‘Come on, Gareth.’
‘Aw, Ma-am.’
‘No, look, Gareth, come on. If we go now we can get a video. You can choose it.’
For a moment it looks as if she’s in for another temper tantrum – he hasn’t been this bad for a long time – but then, with a final tap and pull of levers, Gareth gives in. Laden with bags, Jasper running on ahead, Gareth trailing behind, Fran trudges to the car and reaches for her keys. No keys. No handbag. Christ. Where can she have left it? For a few moments her mind isn’t blank, it’s a jumble. She sees herself on a bank of video surveillance screens going into half a dozen shops at once. All those shops, but no, wait a minute, she had the bag just now in the dress shop. She had to scrabble about in the bottom to find the Access card. Oh, Christ, the Access card. All her credit cards, car keys, cheque book, house keys.
‘I’ve left my bag,’ she tells Gareth, dumping all the carrier bags in front of the bumper. ‘You stay here with Jasper.’ She’s already running, stiff-legged and clumsy, across the car-park, calling over her shoulder as she goes, ‘Don’t move.’
Gareth sits down with his back against the bumper. Jasper stares at Fran’s back, runs a few steps after her, but she’s going too fast and soon the glass doors swallow her. He starts to whimper. ‘Want Mummy.’
‘Well, you can’t have her, so shurrup.’ Gareth reaches for the bag that contains his school shoes, and lifts the lid. They nestle in white tissue paper, big, black, shiny, like bombs. And they make school real. He’s been pretending it won’t happen, but it will. He closes his eyes and Darryl’s face floats on the inside of his lids, all the faces, the ring of faces crowding in, looking down at him on the floor, jeering, and the iron taste of the blood in his mouth.
A car’s horn beeps. Gareth opens his eyes, and Jasper’s standing in front of a car, it’s had to stop for him and the driver’s leaning out. ‘Come on,’ Gareth says, picking him up and carrying him, awkwardly, because Jasper’s a lot heavier than he looks. He keeps kicking, and screaming, ‘Want Mummy.’ ‘Shurrup, man,’ Gareth says, and then suddenly he’s fed up. Screeching little brat, he never has to do anything he doesn’t want to do, if he falls over it’s oh never mind Mummy kiss it better, and the driver’s yelling at him. Gareth waits till he’s sure he’s not being observed, then drops Jasper on to the ground. ‘There, you’ve bloody well got something to cry about now, haven’t you?’ There’s a graze on Jasper’s forehead with three dark beads of blood. ‘Chicken,’ Gareth jeers, watching him scream. And then he kicks him.
A minute later Fran comes running back, smiling all over her face, so she must have got the handbag. ‘Oh, never mind, baby,’ she says, bending down. ‘Did naughty Mummy go and leave you?’ She sees the graze.
‘He fell over,’ Gareth says.
‘Weren’t you watching him?’
‘He ran after you.’
There’s something here Fran doesn’t like, but she knows she won’t get to the bottom of it, you never do, and anyway it’s her fault, as always. She shouldn’t have left them. ‘All right. Get in the car.’
When Jasper’s finally in bed and asleep Fran kneels and watches him for a while. There’s a little catch in his breath now and again, the ghost of the hiccupy sobs that eventually, on the drive back, made him vomit. She’d had to stop in a lay-by to clean him up.
Gareth ran upstairs as soon as they got back, more sobs, this time behind closed doors, and then the familiar flit of laser guns.
She could do with a drink, but she won’t have one, of course. She hasn’t had a drink since the second blue line came up on the pregnancy test. Instead she changes into a loose nightdress and lies down on the bed with all the windows open.
Gareth. Is it abnormal for an eleven-year-old to have temper tantrums in a shopping mall? Probably. No, not probably – it is. If she tells Nick he’ll only say what he always says, that they should take Gareth back to see Ms Rowe. Ms Rowe of the snake hips and tits pointing at the ceiling. Who might just possibly pop out one designer baby when she’s thirty-eight and it’s least likely to bugger up her brilliant career. Ms Rowe is Fran’s enemy. Fran doesn’t trust her, because she says Gareth has a marked tendency to bully younger children, and that’s always going to make him difficult to contain in a mainstream school. Fran pointed out that he was going to secondary school in September, and there wouldn’t be any younger children. That took the wind out of her sails a bit. Had there been problems at home? Ms Rowe asked. No, Fran said very loudly. I expect that’s because he’s expressing it all at school, Ms Rowe said. You can’t win with these people.
