Fifty-Minute Hour

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Shall we kiss it better, then? There, that’s it – all gone now.’ The baby closed his eyes, at last, pressed his tear-wet face against her bosom. ‘Good boy, good little sausage. You sleep now, Brian, all better.’ She settled back herself, smiling round the carriage. That’s all the other poor Bryan needed – a little basic comfort, a little understanding. If it was his birthday this next Friday, then why didn’t she invite him for a birthday tea on Saturday? James would be away the whole weekend at a conference in Scarborough, and all she’d planned to fill the gap was some help with teas (and washing-up) at the Union of Catholic Mothers’ jumble sale. Tea for an AIDS victim was surely more important. Catholic mothers had quite enough already – families, security, free coffee mornings every week, Father Fox on call – whereas infected homosexuals had nothing in their lives save the prospect of the grave.

  If Bryan’s poor mother had never found the time to arrange a children’s party, then she must lay one on herself– a little late in life, perhaps, but some therapies she’d read about did actually encourage a return to early childhood as part of growth and healing. She’d even discovered one amazing case of a sixty-year-old male patient who’d gone back into nappies and been fed three-hourly from a bottle, snuggled on his (female) doctor’s lap. She wouldn’t go that far with Bryan, but was there any reason why he shouldn’t have a birthday cake, and even a few games and things to help pass the afternoon? Of course she couldn’t ask the boys he craved – it just wouldn’t be responsible – but the two of them together could have quite a jolly time, and it would provide a chance for him to talk to her, open up, confide. She had so much help herself these days – John-Paul twice a week must be the equivalent of a whole life of children’s parties, with cakes from Harrods’ bakery and the best conjurors in London – the least she could do was help others in her turn.

  She glanced up at the window as they jolted past Vauxhall. Only two more minutes and they’d be into Waterloo. Had James found a seat, she wondered, when he’d tackled the same journey a whole three hours ago, or been forced to stand on a jam-packed rush-hour train? Poor James. She ought to help him, too, if he were kind enough to keep paying John-Paul’s fees, which would be going up from January, and were pretty high already – that she did admit. But if only he could understand how exceptional the doctor was; how not just wise, distinguished, but sensitive, artistic, and with that really rather thrilling voice, which appeared to issue from somewhere deep inside him, to bypass throat and larynx and well up from his groin.

  She held the baby closer, ran a gentle finger around his open mouth, heard him mew with pleasure. Babies were much easier than husbands. How could she soothe James, make him mew with equal satisfaction, kick his feet ecstatically? Invite Pam and Larry Crawshaw for a really special dinner, which might defuse the tension; or buy him a new putter (except the only money she could use was what he gave her anyway, so it would hardly be a present)? Or how about The Joy of Sex, Volumes One and Two, compressed into a single night, to stagger and astound him, prove the sessions with John-Paul were triumphantly successful; worth double what he charged?

  The problem was would James respond? He’d been so strange these last few weeks, wary and defensive, as if the more she lost her hang-ups, the more his own increased. She couldn’t understand men, especially not the real ones, as compared with those in sex-books. The husband-kind seemed only to desire you when you put up some resistance, offered them a challenge, or a fortress to be scaled. She’d dismantled her defences after a dozen years of barricades and ramparts, and what had happened? James had stopped besieging her, curtailed his nightly forays, appeared even to have lost his own libido (to use John-Paul’s second favourite word). She’d tried at first to blame it on his work, the constant mounting pressure at Holdsworth, Pierce and Hampton – but it could well be her own fault. No good her making overtures unless she got them right. According to the experts, sexual skills took practice, were a bit like GCEs, demanded study and commitment, total concentration. And you had to go all out – yes, even with a husband – woo him like a lover, use every ruse and wile. She could pick one night next week, make it really special, discard the role of boring wife and play geisha girl or vamp, do everything those sex-books recommended: douse herself with perfume, buy a skimpy nightie and a black suspender belt, dim the lights, feed her man oysters and champagne, ignore the bed and spread-eagle on the hearth-rug, or even the kitchen table, as one enthusiastic book advised.

