Trick or Treat (6 page)

And Kropotkin will not give it up. He tugs hard and in the end Olive's fingers, numb from the strain, give way and he is off, a fat torpedo down the hill. He chases a tabby cat with a white streak down its back like a spine. Olive rubs one poor hand with the other. Her fingers are trembling with the fright and the strain. She will have to follow Potkins. It is no good. She cannot let him go. Whatever would Arthur say? ‘Oh Artie!' she moans, ‘this is your fault. It is. You will go out and leave me. Selfish, you are. Selfish.' And all around the windows of the houses glint at her blindly and no one has seen her predicament, no one helps or cares. ‘Potkins,' she calls, and she begins to stumble down the hill. She holds onto her hat with one hand and grasps the wall with the other for support. She has not been down here for months, not for years, down here past the hydrangeas and the privet that grows in the narrow strip between the walls, with their stumps of iron palings, and the windows.

Kropotkin had disappeared between the parked cars, and Olive hurries, almost running now, panting. Fear clutches at her, and her heart scrambles madly in her chest. Her face is wet, for she is crying.

‘Potkins!' she calls, louder, and then she sees him, darting between two parked cars and out into the road. She reaches forward and then she trips and falls with a great fat wallop onto the pavement. At once Potkins is back, he is upon her licking her cheek and enveloping her in clouds of his doggy breath.

‘All right, missus? Come on, upsy-daisy,' and she is hauled to her feet by two youths.

‘Are you all right?' they keep saying. She is humiliated. No, she is not all right. She is far from all right. Her knees burn and her hands where they smacked the pavement. Tears run down her cheeks.

‘We'll walk you home,' one of them says. ‘This your dog?'

Olive points the way up the hill and the young men, who are good young men, take Olive's arms, one each, and one of them hangs onto Potkins who continues to pull, and they walk slowly together back up the hill. They leave Olive at her door, offering to call a doctor, or fetch a neighbour in to help, but Olive shakes her head. ‘No thank you,' she manages to say. ‘All right now. All better. Thank you.'

‘Well if you're sure …' and they go off, looking doubtful and awkward and young. Olive leaves Potkins in the yard with his lead on for she can't be doing with all that fiddling now, not with her fingers so sore. Once inside, she makes the mistake of looking in Arthur's shaving mirror, a mottled square above the sink, and she discovers that her face is red and swollen, the lipstick a grotesque smear on her chin – and that the hat has gone. It must have come off when she fell – her best hat, her only hat, the cherry hat that suited her so well. Olive sits down on the stairs, her coat straining under her arms, her knees and the palms of her hands smarting, and she weeps. Chairman Mao creeps downstairs and onto her lap. Her tears drip onto the bluish skin of his back and he purrs and his claws go in and out rhythmically, catching in the threads of her coat.

Nell tuts at the prices. In her wire basket she has a small bran-enriched loaf, a small tub of margarine, one bottle of disinfectant and one of bleach, and now she queues for her quarter of cheese. It is the nice assistant on the cheese counter today, she notices gratefully, the one who doesn't object to slicing small pieces of cheese for an old woman.

Ahead of her in the queue is a shuffling old woman, the sagging type, the type who has let herself go, surrendered to gravity – like Olive. This morning is the first time that Nell has been face to face with Olive for quite some time. Satisfaction stirs in her breast and a tight smile puckers her lips. She hated Olive, even as they shared the same desk at school, even as she went to tea at her house, masquerading as her little friend. Olive was not quite nice, not quite suitable in Nell's eyes, not that her family weren't a nice family, for although her mother fancied herself an artist, her father worked for the Post Office. But Olive was wild. She had a loud laugh, a really shocking laugh, suggestive, not ladylike at all. And she had a wide red mouth and her eyes were almost black, they sparkled blackly, indecently, not like English eyes; and her cheeks were bright as poppies. She had nice clothes, always nicely made, but she always looked a mess, hair escaping from her plait, stockings wrinkled, sash twisted, a splash of something on her front. It drove Nell mad that it didn't seem to matter. Nobody minded if Olive was a mess. Nell pats her perm. She always took such care to be a lady. And she was quite pretty enough too, in her way, in her quiet, decent, English way. She had pale brown hair, and pale blue eyes – like harebells Jim had said – and her skin was fair. She always had a tiny waist, and trim it is still, and her ankles still fine and bony. She smirks at the memory of Olive's socks, and fat bare legs above them. Oh, she might have been a beauty once, Olive Owens, but now she is a fright.

