That reads as if it was a harsh thing to say but Mrs. Barker had doffed her usual matter of fact sharpness and her tones were gentle, if distant. I think Baldy sighed but I knew enough of him by then to know that it wouldn’t have been a bitter sigh, just one of resigned agreement.
“Well, we must find something to occupy the boy’s time. The horse riding class didn’t go too well, I hear.”
“Not according to Judy, she rang me after his lesson.”
“Did he fall off?”
“No, he just made damn sure that everyone else did.”
There was that suppressed chuckle again. I was beginning to hate them less.
“Should we try him with a few lessons on his own?”
“I’ve already booked them. I’ve told Judy to make the lessons as dangerous as possible. She seemed quite keen.”
“I bet. He’s not a boy to take kindly to dressage. She should start him on six-foot jumps and work backward from there. What else would you suggest?”
“Buy the boy a mutt. He doesn’t get on with the Afghans. They are too well-bred for him. Arrange for him to get to the library in Chelmsford. He’s gone through all the books worth reading in your collection and has started on Mrs. Godber’s Mills and Boon in desperation. It’s not good for the boy.”
He really did laugh out loud at that. “God forbid that he finds her stash of Barbara Cartland.”
I was mortified because it was true and because I had no idea that Mrs. Barker’s awareness of my actions during the day was so detailed.
“What else?”
“He’ll do better with rugby in the autumn than he will with cricket, so I would forget that. Some of the boys around here are as insufferable as their parents and I would enjoy hearing that the boy had blackened a few eyes but, for his sake, it will be better not to encourage him. Later in the summer, I would send him to one of those activity places where they camp on a hillside in the wilds of Wales or Scotland or somewhere. Get his friend from Canvey that you mentioned to go with him.”
I really was warming to the woman.
“And arrange for him to see his mother as soon as possible.”
That dropped out of the blue and was met with silence for a few long moments.
“I’m not sure I can agree with you on that last,” Baldy’s tone was pompous again. “Even the father agrees that it would be best to cut ties, especially with her.”
“The boy wants to see her. He always will and there are some ties that you just can’t cut.”
“If you really think it should be done…”
“I do.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
That was the end of the conversation. I hugged my knees with some sort of… satisfaction, I think. Of course, it would be done. Mrs. Barker had said it should, and so it would be done. I slunk off to my bedroom, dug out the couple of the Mills and Boon I had purloined from Vera’s extensive collection, returned them to her capacious handbag when her back was turned, and then spent the evening in the window seat of the library re-reading Treasure Island and dreaming all sorts of silly childish dreams, the main of which was that my mum, enveloped in a golden glow, and who had morphed into a sweet, softly spoken woman wearing decent skirts and soft pastel jumpers, came to live with us in the big house and spent all day with me roaming the fields and visiting the cows, the muddy stream, the windy hill and the dense, dark copse. It was never going to happen of course but sometimes just imagining how it would be if it did is better than if it actually did. You have so much more control.
20
And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears.
William Shakespeare
The mutt arrived the very next day. It was a black terrier cross with boundless energy, a short temper and an endless capacity for boisterous games. We got on just fine and as Vera couldn’t stand her, Mrs. Barker ignored her and Baldy always, even after she had been with us for months, looked slightly surprised to see her, she was definitely my dog and we were inseparable as boys and dogs quite often are. She chased birds, worried the gardener, jumped up enthusiastically at Vera, purely to annoy her I am sure, slunk away whenever Baldy glanced her way and was as good as gold whenever in the presence of Mrs. Barker. The Afghans looked down their nose at their mongrel cousin whenever they came across her and lolloped elegantly away. She yapped and barked, snapped at their heels, darted away and back again but was eventually worn down by their haughty good manners into a grudging acceptance of what they were. We had a lot in common, dog and me.
