‘No,’ Maddie said and this time seemed almost to smile and Annie laughed and without thinking tucked her hand into Maddie’s elbow and walked alongside her, in step, feeling suddenly better again. And Maddie let her, seeming now not to mind being touched.
‘Then I’ll take you there and you shall have a haircut too, next time I go. And I will go. I’ll get used to the way it is, won’t I? If I try again –’
Across the garden, from his place in the shadow of the corner of the West Pavilion, Joe watched them and began to let hope rise a little higher in him. When he had first seen the new haircut he had been positively excited; it had always been a good sign of emergence from depression when a woman – or indeed a man, come to that – began to take an interest in personal appearance. The combination of that lightening of her depression and her success with Maddie could be all that Annie needed to bring her back to a level where some sort of real communication with her might be possible –
Or so he thought, standing watching his two patients as they curved round to the other side of the garden and began to make their slow way back. Just give me the chance to make a real contact with her and maybe I won’t be so lonely any more. And I must stop thinking of her as a patient. The way I feel about that damned woman, that could be a disaster.
May 1950
‘Do you like it, Jay?’ Maddie said again, and twisted in her chair so that he could see the other side of her head. ‘It’s called the gamine haircut. It’s like the one Zizi Jeanmaire has. And I’m getting a pair of those Perugia boots, like stockings they’re so tight on your legs, you know? And a coat like a tent – oh, I’m going to look the very best ever! Say you like it.’
‘It’s great,’ he said but he didn’t look up. ‘Hey, Maddie, look at this, will you? I’ve been through this list till my head bursts with it and I make it four thousand dollars down. I just can’t see where the cheat is. Someone’s screwed me, that’s for sure –’
He pushed the pile of papers at her and she sighed and got up and came round to sit beside him and look at the columns of figures. He’d kept a very painstaking account of all the work he’d done on the basis of the tips she had given him and as she ran her eyes down it she felt a twinge of unease.
‘Is this the only copy of this there is?’
‘Sure. Why?’
‘My God, if Daddy saw this, he’d have a fit. I mean, I didn’t think you’d actually put it in writing this way. It’s one thing to pick up the odd job here and there for you, but quite another to see them listed.’ She ran her eyes down the page again and then looked at him, almost in awe. ‘My God, did I set up all of these?’
‘You know quite well you did. What’s the fuss? Listen, can you see why it is that the two columns don’t match? I’m down four thousand dollars here –’ and he leaned over and pointed and she experienced him in a great wash of soap and scent and toothpaste and cigarettes and whisky and bay rum and her skin crawled on her belly. It was hell being with him and wanting him so much, agony not to know when they’d be able at last to complete their loving. That was always how she thought of it, as completing their loving. Not just as making love or losing her virginity or anything of that sort but a completion of a thing that was meant to be whole, the finishing of a structure that had just the smallest of gaps in it. Their love was as solid to her as a brick building, but it was an unfinished building and she sat and stared at the sheet of paper in front of her, letting the words and feelings jostle in her mind, and tried to prevent herself from reaching up and pulling him down to her to force him to that completion. But if she did that he got angry. ‘You make it so hard for me,’ he had told her when she had done it in the past, trying to force him to make love at last. ‘Don’t you think I want you? It’s just that it wouldn’t be right. Not till we’re really entitled to be together. Then – oh, then, honey, believe me, it will have been worth the waiting –’
‘Maddie, for Christ’s sake, if you can’t see it say so, and give it back to me!’ He was getting irritable now and she blinked, startled out of her reverie.
‘What? Oh, yes – look, it’s here. See? You were paid there in pounds and you’ve forgotten to change it to dollars the way you have in this column. That’s why it’s down. You’ve carried it over as pounds –’
‘Jesus, I did too! Where would I be without you, Maddie? Good for you!’ And he pulled the paper from her hand and corrected it, and finished the calculation, writing the totals at the end with such satisfaction that he almost flourished the pen.
