Perfect (17 page)

‘If you’re selling stuff,’ he said, ‘you can clear off.’

Diana looked appalled. ‘No, no,’ she murmured. ‘We’re here on a private matter.’

Byron nodded to show how private it was.

She said, ‘It’s about your daughter.’

‘Jeanie?’ The man’s eyes flashed. ‘Is she all right?’

Diana glanced over her shoulder. A small group had assembled at the gate, the woman in the overalls and the youths from the wall, as well as several others. They watched with stony faces. ‘It would be much easier to explain inside.’

The man stood aside to let them pass. He closed the door and the smell was so wet and old Byron had to breathe through his mouth. The walls were not papered with stripes or flowers like Cranham House but instead a yellowing floral pattern that made him think of old ladies. Towards the ceiling it curled loose.

‘Beverley,’ he called up the stairs.

A thin voice answered. ‘What now, Walt?’

‘Visitors, Bev.’

‘What do you mean, visitors?’

‘People to see us. They want to talk about Jeanie.’ Turning to Diana he said softly, ‘She’s all right, isn’t she? I know she gets in trouble and everything but she’s a good girl.’

Diana couldn’t speak.

‘We’ll wait for Beverley,’ he said.

Pointing to a room to the left, he apologized. They got lots of women calling with those cosmetics, he said. ‘And women like nice things.’ Diana nodded to show she understood. Byron nodded too but he didn’t.

After the gloom of the narrow hall, the small sitting room was surprisingly clean and light. A selection of china ornaments was set at the window, kittens in baskets and baby koala bears on branches. The carpet was a floral pattern and the walls were papered with wood chip. There was no television set but there was an empty space where there had once been one, above which three plaster ducks took flight. To the left there was a
boxed record player with a selection of 45s in paper sleeves. Byron smiled at the women’s magazines on the coffee table, at the Whimsies on the windowsill, at the flying ducks and the frilled lampshade, feeling an overwhelming rush of kindness towards the items of furniture as well as their owners. A row of soft toys lined the leatherette sofa, some that he recognized like Snoopy, others with hats, or T-shirts that said ‘I love you!’ and ‘Hug me!’

‘Please take a seat,’ said Walt. He looked too big for the room.

Byron eased himself into a position between the soft toys, taking care not to squish any of their limbs or small accessories. His mother sat at the other end of the sofa, next to a blue giant thing that was maybe a bear or possibly a dinosaur. It almost reached her shoulders. Walt stood in front of the fireplace. No one spoke. They each studied the swirly brown carpet as if they had never seen anything so interesting.

When the door flew open, they turned. The woman who entered was slight like his mother and short black hair tasselled her face. She wore a T-shirt with a shapeless brown skirt and a pair of cork wedge sandals. ‘What’s going on, Walt?’ she said. Then, catching sight of her guests, she gave a start as if she had received a current of energy.

‘They’ve come about something private, Beverley.’

She raked back her hair. It lay flat either side of her ears like two blackbird wings. Her skin was pale, almost without colour, her features pointed. Her eyes darted from her husband to her guests and back again. ‘Not the bailiffs?’

No, no, they all chorused; nothing to do with the bailiffs.

‘Did you offer them a drink?’

Walt shrugged apologetically. Diana assured her they were not thirsty.

‘It’s to do with Jeanie,’ said Walt.

Beverley drew up a plastic chair and sat opposite Diana. She raked her visitor up and down with her fast green eyes. With her thin hands and
her pale skin, her pinched mouth and her cheekbones like pencils, she had an altogether hungry look as if she survived on scraps of things.

‘Well?’ she said.

Diana remained very still with her knees together and her pink shoes side by side. She said nothing.

‘I like your daughter’s bears,’ said Byron, trying to sound grown up, like James.

‘The bears are Beverley’s,’ said Walt. ‘So are the china knick-knacks. She collects. Don’t you, Beverley?’

‘I do,’ said Beverley. She did not move her eyes from Diana.

There was no sign of the little girl, except for a school photograph on the mantelpiece. She appeared to be scowling at the camera with screwed-up eyes. It was not like Lucy’s school photograph where the flash had clearly taken her by surprise. This little girl looked as if someone had called out at her to smile at the dicky bird and she had chosen not to. She had Beverley’s small, tight features.

