That night Harold lay in the big double bed, listening to glass smashing down in the street. He hoped it wasn’t his car. Soon the crime would disappear; Dennis and his fellow developers would see to that. But in a strange way Harold would miss it, just as he missed the fireworks of his marriage. What was the point of getting up in the morning without the friction and the chats, the resentments and sudden, swooning intimacy, the everything else, even the bloody seedlings, of life with Pia? As he lay on his back, gazing at the ceiling, the cat walked over him. She trod on his testicles, as she always unerringly did, and settled down next to his face.
Her sticky eyes gazed at him in the gloom; she purred, exhaling toxic breath. Harold flinched but he didn’t turn away, it would only offend her and then it would be sulks the next morning.
8
Buffy
VODA WAS AN adventurous cook; it was yet another of her talents. Apparently she had just perfected her sushi, using crayfish from the local stream, when Conor was arrested. That he was now languishing on a prison diet was one of the few things that upset her. Sometimes, when there was a darts match, she cooked supper for herself and Buffy before repairing to the pub. Sometimes, in fact, she stayed the night, sleeping in one of the unoccupied bedrooms. He suspected she was lonely in her cottage. She told him that her nearest neighbour was a recluse called Taffy, who lived in a caravan where he watched porn all day and made hooch by hanging marrows in ladies’ stockings to drip into a bowl.
Buffy was glad of the company. He was fond of his sturdy helpmate with her flaming cheeks and spicy casseroles. Voda seldom asked about his past; like many country people she was only concerned with the here and now. He had presumed it was some rural survival instinct until he discovered that in fact she was born in Loughborough; her parents, lured by some cult, had moved to Wales where she and her brother had been brought up in a bender. Nobody was quite what they seemed, in Knockton as in life, and few of them turned out to be Welsh.
Tonight she was cooking chicken in saffron for themselves and Nyange, who had arrived to help with the accounts. They sat in the kitchen. Curtains of damp sheets hung from the ceiling; the tumble dryer had broken.
The account book lay open on the table. Nyange ran her finger down the page. Her nails were long and metallic green. ‘This place is haemorrhaging money,’ she said. ‘In fact, you’re hardly breaking even.’
‘Tell me about it,’ sighed Buffy.
Voda, stirring the sauce, said: ‘We can’t charge more, we don’t have the facilities.’
Nyange closed the book. ‘You’ve got six bedrooms, right? Two singles, three twins, one double and only two en suites between them.’
‘And one’s mine,’ said Buffy.
‘It’s not what people expect nowadays,’ said Nyange.
‘Ah, but we make up for it with a warm Myrtle House welcome,’ said Buffy. ‘The people who come here love it.’
‘That’s because they hang about all day getting pissed with you,’ said Voda. ‘Honestly, it might as well be a hotel. We could charge more then.’
‘Yes, but then I’d have to be here all day,’ said Buffy.
‘But you are.’
‘Only because it’s always raining,’ said Buffy. ‘Anyway, what about regulations and inspections and whatnot? Don’t hotels have to have all that? The point about a B&B is that it’s nice and amateurish.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Voda, carrying the pot to the table.
Nyange shifted the papers to one side. ‘Your problem is that you’re empty all week. People only come at weekends, and then just for a night or two. It’s very labour-intensive. You need them to stay for a week or more. And you have to sell them meals and especially drinks. That’s where the money is, the mark-up on alcohol. You can reckon on 500 per cent.’
Buffy gazed at his daughter. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I did some work for Wetherspoon’s. Profits have gone through the roof – people drink more in a recession.’
Voda lifted the lid off the pot. ‘Where does she get all this from?’ Through the steam, she raised her eyebrows at Buffy.
‘Not from me, that’s for sure,’ he said.
‘Grandad worked for Credit Suisse,’ said Nyange, ‘in Accra.’
‘Did he really?’ asked Buffy. His blood relation, and he knew nothing.
Nyange, in her black trouser suit, sharpened the air in the chaotic kitchen; Voda looked woolly beside her as she plonked down the plates.
‘We can bumble on as we are,’ said Buffy.
