Easy Peasy (18 page)

‘Frogs' spawn?' I said. I went to look closer and saw a big clot of it at one side, some of the tadpoles already fidgeting inside their jelly balls. And there were two tangerine fish swimming under the weed, calm and smug as if they'd been there for years.

‘They're pretty,' Elaine said leaning over.

‘Where did they come from?'

‘Mr Rutterford donated the weed and the frogs' spawn,' Mummy said. Mr Rutterford was the barman at the golf-club, who, on learning the cause of my accident, had offered Daddy some stuff from his pond. From her voice I could tell she was keeping something back. ‘And he took Vassily to the pet shop since you and Hazel were both out,' she said. Elaine snorted. Suddenly I felt ill, the weedy feeling was in my throat as if I was going to choke on something.

‘He would have taken you if you'd been here,' Mummy gave me a cautious look but I couldn't say anything in front of Elaine. I'd stopped telling even her about all the time Vassily spent at our house, it was too embarrassing. And Mummy was different about Dog-belly lately, not quite so quick to defend Daddy's odd friendship, not quite so keen to have Dog-belly round. Once I heard her say, ‘You can have too much of a good thing, Ralph', and another time, ‘Doesn't his mother have any time for him?' But I didn't hear Daddy reply.

‘Anyway, what are you doing?' Elaine asked.

‘Dry-stone walling,' Mummy said. ‘I'm going to build a wall around the pond to stop
somebody
tumbling in.' She nodded towards Huwie. ‘And I've always wanted to try this – want to help?'

Elaine pulled a face at me and shook her head. ‘We're busy,' I said. ‘What will Daddy say about the wall?'

She picked up a big flat stone and considered. ‘Look at the lichen,' she said, ‘isn't it pretty?'

Elaine and I went into the kitchen to make milk-shakes.

‘A small fence would surely have sufficed,' was all that he did say. It was tea-time and we were eating one of Mummy's inventions, a pork and stuffing pizza. We waited for more but he just pursed his lips and reached for the Tabasco.

I know you have been having an affair with Kris. Or is affair too grand a word? I know you have had sex with Kris. It doesn't matter how I know, don't ask. Maybe some of your friends aren't so loyal as you think. I can't believe you could have cheated on me like this while I'm having such a bad time. I thought you loved me, only last week you did say you loved me and then you went off and slept with her. You fucking bitch
.

I screw this up so hard I twist my knuckles. I screw up the last letter too, screw and rip. I take all the screwed and torn up paper into the kitchen, open the bin and find an empty tomato tin, stuff it all inside, then throw the tin back in the bin.

Oh, but I am a selfish cow. Tonight of all nights all I can think about is myself and that fucking bitch and what she does behind my back. I go upstairs, pee, wash.

As I pass the room where Hazel and Colin are sleeping I am startled to hear a groan of pleasure from Colin. I thought they'd be asleep. Or maybe it was a sleepy sigh. No it was the sound of Colin coming inside my sister on the very night of my father's funeral. I feel sick thinking of his red face, his … well I don't like to think. I'm surprised at Hazel, doing it tonight of all nights. Shocked.

Oh Zelda, go to bed.

The following day when I got home from school, Wanda was in the kitchen with Mummy. She wasn't having a cup of tea or even sitting down, I thought that was strange, Mummy always made people cups of tea. There was a sort of crackly feeling in the air.

‘Of course he can stay,' Mummy was saying.

‘Who?' I asked, knowing perfectly well.

Wanda smiled at me. ‘Hello stranger,' she said. I smiled back. I couldn't help liking her. She had done her hair ginger now and was wearing a green embroidered velvet coat that came right down to her sandals. The patchouli oil was particularly strong, but I had started to like it – except on Dog-belly.

‘Vassily's staying the night,' Mummy said, ‘Wanda's busy.' I could see she was annoyed.

‘Oh?'

‘Yes, that int half a nuisance but … well …'

‘It's perfectly all right,' Mummy said, ‘just drop off his things before you go.'

‘Better run,' Wanda said heading for the door. ‘Bye-bye,' she shouted, waving to Vassily, who, I now saw, was on the swing. She blew him a kiss. ‘You ought to come round for a drink again,' she said to me, ‘that was fun last time, wasn't it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Bye Astrid, thanks,' she said, as she left.

