Wild Abandon (19 page)

“Thirsty,” she said, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“You just missed it,” he whispered. “Humanitarian aid to war-torn Susan.”

She sat down on the sofa and tugged down her T-shirt.

“You okay?” he said, not looking at her.

“I’m fine.”

“Want to talk about anything?”

Her bare legs were tanned from being in the garden. “No.”

She knew it was a cliché but she went for it anyway. She uncrossed and crossed her legs.

He blinked three times but still didn’t look.

She liked passing the time this way.

The TV said: “First U.K. tropes come home.”

Once they were fully off-grid, Don developed a new structure for electricity usage. There were grade-one appliances—washing machine, disc sander, band saw, computer/modem/scanner—which he said could only be used one at a time, and only when the battery was fully charged. He went round the community marking these with a red sticker. On the side of the charge controller, Don attached a small red flag, like the one on their American-style mailbox, which was raised if one of these core appliances was in use. The grade-two appliances (which he dotted yellow), including TV, DVD player, and the hi-fi, could be used freely, and simultaneously, whenever the battery was 95 percent full, or above, but were restricted to “emergency only” below that. He said that he would verify what constituted an emergency.

Under Don’s new regime, new behaviors developed. The smoothie maker ran just once a morning. To burn toast was
no longer charmingly ditsy. Electric blankets were a distant dream. There was an art to a responsibly filled kettle. If Janet blow-dried her hair she concealed it beneath a low-key hat. Despite Arlo’s protests, the fridge and chest freezer thermostats were raised by three degrees. They took turns spending time with the windup radio.

The newlyweds, Erin and Varghese, acutely aware of not wanting to be a burden, had moved into Patrick’s old dome, where they made cups of tea on a gas stove. Lit by candlelight, frail and sniffly, they were more in love than ever. Varghese, the giant, was making a video of their honeymoon. Filming at night with a time-lapse, he’d set up his camera in the yard, looking at the house. He was very pleased with a shot he’d got that tracked the passage of individuals, turning on a light as they entered a space and off as they left. A flurry between 3:30 and 4 a.m. showed that some of the residents’ bladders had synchronized. One bedroom light stayed on all night and Varghese was thinking of reporting this to Don until he realized whose bedroom it was.

Kate and Geraint sat out on the shady grass and Mervyn sat on the deck on a beach chair in his Speedo with
The Times
on one side and
The Sun
on the other like main course and pudding. On weekends, he dozed on and off through the afternoons. Liz, with the patio doors open, could be heard whizzing and blending, having graduated to vegetarian recipes that were not imitations of meat. Kate and Geraint both wore their swimming costumes and, in breaks from studying, cooled off in the raised pool. Her white two-piece with bows at the shoulders and hips had been bought for her, on a day trip to
McArthur Glen Retail Park, along with some tights that Liz said her legs “deserved.”

Uneven stacks of books made a skyline along the walls of the roundhouse. Most of the rest of Freya’s stuff was still in cardboard boxes, patterned with crossed-out labels in unfamiliar handwritings:
Fragiles, Sport Gear, VHS
. In acknowledgment that this was now her permanent situation, she had dragged a mattress down from the big house. Being ancient and much communally used, it was in bloom with yellow daffodil-shaped stains.

It was hard to argue with Don that her experiment had failed; Albert was more fanatical now than ever. It was agreed, then, that their son spend weekdays at the community, where he could at least do his schoolwork, and weekends with his mother. The other news was that Isaac was no longer allowed to spend any time at the roundhouse. Marina denied him access, flat out. According to Albert, the reason she gave was that she wanted Freya and Albert to have more time together. But Freya had plenty of time to speculate on what this actually meant.

So when Albert came to stay, it was just the two of them, which Freya liked, though they no longer joined their sleeping bags together. One Sunday they went for a low-tide walk on Whitford Burrows, out to the cast-iron lighthouse, rusted and peeling, which would make, as Albert observed, a good bunker. She tried to make the time he did spend in the roundhouse pleasant: they baked bread together, harvested horseradish, and made onion marmalade. She got him the windup radio, some books and worksheets, an electric lantern, a proper
pillow, and a Japanese dressing screen which allowed him a quarter circle of personal space.

