Came Back to Show You I Could Fly Page 6

  Swearing nothin’ would get by me.

  I tasted love and I tasted life,

  But not enough to satisfy me…

  Urging me on, and making me strong,

  Could hear you saying:

  Go on, girl! You can do it, it’s only life;

  Ain’t nothin’ to it!

  It’s just a…a seeing-through it from the inside,

  From the inside…’

  Seymour listened, enchanted, for she had a sweet, lilting voice, but when they came to the steep part of the road leading to the bus terminal, she sang more slowly, pausing for breath at the end of each line, so that the tempo of the song changed and became almost unbearably poignant and sad.

  ‘Like a star in the midnight sky,

  That fades into the morning;

  Came back to show you I could fly,

  But you had gone without a warning…

  Could still hear you saying:

  Go on, girl, you can do it,

  It’s only life…

  It’s just a seeing-through it from the inside,

  From the inside…’

  They reached the terminal and her voice dwindled into silence. Seymour was relieved, because you didn’t sing in front of a crowd of people, though he had a suspicion that Angie might have no such scruples if she hadn’t been made breathless by the long walk.

  ‘Got to take a different bus this time, over to Merken,’ she said. ‘That’s where my folks live. It’s a bit boring, I should warn you, in case you’re expecting something like Gresham Avenue. Oh, I used to hate Merken, you can’t think how much!’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Merken’s like…well, say one person gets ducted heating in their house, everyone else breaks their necks to do the same, not because they actually want ducted heating, but they can’t bear to lag behind. That wouldn’t do at all, the roof of the world might cave in. It’s not really posh, but mind you, they’re all working on it like grim death. Mortgageville, one of those subdivided places where they bunged up a whole lot of boring houses all alike so everything looks the same. I never really fitted in, you know. The only reason I go back is to see my family. Oh, I can hardly wait to have a good old natter with Lynne and David, I haven’t seen them in months! Or Mum…Seymour, are you really sure I look okay?’

  ‘Angie, you look just fine!’ Seymour said, exasperated, but as the bus carried them through various suburbs towards Merken, she kept getting out her mirror and tweaking at her hair. She removed the pineapple earrings, then changed her mind and put them back in, and her fussing made Seymour, already uneasy at the thought of visiting strangers, even more jittery.

  She’d bought a birthday card and opened it now to write a message inside. Her handwriting, Seymour thought, was like a little kid’s, large and square and painstaking, and the tip of her tongue was even protruding like a kid trying to get top marks in an exam as she wrote: ‘To Mum, Happy Birthday, love from Angela, sorry I’m late with this card, but you know me—better late than never! Not like last year, heh?!! Lots of love and hugs and kisses.’

  Merken was a gridwork of quiet streets lined with tidy, unexceptional houses, each set in a garden very much like the one next to it.

  ‘I should have bought some flowers,’ Angie said when they got off the bus. ‘Mum always likes getting flowers for her birthday, Lynne never ever forgets. Oh, I should have remembered! It was crummy enough I forgot the proper date and she got worried when I didn’t ring and Judy went and blabbed…but that’s a long story. Well, I know how I can get round this one—hang on a jiff, Seymour!’

  She stopped, looked around, then quickly broke several large stalks from a flowering shrub in someone’s garden, assembling them with a rubber band from her handbag.

  ‘What if whoever owned that garden came out and sprung you?’ Seymour scolded. ‘You shouldn’t do things like that, Angie.’

  ‘I know, you can’t take me anywhere,’ Angie said, walking on demurely. ‘But I had an excuse all ready. I was going to say we were on the way to visit the cemetery and we didn’t have any money to buy flowers for our granny’s grave. You’d have to have a heart like a gargoyle to take flowers back off someone with a good excuse like that. Well, here’s Acacia Avenue. All the streets round here are named after native flowers, original, huh? This is our house and I bet that nosey old Mrs Duke next door is perving out through her Venetian blinds as usual. She’ll be round to Mum’s soon as we leave—“Oh, was that little Angela just called in? She hasn’t been around for ages, has she, and isn’t she putting on a lot of weight?”—Old cow. Seymour, you positive I look okay? Hey, you don’t reckon I’m putting on weight, do you, not so you’d notice?’