One evening, as I was tearing through the hallway with dog in hot pursuit I was brought to an abrupt halt by the sudden appearance of Baldy from the study door. I tried to subtly unwrinkle the rug I had slid to a halt on and to look as if I had only been guilty of a fast saunter. I really was becoming very civilised. I had been in the house a little over a month and had not been punished once. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t exactly the perfect house guest. I did what I wanted when I wanted and if that disrupted plans that had been made for me I was just treated with cool disdain. If, on the other hand, I did as was expected of me no comment was made. I still scowled and swore and occasionally vandalised objects. I was rude and intractable whenever I got the opportunity. Actually, that is not quite true. I was rude and intractable whenever I could be bothered, which was less and less these days. So few constraints were put upon me that it was hardly worth the effort. I could roam freely, and no one ever asked me where I’d been or what I’d done and, except for the time the farmer shot at me (dog was worrying his sheep, so it was a fair action I suppose, and he missed us both by a mile) we got into very little trouble because there was very little to be found. Triona came and picked me up in the Mercedes to drive me to horse riding lessons and the swimming pool. Much to my relief, she did not join me for either, just dropped me at the entrance and returned, usually late, to pick me up. I could have coped with her in riding gear but the thought of her accompanying me into the pool clad only in a swimsuit or bikini created such a welter of confused emotions that the relief when she pushed me out of the car and drove off the first time was palpable.
So Baldy frowned at me and I scowled back, and dog looked back and forth between the two of us, prepared for flight or fight depending on the next move I made.
“Your mother will be coming to pick you up tomorrow,” he said brusquely. “You will spend the day with her and will return to us in the evening. Be ready at ten.”
I was ready at nine.
All right, I was ready at seven thirty am. Much good it did me. Being wealthy had not made my mother punctual. I hung around the front door and, between showers of rain in the driveway and tried to look as if I were busy doing other things. Vera called me in for breakfast and then again later for milk and biscuits and tried to distract me with food. She started by talking about what a nice time I was going to have with my mother and as the long minutes ticked by and ten o’clock came and went, eventually followed by eleven and then the midday sun breaking through watery clouds, she changed her tack and talked about the dog (being unusually magnanimous about her), badgers, the state of the economy and her recent success at needlepoint class.
By one o’clock I had pushed my lunch aside uneaten and escaped to the fields, with the dog and a gnawing misery in the pit of my stomach for company. I was halfway around the field knee-deep in long grass and bindweed when I heard Vera bellowing from the garden gate. I pretended not to hear for a while because I was angry and hurt but I knew that my mother had arrived at last and I could not quite sacrifice the chance of seeing her to my anger. I turned and sloped back to the house.
She was waiting impatiently on the top step of the porch. Vera stood just behind her in the shelter of the wide double doors, winding a tea towel nervously between her fingers and looking very ill at ease.
“Oh,” said my mother as I stepped off the manicured lawn a
nd crunched across the gravel driveway towards her. “There you are Mikey, where ‘ave you been ‘idin’? I was about to go.”
She would have too.
“They said you was s’posed to be ‘ere at ten. I’ve bin waitin’ for ages.”
“Well, I’m ‘ere now,” she snapped. Poor Vera. It wasn’t the tender reunion she had expected. She bit her lip and stared in disbelief as my mother lit a cigarette and gestured towards a slick BMW that was parked partly on the lawn with one wheel firmly planted in the petunias.
“Get in the friggin’ car. I wanna get goin’.” I got in, she got in and Vera bit her lip harder and didn’t know whether to worry more about the immaculate lawn or me. Mum had never been a good driver, so a fair number of the petunias were shredded before the BMW extracted itself from the flower bed. Vera was left staring after us with a twisted tea towel and a very sore lip. Mrs. Barker did not appear, but she would know everything.
“So ‘ow ‘ave you bin then, Mikey?” Mum asked through the cigarette stuck to her bottom lip.
“All right,” I said.
“Wot’s the new school like?”
