Her main passion was acting. Sometimes she’d hide herself upstairs for days, learning lines, creating a sense of seriousness and privacy so strong that Stephen had hesitated to invade it by so much as a knock on the door – although through his ceiling he could hear her moving about, and occasionally detect the tapping of the typewriter above the soaring operatic voices. Sometimes she’d throw herself into days of relentless socializing, turning up with armfuls of groceries to cook spectacular meals for dozens of loud-mouthed people whom Stephen didn’t know and who looked at him with barely disguised amusement. She’d paid the rent when she remembered. More often it went out of her mind: ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. Next week, I promise.’ The five men in the house had put up with it. She seemed exempt from normal censure.
And now, all these years later, she wanted money again. He watched her, wondering what she would ask for. Morella’s extravagance had been legendary even in those student days. Carpe diem, she always used to say, when she came back laden with wine and oysters and truffles. Don’t be such a killjoy, Stephen my sweet. We could be dead tomorrow. He looked now at her thin, pale, sexy face and thought with a shock that maybe she really was dying. She looked worryingly frail. ‘How much d’you need?’
‘What can you manage?’ Her hands were trembling again. On her third cigarette in a row, ingesting it almost. He suspected some kind of breakdown. Drugs? Alcohol? On her uppers anyway – that awful bag.
He looked into his flaccid wallet. ‘Liquidity’s a bit low at the moment.’ He laughed wryly. ‘But I could get the hotel on my card, and we could stop off at a machine for some cash. Would a hundred do? I think that’s all I can get out.’
Morella looked unsure. ‘A hotel? I was hoping … well, couldn’t I stay with you? Just for a day or two? I really won’t be any trouble –’ She watched his face. ‘No, it’s impossible. You’re saying that, aren’t you, Stephen? You’re saying your wife won’t like it.’
He mumbled, ‘Well you know, short notice and all that.’ He knew that wasn’t the reason. Sue would suppress a sigh at the need to get out clean sheets, move the ironing from the spare room and stretch the supper to accommodate one extra, but she’d be polite and hospitable even while hating the chain-smoking, and the odious appearance of the yellow plastic bag. But he’d have to explain. And the mere idea of Sue and Morella coming together was like a heresy. Sue was part of his sane and rescued life. Sue knew nothing of Morella, of the good old, bad old student days.
‘I really wouldn’t be a bother, Stephen. I’ve got a kettle and some pans. I’d cook. I’d fit in.’
‘Fit in?’ She was straight-faced; he couldn’t help a snort of laughter. ‘Morella, if there’s one thing I remember about you, it’s that you always stood out a mile.’
‘Is that true? God, how awful …’ She dropped her head, started to light another cigarette. ‘Okay, then. A hotel it is. Thanks.’
Stephen felt guilty. He knew he should take her home, introduce her to Sue and the kids, give her what she wanted, however bizarre. Look after her, not push her away the moment they’d met. But he couldn’t face it. He’d never mentioned her name to anyone, or her part in his life. When he talked about his Cambridge days, it was about Ian and Bigsby, Sarah (up to a point), Paul and his rugby boots, even Tom and his crowd. But he had concealed Morella, stowed her away like a sacred icon, rubbed her out of the group photograph. It would sound strange if she started saying how she had shared his life for the best part of three years.
‘Would you find somewhere for me? Take me there? Stay a bit? Stephen, please?’
‘Of course.’ He felt better: a solution. He could stow Morella and her wretched plastic bag safely out of the way, at least for this evening. He realized he was already experiencing those long-forgotten feelings of helplessness, panic and anger, which being with Morella had always induced. He knew the mess she was in would be a big one. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear about it.
‘Thanks. You won’t dash off straight away, will you, Stephen? Please? I’m a bit wobbly on my own.’ The limpid eyes fixed on him. He saw her in a torn dress, holding on to him in her attic bedroom: Stay with me, stay with me, please! And curling up with an eiderdown around her, crying into her coffee.
