by Alice Jolly
Freddy comes back and pulls the blankets up further around me.
‘We’re going to ask Max to come,’ Theodora tells her. ‘And Maggie perhaps.’
‘What. Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s four o’clock in the morning.’
‘The telephone. We could ring.’ Theodora says this as though it is an idea of extraordinary ingenuity and innovation and I start to laugh and the pain is like nails being hammered through the centre of me but still I laugh.
‘I think it’s for the best,’ Freddy says. Then suddenly she starts to cry in long, sniffing sobs.
‘We’ll wait until six and then we’ll telephone,’ Theodora says.
We sit and watch as slowly the light at the window turns grey and then pink. There’s a mist on the fields and the moon fades. Theodora opens the window and I breathe the autumn air. She and Freddy sit side by side, hand in hand, and they stare at the world as though it is quite new to them.
Eternity, beyond, the place of light, so very close now … that place from which we came and to which we return, a place already known, half-remembered, as familiar as home. A place that has always been with me but only as a vague memory – a pattern of perfection – a world to be visited in dreams, a world glimpsed in moments of love, in scenes of dazzling beauty – occasionally even in times of extreme despair. All of my life I have yearned for this place and now I am at the threshold, I have laid aside my flesh, my heart and soul unfold.
Why fight to stay on this earth? A stunted place, half-finished, where evolution struggles to create mutant creatures – blind, imperfect, defeated. I see now that all of my life has been a total waste. Eternity, beyond, the place of light – it was always here … Spread out around me, laid out like a feast, and yet I lived famished for the want of it, for I was too busy, always too busy. I thought that I must work for redemption, that I could earn it with my mind, build it with words … I must be good, I must deny myself pleasure, I must search, I must understand. How wrong, how totally wrong. For now it turns out that redemption is always here, encrypted in the small details of each and every day … Why do we not see it? When it is here always, everywhere, every day of our lives.
Maggie
Finally I go to see Dad because there’s nowhere else to go.
It’s past one o’clock, after a party. Strangely, his front door is open and music thumps from above. I step into the dark sitting room and the china dog grins at me from the shadows. From above there’s a crash. Falling furniture? I should go home. I’ve drunk too much.
Gus appears, coming down the stairs.
‘Ah Maggie, how are you?’ As though all this is perfectly normal.
‘I’m fine, and you?’
‘Fine.’ He looks different away from England – thinner, with spruce clothes. ‘Actually, I’m having a bit of difficulty …’
He doesn’t have to say because I can already guess. I follow him up the stairs, shivering in my rose-scattered dress. Moonlight shines in from a circular window, glittering on the stair rods. My head hammers with jazz and drink. Candles flicker, their light reflected in the window and the mirror. I blink. Above them Dad seems to be dangling close to the ceiling, framed by the bobbly fringe of the curtains.
‘Gus, you bloody useless goon, hold the chair, will you?’ Dad’s voice slurs. ‘I’ll get it open in just a moment. No trouble.’
‘Dad, get down from there.’
‘I’ve told him twenty times already,’ Gus says.
Dad is standing on a chair, which is standing on the desk, which has been pulled up next to the window. He’s got a knife in his hand. His long silhouette bows to me, wobbling on the chair, and he swings the knife upwards with a rabbit-out-of-a-hat flourish. ‘Ah, there you are, Maggie. I’ve been trying to call you. Where have you been?’
He indicates the window behind him, and adjusts his footing as the chair beneath him creaks. ‘Just getting the window open,’ he says. There are books on the desk, a vase, and a candlestick. Dad’s tie is looped over the back of a chair. The room smells of candle wax and red wine. Cigarette smoke is thick in the air and clots at the back of my throat. I imagine him falling backwards, shattering the glass, and dropping into the square below. I should be frightened.
‘Max, you’re not big, and you’re not clever, and you’re over-tired, and you’re showing off,’ Gus says. He and I laugh uncertainly. The chair rocks and Gus’s circular shadow stands beside the table, gripping the frail legs of the chair. Dad wags a drunken finger at me and his head moves with it, nodding up and down. Gus and I are like a circus audience, watching a man on a tightrope.
‘Max, I’m going home now,’ Gus says.
