Passing On (27 page)

‘O.K.’ said Phil. ‘Will do. All right if I watch the telly now?’

Helen nodded. She began to wash the dishes. From the sitting room came the sound of the television, tuned to some unfamiliar programme; periodically it would burst into staccato cracklings and she would hear Phil clout the side of the set, wise now to local practice. Edward remained in his room.

That night, both Helen and Edward lay sleepless through long hours. Helen, noting that anxiety had either alleviated or blunted her other distress, decided that accumulated trouble must be a perverse form of mercy. The thought of Giles Carnaby was still painful, but it had receded to a dull undefined ache somewhere behind and beyond the sharp drill of worry. Her mind flitted between Gary Paget (compunction), his father (uneasy speculation) and Edward (raw chafing pity). The entire soup of emotion served to give her a grinding headache and a sick stomach. Once or twice she got up, took aspirin, drank water or visited the bathroom. The night passed, measured out by the hall clock.

Eventually, towards dawn, she fell into a stormy sleep, passing from unquiet but rational thought into the frenzied illogical landscape of dreams. Her mother featured, restored to youth and vigour, and Giles, who walked arm in arm along a river bank with a strange woman, and passed her without acknowledgement, and Edward, who had turned into a dog, and howled.

Edward lay flat on his back and stared at the ceiling. He made no attempt to sleep, knowing it to be probably fruitless. He too thought of Gary Paget, with horror and something far beyond compunction. He thought of Gary’s father not at all; formal retribution, at this point, was the least of it. He forced himself to go over what had happened, or what he thought had happened.

The whole episode seemed now quite unreal; he doubted the testimony of his own memory, which made it all the more nightmarish. He could remember sitting up here, in his room, tense and restless; hearing the sound of the boy’s spade from beyond the yew hedge. He remembered getting up, going downstairs, standing for a while at the sitting-room window.

There was some idea in his head, he knew, of going out there to talk to Gary, simply talk, he had barely ever exchanged more than two words with him. He had this compulsion to look at him, to stand there in sunshine and watch him digging. He remembered opening the french windows, walking across the lawn. Then, somehow, he was beside Gary. Had he spoken?

Gary had turned towards him — there had been an expression of surprise on his face. And that whiff of Lifebuoy soap, and the swell of his brown arms below his rolled-up shirt sleeves. But then what had happened? Edward had wanted to touch him, that he knew. He had wanted, overwhelmingly, to lay his hand on that blooming flesh, to feel its warmth, to make contact. The boy, indeed, had at that moment ceased to be himself at all — to be Gary Paget — but had become universal, anonymous and accessible. Edward had been filled with tumultuous thoughts and feelings, topped by an overwhelming need. And affection, there had been that also — a compulsive, joyous affection. He had seen Gary as someone else, as everyone: as a specific person known and lost, as a person unknown and of wondrous promise. He had reached out and his hand arrived not on Gary’s arm but at his crotch.

If anything had been said, Edward could not now remember.

He had a vague impression that he might have spoken. The next distinct memory was of Gary’s disappearing back, his anorak hooked over his shoulder. And then, of standing there alone beside Gary’s spade, which lay where he had dropped it. Going back at last into the house. Being with Helen in the kitchen. By which time that suspended moment of madness and of hope had passed, and he was hitched once more to the remorseless world in which everything is related to everything else, in which actions beget consequences, in which we are all answerable for what we have done, but some of us are called upon to answer more fully than others.

When Helen woke the clock was striking nine and rain battered the windows. From the back door came muffled staccato barks; Edward must have let Tam out and failed to let him in again, cavalier treatment so unusual that Helen was instantly wide awake and apprehensive. She washed and dressed hastily, admitted the soaking and indignant dog, and went up to knock on Edward’s door. ‘Don’t you want any breakfast?’ Edward replied that he would be down presently; partially reassured, Helen returned to the kitchen where Phil appeared, yawning. ‘Stupid rain. I can’t cut the grass.’

‘Phil,’ said Helen sternly, ‘did you telephone Louise yesterday?’

Phil, looking evasive, began to slice bread. ‘Do you an’ Edward wan’ toast, Helen?’

‘Then you must today. She’s worried about you. And you’ve really got to think things out, you know — how much longer you’re going to stay here.’

