The Sunlight on the Garden (12 page)

Lois wondered briefly if Dotty would stop to offer a lift or at least blow her horn or wave in greeting. But she drove implacably on, without even a momentary slackening of speed.
She must have seen me. She must have
. Dotty's two daughters, like so many of the other pupils, had come with their parents to the funeral. The younger of the two, along with some other of the girls, had sobbed noisily, her hand cupped over her mouth and nose as though she feared that she was about to vomit out her grief. That had been less than three months ago. It might have been years.

Well, at least the woman slumped opposite on the sparsely occupied train, noticed her. ‘What a lovely day!' she remarked, smiling as a podgy hand tucked the errant front of her
broderie anglaise
blouse back inside the loosely woven tweed skirt that bulged over her protruding stomach. Was she pregnant, Lois wondered. Lois often thought of pregnancy for herself, as people think of suicide, with a mixture of dread and the feeling that it might put an end to an intolerable situation. Did she really want to have another child, as Brian so often urged? No, no! Such an attempt to replace the irreplaceable would be a betrayal of Suzie. Why couldn't he understand that? ‘Yes, it is lovely,' she agreed with the woman, polite from habit.

The woman continued to make desultory conversation. She offered Lois her
Daily Mail
– she'd finished with it, she said. She even offered a sandwich. Then, discouraged by the two curt refusals and bare acknowledgement of this or that friendly remark, she gave up and stared out of the window instead.

The path down to the riverside was treacherous with a mulch of sodden leaves. At one point, as the recently fallen rain dripped off the bare branches of the trees on to the back of her lowered head, she slithered on a piece of abandoned cling-film and saved herself only by clutching at a tree-trunk. The tree-trunk left a greenish-grey stain on her palm. No one was about, either on the path or, when she finally reached it, on the curve of the riverbank, its grass glistening with what to her seemed a repellently metallic sheen. When she and Brian had last come here, there had been a number of anoraked anglers perched on canvas stools, isolated from each other and seemingly totally unaware of the woman who was sobbing violently, her face pressed into her companion's chest, while his arms encircled her.

She ventured towards the rickety jetty. The police thought that Suzie must have walked out along it, bent over to peer at something – perhaps that fish briefly glimpsed over there, Lois now thought, perhaps that Fanta bottle – and then slipped or lost her balance. Might someone have pushed her? It was Brian who had voiced that suspicion. The police thought not. There was no sign of assault, a willowy policeman had said. No sign of assault of any kind, the stout policewoman with him had confirmed. She had made a point of adding the last three words, even emphasising them, having intuited that Lois had speculated, in ever spiralling anguish, that before the drowning her beloved only child had been sexually assaulted.

Once again Lois asked herself: Oh, why, why had Suzie wandered off so far from the others? Had they been bullying her? Had those two wretched teachers, lovers she suspected, the woman with those huge, woebegone, dark-rimmed eyes, the man with those finicky gestures and those sudden pursings of his lips, said something to upset her? She had always been not merely an independent, but also an extremely secretive child. Now she had taken her last secret to the grave.

She stared out across the oily, almost motionless expanse of water. I could kill those two, she thought. Yes, lovers. Too much taken up with each other to notice what the children were doing. Criminals. Monsters. The sudden intensity of her hatred almost choked her. Desperately she looked around her for another human presence. She saw the black smudge of a crow high up in a dripping tree. Far off a dog was barking, but it was out of sight. The fish that she had seen before, or another fish like it, wriggled up briefly, a glinting silver dagger, then was lost in the murk of the water round the jetty.

In the train she stared out of the window as the light faded over the countryside unravelling beside her. Now there was no passenger opposite to attempt to lure her into banal conversation. At first she was glad of that, then she began to wish that there was someone, anyone.

