by Jane Asher
The mixture of longing and horror she felt at knowing she would have to see John at the end of the week had been hanging over her since coming back from Andrew’s the previous morning. Even the thought of trying to appear normal during the regular evening phone call had been terrifying her, but as she talked on to Ruth she began to see the possibility of acquiring skills in lying far more quickly than she would have dreamt possible. She even found herself smiling at the nicety of her deceit as the girl asked about her health and she replied enthusiastically about how well she felt and how lucky she was to live away from town with all its pollution and noise. She became confident enough to consider enquiring about John’s whereabouts, but decided her voice might just not maintain its miraculous innocence when forced to speak his name aloud.
‘So I’ll see you soon, Ruth,’ she said instead, suddenly determined to wind up the conversation as soon as possible. ‘Was there anything special you rang for?’
‘No, not really, Mrs Hamilton. Just a chat. Although I think Mr Havers wondered if you were coming in this week. I know the design team have some more ideas to talk through with you when you’ve—’
‘I can’t possibly think about that now, Ruth.’ There was a fractional pause, and Eleanor’s mind trawled desperately for an excuse for the brusqueness of her dismissive reply as she quickly went on: ‘I mean it’s just not a good time at the moment, with the – er – you know – all the—’
‘Of course not. Sorry, Mrs Hamilton, I forgot. I know you’re very busy. I’m sure it’s—’
‘—all the – well, my brother’s not been too well and I had to go and visit him over the weekend. I expect my – er – my husband mentioned it, didn’t he?’
‘No, no he didn’t. Oh I am sorry. I do hope it’s nothing serious.’
Damn, thought Eleanor, damn it. I needn’t have told her. Now will she talk to him about it? Will it make him think again about why I went off so suddenly to Andrew’s and question me and get suspicious? Oh damn, why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?
‘No, not at all, thank you, Ruth. But I just might have to go down again, you see, so I can’t really commit myself to anything this week. You see.’
‘Of course, Mrs Hamilton. They’ll just have to wait, won’t they? They certainly won’t want to sign anything off until they’ve talked to you. You know how much they rely on your advice. But I’m sure they’ve got plenty to be going on with.’
‘All right, Ruth. Tell them I’ll be in touch when I can,’ Eleanor answered, railing inwardly at the two-faced flattery of the girl she was chatting to so warmly, ‘’Bye.’
‘’Bye, Mrs Hamilton.’
As she put down the phone the last two words echoed horribly round her head and she started with the shock of yet another terrible thought. Jesus Christ! What does she call her? Does the little bitch call her by my name? How does she list us in her database or Rotadex or whatever it’s called? Do we share a card, the Mrs Hamiltons (x2) card? Or do we have one each? And – God Almighty – she’ll come first. Barbara before Eleanor. Has Ruth ever dialled my number by mistake, and chattered to me about some invented nonsense when she really wanted to talk to his lover? Or has she got through to the bitch by mistake when she meant to ring me with an excuse for one of John’s late arrivals or cancelled homecomings? But of course that way round it wouldn’t matter, would it? They must have had a few laughs about it: Oh dear! Silly me, Mrs Hamilton – I’ve got the wrong one again! Or, no, more likely – Barbara. People of that class are far more likely to use Christian names to each other; they’ll be mates, pals, in on the joke together. Silly me, Barbara, she’ll say. I’ve got the wrong one again! I meant to ring old Nellie! And then Barbara will have a really good giggle about it. She must have a silly, cheap giggle, like a schoolgirl.
Eleanor sprang up from her chair and marched quickly towards the kitchen French windows, desperate for a gulp of fresh air to clear the poisonous thoughts that were fast becoming ever more inventive. The way her mind would insist on returning to themes and ideas that couldn’t possibly be realistically explored and that could only exist as mad extrapolations from the thin base of facts available to her, was utterly exhausting. However often she pulled her thoughts away from them, the frantic musings would begin once again against her will, and hundreds of times a day she would find herself deep into some agonising fantasy without remembering how she got into it.
