She edged closer to the fire, crouching down in front of it, to watch the remnant of her love charring into brittle flakes of black. So be it. Even Heloïse had been forced to don a muzzle, and after Abelard’s two sermonizing letters, had never alluded to her pain and grief again. She must do the same, seal her mouth, swallow her despair.
The stairs seemed longer, steeper, as she toiled up to the spare room. She removed the stupid nightie, scrubbed off all her makeup, tore a brush through her sticky lacquered hair. She looked hideous now, back in her old tracksuit, with dark rings beneath her eyes and her pale face undisguised. Could she really blame Dr Edwards for deciding not to come, or feel bitter towards Dave because he didn’t want her either, favoured his two pretty girls?
She crept to the window, peered out through the glass. The shadowy back garden seemed menacing, forlorn: clumps of swarthy shrubs lurking like intruders; the sky still overcast, moon and stars engulfed. It was barely ten past six, though it felt more like the early hours – nothing-time, nightmare-time – no noise except a faint and eerie rustling, where the tendrils of a creeper were nudging against the pane. She turned away, limped towards the bed. Nothing left to do now but burrow beneath the blankets and try to sleep till Christmas Day was over, itself a blackened remnant, crumbling into ash. She was about to yank the covers back when she tensed in sudden shock: the rustling sound outside was submerged in an imperious bray – the pealing of the doorbell.
‘No,’ she whispered, horrified. ‘Not now! You can’t come now.’ She dived over to the mirror, began pinning up her hair; couldn’t let him see her in this repulsive frowzy state, or watch his physical recoil – his first eager steps reversing, like a movie running backwards, as he retreated down the hall. Yet equally impossible to leave him standing on the doorstep when he’d come at last, kept his solemn word. She stripped off the grubby tracksuit, undressing at such fever-heat that she clawed a hole in her tights. She pulled the nightie over her head, grimacing at the reflection of her washed-out naked face. But perhaps it didn’t matter what she looked like. Any second now they would be alone for the first time, without the interruption of receptionist or wife. He would hold her hand again, speak caressingly again, and his words would make her beautiful.
The bell shrilled a second time. ‘Coming!’ she called, dashing down to answer it, hearing now the Oxford bells ringing in May Morning – waves of wild triumphant sound reverberating through the house. She jumped the last three stairs, tore along the passage and unbolted the front door, Michael’s name already on her lips.
Her eyes moved swiftly from the mid-brown hair to the neat and tidy brows, blue eyes and blue-grey tie; then further down to fawn cords and polished shoes. She hunched her shoulders against the blast of biting air, rubbing her bare arms. A cruel wind had sprung up, and dead leaves were blowing in – brown and withered leaves, which had once been bright, and young.
‘I’m Dr Conway-Gordon,’ said a clipped and well-bred voice. ‘The duty-doctor from the deputizing service. Dr Edwards asked me to call round, to visit a Miss Tessa Reeves. Is this the right address?’
She shook her head, kept shaking it and shaking it as she pushed the door shut in his face, rammed the two bolts home. She trekked slowly through the house, switching every light off, plunging it in darkness before groping back to the spare room. She drew the heavy curtains, to blank out the world beyond, then slid between the stiff white sheets, their arms as cold as hers.
‘No,’ she whispered to herself as she lay staring into nothingness. ‘No, one here of that name.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Thanks,’ said Tessa, accepting a fruit pastille from the woman on the bench beside her – a fatso in a moth-eaten grey coat, wearing fur-lined slippers over a pair of turquoise bedsocks.
‘Go on, love – take two.’
Tessa scrabbled at the tube again, wishing she could offer something in return. But all she had brought with her was a Ribena bottle full of cherry brandy, which she’d been sipping surreptitiously when the woman wasn’t looking, or each time she’d lumbered up to check her washing. They had exchanged names half an hour ago, and she’d gleaned something of Dot’s life from the contents of her laundry bag. Surprising what you could learn from people’s washing – another kind of history, in a sense. You could tell their ages, whether they had children, or still lived with a partner; what sports they played, how they passed their time; how rich they were, or poor; how neat, or downright slovenly. Dot’s old man was even pudgier than she was, judging by the size of his pyjamas, and her football-playing son was also quite a hulk, unlike her skinny daughter, who went skating and liked pink. Dot herself was either extremely house-proud or obsessional, since she’d washed two dozen dusters in the same load as her daughter’s shell-pink nightie and coral skating skirt.