Of the weekdays Albert was at the community, every other night he slept on a camp bed in the workshop with Marina and Isaac. That made a three-way split in his sleeping arrangements.

Freya knew he needed a wholesale change of circumstances. But one of the reasons her options were so limited was that she had few contacts outside the community. There was really only one person she could think of who might help.

Don stood on a stool in the entrance hall, reaching up, his right forearm hidden in the wooden, crisscross-slatted lampshade. He was replacing the energy-saving bulbs with other, more severely energy-saving bulbs.

“I appreciated your support on this,” Don said.

Arlo was watching from the door to the kitchen and chewing imported biltong. Over the years, Don had come to rely on Arlo to get behind most projects (the yurt village and the Ad-Guard, for example) so long as they did not affect the kitchen.

“About that,” Arlo said, flicking the switch to test the new bulb. A barely perceptible glow showed at the edges of the lampshade. “It’s great to see you so full of energy, Don, but I slightly wonder if this is necessary?”

“I’m just finishing what Freya and I set out to do,” Don said as he unboxed another golf-ball–like bulb and went into the bathroom under the stairs, where his voice grew muffled.
“If anyone’s not up to the challenge then they shouldn’t be here.”

“You sound like Albert.”

Don went into the kitchen, followed by Arlo, and they stood looking up at the lights above the counter.

“Don’t even think about it,” Arlo said.

“We all have to make sacrifices.”

“Yes but I actually need to
see
what I’m chopping. Unless you want me to sacrifice my fingers.”

“This reminds me,” Don said. “I wanted to talk to you about catering for the party.”

“Right.”

Don was still staring up at the lights. “I’ve been having thoughts about some unusual specialities.”

“Oh-kay,” Arlo said, frowning. “Whatever you like. As long as my workspace remains well lit.”

“Deal,” Don said, and he went through to the scullery. He pulled out a milk crate, stood on it, reached up, and twisted the bulb free. Arlo followed and shut the door behind them.

“I can see why you are doing this,” Arlo said, his voice lowered, “but I just wonder if you and Freya should talk first?”

“This is about what’s right for the community,” he said, and he screwed in the new bulb.

Arlo clicked the switch to test it. It was sunny outside and the light in the room didn’t change.

Kate was sitting in the lounge on the black leather sofa, a dress over her swimming costume, wearing Liz’s
Dallas
shades on top of her head, which she’d tried on as a joke but had grown
to quite like, and was studying the Heaven’s Gate cult when she noticed the dark silhouette at the bay window. Her mother was in the front garden, waving, not knocking.

It had been nearly six weeks since she’d seen either of her parents. She often thought of what they would think of her new lifestyle, lounging around with luxurious hair. Kate did not acknowledge her mother at the glass but enjoyed the feeling of being silently judged.

Then, after a while, getting up off the sofa, Kate went into the hall, opened the plastic front door, ignored the shape standing there, shut the door quietly, and walked up the drive, along the street and out of sight. She stopped at a grass border between the pavement and the wide road. Watching her mother coming toward her, Kate was struck by how, in this postcode, her clothes looked sad—frowning, drooping, washed at low temperatures. She appeared to be carrying the woodland shade with her.

“How did you find me?”

“I rang your college.” Kate allowed herself to be hugged. “So glad to see you.”

Freya had her back to the sun; the light picked out the wilder edges of her dark hair, which ran down to her armpits, parting over her shoulders. She had a quality of being impervious to light; Kate struggled to see her expression.

“You look well,” Freya said.

“I’m fine.”

“What are Geraint’s parents like?”

“They’re normal.”

“You wear shades now,” her mother said, and seemed really pleased. “How
are
you? I’ve
missed
you.”

“I’m good. Fine. Studying.”

“In very glamorous surrounds.”

“Not ‘surrounds.’ This is what a normal street looks like. Why are you here?”

“Oh,
this
is a normal street. Of course. It’s been too long.”

