The Things We Never Said

by Wright, Susan Elliot

  A woman shrieks as her umbrella blows into the road. Maggie watches it, inside out with all its spiky bits revealed, bowling along like a young girl doing cartwheels and showing her knickers.

  Then she sees him walking towards her, hands in his pockets, collar turned up. His hair, usually slicked back and perfect, is blowing all over his face.

  ‘Come on,’ he says when he spots her. ‘It’s only down the road. Let’s get out of this bloody wind.’ He slips his arm under hers and steers her along. She is slightly put out that he doesn’t look at her, because she’s made a lot of effort and she looks good, even though she says so herself.

  Like the other women they pass, she keeps one hand on her hair as they walk. Jack doesn’t speak but his hand on her elbow is reassuring. They turn down a side street where there are no front gardens, only a doorstep between the house and the pavement. Jack peers at the house numbers.

  ‘Here we are,’ he says, turning into a passageway that runs between the houses.

  Maggie hesitates. The alley is as dark as a dog’s guts, as her mother would have said, and she can’t see the way out at the other end.

  ‘Why are we going down here?’

  Jack looks at her, irritation creasing his face. ‘Because we’re here; this is where the party is.’ Then his expression changes. ‘Oh, I forgot. You don’t do this down south, do you?’

  Maggie looks blank.

  ‘Use the back door, I mean.’

  She still doesn’t understand. So far, she hasn’t really been anywhere apart from her lodging house, the launderette and a couple of pubs. This is the first time she has been to someone else’s home.

  ‘If you used the front door, you’d be stepping straight off the street onto their front-room carpet. My digs are the same – my landlady’s got her settee pushed across the front door. Come on,’ he says, taking her hand. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t trip.’

  At the end of the passageway – the gennel, he calls it – light spills out from the kitchen window and she can just make out a small yard. A bicycle stands against the creaking fence and there are a couple of things on the washing line, flapping madly as though they’re about to fly off.

  There is laughter from inside, and music. The back door is unlocked and they step into the little kitchen, which leads into a room packed with people chatting, laughing and smoking. The music’s in the front room: Del Shannon singing ‘Runaway’.

  A woman with long red hair and huge eyelashes emerges from the fug of cigarette smoke in the back room. Her outfit – purple slacks and a baggy orange sweater with enormous black buttons – makes Maggie feel both overdressed and boring.

  ‘Vanda, darling!’ Jack grins. ‘Long time no see.’

  Maggie is still getting used to the theatrical tendency for everybody to call everybody else darling. She wonders whether she’ll soon have the guts to do it herself; she imagines ringing her brother: Leonard darling, she’ll say, it’s me . . .

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ the woman says to Jack, her tone bordering on hostile. ‘I certainly don’t remember inviting you.’

  ‘The message I got was “the more the merrier”.’ He puts his hand on the small of Maggie’s back and pushes her gently forward. ‘I don’t believe you’ve met Maggie.’

  Vanda seems to shake herself, as though remembering her manners. ‘No, no I haven’t. Hello, darling.’ She smiles broadly now. She is older than Maggie first thought: late thirties; forty, even.

  ‘Maggie’s our new ASM. Maggie, this is Vanda. Vanda does something rather marvellous with a bathing suit and a boa constrictor.’

  ‘A snake?’ Maggie’s eyes widen.

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Jack. Boris is harmless.’ She turns to Maggie, relieved, it seems, to be talking to someone other than Jack. ‘Absolutely adorable and absolutely harmless. He’s a docile old thing and he’s terribly fond of me.’ She gestures towards a framed picture on the wall. The photograph shows an extremely glamorous Vanda in a sparkly costume and high heels, smiling at a large snake that is coiled around her leg and waist, its head level with hers.

  Maggie shudders. ‘It looks, er, impressive.’

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ Vanda says, then leans towards her. ‘Actually, the name’s Elsie, but the stage name sort of stuck. Help yourself to drinks and I’ll see you later. Remind me to introduce you to Boris.’ She flashes a look at Jack and disappears through the crowd.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Maggie asks.

  Jack shrugs. ‘She’s a bit potty. Come on, let’s get a drink. Got any ciggies? I forgot to buy any.’

