Holed up in their unit they continued their explorations.
‘Coming for a walk?’ he said later.
‘No, I need a shower.’
He came back sooner than usual, his hair wet from the rain. ‘Guess what?’ said Edward, and did not wait for an answer. ‘I’ve just seen Liz.’
She was upright. ‘What!’
‘With Harold Pickett. Coming up from the beach. Towels and things.’ He took her hand in his. ‘French farce stuff, eh, Soph?’
Her knees folded. Liz, Liz of all people, Liz with her adoring husband, her slavering dog, her cool hand on the tiller of life, of getting there. ‘We’ll have to go.’
‘No, we won’t.’
She looked at him, her face blank with distress, then remembered. The Commodore, like William, had been trained to stand his ground, to keep his head and never ever to run away. He had been trained to win. To stand.
‘It’s mad, insane …’
‘Worse for them. They’re both married.’
‘But you’re the, oh bugger it, you’re the Commodore.’
‘And he’s the Captain.’
‘I’m going.’ She began snatching at bits of clothing, still-damp stockings from the doll’s bathroom, a pair of pants.
‘Sophie.’
‘I said I’m going. I’m not going to be part of some … some sort of … Philly orgy. What are you doing? Is this just …’ Her voice broke. ‘Is this just some sort of weekend to you? Is that all?’
‘Darling heart, calm down. Let’s take a rational appreciation of the situation, shall we.’
‘Stop talking like William.’
‘Watch it, sailor,’ he said mildly. ‘The situation is that Kelson and Pickett are staying at the Hot Pool Motels and so are we. Right?’
She nodded, her nose damp with misery. She grabbed a handkerchief and sat on the bed.
‘So all are equally guilty in the eyes of your God. Right?’
‘He’s not my God.’
He refused to play. ‘In the eyes of the world then, as if they’d fuss, or the Service, which might, all four are equally guilty.’
She was still mopping.
‘So no one will shop any other one. So why should we run away?’ Edward lay full length on the bed, surveyed his kingdom, touched her.
‘Because I couldn’t stand meeting them. I don’t care how idiotic it sounds.’
He smiled at her, ‘You couldn’t?’
‘No.’
‘Well, we have a problem. I’m not leaving.’ His eyes shone, he was enjoying himself.
‘You have a problem. It’s my car.’
‘I’m senior to Pickett.’
She did realise he was joking. They rolled together laughing. Ed and Soph were at it again. He sat up, laughter gone once more as he continued his sitrep.
‘It’s highly possible we won’t even meet.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’
‘We haven’t so far and it’s Sunday. Presumably they came up here on Friday. We’ve never seen them in the dining room, have we?’
‘No.’ Her only memory of the dining room, apart from the inevitable candle in a Chianti bottle on each table and indifferent food, was a skeletal woman in white and a bearded male. Each time they left their table she stood waiting for him, glued his palm to hers and marched out.
‘They’re probably holed up in their room like us. It’s quite simple. We carry on as we have been.’ He was at ease with the world and his plan of campaign. ‘The Pickett/Kelson combo is no threat.’
‘I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Sophie.’ He took her face between his hands. ‘You know I love you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well grow up.’
‘If by growing up you mean not being ashamed at betraying my …’ She aimed the archaic phrase between his eyes. ‘… my marriage vows, then I’m not sure I want to.’
‘Ashamed? Oh God, yes. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for shame and guilt. There isn’t enough guilt in the world.’
‘Very funny.’
‘I mean it. The world wouldn’t operate. We’d all be monsters. We need it.’
‘Well, that’s great because I’ve got it.’
She turned away, reached for a pillow and sat on it, her face flaming above her pale body.
‘Sweetest heart. You’re sure it’s adultery that’s worrying you? Not the being found out? Retribution and hellfire? Relax. Either God’s a busy man or else he doesn’t exist.’
No one’s going to look at you.
‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ she snapped.
He was thoughtful, smiling, more relaxed than ever. ‘You never know … Them being here too. It adds a certain frisson.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘Yes, well. We’ll wait and see.’
