Nina Todd Has Gone

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘How’s your love-life?’ I asked. She told me about Don and the holiday they’d booked, her suspicion – or wish – that he’d get down on one knee on a beach during a sunset, how she was getting broody.

  ‘Doesn’t really matter that he’s not good-looking, does it?’ she said. ‘I mean he’s nice-looking, the more I see him the better looking I think he is. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not like that guy Rupert. But you could never trust someone that looked like that, could you? He’d only have to click his fingers.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘How about we make a foursome?’ Christine heaped her fork.

  ‘What?’ I swallowed some wine down the wrong way and coughed.

  ‘Don and me, you and Charlie? We could have a drink, a meal maybe?’

  ‘Maybe. Has Gary – or anyone – asked about me?’

  She speared a prawn and a sliver of red pepper. ‘He said did I know where you’d gone. I just said no.’

  ‘Thanks. Another glass?’ I went to the bar to order more wine. There was a mirror behind the bar and while I waited I watched a stream of reflections from the street outside. Anyone could be walking along there and anyone could come in at any moment.

  When I got back to the table she was scraping her fork round the dish.

  ‘Ta,’ she said, finished the drop of wine in her old glass and pushed it aside.

  I smiled at her. ‘Chris – would you mind our budgie?’

  ‘Budgie!’ She spluttered a laugh, then put her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry. Just can’t see you with a budgie.’

  ‘He was Charlie’s mum’s,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’

  ‘We’ve been looking after him only now—’

  ‘Actually, that would be brilliant,’ she said. ‘Don’s dad’s got an aviary. He’s got all sorts, finches, canaries. If I had a bird it would be a something in common sort of thing, wouldn’t it? A talking point.’

  ‘Do you want to come and get him now?’ I said.

  ‘Now … but …’

  ‘I’ll pay for a taxi so you can get him home.’

  She sucked a point of her hair as she thought. ‘Don’t know what Mum’ll say – but if the worst comes to the worst we could put him in the aviary.’

  ‘Come on then …’

  We took a taxi back to Chestnut Avenue.

  ‘I didn’t know you lived up here,’ she said, when she realised the direction we were heading in. I remembered that work still had the address of the bedsit, my official address.

  ‘This is Charlie’s mum’s,’ I said.

  ‘Don could fix that.’ She nudged the broken gate with her foot. ‘He’s hell of a handy. Shall I get him to pop round?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Lovely house.’ She wandered about touching things, the curtains, a cushion embroidered with flowers. Charlie Two was huddled in his cage, feathers fluffed out as if he was cold. Maybe he had a hangover.

  ‘Pretty colour,’ Christine said. She leant closer to look. ‘Is he OK?’

  ‘He’s been a bit off.’

  ‘Well Don’s dad’ll know what to do.’ She made squeaky kissing sounds at him. ‘God, I’m bursting. Can I use the loo?’

  ‘Upstairs, first door.’

  I stood stiffly listening to her feet on the stairs; the closing of the door; the slide of the bolt; a pause; a flush; the running of the tap. Surely Fay would understand that this was the best thing? I picked up the phone and called a taxi. I put the remaining Trill and budgie stuff into a carrier bag.

  ‘I don’t know what Mum will say when I waltz in with a budgie!’ She giggled as she came back into the kitchen. ‘But then she thinks I’m totally loopy anyway!’

  There was the tooting of a horn as the taxi stopped outside. I carried the cage out to the car for her.

  ‘I charge extra for livestock,’ the driver said as I reached for my purse but he laughed. ‘Just having you on, love,’ he said.

  ‘Bye, Charlie Two,’ I said to the trembling clump of feathers. ‘Bye, Chris.’

  ‘Keep in touch,’ she said.

  I watched them drive off round the corner and stood in the sunshine for a moment. I saw that Fay’s ceanothus had sprouted some bright new shoots. Maybe next year it would be the picture that Maisie had promised. There were messages on the phone. One of them was someone called John, asking Charlie to phone him urgently and giving a mobile number. I was about to delete it – Charlie didn’t need to hear anything urgent from anyone called John – but instead I rang the number.