Nell buys some eggs and half a cucumber, a morsel of frozen smoked haddock and two small bananas, and then, as a gesture towards Rodney, she chooses a box of iced fancies: yellow, pink and chocolate diamonds, spangled with jellied fruit. By the time she's finished in the supermarket, the rain has started to fall. Nell is well prepared, always one step ahead of any eventuality. She wears her mac over an extra cardigan, and now she unfolds a transparent plastic rain-hat, arranges it over her curls and ties it neatly under her chin.

Nell toils up the hill. She takes it easy. Twenty-five steps and then a pause. Jim used to joke about the hill, say it kept her trim. Oh, but he was a gentleman. He would carry her bags up the hill for her, without a second thought, and even push little Rodney in his pram – very unusual for a man in those days. You see them all over now, men pushing babies in those flimsy little buggers or whatever they call them, something newfangled and American. Buggies.

Half-way up the hill, as she pauses on a twenty-fifth step, Nell notices something unexpected in the gutter, under a parked car. She rests her shopping basket and her plastic carrier-bag on the ground for a moment as she looks. It is a hat. It is not just any old hat, it is familiar. It is a black straw hat, quite a nice hat really except for some silly wax cherries on the side, common, like sucked sweets. It looks just like Olive's hat, the hat she's had for donkey's years, the hat that she was wearing this morning – ridiculous old tart that she is. Nell experiences a little swoop of excitement. What a dilemma! She'd like to pick the hat up and take it home. Before she gives it back, of course. For it must be returned to Olive. But it would be humiliating to be caught crouching down and putting her hand in the gutter, under a filthy car, which is what she will have to do in order to reach it. She looks up and down the hill. Nobody about. She looks at the rows of windows. Nobody, apparently, looking out. Quickly she stoops down and pulls out the hat from beneath the car. The blood rushes to her head as she leans over and she can hear her pulse. She jams the hat into her carrier-bag without even pausing to examine it and continues up the hill, her cheeks pink, and in her excitement manages the rest of the hill without counting her steps.

On the stairs, Olive weeps for her hat. Arthur gave her the hat in 1945 to celebrate the end of the war. Miraculously, for it was certainly not a cheap hat and he had no money, and he might even, Olive suspects, have stolen it, but that doesn't matter. It is a beautiful hat, a celebration hat, and it might have been made for her, he had said, made for a beauty with cherry lips and ebony eyes, made for his Olive. She weeps for the hat, and she weeps for her sore hands and knees, and she weeps because she has done something shameful. She has peed on the stairs. She couldn't help it. It just wouldn't stop, she just couldn't stop it, not sitting crouched forward at the bottom of the stairs. She weeps for Arthur, for what he will think of her, and on her lap, curled into a bony ball, slumbers Mao.

Wolfe throws scraps of bread to the ducks. Poor ducks. It is raining and it is cold. The green pond-water is spotted with the holes and the circles the raindrops make. Poor ducks who have to sit in the cold water all day, all night, all winter.

‘Come on,' says Petra. ‘We'll get soaked to the skin.'

‘Just a minute,' Wolfe says. He is trying to toss his last scrap of bread to one of the brown ducks that hasn't had any yet, but a greedy green one snaps it up first. ‘Horrible duck!' Wolfe shouts.

‘I'm going,' Petra says, and she turns her back and walks away. Wolfe trails along behind, dragging his shoes through the wet leaves. It is a good park. There's the river running through, the allotments up one side, some swings and a seesaw, and lots of grey squirrels amongst the trees.

‘There's plenty of sticks,' Wolfe calls. ‘We need some sticks for the bonfire.'

‘Not now though,' Petra turns and holds out her hand. ‘They're too wet. Come on, let's get back and have lunch. Bob and Buff will be wondering where we've got to.'

‘Could we get an allotment?' Wolfe asks, taking her hand. ‘Then we could grow all sorts of things.'

Petra pauses and squints through the rain, up at the drenched plots. ‘That's a thought,' she says. ‘It depends.'

‘On Tom?'

‘No!'

‘What then?'

‘I keep trying to explain … I just don't know.'

Wolfe tries to stop it, but a hot tear squeezes out and joins the raindrops running down his face. ‘I don't like it, Mum,' he says. ‘I don't like not being sure.'

‘Nor do I,' Petra says. They have reached the park gates. ‘Come on, let's hurry home. Look, I promise I'll get it sorted soon.'

