Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The (20 page)

‘Clive thinks he's dying. I'm sorry Josie, bad news makes me rude.' She went out to her car and drove away. How absurd, she thought, to find out a thing like this wearing someone else's tight bathing suit. She could not, yet, think of what had happened.

Clive was in the ward foyer, leaning on the windowsill. He ground out his cigarette. ‘They stick me out here because I smoke. Non-smokers get a waiting-room.'

‘How is he, Clive? Can I see him?'

He led her along the ward, put his head in the sister's office, ‘I'm taking Mrs Sangster to see Mr Schwass,' and showed her into a small sideroom. The empty bed by the window made her gasp, then a curtain squeaked back round a second bed and a woman came out. Plain woman with one off-centre eye. Her white coat meant she was a doctor.

‘This is my sister, Mrs Sangster,' Clive said.

Norma saw her father through a gap in the curtain. He was sleeping with the stern look she remembered from her childhood.

‘He's deeply unconscious, Mrs Sangster,' the doctor said. ‘He's not in any pain. I want you to be certain of that.'

‘Is there any chance that he'll recover?' She was pleased that she could speak right out and not waste words. She watched the doctor weigh her.

‘I don't think so. A massive stroke. I don't think recovery – we shouldn't wish for it.'

‘You can't say that,' Clive began, but Norma stopped him.

‘And he won't hear anything we say?'

‘I think perhaps I'd sit and talk to him and hold his hand. But really he's deep down and far away.'

Norma had a flash of admiration for the woman – to say these ordinary words and yet avoid cliché … ‘Thank you,' she said, and went behind the curtain and sat in a chair by her father's side. ‘Hallo, Dad,' she whispered, putting her hand on his. The skin was papery and moved on the hand-shape underneath. ‘Can you hear me? I love you, Dad.' She managed that before Clive came in. He stood at her side and seemed to be waiting for some act she might perform.

‘Did they hurt him?' she asked.

‘He's got some bruises here, on his shoulder,' he touched his own. ‘No, he's not hurt. They held him down. God knows, his mind just kind of, I don't know, went bang.'

‘Did they hurt Mum?'

‘One of them got a handful –' Clive turned away and swallowed, ‘– he got a handful of her stomach and twisted it –'

‘God.'

‘– trying to make her say if there was any more money.'

‘Is she –'

‘Mum's all right. Mum's pretty tough.'

‘Who were they, Clive?'

‘I don't know. Two of them. Not Maoris, both of them white. There was a girl in it too.'

‘What girl?'

‘I don't know any names. She waited outside in a car. Don't talk about it, eh Norma? Not in front of him.'

Norma sat and held her father's hand. She lifted it and was surprised by its weight. One did not feel that weight when lifting one's own. With this thought she felt him go from her; and though he lived she gained a sense of ending, of something done and brought to its close. Tears ran on her face. She kissed his brow.

It seemed this was what Clive waited for.

‘I think you should go and see Mum now. I'll stay here. If you want to come back when she's asleep we'll work it in shifts with the old man.'

‘Yes, I'll do that.'

‘Bring me a packet of smokes when you come.'

She drove out to the berry farm and found her mother drinking tea.

‘I can't get her to go to bed,' Daphne said.

‘I'll have to take one of those knockout pills when I go to bed so my stomach won't keep hurting where that silly boy twisted me. How's poor Ken?'

Norma kissed her. ‘No change, Mum. He's still unconscious.' She knelt by her chair and held her tight.

‘Ouch, dear,' Mrs Schwass said. ‘I think he loved his adventure today. He was always talking about fights.'

‘He's had a stroke, Mum. Don't you understand?' Daphne said. She had red eyes and a swollen nose.

‘He was marvellous trying to hit them with his stick.'

‘Do you want to tell me?'

‘You shouldn't make her remember it,' Daphne cried.

‘I certainly don't intend to forget,' Mrs Schwass said. Norma had not known her so sharp in years.

‘I'd love a cup of tea, Daphne. Did you know them, Mum? Had you ever seen them?'