The sound of the front door slamming distracted her and made her stop where she was, halfway across the room. Before she even began to wonder who it might be, her reaction was to panic at the thought that she might have no clothes on, or be in her underwear, or nightclothes. She had no recall of how she had got up that morning, and whether she had bathed, or dressed, or brushed her hair. In the split second it took for her to glance down, she was relieved to see that she had somehow put on one of her straight navy skirts and a white blouse. Tights and shoes appeared to be on her legs and feet, and a quick dash over to the cooker hood gave her the opportunity to check in its shiny steel surface that her hair looked as if it had been brushed and a small smear of pink lipstick could clearly be seen on the blurred, distorted mouth reflected back at her. How amazing, she thought, that my body has done all that without my being aware of it. Even when confronted with the evidence that she had indeed removed a nightdress, opened cupboards, dressed and sat at her dressing table to make up her face and do her hair she could still find no memory at all of having done so. She said a silent thank you to her own body for carrying on so bravely without her, and turned towards the door, assuming what she hoped was a suitably noncommittal expression as she waited to identify the approaching footsteps.
When Carla walked into the room, Eleanor nearly cried with the relief of something normal, regular and unthreatening taking place. The cleaner’s familiar figure, removing a short, green raincoat as she came in, revealing a comforting pink floral blouse and bright blue calf-length cotton slacks, was reassuring merely by its existence. Eleanor had been spending so much time in the cloistered confines of her own head that any evidence of external reality gave her a welcome anchor in the sea of dark, swirling uncertainty that threatened to engulf her.
‘Good morning, Mrs Hamilton,’ Carla threw over her shoulder as she went to the small kitchen cupboard to fetch a pale pink nylon housecoat from among the forest of broom, vacuum and floor-mop handles. The bright colours she always wore, combined with the throaty remnants of an accent that remained after two decades or more of working for the Hamiltons, brought a whiff of Spanish beaches and vibrant blossoms to the quiet Englishness of the country kitchen. ‘Did you have a good trip?’
‘What? Oh, to my brother’s. Yes, thank you, Carla, I did. Good morning.’
‘Shall I make you a coffee, Mrs Hamilton? I’m going to start in here this morning.’
‘Yes, please, Carla. A coffee would be lovely.’
Eleanor sat down at the kitchen table and watched as Carla took the glass coffee jug and filled it half full from the cold tap before pouring it into the well at the top of the percolator. Eleanor made as if to speak, wanting to tell her for the hundredth time to run the water for a few minutes first, knowing that now the coffee would have that slightly musty taste that it always did when made with water that had sat in the pipes overnight, but she hadn’t the energy or the interest. Musty coffee was the least of her problems, and the comforting friendliness that had been implied in the offer of a hot drink was far too precious to crush with such practicalities.
‘Sorry to be late today, Mrs Hamilton. The kids – they drive me mad. Get off to school, I said, get off to school. But they don’t listen to me, Mrs Hamilton, they just don’t listen to me.’
So that’s what the coffee was all about, thought Eleanor, a small peace offering. Little does she know it was entirely unnecessary. Little does she know I have no idea of simple basics such as who I am this morning, let alone complexities like what time it is or when she should have arrived for work. She probably worried
all the way here about my ticking her off. What a waste of her anxiety; she could have turned up at three in the morning wearing a baseball outfit and have convinced me it was perfectly normal. Or skipped work all week and I would have thought nothing of it.
‘Don’t worry, Carla, it doesn’t matter.’
Carla was pouring some dark shiny beans into the small electric grinder, but stopped to look round at her, clearly surprised by something Eleanor had said, or in the way she had said it. She was holding the packet in one hand, and Eleanor briefly considered pointing out that she was using the strong after-dinner beans instead of the breakfast ones, but didn’t have the energy.
Carla turned back, covered the beans and switched on the machine, appearing to wait until the unpleasantly grating noise was at its loudest before calling over her shoulder, ‘Are you OK, Mrs Hamilton?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Why?’
‘No, you don’t seem fine to me. You’re not OK, Mrs Hamilton, you’re not too well. I can see that.’
