Nick's Blues (15 page)

The door closing in her face.

The water on the surface of the pond was calm, no dogs splashing noisily after frisbees or pieces of wood, no clamour of ducks as toddlers threw them hunks of bread. Out near the centre, two swans described a slow circle, a brace of darker-feathered cygnets close between. Once Nick had seen an adult swan, enraged, see off a dog which had swum too close to its young, the swan's wings thrashing the water furiously as it chased the intruder away.

At the next open pond there was more activity: men fishing, four or five at intervals; women pushing three-wheeled buggies along the gravelled path; near the far end, a father and child, a boy or girl, Nick couldn't tell, were sailing a small boat with orange sails.

What had he expected?

Melanie's coat floating, sodden, on top of the water where she had jumped in?

It wasn't everyone's solution, every person's escape.

Beyond the couple with the sailboat, he saw someone sitting on the grass, head bowed, arms tight around her knees. The shape was right, but as he got nearer, Nick could see it was someone else.

He was beginning to feel foolish.

Why not go home, phone one of those numbers? The Child Protection Unit. Or better still, do nothing. After all, it wasn't really his concern.

The sun showed through streaks of cloud as he climbed the angled path towards Parliament Hill, kites in different shapes and sizes moving against the sky, the largest, in the shape of a dragon's head, soaring as it caught the wind.

Nick stood for a while and watched. Below him, on the other side of the hill, was the running track where, on sports day, he had run his first hundred metres and almost won; alongside it, the playground where his father had first pushed him on the swings and where, falling from the climbing frame, he had bloodied both his knees. His father…

Walking down, he saw her, Melanie, sitting inside the shell of the bandstand, her back against the iron railing.

She scarcely moved when he came towards her. Only when he was standing in front of her did she look up and then quickly back down.

“Melanie,” Nick said. “Are you okay?”

No reply and he knew, as soon as the words had left his mouth, what a stupid question it was. But he couldn't think what else to say.

He squatted down and waited until she looked at him again.

Her skin was pale and bagged around the eyes and the eyes themselves were dark and dull. Her coat seemed damp in patches, bits of twig and leaf clinging to it here and there as if maybe she had pushed her way into the undergrowth beyond the trees.

“Let me get you something,” Nick said.

“No.”

There was a café near the bandstand; he and Christopher and Scott used to go there all the time, until one day, without reason, they'd stopped and starting going somewhere else. The pizza place.

“Something to eat. A cup of tea.”

“I couldn't eat.”

“Cup of tea then.”

“All right.”

He had money enough left for two teas and a packet of biscuits in case she changed her mind about eating. He hurried back, fearful that she might have gone, but she was still in the same position.

A small boy was climbing round the other side of the bandstand now, negotiating the spaces between the railings with care, his mother watching closely lest he should fall.

Nick set down the cups on the floor and sat at Melanie's side.

From his pocket he took several packets of sugar and a small plastic spoon.

“How many? One? Two?”

“Three.”

They sat for a while and sipped their tea. The small boy was replaced by an inquisitive dog.

“The baby…” Nick began.

“Don't,” Melanie said.

“I just wanted…”

“Don't.”

Nick offered Melanie a biscuit and when she shook her head, he took one himself and dunked it in the tea. The dog came sniffing close and Nick aimed a kick to keep it away.

Someone had once told him that you only heard birds early in the mornings and late in the afternoons. What he could hear now was the sound of traffic, distant on the main road, the occasional voices from outside the café, Melanie's breathing as she sat, her arm not quite touching his.

“I didn't know what else to do,” she said suddenly, her voice hushed but rough, as if her throat were sore. “I tried to tell my mum, I mean when I knew. No way I could have told my dad, no way. He'd have killed me. I know. And my mum, I just don't know what she'd have done. Panicked most likely and told him anyway. Forced me to have an abortion, I don't know. So I just carried on, tried to pretend it wasn't happening I suppose. And then… no, no, it doesn't matter. You don't want to hear all this. You don't have to.”

“No,” Nick said. “Go on. I do.”

Slowly she looked at him. “Why are you saying that?”

“Because it's true.”

She picked up her tea but didn't drink it. “I was in the bathroom. My mum was out. I knew something was going to happen. All this water… and then these pains. I locked the door and at first I sat on the toilet, I didn't know what to do, and then I got into the bath. I…”

She stopped, tears welling up, and Nick squeezed her arm.

“I thought I can't, I can't. I couldn't believe the pain. Shouting and screaming, I don't know why someone in the other flats didn't hear me and then, suddenly, there he was. Small and red and all wrinkled and at first I didn't want to touch him, couldn't bring myself to, but that was only a moment, a couple of moments, and then I picked him up and as soon as I did he started crying and opened his eyes and looked at me…”

“Sshh,” Nick said. “It's okay.”

“I knew I had to get a knife, to cut, you know, the cord, and I left all this… all this blood and stuff all over the kitchen floor. I ran the tap over the scissors until it was boiling hot and then I cut it and he was still crying so I wrapped him up in these towels, they were clean, just washed, and found this holdall and I took him… I could hardly walk, it hurt, but I took him to the hospital. I thought it would be best for him and I didn't want anyone to know.”

She grabbed his hand and gripped it tight.

The last of her words had been almost lost in tears.

“It's okay, it's okay,” Nick said over and over, praying no one would come near.

After a while, Melanie released his hand and wiped the sleeve of her coat across her face.

“Nick, I've done a terrible thing, haven't I? A wicked thing.”

“No,” Nick said. “I don't think so.”

And a little while later Nick got to his feet and said, “If you want to go home or to the hospital or whatever, I'll come with you. If you want.”

Melanie shook her head. “I think I'd like to just stay here. For a bit longer.”