They walked down the corridor to the pool. He was swinging his towel, flicking its end. Sophie was some distance from him.
Liz Kelson and Harold Pickett appeared around the corner, their eyes on each other, their arms entwined. Harold stopped dead. For a dazed second Sophie thought he might spring to attention, salute. He was ludicrous, which helped. A pathetic stock figure. Liz was calmer. Much much more calm. ‘Good God,’ she said. ‘Sophie.’
‘Hullo.’
Liz’s hands moved. ‘Hullo, Edward,’ she said.
‘Hullo there,’ said Edward and laughed. Liz took him up. Harold, after a pause, joined in, but his laughter was not carefree. The corridor was an echo chamber filled with sound. It rebounded against the walls and crashed again. Laughter bounced around them in the narrow space. It was Liz she had heard in the hot pool the other night.
Sophie sagged against the wall.
‘Well,’ said Edward. ‘What do you suggest we do?’
‘Have a swim,’ said Liz. ‘Come and join us.’
Sophie heard her voice among the lost echoes of laughter. ‘No.’
‘Come on, Soph,’ said Liz. ‘It’s 1962, for God’s sake.’
Harold Pickett looked ill. Sleek but ill. He was not in command, of either the situation or his thought processes.
Edward was looking at Sophie with affection. It was her decision.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Why not.’
‘We won’t look,’ said Liz.
But they would have to. Rabbit-scared but stone-faced, Sophie undressed slowly in front of them. The men slipped into the steaming water. Liz turned her back to remove her clothes. Sophie turned her front. There was nothing furtive about her. She removed each garment, folded it as though it was precious and removed the next. She stood upright. She did not smile. This was not a striptease, this was a demonstration. Of something. She was not ashamed of her trembling, near-hefty body.
And things only matter if you think they do.
Liz glanced at her; mouth tight, eyes quick, the woman whom Sophie had loved, had bounced around like an effusive untrained puppy, was displeased.
Taking her cue from her erstwhile disciple Liz straightened her shoulders and walked the four steps to the pool.
‘No soap,’ said a sign at the end.
It is virtually impossible not to relax in a hot pool; slow-moving limbs, dark genitals lay hidden. Tension in the enclosed space drifted upwards with the steam and the silence.
She heard Edward as they dried themselves. ‘Come for a drink later.’
Damn.
‘How much later?’ said Liz, her glance slipping from one man to the other.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she muttered to Sophie as they walked along the corridor.
‘Why?’
‘I’ve never seen you like this.’
‘You mean I’ve stopped smiling?’
‘What a moment to choose.’
Sophie used to like drinking in motel rooms. It seldom happened, but she had enjoyed a faint feeling of decadence even with William. It was no longer faint, this feeling. Alive and well, decadence had put out suckers, had infiltrated the concrete found
ations of their weekend.
If this was licence, Sophie did not think much of it. This was not what she joined for. She joined to lie with her lover because she wished to be part of him. To enfold him. He smiled at her as she sat with a gin in one hand, staring at the lavatory with its seat up. She shut the bathroom door. No one else seemed to have noticed and she was after all the hostess. Memories returned: chaste food-ridden parties, rocking the night away, Liz demonstrating the Twist. She laughed aloud. Harold Pickett lit a cigarette with fussy hands. He was not enjoying himself but he had had a thought — a conversational cushioner.
‘By the way, Sophie,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about that little …’ He recrossed his legs. ‘Kate Calder has it in train.’
‘What little?’ said Liz, recrossing her legs in imitation.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Harold, smoothing his smooth hair.
You cannot. But you can, can’t you? Kate is in the Service. And she cannot refuse. Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. There was grit behind them, grains of rage for Kate who might not mind at all but damn well bloody well should.
She put her feet together, sat straight-backed and prissy. ‘I don’t think you should have done that, Harold,’ she said.
They left eventually. Edward took her in his arms. Doors flung wide, curtains billowed, doors crashed; cameras panned across the ceiling of their concrete bunker.
