Astonishing Splashes of Colour (38 page)

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Well, I can’t guess then. You tell me.”

She hesitates. “Thirteen,” she says.

I decide not to respond. I wonder if this could possibly be true and the more I think of it, the more uncertain I become. She could be absolutely any age. I attempt a piece of bacon. On the television, a man in a windswept Washington is analysing the implications of a law limiting handguns.

There’s an old-fashioned sideboard on the other side of the room. It has an enormous gilt-edged mirror with carvings of cherubs down the side. I can’t decide if it’s hideous or magnificent. Megan starts opening the drawers and inspecting the contents.

“Megan,” I say, shocked. “You mustn’t do that. It’s private.”

She ignores me and pokes around in each drawer, but doesn’t find anything of interest. “I’m going upstairs,” she says, and I nod with relief. I give up on the breakfast and sip the cup of coffee, which feels warm and comforting, while I watch the television. There’s been a meeting of the heads of Europe, a scandal
in the cabinet and a missing child. I switch it off. It’s too depressing.

I look at our two plates on the table. Between us, we have eaten almost nothing. I can’t leave them like this. Mrs. Benedict will be so offended. I look around the room for inspiration and spot a pile of empty carrier bags stuffed between the sideboard and the wall. I grab one and scrape the contents of both plates into the bag. Then I pile the plates together and carry them into the kitchen.

“Bye,” Mrs. Benedict calls from the hall and I jump, nearly dropping the plates.

“Bye,” I call out as casually as I can, and remain motionless until the front door bangs. Then I put the plates down and go upstairs with the bag of food.

Megan is sitting with the soft toys and arranging them in rows, talking as she moves them around, giving them names. I sigh with relief. At least she is doing something normal for a girl of somewhere between eight and thirteen. She can’t possibly be thirteen. She wouldn’t be playing like this if she were, although I don’t exactly know what thirteen-year-old girls do. I only know Rosie and Emily and they play with fluffy toys in exactly the same way as Megan is playing now. Is she ill? I try to see her objectively. Lots of children are pale and thin. I see them all the time, neglected by the mothers who are supposed to care for them.

A sudden hoot from outside makes me go and look out of the window. A gleaming old car has pulled into the drive. It’s cream and silver, with highly polished chrome edges and a long running-board along each side, like a car from the old films. It makes me think of Cary Grant, James Stewart, Al Capone. I know nothing about cars, but I can see that this is something special, cared for and loved.

A man, presumably Mrs. Benedict’s son, is sitting at the wheel, with a pair of goggles pushed up on to his forehead. Mrs. Benedict is climbing in, over the top, without opening the door. It’s a good thing she’s wearing trousers.

“Look, Megan,” I say, but she won’t come to the window.

Mrs. Benedict ties a bright yellow and red headscarf over her head and under her chin, then puts on her own goggles. She looks up, sees me in the window and waves her arm vigorously. Then they roar up the road and disappear.

I turn back to the room and see that the bag containing our breakfast is leaking. A small damp patch of fat is seeping into the carpet.

T
HE TRAIN TO
E
XMOUTH
is a toy-like, two-carriage train which chugs along very slowly, squealing as it brakes, creaking as it starts again, unwilling to admit that it can get us to where we are going. Megan and I sit in a cramped double seat and look out of the window. The sky is sapphire blue, but there’s a savage wind and banks of heavy clouds are building up on the horizon. In the protected warmth of the train, I try to tell myself it’s a perfect day for the beach. But then I see the tops of trees swaying wildly. At each stop, a handful of people leave the train, stepping into a whirlwind, struggling to keep their balance. A tiny black poodle is caught by a sudden gust and swept off its feet, but a man in a pinstriped suit grabs it just in time. The poodle is wearing a tartan jacket edged with white fur and it looks too small to be real. A middle-aged woman struggles to hold down her skirt, Marilyn Monroe style, but she doesn’t look like Marilyn Monroe: she has greying hair and is wearing black, knee-length socks under her skirt.

Megan is interested in what she can see out of the window. Because we are travelling so slowly, the surrounding world is closer than yesterday, as if we’re somehow involved in the passing dramas of people’s lives. There’s a smallness about it all that leads to a superficial intimacy. It’s like watching television, seeing people’s lives without making any impression on them.

