Bitter Orange

by Claire Fuller

  I stared at her.

  ‘Because, well, you haven’t, have you? Ever had sex?’

  ‘What?’ I said, my brain lagging behind her words.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Fran. I just want to know.’

  I pushed her then, on the shoulder, just a shove but it surprised her and she fell back. I might have picked up a rock if there had been one in the wood and hit her with it, such was the fierce fury that flared in me, but instead I turned and went down the hillside at a clip, tripping and sliding until the ground levelled off and I reached the lake. I didn’t hear her call after me, I no longer cared what she did. I went across the weir and followed the path past the mausoleum, stomping through the little wood where the fox had been but taking a different path.

  I walked off my anger and thought how odd it was that the three of us had come together to live at Lyntons, and maybe all of us virgins. Because Cara had been correct in her assumption about me. Perhaps I wore my virginity like a flag hoisted above my head, out of my line of sight but there for everyone else to see. It wasn’t something I’d been bothered about in the past. I was studious in my teenage years, working on getting into Oxford. I made friends with a couple of other academic girls at university and I spent some enjoyable hours with Hamish, a young man with only one arm, studying with him and going for walks beside the river, always making sure I was on his right should he have wished to take my hand. But I never thought about it going further than that. I didn’t stay in contact with him or the girls after I left Oxford.

  What Cara had said about Peter’s physical issues didn’t worry me. Up until that point, in the same way that I’d thought about Hamish, I’d always considered our connection – mine and Peter’s – to be based on intellectual respect. Now though, by just mentioning that she and Peter hadn’t consummated their relationship, Cara had planted in me a seed of emotional and physical longing. An idea that there could be something for the two of us beyond this summer. And the fact that things weren’t working out between Peter and Cara, conversely, gave me even more reason to think it would be different for us.

  Beyond the gate where Cara, Peter and I had stopped at the top of the meadow, I joined a sunken track, six feet or more below ground level. The trees met overhead and formed a dim holloway which went uphill towards the woods that clung to the line of narrow hangers. Pieces of rock stuck out from the earthen sides where spring floods must have flowed off the fields and down the path, back the way I had come.

  As wide as a cart, it was a route made by and for humans, the earth rubbed smooth by feet and, later, wheels. I trudged uphill as the path switched and rose. At the top, it curved around a scarp, the run of a potter’s nail in a clay pot, formed as it turned on the wheel. I stopped to let my heart slow and to gaze through a gap in the trees. Below me, the land fell away, the bank of green reaching the very edge of Lyntons, its white-grey roofs glowing. The light also caught the glass of the toy-sized orangery, flashing back. I couldn’t see it, but I knew that just behind the glasshouse, subsumed by the garden, was the Museum.

  After a minute or two I turned to follow the path into the trees. It seemed well used, the edges free of plants, the loose stones pushed to the banks.

  Five hundred yards on, the route stopped; an abrupt dead end of ferns and bramble, with no space for a vehicle to turn, no tracks to show that any had tried. While I stood there in the middle of the wood, my own movements now silent and my breath held, I realized I could hear nothing. There was no wind in the canopy, no scrabbles in the undergrowth, no birds singing. I turned to look back the way I had come: the path snaked around a corner I couldn’t remember walking past, and I tried to reassure myself that the way always appears different when one turns to go back.

  I must have stood there for three or four minutes, dread fixing me to the ground like the trees that spread their roots down through the soil. I listened, as though I might have been able to hear those roots worming towards me. I ran the locket back and forth on its chain around my neck. And then there was a pinch in my side, a sharp nip in the flesh of my waist, and two more in the same place, twists of the skin between fingers. A pain I knew, and the panic of it set me off into the trees, the dressing gown catching on sharp twigs, and low branches flicking into my face. My foot caught on a loop of bramble and I flew forward, my hands stopping my head from smacking into the ground, but immediately I was up and running headlong without looking behind, slipping and sliding down as the hill became steeper, through the ferns with the bushes scraping and tugging at my hair. It was a wych elm that saved me; I fell against its mossy trunk where it clung to the brink of a drop, my toes kicking lumps of chalk over the lip. They bounced and tumbled downwards into dark green.

