He’s had several good looks at himself in the mirror after showers, looked to see if there were any give-away signs, and could find none, bar a faint pink mark on his lower back, perhaps the imprint of Alison’s hand. Has Sally noticed? After a week, which includes one sexual episode which is strange (Sally’s body feels too long, her breasts too small, her lips too thin) but surprisingly better than usual, it doesn’t look like she’s noticed anything. She’s swallowed Neal’s lie about the late drunken funeral reception and overnight stay at a friend’s house. In fact, his domestic life is so normal and cosy, he feels in danger of losing his sanity. He wishes he’d never gone to the funeral at all. He is exhausted and nauseous. This is not who he is – a man who lies and cheats on his wife. It’s all very upsetting.
‘Tea’s ready!’ calls Sally from the dining room.
It’s his favourite – toad in the hole, with mash and peas. Ironically for a childless couple, they have childish tastes in food. Or perhaps not ironically. Neal begins to eat but can hardly swallow. Must be a tummy bug going around, he thinks. Didn’t Harold at the office mention a funny tummy? He makes himself eat – after all, he feels so empty, so gnawingly empty, but he can only manage a few bites.
‘Alright, dear?’ Sally asks.
‘Delicious,’ says Neal, and smiles. ‘Just not feeling that great.’
‘You don’t look that great either. Pale as a ghost.’
Desire is so counter-productive. It makes Neal look thoroughly undesirable. After dinner, he waits till Sally is busy with laundry and he looks in the phonebook for Alison’s number. Finds it – incredibly, it was there all along – eleven pages from his own name. Scribbles it on a piece of paper, shoves it in his pocket. He tries to recall what it felt like to be a man who had no curiosity about Alison. Phones her, heart pounding. It rings and rings and he pictures the dark empty room it rings in. It rings hopelessly, though his heart beats fast. He is both relieved and agitated when at last he puts the phone down.
Sally sails down the hall with a plastic basket piled high with ironed clothes. Wholesomeness wafts in her wake. Neal stands in the kitchen and closes his eyes. Summons Alison’s face, the feel of her lips, the small moans she’d moaned. Her sighs. Her face in that blessed moment of forgetfulness, that brief escape from consciousness. Ah! He can almost see her, smell her, stroke her soft belly again, run his fingers further and further down, where things get a bit damp and heated.
‘Put the kettle on, will you, Neal?’ Sally calls from upstairs. ‘Nearly done here.’
‘In a minute, dear.’
He tries the number one more time, and here comes Sally again, humming as she heads to the utility room. He hangs up the phone.
Later, Neal and Sally have sex for the second time this week. An aberration, but one Neal hopes will cancel out his recent peccadillo. It is just a peccadillo, isn’t it? He is still a good man, isn’t he? He’s angry at himself for letting this fluke, this accident, affect him. He’s heard that holidays are good for marriages. He sold an ad just the other day at work, for Thomas Cook. It implied foreign beaches brought older husbands and wives closer. He’d studied the photo some time. The man seemed to be looking at his wife as if he’d just met her. Maybe they should book one of those cheap flights to Majorca. It’s probably the kind of thing other couples do all the time, but Neal and Sally have never gone abroad. In Majorca Sally would tan, but he’d have to hide his redhead skin from the sun, like a shrivelled, pale grotesqueness under a rock. Maybe they could go in winter? Hmm, he thinks. A chilly deserted seaside resort sounds even more depressing. They usually stay home, and take day trips to Ullapool, Gairloch, Durness and Smoo Cave. By far, the wisest course of action.
It’s cool in the bedroom and they’ve left their bedclothes on. She wears a full-length pink cotton nightgown, and he wears the navy blue pyjamas she bought him last Christmas. The bed is the same one they’ve always had. It creaks and rocks and digs grooves into the wooden floor. One day, when the bed is finally moved, someone might be amazed at those four dents in the floor – testimony to Neal’s virility and Sally’s allure.
