Various Pets Alive and Dead (14 page)

A society’s greatness is measured by the way it treats its weakest members.

 

As soon as Clara enters her classroom on Monday morning, she senses something has changed – a subtle alteration of smell or mood. The room is quiet, but the texture of the silence is different. Something’s missing. Then she realises Hamlet’s cage door is fastened – but the cage is empty. She forgot to check on Hamlet before she went home on Saturday. She has a vivid flashback to the chaotic scene on Community Day and, although 6F is due to arrive any minute, she rushes off to find Mr Philpott.

He’s sitting in the boiler room reading a book, wearing two pairs of glasses, one on top of the other, because the light’s dim and murky. The boiler is smouldering with a dry clinkery smell, and the air is opaque with heat and smoke. A fine layer of ash and coal dust coats every surface.

‘What happened to Hamlet, Mr Philpott?’

‘Alas, poor ’amster …’

She feels her stomach lurch. Could she have saved it, if she’d remembered to check on Saturday?

‘But where’s the body? He needs a proper burial.’

‘What did you ’ave in mind? Christian? Muslim? ’Indu?’

‘Er … what d’you suggest?’

He doesn’t say anything, just cocks his head over to one side, and she realises he’s indicating the boiler.

‘You mean … Hamlet …?’

‘Cremation. No muckin’ around in’t graveyard.’

Just then, there’s a knock on the door and a pale knobbly scalp pokes in. It’s Jason, his head newly shaved. It looks awful.

‘I came to find you, miss. Please, miss, the kids are all waiting.’

‘Oh – I’m sorry! Thank you, Jason!’

As she makes for the door, Jason shuffles up to Mr Philpott in his oversized trainers, and mumbles, ‘Me mam says can you lend me some dinner money, sir?’

‘Jason, you know Mr Philpott can’t …’

But Mr Philpott is already fumbling in his wallet for a fiver.

Jason grabs the money, says, ‘Ta very much, sir,’ and disappears.

There’s a near riot by the time she gets back to her classroom. They’ve been on their own without a teacher for all of five minutes, and already anarchy has set in.

‘Miss, miss, what ’appened to t’amster?’ Tracey Dawcey shrills, as she enters.

‘I saw it Sat’day, miss. It were ’ung upside down on’t wheel,’ Robbie Lewis shouts. ‘Its ’ead wor ’angin’ reyt off! Blood were drippin’ out!’

‘Miss killed it, din’t you, miss?’ yells Jason.

It’s what Hobbes called the war of all against all, and she has to be the Leviathan, a role she quite enjoys. She fixes them with the Look and t-a-l-k-s v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y a-n-d f-i-r-m-l-y. It’s such an obvious act, yet the kids fall for it every time.

They like strictness, it makes them feel secure.

She tries to have a word with Jason at lunchtime, but he’s disappeared, and she spends the hour on the phone trying to track down the man from Syrec who – surprise, surprise! – has not turned up to collect the plastic bottles and newspapers as promised. All she gets is an answering-machine message referring her to a mobile number which plays a message directing her back to the first number.

At the end of the day, when all the kids grab their bags and scattered possessions and stampede for the exit, she collars Jason, and blocks his way by putting her arm across the door.

‘Jason, I think you should give that money back to Mr Philpott.’

‘Why, miss? ’E give it me.’

‘I think he thought he was helping your mum out …’

She suspects the loan had nothing to do with Mrs Taylor, and was just a flash of opportunism on Jason’s part. She hesitates, stuck for words. Jason puts her right.

‘You mean ’e thinks ’e can shag ’er for five quid?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Let me go, miss. I’ve got to meet my nana. Is it true, miss, you killed t’amster?’

‘Of course not.’

But in the moment that she loses concentration, Jason ducks under her arm, wriggles past her, out through the door, and he’s gone.

After tidying the classroom, she goes to find Mr Philpott. Her argument with Jason has upset her. At times like this, she feels like she’s getting nowhere with these kids – like she’s a fool for even trying. But Mr Philpott is in no mood to cheer her up. He’s in the lobby, still cleaning up the debris from Community Day, swabbing down the floor with soapy water and Zoflora.