  I stopped at the gate to the park. If the cows had been grazing, I would have gone the long way around rather than walk across the open land, but the field was empty and I climbed the gate. When I reached the large cedar in the middle I looked up through the layered branches, stark against the blue of the sky. The contrast was painful and I closed my eyes. I thought again about the things Cara had told me. Perhaps it had all been for effect, perhaps she did need a doctor as Victor and Peter suggested. And then I wondered whether Victor believed that the Bible’s virgin birth was possible and how much Cara had told him about Finn’s conception and the boat, and about how the child had drowned. My burst of anger had dissipated, and the terror I’d experienced on the hanger had gone, all drained away. When I opened my eyes, the cattle were lumbering towards me.

  I moved back and stood in a cowpat, my foot breaking through the crust and the soft squelch pushing over my shoes, and then they were surrounding me. In silence, they watched me with their unblinking eyes, their massive bony heads seeming to plot some malevolent scheme. I waved my arms. ‘Yah!’ I shouted, and the two in front of me shied and then came in closer. There was a nudge on the back of my thighs that made me cry out and stagger towards the cows facing me. I may have whimpered. I reached up to my neck but the locket and chain had gone, most likely whipped off by a branch during my rush down the hanger. The cow in front huffed out through its nostrils, and when I dared to take my eyes off them I saw Cara watching from the terrace. I put my hands out in front of me, positive that the cattle wanted me to fall beneath their hooves, and I cried out, unintelligible words that the animals ignored. From the terrace across the field and the parterre, I heard Cara calling, ‘Go on, girls. Go on now.’ And the cows separated and let me go.

  Go on, girl. Go on, I say inside my head, willing myself along. I am ready.

  I hear my door being unlocked. Two Care Assisters, or whatever they are called, come into my room, a man and a woman.

  ‘How are you feeling, Mrs Jelli-co?’ the woman says. She is white and scrawny. I have seen them many times before. The man rarely speaks; he only comes when there is work to be done.

  ‘We need to change your bedding,’ she says. ‘You know the routine, don’t you, love? So no trouble now.’

  There are procedures in this place for moving people even if they are dying and too sick to feed themselves or sit up. Protocol. I understand, I don’t mind, I thrive on routine. I know the drill. There must always be two Helpers in attendance.

  They stand either side of the bed, and tip me on to my right side. The man rolls up as much of the dirty sheet as he can into a sausage behind my back, and lays out half of the clean sheet on top of the plastic mattress protector. I am facing the woman but she doesn’t look at me, she stares into the middle distance as though she can see through the wall.

  ‘One, two, three,’ she says, and they roll me on to my other side.

  ‘Trouble,’ I say. ‘When have I ever been trouble?’

  The man laughs. The woman whips out the old sheet and pulls the clean one to the corners. All the sheets in this place have elasticated corners. Oh, if I’d had sheets with elasticated corners when I’d had to change the bed after Mother had soiled it. It’s wrinkled, Frances. I can tell you didn’t bother to i
ron it. It’s wrinkled, I can feel it. Frances? Are you trying to give me bedsores? Praise be to Bertha Berman who patented the fitted sheet in the late 1950s, although I didn’t see one until I came in here.

  ‘All right now,’ the woman says. ‘All done.’ She tugs my nightdress below my knees where it has got rucked up, and lays the thin duvet with a clean cover over me. One day soon, they will bring it right over my head. The man holds me up while they insert a pillow which he has already squashed into a fresh pillowcase.

  They pretend that it is difficult to change my bedding and that’s why they need two of them, but it is an easy series of manoeuvres, one they are practised in. I know that they work in pairs because the prison procedures state that they are not allowed to be unaccompanied when they manhandle inmates.

  19

  I have often thought about how ironic it is that for the past twenty years I have been spied on day and night, through a judas hole in my prison door. I have come to know the footsteps of the different guards, the shuffle at the door, the slide of the plate and the eye. The all-seeing eye. What has it seen? Nothing as interesting as the things I saw through the judas hole at Lyntons. But of course, the difference is privacy. The other women will complain and shout about being looked at without warning. But I think it is better to know when someone is watching rather than to live your life under an invisible gaze.

