Spiderweb

  I recall the point you made during our discussion to the effect that the mother has expressed her intention of removing both boys from the school as soon as they reach the school leaving age. Since they are now fourteen and fifteen, it is merely a question of endurance, so far as you and the rest of the staff are concerned. I note that both boys are low achievers in academic terms and lack motivation. It is clear from the files made available to me that these boys have been an ongoing problem. Of particular note is the contradictory and extravagant nature of the complaints and allegations made at fairly regular intervals by the mother. May I convey my recognition and appreciation of the restraint that has been displayed by you and other members of staff in connection with this family.

  Yours sincerely,

  George Tomlinson

  The boys knew that the teachers didn’t like them and they didn’t give a damn. They hated the teachers, anyway. They were a lot of stupid gits – and Michael had told one of them that once, when the teacher was hustling him. Besides, if any teacher picked on them, they only had to tell her and she’d be down there bawling them out, or shouting down the phone at them, or writing letters to the headmaster and people. And the teachers didn’t care for that. Some of them were scared of her – Michael and Peter had seen it in their eyes when they stood behind her and she was on at whoever it was she’d come down to see, yelling at the top of her voice and saying the sort of things people like that don’t get said to them.

  So there wasn’t anything anyone at school could do to them, in the end. They only had to tell her, and back each other up.

  If she was on your side, you were fine. Not if she wasn’t. They knew about that too.

  Today she wasn’t bothering much with them. It wasn’t them she was interested in, right now. She’d been having a go at their father, the night before. She was still lit up. That was why she hadn’t wanted them to go off in the pick-up, partly. She didn’t want them and Dad getting together. Not that that was likely. Dad didn’t talk much at the best of times. After a row he didn’t talk at all.

  He wasn’t like her. When he was angry he went all quiet and that was worse, in a way. You waited for him to blow up, like a radiator. You waited for the bang and the hissing steam. But he was quiet most of the time, that was normal too. He said what had to be said and that was all. He never smiled. Hardly ever. She’d throw that at him when they were having a row.

  ‘Po-face!’ she’d say. ‘You and your bloody po-face. Look, let’s teach you how to smile. See?’ And she’d stand in front of him with a great glaring grin, all her teeth bared. Like this, she’d say. ‘Got it? Smiling, this is called.’

  Their father would slam out of the house, then. That was how their rows ended, usually – him slamming out and coming back hours later, reeking of beer probably, saying nothing to no one. And her as pleased as punch, singing about the place.

  The boys weren’t bothered. You were in the clear so long as you kept well out of it and didn’t let her catch you listening or watching. If that happened, you’d be for it. The same went for Gran if she was fool enough not to pretend to be asleep or play even more batty than usual. But she’d learned to keep her head down. Maybe she wasn’t so daft. There were times when you wondered – when you saw a look in her eye that made you think she was plain miserable and that was all that was wrong with her. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you, if you were old like that? The boys told each other that old people should just be put away, like animals, in their opinion. That made sense, didn’t it? You wouldn’t keep an old dog hanging around, would you?

  Their father had the pick-up ready now and roared off without a word. Thek mother bundled Gran into the car. She shouted, ‘Hurry up, you lot,’ without turning round. They’d been behind the sheds, in the hope she might forget about them. Fat chance. She always knew exactly where they were, without looking.

  She drove like she always drove, sprinting when she could, nosing up the back of slow cars, swerving out to overtake. That could be quite good fun – people’s shocked faces as you went past and the driver’s hand on the horn when she was already practically out of sight round the next bend. Or the flaring headlights in front as she cut in and the buzz you got, wondering if they’d brake in time, if she’d make it. But she always did.

  She’d been had up a few times. Endorsements. But she hardly ever hit anything, just the odd near-miss. She was known for her driving. They’d heard her tell people she’d done racing driving when she was younger, that she had some sort of racing driver certificate. Or that she’d done driving for films, been a stunt woman. When they asked their father about that, he just shrugged.

  But she was an ace driver, no question. That was the thing about her, she always had to be on top, to have the edge over the other bugger.

