Geraldine Adams enjoyed riotous sex last night (unlike her friend Kitty, who was offered none to enjoy). Actually, astonishingly, Geraldine’s enjoyed riotous sex for several nights in a row, and it’s beginning to show in one or two minor details: there’s a jaunty light in her nicely made-up eyes, a subtle loosening of the muscles around the side of her mouth. Or maybe she’s just smiling more. And she and Clive are being embarrassing together: patting each other’s bottoms at breakfast, giggling at the most tenuous
double entendres.
It all makes Ollie feel a bit sick.
But it won’t last. Obviously. Because in spite of one very merry, drunken night, when they recaptured a glimmer of the fun they had together before money and success and offspring made life so very serious, and in spite of the astonishing number of passion-filled nights which have followed – nothing has changed. Their elegant offices in Lamsbury remain as dull and quiet as the grave, and their beautiful Georgian rectory still feels like a pointless toy they haven’t yet learnt how to play with.
But at least, amid all that tumultuous shagging, they have finally found the time and the nerve to admit that not
everything in their almost perfect lives is quite as perfect as they were pretending. They miss their important jobs, their frantic, adrenalin-filled lifestyles, all the money that used to pour into their bank accounts, and they have agreed that somehow or other, if they are ever to be happy in Fiddleford, they must find a way to recapture those things again.
Step One: Of course. To get the practice working.
‘I don’t think we
interact
enough,’ declared Geraldine during one of their inter-coital breathers. ‘People don’t believe we’re for real. They think we’re stuck up. We need to get more involved with the community.’
She called on the drunken, former sex siren Annie Millbank (who lives a mile out of the village at the Mill House, and stars in a series of coffee ads) and has now signed them both up with the Fiddleford Dramatic Society, whose summer production rehearsals for
The Duchess of Malfi
are due to get under way shortly.
Geraldine has ordered a copy of the play to be sent to her by Amazon, and is, though she tries to sound weary when she discusses it with Clive, secretly quite excited about the whole thing. Cerebral Clive, on the other hand, is dreading it. But he understands clearly (very clearly; it’s how his mind works) that spending a couple of evenings humiliating himself in fancy dress in front of the simple people of Fiddleford is merely a means to an end. He and Geraldine, if they are to expand their practice, if they are to put themselves in a position where they can pick and choose from the county of Lamsford’s most important, interesting and remunerative cases, need to be liked and trusted. Need to be known about. Need to know what’s going on.
‘I ran into Jo Maxwell McDonald this morning. She’s wanting to take on new clients. She says the Retreat more or less runs itself now.’
‘Clever girl,’ says Clive. He rather fancies Jo.
‘Well, clever both of them, to be fair,’ says Geraldine who, like every woman in the county, fancies Jo’s husband, Charlie. ‘I think Charlie does a hell of a lot behind the scenes. He just doesn’t feel the need to show off about it. Anyway, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t employ her. Not just for the practice, but for us. As the practice. Sort of thing. What do you think?’
Clive considers it. He always considers before he speaks. It can mean he sometimes misses the chance altogether.
‘Because, Clive,’ she continues, ‘I don’t think we really communicate to people how much we
care
about this village. This county. And about the issues that worry them. And we do. I mean, we care about the school. We care about the lack of public transport for our kids. About maintaining rural post offices and mobile libraries…the tax on petrol…
all
those sorts of things. I care about them passionately. Don’t you?’
‘Very much so,’ says clear-thinking Clive. ‘Very much so.’
‘Well, I think we should try and get that across. And I think Jo Maxwell McDonald’s the person to help us. So I’ll give her a call, yes?…They’ve still got that ghastly Transport Minister up there, apparently.
Still
refusing to resign…’
To make her twice-weekly sessions at Fiddleford Primary more endurable, Geraldine has taken to spending less of each pupil’s allotted ten minutes actually listening to them reading, and more time making them listen to her chat.
She was sitting fighting sleep again the other day, while a young plodder called Simon struggled over the word ‘rug’, when her own intense boredom forced her to interrupt him.
‘It’s
rug
, dear. Mmm.
