Little Bits of Baby (29 page)

‘Candida, what a lovely surprise. I didn't see you were there.' Andrea climbed down. ‘Samantha not well?'

‘She's fine but she had to go home to Melbourne suddenly,' said Candida, ‘and the agency still haven't found anyone.'

‘What a bore for you,' said Peter airily. ‘I'll go and look for him outside. He must be on the swing or something.'

The two women waited tensely for him to walk into the playground.

‘Candida, I'm so sorry about what happened the other day.'

‘Don't be. Honestly.' Candida's words were relaxed enough but her manner was distinctly off-balance. ‘It was right of you to tell me. I was glad. Is Robin here?'

‘I don't think so. He's usually round at Faber's nowadays. I think it's only a matter of time before he moves in officially and we have to buy them things from a list at Peter Jones.' Andrea looked at the gaudy alphabet pictures in her hand then set them on a table. ‘I can't think where Jasper can be hiding if he's not out there. I'm so sorry. This is rather awful, isn't it?' None of her charges had disappeared like this before. They enjoyed themselves too much to run away and she never entrusted them to strangers without a warning phone call or letter from the parents.

‘Can I go and see?'

‘Well, Peter doesn't seem to be having much luck. I doubt whether …'

‘No. Robin.'

‘Oh. But I said he's not here.'

‘You're not sure, though?'

‘No.'

‘I haven't seen his room for such ages.'

‘All right.'

Bemused, Andrea followed this tired, elegant creature through her own house. Candida hadn't set foot in the upstairs area since coming to arrange for Jasper to start at the kindergarten and, before then, since Robin's twenty-first.

‘I like your new colours,' she said, peering into rooms as they went. ‘And the white on the stairs is much better. It makes it all feel sunnier.'

She doesn't realise that we're on the verge of a panic about her son, thought Andrea. God help us when she does.

Candida quickened her pace as they reached the next flight of stairs and was almost running up them by the time they approached Robin's door. Andrea couldn't keep up. Candida knocked on the door then tried the handle. Andrea was about to tell her that he always locked it nowadays when the door opened. She walked in close behind the younger woman; after weeks of exclusion, her curiosity was almost as strong.

‘Oh,' Candida exclaimed. ‘Something's changed. What have you done?'

‘I got rid of that dreadful old yellow paint. “Tolstoy Sunflower” it was called, or “Van Gogh” or something. The two of you chose it together, don't you remember? It was the last word then.'

‘Oh yes.' Candida laughed. ‘And that mirror's new. But it's nice. And he's still got all the same old books.' Candida ran a finger along the spines. ‘
Tales of Ancient Greece, Our Island Story
…'

‘His grandmother gave him those.'

‘The pictures used to make him laugh. So camp, especially Perseus. And there's that funny medal he won.'

‘For essay writing.'

‘I used to spend hours up here with him.' Candida flopped down on the old ottoman beneath the window. ‘He'd lie on the bed and I'd curl up here and we'd talk ourselves hoarse.'

‘What did you talk about?' Andrea asked, standing at the end of the bed, tense.

‘Everything. God. Politics. My parents' divorce and why you two were still happy and together. Exams. Books. It all seemed terribly important at the time. And when it was hot we'd run down to the kitchen, grab something to eat and climb up to the treehouse. Is it still there?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘Let's see.' Candida twisted as she sat, searched the view for a moment then leapt up. ‘Jasper!' she shouted and ran downstairs. Andrea went to the window just long enough to see that Jasper was up in the old, now rather rotten treehouse and that Peter was looking up at him waving his arms then she too hurried panting down.

‘No. Don't try to climb down,' Peter shouted up. ‘Don't move. Stay and talk to your mum while I get a ladder.'

‘We haven't got a ladder long enough,' Andrea said.

‘Yes, we have,' said Peter.

‘The Thurstons borrowed it to take to Sussex to fix their gutters. Jane said sorry they'd forgotten it but they'd bring it back next time.'

‘Get him down,' said Candida. ‘He should never have been allowed up there in the first place.'

‘You were that age when you first went up,' Andrea reminded her. ‘Nearly.'

‘I'm sure I wasn't.'

‘Yes, you were.'

‘Well, that was then. It was different.'