“All right,” I said. And that it seemed would be the sum total of our conversation. Mum kept both hands on the steering wheel and leaned slightly forward. The BMW was a powerful beast and she was frightened of it but then she had been on edge at the house too. Not surprisingly, she never reacted well to anything classy or well-bred. It was a defence mechanism I think. She was very tanned, but I should have expected that. She loved the sun. Her hair must have been expertly tinted by a talented hairdresser for it was soft and pretty and it suited her. Her clothes were probably expensive, and she had always been a woman who could wear a short skirt without looking completely tarty but the heavy gold jewelry was a little overdone and her full red lips were sulky. She was petite, well-turned out and attractive but, as with her bleached hair, she could not quite prevent the dark roots of her life from revealing themselves.
She swore at a lorry driver, who blared his horn at her as she cut him up on a roundabout, and then put her foot down on a straight stretch of road. The powerful engine growled with delight and Mum swore again and wrestled to gain full control. Chastened, she slowed to a reasonable fifty miles an hour and the rest of the trip was accomplished at a more decorous pace.
“So where shall we go then?”
“I dunno.”
I couldn’t think of anything or anywhere I wanted to be that wasn’t just there, just then, with her. That probably sounds a bit strange. My mother wasn’t loving or supportive or even particularly entertaining to be with, but she was there, and she hadn’t been there for such a long time that her presence was enough for that moment in time.
“I know what we’ll do then, we’ll go back to Canvey, see some old friends. You’ll like that, I know.”
Something inside me froze. She’d had that in mind all along of course. To go back all dolled up, just back from ‘abroad’ and driving a posh car was a dream come true for her. She’d probably already seen all her London cronies. Had she visited Bernie’s Bar? I wondered if she included Vi in the number of those she wanted to impress.
“We won’t stay long. I’ll just pop into the pub and say ‘ello to a couple of me old mates, buy a round or two and then we’ll go to Southend if you want. We’ll ‘ave tea on the seafront.”
She mustn’t see Vi.
“I don’t wanna go back to Canvey, let’s just go to Southend.”
“I thought you loved Canvey,” she said. “I thought you’d like to see everyone there. It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna see...them. Those people.” I wasn’t supposed to tell her anything about Vi. Dad had told me not to.
“Oh, turned into a snob already ‘ave you?” She laughed, a short sharp mirthless laugh.
“I didn’t think you’d want to see...you know... ‘er.”
“’Oo?”
“’Er. Vi.”
“I ain’t afraid of ‘er.” She was though. I could see it in her feigned bravado and her tightened jaw.
There was a pause and then I tried again.
“I don’t wanna go back, honest. Let’s just go to Southend. I’d like that better.”
“Oh, would you,” she said, mimicking my slightly improved diction with another sharp laugh. “Well, I just wanna pop in for a few minutes. I don’t know when I’ll be ‘ere again. You can wait in the car.”
“’Ave you seen dad?” I asked desperately trying a new tack.
“No,” she muttered, lighting another cigarette deftly.
“He wouldn’t want you to...go there.”
“It ain’t nothink to do wiv ‘im, Mikey.” It had been a bad mistake to tell her that Dad wouldn’t want her to go back there. I think she had been wavering before, but sheer bloody-mindedness kicked in and she was determined now. “Look, we’ll just pop in for a minute or two. I ain’t goin’ ter ‘ang around and she won’t be there at this time anyway. She’ll be at the bingo.” Leave it to mum to have worked that out.
“Dad wouldn’t want you to go and I don’t want to neither. She’s bad news. Dad said so.”
“We won’t see ‘er anyway, for Christ’s sake!” she snapped irritably. “Look, we’re goin’. You can enjoy yourself or not, it’s up to you.”
I sulked because I couldn’t think of anything else to do and so silence fell for about twenty minutes, then as we crossed the bridge onto the island Mum decided to make another effort.
“So, ‘ow are you gettin’ on at that school? ‘Ave you made friends?”
“No,” I said, honestly.
“Still gettin’ into trouble?”
“Yeah,” I replied, confidently.
“I ‘ope you’re not bein’ bullied.” I treated that comment with the contempt it deserved, and she laughed.
“Did yer come back just ter see me?” I asked.
“’Course,” she said with a sidelong glance that told me she hadn’t. “That was the main reason.”
“No, it weren’t,” I countered boldly. She smiled.
“Never could lie to you, Mikey, could I?”
