I remembered how Isobel would always get her way – ‘She’s got you wrapped round her little finger’ (Mum to Dad) – and look at how Charlie has been taken in by Karen! It makes you wonder why we bother, except for the sex of course and the cooking, and a certain tenderness or what you might call togetherness that you do sometimes see between couples. It’s one of life’s big mysteries to me.
It made me want to laugh or spew the way she gulped down the champagne, snooty as they come, nose up in the air, and then, ‘I really must make a call.’ She looked at me like I was nothing more than a piece of dog-do and it boiled up in me then behind the Rupert face, the fifteen years of waiting, the cold-blooded murder, ruination of my family – and there she was guzzling my champagne without a word of thanks, Miss High and Mighty Common Criminal, expecting me to exit off stage at her convenience. It just burst up out of me and I wanted to bite my tongue off but too late it was out there. I said, ‘I know who you are.’
You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife and then there was a crack and her glass was broken and there was blood and one thing I cannot stand is the sight of blood. She stood there looking at it with her mouth open and then the door opened and an old lady came barging in. She was carrying a parcel and about to say something but she was brought up short. You could see her eyes darting about from Karen to the blood to me and ending up on the bottle of champagne.
‘Oh my giddy aunt,’ she said and that nearly took my breath away because last time I heard that expression it was out of Izzie’s mouth. I had to get a grip. ‘Would you like a glass?’ I said. You could see she was lost for words. I was at a loss too then, this not being part of my calculations, so I took my leave.
I sat in the car under the tree until the old lady came out. I waited till she was past me, then got out and followed at a snail’s pace until she went into a bungalow, the odd one in a street of terraces and semis and easy to remember in case I ever had the need.
I went to a pro that day and she was more like Karen than Karen was and I asked her if she minded if I called her Karen and she had no objection. She was one of the street ones and about the age Karen would have been, or maybe less, though that’s her business and no fault of mine. I held her hair while she did the mouth thing on me in the back of my car and her hair was silky in my hand but she yelled when I pulled it hard and so I stopped. I am not an animal nor out of control. I tried to give her extra money but she shot out of the car like a bullet.
‘You should have a care,’ I said, leaning out of the window, ‘I could have been a nutter and you dead.’
‘You are a fucking nutter,’ she said as she went off and then turned round, her voice shaking. ‘Don’t try round here again, I’ll tell the girls.’ And all because I gave a little tug on her hair! If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen, miss, I thought as I drove off and would have given my eye-teeth to have said it. No skin off my nose. Not as if I’d need prostitutes much longer anyway. I would have the real thing.
Chapter 30
*
After the cremation we had sherry in the sitting room. Maisie arrived with a stack of Tupperware boxes filled with several kinds of sandwich as well as her ginger cake. I put squares of cheese on cream crackers and pickled onions on a saucer, though I wasn’t sure about the onions – whether they showed respect. Maisie had invited everyone Fay knew and that was a lot. There weren’t enough chairs and people had to loom about with their glasses of sherry and their plates.
Charlie was pale in his badly fitted suit and a new, brutal haircut. He looked young and ill. Of course when he’d walked through the door, he had come straight into my arms and I had held him tight. He hadn’t cried, though, it was more as if he was stunned.
As the sherry got into everyone’s blood, the babble rose, people full of memories about Fay and the joie de vivre that I had never seen. Then there was a lull in the conversation; a moment of reflection into which the budgie said, ‘Davy-boy, Davy-boy,’ and a shudder ran round the room.
‘However must she have felt, hearing that day in day out?’ a woman said.
‘Salt in a wound,’ agreed somebody.
‘Would anyone like to take him?’ I said.
Charlie scowled across the room at me.
‘I thought somebody might like to take him, that’s all.’
‘She would want me to keep him,’ he said. There was something like grit in his throat.
‘But you’re not going to be here,’ I said. All other conversation in the room had stopped though there was the sound of teeth munching an onion, lips slurping a drink. We never quarrelled. We could not quarrel now in front of all these people.
