Clay (22 page)

He began to walk slowly across the common, the men keeping their distance behind.

‘Chima,’ he said quietly.

‘Here.’ Chima jogged up beside him, looking warily at the bees.

‘Tell Frank I will put it down under the trees, far from the path. It will be better there. And can he send somebody ahead, clear a place, OK?’

‘OK – but why are you doing this?’

‘I know this kind of tree,’ Jozef replied. ‘The branches, they break easily. Very easily. It’s better I break it myself, take the bees away.’

Chima fell back, and the men watched as Jozef advanced carefully across the grass. But when he was a hundred yards or so away the bees lifted, as one, from his outstretched fist and funnelled up into the empty sky.

It was as Jozef had hoped. He stood and watched them fade into the blue, a lone figure holding a forked branch as though he would call down lightning from the summer sky.

TC took a cigarette packet from his pocket and put it on the takeaway counter. ‘Go on,’ he said, and grinned up at Jozef.

‘You are sure?’

TC nodded, and Jozef flipped back the lid, shook something out into his palm. The back of his right hand was red and shiny, the knuckles almost lost in the swollen flesh.

‘Owl pellets,’ said TC. ‘You know.’

Jozef nodded gravely. ‘So this is what you have found. Can I know where?’

TC grinned again, glowed. ‘The secret garden. It’s a tawny; two. Do you believe me?’

Jozef nodded again. ‘Of course. You know, this is very special. Very special. You are going to keep lookout?’

TC nodded.

‘Have you told anyone?’

TC shook his head. ‘D’you think I should?’

‘Well . . .’ Jozef paused for a moment. ‘This is perhaps important, you know. It could be nobody knows there are these birds in the city. People will want to see where these birds are.’

He read the boy’s open face. ‘But perhaps . . . perhaps you can find out more first, like where is the nest, how many for sure. And holidays are coming, yes? So why don’t you watch them for . . . say . . . one month, then we decide.’

He cupped the little agglomerations of bone and hair in his big hand and examined them closely, then held his palm out to the boy, but TC picked out only one to return to the cigarette packet.

‘You can borrow the other,’ he said, ‘if you want.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jozef, closing his hand around it carefully. ‘I would like that very much.’

19

DOG DAYS

Across the country the sun was ripening the wheat, pouring down, drawing the ears up and turning them golden, like bread. In East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire the pea harvest was coming in, destined for the Birds Eye plant.

As the sun climbed each day skylarks ascended from the fields and moors and hung above them, singing: thousands upon thousands of them, each alone, inviolate, but together a host, a choir. The nights were humid, and Sirius flickered like fire in the south-west.

At the start of the summer holidays all roads west were busy. Car after car thundered past the hazel and hawthorn scrub, loaded with luggage, bikes and dinghies. The traffic was a hot roar, the tarmac a mirage, but the motorway verges teemed with life: butterflies and beetles, mice, voles and rabbits; and the long grass between the low thickets and the lay-bys zithered with emerald grasshoppers.

In the city the day had dawned clear before resolving itself once more into heat. Sophia had found it difficult to sleep and was up early, watching the starlings through her kitchen window as they hunted the dry grass in packs, heads down. The nettles were spent and limp, the white trumpets of convolvulus like crumpled tissues in between; early blackberries were green knots among the brambles. Where the sun hit the desire paths the ground had hardened and fissured, dun-coloured. Dog walkers’ and joggers’ feet kicked up a dry mud as fine as dust which settled slowly behind them.

She sat at the kitchen table in her old cotton housecoat, the local paper before her, and waited for the palpitations to subside. It was like having a wild bird inside her chest, fluttering, fluttering. She sat perfectly still so that she would not tax it further. After a few moments it gave a twist, then a shudder, and seemed to stop altogether. Anxiously she held her wrist between thumb and finger; there, beneath the papery skin, twitched a faint but regular pulse, the motion of her heart in her chest as imperceptible as usual now its normal rhythm had returned.

She did not feel faint or sick, but she had started to feel frightened. Each time it happened it seemed to go on a little longer, although when she was hooked up to the monitor in the hospital her heart had refused to turn tricks, and so, it seemed, they would not treat it yet.

The paper was full of the usual horrors: the borough’s women and children variously outraged, a little boy drowned while swimming in a canal, muggings, a rape. And the heat: the usual mixture of glee and complaint. The photos were of city types picnicking in the parched confines of urban squares, as though that was what summer meant.

She put it aside and thought about Daisy. She still saw her granddaughter, of course, but she missed the letters, and more than that she missed the secrets between them. Last time Daisy had visited she had insisted on doing her homework, and when Sophia had suggested she go and play outside Daisy had reminded her, archly, that she was not allowed.

Undermining her mother’s authority wasn’t right, though; Sophia could see that now. For a long while there had been a distance between her and Linda, and she had focused her attention on Daisy instead. The distance between her and her daughter had made it easy for her to pass judgement on Linda’s decisions and priorities, easy to collude with the little girl in whose unconditional love she had so selfishly basked. Yet Linda was only trying to do the best for Daisy, just as she had for Linda and Michael, and things were clearly very different these days. She had no right to think that she knew better.

She opened the kitchen window for the breeze and went to run a cool bath. In the streets around the estate the buddleia was coming into bloom, and its fragrance rode into the empty room on a breath of monoxide and bins.

TC barely noticed the stink of the stairwell; like everyone else in the block he was used to it, and besides, he was thinking. Tonight was going to be his first proper night in his camp, and hopefully the first of many. At the back of his mind was a little thought that said maybe this was it: maybe he wouldn’t have to go home again. He knew it probably wasn’t true, but the summer holidays stretched infinitely ahead, far too long to see the end of. So he needed to think carefully about what he could take with him, in case she didn’t come looking for him, in case this was his last ever time at home.

