Jubilee by Shelley Harris

Author:Shelley Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780297864608
Publisher: W&N

Chapter 17

Peter woke early on Jubilee morning, roused by noises from his daughter’s bedroom. He lay there listening to her bed squeak, to the curtain rings clatter. Jan slept on. He waited two minutes, three, then he went to fetch Colette.

‘I’ve been awake for ages!’ she told him.

‘I’d never have guessed.’

They slipped out of the house without disturbing the others, and he wondered how long it would take her to get bored, how long before Ram Patel started to grate on him. Looking up to gauge the weather, that British reflex, he could see it would be grim. Bits of blue, slabs of grey. The day felt chilly. As he stepped across his driveway the front door opposite swung open. Ram, dressed in a sweater and jacket, greeted him.

‘Good morning, Peter. I see you are ready for work.’

‘Yep, bang on time.’

‘Of course. Neeta’s been up for an hour already. I’m finding it best to stay out of the kitchen.’

Peter acknowledged this with an upthrust of his chin, making his usual internal adjustment to Ram’s speech, the regular peaks and troughs that put lilts in all the wrong places. ‘Right,’ he said, heaving up his garage door. ‘Ladders in here.’

They started at the other end of the street, working slowly towards their own homes. It went pretty smoothly, Peter directing things, Ram quietly efficient. As the morning went on, more front doors opened, and there was a stirring in Cherry Gardens. People commented on the bunting, offered help, bustled off to do their own jobs. Colette’s early enthusiasm did wane quickly, and she became restless. When the Hobbes’ door opened a few houses down, she darted forward – ‘Mandy!’ – then stopped and frowned.

‘Oh, it’s just her mum.’

‘A good thing, too,’ Peter told her. ‘She’s bringing us a cuppa. Cheers, Pam.’

‘No trouble,’ she said, handing up Ram’s. ‘You’ve got a Mandy Special there, Pete.’ He looked at the mug she’d given him. A rainbow arched its way around it, painted with a quavering hand, slivers of white showing between the strips of colour. Pam was smiling up at him.

‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Tell her well done.’

Colette wandered off. The two men drew level with the Chandler house, then Peter’s own, then the Patels’. Up on the ladder, fixing a line of flags under the eaves, Peter came face to face with Ram’s son, Satish. On the other side of the glass he was just a few inches away, staring out at the street and the houses opposite. Satish acknowledged him with a little smile and a dip of the head, but he didn’t move as Peter worked on, and didn’t say a word to him either. It felt like insolence. Strange boy, he thought, and tried to quell his annoyance. Always quiet. Always had been.

He wondered what bound Satish and Cai together, and what future their friendship might reasonably have. The question was irrelevant really – in two months’ time Cai would be gone from Bourne Heath to their new life in South Africa; still, it gave Peter pause for thought.

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