Hartsend (9 page)

‘‘I'm so sorry, Mrs Flaherty. What with everything. This was for you. I won't say Happy Christmas, of course. Oh, Mrs Flaherty, please, it's just a token …'' she added, taken aback by the tears that suddenly were welling up.

‘‘I'm sorry, Lesley. I shouldn't be …''

‘‘No, it's all right. Sit down for a moment.''

The woman avoided the nearest armchair, Mother's chair, and chose instead one of the hard chairs next to the table. As she sat down her grey trousers rose up by a couple of inches, revealing mottled skin above white ankle socks.

‘‘You don't knit, do you, Mrs Flaherty?'' Lesley said hurriedly. ‘‘All these knitting patterns. It seems a pity to throw them out. Maybe you know someone who would like them?''

More tears. Lesley wondered tentatively about leaning over to pat an arm. This must stop soon, surely? Should she offer a glass of water?

Mrs Flaherty wiped the tears from below both eyes, using her fingers.

‘‘I don't know what to do,'' she said.

‘‘About what?''

Mrs Flaherty's pale eyes were on her, bewildered, fearful.

‘‘You can tell me, if it helps, Mrs Flaherty. I am not one to gossip.''

There was a longish interval. Nothing violated the heavy silence except the slow tick of the onyx mantel clock, and the muted sound of a plane overhead.

‘‘He phoned this morning. I knew it was him. I should've put the phone down.''

‘‘Who phoned?''

‘‘Johnny. Mr Flaherty that was. Nearly sixteen years it's been. What am I going to do?''

The doorbell shrilled. As if one they sat, motionless, waiting. It rang again. Mrs Flaherty began to rise, but Lesley stayed her with a lifted hand.

‘‘No,'' she said. ‘‘They'll go away.''

‘‘Mother, let me take them for you,'' Duncan offered, pulling the car gently to a stop. ‘‘I think the rain's coming on.''

‘‘I'm not an invalid yet, Duncan. You've parked rather close to the hedge, dear,'' his mother added, inspecting the ground below the opened door. It was hard to tell what might lie beneath the brown mush of dead leaves and twigs. ‘‘You'd better go up to the end and turn round before I come back.''

Lesley had not been picking up her phone. Mrs Crawfurd did not believe in leaving messages on answering machines. She did not intend to go inside the house, merely to hand in the boots. It would be sufficient to mention the words ‘‘city'', ‘‘motorway'', ‘‘traffic'' and ‘‘parking'' to excuse the brevity of the visit.

The pebbled path to Lesley's stout oak door was indeed long, and uneven, but the parcel of boots was not heavy, and it suited Mrs Crawfurd to return them herself, because she was not altogether certain that Duncan would come immediately back to the car. He had been in something of a mood since Christmas. Holidays, she felt, did not agree with him. When idle, he was inclined to mope, and to cast about for inappropriate affairs in which to busy himself. She was sorry for Lesley's loss too, of course, but people had to have privacy and take their own time to re-establish themselves. It had been unwise, if well-intentioned on his part, to invite Lesley, so soon after the funeral, especially when, as Dr MacKinnon explained confidentially after the distressing scene, she had been neglecting her own health during her mother's last weeks.

Both of the heavy outer doors were shut. Mrs Crawfurd pressed the doorbell firmly. No response. She peered into the sitting room. Seeing no-one, she went to the side gate. Unfortunately, this was locked.

‘‘Are you looking for Lesley?''

She turned. The speaker, coming up the path in the neighbouring garden, was an odd-looking woman with blue-pencilled eyebrows, and a scarf that resembled a piece of orange fishing-net. The plastic bags in her hands suggested she had been shopping at the village Co-operative store.

‘‘I beg your pardon?''

‘‘If you're looking for Lesley, I think she's at home.''

‘‘And you are …?''

‘‘Mrs Robertson. Her neighbour.''

Mrs Crawfurd pressed the doorbell again, and looked up at the gathering clouds.

‘‘I think she might have a visitor.''

Mrs Crawfurd turned.

