I shrugged. I felt grumpy and childish in a way I hadn’t since Adam, since I’d become a married woman.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch very well, but . . .’ But how could I put into words the space that had opened up between us? It was as if I was looking at a tiny version of her across an abyss.
‘Well, the main thing is, it’s lovely to see you now,’ she said. We were quiet for a moment. There were piles of my old school books and papers in the corners. I could see the red corner of a geography project that I’d sweated over for months.
‘You can chuck all that away,’ I said.
‘One day we’ll have a clear-out,’ Aunt Regina said. And then, ‘Are you happy?’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘Are you?’
‘Cloud nine, dear.’
‘Why are you so horrible to Derek?’ I dared.
She recoiled. ‘I’m not! What nonsense! The silly fool, what’s he been saying?’
‘Nothing. I’m not blind. You shut him out, you and Kathy.’
She frowned, plucking at the goatskin on my bed. She had chequers on her forehead and the spray of lines at the corners of her eyes had spread to meet the brackets round her mouth.
‘He’s a good man, Derek is; he’s lovely,’ I said.
‘You don’t have to live with him day in, day out.’
‘I did,’ I pointed out. ‘He’s so kind.’
There was a bird hopping about on the roof, the claws scritch-scratching on the tiles.
‘Things change.’ She looked up at me, her eyes naked. ‘Feelings change.’
‘Don’t you love him any more?’ My voice had fogged up.
‘Love changes too,’ she said and now a skin seemed to close over her eyes. She became businesslike, rubbing her hands together. ‘Now then. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do about Stella.’
‘What can we do?’ I said.
‘Well, I for one intend to visit her every day.’
‘We can’t do anything to change how she feels inside.’
‘We can try to make her happier.’
‘But she’s not unhappy. That’s the thing. She just doesn’t want to live.’
She snorted. ‘She just needs something to live for, that’s all. A boyfriend. Or a hobby.’
I laughed, and I knew that Stella would laugh too when I told her that all she needed was a hobby.
‘I know that sounds feeble,’ Aunt Regina said, ‘but everyone needs something. Kathy’s got her goats; Derek his Esperanto . . .’
‘You used to like Esperanto,’ I pointed out.
‘You’ve got your cult – and Bogart,’ she said.
‘Adam. And it’s not a cult.’
‘Adam then.’
‘So. What have you got?’ I said, and her eyes skidded away.
‘There’s Poochy and Princess, and –’
‘And Kathy?’ I suggested, and she blushed a deep, unbecoming crimson.
I stared. The bird above us squawked. ‘Aunt Regina,’ I said, ‘have you become a lesbian?’
She didn’t say no. You could hear the wings of the bird as it took off. There was a gleam of sweat in the grain of her wrinkles.
‘I should mind my own business,’ I said into the long silence.
‘So you should,’ Aunt Regina said. She got up, though the ceiling wasn’t high enough to allow her to quite straighten up and she stood hunched.
‘I’m going back tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Oh, Melanie. Don’t go yet. Stella needs you.’
‘I’ll see her tomorrow,’ I said, ‘and I’ll come back with Adam at the weekend.’
‘All that way? To stay here?’
‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll phone.’
†
After we’d visited the doped-up Stella, Derek drove me to the station. I couldn’t bear to see Stella like that, dimmed and diminished. I couldn’t bear the sickly smell of the hospital or the loony-looking people. Stella was not one of them; there was nothing wrong with her. She was completely sane.
The sunshine showed up the last few gingery strands amid the grey in Derek’s beard. He peered forward through his little glasses and I felt an intense flood of love for him.
‘Thanks, Derek,’ I said.
‘No trouble.’
‘No, I mean, thank you for being kind to Stella and me over all the years.’
He coughed and spluttered and fussed about with the gears.
‘Are you OK?’ I said. ‘I mean you and Aunt Regina.’
He snorted away the ridiculous question, signalled right and negotiated us round a roundabout. Someone blurted a horn at him and I saw him shoot a look into the driving mirror.
‘Road hog,’ I said, supportively.