Suddenly she thought of Suzie and the squirrel. For some unfathomable reason that spring the garden had pullulated with squirrels, as it had never done before. Most of them, whisking about the lawn or from branch to branch of the chestnut trees beyond it, would cautiously sidle towards the girl as she no less cautiously edged towards them, gazing intently at them while holding out some unshelled peanuts on a palm. Stooping now, the palm still outstretched, she would furiously will one of them to approach near enough to take one of the offerings. But only the smallest ever did so. That it was the same one on each occasion, she knew because down one of its sides it had a long, purple scar, an indentation in its otherwise luxuriant fur. Lois said that it must have been attacked by a dog, a cat or even a fox and then somehow escaped. This squirrel became for Suzie ‘ my squirrel'. Having assumed from the first that it was male, she had soon come to refer to it and even address it as ‘Mr Squirrel'. Delicately, nose twitching, it would lower its head to her outstretched palm, open its mouth to show its small, murderously incisive teeth, and then would remove its prize and skip away with it. After that, she would scatter the rest of the peanuts for the others.

Then one day, for no apparent reason, instead of taking the nut in its jaws, it bit deep into the cushion of flesh below her thumb, and hung on there, its plump body twisting from side to side as though in a demonic frenzy, before racing off to the nearest tree and shooting up it. For a few seconds Suzie had suffered the attack in silence. Then she had let out a single piercing scream, which had brought Lois racing out from the kitchen to see what had happened. A series of gulping wails followed the scream.

The doctor had insisted on a tetanus injection, since the wound was deep. On the way home from his surgery, Suzie kept putting the lacerated hand over her mouth as though to suck at the wound under its dressing. ‘Why did he do that? I don't understand. I've always loved him. I was feeding him. What happened?'

It was a mystery that defied explanation.

Repeatedly Suzie would revert to the subject. ‘I was doing nothing to harm him. Nothing to hurt him. Why, mummy, why?'

She was a child who had never done anything in her life to hurt anybody. Her nature, as everyone remarked, was sweet, placid, caring. In no way had she deserved that bite so deep that it needed stitching. In no way had she deserved that terrible accident, alone and unnoticed, on the rotting jetty.

They approached each other, Dotty on one side of the street and Lois on the other. Now she'll pretend not to notice me, Lois thought. She'll turn her head to look up at those roses clambering over that wall, or she'll scuttle down that alley to the library. But to her amazement Dotty waved the newspaper that she was carrying and shouted ‘Lois! Lois! I was corning over to see you.'

Lois halted and waited.

Dotty raced across the road, causing an oncoming van to hoot, brake violently and swerve. ‘Have you seen this?' Now she was brandishing the paper.

‘No. What is it?'

The paper was the free local one, pushed through the letter-box by an elderly woman piloting her load in what looked like a laundry basket on a rickety trolley. Lois and Brian always at once consigned the rag, unread, to the dustbin.

‘It's about the plan for the school celebrations.'

‘Celebrations? What celebrations?'

‘The hundredth anniversary. You know. It's just coming up.'

‘Celebrations?' At first Lois was merely stunned. ‘But how can they be celebrating …'

‘That's what I thought, How can they celebrate
anything
after the tragedy of poor little Suzie's …? I mean we've not even had the result of the enquiry. Those two are still suspended. As soon as I saw the item, I hurried over to show it to you.' Dotty was someone who enjoyed being indignant. She was constantly working herself up over grass verges left uncut, cars illegally parked, teenagers fooling about, noise, litter, vandalism.

‘It's disgusting! How could they, how could they?' Lois was no longer merely stunned. All at once she was shaking with fury.

Dotty was delighted with this reaction. ‘What can we do about it?'

‘I'll speak to Brian.'

‘We must do something. They say here' – she shook the paper – ‘that Princess Anne is going to come. Can you imagine?'

But Dotty's indignation had a way of flaring up briefly and then guttering out. It did so on this occasion. ‘ Getting worked up is like an orgasm for her,' Brian remarked bitterly. ‘Lots of frantic threshing about for a short time. Then it's all over and she drifts off.' Dotty said that she'd spoken to, oh, lots and lots of people. They'd all agreed that it was a disgrace, an absolute disgrace. But would they do anything about it? No, of course not. Typical! It was the same over those new school uniforms. Everyone loathed them but no one, not a single bloody parent – except, of course, herself – had had the guts to put a head above the parapet. ‘I'm sorry, darlings, I'm truly sorry. My heart bleeds for you. Sometimes I can't sleep for brooding on what you two are going through.'

