THIRTY-FIVE

Well, I was sorry, too, although I didn’t quite know why. During the course of the next hour I repeatedly rang the vets’ surgery but apparently Max was having a busy time of it resuscitating guinea pigs and whatnot, so couldn’t come to the phone. When I insisted that I absolutely had to speak to her, the receptionist went away and this time there was a pause of five minutes before she came back on the line to tell me (and in a voice that was noticeably embarrassed) that Max was going to go back to her own house that evening, and that she would be grateful if I would leave her alone. It was to no avail that I remonstrated.

Max was being stupid but there was nothing I could do about it. Her refusal to speak to me was childish and potentially was going to be disastrous; she was leaving herself unprotected when Tristan was out there and stalking her. In desperation, I went immediately around to the vets’ practice, which was located in Beulah Road, but I was told that she had left for the day, feeling unwell. I went to her house, in Whitehorse Lane, but there was no answer; inevitably I looked around for Tristan and, equally inevitably, saw no one. Perhaps she had gone to her parents’. I wondered and thought about ringing them, then thought again. We were not on particularly amiable terms (they thought the age gap too great) and I didn’t especially want to have them intruding any more than was absolutely necessary into the private lives of Max and me. Frustrated and worried, I sat in the car for a while, wondering what to do; the only thing I knew for certain was that I wasn’t going to start decorating the bloody downstairs cloakroom any time soon.

My journey back home took me past Bensham Manor School; it was, I suppose, some sort of displacement activity that had me driving in, almost on automatic pilot. It was a quarter to four. As I parked in one of the visitors’ spaces – still unadorned by any local government dignitaries, I noted – and got out. I went around the main building to the back of the gymnasium. Why had I come? Well, I suppose part of me wondered if I would catch Dad there so that I could chinwag with him, and part of me wanted to look at that wall again.

Dad wasn’t there; the vegetable plot was deserted, save for a black-and-white cat of scrawny appearance who was doing his business in between the parsnips. I turned my attention to the wall. As I approached it, I had the distinct feeling that the graffiti had been supplemented; presumably some self-proclaimed ‘artist’ had been at play whilst Mr Silsby languished in Mayday Hospital, his liver slowly turning to mush. Try as I might, however, I couldn’t identify what had changed. I went to the drainpipe, searching again for the graffito, finding it fairly easily. There it was – MJ loves JG. What did it mean? The simplest explanation was that MJ and JG weren’t Marlene Jeffries and Jeremy Gillman, but two other teachers or pupils at the school. It seemed odd that the conjunction should be scribed just beneath the announcement that YM loves MJ; surely that must have been referring to the two teachers . . .

In which case, who was JG?

I looked at it more closely, gradually seeing something odd about it. I backed away from the gymnasium, keeping my gaze fastened to that area; the drain pipe was a problem, and the efforts to erase the graffiti followed by the efforts to re-establish its existence made it difficult to make things out . . .

‘Cooey!’ I was startled by the sound, looking around: even as I did so, I knew what I would see. ‘Hello, Lance. Fancy seeing you here.’

It was Ada, about ten yards distant but closing rapidly. Her step-granddaughter was in tow, looking discontented. ‘Hello, Ada,’ I said, hoping that my smile appeared full of genuine pleasure, although my heart was unable at that precise moment to locate any of that commodity anywhere.

‘I was looking for Ben, but he’s not here.’

I could not argue with this statement regarding the absence of Bens, my father included. Accordingly, I replied, ‘No.’

‘I wonder where he is.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

‘We need to start planning the wedding.’ I smiled, feeling unable to comment; clearly Dad had yet to discuss the future with her. She seemed suddenly struck by curiosity. ‘What are you doing here, Lance? Taking your turn in weeding and watering? I keep reminding the boys and girls to keep at it, don’t I, dear?’ It occurred to me that she used my first name like a nail gun, pinning me to her family.

She turned to her granddaughter, who was looking around in that bored way that only modern teenagers seem able to manufacture. She received no reply but didn’t seem to mind, so turned back to me. ‘How are you, Lance?’

I failed to respond immediately, taken as I was by her granddaughter: she was heavily made up but slim and attractive, her skirt very short. She was chewing, but even this did not seem to make her ugly. She was holding a brightly coloured, extravagantly decorated, gaudily coloured file folder. There were all sorts of patterns and lettering scrawled on it in felt-tip pen, clearly done during numerous afternoons of stultifying boredom. As I looked at it, I saw that she had attempted a fairly good reproduction of the classic optical trick, the drawing that one moment looks like a young woman’s figure, the next like a crone’s face in profile.

Ada said, ‘Lance?’

I pulled myself back to her grandmother, aware that I was perhaps appearing to behave peculiarly. ‘Not too bad, thank you.’

She looked at me oddly. ‘Are you all right?’

But I wasn’t and when I looked back at the folder and then at the gymnasium to our right, I became even less well. ‘I’m fine,’ I lied.

She peered at me. ‘Are you sure, Lance?’

I had to pull myself back once again. ‘Yes, yes.’ I was enthusiastic, positive, reassuring: I did not add that I wanted her very much to go.

After doing some more peering at me – she was very good at peering, was Ada – she became at ease with my subterfuge. A curt nod suggested that she was satisfied (but only just) and then she relaxed a little. ‘We have to get back home, don’t we, dear?’

Her reward wasn’t a word, nor was it even a nod; it was merely a spin on the heels of some outrageously shod feet and some footsteps towards the main gates. Once more, Ada was completely devoid of nonplussment. ‘Goodbye, Lance,’ she said. ‘See you soon, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’

You will never know how hard it was not to make that sound horrified.

Alone at last, I returned to the wall, my head filled with a new perspective. It was so easy to see things in all that chaos of writing, removal, rewriting, smearing and yet more rewriting; in fact, it was too easy. It was easy to see things that were there, and easy to see things that weren’t. To see what had really been written required a different perspective, and it was one I now had.