And cars were finally admitted and they came beeping horns, this time in solidarity, not annoyance, and they rolled by with hazard lights flashing, adding disco beams to our Motown tunes, and their open windows added laughing, singing voice to already tipsy banter.
Mrs Penny was as drunk as I’d ever seen anybody be. She lurched like a dying man from one dance move to another and disappeared occasionally down the alleyway to expel vomit or urine, only to emerge refreshed and almost sober, ready for another ladle of toxic punch. That night, though, the neighbours watched with care, not judgement, and hands were gentle as they rested on her back, guiding her to safe passage that was a chair or a wall, or sometimes even a lap. For that night they all learnt that the boyfriend had gone. Had taken a bag of his things and some of her things – things she wouldn’t even know about until much later – things like an egg poacher and a jar of maraschino cherries. As I passed her dancing shadow, she reached out and grabbed my arm tightly and slurred a word that could have been lonely.
With the last record played and the last sausage roll eaten, Jenny Penny and I went with my mother in search of Mrs Penny. The street was virtually empty, now that the tables had been swiftly stacked on the pavement for the Council’s removal.
We went up and down the street several times in case she’d taken refuge in a bush or in an unlocked car. But it was as we were heading down the alleyway for the second time, that we saw two shadows swaying towards us, and as they came close to the flare of a streetlight we could see that it was Mr Harris holding up Jenny’s mother. She looked sheepish and wiped her mouth. Smudged lipstick, mouth of a clown. Sad not funny. Jenny Penny said nothing.
‘I was simply helping the woman,’ said Mr Harris tucking in his shirt. ‘The woman’, he’d said. She’d been lovely Hayley to him all night.
‘Of course you were,’ said my mother, sounding unconvinced. ‘OK, girls, help Hayley back to the street and I’ll join you in a minute,’ and as we walked away, her weight evenly balanced on our small frames, I turned back and saw my mother poking Mr Harris angrily in the chest and I heard my mother say, ‘If you ever ever take advantage of a woman in that state again, God help what I do to you, you arrogant shit.’
My mother and father didn’t even get her anywhere near upstairs before she vomited in her hallway. Jenny Penny turned away embarrassed until my father’s reassuring smile made her feel less alone. But she remained quiet throughout the clean-up proceedings, following my mother’s orders like a besotted disciple. Bowl of hot water, towel, sheets, blanket, empty bucket. Pint of water. Thank you, Jenny, you’re doing really well. My father helped Mrs Penny onto the sofa and covered her with lilac sheets, and as she slept my mother stroked her forehead, kissed it even, saw the child.
‘I’m going to stay here tonight, Jenny,’ my mother said. ‘You go back to ours with Elly and Alfie. And don’t worry about your mum, she’ll be fine. I’ll look after her. This is simply what happens when adults have so much fun. She didn’t do anything wrong, Jenny. Just had fun, that’s all. And she was a lot of fun, wasn’t she?’
But Jenny Penny said nothing. She knew my mother’s words were mere scaffolding holding up a crumbling wall.
Our slow footsteps echoed along the dark street. Jenny Penny reached for my hand.
‘I wish my mother was like—’
‘Don’t,’ I said harshly, interrupting her. I knew the word that was to follow, and that night it was a word that would have punctured my heart with guilt.
Looking back, it’s quite clear my parents had made the decision to move by the time they returned from their trip to Cornwall that Easter. They’d been on a second honeymoon, Nancy said. They’d needed to reconnect, to find each other as people once again and when they walked through the door, ruddy and salty, there was an energy about them, an energy I’d never seen before; a kindness not bound by familiarity or duty, and when my father sat us down and declared that he had decided to quit his job, I felt relieved that the fragility of expectation that had hung over us during the last eighteen months had finally turned into the decisiveness of action.
My father worked out his notice by the end of June and then, shunning all goodbyes and celebrations, sat in his car in the deserted car park and cried late into the night. The police found him hunched over the steering wheel, eyes red and swollen like boils. When they opened his door, all he could say was, ‘Forgive me. Forgive me, please,’ and for a young policeman three weeks out of Hendon this appeared to be a shocking confession, as his imagination jumped from textbook to crime novel in one easy leap. He believed my father had murdered his family, and called for a squad of cars to rush over to our house. The door thundered under the blows of fists, and my mother, disoriented, torn from sleep, rushed down the stairs, fearful that the bearer of unbearable news had once again found his way to her door.
‘Yes?’ she said in a tone that was neither helpful nor passive.
‘Are you Mrs Kate Portman?’ said the policeman.
‘I am,’ said my mother.
‘Do you know a Mr Portman?’ said the policeman.
‘Of course I do, he’s my husband. What’s happened to him?’
‘Nothing serious, but he seems a little distressed. Could you come down to the station with me and collect him?’
