The water-tank has been knocking and gurgling, filling with a deafening waterfall sound.
I wonder if I could knock through into my attic? I think, if I am forced to escape, if she doesn’t let me out soon, that is what I’ll try. With the aid of something hard … maybe the edge of a mirror frame, or the stool, I don’t know.
But I will wait. I’m sure she’ll let me out, she’ll come to her senses. It is almost dark. The light seems to be shrinking back through the skylight as if afraid of what it might illuminate. Oh stop it! I’ve tried the light-switch but the bulb is dead. There are candles stuck in bottles, the bottles completely disguised under thick, red, waxy drifts, the wax cascaded down so that the bottles are stuck hard to the surfaces they are on: the dressing-table, a chair, the floor, where the wax has fused itself to the fabric of the red-patterned carpet. I look around for matches. I am hungry. I found a dish of old sugared almonds, the pastel colours faded almost to white. They are dusty but if I was very hungry later, if, absurdly, I was still here later, I could try eating them.
There is a half-full bottle of Gordon’s gin. I think it would be very stupid in this situation to drink any, but still … I am so shivery and there’s nothing to do but wait. I haven’t drunk gin for a long time. Not since Christmas, not since the night I seduced Richard. And I’ve never drunk it neat. It has a comforting taste, medicinal somehow. Mother’s ruin. Ha!
I do feel truly better. I am out of the prison that was my despair and so I am free. God I’m getting poetic, but it was like a prison, the bars were my despair and against the bars pressed the ghastly faces of my fears, of the things I could do to my children, of the things that people, mothers too, do to the children they love. The terrible things. What is the urge to hurt the thing you love the most? The helpless thing. I don’t understand. I give up. The gin is comforting. It’s warming me up. At least I’ve stopped shivering now. Fight the good fight with all th – y might. I used to love singing hymns at school. I could still love singing. Maybe when I get home I’ll join a choir. I feel like some old wino swigging from this bottle, but all the glasses are thick with fingerprints and encrusted with blackened lipstick.
The bars have dissolved and the grisly faces have receded. Maybe I even did right to leave my family while I was so afraid, so … what? … deranged? You could say that. But now I am better. The thing is, the thing that will make me really laugh when I’m out of here is that now I am free of that prison, absolutely free, I am a prisoner. I am free. And where do I discover my freedom? Locked in some crazy woman’s attic. Who would believe it?
She’s stopped singing but the words still ring in my ears: Faint not nor fear, His arms are near. I must find some matches. He changes not, and thou art dear. There must be some, or a lighter, else how would she light the candles? I open the dressing-table drawer, a long curved drawer with a fiddly knob on the front, latticed like a brooch. When I pull it out, powder rises up from it like a peachy ghost. Nothing in here has been disturbed for a long time. It is full of old perfume bottles, tickets to musicals, dried up make-up, a black lace glove, a man’s handkerchief with a curly embroidered F in one corner. What did she call the lover? Frank.
But could she have invented him, invented the whole story? It has the flavour of a fantasy. I can’t get my head round the fact that it is Trixie’s story, staid old Trixie. But no. It was Ada. A man with an eagle on his back, her body pressed against … Could she have made that up? So vivid, I can almost see it, almost feel it. God, this is weird, it’s making me excited, the idea of her white breasts squeezed flat against his tattooed skin. Stop it!
No matches. The powder makes me sneeze. I don’t like the dark. Silly. I spend half my life in my darkroom – but that’s about light. Making light. And there’s the friendly red glow and the magic of the pictures appearing. I’ve never got over that magic which is actually a perfectly explicable chemical reaction. It used to make me feel so warm and happy in a deep muscular way, as if my stomach was smiling, when I saw my babies’ faces floating up through the liquid, as if, almost as if I was creating them all over again. Soon I’ll be able to hold and touch and sniff them. Lick the milky skin of Billie’s neck. Only believe and thou shalt see. Oh this bloody woman. LET ME OUT! When will she come to her senses? I must find the means to light these candles before it is entirely dark.
Thank God for the gin.
