I am being cast out. Nothing belongs to me. I have no home. I have no country. I am naked and I am alone. Soon I will start to drown.
Up the alien stairs to the alien bedroom. There on a bedside table stands a small basket lined with strawberry-print cotton. She takes the basket into an alien bathroom. From an alien tap bright water gushes into an alien glass. As she drinks she sees in a mirror an alien creature with white face and hollow eyes. The waves are rising.
Oh, Alan. You are everything to me. Am I nothing to you?
Resist no more. The waves come rolling in and Marion drowns. She is drowning now. The drowning never ends.
Please understand, I don’t like to make a fuss. This is no longer life. This is death in life. Don’t take me back to that place. I’m so afraid of that place. Just take me away, oh, I don’t know where.
Take me away.
39
Liz Dickinson has a thing about having guests for dinner that she can’t control. When the guests arrive she’s never ready, the table is heaped with plates and cutlery, the food is either under-cooked or burned, she’s wearing jeans and an old jersey like a student, and her hair is still damp from a rushed shower. The message is this is not a fancy dinner party. The message is I’ve done nothing special here so don’t expect too much. It’s all very childish and to do with fear of failure but there’s nothing she can do about it. However many times she swears to herself that this time she’ll be better organized, she always contrives to be burning the sausages when the doorbell rings.
‘Oh God! Come on in to the kitchen. There’s a bottle of something somewhere.’
It’s all Alice’s doing. At pick-up time she asked if Mr Strachan could have supper with them. ‘Then you can talk about me as much as you want.’ Liz couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m sure Mr Strachan has other plans,’ she said, ‘and my cooking isn’t anything special.’ But he turned out not to have other plans.
He has brought a bottle of his own.
‘I’ve only just put the potatoes in,’ she says.
‘It’s called evil potato,’ says Alice. ‘They’re smashed up with butter and grated cheese and put back in their skins and sort of toasted.’
‘What’s evil about that?’
‘The butter and cheese. Obviously.’
Alan Strachan finds the corkscrew and opens her bottle, and even finds some clean glasses. They make conversation as Liz maintains her customary slow-motion panic.
‘Someone said you’re a journalist.’
‘Yes. The Telegraph. Sorry.’
‘Why sorry?’
‘Mum’s put me in the paper loads of times.’
‘Can you see a cheese grater anywhere?’
‘She wrote a huge article on being a single parent and I helped a lot, didn’t I, Mum?’
‘The beast must be fed.’
‘I’m not a beast!’
‘Not you, darling. The feature pages.’
‘Well anyway,’ says Alan Strachan, ‘the good news is Alice and I think we have her problem sorted. Right, Alice?’
‘You said not to kill Chloe,’ says Alice.
‘Upon reflection.’ He raises his glass. ‘To Chloe Redknapp, who will never know how close she came to an early death.’
Alice giggles. Liz finds the cheese grater under a food-stained copy of Vogue.
‘What I don’t understand, darling, is why you never told me about this before.’
‘I’m fine, Mum. Honest.’ She meets Alan Strachan’s eye and blushes. ‘Now, anyway.’
‘Chloe Redknapp! The pretty girl with blue eyes.’
‘She’s a monster,’ says Alan Strachan. ‘Not her fault, needless to say. Blame the monster parents.’
‘Father likes the ladies, mother likes a drink or two,’ says Alice.
‘Hey, hey!’ says Alan Strachan hastily. ‘I made that up.’
‘Quite a talk you two had,’ says Liz.
‘Can I watch Friends, Mum?’
The school teacher checks his watch. It’s almost six-thirty.
‘Re-run of Series One,’ he says. ‘Which one is it?’
He turns pages in today’s Telegraph. Finds the television listings.
‘The one with the lasagnes. Okay.’
Alice is goggle-eyed.
‘Have you seen it, sir?’
‘I have.’
‘Is it a good one?’
‘Not bad.’
‘Watch it with me, sir! Please, please!’
‘Not tonight.’
‘Then can I have some Kettle Chips to eat while I watch, Mum?’
