by Angela Huth
‘Must be going,’ he said, and hurried down. I could see he was disturbed.
When he had gone, I lowered myself onto the stair. Often, as a child, I would sit on the old mole-brown carpet of our stairs at home, trying to puzzle out the worrying preoccupations of childhood.
The habit hasn’t left me. I still do it when no one’s around. I rested my spinning head on my hands. Had Bert said anything about our…whatever it was, our moment of madness, to Carlotta? God forbid: surely not. But how could I know? I’d vowed to myself never to mention it again. Like that, it might go away. But it was terrible not knowing.
Worse was the thought of their evening. Carlotta taking him round his own rooms, explaining things. Giving him those patient little smiles that she knows can captivate, her front teeth just visible on her bottom lip. I know her come-hither stance so well: head on one side while she does her listening act. For all his irritation, Bert might find this too much to resist. It must be some time since he had a woman – I could tell.
The thought of them brought deep unease. I stood up, went to the kitchen, took the fish from the fridge. It would be awful when Bert left, in a couple of weeks or so, but his presence here is an odd strain. I half wished something would happen that would mean he had to leave early: no more slight dread of meeting him alone on the stairs.
I searched for a sharp knife. Dan banged the front door, home later than usual. He put down a bag of lemons I’d rung and asked him to buy. ‘For all Bert’s talents as a guest,’ he said, ‘it’s lovely that we’ve got an evening to ourselves again, isn’t it?’ He took me in his arms, kissed me on both cheeks.
Then he held me a little away from him, and looked at me so intently my guilty heart couldn’t help wondering if it was an enquiry.
BERT
I had to drive very slowly to give myself time to calm down. That moment of unplanned proximity with Isabel on the stairs had had its effect. I must be very careful in future: make sure I don’t run into her alone again, be so close.
Carlotta’s car was parked outside the house. I drew up behind her. Heard myself sigh. It was a great effort to get out, let myself through the front door.
The sitting-room was transformed by exactly the kind of mess I’d imagined. Furniture was humped under dustsheets, islands of various size on the carpet white with dust. Pictures were stacked on the floor, wallpaper was stripped from one wall. Didn’t seem to me much progress had been made.
Carlotta was sitting in my old chair – perhaps she didn’t plan to throw it out after all – whose shape I recognised even in its disguise of a gingham dustsheet. ‘Don’t worry about the carpet,’ she said, looking at my footsteps in the dust, ‘it’s going.’
She stood up. She seemed to be wearing less make-up than usual: bare lips, not much stuff on her incredibly long lashes. Bare legs, too: flat shoes. A black shirt done up by dozens of minute buttons. I had the impression she had deliberately not tried with her appearance.
‘Those must have taken you ages to do up,’ I observed, with a nod towards her shirt.
She smiled politely at my pathetic observation. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but they don’t take a moment to undo.’ I reckoned we were about equal in our feebleness. She suggested a tour of the house.
I followed her: kitchen, study – chaos everywhere. I was thinking of Isabel and Dan at supper. It was hard to take much interest, but I managed to sound appreciative. We went upstairs. She bounced on each stair, bottom swinging from side to side. In my mind’s eye was Isabel – the fluidity of her ascent to the studio that night. The shifting of her long modest skirt. So different.
My bedroom, too, was covered in dustsheets. There were streaks of pink plaster here and there on the walls that covered familiar cracks. On the window ledge a white board had been propped up. It was painted with stripes of various greens.
Carlotta wanted to know which one I liked best. I stood looking at them in uninterested silence. If she had asked me how I would have liked this room to be done, I would have said with white walls and the same curtains as there are in my room at number 18. But she would never have asked, having decided I was as hopeless as all men when it came to decorative matters, and I would never have said. As it was, the greens all looked so similar it was hard to be struck with a preference. I didn’t know, I said at last.
‘Bert,’ Carlotta suddenly snapped, ‘do try. Please.’
She swung round to re-study the samples herself. In the hunch of her shoulders and the tightness of her back I read her impatience.
