Trick or Treat (7 page)

Olive submits. She sits on the stiff chair, her spine aching and the back of her dress cold and wet against her legs. She sips the brandy and listens to the comforting sound of the water flowing into the bath upstairs. Mao tries to creep back onto her lap but she pushes him off. He is too sharp, too cold. She isn't in the mood for Mao, now. The brandy leaves a trail of gold from her tongue, down her throat and into her belly, a hot trail that spreads and seeps through her until the spasms of her weeping subside.

Nell sits in her armchair. On the coffee table beside her are a cucumber sandwich, a banana and a cup of tea – her lunch. She has switched the television news on for a bit of company, but her eyes are not on the flickering screen, her eyes are on the hat. It sits on the other chair, Jim's chair, a splash of brightness in the beige of the room.

As she chews her sandwich – thirty chews per mouthful, Jim's recipe for a good digestion and though he had his troubles his stomach was never among them – Nell considers Olive's hat, and considers Olive. They used to sit together at school all that time ago, both clever girls, the top of the class. Only, of course, they couldn't both be top. Olive was always slightly sharper with arithmetic while Nell's spelling was flawless. They were best friends, ‘soul mates' her father called it, approving of Olive. He encouraged the supposed friendship, urged Nell to invite Olive on family outings where she would outshine everyone, sparkle indecently, until, Nell suspected, her father preferred Olive to herself. Olive used to lark about with Edwin too, and Father didn't mind that and it simply wasn't fair because Nell had to sit and be quiet and still, seen but not heard, while Olive could make as much of a commotion as she liked, joke and laugh and torment Edwin till he blushed. ‘She's a proper card!' Father used to laugh. ‘And those eyes! My God. Gypsy eyes they are. You mark my word, bees round a honeypot when she's a few years older. You see if I'm not right.' And he started to call her Gypsy Rose, Gypsy for short, and Olive loved it, used to play up to him, all pert and flirting and flashing her eyes in a way she never bothered with at school, while Nell glowered. He never had a pet name for her. He called her Eleanor and she had to be neat and prim, still and quiet as a pink and white china doll with painted-on eyes and a sweet stiff face. He would have been furious if his Eleanor had behaved like Olive, like his little Gypsy. He was tickled by Nell's cleverness at school, but didn't think it a serious matter. He didn't pay attention to her reports in the same way he did Edwin's. Edwin's brains mattered more even though Nell was brighter. In her autograph book, he wrote once, the day after she'd come top in a mental arithmetic test–beating Olive by a clear three points – ‘
Be good sweet maid, and let who will be clever
.'

Despite Nell's spelling and her occasional ability to beat Olive at arithmetic, it was Olive who came out top of the class in their final year at school. Nell still remembers that failure,
not
a failure everyone said, someone had to win, but that is how it felt. On the day they had to write their composition, Nell had been indisposed. She had had her period and she had had crampy pains and felt dizzy and sick but she hadn't said, she'd just soldicred on. One didn't make a song and dance of it in those days, not like today, she thinks, when it's emblazoned everywhere, advertisments for stick-ons and stick-ups all over the place. Filthy it is, and you can't get away from it: switch on the television, open a magazine and there it is. There's no proper sense of shame any more. People use it as an excuse now, you can do anything – murder – and get away with it these days, but then you just kept quiet and battled on and back luck if it happened to be an important day.

She remembers writing. She even remembers the title of the composition:
Poets are the Trumpets that Sing to Battle. Discuss
. She remembers the clock ticking, the scraping of many pens, the way Olive's pen flew. And she remembers the dark sinister leaking between her legs. And Olive had come out top of the class. She had won the prize. It was a little cup, a nice little cup like a silver vase, engraved with her name and the date, and one other word:
EXCELLENCE.
And Olive went up on the stage, her sash all awry, ink on her blouse, to receive the cup. It made Nell want to spit. And now Olive is a fat old spinster, childless, senile. Oh excellent! At least Nell has a son, at least Nell hasn't gone to seed. She finishes her tea and peels her banana and gloats over Olive's hat.

Four

The bathroom is dim and steamy. Drips of condensation run down the walls and outside the rain beats against the frosted window-glass. Olive is squeezed into the bath, and Arthur sits on the toilet lid watching her. Her eyes are closed and she looks dead and yellow. Her breasts have slipped down her sides. Her big purplish hands rest on her belly above the sparse white tufts of hair.
It used to be such a curling bush, so black, so rosy pink beneath
. Her thighs are massive, and on each of her knees is an ugly graze.

