the back of a cupboard for Brendan. And if Mr. Donald Aitkenside ran down the road in a panic, I wouldn’t have seen him. Still less the fella they call Pikey Pete jump in his van and drive screaming in all directions at once.”
Al walks down the road. She is eight, nine, ten. Once again she hasn’t got her swimming kit or her gym shoes or anything else she should have for school. Lee and Tehera are just behind her, then comes Catherine Tattersall; she looks back for Catherine, who is lagging, and there on the pavement she sees MacArthur’s eye, rolling along. “Look,” she says, and they say, “What?” She points, “Look at that,” she says, “at that.” Catherine steps right on MacArthur’s eye, and squashes it into the ground. “Yeachh!” Al says, and turns aside. “What’s up wiv you, Al?” Catherine says. When Al looks back, the jelly has bounced back again, to a perfect orb, and MacArthur’s eye continues to roll along.
It is evening. She is coming home from school. At the street corner, the half-crippled little bloke called Morris Warren leans against the wall. Eff off, she says under her breath. As she approaches, she expects him to reach out and make a grab at her breasts, as this is his usual habit. She prepares to swerve; that is her usual habit, too.
But today he doesn’t grab. He just looks at her, and as he looks, he almost falls over. It seems as if his crooked legs won’t support him; he grabs the wall for support, and when he speaks, his tone is amazed. He says, “Take off his bollocks, yes! But take out a cove’s eye? I’ve never heard of it before.”
She bangs into the house, casting a glance down into the stained bathtub, thinking, I better get something and scour that out, it looks bad. Emmie comes at her as soon as she gets in the door: “I saw MacArthur’s eye on a spoon, I saw MacArthur’s eye on a fork.”
“Which?”
“I saw you standing there with a knitting needle in your hand, young lady. He didn’t deserve that. He was only doing what men do. You was all over Capstick when he pulled the dog off you, but then you was all over MacArthur when he bought you sweeties. So what was he to think? He used to say, Emmie, what have you bred there? She’ll do anything for a bag of chocolate raisins.”
Al sits in her kitchen, her kitchen at Admiral Drive. Older now, suddenly wiser, she asks the empty air, “Mum, who’s my dad?”
Emmie says, “Leave off, will you!”
She says, “I cannot rest, till I know. And when I know, then possibly I still cannot rest.”
“Then you have to ask yourself what’s the use,” Emmie says. “I dunno, girl. I would help you, if I could. It could be any one of ’em, or it could be six other fellas. You don’t see who it is, because they always put a blanket over your head.”
Back, back, go back. She is at Aldershot. Darkness is falling, darkness is falling fast. The men are moving a bundle of something. They are passing it between them. It is limp, doll-sized, swaddled. She pulls the blanket aside with her own hand, and in its folds, dead-white, waxy, eyes closed tightly, she sees her own face. And now back she goes, back and back, till she is smaller and smaller, before she can walk, before she can talk: to the first wail, the first gasp: to the knitting needle pricking her skull and letting in the light.
At Whitton, Colette opened the wardrobe. “Where are Zoe’s things? Surely she doesn’t take everything with her when she travels?”
A pity. She had been looking forward to trying her clothes on, when Gavin went to work. She wished he would clear off, really, and let her go through all the drawers and cupboards, instead of hanging about in a sheepish way at the back of her and sighing like that.
Back and back. There is an interval of darkness, dwindling, suspension of the senses. She neither hears nor sees. The world has no scent or savour. She is a cell, a dot. She diminishes, to vanishing point. She is back beyond a dot. She is back where the dots come from. And still she goes back.
It is close of day, and Al is plodding home. The light is low and greyish. She must make it before dark. Clay is encrusted on her feet, and beneath them the track is worn into deep ruts. Her garments, which appear to be made of sacking—which may, indeed, be sacks—are stiffening with the day’s sweat, and chafing the knotty scars on her body. Her breath is coming hard. There is a stitch in her side. She stops and drinks from the ditch, scooping up the water with her fingers. She squats there, until the moon rises.
In the kitchen Colette was opening cupboards, staring critically at the scanty stocks. Zoe, she thought, is one of those people who lives on air, and has no intention of putting herself out to cook for Gavin; which is a mistake, because left to himself he reverts to fried chicken, and before you know where you are he’s bursting out of his shirts.
She opened the fridge, she pushed the contents about. What she found was unappealing: a half-used carton of full-fat long-life milk, some Scotch eggs, a lump of orange cheese which had gone hard, and three small blackened bananas.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell Zoe,” she said, “not to keep bananas in the fridge?”
“Feel free,” Gavin said.
“What?”
“Look in all the cupboards, why don’t you? Look in the dishwasher. Don’t mind me. Look in the washing machine.”
“Well, if it’s empty,” she said, “I’ll just pop in one or two things of mine that I brought with me. I didn’t like to leave my dirty laundry behind.”
He followed her into the sitting room as she went to pick up her bag. “You’re not going back then?”
“No chance. Gavin, excuse me, don’t stand in my way.”
“Sorry.” He sidestepped. “So won’t you miss her? Your friend?”
“I’ll miss my income. But don’t worry. I’ll get it sorted. I’ll ring up some agencies later.”
“It’s quiet,” Gavin warned.
“Anything at your place?”
“My place? Dunno.”
She stared at him, her pale eyes bulging slightly. “Gavin—correct me if I’m wrong.” She squatted and opened her bag. “Would I be near the truth if I said you’re still out of a job?”
He nodded.
She plucked out her dirty washing. “And would I be near the truth if I said you made Zoe up?”
He turned away.
“And that rustbucket out there, it really is your own car?” Damn, she thought, isn’t that just typical, he’s more embarrassed about the car than everything else put together. Gavin stood rubbing his head. She passed him, went into the kitchen with her bundle.
“It’s temporary,” he said. “I traded down. But now you’re back—”
“Back?” she said coldly. She bent down and retrieved a grey sock from the washing machine. It was a woolly sock, the kind you darn; the heel had gone into holes. “How long were you intending to leave it before you told me Zoe didn’t exist?”
“I thought you’d work it out for yourself. Which you did, didn’t you? I had to say something! You went on about this Dean guy, and the rest. Dean this and Donnie that. I had to say something.”
“To make me jealous?”
