A Change of Climate

  Ten o’clock—Daniel on his way home, Kit washing up—he went out to attend to the boiler. This brute occupied its own hot little room—in the depth of winter, it was a popular meeting place for the family. The air was dry, calcified, osseous. He would have let it go out in the summer, except that it supplied the family’s hot water too. When the children were babies it had seemed quite natural to dunk them in and out of each other’s bath water; when they were older, he had expected them to exercise economy. One Easter holiday long ago, Kit had a friend to stay. “You can have first bath,” Kit had said, “but leave me your water.” Her friend had stared at her. It’s like the middle ages here, she’d said. And telephoned her parents to be collected next day.

  All these thoughts were running through Ralph’s mind—to block out certain other thoughts—as he drove the scuttle vengefully at the coal, felt the coal rattle in, felt the dust fly up and sully his cuffs. He straightened up, and Julian was there, in the doorway, leaning against it.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Julian said.

  “The boiler,” Ralph said.

  “Don’t be funny. It’s not funny,” Julian said. “I’ve just come from Sandra’s. I’ve been covering up for you so far, but why should I go on doing it? Why should I? You’re going to wreck up everything for me and Sandra, and that’s only the beginning of the damage you’re going to do.”

  Ralph said, “This is neither the time nor the place, is it?”

  Julian leaned forward and took a handful of his father’s sweater, somewhere around the shoulder patch. He shifted his grip, seemed uncertain whether he had his father or not. “Look, what the hell are you doing?” he said.

  Ralph said, “Give me an inch of space, Julian. What am I doing? I don’t know.”

  Melanie, their Visitor from London, arrived next day. The children always hung around to see a new arrival, but they were disappointed by this one. She was wearing an ordinary pair of jeans, black lace-up boots with domed toe caps, and a leopard-skin print T-shirt with a hole in it. “Very conventional,” Kit said. “Almost Sloane Square.”

  “Boring,” Rebecca agreed.

  Melanie had a nylon hold-all, but it seemed to be empty. “What’s happened to her clothes?” Anna said.

  “She burned them,” Ralph said shortly. It was clear that he didn’t mean to enlarge on this.

  Anna sighed. “We’ll have to get her kitted out, then. That will be a battle.”

  She took Melanie upstairs to settle her in her room. “Have you got any tablets, my dear?” Anna said. “Anything you shouldn’t have? Needles?”

  Melanie shook her cropped orange head. Anna felt that she was lying, but balked at a body search. The girl slumped down on the bed and stared hard at the wall. She was here against her wishes and she meant to make this clear. Anna looked out of the window, over the fields. Fields, fields on every hand, all choked with snares for the urban young. To Melanie—who had broken out, sooner or later, from everywhere she had ever lived—it must feel like a Siberian labor camp. The permafrost on every side; searchlights and razor wire. As if catching her thought, the girl said, “Is there bulls?”

  “In the fields? No, not usually. We don’t have that kind of farming. In the fields we grow things.”

  “What, like bloody grass?” the girl said.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Anna said. “Don’t swear at me. It won’t make you any happier.”

  “But it does,” Melanie said balefully.

  Anna went downstairs, and checked that anything Melanie might inhale or swallow was locked away. Not many women have to padlock their oven cleaner, Anna thought. They had tried to exclude from the house any substance with a potential for abuse, but you could never be sure; a boy who’d stayed last year had a predilection for a certain brand of suede cleaner, and had ransacked the kitchen cupboards and her dressing-table drawers on the off-chance that she might have some lying about. Again, these children were given to what are known as “suicidal gestures”—drinking bleach, for instance. Some of their experiments were so unlikely that it was only later, when they got out of hospital, that you could find out from them whether they’d been in search of euphoria or oblivion—a temporary exit, or a permanent one.

  “Ralph,” Anna said. “I’m afraid Melanie is a Sad Case, a very sad one indeed. You’re not going to leave me with her this afternoon, are you?”

