She wasn’t a child. She had a full mouth and large breasts, and was five foot four, at least. She wasn’t a woman, either. Her face was a blank on which nothing had ever happened, a child’s face, smooth and blameless. Her eyes were large and dark, but the light had gone out of them. They looked inward and backward, as if they had followed her mother to Hungary. Apart from the mouth, she was nothing like Charles at all. Her hair was almost black, and hung wavy and tangled to her waist; his was fair and straight. Charles was tall, lean, upright, spruce, almost pollarded; she was broader and wilder, slumped round-shouldered at the table, her legs sprawled out in front of her. She wouldn’t even look at him.
Breakfast had lasted for a hundred years and she’d still eaten only three dry scratchy cornflakes.
‘How do you like your egg?’ Frances asked, at last.
‘I don’t eat eggs.’
‘Bacon?’
‘Nope.’
‘No thank you.’ That was Charles. Magda didn’t show she’d heard him, just stared down at her plate – willow pattern, blue and white. She seemed to have run away from them and strayed into that willow-pattern world, hiding behind the windmills, slouching through the cold blue fields.
‘Do you like school?’ Frances knew it sounded stiff, but couldn’t think what else to say; felt dumb and paralysed.
‘No,’ said Magda dully.
‘Would you like some toast?’
‘No,’ the girl repeated.
Charles didn’t say ‘no thank you’. Magda looked too miserable for that. How, in God’s name, Frances wondered, was she going to get through the day? Well, they’d have to buy some clothes, for a start. Magda couldn’t go out in those tatty frayed jeans and that torn man’s shirt with half its buttons missing. She’d brought one pathetic bag with her, and that was mostly full of records.
‘Do you like clothes, Magda?’
‘Yeah.’
Well, that was something. She wondered if Charles would agree to elocution lessons. And certainly a change of school. His daughter needed polishing.
‘Would you like to go shopping today? We’ve got Dickins and Jones in Richmond. Or Top Shop – that’s where all the teenagers go.’
‘I’m not a teenager.’
‘Of course you are, Magda.’ Charles got up almost angrily, pushing back his chair. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to leave. I’m meeting Oppenheimer at ten o’ clock sharp and I can’t be late.’
It was Saturday, but Charles still made appointments. This one had been fixed long before he knew of Magda’s arrival. And yet Frances felt resentful. It was so easy for him to escape. How could she argue with an all-day conference at the airport? Charles was meeting his millionaire client and an international banker on a stop-over flight between Hamburg and Buenos Aires. Even daughters didn’t disrupt that sort of sacred mission. She clutched at his sleeve.
‘Well, have a good day.’ The formula again. Anything to keep him there.
‘And you.’ A peck on the cheek. Would he kiss Magda? He seemed uncertain, made a movement towards her across the breakfast table, and caught his elbow on the marmalade. When Magda picked it up, her hand was trembling.
‘Clumsy old me!’ Charles was trying to be jokey, sounded merely bogus. ‘No, don’t see me off. You stay here and finish breakfast. I’ll try to get back early.’
‘Early’ for Charles meant seven or eight o’clock – a whole ten hours away. How would she survive that grey, aching stretch of time with a strange pale creature in the house, who said only no and no. They’d never even finish breakfast. Magda had spooned in two more cornflakes and held them in her mouth without swallowing. Frances got up and tried to speak to Charles with her hands, her eyes, anything – speak to him in code, in signs: don’t leave us, cancel your appointments, we need you. He slipped a wad of bank notes into her hand. ‘Have a little lunch out. Buy some clothes. Get her hair done.’
She turned away, furious. Money healed everything for Charles. Carnations to cancel out adultery, lunch in Harrods to pay for a broken night. God! What a night, worse than the previous ones. She hadn’t really known where Magda ought to sleep. The house was big enough, for Christ’s sake, yet slowly they’d taken over all the rooms. Charles’ study, Charles’ workshop, her sewing-room, her dressing-room, the lumber room, the love-making room, the television room. There didn’t seem to be a place for Magda. Finally she’d put her in the sewing-room, on the top floor. She rarely sewed these days.
‘It’s nice and quiet up here.’ (Out of the way, as far from us as possible.) And then she’d lain awake, regretting it. The sewing-room was small and faced north. Viv would have snuggled Magda into her own bed with half a dozen cats. Or at least given her the studio, a warm, spacious room which got all the sun. But there were precious things in the studio, the Mackmurdo chair, the two John Piper watercolours. And supposing Magda split Pepsi on the mid-Victorian patchwork?
Frances had tossed and turned in her own warm, expensive bed, listening to the silence. Charles hadn’t even come upstairs. He was working on a complex tax return. Or so he said. She wished she’d kissed Magda goodnight. It had seemed impossible. If Magda had been three, she might have kissed her, wooed her with a teddy bear and read her ‘Goldilocks’. But Magda wasn’t three. She had full high breasts, bigger than her own.
She had stood at the sewing-room door, trying to look calm and normal and welcoming. ‘Goodnight then, Magda.’
