They’d got the boys into bed in their pyjamas decorated with mysterious emblems from some childrens’ TV programme that Myra didn’t recognise, and Myra, glad for a touch of normality, had switched on the television. They’d just about managed to eat a meal out, pretending they were a normal family, and get back in time for a stab at a bedtime routine and now the quiet in the house felt like a blessed relief. But before she could savour it, Oliver appeared in the sitting room like some ghostly apparition, holding out a thin stick. He stood in front of Myra saying, ‘I’d forgotten this. Here you are.’
Myra was puzzled, what on earth was the stick for? Was this a game boys played?
‘What is this for, Oliver?’
‘To make me good tomorrow.’
‘To make you good for tomorrow? Why does giving me a stick make you good tomorrow? I don’t understand.’
Oliver sighed at her lack of understanding. ‘It’s from Delphine’s. I had to hold out my hand and she hit it with this stick to make me good tomorrow.’
Both Graham and Myra struggled to get a hold on what the boy was talking about. Graham, swallowing hard, asked the stupidist of questions. ‘How many times?’
‘Five.’
‘Oh God!’ Hit with a stick for nothing at all. To make him good. Graham was appalled – he didn’t know whether to shout or cry. His instincts about Delphine had been right then. No, he thought. In truth it had been worse than he’d ever imagined. He tried to stay calm. ‘Well, Oliver, I’m glad to say we don’t use things like that in our house.’ He was going to be sick, his heart was pounding, his knees trembling, covered in a cold sweat, he fled the room.
Myra and Oliver solemnly stared at each other neither knowing what to do next. ‘Sit down, Oliver, here beside me. Did this happen every night you stayed in Delphine’s house? Even when you’d been good?’
Oliver stared at his bare feet sticking out at the ends of his legs as though they didn’t belong to him. He nodded.
‘And Piers, what happened to him? Did she hit him with it?’
‘No, she said he didn’t need it.’
Myra cringed. She’d no understanding of boys but even Myra could see what a terrible thing this boy had suffered. How could anyone do this to a child? ‘I’ll go get Uncle Graham a glass of water. You’ll have to excuse him, he’s so upset.’ She added to her own surprise, ‘And so am I.’
Oliver sat looking at his feet, they still didn’t belong to him, nothing did. Not a single thing was right, here in this house. All he wanted was his dad there right beside him, laughing and talking like he did before he got so ill. He couldn’t remember his mother at all, not her face, nor the smell of her, nor her voice, so she didn’t count in a way. He didn’t miss someone he didn’t remember. And now he was trapped in this strange house with two people who didn’t know about children. What was his alternative though? There wasn’t one, so he was stuck with it till he was old enough to look after himself. He remembered a boy at school, Iain was his name, whose mum was on her own and she’d died. He’d been sent to a children’s home and once he’d seen him weeks afterwards out in town and he’d looked so sad that Oliver hadn’t been able to allow himself to recognise him and he’d walked past stricken dumb by the change in him. He looked so . . . wounded.
Uncle Graham came back in saying, ‘Sorry about that, couldn’t help myself. I had no idea. Did your dad know?’
‘I never told him.’
‘Why ever not? He’d have wanted to know, of course he would.’
‘We didn’t sleep at her house till Dad went into hospital and somehow . . .’
‘You couldn’t tell him, of course not. But I think you were brave to put up with it. Too brave in fact. I’m horrified. I want you to know that all the time you live in this house this stick will never be used.’ Graham picked it up, and flexed it a little. ‘You can break it into little pieces right now. Go on.’
Oliver shook his head.
‘She’ll never know because we shan’t tell her. I want you to break it, then you know for certain it can’t be used any more.’
Oliver shook his head.
‘Then I’ll do it.’ And Graham did. He snapped it in half and amazed himself by his strength, it was so flexible, so bendy he never thought he’d manage to break it. It was the anger that did it, he was so furious. Then he snapped it again and again until the stick lay in pieces on the rug. ‘There, that’s the end of it. No more stick. Show me your hand. Go on.’
Oliver opened his right hand and Graham could see the faint weals made by Delphine on his twelve-year-old hand.
Graham shook with temper. ‘I’m so sorry, if your dad had known . . .’
‘I couldn’t tell him could I, he was so ill . . .’
