Love Lessons by Nick Sharratt

Author:Nick Sharratt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 2006-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

I walked along Laurel Grove, peering at all the neat 1930s houses. I looked at the bay trees in ornamental blue pots outside front doors, the carriage lamps, the pebbles and spiky plants in mock Japanese gardens. I couldn’t imagine Mr Raxberry living there. Surely anyone with an earring and artistic tendencies would be considered deeply suspect?

I checked the address, written in his own lovely italic writing on the back of my school jotter in my bag, though I knew I’d got it right. My bag was full of things to do: my sketchpad and crayons, patchwork, two novels and an old shop copy of Penelope Leach’s baby book in case of emergencies.

Number 28, 30, 32 – and there was number 34 Laurel Grove. At first glance it didn’t look any different from the other houses in the road, a black and white semi-detached house with a sloping roof and a green front door. At second glance, as I walked up the garden path, it stayed an ordinary, slightly shabby house with an abandoned Thomas the Tank Engine shunted into a cotoneaster bush and muddy frog wellingtons lolling on the porch. Mr Raxberry didn’t belong here. He should be living in an urban warehouse flat, large and airy and white, with huge canvases on the wall and a large easel in the centre of the room. I saw him there, painting, his face tense with concentration, his earring catching the sunlight. I was sitting on a black leather sofa, talking to him while he painted my portrait. That’s the way it should be.

I rang the doorbell and waited. I could see into the living room, glimpse the cream canvas chairs and the beige sofa and the bleak square shelving. I must have come to the wrong address.

Then the door opened. There was Mr Raxberry in black jeans, soft blue shirt and bare feet, but he was holding a baby, a little girl with tufty black hair and a cross expression. She was wearing a small navy jumper and nothing else. Her little pink bottom perched neatly on Mr Raxberry’s hand.

‘Hi, Prue. Sorry, we’re in the middle of a nappy change, aren’t we, Lily?’

Lily grizzled irritably. I held out my hand to her uncertainly and she reared away from me, butting her head against Mr Raxberry’s shoulder. She started crying in earnest.

‘Take no notice, she’s tired,’ said Mr Raxberry. ‘Come in, come in.’

I stepped into the hall and followed him towards the beige living room. The carpet was strewn with wooden blocks and wax crayons and limp teddy bears.

‘Sorry! We’ll get cleared up in a jiffy. I’ll just shove a nappy on Lily. Marianne’s upstairs giving Harry his bath. She’ll be down in a minute. Would you like a coffee or a Coke or something? And I’d better show you how the television works.’ He said all this boring ordinary stuff, the baby still balanced in his hand, but his eyes were looking at me. They were saying, ‘Hark at me, bleating all this suburban daddy stuff.

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