* * *
And where should I turn for comfort but to Catherine? But she was elusive, not answering the telephone. Finally, I presented myself at the flat; God knows I had nowhere else to go. She seemed surprised to see me, saying, ‘Oh, it’s you,’ in a tone so neutral as to be positively unwelcoming. She let me in, though, into the tiny cluttered room; her children, both girls, were playing on the floor with bits of material. They looked up incuriously. It was the first time I had seen them. They were dark and pretty like David but with an air of detachment like Catherine, far beyond their years. They looked away and went on playing; I could not charm them.
Catherine sat down in a rocking-chair and resumed stitching some pale suede that looked like a pouch.
‘What made you come?’ she asked, as if I were acting under some compulsion.
I said, ‘You weren’t answering the telephone.’
‘No. I didn’t feel sociable. I’ve never understood why people feel compelled to answer a phone just because it’s ringing. If I don’t want to talk I don’t pick it up.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
She looked up at me like one of her children and smiled politely. ‘Well, you’re here now,’ She said.
I began to tell her what had happened; I was inhibited by the presence of the two little girls on the floor, although they did not look up again. They reminded me of Asian children, quiet and self-absorbed, with adult gravity and composure that were both attractive and unnerving.
She said, sensing my inhibition, ‘It’s all right, they’re not listening. Grown-up talk bores them.’
I finished telling her about Gemma. She said, ‘I shouldn’t tell him all that, if I were you. He hates being blamed for anything. It always has to be someone else’s fault.’
‘But it’s entirely his fault. She only did it because he didn’t turn up. And she’d have died if I hadn’t come home early. I saved her life and now her wretched husband won’t even let me see her.’
She smiled faintly. ‘Yes. It’s an unfair world.’
‘Don’t you even care?’
She put down her stitching. ‘I don’t feel anything. I thought I explained that to you months ago. I simply don’t have feelings any more.’
I said, ‘What did David do to you?’ and the younger child said ‘Daddy,’ without looking up or pausing in her game.
Catherine said, ‘Yes, darling,’ to the child, and to me: ‘Nothing. Why do you think he’s so powerful? I did it all myself. I let him hurt me for a while and then I decided to stop.’ She paused and added thoughtfully, ‘It’s an awe-inspiring sight when you take away the magic from someone and watch them crumble. You’d better do that with your niece if you really can’t get her back.’
I heard myself saying, ‘She was all I had.’
‘Yes, I know, it’s awful. But you’ll get used to it. I was like Gemma once, can you imagine? All that emotion. Oh, come on, cheer up. Let me give you a drink. It’s gin for you, isn’t it?’ She got up and fetched ice from the kitchen; she poured me an enormous gin and tonic, and half a tumbler of neat whisky for herself. She went to a lot of trouble cutting up lemons for me.
‘It’s been very interesting this time,’ she went on brightly. ‘All that stuff about Troilus and Criseyde, and you masterminding everything. Quite a change from all those heartbroken husbands and fathers I usually get, begging me to call him off as if he was a dog I could put on a lead.’
‘It’s a game, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘You’re both playing some kind of game.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s the way we live. I wouldn’t call it a game myself, but you can if you like. Anyway, what were you up to?’
I said with dignity, ‘I was trying to be creative.’
‘Oh yes, of course.’ She smiled. ‘That makes all the difference. You know, it used to worry me, I thought maybe I’d end up like you, wanting other people to have the feelings I can’t have, wanting them to do all the loving and suffering for me. I was afraid it was the next stage. But I don’t think it is. I think I can stay numb for ever. I’m like a fly in amber. Or a specimen in a bottle.’ She giggled. ‘I’m preserved in formaldehyde.’
I said, ‘But he’s doing it all for you, isn’t he?’
She frowned. ‘Oh no, not you too. Don’t you start analysing me. I get enough of that from my doctor. It’s very boring, let me tell you. People don’t realise how boring it is.’
I said quickly, to make amends, ‘Have lunch with me next week.’
