Cuckoo (46 page)

‘Anyone who lived with you would deserve a medal! You're the most, rude, ungrateful, boorish child I've ever had the …'

‘I'm not a child.' She was stamping on the raincoat now, trampling it deliberately.

‘You're right, you're not! You're a great overgrown monster of a …'

‘And what do you think you are? A lazy slob who sits on your arse all day and never stops moaning about how busy you are, boring everyone with your stupid wingeing headaches and your little specks of dust. You don't do a bloody thing, except complain – can't even keep yourself. Charles pays for everything.'

‘You leave Charles out of this, you impertinent little …'

‘Why should I? He's my father, isn't he?'

‘No, he's not.'

Magda stared at her a moment, then swung round and kicked the largest of the cases with the full force and fury of her tough-soled boot. It didn't even dent. She went on kicking, again, again, again. There was a gasp from the crowd, but the case remained unscathed; shiny and impervious. Magda pummelled at the leather with her fists, tore at the straps, battered the locks. All she achieved was bruised and smarting fingers.

She aimed one last savage kick at the case, then reeled back with a grimace. ‘Fuck off, Frances!' she yelled, louder even than the blare of the loudspeakers.

The crowd drew in its breath.

‘Fuck off yourself, you destructive little bitch!'

Silence. Dover had rotted and dissolved into the sea, leaving only a pile of rubble, a foul and lingering smell. This was the solemn sacred leave-taking, yet all they had bestowed on each other was four-letter words and fury. She would carry that fury to the grave with her, and Magda would lug her share to Budapest and taint half Europe with it. If only she had settled for a brief, anodyne farewell – a shuffle, a mutter, a quick embarrassed wave. Anything was better than those shameful words, that terrifying outburst, those stupid sniggering onlookers. She could feel her heart still pounding against her ribs, her whole shocked body fraying and unravelling. How, in God's name, could she have answered back like that, joined in a brawl like a fishwife, lied to an orphan kid about her father? It was too late now to make amends. There were only a few stragglers trickling from the boat-train, shuffling towards the customs hall. Once they were through, the barrier would be closed, she on one side of it, Magda on the other, forced apart by far more than a gate. A second porter was already reloading the luggage. She hardly dared look up. ‘Magda, I …'

‘You said fuck.'

‘I know, I'm sorry. I'm so terribly sorry.'

‘I can't believe it.'

‘I don't know what came over me. I'm so bitterly ashamed, I've never …'

‘It's
great
!'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Your saying fuck. I like it.'

‘Magda, you're …'

‘It suits you. It's the best thing you've ever said. You really meant it, didn't you?'

‘Of course not, Magda. How could you think I meant it? I was just …'

‘Crap! You meant it. Fancy Frances saying fuck! Wait till I write and tell Bunty. She'll have hysterics.'

‘Magda, how can you …?'

Magda was grinning. She couldn't be. Neither of them could ever smile again. They shouldn't even be speaking to each other. Everything was finished, smashed.

‘Say it again.'

‘What?'

‘Fuck. Go on, just say fuck. I want to hear you.'

‘You're crazy, you're …'

‘There's not a law against it. You won't be struck down dead, or swallowed up, or something. Just say it once, to please me.'

‘I can't, I …'

‘Go on, it's easy.'

‘But people are listening, Magda.'

‘Who cares? I'll say it first. Fuck.'

‘All right, then … f … fuck.'

Magda giggled. ‘Great! I like it. Fuck!'

Frances grinned herself. It was so stupid, so miraculous. There they were, dwarfed on a cold stone station, and laughing, for God's sake – yes, both actually laughing, falling about, making a spectacle of themselves, almost hugging each other. Christ knows how it happened – she couldn't tell – but suddenly they
were
hugging each other, not the brief, formal gesture she'd planned as a farewell, but a real, messy, gutsy, unpremeditated hug. She was treading in a patch of pigeon-shit, Magda's chin was digging in her eye, but they could feel each other's bodies clinging on to each other, holding each other up.

She had changed from dark antique mahogany to something light, new-born – something which could leap and soar and fly. She and Magda were reconciled, but it wasn't only that, or simply that she'd cleared the air, at last, by saying what she meant. There was another still more crucial issue, more dangerous, more permanent, and Magda herself had put it into words. She could still hear those blazing syllables, echoing round the station. ‘I'd rather die than go back to that dump. It isn't anybody's home. I don't belong there.'

