by Daisy Waugh
‘Nobody’s throwing him out with the rubbish,’ interrupts Fanny, exasperated. ‘I told you. We’re offering him private bloody lessons. For free.’
A smile for Fanny. ‘And yet I feel it is our responsibility not to “offer him private lessons”. Not to treat him as an outcast, but to guide him gently back into the fold.’
‘Aye. And yet – it’s not your fuckin’ fold that’s going to go up in flames, is it?’ breaks in Grey.
‘Grey, really!’ Geraldine frowns. ‘It’s so generous and kind of Mr Morrison to offer his precious time to our little village problems; to lend us a little wisdom from the front line, so to speak.’ She beams at Morrison, who is tapping his pockets, checking for his mobile phones. ‘I do think we might all show him a little more respect.’
‘One day, my dear lady,’ chuckles the General, ‘I might tell you a story or two about this kind and generous gentleman.’
Maurice cocks his head, genial as ever, looks down at the General. ‘And I assure you, General, my lawyers will always be listening. Incidentally,’ he turns towards Geraldine, blinds her with his marvellous smile, ‘did I take your card, Mrs Adams?’
‘No. I don’t believe you did. Clive!’ He’s already crossed the room, is already sliding a card into Maurice’s hand. Maurice takes it casually, slips it into his pocket without even glancing at it. ‘But come, General. Let’s not fight. We’re here for the youngster this evening, not for ourselves. I believe I’ve cast my vote. What about the rest of you?’
The voting process very quickly degenerates into a row, with the Pro-Excluders (Fanny, Grey, Reverend Hodge and the General) all offering to tutor Dane in their spare time, and the Anti-Excluders (Geraldine, Robert and Maurice) offering nothing, and still managing to maintain the moral high ground. Somehow, between all the arguments, the votes are cast; Morrison makes his excuses and slithers away; and Fanny takes Dane into a quiet corner to deliver the unhappy verdict.
‘But I never done it!’ he says, as the tears slither down his face. ‘I never even bloody well done it!’
53
By the time Fanny returns to the Adamses’ parlour, only her foes are left. The White House sofas are back where they’re meant to be and Clive, Geraldine and Robert are sitting on them, muttering to one another. Their heads spring apart as Fanny opens the door.
‘Fanny!’ cry the Adamses. ‘No hard feelings, I hope?’
‘No. Not at all. I mean, I won – in a way. I’m just very sorry. He’s still adamant he didn’t do it, you know, and he sounds so convincing. In spite of all the evidence, there’s a part of me which almost believes him.’
Robert smiles. A smile that makes his eyes smart. ‘It’s painful for all of us, Fanny. Nevertheless we should try not to be too naive.’
‘I wasn’t being naive—’
‘Anyway,’ interrupts Clive, ‘can I get you a drink?’
‘No. No, thank you. Very kind…’ She’s tried Louis’s mobile but he’s not picking up. She’s going to have to make the walk home alone, which she doesn’t relish after all that happened earlier, even with the knife still in her handbag. She wants to make the journey home while it’s still light outside.
‘Nonsense!’ Robert shuffles his bony arse along the sofa, pats the seat beside him. ‘Come on, head teacher,’ he insists. ‘Prove there are no hard feelings!’
‘There are no hard feelings.’
‘Well, come and sit down then!’ he says.
‘Yes, do,’ says Geraldine. ‘You must.’
‘Rebuild a few of those unbroken bridges,’ says Clive.
She sighs.
‘Are you all right, Fanny?’ Robert half-frowns, half-smiles. ‘You look ever so worried. Has something happened this evening?’
It is Tracey, walking home arm in arm with Macklan, who appears to be the most unhappy about the governors’ verdict. Her brother Dane trails along behind them plucking at cow parsley along the verge, wearing a goofy, private smile. He has a Safeways overnight bag crammed with dirty laundry slung over one arm because Tracey’s letting him stay on the sofa at Macklan’s tonight, as a treat, and she’s agreed to help him with a wash.
Not only that, Miss Fanny Flynn just told him he was ‘smart’ or at any rate that he could be. With a little effort. (‘We’ve got six weeks, Dane. In six weeks you could be as smart as any of them,’ is what Fanny had said. ‘Well. Not as smart as Scarlett. Obviously.’ It had made him laugh.) Dane cannot remember a lesson, not ever, when he hasn’t felt pissed off and inferior. The way his teacher talked tonight it seemed, after all, that this could change. It makes him grin.