And my mother did, and found my father pale and trembling in the fluorescent light under the care of a kind station sergeant. He was wrapped in a grey blanket and was holding a mug of tea. The mug was patterned with the insignia of the West Ham supporters’ club and somehow made my father look more pathetic, my mother said. She took the mug from him and placed it on the floor.
‘Where are your shoes?’ she asked.
‘They took them from me,’ he said. ‘It’s procedure. In case I did anything to myself.’
‘What? Like trip yourself up?’ she said, and they both laughed and knew that it would be all right – for the moment, at least.
And as they walked out to the car park, she stopped and turned to him and said, ‘Leave it here, Alfie. It’s time. Leave her here.’
Her name was Jean Hargreaves.
My father had been working in Chambers at the time and was chosen to defend a Mr X against child molestation charges. It was one of his first cases and, emboldened by new fatherhood and the responsibility placed on his green shoulders, he undertook Mr X’s defence as a sort of quest, a noble vocation against the dragon of slander.
Mr X was a known man, a respectable man of such gentle ways that my father found it unspeakable that he should be forced to defend himself against such heinous allegations. Mr X had been married for forty years. There was no whisper of affairs or marital grumblings, and their union was held up as the pinnacle to reach. They had two children; the boy went into the army, the girl into finance. He was on the board of directors of several companies; he was a patron of the arts and financed underprivileged children through university. But more importantly, he was the man my father wanted to be.
And then one day, a young woman called Jean Hargreaves walked into Paddington Green police station and unburdened herself for the first time in thirteen years, revealing the humiliating secret that liked to visit her at night. She had been ten at the time and subjected to a cycle of horrendous abuse, whilst her mother diligently cleaned the outer reaches of Mr X’s house. The police would have thrown out the case if it wasn’t for one mitigating circumstance: Jean Hargreaves could describe perfectly the heraldic ring her attacker wore on his little finger, and had noticed the smallest fissure across its shield.
The moment Jean Hargreaves took to the stand, her life was all but over, my father later told me. He broke her story down with swipes and body blows, and parried her uncertainty until she sat back slumped and unsure of everything including her name. It took the jury no time at all to say not guilty, and for Mr X’s firm cool hand to be thrust into my father’s naïve palm.
And then came the worst of timings. My father was leading Mr X down the corridor, when all of
a sudden they saw Jean Hargreaves sitting alone on a bench, awaiting the arrival of her best friend, who had disappeared ten minutes earlier to look for a taxi. My father tried to pull his client back, but it was as useless as dragging a baying hound away from a bloodied fox. Mr X pulled away and strutted down that silent corridor, his heels clicking as arrogantly as fingers, and at the moment of passing he didn’t yell or vent his anger, instead he turned to Jean Hargreaves and whispered something and winked at her, and in that moment my father knew. Nancy said he stopped and reached for the wall; tried to pull himself free from his skin, something he tried in vain to do throughout the rest of his life.
Two weeks later Jean Hargreaves committed suicide, and in the time it took for her to fall twenty floors, my father lost faith in everything; but most of all in himself.
My father knelt down on the tarmac as cars came and went. The soft drone of traffic competed with his past. The June breeze billowed around his shirt and dried his damp skin – an illicit, welcome sensation to the memory of life. My mother stroked his hair.
‘I love you,’ she said, but my father couldn’t look at her. It was the final chapter of his breakdown, the moment when his glass was drained of everything, and its emptiness awaited only the choices to come.
June moved idly into July. The sun was high and burning and would be for another four hours, and I’d wished I’d worn my hat: the white hand-me-down cricket hat that Charlie had given me last month. I knew I was late and ran up the road panting for breath. I felt a trickle of sweat run down my back and imagined it cool rather than hot and clammy. I put my hand in my pocket and silenced the clinking coins, soon to be exchanged for an icicle or two.
I’d just got back after escorting Jenny Penny home from the recreation ground where she’d tripped and got her hair caught in a fence. A large clump hung down like sheep wool and she’d screamed in distress. She was convinced she was bald but I told her a lot more would have to come out before she could use an adjective like that, and this calmed her for ten minutes until she fell howling into her mother’s arms.
I turned the corner and ran towards the bus stop where my brother was standing and pointing at his watch.
‘You’re late,’ he said.
‘I know. But Jenny Penny almost died,’ I said.
‘Here’s the bus,’ he said, uninterested in my life, and stretched out his arm to stop the chugging 179.
We sat upstairs. I wanted to sit in the front and he wanted to sit in the back and we sat separately until we got to Charlie Brown’s roundabout, where I conceded defeat and went back amidst the stained seats and cigarette butts that had become the fantasy of every school child’s life. ‘Andy 4 Lisa’, ‘Georges a fat pig’, ‘Mike’s got a nice cock’. My reading was succinct and brief, and I wondered who George and Mike and who Lisa were, and whether Andy still liked her.
