Sugar and Spice

by Ruth Hamilton

  I grant her a withering stare. ‘What? With you lot standing at the back bedroom windows with binoculars, waiting for the earth to move?’

  ‘Oh, it won’t move,’ says Maureen. ‘It’s a dead posh van, that.’

  ‘And he is gorgeous,’ adds Marie. ‘Lovely hands. Have you noticed his hands, Anna?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And he’s funny and interesting and—’

  ‘He’s an accountant,’ I shout. ‘All accountants are bores. They have to be bores to get into college when they do the course. It’s a prerequisite.’

  Maureen folds her arms. She usually folds her arms when I fire a few multisyllabic rounds of ammunition in her direction. ‘Mrs Dictionary,’ she mumbles under her breath. It is clear that Sheba agrees, because she starts to chew on one of Maureen’s shoes.

  I feel like a rare and exotic foreign film that has attracted a small, but dedicated audience. Glad I don’t have subtitles, because if these three could read my thoughts . . . Things are coming to a pretty pass when a woman can’t sit in her own living room without being stared at. They won’t go away. Well, if they won’t go away, I’ll let them act as babysitters while I go away. But why should I? Why should I allow myself to be chased from my own home? Calm down, Anna. This is Susan’s home, too, and these people are her family.

  Standing up suddenly, I inform my audience that the film will continue shortly when the projector is mended. Meanwhile, some incidental music will be played, and popcorn may be obtained from the foyer.

  ‘What’s she on about now?’ asks Maureen of no one in particular.

  ‘She’s going out,’ says Susan.

  ‘Where?’ Marie asks her daughter.

  I am still here, yet they talk as if I have already left. So I leave. I know where to go when life gets a bit edgy. The camera crews are here when I arrive, dozens of people climbing out of cars just to capture that perfect moment. Tripods abound, and occupants of other cars watch the watchers while keeping an eye on the main event. This is where the Vikings landed. Here is where the sun bids fond farewell on an evening such as this, when the heavens are relatively clear.

  Tonight, there is a dark smudge in the sky, a cloud whose efforts to obscure the sun’s au revoir have failed. God has taken a pair of scissors and slashed the cloud in several places. Through these vents, blades of fierce orange light glare down in determined attempt to pierce the Mersey. It is truly awesome. Like Beethoven’s Sixth, it moves me to tears. I often pray at the Crosby erosion. This is more spectacular than any building, with or without the intervention of Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel is amazing, but the art of whichever divine being created Crosby’s sunsets is superior to the daubs of any human painter. Jesus preached out of doors for the most part, so, if He is the Son of God, He showed us the way. This is His church. Wherever two or more are gathered in His name – well – there are many of us here, plus cameras and tripods.

  Plus Alec Halliwell.

  Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem. OK. Fair enough. So I sit here and pray, and He sends me my biggest temptation. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, but He had a will of iron. I wish I had a will of stainless steel, because it’s rustproof, and the tears are corroding my own supposed will that was fashioned from Earth’s ores.

  This is Susan’s fault, not God’s. She knows I come here when I need to think, pray, cry – whatever. The little madam has phoned Alec and sent him to join me. Yes, he’s concentrating on the view, but yes, he has parked in the space next to mine. Rebecca and Katherine, where are you when I need you? You got rid of several of my suitors, even stole one or two for yourselves, but you aren’t here now.

  He’s doing the stretching-of-the-legs bit, walking up and down near the rails. He’d better be careful, because some of these tripod bods are competitive to the point of ferocity, and only the best will get into the Crosby Herald. He turns, comes back and stands in front of my car, hands in pockets, half-smile on face.

  Surrounded by redness, he looks like a saint who has a halo everywhere, not just above his head. I wish he’d go away. That is, I think I wish he’d go away. He moves to one side just as the moment arrives. A final act of defiance by a disappearing sun throws up the most amazing, incredible vision. This will not last and, in those brief seconds of supreme glory, cameras click wildly. The black cloud wears a scarlet frill, like a dancer from the Moulin Rouge. Apart from the clicking, there is no sound, no movement. Aquamarine darkens towards violet and navy. It is so quick, this ending. Ripples of pale, white cloud turn pink, then red. It’s suddenly colder, because our star is moving now to create a fantasy somewhere else and, in a few hours, sunrise in a country far away.

