Interpreters (7 page)

Max came out of his room and joined me on the landing. ‘That black stuff has run down your face.’

‘It’s called mascara, you cretin.’

He sat down next to me and sniffed at the pungent air. ‘It’s going to be one of Dad’s extravaganzas. Let’s hope she likes experimental cuisine.’

‘She can’t come here.’

‘So explain what’s wrong,’ Max said gently, wiping my cheek with his thumb.

‘I can’t.’

‘Just tell him – and then it’ll be OK.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Dad!’ he called out. ‘Julia’s got something to say to you.’

‘Shut up, idiot.’

‘Dad! Come here a minute.’

‘What’s the matter now?’ asked my father, peering up the stairs and wiping his hands on his apron. There were beads of sweat on his forehead and one or two pieces of onion skin in his hair.

‘You’ve got to tell Mum,’ I said.

‘Tell Mum what?’

‘When she comes back. You’ve got to tell her that Sister Collins came here for dinner while she was away. You’ve got to tell her. Or if you don’t, I’ll have to, and that would be much worse.’

My mother would joke that she could always tell what I was worrying about just by lifting up my fringe and looking at my forehead. Sometimes, when I was younger and I desperately wanted to talk to her about something but was
too upset or embarrassed, I’d beg her to lift up my fringe and try to guess what was wrong. She always got it right, and I loved the tremendous rush of relief and absolution that her guessing engendered. I knew that she would only have to look at me – she wouldn’t even need to lift up my fringe – to know that I had been a party to this betrayal.

My father rolled his eyes heavenwards.

‘All right, all right, dear. I’ll tell your mother. What is all this nonsense about? Now go and lay the table, could you? We’ll need soup spoons.’

And with that he poured himself a drink, walked back into the kitchen and shut the door.

A couple of hours later, my father called us down for dinner. One table setting had been removed. He began serving up the soup. It was green with bits of bacon and parsley and something else, as yet unidentifiable, floating in it.

‘Where’s your guest?’ asked Max.

‘What, dear?’

‘Sister Collins. Where is she?’

‘Oh, she rang a while ago. There’s been some kind of problem with her parents and she’s had to go to see them in Camberley.’

Max and I looked at each other. The telephone hadn’t rung at all during the afternoon. I knew that, as I’d been waiting for a call from a boy I’d briefly, but quite successfully, snogged at a recent Venture Scouts disco. We ate the meal in silence. Max washed up, I dried and my father sat in his study and finished off a bottle of whisky.

And, though there was nothing to tell my mother on her return, it was a nothing that felt to me like a suspended sentence. It would all end in tears – I had absolutely no doubt of that. It was only a matter of time.

My bedroom – Catherine’s now – is directly above my father’s study. He and I shared the same view of the garden and fishpond during the long summer evenings while I sat on my windowsill reading and he sat at his desk doing whatever it was he did in his study. Throughout my childhood, I assumed that sitting in the study with the door shut was how everyone’s father spent their evenings. It never occurred to me that some fathers might do something else, or even that houses without studies might exist.

Of course, I had some insights into the world outside. I knew that there were things called pubs. They were places to which my mother sometimes gave workmen a lift after they had spent a day at our house laying the terrace or installing new light fittings. For years I thought that only men in blue overalls with blunt pencils behind their ears and tattoos of bleeding hearts on their forearms were allowed to go into them.

I knew, too, that there were cinemas. Max and I would sometimes go to the local Odeon with its scratchy red seats, its sticky floor, its smell of stale cigarette smoke and motes of dust dancing in the light of the projector.

‘The man sitting next to me has got his hand on my leg,’ I hissed to Max once, during one of our outings.

‘So?’

‘So change places with me. Quick!’

‘I like this seat.’

When the hand started inching from my left knee towards my groin, I stood up, avoiding eye contact with my neighbour, and squeezed past Max to sit on his other side. After a short delay, the man moved to the row behind us and sat breathing heavily in my ear for a while before tiring of the pursuit and leaving the cinema, his plastic bags rustling with disappointment as he departed.

