Nina Todd Has Gone

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘No?’

  ‘She’s had a bad life. Shocks. My sister was killed.’

  ‘How awful,’ I said, ‘how dreadful.’

  ‘It was years ago,’ he said, ‘but something like that – it never goes away.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine …’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  I could hear a fruit machine. I wondered if it was the same pub. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I know how I’d feel if it was Mum. A week. Might visit Mum. She lives in Suffolk.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘A week,’ he said and rang off.

  I tried to bandage my hand but couldn’t do it. I decided to go to Maisie’s and tell her the truth about Fay and ask her to the funeral. Also ask her to tie the bandage. But I didn’t know where she lived.

  I got dressed and then went down to Fay’s. I kept my eyes straight ahead because I didn’t want to see her. She was definitely there. Having a last linger. A shudder at the edges of my vision. I was scared at first but then almost comforted. Perhaps she hadn’t left me after all. ‘Fay?’ I said and held my breath, waiting for I don’t know what. But nothing happened except the dripping of the kitchen tap. I turned it off, made sure the windows were secure.

  Beside the phone was an address book. I didn’t know Maisie’s surname so I had to go through it all. Many people crossed out in there with a date written in Fay’s precise handwriting beside each. I puzzled for a moment, then I got it: they were people who had died. Except for Dave. She hadn’t crossed him off.

  I found Maisie under the S’s. She was a Smith. I knew that her husband was dead, and wondered if he had been a John. Or maybe they’d had a son? I walked round the corner and found her bungalow. It was squat and out of scale, the only bungalow in a street of bigger houses. There was a buddleia bush in the front garden, a loud bee hum coming from its nosy purple spikes.

  I rang the doorbell and she opened the door with such a startled look that I glanced behind me to see if someone else was there.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. I saw myself in her hall mirror as she led me through and I did still look a sight, hair sticking up, bruises showing through my smudged make-up. I was no oil painting, as Fay would have said, or if I was it was a bad one.

  We went into her sitting room. It smelt of toast and eucalyptus. There was a gaudy painting of a desert landscape above the gas fire and the phallic stump of a cactus on the windowsill, sporting a waxy pink bloom.

  ‘You’ve hit lucky,’ she said, seeing me looking. ‘It only blooms once in a blue moon and then only for a day.’

  ‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Maisie, I’ve got some bad news. Just after you left I had a call from the hospital, I’m afraid Fay’s passed away.’

  ‘Oh my giddy aunt.’ She bumped down into an armchair.

  I didn’t know what to do next. She put her hand up her sleeve and brought out a balled-up hankie. A tear ran down her cheek. ‘But I only phoned her yesterday,’ she said. ‘She was full of beans.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I saw her last night.’

  ‘So she’ll never get the bed-jacket?’

  ‘No.’

  She held the handkerchief to her nose and then looked up, wet eyed. ‘It was fifty per cent angora,’ she said and then, ‘That poor, poor boy. What hasn’t he been through?’

  ‘He’s coming back,’ I said and told her about the cremation. She offered to help with the food.

  ‘Yes please,’ I said, ‘and maybe you could tell me who else I should ask?’

  ‘Leave it to me.’ She spread out her fingers and stared at them for a moment, then shook her head. ‘I need a good strong cuppa. You’ll stay for a cup of tea?’

  ‘Would you help me with this?’ I held my hand out to her. ‘I’m sorry about …’

  ‘First things first.’ She went off into the kitchen. The radiator was on although it was warm outside. I put my nose close to the pink cactus bloom but there was no smell at all. It might as well have been plastic.

  ‘It just won’t sink in,’ she said, coming back with a tea tray and a first-aid box. ‘Do sit down, dear.’

  ‘I know. I’m the same.’

  ‘She was so full of life.’

  I was startled. That was not my picture of Fay at all. I sat down on the mock-leather sofa.

  ‘Full of fun,’ she said.

  Fun?

  ‘I’ll miss her terribly.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Of course you will.’

