Colouring In

by Angela Huth

  Thank God, though, it didn’t happen. I arrived back soon after ten to find Dan alone, apparently waiting for me. He briefly explained about Gwen and said now I was there to baby-sit, he had to rush to join Isabel at the hospital.

  When he’d gone, I poured myself a glass of brandy. Gwen, mugged? I hardly knew Gwen, scarcely saw her, though she’d been delighted by the £20 I slipped her yesterday. How absolutely bloody awful for her. London, these days… worse than New York. I needed music.

  I put on Borodin’s D major quartet. In its melancholy nocturne I always find an antidote to my own low spirits. Then I sat in the chair by the window, looking out at the garden. The trees were roughly-shaped gatherings of intense darkness against the semi-darkness of the London summer sky. There was a smell of jasmine that I knew would always remind me of Isabel.

  ‘What now?’ I thought.

  Perhaps this dreadful event would shift things in a way I could not guess at. Perhaps it would provide a pointer, a direction. But what that would be, for all my reflection, I still did not know and could not guess. I sat there with the music until Isabel and Dan returned. Isabel was very pale, very quiet. I knew that whatever the changes turned out to be, they would not shift my love for her. Gwen’s brutal mugging, and its consequences, could make no difference for my – yes – deepening love for Isabel.

  I poured glasses of brandy for her and Dan. They were plainly shaken. We sat up very late, conjecturing in the hopeless way that people do after an event that has no explanation. Was Gwen a random choice, or was it a planned attack for some reason we could not guess at? We could not answer our own questions.

  In my room, still very awake after the turbulent evening, I sat at the desk looking onto the same view as the one downstairs: wondering, wondering. The sky paled. The trees lightened. I could see their leaves again. Without bothering to undress, I lay on the bed.

  SYLVIE

  I went with Mama after school to see poor Gwen in hospital. It was her second or third day there I think, and only the second time I’ve ever been in a hospital. It was absolutely horrible – the smell, a sort of sick-making sweet smell seeping out under a disguise of disinfectant. Mama didn’t seem to notice it so I didn’t say anything.

  Gwen was at the end of a very big ward. As we walked down it I didn’t look too hard at the people in the other beds. I didn’t want to see a lot of blood and stuff, or people groaning in pain. Gwen was sitting up, most of her face covered in dressings, and her arm bandaged. The bit of her face I could see was the colour of a thunderstorm, all green and yellow, the skin. And her eye was bright red as if it was filled with blood which couldn’t get out. But she smiled at us and said how good it was of us to come. She said she was much better, feeling brighter. I remembered how whenever I was recovering from a cold or something she would ask me if I was feeling brighter. We sat by her bed on nasty plastic chairs. The old woman in the next bed coughed all the time.

  While she and Mama were talking I looked at the bedside table. There were two very big bunches of flowers with small white cards beside them – Mama’s writing on one, and Bert’s on the other. There was also a vase of marigolds, the orangest orange I’d ever seen. Beside it was a big card with a picture of a cartoon lion which wasn’t very funny. I don’t suppose I should have, but I picked it up and looked inside. There was a message written in smudgy biro. It was from someone called Gary who said he’d heard about Gwen’s troubles from the lady who lived in the flat beneath her, and had guessed she must have gone to this hospital and hoped the card would reach her. He said he was so sorry, and wished her a speedy recovery, and he would be in touch again one day but for the moment he had business in Yarmouth. When I put the card back Gwen smiled and said it was from a friend. Then she handed me the only other card with a picture, a boring pot of geraniums, and said it was from her son up north. She still hadn’t heard from her daughter, though the hospital had rung her yesterday and left a message. Mama said something like I expect she’ll call soon. But I’ve never ever heard Gwen even mention her daughter, so there’s probably some trouble there and she’ll be jolly lucky if she ever hears from her.

  I gave Gwen the piece of Chanel soap Mama had bought for me and she was really pleased. She said it was very extravagant but it was just what she wanted as the hospital didn’t run to nice soap, and the towels were like sackcloth, whatever that is.