‘You got kids?’ Dot asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One son. He’ll be ten months exactly on January the tenth.’
‘Smashing! Who looks after him? Your Mum?’
Tessa played for time, plugged her mouth with the second pastille and started chewing with more vigour than it needed. She and April had been bickering a lot – not about the baby, but about her non-existent boyfriend. ‘I’m having trouble with my mother,’ she admitted finally. It would be a relief to talk to an older woman, get things off her chest. She was feeling better altogether since she’d come in from the sleety cold outside; allowed the warm fug of the launderette to thaw her frozen limbs. She especially liked the smells – invigorating, healthy smells of detergent and clean clothes, which seemed right for New Year’s Eve. She had planned a bold new start, a whole host of resolutions, one of which was to iron out the problems at home. She swallowed the black pastille; blackcurrant and cherry flavours now mingled in her mouth. The cherry brandy was a Christmas present from Frank, while tightfisted Eric had settled for a calendar. Still, it helped to see the year ahead, to have all the days and weeks and months laid out systematically.
‘Mum says I’ve changed,’ she confided, turning back to Dot. ‘She blames it on my boyfriend.’
‘What’s wrong with the poor feller?’ Dot’s eyes lit up at the prospect of a scandal.
‘Nothing. She’s never even met him. That’s the trouble, really. She keeps pressuring me to bring him home, and when I don’t, she gets suspicious, assumes he must be someone I’m ashamed of – you know, a druggie or a drop-out. She says I always used to work hard, and take a pride in my appearance, and all that sort of stuff, and now I just loaf around, looking like the Wreck of the Hesperus.’
‘You looks all right to me, dear.’
Tessa couldn’t speak. She was so unused to any sort of approval, that a few encouraging words from a fat and shabby stranger had moved her almost to tears. Everyone had been having a go at her, this last wretched week. Eric had called her snappy and unreasonable; Frank asked why his Madonna had turned into a bag lady, and April continually peppered her with questions. She knew her mother meant well, but the inquisition was beginning to wear her down. Why did she keep missing meals? Were she and ‘Michael’ living on fresh air, and wouldn’t he like to join them for a decent home-cooked dinner? Did he really prefer his girlfriend not to wash her hair, and was he so screwed up by his father’s death that he’d turned into a hermit?
‘He’s not a hermit,’ she’d objected. ‘He just prefers to see me on my own, Mum. And he likes me to look natural.’
‘That’s not the word I’d use.’
‘And he takes me out for meals – anywhere I fancy.’
‘So where does he get the lolly, pray?’
When she’d paused to work that one out, her mother had changed tack. ‘Michael’ was a toff now, not a junkie – someone snobby and stuck up who couldn’t spare the time of day for ordinary working people. ‘It’s sad to think you’re ashamed of your own mother,’ April had concluded with a shrug.
Tessa took another swig of cherry brandy, no longer even caring if Dot could smell it on her brea
th. She was determined to drown her guilt, which kept bobbing up to plague her, remind her what a louse she was to have left her mother on her own on New Year’s Eve of all nights. Frank was out, Eric ill in bed, and she’d waltzed off without a backward glance, dolled up for a party. The toff-cum-junkie had invited her to a friend’s house, where there’d be dancing, drinks, a disco – or so she’d said with feigned excitement, only stopping short at a firework display and midnight cabaret.
‘So why can’t he pick you up from home?’ April had protested. ‘I don’t like you wandering the streets alone, especially in this weather.’
‘I’m not wandering the streets. He’s meeting me at the pub just round the corner.’
‘He’s a darkie, Tessa, isn’t he? – a nigger with a brood of kids and a couple of spare wives. That’s the reason he never shows his face here.’