They slept afterwards. Hot pools are soporific, as is gin.
It was almost dark when she woke. She licked his ear. ‘Are you awake?’
His eyes opened. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m leaving tomorrow. Going somewhere else.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m going.’
He put out an arm. ‘May I come too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thanks.’
The hand now lay on his chest. The index finger moved up, down, up, down as he spoke.
‘They’re putting you off, are they?’
‘Don’t be nuts. But you see, I love you. It’s not just a dirty weekend.’
‘How do you know theirs is?’
‘I don’t.’
He kissed her idle hand, watched her face. ‘Never mind, darling. Of course we’ll leave if you want to. Now that I know Pickett is scared shitless.’
They had not worked out their plan for life. There had not been time. They stayed the night in a motel further down the coast. The wallpaper was upside-down cocktail glasses and dead fish, the beds were single. Rain fell down. There was no answer when she rang home.
It was still pouring next morning as they left. Wind lashed the beach, rattled the unpainted corrugated iron fence, swept scuds of rain across the flooded road.
An old couple stood in dun-coloured parkas and squashed hats, marooned in a sheet of water outside the motel. Mad crone’s hair flew from beneath her brown hat, her face was red with wind and too much mirth as she tried to capture an escaped gumboot. She leaned against him as he tried to help. He bent to shove, to encourage, to laugh and shove again. They stood clutching each other, their cheeks wet, she still on one foot, the woolly-socked one hanging. Weak with mirth she gave up and stood flat-footed in the water, her rogue boot the smoke stack of a coaster adrift. They embraced in mid-pool.
Glamour is the joy of being envied. She had read it somewhere.
SEVEN
Sophie saw the white sling and froze. The car door was left hanging. ‘What happened!’
They stood waiting for her at the top of the steps. Lou backed by Evan, Rebecca and her sling, Kit beside her. They were lined up waiting.
‘I burnt my arm,’ said Rebecca.
‘She saved the house and everything. She saved it. Wow, Mum.’ Kit’s eyes were wide, the shit-scared eyes of a small boy. ‘Wow,’ he said again.
‘Tell me, Becca.’ She shook her head at Lou’s dough-faced sulk, at Evan’s creaking attempt to explain. ‘Tell me,’ she begged, taking the child in her arms with care.
Rebecca disintegrated. She hid her face on her mother’s chest and wept. ‘Why didn’t you come, Mum?’
‘We couldn’t get you. Not last night. We rang and rang the motel,’ said Lou, demonstrating responsible behaviour while she had a chance. The ground ahead was more shaky, a track through thermal mud pools.
‘I rang at six o’clock,’ said Sophie, the memory backed by dead fish and cocktail glasses. ‘There was no one here.’
‘We were along at the base by then. The young doctor was very nice. Fixed her up in no time, didn’t he, dear?’
Rebecca, her head still buried, nodded.
It is not Lou’s fault. I am not allowed to hate her. It is not her fault. There are no thunderbolts.
‘Come on Becca. Come and tell me all about it.’ She looked at Lou. ‘I’ll …’ She would think of something to say later. ‘Come on, come on, Kit.’
An arm round either child, supportive, protective, Sophie guided the pyramid-shaped tableau of motherhood down the hall.
‘Shit,’ said Lou to the stephanotis by the front door.
‘She’s upset, love,’ soothed Evan. ‘Stands to reason. She’ll come right. It wasn’t your fault.’
The fat for the chips had caught on fire. It had happened in a flash.
‘But what were Lou and Evan doing?’
‘Oh, you know. Fooling about.’ Kit picked at his bare foot. ‘Yeah. Fooling around. You know.’
Leave it. Leave it. Leave it.
‘And?’ she said.
‘And Rebecca carried the pot out and the flames were shooting up and she turned off the stove even and she got it right out the back door and then whoosh the wind blew back up her arm and she screamed, didn’t you Becca, but she got it out all by herself.’