‘We'll have to patch up those knees, Ollie,' he says. ‘Lucky you broke nothing. You must have gone down a smack.'

‘I did, Artie.' She opens her eyes a slit, and he is relieved. She looks more like his Olive, with her eyes open.

‘Let's get you washed,' he says. He kneels down beside the bath and takes the bar of lavender soap and rubs it between his hard palms. He rubs the sparkling froth of bubbles into Olive's front from her neck to her belly. He closes his eyes, enjoying the slip of his hands against her flesh. ‘Remember how we used to…'

‘Remember how! And how I soaped your back. We'd never fit in together. Not now.' Olive looks down at her fatness.

‘Slippery fingers.' Arthur slips his hands round and soaps her lolling breasts. ‘My old love,' he murmurs. He soaps her legs, between her toes, her thighs, and around underneath in the tender soapy crevices.
And oh she was passionate and she would never lie still, not like the others, never let him take control
.

‘I saw Nell this morning,' Olive says suddenly, her eyes open wide. He feels her stiffen. ‘Looked at me as if I was shit. As if I care. Buggering slag.'

‘Ollie. Be calm. And anyone less of a slag …'

‘That's right, defend her! And where were you, Artie, while I was out there alone?'

‘Think, Ollie. Come on now, remember.' Arthur is frightened by the way her memory is failing, anxious and also impatient. He cannot believe that she can really be so forgetful. Surely she does it on purpose, sometimes, to be awkward, for she has always been awkward, Olive has, never an easy person to live with.

Olive shrugs. She clutches his hand. ‘I want my hat.'

‘Come on lass, lean forward and I'll do your back … I'll go out and look in a bit. It'll be there somewhere. I'll wait while rain stops. I met young woman from next door again on my way up hill. Nice little lad, little fat lad.'

‘Some odd name. Not the fashion. An animal name.'

‘But a grand lad.'

Arthur helps her out of the bath and dries her. There is something wholesome and lovely about her, clean and fat. He pats lavender talc under her arms and under her breasts and between her thighs where they rub together. Her sallow skin glows pink from the warmth of the water, from the rubbing of his soapy hands. He chooses clean clothes for her. It is comforting to comfort her. He rubs Germolene into the grazes on her knees and hands, and patches them with neat squares of gauze.

‘There, there,' he soothes, then together they go downstairs, for it is past dinner-time, and they eat ham sandwiches and dip Garibaldis in their tea.

‘Dead-fly biscuits,' Olive remembers, as she always does. ‘I'd not touch them as a lass.'

Arthur looks lovingly at her. She is all right now. Her cheeks are rosy again from the fire, her clean hair is a fluffy halo. ‘Good as new,' he says.

Petra empties two tins of tomato soup into a saucepan. ‘Call the others,' she says to Wolfe. Wolfe goes to the bottom of the stairs.

‘Ready,' he calls.

‘Could you get some bowls out?' Petra says.

‘Mum, can we ask Arthur round when we have our bonfire?' Wolfe asks, taking four bowls off the draining board and putting them on the table.

‘Oh I don't know … and some spoons.'

‘Why not?'

‘I just don't think he'd appreciate it.'

‘He could always say no.'

‘I suppose so. Put the bread on the table would you? And give Bob and Buff another shout.'

‘Ready!' shouts Wolfe. ‘So can we?'

Petra comes to the table and pours the bright orange soup into the bowls. ‘We couldn't just ask
him
. We'd have to ask Olive too.'

‘So?'

Petra goes to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ready!' she cries, and Bobby comes thundering down.

Wolfe sits down at the table and sighs.

‘We're making a guy,' Bobby says, dipping a slice of bread into his soup.

‘We haven't got a fire yet,' Wolfe points out.

‘Doesn't take a minute to chuck a few bits of wood together.'

‘What bits of wood?' asks Petra. ‘I'll tell you what, Wolfe: why not ask Arthur if he's got anything we can burn?'

‘We could ask that old bat the other side too,' Bobby says.

‘What's Buffy doing?' complains Petra, looking at the cooling bowl of soup.

‘She went out,' Bobby says.

‘Well you could have said. Where's she gone?'

‘Search me. Here she comes, anyhow.'

