Playing with the Grown-ups (15 page)

He reached up and kissed her mother's nose.

'Thanks, Fred,' he said.

Kitty studiously ignored the moment, Jenkins reading the paper, her mother stirring porridge. She picked up her backpack.

'I'm going to be late for school,' she said.

'Bye, darling! Have a lovely day!' her mother called.

'Knock 'em dead, tiger,' Jenkins growled, saluting her.

'Kitty, you're so posh, innit? One phone not enough in your house?'

'My mum said that teenagers use the phone all the time and she didn't want to vie for the phone with me. Which is a bunch
of crap because I'm not on the phone that much. Did you ring me to insult me?' Kitty pursed her lips, but inside she was happy.

'Nah, I just rang you to say all right.'

'All right, Dylan?'

'Yeah, I'm all right,' he said.

Her mother and Jenkins were sitting on the beach, deep in conversation.

'Do you think they ever get bored of each other?' Rosaria said, watching them closely from the bench she and Kitty had chosen.

'They don't seem to. They find each other really amusing.'

It was Easter. Her mother decided that they should get the sea air. She and Jenkins said Torquay would be a 'jaunt'. Kitty
wanted to go to Cap Ferrat, and wear a dress of broderie anglaise, whatever that was. Violet and Sam didn't care as long as
there was sand and buckets and spades. Kitty insisted that Rosaria come, because sometimes her mother and Jenkins left her
out.

Jenkins loved Torquay in its off-season squalor. He made the children accompany him to the funfair every morning, where they
were the lone riders on a rollercoas-ter whose rickety skeleton caused Kitty to well with panic. His appearance was more eccentric
than ever due to the haircut she had given him. Her mother told him that he desperately needed a trim and Kitty volunteered,
saying that all of her friends let her cut their hair she was so good, which was a big lie.

She liked the idea of someone putting their head in her hands and trustingher; it made her feel warm and important.

She borrowed scissors from the front desk. She draped Jenkins in a towel, and rubbed his white head thoughtfully, examining
him from all angles.

'OK,' Kitty said. 'We shall begin. You need layers.'

Sam and Violet sat on the bed, eatingjelly babies as they awaited the transformation of Jenkins.

At one moment Kitty's haircut had potential, but it was brief, and she realised with each final snip that cutting hair was
not her forte.

'Perfect. Finished.' She rumpled the limp strands.

Violet and Sam started giggling.

'Great!' Jenkins smoothed it down. Hair sprang up in wild tufts.

'I look like my hero Ken Dodd. You are clever, Kitty.'

There was a pause. Her mother, from the bed, began to quake with laughter.

'That is the ugliest haircut I've ever seen in my life. Jenkins, you're lucky I love you so much, because you could now PLAY
Ken Dodd in a film biography. Good thing no one's making one.'

'Kitty, my lamb,' Jenkins said. 'You are good at a plethora of things, but I don't think hairdressing is among them. We must
immediately go out and get rosettes for a prize-giving. I win as the recipient of the ugliest haircut ever given in the world,
and you as the bestower of said haircut. We will have a celebration tonight, following the prize-giving. Fred, you will give
out the prizes. Sam and Violet will perform a re-enactment of the tragedy; Rosaria will be the barmaid, and Nora the director.
Fred in bed is also the audience.'

Kitty heard them through the floor. So did Sam and Violet. They crawled into her bed.

'Can you turn the television up there off, Kitty?' Sam said. 'I don't like the programme that's on.'

'Let's pretend that we're on a boat, Violet is the captain, Sam is the oarsman. I'll be first mate,' Kitty whispered, pulling
them close. 'We're escaping the old country, and we're going to an island where they eat nothing but rice pudding and drink
coconut milk, and they dance on the shore, and toys grow from trees. Before you go to sleep there there's a royal arm tickler,
whose only job is to tickle your arms. The king of the island is a big jolly man who looks like Father Christmas in a skirt,
and the queen is the tooth fairy. Shall we row?'