‘If you don’ wan’ me I’ll go,’ said Phil in an aggrieved tone.

, ‘It’s not that we don’t want you. But your school term either has started or is about to start, your mother is concerned, and frankly you wouldn’t be at all happy living here indefinitely.’

Phil, sidestepping neatly, said in conversational tones, ‘I s’pose Edward’ll be going back to work soon. I should think he’s a really good teacher. Not like ours. There’s some horrible blokes at our school.’

Helen was silent; she had forgotten until that moment about Croxford House. Yes, Edward would be going back next week, presumably. A further complication. Or perhaps a blessing.

Phil, through a mouthful of toast, said indistinctly and in an offhand tone, ‘What did mum want, then?’ Helen looked across the table at him and his eyes met hers. To her amazement, her mother looked at her for an instant out of Phil’s face: a curve of the nostril, something about the set of the mouth. Then it was gone: Phil was not really like his grandmother at all — he resembled his father, had his hair, his build. But even so …

Well, thought Helen, well, well; genes, hurtling through body after body, willy-nilly, set on a course of their own.

‘She just wanted to know how you are. Naturally. She’s your

mother. Mothers — most mothers — are like that. And she’s missing you.’ This piece of poetic license was not only justified but expedient, Helen decided.

Phil stared at her. The five-year-old peeked again out of his eyes. ‘You think so?’

‘I do,’ said Helen firmly.

Phil took another slice of toast and appeared to reflect. After a few moments he remarked that he would give Louise a buzz this evening.

The rain continued to fall. Phil vanished to his room, from which came the muffled rhythmic thump that passed for music.

Edward also remained upstairs. Helen sat for a while in the kitchen and watched the rain. It drove across the garden in white curtains. If it had rained yesterday Gary Paget would not have come; what happened would not have happened. Thus does the world dispose. Except, Helen thought, that it would probably have happened at some other point, or differently and maybe worse — it was part of a programme whose flexibility is maverick and unpredictable. She thought again of genes, simmering away in the body like invisible volcanoes, harbouring intelligence and irascibility and shape of nose and the tendency to particular diseases.

It will pass. It may pass without further ado. Leaving damage but not destruction. She wandered into the sitting room where rain still lashed the windows. The dark mass of the Britches heaved and shuddered. From time to time rooks were shaken from it and rowed desperately across the slate-grey stormy sky.

Helen returned to the kitchen, made a fresh pot of tea and some more toast and put them on a tray which she carried up to Edward’s room.

‘I’ve brought you some breakfast.’

He opened the door. He was dressed but unshaven. ‘I’m not ‘!know you’re not ill.’

‘I’m just not hungry.’

Helen marched into the room and put the tray down on the table. ‘I daresay you’re not. Neither was I. But it helps to keep up the blood sugar level. I read it in a magazine.’

‘It’s just that I dislike myself so much,’ said Edward in a blank tone.

‘Then you shouldn’t. Nobody else does. You’re about the least dislikeable person I know.’

Edward shrugged. He seemed about to say something else, and then sat down.

‘Thanks, anyway. I’ll have some tea.’

Helen stood for a moment at the door. ‘Look … things have to go on. It’s the only way. This isn’t the end of the world. It seems appalling to you — to us — because of the way we live.

Have lived. If you’d lived differently … What I mean to say is that most people who — feel like you — live perfectly ordinary happy lives.’ She stopped, floundering. Better shut up than utter such banalities.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Edward. ‘Nice for them.’

‘I mean that you don’t have to feel all this guilt, Edward. All that happened is that you touched . .

‘Please go away,’ said Edward, in tones of the utmost courtesy.

She returned to the kitchen and washed up, violently. As she did so she saw that the leaden clouds had split and were tipping away; crevasses of pale blue appeared, infused here and there with the suggestion of sunlight. The rain stopped; the garden began to glitter; a blackbird patrolled the grass, head cocked. She could hear Ron Paget’s yard, which had been silent, start into life: the chainsaw, a lorry revving up. Tam whined to go out; he chased away the blackbird and completed a bossily investigative circuit of the garden. Helen felt a flicker of the spirit, a momentary reviving uplift. We just have to get through all this, she thought. Time has to pass, for both of us. The world must turn.

