First Fruits (28 page)

Lydia frowns. For a moment she doesn't
say a word. Then:

'But why, Kate? Why should I want to go
home?'

Is she not all there? Doesn't she
understand a word I've said? So I try again, thinking this time, surely I'll
get through.

'Well,' I say, and it's wonderful
really, how calm I sound, how patient. 'You would be able to say you were sorry
for one thing.'

'Sorry...?' She repeats the word after
me, mystified. Lydia doesn't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about.
She's forgotten everything. Put it all behind her. Every word about it being
her fault. Her fault that her mother hurt herself. Her fault that a simple cut
went and turned into a full blown case of touch and go.

That's what he's done; he's made her forget
everything.

So what is there to say? I might as well
stop here. She wouldn't listen. She wouldn't even understand. There's nothing
more I can do. And there's no-one even to tell her mother that I tried.

'Wash your face,' I tell her, adding,
'You'll look better then.'

That cheers her up. She nods, then turns
to splash the water where it's needed. And when she straightens up, she is
actually smiling.

'You know what, Kate?' Her eyes, still
wet, are shining again. Eyes that can't see past the end of her nose. 'Your
father says he's going to take me into his study after supper. We're going to
read Greek together, like he promised. Tonight, just the two of us.'

So saying, she pops her glasses back
onto her nose, beams even harder at me. And it's a relief. Without the specs,
she had looked hardly older than Laura, too young to realise what she was
doing, too little to know what was important. Now with the glasses back where
they belong, she looks quite her old self.

In other words, old enough to look after
herself.

DAD
must have had a word with Gran about what to put into the supper. Maybe he
explained how some folk are different and not everyone likes their vegetables
to taste of the Dead Sea. The result is a meal that even Lydia could have
managed, leaving only Gran to push the food around her plate like a sulky
child. The salt cellar stands sentry beside her and she resorts to it constantly,
scowling and shaking it over her food as if defleaing a dog.

Strangely enough, Moira does the same.
Or maybe it's not strange after all. Salt on her crisps, sugar in her sweets.
Maybe it has to be one or the other, something extreme. Everything else
probably just tastes of herself. Anyway, Gran approves. In fact, Gran seems to
like everything about Moira. Perhaps it's the silence of her, or else the sheer
size of her. Or the way she doesn't take her eyes off Dad.

Lydia scarcely eats a thing. Even before
we are half finished she's watching our plates for the first sign that the meal
is over.
'After supper
' he had said to her. But this is a supper that
seems to go on for ever. It's the silence at his end of the table that does it,
something neither Hilary nor Lydia could ever have expected, not before today.
Yet now neither of them seems surprised. If Dad sits in our midst, too weary to
speak, they can understand. Miracles don't come from nowhere. Someone has to
make them happen, give up something of himself.

They think all they have to do is wait,
and in a little while he'll be his old self again. But you know, I'm not so
sure. Right in front of him, Moira sits, working her way through supper,
demolishing second helpings, and even thirds. The food seems to find its own
way into her mouth, fork after forkful without pause. Apparently Moira could
eat a ten course meal with her eyes closed. But of course they are not closed.
They are wide open, unblinking - and haven't once left his face.

The phone goes. It must be the silence,
because tonight even he jumps a little, as if startled. Yet it's eight twenty
seven exactly. What must he be thinking of?

As he heads for the door, Lydia, very
daring, pipes up: 'You'll come straight back, won't you Mr. Carr?' But she
doesn't get an answer. I don't know that he even heard her.

What's worse, he doesn't come back. We
clear the table, we do the dishes and we put away. We even get out the Scrabble
board so that when he does come he'll see we've been keeping ourselves
occupied. But he doesn't reappear. And now Lydia is starting to flag. It's a
wonder she's lasted this long with no sleep last night. Whisper
Greek
to
her, though, and she'll spring right back to life again. Behind the yawns and
the lids that look as if they can scarcely stay open, she's ready; she thinks
it's still going to happen. He's kept one promise after all.

Then, long after anyone else would have
given up hope, the door from the hall opens. It's ten o' clock and even Hilary
is looking heavy about the eyes.

But now here's Dad and everything
changes. Lydia's eyes snap open, ready for action. But there'll be no Greek,
not tonight.

'Girls,' he says, with a voice so weary
that just hearing it makes you feel tired for him. 'Ah, girls.' And he begins
to walk - straight past us to the back door.

'Oh Mr. Carr, you're not going out. Not
at this time of night.' This is Lydia of course.

He sighs, but doesn't look at her. 'Duty
calls, Lydia love, you should know that.' Then he stands back to allow Gran to
unbolt the door. And that should have been the end of it.

But no-one has reckoned on Lydia, and
the effect of no sleep and promises not kept. 'But
why
, Mr. Carr?' Her
voice is petulant. 'No-one's been here, no-one's called.' (Not since eight
twenty-eight, that is.) 'We were going to read Greek, remember? You can't go
out now. You
promised
.' And, then, the most shocking thing of all.
Lydia
stamps her foot
.

Oh, oh this is something new. Something
I've never seen before, not in this house. People don't tell my father what to
do, not even Gran.

But I know the feeling that comes with
it. That's not at all new. A prickling on the backs of my hand, a rush of cold
as if with opening the door, Gran has let the half the night flood into the
house.

Even Lydia feels it, starts to shiver,
knows straightaway that she has done something wrong. She just doesn't know how
wrong, not yet. She stays where she is, staring up at Dad, who is looking at
her with an expression she couldn't possibly recognise. Because no-one will
ever have looked at her like this before, not even her own father. Especially
not her own father. It's the look reserved for the Stranger in your midst.

