The Backward Shadow

by Lynne Reid Banks

  ‘It’s apple and pine, mixed. I agree it’s wonderful.’

  ‘And is that actual beeswax I smell on the furniture?’

  ‘No, Johnson’s Glocoat. But it’s nice.’

  ‘Christ, I’m going to cry.’

  ‘No, please, don’t you start! It’s too much. I’ve been at it all morning.’

  ‘It’s this bloody business of being alone,’ she mumbled, her face in her hands.

  ‘I know. Do shut up, please, Dottie.’

  ‘You’re lucky. You don’t know how lucky you are.’

  ‘Yes, I do. But right now I’d give half my luck for half your ability to earn your own living.’

  She looked up at me through a ruined eye make-up.

  ‘Is that what you were really crying about—money?’

  ‘Sort of. Partly.’

  ‘I’ll lend you some.’

  I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but that’d be no good. It’s not only the cash I want, it’s the feeling that I can cope.’

  ‘You’ve coped up to now.’

  ‘So have you.’

  She stared at me. ‘Ah. I see what you mean. No, past successes or gettings-by don’t really help at crossroads, do they?’ She dried her eyes and leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling. We sat silently for a while and at last I said, ‘What about food?’

  ‘Not hungry, really.’

  ‘Bowl of soup?’

  ‘Oh, well …’

  She fed David for me and seemed more cheerful. I was full of sympathy, and yet I couldn’t quite understand why she was so basically upset. She’d been in and out of jobs before, and would surely not find it hard to get another now, though perhaps not quite so close to her heart’s desire. I knew it was something deeper, a pot-hole in the long cold valley of being unmarried. It was some days before I pieced it all together from snatches of conversation here and there. It was all fairly hard to pin down or explain, but after my experiences in the L-shaped room, though hers were on a much more sophisticated level, I thought I understood.

  ‘It’s the parties,’ she said, ‘and the dates, and the things you hear at them. It’s not just that most of the conversation is shallow and brittle and all the worn-out words for cocktail-talk; there’s a viciousness there, a feeling of inner bankruptcy. I sat next to a young writer at a dinner party the other night—the sort of man one thinks one would like to meet, until one meets him. He’s very ugly, with a beautiful, aristocratic wife who sat across the table smiling tenderly at him all the time he was telling me in a low, continuous mutter what a shallow, boring bitch she was. On my other side was a politician you often see on television, holding forth on brains-trusts—he’s supposed to be one of the white hopes of the future—and he was quite seriously propounding his theory that the best way to control the population in the East was to blanket the Orient in homosexual propaganda and try to turn as many young men as possible into queers.’

  ‘He was joking.’

  ‘Was he? Nobody was laughing. Then at another recent party that I got invited to more or less by accident, given by some tycoon in the rag-trade, one of the guests got a very little bit tight and made a speech about the host, highly laudatory in tone, from which it clearly emerged that both of them were nothing but very successful crooks. The speaker stood there cheerfully making jokes about the dirty deals they’d done together, and the whole room was rolling about with carefree laughter. What’s so lousy, Jane, is that while there’ve always been crooks and bastards and hypocrites and all the other species of human insect, they’ve never felt free to get up at parties and boast about it until just recently. Nobody’s shocked any more—not by anything. It’s not done to be shocked. You have to accept everything, like some sort of garbage-disposal unit that opens itself up and makes happy laughing noises while every sort of rottenness and filth is tipped into it. I tell you, I’m afraid to go out with men now. They’ve all got something disgusting to tell you about themselves. All they want from you is that you shall listen and not be shocked, so they can go away feeling there’s nothing the matter with them. Well, I tell you, I won’t do it any more. When they start, I just tell them I don’t want to hear. If they insist, I don’t try to be unshockable—when I’m shocked, I act shocked, and then of course it’s their turn to laugh. The ugly, frightened sound of that laughter is something I can’t describe. Sometimes I feel they’re wiping their dirty minds all over me. That’s why I won’t go to bed with them any more. It’s like acquiescing to them as people, and I don’t, not to one in fifty of them, not to one in a hundred.’