‘I’ll stay as long as I can, but –’ He raised his eyebrows, indicating there were limits. Sue would be waiting, wondering. He thought about ringing her, but decided not to. He wasn’t sure he could trust his voice over the phone. Better face to face, with the flowers as a peace-offering. The blooms didn’t look so good now, though. They seemed to have been shrivelling by the minute. They were probably half dead when he bought them. A con after all.
Morella looked around the bar. ‘Before we go – could I have another vodka, d’you think? Double, if you don’t mind.’
He got up, returned with the glass. She took a large gulp. Then she leaned back and asked casually, ‘Have you ever thought about me, Stephen?’
He couldn’t believe she’d said that. He studied his finished pint, hardly trusting himself to speak. ‘Only every day. After all, you almost ruined my life.’
She looked astonished. ‘I did? Stephen, how?’ She seemed genuinely shocked, reached for the vodka, finished it.
‘Well, tell me if I’m wrong, but as I recall it, you just took your things and went. No goodbye, no address, nothing. I’d seen you every day for the best part of three years and you didn’t think I was worth even a telephone call or a bloody postcard.’ The pain and fury rushed back as if it had been yesterday and he found himself raising his voice. The couple at the next table turned, glasses half raised to their mouths, and stared at him.
She shook her head. The smoke from her cigarette drifted up between them. ‘I did try. But we were never – oh, I don’t know …’ She stared ahead, glazed. ‘Why did you have to be so serious about me?’
‘Because I felt serious.’
‘But I wanted a friend.’ She looked at him with that innocent, injured look, the run-marks of mascara around her cheekbones looking like bruises.
He lowered his voice. ‘Well, I was your friend. Don’t you remember? I ran after you like a puppy-dog, hoping you might throw me the odd bone, the odd old bit of anything. But when you buggered off that night without a word, well, what was I supposed to think? I looked for you, you know. And then I stopped looking. And now, after fifteen years, you appear as if nothing has happened since.’
‘Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Forget it.’ She got up, trying to stub out the cigarette into the thick glass ashtray. Stephen pulled her down again. Her arm felt pathetically thin even through the coat. She was trembling alarmingly now, her face streaked with black. Stephen was overcome with shame. How could he be treating her like this? The woman he’d once adored?
‘I’m sorry too. Let’s forget the past for a moment. Too complicated. Let’s get you to a hotel.’
The room on the seventh floor of the Regency Tower was bland and overheated. Stephen sat on one chintz-covered single bed, she on the other. She had taken off the old black coat, exposing a curious chiffon dress underneath. A layered affair, grey over green, spare and tight over her bones. And she was much bonier, now. She’d lost the wonderful suppleness of her youth. But, pale and pinched as she was, shorn and streaked with tears, her body still had the power to move him. He affected briskness, tried to ignore the arousal he felt. ‘I’ve been expecting to see your name in lights: Morella Martin triumphs again. Where the hell have you been hiding all this time?’
She closed her eyes and smiled, a queer, mad smile. ‘In a room, Stephen. A really horrid little room. But I escaped, as you see. I packed up my stuff and left. Left it all behind. Because I knew I’d found my future.’ She threw herself back on the bed, arms stretched out, cruciform, abandoned. ‘You’re my rescuer, Stephen. My guardian angel. I knew you’d be there, at the station. Ten minutes past six.’
He laughed uneasily. ‘How could you possibly know that?’
She looked up at him from the
chintzy pillow, that sultry sideways glance, that sensual fold of skin across the edge of her eye. ‘I saw you there yesterday. I could hardly believe it, and –’
‘Yesterday?’
‘You were dashing past with your briefcase, Mr Commuter. You were too quick for me. But I knew you’d come through again. Same time, same place. You’re that sort of person.’ She smiled wanly. ‘So I packed my things, came back and waited for you.’
His scalp prickled. ‘I can’t believe you just saw me by accident.’
She flashed the wonderful, engaging smile, just revealing her teeth. ‘Me neither. You seemed to appear right out of the blue. I thought what a nice coat you had on.’
