Everlasting Lane (2 page)

‘Not to worry. Peter will talk when Peter’s good and ready to talk, isn’t that right, eh, Peter?’ The smell of smoke was making me sick. ‘Do you know, my mother would never—
never
—have allowed me to even sit with my elders, let alone
speak
at the table.’

‘I am so sorry, Clive,’ said my mother. ‘It’s just sometimes he has a very vivid—’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Doctor Todd. ‘With regards to that, Peter, do you think you ever find it hard to distinguish between—’

And I tipped my pudding to the floor with a crash. Ice cream bloomed on the kitchen tiles from beneath the shattered bowl.

And so I was sent to bed.

And so, how do I begin?

I awoke from shuddery dreams of frozen desserts: icebergs of vanilla, mountains of soft sponge. I crept down to my secret step, my tummy grumbling like that waste ground behind
Lipton’s.

‘It’s perfectly understandable.’ Doctor Todd’s voice spread like oil. ‘
Per
fectly. You mustn’t blame yourself.’

‘I know, I know, but I feel so alone. There’s nobody I can talk to.’

The television was black, and candles, like those ones we’d used in the power cuts, flickered through Doctor Todd’s smoke. I could see my mother’s leg resting on that stool I told you about. I could hear her sniffing into her hankie.

‘Well, that’s what
I’m
here for,’ said Doctor Todd. ‘You can talk to me about anything.
Anything.
’

‘I know, Clive. I don’t know how I would have got this far without you. But Peter—’

‘No “buts”,’ said Doctor Todd. ‘You’re not being fair. You’ve said it yourself, you need some time. It’s for your benefit. And Peter’s too, of course.’

‘I know. I know.’

‘I mean, isn’t there
any
other family? Of course, I know about his grandmother but I’m sure—’

‘His grandmother?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry. But surely there’s someone who’d take him off your hands … for a while.’

‘Off my hands?’

‘Yes. I mean who wouldn’t
love
to spend some time with Peter?’ said Doctor Todd. ‘He’s such a … such a character. It would do him the world of good. Besides, you’ve said it yourself: you need a change, a new beginning, and this is your opportunity.’

‘But she—’

‘That’s enough,’ scolded Doctor Todd. ‘You mustn’t be selfish. You really need to think about what’s best for Peter.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ she murmured. ‘This could be my last chance.’

‘Exactly. Ex
act
ly.’

‘I could take him to Amberley. Wouldn’t that—?’

‘Well, no, I’m not sure that would be such a good … What I
meant
to say was that I could take him if you like, if there’s someone there … I’ll get him there,’ he said, ‘safe and sound.’

‘No, no. You mustn’t. I’ve imposed too much—’

‘Nonsense,’ said Doctor Todd. ‘It’s been,’ his shadow leant towards hers, ‘an absolute,’ was that the sound of, ‘pleasure’?

The tennis ball went bobbling across the back lawn. I was always challenging myself: the further I punted the ball with my father’s golf club, the higher my score. But I couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t even know why until, tick by tick, I remembered the watch clinging to my wrist. Doctor Todd’s watch. The seconds were speeding. I could see them and feel them, frantic-tick-ticking deep within. I shook my wrist. And again. Harder.

I released the watch, placed it on the path and returned to my game. But I couldn’t shake it out of my head. I could still
see the hands spinning, you see, the numbers changing, the time passing.

I could hear Doctor Todd speaking to me in my head: ‘So, do you have many friends or one particular close friend?’

There was sweat on my face and tears began to prickle my eyes. It was like I could feel myself crumbling, blood thick and throbbing, noises exploding in my head, lights flashing like blades.

‘Your mother tells me you keep a scrapbook.’

I raised and tested the golf club. I lifted it higher and swung it through the air.

‘I’d love to take a look.’

The head of the club hit the watch with a crack, splitting its ugly face.

Again.

Again and again. Crack. Crack. Crack.