‘I didn’t do it, you know,’ he says cheerfully, tapping Tracey on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Trace. Because I didn’t.’
‘I didn’t ask, did I?’ she says. ‘If you want to ruin your life that’s your business, Dane Guppy.’
‘But maybe he didn’t do it, Trace,’ suggests Macklan tentatively. ‘Nobody saw him.’
‘Don’t be so damn stupid.’
Just then, from behind a large, oblong tombstone on the other side of the churchyard wall they hear someone laugh; it’s a distinctive, throaty laugh, spangled with mischief and sex, and recognisable to anyone who’s spent any evening in the Fiddleford Arms recently. ‘Kitty?’ Tracey calls.
Muffled snorts.
Tracey and Macklan sniff the air. A tail of smoke is rising from behind the tombstone, and with it a sweet, unmistakable aroma.
‘Louis?’ calls out Macklan. ‘Is that you?’
‘Shhh!’ (More muffled snorts.) ‘Shh. Shut up!’
‘Kitty?…Are you all right?’ Tracey pushes back the churchyard gate. The three of them, Tracey, Mack and Dane, trek inside.
‘What’s going on?’ Macklan demands.
Cautiously, they peer round the edge of the tombstone. They find Louis lying on his side and close by, Kitty, her skirt hitched up, shirt undone, a bottle of wine between her knees and a burning spliff in her fingers. She looks from one to the other, and then to Louis, and melts into a puddle of giggles.
‘Tracey! Macklan! Hey! What a surprise,’ says Louis, clambering to his feet, grabbing the joint from Kitty’s fingers and treading on it. ‘We were just talking about illustrations. And stuff. Weren’t we, Kitty?’
‘I’ll bet,’ Tracey says.
‘Kitty’s asked me to do her illustrations. For the book. Haven’t you, Kitty?’
‘Yyyyup!’
He gives up on her, turns back to Tracey. ‘You remember? The book!’ He smiles, a wobbly smile, very sweet. ‘It’s actually important that you believe me. Because nothing—Really, nothing—’
‘Whatever,’ Tracey mutters. ‘None of my business anyway. Dane? Macklan? Are you coming?’ They’re standing side by side, mouths drooping in amazement. Tracey laughs. ‘Get it together, lads! You never seen a couple of stoners before now?’
‘“Stoners”?’ repeats Kitty delightedly. ‘“Stoners”!…Stoners! A couple of stupid—crc…crr…crrrr…crrrr!’
Louis jabs her with his foot. ‘Shut up, Kitty.’
‘CRRRRRRRRRRR!’ Kitty loses her balance, slides on to her side.
Tracey turns away. ‘I don’t know about you two,’ she says to Macklan and Dane, ‘but I’ve had enough of these jokers. I could do with a cup of tea.’
Back at the Old Rectory, Fanny sits on the farthest end of Robert’s sofa and gulps back the Adamses’ glass of wine as fast as politely possible. It’s a large sofa and Robert’s body is at least a metre away, and yet his almost-nearness is still burning her skin.
Clive and Geraldine, feeling more alive than they ever have since the Fiddleford downsize, pop up and down, offering nibbles and chattering happily about nothing – as if the conversation meant anything to anyone. No one is listening to a word.
Geraldine suddenly says, ‘Fanny, sweetheart, I feel terrible. I’d love to invite you to supper but unfortunately we only have three sole, and I must admit I’ve promised the third one to Robert. Do you mind?
’
‘What?’ Fanny’s on her feet at once. ‘God, no! Thank you, no! Actually, I must go!’
Geraldine stands up. ‘Well, it was lovely to see you, Fanny. And no doubt we’ll see each other very soon.’
‘Absolutely. Of course we will.’
‘So if it’s not rude I’ll nip into the kitchen and get the grill on. And Clive, could you be sweet and fetch some white from the cellar?’
It is left to Robert to see Fanny out. When they’re all alone in the dusk-lit hall he leans down from his bony height, places his soft lips very close to her ear. ‘I returned a little something to your front door this evening,’ he whispers. ‘Did you see? I thought you might have been missing them.’
She veers away. Stares at him. ‘But they weren’t mine,’ she hears herself saying, as if it mattered. As if it were faintly relevant. ‘They were Tracey’s.’