‘’Night.’
‘Got everything you want?’ My house, my husband, my sewing-room.
‘Yeah.’ Why couldn’t Piroska have taught her child how to speak?
‘Well, goodnight,’ she’d said again.
‘’Night.’
She’d still lingered, holding the door handle. It didn’t seem enough to say goodnight. She’d offered Ovaltine, but Magda wouldn’t touch it.
‘Hungry?’
‘No.’ If only she wouldn’t flatten her vowels like that. A foreign accent would have been preferable – charming even, and certainly classless.
The child must be hungry, however she denied it. None of them had eaten, only played at it. Magda had jabbed the food around her plate for an hour and a half, and all she’d swallowed was two peas and half a glass of water.
‘I’ll be off, then. Sleep well.’
‘Yeah.’
Yeah. Oh yeah. Of course they’d sleep well, all of them. Charles escaping into his midnight calculations, she herself wondering why hugs were so impossible, Magda sobbing under the bedclothes.
Was the child sobbing? She sat up and tried to hear. The sharp cry of a night bird ripped through the silence, but nothing else.
She crept upstairs and listened outside Magda’s door. She heard the laburnum tree shift and sigh a little outside the window, and a tom cat courting. She opened the door a crack.
‘What d’you want?’ The voice was fierce, almost rude. It came from by the window, where Magda was standing, still dressed and wide awake. She wasn’t crying. She looked as if she had never cried in all her fifteen years. Her face was stiff and wary.
‘You’re spying on me.’
‘Of course not, Magda, I just wondered …’
‘Go away.’
‘I thought perhaps …’
‘I said ‘‘go away’’.’
How dare a mere child tell her to go away in her own house. Rude, ungrateful little bitch! ‘Look, Magda, if you want to be difficult, please yourself. But we’ve got to try to live together. So you might as well …’
Ridiculous, taking that tone with a child, a miserable, frightened creature who belonged nowhere and owned nothing. I’d like to be nice to you, Magda, really I would. Give you a hug, put my arms around you. But I’ve no idea how to even get near you. I’m not as heartless as I seem. Or maybe I am. Perhaps I’m a monster, a snobbish, steel-trap of a woman, completely lacking in maternal feelings. Is that why I’ve never conceived? I’m too bloody mean to be a mother? I can’t blame Charles any more. He’s proved his fertility, hasn’t he? You’re the living, breathing proof of it. That’s partly why I hate you, Magda. Oh, I know it’s unfair. It’s not your fault, and I’m sorry for you, but …
You’re beautiful. I wish you weren’t. Your hair’s magnificent. I could never grow mine as long as that. Perhaps Charles will make you cut it. You’ve got your faults, though. You’re too tall for a child, and your hands are large and bony. Why don’t you wash your feet?
She took a step inside the room. ‘Listen, Magda, I’m sorry I was sharp. Why don’t you have a nice warm bath? It might help you to sleep. I could give you some bathsalts, lovely pine ones, which turn the water green.’ She did really long to give her something. A hug was impossible, but bathsalts, biscuits, time to talk. So long as Magda went on saying no, they’d never break the barrier between them.
‘No.’
‘All right, then, I’ll go away.’
‘No.’
‘You don’t want me to go away?’
‘No.’
She sat down on the bed. It wasn’t good for the mattress, but it might be a start. ‘Why don’t you come and sit beside me?’
‘No.’
Christ! what a little minx she was, slouched beside the wardrobe, jabbing her feet against the wood, expecting them all to wait on her and worry about her, and spend the whole night trailing up and down stairs. She felt stupid sitting on the bed – trapped and vulnerable. Where in God’s name was Charles? Hiding behind his tax returns, frightened of his own daughter. How could you be frightened of a schoolgirl? Yet, she was herself; she was.
Magda looked even paler now, sort of shrunk and faded, as if Mrs Eady had put her in the washing machine on the wrong programme. She probably hadn’t slept at all, and she couldn’t cope with breakfast. Frances cleared the toast away – no point forcing her. She brightened up a little after Charles had left. Frances wondered if she was angry with him, too. Both of them furious with Charles. By having a daughter, he’d betrayed his wife, and by having a wife, he’d disowned his daughter. Perhaps she could use it as a bond between them.
‘Magda?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Look, first of all, let’s get one thing straight. It’s ‘‘yes’’, not ‘‘yeah’’.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Well, why don’t you say it, then?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because it’s correct.’
Magda shrugged. ‘Don’t care.’
No, thought Frances, you don’t. Your fingernails need cutting, and your breasts are far too heavy to go around without a bra like that. And you haven’t brought a flannel with you. She tore a piece of paper from the memo-pad hanging by the dresser and made a shopping list: flannel, slippers, bras, blouses, skirt, shampoo …
By twelve o’ clock, they’d only got the slippers and shampoo. Magda refused to wear skirts or bras. She didn’t make a fuss, she just said no, but in such a pale fierce way, Frances didn’t argue. She wouldn’t even have a proper pair of shoes.
