Final Demand (11 page)

‘Were you outside all the time?' Her blush deepened. He had been listening to her on the toilet!

‘No – I just heard . . .'

But she hurried away into her bedroom and closed the door.

David tapped and let himself in. Chloe was sitting on her bed.

‘I was only trying to say—'

‘Please, Dad—'

‘I was only trying to say you should do something with yourself.'

‘What do you mean?' Her hands flew to her face.

‘You've got a nice voice. You've got – well, a lot of things going for you . . .'

‘Like what?'

‘Chloe! Stop being so bloody negative. You'll never get anywhere that way.'

‘I want to go to sleep.'

‘Isn't it time you got off your behind and did something with your life?'

Sheila appeared in her dressing gown.

‘Mum, tell him to stop!'

‘David—'

His voice rose. ‘Look at Rowena – don't you want to see the world, go places?' A terrible pity seized him; the way her thighs rubbed together now when she walked. When she
waddled.
‘You can't just sit here, rotting away—'

‘David!' said his wife.

‘Do you really want to end up like me and your mother—'

‘What do you mean?' demanded Sheila.

‘Stuck in a pub seven days a week? You really want that?'

‘Dad, stop it!'

His wife put her hand on his arm. ‘That's enough,' she said.

Later, Sheila came into their bedroom.

‘You shouldn't have talked to her like that,' she whispered.

‘I was only trying to help. She takes everything the wrong way.'

‘It's how you put it.'

David lit a cigarette. He knew that Sheila disliked him smoking, up here in the bedroom, but he just did. He was standing at the window, gazing down into the back yard.

‘Don't you see?' whispered Sheila. ‘She's happy, in her own way. You just upset her, talking like that.'

‘It's for her own good.' Down in the yard, the barrels glinted in the lights from the office block. The windows were lit all night; it was a crying waste of electricity.

‘She's not ambitious, not in the way you want her to be. You can't mould her into the sort of person she's not.' Sheila sat on the bed. ‘You're such a tyrant, Dave. Don't you see you're taking away her confidence, what little she has of it? Maybe she feels she's too overweight to be an air hostess.'

‘Why doesn't she go on a diet then?'

‘Ssh!' Sheila lowered her voice.

‘Make herself a bit more attractive. She might even get a boyfriend—'

‘She's perfectly pretty – just a bit plump—'

‘Plump? If she got on a plane it wouldn't be able to take off.'

‘David!' She stared at him. ‘That's a horrible thing to say.'

David turned and looked at his wife. He thought: If you hadn't got pregnant I could have been a professional, I could have gone on that tour.

‘She'll do what she wants,' said Sheila ‘in her own good time.'

‘You want to keep her here.' He thought: You want to stop her growing up, you want to tie her to your apron strings. ‘You want to keep her here just so you've got some company.'

Sheila glared at him. ‘Well, can you blame me?'

David thought: And this was the night I was going to kiss her.

In her bedroom, Chloe pulled the duvet over her head and slid under it like a tortoise into its shell.

‘
I
'
LL DO IT
my . . . way!
'

Natalie belted it out at the top of her lungs. She had a terrible voice but she didn't care. She adored karaoke. They had to practically drag her off the stage.

Some of her friends from work were there. She went to the bar, waved a twenty-pound note, and ordered drinks. Sioban and Farida gazed at her as she handed out the glasses. There was something about Natalie nowadays; she gave off such heat, such exhilaration that she almost throbbed. She swore she wasn't expecting a baby. It must be marriage – it was two months now – but who would have thought it? They gazed at Colin with new respect as he sat at the nearby table, guarding their seats. Maybe he was, in fact, a terrific fuck. He looked more confident these days, more mature. He wore a new sweater in a bold zigzag pattern; Natalie had smartened him up. There was a sharper definition to his face; men looked like that at work, when they had just been promoted. Ah, and the way he gazed at Natalie as she brought over his lemonade! It was a look of such naked adoration, such rapture, that they felt intruders, even to be in the same room.

A big bloke was singing ‘Love Me Tender' way off-key. Natalie sat down next to Colin and ruffled his hair. He took her hand.