  ‘We were getting very close,’ I said.

  She looked sharply at me. The tears glistened in the crumples on her cheeks. She opened her mouth as if to contradict me, then thought better of it. She had that milkiness in her eyes that old people get but Fay hadn’t, her eyes had remained bright and clear. We were quiet, contemplating how much we would miss Fay, and then she reached for my hand.

  ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here then.’ She unwrapped the clumsy bandage and dabbed the cut with TCP. It stung like hell but I kept my mouth shut.

  ‘It could do with a stitch,’ she said, but I shook my head. She took a clean bandage from her kit, folded a piece of lint over the cut and wound the bandage round and round, firm and tight, and pinned it with a silver safety pin. She poured the tea and offered me a piece of cake. It was a spicy sponge with slivers of crystallised ginger.

  She took a noisy slurp of tea and sighed. ‘It just won’t sink in,’ she said again, ‘it just won’t. I thought Fay would outlast us all.’

  ‘What was your husband’s name?’ I asked.

  She blinked. ‘What? Oh … it was Jack. John really, but always known as Jack. Why?’

  ‘Did Charlie know him?’

  ‘In passing.’

  ‘Do you have a son?’

  She shook her head. ‘Why? No. Oh I just can’t take it in.’ Fresh tears were standing in her eyes.

  I looked away from her and at the picture above the mantelpiece. ‘That’s a nice picture,’ I said.

  ‘It’s painting by numbers,’ she said and then sniffed. ‘Do you know, if I won the lottery, I’d be there in a jiff.’ She gazed at the painting as if it was a window into a better world. ‘Arkansas. They have retirement places in the desert – whole villages, not homes, all that sunshine and dry air, a miracle cure for arthritis. We often talked about it, Fay and me.’ She put her cup down and pulled her hankie out again.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I can tell from looking at you, Nina, that what you want is a good cry. Let yourself go.’ She reached forward and patted my hand. We sat and stared at the switched-off television while we finished our cake. There we were reflected like ordinary people having afternoon tea, the cactus bloom outlined against the window behind us. The only movement was the waggling of my foot. I pressed it to the floor.

  ‘Did she really want to go to the desert?’ I said.

  ‘It was a daydream we shared.’

  ‘God,’ I said.

  ‘More cake?’ she offered.

  ‘No thanks. It’s nice though.’

  ‘I’ll make some for the wake.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s a good keeper,’ she said, ‘I’ll do it this afternoon. At least it’s something I can be getting on with.’

  ‘Well.’ I stood up to go.

  ‘Do pop round if you want me to do your hand again,’ she said. She followed me to the door and as I went out she said, ‘By the way, Nina, who was that handsome chap this morning? I didn’t catch the name.’

  ‘Just someone from work. He might look handsome but …’

  ‘Handsome is as handsome does?’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘I know the type. You want to watch them.’ She looked at me, expecting more. ‘Was that champagne?’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, he’s been promoted,’ I said. ‘Bit of a show-off, going round drinking a toast with everyone – even me wh
en I was off!’

  Of course she didn’t believe me, it was the weakest lie in the world, but what could she do? I walked away and the bandage was as firm round my hand as if Charlie was holding it.

  Chapter 28

  ~

  The night before Jeffrey went to Birmingham they made love in his parents’ garden shed. They had made a nest in there, with a sleeping bag, old cushions and sandalwood joss-sticks to mask the oily lawn-mower smell. It was cosy and private and it was theirs. She loved, after they had finished, to lie back, sharing a cigarette, and to gaze up through the cobwebbed window into the night sky. The tips of the branches of the tree behind the shed touched the roof and when it was in the least windy would make a scraping swish. A cosy sound when you are safe in the circle of someone’s arms.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, on their last night, ‘I love you, Karen.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she said, ‘but tomorrow you’ll be gone.’

