Selected Stories

Gerard’s father, hurrying through his household chores so that he could devote himself to entertaining Gerard, was not the same either. He was more serious. He didn’t spread himself about in the sitting-room the way he used to, his legs stretched awkwardly out so that people fell over them. Another boy had once shown Gerard how to untie his father’s shoe-laces and tie them together while his attention was diverted. His father had never minded being laughed at; Gerard wasn’t so sure about that now.

‘She said she had three miscarriages,’ Rebecca reported. ‘I never knew that.’

Gerard wasn’t certain what a miscarriage was, and Rebecca, who had been uncertain also, explained that the baby came out too soon, a lot of mush apparently.

‘I wonder if I’m adopted,’ Gerard mused.

The next weekend he asked his father, and was assured he wasn’t. His father said his mother hadn’t wanted more than a single child, but from his tone Gerard decided that she hadn’t wanted any children at all. ‘I’m a mistake,’ he said when he and Rebecca were again alone.

Rebecca agreed that this was probably so. She supposed she should be glad she wasn’t just a lot of mush. ‘You be the detective,’ she said.

Gerard rapped with his knuckles on the parquet floor and Rebecca opened and closed the door.

‘What do you want?’

‘Hotel detective, lady.’

‘So what?’

‘I’ll tell you so what. So what is I have grounds for believing you and your companion are not Mr and Mrs Smith, as per the entry in the register.’

‘Of course we’re Mr and Mrs Smith.’

‘I would appreciate a word with Mr Smith, ma’am.’

‘Mr Smith’s in the lavatory.’

‘Do you categorically state that you are named Mrs Smith, ma’am? Do you categorically state that you and the party in the lavatory are man and wife?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Do you categorically state you are not in the prostitution business?’

‘The very idea!’

‘Then what we have here is a case of mistaken identity. Accept my apologies, ma’am. We get all sorts in the Grand Splendide these days.’

‘No offence taken, officer. The public has a right to be protected.’

‘Time was when only royalty stayed at the Grand Splendide. I knew the King of Greece, you know.’

‘Fancy that.’

‘Generous to a fault he was. Oh, thank you very much, lady.’

‘Fancy a cocktail, officer? Babycham on the rocks OK?’

‘Certainly is. Oh, and, ma’am?’

‘How can I help you, officer?’

‘Feel free to ply your trade, ma’am.’

‘A little brother,’ Gerard’s mother informed them. ‘Or perhaps a sister.’

Gerard didn’t ask if this was another mistake because he could tell from the delight in his mother’s eyes that it wasn’t. There might even be further babies, Rebecca speculated when they were alone. She didn’t care for the idea of other children in the house. ‘They’ll be the real thing,’ she said.

Something else happened: Gerard returned after a weekend to say there had been a black-haired Frenchwoman in his father’s house. She strolled about the kitchen in stockinged feet, and did the cooking. One result of this person’s advent was to cause Gerard to feel less sympathetically disposed towards his father. He felt his father would be all right now, as his mother and Rebecca’s father were all right.

‘That’ll be nice for you,’ Rebecca’s mother remarked sourly when Rebecca passed on the information about the expected baby. ‘Nice for you and Gerard.’

When Rebecca told her about the Frenchwoman she said that that was nice too. These were the only comments she made, Rebecca told Gerard afterwards. Keeping her end up, her mother engaged in a tedious rigmarole about some famous actor or other, whom Rebecca had never heard of. She also kept saying the rigmarole was funny, a view Rebecca didn’t share.

‘Let’s do the time she caught them,’ Rebecca suggested when she’d gone through the rigmarole for Gerard.

‘OK.’

Gerard lay down on the parquet and Rebecca went out of the room. Gerard worked his lips in an imaginary embrace. His tongue lolled out.

‘This is disgusting!’ Rebecca cried, bursting into the room again.

Gerard sat up. He asked her what she was doing here.

‘A cleaner let me in. She said I’d find you on the office floor.’

‘You’d better go,’ Gerard muttered quietly to his pretend companion, pushing himself to his feet.

‘I’ve known for ages.’ Real tears spread on Rebecca’s rounded cheeks. Quite a gush she managed. She’d always been good at real tears.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry, my God!’

‘I know.’

‘She forgot her panties. She left her panties by the wastepaper basket when she scurried out.’

‘Look -’

‘She’s on the street without her panties. Some man on the tube -’

‘Look, don’t be bitter.’

‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I be whatever I want to be? Isn’t anything my due? You were down there on the floor with a second-class tart and you expect me to be like the Virgin Mary.’

‘I do not expect you to be like anyone.’

‘You want me to share you with her, is that it? What a jolliness!’

‘Look -’

‘Oh, don’t keep saying look.’

Rebecca’s real tears came in a torrent now, dribbling on to a grey cardigan, reddening her eyes.