The Would-Begetter (28 page)

‘You seem more interested in him than you are in Morgan!’ Wendy challenged.

‘Rubbish.’ Hector brushed the suggestion aside.

‘And you still haven’t told me where you were on the night of the fire.’

‘Sorry?’ Hector said. ‘Have I missed some vital connection there, or are you just emitting words at random?’

‘You were with Zillah Brakespear, weren’t you?’ Wendy accused him. ‘And this baby of hers is yours, isn’t it.
That’s
the connection!’

Hector laughed. He threw his head back and roared with laughter. ‘WRONG!’ he chortled, ‘on both counts.’

‘Stop laughing,’ Wendy snapped angrily, ‘and swear to me that you aren’t having an affair with Zillah.’

‘God forbid!’ Hector said. ‘OK, I swear. I swear her baby isn’t mine either. Cross my heart!’

‘You really promise?’ Wendy pleaded.

‘I really promise. What extraordinary ideas you do come up with sometimes. Now come over here you silly sausage and give us a cuddle, eh?’

Wendy allowed herself to be hugged, and they sat back on the sofa together. She studied Hector’s face closely. He did seem to her to be completely sincere. She felt as though a great burden of anxiety had been lifted from her, and only now did she realise how crushing the weight had been. Now would be a good time to tell him about Morgan, and really discuss the problem in depth. She turned to him. ‘Hector?’

‘Wendy?’

‘Morgan isn’t lazy you know. I’m sure he’s got a condition that stops him from being able to read and write and spell easily.’

‘What condition? What
are
you on about?’

‘Dyslexia.’ Wendy crossed her fingers as she said the word.

‘There’s no such thing,’ Hector scoffed at once. ‘It’s just a trendy middle-class excuse for the thick! You know how it goes: working-class Kevin is just plain stupid, but upwardly-mobile middle-class Tristan is
dyslexic.
Come on Wendy, face facts. Morgan just isn’t very clever.’

‘You’re so wrong!’ Wendy said desperately. ‘Dyslexia is real. I should know. My brother had it, but no one knew what it was in those days, and then he married into a family that had it too, and now both his sons go to special dyslexic schools in Australia and they’ve really come on…’

‘You never told me!’ Hector interrupted, suddenly furious, leaping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at her. ‘Before I married you, I asked you if you had any
disabilities
in your family, and you said NO!’

‘You said madness, not disability,’ Wendy insisted, ‘and anyway it’s not a disability, it’s just a different ability.’

‘Splitting hairs!’ Hector sneered.

‘You don’t know,’ Wendy shouted. ‘You’re very ready to criticise, but you don’t understand the first thing about it! Morgan’s teachers agree with me, and if you ever took the time to come to parents’ meetings you’d know that, and you’d understand he needs special tuition!’

‘Stop shouting,’ Hector said. ‘You’ll wake the boys.’

‘I’ll shout all I want in my own house!’

‘So what do you expect me to do about it then?’ Hector asked wearily.

‘I want to have Morgan properly assessed by an educational psychologist.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Wendy. The child’s only
seven!’

‘Yes, but the sooner we know, the sooner he can be helped. He’s not happy Hector, and your attitude to him doesn’t help.’

‘Oh I see. It’s all my fault now, is it?’

The door of the sitting room opened and Florian came in, yawning and looking fed up.

‘Florian?’ Wendy said, disconcerted. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

‘No,’ Florian said. ‘And I’m off home tomorrow, right? I’ve bin here three days, an’ I want me thirty quid.’

‘You want
what?
’ Wendy asked.

‘All right, Wendy,’ Hector said. ‘This is between Florian and me. Come on young man. Let’s get you back to bed, shall we?’ And he took him by the arm and ushered him out of the room.

Wendy slumped back against the sofa and thought bitterly, Great! I knew he wouldn’t believe me about Morgan’s dyslexia. I must try to convince him.

But when Hector came downstairs again, he said he had work to do, retired to his study and shut the door firmly, so no further discussion was possible.

Next morning Wendy woke suddenly as though a loud crash had roused her. Noises from the road outside were rarely heard in their bedroom at the back of the house, so she wondered if she had imagined it. Hector was solidly asleep beside her and snoring irritatingly. She looked at her watch. It was six thirty. She decided she might as well get up, and in passing quietly opened Morgan’s door to check on the boys. Florian was there, in the spare bed, fast asleep, but Morgan’s bed was empty and his clothes were missing from his chair. Wendy ran over and shook Florian awake.

