He groaned. ‘Don’t be like this.’
‘I’m not being like anything.’ I turned away from him, embarrassed to have abandoned the lightness I’d calibrated so carefully and revealed that I had hopes for our future. I knew with a swift certainty that I had misjudged things. If he felt about me as I did about him, there was no way he would be reacting like this.
‘Please don’t cry,’ he said, his voice sounding as if it came from a distance.
‘I’m not crying,’ I said, furious. I didn’t turn back to him and he made no move towards me. We lay like that for some minutes. I waited for him to go to sleep so that I could get up and go into the sitting room to order my thoughts without causing a scene. His breathing, though, stayed the same.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ he said eventually.
‘You make it sound as if I’m putting you in an unbearable position,’ I said. ‘I’m not, OK? It was just a stupid, off-the-cuff, spur-of-the moment idea. Just forget about it – it’s not important.’
He sighed. ‘Of course it’s important.’
I turned round. ‘Look, I got it wrong. I’m sorry. That’s all we need to say. Subject closed.’
He grabbed my wrist, pinching my skin against the edge of the bangle which I was still wearing.
‘Ow, that hurts, Richard.’
He gripped harder. ‘I’m just trying to understand what you want from me.’
‘I don’t want anything. I just want you to let go.’
He did then and my arm dropped as if it were a dead weight. To my shame, I felt tears in my eyes now and I turned away from him quickly before he could see. This time, though, he moved across the bed and put his arm around my waist. ‘Sssh,’ he whispered. ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’
My body was rigid with tension and I couldn’t make myself relax back against him. ‘I just don’t understand why it’s such a big deal,’ I said.
‘For fuck’s sake.’ He was out of bed in a second. The half light cast shadows over his body and it looked different to me now, hostile. I couldn’t imagine how only minutes ago I had pressed myself against it so willingly.
‘Why are you so angry?’ I wept, sitting up and pulling my knees to my chest.
‘You just have to keep pushing, don’t you? Why can’t you just leave it alone? You’re ruining everything – you’re making me do this.’
‘What?’ I heard the note of alarm in my voice.
‘You’re doing this. You’re making me tell you. I can’t move in with you, Kate,’ he lunged towards me and brought his face right up to mine, making sure I couldn’t look away, grabbing my wrist again and holding it hard. I could smell the alcohol on his breath and, partially masked, the cigarette that he’d had after supper. His eyes were completely cold. ‘Because I’m married to someone else.’
Chapter Eleven
Last year it had drizzled on Christmas morning but today the sky was as blue as if it were June. Looking over the harbour from my bedroom window, I felt a pressing need to be outside and I got dressed and left the house straight away. As soon as the door closed behind me, though, I realised that the sun was deceptive. There was no heat in the day at all; instead it was so cold that the air tasted metallic.
Coming up Bridge Road towards the Square it was hard to miss the word that had been spray-painted on to the wall of the churchyard. bollocks was spelled out in red letters three feet high, clearly legible to the nearest-sighted of the congregation at the morning service. Even for me, it was shocking – the sheer unlikeliness of it. In London, graffiti was everywhere; I scarcely even noticed it. Here, however, it was extraordinary, almost anachronistic. I remembered the women I’d heard talking outside the delicatessen the morning I’d met Sally, though, and the graffiti at the bus stop; evidently it wasn’t an unknown phenomenon. But who was doing it? I’d hardly even seen anyone young here, let alone a gang.
In the Square every shop was shut, even the corner shop which I’d only ever seen closed at night. The café at the far end was shut, too, and beyond it, the pier extended over the water like the beginning of a bridge which had run out of steam. Walking out on to it, I could feel the sea slapping against the thick wooden struts which anchored it into the seabed. The water changed colour wherever I looked at it. To my left, down the channel towards the Needles, it was a dappling aquamarine, its surface denting and pixilating where the wind blew at it, but beneath me, in the shadow of the boardwalk, it was a deeper, darker green. Away from the shelter of the buildings, the bitterness of the wind made my eyes stream. When I reached the end I leaned against the railing and looked over to the mainland, which the sterile light had brought into high definition. The towers of the oil refinery at Fawley were sharp as needles. There were only two yachts out, one down near Hurst, the other near the entrance to the Lymington River, tacking now to get out of the path of one of the few ferries that would be running today.
I turned around to look at the town. There were lights on at almost every one of the windows at the George, the rooms full of people who’d come for a smart hotel Christmas. It would be packed for lunch later. I scanned along to the yacht club and the large houses that bordered on to the water. There was a flagpole in the garden of the huge Victorian house with the crenellated roofline; the flag, a Union Jack, had been savaged by the elements and now flapped in faded tatters. Below me, a handful of scows like Alice’s faced the end of the pier like a congregation in front of a pulpit, headed neatly into the wind. I wondered how Peter Frewin would be spending the day, without her.
I turned the other way and saw that the ferry had made good progress, moving towards the Island while I wasn’t looking as if it were playing a game of Grandmother’s Footsteps. My hands were beginning to hurt with the cold but I didn’t want to go back to the cottage; at least while I was out, I could pretend to be part of the world. Inside, it would only be me and the reality of my decision to stay here alone over the holiday. Dad and Matt would ring from America later but I knew the call would make me lonelier, with its background of happy voices and then the silence when the receiver went down. Well, it didn’t matter anyway, I thought: I would get drunk.
