TAINTED LOVE

by Anna Chilvers

  ‘I don’t have any memories of my mum at all.’

  Jimmy knew my face as well I knew his; there was no use pretending anything with him.

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  I nodded. The woman put the parcel on the ground, took the child out of the pushchair, strapped the parcel into the seat and lifted the child onto her hip.

  ‘I went round to the house. You know she’s living there now?’

  ‘Yes.’ The arrangement worked. She still only had one hand for the pushchair, but it was lighter now, and the child fitted snugly against her. The woman disappeared into the park. ‘I saw her in the market the other day.’

  ‘Oh Jimmy!’

  I laid my head on his shoulder. An old man pottered by with his dog. The dog had silver hair around its chops and waddled slowly behind its owner.

  ‘I don’t know what to think or what I should be feeling. I was angry, but when I met her that just vanished and I couldn’t be angry with her.’

  ‘Just let it happen,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘But why is she here? Why has she come back now?’

  ‘You’ll find out in good time.’

  He was right. I should stop worrying and let the situation unfold itself. I leaned against him and breathed in the rose scent. A postman came dashing into the garden with his fluorescent bag slung over his back. Half way across he broke into a run. I remembered the conversation I’d had with Suky that day on the way up to Hough Dean.

  ‘How about you anyway?’ I asked Jimmy. ‘What you up to?’

  ‘I’m still working for Meg Crossley. There’s a lot of work. It’s been standing empty for way too long.’

  ‘She likes you.’

  ‘I don’t think I irritate her as much as some. She doesn’t suffer fools. If she minded me being around, she wouldn’t have the work done. She’d rather have the mess.’

  ‘What does Suky think?’

  He turned on the seat so I had to lift my head off his shoulder and he looked at my face.

  ‘Suky? Suky thinks it’s great that I’ve got some work. She’s pleased. Why?’

  I shrugged. ‘I just wondered.’ He was still looking at me and I knew I’d puzzled him. ‘So everything is fine with you and Suky then?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  The trouble with knowing someone that well is that you can’t lie to them. His eyes met mine but held something back. His voice didn’t ring clear.

  ‘What is it Jimmy?’

  He slumped back against the wooden bench. ‘She thinks I’m up to something. Something extra curricular.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She hasn’t said anything to me. It’s just kind of there at the moment. Unspoken between us.’

  ‘Why does she think it?’

  He looked down at his hands in his lap, then up again across the garden.

  ‘I’ve been home late a few times. I guess she’s putting two and two together.’

  ‘Is four the right answer?’

  Jimmy didn’t say anything, which is quite unusual for him. I was surprised. I’d been sure Suky’s suspicions would turn out to be groundless, that there would be some other explanation. She was so precious to him I couldn’t believe he’d endanger what he had with her.

  ‘Is it Meg Crossley?’ I asked.

  ‘God no!’ He looked aghast. ‘She’s good for her age, but… no, how could you think that? I don’t even like her.’

  ‘Well who is it then?’

  Again the uncomfortable silence. I noticed him looking towards the entrance. A man was just walking through in the direction of the post office. Jimmy was trying to keep his face still so it didn’t give anything away, but it wasn’t working. His eye flickered and he swallowed so his cheeks sucked in a little. He’d come from that direction himself.

  ‘Steph?’

  He looked quickly at me then away again and still said nothing. Steph had dark blonde hair which she mostly wore scraped back into a ponytail, and she wore grey jersey skirts, soft blouses and cardigans. At least she did for working at the post office. I remembered her coming back to ours that night of the party. I’d never have thought of her and Jimmy in a million years.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘What is it then?’

  He shook his head and opened his hands.

  ‘I can’t tell you about it here.’

  I stood up. ‘Come round to our house and have some tea.’

  ‘Ok. You can tell me all about you and Peter, too. Something’s changed with you two as well. Something good, I think.’

  He gave me a knowing look and I grinned.

  Nobody was in and the house was empty. I made a pot of tea and we sat at the kitchen table with mugs full and steaming.

  ‘It started a few months back,’ Jimmy said. He looked more comfortable now. The admission was made and he had a story to tell me. ‘I was in the White Horse chatting to folk, like you do. Steph was there with a couple of friends. One of them had a birthday and they’d all drunk quite a bit and the conversation got round to sex. There was quite a group of us sitting around the corner near the fire, Steph and her friends and me and five or six other people. Her friends were really loud and started talking about orgasms. It all got a bit silly and out of hand and one of them started making a load of noise and the barman was giving us looks. Steph didn’t say anything, though she laughed a lot and she was a bit flushed from drinking.

  ‘In the end one of her friends had too much and was ill, so the other one took her home, but Steph stayed. It was getting on and gradually people peeled off and went home, until it was just me and her. I was doing my normal thing, talking. I think I was telling her about the circus. And she was listening with these big eyes like it was the best story she’d ever heard.’

  ‘Like Desdemona.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s why Desdemona fell in love with Othello: because of the stories he told.’

  He took a gulp of his tea.

  ‘Well I don’t know about love.’

