by Voss, Louise
Things went from bad to worse. As I sat there sweating, enormous tears, the size and solidity of hard boiled eggs, squeezed themselves out of my eyes and rolled slowly down my face, and when they dropped off the edge of my jaw and crashed to the floor, I felt relieved and terrified in equal measures. Moments later I began to confuse my tears with my eyes, as if it were my eyeballs which were coming out.
I’d recently heard a story about an old schoolfriend who had a severely overactive thyroid, and as a result her eyes bulged so much that they did actually pop out onto her cheeks (twice, once when she was making love, and once when somebody unexpectedly clapped her on the back). It wasn’t a major drama, allegedly, since the doctors had taught her how to stuff them back in again; although how that could be anything other than a major drama was beyond me.
I cupped my palms over my eyes and leaned my head forwards so nobody would see my eyes falling out.
‘Are you all right?’ said a curious voice somewhere miles above me. I peered through my fingers and saw two very long and very hairy legs. They went on and on, up to a pair of brief shorts, and on, up to the face of the man I’d fallen in love with about half an hour earlier. It was a lovely face, but it was looming down at me in a way which made me feel even more nauseous.
‘I don’t feel very well,’ I confessed, as the fence in Raylene’s yard undulated and receded. I heard Ivan’s knees snapping like gunshots as he sat down beside me on the porch step. His legs were so long that I imagined them having to fold in several places, not just once in the middle.
‘Have you smoked Kansas grass before?’ he asked. I shook my head.
‘Never smoked any grass before,’ I said, proud that I had managed a whole sentence through all the cotton wool that had mysteriously appeared in my mouth. It tasted horrible.
‘It’s supposed to be very strong. I wouldn’t know, myself, since I believe that only morons do drugs.’
‘Oh,’ I said in a small voice, sensing that I ought to be devastated by this indictment. I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my forehead on them. ‘I want to go home.’
I meant that I wanted to go home home, back to England. People there did occasionally smoke pot, but as far as I’d ever been able to make out before, all it did was to make them laugh like hyenas and then eat lots of biscuits. Why did I have to be in this awful place where two puffs of a joint made things move and wobble and stopped time dead in its tracks?
‘I’ve been sitting here for hours,’ I announced in a muffled, aggrieved voice, my head still on my knees.
‘No you haven’t,’ Ivan said. ‘I saw you come out here just now.’
‘Must have been someone else,’ I insisted. ‘It was lunchtime when I sat down.’
‘It’s still lunchtime,’ he said.
‘Where’s Corinna?’
‘She left with Calvin.’
I started crying again, enough boiled egg tears for a Boy Scout picnic. I put my hands back over my eyes, just in case.
‘Oh dear,’ said Ivan. ‘You’re in a bit of a state, aren’t you?’ He sighed with what appeared to be deep irritation, and extracted a car key from his shorts pocket. ‘I suppose I’d better take you home then. Come on.’ He stood up, held out his hand and hauled me to my feet. Not that I could feel them.
The car journey seemed to take several hours, which was odd, considering Corinna and I had walked to Raylene’s house in only ten minutes: a few blocks north and halfway up Mount Oread.
‘This is not a mountain,’ I said, trying to make conversation. ‘Why do they call it a mountain? It’s a little hill, that’s all.’
Ivan, behind the wheel of a battered Subaru, looked bored again. ‘In Kansas, this counts as a mountain,’ he said. ‘This is 1044 Connecticut. Is this your house?’
‘I think so,’ I said doubtfully, squinting at it. It looked identical to all the other houses on the block.
‘Let’s go and find out, shall we?’ he said. Even in my less than compos mentis state, I could tell he was taking the mickey.
‘I’ll be fine from here,’ I said, promptly falling out of the car on to the sidewalk. Ivan didn’t even try to disguise his laughter, and I decided that I was rapidly going off him. Nonetheless, I permitted him to escort me up the path and help me with my key in the lock, which suddenly seemed much too large for it. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. ‘Drink me,’ I muttered, and Ivan gazed at me. We stood there on the threshold, staring at each other for what I was convinced was at least twenty-five minutes, and then he leaned forward and kissed me, so gently that I thought I’d float away.