‘Honestly, Dad! Where are you going to find the funds for a new roof? People don’t pay good money to find buckets in the bedrooms.’
‘Only the Bluebell Bedroom,’ said Buffy. ‘And we charge less for that one.’
Nyange looked at him pityingly, her head on one side. With her metallic talons she looked like a bird of prey inspecting some roadkill and thinking better of it. ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘Mmm, this smells good.’
‘Nyange’s right,’ said Voda. ‘This house has got to wash its face.’
It was a balmy evening; the back door was open. Bessie Smith drifted out from Simon’s workshop next door. Buffy gazed fondly at the two young women, such surprising allies so late in his life. The hanging sheets gave them a theatrical air, as if they were in a production together – Myrtle House: The Soap Opera, with its changing cast of characters. He remembered his sons sitting at this table and how disorientating it had felt, as if he had landed in a show without learning his lines and the packing cases were filled with props. We strut and fret our hour upon the stage. But he was here, this was reality, this big draughty house whose every inch had become familiar to him. It was his past that now seemed weightless and blurred; what exactly had he done all day? London felt increasingly irrelevant; he hadn’t been back since he had moved to Knockton.
And yet the distant past could suddenly swoop close; he could smell it and touch it. This same kitchen table, back in Edgbaston . . . Bridie stubbing out her fag and calling him dearie. He could see her now, her smudged mascara and bravely hennaed hair. He could feel her big, soft arms around him, under the eiderdown. She always undressed in the dark; he realised, now, that she was shy about her body. Had he never told her how beautiful she was? When she died he discovered that she had lied about her age; she was eight years older than she had let on. This had made his heart ache for her.
‘It’s funny,’ he said, ‘but I still feel this is Bridie’s house, that I’m just borrowing it for a while. I keep thinking that she’ll come through the front door and say you wouldn’t believe where I’ve been –’
The doorbell rang. They all jumped.
Voda pushed back her chair and hurried out. There was a murmured conversation in the hall. For a mad moment Buffy thought he recognised Bridie’s voice. When Voda returned, however, she was accompanied by a young Indian woman.
She wore a Glastonbury T-shirt and Converse boots. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be in Blandford Forum.’
‘Have you eaten?’ asked Voda. She turned to Buffy. ‘She wants a room for the night. I told her she could take her pick.’
‘I didn’t mean to intrude –’
‘Sit down and have some supper, you poor thing,’ said Voda, pulling out a chair. ‘You look as if you could do with a meal.’ She had come over all motherly. Apparently she longed for a baby but Conor was still resistant. Fifteen months in jail, she hoped, would make him come to his senses.
‘I’ve got a rubbish sense of direction,’ said the young woman. ‘So I bought a satnav and what did it do? Dumped me in the middle of nowhere. Thanks a bunch, satnav. Mmm, this smells great.’
Voda ladled chicken onto her plate. ‘It’s Moroccan fusion.’
‘I thought I must be lost because the signs were in a funny language.’
‘Welsh,’ said Buffy.
‘So I ended up in this yard full of dogs. An old bloke lived there, he said he was a blacksmith.’
br /> ‘That’ll be Gruffydd,’ said Voda. ‘He used to do horses but now he makes bondage frames for the S&M market.’
‘The what? Anyway, he said I was a long way from Blandford Forum.’
‘That’s in Dorset, sweetheart,’ said Voda, patting her arm.
‘He suggested I get a room here for the night.’
Her name was Sita. Over the second glass of wine she told them she had just split up with her boyfriend. ‘He was heavily into cars,’ she said. ‘He’s a Sikh, they all are, that’s why they’re taxi drivers. Open a bonnet and they’re happy bunnies. I think it was my Toyota that first attracted him. Apparently it’s a Celica GT or something, I haven’t a clue, my dad gave it to me when I qualified.’
‘What as?’ asked Buffy.
‘A speech therapist.’
Sita certainly knew how to talk. As Buffy had noticed before, something about the house made guests open up; or maybe it was the Shiraz. Conversations became so intimate that it felt odd to take money from his customers in the morning. Soon Sita was telling them about her boyfriend’s shortcomings in the sexual department.
