Bed of Roses (32 page)

The uncorrected proof for Scarlett and Kitty’s novel arrived at the Adamses’ this morning. Geraldine thinks it would make a picturesque and maternal moment if she could persuade Ollie to come into the parlour with her, now that they have a quiet moment. They could sit side by side, mother and son, and Geraldine could read the story aloud to him. Like she used to in the olden days. Or like she would have done in the olden days, if only she’d found the time.

‘Ollie, darling, are you busy?’ From the hall, she hears the distant, familiar sound of Ollie’s blip-blip-bleeping. ‘Ollie, darling, switch off the computer game, would you, sweetheart? I want to show you something.’

Blip. Crrr. Beep-blip
.

‘Ollie?…Ollie!…Ollie?’ She follows the bleeps to the television room, where Ollie slumps, small thighs flopped apart, small shoulders already rounded, eyes fixed on the little screen above his thumbs. Dead to the world.

Poor baby
, she thinks. And it pulls at her; a wave of guilt and love for her ten-year-old son. She adores him. Why is it, she wonders, that there’s never enough time in the day just to be with him? ‘Baby?’ she says softly, squashing up
on the sofa beside him. ‘Ollie, darling. Switch off the machine. Please. Just this once.’

He ignores her.

‘Come on,’ she says, gently easing the thing from his hands.

‘MU-UU-UM!’

‘Come on, baby. Be good.’

‘MUM! GEDDOFF! GEDDOFF, MUM! Give it back!’

She switches it off, slips it out of reach, under her seat cushion. ‘Kitty and Scarlett’s book arrived this morning! We’ve got a special early copy. How about that!’

‘How about what?’

‘So I thought it might be fun for us to read it together.’

He rolls his eyes. As if he’s about to be sick. ‘Fun? Yeah, right.’

‘Yes. “Right”. That’s right, Oliver Adams. So be quiet and listen…’ He looks on the point of telling her to fuck off, which is what he generally does when she attempts to impose her will on him these days. ‘No, Ollie,’ she says quickly, holding up a hand. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Not today. Just be good. OK? Just for a couple of minutes…And if you sit nicely for ten minutes, I’ll give you a tenner. Sound fair?’

He looks quite pleased about that.

‘And I’ll give you a pound for every minute thereafter.’ She smiles, encouraged by his improved expression. ‘Think about it, Ollie. If you sit still for half an hour, you get £30!’

‘Cool!’ he says. ‘I’m going to sit here for about ten hours, Mum. Or even longer. I’m going to sit here until I die.’

‘Hmm. Right then!’ She nods to herself, pleased with her negotiating skills, and opens up the book. ‘“
A Revolting Boy
”,’ she reads. ‘“
By Scarlett and Kitty Mozely
.”…Funny name,’ she adds, sneaking an arm around his shoulders. ‘Hope it’s not about you, Ollie!’

He smiles. Allows her arm to stay where it is, just this
once. ‘They wouldn’t dare, Mum. Not those two. Otherwise they’d have no one to scrounge off.’

Another ‘Hmm’. A little frown. Not very kind, Geraldine thinks. But he has a point. Besides, with the one arm around her precious boy, this is a special moment. She doesn’t want to contradict him. ‘Are you ready?’

Nobody’s looking. Ollie allows his head to rest against the crook of his mother’s arm. He nods. ‘Ready as I’m ever going to be,’ he says with a sigh. ‘It’s seven minutes past. OK? Time starting…now. Go!’

‘“Mr and Mrs Oliver used to be very important London lawyers”,’ Geraldine begins, ‘“but when their revolting son, Adam, was nine years old they worried that being quite so important all the time meant they never had time to have fun. So they moved to live in the country. They bought a large house in the middle of a quiet village called Pigsbury.”…
Oh,’ says Mrs Geraldine Adams. ‘
Oh
.’

‘What? Go on, Mum. It’s going to be even more boring if you keep stopping.’ He digs a pointy elbow into her ribs. ‘Go on!’

‘Hmm,’ she says, ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of this…’

He has never, in sixty-three years of living in the village of Fiddleford, ventured to the other end of the Old Rectory’s drive. Today, clutching the little green jersey, muttering and coughing as he whirrs along the smooth, shiny-new tarmac, Russell Guppy does so for the first time. He hasn’t the slightest interest in what he might find down here, so long as there is a door. And a Mr and Mrs Adams on the other side of it.

