Annie's Promise

by Margaret Graham

  Gracie and Annie walked with Bet to the sea, standing in it, cold against their hot skin, their words fighting against the breeze which swept their hair from their faces, laughing as children ran past, splashing them, taking the breath from them as it hit their bellies.

  ‘Little devils,’ Annie said, thinking of Sarah at that age, always with Davy, back with Davy now.

  ‘They seem happier,’ Gracie said. ‘Their letters have been so short, they’ve been busy but if they’re having a breeze like this it’ll blow a thousand cobwebs away, do them so much good. I remember feeling as though I could never get a good lungful of air in London.’

  Annie held Bet’s arm and they walked a little deeper, feeling the waves slowly breaking against their legs, the sand running away beneath their toes.

  Bet growled. ‘They needed to get away, relax, paint, talk. Perhaps it’ll see that Carl off.’

  Gracie laughed. ‘You’ve never even met him.’

  ‘I heard what Tom and Annie said and that’s enough for me. I think he’s on the way out, or they would all have gone together.’

  Annie was silent, looking out to the horizon. God, she hoped so.

  They joined the men for lunch, cracking and peeling hard boiled eggs and talked of the holiday they would have next year.

  ‘Wonder who’s doing the cooking in Polperro?’ Gracie said.

  Annie laughed. ‘No one, they’ll be having sandwiches and eating at the pub, makes me wish I was young and carefree.’

  It was the end of the second week and today there had been no more heroin, just a boy who cried out to her, swore at her, hit her or who lay still while she bathed his body free of cold sweat and wiped his chin of the saliva he dribbled, and the mucus which ran from his nose and eyes.

  That night the stomach cramps clawed at his guts, his limbs jerked and kicked and she was bruised, but never felt the pain, just sat and watched and waited, and longed to do more, but there was nothing more she could do.

  She bathed him in the morning but he pushed her from him. ‘It hurts. It hurts,’ he gasped. ‘Please give me some. Please.’

  ‘No, I’m going to get you well.’

  He lay back and she lit him a joint, which he sucked, again and again, and another, and then he slept but it was so hot, for God’s sake, Sarah thought, as she fanned his naked body, kissed his forehead, touched his hand.

  She threw back the tent flaps, and undid the windows. At last there was a breeze. She took the basin out into the sun, pouring water over the flannels, washing, wringing, but they still smelt. She dragged the cooker from the tent and pumped up the petrol stove, putting them on to boil.

  She tore off her shirt, feeling the sun on her back, pouring water over her body, dragging on a T-shirt, shorts, hurrying to the farmhouse for more water, asking if they would post the cards for them as they were shopping, feeling her shoulders straining as she lugged the water back, rushing to check on Davy. He was still there, lying motionless but the flannels had burned, for God’s sake. She’d forgotten and they’d burned. She dragged her fingers through her hair, knocked the pan off the stove, kicked it across the grass. She wanted her mother, wanted Bet, anyone.

  ‘Sarah,’ Davy called. ‘Sarah, help me, please.’

  She looked across the field, to the sea, to the birds which wheeled above her. Oh God.

  By night time the tent was fetid from his vomit and she sat outside under the awning, watching him in the moonlight because he could bear no light, not even the glimmer from the hurricane lamp. She rested her head on her knees, her sleeping bag unzipped and wrapped around her for comfort, there was no need of warmth on a night such as this.

  All night she sat, or bathed him with towels she had ripped apart, took his slaps, his despair, his rage, his calm and knew that she must have slept because time had passed for which she could not account.

  The next day was the same but this time she didn’t burn the cloths, but boiled them properly, wrung them out, hung them on the guy ropes, drank coffee, but she didn’t smoke a joint, because she mustn’t sleep, she must only doze. She must eat. She cut bread, opened a tin of corned beef. He called her. She went.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Hang on Davy, just a while longer. Hang on.’ She lit a joint for him, stayed while he smoked it, left when he was asleep. There were flies in the corned beef. She just ate the bread and was surprised at the tears which ran into her mouth.