Aside from the fact it occurs at all, tonight doesn’t appear remarkable in any way. In fact, it’s curiously un-erotic, the childish, sweet sex of routine. Yet Neal is extraordinarily soothed by slipping inside his wife. It sanctions their marriage somehow. And the mediocrity, especially the mediocrity, draws attention away from the scenes in his head. Yes, shockingly, mere millimetres from Sally’s innocent head, are scenes of lurid sex. Breasts far larger and squishier than hers are pummelling Neal’s thighs, while a mouth wide with hunger is sucking on her husband’s cock (about two inches longer than his actual one), before the entire assemblage of edible womanly parts moves up and rolls over, her lush backside inviting him to finish off.
No, no, none of this actually happened with Alison, of course not! She was way too sad and he was too conventional and shy. Neal feels a little guilty for fabricating without Alison’s consent, for transgressing a love copyright. But these images come unbidden and what’s more, they can’t be shifted. Sally doesn’t know about the real Alison or his fantasy Alison. He can have a secret life – well, doesn’t everybody?
Though now, as he climaxes on several planes at once and Sally topples over into her own version, Neal has conflicting feelings. For instance – how can he truly love Alison, yet make love with his wife? How can he truly love Alison, yet have her star in pornographic scenarios? How can he love his wife and cheat on her, both literally and imaginatively? There are, of course, no flattering answers.
But tiredness wells up regardless and Neal and Sally curl up together, very husband-and-wife-ish. Snuffle their goodnights, draw apart and fall asleep the same second. They snore gently in unison, achieving a harmony in sleep that eluded them in sex.
Alison is Alone
A week after the funeral, Alison has an eighteen-hour sleep. When she gets up in the early afternoon, she feels groggy. The sleep has been too deep, following too little sleep for too long. Her eyes feel heavy, her muscles slack. She’s lost weight according to her jeans, but she feels a stone heavier. She has a shower, feels marginally better, and notices for the first time how clean the bathroom is. Even the walls look shiny and clean. She frowns, looks closer at the room, as if she’s been away for a long time and needs to reacquaint herself with things like the position of towels and purpose of toothpaste.
Her sister Chrissie has been cleaning every inch of Alison’s house (aside from Calum’s room), and baking and cooking when not cleaning. She’s downstairs now, tormenting the linoleum. She’s abandoned her own family, her two daughters and their four female offspring, all of whom temporarily live with her. Aside from the post-funeral night, she’s been by Alison’s side since the dawn she got the call. Ali’s voice, hollowed out and low.
‘Look, Chrissie, could you come over? Please. Now.’
‘What is it, Ali? Only I’m late for work as it is.’
‘Shit, Chrissie, will you just come? Something really bad happened to Calum yesterday.’
Now she squeezes the mop into the sink, feels numb and angry. Boys and their cars. She wants to shake her nephew hard. Kids put you through it, that was a fact. And what had Ali been thinking, having just one kid? Helluva lot of eggs for one basket.
She shouts up the stairs, ‘Thinking of heading back to my own house later today, Ali. They’ll be tearing the place apart, it’ll be chaos.’ Then more to herself, ‘Unless they’ve killed each other by now, in which case it’ll be dead quiet, but still a right bourach. Blood everywhere.’
‘Yes, fine. You should, they’ll be missing you, Chrissie,’ says Alison, walking down the stairs.
‘Are you sure, now? Sure you’ll be alright, Ali?’
‘Yeah.’ Alison brushes her hair as she speaks, but doesn’t look in a mirror, just tugs it through. Her hair parting is wonky.
‘Ready to tell me where you went off to with that Neal Munro yet?’
‘
Nope,’ snaps Alison. ‘And you can stop asking me.’
‘You’ll tell me one day, you know you will, Ali. You’ll have a few too many and out it’ll come. Might as well tell me now.’
‘Oh, will you please shut the fuck up?’
Unoffended, Chrissie takes clothes out of the washing machine one by one, folding them as she does even though they’re wet. ‘Listen,’ she finally says. ‘I think you should come and stay with us.’ She leaves the damp clothes, goes to Alison, puts her arms around her. Alison stiffens, allows her sister’s embrace for one minute, then moves out of it.
‘No, I’m fine here, Chrissie. Thanks anyway.’
‘If you’re sure, then. I’ll be round in the evening. I’ll bring you some soup, will I? You’ll not be in the mood to cook for a while yet.’
‘No, no, Chrissie.’ She wants her to go. She wants to be alone. ‘There’s plenty food here still, Chrissie. Leave it a bit, hey?’
