A City of Strangers (4 page)

In The Laburnums Daphne Bridewell had called down the stairs and asked Carol Southgate up for a proper breakfast. As a former teacher and deputy-headmistress herself she had strong opinions on starting the day in a demanding job on no more than a piece of toast or a plate of cereal. Daphne Bridewell had strong opinions on most things, in fact.

Carol enjoyed the poached eggs and bacon and mushrooms for a change, and enjoyed talking to Daphne. Though her basement flat was self-contained there were few days when they did not exchange the odd word, and many when they had long, absorbing conversations. Daphne knew all about her interest in Michael Phelan, and was sensible and experienced enough to treat it for what it was—not the “discovery” of a potential genius, merely concern for a talented and attractive child.

“How are things going with Michael?” she asked.

“Oh, fine. He's going to do a piece from
Old Possum
for Speech Day. All the other kids seem pleased—they like him. Of course, there has been comment in the staff room.”

Daphne Bridewell raised her eyebrows.

“Why ‘of course'? Who commented?”

“Dot Fenton.”

“Oh, yes,” said Daphne in a neutral voice. She had an ex-teacher's care about how much she said. “She was there in my time.”

“I fail to see, personally, how keeping down an intelligent child because he's not well-scrubbed can be construed as keeping up standards,” said Carol waspishly.

“It's an odd notion for a teacher, certainly. I'm sure he'll do very well, and everyone will see he's a child to be brought on. . . . You're worried about him, though, aren't you, dear?”

“Yes. Yes, of course I am. When you think of the examples he's surrounded by: those parents, that horrible elder brother, the sister who's apparently sleeping round at sixteen. . . . ”

“He's got through life this far, apparently, without taking harm.”

“But adolescence is coming up. Think of the pressures.”

Daphne looked at her closely.

“You want to do something about him, don't you?”

Carol nodded vigorously.

“Oh, yes. But what is there
to
do?”

“You could speak to the neighbor.”

“I thought about that. But what excuse could I make?”

“I don't think, since the parents are so appalling, that you would need an excuse. She would quite understand. Just choose your time when you visit her. You wouldn't want Jack Phelan to know what you were doing. Maybe she has a phone and you could arrange it in advance.” She took Carol's hand over the table. “There's no reason why you shouldn't do something, my dear. There's every reason why a teacher should feel a special interest in some pupils. But do it quietly. Otherwise you could do him harm.”

M
rs. Makepeace, Michael's anchor to normality, indeed had a phone. In a free period at school next morning Carol leafed through the dog-eared telephone directory in the staff common room and found Makepeace, L., 37 Belfield Grove Avenue. That would be her. It was quiet in the common room so Carol rang her there and then, struggling with feelings of diffidence and a sense that she was straying into unauthorized territory. The voice at the other end of the line was elderly, slightly wary, yet sympathetic. When Carol had explained that she was Michael's teacher and that she would like to come round and talk about him, it was obvious that Mrs. Makepeace was surprised.

“About Michael? I don't know . . . ”

“You see, he's rather a bright boy—”

“He is that.”

“And, as you must know, his parents—”

“Oh, you'll do no good talking to
them.”

“No. But I do feel I need to talk to someone. I hear so much about the other Phelan children, and it would be terrible if Michael went the same way. If we two could just have a chat . . . ”

There was a pause at the other end. Carol suspected that Mrs. Makepeace was reluctant to get on the wrong side of her neighbors, and this was confirmed by her next words.

“Do you think you could come after dark? You see my own are long past school age, and if he knows you're Michael's teacher, and coming to see me . . . well, the long and the short of it is, he could turn nasty. He's very quick to turn nasty, is Jack Phelan, as you may have heard, and if I'm to get anywhere with him I have to keep on the right side of him.”

“Of course, I quite understand that. I live just near. Shall we say half past eight tonight?”

“Happen he'll be in t'pub by then anyway,” said Lottie Makepeace. “I'll brew a pot of tea and we can have a talk.”

Carol was telling Bob McEvoy all this at coffee break, as they sat companionably in two corner armchairs, when Dot Fenton breezed up.

“I've been reading about kids like your Michael Phelan,” she said, breaking without apology into their conversation.

“He's not
mine.”

“There's an article in
The Teacher
about kids with hopeless family backgrounds. All the kids turn out as you'd expect, except occasionally the one who comes through it all unscathed and becomes happy and successful. There's a report on it—American, I think—and a book called
The Invulnerable Child.”

“I'd like to see the article,” said Carol, willing to go half-way to meet Dot Fenton's change in tone.

“Any
way, they say what happens is, the child subconsciously discards the parents and the home and latches on to someone—a relative, or neighbor, or something—who
is
normal and stable and provides him with what he needs.”

“Mrs. Makepeace!” said Carol triumphantly.

“Who?”

“Michael's next-door neighbor. Apparently he's very fond of her and is always in there.”

“There you are, you see,” said Dot, with a nod of self-satisfaction. “That's how it was done.”

Carol resented Dot's talking of Michael as if he were some kind of conjuring trick.”

