Present Times: A Novel

By David Storey

From “the leading novelist of his generation” (the Daily Telegraph)—a story about marriage, family, and 1 man’s 2nd chance

At age 47, former playwright Frank Attercliffe lives with 2 of his 5 children in a 4-bedroom apartment on Walton Lane on the outskirts of an English suburb. For the past 3 years, his wife, Sheila, has been living with Maurice, a car dealer who owns a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, and a Jaguar—a man rumored to have killed 3 people in car accidents. Attercliffe cowrites a weekend football roundup for the local sports column, and after a match, he is introduced to the beautiful actress Phyllis Gardner at his favorite watering hole. That night, however, Sheila comes home, having left Maurice and given up her current lover, Gavin. She wants to move back to Walton Lane with the entire family—but she wants Attercliffe to move out.
 
With its cast of eccentric and endearing characters, including Attercliffe’s loquacious fellow journalists, his alcoholic mentor, and the daughters who force him to live in the moment, Present Times is a novel about marriage, changing family values, and 2nd acts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Sep 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504015158

David Storey

David Storey was born in 1933 in Yorkshire, England, and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. His novels won many prizes, including the Macmillan Fiction Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Man Booker Prize. He also wrote fifteen plays and was a fellow of University College London. Storey passed away in 2017 at the age of eighty-three.

Book preview

1

‘He’s brok’ his shoulder.’ The pug-nosed, the pug-eared Morgan tapped his fingers at the typewriter keys with insufficient pressure to print a letter then, pausing only to gaze out to the mist-shrouded figures gathered around the referee, tapped the keys more firmly and committed to paper, ‘Stephenson received an injury in the thirty-third minute of the second half which resulted in his leaving the field just when his presence,’ his dark eyes gazed down to where a player stepped back to take the free kick, ‘was being appreciated by a capacity crowd.’

‘That should do it,’ the stockily-built, the tousle-haired, the pugnaciously-featured Attercliffe said.

Morgan looked at the pen in Attercliffe’s hand: ‘Not learnt to bloody well type yet, Frank?’

‘I write half of it up before I come,’ the one-time player said.

‘Thy ghost-writer not coming today, then, is he?’

‘He isn’t.’ Attercliffe scribbled with his pen.

‘He wa’re in the bar half-time, tha knows.’

Attercliffe forgot to restart his watch and, having written up the goal as the ball curled over the bar, leaned across Morgan’s arm and asked, ‘What time is it?’

‘By God.’ Morgan laughed. ‘Why they keep you on I’ve no idea.’ He picked up his binoculars, leaned over Jenkinson on his other side, and said, ‘Was that Havercroft or Audsley?’

‘Audsley.’

The communal desk-top shuddered.

Stephenson, Attercliffe observed, and not the substitute, had got up from the players’ bench, his head emerging above the concrete bunker into which, only seconds before, he’d been drawn down: a blanket, however, was wrapped around his shoulder and a hand was laid across his back, for the substitute was taking off his track suit and now stepped out in his black-plasticated, white-laced boots – his striped green and yellow jersey and his clean white shorts – and did a knees-bend and one or two stretches: a moment later, after Stephenson had gone – disappearing into the tunnel-mouth, a red-track-suited figure beside him – the substitute waved his arm and, to a cheer from the crowd, ran on, his clean limbs and costume conspicuous before, stooping, he was absorbed inside a scrum.

‘Who was it?’

‘Patterson,’ came along the row of typing figures as the loudspeaker announced his substitution.

‘Thirty-third minute.’

‘I made it thirty-eight.’

‘Injury thirty-third, replacement thirty-eight.’

Attercliffe made a note on his pad, wrote, ‘Patterson replaced Stephenson in the thirty-eighth minute’ – wondered if he’d got all the ‘h’s and enough ‘t’s in ‘eighth’ – when the press box door was pushed open behind his back and a gnarled hand was clasped about his shoulder. A voice – accompanied by a breath redolent of whisky and chicken vindaloo (a favourite dish) – said, ‘How are we, Frank?’ and Fredericks’s small, close-cropped head was placed beside his own; a fissured face, inset with pale-blue eyes and overtopped by bushy brows, peered past him to the pitch below. ‘A score?’

