by Sarah May
Jessica looked slowly up at him, her eyes bloodshot, blank.
He watched her scratch her forehead and attempt to smile.
‘Sure I can,’ she said with an effort.
He passed her Ninja Action Man and watched in silence as she pulled off the head and pushed her fingers inside until his eyes clicked into place then put the head back on and handed it to him.
‘It works,’ he said, pleased, moving the switch at the back so that the eyes clicked suspiciously from side to side.
The sound of drums beating somewhere close by started up. This couldn’t go on. She needed to talk to somebody about Ellie and the only person she could think of right then was Robert Hunter. She stood up.
‘Are we going to the street party?’ Arthur asked, hopeful but not excited.
‘Not just yetI need to see Findlay’s dad about something first.’
Arthur didn’t comment on this. ‘Then can I get my face painted?’
‘What d’you want it painted as?’
‘Burke.’
Chapter 47
Outside, the street party was in full swing and Jessica had to get through it to get to No. 22.
The first stall was the Ghanaian drummer’s; as he carried on unpacking drums from the back of the Nissan parked by the stall, children were gathering round the ones already lined up, tentatively beating on them. As she passed, Jessica heard him explain the meaning of the symbols down the side of the drum and tell a teenager how the goatskin had been stretched and treated.
‘Can we do the drums?’ Arthur asked.
‘Laterwe’ll do them later.’
‘My face, I want my face painted,’ he said as they passed Harriet’s Natural Nappy Co. stall. A turquoise and white butterfly was painted across Harriet’s face and Aggie McRae was having her face done.
‘Later,’ Jessica responded, pulling on his arms and trying not to lose patience.
She probed the crowd for Robert, but couldn’t see him anywherethen noticed Miles, talking to Joel McRae, too late.
Behind her, a patter of drums started up.
Miles had seen her.
Joel was pushing Ingrid backwards and forwards in the buggy, trying to get her to sleep.
‘Aggiedrums!’ he called out. ‘D’you want to see them? They’d be great for her motor coordination skills,’ he said to Miles, starting to sway on the spot, suddenly taken with the idea of getting Aggie drum lessons. Most people’s kids took recorder or piano or something. Imagine saying to people, ‘Aggie does drums.’
‘She’s dyspraxic,’ he explained proudly to Miles, adding, ‘developmental coordination disorder. Apparently it affects four times as many boys as girls, so Aggieshe’s really rare.’
His eyes flickered quickly over Miles’s pudgy face to see if he could detect anything close to envy. Interesthe was sure there was interest. Well, that was good: interest was the first step on the road to envy. He felt buoyed up. He was only just ‘coming out’ about Aggie and the whole dyspraxia thing, but had already noted that it went down well. His agent, Tory, had been positively intriguedeven murmured something about getting her son, Jed, tested.
‘We had no idea,’ he carried on to Miles. ‘I mean, we noticed she was sort of clumsy, bumping into stuff, unable to judge distances, didn’t take to riding her bike, temper tantrums (Miles here let out a short laugh that momentarily confused Joel), rough and aggressive with her sister, Ingrid…but we just thought: that’s toddlers. Then it carried on and Evie took her to see someone and they put a name to it. It was a huge relief to us,’ he insisted, ‘really huge.’ And Aggie really was flourishing under all the attention from occupational therapists, speech and language therapists…her tantrums were getting worse, but thenshe was a girl. ‘Dyspraxia is a real problem for kids with a high IQ.’ He paused, but this didn’t elicit any comment. Oh, God, it was tragic, he thought, his eyes sliding quickly over Miles who had gone all static on him. Did he take his tongue out at the weekend or something?
Miles hadn’t said a word yet.
‘They’ve got a dyspraxia unit at St Anthony’s, which is where Aggie’s going.’
At last, Miles turned to look at him. ‘St Anthony’s?’
Joel nodded. ‘What about yours?’
He waited, but Miles just turned away in order to stare vacantly about him again. ‘We’re thinking of moving to Buckinghamshire,’ Miles said, abruptly.