  “I have to go out,” Ralph said, “for three hours.”

  “Can’t you cancel? I don’t think I can be responsible.”

  Ralph wavered. “I’m expected,” he said. He thought, how easy it is to lie. “Robin’s locked the bikes away. She’ll not run off, I don’t think. Nowhere to run to. She seems dazed, doesn’t she? It’s odd, because she was all right at Norwich station when the volunteer handed her over. But then as soon as we got out of town she seemed to go rigid. In the end she shut her eyes and wouldn’t look out of the window.”

  “I’m not worried about her running away,” Anna said. “I’m worried about what she might do if she stays here.”

  “We’ve had worse than Melanie.”

  “I know—but Ralph, I know we’ve done this for years, had these poor things here in summer, but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s fair on them—they hate it so much. And we hate it, too.”

  “We’ve had this out before,” Ralph said. “And I really do believe it does some good. They get good food, they get at least a bit of fresh air, they see something different from what they’ve seen all their lives—and there are people around who are willing to spend time with them and sit and listen if they want to talk.”

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t want to talk this afternoon, then. Because you’ve gone and fixed some meeting, which will probably go on into the evening.”

  “No. I’ll be back for five. I promise.” He was already on his way out of the back door. I have to see Amy, he was thinking, I have to. He felt nauseous at the lies he was telling, at the thought of his duties neglected; felt almost sick enough to turn back. But I promised I’d see Amy, I have to. He drove away, cherishing the comforting belief that he was under a compulsion.

  Anna was annoyed with herself; she hadn’t meant to get involved in a debate about the philosophy of Visitors, she’d really meant to get a phone number from him, so that if there was any crisis with Melanie she could get him out of his meeting. She went into his office. His diary was in its usual place, top right-hand drawer. From his pewter frame Matthew Eldred frowned at her, hand on his watch chain; Uncle James, in his tropical kit, squinted into the sun. And Ralph was there, too; Ralph on the stoep at Flower Street, one hand in his pocket, leaning against the wall. It was the only photograph they displayed, of their life in Africa. It was there because Rebecca, a couple of years ago, had begged to see some; she had taken a fancy to this, saying, “Oh, Dad, weren’t you handsome, you’re not a bit like you are now.” Ralph had decided the picture should go on his bureau, to remind him of his present imperfections. It was a photograph devoid of associations; he did not remember it being taken. He saw a smiling, insouciant boy, a lounger with curly hair; a broad-shouldered boy, who looked—if only momentarily—at ease with the world.

  Anna took out the diary, found the week, page, day.

  9 A.M.: Meet Red Cross about Home-from-Hospital scheme. DON’T FORGET—ring the bishop. 11 A.M.: Collect Melanie Burgess from station.

  Then nothing. So he had left the afternoon free, and something had come up at the last minute. Why didn’t he say so? Anna put the diary back in the drawer. She thought no more about it.

  Ralph left Amy’s house at half past four. As he reached the top of the track he saw a police car, apparently waiting for him. He stopped the engine and waited in his turn. He recognized the officer who got out first; it was one of the men he had seen previously at the same spot, one of those who, Amy said, were always watching the house.

  Ralph wound his window down. “What do you want?”

  “Could I have your name, sir?”

/>   “Eldred, Ralph Eldred.”

  “And your address?”

  He gave it.

  “Is this your car?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately.”

  “Can you tell me the registration number?”

  He told it.

  “Would you have your driver’s license on you?”

  He took it out of his pocket. The policeman looked at it, handed it back; clean, not a penalty point, nothing to be done there. “We’ve seen you round here before.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen you.”

  “Been calling at the farm down there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Reason for visiting, have you?”

  “No,” Ralph said. “I just drive about Norfolk at random, calling at farmhouses whenever I feel like it.” He swung open his door and stepped out. “What is it you want? To look in the boot, is that it?” He walked around and unlocked it. “Okay. There you go. Get on with it.”

