‘And I don’t mind sharing a bathroom and kitchen. The other tenants are quite nice.’ He feels safe talking about the room; it is a neutral subject, not emotionally charged like almost everything else he can think of. ‘I get a proper lunch at school so I don’t need to cook much. Two burners and a grill are all I need mostly, and it helps to have a fridge and a wash-basin. It could be a lot worse. It’s quite peaceful in a way, to have life reduced to something very simple.’
‘You could pretend you’re travelling,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Living rough. Seeing India or somewhere. Especially now it’s summer.’ She sits cross-legged on the narrow single bed. ‘This mattress is a bit soft but you could put a board under it. That’s what I did with mine. And you could throw some material over that chair so you wouldn’t see the pattern.’
‘And change the curtains,’ he says, ‘and put a rug over the carpet. And paint everything white.’
‘Or you could just pretend you like heavily varnished plywood. It’ll probably come back into fashion any day now.’
They laugh. He pours the tea. He puts butter and jam on the toasted tea cakes and she has a whole one, as he knew she would.
‘It’s really weird seeing you like this,’ she says abruptly, braver then he is, as if she can’t avoid the subject any longer. ‘I mean, not with Mum. D’you think you’ll ever get back together?’
He shakes his head, relieved that she’s mentioned Helen first. ‘I’m still hoping but… Oh God, I’m still hoping.’ He hadn’t known it would come out that like. ‘I’ve asked her, well, I’ve begged her really, but she says no. She always says no.’
There is a silence while they drink their tea and eat their tea cakes.
‘I was so angry with you,’ Sally says. ‘When you left her, I mean. When you went back to Inge. I couldn’t believe you’d do that. That’s why I haven’t seen you. Mum was so miserable. I felt you’d left me to pick up all the pieces and I hated you.’ She actually blushes. ‘I’m sorry, Richard. That’s not how I feel now or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘What can I say? I’m very sorry. It was a mess and at the time that felt like the only thing I could do.’
‘Well, it’s a bigger mess now,’ she says severely.
He is conscious of her talking to him like an adult. He has never seen her like this before. She’s twenty and she’s grown up. She looks the same but she’s changed. It’s impressive but also alarming. He doesn’t know how to react to her any more.
‘I do know she’s got someone else,’ he says in case her silence means she is trying to be tactful. ‘She told me. Have you met him?’
She frowns, as if this is a difficult question to answer. ‘Yes, but he’s hard to get to know. I quite like him but … oh, I don’t know, he’s nice but he’s got all these exwives and children and a dead wife he’s depressed about, so I don’t know if he’s going to be good for Mum longterm, although he’s cheered her up a lot. It’s just that if he lets her down I can imagine having to prop her up all over again and I feel I’ve been doing that all my life.’
He finds it hard to talk about this unknown man who is standing in his light. He has to take deep breaths for the pain. He hadn’t expected it to be so painful, but to see Helen’s lover as a real person through Sally’s eyes hurts very much. Sally won’t be as discreet as Helen would. But then he did ask her about the other man so he can’t blame her for answering. He suddenly wants to ask her not to tell him too much, to spare him details that will haunt him later, but he can’t.
‘I know it’s nice for Mum that he’s another painter,’ Sally says in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had no idea she was causing him such distress, ‘but there’s something about him that reminds me of my father. He’s got that look about him. He’s lived a messy sort of life and I don’t know if I can trust him. D’you know what I mean?’
He says yes. The pain goes deeply into him and spreads everywhere. He feels quite light-headed with it. He wonders why she doesn’t say Helen’s lover reminds her of Felix. Can she be so young and stupid it simply hasn’t occurred to her? For a moment he is very angry with her and he wanted to feel only love.
‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s supposed to be grown up, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ he says, trying to smile. ‘You’re sounding a bit like her mother.’
‘God, I feel like her mother sometimes. I thought I could stop worrying about her when you two got married but here she is all over the place again. Honestly, I think sometimes I’m more independent than she is. She needs someone so much.’
‘I never really saw her like that,’ he says. He remembers Helen telling him she was afraid of being lonely for ever but he never quite believed her. There always seemed to be a hard core of self-sufficiency inside her which he could never penetrate, which was part of her attraction for him. He thinks it’s still there. He thinks she can survive anything. He thinks she will always put her work and Sally first. Or Sally and her work. Never a man, himself or another. But maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Sally knows her better.
‘You weren’t fooled by her big act, were you?’ Sally says. ‘You couldn’t have been, surely, not for ten years.’
‘We just see her differently,’ he says.
Sally shrugs. ‘Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m going on holiday and I’ve got so much work to do. Less than a year to finals now. I can’t believe it’s gone so quickly. This time next year it’ll all be over, imagine that. D’you know, my tutor said I might just get a first if I work really hard. Wouldn’t that be amazing? He’s rather nice, actually, he’s called Jonathan. I’ve got a sort of thing about him. Or I would have if I hadn’t given up men. It’s just easier at the moment not to have anyone. Maybe you’ll find that when you get used to it. Sort of peaceful.’
She smiles at him kindly, as if she is older and wiser. He feels such love for her again that it tugs at his heart like a physical thing.
