It has a life of its own. It climbs on top of her in the middle of the night and presses down on her chest; it breathes sour, hot breath on her face. It makes her cry with temper, with sadness and sometimes even with shame.
She thinks to herself – tomorrow. I will make an effort tomorrow. I will try to be nice to her. The effort I make will be strong enough to break the grip in my stomach and then I’ll be able to breathe again.
In the early hours of the morning she is filled with hope for tomorrow’s effort. And then the next day, the second – the very second – she sets eyes on her mother queasily coming out of the bathroom and padding down the stairs in her big frilly dressing-gown, the laundry basket held high in her arms, empty bottles whispering inside it – she hates, hates, hates her, all over again.
And yet, she had loved her once – in fact, she had been almost in love with her. They had slept together until she was nine years old. Elaine had thought it quite normal then – the husband sleeping in one room at the back of the house, the mother and child in another at the front. They shared the same bed. They ate sweets together under the bedclothes. Snuggled up and told stories. Gossiped about the neighbours. Spied on them. Mummy, she called her then.
It might have gone on like that forever, only Brendie Caudwell found out about it and blabbed it all over the school.
It was around that time Elaine had gotten it into her head that Ted Hanley could well be her father. Later she would realise that she’d simply been picking up on her mother’s crush. And not just the crush she had on him, but also the admiration – if not for his wife exactly, then the impression they gave as a married couple. The Hanley couple – their clothes, their furniture, their taste. ‘Note,’ she had said more than once, ‘the way they don’t need children in order to be happy.’
When her mother spoke about Ted, her whole face lit up. If they were lying in bed she would cuddle Elaine tighter. The clothes he wore, the car he drove, what he had done to that house – such clever ideas – practically an artist, in fact. ‘I mean – those hands,’ she would say. ‘Those hands.’
Once at the bus stop coming home from town, her mother had fallen into a conversation with another woman and started to describe the garden room Ted Hanley had built at the back of his house. Ted did this. Ted would only do that. Ted simply wouldn’t have it any other way. She had become so animated that even the woman had started to look at her oddly.
For a moment Elaine had thought her mother was going to confide in this woman, to lower her voice and say, ‘Between you and me – the man I live with? Well he’s not actually my real husband…’ and that she would have to listen very carefully to the whispering voice behind the hand if she wanted to learn the adult reason for living in one house with one husband, while desperately longing for another house, including the husband that was already in it.
Her parents were once invited to a party in the Hanleys’. She’d been about eight years old at the time. She watched them cross the road together. Her father holding her mother’s elbow and guiding her through the gate, the way he did when they went to church on Sunday – the only other time Elaine ever saw them touching. He had a bottle wrapped in tissue in his other hand, holding it out and away from his body as if afraid that it might explode. He was wearing pale coloured trousers and a patterned shirt. There was something almost shocking about seeing him without his suit, as if he was going out in his underwear.
Her mother, in a green dress, hardly looked fat at all; her hair, all done up in a Saturday-night do, had made her seem taller. She was wearing high heels and walking in short, nervy steps.
Now when she spies out the window, she spies alone, and at least with some degree of shame. Agatha teases her and calls her a spyarse, but she is spying on Agatha’s behalf as well as her own. Agatha seems to forget how greedy she is for visual detail: colours, shapes, movement – the overall impression left by all that. She wants to know everything – not just what Elaine can see in the moments they spend together, but what she has seen since yesterday, last night, weeks ago even.
‘Tell me about the new arrivals,’ Agatha says on the end of the phone line, ‘the new arrivals in the Osbornes’ old house.’
‘I’ve told you already!’
‘Tell me again.’
Elaine goes into her father’s room, lifts the receiver from the extension phone on his desk then returns to the hall where she hangs up the house phone. Back at his desk, she stretches out in his leather chair and tells her again:
How they arrived in the middle of the night, so nobody noticed. How, at first, everyone thought they were sisters.