  The officer didn’t know what he wanted, really; but he ferreted about in the boot of the Citroen, found a pair of Wellingtons, a jack, a toolbox, a bundle of old newspapers. “All right?” Ralph said. “It doesn’t make much sense, this, does it? If you think I’m supplying stolen goods to the people down there, why didn’t you search the car on the way down?”

  “We might just go and check out the farm, now,” said the other constable, who was leaning against the police car.

  “You are harassing Mrs. Glasse,” Ralph said. “You know perfectly well that all her market-trading is legal and aboveboard, but you like the thought of tormenting two women who can’t torment you back. But I can, and I will, because I know the procedure for making a complaint against the police, and I know when to make one and I know how to make it stick.”

  “Had many dealings with the law, have you?”

  “God’s my witness,” Ralph said, “I don’t know how you blokes keep your front teeth. Finished with me, have you?”

  “Oh yes, sir. We’ve got your name and address.”

  “Oh no, sir, you mean.” Ralph got back into his car, slammed the door, spoke through the window. “Right, so we’ll be seeing each other again, will we?”

  “Look forward to it,” one of the policemen said.

  At the Red House next morning, Melanie did not appear for her breakfast. “Leave her,” Ralph said. “Let her get some rest.” He sat at the breakfast table, trying to argue sensitivity into his younger daughter. “Be kind to Melanie,” he said.

  “Why?” Rebecca asked.

  Ralph looked at her in exasperation. “Because it might achieve something. And the opposite won’t.”

  “Melanie,” Rebecca said, “is filthy and foul.”

  “Perhaps,” Ralph said. “Maybe. But how will she get any better unless people treat her kindly? And you must ask yourself, before you start, if any of it is her fault. Melanie has what we call a personality disorder.”

  “Oh, come offit,” Robin said. “She can’t have. She hasn’t got a personality. She just sits there with her mouth half open, staring at her boots.”

  “If that were true,” Ralph said, “there wouldn’t be a problem. But I’m afraid she’s not really like that. Come on, Robin, I don’t expect much of your sister, but you ought to have some sense at your age. Melanie has barely been under this roof for twenty-four hours, you can’t know anything about her. Don’t tease her and don’t provoke her, because she can be violent.”

  “Oh, we won’t stand for violence,” Kit said. “Robin will bring her to the ground with a flying tackle.”

  “You don’t understand,” Ralph said mildly. “The violence would be against herself.” He paused. “When she comes downstairs, look carefully at her arms, the inside of her arms. You’ll see she has old scars there.”

  “She cut herself,” Anna said. “Did she use a razor blade? Or something else?”

  “You noticed, did you?”

  “Of course I noticed,” Anna said, annoyed. “Do you think I’m as heedless as the children?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ralph said.

  “So you should be. You went out and left me with her yesterday afternoon, and you warned me about things she might sniff or inhale but you didn’t warn me about knives and scissors. When I noticed her arms I had to slide away, and then run around the house hiding anything sharp.”

  “You’re right,” Ralph said, “I should have warned you, but it was a long time ago she did the cutting, she seems to have other means now of relieving the stress. She was bullied at school, that’s where it started, and so she played truant and then she got in with a gang of older girls, and they took her shoplifting.”

  “The usual story,” Robin said.

  “True,” Ralph said. “But with one piquant variation. She was taken into care, and after three months she was allowed back home. Her parents had sold her record player and her records, and they’d given away the toys she’d had as a baby, and her clothes. Anything they couldn’t sell or give away they’d just put out with the rubbish. Maybe the social workers hadn’t done their job properly, or maybe the family hadn’t listened, maybe they didn’t take in what they were told, because it was quite obvious that they never expected to see her again.”

  The children were quiet. “So what did she do?” Robin said in the end; his tone respectful now.

