In a Good Light (31 page)

‘I wish they'd donated it in my direction,' Christian grumbled. ‘Isn't charity supposed to begin at home?'

‘I don't think it actually says that in the Bible,' I said. It struck me that for children of a chaplain we weren't especially religious. Since Dad was conducting services at the prison on Sundays and was not around to supervise our church-going, we seldom went. And Mum, with her unique relationship with God, would only enter a church when it was empty. In fact, now that I came to think of it, I didn't know whether Christian even believed in God any more. I thought I'd ask him some time. Not now, though, as I didn't
want to be accused of getting heavy. Besides, in these surroundings, where it was possible to see the hand of a Creator, you might get a false reading.

Suddenly from the woods behind us came a terrific crashing, and almost before we'd realised what was happening, a riderless horse erupted from between the trees, ears back, stirrups flying, not ten yards from where we'd been standing, and galloped away down the slope, churning the snow under its hooves. Christian and I were still recovering from the shock of this apparition, when a woman in jodhpurs and boots and a padded anorak came half-jogging, half-limping out of the woods and, giving us a polite nod, set off in pursuit of the horse, which had skittered to a halt in the corner of the field.

To add to the unreality of the scene, Christian now pointed in the direction we had come: there, in the distance, floundering towards us and waving frantically, was the figure of Wart, absurdly underdressed in jeans and a shirt.

‘Why hasn't he got a coat on?' Christian said, and then it dawned on us, rather belatedly, that he was not coming to join in the fun, but rather to summon us to the scene of an emergency, and we began to run to meet him, in great leaps and strides.

‘Martina's set fire to herself,' Wart said, panting, as we came to a standstill a few feet apart. ‘She's all right, but Penny thinks she needs to go to Casualty.'

‘What – you mean deliberately?' Christian asked.

‘I don't think so. She was just standing too close to the hob.'

It seemed that Martina had been warming her hands over the gas jets when the trailing whiskers of her mohair sleeves had caught fire. Her panicked attempts to beat out the
flames had only spread them, and in trying to strip off the now melting jumper, she had managed to set light to her hair. Penny, hearing her shrieks, had rushed in and smothered her with the nearest suitable item to hand, which happened to be Wart's coat.

When we arrived back at the flat Martina was sitting on a kitchen chair in her bra and knickers, wrapped in a duvet and shivering violently. One side of her long hair had perished to shoulder level. Even now, as she fingered the scorched ends, more of it crumbled away. The longer, undamaged side was dripping wet. Penny had made her stand in the bath while she hosed her down with cold water from the shower. ‘To take the heat out of the burns,' Penny explained, deaf to her screams.

‘I'm all right really,' Martina said, through chattering teeth. ‘It's just my hair.'

‘What about burns?' Christian asked, kneeling down and taking one of her long skinny hands in his. Martina allowed the duvet to slip down to allow for inspection of her injuries. There was a collective intake of breath, which had to be passed off as anxiety over her burns – few and not too alarming – but which in fact was a response to the sight of her bony torso, with its jutting collarbone and well-defined ribs.

‘Not too bad,' said Penny, with forced brightness.

‘Painful as hell, though, I bet,' said Wart.

‘I think she should go to Casualty anyway, just in case,' Penny suggested. Martina flinched. ‘I don't want to go to hospital,' she said. ‘I hate hospitals. They freak me out.' As she fumbled to gather the duvet back around her, I caught sight of the inside of her arm. It was criss-crossed with pink lines like cuts or deep scratches, some fresh, some faded, as if she'd been regularly attacked by a cat over a period of
years. A very neat and methodical cat. Suddenly a day that had begun full of light and promise seemed to have turned dark.

‘We'll come with you,' Penny was saying. ‘At least, someone will. I've got to put Esther on her train this afternoon, so if you haven't been seen by then I'll have to leave you there.'

‘I can wait with her,' said Christian. He slapped her duvet-wrapped knee. ‘Don't worry, Marty, I'll look after you.'