The gate bangs, and Buffy comes through the door, her hair wet and spiky. ‘Hi,' she says. ‘Lunch. Great.' She walks straight through the room and, still wrapped in her baggy coat, goes up the stairs.

‘Oi!' calls Petra.

‘Just a minute.'

‘What's she up to?' mutters Petra.

‘Can I have her soup?' asks Bobby.

Petra frowns at him. Buffy comes downstairs, sheds her coat and tucks into her lunch. Wolfe wipes a slice of bread round his bowl. The soup is sweet and smooth and delicious. They never had tinned soup at the Longhouse. It was usually lentil and full of ragged chunks of turnip. But still, despite the soup it would be nice to be there. Everyone would help with the bonfire there and it would be gigantic.

‘I'll only go and ask Arthur if he's got any wood if I can invite him,' he says to Petra.

She pushes her still-damp hair back from her face and smiles at him. ‘Oh all right. Maybe I'll invite that side too,' she says. ‘The more the merrier. She might be offended if she sees we've invited Olive and Arthur and not her.' She switches her gaze to Buffy. ‘And what did you have hidden under your coat?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Oh no …' she begins but the gate bangs again. Wolfe sees a dark curly head.

‘It's Tom!' he cries.

‘Wotcha,' says Tom. ‘Hello mate.' He rubs Wolfe's head.

‘Didn't expect you,' says Petra, getting up. ‘I'll make some tea.'

Tom sits down on her chair and throws a carrier-bag on the table.

‘What is it?' asks Buffy.

‘Take a look.' Buffy grabs it before Wolfe can reach and pulls out an oblong box.

‘Fireworks!' shrieks Wolfe. ‘Let me see! Let me see!'

‘Let Wolfie look,' says Petra. ‘Anything to eat, Tom?'

‘Just because he's the youngest,' complains Buffy, slinging the box at Wolfe. He opens it carefully and is the first to sniff the gunpowdery smell.

‘Brilliant!' he breathes. The box is packed with fat paper tubes and cones and coils. ‘Traffic Lights,' he reads. ‘Golden Rain. Vesuvius. Shattering Star. Look at this rocket! Red Arrow … and sparklers!' It is like a box of treasure. He fingers each one.

‘Be careful or you'll bust them,' Bobby says. ‘What
was
under your coat, Buffy?'

‘Shut up,' Buffy says. ‘Let me look now.' She snatches the box away.

‘Remember Jumping Jacks?' Tom asks Petra. She brings the teapot to the table and Wolfe sees him stroke her bottom.

‘They used to chase you round the garden!' Petra laughs. ‘I nearly got one in my wellie once. Terrifying.'

Petra stoops and kisses the top of Tom's head. Wolfe shrugs. He wishes they'd make up their minds whether they're still in love or not. He hears a funny scritchy-scratchy noise.

‘What's that noise?' he asks.

‘What noise?'

‘Listen.'

They are all quiet and they all hear the noise.

‘Oh heck,' says Buffy. Wolfe opens the door and a tiny black kitten tumbles into the room. It give a high-pitched miaow and totters on its wobbly legs towards the table.

‘Nothing?' says Petra, looking accusingly at Buffy. ‘I thought we agreed. No pets.'

Buffy picks the kitten up and buries her nose in its fur. She mutters something inaudible.

‘Pardon?'

‘Tom said no pets, not you. And he's never here. I thought you'd split up.'

Tom pulls a face. He gets out his tobacco and papers and busies himself rolling a cigarette.

‘That's got nothing to do with it,' Petra says. ‘You can't just go getting a pet without consulting me.'

‘You never consulted me about the baby!' mumbles Buffy.

Petra flushes and looks as if she might cry. Tom gives Buffy a filthy look and pours Petra some tea.

‘Sorry,' mumbles Buffy.

‘What shall we call it?' Wolfe asks helpfully. The kitten blinks at him with its green marble eyes, and lashes its pipe-cleaner tail.

‘Nothing,' says Tom, lighting his cigarette, ‘because you're not keeping it.'

‘That's quite a good name,' says Wolfe.

‘What, “Nothing”?' Bobby scoffs. ‘You can't call it that. Let's call it Skull.'

‘You can go and take it back, now,' says Tom.

‘Can't,' says Buffy. ‘Or she'll be drowned. Do you want her to be drowned?'