September Starlings (65 page)

Chewy runs to me, the nine-inch tongue lolling and dripping onto my coat. ‘Woof,’ he says companionably. He wants me to run with him. ‘Woof off,’ I reply. He gives me a paw, soggy, dripping with sand and oily water.

‘What about Jodie?’ I ask him. ‘Will she ever settle down, or is she going to carry on for ever like another bloody Confetti?’

‘Woof.’ He spots a distant dog, bounds away jerkily, his legs splaying like the limbs of a marionette whose master has not yet served his apprenticeship.

Jodie is a newly qualified doctor who travels about, refuses to settle to a life of medicine until she’s winkled out what everybody, with the exception of her good self, calls the madness. The madness consists of Oxfam frocks, open
sandals, dirty hair and a small motor home. She looks just like Confetti used to look, a nightmare from the late sixties, plaited hair-bands, tangled locks, large pendant earrings, a weather-beaten skin, eyebrows almost knitted together by all that unnecessary thinking.

I keep telling my errant and lovable daughter that the world will find its own way to hell, but she will insist on being concerned. Being concerned to a certain level is fine, even commendable. But jumping in with both feet, a BAN THE WHATEVER sign and a bad attitude is taking altruism that little bit too far, I’d say. She’s been arrested on Greenham Common in her youth, more recently in Trafalgar Square (I never asked what she was doing on that occasion, could not bear to hear what she’d perpetrated in the metropolis) and, last month, outside some remand centre where she campaigned, none too quietly, for the release of one of her numerous unsuitable boyfriends.

Chewy is starting a war. A small black terrier has not accepted the attentions of the exploded sofa that masquerades as my pet, is barking furiously as Chewy leaps about in circles. I run, arrive at the scene of the crime, pacify owner and canine with words of apology. They both escape to the car park. I hold Chewy’s collar, listen until the Mini’s angry engine is started. Strange how some ill-tempered little people have noisy little cars and nasty little dogs. And how some tall, unkempt women called Laura have long-legged unmade beds as companions. He is a mess. I adore him.

I am not a snob. At least, I think I’m not a snob. But Jodie will pick up people with problems, folk with disorders ranging from simple dyslexia to apparent paranoid schizophrenia. And skin problems. When she does deign to arrive home, it is usually in the company of some youth whose face owns more craters than are visible on the moon when viewed through a high-powered telescope. And she isn’t even remotely interested in dermatology. She came three weeks ago, breezed in, ate, had a quick bath, drifted
away again. This time, she was alone and on her way to pick up some newly released and downtrodden convict with ‘morals’. God help him, he’ll be wishing he’d stayed inside.

For Christmas, Jodie bought me a book about somebody with Alzheimer’s. ‘It can be coped with, Mother. A sufferer isn’t always miserable, you know.’ She brought nothing for her father, did not visit him. ‘I’ve seen him twice,’ she protested. ‘And there was no discernible improvement on the second occasion.’ When she doesn’t like somebody, she makes no bones.

Chewy and I amble home, fight in the rear porch with a bucket and a towel. He doesn’t enjoy having his feet washed any more than I enjoy seeing my towels ripped to bits. When we are both breathless, we collapse in the kitchen, a cup of coffee for me, a handful of biscuits for the miscreant. Flakey drinks some formula, is lapping well. The dog stares at Handel, considers having a go at the immobile cat, thinks better of it, snores at my feet.

The gate creaks. My dog opens an eye, looks at me. ‘No more barking, please,’ I beg. ‘It’s not a burglar.’ He would probably find a burglar exciting, would welcome him with a big smile and a quivering tongue.

I rise, look through the window, believe for a moment that I have conjured up Jodie just by thinking about her. But no. This is a different kettle of frankfurters altogether. I remember that she likes sausages and Carnation, not necessarily on the same plate, that her name is Diana and that it’s not Thursday. She was supposed to iron my things on Thursday.

I open the door, stare at the vision before me. My uninvited guest is dressed very much
à la
Jodie, that is to say she looks extremely odd. There’s a blue flat cap which has lost much of its flatness because of the blond hair bundled into it. Then there’s a filthy anorak type of jacket with just a hint of green showing between dozens of badges and slogans. The leggings are purple today, but there remains some consistency in the feet, which are clad
again in those huge and hideous Doc Martens. During my lifespan, I have been privileged to know three such fashion-plates – this one, my daughter, my dear friend Confetti.