‘They had stockings on their heads so they looked all squashed up like plasticine. When I opened the door I thought they wanted pennies for the guy. “It's too late for Guy Fawkes, boys,” I said. Then they just pushed in, absolutely rude, and one of them – the fair one because he had some hair sticking up through a hole in his stocking – he caught me round the jaw and squeezed my mouth …'

‘No squeals, grandma, or I'll break your fucking neck.' He spun her round so fast her head went dizzy and ran her at the stairs, with one
arm round her throat and one round her middle. His knee butted under her behind and lifted her up at each step. The other man ran ahead. She heard Ken shout and saw him swing his stick and catch his attacker on the arm. ‘Good one, Ken,' she tried to say. Then her captor threw her on the sofa and the other man lifted Ken and clapped him in a chair. He hooked the handle of Ken's stick under his chin and pulled his head back.

‘How do you like that, you old fucker?'

‘It was like a butcher's hook,' she says, ‘as though they were going to hang poor Ken on a rail.'

Her man pulled her up. ‘OK grandma, let's see what you got. Money first.' He put his arm over her shoulder in a way that might have been friendly if the forearm had not angled back and forced up her chin. She wasn't afraid and tried to tell him so. She wasn't afraid for Ken. It would satisfy him if his life ended in this way. She did not care for the cruelty of the men and their language was so nasty she wished they would give her time to say what she thought of it.

‘Where's this money in the biscuit-tin?'

The queen was on the lid, smiling away. A fat lot she knew. Men like these would never come within cooee of her. He pushed her into the corner between the sink and stove, made her sit, put his foot on her to hold her down. That was degrading but she did not struggle. His face, flat and fat and ugly in the stocking, made him somehow – what was the word – incommunicado? He must like such unhumanness. The sprig of hair poking out the hole would annoy him – so boyish, she thought.

He ripped off the lid, grunted at the money. ‘How much?'

‘It's Ken's nest-egg. He'll be angry if you take it.'

He stuffed the notes into a plastic bag from his pocket. Looked in the coin tin. ‘You can keep this for ice-creams. What else have you got?'

‘Peanut brownies if you're hungry.'

He pushed his foot into her. ‘You're a cheeky old bitch. Jewels and watches, eh? Where do you keep it?'

‘No, you're mistaken, we're not rich.'

He opened crocks and tins. Felt in them. He emptied sugar on
her, flour, tea, and she spluttered and coughed. ‘That's a dreadful waste.'

He pulled her up. His misshapen face was alarming, but she was not going to be scared. ‘I'm going to call the police in a minute.'

‘Try that and you'll get your tongue ripped out.'

That was too absurd to frighten her. She guessed though that he would hit or squeeze her, choke her maybe until she died. His judgement would be poor on a thing like that. She wanted to see what the other one was doing to Ken.

‘There's a few things in the bedroom but they're not worth very much.'

‘Where's the bedroom?'

He marched her back, arm under her chin. Ken was sitting upright in the chair, his face purple and his eyes closed. The man had put the stick down and was holding him by the shoulders, but she thought that wasn't necessary. ‘This old fucker's passed out.' It was more likely that he'd had a heart attack. ‘Oh, Ken,' she said.

‘He shat his pants.'

That would have been from rage not fear. She wanted to explain that much at least. But the man, the boss, kneed her into the bedroom and pushed her face-down on a bed. He rummaged through the dressing-table drawers and stuffed her rings and brooches into the plastic bag on top of the banknotes. In the bottom drawer he found Ken's Kruger rands.

‘What are these, grandma? Are they gold?'

‘They're Kruger rands. Yes, they're gold.'

‘What else is around here?'

‘There's nothing else.'

He pulled her up. He took the slack of her stomach through her dress and gave a twist and she cried out, but the pain was too much for her to cry loudly. He let her go and took her head in two hands. ‘A little twist and it might come right off, eh?'

‘There's no more. No more money or anything.'

He let her go. His hands were white with flour from her cheeks. She could see from his open mouth and his teeth wet through the stocking that the gold had excited him.

‘It's a pity you're so ugly or I'd bend you over a table and screw a tail on you.'

She does not tell Norma this; will tell no one. There's no reason to spread ugliness and cruelty.

‘The police came then. It was Mrs Butler. She's really quite fanatical with this Neighbourhood Support. They sneaked in from the right-of-way but she saw. The fighting downstairs, so much got broken. Ken would have loved it. It took both policemen to hold the big one so the bossman got away and ran up the road but they caught him later. And they were just boys, like I thought. Only nineteen and twenty.'

‘What were their names?'

‘Neil Chote was one. He was the one who held me. Stephen Cater-Phillips was the other. Just think of that, a hyphenated name. I imagine they'll both go to prison for quite a long time, and I think they deserve it. They could have had our money, there was no need to be cruel.'