Back at the house I lit the fire, switched the oven on and poured a glass of sherry. There hadn’t seemed any point in cooking a turkey just for myself so I’d bought a chicken instead with the idea of roasting it today and eating the rest cold. I peeled the vegetables, washed the knives and put the chicken in the oven. After that I went through to the sitting room and stood at the sliding doors looking at the yard. There was no view over the wooden fences on either side and, from the ground floor, it was impossible to see over the gates at the end. When I’d been at the sink scoring the sprouts, a couple I hadn’t seen before had passed in front of the window on their way to a house further down but it was quiet now, no voices or music coming from either of my neighbours. The silence started to flood in and I quickly switched on the television to block it.
I poured another glass of sherry and took it upstairs. The bed was already made but I tweaked the blanket so that it lay straight and hung up the shirt that I’d left over the back of the chair. My book was lying face down on the carpet, pages splayed, and I picked it up, marked my place with the envelope I used and put it on the bedside table. Out on the landing again I stopped in front of the mirror and looked at myself. My hair was knotted from the wind but there was some colour in my cheeks from being outside and the ring under my eye and the stitches were now long gone.
I turned and paused at the door to the second bedroom. The manuscript was on the desk, along with the handwritten translation of the latest chapter. I went in for a second to look at it, then picked up the pen and made a small correction to an awkward sentence. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t work today but now it seemed preferable to hanging listlessly round the house. As a compromise, I decided that I would just type up the pages that I’d already done but when I finished them, I found myself going on to the next section and by the
time I looked up, an hour and a half had passed. My glass was empty, the house was filled with the smell of roasting chicken and I could make out the sound of carols on the television. Before going downstairs, I opened up my email account just in case there was anything. Perhaps Dad had emailed to wish me a happy Christmas before we spoke later on. When it came up, the home screen told me that there was indeed a message and when I clicked on the inbox there it was.
Richard Brookwood.
My hand stopped on the mouse. I glanced away, then looked again, in case I’d imagined it. I highlighted it, ready to press delete, but I hesitated. I took my glass downstairs and refilled it, feeling my heartbeat in my ears. Back at the desk, I didn’t think any more; I clicked and opened it.
It was three words: Happy Christmas, sweetheart.
The floor seemed to shift under my chair, as though a small seismic shock had rippled beneath the house, and there was a sudden, sharp pain in my chest. I pressed my hands over it and breathed hard. After a minute or so, it moved and lodged itself under my sternum as a severe muscular ache. Christmas Day. It was so typical of him, so calculated. And those three words: did he remember saying them to me on the sofa a year ago, afterwards, when my hair was in his face and we were laughing? I banged my forehead down hard on the edge of the desk in anger at myself for opening it and the pain felt deserved and good.
I deleted the message, snapped the lid of the computer down and went out on to the landing. Instead of going downstairs, though, I went back to my bedroom. I opened the wardrobe door and slid my hand between the T-shirts piled on the shelf until my fingers touched what I was looking for. I held the box for a moment, hesitant, and then flicked up the little catch. I hadn’t worn it since October but the lions on the bangle gleamed up at me as if newly polished, their eyes as fierce and hungry as ever. I thrust the box to the back of the wardrobe again. I shouldn’t have looked at them – I should never have brought it here in the first place. The ache under my breastbone intensified.
From downstairs came a smell of burning. I ran down and opened the oven, unleashing a cloud of acrid smoke. The bacon which I had laid over the chicken was black; I picked it off and flung it into the sink. Underneath, the skin of the chicken itself was shiny and parched, but when I stuck a skewer into the join between the breast and thigh, the juice ran a cloudy pink. I covered it with foil and put it back in the oven. Then I sat down at the table and put my head in my hands. The reality of where I was, my utter isolation, struck me like a hand across my cheek. What was I doing here? Why had I let him win by terrifying me into cutting myself off from everyone? And why hadn’t I gone to the States with Dad and Jane? What was I proving by staying here on my own?
I was summoned from my self-pity by a knock on the door. I jerked up. The table was out of view from the door and I sat as if paralysed. Was the email just an opening move? Had he found me?
The knock came again but this time on the large window over the sink. I spun round but the face looking at me through the glass wasn’t Richard’s. It was Helen’s.
For a moment I looked at her in shock. Then I came to my senses and went to the door. She came in, closed it behind her and then, before we had spoken a word, she put her arms around me.
We salvaged what we could of the chicken and I peeled some more vegetables. ‘I can’t believe you’re actually here – in this kitchen,’ I said, turning from the chopping board to look at her again.
