The Year of the Ladybird (15 page)

‘And that’s what I know. As for her, I keep her on the straight and narrow. Served time for her, I have. Protected her. Put up with hardships. Stop her slipping back into it, you
understand me?’

I said I did.

‘Ha! Look at your face! You don’t know nothin’ about it, do you?’ He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray with a series of rapid, hard jabs and took his wallet out of
his pocket. He found two ten pound notes, folded them and flicked them across the table to me.

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t ask.’

Once again, this was almost what I was paid weekly in addition to meals and lodgings. ‘What am I supposed to do with it?’

‘Do with it? Do what you want with it, you dozy fuck. I’m flush. Ain’t anyone ever give you no money before now?’

‘Well. No.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re a right one, incha? Fuckin’ college boy. Listen: I have a kid somewhere. They wouldn’t let me see him. Be about the same age as you. I like to
think he wouldn’t be cleaning or in no factory or fuckin’ coal mine. Maybe he’d be at college, smart-arse like you. Maybe someone somewhere will sling him twenty notes.’

‘It’s too much. I can’t take it, Colin.’

‘Take it.’ He looked at me when he said take it and I knew he meant that I had no choice. I picked up the money and I put it in my pocket. ‘Anyway, it’s nice to know
I’ve got someone on the inside looking after my interests.’

‘I’ve got to go, Colin. I’ll be late for the yard-of-ale competition.’

‘Want a lift back?’

‘It’s two minutes.’

‘Okay. I’ll be in touch.’ He lit another cigarette and sat back.

I still can’t believe that just an hour after having sex with his wife I walked out of that pub with twenty of his pounds in my pocket.

Later, in the cooler evening, the ladybirds began to subside. After I’d finished work I made my way up to the same dark place on the beach. After my encounter with Colin I
didn’t want to go but I’d arranged to meet Terri there again before Colin had intercepted me. I assumed she knew Colin was back on the scene, and I was quite prepared for her not to
turn up. But when I got there she was waiting with a blanket and a couple of beers. She did of course know that he was around, but she was very surprised that I’d seen him that day.

‘What’s he want with you?’

‘I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.’

She found that amusing. ‘Jeez!’

‘Maybe we should leave it. Are you sure he’s not following you?’

‘Not tonight. I know exactly where he is tonight. Cards club. Once a month to piss his money away. That’s why he’s back. He ain’t here to see me.’

I looked back up the beach. ‘I don’t know about this.’

‘It’s all right. I’m sure. Look at you. You got the jitters now, haven’t you?’

I felt trapped. After what had happened between us I was afraid she might think I was drawing back from her. We walked on a little way and then she spread the blanket on the sand and popped open
a beer. The luminous ripples of the waves did nothing to calm my nerves.

‘Relax, will you?’

The sea was blue-black, calm with a light, foamy tide. What had seemed like a beach in paradise a few nights ago now seemed to have a smoky edge. The phosphorescence in the waves was still at
large, but now it had a wormy quality. But it wasn’t the beach that had changed.

Terri would talk about other workers on the camp in quite brutal terms. Somehow she got onto the subject of Nikki. She called her a half-wog.

‘Stop,’ I said, ‘stop. You know what? Nikki is amazing.’

‘You think,’ she said dryly.

‘Yes, I do. She’s become a good friend. The only friend I do have here, not counting you.’ That last phrase came out like an afterthought.

‘How good a friend is she then?’

I knew exactly what she was hinting at but I said, ‘How do you mean?’

‘Never mind. What about Colin? Sounds like he’s your big buddy now.’

I ignored that. Whatever relationship I had with Terri, I wasn’t going to allow her to slag off Nikki. Already the evening wasn’t playing out in the expected way so I tried to change
the subject.

I took my wallet out of my pocket and showed her the photograph of my biological father. I’ve no idea why. It wasn’t something I went around discussing freely with anyone. In fact it
was a kind of secret. Perhaps I’d made the basic error of thinking that emotional intimacy automatically follows sexual intimacy. I told her I had this idea that my biological father was
always close. That he was somehow here for me.

It now sounds impossibly naive. It was a half-baked idea. I hadn’t worked it out, but if I’d hoped to develop the notion any further by talking with Terri, I was mistaken. I told her
the little bit I knew. She examined the photo briefly and then slung it back at me. ‘You think you’ve had it rough?’ she said.

