Byron said, ‘Did you hear me, Mummy? We have to do something. About the thing that happened in Digby Road.’ His heart was beating hard.
Chop, chop, chop went his mother’s knife through apple. If she wasn’t careful she would hurt her fingers.
He said, ‘What we have to do is go back. We have to explain it was an accident.’
The knife stopped. His mother raised her head and stared. ‘Are you joking?’ Already tears were springing to her eyes and she did nothing to stop them, she just let them slide down her face and jump towards the floor. ‘I can’t go back now. It happened a whole month ago. What am I going to say? And anyway, if your father found out—’ She failed to finish that sentence and took up another one instead: ‘There’s no way I can go back.’
It was like hurting someone and not wanting to. He couldn’t look. He simply kept repeating James, word for word: ‘But I will come with you. The little girl’s mother will see how kind you are. She will see you’re a mother. She will understand it wasn’t your fault. And then we will replace the hubcap and all this will be over.’
Diana held her face within the basket of her fingers as if there was something so heavy inside her head she could barely move. Then a new thought seemed to snap her awake. She broke across the kitchen and placed his chopped fruit decisively on the table. ‘Of course,’ she almost yelled. ‘What on earth have I been doing all this time? Of course I have to go back.’ She plucked her apron from its hook and wrenched it round her waist.
‘We could wait a bit,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean we had to do this today.’
But his mother failed to hear. Kissing his mop of hair, she ran upstairs to wake Lucy.
There was no opportunity to alert James. Byron scoured the pavements from the front seat of the car but since they were not even parked by the school he knew it was hopeless. He knew he would not find him. The sky that morning was so flat and new it looked ironed. Sunlight splintered the leaves of the trees and the faraway peaks of Cranham Moor melted into lilac. As Diana set off to walk the last few streets with Lucy, a mother called out hello but she went fast with her arms tight round her waist as if she were holding herself in one piece. Byron realized he was very frightened and that the last place he wanted to visit was Digby Road. He didn’t know what they were going to say when they arrived; James had not got that far with his plan. Everything was moving much faster than either boy had intended.
When his mother swung open her car door and sat beside him, Byron jumped. Her eyes shone hard, almost the colour of tin.
She said, ‘I have to do this on my own.’
‘But what about me?’
‘It isn’t right to take you. It isn’t right for you to miss school.’
In a rush he tried to think of what James would say. It was bad enough that the plan was progressing without him; his friend had been very clear that the two boys would accompany his mother in order to take notes. He said, ‘You can’t. You don’t know the spot. You can’t go alone. You need me to come.’
‘Sweetheart, they will be angry. You’re a child. It will be difficult.’
‘I want to come. It will be worse for me if I don’t. I’ll worry and worry. And everything will be all right when they see us. I know it will.’
And so it was settled. At home Byron and his mother avoided eye contact and spoke briefly, mentioning only the smallest of things. Digby Road had already become a presence in the room, like a sofa, and they moved carefully around it. ‘I need to change before we go,’ she said at last.
‘You look nice.’
‘No. I need the right costume.’
He followed his mother upstairs and checked his reflection in her mirror. He wished he wasn’t in school uniform. James had a grown-up black two-piece suit that his mother made him wear for church, despite his failure to believe in God. Meanwhile Diana took a long time to choose her clothes and she did so with scrupulous care, standing in front of the mirror and holding up dress after dress. In the end she settled on a peach-coloured fitted tunic. It was one of his father’s favourites, displaying the pallor of her bare arms, and the ridges of her collarbone. Sometimes she wore it for dinner when his father was home and he guided her down the stairs with his hand on the small of her back as if she were an extension of his arm. ‘Aren’t you going to wear a hat?’ he said.
‘A hat? Why would I do that?’
‘To show it’s a serious occasion.’
