First Fruits (8 page)

So she was about to serve up when there
came the knock at the front door. I'd forgotten to tell them, Lydia and her
father; the front door is all sealed up - nails to fasten it shut, and tape to
block out the draughts. I should have told them to come round the back, despite
the time of night and there not being a single lamp to light their way.
She
looks at me, meaning I'll be hearing about this later.

It's my job to hurry round to the front
of the house - and there they are, just visible in the darkness. But
something's wrong. Although there seem to be two of them, I'd swear neither of
them was a man. Maybe it's not them.

Then a woman's voice calls out, making a
ringing sound as it bounces off the frosty granite of our house.

'Hello, is someone there?'

It must be Lydia's mother. Silly of me.
I never thought of her. Somehow I always thought her Dad would be bringing her.

Then comes Lydia's voice. 'Is that you,
Kate?' She sounds almost tearful, as if the dark is too much for her.

'Course it's me, goofball.' Notice the
lilt in my voice. Lydia's mum - who is still a surprise to me - will hear it,
and know what to expect as a result, even in the dark. Someone friendly,
someone normal. Not like Lydia at all.

'Is there...is there someone else with
you?' I feel as if I have to ask. You never know, her dad might be in the
shadows, watching, biding his time, the way that...

The way that mine would.

Her mother answers. 'Someone else...? Oh
I see, Lydia's father. No, he's not with us. He's driving Lydia's little sister
down to her aunt. I would think it's taken him almost less time than us.' Now
she's pulling up her sleeve to look at her watch, forgetting she won't be able
to make out a thing in the dark. Silly woman.

'Twenty to eight,' she says in a shocked
voice. 'We've been two solid hours.'

She must have a luminous dial. I never thought
of that.

'Shame,' I say, though it's hardly my
fault. And I don't say a word about how we've been
waiting
two solid
hours. My voice is still nice and bright. 'Follow me.' Then I lead the way
round the back. The way they should have come in the first place.

THE
back door was closed, naturally. Opening a door, any door, is no reason to let
precious heat escape. At least that's the way
she
sees it.

There's no fast way of doing this. I
push the door open, stand aside, praying they will have the sense to enter
quickly. Lydia at least I could give a good hard push without anyone noticing,
with the result that she practically barrels over the doorstep, tilting into
her mother who's in front. It's untidy but it speeds things up nicely. A second
later, we are all inside.

But even that isn't fast enough.

'The cold, what are you doing letting in
all that cold?'

The voice catches them unawares. Lydia
jumps, almost clean out of her skin, although it's not so much because of the
words, as the panic (and fury) contained in them. And because she can't see
where they've come from, not at first. I've said
she
was making supper.
Four bubbling saucepans are there on the stove, each one sending a fat plume of
steam towards the ceiling to join the thick blanket that is already there,
rolling like a thundercloud overhead. Now, having reached critical mass, the
whole thing has begun to sink under its own weight, making half the room
invisible. Mr. Jones, the physics teacher, should arrange a field trip to our
kitchen just to teach about convection.

So it takes a moment for them to make
her out, standing by the stove, the reason for the steam, and the rattling of
the pans - and Lydia's panic.

It's Gran,of course. My Gran,
his
mother. I had brought them in at the very moment she was adding more salt to
one of the saucepans, box tilted for the crystals to pour unimpeded. Now she is
standing, back bent, but steady as a rock, holding the box while the salt flows
like stone from the stone urn of a statue.

No wonder no-one notices me. Gran seems
to have turned our guests to stone themselves, like something out of Greek
Myth. Something to do with the crackjaw, and the furious glare. Everything
makes her glare, the world and every mortal thing in it. Lydia's mum can't take
her eyes off her - unless it's not so much Gran as the salt she's watching.
It's still pouring of course, a slow, constant, fascinating stream that won't
stop until Gran decides it's enough.

Don't they use salt in Lydia's house,
then?

Still, it gives me a chance to look at
her properly, Lydia's mum. She is small and ever so slightly plump, with dark
curly hair and brown eyes. And soft. I don't know that I ever saw anything as
soft as her, all wrapped up in a coat so downy, so warm, she looks as if she's
nestling inside it like some rare, prettily feathered bird.

Poor old Lydia then. Next to her mother,
head poking out of the top of her duffle coat, she is all elbows and knees and
steamed up spectacles. You'd never guess they were related, not for a moment.

And poor old Gran. She doesn't like
other women at the best of times. And here's one of the worst kind, pretty and
well dressed - there's no other way to describe it - standing right in the
middle of her kitchen. No wonder the glare has become a concentrated beam that
could burn a hole through paper.

But we can't go on like this, staring at
each other. Someone has to say something. I clear my throat. Mrs. Morris gives
a little start.

'Goodness me, I'm sorry. I think we may
have arrived at a bad time.' Gran merely grunts. Mrs. Morris falters. 'I...I'm
afraid we got ourselves so dreadfully lost. We used a map, when it's obvious
now we should have just followed your directions. Poor Lyddie, so clever at
everything, yet all at sea when she tries to navigate.'

Lydia opens her mouth as if to protest,
then closes it again abruptly. And she's right. Her mother isn't criticising
her. No-one criticises anyone in that tone of voice. It's as soft as it can be,
just like the rest of her. And if you wanted further proof that no criticism is
intended, there's this; suddenly Mrs. Morris turns and touches her daughter's
ear, quite unnecessarily, and strokes it. 'Lyddie love, you and I. We're a
terrible pair aren't we?'

And it's a shock; the gentleness. And
the words that went with it. Telling everyone they were a
pair
. Not even
trying to hide that they were connected. Suddenly you find yourself thinking
the virtually impossible: maybe Lydia's mother
loves
her.