We drove along in silence for a while.
‘It just seems –’ I started.
‘Well, what with the stresses and strains and so forth,’ he broke in.
‘Kathy seems to have taken over,’ I said, and he flinched.
‘She’s a very capable woman,’ he said.
‘But it must be hard, living as a threesome?’
He put the radio on until we got to the station.
†
I hadn’t said exactly when I’d be back. If I’d rung from the station, someone would have come to pick me up, and all would have been different. But it was a lovely day. I was out in the world, and still wearing what Derek referred to as my ‘civvies’: jeans and a corduroy jacket. I felt like a different person striding about in town. I had the fiver that Derek had insisted on pressing into my hand when we’d said goodbye. I decided to get the bus part of the way and then walk.
I bought myself a strawberry Mivi and licked at it as I dawdled across the Common, procrastinating about going home. I watched a couple of golden retrievers playing: chasing and leaping and rolling with such joy it almost made me weep. I sat on the grass for an hour or more, just watching all the people and other creatures, listening to the huge buzz of city noise, traffic and voices, the jangling of an ice-cream van and the high speckling sparks of birdsong. Within the Soul-Life Community, the implicit attitude was that those outside were lesser beings. We alone were the Chosen. We were special – and I felt especially special to be Adam’s wife – and it made us regard outsiders with pity or even a mild form of contempt. But on that day my heart was full of love for everyone, chosen or not, and especially filled with a flood of love and longing for Adam.
†
I went into the house. The kitchen was empty. I made a peanut butter and honey sandwich and poured myself a glass of cloudy apple juice. I planned to sit outside in the sunshine to enjoy my snack – but first I went upstairs to change my clothes. I picked a robe, some pants and socks and went to the room I shared with Adam. I opened the door and for a second didn’t understand what I was seeing: his long back, his buttocks going up and down.
Hannah saw me. She lay there, flushed and smiling, jerking underneath his movements. He caught the direction of her gaze and turned his head to see me. He stopped and rolled off and I saw the moment when his long cock withdrew shining from the redness between her legs. I’ve never forgotten that picture, though I’ve longed to.
‘Martha,’ Adam said. ‘Would you give us a moment?’
I shut the door but continued to stand there, quite stunned.
I could hear their voices through the door, but not what they said. And then I heard Hannah laughing. I went downstairs and dropped my sandwich in the compost bin. My face felt hot and I could feel the pulse in my ears. The sun shone bright on the scarlet flowers of the runner beans but was cut off in shadow before it reached the kitchen window. I tried to pray for guidance but I wasn’t in a mood to listen, even if Jesus had bothered to reply. Eventually Hannah came into the kitchen. Her hair was wrapped in a towel.
‘He’s waiting for you,’ she said. I waited for her to say something else, but she only began to grate a beetroot.
I went up and into the room. He’d opene
d the window, but still there was the wrong smell of someone else’s sex.
‘I’m sorry you saw that,’ he said.
‘You’re sorry I saw it?’
‘You’re my wife in the eyes of the Lord,’ he said. ‘You know that nothing will ever change that?’
I saw Hannah’s anklet on the floor. It was a silver chain with a small cross that dangled just above her instep. I’d always admired it.
‘Mere fornication with the other Sisters . . .’
‘Plural?’
‘. . . makes no difference. I am full of the love and the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
‘You are full of bullshit,’ I said quietly.
He shook his head at me and the patient, loving look in his eyes reminded me of Stella’s when I’d said I wanted her to live. As if they were both way above me in some hierarchy of understanding.
‘How did you find Stella?’ he said.
‘I went to ward ten and there she was.’
He raised one eyebrow.
‘So have you been fornicating with all the other Sisters?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘Hannah and I have always had a special bond. A special connection in the Lord. She was the first Sister in the community, you know that.’
‘Why didn’t you marry her then?’
