The Good Mayor (14 page)

“My granny always told me you shouldn’t look out the window in the morning,” Agathe said.

“Because you might need something to do in the afternoon. Yes, thank you, Mrs. Stopak, I’ve always enjoyed that joke.”

“Well, now you’ve got something to do. It’s nearly five o’clock. The wedding, remember?”

“Yes, I remember. The ferry girl. What’s her name again?”

“Kate.”

As Tibo busied himself, putting on his jacket, straightening his tie, Agathe picked up his paper from the desk and looked at it for a moment. She said, “Twenty-four down. It’s ‘impi’—a Zulu regiment is an ‘impi.’ African troop says I am circular ratio. I’m pi. See? Impi.”

“What?”

“Impi.”

Tibo could only shake his head. “I sweated for hours over that. How do you do it?”

“I’m brilliant,” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Stopak, you are brilliant. A tribute to the schools of Dot. Kate?”

“Kate.”

“And?”

“Simon. She’s the redhead in the dress that’s a little too tight for her. He’s the spotty boy wondering how he got into this mess. All written down on the forms as usual.”

“Kate and Simon. Kate and Simon. Kate and Simon. Right, show them in.”

“On my way,” she said and she left the room with that easy, hip-swinging stroll that amazed Tibo every bit as much as her crossword abilities.

A moment later, Agathe returned, herding the wedding party. Tibo had taken the wooden lectern from its cupboard in the corner and now he stood behind it under the arms of Dot, under my smiling image, smiling himself to welcome them. But they were glum.

Tibo looked at poor, fat red-haired Kate and the only word that came to mind was “unfortunate.” An unfortunate dress, an unfortunate chin, unfortunate billiard-table legs and an unfortunate shade of ginger. Unfortunate. She walked behind the boy, Simon, pushing him along, driving him, unwilling, to make his declaration before the mayor. His face was a blaze of acne, a Biblical plague of pus-y boils—the sort of thing we saintly types would have condemned as a showy display of excessive zeal—and he wore a green suit which had certainly not been made for him.

Good Mayor Krovic came out from behind the lectern to shake their hands—his famous double-handed hand shake, the one where he gripped with his regulation, firm, dry grip and then wrapped his left hand over the top, just to emphasise the sincere depths of his genuine welcome. “Simon,” he said warmly. “Kate.”

They mouthed something at him.

“Are you alone?” Tibo asked.

They looked at each other. They looked back at him.

“Is there nobody else here?” Tibo tried again.

The boy said, “There was a lady who showed us in.”

“Yes, Mrs. Stopak—my secretary. But didn’t you bring a friend? How about your parents?”

Simon looked at his shoes or as much of them as peeked out from his gigantic trouser cuffs. “My dad wouldn’t come,” he said. “Says I’m crackers. Won’t have anything to do with it.”

“And my mum’s working,” said Kate.

Tibo looked at them. Kids. They were just kids. Children. He
had no business marrying children. Certainly no business marrying children whose parents didn’t care if they were married or not—didn’t care enough to see it done.

“I can’t marry you,” he said.

“Yes, you can,” the boy said. “We need to.”

“You need to. Do you want to?”

They looked at each other, the spotty boy and the unfortunate ginger girl.

“We need to,” they said together.

And Tibo realised with a wrench that he couldn’t prevent it. He had no right to prevent it. They were just another couple of Dottians he could not protect, not even from themselves. But then, he thought, maybe he liked them better for that. Maybe they were better people—more like the sort of people he wanted for his town because of that. Ordinary, ugly people in bad suits who “had” to get married. Maybe that was what a town like Dot needed—a sense of shame as well as a sense of pride. One without the other would be meaningless. One without the other would be dangerous.

“I can’t marry you without witnesses,” he said and he called Agathe into the room. “Mrs. Stopak, these two young people would like you and Peter Stavo to witness their marriage. Do you think you could find Peter and ask him to come in?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll take Kate to help me look.” Agathe held out her hand and gave a flick of her head. There was a smile in the gesture and, perhaps, something like a wink. Kate went to her. Simon and Good Tibo Krovic were left alone standing face to face across the lectern. Tibo cleared his throat. Simon smiled wanly.

