Getting Home Read online

  The beauty of it was that it had just been sitting there under their eyes, a wasted piece of land in the armpit of the 31 and the 46. He remembered it from his first years in Westwick: an industrial blemish on a residential landscape, carbon-stained cooling towers of the old plant standing bleakly over the derelict admin building. The kids who smashed the windows, and sprayed graffiti on the walls must have come out from the city; Westwick kids did piano lessons and tennis squad for fun, not recreational vandalism.

  The driver braked to an infinitesimal crawl to negotiate a lane closure for resurfacing. Chester grunted with irritation and checked his watch. In Singapore they’d have done the work at night and had the whole thing finished in a week. Every second of wasted time annoyed him, although he had nowhere to be for three hours.

  One day the county, being head leaseholders of Oak Hill, had woken up and demolished the buildings, sold the rubble to an infill site in Birmingham and put up a razor-wire palisade. What remained now was a desert of stony earth, scattered with hub caps and rusting mattress spring, ragged banners of plastic blowing around the thistles. Plus a brand new lease and a royal flush of planning consents held by the Oak Hill Development Trust, directors Chester Pike, Edward J Parsons and A L DeSouza.

  As his driver swung smoothly down the slip to the Broadway, Chester saw things as they would be two years down the line: a twenty-storey, mirror-faced high-rise, the low-rises including the Channel Ten studios with the blue and green logo on the roof, parking for ten thousand vehicles and there, right at the entrance to the Grove, the faux-alpine wood-effect eaves of the biggest Magno hypermarket in the country. Magno Oak Hill was going to be the most modern, most productive shopping environment in the entire continent. Strong location was the bedrock of Magno’s corporate culture. They were brainstorming in St Louis right now. And next year Chester would sit with the group board at that never-ending black table and announce projected year-on profits of 300.9 per cent.

  The car cruised down The Broadway and glided into Maple Grove. Chester belched disconsolately. He felt suffocated. The huge trees blocked the horizon, the little cutesey houses said little cutesey lives – the kind of place it was OK to live in during your first marriage. In his mind, Chester Pike was out of here. He was out of Westwick in a duplex on the river in town, out of the wife-and-kids life and in his own life. Two more years, that was all.

  His electronic gates opened in welcome. His was the largest home in the neighbourhood, and the only one to have a name: Grove House, engraved in copperplate on brass, polished daily by the housekeeper. No longer feeling his pinching shoes, Chester let his vision carry him up to the bedroom, where his wife was half awake. He kissed her cheek, and when she flinched in surprise and asked, ‘Good trip?’ he answered, ‘You betcha.’

  Along the river, Ted Parsons took things slower. Plenty of time for stamina training on the home stretch. Waddling stiff-legged at his side, Moron looked up at his master with gratitude. The sun hung above the willow trees, a pale disc of light. A faint breeze drew the last wisp of mist off the water and shook the yellowed leaves of the trees. In the thin brightness of morning, looking back under the bridge towards Helford, an old church spire punctuated the curve of the river. Cut out the cars on the bridge and you had a village picture postcard.

  He passed the houseboats, wondering how people actually lived in those things. At least a quarter of Ted’s heart would have liked to know first hand, but he stifled it. At least half his heart was spellbound by the river at sunrise, and he ignored that also. It was all just romance, and, as his father had often warned him, romance is death to enterprise.

  The brown water tossed the sunlight against the blistered black hull of the Dawn Treader. The yellow iris buds at the bankside swelled in the warmth. The ropes creaked as the hulk tugged at her mooring. In the upper berth of the second cabin, Sweetheart listened to the water and thought about the riverbank fairies. If they came out at night they must be going to bed now.

  Sweetheart saw the queen of the riverbank fairies in a nightgown of all colours, like oil spreading on water. But it seemed likely that she wouldn’t like the way nightdresses got up around your neck while you were sleeping. Sweetheart frowned. Pyjamas did not seem quite right for a queen. But if you were a queen you could have anything you wanted, anything at all. It was a problem.