“That's all very well,” she muttered to Bob, “but I don't see how a child
can
be invulnerable, do you?”

“Oh, Steven, I forgot to tell you,” said Evie, standing in the door of his study, her bag of books slung over her shoulder. “The girls will be coming tonight.”

“If
I'd
called them girls . . . ” said Steven. “Does that mean you just want me to make myself scarce, or do I have to go out?”

“Well, Val and Marian never
really
talk freely if they know there's a man in the house.”

“Sensitive friends you have.”

“Pig.”

Steven Copperwhite looked at her as she turned to go. She had been hunched over a pile of Scandinavian linguistics theses at breakfast and he hadn't seen her face.

“What's that on your forehead?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Evie, shrugging.

“It's a scar.”

“OK, it's a scar. I had a bit of an argie-bargie with the Phelan boy last night.”

“You didn't tell me when you came to bed.”

“You didn't ask. Look, stop fussing, Steven, right? You're imagining this boy as a big, strong thug. Forget it: He's got spindle shanks, biceps like peanuts, and his Union Jack tee-shirt flaps on his skinny chest.”

“But everyone says he's a vicious little horror.”

“Oh, he is that. But I can handle
his
like.”

“It doesn't look like it.”

“Oh,
he
went slinking away, I can tell you,” said Evie gaily. “Look, Steven: Forget the protective chivalry bit, eh? It doesn't suit you at all.”

She smiled, waved, and shut the door. From the study window he watched her walk out to her little old Volkswagen. They would both be driving to the English Department of West Yorkshire University, but they would do it in their own cars. Evie valued the symbols as well as the realities of independence. Steven, his books for the day collected up, sat down again at his desk. It was all very well to say, “Forget the protective chivalry bit.” He was of a generation to whom a degree of protectiveness toward women came naturally. It was possibly true that Evie was more than a match for Kevin Phelan. But women
were
weaker physically than men. They never advocated mixing the sexes in the Wimbledon singles, did they? Or in the Olympics? What would happen if she came up against a thug who was strong as well as vicious? She might reject protection then, but she'd damned well need it. Protectiveness, Steven thought, was a natural part of a man's relationship with a woman.

He screwed up his face in bewilderment. On an impulse he pulled the desk telephone toward him and dialed a well-remembered number. At the other end it rang and rang, but no one answered.

When she walked up the steps from her basement flat that evening Carol saw Daphne Bridewell watching her from her sitting-room window. She waved and showed her crossed fingers. Daphne knew where she was going.

As she turned into the Estate she felt positively furtive. It was early October, and dark by half past eight, and the Estate was not well lit. She gained confidence as she went on and saw that the Phelans' house was shut up and darkened. She was tempted to linger and survey the collection of car parts, rusty bike wheels, and assorted bric-a-brac in the garden, but they presented mere shapes to her, ghostly outlines of wrecks. She slipped in next door and rang the bell on Lottie Makepeace's front door.

Mrs. Makepeace was not the fat, jolly, comfortable figure that might have been expected—the sort an unhappy child might easily attach himself to. Instead she was a spare yet pleasant woman of around seventy, someone with a ready enough smile (with a touch of the conspiratorial), but also with something of reserve. Carol got from her a definite sense of rectitude. Was that, perhaps, what Michael had sensed he needed?

“Come through to the kitchen,” she said, ushering Carol through the narrow hall. “It's warmer there—I've been baking. And it's a pity to waste a grand smell!”

The kitchen did indeed smell good—of cakes and biscuits. Lottie Makepeace showed she had made ready for her visit by pouring boiling water into a large teapot. She plopped a tea-cozy over it, and turned round to look at, and sum up, her visitor.

“Do you bake for yourself?” asked Carol, conscious of being judged.

“Oh, I like a bit of cake or biscuit for elevenses.” She grinned an oddly schoolgirl grin. “But you'll have guessed I wouldn't bother if it weren't for the kids next door.”

“Do they all come round, then?”

“They do if they smell baking! Michael's the favorite, of course. Parents aren't supposed to have favorites, but I don't see why neighbors shouldn't. The younger ones tag along with him generally if there's something to be got.” She shot Carol a sad look. “To tell the truth, I don't think there's much to be done with them, not with Dale or Jackie, young as they are.”

Carol nodded.

“No, that's what the rumor is at school. That's what worries me so. Michael's such a bright boy—talented, alert, fresh-minded—and he's surrounded by so much . . . well, squalor is the word, I suppose. And I don't just mean physical squalor.”

Lottie Makepeace looked at her shrewdly.

“Do you remember that film—no, you'd be too young—
The Corn Is Green
?”

“I've seen it on television. I know what you're thinking. You think I want to give Michael special treatment, educate him out of his environment.”

“No harm in that if you did.”

“You think I've conceived a romantic mission to rescue him.”

“I think there may be something of that. But don't you think he may have rescued himself?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, that is true. That's the miracle of it. But it's the years ahead I'm worried about. The teens are so difficult for a child. . . . It's the
moral
squalor that he's surrounded by that worries me—do you see?”