  I check the throat of the person sitting beside my bed. The dog collar is in place. Victor has a piece of paper folded into the book he holds on his lap. He is using it as a bookmark. I thought the book was the Bible, surely it was the Bible a few days ago, but now I see it is a thin pamphlet of poetry.

  ‘Would you like me to read you a poem, Miss Jellico?’

  ‘No,’ I say. I have no use for poetry. ‘Read me the piece of paper.’

  ‘But it’s nothing,’ he says. ‘It’s an old bill that’s been used as a bookmark, an invoice.’

  Pieces of paper are never nothing. ‘Indulge me,’ I say, and he does.

  ‘Eastbourne June 25th,’ he reads. ‘To Mrs Squilbin. From Messrs J. Weston & Son, Artists and Photographers, 81 Terminus Road.’ He pauses to look at me and I nod, encouraging him to continue. ‘Eight sepia plates, six and a half by three and a half. Wedding gift. Two pounds, fifteen shillings. One pound paid on account. Overdue balance one pound, fifteen shillings.’

  If we were so inclined we could read all sorts of things into that note. That Mrs Squilbin – what a name! – never paid the overdue one pound and fifteen shillings, never collected her wedding photographs because by the time the bill was due her new husband had already left her. Or, Mrs Squilbin was the bride’s mother. At the reception she falls out with her new son-in-law and refuses to pay the balance. Notes can be interpreted in all manner of ways.

  I remember the man in the wig – I can see him, but what was his title? – the man who read out my note in court. Deep voice, too full of himself, a bad actor.

  Dear Frances,

  Peter sends up his apologies, and hopes you won’t hold yesterday evening against him. Please, for goodness’ sake, don’t do anything hastily. I can imagine how much you must be hurting – just stay in bed for a while.

  Yours,

  Cara

  It had been discovered in my suitcase.

  ‘Are you the Frances addressed in this letter?’ the wig-man asked.

  But there were many wig-men, some on my side, some not. My wig-man had told me I shouldn’t take the stand, that it wasn’t wise, that I would be ripped apart by the prosecution, but I had insisted. I had another agenda.

  ‘I am,’ I said.

  ‘Can you tell us who the letter was written by?’

  ‘I can.’

  The first wig-man sighed. ‘Please tell us who the letter was written by.’

  ‘Cara Calace.’

  ‘Cara Calace,’ he repeated to the group of twelve people, a few of whom looked interested, while others seemed to be asleep.

  ‘Cara Calace, your friend?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘And who is the Peter mentioned?’

  ‘Peter Robertson.’

  ‘Peter Robertson,’ he repeated with theatrical significance.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Peter Robertson with whom you fell in love?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word comes out as a sob, a genuine sob.

  ‘Peter, it seems, has cause to apologize for something that happened the previous evening,’ the wig-man said. ‘Something he did, or perhaps didn’t do, that caused you pain. Cara is worried you will act hastily and urges you to stay in bed. Did you declare your love to Peter Robertson that evening, Miss Jellico? And were you rejected? Rejected by Peter Robertson and so hurt by it you were capable of anything?’ The questions were rhetorical; he didn’t require an answer.

  Peter returned from London just as Cara and I were finishing an early dinner. Maybe it was Peter who encouraged our normal excess, because we’d only drunk half a bottle of wine between us. She and I had reached a sort of truce, an understanding that we wouldn’t speak of certain things. The front door slammed and Peter came racing up the stairs, his hands clasping bags and a small square case tucked under his arm.

  ‘Did it go well?’ Cara said, jumping up. ‘It went well, didn’t it?’

  I stood too while he dropped everything to squeeze hold of her, bend her backwards and kiss her. I didn’t think about it until much later, but often when I saw them together it was as though everything they did had been rehearsed, not because they had me as an audience but so they could believe in a more perfect version of themselves.