“It’s better on this train, isn’t it?” she says.

I smile, relieved by her ordinariness. “That’s because it’s daylight and we can see properly.”

“I know that.”

Halfway through the journey, just after Topsham, the train line takes us along the side of the Exe estuary. The tide is coming in and the water’s brown and angry as it advances towards the patches of stony beach alongside the railway track. Water swallows up the mud flats and brings to life the little boats which are
anchored into the mud. The sky is full of seagulls and my mood lightens at the sight of them.

“Is this the seaside?” says Megan.

“Not really. There’s sand where we’re going.”

“Is that good?”

“Wait and see.”

I’ve always wanted to take children to the seaside. It’s like waiting for them outside school. I’m aware of a latent excitement swirling around inside me. My blood is travelling faster than usual, coursing through my body, whizzing up the arteries, racing along the brain cells.

When we step on to the platform in Exmouth, I can already smell the salt in the air. “Shall we get something to eat?” I say, worried by our lack of breakfast. The eggs, bacon and fried bread are now sitting in an Exeter rubbish bin, waiting to give a homeless person a lucky day. I wonder if they have homeless people in Exeter.

Megan hesitates. “What?”

“You mean, what shall we eat?”

She nods.

“What would you like?”

“Chocolate.”

“Just chocolate? No fish and chips, or a McDonald’s, or—?” I stop. What might she like to eat? Rosie and Emily eat all sorts of healthy things, but that is probably because their mother is Lesley, who doesn’t stand for any nonsense. I don’t want to be like Lesley.

“Yes. Chocolate.”

“Right. Let’s go and find some.”

We wander round the shops until we find a Woolworths, which is full of chocolate. We buy a very large slab and find some seats in the middle of a small shopping centre where we’re sheltered
from the wind. I break chunks off and we eat our way through it, slowly at first, savouring the taste, then more greedily, chewing faster, swallowing it quickly, ready for the next chunk while there’s still some left.

“I’m thirsty,” says Megan, so we go to find a café.

We sit at a table and I order a cup of coffee for me and Coca-Cola for Megan.

Megan seems to have woken up properly and is showing more curiosity. She was like this yesterday, when we were shopping in Birmingham.

“Where do you live?” she says.

I smile. “Birmingham, of course.”

“Why have you come here then?”

“I thought you’d like to come to the seaside.”

She blows down her straw and watches the bubbles rise in the glass.

“Megan!” I say, but I’m too late and some of the liquid fizzes over the top and spills on to the table cloth.

She grins. “My mum won’t let me do that.”

“I’m not surprised,” I say, finding a tissue and trying to mop it up. I look nervously around me, but the girls who are serving behind the counter in their red and white gingham overalls are busy selling bread and putting doughnuts into bags.

I know the two elderly ladies on the table next to us saw the drink spilling. I noticed them when we came in, sitting in front of giant cream cakes, eating polite bite-size pieces from silver forks, apparently too familiar with each other to have anything to say. They eat and drink their coffee in silence, watching the people around them as if we’re on a stage and they’re the audience. I can feel their eyes on us and I know they’re thinking, Shouldn’t the child be in school? I want to turn to them and say, Look, she’s ill. Can’t you see? She doesn’t have long to live.

“Where did the baby come from?” says Megan.

I’m appalled. Surely every child knows about babies nowadays. She reads
Just Seventeen.
She must know. “Well …” I say. “You need a mummy and daddy—” I stop, afraid that she doesn’t know this. She thinks she doesn’t have a daddy.

She looks at me scornfully. “I meant, where did yesterday’s baby come from?”

I don’t know what to say. I’ve had all this time to think up an explanation and I haven’t even thought about it. “I found her,” I say. “She wasn’t my baby.”

“Where did you find her?”

I take a sip of coffee, but still can’t think of anything. “In a cot.”

Megan nods and seems to accept this. “Most babies are in cots or prams.”

I change the subject. “Does your mum work?”

“What do you mean?” she says, looking confused.

“Does she go out to work—you know, to earn money?”

Her face clears. “She’s got money. She gets it from the post office.”

“And what about your dad?”

Her face closes. “Haven’t got a dad.”