Something in his face changes. He looks stunned, thwarted. He looks revolted. Somehow he manages to smile. He gives a little shrug. ‘Well, well,’ he says lightly. ‘I found them in the street, just outside your cottage. Nice little panties, too.’ He winks at her. ‘They’d suit you better, Fanny. Why don’t you keep them? I promise I won’t tell!’
54
‘You tell her, Dane,’ Macklan says, bringing in three mugs of tea. ‘She won’t listen to me. She’d be much better living here with me than living with that miserable old sod, wouldn’t she? And you could live with us too, if you wanted,’ he adds quickly. ‘So long as you don’t set fire to the place.’
Dane shakes his head. ‘I didn’t do it, Mack,’ he says calmly. ‘I never done it.’
‘There’s plenty of room for the both of you here. Isn’t there, Trace?’
She smiles. ‘There’s not room, Mack.’
‘Any case,’ says Dane, ‘it’s not me what’s stopping her, Macklan. It’s Uncle Russell. She says he can’t look after himself.’
‘So better forget it, Mack,’ she says before he has time to respond. ‘You know I can’t live here. Much as I’d like to…’ She glances up, sees Macklan gazing on her, clearly unsatisfied, and gives him a kiss on the cheek. ‘But thanks for asking. I’ll come one day, I will. If you’ll wait for me…’
‘Anyhow,’ Dane adds sullenly, ‘I don’t see why you suddenly care so much about Uncle Russell. It’s not like he gives a fuck about you.’
She shoots him a warning look.
‘He could drop dead for all I care,’ continues Dane stubbornly.
‘Yeah, well. He’s not going to drop dead, is he? So shut your face.’
‘He’s a twazzock, an’ I hate him,’ says Dane. ‘And a dirty old perv. He spies on people. Everyone knows that. I’ll bet he spies on you.’
Her response, which would have been sharp, is blocked by a tremendous hammering at the door. All three of them jump.
‘Tracey?…Tracey, are you there?’ Fanny has run all the way from the Adamses’, through the village, past Louis and Kitty in the churchyard, straight to Macklan’s cottage. ‘It’s about the…’ She stops to catch her breath. ‘Tracey, the red knickers. Which you took from me this evening. I tried to tell you. Someone had—’
‘Get lost, Fanny!’ shouts Tracey, over her mug of tea.
‘Don’t, Trace,’ mutters Dane. ‘She’s all right, Miss Flynn is. Don’t be like that.’
‘Look, I don’t want to shout about this in the street, but I will if I have to.’
‘Get lost, Fanny. Leave us alone,’ Tracey shouts again.
‘I think they were covered in spunk!’
‘What did she say?’ asks Dane.
‘And you have to give them back so I can take them to the police. Robert White just told me. He just told me he put them there and Tracey, they were covered in…I think he…’
Tracey springs up. Spills her tea. Mutters under her breath.
‘Leave her, Trace,’ says Macklan. ‘I can talk to her.’
But Tracey has already flung open the front door.
Fanny reels back in the face of her anger, steps away to lean against the garden wall. ‘I’m so sorry, Tracey. About Dane. I didn’t want to do it. I had to. I think he needs help.’
Tracey blinks. Looks at her blankly.
‘Tell me, Tracey,’ insists Fanny, ‘what would you have done? I want to help him. But I had to think about the other children.’
Tracey shakes her head. ‘You said something about Robert White.’
‘Yes,’ Fanny says in relief. ‘I did.’ She takes one long, garbled, breathless sentence to explain herself. In the middle of it Tracey breaks away, whirls back into the sitting room, leaving the door open for Fanny to follow her in. ‘I put them in the wash,’ she says simply. ‘With Dane’s dirty stuff. We’ll have to open the door.’
‘How long ago?’ asks Fanny. ‘How long?’
‘It was when the hospital show was on, wasn’t it?’ pipes up Dane. He indicates the silent, flickering television. ‘And there’s been the other one since then.’
‘He’s right,’ says Macklan. ‘It must be half an hour. What the bloody hell’s going on?’
‘Half an hour,’ mutters Fanny. She and Tracey sink, side by side, on to the sofa. Dane and Macklan regard them curiously. A heavy silence falls.