‘All this muck!’ He waves his brush towards the plastic bottles and newspaper mountain heaped untidily at one end of the hall. ‘You should never ’ave encouraged ’em. Give ’em an excuse, an’ they’ll bring their dead grannies in for you to burry. Load of dicky dodgers around ’ere.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Philpott. I’ve been trying to contact the recycling firm. Let’s put the rubbish in the boot of my car, a bit at a time, and I’ll recycle it at the supermarket in Sheffield. Look –’ she reaches inside her bag for a five-pound note ‘– I’ve come to give you this back.’

‘What’s that for?’

She had intended to lie, to tell him that Jason had given it back voluntarily. But an unexpected wave of truth captures her, and she finds herself saying, ‘Mrs Taylor’s very pretty, but I don’t think she’s right for you, Mr Philpott.’

‘You think I’m too old?’ He removes his glasses and gives them a polish.

‘No, not too old. But … maybe she’s too young.’

He folds the five-pound note and stows it in the breast pocket of his dungarees.

‘You know, there’s a lot a gentleman of my age can offer a beautiful young widow.’ He winks. ‘Don’t be upset about t’amster, duck. I’ll get you another one.’

At half past four, as she makes her way out to the car park, she notices Jason is still there, loitering by the school gates. A moment later a woman approaches – an older woman, smartly dressed – jacket, lipstick, high heels – quite different from the other mothers in their jeans and jumpers.

Jason runs up and hugs her. It must be his nana.

The woman, aware of being watched, looks up. For a moment their eyes meet and hold.

Clara feels a chill of something long buried.

Why does she seem familiar?

Monday morning. Maroushka acknowledges Serge’s greeting with her usual four-finger wiggle. He searches her face for a hint that she’d spotted him following her and the blonde woman on Friday night, but she is typically inscrutable.

‘Gut veekend?’

‘Yes, thanks, Student Princess.’

Does she wonder what happened to her shoes that are at this moment standing to attention on the bookshelf in his bedroom, getting ready for their big moment? He can’t wait to see the look on her face when he gives them back. He must remember to ask her about the Iranian War.

At lunchtime he follows her as she leaves the trading floor, catches a crowded lift down to the atrium, and exits the building. Where the hell is she going? He walks along the pavement looking for her, but she’s vanished.

Student Princess Maroushka!

Hear the song of Serge!

My song of love,

It’s not a dirge …

Trouble is, not many things rhyme with Serge, and even fewer with Maroushka.

The air is warm and soggy. A distant barrel of thunder rolls out over the rooftops. At Pret A Manger he grabs a sandwich, which unfortunately turns out to be crayfish (they don’t seem to have proper food around here), and heads back towards the office, quickening his pace, but he’s still a couple of blocks away when the storm breaks. He ducks into a doorway with a crowd of damp strangers, pressed together watching a sheet of water pour down in front of them. The thunder rolls again, much closer now. Suddenly it crashes almost overhead. He feels a moment of sheer terror – and in a flash his mind leaps back to another terrifying storm, years ago.

He and Otto were kids, and Nick Holliday was putting them to bed, up in the attic at Solidarity Hall. He remembers cowering under the sheets from the terrible volleys of thunder, and the fierce rain drumming on the eaves. ‘Maybe a butterfly flapped its wings somewhere,’ Nick had said. Otto had flapped his arms and laughed nervously. But as Nick talked, Serge had lost his fear, captivated by the image of the butterfly beating its tiny wings and moving an imperceptible current of air, tipping some subtle balance, which, magnified a million times in motion, unleashed a hurricane that caused palm trees to bend double, and huge waves to lash a faraway coast.

Maybe Maroushka’s like that – sensitive-dependent on initial input, the way a small variation at one point of a dynamic system can have magnified effects elsewhere. He just hasn’t found the right trigger yet to release her typhoon of passion. While he stands waiting for the rain to clear, and pondering the mysteries of women, the phone rings in his pocket. He checks the number before answering, but it’s only Otto, calling up for a blab, still effusive with thanks.

‘Man, you saved our lives … I’ll pay you back when I get a break … Molly says hi too.’

‘No problem … yeah … say hi from me.’ Serge lets Otto’s words wash over him like rain. ‘Funny – I was just thinking about you and Nick. Remember that storm? The time he told us about the butterfly effect?’

