Perfectly Pure and Good (7 page)

There was a big pine table, large, heavy chairs which did not match and an old-fashioned Rayburn stove which Joanna loved for all the trouble of tending it and all the unreliability of the oven. A heavy kettle stood on top, simmering endlessly. The room was always warm. The pantry beyond the ancient fridge was cool by contrast, a large, walk-in store with stone-flagged floor, netted windows and pale shelves crammed with stores. On the floor in there, at all times, were two or three bundles of Edward's always superfluous fishing bait, worms, inelegantly wrapped in newspaper, an unlikely source of protein for the inmates of the house.

The cake, Mother announced in one of her very rare, comprehensible sentences, was for the guest. Joanna looked at it in horror. If only Mother wouldn't.

`She's late, this rotten old bitch of a lawyer, thank God she's late, the cow, nothing's ready.'

Joanna's temper was running high; Julian's likewise.

`Don't flap. It doesn't suit you. What do you want me to do? Worry about impressing her? I doubt if she's a cow or a bitch, it's physically impossible to be both, she's only a sort of hired help.'

`We should have a lot in common then,' Joanna hissed. 'Only I'm not paid.'

`No, but it's patently obvious you're well fed,' said Julian. This marked the end of the shouting.

The row had caused the delay and rendered a light cheese sauce inedible. Joanna had started again, which was why she was not going to cry now. The poached halibut required no extra salt.

Impatiently, Julian stacked two fishing rods against the wall. Edward's fishing tackle seemed to penetrate every room in the house except his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fall over Edward's deliberate attempts to impress as well as dominate. Fishing and Edward did not really go together. He only did it to be manly, like his father.

`Did you check her room?' Joanna snapped. 'You know, the cottage? I suppose you managed that?' It was a poor attempt at sarcasm, her voice too shrill for impact.

`Yes, but I don't see why you didn't ask Ed first, he's far more time than me. It's fine. Could have done with some flowers, though.'

`She's only the hired help,' Joanna hissed, pleased with herself The pleasure faded quickly. No-one should have mentioned flowers, or even thought about them. Mother could sense a word from a mile away, also a row and the way to make it worse. She had the uncanny instinct of appearing on cue, in the wrong role and always the wrong costume like now as she stood in the kitchen doorway, holding an enormous bunch of dandelions in one hand, a clutch of nasturtiums in the other.

She had a full bottle of wine poking out of the pocket of her coat. An evening gown swayed round her ankles beneath a mackintosh and there were three ostrich feathers in her hair. Julian took away the wine and placed it on the table in a swift manoeuvre, well practised if devoid of humanity. Mother's eyes filled with tears. She had always been so infuriatingly defenceless, he thought. Earned her nickname of Mouse for always weeping like her daughter, neither able to stand their own ground.

`Why did you do that, darling? Oh, I'm hungry.' She moved unsteadily towards a small pile of grated cheese on the chopping board.

`No you don't,' Joanna said. 'Leave it alone, will you? What do you want?'

`Something to eat, I think. Just a little something. Don't you like my cake?' She stood centre stage, smiling at them both through bright, watery eyes.

Àre you going to change for dinner?' Julian asked ironically. `Should I? It's only a bitch or a cow, you were saying. I was just going to put flowers in its room—'

`No!' Joanna shouted. 'No you won't. Not after I've swept, hoovered, put out towels, no you don't.'

Mother's upper lip trembled. She looked at both her hands, the one holding garden weeds, the other,
pissenlit.

`Yes, I will,' she murmured. Ì'm sure the cow will like them.'

She scuttled sideways, swifter than a crab, towards the front door, just as the bell rang. With the row and all, no-one had heard the sound of an engine, usually discernible from a hundred yards.

Each knew the sound of their various old cars, parked outside like a row of sentinels. Edward was feigning deafness in his watchtower, pretending to paint his rubbishy daubs and reading poetry, defying the necessity to earn a living, while his sister suspended life through cooking and pretending that was enough.

Julian surveyed them all with despair. Mother was agile. She reached the door first, could not work out a way to open it with her hands full, stood back, grinning like a cat. Edward bounded downstairs, straightening a big floppy cravat; Joanna stood back and Julian hesitated. They were not used to guests.