  Daddy would know. It would be very good to go into Daddy’s cabin and get into the big bed and have him explain all this, but, since they had been on their own without Mummy, getting into the big bed was not allowed. Sweetheart sat up and scratched the back of her neck to stir up her brain and get an answer. Daddy was definitely still asleep, because you could hear a mouse think in the Dawn Treader and all she could hear was the water.

  Maybe Daddy would change the big bed rule if she did something to make him happy. He was almost never happy these days. Sweetheart climbed out of her bunk and checked on her father. Then she went into the galley. She filled up the coffee machine and switched it on, peeled a banana and put it on a plate, found a clean glass and poured out some juice. Another problem: when Daddy smelled of wine in the morning he liked to have headache tablets with his juice, but they were in the cupboard with the special lock children could not open. Sweetheart scratched her neck again.

  Daddy had fixed the cupboard up on the wall with a screwdriver.

  The telephone was silent. Stephanie put the handset back on the console to make sure the batteries were charged. The red light was on, the thing was plugged in. It was 6.42, he had definitely said he would call at 6.00. Stewart had also said Kazakstan had almost no infrastructure, there were probably only twenty telephone lines, out of the whole state.

  She heard her son coming downstairs. Max reacted when he could see that she was anxious. He would say nothing – her son did not waste words – but instead of noise and eagerness the five-year-old power pack would start running down and a resentful apathy would start stealing his good nature. She opened a cupboard, her mind still on the telephone. Maybe Crunchy Nut Cornflakes would distract Max. Maybe she’d have some too.

  Halfway up Riverview Drive, Moron was lagging behind his master. The dog was wheezing miserably. Ted Parsons checked his watch: nearly seven, he’d done more than his time. They could slow up as soon as they passed the DeSouza house. ‘Good boy, Moron,’ he encouraged the animal. ‘Good boy. Keep it up.’ Moron was getting silvery about the muzzle. Ted was getting silvery about the temples. Adam DeSouza had gone grey at 28, but for a lawyer that was a plus.

  Belinda DeSouza hugged her pillow with both her downy brown arms. Carlos Moya to serve against Becker. Championship point. At Flushing Meadow the crowd is silent in anticipation. Moya steps up to the line. His thighs strain against his white shorts. A lock of hair like a black ribbon ripples in the wind as he raises his racquet. The ball is in the air. Every cell of his body is dedicated to winning this point.

  The ball is falling. Moya’s eyes narrow against the brilliant sun. Impact speed of his racquet is estimated at 110mph. Then he sees her. The dark woman in the simple white dress in the front row. Or maybe the yellow suit with the ruffled blouse. Restless, sensuous, Belinda rolled over, trying to decide. The suit – it made her look thinner.

  Moya sees her and he sees Becker recoil from the ball. As if from far away, he hears the umpire give out. The sheen of her full lips, the smooth softness of her throat, the unfathomable depth of her eyes, what tragedy is hidden there? He has to know. He must have her. In a dream, Moya sends up the second ball. Winning no longer matters. There is a bigger prize than the Open.

  An uproar breaks out in the astonished crowd as the umpire calls double fault. Compelled by her mysterious allure, barely pausing to shake Becker’s hand, he feels himself drawn across the court to her seat. ‘Wait! Please …’ The ushers are already clearing the stand. She turns back to look at him, a look which stabs his heart like a knife. ‘Me?’

  Or maybe ‘I?’ Damn. The goddamn dialogue again. Why did her fantasies always
fall apart when people had to speak? Belinda had pulled the quilt off her husband. He was waking up. His arm fell heavily over her waist, snapping off the image of Carlos Moya awed by her beauty. Damn. Catapulted by irritation, she got up and shut herself in the shower.

  ‘Good boy, Moron. Not far now.’ Riverview Drive led into Elm Bank Avenue, where sun gleamed on the two brass plates outside the Carman practice. Josh Carman was always lecturing Ted about overtraining. It was OK to walk. Cool down, not walk. His goal now was to get home and get on the road before his wife finished her face. This was never before 8.00 am. There was plenty of time.

  A brave ray of light slipped between the master-bedroom curtains, filtered through the thick air, silhouetted a full ashtray, touched a pair of smeared spectacles and streamed over the cover of the May issue of the Journal of Paediatrics. In the bed, Rachel Carman rolled away from the light towards the body of her husband.