  Of course this didn’t all come out in one long speech, but in dribs and drabs, over a number of days. I was appalled … even the L-shaped room, and the denizens of its surroundings, for all their squalor, had not been as sordid as the picture Dottie drew for me of the smart set. The thing was, she didn’t strike me as the type that would attract that sort of thing unless it were much more universal than I had imagined. She seemed to be saying it was so intrinsic that it was impossible to avoid—except by burying oneself in the country, about which she suddenly harboured rather unrealistic notions of purity and sanity and vicelessness. As a sort of balancer, I told her about the plumber, but she simply asked if he’d actually ‘tried anything’ and when I said no, she said in that case the gleam in his eye had probably been a reflection of my own slight guilt-complex and that even if he’d pinched my bottom with his size-4 pliers, it would have been merely a nymphs-and-shepherds type frolic compared to what she was talking about.

  During the first few days of her visit, while she was unwinding, we didn’t talk much about me, and my plan-making was held in abeyance. She grew more and more relaxed, less and less smart as the few clothes she’d brought lost their immaculate perfection, and (it seemed to me) more and more deeply entrenched and unwilling to return to London. Not that I minded. Though her conversation was frequently depressing, her company in general was a joy; for Dottie could never be gloomy for long, and even her gloom was often shot with humour and mimicry. David loved her, and she him. I began myself to dread the moment when she would inevitably have to depart to renew the battle.

  One morning in the village while we were shopping, she paused to look through an empty bay-window overhung by a ‘Shop for Rent’ sign.

  ‘What was here?’ she asked.

  ‘All-sorts shop,’ I said. ‘Very dingy, doomed to fail. After all, we have a tiny supermarket now.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Dottie, whose current fad was shuddering at all manifestations of urban progress. She lingered on, peering through cupped hands into the dusty interior. ‘I have a fellow-feeling for failed enterprises at the moment,’ she said. ‘Could we get the key and go in and look?’

  ‘There’s nothing to see—just an empty shop. A bit sad, really.’

  ‘Still … I’d like to.’

  She persisted, so I took her to the estate agent’s and soon we were standing in the shop. It was, indeed, quite empty, except for some cornflakes cartons stuffed with paper and rubbish, a dusty counter and some broken shelves still festooned with a tatty oil-cloth frill attached to rusty thumb-tacks. The floor was bare boards, the walls papered with a flowered pattern gone dark which reminded me irresistibly of the L-shaped room when I had first gone there.

  Dottie was running her hand over one section of wall.

  ‘There’s a beam under here,’ she said. ‘Fancy covering a genuine beam with this hideous wall-paper! You’re right, they deserved to fail.’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ I murmured. ‘Look, there are beams in the ceiling, too. Quite untampered with.’

  ‘How can you say that! They’ve been whitewashed.’

  ‘What’s wrong about that?’

  She gave me a look. ‘You’ve got no feeling for places,’ she said.

  That annoyed me. It was patently untrue.

  ‘If there’s one thing I have got, it’s a feeling for places!’ I said hotly. ‘You didn’t see the L-shaped room before and after!’


  ‘I didn’t see it at all, you never invited me,’ she reminded me.

  ‘I’m very good with places,’ I persisted.

  ‘All right, prove it. What would you do with this?’

  ‘Do with it? Just what any sane person would do—leave it alone.’

  But even as I said the words, I felt a pang. Poor little place! It shouldn’t be so dirty and ugly. The bay window was marvellous; it came almost to the ground and there was a semi-circular rostrum inside for arranging displays on. The floor was pine, and so, probably, was the fireplace, which had been painted dark green and filled in with cardboard. Stripped and waxed, they would be beautiful. The counter was an excrescence, but it could be taken out. It would be an anachronism to sell food in here anyway, it would need to be—oh, antiques or something. Lustrous copper, glowing rose-wood, fine mellow velvets and stripped oak and those silky green paperweights full of bubbly flowers …

  ‘You know what would really be interesting in here,’ Dottie said suddenly. ‘Scandinavian ware. You know—Design Centre stuff. Teak, whitewood, enamelled iron, ceramics, glass candle-sticks, snow-white yakskin rugs, maybe a few rolls of Swedish fabrics …’

  I gazed at her aghast. ‘Are you quite barmy? In here?’

