Being Small (10 page)

It could have been Mrs Alleyn, of course, with a cake or a complaint for her new tenants. It could have been a postman with a parcel. It could have been –

～

– but it was not. This door too had panes of dimpled glass in its upper quadrants to give a darkling view of who stood on the step, that odd compromise gesture between privacy and security. I could see, not clearly but all too
well.

Which if it was true for me, it was true or true enough for him also. He didn’t have the advantage of seeing me in a fall of sunlight, as I did him; but who else could I be, my size and shape in the shadows of the hall here, and demonstrably not my mother? He’d know. If my fingers hesitated at all on the latch of the door, it was barely measurable, I barely knew it myself and he couldn’t possibly.

“Hullo, Kit.”

He hadn’t brought Nigel. If I had thought he’d come at all, I’d have thought he might come with Nigel. “Michael. Don’t ask me in, hon, I can’t stop; it’s my shift, and Peter wants to get away. I’m just here on an errand. Two errands, actually. The first is to bring you these back,” and he swung a carrier bag into my arms, heavy with fabric and oddly warm, “and the second is to act as spokesperson for an older generation. Gerard asked me to apologise to you – well, no, not that, Gerard never apologises and he wouldn’t get me to do it for him, but he did say that he feels badly. He was short with you yesterday and you took the dog out anyway, and we are grateful.”

“He doesn’t have to apologise.”

“Just as well,” with a bright blond smile, “because he isn’t going to, and he’d kick me halfway to kingdom come if I tried to pretend that he was.”

“No, really. What’s to apologise for? Something bad was happening, and I turned up out of the blue, and he just –”

“– couldn’t be bothered with you? That’s the point. He has a grand grasp on the essentials, and a fine talent for discourtesy on the side. You did pick a bad time; when Quin starts leaking like that it’s all hands to the pump and damn the torpedoes. We wouldn’t have answered the door at all if he hadn’t been in the kitchen anyway for a bowl of water and some J-cloths. And you couldn’t have come in even if you’d wanted to, you’ve got to know what you’re doing and you don’t; but he says he was abrupt and he regrets that, and he doesn’t want you to misunderstand. So he says, will you come out to dinner with us tonight? Just the three of us, I think, unless someone else turns up in the meantime.”

“He doesn’t have to...”

“No, of course not. Which is why you should say yes, because the offer’s genuine. And if you don’t, he’ll either think you’re sulking or else that he’s scared you off altogether, and either one of those would be a pity, and really hard to work your way back from.”

He was right, of course. I could find any number of easy excuses –
I need to stay in and work
or
stay in and unpack
,
I really ought to eat with my mother tonight
or else
go out with my friend
– and they all had the advantage of being true; but what he said was equally true, and number thirty-nine was still too new and too interesting, I wasn’t ready to lose it yet.

I needed a gracious way to say that, and looked in the bag to find it, the way you do, occupying hands and eyes with mundane things while your brain is scrabbling; and was suddenly arrested by a glimpse of unexpected colour, red and green, his old faded jeans nestling in among my running clothes.

I put my hand in and pulled them out, soft and warm, washed and freshly ironed. “These are yours.”

“Not any more, sunshine. Not if you want them. I was glad to have them last night, something to change into; but they deserve better and they’re too tight on me now, I can’t wear them out in public any more. And you looked so cool the other night, pattering in and out with drinks and dishes like some cute little houseboy all dressed up to party... You don’t need the T-shirt, but I do think you need to have these. Wear them to dinner tonight. Seven o’clock: just come to the door and we’ll drive, I guess. I don’t know where we’re going, he hasn’t said, but it won’t be jacket-and-tie for us. If we dress down, he can feel dressed up, and that’s more comfortable for everyone.”

～

At seven o’clock, anxiously punctual, I was walking up their drive in my best new birthday shirt and Kit’s trousers that were my own trousers now, that I’d sidled out to stop my mother seeing. I was fresh from the shower, and my hair was still damp; I’d tried for that rough-towelled look again, only it wasn’t going to last however hard I tweaked and tousled at it now.

The offshoot door was open. I rang the bell anyway and stepped inside. No volley of barking, no dog dancing on my newly-scrubbed trainers; I was worried instantly. An open door and no Nigel might spell trouble. A whistle in the street, any casual whistle and he’d be off, and did he have the sense to find his own way home?