‘An injury.’

‘Got it down?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Be making a hack of you yet, like Morgan here, or Wichita-Jones.’

‘Davidson-Smith,’ said Morgan.

‘How are you, Jake?’ Fredericks addressed an overcoated, deerstalker-hatted figure further along the row who, having looked up, turned back to the pitch. ‘No heating in here? I thought they had.’

‘It’s brok’n, Freddie,’ Morgan said. He, too, Attercliffe assumed, must have been taking in the fumes but, apart from an averted head, his gaze remained fixed on the pitch below.

‘Sharp sidestep is better than quick sidestep,’ Fredericks said.

‘I don’t like alliteration,’ Morgan said and, as another move occurred on the pitch below, he glanced at his watch, typed, pressed the stop-watch button and, raising his binoculars, one-handed, gazed to the rows of figures directly below and added, ‘Phyllis Gardner is in the stand.’

‘I’ve seen her,’ Fredericks said. ‘First place to look when Dougie is playing.’ Stooping to gaze at the fur-hatted, fur-coated figure towards which Morgan’s glasses were still inclined, he added, ‘It’s not alliterative, or only half.’

‘What isn’t?’ Morgan raised his glasses to the field and, just as quickly, put them down to recommence his typing.

‘Quick sidestep sounds like Victor Sylvester, though you won’t remember him, however.’

‘How about Ginger Rogers?’

‘Fred Astaire.’

‘Phyllis Gardner.’

A roar went up from the crowd.

Attercliffe jotted down one or two names and amended the paragraph describing the last quarter of the match and asked, ‘Who’s Phyllis Gardner?’

The typewriter clicked briskly to his right and Fredericks, his hand on Attercliffe’s back, straightened.

‘An actress.’

‘Like hell.’ Morgan, a pencil in his mouth, gazed at the mass of words before him.

‘I thought she’d been in a film.’

‘One.’

‘Well.’

‘Hardly an actress, sport, old friend.’

A trumpet blared from the ranks behind one goal.

‘I’ve been in a film,’ Morgan said. ‘I wouldn’t say I was an actor.’

‘She’s more than a bloody hiccup.’ Fredericks leaned across Attercliffe’s shoulder. ‘Got the first try?’

‘More or less.’

‘A good ’un.’

‘It was.’

‘Been nought since then.’

‘Not that he’d see it.’ Morgan removed the pencil from between his teeth. ‘The bar window only looks out on the twenty-five.’

‘T’alf that bloody counts,’ Fredericks said. ‘Any silly bugger can look at nought.’

A whistle blew.

Figures stooped: the ball was kicked towards them from across the field.

‘Still wi’ Dougie Walters,’ Morgan said. ‘That’s why she’s here. Last three homes and one away.’

‘Any ideas, Frank?’ Fredericks asked.

‘None,’ Attercliffe said.

‘Should have. Your age. You’re still a young man.’

‘Forty-seven.’

‘Near sixty,’ Fredericks said, ‘yet I still have one or two pretensions.’ He stooped to Attercliffe’s pad, screwed up his eyes to read without his glasses, put his hand in his inside pocket, took out a pen, drew the pad towards him, wrote for several seconds, then set the pad once more beside Attercliffe on the desk.

Barry Morgan would like to fuck Phyllis Gardner but his wife wouldn’t let him so in his report tomorrow morning he will indicate that Dougie Walters’ prick isn’t long enough to stuff a chicken.

‘Something along those lines,’ he said.

‘Genius, this man,’ Morgan said. ‘Can write a report from the back of the bar and even get the full-back’s second initial.’

