Today, I think, today of all days. Today, and she never even told me, didn’t say a word. He is bloody different, I’ll say he is, and he does have family, I think, he bloody does, I’m his bloody wife aren’t I? Another thing, I told her I wouldn’t go, she didn’t leave me out. Get it right. There’s no way I can explain this to Jenny, no way that won’t upset her. No, I can’t say anything, I think, I can’t speak but I’ll do something, I know that. I can’t let it go. I imagine Jackie, her lovely locks torn out or hacked off with scissors. It doesn’t make me happy and I remember reading somewhere, back in the days when we thought we’d invented feminism and that it was going to change everything, an article called, ‘Don’t blame your sisters’, and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry and in my mind I reattach Jackie’s locks, every single one of them and I apologise.
It’s not your fault, I’d say to Jackie if she was here now, I’m sorry if I ever thought it was. It’s him, Bill or Alain or whatever it is he’s calling himself today. I wonder for a moment just how many names he’s been through in his life. He probably answers to anything and everything, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Mum, says Jenny, are you OK, would you like to play scrabble, I’m sorry if you’re sad.
She deserves better, I think, that girl of mine, a better mum and certainly a better grandma for that little baby, Tree or Writing Desk or whatever it is they’re going to call her. Or him. I make an attempt at a smile. Even if I could talk, I wouldn’t tell Jenny all of it. There’s so much she doesn’t need to know. I mime at her that I’m tired, putting my head towards my shoulder like babies do when they want to sleep. She doesn’t look too disappointed.
I hate scrabble anyway, it always reminds me of him, Alain, when we were young and Jenny was in her cot. Such a minefield it was. I trained myself to put down my second choice of words, always my second choice, so that my score wouldn’t be too high. It didn’t do to be competitive with him, always got him mad. I remember one time he accused me of ‘closing off the board’ as if that wasn’t the aim of the game. He upturned the whole thing and made me eat one of the tiles. No more scrabble, Jenny.
Would you like to sleep, Mum, Jenny says, shall I leave you so that you can rest.
I’m torn. I’m a lonely old woman, I would like to shout, don’t leave me here, all on my own. I don’t, of course. Those kind of thoughts are always better kept inside.
You go, I try to say. It comes out more like, go, and I can see that Jenny is hurt but I can’t help that, I can’t explain it away or make it better. She’ll have to manage on her own now.
She bends to kiss me and I get a pang, one of those feelings of sadness that come on suddenly, an emotional heart attack. If I wasn’t so damn sensible I might mistake it for a premonition, it’s that strong.
Jenny, I say into her neck. She seems to understand, she’s very empathetic, my girl.
Mum, she says, it’ll be alright, don’t worry.
I’m a mess for a while after she’s gone. Crying, snuffling, that sort of thing. I can’t reach the tissues so I have to stop in the end or I’ll have no sleeve left. I can’t be doing that when Jackie will probably drop by in her wedding finery. I try to sort my hair out with one hand, tidy myself up as much as I can. She’ll probably want a photo with me. I’m sure she will, seeing as I couldn’t go. I don’t want to let the side down too much, I’ve got to look respectable. I’m just wondering whether to ask the carers to change my top for the one I wore at Christmas, the glittery one, when there’s a soft knock on the door and it’s Trevor. I haven’t seen him much since I told him what I told him. I thought maybe that when he went away and ruminated on it, he might have decided I was bonkers. I wouldn’t blame him.
Hey, he says, my favourite girl, and as soon as I look at him I can see that he’s been ill.
I haven’t been too well, he says, I’ve got to have some bits and pieces done to my bits and pieces.
What, I say.
He understands that it’s a wider question.
Well, he says, and he starts counting on his fingers.
I can see what he must have been like when he was a little lad.
One, I’ve got lots of fluid on my lungs, that’s why I’m breathless all the time apparently, he says.
I can hear how breathless he is now.
I thought, he says, I thought it was because I’m just so excited all the time, that was why I couldn’t get my breath, but apparently, would you believe it, he stops for a wheeze, apparently it’s something to do with smoking for fifty years.