‘It’s the same one I’ve got on now.’ It was making him hot in fact, but he felt safer keeping things formal. Morella’s faded little dress was very skimpy, exposing the top part of her breasts. The hemline had ridden high over her thighs revealing a sinuous length of thin black nylon leg, a little white hole near one knee.
She smiled, stretching towards him, touching the cashmere with her fingers: ‘It’s still nice.’
‘Sue chose it.’
She laughed. ‘Well, it’s still nice.’
‘Thanks. But what about all your clothes? Is this really all you’ve got?’ He indicated the yellow bag, spilling open on the textured brown carpet – a knitted jumper, some socks, a tangled bra, a plastic hair-brush, a quilted Air France toilet bag with a broken zip, the glint of something aluminium …
‘All my worldly goods. Shock you?’
‘Well, yes, to be honest.’ He’d been embarrassed at the reception desk, Morella so waif-like, him so prosperous. It was as if he were picking up a hooker from the streets.
‘You see, I’m in what they call a downward spiral, Stephen. It’s ever so easy, but you lose things on the way. Here, there. Your life shrinks. They took my tapes – my Catulli, my Verdi, my Puccini. Can you imagine what that did to me? Negative thoughts, they said. It wasn’t though, was it? You know that. But I cope without them. You have to, you see.’ She eyed the bag. ‘I’ve got more stuff, but I had to leave things behind. Otherwise they would have known. They would have stopped me. I’m not ready, they said. But I tried to be sensible. Practical. A kettle. Some saucepans. I’ve come to the end of the line, now. I’ve been in too many places, Stephen, and you’re my last chance. I’ve sort of burned my boats, now. I can’t go back –’
Stephen felt confused. Who on earth were these people she was talking about? Possessive husbands? Violent lovers? Relatives of some sort? ‘There must have been someone else you could have turned to,’ he said. ‘Someone closer to you, surely.’
She shook her head. ‘Another man you mean? Surprise you, does it, Stephen, that there isn’t one?’ She reached for her coat, got out the almost empty pack of cigarettes, raised herself on her elbow and sat still for a moment. Her throaty voice trembled. ‘I’ve had enough, Stephen. If I have to go back, I’ll end it all. Seriously.’
I feel like ending it all! Another mantra. Especially when she’d been mixing it. Dope and booze and God knows what else. He’d held back her beautiful dark hair while she’d vomited into his basin, made her drink plenty of water, and put her to bed on her side. The next morning, La Traviata would be blaring out, and Morella would have forgotten everything, chuckling and saying, ‘I have a feeling I was a bit skanky last night.’
Morella fumbled a cigarette into her mouth, dropped it in her lap, then started to shake: ‘Oh, shit! Shit, shit!’ She started to cry. Stephen moved over to sit beside her, put his arm around her. He got a shock as his fingers touched her ribs; she was even thinner than his ten-year-old. He found himself slipping into the soothing croon he’d used with Morella all those years ago: ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ He never seemed to need such words to comfort Sue. Sue was strong, sensible, sorted: If you really want to help, Stephen, make me a cup of tea. She’d probably be making tea now, a quick cup as she prepared vegetables to go with whatever she’d got ready the night before, covered in cling film in the fridge. No special Valentine supper for them: We’re not kids. He could see her standing at the kitchen worktop, apron neatly tied over her navy blue office suit. He ought to ring her, explain how late he was going to be. But he needed to stay with Morella too. He felt her thin body shivering beneath his arm. He couldn’t leave her now, not even to pick up the phone.
‘So what is this awful thing that’s been happening to you? That’s got you into this state?’ He took his handkerchief, wiped her cheeks. ‘You know, I’ve never heard anything about you all these years. Not a thing. I thought you must have gone somewhere exciting – the States perhaps. Hollywood.’
‘Oh, Stephen, I wish that were true.’
‘So you’ve been in London all along?’ He felt annoyed. How could she have kept away from him all this time?