Phyllis Gardner had red fingernails, red lipstick, and a touch of brown rouge along each cheek which accentuated the slenderness of her cheekbones and gave her pale-blue eyes, which were drawn out laterally by eye-liner and mascara, an oriental look. Morgan, in his astrakhan hat and fur-collared overcoat, and his white and black-plasticated, buttoned-down driving gloves, having phoned in his match report, approached her across the bar and inquired in a voice loud enough to be heard the other side, ‘How are you, Phyl?’, to which the fur-coated figure replied, ‘I’m waiting for Dougie,’ her head turning to the players’ entrance from where, on cue, Dougie Walters appeared, his hair, wet from the bath, combed smoothly down, his face gleaming, his twice-broken nose conspicuous, his jaw pronounced and accentuated further by the strands of beard thrust out by the collar of his overcoat.

Fredericks lifted his glass, bared his teeth, said, ‘Here’s to it,’ and drank.

Emptying his glass, he set it down: his gaze went over to the figure of Dougie and, saying to Attercliffe, ‘I shan’t be a minute,’ he crossed the floor and, breathing his liquored breath in Walters’s face, said, ‘A blinder, Dougie,’ at the same time his arm displacing Morgan so that the astrakhan-hatted figure was standing a moment later behind his back.

‘Phoned it through.’ Davidson-Smith sat down, his overcoat buttoned, adjusted his tie within his collar and, having done so, ran his finger over his rectangular, grey- and orange-tinged moustache and added, ‘Two hundred and fifty goldies cut down to twenty by tomorrow morn.’

‘Do you fancy a drink?’ Attercliffe asked.

‘No thanks.’ He glanced at the one in Attercliffe’s hand and added, ‘I see Freddie’s sticking his thumb up Morgan’s nose,’ and, exuding a tang of male deodorant, continued, ‘Does Fredericks do much of the composition these days, Frank?’

‘His share.’

‘Used to do all of it at one time, didn’t he?’ His eyes drifted up to where Fredericks and Walters and Morgan and Phyllis had formed themselves into a single group and he added, to Attercliffe’s surprise, ‘She’s coming this way.’

‘Frank?’ a voice inquired with such a musical intonation that Attercliffe was already standing before the voice had time to add, ‘You don’t mind my intruding?’

Blue, mascaraed eyes, long-lashed, glanced from him to Davidson-Smith and back again: she smiled; pearl-buttoned teeth appeared between brightly-fashioned lips.

‘Miss Gardner.’

‘Mr Fredericks sent me.’

Attercliffe didn’t glance in that direction, neither did he glance at Davidson-Smith who, having risen, had manoeuvred himself around the table, his right hand half-extended.

‘He said you were diffident.’ She frowned. ‘About approaching me.’

‘I am.’

Her smile returned.

‘I’m free,’ she announced, ‘the first half of next week.’

‘Fine.’

Attercliffe caught a glimpse of Fredericks’s face – eyes distended, brow puckered, nostrils dilated, mouth contorted – juxtaposed against the astrakhan-hatted head of Morgan.

‘Mornings are a better time for me.’

‘Mornings.’

‘Will Tuesday be all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘Eleven o’clock.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ll give you my address.’

From her handbag she took out a piece of paper; her fingers were slender, the nails long and drawn to a point. She unscrewed a gold-topped pen and wrote.

‘Can you read it?’

He examined the scrawl.

‘Thirty-six Queensgate. Flat seven.’ She read it for him. ‘Eleven o’clock.’ She held out her hand.

Beyond her head he saw Dougie Walters coming across, Fredericks talking by his shoulder.

‘Goodbye,’ she said.

‘Goodbye,’ Attercliffe said.

‘Goodbye, Miss Gardner.’ Davidson-Smith raised his hand to his deerstalker hat.

She was already halfway across the bar before she re-encountered Walters who, interrupting Fredericks’s conversation, took her arm and, without any further acknowledgment of Fredericks, or Attercliffe, or Davidson-Smith, or Morgan, led her to the door.

