In a Good Light (11 page)

When lunch was over and the grown-ups had drunk their coffee, it was time to say goodbye. Dad went upstairs to help Donovan bring Chewy down, and I followed to check that he hadn't left anything behind, or worse, packed something of mine by mistake.

They were standing by the window when I walked in, and Dad had one arm round Donovan's shoulder. ‘Don't upset yourself, old fellow,' Dad was saying. ‘You know you're
welcome to come and stay any time. You've only got to ask.'

Donovan drew his sleeve across his eyes. ‘Do you really mean that or are you just saying it?'

‘Of course I mean it,' Dad laughed. ‘Try me and see.'

‘People always promise they're going to do things and they never do and when you remind them they just get cross and say, “Don't keep going on about it!”' He sniffed deeply, his green-glass eyes shining like wet stones, and then turned away, embarrassed when he saw me standing there.

‘In this house a promise is a promise,' Dad said. He picked up the cage, the large sack of sawdust, and the smaller bag of hamster food and left Donovan to carry his case.

‘We could write to each other,' I suggested. ‘I can do joined-up.'

Donovan nodded, without much enthusiasm. From down below came the sound of Aunty Barbara revving up the car. ‘People always say that,' he said morosely. ‘But they never do.' And he clumped down the stairs, suitcase in hand, and out of the door without a backward glance.

Before the dust had even settled in the lane I was peeling off a sheet of Mum's Three Candlesticks, just to prove him wrong.

Dear Donovan

You see I am writing like I said I would and you didn't
believe me.

I stopped, stuck. There wasn't anything to tell him as nothing had happened since his departure, so I left the sheet on my bedside table, intending to add further news as it occurred, over the coming days.

Then term started again and life seemed to change gear, and memories of Donovan and the summer holidays began to fade like the aftermath of a pleasant dream whose details can't quite be recalled. After a while I started to use the piece of paper as a bookmark to keep it flat, and then one day I came home to find that Mum had had a purge of overdue library books, and that
Mrs Pepperpot
and my unfinished letter were now back on a shelf somewhere in Junior Lending, and that was that.

THE NEXT OCCUPANT
of the guest room was a clergyman called Mr Spragg, an old acquaintance of Dad's from theological college. He had a parish somewhere in the north of England, but had come south on retreat. Who or what he was retreating from was not explained at the time: Dad hadn't been in contact with him since they were ordained, but a mutual friend, knowing of Mr Spragg's situation and my parents' generosity to the Less Fortunate, had put them in touch again.

At first he kept to his room almost as much as Cindy, only venturing out to attend Matins, mealtimes, or to take long restorative walks on the common. Christian and I had no particular desire for this arrangement to change, as he was not of much interest to us, and was, besides, rather alarming-looking. He was small and twitchy, with wild, wiry eyebrows and still more of these fibres sprouting from his ears and nostrils, and a perpetual fleck of mobile saliva on
his lower lip, which held us mesmerised as he spoke. Christian – always a master of the apt nickname – referred to him privately as Reverend Spitfire, and enlivened many dull afternoons imitating his twitch. Mum caught us laughing about him one day when he was out, and sprang to his defence.

‘I don't know why you're so critical, Christian. He's done nothing to you.'

‘He gobs at us every time he speaks.'

‘Don't say that.'

‘It's true.'

‘Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?' she demanded – her usual response to loose talk.

It was Reverend Spitfire who inadvertently set me on the road to becoming an illustrator. Mum and Dad had, of course, given my drawing every encouragement by displaying the best of my early scribbles and daubs on a large cork board in the kitchen. But they never took the old pictures down and replaced them, instead pinning fresh ones on top, layer after haphazard layer, until the whole structure became rather unstable and a gust of wind from the garden door could bring a flurry of pages down like autumn leaves. Sometimes the fallen pictures would lie on the floor for some days before being put back. Occasionally they would vanish altogether and, when questioned, Mum would grow vague.

