by Janet Ellis
‘No.’ I could barely speak. ‘I expect he’ll walk in any minute. Thank you.’ I hung up, trembling. What was I thanking the woman for? I wanted to speak to Michael, but he would be on his way home by now, so I couldn’t ask him what to do. He wouldn’t comfort me this time, anyway. He wouldn’t tell me it would be all right. Instead, he’d berate me for being so distracted that I hadn’t noticed the time. ‘What on earth were you doing,’ he’d say, ‘when you were supposed to be getting his tea ready?’ I was choosing clothes to be unfaithful in, I thought. The envelope was propped against the telephone directories. I picked it up. It came open easily, the glue barely held. Sweet Marion, I read, I’ll pick you up at two next Wednesday, to whisk you to our adventure. Seaside town, nothing fancy. He named a guest house and gave a telephone number. Counting the days! A, it finished. He’d written the note on a page torn roughly from an exercise book, edged with a line of incomplete paper circles.
It was like watching something precious disappear down a drain. You knew where it was, you could still see it twinkling, but it was completely out of reach. I can’t possibly go, I thought. I shouldn’t have even imagined it was possible. And now I’m being punished. I’m going to be punished for ever. The darkness outside seemed swamping now. I was certain that Eddie was lying injured somewhere, far beyond the reach of his cries for help. Or that he’d been taken. At this very moment he was probably pinned under a blanket in the back of a van. Wherever he was, he’d be afraid and calling for me. And all the time I’d been selecting my treacherous underwear. I sank on to the stairs, rubbing my forehead with both hands. Adrian’s flimsy missive lay in my lap. It was a moment before I made sense of the sounds I could hear: the fridge door opening and closing, a chair pulled out from the table.
Eddie sat drinking milk straight from the bottle. He started when he saw me, because I was hurling myself at him and screaming his name. ‘I was going to get a glass, I really was,’ he said.
‘It’s not that, you stupid, stupid boy!’ I wanted to strike him in relief, to hurt him physically to exorcise my pain. ‘Where have you been?’
Eddie hesitated. ‘Getting rosehips,’ he said. He looked despondent, as if he knew any answer he gave would be the wrong one. He pointed at his satchel. ‘They’re in there,’ he said. ‘Got loads. You tip the seeds down people’s necks. S’itching powder. There were loads of blackberries, too,’ he added helpfully. He was encouraged to see that, so far, his explanation hadn’t made me any crosser.
I knelt in front of him. I examined him as carefully as if I were seeing him for the first time. His lips and teeth were faintly stained with purple. His hair stuck up at the front of his head like a crest. He stared back, his eyes wide, pulling his mouth down at the corners in preparation for his punishment. I felt a great rush of happiness, which cascaded through me like the fall of pushed pennies in the arcade game. Of course! His safe return didn’t mean I shouldn’t go away, it actually meant that I should. That was how fate worked: it made you suffer, then rewarded you.
‘Eddie,’ I said, ‘come straight home next time. Please.’
The simplicity of my request melted him. He began to cry. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know I was late.’ His weeping got steadily more exaggerated and operatic. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he sobbed, enjoying his misery.
‘It’s all right.’ I put my arms round him. The paper in my hand crackled behind his back.
‘What’s that?’ he said, twisting to see. ‘Is it a hankie? Can I have a hankie?’
‘I’ll get you one. It’s not a hankie, Eddie.’ It’s a passport, I thought. I got up and left the room hastily, because I wanted to howl with joy.
‘Someone’s happy,’ said Michael, watching me singing as I stirred dried parsley into white sauce.
‘She fucking wasn’t earlier,’ Sarah said.
Eddie hiccupped in surprise.
I laid the wooden spoon aside on a little rest with Let’s spoon together painted round the edge. ‘Come here,’ I said. She didn’t move.
‘Say sorry, Sarah,’ said Michael.
‘Sorry’s not enough,’ I said. ‘Come here.’
She got up and stood in front of me. Her eyes were half closed in contempt.
