Traffic or no traffic, weather good or bad, the journey from London to the island always took three days. For the children to be confined with one another for such a lengthy period of time seemed nothing short of collective punishment and Georgie decided she’d rather be strapped to the roof rack along with the rest of the suitcases and take her chances with the rain and low-level bridges than feel the evil eye of her younger sister bore into her shoulder blades for one minute longer.
It felt like they were one of those eighteenth-century families being transported to Australia for the theft of a single plum, but at least Australia would be an improvement on what they had been condemned to: an unknown future with only the menagerie of gulls and a few lonely sheep for company. Last night, when her mother had turned on the television to check the weather forecast, Michael Fish had staked his usual ground in front of a map of the United Kingdom.
“A cool summer’s evening, followed by a moderately warm day,” he pronounced, moving a couple of plastic suns onto southern England. “And this band of high pressure will mean sun as well for the Midlands and the north.” He tossed a few more stickers towards Liverpool. By the time he had finished, the entire map of the British Isles had been covered by cheerful yellow suns—the entire map, that is, except for one spot. A solitary grey sticker marred the United Kingdom’s perfect day, a cloud symbol hovering like a storm warning over their future, and beneath it was the exact place to which they were heading.
Her mother had been right about leaving early, though. There were hardly any cars on the road. A sudden flash caught her eye and Georgie turned to see the old Peugeot’s reflection in the corrugated metal wall of an industrial building.
As long as she could remember, they’d had a variation on this kind of car. “Always drive a Peugeot,” she could hear her father saying. “Africa’s favourite car! They’re built in developing countries and have brought affordable transport to millions.” Quite why her father still felt obliged to sanction Africa’s favourite car after they had moved to Bonn, she didn’t know. Compared to the sleeker Opel and brand-new sedans driven by some of his embassy colleagues, the 1967 Standard 404 Saloon was something of an embarrassment, with its fin-tailed rear lights and jerry-built roof rack. Her father adored it, though, referring to it as a faithful old thing and complaining fondly about its arthritic gearstick and stubborn clutch as though it were a decrepit great-uncle who had been graciously allowed to live with the family and was now expected to piggyback them around the city limits in return for board and keep.
Anyway, it wasn’t Germany that the reflection of the Peugeot reminded her of. Something about the dirty white paint with all those blocks of suitcases piled on the roof made her think of Liberia, her father’s first posting. Exchange the car for a cart, add in the lines of people and the bundles of clothing and they could be any refugee family, fleeing from country to country, exchanging one life for another. Packing, sailing, driving, unpacking. She had never minded the idea that life was something you could gather up and take with you. That was the way it was in the diplomatic service and she had become used to the edge of impermanence it gave. Georgie closed her eyes. When she had been nine, her father had been posted back to London. They had sailed out of the Gulf of Guinea, all their belongings lashed and secured in the hold beneath them. When the packing cases had been unloaded into their new quarters, there had not been an inch of floor space left. Now all their worldly goods fitted onto a single roof rack. If you started with a boat and shrank to a car, then by the law of diminishing returns, what came next?
“Are you all right, darling?” Her mother was looking over at her.
“Fine.” She faked a smile before turning back to the window.
They were crossing the canal now, zigzagging up through the tree-lined streets of Little Venice into north London. Georgie took in a dozen moving images. A documentary of a city, blinking open its eyes at first light. A rubbish truck churned by the side of the road. A taxi driver queued for tea at a greasy cafe. Under the overhang of a garage, a security guard smoked a cigarette. People shadowed the streets here and there. What were they doing? Where were they going? Who was lost and who had a purpose? A city was such a mysterious place. All those closed doors, all those lives grinding away behind them. And who could say what might happen to turn them upside down? Somewhere right now, two people might be falling in love; the first spark might catch in a factory fire; a man could fly into a rage, pick up a paperweight and kill his wife. There was no telling who was happy and who was sad. And, like her, there was no knowing what secrets people were being forced to hide.