‘Clive said there was a girl in it?'

‘Yes. Ken fell down the steps in the morning so I called in two girls who were passing. One of them used such bad language too. It was her, I think. She saw the money.'

‘What was her name?'

‘A pretty name. Shelley Birtles. I hope she didn't go to your school, dear.'

Norma drove to Saxton to sit with her father. It was after midnight – Monday, a new week. I need someone to touch me, Norma thought. I need someone to love. John Toft would dole out his spoonful of warmth and then withdraw. Someone else.

I can't be happy alone, I want to know someone. Oh that ambiguous ‘know', what a word.

She was ashamed to have needs so complete, with her father dying. She tried for – felt in surges, most unpleasant – hatred for those boys; but ended up with sadness, Shelley Birtles. Where are you from, Shelley, where will you go?

I need someone to love. Being alone doesn't work any more.

She had forgotten cigarettes for Clive. He drove back to the berry farm to fetch some. Norma sat by her father and held his hand. She was alone with him when he died.

The publisher made her speech – moderately lively – and the girls started up in bands of five to get their prizes. There were the usual things: German dictionaries,
Pride and Prejudice
, popular science; but
Asterix
, marginal; and was that
Hollywood Wives
? Not the best idea to let third-formers choose for themselves. The publisher looked startled, handing it over.

That's right Tania, hold it so everyone can see.

Now the big guns, top echelon. Each year they pranced up, fat or tall or thin; pretty and plain; blonde and brown; but what did anyone know of their minds?

‘Three cheers for the head girl,' the deputy head girl cried.

‘Three cheers for the dux,' cried the head girl.

Wasn't it time to get rid of élitism? (Were some of those fourth-formers crying ‘Quack'?) Get rid of prize-giving, in fact. In its place a big picnic, everyone in mufti. We can eat and drink and laugh and cry and swim in the sea (and Phyllis can stop fizzing and spitting at girls who wear scarves in their hair). Tonight, at the end of it, the prize mums and dads will sip their tea and shine with pride and half a dozen fourth-formers will jump in the pool in their uniforms.

Hayley Birtles isn't with her form.

How nice that Stella Round isn't dux.

She looked at the seventh-formers; girls no more, young women. Their only worry now was being free. Oh you'll find out, she wanted to cry, good luck to you; and covered her confusion with a smile.

How brave she is. Her father doesn't get buried till tomorrow.

There are men in stocking masks at everyone's door. There are men in stocking masks hiding in your minds – hear me, girls – and one day, no matter where you turn, they'll come leaping at you, absolutely rude. How many of you will survive the attack? Pink and happy, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, fair. You've had some luck tonight that Ms Johnson didn't confuse you with advice. Don't be
advised by us sitting here, but don't ignore us. The men in stocking masks come for us too.

Tea and sticky biscuits. Make-believe coffee.

‘Norma, I was so sorry to hear.'

‘Norma, so brave of you to come.'

‘Gidday Norma, that's bad luck about your old man.'

‘Thank you, Tom. My word, your girls carried off the prizes.'

‘Yeah. Stella's going to be mad. Mandy was dux in her year and anything Mandy can do …'

‘It's the science side that gets it, usually. She did well.' What greedy eyes he has, greedy for everything, money, fame, sex, and the whole lot a second time, vicariously. His daughters are a three-course meal for him. And I'm a meal, with added flavour, sauced with grieving. He wants me before Dad's in his grave.

‘Anything I can do, Norma, just sing out. Is anyone seeing you home? It must be lonely in that house, time like this.'

Can he see that I need someone? Does he think he's someone? At least he lets you know, and it's bad luck he won't do.

It's bad luck anyone won't do.

But good luck, great good luck, this heightened clarity in her moral sense. It makes startling pictures in her mind. Rutting stag! Beast in a wallow, urinating, defecating. The coat of ordure makes it large and dark and makes it smell … Tom with raised head and swelling throat … She moves away.

‘Oh, there's the usual silly girls, been in the pool. I didn't think Belinda would do that.'

Drenched and lovely. Plump and clean. A vision too. And Norma sees Tom get the sight of her and get the scent. Blood rises higher. Blood beats in him and swells him up.

Misshapen face. Face at the door.

Then he shrinks and smiles and turns away.

But it's too late. Too late for Norma. She knows. And tries to turn and shake it off. But knowledge clings; it's fixed in her and won't let go. She could more easily shake off one of her arms.

