Angel Cake (4 page)

‘It’s a gift,’ Andy said tactlessly. ‘It’s not a question of recipes, I think. Either you can or you can’t.’

‘And these quiches,’ I went on desperately. ‘I’d give anything to be able to make quiches like these.’

At the end of the evening, when everyone was drunk enough, Eddy and Jean were persuaded to show the video that will publicize the book. We turned out the lights and on the television screen there appeared, I think to everyone’s surprise, Eddy and Jean in bed together, apparently making love. There were whistles and catcalls from their friends. Suddenly Jean sat up and, abandoning Eddy as though his role were over, addressed the camera cheerily: ‘Adam was conceived on a long, cold February night. We had great fun making Adam and we do not intend to forget it. That is the gist of our book; bringing up baby should be fun.’ Then
there was a picture of a woman groaning in labour. ‘Not me,’ Jean called out. ‘Not me! It’s from the film library.’ ‘I know,’ a male voice answered. ‘We can see those aren’t your legs,’ and there was a lot of laughter. Next Adam appeared, toddling unsteadily on to the screen in scarlet dungarees, and after some rather obvious offstage coaxing, put his fingers to his nose and wiggled them. Jean’s voice in the background said, ‘Yes, Baby Adam thumbs his nose at the rules.’

Afterwards there was quite a fierce discussion as to whether or not this was child exploitation or whether, since the book’s aim was to make children’s upbringing freer and more relaxed, Adam was actually working towards his own liberation. By the time Rob and I got home in the end, it really was terribly late.

Rob is still asleep and I am listening for the first sound of mattress springs from the room next door. When he wakes up, he will call me back to bed. But for now the flat is silent, with a precious temporary silence. Outside, a wintry mist is lifting from the elephantine white houses. The trees along Holland Park Avenue are slowly detaching themselves from the sky. Soaring inside me in a way that is incompatible with sitting in silence, my happiness feels ready to flap and crow.

First comes the love-making. (I have never liked to call it ‘sex’.) Since Rob’s first fascination with a new body has worn off, he has grown very experimental with me. I have no idea where he gets his ideas from, if he read them somewhere, or if he learnt them from someone else, but sometimes I am astonished. I would be quite happy to go on and on the ordinary way for ever, and not need to twist or hold my breath or kneel, but I know better than to appear old-fashioned about that, above all. After the love-making, the breakfast – or as Rob would have it, brunch: fresh oranges, squeezed, and real coffee and muesli and croissants. Rob reading the Sunday papers and exclaiming over the iniquities of the world.

In the afternoon, we usually go out somewhere – for a walk in the park perhaps or to visit some of his friends. In the summer, Rob and his friends play frisbee as though it were a religion. Then at five o’clock, Rob always goes off to
his sitar lesson and I tend to do all the silly things that I would not like him to see me do: making my ex-junk-shop clothes from an old velvet bodice and an antique lace collar, working at my toys. Today I shall go back to that grim little road in Shepherd’s Bush, I think, and see if my so-called housebound old lady is in.

Alicia did not like her home help because she was black. Put that way, she had to admit, it sounded rather bad, but her feeling was in fact more complicated. She did not like Pearl, first and foremost, because Pearl made her feel she was unkind. However fussy and bossy Alicia was to her, however nagging and nit-picking, Pearl remained serenely unflustered. Whatever demeaning demands and unfair criticisms Alicia heaped on her, Pearl just shrugged and smiled and swivelled. Her giant face received the aggravation like so many microscopic midges. They could not puncture her immense composure. Alicia was naturally infuriated. She expended so much energy hounding Pearl during her Wednesday visits that afterwards she was as worn out as if it was she who had done all the washing and cleaning and laundering herself. And into her exhaustion came the realization that she had spent the only two hours of regular company that she had each week abusing Pearl, instead of talking to her. This made her feel remorse for which, unfortunately, she only disliked Pearl the more.

There were other things about Pearl which she disliked too, of course. She didn’t like the shrieking colours Pearl wore over her outsize person: yellow and purple and turquoise and pink, all jumbled up together so that they quite took your breath away when she came in. Alicia didn’t like her outsize person either. She could not say if she found it vaguely menacing – Pearl, one day driven beyond endurance, would round on her and suffocate her with her size – or if it simply annoyed her that anyone should flourish so much. She didn’t like Pearl’s hair or her nose or her mouth. But Pearl was the one whom the social services had sent; it was Pearl or nobody. Alicia had had such a different picture when she had seen the name Mrs Pearl Cunningham on the form.
When Pearl had arrived on her first morning, Alicia knew that she would never forgive her for the disappointment.