‘They were coming and going, in and out so quickly, but from a distance looked similar, you see.’
‘And then?’
And then the delivery vans. They began to arrive the first morning and continued to arrive all week. Furniture, paintings, groceries even. Fully formed shrubs in fancy tubs that were brought around the back along with the garden furniture.
‘What did your mother say? Do the voice!’
‘A ready-made garden! Either they’re bone idle lazy, or they don’t intend staying too long.’
Agatha laughs. ‘And then you saw them?’
The woman first. From the back of the taxi when Elaine was on the way home from her hospital check-up: the woman, leaning her backside against the ledge outside the Osbornes’ front porch, smoking a fag. Her shirt tied up at the front, beneath it a block of brown belly. The shirt, pale pink. Jeans snug to the hip, cut-off to just above the knee. She wore no shoes; even her feet were tanned.
‘Good figure?’ Agatha asks.
‘Oh, excellent.’
‘And the girl?’
The girl came a minute later. She appeared out of the garage, drinking from a Coke bottle. She wore a man’s shirt as if it was a dress and was shuffling along on flat, white slippers, the sort you get in hotels – like the ones the Shillmans have all over their house. It was hard to say what age – ‘Our age, maybe.’
‘What do you mean ‘our age’, Junior?’
‘All right – your age then. Seventeen.’
‘Give me five words to describe her,’ Agatha says.
She gives her more than five – tall, tanned, tennis-player’s legs; blonde fuzzy plait over one shoulder. Slow bouncy walk.
‘And…?’ Agatha says.
‘And what?’
‘The cigarette! The cigarette!’
The girl walked over to the woman, took the cigarette from her hand, helped herself to two short pulls, before returning it to the V between the woman’s fingers. The woman looked up then, spotted her standing there and waved. Elaine pauses a moment to imagine how she must have looked to the newcomers, after the taximan had pulled away, leaving her exposed on the pavement like something that had been under a rock, grey-faced and gawky, blinking into the light.
‘And what did you do then?’
‘I waved back, but I don’t think they noticed.’
Days went by. The women talked of nothing else. Elaine heard them through the kitchen window while she was lying on the patio, reading. Their voices straying out along with the smell of cigarettes and coffee. They were German, it was decided.
Mrs Osborne was known to have German relatives – wasn’t she? Was she? I didn’t know that. Oh yes, now that I think of it, you’re right. She’s right. I heard that too. It would certainly explain the sporty look of them. Sporty! Is that what you call it? And now that you mention it, Mrs Townsend’s cleaner thought she’d heard funny talk coming from the back garden while taking in the washing. Funny talk? Yes, you know, foreign. Oh, foreign.
‘Oh God!’ Agatha says. ‘What next!’
Next, the double beds. Two double beds – brand new, mattresses wrapped in plastic, confirming it all: two sisters waiting to be joined by two husbands. Mrs Caudwell said, ‘It wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, of course, two couples living together in the same house, but they do things differently in these countries, I
believe.’
‘And the car?’ Agatha urges. ‘Don’t forget the car.’
‘Yes, the car.’
The German sisters bought a car. The younger one drove it home. She banged it off the side of the gate when she was pulling into the driveway. Then she jumped out of the car, slammed the door, screamed something through the window at the other one, before stomping up the drive and kicking the garage door. That one kick to the garage door changed everything.
‘Your mother?’
‘My mother. She got on the phone to Martha Shillman.’
‘Don’t forget her voice!’
‘Not sisters at all, Martha, I’m telling you. Mother and daughter. Of course I’m sure. Yes. Yes. God, if I can’t recognise a teen-tantrum by now!’
‘A teen-tantrum – Jesus!’
The women were back, this time they took to the sitting room. There was no smell of coffee, but the ice bucket was missing. Elaine had to earwig over the banisters.
There had been reports of the newcomers sunbathing in bikinis in the back garden.
