First Fruits (25 page)

Meanwhile, he's winding up the window,
signalling for me to get into the car. He wants to get away, soon. Before
anything else happens.

But then, at the last possible moment,
Moira speaks. And what Moira says is: 'No, it's not right. My gran says never
to mind her. She says I should get out more. She says it all the time. I'll come
to Kate's house.'

Dad's hand comes to a complete stop on
the handle. The window stays where it is, half up and half down. For a long
moment he looks straight at Moira, stares right into the eyes that are fixed on
him. But it has to be said; he looks away first.

Then suddenly it's smiles, smiles all
round. 'Rightie ho,' he sings out. 'Four of you it is. You tell your mums and
dads. What a treat, what a riot eh?' And he winks at each one of us. Even
Moira. Especially Moira.

HE
was quiet on the drive home, though. Or he was at first. He seemed to be
chewing on something, as if he had a problem that needed to be worked out, that
required more than a modicum of thought.

Not far from the house, however, he came
right back to life. Started asking questions about Moira and schoolwork, about
Moira and school, about Moira and how she got on with other girls. In turn, he
listened carefully to every word I told him - except for what I had to say about
her gran. He didn't seem to think her gran was important. Apart from that, he
never interrupted, not even once.

And by the time we reached home, he was
blazingly cheerful. A different man, you might say. Or rather the same man, the
old dad, the one we are used to.

Naturally, there was a reason for the
change. But strange to say, I'm not sure he would have recognised it, not even
Dad. It was all to do with Moira not actually being there in front of him,
meaning he could begin to see her in a different light, let his imagination do
the remembering. And that alters everything. Since then he has been turning her
this way and that, working out the problems, giving her the benefit of the
doubt. Now he thinks he can see the way ahead. Moira has become a challenge.
And there's nothing my dad likes so much as a challenge.

I know this is true because it's the way
it used to be with me. At the beginning when I first noticed she was staring.

And that is exactly what he's forgotten.
With Moira not actually here to remind him, he's forgotten that Moira stares.
He won't remember that until she's in front of him and it begins all over
again.

AND
now I have a problem of my own. It comes to me as I lie in bed, trying to go to
sleep, and failing. It's a simple problem, but I can't seem to get it out of my
head.

What if I'm wrong about her and Dad?

What if they don't look at each other
once in all the time she comes to stay? Moira will be here, in our house, right
through the weekend. And so will I. Which means two days of having Moira watch
me instead, never looking away. And not just in the daytime. We'll sleep in
this room and even in the dark, I'll know she's there. Night won't change a
thing. Because there'll be no way of knowing, not even with the lights off, if
she's really asleep.

That's what I've done. I've made sure
there's no getting away from Moira.

Is it any wonder my leg begins to ache?
As if, beneath all that damaged skin, it knows, as if it can feel it in its
very bones. Something is going to happen.

And I'm the one that started it.

The other problem is Lydia.

Next morning she stamps past us without
a single word, flings her satchel down onto the floor. Which, as a gesture of
disgust, is hardly useful because then she remembers what it contains and,
humble, has to pick it up for cradling again. But the face like thunder stays
in place. And this is the girl who went home last night looking as if she had
been standing in a golden shower. Something must has happened.

'Ooh Lydia, whatever's the matter with
you?'

Look at Hilary, all lit up at the
thought of trouble.

But Lydia is in such a state she can't
answer even a simple question. And it's not that she's trying to be dramatic,
the way you would have to suspect of Hilary. Lydia genuinely cannot talk. But
it hardly matters. I have a feeling I already know the reason why.

In the end, it all comes tumbling out.
And I was right. Lydia's mother has announced that she can't come to stay at my
house for the weekend.

'And there's no reason,' she keeps
telling us, first here in the cloakroom, and later in the classroom, and later
still at break time in the queue for the tuck shop. 'No reason at all. She just
won't let me.'

But I could tell her. I could tell her
the reason. Lydia wants to think this is all about her, and having a mother who
won't let her do what she likes.
I
know better. Lydia's mother is simply
keeping her safe, keeping her home, making sure it all stops here. No more
undesired influences, no more forces she can't control. No more of
him
.

'Can't you persuade her?' Is all I can
think of to say. And Lydia, who believes I'm being sympathetic, simply howls
for the hundredth time. 'But she won't even tell me why....'

Lucky Lydia. Stupid Lydia. Thinking the
whole world is against her. And most of all, her own mother.

Yet there's something else, something
far more important than Lydia not getting her own way.
He
hadn't made up
his mind about her yet, Mrs. Morris, I mean. Now he won't have to give it
another thought. She won't be amongst the Chosen, not now. How could she be,
when she's putting obstacles in his way, interfering with what's meant to be?
He'll make up his mind and she will have to go with everyone else, disappear
into that long dark night without end.

What would Lydia say about
that
if I told her?

She'd probably say she was pleased,
she's so very vicious this morning. But that is because she doesn't understand.
There's only one place to go if you haven't been Chosen. And if she doesn't
know that, it must mean she isn't Chosen either. You can't go to Heaven if you
don't understand about Hell.

She and her mother are going to end up
in the same place after all.

Silly Lydia, stupid Lydia. She thinks
it's touching, the way that, all of a sudden, she finds me turning to her,
gripping her arm - the way you might if a life was at stake - to whisper in her
ear: 'Try again, try to persuade her, one last time before it happens. I won't
tell my father yet. I won't tell him anything.'

