by Jo Baker
They’d arranged that he would come down to visit sometime the following month. It was rough, she said, thinking she wouldn’t see him for so long. Turned out he couldn’t handle it either. She got home from work early that Saturday morning and he was there, asleep on the sofa. One of the girls had let him in, he’d dropped off waiting up for her. It was like an extra Christmas, she said. She just leapt on him. She couldn’t help herself.
They hardly slept that night. Talking, mostly. Her back was too sore to do much else. The next day she was exhausted and her back was killing her. She was almost ready to cry. She couldn’t face getting up, couldn’t take any more painkillers. Couldn’t really do anything much but lie in bed, trying not to whimper. Then Tom said he was just going out for a bit. She assumed he was going for cigarettes, or a paper, or maybe just to get a break from her. She lay there, thinking how pissed off he must be, coming all the way down to see her and all she could do was lie in bed and moan. I’m crap, she thought, I’m no fun at all. If I were him, I’d be bored too. If I were him, I’d dump me.
“He came back about ten minutes later. He stood there in the doorway, with a hot water bottle in his hand. He’d gone out and bought it. He’d filled it for me. He was looking round for something to wrap it in. You know, so it wouldn’t scald me. All my towels were wet, my clothes were all in a heap on the floor, all damp and smelly. You know what I’m like. So he took off his shirt. He took off his shirt and he wrapped it round the hot water bottle and held it against my back. He stroked my hair. And then, when the heat had taken the stiffness out a bit, he pulled my T-shirt up and began, ever so gently, to stroke my back. He sat like that for an hour. Gently massaging my back. I handed my notice in that night. I came back up here soon as I could.”
“But you’re not staying,” Claire said, urgently. “You’ve got plans. You’ll be off to London, or travelling, or something.”
“I don’t think I could leave now, even if I wanted to,” Jennifer said. “I’ve only just got myself back together. Things had got pretty bad, down in Birmingham. I don’t want to risk losing it like that again. I’d started breaking glasses at work. Deliberately. Started cutting myself with the glass.” Jennifer held out her hand. Across the ball of her left thumb was a series of parallel pale lines. “I always said it was an accident,” she added. “No one seemed to notice I always cut myself in the same place. I guess they were all too busy with their own stuff.”
Claire, looking down at the brown hand, at the pale scars, felt the floor lurch under her feet, felt the ancient wall behind her buckle and sway. She put her hands down flat on the table, either side of her pint. She closed her eyes.
This is wrong, she thought. This is immeasurably, irredeemably wrong.
She breathed deeply, opened her eyes. Jennifer was still looking down at the ball of her thumb.
“Stupid, really, but I felt guilty as well,” she was saying. “Really angry with myself. For being so self-indulgent. When you come down to it, it’s really just attention-seeking. I was lonely. I wanted someone to notice. If I’m honest, that’s what it was. Nothing more.”
Claire looked at Jennifer’s bent face, the open pores on her nose, the faint lines traced from nostrils to lips, the faint lines radiating from the crooks of her eyes across her temples. Suddenly, she was flooded with relief.
She had been wrong, she realised. She had made a mistake. This was not Jen. She did not sound like Jen, she did not even, when it came down to it, look like Jen. Jen’s skin was peach-smooth, perfect. Jen was confident, unassailable. So this was definitely, she thought, not Jen. This was, in fact, nothing like her.
“Listen,” Claire said. “I’ll have to head on.”
Jennifer looked up.
“Where you going?”
Claire slid out from between the table and the settle.
“I don’t know.”
“Stay, then.”
“No. I can’t. I have to go.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
“I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been missing you.”
Claire shivered.
“Yeah well,” she said. “I’m not staying.”
EIGHT
Claire worked most nights. She collected glasses, emptied ashtrays, and on Friday nights she served the food. Her feet hurt her and sometimes she burnt herself on the serving-dishes and usually a cut wept discreetly on her ankle. Mostly it was end-of-the-evening work, so she was there until after the bar had closed. Afterwards, she would walk back up to the flat. There were always taxis available for the staff, but she rarely took one; she was never in any rush to get back. There was often an invitation to come back to someone’s house for a drink, but she never went. She couldn’t help suspecting that even though Alan was always asleep when she got in, he would somehow know if she came home any later than usual. She couldn’t face the explanations, the argument, the silence that would necessarily follow. And anyway, if she did go, what would she say. She had got out of the habit of conversation. On the whole, it seemed easiest just to go back to the flat. So she would walk alone up the Dublin Road, up Botanic Avenue, and then down Wolseley Street to their front door. It was a cold walk. The streets were always almost empty. She never felt scared. She would get back around two-thirty, three. The flat was always cold when she got in. She would pull off her shoes at the door, fill the kettle, then switch on the electric fire. With a cup of black tea cooling in her hand she would curl up on the sofa, trying to gather her nerve. Three paces through to the dark bedroom, climb over Alan’s sleeping body and into bed. Sleep. She rarely managed it. Usually she was woken when Alan flicked the light on and the fire off in the morning. The room would be parched and airless. It was like burning money, he said, leaving the fire on all night like that. So the first word she said every morning was, “Sorry.”
