The Northern Clemency (40 page)

“She’s not miserable or anything,” Sandra said brightly. “She doesn’t have all that much to do, she says, that’s all.”

“Oh, I didn’t take it the wrong way,” Katherine said.

“My brother’s in the same class as you, isn’t he?” Sandra said to Tim, finally turning directly to the unblinking gaze he’d held, steadily, not looking down even at his plate as his fork rose and fell. Tim blushed, stopped chewing, looked in agony at his mother. He was all right dropping fragments of his own dim, connected thoughts into the conversation. He tended to become unstuck when asked a specific question.

“I don’t
like
him very much,” he said finally, defensively.

“Oh dear,” Malcolm said, chuckling.

“That’s all right,” Sandra said. “I don’t like him much either.”

Katherine really rather admired that sort of tact.

You were always coming across odd items of clothing in unexpected places in the Glovers’ house. It might be underneath a cushion on the sofa, at the bottom of the stairs and halfway up them, behind a chair, on the work surface in the kitchen, or in a beguiling trail on the landing, marking the path Daniel took between front door and bedroom, or bedroom and bathroom. He was always depositing his clothes as he went from place to place, undressing in haste during his progress, so you could always rely on finding an old football sock, a pair of trousers, his blazer, his one school tie or a single shoe left carelessly at some public and shared place. In the same way, after a few months, you could never be sure that Sandra wouldn’t be found on her own, relaxed and at
ease, anywhere in the Glovers’ house. It wasn’t that she was treating it like her own house; it was more that Daniel was treating her like one of his ordinary possessions, which no one would question and somebody would sooner or later pick up and return to its proper place. But he invited her in and then deposited her somewhere. She didn’t seem to mind; and the rest of the family, even the polite ones, soon stopped asking her whether she wanted anything, a glass of water, something to drink or eat, soon stopped trying to entertain her as they passed. Any time between four and six, you might find Sandra sitting on the washing-machine, in a chair in the living room reading the
Radio Times
, on the stairs where Daniel had left her, or quite regularly lying on his bed, face down, reading a copy of
Jackie
she must have brought out of her bag, quite happy. Katherine was pleased, in a way, that Daniel was getting to know girls as people—it was clear that he was never going to like Sandra for any reason but herself, and Katherine couldn’t worry on Alice’s behalf about Sandra lying on Daniel’s bed.

It was one of those days. Daniel was outside—he’d spotted John Warner mooching up the road, had called to him out of a window and gone out to talk. He was five years older than Daniel, still hanging about at home, doing nothing much; a new friend of Daniel’s, and not one anyone thought much of. He’d left Sandra where she was, which was sitting on Daniel’s bed, his bedroom door open. She’d been entertaining herself. She’d got down a book of his from school, a Shakespeare play, and had been reading, not the play but the things he’d been writing in the margins. She’d picked up and looked at the model Spitfire he’d made from a kit, its joins hard and rubbery with excess glue—it hadn’t been much of a success, that hobby. From the window, you could see the complicated immaculate garden—there was a bed of tulips, supposed to be yellow but they’d all come up purple, to Daniel’s father’s annoyance. She wrote her name in the dust on the windowsill of Daniel’s room, and for a moment thought about opening up his drawers to see what colour his Y-fronts were. But she wasn’t that bothered. She sat down on the bed again with
Henry the Fourth Part One;
there was nowhere else to sit in the room apart from on the hard chair at the little desk. She sighed and, kicking off her black slingbacks, not untying them but loosening them with her heel, she put her legs up on the bed. She had a ladder in her tights.

“Hello,” she said. Daniel’s little brother, Tim, was on the landing. She hadn’t heard him coming, but he was outside, pausing as if he wanted to have a good look at her.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” the little boy said awkwardly. It was something he’d heard grown-ups say.

Sandra smiled. “No, I’m all right,” she said. “Unless you’re making one for yourself.”

“No,” Tim said seriously. “I don’t really like tea. Or coffee. I don’t like that even as much as tea.”

“Are you still in the same class as my brother?” Sandra said, for something to say.

“I think so,” Tim said. “He’s not really my friend, though.”

“That’s a shame,” Sandra said. “I expect you’re quite different sorts of people, aren’t you?”