‘Well, bugger you. Ooops, sorry. Freudian slip. You can’t go home. It’s only ten o’clock. Now hold the chair while I get this open.’ Gus is staring up at Dad. Strangely, he’s quite sober. I reach to lift books and a vase off the table. I don’t want to stand too close in case Dad falls on me.
He turns round on the chair, his shoes clattering against the wooden seat. He bends his knees and leans down towards Gus so that the chair wobbles. ‘Gus, don’t go,’ he says. Steadying himself on one of the curtains, he pats Gus gently on the head. Then he takes Gus’s glasses delicately in his hands and lifts them up, leaving Gus’s face naked. He wobbles, loses his balance, drops the glasses on the floor, and catches hold of the back of the chair to steady himself.
‘Shit. Sorry,’ he says. ‘Sorry. Forgive me.’ He starts to laugh, a strange wheezing laugh that convulses him, so that he wobbles again on the chair. Gus blinks and flaps his hands, because he can’t see even a foot in front of him without his glasses. I get down on my knees and feel for them under a chest of drawers. Dust from the floor sticks to my hands. My fingers feel the glasses and pick them up. I stretch up to Gus and his fat hands grasp the air until he feels where they are and puts them on.
‘Thanks,’ he says. My head is starting to ache and my mouth tastes sticky as glue. The jazz shrieks and creaks through my bones.
‘Max, I’ve really got to go home now,’ Gus says.
Dad steps backwards and in two giant steps he comes down from the chair, knocking over a china lamp, which smashes, pieces of it scuttling away across the floor and under the bed. Dad sways, then steadies himself against the fireplace. His eyes are blurred, and his shirt is pulled open at the neck. His hair stands up on end, and there’s a swollen place on his lip, where dry skin has split open.
‘Tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Perhaps I’ll open it tomorrow. I’ve got time.’
Gus takes the knife out of Dad’s hand. Dad fills a glass, spilling it slightly so that a black puddle spreads onto the table. He offers me a drink and I say no. He pushes the glass towards me. I take it and he leans across to get his cigarettes and matches from the mantelpiece.
‘Max, sorry, but I’m going home now,’ Gus says.
Dad raises his glass to me. ‘You know Gus has got his own home now, don’t you? With his friend, in a nice little suburb. All very cosy. He’s got no time to work for me. He’s too busy being a homemaker.’
Gus takes his coat from the back of a chair. There’s a rigid smile on his red lips and his hand moves up to pull at his shirt collar. He laughs slightly. ‘Max, shut up, will you?’
Dad’s leaning back against the desk now. His fingers are fumbling in a box of matches and he’s got an unlit cigarette in his mouth, so his voice comes out twisted. ‘You know Gus’s friend is Belgian. Works at the airport, as a mechanic. All very well, but I just hope he keeps his mind on the job. The aircraft maintenance, that is. I fly from that airport every other week.’
‘Max, don’t mock me.’
‘Ooooh, so-rr-y.’ Dad says this in a mock-seductive voice and purses his lips. He gets hold of a match and strikes it. It flares for a moment, then goes out. He swears and shakes his burnt hand. ‘You know, before too long I’ll have to look for another assistant. What with Gus’s personal life and his political ambition – you kno
w he wants to be on a list for the next election, you know that? He’s hardly got time to work for me any more.’
Gus puts his jacket on – a new jacket made of cream linen. ‘Max, I’ve always got time to work for you,’ he says. ‘You know that. But I want to go home now.’ Dad puts a hand on Gus’s shoulder but Gus moves it away as though it’s infected. Gus goes towards the door, taking firm steps, then hesitates and turns to look back at Dad.
His eyes are washed-out and his fat hands hang beside him. I turn the tape recorder off and the silence is sudden and heavy. Gus’s jacket is crumpled – he looks like a child at the end of a long day. I can hear the thickness of his breathing. The thin slick of his hair is ruffled. ‘Max?’ he says.
Dad is lighting his cigarette from a candle. Then he walks across the room and peers at himself in the mirror above the mantelpiece.
‘Max?’
Dad doesn’t look at him. ‘I thought you said you were going.’
Gus’s face folds up, he turns and goes out of the room. Looking down over the rail I see his feet stamping as he disappears down the funnel of the staircase. When he reaches the front door he stops for a moment and adjusts the shoulders of his jacket. He turns around and looks up – and for a moment his face lights up. Then he realises it’s only me watching him, so he turns and goes.
