I’ve forgotten the next line, except I know the Father summoned all his servants, urged them to dress his son in finery, put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet, kill the fatted calf for him. ‘For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ There was never a Prodigal Daughter – no girls at all, or even wife, or none that I remember.
I pause a moment, put my shopping down, run my hands across my short cropped hair. John-Paul will know me as his son, run to meet me, kill the fatted calf for me. The husks are over, finished; the cold nights with the swine. I cross the street, jog towards the tower, bags and parcels banging at my knees. It’s still only 2.06, but he’ll give me those four minutes – a present like the fatted calf, the ring.
I stop in queasy shock. Someone else is encroaching on the tower, not just a casual passer-by, but someone striding right up to the door, about to press the buzzer. No – ‘someone else’ is wrong, far too vague and flat a word for the slim and striking female who’s trespassing on my own square foot of pavement, one hand reaching up still, while she pauses, checks her watch. She looks roughly my own age, though there the resemblance ends. She’s the sort of girl you have to turn and stare at – not a pale-blue Mary, submissive and demure, but confident and coltish, with long athletic legs and a tiny show-off waist. Her clothes make mine look cheap. She’s wearing daring purple, which clashes quite superbly with her shout of auburn hair, outglares my pallid white. I lunge towards her, grab her hand before it courts the bell-push. She pivots round, astonished, and I meet her crafty eyes, that subtle greenish-greyish shade which elude all definitions save ‘special’ and ‘enchanting’.
‘What the hell?’ she snaps.
Aggressive, too, I see. I stand my ground, inform her very coldly that ten past two on Monday is my appointment, actually – has been for eight months.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s mine now. John-Paul is expecting me. I was told to come at ten past two today.’
I can’t bear to hear her speak, her husky Sloane-ish voice, the way she says ‘John-Paul’ with that air of gloating certainty, that hint of pure possession. She shakes my hand off roughly, reaches for the buzzer. I hear it answer ‘Yes’; hear her give her name: Beata. I loathe the name – arty and pretentious – press the bell myself, push up right against her, as I yell my own name: ‘NIAL!’ Then I spring at her, tug her coil of hair, claw her face, pinion both her arms. She’s crying. So am I. The only difference is she looks gorgeous when she cries, her huge eyes brimming, melting.
The door suddenly bursts open, and I half-fall against John-Paul. It’s a double shock to see him. First, he looks quite different from the John-Paul I remember – taller and more tetchy – and second, he’s at ground-level, instead of high up in his room. He never ventures down to greet a patient, always summons us to him. I cling on to him desperately, terrified he’ll vanish. ‘It’s my appointment – mine. You can’t give it away.’
He fends me off immediately, tries to reassure Beata, who’s still standing on the step. ‘Come in please, Beata. Would you go upstairs and wait for me.’
‘No!’ I shout. His words are like a blow. He’s hit me in the stomach, injured me internally. The world goes black a moment as I sway against the wall; hear his voice so steady and impassive I’m tempted to attack it, claw it open, find out if it’s human.
‘Sit down,’ he says to me, gesturing to the small hard chair in the cold and grudging foyer. No ‘please’, no name at all. He said ‘please’ to Beata, used her name caressingly, with affection, almost intimacy. I’m just a lump of nothing, a scrap of dirty paper which blew in at his door. I don’t sit down – I can’t – but dash towards the staircase to watch Beata groping slowly up, her auburn hair trembling down her back, her tight immodest skirt hampering her progress. I start calling up the stairs, begging her to give me her appointment, insisting that I’ll pay for it – double, triple, anything she asks. I’m pleading with her, grovelling, shaking with cold fear. If John-Paul turns me out, I’m not sure I can …
‘Nial!’ he raps, more sharply now; propels me from the staircase towards the nearest chair, seats me forcibly, pressing on my shoulders, so I can’t get up again. He’s stronger than he looks, and his grip is really hurting, but I don’t resist at all. His hands are on my body. He’s touching me, in contact, his warm breath meeting mine. I’ve craved that touch for naked starving months, longed to be this close to him. Tears splash on my hands. I’m only close as a prisoner would be close – a prisoner to her gaoler, a convict to her guard. He’ll touch Beata in quite a different way, not hold her down, restrain her, but stretch out on the couch with her, lap her in his arms. I scrub my eyes, try to speak through hurting racking sobs.
