Easy Peasy (6 page)

I do not know what to do. Now I could open the envelope. But it would seem more of a betrayal of confidence than ever. I could burn the envelope unopened. Is that what my principles demand? But curiosity has got its night claws in me. What harm could it do to have a look? What harm now? I should not.

I nibble a piece of cheese from the plate we didn't put away at bedtime. A sliver of Cheddar, a strong taste, male, and then a corner of creamy Brie, its thick white skin velvety between my teeth. Foxy doesn't think you should eat the skin because of the mould but I think it's the best bit. I lick my finger and pick up cracker crumbs. Now I'm hungry. I sandwich two crackers together with Brie and munch, scattering crumbs down my pyjamas. What shall I do? I am startlingly wide awake, more awake than normal daytime awakeness. It is as if I'm wired up. Or like the feverish wakefulness I'd get as a child sometimes, if allowed to stay up late. ‘She's over-tired,' Mummy would say, which seemed stupid when I felt so frantically awake – but fragile and very, very likely to cry. Sleep seems like a foreign country now, but there Foxy is and here am I, marooned in the night.

At least the kitchen floor is clean.

There is a pile of mending and ironing for the shop, delicate silk 20s' blouses and camisoles. An orange sateen jacket I bought with Connie in mind.

Or watch TV? I flick through the channels but there's nothing, only a dreary looking film with subtitles. A video? I pick two or three off the shelf, mostly Foxy's, documentaries she's taped, nothing I fancy watching now. Except, except … I had forgotten. This is so strange. Weeks ago, I taped it, even though I thought I'd never watch it. I slip the tape into the machine. I was wrong, I will watch it.
The Bridge on the River Kwai
. Nothing could be more stupid or appropriate to watch. I find the beginning, pause it, go into the kitchen for a bottle of wine and some bread and tomatoes to finish the cheese with. I pick up Foxy's woollen sweater from a chair. I loop it round my shoulders for extra warmth. The sleeves hang down on either side of my neck as if someone is holding me. The wool smells sweetly of her and there are long coppery strands of hair tangled in the black.

I settle down to watch. At first I cannot concentrate. The prison camp seems quite civilised, the huts spaced out and clean, the noisy tangle of jungle standing back from the clearing. The Japanese commandant of the camp is harsh but reasonable, vulnerable even. He cries after giving way to Alec Guinness's character. It is Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson who is the real danger. He would have himself and his officers shot rather than join in manual labour with the ranks.
Why not?
I shout at the television, then clamp my hand over my mouth. Mustn't disturb Foxy. The volume is low. Yes, Colonel Nicholson's honour is the most dangerous thing, worse than the jungle, or the Japanese who seem mild and humble in comparison. Watching the film makes me angry. Stupid man, with a rod up his back and a bee in his bonnet about a bridge.

Was Daddy an officer? I don't even know
that
. How can I be so ignorant? Not ignorant. But where was my curiosity all those years?

I eat my way furiously through half a loaf of bread and swallow a couple of glasses of red wine.

Then, a funny thing. It is over-tiredness surely, and drink, and the way I am focusing my mind. My eyes are on the television, the tape isn't good, keeps jumping, fizzy lines passing across the screen, but still I can follow it. The American, Shears, with his bronzed muscular chest, has survived an escape and stumbled into a Burmese village where he is treated like a king, decked in a flowered garland with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth tucked decently round his waist.

It is not cold in the room. I'm curled up on the futon with Foxy's thick jumper round me and the fire on. But suddenly
I
am cold. Goose-pimples rise on my arms and the back of my neck. My scalp crawls. There is someone else in the room. I can't move. How do I know someone is here? I don't know. In the room with me is a presence. I keep my eyes on the screen. I am frozen. Then I see him. I am not looking at him and I don't move my eyes but in the corner of my eye, by the bookcase beside the television, I see him. Not him exactly but a thickening of the air that is him. I force breath into my lungs. I dare not move my eyes or even blink. I don't want to frighten him away but I am frightened. Very, very slowly and slightly I turn my head and for a moment I do see him. Not his body but the essence of him and I smell his pipe smoke and spicy aftershave.

‘Daddy,' I whisper.

He is standing by the bookcase, one hand – or where one hand would be – is on the top of some books.