  “There’s some waste ground near her family’s council flat—she found some of her clothes there. In a black dustbin bag, she told me. She went around for a bit trying to find out who they’d sold her things to, and knocking at their doors trying to persuade them to give them back, but naturally as they’d parted with cash they thought they had a good title, as the lawyers would say. After that I don’t know what happened, it’s a blank, she won’t tell anybody. She turned up in London about ten days later. She hadn’t a penny on her when they brought her to the hostel. She had the dustbin bag, though.” He sighed. “We bought her some clothes, but she wouldn’t wear them. She wanted the originals, I suppose. She went out at the back and had a bonfire.”

  Kit had stopped eating. “It seems a terrible thing,” she said. “That a child could be worth so little to its parents.”

  “What do you expect?” Anna pushed her plate away. “We live in a world where children are aborted every day.”

  “Hush,” Ralph said. He did not want Rebecca to start asking questions. Or anybody to start asking questions, really. He had not seen Julian since their confrontation two nights ago. His son had gone back to the coast and not returned. He, Ralph, wanted so badly to see Amy Glasse that it was like a physical pain. He didn’t want to drive to the farmhouse and run into Julian again, but what could he do? I am going to have to speak, he thought, tell Anna— or break this off—break it off now, because it’s already too serious—how could it not be? All these years I have never looked at another woman, never thought of one, my life in that direction was closed, there was no other woman in my calculations.

  If only Julian would come home, he thought. Then I should make some excuse, get into the car, drive.

  He looked up. Melanie was standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at them. “Come on, my dear,” Anna said. “There’s plenty of food left. Pull up a chair.”

  Melanie recoiled: as if she had been asked to sit down with tribesmen, and dine on sheep’s eyes. For another minute she studied them, poised as if for flight; then her big boots pounded up the stairs again, and her bedroom door slammed.

  Summer heat had built up. White sky and a smear of sun. No wind. Heaven and earth met imperceptibly in a straw-colored haze, and the outlines of trees were indistinct. Through this thick summer soup Julian and Sandra walked together by the footpaths, tacking inland. There was thunder in the air.

  “You can come and live with us, if you want,” Sandra said. “My mum would be glad to have you. And then—though you’d have to see Ralph—you wouldn’t have to go home and face Anna.”

  “My father,” Julian says, “actually believes that you don’t know what’s going on.”


  “There he’s wrong. The first thing I noticed, he was always there when he thought I was away.” Sandra raised her hands, and tucked her red hair modestly behind her ears. “He doesn’t see me, so he thinks I don’t see him. But I do see him—because you know my habit of coming home across country.”

  “Through hedges and ditches.”

  “If need be.” Sandra stopped, and looked directly at him. “I

  brought this on you, Jule. If I’d never come to your house, this would never have happened.”

  “But you did,” Julian said. “You did come. So what’s the use of talking like that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s no use. But it’s a point of interest, isn’t it? If you hadn’t come to North Walsham that day, when I’d gone out with the motor bikes. Or if it had rained before, five minutes before, you’d never have seen me. You’d have turned up your coat collar and gone striding off back to your car, and I’d have taken shelter in the church. And your dad would be at home with your mum, and everybody would have been happy.”

  “No, not happy,” Julian said. “That’s not how I’d describe us.”

  They were heading toward Burnham Market. But before they reached the village she said, “Come in this church.”

  “Why? It’s not raining.”

  “No, but there’s a thing in it I look at. I want to show you.”

  An iron gate in a grassy bank, a round tower; their shadows went faintly before them over the shorn grass. Inside, an uneven floor, cream-colored stone; silence, except for the distant hum of some agricultural machine. Light streamed in through windows of clear glass. “The old windows blew out in the war,” Sandra said. “So my grandmother told me.”

  “I didn’t know you had a grandmother.”

  “I called her my grandmother. She lived at Docking.”

  “But who was she really?”

  Sandra shrugged. “My mother, she never talks about her life. I don’t know who my dad was, so I’m not likely to know much about my grandmother, am I?”