In a Good Light (51 page)

‘But with infinite possible outcomes?'

‘Yeah, exactly. Not much to ask is it?' They turned to me expectantly.

‘Mum,' I said, passing Christian the handset. Donovan and I politely withdrew to the hallway.

‘Hello,' he said.

‘Hello,' I replied, and with that two-word exchange I suddenly knew with absolute certainty that it was me he
had come to see, and that it wouldn't have mattered to him, or me, whether Christian had been there or not.

‘Are you fully recovered from your ordeal?' he asked. I looked at him blankly. I felt as though I'd been through so many in the last week I wasn't sure which one he meant. ‘Your hand?' he suggested. ‘Your shoulder?'

‘Oh, yes. Fine.' I wriggled them to prove it. On the settle next to me lay the replacement jumper, still in its bag. I passed it across. ‘I put that top of yours through the wash,' I said, absolutely deadpan. ‘It's come up quite well.'

Donovan looked at it and then me, and laughed. ‘I can't decide what you and Christian remind me of,' he said thoughtfully. ‘Hansel and Gretel perhaps.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I'm not sure. You're like something from a fairytale. Brother and sister living together happily ever after in your little gingerbread house.'

‘There's nothing mystical about it,' I said. ‘I'm just the lodger.'

‘I can't put my finger on it,' he went on. ‘It's as if you've made your childhood go on and on. You both even look young for your age.'

‘I suppose we are a bit juvenile at times,' I admitted, self-conscious all of a sudden. I was remembering the way Geoff had laughed at me once at the Coliseum when I'd folded up my coat and sat on it, like a child, to get a better view of the stage – even though I'm five foot six.

‘No need to be apologetic. It's quite appealing.'

I considered the dampening effect of the word ‘quite'.

‘Are you busy today?' Donovan was saying.

‘Busy? Well, there's the gingerbread house to clean, and then I have to make dinner for the elves . . .'

‘Okay, okay,' said Donovan. ‘I've got another garden to look at, down in Sussex. Do you want to come for the ride? We could get some lunch on the way.'

‘Do you always work on Saturdays?'

‘I work all the time if there's work to do. You lose so many days to bad weather in winter, plus the dark evenings, that you have to.'

‘All right then.'

Christian came out of the study, shaking his head. ‘Mum is so cheerful,' he said, with heavy sarcasm.

‘Go on. What did she say about you getting married?'

‘She said, “Congratulations! Have you made a will?”'

‘Shall we take my car?' I offered, as I put my coat and scarf on. I was remembering the Spartan comforts of the truck.

Donovan shrugged. ‘If you prefer.'

But when we got outside I saw, parked behind my elderly Ford Fiesta, a new-looking Audi TT, shining like a polished stone. Even Christian came out to have a gawp. ‘You always did have bigger, better toys,' I grumbled.

‘When I found out my wife and I couldn't have children my immediate reaction was to go out and get a sports car.'

‘Logical,' said Christian.

‘Unfortunately hers was to go out and get a new husband.'

‘Logical again.'

I walked round it admiringly. ‘Gardening must pay better than waitressing,' I observed.

‘Well, when I said “gardening” . . .' Donovan replied. ‘I mean, there's more to it than raking up leaves.'

Christian waved us off from the driveway, one eye out for Elaine's return: they were going off themselves later, scouring the county for a wedding venue.

‘It's a designing and landscaping business, really,' he explained, once we were on our way. ‘My sister Pippa – Dad and Suzie's daughter, I don't know if you ever met her – she does the designing, and the planting plan, and I do all the actual work.'

‘A slightly Hansel-and-Gretelish arrangement, if you don't mind my saying.'

‘You see – we've got more in common than you think.'

We stopped for lunch at the bell in outwood. The Sky had a sickly yellowish tinge, and as we crossed the car park a flurry of dusty snow blew up from nowhere. Donovan insisted on paying for lunch, and dismissed all my counter-insistence. Short of having a stand-up row at the bar, there was nothing I could do. Another debt to be settled later, I thought. As I watched him laying into his gammon and chips I had an involuntary flashback to those all-day breakfasts he'd bought with Aunty Barbara's money, at the pavement café near St Paul's. But reminiscing is a risky indulgence, and I wasn't going to be the one to unleash its mischief.