‘Only for a few months,’ he said, ‘surely you can look after him for a few months? He’s only a little bird, for God’s sake.’
‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ Maisie said into the silence. ‘What we all want is a nice cup of tea.’
‘Is there anything else that anyone wants then,’ I said, ‘a souvenir?’
Charlie looked at me blankly. ‘Before we have a clear-out,’ I explained, ‘Fay’s friends might like something to remember her by, rather than sending it all to Oxfam.’
Someone gave a snarl of a laugh. ‘Memento, rather than souvenir, is what you mean, dear, I think.’
It went quiet again; you could hear Maisie turning on the tap in the kitchen.
‘Why don’t we take a look?’
‘Fine.’ Charlie shrugged his shoulders and averted his eyes from mine.
We all, except Charlie, trooped down. I had already taken the things we wanted – a carriage clock, a tea set, an almost brand-new kettle – and Charlie had brought some books and all her photo albums upstairs.
Her little flat was overcrowded with these sherry-flushed people and nobody wanted to be the first to claim something; but eventually Maisie picked up her crossword-solver’s handbook. And then there was a rush on the portable items: a jug; a shoehorn; a Spanish Linguaphone set; the bathroom scales. A man with a nose like scaffolding went up to fetch his car so that he could load the television into it. Her clothes and shoes were too small for anyone, but someone did make off with her furry winter hat.
Most of the guests left then, just a few gathered round sipping tea and eating slices of Maisie’s ginger cake. ‘Fay loved this,’ she said and I saw Fay lifting a piece to her fastidious little nose and sniffing before she nibbled, the picture so vivid it stopped me mid-chew. The budgie cheeped and cheeped. There was a fuzzy halo round my cup. I put it down.
The man with the nose embarked on an anecdote about Fay and a stray dog she’d met on a coach trip to Torquay. She’d bought it some fish and chips and it had tagged around behind her all day. ‘She had a heart of gold,’ he said, finishing on a sob. Maisie, sitting beside him, patted his knee.
‘She was one in a million,’ she said and then looked across at me. ‘How’s your hand, Nina?’ she asked. ‘Want me to have a look before I go?’
‘It’s OK, thanks,’ I said. ‘I must have the recipe for this cake. Isn’t it nice, Charlie?’ But Charlie was staring at his knees.
‘He was a handsome chap you had here the other morning,’ Maisie said, ‘reminded me of him in that film, you know the one …’
I’d thought there’d been sympathy between us, what with the bandage and the sandwiches and the cake. Her cheeks were hot with the sherry and there was a hectic look in her eyes.
Charlie raised his head. ‘Who’s that?’ he said.
‘Tall, dark, handsome … something French or Italian,’ she said. ‘You know that film, with the aeroplane, with her that’s dead now.’
I handed the cake round. The pattern on the carpet was jumping so that I could not look down.
‘Blood everywhere,’ Maisie was saying, ‘gave me quite a turn.’
I put the plate of cake slices carefully down on the coffee table. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. I went upstairs to the bathroom. My face was throbbing. I looked in the mirror. The traces of bruis
ing were like dirt. I fumbled in the cupboard for my migraine pills. The tastes of sherry and ginger cake crawled up my throat. I swallowed a pill and drank water from the tap. I pressed my face against the mirror till it clouded with my breath, then I went back downstairs.
‘All right, dear?’ Maisie said. ‘She does look pale, doesn’t she? The two of you need looking after. They’re like the babes in the wood, aren’t they?’
I sat still and said not very much more and soon everyone took the hint and left. As soon as the last one had gone, I lay down on the sofa and closed my eyes.
I could feel Charlie looking at me and I heard him sigh. ‘Must you keep making these unilateral decisions?’
I opened my eyes a slit, light sizzled round him against the window.
‘I thought that was what people did. It would have only gone to Oxfam.’
‘What was the hurry? She’s only just … And what about Charlie Two!’