There was a sudden, startling noise of ripping. Her hands were outspread, holding the front panels of her shirt apart. I had a momentary sensation that I was seeing the wings of a rook about to fly.
She pivoted round to face me, more challenging than irritated now. Her shirt, parted wide, revealed her bare breasts. She looked at me looking at them. Smiled.
‘See, I told you the buttons didn’t take long to undo,’ she said, and quickly closed the wings of material and fumbled to do them up again. I don’t know for how long it was she had allowed me to gaze at her nakedness. It might have been a second, it might have been an hour. Whichever, the impact was so astonishing that there was not an inch of those exquisite breasts that was not imprinted on my mind. I defy any man, even Dan, not to have been thrown by such a surprise, such a sight. I was speechless.
‘Joke,’ Carlotta said, head down, still concentrating on the buttons. ‘Joke, joke, joke. Please Bert, take it as a joke. Probably a very silly one. But I had to do something to wake you up, stir a fraction of interest in green paints. Besides, I wanted to lighten things between us, not to seduce you.’
She made a sudden move towards me, gave me what I took for a conciliatory kiss on the cheek. For a second those heavenly breasts were divided only by our shirts from my own chest. I fear I quivered. She backed away. Suggested we should progress to the bathroom, where she talked with incredible speed about brass taps and orchestrated lavatories, wall mirrors and the possibility of a power shower in the corner. It was the weirdest evening I’d ever spent in my own house.
Beyond any coherent thought, I could only keep agreeing with her plans.
GWEN
‘Can you tell me exactly what happened, Mrs.?’ A nice voice was in my ear. ‘Can you remember?’
I couldn’t remember. I was muzzy with the pain, and whatever they’d given me. I couldn’t remember the children’s names, or their numbers or where they lived. So I gave them Mrs. G’s number. Somehow that seemed stuck in my head.
Now, I’m lying in a hospital bed. It must be the middle of the night. A bandage and a wodge of something covers most of my head. It goes right over one eye. With the other eye, which I open just for a second, I can see other beds. I must be in a large ward. Streetlights come through thin curtains across the windows opposite. Someone groans horribly. My left side hurts if I move, even very slightly. My right arm is heavy when I try to lift it. It’s covered in bandages, too.
I shut my eyes again. Try to remember. After a while, things come back to me. I do remember bits.
I left number 18 this morning – was it today or yesterday? I can’t be sure – with head held high. I wasn’t going to be cowed by the thought of Gary any more. I couldn’t let him haunt me. I walked home quite fast, looking neither right nor left, and I didn’t see him.
Late afternoon, after I’d had my tea, I decided I’d treat myself to a cinema. I hadn’t been out of an evening for I don’t know how long, and I’d seen there was an old Carry On film at Shepherd’s Bush. That might give me a laugh, I thought. Take me out of myself.
I set off at six, or thereabouts. I enjoyed the film – laughed out loud with the rest of the audience. I should do this more often, I told myself, as I came out. I was struck with that funny feeling, as I always am after a film, of how small we all are. I suppose it’s after looking at those much larger than life people for a couple of hours. ‘How small I am,’ I thought, ‘and how unimportant.’
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sp; I wasn’t twenty yards from the cinema when I saw a man running very fast along the crowded pavement towards me. People were pushed out of his way. I had the impression he was either being chased, or chasing someone. I saw his face only for a moment, twisted with anger or fear or some such. But the light was bad, it being dusk, semi-dark. And it all happened so quickly I couldn’t be sure of anything. Except that the running man was wearing a pale blue anorak with a black stripe down one side. It struck me: Gary has an anorak like that. I can’t be sure if he was wearing it when I saw him outside number 18. But then it’s a mass-made garment. Thousands of men must have them.
As he passed me I felt my bag being wrenched from my arm. I felt the sting of its sharp clasp cutting into my wrist. I was spun round, almost knocked off my feet. I think for a split second I was face to face with my attacker, but by now I was so dizzy I don’t know. Then he held up a hand. He was holding some hard implement, I don’t know what. He hit me on the face. I felt no pain.