Walt said, ‘Beverley wants the Robertson’s gollywog band. She likes their little instruments and everything.’

‘My mother likes little things,’ said Byron.

‘But Robertson’s is too pricey.’

Byron slid another glance at Diana. She held her body braced as if she were peering over a cliff edge and hoping not to fall.

‘Listen here,’ said Walt. ‘Jeanie hasn’t done anything wrong, has she?’

At last Diana opened her mouth. In a fragile voice she began the story about the accident. Listening to her, Byron’s mouth was so dry it felt stripped. He could barely look. Instead he watched Beverley and the way she in turn watched Diana. She seemed to be fixed on his mother’s rings.

Diana explained how four weeks ago they had used the road as a short cut and how she had lost control of the car just as their daughter came out on her bicycle. She blew her nose while she cried. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t
see,’ she kept saying. In the silence that followed, she plucked up the stuffed blue toy at her side. She drew it to her lap and clasped its middle.

‘Are you saying you knocked over Jeanie in your car?’ said Walt at last. His face was all creased with not understanding. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

The blue animal in her arms began to shake as if it had acquired a nervous life of its own. ‘I should have stopped. I don’t know why I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t get out. Is your daughter – is she all right?’

Byron’s pulse thudded in his eardrums.

Walt stared at Beverley, with a questioning look. She stared too. ‘There must be a mistake,’ he said at last. ‘Are you sure it was Jeanie?’

Byron stood to check her school photograph. He was certain, he said. He added that, as the chief and sole witness, he had seen everything. There was evidence too, he went on, because no one was saying anything; they were only staring at him. It was like being under hot lights. He explained about the nick on the hubcap. The proof was incontrovertible, he said. It was a James sort of word.

But Walt still looked confused. ‘It’s nice of you to come but Jeanie’s all right. She never mentioned a car. She never mentioned an accident. Did she, Beverley?’

Beverley shrugged as if to say she wasn’t sure.

‘She’s running about same as usual,’ said Walt. ‘Sometimes I can’t keep up with her, can I?’

‘You can’t, Walt.’

Diana let out a cry of relief. Byron wanted to stroke all the soft toys and pat their heads. He couldn’t wait to tell James. She said how worried she had been, how she had not slept for days; Byron reminded her she had been frightened too of his father finding out. It was a private aside but everyone heard.

‘And I thought you were selling that make-up,’ smiled Walt. They laughed.

There came a sound so sharp it was like a scissor-snip through the air. Everyone turned to Beverley. Her forehead was puckered as if she had received a blow and her green eyes twitched up and down the carpet. Walt reached for her hand though she whipped it away before he could find it. ‘What on earth are you talking about? She had a cut. She had a cut on her knee.’

Byron turned to Diana and Diana turned to Walt. He blew out his cheeks.

‘It would have been four weeks ago,’ she continued. ‘Now I think about it, it must have been that day. Four weeks is a long time, of course. But there was blood on her sock. It wasn’t a deep cut. I had to find a new pair of socks, remember? I had to fetch a plaster.’

Walt hung his head, apparently trying to get the past into focus.

‘He hasn’t a clue,’ she said to Diana, as if they were friends now. ‘You know what men are like.’ She smiled. Byron could see inside her mouth, the sharp tips of her molars.

‘What sort of cut?’ There was barely anything to his mother’s voice. ‘Was it serious?’

‘It was small. It was nothing really. On her kneecap.’ Beverley lifted the hem of her skirt and indicated her own. It was white and small, more like an elbow than a knee, and Diana stared. ‘She didn’t need a stitch or anything. As you said, it was an accident.’

At the door, they all shook hands. Walt kept nodding at Diana. ‘Don’t you worry,’ he kept saying, and she kept saying, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ She was so glad everything was all right, she kept saying. Was the bicycle damaged? Was it a present? She mustn’t even think about that, said Walt.

‘Cheerio!’ called Beverley, waving from her front door. ‘See you again!’ It was the first time she looked happy.

Driving from Digby Road, Byron felt a flush of excitement. His mother wound down the car windows so that they could feel the breeze on their skin.

‘I’d say that went terribly well.’