‘But you can’t go out in those.’ They were combat boots, with heavy studded soles and knotted laces.
‘I won’t go out, then.’
‘Don’t be silly, Magda. I want to take you out. I’ve already planned a visit to the V. and A., with lunch in town beforehand. You can’t go dressed like that.’
‘Well, I’ll have to stay at home.’
‘Magda, please.’
‘What’s the V. and A., anyway?’
A voice behind her chipped in. ‘A boring old museum which kids get dragged to in the name of culture, and then inflict on their own children as a just revenge.’
Frances whirled round and came face to face with blue corduroy and a grin.
‘Mr Bradley!’
‘Ned. What’s all this, then? Another Medfield job? Guided tours of Richmond, I suppose. Is this your passenger?’ He stopped in front of both of them, barring their way, and grinned full-frontally at Magda. ‘Pleased to meet you. Ned Bradley’s the name. Friend of Frances, and enemy of all museums.’
She’d never seen Magda smile before. It was a slow, unwilling smile, but at least it displaced the scowl she’d worn all morning. She felt a surge of gratitude. Ned was like a human de-icer.
‘This is Magda.’ She and Charles had decided to dispense with Magda’s surname for the moment. She had, of course, taken her mother’s name, which was all but unpronounceable. And until they’d decided who Magda was supposed to be, a surname posed problems. ‘She’s our – er – guest at present. We’re just buying her some clothes.’
‘No, we’re not,’ said Magda.
‘Do I detect a clash of interests? I suppose Lady Frances insists on twinset and pearls, and you refuse anything but a boiler suit.’
‘Yup,’ said Magda. ‘Though I wouldn’t mind some cords. Like yours.’
‘Well, you won’t find them in this dreary old emporium, my love. They only sell grey suits for grey people. I’m just off to buy some gear myself. Going to a jumble sale. You’d better come along.’
‘A jumble sale!’ Charles’ daughter in second-hand clothes which might have come from slums or syphilitics …
‘Well, let’s be fair to it, it’s really a summer fête. Big do, in fact, with all the sideshows. Guess the weight of an anorexic goldfish – you know the sort of thing. But they do have an old clothes stall. One of the best round here. I come every year and sniff out all the bargains.’
Magda took a cautious step forward. ‘Do they have cords?’
‘Oh, stacks of ’em. Boiler suits, dungarees, ex-army stuff – all the ‘‘in’’ gear. It’s held at a school where I used to teach. I still know half the staff and they put things by for me.’
Frances ignored him. ‘Magda, the last thing you want is junk clothes. You’ve got enough of those already. You need some respectable outfits – skirts and blouses, a decent little dress or two.’
‘Why?’ said Magda.
‘Yeah, why?’ said Ned.
The two were near conspirators, slumped together against the window of a record shop, their messy, casual clothes almost matching. Ned slid his bottom down the window and balanced on his haunches. ‘There’s a nearly-new stall, as well – you’d get a decent dress there. They even sell period clothes, Queen Victoria’s knickers, Second Empire ermine tippets.’
Magda giggled. ‘Come on then, let’s have a dekko.’ They plunged arm-in-arm down the High Street, Magda almost skipping. She couldn’t be missing her mother much, if a few germy cast-offs were enough to distract her. No, that was totally unfair. But somehow the sight of Magda treating Ned like a brother – or worse – made Frances bristle. Ned was her property, and she didn’t want him mixed up with sordid reality. If anyone were going to hold his arm, it shouldn’t be a pushy, problem kid.
‘Magda, will you please come back …’
Ned came back instead. ‘Be a sport, Fran. You’ll love the fête! There’s a donkey derby and a very classy dance display. We could make a day of it. I’ll treat us all to tea.’
‘We haven’t had our lunch yet and I’ve already booked a table at Valchera’s.’ Charles’ restaurant, where the waiters all paid homage to him. Where else could she take his child?
‘I don’t want lunch, I want tea.’ Magda had trailed back and dumped her shopping bag on the pavement. She was staring into the record shop. ‘Please, Frances.’
Frances could see the pale, pleading face reflected in the window. The kid was asking for something. Why not give it to her? ‘All right then, but only for an hour. We’ll have to do the proper shopping afterwards.’
They walked through Richmond, three abreast, across the roundabout and down the Lower Mortlake Road.
‘Brent Edge Comprehensive!’ Ned announced, as they stopped in front of a Dickensian blacking factory. Plastic pennants were fluttering in the wind; rock music blaring out across the road and on through half of Surrey. Two scruffy boys in school uniform were standing just inside the gates, playing mouth organ and accordion.
‘Please give generously,’ said the placard propped between them. ‘Headmaster, staff and 2000 boys to support.’
Ned tossed them a coin and made straight for the jumble. Half a hundred female welter-weights had had the same idea. Ned fought with Crimplene bosoms and knuckle-duster handbags. An irate matron started a tug-of-war with him. They landed up with one sleeve each of a velvet smoking-jacket.
