Authors: Jonathan Gash
Clint took the arrival of a teacher without anxiety.
Roz Saston came recommended by a leading agency. Highly qualified, she stood up well to Mom and Pop’s exhaustive interview, conscious of the fantastic salary. She was ambitious, seeking tenure at the prestigious Gandulfo-Meegeren Foundation, the best anywhere.
“It’s a question of Clint’s recovery,” Mom told her over iced tea.
“Was it very traumatic?”
Mom liked the woman’s sympathy, but she wasn’t fooled. The teacher was plying for hire, so needed the money. Doctor’s guidance: measure your words. Measure, weigh, sift. “The equation equals safety,” Doctor repeated, “and the boy is yours for ever.” He’d made them write it down, an edict from the infallible expert.
“You’ve no idea,” Mom sighed.
“How long ago was it?”
“Three months since he left hospital. Clint is fine physically. Doctor says he will do well in the right hands.”
Mom let the barb settle.
Roz Saston was the third candidate. The first had been
too bossy for her own good. The second, dark to the point of swarthiness, was highly qualified but unable to look Mom in the eye. Something amiss there. You couldn’t be too careful. You heard such horrendous tales.
Roz Saston had married young and raised two children. She’d brought snapshots. Her husband was in accounts. Still wed, the offspring in university. Make-up sparse, hair compact, smart skirt, the twinset modest rather than prissy, said she believed in family values. And her references were in order. And yes, she could stay late, given sufficient notice.
Roz Saston gone, Mom phoned the referees for lengthy converse.
“Is she too good to be true?” Hyme asked, getting Clodie’s account.
“I’m still checking.”
“Use that investigation agency. References can be falsified. It’s done in business. Remember that Savings and Loan?”
Clint sat quietly watching baseball on television. His medication was almost withdrawn now. Every day they took him out, the aquarium, sporting events, a school now and again. They’d daringly called on a head teacher while Clint talked with other children. (“Hey, don’t you talk pretty!” one little girl exclaimed to Clint, making him go red.) Clint asked if he would go to school.
Mom and Pop promised soon, soon. Doctor had to make sure he was completely better. Clint would have a private teacher at home first.
There was no doubt, Clint was beginning to develop interests. He would watch the fountains in the public gardens for as long as they’d let him, hours at a time. And the stonework carvings at City Hall particularly appealed,
depicting machines and agriculture of the Twenties. When they reached home after those outings, the boy seemed tired, and once fell into such a prolonged sleep that Mom phoned Doctor in alarm. Doctor promised to make a domiciliary visit once the new home tutor was into a routine. For extra fees, of course.
The new teacher’s duties began the week after. She and Clint got on well. She accepted Mom’s list of proscribed topics and words. Mom listened to the teacher’s first lessons, recording them exactly as Doctor instructed and posting the tapes off to his clinic. Sentimentally, eyes glistening, Mom made duplicate tapes of her own little boy to play over in years to come.
When, after a fortnight, Clint began to write and draw, Roz Saston was over the moon, and asked Mom’s permission to write a monograph about Clint for the local teachers’ association. Mom flatly refused, insisting on absolute confidentiality.
Roz was immediately contrite and withdrew the request.
“You’re right. I got carried away. It’s such a delight to find a child so willing. You have a real talented boy there!”
“Haven’t we just!” Mom said fondly.
That night, as Clint slept and Hyme clicked the TV, Mom wept for joy. She had “a real talented boy”. It was official, decided by a real educationalist. She told Hyme, but he was going wild at the bastards on CNBC too lazy to give him the stock prices he really needed. She glowed, positively glowed.
Bray knew how fractious he’d been. He worked steadily, missing his breaks. He’d brought an apple, and two banana sandwiches curled at the edges. Women could wrap them
so they kept shape, some gift women had. He couldn’t. He ate them anyway.
Worse, he made a serious mistake. In front of two students, he absently took up a millwright chisel when working an unusually figured piece of Chi wood from Central America. He realised his mistake even as he made the stroke. The sound of the split resounded through the workshop. He turned, red-faced, to see Billie Edgeworth frozen and Curly and Natalie, two college observers, idly wondering why the older craftsmen were all glancing at each other.