‘She … She’s no right to go up there. She’s stolen my appointment. This time’s mine on Monday.’
‘Nial, you know quite well you told me in your letter that you wished to terminate your therapy, refused even to discuss it with me. And you appear to have forgotten that when I wrote to say we should meet at least once more, and that I’d keep your appointments free for you, in case you changed your mind, you replied quite categorically that you were leaving London and going back to Shropshire, had already found a cottage there, and were departing on the third. In fact, I’m most surprised to see you here at all.’
‘I never wrote! You’re lying.’
‘You wrote three separate times, Nial, three letters in a row.’
‘Well, the letters were just lies then – stupid crazy lies.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not a mind-reader.’
‘But that’s your job – you ought to be. It was obvious they were lies.’
‘What seems to me more obvious is that you’re unaware at present of the difference between reality and its opposite.’
He sounds so cold, sarcastic, and he’s no longer even touching me; has shifted back a pace or two, as if my body somehow taints him. I long to be Beata, so I could make him press back close; own her velvet voice, which matches his. My own voice comes out spiteful – hessian, rough sacking.
‘You’re dying to get rid of me, that’s all. You know I couldn’t leave you, and that I’d fall apart if you ever moved away. I suppose that’s what you want, though – to have me just crack up. You gave away my session to that … that woman, so you can fondle her and stroke her and tell her she’s your favourite. And I notice she came early, which you’ve never let me do. A whole four minutes early, so you’ll have more time to…’
‘I realise you’re extremely overwrought, Nial. I’m also genuinely sorry that you’ve made this journey for no purpose, especially if you’ve come all the way from Shropshire. You’re welcome to sit down here until you’ve calmed yourself, but I just have to start my session now.’
‘Start your screwing, don’t you mean?’
He doesn’t answer, just turns abruptly on his heel, and starts striding up the stairs. I dash after him, still shouting, try to block his way. I hate myself, hate the things I’m yelling; want to say I’m sorry, want to just be quiet, but all the gentle harmless words are squashed and almost smothered, dying like myself.
‘Nial, if you continue in this fashion, I shall have to call an ambulance, which I don’t think you would like.’
I sink down on the steps, silent now, defeated. The stone is hard and chilly, like his voice; seems to shrink from any contact with my flesh. So he’d allow me to be carted off by a gang of total strangers, abandoned in some heartless institution. It’s happened once already, so he knows how cruel his words are, knows just what he’s threatening. My head slumps on my knees. No point fighting any more, no point even pleading. I fix all my concentration on his footsteps, listen to them fade; strain to hear the whinny of the door, which always creaks on opening, steel myself for its curt and hurtful slam. Then I hear the catch turn – the final shaming insult. He never locks his door. He’s not only excluding me, he’s insisting on his privacy, so he can strip that girl and enter her. He probably sleeps wit
h half his patients – the little ones, the loved ones; invites them to his home, cradles and caresses them. They’re good, you see, and beautiful; never made their mothers ill or drove their fathers out; weren’t a disappointment from the womb.
I limp downstairs, one step, one step, one step, like a child. My carrier bags are lying on their sides, retching half their contents. They look lonely and abandoned, very sick. I pick them up and nurse them, sort them into piles, smooth the crumpled ties out, swathe things back in tissue. John-Paul told me I could stay here until I’d calmed myself. I’m feeling calm already, sorting out my shopping, rearranging bags.
‘The ties are yours, John-Paul,’ I say. ‘And this book of Sanskrit love poetry, and the ones on modern art. And please do take the food – share it with Beata. I chose some quite exotic things, so you can have a proper love-feast. No, don’t refuse – I’d like you to, and anyway, I shan’t be eating myself, not now, not any more. All I need is just these soaps and cleaners. I know my clothes are white, John-Paul, but underneath I’m dirty, really filthy black. Which is why you didn’t want me in your room. It’s okay, I understand. I don’t blame you at all. Stay there with Beata. She’s clean and very good; Daddy’s little good girl. Hold her really close to you, dry her pretty eyes.’