He wanted to take his duvet, but it was too bulky; there was a big orange towel, though, that would do for now. What else? The tin-opener would be good, and there was a candle in the bathroom. Some lighters. More food.

When he was there, nobody would be able to make him do anything. Nobody would even know where he was. Although – was that OK? It felt strange to think of that, that he would be alone and not even one grown-up would know where he was in the world. Should he tell someone, tell Jozef? But no, he was used to being by himself, he’d be OK. Wouldn’t he?

As he let himself in with his key he heard music. His mum must be in. He froze, considered backing out, but it was too late.

‘TC?’

He went in, shut the door behind him. ‘Yeah.’

‘In here.’ She was on the couch – not just her – it was Jamal as well. Jamal.

‘Eh, kid, how you doing?’

TC stared at them both. ‘What’s going on, Mum?’

‘We – we got something to tell you.’

‘You’re back together.’

‘Ain’t you pleased?’

‘When?’

‘Doesn’t matter when.’

‘Thas all right’ – that was Jamal. He grinned at TC, stuck out his hand. ‘Come on, you must’ve missed my cooking, eh, kid?’

TC looked at his hand, looked around. The lounge was tidy, the windows open; it felt different, somehow. Why?

‘Jamal’s moving in, OK?’ his mum said. So that was it. ‘He’s gonna live here.’

‘With us?’

‘Yeah with us. Who’d you think?’

TC knew he would say it; he couldn’t help himself. ‘But . . . what about Dad?’

‘Your dad ain’t coming back, OK? Jesus
fuck
, TC, you know that.’

TC looked at her face, the way it was turned away from him again. He had made that happen; he had done it by asking about his dad. He wanted her to look at him again, he wanted her to ask about him, where he’d been, or if he was hungry. Something.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

She breathed out. ‘Fuck’s sake.’

He looked at Jamal, wanted to say his name, but it got stuck somewhere. ‘You’re not my dad, though, OK?’ he whispered.

‘I know that, kid,’ said Jamal, with a look TC couldn’t interpret, ‘believe me.’

They had been into his room and tidied it up. Clean sheets on the bed and his clothes all put away, even his socks in pairs. They had found the box he kept under his bed, and now his things were all out on the windowsill: the Lego, the headless Luke Skywalker, the crow’s skull, the stone with the hole and the half-pence piece. And his two books, leaning against the window embrasure:
The Paranormal
, with its chilling cover, and
A Guide to Tracking Wild Animals
. Even the jay’s feather was there.

He sat down on the bed and looked at the wall and wondered what it was he was supposed to do.

‘Look, Kel –’

‘I know. I
know
, all right?’

They were in the kitchen, Jamal leaning on the table, Kelly with her back to him, staring into the open fridge.

‘He’s a good kid.’

She sighed. ‘I’ll speak to him. Later.’

‘If this is going to work, Kel –’

‘It’s me you’re fucking moving in with, Jamal, not him.’

‘He lives here too, Kelly – at least, he should do. Can’t blame him for not being around too much, though.’

‘He’s fine.’

‘He ain’t fine. Look, you can’t just ignore him. He’s your kid.’

‘I ain’t ignoring him, OK? Jesus, Jamal, what is this?’

Jamal reached around her and took a beer from the fridge, sat down at the kitchen table.

‘Kel. He’s your
kid
, OK? You gotta look after him a bit more.’

‘I never wanted him in the first place! I was nineteen, for fuck’s sake, I didn’t know any better.’

‘Keep it down, yeah? And it’s tough, anyway. He’s here, and he needs you.’

‘No he don’t. He’s never here except to eat, he never talks to me.’

‘You never talk to him, either.’

‘That’s cos he only ever wants to talk about his dad.’

‘Jesus, Kel, he’s a little boy. He misses his dad. I can understand it. He don’t know the guy beat you, he don’t know why you split up.’

‘It ain’t his business, OK?’ She pushed past him into the lounge, put the TV on. He followed her, shutting the door behind them.

‘Kel, it
is
his business,’ he hissed. ‘You ain’t being fair.’

‘Life ain’t fucking fair, Jamal, is it. What is it you want from me? He’s got a home, food on the table.’

‘And that’s enough, is it?’

‘It’s all I fucking got from my mum. Look, Jamal, are you going to be on my case the whole time? Because if you are, this ain’t gonna work out.’

‘Don’t you . . . love him?’

She let out a breath. ‘Course I do.’

‘Really? It don’t look like that.’

And then she was crying. ‘I did. I do.
Fuck
. I just can’t . . .’

Jamal took the can gently from her hand and set it on the table, crouching down beside the sofa as she knuckled her eyes angrily. ‘Listen, Kel. It ain’t too late. It’s the summer holidays now, yeah? Why don’t you think of some things you can do together, you and TC? Don’t have to be much. You just need to spend some time with him, OK? He ain’t his dad; he’s a good kid. You just forgot.’

Jozef was whittling again, a gift for the boy. He stood at the bedsit’s window with his knife and worked slowly. It was nearly finished, but to rush now would be fatal. It was so easy to let the blade slip at the end, just when you thought the job was done and stopped paying attention.

He put the carving down and fed Znajda in the kitchen, standing and watching as she pushed the bowl around the kitchen floor. Even when there was nothing left, nothing at all, still she kept at it, her pink tongue edging the plastic bowl along the skirting board. Finally she came to stand by his leg and looked up at him, her body wagging gently.

Her bowls had been among the first things he had bought for the new place. The other bits he got from the market and a trip to Ikea in Emir’s van; the landlord had contributed an old cathode ray TV and a mattress. He could have done with some bits and pieces from the clearance shop, but he hadn’t been that way in weeks.