“Okay,” Nick said, and sat back down beside her.

***

Later, in his own room that evening, when the fuss, most of it, had died down, and Nick was stretched out on his bed, eyes closed, he heard his father's voice.

“You did well, son, today. Made it right, right as you could. I like to think I'd've done the same.”

Of course, when he opened his eyes there was no one there.

“So what happened then?” Ellen asked. “To Melanie?”

It was almost a week later, and they were sitting by one of the round windows at the front of the Toll Gate Café. The prints of Nick's photographs were on the table, but that wasn't what they were talking about.

“She agreed to come back with me,” Nick said. “Eventually. Talk to my mum. She wouldn't go near her own. Not then. Mum persuaded her to go to the hospital.”

“And was she all right?”

“I think so. They kept her in overnight, I don't know, tests or something, observation, I'm not sure. But, yeah, I think she was okay.”

“And the baby?”

“Social services.”

“She's not going to keep her? Melanie?”

Nick shook his head. “Going to have it put up for adoption, mum reckoned.”

“If it had been me…” Ellen began and then left it hanging. “You don't know who the father is?” she said.

“No.”

“When you were talking to her, she didn't say?”

“No.”

Ellen stirred her latté, spreading the darker coffee up the glass.

“Let's have a look at these,” she said, spreading the photographs across the table. “How many are you going to use?”

“I don't know yet.”

“You can't use all of them.”

“I know that.”

“This one,” Ellen said, lifting it up carefully with middle finger and thumb, “you've got to have this.”

It was a close-up showing part of an old-fashioned shop window in Kentish Town, done out as if Next and Top Shop had never existed. Dresses Nick couldn't imagine anyone wearing let alone buying, each with its price clearly marked and some comment hand-written onto card —
New Season's Colours — Latest Fashion
.

“You don't think it's too like the one we saw?”

“The Walker Evans?”

“I don't want to get marked down for copying.”

Ellen grinned. “Call it an homage. That's what artists do when they nick stuff from others. Your teacher'll probably think it's cool.”

Nick hoped she was right.

***

When they got outside it was threatening rain. On the pavement outside the Archway Tavern, a sandy-haired man in baggy trousers and a suit jacket but no shirt was playing the penny whistle. Traffic seemed to have come to a standstill in every direction.

“You know this afternoon,” Ellen said above the sound of car horns. “I said I thought we might go and see this film…”

Oh-oh, Nick thought, here it comes.

“Well, my dad's coming home. Unexpectedly. I haven't seen him in ages.”

Ellen's father, Nick knew, was a doctor working in Zimbabwe or Namibia or somewhere. He couldn't remember what she'd said.

“We're all going to go out and meet him at the airport.”

“Yeah,” Nick said.

“I'm really excited.”

“Yeah.” If she was so excited, why hadn't she mentioned it before?

“Nick, you don't mind?”

“Why should I?”

Ellen shook her head and sighed. “Look, I have to go.”

“Okay.”

He stood, rooted, as she started to walk away.

She was almost at the crossing before he called after her. “When will I see you?”

“Call me. You've got my number, right?”

“Right.” It was written inside the back cover of his folder.

He watched as she slipped between the lanes of stationary cars, arms swinging lightly, trademark beret angled back on her head. At the far side of the road, people milling round her, she raised her hand to wave.

By the time Nick had waved back she was lost to sight.

***

Back home, he rang the place where he worked and checked it would be okay to start back again at the end of the week. Christopher wasn't answering his mobile, which probably meant he'd forgotten to charge the batteries. Scott and Laura were at the Holloway Odeon, he knew, watching something or other.

“Why don't you come with us?' Scott had asked.

“No, it's okay.”

“Come on.”

“Leave him,” Laura had said, something of a leer on her face. “Nick's got other things to do now, haven't you, Nick?”

Not so's you'd notice, Nick thought.

In his room, he lifted down the guitar and began to work his way, laboriously, through the three basic chords in E.

Half an hour later, less, the fingers on his left hand were starting to get sore and he was bored. Played at the only speed he could manage, it didn't sound much like music. It didn't sound much like anything.

Out in the kitchen he tried Christopher's number again. Nothing.

TV offered a film about Bonnie Prince Charlie, rowing,
Home and Away
, a John Wayne western or racing from Newmarket, Windsor and Musselburgh.

On the floor beside his bed
The Grapes of Wrath
lay accusingly closed.

He fished out his father's tape and set it to play.

Lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
If I'm feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
Gonna pack my trunk an' make my getaway

Worried, baby, trouble in mind
Yes, I'm worried, baby, got trouble in mind
Never satisfied, just can't keep from cryin'

Whatever his father had been feeling, whatever had been worrying him, getting him down, whatever he had felt unable to face, Nick still couldn't really understand.

What had Charlie said? Sometimes loving other people isn't enough, you have to love yourself as well.

His mum had said he was afraid.

The track came to an abrupt end and another started part-way through.

Hard luck's at your front door, blues are in your room
Hard luck is at your front door, blues all round your room
Blues at your back door, what's gonna become of you?

Nick pushed himself off the bed and reached for his jacket, scribbled a note to his mum and left it on the kitchen table.

By the time he arrived the lunch rush was over and Marcus was standing out back with a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of imported Anchor Steam in the other.

“I thought you said next weekend?”

“I did.”

“So?”

“So I felt like working, that's all.”

Marcus let smoke drift upwards from the corner of his mouth. “Too early for the evening shift, you know that.”

“That's okay, there must be something I can do.”

“There's pans in soak. A sack of potatoes that wants peeling.”

“Okay.”

“You know the money's the same?”

“Yeah.”

“And you'll work right through?”