  We didn’t stay long. Mama said we shouldn’t tire Gwen. She leant over and said something I couldn’t hear because the old woman was coughing so much. But Gwen seemed to be disagreeing with Mama, and wagged her unbandaged finger. Then I bent over Gwen to kiss her goodbye. I’ve only ever kissed her on Christmas Eve, before, to thank her for a present, and I found it quite hard, putting my mouth on those horrible coloured bruises. I shut my eyes and managed it quickly – I mean, I had to do it. I sort of love Gwen. I don’t know what we’d do without her. She smelt strongly of tea. When I stood up again I think I saw a tear in her red eye.

  I have to admit I was mega glad, like, to leave the hospital. I asked Mama what would happen to Gwen when she came out. Surely she wouldn’t be able to manage on her own? Mama said she had been thinking hard about all that, and had come up with a plan. I said she ought really to come to us, but where would she go? With Bert in the spare room…

  She didn’t answer, so I asked if we could stop off for a video for after tea, and for once she said we could.

  BERT

  I’d been to an interview in Soho – some film company wanting a financial adviser. Of course I said no. The idea of going to their grey offices every day… nothing would induce me. On the way back I stopped in the market and bought a huge quantity of cherries. I was putting these in a bowl on the table when Isabel and Sylvie came back from the hospital.

  Sylvie gave instant news: Gwen was better though looked pretty terrifying, she said, and the smell in the hospital had made her feel sick. Then she went off to do her homework.

  Isabel bent over the table, picked up a cherry. I noticed that when her head was at a certain angle a couple of lines appeared on her neck. She was silent while she ate the cherry and spat out the pip. Then she said Gwen was to be released from the hospital at the end of the week. Of course, she shouldn’t be, she said, but they needed the bed. When Isabel looks concerned I swear her eyes turn a deeper blue.

  Quickly, before she could voice the suggestion I knew she would find hard to make, I said that Gwen must come here, have the spare room. She looked at me, incredulous, but I could see she had no heart to disagree. ‘You could have the sofa bed in Dan’s study,’ she said – but no, I answered, not for anything. I’d be fine. I’d either go to a hotel – it would only be for a couple of weeks, or I could take up Carlotta’s invitation. At this idea, produced in jest, she looked doubly anxious for a moment: then we both laughed.

  In that moment of laughter, an idea came to me. I’ve no notion from where. It wasn’t anything I’d thought about. It was one of those inspirations that sometimes come to the rescue at a crucial moment. Even before I put it to Isabel it excited me. I picked up several of the yellow cherries and was filled with a kind of amorphous relief: Gwen’s accident had provided a solution. Here was a valid reason to distance myself from Isabel, much though that was the last thing I wanted to do.

  I would go to Norfolk.

  I explained to Isabel that this was something I’d been contemplating. She didn’t seem to think I was lying. I’d been thinking of no such thing, but now the idea had come to me it seemed a reasonable one. It was easy enough to persuade her I’d be happy to get out of London – much though I loved staying here – and re-visit the place of my birth. She said of course she could understand that. She mumbled on that if I really didn’t mind, and obviously Gwen wasn’t fit to look after herself for a while, and there was nowhere else for her to go… Her children were scarcely in touch, she said. They certainly wouldn’t do anything for her and…

  ‘I need a drink, Bert,’ she said.

&n
bsp; I fetched an open bottle of white wine from the fridge, and glasses. We both sat at the kitchen table. Isabel’s shoulders were hunched, her arms folded under her breasts. I could see – I think I could see – what was going through her head: the difficulties of both looking after Gwen and trying to continue her work.

  ‘It’ll be tough for you,’ I said, ‘but I daresay it won’t be for long.’

  ‘I’ll manage’ she said, with a wry little smile.

  We sipped at the cold wine in silence. I was aware of a guilty longing to put my arm round her shoulder – and of course if it hadn’t been for my feelings for her there would have been no guilt – but we were sitting close to each other and I watched, like some surprised spectator, my own arm go round her. She dipped her head, did not try to remove it. Perhaps this was because the gesture meant nothing to her. I realised that. I could see it in her face. Whatever flame there had been, on the stairs, had died completely. I was back to being what I had always been in her eyes: Dan’s friend, a comforter in a sad situation.