  ‘John here.’

  ‘I’m Charlie’s girlfriend,’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘There was a message saying urgent.’

  ‘Has he gone north?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you give me his number? I need to give him a bell.’

  ‘Are you John Smith?’ I said.

  ‘Hardacre,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a pen.’

  ‘If you tell me the message, I’ll pass it on,’ I said. ‘We have no secrets.’

  He hesitated. ‘I’m sure you don’t, love, but it’s about work.’

  ‘But he’s left.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If you tell me the message I’ll get him to ring you.’

  I could hear him sighing, a kind of shrug in his voice. ‘OK. Tell him Bart wants him back – another 5K and four extra days’ leave.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘His replacement’s a fiasco.’

  ‘I thought the place was running down,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why was Charlie sacked then?’

  There was a pause. ‘You got hold of the wrong end of the stick there, love. He wasn’t sacked, he walked out.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said.

  ‘Left us right up the swanee. Will you pass on the message? Are you still there?’

  I rang Charlie. Toni answered. ‘Nina?’ she said. She sounded amazed but then she rescued herself. ‘Good trip? You want Charlie?’

  ‘Please.’ I could hear the kitchen noises that had grown so familiar; with my eyes closed I could see the messy table where the phone was usually left; I could hear in the distance the booming of Bruno’s voice.

  ‘Nina,’ Charlie said. He sounded breathless.

  ‘Did you get made redundant or did you walk out?’

  There was a pause so long I thought we’d lost the connection but I could just make out his breath and then he said, ‘I had to get away.’

  ‘But it was a lie.’

  ‘That’s rich,’ he said.

  I wondered if Toni was there beside him, ears flapping. Would she be gratified to hear the roughness in his voice? Not like Charlie’s voice, it was the bad influence, the distance. He never used to speak to me like that.

  ‘Has anyone … said anything about me?’ I asked, thinking of Rupert.

  ‘Ruth had plenty to say. But, Nina, have you got the letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Why should I? I’ve just seen you.’

  ‘Read it.’

  ‘I got a card from Christine. Just met her for a drink.’

  I could hear the surprise in his silence. Meeting people for a drink was not something I did. It’s good to be able to surprise your partner. Never be predictable or the excitement dies.

  I decided to let him off the hook. ‘I’m tired, Charlie. I need an early night.’

  ‘Read the letter,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Night night,’ I said and put the phone down.

  Although I was tired I had to do something; there was no way I could relax in front of the television, no way I was going to sleep. I went into the bathroom, plastered dye on my head and started cleaning the house. I vacuumed up every last feather and bit of fluff and chaff. Everybody tells lies. When I was small I thought people were the same colour all through; if you cut through a leg or
an arm it would be smooth inside like marzipan. I didn’t know then that everyone, however beautiful their skin may be, is packed with tubes and bile, blood, bacteria, gristle. No one is beautiful inside, just as no one is purely good. Charlie comes as near as it is possible to be but even he has a bad thought sometimes, or tells a lie. So what?

  I felt strange, on the verge of ill, bones hollow and achy. I tried to do the Sufi breathing I’d been taught. Count seven on an in breath, pause, seven on an out breath, pause. It’s supposed to calm and clear the mind but all it did this time was make me out of breath, and in the pauses I became aware that Fay was hanging just at the corner of my eye. I tried to smile to let her know I knew she was there but every time I moved my head she slid away and left me grinning like an idiot at nothing.

  It was so quiet. I was almost sorry that Charlie Two had gone. I could still feel the cool weight of him in my palm, lying across the scar, still feel the fluttering inside. The sensation of a little life cupped in my hand. A life that I had saved. I sent a wish to him in Christine’s house, wherever that was, that he would recover. The fear was not of him, I realised now, it was that in my fright I might beat him off and kill him, not that I would mean to, but that I’d kill him all the same.

  I opened a tin of rice pudding taken from Fay’s kitchen, and ate it cold straight from the tin. Its sweet grainy creaminess comforted my stomach as it arrived there, soft and cushiony white, though the comfort stopped short of my nerves and brain.