Mrs Adams is still in the television room. She has read the first twenty pages of Scarlett and Kitty’s book and Oliver Adams has at last spotted some of the many insulting similarities between himself and the Adam Oliver in the story. He is puffed up with rage; Geraldine has called for Clive but had no response and they seriously need to bring him in on this. Action will have to be taken.

‘I’ve always hated Kitty Mozely,’ Ollie spits. ‘And I hate her spazzer-fatso-gay daughter.’

Geraldine is saved from reprimanding him for that by the sound of the doorbell. She leaps to her feet.

‘Oi! Mother,’ he shouts after her. ‘I’m still sitting here, you know. So it still counts. As long as I’m sitting here I’m still counting minutes. So you’d better cough up!’

She strides out through the hall, finger still marking page twenty-one in the book, legal mind churning. After all the help she’s given Kitty over the years, it seems incredible. It does. And they’ll sue, of course. They’ll sue her for every penny. They’ll ban publication. Nobody makes a public mockery of her baby boy. Nobody. She’ll make Kitty Mozely pay for this…

Geraldine peers through the frosted glass at the figure on the porch, glimpses Russell Guppy muttering and coughing, and feels sure she ought to recognise him. He looks familiar and yet not; she is distracted, of course, not just by her plans for Kitty, but by his enormous, state-of-the-art wheelchair.

‘
Hello!
’ she says, hysterically warm (because of the wheelchair). It’s actually a funny time for a wheelchair to call, it occurs to her. Past dusk on a weekday evening. Perhaps it –
he
– perhaps
he
saw Clive on the television. Perhaps he’s in urgent need of some Adams Family Practice legal advice. Geraldine is not, she reminds herself, one to make assumptions about disabled people. They aren’t necessarily all broke.

‘Well,
come in
! Come-in-come-in!’ she cries. ‘What can I do for you? Can I get you some…’ She stands back to allow him in. He looks grey…blue-grey…
yellow-green-grey
when the hall light falls on him fully. She’s never seen anyone so frail, so lacking in legs, so—‘Maybe some hot milk?’

‘Hot milk?’

‘Sorry.
Medicine
. Oh, fuck. Excuse my French.
Medicine!
What am I talking about?’ She laughs, casts around for help. Fails to find any. ‘A drink! Would you like a drink? I’m afraid Clive’s on the phone.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Bit of a busy time! Perhaps you saw him on the news this evening?’

‘That,’ says Russell Guppy, ‘is what I come to see you about.’

She smiles. She arches one of her fine eyebrows. ‘Oh, yes?’ she says. ‘Tell me more!’

‘My name,’ he pauses to cough, ‘is Russell Guppy.’

‘
Russell Guppy!
Well, of course it is! I know that! How lovely to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about you.’ He’s eyeing her drily, apparently untroubled by the need to blink, and clearly unmoved by the warmth of her welcome. She finds it a little disconcerting. ‘Ollie, baby,’ she calls. ‘Ollie, dear? Come and say hello to this nice gentleman.’ But Ollie has already returned to his Nintendo. He ignores her – as she assumed he would. ‘Well, anyway. Come on in. We’ll go into the parlour, shall we? I’m sure Clive will join us in a minute…Can you manage?’

It’s not until they are both settled opposite one another, and Geraldine has adjusted the White House furniture to accommodate his wheelchair, and has handed him the requested tumbler of whisky and ice, that she notices the little green pullover on his lap, with the familiar-looking label peeping out at the neckline.

‘Oh!’ she says, staring at it. ‘Isn’t that—Good Lord!’

‘That’s what I come about, Geraldine. That and the telly.’

Geraldine?
A bit fresh, she thinks. Nevertheless. Big smile. Moving on. ‘Russell – may I call you Russell?’

‘You may,’ he says solemnly, taking a gulp of whisky. Nothing like a free drink. Russell Guppy doesn’t get out more than once a year these days and just now, before the business begins, the parlour’s soft white light and the smell of flowers and the chinkety-clink of ice in the heavy crystal tumbler…Makes him wonder if he’s finally made it to heaven. He smiles, an unusually happy smile. But the smile makes him cough, which brings him quickly back down to earth. It is a few moments before he recovers.

Geraldine asks if she can get him water but doesn’t quite move to fetch it. She’s more intrigued by the question of the
small green jersey (Brora, cashmere) and how it found its way on to Russell Guppy’s lap. She bought it for Ollie the last time she was in London, and at vast expense: Brora cashmere does not come cheap. Seeing it there, in its raggedy heap, she realises he hasn’t worn it for weeks. Not surprisingly perhaps, since it is midsummer. She’d forgotten all about it.

