How It Was

by Janet Ellis

  ‘Who’s this?’ the Bobbie girl said, pointing at me.

  ‘Hello, Bobbie darling.’ Adrian leaned across and took the glass from his daughter’s hand. ‘I’ll take this. Say a nice hello to Sarah’s mummy and daddy.’

  ‘Nice hello to Sarah’s mummy and daddy,’ she said in a baby voice.

  ‘Jeez, drunk kids are so dull.’ He came closer to her and sniffed theatrically into her face. ‘Just hooch? No weed?’

  Bobbie rolled her eyes. ‘Just al-co-hol,’ she said carefully. ‘Lots of it. That’s why she’s pissed herself.’ She spun Sarah round to reveal a long stain like a dark, wet tail.

  Sarah continued to revolve in an unsteady circle until she faced us again. Her hands went to her face, she held on to her chin and breathed hard.

  Adrian put his hands on her shoulders. ‘It’s okay,’ he said.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against him. He moved his arms around her back.

  I felt hot tears swell behind my eyelids. I wanted to pull the two of them apart with great force, scratching at their hands. ‘Michael,’ I said angrily. ‘Get hold of her. Take her home.’

  Michael put his head on one side and looked at them as if separating them was a difficult puzzle.

  Adrian whispered something in Sarah’s ear.

  ‘Sarah?’ Michael said. ‘Sarah, come along. Let’s get in the car.’

  She didn’t respond. The party swirled around us, people continued conversations and yelled goodbyes across the landing and down the stairs.

  ‘Sarah!’ I said loudly. Everything seemed to have gone into slow motion.

  Eventually, Sarah raised her head. She looked very young. Michael took her hand and prised her gently away from Adrian’s embrace. She smiled at him, but she didn’t look at me at all. With her father on one side and Adrian on the other, she allowed herself to be led down the stairs.

  In the hallway, our progress was impeded by a knot of people attempting to leave. We were mired in a tangle of retrieving coats and last-minute conversations. Adrian’s wife extracted herself from the crowd. She looked as if she had spent the evening somewhere else, drinking only cold water. If you were choosing features out of a box to assemble a face, you would never have put that long nose under those wide, slightly protruding eyes. And if you had, you might have hesitated to include that small mouth. She regarded us through enormous glasses, as square as little televisions. Round her neck was a black velvet choker, studded with little cloth flowers. She was beautiful. Sarah suddenly slumped forward at the waist and I had to use both arms to stop her from falling.

  ‘Hello everyone, how marvellous to find you!’ Sheila greeted us as if we were all assembled for her benefit. In the dishevelled unravelling of the evening, she was preserved intact, like a fly in amber. Her husband hovered behind her, a satellite in the orbit of its large planet. ‘It’s been such fun,’ Sheila said, ignoring the way I held Sarah in a wrestling grip. ‘How lovely that the children came, too.’ She smiled at Sarah as if she were a four-year-old in a velvet party dress. ‘Now that you’ve all met,’ she said, clutching her bag to her bosom with both hands, ‘I’ll arrange a dinner party.’

  This is how she does it, I thought. There’s no subtlety, no cunning. She just bosses the world into the shape she wants it to be.

  Sarah leaned so hard against me that I had to take several quick steps to keep my balance.

  ‘Goodbye, Adrian. Thank you,’ said Michael, polite to the last.

  I felt a pang at the niceness of him. What a useless quality it was, like a silk scarf when you need a fur coat or an umbrella in a hurricane.

  We lumbered out of the front door like an awkward, six-legged beast. We had to half drag Sarah up the drive, her shoes ploughing deep furrows along the gravel, then force her onto the back seat. Her inert limbs stuck straight out in front of her as though she were in the first stages of rigor mortis. Circling the car to climb in, I looked back to see Adrian holding something large and shapeless out towards me.

  With a gasp of grateful recognition, I leapt away from the car. ‘My coat,’ I said over my shoulder to Michael, who was still coercing his daughter’s legs into bending. I ran up to Adrian so fast I almost tripped.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, catching me by the arm. The gesture seemed so tender that I couldn’t speak. ‘Isn’t this yours? I thought I’d seen you wear it.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you have, it’s mine,’ I said. I was ridiculously pleased that he’d remembered.