‘Well, come on!’ yells Macklan. ‘Don’t just flop!’ Tracey glances up at him, offers him a wan smile, but there are tears in her eyes and Tracey never cries. He crouches down beside her, runs a hand over her cheek. ‘Maybe,’ he says tenderly, ‘when you’ve finished flooding my house and smashing up my clothes washer, you’ll tell me what the hell’s going on. In the mean time, I don’t truly care. Anything, Trace, to get that miserable look off your face. I’ll saw it open. I’ll blow the bloody thing up.’
But he didn’t need to bother. She’d set the machine on to a fast wash and as the four of them draw up in front of it, it emits a subdued little click. The wash is finished. They can see the pants through the glass, resting on top of Dane’s tracksuit, innocent, clean – and useless to them. Tracey shudders. She won’t be wearing them again.
55
Clive Adams presents his case well when he telephones Jo Maxwell McDonald early the following morning. He lays a heavy emphasis, not on the needs of his ailing practice, not on the sad state of his numerous bank accounts, but on justice, and the powerlessness of the young. Jo’s only half-listening. She’s more concerned with the whereabouts of her twins, and the worrying silence emanating from the playroom next door, but she nods along.
Speaking in his fluent, glamorously technical, mostly incomprehensible monotone, Clive explains what it is that he and Geraldine intend to do. He says Dane’s case could be a ground breaker, a precedent setter, one for the legal history books. In his legal opinion, he says, Dane Guppy’s recent treatment had been in violation of Article 14, Article 5–1, Article 5–5 and Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms…She doesn’t entirely grasp what he’s going on about but it sounds so impressively significant, and such a change from the usual Manor Retreat PR work, she feels herself gradually being pulled in.
Apart from which she has a contract with the Adams Family Practice. It pays her a monthly fee, and she is aware that so far she hasn’t exactly provided value for money. She disregards her reservations: that Fanny Flynn is a woman with her pupils’ best interests carried close to her heart; that Clive Adams is a man who carries his own interests in place of a heart; that a boy who repeatedly sets fire to his school ought not to be allowed to spend too much time there. She smothers all her reservations and offers Clive the professional advice he pays her for. ‘Make it a local issue. Make it emotional,’ she says. ‘You need local people to climb on the bandwagon with you.’
‘Mmm,’ he says carefully. ‘That may not be easy.’
‘Well, it’s a child-friendly cause, and she’s a local children’s author. I’ll put in a call to Kitty Mozely. You’d be doing each other a favour.’
‘Excellent,’
Clive says, pleasantly surprised. He’d been expecting more of a battle from her. He feeds a thin smile over the line. ‘I thought maybe, with your father-in-law being somewhat antagonistic to the action—’
‘Thank you, Clive. I’m extremely fond of my father-in-law. And Grey. And Fanny Flynn…’ She hesitates; wavers a millisecond. ‘But I do have a mind of my own.’
‘Of course. Oh. And by the way. Re La Mozely. There’s a small complication.’ His line is bleeping. Someone’s trying to get through. ‘Kitty wasn’t actually present at the meeting last night. For some reason. So perhaps you might allow Geraldine to call her first. Give it half an hour, would you?’
Through the window above her desk Jo spots the twins toddling off with their father down the drive. The twins won’t toddle anywhere unless someone has bribed them; they prefer to lie on the floor and scream until somebody picks them up. But they’re walking towards the village with a positive spring in their step. Bloody Charlie, she thinks. He’s sneaking them out to the sweetshop.
‘Fine,’ she says briskly. ‘I’ll give it half an hour. Got to go now, though. Sorry. Something’s come up.’
She’s rapping frantically on the window before she’s ended the call. Charlie strides on, pretending not to hear, which only confirms her suspicions. The twins aren’t so sharp. They turn to wave. ‘Getting Smarties,’ they call out ecstatically. Fools. They aren’t any more.
It was Kitty doing the bleeping. ‘Oh, hello, Clive,’ she says. ‘It’s you. What are you doing at home, clogging up the line?’
‘Hello, Kitty!’
She’s surprised. He sounds unusually lively. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at work, Clive?’
‘How are you this morning, anyway? Up with the lark! I’d have thought the world’s most successful author could afford to get a bit of beauty sleep.’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’ She’s not interested in Clive-bald-as-a-coot’s feeble attempts at flirting. Besides which, she remembers distantly that he’s been bloody rude to her of late. ‘Anyway, Clive, is Geraldine there? I need to talk to her. Urgently.’