  He laughed, a damp snuffle against her neck that made her shiver. ‘I’ll still exist, I’ll just be a bit further away, that’s all.’ He put his face against her front where her shirt was unbuttoned, her bra unfastened and all askew, and kissed her nipple so gently she felt nothing at all. She closed her eyes against the moonlight stinging through the glass.

  ‘You’ll meet someone else,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll meet loads of other people,’ he lifted his head and looked at her, ‘and none of them will be half as beautiful,’ he kissed her collar bone, ‘half as sexy,’ he kissed her chin, ‘as you.’ He kissed her on the mouth but she was tired of his kisses that night, she only half believed them, knew that really he was excited about going away and that Birmingham would be full of posh, beautiful and brainy girls beside whom she would seem like nothing.

  He wrote to her every day at first and they talked for hours on the phone. She was miserable and lonely and though she tried to cover it up, the doctors could see. ‘He’s a nice boy,’ Joan said, ‘but you’re only fifteen. Don’t pine away. Plenty more fish in the sea.’

  Roger suggested that she bury herself in her work; this was her important GCSE year and she could see the sense in that. If she wanted to be like the doctors or the professors with all that they had, then she had to work at it. And work she did, trying not to notice how the letters became fewer and had a dutiful feel about them, always ending, ‘well better get back to …’ whatever it was that was more important. And just before he was due to return for the Christmas break she received a note that went like this:

  Dear Karen,

  I’m really sorry but I think we should cool off a bit. I’ve got so much work to do I can’t concentrate on having a girlfriend as well and it’s not fair on you. Though you’re very mature for your age you are only fifteen. I’ll see you over Christmas when our folks get together, but I think we should just be friends.

  Yours,

  Jeffrey.

  The letter was written on a sheet of paper from a shorthand pad with a frill of papery curls where it had been ripped from the spirals. ‘Yours, Jeffrey.’ Yours. Why did he say ‘yours’ when he meant the opposite?

  But after all, it was only what she expected. She screwed up the note and tossed it into the bin, opened her history book and got on with revising the causes of the First World War. After Christmas came her mock exams and she would not let him ruin her chances. And she knew that, whatever he thought, when she was with him again she could win him round. She remembered his kisses and the way they had grown so bold, the way she had let him use her body to learn on. There was still much more to teach.

  Chapter 29

  ^

  My digs had not the privacy I’d need for stage two. It had to be the right setting. It took a bit of finding but you only have to persevere. I began wandering non-residential streets and in a high-up, filthy window I saw a FOR LET sign above a disused factory. Peerless View was the name of the street. When I rang the agent he sounded incredulous. ‘Is that still on the books?’ he said. He told me the place was scheduled for demolition next year but I made out I was only interested in a short let and asked to view it. He came down like a shot to show me round.

  It was a big dark flat: ‘ripe for improvement’ would be the terminology. In the kitchen was a deep sink, the wreck of a cooker and a Sheila Maid up near the ceiling all draped with cobwebs. There were two bedrooms at the back looking out over a yard full of old machinery and suchlike, all overgrown with weeds and a straggly tree pushing out of a crack in the concrete. But it had a high and lockable gate, perfect for pulling the car in out of sight. The street was empty at night and in the day a rat-run for traffic heading from the city centre to the north.

  You could see the surprise on the agent’s face when I said I’d take it, no quibble about the price. He was bursting to ask what on earth for. What came out was that I wanted it to practise on my drums and it was hard not to laugh when I said that. I do have to be careful of the laugh. Unfortunately it turned out he was in a band and we had a sticky conversation about music and so on till I said I was on a deadline.

  ‘Well you won’t have trouble with the neighbours, that’s for sure,’ he said as he locked us out.

  Now was the time to have a store of readies. I went to the building society and emptied my Instant Access account. It was ten thousand and fifty-five pounds. You could see the woman on the desk didn’t want me to have it.

  ‘But it’s mine!’ I said.

  She had a mouth like a little purse all snapped up tight. I had the passbook and my driving licence for ID but she had to go and have a word with her supervisor all the same. The supervisor must have put her straight because she came back looking like she’d sucked a lemon.