I smashed the watch into its smallest.

Tinest.

Pieces.

And then my mother, thunder and lightning, staggering towards me. ‘Why?’ she cried. ‘Why must you always …?’ And then pain as her stick went splintering across my shoulder. Once. Twice. And I really did cry, spinning as I fell. She turned her back, stumbling away before I’d even hit the ground.

When I found her at the top of the stairs, head hanging down, hands covering her face like the soil across my father’s grave, she said, ‘I’ve decided,’ her voice all muffled. ‘We’ll go to Amberley. Clive’s right: it’ll be good for both of us. A new start.’

‘There’s no grandmother.’

‘What?’

‘You were lying.’ I knew she was. ‘I haven’t got a grandmother!’ My dad always told me how she died when he was still in the war.

‘Peter.’ My mother sighed and raised her head. She looked like an alien, her eyes all dark and swollen. Her hair was wild. ‘Heaven and Earth are full of things you’ve never even dreamt of. I deserve a second chance, Peter, don’t you think? Doesn’t everybody deserve a second chance? Well? Don’t just stand there blubbing: say something!’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Don’t want to what?’

‘I don’t want to be with you,’ I said. ‘Someone else … Someone else would love to spend time with me. I’m such a character.’

She kind of laughed when I said that with her shoulders all shaking. ‘Unfortunately, Peter,’ she said in a kind of wet whisper, ‘there isn’t anyone else. I’m the only mother you’ve got.’ And then she sniffed and said: ‘I just thought we needed a break. A little holiday. And then everything will be like it used to be. You’d like that. Wouldn’t you?’

Doctor Todd, in a safari suit and a silk cravat, came to see us off. ‘If you’re absolutely sure,’ he said, smoothing his sideburns before touching my mother and kissing her cheek. ‘You’d best leave right away.
Right
away. It’s a hot day and the
roads
are atrocious. A
tro
cious.’

‘Yes,’ said my mother. ‘The sooner the better. Peter,’ she snapped, ‘stop chattering and use the toilet.’

Doctor Todd glanced at my wrist. ‘Where’s your watch?’

‘Come on, Peter. You know what you’re like.’

When the car door closed, Doctor Todd’s face appeared
leering against the glass, his terrible teeth gleaming. ‘Off you go, then,’ he said, and the engine roared.

The day
was
hot and the car stank of fresh leather. My stomach gurgled and churned as we passed the hospital with the pretty nurses, and weary mothers shunting prams along the pavement. Everything was different: the colours had all changed, the sun was bright. I saw daffodils, and sunlight falling through the branches of trees. I saw people on their way to work: people for who this was just another day, people whose daddies were fixing cars or mowing lawns or rolling pens back and forth across office desks. The car slid across the lanes and the motorway swept us away from town.

I kept a scrapbook, of sorts, like Doctor Todd said, bits and pieces pasted on paper. I always wanted to control things, you see, the things that happened and put them in order just like the kings and queens on the classroom wall. But it was so hard. I could never tell what mattered. I couldn’t control the world any better than I could an armful of snakes. The hills and fields unfolded like pages and the contents of my scrapbook shuffled all higgledy-piggledy across the back seat of the car. I scrambled to collect everything and hurry it back between the covers.

But why was it so frightening? I mean, you know, when everything got all muddly? Grown-ups always pretended that everything
could
be answered or explained or justified. But if you ever looked at the face of a lady who’d lost her child or a child that’d lost its mummy or daddy you might think that, well, maybe, life is all confusing and messy and wouldn’t fit between the pages of a book no matter how hard you tried. Maybe it’d be better if you just closed your eyes and went to sleep and dreamed. And then when you woke up, if you had
to wake up, you might as well just forget about trying to make everything make sense and lie in your bed, eyes wide open, waiting for another day to start.

I saw handfuls of sheep scattered across the hillsides, and villages small enough to put in my pocket: so small that I imagined ruling over them, bringing destruction whenever the mood took me. The people would scream in terror at the wild world I’d made.