RUG
. Do you know, Simon, before I was a mummy I was something else. I was something called a
lawyer
. And I still am a
law-yer
. When I’ve got my law-yer’s hat on! Do you know what a law-yer is, Simon?’
Simon shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘A
law-yer
is somebody you call when you need help with the law. A
law-yer
is somebody who sticks up for people’s
Rights
. Do you know what Rights are, Simon?’
Simon shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘What do you know about
children’s
Rights, Simon? Do you think children have
Rights?
Can you think of a children’s
Right
, Simon?’
Simon shrugged. ‘Prob’ly it’s about signs and so on. For your bicycling.’
The answer shocks Geraldine. (‘As a lawyer and a mum,’ she explained to Clive a little later.)
So now, in whispered ten-minute sessions in the corner of Fanny’s classroom, Fiddleford’s pupils are learning all about their legal rights: about how to protect themselves from police harassment, how to access their personal health and education records, what constitutes a physical assault and at what age they’re allowed to decide on their own body piercings. And it keeps Geraldine awake.
‘Hey! Fanny! Wait there!’ Fanny, hurrying home that Friday night, tired, fed up and looking forward to spending a weekend in London seeing old friends, glances up to see Tracey Guppy rushing out from the bungalow she shares with her Uncle Russell. Fanny curses softly to herself, fixes on a well-mannered smile and crosses over to the wire fence which separates Tracey’s garden from the lane.
‘Hey, Tracey.’
‘I’ve got
you-know-who
inside.’
‘Louis?’ (Two weeks now, and Louis still isn’t speaking to her.)
‘Louis? Don’t be daft!’ Tracey giggles. ‘Not Louis. I mean Dane. I’ve got my brother Dane inside. Mum’s sent him over because of the skiving fine. So he’s shacking up with me and Uncle Russell. Only he’s been with us a couple of days and he still won’t go to school.’ A gust of wind. Tracey, bursting out of a denim mini-skirt and spaghetti-strap electric-pink vest with FOXY LADY across the front, hugs herself with arms covered in goose bumps. She looks as anxious as a mother. ‘You don’t see it, Fanny. I know you don’t. But underneath all the struttin’ he gets ever so shy.’
Fanny manages not to glance at her watch. She has just over an hour to catch her train and the station is thirty-five miles away. ‘Shall I come in and say hi quickly? Might it help?’
Fanny follows Tracey through a small, clean kitchen, into the front room, stuffy and stale with the smell of smoke. It has a sliding glass door looking out on to the grass, from which Fanny can see the school, the playground and most of the playing field behind. There is a large television at the far end of the room, and against the wall, an enormous turquoise sofa still covered in cellophane. In front of it, in a giant, modern wheelchair, sits Uncle Russell Guppy. He has a brimming ashtray resting on one knee and the mouthpiece of his respirator on the other. He and his apparatus are the only untidy things in the room.
The television is blasting out, loud enough for Uncle Russell to hear it over his own breathing, so he and Dane don’t hear Fanny and Tracey come in. Dane isn’t watching the television, Fanny sees as she draws closer. He’s lying with his bored, grey face turned in towards the back of the sofa, melting bits of the cellophane with his lighter.
‘Hello, John Thomas,’ says Fanny. ‘Watch out, there. You’ll set fire to it in a minute.’ At the sound of her voice Uncle Russell doesn’t bother to turn around, but Dane Guppy jumps. Literally: his entire body jerks with fear and guilt. In less than a second he’s on his feet.
Fanny giggles. ‘Sorry. Did I startle you?’
‘No. What’re you doing in my house? I didn’t say you could come here.’
Uncle Russell, who’s watching
Changing Rooms
, says, ‘It’s not his house. It’s my house.’
‘Ah-ha! See?!’ Dane Guppy cries victoriously, waving a finger at his uncle. ‘It’s not your house, Uncle Russell. It’s the council’s.’
Uncle Russell ignores him. As he has done ever since Dane moved in. As he has done, in fact, ever since the day he was born. Uncle Russell only rarely speaks to Tracey, either, though they’ve lived together for four years, and she cooks for him and cleans for him and sometimes, more recently especially, has to help him to the toilet in the middle of the night.