‘‘A man came to the door when I was … She seems to have quite a lot of gentlemen calling. At all hours.'' A little nervous laugh. ‘‘Not that she shouldn't. It's quite right that friends should rally round. She's on her own now, you see. She lost her mother recently, and as I said to Walter, those of us who …''

This was becoming ridiculous. But there was the problem of the boots.

‘‘Perhaps you would give her these, when you see her next,'' Mrs Crawfurd extended the brown paper parcel. Not the most satisfactory of solutions, but what else could be done?

‘‘Who will I say …?'' The voice followed her down the path.

She lifted a gloved hand without looking back, a hand that contrived to be dismissive but courteous at the same time.

‘‘How is she?'' Duncan asked, switching on the wipers as large spots of rain began to hit the windscreen.

‘‘She wasn't at home. I left them with her neighbour. I must say, the garden looks very neglected and sad. Perhaps her new gentleman friend will do something about it.''

She watched him out of the corner of her eye for several seconds, but there was no sign that he had heard. He had the same annoying habit as his late father of not hearing unless a sentence was prefaced with his name.

 

Every year the pattern was the same. They would go to Boots, then Mother would visit Marks and Spencer to choose some item of clothing, while he went to the nearby bookshop. She would come for him, then they would cross the street and have lunch.

The restaurant had changed hands more than once, but the furniture remained the same. The chairs and tables were a faded pink, Lloyd Loom originals. The square tables with their protective glass tops had cross struts below that made stretching one's legs impossible.

Members of the library staff had recommended other places, which Duncan would have been happy to try, but this was the one his mother insisted was his favourite. She liked a window seat on the upper floor, and was prepared to wait for one so that they could look down on the shoppers in the street below.

He placed the plastic bag with his purchase carefully on the carpet at his feet.
The Poetry of Birds
. He had read the reviews some weeks earlier. According to the
Telegraph
the poems were ‘‘set in acres of space which makes the reading experience pleasurable.'' The reviewer had also praised the ‘‘striking red endpapers.'' He had read the contents page already, and the thought of the evening ahead when he could recline and settle into it was wonderful. He was still undecided as to whether he should limit himself to one poem per evening.

What would he like today?

Quickly he looked at the menu. Last year he had tried the Turkey Toastie with Cranberry Sauce. It had proved to be dry. He ordered the Tasty Macaroni Cheese. He'd liked it since his boarding school days. Did Lesley eat macaroni cheese? Did she know how to make it? He hoped she was looking after herself properly.

A rivulet of cold water fell on his neck. He turned to protest. But the woman holding the umbrella was elderly. He contained his annoyance, took out his handkerchief and patted himself dry.

Mother was absorbed by the scurrying bodies below. Now she turned to take a spoonful of broth and a small piece of unbuttered roll.

‘‘I ought to have got you a new cardigan in Marks. You're terribly hard on elbows, Duncan. I've given up looking for darning wool. Marjory says nobody darns any more. If I could find leather patches …''

Lesley would probably have darning wool. Her mother had never thrown anything out. The drawers of that dreadful mantelpiece were probably stiff with darning wool. He looked over at the nearby tables. Had one of the husbands taken his shoes off? There was an unmistakeable odour of feet.

‘‘… such a mercy they deliver groceries now. Of course it pays them, because one buys more, naturally. I do feel much happier when the freezer's full at this time of the year. One doesn't mind paying a little more for quality food. And the lemon sole alone is worth the trip …''

He hated fish. He loathed the small bones that stuck between one's front teeth and had to be flossed carefully out. He longed for a total moratorium on fishing to be introduced by the governments of the world. How did she know there was a gentleman friend? If she was waiting for him to ask, she was going to be disappointed.

‘‘Are we all right for time, dear?''

He nodded. One hour and fourteen minutes left on the meter. Lesley didn't drive. She would come into the city by bus, if she needed something. Of course, she could walk to work, the High School being less than half an hour away. He often caught sight of her when he was coming or going on the bus. There hadn't been a car at her front door today. Of course, a gentleman friend might not have a car …

‘‘Would you like to see the sweet menu?''