‘God, I’m sorry,’ Joel said, offering his condolences.
‘Yeah.’ Miles paused, his attention caught suddenly by Jessica Palmer. ‘Little Widdringtonthe village my wife grew up in.’
‘God, I’m sorry,’ Joel said again.
Miles didn’t respond; he was too busy watching Jessica, who was virtually running down the street towards him.
She’s come for me, he thought, his face looking brieflyto the few onlookers there were in the vicinitybeatific. He ignored the fact that she was pulling Arthur along behind her and that Arthur looked frightened and kept tripping up.
‘Robert,’ she said, coming to a halt by the stall. ‘You haven’t seen Robert, have you? Robert Hunter?’ Ignoring Miles, she appealed to Joel, who was staring at her, horrified.
Jessica cast her eyes self-consciously over herselfthe leggings with the white bleach spots on and the oversize T-shirt with a map of Lake Como on it that Joe and Lenny had brought back from their Italian Lakes trip.
‘I think we might be moving to Buckinghamshire,’ Miles said to her.
She stared back at him.
Joel stared at him.
‘Mum,’ Arthur said, tugging on her arm. ‘When are we going to get our faces painted?’
‘In a minute. I’ve got to go,’ Jessica said to Miles. ‘I’m looking for Robert.’
‘WaitJessicaI dream about you,’ he whispered urgently. ‘And it’s the same dream; it’s the same dream every time. It has to mean something,’ he said.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘It has to mean something,’ Miles insisted, trying not to raise his voice.
Jessica moved on down the street.
‘It has to mean something,’ he said suddenly to Joel, who was trying to push Ingrid away, towards the drums. ‘What if I’m in love with her?’
Joel, realising Miles wasn’t going to go away, lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘She was wearing leggings…’
‘I knowI can’t stop thinking about her.’
‘You can’t stop thinking about fucking her. In the dream, you’re fucking her, right?’
‘Right. Yeah, but how did you…’ Miles broke off, watching breathless as Jessica disappeared.
Jessica continued to push through the crowds of people, fumes from the industrial-sized barbecue filling the airpast parents busy applying sunscreen to offspring in buggies with Carpe Diem balloons tied to the handles, while trying to keep an eye on their running, tripping, lurching, already heat-addled older children, who had become their animal or superhero familiars at the hands of Harriet and her mother.
These people were enjoying themselveswhy couldn’t she be like them, just for once?
The Southwark Council recycling unit had a queue of people outside hoping there were still enough ‘Bags for Life’ left.
She passed Ros, in full control of the Carpe Diem stall.
‘Does Arthur want a balloon?’ Ros asked, handing the mute, watchful Arthur one of the pink and black Carpe Diem balloons.
Arthur accepted the balloon in silence, and couldn’t take his eyes off it.
Ros paused, waiting for Jessica to comment on the balloon, but all Jessica said was, ‘Have you seen Robert?’
‘Robert?’
‘Robert Hunter.’
‘Oh. I think Kate said he had a migraine or somethingshe’s just over there, next to the Boutique stall.’
Jessica moved on towards Kate’s cake stall, which was opposite the allotment stall run by Letitia Parry, chair of the Allotment Committee. In fact, the Parrys had two stallsone advertising the allotments
, which was also selling allotment produce and taking deposits from people who wanted to add their names to the waiting list, and one covered in banners swaying precariously in the hot wind that read Save Our AllotmentsSay No to Mobile Phone Mast. The allotments were under threatfrom T-Mobile. People on their mobiles walked sheepishly past, glared at by a group of Goths from the Nunhead Cemetery Preservation Society, who’d agreed to help man the stall because Nunhead Cemetery had also been targeted by T-Mobile as a potential phone-mast site.