‘I’m not saying that at all.’

‘You’ve been brought up in cotton wool.’

‘That’s not what I meant. I was just telling you that—’

She wasn’t going to let me finish. ‘I could tell you things about my own life that would make your hair fall out. At least you know who your dad is – or you think you do.
I’ve no idea and you don’t see me crying about it.’

‘I’m not crying about it.’ Her hard-hearted posturing only made me smile.

‘I don’t see why you’re smirking.’

Her irritation only made me smile more. Heaven knows, I thought she was faking being cross with me, but I misread her mood. ‘That’s it,’ she said with a nasty wheedle in her
voice, ‘you can fuck off. You’re not getting it tonight.’

‘What?’

‘You heard. I said you’re not getting it.’

It, of course, being sex. I was taken aback. Firstly, I had never imagined sex as a bargaining token or a credit chip to be offered and withdrawn in this way. Secondly, I couldn’t imagine
anyone who wasn’t in the mood being open to sex. Here I was facing the withdrawal of privileges I hadn’t even asked for. The evening had turned sour and I wasn’t entirely sure
why. I felt the second argument had something to do with the first. Quite apart from the fact that I was worried about Colin prowling the beach, the episode stirred deeper doubts in mind about what
I was doing. If I’d ever seen myself as Terri’s rescuer I’d been a fool. It now occurred to me that in her mind she might have thought she was the one doing the rescuing.

She swallowed the last mouthful of beer and slung the bottle into the sea. I wanted to say something about children cutting their feet on broken glass but I let it go. She was already up and
folding the blanket. Without a word she set off ahead of me, moving toward the lights of the promenade.

I didn’t see Terri the next day, but the following morning we almost collided in front of the theatre. She behaved as if our spat hadn’t happened. She’d been
re-assigned to clean in the theatre again and that meant she’d been obliged to return her keys for the refurbished chalets. Our love nest was taken away from us and we had nowhere private to
meet.

‘What will we do?’ she asked.

I said I didn’t know. The truth is it was almost a relief. Then she suggested we use my room.

‘That’s not a good idea,’ I said.

She narrowed her eyes at me. I was afraid that she suspected I was withdrawing. I couldn’t tell whether what I saw in her eyes was contempt or hurt. She could seem vulnerable one moment
and then cast-iron the next. I weakened and we arranged to meet in my room at lunch time.

We’d been in my room for maybe ten minutes when we were brought to our senses by the sound of a key hitting the lock from the other side of the door. Fortunately I’d secured the door
with my own key and left it hanging in the lock.

There was a loud thumping. ‘Got someone in there, you maladjusted boy?’ It was Nobby, making one of his rare visits back to his room. ‘Wickedness. Fire and brimstone shall come
to thee, young man. Plus I’m going to ’ave to report you to the Secret Masters who run this august lodge since you are in clear violation of rule number seventy-seven which expressly
prohibits the wayward practice of afternoon nuptials etcetera etcetera etcetera can’t you open this fuckin’ door?’

‘Jesus!’ Terri whispered.

I shouted through the door. ‘Nobby, can you come back later?’

‘Later is tomorrow is no good is surplus to tomorrow’s requirements. Did I leave my dicky in there?’

‘You what?’

‘Dicky! Dicky! Dicky bow! Formal neckpiece throat-butterfly fuckin’ bow-tie is it in there my friend I need it for tonight? It’ll only take me two seconds to ascertain presence
of said couture oh for fuck’s sake!’

‘Where? Where is it? I’ll look.’

‘I dunno, in the drawer, stuck in my drawers in the wardrobe under the bed fallen behind the fuckin’ walrus secreted in a shoe stuffed under the mattress, come on chief, I
don’t know, let me fuckin’ well look an’ I’ll find it!’

‘You can’t come in. I’ll have a good look for you and bring it to you later.’

I resisted all his protests until finally he went away. We heard him go out of the building, blethering incomprehensibly. I lifted back the curtain to see him trotting across the yard away from
us, still prattling to himself.

‘Is he on drugs?’ Terri asked me.

‘No, he’s from Manchester.’

She was already getting dressed. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’

I made a half-hearted effort to get her to stay. Before leaving she suggested we meet backstage in the theatre.