‘Where’s Morgan?’

‘Uh?… Dunno…’

‘But did he say where he was going?’

‘No.’

‘And you can’t guess?’

‘Nah.’

Wendy tore round the house and the back garden, calling for Morgan. Then she went out of the front door. Hector’s
precious Jaguar (which no one, not even Wendy herself was allowed to borrow) wasn’t in its usual place at the top of their steep drive. Then she saw it, and realized at once what must have happened. The car was slewed sideways at the bottom, with its front end buried in one of the stone gateposts. Wendy rushed down to it and saw with horror that its beautiful, long, shiny bonnet and one wing were badly dented, the front bumper was hanging off and there was a trail of bright green anti-freeze from its fractured radiator. The keys were in the open offside door, but of the driver there was no sign. Wendy ran out into the road and looked wildly up and down. It was empty but for the milkman who was passing in his float. Wendy waved her arms and dashed out in front of him.

‘Stop! have you seen a little boy, blond hair, plumpish, wearing a red sweatshirt?’

‘Five minutes back? Yes, I reckon I did.’

‘Was he hurt?’ Wendy gasped. ‘Did you see?’

‘Shouldn’t think so, judging by the speed he was running!’

Zillah met Florian off the school bus that day. ‘So, how was it?’

‘Fucking awful!’ Florian said. ‘Hector’s bloody old an’ Morgan’s just a fucking kid!’

‘Let’s have a little less of the effing and blinding, shall we?’

‘Can’t help it.’ Florian shrugged. ‘But I didn’t never swear
once
over there.’

‘I’m proud of you,’ Zillah smiled. ‘What’s Wendy like?’

‘All right. Food were brilliant!’

‘And d’you reckon Hector likes you?’

‘Oh yeah. He’s totally pissed-off wiv Morgan mind,’ Florian grinned. ‘Gave him a real belting s’morning! Made me late for school an’ all.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cos he crashed that stupid old car! Course he weren’t really driving it; he don’t know how,’ Florian made a pitying face. ‘Told me he pushed the handbrake down, and nuffing happened – car just creaked a bit – an’ then he gets all clever like, trying out the pedals…’

‘And it was in gear?’

‘Musta bin. So he stands on it an’ ZOOM! down it goes, YEE… EEE… POW!
SMASH!
Cor, wish I’d’a bin there!’

‘And weren’t you?’

‘No way,’ Florian said virtuously. ‘Sleeping in bed, me.’

‘But the night before you’d been telling Morgan a few tall stories about driving, perhaps?’

‘I might of,’ Florian said matter of factly. Zillah raised an eyebrow. ‘Not going back there, mind,’ he warned. ‘Tha’s it!’

‘You won’t have to,’ Zillah said. ‘But Hector’s coming round to talk money tomorrow, so remember to go on being polite, eh?’

‘Dunno about that,’ Florian said puffing out his cheeks like a middle-aged builder asked to give an estimate. ‘I might’ve fucked off somewhere.’

Both Christian and Florian were absent when Hector arrived the next evening. He was driving a temporary hired car, but Zillah refrained from commenting on it. She had got her argument all worked out and she didn’t want any distractions. Hector’s first words though, were not what she was expecting.

‘I’ve decided it would be best if I adopted Florian,’ he said abruptly. ‘He and I seem to get on well, and he’s clearly much too much of a handful for you. What do you say?’

‘NO,’ Zillah said, ‘absolutely not.’

‘And that’s your last word?’

‘Certainly is.’

‘See you in court then.’ He turned to go.

‘Wait,’ Zillah called. ‘Come on, don’t be silly. We can talk about this. For a start, what does your wife think?’

‘Oh I haven’t discussed it with her yet. She’s convinced the boy is a bad influence on her precious Morgan, but that’s just prejudice. Morgan’s a fool with or without Florian in my opinion.’

‘But you can’t possibly adopt Florian without her consent.’

‘Well, no, but I could if I was on my own.’

Zillah laughed. ‘You’d be hopeless on your own. You literally can’t even boil an egg! No, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you pay me a regular monthly whack, and come round once in a while and get your money’s worth?’

To her surprise, Hector flinched. ‘No,’ he said at once. ‘Thanks for the offer and all that, but… no.’

