Finding Davey Page 20

  At the door she looked back but Doctor was already jotting notes and didn’t return her goodbye. Hundred per cent, she thought, leaving. That’s what Doctor is. Never wrong, fixated on success, dedicated. Where was the harm in a quickie with somebody like that? Which was okay, authority wanting repayment, get a return. Ambition paid if done right. Power appealed.

  She wondered if he was married, put the thought out of her mind.

  Intensively briefed though Roz Saston was, she thought Clint less animated than she’d hoped during his first visit. She was anxious for him to make a good impression at the Foundation, though his admission would mean the end of her teaching. Aware of this, she brought up the question of Clint’s medication.

  Mom flared up immediately right there in front of the boy.

  “Doctor has laid down Clint’s treatment, lady! Not another word, hear me?”

  It was ejaculated with such venom that Roz actually recoiled. Manuela had just finished serving the breakfast. Roz stammered apologies, said of course she’d spoken out of turn. Mom saw to Clint’s sports attire. Some quirk left Clint cold about football items, baseball catchers’ essentials, but Roz knew that accidents could do mighty strange things.

  The school she already knew, the head teacher Joan Daley. Of middle age, the deputy Mrs Amarance appeared smart and spoke well at fund-raisers. She and Mom hit it off, Pop’s large donation influencing Mrs Amarance’s attitude.

  They were shown round during the morning break by Mrs Daley herself. She asked no questions, which suggested that Mom’s lengthy calls had paid off. Clint was calm to the point of docility.

  “Yes, we’ve taken on a new housekeeper, Mrs Daley,” Mom gushed at the school’s vaunted exhibition gallery. “To coincide with Clint’s return to schooling.”

  “How thoughtful!” the head exclaimed. “You’ll have more free time —”

  “To focus on Clint’s schoolwork,” Mom capped pointedly.

  Mrs Amarance opened the double doors. Roz exclaimed at the spaciousness. An expanse of grey carpet emphasised the displayed paintings and collages. A feature was the brilliant illumination. Roz remarked on this clever touch. Joan Daley modestly disclaimed originality.

  “We copied the style from museums back east, Mrs Saston. It works!”

  “Clint seems taken by it!”

  He was standing before a cluster of drawings.

  “All art is the children’s own work,” Mrs Amarance announced. “The stage is angled, notice that? Adaptive usage! Even our swimming pools can be automatically covered by a safe – safety first, right? – retractable flooring!”

  “That sounds great.”

  “Roz, why don’t you take Clint to see pictures?” Mrs Daley suggested.

  As Roz Saston complied, both teachers asked Mom if she had details of Clint’s previous school record.

  “Next week,” Mom replied brightly. “My husband’s going over it.”

  “Fine,” the head teacher said. “We keep continuous records.”

  Mom passed it off with a laugh, reminding herself to catch Hyme.

  Clint proved hard to move on. A long display table held some two dozen small figurines, bowls and vases.

  “They have a great pottery class, Clint!” Roz said brightly.

  He said, “Some aren’t coloured.”

  “No, well, maybe they will colour them later.”

  It was heavy going with the boy today. Roz could hardly elicit a response. No resuming lessons later. The boy seemed pooped.

  “They might,” Clint said, eyes on the figurines.

  She drew him to the end of the display where futuristic terracotta creations stood on a polished driftwood swirl. Clint came passively.

  “Teachers love imagination!” Roz said. There was something wrong. The day had augured so well, yet Clint was in a dream world. Clint said something she didn’t quite catch.

  “Really, honey?” she said mechanically.

  “We’ll see the sports fields,” Joan Daley announced, advancing to the french doors. “You’ll see just how extensive they are!”

  For a further hour they toured the school. Mom approved of the close supervision. The exits from the school were guarded by uniformed patrollers.

  Mrs Amarance elaborated on the school’s security, casually mentioning the costs but pointing out the inestimable benefits to the school community.