  ‘Go on then, what happened next? As if I can’t guess.’

  ‘I doubt you can.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘We got more drinks in and Steph moved a bit closer to me on the seat, and I thought the same as you’re thinking and decided I’d better make a quick exit. But she didn’t make any moves or anything. She said, please keep talking Jimmy, so I did. I mean, I’d had a few and usually people are telling me to shut up by that time of night. I don’t even remember now what I was saying, I was just blithering on about various people I’ve known and places I’ve been.’

  ‘And she was lapping it up.’

  ‘Anyway, by the time we’d finished our drinks they were kicking people out and Steph asked if I’d come round to hers for a nightcap. It seemed like a good idea. I was on a roll and another drink seemed like a plan. I told myself I didn’t have to do anything else.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘At her place she only had white wine so she poured a couple of glasses. Then she told me what she wanted.’

  He stopped and drank his tea.

  ‘Go on then, what did she want?’

  ‘She told me… Laurie, you’ve got to promise that you won’t tell this to anyone else. I shouldn’t be telling you.’

  ‘Ok, I promise.’ I wondered if I ought to cross my fingers, thinking of Suky, but my hands were wrapped around my mug and I couldn’t.

  ‘She told me she’d never had an orgasm.’

  ‘What, never?’

  ‘Never, not with anyone, not even by herself.’

  ‘But she’s like, how old?’

  ‘She’s twenty-four. She’d never had one and it really bothered her.’

  ‘And she thought you…’ That was some line.

  ‘She sa
id she’d been getting really turned on by me talking and she thought if I carried on…’

  ‘While…?’

  ‘No, she didn’t want me to do anything else. I put my arm around her and put my mouth close to her ear, but that was it.’

  ‘And? Did she?’

  ‘It was amazing. I just kept talking in her ear and she went very still for a while, and then she started moving her hips and moaning. Well, you know. Her head moved a bit, so I put a hand on her shoulder to keep her still and carried on talking into her ear, until she stopped. She was really sweaty.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Nothing. I mean, she was really emotional and cried a bit and kept saying thank you. But we didn’t do anything else. We finished the wine and I went home.’

  ‘And you’ve been seeing her since?’

  ‘Not much. A few times when we’ve both been out and bumped into each other. We haven’t planned to meet.’

  ‘And you always just… talk?’

  ‘Yup, just talk.’

  He was probably telling the truth. I mean, if I was to break my promise and tell Suky, I don’t think she’d be too impressed. He was seeing another woman for sexual purposes, even if they never actually had sex. Or took their clothes off.

  ‘Hasn’t she been tempted to try anything else? I mean, since…’

  ‘Normal sex doesn’t really appeal to her.’

  ‘That’s bloody weird, Jimmy.’

  I poured some more tea from the pot. Then I thought of something.

  ‘Hadn’t you just come from the post office when I met you earlier?’

  He nodded and looked a bit shamefaced. ‘I pop in sometimes, if I’m passing, and tease her a bit. If it’s not busy and there’s no queue. I go in and buy a stamp and I tell her stuff – anecdotes or whatever. The other staff think I’m just being chatty, and she gives me these evil glares. She likes it though.’

  ‘Jimmy, I just don’t believe you sometimes.’

  He looked at me anxiously and I grinned. What else could I do?

  Then the door opened and Dad came in. He was whistling, and the smile vanished from my face.

  17. Meg, 1889

  Seeing those boys drown at Gaddings Dam was one of the worst days. It was only nine weeks since Charles had died, and I was flooded with memories of him as a boy of that age. I missed my child, with his huge and unrestrained appetite for living and learning, and I missed the man, strong and determined, devout in his belief in science, which he claimed would be the new religion. When he was older, we had long night-time talks about the theories of Mr Darwin, chess games that lasted for days on end and rambles across the moors looking for plants, fungi, liverworts, whatever it was that obsessed him at the time.

  The day of the drowning I’d been hoping that a stride on the moors in the fresh air would bring colour to my cheeks and make me forget, if only for a short time. I walked for miles, over to Blackstone Edge and back up to Broadhead Clough before heading back to Langfield Moor. I felt energised, but it was an effort to keep the thoughts at bay. When memories threatened to crowd in I increased my pace and concentrated on the path beneath my feet. Eventually I was tired and sat down to rest.

  I was wearing some of Charles’ clothes. It can make things simpler, as long as you don’t get too close to people. No one feels the need to protect and accompany you the way they do if they see a woman alone on the moors. Also, I feel more comfortable wearing the spectacles with men’s clothes when I’m in public, and it was too bright a day to be abroad without them.

  I saw the three boys come scampering along the path, and to my shame I thought about how young and vigorous they were and how the blood ran strongly in their veins. They went into the water and I smiled at their antics.

  Soon afterwards I saw the young man arrive and settle on the other side of the water, and was glad that he hadn’t noticed me.

  The drowning happened so fast. Despite my baser instincts, I wanted to find those boys alive, to pull their little limp bodies from the reservoir and pump the water out of them, fill them with life-giving air. But we couldn’t find them, and after a while there was no point in searching any more because the chance of life had gone.