‘What did you say?’ I said.
She paused. Tendrils of her hair trembled against the light. ‘I said: She. Fucking. Wasn’t. Earlier.’ She sliced each word with precision.
I leaned across the sink and picked up the washing-up liquid and poured a small quantity into my hand.
‘She’s sorry, Marion,’ Michael said, his voice low. ‘Say it, Sarah, in case Mummy—’
‘She’s not,’ I said. ‘Open your mouth.’ I spoke directly to Sarah, as if it were only the two of us in the room.
Eddie was silent. Michael looked appalled. My hand dripped.
‘Mummy!’ Eddie said, loud with excitement.
I ignored him. Grabbing the back of Sarah’s head, I pushed my soapy fingers inside her mouth.
‘A filthy mouth has to be cleaned out.’ I ran my hands under the tap, brisk as a nurse after a procedure. I picked up the spoon and went back to my task, hoping that none of them could see that I was shaking.
‘I hate you,’ said Sarah conversationally. ‘And I’ll get you back. I promise I’ll get you back.’ She spat into the sink.
‘Um,’ said Eddie, delighted. ‘You shouldn’t spit. You shouldn’t spit, should you, Mummy?’
‘There’s lots of things you shouldn’t do,’ I said. ‘You shouldn’t threaten people, either.’
‘What’s fretten?’ he said.
Nobody answered him. Sarah filled a glass with water and swilled her mouth out several times, her head low, holding back her swinging hair with one hand. She grabbed the nearest tea towel, wiped her mouth on several of the oast houses at once and left the room.
Chapter 71
13 October
I think hating someone is like having an animal you have to feed even when it’s not hungry. It growls all the time, too.
Bobbie came over to me at break, but she was with her crowd so we couldn’t speak to each other properly. Actually, I don’t think she wanted to. She told me I couldn’t come over to hers after school; she said something about an uncle, but I couldn’t really hear her because my ears filled up with a sadness as solid as sand. She said can you give your mum this and gave me a letter. All the girls around her went OOOH on a rising note, like a siren going off. I asked what it was. She pressed the envelope to her eyes and said, no, she didn’t have X-ray vision.
Every time I opened my satchel, I saw the letter. Marion, written in big handwriting, as loud as shouting. Marion, he’d written, but not with Michael beside it or Mrs in front of it. Just Marion, because she would know who it was from. She was waiting for it. I wished I was brave enough to flush it down the toilet or dump it in a bin. On the way home, it stuck to my bus pass when I got it out, because it wasn’t completely glued down at one end. It made me feel weird to think of someone’s tongue, his tongue, on the flap. I inspected it carefully, which is to say I wiggled it, to see if it might give a bit more. I don’t know if I intended to open it completely but it wasn’t difficult.
I thought if I wasn’t meant to see what was inside then God would have given the person who sealed the envelope more spit.
Sweet Marion. Reading those words made my eyes hurt, as if the letters themselves bruised me. Sweet Marion. Adrian Mr Cavanagh shouldn’t ever use that word about her. I thought I could actually feel cracks and fissures forming in my heart, like when the glaciers created fjords. Counting the days! A. He’d torn a page from Bobbie’s rough book leaving little strands attached.
Eddie came into my room without asking. I was taking Adrian Mr Cavanagh out of the box, separating him from the others, screwing him up. Eddie said what’s that and could he see it. I went to close the box and put it out of his reach, but I was too slow. He knocked it out of my hands sending Jesus and his beams flying. All the bits of paper s
piralled to the floor like sycamore seeds. I picked up Greg and Kev straight away, but he held Adrian Mr Cavanagh very tightly and it tore in half when I tried to pull it from his hands. He asked me what it said, although he only had ‘ian’. We fought for the rest of them. I chased him round my room and when he tried to crawl under the bed I held on to him and walloped him, hard. He opened one of the little slips of paper and read ‘John’ aloud. He was starting to cry and rubbing his arm.