  The next day she gave him a book on silk-screen painting to read.

  ‘They’re jumping,’ he said. ‘The words are ants scrambling, jumping.’ He threw it at her. ‘You bitch.’

  She took the book and sat outside in the sun, reading it, listening to him rage, watching him crawl to the entrance, then curl into a ball as the cramps came again.

  She sketched the honeysuckle the next day and the birds which called and wheeled, and wondered how she could survive for another seven days.

  On the sixth day she talked to him of the beck, of the cool water, the soft willow fronds, of the honeysuckle which surrounded them here, in this field, of her sketches which were not as fine as his.

  ‘We’ll sketch soon, both of us. Not long now Davy.’

  He rolled over and looked at her then. ‘I want to die. I need it or I shall die.’

  She shook her head and looked into those violet eyes which were not the eyes of Davy, but of someone she didn’t know. ‘You’ll die if you do take it.’

  His abuse followed her but she just turned her face to the sun as she left the tent, picked up her pencil and drew the headland with its wind-whipped gorse, and then picked a sprig of honeysuckle and sketched each leaf, petal, stamen, listening all the time to his foul mouth, and then his pleadings, and then his sobs.

  She took him water as the sun went down and he told her that when his eyes were closed they stayed open and looked into the back of his head and all he needed to be better was a fix, just one.

  By the eighth day his skin was yellowing, his hands shaking, his body shivering and Sarah wondered how all this had happened. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it takes me to a better world.’

  She looked at him and thought of the boy he’d been and walked into the sun. She drew the blackberry flowers meticulously, carefully, again and again, because she didn’t want to think any more.

  By the ninth day the vomiting had ceased.

  ‘I hurt with a deep, deep ache,’ he said, reaching for her hand.

  ‘So do I, Davy,’ Sarah whispered.

  The next day he sat up and took the flannel from her and wiped down his own body, hiding his nakedness beneath the sheet, accepting the tea she gave him, drinking it without vomiting, then he slept for hours, coming to her as she sat at the entrance, the moon soft in the sky.

  ‘Will I ever stop needing a fix, Sarah?’ he said, standing there, looking out across the sea.

  ‘Deborah’s friend has, but you have to really want to stop, bonny lad.’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘Have I been very … difficult?’ he asked, still looking at the sea.

  ‘No, you’ve been grand.’ Sarah laid her head on her knees, feeling her shoulders relax for the first time since they’d been here.

  The next day she posted another card, washed her hair, plaited it, feeling its weight between her shoulders, cooked bacon and eggs. Davy ate a little, sitting under the awning, out of the sun because it still hurt his eyes, his skin.

  ‘Would you like to swim?’ she asked. ‘There’s a track down the cliff?’

  He shook his head. His muscles felt as though they’d been hammered, his bones as though they had been cracked, his skin as though it had been peeled.

  She handed him his sketch pad and pencil, brought him honeysuckle but instead he drew the tent, the stove, the Mini, her. The next week the weather was cloudy and he drew the sky, the sea and Sarah in her flares lugging water back from the farmhouse.

  ‘Soon, my lad, you’ll be fit enough to carry these, not just th
at little bitty pencil,’ she said, smiling gently as she dumped them by the stove. She poured water into a bowl, rinsed out a flannel and wiped his forehead. But not fit enough for a long while she thought.

  At night he was restless, still needing heroin but no longer cursing her, no longer needing to be watched every minute of every day, and so she slept and in the day they talked of the beck and he drew it. They talked of India and he drew Ravi at his clinic, or as he imagined it.

  ‘We’ll go one day, when we’ve finished our degrees. It would be interesting. Think of all the designs, the colours, the cotton,’ she said. ‘It’ll give us time to think about what we really want to do.’

  They walked around the field slowly and sketched the valerian, the lichen on the boulders.

  ‘Ravi said the landscape as you fly into Delhi is like lichen on a stone. He said the colours of the land are muted, a perfect backdrop to the richness of the cottons.’ Davy picked at the lichen. ‘You’re right, perhaps one day we should go.’

