The Longing

by Jane Asher

  ‘So I thought maybe Hyde Park in the summer; a sort of jamboree of pizzas. We could have catering vans to heat them up and a lot of chefs dressed as Pizza Petes to hand them out. What do you think? I’ve got loads of underprivileged kids I can call on, and we’d be bound to get some good coverage if I time it right. I know it’s a long way off, but it would give us plenty of time to get all the entries in and to work round the magazines’ lead times. A celeb or two and a six- or seven-year-old with a huge slice of pizza touching each ear would be really cute, don’t you think? Or maybe even smaller hey, yeah, what about a little toddler, just a two- or three-year-old? That’d help to make the pizza look bigger too. They’re a bit too small to photograph well normally and – Hey, are you listening to me?’

  ‘What? Oh sorry, Andy, I was miles away. Move your foot a bit, darling, will you? Your toenails need cutting.’

  Andrea pulled the Habitat striped duvet up under her chin and rolled over to face him, curling her legs up and moving her feet away from his thigh.

  ‘Why are you looking so serious?’ she said.

  ‘I was just thinking . . .’ Anthony gave a sort of shivering shudder and shook his head briefly but violently.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, I just can’t settle somehow.’ He grunted as he reached down over the side of the bed for the Independent which was lying on the floor in scattered sheets. ‘Is there anything worth watching?’

  ‘God, I forgot to return the new packaging proofs for the perfume. Oh, bugger! Never mind, I’ll do it tomorrow. There’s Newsnight in a minute.’

  ‘Oh, yes, bung it on.’

  The neat new combined television and video was positioned on Andrea’s side of the bed, and when she couldn’t find the remote she rolled over again, away from Anthony, and reached to the front of the machine and flipped it on. As the strident voices of two politicians discussing the relative merits or otherwise of the single currency flooded the small bedroom, Anthony suddenly remembered when it was that this niggle that still clouded his thoughts had begun. It had been during his telephone conversation with Juliet Evans. As he searched his mind yet again for the particular phrase or inflection that had worried him, he gazed round at the comforting reminders of his everyday life. Only a single bedside lamp was on, and the low, yellowy light it threw out softened the crisp lines of the neat fitted cupboards and modern furnishings. The colder light from the streetlamp outside slid through the half-closed slats of the wooden blind in diagonal stripes across the pile of Andrea’s neatly folded clothes that lay on the small chair by the window. While still half-heartedly sieving his brain for the elusive seed of his unease, Anthony found himself lazily wondering if he could be bothered to make the effort to persuade Andrea into making love. He turned towards her and reached a hand out to stroke the back of her neck.

  ‘Hey, pudding—’ he began, then suddenly stopped short.

  ‘What?’ she answered, swivelling her head round to look at him.

  ‘Wait a minute, I’ve, yes. Yes, that’s it – I’ve got it.’

  ‘What? What have you got?’

  Now that he knew what it was, Anthony half wished he hadn’t alerted Andrea, and for a split second considered inventing something, but the habit of unburdening himself to her was too strong, and he knew it was only by talking it through that he could exorcise it. ‘Something that Evans woman said to me today. It’s been vaguely worrying me all evening, and I couldn’t remember why until just now. I was reassuring her about her egg collection – she’s very tense – and she’d rung me up to ask for me to be the one to do her collection.’

  ‘Oh yes. . .’ said Andrea wryly, and turned over in bed again to face him, ‘that one.’

  ‘No, shut up, Andy, let me think a moment. I explained it might not be me, and I told her that of course her husband could be there for as much of the time as she wanted. And she said something really weird. She said it didn’t matter about her husband and that she assumed I’d want to be there so we could have a talk, because she knew all about it. What the hell did she mean by that? What talk? What does she know about?’

