Were still marking exams, he said. He dipped for his egg with a tea strainer, which he had found by chance in a drawer. Ive got three hundred reports to sign. And the union blokes are coming in to see me this morning. Youd think theyd let it rest till after the holidays. But no.
Strike?
Well, theyre talking about it.
Ive every sympathy.
So have I, I want a pay rise too, but it makes it bloody difficult to run a school. He sighed, and went about with his egg.
What are you doing? Sylvia asked. Why dont you put it in an egg cup and sit down with it? Or are you going to race off with it down Lauderdale Road?
Colin sat down with his ovoid ruin and picked up the newspaper. The day had brightened and the pleasant morning sun shone through his double glazing. I always think of Gullivers Travels when I eat an egg, he told his wife. You see He broke off, gaped, put down his egg spoon and seized up the newspaper. Good God, Sylvia. York Minsters burned down. Look at this. He thrust the newspaper at her. The front page bore the headline NIGHT SKY LIT UP BY GOTHIC GLORY ABLAZE and a four-column picture of the Minsters south transept wreathed in smoke and flame.
It never rains but it pours, Sylvia remarked, glancing at the kitchen ceiling. She tilted her yoghurt carton and scraped it out delicately with her teaspoon. Funny, Lizzie was off to York yesterday on a day trip. I wonder if she saw it.
It happened at half two in the morning.
What a pity. She doesnt like to miss anything.
Good God, its not a tourist attraction, Colin said, Its a national tragedy. Four million pounds worth of damage. He groaned.
Dont take it so personally.
The fire took almost three hours to contain, Colin read out loud. Although it was stopped from spreading to the central tower, or from seriously damaging the Minsters famous collection of stained-glass windows, it left the transepts ancient roof beams and plastered vaults a smouldering mass on the floor below.
Your eggs going cold, Sylvia said. Id have thought youd eat it, after you went to such trouble to get it.
Ive lost my appetite. You dont seem to appreciate what a loss this is to our heritage.
Its no loss to your arteries, anyway. Sylvia tossed her yoghurt carton into the wastebin. She opened one of the kitchen cupboards and began to take down the packets of the stuff the children ate. Amid Colins disinterested grief he felt a sharp prickle of personal resentment: she still does things for them, but nothing at all for me. How did it start? she enquired.
Lightning, they think. They quote a priest here who says it was divine intervention.
Why should it be that?
Because of the Bishop of Durham. He was consecrated at the Minster last Friday. You know, all about his controversial views on the Resurrection. I thought that now youre so friendly with our vicar youd be well up in all this.
Francis doesnt talk about the Church much, he talks about community projects. Sylvia rummaged in the cutlery drawer. If God didnt like the Bishop of Durham, why didnt He strike him personally? And do it promptly, on Saturday morning?
Well, I tend to agree with you, Colin said. It cant be that, can it? He turned to the back page for more news of the disaster. The Lord was on our side as we battled the flames, he read. By the way, hows the vicars son? Has he come out of Youth Custody yet?
Hes not in Youth Custody. Hes having Intermediate Treatment. Hes doing community service. Sylvia reached out for a piece of toast and picked up her knife. Do you know what Francis says?
Watch it, thats butter youre eating, Colin said.
Oh, so it is! Looking thoughtful, she put the bread down on her plate. He says that this business of Austin doing take-and-drive-away, its a deep compulsion he has, a compulsion to find out his real identity by sampling and testing out various machines.
You mean its the vicars fault for naming him after a car?
At some level, you see, Francis thinks he does believe that. By dumping the cars, hes trying to jettison the mechanistic fantasies that have taken him over, and affirm his survival as a human being. Its a form of acting out. Franciss real worry is that because he usually leaves the cars in such a wrecked-up condition, it may indicate suicidal tendencies.
Lordy, lordy, Colin said. I didnt know you could kill yourself by sniffing glue.
It can damage your brain.
How would they know?
Francis is very worried. He cant talk to Hermione. She thinks its because they didnt send him to boarding school.
I dont doubt hell be boarded out soon enough, and at the taxpayers expense. How he got off this time beats me.
He didnt get off. Sylvia looked offended. Community service is a very valid option.