  She checked the baby – sleeping now – then gently closed her own eyes so she could see the kitchen table in her mind. It was a little cluttered for a night of throbbing passion, but if she cleared the toaster off, removed the bread-bin and the ironing, swept up all the toast crumbs so they wouldn’t tickle her bare skin, then it would probably serve the purpose. She leant back against the grainy wood, trying to smell L’Aimant, and not Clean-O-Pine and onions; reached out a sultry hand to James, coaxed him down towards her. ‘I love you, darling,’ he whispered in his vintage-brandy voice, already mollified and melting as his open mouth met and startled hers.

  ‘I love you, too, John-Paul.’

  SHOPPING LIST

  champagne oysters

  L’Aimant (scent and bath oil)

  suspender belt (black lace?)

  negligée or nightie (Check Ann Summers catalogue)

  KY Jelly

  Vaseline

  shirts for J. (Still slim-fit? Check his waist.)

  flour/eggs/ butter/sugar/icing sugar

  jellies (lime and raspberry)

  birthday candles (blue)

  sandwich loaf (check fillings)

  batteries (high-power)

  Chapter Twenty

  It’s freezing on the step, the wind cutting round the corner and slashing my bare face before it hurtles on across the road and up north to the Arctic. The step is stone and damp. I’ll move off in a moment, once I’ve found the strength to face a bus or tube train. I’ve no more cash for taxis, used every cent I had, first to check out Seton’s boat, then to drag up here to Kilburn. I hoped someone at the gallery might know where Seton was – he seemed so much at home there, knew so many people – but the door is locked and bolted. I arrived here just too late, at five-thirteen, when the damn place shuts at five. Actually, somebody’s inside still, but they wouldn’t let me in, ignored the bell completely.

  It’s cold without my hair. I never realised all these years how I’ve used it as a sort of extra muffler. The wind sneaks into places now it never did before, and I’m more conscious of my ears. They’re too big, of course, and ugly, but no one ever saw them through my mane. I don’t think my hair will grow again. I’m too old for any blossoming, regrowth. I try to work out days and times, conclude it must be Thursday, which means it’s four days since I scalped myself. It feels more like four years, and, anyway, Thursdays seem quite different without John-Paul embedded in them. All my days are empty now, or crippled – frames without their pictures, boats without their engine-rooms.

  It was awful at the boat. The taxi driver got more and more sarcastic about the stony unmade track, and in the end I walked the last half-mile, listening to the silence, the heavy winter pall of dusk and damp and loneliness which had been laid across the marshes. I could smell not just swamp, but sickness – the sickness of the Isolation Hospital, which Seton said was founded there a hundred years ago, its bleak windows looking out at the ancient smallpox cemetery, stiff with pock-marked corpses. The boat was dead itself – no lights, no fire, no movement, just a hulk adrift in mud. I kept shouting Seton’s name, in case he might be fishing further down the creek, or out collecting driftwood. No one answered, save a few screeching gulls echoing my voice. An old salt told me years ago that seagulls are the restless souls of sailors wrecked and drowned at sea, still searching for their bodies and their ships. Perhaps Seton’s died at sea and is circling far away now, soaring past the lonely Arctic Circle.

  ‘Seton!’ One last cry, though my throat hurts from the shouting
and my whole face is stiff with cold.

  ‘Hi, there!’

  I swing round, see not Seton, but a fleshy, grey-haired man wearing immaculate cream trousers and a rather poncy-looking jacket in a designer shade of dung. He’s standing on the top step and locking up the gallery, this time from the outside. ‘It’s Nial, isn’t it?’

  I nod, surprised he knows me. I bought all the pictures long-distance, as it were, spoke to women mostly, when I was negotiating prices, or arranging for delivery.

  ‘I met you at the private view.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I don’t remember, but then my memory’s not good these days.

  ‘Though you’ve had your hair cut, haven’t you?’

  I don’t reply. It seems a stupid comment, obvious, even cruel. His own hair is thick, luxuriant, longer than my own; layer-cut by a clearly skilful barber, then lacquered into place – not hacked off with a butcher’s knife and left au naturel. The grey is quite deceptive. He can’t be more than thirty-eight or nine, and his face is tanned, unlined. He looks the sort who jets off to the sun most weekends from October through to March, or spends his lunch-hours reclining on a sun-bed.