  The days passed and there was time to talk of the art of Andy Warhol, of the new wave architecture.

  ‘One day I shall go and see the Sydney Opera House, it will be wonderful when it’s finished,’ Davy said.

  There was time to do nothing, say nothing, just be together as they had been long ago. At the end of July they walked down the cliff path to the beach, easing themselves into the water alongside children who splashed and screamed. She stayed with him as they swam because he was still so weak, but stronger, definitely stronger.

  He turned on to his back, kicking his feet, moving his hands and she did the same, feeling the water lapping at her face, over her breasts. Where was Carl now? She turned and trod water. It was the first time she had thought of him for so long.

  They ate hard-boiled eggs on the beach and then climbed slowly back up the cliff path, their skins tight from the salt, their shoulders sore from the sun. She rubbed lotion on him and he on her and they sat cross-legged on the grass as day became night and talked of the beach above Wassingham, the seaweed they had chased one another with, the dreams they had had.

  She looked at him. ‘They’ve come true. We’re at college, in London and it will be all right now. We’ll play in the group, you’ll do your silk painting. But not in Wassingham. We can’t go back can we, not after the “market research”, not after everything.’

  She pulled at the grass. ‘That’s what made you take drugs, wasn’t it?’

  Davy looked at her, saying nothing for minutes and then he shrugged. ‘Who knows what makes people do anything – perhaps it’s the thought of being suffocated.’

  She nodded. She knew what he meant, Wassingham and their families took the breath from around them.

  He continued. ‘And perhaps it’s always failing. I wish I was like Rob, political, brave, standing in the front line, just like Da. I don’t know how they do it, all those police, standing there. Those fascists with Da, I couldn’t have done it. I froze at the bus stop that day in Wassingham, so I know. I’m so proud of him. I’d love him to be proud of me.’

  ‘He is, he really is. He loves your art.’

  The next week his skin was tanned and there was flesh on his bones and laughter burst from him as he chased her around the cove with seaweed, draping it around her neck when he caught her, dragging her back into the sea, ducking her, being ducked by her. It was as though he’d never been ill, Sarah thought, or almost, because he still shivered, still craved the drug in idle minutes.

  By mid-August they were swimming each day and there was laughter in both of them as they basked on the sand and ate pasties from the wooden café at the rear of the beach, or played their guitars outside the tent deep into the night, feeling the wind on their backs, hearing their voices in harmony.

  In the last week of August they packed the car, paid the farmer and drove to the ‘Festival of the Flower Children’ at Woburn Abbey.

  ‘We need to go somewhere like this, Davy,’ she said. ‘Just to see how you cope. I don’t want us going straight back to London, in amongst the old scene, without you feeling confident. I’ll be with you here, I can help if you need it.’

  She touched his hand and he held it. ‘It’s been like old times,’ he murmured.

  Sarah nodded, changing gear. Yes, it had and she remembered the sound of his laugh on the beach, the feel of the seaweed and felt a deep ache and didn’t know why.

  They slept on the ground with the rest of the hippies, smelling the joints all around, smoking a little, but not much because Davy now relished the taste of food, the smell of the grass – all of which had been lost to him since heroin.

  They listened to the music, joined in the dancing, wove flowers in their hair, painted their faces, but didn’t trip. They didn’t need to, not today, not in the sun as they danced and talked of peace and all the love that there was in the world.

  She walked to the lavatory tent with him. ‘If you’re long, I’m coming in, so it’s your fault if all the men have to run out screaming,’ she said, laughing, but she meant it.

  ‘I’m fine now. I want to be better. I want to stay like this for ever,’ he said as they walked through the dancing bodies, or stepped over bodies loving on the grass.

  She asked him again that night where he had bought the heroin. ‘Just a mate,’ he said.

  ‘What will you do when you see him again?’

  ‘Nothing, I’ve told you, I don’t need it any more. I’m me now. I’m happy. I don’t need it.’

  They looked at the fashions, the bells, the beads, the multicoloured clothing.