Run, run, run. She takes a step at Belinda Round. Her man in a stocking mask will be her dad.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Sangster?'

‘Perhaps I'd better sit down for a moment.'

‘Do you feel faint? You've gone very pale.'

Where was evidence? And sanity?

‘Oh Mrs Sangster, I've just been told about your father. It's really most extraordinarily brave of you to come. You know, we've got a little book on our list about coping with grief. You must let me send you a copy.'

‘That's very kind –'

‘One mustn't bottle up. One must let go. Scream if you like.'

Shall I scream? Run, run, Belinda. Get away.

‘Josie, I want to talk to you.'

‘I want to meet Ms Johnson. Ms Johnson, Josie Round from Wimmins Werk.'

‘Ah yes, I've heard of you.'

‘I wanted to know – a book about our co-operative, not a weaving book or a craft book you know, but women working together, would it go?'

‘That's a very interesting idea …'

On Sunday it was a book about not needing anyone … Josie, I need to talk to you.

‘I thought if each of us did a chapter, there's weavers and potters and jewellers and leather-workers, we'd get the feminists and the crafts people too.'

‘What a splendid idea.'

‘Emphasizing how we all work in and help each other – practically and ideologically as well.'

‘Absolutely splendid.'

Stella Round is standing alone.

Stella, Stella.

‘Congratulations, Stella.'

‘Oh, thanks.'

‘You don't feel too badly about the dux thing?'

‘I would have liked it. But I don't think she's going anywhere.'

Old-fashioned malice, just as pure as water from a spring. Stella would make a marvellous wicked queen. But in one version wasn't she made to dance in red-hot shoes until she died, while Snow White watched? Stella was in her red-hot shoes already.

‘You don't need childish things any more. A name on the honours board doesn't mean a thing.'

‘That isn't what you've told us for five years.'

Oh little girl, poor child, don't try so hard, relax, enjoy. Could
one give that advice? The stocking-man had his way in far too bloody a fashion. And this girl looks down her bony nose at my confusion. This woman on her way, going somewhere. She's putting by her last bit of childish disappointment and clearing her systems. Poor child is wrong.

Poor child, nevertheless.

‘Your father … Oh Belinda, there you are. I don't approve of jumping in the pool.'

‘It's kind of traditional, Mrs Sangster. Mandy and Stell both did, in the fourth form. I wasn't going to be left out.'

‘Where's Mandy? Didn't she come?'

‘Home with Duncan. Watching the stars.'

‘Pure escapism, looking out there,' Stella says.

What caused her glass-sharpness, iron-hardness, her minimizing of herself? This falling back to a position she can hold, or believes she can. There must have been some other, larger person growing there. Now – an iron lady; or corrugated iron, for Stella will not endure. He will come for her. Or – that shock! – had come already? Had Stella seen her father's face?

‘Belinda, you'd better dry yourself. Stella, if you've got a moment, there's a book I'd like you to have.'

What can she say? What possible approach? That dreadful acuity, that knowledge, is gone. There he is, all innocence and desire, predatory and naked, and no damned good at it, moving in, trying to, on Sandra Duff, who gives sharp answers from the look of it. Yet a force. He is a force. Because he believes in himself.
There
is ground for evil to take root.

‘I never thought I'd come in here again. Do you mind, can I sit behind the desk?'

‘Oh, help yourself.'

‘Feels good. What's it like, being in charge?'

‘Not much fun.'

‘I can believe it. Can I give you a warning, Mrs Sangster?'

‘Please do.'

‘Miss Duff read us a poem yesterday. And Julie Stanley went all, you know, white around her nose. I think you'll get Mr Stanley calling on you.'

‘What sort of poem?'

‘One she probably shouldn't have. I thought it was a bit juvenile.
Quite funny though. Anyway, I'm not complaining, just warning you.'

And enjoying yourself. Advantage is a wonderful thing, but Stella, you like the taste too much.

‘How are things at home, Stella?'

‘With Mum and Dad you mean? Is this going to be a little talk?'

‘With everyone. Stella – families …' The worst things happen there, the very worst, in that hothouse fug. ‘There are lines that get tangled in families. And yours doesn't seem, well, happy any more. There's Duncan of course. And your mother and father becoming – not good friends …' How arch, how prissy. I know she knows tough language, real words, but how can I say them? ‘I think he's a fairly complex man. But childish too, in a way. And possessive. I mean, things in his family are his. A kind of dominion. And who knows how it gets tangled up? Proximity and ownership – and a confused sense of right –'

‘If you're saying what I think, there's no need.'