  ‘I only met you a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Yeah, but…’

  Seymour, however, had anxieties of his own. ‘What do I call your mum?’ he asked nervously, and wasn’t reassured when Angie said, ‘Well, her first name’s Jeanette, but she’s not the sort of person you can call by her first name straight off. So you’d better just settle for Mrs Easterbrook and be grateful.’

  Mrs Easterbrook made Seymour feel welcome, but he sensed a texture in the atmosphere, as though Angela and her mother weren’t quite comfortable with one another. Angie grew noticeably quieter and more decorous once inside the orderly house, as though attending some formal social event. Mrs Easterbrook seemed just as houseproud as Thelma, and even the cat bowl, he noticed, sat on a spotless white plastic mat instead of newspaper.

  ‘I brought you a birthday present as well as these flowers,’ Angie said. Mrs Easterbrook carefully undid the ribbon bow and smoothed and folded the gift wrapping before picking up the gold rose to look at it properly.

  ‘Thank you, dear, it’s lovely,’ she said. ‘It will look very nice in the china cabinet. I hope you didn’t spend too much money, this looks as though it could have been very expensive.’

  Seymour found himself staring at the floor, unable to meet anyone’s eyes.

  ‘Well, I wanted to get you something really fabulous and outdo David and Lynne,’ Angie said. ‘Why don’t you put it up on the mantel? No one will be able to see it stuck away in the china cabinet. It would look great up on the mantel, Mum.’

  ‘Dust would only collect in the petals,’ Mrs Easterbrook said. She opened a corner cabinet and placed the rose carefully amongst a display of other pretty things and shut the door again. It was difficult to tell if she really liked her present or not. There were some beautiful ornaments in the cabinet, but they had the air of being locked away, not to be touched, and it seemed a pity that the rose, even if Angie—no, she must have paid for it—it seemed a pity that the elegant gold rose had to join them.

  ‘I’ll just make a salad dressing,’ Mrs Easterbrook said. ‘I’m afraid it’s just quiche and salad, because you didn’t give me much notice, Angie, otherwise I’d have planned something more elaborate. No thanks, dear, I don’t need any help. Why don’t you show Seymour where he can wash his hands before we eat?’

  ‘Don’t go thinking she means you’ve got germs,’ Angie whispered as she took him up the hall. ‘She thinks you might need the loo and you’re too shy to ask, which would be just about spot on, anyhow. Hey, have a look in here, this used to be my old room when I was a kid.’

  Seymour gazed through a doorway into a room so meticulously neat that it seemed to have no connection at all with the Angie he knew. The walls glowed with pale silken paper, white curtains floated like clouds at the windows where pastel blinds were drawn halfway down to exact levels. The room looked fresh and unused, as though nobody had ever lived in it at all.

  ‘Mum’s had it redecorated since I left home,’ Angie said. ‘You should have seen it when I had it, wow! Once I painted a big mural all over that wall. It was my tenth birthday and they said I could choose anything I wanted as a present, so that’s what I asked for, to be allowed to paint a mural. And they couldn’t back out, seeing they’d already promised. A tropical scene, that’s wha
t I did, palm trees and orchids and butterflies flitting about—geeze, I had a ball doing that!’ She ran a hand wistfully over the pristine wallpaper. ‘It’s still there under this lot, you know, my mural. Bit sad, isn’t it, all those poor butterflies locked away in the dark…Still, it’s Mum’s house, I guess she’s allowed to do anything she wants with it.’

  Mrs Easterbrook called them for lunch at a round table by a pair of French windows.

  ‘Aren’t we going to wait for…’ Angie said and stopped, glancing down at the table. ‘Oh, there’s only three settings. What about Lynne and David? I’ll get some more knives and forks out…’

  ‘Lynne had a ballet class.’

  ‘But she knew I was coming, didn’t she? I haven’t seen her for three months…Why didn’t she stay home when she knew I was coming? She could have missed one lousy ballet class!’

  ‘Angie…’

  ‘And David, how come he’s not here, either? Last time I phoned he was in such a rush he didn’t tell me anything, how he’s getting on at school or anything at all. I wanted to see them both. I was really looking forward to today, everyone being here together and Seymour being able to meet them. Dave’s going to show up, isn’t he?’

