Fresh Fields (2 page)

When he got back to the Shangri-La the woman and the boy were waiting to go and eat. They left the room and looked for a nice cafe, but the ones they saw were either too grubby or too expensive-looking. The rain had set in too, and they didn't feel like searching too far. So they bought fish and chips and took them back to the room and ate sitting on the beds. The woman had a bottle of sherry in one of the suitcases and she poured some into a plastic cup and sat against the bedhead sipping it and eating chips. She offered the youth some sherry and he took a couple of mouthfuls. The boy wanted some too and the woman allowed him a sip so he wouldn't feel left out. The woman began to talk again about the future. They would find a proper place to live and she would get a job. The youth and the boy would go to school. With a bit of luck they'd soon be having a lovely new life.

The youth said nothing. It had come to him with peculiar clarity that these hopes and plans truly didn't involve him. He had a fate of his own in which dreams of a lovely life did not figure. He did not know yet what the fate was, except that it was somehow related to the image of Diestl limping down that lonely road towards a chosen end in the ruined world.

 

THEY FOUND
a flat in a suburb called Ashvale about twenty minutes by train from the centre of the city. The flat was one big room with a kitchenette. There was a patch of scrubby weed at the back, and an old rusted car. The boy loved the car and would sit in it for hours, jiggling the steering wheel and making engine noises. There was only a double bed in the flat, but the landlady lent them a single mattress so the youth could doss on the floor. The landlady was very fat and wore a dressing-gown and slippers at all times. Her name was Mrs. Vetch, but she insisted on being called Ida. “I'm not formal!” she'd say.

They were cold the first night because they had only a travelling rug they'd brought with them and a couple of thin blankets lent by Ida. Next day the woman went to an op-shop run by the Salvation Army and bought blankets as well as cups and plates and saucepans and other kitchen things. She saw a cheap radio and bought that too. They began to feel cosier then. The woman cooked meals in the kitchenette, and they'd sit eating, drinking tea and listening to the radio.

Ida often came into the room. She did not knock but just loomed in and sat down. “How you managin', lovey?” she'd ask the woman. Then she'd suggest a cup of tea and a talk. “Life's grim without a chinwag,” she'd say. “And besides, I'm not formal!”

The woman told her a little about Vladimir and Ida spoke of her own late husband. “My old bugger never laid a hand on me! Didn't have the nerve! Knew I'd cut his bloody throat one night!” And Ida assured the woman that she'd deal with Vladimir if he ever showed up. “I'll send him packin', don't you worry!”

Their money was almost gone and the woman looked in the classifieds every morning for a job. She wanted something like a housekeeper's position where she'd have flexible hours because of the boy. Ida advised her to go to Mrs. Hardcastle's employment agency in town. So the woman went to Mrs. Hardcastle's and had her name put on the books. There was a problem at first because the woman did not have references, but Mrs. Hardcastle said it was okay, that she knew an honest face when she saw one. The woman mentioned this in passing to Ida that evening and Ida rushed off and came back with a biro and a sheet of paper and declared she would write out a reference there and then. It took up the whole sheet of paper and Ida went to fetch another sheet and filled that one up too with large scrawling writing. It was all about how Ida would Swear on a Stack of Bibles and how she wished she'd be Struck Dead if it was Any Word of a Lie. “Don't thank me, lovey,” she said when she gave the woman the scrawled sheets, “I'm not formal.” The woman said she was very grateful. When Ida had gone she put the reference in a drawer and left it there.

The woman got a job in a shirt factory and the boy was put into the school at Ashvale. The youth should have been enrolled at school too, for he was still under the legal leaving age, but the woman said they could let it slide for the time being. That suited the youth fine. Each morning he would walk the boy to the school gates and leave him there. Then he wandered the streets. He worked out a number of routes for himself. He liked to have familiar routes he could follow without fear of being surprised by anything. That left his mind free. He was seldom bored.

