‘Yes,’ he said to Fletcher. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Where’s Barry?’ he said to Tony an hour later. ‘Isn’t he coming in?’
‘He’s in the shop all day. Some problem with the accounts, I don’t know. Probably fiddling the VAT.’
Chris went into the office and telephoned the shop.
‘Hello, Barry? It’s Chris.’
‘Hello, Chris, what’s the problem?’
‘No problem. I was just calling about the shed. I’ve got one section of plasterboard to finish and make good. I thought I’d do it tonight.’
‘Fine. You’ve done a great job, Chris.’
‘Listen, Barry, d’you think you could look in later on? About ten?’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause I want to show you an idea I had. It’ll be ready about then.’
‘Actually, I’m going out this evening. Playing squash in Abingdon, then I’m seeing this bloke … No, hang on, come to think of it, that’ll be fine. I’ll have finished by then. I’ll look in on the way home. OK?’
‘Great. See you later.’
‘Ta-ta, Chris. You’re doing a good job.’
Chapter Thirteen
Chris was wrong in thinking that Jenny hadn’t seen him when she came out of the shed with Barry. She had, but it had been like seeing a ghost. He seemed to be there only for a split second, and the surprise was so great, coming just after she’d been thinking of him, that she could scarcely breathe; but it was enough to register the anger, the grief, the loss in his expression before he turned away. A moment before, that surge of unexplained happiness, like a blessing; and now, like a curse, this apparition.
She said nothing about it to Barry. He was full of his own preoccupations. Besides, she thought, he was too cheerful to understand.
Next morning he took her to the shed, as they’d arranged, stopping to buy some more plastic curtain rails, enough for all the windows, and some ready-made curtains. Later in the day, he said, he’d bring over some paint. She found she enjoyed the quiet of the woods; she’d been afraid that she’d find it oppressive, but she felt safe among the sunny trees, surrounded by the secret innocent life of birds and insects. At lunchtime (a can of beer from the fridge, a packet of crisps, a bar of chocolate) she found her way down to the canal, and was surprised beyond measure to see not only a heron, which she recognized, but also a small brown animal swimming along by the bank and nosing its way into a tunnel. There was a whole world here. How strange not to have noticed it until so late!
That afternoon Barry came back with the paint and brushes, and she set about painting the plasterboard. He was right about its needing several coats; the paint sank at once into the porous surface. Still, it dried quickly.
When he came to fetch her home, he said, ‘That last bit of plasterboard’ll be done by tomorrow. Oh, before I forget, how are you fixed for tonight, babysitting?’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m not doing anything else.’
‘Sue’s got this evening class. Normally I’m at home meself, but I’m going down to Abingdon to see this bloke about scenery. They’re doing a play down there and they’ve hired some of our stuff, and I’ve got an idea about a much bigger range. There’s a fantastic market, Jenny. Unbelievable demand. Not just plays and stuff, dramatic societies. We can help people think big as far as, you know, parties, weddings, discos … Why not have a party on the moon, eh? Or a disco on the Grand Canal in Venice? The sky’s the limit! Ready-painted scenery, lights, atmosphere, the lot. Bugger just bopping about under a strobe light or a glitter ball; unleash the imagination! We could have a full range, all ready to put up! And … and marquees, lanterns, effects – you name it …’
As he drove her home he elaborated further, until the whole world seemed to be crying out for him to cover it in canvas and fantasy, while he got effortlessly richer and richer as his imagination burgeoned.
Barry had already left when Jenny arrived at his house to babysit. Sean was in the bath, and Jenny sat in the kitchen talking to Sue.
‘Barry was telling me about his idea for scenery,’ she said.
Sue rolled her eyes upward. ‘Can you see anyone paying a lot of money to get married in a mock-up of Red Square or the Grand Canyon?’ she said. ‘I don’t know, I think he’s daft sometimes.’
‘Maybe not get married, but it might be fun at a party,’ Jenny said. ‘Depends how much it costs. But I suppose there’s plenty of people with money.’ She was thinking of Piers and his friends, though somehow she didn’t see that sort of person paying for that sort of thing.
