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‘Gulliver Herne-Lewis!’ his mother yelled up the stairs. ‘If you do not pick up these t-shirts that I have washed, dried and folded for you, then I will take them to the back garden and set them on fire! And then I will come to your next band recital completely naked, my body covered only in the smeared ashes of your incinerated clothing! Comprende?’
Aishe heard a short, muffled sound which may or may not have been a word.
‘Your tutor will be turning up in five minutes! That’s five minutes before your shirts are burned! Got it?’
No response at all this time. Aishe fought down the urge to race upstairs, rip open her son’s bedroom door and yell right at him. Every teenager in history drove their parents nuts, she knew, but it was harder to take when up until recently, they’d been perfect. Right from when he was a toddler, Gulliver had been such a helpful boy; she’d rarely had to tell him twice to do anything. It was as if he’d always known they’d been a team, him and her, and that teams always pulled together. But over the last few months, it seemed that for every inch in height he had suddenly, alarmingly, gained, he’d lost a proportionate willingness for any kind of interaction. The week before, Aishe had been flicking a duster over the photographs on top of her bookshelf and found herself smiling fondly at a photo of her curly mopped urchin, all round, freckled cheeks and a huge, gappy grin. How sweet he’d been when he was little, she’d thought. Then she’d recalled that the photo had been taken only last year, and felt her insides flip with an emotion she found hard to pin down. It seemed most like regret, she decided. But what on earth for? Her son was growing into a fine young man, despite his troglodyte tendencies, and it was beautiful and gratifying to watch.
Aishe thought about her brother, Anselo, the one she was closest to in age — and in personality too, though Anse had always been a bit too stuck in the duty and obligation groove. Anselo, the middle Herne, had been a skinny little child, much slighter than his two older brothers. He’d been quiet and wary too, a silent, frowning observer when his strapping, handsome brothers would inevitably throw themselves into the thick of things and emerge yelling in either triumph or pain, usually the latter. But the last time Aishe had seen him, which was over seven years ago, she’d been agog to see how much he’d filled out. He was six feet tall, broad-shouldered and well-muscled. ‘Wow, bro,’ she’d said to him. ‘Been hitting the gym?’ He’d reddened and brushed off the remark with his usual scowl. And then he said what he’d been forced to say, and the conversation went rapidly downhill from there.
Her two oldest brothers were married now with a brood of children each and a matching set of over-stuffed English rose wives who expected them to bring home the bacon and lie about their ethnic origin at dinner parties. The wives felt that even being thought to have Arab blood was less of a social death than being Roma. Stupid cows.
Anselo, however, was not married. Well, as far as Aishe knew . . .
A jaunty tattoo sounded against the door. Aishe bristled. Even the way he knocked was gratingly smug.
‘Gulliver!’ she yelled again. ‘Get down here! And kiss goodbye to your shirts on the way!’
Aishe’s house being very small, the front door was all of two feet from the stairs. She wrenched it open and glared.
‘Hello,’ said her visitor mildly, as he stepped inside. ‘You could always attach wires to his testicles. Although I doubt he’s let you see him naked for at least three years.’
Aishe closed the door behind him with more force than was strictly necessary.
‘Let’s hope you know more about teaching than you do about child rearing,’ she said.
Benedict glanced pointedly up the stairs, at the top of which Gulliver had failed to appear. ‘Shall I fetch him for you?’
Aishe put her foot on the first stair and gripped the banister. ‘Gull—!’
‘I’m here!’
Gulliver sloped onto the landing. His curly hair was now so long, Aishe observed, that it brushed his shoulder blades. It wasn’t her own rich chocolate-brown colour, and it certainly wasn’t blonde like the man who’d fathered him. It was a dark, coppery red, a colour that popped up every so often amongst her family. They were called pawni – fair – Romani, even though they were only fair compared to their dark-haired, olive-skinned relatives. Aishe’s uncle Jenico, the head of her extended family, was a pawni Romani. Uncle Jenico was also an enormous bear of a man, at least four inches taller and three axe-handles wider than even the newly buff Anselo. Gulliver had grown six inches in as many months and was now pushing five nine. Aishe offered up a quick prayer that he didn’t end up the size of his great-uncle. The house was barely big enough for the two of them now.