Tibo decided to return to his chair and relax. “Maybe we should sit down,” he said. “They could be a while.”

“I’ll just stand, thanks,” said Simon.

So Tibo sat at his desk, looking at the boy’s back. He had chosen to sit and it would be silly and awkward now to go back and stand. Simon had chosen to stand. He couldn’t change his mind and sit. They were stuck there, facing the same direction, feigning fascination with me, spread-eagled like a bearded butterfly pinned to a shield. It did not aid conversation but Mayor Krovic had a
perfect view of the back of Simon’s neck, pink and angry where the barber’s razor had passed that morning. The stumps of three pimples formed a row of bloodied volcanoes along his collar.

There was nothing to say. Tibo fussed over the evening paper for a bit. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit?” he offered.

“No, I’ll just stand.” The boy half-turned his head to speak. The movement sparked an eruption on his neck. A spot of blood rubbed along his collar.

“Fair enough,” said Tibo.

And, eventually, after an age, Agathe returned. She had Peter Stavo with her, ordered out of his brown overalls, looking respectable and smart and she had worked a small miracle with Kate. The boy turned to look at her and his ravaged face split into a smile. Somehow, in the time they were away, Agathe had taken Kate and turned her into a bride. She had changed her hair, tied a silk scarf at her throat, done something with the little store of make-up she always carried in her handbag and Kate was holding in her hands a bouquet of blue flowers. Tibo recognised them. They came from the silver vase which stood in constant tribute in front of the picture of Mayor Skolvig’s last stand. “Why not?” thought Tibo. This is at least as courageous as anything Skolvig did.

Peter Stavo came forward and stood at Simon’s shoulder. They shook hands. “All the best,” said Peter and Agathe took her place alongside Kate, smiling.

They were all smiling, Tibo realised. Agathe had taken this small, shabby, shamed thing and made it happy. He stood at the lectern and read the words and, when it came to the time for Kate and Simon to hold hands, Agathe took the little bunch of flowers away and stood at one side, holding them, looking down on them.

Tibo had read the words so many times before and now it seemed as if he had never heard them until that moment. Everything a wedding service in a church could provide, they lacked. There was no poetry and no grandeur and no emotion. It was a simple bit of bureaucracy, an official stamp like a dog licence or a hawker’s permit but suddenly, today, Tibo found it strangely
thrilling. He read the bland formula aloud for Simon to say, haltingly, after him and, as he read the words, he imagined that he was saying them for Agathe, to Agathe, in his own right.

There she was, in her blue dress, looking modestly into the heart of a borrowed blue posy as he promised himself to her and her only forever and he felt his own foolishness, he felt the foolishness of it all—that the same stupid sense of shame and convention and conformity which had forced those two kids together kept him apart from a woman like Agathe.

When he said, “You may kiss the bride,” there were tears on Tibo’s cheeks. Agathe looked up and saw them there and she gave a little sob too.

“You softie!” she mouthed and turned away to dab her eyes. They had fooled each other.

And that was how it ended then, not sneaking down the back stairs but there, on the front steps of the Town Hall, in smiles and laughter and a shower of confetti that Peter salvaged from the trays under a dozen paper punches on the desks of a dozen clerks and pulled from his pocket as Tibo yelled, “Cheese!” encouragingly.

There was time for a drink—“Just one. No, honestly, no more. Oh, all right, then, you’re twisting my arm. But just one more and that’s all!”—in The Phoenix and then they parted with hugs—“The scarf? Keep it. Don’t be silly, it’s a wedding present!”—and hurried home, Tibo walking quickly up Castle Street, Agathe waiting at the tram stop at the corner of City Square, Peter climbing the stair to his flat above Dot’s second-best butcher’s and the kids, Kate and Simon, running away together, laughing down the hill to the future—whatever that might be.

Agathe looked after them and tried to decide what it was that she was feeling. Envy? Pity? Nostalgia? Anger? She turned away with a sigh.

A cold wind blew up Castle Street and, before his tram arrived, it lingered near Tibo, bringing him the sound of Kate’s laughter and the clatter of her feet as Simon hurried her over the cobbles. An unfortunate child—that was what he had called her. He chided himself for it now. They were plain, dull, ugly children both of
them, lumbering blindly into plain, dull, ugly, blighted lives but at least they were not going alone. “Unfortunate?” thought Tibo. “Damn you, Krovic, when did you get so high and mighty?”

