Perfect (25 page)

‘I would never steal from you, Diana,’ said Beverley quietly. ‘I can’t think why he would say that.’

His mother kept saying, ‘I know, I know, I know,’ and ‘He isn’t, he isn’t, he isn’t.’

‘Maybe I should go?’

‘Of course you shouldn’t go.’

‘No one has ever accused me of stealing.’

‘It wasn’t what he meant. And anyway the lighter was nothing. It was cheap.’

‘Just because I live in Digby Road doesn’t mean I steal things. I didn’t even have my handbag when you lost your lighter. I left it in the hall.’

His mother was dashing round the terrace, picking up bowls and putting them down, straightening the plastic chairs, and plucking scraps of weed from between the paving stones. If anyone was showing Signs of Guilt, it was her.

‘My mistake, my mistake, my mistake,’ he repeated miserably, but it was all too late.

‘I’m off to the little girls’ room,’ said Beverley, seizing her hat.

As she left, his mother turned to Byron. She was so shocked her face was pointed. She said nothing, she merely shook her head, as if she couldn’t understand who he was any more.

The terrace wobbled and his eyes filled with tears. All over the garden, fruit trees and flowers sprang leaks and grew new edges. Even the moor spilled into the sky. Then Beverley appeared at the French windows with a laugh. ‘Found it!’ She held the lighter between her fingers and it glinted in the sun. ‘You were right, Diana. It was down the back of your sofa.’

She moved between Byron and Diana and picked up the sun cream from the table. Squirting a button-sized pool of it on to her palm, she offered to do Diana’s shoulders. She mentioned something about her figure, how lucky Diana was, but she made no further reference to the
lighter or what had happened in Digby Road. ‘You have such lovely, soft skin. But look, you need to be careful with your colouring. You’re burning. If I ever get to Spain I’m going to get you one of those funny big Spanish hats.’

This time Byron did not correct her.

That weekend things got worse. His father was in a strange mood. He kept opening drawers, checking cupboards, hunting through papers. When Diana asked if he had lost something, he glared at her and said she knew what he was looking for.

‘But I don’t,’ she stammered. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

He mentioned the word gifts and Byron’s heart plummeted.

‘Gifts?’

‘There is a blank stub. In the chequebook. Have you been buying gifts again?’

Diana gave a broken-up laugh. Oh yes, that was her mistake, she said. Her fingers flew like frightened birds towards her teeth. It was Lucy’s birthday present. The shop was keeping it until her birthday. She must have been so excited she had forgotten to fill in the chequebook again.

Remembering she was not supposed to bite her nails, she gripped one hand in the other. Seymour studied her as if she was a new acquaintance. She promised she would be more careful with the chequebook in future.

‘Careful?’ he repeated.

‘You know what I mean,’ she said.

He said he didn’t. He hadn’t a clue.

Diana mentioned that the children were listening and he nodded and she nodded and they went their separate ways.

At least nothing could happen when Diana was in the garden and his father was in his study. Byron and Lucy played board games in the drawing room and he let her win because he liked to see her happy.

Then things took another turn for the worse on Sunday morning.

Emerging from his room, his father beckoned Byron to one side. After lunch he would like to talk man-to-man, he said, and as he did so a sad, sour smell rushed from his mouth. Byron was so terrified his father had found out about the hubcap he could barely swallow his roast dinner. It seemed he was not the only one who had no appetite. His mother barely touched her plate. His father kept clearing his throat. Only Lucy asked for extra potatoes and gravy.

His father began the man-to-man conversation by asking if Byron would like a fudge sweet. At first Byron wondered if it was a test and he said he wasn’t hungry but when his father lifted the lid and said go on, one wouldn’t harm, Byron worried it was wrong to refuse the fudge, and so he took one. His father asked how he was progressing with his scholarship work, how his end-of-year report had compared with James Lowe’s, and Byron tried to say everything was going well without dribbling from the fudge or talking with his mouth open. His father pulled the stopper from the decanter and poured a tumbler of whisky.