  She takes a new pack of Embassy Tipped out of her bag and hands it to Jack, who takes out two, passes her one and tosses the other into his mouth, catching it by the tip perfectly between his teeth and winking at her as he does so. He pockets the rest of the pack.

  He really is incredibly handsome, she thinks as he takes the lids off two beers and hands her one. She would rather have something else, a gin and orange, perhaps, but she takes the beer and stands next to him as he leans against the wall, nodding to the music and smoking without removing the cigarette from his mouth.

  ‘So,’ she says, or rather shouts – someone has turned the music up. ‘Where are you from originally?’

  He laughs. ‘It’s not where you’re from – it’s where you’re going.’

  She smiles and sips her beer before trying again. ‘Which company were you with before?’ But he has his back to her. She looks around the room. Why is she finding it so hard to relax? It’s not as though she’s not used to parties, although the parties in Hastings and even those in London when she was at stage school weren’t as packed as this, or as loud. She can hear ‘Let’s Twist Again’ from the front room, but Chubby Checker is being drowned out by the voices singing along.

  A few people have spilt out of the room and are twisting in the hall. She’d love to dance, but Jack is engrossed in talking to Clive about the play. She’s just wondering whether to try and join their conversation when Vanda appears panting and breathless.

  ‘Aggie, darling! Found a friend of yours in the front room! Come and say hello.’

  ‘It’s Maggie,’ Maggie says.

  ‘What?’ Vanda puts her hand to her ear.

  Don’t say what, say pardon. Maggie can hear her mother’s voice, clear and sharp. ‘Oh, never mind.’ Maggie allows herself to be led into the front room, which has been almost completely emptied of furniture to facilitate the dancing. On a table in the corner is a record player surrounded by record cases, carrier bags, a cardboard box and stacks of loose 45s. A skinny boy with a bootlace tie and Buddy Holly glasses seems to be in charge of the music.

  ‘Hello, Little Mags!’ The familiar voice makes her turn and she is delighted to see Una, Clive’s assistant, sticking her leg out and twisting impressively down to the floor.

  Maggie laughs, shouts ‘Amazing!’ and is about to join in when the record comes to an end. There is a brief pause as the arm swings back and another disc drops onto the turntable. The breathless dancers wait expectantly, then as Patsy Cline’s voice fills the room, they groan, shake their heads and move away to let couples take the floor.

  Una shrugs. ‘Can’t dance to this. Come and talk to me in the kitchen.’

  Maggie follows her, leaving the couples moving around the room to ‘I Fall to Pieces’.

  ‘What do you think of Jack?’ Una says, unscrewing a bottle of gin.

  ‘Don’t know really. This is our first date – ooh, could I have one of those? I don’t really like beer.’

  Una sloshes generous measures into two glasses, tops them up with tonic and hands one to Maggie.

  ‘Lovely, thanks.’ Maggie takes a sip. It flashes through her mind that Una might have designs on Jack herself. Or maybe she’s an ex-girlfriend. ‘Has he been with the company long?’

  Una shakes her head. ‘Joined just before you. Vanda knew him before, though. They were both in rep in Leeds.’

  At that momen
t, Vanda stumbles into the kitchen. ‘Oops!’ she grins, and puts a hand out to steady herself. ‘Did I hear my name being taken in vain?’

  Maybe it’s Vanda who’s the ex, Maggie thinks. Jack looks the sort who’d like older women, and Vanda is very attractive.

  At that moment, Jack pokes his head around the door. ‘What’s this then,’ he winks at Maggie. ‘A mothers’ meeting?’

  ‘Jack!’ Vanda spins round, wobbling again. ‘You’re neglecting little Aggie, here.’

  ‘Maggie,’ Maggie says. Yes, this Vanda must still have a thing for Jack; she’s deliberately calling her by the wrong name to make her feel awkward.

  ‘Maggie? Oh darling, I’m so sorry. Why ever didn’t you say? I’ve been calling you Aggie all night!’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The phone feels cold and heavy in Jonathan’s hand as he waits for Fiona to answer. He didn’t call earlier because he thought it would be a formality and he’d be home by now.

