The Squeeze

by Lesley Glaister

‘What?’

  ‘Desert rather than swamp?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Only kidding!’ Frank threw back his head and laughed, Adam’s apple surfacing amongst his neck-fat. I put my hand to my own throat. Of course, it was a brothel; of course, I had known this. The right thing to do: stand up and walk right out. But then the girls, women, were there. And they were just ordinary, attractive women. By then Sinatra was crooning – appropriately – ‘Strangers in the Night’.

  ‘Now we’re cooking,’ said Frank, rubbing his hands. ‘Take your pick.’

  I could not look at the girls’ faces. Or I should say the women’s faces. If I met any eyes I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it and now, drunk and with all that flesh close to my face, the perfumes, the swish of thighs and wraps, I did want to do it. It almost didn’t matter which one. I pointed to a girl, slighter than the rest, much slighter than Vivienne. Her hair was dark and waved right down to her tiny waist. As I followed her through a bamboo beaded curtain and up some stairs, along a corridor and into a small room, I watched her small high buttocks moving under her white silk slip, her ankles delicate above tall platform shoes.

  There were Indian bedspreads pinned on the walls, the smell of incense, a neat bed, with sheet and pillows but no duvet.

  ‘What you want?’ she said, smiling. Her voice wasn’t English. She came up close to me, fingering my jacket buttons. ‘Standard?’ she said. ‘You want to fuck?’

  She turned away to light a joss stick, stick it in a little holder shaped like an elephant.

  I took off my jacket. I couldn’t speak, didn’t want to speak, didn’t want the reality of that. I wanted it to be a dream. She undid my belt, small hands quick, she helped me out. And then we were on the bed and under her firm springy body it was over before it began, release hardly three thrusts away. If it had been real sex I would have felt guilty. But it wasn’t real. And she, unconcerned, pleased even, jumped off and left me to dress.

  ❦

  I waited for Frank in the sofa area, tingling and buzzing, feeling sick, a headache starting, a hangover before the night was even over: it was still not quite midnight, I saw with surprise. Frank came out, a grin on his face, paid the guy and we were seen out, back up the steps to the cobbled street.

  ‘How was it?’ said Frank, scanning the street for a taxi. ‘Satisfaction achieved? Attaboy!’

  I said nothing. Yes, was the answer. I gasped in the fresh, cold air. The rain had stopped and as we turned onto the wide main road, I saw the moon, three quarters waxed, smudged behind a ragged cloud.

  Never again, of course, never ever again, but still . . .

  I felt light and childish, as if I had got away with something; I felt like a dog; I felt like putting back my head and howling at the moon.

  Alis

  Dear God,

  Please forgive my sins.

  Please take care of my little boy wherever he may be. Make him a good man.

  Please forgive Mama. Take care of her soul and give her peace.

  Please God protect Marta.

  Please keep her safe.

  Please God take me home.

  Amen.

  Three

  1992

  Mats

  He dragged himself into work, thinking it would be OK. Managed to avoid Frank. But it was not OK. He’d only been working for a few minutes before the screen began to swim. He persevered with work for another thirty minutes but it was no good and he had to go to the bathroom and throw up. He hadn’t been sick since he was a boy, found it frightening, the helplessness to stop it. No question of staying at work. He rinsed his mouth, splashed his face, dried it on a paper towel and went to tell Christine he was going home.

  ‘Och, you poor wee sausage,’ she said and he saw her eyeing his vomit-splashed tie. ‘Give it here,’ she reached out her hand. ‘It’s likely a bug. Go home and get your head down. I’ll sort things here.’ She patted his arm and his throat hollowed. Sympathy destroyed him, though he overflowed with it himself. All give no take, Nina told him once, you need to toughen up.

  In the lift his stomach lurched at the sinking sensation. You could never describe Nina as sympathetic. Rather she was helpful, but that was different; she was clear and logical. Never would she have looked at him so kindly – and nor would Vivienne. A shame he didn’t fancy Christine, a woman who’d sponge your vomity tie, who’d call you poor wee sausage and, no doubt, tuck you up in the bed. Such a woman would be a treasure. Why had he never chosen such a one?