‘We need help against these Amazonian hordes,’ he muttered. ‘Hold on a sec, there’s Mac.’ He nodded to an out-of-work gangster with a patchwork waistcoat and the dirty debris of a beard, who was serving behind the stall.
‘Hi, Mac, meet my harem. Magda, Franny – this is Neil Macauley. Teaches Comparative Religion to the drop-outs. Got any decent cords, Mac?’
‘Who for, you or the ladies?’
‘All three of us. Three for the price of one! And none of your Shylock tactics.’
Mac dug about under a pile of assorted outerwear. ‘You don’t want a wet-suit, do you? Genuine hundred-per-cent British rubber. Donated by a diver who never re-surfaced. No, wait, here’s something better.’ He slung a pair of black corduroys into Magda’s arms.
‘Special price for you, love – 20p. Try ’em on. You’re not really allowed to, but if you crawl behind the counter …’
‘Magda, you can’t possibly wear those.’ Frances dodged thirteen stone of polyester polka-dots, advancing on her from behind.
‘Why can’t she? They’re cheap at the price.’
‘Yeah, why can’t I?’
‘They’re filthy, to start with, and …’
‘It’s only good clean dirt. Gives them a bit of body.’ The polka-dots had overtaken and were blocking the view.
‘Don’t be silly, Ned. They’re men’s jeans, in any case.’
‘I don’t care, I want men’s. I want them exactly the same as Ned’s.’
Ned was wrestling with a pair of purple Levis and some smaller jeans in a dirty shade of grey. He shook an ersatz Boadicea off the other end of them. ‘I don’t really think you can tell the sex of jeans. They’re unisex, like goldfish.’
Magda crawled up from underneath the stall, the cords so tight they looked as if they had been painted on her.
‘They’re far too tight, Magda, you can’t sit down in them.’
‘I’ll stand up, then …’
Mac laughed. ‘That’s the spirit, dear! Look, I’ll make it 15p. But only for you, mind.’
Ned squeezed between a dropped bosom and a brass-bound handbag, and took Frances’ arm. ‘Go easy on the kid, love. One pair of cords can’t hurt.’
She wished he wouldn’t interfere. Magda was already far too free and easy, calling Ned by his Christian name, and leaning against him like that, when she’d only just been introduced. With a mother like hers, she needed watching. Easy for Ned to spoil her, when he didn’t know the facts. It wasn’t his problem; he didn’t have to live with her. He was right, though. It wasn’t really Magda’s problem, either. She hadn’t asked to be conceived. And anyway, she’d probably worn this sort of gear all her life. Magda in cords hadn’t brought the world to a halt yet.
‘All right,’ she said gruffly. ‘She can have them.’
‘Great!’ said Ned. ‘I’ll take these two pairs as well.’ He rescued his booty from a materfamilias with a terrier grip. ‘What’s your best price, Mac?’
‘50p the three. And I’m more or less giving them away.’
‘Daylight robbery. Make it forty.’
‘Forty-five.’
‘Done!’ Ned handed across a pocketful of loose change and looped the jeans around his neck.
‘Who are those ones for, Ned?’ Magda was clinging on to his arm, stroking the Levis.
‘Purple for me, grey for Franny.’
‘I never wear jeans, and would you please not call me Franny.’ She was being shoved from behind, against the hard wooden stall. There’d be splinters in her skin, and God knows what else if she wore other people’s cast-offs.
‘They’d look smashing with your eyes, that sort of feline grey. It’s more or less the colour of my cat.’
‘I distinctly remember your cat as being black. With a small white patch on his back left paw.’
‘Yes, Rilke. You never saw Hallam – he’s the grey one. But fancy you remembering. Cor! I wish I was a cat – they’ve obviously got a way with women. I bet nobody’d ever remember the colour of my back left paw.’ Ned ducked beneath a pair of seersucker biceps and stormed the counter again. ‘If you don’t like jeans, I’d like to buy you something else, Fran. Hey, Mac, what you got for a natty dresser?’
Mac flung a silver lurex top across, with a décolleté neckline and sequins round the sleeves. Ned caught it in mid-air.
‘This is absolutely you, Fran. Just the thing for Conservative Party coffee mornings. You get a very decent class of jumble here, you know. Even Mrs Thatcher buys from Mac. OK, you’re not impressed, I can tell. Let’s try the Bargain Box, then.’
He dipped into a cardboard carton labelled ‘Rockbottom Prices – we must be daft’ and came up with a large straw hat. Plastic cherries dangled across the broken yellow brim and purple ribbons cascaded down the back. He set it rakishly on her head, ruffling her Evansky hair-do. ‘Miss Brent Edge 1981, chosen unanimously from a thousand breathless finalists!’