  In Charlie’s room the shelves were crammed with bird-books. I ran my finger along the spines: RSPB Handbook; Raptors of the World; Flight Identification of European Sea-Birds; Redpolls, Twites and Linnets. I picked up the Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland and carried it downstairs. I made myself a mug of hot chocolate, added a slug of brandy, drew the curtains, and sat down with the book. Fay settled into a fold of the curtain. I made myself stare at the place and of course there was nothing. ‘I’m not afraid,’ I said to the shadow and the curtain swayed in the way that curtains do sway, nothing very strange in that. The more of the chocolate I drank, the more brandy I added till I nearly was relaxed.

  I flicked through the pages of the book: wheatear; whimbrel; corncrake; snipe. In the margins Charlie had written notes, numbers, dates. At the bottom of each description was a map showing distribution and a phonetic rendering of their songs. I tried them out and it made me laugh. Cawing and tweeting to myself, crowing away in an empty house.

  I was studying the curlew; its freckled wings and the long curved spine of its beak – the sound it makes: coor-lee, coor-lee. There was a clipping from a magazine about record numbers of them in Norway and a postcard, a photograph of a flock feeding in a grassy field. I turned the card over:

  Hiya Charlie,

  Well I got here and it’s really great. V. beautiful island, inspiring, and the obs. comfortable, nice folks. A good place to be bird-wise and otherwise. Hope you can come. I’m sure it would help you get things straight.

  So great to meet you, hope we get to do it again!

  Love

  Toni xxxxxxx

  I stared at the card, turning it over to look at the birds, turning it back to read the words, birds, words, birds, words, absurd birds, absurd words. Couldn’t make out the date. My teeth were clamped together and my knees, my scalp was strange and tight. Do it again? Get what straight? Do it again? Get what straight?

  I closed my eyes and breathed. It could be innocent. It could be. There are exercises you can do when you are wound up, physical and mental. I drew myself up as tall as I could, spine straight right from the top of my head to my coccyx, and then scissored over from the hips, hands dropping to the floor, but the chocolate scalded through with brandy ran up my throat and squirted through my nostrils and my eyes ran just like I was crying. That’s an exercise you shouldn’t do if you are the least bit pissed.

  I got out Dave’s I Ching. I could see how if you were alone with no one to turn to it would be tempting. Some of the pages were stuck together. The coins were so heavy and smelly and dark. Victorian hands will have held them, they will have weighed down so many different pockets. I tried out the throwing, just once, to get a feel of it. Dave’s hands touched them the most, though, all the times he threw them in this house and alone in his bedsit. Alone.

  The trigram I got was SUNG. And the judgement for that said: It will be advantageous to see the great man; it will not be advantageous to cross the stream. And what is that supposed to mean? No wonder Dave topped himself trying to figure that stuff out. I threw the book down and the coins rolled across the floor.

  Fay tittered and I went into the kitchen and put my foot on the pedal of the litter bin, flipped it open. A smell like sour breath puffed out. I should have emptied it before I left. Under the rice-pudding tin was the mail I’d dumped in there. You Have Already Won; Oven Chips; Free Calculator from Damart and a letter screwed and torn.

  I looked up and saw myself in the black kitchen window, a tight helmet, my hand went up – a crust – I was still plastered in the dye. No wonder my head felt strange. The dye was almost dry. It stung and itched. How could I have forgotten that? Upstairs I rinsed my head. The dye came off in scabs like grainy blood. I knelt and held the shower-head in one hand and rubbed and rubbed, till I saw the water running clear. The dye had been on for more than two hours when it was supposed to be twenty minutes. I looked at the box: Morello Cherry it said. How had that happened? I thought I’d picked up Maple Brown.

  I took the torn scraps from the torn envelope, flicking off some swollen maggots of rice. I pieced the letter together as best I could, a bit of it missing and some illegible due to a smear of pudding, on the table:

  Dear Nina,

  I’m sorry to do this in a letter … impossible to talk to … I’ve tried but … I know it’s cowardly telling you like this but … I know all about … How could you not have told me?

