“It’s the insurance who are paying,” Gloria said. “So you don’t have to thank us.”
I told them to keep the money. They think me generous, but the truth is I cannot bear the thought of profiting in any way from Pipits’ demise.
Another Christmas has passed. I was invited to spend it with the Bygone family but didn’t. Christmas with them, in Alice’s house, was a penance I had no intention of paying. I told them I was invited to visit friends in London, that the invitation had been given with so much notice that I couldn’t get out of it. They don’t need to know I have not kept up with any of the people I once knew in this city. I expect Bert and Helen count them as friends now.
Gloria and Henry plan to build a modern house on Pipits’ land. The nerve of them. Hatred for the happy pair coursed through my body. They say they are grateful for the use of Alice’s house but hope I will come back to live there when they vacate it. Well, Gloria says it. I doubt that Henry hopes for it.
I may be distanced from Pipits, but it is not forgotten. I have its ashes on a chest of drawers at my bedside. We lie together as though in state, like those stone effigies of kings and queens, slumbering in the great cathedrals. At night, I light a candle and talk things over with House.
I think of the land that is left, the land that should be mine. I think of Henry, building a new home on that land, and the desire to be rid of him is still strong in me. “Third time lucky,” I say to House. “Goals to aim for.”
Noah has passed his second birthday. He walks, and talks, and I see from the photographs Gloria sends that he has her mouth, Henry’s halo of golden hair. I sent him the best soft toy that I could bag for his birthday: a polar bear with a black velvet nose and pink paws. It had a fifty-pound price tag hanging from its ear. Pretty steep, I thought. I decided not to pay it.
So, while I wait for inspiration of how to dispatch Henry, I have taken to shoplifting, such a crude way to describe what I have turned into a kind of magic. Now you see it, now you don’t. It is not about the stealing but about the game, about outwitting the store detectives, about reading signals, about giving the heart a workout and enlivening the day. It is about the hot blast of excitement as I exit a store with my prize. I am skillful at analyzing the shop assistants’ body language, at seeing what lies beneath their made-up faces; this one dense, that one sly.
Taking things that catch my eye helps with the boredom, makes me feel alive, if only for an hour or so. My first stab at it was in Liberty’s jewelry department. I had been wandering around for an hour or so, and had even bought some makeup with a credit card, so it wasn’t on my mind to take something without paying for it.
It was no surprise, though, that I took umbrage against the woman who was serving me. She was uppity for a shop assistant, the kind who pathetically associates herself with the class of her customers. I doubt that she could have afforded any of the items she was hired to sell. Her eyes scanned me from head to foot as though adding up the sum of me and finding that it didn’t amount to much.
I decided to give her the runaround, to put some trouble into her day. Like the jewelry she was selling, she was a piece of design herself: smart with a touch of the arty about her, blunt-cut hair, big statement necklace, dark brown nail polish, heavy man’s watch on her slim wrist. She spoke to me as though I were in need of her advice.
I attempted to slip one of the bracelets she was showing me into my bag while her back was turned, but I wasn’t quick enough. I think that she knew what I was about, because she became very haughty and offhand with me. I gave her back as good as I got, requesting to examine a half-dozen things I feigned interest in before strolling off without thanking her.
The failed attempt thrilled me. Hardly a day goes by now when I don’t return to my apartment with some prize. I keep it all in the big coat cupboard in the hall. It gives me a warm feeling to look at it, to know that I have left my mark somewhere.
I confess to but don’t complain about feeling excluded from everything in this new life. People in the street pass me without a glance, waiters forget my order, cabs sail past despite my flagging them down. I guess my disguise is working. I had thought the Mayfair Lady type so ubiquitous in the city as to be anonymous; it seems that she is invisible, too.
I keep myself busy. I read a bit, troll the shops in daylight, and drive the neon-lit streets at night. The driving ban is over now, not that it ever made the slightest difference to me.