‘I am wondering how things are at home?’ he said, examining his glass, as if he were reading the question from inside it.

Byron said they were jolly good. He added that his mother was a careful driver and then there was such silence it was dark as water and he wished he had said nothing. He wished he could swallow the words, along with the fudge sweet.

‘I suppose she is busy?’ said his father. Above his shirt collar the skin had turned so mottled it was like a shadow.

‘Busy?’ said Byron.

‘Doing housework?’

‘Very busy.’ He didn’t know why but his father’s eyes were wet and laced with red veins like netting. It hurt to look.

‘Seeing friends?’

‘She doesn’t have any friends.’

‘No one who comes to visit?’

Byron’s pulse raced. ‘No.’

He waited for the next sentence but it did not happen. In reply to Byron, his father looked back at his glass. For a few moments there was nothing but the steady ticking of the clock. Byron had never blatantly lied to his father before. He wondered when Seymour would see through him but he didn’t, he kept staring into his drink, not guessing the truth. Byron realized he wasn’t afraid of his father. They were men together. It was not too late to ask for his help. It was not too late to confess about the hubcap. After all, Byron had been out of his depth with Beverley and the lighter.

Seymour’s drink gave a jolt and slopped over the rim of the glass, splashing on to his papers. He said, ‘Your mother is a very beautiful woman.’

‘Father?’

‘It’s not surprising if people want to visit.’

‘Something happened recently. It’s to do with time—’

‘It doesn’t mean any harm if another man looks. I am lucky, after all. I am lucky that she chose me.’

His father gazed at Byron with his sore eyes and Byron had to pretend he was having difficulty with the fudge sweet. ‘You were saying?’ said Seymour.

Byron said he was saying nothing really.

‘Well. It’s good to have a conversation. It’s good to talk man-to-man.’

It was, said Byron.

Seymour poured himself another measure. It sent rainbow glints of sunlight as he lifted the crystal tumbler towards his opened mouth. The amber liquid vanished in one go. His father mopped his chin. ‘My own father never did. Talk, I mean. Not man-to-man. And then, of course, he died just
before I met your mother.’ The words ran together. It was hard to understand, but Seymour kept stumbling through them. ‘When I was six he took me to a lake. He threw me in. Survivors swim, he said. I was afraid there were crocodiles. I still don’t like water.’

Byron remembered his father’s face when he heard about the accident with the bridge and Andrea Lowe’s complaint. The skin had turned so grey and stiff Byron had feared a whipping. As if reading his thoughts, Seymour said, ‘Maybe I overreacted. About the pond. But you see he was not an easy man, my father. He was not easy at all.’ He appeared to run out of words.

As Byron clicked open the door, he heard the clink of the glass stopper on the decanter. His father called, ‘So you will tell me? If your mother has a new friend?’

He promised he would and then he shut the door.

A
LL MORNING
J
IM
sits in his Father Christmas chair, hoping for Eileen, and all morning she does not come. Sometimes his mind plays tricks on him. He sees a strong figure in a green coat, pacing from the car park, and he briefly succumbs to the fantasy that it is her. He goes so far as to imagine their conversation. It resembles most of those he overhears beside the automatic doors to the supermarket. The only difference between the real conversations and the one inside his head is that the imagined one always ends with Eileen’s invitation for a drink, and his unequivocal acceptance.

The coats that pass him, however, are never holly green. The women are never noisy. They are slim, they are tidy, they are all the same. It is only in seeing all these not-Eileens that he understands how truly Eileen she is. And in allowing himself to pretend she is here, he must also acknowledge that she isn’t. It is like missing her twice over.

He imagines showing her the light across the moor on a moon-filled night. The beauty of an early morning. A wren flickering, slight as a
thought, on air. There is an apple tree on the moor and its fruit still clings to its leafless branches like frosted baubles; he would like to show her those too. He would like to show her the winter sunset; the electric-pink underbelly of the clouds, its final splashes of red light on her cheeks, her mouth, her hair.