‘I'm such a coward,' Donovan suddenly announced.

‘Why do you say that?'

‘When Christian opened the door, I just said, “Hi, good to see you.” And he said, “Great to see you. Come in.” And it was so obvious that the last time I saw him he was walking and now he's not, and I never even mentioned it. I feel terrible.'

‘Don't worry about that,' I said. ‘I'm sure Christian was much happier talking about computer games. Which is something he certainly can't do with me.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Absolutely. In fact I think the reason he doesn't like meeting people is because he doesn't want to go through the whole “how I cope” rigmarole every time.'

‘Would you say he's reconciled to his . . . condition?'

‘Not completely. He still reads up all the latest research on the internet, and he still hopes they'll find a cure. But he's not as consumed by it as he used to be.' Especially not now, I thought, with a surge of affection for Elaine. I couldn't help thinking how different it felt, sitting here openly with Donovan, instead of skulking in the corner of the George and Dragon with Geoff. But this again was something I couldn't share.

‘Where are we actually going?' I ventured to ask as we emerged from the smoky warmth of the pub to the raw air outside. Fine wet snow was falling vertically now, melting as it landed, refusing to settle. It was a relief to get back in the car.

‘Ardingly.'

‘I've heard of that. Why have I heard of it?'

‘There's quite a famous public school there.'

‘That's right. Didn't Wart go there?'

‘Possibly.'

‘And you're going to look at a garden.'

‘Correct. You can give me your advice.'

‘What do you want my advice for? I haven't got a clue about gardening. I can hardly tell a daffodil from a dandelion.'

‘You're an artist. You must have a good aesthetic sense. I know you have – I've got one of your books.'

‘Have you? What on earth would you be buying children's books for?' I asked, realising too late that this wasn't a terribly tactful remark. Donovan was oblivious.

‘Because it had your name on the front.'

I laughed at the unexpected compliment, and couldn't for a moment think of any suitable reply. ‘I'm surprised you remembered it,' I said at last.

Donovan gave me a pitying look: he wasn't even going to dignify such a craven piece of fishing with a reply.

‘I used to work there,' he said, a little later, as we passed a sign for Wakehurst Place. ‘Nice job. Terrible pay.' We were deep in the Sussex countryside by now and appeared to have left the snow behind.

‘You always said you wouldn't ever work in an office.'

‘And I never have. I'm a man of my word, you see.'

On the outskirts of Ardingly we turned right down a stony track past the church. It reminded me of the approach to the Old Schoolhouse, before it was done over and turned into luxury flats. The vicar was just coming through the gate with a fat Labrador on a lead. He gave the car a cheery wave, which Donovan returned.

‘Friendly place,' I said. We bumped down the track as far as it would take us and stopped just beyond the last of a row of terraced cottages. Donovan's truck was already parked outside. I must be very trusting or very dim, because I didn't even put two and two together when someone emerged from one of the neighbouring cottages to put a milkbottle on the doorstep and called out, ‘Hello'. It was only when Donovan produced a set of keys and let himself into the house rather than ringing the doorbell that it dawned on me he owned the place.

‘You live here!' I accused him.

‘I never said I didn't,' he replied. ‘Are you coming in?'

I stepped into a large, open-plan living room, extending the length and breadth of the ground floor. At the far end
was a kitchen area with a door into the garden, and against the party wall was an open-tread wooden staircase. There were polished oak boards on the floor and the walls were bare brickwork and white plaster, hung with a variety of prints and engravings. Two old red brocade sofas sat opposite each other across a stout coffee table. In the large stone fireplace an arrangement of logs and paper spills had been laid in the grate but not lit. The floor, the window ledges, the lintels, the rafters, everything was pleasantly wonky. It smelled of fresh paint and brickdust.

‘Goodness, this is grown-up,' I said.

‘Well, I'm thirty-seven. What were you expecting?
Thunderbirds
wallpaper?' He put a match to the firelighter in the grate and waited until the nest of newspaper sticks had caught.