He looked up at the waitress, recognising her from previous years. She wasn't young, though her hair was completely black. It was pulled back so severely from her face, he felt it must hurt. Mother asked for white coffee but he shook his head. It would taste terrible whatever way they made it. He watched the woman pass between the tables towards the kitchen. Did she like her job? Were people generous with tips? Was she happy?

He checked his hairline in the bathroom mirror. Nothing untoward seemed to be happening. It looked as if he hadn't inherited his father's genes in that particular area after all.

He and his father had never spent enough time together to talk about such trivia. Money, yes. There was always time to talk about money. And if he could have talked politics or pretended an interest in Test Match scores, they might have been closer. Instead he had slipped, or been dropped, whatever the correct word was, into the role of mother's little companion. He had at first accepted her loneliness and frustration as a normal state, with no idea that things should or could have been different. Only when he grew old enough to play at other boys' houses, did he meet mothers who smiled a lot and even played games in the garden. At around the same time he began to dislike bed time conversations where she lamented her husband's shortcomings, hugs that were too close and lasted too long so that he came away smelling of her scent, and praise lavished too publicly on his intelligence and successes at school.

Long before he became an adult, he recognised that all was not as it should be. He made allowances, adjusted his attitude to her and, generally speaking, moved on. He'd used the very words in conversation with someone at school who asked if he still enjoyed bike rides. ‘‘Oh, I've moved on,'' he'd said.

‘‘Hello. Can I help you?'' Not recognising the bald boy in the dripping anorak, Harriet smiled generously, as she always did with strangers on the manse doorstep.

‘‘Can I help you?'' she said again, more slowly. His mouth had opened and closed. He might be hard of hearing, or an asylum seeker with poor English.

‘‘Yes, that's my Dad,'' she said, looking at the slightly damp card he held out, her voice softer, for people who accepted one of her Dad's cards were generally people with troubles.

‘‘I'll just get him for you.''

‘‘No,'' he said. ‘‘I've brought these.'' He took a pair of men's trainers out of a Primark bag.

She hated doing this to people. But you couldn't buy things that were most likely stolen. He didn't look exactly like a down and out, though. His eyes weren't bloodshot, and he didn't smell.

‘‘I brought them back, ok? He lent them to me.''

‘‘Wait a minute,'' she said, as he began to back away. ‘‘I'll get him. He's not busy.''

‘‘Dad, there's a hairless boy in the porch with a pair of Nike trainers,'' she announced, going into the sitting room, ‘‘which he says you lent him.''

‘‘Hairless?'' her father said.

Kerr raised himself on both elbows.

‘‘Well, his head is. But since when did you have trainers?''

‘‘Now there's a thing,'' Kerr said. ‘‘I thought they were gone for good.'' He got up from the couch and went out.

‘‘What did you say?'' her father asked, not turning from the TV.

‘‘A boy at the door. Kerr's gone to speak to him.'' She stared at the letters on the Scrabble board before her. She had a q, but no u to go with it. Then suddenly she saw it, a stray r, just begging to be used at the end of ‘‘fever.'' She put letters on the board, and began to add up her score.

‘‘Your turn,'' she announced.

Her father glanced over, ‘‘Nope. There's a u in that as well.''

‘‘No, there isn't.''

He had turned back to the screen.

‘‘It's a kind of tunnel, Dad. I've used it before.''

With a humph of annoyance Harriet stood up, knowing that unless she brought down the Shorter Oxford and showed him the actual word on a page, he wouldn't accept it. And even so, he'd probably object that it was a foreign one.

At the foot of the stairs she paused. That voice. Where had she heard it? With a frisson she remembered. She looked round the kitchen door.

‘‘Ah, there you are,'' Kerr said. ‘‘This is Ryan. He borrowed my shoes the other night. Ryan, this is my sister, Harriet, who's going to make us some coffee.''

‘‘Am I?'' she said.

The boy said, ‘‘I'd better get on.''

Kerr made a face at her. ‘‘I can boil a kettle. Wait till the rain goes off a bit.''

‘‘You're busy.''