knees, Ruth bowing so low after handing out each plate that her fringe scraped the floor.
A new rule: whoever reached the table first won the role of leader, got the juiciest chop, the largest helpings. They stopped bringing friends home; even Daniel spent some time at his mother’s instead. Nobody wanted to be first at the table. The kids all hovered at the backs of their chairs while Lee cried that the food was getting cold and their father glowered, until one of them whooped for distraction and pushed a brother or sister into their seat, or until everyone stuck their thumbs to their foreheads and the last one had to reluctantly sit down and direct the rest. They developed a technique of doing nothing without being given precise instructions. ‘Hold this plate for a minute’ meant that after sixty seconds the plate was dropped to the floor. Frank thought this was progress.
A dramaturge position came up at the Mercury Theatre where ‘you know they are doing Peer Gynt’ but he lost out to a man who also came from New York City, armed with a long CV and letters of recommendation that had Frank ranting as he emptied the rubbish bin.
‘What does nepotism mean?’ Dorothy asked, and her father roared ‘Argh’ at a soggy patch on the side of the brown-paper Kleensak tearing, the shoulder of an empty cereal box poking through.
‘What’s that?’ Lee asked Daniel, who’d just put an envelope on the kitchen bench, secured beneath the notepad that advertised the minicab company.
‘My rent,’ he said. ‘And they’re looking for someone to answer the phones. At work.’
‘I could do that,’ said Dorothy.
‘Don’t be stupid, you’re ten. And Danny, you’re not paying rent, don’t be silly. I’ll talk to your mother.’
‘It’s OK,’ he said.
‘I’m eleven,’ Dorothy said.
Lee took the envelope off the bench and pressed it against Daniel’s chest. She kissed him on the side of the head. It was the first time Dot had seen her mother kiss him and it struck her that it was different from watching her kiss Michael, or Evelyn, or Ruth. It was a parental kiss, but more as if she meant it, hard enough to make Daniel’s neck sway under the pressure. ‘You don’t have to,’ Lee said, her voice a bit hoarse. ‘Frank, I’m begging you.’
‘What?’ The rubbish sack in his arms, the back door open. He gave a laugh, incredulous. ‘Take a job at a cab company?’
‘OK, kids, go outside.’
‘It’s night-time.’
‘All right then. Go to bed.’
As he left the room, Daniel placed the envelope on the bench, and nobody said anything about it.
For once Michael was home instead of hanging out, as he’d been doing since their return from the commune, with that bunch of older boys outside the zoo or at the Transport Museum tram station. When they walked past, arms interlinked, on their way back from school, Eve and Dot could see behind his dangled hand the lit cigarette, and they saw him drinking red cans of beer. Now the children gathered in the girls’ room and sat on the two single beds side by side, trying to read and listening through the quiet of the house for the sound of raised voices, or slamming doors. The silence expanded. Ruth snuggled up beneath the crocheted blanket at the foot of Dorothy’s bed and fell asleep, or pretended to be asleep so that nobody would move her. Outside, the plane tree leaves scraped the window and a car drove past. After a while the front door did slam, and there was the hyphenated splutter of their car’s attempt to start in the cold night. Michael looked up from his Mad Magazine. Eve met his pink-rimmed gaze. As she was about to reach for her brother – felt it in her muscles, the movement anticipating the touch of his skin – he wiped a brusque forearm over his face and looked down again at the page. The bed creaked when Daniel stood. Without saying anything he went down to see if Lee was all right. A few minutes later he came back and said, ‘She’s OK,’ and one by one the children all fell asleep on the beds, top and tailing, spooning, still in their clothes.
2. Bloom
When Ruth finally opened the front door because the knocking and the bell ringing just would not stop, the couple standing in the doorway cast a long shadow down the length of the hall.