‘And did you?’ Helen leaned forward eagerly. In the small cupboard the shadows swayed, as footfalls on the staircase overhead rocked the dim light. ‘Did you quite like him really?’
‘Like him?’ I laughed. ‘You have to be joking. I wasn’t too keen on him from the start, I admit. But after that row –’ I thought back, surprised to remember so very vividly everything I felt. ‘After that horrible, horrible row with Mum, I absolutely hated him.’
3
I’ll tell you this, I’d made a big mistake complaining to Mum that she was going out too much. To please me, she started staying in. But since I’d been daft enough to say that I didn’t really mind Gerald Faulkner, she’d twiddle the telephone cord around her fingers whenever he phoned to invite her to something, and say: ‘Oh, I don’t know, Gerald. We had a really busy day at the hospital, and I’m a bit tired this evening. Why don’t you simply come round here?’
I hated having Goggle-eyes about. I hated the whole house whenever he was in it. I can’t describe exactly what it was, but it just didn’t feel like home any more if he was ambling from room to room in search of a pencil to do the crossword, or slipping out of the downstairs lavatory leaving the cistern hissing behind him, or lifting my school bag off the coffee table so he could lean back on the sofa and watch the news on the telly. I hated Mum for being happy and relaxed, and nice to him. I hated Jude simply for answering whenever he asked her a trivial little question or said something casual and friendly. And sometimes I even hated sweet furry Floss for taking advantage of the fact that Goggle-eyes wasn’t the most active of men, and settling on his trouser legs to moult and purr and dribble away contentedly.
But most of all, of course, I hated him.
And he knew, too. He wasn’t stupid. It can’t have escaped his notice that during all the evenings he spent in our house, I never once spoke to him willingly, never began a conversation, and only answered when he spoke to me if Mum was in the room to see and hear. If she was busy on the phone or in the bathroom when he said something, I’d just pretend I hadn’t heard, or I’d walk out of the room, or start to play ‘The Muppet Show Theme’ on Jude’s descant recorder as loudly as possible. It sounds rude and childish, but that’s how I felt. Each evening I’d hear the tell-tale noise of his car engine cutting out at our kerb, and I’d glance out of the nearest window to see him heaving himself out of the driver’s seat and reaching his thumbs in the waistband of his trousers to hitch them straight before he strolled up our path. The very sight of him used to annoy me so much I’d make some excuse to slip upstairs, and I might even stay there the whole of the evening, pretending to read or be doing some homework, rather than come down and be forced to be civil and friendly.
Mum saw – but didn’t, if you see what I mean. Oh, she knew I wasn’t exactly crazy about him. She knew I’d probably just as soon he fell under a bus, or pushed off to Papua New Guinea or Kuala Lumpur, or took up with someone else’s mother instead. But I don’t think she had the faintest idea how strongly I felt, how much he got on my nerves, how much I loathed him.
And I couldn’t talk to her about it at all. Each time I tried, I found myself standing fishing helplessly for words, and we’d just end up with her peering into my face, a little concerned and expectant, and me saying irritably: ‘Nothing! It doesn’t matter, honestly. Forget it.’
Once, when she was out, I tried to talk to Dad, but he wasn’t very helpful.
‘What’s wrong with him, sweetheart?’
I twisted the coils of green plastic telephone wire around my little finger, and pulled hard.
‘He’s horrible. That’s what’s wrong with him.’
‘What do you mean, horrible?’
‘He’s slimy.’
‘Slimy?’
‘Yes. He’s slimy and creepy and revolting. He makes me absolutely sick. I only have to glance in his direction and I want to throw up.’
‘What does Jude think of him?’
There’s no point in telling actual lies. They always catch you out in the end.
‘Jude sort of likes him.’
There was a silence, then:
‘As a matter of curiosity, what does this Gerald Faulkner look like?’
‘Horrible.’
‘Kitty, I bet this is nonsense. I bet this new friend of your mother’s doesn’t look horrible at all. I bet he looks perfectly normal – middle-aged, getting a bit thick in the middle, going a bit thin on top…’
He might as well have been describing himself. I expect he’d turned round to admire himself in his hall mirror.
‘I suppose so.’
I pulled the plastic wire even tighter, to make the tip of my finger go blue.
‘And I expect he has a normal face too, hasn’t he? I mean, if people saw him coming down the street, they wouldn’t shriek and scuttle up the nearest alley.’
‘I would.’
My finger was bright purple now.
‘But what’s wrong with him?’
You could tell from the tone of his voice that he was getting as frustrated as I was with this phone call.
‘Apart from the fact that he’s horrible and slimy and creepy and revolting and makes me absolutely sick?’
‘Yes. Apart from all that.’
‘I don’t know,’ I wailed desperately down the telephone wire and all the way to Berwick upon Tweed. ‘I just don’t know.’
And I didn’t, either. I couldn’t work out what it was about Gerald Faulkner that kept me lying awake in bed imagining all those dire accidents in which I made him the star, night after night. On Monday I’d arrange for a huge industrial chimney to topple on his head. On Tuesday he’d succumb to a grisly and incurable disease. Some drunk driver might run him over on Wednesday. On Thursday he’d lose his footing strolling with Mum along the path beside the reservoir, slip in and drown. Honestly, I spent so much time thinking up fatal accidents for Goggle-eyes that sometimes when he turned up at our house on Friday with the customary box of chocolates under his arm, I’d catch myself feeling astonished he looked as fit and healthy as he did.
He’d step inside and scoop Floss up into his arms.
‘Is Scotland playing Brazil tonight in your hall?’ he’d ask, nodding at all the lights blazing away. ‘You know, Kitty, a clever anti-nuclear campaigner like you ought to go round this house and switch off a few lights. Take the pressure off your local reactor. Make Torness redundant.’
I’d scowl. He’d smile, and stroll on past me into the living room, where Jude would be waiting with the Monopoly or the Scrabble all set out ready on the coffee table. Sometimes he’d switch off a couple of lights on the way. He had a thing about wasting electricity, you could tell. Sometimes I’d catch him in the hall on his way back from the lavatory, peering at our meter, watching the little wheel spin round and round.
‘You must have left something running,’ he’d tell me anxiously. ‘Perhaps your washing machine is stuck on spin. I can’t believe it’s going round this fast just for the lights!’
Jude would come out and giggle at him until he gave up his fretting, and turned round to lead her back to their game. I’d stamp upstairs to my bedroom, flicking down every single light switch I passed on the way. And down is on in our house – that’s how much he annoyed me.
And I annoyed him, I know I did. I was a little turd, to tell the truth. I made a point of never passing on his phone messages. I pulled snide little faces whenever he spoke. I acted as if everything he brought into our house was either potentially explosive or deadly poisonous. I wouldn’t come near the fabulous shell collection he brought round to show Jude when she finished with Ancient Rome and moved on to The Sea Shore, and I wouldn’t be caught dead eating any of his chocolates. Oh, yes. I don’t deny it. I got on his nerves as much as he got on mine.