First Fruits (31 page)

And he looks like Mark, not much older
even, despite the bow tie. It could be Mark I'm looking at.

And I can't help it. I can't help
It
.
The smile seems to come from nowhere, nothing to do with me. A quick flash,
that's all it was. But a moment later, his expression changes and despite himself,
he moves closer, so that we are almost touching as he takes me to the table
where the others are already sitting.

Even Lydia notices, and gives another
giggle, her hallmark sound for today. 'Oooh Kate. He must think you're a VIP.'

But what it means is, there's no escape.
Not when you've been noticed. You have to carry on, keep flashing the promise
you've shown so far.

So it's me that orders the meal -
vegetable soup and chicken and chips all round. He writes down the order with
his head so close to mine I could say everything in whispers. And it doesn't
stop. I take sips of the warm dusty water, and he comes and tops up my glass,
every time. And every time Lydia giggles. She'd like to be noticed too.

And in all this, nobody seems to have
the feeling that I have. The feeling that, despite the smiles and Moira's
living disguise, we shouldn't be here. That this is the last place we should
be.

Still, maybe they don't have the feeling
because there is no reason for it. We eat the soup, and nothing happens. Then
we eat the chicken, and nothing happens. We order chocolate icecream with
Italian wafers, and nothing happens - unless you count Lydia fretting about
some spots of gravy she's left on the tablecloth. We sit here and for a whole
hour nothing happens. It's an ordinary lunch in a hotel.

So why do I feel the way I do?

Then Lydia bites her lip, jiggles in her
chair. Leans to me and whispers, 'Kate, I need the loo.'

So I just look at her.

Well what did she expect? She's told me
what she needs, but I know what she
wants
. She wants someone to come
with her, as if she were a child, no older than Laura. But I'm not moving. So
far, nothing has happened, but that might be because we have done nothing but
sit here, out of harm's way. In the end, Lydia gets the message and she walks off,
face red, head down, avoiding the eyes of the waiter - who wasn't looking anyway.

Five minutes later though, she is back,
redder than ever.

'Kate,' she says. 'Kate, I can't find
it.'

Pointless to ask what it is she can't
find - or if she had bothered asking anyone how to find it. They must have
heard my sigh on the next table, but up I get, to take Lydia to the bathroom.
Otherwise she might just wet herself.

I never thought it would be this hard
however. Not far from our table is an exit, but all this does is open onto some
stairs leading up to the bedrooms. And it must be the thought of bedrooms that
makes Lydia blush even harder, as if by coming through this door we have
wandered into somebody's home. So it's back to the dining room, this time to
follow the path beaten into the carpet by years of footsteps. A moment later we
are in the lobby. But although there's a door that reads
Gentlemen
,
there's nothing else that we can see. So it's back to the dining room again,
and a glimpse of Moira sitting in the distance staring fixedly at a series of
screens along the far wall, set up one beside the other.

Relief may be at hand. It only takes a
second to discover that these screens make a kind of corridor which is bound to
lead to somewhere. Lydia looks hopeful. But in vain; after running a few yards,
the corridor opens out into what is virtually a separate room with space for
just the one table. And it is here, well away from the eyes of other diners,
that a couple appear to be coming to the end of their meal. She is eating
trifle and he is busy with the last of his apple pie and cream, something I
noticed on the menu and decided not to order; it seemed too much, somehow,
after everything we'd had already. But he's enjoying it. Another spoonful, and
there - now it's all gone. Only the wine left. And not much of that either.

As he is lifting the glass to drain the
last few drops, his companion, plump and handsome, and dressed all in pink -
again - leans across to say something I can't hear, not from where we are
standing. Something about coffee perhaps. And liqueurs. Things we don't have at
home.

But that breaks the spell, because it
means that any moment now he'll have to turn round. How else will he summon the
waiter? He'll turn round and then he'll see us.

Now I know exactly why I didn't want to
be here. Why it seemed safer to stay in our seats and never wander.

So it's round to face Lydia - try to
fill the space between her and the table at the far end of the corridor,
blocking her line of sight. 'Move,' I say. 'Move.'

'But...'

Silly Lyddie,
stupid
Lyddie, she
doesn't understand. We have to get out of here, before they, before he sees us.

'But...' she says again, and this time I
give her a push, so hard that a look of anger sweeps over her face - Lydia's,
of all people - and before I know what's happening she's gone and pushed me
back, all but knocking me over. And that leaves the way clear for her to see
right past me to the far end of the corridor and its single table. And the
people sitting at the table. A moment later, her mouth opens. And she understands.

We only just made it in time. It seems
they hadn't wanted coffee after all. There must be something else they have in
mind.

Crouched in a corner of the lobby, under
the stare of an astonished woman at the desk, we see them, making slow but
dignified progress upstairs to the bedrooms. My father and Mrs. Forbes White.

AND
would you believe it, behind us is a door marked
Ladies
. It must have
been there all the time. But Lydia doesn't seem to care that we've finally
found what we were looking for. I have to push her inside, close the door
behind us.

'Go to the loo,' I say to her. But Lydia
doesn't move. She stands, back up against the bathroom door, eyes fixed on the
opposite wall.

'Go to the loo,' I say to her again.
Someone has to remind her of the reason we are here, the reason we've been
running all over a hotel, ending up in places we were never meant to be. Seeing
things we were never meant to see.

Look, we wouldn't even be here if it
weren't for her.

