by Jill Dawson
‘Yes, a ride, thank you . . .’ she conceded, and Smythson-Balby finished sweetly with ‘And we can continue chatting in the car.’
Pat checked the snails before she left. A couple had escaped along the window ledge; she would need to find lids for the containers. She felt like a heel as she had to keep putting them back, but they were getting the message. There were two more, bigger, snails on a saucer upstairs in her bedroom; bought in a market in France and smuggled in in her suitcase. The snails liked to eat–come out–only when unobserved. The fact that they seemed to know when they weren’t being watched amused her. There was a new snail in the bedroom too, and she didn’t know how it had got there. She hadn’t been nettled, only amused. A paranoid person would say someone had put it there: it was a big one, with bits of dried grass stuck to its shell and its horns out exploringly, sitting on her pillowcase. She picked it up and watched its grey underbelly flute and flower, just like an anemone, as it tried to orient itself. Bubbles of silver formed at its mouth. Then she felt sorry for it, and put it back, careful to place it in the right direction along its own jewelled trail. How simple that it had told her exactly where it was going. Sam would hate to find it there. A smile then at the thought of it: Sam’s head would rest on the pillow in only a few days’ time.
The car was a white Anglia. Not for Smythson-Balby the three-box-shaped Ford that everyone else drove, no, this was quite the stylish number: small rear fins, chrome bumper with over-riders, chrome side-trim and hooded headlights. Touch of the 1958 Lincoln Continental about it. The cop cars round here were Ford Anglias with contrasting panels of blue or black and white; she’d heard them called ‘Pandas’ by locals. Next to the cottage was the only gas pump and village garage for miles and the car was parked on the forecourt.
The car last night had been white, too. She asked the young woman if she’d been in the village the night before, perhaps looking for Bridge Cottage. Smythson-Balby seemed unsurprised by this question–she was putting on large black-plastic-framed sunglasses to drive, the light being bright, though the October day was cold. She said she hadn’t; Pat couldn’t see her eyes.
The inside of the car smelt of cigarette smoke and orange peel, the strange padded-plastic fascia covers on the dashboard, and the perfume Smythson-Balby wore, which must have been very liberally applied. The bright yellow toes in her shiny boots pressed on the pedals as if it was the sexiest thing in the world to be doing, driving this foolish little car.
They didn’t pass a mailman, only Ronnie, cycling towards the cottage. Pat hunkered down in her seat, hoping he hadn’t seen her. His silly grin seemed to suggest he had but was playing along. His sandy fair hair flapped away from his forehead, like the crest of a waxwing. The Suffolk countryside was full of waxwings, Ronnie had said, showing her a rather fine sketch he’d done, using coloured pencils to show the black mask around the eye, the pretty rusty-red of its plumage, the yellow-tipped tail. Looked like a girl she once knew, who frequented the L bar in Greenwich Village dressed in those colours. She was disappointed that she hadn’t seen a gaudy bird or a girl like that in the tasteful Suffolk countryside. Until now.
After a few miles Pat regretted accepting the ride. She’d promised to ring Sam at six o’clock from the telephone booth outside the cottage; what if she wasn’t back in time? She didn’t actually know how far Ipswich was from Earl Soham; perhaps it would take longer than she’d assumed. Virginia Smythson-Balby was, at any rate, a rookie driver for all her confidence. She was cocky, jerky with the gear changes, giddily swerving a couple of times on the spidery lanes and tight bends. The journalist was trying to keep up a conversation–‘And Mr Hitchcock made a film of one of your earliest novels. What did you make of that?’–but kept breaking off, saying, ‘Sorry, oh!’ as another driver appeared around a sweep in the road and she had to cut sharply left to pass. It wasn’t a squashed squirrel but the huge grey rump of a badger that they saw bloody and upturned at the side of the road, and as they flew past it, Pat had an unpleasant mental image of herself meeting a similar fate under Smythson-Balby’s wheel. She began to shake and fidget in her seat, the Scotch sloshing around her stomach, and at last the younger woman noticed and slowed down.