“You lie to me all the time, I just know when you’re lyin’.”
There was no heat in the words. I knew she would not have come back just to see me.
“All right. I came back to ‘ave some work done. On me face, you know. I can afford it now and all...well, lots of women ‘ave a bit of a nip and a tuck ‘ere and there. It makes me feel...better about meself, that’s all.”
“You didn’t need it.”
She smiled again, with honest pleasure this time.
“You’ll be an ‘eartbreaker in a few years’ time, Mikey. So, what is wrong then? Mr. Barker sent me a message saying you needed to see me, but he didn’t say why.”
“Just wanted to see you, that’s all.”
“Well, you’re seein’ me.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s do the Admiral Jellicoe first. It’ll be nice to see some of me mates.”
I decided to try one more time.
“What if Vi’s there?”
“Then we’ll leave, all right, ‘appy now?”
“You wanted to get away from ‘er last time we was ‘ere.”
“She won’t be there and what can she do to us anyway? Don’t be such a bleedin’ wimp, Mikey.”
There she was again, the mother I knew and loved. I should have hated her for that, but it was familiar to me and truth to tell I had missed...well, let’s call it her earthy language and quick temper. She was determined, and I was not strong enough to stop her. I gave up and decided to roll with the punches.
Looking back, I wished that I had shouted and screamed, grabbed the wheel, run us into a lamp post, bitten and kicked rather than let her run the risk she was running but I did not, and sh
e swept into the car park in front of the red brick building that was the Admiral Jellicoe with more engine noise than was necessary. Two stocky men in brightly coloured trousers and even livelier shirts threw wide their overly fragrant arms as she tripped across the gravel and enveloped her in enthusiastic hugs. I slipped miserably from the car seat and prepared myself for an ugly hour or so.
“Oh, it’s just a hire car,” Mum said carelessly as she locked the door. Then she took their arms, turned her back on me and sallied triumphantly into the dilapidated pub that had been her regular haunt for so many years. She must have enjoyed a far different and probably much more beautiful setting on her Mediterranean escape, but this was where she was most at home and that would probably never change.
21
The croaking raven doth bellow
for revenge.
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
Mr. Freeman was there. I saw him straight away as I entered in Mum’s triumphant wake but she, caught up with greetings and marvelling and compliments from all sides was oblivious to the solitary old man in the corner. His eyes met mine and slid away. I stood uncertainly for a moment or two and then moved as close as I could get to my mother. She was ensconced on a red plush bench surrounded by cronies and acquaintances and hangers-on, some of them, if not all, calculating what advantage they could gain for themselves from this rich woman who was all too willing to splash money about. I leaned against the slot machine, forgotten and more forlorn than I cared to admit.
Vi was not there. That at least was a positive.
One of the brightly apparelled men had hooked a beefy arm around mum’s slight shoulders and she was laughing and looking into his eyes as if he were the one sure thing that she had been looking for all her life. He wasn’t of course. It was just her way. I shrank from the wave of shame that swept over me because Mr. Freeman had seen it all; my mother’s gay abandon and me, cringing against the slot machine and glancing shiftily around to see if he was looking. He was. His rheumy old eyes were on me and I physically squirmed under them. I don’t for one moment think that he felt anything approaching sympathy for my unhappy state. He just recognised the emotions I was feeling and knew the cause. His elderly companions fell away one by one, but he remained, dispassionately watching. He kept his eyes fixed mainly on my mother but occasionally his straight gaze would flicker to me and, if caught in it, I would avert my eyes and shift impatiently. My mother never noticed him, caught up as she was in her triumphalism. Her recent peers were peers no longer and they knew it. Her money had elevated her far above them and given her god-like status in their envious eyes. Not that they liked her any the more for that. The women had always treated her warily and the men, who had always had less interest in her personality and more in her body, had been kept at bay by the heavy presence of my father. An independently wealthy woman separated from her potentially dangerous connections was fair game to them now and even the women affected an enthusiasm for her friendship that I doubted they honestly felt.
A Patient Man Page 18
