Mountains of the Moon (5 page)

In Cranford Park the trees is sleeping but we see a cedar from Lebanon; Grandad wishes I could see it one time beautiful with snow. Monkey-puzzle tree always puzzles me cos it int got no monkeys. Hemlock is the beautifulist, feathery ferny conifer, terrible poisonous, Grandad says, same as yew. When we passes elderberry we has to tip our hat, case the old lady of the trees curses us something bad. We get leaves in a plastic bag for looking up after dinner, then I names and presses them and keeps them in my scrapbook. Grandad reckons we found a rare one,
Metasequoia glyptostroboides
. On the bridge by Hayes railway station we get cockles and winkles with our winnings. Trees in Nestles Avenue is just
London plain; rains and airplanes come racing over our heads. Then I see it’s Bryce’s car, parked outside the Pennywells’.

The bread factory is on a trading estate in Rose Green. No roses. No green. The new bloke at the jobcenter has arranged the interview for me; he’s drawn me a map on four sheets of paper taped together. It’s taken me an hour to walk here and half an hour walking around the outside of the factory looking for a way in. I hate the wind, the crashing and bashing. Now I’m late, chewing on split ends. I check the jobcenter paperwork for the name, and then ask at reception for Brian.

Brian’s office is suspended, apparently on nothing, up above the factory floor. There’s a heavenly flight of lightly floured steps; nobody has been up before me, there’s a resting platform at the halfway stage. Each wooden step has a bounce; they’re not quite deep enough for a forward-facing foot. Brian follows me up, through the layers of heat and noise and yeast, through the clouds of flour that my flip-flops produce.

“Sorry, Brian,” I say.

The factory looks like a scene from James Bond: vast chrome tunnels, steaming pipes, hundreds of little people in pajama bottoms and white wellington boots. Brian leans against the door frame for a minute, fanning himself with paperwork. It isn’t natural to sweat pus. Finally he sits down behind the desk.

“So.” He drags a dry tongue around the crust of flour on his lips. “What we need Ashley, is someone for doughnuts.”

“Louise,” I say, “Louise Alder?”

“Are you sure?” He tilts his head to keep another festering sweat from rolling down into his eyes. It is seriously hot. He hands me a blue application form with a flour footprint on it.

“Don’t fuss over
pages 2
and
3
. We need someone for twilight shifts—6 p.m. til two in the morning, five shifts a week, four pounds an hour, can’t say fairer than that.”

I must have nodded some kind of continued interest.

“You do right by us, Ashley, and we’ll do right by you; back in a minute.” He disappears through a door that I thought was a bookshelf; nothing on it, except a can of lighter fluid and a Thompson’s Directory.

The pen doesn’t work. His desk-tidy is full of betting-shop biros and flaky pastry. The pegboard on the wall spells out that more people are
Out
than
In.
He reappears, closing the bookshelf behind him.

“Now listen, is there any chance that you could do a few hours right now? Being as you’re here, just til lunchtime, Ashley.”

“Louise,” I say.

“Right you are,” he says. “Why don’t you do a few hours and see how you get on, then you’ll know if you want the job or not? You’ll be paid for it of course.”

The supervisor, Elspeth, is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I stop on the halfway platform and wedge my flip-flops on tighter.

The changing room is vast, bleak. Whoever painted the concrete floor only did it the once, with a small brush and not enough paint; at the base of every locker it has worn smooth away; the women have made tracks, into the toilet cubicles and out again, to the door and back. I sit down on a bench in a slat of light coming in through a broken vent. Elspeth has given me a pair of white wellington boots, size eights, they’ve run out of sixes and sevens. I wrangle with the
over-apron
for about fifteen minutes; it has all the devices of a straitjacket.
Jesus
, I say into the back of the stupid hat, but the word spreads along the lockers, travels the room like a Mexican wave.
Jesus!

“The veil goes at the back,” Elspeth says.

I follow Elspeth to the hand-scrubbing bay, along a path worn in the concrete. We wade through a tray of disinfecting fluid, turn corners in the machinery maze. There’s a wall of doughnuts in shallow crates stacked by the machine. It has two sharp protruding nozzles, a foot pedal.

“Take a doughnut in each hand,” Elspeth shows me. “Push them on to the nozzles, and then press the foot pedal to inject the jam.”

I stand in her place. Something behind me crashes, I see the flying twin arcs of jam arrive in each of my wellies.

“You should aim to get the doughnuts on before you press the pedal; that is the skill of this particular job,” Elspeth says.

In the vicarage car park by the bins, there’s a box, a record player, good old thing with a valve. It’s got a plug; the wiring is disconnected at the arm. I wonder if it is fixable, if Tim at the pottery has got a soldering iron. I was out before the post this morning so I check my postbox on the way in. There is a primrose letter from my solicitor. Once upon a time the letters were palest gray, the aqua years were OK, the change to pink was a mistake. This latest “primrose” is cheery at least.

My compensation claim is doomed, again.

I take the record player upstairs. The clock says ten to five; I might just catch my solicitor.

The phone is ringing in the phone box. I open the door and answer it. A woman wants a taxi to Clifton Village.

“Try in half an hour,” I say.

I make my call. His secretary answers.

“Can I speak to Mr. Mac, please?” I say.

She knows who I am.

“Can you hold a moment?”

“I’ve been holding for a decade.”

The letter says Legal Aid has withdrawn its support. My compensation claim rests on the consistency of mud, a substance my solicitor has never encountered and cannot fathom. To help him understand how clay soil could stick to a rubber boot, I had to mock-up a clay-laden wellington and take it into his office in a black plastic bag. We’ve been debating this mud for so long he’s got fifteen addresses for me including HM Prison, Holloway.