‘It was all wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am,’ she said. ‘If I was an engine he’d know what knobs to twiddle.’
‘Conor was useless when we met,’ said Voda. ‘I blame the cocaine.’
‘Provokes the desire but takes away the performance,’ said Buffy.
‘Dad!’ said Nyange. ‘Since when did you take drugs?’
‘The Bard was referring to drink.’
Sita stared from Buffy to Nyange. ‘He’s your father?’
Nyange nodded. ‘I know, I know.’
‘Oh well, horses for courses,’ said Sita vaguely. She burped and clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Pardon me.’
There was a silence. Outside, darkness had fallen; somewhere beyond the rooftops an owl hooted.
‘Sounds as if you’re well out of it,’ said Voda.
Sita nodded but she looked unconvinced. ‘He was a nice boy, ever so kind. He was even kind to my guinea pig. But when he died something died with him.’
‘Your boyfriend died?’ Voda put down her glass.
‘My guinea pig. I’d never cried so much in my life. My boyfriend didn’t get it, he’d never had a bereavement, you’d think he would with all his relatives.’ Sita cut herself a wedge of cheese.
Nyange said: ‘Charlie felt threatened by my love for my cat.’
‘Who’s Charlie?’ asked Buffy.
‘You wouldn’t know.’
She was right; there were gaps in his daughter’s life that Buffy knew nothing about. But where did he start? Tonight he had hoped to have a real conversation with Nyange but events had conspired against it; they always did. He remembered the last time, and their fruitless search for a parking space. Nyange, however, didn’t seem to mind; she seemed more interested in their visitor.
‘Thing is, I’d got to rely on him doing things,’ said Sita. ‘Like fixing my car. I’m so crap at that sort of thing. That’s why I’m going on this course in Blandford Forum, ‘Basic Car Maintenance’. I need to feel empowered, you know? My self-esteem’s at rock bottom.’
‘With Charlie it was DIY,’ said Nyange. ‘I hadn’t a clue. Like, what’s a Rawlplug?’
‘I’ve never heard of this Charlie,’ said Buffy. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Nyange. ‘It was over long ago.’
‘But –’
‘Dad, it’s history.’
Sita was chattering on. ‘See, I need my car for my work. I can’t take the Tube, I’ve got boundary issues.’
‘Boundary issues?’ asked Voda.
‘She means being near other people,’ said Nyange.
Buffy, brooding on his inadequacies as a father, hadn’t been listening. It was only now that something Sita had said snagged in his mind. I need to feel empowered.
It was getting chilly. Voda got up and closed the back door.
‘Coffee, anyone?’ she asked.
Buffy’s skin prickled with the boldness of it – the probable madness of it. ‘How to Talk to Women’ . . . ‘Basic Car Maintenance’. He said: ‘I’ve got an idea.’
9
Andy
ANDY HAD EARACHE. Possibly it was a brain tumour. He leaned against the kitchen unit and gazed at his reflection. The mortal man gazed back, spectral against the dark garden. Soon he would be forty, a word that filled him with dread. Already he noticed a faltering in the stream when he pissed. Prostate, no doubt. He wasn’t usually gloomy but there had been a pile-up that morning on the North Circular – two cars overturned and wailing ambulances. It brought it home to a man; all day he had felt as frail as an invalid. He couldn’t confide in Toni, she would pooh-pooh it, tossing her hair.
Shrill laughter came from the lounge. Tonight it was out of bounds. Toni was plotting a hen party for one of her girlfriends; obeying orders, he had snuck in through the back door. Judging by the shrieks, they were well into the white wine.
Andy felt both excluded and relieved. It sounded like there were quite a few of them; he was surprised they hadn’t woken up Ryan. What were they finding so hilarious? Men and their inadequacies? Men, with particular reference to himself? Surely not, in his own home. And why did Toni never laugh like that when he and she were alone together?
Toni had left his dinner on the microwave – a cling-filmed plate of something or other. There was beer in the fridge. The problem was, he had left his Angling Times in the lounge. No way could he sneak in and retrieve it. He could imagine, only too well, the women’s stifled chortles when he left the room. Angling Times! Toni herself treated his hobby with indulgent pity, a boys-will-be-boys thing. She had once actually patted his bottom when he was leaving the house with his rods.
