Shape-Shifter (11 page)

‘There’s some Portuguese in my family somewhere,’ he said. Portuguese are white people, you know.’ He rolled up the sleeve of his sweater and inspected his forearm as if expecting to see white patches appear magically on the brown.

‘I like you,’ he said, looking directly at her. ‘Yes. I like you.’

Vera thought that she should leave soon. Avalon was busy on the floor, drawing something with a ruler and pencil. Suddenly, Pistol-Man spotted the dirty plate on the table and leapt to his feet. Vera almost laughed at the tableau they made: the man pointing sternly at the plate and the boy with his eyes widening in dismay, his hand over his mouth. The boy’s deafness had made both of them expressive in face and gesture, like actors in a silent movie.

‘Fair’s fair,’ said Pistol-Man as Avalon went into the kitchen with the plate, giving Vera a broad grin as he went. ‘I cook for him, but he must wash up. That’s only fair, isn’t it? We both share the work.’

‘What happened to his mum?’ Vera couldn’t help asking. Pistol-Man gave an exasperated sort of sigh and shook his head:

‘She left,’ he said, sitting back down in his chair. ‘She was a virgin when I met her, so I don’t know why I went with her because I don’t like virgins,’ he said candidly. ‘We lived in a little room in Stoke Newington. I was working as a cutter – you know – cloth – cutting cloth. Avalon was seventeen months old. She left on a Friday. Well, you know how horrible Fridays are.’ He opened his arms wide as if to emphasise the horribleness of Fridays. ‘You’ve been working all week and you’re tired and you’re looking forward to the weekend. Anyway, I came home and found a note stuck on the paraffin heater saying she’d gone. The baby was all pissed up in his cot. And that was that.’ He frowned as though it was still a puzzle to him. ‘Maybe I was a bit of a tyrant,’ he said regretfully. ‘But I didn’t beat her or anything,’ he added hastily. ‘It was just that when I wanted something done, I wanted it done properly. I wanted it done the right way.’ Vera could see how the man could be bossy, cantankerous even. He continued with an expression of bewildered anguish on his face:

‘It’s because I want people to make progress. I want things to be better. Even with him,’ he gestured towards Avalon who had gone into the bathroom, ‘I want him to be somebody.’ He spoke with a burst of energy, enthusiasm and hope. ‘I want him to be something. He can’t hear and he can’t speak much but I want him to be the best he can. To be his own person.’ He got up and pointed out of the window. ‘That’s why I’ve let the grass grow like that.’ Vera looked to where he was pointing. Outside, the grass had run wild, nearly waist-high, in the small garden. ‘The neighbours keep telling me I must cut it, but it’s more interesting for him like that. There’s lots of things he can discover in that grass: butterflies and worms, snails and caterpillars and insects with long legs, lots of things. He can hide in it and imagine things. It’s more of an adventure for him like that.’

Avalon came in and took his father by both forearms, then he bared his teeth at him.

‘Yes. That’s all right,’ said Pistol-Man. He turned to Vera, a little shame-faced, to explain. ‘I make him do that because he didn’t used to brush his teeth properly. I should stop him doing that really,’ he said. ‘He’s too old for that now. Would you like to see his drawing? He’s talented. Maybe he’ll get trained one day.’

He ushered Vera into the boy’s bedroom. It was small and pokey. Two big wardrobes dwarfed the single bed. Over the head of the bed was a picture of Superman. On the other wall was Avalon’s drawing of Elvis Presley. Vera smiled and nodded at Avalon in appreciation. Immediately, the boy jumped on the bed and tried to pull down a big folder from the top of the wardrobe, indicating that he wanted to give her all the drawings he had ever done.

‘She don’t want all those, silly,’ said Pistol-Man. He opened the wardrobe. Inside were half a drum-kit and a battered electric guitar. ‘Those are my instruments,’ he said proudly. ‘I’ll show you my room.’

The three of them peeked into his room. Vera was made shy by the sight of his double bed, neatly made up with a plain coverlet. She glanced quickly round. On a shelf was another photograph of Avalon with two schoolfriends. There was not much else in the room. She backed out. They returned to the living-room.

‘I’ve got to go now,’ she said.

‘You’re shooting off then,’ said Pistol-Man. In his eagerness to do what she wanted he almost ran her out of the front door.

‘Call in any time you want,’ he said. ‘We’re always in from about six o’clock. Thanks again for the lift.’

‘Bye … Bye,’ said Avalon.

