The Children Of Dynmouth (17 page)

‘Cheers, Mr Plant,’ Timothy said.

Bent over a crate of bottles, with his back to Timothy, Mr Plant gave a startled grunt. He turned and peered into the shadows where Timothy was standing.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s me, sir. Young Timothy.’

Mr Plant took a bottle from the crate and advanced towards his visitor with it. He spoke in a low voice, saying a man could have a heart-attack, being crept up on like that.

‘Get off my property, son. I warned you this morning.’

‘I thought maybe you’d have time to think it over, Mr Plant.’

‘Keep your bloody voice down. Are you stupid or something? No one messes me, son. Clear off immediately.’

The voice of Mrs Plant called out from behind a lighted upstairs window, wanting to know whom her husband was talking to.

‘I don’t want to cause you any kerfuffle, Mr Plant. We’ll keep the secret –’

Mr Plant drove the base of the bottle at Timothy’s stomach, but Timothy side-stepped away from it.

‘Mrs Plant,’ Timothy said quite softly, and Mr Plant whispered that if he issued another sound he would thump him to a pulp. He drove the bottle in the direction of Timothy’s stomach again and he reached out with the fingers of his other hand in order to grasp the back of Timothy’s head.

‘Mrs Plant,’ Timothy said again, a little louder than before.

‘For God’s sake!’ whispered Mr Plant, and without further argument he agreed to convey the tin bath from Swines’ yard to the rectory garden on the morning of Easter Saturday. ‘Hop it,’ he whispered furiously. ‘Get to hell out of here now.’

As Timothy went he heard the voice of Mrs Plant again, demanding more sharply to know whom her husband was conversing with. The publican replied that he’d been talking to his dog.

All during supper, eating a pork chop and cauliflower and mashed potatoes, Stephen had wanted to be alone. He’d pushed forkfuls of food into his mouth, chewing it mechanically, drinking water to make swallowing easier. If he’d left it Mrs Blakey would have made a fuss, she’d have wanted to take his temperature, she’d have asked questions he couldn’t answer.

In bed it was easier to think. He’d never even seen the wedding-dress the boy had mentioned. His mother had shown him lots of things, photographs and even odds and ends she’d had as a child, but she’d never shown him her wedding-dress. It seemed strange that it should still be there, in a trunk. It seemed too strange to believe. Surely it was a lie that the boy had looked through a window of Primrose Cottage and seen it? Surely it was part of a make-believe, like imagining you were playing number three for Somerset? Timothy Gedge was a horrible sort of person, talking about honeymoons like that, saying Kate’s mother was peachy. Of course it was all lies.

He fell asleep, but hours later he woke up and felt again – as he’d felt for a moment in the hall when he’d arrived – that he shouldn’t be in this house. There was something wrong, there was something the matter. He felt it, not knowing what it was, like a feeling in a dream. He remembered now the faded green trunk the boy had mentioned. He could see it quite clearly when he thought about it. He could see his father lifting the lid and taking out the wedding-dress, not knowing what to do with it now that he was getting married again. In the warmth of his bed Stephen shuddered. When he tried to think he was unable to, as though he didn’t want to think, as though he was afraid to. ‘Mummy died,’ his father said again, and there seemed to be something wrong with the way he said it.

The Dynmouth Hards rode into the town that night and took away the telephone from the kiosk in Baptist Street. In the promenade bus-shelter they broke the window they hadn’t broken the last time they’d visited it. With their paint-guns they sprayed messages on the bonnets of four parked cars. They had hoped to find the Pakistani on his way back from night work in the steam laundry, but the Pakistani successfully avoided them. They swerved in front of Nurse Hackett’s Mini.

The men of Ring’s Amusements still worked in Sir Walter Raleigh Park, but the Dynmouth Hards knew better than to engage these men in any form of combat. They bought the last chips that were available in Phyl’s Phries and at one o’clock they drifted apart, not satisfied with their night out. Girls were dropped off at the ends of the roads where they lived, motor-cycles were pushed into front gardens and covered with P V C sheeting. The engines became quieter, purring quite ordinarily as they approached these resting places. In the yard of some lock-up garages one couple uncomfortably made love, their mock-leather garments still mostly in place. The girl, who happened never to enjoy this activity, ground her teeth together. ‘Lovely,’ she whispered through them, thankful when the youth had finished.

