“I know.”
“I asked you not to,” she repeated. “We all knew you couldn’t do it; you were the only person who thought you could. I thought you were going to die.” She might have been an old lady speaking.
“It wasn’t far to fall; it wasn’t deep; I wasn’t going to die.”
“I thought you were,” she said again. After another silence she said, “Why don’t you know what you can and can’t do? Everyone else does.”
She did not say another word but put the muffler back on her ear and shut her eyes. Tears pushed out from under her lashes and ran into the hair at her temples. Clive was too ashamed to stay and watch them. He got up and left the room.
Alone with Tom in the kitchen he got drunk and after that, maudlin and self-pitying. “I let Eliza down,” he said, his head heavy with sorrow, wine and water. “I let everyone down.”
“Not me,” said Tom, shaking his head in sober denial. “I had absolutely no expectations of you in the first place.”
Cider really was delicious, Martha thought, smacking her lips. She noticed a warm, melting sort of drunkenness but it did not feel at all serious—it was only apples, after all. She smiled into her plastic cup.
In the tent the band materialized one by one and, crablike, snuck up onto the stage. We might play; we might not, they seemed to say.
Martha perked up. This was pleasant. No one knew her. She could do as she chose. It was exciting. There were girls whose long hair lay placid on their bare, brown shoulders and men who rocked on their heels and laughed in unison. Screaming children pelted through the throng like a gang of swifts. They—these rowdy, rackety kids—had found a flag and come up with a game: whoever held it had to be chased and caught. The little children and the yelling dogs leaped in the air to try and snatch it.
It was the kind of game that would have caused Eliza’s teeth to chatter in her head. “Don’t make me join in, Mum, please,” she would have begged, twining her fingers through her mother’s. “Can’t I stay here with you?”
It was getting busy at the bar and Martha begged a cigarette from a boy who came to wait beside her. He had a nest of blond hair tied up in an orange bandana. “Do you mind a rollie?” he asked in reply.
“No—but will you make it for me?”
“Honestly!” the boy joked, rolling his eyes. “Here, take this.”
Martha held his glass while his nimble fingers rolled a cigarette. Now her hands were full and so he put it in her mouth and lit it before taking back his drink. Up close—his tanned hands sheltering the lit match—she saw he was not a boy, but only dressed like one. He might have been Tom’s age, or Eliot’s. “Are you on your own?” he asked.
Martha gulped. “Yes—well—I’m staying with…someone, but she’s ill.” When she said this Martha wondered whether every word she spoke tonight would be a lie. No, I’m not married—perhaps those words would come lolling out next. It was cider and loneliness, loosening her tongue, and she did not care; she only wanted to make a friend.
“I’m Jimmy.”
“I’m Martha.”
The band struck a chord and all the dogs barked; the crowd laughed, cheered and pressed into the tent.
The music began and Martha stared at the stage, holding her plastic cup of cider and her cigarette. She felt quite different. Sociable. If Clive were here she would have tugged him to the dance floor by his thumbs, laughing and saying, “You know you’ll like it once you’re up there.”
Clive.
Now that she was drunk she considered him with a little more kindliness. If only she could stay drunk, she thought with a blurry grin, perhaps she could stay married. She was used to it, that was the trouble, but familiarity and easiness—neither of those had much to do with love. Oh! Her head ached with the beating pulse of these thoughts and the noise and clamor around her. Stop my mind; stop my minding. She was bored of herself. I want to get out of my head. “Let’s dance,” she said to Jimmy.
He hid their drinks at the bottom of a tent pole, the two cups tilted against each other. “We’ll come back for them,” he said. He led her towards the stage and they danced amid the merry wriggle, leap and clap of people round them. This is fun, Martha thought, and all at once she was loving it—music, dancing and Jimmy too who was sweet and did not stray too far but took hold of her hand every now and again, to turn her under his arm or spin a slow and solemn circle under hers.
As the music played and they plaited and wove, Martha could not decide whether she was sadder than she had ever been before, or whether this was the happiest moment of her life. All at once she felt sick. She stopped dead and rocked on her feet.
“Are you all right?” shouted Jimmy to her.
“Air—” she managed to say, “sick—”
They stumbled out of the tent together, Jimmy laughing at her white face, and strolled across the field and up the slope, away from the tent and the cars. “Ouff,” said Martha. “Too much cider; too much spinning; not enough to eat; cigarettes.”
“It was pretty hot in there,” said Jimmy. Then he took her hand and held it. She felt his fingers press her wedding ring and he asked, “Does this mean you’re married?”
“Yes,” she said. She waited for her head to stop whirling and then she added, “Well, yes and no. I’m separated.”
She had not said this before: separated. I am separated. It didn’t make sense. We are separated—that was better. But then: “we.” She frowned; “we” was not right. Could she ever be one person again? Eliot was always only one—“She’s a tiger—she goes around on her own”—but Martha belonged to other people—“You’re a lion, Mum. You have to be, because of me and Dad.”
Martha was separated; Eliot was unattached. “She doesn’t speak to her parents,” Eliza had said. “She doesn’t like them.”