Still, she hoped her son would have more meat on him than the young man lounging against her front door. Benedict Hardy was tall, around six two, and as lean and fine-boned as a whippet. He had very long legs, their thinness exaggerated by the tight, tapered black jeans he always wore, topped with either a Buzzcocks-style blazer or a zipped motorcycle jacket, à la Joey Ramone. Both jackets were just that little bit too small, but instead of emphasising his ninety-pound weakling physique they somehow contrived to make him annoyingly stylish. He had suitably punk-pale skin and white blonde hair so close-cropped that from a distance his head looked shaved. In Aishe’s opinion, he was saved from looking like an anaemic wading bird only by a generous mouth and a pair of smudgy green eyes.
Aishe was also of the opinion that Benedict’s dress sense was a complete put-on, an attempt to disguise that fact that he was a former English public schoolboy, which by definition meant he could be neither authentically streetwise nor cool. Aishe could not recall the name of the school on Benedict’s resume, but its influence, an accent of clipped precision and an air of amused self-assurance, was yet another aspect of Benedict that set Aishe’s teeth on edge. She herself had left school at sixteen, with a few decent marks but not enough to get even a half-decent qualification. She knew she wasn’t a thicko, though — she’d successfully home-schooled Gulliver right up until the start of this school year.
Aishe preferred to forget the arguments and tension that had arced between her and Gulliver all through the last summer holidays. It was the first time they had ever argued seriously, the first time he had ever challenged her authority or questioned her judgement. All because Gulliver had told her he wanted to give up home schooling, wanted to go to a real school, like a normal kid.
That’s why Benedict was here. He was Aishe’s compromise. Gulliver could go to a “real” school next year. The “normal” kids his age would all be starting high school then, so it seemed sensible timing. They could all be new and “normal” together. Until then, home schooling it was. Aishe would teach him history and Spanish. Benedict would tutor him in the subjects that Aishe struggled with — maths, science, English and music.
Benedict, who seemed to be irritatingly knowledgeable about every instrument known to man, had also gained Gulliver a place in a local school of rock. The students were grouped according to their age and ability, and they practised and performed together as if they were in a real band. Gulliver played bass guitar, which Benedict said had helped greatly in getting him a place, the only less popular choice of rock instrument being the autoharp.
‘Name four great rock bands,’ Benedict had said to Aishe, when she’d risen to defend her son’s instrument of choice.
‘Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones, U2,’ she’d reeled off.
‘Now name the bassist in each one.’
‘Bill Wyman!’ she’d later exclaimed.
‘Well done,’ he’d said. ‘And it only took you two days.’
No, Aishe knew she wasn’t a thicko. But sometimes Benedict Hardy made her feel unpleasantly close to one, even with a subject as trivial as rock music. Aishe loathed feeling at a disadvantage with people. It made her feel vulnerable and that was not be tolerated. Her usual tactic to redress this was to unleash her weapon of choice – a frankness of such unexpurgated brutality, it could raise welts. It had not, over the years, made Aishe a lot of friends. But as there were really only two people’s company that she enjoyed – her son’s and her own – that suited her fine. Letting Benedict into their lives had stemmed from reluctant necessity – he had been the only applicant she could afford. Now he was here, Aishe knew she had no choice but to suck it up. The alternative was to give in Gulliver’s demand to attend school, and Aishe was not ready for that. Not yet.
But, by God, the man grated on her! Aishe had no patience for introspection, but in the previous three weeks, she’d found Benedict pushed so many buttons that she began to question whether she’d had a previous life as a Pearly Queen. His plummy accent, his faux cool, his too-clever-by-half turn of phrase – Aishe had met plenty of his type in bars around the world, and under that glib façade they had all proved to be spineless Mummy’s boys. His type you could not depend on. Not like Frank.