‘He was probably just a bit lonely,’ suggested Max as we walked the mile back to Eynsford Park. ‘It can’t be much fun going to the cinema on your own.’

So we knew there were cinemas, but we didn’t know that they were places to which one’s parents might ever think of going with each other, just for fun.

‘Do you remember the hideous Olivier of Rennes?’ I asked Max once – just after he moved to Dorset, I think.

‘Your French exchange’s brother? Who used to stick his tongue down your throat while muttering “pussicett, pussicett”?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘I remember you telling me about him. I always wondered how he did that. Perhaps he became a ventriloquist in later life. Had a very successful career on stage and screen.’

‘He became a gynaecologist.’

‘Oh. Well, I suppose that makes sense. I didn’t know you were still in touch.’

‘We’re not. I made that bit up. About the gynaecology, not the kissing. And there never was an exchange the other way, remember? I stopped replying to Marie-Solange’s letters. I told Mum she’d dropped English. I just couldn’t face her coming to stay with us and seeing Dad stumble about the house, spilling whisky down his tie. And anyway, she’d only have fallen in love with you and gone all pathetic, like the rest of my friends.’

Max smiled and shook his head.

‘You’re mad.’

‘Don’t try to tell me you don’t remember how they used to wait for you at the station and then pretend they lived on the estate, just so that they could walk home with you?’

‘That only happened once or twice.’

‘Once or twice a month, you mean. But you know what amazed me more than the feeling of his tongue against my tonsils?’

‘Whose tongue?’

‘Olivier of Rennes’ tongue. Keep up.’

‘I’m not even going to try to guess.’

‘It was his parents.’

‘God! What did they do?’

‘No, no. Nothing like that.’

‘Well, that’s a relief!’

‘One evening, Monsieur Fournier came home from work, changed out of his suit and strolled off arm in arm with Madame Fournier to the cinema, just the two of them.’

‘And then what?’

‘Nothing. That was it. That was the moment I realised that some people’s parents did things together. You know, they never went anywhere, just the two of them. Just for fun.’

‘I thought you just said that’s what they did.’

‘Not the Fourniers, idiot. Mum and Dad.’

‘So?’

‘So don’t you think that was odd?’

‘Not really.’

‘What? Never once for one of them to have said, “Come on, let’s go to the cinema,” or “Let’s go for a walk,” or something.’

‘Wandering round and round the cul-de-sacs of Eynsford Park Estate, with dozens of pairs of eyes staring at you from between the spider plants and net curtains, probably wouldn’t have been that much fun.’

‘Well, you know what I mean.’

‘Maybe people didn’t go out as much. In those days.’

‘In those days! It was the 1960s, for God’s sake!’

The ’60s must have been going on all around us (I’ve seen the old news footage) but the revolutionary decade seemed to bypass our corner of Tenterden Close. At some point my father discarded his white shirts, progressing cautiously via striped shirts with white collars to pastel blue or green ones, but apart from that he took no part in the heady fashion revolution. A weekend might be signalled by the donning of a grey cardigan, but never the removal of a tie.

There are almost no photographs of my mother from that time. The few that exist show a slim young woman, smiling reluctantly with her mouth closed or holding up her hand to deflect the camera’s gaze. Her hair is back-combed, her dresses knee-length. The pictures are black and white, but I’m pretty sure that most of the dresses are various shades of blue. I am certain, however, that there is not a false eyelash, string of big plastic beads or floppy purple velvet hat in any of them. And as for Love and Peace and all that, I don’t remember much of it going on in our house. At least not after Roland went away.

Catherine’s bed is in the same position as mine used to be, the headboard under the window, one side pushed up against the wall. I move her rumpled combat trousers, a large pink teddy bear and a notebook with gilt lock and fluffy red cover to the end of the bed. Then, like Goldilocks, but older and greyer and less inclined to compare the quality of the furniture, I lie down and shut my eyes.

