Lighthouse (15 page)

Futh fell asleep on the sofa, on Gloria, and Gloria must have put him into bed with Kenny rather than into his sleeping bag on the floor because that’s where he was when he woke up in the morning and Kenny was pulling back the covers and saying, ‘Fucking get out.’

After that, Kenny’s visits to Gloria’s house never coincided with Futh’s. Futh, opening Gloria’s back door, would ask if Kenny was around, but Kenny was always at his father’s or out doing something. ‘But,’ said Gloria, ‘come in anyway and keep me company.’

Futh, feeling peckish, stops to pick some blackberries, eating them quickly so that he won’t think about the grubs which might be inside them. When he reaches into the bush for more, unseen thorns tear his skin, the palm of his hand. Extricating himself, he walks on, sucking at the scratches, without his second helping of blackberries. It is only when he stops to look at his map and sees the red smear he leaves across it, when he looks at his hand and sees the blood still coming out of him, that he realises how deep the wound is. But still, he thinks, as he shrugs off his rucksack and takes out his first-aid kit, opening a packet of disinfectant wipes, this is nothing compared with the way a head wound bleeds.

Not long after the sleepover, he ran into Kenny unexpectedly when, following Angela home from school, Futh missed his turning and ended up on a strange estate. Afterwards, looking at an A to Z, he would be astonished to see how close to home he had been, but at the time he didn’t know where he was, could only guess which way to go, and set off in a direction which would take him a long way round, taking the wrong alleyway out of the estate.

The alleyway had six-foot walls on either side, although here and there it was lower where the bricks had fallen away, and it curved so that Futh could not see all the way from one end to the other. He was more than halfway down it when he caught the smell of cigarette smoke, and as he rounded the bend he saw Kenny standing against the wall blowing smoke rings.

At first it looked as though Kenny was on his own, but then Futh, following the alleyway’s curve, saw that there were other boys with him, leaning against the wall or sitting on top of it where it was lower. Futh recognised some of them from school, and a part of him wanted to turn around or climb over the wall, to go another way, but he didn’t, he just kept moving forward like a train on a track.

He thought that Kenny might ignore him, or even worse make fun of him in front of these boys, tell them about him wetting the bed in his sleep, or perhaps he already had. He wondered whether he should stop and say hello or if he should just put his head down and keep moving.

As he neared the group, he saw Kenny see him, and as he slowed, one of the boys said something which made the others look at Futh and laugh. Futh, drawing level with Kenny, caught the look in his eye and kept walking, stepping over and around the litter and rubble. An empty drink can bounced off his shoulder, followed by a chunk of broken brick striking him on the back of his head.

He arrived home with blood on his fingertips, having touched them to his scalp where it hurt. He went to the bathroom cabinet and took out the disinfectant, soaking a cotton wool ball with it. His mother had done this countless times, cleaning him up while he sat on the edge of the bath. He felt for the wound and pressed the cotton wool ball against it, closing his eyes when the soothing sting came.

His father, perhaps having seen the contents of the bathroom bin or perhaps just noticing the state of the back of his son’s head, made Futh tell him what had happened. ‘You need to learn how to take care of yourself,’ he said.

Futh picked up a few leaflets, considering jujitsu or something like that, but it was not really his thing.

Futh did not see Kenny again until they met at the university open day. And they did not really keep in touch even after that, but Gloria talked about him. Futh learnt that, after school, Kenny got a job at a petrol station, and later at a bicycle repair shop, that he got married, had children, and completed a training course at a local college, becoming a mechanic.

When Kenny was taken on at a second-hand car dealership, Gloria said to Futh, ‘When you need a car you should go there. He can get you a discount.’ Futh sometimes thought about going and looking at second-hand cars, seeing Kenny, but he couldn’t drive and he put it off until he was in his forties, and then when he did buy a second-hand car, he went elsewhere.

Packing away his first-aid kit and going on his way, picking blackberry seeds out of his teeth, Futh thinks about the grubs he has just eaten, and Carl saying, ‘Do you ever get a bad feeling about something and then it happens?’

He rather liked Carl. He considers ending his walking tour a day early and going to Utrecht, to Carl’s mother’s clean, sparse apartment, spending some time with them and sleeping over, giving Carl a lift to the ferry on the Saturday. But he does not know Carl’s telephone number or his last name and he has not noted Carl’s mother’s address. As much as he likes the idea, he puts it aside, expecting instead to see him on the return ferry.

As he walks, the dressing he applied to the palm of his hand catches repeatedly on the zip on the side pocket of his trousers. By the time he reaches that night’s stop, the dressing is gone and his wound is bleeding again, onto his trousers.

In his hotel room, he puts more disinfectant on his wound, and a clean dressing. He changes his trousers, taking the silver lighthouse out of his pocket and putting it away in his suitcase.

He opens the window and stands there for a while, taking in the view and watching the people, mostly couples, who are walking and stopping to look at menus and displays in the windows. He is directly above the gently sloping, ivy-covered roof of the hotel’s porch. The window is small, perhaps too small to fit through, but there is a larger window further along the same wall. As he heads for the door, he peers through this larger window and sees spike-topped railings underneath.