  ‘It doesn’t sound particularly weird to me. She meant that, I don’t know, that the eggs were the important thing, I guess, and that she wanted to talk to a professional – yes, I suppose she meant that her husband isn’t really the one to be especially useful in that situation because, well, because, you know – it’s all a bit medical or something. And that she knows all about the treatment or whatever. Anyway, it doesn’t sound odd to me.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? I still think it’s a really strange way of putting it.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Juliet stared at herself in her dressing-table mirror. ‘Only two,’ she muttered out loud, ‘only two. It’s pathetic!’ She had leant forward until her nose almost touched the cold glass, and spat out this last word at her bitter reflection. A moist screen of condensation washed over her image as she breathed hard through her mouth, and she pulled back and wiped it away with her hand. ‘God, you look awful,’ she whispered, and slumped back in her chair and made a long, silent examination of herself. Her hair was lank and unwashed, her skin pale and dry, and the make-up beneath her eyes had blurred into long creases that ran outwards to the tops of her cheeks. She let the muscles of her face relax completely, feeling the weight of flesh sagging downwards and watching the small pouches of fat settle relentlessly round her mouth and jaw. She sighed loudly, sat up a little and pushed her hands into her hair on either side of her face, lifting the contours of soft skin and pulling her face and eyes up into an expression of youthfully oriental surprise. She gripped her hands even more tightly into her hair and leant on her elbows, staring malevolently through slitted eyes at the stretched image confronting her.

  ‘All that bloody effort for two measly eggs,’ she shouted, ‘pathetic! Oh God!’ She sighed again as she dropped her hands on to the dressing table and laid her head on her crossed forearms, feeling the flesh sink back downwards to pool once more round the bottom of her face. ‘What am I going to do? What hope do I have with two? I’ve had my chance. I was given it and I screwed it up. He won’t want me any more now, I know it. Five – that was the time I should have done it. You fucking idiot – you’ve lost it, haven’t you?’ She lifted her head again and looked into the mirror. The picture of self-pity that confronted her only reinforced her feeling of self-loathing, and she rose quickly from her chair and walked across the room to look out of the window. She leant her head against the pane and gazed down at the street as wearily as she had looked at her reflection, the cold of the glass against her forehead echoing the feeling of the mirror. She watched a woman holding an open umbrella in one hand and a dog lead in the other walk briskly along the wet pavement below, followed by a large, lazy black labrador, whose gait inevitably reminded her of Lucy.

  ‘No!’ she snapped at herself as she pulled back from the window and turned into the room. ‘No! Not again! I can’t start going over it all over again – J can’t!’

  ‘Darling, are you calling me?’ Michael’s voice rose from the floor below as he shouted up to her.

  ‘No, I’m talking to myself,’ Juliet shouted back, ‘just ignore it.’

  ‘You’re not still worrying, are you, Jules?’ Michael was climbing the stairs towards the bedroom. ‘Now, have I got to go through this again? There have been many, many times that they’ve had babies born when even just one egg has been taken, let alone two. They told us that, quite clearly. Oh, darling – you look dreadful—’ he said as he came into the room.

  ‘Thanks a bunch.’

  ‘No, you do, you silly old thing. You’ve been getting yourself into a state. Come on now, this is ridiculous. We’ve been through so much, don’t start getting moody now – there’s no reason to. We’re on course, they’ve got two good eggs . . .’

  ‘Not excellent, though, are they? No one said they were excellent this time.’

  ‘Oh Jules, that’s childish.’ Michael was s
itting on the edge of the bed now, watching Juliet as she paced the room without looking at him. ‘Don’t play with words – the eggs are perfectly sound and everyone was very pleased. There’s a very reasonable chance we’ll be lucky this time.’

  ‘This time? We were lucky last time – how can you expect it to happen twice?’

  ‘Well, as far as Dr Northfield is concerned—’

  ‘Don’t bring Anthony into it.’

  ‘What? What did you say? What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Just don’t talk about what you don’t understand.’

  Michael sprang up and grasped Juliet’s shoulder, turning her towards him. ‘Listen – no, look at me – I’m getting fed up with all this. I’m doing my best to be understanding and all that, but you’re pushing things too far, Juliet, you really are. Don’t you dare ever again to tell me not to talk about—’

  ‘Oh, Michael, don’t be so dramatic! Honestly, you’re pathetic!’