  That afternoon Mom allowed Clint and Roz to go walking along the lakeside, Pop with them. Clint was quiet. Little Kim the Vietnamese boy was not there. Roz showed Clint where the new baseball pitch would be, telling him how great it would look against the lakeshore. Clint trudged tiredly along.

  Later, a new housekeeper arrived. She was called Mrs Linda. Roz left when it was time for dinner. Manuela rolled her eyes at Clint secretly when Linda said something about hot things on the table. Clint knew Manuela didn’t like Linda straight off.

  Linda was boss. Sometimes even Mom had to look at Linda to see if you were saying the right things. Maybe Linda was boss over Mom?

  Clint knew he’d seen Mrs Linda before, maybe at the clinic where the palm trees made shadows on the wall just before it got dark.

  That night at home Roz remembered what it was Clint had told her in the school’s exhibition room. He’d said the same again by the lakeside. She’d paid it no mind. Now it struck her as a bit odd.

  “The table’s bad,” Clint had said.

  “Really, honey?” she’d answered.

  “It rocks,” he’d said. Yet nobody had touched the solid display table.

  She mentioned it to her husband in bed. They marvelled at a child’s mind, how strange that some triviality seemed special to a kid. No doubt about it, though, Clint would start at the Foundation, so it was goodbye. Roz felt quite tearful, but that was a teacher’s lot. Kids come, and kids go. The usual things.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The light was fading in Clint’s bedroom.

  Linda had gone. Manuela was singing in the kitchen. He liked to hear it. Sometimes it stopped.

  Manuela had told him to go upstairs and watch TV. It happened when the moustache man Hessoo was outside in an old truck looking at motors, no, automobiles.

  Only when he’d started school, when hard winds blew and Mom started saying things about winter, did Clint guess that Manuela wanted him out of her kitchen after a pickup went past that you hadn’t to call a motor. It went down the road then came back and Manuela told him pretty smart to go and watch TV.

  Clint liked Manuela. He liked the little jokey boy who came every time the truck went slow past the house. It came from the lakeside. Clint knew that because he’d seen it when walking with Roz. He’d asked Roz about it once and she didn’t know, but grown-up people told you wrong things on account of you being a kid.

  The falling boy hung back as the man got out of the truck, and the little boy always looked up to see if Clint was watching him from the window.

  Then the falling boy would wait until his daddy Hessoo went in front and he’d stumble on the sidewalk. It was the same joke. Clint always laughed aloud behind his curtains, no, drapes, and watched them slip in through Manuela’s door.

  Clint liked the joking game. It was a pretend.

  The man had darker skin than Manuela. Eventually Clint knew to call them Mexicans, and heard the word wetbacks. They had to pretend they didn’t know Manuela at all, when all the time the darker man was Manuela’s daddy and she was the laughing boy’s mummy. Just like Pop was Mom and Clint was their kid.

  He knew right off that Manuela would say she didn’t know the jokey boy. She pretended, so as not to spoil the game. Clint thought it wasn’t much of a game, but they thought it was so that was fine. Cool, he said now. It was cool.

  The first days at school were only adjustment.

  Clint’s introductory report was glowing, if weak in some subjects. Mrs Daley’s summary sent Mom into raptures.

  “It’s been a complete success, Hyme! He’ll be fifth in the whole class!”


  No doubt about it, Pop was fond of the boy. He’d soon go to a school game. Seeing him walk the lakeshore with Clint was a pleasure. Much of it was, Pop knew, his own adjustment to fatherhood. He had to work at it. Worth every cent.

  Doctor finally withdrew the medication. No need any longer. Linda Hunger was in there housekeeping, fine by Pop because Mom needed help around the place. They had a gardener, a Tijuana Tourist like people in Tain called immigrant workers. Manuela took on four other temporary women whenever Mom decided to throw a dinner. A firm sent extra help over for Mrs Hunger. Clint accepted his place, his family.

  Everything worked.

  There was still a hidden cost. Doctor came up from his Florida clinic monthly, and Linda Hunger went to the hotel. Pop picked up the tab, so he knew to the dollar. Enterprise meant after sales services. Pop chuckled at that. He did a little, back east.