  ‘Were you looking for Amanda?’ he asks, pausing on my step.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She said you phoned, weren’t happy with the pictures.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘They’re dead.’

  ‘They’re what?’

  I’m too weary to explain, sink back on the stone again. He hovers, walks a circle, even puts his bag down, one of those sporty leather holdalls with loads of zips and straps.

  ‘Are you all right, Nial? You don’t look frightfully well.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Well, can I offer you a lift? I’m heading north to Brondesbury Park.’

  ‘I live south.’

  He seems a touch offended, frisks across the road to a low-slung car the colour of sour cream – this year’s registration. ‘Hey, wait!’ I yell, as he fumbles for his keys. ‘You could take me to the tube.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Any one,’ I shrug. It hardly matters really where I go tonight – home, or somewhere else. Or I could spend the whole night sitting in the underground. At least it would be warm.

  We never make the tube. After less than half a mile, things start sort of fading, and though I can hear his voice still stabbing through my head (even hear my own voice trying to reply), I’m no longer really there, no longer in my body. I’m aware we’re stopping somewhere, but I can’t see any details, only trembling shapes and shadows, which keep rippling, blanking out. I can feel my feet on stairs, unsure how to climb them; someone’s arm heavy round my waist, trying to heave me up. Then a block of time goes by, which could be only seconds – or a year – and I’m floating somewhere else, somewhere high and thin and frightening I’ve never been before. When I force my eyes to open, I’m not up at all, but down – lying on a sofa in some large and ritzy pad, with an expensive sheepskin jacket draped across my body. I check my clothes – they’re on and judging by my pounding head I am genuinely ill, yet I somehow feel suspicious. Did my mysterious new companion bash me on the head, lure me here for some unsavoury purpose? My eyes aren’t properly focused yet, but I can hear him talking at the far end of the room, sounding slightly frantic. Once I’ve worked the words out, I realise he’s trying to phone a doctor, not plotting rape or murder. ‘It’s okay,’ I call. ‘I’m better.’

  ‘You fainted,’ he accuses, fussing to the sofa, the cordless phone still in one plump hand. He makes it sound a crime, as if I’ve nicked his silver, or peed on his best carpet. We argue for a while about the advantages or otherwise of calling in a doctor, and I eventually convince him that I faint quite often nowadays and it’s really nothing serious. I close my eyes as another wave of dizziness interrupts my words, and once things have straightened out again, he’s crouching down in front of me, holding out a floral cup and saucer, which I presume is tea until I see the soggy skin on top.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I loathe hot milk.’

  ‘Drink it up.’

  I’m too weak to disobey him, so I take a grudging sip; realise with relief it’s adult milk, not kids’ stuff, strongly laced with brandy; more booze than cow, in fact. He even holds the cup for me, stops me spilling half of it down my clothes or neck. I’m still a bit distrustful, not used to what seems kindness. What’s in this for him, I wonder, as he offers me his own crisp linen handkerchief to wipe my milky lips? It might also help if I knew his name, knew who the heck he was.

  ‘Are you sure I’m meant to know you?’ I ask, at last, after a slightly awkward silence, which feels worse because the milk’s all gone, so we’ve lost our little ritual. It is a bit unusual to land up horizontal being babied by a stranger in a house you’ve never seen. I’m also feeling slightly fuzzy still, so that everything is blurred around its edges, including names and faces. My stomach feels much better with something comforting inside it, but my head is still a war-zone.

  ‘Zack Ridley.’ He makes a deprecating gesture as he introduces himself, half-grimace, half-mock bow. Both name and gesture seem bogus, unconvincing. I can’t imagine any mother christening her son Zachary when he’s a mite of two days old. It sounds an adman’s name, probably adopted in mid-life to replace boring Mike or John, and then fashionably shortened to suggest zip or matiness. The Ridley’s also suspect, doesn’t go with Zachary.

  He removes my empty cup, sits down on my feet. ‘I run the gallery. I met you twice, in fact – once at the private view and once on Seton’s boat.’