Uncle Russell hates both his brothers, and by association, all his brothers’ offspring. In fact hatred for his only two brothers has been the ruling emotion of his adult life, ever since 1963 when their father died and they cheated him out of his inheritance. Uncle Russell has spent the intervening years (until his illness prevented it and he was forced to stay at home) sitting on the same corner stool in the Fiddleford Arms silently mulling over that injustice, while his brothers have become husbands, fathers and rich men. It would be hard to comprehend the depths of Uncle Russell’s bitterness.
‘It’s not your house, Uncle Russell. It’s the council’s,’ Dane is saying again. ‘See? Plus my dad gives you cash, doesn’t he? He gives you loads of cash, as I know. So it’s not
your
house, Uncle Russell. It’s more like my dad’s house, and that’s why we’re staying here!’ Uncle Russell, his eyes fixed steadily on the television, holds the respirator mouthpiece up to his face and inhales. He does not intend to respond.
‘Anyway,’ Fanny says brightly, ‘I was just passing, so I thought I’d come and say hi. And maybe see if I could lure you back to school Monday morning. We’re missing you.’
‘No, you ain’t,’ snarls Dane.
Fanny tilts her head, takes a peep at her watch. It’ll take five minutes to get back to the house, more if she meets someone on the way; five minutes to pack; it takes forty minutes to get to the station – if
she
remembers the way, which she almost certainly won’t…And if she misses the
train she’ll be stuck in Fiddleford until tomorrow, at which point it’ll hardly be worth making the journey.
She smiles at Dane. ‘We do. Yes, we do miss you. I miss you a lot.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘OK. I don’t.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Yes, I do.’
He looks confused. ‘You do or you don’t?’ he asks, voice rising, eyes brimming suddenly. ‘I’m not coming back if nobody’s even ruddy well noticed I ain’t there!’
She sighs. Sinks on to the end of the plastic-covered sofa. ‘Can I—’ She turns to Tracey. ‘I don’t suppose I could get a cup of tea?’
Ten-year-old Oliver Adams, small, pretty, with golden-blond hair, pink, plump lips, and a sprinkling of delightful freckles, is instinctively ambitious, just like his parents, and he owns all the gear which most impresses his peer group. He’s almost a year younger than Dane Guppy, one-time school supremo, and several inches smaller, but he slipped into the vacancy Dane left behind with the minimum of effort, as if he’d been born to the position.
When Dane stumbles into assembly the following Monday morning, filling the quiet hall with the squeak of his trainers, and the rhythmic chafing of his nylon-covered thighs – not quite his usual cocksure self, ill at ease, out of practice, with greasy hair laid flat and neat against his head, and eyes averted – Oliver Adams feels only a vague flutter of annoyance. In the month since Dane absented himself, Ollie has grown complacent.
His mother, on the other hand, is beside herself with excitement. Providing quality vocalising time to a bona-fide problem child is what she’s been wanting to do all along – it’s what she’s here for, what moved her to offer her mornings to the school in the first place – and until now she’s
been frustrated by the stubborn levelheadedness of all the pupils.
That morning, when she’s meant to be helping the seven-year-olds (who have their SAT exams looming), Geraldine Adams draws Fanny aside.
‘The little ones are all focusing very nicely,’ she whispers. ‘And I’m wondering if I wouldn’t be more helpful elsewhere. Perhaps having a little chat with Dane. Help him to settle back in. Could I have a little moment with him, Fanny, do you think?’
Fanny glances across at Dane. He’s doing nothing very special. Staring at the window, picking his nose.
‘I feel I could help,’ Geraldine says. ‘I know he can be combative, but he seems like such a sweet kid—’
‘Sweet?’ Fanny raises an eyebrow.
‘Well – yes. You may be surprised by that,’ says Geraldine. ‘But I do feel,
having a boy of my own
in that age group, and being
a mother
—’
‘Oh, yes,’ says Fanny.
‘Oh, but Fanny. Please, don’t take that the wrong way.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I’d love to try to
reach
him, Fanny. Could I try that? Would you allow me to try?’
‘Of course! The more time we spend with him the better. He can barely read, poor little sod. So please! Take him away.’
Geraldine inhales at the word ‘sod’, but manages not to comment. ‘Is he dyslexic, Fanny?’