They had passed Ronnie’s village–Debach (it wasn’t on the way but Smythson-Balby had no sense of direction and had to turn around in a tight lane)–and Pat had managed not to give herself away over it. She counted this as a small victory: if she could keep her friendship with Ronnie to herself, perhaps she could learn continence on other matters of importance, too. Her thoughts kept returning to Sam. She’d noticed that during the day when she was writing she could keep these things at bay, but as the afternoon wore on and the hour when she would speak to Sam again, hear Sam’s voice, drew closer, the thoughts loomed up more vividly. Last night there had been a dream, a horrible dream, in which she had drowned a naked Sam in the pond. But as Sam stepped out, arms dripping water and green weeds, just as Pat thought, I’ve killed her, she saw that it wasn’t Sam at all, but Pat herself who stood there.
Smythson-Balby was chattering away about the character of Earl Soham, a place she held in contempt. ‘You ask them, “What do you make of Vietnam?” They’ve been listening to the radio, reading the paper, but they only say: “Oh, it’s a place far away.” Vietnam’s not in East Anglia. That’s as far as their imagination will travel . . .’ The countryside, she gathered, held few charms for Smythson-Balby. It was clear from hints that she’d travelled a great deal and hoped to do plenty more. At any rate, it was easier to imagine the girl in those yellow patent boots in a night-club in London, or perhaps Eve’s bar in Munich (a place Pat knew well), eyes sandbagged in mascara and giggling over a martini with a man on her arm. Or even–here she let herself go a little further–on a spotlit stage with a mike in hand, in a floor-sweeping halter-neck dress, singing ‘An Englishman Needs Time’. Had she seen her in such a role somewhere? Different hair, perhaps, rigged up differently–younger? A show-girl: that fitted. That was where the Christine Keeler thought had floated from. This girl pretended to be a bouncy fresh thing, with no ulterior motives. Pat knew the type. ‘I was just having a good time,’ she would protest. Could it really be her fault if people kept getting the wrong idea?
Ipswich was a town gearing up for something. Small groups of girls and boys formed lines outside the Savoy ballroom on St Nicholas Street, and they were also at the railway station. The boys were smoking and polishing the toes of their shoes with their handkerchiefs, the girls laughing and shrieking in white gloves and courts and fur coats. Smythson-Balby was not impressed. ‘Joe Loss. Cyril Gold and His Pieces of Eight. Not my thing,’ she sneered, as Pat’s eyes followed the young women with their bouffant curls. No, Pat thought. She could picture Smythson-Balby doing a much more extravagant sort of dancing than the ballroom kind.
‘We used to call girls like that round-heels. I guess you don’t know that word any more,’ Pat murmured.
Smythson-Balby remained silent.
Of course, she should turn the tables, hammer Smythson-Balby with a few questions of her own. ‘Who are you, really? A friend of mine claims you have other . . . biographical, book-length intentions, not just an article . . . Matter of fact, would you mind declaring yourself now because I’d like to know what it is I’m confessing to?’ but something prevented her. She believed it impolite to ask personal questions, despite having to endure them so often herself. She wouldn’t dream of voicing them. She found herself wondering over the name ‘Smythson’. Hadn’t she heard it somewhere, mooted as one of the mysterious backers of the Great Train Robbery last summer? The trial was still going on, and the English newspapers’ obsession with the hopelessly bungled crime was undimmed. She puzzled, too, about the state Smythson-Balby had been in when she’d first arrived. What had provoked it? Such a prickle around her, such an overwrought, giddy little drama?
Strange, sickening, really, how other people never thought it rude to ask her those kinds of things and make cracks at
her, then had the nerve to complain afterwards about her unwillingness to answer. And they would offer her spiteful quotes and comments on her work and watch to see if she got rattled. And, yes, she was still smarting about the Margaret Marshall quote and who wouldn’t be? Her characters deviant, her work unnatural. Sure, yes, she’d always understood the insinuation. Damn them–did they think she was a fool?