Frances almost shook him off. His humour was E-stream and the hat worse. She could hear herself sounding harsh and irritable, like the worst sort of spoil-sport. Why couldn’t she just relax and enjoy a summer afternoon, as Magda was now doing? She looked a different child without her scowl, looping diamanté earrings over Ned’s earlobes and trying on a stripey blazer back to front. Ned seemed to know how to tame and thaw her … which only made it more difficult. He was like a grinning reprimand, his easy banter showing up her shrewishness. She didn’t want to be a shrew, but there was some strict headmistress of a voice, sitting in her head, nagging and prohibiting, casting a blight on everything. It reminded her of her own mother’s voice, anxious, life-destroying. ‘Don’t get your feet wet, Frances; dogs bite, Frances.’ Her mother would run a mile from jumble sales. ‘You’ll only pick up germs, Frances, after they’ve rooked you …’ But why repeat her mother’s maxims? The umbilical cord had been cut long since, and she was free to go her own way. Grudgingly, she picked up the hat.
‘What about that tea you promised?’
‘Oh, it’s not time for tea. Let’s have ices first. They’ve got a Dayville’s tent here. I’ll treat us all to triple scoops.’
They sat in the stuffy tent on collapsible stools. Ned wore the hat back to front, a frayed purple ribbon trailing in his cornet. He leant across and licked the nuts off Magda’s ice. ‘Here, do a swap. A lick of my Rocky Road for a bite of your Strawberry Fizz.’
Frances seethed inwardly. Ned had no right to make Magda’s manners worse than they were already. He’d bought them all giant-sized cornets with hot fudge sauce and nuts. No gold stars. Ice cream was fattening, and chocolate ruination for the skin. Delicious ruination, none the less. She’d never had a Dayville’s, could almost have enjoyed it, if it weren’t for Charles’ prohibitions. It was so difficult, being torn all ways, her mother’s voice in one ear, Charles’ in the other, and another, new-hatched voice urging, ‘Go on, spoil yourself.’ She might have heeded that one, if she and Ned were on their own. It had been a bonus to bump into him at all, but she was annoyed that it had happened when she was playing dreary mother, so he’d see her as a nagger and a killjoy. And Magda herself had come between them, slipping triumphantly into the role of Ned’s playmate, and making her the odd one out. It could have been far worse, though. She might be marooned now in Valchera’s, toying with her vichyssoise, a sullen rebel facing her across the table, and the afternoon stretching to infinity. Ned had worked wonders with Magda, no doubt about it, but she almost resented the fact that he had succeeded where she and Charles had not. Everything was so confusing. Perhaps she was simply tired. Three sleepless nights hadn’t helped, nor a daughter delivered like unsolicited goods. The fête was mercilessly noisy, crowds jostling and jabbering, loudspeakers blaring, one announcer out-shouting another.
‘A little girl has been lost. She’s sobbing her eyes out in the Red Cross tent. Her name’s Lucy, and she’s wearing a blue dress and red wellies. If anyone …’
‘Poor sod, she’ll get trampled in the rush.’ Ned had demolished his cornet in half a dozen bites. ‘Hey, girls, let’s splurge all our cash on the donkey derby.’
‘Oh, yeah, Ned! Can I ride a donkey, Ned? Ned, d’you think they’d let me?’
All those Neds! Supposing Magda repeated them at home, made Charles a carbon copy of the whole mad afternoon. It was time to make a break.
‘Magda, we haven’t bought your shoes yet. Or your bras.’
‘Donkeys don’t wear bras.’
Ned and Magda giggled, clearly in alliance.
‘Magda, love, if you go and find the donkey man, he’ll turn you into Lester Piggott. He’s a pal of mine … just say Ned the Red. Here’s a pound to back you, and don’t you dare fall off. I can’t afford to lose my stake. It’s all I’ve got for Sunday lunch. Otherwise I’ll have to eat roast Rilke and mint sauce.’
Magda galloped off, with the pound in one hand and her cornet in the other.
‘See you at the tote!’ Ned yelled, turning back to Frances. They were suddenly alone, with a hundred other bodies pressing round them in the tent. It was almost frightening to have his full attention, to stop being a stepmother, and become something dangerous else. His sticky fingers were already stroking down her arm. She shook them off.
‘Relax, Fran. You’re all uptight and tense. It’s a lovely day, sun’s shining fit to bust, birds singing their crazy little hearts out. Why are you all screwed up?’
‘I’m not screwed up, I …’ Christ! She couldn’t cry. Not in an ice cream tent, not in front of everybody, not – oh, please God – not in front of Ned. Her face was crumpling up, losing control of itself. There were tears on the plastic table, tears on Ned’s red-checked arm. Somehow, she was holding on to it, and he was leading her to the back of the tent and seating her gently on an upturned packing case. She tried to pull her face back into shape, to make her voice behave.
‘Look, I’m sorry. Stupid of me. I’ll be all right in a … Oh Ned, it’s … it’s not a lovely day.’
‘Of course it’s bloody not, if you’re unhappy. It’s a swine of a day. What’s the matter, Fran?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Everything?’
She nodded.
‘Husband?’
‘No.’ How in God’s name had he guessed?
‘Really no?’
‘Well sort, of. It’s …’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Ned, I just can’t tell you. Magda might come back. Can you see her?’
Ned got up from his knees and peered through a gap in the canvas. ‘The donkey man’s flirting with her. Joe’s a shocker – teaches woodwork when he’s not chatting up the chicks. He likes them dark like that, and barely out of gymslips.’