  People start to breathe again, move again. Tripods are folded, cameras packed away, engines start. One by one, the vehicles leave until there are just two remaining. He doesn’t smile now. Those beautiful eyes bore into me, their heat in no way diminished by the metal and glass carton in which I sit. It’s as if he has pinned me to the seat. But I am not afraid of him; I am afraid of me.

  The fear makes me panic, and I have no yellow pills. Galvanized, I turn the key, grind my poor car’s gearbox into reverse, and back away. It’s a good thing that others have left, because I sure as hell might have hit something. I roar off past the Lifeboat Station, the golf course, the fancy houses at this superior end of town. But Lady Luck is not with me. Not that I believe in luck, but . . . The level crossing barriers drop and red lights show. So I am stuck at the edge of the Liverpool-Southport line, and I feel foolish.

  Alec’s car, behaving in a dignified fashion – as behoves the vehicle of a trained accountant – stops behind mine. In my rear-view mirror, I see his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. They aren’t tapping in an angry fashion – I suppose he is just a bit fed up. The down train passes, but it’s minutes before the up one goes by. Barriers are raised, and I drive on, taking a right without signalling and clogging my way down Merrilocks Road. There are speed limits, yet I carry on breaking them until I find my way into Waterloo. He won’t come this way. He won’t know this way.

  He’s cleverer than I thought. Outside the cinema on Liverpool Road, I see him again in my mirror. So I decide to concede, but not without giving the wretched man a run for his money. ‘Get the bloody business done with,’ I say aloud as I drive up the Formby bypass. He wants sex? I’ll give him sex, then I’ll bend his ear till it’s L-shaped. This is a curvaceous road, probably made so by farmers who insisted on hanging onto a few extra yards of field. Walls near to the famous round house are scarred, because many people have crashed here. Legend has it that cars swerve to avoid figures who aren’t there, that ghosts cause the accidents. Oh, well. Not to worry. The dead are the least of my problems just now.

  Sand dunes are cold and hard, but I have several car rugs and a couple of bottles of Coke in case we get thirsty. He is right behind me all the way past Formby and Ainsdale. Now, we are on the Southport coastal road. I pull into a parking bay, get out of the car and drag rugs from the boot. He stops, stares at me, leaves his car and arrives at my side. ‘What are you doing?’ he asks.

  ‘Preparation,’ I reply. ‘Sand dunes, invisibility, sex, get it over with.’

  ‘Why?’ he asks.

  ‘Why not? It’s what all the foolishness is about, isn’t it? But I’m not doing it naked. It’s too bloody cold, and I don’t want a chill.’

  He is laughing at me!

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask, coating the words with a heavy layer of innocence.

  He stops laughing. ‘It was about sex, that first day in the pub. It’s still about sex, but that’s not the main thing any more. Look, I’d sell my soul for a night with you, but not like this, not in the sand dunes. We’re not sixteen.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  He tears the rugs away from me and tosses them onto the bonnet of my car. ‘Anna, it’s not a game. Are you still sort of with the other man? The man you said you were sort of with?’

  I shake my head.
‘No. So that’s another heart broken. Sort of. And I didn’t get rid of him for you, I did it for me and mine. Too many complications – I’m still learning to be a mother.’ My heart is all over the place. It seems to be trying to fly out of its cage.

  He is standing about half an inch away from me. In the cooler air of evening, I feel warm breath on my face. If he moves any nearer, he’ll be on my feet as well as his own. He’s tall. When he draws me in, my head fits neatly under his chin, and I hear his heart. I don’t want this. I do need this. Loneliness is a terrible thing, and the desire for closeness with a person of the opposite gender is worse than terrible. Also, I have a feeling that this may be one of the right men for me. We all have several, but we seldom meet more than a couple. He has magic hands, firm, decided, yet respectful.

  ‘Alec—’

  ‘Shush. I love you.’

  He does. I know it’s silly after so short an acquaintance, but I also know he’s right. It’s something . . . he’s holding me so gently . . . something that needs no apprenticeship. Had this been less than love, we’d be in the sand dunes now with my Cow and Gate-stained rugs and heavy breathing. The words he uses are beautiful, expressions that are aired only between lovers. For a long time, he just holds me and whispers, and I become impatient for closer contact. He knows what he’s doing, all right.