Once he had showered, breakfasted and gone to work, she would haul a blanket out of the airing cupboard and curl up again on the sofa. She didn’t like to go through to the bedroom. The bed would be crumpled, cool and damp. There would be pale curling hairs on the sheets.
She would sleep until lunchtime. When she woke, stiff and cold, she would change into yesterday’s clothes, pull on her thickest jumper, then head out. She would walk into every second-hand shop on Botanic Avenue, leafing through every close-packed rail of old-smelling clothes. She had left her coat behind in England. She had to replace it, but couldn’t find one she could really afford. They all seemed to be very expensive. Ten pounds, more or less, and she never had that much cash to spare. Her money never seemed even to last the week. There were always bills, there was always food to buy. And Alan was strictly fair in the division of costs. They split everything fifty-fifty, even though, as he pointed out, she used the electric more than he did. Eventually she would give up looking and go to the Spar instead to buy something for their tea. She was never entirely disappointed that she hadn’t found a coat. If she had managed to buy one, she would, she realised, then have to find something else to do with her afternoons.
By half-four, as she returned to the cold flat with her green-white-and-red plastic carrier bag, the afternoon would be fading into grey, tainted by the foreshadow of Alan coming home. There was only an hour between his arrival back at the flat and her departure for work, and he hated that hour. Claire knew he hated it. His irritation showed in every inch of his body. Every night as she served his dinner, he sat at the kitchen table rubbing his eyes wearily, his shoulders knotted with irritation. The meal finished, he would walk through to the living room and switch on the TV. While she showered, washed her hair and put on make-up in the bathroom, he watched News Line. He would call through to her, from where he sat. Every evening the same thing.
“I don’t know why you have to make such an effort. It’s only work.”
And then silence. Not a word out of him as she walked past him in her bathtowel, as she dressed in the bedroom. As she stood, half an eye on the telly, pulling on he
r jumper and smoothing out her hair again. Not a word from him until she said, “See you.”
And after a moment’s pause, to prove that he was engrossed in the current local-interest story, and that she was disturbing him, he would reply, “Yeah. See you.”
And she would close the door behind her, slip out through the front door of the house, and onto the cold leaf-littered street.
She had tried talking to him about work. She had tried telling him about the hordes of customers, about how when Paul and Grainne came in to the bar, they always spotted her and called her over to talk. About Dermot who had asked her name then teased her. “Claih?” he had said, exaggerating Claire’s accent. “ ‘Claih?’ You mean Clurr. That’s how you say it. Clurr.” About Gareth who shared the tips with her even though she never got any herself, and had asked her how she was settling in, and when Alan would be down. But Alan had not wanted to hear. As she had spoken a frown had gathered on his forehead, his jaw had set as he gritted his teeth. They knew where he was, he told her. If they were so bloody interested, they could call him. They could just ring him up and ask him down for a drink. So she had stopped talking. She apologised. She had not spoken about it since.
By mid-November she had realised that she couldn’t earn enough money before Christmas to pay the forty pounds for a coach ticket home, let alone the hundred and fifty for the air fare. Alan might have lent her the money, but the weeks went by and she still couldn’t bring herself to ask. She could barely bring herself to open her mouth and speak, let alone ask for money. And when it came to it, she realised that she couldn’t go home. She wouldn’t be able to pretend to be at ease, not for any length of time. She could deal with a phone call, but she didn’t really believe that she could lie convincingly, for days or a week, to her mother’s face. And the idea of seeing Jen, of dealing with Jen’s confident, delighted energy made Claire feel tired and defeated. It was bad enough after Oxford, but now … If she could just curl up beside her father, his heavy hand on her shoulder, and lean against his warmth, speechlessly. But it wouldn’t be allowed. It was never allowed.
Around teatime on the last Sunday in November she phoned her mum. She told her she had to work over Christmas. She was sorry, but there it was, unavoidable. It was that or lose her job. And not to worry, she would have a great time. It was always good craic, the other staff had told her, working over Christmas and New Year. And Alan sent his love. And she promised she would visit as soon as possible. She hung up, biting her lip, then she keyed in Gareth’s number. She asked him if there were any extra hours going over Christmas, if she could work Christmas Day. “I’m skint,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. “I don’t mind. I’ll do Christmas Eve as well, if you want.”
Twentieth of December and Alan came home pissed. An after-work end-of-term afternoon drink at Dukes had turned into three or four or five. Claire was on her way out of the door. He held his arm out, half-embrace, half-barrier. She stopped, standing on the doorstep. She looked at the olive wool of his turtleneck sweater. He asked her when she was stopping work for Christmas.
“I’m working every day,” she said.
“But we’d agreed we’d go to my ma’s.”
“I’m sorry. Gareth’s really stuck. And it’s that kind of job. Busiest time of the year.”
“You let him take advantage of you.”
“I know. But I need the money.”
“He doesn’t pay you enough.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe you let him treat you like this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be such a pushover.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“You go. Have a great time.”
