What They Do in the Dark (22 page)

‘She drops something, leaves something, goes back for it …’

Hugh suggested Mike sit with it until the end of the day, when extra pages would have to be issued. Quentin admired the provision of this small pit stop for Mike’s dignity. By now Mike’s driver was hovering in the dazzling doorway, ready to take him to the set, so they said their goodbyes. Alone, Quentin and Hugh sat back and exchanged smiles of professional complicity.

‘What a team,’ said Hugh.

Then Quentin had another thought. It came on her like nausea. Three barrels.

‘Wait up, hasn’t he railroaded us anyway? We’ll still have to pay overtime on that shooting day, even if it isn’t Sunday and a whole different set-up and all.’

‘Darling …’

Of course, what kind of schmuck was she? It was a set-up: Mike and Hugh waiting for her, the boys together. The pages were the pup they’d sold her so she’d jump at the second option, which was actually their first. She could imagine the conversation, Hugh’s languid assurances that he could play her, she was crazy about him, poor girl … Quentin’s father took over.

‘We don’t have room in the budget to go over, you know that, not even a couple hours. We’re really not going to move on that, Hugh, I mean the guys in the studio. No deal. It happens, it’s coming out of your pocket somewhere, OK? Or you can talk to the Wops and see if they’re feeling generous.’

He palmed that hair of his. Had he gone into detail with Mike? Mike would love the detail, she knew. Fucking shitty bastards. You put a guy’s cock in your mouth, he thinks he can put his cock in your mouth.

‘Oh, absolutely. Received and understood, darling. But as long as Mike sees it’s in the schedule, he’s happy, and we know that makes everyone else happy. When it comes to it, I very much suspect it’ll drop off the end of the day, don’t you?’

God knows, she wanted to believe him. He was another producer after all, one of her tribe, on her side, the side of restraint. If it was true, she could be herself again, maybe. She ventured a look straight at him. Right here, right now, Quentin knew she needed to take something for this goddamn hangover. He gave her the old Hugh smile, the one you could eat with a spoon. She couldn’t make any calls before she felt better, that was for sure.

I
GO TO
see my dad the day I know Pauline is meeting Lallie. I walk out of the door, telling Mum and Ian that I’m going out to play, and keep walking all the way back to our real house. I don’t catch the bus. I want to feel the distance. Getting to our street, fear clenches that the house won’t be there, that I’m walking in a dream that is going to turn bad, but of course the house is itself, unchanged. Dad still lives there. If everything was normal, I would have approached from the backs and gone through the garden gate and in through the kitchen door, which is the one everyone uses, but because nothing can ever be the same again I take the longer route to the official street, with its parched gardens, and knock at the front door. There is a bell, but as far as I know it has never rung.

It’s Thursday afternoon, which is Dad’s half day from work. Sure enough, his face appears from behind the frosted glass of the porch, sleepy and wary. He is pleased to see me, I think, although there is the briefest moment of some large and unfamiliar emotion before he builds on his usual expression and ruffles my hair and one-handedly hugs me so that I tip into his tummy, almost non-existent after Ian’s.

‘What’s this in aid of then? Does your mum know you’re here?’

Since I don’t want to lie, I ignore the question.

‘Can I come in?’

Inside, the house is dark and cool and, even I can see, much more untidy than it ever was before. We go towards the kitchen. Everything is the same, and everything is different. When Dad sits down I see he is wearing his usual slippers, but no socks. His
cigarette is burning in a saucer, a long worm of ash. There’s a nearly empty milk bottle next to his tea mug, with a sequence of slimy yellowish rings showing the bottle has been kept out of the fridge. A few old papers on the floor. A mangled packet of butter next to the empty metal dish, ordered by mum from a catalogue, whose scrape against the knife has always made him wince. I stay leaning into him as he inhales his cigarette, inhaling him. He hasn’t shaved, and the stubble is grizzled white and grey. I sandpaper my fingers against it in devotion. He almost laughs. Uneasy.

‘You haven’t run away, have you?’