  ‘Is she going to be okay?’ He pointed into the dark drive to where Michael and Sarah wrestled unseen.

  ‘Sarah?’ I said. ‘Yes, of course. As long as she isn’t sick everywhere. Adrian, listen,’ I said, standing on tiptoe to whisper to him. ‘You know what you said? About going away?’ I thought he looked momentarily bemused, but it couldn’t have been because he’d forgotten. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me properly.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said and began to help me on with my coat.

  ‘Yes, I will!’ I said. ‘I’ll come away with you. For a night.’ Saying it aloud made it seem entirely possible.

  ‘That’s great!’ said Adrian. He made a move towards the door. A man with beads and a Jesus beard forced us apart by hugging Adrian, rocking him from side to side in his embrace. Adrian looked surprised to see me still standing there as they separated.

  ‘Come over on Monday, so that we can plan,’ I said.

  He hesitated. In that split second, I felt as if I were out of my depth with miles of deep water beneath me. He nodded.

  When I got back into the car beside Michael, I was breathless. ‘You okay?’ he said, but I didn’t reply. I began to feel the sadness of impending sobriety.

  ‘God,’ said Sarah, registering us both. ‘What is that smell? Something stinks of hippy stuff, it’s like being in Ken Market.’

  ‘Could have been any number of suspects,’ Michael said, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘Quite a few leftover beatniks there.’

  ‘Beatniks!’ Sarah snorted.

  I sank lower in my seat. The dark lanes swallowed us up. I could only see Michael’s face when it was revealed in the occasional flash of an oncoming car’s headlights.

  The hallway was in darkness when we got home. The babysitter emerged blinking; she had no shoes on and had obviously been asleep.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ said Michael.

  I went to fetch the girl’s things. I wanted her out of the house as fast as possible. There were discarded biscuit wrappers on the sofa. ‘Here!’ I handed her the shoes and a floppy velvet bag. Sarah slunk past us and went up the stairs without a word.

  ‘Nice time?’ said the girl, putting on her shoes and not looking at anyone in particular.

  I crept past Sarah’s closed door and into Eddie’s room. His nightlight wasn’t on. I flicked the switch to let the china rabbits sit round their fire. Eddie lay asleep with his eyes closed. They were as smooth as if they’d been drawn on his skin. His mouth was open. In one hand, he held something that caught the light. I bent to examine it. It was a necklace. It was mine. He must have chosen one for me, after all. I’d run from the house earlier, so eager to leave that I hadn’t even said goodnight. I looked at him, taking in the tiny chaos of his rumpled sheets and bitten fingernails, waiting for my heart to break. I felt as if I was testing the sharp point of regret with the tip of one finger. There was nothing, everything was worn smooth. I had filed all the splinters of my guilt away.

  Chapter 62

  9 October

  Jeff has a tiny bubble car. Instead of having doors, the front of it opens up. When we sat inside and he closed it, it was as if he were pulling a bedspread over us. Bobbie was giggling in this really annoying way as he drove. She talked to him in a baby voice and I thought that if we’d only just met, I probably wouldn’t bother to say anything to her. Even though he was wearing a cheesecloth shirt and his hair curled over his neck, Jeff made me think of the boy who sits in the front of the accountant’s office on the high street. We have
to pass him every week, on the way to the hockey pitch. We’re already in our games kit. Some of my class walk really close to the window and mouth ‘hello’ or flick their skirts at him, to tease him. He’s probably the same age as we are, but he ignores us and gets on with his work. He looks dull. If you put Jeff in a suit like his and cut his hair, he’d look boring, too. I had to sit behind them, squeezed on to a little ledge where you could hardly fit a suitcase, let alone a whole person. I had pins and needles in one leg when I got out.

  The music was really loud. I could see the silhouettes of the people in the neighbouring houses close to their windows, getting ready to complain. Bobbie grabbed my hand. ‘We’ve got to find Adam,’ she said. I wanted to get my bearings first and see who else was there, but there was no escape. She held on to me all the way into the kitchen and grabbed two bottles of cider. She told me to drink it straight away. I tried, but it’s hard to get fizzy stuff down you quickly. She watched me carefully, but she wasn’t drinking the second one herself. It was for me. She was saying something, but the music drowned her out.

