Second Fiddle (11 page)

“OK,” she said. “Meet you here tomorrow, ten o'clock?”

“No, I told you,” I said, though actually I don't think I had, “I practice in the mornings.”

“All right, at lunchtime so.” She's a persistent little pest.

I didn't answer.

“Well then,” Mags said, “after lunch. Say three o'clock? I think the afternoon bus is at three-thirty. I'll check.”

I nodded.

“Durn newsince,” I heard her muttering under her breath in that stupid voice she puts on sometimes. I hope
I
wasn't the nuisance. Cheeky monkey!

Mags

Gillian didn't turn up the next day. I waited fairly patiently till ten past, then a quarter past three. I started to get jumpy after that. If Gillian didn't come soon, we'd miss the bus. I'd give her five more minutes.

I sighed and rested my elbows on the table rock. It hadn't rained for ages and the stream was low. It trickled over its stony bed and chattered quietly to itself. You'd never think it was the same stream that usually whisked busily down from the hills, rabbiting on to itself at nineteen to the dozen, no time to stop and chat. I felt a bit like the lazy stream today, not much whiz and bounce. It had gotten terribly hot. I suppose that was why.

Three twenty-one. Still no sign of Gillian. Maybe she'd got delayed. In that case, there would be no point in her coming to meet me here. If she had any sense, I thought, she would have decided to go straight to the bus stop, hoping I would think to meet her there instead. Yes, that's probably what had happened, I told myself. I checked my watch again. Still three twenty-one. If I raced, I might make it. I'd forgotten to check the timetable, but I was pretty sure the bus went at three thirty or thereabouts.

I was sorry now that I was wearing my going-visiting clothes—the too-tight summer dress and a pair of light, open sandals, not much more than flip-flops, really. I'd have been better able to race through the trees in my runners and jeans. It was too hot for clothes like that, though, once you got out of the shade of the woods.

I chased along, stumbling over roots and mossy stones. As I passed under the foresters' hut, I noticed that the door was open. I didn't have time to stop and see if Tim was about. I kept going. As I ran, I had the weirdest sensation that a scrap of violin music was streaming after me, wafting over my head.

Once I emerged from the woods, I had a flat, paved road to run on and I picked up speed. By the time I reached the bus stop in the village, I thought my eardrums were going to burst with the force of the blood pounding in my head, and every bit of me felt swollen to twice its proper size. My heart was trying to leap out of my body and my lungs hurt every time I breathed. I slumped against the cool metal pole of the bus stop, in the shade of a large sycamore tree that grew out of the pavement, and gulped huge painful breaths. When I licked my swollen lips, I tasted salt. I found a tissue and mopped my sweat-beaded face with it. I wished I had something to drink, but—wouldn't you know it?—I'd left my water bottle cooling in the stream.

Gradually my heart began to settle back into its place inside me and I could breathe at a more normal pace. Where was this flipping bus, after all that running? I dabbed the sweat off my eyelids and checked my watch. Three twenty-nine. A whole minute to spare. And where was flipping Gillian? I looked around. Not a solitary other person. July. People were away on their holidays or out in the sunshine, gardening or catching skin cancer, not waiting for a smelly, hot bus to the next town.

Here it came now. I couldn't see it yet, but I could hear the clanking, rumbling, wheezing sound it made. It sounded as if it were about a hundred and had emphysema. I was amazed that it was going to be exactly on time. It never was. Blast Gillian anyway! Where could she have got to? All that running for nothing! Didn't she
want
to find her father? I leaned against the bus stop and closed my eyes. Perspiration still clung to me. I could feel the clamminess all over my skin, under my clothes.

The bus clanked and rumbled closer and closer, the noise seeming to get right inside my body. I stayed where I was, eyes closed, waiting for the horrible, smelly, noisy, belching creature to pass me by, move on, and leave me with some peace to decide what I was going to do next.

But it didn't do that. Instead, it stopped with a shudder, though I hadn't hailed it. The engine's rumbling was worse when the bus wasn't moving, more concentrated. I opened my eyes just as the door clattered back, leaving the doorway gaping. The driver's voice shouted cheerily at me over the noise of the engine: “Well, are you just making friends with that bus stop, or are you getting on?”