When the sun turned in the evening, the mother – as she was now called – had been seen in the front garden reading a book, although she at least had the decency to throw on a few clothes.
‘If you could call shorts and T-shirt clothes,’ Agatha says, taking off Mrs Townsend’s voice.
‘Yes, exactly, and my mother agreed – as usual – with everything Mrs Doctor had to say.’
There was something quite common about the whole sorry scene, it was agreed, sitting by her front door on a kitchen chair. It was the sort of thing people living in terraced houses on the far side of town were rumoured to do. And all that waving at the men as they drove by on their way home from work, flashing that smile.
‘And who did she wave to?’
‘Only randy Caudwell and that was probably because he drove by with his tongue hanging out.’
Agatha squeals. ‘Don’t stop now!’
Who was she anyway? This woman who dressed like a teenager?
What was she doing going around in bare feet?
And what about that paintbrush in her hand?
Why would she be painting the house herself when she clearly had money to burn, with her car and her ready-made garden?
And as for those teeth? Did they not look a bit too perfect now to be real?
And the hair? Was that not a bit long now for a woman her age?
And what about the way she let her daughter smoke like that in front of everyone? And get behind a wheel of a car, too – the child might have been killed!
But more to the point – much, much more to the point – where, oh where, was the husband?
‘The husband!’
*
‘And after all that,’ Elaine says, ‘they simply knocked on our door. Our door. They crossed the road, came through the gate and rang the door bell. You should have heard my mother with her posh accent, trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed anything going on across the road – Oh yes, the Osborne’s house, of course, of course. I’d forgotten it was even let. Do step in. Elaine… Elaaaainnne. Come here a moment would you…?’
‘So now at last – you saw them up close. What did they look like?’
‘They shook hands!’
‘But what did they look like?’
‘Well, like people on the television. You know, all bright and confident and expecting everyone to be happy to see them. The mother looked older up close. The daughter younger. Serena is the mother’s name. Patty the other.’
‘Patty Cake.’
‘Patty Cake.’
‘They only stayed a few minutes. Refused an offer of tea. They wanted to know if we could recommend a good doctor, a dentist, a dry cleaners. Then they wanted to know about the local facilities for teenagers. Facilities for teenagers? My mother’s face! “I’m not sure what you mean by facilities…?”
‘“You know,” said the mother, “where they socialise? What there is for them to do?”
‘“Socialise! To do? Well. I suppose, there’s the stables, if she likes that sort of thing. And the Shillmans play tennis in a club somewhere. They drive there or take the bus. When Elaine is better, I’m thinking of sending her.”’
‘Really?’ Agatha asks.
‘First I heard of it.’
‘She wants you to make new friends.’
‘You could come too.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not? Of course you could—’
‘Never mind all that – get on with the story.’
‘My mother thought they’d never leave so she could get on the phone to Martha.’
‘Marvellous Martha!’
‘“I know you’re probably going out, Martha,” she said…’
‘When is Martha ever staying in?’
‘“I won’t keep you a minute. But guess what? You’ll never guess what? They were here. Yes, yes, I’m telling you – came up the drive and knocked on the door. That’s right. On the door. And, well, very nice actually. Not at all what I expected. She said, We just called to introduce ourselves. Yes, I know. It probably should have been the other way around. But well – wait till you hear this – this explains everything. They’re from New York, Martha. Yes… yes, that’s right. Americans. Well, that’s just what I think – it all makes sense now, doesn’t it.”’
Agatha sighs. ‘Oh the relief!’
‘You could hear it in her voice. We could all rest easy in our beds now. These new people were’t going to harm us. They weren’t dangerous at all – they were from America, that’s all. New Yorkers. They simply couldn’t help the way they were.’
Elaine’s mother raps on the door. ‘Don’t waste your youth on that phone,’ she says.
‘I’ll just be a minute.’
