How to Measure a Cow

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How to Measure a Cow Page 21

by Margaret Forster


  ‘What kind of not very well?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Every sort,’ Liz said. ‘I’d be no use. I’d just be sitting there feeling awful.’

  Claire wouldn’t accept this as an excuse. Liz, she said, could surely manage to come for half an hour. ‘I need you,’ said Claire. ‘I need you, and Molly.’

  In the end they both came, though Molly was constantly looking at her watch from the moment she arrived, and Liz immediately collapsed on to the sofa and closed her eyes.

  ‘Right,’ said Claire, ‘what can we do for Tara?’

  ‘For Tara?’ Liz said. ‘We’ve done enough for her. It’s more a question of what to do about her.’

  ‘All right,’ said Claire, ‘what, then?’

  ‘Just be generally supportive,’ said Molly.

  ‘And how do we do that?’ said Liz.

  ‘Well, just by trying to be understanding,’ Molly replied.

  ‘But,’ said Liz, ‘that’s the point. Do we understand her? Do we believe her version of events, all that stuff she told us at the reunion? Do we believe that smart, clever, cunning Tara never sussed Tom out long before she said she did? And the murder. A bit extreme, no, a bit beyond understanding?’

  ‘It happened,’ Claire murmured.

  ‘Oh, it happened,’ said Liz, ‘but my point is, we can’t understand it, so “trying to be understanding” is a waste of time. We either accept Tara as she is, and help in practical ways, seeing her occasionally but not getting involved again, or we decide enough is enough, and make no effort to keep in touch.’

  ‘But we’re her oldest friends,’ Claire said, ‘we can’t desert her.’

  ‘We can,’ Liz said.

  ‘But we won’t,’ said Molly, ‘not completely.’

  They were sitting in silence when Tara arrived, still wearing the deliberately dreary clothes she’d worn for the interview.

  Liz sighed.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said. ‘Little Orphan Annie day?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tara, ‘but it had no effect. They won’t help me, except to send me to one of their tame therapists.’ She slumped on to the floor, back to the sofa, where Liz was still lying.

  ‘And what did you ask them for?’ Molly said.

  ‘Basic needs,’ Tara said.

  ‘But, Tara,’ Claire said, ‘you’ve got enough money for basic needs, you told us you had.’

  ‘Not for living in London, without a job.’

  ‘London?’ Claire said. ‘You’re going back to London, after …’

  ‘Yes, after,’ Tara said. ‘It was a mistake to leave. I’m going back to the old me.’

  ‘With some refinements, I hope,’ Liz said.

  ‘Yes,’ Tara said. ‘I was wild and impetuous, I didn’t think things through, but I do now. I’m totally reformed.’

  Nobody said anything. Eventually, Molly, rather nervously, said she really, really would have to go. She got up and gathered her things, dropping her scarf as she picked up her bag, and then her bag as she tried to wrap her scarf round her neck with one hand. ‘Oh, help!’ she said.

  ‘Molly,’ Tara said, ‘can I come and stay with you whenever I need to?’

  ‘Of course, sweetheart,’ Molly said, and there was a quick embrace before she rushed out, flustered. Slowly, Liz levered herself up.

  ‘I’d better try to get home before I completely collapse,’ she said.

  ‘Can I come and visit soon?’ Tara said.

  ‘Soon? How soon?’ Liz said.

  ‘That’s so like you, Liz, really welcoming.’

  ‘I am welcoming, when I’m ready to be welcoming,’ Liz said, not at all put out.

  ‘So I need to give you notice?’

  ‘Most certainly,’ said Liz. ‘Lots of notice, then I’ll think about it.’

  Left with Claire, Tara sighed heavily. She watched Claire gathering up the coffee things they’d used.

  ‘Mrs Neat and Tidy,’ Tara said.

  Claire said nothing, just completed filling the tray and disappeared with it to the kitchen. Tara waited. Back she came, standing in the doorway looking at her. ‘Tara,’ she said, then stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ said Tara. ‘You were going to say?’

