by Emma Morgan
‘Your cousin Helen’s getting married, did I tell you?’ she asked Sam as she handed round the cups of tea, without asking Grace if she took milk or sugar.
‘No,’ said Sam.
‘They’re having a marquee in the garden which I’m never sure is a good idea because if it rains you’re all stuck inside, and I can’t stand portaloos. And, of course, they’ll be wanting to have children soon, won’t they, Rupert?’
‘At least they’re doing things the right way round,’ he said.
‘Oh yes, it’s awful isn’t it when children have to go to their own parents’ wedding. It’s not right.’
‘Not right at all.’
‘And Lucy, you know Lucy, Susan’s daughter from the end of the road, well, she’s having a little one soon, isn’t she, Rupert?’
‘Must be about ready to pop by the look of her.’
‘Susan’s so excited. She’s over the moon. She wants it to be called Rosemary after her mother, doesn’t she, Rupert? You like that name, don’t you?’
‘Traditional.’
Grace ate the ginger cake as neatly as she could and drank the Earl Grey out of the bone china. Sam sat there fiddling with cake crumbs and didn’t even look at Grace, while her mother asked about what to do with her borders and told her other bits of family news. Grace stuffed herself on the cake, the names of aunts, and the occupations of cousins. Sam’s father continued to stare at Grace, Sam’s mother to witter on. Grace felt the sweat running down her spine and her head starting to itch. She resisted the urge to scratch and wondered if there was any point her speaking at all. She decided not and nobody seemed to notice. It was as though she wasn’t there until Sam’s mother suddenly asked her, after not having asked her anything about herself, if she wanted to look at the photo albums. There were page upon page of Sams. A regular, labelled progression of them. Not like her own family’s messy faded scrapbooks where children temporarily disappeared for months or years, as though fostered out for a while in a Dickensian poverty moment. For the first time, she understood that being an only child must be like being under a microscope. All that attention focused on you. This is Samantha on the beach in Dorset. This is Samantha playing in the garden. This is Samantha getting her A level results. She realized then why she was being shown them – this is what Samantha looked like before she took up with the likes of you. Sam’s mother was subtler than she had thought. Those albums were a shrine to a daughter they used to have, before she went astray. Grace wanted to ask if she could take the albums home with her but she couldn’t see any of them agreeing to that. To her disappointment, she couldn’t even manage to pocket one photo. Sam said she had to get back for work tomorrow. Her parents didn’t ask her how was work. It wasn’t just Grace whose life was being brushed over. Grace half wanted to say something rude along the lines of, ‘Your daughter likes pussy then?’ and the thought nearly made her laugh. She smothered her smile and went to shake hands again when they left. Sam’s father’s grip was painful this time.
‘It was so hot,’ said Grace, as they drove back up the motorway. ‘Is it always that hot?’
‘Yes,’ said Sam, and looked out of the window. She said nothing else for the whole journey until she indicated a layby and Grace pulled over.
‘Are you OK?’ Grace said. ‘Do you feel sick?’
Sam said nothing, just put her hand on the top button of Grace’s jeans and unbuttoned it.
‘Here?’ said Grace. ‘But there are cars.’
Sam put her mouth on Grace’s neck and bit hard enough to make Grace squeak. They did things to each other in the back seat that Sam’s father would have turned grey at, but Sam never said a word. They drove the rest of the way home in silence until Sam said, ‘Can you drop me off at mine?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace.
As Sam got out of the car Grace said, ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘OK,’ said Sam, who looked very tired.
‘Why did you take me there?’
Sam shrugged.
‘Just thought you might like to come,’ she said, and she shut the door and went into her house, leaving Grace with the engine still running. I hadn’t finished my questions, thought Grace. I’ve just endured hours of driving plus hours of low-level aggression for nothing but some good ginger cake. You could at least say thank you. By the time she had got home though, Grace had made allowances for parental stress. No wonder Sam wasn’t keen on families; who could blame her. She couldn’t work out why Sam had taken her, though. As a buffer, to take some of the heat off her? Was that a very selfish thing to do or just a sensible one? Or was it to punish her parents? To shove it up their noses? That was a possibility too. Thank God I didn’t have to grow up like that, she thought. Thank God for Cyril and Beatrice. Or perhaps Sam did it to hurt her? She ignored the last thought.
