A City of Strangers

by Robert Barnard

  “I fail to see, personally, how keeping down an intelligent child because he’s not well-scrubbed can be construed as keeping up standards,” said Carol waspishly.

  “It’s an odd notion for a teacher, certainly. I’m sure he’ll do very well, and everyone will see he’s a child to be brought on. . . . You’re worried about him, though, aren’t you, dear?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course I am. When you think of the examples he’s surrounded by: those parents, that horrible elder brother, the sister who’s apparently sleeping round at sixteen. . . . ”

  “He’s got through life this far, apparently, without taking harm.”

  “But adolescence is coming up. Think of the pressures.”

  Daphne looked at her closely.

  “You want to do something about him, don’t you?”

  Carol nodded vigorously.

  “Oh, yes. But what is there to do?”

  “You could speak to the neighbor.”

  “I thought about that. But what excuse could I make?”

  “I don’t think, since the parents are so appalling, that you would need an excuse. She would quite understand. Just choose your time when you visit her. You wouldn’t want Jack Phelan to know what you were doing. Maybe she has a phone and you could arrange it in advance.” She took Carol’s hand over the table. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t do something, my dear. There’s every reason why a teacher should feel a special interest in some pupils. But do it quietly. Otherwise you could do him harm.”

  Chapter

  THREE

  Mrs. Makepeace, Michael’s anchor to normality, indeed had a phone. In a free period at school next morning Carol leafed through the dog-eared telephone directory in the staff common room and found Makepeace, L., 37 Belfield Grove Avenue. That would be her. It was quiet in the common room so Carol rang her there and then, struggling with feelings of diffidence and a sense that she was straying into unauthorized territory. The voice at the other end of the line was elderly, slightly wary, yet sympathetic. When Carol had explained that she was Michael’s teacher and that she would like to come round and talk about him, it was obvious that Mrs. Makepeace was surprised.

  “About Michael? I don’t know . . . ”

  “You see, he’s rather a bright boy—”

  “He is that.”

  “And, as you must know, his parents—”

  “Oh, you’ll do no good talking to them.”

  “No. But I do feel I need to talk to someone. I hear so much about the other Phelan children, and it would be terrible if Michael went the same way. If we two could just have a chat . . . ”

  There was a pause at the other end. Carol suspected that Mrs. Makepeace was reluctant to get on the wrong side of her neighbors, and this was confirmed by her next words.

  “Do you think you could come after dark? You see my own are long past school age, and if he knows you’re Michael’s teacher, and coming to see me . . . well, the long and the short of it is, he could turn nasty. He’s very quick to turn nasty, is Jack Phelan, as you may have heard, and if I’m to get anywhere with him I have to keep on the right side of him.”

  “Of course, I quite understand that. I live just near. Shall we say half past eight tonight?”

  “Happen he’ll be in t’pub by then anyway,” said Lottie Makepeace. “I’ll brew a pot of tea and we can have a talk.”

  Carol was telling Bob McEvoy all this at coffee break, as they sat companionably in two corner armchairs, when Dot Fenton breezed up.

  “I’ve been reading about kids like your Michael Phelan,” she said, breaking without apology into their conversation.

  “He’s not mine.”

  “There’s an article in The Teacher about kids with hopeless family backgrounds. All the kids turn out as you’d expect, except occasionally the one who comes through it all unscathed and becomes happy and successful. There’s a report on it—American, I think—and a book called The Invulnerable Child.”

  “I’d like to see the article,” said Carol, willing to go half-way to meet Dot Fenton’s change in tone.

  “Any way, they say what happens is, the child subconsciously discards the parents and the home and latches on to someone—a relative, or neighbor, or something—who is normal and stable and provides him with what he needs.”

  “Mrs. Makepeace!” said Carol triumphantly.

  “Who?”

  “Michael’s next-door neighbor. Apparently he’s very fond of her and is always in there.”

  “There you are, you see,” said Dot, with a nod of self-satisfaction. “That’s how it was done.”

  Carol resented Dot’s talking of Michael as if he were some kind of conjuring trick.”