  Claire shook her head.

  ‘Thought better of it?’ said Tara. ‘Very wise. That’s what I’m going to do in the future, think before I speak. Claire, can I stay the night here, tonight? I don’t feel like going to Barney’s place. I’ll pack up there tomorrow and go I know not where.’ She laughed at that last bit and said, ‘Oh, God, hark at me.’

  Slowly, Claire came and sat down beside her. ‘Tara,’ she said, ‘Dan will be home in an hour or so, and I’m afraid he – that is, there might be a problem. I mean, of course you can stay, but he’s not going to welcome you, let’s put it that way, and—’

  ‘Let’s not,’ said Tara. ‘Let’s face it. Dan hates me, always has done. He thinks I’m a bad influence. Well, maybe I have been, though you’re much too secure for me to have had much effect. If you want me to go, because Dan won’t like me staying, fine, I’ll go. Nothing more important than abiding by a husband’s wishes. Is there? I always abided by Tom’s, until I didn’t. I didn’t even realise I was abiding by his wishes. It took me ages. I thought I just wanted to do what he wanted to do, I thought we were in perfect agreement. Making Tom happy, pleased with me, was all that mattered. And then, so slowly, I started to notice that I was doing what Tom wanted to avoid disappointing him. Little things at first. Choice of restaurants, that kind of trivial thing. And then bigger disagreements, like where we’d go on holiday. He liked big, flash hotels in Spain and France and I didn’t. He liked sitting by pools, drinking, having sessions in the spa, and I wanted to explore and really see a country.’

  ‘Well,’ said Claire, hesitantly, ‘that sort of argument is normal, isn’t it, between married couples? I mean, Dan and I—’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tara, ‘Dan and you … there’s no comparison. You don’t get what I’m on about, Claire. You didn’t know Tom. You didn’t know how any challenge to his will enraged him. As long as I was docile and adoring and admiring, he was fine. But I couldn’t keep it up.’ She smiled, enjoying Claire’s confusion, put on her thin jacket, and gave Claire a peck on the cheek. ‘I’m off,’ she said.

  ‘This is awful,’ Claire said. ‘I didn’t mean … I don’t want you to think … Oh, I should never have said what I did …’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ Tara said, and left.

  Barney’s place was soon packed up. Next morning, Tara loaded her bags into the second-hand car she’d bought at the local garage, and set off slowly to London. She was pleased that though the traffic was heavy, her confidence seemed undiminished by what had happened. This car had automatic gears, so she didn’t have to use her still-painful left leg, now out of plaster but stiff. She was going back. It was the only thing to do.

  ‘Have you heard from her?’ Claire asked Molly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Molly, ‘I’m shocked. The idea of it. What was she thinking of?’

  ‘Well, it makes a kind of sense,’ Liz said, ‘facing up to things, that sort of attitude. And it’s where she was happy, well, happy for a long time.’

  ‘But, Liz,’ Claire said, ‘she can’t go back to that happiness. She wrecked it.’

  ‘No,’ said Liz, ‘he wrecked it, as I understand it.’

  ‘She’ll never have got a flat there, or even a room,’ Molly said. ‘That area is phenomenally expensive now. She wouldn’t even be able to park – she hasn’t got a permit.’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Molly,’ said Liz, ‘this is Tara we’re talking about. She’ll find ways and means, you’ll see.’

  They hadn’t met for a while. Liz’s not-feeling-well had proved to be a virus from which she’d only just properly recovered, and Molly’s youngest had come home suffering from chickenpox and needing her tender loving care. They were all uneasy, none of them having heard from Tara since they’d seen her at Claire’s a month ago. The mobile phone
number they had for her was no longer in use, so they had to wait for her to contact them, as she surely would. They were all expecting to be surprised. But then, when Tara did text them, they were disappointed not to be surprised. The information given in their texts was brief and to the point: ‘Studio flat found in old house. Job serving in a pharmacy starts tomorrow.’ Not much to analyse there.