Vera waved goodbye. It had stopped raining. As she drove through the cramped streets an immense and irreparable sense of loss overwhelmed her for the island where she had once lived with its whispering seas and the sound of women’s voices in the soft night air, dripping slowly and unevenly like molasses; for the people she had once known.

Back in his flat, Pistol-Man slapped himself on the forehead:

‘Oh no! I forgot to ask her her name.’ Avalon pulled a face of commiseration. ‘Not that it matters.’ Pistol-Man no longer thought about women because of his dedication to the boy.

‘Did you like her?’ asked Pistol-Man. Avalon, his eyes shining, put his hands on his lips and then on his heart. He went back to his drawing on the floor. Pistol-Man sat on the settee and opened another can of lager. He felt good. He felt warm inside. Tomorrow, he decided, he would hoover the carpet and give the whole place a good clean-up. What luck, he thought, to get a lift home on a wet afternoon like that.

Suddenly, he leant forward and grasped his son by the arm to attract his attention. He spoke in sign language only:

‘You see!’ he said to the child who looked intently at him. ‘Good things do happen.’

WHEN LILY JOHNSON OPENED HER FRONT DOOR
, the woman on the doorstep was already smiling at her. The stranger’s eyes, set deep in a broad forehead, made Lily uncomfortable. They looked at her too directly. Altogether, the woman looked like a brown plant that had sprung up on her doorstep. A stained, fawn mackintosh hung loose, half-covering some dun-coloured slacks and an old, yellowish sweater. At her side stood a child with orange hair and green eyes who looked as if he had been fed on too much milk. From her accent, Lily knew the woman was posh.

Across the street, Mrs O’Sullivan stood staring at the two women on Lily’s doorstep, her head cocked to one side. Two weeks ago when Lily and her husband rented the house opposite, Mrs O’Sullivan had been the first to call, offering assistance, dropping packages, her brown eyes anxious and curious, her cheap purple coat flapping open, her lop-sided features in a permanent gawp. Since then, Lily had seen her several times in the street, swaying from side to side as she walked, as if she were trying to catch somebody’s scent. Now, Lily’s attention was distracted from the well-spoken stranger because, over the woman’s shoulder, she could see Mrs O’Sullivan staring at them. She leaned sideways and gave Mrs O’Sullivan a small wave to indicate that she had caught her spying. As if released from a spell, Mrs O’Sullivan resumed motion, picked up a bottle of milk from the doorstep and retreated inside her terraced house.

‘So, if you’d like to bring her up to play …’ The woman was inviting Lily to bring her daughter, Gloria, to play with the orange-haired boy. They lived in the big white house on the corner. The boy stared down the street as if none of this had anything to do with him.

‘That’s so kind.’ Lily was flustered. ‘I’ll fetch her up later.’

Blasted nuisance, thought Lily as she shut the door. She picked her way past the tea-chests in the dark passage and went into the back room that adjoined the tiny, cold scullery. In the back parlour, her sister Ruby’s broad frame balanced skew-whiff on the window-sill, arms outstretched as if to a sun-god. Between her hands drooped a tape measure.

‘Well, whadderyerknow.’ Lily whispered as if the visitor could still hear them. ‘That was the woman from the white house. What a sight! You’d never think she was a doctor’s wife in a million years. At least, that Irish woman over the road told me the house on the corner was a doctor’s house. Dirty old trousers she had on.’

‘Ooooooooer.’ Ruby shifted her weight to reach the other side of the window frame. The garish colours and unmatching patterns of her blouse and skirt zigzagged and clashed like tropical fish fighting in an aquarium. A petticoat hung way below her cotton skirt. Lily observed it critically:

‘That petticoat needs shortening.’

Lily sat at the table. She wore a floral, crepe frock and old white sandals. Her dark hair was pinned in sausage curls round her head and held in place by a hairnet. Hooded lids drooped over eyes the same colour as the irises in the back yard. She picked out a pea with a maggot in it from the basin and tossed it in the paper bag with the rest of the pods. It annoyed her that Ruby was not that impressed by the caller:

‘Mind you, she had a lovely way of talking. I’ll bet their place is nice inside.’ Her eyes screwed up with cunning. ‘I think I will pop up later and ‘ave a snoop.’

Ruby tried to disregard her sister’s snobbery. Lily was the only one of the family with pretensions. When the others teased her about it she would turn and retort, ‘You can always stoop and pick up nuffin!’