The tram came. He had missed the rush of office workers and hurrying shop girls. It was quiet now, easier to get a seat with just a few other passengers including a couple like him—prosperous, well-dressed middle-aged men who had lingered a little too long in a city tavern because they could think of no good reason to hurry home.

After seven stops, Good Mayor Krovic got off at the kiosk on the corner and turned into his street walking under overhanging cherry trees until, halfway down, on the right-hand side, he reached his gate. It seemed to cling to the wall for support, like a Saturday-night drunk against a lamp post. “I must do something about that,” thought Tibo. “I really must.” He ducked under the birch tree where the brass bell hung in case of visitors and noticed a butterfly clinging to it and stamping feet as fine as horsehair on the rim. At the other end of the path, as he fished in his pockets for the big black house key, Tibo was sure he could hear a tiny ringing.

A few minutes earlier, in the centre of town, above Dot’s second-best butcher’s, Peter Stavo walked into a flat where the kitchen was steamy with stew and dumplings and he kissed the fat wife who had stood in front of that same stove these thirty years. She shooed him off with a tea towel and an angry tut and complained, “You’re in early tonight! And you’ve been drinking.” But, when she was sure his back was turned and he had settled into the chair with the paper, she looked at him with a smile.

And, on the other side of Dot, as the tram pulled away from Green Bridge, Agathe made an effort to pull her shoulders back and walk straight and tall as a poplar, curvy as a skittle, round the corner into Aleksander Street, past Oktars’ delicatessen and up the stairs to the flat where Hektor was standing on the landing, scraping a charred frying pan into the bin.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. Me and Stopak … You were late coming home so we thought we’d make the tea.”

Smoke wafted round the landing. It was even thicker inside the flat. “Have you called the fire brigade?” Agathe asked coldly.

“Aww, don’t be like that,” said Hektor. “Sorry, Agathe. Honest.”

“Where’s Stopak?”

“He’s inside. He’s having a little sleep.” Hektor giggled stupidly. “A little sleep. That’s all. Been a long day.”

“So you were hanging paper in The Three Crowns all day, were you?”

And all Hektor could find to say was, “Aww, don’t be like that. Sorry, Agathe. Honest.”

She looked at him with his cigarette sticking out from under that ragged moustache, a blunted knife in one hand, a blackened pan scored with bright silver scars in the other and she almost laughed. This was what her life had become.

“Throw it away,” she said. “Just drop it in the bin. It’s ruined. Not worth saving. It’s no good to me.”

He was going to say, “Sorry, Agathe,” again but he thought better of it. He dropped the pan and put the lid back on the bin.

“I’ll make you a sandwich,” Agathe said and, in the kitchen, she sliced bread and chopped ham and twisted the lid off pickle jars with all the cold fury of a harpy. Hektor said nothing. He ate his way through it and thanked her and left.

When Stopak woke on the sofa at 4 a.m. with a crick in his neck and a sick dryness in his mouth, his plate of sandwiches was still where Agathe had left it, balanced on his paunch.

And that’s how things were for Tibo and Agathe—every day much the same. Ordinary. They would get up in the morning and take the tram to work at opposite ends of town and she would busy herself and be sad because there was no one in the world who cared for her or wanted her while, just through that door, just on the other side of that wall, Good Tibo Krovic was miserable because there was nothing and no one in the whole world that he wanted unless it was Mrs. Stopak.

They fooled each other. They fooled each other at the wedding when Agathe thought that Tibo had shed a sentimental tear, never considering that he might have been weeping with frustration
because he wanted her and could not have her. And Agathe fooled him when she wept with jealousy for the fat baby growing in Kate’s belly and he never realised. They fooled each other every day in a thousand ways, neither of them daring to admit their lack, neither of them daring to speak their pain, each unwilling to confess the truth about their lives. They almost, almost fooled themselves.

And yet they comforted each other. Agathe with her buxom cheerful beauty—she couldn’t help being beautiful—and Tibo with his kindness. Tibo couldn’t help being kind. They warmed each other with those little gifts—kindness and beauty. They are precious. They are always in short supply.