Ashvale was a suburb of quiet residential streets, not posh, but not slummy either. Some of the streets were lined with trees, and here and there were grassed areas with kids' swings and monkey bars. The main shopping centre was near the railway station and the youth spent part of each day there. He loved shopping centres. A shopping centre was the one place a person could loiter as long as they liked without anyone caring. And shop windows were interesting. It didn't matter what was in them. The youth looked at hats and refrigerators and chocolates with equal interest and in the same spirit that a visitor from another planet might look at them: they were items of this world and their uses and meanings and associations could be mused on endlessly. People were interesting too, as long as you could just watch them without being involved. The youth had favourite benches where he could sit and watch people.

The best position was outside a ladies' hairdressers. From a bench there the youth could see into the salon. There was a big indoor plant just inside the window and this gave the youth the feeling of being comfortably screened but without blocking his own view much. Three girls worked in the salon but the youth liked watching one in particular. She was slim and had beautiful legs and long auburn hair. Most days she wore her hair in a single plait down her back.

The youth could tell she was special by the way she behaved with customers. She was always friendly but without being pushy or silly like the other two. The way she worked was different too. She didn't skylark like the others but carried on calmly, doing one thing properly and then moving on to the next. When the salon door was open the youth heard snatches of talk, mostly from the two silly girls. He learnt that the special one's name was Polly. Seeing Polly every day began to be very important.

Polly mostly ate her lunch at an open-air section across from the salon where some tables and chairs were set up. She usually sat with her beautiful legs crossed, reading a book and making little circular motions with one foot. The youth loved the way she sat and would steal lingering side-on glances at her. Once he walked over close enough to see the title of her book. It was called
For Whom the Bell Tolls
.

One day Polly came out of the salon and went to cross the street. She paused a moment at the kerb right beside the youth. He tried to look the other way. “How are you today?” he heard her ask. He looked around and saw she was smiling at him. He felt stricken, as if he'd been caught in the act, but managed to mumble, “Good, thanks.” Polly smiled again and crossed the street.

He avoided the area for a couple of days. But it was too hard to go without seeing her. So he drifted back to the bench and she gave him a smile and a nod another few times.

Apart from the shopping centre, the youth's favourite place was a park a few streets off. It had a shady avenue of big old trees, and a pond, and a sports field. The youth went there every afternoon on his way back to pick up the boy from school. It was lovely at that time of day, with the light gleaming on the leaves and the breeze ruffling the water of the pond. Sometimes he saw a man in a tatty brown coat near the public toilets on the other side of the sports field. One day the man wandered across and sat down near him. The youth stared straight ahead.

“Just waiting for some friends of mine,” the man said. His voice was quivering.

The youth said nothing.

“Funny couple,” the man said. “Specially him. Always, um, wanting me to massage his, um, privates.”

The youth said nothing.

“I don't suppose you'd like me to, um, massage
your
privates?” the man asked.

The youth tried to think exactly what “massage” meant and what “privates” were.

“That's alright,” the man said, after a long pause. “No harm in asking, is there?”

“S'pose not,” said the youth, still not sure what the question had been.

“You don't mind that I asked?”

“S'pose not.”

“Academic question, really, as most things are,” said the man. He made as though to give an offhand sort of laugh, but it came out like a groan.

The youth gave him a cautious glance and saw that his face was very pale, and that he was drawing his tatty brown coat around him as though he was bitterly cold, and that his hands were shaking. The youth began to worry that the man was ill and might collapse. And he had a feeling that he was upsetting the man somehow. He thought he should go. Anyway, it was time to pick up the boy from school.

“I have to go . . .” he started to say.

“No, no, I'll go,” the man broke in, getting up hurriedly. “I'll leave you alone. There's no problem. One is harmless, you know. Completely.” His voice quivered away almost to nothing.

He seemed to want to say something more, but then turned and walked quickly away.