  There’s no point you coming to Orkney. Of course you can stay in the house till …

  I’m sorry.

  All the best,

  Charlie.

  All the best? A horrible thought struck me then. I’d assumed that of the four of us only Rupert and I knew about what we did in Blackpool. But what if Charlie had known all the time, what if Toni knew too, what if we’d all been play acting, Charlie and Toni smirking behind my back?

  Fay’s medicine cabinet was crammed full. She didn’t mind me going down and looking. Behind the shampoo, Vaseline, corn plasters and denture cream were lots of little bottles with chemist’s labels. Mrs F.A. Martin. One to be taken three times a day with meals. Do not exceed the stated dose. I searched until I came across one that said: One to be taken at bedtime only. I took three with a slug of brandy and put the telly on loud until the room began to melt around me before the question I’d been keeping from Nina got through. Had Rupert known when we first met? Had he sought me out? I sent my memory back to the hotel, and to all the other times, the strawberries and the sandwiches and the drinks. All the talk of goodness and connection. Was this all some long game for him? But why? Who was he? Why? It was too much. Nina couldn’t deal with things like that. And Nina was so woozy from the drink and the pills, she only just made it up to bed.

  It was a shock in the bathroom, the sun slanting on my crimson head, smudges of dye on my forehead and cheek, one ear stained deep brown. When I drew the curtains in the sitting room Fay fluttered out and hovered over a red stain on the back of the sofa. It looked like someone had been shot through the head.

  I was hungry but I couldn’t go out. The pills, whatever they were, had knocked me into space and now I couldn’t get back; I floated round the house protected from all the things I had to think about by a layer of foam. You are so pretty when you smile. Did someone once say that? It was nice, floating with Fay; she was my sort of mother after all. We shared some molecules at least.

  The phone rang and I looked at it with surprise, something from the outside splintering through.

&
nbsp; ‘I’m outside,’ he said. Fay shrank away. The kitchen sprang clear and real around me and I shivered. There was Charlie’s letter on the table and it all came crashing back. I wished I’d taken all Fay’s pills not just three, and then together we could have ghosted about in the thinness for ever, none of this rudeness or interruption or human difficulty any more.

  He came round to the back door. I saw his outline through the frosted glass like a target at a shooting school. I opened the door and noticed that it was chilly. He stepped in and dumped a carrier bag on the table. He looked different. I saw it at once. Raw and unkempt, unlike himself, dark stubble on his jaw and lip.

  ‘Did you tell him?’ I said.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘About us.’

  ‘Us!’ He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘I should think that’s the least of your worries.’

  I looked down at the scraps of letter. How could Charlie write that and send it – and then make love to me the way he did? It wasn’t just me, it wasn’t. It wasn’t just me kissing – he kissed me back and pushed into me. He did it to me. Why, why, why? Was he really such a coward that he could not face me and say no?

  ‘Does it matter now?’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I said, trying to force a clear line of reason through the muzziness in my head.

  ‘About Charlie and Toni.’

  ‘What about them?’

  When he hung his head his lashes were stupendous black fans and dimples slanted on the planes of his cheeks. The stubble suited him. A fleck of memory opened a circle in the dirt. I leant on the table. He was looking at the letter. The air was too hard and real, the sun too bright. I stood up straight.

  ‘Charlie’s the only good thing in my life,’ I said. ‘If you’ve smashed that …’

  ‘If I’ve smashed it?’ He fingered the bits of torn paper and looked at me, something brimming in his eyes. I made myself think: get through this, get through that, then handle whatever next.

  ‘Well here we are,’ I said. ‘What do you want?’

  He swallowed. I saw the Adam’s apple slide in his throat. We stood through a warp of time till my legs went soft and I had to sit down.

  ‘You need to eat,’ he said, ‘and so do I.’ He brought sparkling wine and a carton of orange juice from his bag. ‘Buck’s fizz,’ he said. ‘Can you do an omelette or something?’