‘Will you look at this? In just over ten months, I’ve made over thirty-seven thousand dollars, quite apart from your father’s salary to me. Christ, Maddie, that’s real cash! I never imagined I’d ever have done so well in this lousy country. Who’d ha’ thought it, the way things are here –’ He laughed fatly. ‘It just goes to show you, hmm? Where there’s a bit of intelligence a fella can do anything –’
‘It helps to have a bit of assistance too,’ she said sharply and looked up at him with her brows raised. ‘Listening to you people’d think it was a case of all my own work and look Mum no hands.’
‘Eh? Hell, Maddie, don’t look so sorry for yourself! Sure you helped. Without you I wouldn’t have made a dime.’ And he leaned down and pulled her to her feet and then hugged her, and swung her round so that she had to bury her face in the delicious gap between his neck and his shoulder and could inhale him until her head swam.
‘Give me a kiss!’ she demanded as soon as he stopped turning and lifted her face so close to his that he had to. Maybe this time? But he was as controlled as ever and kissed her lightly and set her on her feet.
‘You’ll make sure no one ever sees that list, Jay?’ she said then, as anxiety about her father came surging back into her mind. He’d been getting very edgy lately, the old man, what with Ambrose nagging him about the troubles he was having holding on to the whisky business and the difficulties he had himself with his gramophones. He’d sold them all right, but there had been a great many complaints because of the wiring; over and over again machines had been found to be faulty and had to be sent back to London for expensive overhauling by an American electrician Alfred had managed to track down. (He had been a wartime deserter who had never found the courage or the cash to go home again.) That had eaten into the company’s profit margins. Altogether Alfred was much less pleased with himself than he had been, and Maddie, still working in his office, was very aware of it. And also knew just how powerfully he would explode if he discovered what she had been doing for Jay.
‘Don’t worry,’ Jay said easily now and sat down in the armchair by the dead fireplace. Once again they were alone in the Regent’s Park flat, but not because her father was out with one of his women gambling this time. Nowadays he spent his evenings drumming up more business to make up for what seemed to be dropping cash returns. Jay repeated, ‘Don’t worry. There’s no way anyone will ever see that or that anyone will ever know that you and me did business.’
He stopped then and looked at her a little sideways and then down at his hands. ‘Anyway,’ he said lightly, ‘I won’t be around for anyone to talk to, so no one’ll be able to pump me, hmm?’
She lifted her chin sharply and stared at him as a wave of cold shifted from the depths of her belly slowly upwards to engulf her and make her breathing come oddly short.
‘What did you say?’
‘Listen, dolly, you didn’t think I’d be here in England for ever, did you? I mean, damn it all, girl, I’m a foreigner here! I got a home and folks and friends I haven’t seen in damn near a year. You must have known I’d have to go back to Boston sooner or later. Well, it turned out to be later, but later is here. I’m going home. I have to, believe me.’
‘Why?’ She was on her feet, not caring now what she said or how he might react, and she flew at him and threw her arms around his neck with such vigour that his chair nearly rocked backwards, taking them both with it. But he righted it and tried to push her away. But she clun
g on grimly.
‘You can’t, you can’t! Why, Jay? What did I do? What did I say? I’m sorry, Jay, if I made you angry – I won’t again, I promise – just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it, I swear to you –’
‘Maddie, for Christ’s sake, will you calm down? You crazy kid – I’m going home is all! No one said anything, no one did anything. Except maybe Declan –’
He had managed to push her away by now, so that she was sitting in front of him on the rug, crouching with her heels pushed into her buttocks, and she seized on that and said quickly, ‘Who?’