‘She wouldn’t have minded,’ I said.
‘The point is you should have asked me.’
Inside my head fuzzy human shapes swelled and shrunk in a throbbing rhythm. Images of Fay, her eyelids flashing as they clicked open and shut. I squeezed my eyes tighter shut but the images were burned inside. I could feel the shadow of him looking down.
I nearly told him about Rupert then. Maybe if I told him in a small flat voice with my eyes closed it would be OK. It would be over. Like breaking a spell. It seemed almost like nothing now, a one-night stand. But today?
‘Who did Maisie mean? That was here?’
‘Gary.’
‘From work? What did he want?’
‘When I cut my hand, he drove me back.’
‘Why not to Casualty?’
‘I didn’t want to go to the hospital again.’ I was meting out the words quietly and levelly so that they did not make me sick. I could hear activity in his brain like feathers rustling.
‘Funny how I’ve never met anyone from your work,’ he said. ‘Or any friends. Even Rose.’
The clock ticked and Charlie Two snickered quietly to himself.
‘Who’s John Smith?’ I said.
‘Smithy? Why?’
Nothing would come.
‘Why?’
‘I’m getting a migraine,’ I said. He sat down on the edge of the sofa and put his hand on my forehead. I felt myself flow into him. He took my hands and pulled me up to my feet. Lights spat and sparked and I retched. He helped me up the stairs and I lay down carefully, you can’t move too fast or you are sick. I used to get migraine all the time. I thought that love had cured it. It was the accident that set it off again. Now it was as bad as ever.
He drew the curtains against the light. The glass was stained red, I suppose the sun was setting. An inflamed pinkness reflected on the wall. He slipped my shoes off and put a blanket over me.
He brought me a bowl in case I was sick and went downstairs. I lay and listened to the budgie noise, a clinking as he washed the dishes and put them away, the phone drilling out its sound and Charlie speaking for a long time, but not the words he said.
When the light had gone and I was cocooned in the dark and the drug that softened everything, he came upstairs with a glass of water. He made me undress and get between the sheets. I asked him who’d been on the phone and he said it was Tony ringing from the bird observatory to see if he was OK. ‘Sounds a nice bloke,’ I said and he grunted. I felt him slide into bed, and though I wanted to put my arms round him it was as much as I could do to stretch out a finger and touch his skin.
The morning Charlie went back, I switched on my mobile and there was a message from Rose.
‘I’m very concerned, Nina,’ she said. ‘What’s happened with work? I’ve called round once or twice and you’re always out. You know the terms … well anyway if you’re not at work tomorrow I’ll be round at eleven.’
A fork of lightning zipped through me. It was ten past ten. I’d have to go straight there. I hadn’t been to the other place for ages. My ‘official’ address. I had to make believe I still lived there because I hadn’t told her about Charlie. I hadn’t told her about Charlie because she would have had to meet him and make sure he knew everything and I hadn’t filled him in on all my background. I always meant to but now? How could I now? But how could I ever? A plan was forming. I would leave. I would stop it. I would change it. But now, now I had to hold Rose off, even if just this one last time.
I pulled on my clothes and rushed round snatching things to take: a couple of Get Well cards left from my accident, a handful of carnations someone brought for Charlie; I took the end of a loaf, a tub of margarine and half a bottle of old wine from the fridge.
It was a hot day and the patch of garden at the front was parched and yellow. I took a deep breath before I let myself in to a stale fusty smell. It was like stepping back into an old life or discarded skin. The staircase always stank of other people’s dirty minds, their dinners and their breath. It was even worse than Dave’s place had been. There was a pile of junk mail, bank-statements, bills, lots of them addressed to me. There were other letters too and I took them up and opened them, pinned a couple with recent dates up on the board; switched on the radio; opened the windows; flung a dead geranium in the bin. I fried an onion though I wanted nothing to eat, searched for a vase but there wasn’t one. That is something I forgot, stupid, stupid, the easiest thing to get in a charity shop would be a vase. The onion slid apart in greasy white strands and I switched off the gas sickened.