Another knock. None of them could answer the door. She would have to open it herself A figure stepped into the gloom of the hall. Mother staggered forward, still grinning, dropping the flowers at Sarah Fortune's feet.

Òh,' said the guest without a hint of discomposure. 'How lovely. You shouldn't.' She stopped to pick dandelions from the floor, carefully and swiftly, like a person used to gathering weeds with great respect. They watched, fascinated. She had straightened up with the flowers in a neat bunch by the time Julian switched on the cruel hall light. Dressed in khaki, she was, a princess in her brown freckled skin with her red hair kinking over her shoulders and a tan belt round her waist and small hips, clothed in nothing which was not utterly neutral while remaining a mass of colours all the same. A humorous face, a square jaw and a smile which embraced the giver of the dandelions. Not beautiful, but stunning.

Mother picked up the last, ceremoniously. Sarah bowed and stuck it down the front of her dress.

Mother beamed.

`Would you mind coming straight on in? Supper's ready. No time for washing and all that stuff.'

Joanna spoke roughly.

Sarah nodded. 'Of course. I'm really sorry I'm so late. I wouldn't have been but I'm such a silly cow, I got lost.'

`Cow!' Mother collapsed in giggles. Sarah took her extended hand.

`What fabulous feathers,' she said. 'I wish I was allowed to wear those.'

They all stared aghast. It was love at first sight. Before grace, before dinner. Before the second batch of burnt cheese sauce and before anyone heard the sound of the distant, ghostly tinkling of the ice-cream-van bell. There was a full second of silence until the sound died. Mother clapped her hands.

`What the hell's he doing here?' Edward snarled. Sarah turned her gaze on him. He wilted.

Ì'm afraid that's my fault. I stopped at a, what do you call them, amusement arcade, to ask directions, and this man volunteered to lead me here. I thought it was charming. I've never had such an escort.' Joanna was brick red. She no longer cared if dinner was edible.

Instant love turned to instant hate and then to love again as she fled to the kitchen. Edward looked amused. This was only a woman, not the gimlet-eyed professional he had slightly dreaded; she was too attractive to be a threat. Julian led her inside. His manner was barely less than brusque; he was shaking slightly and he did not seem able to take his eyes off her hair.

Outside, Hettie the sheep bleated. Mother had placed a bow round her neck. Only a youth called Rick noticed and remembered fondly as he drove back to work.

Stonewall hung about the amusement arcade as long as he could and as late as he dared, sick with anxiety and knowing that, sooner or later, he'd be shooed away. There had been twenty minutes of sheer bliss, when he'd been left in charge when Rick came in from a quick stroll on the quay, talking to someone, said he'd be off for five, would he, Stonewall, take charge? The arcade belonged to Rick's dad, who was a sort of uncle, like everyone round here, but not Stonewall's favourite by any manner of means.

Especially not when he came in drunk and found Stonewall in charge of the till. There'd be trouble when Rick got back, which was why Stonewall hung around, because someone had to protect Rick from his dad.

It was no good. Even with his new, short haircut, to which his fingers flew all the time with nervous pride, Stonewall didn't have the power and it made him want to shout. Hit me instead, he wanted to say to Rick's dad, as if Rick would ever have let it happen. Instead, that surly man went out for another drink or two, came back and took Stonewall by his newly exposed ear and pushed him in the direction of home. Rick didn't prevent him.

`Go on with you,' he said gently. 'See you tomorrow.' Stonewall felt the urge to kick shins and scream. Rick's dad didn't like witnesses.

`Go away,' Julian muttered in his sleep. 'Physician, heal thyself.'

He was dreaming of a girl with red hair who had run on the beach. The background of the dream was the strident, fairground sound which emerged from the arcade, as if such sound could travel the half mile to where Julian Pardoe attempted to sleep and cursed himself for his own insomnia.

There was no excuse, no cause for alarm. The meal had been easier than anticipated, the guest, whose expertise could lighten his own burdens, had been the soul of charm to disguise, rather than hide, those over-intelligent eyes and that blatant talent for perception he somehow knew she possessed. Julian felt she could read his soul and all the shame printed on it, dismissed his imaginings as the kind of nonsense induced by red wine and over-ambitious food.