‘Well,’ said Sue. ‘He seems to be doing all right – I mean financially, you know, the business. I thought it’d be touch and go when we came down here, but he seems to keep making money. I suppose I can’t complain.’
‘I should be so lucky.’
‘Yeah.’ Sue laughed. ‘Right.’
‘Where are you going tonight? In case, you know …’
‘Ah. There’s an evening class. I shouldn’t, really; I should concentrate on the OU work, but it sort of rounds it out. The number’s on the memo board by the phone.’
‘What’s the class about?’
‘Nineteenth-century women novelists. Honestly, Jenny, I feel like Educating Rita, I’m just learning so much; the world’s getting bigger all the time.’
‘Do they have classes on animals and birds and insects and stuff like that?’
‘Bound to. Here’s the catalogue’ She pulled a pamphlet from a shelf above the fridge.
‘And can anyone go?’
‘Anyone at all. There’s just so much to learn! I’ll go and chase Sean out of the bath.’
While Sue was upstairs, Jenny looked through the pamphlet. It was true: there was an enormous amount to learn, and if you actually wanted to, and could choose what you wanted … She remembered Chris’s urging her to get some A Levels and go to university. There might be a way there after all.
‘How’s the shed getting on?’ said Sue, coming in to gather up her books before leaving. ‘Oh, I know about it, don’t be surprised. I’m not supposed to’ve seen it yet, so I don’t know where it is. But you know Barry, he can’t keep a secret.’
‘Oh, it’s … I’ve been painting … There’s a bit of wall still to finish.’ Did Sue know about the man Carson, or not? Did she think the shed was just a place in the woods? Jenny was thrown off-balance, so she hardly heard what Sue said next.
‘Chris is going to finish that tonight, Barry says. He’s going to look in there and see later, so I’ll probably be home before he is. Sean’s getting ready for bed. He takes for ever; I don’t know how he manages to spin it out. You OK, then? Coffee, milk—’
‘Sorry,’ said Jenny. ‘Did you say Chris?’
‘Chris, yeah, nice boy. He’s working for Barry over the holiday.’
‘Is he …’ Jenny could hardly speak. ‘Is he tall, with thick, sort of dark blond hair?’
‘Yes. And shy. Good-looking. D’you know him?’
‘Yes. I think so. If it’s the same one. I met him and – and then we lost touch because I didn’t know his surname or where he lived, and I had to leave the place I was living in … Oh, God, I can’t hardly believe it.’
Sue was looking at her curiously, or compassionately, or as if she was happy for her; but Jenny knew Sue’s mind was on the class, so she stood up and pushed the car keys into her hand.
‘Go on, you’ll be late!’
‘Jenny, what is it? You’re crying—’
‘I’m not! Honest!’
‘Well, what is it, then, love?’
‘I just thought I’d never see him again, and suddenly …’ She shrugged, smiling, wiping her eyes. ‘I sort of imagined it. I sort of pictured … but I didn’t really think … Oh, go on, I’m fine. You’ll be late; don’t miss your class.’
Reluctant, intrigued, Sue opened the door to leave, but then remembered something else.
‘Oh! I don’t know, life’s too complicated. Listen, if the ph
one rings, leave it, don’t answer it. Barry’s bought an answering machine. Just let that take care of it. I don’t know, men and their toys … See you later.’
Jenny waved from the doorway as the yellow Metro turned the corner. Then she went back inside, closed the door, and, clapping her hands, gave a little involuntary jump of triumph. But almost at once the look on Chris’s face came back to her. He’d seen her coming out of the shed with Barry. He couldn’t have thought … She blushed to the roots of her hair.
Still, he was going to be there working in the shed that very evening. And Barry would know his address. She could reach him. She could explain everything. It would be all right.
Sean called from upstairs. She tried to clear her mind for the chess game he was bound to ask for, and got up. Her face kept breaking into a smile.