  ‘David had a dental appointment we couldn’t very well cancel, it was arranged weeks ago. You know how hard it is to get an appointment in school holidays. Let’s eat, shall we? Seymour, you sit over there, dear, and help yourself to the salad. Angie—oh, darling, do please put that cigarette out, you’re getting ash all over the cloth—you haven’t told me yet how you came to meet Seymour. Do you know his parents? I hope you’ve got permission to…Do you live near him?’

  ‘Just over the way,’ Angie said sulkily, not helping herself to salad when the bowl was passed. She looked annoyed and upset. ‘Seymour gets a bit bored because he doesn’t know any of the other kids in the street. Well, he sort of knows them, but they don’t have a whole lot in common. He comes in to chat to me and we go out together now and then. I might take him to the beach tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t swim,’ Seymour blurted impulsively, but no one was listening.

  ‘The beach?’ Mrs Easterbrook said. ‘I was under the impression that today was your rostered day off…Two free days in a row? Oh, I see, then I take it you’re no longer working at that dress shop?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you about the shop?’ Angie said, too casually. ‘That old bitch who ran it…’

  ‘Angela!’

  ‘Oops, pardon me. That old dragon, there was a mix up about Bankcard slips and she went and blamed me and it was that really dumb junior there. Talk about teacher’s pet and sucking up! Well, I opened my mouth and said a bit too much…’

  ‘So you lost the job? How long ago?’

  ‘Not all that long. It’s no big deal, Mum. Okay, four weeks ago, but I’m not worried. I’ll find something else pretty soon. Honest, I go through the employment ads every single morning without fail. Come on, let’s talk about something else. Hey, want to hear about my new flat? A room, really, but flat sounds better. It’s beaut, all self-contained and everything, isn’t it, Seymour? He thinks it’s terrific, always popping in for coffee. And it’s got this little back gate into a sort of lane, so it’s really private and peaceful. There’s even a flower garden, well, a bush with flowers, anyway. Seymour picked some for me once…Jesus, Mum, why didn’t Lynne and David show up for lunch? You did tell them I was coming, didn’t you?’

  There was a taut, fragile silence. Angie’s face was suddenly pinched with distress, and Seymour found that he couldn’t swallow one mouthful of quiche.

  ‘Seymour, would you get a jug of water and some glasses from the kitchen, please? And some ice cubes, there’s a tray in the freezer,’ said Mrs Easterbrook. He went into the kitchen, knowing that he’d been sent out on purpose, but above the sound of the tap running he could still hear the conversation, lowered now into barbed whispers.

  ‘You know what your father said. You’re not to have any contact with them until you agree to go to Lakeview.’

  ‘Oh, he’s on about that again, is he? Look, I’m okay, I’ve told you a hundred times, told him a hundred thousand times. I’m on a program, and it’s really working. It’s been a whole two months since…’

  ‘Just how many times have we heard that before, Angela?’

  ‘Give us a break, will you?’

  ‘Summonses turning up here for you, how do you think we felt…’

  ‘They got their paperwork muddled up, honest, Mum. I’d already paid that fine, so I don’t know what on earth they could have been carrying on about. It was only a piddling little parking offence. All right, then, don’t believe me! I’m not going back to that Lakeview place. You don’t know what it’s like there, how they treat you, as though you just crawled out from under a compost heap. Jas reckons it’s worse than being in…’

  ‘Angela! I won’t have that young man’s…’

  He’d filled and refilled the water jug several times over, had taken as long as anyone possibly could to detach ice cubes from a tray and find three glasses, and when he returned to the table, the brittle conversation stopped immediately. Angie smiled at him across the pretty lace cloth as he sat down—a bright smile, but her eyes above it were shining as though a film of tears lay close to the surface. Mrs Easterbrook had put the knife and fork down on the untouched food on her plate, and her face was filled with what seemed to be inexplicable, helpless pain. Seymour looked at all the beautifully prepared food on the table, poured himself a glass of water, then just sat, shoulders hunched, not knowing what to do.

