eyes. âHah! Only kidding. Reckon you can get me a job?â
I explain that headhunters donât find jobs for people; rather people for jobs. Even I can hear that I sound prissy.
âSounds like jobs for the boys to me!â
So I use the analogy of finding him a wife.
âBe my guest, darlinâ. Only, do a better job than what I done last time rahnd!â
I laugh. Heâs growing on me. âWell, I interview
you
to find out what kind of woman you want. And then, after Iâve interviewed the best candidates, you meet the shortlist.â
âI like
that
bit!â He has a deliciously throaty snigger. âSo, what sort of people do you, erââ
âPlace?â
âYeah, âplaceâ.â
âI mainly do chairmen and chief executives nowââ
âVery high-powered, Iâm sure. Bet youâre good.â There is a minute pause. âKids?â
My stomach contracts. The question is always there. As if it mattered. As if everything beforehand, the apparent interest in my career, the flattery, has been merely preamble.
Stuck with Blu-Tack to his dashboard are photos of two âkidsâ in school uniform. The boy, no doubt yanked off the football pitch and made to sit still, sports a cowlick. The girl, older, wears a bulky cardigan, the type in which grandmothers excel.
Why did you bother having children
, I want to ask?
Where are they now, as you ferry me around on a Friday evening? When do you see them? Or are these photos to remind you they exist? What happened to your first wife? What effect did divorce have on your kids? Is your life more complete with them in it? Are your children happy?
Or do they hate being a child as much as I did?
And now I canât stop the memory, the one I can usually freeze the moment the elephant stone sinks beneath the waves, from barging in. How, as I turn to follow my mother back up the wobbly pebbles, I step into an ice cream someone has dropped, one with a square cone and a brick of yellow ice cream like Iâll be allowed to have when Iâm bigger. First of all, I feel the cold ice cream on my toes. Then I feel tickling. I look down to find tiny black creatures crawling all over my feet. Ants! They run across my nails, and over my scuffed sandals. Then they are circling my ankles, and running up my leg. I scream, and stamp my feet up and down. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and I want it to end now. I jiggle my legs, and overbalance. And still they cling on.
Finally, I scream once more, and sense my mother turn around. The tickling on my legs is unbearable. Mother comes towards me and then stops. She will get rid of them. I gulp for air.
âServes you right,â she says, staring at my legs. Digging her heels into the pebbles, she turns around and clambers back up the slope. I watch her hike to where a plastic Spar carrier bag sits knocking in the wind. I have forgotten the ants. All I want is for my mother to turn round and reach out her hand. She picks up a library hardback, opens it and begins to read.
Her voice, as I recall it now in the cab, contained all the triumph normally reserved for observing the painful demise of oneâs husbandâs mistress.
Chapter Fourteen
âW ELL , that wasnât too awful, was it?â says David brightly, slamming the front door. From the far end of the church cul-de-sac, Pamelaâs
car can still be heard straining in first gear. Dylanâs vicar-cage is a modest Victorian cottage near âColombia Commonâ, rechristened for its popularity with drug pushers. The more narcotically desirable the area, the greater the number of car-chase-repellent road bumps. Soon Pamelaâs car can be heard in the distance attacking one at speed.
We return to the kitchen to wash up. Or, rather, David washes, Matt and I dry, and Dylan smokes and tells us where to put things. Dylan has never seen the need to acquire a dishwasher.
I explain that headhunters donât find jobs for people; rather people for jobs. Even I can hear that I sound prissy.
âSounds like jobs for the boys to me!â
So I use the analogy of finding him a wife.
âBe my guest, darlinâ. Only, do a better job than what I done last time rahnd!â
I laugh. Heâs growing on me. âWell, I interview
you
to find out what kind of woman you want. And then, after Iâve interviewed the best candidates, you meet the shortlist.â
âI like
that
bit!â He has a deliciously throaty snigger. âSo, what sort of people do you, erââ
âPlace?â
âYeah, âplaceâ.â
âI mainly do chairmen and chief executives nowââ
âVery high-powered, Iâm sure. Bet youâre good.â There is a minute pause. âKids?â
My stomach contracts. The question is always there. As if it mattered. As if everything beforehand, the apparent interest in my career, the flattery, has been merely preamble.
Stuck with Blu-Tack to his dashboard are photos of two âkidsâ in school uniform. The boy, no doubt yanked off the football pitch and made to sit still, sports a cowlick. The girl, older, wears a bulky cardigan, the type in which grandmothers excel.
Why did you bother having children
, I want to ask?
Where are they now, as you ferry me around on a Friday evening? When do you see them? Or are these photos to remind you they exist? What happened to your first wife? What effect did divorce have on your kids? Is your life more complete with them in it? Are your children happy?
Or do they hate being a child as much as I did?
And now I canât stop the memory, the one I can usually freeze the moment the elephant stone sinks beneath the waves, from barging in. How, as I turn to follow my mother back up the wobbly pebbles, I step into an ice cream someone has dropped, one with a square cone and a brick of yellow ice cream like Iâll be allowed to have when Iâm bigger. First of all, I feel the cold ice cream on my toes. Then I feel tickling. I look down to find tiny black creatures crawling all over my feet. Ants! They run across my nails, and over my scuffed sandals. Then they are circling my ankles, and running up my leg. I scream, and stamp my feet up and down. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and I want it to end now. I jiggle my legs, and overbalance. And still they cling on.
Finally, I scream once more, and sense my mother turn around. The tickling on my legs is unbearable. Mother comes towards me and then stops. She will get rid of them. I gulp for air.
âServes you right,â she says, staring at my legs. Digging her heels into the pebbles, she turns around and clambers back up the slope. I watch her hike to where a plastic Spar carrier bag sits knocking in the wind. I have forgotten the ants. All I want is for my mother to turn round and reach out her hand. She picks up a library hardback, opens it and begins to read.
Her voice, as I recall it now in the cab, contained all the triumph normally reserved for observing the painful demise of oneâs husbandâs mistress.
Chapter Fourteen
âW ELL , that wasnât too awful, was it?â says David brightly, slamming the front door. From the far end of the church cul-de-sac, Pamelaâs
car can still be heard straining in first gear. Dylanâs vicar-cage is a modest Victorian cottage near âColombia Commonâ, rechristened for its popularity with drug pushers. The more narcotically desirable the area, the greater the number of car-chase-repellent road bumps. Soon Pamelaâs car can be heard in the distance attacking one at speed.
We return to the kitchen to wash up. Or, rather, David washes, Matt and I dry, and Dylan smokes and tells us where to put things. Dylan has never seen the need to acquire a dishwasher.
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