Oh. It is so cold. And I feel filthy. It is so dirty, a dusty, clinging female dirt. Everything I touch coats my fingers in pinkish grey powder. She will have to let me out.
ILL-REPUTE
Condensation is running down the tiles. The cobweb is hanging limp. The towel that hides me from myself is cold and the water is cooling. I hardly have the strength to stand up, hardly the will. This is why I hate baths. I should not have stayed in so long. I do so hate the cold. I want someone to look after me, someone kind. Someone to worry about me. Not her next-door, never again. Blowski would do if only he would come. Kindness has hardly ever been shown to me. Perhaps I don’t invite it.
Doll was kind, whatever else she was, genuinely kind. She helped me on the bridge purely out of the goodness of her heart. You might not think that but it is true. If Doll was the Devil then the Devil has a kind face and makes a good cup of tea.
I followed her into the house of ill-repute, through the hall and into a comfortable room. She lifted a sleeping tabby cat off a chair and sat me by the fire. It was good to get off my aching feet. She drew the curtains and lit the lamps.
‘Now, Ada,’ she said putting strong sugary tea in front of me. Every time she said that name I flinched; thinking I should say I am Trixie, not Ada. But then I did not want to be Trixie anymore. I sat in a low armchair. The pattern on the hearth-rug was red, blue and green and made my eyes jump. The tea cup was encircled with ivy leaves that made me think of Ivy and her baby. The cat got up, stretched its feet out behind it and yawned, flicking me quite a look as it settled itself down against the hearth.
‘It’s a palindrome,’ I said, surprising myself. It was as if another voice was speaking through my mouth, another face floating to the surface leaving me, Trixie, mute.
‘What’s that?’
‘A palindrome, reads the same backwards or forwards. A.D.A. same both ways.’
Doll twisted her face with the effort of imagining it, then smiled. ‘It does and all! Well a palindrome, eh? You learn something every day.’ She gazed into the fire for a minute, then, ‘Oxo!’ she said triumphantly, ‘the drink, Oxo.’
‘Yes.’ I sipped my tea. I had drunk tea in so many houses and I liked it strong like this. I could almost feel the fur growing on my tongue. I did not feel like Trixie. I did not want to be Trixie. I thought I would try to be Ada. Although I did not, still do not, know who Ada is.
‘Well,’ Doll said after a moment. ‘Ask no questions and all that … but it don’t take a detective to see you’re a Salvationist.’
‘Was.’
‘You was a Salvationist. What is it, darlin’. In trouble?’
I shook my head. ‘Not the usual sort.’
‘Usual sort! I’ve seen the lot! There isn’t no usual sort. Here, this isn’t some Salvation stunt?’ Doll said leaning forward, smiling but only half-joking, ‘I save your life, you save my soul … nothing like that?’
‘No!’ I was me again. I felt a weight descend. It was no good, I was Trixie. Speaking with the other voice, that I must call Ada’s, I had felt different, fun and flippant, with a lightness in my limbs that I had never known before. Carefree, is the word. Whereas I am loaded down with care. I felt envious. Envious of part of myself? I came to understand that my body was not only mine but shared with this … this … stranger. Ada.
I thought she was nicer than me. I was envious. So I tried to be her, pretended. And got it wrong.
The room we sat in had a mirror. Oval, like the mirror, hanging over the fireplace. All it reflected, from where I sat was the dark red curtains, a picture on the opposite wall of a bird, br
ight, maybe a cockatoo.
‘I wanted to end it,’ I said, my Trixie-voice heavy.
‘Well that much was obvious. You’re not … up the spout?’ She looked at my stomach. I looked down at the long rip in my skirt.
‘No.’
‘Get that off you and we’ll have it mended. You can’t go out like that, not round here. Where do you live, anyrate?’
‘Nowhere,’ I replied. ‘I had a house, it was my parents’. But I left. There was a woman staying there, a woman who sold her baby.’
‘Sold her baby? What do you mean, sold it?’