  ‘Hello?’ There’s note of irritation in her voice.

  ‘Hello, it’s me.’

  ‘Good – I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to. Where are you? When will you be home?’

  ‘Soon, I think. Look, don’t worry, but I’m at the police station.’

  ‘What? Oh God, what’s happened?’

  *

  It’s almost nine by the time they’ve finished with him. After the statement, they took his fingerprints and a DNA sample. ‘Standard procedure on arrest,’ the PC said as he swabbed the inside of Jonathan’s cheek. ‘There,’ he’d smiled, ‘all done.’ Jonathan felt like a kid at the dentist. He starts the car and pulls away from the police station, driving ultra-carefully. Assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Assault. Bodily harm. He stops at Costcutter to pick up a couple of beers, enjoying the brief distraction of walking around the shop. As he waits at the till, his eyes stray to the shelves behind the counter, stacked with fat, shiny packs of cigarettes. He should have cracked it by now, but every so often a craving seems to crawl up from somewhere dark and settle into a yearning ache at the back of his throat. No, he tells himself. No, no, no.

  As soon as he gets back into the car, the whole evening crowds in for an action replay. The large woman con stable, Sandy Clark, had been friendly at first – her brother-in-law was a teacher in Lambeth, she said, and she didn’t know how he put up with it. ‘I wouldn’t do your job for fifty grand a year, a top-of-the-range BMW and a month in Barbados,’ she said with an exaggerated shudder. ‘Would you just confirm that this is a new and sealed tape.’

  Jonathan nodded.

  ‘Aloud, please.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a new tape.’

  ‘Now, in your own words . . .’

  So he told her how the lesson had started badly, how Ryan was just back from being excluded after Jonathan had caught him beating up a younger boy, how he’d been playing up and showing off to his mates, and how finally, Jonathan had lost his temper and thumped the wall. Just when things seemed to be going not too badly, another PC came into the room and handed a note to PC Clark, who then stood up. ‘Interview suspended at . . .’ She checked her watch ‘ . . . 20.13.’ She switched off the tape machine and left the room.

  It’s like being in The Bill, Jonathan thought as he sat there while they talked in low voices outside the door. Only he couldn’t just turn it off.

  ‘Interview resumed at 20.16,’ she said after pressing ‘record’ again and sitting down. ‘So, Mr Robson.’ She looked less friendly now. ‘You’ve never been in trouble with the police, you say?’ She tapped her pen annoyingly on the desk. His fingers itched to confiscate it and threaten her with a detention. ‘You’d call yourself a law-abiding citizen?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve never been in trouble. Not so much as a speeding ticket . . .’ It hit him before he finished speaking. An unmistakable smirk crept across PC Clark’s plump face.

  ‘And so if, for example, you were to have – hypothetically – been involved in a road traffic accident where, for argument’s sake, your moving vehicle made contact with a stationary – let’s say parked – vehicle, you would either leave your details for the owner of said vehicle as you are no doubt aware you are required to do, or you would report the incident to the local constabulary at the earliest opportunity?’

  ‘Oh God, no, it was—’

  ‘So you wouldn’t report the incident?’

  The male officer by the door stifled a laugh. They were enjoying this. He shook his head and tried again. ‘Okay, I know,’ he said. ‘I hit a car; I didn’t stop. Whether you believe me or not, I did intend to report it. It’s no excuse but it was the same day they told me about the complaint from Ryan; I’d just been suspended on a false allegation. Look, I’ll pay for the damage, obviously. And I’ll apologise personally to the owner.’

  ‘Failing to report an accident is an offence,’ PC Clark said, adopting a stern expression. ‘The vehicle’s owner was not best pleased to return from a business trip and find the offside rear wing of her brand-new car significantly dented. Neighbour heard it, apparently; took your number. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, a DVLA trace threw up your name and by a happy coincidence, you’re already here!’ Both she and the male officer were grinning now.

  ‘I’m not going to argue,’ he said. ‘Would it help if I paid for a hired car while it’s being repaired?’

  PC Clark chewed her lip as she looked at him. Was there a microthread of sympathy?