Chris couldn’t stop trembling. When he got home his mother asked him if he felt all right, was he getting the flu? He snapped an answer and thirty seconds later could no longer remember what he’d said to her. Mike Fairfax was reading the paper at the kitchen table with a pained expression. Suddenly Chris couldn’t bear his home any more.
‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘I’m going to see Dad.’
He said that because he knew it would affect them. In fact, he didn’t want to see anyone. He checked his bicycle tyres and went out to ride around the ring road, hard, head down, till he reached Hinksey Hill in the south, where he turned off and climbed till his muscles burned and his lungs felt raw. But the hill wasn’t big enough. He needed mountains. He rode along the mile or so toward Boars Hill, down the other side, then turned around and drove hard at the slope again. Back and forth he rode, six times altogether, till the ache in his muscles was genuinely uncomfortable; and then he threw himself into the long descent of Hinksey Hill, the curving sweep down between trees with glimpses of the city in the late evening sunlight, and out into the big junction that straddled the main highway to Abingdon and the south. He didn’t touch the brakes once, but it wasn’t recklessness – it was despair.
And nothing happened. The traffic was quiet. The bike freewheeled out of the junction, slowing down gradually, coming to a halt by the Volkswagen dealer’s next to the Park-and-Ride. The evening was calm and warm; it seemed to belong not to Oxford at all but to somewhere more southern, Mediterranean, and to another time.
Chris wished he were in that somewhere else, or any other place where things were simpler.
As he rode wearily toward the city, he realized that he hadn’t once thought of Jenny since lunchtime. Maybe that was part of the price that Fletcher had spoken about.
It was getting dark as he reached the city centre, just after nine o’clock. The place was thronged with foreign students, moving between the pubs and the burger bars, or simply drifting about in bored groups, smoking, staring. Chris cycled slowly down Broad Street, past the lit-up windows of the bookshops and the bleak stone bulk of the Bodleian Library on the corner, and turned up to the left, towards home.
But someone called his name from the pub across the road. There were people sitting on the pavement or standing outside with their glasses of beer; there was a crowd inside, visible through the glowing window. Who was it?
‘Chris!’ It was Dave, calling from the doorway.
Chris got off his bike and walked it across the road. Dave was with a group of half a dozen others, and he looked as they did: happy and slightly drunk.
‘Wotcher,’ said Chris, glad to have a reason not to go home.
‘Have a drink. What you going to have?’
Chris wasn’t old enough to drink alcohol in pubs, but he looked it. He accepted a pint of lager and sat down with them, slightly curious to see the friends of someone he knew from work. He hadn’t spoken to Dave much since the fight with Piers; the occasion hadn’t arisen. But he liked him, and it was pleasant enough to sit here on the warm pavement, with music coming out of the pub behind him and the throng of young men and women all around.
One of the girls said to him, ‘Are you the person who had a fight at the Oxford Union?’
Chris was glad it was getting dark, because the question made him blush.
‘Yeah. I think I must be. Does it show or something?’
‘No! Dave told us. Incredible. Molly, listen. This is the guy who had that fight, you remember?’
‘Oh, right!’ another girl said, looking at him as if he were a celebrity. ‘Wow!’
Chris looked at Dave, who raised his glass, grinning.
‘Today the Oxford Union, tomorrow Las Vegas,’ he said.
‘Who were you fighting?’ said the first girl. ‘What was it about?’
‘It was pure animal fury,’ said Dave, before Chris could reply. ‘There was no reason for it. This boy’s nature, ladies and gentlemen, is untamed and savage. He has the instincts of the panther combined with the strength of the giant anthropoid ape. Unprovoked, he is docility itself; but if you transgress the law of the jungle, he will leap at you in the twinkling of an eye, a snarling, clawing mass of steely muscle—’
‘Oh, piss off, Dave,’ said the second girl. ‘Just ’cause you’re too much of a wimp to get into a fight …’
‘I’m his manager! I’m not a wimp! I’ve got a really big cigar, look – somewhere …’
While the others were laughing at Dave, the first girl said quietly, ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’
She was pretty. He would have liked to talk to her, but the time for that was past.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I suppose it was funny. really. I just made a mistake.’