Jimmy interrupted her jumbling thoughts and linked her fingers with his. Their two palms pressed together. Am I doing that? she wondered. Aloud, she repeated—as if perhaps she might convince herself—“I’m separated.”
“Good,” said Jimmy in reply. With a deft movement he swung her to face him—as if they were still on the dance floor—and then kissed her, pressing smiling lips against her startled mouth.
“Oh!” She made a surprised sound but of course she had known a kiss was coming since the first cigarette—she had as good as asked him for it: Will you make it for me? That was the way it worked. It was gratifying to have requested something in an old code—only an hour or so ago—and now to have received it. Success! At last there was something to show for this wretched day. She was buoyant with triumph; if Jimmy had not been holding her she might have bobbed away.
The kissing began again and now she was distracted and absorbed because it felt so good and she wanted more, she wanted to be overwhelmed and to stop the grind of that turning millstone in her head. She pushed and pulled at Jimmy a little bit, her hands on his collar; he in answer shifted so that he held her not by the hand but by the body—at her waist—at her shoulders—under her hair. His thumb touched her jaw and he fluttered light, guessing fingers on her cheek. She felt her legs begin to tremble.
She had not expected to want to do this quite so much. Desire made her stutter on her feet and open her eyes to watch Jimmy’s dreamful face as he kissed her with lowered lashes and a little concentrating frown between his eyebrows.
This kissing might have been her idea but now she felt herself pliable, surrendering, delighted and longing in his hands, every touch of his lips leaving her more helpless. “You’re—” she began. You’re making me forget myself. She was beginning to lose her bearings. Wait; you’re confusing me. She had forgotten to breathe and now she could not; his mouth was over hers. Cider; cigarettes; the press of his lips and now of her own, kissing him back. Her head whirled: she had to decide what would happen next. What was it, she wondered, that I wanted to do? Have I done it already? Shall I stop?
Jimmy turned her hips towards him and pressed her with his own. Martha felt
her body turn liquid and hopeless. In a moment it would be too late to take a decision. “You’re so gorgeous…” he said, kissing her on her mouth and now away and down her throat—it made her blink and tip her head back with a pure, keen pleasure like spring warmth—and he murmured, “What kind of man would let you go?”
The word—words—made Martha jump as if Clive had appeared next to them and touched her with a live wire. What are you doing? “Oh!” she said, stepping back. “Oh, no! I’m—What am I doing?” She put both hands up to her temples and gave a small, embarrassed laugh.
“What’s happened?” asked Jimmy. His hands dropped to his sides. “Are you OK?”
“Yes. No. I mean, sorry,” Martha said. She put her palms flat against his shoulders and took a deep breath, as sober as if someone had switched on a light. “I’m so sorry; this is all wrong—I’m married, I have a husband…”
“I thought—you said—you were separated?”
“We are, sort of, I mean…oh dear, I’ve made a muddle. I’m sorry,” she said, “I hate women who behave like this.” She frowned, standing in the half-dark, her head tilted to try and read his expression.
“Hey, don’t worry,” said Jimmy. “It’s not a big deal; don’t panic.”
Martha smiled, phew, and pushed her hair back off her face with both hands. She straightened her dress. She was ashamed of herself. “I like you, and everything, but—”
“Look, it’s only a bit of kissing; you won’t go to hell.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I mustn’t. I want to, but it’s not fair.”
“OK,” he said. “If you say so.” He slung an arm around her shoulders to steer her back down the grassy slope, towards the pub and the tent. “C’mon then, naughty married lady,” he said.
Martha blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not you—”
Jimmy laughed. “No, I didn’t think it was me,” he said, and kissed the side of her head.
Martha squeezed his hand, smiling in relief. He was just a kid! For him kisses came and went and did not matter.
“I wanted to, but then—”
“Look, it’s OK, I swear. We’re all allowed to change our minds, even about being married.”
Now she knew it really was all right and so she laughed. It’s nothing, she thought.
Loosely clung together, they strolled down the hill. Martha’s hair had escaped its ties and Jimmy walked with his warm hand placed underneath it, resting on the nape of her neck. She hung an arm around his waist and felt the muscles move under his shirt. She longed for him now even more than she had, but this was the way it would stay. She shook her head at herself.
It was getting dark and although the tent was lit—bright, noisy and crowded—the field was not. Cars were coming and going, lurching over the bumps in the grass and turning to park where their headlights found room. Everyone was occupied by the thump and tumble of the band. The children had taken no notice of the creeping dusk and were still playing their running, shouting game. They must be tired, Martha thought, as they hurtled past her. Those at the back were so little that she longed to clap her hands and call out, “Time for bed!” One small, tired boy trotted and walked on his own, breathless and pleading, “Wait! Wait!”
Emotion flooded Martha, and almost made her stumble. Eliza, she thought. Her mind was filled with nothing—no one—else.
She remembered tears at night, and bleeding fingers in the morning. Please, Mum, please don’t make me go to school.
“What is it that they do to you?” Martha had asked her daughter. “If you tell me we can make them stop.”
But Eliza would not tell. “No, Mum.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”
These children—flickering, glimmering, laughing as they ran in the dusk—would have frightened Eliza half to death and now Martha was frightened for her. Eliza. She wanted to go home.