At last Smythson-Balby lurched to a squealing halt in a parking lot and pulled up the brake with a flourish. She explained –slightly breathlessly–where Ipswich High Street was and where she’d find the store that arranged television-set rentals. They rolled up the windows of the car, which had been opened an inch so that they could smoke, and stepped out. The fur collar on Smythson-Balby’s coat was tugged up around her chin; her bright dark eyes seemed to be smiling and she’d pushed the sunglasses onto her head, but her mouth was covered. The young journalist danced from foot to foot, clapping cold hands together. For the first time her brisk summer-camp-leader persona deserted her and she glanced at her watch a little shyly, saying: ‘I could meet you back here in an hour. Unless you would like me to . . .’
‘No, that’s swell, thank you. See you back here at five?’
Pat strode away from the car with an absurd fear that Smythson-Balby might follow her. Perhaps she would never now shake her off. It wasn’t the first time she had had that thought about a younger woman. ‘You have a new fan,’ Ronnie would say, if he was there. Ronnie was always vigilant. He liked to remind her of how attractive she was, take the glass from her hand, refresh it for her, tell her gently as he gave it back: ‘This will ruin your looks.’ Ronnie. She could have been chopping wood in the garden of Bridge Cottage just now, in fierce fall sunshine, Ronnie with his sleeves rolled up, sharpening the axe.
At ten minutes to six she was installed at Bridge Cottage, a fire chuntering in the grate, a whole pile of chopped logs stacked by the back door and a Scotch in hand. The television set was fixed up and being delivered next week. So she wouldn’t be able to watch it with Sam, but no matter, there would be other occasions, other weekends. This thought, the real reason behind her moving to Suffolk, gave her a jolt of pleasure so strong that she paused, in the kitchen, and noticed it, and wrapped her arms around herself.
She had marked the Scotch bottle, scoring it with pencil at the point she felt she should drink to today, but the visit earlier meant it was almost empty. On the kitchen table two fat steaks lolled. She’d bought them from a butcher in Ipswich (taking care to conceal them from Smythson-Balby: she didn’t want questions about weekend visitors). There was also a fresh lettuce and three tomatoes in a brown bag and some strongly vinegary salad dressing she’d made up in a pickle jar. There was a new warm loaf of bread. The kitchen curtains were tugged closed, but they were a little short of meeting in the middle: there was always a gap with a slit of dark sky in it. The telephone booth across the road loomed in her mind with supernaturally vivid presence. She had not heard Sam’s voice since Paris, since she’d arrived in England, as they’d both thought it risky.
Moments later she stood in the booth, inhaling the faint smell of cat urine and cigarette smoke, her heart pattering as if she had been running.
‘So, what time will you arrive tonight?’ Pat asked. Hearing Sam, she immediately pictured her exactly as she was painting her. She had decided to change from fall colours to a background of intense cobalt blue and red. Sam, the figure of Sam, stretching through those colours like a white orchid (she would put an orchid in the painting, too, she decided) or a swan. Naked, her neck outstretched, winding a strand of her white-blonde hair in one finger. To Pat, Sam had the look of a Modigliani painting, though she couldn’t remember ever seeing a blonde one. Almond eyes, heart-shaped face. Elegant neck, a little longer than is common. And, curiously, this portrait Pat was making of her–unfinished though it was–was easier to conjure up just now than the real Sam.
Sam’s voice was somehow wobbly on the line. A crackle and then a loud, hacking cough.
‘I don’t feel so chipper,’ Sam said, when she recovered. ‘And there’s another problem, darling. Minty’s home for the weekend. She has a fever and the school sent her home. I can hardly leave her here with Gerald.’
Pat groaned and didn’t trouble to disguise it. ‘Gerald is perfectly capable of looking after his eight-year-old daughter by himself for one night, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, but it will look odd. Fair enough, I might go for a weekend by the sea with some old girlfriends from work, but not when my daughter is poorly. It would look . . . strange.’