He wanders downstairs and goes outside, stopping to look at a nearby shop’s postcard stand. He chooses a picture of a flower market for Angela, a picture of an apple stall for his father, a view of the Rhine for Aunt Frieda. He buys stamps and a pen. He eats alone at a table for two in a big, windy square and writes his postcards while he drinks his coffee. When he has finished, he puts away his pen, and touches, out of habit, his empty trouser pocket, and then he lifts his hand, with its new dressing, its whiff of disinfectant, to his nose.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Romance

Ester sits on her stool at the bar with a gin and tonic. Her hand keeps straying to her hair, which now seems very short and white and makes her look, she has begun to think, like her father.

She is wearing old clothes and her flats because she can’t do the rooms in a nice frock and heels. But after her drink she will go upstairs, take a nap and then change, putting on the pink satin dress and her heels and a little perfume. She has resolved to make an effort every day now. She will do it today even though Bernard is not there to notice. It makes her feel good, and there is always someone who looks, who appreciates her effort.

Bernard is out of town for two nights. He has gone to his mother’s and he always goes alone.

Ester goes upstairs, slips off her shoes and lies down on her side of the bed. She picks up the book on her bedside table – a romance. She collects Mills and Boons, has hundreds of them. She finds her place and begins to read. Turning onto her side, facing Bernard’s half of the bed, moving closer to his pillow, she breathes deeply, inhaling the faint scent of him. Reaching behind her for the small bottle of camphor oil she has moved from the side of the bath to her bedside table, Ester puts a few drops on the corner of his pillowcase.

This is something she does when Bernard is away from home, keeping the smell of him in her bed. Some people do not like the smell of camphor; for others it is addictive. It is used, amongst other things, as a moth repellent and as an aphrodisiac.

She settles down again, lying with her face on the edge of his pillow, one arm stretched out across the empty bed.

She has tried to write a romance. She has several drafts of a novel in the drawer by her bed, but none of them, she thinks, is any good. She has never shown them to Bernard. Ester does not like her heroine, and her ending is not right. She takes these attempts out of the drawer from time to time and looks at them, changes something or starts a new draft. She did begin a different story but she did not even change the woman’s name – it was really just another abortive draft of the same story to put away in her drawer.

She wakes with her face buried in Bernard’s pillow, the corner of her Mills and Boon poking into her. She is famished.

She takes off her work clothes and sits down at her dressing table to redo her make-up before putting on her new dress. Then, stepping into her heels, Ester heads down to the bar.

She is expecting a guest – single room, one night, bed and breakfast – at the end of the afternoon. In the meantime, it is quiet. The new girl is behind the bar. Other than her and Ester, the place is empty except for an elderly couple sitting in the bay window reading guidebooks and leaflets. Ester, parking herself on her stool, asks the girl to fetch her a drink and a couple of bags of peanuts.

Bernard hired her almost a year ago but he still calls her ‘the new girl’, and Ester does too. The girl is about twenty, slim, long-limbed. She has her hair in a ponytail and wears no make-up. She has lovely skin. Ester watches her, mesmerised by her youth. She wonders if Bernard has ever looked at the girl this way. She has never seen him do so. Ester straightens her back and crosses her legs. She feels heavy. Her make-up feels thick on her skin. She feels overdressed. Looking down at her magnificent shoes, she sees the veins bulging in her feet, the broken capillaries in her calves.

The elderly couple finish their drinks, gather their things and leave. Ester watches them walking past the window holding hands and laughing about something. She drinks her gin and the hands of the huge clock on the wall move silently round.

The guest arrives at five. When he opens the door, the late afternoon sunshine streams in with him. He has come a long way with a heavy rucksack but he is fit and strong. He is young, younger than Ester but not as young as the new girl. As he approaches the bar he takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and offers it to the girl. ‘I have a room booked,’ he says. He speaks in English and the girl does not understand but she smiles at him.

‘It’s me you want,’ says Ester.

He looks at her doubtfully and then back at the girl, who smiles again and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

Ester climbs carefully down from her stool and walks over to her guest, her shocking-pink heels banging loudly against the bare floorboards in the quiet room. She stands close to him, and leans closer to read the paper which he still holds out to the girl. She can feel the warmth in his skin, and the hairs on his arm against her own. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Come and sit down. Have your meal and then I will show you to your room.’

She takes the boy to a table for two and sits him down, then she goes to the kitchen to fetch his plate of cold meats from the fridge. Returning to the bar, she removes the cling film, slides the plate onto the table in front of the boy and sits down opposite him. ‘Go ahead and eat,’ she says. When he hesitates, she reaches over, takes a piece of sausage from his plate and holds it up to his mouth, saying, ‘Try some of this.’ When he does not open his mouth for her, she brings her hand back and puts the morsel in her own mouth. ‘It’s very good,’ she says.

She has the girl bring drinks. When the girl puts them down on the table, Ester sees her glancing at the boy and catches a flicker of a smile before she goes back to the bar. Ester leans forward and picks a strip of ham off the boy’s plate. ‘Oh, the ham is good,’ she says, not offering it this time but putting it directly into the boy’s mouth, poking it between his lips. She feels his teeth against her fingertip.

The boy eats then, quickly and silently, before pushing back his chair, his meal only half-finished, saying, ‘I’d like to go to my room now.’

‘Yes,’ says Ester, sucking a greasy fingertip. ‘Come with me.’ She walks to her desk, puts a tick in her ledger and takes his key down from its hook. ‘You’re in number ten,’ she says, and then adds, ‘right next to my room.’ She takes the rucksack from between his feet and carries it to the lift. While he insists that there is really no need, she stands inside the lift with his bag, waiting until he joins her. When he does, she presses the button and the doors close.