After looking her up and down, I wait for her to speak, but nothing happens. ‘Well?’ I say, watching as she sweeps a smutty mark from the end of her nose. ‘What do you want this time? I’m not having a new door.’

She placed her worldly goods at my feet, and I am reminded now of Handel, who sometimes bestirs himself to contribute to the larder by bringing home a dead bird or two. Today’s offering is just as unsavoury, two aged Woolworth’s bags and a filthy canvas backpack that looks as if it might have served in both world wars, perhaps the Crimea too. ‘Can I come in?’ She has a way of making her eyes round, looks like a neglected and wilful infant begging for sweets.

‘You may come in tomorrow night, do the ironing. Then, if you like, you might magnolia the dining-room walls on Saturday afternoon.’

‘I hate that colour. It’s not a colour, it’s a bad mood.’

‘Then stay away.’ I do not care, I am telling myself sternly. She is not my child, not my responsibility.

She glances over her shoulder, waves a hand towards the steely grey water. ‘Where do I go till tomorrow, Laura?’

‘Double-glazing, I presume.’ She is a lost soul, but so am I, so are we all. Yet I am weakening, will give in any minute now. ‘What happened?’ I feel my shoulders sagging. If I let her in, will she stay for ever, become one of those tenants who sit there for all eternity? And will she wear me down to the point where I might buy a front door which looks like plastic, is a dead ringer for extruded UPVC?

‘Why are you smiling?’ she asks.

‘Didn’t know I was.’ Gerald has made me smile – the thought of him, anyway. It would be wonderful fun to watch him pitted against Diana, she squatting in his mother’s house, he waving his arms a lot, consulting
his Filofax for numbers of ‘contacts who know about this sort of thing’. ‘This isn’t a boarding house,’ I announce sternly. ‘Anyway, you said you’d paid your rent.’

‘He wanted more.’

‘More rent?’

She chews her lip. ‘He wanted sex.’

‘Oh.’ She needs food, a warm bed, a friendly ear. I’m not feeling friendly just now. ‘Do you enjoy watching
Neighbours
?’ I enquire, can’t think why.

‘Hate that too,’ she answers. ‘Magnolia and
Neighbours
, both insipid, lifeless. Especially
Neighbours
.’

‘Then we shall suffer it together.’ I drag her into the house, force her to sit in silence through the whole episode. She hugs herself, sways gently in her seat like a baby in a cradle. We each glue our eyes to the screen, watch the cavortings. It is weird. Some people run into a house and say some things, then they dash off to another house and say the same things. After a couple of minutes, everybody gets together in a garden, and they repeat the earlier lines, but in a slightly altered order. A trio of vile teenagers giggles a bit, and a young woman with a pregnancy cushion stuffed up her skirt has difficulty rising out of a chair. This is probably because the size of the bulge would be appropriate for someone in the twentieth month of incubation.

There is no interval in
Neighbours
, as it is BBC, so we don’t even get a Fairy Liquid advert or chimps with teacups. An older woman worries about Jim, is reminiscent of
Mrs Dale’s Diary
-as-was, and a sensible yellow dog wanders about, delivers a performance that deserves an Oscar when compared to the scriptwriters’ garbage. As the credits roll, we agree earnestly that the dog is a clever ad libber.

Diana fixes me with a stare that does not match her cap’s rakish angle. ‘Do you watch that every day?’ There’s a near-hysterical edge to her words, but I suspect that this young woman is a good actress.

‘Twice a day. I plan my life around it, can’t go shopping
or for a walk when it’s on. I know I could video the show, but it’s not the same, is it? I want to see it when it’s actually happening. Then
Home and Away, A Country Practice, Flying Doctors
, and there’s
Families
, of course, but that’s British and—’

‘What’s it about?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘
Families
. What’s it about?’

She’s clever. I flounder, surface after a few seconds. ‘It’s about groups of people, adults and children in nuclear groups, though one family has extended all the way to Australia, Sydney, I think, so—’

‘How many children?’

‘Some. A few.’

‘Names?’ One of her eyebrows has floated up the forehead, causing shallow, youthful lines on one side. ‘Go on, then. Tell me some names.’

I sigh. ‘I’ve forgotten.’ Inspired suddenly, I managed to remember some of it. ‘A woman with red hair ran off with her half-brother. She didn’t know who he was, so they’re living in sin.’

‘The old incest chestnut?’ is the next piece of rhetoric. ‘You don’t watch that crap. I can tell just by looking at you that you’ve no time for rubbish.’

