Maggie's Boy

by Beryl Kingston

  The two children followed her through a glass door and into a tiled surgery. There was a counter at one end and opening off it an open corridor with doors down one side, three of which were labelled: Surgery 1, Surgery 2, Surgery 3.

  ‘Now we sit here,’ Brad said, when she’d explained their problem to the receptionist, ‘and wait for the vet to call us.’

  The children were so awestruck by the clinical order of the place that they sat and waited in almost total silence.

  ‘Does he know our names?’ Jon whispered after a long pause.

  ‘No,’ Brad whispered back. ‘But he knows mine.’

  And so he did. Two minutes later he put his head round the archway and asked for ‘Miss Bradshawe’ and Brad got up and led them both into the corridor and through one of the mysterious doors into the surgery.

  The vet was a gentle-looking man with a soft beard, drooping eyes and sloping shoulders, and he moved delicately, inching his body through the door after them and placing his feet as though he’d been told to be mindful where he trod. Jon thought he looked very nice.

  ‘Let’s have a look at him, shall we,’ he said to Jon. ‘We’ll just lift him out of his box.’ Which he did, very slowly and gently, turning the little creature on to its back, so that all four leathery paws were sticking up in the air, three scrabbling furiously, the fourth rigid.

  ‘I’m afraid that leg is broken,’ the vet said.

  Jon and Emma stood with their chins resting on the table and watched intently. Their new hero spread one large hand across the hedgehog’s belly to prevent it from rolling itself up, and lifted the broken limb with the other hand, examining it very gently with the tips of his fingers. ‘It’s a clean fracture,’ he said to Brad. ‘He must have been hit before he could roll up into a ball.’

  ‘Can you make him better?’ Jon asked.

  The vet knelt down so as to be on a level with the child’s earnest face. ‘If you leave him with me for a day or two I’ll do my best. He’s in a poor state just now, because he’s so frightened, but we’ll look after him and keep him warm, and when he’s well enough, I’ll give him a little whiff of something so that he goes to sleep and doesn’t feel any pain, and then I’ll set his leg for him and it’ll be as good as new.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise. You leave him with me.’

  ‘There you are,’ Brad said. ‘What did I tell you?’

  ‘I’ll deal with his livestock too,’ the vet said, looking at Brad. ‘He’s rather badly infested. He’ll probably take two or three days to stabilise, but it’s important not to operate too soon. Wild animals are more likely to – um – be finished off by shock than from injury.’

  Brad was touched by the careful way he avoided saying the word ‘die’ in front of the children. And impressed by his tenderness when he eased the little creature into one of the cages standing beside the wall. He might look like a wimp but he was certainly a kind one. ‘What are his chances?’ she asked.

  ‘Pretty good, but you can never be entirely sure. Not with an animal from the wild. Shock can – um – at any time for a fortnight after the initial injury.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’ll pack the wound with intrasite,’ he said, ‘to be on the safe side.’

  ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘It’s a premixed wound dressing. Looks like wallpaper paste, actually. Very good stuff. It absorbs all the muck so that the wound doesn’t get infected, and after that it provides the ideal conditions for granulation – um – the first stage of scar tissue formation.’

  ‘Sounds gruesome,’ Brad grinned.

  ‘It isn’t really. It’s part of the healing process.’

  ‘So that’s it, is it?’

  ‘Phone us in three days’ time,’ the vet said.

  ‘Who shall I ask for?’

  ‘Oh, yes. My name’s Martin Smith. Not very original, I’m afraid, but my patients don’t mind.’

  ‘Say goodbye to Mr Smith, kids,’ Brad instructed. ‘Time we went home and told your mum.’

  The children said goodbye to the hedgehog and blew it kisses through the bars of its cage. Then Emma walked up to the vet and held out her chubby hand. When he put his own hand down to hold it, she shook hands – solemnly.

  He understood that she was thanking him and took her perfectly seriously, squatting on his haunches so that they were eye to eye. ‘You’re very welcome,’ he said.

  That night, supper in Shore Street was a celebration. After her gallant rescue, Brad was the guest of honour, and the talk was all of hedgehogs and vets.