  She mimed to me that the boy called Adam had arrived with big, rolling eyes and fluttering hands like a silent movie star. He was really little, not much taller than me. He was wearing a huge white shirt, so long that the cuffs completely covered his hands. The sleeves on Bobbie’s dress hung over the ends of my arms, too. If we went out together, we’d be like those characters in the fairy tale who are doomed to manage without the use of their fingers. He wore a pair of army-style trousers. They were turned up so much at the bottom that he had to stand with his legs apart. His skin was really pale and his wide-set eyes were a bright, glassy blue. Above them, his brows were permanently raised at the top of his white forehead. It made him look very surprised all the time, as if he’d just been told something awful. He said hi to me and then Bobbie shoved him in the back and he took several steps forward and said hi again, right into my face.

  I drank another cider, because the more I had, the easier it was to swallow. Adam tried to hold my hand but there was too much fabric in the way, so he put his arm round me instead. That was quite awkward too, as he wasn’t tall enough to reach my shoulders comfortably. I could feel the cider muddling my thoughts and making me stumble as I walked.

  The rest of the evening isn’t very clear; it’s like leafing through an album of fuzzy pictures: there’s me and Adam in the garden, him smoking and me feeling quite cold. Here’s Bobbie dancing, twisting her tummy round in circles as if she’s balancing a hula hoop. This is Jeff and Adam taking us up to a bedroom to snog. It was a boy’s room, full of football stuff and a poster of The Godfather on the wall. Bobbie and Jeff sat on the floor and kissed with their eyes tightly shut. Adam found a guitar, rolled up his sleeves and sang ‘Lay, Lady, Lay’ to me, which was excruciating; it has hundreds of verses and I didn’t know where to look. When I did catch his eye, he was doing a kind of smirk. It didn’t go with his startled expression and made him look about four years old. We lay down on the little bed and he slid his mouth around on top of mine. He put his hand on where my breasts were concealed underneath Bobbie’s dress and the training bra. He squeezed one as though it would make a sound. I felt sick, so I concentrated on not being and didn’t move much. Adam gripped various parts of me from time to time, as if he was checking I was still alive.

  The music downstairs stopped suddenly and the next thing we heard were loud, grown-up, sober voices. Bobbie said that someone must have called the police. I looked out of the window to see everyone filing out into the night, as if it was a fire drill. There was no police car in sight, but all the downstairs lights were on and there were a couple of adults marshalling people on to the pavement. I wanted to get my coat, but Bobbie said that was a bourgeois response. When I got downstairs, the first person I saw was Mrs Edgecombe. She was wearing a pink twin set and a peeved expression. I was at primary school with her son, although he was just a name between two others on the register as far as I was concerned. We must have been in his bedroom, lying on his Leeds United duvet and kissing. She said hello, as if it were quite normal for me to be drunk in her hallway at midnight. She said she was sure I wasn’t one of the troublemakers.

  I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to get back into Jeff’s stupid car. But I did really need the loo. We were all standing in a circle – me, Bobbie, Adam, Jeff, Mrs Edgecombe and someone I suppose was Mr E, but he didn’t speak. The hall light was really bright. Mrs E told her husband I used to be in Malcolm’s class. I hoped she wasn’t going to ask me any questions about where I was at school now or how my parents were. No one was moving, it was as if we were all daring each other to leave. Bobbie looked bored and restless. Jeff kept on yawning, showing all his teeth and exhaling with a kind of groan. Adam’s permanently startled expression was appropriate, for once.

  Bobbie suddenly made a dash for the door and Jeff grabbed my arm and pulled me after her. The car door yawned open like his mouth had done and he flung me in clumsily. I wet myself at once with a great surge of joy. I closed my eyes and lay on the little ledge as if it was my bed. I thought they’d take me home. I’d hoped that, if they didn’t, I could sleep where I was till morning, but the car stopped and Bobbie yanked me upright in darkness next to a big house I didn’t recognise. She yelled as her hand found the patch of cold liquid. I felt very heavy and stiff. It took me ages to turn my head to speak to her and, by the time I had, I’d completely forgotten what I was going to say.

