In a Good Light (14 page)

I went straight to Donovan and reported the offence. He swept down from the attic four stairs at a time, eyes blazing with fury. He scooped Starsky and Hutch and their shred of pondweed into Mum's measuring jug and then tipped the murky water and most of the gravel down the sink, spraying the crockery on the draining board in the process. I wondered at the time if anyone would notice that the cups tasted fishy, but nobody mentioned it. He refilled the tank with clean tap water and flopped the fish back in, and then took the much depleted tub of food back upstairs and hid it in his suitcase. ‘She's just so . . . stupid,' he hissed, his teeth, fists, everything clenched.

The next morning there was the speckled one belly-up on the surface while the other still flickered to and fro in the shadow of his dead companion. Aunty Barbara wasn't to be disturbed, so Donovan wrote YOU'VE KILLED STARSKY! in furious capitals on a piece of paper and shoved it under her door.

She found the note when she emerged later that afternoon to empty her ashtray. ‘I didn't kill him,' she said, tragically. ‘I was just trying to jolly them up.' A thought struck her. ‘In fact it was probably the change of water that killed him,' she said. ‘Everyone knows you shouldn't put them in cold water straight from the tap.' She seemed greatly cheered by this hypothesis. Not so Donovan, who gave a sort of bellow, and rushed from the room. I found him on the stairs being comforted by Dad.

‘She killed my fish, and now she says I did it by putting him in cold water, but I only did that to get rid of all the Guppy Flakes that
she'd
put in there,' he raved.

‘Of course you didn't kill whatshisname. Spasski,' said Dad soothingly. ‘And I'm sure Mummy didn't either. He probably just died of old age. In his sleep.'

‘He wasn't old. We've only had him a year and a bit,' protested Donovan, who was not to be so easily appeased.

‘Ah, but in fish years that's a long, long time. He may have been old, and ill and ready to die. Now he's probably in fish heaven,' Dad said. ‘Whatever that may be,' he added, sensing himself on tricky theological terrain.

‘Mum's always saying she wants to die,' said Donovan. ‘But she never does.'

Christian and Donovan were big buddies this time around and didn't want me in the way. They spent their time lighting fires down in the spinney, cycling over to Biggin Hill to look at aeroplanes, or knocking on doors to see if people wanted their cars cleaned for cash. There wasn't much uptake for their services. As Mum pointed out, their general appearance was unlikely to inspire confidence that they had ever had successful dealings with soap and water. I noticed that the two of them seemed to have built up this friendship without resorting to speech. Whenever I came across them they were either silently absorbed in some complex task – building a squirrel-proof bird-feeder, perhaps – or wrestling violently on the floor. According to Christian, conversation gave him a big fuzzy headache, and was ‘mostly for girls'.

I didn't have much opportunity to be lonely. For some mysterious reason, Aunty Barbara seemed to take a liking
to me and would often collar me for a chat when at large, or detain me in her room when I took up her meals or drinks. She had lots of silly names for me, such as her Gorgeous Girl, or the Divine Creature, and would gossip at me as if I was one of her old woman friends who understood.

The principal theme of her conversation was the Inferiority of Men, allowing for the odd exception such as my father. The weight of her argument rested on two exemplars who bore the brunt of her disdain. One was her agent, Clive, whose function remained obscure, but whom I pictured against a lamp post in a trench-coat with upturned collar.

‘He always says I'm too old for this part or that part,' she complained to me one day, as I sat on her bed trying to peel a satsuma for her. She couldn't do it herself because the citrus juice got into the chewed skin around her nails and stung like hell. ‘And then months later I find the part's gone to someone older than me, like Susannah York. He's got me nothing but piddly bits of radio work and voice-overs for years. I've a good mind to ditch him and get someone else. I told him that once, and do you know what he said? “Darling, that's like someone on the
Titanic
demanding a different deck-chair.”' She gave a bitter laugh.