‘Peter, no!' Andrea's hand went to her mouth. Peter had thrown off his cardigan, rolled up his sleeves and was shinning up the tree. ‘I'll find a ladder somewhere. We can call the firemen.'

‘Don't move, Jasper,' Candida shouted. ‘Peter's coming. Stay in the corner.'

‘It's OK,' Peter puffed. ‘Not that hard, actually.'

Andrea and Candida and several people in neighbouring windows froze to watch him climb. The magnificent jays that nested a few yards away swooped close by him in a flash of blue and grey. Andrea pictured him tumbling through snapping branches and cracking his skull on the brick path beneath. She had never felt this fear when Robin used to clamber up there. Children were so much more flexible; foolishly, one always felt they would bounce. With his shock of white hair Peter looked suddenly like someone's mad grandfather who had taken to the woods. As he reached the treehouse and began to disappear up through the trapdoor in its floor Jasper suddenly clambered out of the window and onto the roof. The whole structure seemed to sway, or perhaps it was just the wind in the trees. Candida bit a knuckle. Someone in the garden next door gave a little shriek.

‘No, Jasper. Go back!' Andrea shouted, furious. The brat was trying to kill her husband. Peter's hand appeared in the window reaching for Jasper's hand. Jasper was visibly weeping and retreating. Peter started to climb out of the window after him. ‘Peter don't!' called Andrea. Suddenly two firemen, black and silver in full uniform, ran into the garden from the side of the house. They were carrying a ladder. Not stopping to ask which sensible neighbour had thought to call them, she only said, ‘Quick. Please, quick.'

Both Peter and Jasper saw the firemen and stopped whatever they were doing. Jasper relaxed at the sight of their uniform (a milkman or nurse would have had the same effect), and allowed himself to be slung over a shoulder and carried down. Peter waited until they were at the bottom then clambered down unassisted.

Candida held out her arms to her son but, free of the firemen's charm, he began whimpering and ran past her to cling to Andrea's legs.

‘What's all this?' joked Andrea gently. She prised off his hands and handed him bodily over to his mother who put him firmly on the ground and made him hold her hand.

‘Thank the firemen and Peter,' she told him stiffly, but Jasper broke loose and sprinted round the side of the house. Helpless, Candida followed. One of the firemen had just recognised her.

‘Hey,' he said, ‘Wasn't that ..?'

‘Yes,' said Andrea, dropping Peter's hand which, unconsciously, she had seized as soon as he was down and safe. ‘Her nanny's just gone back to Melbourne.'

‘Will you have a cup of tea or something?' Peter offered.

‘Can't stop,' said the other. ‘They've got cat trouble over at number 51.'

‘Well, thanks so much,' Andrea said and she stood with Peter to watch them go. ‘What happened?' she asked him when they were alone. ‘Jasper was being so strange.'

‘He wouldn't come down,' he said. ‘He only ran up there when he saw her arrive and then she came out and he wouldn't come down.'

‘I love you so much, Peter.'

‘I love you back.'

‘Really?'

Thirty-Four

‘Jake, hi. Come on in.'

‘Hello, Faber.'

Normally dressed so sloppily, Faber was all in Sunday-best black. Jake reflected that drop-dead chic was strangely indistinguishable from mourning.

‘Come in. Come in.' Faber waved Jake past him. ‘I'm afraid we're in chaos but you didn't come to buy the house.'

‘No.' Jake laughed. ‘You on your own?'

‘Yes. Peace and quiet. Robin's taken Iras straight from school to a concert somewhere. Can I get you a drink? I'm afraid we've drunk all the wine but there's lots of beer. Here. Give me your wet coat.'

‘Beer would be lovely.' Jake looked around him, letting Faber lift his coat from his shoulders. The rain had drenched it in the short sprint from car to door. He had not seen Faber's studio home since coming there to collect Candida's portrait several years ago. In those days it was still unconverted. ‘It's changed here,' he called after Faber who was finding beer in the kitchen. The gallery had been a kind of junk yard of canvasses, old frames, packing-cases and chipped mirrors. There had been a mattress draped in tangled bedding in one corner and no apparent sign of a bathroom. But then, in those days, Jake reflected, he and Candida had been living in a rented flat where passing trains shook the bathwater.