‘Daddy,' I say, not a whisper this time. My mind is scrambling. This is my chance to speak to him, to say good-bye. What should I say? What is the most profound thing to say? I love you, it should be. But I cannot quite … ‘Daddy…'

He is gone. The chill is gone, the sense of a presence, the tenseness in the air, gone. ‘Dad!' I call. But I know that that is it. I will not see him again.

And I said nothing.

I get up and go to where he was standing. I sniff the air but even the smell of him has not lingered. It feels as if life had stopped, was suspended for an instant and has restarted. Everything is ordinary.

The television seems louder. The soldiers are whistling ‘Colonel Bogey'. I can't hear that without the rude words coming into my head.
Hitler had only got one ball, the other is in the Albert Hall. His mother, the dirty bugger, cut it o – off, when he – e was small
. When I used to sing it I didn't know what it meant. Ball? Or who Hitler was even. I thought it was to do with cricket. Elaine's mother smacked her for singing it.

Daddy has gone. The wave rises and I clutch thin air. A hot tear rolls down my cheek. I haven't started on the crying yet, the crying that surely there must be. I stand where Daddy stood, one hand on top of the books. My tongue catches the tear and draws it into my mouth. Hot salt. It is the only one. My hand is just where I think his hand was, on a book too big to go on the shelf vertically, that lies horizontally on top. And then I understand. His hand was resting on the Atlas where I left the envelope last time I looked at it. I had been looking at the buff and green page that was South-East Asia, a sprawling land-mass surrounded by grey ocean and pale lacy island trails.

The door opens suddenly and I cry out with fright and drop the Atlas. But it is only Foxy. She is tying the belt of her dressing-gown.

‘You all right?' She comes to me. ‘I thought I heard you shout.'

‘You must have been dreaming.'

‘No …' She looks at me curiously. ‘What are you watching? Oh …' She recognises the film and pulls a face. Jack Hawkins limps along on a bloody foot, nubile young Burmese women fluttering around.

‘Did I wake you? I'm sorry.' I pick up the Atlas and return it to the shelf, the fat envelope is tucked down the side of the bookcase. She puts her arms around me. She is all warm and silky, I rub my face in her hair.

‘I shouldn't have gone to sleep and left you.' She squeezes my waist.

‘It's all right, Fox, honestly.'

She yawns. ‘Shall I make some coffee or something? Want to talk?'

‘What I want is for you to get your beauty sleep. You need it.'

‘Cow!' She pinches my waist and laughs. ‘Sure you're all right alone?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘Is that my marching orders then?'

We kiss. One side of her face is all creased from the crumpled pillow, there are smudges of mascara under her eyes. She eyes the bottle on the table.

‘Only a couple of glasses,' I say.

‘You don't want to be hung over.'

‘No.'

‘Later then.' She closes the door behind her. Part of me yearns to join her in her sleepiness; to get lost in her soft skin and the fragrance of her hair. But that simply cannot be. And I cannot talk to her now. I will tell her about the envelope, everything. But now I have to be alone. To think about Daddy. But thinking about Daddy always makes me think about Puddle-duck. I should not call him that. Vassily. A man now. He may be at the funeral. No. Could he be? The funeral. I had not even thought. That must be arranged. Suicide. What happens when someone commits suicide? Is there a normal funeral? Daddy … why? No, no, NO. I cannot think of that.

7

Puddle-duck came to play on Saturday, as planned. He wore his school uniform. I could hardly believe it. On a
Saturday
! I was wearing jeans with flowery triangular inserts to make them look like bell-bottoms. Hazel had Bridget round. I could have killed her. I
told
Mummy not to let her come but she said ‘The more the merrier – invite Elaine too if you like. You could have a tea-party.' ‘She's at her Nan's,' I said, grumpily reflecting that Mummy had simply
no idea
. Tea-party! With Bridget and Puddle-duck!

‘Bridget'll tell everyone we had Puddle-duck here,' I hissed to Hazel.

