The Pools Page 21

  He’s silent.

  ‘I didn’t mean it to happen.’

  He’s staring into his cup of smoky bacon flavour tea.

  ‘I don’t want to waste my life.’

  ‘Whose is it?’

  I bite my bottom lip and look towards the window. It’s dark outside now. The tearoom’s emptied. The music’s stopped. There’s just the big tick of a grandfather clock in the corner, as regular as an ECG monitor on one of those hospital programmes.

  ‘Joanna. Whose is it?’

  My sausage will be cold by now. The roll soggy. The margarine too soaked in.

  ‘Whose is it, Joanna?’

  ‘You don’t know him.’

  ‘Oh lord.’

  After a minute he says, ‘It’s not that backward boy, is it?’

  I hang my head and wilt my shoulders, like a sunflower that’s on its last gasp.

  ‘He didn’t – force you, did he?’

  Don’t say anything.

  ‘Oh my God.’ He grasps both my hands in his and pulls them to his thighs. ‘It’s all right,’ he says, pumping my hands up and down.

  Tears would be perfect.

  ‘Poor girl. Poor girl. Poor girl.’

  After another minute of combined hand squeezing and thigh rubbing, I say, ‘I just need the money.’ I give a little sniff. ‘Then I can, you know, start again.’

  He crushes my fingers and stares at me with pop-eyes. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he says. He’s breathing like a buffalo. ‘It’s crazy, but maybe…’

  ‘What?’

  His crinkly cheeks get a sudden rush of blood and he looks almost shiny. ‘You could get yourself – fixed – and then, then we could go away. Start again, like you said.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean. We could go somewhere. Together.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You and me. As – friends. I could look after you, Joanna. It would be perfect. You’d escape all this. And I could get a new start. We both could.’

  ‘What about Mum?’

  ‘She’ll understand.’ His lips settle into a tight line and he looks straight at me. ‘We can visit her.’

  I can’t speak for a moment. He’s twisting my fingers now, wringing them like wet washing.

  ‘It will be for the best. We’ll be friends, that’s all. You need to get away – and so do I…’

  I tug my hands loose. They’re damp from his grip.

  ‘I can get you the money, Joanna.’ His eyes bulge. There’s a ridge of sweat on his upper lip. He swallows. ‘When do you need it?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Well, how far gone are you?’

  I stare at Simon’s V-neck jumper. The diamond patterns move with his heavy breaths. I can’t think of an answer.

  A minute ticks by, slowly.

  ‘You are sure, aren’t you?’

  ‘I – think so.’

  He lowers his voice. ‘Have you done a test?’

  Frilly apron appears and swipes my plate and glass. She lets her plait dangle over the liquid left in Simon’s cup. ‘Closing now,’ she says, slamming the bill in his saucer and reclaiming the teapot.

  Simon waits until she’s gone. Then he takes off his glasses. ‘Joanna?’

  ‘We’d better go.’

  ‘Joanna.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re sure you’re – ’ he lowers his voice, ‘pregnant?’

  I trace a line in the crumbs on the tablecloth. I run my tongue along my bottom lip and give him two blinks. ‘I really need the money.’

  He sort of throws himself back in his chair. Lets out a big huff. Then a little huff. Then a big one again. He shakes his head.

  When he’s finished shaking his head, he puts his hand over his mouth and wipes away some invisible crumbs.

  ‘Are you pregnant or not?’

  I blink at him some more. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Yes or no, Joanna.’

  We stare at each other for a minute. Then I do a big shrug.

  ‘Priceless,’ he says. ‘Bloody priceless.’ There’s a lot of huffing and wiping of the mouth again.

  Finally he slams his hand down on the tablecloth. The Lapsang Souchong shakes in his cup. He scrapes back his chair and throws Frankenstein into his rucksack.

  ‘You’re as bad as your mother.’ I think he’s going to spit. Or use that fist.