Kit, at the inner door: he gave me a smile for the trousers, a nod for the shirt, a frown for the hair and a quick gesture,
come in, be quiet...

I swallowed my questions and was quiet, went in. And followed him through the house to Quin’s room, and had my questions answered with a glance. Quin was in the bed as ever, but Nigel was on it, stretched out in luxurious contentment with his head on Quin’s thigh. Both of them were asleep; one was snoring gently, only that I wasn’t quite sure which.

Brian was sitting in a chair by the window. He had a book face-down in his lap, a glass in his hand. He gave me a nod, and touched his finger to his lips.

A tug on my sleeve; I was led away, down the passage to the bathroom. Once the door was closed:

“That’s a special treat,” Kit said softly. “As we’re going out.”

“Treat for which one?” They both looked fairly happy about it.

“For us, obviously. We don’t often see him sleeping like that. It sends us on our way happy, and with luck we get to keep Gerard amused for a couple of hours without him even thinking about ringing home. You have to eat slowly, all the way through the menu, as many courses as you can and coffee after.”

Fine, I could always eat. My mother starved me. And I was eating for two, I kept telling her that, and all she did was clout me.

“Oh, and talk too, you have to talk. He’s heard too much of me, I’m only there as a makeweight, not to leave you feeling spooked. You can talk about Quin if you want to, he doesn’t mind that. Just don’t let him brood. He’s too broody, and that’s not good for anyone, him or Quin or anyone. Good, your hair’s still wet...”

He’d learned that by playing with it, all without my consent. Now he fetched his pot of sacred clay and fixed it for me, again without any suggestion that I might have a voice in this.

Like the last time, I thought it looked grand when he’d finished. So I thanked him, while he washed his hands; he said, “You need something to feel good about. And you’re sixteen, so we may as well keep it simple. If you look good, you can feel good.”

As I went into the lion’s den, he clearly meant. Sixteen, and a job of work to do. “I thought this was about him making it up to me?”

“From his point of view, it is. I’m just co-opting you into a conspiracy. It shouldn’t be that awful, anyway; Gerard can be intimidating, but he’s fun once you break him down. He disapproves of me, which is terrific. Only I’ve played that about as far as it’ll comfortably stretch, and someone else has to make the running now. Tonight, my sweet Michael, that someone is you. Not a sacrificial victim, just a resource. Not even a fresh titbit for a jaded palate; the looking pretty is for your pleasure, not for his.”

Maybe, but I felt like a titbit all the same. He’d fed me to Quin because I played chess, and now he was feeding me to Gerard because – well, because he could, because I was there, because the need was there and the opportunity arose.

“Okay,” I said, “but I’m keeping the clay.” He’d said it himself, those little pots came expensive.

“Sure,” he said, “it’s yours, only it stays here. Drop in and use it, any time. Door’s always open,” and he opened the bathroom door as he said it and said, “Here’s Gerard,” in exactly the same easy voice.

And here was Gerard coming down the hallway: big man, dressed to impress but not, I thought, to impress me. You don’t put on a suit and tie to build fences with a teenage boy. He gave me a nod and half a smile, “Glad you could come, Michael,” and then turned to Kit. “Are we ready? I thought the Mokhtar.”

“I thought you might. Is that the closest you can come to informal? It’s fine with me, but I’m not the guest of honour. Michael? You like Indian?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Good. We all like the Mokhtar. Most of us go there for the food, which is fabulous. Gerard goes for the starched linen and the stiff service, a punkah-wallah in every booth and all the fans wafting the odour of the Raj, which they’ve preserved in bottles since 1923.”

“Kit, if you can’t behave I’ll leave you behind.” His voice was mild enough, but his glasses flashed blankly dangerous. Kit didn’t even blink.

“Oh, I’ll behave. The question is, how will I behave? Behaviour’s like weather, it’s like the poor, it’s always with us.”

“And so are you.” Longsuffering was scored into every short snapped word, but I thought that was deliberately done. Just as I thought that Kit was needling him deliberately: not enough to make him explode, just enough to provoke my sympathy and swing me over to Gerard’s side. Nothing was as superficial as it seemed, and I thought all three of us understood each other very well.