He asked me if I could still taste washing-up liquid. I said what was he doing, coming into my private bedroom without asking. He said he didn’t like me and Mummy fighting. He was still holding some of my names, balled up in his fists. He said if he gave them back to me, would I take him to the stables. He said please please please.
I said okay but he mustn’t tell anyone, or I wouldn’t. He looked as dizzy with excitement as if I’d spun him round. He crossed his heart as he promised, flinging his arms across his body, his little hands tightly clenched over his trophies. He handed them all back to me solemnly. I said we could play Sorry. I knew that by the time we’d each thrown the dice he’d have forgotten I’d hit him.
I have a plan now. Just like when you’re trying to open something that seems closed and you get in first your fingers, then your whole hands, until it gives and widens, I could feel it all becoming possible.
Chapter 72
From time to time, Michael refreshed the details of my trip, asking, ‘When do you leave? Wednesday afternoon?’ or ‘It’s North Yorkshire, isn’t it?’ as though he really did have trouble remembering. I answered as cordially as I could. I was treating him like an irascible teacher who might refuse me permission to leave if I behaved badly in any way.
I woke each morning dazzled by my secret. A girl at my school had claimed she could see auras. She’d insisted that a cloak of colour hung over everyone, more revealing of their true selves than their clothes or their skin. She’d said my aura was mauve, because I was sad, which I thought was very unimaginative of her. Anna Paterson had cried for two weeks after being told that she emanated only yellow. ‘It can change,’ the girl said, ‘when you’re happy or something.’ How could Michael look at me now without shielding his eyes?
I had a small, cream suitcase with my initials on it, a wedding present from my father. Typically, he had used my maiden name and not Michael’s surname, so I would always be Marion Rose Edwards when I was in transit. It was quite small, little bigger than a vanity case, so I wouldn’t be able to take much. ‘I suppose,’ Michael had said, as he checked my arrangements for the umpteenth time, ‘you’ll be able to share Bridget’s things, won’t you? Her toothpaste and flannel and so on? No point in taking them, just for one night.’ He’d thought it through a lot more carefully than I had.
I laid the case open on the floor. I put a stout pair of lace-up shoes in first. We might go for a walk, perhaps, I thought, imagining clinging to Adrian as we crossed rutted fields or wet shingle. He holding me to him. The shoes took up so much space that there wasn’t much room for anything else, but I added a cardigan. I didn’t know where we were going to be and in what weather.
‘Is Bridget in the country or the town?’ Michael asked, stepping over the case on his way to bed.
Of course, I didn’t know precisely and made a mental note to telephone her and find out. He’d been so assiduous in his attention to detail up to this point that I suspected he’d require sketches afterwards, like a detective investigating a crime.
I’d rung Bridget as soon as everyone had left the house that morning. She’d hardly spoken, beyond noting down the address and number of my hideaway. ‘Can you tell me about where you live, just in case I need to know?’ I said.
Bridget had sighed and given me only the briefest of details. I had found it hard to concentrate anyway, I was already in Adrian’s car and his arms. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Bridget had said. Offstage, I could hear the assorted whines and snuffles of small dogs demanding her company.
I tucked a felt beret in beside the shoes and added a scarf with ‘J’adore Paris’ written on it. The looping letters weaved in and out of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. I’d only ever worn the beret standing alone in the hall, snatching it from my head at the last moment before I left the house. I sat at the dressing table and coaxed my hair into shape. I caught sight of myself in the three mirrors. I smiled.
I was ready too early, but I persuaded myself that my case would slow me down and I ought to set off. As I opened the front door, a slew of leaves on the mat outside hurled across the threshold on the draught and arranged themselves haphazardly in the hall. I had to resist the temptation to fetch a dustpan and brush and sweep them up. I knew that they’d still be there on my return.
The case was heavy, despite holding so little. It must be the shoes, I thought. They moved from side to side as I walked, making me feel lopsided and awkward. I had only my handbag in my other hand to balance my stride. I wished I’d gone back upstairs to spray perfume on my pulse points. I hadn’t even packed my cologne. I didn’t hear Sheila’s advancing tread behind me until she tapped me on the shoulder. I spun round.