‘Come on. I’ll make you a cup of tea and you’ll feel better,’ he said with authority, opening the door and ushering me inside. ‘Go and have a lie down.’
I did as I was told, but two hours later, there was no sign of him. I began to worry. What if he had stolen all our things and run away? Not that we had anything to steal, beyond our passports and clothes. But where was he? Perhaps he’d gone to the grocery store to buy some milk – although something must have happened to him. Maybe he’d been hit by a truck on the way back! Oh no, I thought, struggling to sit up. I’d have to call the police, and I was really in no fit state. Plus I didn’t even know Ivan’s surname …Alarmingly, the bed suddenly took off, with a force which pushed me flat on my back again. It was whizzing through the wide Kansas night sky and stars were rushing past me on either side of the bed. I felt freshly sick. I knew it wasn’t real, but I couldn’t stop it. At least with a nightmare you could stop it. I cried out. The bed juddered to a halt, and Ivan appeared in the doorway carrying a mug of something steaming. ‘Are you all right?’
I was sobbing now. ‘The bed was flying …I can’t stand it. How can I make it stop?’
He sat down, putting the mug on the carpet (since our furniture rental budget hadn’t stretched far enough for bedside tables) and patted my hand awkwardly.
‘You can’t make it stop. It will stop when it stops. This is a very extreme reaction for a couple of hits – maybe that grass had some PCP, you know, angel dust, sprinkled on it. It makes you hallucinate.’
‘Was everyone else having the same thing?’ I asked weakly, sniffing. When I’d left, none of the others looked as if they were struggling to focus on wavy fences and popping-out eyeballs. I was glad for Corinna’s sake that she hadn’t partaken. It was terrifying. And now, to add insult to injury, waterfalls appeared to be gushing from my nose.
Ivan handed me a Kleenex. ‘They’re used to it. They smoke all the time, morning, noon and night. It probably only gave them a little buzz. Also, it’s a very bad idea to smoke in the morning, especially when you never normally smoke at all.’
How do you know so much about it? I thought crossly, Mr ‘Drugs Are For Morons’. I became aware of some mellow music, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, which Ivan must have put on the cassette player in my room, although I hadn’t noticed him doing it.
‘But it’s night time now. I should be getting over it.’
He laughed and pointed out of the window. ‘Wow, you are in a bad way, aren’t you? It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.’
I closed my eyes and lay back, willing the bed not to move. It did move, but I realized belatedly that this was because Ivan had climbed on to the mattress and lain down next to me. I felt his hand slip under my lacy charity-shop blouse, and gently rub my stomach.
The sweat which had burst out all over my skin after sitting outside on the porch had chilled, and appeared to be coating me with jelly, like the sort found around the sausage in a pork pie. ‘Why is he singing about oil drains?’ I muttered.
‘What?’ Ivan propped himself up on one elbow and looked at me, amused. I thought I ought to remove his hand, but it was comforting; anchoring. I hoped he didn’t mind my clammy jelly texture.
‘Van Morrison. He’s saying something about viaducts and oil drains.’
Ivan laughed at me – again. ‘I think he’s saying “your dreams”, not oil drains.’
&nbs
p; He had this annoying knack of making me feel about two inches tall, even when I was completely out of it, which was quite a feat, considering. I finally managed to lift his hand off my belly. It was as heavy as a lead weight.
‘I hardly know you,’ I said, as haughtily as I could.
‘You will,’ he replied confidently.
Within minutes his hand was back again, resting warm and heavy on my bare skin. I peeked at him as his eyelids slid down, black eyelashes feathering his cheeks, wondering if he was right, whether I would know him.
In a moment of lucidity, I scrutinized his body: the hard muscles of his legs, the little whorls of dark hair sticking out of the top of his T-shirt, the way that his suntan stopped in an abrupt line across his bicep.
I must have fallen asleep too, because the next thing I knew was a shortness of breath, a sensation of being smothered. Ivan was on top of me, gently kissing my neck, and with his fingers creeping like a spider up my leg, under my skirt.