In the parents’ houses the Dynmouth Hards crept upstairs and into bedrooms in which other people slept, considerate because in their homes they were required to be. One of them dreamed that he was the mayor of a town in Australia. A girl who was a hairdresser gave Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia a blue rinse.

A better day today,
Miss Lavant wrote in her diary,
quite a bit of sunshine. Out shopping this morning. Mock’s have a new chap on the bacon counter. Apparently Mr Tares retired at the end of last week. Easter eggs in all the windows now, expensive. The nuns from the convent have bought a van. I was admiring it and one of them said it was a Fiat – Italian, which is suitable. While standing there I noticed Dr Greenslade drive by.

Miss Vine’s budgerigar Beano died that night, and so did old Miss Trimm, a favourite teacher once in Dynmouth Primary, whose declining years had tricked her into believing she’d mothered another son of God. She died in her sleep while dreaming that she was teaching geography, her mind quite lucid again. Beano died without dreaming about anything.

7

He clambered over the shingle at the bottom of the cliff and then up the cliff itself, arriving at the eleventh green. He was carrying the carrier-bag with the Union Jack on it.

He passed through the archway in the garden wall of Sea House, opening the white iron gate and leaving it open. He walked between shrubs and empty flower-beds, past the monkey-puzzle beneath which, in his confusion, he had stood the night before last, thinking about the wedding-dress. He’d had an addled idea that he wanted to stand there all night, so that first thing in the morning he could approach the kids and explain to them what it was he was after. As he paused by the monkey-puzzle now the dogs came running at him, barking and jumping, sniffing at his feet.

Mr Blakey came out of a distant glass-house, beyond lawns and flower-beds. He called at the dogs, but they paid him no attention. Timothy stood still, not wishing to be bitten by the animals.

‘I was wanting to see the kids,’ he said when Mr Blakey came closer. The man was known to him by sight and by name; he had nothing against him. ‘Nice day, Mr Blakey,’ he said.

Mr Blakey seized the dogs by their collars. He pointed at the house and ordered them to go towards it, which they obediently did.

‘I was talking to the kids yesterday,’ Timothy explained, giving Mr Blakey a smile. The man was staring at him, he noticed.

‘You came into this garden in the night,’ Mr Blakey said eventually.

Timothy, still smiling, shook his head. He said he was always in bed at night. He laughed companionably. ‘I think you had a dream, sir.’

At this point the children came through the drawing-room French windows. After a moment of hesitation they walked towards Timothy Gedge. Mr Blakey returned to his glass-house.

‘What d’you want?’ Stephen said.

‘I was thinking about the wedding-dress.’ He held out the bag with the Union Jack on it. ‘I have a carrier here for it.’

‘We haven’t got a wedding-dress,’ Stephen said quickly. ‘We don’t know anything about it.’

‘Is there a price on the wedding-dress, Stephen?’

Stephen didn’t reply. He began to walk back towards the house. Kate followed him, and Timothy followed, also.

‘Your dad’d have no use for it, Stephen. It’s still in the trunk, no good to anyone.’ He said he wished he could be friends with them. He reminded them that yesterday he’d bought them two tins of Coca-Cola.

‘We don’t want to be friends with you,’ Stephen said angrily.

‘Leave us alone.’

‘You’re older than us,’ Kate explained.

‘Fifteen.’

‘We’re only twelve.’

They had halted in their walk. Within the house, passing by the landing window, Mrs Blakey paused, surprised to see this older boy in the garden. It was odd that he should be there. Vaguely she wondered if Kate and Stephen had been up to mischief.

‘Your mum has no use for it either, Stephen.’

‘Stephen’s mother –’

‘Stephen’s mother’s dead, Kate.’

Stephen began to walk away again. Kate said:

‘It upsets Stephen, talking about his mother.’

She moved on, but Timothy Gedge moved with her. He remained silent until they had reached a flight of three stone steps between one lawn and a higher one, where Stephen was waiting. Then he said:

‘It’s no joke when your mother’s dead. It’s no joke for a kid, it could happen to any of us.’ He nodded at Stephen and Stephen stood still, waiting for him to turn and go, staring at him and frowning.

‘Plant’s going to convey the bath for me in his van, Stephen. Plant says the act’ll bring the house down.’