Tim looked at her; he’d never considered the matter in that light before, it seemed.

“You don’t mind being my friend, though?” Sandra said.

“That’s stupid,” Tim said. But he came into the room.

Sandra looked at him, standing there. He expected something of her; perhaps he had an idea of what she did for his brother. She imagined what he thought, and then, quickly, she undid the top of her blouse, three buttons, opening it to show her bra.

“Do you wear a bra?” he said.

“Yes, of course I do,” she said. “All girls do, didn’t you know that?”

“I sort of knew that,” he said, still looking.

“Do you want to see?” she said, and, almost before he could nod, she reached down between her breasts, undoing the front fastener. “Come and feel what they’re like,” she said. They were floppy, the nipples pink and oval and big; he came over unwillingly, felt them dumbly. The movements he made with his hands were considered and blunt, like a child making handprints on paper, as if he would only be allowed to touch once. “Not like that,” she said, though she felt ashamed, and he pulled his head down, between her breasts. He just put his head there; you could feel the tension in it, knowing that at some level this was fantastic, what he was doing, but not knowing in the slightest what he was supposed to be doing, and she didn’t really know either. She just left it there, settling for adoration, and the weird noises of excitement and childish discovery he was making. It was funny rather than anything.

She closed her eyes, not in thrill or physical pleasure, but in relief that, after all, you could make someone do what you wanted them to do. Now, it was only a little boy who didn’t really know what he was doing, didn’t really know what enjoyment he was supposed to be taking from it. His truffling noises were, Sandra knew, the first imitation
of something he could only have seen in films and on the television; they were like the kissy-kissy noises boys made in playgrounds, no more than that. But she was pretending too. And it didn’t matter, because you started by making a Timothy do exactly what you wanted him to do; you worked up from there. Five-finger exercises, she thought, detached from all feeling, any practical emotion.

There might have been a noise. The bedroom door was ajar. There was nobody outside on the landing. “That’s enough,” she said, and pushed his head away. But he pushed it back, and now even started to fumble towards her bottom half. “No, that’s enough,” she said, pushing more violently and buttoning herself up.

“Will you take your pants off?” Tim said.

“Go away,” Sandra said.

“Please,” Tim said. “I’ve never seen one.”

“Go away,” Sandra said. “Or I’ll tell your mother.”

He got up, almost tearful, and left. There wasn’t much further that the little boy could have gone. He wasn’t going to tell anyone.

Whenever Sandra came round for dinner, they took to sitting for a while afterwards, all of them, in the sitting room. It was always nice when Sandra came; she had lovely manners, without being too effortful, and even Tim seemed to like her, always paying attention and listening keenly when she said anything, or even when she didn’t. It was always a shame when Sandra said she ought to be getting back. “Come as often as you like,” Katherine said warmly. “You’re always welcome.”

“I’ll walk you back,” Daniel said, and it was a surprise when they all laughed.

“You never walk Sandra back,” Jane said.

“And I think I can manage,” Sandra said. “I won’t get lost.”

“I know,” Daniel said. “But I’ll walk you back anyway.”

Jane made kissing noises, but Katherine told her not to be so stupid.

He didn’t know why he’d said, this one time, after she’d been coming so regularly for dinner, that he’d walk her back. He didn’t have anything to say to her. And, in fact, he did just take her out of the house, and across the road, leaving her at the gatepost.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Sandra said demurely, smiled and went to her door. “It’s always nice.” She didn’t try to kiss him; but he
knew she wouldn’t, and he didn’t really want it either. It was odd to feel like this about a girl.

It was a lovely evening, and he stood there for a moment. In the distance, at the top of the road, there was the noise of kids shouting. They’d taken to playing tennis in this quiet street—Wimbledon had finished last week, and set off a minor craze, hitting the ball backwards and forwards, getting off the road when a car came. A little clop, then some shrieks; they didn’t often manage to hit it back. It was getting a bit late; they were playing on into the twilight.