  ‘I hope he comes up trumps after all this,’ Alison said, when the children had finally been persuaded to go to bed and stay there.

  ‘If anyone can, he will,’ Brad said. ‘He looks a bit of a wally but he knows his job.’

  ‘Well we shall know in three days,’ Alison said.

  Three days are a long time to wait when you are only five and an eternity when you are two. Emma asked about the hedgehog at regular intervals all through the day, and Jon drew a picture of it at school and was allowed to bring it home for Alison to pin on the wall. On Sunday, when Morgan came down to take them to the park, he was shown the picture and told the full story at least three times.

  ‘It’s made quite an impression,’ he said, as he and Alison were walking back to Shore Street through the gathering twilight. Both the children were in the buggy and fast asleep.

  ‘It’s practically all they ever talk about,’ Alison said.

  The trouble was it became her sole topic of conversation too. When Morgan phoned her towards the end of the following week, he didn’t have a chance to explain why he’d rung before she started telling him about the hedgehog.

  ‘It’s had its operation,’ she said. ‘Imagine that. Total success, so they say. They’re going to collect it tomorrow afternoon after school. Jon’s so excited. I couldn’t get him to bed. It’s taken me an hour to settle him. I’ve just come downstairs. All this over a hedgehog! They’ve made a cage for it out in the yard. They reckon they’re going to nurse it until it has its plaster off and then Brad’s going to keep it in her garden for them.’

  ‘What I rang to tell you,’ Morgan said, ‘was that I can’t come down on Sunday. I’ve got to go to Swansea for a few days.’ He’d had a phone call that morning from Mr Fehrenbach of Jaffa Jewels with instructions to go to a jewellers there and ‘make enquiries’, and, among other things, news of Mr Toan’s voluntary arrangement, which had been quite a surprise. ‘I might be able to call in and see you on my way back. How would that be?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  But her voice was so non-committal that he couldn’t tell whether she meant it. Damn that hedgehog, he thought, as he put the receiver down. I don’t want to talk about hedgehogs. He hadn’t got any clear idea what he really wanted to talk to her about. He just knew he wanted to talk.

  The expedition to pick up the wounded animal began as Alison expected, the moment Jon came home from school. Brad was sitting in her car waiting for them and listening to the radio, so Jon collected the shoe box from the windowsill and he and Emma tumbled in among the rubbish on the back seat and were driven off at once.

  The hedgehog was in its cage and actually walking about and sniffing the air. It had a neat blue bandage on its injured leg, but it didn’t seem worried by it at all. While they watched, it ate a mouthful of mince.

  ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Jon said, admiring him.

  ‘He’s a great success,’ the vet agreed. ‘I’ll put him in the box for you, shall I?’

  This time the shoe box was lined with newspaper – Alison had burnt the jersey for fear of fleas. Right in the middle of the nest was a picture of Margaret Thatcher arriving at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in a regal creation of black velvet and white silk. There was a quotation from her speech in big type above it, I am still at the crease, though the bowling is hostile.’ The first thing the little animal did when they’d lowered him on
to the paper was to crap on the Prime Minister’s face.

  Brad was delighted. ‘Bull’s eye!’ she said. ‘Bully for you, Mr Tiggywinkle!’

  They all laughed and so did the vet. But when Brad grinned at him, he stood up and turned away, shifting his shoulders about as if he was embarrassed. Then he opened one of the wall cupboards and stuck his head inside. The backs of his ears were dark pink.

  Brad and the children waited. He’s sorting out some pills, Brad thought, watching the back of his shaggy head. He seemed to be muttering to himself. ‘What I mean Miss Bradshawe…’ he began, after clearing his throat several times. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to come with me to…’ Another cough. ‘No – clearly this is presumptuous of me.’ More throat clearing. ‘Um.’

  ‘You trying to ask me out?’ Brad said.

  Blushing violently, he pulled his head out the cupboard. ‘Well yes. Put like that, I suppose I am.’ Now that he looked at Brad he knew how stupid the idea had been. She was such a bright, self-confident woman she wouldn’t even consider such a thing.