Id rather he were in custody. Keep him away from our kids. How does a vicars son turn out such a thug?
There was no time to go into this, because the children rushed in: Karen and Claire in their school uniforms, and the boy in a kind of romper suit of sagging jersey fabric, with holes cut out of it here and there, exposing bits of flesh. The girls flung themselves into their chairs.
Brownies tonight, Claire said: a chubby child, putting out her paws for everything edible within reach. And I havent got my new uniform yet, Mum.
Okay, Ill see about it. She knew that the Brownies were a conformist outfit, pseudo-masculine if not paramilitary, but she suspected that they were more harmless than some of the things her children got up to.
You ought to see her, Karen said. She shouldnt grow so much, its uncouth. Her skirts up round her bum. Its child pornography.
That will do, Colin said.
Claire stuffed a piece of toast into her mouth. Its Brownie Tea-Making Fortnight soon. I have to make at least fifty cups of tea for family and friends. And every cup I make, they give it marks.
If you make me any mouldy tea, Alistair said, Ill pour it down the sink.
I have these mark sheets, she went on. You have to say what my tea is, Excellent, Very Good, or Good.
What if its witches piss? Alistair enquired.
I wish youd leave the table, Alistair, if youre going to talk like that.
Im not at the table, am I? Im just stood here, watching you lot eating like pigs.
Oh, let him starve, Karen said. Hes stunted, thats what he is. Hes probably got rickets or sumfin.
He certainly has not got rickets, Sylvia said.
Well, hes so titchy. Thats why hes such a rotten little bully. We done it in psychology.
Perhaps hes a pygmy, Claire said. He cant help it.
Alistair tore off a piece of kitchen roll, and blew his nose into it with great violence. He wadded it up in his palms and tossed it at Karen. It fell short, and lay on the cork tiles.
Just watch it, Sylvia said. Lizzies not spending her time and my money cleaning up after you lot.
I dont want her cleaning up after me, Alistair said. You make sure you dont let her in my room.
I dont want her cleaning up after me, Alistair said. You make sure you dont let her in my room.
She cant get in, can she? Youve always got the door locked.
What do you do in there? Colin asked.
Black magic, Karen said. Him and Austin. Austin nicks vestments and stuff from his dad, and they have Black Masses.
Id do a spell to give you spots, Alistair said. Only you havent got room for any more.
So is that what youre going to do today? Lock yourself in and have a Black Mass?
Yeah, Alistair said. And miss all the lovely sunshine. He slouched out of the room. Sylvias eyes followed him.
I do worry, she said.
Colin flapped over a page of the newspaper. Its better than him joining the Young Conservatives, he said.
You never take things seriously.
Oh, I do. He glanced up from the news of the inferno. I know a lot of kids. So I dont get alarmed.
Yes, but Alistairs your own.
Now that does alarm me. At times. But he knew a hundred children as bad as Alistair, a hundred worse; antisocial truants from broken homes. Theirs was not broken; only creaking a bit under the strain. The kids passed through his office every day, en route from brief rebellion to a lifetimes acceptance of their lot. They had silly hairstyles; beneath them, dull conformist little brains.
I wish youd keep them in school till the end of term, Sylvia said. I wish he werent leaving.
What would he do if he stayed on? Take Oxbridge by storm with his two CSEs?
Off again, said Sylvia, stirring her muesli. She was training herself to eat slowly, putting down her spoon between mouthfuls, and the action gave her words a quite spurious consequence. Off again with your little schoolmasters sarcasms.
Does it make you cross?
It makes me bored.
Weve nothing else for protection, now the LEA have abolished flogging.
I dont think you really value education, Colin. You had too much of it.
I had enough, he conceded.
Alistair used to be so bright.
Thats what all the parents say.
Sylvia stood up and began carrying dishes to the sink. Her orange peel lay abandoned on the tabletop, a long strip dropped neatly from practised dieters fingers. Colin looked at it with interest. You can do divination with orange peel, he thought. The future was there, in homely things, for anyone who wanted to know it; door keys, tea leaves. There are letters in orange peel, which tell you who will be important in your life. He could make out quite clearly a capital T.