Off she goes to the TV in her bedroom clutching a crinkly bag. This is deeply strange, this secret passion of an English teacher. Shouldn’t he be telling Alice the plots of Shakespeare plays?
‘You seem to know a lot about Friends.’
‘Yes. I’ve become a bit of an addict, I’m afraid.’
‘God, this kitchen is a mess. Let’s get out of here. The potatoes’ll take another forty-five minutes at least.’
Into the living room. Always fun to watch the faces of strangers entering this room. The walls are deep red, almost blood red, everything else is white. White curtains, white shelves, white sofa and armchairs, white painted floorboards. The great thing about striking décor is no one ever notices the chaos the room’s in.
‘Wow!’
‘It’s a bit much, I know.’
‘No, it’s great.’
‘People think just because I’m a writer I have no visual sense. But I do. What I don’t have is a cleaning lady. Other than me.’
She throws miscellaneous items off chairs, gym kit, flip-flops, pencil cases, used mugs of tea. She settles herself into the deep sofa, her guest into an armchair.
‘That episode of Friends she’s watching,’ Alan Strachan says. ‘It has some quite frank moments.’
‘Oh, it all goes over Alice’s head.’ Not that she’s ever asked her, she reflects as she speaks. ‘What sort of frank?’
‘Well Rachel has this Italian boyfriend called Paolo, and he shows up at Phoebe’s massage parlour—’
‘Massage parlour!’
‘Herbal massage. Shiatsu.’
‘Oh, okay.’
‘And he’s naked on the couch, and he finds Phoebe sexy, and she’s looking down at him – we only see her face, of course – and her line is something like, “Boy scouts could camp under there.”’
‘Under where?’ Then she gets it. She laughs because she’s embarrassed that she didn’t get it. ‘That won’t mean a thing to Alice.’
‘That’s fine, then.’
She stops laughing, realizing she sounds like a moron.
‘Have you memorized every episode?’
‘Not deliberately. But I have an odd sort of memory. Nothing ever seems to go away.’
‘So what is it about Friends?’
‘Well, it’s fun. It relaxes me.’ He’s pushing his hair about with his hands. ‘Okay, if I’m being honest I think Friends is a work of genius. I mean, I really do. The best dialogue on television today.’
‘Wow.’
‘I know that makes me what the children call a saddo.’
‘A saddo? No, not at all. It makes me want to know what you see that I don’t see.’
‘Okay.’ He rises to the challenge. ‘That episode Alice is watching, the lasagne one. Rachel breaks up with her Italian boyfriend—’
‘The one with the tent-pole.’
‘Right. She dumps him because Phoebe tells her he’s come on to her.’
‘In the massage parlour.’
‘Right. And Phoebe feels bad. And Rachel comes out with this classic Friends line. She says, “It’s better that I know, but I liked it better before it was better.” Isn’t that perfect?’
It’s slowly creeping over Liz that this teacher of Alice’s is unusual. All slight and slender, with an innocent untouched face and hair you want to stroke. And the things he says.
‘I think you’re a writer, Alan.?
??
He blushes. Bullseye. He’s so sweet she wants to lick him.
‘Not really. Not yet at least.’
‘But you want to be.’
‘Look, I’m a school teacher. We’re here to talk about Alice. Who’s great, by the way. I mean, if I was a writer would I be stuck in a little Sussex prep school? Not that it’s a bad school in its way. No. I’ve done nothing. Nothing at all.’
So that touched a nerve.
‘More wine, please,’ she says. ‘For me too.’
‘I haven’t apologized properly for taking my eye off the ball,’ he says as he fills their glasses. ‘I should have caught this Chloe Redknapp business much earlier. I’m really sorry.’
‘So should I.’
‘I think things will improve now. Anyway, I’ll be watching.’
‘So what sort of writing do you do?’
‘Oh, you know. The kind that gets rejected.’
A quick look to catch her reaction. A lop-sided grin. But there’s anger there too. Why wouldn’t there be?
‘Television?’
‘More stage stuff recently.’