‘Where are you off to?’ she said, taking in the case and my expression at a glance.
‘Visiting a friend,’ I said. ‘I think I told you. I’d better keep going, hadn’t I?’ I gestured ahead in the direction of the bus stop and the open road. Sheila fell into step with me. For a few moments she didn’t say anything. We walked on side by side, as if we had just finished the day’s labour together.
‘She died,’ said Sheila eventually.
‘Who?’ I said, but as soon as I’d spoken I knew who she’d meant. ‘Your mother?’ I said.
Sheila nodded.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I added, because Sheila couldn’t speak for crying. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed heartless to continue on my way, but I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want Sheila to accompany me much further, either, though I suspected her tears would dry up soon enough if she spotted Adrian’s car on the horizon.
Sheila cried silently for a while then stopped abruptly, as if someone had set a time limit on her weeping. She sniffed and produced a minute handkerchief from her pocket. The lace edging was larger than the usable area. ‘Life goes on,’ she said at last, folding and refolding the hankie and holding the increasingly small piece of cloth to her nose each time. I heard her draw in her breath through her open mouth. ‘You remind me of a friend of mine, Marion,’ she said. I glanced sideways at her. She was resolutely facing forward. ‘Except you’re more your own woman.’ She cleared her throat. ‘And she, my friend that is, the one who’s like you, she had an affair. That’s where you’re – different.’ Her voice broke on the last word.
She’s rehearsed saying this, I thought. ‘I beg your pardon?’ I said. I stopped walking, forcing her to do the same. ‘Well, she left her family, you see. To be with him. I said to her you probably think they’ll welcome you back as if nothing’s happened. But they may not. You might change things too much.’
I was aware that one of my shoulders was lower than the other with the weight of my case and I tried to adjust my position, little by little, so that I could face Sheila square on. She was close enough for me to be able to see tiny lines on her face, like the weathering on a statue.
‘I didn’t think she’d fall for him,’ Sheila said. ‘I told her about where he likes to go, but I thought: she’ll leave him dangling. I tested her because I thought she’d resist. I knew the man, you see.’
She sounded nervous now. I thought I could hear anger in her tone, too.
‘He thought he could just have anyone he wanted, you see. He’s – he was – that type. I really believed she was too strong for him.’
Beneath my coat, my buttoned suit jacket made me feel hot and confined.
‘I know she was bored and of course he was attractive, but I thought she’d be better than that. Better than him.’
I could think of no way to
stop her talking like this. I couldn’t think of anything to say in reply, either. The road stretched ahead of us. If anything, it seemed to be getting longer, reaching out endlessly as if it were bewitched.
‘He liked the chase,’ she said. ‘He said to me, Go on, Sheila. Tell her where I’m going to be. She’s very sweet. But she’s not incorruptible. She didn’t reject him. She really thought she meant something to him. He left her high and dry, of course. He came and told me all about it afterwards, as usual. And he expected me to say he hadn’t done anything wrong. It’s all just a habit with him. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you she wasn’t the first.’
I was rooted to the spot.
‘He’d never have walked out on his marriage, of course, his bed was far too comfy there. It was his wife’s money that kept him afloat, you see. You can be very sure of that.’
She hates Adrian, I thought. I remembered the image of Sheila smiling and bright beside him in her wedding photo.
‘I really thought she’d send him packing,’ she said. She reached for my arm. I was too startled to shake her free. ‘You don’t have to go,’ she said. ‘It’s not too late.’
For a moment, I imagined walking back home with her, laughing over near-misses and scoundrels. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘I’m going to stay with my old school friend; I can’t imagine what you think I’m up to. Excuse me, but I’ve got to get a move on or I’ll be late.’
Sheila stared at me. I saw a flash of tenderness in her expression. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I apologise. Take no notice. It’s losing Mother, I expect.’ She corrected herself as though she’d simply turned over two pages of a book by mistake and misunderstood the plot.