“He’ll call you back, Beverley,” the secretary says.

I sit up on the vicarage stone wall. The pub landlord sorts out a bottle delivery, he’s got smasher written all over him. The phone rings.

“It’s risky,” Mr. Mac says. “They’re prepared to go to court; proving liability is the difficulty.” He has a basketball hoop in his office, I can hear
the ball scuffing against the wall and bouncing back. Assertiveness usually requires rehearsals and weeks of preparation but this has become a matter of principle.

“It was an accident in the workplace,” I say, “and they are insured to cover accidents in the workplace.” Bastards, they want me to give up. “Tell those fuckers I’ll see them in court, put that fucking ball down, Mr. Mac, and phone them up now, tell them to bring their chequebook.” I hang up. It’s not me talking; I got it from some courtroom drama.

But I know what is fair and what is not. Fuck it. You’d think that nothing would faze me now, not in the scheme of things. My guts churn to liquid, they always know something I don’t. Or I’ve lost my nerve. Finally lost my nerve. I crouch down in the phone box and sit on my heels, waiting for calm. When I open my eyes, through the phone-box glass I see the dark gray Audi Quattro, coming toward me up the hill. Read the nearside kicked-in wing and the number plate. It’s Gwen’s car. But is it Gwen? Of course it’s Gwen. The car passes; Panda is laid on the rear shelf looking out. I’m surprised the dog is still alive after all these years. The phone rings and makes me flinch.

“Can I book a taxi to the airport?” a man says.

“No.” I hang up.

Gwen stops the car just up the hill and reverses into a side street. I climb up on the vicarage wall. Can see a chink of the Audi paintwork parked. Through a gap in a privet hedge and a missing section of the wall I expect she can see the vicarage gateway. It didn’t take her long to find me. A blade of rage cleaves up under my ribs.

But it isn’t me she’s waiting for, it isn’t me she wants.

I wait out the front. Giraffe turns off and birds start up. Baby Grady’s crying.

“What service, please?” the lady arst.

“Police, police,” I said, “1-3-8 Leafy Lane.”

“They’re coming, Lulu,” she said.

Then Bryce seen me, pulled the phone out the wall. He took off so fast the air still smells of skid marks. Mr. Baldwin’s curtains is nervous. I spects the police has stopped at the garige cos Roger, normal, brings me chocolate. Uh-huh, it’s Roger.

“Gone, has he?” he says. Gives me a Milky Bar from his pocket.

Never seen this other policeman, he must be practicing, cos he knocks his hat off coming in the back room and Sheba won’t let him have it back. Mum calls the back room a den, but it int. People love the sofa cos it’s got lion’s paws. All its guts was hanging out, but me and Mum pushed them back in and done it posh with red velvit. We was lucky, got the bridesmaids’ dresses at a jumble sale and Mum learned me how to unpick stitches. That’s how come people stroke it and make patterns on it and Auntie Fi always cuddles the curtains. Our house is the London Palladium, even the banisters is gold.

“You OK Mrs. King? Need to go to the hospital?” Roger says.

They want to sit on the sofa but it’s soggy with coffee and bits of broke cups. Stead they sit on the arms like riding horses. Radios keep calling Roger but he don’t answer cos he’s doing the forms. Other one pats the sofa. I put the table and chairs back up, dog-ends is everywhere with flied knives and forks and fish fingers and peas. Surprises me my dinner is still together on a plate. Sheba’s squashed under the sofa, her face is guilty tween the big feets of policemen; she wants my mashed potato but her tongue int long enough. I lights Mum a ciggi on the gas stove cos she stays where she is, longsides the skirting. Don’t know how come I take an ashtray. Mum’s top lip is getting fatter and her toofs bleeding down her chin. I got her a cold flannel but she int used it yet. The one what’s practicing looks at me.

“What’s your name then?” he says.

Police makes my tonsils big.

“Lulu,” I says.

His ear comes over and I has to say it gain.

“Lulu?” he says case it’s a lie. “How old are you then, Lulu?”

“Nine,” I says. “I got conkers to prove it.”

Roger tells Mum they can’t do nothing cos she is married to Bryce. Case they missed it, Mum crawls down the hall, shows them that the front door is smashed in good and proper.

“What chance have I got?” she says. Even though it was her what done it.

“It’s a job for the courts, Mrs. King,” Roger says.

But I reckon we needs to phone the council and arst them for a carpenter. Now the policemen look like Wombles, they both got Sheba’s hair on. Roger says it’s best that they take the axe way with them. Un-adulted bastards, Mum says when they go to their car. One time Auntie Fi was married to a policeman and that’s how come she knows. Then I try to get the front door over the hole a bit and shout thank you to Roger cos he give me chocolate. Mum’s face is dis-gust.

“
Thankyou,
” she says. “
Thankyou, Thankyou. Mr. Policeman
—you make me sick.”

Her finger pokes me gainst the wall. Ouch.

“I’ll tell you about policemen.”

Ouch.

“They.”

Ouch.

“Tell.”

Ouch.

“Lies.”

I try to make uh-huh but my tonsils is up bad.

“Do you think
Mr. Policeman
goes home and kisses his wife?
You don’t know
.”

I needs the toilet.

“There’s only one word for policemen, know what it is? Deceit-ful. Corr-upt.”

She’s chucking up loads of stuff looking for the dictionary, never can hear Baby Grady crying.

“It’s by my bed,” I says.

“Well, go and get it,” she says. Upstairs I go to the toilet quick, bring Baby Grady and the dictionary down. I turn the sofa cushions over and he goes to sleep holding on to my finger. Mum reads me what corr-upt means, one of her eyes is closing up.