He doesn’t want to say more. She doesn’t press him.
They eat supper together in the kitchen, the three of them. The evil potato is a big success.
Alice begs and begs to be allowed to stay up to watch yet another Friends, which is showing at nine o’clock. It turns out to be a new one, and the hundredth episode. Phoebe is going to give birth to triplets. Both Alice and Alan get so excited that Liz gives way, and they all watch together in the living room, with Alice in her pyjamas ready for instant bed when the credits roll.
Liz finds the experience surreal.
‘I don’t get it. Who’s the father?’
‘Oh Mum! She’s being a surrogate for her brother.’
‘Why?’
‘Shhh!’
The doctor in the delivery room keeps talking about Fonzie. Who’s Fonzie? Joey seems to be going into labour too. Then Chandler does a dance and Monica says, ‘Don’t do the dance!’
Alan punches the air.
‘I love it! You saw that? She never even turned round. She just knew he’d do the dance. These people just know each other so well.’
Then at the end Phoebe is allowed to hold her new-born triplets for a few private moments before handing them over. This isn’t comedy at all. This is heartbreak.
‘Jesus!’ says Liz. ‘I thought all they did was sit in a café and make jokes.’
‘That last line of Phoebe’s,’ says Alan. ‘She’s being strong, then one of the babies starts crying, and she says, “Well, if you’re going to cry”, and she cries too. Have you any idea how brilliant that is?’
‘I’m totally lost here,’ says Liz. ‘Did you like it, Alice?’
‘Of course.’
‘Giving away her babies?’
‘Phoebe’s like that.’
Alice goes up to bed. Liz tucks her up.
‘Mum, can he stay for ever?’
‘I don’t think so, sweetheart.’
‘Don’t you just love him?’
‘I think he’s a bit odd.’
‘Yes, but lovely odd.’
Downstairs again Alan Strachan is ready to leave.
‘I’ve a friend who works at the Royal Court,’ Liz tells him. ‘Why don’t you let me see one of your plays? Maybe I could show it to her.’
‘I’ve only got one ready to show. It’s a bit more, well, frank than Friends.’
‘Too frank to be staged?’
‘Oh, no. Anything goes these days.’
‘Are you afraid I’ll be shocked?’
‘I suppose I’m afraid you’ll think it’s no good.’
‘I expect I won’t even understand it. I seem to be much stupider than I thought.’
He doesn’t say he’ll show her his play but he doesn’t say he won’t, and then off he goes and she stays up for a while thinking about it all. Liz is the kind of person who doesn’t know what she thinks about anything right away. She needs time for her feelings to settle.
By the time she goes to bed she finds she agrees with Alice’s summary. Alan Strachan is lovely odd.
40
There’s no school thank you Jesus this Saturday but Jack wakes at the usual time and can’t go back to sleep so he goes down to the kitchen and has breakfast all on his own. He reads Red Rackham’s Treasure while he eats his Weetabix, the cereal only he likes, plying the spoon with practised rapidity to catch the most of the lingering crunch before the milk penetrates to the biscuits’ core. The Tintin book, read a hundred times before, is as much part of the ritual of Jack’s breakfast as the deep striped bowl, the caster sugar, the full cream milk, the pyramidal arrangement of the three biscuits. In this way he prepares himself each morning for the stress of the school day.
‘It’s a home weekend, Jack.’ His mother is surprised to see him down so early.
He nods. He knows.
Laura fills a kettle for her tea and a coffee percolator for Henry’s coffee. She stands over a list she’s written on a big lined pad.
‘You know we’re going to Glyndebourne this afternoon? The Clemmers’ au pair is coming to babysit.’
‘Okay.’
Jack finishes his breakfast and gets up, leaving the Tintin book and the bowl on the table.
‘Thought I’d go for a ride on my bike.’
He tries to say it as idly as he can, not wanting his mother to ask questions.
‘What? It’s half-past seven in the morning.’
‘I know.’
‘You can’t go out on your bike at half-past seven in the morning.’
‘Why not?’
‘Honestly, Jack! Where would you go at this hour?’