‘It’s all lies what you’re saying.’ Stephen’s face was flushed. He glared at Timothy and Timothy nodded at him, as if he’d misheard what had been said. He smiled at Stephen. He said:

‘Only I definitely need the wedding-dress.’

‘Well, you can’t have it. You’re stupid and pathetic. We don’t want to have anything to do with you.’

Mrs Blakey, recognizing that something was wrong, rapped sharply on the landing window and beckoned at the children. Timothy waved at her, endeavouring to indicate that nothing was the matter.

‘I saw you at the funeral, Stephen. I saw your dad. I saw your mum, Kate.’ He spoke keenly and with even greater friendliness than before. ‘Your mother’s finished with the dress, Stephen.’

They looked at him smiling his smile, one hand hanging limply by his side, the other grasping the carrier-bag. Then Stephen walked on towards the open French windows, and Kate walked beside him. When he’d said he’d seen Stephen at the funeral she’d felt afraid of him for a moment. Something in his voice had made her feel afraid, she didn’t know what.

He walked beside her and she knew he was still smiling. She could hear him sucking at a fruit gum.

‘D’you know the Abigails, Kate?’

She didn’t reply.

‘And the Dasses?’ He laughed. ‘They have a house called Sweet-lea.’

‘Please go away now.’ She put her head on one side, trying to make him understand from the look in her eyes that Stephen had been upset by the references to his mother’s death. He nodded at her. He said to Stephen:

‘A person can’t help himself, Stephen.’

At the landing window Mrs Blakey frowned. The boy looked strange, loose-limbed and broad-shouldered, with his very fair hair. The children seemed quite tiny beside him, Stephen even frail. He kept grinning at them as though they were all three the very best of friends, but clearly that wasn’t quite so. He was so very familiar on the streets of the town, with that zipped yellow jacket and his jeans, yet he looked like something from another world in the garden. He didn’t belong in gardens, any more than he belonged in the company of two small children. His presence puzzled her beyond measure.

‘A person has temptations. You could argue like that, Stephen.’

It seemed to them that he said anything that came into his head. His head was like a dustbin, with all sorts of rubbish mingling in it, and all of it eventually spewing out of his mouth.

‘Only the Commander was upset with nerves on account of a remark I made the other night. D’you understand what I’m referring to, Kate?’

‘How could she?’ Stephen cried. ‘How could she possibly make head or tail –’

‘The Commander’s gay as a grasshopper, homo-ing all over the joint. Out after cub scouts, lads in the Essoldo, anything you like. Up on the golf-course, down on the beach, in and out the windows. The wife never guessed.’

He smiled at Kate because she was frowning, seeming bewildered and even put out. ‘The wife didn’t guess till it slipped out when I was on the sauce the other night. She married a gaylord, Kate.’

Stephen shook his head, not believing that. There’d been a master at Ravenswood, a man called Funny Stiles who’d been given the sack because he’d made boys presents of whistles and fountain-pens. But Commander Abigail wasn’t like Funny Stiles. It couldn’t possibly make sense for a man who was married to go homo-ing about.

They had reached the French windows. It wouldn’t take two minutes to slip up to the attic, Timothy Gedge said.

‘I often saw your dad,’ he said, ‘out with the field-glasses. The day I saw him at her funeral I said to myself he was a fine man. I saw him standing there getting wet all over him and I said to myself he was a fine person. I said it afterwards to the clergyman. The way he stood, I remarked to the Reverend Feather, the way he bowed his head down over the loss of your mother, Stephen. There’s some stand any old how, you’d be really ashamed of them. You’d want to go up to them and tell them to do better.’

‘You’re half mad,’ Stephen said quietly, with anger just beneath the surface of his voice.

Timothy shook his head. ‘I thought the same thing the night I saw him with her wedding-dress. Not like Plant or Abigail, I remarked to myself. Not like Dass or the clergyman. I’d say your father looks a different kettle of fish, Stephen, and isn’t that the way to keep it? Any trouble your father might have we can hide under wraps. D’you get the picture, Stephen?’

Stephen stepped through the French windows and when Kate was in the drawing-room with him he stood in the opening, one hand on the frame of the window, to prevent the older boy from entering. ‘Don’t ever dare to come into the garden again,’ he ordered, with the same violence in his voice. ‘Clear off and don’t come back.’

He closed the window and latched it.