Mummy slammed something into the sink.

‘What's up?' I asked.

‘Nothing at all,' she said, and with a bit of an effort, smiled. Then, ‘How would you feel about moving house?'

‘Why?' I sat down, quite shocked. We had moved several times when I was smaller but we'd been at ‘The Nook' longer than we'd been anywhere and it felt like home.

‘Daddy's going for promotion again.'

‘But why?'

‘That's the way of the world,' she said in a funny voice, ‘onward and upward. And …' she looked around the kitchen, her eyes coming to rest on Vassily's reading book lying on the table, ‘perhaps a change would do us all good.'

‘Foxy, I know about Kris.'

Pause. Foxy wary. ‘What about Kris?'

‘I know that you slept with her.'

Another pause. A decision. ‘What on earth makes you think that?'

‘I don't think it, I know it.'

‘Well you're wrong.'

‘No I'm not. Don't lie any more Foxy, it only makes it worse.'

No, no. Just, ‘Don't lie. It doesn't work.'

Foxy disconcerted. Myself under control, voice a little husky maybe.

No, start again.

Direct and unexpected, coming in upon her working, standing beside her at her desk.

‘Foxy, since we've been together have you been to bed with anyone else?'

‘Zelda! What a question!' She stands, a kiss, a nuzzle, her scent in my nose, the softness of her hair, maybe her lips on my ear. I disengage myself, gentle but firm.

‘Well?'

But what if she said: ‘Yes. So?' What if she chose to be belligerent rather than contrite? What if she's been wanting to tell me, relieved that I've finally given her the opportunity? What if she said, ‘Yes, I'm in love with Kris and …' No she wouldn't say that, but what if she said, ‘I want to leave you. You are too clingy, too possessive, jealous, you cramp my style.' No she wouldn't be so crass. Foxy would be kinder than that.

But why,
why
, when I gave her the chance to finish it, why didn't she?

The bed is narrow, the night-light is on, Mummy has kept it through all her moves, red toadstool with its white glowing spots, Hazel's bubble-gum stickers peeling up at the edges.

If I'm going to confront Foxy then I have to have a strategy ready to counter any possible approach she might take.

Maybe she wrote about Kris in her diary hoping that I
would
see, expecting me to read it. Maybe she hid all the tampons knowing I'd look in her bag and see the diary…

For Christ's sake, Zelda, get a grip.

5

I took an apple and went upstairs to change. I didn't want to move, and change schools and have to find a new best friend. Elaine was the best friend I'd ever had, I knew I'd never find anyone else like her. I looked out of my window at the garden. There was blossom on the fruit trees and the grass around them was a juicy green. Vassily, swinging weakly to-and-fro, rocked the apple tree a little, making the blossom shudder.

At least he wasn't in the tree-house. I didn't think I wanted us to move and leave the tree-house behind but it suddenly looked ugly to me, a big lump in the branches of the tree with its front window like a round and empty eye staring. And the pond looked stupid with a wall all around it and a piece of corrugated iron propped in the gap for a gate, as if it was in prison. It wasn't my pond at all, it was Daddy and Dog-belly's. If we moved away there would be an end to all that.

Before Daddy had taken Dog-belly to get the goldfish, I had started just,
just
, not to like him but not to mind him quite so much. He had learned to read very well. He had a good joke book that he'd bring round. He'd point to a joke and I'd read it and – sometimes – laugh. I even did finger spelling with him sometimes. I tried to feel sorry for him – deaf, ugly, fatherless. But that didn't help. Pitying him made me dislike him more. It was as if he was small and skinny and deaf on purpose. And Daddy liked him more than he liked me. The feelings that gave me were dirty like rubbish in the pit of my belly, or the sediment left in my head after a bad dream. It was as if I had a goblin's face printed on my heart, ugly, far uglier than Dog-belly's, that was transfigured with hate whenever he was near. If he had been big and strong I do not think I would have felt like that. But he was weak. He was grateful for any kindness shown him – even if it was fake.

I was upset that Mummy seemed upset. Now that she'd shown that she minded Dog-belly, it seemed that we were being drawn into sides: Mummy, Hazel and I against Daddy and Dog-belly. Us against them. If it hadn't been for Dog-belly, everything would have been all right. Maybe we wouldn't have to move house. Not fair to blame
that
on him. But still.