‘Into the village.’
‘No. It’s ridiculous.’
Jack raises his voice a little, instinctively steering the issue away from its particulars onto the principle at stake.
‘That’s not fair. You never let me do what I want. You say I should take more exercise. You’ve let me ride my bike into the village before.’
‘Yes, Jack, but not early in the morning.’
‘What’s so different about early in the morning?’
‘I don’t know. There’s nobody about.’
This is precisely Jack’s motive for wanting to go now. He has a letter to deliver and he does not want to be seen delivering it.
‘Well, I’m going anyway,’ he says.
‘Jack!’
The phone rings. He could walk away while she’s on the phone but that would be outright disobedience. Also he believes that he has right on his side; so he uses the interruption to marshal his arguments.
‘Oh, Diana,’ says Laura to the phone. ‘No, I’m up. What time are you getting here? Yes, that’s fine. Not wonderful, cloudy and grey right now. No, Henry won’t mind. He doesn’t claim to be a wine expert. I’m not saying Roddy’s an expert. I really don’t care, Diana. Something new, I bought it on Thursday. No, not madly expensive. Brown’s. How about you? Yes, I will. I will. Bye.’
‘There’ll be less cars on the road,’ says Jack.
‘Fewer cars.’
‘It’ll be safer.’
‘That’s simply not true, Jack. This is the time people go to work.’
‘It’s Saturday.’
‘Jack, there’s always traffic on the Newhaven road, you know that. Big lorries too. Just leave it for a while, will you? I’ve got too many other things to do.’
‘But why? Traffic’s not a reason. Just give me one reason why. You’re always saying I should take more exercise. Well, riding my bike’s exercise.’
Henry appears in his pyjamas.
‘Who on earth was that?’
‘Diana of course. Wanting to know what the weather’s like before deciding what to wear. You know we’ve got Glyndebourne today.’
Henry nods mutely, pours himself a mug of coffee. Jack pads softly to his father’s side.
‘Dad, can I go
for a ride on my bike?’
‘Don’t see why not.’
‘Jack!’ His mother can’t hear, but she knows his methods. ‘You know perfectly well I said no. You shouldn’t go asking Daddy when I’ve already said no.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t have a reason. I’ve been allowed to go for a ride on my bike before, haven’t I?’
Henry says, ‘Let him go.’
‘Oh, Henry.’
‘He’s eleven years old. He’s not stupid. I’d rather he was out on his bike than playing those damn computer games.’
Jack knows he’s won. He doesn’t want his parents to argue.
‘I’ll be really careful, Mum. I’ll look out at every crossing. I’ll stay right by the side of the road, and if a big lorry comes I’ll get off and walk.’
Laura shrugs, annoyed.
‘If Daddy says you can.’
Jack runs out to the garage and pushes his bike across the gravel to the road. It’s colder outside than he expected and he wishes he had gloves, but there’s no way he’s going back into the house. The air makes his eyes water as he rides down the lane, and the verges have this sharp sweetish smell that you never smell in the car. Every time he brushes against the verge in his zeal for road safety his left thigh gets drenched with moisture. The letter is in the pocket of his jeans, folded over to fit in, he can feel the ridge it makes with every turn of the pedals.
He forks left at the three poplars, past the electric gates to the Critchells’ drive, and at the T-junction onto the Newhaven road he gets off and pushes his bike. Nothing on the road, despite his mother’s fears, so he gets back on and bikes into the village. All quiet in front of the Fleece Inn, where later there’ll be crowds of hikers gathering to walk on the Downs. The gate in the church porch is open. In the shadow of the church tower there’s a man digging, but he doesn’t look up. Past the shuttered shop, and the row of terraced houses with blue doors, all the same blue. And there’s the flint wall and the narrow iron gate that says Home Farm.
Funny how things join up. The way to school is the other direction entirely, you turn left onto the Newhaven road, not right into the village. And yet by some mystery to do with turns in the road, the fields beyond the school playing fields join up with the fields at the back of the village, and this house that’s right in the middle of the village is where the Dogman lives.