‘I’m glad you’re all right,’ he says inadequately. ‘And it would be lovely if you get a first.’ He longs to ask about Felix, how she feels about everything, if she’s in touch with him, but he can’t: it would feel like intruding on her privacy and he has done enough of that in the past. And he’s ashamed to admit he misses Felix. ‘I’m sure you’ll meet the right person one day.’
‘Oh well,’ she says fiercely. ‘It doesn’t matter if I don’t. Depending on people only means you get hurt when they let you down and they always do eventually. Look at you and Mum. And my father, he’s turned out disappointing, he doesn’t have any time for me, not really, he’s just submerged under ail those other children and earning enough to keep them all. I’m better off just relying on myself.’
It sounds very bleak and stoical for someone of twenty but he tells himself it is probably just a phase. ‘I am sorry,’ he says, ‘about everything that went wrong.’
She shakes her head. ‘I was just bloody stupid, wasn’t I? Serves me right.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, you had a rough time. I’m just sorry I let you down when you needed me.’
‘You didn’t, not really. Anyway, I’m sorry I said all those horrible things to you when I came to see you in that awful place. That’s what I’ve been waiting to tell you. I didn’t mean any of it, you know.’
‘I know,’ he says.
‘So we’re all sorry,’ she says, laughing slightly. ‘We’re all going round apologising to each other. Bit of a joke really.’ She gets up, brushes tea-cake crumbs off her jeans on to the brightly patterned carpet. ‘I’ll have to be going. It’s been lovely to see you again.’
He gets up out of the hard armchair. They hug. ‘Take care,’ she says. ‘Don’t get lonely now.’
‘Let’s keep in touch,’ he says.
‘Course we will.’
He watches her leave. The room feels empty without her, yet full of her presence. He has a sense of anticlimax like someone on a station platf
orm after the train has pulled out, at a loose end now he has seen her off. So many memories stir. He switches on the television for company.
* * *
They do indeed have a wonderful summer. Sex with Inge seems marvellously simple, with no guilt or anxiety to foul it up, no hang-ups, no illusions. She is the same as ever: greedy, selfish, generous and skilled. The ideal mistress. And now there is the added bonus of her new cheerfulness. He can relax with her. Nothing will be demanded that he cannot give, nothing offered that he cannot match. And she balances his life at home. She is his delicious secret that Elizabeth does not know, that would make her terribly angry. When he teases Elizabeth about David Johnson, who he suspects is lousy in bed, it is Inge he caresses in his mind. You think you’re controlling me, he says to Elizabeth in his head, but you can’t and you never will.
‘Isn’t it strange?’ Inge says one afternoon when they are lying drowsily in bed recovering from all their exertions. ‘We’ve known each other twenty years, on and off, and it’s taken us all this time to have an arrangement that suits us both. It didn’t work two years ago. All those years I was in love with Richard and he never really loved me at all. What a waste.’
‘I’m sure he did love you, Inge,’ he says tactfully. ‘Some of the time, at least. In his way.’
‘But not in my way. Not the way I loved him. And then when he left me I was alone for such a long time but you didn’t come near me, you were still being the loyal friend, and then you went abroad, and all that time I was so in love with Richard and I had to pick up people for sex and sometimes they were people I didn’t even like. And we could have been having all this pleasure for all that time. Isn’t it strange?’
‘You’re a philosopher, Inge,’ he says, and she kicks him in a friendly fashion under the duvet.
* * *
Helen knows long before her doctor confirms it. The physical symptoms are slight but unmistakable, the same ones she had with Sally and the child she aborted: a vague soreness, a tingling in her breasts, faint nausea, sudden fatigue. They are so low-key as to be hardly worth mentioning; they could all be summed up as not feeling quite herself. A missed period is enough to alarm her but she could pass that off as the start of an early menopause perhaps. Not the rest of it. She has felt like this before and she knows what it means. She knows before the missed period, in fact. It can’t be anything else.
She’s amazed how quickly panic turns into joy. An extraordinary excitement, a sense of having a secret that she longs to tell but also longs to keep to herself. She is actually glad that Jordan is away and so cannot be told. She doesn’t want to tell him yet. He doesn’t deserve to be told. This is something for herself alone. And yet she also wants to boast about it.
She imagines telling him on the phone, if he rings her. She imagines writing to him, if she had an address. Neither way seems very satisfactory: such important news should be given out face to face. She pictures the scene and it alarms her. She has no idea how he will react: she knows he loves children but that doesn’t automatically mean he will want a child with her. It seems a huge step in a relationship where the word love has never been used.
But all these considerations are nothing compared to the problem of Sally. Anxiety over the coil, which her doctor reassures her about, is replaced by anxiety over Sally, which no one can take away. It is probably because of Sally that she finds herself talking to Richard. She doesn’t mean to, but she has got used to his occasional phone calls and visits, and there is no one else she can talk to about something so important. Since she told him about Jordan back in April, when she refused to try again, he seems more relaxed with her, as if knowing there is no hope allows him to be himself. ‘You don’t mind if I ring you now and then?’ he says at first, tentatively. ‘Maybe we can meet sometimes? It’s such a help to me and, I mean, it’s not as if you hate me, is it?’