“I ought to go,” she said.
“One more drink?” begged Jimmy, “for the road?”
“You’re lovely,” she said, “but no.”
Jimmy hugged her goodbye and she felt the warm, strong weight of him, pressing her body. She put her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes. When he let go she felt weak.
Back at the gate she collected her bike and set off into the wind. The red light behind her saddle gave an occasional, feeble wink.
At the end of the lane she decided to walk, got off the bike and pushed it slowly up the track. Above her the sky glowed and flickered in black and white as the wind blew thickening strips of cloud past a confident, climbing moon. Martha looked up but the sight of it—a newsreel with an urgent message—made her so sad that she looked for the house instead, its sturdy shape at the top of the field with the black wood banked behind it.
There were no lights lit but she could make out the roof by the glint of its slates where the moonlight struck them. The walls beneath glowed a little luminous, as if daylight had somehow been trapped in the pores of the stone. Martha thought of the bats, huddled in the roof, and of Eliza in her bed under the eaves.
“What will happen?” Eliza had asked her, pleading.
“I don’t know.” Martha had replied with a kind of defiance: I don’t know. Blame your father. But blame was no comfort to Eliza; she only wanted to know where home was and whether she would be safe.
Tom’s tents were still pegged to the grass but neither light nor movement came from inside. Martha trudged past, hoping that someone might hear her and welcome her home—“Martha? Is that you?”—but no one stirred. In the yard she leaned her bike next to Eliza’s against the wall and clicked open the kitchen door.
Once inside she felt weary and hungry but waiting for the kettle or even eating muesli out of the packet seemed too much of an effort. The lights in the room were dazzling; her eyes smarted and she wanted to be in bed.
At the sitting-room door she paused and listened. The up and down sighs of Clive’s sleeping breath came from the sofa. An idea took her by surprise: I could curl up there beside him. The sudden vivid longing shamed her like a blush. His arms around me.
She had to push the idea away—quick—step back—turn to the stairs—put a tethering hand on the banister and stand steady. No. She did not dare exhale. What if he heard me? My breathing, or my beating heart? She chided herself. This moment of weakness will pass.
She crept up the stairs—sober now, and sensible—and paused on the landing. Resting a hand on the wall, eyes shut, she wondered whether to go on up the stairs to Eliza’s room. In that moment she smelled cider, Jimmy, tobacco and sweat on herself. She had better go to bed. Eliza would be distressed to see her like this, late and disheveled.
In her own room Martha climbed onto the bed in her clothes, and lay down on her side. She pushed off her shoes, tucked her bare knees up into her dress and crossed her feet. Pulling a pillow under her cheek she blinked in relief. Home.
Then she fell asleep.
In the morning Clive’s first thought was of Eliza. He remembered her words and the way she had said them: Why don’t you know what you can and can’t do?
He dragged himself off the sofa—Oh God the pain that bloody rope—and onto his feet. He would wake Eliza up and offer, “Eggy bread?” It was her favorite; she must forgive him for that.
But the bed and the room were empty. She had gone.
12
The ringing alarm had sprung Eliza from her mattress like an electric shock. She grabbed the clock and shoved it under the duvet, panicking and pressing every button she could feel with her fingers. At last the noise was silenced and her heart began to decrease from molto allegro to adagio.
Wide awake and out of bed she had pulled back the curtain, peered out, and wondered, amazed, whether every day began like this. In her imagination, “dawn” had always been a bright, yellow, rising sun and a burst of sunlight over the view, but here was something much more gentle and delighting. The familiar landscape outside her window looked as if careful hands had wash
ed and dressed it, moments before her alarm. The grass had been sprinkled with glittering dew, and even the tents had been draped with jeweled cobwebs. There was no daffodil-yellow, beaming sun—not yet—but the polished, confident sky seemed to promise its future attendance.
The sight had awakened Eliza’s sense of purpose. She had pulled off her pajamas and dressed in the clothes she had already laid out on the chair: socks, jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt. She had made her bed look as lumpy as possible and read through her checklist: Diary, rucksack, banana, and then in bigger letters: Money.
Her mind had been filled with the journey ahead as she held her breath and skimmed downstairs like the family ghost, sneakers clutched in one hand and the other brushing the banister. On the landing she had crept around the edge to avoid the squeak and grimaced at her mother’s bedroom door; downstairs she had tiptoed past the sitting room where her father had gone to bed.
In the kitchen she drank a glass of water and tied her ponytail, holding the elastic in her mouth while she smoothed her hair with both hands. She used to put her hair in two plaits for school when she was a little girl but then: “Pig-pig-pig! Oink-oink-oink! ” Et cetera. So it had become a ponytail.
“It’s just nicer this way,” she said to her mother. “Mozart had a ponytail too.”
Everything on the list had been posted into her rucksack including all the twenty-pound notes she had found in her father’s wallet and the credit card whose PIN number she knew. Eliza had felt bad about stealing but there was no other way—every time they took the train Martha said, “It’s so expensive!” so Eliza knew that her own £3.82 would not get her to London.
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