We have been driving for hours and hours. My bare legs are sticking to the plastic seat; my plaits are damp with sweat. Insects splat against the windscreen, leaving trails of pale pink blood and creamy entrails. My father switches on the wipers and the viscera are marshalled to either side of the glass. The hedges are high, the roads narrow.

‘Slow down,’ says my mother grimly from time to time, gripping the edge of her seat.

‘Yes, dear,’ replies my father.

I see the needle of the speedometer move slightly to the right, not the left, and am relieved that my mother is staring at the road ahead.

‘Carry on, then,’ I say to Max.

For the past couple of hours, Max and a piece of used grey chewing gum fashioned into a small insect-like creature have been entertaining me with their extraordinary adventures. Eddie Flea has been out on raids with the head-hunters of Borneo, has clung on between the horns of an angry bull in the grandest bull ring of Madrid, has sneaked into
Apollo 11
and landed on the moon, undetected by Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts.

‘And now,’ continues Max, holding the piece of gum above his head, ‘Eddie Flea’s plane is landing at Heathrow, his adventures finally over. The landing is smooth. Everyone applauds. Eddie is the first off the plane.’

Max walks the piece of gum up his leg towards the hem of his grey shorts.

‘He stands at the carousel waiting for his teeny little rucksack to appear. Then, just as he steps forward to pick it up, someone treads on him.’

‘What?’

Max squeezes the piece of gum between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Someone treads on him and that is the end of Eddie Flea.’

‘You can’t do that! Bring him to life again.’

‘Poor Eddie Flea is as flat as a pancake and dead as a dodo. And that’s the end of the story. For ever and ever. Amen.’

‘No, it isn’t! That’s not fair, Max. Make him recover.’

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible.’ Max opens the window and throws the broken body on to the road. ‘Eddie Flea is no more.’ 

I shove my elbow into his ribs very hard.

‘Ouch! What did you do that for?’

‘What’s the matter now?’ sighs my father.

And then we are driving up a narrow farm track. Two small brown and white dogs come rushing towards the car. They race behind it up to the house. One of them has only three legs but it’s still pretty fast. As the track widens into a courtyard, they tear round and round the car, snapping at the tyres.

‘Watch out for the dogs!’ I scream.

My father is not a lover of animals. He is not someone who swerves to avoid squirrels and pheasants. Or even cats. When he switches the engine off, I open the door with my eyes squeezed tight, my ears buzzing with fear, dreading the sight of the bloody, smashed bodies. But when I cautiously open my eyes there are the little brown and white dogs, barking and lunging at us like over-enthusiastic fencers. The door of the farmhouse opens and the dogs dash in past a woman who strides out towards us, a toddler on her shoulders. She is tall and lean, with long, wavy brown hair, some strands of which are tied back with an eclectic collection of clips, combs and multicoloured ribbons. She is wearing faded, frayed jeans and what look to me like layers of coloured blouses under an embroidered waistcoat. Around her wrists are silver bangles. She smiles at my father – a smile so warm and so wide that, for a moment, her dark brown eyes disappear completely. She swings the toddler to the ground. Then she puts her jangling arms around my father and kisses him on the cheek.

‘I’m Jane,’ she says to my mother, holding out her hand. ‘It’s lovely to meet you at last.’

We sit at a long wooden kitchen table. The toddler sits on my father’s lap, one arm wrapped round his neck, fondling my father’s left earlobe. With its other hand, it is fishing for crumbs in the deep cracks in the table with a fork. One of the little dogs jumps on to the table and pinches a piece of fruit
cake. Two more children join us. One looks about the same age as me, the other a little younger. I think they are both boys but it’s hard to tell. They each have long curly brown hair and their faces are suntanned and streaked with mud. The younger one seems to be wearing a man’s shirt over his ragged jeans, all the buttons done up in the wrong holes. The older one stands behind his mother, resting his chin on her shoulder. They look so alike, with their dark eyes and high cheekbones, that I find myself smiling. They smile back at me.