‘A charming girl,’ Fredericks said as he took his seat at the table.

‘Very,’ Attercliffe said.

‘Beautiful features.’

‘Lovely.’

‘Fancy a drink?’ Davidson-Smith inquired.

‘I’m off it, presently,’ Fredericks said.

‘Meeting the fiancée for dinner.’ Davidson-Smith got up. ‘I’d better make a start.’

His overcoat was fastened as he crossed the bar; his hatted head was nodded either side and at one point he paused, listening, before, with a wave, he reached the door.

‘What was that about?’ Attercliffe asked.

‘Do you fancy a drink?’

‘No thanks.’

‘I’ll get another.’

Already Fredericks was on his feet.

By the time he came back Attercliffe was standing, pulling on his coat, and when Fredericks said, ‘One for the road,’ and handed him a glass he shook his head. Fredericks appealed, ‘Can’t let it go to waste,’ taking it from him as he finished his own.

Attercliffe preceded him to the door, but even then, having cleared the way, it was several minutes before Fredericks joined him on the steps outside.

‘What do we do from now till then?’ He waited for Attercliffe to open the car door.

‘I’ll take you home,’ Attercliffe said.

‘The Buckingham might be better.’

The crowd had gone; only the players’ and the committee’s cars and the visiting team’s high-windowed coach remained.

They drove in silence towards the town.

‘She’s very pretty.’

‘Since when,’ Attercliffe said, ‘have you gone in for made-up women?’

‘I thought you might.’

‘What do I do at eleven o’clock?’

‘Morning or evening?’

‘Morning.’

‘Which day?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘Make something up.’

‘What did you tell her?’

Fredericks concentrated for a while on the road ahead: there wasn’t a great deal to see but the opalescence of their own lights in front of the bonnet.

‘I said you wanted to do an interview but were too diffident to ask.’

‘I bet Dougie was impressed.’

‘Not as much as Morgan. He didn’t believe it for a second.’

‘What do I do?’

‘Use your imagination.’

‘I don’t know anything about her.’

‘Look it up.’

‘Where?’

‘Ask Cornforth. He does entertainment.’

‘What happens when this interview doesn’t appear?’

‘She’ll never notice.’

‘She’s bound to.’

‘Training at Morristown on Tuesday evenings. Pity you didn’t make it then.’

‘Do you think Walters will be there?’

‘Do you want my frank opinion?’

He looked at Attercliffe directly.

‘Give it to Booth. He’s open to novelties. Then again, if it isn’t used, you can always blame yours truly.’ He shifted his position. ‘Seize the chance.’

The lights of the town appeared; within minutes they were passing through the city centre.

‘See you,’ Fredericks said as he got out at the Buckingham Hotel, and added, ‘Do you want to bring it round to my place before you hand it in?’

‘Sure.’

‘Don’t come till late.’

‘I shan’t.’

‘Make it ten. I’ll be awake by then.’

‘Right.’

As he drove off he could see Fredericks’s figure, swaying, making for the Brasserie Bar.

2

He turned into Walton Lane as the last vestige of light was leaving the western sky – far, far away, close to the gorge-like crest of the valley – and braked to avoid a group of children darting from one side of the road to the other. As he turned into the gateless drive of the third, detached, ‘executive’ dwelling on his left, he sounded the horn.

Through the uncurtained side-window he saw Elise, his eldest daughter, look up from the kitchen sink: her dark hair hung in straight strands, accentuating beneath the overhead light the slimness of her features.

He banged the car door, and saw her, hurriedly, begin to dry her hair, rubbing it inside a towel.

In order to delay his arrival he went round to the front; through the glazed panels of the door he could see a figure, a towel around its head, mount the stairs. When he unlocked the door, however, and opened it, a second figure darted out: black-skinned, woolly-hatted, zip-jacketed, jeaned, it ran past him to the road. The padding of its plimsolled feet, first across the lawn, then across the drive, then along the road itself, was obscured finally by the whine of music from the living-room.