‘Because our Lord, in His wisdom, told me to marry you.’ And he began to tell me the story that I’d heard many times before about how Hannah (called Elaine then) had approached him as he sat on the river bank watching a heron and how she had never doubted that the Lord spoke to him, not for a moment. And how she would never call the word of Jesus bullshit, which was incidentally blasphemy, but he understood my confusion and would let it pass. He tried to draw me down beside him on the mattress, half deflated by their activity, but I wouldn’t be drawn.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ I said, but I didn’t. I went to see Obadiah in the box room that had become his study. He wasn’t there and I went in. I knew where the cash was kept and I took it. I didn’t count it, just stuffed it into my shoulder bag. I was still wearing my civvies. I walked out of that place and stood on the Common for a while. The Common was the same and the sun was still shining, but instead of the joy and birdsong and love of all mankind, now there was swearing and sirens, dog shit and a poor old man alone and quaking on a bench.
†
I spent the journey to Edinburgh with my face pressed against the window. I was crying and the tears smeared dirt from the glass onto my face. But by the time I’d changed in Newcastle I’d pulled myself together. I washed my face in the station Ladies and sat in the cubicle counting my money. Three hundred and eleven pounds. I bought a cup of coffee and a cheese sandwich to take on the next train. The coffee splashed on my lap on the jolty journey and the bread was pappy, the cheese bland and greasy inside it. But I wouldn’t let them make me lose my appetite.
I was glued to the window as we got to Berwick-upon-Tweed, where the bridges laced together the two halves of the town and the estuary was flecked with swans. The sun was setting and the clouds were like clusters of soft apricots. The train was crowded and a guy with a terrier got on.
‘Do you mind?’ he said, indicating the seat next to me.
I shook my head and pressed myself closer to the window. We were passing a caravan site and I saw a woman framed in the door of her caravan, smoking, and just in that glimpse of her I caught such an immense sense of bleakness that it set me off again. I tried to cry silently and not to let the guy see, but maybe the smell of my tears was fascinating to the dog or something. It began snuffling about at my knees and stood up with its front paws on my seat.
‘Stig,’ the guy said. ‘Down, boy.’
‘It’s OK,’ I snuffled. I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my T-shirt and turned. The dog had wiry brown hair and it was looking at me intently, head cocked on one side. It licked my hand, relishing, it seemed, the salt taste of my tears.
The guy was thin and fair and twitchy. ‘You OK?’ he said.
I nodded and sniffed, horribly embarrassed by the snot and with no tissue to blow my nose.
‘Toffee?’ he said, and drew a crumpled paper bag from his jacket pocket. I took a bit and stuck it in my mouth.
‘Me mam made it,’ he said between squelchy chews. ‘Never leave home without her giving us a bag of toffees.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I said.
‘Hanky?’ he said. The pockets of his jacket seemed to be packed with all sorts, and he brought out a tissue for me, crumpled but clean. I blew my nose and wiped my face.
‘Where you off to?’ he said.
‘Edinburgh.’
‘Why are you going there?’
I sniffed and smiled. ‘You’re pretty nosy.’
‘That’s me, man.’ He grinned proudly.
‘Is he named after the book?’ I said. The dog had settled his head on my knee now, looking up at me with pleading eyes.
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘Stig of the Dump, aye. Me mate’s dad found a litter of puppies on the tip, like.’
‘I remember it from school,’ I said.
‘Me too, man,’ he said. ‘I loved that book.’
And that was Greg from Gateshead. He took me to a squat in Edinburgh, where I met a whole new circle of godless friends. I didn’t go back to Peebles after all, but stayed in the city, got a job in a café on the Royal Mile, saved up and went travelling with a guy called Bill – we were together for a while, but we split up in India. I got a job teaching English to women on a literacy project and stayed on in Calcutta. I kept my heart in a cage and never rang home, but I did send postcards to Stella and the others at Wood End so that they wouldn’t worry.
After two years I returned. I’d been ill with dysentery. I missed Cheddar cheese and marmalade and proper tea with milk. I missed Stella. I even missed the winter. So I decided it was time to return to Wood End. When I rang from London to say I was about to get the Edinburgh train, Aunt Regina sounded overjoyed.