  ‘I can’t see Tara as a shop assistant,’ Liz said.

  ‘We couldn’t see her working in a factory,’ Molly said. ‘Anyway, she’s got a job, she’s got somewhere to live. Let’s stop fretting about her. She’ll contact us again when she needs us.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Liz.

  She was here, in the same house they’d lived in years ago. It had changed internally, of course. Each floor was now split up into these studio flats, merely one-room apartments, with a tiny kitchen in an alcove and an even smaller shower room behind a plywood wall in a corner. The conversion had been cleverly done, though, giving the impression of space. There was no furniture, of course, which helped this impression along, and so did the new laminate floor, and all the white paint. No curtains or blinds or shutters on the windows. No need, when the top floor was so high up. The room was twenty-two paces, front to back, with a view of lots of greenery out of the rear window. She would furnish it sparsely, none of the clutter Tom had accumulated.

  She knew who she’d been, here. It helped her, being here, to understand what had happened, how far she’d come since those days. Too far. But she couldn’t go back and do things differently so all she could do was go forward, take another route to the life she should have had. Standing there, in that empty room, she tried to empty herself of all the rage and hate she’d felt when Tom’s ‘business’ was exposed. She should have done this over the last decade – she’d been given enough opportunity – but she had resisted hollowing herself out. Time, now, to do it, to be Tara again (no more pretending to be Sarah Scott), to take the good parts of herself and use them to subdue the bad parts. If it could be done.

  She went to the window and looked out. Tom used to do that a lot, but she never knew what he was looking at, or for, so intensely. In the early days she would come up behind him and put her arms round his waist and lay her head on his back. He was solid and strong and she loved this. She’d given him an easy death. Nothing bloody or violent. She’d been friendly that night, suggested they eat together again. Some pills, the right pills, pills he was ignorant enough to believe were merely painkillers so kindly provided by her for his headache. Then alcohol, wine and spirits, over a good dinner. Then sleep. Then waiting several hours. Then making the phone call for the ambulance. Then the autopsy. Then herself confessing. But Tom was safely dead. Her humiliation, the humiliation of having been completely fooled by him – she, the smart, clever Tara – at an end. She’d felt no regret. Some fear, yes, but no regret. She still didn’t feel any, no remorse at all, except for wishing she’d seen through him sooner.

  This, she knew, was what puzzled people most. It puzzled her, too. Again and again she trawled through those years of being with Tom, looking for signs she might have missed, trying to work out if she’d overlooked the significance of certain words, actions, even expressions on his face. But no, nothing. Her only sense of unease had been about the money rolling in. The newspapers were full of ‘people in the City’ being paid vast amounts, but even so. She commented on this, and he said, ‘Are you complaining? I work hard.’ She wondered if it was this ‘hard work’ that was making him more and more irritable. And he seemed suddenly nervous, the very opposite of how he’d always been, developing strange little tics around his mouth which he clearly wasn’t aware of. The silent treatment got worse, too – it was as though he couldn’t bear any noise.

  She decided he must be ill. He’d lost weight, and looked increasingly drawn. But any suggestion that he should maybe consult a doctor was met with fury, and so was her advice to take a break. He laughed at this idea. It wasn’t a happy laugh. He wouldn’t talk to her about what was worrying him, claiming he was perfectly OK and she should stop fussing. For months, she put to the back of her mind the growing suspicion that some sort of drug use might be involved. It would explain his agitation and then the spells of seeming vague, unsure where he was. She knew that he used cannabis, and she’d long ago had to accept that it never seemed to do him any harm, and he wasn’t going to give it up. He’d tried to get her to smoke it with him but she’d refused, saying drugs were a total no-no for her, though she didn’t tell him why, didn’t confess why she was afraid of them. Maybe she should have done, but all her life it had felt too intimate a thing to tell anyone about her mother. When it came out during her trial it had caused her such intense pain that she could hardly bear it. Anyway, she’d never told Tom. Only now could she see how significant this was, what it should have told her about her relationship with him.