  ‘Of course! Think of the contrast. The tudor setting with the brand-new, stark simple goods—it’d be marvellous!’

  She sounded so enthusiastic that I looked round dubiously, trying to visualise it. ‘Strip lighting? Show cases?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Possibly—possibly—’ She was pacing about with such an air of purpose that I grew suddenly worried for fear she was serious.

  ‘Dottie, come on out of it, will you? Are you crazy?’

  ‘No. We’ve got to do something, why not this?’

  ‘We?’

  ‘You’re looking for gainful employment, aren’t you? You should be. And so am I. And this might be just what we both need.’

  ‘But—but—but—you can’t open a shop, just like that! What about permits, stock, capital, experience …?’

  ‘I’ve got the capital—we won’t need much. I’ve got the experience, too—well, a bit of it. As for the rest, we can deal with everything as it comes.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop saying “we”! Include me right out of this, I’ve never heard of anything so insane.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘What?’ I said, taken off balance.

  ‘Your New York scheme is a lot madder, it’s absolutely certifiable if you want to know, but did I throw cold water on it when you told me? No I didn’t, I even thought seriously of asking if I could come with you. I’m still thinking of it. And in the meantime, it strikes me we might try and do something together, to keep ourselves alive and sane and self-respecting until—’ She stopped. We stared at each other through the dust-motes. Suddenly she drooped.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said flatly. ‘What am I talking about? Let’s get out of here and go home.’

  * * *

  That afternoon, abruptly, she left for London. She was very subdued.

  ‘You can’t do anything without a man,’ she said dispiritedly. ‘You can’t even give yourself the illusion of enterprise.’

  She kissed David tenderly and then kissed me. ‘Take care of him,’ she said, and walked swiftly to the car, leaving behind a bottle and a half of Scotch and a very unpleasant emptiness.

  I was doing some gardening towards dusk, trying to dispel my depression, when I heard the gate creak and a stranger walked in. He was very London-looking, tweed jacket, whipcords, Clydella shirt and all. He was also extremely attractive. I hadn’t seen such a handsome man for ages, at least not one with such a gloss. I leaned on my spade and tried to look casual.

  He doffed his brand-new driving cap and crinkled up his eyes.

  ‘Mrs. Graham?’

  ‘Miss,’ I said automatically.

  ‘Ah,’ he said whimsically. ‘Yes. Is—er—Dorothy still on the premises?’

  ‘No, she drove back to London at lunchtime.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said again, looking downcast.

  A sudden intuition told me that this was the interior decorator. Dottie had told me, among other things to do with her called-off love-life, that he had been tentatively trying to renew acquaintance.

  ‘Just my luck,’ he said. ‘Must have missed her on the way down here. Damned awful road, missed my way twice.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, quite untruthfully.

  We stared blankly at each other.

  ‘Well,’ he said, stirring himself. ‘I suppose I’d better be starting back.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like something before you go,’ I offered without much enthusiasm.

  He brightened. ‘Well, that’s very sweet of you—if you were making a pot of tea, that’d be just—’

  I suppressed a sigh and led him into the cottage. David was asleep in his pram in the hall and we had to edge past.

  ‘Do you share the house?’

  ‘Only with him,’ I said shortly, praying he wouldn’t say ‘Ah!’ again, but of course he did, very sagely this time.

  I offered him whisky, chiefly because I’d had tea and couldn’t be bothered to start making more. He seemed gratified to find some of London’s amenities in this rural wilderness. He took his glass and strolled to the window, where he sat on the window-seat and gazed out at the darkening garden. David began to whimper, so I went out and changed him and when I came back about ten minutes later, the young man looked round at me with an expression of some surprise.