‘She’s beautiful, Ned, isn’t she?’
‘Not bad. I prefer the older woman, actually.’ He had a store of grins in different colours – wild crimson ones for poly rave-ups, and soft blue ones for weepy afternoons. She smiled back.
‘That’s better. Now come on, girl, tell Uncle Ned what’s up.’
‘But, Ned, I hardly know you and …’
‘Good God! Haven’t we been introduced? I must have overlooked it. How terribly remiss of me. I do apologize. Edward Charles Bradley, DFC, OBE, Commanding Officer, Southmead Polytechnic.’
Frances dabbed her eyes. ‘Is your second name really Charles?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘That’s my husband’s name.’
‘Poor sod. He could always change it.’
‘He likes it, actually.’
‘And what about Magda? That’s an unusual name.’
‘Yes.’
‘Italian?’
‘No, Hungarian.’
‘She sounds English enough.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s the problem, isn’t she?’
Frances chewed her thumb.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me about it?’
The loudspeaker was booming out again, fighting with the rock music and the raucous laughter of the ice cream lady. ‘Lucy is still lost. She says she doesn’t know her other name, but she came with her granny. If there’s any grandma who’s lost a Lucy …’
‘Well?’ said Ned. He was almost whispering, but his soft voice swamped loudspeakers.
‘It’s Charles – that’s my husband. He, I mean, she – she’s his daughter. She’s my husband’s daughter.’
‘By another woman, you mean?’
Frances nodded. How could he sound so calm about it? Why didn’t he leap to his feet, or gasp in shock? She should never have told him, anyway – a stranger, an inexperienced bachelor. He could never understand.
‘Who wasn’t his wife?’
‘No-o.’
He couldn’t have heard her properly, just sprawling there, plying her with questions, as if they were filling in an application form.
‘I see. How long has she lived with you?’
‘About eighteen hours.’ A month, a century.
‘Christ! I’m beginning to get it. Where’s her mother?’
‘Gone back to Hungary.’ Bitch, deserter.
‘Permanently?’
‘More or less, as far as I can gather.’ How could she know, when Charles wouldn’t tell her anything?
‘But you knew about her?’
‘No.’ Nothing. Fifteen years of falsehood.
‘You mean, it was a complete bolt out of the blue?’
‘Mm.’
‘Fran, that’s really bloody tough. I’m sorry. She’s living with you, is she?’
‘Mm,’ she said again. Breaking up my life.
‘Well, it won’t be for long, I suppose. How old is she, seventeen?’
‘Fifteen.’ Still only a child. A child with a woman’s body. It might be years and years. Maybe she’d stay for ever, forcing herself between her and Charles, growing bigger and bigger, like a cuckoo …
‘It’s a funny age. I used to teach them once – here, in fact – between these hallowed walls. Give me the Poly any day! At least they’ve reached the age of reason. At fifteen, they’re emotionally in nappies, more or less. Maybe I could help you with her, Fran. I’m good with kids.’
If only someone could help – take the child away, make everything all right again. ‘I’m afraid not, Ned. It wouldn’t work. I hardly even know you, should never have really told you in the first place.’
‘’Course you should. You’ve got to talk to someone. You’re crazy, Fran, all tied up with rules, as if you’re following some formal book of etiquette. People aren’t strangers, even if they’ve never met. They’ve got the human condition in common, which is more important than the same Alma Mater and all that sort of crap. We don’t have to be formally introduced by our frock-coated fathers at the Hunt Ball before I’m allowed to care about you, Franny.’
A nice word, ‘care’ – and he did care. She could hear it in his voice. ‘Look, Ned, I’m sorry, but I’m not in a position to be friendly with you. I’m married, for one thing.’
Ned was still on his knees beside her, at the back of the tent. ‘So is Charles.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, he hasn’t treated you exactly handsomely, has he?’
Frances flushed. ‘Look, Ned, the Magda thing … He was still single when it happened, more or less.’
‘More or less?’
‘I’m sorry I ever said anything.’
‘I’m only trying to help. Why shouldn’t you be friendly with a guy, when your husband’s busy clocking up affairs?’
‘He doesn’t have affairs. Not any more.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Well … he’s too busy – he wouldn’t have the time. And he’s not the type, in any case.’
‘It’s not a question of types, my love. Anyway, how about this other woman? Or did she conceive Magda via the Holy Ghost?’
‘Ned, please. That was ages ago and I don’t wish to discuss it. Now will you please move over and let me get up. We’ve left Magda quite long enough.’
‘OK, but promise me something first.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll wear your hat.’
He placed it on her head, almost tenderly, arranging the streamers on each side of her neck and kissing the space between. ‘Franny?’
‘What?’
‘You look quite beautiful.’
After the donkeys, they tried the rifle range. Frances won a pink plaster ashtray in the shape of a pig. Magda swapped it for an ancient parasol she’d bought for 20p at a stall marked ‘Odds and Ends’. The sun kept fighting with the clouds, and when it rained, they all three sheltered beneath its ragged flounces, pressing close together. The rain plopped through the rents and fell on Frances’ hat. She could feel Ned’s thigh warm against her own.