  Another kiss. Is this our fifth? He has to hold me tightly now, because my legs are suddenly frail. Silly novels, stupid words, drowning in him, tasting him, shaking when he teases me through my clothing. I am forty years old, and a shivering schoolchild at the same time.

  He stops and I groan involuntarily. ‘I have a new bed,’ he says solemnly.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I manage.

  ‘For us. The kids are going away with my mother for a few days. So I thought we’d have a fresh start. New sheets, too.’

  I hesitate.

  ‘I can show you how to take the grille off the gas fire.’

  That does it. I am completely won over, totally lost. And all because of a bloody gas fire.

  After surviving a greeting by the puppy, I enter my domain. Bubble, Toil and Trouble are still sitting in the same places they occupied before I left for my unscheduled adventure. They look as if they’ve been planted, and I consider water and a drop of Baby Bio. A silence heavier than lead hangs in the air above them. Susan has the grace to blush, and so she should, because she is the perpetrator who has pushed me into the gas fire, and I think it’s going to be hot in there. ‘Where’ve you been?’ she asks.

  I sit down and ignore her question as she knows very well where I’ve just been – and who with. ‘I shall need you all to stay here for a few nights soon,’ I say casually. ‘You’ll have one baby each. I’ll be here every day, but may sleep elsewhere.’

  Three pairs of eyes are fixed on me. The silence is short, as they burst into loud applause until I warn them about waking the children. Sheba, a warm weight on my feet, lifts a lazy head, then drops it again. She isn’t impressed. Neither am I. The next time I decide to do something daring, I’ll get the town crier out.

  There follows a verbal search of my wardrobe. This covers the full spectrum from what to arrive in to what to sleep in. Maureen has some unusual ideas about items I would never have dreamed of in a million years, but I manage to shut them up by informing them that everything will be new, but there’ll be none of the interesting stuff mentioned by Maureen.

  They don’t shut up for long. ‘Get a lovely negligent,’ Marie suggests. ‘With a bit of lace on.’

  Susan, who thinks lace isn’t elegant, believes I’ll do better in plain oyster satin. ‘And it’s negligee,’ she tells her mother.

  ‘Marilyn Monroe wore perfume full stop in bed.’ This is another contribution from Mo. ‘Mind, it didn’t do her much good, did it? Thirteen years, she’s been dead.’

  Well, this conversation’s going from bad to worse, isn’t it? ‘Go and have a look at the kids, Susan,’ I say. ‘And, Mo, I’m not wearing nothing. I’m turned forty, I’ve carried twins and my belly looks like an empty shopping bag with irregular stripes on it.’

  ‘You nervous?’ Marie asks.

  ‘Bloody terrified.’ It’s true. I should postpone the event, get fit, find my I Hate to Exercise book, eat just fruit and veg, go for a run every morning. The very thought of push-ups makes me sweat and—

  A scream cuts through the air like a bolt from a crossbow. I meet Susan in the hall, and she is as white as a boiled sheet. ‘Susan?’

  ‘He’s taken him. The side door isn’t locked and—’

  ‘Who’s taken him?’

  She swallows and tries to breathe at a more regular rate. ‘Gary. Says my baby shouldn’t be allowed to live.’

  My girls are crying loudly. ‘Marie?’ I call. ‘Go and calm them down, will you? Maureen, come here.’

  Marie goes upstairs, and I know she isn’t walking steadily. She heard some of it, but I don’t know how much. I drag Maureen and Susan back into the living room. I have to be quick. There’s no time for secrecy, not now. ‘Maureen, go and find Gary. He’s taken Stephen.’

  ‘I’m going with her,’ Susan sobs.

  ‘Tell her, Susan,’ I shout as they rush out. ‘And I have to tell your mother.’

  They leave, and I sink onto the bottom stair. That poor, sweet little boy who helped achieve armistice between my daughters, has been taken by his father, who is also his uncle. I hear Marie singing to my twins. Good people in a bad world. Gary, like his dad, is a heavy drinker. It won’t take much. Just a blow to the little head or . . . The ducks are noisy. By this time of night, they have usually sorted out who’s who and where the kids are and who should have which nest. Jesus!