She gazed up at him with grateful, doggy eyes. I remembered what Christian had said earlier about emotional cannibals, and for the second time that day I thought of Aunty Barbara, another woman who wielded her helplessness with considerable force.

When I got home I gave Mum and Dad an edited account of my stay, omitting any mention of vodka, debt and hangovers, and concentrating instead on our trip to Sidmouth, tobogganing, and Martina's near incineration. They laughed at my description of the state of the flat, and then stopped when I added, ‘Even this place looks clean by comparison.'

Mum wanted to know if Christian had appeared to be well and happy, and I was able to report truthfully that he had. She also asked if he was eating ‘proper food', but since her view of what constituted proper food had always been highly individual, I couldn't offer much reassurance on that point. We had ended up buying instant soup from the hospital vending machine for our Sunday lunch while we waited for Martina to be seen.

Penny and I had left her and Christian behind while she ran me to the station. I'd tried to give Christian my unspent
tenner as a parting gift, but he refused to take it. In the car I asked Penny about her ‘falling out' with Martina. I was trying to lead the conversation round to my suspicion that Martina was overfond of Christian, without implicating him in any bad behaviour.

Penny said that she and Martina had been best friends last year. Martina had been a different person then, confident and fun, though her anorexic tendencies dated from her early teens. Christian had got along well with Ian, Martina's then boyfriend, and they had gone around together in a foursome. Things had started to deteriorate when Ian ditched Martina quite unexpectedly and began very publicly seeing someone else, the girl who was now pregnant. ‘We tried to look after her as much as we could,' Penny explained, ‘and still included her in everything. But a threesome isn't quite the same. It's unbalanced, and after a while someone else's misery becomes very draining.' She sighed. ‘I always seem fated to attract these lame ducks.'

‘She seems a bit keen on Christian, don't you think?' I ventured.

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Oh, nothing special. Just a feeling.'

‘I think she's probably a bit jealous of our relationship. I suppose it's only natural. Anyway, everyone loves Christian because he always acts so kind and caring.'

I nodded slowly, weighing the word ‘acts'.

‘I don't regard Martina as a serious threat. I don't think vulnerability is attractive when it's taken to that extent.'

It was only as I ran through this conversation in my mind on the train journey home that it occurred to me to wonder whether she regarded me as one of those lame ducks with whom she had been lumbered by fate.

IT WAS MADNESS
that drove Aunty Barbara away from us all those years before and it was murder that brought her back.

The communication came in one of those handwritten envelopes regarded by Dad as the only sort worth opening. I remember its arrival particularly because it was the only piece of post to be delivered on my fifteenth birthday – confirmation of the indifference of the outside world to my continued existence. Penny and Christian, down in Exeter, marked the occasion by telephoning to let me know that a present too fragile to post would be with me on their return home next week.

‘It's Barbara,' Dad exclaimed, on at last deciphering the signature. Her administrative skills had not improved over time: the letter was written with a series of expiring ballpoints on the back of an estate agent's flyer. The handwriting, which began as neat, horizontal lines, then succumbed to lack of space and careered twice round the
border before straying over the page into illegible proximity to the small print of the advertisement.

‘She must want a favour,' said Mum, cynic and shrewd judge of character.

Dad gave her a reproving look and we all crowded round to read the letter.

Dearest Gordon, Pru, Christian and Emily
(that stung: I'd thought myself her favourite at one time)

I know I haven't been in touch for ages, but it doesn't mean you haven't been in my thoughts, because you have all of y
(new biro)

The fact is, we're in a bit of a predicament over accommodation for a few weeks this summer, and you are the only people I can think of with room in their hearts and homes for a stray, namely Donov
(new biro)

Alan has fixed him up with a job in some estate agent's office in the city over the summer holidays and he needs somewhere to stay within commuting distance. He'll be out at work all day, and I've told him to make himself scarce at weekends. He's completely self-sufficient about food and so on.

‘I bet he is,' Mum said.