There are times when I catch sight of my reflection in a shop window and have to hunt for myself hidden beneath the painted veil I have contrived. I hug to myself the knowledge of how well I am concealed. Even Gloria would walk past this overdone woman without a second glance.
Sleep, as usual, is hard to come by. I pace around the apartment in the early hours with only the radio and London Dry, my favorite brand of gin, for company. The little catnaps I take are plagued with dreams of endless corridors of white space: no sound or color, only vistas of bleached-out nothingness.
When I first returned to the city, I took long walks by the Thames. So many convenient bridges above deep enough water, such a powerful pull waiting to embrace me, to reunite me with House. But the secret weapon of my own death has no target now. I don’t believe the Bygones would mourn me for long. And, besides, I am a good swimmer, and instinct would probably have kicked in, making a fool of me. I gave up the notion and decided to stick out time here for a bit. Life has meaning while there is land, Stash land, and Henry still to deal with.
Nothing lessens my loss, however. I feel it as I cross the road dodging the traffic on a green light, as I take my last drink at night, speak on the phone to Gloria: especially then. In Gloria’s voice, her giggle, the lilt at the end of her sentences, I feel my childhood come to life. I don’t thank her for it.
* * *
THIS MORNING I WAS caught out in my little game of lifting merchandise from stores without paying for it. I confess that it was my carelessness, and not their cleverness, that gave me away. It was early in the day, so it was just a warm-up as far as I was concerned: a lipstick tester from the Dior counter in Harvey Nichols; not my color, a pale frosty sort of purple. I cannot imagine whose color it would be. I dropped it into my bag as I called over the assistant. Boldness is the thing. Do it right in front of them and they don’t see.
I think that at some level I must have sensed that I was being watched, because I felt a bit hesitant about leaving the store. I took the escalator to the fifth floor and spent longer than usual over coffee. Afterward, at the beauty salon on the ground floor, I decided on impulse to have my eyebrows dyed. They have struggled to grow back as thick as they were before the fire and have lost something of their previous shape. I thought about a manicure but decided against it.
“More arched,” I told the girl. “Much more arched.”
I paid, looked around me, and when no one seemed interested, I headed for the exit. I intended to make my way along Brompton Road to the Armani store to take a light lunch in its restaurant, more for somewhere to sit than to eat, but as I left through the big glass doors onto Sloane Street, a woman put her hand on my shoulder very firmly and spun me around.
“Would you mind coming with me, madam? I am a store detective.”
It was so corny a statement, I couldn’t resist a smirk. I went without a fuss. I didn’t want to attract an audience.
I followed her to a tiny room where she offered me a seat, which I declined. I was an inch or two taller than her, and sitting would have deprived me of that advantage.
“Empty your handbag please, madam. Onto the desk.”
I didn’t like her tone, or the sour whiff of her breath, and I don’t take orders, so I passed my bag to her, shrugging as though I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“I’m rather late for a lunch meeting,” I said, looking at my watch. She didn’t reply.
I feigned surprise when, routing through my things, she found the little bullet of purple with the tester mark on i
t. She looked disappointed, as though she had been expecting to find something more substantial.
“It must have fallen in, as I was trying out the colors,” I said.
“Mm . . . or possibly intentionally taken?” she questioned in a flat south London accent.
“Oh, surely you cannot believe that anyone would wish to steal such a silly little thing.” I said it with the sort of posh disbelief that I thought in keeping with Mayfair Lady. Friendly enough but with a touch of formality that indicated I was not about to play her victim.
The windowless room was very stuffy, and the palms of my hands had begun to sweat, but I stood with my shoulders back, composed in a way that I imagined might intimidate her.
“You’d be surprised what people will steal, madam.”
“Yes, I suppose so. I can’t say that is something that I have given much thought to.”
“I could call the police in, you know. It would be very embarrassing for you.”
“You could, of course. I imagine, though, that they have better things to do. In any case, just look at me. Is it likely that I would even wear that color?”