One rainy Saturday in November when it was too wet for his walk, Mr Spragg took the unusual step of joining us in the sitting room. Perhaps he wanted company, or, more likely, a share of the coal fire, the only source of heat in the house. It was getting to the time of year when the toilet bowl froze over and ice formed on the inside of the windows,
and we had to keep our clothes clean for twice as long because Mum couldn't get anything dry.

Dad was in the armchair doing the
Times
bridge problem. Mum was in the window seat darning a pair of knickers and I was doing a pencil sketch (from memory) of a fox that had been slinking across the garden that morning. Christian, oblivious to the cold, was up in his room playing darts, his favourite wet-weather activity. Overhead I could hear the thud, thud, as the points struck home.

When Mr Spragg came in Dad immediately laid aside his newspaper and challenged him to a game of backgammon. This was apparently how they had whiled away the long evenings at college when not studying. Mum put down her darning and went to make tea.

I watched Mr Spragg set out his counters on the board, his pointed nose quivering as though he was an animal following a trail. When I looked down at my sketch of the fox the resemblance was striking: it was something to do with the muzzle. I added a pair of shaggy eyebrows and tufts of hair at ears and nostrils. Then I did a stupid thing: I gave the fox a dog-collar, just like the one Mr Spragg had been wearing on his arrival. He had told Mum and Dad he always wore it on train journeys because it guaranteed him a compartment to himself, and they had laughed. I was so engrossed, shading in the body and drawing a bushy tail with hundreds of flicks of my sharp pencil, that I didn't notice Mr Spragg approaching the table until he was standing over me. Before I had a chance to cover the picture he said, ‘May I?' and tweaked it from beneath my fingers. I cringed, waiting for the explosion: I knew, without needing to be told, that I had done something the adult world
would see as rude, and that Mum and Dad would not be pleased. But Mr Spragg failed to explode.

‘This is rather good,' he tittered, handing the picture to Dad. ‘Look at that, Gordon. She's got some talent, this girl.'

Dad scrutinised the drawing for a second or two, taking in the likeness, and a frown gathered on his forehead. ‘Esther, this is clever, but it's not very polite,' he said, but I could tell he wasn't really cross.

‘Nonsense,' said Mr Spragg. ‘I'm flattered. May I keep it?'

I hesitated, uncertain of the polite response, and appealed to Dad for a ruling.

Mr Spragg must have misinterpreted my hesitation as he whipped out his wallet and handed me a pound note before either of us could speak. ‘Of course, artists must be paid for their work,' he said. ‘Or how can they live?'

For the first time I started to warm to the man. After all, he couldn't help having an overactive salivary gland, as Mum had explained in his defence.

‘You must put your signature in the corner,' he went on, ‘so that future generations will know it is an original Fairchild.'

My first commercial transaction as an artist unfortunately proved to be my last for some while. Although, in the first surge of enthusiasm following that unexpected sale my output trebled overnight and I produced quality caricatures of the rest of the household, they were annoyingly reluctant to spend.

‘I'm not doing this for fun, you know,' I complained to Dad when I had filled an entire pad with unsold sketches.

‘In that case don't do it,' was his stern advice.

My success, however short-lived, served at least to inspire Christian to go out and make his fortune. Having lost the argument over pocket money, and failed to fleece Donovan at cards, Christian had been forced over the course of the year to consider other sources of revenue. All our parents' warnings and anxieties about the boys at Turton's were proving to be well founded. Christian's scholarship, far from being a badge of distinction, was a mark of poverty and therefore a source of shame. Every day brought fresh examples of his schoolmates' material advantages and his own humiliation.

His school uniform, now well into its second year, was starting to look shabby. The green wool blazer he wore every day was going bald at collar and cuffs and had a faded streak down the front where Mum had scrubbed at a spill rather than taking it to the cleaners as the label recommended. She had already sewn patches onto the holey elbows and had to be dissuaded from doing the same for the knees of his trousers. ‘There's nothing wrong with wearing clothes that have been mended,' she said in response to his protests. ‘I surely can't be the only mother who darns.'