“I’m sorry. Natalie and Curly, please come and see.”
Work resumed as he began to point out his ghastly error. He also called Loggo and Suzanne over, the more the merrier.
“Chi wood,” he began, showing them his error as they clustered round. “There is a Chinese variant, but this is New World. You notice it seems a shade reddish as you tilt it? Yet it’s known as Golden Spoon.”
They looked at him. He tried to simulate his usual animation, but the revelations he planned to make to Kylee oppressed him.
Natalie asked, “Are you okay, Mr Charleston?”
“Thank you, yes. I admire woods that are hard and weighty. We call them hearty in the trade. See this has a roey grain, like roe? Makes the wood difficult to bring to a lovely level finish. Chi wood is never huge, which is an extra difficulty.”
“Is that it?” Curly asked. “Why the fuss?”
Bray came to. He must have had a blank moment. Harry Diggins lurked nearby, ready with some invented message just in case.
“I was wondering how to explain my mistake.” He
looked round at their faces. “I used a millwright chisel instead of a paring tool. It is unforgivable. See the split? Its coarse texture invites catastrophe. My sloppiness has damaged the wood.”
“We’ve got some more.” Suzanne pointed to the sleeve stocks. “It’s only middling price, yeah?”
“Be that as it may, Suzanne, I still ruined a beautiful length of
Byrsonima crassiflora
. I shall enter it in the book.”
He went to tell Mr Winsarls. As he tiredly climbed to the owner’s office, he saw James Coldren, a fellow master craftsman, stroll across to inspect the calamity on Bray’s workbench. And he heard Curly say to Natalie, copying, “Be that as it may…” A joke.
He confessed his mistake to Mr Winsarls, who dismissed the incident.
“Bray. You’re the only master who still keeps a book of errors. Nobody else would as much as notice the flaw.”
“I shall stay late and see if I can eliminate it, Mr Winsarls.”
The owner watched him thoughtfully all the way down to the workshop floor.
That evening Bray was two hours late reaching home. He got a hero’s welcome from Buster, and found that Kylee had left a message saying she’d gone with Porky to the Three Bells pub.
He fed the dog, got his lead and walked to Harrow Road. He found the pair in the public bar and signalled. Dogs were not admitted. They came out to join him.
“Look,” he said. “I’m afraid I need help. I’m going to tell you what I plan. I’ll put money over the bar for you, Porky, if you’d rather wait inside?”
“Bray means fuck off,” Kylee told Porky. “It’s summat
secret. Play snooker. Bray, bring some grub out here. I’m fucking starving.”
Which was how the ruinous day drew in, Bray sitting with the girl in the garden shelter of the Three Bells while Buster ate a meat and potato pie by their feet.
“Kylee. Can you keep this just between us?”
“Cops, is it? Money?” She cackled her laugh. “Wrong way round innit? You the hood and me frigging holy?”
He drew breath. He dared not be wrong. “Not tell anyone, Porky or anybody else?”
“’Kay.”
“My grandson, Davey,” he said, braving the words. “He was…taken. Abducted. I hope to find him.”
“Nicked? Rotten fuckers. Where?”
“I don’t know. Nothing’s been any use. Except you.”
“Me? How me?” she demanded, belligerent.
“You’ll know a way to find him. I think you can do it.”
“How?”
He was a long time answering. “Through you, Kylee.” Buster finished his pie, looked hopefully up, and sank for a nap. Kylee rubbed the dog’s head.
“This book thing? That it?”
He observed her. Kylee usually meant she was disgusted with him for some reason.
“It’s all I could think of.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“No. So I want you to work out a competition. About the characters in the books and what they do. I’ve written some questions, with answers.”
She nodded. “You shrewd old cunt. What if nobody takes any notice?”
“Maybe somebody will.”
They held silence. Buster scratched, heading into a
sleep. Bray was unable to eat the bar sandwiches. Buster might want them. Geoffrey was always on about wrong food for the dog, but what could you do?