She hadn’t answered – couldn’t – knew she had to get away; avoid more crass remarks, or, worse, the cosy heart-to-heart which her mother had been angling for since Christmas. It was impossible to communicate with April – had been for three months. Her love for Michael was always in the way. She hadn’t time or room or strength for anything outside it; had to feed it like a hungry bear, spend every minute of the day poking titbits through the bars of its huge cage. She felt safer in the launderette, with oddballs and eccentrics who were too busy with their own problems to cross-examine her. One of them had tried chatting her up, soon after she’d come in – a weirdo wearing shoes which didn’t match: a brown sandal on his left foot and a blue trainer on his right. Dot had saved her from his clutches, plonked down on the bench beside her, and literally squeezed him out. But if she hung around a while she might meet someone else, someone more presentable, whom she could take home to her mother and introduce as Michael – someone neither black, nor stoned, nor bigamous.
She unbuttoned her coat, smoothed her taffeta skirt. It felt strange to be dressed up, especially in a launderette, but there was quite a party atmosphere, in fact – paper-chains looped across the ceiling, and a large holly-edged placard saying ‘A MERRY XMAS AND A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS!’ Even the name, ‘The Sno-Wite Launderama’, suggested fairy tales – an escape from poisoned apples, the promise of a Prince. She leaned back against the wall. The rhythmic drone of the machines was lulling her into a state of dreamy inertia. She watched in fascination as the washing tumbled round behind its porthole. If only those were her and Michael’s clothes – clinging to each other as they heaved and thrust in all that steamy heat; suddenly juddering in a frantic spin, then resting for a while until the next wild spurt.
She shut her eyes, imagining Michael’s sweat and dirt running into hers; their private smells and juices merged; their arms and legs entangled, like the clothes. It was the perfect way of spending New Year’s Eve – tossed and churned with Michael. Her limbs relaxed, her head lolled forward, and she was aware of nothing further until an impatient hand shook her by the shoulder.
‘Time to go. We’re closing.’
‘Dot …?’ she faltered, glancing around, but the place was empty now. Everyone had disappeared save a crabby-looking female in a balding fake-fur coat.
‘And take your washing with you,’ snapped the ocelot.
Tessa stumbled to her feet. ‘I … I haven’t any washing.’
‘So what d’you think you’re doing here? It’s not a public lounge, you know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Tessa muttered, still not properly awake. She sleepwalked to the door, flinching at the shock of cold as she pushed it slowly open. The sleet had changed to snow; large white woolly flakes whirling through the darkness, melting on her eyelashes and running down like tears. She turned her collar up, cursing her thin party-shoes. She couldn’t walk the streets all night, yet where could she find shelter? Pubs cost money – as did cinemas and restaurants, bowling alleys, wine bars – and money was a problem. She’d given up her babysitting, and all her other jobs. If she was banned from Dr Edwards’ house, it seemed completely pointless to work for anyone else, and anyway babies other than Michael made her cry. Her mother had been urging her to apply for Income Support, but she didn’t feel she deserved support – not a monster who had murdered her child. The offices were probably shut, in any case. There was a ‘closed’ sign on the world between Christmas and New Year – everyone too busy with festivities. If you weren’t involved in partying yourself, then you stayed out in the dark and cold, pressing your nose against the glass of other people’s rip-roaring celebrations.
She passed a crowded café – happy couples laughing at each table; music spilling from the door, and a whiff of garlic butter which made her stomach seesaw with envy and revulsion mixed. Dr Michael Edwards would be eating. He’d been invited to a dinner-dance at Dr Reynolds’ golf club. She’d discovered that from a friend of Mrs Webb; still kept up all her contacts, so that she would know what he was doing and especially where he was. She’d been terrified he’d disappear once he’d done his spell of Christmas duty – jet off on a skiing trip, or take Joyce and baby Michael to soak up the sun in a different, kinder hemisphere. But he was a mere eight miles away – no, closer – in her head now: sitting at a white-clothed table, starting his first course; his mouth busy with smoked salmon, fingers toying with a slice of thin brown bread. She longed to be the salmon and the bread; to be handled by him, swallowed; to travel down his gut, ferment inside him, until she was shunted into his bowel.