‘Well, believe it. It’s me.’ She was at the table, sitting sideways and watching me as I moved around. She’d had a Louise Brooks cut since I’d last seen her, and the cropped fringe and two shiny black wings of the bob framed her face dramatically, making her look pale and sophisticated. I wondered if she’d seen anyone on her way from the harbour – she must have done; how else would she have found the cottage hidden away here? – and if they’d done a double-take at this bit of 1920s Hollywood glamour beamed in from another world. Her scrutiny was making me self-conscious: I knew she was noting my grubby cords and the hole in the elbow of my jumper, the contrast between them and her tight black jeans, cream broderie anglaise jacket and huge red ceramic beads.
‘I feel bad,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be at your parents’?’
‘They’ve got my sister and her husband. That’s enough for anyone. I could hardly leave you here on your own on Christmas Day, could I? The only reason I didn’t tell you I was coming was I knew you’d try and stop me.’ She picked up her large shoulder bag and rummaged in it for her cigarettes.
‘I can’t tell you how much . . .’
She held her hand up. ‘No, don’t say it again.’
By the time the vegetables were ready, the shadows were lengthening and the strip of sky visible from the kitchen window had changed from its earlier blue to a dull white, the sun smothered by cloud. Despite the fire in the sitting room, the house was cold and I put the boiler on so that the radiator would be warm while we ate. The draught from under the kitchen door was ghosting around my ankles.
Afterwards, Helen put her mince pies in the oven to heat up. ‘So,’ she said, sitting back down. ‘Are you going to tell me what this is all about now? Why the hell are you here?’
I looked at the table top and ran my thumb over the edge where the Formica veneer had chipped away. I’d known this was coming. I wanted to tell her, I really did, and surely now when, despite everything I had done, she had sacrificed her Christmas plans to come here and find me, I owed her the truth. But I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to admit that she had been right about him, though; I was far beyond that.
She was looking at me, waiting.
‘Because I’m an idiot,’ I said. ‘Richard was lying to me.’
She frowned. ‘About what? You knew for ages that he was married.’ Our eyes met and I looked quickly away again, remembering telling her and how that had played out between us.
‘The day I had the accident,’ I said, snapping off another chip of the veneer. ‘You know he was going to the States? He stayed with me the night before. In the morning I went out to get breakfast and he didn’t hear me when I got back – the door hadn’t closed properly behind me. He was on the phone.’
‘To who? His wife?’
‘His son.’ Blood flooded into my cheeks. ‘It was my one condition, after I found out he was married. He promised me he didn’t have children.’
‘He knew about your mother?’
‘Yes. I told him.’
‘He’s such a shit.’
‘It’s my own fault. Only an idiot would have believed him – an idiot who wanted to.’
‘Esther says he’s been to the flat.’
‘The night he got back from America. He’s left me alone since. He’s trying to punish me. He thinks that if he leaves me alone for long enough, I’ll get weak and go back to him. I got an email today, though – the first in weeks.’
‘Christmas Day,’ she nodded, rolling the biggest bead on her necklace between her fingers. ‘Predictable, if he was going to. You didn’t write back?’
I shook my head. ‘I won’t. I can’t.’
She stopped playing with the bead and looked at me. ‘You’re frightened of him, aren’t you?’
Again I broke the eye contact. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Has he ever hurt you – physically?’
‘No.’
‘You’d tell me?’
‘Of course.’ I stood up and went to take the mince pies out of the oven, glad of the opportunity to turn my face away. The pies had got properly hot and they burned my fingers as I lifted them from the baking tray. I breathed deeply and silently and then sat back down, sliding the plate on to the table between us. Helen was watching my face, trying to read it. ‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘until today, I was beginning to believe he really had decided just to let it go. Now I don’t think so.’
‘So what do you think he’s going to do?’
‘I don’t know. God, I used to be so dismissive of
people who got into things like this. But I get it now – sometimes you know you’re being manipulated and you know you’ll probably end up heartbroken but you still think it’s worth it. I should have left it once I knew he was married, of course I should, but I let myself believe him because I wanted to. I didn’t want to go back to being on my own, working all the time, pretending I had a life, when I could have that, even for a few more months.’
‘You were in love with him.’
‘I thought he was in love with me. You know what really got to me the day I heard him? One of the first things he said was I can explain. It made me realise that we were the same as every other sordid affair the world over. It was just as clichéd and pathetic as that.’ The memories of that morning came rushing back. No: I would not think about them. ‘So,’ I said, ‘you see why I wasn’t concentrating on my bike.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this at the hospital?’
‘You never liked him. I didn’t want to admit you’d been right all along – I was ashamed. And I was angry with you for being right.’
‘You know I’m not into point-scoring.’
‘It wasn’t just that. While I thought you were wrong, I didn’t feel so bad about how things were between us – you and me . . .’
‘I hated fighting with you.’
‘It was my fault.’
‘It was his fault.’
‘No, I let him. I saw his jealousy of you as a sign that he loved me. I was flattered by it.’ I breathed out, embarrassed. ‘Have you got a cigarette?’
‘You don’t smoke.’ She looked aghast and I had to smile that she was horrified at that but completely calm about the fact that I’d been sleeping with someone else’s husband for a year and a half. She passed me the packet and I leant across the table for a light, holding my jumper back so that it didn’t catch on the tea-lights she’d found in one of the drawers. Their wax was all liquid now.
The Bed I Made Page 11