For example, the way she dressed: only people who knew could see the quality of what she wore, so lengthily saved for, her boots shined. It made her a different kind of person, just as her dad had always told her. Don’t run with the crowd, babe. The point was, being here would look amazing on her CV, burnished into ‘PA to playwright Patrick Conway’.
CV apart, though, it was getting harder to deny that money was on the verge of becoming an issue. After Patrick had invited her to stay for the vacation, Mia had given notice on her flat-share back in Newcastle and cleared out all her stuff. She didn’t have the cash to keep the rent up all through the summer without a serious job, and the ‘board’ Patrick was offering her turned out to mean little more than a roof over her head. It had panicked her a little, putting her belongings into store, although she didn’t want to renew the tenancy on the flat, which was a rip-off, miles from the town centre and freezing in the winter, with tiny, gloomy rooms. Besides, she’d have had to find flatmates to replace the two Italian girls she’d been sharing with, who had gone back to Turin at the end of term. It was beyond irritating, interviewing people you had no interest in even talking to but had to evolve a kind of intimacy with, however much you lived your own life; their unflushed crap in the toilet. Never again, she’d vowed, not if she could help it.
Patrick himself wasn’t an entirely reliable flusher, but he was old. So was his toilet, for that matter. And although he wasn’t paying her anything apart from what he called housekeeping, at least he had proved flexible with the sums he doled out to her. Mia was scrupulous about giving Patrick change and receipts (which he never looked at) and the only money she held back was for things like toiletries. She could imagine Patrick calling this category ‘unmentionables’. He could be quite funny, in his way. Mia had been truly surprised to find this during their first week alone together, because, as she had told him, his play was so serious.
‘Of course it’s serious, my love, but it’s fucking hilarious! Haven’t you ever seen it?’
Obviously she hadn’t. She’d actually only skip-read it on the train on the way down to see him that first time. It was hard to imagine it being funny. Mia had never really got plays, and the ones about issues, which this one clearly was, she found the most unfathomable, Shakespeare apart. She had come to Bloody Empire purely because her dissertation subject, controversy as media commodity (her supervisor Jonathon’s suggestion), needed a period that was academically uncolonised. Mia’s idle googling had turned serious as she had be
gun to realise that the Falklands War, which had taken place eight years before she was born, almost certainly had a dissertation in it. She knew that Jonathon would object if he could, so she ensured that when she suggested ‘Conflict (re) solutions: media controversies in representations of the Falklands crisis, 1982’, she was confident it hadn’t already been done. Since their thing, Jonathon had become very severe, overcorrecting the bias that had led to their thing in the first place. It was all a bit late in the day, in Mia’s opinion. And although she definitely wasn’t going to make that mistake again, she doubted very much that she could say the same for Jonathon. She had seen him leching over that fat-arsed girl with the piercings in their seminar group. So needy.
Outside the kitchen, Mia’s phone finally flagged up a sturdy little xylophone of reception; there was no rhyme or reason to the coverage in the house, you just had to take the opportunity. Proceeding alphabetically, she rejected the firm called Abel Decorators because she knew Patrick would make a comment about the name, as though she hadn’t noticed. She settled for Atkinson Home Décor, who answered promptly and sounded professional. ‘Décor’ was itself hardly a Patrick-friendly word, but she would just refer to them as Atkinson’s if they came back with a competitive quote.
It was funny, now that she knew him well enough to second-guess his prejudices, to think that only a few months ago Patrick had been no more than a couple of prospective footnotes. The email that Sara had replied to so scrupulously had been one of ten Mia had composed to possible key sources. Three of her authors, she later discovered, had been dead for some years, one had Alzheimer’s and, of the rest, only Sara had been so quickly responsive. Mia was pleased by the imagined cachet of citing a conversation with a living author, however forgotten, in her dissertation. It was classy and attention-grabbing. It showed the kind of flair she could talk up in interviews as evidence of journalistic instincts, bound to impress. Don’t run with the crowd, babe.