  ‘It’s quite pleasant, just sitting here, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Do you mean, not boring?’

  ‘No, really pleasant. Pretty. Quiet. The birds and so on. And the air smells fresh.’ He smiled diffidently. ‘You can tell I don’t get into the country much. Not the real country.’

  ‘Well, the whisky’s probably helping.’

  He laughed rather uncertainly. ‘Are you getting at me?’

  ‘Maybe a little. Quite unfairly. Sorry, I’m in a rather bad mood today.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked interestedly.

  ‘Well, I’ve had Dottie here for a week, and now she’s gone.’

  He looked at me with a sudden sharpening of sympathy. His good looks became much more actively attractive when he wasn’t being blasé and mannered.

  ‘How I do know exactly what you mean!’ he said fervently. He drank the remains of his drink and then said, ‘By the way, my name’s Alan Innes. Without wanting to inveigle any confidence out of you, would you mind me asking if she’s ever mentioned me at all?’

  I hesitated. ‘Not that I remember. But names without faces never stick in my mind. She might have done.’

  ‘Yes. I see,’ he said glumly. He looked through the window which was now a series of black diamonds, then back at me with his crinkled-up smile of rue. ‘We were very fond of each other once. But it all broke up, unfortunately.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I couldn’t have been sorrier myself. It was all so absurd. You know how these things can happen, if one’s fool enough to let them—everything’s going along beautifully, and then some absolute nonsense happens—something so silly and trivial one’s ashamed to remember it later—and it’s like pulling out the supporting pillar which brings the whole thing down on one’s head.’

  He looked at me. I said nothing.

  ‘Idiotic, isn’t it?’ he said with a wry smile.

  ‘Well. If the relationship is supported on such frail pillars, perhaps it wasn’t very strong anyway,’ I said, remembering the green and gold picture which had brought this particular temple of love tumbling down.

  He sighed. ‘P’raps you’re right. Felt quite strong at the time.’

  He stared into his empty glass in what might have been a gloomy reverie or a broad hint. It had begun to rain outside, rather heavily. I excused myself and went out to put away my gardening tools, returning after a while rather too wet for comfort. I put some more logs on the fire, realising
as I did so that this might create just the sort of cosy atmosphere which, together with the rain and the whisky and Mr. Innes’ melancholy mood, might make it even more difficult to get rid of him.

  It did. He sat on and on, until another small drink became a necessity of good manners. I made it as small as I could, and then left him again, this time to feed David and put him to bed. I was gone some time, and when I came back I found my visitor stretched on the settee reading a book with his shoes off, looking mightily at home. The glass, which looked slightly fuller than when I had seen it last, was on the floor beside him. He gave me a most appealing grin as I came into the room.

  ‘I say, I’ve taken a diabolical liberty,’ he said, holding up the glass.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘I do hope you’ll forgive me. I feel incredibly at home here somehow. Funny, that. Not my milieu at all.’

  ‘Well, it’s Dottie’s whisky, as it happens. I’m just a bit concerned about you finding your way home in the dark.’

  He got up reluctantly and padded to the window in his socks. ‘It’s coming down in buckets,’ he said, sounding more cheerful than he had any right to. ‘What’s worrying me is not finding the way, but the fact that I shall be doing it in an open car.’

  ‘What do you mean, open? Can’t you put the roof up?’

  ‘No. It’s broken.’

  I felt so annoyed I could scarcely hide it. Did he expect me to put him up for the night? If so, he was in for a rude disappointment.

  ‘You’ve got a car full of water by now, then,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, no, that’s all right—I’ve got a bit of canvas over it. But it’d be pretty wet trying to drive through this lot.’ He looked at me. The winning grin still played about his lips. His whole manner was that of a man accustomed to getting things his own way. Something in it made me stubborn.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ I said. ‘I’d offer to put you up here, if you were a female. But as you’re most decidedly not, I’m afraid I can’t.’