  As the lift opened and he hurried out of the building, he tried to remember whether Nina had ever needed his sympathy. Once she’d broken her wrist, skiing, and needed him to drive her about, but she had not needed – had put up a barrier against – anything you might call sympathy. He gasped in the cold, damp air. Was it a bug or a hangover? Or was it a punishment?

  Nina had never said, ‘I love you,’ not unprompted anyway. Only once he’d been craven enough to ask her.

  ‘Of course,’ she’d said in that clipped voice, raising one of her fair eyebrows.

  ‘But you never say.’ He’d felt so vulnerable then that now, years later, a tear ran down his cheek. Why can he not get Nina out of his mind?

  But, ‘Can’t you tell?’ she’d said, genuinely puzzled. ‘All the things I do for you? We’re married aren’t we?’

  And she’d been right, of course, always right and it was weak of him to need to hear the words when she was there. Unmanly?

  The front door was unlocked, but the house was empty. Vivienne must have taken Thomas out, good, doubly good: quiet for him and she was doing something with the baby, using her own initiative. Though she should have locked the door. Lately she’d been careless like that. It had been nagging him, how she was, not right, not how a new mother should be surely? She showed no joy.

  He got to the toilet just in time but there was nothing to vomit but spit. He flushed and rinsed and washed his hands, cleaned his teeth, comforted by the smell of soap, the taste of toothpaste. In the bedroom, the bed was unmade, the curtains closed, the bedside light still on. He dropped his clothes on a chair and fell onto the bed.

  How long he slept he didn’t know, a shred of Thomas’s cry insinuated into a messy dream in which a girl in silk no, no, no, what had he done? Half awake, he tried to think of other things as he waited for Vivienne but fell back asleep into another horribly arousing dream and was woken again by the baby crying steadily. He waited for Vivienne to do something about it; how could she leave him wailing like that? At last Mats pulled himself up, head throbbing, weakness in his legs, a raging thirst.

  ‘Hey Thomas.’ When he picked him up, he was hot and struggling, almost in convulsions of rage and tears. He carried the boy into the bathroom, took off the Babygro, peeled off the heavy, filthy nappy. So heavy and filthy, it must be last night’s. Yes, he recognized it. There was a tear where the tab had come off and he’d mended it with tape. That was after he’d got in, about midnight, and now it was . . . he looked at his watch; past noon. Thomas screamed as he dabbed at the shiny inflamed skin. Too sore for wipes. He turned the taps off, filled the baby bath. Thomas stopped crying to listen to the running taps and shuddering fixed Mats with outraged eyes.

  As he lifted Thomas and lowered him gently into the warm bath, he heard the front door open and Vivienne come in, running upstairs calling ‘Tommy?’ anxiety in her voice. She must have seen the empty cot, before she realized Mats was there.

  ‘In here,’ Mats called and she came and leant against the door frame.

  ‘Thank God. I thought, I thought . . .’

  Mats said nothing, hand cupped under Thomas’ head, watching the kicking of the froggy legs.

  ‘What are you doing home?’ she asked.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, ‘all better now.’

  Children should not be exposed to tension, keep smiling,
keep calm. His hands shook, his head banged.

  ‘Be like that then,’ she said. ‘I’m putting the kettle on.’

  ‘You could make up a bottle,’ he called after her.

  He dried Thomas and dabbed Sudocrem on his sore skin, dressed him in a fresh nappy and Babygro.

  In the kitchen Vivienne sat at the table pretending to read a magazine, drinking tea, crunching Doritos. She’d made up one eye, heavily, with mascara or whatever it was, but not the other. Had she gone out like that? He said nothing, cooled the bottle under the tap, holding struggling Thomas against his shoulder. Once the milk was the right temperature Thomas latched on desperately and gulped too fast, gave himself wind, began to writhe and cry again.

  ‘I’ll take him.’ Vivienne pushed her tea away and reached out. Mats filled a glass with milk, swallowed a couple of paracetamol.