Myra came back into the sitting room carrying three mugs on a tray, and the smell of hot chocolate floated ahead of her and warmed Oliver’s heart. ‘Here, Oliver, before you go back to bed, hot chocolate, specially for you. I’ve put a bit of sugar in it, makes it tasty.’
They sat watching the TV, mugs cradled in hands, silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Graham sick with the pain of it all. Should he be calling the police, he wondered – perhaps he should have kept the stick as evidence. He’d talk to Myra about it later. But right now, all he cared about was making sure Oliver was OK.
Myra was silently swearing vengeance on that dreadful woman. Thinking how if she’d got her own way they’d have stayed in Delphine’s house and he’d have been hit every night of his life. She couldn’t bear it. Myra had had a devil of a mother but even she didn’t descend to hitting her with a stick on the pretext of making her good.
Oliver, pressing the marks on his hand against the heat of the mug, thought perhaps, just perhaps, things might not be too bad in Spring Gardens. ‘I’d like to go back to school – not this week, but on Monday . . . when we’ve sorted the school bus out. That’ll be soon enough for Piers. He’s crying upstairs; well he was, he might be asleep by now.’
Graham leapt to his feet. ‘I’ll go see.’
Piers was curled up under the duvet, a rather unsuitable one for a child, Graham thought, covered as it was in sprigs of roses. The whole room looked like it would better suit an old lady rather than two boisterous young lads. Not that Piers looked boisterous now. In the soft moonlight that crept through the curtains Graham could see his sad sleeping face, his eyelids fluttering a little. Piers was still baby-faced, and Graham’s heart ached a little at the sight of him. He didn’t properly know how to make contact with a child, he’d have to stumble along making mistakes, sometimes getting it right first time, sometimes not. All he could do was his best, and at least he’d stopped Oliver from being beaten every night. At the thought, his hot chocolate almost came back up. Just the thought! He swallowed hard, leaned over the bed and placed a kiss on Piers’ forehead. He thought he caught sight of a sleepy half-smile. Ah! That was all that was needed, love in capital letters. But did he have, in fact did either of them have, love to give these two boys? That was the question.
He stood there in the moonlight staring down at Piers, thinking about Myra and wondering when and where love had slunk away from the two of them. Life had been so bitter for so long he’d forgotten the sweetness of love, of how it coloured the day, warmed the night, flavoured every mortal thing.
He heard Oliver coming up the stairs in his bare feet because they couldn’t find his slippers, and thought about that blinking stick, whippy and bendy and full of hurt. He was glad John had died not knowing the truth about Delphine and her evil ways.
‘Hop into bed, Oliver, and try to sleep. Myra and I will try our very best to make things right for you and Piers, you know.’ With that, he kissed his forehead, but this time there was no sleepy half-smile as his reward.
Somehow Myra had survived the first night, including the catastrophe when Piers couldn’t find the ‘cuddly’ he went to bed with, Oliver’s refusal to clean his teeth with Myra’s toothpaste because his own still lay on the washbasin at home, and the utter exhaustion of the day, and now here she was, the next morning, awake far too early, planning how she would survive her first full day. There wasn’t a sound from the boys’ bedroom when she crept downstairs so she closed the kitchen door so as not to wake them when she set the table for breakfast.
But Graham was already in the kitchen.
He’d laid the table for four, boiled the kettle, got the toaster out, the cereals, the butter, the jam she liked and the marmalade, and brought the milk in so all she had to do was sit down and eat. Breakfast was her favourite meal of the day. This was more like it. Graham being considerate towards her thought Myra, that was the Graham she knew.
‘Sit down and eat while they’re still asleep. You were too tired last night for sorting things out so we’ll do it now while we’re on our own.’
‘I’ve been thinking . . .’
Graham nodded. ‘So have I. You tell me first.’
This was how it had always been. Her feelings at the top of the agenda. ‘What on earth are we going to do with them all day? No school. No nothing. What do boys do all day? I’ve got my housework, and my tea cosies to work on, I can’t be finding time for entertaining them.’
‘Well, first of all we’re taking them to the local school, let’s hope they have a place for Piers. We’ll tell them what’s happened and get the paperwork in our names. Then we’re going to Oliver’s school to get him sorted, a place on a new school bus and letting them know he’ll be back in next week. After that I thought we’d take them out to lunch by the river, that place we like and if I can find a shop that sells kites I’m going to buy them each a kite.’