‘Happy?’ he asked.
She nodded, astonished to be happy, wandering around a run-down comprehensive in a field of mud and litter, with a tomboy on one side and a shambles of a teacher on the other. She’d sent her mother packing to her split-level house in Cheltenham, and at last she felt relaxed. She must never see Ned again, though, especially now she’d told him about Charles. It could only be dangerous, disloyal, but there was nothing to stop her spinning out this one sweet afternoon. Ned had a knack for making things good fun.
‘Are you good at running, Magda?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Let’s go in for the three-legged race together.’
Frances sat and watched them pull each other over, panting and laughing. They came in last and won a booby prize, a little plastic brooch.
‘Shame! Give it to your daughter,’ yelled a man in the crowd, as Ned pinned it on his shirt front. Magda couldn’t be his daughter – he wasn’t old enough. And yet a casual onlooker had turned them into an instant family, a messy, happy family, munching toffee apples and sprawling on the grass. Strange to be a threesome like that, an ordinary family with no Charles to cosset and control her. Would she be happier, freer, or poorer and duller? Ned was everything she disapproved of – scruffy, casual, pushy, puerile. Yet already he’d changed the day from Rocky Road to Strawberry Fizz.
The sun came out and stayed out. Ned and Magda won the egg-and-spoon race. Ned was munching his box-of-chocolates prize. ‘You’ll get fat,’ said Magda.
‘I am fat. Open up, Franny, for a Brazilian almond whirl.’
His fingers tasted of candyfloss and hot pennies. He traced them along her lips, kidnapping the last piece of almond for himself. The loudspeaker was blaring out again.
‘The next race will be the Barefoot Contessa’s Mid-Fête Marathon. Any lady over eighteen who takes her shoes and stockings off is eligible to enter …’
‘This is it, Fran! Your big chance. Quick, take your shoes off!’
‘But I can’t run in this tight skirt.’
‘Put your jeans on then – quick – the catty ones. Come on, hurry! They’re all lining up.’
She hardly knew what she was doing. Magda unzipped her skirt for her, while she removed her tights and eased the jeans on underneath. She could see Ned looking at her, her bottom sticking out provocatively, the fabric straining against her thighs. She must be out of her mind – changing her clothes in public, running in madcap races. Supposing she were seen. There might even be people from the Golf Club there – Charles would never live it down.
Bugger Charles! She sprinted towards the starting-line and squeezed in between a pair of bunions and a bad case of pigeon toes. Everyone was giggling and joking – including the announcer.
‘Aren’t they a lovely lot, then? All those bare feet … Wow, what a turn-on! Right then, girls. Ready, steady …’
Frances was running like a lynx. The bare feet made it easier. So did Ned, shouting on the sidelines, ‘Come on, Fran, come on!’ as if he’d bet everything he owned on her. She willed her feet to go faster, could feel the grass skimming underneath them, cold and slippery. She was way in front, streaking ahead of all the rest. It paid to be small sometimes, small and swift and streamlined. She almost fell across the piece of string held taut by two PT teachers. The crowd was clapping wildly, as someone pinned a red rosette in the middle of her chest. ‘First’ it said. A camera snapped. She was a Brent Edge celebrity, a barefoot contessa with muddy feet and grass between her toes. Ned and Magda were slapping her on the back, as she collapsed in a heap between them.
‘Cor,’ said Magda, admiringly. ‘You can’t half run!’ Ned twisted a buttercup through her hair. ‘Beautiful and clever,’ he said.
They lay on the grass, still tangled together. Frances closed her eyes. The noise and glare slipped away and she was alone with Ned in an enchanted garden, running like Atalanta up Mount Parthenus. No, that was wrong. Atalanta lost her race; all the goddess gained was a suitor and three golden apples. Well, she had Ned and a plastic peg-bag as a prize. And a pair of cat-grey jeans.
‘Lucy has been claimed and is now happily reunited with her Granny in the tea tent. And if anyone else wants teas, I’m told there’s a very good line in half-price sausage rolls …’
It was still warm, but the sun was nudging its way down the sky, looping long shadows across the grass. Frances opened her eyes, reluctantly. She didn’t want anything to move or change, just to stay ideal and immobile like a picture in a Greek frieze.
‘Ned, I simply must go.’ Her voice was a spoil-sport, detached from the rest of her.
‘What about the Dance Display? A hundred little Markovas pounding through Swan Lake. We can’t miss it.’
‘But I daren’t stay any longer. I’ve wasted the whole afternoon as it is.’
‘Wasted?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t …’ A Charles word, wasted. Charles would be back by now, wondering where they were, creaking into his father role, laboured and precarious.
‘My husband’s coming home early, especially to see Magda.’
Magda bit into her half-price sausage roll. ‘I’d rather see the dancing.’
‘Magda!’
‘Tell you what, let’s grab a beer and a hot dog, have a quick peek at the Nureyevs and then push off, OK?’