Most galling of all was that Gulliver and Benedict had clicked from the start. Another indication that Benedict was a boy, not a man, Aishe decided. Still, it was tough to see a stranger enjoy the kind of easy, laughter-filled relationship she had until only recently had with her son. These days, Aishe thought ruefully, all Gulliver and she seemed to do was snipe at each other, and about petty stuff like t-shirts. But then she was his mother, she reminded herself. She was in this relationship for life. Whereas ‘Boy’ Hardy was in it for a weekly payment in cash, and when this school year was over, he would leave.
Three weeks down, Aishe thought. Only another eight months to go.
‘Right, I’m off,’ she said to the pair. ‘There are dogs and cats that need to be separated from morons and reassigned to people with a clue. I’ll be back at six with tacos. Want one?’ she asked Benedict in a tone that would encourage a rapid answer in the negative from most people.
‘I’d love one, thank you,’ he said, with a smile that Aishe did not return.
She grabbed her car key and aimed it like a weapon at the pile of t-shirts.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Gulliver rolled his eyes.
Aishe bit back a snappish retort. Instead, she smiled. ‘I’ll see you later. Have a good day.’
Out in the car, she turned the music up loud. And cursed in time to the beat.
Back in the house, Benedict glanced at Gulliver. ‘I suggest an hour of mathematics, one of science and then a concerted attempt at Doom Eternal. If we’re focused, we should be finished in time to ensure the PlayStation has cooled down before your mother puts her hand on it at six.’
Gulliver frowned. ‘Did she tell you she checks it?’
‘No, but we both know she does, don’t we?’
The boy shrugged. Benedict noted shoulder blades that seemed too big and bony for the t-shirt, which bore the somewhat obscure legend “Owls Are Assholes”. Benedict well remembered that stage, where your body parts insisted on growing at different speeds. At one time, his legs had been so long and skinny and his head so comparatively oversized and blonde that he’d resembled, as one of his friends had kindly pointed out, a snooker cue about to pot the white.
‘I’ll get the laptop.’ Gulliver hopped back up the stairs.
While he was gone, Benedict went over to the bookshelf in the living room and started studying the collection of framed photographs on it.
‘Weren’t you cute?’ He smiled at Gulliver. ‘And in this one, so very, very naked.’
Gulliver flipped him a one-fingered salute.
‘And who are these little tykes?’ Benedict picked up a silver frame.
‘Mum and her brothers. And her sister.’
‘One aunt and three uncles,’ said Benedict. ‘Do you see them often? I assume they all live back in Britain?’
‘I’ve never met any of them,’ Gulliver said. ‘Oh yeah, wait. I’ve met one of them. That one.’ He pointed at a small, dark boy, the only one of the children who wasn’t smiling. ‘But I don’t really remember him much. I was only six or seven.’
‘Why don’t you see them?’ Benedict asked. ‘Cost of travel?’
Gulliver shrugged. ‘I don’t think they like each other. When he came—’ he pointed again ‘—all they did was fight.’
‘Been there,’ Benedict murmured. He replaced the photo on the shelf and reached for another. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Frank.’
‘And apart from being at least three hundred pounds of heavenly joy, Frank is—?’
‘Was. Mum’s husband. He died.’
Benedict had been well trained to repress any public display of emotion, but this little revelation proved beyond him. He goggled openly at Gulliver.
‘I’m sorry? He was . . . he and she were . . . married?’
‘Yup.’
‘And he died?’
‘Yup. Want a soda?’
‘Sure...’ Benedict held the photo closer and then moved it further away, as if trying to bring into focus the idea of a union between small, slender Aishe Herne and this really quite extraordinarily large man.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Gulliver was beside him again, holding out a can of Sprite.
‘Oh, I sincerely hope not . . .’
‘How did he and Mum get it on?’