‘Get off!’ I shouted in panic, for a moment not even remembering who he was.
At that moment, the screen door slammed and I heard voices in the house.
‘Corinna!’ I yelled as loudly as I could.
Ivan rolled off me immediately. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, sitting up and combing his hair back into place with his fingers.
‘Susie? Are you all right? Oh, sorry.’ Corinna had stuck her head round my door, but retreated immediately when she saw Ivan.
I sat up too. Thankfully, everything seemed to have stopped whirling. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I called back. ‘Just checking it was you.’
‘It’s me – and Calvin,’ she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. ‘See you in the morning, OK?’
We heard giggles, and the sound of her bedroom door shutting.
‘I’d better go, hadn’t I?’ said Ivan, not meeting my eyes.
I touched his face gently. It was such a relief to feel a bit better, although I could tell that I still wasn’t back to normal. My voice sounded as if it was coming out of a long tunnel. ‘Yeah. I need to sleep more.’
‘Can I see you again?’
I pretended to think about it for a minute. ‘If you promise never again to try it on with me when I’m sleeping.’
He hung his head in mock contrition. ‘Sorry.’
‘OK then. Thanks for looking after me today.’
‘You’re welcome. I’ll be in touch.’
Then, with a small heave and creak of the mattress, he was gone. I immediately fell asleep again, grateful for the escape from the torment of the past two hours (masquerading as nine hours), and vowing never to touch pot again as long as I lived.
And I haven’t touched it since. It’s sort of odd that I ended up living with a total dopehead, but there you go.
Chapter 6
Rachel
It’s three in the morning. My eyes hurt and my head is fuzzy, but I woke up about an hour ago, and I know it’s going to be a long time before I get back to sleep tonight. I kind of wish I had gone in to see Mark at the pub on the way home after all. What’s the point of a relationship if you can’t confide in the one you love? A hug and a kiss from him would have really helped.
Perhaps Mark’s and Dad’s mutual antipathy made me worried that some small part of Mark would gloat, or make a joke about not having to hide our relationship any more if Dad really had been arrested and was going to jail; and I would lose it with him. I love him deeply and completely, but that not to say I don’t sometimes feel just a little bit scared of his unpredictability.
What would Dad be going to jail for? It’s preposterous. Bloody Elsie, putting ideas into everyone’s heads. I mean, ifI’m worrying about the possibility that it might be true, what must everyone else at the club be thinking?
It was dark and quiet inside the house when I got home. I couldn’t see if Dad’s car was there, because he keeps it in the garage at the back, but I knew Anthea must be in, because her car was in the drive, the heating was turned up full, and there was a faint smell of vegetable soup in the air. Anthea lives on a diet of vegetable soup, Ryvita and vodka and slimline tonic.
It’s probably why she goes to bed so early (no energy to stay up later than nine-thirty) and always has the heating on full (too enfeebled by her lack of calories for her body to generate any heat of its own).
‘Anthea?’ I called up the dark stairs. After a moment I heard the swish of her bedroom door across the carpet.
‘Yes?’ She sounded grumpy, as usual.
‘Where’s Dad?’
There was a brief silence, then she appeared, her ash-blonde hair sticking straight out in an unruly thatch at the back and one thin strap of her lilac lace negligee falling off a brown freckled shoulder.
She glided downstairs, the haughty expression on her face born, I knew, from her intense dislike of anyone seeing her without her makeup on. She was exposing far too much flesh, and I hoped against hope she was wearing something underneath the negligee. I fixed my eyes on her from the knees down to avoid seeing anything I didn’t want to see. She had a great body for a woman in her late forties, although the skin on her legs was getting a little baggy. It fell in creases just above her kneecap. I bet she’d have a knee-lift, if such a thing existed. (Needless to say, she seemed utterly paralyzed by envy at my mother’s relative youth and beauty, and wouldn’t even have her name mentioned in her presence, referring to her only as ‘Her’. When Mum came over, Christmas before last, it threatened to turn ugly. Gordana forced us all to have a Boxing Day lunch together, and Mum kept looking at Anthea with such obvious pity that Anthea was nearly beside herself with anxiety. She thought Mum pitied her for being too old or too baggy-kneed, or whatever; whereas in fact Mum just felt sorry for her that she’d got lumped with Ivan.)
