doesn’t even know who I am,’ he protested.
Megan pulled her socks up tight to her knees. ‘What a nit,’ she said to her shoes, and she left him in the hall.
For an hour or so they played charades. Embarrassed by the perpetual blush that he could feel on his skin, Alexander sat on the floor in a corner of the room, trying to hide behind the other two boys, who sat upright on adjacent straight-backed chairs. ‘One of the boys should have a go,’ the mother decreed, and the two on the chairs simultaneously looked back at Alexander, as if passing the blame for something.
Encircled by the girls, Alexander could think of nothing except his awkwardness. Megan was sitting under the keyboard of the piano, her chin on her knees, waiting for him. ‘Do The Cruel Sea,’ the mother told him. Alexander ground his teeth on the mouthpiece of an imaginary pipe and made a visor with his palm. Heroically he scanned the room’s horizon, facing the terrible waves. Decisive as Jack Hawkins, he gave wordless orders to his men and directed their efforts. Nobody guessed what he was doing.
‘That’s not how you do it, you nit,’ said Megan after he had given them the answer. With a mad grin she flailed at the carpet, then serenely made wave shapes with a fluttering hand. ‘That’s how you do The Cruel Sea. You do “cruel” and then you do “sea”.’ She smiled at him for a long time, however, and it was Megan who took the satin scarf to blindfold him for the last game of the party, and spun him around three times. ‘Behind you, behind you,’ she murmured. ‘Behind you, behind you.’ Shoeless feet made a constant shuffling all around him, and the springs of the armchairs groaned as they were trampled. Alexander’s fingers fell into the pleats of a puffed sleeve. He could distinguish the pitch of this girl’s breathing and the minty smell of her. As Liz Gatting’s hip touched his a girl shrieked, ‘Sandy MacIndoe, beware!’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Liz. Her eyes were levelled at his when he slipped the scarf off. ‘Take no notice,’ she said, and she touched his hand as he pulled the knotted blindfold over her hair.
‘That’s right,’ said Megan, ‘take no notice.’ She sat down on the edge of the settee, where she remained, with her arms crossed, while Liz Gatting fumbled along the curtains and groped broadly at the air. ‘Over here,’ instructed Megan, and then she walked on her toes to the door, stealthily pushed its handle down, and closed it silently behind her, as if this were part of the game. She had left the house before Alexander could think of an excuse to follow her.
Three days later he went to visit Mr Beckwith, hoping to see Megan. He went to the back of the house without knocking on the front door. Mr Beckwith was not in the garden and the padlock was clasped on the shed. The lilies Alexander had planted with Mr Beckwith were in bloom. He picked a snail shell from the soil of the flowerbed and lobbed it over the shed, but his throw was too weak and the shell bounced on the roof and fell back on the lawn.
Until he heard Mrs Beckwith’s voice he had not seen that the French windows were open. ‘Who’s that?’ she called from somewhere inside the back room. ‘Is that you, Megan?’
‘It’s me, Mrs Beckwith.’
‘Alex?’ she responded in a strange voice, as if he were someone who had been away for years.
‘Yes, Mrs Beckwith.’ Alexander stood on the edge of the grass, stranded.
‘He’s asleep, if it’s Harry you’re after.’
Alexander approached the windows. The curtains were three-quarters drawn, obscuring everything except one end of the table and a rectangle of wallpaper to which was attached a calendar and a clock in the form of a ship’s wheel. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs Beckwith,’ said Alexander, speaking into this segment of the room.
‘And Megan’s down the shops,’ she said, as though conversing with someone right beside her.
‘Oh well,’ Alexander replied. ‘I’ll be going.’ He had moved closer and was standing on the crescent of irregular paving stones in front of the French windows. Still he could not see where Mrs Beckwith was.
‘She’ll be back in a little while. Come in and wait for her.’ Alexander placed one foot on the metal strip at the threshold.
‘It was Mr Beckwith I came to see really. In case I could help out, that’s all. It’s not important.’
‘Well, you’re here now. Come on in,’ said Mrs Beckwith. She was sitting in an armchair, facing the empty grate and brushing at a lapel of her navy blue dress. A sliver of sunlight cut across the arm of the chair, on which Mrs Beckwith’s hand was curved around a glass of clear liquid with a cube of ice in it.
‘How are you, Alex?’ she asked, pushing herself up on her elbows to look at him. Her mouth was darkened with lipstick and she was wearing ruby-coloured studs in her ears, as if she were about to go out.
‘I’m well, Mrs Beckwith, thank you,’ Alexander responded.
‘Sit down, why don’t you?’ said Mrs Beckwith, pointing at the armchair beside the chimney breast.
Next to the chair in which Alexander sat was a cabinet with sliding glass doors and a tea service on the lowest of its three shelves, below two rows of books. Aware that Mrs Beckwith was watching him, he began to read the spines. ‘The Day of the Triffids,’ he said, at the first title he recognised.
‘Megan’s the reader in this household,’ said Mrs Beckwith.
‘My dad’s the reader in ours. I think he’s read that one.’ Mrs Beckwith stirred the ice with a little finger and did not speak. Alexander completed his reading of the higher row; upstairs a toilet flushed. ‘I’m in your way,’ said Alexander. ‘There wasn’t anything special.’
‘No, Alex, wait for her,’ said Mrs Beckwith softly. ‘She’ll be glad to see you. We’re always glad to see you.’
Eking it out for as long as he could, Alexander read the lower titles; the churning of the water pipes was the only sound.
‘How’s school?’ Mrs Beckwith asked.
‘It’s OK, Mrs Beckwith.’
‘Do you like school?’
‘Not much.’
‘Neither did I,’ said Mrs Beckwith, with a rueful smile at the grate.
In the room above them Mr Beckwith coughed; a thrush sprang across the piece of paving that Alexander could see from where he sat. He twisted in his chair so that Mrs Beckwith could see him look at the ship’s-wheel clock. ‘I should be going, Mrs Beckwith. My mother will be expecting me back soon.’
‘Your mother and I,’ said Mrs Beckwith, and she paused for so long that Alexander thought she had finished her sentence and he had misheard. ‘We were at school together. You knew that?’
‘Mum said, yes,’ he replied.
‘She was gorgeous. A stunner she was. We used to go out together. To the cinema. Very popular with the boys was your mother. I was the invisible girl when I was with her.’
The talk of his mother’s schooldays made Alexander uncomfortable, and from the way Mrs Beckwith took a sip from her drink he sensed that if he stayed he would hear something he should not know. He cleared