Besides, he had no soul to reveal. By day he was an automaton about his business, by night a heap of restless limbs, made fanciful only because he had embarrassed himself staring at her so much, read too much into those blue eyes, felt again that sickening guilt and despair. Take your time, he had told Miss Fortune, formal beyond the point of rudeness, wondering even then how soon he could phone Ernest Matthewson and get this paragon recalled to the safety of her own city.

Instead he found himself saying, Come into the surgery tomorrow and I'll tell you a bit about the estate, have the rest of the weekend to think about it. Don't feel you have to take meals with us.

Don't feel you have to stay.

Edward was acting out the role of serious, unconventional younger brother, quoting poetry and describing the land. He made it sound as if he owned it all, puffed himself up to look like a small man with a big career, like his father, instead of a boy who failed at everything he tried. The guest listened intently. Mother put half-eaten food on the stranger's plate while Julian's own abruptness shocked his sister and nothing fazed the guest. He had wanted everything settled, his father's family safe, but not like this. Not with the aid of a woman with hair like that, and those calm, amused eyes.

They had taken her over to the cottage, followed by the sheep with the crumpled horn which lived in the garden and was fed by Mother. Miss Fortune didn't seem to mind that either. There was nothing to surprise her frightful composure.

Julian turned restlessly, hearing again the creaking on the stair he had heard before and never wished to investigate. Could be his mother prowling, Edward going out fishing, he did not want to know, could not watch them all the time or even half of it. As long as it was not Edward going into Joanna's room, something as yet unprecedented, but hanging over his household like the threat of thunder.

How immoral to wish away his sister's virginity on the first unrelated youth who tried to take it, but that was what Julian wished. If only she would leave before some accident of desire should upset her life . . . better if Edward went out fishing, even if it was to foul the sea shore as he did, leaving lines and hooks for seals, just as he littered the house with equipment and the pantry floor with buckets of soft-shelled crabs and lugworms for whiting.

The silence of the night increased the rattling in his mind. Julian felt responsibility without strength or confidence. He had killed his own self-respect, found himself left with nothing but impotent knowledge.

From a great distance, he thought he heard a scream.

Worms beneath this mud: good for bait.

`You don't know nothing, boy. Nothing. You don't know your arse from your elbow, or where to put that big dick of yours, or even where you want to put it. Dirt all over the van. You want to put dirt up her fanny? That what you want? I bet you bloody do.'

The sound which followed was a soft grunt, the noise of the boot into the ribs almost inaudible in itself, except for the air dispelled in the effort and the boy's biting back of pain. Both of them were covered in mud. The boy curled away on the bank, his left shoulder embedded in mud.

Black mud bubbled where his elbow sank below the surface. There was blood inside his mouth, tasting of iron, salt and slime. Rick thought of the ragworms below the surface, imagined something slithering down his throat, struggled to sit, spat, coughed.

Ì could have killed you, Dad.'

He was spitting out weary words, fielding another blow to his ribs, thanking heaven for his father's boots being so heavy with mud he could scarcely lift them. It could have been worse, had often been much worse. No blow had connected with his groin; he had turned on his back, wishing he had learned the trick when younger, before the damage was done and before he had realized the whole ritual of violence was far quicker if he did not resist. Lie there, let the boot go in, never mind about the shame.

`Kill me, you little fucker? Kill me! You could scarce kill a fly. You let that little runt look after the till while you're out running after that tart? You need to be towing the line. With a hook. I'd stick it through your mouth. Or up your bum.'

The boy allowed himself to be lifted out of the mud, shaken like a rat, dropped back. He could have taken his father then, knocked the old man's teeth through the back of his head, but he lay like a puppet and listened to the breath in his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, lights from the outside of the closed arcade shimmered on the water, blurred by mist. He could hear the tide running swift and deep through his head and his skin, vibrating through each portion of his body.

Dad raised his wet face and sniffed like a dog.

`Best move,' he muttered. `Water's coming on.' He was suddenly cold, shivery, adrenalin gone, replaced by a sensation which was the nearest he could get to shame. No more punching, rolling and snarling at the east end of the quay. The boy was right. He was strong. He could take his old dad any time, better watch it.