‘Have you seen him?’ I demanded. ‘He was expected at the club tonight, for the Autumn Social.’
She raised her eyebrows, and a faint expression of shock flashed over her face. ‘I thought tonight was the committee meeting.’
‘Um…well, maybe there was a committee meeting earlier, but I was there for the dinner thingy.’ Damn Dad and his big fat fibs. Trust him to pretend to Anthea that he’d be going for a meeting, not a party.
Anthea clearly didn’t believe me – well, I never have been a very convincing liar. She looked so totally different to her daytime self, standing there on the stairs with her tanned, wrinkly skin; vulnerable and much older. I felt sorry for her. Despite living with Dad, she has such a fragile, tenuous hold on him. I think it must be just sex which keeps them together. They don’t appear to have anything else in common.
A muscle twitched in her cheek, but I knew she’d never let on to me how hurt she was about not being invited. Dad is terrible about including her in his work life. He recently told one of his squad members that he had a live-in girlfriend and they laughed, assuming he was joking. He hasn’t once brought Anthea down to the club (although she sometimes comes in on her own, to try and sell the dreadful tennis gear she designs. He avoids her whenever she does).
Still, I had more important things to worry about than Anthea’s pride.
‘So where is he?’
‘He’s upstairs. In bed. He had a migraine. He got home about five and went straight to bed. You know what he’s like when he gets one of his heads. He said he wanted to sleep it off so he’d be fit for Zurich tomorrow.’
‘Oh. So …did he say what he was doing today?’ I asked, but already I felt relief draining through me. He couldn’t have been arrested if he was going to fly to Switzerland with me tomorrow. They didn’t let you leave the country when you were on bail, did they?
‘No, he didn’t,’ she said shortly – fair enough, since she never knew anything about Dad’s movements. I decided not to ask her outright if he’d been arrested. It seemed faintly ludicrous now that I was home, and Dad was simply upstairs asleep. And anyway, if the Jehovah’s Witness story was a cover-up, she wouldn’t admit the truth to me. She was ridiculously loy
al to Dad.
‘Well, never mind. I’m just going to ring Gordana – we were worried when he didn’t show up – and then I’m going to bed too. I’ve been up since half five this morning.’
Later, after I’d placated Gordana, had a shower, and climbed gratefully into my single bed, I heard Anthea whirring away on the exercise bike in the spare room.
She was at it for hours. I thought I could hear a faint moaning sound too, although that could have been the bike’s mechanism. It was like being haunted by a manicured ghost. She’s going to collapse with exhaustion if she carries on like this, I thought; or else exercise herself into oblivion. I had a vision of breaking down the door to find nothing left of her except a pair of false eyelashes floating in a puddle of sweat, next to an empty crumpled Chanel tracksuit.
Clearly all was not well with her and Dad. I felt a surge of anger as the whirring kept me from sleep: Dad ought to get his nose out of my love life and concentrate on his own for a change. But I still wondered if it had anything to do with Dad’s early visitors. Feeling guilty at my annoyance – poor Anthea, I felt sorry for her really – I got up and made her a cheese sandwich, which I left outside the spare bedroom door with a glass of milk, for when she eventually finished exercising. I called through to tell her it was there, but received no answer.
It took me ages to get to sleep. My room seemed too big and too empty as I sat up in bed in the dark like a child waiting to be tucked in. I wished that I’d accepted Gordana’s offer of company. She was always such a rock – I once overheard Mum saying that the hardest thing about moving back to Kansas was not having Gordana’s shoulder to cry on any more. (I was quite put out by that, actually. Surely, bearing in mind I stayed with Dad because of my career, it ought to be me she was upset at being apart from?) All of us in different places, not being there for one another: Mum in Kansas with Billy; Dad in a place somewhere inside his head that nobody has access to; Gordana at the club getting drunk; me here with old Anorexic Annie – although she’s about as much support as a custard bra.