I wonder why she is so resistant to having a father. “Do you have a different daddy? A stepfather?”

She looks away, and I know I’ve guessed correctly. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “He doesn’t count.”

“You need to expand your vocabulary,” I say. “Stupid is becoming boring.”

“I thought we were going to the seaside,” she says.

When we go outside, the bright morning sunshine has clouded over and it’s still windy. The dark clouds which seemed so distant when we were in the train are nearly overhead. I shiver in the sharp gust of wind that catches us as we step out of
the café. I look at Megan anxiously, but she doesn’t seem to feel it in her new jacket. She has a hood, so if it rains, she’ll be protected. I look at my own lightweight coat. I am wearing a skirt, tights, everything unsuitable for a walk on the beach.

“Which way?” says Megan.

“I don’t know.”

“How are we going to get there, then?”

I look around uncertainly. “Let’s go and ask,” I say and go back into the café.

As we walk to the seafront together, Megan slips her hand into mine and I feel a sudden stab of happiness. This is enough for me. I could stay like this forever. A thought jumps fully formed into my mind. Maybe Margaret was never a good mother. All this time, I’ve had an image in my mind of my mother, warm and caring, but I assumed this mother was Margaret and I was wrong. I know nothing about Margaret. I never met her.

A new pattern asserts itself in my mind. Perhaps Dinah was rebellious because her mother didn’t understand her. Perhaps my father was right and we were all better off without her.

“Are we nearly there?” says Megan.

The sea is visible just beyond a low wall at the end of the road. “Yes,” I say.

We cross the road, and the seaside is in front of us. A few people are sitting on the beach, behind carefully positioned screens, but it’s too chilly for swimming. Seagulls hover in the wind, swoop down and up again. I stop for a second and watch them. Something in their piercing cries reaches inside me, penetrating the hole that has expanded inside me ever since Henry died. I am empty. I have nothing left to create a baby, just a hollow place where there should be new life.

Megan looks around. “Is this it?” she says, sounding disappointed.

I look at the sea. “Come on,” I shout. I pull her down the steps to the beach. She resists me slightly, but comes anyway and we leap into the soft sand at the bottom.

“Race you to the sea,” I shout, and launch myself forwards, floundering in the loose unmanageable sand, my feet sliding backwards with every step. I look round to see where Megan is, and she’s right behind me. Once we reach the firm sand she runs ahead and we race to the water’s edge.

“Look out!” I shriek as a large wave breaks. I grab Megan and lift her out of the way of the incoming water.

“Put me down!” she yells, so I put her down further back.

She runs straight back into the sea. “Megan!” I shout. “Your shoes.”

But I’m too late. She’s paddling through the foam and seaweed, giggling wildly, jumping through the waves, bending down to pick up a strand of seaweed. “Look,” she says. “What is it?”

“Seaweed,” I say, laughing.

“What’s it for?”

I shake my head. “It’s not for anything, it just is.”

She comes out of the water, trailing the seaweed, her trainers and the bottom of her jeans soaked. “I’m a bit wet,” she says.

“Yes,” I say. “Not to worry. We can always buy some more clothes.”

She looks at me in amazement and I’m taken aback by such a daringly extravagant thought. I don’t normally behave like this; I’m always careful with my money.

I change the subject, bending down to pick up a shell. “Look.” We examine it together—a small, beautifully shaped curl, perfect in its tiny meticulous pattern, glistening richly after its journey through the sea.

Megan is fascinated, and starts to search for some of her own. Our hands are soon full.

“We need a bucket,” I say.

“What for?”

“To put the shells in. Let’s go back up to the road and see if there are any shops along the seafront.”

We leave our shells in a neat pile and struggle back through the sand. It penetrates my shoes and is surprisingly cold. We find a shop and buy two buckets and two spades, a special offer at £1.99 a set. As we leave the shop, I point out the ice creams.

“We’ll have an ice cream later,” I say.

“Why?”

“Because you always have ice creams at the seaside.” The wind whips round us as we stand on the seafront.

We walk back to the sea, stopping on the way to examine the layers of dried seaweed left stranded by previous high tides, and picking up more shells as we go. The wind is swirling the soft sand into the air in a hazy whirlwind dance around us. It dies down briefly, then starts again, sharp and burning against our legs.