I try not to look too horrified but it’s difficult. Trevor seems to have shrunk somehow, folded in on himself.
Who knew, he says in a jolly and raspy voice, who on earth knew that smoking was bad for you? I’m sure no one told me.
This makes him laugh so much that he starts coughing and can’t get his breath. It’s like a cough of death, a cough that starts somewhere in the body it should never be. I can’t do anything, I have to sit and not watch and pretend everything is normal. When did it get this bad? How could I not have noticed?
Two, he says when he’s finished coughing, two I need to have a little op to drain the fluid. Then they’re going to test it to make sure it’s nothing nasty. I suppose that’s three.
I know I won’t be able to get any words out so I hold my hand up instead in a kind of, what the hell, motion.
I may be dying, dear, Trevor says, but I’m damned well going to do it in a stylish way. Dying of Gauloises, would you Adam and Eve it? I thought smoking was a good hobby, kept me off the streets.
I can see in his eyes that he’s putting on a brave show but he doesn’t really mean any of it. He’s frightened and I’d like to get out of this bloody chair and give him a hug but I can’t. I think he knows.
Honest, don’t worry about me, dear, he says, I’ve had a longer innings than most of my compadres. I’ve outlived nearly all of the clever ones, the pretty ones, the wild ones, I’m not going to complain that it’s my time. I’m not going to have chemo, and go through all that indignity, ooh, none of that, dear. What on earth would happen if I lost my hair?
He smooths his hand over his head and I can’t help laughing, because of course he hasn’t got any hair, hardly a single one on his whole head.
Now, he says, let’s talk about more important stuff. The fairy queen has married the wicked, wicked prince today, am I right?
I nod.
And we haven’t managed to tell her, warn her off, in any way at all?
I shake my head.
Blimey, he says, we are in a pickle.
I adore that he says, we. I can manage anything with him, I think, anything at all.
Does she really need to know, he says through a cough.
I nod, trying to make it as emphatic as I can. Of course she needs to know, I want to say, he might hurt her.
OK, he says, is he really a bad ’un, May, only he looks a bit simple to me, a silly sad old man.
Another nod, so hard my neck hurts. I grab my pen and try to write, violent, only my hand won’t work properly after the vio part. Trevor gets it anyway.
Well I’ve seen a lot of things, dear, he says, and one thing I know for certain is, leopards don’t change their spots.
He looks so tired, Trevor, so tired and ill. I can see him squaring his shoulders, trying to make himself ready for the fray and I’m so sorry that I brought this into his life, sorry and angry with Bill for popping up again when I thought he was done with.
I’ll do it, he says, I’ll tell her, better late than never. It’s got to be done. She comes to see me sometimes, when I’m not well, I’ll make sure I’m in my room tomorrow and she’ll come then. Don’t worry. They’re not going on a honeymoon or anything are they?
I shrug. I have no idea. My best friend, and I don’t even know if she’s going on a honeymoon. She should have told me. That’s what friends are for.
Trevor starts coughing again and I feel guilty.
S’OK, I manage to
say. I’m so surprised that it came out OK that I say it again, s’OK. I make a motion to go with it, a go away, be gone motion with my good hand. It comes out much wider than I intended and I knock over the water jug, which drenches Trevor’s trousers on the way to the floor.
I shriek a bit, my nerves are jangled and I’m very sorry to have done that to Trevor but he says he’s OK, says it doesn’t matter but he has to go and change and I’m sorry to see him go. We haven’t even made a proper plan yet.
Bye-bye dear, he says, I’ve got to go and change or people will think I didn’t get to the little boys’ room on time.
Agnita comes in then. We’ve never really got a great friendship going, me and Agnita. I try, no one can say I don’t try, but she seems to be set against me in some ways. I don’t think she likes me, and that’s OK, no one can like everyone, can they? It’s just that if you’re stuck in here like I am and your only contact sometimes is your mentor friend, it’s hard when that mentor friend thinks that you’re a pile of shite. There really isn’t any other way to put it.