  Clint was the success, so the future was assured.

  After Gilson Mather’s workshop, Mr Maddy’s firm seemed gigantic. He met them in the foyer.

  “I’m only a dogsbody,” he said, leading them through a succession of plush offices.

  Except, secretaries beamed and showed the man deference. They also exchanged looks as the rough-looking girl and the workman passed by. Mr Maddy’s office bore the title General Manager Development.

  “Kylee,” he said affably. “You’re not alone with your reading difficulty. We’ve got others here the same. Grampa explained.”

  Kylee said evenly, looking at Bray, who reddened, “Grampa did, did he?”

  “I’d like to talk about computers, how far you’ve got. Is that all right?”

  Kylee remained standing and wandered to the window. “I get fed up.”

  “Oh. Right. We find workers with your, ah, very rewarding.”

  “Gerron with it.”

  Maddy laughed, raising his eyebrows at Bray. “You’re certainly direct. Now, systems. What can you do with a computer?”

  “Time they got fluid. Conduction’s asking for it.”

  The manager stared at her. “It is?”

  “You make them talk like wankers. Fucking waste of space.”

  Mr Maddy coloured and said coldly, “I developed some of those, miss.”

  “Costs the earth for fuck all except a load er strife. Some old git sits down, the CD’s like a dod, talk-in all week. What good’s that?”

  Bray listened, uncomprehending.

  Mr Maddy eyed her, frowning. “Then what would be better?”

  “Folk don’t know any different. Any voice, no read. Do it fluid. Bugger crystallines at first, or you blam recursive. There’s got ter be a dozen fluids in line crystal, int there?”

  “Ah, what kind?”

  Kylee turned to Bray. “He’s fucking thick.” Her expression didn’t alter as she added, “Grampa, I’m frigging starving.”

  Bray rose apologetically. “Sorry, Mr Maddy. Perhaps we’ll come on another…”

  “Wait a moment. I’d like Kylee to meet one of our university development staff. He has ideas like Kylee’s.”

  Kylee wandered and peered into rooms. Bray caught her up. She ignored hazard notices and sauntered into a laboratory. Maddy took Bray’s arm as Kylee watched a technician build a circuit board.

  “We’ll just let her wander for a few minutes,” he said thoughtfully. “I have a feeling she’s in her natural environment.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Autistic geniuses might just run in your family, Mr Charleston.”

  “She has a heart of gold,” Bray said desperately. He felt helpless, wanting to bribe, coerce, anything so Kylee was saved from those unrelenting social people.

  “Quite honestly, if she’s anything like she seems, I’ll take the risk.”

  The following week Kylee received an offer from Mr Maddy of an associate scholarship in computer development, grade II. Bray worried about the documentation. Kylee replied with abuse, saying she could create any certificates anybody wanted. She finally accepted, “as long as I can keep coming here, ’kay?” Bray smiled and wrote her letter of acceptance, to start at Maddy’s firm in Halstead, fifteen miles away.

  Chapter Forty

  Drizzle needlessly affected the spirits, Bray used to tell people when the subject of weather came up. A bloke on the train complained that Bray must be a Buddhist, talking like that.

  When he bought the anniversary cake he felt almost uplifted, though it wasn’t much of an anniversary. It was actually more a commemoration. Considering what he’d started with since the horror, he had come a distance. He had progressed.

  The weeks were edging into months now. Doubt had become obstacles in a season’s turning, yet luck occasionally blessed him. Look at Kylee, who still jeered as she took his money. She was now a trusted, well, friend or something similar.

  The cake was hard to manage on the crowded train home. Two women asked him what the cake was for – no disguising the cake box of an exalted confectioner’s. Shamefacedly, he’d said he was going to surprise a friend.

  “She’s helped me quite a time,” he’d told them when pressed.

  They said that was sweet.

  “I don’t cook much,” he’d admitted. “Maybe I’ll get something in.”

  That started them off, scandalous prices, supermarkets up to their dreadful games. They wished him luck as he alighted, quite as if he was off to some romantic coup.