‘You’re joking!’

She took a deep breath. ‘Now that I’m working there again we both have a reason to be there. It makes sense. We should only meet in places we are supposed to be.’ She cupped my
face, kissed me, and gave me a precise time when I would find her backstage early that evening, while everyone else was eating.

The ladybird storms were subsiding but the ground was littered with their carcasses. Workers were mobilised to sweep the bugs into neat pyramid-piles so that they could be
disposed of. One man was shovelling the things into a paper sack. I had never seen so many insects. It reminded me of biblical stories about swarms of locusts.

But the spectacle of all those bug carcasses told me that the madness was over. I’d made a mistake and I knew it. I hated myself for having raised Terri’s expectations about me; but
I hated myself more for having to pretend that I wanted to carry on. I decided that when I saw her in the theatre that evening I would tell her that it all had to stop.

At tea-time I ate early and quickly and I went hurrying over to the theatre. I had to fight off the notion that I was transparent, that everyone knew where I was going and whom
I was seeing. It seemed like I passed everyone who knew me. Nikki, Sammy, Gail. Even Luca Valletti, who wasn’t usually to be found outside his performance hours, was there outside the offices
having a smoke with Pinky. They all looked up and gave me a knowing smile. Or so I feared.

I went into the theatre through the front entrance, through the hushed and shadowy auditorium, skipped up the steps onto the stage and behind the thick red curtains. There was no one around. I
found a stool to sit on between the upright wing-flats and waited in the dark.

A darkened backstage is a place full of ghosts. You expect silence, but things creak. You feel the tension of hanging wires, and pendulum weights and flimsy flats. After a while a crack of light
appeared briefly as the rear door was opened and closed again.

She came in. ‘This is crazy,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

But she flung herself at me and we kissed. All the time we were kissing I felt like a meteorite falling to the earth. I wanted to pull back but the taste of her mouth inflamed me all over again.
Her kisses sparked memories of that phosphorescence on the dark beach as she invited me to go further. She put her hand inside my shirt and raked my back with her fingernails. I was weak. I had a
sense of myself as a moral coward as I kissed her back.

Just then I felt a draught, and one of the flats wobbled slightly. Someone was backstage with us.

‘Slutcha.’

The gravel voice was unmistakable, coming from out of the darkness, somewhere between the unsteady flats.

‘No,’ Terri breathed. ‘No.’

‘And you, you
cowson
.’

I still couldn’t see where the voice was coming from but I could almost scent the toxic breath on which it travelled. Colin knew we were there but it was plain that he could only see us in
shadow. Perhaps he thought that I was Luca Valletti. My instincts were conflicted. I wanted to run but with Terri in my arms I felt emboldened. ‘Slip out the back way,’ I said to her.
‘I’ll face him.’

I felt her peel away from me as I turned. I took a step towards the voice. Colin moved from behind a black-painted flat, making it quiver. His face was in darkness. I could see his teeth bared
in the shadows. He powered forward at me but in his momentum he tripped over one of the iron weights holding down the stage-braces and he went sprawling, down onto his knees. One of the flats at
the edge of the stage fell forward on to him.

Terri grabbed me. She put her face right up to mine. ‘Get out,’ she hissed. ‘Get out or you’re dead.’

I saw him throw off the fallen flat and my fight instincts liquidised and turned to flight. I squeezed between the back flat and let myself out of the back door, slamming it behind me. I ran
quickly up the alley behind the theatre, sure of the route from when I’d played Captain Blood with the children. I took the steps three at a time and went out onto the theatre roof.

Once on the roof it occurred to me that I’d trapped myself. I’d left myself no way out. There was a low wall on the east side of the roof and a space between a humming ventilator and
it. I squeezed in between them and lay down. The ladybirds were still swarming. Though their numbers had diminished they seemed to target me as I lay behind the ducting.

I was breathing hard. I lay there listening, trying to filter the sounds. I hadn’t heard anyone come from behind me or up the steps to the roof. There was nothing to be heard from inside
the theatre. Above the hum from the ventilator I could hear snatches of conversations of holidaymakers. There was the occasional laugh or cry of mirth; and I could hear the low-level buzz of some
familiar voices from below me. It was Luca and Pinky, having a smoke below. Though I identified their voices easily enough I couldn’t make out what they were saying.