This is Annie listening to Laurence asking for more
This time he asked when they were in bed and Annie, thinking about it later, thought how clever this was. They were lying together in that companionable silence after sex, the silence that in the past had always made Annie want to get up and leave. She didn’t mind though being cuddled like this, she didn’t even object to Laurence stroking her hair when normally she would have told him in no uncertain terms to stop that at once before he ruined it. She could have done with a cigarette but Laurence didn’t know she smoked and she had decided to leave him with this illusion. He stopped stroking her hair and laced his fingers through hers.
‘Annie,’ he said, ‘you are wonderful. I think you are the most wonderful woman I have ever met. So beautiful. So intelligent. And above all so understanding.’
Am I? thought Annie, who was gratified to find a new positive character trait in herself.
‘Such a kind woman.’
And the words, ‘What do you want?’ came into Annie’s head but she managed not to say them. And then she felt something wet on the top of her head. She looked up and the wet fell on to her forehead. He was crying. She disentangled herself from him and sat up.
‘Are you crying?’ she asked, although it was a stupid question because he obviously was.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and took a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry, Annie,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘For everything,’ he said and turned his face away from her.
‘Look at me,’ she said, and he turned his face back. She pulled up the sheet and wiped his eyes. ‘Don’t blow your nose on this though,’ she said. ‘It’s Egyptian.’
He managed a small smile.
‘What’s going on then? You might as well tell me.’
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘You can,’ she said.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I need a drink though first.’
‘Come on then,’ she said and got out of bed and put on her dressing gown. He got out the other side and put on his boxers and his shirt. They went into the kitchen where Annie got gin and tonic and lemons out of the fridge. She rinsed already clean glasses and found the ice and cracked the tray against the counter. Laurence caught a cube in his hand.
‘Give me that,’ said Annie. ‘Don’t go all dramatic and suffering on me. What’s going on?’
She passed him a drink and he took a large swig and then put the glass down on the counter.
‘I’m in a mess,’ he said.
‘What kind of mess?’
‘A financial mess.’
‘How big?’ she asked.
‘Enough,’ he said, ‘big enough.’
‘How much do you need this time?’
He looked surprised.
‘No, Annie, that’s not what I’m asking. I regret asking for money last time, it was totally uncalled for, I should never have taken advantage of your generosity like that.’
‘Drug habit?’ she asked.
‘No, nothing like that!’ and he looked genuinely shocked.
‘Sexual preferences I know nothing about. Dungeons. Wh
ips?’
‘God no, Annie! No, no,’ and he almost laughed.
‘What then?’
‘Stupidity. Financial imprudence. I live way beyond my means, my portfolio has taken a bashing and so I can’t rinse anything out of that, interest rates have gone up so the mortgage is taking a hike in the wrong direction, I have an old car that eats up petrol. It all adds up. And I’m not doing wonderfully at work, so there’s no chance of a rise there. It’s a mess as I said.’
‘Sounds like it,’ she said, and she crossed her arms.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘that you should see me like this. I should never … I mean crying? I haven’t cried since I was twelve and I got thrown off jumping a water obstacle.’
‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of. These things happen.’
‘I’m sure they don’t happen to you.’
‘Maybe not. But you never know, do you? Right then. What can I do to help you? How much do you need?’
‘But I can’t pay you back. At least not right away.’
‘I know you’re not going to do a flit.’
‘How do you know that?’ he said.
‘I just know,’ and she went over to him and put her arms around him. ‘And anyway, you paid me back before, didn’t you? I know you’ll pay me back again. How much do you need?’
‘I’m so embarrassed.’