  “That’s all very well,” she muttered to Bob, “but I don’t see how a child can be invulnerable, do you?”

  “Oh, Steven, I forgot to tell you,” said Evie, standing in the door of his study, her bag of books slung over her shoulder. “The girls will be coming tonight.”

  “If I’d called them girls . . . ” said Steven. “Does that mean you just want me to make myself scarce, or do I have to go out?”

  “Well, Val and Marian never really talk freely if they know there’s a man in the house.”

  “Sensitive friends you have.”

  “Pig.”

  Steven Copperwhite looked at her as she turned to go. She had been hunched over a pile of Scandinavian linguistics theses at breakfast and he hadn’t seen her face.

  “What’s that on your forehead?”

  “Oh, nothing,” said Evie, shrugging.

  “It’s a scar.”

  “OK, it’s a scar. I had a bit of an argie-bargie with the Phelan boy last night.”

  “You didn’t tell me when you came to bed.”

  “You didn’t ask. Look, stop fussing, Steven, right? You’re imagining this boy as a big, strong thug. Forget it: He’s got spindle shanks, biceps like peanuts, and his Union Jack tee-shirt flaps on his skinny chest.”

  “But everyone says he’s a vicious little horror.”

  “Oh, he is that. But I can handle his like.”

  “It doesn’t look like it.”

  “Oh, he went slinking away, I can tell you,” said Evie gaily. “Look, Steven: Forget the protective chivalry bit, eh? It doesn’t suit you at all.”

  She smiled, waved, and shut the door. From the study window he watched her walk out to her little old Volkswagen. They would both be driving to the English Department of West Yorkshire University, but they would do it in their own cars. Evie valued the symbols as well as the realities of independence. Steven, his books for the day collected up, sat down again at his desk. It was all very well to say, “Forget the protective chivalry bit.” He was of a generation to whom a degree of protectiveness toward women came naturally. It was possibly true that Evie was more than a match for Kevin Phelan. But women were weaker physically than men. They never advocated mixing the sexes in the Wimbledon singles, did they? Or in the Olympics? What would happen if she came up against a thug who was strong as well as vicious? She might reject protection then, but she’d damned well need it. Protectiveness, Steven thought, was a natural part of a man’s relationship with a woman.

  He screwed up his face in bewilderment. On an impulse he pulled the desk telephone toward him and dialed a well-remembered number. At the other end it rang and rang, but no one answered.

  When she walked up the steps from her basement flat that evening Carol saw Daphne Bridewell watching her from her sitting-room window. She waved and showed her crossed fingers. Daphne knew where she was going.

  As she turned into the Estate she felt positively furtive. It was early October, and dark by half past eight, and the Estate was not well lit. She gained confidence as she went on and saw that the Phelans’ house was shut up and darkened. She was tempted to linger and survey the collection of car parts, rusty bike wheels, and assorted bric-a-brac in the garden, but they presented mere shapes to her, ghostly outlines of wrecks. She slipped in ne
xt door and rang the bell on Lottie Makepeace’s front door.

  Mrs. Makepeace was not the fat, jolly, comfortable figure that might have been expected—the sort an unhappy child might easily attach himself to. Instead she was a spare yet pleasant woman of around seventy, someone with a ready enough smile (with a touch of the conspiratorial), but also with something of reserve. Carol got from her a definite sense of rectitude. Was that, perhaps, what Michael had sensed he needed?

  “Come through to the kitchen,” she said, ushering Carol through the narrow hall. “It’s warmer there—I’ve been baking. And it’s a pity to waste a grand smell!”

  The kitchen did indeed smell good—of cakes and biscuits. Lottie Makepeace showed she had made ready for her visit by pouring boiling water into a large teapot. She plopped a tea-cozy over it, and turned round to look at, and sum up, her visitor.

  “Do you bake for yourself?” asked Carol, conscious of being judged.

  “Oh, I like a bit of cake or biscuit for elevenses.” She grinned an oddly schoolgirl grin. “But you’ll have guessed I wouldn’t bother if it weren’t for the kids next door.”

  “Do they all come round, then?”