Rebecca, three years older and bossy as stink, was transformed. Kit’s face was white with memory.
‘Where were Lou and Evan?’
‘Oh, they were flapping around. But Evan was good with the water wasn’t he, Becca? He ran cold water on it and the skin all peeled off. All hanging like cobwebs in the bush. You should’ve seen it Mum.’
Rebecca, self-contained, competent Rebecca, still lay in her mother’s arms.
‘Mum,’ she said.
Kit gave his mother a puzzled glance. He hadn’t asked before, not the exact location. ‘Whereabouts up north were you, Mum?’
‘Not very far.’
He patted her knee. ‘Any good?’
Mary, Ben told her yawning, was down at the wharf with Bertha. She caught her foot as she climbed out of the car, stumbled on a rubble-filled crack in the concrete. Lime had leached out, transforming the nearby grass strip to brilliant green. She must tell Edward. She blinked, her hand still on the car door. She would not tell Edward. That stage had passed. They were beyond bower-bird exchanges which are not given by the female anyway. He did not know about Rebecca yet. Nor did William. How could he.
Ben was pleased to see her. He was always pleased to see this amiable woman whom he found exciting. He would have shared this thought with Mary—they explored their sexuality and desires with enthusiasm—but he disliked the thought of her reaction. The pause, the disbelief, the sibilant explosive, ‘Soph!’ The laughter.
‘Hi, kitten hips,’ he said, one hand on each to heighten the joke. Sophie kissed him. She liked him. It was just a question of keeping William and Ben from converging too often, of keeping them trundling along their own particular branch lines with an occasional nod in the direction of the opposing track.
‘How’s Arnie?’
‘Great. Great guy. Enjoyed meeting with him.’ He paused, his smile gentle. ‘William know he was in a naval mutiny?’
‘No. Nor did I.’
‘Ask him about it. Come in, come in and see what I’m working on.’ He led her by the hand, side-stepping layered piles of loot fossicked from the Devonport tip: a giant cog wheel from a medieval torture rack, a broken Aztec Gold plank with an interesting knot, the bottom half of a traffic light. ‘You should see the packing shed in Greyt
own, Ben,’ she said.
‘I look forward to that.’ Six foot four, skinny, courteous and elusive as his past, Ben led the way. His past was elusive merely because he never mentioned it. It had no interest for him, it was over. He had trained as a painter in New York and won a valuable, in fact munificent, Young Artist’s Award. He had been surprised, but not as surprised as his critics felt he should have been. He had seen an article in the National Geographic about New Zealand rain forest, liked the look of Fiordland, and came. He met Mary on the ferry, moved in with her and had not been south of the Coromandel. He would one day. There was plenty of time.
Their bedroom always gave Sophie a slight frisson of unease. It was chaos in action, a pit to fall into, a cave plus midden. Coffee-dregged mugs lay on the floor either side of a mattress on legs. Above was a yellowing sheet of calico printed with a languorous Christ in ecstasy, blue eyes rolled upwards, thorns askew.
‘I wish you’d take that down,’ said Sophie.
‘Yeah, but look,’ Ben waved his arm. In the corner of the room stood an old wicker chair; legs splayed, hocks spavined, it was falling apart. Tendrils of unravelled fibre hung in coils or rolled about the paint-spattered boards trapping dust. ‘Look at it,’ cried Ben. ‘What do you reckon?’
Hard to say. ‘You’ve spray-painted it then?’
‘Yeah, but …’ He was determined she should understand. ‘It’s the idea see. Every time something wears out,’ he slapped his ripped jeans, ‘I mean completely, I fling it on and then spray her again. It’s the build up, the texture as well as the original concept, the overview, the “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” bit.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’ve got to go backward, to learn how we learned originally. OK?’ Ben’s sleepy charm had gone, the febrile driven nutter had taken over.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Surely even you know art and religion were once inseparable …’
‘Thanks.’
He didn’t even hear her. ‘It’s only now that art’s cut off, marginal, irrelevant to the real world. What I’m trying to do is to get back to …’
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