  I removed my arm. She thanked me for everything. I said there was nothing to thank me for. I was conscious there was something in my voice that might betray my intense feelings at that moment. But, pre-occupied, she didn’t seem to notice. I wanted to go on sitting there for ever, looking at the bowl of cherries, Isabel so damnably close.

  But the front door banged. Isabel gave a quick sigh and stood up. She moved towards Dan. They kissed: he briefly put both arms round her. When she stepped back it seemed as if their touching had relieved her of her present anxiety, whereas my arm round her had had no such effect. Oh God to have been Dan, to have been able to do that for her.

  ‘How’s Gwen?,’ he wanted to know, ‘what’s the plan?’

  I handed him a glass of wine. Isabel should be the one to tell him, I thought. She filtered away to the far end of the room, her silk skirt doing its usual silent swish behind her, catching lights so fast its solid blue appeared entirely speckled. Dan and I were left facing one another, eye to eye.

  From the far end of the room Isabel broke the news.

  DAN

  Obviously, that’s what had to be done. There was no other solution. Gwen could not possibly go home, be on her own.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ I kept saying.

  It was hard not to mind about the plan – Bert having to go after only just over a week. We’d got used to him. We enjoyed his company. He was the most discreet and tactful of guests. Isabel, I think, who hadn’t known him well before, had grown fond of him. Sylvie certainly had. And he was a great comfort to me, letting me bang on about the play. Another two weeks of him would have been wonderful.

  But there’s no alternative, I see that. Bert seems genuinely happy with his idea of a holiday in Norfolk. If he’s trying to escape Carlotta – and I can’t be sure of what he really feels – it will be an easy way out.

  I’m a bit worried about what it’ll be like for Isabel: she’s no natural Florence Nightingale. Carrying trays and so on will mean her precious mornings are interrupted: and then she’ll have to do a certain amount of housework, which she loathes. So I hope for everyone’s sake Gwen’s recovery won’t take long.

  It’s odd how, when a crisis disturbs the norm, irritation can lie within sympathy – not the sort of thing one wants to admit, of course. But a fact.

  Chapter Nine

  GWEN

  I sit here. I sit in the armchair by the window looking into the garden. It doesn’t feel right, somehow. I don’t feel I should be here. And yet it’s wonderful, too.

  I did my best to persuade Mr. and Mrs. G that I was all right to go home. But they weren’t having any of it. They insisted I should come here, just for a while. Just till I’ve got my strength back. They said Mr. Bailey was going off to Norfolk. Apparently he was longing to get out of London. Can’t say I blame him. They came to fetch me from the hospital in Mr. G’s big car. I felt a little shaky walking down all the corridors, but once I was in the car the comfort and luxury made me feel so much better. It occurred to me how rarely in my life I’d been in a car since Bill had gone, let alone such a grand one as that.

  Mrs. G must have taken a long time preparing the room – doing my job, as it were. Everything dusted and shining, a jug of sweet peas on the dressing table, a bottle of mineral water by the bed – bed made up with linen sheets and turned down for me. My! It’s like a dream. I slept so well – the silence. It made me realise how noisy my flat is. I hadn’t slept like that for a very long time. It was impossible in the hospital. When we arrived, it was quite late after their evening meal, Mrs. G unpacked my few things, put my old sponge bag in the lovely cosy visitors’ bathroom – I can’t think how often I’ve shined the brass taps, and there they were just as sparkling and I hadn’t touched them for a week. I don’t like to think of Mrs. G spending so much time on things for me. I didn’t know what to say. I felt close to tears.

  I put the big bunches of flowers that they’d sent to the hospital on the dressing table, then I braced myself for a peep in the mirror. A horrible sight, as I knew it would be. Bandages off my head now – just those transparent bits of dressing over the wound that runs from hairline to cheek. There must have been two bashes because it’s the opposite eye that’s bad: still filled with blood and the skin puffy and purple underneath it. The bruises on that cheek have turned a yellow green, but there’s no wound. And my left hand is no longer in a bandage. There’s just a light dressing. I haven’t liked to ask what the damage is beneath it.

