Seymour’s drink gave a jolt and slopped over the rim of the glass, splashing on to his papers. He said, ‘Your mother is a very beautiful woman.’
‘Father?’
‘It’s not surprising if people want to visit.’
‘Something happened recently. It’s to do with time—’
‘It doesn’t mean any harm if another man looks. I am lucky, after all. I am lucky that she chose me.’
His father gazed at Byron with his sore eyes and Byron had to pretend he was having difficulty with the fudge sweet. ‘You were saying?’ said Seymour.
Byron said he was saying nothing really.
‘Well. It’s good to have a conversation. It’s good to talk man-to-man.’
It was, said Byron.
Seymour poured himself another measure. It sent rainbow glints of sunlight as he lifted the crystal tumbler towards his opened mouth. The amber liquid vanished in one go. His father mopped his chin. ‘My own father never did. Talk, I mean. Not man-to-man. And then, of course, he died just before I met your mother.’ The words ran together. It was hard to understand, but Seymour kept stumbling through them. ‘When I was six he took me to a lake. He threw me in. Survivors swim, he said. I was afraid there were crocodiles. I still don’t like water.’
Byron remembered his father’s face when he heard about the accident with the bridge and Andrea Lowe’s complaint. The skin had turned so grey and stiff Byron had feared a whipping. As if reading his thoughts, Seymour said, ‘Maybe I overreacted. About the pond. But you see he was not an easy man, my father. He was not easy at all.’ He appeared to run out of words.
As Byron clicked open the door, he heard the clink of the glass stopper on the decanter. His father called, ‘So you will tell me? If your mother has a new friend?’
He promised he would and then he shut the door.
8
The Huddle
ALL MORNING JIM sits in his Father Christmas chair, hoping for Eileen, and all morning she does not come. Sometimes his mind plays tricks on him. He sees a strong figure in a green coat, pacing from the car park, and he briefly succumbs to the fantasy that it is her. He goes so far as to imagine their conversation. It resembles most of those he overhears beside the automatic doors to the supermarket. The only difference between the real conversations and the one inside his head is that the imagined one always ends with Eileen’s invitation for a drink, and his unequivocal acceptance.
The coats that pass him, however, are never holly green. The women are never noisy. They are slim, they are tidy, they are all the same. It is only in seeing all these not-Eileens that he understands how truly Eileen she is. And in allowing himself to pretend she is here, he must also acknowledge that she isn’t. It is like missing her twice over.
He imagines showing her the light across the moor on a moon-filled night. The beauty of an early morning. A wren flickering, slight as a thought, on air. There is an apple tree on the moor and its fruit still clings to its leafless branches like frosted baubles; he would like to show her those too. He would like to show her the winter sunset; the electric-pink underbelly of the clouds, its final splashes of red light on her cheeks, her mouth, her hair.
But she will never find him attractive. Peering into the mirror in the men’s urinals, he finds a mass of silvering hair and two deep eyes. He tries to do a smile and his skin is shot all over with lines. He tries not to do a smile and the skin hangs loose. He is past loving now. There were offers long ago and they came to nothing. He remembers a nurse who told him once he had a nice mouth. He was young then and so was she. There were female patients too who looked at him. They watched him in the garden and waved. Even in his life outside Besley Hill, there have been encounters. The woman for whom he raked leaves, for example, a very presentable middle-aged lady, invited him several times to join her for rabbit pie. He was in his thirties. He liked her. But it was like pretending to be a shiny new cup when he knew he had a hairline crack. There was no point getting close to anyone because by then there were the rituals. Besides, he knew what happened when he loved people. He knew what happened when he intervened.
In the lunch break, Jim changes into his café uniform and visits the supermarket. He finds himself in the stationery aisle where he stares at all the pens. Fibre-tipped, uniball, gelstick, retractable, jumbo highlighters. They come in every colour. There is even one for corrections. Looking at them, shiny and purposeful, he sees Eileen’s point. Why give a person something dying? He chooses a selection and pays for them at the checkout. He does not catch the assistant’s eye, though recognizing his orange hat and T-shirt she asks him how things are upstairs. They’re quiet in the store, she says. It’s recession depression. Who’s going to drive all the way over the moor to a supermarket, even if it’s been refurbished? ‘We’ll be lucky if we have our jobs next year.’