‘A kite? Whatever for?’
‘For fun. I never had a kite as a boy and I thought I might quite like one. I’ll buy three, or if you’d like one we’ll buy four.’
‘I haven’t the time. No, you go with them and fly the kites. That’s better, just the three of you.’
‘Myra, they’re not going to be my boys, they are yours too – you’ve got to belong.’
‘Well, not today I’ll get the food side sorted. Make a nice supper. Viv says boys like good food. It all helps, she says.’ She pushed away that panicky feeling she kept getting. ‘Graham . . .?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m frightened to death. Absolutely frightened to death. However am I going to manage?’ Myra trembled, but just as she was about to burst into tears – something she would never normally do because she kept such a tight control of herself – the kitchen door burst open and in walked the two biggest problems of her life. They were both looking clean, Oliver had found his slippers, and Piers was wearing quite the oddest selection of clothes, standing there, looking lost and withdrawn.
Graham sprang into action, the fastest Myra had seen him move in years. ‘Now boys, sit yourselves down. Myra’s going out shopping today to get just what you both like for breakfast and so on, but for now you’ll have to make do with what we eat. Sit down, it’s laid for four so it must include you. Piers, you sit next to Myra, that’s it, and Oliver you sit next to me here. That’s the way. Now. Choose your cereal.’
That first breakfast time was the most agonising it could possibly have been. Two silent children, playing endlessly with their food and basically eating very little, two grown-ups trying desperately to be jolly and understanding, but not succeeding.
Finally Myra stood up, the tension having built up in her more than she would have thought possible without her actually exploding, and she said straight from her heart, ‘We are trying, you know, it’s hard for us just as it’s hard for you, just make an effort. Please. We are trying to give you a home.’ With that, she stormed out.
The silence in the kitchen grew deeper. The three males left behind silently working out what to do next, even more withdrawn than before she spoke. Graham finally broke out of his bonds by saying, ‘We’ll have to forgive her, she’s not used to a houseful and doesn’t know how to go about it. She feels just as bad as you do. Completely at sea.’
Piers slapped his spoon down in his bowl and said, ‘We didn’t want to come here. We want to be at home with our dad, but we’re not and we wish we were and we don’t know what to do in your house. We can’t try, honest, we can’t try. All our trying’s used up. And we’re only boys not men, not yet, and I want my dad.’ Two large tears traced a steady path down his cheeks.
Graham, torn apart by Piers’ plea, stared at his toast awaiting him on his plate and choked at the thought of eating it. Now what did he do to make things right, was it ever going to be possible to do so? Perhaps if he tried hard enough it might. ‘Today, when it gets to nine o’clock we’re going to sort out your schools, the new nearest one for you Piers and arrange transport for Oliver to his old one. We’ll let them know you’re living with us now and that you’ll be back on Monday. Then I’m going to a shop I know that sells kites and I’m buying one and if you like the idea you can have one each too. I always wanted one as a boy and my dad couldn’t afford it, but I can afford it now and that’s what I’m going to do. I know exactly where to go to fly it, and I shall watch it soaring up into the sky and think about it being me flying all that way in the freedom of the skies.’
Oliver looked rather sceptically at him.
Graham smiled. ‘Just you wait and see! When you’ve finished your breakfast would you go and feed Pete and let him into his run? Clean your teeth and then we’ll be off.’
Somehow Graham’s positivity did all of them good, they scurried through their cereals, ate a piece of toast each, cleared their dishes into the dishwasher and disappeared into the garden. All the way to the school Piers talked about kites and he’d decided he’d like one too if that was all right?
After they’d left Myra stood in the kitchen and wondered what on earth to do next? She happened to be facing the garden while she pondered and caught a glimpse of that blasted rabbit. Something else to make a mess and look after. She paused for a moment: it was a very pretty rabbit, long-eared and kind of milky-coffee-coloured, hopping about the run. She stopped herself. It would crucify Graham’s immaculate lawn, there’d be no grass left inside a week. The whole patch where the run stood would be bare.
Should she let it out? Accidentally of course. She wouldn’t be to blame. She practised an innocent look with her face, but somehow she knew it would look grotesque. So she stopped trying to smile.