Oh dear, she says, have we had another accident.
It’s hard to think of what to say, especially when you can’t speak. Best just to stay quiet, I think.
The thing about friends is, she says, we must be happy for our friends when they’re happy. Envy is a terrible thing now May.
I’m puzzled for a moment and then I realise, she thinks I splashed the water on purpose because Jackie got married. The thought of it makes me laugh out loud. As if. If I wanted to protest, I think, you’d know all about it, so don’t you worry your little head about that. There’s nothing I can do though, I can’t tell her she’s wrong, or show her that I’m a nice person really or anything. All I can do is sit there and go limp, so that I don’t help her in any way to clean up. I don’t even lift my arm or my leg.
Jackie is happy, Agnita says in a sing-song voice, like she’s telling me a fairy story. Don’t you know that fairy stories have wicked trolls in them, I think. I think it so hard that I make a noise, a noise like a troll.
None of that now, Agnita says in her soft accent, you just be glad for her. She hasn’t had an easy life.
I’m getting so angry here I could burst. Easy life. Who the hell has had an easy life, and what’s that got to do with anything. I can see that I’ll get no help at all from Agnita, even though she’s supposed to be the person I can talk to. If I told Agnita that Jackie has actually got herself shackled to a bigamist, a wife batterer, a violent and unpredictable man she’d say, now now, no need for that sort of nonsense. I know she would.
He may not be George Clooney, Agnita says, but they’re happy, and that’s worth something at any time of life.
I’m more miserable than ever when Agnita has gone. At least I don’t have to listen to her words of wisdom any more, all that stuff about how good friends are like rare pebbles on the beach or gold to a gold miner or something. She gets her metaphors mixed as well as having crap judgement about people, that’s for sure. But sometimes having someone to talk to, even if they talk rubbish, is better than having no one to talk to at all. Especially if you can’t talk.
I’m sitting on my own in my room, feeling hot and waiting for the sun to go down. And for Jackie to come to see me, maybe take some wedding day pictures together, girly ones without him in them at all. I can’t settle and I get this feeling that something is going to happen, like the feeling in the air before a storm. Maybe that’s it, I think, this is a storm warning, nothing more, and I look out of my window again at the rabbits.
When I turn back into the room he’s there. Bill. Alain. The old man. The husband.
Hello, he says, did you hear my news.
I grope for my buzzer. It’s usually round my neck but Agnita took it off when she was sorting me out and we both forgot to put it back. I can see it on the table over my bed. Bill can see it too.
Lovely news, he says, I’ve gone and got wed.
I don’t say anything. I keep looking at the door as if that will make Jackie appear.
Never too late, he says, aren’t you going to congratulate me.
There’s a smirk on his face and a tilt to his head that I don’t like. I recognise them, but I don’t like them one bit.
I point to my mouth, shaking my head to remind him I can’t speak but it’s as if he never knew that.
Speak up, he says, I can’t hear you. He’s laughing as he says it and I can feel a familiar knot of fear, deep down where it always used to live. You can live most of your life thinking I’d gone, the fear thing says, but I was here all along, waiting for you. How do you like that?
I try to say, Jackie. In a questioning tone, keeping things light.
Sorry, he says, haven’t got a clue what you’re saying. Poor old dear. I probably shouldn’t have come, but Jackie’s tired and I thought you’d want to know our news. I’d have been in time to see your lovely daughter if I’d been a bit quicker, that’s always a bonus, eh, even for an old married man.
I turn my head to the side. I can’t bear him to speak of Jenny. He gets up out of his chair and starts walking towards me. I lean as far back as I can in my chair. It’s the only thing I can do. There’s an extra sense I developed years ago, when I needed it, and I feel it cranking up. It’s the sense of knowing when someone is going to hurt me. Of knowing when Alain was going to hurt me. I couldn’t always avoid it, it wasn’t even always best to try to avoid it, but knowing was better than not knowing. At least I could prepare, take deep breaths, make sure I guarded my teeth, that kind of thing.