  ‘Are you closing the account, sir?’ she said and when I said yes took pleasure in snipping the passbook in half. She counted out the money twice in twenties (much fidgeting in the queue behind me), secured it with rubber bands and handed it over in a plain brown envelope.

  I went back and told my landlady I was leaving straight away, giving her a bit extra in lieu of notice, and went round John Lewis to get a new mattress (which didn’t come cheap). I put the old one out to rot. It turned your stomach, the stains there were on it. I got a couple of new sleeping bags to save worrying about sheets. It would be more like indoor camping than gracious living was my plan. I went looking for a long blonde wig too, which I thought would be a nice touch. The woman at the wig shop said it was two-for-one-day and threw another one in for free. A plastic bag of hair is a strange thing to walk through town with. I bought a hammer, nails and plywood.

  While I was doing the shopping I somehow wandered into a sex shop and had a bit of a turn seeing the stuff in there, like handcuffs, gags and whips. And women browsing, looking like respectable types yet feeling up the vibrators and suchlike. Strange world we live in where a woman can buy what they term a butt plug (of which I for one had never heard) without so much as a blush. Since I was there I took advantage of a special offer and bought some items of restraint.

  I chose the room at the back for her. What with the new mattress and sleeping bag and the lino swept there was nothing she could complain about. It wasn’t the lap of luxury but after being inside for fifteen years it wouldn’t come as strange. I hammered plywood over the window so there was no need for curtains. I tried out music in there at top volume and went out into the street and you couldn’t hear a peep, nor could you see the light through the boards if you were standing in the yard at night, although who in their right mind would be?

  There was a lot of argy-bargy from her on the phone at work. Attempts to put me off and to call my bluff. It was no more than you’d expect and in any case I was happy to bide my time. At last I was ready. The flat, her room, all sorted, food in the cupboard and I was only waiting for a sign that it was all systems go.

  And it came out of the blue. One day when I rang her at work she said she’d told Charlie and he’d gone away to think it over. Told him about us, I took her to mean.
For once I believed her, she sounded so choked up. I said I’d go round. I was keeping my mobile off because of Dad but when I switched it on to look, among all the expected messages was one from her saying, ‘Don’t come round, I’ll meet you.’ It was working like clockwork. It was such progress I allowed myself a celebration, bringing the wig and the item of restraint into play and varying it, which added an extra bit of spice. But it was that bitch Jessica who kept popping up, trying to eclipse Isobel in my mind.

  I woke up late and hungover on the bed that will be Karen’s. I had a shave and coffee and did some finishing touches like putting out a brand-new toothbrush and a box of Kleenex. When I was ready I rang her at work, only to be told she’d gone off sick. I bet you have, I thought. It couldn’t have been better. She was playing right into my hands.

  I bought a bottle of the trademark champagne and drove to Chestnut Avenue, parking under the tree. I went and stood on the front doorstep. Last time I’d stood there I’d been a milkman called Mark but all that was faint now, way back in the past, proving what progress had been made. I didn’t ring the doorbell but phoned instead. She tried to put me off, as per usual, and I went round the back to see what I could see. There was a budgie sitting in a cage on the kitchen windowsill. That took me aback. I thought for a moment I’d got it wrong but I peered through the bars of the cage and sure enough there she was.

  She opened the door but didn’t smile or meet my eye or ask me in. Her face was white but her voice cold and business-like. You could see the emotion bottled up inside.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  I pushed past her. It was a big moment, entering the house at last. I waited for the words to come.

  ‘Didn’t you get my message? I said I’d meet you later,’ she said.

  I took the bull by the horns and opened the champagne. I knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t resist and I was proved right. I did a toast, ‘to us’ or somesuch. She shrugged as if this was no big deal to her, as if she quaffed down champagne every morning of the week, and knocked half of it back. Now, if she’d been serious about getting rid of me would she have done that? I could see right through her like she was made of glass.