‘No.’
‘He’s not?’ Geraldine sounds shocked. ‘How can you be so certain?’
‘He’s not dyslexic. He’s very lazy and he’s pretty thick and he hasn’t been taught properly—’
‘Fanny!’ Geraldine laughs nervously. ‘Really, I don’t think—’
Fanny shrugs. ‘So, you know, “reach him”, by all means. Whatever it takes.’
Geraldine calls him over at once. But her unbridled enthusiasm – to succeed where all others have failed – leads her to break the cardinal child-reaching rule: she ignores the bell for break.
‘’Scuse me, Mrs Adams,’ he says, ‘’scuse me…’ She’s leaning over the desk, her manicured hand only centimetres from his arm, her well-cut hair so close to his grey nose he can smell the shampoo. The reading book lies unopened between them, and he’s grinning self-consciously, showing all the gaps between his blackened teeth. He’s embarrassed. He’s not used to people sitting so close to him, but more than that, he’s desperate.
The bell just went.
‘Yes, Dane,’ she interrupts her own flow, ‘what is it?’
He gives a nervous giggle.
‘Why are you laughing, Dane?’ Geraldine gives him a flash of her porcelain-covered gnashers. A big, friendly smile to encourage him. She has perfect teeth. ‘Go on, Dane. You can tell me! Whatever it is you’ve got to say, I’m a mum! I’ll have heard worse and that’s a promise!’
‘It’s because I don’t think you heard the bell, Mrs—’
‘Geraldine. Call me Geraldine.’
‘Geraldine.’ Snigger. A globule of spit flies from the back of his throat, across the desk, over the unopened reading book and lands on the back of her hand.
She glances at her hand and determinedly, because the last thing she wants is for this young lad to feel that she finds him disgusting, does not pull it back. She doesn’t do anything. She leaves the spit exactly where it landed, glistening bravely above the age-defying moisturiser. ‘
Dane
,’ she says softly, ‘we were talking about—Can you remember what we were talking about?’
He shrugs. ‘Dunno.’
‘We were talking about intimacy, Dane.’
‘But the bell’s gone, Mrs Adams.’
‘Geraldine. We were talking about feeling
safe
with
intimacy
. And I asked you if you felt safe, getting to know me, and you said—What did you say, Dane? Can you remember what you said?’
He shrugs again, more irritably this time. ‘The bell’s gone for break, Mrs Adams.
Geraldine
.’
‘I’m in the middle of saying something, Dane,’ she says, gently cajoling. ‘We’re in the middle of a discussion. Chat. And I want to know, do you feel safe talking to an adult, talking to
me
, because you should, you know; or do you feel…’
Outside he can hear the children whose company he’s been starved of all these weeks. He can hear them running and shouting and fighting and laughing and he longs to be out there. He looks across at Geraldine, still jabbering away, weird blue eyes staring, and he racks his brain for something to say – anything – some password which will allow him to get out there in the sun.
‘
…difficult time
,’ she’s saying, ‘
and I know family…confrontations…wanting love…concern for you…your future…confused…understanding and trust can feel isolating bewildering…so important…Tough decisions for adults as well…Lonely and vulnerable and lost. Even I feel unloved sometimes…
’
He stretches over the table. ‘But you know what, Mrs Adams?’ he bursts out. She jumps, but not fast enough to prevent him from clasping her bony cheeks, one in each dirty hand, ruffling the hairdo, spraying her face with spit: ‘You don’t need to worry about that no more, because I love you!’
‘W-what’s that, dear?’
‘
I
LOVE YOU
!’ he bawls. ‘So can I go now?’
She is confused, very confused; frightened, actually. He’s
a big boy, behaving erratically. Worse than that,
he might be laughing at her
. Distantly, she hears the bell ringing again; break must be nearly over. Or nearly beginning. She’s not sure. ‘Of course, darling. Poppet.
Dane
,’ she says. ‘Of course…And I love you, too.’
He releases her, leaps up and scrams for the door, and Mrs Adams, trying to recover her composure, runs a hand over her expensive hair. ‘Well,’ she says out loud, willing herself to believe it. ‘That went very nicely, I think.’