Her mother was trying to be jokey and warm in the way of best friends, but Kate was not willing. Freya grinned with all her teeth, which, Kate could see, were clean but not white. Her mother, looking around, seemed excited to be on the municipally maintained grass. Next to them, on a lamppost, there was a photocopied poster with a child’s scrawled handwriting:
Your dog does the crime, you pay the fine
. Freya had the curiosity of someone visiting the set of a long-running soap opera. Kate could tell she wanted to be invited inside.

“How did you get here?” Kate said.

“I hitched.”

“You’re too old to hitch.”

Her mother squinted at her. “Are you eating meat?”

“
What?
”

“You just seem carnivorous, somehow.”

Freya rubbed her daughter’s bare upper arms, then opened her mouth but didn’t speak.

“Mum, has something happened?”

“Sweetheart. I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you.”

Kate took off her shades and squinted. “I don’t have time for this. I’ve got studying to do.”

“I wanted to speak. You’re my best friend.”

“I don’t think it’s healthy for us to be best friends.”

She watched her mother move from foot to foot.

“Is the grass
hot
?”

“No. It’s fine. I’m just pleased to see you.”

“Mum, what’s wrong? Do you need a wee?”

Kate looked around, her hand shading her eyes, checking to see if they were being watched.

“So,” Freya said. “Can I meet them?”

“No.”

“I’ll play it cool.”

“Do
not
play it cool.”

Kate looked her mother up and down. “Why are you wearing so many clothes? Are you sweaty?” She leaned in and smelt her mother’s neck, then sniffed her armpit.

Freya said: “If I didn’t love you so much this would be humiliating.”

The frosted-glass front door was unlocked. They went into the quiet, carpeted hallway and into the lounge.

“Okay, Mum. No specifics.”

Out the back of the garden they could see both Mervyn and Liz’s bodiless heads moving in the raised pool. It was more expensive to get a sunken pool, Kate now knew. Two severed, free-roaming heads. Liz was doing breaststroke and had her hair held up with a crab-colored clamp. Kate tried to read her mother’s expression.

Stepping out of the sliding doors and onto the deck, Freya was hit by direct sunlight and she did not melt.

Geraint was on the shady grass, bouncing the football on his knees. Each time the ball went up above his head it moved into sunlight and reflected brightly, then fell into shade again. He made small, unconscious grunting noises. The ball hit his
shin and rolled into the flower bed. He looked up at the woodland troll on the deck next to his girlfriend.

He said: “Mum. Dad.”

Kate waited until the severed heads had noticed that she had brought a homeless person onto their property. The two heads smiled.

“Guys, I’d like you to meet Freya, my mum.”

The woodland troll waved.

On foldout garden chairs in a rough semicircle on the sunny deck, the mothers drank Pimm’s and lemonade, no trimmings; Geraint and Kate drank tiny Bière D’Alsace; and Mervyn, who was topless, smooth-skinned, drank cherry Coca-Cola from the can. Liz had put on a turquoise bathrobe with a big collar. Kate kept her shades on, tried not to look at her mother, and heard everything with live subtitles.

“You’ve a beautiful home, Liz.”

You’re a bourgeois sham, Liz
.

“Thank you, Freya.”

“I hope my daughter’s been behaving herself,” Freya said.

“She’s been an absolute dream!” Liz said. “Wish we could keep her!”

Geraint leaned in. “She’s even got Dad eating polenta.”

“It’s true!” Mervyn said, lifting his glass. “I thought it was veal.”

Freya and Liz both laughed. Kate wondered how long she could endure this.

“Well, we’re really glad to finally meet you,” Liz said. “And how’s
—Don
, is it? He didn’t come with you?”

“He’s okay, thanks. I was trying to tell Kate, we’ve been going through …”

“Oh …,” Liz said, leaning forward.

“Well, I’m just glad that Katie is staying with you at the moment.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Liz said, and she put her hand on Freya’s knee and kept it there. “Is everything okay?”

Kate, behind her shades, was trying to feel nothing.

“Well, no, Kate’s father and I are not living together anymore.”

“Oh God!” Liz said, and she crossed the circle and threw her arms around Freya, spilling Freya’s drink in the process, the Pimm’s and lemonade draining away between slats of deck board.

“My God, you need something stronger,” Liz said and looked to Mervyn, who disappeared off into the house.

“If there’s
anything
we can do to help.”