‘One of my prisoners.’
The river stopped, then her thoughts; the boat was turning, hooting. The spattered windows revealed nothing but the water’s cold light. The engine was still. The boat bumped. Lady Arrow guessed they’d arrived at Greenwich. She walked unsteadily to the ladder and climbed to the deck.
Brodie was at the top of the ramp, waving. Seeing her, Lady Arrow felt a helpless exalted hunger for the girl, something physical tightening in her that made her strength clumsy. Desire seldom activated her mind — it pulsed at her throat and made her flesh burr as with the onset of fever. It was always like this: it broke her in two and one half hid from the other, like shame from pride. She rushed up to Brodie and kissed her, feeling huge, hoping she did not look foolish and yet not caring. She saw she had startled the young girl with her tongue and teeth, and she said, ‘Are you going to be warm enough in that jacket?’
‘I’m all right. I liberated it from a second-hand shop.’ It was a school blazer, with a badge and a Latin motto on the breast pocket. Under it Brodie wore a thin jersey. The wind whipped at her lapels and pushed her long dress against her small thighs.
‘We’ve got a stiffish walk,’ said Lady Arrow, feeling guilty to be so warmly dressed in a heavy coat and long scarf. ‘Why don’t we have a drink at the Trafalgar before we set off?’
‘I don’t drink,’ said Brodie, ‘but I’ll keep you company.’
They walked on the riverside path in front of the Naval College to the Trafalgar, where Lady Arrow ordered a double whisky. Brodie excused herself and by the time she returned Lady Arrow had finished her drink. Brodie was brighter, laughing to herself and staring with glazed hilarity at Lady Arrow.
‘Have you taken a pill or something?’
‘I turned on in the loo,’ said Brodie. ‘You mean you can smell it on me?’
‘Rather,’ said Lady Arrow; then she sniffed.
‘You said we were meeting this heavy actress. I always turn on before I meet people.’
Outside, Lady Arrow said, ‘In my favourite novel there’s a lovely scene here in Greenwich — an outing, like this. Do you know Henry James?’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘That’s much better than knowing his name and not reading him.’ She looked at the young girl’s white face and thought: she knows nothing — she is free.
They cut across the park and climbed the path that led around the front of the Observatory to a road and a little hill. Although it was only mid-afternoon the light was failing and the ground darkening with an imitation of shadows; and the air had thickened, so that the trees that led to the far end of the hill, where some tennis courts were just visible, were dimmed by a mist so fine it was like cigarette smoke. And now the Observatory looked distant, like an old Dutch mansion on a promontory of a grey-green sea.
‘How is my friend Mister Hood?’
‘He’s not around much. I think he’s got a chick.’
‘Has he?’ Lady Arrow was momentarily jealous, then she was calm: she was with Brodie. This was what she had wanted most. ‘He seems quite a remarkable man.’
‘He’s pretty heavy.’
‘You must bring him over to Hill Street.’
Brodie laughed. ‘He won’t come. He don’t like you.’
Lady Arrow stopped walking. She said, ‘Why not?’
Brodie went a few more paces, then turned and said, ‘He’d go crazy if he knew I was meeting you. He told Murf and me not to see you. He says it’s not our scene. You’ll fuck us up.’
‘Do you think I will?’
‘I’m fucked up already. Anyway he’s not my father. He can’t tell me what to do.’
‘Good girl,’ said Lady Arrow, and seeing that they were alone and surrounded by trees she stooped and put her arm around the girl’s small shoulders. Crushing the blazer she pulled her close — even in those thin clothes Brodie was warm. Lady Arrow said, ‘I’d like to adopt you — legally. Then we could be together all the time.’
Brodie looked up and smiled. ‘You’d be my mother. Really strange.’
‘I’d be a nice mother,’ said Lady Arrow, then urgently she said, ‘Let me.’
Brodie shrugged. ‘I’d feel funny.’
‘We could go to bed and have all our secrets there.’
Brodie squinted, as if she had just then forgotten something she had always known.
‘I’ve shocked you,’ said Lady Arrow.
‘No,’ said Brodie. ‘A chick fancied me once. In the nick it was. I done it with her.’
‘So you know how beautiful it is.’
Brodie screwed up her face, pretending a look of comic disgust, seeming to swallow something foul.
‘Don’t you?’ said Lady Arrow.
Brodie was shaking her head. She said, ‘Yuck!’
Then she was running across the humpy top of the hill, her hair flying like a pennant as she ducked around trees, growing smaller. Lady Arrow watched: she was out of reach, running away as children always did, making no allowance for the very slow. The afternoon mist and low sky made a great brown canvas of the park on which Brodie was an elusive flag of paint among the trees, a brushstroke. Lady Arrow leaned into the steep path and trudged towards the darting figure. She stopped several times to get her breath and felt almost defeated knowing she was chasing her in the most hopeless way and could only catch her if the girl allowed it.
In the living room of Mortimer Lodge, Araba was saying, ‘But she’s not one of your prisoners, is she?’
‘I thought you’d like her.’
‘She’s spoiled and she’s too young.’ Araba sipped her mug of coffee. The mug was chipped, her jeans were stained with paint and bleach, and she sat on the arm of the sofa with a kind of awkward arrogance, like a workman in a large strange house. ‘I’ve had it up here with these rich girls playing at politics.’
‘You must be joking,’ said Lady Arrow, and she laughed at the thought of Brodie being considered rich. But she was vindicated in her belief: Araba had taken the girl’s carelessness — poverty’s legacy — for freedom. She saw that Araba was annoyed and said, ‘She’s the real thing.’
‘I can’t stand her affectations. That blazer is a dead giveaway.’
‘She liberated it from a second-hand shop.’
‘Really, Susannah, you shouldn’t waste your time with girls like that. There are so many people who need attention — why pick on one of your own?’
‘So that’s why you’re being rude to her.’
‘She’s not my type.’
‘She’d be interested in your work.’
‘My work would scare the daylights out of her.’
Brodie entered the room holding McGravy’s dog. She said, ‘He thought he could get away from me, but I was too fast for him.’
‘Poldy’s got high blood pressure,’ said Araba. ‘Do be careful with him.’
‘How do you like Araba’s new house?’ said Lady Arrow.
‘Far out,’ said Brodie. ‘But ours is bigger, ain’t it? You can play hide and seek in ours.’
Lady Arrow saw Araba’s ears move in satisfaction. She said, ‘Brodie lives in a marvellous old house in Deptford with her friends.’
‘I imagine that must make your parents absolutely furious.’
‘My father run off when I was a baby,’ said Brodie. ‘And my mother, she don’t have a clue.’
Lady Arrow said, ‘I think Brodie would get on terribly well with your friend Anna, that pretty little Trot.’
‘We expelled her,’ said Araba.
‘They’re always expelling people,’ said Lady Arrow to Brodie. ‘They’re famous for it. It sounds such fun. I once thought of expelling Mrs Pount, but she’d be ever so sad if I did.’
‘It’s not funny,’ said Araba. ‘I was expelled myself not long ago.’
‘Who would do a thing like that?’ said Lady Arrow.