‘How can I?’
I thought she meant the children. ‘Next month then. When they’re back at school. To show you’ve forgiven me.’
She took a large draught of scotch and stared at me, very straight, with a look of surprise.
‘But it’s over. There’s no point in our meeting now it’s over.’
Panic. Panic and terror, like the end of the world and nowhere to hide.
‘Why not?’ Such a normal voice. So calm. Where did I learn to dissemble as well as that?
‘Because they were our only link. Surely you see that?’
I shook my head. I was suddenly afraid my composure would slip. I might be going to cry and I did not trust my voice.
‘It’s always the same,’ she said patiently. ‘I get to know whoever it is – it completes the circle – and I like intrigue. But once the affair is over… what’s the point? What would we talk about?’
I cleared my throat and said, ‘Ourselves. Each other.’
She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t work. You can’t have me just because you’ve lost her. Besides, I’ll be too busy. This girl in Birmingham, she’s bound to have a husband or a father. Sooner or later I’ll be hearing from him. And I don’t have that much spare time, not with the children and my doctor and a part-time job.’
She looked at me, perfectly serious and pleasant. Everything about her was beige today – her hair, her clothes, and her smooth unlined face with the good bones that would last her a lifetime. My eyes clouded over, blurring what I saw.
‘I hate to hurry you,’ she said gently, ‘but David will be home soon.’
‘Daddy,’ said the child again.
‘Yes, Susie, Daddy’s coming home for the weekend.’ She smiled at me. ‘And he’d hate to find you here. He doesn’t like bits of his life overlapping. He really has a thing about it.’
I finished my drink; I needed it badly. I could not believe I would never see her again, yet that was clearly what she was telling me. I could not explain why she had become so important, but it must have been written all over my face that she had.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s not as bad as that. We’re nonplayers, both of us. We’d be no good to each other, we’ve opted out.’
I followed her blindly into the hall. At the door she paused and said sympathetically, as if I had an illness, ‘Did you want to make love to me – is that why you’re upset?’
I shook my head.
‘If the children weren’t here you could have done. I wouldn’t mind. Just to say goodbye. It doesn’t mean anything.’
I said, ‘I only wish I could.’
‘If I was a boy?’
‘No. It’s all over. All of it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said gravely. ‘It was obviously important to you.’
* * *
I got home to find David systematically smashing up the spare room, as if trying to erase a memory. I could not think what the noise was when I entered the flat, and the shock when I saw him was considerable. He was breaking ornaments, ripping sheets and overturning furniture. When he saw me he said with a kind of snarl like the villain in a bad melodrama, ‘Stay away from my wife, you cunt,’ and went on destroying things, but in a very methodical way, very much as he had cleaned the flat, as if following a system. The destruction was punctuated with more snarling remarks. ‘You’ve been to the flat, haven’t you?’ A vase crashed. ‘I saw your car.’ A lamp overturned. ‘You’ve got a fucking nerv
e. Well, I’m going to teach you a lesson.’ A stool went flying. ‘You don’t go near my home and my wife, is that clear?’
I feared for the mirror (both the discovery and the expense) so I put myself between him and it and said, ‘Gemma cut her wrists for you, you bastard,’ more to distract him than anything else. ‘She tried to kill herself and I saved her life.’ I think he must have known already (perhaps she had contacted him) or else he simply didn’t care, because his face didn’t change. He tried to push me aside but I stood my ground, thinking of Gemma’s wrists and Christopher’s revenge and what the mirror had cost, and I said, ‘You bastard, if you’d turned up she wouldn’t have done it, where the hell were you?’ and he hit me in the mouth.
