The Circle (2 page)
Authors: Elaine Feinstein
–You aren’t enjoying it, he accused her, and she sank back in herself sullenly. Missing Alan from whom she had longed to be free. Stupidly craving the expensive hot coffees that ate into their little money.
–I’m lonely, he would say. Because you don’t want to see these things with me.
And she wanted only to sleep. In lovely Tarragona where they came at 2 a.m. to a pink city the streets crowded with dancers, she wanted only to lie down
sickly in her room. And he left her to it. But she couldn’t sleep without him and lay there listening to the shouts in the hot streets, and the peculiar thud of car doors in hot dry air, the open streets. And when he came back, he seemed resentful, where she had wanted him guilty.
She made him lonely, she remembered. And he so much wanted to find some place where there was life going on. He would have gone further south in pursuit of it, and she wanted only to go home, to go back at least to Perpignan and pick up a letter from the poste restante to see how Alan was. And the chance of a lift decided it, she won her point, and he followed her. Feeling it one more trick, not her trick, but his own, on himself; that always he cheated himself out of what there was could reward him.
Up from Marseilles it rained all the way and the lorries wouldn’t stop. They used more francs than they wanted to buy plastic mackintoshes from the Uniprix stores; and then stood out in the cold the rain lashing at them. More companionable then, as she remembered it, than in the sun; dourly friendly even, as they
withstood
the absurd situation of days going by in their attempt to get north. Only occasionally he remembered what might have been further south and she felt her resistance going. In the front of the big lorry that finally picked them up they sat over the engine, catching their flesh on the hot metal at intervals, and shaking with the vibrations. They took it in turns to speak to the driver over the screaming noise. And to one another they said little.
*
There
was the shirt. And clean enough she decided. How would she get it dry if she washed it now, so nearly morning? She began putting out the lights. She could
hear the milk bottles going down on the step, the whirr of the milk cart starting up. No light yet. Late January. the streetlights still lit the hall as she went up. And lay on the closed bed shivering dry eyed. Under the eiderdown. Waiting for seven o’clock.
Michael woke reluctantly between hot wet sheets. Tentatively lifting his head and bare shoulders, he looked over to his brother’s bed. Which lay open and empty, in daylight, pyjamas sprawled across it.
Sinking
back, Michael blew a long stream of air into the chill room, sadly watching the cloud of his own breath.
Late: and cold. And the heater at the other side of the room. He closed his eyes and hoped the problem would disappear. That his mother would come, or perhaps his brother if he were feeling friendly.
But no, his brother was not friendly. He was dressed already even to his scarf wrapped twice across his face.
–No, you can’t have the blower on, you just sit in front of it. And it’s late, he said. Michael smiled and shut his eyes at this, because now he came to think of it, he didn’t care if he was late or not, and Alan did.
–If you don’t put the heater on, I won’t get out at all, he pointed out. Alan glared and then moved to set up the heater, gathering as he did so two socks and a pair of underpants quite usefully.
–Now get up.
But Michael lay there listening to the air from the blower.
–Get up. Alan’s voice broke with irritation. He left the room and began calling, Mummy, Mummy.
Michael threw off the sheets, and rushed to the little grey heater. And crouched there balancing on his heels and buttocks taking the hot blast of dry electric heat straight on his thin belly. And hung there, his arms supporting himself round his knees. Thinking he did not want to go to school at all. Not even to
drive
to school with the neatly dressed Parsons children in the back seat, making silly jokes about his hair, and telling him what nice parties they were going to have, and not inviting him. Not to go into the schoolroom and have the other children look up at his entry, and nudge one another and giggle at him, as though he were some kind of monster because. Now he looked at his socks and remembered. They didn’t match. A great despair overcame him at the thought.
And now the first strained call of his mother came up at him from the kitchen.
–Michael, aren’t you ready yet, your egg’s on the table.
–Have you got a sock with a red stripe at the top? he called back, without much hope.
There was no reply. Perhaps, he thought, if he turned both the tops down twice. And was standing there naked but for his socks, looking down at his thin legs when Adam returned, looking more unhappy now than angry.