But still Lydia doesn't move. She's
thinking. I've seen her like this before, in maths for example. Sitting at her
desk with a problem that she can't quite work out, not straight away. It's been
almost comical watching her in the past, lips moving, eyes staring but seeing
nothing, working out the alternatives. And I haven't been the only one to think
so. It happens every time. Gradually other people start to notice her, to stop
what they were doing and nudge each other, so that in the end everyone in the
class is watching, and waiting - even the teacher - to see if Lydia will be
able to come up with the answer.

What will Lydia come up with this time,
I wonder. And what is she going to do about it? Clever people don't like
thinking they've been fooled. They get nasty, start looking for all sorts of
ways to get their own back.

I have to guide her back to the table.
She'd never have made it by herself. Meanwhile, Moira is exactly where we left
her, this time staring towards the lobby, and the stairs with its people going
up and down.

So what does Moira see when she stares?
Things that other people miss, that's what. Folk entering a hotel for example.
Seeing them, but never thinking to say a word to others.

Time to go. Moira passes a handful of
crumpled five pound notes over to the waiter, who glances at her as he takes
them, then stands, frozen to the spot. At last he's noticed, has finally looked
at her long enough to see. The person paying isn't our granny after all. She's
just a young girl, no different from us.

Except that's exactly what's wrong.
Moira's not like us. She isn't anything like us. Moira is completely different,
and it's only now he's realised.

IT’S
as we are coming out of the hotel that we bump into Hilary. No sign of Mark,
though, or Owl Boy. But she must have had a reasonable time there in the café,
because she's all smiles and coy blushes. Yet it's no use her trying to tell us
all about it because nobody's listening, least of all Lydia. She's still
thinking hard, working out the alternatives. I have to help her onto the bus.

In the end, it's Moira who almost gets
left behind. Standing on the pavement, about to follow us on board, she
suddenly goes from being merely still to statue-like. Something has caught her
eye. Again. But this time I don't look. In fact, I do more than simply fail to
look, I turn my back, to make sure that I see nothing, nothing at all. The way
I should have done before.

HALFWAY
home, Lydia jerks back to life. With a sudden feverish flurry she starts
delving into her satchel to locate the book. There follows a short frantic
search through the pages, and then ....and then she's found it. Lydia reads
what's there, then looks up. Her eyes are shining, triumphant even. And quite
peaceful.

She doesn't seem to mind when I take the
book away from her, to run my eye down the page. And, sure enough, there it is.
The paragraph about the righteous man who must rise above the judgement of
others. If folk choose to misunderstand him, then so be it. In judging him,
they judge themselves. But they should remember that Our Lord talked to his
flock in all kinds of different ways. In other word, it's the message that
counts, not the way it gets across. And then it goes on to talk about Jesus
with the prostitute, and the things people had to say about that.

But there's no need to read any more. My
Dad, he's covered every eventuality, just with this one book, explained
everything in advance. And now it's all there in black and white, a reason for
everything. Lydia doesn't have to bother herself thinking any more. He's done
all her thinking for her.

And look at the result. She's humming a
little tune as she looks out of the window, a small half-smile curling up her
lips. She's like someone who has been let in on a secret, and in consequence is
sitting there hugging it to herself, completely happy. Not because of what she
knows, but because she's been trusted to hear it in the first place, because
she's special.

Silly Lyddie. Simple Lyddie. Somehow
she's forgotten the most important thing of all; that what we saw was never
intended for our eyes. We weren't meant to be there. Hotels, with their three
course dinners and their rooms with bathrooms, they are for grown ups and the
games grown ups play. And nobody else.

IT’S
a long time before Dad gets home, and when he does, he appears completely
drained. Of course it's no surprise. Every day carries its own hardship, he has
always said that, but Saturdays are especially hard, the reason he invariably
returns looking as if something vital has been sucked out of him. It's what
we've come to expect.

Gran leaps up and brings him his plate
from the oven where she's been keeping it warm for the best part of three
hours. Dad takes one look and shakes his head.

'I'm sorry mother. I couldn't eat a
thing, not tonight.' It's the same every Saturday.

'Oh Mr. Carr, whatever have you been
doing today? You look absolutely worn out.' This is Hilary, anxious as usual to
make the right impression.

All the more touching that he can find a
smile then, even for a girl who hasn't done a thing to deserve it, who has sat
in a café all day making eyes at small boys.

'You don't want to know, Hilary love.
Believe me, it would break your heart. Just think of folk in need and you can
guess the rest.'

'But you helped them, Mr. Carr? You've
been doing all you can?' Hilary's eyes are shining.

'I hope so Hilary, love. I hope so.'

As he speaks he glances at Moira,
perhaps to be sure that she's hearing all this - then tries not to blink when,
just as he should have expected, he finds she is already staring at him. Yet
why should it bother him? Lydia is gazing at him, and so is Hilary. So is Gran,
come to that. It's only natural. When Dad is in the room, all eyes are drawn to
him. It's part of having
It
, the secret of everything.

But now suddenly he has Moira and her
stare. Because of her, his hands come out of his pockets, he has to clear his
throat, glance at the ceiling, then down at the floor, hum a little tune.

Nothing strange about any of it. In fact
nothing could seem more ordinary. He could be anybody. Except when has Dad been
just anybody?

It makes you wonder how Moira does it,
how it is she cuts him down to a size he's never been before, simply by the way
she stares. It makes you wonder how, but then it makes you wonder why, why she
only does it to my father. Whatever I thought of Moira and her stare, she never
looked at me like that.    

But oh, my dad, he's
not just anybody after all.