Meanwhile she’d better get up and get the tea ready. Gareth must have crept downstairs, because by the time she’s made ham sandwiches he’s in the living room watching Terminator 2 again. She puts his sandwich and a bag of crisps beside him, and joins him on the sofa. Sarah Connor’s watching her son teach the Terminator to do high fives, while she reflects, voice over, that of all the would-be fathers who’d come and gone over the years, this machine was the only one that measured up. In an insane world, it was the only sane choice.
Gareth’s father was a stain on the sheets. The first three prospective stepfathers weren’t much use either. Not that Gareth gave any of them a chance. He hasn’t had so much as a birthday card from his father in all these years, and yet he rejects all substitutes. What is it he’s being loyal to? Ultimately, it must be to his own DNA, to the part of his genetic make-up that doesn’t derive from her. There’s nothing else, it really is as impersonal as that. He won’t have Nick at any price.
She thinks how unhappy he looks with his skinny arms and legs and the bloody awful number 2 cut he insists on. He’s got a hand in front of his face and might just possibly be sucking his thumb.
He catches her watching him. ‘What’s the best bit, do you think?’ she asks.
He takes his hand away and the thumb is wet. ‘The bit where he says, “Hasta la vista, baby” and blows the guy away.’ A companionable silence. ‘Which do you think’s the best?’
Fran selects at random. ‘Oh, the bit where the baddie Terminator melts down and you think he’s gone and then all the little bits come together again.’
‘Yeah, that’s good too.’
They watch to the end. As soon as it’s over he jumps up and presses buttons, then comes back and sits closer. She runs her fingers through the stubbly hair and he doesn’t pull away. If only he was like this all the time, he does have a good side, he sometimes sees she’s tired and makes her a cup of tea. He just doesn’t seem able to cope with other children.
She puts her arm round his shoulder and they sit in silence, listening to the whirr of the rewinding tape.
ELEVEN
‘Poor little scrap,’ Nick says, bending over Jasper’s cot. ‘You have been in the wars.’ Already, beneath the superficial graze, there’s an area of darkened skin. ‘It’s going to be a nasty bruise.’
Fran comes across to look. ‘Do you think I should call the doctor?’
‘No, I don’t think so. He’s been all right since, hasn’t he?’
‘Fine. I’ll take him into the surgery tomorrow.’
They go downstairs to the kitchen, where Nick pours himself a whisky and Fran a Perrier. ‘How was shopping?’
‘Horrendous.’
‘But you got the shoes?’
‘We got the shoes. Which leaves the shirts, the trousers, the tie, the gym kit and the blazer.’
‘You know, I think he might be right about the blazer. You don’t see many kids wearing them.’
‘That’s what it says on the list.’
‘No, but you remember university, first day you buy the college scarf, second day you chuck it in the bin – might be a bit like that.’
No, Fran thinks, I don’t remember university. I don’t remember how it feels to have a waist or a decent night’s sleep or a pee without somebody yelling and banging on the door. I don’t remember life.
Then she thinks, snap out of it, you frig
ging miserable cow. A gin would help. Nick offers her one; she has a second Perrier with ice and lemon instead. ‘How was Geordie?’
‘Not good. In fact, I’ve said I’ll go back tonight. He’s very restless.’
‘Can’t they give him sleeping pills?’
‘They have, he won’t take them.’
Silence.
‘I know it’s a lot to ask.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s just… Miranda.’
‘I thought she might help.’
‘I can’t use her as a nanny. Anyway, she’s got her own problems.’
‘He’s not going to last more than a week.’
‘All right.’ She leans across and kisses him. ‘Ring me before you go to bed?’