  “They do if they smell baking! Michael’s the favorite, of course. Parents aren’t supposed to have favorites, but I don’t see why neighbors shouldn’t. The younger ones tag along with him generally if there’s something to be got.” She shot Carol a sad look. “To tell the truth, I don’t think there’s much to be done with them, not with Dale or Jackie, young as they are.”

  Carol nodded.

  “No, that’s what the rumor is at school. That’s what worries me so. Michael’s such a bright boy—talented, alert, fresh-minded—and he’s surrounded by so much . . . well, squalor is the word, I suppose. And I don’t just mean physical squalor.”

  Lottie Makepeace looked at her shrewdly.

  “Do you remember that film—no, you’d be too young—The Corn Is Green?”

  “I’ve seen it on television. I know what you’re thinking. You think I want to give Michael special treatment, educate him out of his environment.”

  “No harm in that if you did.”

  “You think I’ve conceived a romantic mission to rescue him.”

  “I think there may be something of that. But don’t you think he may have rescued himself?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course, that is true. That’s the miracle of it. But it’s the years ahead I’m worried about. The teens are so difficult for a child. . . . It’s the moral squalor that he’s surrounded by that worries me—do you see?”

  “Aye, I see. Of course, it’s a moral question. I’m not a religious body, by and large, but I know the difference between right and wrong. And I know that what he’s surrounded by is nasty and ugly. But look at the difference between him and his brothers and sisters. He’s not taken harm this far, and it’s my judgment he won’t take harm in the years ahead—God willing.”

  They were interrupted by a knock at the kitchen door. Lottie shouted “Come in,” and the face of a young black woman appeared, and then the rest of her.

  “Sorry—you’ve got visitors.”

  “Hello, Selena—I was hoping you wouldn’t come,” said Lottie Makepeace.

  “Thanks very much,” the woman said, coming over and taking no offense. She was young, pretty, and overflowing with life—not least because she was very pregnant. Her eyes danced with inquisitiveness and mischief, but there was also a steeliness that betokened determination: not a lady to cross, Carol guessed. “We’re just off to the new house, and I thought I’d take those roots of primula you promised me.”

  “Mike Phelan’s teacher,” said Lottie, indicating Carol. Selena laughed.

  “Oh—that’s why you’d rather I hadn’t come. I’m Selena Cray.” They shook hands and sat at either side of the kitchen table. “What have you been telling her, Lottie? That Jack Phelan is nothing worse than a likeable rogue?”

  Lottie was busying herself with bundles of newspaper on the draining board, from which fragments of earth fell. Then she came over and poured three cups of tea.

  “I’m telling her nothing but the truth. There’s no need for a prosecuting council when I’m around.”

  “I think I saw he was something worse than a likeable rogue, the one encounter I had with him,” said Carol.

  “Well, you try being pregnant, the wife of a policeman, and black,” said Selena equably. “If you’ve had an encounter, you can imagine the sort of things he says, or shouts. The pregnancy jokes I can stand. You get ‘bun in the oven’ jokes anywhere—though Phelan’s are remarkably uninventive. The gibes about Malcolm being a policeman I can grit my teeth and bear. There’s others around here don’t like the idea of ‘the fuzz’ actually living on the Estate. But I definitely do draw the line—or I would with anyone else—at ‘nigger’ and ‘wog’ and that sort of thing. Sometimes they all get mixed up—you know: ‘What color’s the bun in your oven?’ or ‘Is he going to come out with a helmet on?’—really brilliant stuff.”

  “How do you cope?”

  “Good humor. It may seem like a cop-out, but I decided that with him it was the only way. ‘Lovely morning, Mr. Phelan,’ ‘Got out of bed the wrong side today, did you, Mr. Phelan?’—that sort of thing. With a dazzling smile. It doesn’t stop him, of course, but it leaves me less drained than anger would.” She paused. “It’s the children that are more difficult.”

  “Oh,” said Carol. “Them too.”