  ‘Shut up!’ Michael shouted at her. ‘Just shut up! I’m sick of trying to keep you sweet all the time, I’m sick of it. Try and grow up, Julie, you can’t treat this as your private problem any more. I’m as much a part of this as you are, and I won’t have you talking to me like that.’

  ‘Oh you won’t? You won’t have me talking to you like that?’ Juliet mimicked his voice as she spoke to him, ‘Oh dearie me! Well, I’m so sorry, I’m sure.’

  ‘That’s it, Jules. I’ve had enough.’

  Michael turned and walked out of the room and down the stairs again, leaving Juliet smiling oddly to herself as she moved to the bathroom to start washing her hair.

  ‘Would you stay here tonight?’ Anna looked seriously over at Michael as he sat opposite her on the sofa. For the third day running he had visited her, both parties finding more hope together than apart. Now he shook his head at her, the well-worn yellow jumper and old brown corduroy trousers that he had hastily put on when Anna had telephoned making him look younger and more vulnerable in her eyes than when he had dressed in his business suit the days before.

  ‘No, Anna, you don’t want me. You’ve got your wonderful police lady. I’ve no right to be here.’

  ‘Right? We’re in limbo, Michael. People in limbo don’t have the need for rights, they just float about letting things happen to them. There are no rules now, don’t you understand’. Since they let Harry be taken, they’ve lost any hold they ever had over me. You don’t need a right, you’re lost, like I am. You can do what you want.’

  ‘God, Anna, sometimes you sound like an old lady. You shouldn’t be talking like this. You’re so young. It’s terrible to see what—’

  ‘Oh no, don’t start that. Don’t start all that “tragedy has aged you beyond your years” sort of crap. I was always like this, don’t you kid yourself. Yeah, maybe in your comfortable, middle-class life young girls are sweet and innocent

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘But, believe me, I was never sweet or innocent. And I’m not sorry. I’m not complaining. And don’t come here with your clichéd ideas about working-class girls who come to London from the North being stupid. I read; I watch the television; I know a bit about what goes on in the world – in fact I’m bloody sure I know a good deal more about it than you do.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ smiled Michael.

  ‘No, don’t give me that patronising smile; I mean it. Your world is a fraction of the real world. Mine’s a huge part of it. And growing. And now I’ve lost Harry I’ve learnt about another reality. I thought I knew it all before, but I hadn’t even started. You knew even less. Now I’m really living. So are you, perhaps for the first time. Crap, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh Anna!’ Michael stood up and crossed over to where she sat on the small, hard chair. ‘Don’t. Don’t.’ He squatted down in front of her and put a hand over hers. ‘Yes, of course, if you’d like me to stay I will. I’ll let the police know and they can call me here if they need me. I’d like to stay. Thanks.’

  The window rattled a little as a gust of wind blew against it.

  Anna smiled at him, then very suddenly bent down and brushed her lips across his forehead, the cold moistness of her mouth feeling like damp fingertips against the heat of the skin. ‘Thank you, too,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell Susan she needn’t stay. I’d much rather be alone with someone who understands.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all right? Shouldn’t she stay? I mean, don’t you think it looks a bit . . .’

  Anna buried her face in her hands and groaned. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, man! Don’t be so fucking stupid! Don’t you understand what I’ve been trying to tell you? Everything’s “all right”. Nothing’s “all right”. It doesn’t matter. Just get through it as you can, that’s all we can do. If I find it comforting to have you here, and you want to be here, then that’s it. That’s fine. If they think you’re fucking me, that’s fine too. Perhaps you will.’

  ‘Oh, Anna, really!’ Michael protested quickly, but was at the same moment aware of the overwhelming wave of sexual excitement that had instantaneously washed over him at her words. ‘Don’t make things more difficult. There are men who can care for you without having to go to bed with you, you know. I’ll stay here as your friend, and because I care about you, and need your company. Father figure, that’s what I am,’ he smiled.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Anna. ‘I know, I know. I’m sorry. Anyway, you couldn’t be my father. You’d have had to be about fourteen or something.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m much older than that. And anyway, how do you know what I was up to at fourteen? I’d be honoured to be your father.’