–Oh god do come on Michael, she’s very cross this morning.
Hopelessly Michael put on his trousers, shirt and tie, what did it matter who
was
cross. He shrugged at it bleakly, and yet there was a qualm too. Going down the
big staircase after his brother towards his mother in the kitchen.
*
White face green-coated her black hair flying she appeared to him at the base of the stairs, and he looked at her gravely, determining: if she screams at me I will fold in here and sit like a spider. But she was not looking at him, she was tearing at the letters in her hand, thrusting some of them unread into her coat pocket.
–Are they bills? he asked her curiously. She looked up savagely then for a moment.
–I won’t have any breakfast, he suggested, coming down past her, looking for his coat.
–Don’t be silly.
But he shook his head, saying: I don’t deserve it.
–Nonsense. She seized him passionately, pushing her face against the back of his neck, kissing him again and again. He was bewildered, obedient. Followed her into the kitchen.
It was very confusing. Some days she loved him. Mysteriously. When they lived by the sea. One winter’s Sunday they went out together along the wooden pier, past the closed up arcades, sharp salt wind on their cheeks, sky brown as snow slush. And the sea was brown, too, they looked down at it together through the cracks in the wood, and over the rail to confirm it, the brown river-colour of the water moving in over the sandy pebbles, the foam of the sea drying into the sand.
She hadn’t wanted to go on to the sands, it was cold, it was January, they only had a few moments, she told him; and then suddenly agreeing, they had climbed over the banked up pebbles together, on to the beach, and were running, hand in hand, the strong weed smell and the sea smell warm in their faces, no wind down
there with the pier behind them. Shouting. You can shout all you want on a beach. Lovely, she was
shouting
, they were dancing together, their feet crunching on the pebbles, slipping and laughing together on the little stones, dancing.
Now he munched his rice crispies, one eye on the clock, and his mother flew around looking for the keys to the car. His brother was muttering after her for his bus-fare so he could go off alone, and she gave it him, absent-mindedly as she searched.
–I will be very sensible today, Michael thought, and not quarrel with anyone. And stood blue with cold on the pavement waiting for her to back the car out of the garage, repeating that, his fists poked into his pockets, his mouth pursed with determination.
But as soon as the two Parsons children got in, each one in blue peak cap and carrying their shining satchels he knew that was useless. Slumped in his brown duffle coat he gave them a shy smile, and then kept silent.
–Do you know, began the elder boy, taking up a
conversation
of the previous day, my Dad has lots of cows and sheep.
–of our own, added the smaller one
–and 2 big cars, and a milk lorry, and 4 tractors, finished his brother triumphantly.
Michael met Lena’s warning eye in the mirror.
–My father, he began, nevertheless, has a centrifuge. And that cost
£
10,000.
–What’s that, said the younger boy.
–A machine.
–Well, we’ve got LOTS of machines. Machines that dig big holes. We’re going to dig a big big hole and put you in it.
–Then I’ll just climb out again, said Michael.
–Oh no, said the older boy. We’d put a wire net on the top and you couldn’t.
–I’ve got special clippers, said Michael. That’s all right. I’d just cut my way out.
But the little one insisted. –No, we wouldn’t let you. Lena from the front seat interrupted, tensely. –That doesn’t sound very kind, does it? Do you think your mother would like that?
As they passed the garage: it was three minutes to nine.
–Are we late? The boys asked together.
–A bit, she had to confess it.
On Michael the full weight of the day descended.
And when he got to school he remembered three other things: the fountain pen, a spelling test, and a reply he was supposed to bring from his mother. The last day, Mrs. Taylor had said on Monday, and now here it was, how could he have forgotten again? He didn’t know, found his desk and sank behind the open lid, shuddering. Entered his own dream.
By ten o’clock: I’m ill, he thought hopefully. Put his hand to his head. Hot burning. Perhaps he had proper spots, like chicken pox, at first no-one had believed him but when the spots came.