She chewed her lip, thinking this through, and pulled her arms around her shoulder blades. There were goose bumps popping all over her skin; she probably needed a cardigan as well. Then she dragged the upholstered armchair to the wardrobe and stood on it while she rummaged through a selection of boxes on the top shelf. A number of hats came floating to the floor, along with the odd feather and scrap of netting – berets, pillbox, stiff wide-brimmed ones, a Russian sable hat, as well as a white silk turban and a jewelled headdress with a plume of feathers. ‘Oh my goodness,’ said his mother, chasing after them and shoving them out of the way. She perched at her dressing table, pulling on the more sensible models, one after another, and tossing them to the floor. Her hair flew out slightly static from her face so that she looked pressed against a window. ‘No, I don’t think I will wear a hat,’ she said at last.
She dusted powder on her nose and pressed her lips together to paint them red. It was like watching her disappear and he was filled with such sadness he had to blow his nose.
‘Maybe I should wear something of Father’s?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ she said, barely moving her mouth. ‘He’d know if you did.’
‘I was thinking something small like a cravat. He wouldn’t know about that.’
Byron eased open the double doors of Seymour’s wardrobe. The jackets and shirts were lined up on wooden hangers like headless versions of his father. Byron slid out a silk cravat as well as his father’s deerstalker, and then he slammed the doors before the jackets and shirts could shout at him. The plum cravat he wrapped around his neck. He kept the hat in his hands because you were not supposed to wear them inside the house. James would call that bad luck.
‘There,’ he said. ‘All sorted.’
She gave a backward glance over the room. ‘Are you sure about this?’ she asked, not of him but of the furniture, the upholstered chair and the matching chintz curtains and bedspread.
He gulped. It made a splashy noise all over the bedroom. ‘It will be over soon. Off we jolly well trot.’
She smiled as if nothing could be simpler and they left.
Diana did her most careful driving. Her hands were exactly at the ten to two position on the steering wheel. Over the moor, the sun blazed through the vast sky like a searchlight. The cattle stood anchored in swarms of black flies, flapping their tails but not shifting, only waiting for the heat to go away. The grass was bleached to straw. Byron wanted to say something but he didn’t know where to begin and the longer he failed to speak, the harder it was to touch the silence. Besides, every time the car moved to the left or right, his father’s deerstalker shot down over his nose. It seemed to have a life of its own.
‘Are you all right?’ said his mother. ‘You look very red under there.’
She chose to park at the end of Digby Road, just beyond the burnt-out car. When she asked if he would remember the house he produced the map from his pocket and unfolded it for her benefit.
‘I see,’ said Diana, though she didn’t pause to look. Now that she had made up her mind about returning, there was no stalling her. All she said was, ‘Maybe you should take the hat off now, sweetheart.’
Byron’s hair was pasted in wet spikes to his forehead. He heard his mother’s heels hitting the pavement like sharp hammer blows and he wished she would go more quietly because people were beginning to notice. A woman in an overall stared from over her washing basket. A line of young men perched on a wall whistled. Byron felt squashy inside and he was finding it harder and harder to breathe. The estate was even worse than h
e remembered. The sun bit down on the stone houses and cracked their paintwork. Many were sprayed with words like Pigs Out or IRA Scum. Every time he looked he felt a whip of fear and wished he would stop doing it but he couldn’t. He remembered what James had told him about the kneecapping in Digby Road and then he remembered the remark his mother had made about driving that way before. Again he asked himself why she would do that.
‘Are we nearly there?’ she said.
‘There will be a flowery tree. The gate comes right afterwards.’
But when Byron saw the tree, there was a further shock. In the four weeks since their last visit to Digby Road, it had been assaulted: its wide branches snapped off, the blossom scattered all over the pavement. It was not a tree any more, it was only a stunted trunk without limbs. Everything was so wrong. His mother paused at the gate belonging to the little girl and asked if this was the one. She held her handbag with both hands and suddenly she looked too little.
The gate gave a screech as she lifted the latch. Inside his head, he prayed.
‘Is that hers?’ Diana pointed to a red bicycle leaning against a dustbin beside the house. He nodded.
