Alligator Playground

by Alan Sillitoe

  Any answers might be too gloomy to endure, or too bland to respect, and only those without a satisfying life deceived themselves into thinking an explanation could be dragged out of the subconscious (whatever that was) or that any good was to be had from fruitless revelations. And suppose you were telling someone about yourself, who would be interested in self pitying maunderings rather than hearing of bizarre and manly events that made a fascinating story?

  Only pathetic and inferior people got involved with the therapy of analysis, or took drugs to blast a way through the obfuscations to a mind that was still as puerile when the dust had blown away. Tom thought that the less he knew about himself the more of a puzzle he would seem to everyone else, and there was much advantage to be gained from that.

  After three days of unmitigated sex he travelled back on a different plane to Diana, thus avoiding any taint of suspicion. He left nothing to chance, yet his unthreaded spirit plagued him as he stretched both legs in first-class and poured from a half-bottle of champagne. The stewardess wondered why he laughed, and why he drank so obviously to himself by holding the glass up to her. Poor slob, she thought, he’s put his girlfriend on another flight, and now he has to go home and face his wife.

  Tom found it encouraging to believe that whenever he had been to bed with Diana – or whoever else – any young woman within range would be curious about him. It could be that his marriage to Angela had made him an interesting if not near perfect man for other women who, being clever and intuitive, felt it – which thought made him smile as he fastened his safety belt.

  Yet things didn’t seem as right as they ought to be, and there were times when he felt timid and insignificant, having nothing, deserving nothing, and existing in an aura of boring mediocrity, an utterly dissatisfied state of mind which no one else was allowed to suspect. To lift himself out of this near fatal fit of corroding worthlessness needed such energy as, when he succeeded, gave him a shark-like and not unsubtle advantage in dealing with anyone at work (and elsewhere) who stood in his way. He never knew the reason for this sudden descent into a bleak landscape, had no indication as to where it was or where it had come from. God-given and God-smitten, was all he could say. Maybe it was the curse of the black dog, which resulted from too much good living, too much hard work, and too much sex.

  A glimpse of Hyde Park between the cumulus helped him back to an awareness of the world, making him feel as if London and everyone in it belonged to him. He never travelled with enough luggage to put on the conveyor, so could go through the nothing to declare – but not too quickly in case the Customs people suspected his briefcase to be bulging with crack – and take a taxi straight to the office.

  The M4 was blocked as usual, by a lorry that had shed its load – or was it a burst water main, or a chemical spill, or one of those common accidents involving a half blind non smoking teetotal vegetarian of eighty hurrying for his (or her) insulin shot? Well, whatever was wrong with Tom, he knew he was in love with Diana, and that their liaison was worth all he put into it, because the more you did the better it would get, which was better for both and so, ultimately, best of all for him.

  Walking up the path at dusk, a raddled tiredness made every limb ache, but he forced a brisk pace, because for some reason it annoyed Angela when his behaviour suggested he’d had a hard day at the office. He supposed that even signs of a back-breaking slog down the coalmine would have put a curve of disapproval on her lips.

  Leaves blowing erratically against the background of a lighted window made it look as if the house was on fire. She usually sat in the living room with her evening vodka and orange, but she wasn’t there. An empty bottle and glass lay on the low table, and every light from the entrance hall to the attic had been left on.

  Not in the dazzling white kitchen, either, two plates on the floor overflowing with bits of something gone crispy and black. Upstairs two at a time, he found her by the uncurtained window of their bedroom, holding the little black tape recorder he had been so good as to bring her back from – where the hell was it?

  She wore the dress in which he had first noticed her at the office party, the line of small gold buttons on the plum coloured material moulding her bosom to a good figure still. The white lace collar set off her face, though her normally wavy dark hair was as straight as if she had just walked in from a monsoon, which he thought strange, for the hair drier was of the latest powerful make. Even the strongest of men would have been alarmed at her pallid cheeks, as if she had been poisoned by a long afternoon sleep.

  ‘What is it, love?’

  At the press of a switch the sound of his voice couldn’t be denied. He’d heard it before, but is that what it’s like? Scrape, scrape, mumble and snigger. Well, it would be, for something like that, wouldn’t it? Hoping he wasn’t betrayed by the pallor of his own skin brought a laugh up from his ribs when she pressed the machine off.

  ‘Oh, that!’ he said, ‘I was reading a bit of Norman Bakewell’s latest while getting dressed, sort of acting it out. And you thought I was up to something else! What a beautiful, suspicious and adorable person you are! I love you more and more for thinking that, because it shows how much you love me. You don’t need to flatter me to that extent, sweetheart.’

  An ominous sensation told him that his patter wasn’t convincing, not even to himself. You bet it wasn’t. But he went forward to embrace her.

  She stepped away. ‘Who’s Diana, you two-timing fucking rat?’ The tape recorder shed pieces after bouncing against his forehead and hitting the floor.

