Caryl Phillips - The Lost Child

She handed Pamela a cup of tea with a saucer, and then sat opposite her at the kitchen table.

“So where have you been all afternoon?”

“I took the boys down to the park by Stanhope Lane.”

“But it’s always so crowded down there, and it sometimes smells funny, don’t you think? Bloody thousands of them. But you know I don’t mean anything by it, don’t you?”

Pamela’s idea of a conversation was to occasionally draw breath and ask if Monica agreed with her before continuing to talk.

“Look, I’ve got an idea. I’m famished, so why don’t we all have tea together? I’ll go down the chippy and get us some fish-and-chips with the winnings, and then we can sit here and cheer each other up.”

“Are you sure?” Monica tried to remember where she’d left her bag. “But we don’t need to spend your winnings. We can pay for our own.”

“I know you can, but you won’t. It’s on me.” Pamela finished her tea and stood up. “Just excuse me a minute, will you?”

When Pamela came back from the bathroom, it was apparent that her neighbour had touched up her eyes and tidied up her “Autumn Sunset” hair, and she knew immediately that Pamela must have used her makeup and comb without asking. She didn’t understand why Pamela had to dress the way she did in a narrow miniskirt, with nylons that tended to rasp when she moved, and a tight cream blouse that showed the bones of her bra. She was always dolled up like she was about to go out somewhere, and Monica knew that it was only a matter of time before she would discover Ben staring at Pamela, and maybe then she would be forced to say something to her friend.

Ben had his ear glued to his tiny transistor, but Tommy was sitting on the living room floor with a restless Lucy, who, much to Tommy’s evident disapproval, was jumping up and down and switching the television set from one channel to the other and then back again.

“Now then, Tommy, don’t you be a maungy tyke. Lucy’s just trying to settle on something you’ll both enjoy.” But Tommy said nothing to his auntie Pamela, who turned instead to Monica. “He’s a good lad, isn’t he?”

Monica wished she could say the same about Lucy, but Pamela’s daughter was a mean-faced little sprite with pursed lips who took no notice of anything her mother ever said. Then again, Pamela always made a big show of talking to her daughter in a loud, firm voice when out in public, but she suspected that behind doors Pamela dispensed with the talking and knocked the lass about with the flat of her hand. Which, of course, is why Lucy played up so much when she was out, for she knew she wasn’t going to get hit.

“The boys will share a portion, right?” As ever, Pamela’s question was delivered as a statement. Monica wanted to ask her to bring the boys a portion each, and if they couldn’t finish theirs, then she would eat any leftovers, but she smiled gratefully and nodded.

“A portion between them will be fine.”

She knew that Pamela would get Lucy a full portion and eat whatever her daughter couldn’t manage, but that’s just how Pamela was. Outside, they both heard a rumble of thunder, and then the rain began to sizzle against the balcony.

“Oh, Jesus, I’d best be making tracks before all hell breaks loose.”

Pamela was drenched when she returned from the chip shop, but it would have been really grim if she hadn’t borrowed Monica’s belted raincoat and her flimsy umbrella, whose fretwork was admittedly a little buckled out of shape but had still managed to keep most of the downpour off her friend’s head. It turned out that Pamela had ordered extra scraps for the boys, so their one portion was more than enough, but Lucy could eat only half of her fish. Much to Monica’s surprise, Pamela offered to share the other half with her and quickly broke off a piece and passed it over without further comment. When everybody had finished, Monica balled up all the paper and pushed it in the dustbin, and then rinsed out the empty bottle of dandelion and burdock and placed it on the side so that it was ready to go back for the deposit. Then she set about putting the worn-out boys to bed. Once they were safely tucked up, she piled some blankets on the floor between them and made a makeshift bed for Lucy, and kissed the girl on the cheek before closing in the door to the bedroom.

Pamela was sitting at the kitchen table and had already helped herself to a small glass of brandy from the bottle that Monica kept in the cupboard to the side of the stove in case she ever needed some for cooking.

“Like a glass?”

Her friend poured Monica some brandy without waiting for a reply. There were no windows in the cramped kitchen, but they both knew that if they went through to the living room, they would risk waking up the children with their conversation. In any case, the view through the open curtains of the living room was depressing, with the dual carriageway down below and traffic streaking by in both directions, and then beyond the road the belching emissions of factories that struggled to operate around the clock.

Pamela lit a cigarette and slowly blew out the smoke. “Only a few weeks to go now till the kids’ summer holidays. I can’t wait, can you?” But of course, Monica could wait, for the summer holidays meant putting the kids in the day care centre, and paying for them to be looked after until she finished work at the library. Pamela packed Lucy off to her parents, and so she was totally free, but this option wasn’t open to Monica, who, aside from the odd letter from her persistent mother, had pretty much cut off contact with home. Last year Pamela had come around to the flat with some brochures for Majorca that she’d picked up at the travel agents, but Monica knew full well that the closest that Pamela had ever got to Spain was a weekend in Blackpool with an insurance man called Steve whose name, she had made clear, she never wanted to hear again.

“Perhaps this year the two of us can go off to Scarborough?” suggested Monica. “Or maybe somewhere else, just for the day.”

Even as the words came out of her mouth, she was aware of how impractical this was, for getting somebody to watch the kids at the weekend would mean finding extra money she simply didn’t have. Mind you, the more she thought about it, the more she asked herself if there might be somebody at the day care centre who would be willing to do her a favour and take them on for a Saturday or a Sunday?

“Really? You’d come with me to Scarborough?”

She watched a visibly surprised Pamela pour herself another brandy.

“That’s great, Monica. I’ve always said that you need to get out more. It will do you good, and you’ll be in a better mood for the kids. In fact, how about tonight? Why don’t we just pop out for a quick one, the two of us?”

“Tonight?”

“Maybe we could go to the Mecca Ballroom and have a dance? I went once, and lots of women our age go by themselves. It’s not just young lasses, and it’s not a pickup place if that’s what’s making you go all dithery; it’s just somewhere that people have a good time and talk. You’ve never been, have you?”

Of course, she hadn’t been, and she wasn’t even sure if she knew how to dance properly. She tried to redirect the conversation.

“We can’t just leave the children.”

“Yes, we can, they’re asleep. Our Lucy’s out for the count, and there’s no way she’ll get up till eight in the morning. You don’t mind if she spends the night here, do you?”

She wondered if this had been Pamela’s intention all along, to leave Lucy with her and go off gallivanting.

“Look, there’s no harm in the two of us going out. It doesn’t make us tarty if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Which was exactly what Monica was thinking. She stared at her friend, who drained the brandy from her glass in one gulp.