‘No! Argh!’ Benedict hastily replaced the photo on the shelf, then wiped his fingers on his shirt. He snatched the can of Sprite from Gulliver. ‘Bad, bad child!’
‘You were the one thinking it,’ Gulliver said with an offhand shrug.
Benedict gave him a hard stare. ‘You do realise that if you are messing with me in any way, I will tell everyone you have a poster of Miley Cyrus over your bed.’
‘How do you know I don’t?’ said Gulliver.
‘Katy Perry then.’
Gulliver glanced at the photo. ‘I was only three when he died but I sort of remember him. He was cool. Mum really liked him. A lot.’
‘How do you know if you were only a kid?’
‘On their wedding anniversary, she gets out an old film called Show Boat and sits and watches it and drinks tequila and cries.’
‘Good God. Why Show Boat?’
‘Frank used to sing Old Man River. He had a real big, deep voice just like the film guy. Paul someone.’
‘Paul Robeson,’ murmured Benedict. ‘So that would be the 1936 version, not 1951.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’
‘How long were they married?’
‘Dunno. Two years? He choked to death on a peanut.’
‘A peanut?’ Benedict’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s – unfortunate.’
‘Yeah, I know, it was a dumb way to die,’ said Gulliver. ‘But he was a good guy. He made Mum happy.’
‘Well, now that I’ve done feeling like a heel,’ said Benedict, after a pause. ‘Are you ready for extra calculus and then a spot of Doom?’
Gulliver upended his Sprite to finish it, then crushed the can in his fist.
‘Bring it,’ he said.
Aishe set the handbrake of her 1976 two-door Volkswagen. Back in England, it would have been a Golf Mark I. Here, it was known as a Rabbit. Aishe still found the idea of parking a Rabbit outside the animal shelter mildly amusing. One day, she thought, it would break down for good and she’d have to abandon it here. Pity the towing company that had to sort that out.
She did a quick check of her face in the rear-view mirror. Lately, she’d found herself doing this a little too frequently for comfort, and it annoyed her that she wasn’t sure why. Aishe had become aware from an early age that she was beautiful. Probably too early, she suspected. Up until the age of ten, she’d looked a lot like Anselo – small, slight and dark. Friends of her two oldest brothers noticed her only if she banged into them running down a hallway in the Herne’s big, ramshackle North London house. They’d yell at her to slow down and she’d give them the fingers. And then she’d keep on running, usually out the door and up the road to the park, where she’d do laps until it was time for dinner. Her father used to joke that Aishe had two settings: running or unconscious. There was no in between.
Aishe’s father died the day before she turned eleven. He never saw her as anything but a scrawny little scrap, she thought. And it was only a year later that she started to blossom.
By thirteen, Aishe was as dark and luscious as a young Elizabeth Taylor. Now, she had quite a different effect on her oldest brothers’ friends, some of whom became no longer welcome in the Herne house as a result of the attention they paid her. Aishe’s brothers, Anselo included, took their roles as heads of the household very seriously now, and not just because Uncle Jenico had made it clear he expected it of them. Now completely street-wise and precocious, Aishe protested that this was outmoded sexist claptrap, and that she and her younger sister, Jenepher, needed those idiots to protect them about as much as they needed corsets and smelling salts. Uncle Jenico took her aside and quietly told her to back off and let her brothers take this opportunity to learn to be men. As quiet Uncle Jenico was exponentially more terrifying than Uncle Jenico with a raised voice, Aishe did what he asked.
And then she took her own opportunity, Aishe thought, to spend as little time at home as possible without actually going into foster care. Then she left for good.
Aishe had arrived in Europe on her seventeenth birthday with nothing but fifty euro and the knowledge that her looks would get her pretty much whatever she asked for. She’d spent the four years since she turned thirteen proving this, as well as discovering that some things were wiser to ask for than others. Her desire to physically run and run had sublimated into a general state of restlessness. Before moving to Marin, she’d never stayed more than a few months in one place, no matter who was begging her to stay.
Jonas might have begged her to stay. If he’d known about his son . . .