Into a lovely white bed, he remembered. His mother gently tipping him into it. And tidying round his room, so that it was clear as a little box: flying, at the level of the trees, at the level of the sycamore. You could see the birds on it, he liked to see them hop, but the light hurt his eyes. And his mother looked after him and brought him. Chicken soup, that’s right, hot golden soup. He had a sore throat. She sat on the end of his bed and. Looked through his Brighton pebbles, feeling their smooth shapes the way he liked to, loving their mineral patterns. Old as the earth, she said, holding them up,
looking deeply into them, their strange browns and blue blues, the lines on them, from the heat of all those years ago.
–Michael, did you hear me?
He stood into the exposed glare of Mrs. Taylor’s eye. As the break bell went.
–Can I stay in, for break? he asked her. I’m getting flu, I think.
And was permitted.
But not alone. There was Jane Ellis, he saw, when the class had roared out to the playground. She had one dainty wrist tied in a white bandage, but Michael knew that must be an excuse really, and as Mrs. Taylor left they exchanged sly grins. She sat on the desk: as neat and gentle as a little animal. White socks and red shoes swinging as she looked at him.
There was a Kit Kat he remembered, unfinished from the day before.
Shyly shyly –do you like it, this stuff? he pushed it over to her, and she smiled at him, her fingers willing to remove the silver paper that had somehow melted into it, her teeth biting crisply on the biscuit.
Encouraged, he opened his desk fully and looked for things to show, brought out his pink Origani gondola, said
–Can you make these?
and she took it from his fingers, delicately, wrinkling her nose
–What is it
–A boat.
She put her fingers under the seat of it, very carefully, and then gave it him back. In desperation he brought out everything he could find. Boxes shells stones. And she went on sitting there, licking the chocolate with her pink clean tongue, smiling and
swinging her legs while he laid out his treasures for her.
*
–Hey, look who’s in here?
Michael’s head lifted swiftly. The voice belonged to the elder Parson boy Colin. And there he stood in the doorway with two other boys from a bigger class.
–What are you doing with
him
,
said Colin.
Jane swung her bottom off the desk and said: It’s so
BORING
in the playground.
The boys came into the classroom and stood round her, themselves uncertain. One of them grappled Colin from behind, and then fell noisily to the floor with an exaggerated howl of pain. The other pulled at the neat red bow in Jane’s hair and she shook her head, and began to do it up again. But she was not cross, Michael could see that, though she pushed the boy away from her.
–Look. Colin picked up the little pink boat
–Leave that, said Michael, unwisely.
–Oh: it’s yours, is it, said Colin. Holding it out for inspection at arm’s length.
–Yes. Michael could feel his heart beginning to bang very fast. But he didn’t care he didn’t care. –Put it down.
Colin investigated it with his blunt finger almost as carefully as Jane had done. He seemed to be wondering what to do next.
–Catch, he said suddenly. And threw it over Michael’s head to the boy behind him.
Michael refused to jump up for it. He said: as
reasonably
as he could manage. Don’t spoil it, will you?
–It’s only a rubbishy bit of blotting paper, said the tallest of the boys, who now had it in his left hand,
holding
it up out of reach. Michael remembered. No
fighting. He’d promised. Anyway, there were three of them.
–It’s my piece of paper, he argued.
The gondola flew again over his head, and floated to the floor. Colin put his foot on it, and looked around him. Jane was biting her hand, watching avidly.
Michael looked at the clock. Five minutes till the end of break. He could hear the ticking. I don’t care I don’t care I’ll kill him. His hand found one of the heavier stones on his desk. Which the three boys saw: and closed in on him.
–Colin, screamed Jane.
But Michael didn’t care, he didn’t care he couldn’t feel he didn’t care what hurt him, his thin desperate wrist would find some mark and there. Was the softness of Colin’s astonished mouth, he could just feel someone pulling his hair to lift him off but he didn’t care. If his knuckles were torn. He wriggled and kicked. Eyes streaming. There was blood between Colin’s teeth.
As the bell rang. And solemn black-eyed furious: Mrs. Taylor stood over all of them I don’t care, thought Michael. And surreptitiously with his foot scooped towards himself the still unharmed pink gondola from the floor.