  But he doesn’t. He walks out. He walks out, and then it’s just me, the bill, and the ECG monitor clock. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  seventeen

  Howard

  December, 1985

  The next night, I was late leaving work and I drove a little too fast on the way home. I listened to Radio 2 in the car. The mystery voice. It had gone on for weeks, that one. A man saying, ‘Of course, that was back in my day.’ There was a little laugh somewhere in his voice; a slight northern accent. No one could get it. They’d tried everyone from John Noakes to Brian Blessed.

  I’d thought it might be a start, the apology. He’d had a day to mull it over, and I’d hoped that when he came back that night, we could all sit down together over dinner and Robert might even smile. He might see that I was willing to make an effort, at least.

  But when I arrived home, having completed the journey in five minutes under my usual time, our house was filled with a strange smell. There was a reek of fried onions, and something else I couldn’t name.

  ‘What are you making?’ I called to Kathryn from the hallway.

  ‘Curry.’ Through the open kitchen door, I saw her glance at her recipe book. ‘Lamb curry. I thought I’d try it. To warm Robert up when he comes back from the farm.’

  We’d never had curry before. As I removed my coat, I inhaled the other smell, something beneath the fried onion, something rounded and savoury. It’s stayed on my clothes ever since. Later that night, when I held my wife’s hands up to my face, I could smell it there, as if it was thriving under her nails. Kathryn told me, afterwards, that it was garlic.

  I sat down with the news and the weather forecast. Even Michael Fish looked cold as he stuck the temperatures on the map.

  ‘Freezing again tomorrow,’ I called to Kathryn. She came in from the kitchen and stood in front of me.

  ‘Rob’s not back yet.’ She folded back the edge of her cuff and looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t he be back by seven?’ She was wearing two jumpers, I remember that. Her green polo neck underneath Robert’s grey school V-neck.

  ‘Will the dinner spoil?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, the dinner won’t spoil, Howard.’

  I recognised the catch in her voice. ‘We’ll give him an hour,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he won’t want to be plucking those birds for any longer than he has to.’

  She went back into the kitchen.

  ‘I expect he’s hanging about with Luke,’ I called.

  I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the empty place settings.

  ‘It’s not like him to be late,’ said Kathryn. She was standing behind me at the stove. She gave the curry another long stir, then rapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pot with some force. I watched as a dollop of brown liquid fell back to join the rest of the sticky gloop. The sweet-savoury smell of it reminded me of the scent of daffodils. That first strong, peppery whiff of spring.

  ‘What did you say to him last night, when you went down there?’ she asked, folding her arms across her chest and holding the glistening spoon up by one shoulder.

  ‘I told you. I apologised.’

  ‘How did you apologise?’

  ‘I said I was sorry. That was it.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He didn’t say anything.’ I showed her my palms. ‘He didn’t have anything to say to me.’

  Kathryn blew up into her fringe. ‘He’s almost two hours late,’ she said, looking towards the back door.

  ‘He’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t upset him again?’

  ‘He didn’t seem
upset. He just didn’t respond.’

  Kathryn drove her wooden spoon back into the curry and stirred again.

  ‘I’m not sure when to put the rice on.’ She picked up a packet of Uncle Ben’s. We had rice sometimes in the power station canteen, but I always avoided it.

  ‘It’ll be his own fault if his dinner’s spoiled.’

  She frowned. ‘Where is he, though?’ She shook the packet of Uncle Ben’s and stared at the man on the front, as if he might give her an answer. ‘He must be starving by now.’

  Kathryn went to the window and lifted the corner of the blind. She rubbed a spy-hole in the condensation on the window and peered out. ‘Perhaps you should go down there, Howard.’

  I thought of the rows of turkeys hanging limp and lifeless in the cold air. ‘Again?’

  ‘Just to check.’

  I stood up and went to join her at the window. ‘Why don’t we give it another hour?’ I patted her hand. ‘He’ll come when he’s hungry.’

  Together we looked through the spy-hole in the condensation until it had almost disappeared.