The drive to their house was lined with a thick, loose hedge, and as Daniel turned round, a figure stepped out from its shadows. He was startled: he hadn’t noticed the woman as he’d left the house, but she must have been standing there. She was chaotically dressed, half-buttoned cardigan over a sweater over a blouse, one collar hanging out, and a loose stained skirt and trodden-down boots; her hair was wild and unbrushed. She called to him, a subdued call, and he went over. He said nothing; raised an eyebrow. She looked terribly frightened.

“Is this your house?” she said eventually.

“Yes,” Daniel said. “Why?”

“Is that your little boy?” the woman said.

“My little boy?” Daniel said, not understanding. “I don’t have a little boy.”

“There’s a little boy who lives here,” the woman said.

“Yes, there is,” Daniel said. “That’s my brother, he’s called Tim. Why? What’s he done?”

“Your brother—” the woman said. Then she looked again at Daniel, looked at him properly. “Oh, I see, you’re young, you’re not—I thought you must be his father.”

This was so strange to Daniel that he said nothing.

The woman said nothing, too. It was as if she had made her point now.

“Do you want to speak to my dad?” Daniel said. “Or is it Tim you want?”

“No,” the woman said immediately. “Not him. I’ve been waiting here, I wanted to say—”

“Why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?” Daniel said, puzzled. “We were all in there.”

“Oh, I can’t do that,” the woman said angrily, as if Daniel ought to have known. “It’s got to stop.”

“It’s—”

“He’s got to stop, your brother, he can’t go on doing this to my son,” the woman said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daniel said. He had heard people say that; he said it as they said it, reasonably.

“I think you do,” the woman said. “I thought he was Andrew’s friend, visiting him like that—”

“Stop,” Daniel said. “Start from the beginning.”

The woman drew a deep, juddering breath. Daniel could not see why this was all so difficult for her.

“My son’s going to die,” she said. “Maybe very soon. He broke his leg, that was all, and then they found out there was a reason it broke so easily, and by the time they found out, it was too late. He went in with a broken leg, and he’s never going to come out.”

“I’m so sorry,” Daniel said. “But I don’t—”

“It’s your brother,” the woman said. “He’s been coming every day, it seems. We didn’t know, Andrew didn’t say. He’s been coming, and he wasn’t even his friend, never—he’s been coming because he found out that Andrew’s going to die, and every day he comes and he asks Andrew what it’s like to be dying, and he’s made Andrew promise that when he dies he’ll come back as—as—as a ghost and—”

“Oh, God,” Daniel said. “Are you sure it’s Tim?” but that was stupid, because of course it was Tim.

“He’s got to stop,” the woman said, now crying. “It can’t go on, it upsets Andrew so much. He’d kept it to himself and then today I went down, I can’t go very often, I can’t bear it on top of everything else, and he just came out with it. Day after day. What’s it like? Do you think you’re going to heaven or hell? Does dying hurt? Are your family upset, are they crying, have you seen any ghosts here in the hospital because so many people have died here, haven’t they, and you, you’re going to be another one, but when you die—”

She couldn’t go on. Daniel tried to put a hand on her shoulder. On the other side of the road, a man walking his Jack Russell before bedtime saw them, then looked away, muttering to the dog as it fussed excitedly around the thin trunk of a little tree. The pair of them must look inexplicable. She shrugged off his hand, angrily.

“I don’t want anything from you,” she said. “Or your family. I just want it to stop. He hasn’t got long, it might be a week or two. I want him to have some peace now.”

“It’ll stop,” Daniel said, not knowing what else to say, and then, having
extracted this promise, she turned away abruptly and started to walk down the road. “Don’t worry,” he called weakly after her. “He won’t do it again.” She stopped, but more like someone who thought they had been walking in the wrong direction, someone who was about to turn to take the right path. She didn’t reply; and in a moment she carried on, her awkward steps taking her to the corner and out of sight. Daniel watched her go. He had no idea who she was.

“—couldn’t manage the spear,” his father was saying. “There were only adult-sized ones, so he kept falling over it, and in the end—do you remember?—he said ‘I hate this stupid spear,’ and threw it in the brook, and stomped off in a—”

It was an unaccustomed grouping: his father in an armchair, leaning back and telling a story like a professional raconteur, his mother on the arm, laughing, and on the sofa Tim and Jane, leaning forward and enjoying the story. You couldn’t have asked for anything more. Daniel stood in the doorway.