I went out into the garden. I couldn't see Dog-belly at first. I found him inside the wall, crouching by the pond, watching the goldfish gliding under the green weeds. I stood above him looking down at the thinness of the back of his neck and the roughness of his splayed knees where they poked out of his shorts; seeing the green of the flowering cherry reflected in the water; seeing the pale smudge of his face and my own, indistinct, looming above it. He saw it too and turned, grinning up at me. I bent over the pond beside him. A water snail was sliding upside down on the skin of the water's surface like a grey tongue. A pond-skater dented the silky surface with its pin-prick feet.

It's only an ornamental pond, I thought, thinking of the real, natural pond on the golf-course; feeling a bristle of cold travel all up my spine; swallowing against the memory of a taste; a sensation as of weed caught round my tongue; squeezing my fist shut against the sensation of something heavy under the water, something that will just sway when you prod it.

‘Grizzle.' Mummy's voice behind me made me jump. ‘I've made you some sandwiches.' She held out the plate, thick white bread filled with brown jam, and some biscuits.

‘Thanks.'

She smiled warmly at Dog-belly. It was not
his
fault, I could see her thinking that, poor little brat. He pointed to a cluster of tadpoles nuzzling the edge of the pond.

‘Tadpoles,' he said. It sounded like ‘towels', but Mummy said, ‘Yes, Vassily, good', and bent over beside him to look.

When Mummy had gone back inside, I led the way up into the tree-house. Dog-belly seemed very happy. I had no plans to do anything. Why did I take him up into the tree-house when I hated him so much? Something seductive about such a strong pure feeling? I don't know.

Dog-belly sat on the branch. I offered him a sandwich. He munched it noisily. I had no appetite for mine.

‘Knock, knock,' he said, miming a knock as he did so. His speech
was
much better than it had been.

‘Who's there?'

‘Lettuce.'

‘What?'

‘Lettuce.'

‘What?'

I knew what he was saying. It was quite clear and any way I knew the joke. If I'd said ‘Lettuce who?' he'd have squawked, ‘Lettuce in and you'll see!' and laughed his squeaky laugh, his teeth all pointed and yellow. But I wouldn't play. ‘Pardon?' I said. He gave up, chewed the crust of his sandwich, looking down and stirring his toe around on the floor. The face on my heart contracted with spite and it hurt. I wanted to say, ‘Lettuce who?' then but it was too late.

Hazel's voice floated up, ‘Grizzle?'

‘Yes?'

‘Is
he
with you?'

‘Yes.' The house bounced slightly as she climbed the ladder.

‘Let's have a biscuit.' Her neat blonde head emerged through the trap-door. ‘Hello.' She smiled brilliantly at Dog-belly and hoisted herself in.

‘What do you want?' I asked.

‘Oh sorry, do you want to be alone?' She made a stupid moony face.

‘Shut-up cretin.'

‘Grizzle!' She giggled, shocked.

The biscuits were lemon puffs. She took one and so did I and held out the plate to Dog-belly. Flakes of shiny pastry sprinkled down all our fronts, even Hazel's. She brushed them off. Leaning back so that Dog-belly couldn't see her face, she mouthed, ‘I want to see his nipples.'

‘Hazel!' I started to laugh. Dog-belly, seeing me laugh, joined in.

‘How?' I said.

‘Peasy, watch.' She pulled up her blouse and vest. Her skin was very white in the underwater leaf-light of the tree, and laced with pale green veins. Her nipples were small pink ovals, risen just a little, just like mine. She took Dog-belly's hand. ‘Touch,' she said. Now
I
was shocked. She held his grubby hand against her luminous skin, his fingers stiff across her nipple.

‘Now you,' she said, looking at me. I shook my head, my face burning. ‘Go on.'

I wonder if there is anything I would not have done for Hazel.

‘Go
on
,' she said. I shut my eyes as I lifted my clothes. ‘Higher,' she insisted. I was afraid she'd think I was more developed than her and be angry but she said nothing and I felt the rough jab of Dog-belly's fingers as she pressed them against my chest. I had a sudden vision of his face pressed up against Wanda's filmy green night-dress, against her voluptuous breasts. I opened my eyes and saw his face all flushed, the eyes bright, like a keen, excited little animal. I pulled down my clothes.