He thinks of the neat bow of Eileen’s shoelaces and his stomach flutters.
‘Why do you want to know her address?’ says Paula when he asks if anyone knows where she lives. ‘Why do you want her phone number?’
Jim tries to assume the careless air of someone who doesn’t. ‘I hope you’re reporting her to the police,’ says the small girl, Moira. She writes down Eileen’s address and number.
Paula adds that she keeps getting text messages on her phone from those legal firms who waive costs.
‘That’s what you should do,’ says Moira. ‘You should sue.’
‘I knew someone once who knocked her head open in a furniture store. She got a sofa bed and free meal vouchers. She lived for a whole year on Scandinavian meatballs.’
‘Haven’t you all got work to do?’ shouts Mr Meade from the servery.
The truth is, Mr Meade is on a short fuse. Human Resources have reviewed sales figures before the year-end and sent out an urgent email. Trade is seriously down. Local regional managers will be required to take Saturday off work and attend a nearby Centre of Excellence. They will spend the day with actors learning about Efficacy in the Workplace and Team Building. There will be demonstrations and role-play exercises. ‘Don’t they realize it’s the week before Christmas? Don’t they realize we have work to do? They can’t just send us off with one day’s notice. We’re rushed off our feet,’ says Mr Meade.
Jim, Paula and Moira survey the empty café. There is only one customer. ‘Hello there!’ calls Darren. He gives a thumbs-up in case they have forgotten who he is.
It is a surprise to everyone that Mr Meade returns from the Centre of Excellence on Monday full of enthusiasm. He asks customers and staff how they are doing. When they reply that they are well, or so-so, he sings, ‘Good, good. Splendid stuff. Well done, you.’ It is about affirmation, he says. The power of now. This is the new beginning.
‘He’s probably about to get the sack,’ says Paula to Moira.
Mr Meade laughs heartily as if she is a scream.
The reason the café is not doing well, says Mr Meade, is confidence. The café does not believe in itself. It is not behaving like a successful café. Paula listens with her arms folded and one hip hitched higher than the other.
‘Does that mean we get to ditch the orange hats?’ she says. ‘Does that mean Jim stops dressing like a twat?’
‘No, no,’ cries Mr Meade. He laughs good-humouredly. ‘The orange hats work. They give us a sense of connection. And Jim’s Father Christmas outfit is a marvellous gesture of good will. We need more things like that.’
‘More orange hats?’ says Paula doubtfully.
‘More joie de vivre,’ says Mr Meade.
‘More what de what?’ says Moira.
‘You could hand out free drinks and stuff,’ says Darren, who keeps forgetting he is a customer.
‘That would upset Health and Safety,’ says Mr Meade gravely. It is clear that he has an alternative idea up his sleeve. ‘What we are going to do, team, is huddle.’
‘Huddle?’ repeats Paula flatly.
Mr Meade is so excited he skips his weight from one foot to the
other. He opens his arms wide and wriggles his fingers, beckoning his few staff to draw close. Paula drifts towards him, followed by Darren. Moira twiddles her hair and takes one small step at a time. Jim limps but actually the movement is more like treading water.
‘Closer, closer!’ laughs Mr Meade. ‘I won’t bite!’
Moira and Paula shuffle forward. Jim wonders if anyone would notice if he disappeared. Not immediately. Just in a shuffling backwards sort of way.
Mr Meade throws his arms wide enough to reach their shoulders. Around him stands his band of staff, stiff as boards. ‘Huddle!’ cries Mr. Meade. ‘Come along, Jim! Huddle!’ He waves at them to come closer. He does it with little hand movements the way he helps female customers to park their Range Rovers.
Says Paula, ‘What about Darren?’
‘What about him?’ says Mr Meade.
‘Is he supposed to huddle as well?’
Mr Meade looks at his three members of staff, one of whom is ripping out her split ends, another who is scowling like a thundercloud, and the last of whom appears to be moving imperceptibly backwards. Mr Meade makes a face that suggests compromise. ‘Huddle, Darren!’ he calls.