Geordie’s face becomes more skull-like as night approaches. It’s just the effect of increasing tiredness – Nick knows that – but it’s difficult not to imagine that he’s witnessing flesh peeling back from bones, revealing what’s been there all along, working its way to the surface from the moment of birth. Geordie nods off, then wakes with a start, staring round him as if he doesn’t recognize the room he’s in. With darkness falling, the other world closes in.
At nine thirty, immediately after the news, he says, ‘Well, that’s it, then, I’m done in.’
Nick goes upstairs with him and sees him settled into bed. ‘There’s nowt like it,’ he says. ‘Nowt like your own bed.’ He burrows down on the left-hand side of the double bed. Even after forty-odd years he still leaves space for his wife. With part of his mind he’s convinced she’s just popped across the landing for a pee.
Geordie falls asleep immediately, and again wakes, this time with a cry of fear. Nothing, it’s nothing. The room comes back. Some old bugger’s sitting up in bed blinking at him; after a fractional hesitation he identifies his reflection in the mirror. There’s sweat in the creases of his neck. It’s always so vivid, Harry’s face clearer than his own hand in front of his eyes, and yet distorted. Harry disappears, bit by bit, like the Cheshire cat, until only the screaming mouth is left. Night after night he feels himself falling towards that mouth.
Nick pops his head round the door. ‘I thought you were awake. Do you want to come back down?’
‘No, I’ll stop up here. She’s a good-hearted lass, Frieda, but she’d wear any bugger out.’
Nick goes downstairs to find Frieda wrestling with the mysteries of the video recorder. ‘Morecambe and Wise,’ she says, wheezing from the exertion. ‘Won’t do your Grandad any harm if we have a laugh.’
Upstairs Geordie, dozing with half-closed eyes, hears the laughter and thinks, Sounds like a good show. He’s floating on the edge of darkness, a pale square just in front of his eyes that looks like a window but can’t be because there aren’t any windows here. After a while he feels the chicken wire creak as somebody sits down beside him, and lies, tense and still, seeing only a dark shape. ‘Harry?’
‘It’s me, Grandad.’
Bloody cheek, calling him Grandad, whoever it is. A light’s switched on. Geordie blinks at the roses on the wall, at the strange face bending over him, a face that gradually becomes familiar. ‘Nick.’
Nick, seeing he’s dazzled by the lamp, reaches for the switch.
‘No, leave it on a bit.’
It helps, Nick sees, to locate himself in a brightly lit room. Darkness, by disorienting him in space, loosens his grip on time as well.
‘Has she gone home?’
‘Who?’ Nick asks, testing for confusion.
‘The cat’s grandmother.’
‘Yes. Is there anything I can get you?’
‘No, I’ve got me water. I’ll be right.’
But he shows no sign of settling down. They’re in for a bad night, Nick thinks. Night’s being turned into day, the upside-down time of the trenches, funk holes by day, working parties and patrols at night. Geordie’s living to the tick of a different clock.
Nick puts his feet up on the sofa, not ready for bed yet. He’s brought the transcripts of Helen and Geordie’s tape-recorded conversations with him, and dips into them at random as he finishes his drink.
To begin with Grandad didn’t understand what Helen was after. He was used to people asking questions about the First World War, but Helen’s mainly interested in afterwards, not in the content of his memories but in how he coped with them later on. There’s comparatively little about the war itself, and perhaps this is why there’s no account of Harry’s death. It’s not the only reason, though. Geordie sounds uncomfortable whenever Harry’s mentioned.
HELEN: What was Harry like?
GEORDIE: Oh, he was a grand lad. Into everything, you know, played football, sang in the choir, amateur dramatics, all that sort of thing, anything really, if there was owt going on he was in the thick of it. All the lasses chased after him, and me mam, well, she absolutely idolized him.
HELEN: And you hero-worshipped him?
GEORDIE: Did I hell. (Laughs.) I was jealous to death of him. I remember when we were lads we used to swim in the river and there was a bridge you could jump off and the water was quite deep. Harry would have it I was too little, so I had to guard the clothes, and I remember watching our Harry jump in, waiting for the bubbles coming up, you know, and I used to think, Go on, you bastard, drown. And then when he come up I used to think, Thank God. (Laughs.)