Sports equipment was another source of conflict. The antiquated assortment of warped bats and home-strung rackets, which had served perfectly well in the privacy of our own garden, brought him a rather less welcome brand of notoriety at school.

The extent of his unhappiness only came to light when Mum and Dad received a letter from the deputy head. Christian had attempted to forge a note from Mum, in a script that would fool no one, asking for him to be excused from games. This had greatly surprised the sports teacher, who had considered Christian to be an honest boy, and one
of his more able and enthusiastic pupils. It emerged, under interrogation, that Christian was hoping to dodge games in order to avoid suffering agonies of embarrassment in the changing rooms over the state of his underpants, which were off-white, reached almost to his armpits, and had probably once belonged to Grandpa Percy.

‘The other boys laugh at me and go on about them
all the time
,' he complained, during the family conference that was held to resolve the affair. ‘They call them my Mighty Whities.'

I could see Dad trying not to smile, but Mum looked mortified. ‘I knew this sort of thing would happen,' she said, shaking her head. ‘We should have sent him to Underwood.' Underwood was the nearest state school, a bleak grey building on the edge of a large housing estate.

After some more discussion it was agreed that there were two possible solutions to the predicament. One: Christian should embrace the opportunity to practise some character-building stoicism in the face of mockery. This option, though unpleasant, would serve him well in the long term. Two: the forces of materialism and conformity should be allowed to triumph and Mum should buy Christian some new underpants.

‘What sort of pants do the other boys wear?' Mum wanted to know, when option two had emerged the victor by three votes to one.

‘New ones,' said Christian. ‘From a shop.'

As a direct result of this incident Christian was allowed to take up a paper round, with the proviso that his earnings should be used to defray the costs of any future ‘luxuries'. It was argued that he would be less likely to fritter away money
on inessentials like new underpants if he had earned it by the sweat of his brow. Christian was delighted with this arrangement: at last a whole world of commercial possibilities lay spread before him.

Naturally I accompanied him on his round, which took in most of the village and some of the outlying houses and covered a good couple of miles. At first Mum and Dad expressed some unease at my involvement. There had been several recent reports in the local paper of schoolgirls being troubled in the lanes by a ‘flasher'. I imagined this to be some species of monster with blazing green eyes, but it turned out to be nothing of the kind, just a man with his trousers undone. We were instructed to keep together at all times and not to take the short cut down the lanes or across the common, but to keep to the roads, until he was caught. This point was hammered home with the threat that any breach of the rules would result in Christian's immediate return to the ranks of the unemployed. ‘We're absolutely serious about this,' Dad said, looking from me to Christian for signs of rebellion. ‘There are some funny people out there.'

The morning paper round became the highlight of my day: up before dawn and into my school uniform in the blue chill of a November morning. Mist trails on the common and the crunch of frosted leaves beneath our wheels as we cycled along, and Christian waiting for me, keeping together as he'd promised, with only occasional signs of impatience.

As an athlete and sportsman, Christian was forever looking to improve our performance and shave valuable minutes from the round. We had achieved our best time of fifty-five minutes door to door by abandoning my bike altogether so that I could sit on his crossbar and be tipped off into each
driveway to post the paper. I could tell that this result wouldn't satisfy him for long.

‘You know, if we split up we'd be finished in half the time,' he said wistfully, as we set off one December morning in a shower of sleet.

‘What about the flasher?' I reminded him. ‘Mum and Dad said you've got to stay with me.'

‘No one goes flashing in weather like this,' Christian replied. ‘He'd freeze his balls off.' We laughed so much at this that Christian nearly rode into the ditch, and for the rest of the round all he had to do to set me off was to call out, ‘Hey, Frozenballs!' I was good for nothing after that, and we turned in one of our worst times on record and were very nearly late for school.

Christian was not to be deflected from his mission, though, and the following morning he once more suggested splitting up and taking half the papers each.