‘No, I’ve only been here a couple of months. Moved around twice in that time. They make it difficult, you know. I was in Edinburgh first. Then Leeds. Then somewhere near Birmingham. Always the same, though. Do this, do that. Points for this, points off for that. Oh, Stephen, I was being crushed. When I saw you yesterday it was like a vision, like you really did have angel wings, like you were going to lift me up from all of this –’
‘Morella –’
‘They didn’t trust me, you see. They watched me all the time. No locks. Couldn’t even pee in private. Can you believe that?’
‘Well, I …’ He began to wonder if she was actually insane.
She turned and grasped his arms. ‘Would you say I’m a risk, Stephen?’
‘Of course not.’ He wished he could sound more convinced.
‘They say it’s in the past. But they don’t let you get away from it. Ever.’
‘Who doesn’t? From what? Morella, you’re not making sense!’
She paused; a long pause, looking up at the ceiling. ‘What would you say if I told you that I’d murdered someone?’
Stephen’s heart jumped. He looked sideways at her profile, the way her features were so sweetly, so innocently composed. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘You know I never lie.’
He thought maybe it was an accident. Morella could be overdramatic in her use of words at times. Although he had an awful feeling it was more likely to be a crime passionnel. ‘What happened?’
‘Sharp knife. Opportunity. One, two. Finish.’ She mimed a stabbing action. He saw her as Lady Macbeth, the triumph of the year, the rave reviews, the seal set on her bid for fame. She’d been very convincing: Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers! She sighed. She seemed calmer, as if a weight had been lifted from her. She picked up the unlit cigarette from her lap, looked at it carefully as if it were a museum piece. In a reflective tone she said: ‘You know, I absolutely lived for these things when I was locked up.’
‘You were in prison?’ That was one reason he’d never considered to explain her absence from the West End.
‘Secure hospital. Same difference. Except the sentence never ends. You have to earn your freedom, and somehow I never had the knack …’
‘Oh, Morella! Why didn’t I know?’ It was as if he’d had no right to enjoy himself all these years, to have holidays, to laugh. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’
She shrugged. ‘It was in the Scottish papers: Cambridge graduate on murder charge – then months while they tried to work out if I was mad or bad. Do you think I’m mad, Stephen?’
He thought she conceivably might be. She’d always been volatile, extreme. He tried to think of a way to answer her, but couldn’t. There was silence. Then he asked, ‘Who was it – the man you stabbed? It was a man, I suppose?’
‘What difference is it to you, Stephen?’
‘I’m just trying to understand.’
She sighed. ‘You’re as bad as they are. Wanting to “understand” all the time. To get inside me. To get under my skin. I’ve said it over and over – he was just sitting there at the kitchen table. Horrible and thick and blubbery, and
so bloody pleased with himself. I just picked up the knife and did it. It was quite easy, really. If he was sitting here now I’d do it again. Put out the light, and then put out the light!’
Stephen cogitated. ‘A boyfriend, then?’
‘No – hardly.’ She drew for a long time on the cigarette, brushed away some ash from her skinny lap. ‘All right, if you want to know, Stephen, he was my stepfather. My mother’s husband.’
‘Your stepfather?’ It was the first time she had ever mentioned any of her family. She’d always seemed so blithely independent he’d never thought the omission at all odd, as if she’d sprung into adulthood like Athena, fully formed; no bourgeois antecedents, nothing so commonplace as family.
She gave him a sideways look: ‘Rory Lennox. You met him, in fact.’
‘I did?’ Stephen had no recollection of it.
‘That first night of Macbeth.’
He remembered the fleshy, older man she’d taken up to her room. Someone she had introduced by his first name. Not one of her usual sort: ‘I thought he was –’ He reddened. ‘I mean, I didn’t realize he was related to you.’
‘He wasn’t. Not one drop of consanguineous blood. As he was always pointing out.’
Stephen stared stupidly, remembering the man’s clammy ownership of Morella, his own impotent jealousy as he’d spirited her away upstairs. The full horror of it struck him with force.
She grimaced. ‘Yes, you’re right. See what a five-star slut I am. But I had my limits. I told him that night. I said it was all over. He said he knew I’d change my mind when I’d thought about it. When I thought over all that was involved, with my mother’s heart being “so very weak”.’
Lying Together Page 12