She made her way towards the door and he followed closely. The garden was small enough to fit inside one of the main borders at Cranham House but the path was clean and there were small rocks either side, dotted with peeping flowers. At the upstairs windows the curtains were drawn. It was the same downstairs.
Maybe James had been wrong? Maybe the little girl was dead? Maybe her parents were at her funeral or visiting the grave. It was an insane idea to come back to Digby Road. Byron thought with longing of his bedroom with the blue curtains. The white-tiled floor in the hall. The new double-glazed windows.
‘I think they’re out,’ he said. ‘Shall we go home now?’
But Diana tugged her fingers, one by one, from her gloves and knocked at the door. He stole another look at the red bicycle. There was no sign of damage. His mother knocked a second time, a little more urgently. When there was still no answer, she took a few steps backwards, her heels pinning the hard turf. ‘There’s someone in,’ she said, pointing at an upstairs window. ‘Hello?’ she called out.
The window swung open to reveal a man’s face. It was hard to get a real picture of him but he seemed to be wearing only a vest. ‘What do you want?’ He didn’t sound friendly.
She broke the silence with a small click of her tongue against the roof of her mouth. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you. May I have a word?’
Byron took hold of his mother’s fingers and gripped hard. An image had come into his head and he couldn’t shift it. No matter how hard he tried, he could only picture his mother lifting above the ground, light as a feather or a wisp of cloud, and drifting clean away.
When the front door opened, the man stood staring down at them. He filled the threshold. He had clearly combed his hair on the way downstairs and put on a shirt but there were bloodstains at the collar the size of tomato pips and some of his buttons were missing. Byron’s father would never leave his shirt open; his mother would never fail to sew on buttons. The skin of the man’s face was grey and hung in oily folds, shadowed at the jaw where it was unshaven. He remained blocking the door.
‘If you’re selling stuff,’ he said, ‘you can clear off.’
Diana looked appalled. ‘No, no,’ she murmured. ‘We’re here on a private matter.’
Byron nodded to show how private it was.
She said, ‘It’s about your daughter.’
‘Jeanie?’ The man’s eyes flashed. ‘Is she all right?’
Diana glanced over her shoulder. A small group had assembled at the gate, the woman in the overalls and the youths from the wall, as well as several others. They watched with stony faces. ‘It would be much easier to explain inside.’
The man stood aside to let them pass. He closed the door and the smell was so wet and old Byron had to breathe through his mouth. The walls were not papered with stripes or flowers like Cranham House but instead a yellowing floral pattern that made him think of old ladies. Towards the ceiling it curled loose.
‘Beverley,’ he called up the stairs.
A thin voice answered. ‘What now, Walt?’
‘Visitors, Bev.’
‘What do you mean, visitors?’
‘People to see us. They want to talk about Jeanie.’ Turning to Diana he said softly, ‘She’s all right, isn’t she? I know she gets in trouble and everything but she’s a good girl.’
Diana couldn’t speak.
‘We’ll wait for Beverley,’ he said.
Pointing to a room to the left, he apologized. They got lots of women calling with those cosmetics, he said. ‘And women like nice things.’ Diana nodded to show she understood. Byron nodded too but he didn’t.
After the gloom of the narrow hall, the small sitting room was surprisingly clean and light. A selection of china ornaments was set at the window, kittens in baskets and baby koala bears on branches. The carpet was a floral pattern and the walls were papered with wood chip. There was no television set but there was an empty space where there had once been one, above which three plaster ducks took flight. To the left there was a boxed record player with a selection of 45s in paper sleeves. Byron smiled at the women’s magazines on the coffee table, at the Whimsies on the windowsill, at the flying ducks and the frilled lampshade, feeling an overwhelming rush of kindness towards the items of furniture as well as their owners. A row of soft toys lined the leatherette sofa, some that he recognized like Snoopy, others with hats, or T-shirts that said ‘I love you!’ and ‘Hug me!’
‘Please take a seat,’ said Walt. He looked too big for the room.