At once, a certain thought came into his mind. He examined it, and found it unwelcome. He would not entertain it; he kicked it out. His pulse rate rose a fraction; he dropped his eyes, put down his coffee cup. The thought rolled back, in a leisurely way, and closed around his attention like a loop of string. For a few months in his long marriage, he had been unfaithful to Sylvia. His affair with Isabel Field had been finished for years it was years since hed seen her but the body has its own set of memories, and the mind hangs on to nagging superstitions. An initial leaps out from the table; horoscopes are read. A retreating stranger stops the heart on a station platform.
That part of life was over, of course. Isabel had been young and intense, full of devouring schemes. Shed been a social worker, full of tutored emotions; always nagging away about the inner meaning of things. He remembered, when he thought about her now, her gloom, her scruples, the problems shed had with her clients; and the shock of contact, skin against skin, mouth against mouth, her quickening breath in the darkness of a parked car. Hed had nothing to offer her; only what she could have got from any man, and in greater comfort too. Sylvia hadnt known about it. She hadnt noticed, he thought, the struggle that was going on inside him.
Just as well. Her ignorant body had done the battling for her. Christmas Day, 1974, shed told him she was pregnant again. Hed given up Isabel so that Claire could be born, and grow up plump and cheeky, and get Brownie badges.
That had been a bad year; the guilt, the deception, the hopeless months that follow the end of an affair. Lately, and unwillingly, hed begun to think about Isabel again. Change was in the air, an undercurrent of disturbance. He couldnt account for it.
Youre miles away, Sylvia said, clattering at the sink. She crossed to the table and scooped the orange peel into her palm, and dropped it in the bin. Youll be late if you sit about any longer.
Colin looked at his watch. Good God, twenty past eight. He threw the paper down. Have a look at it, about the Minster. Its awful. He snatched up his jacket, made for the door. Come on, you kids. Take care, see you about six.
What I should do, Isabel thought; what I should do is, I should start writing it down. Id like to write down everything that worries me, about my life ten years ago. Id like to write it. But I cant find a pen.
Isabels brain moves slowly these days. Shes only thirty-four. She shouldnt find thinking such an effort, and she shouldnt look such a wreck. Perhaps a sense of foreboding dogs her. That must be it.
If she had any paper, she wouldnt have a pen. When she was a social worker, she always had pens. She was organised; to a degree.
She was not organised now; she had just moved house, not unpacked yet. Here I am again, she said to herself, where I grew up and began my professional career; and had my first love affair. If that is what you call it.
Its not fair, she thought. I never wanted to come back here. I might meet Colin in the supermarket. I might meet his sister, Florence. Then again, I might meet Sylvia. Ive never seen Sylvia, but I feel Id know her at once. Instinct, if you like. Women who have shared a man can probably scent each other out.
What about this shopping list? She turned it over. She could write on the back, why not? Just to get started was the main thing, to get some relief from the thoughts going round and round in her head. A good search through her handbag turned up a biro. She sat down at the kitchen table. She took a deep breath. Yes, I might meet the Sidneys en famille, she thought. Then again, I might meet my old client, Muriel Axon. That would be worse.
Ten years ago, I lived in this town, I was with Social Services, I was seeing Colin. I lived at home with my father; that was all of my life. But I had this case, and this is the case I want to write about. Muriel Axon, No. III/73/0059. Everything about this case bothered me. It still does.
Muriel Axon and her old mother Evelyn lived at number 2, Buckingham Avenue, in that part of town where people have big gardens and keep to themselves. Next door to them, but round the corner on Lauderdale Road, lived Colins sister Florence Sidney. We didnt make that connection until the end. Why should we? When I met Colin sneaking off to some pub somewhere, hoping we wouldnt meet anyone we knew we didnt talk about his sister, and where she lived, or my clients and where they lived. But if I had known, I might have been able to ask Florence Sidney about her neighbours. Get some sort of clarification.
Then again, I dont know if I wanted clarification. I was afraid to find out what was really going on in the Axon household. Later, when it was all over, and Muriels mother was dead and Muriel herself had been put in hospital, their house came on the market and Colin bought it. He wanted a big house, and to live next door to his sister. He got it cheap.