‘You already said that, Laurence. You need to tell me.’
‘A lot.’
‘A lot a lot?’
‘Enough.’
‘How much?’
‘I need twenty thousand,’ he said.
She was surprised but she couldn’t go back now.
‘I’ll get it sorted out in the morning,’ she heard herself saying.
He held on to her tight. Her shoulder was damp with his tears. I am kind. I am understanding. I am generous. Who knew? Annie thought.
This is when it starts to go seriously downhill for Grace and Sam
And then, well, it went very wrong. Grace could pinpoint the day it became obvious that things were not as they should be. They were in Sam’s bedroom and Sam was lying on the bed, arms up and hands behind her head. One knee up and one knee down. Wearing a pair of old green shorts dragged down low on her hips. Grace could see her hipbones sticking out over the top of them. The heating was at a ridiculous temperature like Sam liked it and Grace was too hot and hating the fact that she was in love with all of Sam. It was something she had never said to her and she wanted to be able to. She wanted to interrupt her with the most ordinary of sentences, to see if she could get a smile out of her, not a smile because anything was funny, a smile as a gift, a smile to show that she saw her, that her entry into the room did more than shift the sauna air around. Then it would have been easy. It would have been like a gate opening in a wall and Grace could have walked through it, gone over to her, and held her hand. She would have been able to get the words out and Grace needed them out of her like a bee sting. They were making her dizzy; she could feel them lining up behind her teeth like a marching band, the tall ‘I’ the leader. Holding them in was making her lips numb. I. Love. You. Not that hard to say surely? But she couldn’t get them out. They were not words they had ever exchanged and Grace’s greatest fear was to say her part and to be left hanging because ‘I love you. I love you too’ is a complete and perfect sentence and anything else would be a banishment to a world where Sam definitely didn’t love her, a world that she couldn’t bear to think about being in. The indentations of Sam’s ribs. That hollow muscle that pulled vertically in between them. A muscle whose name Grace had never known. She moved into the doorway. Sam looked up. She didn’t smile.
‘Cup of tea?’ asked Grace instead of saying what she needed to say.
‘I’ll make it,’ Sam said, ‘wasn’t doing anything anyway,’ and she got off the bed and put on the T-shirt that was lying on the chair.
‘What were you thinking about?’ Grace asked as Sam left the room.
‘Nothing,’ she said, and her voice came back from along the hall like a lingering smoke trail. Grace sat on the bed waiting and thinking, waiting and thinking, but Sam never returned. Eventually she got up and went into the living room where Sam was looking at a book.
‘What are you doing now?’ Grace asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Sam, not glancing up.
Grace chewed her lip.
‘Walk?’ asked Grace.
‘OK.’
They went to the park and in the park, it was worse. Halfway round Grace realized that Sam hadn’t brought her a cup of tea and she wanted to say this to her but she didn’t because it would have come out as an accusation or a complaint and she wouldn’t have meant it like that. They walked on, hands in pockets, their own separate pockets. Sam was wearing green and red striped gloves and Grace was wearing grey ones and she didn’t ask Sam to hold her hand because she knew that she wouldn’t want to and now love and tea and the containment of the words were all mixed up in her head and the tears started coming up the back of her throat and she was tired and she wanted to sit down on a bench and cry into the wool of her gloves. But she didn’t sit down in case Sam walked away, kept on going, and she was faced with the humiliating choice of running after her or of staying put and watching the dusk come in on her own. To the imaginary tea question was added an imaginary ‘Why didn’t you wait for me’ as they walked on. I love you Sam, Grace wanted to say, love love love Sam Sam Sam like an echo, but she couldn’t reach her, she was gagging on her own sentences, there were pains in her chest where her heart was drowning, she could hardly breathe. She stopped.
‘I need to catch my breath,’ said Grace and stood lightly panting in the frosty air.
‘It’s cold,’ Sam said, and hunched her shoulders and tapped her feet on the path.