“There’s some trick in the books,” she asked finally. “Davey knows, but nobody else?”
“That’s it.” He was relieved she’d got it.
“What?”
“It’s clues. I only have four. Not even Geoffrey or Shirley knows them. Only Davey can get the answers right. I’ll need a statistician.”
“Bollocks,” Kylee said rudely. “You fucking well won’t. They’re ignorant cunts. I’ll do it. Look.” She sipped from his glass, grimaced. “Don’t tell anybody the answers, and you’ve no problem.”
“How?” This was his worry. He had the bow, had the arrow, and neither would fit.
“Easy-peasy.”
“I don’t think you understand, Kylee. When the time comes to set the competition, there might be thousands and thousands of Internet replies, e-mail, whatever. Shoals. And maybe Davey won’t even get to see the books anyway. It’s a million-to-one chance —”
“It’s no problem, you stupid old fart.” She finished his glass. “This tastes like pus.”
He was past worrying about the girl’s drinking age. “I can set four questions. I’ll promise a massive prize, so schools will answer. Very valuable. No,” he interjected quickly to forestall her, “I don’t know what, but it will be rare. If I get that far.”
“Look,” she said, suddenly angry. “Don’t keep giving me this
if I ever
shit, okay? I knowed straight off you wus going for summat and wouldn’t give in, so less crap, okay? Pretend with everybody else, but it’s fucking pathetic wiv
me, yeah?”
“I apologise.” He looked away. “I am grateful.”
“One thing. No telling anybody the clues. No envelopes in lawyers’ offices.”
He marvelled, wondering what sort of life the suspicious girl had endured.
“I rather think,” he said awkwardly, “we’ll need a system of checking answers.”
“Test run.” She was now bored by his ignorance. “Take me an afternoon. That’s not the problem.”
“What is?”
“Getting rid of Porky. I’m fed up with the pillock.”
Bray exclaimed in alarm. He could see Porky stooping to play a shot at the snooker end of the tap room. What did one say? “Hasn’t he been of inordinate help?”
She guffawed, swaying. Buster woke with a start.
She appraised Bray. “You’re a weird old bugger, aincher? Like, part of you’s clued up, the other bit’s not got a fucking light on.”
He almost said thanks, as if for a compliment, before catching himself. It might have been an insult.
“Stop pissing yourself wondering if I’ll let you down.”
“I wasn’t,” he began nervously, but she cut in.
“You were. No bullshit. That’s what you said.”
Caught out, he nodded agreement.
“I’ll work it out for any number of answers. Try a system out, yeah? You make up four phoney questions for a test run. We’ll do random placement. Pi, that squiggle for diameters, works for randomness.”
“Does it?” He tried to follow. “Shouldn’t it be the less random the better?”
She inspected his glass. “Stick to your fucking planks. Get me another.”
He handed her Buster’s lead and fetched her a refill. When he returned, she’d eaten his sandwiches and sent him back for more. He brought them. Feed an ally.
Bray found himself telling her of his mistake at work. She was interested in the workshop youngsters, and was amazed they were only going to saw wood for the rest of their lives. She became abusive. He felt relief.
The living room was made ready for the first real teaching session.
Mom confided to Hyme during the night. “What if it’s a disaster?”
“Disaster how? With what for Chrissakes?”
Clodie spoke to the air above the bed. “Sleep in the same bed, eat off the same table,” her mother had lectured, “and marriage stands a chance. Wise is double shrewd. What a man is, forget.”
Well, Clodie tried, but business was always business and sometimes got in the way, sure, but lifestyle and money made up for it. Look at how it brought them Clint,
saved
from uncaring parents. Doctor’s word
transferred
was best.
“Clint
remembering
, Hyme!” she gave back.
“He doesn’t remember!” Hyme growled, sleep failing because of the Euro.
“Roz Saston might say something!”
“For Christ’s sweet sake, what?”
“Anything could set Clint’s little mind going!”
Hyme’s body rose in the sheets from exasperation.