My own eyes are dry, and dirty, as I push the heavy door, pick up just one carrier, step out into brilliant mocking sunshine.
Chapter Twenty Four
‘Mary? Are you all right? What’s happened? Why didn’t you ring for an electrician if the lights fused?’
‘They … didn’t.’
‘What are you doing groping in the dark, then?’
‘I thought candles would be more romantic, darling.’
‘Romantic! For Christ’s sake, put the lights on and pour me a stiff Scotch. I’ve had the devil of a day and a bloody awful journey home on top of it – a signals failure at Wimbledon, or so the moron said who calls himself a guard. More likely a go-slow. They never do a stroke of work, those layabouts. Down, Horatio!’ James pushed the dog away, fumbled for the light-switch in the hall.
Mary blinked in the harsh glare, pressed herself against him, one naked leg seeking out his trousered one. James removed the leg, and then his coat and scarf.
‘Mary, what’s got into you? You’ll catch your death wandering round half-undressed when they’ve just forecast a sharp frost. What is that thing you’re wearing?’
Mary nuzzled his right shoulder, tried out the sexy throaty voice she’d been practising all day. ‘It’s a playsuit, darling.’
‘Playsuit? I thought Tuesday was your Old Folks’ Day.’
She nodded.
‘So did they have a fancy dress or something?’
‘No, bingo.’
‘Two fat ladies – eighty-eight.’
‘James, I’m not fat.’
‘Well, you look it in that romper thing. It’s made for someone Jon’s age, judging by its length. Go and put a sweater on. You sound as if you’ve caught a cold already. Your throat’s quite hoarse, you realise.’
Mary trailed into the kitchen. It wasn’t going right at all. According to the books, James was meant to respond to her with passion and abandon, fling off all his own clothes, not suggest she put hers on. She draped the kitchen towel around her shoulders. It was a little chilly. She’d built up such a fug at first she feared James would get a headache, so she’d opened all the windows, gone too far the other way. Typical of her these days. Her moods were like a roller-coaster. John-Paul seemed delighted, said she was more in touch with parts of herself often inaccessible – the raging infant, fractious child, rebellious adolescent. But she must forget all that tonight. This evening she was not John-Paul’s, but James’s – his floozie and his sex kitten, his Playgirl of the Month.
She went to open the champagne. You were meant to do it with your ‘partner’ (which sounded more exciting than mere husband); snuggled close and naked on the kitchen table or bathroom floor, or under the grand piano on an exotic tigerskin rug, or among the phallic orchids in the greenhouse. They had only an old upright, and no greenhouse at all, so she’d settled for the kitchen, but her ‘partner’ should be with her all the same. The exploding cork, the foaming whoosh of bubbles were a foretaste of the man’s ejaculation – or so one book explained – helped build up the erotic tension, set the mood of intimacy, excitement. She could hear James in the hall still, banging things about, shouting at Horatio, grousing to himself (or her?) that the idiot roof-repair man had never returned about the leak. She removed the kitchen towel, shimmied out to join him.
‘I’m sorry, darling, I’ll ring him in the morning. But let’s not think of roofs now.’ (She had dreamt about their leaky roof just a week ago, and John-Paul had interpreted it as fear about conceiving – the roof symbolising a condom which was intended as a barrier against the rain – or sperm; meant to keep the wet out. It didn’t sound convincing. James had never used a condom in his life, and, secretly, she wanted to conceive.) She pressed a brimming glass into her husband’s restless hands, its golden bubbles sparkling in the light. She had glazed the rim with egg-white, frosted it with sugar.
‘What’s this? Champagne? I can’t touch the stuff – not now. I’ve got frightful indigestion, so the last thing I want is any more damned bubbles exploding in my gut.’
‘Oh, James.’