‘Declan. I told you about Declan –’
She struggled, dredging through her memory. ‘Your brother –’
‘Sure my brother. The bastard. I’m out of the way five minutes and he’s in there creaming it all up, the lot. It’s like there’s only him, only one son. And there sure as hell is not –’
‘I know. There’s Timothy, and –’ She was struggling even harder now to be calm, to salvage what she could from this dreadful situation, to distract him from his awful decision. It was the only possibility she hadn’t foreseen, and she was furious with herself for being so obtuse. She had imagined another girl turning up to beguile him, had imagined him doing something stupid over one of the deals she put his way, and being caught by her father and being beaten up for it, had even imagined Ambrose finding out about what she and he were doing. But she had never imagined this.
‘Yeah. And Declan. He’s the one next to me. Timothy’s the oldest of course. But he’s married now, got his own share of the action. It’s between Declan and me. And because I’m here in London, that creep is oiling his way into everything. I know – he needn’t think I don’t. I may be stuck here in this godforsaken hole but I have my contacts. I get letters –’
He was glowering now, staring down at her with his face looking solid because his expression was so aggrieved.
‘I know what he’s doing. And it is time he stopped. So –’ He leaned back then and his face slowly smoothed itself. ‘So now I’ve got some cash, I can go back. I’ve spent a bit, but I’ve got most of it. Thirty thousand dollars at least. Bless you, Maddie.’ And he leaned forwards and kissed her with real passion, and she felt the gratitude oozing out of him and wanted to be sick. To think she had worked so hard and lied so readily to her father and brother to make him the money – to go away from her! It was enough to make her die, and not just be sick, and she pulled away from him and said shakily, ‘You don’t have to go. Write to your father if you think your brother’s trying to cheat you. He’ll tell you it’s all right, won’t he? He’ll be like my father, won’t he, wanting to take care of all of you?’
He laughed at that, sourly. ‘My father? Jesus, kid, he’s got seven of us! There’s my four sisters, you know, and girls don’t come cheap.’ He laughed again. ‘Believe me, there aren’t many like you, with a gift for putting cash a fella’s way. Most girls see to it it’s the other way about. No, I’ve got to go back. With my father it’s out of sight, out of mind. The old goat sent me here, thinks I’m okay, so Declan makes all the running. It’s got to stop. And I’m going home to stop it.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Take me with you, Jay. Please take me with you –’
‘Are you mad? You know I can’t do that!’
‘You could if we were –’
‘Listen, I told you. That is out of the question just yet –’
‘You said, when you had enough money. Thirty thousand dollars – that’s a lot of money – it’s nearly ten thousand pounds. We could get married with that, and we could work for ourselves. I’ve learned a lot, Jay, being with Daddy. We could start our own business, export and import and all that. I can run the office, you can do the dealing the way you have been all year. No need to be secret about it any more either. Just run a proper business like Daddy’s –’
She knew she was spitting into the wind, even as her tongue ran on and on. He had a different set of plans and he was never going to change them. She would have to fit in with them, rather than expect him to change his ideas to fit in with her and beneath the surface of her mind, beneath the cold fear of losing him and the sound of words that she was spinning, her thoughts raced ahead, making their way round the maze of possibilities. He was going to America –
‘It’s settled, doll. Believe me, I’ll send for you. Let me get home to Boston, show Pa he can’t go on putting Declan in front of me, and see to it he gets the business right for me as well as the rest of ‘em and then I’ll talk him round to a non-Catholic daughter-in-law and I’ll send for you – because, my God, Maddie, I’m going to miss you something amazing!’ and he leaned over now and pulled her up so that she was sitting in his lap. ‘I really am.’
His voice was a little thicker now, and his forehead a little beaded with sweat and she turned her head and looked at him and felt a new wave of feeling rise in her. He was as excited as she was; she knew it even before she felt the way his body altered beneath her buttocks, before he reached awkwardly beneath her to rearrange himself. He wanted her as badly as she had wanted him. Now, tonight, at last, they could be complete.