Sometimes my mother suggests that I should try just taking things at face value for a while, but how can I, when things have so many different faces?

～

My mother always asks for a table for three, “but there’ll only be the two of us eating.” The guy who met us inside the door of the restaurant greeted Gerard by name – I thought it was like calling to like, this guy dressed just that little bit finer, handkerchief in his top pocket and studs in his cuffs – and then said, “A table for three, is it, Dr Logan?” and for a moment I could feel both of my companions glancing at me with a touch of hesitation in them.

I said nothing. I don’t strike attitudes in public, unless that’s an attitude in itself. Like the weather, like the poor, Small is always with us and I was pleased that they’d remembered, but he doesn’t need a seat at the table.

～

The menus were vast and leather-bound.
Food dressed up in a suit and tie
, I told myself, and nothing to be intimidated by. Even so, I was grateful when Kit said, “We know our way around this pretty well. Why don’t we just let Michael relax, while we put together a birthday feast for
him?”

“Yes, of course – so long as it is a feast for Michael, not for Kit. Which means that we leave here with our tastebuds intact, Michael, yes? Nothing too ridiculously spicy.”

“I can take it,” I murmured, in reaction to the face that Kit was pulling.

“Of course you can, but there’s no need. Why force yourself to eat something so hot you can’t taste it? Kit’s addicted to the endorphin rush, that’s all. You and I don’t have to cater to his addictions.”

“We’re all addicted to an endorphin rush,” Kit said. “We just look for it in different places. I eat chillies, Michael runs; what do you do, Gerard? For the rush?”

“You know perfectly well what I do.” He took his glasses off, either to clean them or else to give Kit the benefit of his uninterrupted glare. Then the well-dressed man came back with the wine list, which was even fatter than the menus. Gerard reached towards it, then drew his hand back. “No, I think probably not tonight, thank you. Tiger beer, I think, for all of us; and another five minutes with the menus, we haven’t decided yet.”

～

A tall chill glass, brimming with amber and beaded with bubbles inside, slick with condensation under my hand: I sipped and listened to their bickering over the brinjal and the bhuna, the kofta and the keema and the kurai gosht, and felt oddly and inordinately happy. Hungry too, but that was a part of the happiness; and here came a waiter with poppadums and pickles, and that was better yet. I could sip and crunch and listen, and watch the ceiling-fans that were not turned by punkah-wallahs at all but by regular electricity, and I was quite happy to say yes when they asked if I liked seafood, and to take them on trust when they assured me that I would like spinach and okra too. I felt like I was inside the bubble, accepted, under the aegis of that suit and tie. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve it; a few games of chess and a dogwalker’s badge didn’t seem to be enough, somehow. But my mother had taught me that no one ever does get what they deserve, and if I was going to come out on the plus side of this particular equation, well, no doubt it would all balance up later.

Meantime, I could just enjoy it, food and company and ambience and all. I never had been in such a restaurant, booths that were almost private rooms, all the space we needed to be discreet. Plates came and steaming bowls and breads, and this was just the starters. Kit showed me how to eat with my fingers, straight from the dishes, while Gerard spooned himself a serving and spread his napkin on his lap and ate decorously with a knife and fork.

“You get as greasy as you like,” he said generously. “I don’t mind so long as you wipe up afterwards, and I’m sure they’ll bring you fresh napkins and a finger-bowl; but we have cutlery, so why not use it? Why pretend to be Indian natives, when you’re so transparently
not?”

“Why pretend to be an Oxbridge gentleman,” Kit shot back, “when you so transparently already are?”

This was an old argument, and could lead nowhere but here, entrenched positions and the battle replayed I thought for my own benefit, which was kind of them but not strictly necessary. I gave my attention to the food, lamb and fish and chicken each in its sauce, in its spices.

～

The main course came with a separate table added at the end of the booth, solely to support the biggest naan I’d ever seen.

“House special,” Kit grinned, tearing off handfuls and passing them around while dishes and plates were whisked away and replaced with new. More meats, vegetable side-dishes that should have been a meal in themselves, rice and raita; I nibbled on the bread in my hand, gazed at the rest and wished that I could eat all night and not be full.