When Pearl rang the bell on Wednesday morning, thereby confirming Alicia’s suspicion that it was Wednesday, Alicia came down the stairs as fast as she could. But it was not fast enough to prevent Pearl from ringing the bell again, imperiously, with her big brown forefinger.

‘Goodness gracious,’ grumbled Alicia, opening the door, ‘there’s no need to make such a racket. I was coming as fast as I could. Do you want me to fall down the stairs and break my neck?’

Pearl beamed at her, as if she were a cantankerous but sweet child. Alicia stood back to let her in, or maybe Pearl just billowed in past her. Alicia made a meal of closing the door. ‘I don’t know – if it’s not one thing, it’s another,’ she said.

She had been in two minds whether or not to tell Pearl about her unexpected caller. But now that Pearl was here, she found the temptation to share the mystery was irresistible. It made such a change to have a piece of news of her own, instead of just the usual string of complaints about windows that wouldn’t open, taps that wouldn’t turn and household objects that had been spirited away. She followed Pearl into the kitchen. ‘I said, if it’s not one thing, it’s another,’ she repeated significantly.

Pearl smiled indulgently into the middle distance. She unbuttoned her coat to reveal a shiny black, green and gold blouse bulging above her favourite mauve slacks. With a praiseworthy effort of self-restraint, Alicia banished her reaction to the blouse. ‘You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had,’ she went on.

Pearl busied herself at the sink. ‘You’re low on Flash,’ she answered.

Alicia felt indignant. Was Pearl ignoring her deliberately? She had bent down into the cupboard to look for something and her big bottom was sticking up quite plainly in Alicia’s direction.

Alicia quivered with fury. ‘What are you rummaging for?’ she snapped. ‘Tell me.’

Pearl straightened up painfully. She said, ‘The rag-bag.’

For some reason, that mortally offended Alicia. ‘Well, kindly don’t,’ she cried shrilly, ‘while I’m trying to tell you something.’

Pearl sighed. To Alicia’s astonishment, she pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. Alicia completely lost track of what it was she was trying to tell her. She had never seen Pearl sitting down at her kitchen table, or anywhere else for that matter, in all the months that Pearl had worked for her. For a moment, the two of them looked at each other, shocked, and then Alicia – she had no idea what had come over her – was so struck by the sight of Pearl sitting down that she blurted out rustily, ‘Would you like a cup of tea before you start work?’

It was hard to say which of them was the most surprised by this suggestion, but Pearl quickly answered, ‘Oh no, thank you, Mrs Queripel,’ and made to get up.

But Alicia detained her. ‘A most extraordinary thing,’ she gabbled on. ‘I don’t know what to make of it.’

Pearl sat politely at the kitchen table, despite her size a pupil sitting straight for the teacher. But she couldn’t help herself and she had to smother a yawn.

Alicia was so carried away by what she had begun, so eager to share her anxiety, that she ignored this rudeness. ‘I’ve got my theory,’ she said, ‘but I could be wrong.’

Pearl propped her chin on her cupped hands. She looked at Alicia wearily and, for the first time ever, Alicia thought she detected resentment in Pearl’s blood-shot eyes. But her mind was all on her mystery and in a frenzied rush, she carried on regardless.

‘It was on Sunday,’ she said, ‘round about teatime.’ (It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know whether Pearl and her family had tea at the same time she did, nor what they had, nor any details of their domestic life at all.) She added, ‘Around five.’ She clasped her hands, for dramatic effect, as she set the scene. ‘It was getting dark. It was raining. I was here in the kitchen, getting my tea – a couple of chops you know, new potatoes and peas – right here by the draining-board, when all of a sudden the bell rang.’ She clutched her hands to her throat to convey her panic. ‘Who could it be? At that hour? On a Sunday? In all that wind
and rain? Round here? I was petrified. They didn’t just ring the once, whoever it was, they rang twice, while I waited in here for God knows what. Then I plucked up my courage; I went over to the kitchen door, I stood just here and I looked out to see what I could see.’ She paused, peering up the hall as she had done on Sunday. ‘I got the shock of my life. I was expecting a grown man of course, up to no good, but there was this short little shape out there, no bigger than this. While I was watching, he rang again and as I was debating in my mind whether or not to answer, he coolly turned on his heel and walked away. Didn’t give me a chance to make up my mind.’