‘How?'

‘I don't know. But the baby will be here soon, and Tom and I will have to make some decisions, and then we'll know whether we're coming or going. Now we've got to climb this ruddy hill so shut up and save your breath.'

They climb the hill in silence. The rainwater flows in the gutter like a river and the drops splat so hard on the pavement that they send up little round splashes. Petra's hair trails down like wet string. Wolfe's socks are soggy. He stops crying and wipes his nose on the sleeve of his anorak.

‘Ducks can't smile, can they?' he says suddenly.

Petra pauses. ‘No, I don't suppose they can!' she laughs and squeezes his hand. He turns and looks down the hill. He sees Arthur.

‘Look, there's that man from next door,' he says.

Petra turns, and they wait. ‘Hello,' Petra says as he catches them up, ‘you look nearly as wet as us!'

Arthur grimaces. ‘Thought to get moving on allotment, but rain put paid to that.'

‘I'd like an allotment,' Wolfe says, ‘but we're in a state of flux. I might plant a tree though, mightn't I, Mum? In the garden.'

‘Good for you, lad,' Arthur chuckles. ‘What sort of tree?'

‘Don't know yet. I'm still considering.'

Arthur smiles at Petra in the way that adults smile at each other over children's heads, but Wolfe doesn't mind. He likes the way Arthur's wrinkles crinkle round his eyes, and likes his shaggy eyebrows and the way the raindrops hang on the brim of his cap.

‘You can always come up allotment with me if you like,' Arthur says. ‘I could do with a hand. If it's all right with your mum.'

‘Can I?' Wolfe begs. ‘Please Mum. I could take my trowel. I've got a trowel. I used to have my own bit of garden at the Longhouse,' he explains. ‘I used to grow the very best radishes in the world.'

‘Of course he can, if you're sure he won't be a nuisance …' Petra says.

‘Tomorrow?' asks Wolfe.

‘I'll let you know, lad. It might be a day or two.'

‘Great,' says Wolfe. ‘That's just great.' Arthur is lovely. He is like a grandpa. He will be someone to talk to. Timidly, Wolfe takes his hand and Arthur looks down oddly at him, almost sadly.

‘Oh, we bought some chocolate for your …' Petra takes it out of her bag.

Arthur smiles. ‘She's a devil for it,' he says, ‘always has been always will be.'

They have reached the top of the hill. Petra stops and rests for a moment. ‘I won't be able to do that for much longer,' she says, her hand on her belly.

‘When's it due?' Arthur asks.

‘End of the month.'

‘Not so long then. What do you want?' Arthur asks Wolfe, ‘a brother or a sister?'

‘Don't really mind,' says Wolfe.

‘There's a lad,' says Arthur, squeezing his hand.

As soon as he gets through the back gate, Arthur can tell that something is wrong. Kropotkin is out in the rain, sodden and bedraggled, for the outhouse door is shut. His lead still trails from his neck.

‘Poor old boy,' Arthur says. He takes off the lead and opens the door so that the dog can get into his basket. He is almost afraid to go into the house, and as soon as he does, he can hear Olive crying.

‘There, there, me duck,' he says, finding her bundled in her coat at the bottom of the stairs. ‘It's all right, me old love. What's up? Tell me what's up.'

‘Oh Artie,' wails Olive. ‘Oh Artie … oh it's awful out there. My hat, oh my cherry hat.'

‘Come on,' says Arthur. ‘Let's get you up and get your coat off.'

‘But you don't understand … my hat, Artie, I've lost my hat.'

‘Come on, it's not end of world …' Arthur tries to pull her up but Olive resists. She will not meet his eyes.

‘And I've peed myself,' she whispers. ‘I'm sorry, Artie. I'm so sorry. I just couldn't move. I couldn't help it.'

‘That's all right, Ollie,' Arthur says. ‘Come on, love.' He struggles her into an upright position. His heart beats wildly with the strain and the anxiety. ‘Oh my poor love. What about a bath, eh? A nice warm bath.'

‘If you think that would be best, Artie.'

‘Let's dry your eyes first,' he says, and with his old handkerchief, warm and crumpled from his pocket, he wipes away her tears and the smudge of her lipstick. ‘Now, can you sit there a minute?' he manoeuvres her onto a kitchen chair. She sits down painfully, obediently. ‘It's just for a moment. I'll pour you a drop of brandy, then I'll run bath.'