“Me?” I said. “Oh, I'm just waiting for someone.”

“You mean, you're not getting on? I stopped for nothing?” The bus driver pouted, pretending to be hurt that I didn't want to get on his bus.

I laughed. “Oh well,” I said, without really thinking, “sure, now that you're here, maybe I'll go for a spin.” I stepped up into the bus as I spoke.

“Why wouldn't you?” said the driver, and gave me a wink. I delved into my pocket and found some change.

It seemed to be even hotter inside the bus than outside in the sunshine. There was a smell of old dust and old seats and oil, and there wasn't a single other passenger. No wonder the driver had hoped I'd get on. He must be lonely.

“Ballymore?” said the driver.

“How did you know?” I asked, handing over my fare.

“That's where I'm going to,” he said.

“Well then,” I said, and put my hand out for my ticket.

“Sorry, machine's broken,” he said.

“Well then,” I said again, and sat a few seats back from the driver, close enough that he felt he had company, but not so close that I would feel obliged to talk to him. I had to think. What on earth was I doing, going to Ballymore all by myself? I'd better tell my mother. That was the deal. I could wander around Ballybeg, but if I left the area, especially if I was on my own, I had to report in by phone. I dug in my pocket again and fished out my mobile. The little screen was dead and dark. Sometimes it turns itself off if it hasn't been used for a while. I pressed the ON button and the screen flickered blue. Then it went dead again. Out of charge. I pressed ON again, harder this time. This time it didn't even flicker. Completely dead. Well then, I thought, and stuck it back in my pocket. My mother need never know, I thought hopefully, if I got home by about five as usual.

It only took fifteen minutes to get to Ballymore. The bus stopped in a small square with sapling trees around it and benches for people to sit on while they waited for the bus. I wobbled to the front and asked the driver about the time of the bus back to Ballybeg.

“There isn't one,” he said. “The last bus from Ballymore to Ballybeg left ten minutes ago. Summer timetable.”

A wave of panic washed over me. I was stranded in this strange town, with my phone out of charge.

“What! You drove me here, knowing I had no way of getting home again!”

The driver laughed. “Don't blame me. I don't write the timetable. Anyway, you never said you wanted to come back.”

“But.…”

For goodness' sake. What did he think? Was I going to hitch a ride from a passing swallow, like Thumbelina?

“Well, I'm sorry, but I assumed you would make your own arrangements about coming home. I'm not in charge of looking after stray kids, you know. Who are you going to see?”

“Someone,” I muttered.

“Well, I hope it's someone with a car. Is it?”

I didn't really want to pursue this conversation. I shrugged. “I s'pose,” I said.

“Right so,” he said, “now off you get now, young lady. I have to take this bus to the depot and then I'm off duty. Good-bye. Have a nice day.”

And to think I had sat near the front, just to keep him company! Now what was I going to do? I looked around the deserted streets. An old woman came out of a grocery shop and crossed the road, her shopping bag banging against her knees. A car turned into the main street out of a side street, cruised along to the T-junction at the far end of town, and then turned right and disappeared. Two small boys came out of a house with bright pink geraniums in the window and started to kick a ball about on the footpath. This place was no busier than Ballybeg. Being so deserted made it scary, somehow. And it was horribly hot.

I started to walk down the main street, towards the T-junction, looking in the shop windows as I passed. A jewelry shop. A pub. A clothes shop, with a sheet of yellow see-through plastic spread over the clothes to protect them from the sun. Clothes wearing sunglasses! I snorted to myself. It made them look immensely dreary, all a horrible medicine color. A hardware shop. Another pub. A vegetable shop. A small cafe. A snooker place. A stationery shop. Nobody seemed to be in any of them, neither customers nor shopkeepers. Perhaps they were all sitting in the back with their feet in basins of cold water, willing customers not to come. Another pub. Even the pubs seemed empty, though I didn't actually look inside. A bookshop. A dry cleaner's. Another … A dry cleaner's! I stepped back to look at it. The door opened and a Chinese person came out on a blast of hot and chemical-smelling air. I smiled at the Chinese person. The Chinese person smiled back. I was ridiculously pleased to see a friendly face.