Sometimes there were spoiled moments, like if the youth had to alter his familiar route because of a barking dog in someone's yard, or if some woman watering her garden gave him an odd look. Such things would send him into the beginnings of a rage, but mostly he was able to let the enraged feelings float off. As long as he had plenty of time and space to himself he seldom needed the Diestl mood. By the time he had to collect the boy from school he usually felt relaxed enough to face the evening cooped up inside the flat.

The youth had made a corner for himself in the flat by pulling the wardrobe out at right angles to the wall so that when he lay down on his mattress he was well hidden. He could lie there and fondle his pillow and think about Polly. He had a reading lamp and some
Women's Weekly
magazines to browse through. There was the radio. He felt cosy enough. The woman always came home tired from the shirt factory and after she'd cooked the meal she didn't have the energy to do anything but sip a few quiet sherries. Only the boy was restless in the evenings.

They had been at Ashvale a couple of months. The stove in the kitchenette didn't work properly and the woman was fed up with it. She mentioned the problem to Ida. Ida replied that the previous occupant hadn't complained. After that Ida wasn't so friendly. She still sometimes came into the flat to ask, “How you managin', lovey?” But it had a different tone and she didn't stay for a cup of tea and a talk. And then one evening the boy was playing on the old car at the back and someone came and told him to leave it alone. And then Ida asked them to keep their radio turned down because it was disturbing the rest of the house. The woman replied that the radio was always kept low. Ida said something about “airs and graces.” The woman asked why the boy had been warned off the old car. Ida said something about “little brats.”

A day or two later, news came from Mrs. Hardcastle's agency about a job. It was assistant manageress of a guest-house in a suburb called Bankington. Accommodation was provided. The woman gave Ida notice that she was leaving and Ida said, “Good riddance!”

On the day they left they were putting their things into the taxi when Ida came to the front door and yelled that they'd damaged the stove and must pay for it.

“Malarkey!” said the woman.

“I'll have you up in court!” Ida shouted. “Just see if I don't! I know your kind! You're a flighty bitch! And I'll say it to your face! I'm not formal!”

“Not
normal
, you mean!” the woman called back as the taxi pulled away.

 

THE NEW
place was a three-storey building with balconies and turrets. The front door was painted a pale yellow and there was a sign saying Miami Guesthouse. There was a courtyard where the taxi pulled in. They noticed a small dark man with a spotted bow-tie, talking earnestly with another man who looked unhappy. The small dark man was spreading his hands appealingly as he talked, and now and then he'd touch the other man's sleeve as though to soothe him. They unloaded their things and the woman paid the taxi, and then they went inside to the reception area. They were met by Mrs. Stott, the manageress. She told them that Mr. Stavros would be there in a moment to greet them. He was just sorting something out with one of the guests. Mr. Stavros was the owner, she explained.

The small dark man with the bow-tie came in from the courtyard. He looked very neat and clean and smelt like perfume. He spoke with a soft musical accent. Mr. Stavros told the woman that he liked to have a happy staff and that he hoped she would be happy with them too. The woman asked about accommodation for the youth. Mr. Stavros smiled that it was not a problem, that they had many rooms. Mrs. Stott would see to everything. Then he looked at his watch, spread his hands appealingly and hurried away.

“He's always like that,” said Mrs. Stott, smiling. “You can't pin him down for a minute.”

She took the woman to show her the room she and the boy were to have. It was just off the reception area, near Mrs. Stott's own little suite. Then she led the youth along a series of passages and up some narrow stairs. The further they got from the reception area the shabbier it became and the mustier it smelt. The youth was shown a tiny room on the third floor. It was part of a larger room that had been partitioned off with a thin ply wall. There were two single beds and two wardrobes, and these took up almost the whole space. There was a bare light bulb and no window. “You'll have it to yourself at the moment,” said Mrs. Stott. She pointed to a faded and curled slip of paper taped to the wall. “Mealtimes etcetera written there.” When she had gone the youth sat on one of the beds and looked around the room. It would suit him fine, he thought, as long as it was his alone.