Aishe scowled at her reflection. Having got pregnant at nineteen, Aishe had become used to the surprise when she told people how old Gulliver was. ‘No!’ they said. ‘Come on! You cannot have a child that age!’
At least, that’s what they used to say. It didn’t happen so often these days. Was that because she was starting to look older? She was still only thirty-three, which was hardly old. But then, she had to admit, it wasn’t that young anymore either. Gulliver was fourteen. In three or four years, he might be the one leaving home.
Aishe entered the shelter in a less than optimal mood. She worked as a volunteer three afternoons a week. When she’d been asked why, she found it hard to say for sure. The best she could come up with was that rescuing animals from danger and keeping them safe made her feel that safety was possible. She couldn’t stop them dying from disease or being run over. But she could make sure they were no longer around people who wanted to hurt them. Or who might abandon them.
She was aware that her lack of patience with some of the customers who came in to adopt a pet was the reason she’d been quietly shifted from the front desk and asked to help out with the behavioural team. They were the ones who trained the animals — mostly dogs, but the odd cat and bird — so they could send them out into the world again knowing they wouldn’t bite, shit in shoes or swear in fluent Armenian. Aishe had proved to be a talented trainer, but she knew that Nico, the shelter manager, was still keeping an eye on her. He had already told her that he did not consider her — his words — “a team player”. Aishe liked Nico, so she’d bitten back the retort she’d made to the last person (Mr Warren, her high school deputy principal) who’d told her that there was no ‘I’ in ‘team’. ‘No,’ Aishe had said. ‘But there is a ‘u’ in c**t.’ To this day, Aishe had no idea what her Uncle Jenico had said to prevent the school expelling her.
Nico’s office was just off reception, so he had a clear view of everyone coming in and out. Everyone had a good view of him, too, and one glance at Nico was often all it took to make anyone intent on causing trouble to pause and reflect and, most usually, turn around again and go home. Nico had been brought up in one of the rougher parts of Oakland, the city across the harbour from San Francisco perhaps best known for being the birthplace of the Hell’s Angels. Nico looked not unlike a Hell’s Angel. He was over six feet, with wrestler’s shoulders, arms like hams, a large pot belly and a black mullet that he wore tied back in a ponytail. He had tattoos all over, arms, neck, calves, many with the blurred outlines which indicated they had been done nowhere near a professional studio.
Despite appearances, Nico had never been in trouble; he’d just spent plenty of time around it. He’d trained as a social worker but moved into animal welfare, having seen the clear link between domestic and animal abuse. He strongly believed that nailing people for animal cruelty was the best way to interrupt what would become an escalating and often vicious cycle of violence. Get the bastards who stubbed out cigarettes on puppies, and you’d get the same ones who’d back-hand a crying toddler across a room or break their girlfriend’s ribs for overcooking a steak. Nico had met men who’d done all those things, and he still wasn’t entirely sure if his decision to go after them legitimately was the best one. Sometimes, Nico dreamed of finding himself alone with these men. Just him, and Mack, the pitbull he’d rescued and trained. Mack had been near dead when Nico found him and nursed him back to health. Now, the dog would do anything Nico asked. Anything . . .
As it was, the people whose animals the shelter seized for abuse or neglect took one look at Nico and found their belligerent excuses dying in their mouths. His presence had the same effect as the low growl of a large predator – it bypassed their brains and raced straight to their primordial centre of fear. So, Nico had not yet had to resort to un-holstering Mack.
There were very few people he felt ill equipped to deal with. In fact, there was only one. And here she came now. Aishe Herne.
It wasn’t that Nico couldn’t handle her as such. When he spoke, she listened. When he moved her from the front desk to the behavioural team, she’d rolled her eyes but hadn’t objected. No, Nico knew he could manage her. But he hadn’t got to grips at all with why she was the way she was. Why she could be so great with some people, but blistering rude to others. She’d told him she found it hard to be polite to people she didn’t respect. Nico had suggested that she give people more than two minutes before judging them, and to her credit, she had tried. But lately, her mood had been more down than up and her temper short. One volunteer had left because of Aishe and the others were muttering. Nico appreciated Aishe’s commitment to the shelter, but not at any cost. He was running out of ideas to manage her, and she was running out of chances.