  He hoped the liquid was sweat rather than blood, recalling Bakewell’s noble stance at Charlotte’s lunch party when Jo Hesborn had clobbered him for far less than this. ‘She’s a character in Norman’s novel. It was so enthralling I took it to Germany with me. Looks like we’ve got another bestseller on our hands. I left it at the office, but I’ll finish it tomorrow. I wouldn’t have put it down, but I wanted to be with you for the evening.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’

  ‘Thought we could go out for a meal.’ He put a hand over his face. ‘God, that really hurt. What did you do it for?’

  There was something to be said for not saying very much, but there was even more to be said for saying so much that she wouldn’t be able to disbelieve the lies he was forced to tell. Failing that, she would be mystified by what she thought he was trying to say – the verbal equivalent of drowning a treaty in ink. All the same, this was life on the Heaviside layer. He would have to take even more care, knowing by her blow what a pity it was that technology hadn’t stopped at the bicycle, the battery-run wireless set, and the wind-up gramophone, but had progressed, if you could call it that, to the diabolical invention of a tape recorder set going by the human voice.

  ‘I asked you who she was, you lying deceiving gett.’

  He was disappointed by how easily she went back to her origins, and she could sense him thinking it, which pained her so much that she angled a heavy glass ashtray halfway upwards. ‘Who is she?’

  He flinched. ‘Throw that, and I’ll phone the police.’

  ‘Will you?’ she raged.

  He certainly would. ‘I’d rather them handle you than me kill you. I’ve no intention of running the firm from a prison cell.’

  She lowered it, not her plan to kill him – yet. He would die by a thousand cuts. ‘Why don’t you call mummy and daddy, and tell them what a pathetic fix you’re in?’

  ‘They’re dead, and you know it.’

  ‘I expect you broke their hearts.’

  Better and better. Talking was all she wanted, no one could resist it, proof of his recognition that she was alive, and he was fulfilling his obligations towards her as a human being. ‘They died of old age. I was a late birth, the only son. They loved me, and I loved them. Oh, you know all that.’

  She sat, hands on her knees, skirt rucked up. It excited him, the bastard. She pulled it down. From now on I wear nothing but trousers. ‘And they spoiled you rotten. You’ve allus seen yo
urself as God’s gift to humanity, but you’re not to me anymore.’

  ‘I never thought I was any of that. But I loved you and still love you.’ Shame she yanked her skirt down. ‘I love you more than ever. I’ll always love you.’

  ‘You won’t if I know it.’

  ‘I will. You can’t stop me. I adore the ground you walk on.’

  ‘Oh, do you, then?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ They were bickering. Better than ever. But he was angry with himself because stupidity was unforgivable, and bad luck frightening, which made him want comforting, so he became tender towards her in the hope that she would provide it. She mistook his attitude for contrition, and for the moment regretted her violence, almost willing to put aside the enormity of what he had done, because really there was no point when the only thing to do was walk away from this state of five-star humiliation.

  Gradually she was soothed and, after kisses that sealed a lightning-charged truce, he put on the suit in which he too had been at the party – thinking it a nice touch – and walked her to a restaurant across Holland Park Road.

  A bottle of champagne and the best food on the card would bring her round, though between each lovey-dovey clinking of glasses he reminded himself that in the morning he must go through his wallet and fax book to make sure there were no clues as to Diana or her whereabouts.

  He doesn’t know me. They had made very satisfactory love and now he had gone to sleep. He thinks an orgasm makes up for everything, and I’m going to say no more, when he’s been doing it on me ever since we got married. I see now why my body threw out his rotten kid. And all those times I went to Yorkshire on my own he was pushing his filthy cock up all the scruffy tuppences he could find.

  No wonder he’s always had so much work to do at the office and been so knackered when he got home. I could go on the razz myself but I wouldn’t do it just to get back on him. I don’t see any men I fancy these days, and if I did I don’t suppose they’d fancy me, but if ever I do do it I’ll do it in my own good time.

  He’d be easy to deceive because the only person he knows about is himself. All the times I’ve gone through the gamut of a bad cold or the flu without him being aware, but when he caught it, whining about who had passed it on at the office, he moaned in bed for at least three days. When they both had colds she had to deny hers because two people could no more have one at the same time than they could complain of a common misfortune – and he’d never noticed.

  The issue stopped her getting to sleep, when up to now she had fallen off the ledge and felt nothing till morning. Whoever robbed her of slumber was guilty of murdering her dreams. Her language lapsed again, something else to destroy him for: I’ll fucking kill ’er. I’ve had the sort of upbringing where I would never let anybody put one over on me. I’ve been spoiled by having it that easy, spoiled even rottener than him with his pampering, which is something he’ll never understand.

  Changing position didn’t help. His snoring, as always after he had swined and dined, was like a lawnmower going over rocky ground, but she was bothered more than before because he had set on a stoat to eat up her brain. The shit-nosed little animal was halfway through the front lobes and getting on very well towards the back, thank you very much, but soon there would be nothing left so it would turn round and start again at the front, hoping a few scraps remained from the first time through. The more it stoated back and forth the more determined she was to clock Tom and his moll who had let it loose. First of all – getting out of bed – I’ll go through his things and find out just who that bitch Diana is, because she’s not going to be like herself much longer.