Most of her venom, however, was reserved for Donovan's father, Alan, who had announced his intention of leaving her by jumping out of the upstairs window of a Swiss hotel room during an argument. Fortunately for him he had landed in deep snow. Her complaints against him were numerous and contradictory: he kept them short of money; he spoiled Donovan with expensive presents; he
was uncommunicative; she never wanted to speak to him again; he had deliberately cut off all links with the past; he was trying to win over their friends to his side; he had broken her heart; she had never loved him anyway . . . I found all this grown-up talk largely incomprehensible, but exhilarating. My parents never, ever spoke like this. They seldom discussed other people in front of me and Christian, and only in the blandest and most uncritical terms. True, Kind and Necessary were the three criteria which had to be met before a word was allowed through the gates of their teeth. I sensed that Mum was uneasy at the thought of my audiences with Aunty Barbara, as she often interrupted them to borrow me for some footling errand, but she couldn't bring herself to articulate her anxiety.

Finally she felt moved to intervene, precipitating a scene that very nearly wrecked New Year's Eve for all of us.

It was early evening and we were all in the sitting room except Mum and Dad, who were making cheese sandwiches for supper, there having been a revolt against turkey on the sixth day after Christmas. Christian and Donovan were lying in front of the fire, playing Scrabble, while I was working away at a piece of French knitting on a bobbin made from a wooden cotton reel with four brass screws in the top. I had become quite adept at this soothing, but senseless craft and had already turned out yards of multicoloured woollen tubing, for which no purpose had yet presented itself.

Aunty Barbara was at full stretch on the couch. She had, unusually, discarded her nightwear in favour of one of Mum's dung-coloured corduroy skirts and a navy Shetland pullover. In her hurried departure from home she had not
packed sufficient warm clothing for the glacial temperatures of the Old Schoolhouse and was now having to borrow. She was playing with her long hair, plaiting and then unplaiting it, while half-listening to a play on the radio and chipping in with her comments on the performance.

‘Beryl Reid. I worked with her once. What a scream. I wonder if she'd remember me . . . Joe Orton. What a tragedy. All that talent wasted . . . Oh not
her
again, God, she's in everything. Couldn't act her way out of, oh SHUT UP!' Aunty Barbara slung a cushion at the radio set, narrowly missing the Scrabble game and knocking the tuning button so that the dialogue was swallowed up in a hailstorm of interference and high-pitched whistling. She made no move to restore the sound quality, or retrieve the cushion, but slumped back to the horizontal again with her eyes clenched shut.

After enduring this unfriendly noise for a minute or two Donovan got up and gave the off switch a sharp twist. The radio expired with a pop. Aunty Barbara opened one eye. ‘Since you're up, go and fetch my bag, Donovan,' she said. ‘It's in my room.'

He turned on his heel with a look of annoyance, and we heard him clumping up the stairs with slow, emphatic tread.

I caught Christian's eye and he pulled a face – one of those untranslatable grimaces which are perfectly understood by the recipient. Christian didn't like Aunty Barbara. I could tell this because he answered her questions in monosyllables and without making eye contact. To be fair, she didn't put him to this trouble often, considering the male opinion of no great value. In private he confided that he thought she was ‘mad and scary' and ‘not like a mum'. On
the last point I had to agree, but it's hard to dislike someone who seems bent on singling you out for praise and admiration.

Donovan returned with the bag, a hand-woven woollen sac which Aunty Barbara began to unpack onto the floor beside her. Presently she found what she was looking for – a round pocket mirror, in which she attempted to examine the top of her head.

‘That's not a proper word,' Christian said suddenly. Donovan had laid down HORE on the triple word square and was totting up his score.

‘It is,' Donovan retorted. ‘I've heard it.'

‘HORE isn't a word, is it?' Christian appealed to Aunty Barbara who had located a grey hair with the aid of her mirror, and was winding it around her finger.

‘No. Ow.' The unwanted hair was plucked out at the root. ‘Not spelled like that it isn't.' Her eyes narrowed. ‘Anyway, where exactly did you hear it, Donovan?'

He looked uncomfortable. ‘I don't know. I've forgotten.'

‘I'm getting the dictionary,' Christian insisted. ‘If you're wrong you miss a turn.' He strode out, nearly colliding with Mum, who was coming through the doorway with a plate of cheese sandwiches and a jar of mixed pickle. Dad was a few paces behind with the tea tray.

‘God, listening to you two reminds me of arguments I used to have with Alan. Before the real arguments began, I mean,' said Aunty Barbara. ‘He was a cheat, in Scrabble as in life.'

