Authors: Jonathan Gash
The light was fading in Clint’s bedroom.
Linda had gone. Manuela was singing in the kitchen. He liked to hear it. Sometimes it stopped.
Manuela had told him to go upstairs and watch TV. It happened when the moustache man Hessoo was outside in an old truck looking at motors, no,
automobiles
.
Only when he’d started school, when hard winds blew and Mom started saying things about winter, did Clint guess that Manuela wanted him out of her kitchen after a pickup went past that you hadn’t to call a motor. It went down the road then came back and Manuela told him pretty smart to go and watch TV.
Clint liked Manuela. He liked the little jokey boy who came every time the truck went slow past the house. It came from the lakeside. Clint knew that because he’d seen it when walking with Roz. He’d asked Roz about it once and she didn’t know, but grown-up people told you wrong things on account of you being a kid.
The falling boy hung back as the man got out of the truck, and the little boy always looked up to see if Clint was watching him from the window.
Then the falling boy would wait until his daddy Hessoo went in front and he’d stumble on the sidewalk. It was the same joke. Clint always laughed aloud behind his curtains, no, drapes, and watched them slip in through Manuela’s door.
Clint liked the joking game. It was a pretend.
The man had darker skin than Manuela. Eventually Clint knew to call them Mexicans, and heard the word wetbacks. They had to pretend they didn’t know Manuela at all, when all the time the darker man was Manuela’s daddy and she was the laughing boy’s mummy. Just like Pop was Mom and Clint was their kid.
He knew right off that Manuela would say she didn’t know the jokey boy. She pretended, so as not to spoil the game. Clint thought it wasn’t much of a game, but they thought it was so that was fine. Cool, he said now. It was cool.
The first days at school were only adjustment.
Clint’s introductory report was glowing, if weak in some subjects. Mrs Daley’s summary sent Mom into raptures.
“It’s been a complete success, Hyme! He’ll be fifth in the whole class!”
No doubt about it, Pop was fond of the boy. He’d soon go to a school game. Seeing him walk the lakeshore with Clint was a pleasure. Much of it was, Pop knew, his own adjustment to fatherhood. He had to work at it. Worth every cent.
Doctor finally withdrew the medication. No need any longer. Linda Hunger was in there housekeeping, fine by Pop because Mom needed help around the place. They had a gardener, a Tijuana Tourist like people in Tain called
immigrant workers. Manuela took on four other temporary women whenever Mom decided to throw a dinner. A firm sent extra help over for Mrs Hunger. Clint accepted his place, his family.
Everything worked.
There was still a hidden cost. Doctor came up from his Florida clinic monthly, and Linda Hunger went to the hotel. Pop picked up the tab, so he knew to the dollar. Enterprise meant after sales services. Pop chuckled at that. He did a little, back east.
Clint was the success, so the future was assured.
After Gilson Mather’s workshop, Mr Maddy’s firm seemed gigantic. He met them in the foyer.
“I’m only a dogsbody,” he said, leading them through a succession of plush offices.
Except, secretaries beamed and showed the man deference. They also exchanged looks as the
rough-looking
girl and the workman passed by. Mr Maddy’s office bore the title General Manager Development.
“Kylee,” he said affably. “You’re not alone with your reading difficulty. We’ve got others here the same. Grampa explained.”
Kylee said evenly, looking at Bray, who reddened, “Grampa did, did he?”
“I’d like to talk about computers, how far you’ve got. Is that all right?”
Kylee remained standing and wandered to the window. “I get fed up.”
“Oh. Right. We find workers with your, ah, very rewarding.”
“Gerron with it.”
Maddy laughed, raising his eyebrows at Bray. “You’re
certainly direct. Now, systems. What can you do with a computer?”
“Time they got fluid. Conduction’s asking for it.”
The manager stared at her. “It is?”
“You make them talk like wankers. Fucking waste of space.”
Mr Maddy coloured and said coldly, “I developed some of those, miss.”
“Costs the earth for fuck all except a load er strife. Some old git sits down, the CD’s like a dod, talk-in all week. What good’s that?”
Bray listened, uncomprehending.
Mr Maddy eyed her, frowning. “Then what would be better?”
“Folk don’t know any different. Any voice, no read. Do it fluid. Bugger crystallines at first, or you blam recursive. There’s got ter be a dozen fluids in line crystal, int there?”
“Ah, what kind?”
Kylee turned to Bray. “He’s fucking thick.” Her expression didn’t alter as she added, “Grampa, I’m frigging starving.”
Bray rose apologetically. “Sorry, Mr Maddy. Perhaps we’ll come on another…”
“Wait a moment. I’d like Kylee to meet one of our university development staff. He has ideas like Kylee’s.”