HELEN: You joined up at the same time as Harry?
GEORDIE: Yes.
HELEN: And you were in the same regiment?
GEORDIE: Yes.
HELEN: He was killed in 1916. Did you ever wonder why it was him and not you?
GEORDIE: You always wondered that. One time there was six of us by the side of the road and I’d ate something that didn’t agree with me. I just had to do a runner fast as I could. I was squatting down with me trousers round me ankles when a shell come over and they’d gone. You see you can’t make sense of that, can you? I got the squitters, so I’m alive. Where’s the sense in that?
HELEN: What were their names?
GEORDIE: Harry Parks. Joe Hardcastle. Douglas Horn. Billy Watson. Walter Baines.
HELEN: When did it happen?
GEORDIE: August 31st 1915.
That’s typical of the clarity of his memories. He remembers everything, talks about everything – except Harry. Helen gets back to the main thread of the interviews, or what she intends to be the main thread.
HELEN: What sort of state were you in when you got back?
GEORDIE: When I came back?
For Nick this is one of the chilling moments in the transcripts. There’s something curiously blank about that repetition of her question, almost as if he’s wondering whether he did come back.
The silence worries him. He hurries to fill it.
GEORDIE: Pretty bad, I suppose. Nine pence to the shilling, I suppose you’d say, but I wasn’t the only one, there was a lot like that.
HELEN: You got over the bayonet wound all right?
GEORDIE: Never bothered me. Aches a bit when there’s rain coming. It’s a better weather forecaster than them buggers on the telly, I tell you that.
HELEN: So it was your nerves that were bad?
GEORDIE: Yes, nightmares, I used to wake up shouting. And I had an awful stammer. I suppose the truth is I was shell-shocked, but they didn’t seem to talk about that in them days. You just had to shut up and get on with it. You know, you were alive, you had the same number of arms and legs you set off with so what the bloody hell were you moaning on about? That was the attitude, and for all you were supposed to be heroes and all that you didn’t have to say much before they accused you of malingering. You just had to snap back. Knicker elastic, that’s what we were.
HELEN: And you couldn’t?
GEORDIE: No, well, I couldn’t. I think with me only being eighteen, well seventeen, when I joined up I’d never really got established, you know. I think mebbe some of the older lads with jobs and kiddies, and all that, there was like… You know, they had something to build on.
&n
bsp; HELEN: You were twenty-one when you came back?
GEORDIE: Yes.
HELEN: An old twenty-one?
GEORDIE: In some ways. No experience of anything that mattered. Job? I knew how to kill people. Not a lot of demand for that. And it’s not much use when it comes to chatting up the lasses either.
HELEN: I can’t believe you ever had any problems with that, Geordie.
GEORDIE: Didn’t know where to start, love. I do now, but it’s not a lot of use to me now, is it?
They flirt outrageously, these two. No wonder Geordie always wore a suit for the interviews. A clean shirt, a tie. Would spread newspaper on the kitchen table the night before and clean his shoes.
GEORDIE: Me mam never got over our Harry, and that was the root of a lot of my troubles. Wrong one died, simple as that.
HELEN: Are you sure that’s what she thought?
GEORDIE: She said it. At our Harry’s memorial service, she turned round to me as we were leaving the church, and she says, ‘It should have been you.’
HELEN: She came right out and said it?
GEORDIE: Oh yes.
Helen doesn’t believe this. Nick knows, because she’s told him so. She’s heard the same story seven or eight times from other veterans. It isn’t that she thinks he’s lying, either to himself or to her, but she believes he’s remembering a communal myth rather than a personal experience.
Nick doesn’t know what to think. It’s possible Helen’s right, but then isn’t it equally possible that the same incident happened seven or eight or a hundred times to different people? The country must have been full of grief-stricken women wishing somebody else had died, and too far gone in misery and bitterness to hide the truth.
HELEN: And that still hurts?