“You lost?” asked the Chinese person pleasantly.

“No,” I said uncertainly. “I'm just looking.”

The Chinese person smiled again. “Very good dry cleaner's,” she said. “Very good.”

I wasn't sure if she was the owner of the dry cleaner's, advertising her wares, or just a particularly contented customer. I nodded in a way I hoped would do for either situation. I tried to think of some way of keeping this smiling person with me. I felt safe in her company. I didn't like the eerie emptiness of the street.

“Do you know Mr. Regan?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” said the Chinese person. “He lives upstairs.” She pointed to a narrow door to the side of the dry cleaner's that I hadn't spotted before. It was open to catch whatever draft might come in from the street. “You his daughter?”

“No!” I said, horrified at being mistaken for Gillian.

“Hmm,” said the Chinese person, and off she drifted across the street, without another word, leaving me feeling strangely abandoned. I considered calling her back, but I couldn't think what to say.

I stood and looked up at the windows over the dry cleaner's. They had aluminum frames and the net curtains seemed too big and were all bunched up at the corners. No geraniums here. The little boys with the football watched me from the other side of the street. They were grubby children. One of them had a runny nose. As I looked at them, the one with the runny nose stuck his tongue out and slurped the stream of snot into his mouth. I shuddered and looked away.

*   *   *

I pushed the open door a bit wider and looked inside. The hall was dark and mostly full of staircase. The stairs were carpeted in something gray or brown or maybe green or dark blue. I stepped into the hall and started up the stairs. I didn't know what I was going to say when I got to the flat, but now that I was here, I might as well press on and see if I could find this famous missing father.

I could see him as I came to the top of the stairs. The door to the flat was open and he sat at a desk under the window, with his back to me. He looked very ordinary, not a bit famous or missing. He had brown hair and he was wearing a grubby white shirt with a soft collar. He was hunched over a computer. I could hear the uneven rattle of the keys as he typed a bit, stopped to think, typed a bit more. He was certainly very tall. I could tell, even though he was sitting down, because of the way he had to fold himself up over the desk, like a penknife.

“Hello!” I called. “Mr. Regan?”

He spun around on his office swivel chair. “Who's that?” His face was porridgy. Just like someone I knew.

“It's me,” I said. “Macla.”

I didn't know what made me say that. It was the computer, probably, that reminded me of my e-mail name.

“You!” he said. “I thought your name was Margaret Rose.”

I gasped. How could he possibly know that? Even my friends don't know my full name. I felt like turning around and flying down the stairs and out onto the blessedly ordinary street. But I stood my ground.

“Come in,” he said then. “Mind if I smoke?”

I stepped into the room. It was chaotic. The desk was teetering with books and papers, the floor strewn with clothes and sticky, unwashed dishes and mugs. It stank of body and stale cigarette smoke and last week's dinner.

“It's your house,” I said with a shrug, in answer to the question about smoking.

“Yeah, but it's probably a crime to smoke in front of a child these days,” he said. “You could sue me if you get cancer when you're seventy.”

“You'll be dead when I'm seventy,” I said. “Smokers die younger. It says so on the packet.”

He grinned, and I watched as he lit a match and applied it to the end of his cigarette. He sucked and the cigarette end glowed bright red. A thin stream of blue smoke rose from it and scented the air with tobacco. I normally hate the smell of cigarettes, but it was better than the smell of the room. At least it was fresh smoke.

“How do you live like this?” I asked, looking disdainfully around me.

“Women!” he answered. “They're all the same. Wanting to tidy you to death.”

Nobody had ever called me a woman before.

“No,” I said. “I'm not like that. I like a bit of a lived-in look. But
this!
This place is a health hazard.”

A bluebottle buzzed in angrily from the landing and settled on the rim of a plate on the floor.

“See!” I said. “It'll lay eggs, and then you'll have maggots. See if you like that!”