“I don’t wear lipstick myself, madam. I have no idea what color you might wear, but that is hardly the point.”
Odd as it seems, I was enjoying our banter. She was no match for me, but it felt good to fence. No way would she be taking it further. She obviously thought I had stolen something new, something of value. Holding up the little purple tester to the police would have made her look foolish.
“You seem like a nice lady,” she said. “So I’m going to let you off with a warning this time. You wouldn’t want your name in the papers now, would you?”
“Isn’t that what everyone wants these days,” I said with a smile. “STOP PRESS. Police find used lipstick in woman’s handbag.”
“Yes, madam, very droll.” She couldn’t resist a smile herself.
I must be more careful. It has all been so easy that perhaps I was getting overconfident.
* * *
GLORIA AND HENRY HAVE engaged a prize-winning architect to build them a new house. It is to be a confection of steel and glass, a modern-day palace to stand where “the old house,” as they so pitilessly call Pipits now, once stood. It’s as if Pipits were some useless saggy thing they are glad to be rid of. It is no surprise to me how bereft of true feelings the Beloveds are.
I looked the architect up online, and she is indeed a prize winner. Rather beautiful, too, if you like the pale and fragile look. There are pictures of her with some minor celebrities, and one of her standing in front of a house she designed that looks more like an arc, a rainbow of silver and white, than someone’s home.
I have to say her work is better than most of the modern stuff you see around and rather masculine to have come from such a delicate-looking woman. I wonder how Henry and Gloria came across her. She won’t be cheap, but Henry’s mother has offered to pay for her services, in lieu of leaving them the money in her will.
They are free now to do as they wish, to build whatever ghastly vision appeals to them. Blithely unaware of their part in it, they take no responsibility for the misfortune of losing Pipits. Still, I keep my agony hidden. My voice is calm when I speak to them. It is wiser to charm than to rage, and on the phone they cannot see the expression on my face.
Gloria says she has never seen Henry so utterly absorbed in a project. He is elated at the thought of the innovative building that is to be their new home and is involving himself in every little detail, choosing with care the doorknobs and showerheads and even the light switches, which are to be sensor operated.
“Just a wave of the hand,” Gloria gushes on one of her endless calls.
“And let there be light,” I join in, as if I care.
“Yes, and all this, Betty, before even one brick has been laid.”
I ask her where she and Henry found this just-too-wonderful architect. There is a noticeable pause, a ladylike little cough.
“From Bert,” she says brightly, recovering herself. “She is building a house for them in Spain.”
Of course she is. No call with Gloria ends without her picking at my scabs.
She thanks me for letting them live at Alice’s house, invites me to come and stay. I am not ready for that yet. Will I ever be again?
22
A COCKY NEW COUPLE HAS moved into the first-floor apartment beneath mine. I had a letter from the agency that takes care of the apartment’s communal areas, informing me of their arrival. They are newlyweds. He is something to do with finance; she is a buyer for some upmarket catalog, so she travels a lot.
I watched them move in from behind my sitting room curtains. A smart moving van, men in uniform, boxes all labeled nicely. No shortage of money, then. They are a tall and short pair. Wifey is the tall one, athletic-looking, with a halo of corkscrew curls around her freckly face; and Hubby a bit overweight, but quite good-looking in that city-boy way, striped shirt and short messed-up hair.
It took no time at all to discover they are beyond noisy: every kind of music played at full blast so that the bass note beats its mindless way through my floors until I think I will go mad; the volume on their television is stuck on maximum so that I can hardly hear my radio, no matter how loud I have it. Doors cannot simply be closed but must be banged shut.
They chatter boisterously in the hallway, where they leave a folding bike and a bright red helmet. I intend to speak to them about that. They have no right to park anything in the communal area.
They are not the first occupants of the flat downstairs I have had to have words with over similar annoying habits. The owner lives abroad and rents the place out so that one is always meeting strangers in the lift. A good enough reason for me to take the stairs, which I prefer to do anyway.