‘Do you think?’ She looked unsure.

‘They seemed nice to me. Even Father would like them. It just goes to show there are kind people on Digby Road.’

‘The little girl had a cut. Her mother had to throw away her sock.’

‘But it was an accident. They understood that. And the little girl is all right. That’s the main thing.’

A truck rumbled past and his mother’s hair blew up in her face like a spume of foam. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

‘She didn’t like me,’ she said.

‘She did. And she reads the same magazines as you. I saw. The little girl’s father definitely liked you. He kept smiling.’

Suddenly his mother slammed so hard on her brakes he was afraid they were having another accident. She pulled over to the kerb, without indicating, and a passing motorist beeped his horn. When she turned to Byron he saw she was laughing. She didn’t seem to have a clue about the other car.

‘I know what we’re going to do.’ Waiting for a gap in the traffic, his mother made a swift U-turn and headed back towards town.

They parked near the department store. His mother was invigorated in a way he had not seen since she found the evidence. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she said in a rush, if they could get Beverley the entire Robertson’s gollywog band? As the doorman opened the glass doors for his mother, they were greeted with excited chatter and the opening chords of an electric piano. A new model of the Wurlitzer was being demonstrated to customers by a musician in a tuxedo. He showed how at the press of a
button you could get different forms of accompaniment: drums, strings, samba. It was the new age of music, he said. And someone called out, ‘Not at that price.’ The customers laughed.

Byron whispered to his mother that they would have to eat a lot of jam and marmalade in order to acquire the gollywog band and his father might get suspicious. He suggested a soft toy instead.

The department store glittered with reflected light from the floors, the wide windows overlooking the street, the lamps on the counters and the jewellery and coloured bottles of perfume. Women gathered at the counters, testing scent and lip colour. Few were buying. His mother passed swiftly from one display to the next, her heels clicking the marble, tapping items lightly with her fingernail. If it weren’t for James, Byron knew he would never want to go to school again. He felt he had stumbled on something sweetly scented and forbidden, like the pictures in his book of the Arabian Nights that showed women with thin robes that barely covered their soft flesh. He wished it could always be like this, the worry over, and him alone with his mother, shopping for presents to make things good. In the gift department, they chose a blue lamb in a striped waistcoat with a pair of cymbals sewn to his velvet paws. It came in a box with a blue glossy ribbon.

‘Don’t you think we should get something for Jeanie as well?’ she said.

He suggested clackers. Everyone liked those. She was already flying towards the lift for the toy department when he had to stop her. Clackers were dangerous, of course. A boy nearly lost his eye once. James had told him all about it.

‘Well we don’t want that,’ she said. ‘She sounds quite a dangerous little girl.’ At this they almost smiled.

‘And not a space hopper either,’ he said. ‘She might bounce into all sorts of trouble.’

Now they actually laughed. They chose another lamb, this one with a
small guitar. The instrument even had strings. It was only as they were queuing at the cash desk that his mother had another idea. She called to the assistant and her voice was so breathless it rang out like laughter.

‘Do you sell red bicycles?’

She already had the chequebook in her hand.

His mother offered to take Byron for something to eat. It was not quite lunchtime but he was ravenous. She chose the hotel in the middle of town. The tables were set with stiff white cloths and the floor shone so hard it was like ice. The air was thick with smoke and soft chatter, the clinking of cutlery on china. The staff moved silently, examining the cutlery and polishing glasses. Many tables were empty. Byron had never been there before.

‘Table for two?’ said a waiter, sliding out from behind a potted palm. He had sideburns that crossed his jaw like wool caterpillars and a dicky bow at the collar of a frilled mauve shirt. Byron thought that one day he would like to invest in one of those coloured shirts. He wondered if bankers could have sideburns or whether it would only be for weekends.

The customers glanced up from their coffees as Byron and Diana passed. They took in his mother’s slim heels and the way her body rustled inside her peach dress. They noticed her stiff band of gold hair and the rounded bump of her breasts. She moved like a wave, rippling its path over the glassy floor. Byron wished people would glance away but he also hoped they would keep looking. His mother continued as if she didn’t know. Maybe people thought she was a film star. If he were a stranger, seeing her for the first time, he would think that she was.