‘Peter,’ my mother’s eyes flared in the rear-view mirror, ‘what is it? What are you saying?’

‘Nothing!’ and I slapped the back of her seat. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like if I really could kill someone.

She twisted around, her finger jabbing at me. ‘Are you
try
ing to cause an accident?’ She spun back to the road and I sat plastered with fear to my seat, her spit on my face. ‘Not long now,’ she muttered. ‘Amberley: two miles. Thank God. As soon as we get to Everlasting Lane—’

Everlasting Lane? I hadn’t heard that name before. It took me by surprise. How long would we have to drive down an everlasting lane?

‘It’s just a
name
, Peter!’

And then we passed the sign—Amberley—and everything changed.

I made up stories, you see, and filled my scrapbook with the people I knew: a widowed mother; a lost child; the woman, smiling, her shadow sliding back towards the large house; the young man taking a match to a bundle of secrets. And now the swinging chain, turning, creaking, the air still. I made a world where summers were warmer, where the winters were whiter, and even love seemed better.

I can’t promise that this is the way it was, not exactly, only
that this was perhaps how it sometimes seemed to be. Because it’s a strange kind of courage, isn’t it? The courage to let someone die; to let them die alone without a word. And you should tell her that I’m sorry because, in the end, I didn’t do the right thing at all. But, you see, although I believed them open, my eyes were closed.

I stood in the doorway of the little white cottage as my mother ruffled through her handbag and produced a bundle of keys. I heard church bells: chimes rising into the spring sky, and a tumble of silver notes. I heard the turn of the squeaky lock. The branches of a weeping willow rose and fell; birdsong twinkled in the taller trees.

And, so, this is how I begin.

My father died when I was nine years old. I must have been nine because I was ten when I went to live in Everlasting Lane.

It was all so long ago, how could I ever forget?

The cottage in Amberley made me think of an old library: dusty and undisturbed.

I sat at the kitchen table, lurching from thought to thought, watching my mother’s every move. She brought out biscuits and lemonade and perched on the yellow worktop to watch me eat and drink. I wasn’t hungry but ate anyway, forcing mouthfuls of digestive down my throat. The table-top was plastic and patterned to look like wood. It was funny because there was something familiar about it just as there was about the floor tiles and the cupboards and the yellow curtains tied up with blue knots at the window.

The kitchen smelt empty. Opening a brown cupboard, my mother cleared a space among old packets and tins for beans and bread; in the fridge she placed butter, milk and cheese. The fridge shuddered as she switched on the power and at the same moment a memory flickered across my brain. I found myself building towns of coloured paper, my feet swinging clear of the kitchen floor, large blocks of pale afternoon pasted on the walls. There was a smell of fresh paint and brushes soaking upended in old jam jars. I could hear my father singing and I could see myself, my tiny self, giggling with glee at his funny voice and thoughts of hippopotamuses and glooorious
mud as he slipped ginger cake into the oven and warmed cocoa in the pan.

I could hear my mother’s footsteps upstairs stomping on the old floorboards and the Hoover rattling against the skirting and whooshing under the beds. I listened out for the sudden silence that would follow the end of her housework. You see, something was about to happen. Something only I knew.

My father stood behind me admiring my work.

I wondered how much I knew about this man. Not much. He had a moustache and his tummy hung a little over the rim of his belt but he was tall and proud like the soldier he’d once been. He never talked about it but at least I knew what a soldier was. I’d seen pictures and read comics and, sometimes, my mother told me stories. But he wasn’t a soldier any more. He was a businessman and I didn’t really know what he did or understand that world of suits and ties and secretaries. There were no comics about businessmen. He was so much older than me I couldn’t imagine the world through his eyes. He was a mystery; a mystery in my own house, but I never thought to ask. In my dreams he never changed. He was never ill and he was never dead. He was always Daddy and that was all that mattered.