 Well. You can't blame me for being
surprised. Every day, Lydia has come to school wearing the same old look. Of
someone unwanted, unloved. The one no-one would miss. That's the impression she
gives, the reason she's
so easy
. And now here's her mother touching her
ear and telling the world they are a matching pair.

No-one's ever fooled me like that.
No-one. It's enough to make a person start doubting that she has
It
,
suspecting her own judgement.

But now will someone explain Lydia to
me? Her mother strokes her ear and Lydia just stands there. Worse, she begins
to scowl, shrugging off the touch, pretending the only thing that matters is wiping
the steam off her glasses.

Mrs. Morris sighs. Then she glances at
me. 'So you're Kate.' And tries to smile.

She's not happy. But it's not because of
Lydia. You only have to watch them to see she's used to her. It's Gran, who
even now hasn't put away the glare - or said a word.

Still, I can put that right. A smile can
make up for anything, even Gran. A special one this time, warm and bright as
could possibly be - and as different from her sulky daughter as she would ever
see. Smile then.

But for some reason, I get it wrong.
It's too much. I smile and Mrs. Morris blinks, as if I had taken a torch and
beamed it unexpectedly in her face. There's a noticeable pause.

'Well it's lovely that Lydia has managed
to make such a good friend and so quickly. I'm sure she's going to have a lot
of fun.'

The words are alright, but what about
her eyes and the way they are drifting over Lydia and beyond, avoiding Gran,
avoiding me for that matter? She's taking in the kitchen instead, with all its
steam and general damp; the sodden drawers that refuse to close, and tongues of
lino peeling off the floor as if to lick the walls.

All at once,
It
comes into play
and I know exactly what she's thinking. She's asking herself if she really
wants to leave her daughter here, if she shouldn't just walk out and take her beloved
Lydia with her, and never mind the upset. In fact, it's
going
to happen,
I can tell. Everything is about to go terribly wrong. And there will be only
one person left to take the blame. Me.

But then, thankfully, it doesn't happen
after all. Someone is here to put a stop to all that. Someone they haven't even
realised is present, watching, listening to everything. It's the steam of
course, clouds of it, getting in the way, keeping him from view. And not even a
sound to let them know he's here.

Then again, there's no-one as quiet as
Dad when he wants to be.

 But finally, as they always would, the
clouds part, and a voice booms clear through all the awkwardness and doubt,
sending shreds of steam scurrying uselessly into the far corners where they
belong.

'No need to look so serious, missus.
This little girl is in for the time of her life.'

This time, it's not just Lydia who
jumps. Watching their faces, eyes suddenly wider than you would have thought
possible, you could believe they were mother and daughter after all. Surprise
seems to have brought out the similarities in them.

'Take it from me. A few days here, and
you won't know our Lydia. Isn't that right, love?'

He winks at Lydia, puts out his hand
towards her mother. 'Carr,' he says. 'Keith Carr at your service.'

It's the way he always introduces
himself. The same words as lots of people use. But Dad is different because Dad
means them. It must be the reason that, as he takes Mrs. Morris's hand in his,
she changes colour, ever so faintly. At the same time, his eyes lock onto hers,
and that's the moment when you know she's lost.

Blue where you would expect them to be
brown, the centres of my dad's eyes are ringed with a light all of their own.
It's the light that shocks people, light where it's least expected, the same
light that allows him to fix another person's gaze and hold it, as if he will
never let it go. Promising the earth while the world dissolves around them. And
all in a single stare. No there's not a soul alive with eyes like my dad.

Now he's looking at Lydia's mother, and
here we are again, watching the same old miracle, the miracle of someone
falling, never to be the same again.

Or are we? She returns the gaze for a
moment, then quietly, without a word, takes her hand out of his. Even more
surprising, having freed herself, she takes one, two steps back to look at him,
up and down, as if she needs the distance between them in order to make up her
mind.

I don't understand it. She's not
behaving the way she ought. She's not falling. Oh, there's the faintest
suggestion of feathers shivering, a hint of ruffling, but no falling.

And Dad, what about him? Oddly enough,
he doesn't seem in the least put out. If anything, his smile grows that little
bit wider as if to bridge the gap she's put between them. Not just wider, but
warmer. You can feel the heat from him, reaching out to her, ready to wrap
itself around her...

....And she just takes another step
back, pulling her coat around her, as if all she could feel was cold.

Maybe it's the look of him, putting her
off somehow. But she should remember; don't judge a book by a cover. He may not
be tall, but show me a tall man with an ounce of his presence, or a thin man
with anything like the power that comes with bulk. Not that he's fat. My dad
would never let himself grow fat, because what would that say about him? But he
fills a room, this room, as easily as he fills the tweed jacket he always likes
to wear. That's what she should be impressed by, if nothing else. The way this
room is full of him.

But then, she
is
impressed, isn't
she? Why else would she have to force herself to smile the way she's doing now?
It takes a moment to understand, but then it becomes as clear as daylight. It's
really quite simple. She may be impressed, but she doesn't like him. Lydia's
mother doesn't like my dad. Not one little bit.

So it's no surprise to see her hand
stretching out to Lydia. No surprise either to see the words already forming on
her lips. You can see what she has in mind, something she thinks is going to
be, not exactly easy perhaps, but possible. In which case it's going to come as
a shock, to Mrs. Morris, when finally she gets round to noticing Lydia.       

It was the wink of his that did it.
That's all it took. One eye deliberately closing. Because you know what it told
Lydia, that single wink. It showed her that he would forever turn a blind eye.
That when he looked at her, he would close his mind to the fact that she was
small and ugly, and of absolutely no consequence, which is all that anyone else
noticed in her.