It wasn’t a hard blow but it shifted my plate uncomfortably and it frightened me. I ran into the bedroom to pick up the phone, but he was after me at once and I only got as far as the first nine. He hit me again and this time he got my glasses: they tugged at my ears as they came off and I heard the scrunch of glass. I shut my eyes tight in case of splinters and hoped they were lodged painfully in his fist, but he hit me again, in the stomach this time, and it hurt very much. I doubled up and I couldn’t get my breath. He said, ‘God, you’re pathetic. You’re just a worn-out queer with a limp prick, aren’t you? So get out of people’s lives.’ He struck me a light sharp blow to the chin, almost playful, as if to straighten me up. ‘Answer me. You’re a closet queen… and you can’t get it up… that’s right isn’t it?’ He was playing with me now, hitting me often but without force, just enough to knock me off balance while he abused and humiliated me. I had seen boxers behave like this in the ring; I knew what to expect.
He was enjoying himself and there was nothing I could do: if I hit him back he might become really angry and kill me. Besides, I had a sense of sacrifice, of expiation. If I suffered a little, it might make up for everything; they might all come back and love each other again and I wouldn’t be alone forever.
But without my glasses I couldn’t see very well and we were all over the room as he went on hitting me and insulting me and I went on moving away. I dodged one blow and that made him angry so he hit me much harder next time and I stumbled. Losing my balance, I reached out blindly, clutching at anything to save myself from falling, and realised too late I had got hold of the tapestry. It gave, and we fell to the floor together.
* * *
I shall never understand. There was a moment’s total silence while I lay under the tapestry gasping for breath and picturing David looking through the mirror into the other room. In a moment he would begin to kill me. He would beat or kick me to death; there was no way of saving myself. No one would hear if I shouted; these old flats were solidly built and soundproof. That had been a selling-point when I bought mine. I was so frightened and so sure of imminent death I am ashamed to say I actually wet myself. Terror flooded my entire body and overflowed.
What I heard next I can still hardly believe. Laughter. After a full minute’s total silence, he began to laugh. It was an explosion. Exaggerated, theatrical laughter – but genuine. He sounded as if he was releasing the tension of years. He laughed and laughed, while I lay disbelieving my ears.
‘Well, you crafty bugger.’ He laughed some more. ‘You cunning old sod.’ More laughter. ‘Christ, that explains everything. Oh, for God’s sake, get up. Don’t lie there cowering. I’m not going to hit you again. You’re an old man. Yes, I’m ashamed of myself. What more d’you want me to say?’
But I did not move. I was embarrassed to face him, rumpled and bruised with all dignity gone, my glasses smashed and my teeth askew, and I did not think there was anything we could usefully say to each other. Besides, I felt safer where I lay, under the protective shroud of tapestry.
After a while, when he realised I was not going to get up, he said, ‘Oh, all right, have it your own way,’ and he flung my keys down; I heard them tinkle as they hit the carpet alongside my ear. He didn’t stay to chat or persuade me to come out of hiding, he left; really left, striding along the corridor and slamming the front door behind him. I waited a minutes to recover, playing it safe, and then I emerged like a mole, blinking in the sunlight. I made my way cautiously down the hall, but he was not there, not lurking to spring out, pounce on me or punch me; nor to laugh again and perhaps put his arm round me. I was alone.
Afterwards I could only think it was his vanity that had made him laugh. Like a true actor, he was flattered that I had gone to so much trouble to see him perform.
* * *
Gemma wrote:
‘Dearest Uncle Alex,
Chris doesn’t know I’m writing because I promised I wouldn’t, but I have to say a proper goodbye to you. If I keep my promise not to see you or speak to you or write to you ever again, I think it’s all right to send you one letter, just to say goodbye.
I am so sorry. I love you. I can’t make Chris understand and I have to put him first, after what’s happened and all the terrible things I’ve done, but I know you did your best for me, the way you saw it, and I let you, so that must have been the way I saw it too. I can’t be really sorry it happened. There were awful bits of course but if I had to choose and have none of it or all of it, then I’d have to choose all of it.
