Secret Smile (31 page)

'I talked to Mrs Rees,' I said.

'Yeah?'

'I need to talk to her daughter, Susan.'

'Granddaughter.'

'Yes, of course. I've got something
important for her. Could you give me her address?'

The woman looked at me, her mouth half
open. I wondered if she had heard me. But she started to rummage through a box
of filing cards with her chapped fingers.

CHAPTER 33

Susan Lyle lived at 33 Primrose Crescent,
which was on the eastern outskirts of the town, near a cemetery. It was a row
of beige and grey houses. Number 33 had closed curtains, a peeling red door and
its bell, when I pressed it, rang out a tune: a few notes from 'How Much is
that Doggie in the Window?'

Because I hadn't let myself think about
what I was doing, and because I had imagined that anyway Susan Lyle would not
be at home, I was taken aback when the door opened almost immediately and a woman
stood in front of me, filling the entrance. For a moment, all I could think of
was her size. She had a vast stomach that looked misshapen in blue leggings;
her white T-shirt, on which was written in bold pink 'Do Not Touch!', was
stretched across her bulky chest; her neck was thick; her chin fell in folds;
her hands were dimpled. I felt myself blushing with a kind of shame as I tried
not to look anywhere but into her eyes, small in her wide, white face; at the
person beneath the mountain of flesh. In her grandmother's photograph she had
been skinny and knock-kneed; what had happened in life to make her like this?

'Yes?'

'Susan Lyle?'

'That's right.'

I heard a child's wailing come from behind
her.

'I'm sorry to disturb you like this. I was
wondering if I could have a quick word with you?'

'What's this about? Are you from the
council? They already checked the premises, you know.'

'No, not at all. Not the council, nothing
like that. You don't know me — I'm — my name's Miranda and I know your brother.'

'Simon?' She frowned. 'You know Simon?'

'Yes. If I could just...'

I took a small step forward, but she
didn't budge from the entrance. The wailing inside grew louder, joined by
another more high-pitched shrieking.

'You'd better come in before they kill
each other,' she said at last and I followed her into the hall, where the
radiator was hot even though the day outside was mild.

It was dim in the living room because the
curtain was drawn, so it took me a few minutes to make out exactly how many children
there were in the stuffy, cluttered room. There was a baby sitting placidly in
the playpen among a giant heap of soft toys, dummy in its mouth. There was a
wailing toddler with a damson streak down its bib strapped into a high chair,
and an upturned bowl on the floor. There was another toddler on the sofa,
staring at the television screen where there was some kind of game show going
on, though the sound was turned down. She was gripping a lollipop in her fist.
I peered into the carrycot on the floor and there was a baby in there, fast
asleep in spite of the noise. It held its hands straight out in front of it, as
if holding on to some invisible object, and its eyes flickered rapidly. What do
babies dream about?

'What a lot of children,' I said brightly.
There was a glowing bar fire behind a guard, giving out scorching local heat,
and a smell of nappies and air freshener clogged my nostrils. I felt a sense of
acute oppression, a thickness in my chest. 'Are they all yours?' As soon as I
asked this, I realized it was a stupid question, mathematically impossible.

'No,' she said, staring at me with mild
contempt. 'Just the one.' Then she added with pride: 'I have three more who
come after school three days a week too. I make a good living. I'm registered.'

Tenderly, she lifted the screaming boy out
of the high chair and wiped his mouth with a corner of the bib. 'Quiet now,'
she said. 'Shush!' And he immediately quietened, his smeared mouth breaking out
into a grin and he put a hand into her thick, dark hair.

Perching the child on the great swell of
her hip where he clung like a tiny koala, she said: 'So — Simon?'

I hadn't rehearsed an opening, so it came
out abruptly.

'When did you last see him?'

'Are you police?'

'No.'

'Social?'

'No, I just...'

'So what gives you the right to barge into
my house and stand there looking as if there's a bad smell under your nose and
ask me questions?'

'Sorry. I didn't mean to... I'm just
worried and I'd be really grateful if you could help me.'

'Has he dumped you or something?'

'What?' For a ghastly moment I thought
that perhaps Brendan had even got to his sister before me and told her his
version of our relationship.

'Why else would you come running to me for
help?' She lowered herself on to the sofa with her son, and the other child
immediately clambered on to her lap too and pushed her sticky face into the
folds of her neck. Susan seemed not to notice. She picked up the remote control
and flicked through channels randomly before saying, 'Not for ages. We've gone
our separate ways. He's got his life and I've got mine. Why? What's it to you?'

'Like I said, I know Simon. I've known him
for nearly a year now. And I'm a bit worried about him.' I sat down on the edge
of the sofa. 'I think he might not be very well.'

'Are you a doctor?' She flicked away the
lollipop that was being waved in front of her face as if she were swatting a
fly.

'No.'

'He should go to a doctor. What am I
supposed to do about it. He's a grown-up.'

'I don't mean ill like that — I mean...
well, his behaviour has been rather disturbing and

'Oh. I
see.
You mean ill in the
head, do you? Mmm?' She suddenly sounded like Brendan.

'I'm not sure. That's why I wanted to talk
to you.'

'There's nothing wrong with Si.' She stood
up with surprising agility and the children fell back into the depths of the
sofa, letting out yelps of surprise. 'Who do you think you are?'

'I didn't...'

'Get out!'

'I just want to help,' I lied.