Watching television, lying on the floor – when he stepped inside the room – was his second-eldest daughter, Catherine.

She, too, had long dark hair only, in this instance, it was fastened in a series of tiny plaits, each secured by a rubber band. As he entered, she looked up and said, ‘Mummy rang.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Who’s who?’

‘Somebody ran out when I came in.’

‘That’s Benjie.’

‘Benjie who?’

‘Benjie,’ she said.

‘Why didn’t he stay?’

‘He wanted to leave.’

‘He never said hello.’

‘That’s right.’

Attercliffe realised, from Catherine’s pigtails, that she too had washed her hair and drew the conclusion that she and Elise were going out.

‘She’s not very happy.’

‘Who isn’t?’

‘Mummy.’

‘Why not?’

‘Gavin is always leaving her alone.’

Elise – her jeans stained damp, her plimsolls damp, her T-shirt damp (‘Sucker’ stamped across the breast) – descended the stairs – as if from the bathroom – and, towelling her hair, surveyed Attercliffe from the living-room door.

‘Who’s Gavin?’

‘Her boyfriend.’

‘What happened to Maurice?’

‘Oh, Maurice.’

From the television came a series of yells, followed by a blare of music. Having glanced up at his eldest daughter, Attercliffe surveyed her sister: jerseyed shoulders, pleated skirt, pigtailed head.

‘Maurice isn’t interested in Mummy any more.’

‘Since when?’

‘Honestly, Dad, you never keep up.’

Silhouetting his daughter’s head, the television screen was incandescent.

‘In any case,’ Attercliffe said, ‘who’s Gavin?’

‘A friend.’

‘How old is he?’

Elise pushed past him, gazing at the screen from a position which obstructed Attercliffe’s view completely.

‘Is he young, old, or medium?’ he added.

‘Younger than you.’

Catherine tossed the remark across her shoulder.

‘How much younger?’

‘Lots.’

‘He’s twenty-six.’ Elise turned, the towel knotted round her head.

‘That’s young.’

‘Sounds old to me.’

‘Your mother’s forty.’ Attercliffe paused. ‘Sheila is almost forty-one.’

‘She was thirty-nine last year.’

He went through to the kitchen: the floor was wet, the draining-board was wet, the wall was wet; Elise’s footprints led out to the hall. Clots of hair hung in the plughole. A comb and a hairbrush, also wet, stood on the kitchen table.

‘How did it go?’

Elise watched him from the door.

For a moment he thought she’d come in with the intention of clearing up the sink.

‘All right.’

‘Get everything down?’

‘I think so.’

‘We saw the result on television.’

‘Good.’

‘Mr Fredericks there?’

‘He was.’

‘He rang up after you left.’

‘What about?’

‘He said he’d be late.’

‘So I discovered.’

‘Why don’t you work on your own?’

‘I do.’

‘You always work with him.’

‘We write this column together.’

‘He doesn’t do any of it, Sheila says.’

‘What else has she told you?’

‘He leaves most of it to you.’ She ran the comb through the bristles of the brush, collected the strands of hair, opened the lid of the rubbish bin, and dropped them in.

‘Did you answer the telephone, or Cathy?’

‘Cathy.’

‘What did Sheila say about being unhappy?’

‘Cathy asked her how she was and she said she wasn’t feeling well.’

‘That doesn’t mean unhappy.’

‘She asked her what the matter was and Mummy said, Everything, really, and when she said, What’s everything? she said she hardly ever sees Gavin.’

‘I’ve never even heard of Gavin.’

‘You don’t have to hear of everyone.’

In many respects, Attercliffe reflected, it was as if Elise were the child of another father, one who seldom showed up and who, when he did – distressed at what his daughter had become – only succeeded in bawling her out. Also, he reminded himself, living in the circumstances that they did, she had to keep up her guard against encroachments: anything close was fraught with pain.

