First Fruits (30 page)

When we walk away from the bus, there's
no doubt about the way we must look. Three girls and an old lady out for the
day.

Twenty yards from the bus station,
Hilary can't stand it any more. She grabs my arm, starts pulling me through
puddles at top speed, barging through people on the pavement and sending them
flying. And all in an attempt to get away, to put a clear distance between the
two of us and Moira and Lydia. But the other two are surprisingly fast. The
crowds seem to part for Moira in a way they never did for us and the result is
that we arrive at the café practically together.

And there, Mark and Owl Boy are sitting
at a table, waiting. Just the way I told them to. Not that Mark is looking in
the least bit happy. It's another one of his precious Saturdays, when he should
be on a playing field somewhere, leading the pack. Instead he's here. But
that's Mark for you, remembering the last time, and the accidental squeeze.
Some people are just born hopeful.

Still, it's always useful to know who
they are, the Born-hopefuls. It's so easy to waste your time otherwise, trying
to make the wrong folk realise what they are missing. It's why I've never bothered
with the Fiona McPhersons of this world, or the Mrs. Chattos. They are so
convinced they have it all, there's nothing you could promise that they would
possibly want.

Well, we know where
they
will end
up. How often has Dad said it? People who think they are happy aren't ever
going to be Chosen. You can't like what you've got and expect you are going to
get more. That would be seeing things all the wrong way. People who are chosen
are the ones who look around them and say; this is not enough. People who are
chosen are always going to want more.

And that's where we come in, Dad and me.
Always holding out promise.

All you have to do is find out what they
want. In the meantime, there's Mark. Folk like Mark are easy, no prizes for
guessing what he's after. And that's the glory of it. Most people are no different
from Mark.

It's a cheering thought, that. It almost
makes up for Moira and her rainhood. In fact, I'm halfway to smiling at Mark
when something beside me catches my attention. It's nothing really, just the
movement of something large, shifting its weight from one foot to the other.
But it makes me lose my drift.

Makes me lose more than my drift.

Funny how the oddest things can change a
mood completely. Half a minute ago I had been on the verge of feeling cheerful;
and all thanks to Mark, sitting where he's been told to sit, ever hopeful, a
shadow of what everybody thinks he is. And all because he's convinced I've
promised him something he can't get from anybody else.

Look at him, not daring to take his eyes
off me, not daring to say a word either. Mark is easy. And you can see what's
wrong of course. He's
too
easy.

Back to Moira, then. No getting away
from Moira, shifting her weight, shifting the way you look at things. Maybe I'm
like Dad. Maybe I like a challenge.

It all happens very quickly after that,
the way things do when you forget to stop and think. There are two empty seats
at the table. Two quick shoves then, and Hilary and Lydia find they are sitting
down, opposite the two boys, both of them blinking and wondering how they got
there. Which leaves just Moira and me.

Everybody wants something. The secret is
to find out what it is. That's the challenge. Even if it's Moira.

Especially if it's Moira.

She's the easiest person ever to take by
the arm. When I start dragging her towards the door she comes as sweetly as a
ship through water. Just as on the way here, crowds seem to part for her. The
only problem is the door itself, not wide enough to take us both at once,
slowing us down, when I needed to make a quick exit.

Out in the street though, we can go as
fast as we like, Moira doesn't mind, never complains even though we are
practically running. Doesn't even get out of breath. And when we have to stop,
it's not her fault at all.

You can blame Lydia for that. Two
minutes out of the café, and I can hear my name in the crowds on the pavement
behind us. The thing to do is ignore it. But then a mob of people ahead, all
waiting to cross the road, means we have to slow down. After that there's no chance.
A few seconds later, Lydia is beside us, red faced and out of breath.

But the running has hardly a thing to do
with it, I mean the colour in her cheeks. It had already arrived when we left
her sitting in my seat, right opposite Mark. Which was where she should have
stayed. It was her big chance after all. Because you never know, she might have
stumbled across something to say, something to make him notice her for more
than three seconds.

But no, here she is instead, impossible
to leave behind. Perhaps it's Moira she's following. Not that she says as much.
'What on earth...?' she begins, and she's off, launched into some long
half-tearful tirade about being abandoned. Typical Lydia, not knowing when
she's in luck, blaming me for doing her a favour.

It's not all bad though. At least
there's no sign of Hilary. You won't catch Hilary walking away from the
opportunity of a lifetime, just because she's shy and because she's never
learned how to take what's on offer.

I could have said as much to Lydia, but
where would that have got me? And besides, she has a point. Mark's never going
to look at her. So there's nothing for it but to wait while she drones on, and
let the noise of the traffic drown out the worst of it. And think about Moira.
And what Moira wants.

'Well,' I say at last, all bright and
breezy. 'What shall we do now?' I'm trying to get Moira's attention you see.
She's looking out along the street, taller than both of us. But she's not
listening. Something has caught her attention in the crowd across the road,
drawing her eyes after it the way they might follow a sweet trolley on the
other side of a room. But when I look, I don't see it, whatever it is. Just a
hotel and people going in. Probably it was nothing at all. Who knows what Moira
sees?

'Well?' I say again cheerily. And all at
once there's something familiar about this, the way I'm talking. Then I
remember. I sound like Dad sounded yesterday, trying to make headway with Moira
in the car - and failing, the way I seem to be failing now. Moira turns, not to
me, but to Lydia and, ignoring the fact that I'm still talking, says something
that I can't hear. I have to get Lydia to repeat it for me.

'Moira wants to go in there.' She points
to the Woolworths standing behind us.

I should have known. Woolworths will be
where her granny buys her crumpled bags of toffees and who knows what else.
Moira must have run out of things to suck. She needs a visit to the Pick n'
Mix.