  They’d be on the road, as soon as Michael was seventeen. They’d been driving the tractors for years, both of them, up and down the track. They’d drive the combine sometimes, too. They wouldn’t need any lessons. Just for Michael to pass the test and they’d be away. Get an old banger and off.

  Sometimes they talked about this. It was Peter who had the ideas – what sort of car they’d get and how they’d beef it up – and Michael who said, ‘Yeah! Yeah – that’s right, that’s what we can do!’ It was usually like that. Peter thought of something and Michael joined in and then they did it together. Or just talked, in the case of this car. Winding each other up – we’ll get a Golf GTI … no, a Honda.

  When they got to Minehead she parked the car and made for the bank. They were to go to the supermarket for some stuff and then meet her at the café. They saw her head off down the street – that swaggering walk, full steam ahead so people had to get out of her way, stopping at the zebra, impatient, to look back for Gran shuffling along behind. As soon as she was out or sight they went into Woolworth s for an ice-cream.

  There were boys from school there, a whole bunch of them. Nudging and muttering. Not that they gave a shit. All those people at school were rubbish, like she said.

  They met up at the Pick ’n’ Mix. ‘Going to the fair?’

  So there was a fair, was there? Shooting galleries. The boys thought of this.

  Now they were sniggering, that lot from school. Whispering. Got to get back to their mum – that’s what they’d be saying. Fuck them. Fuck the lot of them.

  They could beat them at shooting any day, given the chance. They were good at shooting. They’d shot pigeons with their father. Shot them dead and seen them fall.

  ‘We’re going down there now.’ Grinning fit to bust, beginning to move off.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Michael said. ‘We’re not bothered.’ He nodded at Peter and they made for the video display and stood there as though they were trying to decide what to get. When they looked round the others were gone.

  But they were pissed off now, thinking of the fair, thinking of that stupid lot from school. Then Peter said, ‘We could do one now.’

  ‘We got to get back to meet her.’

  ‘We can do it quick.’

  They had to buy a lighter because they’d not brought one. Then they went down to the front and had a look round. At one end there was no one about. They weren’t longer than a few minutes. It was an easy job.

  They were a bit later than she’d said they were to be when they got to the café and she let them have it, of course. Where’ve you been? What do you think you’ve been doing? D’you think I’ve got nothing better to do than sit around waiting for you?’ And they’d left out two of the things on the list for the supermarket.

  But they didn’t care by now. They didn’t care about her slagging them off so half the town could hear. They didn’t care about those other boys or the stupid bloody fair.

  She said, ‘And what are you so pleased with yourselves about, I’d like to know?’

  In the car she said it again. ‘I’m talking to you, Michael. I’m asking you a question. And you, Peter.’

  They looked out of the window, mouths sl
ammed shut. They were at the roundabout now, on the outskirts of the town, in a knot of traffic. A police car whooped past, going the other way. Somewhere, they could hear a fire engine. They were cock-a-hoop, riding high. Stuff them, that lot from school. Stuff her, too. She thought she knew everything. Well, she didn’t, did she?

  Chapter Five

  Dogs are to be found in the Yellow Pages, like everything else, Stella had discovered. The Animal Rescue Centre was at the end of a long winding lane, tucked into a hillside, and announced itself with a cacophony of barking which advanced and receded behind the hedgebanks as she drove onwards and upwards.

  The place was run by a Miss Clapp, a huge woman in overalls, herself faintly dog-like – some stolid dependable St Bernard perhaps. She interviewed Stella in a room overflowing with sacks, tins of dog food and rusty filing cabinets, which seemed to double as office and food store. She said, ‘There are several possibilities. Dog or bitch?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought.’

  They advanced along the line of wire pens in which dogs either raced up and down or stood with nose pressed to the mesh. There were uncomfortable overtones of some prison compound or refugee encampment.

  ‘You won’t want her,’ said Miss Clapp briskly. They were passing a German shepherd, sprawled asleep on the concrete. ‘Came from a Chinese take-away in Bristol. Shut all her life in a back yard ten feet by six, poor beast.’

  ‘What for?’