'Yes,' the twins said in unison, their small starfish hands pressing against her.

After the crying, there was the making up, which she couldn't give a form to, because she had nothing to relate it to. Murmurs,
soft molasses sentences that culminated in gasps, and breaths and the bed creaking. Her mother's pleasure sounded like surprise.

The house was still then, and her mother and Jenkins slept, oblivious to dawn, or the milkman.

Sometimes the phone rang, late in the night, but there was never a voice, just a crackle that sounded like it came from seas
away. When her mother answered, and was greeted with silence, she hung up crisply, but if Jenkins and she were out, at dinner,
or drinking with one of his many friends at the Chelsea Arts Club, Kitty hung on for minutes, repeating 'Hello, Hello?' deep
into a space that did not answer her.

They drove down to the countryto have lunch with Katie, who had a title and a new husband. Lily in the box was with the old
one for the weekend. Nora loved going there because they always got good food, and after lunch she could take Sam and violet
to the estate farm to see the sheep and collect eggs from the bantams who nested in the barn.

When Kitty was little she thought that she must have lived at Slip Hall in another life because being called for dinner by
a bell and having someone turn down your bed and warm it before you got in it seemed so utterly natural to her.

Jenkins made Katie's wizened deaf Aunt Tory, who sat in state permanently affixed to her chair by the fire, blush and twitch
like a schoolgirl. She was usually allowed one watery sherry before lunch, but Jenkins slipped her sly tumblers when no one
except Kitty was looking. She drank them as though she had been in a drought, her rheumy eyes sparkling with gratitude.

At lunch Jenkins sat between Katie and Kitty, and he did magic tricks with the napkin ring, and whispered jokes that made
Katie clutch the pearls at her neck and giggle.

Oliver, Katie's new husband, looked over in disdain.

'Where is it you live - Jenkins, is it?'

'I'm living with Fred and the brood in Clapham,' Jenkins replied, kicking Kitty under the table.

She swallowed a laugh.

'Yes, but where are you FROM?' Oliver curled his lip.

'Bromley by Bow,' Jenkins answered him, his gaze unwavering and clear.

'Oh. Quite. How novel.'

Katie rolled her eyes. Kitty saw her mother talking to the bishop next to her in an animated way; he looked slightly dazed
and was nodding vigorously.

After lunch, Kitty went with Nora, Violet and Sam to the farm. Kitty felt the same thrill as her seven-year-old self had when
she pulled an egg brown and warm from a hole in the hay. They walked down the lane and watched the lambs, gawky and unsteady,
teetering away from them to the safety of their mothers.

Jenkins appeared, equally lamblike in his gait, yet there was nothing soft about his face, which was stretched into an unfamiliar
mask.

'We're leaving.'

'What about tea?' Sam looked disappointed. He loved tea.

'No. No tea. We're going. Your mother's saying goodbye to Katie. I'll be in the car.'

Kitty looked at Nora, who shrugged her shoulders.

In the car everyone was quiet. Jenkins drove, very fast, his mouth a thin slash.

'Is something the matter?' Kitty said.

Nora gave her a warning look.

'Yes. Something is very much the matter,' Jenkins said.

'That man, that filthy unspeakable man . . .'

'Not in front of the children, please,' her mother said dully.

'No, fuck it. Kitty should know. That filthy little man insinuated that I had some sort of disgusting interest in you.' Jenkins'
voice trembled like reeds.

She didn't understand.

'What do you mean?' She felt like things were shattering in her head.

'I mean that he thought I was interested in going to bed with you.'

'Jenkins, please!' Her mother turned to him beseechingly.

'But that's not true! You're like my father . . .' Kitty shouted. 'That's bloody disgusting!'

Her brain couldn't connect this information to the rest of her. She thought she might be sick. All the way back to London
she sat with her forehead pressed against the window, not looking at anyone, suffused with shame.