I promise you won't even know he's there. I'd feel so much happier if he was with friends rather than in some hostel. This whole situation has arisen because our house will be unavailable – I'm renting it out while I go to America to visit my pen-friend, Roy. He's been given a date for his execution, so I'm going over there to try and make some noise on his behalf.

I've written rather than rung, to give you time to discuss this and marshall your excuses if necessary, but I'll call soon for your verdict, as time is marching on.

Fondest love

Barbara

P.S. I wonder if—
(illegible)

The rich silence that followed this was broken by the ringing of the telephone. Dad was the first to recover. Through the open door to the hallway we could hear him say, ‘Hello . . .
Barbara,
how lovely to hear from you . . . Yes we did . . . yes of course we'd love to have him.' I gave Mum a rueful smile and she replied by making throttling motions in Dad's direction. I was beginning to see, as Mum saw, that there was something slightly maverick in Dad's hospitality. It wouldn't occur to him to consult before throwing our doors open for the whole summer. Applied Christianity, he called it, when challenged.

Mum had sympathy enough for mankind, but she sometimes found its individual representatives a source of exasperation. She remembered our manners and pushed the door shut on the conversation.

‘Somehow I knew Barbara would resurface one day,' she said. ‘On her terms, of course.' She picked up the letter again. ‘
He's just been given a date for his execution
. Ye gods!'

A moment later, Dad reappeared, smiling broadly. ‘Well, that's all settled. They'll be here in a fortnight.'

‘They?' said Mum warily.

‘Barbara's coming to spend the night so I can run her to Gatwick the next morning, and then Donovan will stay on for the summer. That's okay isn't it?'

‘I suppose it'll have to be,' Mum replied. A lack of warmth
in her tone alerted Dad that his unilateral decision-making was not appreciated.

‘Do you think I did wrong?' he asked. ‘I thought it would be all right. Donovan was rather nice, I seem to remember.'

‘Yes, but he was only eleven then. Anything could have happened in the last six years. He could be a drug addict for all we know.'

‘All the more reason for him to be here instead of fending for himself.'

Mum grunted. She had her misgivings about Barbara and wanted them acknowledged. ‘What's all this about an execution? Has she seriously been corresponding with someone on death row?'

‘Very much so.'

Mum rolled her eyes. ‘I can't think of anyone less suited to the job. I suppose it gives her some sort of morbid thrill.'

‘Apparently she got the idea from you,' Dad said.

‘From me?' Mum's face was a picture of astonishment.

‘She says you once had a conversation with her about getting involved in prison visiting. She sort of took it from there.'

‘I was thinking of something more local,' Mum protested. ‘Trust Barbara to go to extremes.'

‘Oh, I don't know,' said Dad. ‘Maybe a crusade like this was just what she needed. She certainly sounded very cheerful.'

‘We'll see.'

The day before the pair were due to arrive I was up a ladder trying to hack away some of the ivy engulfing the front of the house. Its march was so relentless that some of the upstairs windows were completely smothered: the room
Mum had cleaned out for Donovan was particularly badly affected and received almost no natural light.

I was dressed for this job in a pair of men's dungarees and checked shirt, borrowed from one of Mum's jumble bags, and a plastic shower cap, to prevent creepy-crawlies dropping out of the ivy into my hair. I was saving my best outfit for tomorrow to impress the visitors. Only Grandpa Percy was in, watching
Pebble Mill
: Dad was at work and Mum was out, buying provisions.

It was a gusty July day with a busy, changing sky – not ideal weather to be up a ladder. To help the chore pass off more enjoyably I was singing along to The Jam on my new Sony Walkman, the late birthday present from Penny and Christian, who had arrived back for the summer vacation a few days earlier. At the foot of the ladder was a growing pile of severed strands of ivy. I had cleared one window when, over the music, I became aware of the slamming of car doors. Penny and Christian were back from some outing, and from the way they stalked into the house separately, without bothering to acknowledge me I could tell they'd been quarrelling.