Bert was very friendly with the last lot of tenants, although I found them nosy in the extreme. When I moved back in on my own, I had to snub them to keep them at a distance. I suppose when they left, I should have returned the set of keys they gave into Bert’s keeping, in case of an emergency.
“Fire or theft,” they had joked. “Rape and pillage.”
They must have forgotten they had given them to him, I suppose. I found the keys when I was clearing out the drawer in the desk where Bert had left a mishmash collection of pens and rubber bands, aspirins, and the like. They were in an envelope clearly labeled in his bold writing.
I don’t suppose I would ever have used them if the catalog and city-boy couple hadn’t complained. Not in the place five minutes, and they are already acting as though they have rights over the entire building. They cannot stand my walking the floors during their sleeping hours, apparently. My radio, they say, is on all night and is so loud that it keeps them from their slumber. My radio is loud!
“We want to be good neighbors,” the husband says, standing solemnly at my door. “But if you could just keep it down.”
Can you believe it? They are the noisiest people imaginable, and they have the cheek to complain about me keeping them awake with what they refer to as my “patrolling.”
I have no desire to charm them, so I will be ignoring their complaint. If I want to keep the BBC World Service on all night, I will, and at whatever volume I choose. Why should I change my habits for them? If they are that bothered, let them rent somewhere else.
They phoned me once at three o’clock in the morning to ask if I would mind stopping my pacing and turning my radio down. I could tell that they were on loudspeaker: I heard the wife sigh, and there was the tiniest echo on the line. He had an early meeting, he said, and she was recovering from jet lag, and they needed their sleep. I told them I would do what I liked in my own apartment and not to call me again.
I reminded myself that they were merely annoying transients. I should not have to change my habits to suit them. I began wearing my high heels as I pottered around in the evening, and copycatting the banging of their doors.
Then, a month or so later, the letter—the-first-real-sh
ot-of-the-war—came from their lawyer, and the battle lines were drawn. I was damaging their peace of mind, their right to a stress-free life. What about their intrusion into my life, what about my rights?
I must say I was engaged more than upset at the letter. It felt good to have a skirmish that was nothing to do with Gloria and Henry. Getting the Stash land into my keeping, no matter what ultimately gets built on it, is my priority, but this fracas with the downstairs tenants was a not unwelcome distraction.
I lit the candle, put my hand on the box that contains the ashes of beloved House, and explained what I was about to do. I could tell that House approved of my plans.
“Sleep, now,” I said. “When the time is right, I will win the war for us. You will be proud of me.”
Two days after I received the letter from their lawyer, I let myself into their apartment with the previous tenant’s keys. I am not sure what I intended to do that first time other than to find out what kind of people I was dealing with. That they were loud and brash I knew. But I needed to know more.
There are four apartments in this building, but quite often I am the only person in residence. The penthouse above me belongs to an American businessman who is hardly ever in occupancy. The complainers are below me on the first floor, and the ground-floor apartment is empty and up for sale. It has been on the market for some time now, due to its lease running out and the cost of renewing it, let alone the poor state it is in. All somewhat off-putting to prospective buyers.
Despite the fact that I had watched them leave, and had checked to make sure their car was gone, I took the stairs down to their hallway and stood listening outside their door until I felt sure of their absence. At first the key didn’t seem to work, and I felt a moment’s disappointment before realizing that they had double locked the door. I turned the key again, and the door swung open.
I had been in the place a couple of times before when Bert and I were invited for drinks with a previous tenant, so I knew the layout. It was not dissimilar to my own apartment: higher ceilings, though, and longer windows, the light brighter. The first floors of these Regency houses were the original reception rooms, so space and light are better in them than in the rest of the house. I had always envied that Bert hadn’t got to this apartment first, even though he said he preferred the coziness of ours.
The Beloveds Page 21