Kylee wandered and peered into rooms. Bray caught her up. She ignored hazard notices and sauntered into a laboratory. Maddy took Bray’s arm as Kylee watched a technician build a circuit board.
“We’ll just let her wander for a few minutes,” he said thoughtfully. “I have a feeling she’s in her natural environment.”
“Are you sure?”
“Autistic geniuses might just run in your family, Mr Charleston.”
“She has a heart of gold,” Bray said desperately. He felt helpless, wanting to bribe, coerce, anything so Kylee was saved from those unrelenting social people.
“Quite honestly, if she’s anything like she seems, I’ll take the risk.”
The following week Kylee received an offer from Mr Maddy of an associate scholarship in computer development, grade II. Bray worried about the documentation. Kylee replied with abuse, saying she could create any certificates anybody wanted. She finally accepted, “as long as I can keep coming here, ’kay?” Bray smiled and wrote her letter of acceptance, to start at Maddy’s firm in Halstead, fifteen miles away.
Drizzle needlessly affected the spirits, Bray used to tell people when the subject of weather came up. A bloke on the train complained that Bray must be a Buddhist, talking like that.
When he bought the anniversary cake he felt almost uplifted, though it wasn’t much of an anniversary. It was actually more a commemoration. Considering what he’d started with since the horror, he had come a distance. He had
progressed
.
The weeks were edging into months now. Doubt had become obstacles in a season’s turning, yet luck occasionally blessed him. Look at Kylee, who still jeered as she took his money. She was now a trusted, well, friend or something similar.
The cake was hard to manage on the crowded train home. Two women asked him what the cake was for – no disguising the cake box of an exalted confectioner’s. Shamefacedly, he’d said he was going to surprise a friend.
“She’s helped me quite a time,” he’d told them when pressed.
They said that was sweet.
“I don’t cook much,” he’d admitted. “Maybe I’ll get something in.”
That started them off, scandalous prices, supermarkets up to their dreadful games. They wished him luck as he alighted, quite as if he was off to some romantic coup.
Miraculously he caught a bus in the gloaming, its lights haloed by rain. Luck was with him. It was running late, saved him ten damp minutes. At home the porch light was on, Lottie’s signal that she was working in the shed.
He put the box on the kitchen table, shouted through the door and saw her bent over the computer. She heard him and waved. He went upstairs and spruced up more than usual.
Twenty minutes later he lit a candle, and called her.
“What’s this, Bray?” She appeared in the doorway.
He felt woefully embarrassed. “The best I could think up, I’m afraid. Sort of five-month anniversary.”
“Really? I’m touched.”
“Blow it out.” A knife, he’d forgotten a knife. “Tonight’s going to be in the wrong order. Cake first. It might have to count as a pudding. Then we go out for supper. Winstanley’s should be open.”
The little ceremony felt a failure after that. Bray became more solemn than he’d intended and Lottie seemed to absorb his mood. They sat. They each had a slice as if putting on a performance. Bray had to force his piece down. It was repellently sweet.
Winstanley’s was almost empty, something on television or maybe one of those rainy evenings where folk ached for bed.
“I won’t know what to do with the rest of that cake,” Bray confessed.
“It was a charming thought.”
“We have come far, haven’t we?” Put like that, Bray sounded disgracefully weak. “Since Kylee and Porky.”
“How is Kylee?”
They ordered. Bray worried about wine.
“She’s doing well at Maddy’s. Two weeks! That fax drives me mental.”
Kylee’s e-mails came intermittently, sometimes three a day. Porky was never mentioned now, though other youths occasionally came into her messages as “a laugh” or “a mate”.
“Stays with her aunt and uncle in Halstead. I wish she’d phone instead.” He tried to smile. “Too old fashioned.”
“Does she ever ask how we’re – how you’re – getting on?”
“No.” He put in defensively, “Kylee knows I wouldn’t be able to answer.”
“You would now, Bray. You haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?” Lottie wore her I-have-news look.
The time when he trembled at possible news had long since gone. Bray expected it would be something technical from Corkhill’s over the next KV volume. Like childhood games you threw a six and climbed a ladder.
“Did George say the setting was all right?”
In
The Triumph of KV
he had introduced a mystery. Brief as the rest. Bray had done a dozen rewrites only to find it finishing up exactly as he’d started.
“George liked it. We’re five hours ahead of America.”
So? Sometimes Lottie grew coy about the soaring sales figures, or another distributor taking the KV stories on.
“The series has been adopted.” She saw his incomprehension and touched his hand. “Their Department of Education has pooled us. KV is acceptable.”
He stared blankly at her. The waiter brought their starters.
“It’s what you aimed for, Bray.”
The candlelight blurred Lottie’s features.