An obese and red-faced matron was pounding an old Bechstein. One swan had lost its feathers and another picked its nose throughout the Danse Hongroise.
‘You’ve got mustard on your chin,’ Ned whispered, as he leant across and licked it off. ‘And the most incredible blue eyes I’ve ever seen.’ He was murmuring in her ear. She could smell his warmth, his sweat.
‘Ned …’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ How could she tell him she felt different and peculiar? He seemed to have hatched some new and hidden part of her which had lain dormant for so long, she’d almost forgotten it was there. It seemed stupid to swap this shabby, scuffed school-hall for her elegant house in Richmond. But again her voice rebelled.
‘Ned, I must go. Now. Don’t argue.’
‘OK, love, relax. There’s no hassle.’
They sauntered back to Richmond Station. Ned was taking the Broad Street line to Acton. Frances felt sick and strange. They’d stuffed themselves with junk food the whole afternoon, rolled about like gypsies on the grass. Tomorrow, it was back to normal, with regular mealtimes and perhaps a museum, so that Magda could be shown life in its true, grey, sober colours. She was leaping ahead of them, jumping over cracks in the pavement. Ned dropped back behind.
‘Don’t forget, Fran, I’m around if you want me.’ He stuffed a piece of paper in the pocket of her jeans. ‘That’s my number. Phone any time. I’d like to help.’
‘Look, Ned, I don’t really think …’
‘OK, please yourself.’ He loped off towards the platform, the straw hat perched absurdly on his head.
‘Ned, that’s Frances’ hat!’ Magda almost threw herself upon him, snatching the straw hat and confiscating it. They wrestled for a moment, then he hugged her – a casual but affectionate embrace. Frances watched with envy. So, a hug was as easy as that.
Magda dawdled slowly back to her, passed the hat across. There was a short, embarrassed silence.
‘Magda.’
‘Mmm?’
‘I think I’d better change.’
‘Change? But you’re only a couple of minutes from the house.’
‘Yes, but Charles will probably be home by now, and he likes me, well you know …’
Magda shook her head. ‘No, I don’t know.’
Frances disappeared into the station Ladies’ room and re-emerged with her skirt on. It felt heavier and scratchier than she’d remembered it. It was also disgracefully creased from its sojourn in a plastic bag. She stuffed the hat at the bottom of the shopping basket, with the pink-pig plaster ashtray and the peg-bag.
They walked in silence back across the Green. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud, the colour seeping slowly out of everything – grass, sky, their own Cambridge-blue front door. Charles met them in the hall, his new paternal smile highly polished, wary. He was still in his pin-stripes and he too looked colourless. She could hear Stravinsky’s Orpheus weeping from the drawing-room, the plaintive clarinets accusing her. How could she have endured Brent Edge punk all afternoon, when there were harmonies like this?
‘I was worried about you, Frances. I came home especially early, planned to take you and Magda out to dinner. I’ve booked a table at Valchera’s.’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I don’t think we could manage it. We’ve been eating all afternoon.’ A second Valchera’s table swept away. Vichyssoise and crêpes suzettes dethroned by candy-floss and Dayville’s. Her three-scoop Strawberry Fizz nudged her in the guts.
Magda was hiding behind her scowl again, had re-erected the barriers. Charles did his best to bring her out, his voice trampling on the Orpheus, frail, limpid music which couldn’t fight with conversation. Frances listened anxiously as an ostinato screwed the room tighter and tighter in its relentless circling.
Charles turned to her instead, since he could get no word from Magda. ‘Pleasant afternoon?’
‘Very pleasant.’
‘Bought the clothes?’
‘Some.’
‘Why the black?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Well, it’s a little funereal for a child, isn’t it?’
‘She likes black.’
Silence. Black silence. ‘How was Oppenheimer?’
‘Fine.’
‘Would you like a chop for supper?’ God I’m going to scream.
‘Thank you. Nice.’
Not nice. Not nice at all. Ridiculous. Unbearable. ‘I’ll just have a salad. I’m not hungry. Magda?’
‘Yeah?’
‘A chop for you?’
‘Nope.’
‘Salad?’
‘Nope.’
‘No, thank you,’ Charles said tersely. Frances winced. Christ, not again, she prayed, not the whole stiff, funereal, screaming farce again: Magda slouched at the table, fiddling with a fork, Charles chewing a pork chop, no talk except the odd strained monosyllables. She suddenly remembered Ned’s scrappy piece of paper, stuffed in her jeans pocket. She’d forgotten all about it, hadn’t even looked at it. It might have fallen out … ‘Excuse me a moment, would you?’
‘Of course.’
Always so damned civil, she and Charles. She rushed out to the hall, rummaged in the shopping bag, found the piece of paper still crumpled in the pocket. ‘Rilke is flattered you remembered him. His business phone number is 749 2348, extension Ned. P. S. Swap my ice cream cornet for your eyes.’
Crazy, puerile Ned, she thought, suppressing a broad grin. It wasn’t even funny.