‘You've got a lovely voice,' he said.

‘It's crap,' she said, ‘but you're sweet.' She laid her head on his shoulder and hummed, ‘
I did it my way
 . . .'

Farida, also recently married, sat down next to her.

‘How are you two getting on?' Natalie asked.

The recent months had also changed Farida. Her girlishness had disappeared; she had become dignified and distant. She
answered politely that she and Bashir were getting on very well.

‘Remember us talking about it?' asked Natalie. ‘How it's all a lottery?'

‘What is?'

‘How love comes later, you've got to work at it?'

Farida looked blank. Wincing at Natalie's cigarette smoke – she had given that up now – Farida sat there, composed, her hands in her lap.

These sort of conversations embarrassed Colin. He turned to Natalie and said: ‘When you're ready, love, we better make a move. Big day tomorrow.'

Driving home, Colin ventured to mention something that had been on his mind. ‘We got to pull in our belts, Nat,' he said. ‘What with all the expense coming up. It's different in a house, see, there's the bills and putting down a deposit on the settee.' He added, with pride: ‘There's a lot of hidden expenditure when you own your own home.'

‘Don't worry about that.' Natalie sat beside him, her hands clasped around her knees.

‘But we've been spending money like nobody's business. Drinks all round, the stuff you've been buying me . . . it's ever so generous of you but I don't reckon we should—'

‘We'll be fine.'

He indicated the seat belt. ‘Buckle up, love.' He drove out of the city centre, across the river and down the Dewsbury Road. ‘I mean to say, where does it all come from?'

‘I told you, they paid me another bonus.'

‘But they paid you one already, last month.'

‘NT's doing really well. Retail outlets and shit, it's expanding all over the place. They're really aggressive with marketing.' She spoke with breezy authority. ‘We're seeing off the competition, Stumps, we're even putting the wind up BT, and know why?' She polished an imaginary lapel. ‘Because of us, me and my mates. We're the ones that keep it going, not that they'd notice, the bastards. You should see their profit margins.'

Colin was impressed. He had no head for business, it was all beyond him.

She ruffled his hair. ‘We're happy, aren't we? Isn't that all that matters?'

Colin's heart was full. He nodded.

The next day they moved into their new home. Colin stood in the back bedroom. It was a small white room; it smelt of fresh paint. It smelt of the future, of infinite possibilities. Outside, the sun blazed; it was only March but it felt like the first day of spring. Beyond his back garden lay the small muddy squares of other gardens. Some had been turfed and planted; some of the houses backing on to theirs were already occupied, while others had SOLD signs stuck to their windows. The houses, though detached, were packed close together; you could barely slip a knife between them. Colin liked this. He felt companioned in his happiness.

The new development was out on the Selby Road, near the Temple Newsam golf course. Two models of homes were available: the Commodore (Tudor style) and the Burlington (more Georgian). Theirs was a Burlington. One day, Colin thought, he was going to wake up. He would find himself back in Rowton Crescent, back in the lounge with his mam, the clock ticking and his only future the false dawn of the convector fire's radiant glow. He still couldn't believe that this house belonged to him and Natalie, that she was downstairs, putting their new pots and pans into the kitchen (he could hear the clatter). That she loved him, and was living with him. What had he done to deserve this? He had always been slow, teachers jiggling impatiently; the speed of what had happened took his breath away. He still hadn't caught up with himself.

Colin stood at the window. Maybe none of this existed. After all, a year ago it hadn't. A year ago, none of these houses had been built. This place was the grounds of an old mansion, now a conference centre. It was overgrown shrubberies, then, and secret places. When Colin was a boy he used to explore here,
slashing at nettles with his stick and collecting frogspawn from the pond which, if he remembered correctly, now lay somewhere beneath the turning area for numbers 15–21. The whole place had been concreted over.

The same process seemed to have happened to his life. The dazzling appearance of Natalie (oh, that towel!) had obliterated his past. He still went to work, of course, and returned to Rowton Crescent to visit his mother and feed his livestock, which would soon be removed to his new home when he had prepared their living quarters. But all that seemed strangely irrelevant. Even his reptiles (which Natalie called his pets, though they weren't pets, they were wild creatures which he was privileged to tend), even they felt distanced from him. They were like pupils whose teacher has lost interest in them once he has a family of his own.