“Your tales, Bray. Davey’s stories. They were very commendatory. We can add it to our publicity,
Advised reading for children
. You don’t understand the tide of responses on our e-mails,” she inserted neatly. “Genuine ones now. They add to the shoal of Kylee-generated falsehoods! That American distributor Candice is over the moon. She’s doing a release featuring Sharlene!”
“What does it mean?”
“It means an American TV contract is on the cards now.”
They sat in silence. Lottie started saying how Candice, their main USA distributor, had sent no fewer than seven exultant e-mails that morning.
“It’s tremendous news, Bray. I wondered if you’d heard at work. Playing about,” she added with a smile, “while I slogged.”
She worked at Gilson Mather two weekdays now, on the firm’s history.
“We’ll be flooded, Bray. Educationalists are all eager for copy.” She looked rather shamefaced. “That’s actually Candice’s phrase. Do we do it?”
“We do what?”
“Give Candice her head. Let her use the official reco – her term again. Sales should blast off. I really must abandon these Americanisms,” Lottie said as they sipped wine. “They’re catching. I did a sectional series of e-mails, Bray.”
“What are they?”
“Look.” Neither began the meal. Their waiter hovered.
“Go on like we are, we’ll improve, but
only
in sales.”
“Isn’t that the point?” His special evening was usurped, things spinning out of control.
“Partly. We must try new things every single day.”
“What did you do?” He was beginning to know her.
“I used Gilson Mather,” she said bluntly. “I’ve taken the addresses of the responses to Mr Winsarls’s survey, and used those.”
“You’ve
what
?”
“For the KV publicity. It was necessary, Bray.” She was defiant. “I’ve identified over a thousand American buyers of Gilson Mather’s restored antiques and reproduction furniture. I’ve sent details of the KV stories into the elementary schools in their areas, towns, districts. And the next thing.”
“Tell me.”
“Is everything all right, sir?” their waiter asked anxiously.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ve advertised a charity competition for educational purposes. You planned it, right? You and Kylee keep talking the mathematics. Children of Davey’s age. It will centre on the TV series. Link-in.”
“You…” He passed his hands in front of his eyes. “It’s too soon.”
“And I’ve done something else, Bray. I’ve promised all respondents a Sheraton repro, made by the senior joinery master at Gilson Mather’s, for the one connoisseur who can get our KV stories accepted in most local schools. As an aid to anti-illiteracy campaigns.”
Bray stared, aghast. “Does Mr Winsarls know this?”
“No.”
“Lottie, it’s exploiting the firm’s trust!”
“I know,” she said blithely. “Your idea was a competition based on the books. We just shift it to TV!” She started her meal. “You’re missing the point, Bray. Speed!”
He said faintly, “We’re running amok, Lottie.”
“Bray, darling,” she said without contrition, “eat your meal. It’s lovely.”
“My Garvan piece is going to be the prize. But how to explain the one of the firm’s own pieces to Mr Winsarls?”
“It will cost the firm next to nothing! Let Gilson Mather take the credit for helping education.”
He saw her earnest expression. She said levelly, “George Corkhill can be trusted. He’ll not let anything slip to Mr Winsarls. There is a problem, though.”
“There is?”
“The person we never speak of is your stepsister Sharlene. Authoress,” she said drily, “of the KV stories. She doesn’t really exist, does she?”
It took some time before he managed, “No.”
“You made her up.”
“Yes.”
“Necessary.” She nodded, enjoying herself immensely. He couldn’t make her out, when he’d thought he knew her quite well. Was she glad Sharlene was a figment? “I can see that. You couldn’t do this alone, or the child stealers would spot you and move on. So you invented Sharlene.”
“I had to.” He was surprised she didn’t seem at all offended.
“Of course you had!” Her smile returned. “I guessed a month ago. Face it, Bray. I’m your ally. I’m in with you, however long it takes.”
“Like Kylee said?” The girl had been bitter about Lottie.
“Exactly.”
“Thank you.”
He thought a moment, and added that he’d better let George Corkhill know that Lottie was virtually a partner. She laughed at that, eventually having to dab her eyes, whining about her mascara.
“George has known ever since I came!” she told Bray, still laughing. “It’s become a standing joke at the printer’s!” Bray failed to see the humour. “I can be Sharlene, Bray, if it comes to it. Except I’m appallingly healthy for my advanced age!”
For a while he felt almost betrayed, the way she had pretended to be taken in. By the end of the evening he had come round. After all, she had only done as he intended. They discussed ways of exploiting the newfound success and the problem of getting round the absence of Sharlene S. Trayer.
Bray was apprehensive about any TV series. Lottie said it would be a hoot.
“Anything on a TV screen about KV is on our side, Bray,” she concluded. “Look at it like that.”