‘She said she hadn’t. I put her up when she had nowhere to go. She said I stole her husband’s things, he’s dead. Died of drink, only I don’t think he was her husband at all. And then she had a baby, I was there. I saw him being born, and … and then he disappeared. And she said, she said I took him, as if I would, as if I would take a baby and strangle him. She accused me.’
‘Steady on, girl. You never did it, of course you never?’
‘No, of course not. She must have sold him, she must have.’
‘Yes.’
‘Poor women do such things.’
Doll laughed, a high-pitched laugh, odd in a woman with such a deep voice. ‘You don’t have to tell me what poor women do, darlin’, I’m what you might call an expert.’
The door-bell rang, and she got up and twitched the curtain. I saw her pass across the mirror. She stood with her head on one side, listening. The front door was opened: a female voice, a male voice, a female voice, a laugh, the door closing, two pairs of footsteps on the stairs. Doll smiled, settled back down.
‘Only selling your baby …’ She pursed her lips. ‘That’s beyond the pale, anything where nippers are concerned. There’s sin and there’s sin, see.’
I nodded. ‘But she accused me.’
‘So – you thought you’d top yourself?’
‘No, not just because of that … I am very strange.’
‘You’re telling me. So, are they after you – the coppers I mean?’
‘No, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to leave it all. It all went sour. I hate that house.’
‘Ada, you never had nothing to do with it, did you?’
‘No!’
‘All right, all right. So long as that’s straight. So what do you want to do now?’
She poured more tea from the brown pot. She poked the fire so that it collapsed in on itself and added another scuttleful of coal. I saw that she was handsome in a massive way, her hair too black to be God’s handiwork alone, her face deeply lined but still pleasing because of her frequent smile.
What did I want? I didn’t know. Only never to see that house again, nor Mary and Harold. Only, if I was not to die, to start again.
I thought I could start again by pretending to be Ada, a very different woman. I thought if I pretended hard enough, maybe I could be her.
The cat jumped on to Doll’s lap. She blew across the surface of her tea. ‘So Ada,’ she said, ‘let’s think. You was on your way to the pearly gates when you was unexpectedly held up as you might say.’ I nodded. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the coldness of the water rinsing away to nothing but there was too much life in the room, the fire crackling, the cat purring, Doll’s chair creaking, the sounds of movements and voices elsewhere in the house. The door-bell rang again and Doll waited to hear the four feet on the stairs before she continued.
‘Now, if you had had it, you’d of required no baggage. No cash, no clothes, no shoes, no nothing.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But you’re still here. You’ve got nothing have you? And even that’s ripped. Get it off, girl, go on. I’ve seen it all before. I’ll get it sewn.’
I took off my skirt and stood in my stockings by the fire while she took it to be mended by one of the girls.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Doll asked when she returned, listening for a moment to footsteps descending.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nice legs, anyrate.’ She held out a silky dressing-gown for me to put on, but then she caught sight of my tattoo. ‘What in hell’s name’s that?’ She bent down to look. ‘Blimey …’ she touched it with her forefinger. ‘Beautiful,’ she said, and then she began to laugh, landing back in her chair with a big puff of air. ‘You in your bleeding uniform. Miss Butter Wouldn’t Melt … I’ve never seen a nicer one than that … nor in a nicer place … What they wouldn’t pay …’ she started, sobering. Then, ‘No, don’t worry … this is a clean house, proper house, all that works here works willing.’
‘I don’t know where to go,’ I said, and then, to my horror, I began to cry. It was repulsive, my face all stretched, hot tears like wet insects scurrying down my cheeks.
‘Here …’ Doll sat me down again. My shoulders shook. I don’t know how long I cried for but I felt I could have cried for years. I didn’t know how I would ever stop.
Next thing, she’d taken me to a small box-room. Tiny, nothing in it only a narrow bed. There was a small window, no curtains, full of black sky. I was still crying when she left me there to sleep. I hadn’t washed and I felt filthy, my hands smelled horrible, all the traces clinging to them of the terrible day. Even when I’d stopped crying my breath came in shivery gasps and I lay filled with disgust for myself, for everything in the world.