I smile, think of Georgina Dawn’s rejected outpourings. ‘I am very familiar with all kinds of rubbish.’

She nods quickly. ‘And you certainly don’t see any of it while it’s actually happening, because we’re ages behind with all the Antipodean junk. It’s recorded, was recorded about a year ago. All soaps are recorded. Even
Coronation Street
runs five or six weeks behind itself.’

I rally. ‘I watch
Coronation Street
.’

‘That is acceptable,’ comes the swift response. ‘So is
PCBH
.’

I am flummoxed, cannot create a reply, am not going to beg for an explanation.

She can see my flummoxedness. ‘
PCBH. Prisoner Cell Block H
. Compulsory viewing in most select homes, even
those with dishwashers and Axminster carpets. It is brilliantly bad.’

This girl is so likeable. ‘Oh. My education is incomplete, then.’

‘You can’t fool me, Mrs … er … Laura.’

‘Starling.’

She removes the cap and the hair tumbles down in oily, shampoo-starved rats’ tails. ‘Funny name, that. It’s like being called Sparrow or Cuckoo or Owl – Wol, if you’re an AA Milne fan. I liked Eeyore best. Bits kept dropping off him. It was all middle-class mush anyway.’

I pin my eyes to a hole in the leggings, wonder how many other such goodies she has brought in her tattered luggage. ‘A rose by any other name,’ I mumble. ‘I’m rather fond of my surname, as is my husband.’

Her fingers are digging into the chair arm. She is tense, though none of the nervousness shows in the lift of her head, in the clean clarity of her voice. ‘I need a room for a few weeks. You have plenty of rooms and I have none. We should share.’

I shift in the seat, pretend some anger. ‘Are you a bloody communist?’

‘I’m pinkish,’ she replies smartly. ‘You?’

‘A professional floating voter. But nothing about fair shares is written into the constitution of this democracy. You are … invading my space? Isn’t that the with-it term these days for pushy people who move in and refuse to leave?’

‘Chill out,’ she begs. She’s heard that one on
Neighbours
, I reckon. ‘I’ve nowhere to go. Are you going to throw me out into the street? There are funny buggers in Blundellsands, just as many here as anywhere else. I could get mugged or raped or knifed or anything.’

She is wearing a lot of clothes. There are at least three sweaters under that anorak – she probably ran out of plastic bags for her packing. ‘Get a shower.’ My tone is fairly … well, nearly fairly strong. ‘And put yourself in the attic. There’s a sleeping bag in the landing cupboard,
some towels in the chest outside the bathroom. I want you gone by the end of the month.’

Her gaze is steady. ‘How many bathrooms have you got here?’

‘Three.’ I meet her eyes, will not apologize for my living conditions, refuse to be ashamed of my comparative wealth. Inverted snobbery is as unacceptable as the usual sort. ‘Does that matter?’

She lifts a shoulder. ‘Not really. It’s just I’m a bit messy, want somewhere to drip my underclothes.’ The grin widens. ‘I’d like my own bathroom.’

Yes, she is dangerously likeable. Here I stand – well, sit – with one husband broken down by Alzheimer’s, the other suffering from angina, clogged lungs and narrowed arteries, and I’m taking on yet another problem. My kids are God knows where doing God knows what, but I still seem to collect people. Other women gather diamonds, designer clothes, perfumes. I attract lame ducks, not just ducks, either. There are still a couple of Jonathan Livingstones in the shed at the back of the garage, seagulls whose wings are healing in spite of my ministrations. ‘You should go on the stage, Diana. It’s a while since an actress of your calibre graced our theatres.’

‘I’ll pay,’ she says generously. ‘Seven pounds a week and I’ll find my own food.’

I look her over. ‘You won’t. You’ve not found much food so far, anyway. Are you suffering from anorexia? Will you linger palely in my attic, then drift off to heaven all ethereal and beautiful?’

She sniffs. ‘Don’t talk soft, I’m just starving. It happens, you know, even in 1992. I’ve a good BSc, can’t get a job, might as well go back to college and aim for a doctorate. So the rest of you will have to shelter my burgeoning genius.’

‘We owe you that?’

‘Somebody does.’

She’s right. Even five or ten years ago, it was easier for young people to find a goal, work hard to reach it, enjoy
the benefits of a career after all the studying. My own three went to colleges, universities, medical school; the two who wanted work got jobs. Jodie will do it soon, I tell myself. She’ll settle down, get a post in a hospital, save some lives, have the occasional wash, invest in some ozone-friendly deodorant …