  I have a poker made in 1947 at the foundry in Bolton. It’s of heavy iron with a brass handle that gets polished every other Thursday. I am armed, scared, and dangerous. Stephen. I rush across the grove and, in the dim light provided by a very few street lamps, I see the criminal. Big belly, T-shirt, nasty, ugly man. There is a murder in each of us, and this one’s mine, so leave me to it. With a great deal of force, I whack the swine across the back of his pear-shaped head. Everything goes into slow motion. He staggers, rights himself, turns and looks at me. An inch at a time, he falls backwards with the child in his arms, and water splashes up. All this seems to have taken half an hour.

  I jump in after him, grab the baby, scramble up the bank and run back home. Stephen’s coughing, so he’s breathing. Thank you, God, I shall never doubt You again. I lock the doors, tear off Stephen’s wet clothes and wrap him in a few pram blankets. He’s gurgling at me. I guess he enjoyed the ducks.

  Marie comes into the living room. Her grandson, on the floor and in the company of a very friendly retriever, is poking a finger into a canine ear.

  ‘Anna?’

  Poor woman. What am I meant to say? Shouldn’t we get an ambulance and phone the police? I may have killed her son. He’s a waste of space, but he’s still her son. ‘Phone your house,’ I suggest. ‘Tell Susan her baby’s safe.’

  ‘We’ve no phone. Next door has one, but ours is—’

  ‘Get them, Marie. Just get them.’

  While she is dialling, the front door opens – Maureen has her key. They all have keys to my house – that’s how well I trust them. ‘Anna!’ she screams. ‘There’s nobody in at our Marie’s.’

  ‘I have him,’ I shout. ‘Stephen’s here with me and the dog. He’s fine, I think.’

  They make a circle round the child. I start to shiver. Noise escapes from my mouth, comes from nowhere, and I can’t stop it. I am laughing and crying and my breathing isn’t right. Susan dashes over and slaps me hard on my left cheek. ‘Stop it, Anna. Tell me what happened.’

  Crippled words emerge. There’s a poker on the grass, and he is in the water. Stephen was in the water, but he’s all right now. Gary isn’t all right, because I beat his brains out with my poker. It was made as a gift just after the war, but I can’t remember who the recipient was, probabl
y my mother-in-law, and should we get the police?

  ‘What’s she on about?’ Marie asks.

  ‘Our Gary,’ replies Susan. She holds my hands in hers, and seconds pass before she speaks. This is one of the hardest moments of her life so far. Many beats of time are marked while she works her way towards the big finish. She swallows hard before speaking again. ‘He forced me and put a pillowcase over my head. He’s my baby’s dad. I saw him in the village last week. He was pissed. He said Stephen should be put down like a dog. As if it was my fault. As if it was Stephen’s fault.’

  Marie is weeping now. Shortly, we’ll have four hysterical women, an almost dry baby, and a dead man in the brook.

  But I reckoned without Maureen. She stands up and walks out of the house. Just one order is issued before she closes the door. ‘No police. Leave this with me.’

  Susan kneels at her mother’s feet. ‘Now you know why I couldn’t say who the father was, because Gary said he’d kill me.’

  Marie nods.

  ‘Stephen will be all right,’ Susan tells her mother. ‘Anna looked it up, and many babies born from incest are OK as long as it isn’t the usual thing in a family. Why should an innocent kiddy suffer, Mam?’

  Marie rocks back and forth like someone whose movements are restricted by a straitjacket. I can’t look at her properly. Small hiccups of hysteria continue up my trachea and into the room. Maureen is outside with a dead body, and the dead body is my fault. No, it isn’t. It was him or Stephen, and it was never going to be Stephen.

  Marie speaks. ‘Your own brother did this to you? And you never told me?’

  ‘I couldn’t. He would have said I asked for it, that I wanted what he did to me. And he would have killed me.’ She doesn’t mention the long months during which she expected her child to have two heads, no eyes and more than four limbs. Only I know what she went through, because we are close, Susan and I. Each has saved the life of the other.

  Maureen hasn’t come back. What are her plans for a corpse of such a size? I should have called for an ambulance and the police. What will happen to Emily and Charlotte if I go to jail? Then I remember. I’m post-natal. The doctor knows I’ve been a bit pots-for-rags . . . Crackers. I’ve been hormonally challenged. But a man may be dead. He had rights, inalienable human rights. So has Susan. He took away her right to bodily integrity, and that’s high on the list – number two, I believe.