‘Gracious,’ Pearl said absently. She stood up. ‘I’ve got to get the house done now, Mrs Queripel. I don’t feel my best today, I’ve been up all night.’

‘Up all night?’ squawked Alicia.

‘At the hospital. My little boy’s been hurt in an accident. He was knocked down in the Uxbridge Road by one of those hit-and-run drivers.’

Straining ferociously, she found the rag-bag at the back of the cupboard. She pulled it out and went into the scullery.

Devastated, Alicia came after her. ‘Hurt?’ she repeated. ‘Badly hurt?’

Pearl ran the taps thunderously into the bottom of the metal bucket. ‘He’s broken one leg,’ she said, ‘and one arm. And he’s lost four of his teeth.’ She didn’t look round; her voice was quite matter-of-fact and it was only from the slightest quiver that Alicia guessed she was crying.

She was so embarrassed and so put out that she left the scullery. Pity only occurred to her immediately afterwards. ‘How dreadful for you,’ she called to Pearl from the kitchen. ‘How very dreadful. Will he be all right?’

She avoided Pearl for the rest of the morning while she worked, a mountain of grief lumbering slowly around the house. Alicia resented Pearl’s tragedy, and her timing which had stolen Alicia’s big scene. She was sorry about the child, of course. Who wouldn’t be? It was a terrible shame. But she couldn’t help suspecting that the boy might not have looked carefully in both directions before he stepped out into the road.

When Pearl was getting ready to go, Alicia could not resist bringing up the subject of her caller once again. ‘Who do you think it could have been?’ she asked Pearl plaintively, as Pearl wrung out the rags.

‘Who?’

‘My visitor, my unexpected caller.’

Pearl sighed. ‘It’s hard to say, isn’t it? It could have been anyone.’

‘But who do you
think
? I’ve got my theory.’

‘Oh, some kid,’ Pearl answered wearily. ‘Ringing all the bells in the road to bother people.’

‘“Some kid,”’ Alicia repeated scornfully. ‘No, I’ll tell you who I think it was; it was one of those video kids. They watch all those horrible goings-on on the videos, you know, and it drives them wild and then they go out and do the same things to old people. I’ve read about them in the paper.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Pearl absently. She unlocked the back door to hang the rags out on the line. Instead of shivering theatrically and telling Pearl off for opening the door while she was in the room – and without her cardigan too – Alicia followed her out on to the doorstep. ‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Ringing the bell madly like that, again and again?’

Pearl pegged the rags methodically on to the line. ‘I don’t think you ought to worry about it, Mrs Queripel,’ she said kindly. ‘Just put it right out of your mind.’

‘Don’t you?’ Alicia responded indignantly. ‘Don’t you, indeed? Well, let me tell you, I think you’re very wrong. I happen to think this is a matter of some importance.’

Pearl came back into the kitchen past her and Alicia was caught off-guard by a real shiver. ‘I shall catch my death,’ she exclaimed belatedly. ‘We’re not all easy-going and happy-go-lucky, you know,’ she added pointedly to Pearl. ‘Some of us like to keep our wits about us.’ Then she remembered about Pearl’s little boy and she felt dreadful.

Pearl put on her coat. She craned to look at herself in the bit of mirror by the door and gave a gusty sigh.

‘Will you be going to see your boy again today?’ Alicia asked guiltily.

Pearl nodded. ‘After my next job.’

Alicia went and fumbled with her biscuit tin. She was overcome by remorse. There was an older half-packet of Rich Teas in the tin, next to the newer Malted Milks. In an impulsive gesture, Alicia took out the Rich Teas and offered them to Pearl. ‘Here’s a little something for him from me,’ she simpered.

Pear made to refuse. ‘Oh, no, thank you very much, Mrs Queripel.’

But Alicia pushed the biscuits at her angrily. ‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘Take them. He needs a bit of spoiling at a time like this.’

Pearl held them uncomfortably, as if they might blow up in her hands. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’d better be on my way. I’ll see you at the same time next week.’

In the doorway, she turned and added, ‘I hope your caller doesn’t come back.’

Alicia was so aghast at this idea, which had not crossed her mind, that she didn’t even answer goodbye. She stayed rooted in the kitchen. She didn’t watch Pearl, as she usually did, swaying off up the street, so she was spared the sight of her marching out holding the biscuits at arm’s length, as though they contained a plague bacillus, and hurling them furiously into the first litter-bin on her path.