Byron eased himself into a position between the soft toys, taking care not to squish any of their limbs or small accessories. His mother sat at the other end of the sofa, next to a blue giant thing that was maybe a bear or possibly a dinosaur. It almost reached her shoulders. Walt stood in front of the fireplace. No one spoke. They each studied the swirly brown carpet as if they had never seen anything so interesting.
When the door flew open, they turned. The woman who entered was slight like his mother and short black hair tasselled her face. She wore a T-shirt with a shapeless brown skirt and a pair of cork wedge sandals. ‘What’s going on, Walt?’ she said. Then, catching sight of her guests, she gave a start as if she had received a current of energy.
‘They’ve come about something private, Beverley.’
She raked back her hair. It lay flat either side of her ears like two blackbird wings. Her skin was pale, almost without colour, her features pointed. Her eyes darted from her husband to her guests and back again. ‘Not the bailiffs?’
No, no, they all chorused; nothing to do with the bailiffs.
‘Did you offer them a drink?’
Walt shrugged apologetically. Diana assured her they were not thirsty.
‘It’s to do with Jeanie,’ said Walt.
Beverley drew up a plastic chair and sat opposite Diana. She raked her visitor up and down with her fast green eyes. With her thin hands and her pale skin, her pinched mouth and her cheekbones like pencils, she had an altogether hungry look as if she survived on scraps of things.
‘Well?’ she said.
Diana remained very still with her knees together and her pink shoes side by side. She said nothing.
‘I like your daughter’s bears,’ said Byron, trying to sound grown up, like James.
‘The bears are Beverley’s,’ said Walt. ‘So are the china knick-knacks. She collects. Don’t you, Beverley?’
‘I do,’ said Beverley. She did not move her eyes from Diana.
There was no sign of the little girl, except for a school photograph on the mantelpiece. She appeared to be scowling at the camera with screwed-up eyes. It was not like Lucy’s school photograph where the flash had clearly taken her by surprise. This little girl looked as if someone had called out at her to smile at the dicky bird and she had chosen not to. She had Beverley’s small,
tight features.
Walt said, ‘Beverley wants the Robertson’s gollywog band. She likes their little instruments and everything.’
‘My mother likes little things,’ said Byron.
‘But Robertson’s is too pricey.’
Byron slid another glance at Diana. She held her body braced as if she were peering over a cliff edge and hoping not to fall.
‘Listen here,’ said Walt. ‘Jeanie hasn’t done anything wrong, has she?’
At last Diana opened her mouth. In a fragile voice she began the story about the accident. Listening to her, Byron’s mouth was so dry it felt stripped. He could barely look. Instead he watched Beverley and the way she in turn watched Diana. She seemed to be fixed on his mother’s rings.
Diana explained how four weeks ago they had used the road as a short cut and how she had lost control of the car just as their daughter came out on her bicycle. She blew her nose while she cried. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t see,’ she kept saying. In the silence that followed, she plucked up the stuffed blue toy at her side. She drew it to her lap and clasped its middle.
‘Are you saying you knocked over Jeanie in your car?’ said Walt at last. His face was all creased with not understanding. ‘Is that why you’re here?’
The blue animal in her arms began to shake as if it had acquired a nervous life of its own. ‘I should have stopped. I don’t know why I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t get out. Is your daughter – is she all right?’
Byron’s pulse thudded in his eardrums.
Walt stared at Beverley, with a questioning look. She stared too. ‘There must be a mistake,’ he said at last. ‘Are you sure it was Jeanie?’
Byron stood to check her school photograph. He was certain, he said. He added that, as the chief and sole witness, he had seen everything. There was evidence too, he went on, because no one was saying anything; they were only staring at him. It was like being under hot lights. He explained about the nick on the hubcap. The proof was incontrovertible, he said. It was a James sort of word.
But Walt still looked confused. ‘It’s nice of you to come but Jeanie’s all right. She never mentioned a car. She never mentioned an accident. Did she, Beverley?’