  Half an hour later, the phone rang.

  Kathryn answered it. From my chair in the kitchen, I heard her say, ‘I’ll get him for you’.

  I never receive phone calls.

  She handed over the receiver, but stayed standing next to me in the hallway, tea towel in one hand, tilting her head towards my ear.

  ‘Howard? Kevin McNeill.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Kevin McNeill. Luke’s Dad.’

  ‘Oh. Hello.’

  ‘Listen, I didn’t want to worry your wife, so I thought it best to speak to you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Kathryn tilted her head closer to mine.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, I’m sure it’s nothing.’ He coughed. ‘I know it sounds odd, but Luke’s just got in and he says he’s lost your Rob.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘He says Rob’s run off. And he seems a bit – rattled. I don’t know if they’ve had an argument or something. You know what teenage boys are like! But you might want to go and have a look for him, just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘He’s not there, then, with Luke?’ I looked at Kathryn. The crease in her forehead deepened.

  ‘No. Luke says they were on their way home from the farm, and he looked back and Rob was gone. He’d just left him, or something. I can’t fathom it, myself.’

  ‘They were finished there hours ago, though.’

  ‘Like I said. I can’t fathom it.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like Robert.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Has he got a girlfriend, your boy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A girlfriend – has Rob got one? I bet that’s it, he’ll have given Luke the slip for some girl.’

  ‘He hasn’t got a girlfriend.’

  ‘As far as you know.’

  ‘Robert hasn’t got a girlfriend.’

  ‘Look, I’m sure there’s a simple explanation, but like I said, you might want to go and have a quick look.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bound to be a simple explanation. Nine times out of ten, there is.’

  ‘Thank you for letting us know.’ I put the phone down. Kathryn dropped her tea towel and clutched my arm, her wide eyes waiting for an explanation.

  ‘Something about Luke losing him.’ I took her hands in mine and she gripped my fingers. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. But I’d better go and have a look.’

  ‘Howard – ’

  ‘Nothing to worry about. I’ll be back in a bit.’

  I tugged my hands from hers and opened the front door.

  I ran right out into the road, without my coat. The frost on the tarmac crunched beneath my shoes.

  He would be still on the farm. There would be a simple explanation. There was no need to run, I told myself. No need at all.

  I walked to the junction, past the garage, past Burgrey Stores and up the High Street. I tried to keep my steps brisk, but not panicked.

  The church bells were ringing. Thursday is practice day. Each clanging bell seemed to pound in time to my footsteps on the road.

  Probably he was home by now. There would be a simple explanation. He’d be asleep on the toilet. And I’d carry him back to bed.

  Nine times out of ten.

  A simple explanation.

  The icy air made my lungs feel raw.

  Nine times out of ten.

  I kept walking, walking, walking. Not running.

  There would be a simple explanation.

  Nine times out of ten.

  Once I reached the lane by the church, I had to break into a run. I slipped and stumbled along the icy mud, and once I went down on my knees, but I recovered and ran again. I ran across the field to the farm. I have never been a natural runner, and the exertion made my heart thump hard against my ribs.

  The steam from the power station clung to the tops of the towers, white against the blue-black sky. I used to think of those clouds of steam as like snow clouds, hanging on mountaintops, just as you see in paintings. But that night they looked exactly like what Mum had always said they were: clouds of smoke, billowing into the atmosphere; dirty, thick, unstoppable.

  I couldn’t see anyone on the farm; it was all dark, and there was a dog barking, so I hammered on the big corrugated iron doors of the turkey shed and I hollered Robert’s name, but there was just the dog barking, louder and louder.

  I hammered on the shed doors again. My pulse was pounding in my throat.

  ‘What do you want?’ A torch was in my face; a man’s breath was wet in the air between us.