Jenkins was playing old Rodgers and Hammerstein songs on the piano her mother had bought him.

'Yes. I'm good at secrets.' He took a swig of his Martini.

'I think, although she wouldn't admit it, that Mummy really misses her parents, even though she seems angry with them, and
I think that the reason she's still not talking to them is because she's stubborn, not because she's truly angry . . . They
didn't really do anything - they were just worried. I think that if you and I went to see them, and they met you, and saw
how well everything's going, how happy you make her, that they might all make up. You're very persuasive, and I know they'd
like you. We could surprise her. I've thought about it, and we could go on Saturday when Mummy goes to see Charleston. We
could go on the train. If that happened, then everything would be perfect, more perfect then it is now even. What do you think?'

Jenkins rubbed his stubble. He paused.

'I think it is kind and dear and it absolutely has to work. I love a mission. Saturday it is.'

Jenkins bought first-class tickets, and they sat in the smoking car. He wore a fraying grey tie, and a white linen jacket,
whose creases matched his own.

He sat down and ordered a bull shot. He opened a game of Travel Scrabble.

'Could my wife have a drink?' he said to the attendant.

'Jenkins!' Kitty said. 'He's not really my husband.' She felt herself turning red. 'He's just making a joke.'

'Don't be bashful, darling. I picked her up in Mississippi. Lovely, isn't she?' Jenkins wouldn't stop the game.

'What do you want to drink?' the attendant said as if Kitty was stupid.

'Orange juice, please.' She kicked Jenkins under the table.

'Ha! That'll give them all something to talk about,' Jenkins said after the attendant went away.

'Look at the fields! Look at the sheep! Look, the station's coming - that's the bridge that I had to walk under to get to
school. We're here!'

Jenkins took a deep breath.

'It's beautiful,' he said, putting an extra-strong mint in his mouth.

Bestemama was wearing her big straw hat, and knelt over the lavender bush, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

Kitty called out, uncontained, running towards her.

'Bestemama, my Bestemarna!'

Bestemama dropped her pruning shears.

'Kitty! Oh my Lord! Kitty, what are you doing here? You're so tall! Harald, Harald, look! Kitty's come home!' Kitty threw
herself upon Bestemama, who held her tightly, laughing as she murmured Scandinavian terms of endearment, which rolled over
each other, breaking gently.

'I decided to surprise you,' Kitty said.

'What a wonderful surprise. How did you get here . . .?'

Bestepapa came out of the front door slowly, resting on his stick.

'What's this noise for, woman?' he said. 'Can a fellow not have his forty winks in peace any more?'

He stopped abruptly when he saw Kitty.

'Is that my little one? Standing in my garden?'

'It's me,' she said.

He yelled out, dropping his stick, and tears bigger than normal tears fell from his eyes, coming a cropper in the craggy obstacle
course of his face. He wiped them away with his huge hand.

'I knew you'd come back,' he said. 'Where's everyone else? Where's Marina? Where's my favourite Irish harpy?'

Kitty remembered Jenkins then, who when she turned to look, was teetering on the edge of the drive, as if he were afraid to
commit to the lawn.

'This is Jenkins,' she said.

'Would you like a drink, Mr Jenkins?' Bestemama asked.

'I'd love a Bloody Mary. Don't worry, I can make it.' Jenkins poured himself a tumbler three-quarters of the way full with
vodka, and the tomato juice that followed made a thin pink cloud on top.

'Jenkins is a composer,' Kitty said. 'And a brilliant musician. You should hear him play,' she added proudly.

Jenkins held up a shaking hand, as if to halt her, and put it quickly back on his lap.

'My agent here.' He smiled at Kitty. 'I'm on a sabbatical. I'm researching a book on Mahler.'

After lunch, Bestepapa took them to see his greenhouse, and Kitty knew that he liked Jenkins, and was glad.