‘So,' said Faber, coming from the kitchen and handing him a chilly glass of bitter. The first gulp hurt Jake's stomach. He had eaten nothing since breakfast but a quail's egg sandwich. ‘You want to buy another painting.'

‘Not just one. Several,' said Jake, ‘only it's not me who's buying them – I wish it was. It's for the firm's collection. Just because Candida and I have made a few lucky buys in the past, they seem to think I'm an expert. I've become their sort of unofficial buyer.'

‘Lucky you.'

‘Yes, quite. Shopping with someone else's money.'

Faber gestured for Jake to sit on a sofa.

‘Please,' he said.

Jake sat down beside a headless skeleton that was already reclining. Then he rose to pull something out from underneath him. It was a jersey Robin had borrowed from him eight years ago, a fisherman's jersey, speckled black and white. He sat down again abruptly.

‘Have you hurt your leg?' Faber asked.

Jake tried to laugh it off.

‘Stupid collision on the squash court,' he said. ‘Playing doubles.' He rubbed his bruises through his trousers and felt shame. Candida's kicks the other evening had drawn blood.

Faber was dragging a large canvas across the room to lean against an easel. Jake was appalled. Faber tugged out three slightly smaller ones and ranged them around the large one like a grotesque altarpiece. Jake was appalled still further. The largest and two of the others showed wretched tramps, barely female, sitting massively on a table top. Jake recognised the table as the one where Faber had evidently eaten lunch earlier. Another painting was a nude study of a chubby youth with a grin and flaming red hair.

‘He works in the butchers,' Faber explained, pointing to the still bloody cleaver in the youth's hand.

‘Stunning,' said Jake and hurt his stomach with more beer. Was this the onset of an ulcer?

‘And then there are these,' said Faber, lifting six canvasses one by one from a corner, placing them in a line along the other side of the room so that Jake had to stand to see them. ‘I did these in the Spring over at Tooting Lido. Do you ever go there? No, I don't suppose you do.'

‘Where? Tooting? No. I'm afraid we don't. Candida wants to build a pool of our own. I don't think the neighbours will approve much, though.'

Seeing that Faber had finished arranging the paintings, Jake subsided and examined them respectfully. He saw three more women and three men, all of them overweight, over fifty or both. Lit by warm spring sunshine, they were pictured in detail one could almost touch. Each male painting had a brightly-coloured changing-room door as its backdrop while the women were painted against various views of an aeration fountain in swimming-pool blue. Two of the women (and one old man) wore rubber bathing-caps, while the third and oldest of them stood with her hands combing out her hair into a damp white mane. Her bathing-cap discarded at her feet, she looked utterly mad.

Jake was aghast. ‘Incredible,' he said. Faber had walked around to look at them too. He showed mercy enough not to ask whether or not Jake liked them. ‘Which are your favourites?'

‘Oh,' said Faber, ‘I'm always most interested in what I'm working on at the moment. By the time it's finished, something else has usually started bubbling up. Projects often overlap. I'll be at the photograph and sketch stage for one before another is all painted out.'

‘Do you often use photographs?'

‘Nearly always, yes. The lido set were photos. So was Henry.'

‘Henry?'

‘The butcher's apprentice. He didn't have much time.'

‘Ah,' said Jake and looked back at Henry who smiled lewdly back at him and wobbled his cleaver suggestively. This was much harder than Jake had at first imagined. ‘And are they all for sale?' he asked.

‘All except Henry. An interested party from the Burden Friday gallery has already reserved him. God knows where they'll manage to hang him.' Faber laughed.

Relieved that this was permissible, Jake laughed too. He wandered over to the easel, trying not to limp.

‘Can I see the work-in-progress?' he asked. ‘The latest favourite?'

‘Please do.'

Jake looked at the near-finished painting of Iras and Robin and was strangely moved to anger.

‘What are they doing?' he asked quietly.

‘She's teaching Robin to read braille. He's coming on quite well. Better than I ever did. I had to give up because shutting my eyes for long makes me too nervous.'

Jake finished his beer. Faber promptly removed his glass to fill it again. Jake looked on. One of Robin's hands was gently fingering the page before him, the other was reaching out towards Iras across the sunny table-top as though she could somehow hand him understanding the way she might pass the pepper.