But she will never find him attractive. Peering into the mirror in the men’s urinals, he finds a mass of silvering hair and two deep eyes. He tries to do a smile and his skin is shot all over with lines. He tries not to do a smile and the skin hangs loose. He is past loving now. There were offers long ago and they came to nothing. He remembers a nurse who told him once he had a nice mouth. He was young then and so was she. There were female patients too who looked at him. They watched him in the garden and waved. Even in his life outside Besley Hill, there have been encounters. The woman for whom he raked leaves, for example, a very presentable middle-aged lady, invited him several times to join her for rabbit pie. He was in his thirties. He liked her. But it was like pretending to be a shiny new cup when he knew he had a hairline crack. There was no point getting close to anyone because by then there were the rituals. Besides, he knew what happened when he loved people. He knew what happened when he intervened.

In the lunch break, Jim changes into his café uniform and visits the supermarket. He finds himself in the stationery aisle where he stares at all the pens. Fibre-tipped, uniball, gelstick, retractable, jumbo highlighters. They come in every colour. There is even one for corrections. Looking at them, shiny and purposeful, he sees Eileen’s point. Why give a person something dying? He chooses a selection and pays for them at the checkout. He does not catch the assistant’s eye, though recognizing his orange hat and T-shirt she asks him how things are upstairs. They’re quiet in the store, she says. It’s recession depression. Who’s going to drive all the way over the moor to a supermarket, even
if it’s been refurbished? ‘We’ll be lucky if we have our jobs next year.’

He thinks of the neat bow of Eileen’s shoelaces and his stomach flutters.

‘Why do you want to know her address?’ says Paula when he asks if anyone knows where she lives. ‘Why do you want her phone number?’

Jim tries to assume the careless air of someone who doesn’t. ‘I hope you’re reporting her to the police,’ says the small girl, Moira. She writes down Eileen’s address and number.

Paula adds that she keeps getting text messages on her phone from those legal firms who waive costs.

‘That’s what you should do,’ says Moira. ‘You should sue.’

‘I knew someone once who knocked her head open in a furniture store. She got a sofa bed and free meal vouchers. She lived for a whole year on Scandinavian meatballs.’

‘Haven’t you all got work to do?’ shouts Mr Meade from the servery.

The truth is, Mr Meade is on a short fuse. Human Resources have reviewed sales figures before the year-end and sent out an urgent email. Trade is seriously down. Local regional managers will be required to take Saturday off work and attend a nearby Centre of Excellence. They will spend the day with actors learning about Efficacy in the Workplace and Team Building. There will be demonstrations and role-play exercises. ‘Don’t they realize it’s the week before Christmas? Don’t they realize we have work to do? They can’t just send us off with one day’s notice. We’re rushed off our feet,’ says Mr Meade.

Jim, Paula and Moira survey the empty café. There is only one customer. ‘Hello there!’ calls Darren. He gives a thumbs-up in case they have forgotten who he is.

It is a surprise to everyone that Mr Meade returns from the Centre of Excellence on Monday full of enthusiasm. He asks customers and staff how they are doing. When they reply that they are well, or so-so, he sings,
‘Good, good. Splendid stuff. Well done, you.’ It is about affirmation, he says. The power of now. This is the new beginning.

‘He’s probably about to get the sack,’ says Paula to Moira.

Mr Meade laughs heartily as if she is a scream.

The reason the café is not doing well, says Mr Meade, is confidence. The café does not believe in itself. It is not behaving like a successful café. Paula listens with her arms folded and one hip hitched higher than the other.

‘Does that mean we get to ditch the orange hats?’ she says. ‘Does that mean Jim stops dressing like a twat?’

‘No, no,’ cries Mr Meade. He laughs good-humouredly. ‘The orange hats work. They give us a sense of connection. And Jim’s Father Christmas outfit is a marvellous gesture of good will. We need more things like that.’