  I stood looking at this picture of myself, unrecognisable, shocked. How long will all this take to clear up? They couldn’t say at the hospital. Bruises take longer once you’re older. They were more concerned about my mental state. Would I like to see a counsellor? ‘Not on your life,’ I said, ‘Counsellors aren’t for me.’ But I think I gave a good interview to the two nice young policemen who came to my bedside. The old girl in the next bed was so intrigued she stopped her coughing. I could see she was trying to hear what they were saying. In all honesty I think they only bothered to come and see me because mine was the sixth snatch and hit incident within two weeks, in the same small area of Shepherd’s Bush. They had a feeling it might all be the same man, acting on his own. Obviously they were keen to catch him. I agreed to go to an identity parade when I was up to it, and told them all I could remember. They said, ‘Gwen, you’ve been very helpful.’

  This morning Mrs. G came in with a tray of breakfast. Breakfast in bed! Me? I couldn’t believe it. Again, I couldn’t find the words to thank her. She pulled back the curtains and the sun came in. She puffed up my pillows and put the tray on the bed: so beautifully done – the china with the cornflowers that she keeps for visitors, the lace tray cloth that I have to be so careful ironing, not that it’s used very much. There was a brown boiled egg, triangles of toast, a small silver pot of tea, and a single rose from the garden. She said she’d get me a paper later. Talk about spoiling.

  I ate my breakfast slowly, knowing full well that this sort of thing, which would last for a few days, would never, ever happen to me again. It was only recently, getting the room ready for Mr Bailey, I remember thinking my dream would be to spend a night here, little knowing.. So I eked out the pleasure of the wonderful breakfast, and thought about what an odd thing happiness is. So often you can think back on a time which you remember was happy, like those days with Barry. But so rarely can you think to yourself I am happy now.

  Sitting in the bed I think I did get pretty close to that, although there was the niggling feeling that this was all wrong. I wasn’t a visitor in the house, I was an employee. Besides which I knew what time and trouble it would cost Mrs. G, seeing to me, keeping her from her work. Well, I shall go as soon as I can. As soon as I’m able. But it’s quite true – I don’t think I could have managed alone at home. Not just for a while.

  I put aside my tray and picked up the cards I’d brought with me. There was an ordinary postcard – looked as if it had been in a drawe
r for years – from Jan. Well, she wouldn’t be one to run to a greetings card to her mother. I only sometimes get a phone call on my birthday. There was Ernie’s card, too, a cartoon of a woman with a feather duster – very appropriate, I suppose he thought. He’d written quite a long message about how sorry he was, and added for good measure how Lynn sent her love and best wishes. Expect me to believe that! Lynn’s never given me a thought. – Then there was the one from Gary. A cartoon lion. I wonder what was going through his mind when he chose that.

  And of course I wonder so hard – it’s what gives me the headaches, I reckon, rather than the bruises themselves – whether it was Gary did this. I try with all my might to picture a face, and the face that comes to me is sometimes him, sometimes isn’t. Perhaps I’ll never know. Perhaps I’ll only be sure if I can recognise a face at the identity parade. There’s no point in worrying over it. What’s done is done. But what puzzles me is Gary’s behaviour. He must have gone round to my flat – to apologise for his menacing ways, who knows? – and, on finding me out, went to Edie downstairs who gave him the news. So then this card: perhaps a sign of remorse either for all his horrible stalking, or just feeling sorry for what had happened to me, or for feeling sorry for what he had finally done to me. In any event, it shows he has some feelings. Perhaps he thought of me as a friend and I let him down in some way. Anyway, I surprised myself by not throwing the card out, and going back to thinking that Gary can’t be that bad. – Well, I was a bit dozy with all the painkillers, wasn’t I? But to my way of thinking Gary was a friend for a while. I haven’t enough friends to lose one, so it’s a pity he’s going to Yarmouth, if he really is. Perhaps we could have got everything straightened out.