‘Are you going out tonight?’

‘With Sandra.’

‘Is Cathy going out?’

‘I think so.’

‘Isn’t she going out with you?’

‘No.’

She turned to the door.

‘Have you got a lift home?’

‘I think so.’

‘If you’re staying at Sandra’s could you give me a ring?’

‘Sure.’

She went out to the hall; the living-room door was closed; the murmur of voices (‘What did he say?’) was interrupted by the sound of singing.

Attercliffe took off his overcoat and carried it upstairs.

A bedroom at the back, once occupied by his youngest daughter, now contained a desk as well as a bed: on the bed he placed his coat and on the desk his notes.

Through the window the lights of the estate stretched up a slope to a field which interceded between the last of the houses and the silhouetted hulk of a ruined castle: a mist hung in the air, turning each patch of light into a liquid blur.

In the uncurtained window of the house across the wattle fence at the end of his lawned back garden he watched a woman whom he had watched on numerous occasions before seated in the kitchen talking into a wall telephone.

‘Dad?’

It was Catherine’s call from the foot of the stairs.

The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

‘Shall I bring it up?’

‘All right.’

He lifted the typewriter off the floor, got out the Tipp-Ex sheets and a carbon, rolled in the paper, and sat down at the desk.

‘Shall I come in?’

The features of an inquiring child, its head enclosed in a halo of plaited hair, appeared around the door.

‘Shall, or can?’

She came inside with a cup and a saucer.

‘Anything to eat?’

‘No thanks.’

‘You’ll have drunk a bit already.’

‘Not much.’

She rubbed her feet against the carpet. ‘All right if I go out tonight?’

‘Usually you tell me,’ Attercliffe said. ‘Not inquire.’

‘I might be late.’

‘How late?’

‘Two or three.’

‘In the morning?’

‘I could stay at Benjie’s.’

‘Who is this Benjie?’

‘A friend.’

‘Why did he run away?’

‘He was frightened.’

‘What of?’

‘You.’

‘I’d like to have met him,’ Attercliffe said.

‘Another time.’

‘I’d prefer you to come back, nevertheless.’

‘I’ve stayed at Benjie’s before.’

‘When?’

‘When I’ve been staying over at Mum’s.’

‘She never told me.’

‘She doesn’t have to tell you everything.’

‘Isn’t it late for a girl of fifteen?’

‘I’m in my sixteenth year, Dad.’

He paused. ‘Do you have a separate room at Benjie’s?’

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t Benjie’s parents think it odd their son bringing a girl to spend the night?’

‘They’ve invited me to come.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Often.’

She dug her foot at the carpet.

‘Where are you going?’

‘A party.’

‘Same one as Elly’s?’

‘No.’

‘Whose?’

‘You don’t know them.’

‘Are they black?’

‘Why do they have to be black?’

‘Benjie’s black.’

‘So what?’

‘What does he do?’

‘Nothing.’

She lowered her head.

‘Is he still at school?’

‘No.’

‘He’s out of work,’ Attercliffe suggested.

‘He may have to go into Borstal soon.’

‘What for?’

‘Because he’s been charged.’

‘What with?’

‘Attacking a white man.’

Attercliffe returned his gaze to the window; he examined his daughter’s reflection: dark eyes seethed within a pigtailed head – pale-cheeked, slim-necked, broad-browed, sharp-nosed – pugnaciously featured, he concluded, like himself.

‘Why?’

‘He insulted his brother.’

‘Whose brother?’

‘Benjie’s.’

‘Where?’

‘At a dance hall.’

‘Were you there?’

‘No.’ She shook her head.

‘What happened?’

‘There were eight, including Benjie and his brother. They attacked this man in the car park.’

‘What with?’

‘A knife.’

She added, ‘They were originally charged with attempted murder, then with grievous bodily harm with intent, but it’ll only be G.B.H., in the end.’

Attercliffe’s hand, on the one side, gripped the desk; on the other his hand encountered first the edge of the chair and then its back. ‘Why?’

