I came home from work on Friday night and found Kathryn sitting on Robert’s bed, talking to him and Luke. The two boys were propped up on pillows, leaning against the headboard, and my wife was curled at the end of the bed, one foot dangling over the side.
‘Before I was married, I might have done,’ she said, laughing.
Kathryn was the last to see me standing in the doorway. Robert nudged his mother’s knee with his foot, and she twisted round. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Howard. You’re home.’
I loosened my tie. ‘Yes. I’m home.’
The three of them watched me in silence as I pulled the tie from around my neck and let the fabric snake over my wrist before wrapping it into a tight ball. Then I turned and walked downstairs.
After tea, I asked her, ‘What do you talk to them about?’ ‘I don’t know,’ she said, not putting her book down. Then she added, ‘Sometimes we talk about how things were when I was their age.’
Kathryn at fifteen. I remembered it well. I remembered once walking past her house and seeing her sitting on her front lawn.
Her father was trimming their hedge. She had a big blue flower pattern on her dress. I remembered her knees: how rounded and
soft-looking they were, and how they fitted perfectly together – the full bone of one snug in the hollow of the other – as
she sat with her legs tucked around the swirl of her skirt. I thought she was admiring her father’s skill, but the roar of
a motorbike behind made me realise why she was sitting there. Who she was waiting for.
The next morning, after Kathryn had gone to the library, I left the house and got in the car to drive to the new supermarket. I had to scrape the windscreen and wipe the side window to see out. My hedges were bare, but I’d managed to keep the grass out front looking fairly healthy. The garden would survive a hard frost, I thought.
I was halfway down the road when I saw Luke cycle past, hat perched on the back of his head, white scarf hanging loose.
I pulled in and watched him in my rear-view mirror. He cycled up our path and didn’t bother dismounting his bike to ring the doorbell. Robert answered, grinned, ducked back inside, and then came out of the side passage, pushing his bike.
I balled my fingers inside my jumper, thinking it would be warmer there.
Luke’s bike wasn’t, I noticed, quite as good as Robert’s. We’d bought Robert’s just a year ago – at the time he’d wanted the same model as Paul, but I’d got him a better one, a Raleigh Dynamite. No Minnie Mouse bell this time, either. It had metallic paint that reflected all colours in the sun. The spokes ticked cleanly as he wheeled it down the path.
They pedalled slowly together, rising up and dipping back down to their saddles. I heard a hoot of laughter. Robert wore a new black woollen jacket which looked like the ones the men in the turbine hall had, except his didn’t have C.P.S. stamped on the back in chalky white letters.
I started the engine.
When they’d turned the corner of the road, I gave them a few minutes, then I followed, keeping well back.
Coming into the High Street, I saw their bikes propped up against the window of Burgrey Stores. I was careful to pull in a fair distance down the street. I watched the door of the shop. A man with a dog and a paper rushed out; a woman walked in, shaking her open purse and frowning; and a few minutes later, the two boys emerged together. A girl with long blonde hair followed them. I recognised her as the shop’s Saturday girl.
I hadn’t planned to be doing this, I reminded myself.
Then something unexpected happened. Before the boys cycled off, the girl held Robert by the elbow for a long moment and looked into his face. Robert smiled at her, and Luke looked the other way.
I sat for a while, watching the two boys pedal down the road, wondering about what had just happened. The girl stood on the
pavement and watched them until they turned the corner. I thought she might shout out after them, but she didn’t, she just
stood there, gazing after my son. Then she swung back into the shop, her hair sweeping behind her.
That afternoon, I visited Burgrey Stores.
I hadn’t been using the shop as often as I once did. The supermarket now met all our weekly shopping needs, and I liked strolling along the wide bright aisles, considering which brands offered the best value, surprising myself with the occasional impulse buy.
Burgrey Stores consisted of two narrow aisles, a chiller cabinet and a magazine rack. Packets of hair grips, combs and tights hung in the window. The shelves were heavy with dusty tins – peaches, pies, peas. Magazines and newspapers were piled on the floor as well as on the rack. The sound of a televised football match floated in from the back room.
The girl was leaning on the counter, reading a magazine. The sleeves of her jumper were pushed up past her elbows. The skin on her arms was blotchy; the pattern of vein and skin made me think of pith on an orange. Both her elbows were smeared with a patch of ink. As her arms moved over the pile of newspapers on the counter, I wondered how she managed to scrub off all that ink every evening. Did it turn the sink grey as she stood in the bathroom, up to her elbows in soapy water? Perhaps she didn’t bother washing at all, but just let the ink rub off on her sheets as she turned in her sleep.
I asked her for a packet of cigarettes, pointing to a gold box. It was all I could think of. I’ve never smoked, and I’ve always hated to see women’s mouths, particularly, pulling on the tips of those things, sucking them dry.
I could see why a boy would choose her as a girlfriend. She had lots of shiny blonde hair that fell like a scarf around her shoulders, smooth cheeks, a pink little mouth, ready to open, and eyelashes painted with blue. Her curves were a bit like Kathryn’s used to be, only more so.
‘Is that it?’ Her earrings winked at me as she spoke.
‘And a box of matches. Please.’
She turned and reached for the matches. Her skirt lifted a little and she seemed to pause for a moment. I looked away.
Her bangles clattered as she slammed the matches on the counter. ‘One ninety.’ She held out her hand and looked directly at me, and I was struck by how grown-up she seemed. She was like a woman in a painting, standing there in relief against all those multi-coloured cigarette packets, a patchwork of government health warnings and gold seals behind her.
I cleared my throat. ‘You know my son, I think.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Robert. Robert Hall.’ I tried to smile.
She didn’t smile back. Her mouth was open, rimmed with lipstick, waiting. ‘Anything else?’
What had I come here for? Whatever plan I had, it seemed ridiculous now.
‘No. Thanks.’ I put the money in her palm and turned to leave.
‘Rob’s nice.’
I stopped.
‘Rob’s a really nice boy,’ she said.
I turned round. She gave me a quick smile, and as she did so, the lipstick on her bottom lip cracked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He is.’
She tossed her bright hair over one shoulder. ‘Don’t think he likes me much, though.’
I approached the counter again. ‘What makes you say that?’
She laughed. Then she half-closed her eyes and said, in a drawn-out voice, ‘I cannot imagine.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You know,’ she said, and shrugged.
‘I don’t think I do.’
She looked up at me with big eyes. She didn’t blink as she curled her lips into a long, slow smile. Her pink jumper was tight on her shoulders and her chest as she leant over the counter, her bare elbows smudging the newsprint beneath. ‘You know,’ she said again.