  ‘There may yet be charges. However . . .’ She seemed to be weighing him up. ‘You’re in enough trouble already, aren’t you? I’ll put your offer to the vehicle’s owner; she might be prepared to let it drop.’

  *

  Fiona opens the door as he’s walking up the path. ‘Thank God,’ she says. ‘You’ve been ages.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He follows her into the kitchen. ‘I should have called again.’

  ‘So, what’s it all about?’

  ‘Well, it seems it wasn’t enough to get me suspended. Ryan’s now saying I hit him. He says I deliberately hit him on the side of the head so it wouldn’t show; told his mum he couldn’t hear properly afterwards.’

  ‘Oh, my God. Didn’t they talk to the other kids?’

  ‘Yes, but most of them say they didn’t see what happened – which is rubbish, because they were all watching – and Chloé Nichols reckons she actually saw me hit him.’

  ‘What? But why?’

  For an awful moment, he wonders if she doubts him. ‘I don’t know. She and Ryan are an item, so maybe that’s it. As for the others, God knows.’ He sighs.

  ‘Shit, Jonno, this is scary.’

  ‘I know, but don’t be too worried. I’m sure it won’t come to much – I overheard them saying they thought Ryan’s version was probably a load of tosh.’

  ‘Then why arrest you?’ She takes a plate out of the oven and puts it in front of him. ‘It’s only out of a jar, I’m afraid. And it’s gone a bit manky now.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Some of the pasta bows are so dry they look crispy in places, but there are a few soft ones in the middle, protected by the congealed pesto. ‘That’s what’s so annoying – if the other copper had been handling it, I don’t think they would have. I heard him say he thought it was a waste of time, then she – PC Clark – said she wasn’t taking any chances and why not just “let the CPS sort it out”.’

  ‘So how was it left?’

  ‘If nothing changes, in other words, if Ryan doesn’t own up, it’ll go to court. They said the court’ll write with a hearing date.’

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Fiona says.

  ‘Me neither. But if I have to go to court, then I’ll just tell the truth.’ It doesn’t sound as reassuring as he’d hoped. ‘Anyway, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’

  Fiona starts chewing at her thumbnail. Neither of them speak. The only sound is of a distant police siren fading away into nothing.

  The night passes like a film in front of him, sharp definiti
on, bold colours, distinct sounds. Consciousness refuses to let him go; he’s trapped. Frame by frame, his father, idiot boy, upsetting everyone, his mother, we did a lot of things badly, Jonathan; smoking a cigarette, but she doesn’t smoke; it’s a bit of a shock. Ryan, mocking, do you often piss yourself, Sir? Fiona, such a fucking idiot; what were you thinking of? Linda Fawcett, a physical assault; Ryan says you hit him; you hit him; Ryan says . . .

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Are you a virgin?’ Jack whispers. Maggie has drunk rather a lot of gin and has somehow found herself in a darkened bedroom, lying on a pile of coats that are still damp from the rain. She can hear the hollow whistling of the wind trapped inside the chimney and the occasional chink as a puff of soot and other debris falls down into the bedroom fireplace. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re not, you know.’ His breath is warm and thick on her neck, his voice tight and strained. ‘I don’t mind. I don’t think girls should have to behave differently. I bet you’re a right little raver when you get going, aren’t you?’ He is pushing against her and she can feel his thing, hard and swollen, pressing against her thigh.

  Maggie is a virgin; she nearly did it once but neither she nor the boy really knew what they were doing, so they gave up.

  Jack is beginning to sweat. His fingers are brushing the inside of her thigh, playing with her stocking top.

  ‘Jack, slow down. It’s our first date.’

  ‘So what,’ he murmurs, kissing her again. He’s a good kisser, she’ll say that for him. His hand is moving again, more insistently this time, up to her panty girdle. He groans as he touches her. She is breathing heavily herself now and instinctively flattens her stomach so his hand can slip inside her pants. His fingers make her gasp and she wonders what it would be like to go all the way. She is wondering whether to ask if he has a French letter when the door bursts open.

  ‘Oops! Sorry, pal.’ She recognises Jimmy the set-painter and his girlfriend, who giggles.

  She and Jack sit up, dishevelled. Her heart is pounding and she can hear the music downstairs, more subdued now. The door closes again.