‘What d’ you mean “Oh, James”? What is all this, for God’s sake?’ He grimaced at himself in the mirror on the wall, arranged a strand of limp grey hair across his thinning patch. Mary steered him into the sitting room, which she had prepared with scented candles, piles of scatter cushions, bowls of exotic fruit. She tugged his favourite chair back into its place, patted it encouragingly. She couldn’t see him perching on a cushion, or stretched out on the carpet. The husbands in the sex-books were a different breed entirely, followed droolingly and slavishly if their naked-breasted ‘partners’ suggested bathing in champagne. James refused even to drink his, had totally ignored the fact her nipples were on show. He was making for the sideboard, poured himself a triple Glenmorangie, the soda syphon hissing his annoyance. She followed, dared an arm around his waist.
‘Don’t you know what day it is?’
‘Yes, I do – settlement day. I’m not likely to forget it, Mary. It’s been chaos in the office from eight o’clock this morning till I dragged myself away, half-dead. Apart from having to square all the accounts, I’ve had three really bloody meetings and…’
‘It’s our wedding anniversary.’
James collapsed back in his chair, started counting on his fingers. ‘Christ! You’re right – the eleventh of December. Forgive me, darling. It completely slipped my mind. I’m sorry, Mary, really. I’ve been sounding off, and it’s hardly your fault, is it? I’m just absolutely knackered. I had a rotten night last night, worrying about the accounts, and by the time I’ve sweated twelve hours in the hot seat, I’m more or less at screaming pitch. Look, let’s go out to dinner. If I phone Pierre’s immediately, we’ll probably get a table. Or we could try that little Greek place in …’
Mary squeezed his hand. ‘I’ve … er … bought food, actually. If you come into the kitchen, darling, everything’s laid out.’
‘Let’s not slum it in the kitchen, Mary. What’s wrong with the dining-room?’
‘It’s cold.’
‘Well, light the fire – and can’t you get your clothes on? You’re making me feel cold as well, displaying all that flesh. Okay, I’ll come, I’ll come.’
Mary watched the whisky spill as James jerked up from his seat. He’d apologised for shouting, yet was cross again a scant two seconds later. He was drinking far too much these days, splurging money on twelve-year-old malt whiskies, then worrying about the bills. The bills were huge – she knew that – not just three sets of school fees, but now John-Paul as well. She longed to make it up to him, get closer in all ways, break down that shell of worry and bad temper which had crusted over the softer more romantic James she’d k
nown once, long ago. Perhaps things would be better once he’d had a bite to eat. What he described as indigestion was often only hunger-pains, or tension. She led the way into the kitchen, her husband stumbling after her, tripping on the dog’s bowl as he entered the dim room.
‘More candles? Has Father Fox been turning out his stocks? Sorry, darling, just my little joke. It is a bit depressing, though, sitting in this gloom. Reminds me of the power-cuts we had two years ago. And what’s the funny smell?’
‘Incense.’
‘So you have been round to Father Fox. It feels like church in here. It’s taking things a bit damn far to re-create the wedding service. Can’t we settle for a simple anniversary?’
‘Kiss me, James.’
The kiss was disappointing. She’d been learning how to kiss – at least the theory of it – the eyelash kiss, the tongue-bath, the kiss a la cannibale, which the books said left a bruise, and something called maraichignage which was definitely advanced. All she needed was some practice, not that brief peck on the cheek.
‘There! Now, when do I get my supper? My stomach’s sort of grinding on itself. I missed out on lunch completely. That wretched Crawshaw turned up at half past ten and was still jawing four hours later – and on settlement day of all days, would you believe? I had another meeting at two-thirty, so there wasn’t even time for a sandwich.’
James was groping in the gloom to find a kitchen stool. Mary set a second one beside his. (Cushions were obviously advanced, like maraichignage, would have to wait till later.) It was extremely dim. Half the candles had gone out when she’d opened all the windows, and she’d forgotten to relight them. The food had been another problem – where to lay it out. The table was strictly out of bounds, transformed into a love-nest, and anyway, Horatio could reach it. The dog could reach most surfaces, so she’d arranged it on two trays and placed them high up on the freezer. She went to get them down again, Horatio in hot pursuit, sniffing rudely at her groin, as well as just the food. James was still complaining about his lack of lunchtime sustenance.
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