‘
Who
had Puddle-duck here? Not me.' She tossed her head. Hazel had the sort of hair that always falls in the right place, fair, smooth and shiny, so when she smugly tossed her head, her hair went smugly back into place. Hazel's hair was just like Mummy's, only shorter, and Mummy cut it for her with a long fringe and the rest hanging beautifully just below her ears. ‘It's a
dream
to cut,' she'd say, pausing between snips with the silver scissors splayed, and Hazel would smile at me with narrowed eyes. Hazel wasn't
pretty
, I'd rather have died than said that, but she had blue eyes and what Mummy called
regular features
, all of them neat and small. My hair was wiry and brown, not exactly curly but not straight either so that when she cut it Mummy was always tutting and frowning at me with her head on one side.

‘I feel like the Ugly Duckling,' I said once, meaning for Mummy to deny it and call me pretty.

But, ‘Never mind,' she said, giving me an annoying hug. ‘You know what ugly ducklings have a habit of doing when they grow up.'

Hazel who wasn't supposed to hear, had heard, and on the way to school for weeks she would sing. ‘
There once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all tattered and torn
', and Bridget would sing it too in a stupid American whine.

When Puddle-duck arrived, Hazel and Bridget were already up in the tree-house. Mummy had decided to bake some cakes and Puddle-duck stood in the kitchen gazing at her as she weighed flour. ‘Grizzle, take Vassily out to play,' she said. I knew what would happen and I was right. The moment we were outside there were giggles from the tree-house, the creak of movement, Hazel playing ‘The Ugly Duckling' on her recorder and then wolf-whistles.

Puddle-duck, who had taken his hearing-aids off and left them on the kitchen table, heard none of this, of course, and he stood looking round the garden with an expression of stupid wonder on his face. Every so often he'd catch my eye and smile expectantly as if I was suddenly supposed to produce
fun
.

I went back into the kitchen. Mummy didn't look up, she had the tip of her tongue caught anxiously between her teeth as she rolled up a strawberry jam Swiss roll. Daddy had just returned from a game of golf and was foraging in the fridge.

‘I don't know what to do with him,' I complained. ‘And Hazel and Bridget are being
foul
up in the tree-house. Teasing us. Teasing
him
.' I thought that would bother her, but I didn't expect Daddy to react. Usually he took no notice of us and our squabbles. But now he pushed past me into the garden. I followed him. There was a sudden silence from the tree-house.

‘Hazel,' Daddy's voice was stern.

‘What?'

‘Could you come down and let Griselda and her pal up there.'

There was a stifled guffaw from Bridget, ‘Pal!' Hazel shushed her.

‘Would you like to?' Daddy smiled at Puddle-duck and pointed up at the tree-house, a question in his face.

‘Yes,' Puddle-duck answered in his loud spongy voice, ‘please.'

‘It's my turn today. We're all set up,' came Hazel's voice. ‘Isn't it, Grizzle? My turn.'

Daddy looked at me. I shrugged. There was no such arrangement, I only knew that if Hazel had Bridget round the tree-house was automatically hers and I wasn't allowed in. I should have backed her up but I was too interested in seeing what Daddy would do.

‘I don't care,' he said. ‘Griselda's visitor would like to look round.'

‘
My
visitor is looking round,' Hazel said. I held my breath. How
dare
she cheek Daddy like that? She was only showing off in front of Bridget.

‘I have said come down.' Daddy's voice wasn't loud but it was very dangerous. This had never happened before because Daddy never got involved.

‘I'd leave them to it, Ralph,' said Mummy from the kitchen doorway.

‘Down!' Daddy repeated. I suddenly wanted to laugh. He was looking up at the tree-house as if at a massive and disobedient dog. ‘Down!' Puddle-duck's head was swivelling backwards and forwards between Daddy and the tree.

After a moment, the hatch opened and the rope ladder flopped and swung to the ground. Bridget came down first, blowing a rude gum-bubble at me, and then Hazel. She had red marks on the backs of her thighs where she'd been sitting on the crumpled rug. Hazel didn't look at me or Daddy but stalked past towards the kitchen door.

‘Upstairs,' Daddy said.

‘But …'

‘Bridget can go home now.'

Hazel tossed her head as she went in but I could see the brilliant red of the backs of her ears.

Mummy, in the doorway, let Hazel past and then stood frowning at Daddy. She had flour in her hair that made her seem old. The happy smell of fresh cakes floated out and I felt sorry for Hazel. I could see that Mummy wanted to object:
she
would never have sent Bridget home, but she didn't let herself. She pursed her lips at me, then went back into the kitchen and shut the door.