Zillah studied him calculatingly and reckoned that his demand for adoption was just a try-on, and would never be taken seriously by the authorities anyway. She decided to call his bluff. ‘Face it Hector, your idea of adopting Florian was a non-starter from the beginning. Let’s be practical and talk about maintenance. How much will you give us a month?’

‘I’m not doing a standing order,’ Hector warned, ‘and if (and only IF) I agree, then I want regular access to Florian. But if you screw up the access, or Florian messes me about, then you’ll get nothing from me. Is that understood? I’m staying in charge.’

‘All right then,’ Zillah agreed (thinking, we’ll see about that!). ‘I’ll jot down the address of my bank so you can send your cheques straight there.’

‘I could always bring them round personally?’ Hector offered.

‘No, I’d rather you didn’t,’ Zillah said. ‘They’d only get lost. They’ll be much safer in the bank.’ She saw that Hector could appreciate the sense of this. He was looking round her kitchen superciliously as though he had never seen a cobweb before.

They then haggled at length about a suitable figure, with Zillah demanding far more than was reasonable to begin with, in order that Hector should believe he had won by beating her down. It worked perfectly, and she ended up with more than she had hoped for.

‘But I must see Florian regularly,’ Hector insisted. ‘Is that understood?’

‘Fine.’

‘So, where is he now?’

‘Out playing somewhere, I expect.’

‘But how am I going to arrange access days? You’re still not on the phone, I suppose?’

‘Can’t afford it. You can just turn up and take pot luck, can’t you?’

‘That’s not very satisfactory,’ Hector frowned.

‘Well, let’s try it for a while and see how it works out.’ Zillah smiled her best smile and patted Hector on the arm. ‘It’ll be fine, you’ll see.’

Hector looked only partly convinced. ‘I’ll be back to see him in a week or so then,’ he said.

‘Right.’

She watched him walk away down the path to the unfamiliar car, and let out a breath of relief. It
was
going to work out after all. She had banked on Hector’s liking for Florian growing large enough to entrap his feelings, but on Florian’s difficult nature being awkward enough to dissuade Hector from being determined to have him actually to live with them. For a moment there, she thought she’d miscalculated, and that the first had outweighed the second!

She hadn’t been sure either, whether her concern to make sure Florian was properly financed might have been greater than Hector’s desire for a new son. In any dispute the person who cares most has the most to lose, and is therefore at a disadvantage. In this case, it seemed that Hector cared more about Florian than she did about the money. Fancy that! Zillah thought.

Jess spent most of May and June assembling a collection of her private photographs for inclusion in an exhibition which Vivian was mounting at his gallery in Bath. She thanked the Fates daily that she’d had the wit to store all her personal negatives at home, rather than at work where they would have been destroyed in the fire. When the exhibition was finally hung in July, she went to help Vivian and his staff put it together, and got home that evening still pink with pleasure at the praise her work had received. It got better. Vivian rang regularly to tell her how it was going, and it was going very well indeed. Jess felt her confidence growing.

This was in marked contrast to her personal life. She had had very little time lately to go for country walks, and to her sorrow had missed the return of her pair of redshanks to the rushy field on the Levels where they habitually bred. Their piping courtship flights lasted only a few days, and were rewarding to witness. Jess felt cheated. She could have used some walks for calm thinking time, to breathe in the good air, and try to decide what to
do
about Hector. He still seemed determined not to give up, as though by sheer perseverance he could force her to change her mind. She had tried avoiding
him, but then he waited until late evening and came to her flat instead. Jess was concerned that Wendy would soon discover where he was, and assume the worst.

So, quite often she consented to meet him in the George and Pilgrim, where he drank whisky and was by turns charming and peevish. Jess stuck to orange juice and tried to remain calm. Inevitably their conversations eventually turned either to Hector’s problems with Wendy, or to the infuriating lack of spare parts for the Jaguar, or to Florian…

‘He refuses to see me,’ Hector complained. ‘I take the trouble to go all the way over to their cottage at Slum-over-Peat, and then I find that he’s not there. He’s out on his bike, or he’s visiting friends, or he’s… hiding under the bed for all I know, but he won’t come with me. I just don’t know what to do about him.’

‘Back off a bit?’ Jess suggested. ‘If you put pressure on him, you’ll only drive him further away.’

Hector sighed. ‘When I think how much I’m paying for the little bastard…’ he said. ‘Somehow I don’t like to withold it, although that’s what I threatened them with. They do have a moral right to it after all, but… it makes me so mad!’