  I suddenly remember – not the name, the guy himself – though I only met him for a sum total of ten minutes, and when he came to visit Seton on the boat I was naked (and resentful at being interrupted), so I hardly said a word. I was also somewhat jealous of his being friends with Seton; in fact close enough for Seton to stop screwing me and start chatting with some interloper who looked dressed for cocktails rather than a boat. I realise now why he’s proffering booze and sympathy. He’s wooing me as the wealthy git who bought up his whole show, hopes I’ll buy more pictures, sign a second whacking cheque. I glance up at his face, try to take it in this time, so I won’t forget again and cut him dead. It worries me, my vagueness. I fear I’m losing brain cells.

  His eyes are rather boring blue, that washed-out faded-denim shade, which makes them look as if they’ve been dumped in a launderette on far too high a programme and left there several days. I suspect he’d dye them if he could, sear them on his sun-bed to a deeper vibrant sapphire. They’re narrowed now and frowning as he checks his watch, an ostentatious black one with a butch and spiky strap.

  ‘Look, I’m in a bit of a spot, Nial. I don’t like to leave you here alone, but I promised Seton I’d drop in for half an hour.’

  ‘Seton?’ I fling the sheepskin off, no longer cold, no longer even dizzy. So Seton’s well, alive – and near.

  ‘Yup. I’m late already. I said half past five or six.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’ I’m already standing up. Okay, my legs are paper, but I’d run a mile for Seton.

  ‘You’re in no state to go out, my love. I suggest you stay put on that sofa and …’

  ‘No fear! I’ve got to see him. That’s just where I was going.’

  ‘Come off it, Nial. You weren’t going anywhere, just sitting on my step.’

  ‘Yes – gathering strength to see him.’

  ‘But I thought he said …’

  I don’t hear the rest too clearly. I do feel pretty rough, but I’ve got to somehow get downstairs and back into the car. I don’t want to talk – well, dare not – need every ounce of concentration just to keep myself upright in one piece. I pretend there’s a programme I’m keen to hear on LBC, so that the radio can help me through the journey, do the talking for me, as it were. A hundred questions are churning up my mind, like a tractor in a flinty field gagging on sharp stones – where’s Seton living now, and will he want to see me, or be furious with me for bar
ging in? Why did he go off like that, quit the boat, move house? I suppose it was too cold to spend winter on the marshes, but he could at least have told me. Is he on his own still, or shacked up with Cressida, playing father to her baby?

  Something tears inside me when I think of babies, mistresses; a so-called mental pain this time, but still stabbing wrenching sharp. I feel Zachary must notice, but his eyes are on the road. The traffic’s pretty clotted, but he drives extremely fast in tiny violent bursts between traffic lights and snarl-ups, as if he can’t bear to let his zippy car idle at a tame and tedious thirty. He keeps braking very suddenly, which is bad news for my stomach and surely for his tyres. It seems strange for him and Seton to be friends. They seem so entirely different, not just in type and build and dress (and style of cars and driving), but in their basic aura. Zack’s a Persian cat, fed on cream and chicken breast, which have made him soft and slithery; Seton’s a wild beast. I suppose it’s the old business of opposites attracting (which I’ve never quite believed. If I met my own opposite, I suspect I’d really hate her, just through jealousy).

  Zack brakes again, alarmingly, joins a fretting tailback of impatient rush-hour traffic; pats his hair to make sure it’s still in place. ‘When did you last see him, by the way?’

  ‘Ssh,’ I say. ‘I’m listening to this programme.’ I’m not sure how much Zack knows, but I’m not keen to tell the world – or him – that I’ve been discarded and supplanted. The radio interviewer is talking to a girl who’s crossed the Gobi Desert on a camel, then spent six months on her own in another smaller desert, with no human company except the passing nomads. She’s exactly my own age, but the similarity ends there. She wouldn’t pine for Seton after just four endless weeks, nor feel incomplete without a man, a lover. I can see Cressida in my mind again, attached to Seton, skin to skin, like Siamese twins who’ve been not surgically divided, but sutured even closer, spliced together the whole length of their bodies. I feel so nervous, so rejected, my milk-and-brandy cocktail starts sloshing round my stomach. I only hope I don’t throw up before we reach Seton’s flat – or créche. God knows where we’re going. North London is another (alien) continent as far as I’m concerned, and I’m beginning to feel uprooted as we pass dreary council houses sulking in the dark, or graffitied rain-stained tower blocks. This isn’t Seton country. I connect him now with water and wide skies.