  ‘Silent treatment eh?’ she said, putting Tommy against her shoulder and rubbing his back.

  Mats’ head was slamming. He needed to lie down. ‘Going back to bed,’ he said.

  ‘You sick?’

  ‘Bug, I think.’

  ‘Not a hangover then?’ she shouted after him as he went upstairs. Back in the bedroom he fell into a half sleep this time, aware of his watch ticking close to his ear, aware of sounds: Vivienne’s voice, the TV going on, Thomas wailing, eventually of Vivienne coming into the room.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she said.

  He felt the tipping of the mattress as she sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Bad,’ he mumbled into his pillow.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Poor you,’ she said, as she left the room, and she did sound sympathetic, but sympathy from her, at this moment, filled him with fury.

  In the evening, after an afternoon of semi-sleep, the headache lifted and he experienced a first wisp of hunger. She was in the kitchen, stirring a pan of spaghetti hoops.

  ‘Hi Dad,’ said Arthur. He was kneeling on the floor with all his cars lined up, using the grid of squares on the Vinyl as roads and car parks.

  Thomas was in his bouncy chair kicking his feet. Mats jiggled him the way he liked and was rewarded with a crooked smile. He put a slice of bread in the toaster. Dry toast was what Mor would give him if ever he were sick.

  ‘Are you OK, Dad?’ said Arthur, looking up. ‘Have you actually sicked up?’

  Mats nodded.

  ‘Cool. Lucy sicked up at school and it went on Dominic’s shoes.’

  ‘Poor Dominic,’ said Vivienne at the same time as Mats said, ‘Poor Lucy,’ and they almost smiled at each other, snatched their expressions back.

  Mats took his toast and water back to the bedroom, lay listening to her try and cope with the kids. He couldn’t leave it. What would Nina advise? Be straight; come out with it. For Nina this would be obvious. He stopped himself getting out of bed to help when he heard Arthur searching for his reading book, Thomas crying – he guessed it was a nappy change, hoped she’d remember to be gentle, remember the ointment – Arthur calling out for water, needing a pee. But he lay and let her cope and eventually it was quiet, and he fell asleep.

  She woke him, coming in smelling of wine and smoke and climbing into bed beside him with a sort of exaggerated care. Having slept half the day he was suddenly wide awake and zinging with anger.

  He sat up, back against the headboard, pillow on his lap. ‘So, you went out and left Thomas?’ he said, managing to keep his voice low and even.

  ‘Oh God, I knew you’d have to go on about it. We’re not all as perfect as you, Mats.’ She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. Her face looked young like that, smoothed of lines, her wine-stained lips were slack.

  His fists clenched and his stomach rumbled, roared almost, the way some men would roar now, the way he had a right to roar. He swallowed, continued evenly: ‘You left the door unlocked. Thomas, wet and dirty and alone. And hungry. Anyone could have come in.’

  ‘But it was you,’ she said childishly. ‘You came in and saved the day. As usual,’ she mumbled.

  Is that what she said?

  ‘Pardon?’

  There was an inscrutable smile on her face. ‘I mean you always come to the rescue. My knight in shining armour.’

  He thumped his fist down on the pillow. ‘This is not a fairy story,’ he said, voice rising now. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘It was the toad,’ she said. ‘It’s in the house.’

  Silence, while he tried to make sense. Toad?

  ‘I came on,’ she said. ‘No tampons. Baby asleep. Didn’t want to wake him and get him dressed and all that palaver.’

  ‘But he still had last night’s nappy on!’

  ‘Thought I’d only be ten minutes. Anyway nothing could happen to him in his cot.’

  ‘You cannot do that! You cannot leave him!’

  ‘Don’t shout.’

  I’m not shouting, he thought, if you think this is shouting . . . He breathed steadily, tried to unlock the tension in his hands. How satisfying it would be to swing his fist. But violence is not the way. It cannot be the way.

  ‘Why were you so long then?’ he said carefully.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It was kind of sparkling.’

  ‘What?’

