Flying Under Bridges (39 page)

Lawrence
climbed down into the water and stood with his arms spread wide. ‘Who does the
Lord call next?’ His voice echoed across the white and aquamarine tiles. There
was a short silence as no one, weighed down as they were with modesty lead, seemed
to be able to move very fast towards him. I thought the air of reluctance it
gave to the proceedings was unfortunate. Lawrence stood unmoved in the shallow
end, looking relentlessly holy while the converts pulled and dragged their
frocks behind them like hunchbacks of Notre Dame clanking their way to the
Lord. It gave the visiting crowd time to pick out our loved ones. Shirley was
about halfway down the line of women. Most of the converts had their locker key
on a red rubber band around their wrist, which I thought was a nice local touch
but it got a bad mention in the paper.

I think
the municipal people, who had run the baths for years, had handed the place
over on the understanding that all the usual rules should apply. Not that there
was any danger of anyone running along the side of the pool in those frocks,
but the church had retained old Lionel Stone to stand in as lifeguard. The trouble
was that I don’t think anyone had really explained to Lionel exactly what the
event was. Not that there would have been much point. He was so old and
extremely deaf. I think they’d tried to fire him twice but he didn’t hear a
word they said. Anyway, everyone had clunked forward and got into the shallow
end. They stood in a large semi-circle around Lawrence waiting for their
moment.

As
Lawrence raised his hands again and called for a ‘Sign From The Lord’, Lionel
leant forward and switched on the wave machine. For a brief moment it was
rather lovely as the water swirled around all those white dresses, but then the
machine rather gathered momentum and things got out of hand. Quite a number of
the believers went down in the uneven battle with their fish weights and
Lawrence was lost from view entirely until a freak wave suddenly swept him
forward and up under the lowest diving board. It took a while to restore order
after that and I did feel the ceremony was a bit rushed in the end.., after the
paramedics left.

Shirley
looked lovely but I can’t say I was really impressed. I mean, she may have gone
into the water with the Lord but she came out with a verruca. They don’t burn
them out any more like Matron used to at school. Verrucas. Apparently they’re
caused by a virus and they just let them fester.

‘You
haven’t got children, have you?’ I say to the barrister. Clearly nothing could
be further from her ambitious mind.

‘No,’
she says firmly.

It’s a
funny feeling watching your life’s work walk into the shallow end away from
you. I had had such dreams for Shirley. I’d have dug escape tunnels with my
bare hands if it would have got her out of Edenford. Oh, not that it’s a bad place,
it’s just that I wanted her to do all the things I’d never dared. Travel the
world and not just a week in Devon on full board with a guaranteed menu. It’s
my fault really. I kept telling her that we only come this way once and she
must look for something special. I wanted her to get swept off her feet but not
by a wave machine. I longed for her to fall so desperately in love that she
could hardly bear to tell me, her own mother. All those years I sat in peeling
corridors listening to the ballet music or the drama lesson muffled behind
closed doors and I didn’t mind because it was worth it. Because her life was
going to mean something. And, of course, it did. I mean, Shirley was very
popular at the church. You have to tell her how proud I am of her. It’s just
that I kept looking at her that day and trying to think ‘That’s my girl’,
except it wasn’t. It was some young woman with a vacant glare in her eye,
weighed down by fish weights and contracting a pedimental infection. I was
trying to do something with my life but I had a son who talked to the animals,
a daughter living for the afterlife and a husband devoted to the Estée Lauder
counter at Boots.

We went
for a drink at the Crown and Anchor.

‘John
and I are moving in together,’ announced my wet-haired child. I had another
drink.

Under
Suspicion

A
friend loves at all times.

(PROVERBS
17.17)

There is a new line of
enquiry from everyone. It’s about my friendship with you, Inge.

‘You
spent a lot of time with her, didn’t you?’ enquires Big Nose.

‘She
was my friend.’

‘And
you were very fond of her …’ We leave my fondness hanging in the air. It is
what everyone wanted to think. Any woman lacking economic and emotional
dependence upon a male must be deviant. It cannot be right. If I am to ‘get off’
then I must be feminine. I must be rehabilitated to the heart of my family. The
female heart of my family. Being a criminal is a boy’s thing. Female criminals
are either not women or not criminals. I think they are beginning to think I am
bad, so now perhaps it would be best if I were not a real woman.

I don’t
say so but I am beginning to think that psychiatry is nothing but a con trick.
You go along to the learned to get help because you feel upset or confused or
unhappy, and the Big Nose you’ve been assigned beavers away until he finds that
the cause of the problem is you. Not the world. It’s you and that’s because it’s
much easier to try to change you than to change the way things are.

Tom
took Claudette from me when she died and took her upstairs. He spent night and
day working on her, returning her to the feline poses of her past. I was
pleased that it gave him something to do but I didn’t go up to his room for
ages. I never liked the cat but I couldn’t stand to see her splayed open all
over a work mat. Tom was fixing her eyes in when I took him coffee one morning.

‘Where
do you suppose cats go in the afterlife?’ I asked him.

‘I don’t
know but they go somewhere,’ replied Tom confidently.

‘How do
you know that?’

‘Because
a soul is the energy and fire of a creature and you can’t destroy energy. That’s
basic physics. I cut all my animals open and I look and look and the one thing
I never find in any of them is their soul, but I know it used to be there. It
has to have gone somewhere, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s
cold for you in here,’ I said, because I was his mother. ‘You should shut the
window.’

Tom
shook his head. ‘No. Winter’s coming and that’s okay. People don’t live with
the weather any more. They make it hot inside when it’s cold out and cold when
it’s hot. It doesn’t make sense.’ I put down the coffee and Tom took my hand.
He never really touched me so I was rather shocked.