There was a sharp tap on the kitchen door and then Viv’s voice calling, ‘It’s me, Viv.’
‘Hello Viv! How are you?’
‘Never mind about how I am, I saw Graham going out with the boys so I thought I’d come across and give you some moral support. How are they?’
‘They’ve gone out to see Piers’ new school and to re-organise the school bus for Oliver. Then they’re supposed to be going to buy a kite for Graham. Can you imagine Graham with a kite, he won’t know where to begin.’
Viv plonked herself down on the nearest chair saying, ‘You should have gone with them.’
Myra shuddered. ‘Well, no thank you very much I’ve enough to do here in the house.’
‘You looked as though you were very busy when I walked in, staring out of the window.’
‘Have you seen what I was staring at?’
Viv leapt up from her chair and peered out of the window. ‘What a little darling, isn’t it sweet, is it a boy or a girl?’
‘Must be a boy, it’s called Pete. I didn’t want it and I still don’t want it, and I’ve a good mind to let it out by “mistake”.’ She glared at Viv, daring her to object.
Myra joined her at the window. Viv said very softly, ‘They’ve already lost their father and their home, to lose their rabbit would be the last straw. Don’t do it, Myra. Please don’t do it, they’ll be devastated.’
‘I didn’t ask for a rabbit, nor did I ask for two boys, but I’ve got them, Viv. Don’t I have a say at all?’
‘You’ve had your say for far too long, Myra. Now it’s Graham’s turn and Piers and Oliver’s turn, they all need you, believe it or not. The boys are not going to say, “Auntie Myra we need you.” But they do. Bear up, stiff upper lip and before you know it you’ll feel like a mother and that’s what you will be, and that’s what you’ve yearned for for years.’ Viv dared to pat Myra’s arm, even though she knew any kind of contact was alien to Myra. ‘Well?’
Myra hurriedly snatched her arm from Viv’s grasp. ‘I’ve had my way far too long? What does that mean for heaven’s sake?’
‘Can I be frank? Blunt even?’
Viv sat at the kitchen table resting her forearms on it and looked straight into Myra’s face. ‘Round here we all realise that you and Graham don’t share a bedroom any more and haven’t done for some years. That’s no way to go on. Now is it?’
Myra’s face flushed dark red. ‘And what makes you think that?’
‘Bedroom lights. You never have visitors staying so they must be yours and Graham’s lights on. Nobody would think twice about my house having bedroom lights on, some nights I swear my house looks more like Blackpool Illuminations ’cos every bedroom’s lit up, but every night it’s always just two rooms lit at yours.’
‘It’s no one’s business but ours where we sleep. You’re all a load of gossips, cruel, evil gossips. Go on get out, leave this house and don’t come back.’ Myra was so angry she forgot about her renowned self control and shouted.
Viv didn’t move an inch. In fact she settled herself more comfortably and it infuriated Myra. ‘You’re nothing but a nosey parker, that’s what. Wait till I tell Graham.’
‘Judging by your reaction, I guess that was your decision not Graham’s. I’m right, aren’t I? And furthermore I guess you won’t mention it to him because it will bring the whole matter into the open and then where will you be? Decisions to make? Truth to be spoken? Oh! No Myra, that’s the last thing you want.’
Myra expected Viv to march off, but instead she got up calmly. ‘I’ll make us a coffee.’
So she did while Myra sat silent in the chair she’d slumped down on when Viv had started her speech.
‘I’ve put plenty of sugar in, do you good, there’s not a peck of flesh on you, you could do with fattening up. I’m going to the supermarket after, shall we both go and you can shop for these boys of yours and that gorgeous husband. Get plenty of stuff in, fill the freezer and the cupboards, then feeding them won’t feel such a task. I don’t need a lot today, so there’ll be plenty of space for a big shop for you. How about it?’
Cleaving her way through the terrible anger she felt, Myra realised the sense of going shopping in Viv’s car and nodded her head. The hot sweet coffee felt good. The neighbours noticing! The neighbours talking about her! But did she care? No! It was her house and she’d do exactly what she wanted in it, and sleeping in the same bed as Graham was not a thing she wanted. Not after losing the babies, and certainly not after her operation. No, certainly not, that side of things was over with for ever. She forced her thoughts back to practicalities. She’d need more butter, and extra milk and . . .