‘Yes. Very.’ Grace couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘I think I want to be on my own tonight, got stuff to do,’ Sam said.
No! thought Grace. No! No!
‘Right, yeah, fine,’ she said. ‘Me too. See you tomorrow?’
‘I’ve got stuff on this week,’ said Sam, stamping her feet now to keep warm.
‘Yeah, me too.’
Where were these crappy lies coming from? Why didn’t Grace tell her the truth? I want you to come and live with me and be mine for evermore. No, it didn’t sound too good in her head either. She managed not to shout it out though.
‘I’ll go back to mine then,’ Grace said.
‘OK,’ said Sam and shrugged her shoulders.
You are nothing to me, Grace interpreted the shrug as. She was the body language expert on Sam, or so she liked to believe. She liked to think that she now knew more about Sam than anybody. But what if she didn’t know anything about her at all.
They faced each other at the end of the park like duellists. But Sam would always win.
‘Bye then,’ she said, and walked off. Grace stood there and stuffed her gloved hand into her mouth to stop herself from shouting out to her. A woman hand in hand with a small child passed by.
‘Why’s that lady got her glove in her mouth?’ asked the child.
‘Because this is not good,’ Grace would have said but the mother had already picked the child up and hurried off.
This is Violet and her bedroom wall (I)
Annie had been brought up to speak her mind. Violet had been raised to do the exact opposite, not to lie exactly, but to spare people’s feelings. So that Annie, given something too small as a present, would say, ‘Thank you. I’ll have to take it back though because it’s not my size and doesn’t go with anything,’ whereas Violet would say, ‘It’s lovely. What a beautiful colour!’ and hide it at the back of a drawer. This had led to many ructions in the past and to Annie shouting, ‘Would you say what you bloody well mean for once! I want to sort this out. Don’t you?’
‘I do. I do. But I can’t cope with the shouting.’
‘But the shouting adds to the fun!’
‘Arguments
aren’t fun!’ Violet said as quietly as she could.
‘You wait till we get to the plate throwing!’ shouted Annie.
But now the drama had turned to apparent indifference. They hardly saw each other and when they passed in the hall Annie looked right through her. It should have been that a toned-down Annie would make life a smoother place to skate along but it didn’t. It just made it lonely. Violet didn’t know what to do about it. Should she throw things at Annie? Should she do something heinous like mix up the food on their shelves or hide Annie’s hairbrush or leave toothpaste smeared all over the bathroom sink? Maybe the best thing to do would be to bring Sam home with her and see what happened? But then Annie might have a go at Sam and that wasn’t fair and anyway that might put Sam off her and she didn’t want that.
She went to Sam’s not only because she enjoyed the sex but for the company she couldn’t get anywhere else. They still hardly ever went out and Sam seemed to be a creature of habit, they almost always saw each other on weekdays and Violet liked that; she admired people who had proper timetables and habits. She liked Sam’s flat too and appreciated the fact that nothing much seemed to be expected of her when she was there. Unlike home, there weren’t a lot of rules to be complied with, which felt strange at first but then relaxing. The tea towels were sometimes even unchanged for days. There was shower mould. Sam paid more attention to her jungle of plants than to the sponging of surfaces. They didn’t always have sex either, it didn’t seem to be a condition of Violet being there. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes instead of sex or before or after they did other things. They read books in companionable silence; Sam had lots of bookshelves and it was fun for Violet to sit and pull books out of them. She could leave them on the floor as well. She was even allowed to not use a bookmark. They listened to Bob Dylan on Sam’s record player and they played Old Maid, which Sam had taught her. Often Violet sat by the coffee table and drew with a packet of pencils and a pad of watercolour paper that Sam had thoughtfully provided in case Violet had forgotten her sketchbook, and Sam gave her food that was easy to eat, like breadsticks and cream cheese, so that she didn’t have to stop. Sometimes drawings came upon her like that – with an urgency that couldn’t be denied. When she couldn’t find paper, she’d do them on napkins or the blankest page of a magazine.