I rumpled the bed and wet the soap and toothbrush in the bathroom – just in case she went in there. There was a monstrous spider’s web stretched between the bath and toilet. I stamped it down and the spider scurried away into the dank space behind the basin. I tipped the wine in a glass, tasted it – OK – squeezed the carnation stems into the bottle just in time.
I heard her clumping up the stairs. And then I remembered milk, no milk; she would expect a cup of coffee. Stupid, stupid. I could not afford to make mistakes like that.
I opened the fridge: a sour smell hit me. There was a bottle of milk, half full, gone green and solid. I gagged at the smell of it, too late to tip it away so I chucked it out of the window. Just as she knocked, I heard a smash, from out there, and a yell.
I opened the door to her, my face dented with a dolly’s plastic smile.
She came in, eyes darting round, and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘At last,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to worry that you’d done a bunk.’
‘As if,’ I said.
‘Why have you been off work? Gary seems confused about the reason. You’re lucky to have this chance, you know.’
‘I think it’s concussion,’ I said, ‘I keep getting headaches.’
‘Been to the doctor?’
‘I will.’
‘You’re not … I mean, you are going to stick with it?’
‘Of course. Tea?’ I said. Forgetting, I opened the fridge and then shut it as fast as possible to stop the smell coming out. ‘No milk – I’ve been drinking it black since hospital.’
‘That’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s hot, isn’t it? A glass of juice would be nice.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Water?’ She saw the wine glass and raised her eyebrows.
‘From last night,’ I said. ‘I’d had enough.’ I was pleased with that, a good encouraging detail. I filled a glass for her from the tap.
‘Nice flowers,’ she said approvingly. ‘Good value carnations, aren’t they? I’ll just spend a penny if that’s OK?’
She went to the bathroom and I knew it was to check up on me. I was so glad I’d got rid of the cobweb and then I heard feet on the stairs and a hammering on my door. I had to answer it, Rose being there, or it would have seemed suspicious.
A woman with a face the colour of ham stood there, sweating and puffing from the stairs. She had a pierced eyebrow. ‘You stupid fucking cow,’ she shrieked.
‘What?’ I said.
Rose came out of the bathr
oom. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘Someone threw a fucking milk-bottle out of the window and nearly fucking brained my Brian.’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ I said. ‘I don’t even drink milk.’
‘It came out of your fucking window.’ She glared at Rose.
‘It didn’t,’ I said. ‘Did it?’ I looked at Rose. ‘It must have come from someone else’s window.’
‘Is your son all right?’ Rose said.
‘He’s not my son he’s my husband,’ she said.
‘Well let’s just be thankful that he’s not hurt.’ Rose’s sensible voice seemed to soothe the woman but I started to shake. I wasn’t up to this kind of stress. Rose noticed. Sweat crawled in the roots of my hair; something fizzed in my ears and eyes. I stared at the glass of wine, but I couldn’t drink it, not in the morning with Rose there to see.
‘Go and sit down,’ she said. She talked to the woman for a minute or two more until she went away. ‘I’ll make you some tea,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said.
‘You seem shaken up.’
‘I’m OK.’
She stared at me for a moment, hands on hips. She was wearing a sleeveless dress and I could see the wet wisps of her armpit hair and white rings of dried sweat or deodorant on the armholes. Her toenails were painted red but they were chipped. Surely she shouldn’t have been so scruffy? It made me like her more though. I’d never noticed that before, only her stern glasses and the dry puckering of her lips.
‘Was it you?’ she said.
‘What?’
‘The bottle?’
‘Of course not! Why would I want to do a thing like that?’
She shrugged. ‘That woman, Lorraine, lives two doors down. Do you know her?’
I shook my head.
‘She says she’s never seen you about either.’
‘Well I’ve never seen her about,’ I said. ‘We probably keep different hours or something.’
Nina Todd Has Gone Page 15