But I felt, also, as I calmed down, something else. I felt relief. Because now someone knew me. Doll had seen my tattoo: she had seen me cry: she had heard me speak in Ada’s voice and my own. I hadn’t said about my money, that I was rich, so that was a sort of lie. She thought I had nothing, that I needed help. But I liked that feeling. I wanted to be helped.
I lay in the narrow lumpy bed, afraid that I would roll off. I had no idea what the morning would bring. It was as if I had come to the edge of the world, as if the world was flat and there was nothing solid ahead of me, only clouds, only gauzy grey. I strained my eyes into the clouds until I slept.
All night there were goings on in the house, the door-bell ringing, feet on the stairs, voices, laughter, movement. But still, I slept. And I dreamed too, in vivid snatches as if a hand was flicking through a bright picture book. Most were nonsense. But one, I remember still. It was Mary and Harold’s wedding, only the man called Harold was another man altogether, a man called Frank who looked like the man who stared at me in the street. All through the wedding he kept his eye on me and I knew I was his and that after the wedding it was me that he would carry to bed. During the singing, Mary removed her blouse to show her breasts and a wreath of lilies was tattooed around each nipple. She came towards me and said, ‘These are for you, Trixie,’ and when I touched them, the milk flowed like two streams.
Out of the bath and by the fire, all shivery in my dressing-gown that I’ve had for donkey’s years. I thought I’d never get out, the water getting colder and colder and my skin going blue. Gave myself a fright, drifting off. You can die in a bath, old dears do die. Hypothermia, or drowning. You have to watch yourself, living alone with nobody to care whether you’re alive or dead.
Something not right.
Please let it be all right.
BOY
I am getting out
I am
Just you watch
That fat old woman
And the other one
She thinks she can keep me in
If I had wanted to get out before
I would have
But now I am ready
And Trixie and Ada will have to let me be
It is my turn to be
I will out
She will crack
They will be sorry
Watch out
When I’m about
FILM STAR
I found a lighter. What is that other hymn, the one I used to like? Oh I know. He who would valiant be, ’gainst all disaster. A lighter, candles for light and warmth. One of them is nearly finished, just a spike of black wick, a hollow where the wax has run down. S
he’ll have to come up. I am uncomfortable, cold, thirsty. This is almost embarrassing it is so, so stupid.
I opened the wardrobe. It was not easy. It is a hideous thing. How did it get up here? Too big for the stairs, too big for the door. Impossible as a ship in a bottle. Grotesque. If it was an animal it would be a … it would be an amphibian, a giant toad squatting. There were no matches anywhere else so I thought I’d look inside it. The wood is almost black. I wonder if it’s ebony? Double doors – locked. I crashed against them, pulled and rattled, pushed against one door with my foot and pulled the handle until the lock gave way.
The door swung open and I shuddered. A blast of cold, stale, masculine air came out, masculine because it smelled of pipe tobacco but sweetened with old perfume. Coats and dresses hanging up, crammed, crushed together, shelves of crushed and tangled things, a fat brown-paper parcel. I stuck my hands into the dark cloth shadows to feel the textures: velvet, satin, tweed and fur. Because I was so cold, I slid a mink coat off its hanger and put it on. I despise people who wear fur, but the light silky weight of it, the slithery perfumed lining made me feel … I don’t know, it seems so stupid and anyway I’m drunk, three sheets to the wind, my dad would have said, but it made me feel glamorous.
Reflected dimly in the mirror, wrapped in the black fur with my spiky white hair, I looked like a stranger. The cold fur started to warm me. Stuck to the pocket lining, I found an old peppermint. I put it in my mouth, teased off the fluff with my tongue.
I went through the other pockets of the garments in the wardrobe; found coins – pre-decimal mostly – lipsticks, dead flowers, sweet papers, a tortoiseshell comb. In the jacket of a hairy tweed suit, I found a pipe, half an ounce of St Bruno and a square silver lighter. I flicked and flicked it, and to my relief eventually it lit so that I could light the candles. The candlelight flickered on the dusty mirrors and on the black skylight. The light made the darkness darker. The edges of the room disappeared, the edges and the corners.
The Private Parts of Women Page 22