I immediately wish that I had. It’s hard to speak, now. I burrow my face into his neck.

‘Eh, come on. You’ll start me off.’

I manage to breathe, but the end of each long breath produces a sob somewhere in my abdomen. We could stay like this for ever. Dad pats my back to warn that he’s going to move me away from him, but I refuse to take the cue. I burrow deeper, cling.

‘It’s not that bad, is it?’

I shake my head, furious with myself. I don’t want to be a baby.

‘Just, just wanted to see you.’

‘Do you want a drink of squash?’

Glad to be busy, he makes me a cup of lemon barley from the same bottle I was drinking at the beginning of the summer. As he runs the water to get it cold, I read the paper where it’s open on the table.

‘What’s a claw hammer?’ I ask, imagining an animal claw sprouting from the metal, shredding scalp and skin. Dad moves the paper away, on the pretext of giving me the squash. But it’s too late to stop me seeing the photo of the woman who’s been killed, staring emptily at the camera. She has striped hair and cruel eyebrows. You can always tell in photos that someone is dead. They go blurry.

‘You shouldn’t be reading that.’ He puts the paper on top of the dirty pots on the draining board.

‘What’s a vice girl?’ I ask.

‘Bloomin’ ’eck, Missis … a lady who isn’t very nice. How are you getting on at school then?’

‘We’ve finished. On Friday.’

‘Lucky you!’

He leans back against the sink, ankles crossed and hands spread behind him, clamping the Formica in a cowboyish way I recognize and didn’t know I missed till now. We’re not used to talking for its own sake.

‘I saw Lallie Paluza,’ I tell him.

‘Oh aye?’

His lack of interest isn’t sharp, like Mum’s.

‘She’s dead small.’

‘Did you get her autograph?’

I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. People who ask for autographs aren’t the same as people who become friends of famous people. If I asked her for an autograph, I’d always be rubbish, like a little sister but worse.

‘Ooh, reminds me …’

He uncrosses his ankles and goes out of the room, returning quickly with a book of some kind, which he hands to me.

‘They’re giving them away at the garage. You collect them.’

It’s not a book but an album full of empty discs that you put coins in. The coins are silver and look like money but have footballers on them, Leeds United. This is Dad’s team and mine. Although I’m not really interested in football, he and I have spent many Sunday afternoons with me on his knee watching matches, drowsy with roast beef and Yorkshire pud, while Mum does the washing-up. For his sake I have learned the names of some players, and the fact that there is a goalie and a centre forward. Billy Bremner is already in the album, and handsome Norman Hunter.
I only recognize them from the names printed below, because their outlines are cartoonish and not nearly as good as the Queen’s on proper money.

‘They give you the wotsits when you get petrol. I’ve got some more in the car.’

‘Thanks.’

I want to cry again, but try not to for Dad’s sake. He never gives me things usually. Even Christmas presents, I know because Mum has told me, are her job.

‘Why don’t I get them, and I’ll run you back to your mum.’

He gets the little plastic bag out of the glove compartment as I sit in the passenger seat. I press the new trio of players one by one into their rightful places. The coins are oddly light.

‘You’re supposed to be going on holiday, aren’t you?’

I’m having a bit of trouble with Gary Sprake. There’s an extra bit around his rim and he keeps popping out of his circle.

‘We’re going to Spain.’

I don’t tell him about Butlin’s and the shame and sadness of my failed audition. I piggle away the spare bit and Gary Sprake goes in. Dad’s got a cigarette on the go, like he always does when he drives. It’s part of steering: the transfer of fag to mouth whenever he needs a full grip to go round corners, the squint against the wasted smoke. He tips ash when we stop at lights and I can feel him looking at me whenever he does it. That bit is new. He’s never looked at me before.

‘Will you get any more?’

‘Aye, they give you them when you get petrol. I’ll save them for you.’

There are six players left to get. It’ll be a reason to see him. Maybe there are more teams, even. I’ve always liked the purple and blue of West Ham’s shirts.

‘Thanks.’