‘Kathy, kill the fatted calf,’ I heard her call, and the faint reply, ‘Will do.’
‘We’ll meet you at the station,’ she said, and it warmed me to hear such love. Before I could ask more, the pips went. I had no more change, so quickly garbled out the time I’d be arriving. It was February and shivery-cold and gloomy. Flying into London had meant flying down from a clear turquoise and orange-streaked sky into a cloudy lens clamped over the entire UK. But I didn’t care. All I needed was to sit by the range in the Wood End kitchen and drink hot tea and be at home again. After so long in flip-flops it would be a novelty to wear a pair of socks. And, of course, I was longing to see Stella. I felt in my bones that she was better, though of course I couldn’t know that. I believed that the promise to help her kill herself was null and void now. She hadn’t recovered from her suicide attempt when she’d made me make it. I’d seen enough dead bodies in India just lying by the road or floating in the river to know there’s nothing special or romantic about death; it’s banal and dirty and it stinks. I’d tell Stella that and maybe even take her to India to see for herself; maybe that would cure her of her death wish.
To my astonishment it was Aunt Regina who drew up outside the station.
‘You’re so thin,’ she said, peering at me through a new and startling pair of green-rimmed glasses. ‘So brown.’
‘And you’re driving!’
‘Passed my test before Christmas,’ she said. I hoiked my rucksack into the boot and climbed in beside her. She’d had her hair cut in a proper lesbian style. It was sugary white now and made her look younger. ‘We’ll have to feed you up,’ she said. She squeezed my knee through my filthy trousers. ‘Goodness me, you’re nothing but a bag of bones.’
‘Ta very much,’ I said. She drove in hesitant jerks down the middle of the road and though I’d grown accustomed to traffic chaos in Calcutta, I had to look down at my lap and force myself not to flinch and shriek at every oncoming vehicle.
‘How’s Stella,’ I asked.
>
‘Whoops,’ she said, as someone hooted and she lost the gear. ‘People are so impatient, aren’t they? Mind if I concentrate?’
‘Go right ahead,’ I said. The car leaped forward.
‘I’m not normally this bad,’ she said. I shut my eyes until we’d got out of the city and onto quieter roads.
A saucepan was rattling its lid when I went in, but the kitchen was empty – except for Princess, the one remaining pug. There was a smell of roasting kid. Aunt Regina was trying to get the car into the garage and didn’t want me to watch, so I’d gone in on my own. I went to the bottom of the stairs and called, ‘Hello! Hi there! Don’t all rush to say hello!’
Aunt Regina came into the kitchen, just as Kathy came thundering down the stairs.
‘Melanie!’ Kathy hugged me. She’d been washing her hair and it stuck up in wet tufts. ‘You’re so thin,’ she spoke over my head. ‘My God, Reg, she’ll take some feeding up.’
‘Just what I said.’
‘So,’ I said, distentangling myself, ‘where’s Stella? Where’s Derek?’
‘We forget you’ve been so out of touch,’ Kathy said.
‘Derek has moved on,’ Aunt Regina said.
‘What?’
Kathy rattled some frozen broad beans into a pan and it sounded like rifle fire.
‘A year past. We’ve got an address if you want to keep in touch. I believe Stella does.’
I sat down, legs gone weak with the disappointment.
‘What happened?’
‘It was after Stella left.’
‘Where’s she gone?’
‘He said, “Now those girls have flown the nest I’m superfluous to requirements.” Of course I told him that was nonsense,’ Regina added quickly, avoiding my eyes, ‘but once he’d got the notion in his head . . .’
‘Upped and off,’ Kathy finished. She put the goat on the table. The thick roasty smell made me feel sick. I’d eaten almost nothing but plain rice for the past few weeks; anything else sent my bowels into a panic.
I swallowed the bile that rose into my throat. ‘And Stella?’ I said. I saw a look pass between Aunt Regina and Kathy. ‘What?’ I said. ‘What?’
I started to go dizzy then, humming and buzzing gathering in my ears and blotting out my vision. I put my head down on the table and let the feeling of dizziness roll over me.
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