‘We don’t want you wearing yourself out – do we?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, I’ll be a minute, I said!’
‘You know I’ll be staying with the Shillmans again this weekend?’ Agatha says as she brings her ear back to the phone.
‘The Shillmans? No, but why?’
‘A colleague of Ted’s is getting married or something.’
‘But you can stay here.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘Really, I can ask.’
‘Don’t, Elaine. Leave it.’
‘But why not? I’m sure if I ask—’
‘Your mother doesn’t like me.’
‘That isn’t true! She does, I know she does. It’ll be lonely for you. Rachel won’t be home from school for another few weeks and—’
‘I’ll be fine. I’ve stayed there a few times before, they’re nice.’
‘Isn’t it odd staying there without her?’
‘No. It’s fine. Really. I don’t mind.’
‘But, Agatha —’
Her mother’s face appears around the door, hissing a whisper through two big, red, furious cheeks.
‘I’m not sure your father’s going to approve of you being locked away in here with all those confidential papers.’
‘I’m not touching anything and he won’t care anyway.’
‘Really? Well, he may have something to say when the phone bill arrives.’
‘No, he won’t. He won’t say a word. He never says a word. About anything.’
5
Winter Present
November
I’M REALLY MISSING MY night walks.
The compact silence as I draw near to the city when the streets seem that much closer, the sky that much lower and it feels like I’m wandering through the empty rooms of some vast interior space.
I miss the whiff of danger on the night air, the unidentifiable shadows – is that a tree or a man in the distance? Is that a nun’s body floating downriver or a billowing length of riverweed?
I miss the way the sounds in my head are gradually softened by the beat of my footsteps. And the sense that I am the one in control somehow.
The dog beside me, toddling al
ong; squirting, squatting, sniffing: undemanding and yet very much alive. I miss moving with him through the various shifts of darkness.
But – by order of the vet – the dog needs to take it easy now. Exercise should be gentle; damp and cold, at all costs, avoided.
‘He’s an old guy,’ was how he put it, as he chucked the dog under his silvering chin, ‘and us old guys, we need to take it handy – don’t we, fella, hey? Don’t we now, don’t we?’
The dog, I believe, is relieved.
I hear him plodding up and down the stairs at intervals, or taking a turn about the hall and in and out of the downstairs rooms. If Lynette leaves my father’s door ajar, he’ll step in for a moment, sniff around for a bit but won’t loiter. It seems the dog prefers me to my father and I can’t help being pleased by this and then a little uneasy: it’s as if the dog is me, somehow, and I have turned into my mother.
He stands outside my bedroom door, noses it open and shyly peeps in. If I’m lying on the bed reading, he comes over and studies my face. If I’m sitting in the dining room watching television, he lies at my feet for a while before getting up, pottering around then heading to the door, where he sends me a last backward glance. He is telling me how the life of an old dog should be: a waddle around a warm house; a little tour of the back garden whenever he goes out for a wizz; a dozen short naps in the daytime. After that, a long night of sleep, uninterrupted. On a fine day, maybe a stroll as far as the shops or around the estate – instead of all this being dragged around in the dark and the cold at two in the morning: night-walking for fuck’s sake – I mean really!
‘I get it,’ I tell him, ‘you’re an old guy and all that.’
It’s been almost two weeks but I know he still sleeps in dread of my step on the stair, the icy shiver of his chain in my hand.
*
It was something we did for a while when we were kids, sneak out of the house in the middle of the night and wander around the estate like ghosts on the edge of the world. My idea, as I recall: the one adventurous streak in an otherwise cautious nature. Rachel, myself, Brendie Caudwell occasionally, although she whined so much we tended to leave her out. The boys now and then. And Agatha. Until Agatha fell in love and stopped coming out. She claimed it was too tiring for her, but the truth was she wanted to wait by her window for the tap of his coin, or his keys, or whatever it was that he used to announce himself.
The Lives of Women Page 6