Mum put the sandwiches down and started to distribute plates.

‘One time he got so annoyed because I said the word
“zoo” was an abbreviation that he tipped the whole table over and stormed out and didn't come back all night. You've never met such a bad loser. I should have read the warning signs then.'

Mum frowned and made throat-clearing noises.

‘Right, who's for tea?' Dad said, with exaggerated cheeriness.

‘He used to cheat at bridge too,' Aunty Barbara went on, undeflected. ‘We had this code for how many aces, how many kings, depending on the way he was holding his cards. He always had to win at everything. Sometimes I'd deliberately overbid just to annoy him. I can't stand that male competitive stuff.'

At this point Christian reappeared holding the open dictionary, his finger planted on the crucial page. ‘There. Told you. Horde. Horehound. Horizon. You lose.'

‘Just because it's not in the dictionary doesn't mean it's not a word,' Donovan retorted, snatching the book.

‘Course it does. Where do you think words come from, you div?'

‘You're the div.'

‘Listen to you, Donovan!' cried Aunty Barbara, reaching for a sandwich. ‘You'll end up like your father if you don't watch out.'

Mum, who was holding the teapot, twitched, slopping scalding tea onto the tray. ‘Barbara,' she said, in a low voice that silenced the room in an instant, ‘I thought we'd agreed you wouldn't run Alan down in front of Donovan. It isn't fair.'

Aunty Barbara stopped, mouth open, sandwich halfway to her lips. ‘Fair?' she said incredulously. ‘You don't know the half of it. I'll tell you how fair Alan is: when we did
the big carve-up we agreed to split everything equally. I went out and left him to it, and when I came back I found he'd taken one of every pair of curtains in the house. Just to spite me. That's the sort of person he is.'

‘Nevertheless,' said Mum, who was looking as hot and uncomfortable as I'd ever seen her, ‘I don't think it's especially helpful for Donovan to hear all this.'

Christian and I were riveted by this rare opportunity to witness grown-up conflict. Donovan, who was evidently accustomed to having people quarrel over him, was still thumbing through the dictionary, oblivious.

‘Oh, don't worry about him,' Aunty Barbara gestured with her sandwich, scattering shreds of grated cheese. ‘He's heard it all before. And worse. You should hear the choice language Alan's been teaching him for that matter,' she added, pointing at the game of Scrabble, now temporarily suspended.

Dad glanced over Christian's shoulder at the board and tutted. ‘I expect you're thinking of HOAR,' he said to Donovan. ‘It's a sort of frost.'

‘I don't know why you're so keen to defend Alan all of a sudden.' Aunty Barbara's eyes narrowed. ‘Actually I do know why. He's been onto you, hasn't he?'

‘No,' Mum replied, taken aback by this turn the conversation was taking.

‘He's trying to get all our friends onto his side by spreading lies about me. I knew it!' Her voice rose hysterically. ‘What's he been saying?'

‘Nothing. We've never . . .' Mum's attempt at reassurance was steamrollered by a fresh outburst of paranoia.

‘He can't bear to think that anybody knows what he's really like. It's not enough that he's ruined my life. He wants
to ruin my reputation too. I bet he told you that I'm unstable and an unfit mother, and I drink and stuff like that.'

‘No he . . .'

‘The bastard won't rest till he's destroyed me,' she raved.

‘Barbara,' Mum warned.

‘Oh pardon my fucking French,' Aunty Barbara snapped, subsiding unhappily into the sagging trench in the middle of the couch.

The silence that greeted this remark was broken by the gentle swishing sound of Donovan turning the pages of the dictionary.

‘Barbara.' Dad dropped to his knees in front of her and grasped her by the elbows so that his face was level with hers. ‘I promise you we don't have any contact with Alan whatsoever. The last time we heard from him was before he . . . left. I think it's perfectly clear where our sympathies lie.'

Aunty Barbara gave a violent tremble like a jumpy horse, and then relaxed with a great sigh. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I don't know why I get so . . .'

‘It's all right,' Mum soothed. ‘No need to apologise.'

‘You've been so kind to us. And I'm just a crabby old cow.'