I do remember falling. As I went down I felt as if I was disintegrating, my whole body coming to pieces. I felt I was falling in flakes, like snow. I felt the pavement beneath one of my hands. It was oddly gritty as if there was spilt sand. My fingers came across a sticky paper, and a patch of soft stinking rotten banana or something, and I thought I was going to be sick. Commotion, I was aware of. Such commotion.
Then darkness. Darkness, and a face came into that darkness. Gary’s face – just like it does in my nightmares. Was Gary checking I wasn’t dead just before he ran off, or was it an hallucination? I’ll never know. The wailing of an ambulance siren was going up and down in my head like a see-saw. Hurting so much, I think I cried out. Then nothing.
Next thing I knew, Mrs. G was by my side. She was holding my unbandaged hand. She was saying something but I can’t recall her words. It was nice having her there, against the throbbing pain in my head. At one moment I saw Mr. G beside her. Then a nurse came and gave me an injection and I must have slept.
So now I do remember most of it. I’m glad of that. Besides, it could have been worse. In the morning I’ll be able to tell them what I know. Perhaps I’ll have to describe it all to a policeman, not that they’re very interested these days. Too many muggings to cope with. But I won’t give them Gary’s name. I’ll keep my suspicions to myself. If Gary thought I was the one to have put the police on to him, Lord knows what he might do. So I’ll not mention Gary, not even to Mrs. G.
I’ll ring for the nurse, now: see if she’ll give me a bit more of that whatever it was for the pain.
ISABEL
Dan was rather quiet at supper. Tired, I think. Perhaps we’d become used to Bert being there and had to accustom ourselves to being on our own again.
About 9.30 – I’d just finished clearing up and had settled down with the paper – the telephone rang. The hospital. A Mrs. Gwen Bishop, they said, had been mugged, and was admitted a couple of hours ago. They understood I was her next of kin. She was asking for me, could I come round? She was in shock, but conscious.
Dan said he’d wait till Bert returned so that Sylvie would not be left on her own. Then he’d join me.
I drove very fast, goaded by the swarms of terrifying thoughts that leap into action on hearing bad news. Shamefully, one of the thoughts was – what would we do without Gwen? God make her all right. I never like to think of her having to leave one day. Now that possibility twisted through my mind … alarming.
I ran through corridors, was confused by lights and notices.
Lost. At one moment, crossing an internal bridge with a bright blue rubber floor, I sensed it was coming towards me rather than I was moving along it. Despite my hurried walking, I appeared to be standing still. But I can’t have been, for eventually the bridge was crossed and I found the ward.
Even faced by the plight of others, I thought, we cannot banish ourselves. I despised myself.
Gwen was in a bed at the far end of the ward. Her head was bandaged: one eye only visible, and beneath it a bruised and swollen cheek. Her left arm, lying on the bedclothes, was bandaged to the elbow. The other, which seemed to be all right, was bent. Her hand moved up and down a few inches of the pillowcase as if testing and disliking the rough cotton stuff. Her uncovered eye was shut. I moved her hand down from the pillow, held it. I felt the roughness of her skin – well, I thought, ridiculously at such a moment, she always refuses to wear rubber gloves. The feel of her skin on a hand I knew so well was shocking. She didn’t stir.
I mumbled something about how she was going to be fine. Even as I said the words I wondered at their pointlessness: cliché comfort surely deceives no one, and yet the victim would feel deprived if no consoling words were offered. Human inadequacy, at such times! ‘You’re not to worry about anything,’ I added. ‘We’ll take care of you.’
I’ve no idea if Gwen knew I was there. I sat looking at the exposed bit of her face, its familiar lines now strange with bruises and swellings. It was the first time I had ever seen her looking pitifully old. Her hair was scraped back so that I could see a patch of white hair, which I’d never seen before, behind her ear. I hated being privy to this: discovering a secret while she was helpless. I went on rubbing her knuckles with my thumb, and occasionally murmuring things.