  ‘I’m Robert’s – Rob’s – father. Howard Hall.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He was here, earlier, working for you, he’s gone missing, nothing I expect, nothing at all, but I was worried, so – ’

  ‘There’s no one here.’ The man switched off his torch. I could see his round face, his red-rimmed eyes, and I recognised him as the man with the clipboard. ‘They all went home hours ago.’ He looked at me and I realised my teeth were chattering. ‘I’d go home, if I were you.’ He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘He’s probably there by now, eh?’

  When I got back to the house Kathryn opened the door before I could knock, and I knew he wasn’t home. I pushed past her and strode down the hall and into the kitchen, shouting for him.

  ‘Robert, Robert! I’m getting fed up with this game! Where are you, for Christ’s sake?’ I opened the back door and stood on the frozen grass and yelled. ‘Robert! Robert! Where are you?’

  Kathryn was still standing in the front doorway, so I pushed past her again and rushed into the road, calling. I must have been out there for ten minutes, calling like that, with Kathryn standing on the doorstep, watching me in silence. I could see people looking out of their curtains, lights going on in upstairs bedrooms, nets suddenly shuddering, but I carried on shouting my son’s name. But it didn’t matter how loud I shouted, my voice just disappeared into the night.

  Eventually Kathryn came out into the road and put her hand on my arm. ‘Call the police,’ she said.

  We didn’t go to bed until three. When I took off my clothes, I was surprised to see that my trousers were covered with mud and torn at the knees.

  ‘No point staying up, tiring ourselves.’ I spoke to Kathryn in the darkness of our bedroom. ‘We’ve done all we can. At least the police know, now. It’s that Luke, I expect. Some trick. He’ll be back in a bit, you’ll see.’ I kept saying these things. I held her frozen fingers, and I smelt the garlic. I knew her feet would be icy, but she kept them away from mine, pointing straight down the bed, her knees together, her head absolutely still on the pillow, looking up at the ceiling, saying nothing. There was just a slight twitch in her left eyebrow as I whispered my promises. He’ll be back in the morning. He’ll be back in the morning. He’ll be back in the morning. I said it again and again, until a crack of light slid under the curtains; and then I lay ther
e, staring into the brightness of the day, not wanting to get up and face the cold floor and the silent telephone.

  eighteen

  Joanna

  December, 1985

  Simon’s tutorial makes me late for turkey plucking, because I have to go home and change first. I choose my suede ankle boots and denim mini with black wool tights. I won’t do trousers and wellies for anyone.

  I charge down the lane by the church like I’m an American cheerleader in a film with Matt Dillon. Frozen puddles splinter beneath my stamping feet, but I don’t care. I swing my arms, stick out my chin, smile.

  Then a bramble catches my calf and scrapes off a long line of skin. My flesh smarts in the polar-temperature air. I reach down and feel the gap where my tights have snagged. The skin there is raised and hot.

  There’s no time to go back and change again, so I walk further down the lane, by the pools. I can see the black water of the biggest pool is half frozen over. I want to go down there and test it with my foot, just to hear the crunch-crackle of ice breaking.

  I’m nearly in the field by the farm when Shane steps out of the trees and grabs my wrist. I skate along the icy ground towards him, my joints suddenly turning to sponge. It’s easy for him to drag me closer. His warts dig into my fingers. His nose touches my cheek.

  ‘You didn’t wait last night,’ he says, his voice an edgy whisper. ‘I was looking for you.’

  The power station whirrs.

  ‘I was looking. Waiting.’ Shane flicks a smile and tightens his grip.

  ‘We’re late,’ I say, looking towards the farm.

  He shoves my hand downwards and jams my fingers into his trouser pocket. It’s hot in there, especially with Shane’s clammy fist over mine. I keep my fingers stiff, refusing to move. But he keeps pushing.

  His lips are bunched together. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him with his mouth closed tight.

  He keeps pushing. My lungs can’t seem to get enough air. It’s like every breath takes minutes to thaw in my chest. He keeps pushing. His brow is scored across his face now.

  ‘Let me go, Shane!’ I shout.