‘But I’ve been waiting and waiting!’ Pat exploded. ‘I’ve been here days already. Does that mean I have to wait a whole other week?’
‘Well, if Minty’s better tomorrow I might manage Sunday afternoon. Afternoon tea at Aldeburgh and a walk by the sea, and then drive back? Don’t be angry, darling.’
Pat was angry. The Smythson-Balby girl had nettled her, the day’s routine was spoiled and she hadn’t written a single word of her novel. Worse, she felt an appalling dread that Sam’s resolve was fading. If she mentioned this, Sam would prickle and sulk and nothing would be achieved, so she couldn’t think, just at that moment, what to say at all.
‘I–rented a television set,’ she mumbled, her hand cupping the receiver. That was her last coin being eaten up. Mrs Ingham passed the phone booth, head wrapped in a red scarf like the Queen, walking her terrier in the soft, drizzling rain. Mrs Ingham spied her and waved cheerily.
‘I bought two very nice rump steaks,’ Pat said. The line went dead before she could say: I love you. Would she have said it? She wasn’t sure. She stared at the little black shelf, the fat telephone directory, the sign saying Earl Soham, Woodbridge 6852. What was the point of anything? Sam wasn’t the demonstrative type and in Pat’s experience such lovers needed careful handling if they weren’t to feel too overwhelmed, too ‘smothered’ (as her girlfriend, Ginnie, another cool type, had once witheringly put it).
She tried to slam the phone booth door behind her but it was on some kind of powerful hinge and closed in its own sweet time, so she stomped back to the house, reaching for the new bottle of Scotch before she’d even taken her coat off. The fire–so lively only a short while ago–was now completely out, the logs powdering to soft grey ash that a poke wouldn’t ignite. She gave it a kick and a cloud of pale dust billowed. The room was pretty chilly; Pat’s habit of keeping the curtains closed against nosy neighbours also prevented any sunlight warming it during the day, so she took herself upstairs with the drink to the bedroom, facing out over the back garden–looking onto Mrs Ingham’s house, in fact. The room was north-facing too and wasn’t any warmer. There was the portrait Allela had done of her, glowering, scowling, facing the bed.
She was about to fling herself under the covers when she noticed the two snails on their saucer on the window ledge. They were moving, swaying. Pat bent close and studied them. Now they were kissing. There could be no other word for it.
The Scotch bottle in her hand, she poured a generous shot into the tooth-mug she found herself holding. The entranced creatures in the saucer fascinated her. Look at that, she longed to say to Sam, who was a keen gardener and bird watcher. (She pictured Sam as she thought it, kneeling in front of a flowerbed, her slim spine curved over, wearing something blazing in peacockblue and red, sunlight surrounding her in a frill of golden light.) She needed to get a book from the library about snails. That was her last thought before she tumbled into a bottomless pit of sleep, slipping under the top counterpane, still dressed in her jeans and shirt.
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About the Author
JILL DAWSON is the author of Trick of the Light, Magpie, Fred & Edie, which was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, Wild Boy, Watch Me Disappear, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize, The Great Lover, and Lucky Bunny. In addition, she has edited si
x anthologies of short stories and poetry. Dawson has written for The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Express, The Observer, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar.
Born in Durham, Jill Dawson grew up in Yorkshire. She has held many fellowships, including the Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia, where she taught on the MA in Creative Writing course. In 2006 she received an honorary doctorate in recognition of her work. She lives in the Fens with her husband and two sons.
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Also by Jill Dawson
Trick of the Light
Magpie
Fred and Edie
Wild Boy
Watch Me Disappear
The Great Lover
Lucky Bunny
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Copyright
Originally published in Great Britain in 2014 by Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, a Hachette UK Company.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE TELL-TALE HEART. Copyright © 2015 by Jill Dawson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.