But as I've said, she thinks all this is
about her and one weekend, and how we choose to spend it. She doesn't
understand that it's all about choices, and making the right choice. She
doesn't understand that she has to persuade her mother.

BUT
the days pass and nothing could be more certain. Every morning I look at Lydia
and every morning she shakes her head. Then one morning I find I can't even
catch her eye. Lydia has stopped trying. She's given up even attempting to
persuade her mother.

And after that it all starts to slip
away. Because then, the unbelievable happens. Lydia begins to forget why she
wanted so badly to come to my house.

The first sign was what happened in
Greek. Lydia has been all ears ever since that first lesson about Socrates. But
that was for reasons of her own, and the satchel has never left her lap. And
Jamieson can't say a thing about it because Lydia is the most willing pupil
she'll ever have.

Then one day, Lydia leans forward to get
a pencil from her desk and the satchel slips onto the floor. 
And she lets
it fall
. Doesn't seem to want to do a thing about it. She just carries on,
writes what she wanted with that pencil.

You'd have to know Lydia to see what it
means. You'd have to have been watching her, remarking the way she has hugged
the satchel that's held the book, never once let it go. Now book and satchel
are on the floor, somewhere anyone could step on them. And Lydia doesn't care.

Or maybe you don't have to know Lydia
that well to see the signs. Maybe it's just plain obvious to anyone.

In the end, all her mother had to do was
put her foot down. What she says goes. That's what
he
recognised weeks
ago. She's a proper mother. She did what any mother would do. Lydia is safe.

BUT
she's not leaving anything to chance, Lydia's mother, I mean. A day later,
Lydia comes into school to announce that they are all going to a hotel for the
weekend - the same weekend that she would have been coming to our house.
There's going to be walks and outings and fancy food. A swimming pool even.

So what about Church? And what about
reading Greek, just the two of them? Lydia doesn't say a word about any of
that. She doesn't even mention Dad now, or not so you'd notice. She has become
someone else, if you like. Not our Lydia any more. It makes you wonder if she
even realises how all this time she's been a battleground? Now someone else has
won the war.

Maybe that's what it means to have a mother.
Lydia doesn't even have to think about it. Anything else is just unnatural.

Even Hilary is impressed by talk of the
hotel. She spends the rest of the day reminding anyone who'll listen of the fun
in store for us at my house, all girls together, tries to remember his exact
words and can't. The shine's been taken off. Lydia is going to a hotel, while
we get to go home with Moira.

And Moira herself? None of us talks to
her. Who knows, if we ignore her enough, she might change her mind. This is
what Hilary keeps saying anyhow, making sure Moira can hear every word. But I
know better. Moira hasn't taken her eyes off me. Moira knows she's coming.

AND
we've lost Lydia completely now.

On Thursday morning, there's no sign of
her, not in the cloakroom, or at her desk come to that. It takes a few moments,
but then we spot her, over by the radiator, with Fiona McPherson and the
others. Lydia is talking and everyone else is laughing, which immediately makes
you wonder why. Lydia's never said a thing that was funny, not in all the time
she's been with us. At least not that I've heard.

Hilary takes one look and sniffs.

'Just listen to them, laughing their
heads off at poor old Lydia.' But there's a note in her voice that doesn't say
poor
old Lydia
at all. Lydia is laughing as loudly as the rest of them. Yet when
I stroll across the room to use the waste paper basket I can hear what's
supposed to be so funny. She's telling them how she doesn't have a thing to put
on for dinner at the hotel this weekend, just the frock she used to wear to children's
parties when she was twelve. How she's going to look a real sight. Because
that's all she'll be dressed in when her father takes her for that first
promised waltz, lets her have her first taste of wine.              

A Daddy's girl doing all sorts of grown
up things.

What's so funny about that, I'd like to
know. It's what I say to Hilary, who starts doing something quite nasty with
her compass. And who can blame her? Nothing's the way it's supposed to be. What
she says goes, Lydia's mother.

BUT
then everything changes. All of a sudden the world swings right back to where
it's meant to be. As if nothing had ever happened to turn it off course.

It shouldn't have come as such a
surprise. I'm his daughter. All I had to do was remember who's in charge. Who
will always be in charge. It's something I should have expected all along.

I hadn't said a word about Lydia's
mother not letting her come. But it was Thursday night and it had to be done.

I told him in the car, on the way home.
And it's just as I imagined it would be. He sighed and his hands grew heavy on
the wheel. For a few seconds, the car had to drive itself while the news sank
in. Then he shook his head and you knew it was all over. He'd read the signs
and he'd made up his mind. Now we know where Lydia's mother is headed.

In the seconds that followed I felt as
if I was listening. As if something valuable had been dropped into a well and
now I was waiting for the splash.

WHEN
we walk into the house, he doesn't say a word to anyone, not even Gran. He just
carries on into his study. A moment later we hear the music blasting out. He
has turned on his record player. Walk along the corridor outside his room and
you would be able to see the walls vibrating with the din. But then, quite
without warning, that music stops for another kind to take its place. The new
music falls on the ears like a lament, watery and final. And in a way, it's
something like the noise I was listening for in the car.

As usual, Gran thinks I'm the one to
blame. She won't even let me go upstairs, but blocks the door so there's
nothing for me to do but stay with her. Then she stands over the stove, never
takes her eyes off me, adding extra salt to everything.

He doesn't come through for supper, not
even when she's gone to his door twice to tell him that it's ready. She puts
his dinner to sit over a saucepan of boiling water, and eats her own with me,
watching the gravy form a crust of salt around the rim of his plate. Never
stops sighing.