‘It's very tidy,' I said. ‘You don't seem to have thirty-seven years' worth of clobber.'

‘That's divorce for you. My ex-wife got custody of the clobber. I kept the car. Anyway, I've only just bought this place, so I haven't had time to trash it yet. I've been doing up the inside in every spare moment for the last three months. I haven't even started on the garden yet. Come and have a look.'

He opened the back door and we stepped out into a wilderness of knee-high grass and thistles. Its position on the end of the terrace meant that the cottage benefited from a disproportionately large garden, extending around three sides of the house. In the middle of the lawn was an ancient pear tree, not yet in bloom, and in the corner, sagging against the boundary fence, was a dilapidated lean-to with a moss-spattered roof. Far below in a shallow valley I could see a cloud of cold, brittle trees, and the metallic glint of the
reservoir. ‘What a lovely view,' I exclaimed. ‘And it's such a big garden for the size of the house.'

‘I know. That's what attracted me.'

‘It needs a bit of work though. It's not a great advertisement for your gardening skills in its present state.'

‘No,' he laughed. ‘But it's a blank canvas. That's more fun than having to work round some existing feature that can't be touched.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘Knock down that shed and replace it with somewhere waterproof to keep all my tools and stuff. After that I don't know. What do you reckon?'

‘The first thing you need is a rope swing with an old tyre on the end,' I said. ‘And then maybe a nettle patch.'

‘I knew you'd be full of good ideas,' Donovan replied, giving me a sideways grin.

‘Do you still go for your moonlight rambles?' I asked, forgetting my own veto about reminiscing. ‘You used to be practically nocturnal.'

‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact, though not as much as I used to. I get these bouts of insomnia now and then, and one thing I can't stand is lying in bed awake. I have to get up. So I go off and plod round the reservoir. I haven't been here long enough to get bored with the route.'

It was too cold to linger outdoors: a few downy snowflakes were falling and my face was starting to ache, so we retreated to the kitchen. As Donovan was closing the door, a fat tabby cat extruded itself through the gap, and made for the hearth, where it stood, pawing the rug as though flattening long grass.

‘Is he yours?' I asked. ‘Or is he just a local?'

‘He's mine – don't go near him. He's vicious. Aren't you,
Weazlewort? Ever since I took him to the vet in a chilly box because I didn't have a proper cage.' He looked at my expression. ‘There wasn't an ice pack in it at the time,' he said.

‘Weazlewort,' I said, cogs grinding. ‘Where have I heard that name before?'

‘I don't know where you heard it,' said Donovan. ‘I know where I heard it. It's the name of my dad's solicitor. I always thought it was wasted on a human.'

The cogs connected; the machinery began to turn. Yes, I thought, smiling to myself at the strangeness of it all: that's where I heard it too. I was remembering something Alan once said to Mum:
If there's ever anything I can do for you.
And he knew my parents well enough to realise that an anonymous gift was the only sort they wouldn't be able to return. I wanted to say something, but I knew I couldn't. Hadn't I always been the guardian of the Fry family's secrets?

Donovan made coffee in a percolator on the hob. When he opened the fridge to get the milk I could see it was well stocked with proper food – another intimation of maturity that brought before me the practical, self-sufficient teenager he'd once been. From a tin on the slate countertop he produced a date and walnut cake, and cut off two fat slices.

‘Lovely,' I said. ‘Just like a bought one.'

We sat on opposite couches by the fire, which was still giving rather more colour than heat, and drank our coffee. It was so strong I could soon feel my heart galloping in my ribs. I told Donovan about Christian's forthcoming marriage, assuming correctly that this wouldn't have come up during their earlier conversation.

‘So things have moved on pretty quickly in the last week,' he said.

‘Not half,' I replied. ‘What a week.' I found myself telling him about Geoff's unexpected reappearance and fake claim to have left Mary, my unsuccessful attempt at flat-hunting, and Christian's generous handout. ‘Anyway,' I said, conscious that I had talked of nothing but myself, in greater detail than might have been interesting, ‘what have you been doing with yourself?'