  I should start a conversation about the weather, he thought miserably. About houses, maybe, interior decorating. Nice place you’ve got here, Mrs Easterbrook, that sort of stuff…

  ‘Storm in a teacup,’ Angie said lightly, and he could tell she was making an effort to salvage things. ‘Every time I come here, it always ends in a squabble. Don’t take any notice, Seymour. You know how families carry on. It’s nothing. Mum, please don’t let’s argue, not when I brought Seymour out specially to meet you. He’s a really great kid, a real gent. We’re terrific mates, I’m going to take him to the zoo to see the butterfly house. Lots of places I’m going to take him…’

  ‘Seymour,’ Mrs Easterbrook said, ‘If you’ve finished lunch, dear, you might like to play out in the back garden for a little while. Do you like cats? Ours should be around somewhere out there.’

  Seymour recognised an order, a dismissal. He left the table meekly and went out through the kitchen door and into the garden. It was an attractive one and someone had lavished much care and attention upon it, but it somehow didn’t look the sort of place you’d play in. And the cat turned out to be an aloof black sphinx who desired no company. He could tell by the disdainful way it dampened a paw and began to groom its face that he was meant to keep his distance. Besides, how could you play with a cat? he thought crossly. No one could tell cats what to do or how to behave. The sun-warmed rim of the patio was too hot for comfort, so he moved back into the wall shadow next to the windows, and knew at once he’d made an error. He could quite clearly hear Mrs Easterbrook and Angie talking; not talking, but having a passionate, bitter quarrel now that he’d been sent from the room. He stayed where he was against the wall, afraid that if he moved they’d hear and think he’d come to that place on purpose to eavesdrop. He tried not to listen, but the angry voices crackled against the windows like flames.

  ‘What can you expect after what you’ve put us through for the last five years? All the times you’ve promised…We’ve given you every chance in the world, Angela, all our help, and you just threw away every opportunity…’

  ‘For God’s sake, how many times are you going to bring that up?’

  ‘Look at you, dressed like a little tramp! Those clothes, you can’t even make the effort to look respectable when you come to visit. How do you think I feel, with Margaret Duke seeing you stroll in here dressed like that? Those abominable shoes, and your hair…
Why on earth don’t you let it grow back to its natural colour? Oh, you had such beautiful hair! That job your father got you, the one before this dress shop fiasco, you made absolutely no effort…’

  ‘A fortnight was plenty long enough, thanks very much! Dad wouldn’t even listen when I tried to explain what happened. That horrible old woman told all her friends about me, I heard her. Making out she was so Christian, it just about made me puke! Every time she went out, even just up to the shops, she’d lock away all her brooches and stuff, how do you reckon that made me feel? Some job, a home help! I only took it on to please Dad in the first place, and I tried, I really tried. It wasn’t my fault…’

  ‘It never is your fault, is it? We’ve just about reached the end of our tether with you, Angela. Well, no doubt we’re being fools and wasting money, but as I’ve explained, we’re willing to pay your fares up to Lakeview again. Only this time you’ve got to promise to stay there for at least…’

  ‘Mum, give it a break, will you? Please?’

  ‘Oh, Angela…oh, my darling…It doesn’t have to be like this! If you’d only stayed there the first time, given it a proper chance…Can’t you just…’

  ‘Look, damn it, it didn’t work out! I can’t stand being shut up like that. You don’t even know what it’s like there. You only hear that smug counsellor all sweetness and light over the phone—as if she’d know anything about it! I’m getting it all together and staying out of strife, what more can you ask? Six weeks I’ve lasted this time plus I’ve found somewhere nice to live, why can’t you at least give me credit for that?’

  ‘Do you call a court appearance getting it all together? How do you think we felt when that lawyer rang the last time?’

  ‘They plant stuff in your handbag. I never…’

  ‘Angela, I’ve heard the same pathetic lie so many times I’m not prepared to listen to it any more! You’re just lucky you managed to get off with a good-behaviour bond, and next time you needn’t expect your father to pay for a top lawyer. You can just take your chances with Legal Aid. Oh, what’s the use, you never give a thought to all the trauma you’ve caused us! All our love, and you just keep throwing it back in our faces. We’ve got rights, too, you know, as parents, as a family…’