‘What, you thought you were fighting someone else?’
‘Something like that. I’ve forgotten myself. I don’t always go around having fights.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fight,’ she said. ‘Not a real one. I don’t mean boxing matches.’
‘Didn’t they have fights at your school?’
‘I went to a terribly, terribly posh girls’ school. We weren’t allowed to have fights. Daddy wouldn’t have paid the colossal bill if we came home covered in black eyes and scabs and things. The most we could do was cut each other to pieces with our razorlike sarcasm.’
‘Useful gift to have,’ Chris said. ‘I can never think of the right thing to say till about a week later.’
‘So you swing your fists. Take no notice of Dave, by the way. He’s drunk.’
Dave himself said the same thing twenty minutes later, when Chris looked up to see him, bleary-eyed, standing a foot or so away.
‘Look, Christopher,’ he said carefully and clearly. ‘I want to apologize for discussing your private sorrows with this bunch of wastrels and strumpets. The fact is, I’m as drunk as a fish. It’s my birthday. Did I tell you that? Not many people can say “wastrels” and “strumpets” on their birthdays. I mean, when they’re drunk. So I – what was I saying?’
‘About me and that stupid fight. But look, forget it, for God’s sake.’
‘Of course. It’s already forgotten. What’s forgotten? I don’t know, I’ve forgotten.’
‘Yeah, look, I’ve got to go. Thanks for the drink. Happy birthday.’
‘Oh, don’t go, don’t go. Did you have a nice time with the man in the car, the white Mercedes? What’s his name? Carson.’
Everything stood still. For a moment or two there was perfect silence. Then Chris felt his knees buckle, and he clutched at Dave for support.
‘What did you say?’ he heard himself whisper. ‘His name – what was it?’
‘Carson,’ said Dave. ‘He was hanging around yesterday looking for Barry. He said he was an accountant. I thought he was chasing him for taxes or something. I told him for a joke that Barry was probably in his hideout. So he said, “Where’s that? I’ll go and give him a surprise.” I said I didn’t know. I said he should ask you. “Chris is the boy you want,” I said. “Chris’ll tell you …”’
Chris couldn’t hear any more. He felt as if he were being burned at the stake: the
roar of flames, a terrible weakness all along his limbs … What was the time? He shoved his way inside to look at the clock on the wall, through the cigarette smoke. It said half past nine. And Fletcher – Carson – had said ten, get him there by ten. Chris had never felt so helpless.
The first girl, whose name he still didn’t know, said, ‘Are you all right? What’s the matter?’
‘I’ve got to find a phone. Is there a phone in here? Oh Christ, I haven’t got any money—’
‘I’ve got a phone card,’ she said. ‘Borrow that if you’d like. Here, let me help; you don’t look as if …’
The two of them were close together in the crowded, smoky bar, surrounded by young men and women all shouting to hear each other. Dave and the rest of his party were outside. Chris tried to pull himself together.
‘Listen, can you do something for me? Can you make a phone call? I’ve just heard something from Dave – I’ve got to go and head someone off. It’s desperate. Can you make this phone call?’
‘Yeah, ’course. Just tell me …’
She had a pencil in her bag. Chris wrote down the number.
‘I don’t know who’ll be there. It’ll be his wife probably. Doesn’t matter – just say Carson’s on his way to the shed right now – for God’s sake keep away from it. Got that?’
‘For God’s sake keep away from the shed, because Carson’s on his way there right now. That it?’
‘That’s it, yeah—’
‘Hang on! Wait! Who am I calling? What’s his name?’
‘Miller. Barry Miller. I’ve got to run …’
As he shoved his way out through the crowd on the pavement, the girl watched him, puzzled, and turned to look for a telephone.
Jenny had played chess with Sean and lost. She had asked him about the little animal she’d seen by the river, and he’d told her it was probably a vole or a water rat; he’d even found a picture of one in his encyclopedia. And while he was having a last ten minutes’ reading time, she took the volume down to the kitchen to look through while she had her coffee.