At about half-two on Christmas Eve Alan set off down town to catch the bus to Glengormley. He took a stack of books with him. He would not be back till the day after Boxing Day. Claire wrapped herself up in her yellow waffled blanket, hunched on the sofa, and watched It’s a Wonderful Life on TV. She had to switch the TV off three-quarters of the way through the film. She would be late for work.
A fresh post-Christmas paypacket in her bag, she sat in the back of a black-and-white tiled hairdressers and watched the silent young woman slice off tranches of her hair. She watched as the scissors began to cut close against her head, the clippings falling like pine needles onto her lap. The style did not, she thought, particularly suit her: it left her looking boyish and exposed. She turned her head, watching her reflection. She felt jittery, satisfied.
“It got in the way at work,” she told Alan, who had blanched.
“It was beautiful,” he said, an ache in his voice.
“It was a pain, though.”
“It was beautiful,” he said again, his tone shifting. “You did it to annoy me.”
“No,” she said, and rubbed the soft short fuzz with a hand.
A door slam.
“Claire?”
He was back from work. Unexpected. A little earlier than usual. The new semester had left him more irritable, more unpredictable than ever. He had started calling her at work, he had started popping home at lunchtimes. And now, it seemed, he had started coming home early.
There was something about the way he spoke her name, proprietorial, belligerent, sexual, that made her flinch, shoulders hunching up, eyes closing, as the hot water poured down over her. She knew he knew she was in the shower. In the small flat, the sound of running water and the groaning of the hot tank were audible in every room.
“I’m in the shower.” She said it anyway, because it was easier. She soaped her underarms. She shaved. She listened as he moved about the flat.
She heard his bag hit the floor with a thump. Heavy. Lots of marking. That meant he would be irritable. His feet were heavy on the old boards. Putting his books on shelves, setting out his work on the table, hanging up his jacket in the wardrobe. He trudged noisily down the hallway. She put her razor down on the side of the bath. He was going to try the bathroom door. She had locked it, but the lock was unreliable; the bolt would shift out of the socket with a gentle tug or push at the door. She waited, frozen, listening. He walked past the bathroom, went through to the kitchen. He ran the cold tap, the water rattled against the metal base of the kettle, and the shower ran for a moment blisteringly hot. Claire shrank back against the icy tiles, out of the spray. She heard him turn the tap off, flick the kettle on. She stepped back into the cooling water, heard him walk past the door again, walk through to the bedroom. She ducked her head under the shower. She reached down for her shampoo bottle.
Hot water streaming down her face, eyes closed, she squeezed a slug of shampoo into one hand, put the bottle back down on the side of the bath. She rubbed the shampoo into her cropped hair. It thickened and foamed, dripped down her arms. She kept her eyes shut, enjoying the warmth and the silkiness of the foam, hearing nothing but the gushing water and the mulchy sound of her hair as she rubbed.
The doorhandle creaked. A draught of cold air hit her skin. He was in the room. She turned and saw a strip of pale naked back as he passed. Then she heard the chink of plastic against ceramic as the toilet seat was raised. Through the steam and the citrus scent of the shampoo came the rank musty smell of piss. Then she heard the toilet’s rattling, gurgling flush.
A cold hand on her hip. She jumped.
“What’s the matter?” Alan climbed into the bath beside her.
“Nothing.”
He stood, his skin pimpling in the steam. He had the beginnings of an erection; his penis was becoming stocky and pugnacious. “Let me get warm,” he said.
He moved round her to stand under the water, letting it run over him. His skin blotched pink. The fair hair on his chest, belly and legs darkened. He lifted up his head and wiped back his hair, let the spray wash over his face. His eyes were closed.
“You’ve a while yet before work,” he said.
“Yes.” Claire leant against the cold tiles. Shampoo dri
pped from her hair, trickled slippily down her skin. It felt greasy. She was vividly conscious of her nakedness; her breasts felt tender, vulnerable; the sudden dark scribble of her pubic hair seemed ridiculous. The cut on her leg throbbed, as if trying to draw attention to itself. She smiled at him unevenly. “But I still have to get ready,” she said.
He smiled. It wasn’t a natural smile, Claire realised. Because he wasn’t a natural smiler. “Plenty of time,” he said.
He put his hands on her waist, pulled her towards him, back under the shower. The water ran over her head and down across her body, rinsing the shampoo out of her hair. It got into her eyes, her mouth. His penis pressed against her belly, hardening. She reached up to rub her eyes, to wipe away the soap, but he took her hands and held them, pulled them down to touch his penis. He kissed her on the mouth. His spit was sticky. Eyes tight shut and stinging, she took him in her fist and rubbed.
He came quickly, shuddering, one hand to the tiled wall for support. Pale translucent semen spurted onto her belly, cooled, began to drip down her. He groaned thickly and leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, as the water washed over him and the last drops of semen were rinsed off his cock and down into the drain. He sighed. He opened his eyes, looked around him. He picked up the soap, began to wash. He washed himself thoroughly: armpits, ears, crotch, feet. Then he got out of the shower and wrapped himself in Claire’s towel.