  ‘If we go to India we can bring back some of their cottons. Look at these colours, it’s really catching on in a big way,’ Sarah said, drawing an overskirt of muted blue over an underskirt of vibrant purple.

  ‘You’ve just got a thing about purple,’ Davy said, quickly sketching the detail of a silk-painted design. ‘That’d look better.’

  ‘Cost a bit too.’

  ‘There’s money around, and I still think we could adjust the technique to work well on cottons. Think of that sari Prue sent you, it’s wonderful.’

  They played fragile melodies on their guitars and the other kids danced around them, singing with them long after the light had died as they picked out the tunes of San Francisco, (Flowers in your hair), Strawberry Fields Forever, Mellow Yellow.

  They left on the third day, along with everyone else, winding in a long trail from the Abbey, with flowers still in their hair and beads which a girl had given them.

  They approached London and she looked at him, gripped his hand. ‘Ready?’ she asked.

  ‘Ready.’

  They sent off for visas for India on their return and she sewed long shirts for him, and skirts for her, cutting up Prue’s sari, using it as an overskirt, preferring the floating drifting length to the minis she’d been wearing.

  They worked all day on their projects and notes. They ate in pubs, drawing out money from their joint account.

  ‘There’s plenty left,’ she said, as they finished their lagers, and twisted spaghetti round their forks, splashing the bolognese on their chins.

  They sent up Indian designs to Annie who loved them.

  … and yes, I think it would be a wonderful idea to travel to see your friend Ravi, you and Davy will get so many ideas from that country. It’s so very different. I know we’ve talked about it but you need to see for yourself.

  Carl returned at the beginning of October, knocking on her door, coming in, scooping her from the chair, his lips and tongue hungry on her mouth. She pushed away from him. ‘He’s fine. It worked, Davy’s better.’

  His arms came round her again and his mouth was on hers and she pulled back because there was so much she wanted to tell him but he was pulling at her clothes, and so she held him to her although she would have preferred to talk, not love, but there was such eagerness in his eyes. His hands found her breasts and his fingers her crotch, and finally, his body found hers.

  She talked t
hen, telling him of the tent, the flannels that had boiled dry, Davy’s courage, his thinness, his swimming.

  Carl put a joint in her hand.

  ‘No, I’m all right thanks.’

  He took it from her and lit it, sucking it, putting it in her mouth. ‘A welcome home present,’ he insisted. ‘And this.’ He held up a bracelet. ‘And this.’ It was hash.

  She smiled. ‘I love the bracelet but we’re trying not to take drugs. I don’t want Davy getting back to anything.’

  Carl laughed. ‘This is safe, darling. This will just relax us all, nothing to worry about.’

  She was relaxing and her voice was quiet as she told him of Woburn Abbey, the increase in Davy’s confidence. ‘It shows in everything, his art, his music, his bearing. Deborah said we had to get his confidence back and then he’d be all right.’ She inhaled again. ‘They loved his music at Woburn, so you see there is a place for his sort of touch.’

  He passed her another joint, going next door to fetch Davy, handing him one. ‘But only one,’ Sarah insisted.

  ‘I’ll look after him now, you’ve done so much,’ Carl said. ‘I’m here to help.’

  They played at the club behind their digs when Tim and Arnie returned to college and the audience fell silent at the skill of Davy’s playing and the close harmony of their voices.

  ‘You see,’ she said to Carl as they walked home. ‘There’s no need for me to go solo any more, we can stay together.’

  In November Arnie shambled into her room on a Wednesday evening telling them that he couldn’t practise on Saturday morning as they’d intended because there was to be an anti-Vietnam demonstration at his college.

  ‘We’ll all go,’ Carl said.

  ‘No, we won’t,’ Sarah said, looking at Davy. ‘There’s no need for us to go – it’s not our college, it’s Arnie’s.’

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t be so wet. What were you talking about at that festival? Peace and love – only talk then is it?’

  Sarah felt the anger rise because she had told Carl about Davy and his father.

  He apologised that night. ‘I’d forgotten. We won’t go, I’ll say we’re too busy.’