‘Do you mind my asking,’ she says, as soon as Russell Guppy has recovered, ‘only I think that little jersey belongs to my son. Could I—’

Uncle Russell hands it to her. It is damp and dirty, and as it passes between them they are both hit with the unmistakable stench of petrol.

‘Goodness!’ she says, delicately holding it out, taking care not to let it touch the sofa. ‘Well, it is Ollie’s. Certainly. We’ve been missing it…He’ll be delighted.’ She folds it neatly on to her lap, pats it, and beams at Russell Guppy. What a lonely man he must be, she thinks, to come all this way for the sake of a child’s dirty jersey. Just because he’s seen Clive on the telly. ‘Thank you. Really kind of you.’ She peers at him curiously, and for a moment her heart swells with honest pity. ‘Russell,’ she says warmly. ‘You’ve come all this way. Would you like to stay for supper?’

Just then they hear Clive striding across the hall towards them. ‘That was the rector, Geraldine,’ he’s saying. ‘Of course he’s mad keen to cool this thing down. He says the Diocesan Council are coming down on him and he wants to bring about some sort of concord
sans
resorting to the courts, hohum. Needless to say I told him—Oh.’ He stops. ‘Who are you?’

‘Clive, darling,’ she says, standing up like a nervous bird, stepping towards him. ‘I was calling you. Where’ve you been? We desperately need to talk.’ She leans across, murmurs into
his ear. ‘Seriously. You’re not going to like it. Kitty’s gone too far this time.’

‘What’s that?’ Clive stares absently past his wife, directly at the wheelchair. At his leg stumps. ‘Sorry,’ he says to them. ‘Have we met?’

‘Oh! And this is Russell Guppy,’ says Geraldine, quickly remembering herself. ‘Sorry!
Dane’s
uncle. He’s terribly kind. He’s actually brought Ollie’s jumper back. The lovely green cashmere from Brora. Do you remember it?’

‘What?’

‘Well, anyway. You can’t imagine how grateful I am. I’ve, er, actually I’ve just asked him to supper.’ She sounds a little surprised by the fact.

‘Oh,’ Clive says, and immediately starts backing out of the room. ‘Well, I’ve got a hell of a lot of calls I need to make. Pleasure to meet you, Mr Guppy. Geraldine,’ he nods at her. ‘Catch you later.’

‘But wouldn’t you care to know, Mr Adams,’ demands Russell Guppy, eyeing his host, ‘exactly where I found it?’

‘Found what?’

‘The lovely green…cashmere from Bro…ra, Mr Adams.’

Clive pauses, shrugs, flashes one of his lawyerly smiles. ‘Well, certainly. If you would like to tell me, Mr Guppy. Of course.’

Russell Guppy leans forward in his enormous chair. There is an unmistakable gleam in his eye as he does so – and for the first time, the Adams Family Practice senses danger. ‘I found it,’ he says, and begins to cough…

Clive and Geraldine flick a glance at one another. They wait.

He continues to cough. Pauses. Takes a slurp of whisky, looks for a moment as if he’s about to disintegrate into yet further paroxysms, but manages somehow to control himself.
‘I found it in my shed…’ He looks from one to the other, but neither reacts. ‘
I found it
,’ he says again, ‘
in my garden shed…
Right there where I keeps my petrol cans…’

‘Ahhh!’ says Geraldine. Her tinkly laugh sounds shrill. ‘Well, that explains the smell of petrol, then, doesn’t it? How curious!’

‘Not really,’ says Russell Guppy.

But Geraldine doesn’t seem to hear him. ‘Extraordinary! I wonder how it found its way there?’

Clive says nothing. He has his eyes fixed on Russell Guppy, and there is a small muscle pumping away at the emaciated jaw.

Russell Guppy watches them, back and forth, back and forth. Silence. Slowly he raises his hand. He points at Clive. ‘And you know when your lad put it there, don’t you?’

‘I think not,’ says Clive with a cool, cold smile. ‘Really, Mr Guppy. You’re talking Latvian, as far as I’m concerned. How could I possibly know?’

‘Because that’s about the time he came back here, isn’t it? All scruffy and no sweater, and all stinky with smoke and petrol. What did he do, I wonder…Run upstairs and…bathe ’imself?’ He smiles. ‘A strange thing…for a young lad to do. Wouldn’t…you say?’