What on earth does she see? thought Eleanor. She’s right, of course, but how can she possibly know? I’m not doing anything odd, am I? She glanced down at herself once more, panicking that her earlier check had ignored some vital strangeness in her appearance that was giving away the not-too-wellness that Carla had so correctly spotted. Perhaps her shoes were on the wrong feet, or her makeup askew, or her knickers round her ankles like some mad old woman. But again her quick inventory revealed nothing amiss and she sat back again in her chair to wait for the coffee, noting inwardly that the grounds had been poured into the filter in a little pyramid, and that without the top being smoothed across with a spoon, the water would run down the sides and through the machine without properly brewing the coffee. And now Carla was putting the glass jug back in place under the spout without warming it first with hot water, the way Eleanor liked to. Musty, weak, lukewarm, after-dinner coffee, she thought.
‘How do you mean, Carla? Don’t I look well?’
Carla crossed her arms and leant back against the hardtop as she looked down at Eleanor, tilting her head to one side and screwing up her eyes a little.
‘You’re quiet, Mrs Hamilton.’
‘Quiet? What, am I usually noisy? Not known much for being a particularly loud person, am I, Carla?’ laughed Eleanor, hearing in the superior tone of her own voice the implication that Carla’s judgement was amusing in its ridiculous presumptiveness.
‘You’re not saying things you always say.’
All at once Eleanor knew exactly what she meant. Her acceptance, without criticism, of the woman’s lateness; the fact that she was sitting quietly at the kitchen table watching her, instead of striding about the house pointing out what needed to be cleaned, or working on designs at her desk with a brisk summary of the day’s chores called out to Carla as soon as she came in – these were what amounted to the strangeness that had given her away. Even the held-back criticisms of her coffee-making: how many would there have been had she let them out – the water, the beans, the grounds, the unwarmed jug? At least four times she would have pulled Carla up and found fault with her.
‘Carla – am I an awful bitch?’
In her astonishment the woman turned round so suddenly where she stood at the sink that Eleanor thought she might fall, and half rose from her chair as if to catch her. But Carla steadied herself and dropped her hands by her sides, one clutching the pink rubber gloves she had been about to put on.
‘What did you say, Mrs Hamilton?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just felt I may have been a little – well, I suppose I just wanted to know if I’ve always been a bit – critical. If I always criticise you, Carla.’
Carla moved slowly over to the table and sat down in a chair opposite Eleanor, laying the gloves onto the pine surface, never taking her eyes off the other’s face, and still frowning in disbelief at what she was hearing.
‘Is there something wrong, Mrs Hamilton? Am I doing something wrong? Are you not happy with me?’
‘No, no it’s nothing like that. Really. Not at all. In fact I don’t know what I’d do without you, Carla. I’ve had a bit of a shock, you see, and I’m – you’re absolutely right, you spotted it at once, of course – I’m not quite myself. And I’m seeing some things very differently. I really do appreciate all you do for us, Carla. I’m sorry if I always snap at you.’
‘Do you want to go and have a nice lie down, Mrs Hamilton? And I’ll bring your coffee up to you?’
Eleanor laughed, but this time there was no hint of anything other than gentle amusement in its tone. ‘Yes, you’re probably right. I’m a bit crazy. Never mind. Just ignore me. How’s your family? How are the children?’
‘Very naughty, Mrs Hamilton. Alex – he is always in trouble at school, you know. But he’s clever. He’s a clever boy, but he gets himself into trouble. Maria is OK, but she doesn’t work too hard, you know. She has her A levels – remember I told you, Mrs Hamilton, she does her A levels next year, in Spanish and geography? But I’m not sure if she’s going to do OK or not. I’m not too sure.’
‘Carla, I have a girl coming to see me for lunch, probably next week. What do you think she’d like to eat? What does Maria like best? What’s her favourite?’
‘You like me to cook her something special? Should I cook for you my chicken with tomatoes and peppers?’
‘No, that’s very sweet of you, but I’ll do it. What do they like? Children – young people. What do they all like?’
‘Pasta, I guess, Mrs Hamilton. They all love spaghetti, don’t they?’
‘Yes, that’s a very good idea. Or tagliatelle. I’ll do some tagliatelle with a cream sauce. No one could not like that, could they?’