Magda didn't – and nor did she. She hadn't any home, and there was nowhere to go back to. Like Magda, she was a displaced person with an odyssey in front of her. Neither of them had really planned it. They weren't noble martyrs or stalwart pioneers, just messy, mixed-up, bloody selfish people who liked their own way. She had changed her mind a hundred times, dithered, doubted, cheated. But suddenly, astonishingly, she had come to a decision. Everything was clear. Magda was travelling east to Budapest, and she was going westwards, to find her own new world. It wouldn't be easy – she'd curse, grumble, whine, despair, even change her mind again, fret over specks of dust, bore people with her stupid, wingeing headaches. But one thing was certain – it wouldn't be Charles and Magda she'd be boring, any more. She didn't have a husband or a child – and she no longer wanted either.

Magda would survive. She was going where she wanted, returning to her mother. They couldn't stop her, anyway. The child was obstinate, like Charles. If they tried to keep her with them, she'd only run away. Even if they poured out love like seawater, they still couldn't make her happy. After all, she'd turned her back on Viv, as well as them. She was a wombat, not a lap-dog; a cuckoo, not a cage-bird; and tougher than any of them knew. Ned had told her that, a hundred years ago, in a red-letter place called Brighton. Let her off the leash, he'd urged, don't clip her wings; the kid knows what she wants. He was right. Magda had just screamed out to the whole of south-east England that she didn't belong in Richmond. And she herself had picked up the echoes, and realized that neither did she. She was slipping her own leash, smashing Rule and Order, escaping on the same day as Magda, but with no destination, no belongings. All she had were a few red letters in her pocket, and some crazy candyfloss belief that there would be other, better Brightons for them both.

‘For God's sake, Miss, get a move on!' The porter had finally lost patience and was jabbing their backs with a corner of his trolley. ‘If you don't look sharp, you'll miss the boat and be camped here for the night. They're closing the barricade!'

She stepped away. ‘Goodbye, Magda.' It was easier to say now. ‘
K … kellemes uta … zást!'
She struggled with the unfamiliar syllables – the Hungarian for
bon voyage
. She had learned them specially for this last farewell; sitting, sleepless, half the night, poring over a Hungarian pocket phrase-book.

Magda grinned. ‘That's not right. The s's are pronounced like ‘‘sshh'' and the accent's on the first syllable.' The words sounded strange on Magda's tongue; outlandish, almost dangerous.

‘
Kellemes utazást
,' she repeated. How could a language feel so alien?

‘Not bad,' Magda grudged. ‘
Sok szerencsét
!'

‘What's that?'

‘Good luck.'

‘Well,
sok sze … ren … csét
, then.' She stumbled on the ‘sshh's'. ‘It's not easy, is it?'

‘No, it's not.' The grin had faded now, Magda tense again, and shuttered. The raincoat was a brown puddle on the ground, an obstacle which barred her way. Frances picked it up.

Magda dodged away from it. ‘'Bye,' she muttered. She was looking eastwards now.

The porter had already crossed the barricade. Magda followed, haltingly. Frances was left behind, the wrong side of a barrier, still holding Magda's coat. She pressed her body against the cold unyielding metal of the gate.

‘Goodbye!' she shouted. ‘Take care, good luck …'

She watched the hunched grey back dwindling down the corridor marked ‘British Passports'. ‘
Kellemes utazást
!' she called, tugging at the bars. She'd still got the accent wrong, but there was no one to correct her.

Magda had gone.

The barricade clanged shut. One bird had flown the cage. Now it was her turn. She tore back along the station, up the stairs and out on to the harbour wall. If she hurried, she'd see the boat depart, and she and Magda could wave each other off. She pounded along the jetty, out towards the open sea. It was still drizzling, but she didn't care, didn't even want the raincoat. It would only weigh her down. It was Magda's coat, bought with Charles' money, at Charles' favourite store. Expensive, serviceable, and made to last. Dreary and confining. She should post it on to Magda, or return it to the shop and credit it to Charles' account. Or at least offer it to Bunty, or give it to a jumble sale. Duty, conscience, common sense … They weighed heavy, too.

She bundled the raincoat into a ball and flung it over the wall, into the sea. The waves closed over it. A seagull swooped, thinking it was food, and screamed back, disappointed. She was so light now, so insubstantial, that the wind could blow her like a spore. She was no one, nothing; not Frances, not Franny, not Mrs Parry Jones, not Ned's mistress, nor Charles' wife; not even Mr Rathbone's patient any more. The sea stretched to vacuity, the sky faded into void. Magda herself was only a pinprick now; the huge black haunches of the boat reduced to a splodge on the horizon, a flurry of white gulls.

She went on running. Whatever happened, she mustn't look back. It wouldn't be easy, but Magda had shown her how. All you had to do was renounce your treasures and keep going. And, with any luck, the rain might even stop.

‘
Sok szerencsét
!' she panted, to herself.

She had got the accent right.

First published in 1981 by Michael Joseph

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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ISBN 978-1-4472-2261-3 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-4472-2260-6 POD

Copyright © Wendy Perriam, 1981

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