There were few lights on in the ward and a kind of semi-silence smeary with the noises of illness: a groan here, the creaking of a bed there that spoke of the pain with which some turn was made. A single nurse floated by from time to time, apparently not looking at her patients, but then stopping, surprisingly, by a bed. It was intolerably hot, airless. There was a smell of strong tea and disinfectant against the deeper scent of sweating bodies that had lain too long in rumpled sheets.
I’d no idea how long I sat there, or what the time was. Dan arrived. He stood beside me, looking down on Gwen, a muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching. He asked no questions. Then the floating nurse stopped by us, said she wanted to settle Gwen for the night. As I stood up, Gwen opened her visible eye. The small twitch of her mouth perhaps meant she knew we were there.
We left the nurse to give Gwen her pills and said we’d be back in the morning. Dan had come to the hospital by taxi so that he could drive me home. I was glad of that. I was glad to be in the passenger seat beside him, safe.
At home we found Bert sitting by the kitchen window, anxious. Dan poured glasses of brandy. We sat up for a long time. Through our desultory talk, only of how best we could help Gwen, I looked at Bert and found it hard to believe that anything untoward had happened between us. Never again, I now knew, would there be another flaring of whatever it was I had felt for him in that moment on the stairs. Whatever it had been was totally – mercifully – obscured by the vital matter now confronting us all: Gwen.
BERT
Carlotta calmed down a little after the gabbling in the bathroom. By the time we got to the kitchen her descriptions of what she envisaged in place of all the old stuff were painstakingly detailed and slow. Back among the dustsheets of the sitting room at last, I suggested we had something to eat. We could walk to the nearest place, an Italian trattoria, in the King’s Road.
Carlotta pondered this idea for a long time in silence. Then she agreed – with some reluctance, I thought. I was relieved to leave the house … and all thoughts of interior decoration.
Over ravioli alle vongole we shared a bottle of mineral water – she didn’t want any wine, and suddenly I didn’t either. I told her she was doing an excellent job and I was very grateful. I approved her budget and wrote her a large cheque so she could keep paying the builders and so on. Then I suggested it would be best if I didn’t come again till it was all finished. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to leave the green to me. It’ll all be about another three weeks.’ I could move back then, though there would still be details to complete.
‘You show great trust in me,’ she added, with a smile.
‘I do,’ I said.
It was a low-key occasion: no awkwardness, but n
o electric current, either. Her strange strip act was not mentioned: it might never have happened. She didn’t ask how I was doing with the Grants, nor did she enquire about my future plans. We talked about the mime scene in Giselle, which she’d been to see the night before. She said that the great majority of audiences had no idea of what was going on. But, she added, she was lucky enough to be one of those who did. She’s full of arcane scraps of knowledge, Carlotta. I like it when she comes up with such surprises.
I had the feeling she was controlling herself, determined to deny me any signals. It was impossible to guess what was going on in her mind, and I didn’t much care. Dinner was passing easily enough.
It wasn’t till our second espressos she apologised for her strange behaviour in the bedroom.
‘So stupid of me,’ she said. ‘Very poor joke, very poor taste.’ She didn’t know what had overcome her. But she was always making mistakes. I assured her I was too, though not quite of the same order. We both laughed. I urged her not to give the matter another thought. It was forgotten.
It wasn’t entirely, of course. Back at her car I wondered if she might ask me to her flat for a drink. Unclouded by wine, I was feeling wakeful. I wouldn’t have minded seeing her breasts again, closer. But had she invited me, I daresay we would have ended up predictably. I haven’t slept with anyone for weeks now, and a man can only go for so long without a reminder from his loins. It would have been straight fucking with Carlotta: there would have been no pretence of love. How could there be? My love is reserved entirely for Isabel. Beside her car, I ran an index finger down the line of small buttons that crouched between Carlotta’s breasts. She backed away. Said goodnight and thank you, without so much as a kiss on the cheek – my turn to be rejected, I suppose. I didn’t much mind. Just needed a moment to re-adjust. Then, in the car, driving back to Dan and Isabel, I thought why am I even thinking of fucking Carlotta when I feel as I do about Isabel?