I slide my eyes up to him. Everyone says I’ve got his eyes, even
Mum. She used to like that. He’s got good eyes, Dad. There’s usually a joke sitting in them when he does really look at you.

‘Can I stay with you?’

He takes his fag back between his fingers on the wheel. In the car he smokes left-handed because of the ash tray, and it makes him awkward.

‘I don’t mean all the time, I mean instead of going on holiday. You wouldn’t have to do anything, I could get your tea and stuff when you’re at work.’

It’s heady and sudden. I see myself alone in the house, making it like it used to be. Arranging chocolate mini-rolls on plates, setting the table.

‘Ah, well, I don’t know about that, love. You’re best off with your mum.’

It’s just like the way he always slides away when you hug him. If I start crying now I’ll never ever stop. I hold the Leeds United album so tightly its corners dig into my palms.

These are the things I love about my dad. His cured tobacco smell; the delicate colours of the embossed sailor in its life-ring on his cigarette packet; the dip in his chest he says is there to hold the vinegar for his fish and chips; the way he says ‘Hello, Gemma Barlow’ whenever he sees me; the fact he has a wash and shave every night before nine o’clock telly starts; his orange summer shirt with the check; the sour lemon face he pulls, twitching one eye, if you forget to put the three sugars in his tea or even to stir them in enough.

Ian answers the door, not Mum. Dad pushes me forward. There’s an invisible balloon wall between Dad and Ian, and they can’t look at each other. I have to cross between them, through the balloons, to get to my new life. I’m dreading what Mum will say. Against Ian, Dad’s wiriness looks puny. He nods a goodbye to me and escapes back to the car.

Inside the house, feelings swirl around like the black marks on
the weather map on telly. Mum is cross with me, but also excited. Ian isn’t cross, but he’s upset. They tell me off for going into town without saying anything, although I can’t see how it’s different from me taking the bus to school like I’ve been doing for weeks. I try to point this out, but it goes down badly. All sorts could happen, they say. Bad men. While they have a go at me, Mum’s weather front disentangles itself from Ian’s, and I see that she’s angry about me seeing Dad, and Ian’s more angry about the bad men. As soon as I’ve worked this out, they collide into something new:

‘It has to stop, Gemma, all this.’

All this what? I don’t say it. I’d get a slap.

‘Fighting at school, defying me—’

‘I’m not defying you!’

‘You see?’

Mum flips a what-did-I-tell-you look at Ian. Pretend helpless.

‘Your mother does everything for you, young lady. You should appreciate her more. You only get one mother, let me tell you that.’

Ian’s eyes, horribly, are soft with actual tears. Mum squeezes his hand.

‘You see? You’re upsetting Ian.’

She squeezes his hand again. ‘Anyway …’

And then they tell me. Next year, when school starts in September, I’ll be going to the private school, Hill House. Mum tells me it’s hundreds of pounds a term, and Ian will be paying for it because he loves me and thinks it’s important I get a good education, away from the rough children, children like Pauline Bright. Ian nods, tremendously.

There’s a uniform as well, which he’ll also be buying. It includes a hat and everything, like a girl in a comic. All my life I’ve seen those boys and girls, in their brown blazers with the yellow trim, like banana toffees, the boys in their caps and the girls in their brimmed hats. Matching brown macs if it’s raining, brown socks
that never fall down, heavy shoes from before there was fashion.
Hill House
, Mum has whispered, and I’ve known those boys and girls are better than me because they’re more expensive. And now I’ll be one of them. I can’t work out if this is meant to be a punishment, in which case I’m not supposed to show my pleasure. At least I’m sure I’m expected to demonstrate gratitude. I cushion myself into Ian’s middle and squeeze, me who so recently was cuddling up to Dad’s sparseness. It feels odd.

‘Nothing’s too good for you and your mum,’ Ian says, still tearful.

The socks are brown too, with a cuff ringed in yellow. I wonder if you play all those games in books, hockey and lacrosse, instead of netball and rounders. I know that Lallie goes to a stage school when she’s not working, but I also know she has to wear a uniform nearly as splendid.