  He watched her expression harden as she manoeuvred herself from wrong to right. ‘What was I meant to do? It’s all right for you, you don’t have periods. Anyway, you can talk. You were out till all hours last night. What were you up to?’ She rolled onto her side, facing away from him and righteously clicked off the lamp. ‘Everything’s OK isn’t it?’ she added. ‘We’re all still breathing.’ She pulled the duvet across, leaving his leg exposed. He tugged it back, more forcefully than necessary. ‘It’s his skin, Mats,’ she murmured, ‘it’s damp. He presses out the light.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you feel it?’

  He was silenced, eyes wide open in the darkness. Not quite dark. Street light fell between the curtains, making the white paper lampshade glow like a too-close moon. ‘Toad?’ he said at last.

  But she said nothing more.

  Vivienne

  click

  click

  Damn thing. Is this right? Are you working?

  click

  Testing. Testing?

  click

  It was after Thomas that the toad showed up. Well, didn’t show up, more came out. Even when we viewed the house there was something. I’d rather have stayed in the flat, right in town, friendly flat that knew me. In this house, it’s a good house, three bedrooms, attic room, even a garden, but there was this heavy feeling like a smell. I thought it would go when we moved in, when we opened the windows.

  But then I found out what that smell was: toad. The smell got stronger and closer and then I woke one morning and it was squatting over me, damp and heavy and I can’t explain but in me, blocking things out.

  click

  All fuzzy now what came next and next. Some kind of problem, can’t remember, and Mats reckoned I needed help. Rita helped, but it wasn’t fair, Mats said, when she had her own life. Pills from the doctor and counselling. Sue with her clipboard, long plait and fluffy lip.

  Without even asking me, Mats hired a Norland nanny. It was like we were suddenly back in the 1950s or something. She was about fifty and wore a beige uniform. Beige! It was all about ‘routine’ and I wasn’t meant to interfere with ‘Baby’s this’ or ‘Baby’s that’. She must have looked after Arthur too.

  I always picked him up from school, well sometimes.

  It was the wallpaper in the hall. One day I twigged. It wasn’t paper but toad skin, bumpy, greenish and I started to pick it off. When it was all off the toad would be gone. Nobody said, there were no voices or anything, I’m not mad, but I just knew. I broke my fingernails and b
its of plaster came off and trickled on the floor. Mats said stop it stop it and Artie helped until the nanny said it was unhygienic and look at all the dust.

  One morning, maybe a month after she arrived, I woke late and went into the kitchen in my dressing gown. There she was, the nanny mixing up Tommy’s feed. The toad was watching from behind the fridge. He was weakened by the skinning, thinner, I knew it, but still there was the stink of him, pond slime, rust, bad breath.

  ‘Hello, Mummy,’ the nanny said. I filled the kettle. ‘Please Mummy, wash your hands before you touch the kettle,’ she said. Yes! She actually said that to me, in my own kitchen!

  I swivelled to face her. ‘Sorree?’ I mean, was that even sane? I couldn’t look at her. I made coffee without washing my hands. I didn’t even look at Tommy. I know that’s bad but she had this way of parting his hair on one side so he looked like a cabinet minister.

  I left the room and went into the hall to keep on with the wallpaper. I wanted it all to be white. There were layers of old wallpaper, roses on a trellis, and something yellow under the thick green warty skin. My blood on the plaster from broken nails but it was nearly done. Mats said stop he’d get a decorator but I didn’t want a decorator. I don’t like people in. So he bought lining paper and Polyfilla and white paint and said he’d do it at the weekend.

  Since the nanny had come he’d been out a lot. Working late. But he did help a bit with the peeling. He got a steamer and it was gorgeous when the skin went soft and came off all live and fleshy so you could feel the shudder of the toad. You could feel the weakening. It was something Mats and I were doing together and I loved him in the hiss of the steam.

  After that morning with the kettle the nanny had to go. Rather than helping me bond with Thomas she was cutting me off from him. And Artie. And my own kitchen. Wash your hands! Before I would at least know vaguely what was in the fridge. And Arthur had taken to parroting her sometimes, calling me ‘Mummy’ in that irritating way. ‘Would Mummy like to see my painting?’ Ha!