He’s coming towards me and it’s slow, he’s old, but there’s also that slow motion thing that happens when you’re very scared. Time slows right down. Not like this, I think, I don’t want to die like this, sitting in a chair in a nursing home, unable to call for help or protect myself. I wet myself, I can feel the warmth. I shrink back and he lifts his left hand towards me and that’s it. I reach out to push him away. Push him, that’s all I want to do, one big shove and he’ll be down on the floor where he belongs.
It doesn’t work the first time, my arm only moves a little and he’s saying something about the ring and he’s so close I can smell his disgusting sewer breath and see his yellow old teeth. Snaggle teeth.
Get away from me, I try to say only of course it doesn’t come out like anything recognisable.
My ring, he’s saying, something about his ring but he’s too close and I can’t bear it and my arm comes out without me even asking it to, it pops out from my side like it’s got a life of its own and he’s small, he’s weak, he goes down easily. If he’d been that frail when we were young, I think, my life might have been different. He’s on the floor right in front of my chair and he’s gasping like a silly fish, flopping around like one too. It’s sad when you see a fish out of water and trying to get back in. No amount of flopping is going to help them. I just want him to stop it, stop the gasping and flopping so I act on instinct. My instincts are still quite fast but my body isn’t so it takes me a little while to lift my foot high enough to stamp on his face. An old person’s stamp, the stamp of a slipper not a shoe, but a stamp nonetheless.
If he was functioning properly, he’d have no problem pushing me off. No problem at all but he seems to be having some trouble breathing, and his hands are flapping and clawing at the air so I just keep my foot down, try and get him calm. I’ve got big feet, always have had so it’s no trouble to cover his mouth and nose, keep him quiet.
He’s making all sorts of noises but they’re quiet noises, gurgles and grunts and that’s good. When he quietens down, then I’ll talk to him, explain that I know who he is, all of that. It’s a familiar feeling, this, I’m not sure why.
We’ll never be friends, I’ll say, but we can at least avoid each other, stay away. You need to think about your behaviour, I’ll say, like I used to with the kids at school. Just think about it. My foot seems to have gone into some kind of spasm now, I can’t get it off his face even though he’s quiet. Best
just to wait.
There will be a carer along any minute.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
July 1978
Pimlico
Alain was kind to May while she was convalescing. Kind enough to unsettle her, make her wonder what was going to happen next, kind enough to frighten her. He brought cups of tea without being asked, looked after Jenny, and chatted like a normal person. She hadn’t seen the scary Alain for ages, and she wondered all the time, night and day, when he was coming back.
‘You look loads better now,’ said Joan, ‘do you feel it?’
Joan had dropped by for a cup of tea. May had seen her a couple of times in the last few days, and although they were not yet friends, she was glad of the company while Alain was out. He had said he was going jogging. He’d hardly been out on his own the whole summer so May didn’t feel she could say anything, but the old fear of what he was doing and where he was only just below the surface and it didn’t take long to emerge.
‘I’m not sure,’ May said. She was grateful for Joan’s company, but she couldn’t help thinking that she was the wrong person. It wasn’t Joan’s fault, but May wished above all that she could talk to Helen. Joan was nice, and well-meaning, but she didn’t have a child and May was sure she would never have a violent partner. She wore clothes that were artfully simple, and she would never understand the fear that gripped May’s stomach whenever Alain was in the room.
‘He seems so nice, your Al,’ said Joan. ‘I wasn’t sure at first, but I can see that he’s really devoted to Jenny.’
May wished that Joan would leave, get up and go back to her tasteful flat and take her swirly grey skirt with her. Could Alain be having an affair with her? As well as Sue, whoever she was?
Or is that all a massive shoal of red herrings? May thought. Am I just taking my mind away from the real problem, the fear and the need to be on the alert at all times? She couldn’t possibly tell Joan about the beatings and the way she was too scared to sleep sometimes. Or the fear, the terrible fear and the not knowing. Or even the earrings, the earrings with the slip of paper that had gone now, the slip of paper that she might have imagined, she was no longer sure.
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