I take off my red suede shoes and, leaving them at the top of the stairs, I run down on soft feet and stand at the front door. Gus is fumbling around near the gate, twisted, bent over, his head down. At first I think he’s looking for something, then I realise he’s crying. There’s a crumpled whimper, his shoulders shudder. I should go to him but I know he wouldn’t like that. It hurts to watch him. Slowly he straightens up, puts out an unsteady hand to the gate and then shambles away across the square.
‘Dad, you shouldn’t have said that to Gus.’
The beat of the music continues in my head.
‘Why have you turned the music off? I thought that you and I might dance.’ Dad stands with one hand resting on the mantelpiece, smoke rising around him. He takes a drag on his cigarette and tips his head back, puffing out smoke. His cufflinks glitter in the dark.
He goes to the tape recorder but he can’t find the right button. He comes towards me, takes hold of my wrist and turns me round. His hands are cold and I can feel his signet ring gripping into my finger. As I pull away from him he stumbles and my face is pushed against him. I move my mouth, spitting out the taste of his shirt.
‘Don’t take any notice of Gus, Maggie. He’s just throwing his toys out of the pram. He’ll come round. After all, he’s not going anywhere very far without me.’
I turn the lights on and we both blink in the brightness – the chair piled on the desk, one of his suits hanging on the wardrobe door, the unmade bed with the shape of Rosa and him folded into it, the silent tape recorder, they jump out at us, large and bright, in the sudden glare of light. My stomach aches with hunger. I blink and rub my eyes, then turn to go.
‘No, no, Maggie, don’t go. You’ve only just got here. What do they say?’ Dad peers at the ceiling, then shakes his head, as though he’s trying to remember. ‘Rats, sinking ships. Something like that?’
I go to the door but Dad moves in front of me, blocking my way, and puts a hand against the wall to steady himself. He leans towards me and I can see the stain of red wine on his lips. ‘Maggie, don’t go.’ He’s got hold of my arm and he moves me to a chair. Outside in the garden there’s a cat wailing. He picks up my glass and passes it to me. ‘Listen, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘About this trial. I’m sorry you’ve got to be involved.’
He bends down towards me. His fingers on my arm are cold and dry. ‘Maggie,’ he says. ‘You’ve got to understand. I didn’t do anything. It really had nothing to do with me.’
I look up into the garish blue of his eyes. He leans over and kisses me. His lips are dry against mine. I push him away.
‘But you were there that night.’
I’m talking to his blue and white striped shirt front. My eyes fix on the pale shadow where my lipstick smudged against him. Suddenly, all my anger goes. I want to lean my head against him. The clock on the mantelpiece chimes two even strokes, which sink into the silence of the room.
‘Maggie, I didn’t do anything.’
‘You were there.’
‘That’s the fact, not the truth.’
Dad turns away and his shoulders rise in a shrug and then drop. He puts his glass down on a bookcase. I’m cold and I look down at my crumpled dress. The overhead light is too bright and my head is aching. I shade my eyes with my hand and don’t look at him.
Dad crosses the room and closes the door. He’s looking at the glass in his hand, turning it round and round. He starts to tell me the story of what happened that night. Tiffany’s obsession. The way she threatened him. I hate the way he’s talking. His words try to hook me and wind me in. His eyes never move from mine. His voice has the rhythm of a hypnotist.
‘I don’t believe you,’ I say.
‘Listen. I was drunk. Events got out of control.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Maggie …’
‘So you stood by and watched Tiffany kill herself? That’s what you’re saying.’
‘No, I tried to stop her …’
‘Really?’
‘Maggie, listen …’
‘OK, so perhaps you did try to stop her. Well, you weren’t much good at it, were you? People do seem to have a habit of dying in front of you, don’t they?’
The silence is raucous. Thoughts which have always been hidden are suddenly words and they lie newborn between us. Dad raises a hand to his face. His eyes plead with mine and his mouth opens and shuts with silent words. Then he turns away from me. Please, please, let me have those words back. I can’t believe what we are doing to each other. I am more hurt by the damage I have just done to him than by anything he has ever done to me. I step forward to touch his twisted back but, before my hand reaches him, he turns on me, his face twisted with concealed anger. ‘Maggie, if I were you I’d be very careful. You lied to the police as well, remember? Perverting the course of justice. It’s a serious crime – as you well know.’