  But if he was using something stronger than cannabis, she found no trace of it. She looked for clues, but there were no marks of syringes on his skin, no suspicious bruises. She had to dismiss drugs being the cause of his strange moods. She hoped they would pass before their marriage entirely disintegrated. Then one day, she found him crouched in a chair, weeping. It was such a relief to comfort him, to urge him to tell her, at last, what was wrong. ‘I’m in a mess,’ he said. He told her he’d got involved with a group of men. They thought he’d cheated them, and maybe he had, just a little. He’d been too clever, got into ‘certain deals’ without realising the consequences. After he’d told her this, he wouldn’t say any more. Her questions went unanswered. She could sense the fear in him without knowing what caused it, but it seemed impossible to credit that all this terror was just about money and some negotiation that had gone wrong. It took courage to demand to be told the truth. She asked him, point blank, if these ‘certain deals’, which had apparently landed him in such trouble, were drug deals. He didn’t reply. So she knew.

  She should have left him immediately. She should have sought help, and a place to stay, from Liz or Molly (not from Claire, definitely not from Claire). But she didn’t. She stayed, waiting for something to happen which would force her hand. Maybe Tom would run away. Maybe the police would arrive. Meanwhile, she hardly saw her husband. When they were both in the house, they ate separately, they slept separately. Few words passed between them. Her silence was now as deep as Tom’s, but it was of a different nature. She thought constantly of what drug dealers were responsible for and her revulsion grew. She felt all the time as though she was boiling up inside, that the pressure of her hatred would make her explode. She would not leave Tom: that, she decided, would be cowardly. It would make her guilty too. So she had a choice: either she went to the police (though she had no evidence to give them) or she dealt with Tom herself. She knew she was not thinking straight but she deliberately ignored the whisper of a sane voice within her that told her that killing Tom was mad, mad, and wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the supply of drugs throughout the world. But still she wanted to do it. Why was that so hard for others to understand? And she gave him an easy death.

  She began to unpack the few things she’d brought with her. She was not now ruined, or cowed, though she acknowledged that she shouldn’t have taken the law into her own hands. But it had seemed to her that her own hands were perfectly capable. The judge, sentencing her, had made a big thing of how cold-blooded she’d been, and she had. It hadn’t been a crime of passion. On the contrary, it had been carefully calculated. Killing was straightforward so long as it was understood what the consequence would be. She’d understood that, and she hadn’t cared. She’d thought of killing herself afterwards but felt no inclination to. Prison was not attractive – she’d had no illusions about what would await her – but she’d thought she could endure it. And then years later, she would start again.

  She’d done it, too, only not the right way. She’d wasted time, trying to eradicate herself and turn into another woman when what she should have done, what sh
e was now going to do, was be herself but a better self. All the experts she’d been seen by had worked so hard to call her past to account, and she’d gone along with this. But it was a mistake. Constantly revisiting, re-examining the past didn’t help at all. It didn’t bring her to the state of remorse they wanted. The past mustn’t be allowed to flood into the present and the future. She was determined to put a stop to all the sudden, inexplicable images which constantly threatened to overcome her. Some were banal to the point of stupefaction, but some were frightening, from a far past she couldn’t identify. She would have to develop a trick to deal with them.

  She would invite Claire, Molly and Liz to her flat – soon, but not too soon. Not all together, not the first time. She fully intended to keep in touch with them, and show them that she valued their concern. And she would make new friends. She wouldn’t cut herself off from new contacts simply because she was afraid of what the cost would be. She felt a faded version of her old self, but then, on the verge of real middle age, it was to be expected. She still, she reckoned, had time to prove herself as someone more worth caring about than a woman who had killed her husband and didn’t regret it.

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