No, she agrees, she certainly doesn’t hate him. So she gets used to this casual contact, this keeping in touch; she even finds it comforting. There are months when she sees more of Richard than Jordan. That is more ironic than ideal. But there is something very companionable about seeing someone she knows well and has known for many years and used to love. They have history together. And it’s flattering to be adored and not have to respond: like sitting in the sun or in front of a fire. Is that how Jordan feels about her? she wonders, not a pleasant thought. Anyway, it seems to balance up her life. Adoring Jordan and tolerating Richard gives her an equilibrium. Loving and being loved. Sometimes he asks about Jordan and she has the extra pleasure of talking about him. She even lets herself think ahead to a time when Richard gets over her, and knows, unfair though it is, that she will be sad.
August oppresses her, the feeling that everyone else has gone away, Jordan to America and Sally to Greece, the heat and dust and noise of the city, which seems unsuited to summer, being slightly unwell, being alone with a problem that is also a joy. Most of all the fact that she needs someone and Richard is quite simply there.
Sometimes he just phones her; sometimes he comes round for a drink and a chat. Probably he finds August oppressive too in his bedsit, on holiday but unable to afford to go away. On one of these evenings when they have been getting on well and seem to be quite relaxed with each other she thinks she sees hope in his eyes again and she realises how cruel it would be to say nothing and let him find out visually as the months pass. It’s not just a matter of needing his help with Sally. He has to be told on his own account, and he must surely be the easiest of the people she has to tell. Even so, it takes her so long to get up her courage that it’s only when he says, ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be going,’ that she suddenly manages to say, ‘Richard, I need your help, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’
He looks alarmed and she panics then and wishes the words unsaid. What is he imagining: terminal illness? Now she has to go on and she’d much rather not.
‘It’s not easy to say but it’s going to be worse telling Sally. I’m pregnant.’
He looks as shocked as if she had hit him.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know how to break it gently.’
She is watching his face anxiously and she sees a whole range of emotions follow the shock: anger and jealousy and pain. She feels for him but it’s a relief to have it said.
He says eventually, ‘You of all people.’
‘I know.’
‘D’you want a divorce? Is that what you mean?’
She shrugs. ‘I haven’t even thought that far ahead.’
‘Well, d’you want to marry him?’
‘Richard, I don’t know, I haven’t even told him yet, no, I don’t think there’s any chance of that, I don’t imagine either of us want to be married again.’
‘You haven’t told him?’ he repeats.
‘I wasn’t sure when he went away.’
‘But now you are – and you want it?’
‘Yes.’ How simple it feels. The easiest decision she ever made.
He says, ‘Oh, Helen, why not mine?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t answer that. I’m sorry.’
‘Did you do it on purpose?’
‘No, my old coil let me down, I should have had it checked or changed, I suppose. But I haven’t thought about it for years. After you left it was the last thing on my mind and when I met Jordan again, well, I just assumed it would be all right.’ The words don’t sound convincing: she imagines Sally hearing them, as if talking to Richard is a rehearsal. Did I really mean to do this? she asks herself, with a thrill of horror.
‘Won’t it damage the baby?’
‘Apparently it’s all right to leave it as it’s plastic not copper. You remember when I had it put in I wanted something I could just forget about.’ She sees him turn away from this memory, but she can’t stop. It’s such a relief to be talking about it. ‘If they take it out now there’s a risk of miscarriage. I was really worried about it but Dr Walsh was very reassuring.’
‘You
want it very much then.’
‘Yes, I do. Look, I’m almost as surprised as you are. I suppose if I’d really meant what I said all those years ago I’d have got myself sterilised. A bit of me must have still wanted to have a choice. It’s a funny feeling. I don’t know myself as well as I thought.’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t see how you’ll ever explain it to Sally.’
‘No. And the dates are the same.’ She bites her lip. ‘It’s going to be April.’
He says slowly, ‘You’ve really changed. He’s changed you.’
‘I told you, I knew you wouldn’t like the real me.’
‘I don’t mean that. I love you. I’ve always loved you. The thought of you with a baby…’ He starts pacing about the kitchen in an agitated way, making her feel tense with his tension. She begins to wish she hadn’t told him. ‘Look, Helen, if he lets you down, I’m here, I could help. It would be a privilege.’
‘Oh, Richard…’ She’s embarrassed. It’s like going back to the time when they first met, as if he finds her more attractive with a small child, even if it can’t be his own. He seems to want her to be in need of protection.
‘You don’t sound sure of him when you talk about him. But you can be sure of me.’
‘Please don’t. It’s kind of you and I appreciate it, but—’
‘Don’t be so bloody polite. God, I don’t want gratitude.’
‘I know, I know. But what can I say to Sally? After all we’ve been through and we were just getting over it. We were getting on better lately. It’s going to seem as if there’s one rule for her and another for me. How’s she going to feel seeing me pregnant, seeing me with a baby?’
‘Well, she’s bound to be hurt and angry. But she’ll forgive you.’
‘Are you sure? I’m so frightened of losing her.’
A Gift of Poison Page 21