  ‘OK then,’ Brad grinned. ‘Why not?’

  Being accepted was such a surprise that it threw him into confusion. ‘You don’t have to…’ he said. ‘I mean. I wouldn’t want to pressurise you.’

  ‘Ain’t a man alive can pressurise me,’ Brad said. ‘Where you gonna take me?’

  ‘Brighton?’ he suggested hopefully.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re on. My name’s Brad, by the way, in case you’re wondering.’

  ‘I’ll call for you at seven,’ he said, blushing again. ‘I’ve got your address.’

  ‘Are we taking our hedgehog home or what?’ Jon wanted to know.

  So they took the hedgehog home.

  Alison had laid the table for tea and was watching the news. ‘Guess what,’ she said. ‘Geoffrey Howe’s resigned. He’s made a speech attacking Mrs Thatcher.’

  ‘Our hedgehog did a poo on her face,’ Jon said.

  ‘Whose face?’ Alison said.

  ‘Mrs Thatcher’s.’

  ‘Listen a minute, sunshine,’ Brad said, watching the picture on the screen. ‘This could be good.’

  Sir Geoffrey Howe was standing in the House of Commons, green leather seats behind him, looking mild and avuncular and saying that the Prime Minister’s attitude was undermining the authority of her colleagues. ‘It’s rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain.’

  ‘Good God!’ Brad said. ‘Fancy Howe putting the boot in. Mild old Howe. Things must be bad.’

  ‘It won’t make any difference though, will it?’ Alison said, heading off to the kitchen to make the tea.

  ‘D’you wanna bet?’ Brad said gleefully.

  ‘Aunty Brad’s going to Brighton with the vet,’ Jon said.

  Now it was Alison’s turn to look gleeful. ‘You’re what?’

  ‘He’s asked me out.’

  ‘I thought he was a wally.’

  ‘Yeh! He is. But he’s been so good with Mr Tiggywinkle I thought I’d give him a try.’

  It turned out to be rather more than a try, because by the time they got to Brighton the following evening, the leadership of the Tory party was up for grabs and Michael Heseltine had thrown his cap into the ring. Instead of going to the cinema, they spent the evening in a restaurant talking politics and when they finally parted, Martin found the excuse to ring her up the next day ‘to see how things are going.’

  They went at an amazing speed. On Tuesday November 20th Mrs Thatcher lost the first ballot by four votes. On Wednesday she vowed to fight on. By Thursday she was admitting defeat.

  Six days later it was all over. The Tory party had chosen a new leader and the television cameras were clustered outside Number 10 to watch the Iron Lady leaving the seat of power she’d occupied for the last eleven years.

  It was a moment watched with mixed reactions.

  In Port Talbot, where Morgan watched the news with his parents, two of his sisters and their husbands, Mrs Thatcher’s tears were greeted with triumphant cheers.

  ‘Serves ’er right,’ Thomas Griffiths said. ‘Now she knows what it’s like to be driven out a’ your job.’

  ‘Won’t open any a’ the pits she’s closed, though, will it?’ his eldest son-in-law said bitterly. He’d been unemployed since his own pit was shut.

  In Elsie Wareham’s front room in Hampton, Alison and her mother were full of sympathy.

  ‘Poor woman,’ Elsie said. ‘I don’t wonder she’s crying. Fancy turning on her like that, after all she’s done. I don’t understand it, and that’s a fact. It’s enough to make anyone cry.’

  ‘That’s politics, Mum,’ Mark explained. ‘They thought she’d cost them the next election, so she had to go.’

  Elsie snorted. ‘They’re off their heads,’ she said. ‘She’d have won them the next election, the same as she won the last three.’

  In Brad’s cluttered room in her flat over the dress shop, she and Martin Smith watched the news as they ate a take-away.

  ‘I never thought they’d actually give her the boot,’ Brad said. ‘Not when it come down to it. Look at her face, rotten old bat.’

  ‘They’ve been very, very clever,’ Martin said.

  ‘How d’you make that out?’