  Miss Clapp rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t ask.’ After a moment she added, ‘Well, they’re said to eat puppies, aren’t they?’

  At the next enclosure she halted. ‘There’s this,’ she said doubtfially. ‘But I shouldn’t think he’d do, really.’

  The dog in question was hurling itself at the wire and bouncing off. The creature was so engulfed in dirty greyish fur that you could barely tell which end was which – an animated bath mat sprang to mind.

  ‘What breed is it?’ asked Stella.

  Miss Clapp shrugged. ‘A cross. There’s some old English sheepdog somewhere, hence the coat.’

  She moved on. They passed two more enclosures, both containing animals that seemed to have been assembled from miscellaneous spare parts – a plumey tail erupted from a sleek low-slung chassis, a hound-like creature flaunted the curly coat of a poodle. It struck Stella that this was like the windows of a department store at sale time – marked-down goods from discontinued lines in styles and colours that had been a designer mistake in the first place. She paused before a small terrier-like creature that gazed imploringly.

  ‘What about this one?’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Miss Clapp. ‘She’s in pup. Though I suppose you could have her spayed and abort all in one go.’

  An appallingly high-handed way in which to start a relationship, thought Stella. I think not. ‘What kind is she?’

  Miss Clapp inspected the dog. ‘Looks like Jack Russell and toy poodle to me. Not a cross that would have sprung to mind, I must say. But this chap next door might be a possibility.’ She stopped again. ‘He’s more or less a springer spaniel. Something else has got in at some point – the legs are wrong – but you could say he’s springer all but.’

  Stella considered the dog. Not too large. Not too shaggy a coat. Posture expectant but amenable. Like the cottage, he seemed to fit the bill in all the basic essentials, so why look further?

  ‘He’s from a broken home,’ said Miss Clapp. ‘His mummy and daddy got divorced.’ Catching Stella’s startled look, she added, ‘The previous owners. Both moving into flats and couldn’t keep him – terribly cut up about it. I said, look, he’s a sweetie, he’ll walk out of here, you see. I’ve only had him ten days. D’you want to look him over?’

  She undid the door of the pen. The dog emerged with a sidling movement as though to make himself as unobtrusive as possible, unable to believe his luck. He squirmed around their legs. When Stella bent to pat him he pressed himself to the ground in a convulsion of humility, like an acolyte in the presence of some priestly figure.

  ‘Of course, they’re anybody’s – springers,’ said Miss Clapp. ‘Not the dog if you’ve been used to something that’s entirely owner-oriented.’

  ‘I’ve never had a dog before.’

  Miss Clapp looked at Stella in astonishment. ‘Oh, I see. Well, in that case I should think a spaniel – spaniel-type – would make as good a starter as any.’

  Her previous relationships with animals had been transitory ones. There had been a little white cat in Greece, who arrived uninvited to share with her the room over the coffee shop. In Orkney a collie from the farm had elected to accompany her on her rounds. This bestowal of trust by another species was a startling gratification, she had noted. How can it thus assume that I will not abuse it, that I am kindly and well disposed? One felt charmed and chosen.

  There are and have been few societies in which the concept of a pet is unknown. But the cult of intense communion with a dog or a cat is that of Western affluence. New Guinea tribes are entirely indulgent towards the pigs which roam free and root around their villages. But the pigs are currency and indicators of status. The Hindu sacred cow enjoys a form of protection which would mystify the RSPCA. The hen in the kitchen of an Orkney farmhouse was not there out of sentiment but expediency. The curious elevation of domestic animals to quasi-human status is peculiar to certain societies and unknown in other places.

  An atavistic instinct told Stella to give dogs a wide berth. A dog may be rabid. In the Middle East, in the Far East, in Greece and Turkey, over much of the world – she automatically moved aside from any dog or cat. In Egypt, in the Delta village in 1964, there was always a stone or two in her pocket to keep away the pye-dogs.

  Extract from the diary of Stella Brentwood, February 1964. Quarto-size ruled exercise book. Green cover with black lettering: CAHIER. Some pages stained. The cover faded and with further stains.