“He
can’t
remember! Jesus, Clodie, how many times?
Didn’t Doctor promise, hand on his fucking heart?”
They calmed only when Pop agreed to let Mom postpone the first teaching session until Doctor could be induced to come and oversee.
Doctor, the expert, arrived Tuesday, and was given sumptuous accommodation in Tain’s best hotel. The following Thursday he was brought in a limousine to sit listening while Clint and Roz Saston set to work.
Clint knew there were others in the apartment.
Food came from Manuela in the kitchen. The dishes smelled of…he didn’t know what they smelled of. Shadows were missing at the bottom of the carpeted stairs because there were so many lights, and there was a thick round railing – wrong to say bannister. It was shiny.
Before TV time after dinner, which was when it started being not bright outside, you hadn’t to go downstairs any more because that was when Manuela talked in a language she brought from a long way off. Clint knew he might meet Hessoo there, who was a man with a moustache.
What was wrong with Hessoo?
Clint asked that once, causing Mom to go stiff and rush to the phone and call Pop at work. Clint had been scared for a bit, then it had been all right. Some questions made Mom do that.
Like the time he asked what the little boy was doing out on the grass with a pole near the pond. Clint was staring out of his window, and laughed when the boy almost slipped and fell. Mom had hurried him away and said not to take any notice.
Mom didn’t like questions.
That night his tablets changed their colour and Clint was glad because he hated the stinging medicine that
looked like oily water. Sometimes he started crying. But now he got pink tablets that were oval in shape, quite like a funny shape he’d forgotten.
There were purple ones he had to swallow, after the Rose Bowl talk-ins started on kids’ TV. They talked of numbers and players’ names that even Pop didn’t know and Pop was a clever man who made a lot of money so they could have a lovely home with Manuela downstairs to cook.
There was a joke.
The joke was the boy who’d fallen over, slid really, with the pole near the pool on the grass below the apartment windows when Clint was watching. He’d only pretended to tumble but really hadn’t. He did it to make Clint laugh at the window but Mom didn’t know that. Mom didn’t understand, not like…
Manuela, funny this, was noisy. Clint knew that because Mom told her off, saying it sharp so Manuela had to shut up but Manuela gave Clint a look that showed she wasn’t scared of Mom.
Manuela had a bag made of leather that smelled nice so Clint always wanted to look at it but Manuela wouldn’t let him. And the one time – say “once” and Mom got so worried it made her sick – the
one time
Clint said it right out in Manuela’s kitchen Manuela put the bag, not satchel, under a kitchen chair.
Manuela’s bottom was so fat she bumped into chairs so her frock (except Mom reminded Clint that frock wasn’t a word Manuela understood) so her
dress
swung from side to side when she mixed things in bowls fixing dinner.
Manuela was the jokey falling boy’s Mummy, Clint knew, but it was secret.
Manuela didn’t mind when Clint asked if she was the boy’s Mom. She laughed so much she almost crumpled and
then told him he was a smart cookie but not to say if he saw the jokey boy because that had been a mistake, okay? And Clint said okay.
Manuela made him say okay again and link little fingers with his other fingers pointed and she said, “You don even know that? My, you got some learnin to do!” Mom came and made him go upstairs because it was time for counting lessons on TV. Clint found some easy but some hard. Mrs Saston was his own teacher and soon he could go back to school with other children like usual.
Manuela stopped him asking why she never brought the little boy inside while she fixed meals. Manuela’s tellings off weren’t bad. Clint liked Manuela.
Manuela got scared when he asked was Hessoo the jokey boy’s daddy. She made him promise never to say that to Mom, or Manuela would have to go a long way away and never come back again. He promised hard because Manuela was scared.
He made his very best promise. Manuela stared and stared, then went quiet and never said anything for a long time after.
Manuela had been scared, Clint guessed, because he’d said Daddy instead of Pop when asking after Hessoo. Or maybe he’d promised in a wrong way? He said his best promise with his fingers as usual and Manuela’s eyes went wide, looking and looking. Then Mom called him and he’d gone upstairs and seen Manuela looking and not smiling.