  Miraculously he caught a bus in the gloaming, its lights haloed by rain. Luck was with him. It was running late, saved him ten damp minutes. At home the porch light was on, Lottie’s signal that she was working in the shed.

  He put the box on the kitchen table, shouted through the door and saw her bent over the computer. She heard him and waved. He went upstairs and spruced up more than usual.

  Twenty minutes later he lit a candle, and called her.

  “What’s this, Bray?” She appeared in the doorway.

  He felt woefully embarrassed. “The best I could think up, I’m afraid. Sort of five-month anniversary.”

  “Really? I’m touched.”

  “Blow it out.” A knife, he’d forgotten a knife. “Tonight’s going to be in the wrong order. Cake first. It might have to count as a pudding. Then we go out for supper. Winstanley’s should be open.”

  The little ceremony felt a failure after that. Bray became more solemn than he’d intended and Lottie seemed to absorb his mood. They sat. They each had a slice as if putting on a performance. Bray had to force his piece down. It was repellently sweet.

  Winstanley’s was almost empty, something on television or maybe one of those rainy evenings where folk ached for bed.

  “I won’t know what to do with the rest of that cake,” Bray confessed.

  “It was a charming thought.”

  “We have come far, haven’t we?” Put like that, Bray sounded disgracefully weak. “Since Kylee and Porky.”

  “How is Kylee?”

  They ordered. Bray worried about wine.

  “She’s doing well at Maddy’s. Two weeks! That fax drives me mental.”

  Kylee’s e-mails came intermittently, sometimes three a day. Porky was never mentioned now, though other youths occasionally came into her messages as “a laugh” or “a mate”.

  “Stays with her aunt and uncle in Halstead. I wish she’d phone instead.” He tried to smile. “Too old fashioned.”

  “Does she ever ask how we’re – how you’re – getting on?”

  “No.” He put in defensively, “Kylee knows I wouldn’t be able to answer.”

  “You would now, Bray. You haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?” Lottie wore her I-have-news look.

  The time when he trembled at possible news had long since gone. Bray expected it would be something technical from Corkhill’s over the next KV volume. Like childhood games you threw a six and climbed a ladder.

  “Did George say the setting was all right?”

  In The Triumph of KV he had introduced a mystery. Brief
as the rest. Bray had done a dozen rewrites only to find it finishing up exactly as he’d started.

  “George liked it. We’re five hours ahead of America.”

  So? Sometimes Lottie grew coy about the soaring sales figures, or another distributor taking the KV stories on.

  “The series has been adopted.” She saw his incomprehension and touched his hand. “Their Department of Education has pooled us. KV is acceptable.”

  He stared blankly at her. The waiter brought their starters.

  “It’s what you aimed for, Bray.”

  The candlelight blurred Lottie’s features.

  “Your tales, Bray. Davey’s stories. They were very commendatory. We can add it to our publicity, Advised reading for children. You don’t understand the tide of responses on our e-mails,” she inserted neatly. “Genuine ones now. They add to the shoal of Kylee-generated falsehoods! That American distributor Candice is over the moon. She’s doing a release featuring Sharlene!”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means an American TV contract is on the cards now.”

  They sat in silence. Lottie started saying how Candice, their main USA distributor, had sent no fewer than seven exultant e-mails that morning.

  “It’s tremendous news, Bray. I wondered if you’d heard at work. Playing about,” she added with a smile, “while I slogged.”

  She worked at Gilson Mather two weekdays now, on the firm’s history.

  “We’ll be flooded, Bray. Educationalists are all eager for copy.” She looked rather shamefaced. “That’s actually Candice’s phrase. Do we do it?”

  “We do what?”

  “Give Candice her head. Let her use the official reco – her term again. Sales should blast off. I really must abandon these Americanisms,” Lottie said as they sipped wine. “They’re catching. I did a sectional series of e-mails, Bray.”

  “What are they?”

  “Look.” Neither began the meal. Their waiter hovered. “Go on like we are, we’ll improve, but only in sales.”