I get up and go towards the door but again he stands in front of me.
‘So tell me about Spain,’ he says.
‘Let me go.’
‘I like to think about Spain. It’s a great place for a romance, isn’t it? And you went with Adam, didn’t you? No doubt he has some interesting views about me?’
‘Actually, I’m going to move back to London and live with Adam.’
‘Oh really?’ Dad’s head is back and his nose is wrinkled up. ‘Well, you do surprise me. I wouldn’t have thought he’d be your type. A man of many hidden shallows, that’s the conclusion I reached.’
If I married Adam, then Dad would spend his whole life despising me.
‘Is he good in bed?’ Dad’s eyes are blue needles in their ring of bloodshot white. He flexes the fingers of one hand and raises his eyebrows at me. Then he smiles so much that the white line of his teeth shows like a snarling dog.
My voice is quiet. ‘Dad. It doesn’t matter whether you plead, or whether you bully. I’m not going to turn up at that trial. I’m not going to lie for you any more.’
He stands away from the door, his feet creaking over the floorboards. I move my stiff limbs, open the door, step out onto the landing and put on my shoes. I feel as small and light as a leaf. The stairs go on forever, my feet banging on them, down and down. Where is there to go? Nowhere in the world is far enough. I stop in the hall and wait to hear him behind me but he doesn’t come. I leave the front door open.
Outside the square is powdered white. I look up at the moon as it reclines over the neon sign of the Holiday Inn. A strange moon, thin and ragged at the edges, its surface scarred. The latch on the front gate sticks in my hand. I pull it open, and walk down the path, under the clear cold light. I lock
my head forward as I walk across the square. My shoes are uncomfortable, so I reach down and pull them off. I imagine him watching me, seeing my hand on the straps. I can feel where he kissed me.
When I reach the other side of the square I look back. The house is white in the moonlight, its fragile minaret slicing into the night sky. The front door is still open. Empty. So this is how big decisions are made.
At the flat, I switch on my computer, and open the file that contains the letter to Tiffany’s lawyers. I rewrite it and the words come easily now. Drink babbles over the page and wine throbs in my fingertips. The voices are there in my head, making a case for it, explaining. After I’ve finished, I read the letter through once, and address it to Tiffany’s lawyers, smudging the last line of the address. Then I lick along the seal of the envelope. The edge of the paper slices into my tongue. The metallic taste of blood spreads to the roof of my mouth and down my throat.
From below, the sound of a piano rises, with a smell of olive oil and burnt onions. I wander through the flat, the back of my head still tight with wine. In the kitchen I open the windows and one of my posters rustles in the breeze and slides from the wall, falling like a leaf. In the fridge there’s nothing except a pack of butter and yoghurts past their sell-by date. I go back to the bedroom and pull a cardigan over my goose-pimpled arms. Tomorrow I’ve got to work, but alcohol and anger still press around my veins with a tired energy. A thin wind rustles through the papers on my desk.
‘Buenas noches. You will eat some tortilla? Is very good.’ Javier stands in my hall, gripping a deep pan in both hands, the handle wrapped in a checked tea towel. Even my toes are breathing in the caramel smell of onion.
‘No, no thanks. It’s very kind, but I’m going to bed …’
My mouth and stomach are weeping with hunger.
‘You come down in my flat.’
OK, OK. I follow him past the sunset wallhanging and the spider plants.
‘Sit down, please.’ His slippered feet shuffle into the kitchen.
I sit down in a black leather and chrome armchair, slide too far back into it, then wriggle forward, and perch on its edge. Javier’s sitting room looks like he’s just arrived, or is just leaving. Oil paintings are propped against cardboard boxes, and black electronic equipment is packed into corners. Furniture like a 1970s junk shop lurks in the shadows. Two tall lamps, with shades like purple witches’ hats, cast oval shadows. A kidney-shaped table pushed against a wall is ringed by moulded plastic chairs which should have Christine Keeler sitting back to front on them. Above the mantelpiece rows of curling black and white photographs are stuck on the wall with pins. A green lava lamp bubbles and sucks like a jellyfish.