Manuela let him make patterns in dough when she was baking.
Then Roz Saston came to do teaching and though Clint knew Mom’s friend was sitting listening in the next room where Pop sometimes copied numbers from CNN Clint didn’t mind.
He wished the jokey boy could be let inside so he could maybe play. Soon he would be going back to school if Mrs Saston was a good teacher like Mom said.
Kylee’s smoking was an embarrassment. Bray asked her not to use her small charring cigarettes. She didn’t reply for an hour, then erupted.
“Don’t pull such a miserable fucking face.”
“They can’t be healthy.” He’d made some fish paste sandwiches. “The scent lingers.”
“You’ll be telling me they’re illegal next.”
“Since you mention it,” he said drily. She began a tirade before she realised the joke. “Buster hates them.”
The golden retriever lay snoring under the porch.
“Tell him to stop smoking.”
“Did you manage,” Bray caught himself, remembering she couldn’t write, and quickly amended, “to work it out? I can’t see how we cut down all America to a few places.”
She shook her head in disbelief.
“Thicko. Suppose we get a hundred answers, ’kay? We ignore the common answers, ’kay? Cos we only want the weird answers, ’kay? They’re, let’s say, three out of a hundred.”
“Won’t there be more than a hundred?”
“Of course there fucking will,” she said, stone of face. She blew smoke down her nostrils. Even when Bray had smoked a pipe, he’d not been able to do that. “You’re thick, so I’m making it easy. Three per cent, ’kay? That’s to Question One. Then three per cent to Question Two. Same for Three and Four, ’kay?”
“Yes.” He wrote it in tabular form, four questions, three correct for each.
“Davey gives weird answers, yeah? Nobody else does.
Or else you chosed wrong questions.”
“Yes.”
“So what’s the odds?” She waited. “C’mon!”
“I don’t know. I’m —”
“Don’t say sorry. I can’t fucking stand it. It’s three per cent of three per cent over and over, innit?”
Laboriously she repeated it. “Jesus, you’re bone. It’s 81 in hundred million, innit? So’f we gets forty thousand answers and five per cent weirds, then Question One scores 2,000, yeah?”
Bray felt stricken. “Search two thousand towns?”
She almost hopped with fury. “You don’t
have
to. It goes down wiv every answer.”
Grumbling, she dictated the working step by step, her feet up on the table.
“See? The answer’s less than one, ’kay?” While she smoked another roll-up he went over the calculations. Her smokes burned with inordinate speed. “Got there, have yer? Nought-point-two-five?”
He stared at the arithmetic. It couldn’t be so simple, so clear.
“I’ll have to search less than one place?”
“You want fucking jam on it. Want a drag?” And when he shook his head said, “Welcome to Planet Earth, Grampa. Davey
has
to be in the last fraction.”
“I see.” He couldn’t, but nearly could. There seemed to be a definite sum with an answer that was Davey.
He could hardly make her out for a sudden blurring of his sight. He went to the standard lamp as if to read in a better light.
“When we’re in a right fucking mess,” she said, admonishing him like a child, “read them numbers through, yeah? Get your balls back.”
“Kylee.” He plotted phraseology, not wanting her in another berserk rage. “Can your numbers lie?”
“No,” she said evenly. “Only words do that.”
Recovering, he said, “Thank you.”
She was so certain. “No matter how big, they reduce by the weirdo fraction.”
“I’m sorry I’ve taken so long.”
She shrugged. “It’s fucking chancy, depends on your questions, yeah? Choose ones only Davey knows, we’re in. Choose wrong, the last fraction’ll be so fucking big we’ll still be hunting him when we’re ninety.”
“Thank you, Kylee,” he said. We, he thought; she said we.
“Time you learnt to fucking count, Thicko. Want a calculator cheap? It’ll be clean, not nicked.”
“Thank you, no,” he said politely. “I shall depend on you.”
“Remember your numbers for once, yeah?”
“Yeah.” His mimicked pronunciation almost made her smile.