Or that's what I thought. Yet inside,
Moira ignores the Pick n' Mix, and heads straight for the hair products. And
this where she stops, in front of shelves and shelves of different dyes, boxes
and tubes and bottles, all promising to transform the colour of your hair, just
so that no-one would ever remember the colour you were born with. And once
stopped, she doesn't move. It's embarrassing. People have to walk around her,
as if she was one of the red and gold pillars holding up the shop.

'What?' I say. '
What?
'

Lydia turns, surprised to hear me snap
like this. You see, she doesn't mind. She never seems to mind what Moira does.
But it's not Lydia I'm concerned about. It's Moira. Only Moira.

But at least she heard me, because this
time she actually stirs. Her eyes flicker from the shelves to the top of my
head, and rest there for a moment, as if contemplating something, perhaps the
colour of my hair. Moira is about to speak.

'What I want is...' She is talking in
that slow, creamy voice of hers, the one that makes you want to shake her till
the words fall out faster. '...What I want is to work in a place like this. One
day.'

And that's it. The answer to my
question, the one that made me take her and run with her out of the café, away
from where we should have been, away from where everything was nicely under
control. And what does Moira want? She wants to work in Woolworths, amongst the
Pick'n'Mix preferably. And again it's enough to make you want to laugh - or
cry. Because even Dad can only promise the gift of the world to come. But he
can't give her this. He couldn't get her a job in Woolworths. They wouldn't
have her.

Now she's moving away, away from the
hair dyes, drawing Lydia after her, and not another word to me. Not that I
care. I'm tired out suddenly. Having
It
is draining in itself; using it
to read other people can take up more energy than anyone could guess. But
imagine trying to use it to see through people like Moira. You might as well
try making sense of a book that has no beginning or end or any logic to it whatsoever.

I wait until they are past the checkout
before I join them, then almost wish I hadn't. Because now Moira is carrying a
two pound box of chocolates - with that picture of kittens in bows on the lid.

'Oooh,' says Lydia. 'They look nice.'
But what does she know? Then her eyes grow wide as Moira passes the box right
under my nose and puts them in her hand. 'You have them,' she says. 'Give them
to your mum.'

So Lydia takes them. Puts them under her
arm where they stay, jutting out, making her twice as awkward as before - if
that were possible.

OUTSIDE
the rain is beating harder than ever, blowing straight into our faces and
trickling down our necks, a reminder of the danger of doing things on the spur
of the moment. We could have been sitting in the café all this time, the way
Hilary is now, warm and dry. Instead we are here, getting soaked, going nowhere.

And all Moira really wants is a job in
Woolworths.

To cap it all, she has started gazing
across the road again, towards the same spot as before. And still there's
nothing there, nothing to see; only folk passing back and forth in front of the
hotel, bumping into each other in all the rain, blind under their umbrellas; a
miserable river of people, no more interesting to watch than the wet granite
front of the hotel itself.

At which point Lydia says, 'I'm hungry.'

How she can say that? We are standing
here, apparently hale and hearty, so you'd never guess that Gran's porridge is
still having its effect, a dead weight to carry around. How can she be hungry?
Then again I was forgetting, Lydia didn't eat any porridge. She has a reason to
be empty.

But it has a result, that mention of
hunger. Moira stares down at Lydia, opens her mouth, as if about to say
something - then closes it again. Instead she begins to move off, slowly, but
then with gathering speed. Unable to do anything else, we follow her, right
across the road, through the traffic, to the spot that has been catching her
interest for the last half hour - and there we stop. But even here there is
nothing to see, only the hotel and a set of revolving doors.

But wait, Moira hasn't stopped after
all, she had merely been slowing down to let Lydia catch her breath. Then she's
off again, upwards this time, right to the top of the steps leading to the
hotel, pausing by the revolving doors before pushing on through. Lydia giggles,
gets herself tangled between the doors and the box of chocolates, and almost
ends up in the street again. But finally she makes it inside. And then here we
all are, the three of us, standing in the middle of the hotel lobby. Over by
the lift, people are looking at us, wondering what's happening, what we are
doing here.

Or are they? Moira hasn't taken off her
plastic rain hat. People glance, then look away again. And it's obvious; Lydia
and I are with her. The old lady in the hat. She's in charge.

Lydia giggles again, louder this time,
for nervousness' sake. 'Moira, what are you doing? This is a
hotel
.'
Even the word makes her excitable, with all its associations. Grown ups, three
course meals, rooms with bathrooms.

Moira blinks, just the once. Answers in
tones of mild surprise: 'Dinner.'

Lydia then turns to me. Giggles again.
'Kate, tell her. We can't have lunch here. I mean, how on earth would we pay?'

But it hardly seems worth answering if
she's been so stupid as to forget. Moira has her wallet, full of her mother's
ten pound notes. Silly Lyddie. Stupid Lyddie. The question isn't so much
how
we are to have lunch here, but
why
?

A waiter is standing at the door to the
dining room. He glances at Moira the once, and doesn't even raise his eyebrows;
leads us across an acre of carpet spread out beneath dull chandeliers. There's
a smell of Sunday lunch, damp coats, and dust. Lots of dust.

It must be the smell catching the back
of my throat that stops me, dead in my tracks. Really, it has to be the smell,
making me halt, right here, in the middle of the floor, suddenly unable to take
another step. I'm going to have to tell them this is silly, that we need to go
back to the café, find Hilary.

You see, it has to be the smell. What
else could be the reason, making me think this the last place we should be?

I'm opening my mouth to say just that,
when suddenly it's too late. The only person who notices I've stopped moving is
the waiter, who turns to me, a question in his eyes.