‘I don't really know what I'm saying.'

‘It's not a new thing, Mrs Sangster, it's happened before. Or, just to set your mind at rest, it hasn't happened.'

‘What hasn't?'

‘He has to be drunk to try it on. And drunk makes him sentimental and he gets lost in, oh, the philosophy of it all. Our little Round fortress in a hostile world. And our special sense of right. Nothing happens. He goes all soggy before it can. There's just a nasty smell around, that's all. And of course, he forgets. He thinks he's world champion at fathers.'

‘Mandy too?'

‘Oh yes, Mandy. Except I'm not so sure nothing happened there. She won't say. But look, we don't need you. Belinda is all right. Mandy and me are watching things.'

She's not so collected as she makes out or she wouldn't get her grammar wrong. And that bad smell has poisoned her – and made her too. She's terrifying and magnificent, and oh so sad.

‘How did you find out, Mrs Sangster?'

‘I didn't find out. I don't know. It's just, I've got a nose for things like this. Stella, there's a book,
I Couldn't Cry –
'

‘–
When Daddy Died
. I've read it. So has Mandy. Is that what you were going to give me? I thought you were just getting me here.'

‘Yes, I was. Does Josie know?'

‘She's too dumb. Mum hasn't got a clue.'

She'll pat my shoulder now and humour me and comfort me. Because I'm dumb like Josie, haven't got a clue. I'll promise to do nothing and tell no one. I believe, believe in her, in Stella Round. I'm going to leave the future to her. World to her.

‘You look as if you need some sleep. Why don't you sneak out, Mrs Sangster. No one'll notice.'

No one notice if the principal goes? Of if they do, she's got her father's funeral tomorrow, it was very brave of her to come.

Stella pats and kisses, bending down. A kiss from Stella! The door gives a click. She is gone. Beautiful and damaged and hard. Her limbs should be all broken and set wrong to signal the breaking and resetting in her mind.

I can't tell whether she is more or less.

Norma finds a side-door and goes, leaving her school vibrating, brightly lit. She drives home and meets her cat in the garage. She sits on her chair, drinks a glass of sherry, with music insubstantial in the room.

I want the dreadful danger. I don't want to be alone any more.

After the service Norma and Clive and Clive's two daughters drove to the cemetery and watched the coffin lowered into the grave. They touched it before it went down and one granddaughter, Francine, placed a yellow rose on the lid. Deborah, the nurse, was the only one who cried. She had seen death many times but that lowering, putting away, was a thing she had not understood.

Norma felt her own breathing stop and wanted to shriek. The hole, with shaven sides, was so far down; and earth and clay so solid, so close-packed. She could not breathe until she turned away.

The jollity at Clive's house made her uneasy. Was there some good thing she'd not been told? Not many of her own friends had come. Clive's, eating sausage-rolls, seemed to draw away as she approached – too dark, too down-turning in the mouth? As for old-timers from the valley – she had to look ten seconds in their faces before they settled into shapes she knew; then exclamation seemed the only way to advance. Her mother sat in Clive's big chair in the glassed-in porch and had them brought to her one by one.

‘I think your mother is enjoying this.'

‘Why shouldn't she?'

‘Sorry, I guess I put it badly …'

She had always made Tony Hillman dither. Sharpness had been her part, and apology, redefinition, his.

‘What I meant –'

‘It's all right, Tony, I know. I don't mean to be rude.'

‘You've every right to be, on an occasion like this.'

Did he want her still (or was it again)? She had not bothered lately to check on him. But his condition now – yes, no mistake, that soft pushing out of admiration and desire. She was grateful and amused and, as usual, unexcited. But perhaps this was a time for second-bests.

‘Norma, what I'm going to suggest, I'll understand if you say no –'

She laughed. Still he prefaced his attempts with an escape clause for her. Would a man so decent do?

‘What's the matter?'

‘Oh nothing, Tony. Just a release of tension, I suppose.' And that was true. She was a long way now from her near-shriek at the grave. Yes was the way to move in answer to whatever he might ask.

‘Some little place that's quiet, so you can relax. And maybe start to put it all behind you. A thing as horrible as this …'

‘Yes, Tony, all right.'

‘Unless you want to spend the evening with your family.'