The anger suddenly went out of her. 'I
could do with a fag,' she said. She picked a video up from the side table and
slid it into the player under the TV. Cartoon characters ran across the screen.
She turned the sound up high and then, reaching up to a shelf, brought down a
tin of biscuits and fished out three chocolate bourbons which she pushed into
three eager hands.

I followed her into the kitchen where she
sat down heavily on a chair. She poured herself a large glass of fizzy lemonade
and lit a cigarette.

'Is he in trouble?'

'I don't know,' I said cautiously, aiming
for a vague and misleading truthfulness. 'It's more that I want to prevent
trouble, if you see what I mean. So I thought I'd come here and just talk to
someone who knew him before he got taken into care.'

'What?'

'I thought...?'

'Care?' Her laugh was a high, thick
wheeze. 'Where did you get that idea from?'

'You mean, he didn't get sent away?'

'Why would he, with our mum and then our
nan there to look after us? We were never in care. You should be careful what
you say.'

'I must have got the wrong end of the
stick,' I said in a placating tone.

She pulled on her cigarette and then
released a trail of blue smoke.

'Si wasn't a bad boy,' she said.

'What about school?'

'Overton. What about it? He was good at
lessons, but he hated people telling him what to do or criticizing him. He
could have done all right if they hadn't. . .' She stopped.

'If what?'

'Never mind.'

'Did they punish him?'

'They don't like boys like him being
clever.'

'He was expelled?'

She ground out her cigarette, swilled back
the remains of her lemonade and stood up. 'I'd better see what they're up to in
there,' she said.

I stared at her. 'What happened then,
Susan?'

'You can see yourself out.'

'Susan, please. What did he do after he
was expelled?'

'Who are you anyway?'

'I told you, I know Brendan.'

'Brendan?
Brendan?
What is all
this?'

'Simon, I meant.'

'I've had enough of people poking their
noses into our business. Live and let live, I say. I don't believe you want to
help Si, anyway. You're just
snooping.'

Again, with that word, uttered with such
hostility, I heard a weird echo of Brendan. He might have left his past,
changed his name, reinvented himself utterly, and yet still at some deep level
he remained connected to it all.

'Get out of my house,' she said. 'Go on.
Fuck off before I call the police.'

So I left, out into the fresh air and a
sky that was clearing after heavy rain, with blue on the horizon and the deep
grey separating out into clouds. I drank some water and popped a Polo into my
mouth then started the van. I headed back the way I'd come, through the
gleaming wet streets, but after a few minutes stopped again. Brendan didn't let
things go, I thought grimly. Never.

I wound down the window and when a woman
walked past I leaned out and said, 'Excuse me, could you tell me where Overton
High School is?'

Children were coming out of school,
weighed down by backpacks, carrying musical instruments and PE bags. I sat and
watched them for a few minutes, unsure what I was doing here. Then I got out of
the van and wandered over to a couple of women standing by their cars chatting.

'Sorry to bother you,' I said.

They looked at me expectantly.

'I'm moving to the area,' I said. 'And my
children — well, I was wondering whether you'd recommend this school?'

One of them shrugged. 'It's all right,'
she said.

'Does it do well academically?'

'All right. Nothing to write home about.
Your Ellie does well, though, doesn't she?' she said to the other woman.

'Is there much bullying?'

'There's bullying in every school.'

'Oh,' I said, stumped. Then: 'I had a
friend who came here about, let's see, twelve or thirteen years ago. He
mentioned something about an episode.'

'What d'you mean?'

'I can't remember now what it was,
exactly. Just, he said something...' I allowed my words to trail away.

'I don't know. Things are always
happening.'

'That'd be the fire,' said the other
woman. 'It was before our time of course, but people still talk about it.'

I turned to her, my skin prickling.
'Fire?'

'There was a fire here,' she said. 'You
can see. A whole Year Eleven classroom was burnt to the ground, and half the IT
area.'

She pointed across the yard to a low
red-brick building that was newer than the rest of the school.

'How awful,' I said. I felt hot and then
cold all over. 'How did it happen?'

'Never caught no one. Probably kids
fooling around. Awful what they get up to nowadays, isn't it? There's Ellie
now.' She raised an arm to a lanky girl in plaits walking our way.

'So no one was caught?'

'Good luck with the move,' said one of
them over her shoulder. 'Maybe see you again, if you decide to come here.'

I got back into the van and put another
Polo into my mouth. I sucked on it, feeling its circle become thinner and
thinner until it broke and dissolved. I turned on the ignition, but still sat
with the engine idling, staring at the new classroom, imagining a blaze of
leaping orange flames. Simon Rees's revenge. I shivered in the warmth. Like a
sign I knew how to read, like graffiti scrawled on the wall: Brendan woz 'ere.

CHAPTER 34

Don was his own worst enemy, in all sorts
of ways. He smoked too much. He kept irregular hours. He existed in a general
state of vagueness which I began to think was largely deceptive, but not
entirely. When I was sealing the floor, he wandered in with two mugs and I had
to wave him back before he caused disaster. I joined him out in the corridor
and he handed me a coffee and started thinking aloud about other things that
needed doing in his flat. Did I think the window frames looked a bit worn?
(Yes, I did.) Could anything be done about the cracks in the living room door?
(Yes, if money were no object.) I sniffed at the strong black coffee to try to
rid myself of the resinous reek of the floor lacquer.

'It's dangerous to think of things as you
go along,' I said. 'That's how costs spiral out of control.'