  ‘It went better than I could have imagined. But I am so tired.’ He flung himself down on the chaise longue.

  ‘Can I make you a drink?’ Cara said. ‘Did you have something to eat on the train?’

  ‘I just need a bath and to go to bed. I’d forgotten how filthy London is.’

  ‘I should go up,’ I said.

  ‘Presents first.’ Peter roused himself.

  He had bought earrings for Cara: tiny sapphire droplets and a necklace to match – we still hadn’t found any jewellery in the Museum apart from the mourning ring – and she ran into the bathroom to put them on. There was a bag of pasta, cheese wrapped in paper and a whole salami. For all of us he had bought a record player in a case and long-playing records so we could have music in the evenings: Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel, Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, Five Leaves Left by Nick Drake. We had uncovered an old-fashioned gramophone but Cara thought the records were boring. She wanted modern music. And for me, although I hadn’t been expecting anything, a small gift wrapped in tissue paper.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Unwrap it and see,’ Peter said.

  Cara came closer. It was a small gold case for cigarettes and inscribed on the inside was:

  Franny,

  To keep you on the straight and narrow

  Love,

  P

  ‘What does that mean?’ Cara said, at my shoulder.

  I laughed, for once understanding the joke.

  ‘Just a silly thing,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Cara said frostily.

  He put his arm around her. ‘You know how Franny’s cigarettes are always bent and broken.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘But how did you manage to get it engraved that quickly?’

  ‘I called in a favour at a little shop in Maida Vale.’

  When everything was unwrapped I wished them goodnight, and even as I closed the door behind me I could hear raised voices. This time the argument didn’t last for long. One door was banged and then another. Water gushed through the pipes as the bath filled in the room beneath mine while I brushed my teeth. And after I’d spat into the sink and rinsed, without stopping to consider, I lifted the board from the floor.

  Below me, Peter put his hands on the sides of the basin, staring at himself for a minute or two in a mirror he had taken from the Museum. I lifted my eye
away from the lens as he unbuttoned his shirt and then I moved back to see him go to the door, hold the handle as though trying to be quiet, and carefully turn the key in the lock. He returned to the mirror and stood sideways in front of it, his hand on his stomach, holding it in, and then lifted his arms in a champion’s pose, smiling. He took off the rest of his clothes and I should have looked away then but I didn’t, I continued to watch as he sank down into the bathwater.

  I could see the hair on his chest, his penis floating and his knees breaking the surface. He glanced over his shoulder at the door as if to check it really was locked, closed his eyes, and his hand went down. I should have looked away then too but I didn’t, I couldn’t. I thought about the things Cara had told me in the woods beside the obelisk, that Peter wasn’t able to get an erection, for her. His hand moved, and I studied his gentle face, his slightly open mouth, his full lips. He took his time and still I watched, saw him speed up and his forehead crease, saw him push with his feet on the end of the bath. At that moment, when it was about to happen, when I could see it was about to happen, at that instant while I was watching his face, his eyes shot open and he looked up at the central point of the ceiling, looked up at me, and I looked down at him. I was convinced that somehow he knew I was there and that he was telling me in the only way he could that it would be different with me. And I understood that he loved me and that he knew I loved him back.

  That night I lay in bed and imagined Peter, Cara and Finn under the sea. I saw them floating gently in the current. The oranges which Cara had bought from the grocer’s juggled sedately past, the pages of Woman’s Way turned lazily, and the lid came off a tin of flour, a black and white photograph of Peter’s dumpling wife emerging and rocking downwards until her face darkened. And through the middle of it all, I saw a cow: huge and white, jumping, and kicking her back legs in slow motion. Her mouth was open in a long bellow, and her tail high as if she’d been let out to pasture after a winter indoors. I made them dance, Peter, Cara and Finn, coming together in a vertical chain with the baby nearest the surface and Peter at the bottom. Finn, with my hand now around his ankle, waved his chubby arms. I bicycled my legs as Peter dwindled below me, while the cow and the oranges disappeared into the murk. I let go of the child and above me, through the blue layers, I saw him ascending towards the light.