‘Toreador, bom bom ti bom ti bom,’ Ruby sang in tune with the radio as she lowered her bulk to the ground. ‘That’s that done!’ She sat in the low chair beneath the window, sipping at her lukewarm tea, trying to judge how much weight Lily had lost since the operation. Her sister’s skin looked clear but pale:

‘Lily’s a good name for you. You look like a bloody lily.’

‘Don’t be so daft.’ Lily threw a scornful look at her sister. ‘And I’m not having you come over here day after day unless you let me give you your fares.’

‘Don’t be so barmy. It’s only a couple of bob. What’s a couple of bob?’

‘It’s a couple of bob,’ said Lily firmly. She reached in her bag and took out the rough leather purse she’d made at evening classes. The teacher had cut out the shape and punched the holes in it and Lily had bound it together with brown plastic. Then the teacher had stamped the stud on the front. Lily took from it a two shilling piece. She placed it on the table as though she were making a careful chess move.

‘Put that back. What are sisters for if they can’t help each other out?’ said Ruby.

Lily returned the money to her purse:

‘What in God’s world would I do without you, Ruby?’ She studied the floor. ‘What do you think of this lino? I dunno if I’m struck. D’you think he’ll mind it being red?’

Ruby was putting on her make-up without looking in a mirror. She imagined where her eyebrows used to be – in much the same place as Marlene Dietrich’s – and then ran the eyebrow pencil over her forehead. She guessed roughly where her lips were, wielding the lipstick in close approximation to their shape and patted her face with a powder puff until the powder drifted into orange sand-dunes beneath her cheek bones.

Four weeks earlier, Lily had been in hospital with peritonitis. She examined her arms:

‘I’ve got thin everywhere except these bloody arms. A horse would be proud of one of these arms for a leg. Wish I had refined arms.’

The back door rattled. The sisters semaphored surprise to each other with their eyebrows and mouths.

‘That’s never school over, is it?’ asked Lily.

Gloria hopped up the steps from the scullery into the back parlour. One plait was coming undone and she had the remains of a black eye from fighting with the dentist to stop the gas mask being put over her face. Ruby held out her arms like a colourful parrot and Gloria swooped into them, breathing in a cloud of Devonshire Violet talcum powder. Aunty Ruby felt like a marshmallow.

‘Don’t take that coat off,’ said Lily. ‘You’re going to play with someone up the road.’

‘But I wanna stick me transfers on me arm.’ Gloria jutted out her pale, fierce little face.

‘You can do that after.’ Lily held the hairpins in her mouth as she fastened a loose strand of hair. Ruby glanced in the mirror to fix her felt hat at a more jaunty angle. As the two sisters and the child sauntered up the hill, Mrs O’Sullivan’s curtain moved.

The inside of the doctor’s house astonished Lily. The floor of the large, airy living room was bare – dark, polished wooden boards. French windows looked out onto a long, unkempt garden. Half-way down the room was a baby grand piano and in the corner stood a display cabinet full of red, black and gold-patterned chinaware. There were no ornaments on the mantelpiece. There were no curtains at the windows. The only furniture in the room was a down-at-heel settee and an ancient, ungainly armchair. Lily stood in the centre of the room. The spaciousness of it made her feel agoraphobic. The room was too full of light. She became self-conscious. Her recent visitor leaned with her back to the fireplace, heels resting on the fireguard. Lily noticed that she wore plimsolls. But they must have money, thought Lily. It all seemed peculiar. She had thought there would be carpets.

Perched on the edge of the settee was another woman, a woman who seemed altogether a more suitable occupant for a doctor’s house. Mrs Parrish. Mrs Parrish stirred a cup of tea with a small silver spoon. Immediately, Lily was reminded of the Duchess of Windsor. Her silhouette was etched sharply against the light from the French windows. On her head was a neat, black hat with a spotted veil. Protruding from one side of the hat was a piece of stiffened felt the shape of a crow’s tail feathers. Immaculate was the word that came to Lily’s mind as they were introduced.

‘Does your husband have his surgery in this house?’ Lily enquired politely.

‘Oh, I’m the doctor,’ laughed the woman, still ih her brown raincoat.

Lily suffered an attack of violent social vertigo. What a blunder. But how on earth was she supposed to know? – the blasted woman dressed as though she kept chickens. The colour rose in Lily’s cheeks. Dr Bartholomew, as she had turned out to be, appeared not to notice.

‘In fact, Mrs Parrish’s husband and I were medical students together. He has a surgery further up the hill. I work in the Public Health department.’