‘Aye, but Ali pet, I don’t think you should be alone.’
‘Well, I’ll hardly be alone. This place is never empty these days, is it? It’s driving me a bit crazy. In fact, I think I might go away. I’ve got some time off work.’
‘Away? Where?’
‘Maybe to see Kate over in Gairloch. She’s always saying I should come and stay. She’s got that wee spare room.’
‘Good idea, why don’t you go visit her, get away for a while, you could do with that.’
‘Aye,’ says Alison, fighting a yawn. ‘Think I’ll do that. I like Gairloch.’ In her new, stretched-over-the-abyss voice. Anything to get rid of Chrissie, her watchful eyes. Go! she wills her.
‘I’m having a bath now, Chrissie. Okay?’
‘I thought you just had a shower.’
‘Aye, well.’
She locks the door and stays in the bath an hour, and finally Chrissie, who’s been waiting for her to come out, has to shout through the door, ‘I’m off then, Ali. I’ll phone later. Tell me if there’s anything you’re needing, right?’
‘Of course, Chrissie. Thanks for everything.’
The front door closes, the car engine drifts away, and Alison lays in her tepid bath with empty eyes in an empty house. There is a static-y sound in her head, which might have been there all along.
All the rest of the day, she is nervous. She keeps expecting the tidal wave of folk to resurge, but no one comes. Perhaps they intuit she needs solitude now. Perhaps their interest recedes because the melodrama has become mere tragedy, and their own lives are reclaiming them. Perhaps Calum’s death is beginning to be a tiny bit boring. Alison is stranded in a surreal place, very like the place she used to live in. She wanted this. To be alone.
It is unbearable. Nothing is bearable.
When the phone rings, she unplugs it. When someone finally knocks on the door, she waits till they go away then locks the door.
In her own house, a ramshackle farmhouse at the back of the estate, Chrissie opens a bottle of red wine and pours a glass. Her sister no longer needing her has dropped her back into her old world, which used to feel full but suddenly does not. Calum’s exit has left an ugly gouge in the shape of her … well, her life. Used to be a kind of round life, she considers, sipping her wine. Well, not perfectly round of course. There’d been lumps and dimples, but basically it used to be like an overripe peach. Squishy in places, a bit soggy, but basically pink and round. Now: round and pink on one side, horrible dark gouge on the other. Nothing is right. It’s all gone squint.
Her daughters and granddaughters are in their rooms sleeping or watching television or playing video games. She pours another glass and thinks, what tears they’ve all shed for Calum! And all those memories of him bubbling to the surface. She imagines how they must seem from the outside, her family. They must seem close, a small army of women. Comrades! But her daughters rarely confide in her, rarely ask her how she is. How she really is. Even now, they’re all wrapped up in their own lives. Staying here is mainly a financially expedient arrangement till they move out again. That is the bare truth. And now that her sister has shut her out, now that Calum has gouged out part of her life, she feels her solitude keenly. No one really knows me, how I’m feeling right now. Her throat swells with self-pity. Does anyone even really love me? Nobody loves me. Then she imagines being Alison. Imagines losing one of her children suddenly, and instantly slams that door shut. It is too terrifying. And now, it also seems too possible. If it happened to her sister, it could happen to her. In fact, it’s a miracle it hasn’t happened a few times already!
She slips out of her clothes, puts on her old green striped housecoat and old hiking socks on her feet. Opens the bag of posh crisps she’s been saving. Finishes the bag, then gets the cheese and bread out. And the olives, salami and ham. Pours a third glass. Thinks, with relief, It cannot happen to me, because it happened to Alison. Statistically, the odds are now in my favour, and my girls will die of old age. Hopefully, in their sleep. Hopefully in the middle of a happy dream. What more could any parent hope for their child?
Chrissie sighs and chews and sips herself into a soporific trance. Falls asleep on the sofa again, while Alison is entering Calum’s room for the first time since it happened. No one has been in it. The room smells as it always does. What is it? It’s familiar, but what is it? It smells of the outside. The wet hillside earth he ran on, still caked on his trainers and boots. The winter air, the wind. His perspiration, his unique masculine pungency – eau de Calum. A whiff of dope and Golden Virginia, both of which sit on his desk. Videos and tapes and CDs are stacked on shelves. Books on running, magazines too. His old grey Gameboy, batteries flat, on the window ledge, covered in cobwebs. Oh, the fierce arguments they’d had about that. Probably the last item she’d felt strongly enough to object to. After that, she just let it go. If his pals had it, Calum had it too.