  She considered that sex was indicated at this time, given the facts about testosterone secretion cycles and behaviours affecting the duration of the marital bond. There were noises from the boys’ rooms, but the bedroom door was locked. Manually, she verified that Joshua had a viable erection and that she was sufficiently lubricated to permit intercourse. She rolled her husband on to his back, kneeled over him and inserted his penis.

  Gaining consciousness, Joshua Carman weighed the facts about hormone secretion cycles and the link between orgasmic experience and self-esteem in women. Sex would be indicated at this time. He thought of the stimulation achieved by handling Rachel’s breasts against the effect of inhaling her morning breath, typically a distillation of Marlboro Lights, Famous Grouse, garlic and jalapeno chilli. He tried to remember if he had locked the bedroom door. He computed the possibility that he could convince Rachel that he had ejaculated if in fact he lost his erection. Then he held his breath and reached out with both hands.

  Rachel positioned her mammary tissue within his grasp. This was quite good. She grunted to encourage him. Was it possible that the sensory messages from her nipples were overriding those from her vagina? Or was Josh losing it? If he was going to fake again, she’d have to go along with it. Raising doubts during intercourse – was inappropriate. The door handle rattled.

  Unexpectedly, Josh had an orgasm, a non-event of half a dozen spasms and an estimated 2ml of semen which sneaked up so fast he didn’t even have time to vocalise. Damn. And Rachel was only just warming up. He’d have to get her off orally. Surprisingly, his olfactory system suggested that the Scotch and chilli were in the bloodstream in sufficient concentration for some molecules to be present in the vaginal mucus. Was that biologically possible?

  A small boot kicked the bedroom door. ‘Ma!’

  ‘Go away!’ Rachel’s voice rasped her dry throat. She was going to cough.

  Violent kicking. ‘Ma, Benny’s hungry!’

  ‘Get lost, you little creep. It’s too early.’ She was going to come. She was going to cough. She was going to come first. It was all a question of focus.

  ‘You have to get us pop tarts.’

  ‘Will you fuck off?’ Her pelvic floor was well congested. A bronchial spasm propelled a huge load of mucus towards her pharynx. Josh pinched her nipples. It worked. She fell off her husband and into the pillow, coughing but satisfied.

  The door shuddered from renewed kicking. ‘Get us pop tarts! We’re starving.’

  Dr Joshua Carman got out of bed, unlocked the bedroom door, grabbed his sons by the hair; cracked their heads together, threw them on the carpet and yelled, ‘You little bastards, get your own fucking pop tarts.’

  Rachel sat up and reached for her cigarettes. ‘God,’ she clicked her lighter. ‘Kids – they’re just so manipulative.’

  Josh took the packet from her and shook out a cigarette for himself. ‘Do we have an eight o’clock today?’

  Ted Parsons cut down Orchard Close, at the end of which a pedestrianised area, which an amateur might have called a path, led between the gardens into Maple Grove. Being screened by some immense chestnut trees, this route enabled him to walk without being observed.

  The path meandered. Part of the special charm of Maple Grove was that all the streets curved. This also had been decreed by Jackson Kerr, the father of the community. Most authorities attributed Maple Grove to its architect, Tudor Wilde, whose inspiration it had been to take the steep-pitched roofs and homely gables of old Dutch farmhouses and reproduce them here in red brick and white weatherboard.

  The Maple Grove Society held annual lectures on Tudor Wilde, and the Wilde At Heart bar in the Parade kept his name alive and the Art Nouveau tiles he had commissioned on the walls, but in the view of Ted Parsons it was typical of the chattering classes to credit the artist with the achievements of the entrepreneur. The man who really made Maple Grove was its developer, Jackson Kerr, who had dreamed of great profit bred by mating rural charm with urban ease, and ordered that his streets should wander peacefully like straying cows.

  Ted squared up and sprinted the last fifty yards to his gate, which he reached at 7.23 am.

  Aboard the Dawn Treader, Sweetheart watched her father pick up one of his headache pills. His eyes were almost closed and the way he was leaning his head on his hand probably meant he was feeling bad. The question would have to wait.