I stood up and positioned my face next to the sliver of open window. The air was still and uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable. My brother was biting his nails again. He’d stopped for a bit during his happy phase, but now he’d started again. It was an action he should have outgrown, and whether it was out of nerves or comfort he still relied upon it and it made him look unnecessarily young. He hadn’t seen Charlie for a week. Charlie had taken time off school, but he wasn’t ill and he couldn’t talk about it, but he would tell my brother everything later. And here we were later, and I felt sorry for my brother but I didn’t know why yet.
By the time we got off the bus a breeze had picked up and made us more hopeful, and we laughed as we walked down the tree-lined streets with their low hum of mowers and sprinkler systems that flicked water over us, the passers-by. And then we saw it: the large removal van parked outside the house. We slowed down, delaying the truth, and I asked my brother for the time, trying to make him happy, but he ignored me and I understood why. The sun was hot; an irritant. So was I.
We stood and watched familiar items loaded into the van; the small silver television from Charlie’s room, his skis, the large free-standing dresser he said was mahogany and came from France. My brother gripped my hand.
‘Maybe he’s moving nearer to us,’ he said, forcing a smile. I could say nothing. Suddenly Charlie came out of his house and ran over to us as exhilarated as ever.
‘We’re leaving!’ he said excitedly.
‘What do you mean?’ my brother said.
‘My dad and I are going to Dubai. I’m already enrolled in school there,’ he said, looking at me rather than at my brother.
I said nothing.
‘He’s got a new contract; new country; we’ve got no choice.’
‘You could have come and stayed with us,’ I said.
‘When are you going?’ my brother said, pulling his fingers out of his mouth.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Charlie.
‘That’s quick,’ I said, my stomach starting to clench.
‘Not really. I’ve known about it for weeks.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ said my brother quietly.
‘Didn’t seem important.’
‘I’ll miss you,’ said my brother.
‘Yeah,’ said Charlie, turning away.
‘It’s really hot there, you know,’ he added.
‘It’s really hot here,’ said my brother.
‘We’re going to have servants,’ said Charlie.
‘What for?’ I asked.
‘I could come with you,’ said my brother, and Charlie burst into laughter.
Two men carried a large leather armchair in front of us and noisily positioned it in the back of the van next to a large silver planter.
‘Why did you laugh at me?’ said my brother.
‘He could go with you,’ I said, reaching up for my brother’s hand, ‘if you wanted him to. All it would take was a phone call.’
‘I’ll ask my dad and maybe you can come and visit me one day. How about that?’ said Charlie, folding his arms across his chest.
‘Fuck off,’ said my brother. ‘I’d rather die.’ And he swiftly turned to leave.
We strode up the road, the pace too fast in the murmuring heat, and I couldn’t make out if it was sweat or something else coursing down my brother’s face, but soon he was way ahead of me and my tired legs refused the fight, and instead I dropped my pace and sat on a wet wall, sprinkled intermittently by a flickering hose. I was expecting to hear a knock on the window, an angrily motioned hand waving me off this private wall, but I didn’t; I heard his footsteps running towards me, and I didn’t look up because I didn’t care, because I hated him and I hated his desertion. He sat down next to me.
‘What do you want?’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie.
‘Then go away,’ I said. ‘You’re an idiot an idiot an idiot an idiot.’
‘Elly, come on.’
‘Idiot.’
‘Just wanted to say goodbye properly, that’s all,’ he said, and I turned round and punched him hard.
‘Goodbye,’ I said.
‘Ow, fuck, Elly! What did you do that for?’ he said, rubbing his shoulder.
‘If you don’t know then you’re stupider than you look,’ and I punched him hard again in the same place.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
‘Because you shouldn’t have done that to him.’
‘I had to be careful,’ he said. ‘My dad, you see. He keeps watching me, he’s really weird. Tell him that for me. Tell him . . . something nice.’
‘Fuck off and tell him yourself,’ I said, and started up the hill, suddenly revived, suddenly powerful; suddenly changed.
Had my parents ceased for one glorious moment, to stop and be still in the silence, they would have heard the sound of my brother’s heart break in two. But they heard nothing except the sound of the Cornish waves and birdsong that were to fill their lives and ours to come. It was left to Nancy and me to pick up the pieces that my brother had become; to resurrect his shrunken spirit and pull his pale tear-stained face fr
om beneath his pillow and give sense to a world that had given him none: he loved, yet wasn’t loved back. Even Nancy had no words of comfort or explanation. This was part of life and she was sorry that the realisation had hit him so young.
We stayed with her at Charterhouse Square as the cavernous summer holidays opened up, and she kept us busy with continual visits to museums and art galleries and cafés, and gradually his lack of interest in everything except his wounded self started to wane, and he tentatively emerged, squinting into the late July sunshine, opting to give life one more chance.