Eleanor crept towards the bed with the large scout knife held firmly in one trembling hand. She half squatted, half knelt, and the strain on her thigh muscles made them ache with tension. She could hear John’s breathing, regular but with a small fluttering snore in every intaken breath, and knew he was unlikely to wake as long as she was careful not to make any sound that couldn’t be taken for part of the usual routine noises. In normal circumstances he was a heavy sleeper: Eleanor could turn over in bed without having to think twice about waking him; she could read with the light on or go to the bathroom, but if the slightest change in routine took place and any variation in the creaks, rustles and sighs that were part of their regular weekend nights impinged on his semi-consciousness then he would sit bolt upright and be immediately fully awake.
So every bump and whine of a floorboard had to be explicable on her journey towards the side of the bed. After collecting the knife from the pocket of his Barbour that hung in the downstairs cloakroom, she had made her way casually up the stairs as if returning from fetching a glass of water in the kitchen, or a newspaper from the drawing room, knowing he was bound to be asleep, but taking no chances of his inner ear sensing the difference in sound that a stealthy approach would have from a confident one.
She had made for the bathroom, where she closed herself in and stood over the basin, gripping its side with one hand to steady her balance, unsure of the reliability of her legs as they threatened to turn to jelly now that she had reached this temporary haven, and holding up the knife with the other hand, staring at it in fascination in the mirror. It looked utterly innocent in its closed state: a child’s toy. She released her grip on the basin and stood up straight, waiting for a moment to test her stability, then brought her hands together and began to pull with her nail at the side of the largest blade. It was half out when she heard John clear his throat next door, and, as she started a little in fright, the blade snapped back into its case with what seemed to her to be a clearly audible click. She quickly turned on a tap to give his subconscious a continuing reason for her absence from the bed, and pulled once more at the blade until it sprang fully out to stand to attention, ready for duty. It glittered in the spotlight above the basin as she stared at it once more in the mirror. As she kept l
ooking at it, she twisted it slowly in her hand so that the blade thinned into a fine silver hair, then widened again into flat, flashing threat. As she watched, blood appeared on its tip and dripped slowly down its length. She grimaced, then looked quickly away from it and down at the water swirling round the blue enamel, letting the image wash away with it down the plug hole, until she could look up again and see clean, cool, untainted steel. She turned off the tap and put out the light.
She was surprised to find that, as she neared her side of the bed, she felt no uncertainty about what she was about to do. In fact she was now quite calm and clear-headed: almost looking forward to the next few minutes, which, whatever the extent of her success, would be extraordinary to say the least. A tiny smile lifted one side of her mouth as she congratulated herself on the brilliance of her route across from the bathroom; having no wish to risk even a half-glance from John should he wake, she was continuing to move in a hunched, spidery creep, keeping well below the level of his eye line, but creating noises comfortingly compatible with a normal upright walk.
At the side of the bed she stopped and listened again, keeping her own breathing even and normal in spite of the desire to pant it out in gasps after the strain of the journey. She planned a swift, decisive pulling back of the covers, done in exactly the same way she would have as if opening up the bed to get in it herself, but with just that little extra swish of movement that would uncover John’s sleeping form as far as was necessary for the procedure to come. Procedure: she giggled a little silently to herself. Yes, she liked that term. It had a satisfyingly medical ring to it, as if the horror about to take place was necessary; ordained; a cleansing ritual that was for the good of the party concerned, and not within her power to withhold or bestow of her own volition.
The covers whisked back silently and easily, and without disturbing him. She stood up and looked down at him for a moment, then climbed carefully onto her side of the bed so that she was kneeling next to him, facing up towards the pillows. She changed her body weight onto one hip and curled her legs up to one side, so that, with one hand still holding the open knife, she was able to reach across with the other one and delicately take hold of one white-fringed end of his pyjama cord and begin to pull it infinitesimally slowly and carefully out of its simple bow. The word babbitt was ringing round her head while she continued the precarious operation. No, that couldn’t be right – Babbitt was the character in that American book, wasn’t he? It can’t be babbitt. Bobbitt – was that it? Yes, Bobbitt. Bobbitting. And again she giggled.