Eagerly Darren darts forward and weaves one arm round Paula’s waist. The other arm, the one nearest to Mr Meade, wafts mid-air as if it doesn’t quite belong to anyone.
‘Make room for Jim!’ says Mr Meade.
Paula extends her hand to welcome Jim. He has no choice. He is suddenly hot, congested with the claustrophobia of it. He wonders if he will scream. Paula’s left hand is on his right shoulder, resting there like a tiny bird. Mr Meade’s right hand thumps Jim’s left shoulder.
‘Huddle, huddle!’ sings Mr Meade. There is an overpowering smell of fabric conditioner. For an aroma that is supposed to be fragrant as a summer morning, it suggests something surprisingly unpleasant. ‘Closer, closer!’
In silence the group shuffles closer, closer. Their reluctant feet make small scraping sounds on the lino. They are so close, closer, the faces in front of Jim’s swim. He is overwhelmed by the intimacy of it, by the feeling of them sucking him in like a vacuum cleaner. He towers over the group. ‘Hug me, Jim!’ says Mr Meade.
Jim lifts his hand to Mr Meade’s shoulder. There it stays, aching up and down the muscles. ‘Isn’t this good?’ says Mr Meade.
No one answers.
‘Of course there were about twenty of us at the conference,’ says Mr Meade. ‘Senior management and personnel. And the actors were professional, of course. It was a bit different.’
‘Have we finished yet?’ says Paula.
Mr Meade again laughs. ‘Finished? This is only stage one. What I want you to do now, team, is think about the person beside you.’
‘What, Darren?’ says Paula.
‘And Jim too,’ says Mr Meade. ‘Think something positive. Think what you would really like to say about them.’
There is a constipated silence. ‘Supposing we can’t?’ says Moira at last. Her hand is on Mr Meade’s shoulder.
But the manager fails to answer. He closes his eyes, his lips twitching as if there are words hatching in his mouth and getting ready to burst free. Jim closes his eyes too but the room lurches so fast he has to open them again. Darren has screwed up his face like a piece of paper.
‘I’ve done that,’ says Paula.
‘Now can we stop?’ says Moira.
‘No, no. We have to say it.’
‘Say what we were thinking?’ repeats Moira. She looks stricken.
But Mr Meade laughs as if this is tremendous fun. ‘I’ll go first, so you get the hang of it.’ He turns first to Paula. ‘Paula, I admire you. You are a very strong young lady. When I first interviewed you, I had my worries. It was because you had a nose ring and all those studs in your ears. I worried about Health and Safety issues. But you taught me not to be prejudiced.’
Paula turns the colour of her hair. Mr Meade continues: ‘Jim, you are never late. You are a very reliable worker. Moira, you bring an air of creativity to the workplace and I hope your mother’s rash clears up soon. And Darren, I have come to like you.’
‘Aw, that’s nice,’ croons Paula. ‘I knew this woman once. She wrote to all her friends to tell them she loved them, and next day, guess what?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Darren. He is the only one who still has his eyes closed.
‘She had a heart attack.’
‘Back to the huddle,’ says Mr Meade. ‘Who would like to go next?’
There is an uncomfortable silence as if all four are not in fact present. Moira is glued to a particularly interesting strand of her hair. Paula blows out her mouth although she has no bubblegum in there. Jim makes a series of small popping noises. Darren might be asleep. Mr Meade sighs, a little disappointed but not yet downhearted.
‘Come on, team,’ he laughs. ‘Someone must have something positive to say.’
A voice nudges its way into the silence. ‘Jim, you’re a good man. You spray all the tables and you never miss one out. Mr Meade, you have some weird ideas but you kind of want the world to be a better place, and I like your car. Moira, you have nice breasts.’
‘Thank you, Darren,’ says Mr Meade, only Darren clearly hasn’t finished.
‘But Paula, oh Paula. I love the way you sort of chew your fingers when you are thinking. I love the way your skin is like honey. I love the soft little bit of skin behind your ears. When you talk I just want to sit and watch you for ever. You wear really nice skirts. You have eyes like Christmas nuts.’