  Michael knelt up and put his arms around her in a gentle hug, grateful that the seat of the chair came between them at the level of his hips, separating her from the tangible evidence of his own body’s betrayal of his comforting words.

  Anna pulled carefully out of his embrace, sat back a little and tilted her head as she looked down at him thoughtfully. Her jet-black hair, though still uncombed, looked a little less matted and lifeless than Michael remembered it, and her pale face was for the first time unmarked by streaked make-up and the puffy evidence of ceaseless crying. It looked scrubbed and a little raw, and the lack of even remnants of eye liner made her appear defenceless. Her black V-neck jumper and black leggings reminded Michael a little of the guests at bottle parties he used to go to as a youth on Saturday nights, where black-clad, long-haired young women with scarlet lips and Juliette Greco pouts had fascinated him with their air of foreign sophistication and incomprehensible existentialist ideas. But Anna didn’t look sophisticated – for all her worldly-wise airs and cynical expressions. As she gazed earnestly down at him he felt he was handling a young creature with the fragility of an anxious little girl.

  ‘Did you keep sleeping with her?’ she said. ‘I mean, after all the trouble, did you ever still make love to her? Did you share the same bed?’

  Michael sighed, letting himself sit back on to the worn carpet and resting his arms on his knees. ‘No. No, we didn’t. You see, there’s something I haven’t told you. Worse than the Northfield business. Something I haven’t really told anyone, except the ones who had to know of course, and that made – no, I can’t really explain at the moment, Anna. I’m sorry. Not even to you. There are still some things I can’t quite bring myself to face. But, no, we didn’t make love after it all began.’

  ‘Poor you,’ she said, almost smiling at him.

  ‘Yes,’ Michael smiled back, ‘poor me.’

  ‘You really could sleep with me tonight, you know.’

  Michael shook his head, still smiling.

  ‘I know exactly what doing, Michael. And I know you’re the only person in the whole world I could say it to who would understand. Can you imagine? Her baby’s snatched and disappeared and the woman wants to have a fuck? Who could possibly begin to understand that?’

  Michael was looking away slightly.

  ‘Do you want to? I mean it.’

  ‘Anna, I’d do
anything to help you, anything, I’m sure you know that now, but no, of course I won’t make love to you. You think it would blot out your pain and misery for a while, but afterwards – then how do you think you’d feel? We’d both regret it, feel – I don’t know – guilty, I suppose.’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  Something in the simple way she said it made him look back at her, and her serious, saddened expression made Michael feel that she was right, that nothing could touch her feelings in that way. She had put herself through such torments of self-punishment and recrimination that she was inured to all further pain, except for the ever-present, gnawing, burrowing, disembowelling agony of the loss of Harry.

  ‘Anna, I’m sorry. You may be right. It might be a help to you, and I know it would to me, but I just can’t do it. You’re very young, and my feelings are so mixed up by what’s going on that I can’t possibly trust myself to take an important step like that.’

  ‘It’s not an important step,’ Anna snorted disdainfully, ‘it’s just a fuck, for God’s sake, man. Don’t treat it like a marriage ceremony or something. OK, that’s fine – if you can’t do it I understand, but don’t make such a big deal out of it. It’s nothing.’

  ‘OK. Now drop it, Anna. Do you still want me to stay?’

  ‘Yes, of course – what do you think? That I’m only after your body?’

  ‘No,’ whispered Michael, ‘no, I don’t think that’s very likely.’

  ‘Right then,’ said Anna, ‘I’ll get some sheets for the sofa.’

  Juliet walked down the front steps of the house and hailed a taxi to take her to Harriet’s flat. As she opened the cab door, a gust of wind blew open the flap of her camel-hair coat, letting in a reminder of winter to whip across her chest.

  The driver sized her up as she grasped the door handle and shouted her destination against the noise of the wind, and then climbed into the back, closing the door after her. Shopping trip, thought the cabbie; shopping with a girlfriend – Harrods probably – then out to lunch.