Towers of Silence

Chapter Twenty-two

One of the things I love about my work is the freedom it gives me to manage my own time. No clocking on, no set hours, no annual leave allocation. That flexibility meant I could go along to the school show at two o’clock that afternoon without having to fill in any forms or ask anyone’s permission.

Maddie was a Kiwi fruit and Tom was a cactus. From this you can probably deduce that this was not your traditional Christmas nativity play. No. This was winter celebrations round the world; an opportunity for each class to be a different country and enact the rituals (very broadly interpreted) for winter feasts and pageants.

Maddie had been practising her song all week but as I craned my neck I could see her face was set in a mask of abject terror. Last year she had burst into tears and had to be led from the hall. Tom, in contrast, waved a spiky paw at me, beaming all over his face. I looked round but couldn’t see Ray yet.

A quick check of the programme told me that Maddie’s class would be second. It couldn’t be soon enough for me. I tried to ignore the seething tension in my stomach and smile at her encouragingly. She refused to catch my eye.

The Swedish lot, done up as candles with flame hats, kicked off with a story about the feast of Santa Lucia. I couldn’t see Maddie for the duration and hoped she was still compos mentis. Riotous applause from the packed hall greeted the end of scene one. A baby began to wail. Those parents with video cameras vied for a good position.

I remembered to breathe as the classes changed places. The Maori chant began. Maddie stood between her friends Kim and Ayesha, her lips barely moved. A group of children with feathered hats began to dance. Jacob, another of Maddie’s friends, was among them. His hat slid down over his eyes causing helpless hilarity among the audience and some of the performers. He soldiered on. Every time he pulled it up he had to let go to perform the handclaps and at that point it slid inexorably down again. There was an extra burst of applause for the laugh factor. New Zealand was over. I felt my shoulders settle back. I could relax. Maddie shot me a shy smile. I grinned back and gave her the thumbs up sign.

The other high point of the show was a number of cactus jokes from Tom’s lot followed by an off key but extremely enthusiastic rendering of ‘La Cucharacha’ and a sort of Mexican clog dance. They had obviously been well drilled in the steps but it only needed one boy out of step to create perfect slapstick. The woman beside me laughed so hard she cried. And I bet all the people shooting videos were thinking of the cheque from You’ve Been Framed.

Ray had watched the show from the back as he’d cut it close time wise. The four of us walked back together; a most unusual occurrence which made the children even more giddy. I told Ray about the loose board near the roof.

“I’ll ask Barry to take a look,” he said. “He wouldn’t do it himself but one of the lads might. I’m seeing him next week about some work in the New Year, says he’s drowning in conversions and one of his joiners has left. Don’t know if I can fit it in. If I don’t get these orders done.”

“Will it cost much to fix?”

“Nah. Good man could do it with a ladder. Cost of the timber if the wood needs replacing, labour. Barry’ll give us a fair price.”

I looked at Tom running ahead. He was a lovely child. My dealings with him seemed more straightforward than those with Maddie. I didn’t know whether that was because I wasn’t his mother or because he was a boy or because of his personality. He was so good natured. Would he stay that way? Would adolescence turn him into a sulky young man or a truculent one?

“What were you like as a teenager?” I asked Ray.

“Gorgeous.”

“Sod off.” Ray is incorrigibly vain. “Seriously.”

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Well, did you cause your mother grief or not?”

“Not much. I went through a druggy patch,” he looked ahead, made sure the children couldn’t hear. “Magic mushrooms, grass, cough medicine.”

“Cough medicine – yeuch.”

“It was. And booze of course. The trick was to get in and say goodnight in the gap between getting hammered and either being sick or passing out.”

“Were you happy?”

He tutted.

“Depressed?”

He shrugged again. His shrugs can be quite eloquent, especially when read with his facial expression. This was a stop-talking-about-it-I-don’t-like-it sort of a shrug.

“Confused?”

“Probably. Why?”

“Oh, something I’m working on. I can remember feeling desolate as a teenager, and misunderstood. Craving everything but it was all just out of reach. I wanted to be somewhere else, doing something else. And wanting to escape. Awful time. The world was a mess, people were cruel or stupid, life wasn’t fair. Grinding dissatisfaction. But I don’t know what boys think about.”

“Sex,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Yeah, there was that.”

“And fitting in… having mates, spots. But mainly sex.”

I raised my eyebrows.

I thought of Adam Reeve, sitting on the bench. No mates, plenty of spots. Was he brooding about sex? I wasn’t convinced.