As Aishe approached the front desk, Nico saw the two women on duty exchange a look. He stepped out of his office.
‘Aishe.’ He beckoned her over, ignoring her obvious irritation at being summoned.
‘I just wanted to let you know that the Brat’s adoption has been approved. His new owner is picking him up at four.’
Aishe did not look filled with joy. ‘The woman wants to rename him Rusty Wallace. What kind of name is that?’
‘He was a famous Nascar driver,’ said Nico. ‘She told me she chose the name because the Brat’s quick off the line but crashes a lot.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
The corner of Nico’s mouth rose. ‘If I were a half-blind dachshund, I’d rather be named after a famous car racer than a German sausage.’
‘She could have called him Dash, ’Aishe muttered. ‘At least that has some dignity.’
‘She’s a nice lady,’ said Nico quietly. ‘She’ll be a good owner.’
Aishe scuffed her toe along the floor. ‘Do I have to see her?’
‘Four o’clock,’ Nico said. ‘Make sure he’s ready.’
Aishe tried not to watch Nico walk all the way back to his office. She failed for the simple reason that grumbling away beneath the internal conflict Nico always elicited in her was another thing he provoked— a tiny but highly potent charge of lust. Not that he did it on purpose; he was clearly neither interested nor available. He wasn’t even by most women’s reckoning good-looking. Damn it, thought Aishe, it was just because he was big. Not as big as Frank — few people could be — but big enough to trigger whatever it is big men aroused in her.
The attraction puzzled Aishe. It certainly couldn’t be Freudian. Her father had been well muscled but lean. His brother, her uncle Jenico, and her cousin Patrick were big, but the tall and broad kind, not the comforting, Pavarotti-lavish kind of big that pushed her buttons. The complete opposite to the posh boy back at her house, in fact. He pushed a whole other kind of button. A big red one that went ka-boom.
At four, Aishe had Bratwurst checked, collared and ready to go. He was an appealing little mite, all wriggly energy and eager tongue. Aishe never ceased to find this amazing. The Brat had one blind eye and a dodgy leg as a result of being kicked half to death by his previous owner, and yet he still loved to be with people, still greeted them by running around in mad circles, still craved for them to pick him up so he could lick their face over and over.
‘Oh my gosh, he is a one for the kisses, isn’t he?’
The Brat’s new owner had been admitted into the back room, and was now standing by the bench, her hands clasped in front of her. Aishe guessed she was no more than forty, but she dressed like a seventy-year old matron, in a violet polyester tent dress and matching vinyl slip-on shoes. Aishe knew without asking that this was a woman whose two great loves had, until now, been Jesus and Nutty Ho Hos. And now she had a third.
‘Yep, he’s a smoocher all right,’ Aishe said. She dropped a quick kiss of her own on the Brat’s head, and handed him across. ‘Here you go. Here’s your new mother.’
‘Oh my gosh.’ The woman gathered the wriggling dog into her arms. ‘Hello, little Rusty.’ She shot a shy but slightly defensive glance at Aishe. ‘You don’t mind me calling him Rusty Wallace, do you?’
Aishe cocked her head to one side. ‘I think it suits him. He’s got quite a lot of that dachshund rusty-brown in him.’
‘So he has!’ The woman was delighted. ‘I never thought of that kind of rusty! I just thought ’cos he’s so fast that . . .’ She tailed off, unsure whether she was making a fool of herself.
Aishe smiled. ‘Rusty Wallace is a great name. And he’s a great dog. Thanks for taking him.’
She picked up the brand new, shiny blue lead the woman had brought with her and clipped it onto Rusty’s collar. ‘There,’ she said. ‘He’s all yours.’