For a while no one speaks. But this is a different silence from the beginning. It is a childlike silence, where the lack of words is to do with wonder, as opposed to judgement.
‘It’s just as well that Eileen woman isn’t here,’ says Paula. ‘There’s some stuff I’d like to say to her.’ The group silence becomes a group laugh.
‘Jim?’ says Mr Meade. ‘Your turn?’
But Jim is stunned. In his mind there is nothing but a woman with flaming hair, the smallest feet, and a coat that rucks in the effort to fit round her. He understands the truth with the wildness and urgency of an accident. The psychic counsellor was right after all. He must come clean. He must own the past, whatever that means. And the sole place, he sees this so clearly it is like shouting in his head, the sole place that is big enough to contain his chaos is the one that is Eileen. She is his last and only chance.
‘Excuse me?’ calls a voice from the café floor.
The huddle springs open, like a multi-headed, orange-hatted beast. A customer watches from the servery with a look of fear.
She says, ‘Is it too late to order the festive sandwich special?’
9
A Surprise
IN THE SECOND week of the summer holidays, Beverley spent every day at Cranham House. She was there from morning to evening. Sometimes when Byron went to bed, he could still hear the women talking on the terrace. Their voices filled the evening air like the thick, sweet perfume of night-scented stocks and white nicotiana. ‘You’re right! You’re right!’ his mother would howl as Beverley did one of her impressions or told a story. One morning he opened his bedroom curtains and she was already sunbathing in her purple hat with a drink in a glass tumbler. It was only the addition of Jeanie and a pair of white plastic boots that made it clear she had not been there all night. Jeanie stood balanced on the garden table. The stitches were gone from her knee. There was no need for a plaster. Nevertheless he preferred to avoid Jeanie.
Lucy refused point blank to play with her. Jeanie smelt, she said. She had also ripped the heads from Lucy’s Sindy dolls. Byron tried to snap them back but it was tricky to fit the cavity of their necks over the bump of plastic that was at the top of their spines. He put the dismantled parts in a shoebox with a lid. It alarmed him to see all those smiling faces without bodies.
Meanwhile Byron continued to record observations in the notebook about the meetings between Beverley and his mother. James posted him a secret code, involving swapping le
tters of the alphabet, as well as new codenames for Beverley and Diana (‘Mrs X’ and ‘Mrs Y’) but it was complicated and Byron frequently made mistakes.
The two women listened to music. They opened the French windows and set up the gramophone on the table so that they could dance on the terrace. His father’s selection of records was sober – (‘What century was he born in?’ said Beverley) – and she brought a box of her own albums. They listened to the Carpenters and Bread. Her favourites were two singles by Harry Nilsson and Donny Osmond. Byron stood at the drawing-room window and watched. Beverley’s movements were jerky and involved shaking her hair a lot, whereas Diana glided round the terrace as if she were carried on a current. When Diana offered to show her a step, they moved arm in arm, Diana’s neck held high, her arms poised on air, while Beverley studied her feet so that, even though they were the same height, Diana looked taller. He heard his mother offer to teach Beverley all she knew but when Beverley asked what that was exactly, his mother broke away and said it was nothing. If ‘Puppy Love’ came on, or a song by Gilbert O’Sullivan, Beverley clung to his mother and they moved in a slow shuffle round and round on the spot. At the end, she would return to her drink, staring from beneath her floppy hat.
‘You’re so lucky, Diana,’ she would say. ‘You were just born beautiful.’
Beverley said that it was in your name, your future. It was your ticket to success. How could a girl ever become someone, if she was called Beverley? If only she’d been given a classy name, like Diana or Byron or Seymour, things would have been different.
That week Beverley began to borrow clothes of Diana’s. It was only a small thing to begin with, a pair of lace gloves to protect her hands from the sun. Then the outfits became more sizeable. When, for instance, she spilt a glass of yellow drink down her front, Diana rushed to fetch her a blouse and pencil skirt. Beverley asked if she could borrow a pair of heels because she couldn’t exactly wear sandals with a skirt like that. She wore all these items to go home. The next day, Byron reported in his notebook that they were still missing.