Letitia was handing out Say No to Mobile Phone Mast leaflets, getting people to sign the petition and talking rapidly in incomplete sentences, her tongue licking frantically at her lower lip. ‘He’ll end up with leukemia if that mast goes up,’ she barked at Jessica as she passed, while reminding her husband, Giles, of the price of the vegetables for sale, and talking intimately to Labour Councillor Derek Stokeswho was shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.
Derek was sweatingsweating intensely. He always found this first flush of summer weather, when women started to remove their outer layers, difficult. Standing there, talking to Letitia, managing with an effort to keep his huge walrus eyes riveted on the network of fine, purple veins that had broken out over her face and looked, in places, as if they might break free altogetherhe felt as though he was drowning, quite literally drowning, in a sea of breasts. He was intoxicated and had to put a lot of effort into stopping his eyes from sliding over Letitia, whose body, swollen with the heat, was beginning to bulge in peculiar places.
Fortunately for him, she broke off just then to remind Gilescompletely cutting across a young couple trying to buy early tomatoesthat he needed to take his bloodpressure medication.
Giles, in a sudden panic, dropped the money the young couple had given him and ended up taking double the recommended dose.
The next minute Jessica found herself and Arthur herded along with other parents and children in front of the allotment stall. They were being grouped for a press photograph.
‘I just need to get through,’ she said, but nobody moved.
Next to her, Giles ParryLetitia’s husbandstarted to hallucinate. It seemed to him that all the children were levitating, either out of their buggies or off the ground, and flying away. ‘The children,’ he said weakly to Letitia, who was busy giving her best to the camera as the photographer from Southwark News asked them to regroup one last time.
‘Okay,’ she called out, ‘say bananas.’
‘BANANAS,’ Jessica automatically found herself joining in.
Letitia let out a cheer that was taken up in a confused way by everybody nearby, and that completely drowned out Giles’s second attempt to point out that all the children were floating away into the sky. ‘The children,’ he said again.
Letitia’s rabble-rousing monologueprimarily for the benefit of Derek Stokes, who’d gone a funny colour, she couldn’t help noticingabout how this was only the start of the fight, washed pleasantly over people as slowly, unanimously, they decided they’d done their bit and took it upon themselves to disperse; already distracted by the slow, rhythmic beat coming from further up the street where the Ghanaian drummer was now playing.
Above the sound of the drums rose the clear, high-pitched wailing of David at No. 8, whose parents had ignored Ros’s request to keep their son indoors. He stood in his favourite spot, his arms encircling the trunk of the loquat tree, singing happily.
The singing was affecting the older children who’d started to run round in circles in the middle of the road between the line of stalls, yelling excitedly to each other, under the impression they’d run into the middle of a complicated game with rules nobody was going to explain to them.
A boy with a pink and black Carpe Diem balloon tied to his head galloped down through the stalls.
Jessica made her way through the children to where Margery was hovering between the Boutique stall and Kate’s cake stall, manned by Kate and Beatrice. Flo was in her pushchair, her face and dress covered in chocolate saliva.
‘Finn!’ Arthur yelled happily, catching sight of him under the table where what remained of the cakes were laid out.
He squatted down next to him. Today was going wrong and soon he was going to shut downlike Burke. He could make the whole world fall suddenly silent when he decided to shut down, and then the silence became something he could crawl into.
‘I’m looking for Robert,’ Jessica said to Margery.
‘Robert? He’s got a migrainehe’s in the house.’
Inside No. 22, Robertlying in bed, still, semi-consciousheard the drums.
For a moment he thought he had somehowmiraculouslyundertaken a journey he’d always dreamt of taking; a journey whose destination had been on the tip of his tongue for as long as he could remember, but that he’d never quite been able to articulate. Then he opened his eyes.
It struck him forcibly, for the first time, that he really had no idea how he came to be lying on this bed, in this bedroom, in this house, in this valley in south London. He’d grown up with the knowledge that the whole is greater than the sum total of its parts, but no matter how much he looked back on all the partsand lately he’d been doing this frequently, minutelythe mathematics of his current situation were implausible: there was no whole.