  He had the pill on the palm of his hand and he was looking at it as if he expected it to move. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said after a little while, ‘did I have these in my gym bag?’

  ‘They were in the cupboard.’

  ‘Didn’t I lock the cupboard?’

  ‘Oh yes, it was locked all up.’ Sweetheart started twisting her hair. There were these things that you found out were wrong only when you had already done them.

  ‘So how did you get these?’

  She had lost the word. ‘Ummm … with the screwy thing.’

  ‘What screwy thing?’

  In the end she had to show him. He stood there and looked at the medicine cabinet on the floor, the step ladder, the holes in the wall, the screws she had kept carefully in the top of the coffee tin and the packet of paracetamol on the draining board with two capsules removed and 98 remaining.

  After a while he began to say something like, ‘You’ll make someone a fine carpenter if you live to grow up,’ but he started throwing up towards the end and had to dive for the sink. He stayed there, running the water, for along time.

  ‘Carpenters are nails. Screws are some other thing.’ Sweetheart could not see his face. She really hated him to cry. ‘Don’t be sad.’

  ‘I’m not sad.’ He took some of the big breaths that made your stomach go in and out. ‘I’m going to be late for class and you are going to be late for school.’

  By 7.45, Ted Parsons had showered, shaved, dressed and was driving

  down The Broadway towards the 31, feeling optimistic because he

  had avoided speaking to his wife, and his kids had avoided speaking to him. So far, a perfect day. No, a good day. Perfect would have been Gemma Lieberman naked at the window.

  Ahead of him he saw Adam DeSouza run the red light at the junction of Alder Reach. Waiting, he could look down the side road in his wing mirror. A bunch of kids on bicycles. Gemma’s kids? What kind of mother actually let her kids bike to school in this day and age, at risk from paedophiles and drunken drivers?

  The houses in Alder Reach did not appeal to him. Pseudo cottages with half-timbered facades, they nodded to the Wilde style but lacked its generosity. Romance had been the downfall of Jackson Kerr. Leafy, clean, peaceful and only 20 minutes to Central Station by train from Westwick Green, before it was even half built Maple Grove became a model for the world. But uglier homes were cheaper. The beauty of the river was worthless, the notion that the land was damp and vulnerable to flooding was costly. Five years and four hundred houses towards his dream, Kerr and his Maple Grove Company had gone bust, and there went the neighbourhood.

  Another developer threw up Alder Reach on plots which Kerr was forced to sell at
a knockdown price. For a few decades, Westwick was abandoned to the two species who will always colonise cheap land – artists and immigrants. Grove House, Kerr’s own home, was cut up into six apartments. Maple Grove was satirised in popular revues as the haunt of Bohemian poseurs.

  Time passed. The city bellied westwards. Westwick Green was no longer the railway terminus, merely another stop on the line. The airport was built by the 31. Time blew new merchant adventurers to the same shores, Ted Parsons among them. The foundation of his fortune, such as it was, had been laid in retrieving the vision of Jackson Kerr, evicting the occupants, painting it up, contriving a bathroom for every bedroom and selling it on for healthy profits.

  When the euphoria of those early days was past, Ted took note of Kerr’s history and identified the mistakes. Pride and passion between them had brought the dream down. A man would be a fool not to take the lesson offered. The green light flashed on and Ted Parsons drove on to the city, confident that pride and passion would never threaten him.

  Stephanie planned the school run to start at 8.10. Max had his shoes, his shoe bag, his painting overall, his reading book and his lunch box. He was sitting on the stairs doggedly tying the laces on his new trainers, his little round legs boyishly decorated with scrapes and bruises. It was 8.12, they were due at the school at 8.30 and Stewart still had not called. Since Westwick was one of the most notoriously clogged nodes of traffic in the whole circulation system of the city, she had got into the habit of turning on the TV in the kitchen for the morning road report, reasoning that since they had to tolerate the noise of the helicopter overhead, they might as well get the benefit of its viewpoint. Sky High, the traffic reporter, a forceful black woman in a silver jumpsuit, fascinated Max.

  To buy more time, Stephanie had cut a bunch of lilac and was tying the stems.