  ‘There’s an election coming, this time next year, or the spring after, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And all the signs are pointing to the fact that people want a change. There’s too much unemployment, there’s beggars in the streets, there’s people living in cardboard city, there’s riots, the system isn’t working.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So they’ve given us a change. They’ve done it for us. We’ve got a new government now, a new Prime Minister, Mr Nice Guy, and they’ve given him a year or more to dig himself in and show how compassionate he is and make everyone like him. It’s very clever. When the election comes they’ll vote for the change they’ve already got instead of going for the change they really need.’

  ‘That’s not clever,’ Brad said. ‘That’s Machiavellian.’

  ‘Well, I could be wrong,’ Martin said, shrugging his shoulders.

  But it sounded much too plausible to Brad and just the sort of trick the Tories were capable of pulling. ‘They’re a crafty lot of buggers,’ she said, opening another can of lager. ‘Do you think people’ll fall for it?’

  ‘The selfish ones will,’ Martin said, opening his second can as well. ‘The cult of the individual is all very well but there’s a danger in it. It glorifies selfishness, you see. Look after number one. Never mind other people. Me, me, me all the time. Anything’s permissible providing the end result is a profit. You can lie, cheat, steal, bully, it’s all permissible. Me, me, me, you see.’

  ‘That’s the Great-I-Am you’re describing.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Great-I-Am. He’s always on the make. Me, me, me all the time. You’ve got him to a T.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s married to my friend Alison, poor cow. He’s the father of the hedgehog kids.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Not that he’s ever paid any attention to ’em, poor little devils. I don’t even think he pays their keep. Ali doesn’t say, but it wouldn’t surprise me. She’s always strapped for cash. He spends money like water. Well he would, wouldn’t he? Swans about in a brand-new BMW while she pushes a second-hand buggy round town, wears Armani suits while the kids get kitted out at car-boot sales, never comes home, holidays in Spain – on his own. He’s a bloody monster.’

  ‘I gather you don’t like him.’

  ‘No. I don’t. I can’t stand selfish men. An’ that man is selfish to the core. There’s a rumour going round he’s in some sort of trouble. Money a’ course. If I were Ali, I’d be worried sick.’

  ‘If you were Ali you w
ouldn’t have married him.’

  ‘Bloody right I wouldn’t. I knew he was a wrong-un from the word go.’

  ‘You’re very shrewd,’ he said admiringly.

  ‘You’re pretty sharp yourself.’

  He smiled at her, not sure whether he could kiss her yet or not. ‘Is that an invitation?’

  ‘What for?’ she said, knowing perfectly well and teasing him with her eyes.

  He threw another hopeful glance towards the bedroom.

  If he could be as dominant in bed as he is about politics, he’d be a winner, Brad thought. But there you are, you can’t have everything.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Gone?’ Alison said. ‘Gone where?’

  ‘I don’t know Mrs Toan,’ Norrie said. ‘I only work here.’

  There was a truculent note in the girl’s voice that alerted Alison to more trouble. ‘Hasn’t he paid you?’ she asked. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Not since Friday fortnight,’ Norrie said. ‘That’s why I wrote to you.’

  ‘You mean he’s been gone a fortnight?’

  ‘Three weeks more like,’ Norrie said. ‘Well, he hasn’t been in the flat for three weeks. I thought you knew.’

  The two women stood on either side of the counter in Rings and Things and regarded orie another.

  So he’s not been living with her, Norrie thought. They have split up. Kevin was right. She hasn’t got a clue what’s going on. Shall I tell her about the bills now or leave it till later?

  Thank goodness Emma’s asleep, Alison thought. She glanced down at the little girl, lying peacefully in her buggy wrapped in a rug. Now that she was nearly two and a half, she rarely slept during the day, but the bus ride to Chichester and the warmth of her rug had lulled her into a snooze. She pulled her thoughts back to the problem. Poor Norrie does look miserable. And no wonder if she hasn’t been paid. What can I say to put things right?

  ‘I expect he’s seeing to the property in Spain,’ she said at last, and then, trying to make light of it, ‘It’s always the same. He goes out there in a rush and he never bothers to tell anyone. There’s always something to see to, that’s the trouble. That place would fall apart if he wasn’t for ever out there troubleshooting.’