He listened to the wind brushing through the branches of the rowan tree outside the bedroom windownow in full leafand the drums, louder, carried on the same wind that was blowing through the tree, and tried to decide whether he still had a migraine or not.
He’d been on the verge of getting up earlierjust after Kate left the room a second timebut then everyone forgot about him and in the silence that followed the exodus from the house, he fell into a much deeper sleep than the one he’d been tossing and turning in since 6.00 a.m. He had no idea what the time was now, but the house was still empty. He let his eyes close again, the sun falling warmly across his shoulders and chest, until he became aware of the front door bell ringing.
He waited, hoping it would go away.
It didn’t.
With an effort, he put on the T-shirt and shorts he’d taken off the night before and made his way slowly downstairs.
He opened the front door.
There was Jessica Palmer waiting outside, under the sunflowers.
It struck him forcibly, as they stared at each other, that he couldn’t think of anybody else he’d rather see right then.
‘Ellie,’ she said.
‘Ellieright.’ Robert hesitated, peeringconfusedat the activity in the street beyond them and the continual stream of people ambling past the gate. ‘Come income in.’
Jessica stepped into the hallway, her eyes trying to adjust to the light as Robert shut the front door behind her.
She felt suddenly cold.
‘Tell me,’ Robert said, trying to lead her through to the kitchen.
Jessica stayed where she was so that they were standing with their backs against the walls of the narrow turn-of-the-century hallway. She was exhausted. What was she doing? Why had she come here? She didn’t know this man. Then she found herself talking. ‘I can’t do it any moreI can’t spend any more time in that flat with her or I’m going to kill her. I’m going to kill Ellie.’
She made a move towards the front door, but he caught her by the shoulder. ‘Jessica…’
That was all it took. The next minute she was leaning against him, her hands over her face, pressed into his chest. The relief of being held, of being accepted and held by another human being after the past five years was almost too much. She’d got by on so little for so long, this would have been enough.
‘I should have phoned. I’ve been wanting to phone youabout Ellie.’
‘You have?’ Jessica stood back, for a moment afraid.
‘She sent me a notea love letter, I suppose.’
‘Ellie?’
Robert paused, watched Jessica accept this as she did everythingrapidlywhether she wanted to or not.
‘My God, Robert. I should have seen that coming a
long time ago. Why didn’t I?’
‘I should have phoned you about it.’
‘Have you got the letter?’
He turned automatically to go and get it.
‘No…wait. Leave it.’ Jessica paused. ‘When did she send it?’
‘The week before exam leave started.’
She collapsed against the Hunters’ hall wall. ‘That’s it. Have you contacted her, at all?’
He shook his head.
‘Will you talk to her now?’
‘Ellie?’
Jessica nodded.
‘Is that a good idea?’
‘Right now, it’s the only idea I’ve got.’
The next minute, Robert was picking through the pile of shoes by the coat rack until he found his old tennis trainers and started to put them on, having trouble with the laces, which had been knotted since last summer. ‘Fuck these shoes,’ he said, suddenly furious.
‘Here,’ Jessica said, crouching next to him and unlacing one of the shoes.
She handed it back to him and he put it on in silence as she picked up the other one and unlaced that.
The next minute he stood up.
‘I don’t want to make any trouble for you,’ she said.
He pulled her up. ‘I don’t care if you do.’
They stood in the kitchen at No. 283 Prendergast Road as a scream rippled suddenly through the layers of noise coming from outside.
‘Ellie!’ Jessica called out.
She went through to the lounge.
Behind her, in the kitchen, Robert stood staring at the puddle of milk, now rancid, on the kitchen floor. He heard Jessica run upstairs, then run back down again.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said from the doorway.
‘Where’s Ellie?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Has she gone out?’
‘She doesn’t go outshe never goes anywhere.’
‘Maybe she went to Keisha’s.’
‘She’s not talking to Keisha.’
‘Did she have to go to work?’
Jessica shook her head irritably. ‘Not today. Something’s wrong,’ she said again, staring at him.