  I don’t understand why the pye-dogs are tolerated. To a considerable extent they are not, of course. They are driven off and maltreated. The children torment puppies – no one interferes. The pye-dogs are not fed, but allowed to scavenge. So what are they for? When I ask, people shrug. They are there, said Dina – uninterested.

  Questions, questions. All day long I ask questions. I put down question and answer in the field-diary, which is as dry and detached as these things are supposed to be.

  This is a different kind of diary. One in which I try to answer questions myself.

  How can I get a glimmering of how these people see the world? How can I shed all my own assumptions, beliefs, prejudices, etc., and get some murky intimation of what goes on in Dina’s mind as she sits there outside the house door making fuel for the fire out of dung and straw?

  One possibility is to go back in time. This is not to say that Dina is a chronological freak, that she is stuck in a time-warp, that she is historically retarded. None of that. Simply that one way for me to understand how she sees the world is through my knowledge of other societies within time as well as within space. I am an agnostic. Dina is deeply religious. I am a sceptic. Dina believes in ghosts. She also believes that her donkey sickened and died because of the malevolent thoughts of a neighbour. She believes that she must shield her baby from my glance because my blue eyes might do it harm (though she would concede that this would be quite inadvertent on my part – I am a perfectly decent person, it is simply that I have blue eyes, which is unfortunate). The baby wears a string of blue beads which help to avert the evil eye, it seems. I am puzzled by the logic of this. Why blue, if it is blue which is suspect in the first place? And when a pedlar came through the village hawking similar beads, Dina advised that I should invest in some myself, which I have duly done. Best not to reason why. But is she suggesting this as a precaution against self-inflicted injury, or malevolence from elsewhere?

  If I look at these beliefs within a different context I see that they would be entirely familiar and reasonable to – say – a resident of rural France or England in the seventeenth cen
tury. Dina’s system for dealing with the irrationality of fate would be instantly recognizable. The ghastly things that happen cannot be arbitrary – someone or something must be manipulating events. God ordains, and has to be appeased. Spirits, neighbours and the devil conspire to do evil but can be foiled if you know the right recipe. Dina has called in another neighbour, known to have powers of sorcery, who will do some stuff with various potions and incantations that will put paid to the donkey-slaying neighbour. And she would no more dream of passing up her daily prayers, or her observance of Ramadan, than she would cease to eat, drink and care for her family.

  I am not treated as one of the family but as a combination of honoured guest, gullible customer and wayward child. I rent a room in this house – the home of Saleh and Dina and their offspring – which is one of the more substantial village houses. By my standards the house is a mud hut topped with a stack of straw and invaded from time to time by poultry and goats. By theirs, it is the enviable and appropriately superior abode of one of the village’s leading families.

  I am mildly unwell a good deal of the time and distinctly ill on occasions, despite stringent precautions. The family watch with fascination and amusement my daily water-boiling ritual. They are equally intrigued by my medicine box, though they would not wish to avail themselves of its contents. Dina looks upon my quinine tablets and antibiotics with just the same scepticism as I view her sorcerer neighbour’s pills and potions.

  I am covered in mosquito bites. I have had three boils, a bout of impetigo, a septic foot, flu, bronchitis – and diarrhoea more times than I like to recall. I am also continuously stimulated, invigorated and excited. Everything about these people is either illuminating or mysterious or both.

  I am a problem to Dina’s husband, Saleh, as indeed I am to everyone in the village. I am not married, which is patently a personal disaster, attributable either to catastrophic lack of charm or some other more sinister factor such as proven ill-temper or perhaps some hereditary ailment (these speculations have been passed on to me, of course, with apparent innocence – in fact inviting either confirmation or denial). It is difficult for the men of the village to rate my sexual appeal (or lack of it) since I am so far removed from any recognizable benchmark – tall, fair, the physical opposite of their own women. So I become a kind of neuter so far as they are concerned, but since I am technically female, this question of my non-marriage remains baffling. The women are especially sorrowful on my behalf. They shake their heads in regret – at thirty-two what hope is there for me? Some of them are grandmothers at that age.