And she took a deep breath and scrambled down from his lap and moved away to the other side of the table.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, Jay. Not till we’re married. We agreed that, didn’t we? We said we’d be married and then we’d be together? And we will be married – you go to America and then when the time comes, you send for me. And then we’ll be together for always.’ And she smiled at him and saw the baffled look that moved across his face and the hint of anger and smiled softly. Oh, Jay, Jay, why are you so easy to see through? Why didn’t I realise long ago this was the answer?
10
March 1987
‘I think,’ Joe said, ‘the time is coming to push her a little.’
‘You push her,’ Annie said. ‘It’s not up to me.’
‘You’re the only person she talks to. So who else is it up to?’
‘She doesn’t talk to me,’ Annie said. ‘She talks at me because I just happen to be there. I don’t know who she talks to actually. It’s not to herself really. Or perhaps it is –’ She leaned forwards and propped her elbows on the table and set her chin on her fists. ‘It’s odd, you know. You watch her and you’ll see. She’s still in a way as she was before. Sitting and staring and rocking, only now she’s talking as well. But I think, you know, that really she’s the same as she used to be.’
‘Yes?’ he prompted her gently, needing to understand what she meant while not wanting to upset her unusually communicative mood and certainly not wanting to fire her short temper. Not that it was as short as it used to be, and he held that thought close, letting it warm him. It wasn’t just excessive hopefulness on his part, he was sure. She was changing in her mood and her behaviour, as well as in her appearance. The short jagged haircut had softened a little now, and it suited her well, making her face look less heavy and shadowed than it had been, and today he even suspected she’d put on some powder and lipstick. Not a great deal, but enough to make his hopes rise. So it was important not to upset her by rushing her. But of course he still needed to know about Maddie. She really was his patient.
‘Well, it’s a bit as though she’s still in that trancelike state she used to be. Only now she’s not just thinking about what happened in her life. She’s talking about it too. But it’s all a dreadful jumble. I must have listened to hours and hours of it, but I’m still not all that much the wiser. I’m beginning to sort out what it’s all about though. I think.’
‘Would it worry you to tell me?’
‘Hmm?’ She looked at him, puzzled. ‘Why should it worry me?’
‘You said once before that it wouldn’t be – a friendly thing to do, to talk about Maddie behind her back. You showed some very nice ethics there.’
‘Oh dear.’ She reddened a little. ‘I must have been in a very pompous mood that day. Though perhaps not. It is a bit tacky to talk about people behin
d their backs. But that day – I think I was just feeling bloodyminded. I do sometimes, I’m afraid.’ And she stopped abruptly and he could have hugged her for her candour.
‘Yes,’ he said gently, still sitting as he had been with his arms folded. ‘I had noticed.’
She grimaced. ‘Well, we all have our bad days. I still do, but they’re not quite as they were. I –’ She stopped. ‘I suppose I could apologise or something but – would you like some more tea?’
‘Yes please.’ It seemed the answer she wanted so he provided it, though he didn’t want more tea. He watched her as she went to the servery at the far side of the staff canteen where they had been sharing lunch and tried to see in the way she looked now the girl she had been a few months ago. She had gained a little weight, which meant she was eating better, and that was good, for it suited her. She had been both heavy looking and yet gaunt and bony. But now there was more spring in the way she moved and a lightness that was agreeable to see. And he sighed softly as she made her way back to their table, carefully balancing the cups, and wished he found her less interesting than he did.
They drank the tea in silence and then she said abruptly, ‘It’s odd, you know, how she makes me feel. I’m not as angry as I was.’
‘Why?’
‘If I knew, it wouldn’t be odd,’ she said with a flash of her old irritability and then she laughed. ‘Well, don’t ask silly questions, and then I won’t snap,’ but there was no malice in her tone.
‘You’re entitled to snap if the questions are silly. And I’m afraid they usually are. Most of the things psychiatrists say and do are exceedingly silly. Meddling in people’s lives as we do –’ He set down his cup. ‘But we’ve talked about that before, and it’s dull. Let’s meddle instead. So, you don’t mind talking about Maddie now when she isn’t here to listen herself?’
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