‘I sort of thought not.’
‘But why?’
‘Cos he’s basically a dick.’
‘Clive’s a dick? When did this happen?’
‘It didn’t happen, he’s always been a dick, I just hadn’t noticed before.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Fuck what?’
‘I mean, what’s got into you, Mave? You’ve got so moody lately and now you’re saying Clive’s a dick when I’ve sat up with you on many nights discussing the fineness of his arse.’
‘Yeah, well, you can be fit and still a dick, so.’
‘Right.’
‘I mean, fuck, we live in the middle of fucking nowhere and he’s having a hip hop night and in the fucking cricket club. I mean, please. He’s probably never even been to London, it’s so far on a fucking coach. And New Year’s Eve. That’s like ten weeks away or something. It’s tragic.’
‘OK, don’t come then, I’ll go on my own.’
‘Come on, don’t guilt trip me.’
‘Whatever. Have you asked your dad yet?’
‘Shit, I hoped you weren’t serious.’
‘Well I am.’
‘OK, I’ll do it tonight.’
‘Great.’
‘Great.’
Mavis and her parents’ supper always took place in the kitchen, even though they had a dining room, and her mother always kept the main light shining down, as if daring either of them to spill a drop. Her father was smoking at the back door when Mavis went in and her mother was worrying herself into a frenzy.
‘I think the ash is blowing in, Gerald,’ she was saying as she tried to drain the beans without splashing any unnecessary water over the pristine sink.
‘Well, if it is then I’ll sweep it up,’ he replied, raising his eyes at Mavis who pretended she hadn’t seen, sitting heavily instead in her place. Her father stubbed his cigarette against the door and threw the butt in the bin.
‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ said her mother.
‘Wouldn’t what?’ he answered.
‘It leaves marks, when you stub it on the paintwork.’
‘You’re joking, right? For Christ’s sake, Sandra, I stubbed it on the outside of the door. No one’s going to notice, except maybe a passing squirrel.’
Mavis was never going to hate anyone as much as her parents hated each other. She had to live here, but they actually chose this life. Her father pulled a bottle of wine from the rack and sat down. He was still wearing his tweed jacket, which he now shucked off, revealing another choice shirt/cardigan combo. He sniffed his wine before he drank it and Mavis hated him all the more for pretending that it wasn’t really £3.99 from Tesco.
‘Can I have a glass, Dad?’ she asked instead of the bile she wished she could vent.
He looked surprised, but checked himself, not wanting to betray the role he played of the hip music teacher. I should have been in a band, he liked to say, nearly was before family life came calling. He poured out some of the dark red fluid into Mavis’s glass but didn’t bother to offer any to his wife, who had never drunk, to Mavis’s knowledge.
The wine warmed her and so she said, ‘Oh, before I forget, Dot wants to learn piano.’
Her father looked stupidly pleased, as if he knew that the desire to appreciate music would come to everyone in the end. ‘Does she? That’s fantastic news.’
‘So, like, you’ll give her lessons?’
‘Of course. Hang on.’ He fetched his diary from the sideboard and flicked through it. ‘Mondays at five are good for me.’
‘I’ll text her.’ Mavis jabbed the message into her phone before the wine wore off, spooning her food in with the other hand.
‘You’ll spill it,’ said her mother.
‘For goodness’ sake, Sandra,’ said her father.
The phone bleeped back.
‘Looks like you’re on,’ said Mavis.
3 … Redemption
It began with the production of Romeo and Juliet at the village hall. Up until that moment Alice hadn’t realised that she wanted to stand on a stage and say other people’s words to a blacked-out audience. But she’d seen the poster when she was running an errand for her mother the Christmas after she’d left school and, really, what else was there to do? She’d gone straight round to Mr Jenkins’s house, as it said on the poster, and knocked at the door and he’d let her in and she’d read for him and got the part of Juliet, all in the space of thirty minutes. You’re a natural, Alice, he kept saying to her and she left with a lightness she’d never felt before because not only had she never been a natural at anything, but also because she knew he was right.
Somehow Alice knew not to tell her mother. She didn’t know any other grown-ups properly, certainly nothing beyond polite hellos and isn’t-the-weather-terrible conversations and so she had little to compare Clarice to, but she still knew her mother was odd. For a start she called her Clarice.
The other parts were soon allotted and they began daily rehearsals, either in the village hall or at Mr Jenkins’s house. Everyone was at least twenty years older than Alice which did make her love scenes with Romeo rather odd, but still she had never felt more relaxed or at ease in her life. The bliss of knowing exactly what you should say from beginning to end, of being allowed to use up all your reserves of emotion on someone else’s life … By the end of the first week she was already fantasising about the drama schools in London that Mr Jenkins said he would help her apply to.
‘Is your mother coming to the first night?’ Mr Jenkins asked her one evening, when they were washing up mugs in the village-hall kitchen. Alice had dreaded that question; everyone in Druith knew Clarice Cartwright, whose family had always owned the biggest house in the village, in which Alice and her mother still lived.
‘I haven’t told her I’m in the play yet,’ said Alice. She’d never known how to lie but keeping quiet wasn’t the same as lying. If her mother had ever asked her where she got to every afternoon she would have told her the truth in a heartbeat, but Clarice never had.
‘Oh but, Alice, you’ve got to. You’re amazing. She’d be so proud.’
‘I am eighteen, you know,’ she answered, as if she thought he was worried about permission.
‘But everyone will be talking about you. You outshine the others by a mile. You’ll definitely be written about in the local paper. And anyway, where will you tell your mother you’re going every evening?’
Alice hadn’t thought about this aspect of the whole performance yet, but as soon as Mr Jenkins said it she knew he was right. She finished drying the cups and went home and found Clarice in the garden, sitting under the apple tree drinking tea out of her china cup, set neatly back in its saucer after every sip.
Alice stood over her mother and said it all as quickly as she could. ‘I have something to tell you. I got a part in the village play, Romeo and Juliet. I’m playing Juliet. That’s the lead role, you know. Mr Jenkins the director says I’m a natural; he says I should go to drama school and become a proper actress. That’s where I’ve been going every afternoon, to rehearse. The opening night is on Saturday and Mr Jenkins thinks you should come.’
Clarice