He heard the bare boards creak as Natalie came up the stairs. She put her put her arms around him. ‘Our first day,' she said.

He crushed her thin body against his. ‘Happy?'

She nodded, her hair rubbing against his face.

‘I was thinking, this could be baby's room,' he said. ‘When we have one.' Disentangling himself, he gestured around. ‘I could make a cot and a little cupboard, I'm handy with my hands.'

‘Hang on, Colin,' she said. ‘It's a bit early for that.'

‘Don't you want a family?'

‘Aren't we happy just as we are?'

‘You said you wanted children,' he said. ‘I can look after you, now we're settled. You could give up your job.'

‘Give it up?' She looked at him.

‘You're always complaining—'

‘I'm liking it more now.'

‘Why?'

She paused. ‘I just am.'

She blushed. He had seldom seen her blush; the pink bloomed beneath her freckles. Maybe he had introduced the subject too abruptly; he hadn't had any practice in this, in any of it.

‘Anyway, I've
got
you a baby.' She took his hand and led him out of the room.

Baffled, he followed her downstairs. They went into the lounge. Amongst the piles of belongings – suitcases and bulging bin liners – stood a cardboard box.

‘Open it,' she said.

He pulled open the flaps. Inside, curled in straw, lay a python.

‘That's our baby,' she said.

It lay there, its great flanks wedged against the side of the box. Its blond skin was patterned with the palest zigzags – olive green, yellow. It was curled tight; when it started to move, its skin slid in two directions like traffic on the motorway.

Colin, his mouth hanging open, stared at it. Slowly it raised its small, shapely head and looked at him, its tongue flicking.

A reticulated python. An
albino
reticulated python. So rare were they, so precious, that they seldom came on the market. It was a perfect specimen – two years old, he would guess, still a juvenile.

‘Natty . . .' His voice croaked; he cleared his throat. ‘I don't believe it . . .'

‘Like it? She's a female, they said, two years old.'

He couldn't speak. The beauty of the snake moved him profoundly. What touched his heart, however, was Natalie. He had had a suspicion that she wasn't as keen on reptiles as he had believed; after that first day she had expressed little interest in talking about them. What a dolt he had been.

‘I told you I liked snakes.' Smiling, she unzipped his fly.

‘Natalie—'

‘Got a nice big one in here?' Her fingers slid in; they caressed him through his underpants.

Colin was a modest young man. Living with Natalie had loosened some of his inhibitions but he suddenly thought: What if my mam came in now? This was stupid, of course; she didn't even live here.

‘Come on,' said Natalie. ‘Let's christen our bed.'

‘But the bloke will be delivering the settee. Saturday p.m., he said.'

‘Fuck that.'

She led him upstairs to the master bedroom where their new brass bed waited. She had driven to Sweet Dreams, just like that, and bought it. No instalments, nothing. She pushed him on to the mattress.

‘And we got to fetch another vanload—' he began.

Straddling him, she stopped his words with her mouth.

‘. . .
presenting the latest government initiatives to tackle crime
 . . .' said the radio. Natalie sped along the motorway. It was April, and she was on her way to work. ‘
The most recent figures show that throughout Britain the crime rate is rising
 . . .'

Natalie was in high spirits. It was a beautiful day. The cassettes, warmed by the sun, lay in a heap on the passenger seat. She picked up O-Zone – she had bought their latest – and slotted it in.

‘
Giveittome giveittome giveittome
 . . .'

Natalie shouted along with Damon; the music thumped. Unlike her husband, she was not a country lover. During their walk back in December, she had practically frozen to death. This was how the moors should be seen: at speed, from a car, with the sunroof open and O-Zone belting out at volume 23. In the valleys stood empty mill buildings, their rows of windows glittering in the sun. People had left this area in droves and who could blame them? Here and there, amongst the trees, vast chimneys rose up. She thought: They look like penises sprouting through pubic hair.