“You don’t have to do that,” Mark said.
“I’d love to.”
“Dad, Richard’s my new Christmas friend.”
“Is he?”
“I met him on Christmas morning. Can he visit us at home?”
They paused at the corner of the street, waiting for a gap to appear in the traffic.
“Of course he can,” Mark said.
Seeming pleased with this, Richard went on telling Sally about the bookshop, hidden up an alley right by their house, and how some of the kids’ books there were magical. Nobody had read them since they were printed, years ago, and you’d be finding things in them that weren’t at all widely known. Some of the stories, in fact, could turn out to be like shared secrets between you and the person who wrote them.
“Just like real life.” Mark often said that upon hearing something banal. But he was rather touched that Richard could engage Sally’s attention like this, knew just how to pitch the conversation for her. And what was more, on this particular sugar-bright post-Christmas morning, Mark fancied the arse off him and wished that it had been him in the white gloves the previous night.
“This is it,” Richard said.
They were facing the plate-glass window of a small café. It had only two tables and one was taken by an old person of indeterminate gender and catholic tastes; he or she had each of the morning’s papers and three novels fanned out. The window and counter inside were covered with white paper doilies and golden twists of new bread. The air was heavy with cheese and coffee. They were glacé cherries stuck on almost everything that didn’t move.
“You’ve got everything here,” Mark said. Right now he wanted to open and run—oh, he didn’t know—a café? a delicatessen? something just by his estate. This was north, and they managed it here. Couldn’t he stretch this boundary somewhat and take this gorgeous continentalism a little nearer Darlington?
Richard and Sally were having milkshakes. When Mark asked for a black coffee, the man with a beard and a transatlantic twang asked if he was quite sure. Mark sighed; he was used to getting hassle over counters. Maybe he thinks I should be ordering lager or superglue. When Mark insisted, he was given a cup with a thin dribble of black in the bottom. He couldn’t be bothered with smart-arses this morning and asked for a top-up in a tone that implied he would stand for no shit. The aproned man gave a cultured shrug and filled his cup to the brim.
As they sat waiting for Sam’s party, Mark drank the scalding brew and within seconds he was reeling. His eyes flicked back and forth across the stretch of road through the window and his fingers drummed nervously on the stripped pine. That’s good stuff, he thought, his mouth lined with what felt like tar, and his brain singing.
SAM WAS FIDDLING WITH THE KANGAROO’S EARS IN THE FRONT SEAT AS Bob ran to pay for the petrol.
“She’ll love that,” Iris said, passing the mints back to her. “She’s not got a kangaroo already, has she?”
“She’d better not have,” Peggy muttered.
“Not like this one.” Sam smiled. It had an elasticated pouch with a miniature version of itself stuffed inside. “Well, I hope Mark’s little chum is going to buy us lunch,” she said. “A patisserie. My god!”
Bob came back and said it was only a couple of streets away. They drove off to look for a parking spot, Joni Mitchell on the cassette player, her voice the exact blue of the morning and the yellow of the light.
It would be, Iris thought, the most pleasant of mornings, if only so much didn’t hang in the balance. Then the remembered other good mornings she’d had and reflected that the shadow of a threat always made things more intensely enjoyable.
“We’re here.” Bob parked them behind a vast playing field.
Sam clutched the kangaroo to her and felt sick to her stomach. What was she expecting? It was only people she had to deal with. Most of these people she knew and loved. Any trouble she’d meet would be caused by people and she had her professional manner; she had the key to working these disputes out. The only things to fear, the only things beyond human intrigue and her control, were natural disasters. Unfortunately, love was a kind of natural disaster affecting the lives of all the people she was dealing with today. She wasn’t sure she could handle it.
Joni Mitchell sang ‘Strange Boy’ and Sam paused for breath before opening her car door. The ladies were already put on the grass, clicking their tongues at the view of Leeds.
“Kiss me, Sam,” Bob said and she did. “Just…”
“What?” she asked, eyes narrowed.
“Remember that whatever goes on today—however all this falls down and comes out—I’m here for you and we can carry on and sort out our lives together.”
Only twenty minutes ago Bob had felt so sure of it, of her, of making all their future lives tick.
She smiled at him. “We’re fearless, right?” When she ruffled his thick black hair, he saw with horror that his eyes were filling up. “Hey, we fuck right next to a cardboard crusher—nothing human can put the willies up us, right?”
They laughed a little bit over her unfortunate phrasing, got out and locked up the car. The air smelled of cold sunlight and croissants and maybe impending snow.
TWENTY
IT DID SNOW THAT AFTERNOON. ALL THAT AFTERNOON AND ON INTO AN evening that turned from a noun into a verb: the evening was a softening and a balancing, an imperceptible change from afternoon to night-time. Leeds seared with a blurring whiteness. It snowed for another three days and the year limped towards its demise with its rough edges smoothed over, its waning light busy with snow and more snow.
The roads were chaotic. Up the Pennine roads to the west, unwary drivers slowed to twenty in the gloom and bided their perilous time until they found themselves in a geriatric convoy. Nervously
