Mother longs to trace. Replies to Box No. only, treated in strictest confidence.
By the time she had printed out another copy to keep, filled in the form, calculated the cost, written out her cheque, and sealed everything in the envelope and addressed it, she was shaking slightly, and her coffee was cold. She wondered about ordering more but she had already spent half of her week’s money on the advertisement and the stationery, and she was worried that if she delayed even to drink a cup of coffee she might be overtaken by objections (although from where she was not sure) to what she was doing. Her courage was fluttering and growing restive, like something trapped and uncomfortable. Her heart started to bang inside her chest, and in her throat. People were looking at her. Oh God, could they hear it? Did it show on her face, how terrified she was? She had to get home. She tried again to stop shaking and could not.
‘Excuse me, are you all right?’
So it did show. She had to get home. Now she was certain that all the people here, drinking from foaming cups and talking about their shopping, indeed every one of the thousands of people walking in Bath this morning, would stop her if they could. They would form a mob, a huge furious mob, and stop her. Already this woman at the next table was ignoring what her friend was saying and looking at Jean with what she wanted her to think was concern, but was really suspicion.
‘I’m fine. I just need to get home. It’s rather warm in here. Thank you.’ Jean shrugged herself back into her coat, recovered enough now to see the woman noticing how good and expensive it was. With the woman’s eyes still upon her, she crossed the road to the post office and posted the envelope. She stood by the post box until she felt calm again.
Briskly she crossed back and walked into Waitrose, because it had struck her suddenly that a house needed flowers, especially in January. She spent very nearly all of the rest of her money on lilies, roses and freesias, and also picked up a leaflet about Waitrose’s home delivery service, hoping that she could place an order by telephone without having to use a credit card. She had never held with credit cards nor, it had to be admitted, had she ever been invited to own one. She had assumed before she arrived that while on this assignment she would go out and do her food shopping once a week or so, as she normally did. But the strain of being away from Walden had proved too great, she realised, walking as fast as she could back to the bus station with her armfuls of flowers. She would not risk it again.
Across town, at the moment when Jean was boarding her bus home, Michael was standing before the magistrates. The Bench- one kind-looking lady, one hard-faced one with dandruff and a man with sloping shoulders- had just re-appeared after having retired to discuss his case, and the hard lady was telling him again how disappointed they were to see him. Michael nodded in sad apology and submitted to another telling-off with the hangdog expression that the magistrates liked. He was lucky to be avoiding a period in custody, he heard, and he caught on the face of the kind lady a look of triumphant magnanimity which told him that he had her to thank for that. He answered in a hoarse voice their intrusive but by now expected questions about his earnings and outgoings. It was noted that he still was not working. Did he not have some experience of bar work? Michael gulped and tried to explain about the depression. So had he consulted his GP? They recommended that he see his GP again, leaving unasked the question of whether or not, after a string of missed appointments, his GP would see him. The mess that Michael was making of his life was expanding and filling the room, pressing down on the shoulders of the magistrates, who all now seemed to be sagging, and leaving Michael short of enough breath for explanations. But it was not the exposure of his squalid life that suddenly touched him and made his chin wobble as if he were still a snotty kid; it was the novelty of being questioned. He should be used to the way the magistrates went on by now, but every time it took him unawares. When they asked him about himself, sounding as if it really mattered, he found himself wanting to cry. For a moment he nearly allowed himself to believe that these motherly, judging women cared about him. But he glanced up at the flaky shoulders of the hard-faced one, and remembered that it was not his poverty, nor his upbringing in care, nor his bare little flat, nor the absence of friends and prospects that concerned them. All they cared about was getting money off him, first for driving the van without insurance or tax, and then an extra load for falling behind twice with the payments. Tears of self-pity filled his eyes, and when the hard lady went on to tell him that they were not imposing a community service order on him in view of his health, but increasing his fine and generously re-scheduling the payments, he lowered his head further and his tears spilled down the lapels of the jacket that he had worn to encourage the magistrates’ leniency. If he kept up to date with the payments from now on, he would clear his debt in four years. Michael opened his mouth and closed it again. There was no point in saying anything. It wouldn’t work. Any institutional sympathy for a child brought up in care was exhausted long before that child had become a struggling adult of forty, so he would not mention it. Now they were asking if he would be able to keep up with the payments this time. He gave the expected yes. And as he was being told that they hoped never to see him again, the kind lady started writing something and did not look up when he left the court.
When Michael got back to the flat it was still freezing, but he was worried about the electricity bill so it was going to have to stay that way. He thought about going across to Ken’s, where it was always hot, but this would mean listening to Ken and he was not up to it in his present mood. A thread of guilt tightened inside him. Ken didn’t see many people; he ought to go. But not now. He might look in later and see if Ken wanted anything doing. And if he did, if he asked Michael to get him a paper or cigs from the shop at the top of the road or something, or fill him a hot water bottle, it would make Michael feel a bit better about asking if he could have a bath. Ken’s bathroom, with the hoist, the handrails and all the surgical what-have-yous on the window sill that Michael couldn’t bear to study too closely, gave him the creeps, but the water was always hot.
Michael heated up a tin of soup and took a mug of it to bed. The backpack, empty and gaping open, sat on the bedroom floor next to the row of books against the skirting board. Mr David at Sulis Curios and Objets d’Art had taken the kneelers yesterday for twenty-five quid for the six, which he had counted out and handed over with a dirty look. Bloody act of charity, he had said. Don’t try this kind of thing on me again, all right? But they had both known that Michael would. The trouble, Michael decided, spooning up his soup, was his lack of a fallback position. He could not afford to walk away from even the meagre money Mr David put up, because there was always something that made his need for cash immediate and desperate: a bill, the rent, his fines, buying food, something. Every single time he did business with Mr David he came to the transaction with impending disaster at his back, unable to imagine how his life could go on if Mr David was not (as he sometimes pretended) in the mood to buy. Michael no longer thought it anything other than natural that when he went to Mr David he brought along with him a huge, palpable need to sell, like some outsized, embarrassing relative who had been foisted on him for the day.
If anything it was all getting worse. Michael was now further than ever from being able to build up enough stock to run his stall again at Walcot Market, further away now even than he had been on the day last year when everything had been nicked from the back of the van. True, the van doors had been held together only with twine and a twisted coat hanger, but Michael had thought that he had tied enough elaborate knots to put anyone off having a go. Since then he had not made enough on any deal to buy stuff to get the stall going again. He was managing, badly, from one deal to the next. That meant he had to take whatever Mr David offered him, and it was clear from how very little he did offer that Mr David was well aware of this.
Michael had more or less promised him the alabaster figures, and Mr David had more or less promised to give him five hundred for them. That would have been enough for Michael to clear a few debts and start getting some stock together again, so that by Easter he might have the stall back and be well placed for the summer. But he had not got the alabaster figures. And meanwhile, the last mouthful of soup was stone cold, and even if he did get them another day, supposing he dared put himself through all that again, Mr David would sell them on for at least two, possibly three thousand. He tried not to think too hard about that. Mr David had contacts, and you needed the contacts. Contacts of the right sort were just another of the many things that Michael did not have. With this thought he dropped his empty soup mug on the floor, settled under the bedclothes and pulled them around himself.
When he woke it was already after six o’clock, and pitch dark. At least he was now warm enough. If he was lucky he would soon fall asleep again and not wake up until tomorrow.