I still love David but I know he doesn’t love me any more and I also know I’ll get over him one day although it seems ages away, like being grown up when you’re a child. Chris has been wonderful, so understanding and forgiving. He doesn’t know about the abortion – although sometimes I think he does because of the way he looks at me or things he says. He goes on about me making sacrifices for him and him being privileged and funny things like that, and the other day he said would I like us to adopt a baby. But I don’t know, it doesn’t prove anything. He may just be trying to take my mind off it all. All I told him was I had an affair with someone I met, in your flat, and when it was over I wanted to die.
Of course I know you were sort of the bad influence he says you were, but then I always knew that, right from way back when you used to keep me up late when Mummy was out. That’s what made you fun and made me specially want to see you. Everyone doesn’t have a wicked uncle and it did annoy Mummy so. I don’t know how I’m going to manage without you but I’ll have to. It makes me cry just to think about it but I don’t want to write you a crying sort of letter. I seem to have done a lot of crying lately but I expect I’ll stop soon, Chris says it’s my hormones. Does that mean he knows about the abortion?
I don’t know how to stop this letter. How can I say thank you to you for making me – helping me – what’s the word? – have an affair with someone who always loved his wife more than me, and have an abortion when I really wanted a baby? And yet that is what I’m saying. I knew what you were doing and I knew your motives weren’t all good but whose are? I don’t feel Chris understands at all but I can’t talk to him about it he feels so injured and of course he’s right. I have injured him.
I am so upset I can’t see you again. It’s like being walled up alive. Chris is so sure you’d get me into bad ways again. Right now I feel too exhausted to think of it but I know what he means. At the same time it’s rather unflattering to think that he doesn’t imagine I could get into bad ways without help.
I feel very old. As if I’d been on a long journey or in prison or studying a foreign language. I feel I’ve learnt something because of you and now I can’t use it, the rest of my life will just be marking time. But I can’t do anything else because of the children, and Chris being so marvellous. I’ve got to keep my promise.
Please Uncle Alex remember I love you however wicked you are, I can’t bear to think of you lonely and miserable without me, the way I’m going to be without you. It’s something about childhood, isn’t it, that you and I remember, I don’t know what but they didn’t share it and that’s why they’re jealous.
David’s wife wrote me an awfully nice letter. I was so surprised. I can see why he loves her so much. She’s lucky. If only she’d love him
back and then he might be happy again.
Please take care of yourself and remember me even though we’re not in touch. I wish I could say I’m glad to be alive. I know you meant well saving me but I do wish I was dead and I know I’ll never have the courage to do it again. I really meant it that time and I wish you hadn’t come home. I’d like to be with David and have our baby – or else be peacefully dead. But instead I have to be with Chris and the children. I suppose I’ll get used to it.
Cheer up and don’t let them bully you. Remember I’m glad you made it happen and it was worth it.
Love, love and more love,
Gemma
P.S. You’re not really wicked. I don’t care what they say. Only a little bit. And I love you anyway, so there.
P.P.S. I’ve done a banker’s order of £10 a month till the loan’s paid off. Please take it or I shan’t feel comfortable. XXX G.’
* * *
I went to Birmingham to see David and his latest love. She was an actress called Emma Johnston and she did remind me of Gemma, although I’d been hoping she wouldn’t. She was small and dark and pretty, soft as a kitten, playful and nervous; she watched David while he talked, as though he were God, and she smiled a lot. She was about twenty-four. He said they were in love and she had transformed his life. He listed her unique qualities. The papers described him and Cathy as estranged. He went up to London every weekend to see the children.
* * *
I went to see Catherine in Kentish Town. She opened the door wearing a strange multi-coloured jumper and skirt that looked home-knitted as if to use up assorted left-over wool. Her face was blank, her voice expressionless. I thought she looked tired and I wanted to take her in my arms but I did not dare.
She wouldn’t ask me in, claiming she had someone with her. She said everything was exactly the same, David would never leave her. ‘He needs me to despise him and I do.’ The actress was a new fancy, just the same as the old ones, surely I hadn’t forgotten the pattern? Estranged was a word only newspapers used.
An Evil Streak Page 22