Phil appeared. ‘It’s not raining now. Where d’you say that mower was?’

‘In the shed. But I should wait till after lunch — you can’t do it when the grass is still sopping wet.’

They had eaten together, the three of them — Helen and Edward perfunctorily, Phil with zest. Then Phil had bustled off to the

garden shed, had returned demanding an oil can, disappeared again. Edward had said, with an effort, ‘Sorry. It’s just that I …”Forget it,’ Helen said. ‘It doesn’t matter. You know, Phil grows on one in the most unexpected way. But I am beginning to wonder how much longer he intends to stay here.’ Edward nodded uncomprehendingly, back in his private prison; he went upstairs again.

Three minutes later Helen heard a step on the garden path.

She stiffened. Not Phil — Phil could be seen on the lawn, wrestling with the old hand mower.

There was a knock at the door. She stood for a few seconds, gathering herself, then opened it. Ron Paget. Of course. He was wearing a suit, she saw at once, not the usual jeans and anorak; this seemed, as no doubt it was intended to be, indefinably threatening.

‘I’d like to come in for a few minutes, Miss Glover. I think you’ll know what I’m here about.’

She held the door open for him, closed it.

‘You’re on your own. I’m glad of that. I wouldn’t like to answer for myself if I were face to face with your brother just at the moment. You do know what I’m talking about, Miss Glover?’

‘I know that something happened with Gary yesterday,’ said Helen. ‘And I know too that whatever it was my brother is deeply distressed and sorry.’

Ron drew in his breath sharply. Then he shook his head. ‘Oh dear, dearie me. That won’t do. That won’t do at all. This is a bad business. Being sorry isn’t going to do, is it, Miss Glover?’

So this is how it is to be, she thought: extract the last ounce of blood. ‘Mr Paget, my brother would make no excuses, and neither would I, all I can say is . .

Ron pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘You know what your brother did, Miss Glover. He groped him. Not to put too fine a point on it. Know what I mean? Made a grab at his goolies.’ He watched her. ‘No point in being mealy-mouthed, is there? We’re both grown-up people.’

‘Yes,’ said Helen. ‘I gathered that was what had happened.’

‘The lad’s fourteen. Your brother’s illegal, apart from anything else. I could go to the police.’

‘You could indeed. And if that’s what you want to do then I have no doubt that you will.’

Ron spread his hands. ‘Now look — have I said that’s what I want to do? We’ve been neighbours for a long time, haven’t we?

I’m as upset about this as you are. But I’ve got my boy to think of.’

‘Nothing like this will happen again, that’s out of the question,’ she said. Unwisely.

He pounced. ‘It’s not what might happen, is it? It’s what’s already happened. But I’m going to look at things reasonably, Miss Glover. I want to behave in a neighbourly way. Right? Do you a good turn — you and your brother. And you may well feel you want to show you’re a bit grateful.’

There was a short silence. ‘I’m not sure that I understand,’

Helen said.

‘You might want to do a bit of business over that waste ground of yours.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ she said slowly. ‘Are you saying that if we sell you the Britches you won’t go to the police about Edward?’

Ron’s expression was that of a man being offered suspect goods. ‘You’re tying things up, Miss Glover. Nothing’s ever that cut and dried. I’m saying that we can help each other out. I don’t want to see your brother dragged through the courts any more than you do.’

Helen stared at him for a few moments in incredulity. Of course. One should have thought of it oneself. It even inspired a perverse kind of awe. Eventually, she could speak. ‘What my brother did was wrong. Whatever it was he did. Gary is not much more than a child and it is wrong to make sexual overtures to children. But what you are doing is wrong also. Quite differently wrong. You are attempting blackmail. How do you justify that?’

‘Oh come on, Miss Glover,’ said Ron. ‘That’s strong language, that is. What I’m suggesting is an arrangement between ourselves, for mutual convenience.’

‘That is not how I see it,’ she replied coldly.

‘I mean, if I was to do the right thing, I’d be reporting your

brother to the police straight off. But I’ve got some sympathy for the both of you. I’m prepared to … well, to turn a blind eye.

I’ll take your word for it there’ll be no more. I have to think of the boy, right? I’ll do you a favour and you do me one.’