‘Really, Russell.’ Geraldine laughs; the same neurotic tinkle, only shriller. ‘Really, Russell…
Clive
?’

He ignores her. ‘I’m not sure, Mr Guppy, that I understand what you’re getting at.’

‘’Cause I was watching the little bugger…Worse luck on you. Telly was broken.’

‘Was it? Well, now, that’s fascinating,’ Clive says rudely. ‘
The telly was broken!
’

But the sarcasm is lost on Russell Guppy. Or he doesn’t react to it. ‘That petrol can was too heavy for him. So he tipped half on ’em out in the ground in my shed…see? He
leaves his sweater where he drops it…The way…lads will, eh, Geraldine?…And in all the…excitement…he forgot all about coming back for ’im after. But I didn’t.’ He laughs. The laugh becomes a choke. Clive and Geraldine watch him, the same wicked thought flitting through both their minds.

But he doesn’t choke to death right there in front of them. He straightens up and continues. He says, ‘I watched him…lugging the thing over the road, watched him pouring it this way and that and…this way and…that.’ Once again he leans forward in his chair. ‘Geraldine. Mr Adams.
I watched your boy striking the match…
And there ain’t no way round that fact. So you’d better get yourselves accustomised to it.’

‘Liar!’ It’s Geraldine, sprung forward. ‘How dare you come to my house in your fucking
wheelchair
, you – legless little shit—’

Clive steps across, taps her gently on the arm. ‘You’re being hysterical, Geraldine,’ he murmurs. Very cold. Very controlled.

‘But we all know—’ She laughs, wild laughter (no tension in it now). ‘Tell him, Clive.
Everyone
knows!
Ollie
has nothing to do with the fucking fire! It was Dane!’

‘Of course it was,’ Clive mutters soothingly, his thin hand gripping her arm. ‘Of course it was. Shhhh.’

‘Dane, was it?’ says Uncle Russell. ‘So why are you defending him?’ he asks. ‘If you’re so sure he done it? Which he didn’t, by the way, as I knows.’

‘We’re defending his right to an education.’

‘Except he’s getting one, isn’t he? The Flynn girl’s teaching him. She’s been having him round every evening.’

They didn’t know that. Aren’t pleased to hear it, either. ‘We’re defending his right to an education,’ amends Clive, ‘without enforced segregation or isolation from his peers.
Guilty or not
, Dane Guppy has a basic and inalienable human right to be taught alongside children of his own age. Not at some –
idealistic young woman’s kitchen table
, but in a classroom. At a school. And I intend to prove that. I intend to
make history
proving that.’

Uncle Russell chuckles. ‘Except he can’t go in a classroom, can ’e? ’Cause your son went an’ burnt it down.’

‘
He did not!
’ yells Geraldine. Clive tightens his grip on her arm and she winces distractedly, barely noticing it.

‘That sweater’s been in my shed ever since the morning of the fire. And frankly, Mr Adams, I wouldn’t have done nothing about it…It’s only when I see them…’ His face contorts so much it triggers another coughing fit. ‘It’s when I see them
pricks
being saintified on my television set – sitting on their sofa like they own the fucking world. That’s when I says to myself,
That’s enough…Enough’s Enough!
I’m not having no more of that!’

A silence falls. Clive and Geraldine are struggling. They can’t quite bring themselves to look at each other – because inside them both there have always been tiny, secret whispers of suspicion, unacknowledged, never mentioned, not to themselves – certainly not to one another. Ollie had emerged after the vicar’s drinks party that day, with a clean set of clothes and wet hair and no explanation as to where he’d been all morning. It was Ollie and his little pack of friends who, days later, had made the great discovery of the petrol can, half-buried under brambles in the neighbouring field. It had been Ollie who rolled the can triumphantly back into the playground.

Clive says, quietly, ‘Mr Guppy. What is it, exactly, that you want from us?’

‘I already told you what I want. I want them ugly pricks taken off my TV.’

Clive releases his wife. ‘I’m not certain I understand. You want—’ A gurgle of laughter escapes him. ‘Excuse me—’

‘I’m not being funny, Mr Adams.’

‘No, of course not. I’m just – I’m sorry, I’m just struggling to understand. You’ve come all this way not because your nephew Dane may have been the victim of some miscarriage of justice, but because you want—’

‘I want them ugly pricks off of my TV! And if I so much as peep ’em there,’ another bout of hacking, angry coughs, ‘I’m taking that sweater and I’m going to the police.’