‘Mum,
you will mind John, John Antrobus, won’t you?’

‘What
do you mean?’

‘Just
be careful.’

‘He’s
all right. I mean, we don’t see eye to eye but he…’

Tom let
go of my hand and turned back to Claudette’s empty eyes. ‘Shirley thinks I
waste my time,’ he said, shoving some Blu-Tack in the eye socket. ‘But I don’t.
I am safe here.’

‘Safe
from what?’

‘The
Bala-puthijjana — the masses of foolish people.’

I
watched Tom working for a bit. I knew Adam blamed me. Tom wasn’t the things he
was supposed to be. He wasn’t a Centurion — strong, tough, assertive,
aggressive, competitive…

Was it
because I had been soft on him? Or did Adam despair because he showed no
inclination to spread his seed? He made stuffed babies not real ones.

Tom was
whistling softly while he moulded Claudette back to life. His hands defied
their design. They were intended as grasping instruments for man but he made
them bring life to the dead. I watched his mouth — teeth, tongue, lips so
obviously intended for eating but now whistling one of my favourite songs. A
lot of people in town had been busy saying what things were contrary to nature
and I understood none of it.

I was
drowning, drowning in the desert, but I had things to do. Adam was walking
round and round the kitchen in his new high heels. He was getting in a positive
lather about his number. Taking it much too seriously. He had reached the stage
where he couldn’t seem to do anything without doing huge hand movements and
looking very wide-eyed.

I went
out into the garage to sort my things. Another two bags of stuff had just
arrived from Bernice, who was well known in town for her interesting jumble. I
needed to get them sorted into my different boxes. I think I could have done a
survey on what people have spare in their food cupboards. Nearly everyone seems
to have an unopened jar of black olives, one of those flat tins of sardines and
an awful lot of rice pudding. Our garage was quite full now and people had
even started dropping round, quite out of the blue, with bin liners of old
sweaters. The lease on the charity shop had run out and no one really had the
energy to find somewhere else, so my garage was one of the few places in
Edenford that would take unwashed jumble. I must confess I found the collecting
rather thrilling. There was even talk of me being interviewed for the
Eden
ford Gazette.
I’d only ever been in it once before when the Duchess of
Gloucester opened the spectacle factory and I happened to be passing her left
shoulder when the picture was taken. Not that I was doing this for myself. The
garage was nearly full now with some amazing things.

‘All
for the refugees?’ Adam asked.

‘Well,
partly to give to them and partly to sell to raise money. Although I did think
the two skateboards would probably be best going to the scouts.’

It was
amazing what people threw away. What they had spare.

Fact
—
the United Sates contains eight per cent of the world’s
population and yet uses twenty-five per cent of its resources. Prosperity and
comfort of the few at the expense of the many.

Of
course, Adam was not happy. He knew Horace had been round to ask me to stop. He
said it looked very bad but I didn’t care. I was determined. He had his singing
with Shirley and I was having my refugees. I was very preoccupied with my work.
I had seen on the news that there was a problem with transporting the refugees
from Dover and it had kept me awake. I tried various organisations but they all
seemed very expensive and then I thought of Stuart Packer, who does small deliveries
and cheap home removals. He’d not married and since his mother had died he hadn’t
got much to do. He got quite excited about getting involved but said his truck
had developed an odd clunking noise and he was worried about it breaking down.

Well, it
was like a light bulb went on over my head. My book from the AA and my free
socket set. We spent a lovely couple of hours with our heads under the bonnet
and fixed the old girl up straight away. We agreed that as soon as I had a
place for the families we would be on our way.

‘I
never thought I’d be doing something important,’ grinned Stuart, with bits of
grease all over his face. It was lovely. We were both so pleased.

I told
Adam and I can’t say he took it well. He and I had one of his ‘long talks’. He kept
saying things like, ‘As sure as eggs are eggs this whole thing is a mistake,’
and I kept wishing he wouldn’t use expressions like that. I mean, what else are
eggs going to be? I couldn’t concentrate and kept thinking if he so much as
mentioned that something was ‘cheap at half the price’, I was going to hit him.

I think
that was how we got on to the money. Adam wanted to know how I was planning to
pay for the petrol for Stuart’s van. Well, I realised I hadn’t even thought
about it and Adam must have seen me go all blank because he leant across the
table and spoke firmly at me the way he does with new sales staff. ‘In all good
conscience, I can’t let you have a penny for this nonsense.’

I
looked at Adam and I wondered what he wanted from me. One minute I was supposed
to let him make all the decisions, and the next I was supposed to cope with
Tom, Shirley, Mother and the house. A sort of blend between a fragile poodle
and a Rottweiler. Adam knew I was unhappy and he was not an unkind man. He
reached over and stroked my shoulder.

‘I tell
you what, you stop this charity thing for me and as soon as I’ve won the
election we’ll go on a lovely holiday. Spend some time alone.’

Great
idea, I thought. We could go to Romania. There’s hardly anybody living there
any more.

Adam
got up to deal with his avocado plants. I sat looking at the pot plant on the
kitchen windowsill. The speculum had reappeared. He’d used it to mend the
spout on his indoor watering can. Now he tended his beloved plants with it. I
didn’t like to tell him where it had been. Soon Adam went off to practise in
the spare room. Music soared down the stairs. Weeks and weeks of Shirley Bassey
just so the golf club could raise money for some driving-range mats. I was
tempted to pay for them myself except, of course, I didn’t have any money.

I knew
I ought to put Adam first. It was my duty. It was what I did — putting everyone
else first. Adam didn’t want me to be subservient, that’s what he would tell
you. He just thought I should do it his way. Women are subservient to men
because they made men disobey God. Bloody Eve. Bloody, bloody Eve.