  That’s when the tears started. I hadn’t cried when Charles died, or in the intervening weeks. There had been a numbness as though my heart were encased in rock. Now, with the mad chase into the water, the frantic diving and the hopeless realisation, the rock had crumbled away.

  The three dead boys would have mothers who would soon be grieving and keening, and they would never have the pleasure of seeing their boys grow into strong young men, of watching them make their way in the world. I had that with Charles. I grew to know Charles as a friend, one of the best friends I’ve ever had. The tears rolled down my face unchecked.

  The young man looked at me curiously. He had only just realised my gender, but his face didn’t hold criticism, only interest and some sympathy. He was young, not many years older than the drowned boys. He was dripping wet in his underwear, but he didn’t rush to put his clothes on as I think most men would have done, and I liked that about him. But I couldn’t stay, and the tears weren’t stopping.

  They didn’t stop that day or even that week. I kept to the house during daylight as the salt irritated my eyes and made them red and raw, and sunlight was painful even with the glasses. I kept the curtains drawn and occasionally ventured out after dark when hunger got the better of me. Charles had gone and there was no one else I could talk to. My bodice became salt streaked, my cheeks lined with white.

  One day I woke up and my pillow was dry. I put my fingers to my face and found the rims of my eyes were crusted, swollen and sore, but there were no more tears. It was mid afternoon. The sun would be high in the summer sky, but I had an urge to go outside.

  I bathed my face in tepid water until the sores softened and my skin regained enough flexibility to grimace at myself in the glass. I dressed in Charles’ clothes, placed the tinted spectacles on my face, and ventured out.

  For ten days I had been living in dim light behind drawn curtains and the soft dark of night. The harsh brightness brought bile to my throat. I stood on the step, tempted to scuttle back inside and wait until nightfall. But I remembered Charles’s rejection of my way of life. He didn’t want to live hiding in shadows, never able to bare his face to the honest light of the sun. I took a deep breath and stepped out.

  My feet took me in the direction of the monument and the reservoir. I wanted news of the drowned boys and, although it was unlikely anyone would be about on a working day, I could think of nowhere else to go. I couldn’t walk into town and buy a newspaper. Not enough time had passed for memories there to fade.

  As I approached the monument I became aware of a noise: tapping and scraping. It was coming from the edifice itself. I looked up, my hand shielding my eyes from the worst of the sun’s glare, and saw a man suspended on a rope right up at the top. I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but his movements didn’t seem to fit with the sounds I could hear. I walked around the base, but couldn’t see anyone else.

  I had been inside the monument a few times, when my new life was raw upon me and I had a need for the cover of darkness. By taking away one of the senses my actions seemed to take place in fewer dimensions and have less reality. If I couldn’t actually see what I did I could pretend I hadn’t done it.

  When I became accustomed to that life, however, I no longer had need of pretence.

  I entered the stairwell and walked up the stairs. Halfway up, I was plunged into blackness, but after a few steps a shaft of light pierced the gloom. I climbed to the balcony and found the source of the tapping noise.

  A young man in workman’s clothing was making a hole in the floor, using a chisel and hammer to chip and scrape at the hard stone.

  ‘That looks like a thankless task,’ I said.


  He looked up, dust from the stone flying up around him in a cloud, and I recognised the young man from the reservoir. Like mine, his eyes were bloodshot, the rims swollen and raw.

  Charles was fretful that night. When I tried to hand him to the nurse he clung to my dress with tiny fingers and said ‘I want mummy.’

  The nurse tried to be strict with him. ‘Now don’t be a silly boy, you know your mother has to go out and you will see her in the morning.’

  He buried his face into my neck and nuzzled there, his breath hot on my neck, and I knew I couldn’t give him up.

  ‘I’ll take him with me,’ I said, and the nurse’s face tightened.

  ‘Mistress, it will be too cold up there for a little boy.’

  I knew she thought I was wrong to attend the ceremony myself, that I should leave such things to the menfolk. But I had no menfolk, only Charles. I asked the nurse to fetch his coat and she went off with a face like a sour plum. I wondered if I should let her go. There was nothing she did that I couldn’t do myself. It was only propriety which dictated I should not demean myself with certain tasks. But propriety interested me less and less these days, and up here on the moor there were no neighbours to watch and comment.

  Charles never liked me to leave him with the nurse and was always calmer when I held him myself. I found great comfort in this.

  His father, my husband Daniel Crossley, was killed at war when Charles was but four months in my belly. Ours had been a great love match. Although not wholly disapproved by our families, neither of us were first choice for our in-laws, but nothing could have dissuaded us. We were so hungry for each other we would have married even if it had landed us in poverty and disgrace. Our families gave permission and we moved to this house high on the moor, far from everyone. We had only two servants: a maid, and a boy who worked in the kitchen and stable. We paid little attention to them, only to each other. It was the most perfect time. The two of us lived in a bubble of happiness so intense that sometimes I would break down and cry in great gulping sobs, and Daniel would stroke my hair and feed me squares of sweet chocolate.