‘Yeah, and Crunchy said we should pull the wings off all the butterflies. Weird kid. Bit of a psycho.’

Funny how memory works. He can remember Nick and Otto and himself up in the attic listening to the storm – he can’t remember Crunchy being there at all.

‘I’ve always had a worry about Crunchy Carl. You remember the big fire, when Oolie got trapped in the annexe?’

‘But Crunchy’d already left by then.’ Otto sounds sceptical.

‘He could have come back, couldn’t he? See, Doro found some pine cones in the annexe after the fire. And once, Crunchy nicked those pine cones I kept under my bed and lit a fire with them in the front room. Megan had to put it out.’

‘Proves nothing, Soz.’

‘No, except he knew about my pine cones. And another thing, he knew where the back-door key was hidden.’

‘You should’ve told the police.’

‘Yeah. But Doro told me not to.’

He remembers Doro telling him to keep quiet about the pine cones. But what he remembers most is being gripped by the chance congruence of so many unlikely events: Oolie getting dropped off early that day; the school chess club being cancelled; Doro being late back; Otto missing the bus. And something else – a person or people unknown – a malign initial input that was the catalyst. What was the probability of all that?

‘Clara thought it was those lads from the Prospects,’ says Otto. ‘Because they always used to pick on Oolie. Remember when she lobbed bricks at them? How is she, by the way?’

‘Fine, I think. Haven’t seen her in a while.’

A stab of guilt – he must ring her back before long.

‘D’you remember those stories she used to tell us? The slumbering starlings, and the sobbing nation of women?’

He wonders whether Otto and Clara had a fling sometime in the past. His sister’s love life is a source of speculation which she annoyingly refuses to discuss with him.

‘Doro came down last week,’ he tells Otto. ‘She announced she and Marcus are getting married.’

‘Married? What the fuck for? Do people still
do
it at their age?’

‘Dunno. I’m not sure if Marcus can even still get it up.’

‘Maybe they’re ready to settle down in the Domestos fear. Heh heh.’

‘I tried to tell Doro I was working in the City, to slip it casually into conversation. But I just couldn’t get it out. The way she was going on, I’d have sooner confessed to child murder.’

‘Yeah. All that guilt we internalised. But you know what, Soz? I envy that lot – they had something they believed in.’

‘I know. Values and stuff. It all seems a bit retro.’

They chuckle at the backwardness of their parents.

As he rings off, the rain thins to a fine shower and a half-rainbow glimmers in the sky above St Paul’s dome. Wow! How can something so simple – something that doesn’t even cost any money – be so ridiculously, unbelievably beautiful? He pulls the iPhone out of his pocket again and fumbles with the camera setting, but in a few seconds it’s vanished.

Maroushka is already at her desk by the time he gets back. Where has she been? He flicks the rain from his hair, hoping it’s not too obvious that he went out of the building. Chicken is on the prowl again, dispensing wisdom and testosterone around the trading hall.

‘You know what wrecked the economy?’

He leans over Tootie, who says nothing, but raises his pale eyes like a worshipper about to receive communion.

‘Politicians interfering in the free market. Look at that fool Clinton. Tried to make housing affordable to blacks, Latinos, other losers who couldn’t afford it. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, massive US sub-prime mortgage players, widen home ownership, give mortgages to people too poor to pay them off – brilliant idea, so long as property prices kept rising. Then they collapsed … Moral is, trust the wisdom of the market.’

‘Wisdom of the market. Brilliant way of putting it, Chief Ken.’

Tootie is a low-grade bum wipe.

Serge’s eyes follow Chicken as he advances and perches one meaty buttock on Maroushka’s desk, leaning so his sightline is directly above her cleavage. She’s wearing a white broderie anglaise top which looks both virginal and irresistibly sexy.

‘You know what’s wrong with this country?’

Maroushka says nothing. Chicken pauses, enjoying his mastery, the fabric around his groin bulging visibly.

‘Shall I tell you?’

She nods.

‘Decline of religion. Think about it, Maroushka. People need something to tell them what’s right and wrong. Values.’

Maroushka giggles through small white teeth. ‘In my country, money have value. Religion is for babushkas.’

Chicken’s smile wavers. She watches him coolly. How does she get away with it?