‘Finished your coffee? I’m glad to see you drinking it all. You skimp on food don’t you Myra? Why? Are you punishing yourself for something?’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous. Of course I’m not. What have I got to punish myself about? I’ve never done anything wrong.’
‘Denying yourself any joy? Shutting yourself off from your husband when you could be holding each other close? A shared bed makes the wheels of a marriage go round better than anything I know.’
Myra stood up. ‘You may have been a friend since the day we moved in here, but speaking to me like this is just not right, it’s all too . . . intimate.’ Using that word made her blush. God, what was she thinking of? Blast Viv. ‘Are we going shopping this morning or next week?’
‘Right away. I’ll get my purse and lock up and we’ll be off.’
The traffic was heavy and slow-moving, the car park was full to bursting, the supermarket packed, and in the end Myra and Viv decided to eat a quick lunch in the cafe and do the shopping afterwards. By the time they got home it was after three o’clock and just as they turned in to the drive to unload Myra’s shopping Graham and the boys came home.
More used to the tiny quantities of shopping for two, the mass of bags and mountains of food overwhelmed Myra and she had to rely on Viv to help her sort all they’d bought. What angered her was that both Oliver and Piers took to Viv immediately and spent lots of time describing their kite-flying expedition. Finally the shopping was all put away, her bags for life in the cupboard where they belonged and Graham was carrying the tea tray into the sitting room with a generous plate of biscuits included.
Viv made her farewells. ‘You enjoy that tea together just the four of you, I’ll have a cup with you all another day. Bye boys. Glad you’ve had such a good time with the kites . . . and I like little Pete, by the way.’
With Viv gone, Myra sat down, unable to recall what it was she’d planned for supper, despite all the food she’d bought, and by the time she’d finally remembered, she found herself involved in a decision about bringing Pete into the house. ‘Do you want to know what I think?’ she said. ‘I think it’s all new for him at the moment, new garden, new noises, maybe we’d do better to leave him to get settled and then try him in the house in a few weeks, we don’t want to confuse him, do we?’
Graham gave her a grateful smile and Oliver agreed they’d better wait until he settled.
Piers meanwhile had been wolfing biscuits down as though he hadn’t had any for weeks. Was it good for him to eat so many? It certainly wasn’t good for the housekeeping. Myra decided to say something. ‘You like those biscuits, Piers?’
He blushed and nodded his head, replaced the one he had in his hand but hadn’t bitten into and sat back looking mortified.
Oliver explained on his behalf. ‘Delphine always gave us cream crackers with no butter on and they tasted funny, kind of old, that’s why. Old and musty.’
‘Help yourself,’ Myra said, determined to score a victory over that dratted Delphine. ‘I don’t mind.’ Though in truth she did mind when to her amazement, the entire plate was emptied by the two boys. Was this how it was then, eating a plateful of biscuits and then not wanting their supper? She’d not get it ready until a bit later, give the biscuits time to go down.
Suddenly there she was making allowances for the pair of them when she’d sworn she wouldn’t. They must abide by a few basic rules she’d thought up last night, and now before she’d even had a chance to explain them, they’d unwittingly broken them. She sat silently thinking about the cross she’d given herself to bear.
Graham cut through the strained atmosphere by suggesting the boys went to the car and brought in their kites to show Myra.
‘Look Myra, there’s a picture of mine on the box.’
‘Oh! So there is.’
‘Uncle Graham got it going really high,’ Piers said. ‘Up and up. It was lovely wasn’t it, Oliver?’
‘If you say so.’
‘It was fun then?’ asked Myra.
Piers’ sparkling blue eyes twinkled at the thought of how much he’d enioyed himself, but seeing Oliver’s face he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be happy and his eyes shut down and he lay back against the sofa cushions, his painful memories right there in his cherubic face. Graham took hold of his hand saying, ‘It was fun and I’m sure your dad would have loved to see you flying it.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he Oliver?’
Oliver gave Piers a long stare then stood up and walked out. They could hear his feet tramping solidly up the stairs, then the thud of the bedroom door being slammed and a sound like someone throwing themselves on a bed.
Piers, with tears beginning to brim in his eyes, set off to follow him, but Graham caught his hand saying, ‘Piers! Let’s leave him for a while, maybe he wants to be alone.’