Reluctantly, she made herself trudge on, screwing up her eyes against the snow; her hands and feet beginning to lose all feeling; her flimsy shoes badly stained and squelching. If only she could turn it off – press a button or flick a switch, and stop that ceaseless flurry of white flakes. Everything had turned into a battle, even simple things like walking. It was a struggle to keep upright, to pick her precarious way between the puddles without slipping on the pavement and landing with her bottom in the slush. Now and then she’d stop awhile, to look in through lighted windows and watch people eating multi-coloured pizzas, or shaking crimson ketchup on to piles of glistening chips. She was picking up the crumbs – crumbs of conversation, discarded olive-stones, dregs of beer, of heat. She turned the corner, leapt back to Michael’s dinner. It was warmer there, more comforting; the strains of the first quickstep kindling the grey silence; waitresses in black and white serving sirloin steak and tender green mangetouts. She could taste the juicy steak; feel Michael’s hand on her bare back as he steered her round the dance-floor.
‘More wine?’ he offered, when they were breathless from the cha-cha, and returning to their seats. She nodded, fumbling in her bag to find the bottle, and choking down a gulp of cherry brandy. ‘Shall we sit out for a while?’ he asked, the words suggestive, teasing; his hungry eyes undressing her. She smiled, dived into the Kum-Kleen Washeteria (which was squeezed between a betting-shop and a Pakistani grocer); shivering as she arranged herself on a battered plastic chair. She tried to transform the peeling paint into the stylish panelled walls of High Pines Golf Club, but Michael hadn’t followed her inside. Not that she could blame him. The place was freezing, filthy dirty; greasy fish and chip papers littered round the chair-legs; dented beer-cans dribbling on the floor. It was also totally deserted, as if it had died and been abandoned – every washer empty, every dryer cold.
Still, she’d no right to complain; was extremely lucky, actually, to have found a second launderette so soon. Launderettes were free. If her luck held out, she could spend all night moving from one to another – rather like a pub-crawl, but without the expense. She might even find a warm one which stayed open twenty-four hours. They were the obvious place for her, offering purity and cleanliness, decontamination. She needed purging, putting through the longest wash until the murder-stain had been entirely bleached away. And launderettes were ‘beautiful’, according to the film, or romantic playgrounds where young hunks took their Levis off and sat waiting in their boxer shorts. Even in commercials, the Prince turned up eventually, though he might
be wearing underpants instead of a cloak and golden crown.
She removed her sodden shoes, shook snowflakes from her coat, then passed the time reading all the tatty cards pinned up on the noticeboard; counting the word ‘wanted’, which appeared thirteen separate times. People wanted cleaners, or rooms to let, or flat-sharers; mothers wanted second-hand prams, stair-guards, help with ironing. Two builders wanted work; a scout troop wanted jumble. She shrugged and moved away; couldn’t understand anyone wanting anything but Michael.
She walked up and down to keep her circulation going; suddenly noticed a camera mounted on the wall. The premises must be electronically surveyed, to make sure that no one broke the rules, or used the place as a brothel or a doss-house. She wished she had a camera concealed in Dr Edwards’ home, so that she could observe him day and night, or could spy on him now in the golf club – watch him pouring cream on chocolate gâteau, or spooning in some sharp and tingly sorbet. Eating was so intimate, it should be done in private; the two of them alone. Yet she’d never seen him eat or drink – not one single mouthful, not the smallest sip.
She strode back to the noticeboard, began to take down all the cards, tugging at the drawing-pins; one or two so stubborn that she hurt her thumb trying to prise them out. She turned the cards over, so that she could write on their clean sides, using a Persil packet to lean on, which she’d found on a high shelf. ‘MICHAEL MICHAEL’, she printed in block capitals; repeating it on every card, then pinning them all up again, so that the board was shouting ‘MICHAEL, MICHAEL, MICHAEL, MICHAEL, MICHAEL …’
She swung round as the door slammed. Someone had come in – a swarthy-looking character in dungarees and stubble, with a dirty khaki anorak draped across his head to protect him from the snow.
Michael, Michael Page 32