Andy rubbed his ear. Maybe he’d caught dengue fever. Three days ago a mosquito had bitten him at the Ruislip reservoir. He pictured himself on his deathbed, sodden with sweat, surrounded by Toni’s heartless teddy bears. When they had set up home together he had hoped she would leave her soft toys behind – indeed, he had hinted that his furry audience, their glass eyes following his every move, had an inhibiting effect on his performance. No such luck. And she called him immature.
The kitchen was spotless. Once in her apron, Toni was a human dynamo. The efficiency of the woman! Andy felt, as he so often did, that he was an intruder in his own home – too large, too hairy, too male. He cracked open a beer and stepped into the garden. It was blessedly quiet; the only sound was the far hum of traffic and the trickle of the water feature.
The rooftops of Wembley rose up against the suffused sky. Even in the suburbs, nothing was safe. This particular accident, for some reason, had upset him. Maybe it was the pot plants, their earth scattered over the dual carriageway. Somebody had looked forward to a blameless day of gardening, a mug of tea . . . He lit a cigarette. Toni believed he had given up but what the hell. One nanosecond and your life was obliterated – there on the North Circular, with drivers gawping.
Andy was by nature a cautious man. Toni had laughed, the first time they met, when he had buckled himself up in the back seat of the minicab. On her profile she had put adventurous and fun-loving, which was what had attracted him – to be honest, she wasn’t that great-looking. But the woman bungee-jumped! And the next weekend, she told him, she was going zorbing. Apparently this entailed rolling about in a giant ball. This seemed a strange thing to do but he had to admire her pluck, and it was this, rather than lust, that prompted him to ask her out on a second date, and his fate was sealed.
‘There you are!’
Toni grabbed his arm. Andy jumped, and flicked away his cigarette.
‘They’re just going,’ she said. ‘Come and say bye-bye.’
Toni led him into the lounge. Eight female friends, some of whom he recognised, stood around in various stages of departure.
‘This is my man, Andy,’ said Toni, her grip tightening. ‘My lover and my best friend. Most of you know him, don’t you???
? She turned to Andy. ‘Us girls have got it sorted. First we’re going to pamper ourselves big time, we’ve got a deal at the Marriott, spa treatments, San Trop, the works . . .’
She babbled on. They were going to Prague, hen-party central. Andy caught the words Karlovy Lazne Club . . . cocktails . . . As he stood there, however, he felt strangely disembodied. Was this really his home?
Of course he recognised various items of furniture as his own, the settee and so on, but how come he was living here? It had all happened so fast. One moment he was a single man and now he was a couple, he was a lover and a best friend, a year had passed in a blur and all of a sudden he was living in Wembley with a hefty mortgage and a sort of stepson, Ryan.
Women, in his experience, always took an age to leave. Finally, however, they had gone and he was eating his dinner while Toni cleared up.
‘Vicky’s a lucky girl, we’re so pulling the stops out.’ Toni paused, a plate in her hand. ‘Wonder if she’d do the same for me.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She sighed, and bent to the open mouth of the dishwasher. As she stacked the plates, Andy gazed at her back view. Leggings weren’t ideal for a woman of her proportions, but of course he said nothing. Every woman he had ever met was touchy about her weight.
‘You fancied Jodie, didn’t you?’ Toni said.
‘What?’
‘Couldn’t keep your eyes off her tits.’
‘I haven’t a clue who you’re talking about. Which one was she?’
‘You men, honestly!’ Eyes twinkling, Toni stepped over to him and kissed the top of his head. ‘What are we going to do with you?’ She wagged her rubber-gloved finger. ‘You and your one-track minds.’
Andy gave her his plate. ‘There was a pile-up on the North Circular today.’
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘Makes you think.’
‘Elbows!’
He lifted his elbows. She wiped the table beneath them. ‘She’s going to wear white,’ she muttered. ‘Bit of a joke, isn’t it, when they’ve got two kids? Still, it’s the romance, I suppose.’