Maybe she’ll ring his friends, see if they want some of these things. She’d talked to Finn yesterday, on the High Street. A very brief chat.
‘Hi, Finn.’
‘Hi, Alison.’
‘How are you?’
‘Not bad, ta.’
Then another one of Calum’s pals walked by. That tall one. William. Same stilted conversation.
‘Hello, William.’
‘Hello, Alison.’
‘Right cold today, eh?’
‘Aye.’
She hadn’t noticed, but now she thinks of it, how odd the two boys did not speak to each other, did not even look each other in the eyes. No smile, no anything. What is happening? Nothing is right.
She picks one of the t-shirts off the floor and sits on his unmade bed, then collapses sideways, her head on his pillow (more of that same smell), and she keens. There is no other word for this sound – this high, dry, drawn-out cry. It scratches the air and her throat. After a while, she stumbles from the room, dragging his duvet with her. His shirt is grasped in her other hand. Wraps herself in the duvet, collapses on the sofa downstairs. Wonders without concern if she is having a heart attack. Perhaps a seizure or an aneurism.
Sally is Concerned about Alison
Neal opens a new document on his computer. Types:
20th January 1894: 102 YEARS AGO TODAY
Then he scans an old paper that cost 1d, for items of interest. Keys them in.
• The Royal Hotel in Dingwall now boasts a ladies’ tearoom.
• For Sale: Melodians – no home should be without one!
• Ladies and Gents can get their visiting cards printed at the Ross-shire Journal now at a bargain price.
• Wanted: Housekeeper, one cow kept. £5 a year.
• Lost: A lady’s grey fur necklet, lost on evening of Oddfellows concert.
• Found: Four black-faced sheep, Invergordon beach.
• Cures for ills: Balsamic Elixir – a drug to cure everything, especially bilious and nervous disorders.
• This week in Avoch, the main pigpen flooded when the local burn overflowed.
• In Alness, a farmer wa
s taken to court for defaming the reputation of his housekeeper. He denied doing so and was unrepentant.
Then Neal stops and just sits. He often enters a dreamy state, writing this column. It is a soporific occupation, and lowers his already low blood pressure. One hundred and two years ago today. Same day, same place, different year. Some days Neal feels like he is slicing down to another level, excavating to another time, and things that occurred here, back then, are still here. That he is living not just on the skin of the surface of the earth as it spins in space, but also on top of everything that has ever happened. A sedimentary layer of compressed experience. Dense with sorrow, streaked with joy, soggy with humour and ugliness and love of all kinds. Everything always changing, always nebulous, yet not a single new atom ever thrown into the equation. Nope – no such thing as a clean slate here on Earth! One way or another, all lives are written over other lives.
These dead people, these past events, are entirely vivid to Neal. Reassuringly distant, but real. This unrepentant farmer has a red face and a large stomach, and his boots are filthy. He stinks. His housekeeper has a bulging belly under her pinafore, and in a cold church she kneels and prays to Mary for help, because she can’t think of a single person to ask. And Jesus and God, well, they’re just more bastard men.
Then, while considering the farmer’s snigger, Neal picks up the phone and dials the number he knows by heart now. The ringing – the knowledge that an action of his is altering an object in Alison’s house – thrills him, but suddenly it is not enough. He puts the phone down. Finishes his column methodically, spell-checking, word-counting, cutting and pasting it onto the next day’s issue, Page 5 as usual, bottom right column, where he is quite sure no one will notice it. He tucks the old newspaper and his mental picture of all those ladies in long black crinolines and men with whiskers back into the filing cabinet and leaves the building. He gets into his little Fiat and drives up the A9 to Alness. It’s a hard cold day, a day with small flecks of ice in the wind. The fields are flattened to their frozen unadorned base, and the Cromarty Firth glints like metal. He drives by the overpass where Calum crashed, and notices the floral tributes are still there. A sad soggy heap of cellophane and petals and flapping notes.
If I Touched the Earth Page 4