  Diana often swore she would never have an affair with a married man, not realising till too late that whoever said never would sooner or later be inveigled into doing whatever they’d said they would never do never about. In the first place, the hole and corner complications would drive her spare, and in the second, if the other woman found out, she might be miserable, which Diana was too humane, or too loyal to her own sex, to gloat over. In the third place she didn’t want to get close enough to another woman to the extent of sharing her through her husband.

  And now here was Tom phoning to say that his wife had pulled the big whistle from her bloomers and blown it long and loud after their time in Rome. He wouldn’t be seeing her for a while, he said, though there was nothing he wanted more in the world. He could be lying, of course, because what more appropriate time was there to end an affair than after a wonderful few days on the Mainland? His tone was so adoring that she had to believe his spiel, though her faith in his abilities went down a notch or two at his wife finding out. Had he done it deliberately? Shit-headed Norman Bakewell said that people only let their opposite know of their entanglements when they wanted a bit more excitement; and that sort she could well live without.

  She opened a half-bottle of Beaujolais and threw the cork in the bin. Such a sexy weekend made her want to see him next day, tonight, this minute, instead of waiting the fortnight he implied she might have to. She tore off the plastic and put a steak under the grill. His pleading tone was something new. He was afraid of his wife. It was worth a laugh, because most men were. A programme arranged in Sheffield would keep her away for a week, and if her craving didn’t diminish she would see who might be possible among the camera crew. Tom was sleeping with his wife, so she had a right to a diversion as well.

  The first message on the ansaphone was from who else? ‘All I know is I’m in love with you,’ he said, and it felt as if a hand were already reaching across her breasts, ‘totally, passionately, irreversibly. Can I see you on Wednesday evening?’

  ‘You certainly can,’ she said, phoning his office.

  Then came six calls from the same heavy breathing person who, not finding her home, wouldn’t commit a voice to tape, but was trying to get her with eerie persistence. Well, you got all sorts in the world, meaning London, so it wasn’t worth thinking about. After the usual hellos from parents and friends she went to the twenty-four-hour shop and stocked up the larder. Supper done, she would stand with brush and palette in the spare room, finishing her notion of a female nude.

  Instead of his usual month at a time Tom came every few days, as if the new situation fired his libido. Diana kept the interpretation to herself, but was glad at his visits, couldn’t have enough of them, because a higher intensity came into their affair for her as well. Some evenings the phone sounded several times while they were in the bedroom, most of the callers – or caller, she was sure – did not go on to talk.

  ‘Someone’s phoning me,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know who.’

  He sloped in the best armchair, blowing rings from his long thin cigar. ‘Probably wrong number.’

  ‘It happens too often.’

  ‘Any theories?’ He sounded uninterested.

  She had picked up the phone once and, expecting a call about work, had stupidly given her name. ‘No, have you?’

  ‘Could be an old boyfriend trying to get in touch.’

  ‘I never went with slobs like that.’

  ‘People do funny things,’ he said.

  ‘They say them, as well.’

  Ash showered onto her carpet. ‘It won’t do any harm. Could be Angela, I suppose.’

  ‘I wondered that.’

  ‘Hard to find out without giving us away. I told her we weren’t seeing each other anymore.’

  ‘Was that wise?’

  ‘It was easy. You don’t know Angela,’ he said, at the contempt on her lips. ‘Oh, hell, I wonder how she got the number?’

  He sounded petulant, but who wouldn’t? ‘You should know.’ ‘I don’t, though.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Diana said, ‘as long as she doesn’t find out where I live.’

  At the back of his address book was a seven-group, unlike any other, and she altered each digit a number ahead. Didn’t make sense. Changing them for the one behind produced a recognisable London number which, when dialled, got this posh trollop on the ansaphone.
Naturally, she gave no name, but it must have been her.

  She had to laugh at how simple it was. He was piss poor at making codes, and that was a fact. In another part of the book Diana’s address was made plain by similar deciphering.

  He had promised, oh so easily, but she knew he wouldn’t stop seeing his Diana because if she had been in love no one would have spoiled her affair, certainly not him. In one way she couldn’t care less whether they broke it up or not, because if it weren’t the whore Diana he would be having somebody else.

  She would never trust or love him again, but fired herself to do the job nevertheless, because without much thought he had kicked her so brutally in the guts that the pain still brought tears and such a bumping of the heart that she wanted to vomit. It hadn’t been exciting enough for him to just have the woman but he had to plant the tape recorder where she was bound to play it back.

  He came home, and Angela wasn’t there. She so habitually was that the fact worried him. He sat in the kitchen eating bread and salami, a glass of red by his elbow. Diana had been too upset to feed him. And at the office he’d had Norman Bakewell haranguing him in the most obscene language about the jacket of his next paperback. Angela came in with an expression of satisfying superiority, and a shine of dislike for him in her eyes. The curve to her lips discouraged friendliness, at a time when, not long out of his girlfriend’s bed, it was vital for him to show it, even if only to diminish the guilt which harried him since she had found out.

  He stood. ‘Hello, darling!’