  “What can you expect, with a father like that? When you get kids shouting horrible or just plain stupid insults at you, it all seems so . . . hopeless. And then there’s that terrible boy Kevin. I shouldn’t say ‘boy’: He doesn’t have the excuse of being a child any longer. We’ve had swastikas on our door, and NF and BUDI.”

  “BUDI?”

  “British Unilateral Declaration of Independence. It’s another way of saying ‘Wogs out.’ Subtle, aren’t they?” She drained her cup and took up the bundle of plants that Lottie had left by her on the kitchen table. “It’s not so bad for us,” she said. “The police are well paid, and I work for a bank. We’ve been here less than a year, and it was always only a question of time before we found what we wanted and got our own place. We’ll be out in a month’s time. But think what it’s like to be faced with the Phelans as neighbors for the rest of your life. Lottie ought to have her rent halved—and a long-service medal.” She kissed her. “Thanks, love. I’ll put them in tonight, and I’ll think of you every time they flower.” At the door she paused and looked at Carol. “But Michael’s all right,” she said as she left.

  Carol looked at Mrs. Makepeace.

  “There seems to be general agreement that Michael is all right,” she said. “Maybe I’m wasting my time. Maybe I should be concentrating on the other Phelans.”

  “Then you would be wasting your time,” said Lottie forthrightly.

  “How many are there?”

  “Six. Kevin’s the oldest—seventeen, I think. You’ve heard about him, I imagine, and most of it’ll be true. He’s a monstrosity, and the less I have to do with him the better. June’s sixteen—and if she’s not on the streets already she’s getting well into training for it. Cilla’s thirteen—a sly little thing, one as wants watching every hour of the day. Then there’s Michael at twelve. They went a bit slower after that.”

  “Caught up with modern technology?”

  Lottie laughed.

  “The word around here is that they only had them for the Child Benefit money, and only had the last two because it needed topping up. They might just as well call it beer money as far as the Phelans are concerned. Anyway, Jackie is six, Dale is two.”

  “Surely they must be . . . saveable?”

  Lottie patted her on the arm.

  “Don’t cast me as Joan of Arc, lovie. I’m only an old woman who happens to live next door.”

  “But six, and two!”

  “I know, lovie. But I think you’ve got to have the will for something better. I
look at them and I see them going the same way. I used to look at Michael at their ages, and somehow I always knew he’d be different.”

  “How did Michael come to be so close to you?”

  Lottie Makepeace thought.

  “Really it was like he picked me out. I talked to him once or twice over the fence, and then he started coming round—of his own accord, like. My children were gone—one in Canada, one to find work down south. It was nice having him around. Sometimes I could have a word with Jack Phelan, or Mary—if he wanted new shoes, or a warm coat. Now and then I can talk them round—once in a while, that’s all. If the little one latched on to me when he’s a bit bigger—I can’t see it happening, but if it did—then I’d do the same for him as I have for Michael. But that’s as much as I can say. I think wi’ Jackie it’s too late.”

  “Jack Phelan doesn’t mistreat them?”

  “Oh, no. Someone complained to the Social Security years ago that the kids were being mistreated—they thought they should be taken into care because they were neglected, and were trying to strengthen their case. But Jack saw off the chap they sent round, and there was never anything in it. Mary will slap them now and then, but a slapping never did a child any harm.”

  “Nor any good either.”

  “It’s the mother it does good to,” said Lottie Makepeace, with grim realism. “You’ve no idea how frustrating having kids around you all day can be. No—if Jack slapped them now and then it might mean he had some standards, thought there was things they shouldn’t do. The problem is, beyond his own convenience, he doesn’t give a damn.”

  Carol got up to go, feeling distinctly disheartened. Lottie Makepeace stood up too, and took her by the hands.

  “Don’t fret, lass. It’s no tragedy if there’s nothing you can do, because as far as Michael is concerned there’s nothing much you need to do. Keep an eye on him, and keep him interested, and I’ll do the same. For the rest, things’ll not change. The Phelans will go on as they’ve always gone on, God help us!”

  But in that Lottie Makepeace, for all her common sense, was wrong. And the fact that she was wrong was suggested by a significant little incident that had happened earlier that evening.