2
It annoyed Alba that people accused her of hating things indiscriminately. It wasn’t true. She had her reasons for feeling the way she did and they were good ones. For example, she despised over-polished furniture, easy-listening music and shiny food, as represented by, say, the glaze on doughnuts or the sweaty sheen of a tomato ring. She resented fish, loathed any form of sentimentality and strongly believed that doors should be kept either open or shut, but never in-between. This short list, selected entirely at random, did not constitute the sum total of Alba’s wrath at life. Far from it. Alba incubated a fresh grievance for each day of the week. In fact, if someone cared to ask her—and God knows, she often wished they would—she could dredge up a bona fide irritation for every letter of the alphabet.
Where these prejudices came from she had little idea, yet she recognized them as immutable—steadfast, too, was the scorn she felt for her fellow human beings. Vegetarians, religious fanatics, English teachers, weathermen—at one point or other all these pervs had been in her line of fire. Nevertheless, the person she despised the most, the person who drove her absolutely cjubulunga, the person who was to blame for everything that had happened to their family, if she could only work out precisely how, was, without a shadow of a doubt, her brother, Jamie.
There he was now, sitting across from her on the passenger seat. Holy God, what a revolting sight. His breath smelt sour and the chalky residue of night dribble around his mouth turned her insides.
“Retard,” she whispered.
Jamie was rubbing his legs. Long smooth strokes, up and down, up and down, up and—
“Stop doing that!”
“Doing what?”
“Fondling your legs.”
“But I’m not touching you.”
“You’re annoying me, which is worse.”
“Leave him be, Alba.” Her mother’s hand snaked through the divide and connected with Jamie’s knee. “He’s just tired.”
Alba scowled. This was it. Exactly it. Excuses were always being made for her brother. In her opinion, if he wasn’t babied so much, he’d be obliged to grow up. Jamie was nearly nine years old but still unable to read or write and the only reason he could count to ten was because he’d been born with the visual aid of fingers and thumbs.
“Retard,” she mouthed at him as soon as their mother’s attention was reclaimed by the road.
Alba enjoyed using the word “Retard.” In fact, Jamie aside, she enjoyed the company of actual retards. As a punishment for incinerating her games kit the previous term, the school had sentenced her to weekend community service and given her the choice of visiting old people or playing games with the mentally ill. Alba couldn’t stand old people, with their tottering gait and rotting gums. She was repulsed by the milky colostomic smell hovering about their skin, let alone the sparse, duck-down hair, which gave the impression of trying to distance itself as far as possible from their scalps. Old people had been born a long time ago and understood nothing of the world she inhabited. Retards, on the other hand, turned out to be a lot of fun: jolly and uncomplicated, impervious to insult and physically game for as many rounds of “What’s the time, Mr Wolf?” as Alba cared to make them play. It was like having a group of friendly, pliable trolls to order about and Retard Round-Up, as she dubbed it, became a fixture for the rest of the school term. Jamie, however, was not a pliable, friendly troll. He was stupid, spoilt and whiny beyond endurance.
“Jamie,” she bellowed. “You’re doing it again.”
“I’m not,” he gasped.
“You are.”
“My legs hurt.”
“So what?”
“Rubbing them makes them feel better.”
“I don’t care.” She fashioned her thumb and forefinger into a pincer.
“Ow,” he cringed in anticipation. “Stop it.”
But Alba had no intention of stopping. Every slap and pinch was a reflex born of her irritation and for every one successfully delivered, she felt that much better.
“Retard,” she mouthed for the third time.
“Alba, for goodness’ sake!” Now it was Georgie who turned round. “Just be nice.”
“What’s so good about being nice?” she retorted, then, when no one responded, added, “Dada was nice to everyone and look where it got him.”
“Where?” Jamie asked, immediately alert.
“Alba!” her mother hissed.
“Alba, shhh.” Georgie threw a meaningful glance towards her brother.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Though gratified by the reaction, Alba was aggravated nonetheless. How predictable. It was always Jamie everyone worried about—as if he had somehow acquired sole rights to the family’s grieving. What about her? Why did no one seem to care how she felt? Anger rose up through her stomach like milk on the boil. She was sick of being shushed before she had finished. She was sick of half-truths and unspoken truths and all the lame excuses in between. She didn’t believe in God, she didn’t believe in Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy and she was damned if she’d believe any of the other lies that parents told their children.
Grove Press