As the day of the commemorations approached, the usually lethargic little community was galvanised. Lois and Brian tried to ignore what news filtered through to them of the sports events, the concert and the pageant tracing the history of the school. When they received an invitation to attend, Lois at once tore it into shreds. Would the two suspended teachers be allowed to be present? ‘I shouldn't be surprised.' Brian replied bitterly. ‘Perhaps that bitch has directed the play,' Lois said. ‘She's always been the one in charge of drama.' They experienced a brief moment of satisfaction when they heard that Princess Anne would not, after all, be able to attend. But soon after it was proclaimed that Princess Michael of Kent would do so.

Suddenly, on the day before the celebrations, Brian had his idea. Having come home early from his office, he at once set to work on the materials that he had brought back with him in the car. Lois stood over him, watching, arms folded. From time to time she nodded or said ‘ Yes. That's right. Yes, yes.' He would then look up and smile at her conspiratorially. It was the first time that they had felt happy since Suzie's death.

With a felt-tipped pen, tongue caught between his large, white teeth, he began to inscribe in huge capital letters:

LESS THAN ELEVEN WEEKS AGO
,
OWING TO INEXCUSABLE NEGLIGENCE OF TWO MEMBERS OF THE STAFF OF THIS SCHOOL
,
A LITTLE GIRL LOST HER LIFE
.
AS HER PARENTS WE PROTEST
.
IS THIS THE TIME TO HAVE A CELEBRATION
?

He turned his head up towards Lois. ‘All right?'
She nodded.

‘Sure? You don't think we should add anything?'
She shook her head. ‘Best short. And sharp.'

A number of other people, mostly women and many of those with small children in pushchairs, were already waiting to see the Princess. Brian, with Lois on his heels, ruthlessly used his placard to, in effect, beat a way to the front. Caught in his slipstream, one diminutive boy almost toppled over and began to wail. ‘Would you mind?' a woman whom Brian had inadvertently jostled and then banged, protested angrily.

Brian hoisted the placard high over his head. But curiously, infuriatingly, no one seemed to want to look at it, let alone read it. In the crowd were people whom he and Lois immediately recognised – that nice, fat girl who was always so helpful at the Sainsbury's cake counter, the postman whose asthma attacks made his deliveries so erratic, the mother of that little French girl whom Suzie had invited to her last birthday party – but, by now predictably, not one gave any indication of recognising them in return.

Eventually Lois swivelled round to face the Sainsbury's girl, who was standing just behind her. ‘Hello!' she said. She forced a smile, which unfortunately raised the left side of her mouth in what might have been mistaken for a snarl.

The girl gave a little bob, as though rehearsing a curtsey for the Princess, and smiled back nervously. ‘Hi!' At that, she turned away and sidled off.

The Princess was late. When the ancient Rolls Royce, accompanied by four outriders on motorcycles and two police cars, one behind and one in front, at last came into view, there was some desultory clapping. Revealed through the bullet-proof window was a middle-aged woman in a shiny, pale-blue dress and a dark-blue felt hat the large brim of which swept upwards and away from her face. With marionette-like movements, she smiled, nodded, waved a hand, leaned forward, smiled again.

‘She looks even better in real life than in her photographs,' a woman beside Lois remarked to another woman.

‘Pity the make-up's so thick,' the other woman responded.

The child beside her asked: ‘Mummy, who's that lady?'

‘It's the Princess, you little silly!'

Brian was still holding the placard aloft with aching arms. He now tried to step out in front of the stately, hearse-like vehicle to brandish it before the graciously smiling face framed by the window. But a policeman put out a hand. ‘ Stand back, sir! Please, sir! Stand back!'

The Princess continued to nod, smile, wave, nod. But, mysteriously, she never looked at the placard, even though it was so close to her, at the front of the crowd.

Silently, slowly, the Rolls Royce glided on and eventually passed through the high wrought-iron gates.

‘She didn't even notice!' Lois cried out. ‘I can't believe it. I just can't believe it.'

Later, as she and Brian trailed home together, he at last broke their despairing silence: ‘You'd have thought that at least that press photographer would have taken a shot. What's the matter with people?'