  Chapter 63

  I wanted to phone Bridget. I’d rehearsed in my head the conversation I needed to have with her. She’d be delighted to welcome me into the fold. I could imagine her saying, I thought you’d realise eventually that Michael was a boring old codger – you just sort of know, don’t you, especially when you see the alternative. I positioned myself on the little console and looked up Bridget’s telephone number. There were a lot of eights in it and when I started dialling, I wished I could hurry the dial’s return to its starting position each time. It retraced its circle agonisingly slowly. Eventually, I heard the click and whirr of connection, then the telephone rang wherever Bridget lived. There was no answer. With rising dread, I began to realise that Bridget might be out. Or even away.

  ‘Burley 8788,’ said a man’s voice.

  I hadn’t expected that, either. It must be Trevor. I asked for Bridget without preamble.

  ‘Who’s calling?’ said the man.

  ‘Amanda,’ I said. Everyone knew an Amanda, didn’t they?

  ‘Hello?’ Bridget said a moment later, sounding cautious.

  ‘It’s me, Marion.’ I kept my voice low, as if I were the one being overheard.

  ‘Marion? I thought Trevor said “Amanda”. I don’t know anyone called Amanda.’

  ‘Can you talk?’ I said, hoping that Bridget would understand that the phrase was shorthand for: ‘talking without anyone listening’.

  ‘What is it?’ Bridget sounded very suspicious now. Of course, she probably thought I was going to bale out on agreeing to cover for her.

  ‘Everything’s all right,’ I said, stressing the last words to reassure her. ‘But I need to ask you a favour.’

  ‘What sort of favour?’ She still sounded wary.

  ‘Well.’ I twisted the plastic curls of the cord through my fingers. ‘You won’t believe it. But you’ll understand completely. I’m going to go away for a night. With someone. A man. And I want to tell Michael that I’m staying with you.’

  There was a great chasm of silence, as if Bridget had suddenly simply let the phone dangle from her hand. Perhaps Trevor had struck her, after all.

  ‘Bridget?’ I said, several times, fearful that I might be calling her name into thin air.

  ‘Are you joking?’ said Bridget eventually, her voice brittle with anger. ‘Is this a sort of blackmail? Because if it is, it’s not worth it. Trevor knows. He knows everything. You’re too late.’

  ‘Of course, I’m not joking.’ My thoughts raced away and collided with each o
ther. I felt as if I were trying to gather spilled marbles. ‘Bridget! What do you mean? Are you okay?’

  ‘No.’ Bridget was crying now. ‘Marion, I’m sorry, it’s been awful. It’s not your fault.’

  I know it isn’t, I thought, wondering how I could ever have thought phoning Bridget was a good idea. I’d have to tell Adrian that I couldn’t come away after all. I wanted to weep, too.

  ‘Look,’ Bridget said, through a chorus of sniffs and snorts, ‘I’m not being fair. I asked you and you said yes. So I’ll do it for you, if you really want me to. But I’m telling you, Marion, I wish I was dead.’

  ‘Bridget!’ What on earth had happened?

  ‘I’ll call you back,’ Bridget said, before hanging up. I sat with the phone in my hand, inert with disappointment. It wasn’t the end of everything, I told myself. But Bridget’s distress lingered like the aftermath of a headache, an echo of remembered pain.

  Chapter 64

  It’s both predictable and strange how ordinary everything is when I arrive at the hospital. There is no one on the desk. The nurse who comes into view makes no attempt at transition from whatever kept her out of sight to address me. I remind her of why I’m there and she looks at me with a querying archness. It’s as if she registers my grief on an internal meter and measures her response accordingly. He was an ill, old man, she calculates, and this old woman is his match. We must both have expected his death. I had made those assumptions myself, in her place. I would not have thought his seventy-eight years an unreasonable span. She types with her young fingers and tells me where the computer has assigned his belongings. ‘His effects,’ she says. She fetches a bag and hands it to me. His bag. For the first time, I cry. The nurse looks satisfied. This is what I should be doing. ‘You’ll want to see him?’ she says. I follow her to where he lies. For a moment, she waits with me. I’m about to plead for solitude when her pager bleeps. She rushes from the room, apologising, as though the intrusion of the modern world into Michael’s ancient state was a faux pas.