‘Do you want to come and play with us?’ the child standing behind his mother asks.

I glance at my mother, who is sitting at the far end of the table watching my father with the small child. I wish – just one little wish – that she would turn and look at me and smile, and say brightly, ‘Off you go and have a good time, darling,’ but I know that she doesn’t want me to go, and I feel that familiar sensation of being slowly torn in two. Love, pity and a biting rage begin to seep through me as I resign myself to staying in the kitchen to protect my mother from whatever it is that’s troubling her.

‘Good idea, darling!’ says Jane, smiling. ‘Off you all go – and take some cake with you if you like.’

I don’t let myself look in the direction of my mother again.

‘What are your names?’ the older child asks as we walk through the low-ceilinged passage into the sunny sitting room, munching on fruit cake.

‘Julia. And he’s Max.’

‘I’m Jolyon and this is Ivo. The little one’s Octavia.’

‘Is that a boy or a girl?’ asks Max.

‘A girl. It means the eighth but she’s just the third. I don’t think Mummy’s going to have any more now. But you never know. Jamie is quite keen, I think.’

‘Who’s Jamie?’

‘Octavia’s daddy.’

‘I thought she was your sister.’

‘She is. But our daddy’s called Matthew. He comes here all the time with his other children. They’re younger than me and Ivo. They’re called Sebastian and Flora. That means flower. What does your name mean?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing, I think.’

‘How old are you?’ asks Jolyon.

‘Twelve,’ says Max.

‘Nearly ten,’ I say.

‘I’m eight and three-quarters and Ivo’s seven next Tuesday. She’s in love with Oscar,’ says Jolyon matter-of-factly as he throws himself into the huge worn sofa.

‘Who is?’ I ask, confused as much by the unexpected use of my father’s name as by the thought of anyone being in love with him.

‘Octavia is. She loves him. Jane says Octavia probably knows that Oscar saved her life. Even though she’s so little.’

‘She would have died at least three times if it hadn’t been for Oscar,’ says Ivo authoritatively as he (I’m pretty sure by now that he is a he) flicks through a pile of LPs. ‘Jane said, once he drove out to the hospital twice in the same night to save her. Did you know that?’

‘No,’ I say.

Max, Jolyon and Ivo sit on the floor and play a game involving a pile of pointed sticks with different-coloured stripes on them. I lie on the sofa listening to the record that Ivo has put on. The music is like nothing I have ever heard before. It fills me with a sense of longing for something I cannot recognise, but which seems almost within my grasp.

I look around the room. The walls are covered with huge black and white photographs. There is one of Jane – completely naked – by a waterfall, holding a small bare child by the hand. The child is clutching his penis – both of them are grinning at the camera. There is a picture of Jane and a man with a large scar over his right eye and down his cheek
in bed, their hair tousled, their smiles drowsy, the sheets rumpled. There are photographs of Jane and her children with people who look vaguely familiar. One of them is wearing a pair of little round metal-framed glasses. I think he might be John Lennon. I’m pretty sure another of them is Peter Sellers on the set of a
Pink Panther
film. He is holding a little boy – I think it’s Jolyon – by the hand and rolling his eyes heavenwards. Jolyon is leaning against his leg, laughing. There is a photograph of Jane bending over a hospital cot in which a tiny baby lies on its back, its face and body covered in plastic tubes, valves and sticky tape. A hand is resting on its swollen belly. I recognise my father’s fingers. Pinned to the sitting room door are sheets of stamps and pages torn from a spiral notebook on which messages are scrawled in generously swirling purple ink:
Jolyon and Ivo to Matt and Molly on 25th; Octavia to physio 30th; plane tickets – Cannes; pony to farrier Monday.