And here come the words, so soft as to
be almost a whisper. But she can hear them alright, hear them and understand
that words are only the beginning, the tip of the iceberg. My father begins to
speak.

'You're telling me not to go? You're
telling me to stop at home when there's one poor soul out there crying to me
for help? Pardon me, but I have to go where I am needed. Nothing,
nothing
gets between Keith Carr and his duty. There's a world of suffering out there,
Lydia, and you are telling me to turn my back.'

The worst of it is that, as he speaks,
he appears bewildered, as Jesus might have looked if Lazarus, raised from the
dead, had then asked for eternal wealth as well. A wondering look that wants to
know - hasn't he done enough? And Lydia, seeing it, understands what I learned
years ago. Ingratitude is the greatest sin of all, for which there can be no
forgiveness.

And here it comes, the worst bit of all.
The final whisper. 'Child, I thought I knew you.'

Lydia goes white. Because this is what
Dad does. He shows people how to see themselves. Now, after tonight, she won't
be able to look at herself, because she'll only see what he sees. Ugliness,
inside and out.

'Please, Mr. Carr,' she whispers, but
not so it matters, not so anyone's going to listen. 'That's not what I....I'm
so sorry Mr. Carr.'

Watching her, you could almost feel
sorry for her. Until you remember that people have to learn; everyone has to
learn. You don't talk to Dad as if he was just anyone.

I'd say she was learning now though. And
no chance of her forgetting. For the rest of her life, Lydia will remember how
in one evening she witnessed a miracle beyond description - and then lost it
all through the wickedness of ingratitude. The memory will be there when she
wakes up in the morning, the last thing she knows when she goes to sleep...

...Or will it? Because then something
happens, bringing it to an end, all that education, all that learning, stopping
the process. Something so unexpected it turns her head, turns all our heads. A
sudden noise, that takes a moment to recognise, and pin down for what it is; a
gurgling, high-to-low-pitch yodelling sound, that could be anything on earth,
until you realise that it's somebody laughing.

In fact, it's Moira, laughing and at the
same time pointing at Dad, as if he's something she's spotted up on stage, an
act, a comic turn.

A donkey braying, that's what she sounds
like. Something that falls short of human. Except for the words, listen to the
words.
Some poor soul
, she's saying over and over again, as if that's
what's making her laugh.
Some poor soul
. Gurgle gurgle gurgle.

And the result? Lydia is looking on in
amazement, shocked - but definitely not cringing, not any more. Hilary's mouth
has dropped open. Even Gran appears shaken. But Dad is the one to watch. He
seems - how can I say this and have anyone believe me? - terrified. Like a man
reeling from a blow he never saw coming. He's standing there, trying to regain
his balance, and he can't. Because Moira just keeps on laughing, as if he's the
funniest thing she ever saw in her life.

So what's wrong with me? Why am I not in
the least bit shocked? No-one is moving, or seems able to move, not Lydia, not
Hilary, not Gran. But I can move, past them, past them all as if they were no
more than waxworks. Until I come to a halt in front of Moira.

And slap her hard across the face.

The laughing stops abruptly, like the
needle knocked off a record. Moira's eyes close - and open again, fast as the
shutter of a camera. Then her face goes blank once more, eyes turned not on me,
standing right there in front of her, but past me. I really am invisible it
seems. Moira has gone back to what she was doing before, looking at him, at
Dad.

Hilary, as usual, is the first to
recover.

'Well,' she says, and turns to Lydia,
but she gets no satisfactory response there. Lydia just blinks and shakes her
head, as if she has been dreaming. 'Well,' Hilary says again, and looks across
at Dad instead.

But that's no use either. Dad hasn't
even begun to recover, not yet. He is still staring at Moira, and the look on
his face tells you he's wondering if there's something else, something even
worse to come.

But there isn't. Moira is quiet. A whole
minute passes and nothing happens. And that's when you have to hand it to Dad.
He lets out a long sigh, followed by a little shake of his shoulders - and
suddenly he's the old Dad once more, the proper Dad.

'Why Moira,' he says quietly. 'Moira
love. I think I might have to find the time for a little talk with that old granny
of yours.'

And that's all he needs to say. Reproach
couldn't come any gentler. He might have been talking to a child. Yet his words
bring us back to normal. A moment before the kitchen had been like nothing so
much as a ship, threatening to capsize. Now it had righted itself. Everything
is alright again.

All the same, I thought he might have
something for me, a word or a look. A glance to show he recognises the strange
truth; that I was the one who silenced her, the only person able to stop the
laughter. But there's nothing. He doesn't even glance in my direction. The back
door opens for him and he's gone.

The very second the door closes, Hilary
turns on Moira. 'Moira MacMurray, what is the
matter
with you? That
was..' she stops, poor unimaginitive Hilary, at a loss for words,
'...disgusting.'

Moira looks at her, eyes mild, and
shakes her head ever so slightly. Then she opens her mouth, and it's clear that
she is about to say something. For a succession of seconds we wait, on tenterhooks
again. The kitchen sways a fraction. The ship could go belly up after all.

And what does Moira have to say?

'My granny, she always makes me a plate
of chips before I go to bed. She knows what I like.'

And that's all that Moira has to say.
Gran throws up her hands and Hilary rolls her eyes. But me, I'm already rising
to the task. Or as close as I can get. The chip pan will have to stay cold
tonight. But I can do the next best thing. Butter bread, cut cheese. Anything
to keep Moira fed.

Well, why shouldn't I? I had been so
sure she had been about to say something else, something that might have
explained the laugh, that would have explained
him
. Moira had laughed as
if she had known him of old, longer than me even, as if she had known
everything about him. At any moment she could have told us exactly why she was
laughing. And she didn't. She didn't say a thing.