‘Because of the provocation.’

‘What provocation?’

‘He called them names.’

Attercliffe returned his gaze to his daughter: he examined the division of her hair into plaits.

‘Has he been to Borstal before?’

‘Only once.’

‘What for?’

‘Stealing.’

‘Where from?’

‘Shops.’

‘Anywhere else?’

‘Houses.’

‘Does Sheila know?’

‘I’ve told her.’

‘What did she say?’

‘You have to take everyone as you find them.’

Attercliffe laughed; the sound was sufficient to prompt Catherine to raise her head.

‘It’s nothing but racial prejudice, Dad.’

‘What about his friends?’

‘The whole of society’s against them. You don’t know what it’s like to be black.’

‘Sticking a knife into someone is a cause for legitimate complaint,’ he said.

‘It was Benjie’s brother who stabbed him.’

‘Do the police know that?’

‘No.’ She dug her foot at the carpet again.

‘I was brought up in far greater poverty than Benjie’s had to endure. I’ve had to fight harder, and longer, and against greater odds,’ he said.

‘Have you had to fight,’ she said, looking up, ‘against the colour of your skin?’

‘I’ve fought for what I am,’ he said.

His own father used to tell him that: an employee of the London and North-Eastern Railway Company, with his furtively acquired supplies of railway coal, his frost-bitten hands, his Neanderthal stoop from standing so many hours of his adult life on the open platform of a steam locomotive. ‘I’d have more sympathy for Benjie if his energies were directed to changing the world he lives in, instead of stealing from shops, breaking into houses, and stabbing a man at the back of a dance hall.’

‘He only kicked him once.’

‘After he stabbed him?’

‘There are other sides to his nature.’

‘What sides?’

‘He gave me this jersey.’

‘How could he afford it?’

‘He stole it.’ She added, ‘He cared about me. He wanted me to have it. You’re such a conformist.’

Attercliffe’s gaze went back to his daughter’s hair: he examined once more its fusillade of plaits, each secured by a check-patterned ribbon.

‘What room do you sleep in when you stay overnight?’

‘His sisters’.’

‘His sister’s, or his sisters’?’

‘His sisters’!’

‘How many has he got?’

‘Eight.’

‘Eight!’

‘Five of them don’t live at home. Doreen and Sheba share a bed when I go there and I sleep in Sasha’s.’

‘How old’s Sasha?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Does she steal and mutilate?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘She earns a living.’

‘She’s still at school.’

‘An intellectual.’

‘She leaves at Easter.’

‘How many brothers?’

‘Two.’

‘Ten children.’

‘You’ve got five.’

‘You don’t have to remind me,’ Attercliffe said. ‘When you were born I thought I was responding to a God-given gift. I thought I was showing an appetite for living.’

‘In any case, Mr Foster has two other wives.’

‘Two other wives?’

‘He has one in Jamaica.’

‘My God.’

‘Sheila has got two husbands. Three, if you count Gavin.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘He’s a Moslem.’

‘Gavin?’

‘Mr Foster.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Older than you.’

‘How much older?’

‘He looks younger, but is five years older.’

‘Jesus.’

‘In any case, I don’t see the point of all these questions.’

‘I’m trying to look, Catherine, for something to tell me when you go out at night that I don’t have to worry, that you’ll be in the hands of people who intend to return you to this house in the same shape, the same physical and mental shape, in which you left it.’

‘They will.’

‘You see my concern?’

‘You never get on at Elise.’

‘She spends the night at Sandra’s.’

‘And Sandra’s white.’

‘Sandra is not a homicidal maniac.’

‘Neither is Benjie.’

‘His brother is. Benjie has still to prove his potential.’

‘If Christ were on earth he’d love Benjie, and he’d love his brother and he’d love the Fosters.’

‘They don’t believe in Christ, they’re Moslem.’

‘They believe Jesus was a prophet.’

‘Have they