How It Was

by Janet Ellis

  ‘You’ve had a shock,’ I said. ‘It makes the world feel out of kilter when you lose someone. You’ll feel better soon.’

  ‘I have, I suppose,’ she said. ‘You think they’ll go on for ever, don’t you? I’ll be lost without her. Serves me right, doesn’t it, after all my moaning.’ We fell in step again.

  ‘It’s utterly awful, losing your mother,’ I said. ‘Did she suffer much?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She was pretty cross, though,’ she said. ‘It’s all the same if you suffer or you don’t, in the end. I don’t suppose dying is at all comfortable, however you do it. The funeral is the week after next. I do hope you’ll be back by then and you’ll be able to come.’ We were just neighbours again.

  ‘Yes, of course I’ll come. I’m only away for one night,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Sheila. Look after yourself.’ I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘Are you off home now?’ She’s fighting the urge to come with me as far as she can, I thought.

  She leaned forward slightly, propelled by inner turmoil, then accepted defeat. ‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘That’s me, then. Shall I keep an eye on everything for you, while you’re gone?’

  ‘If it’s no trouble,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ Something close to a true friendship between us had seemed possible, for a moment. It had been like seeing what appeared to be some bird’s unusual, bright plumage high up in a tree, only to realise, on closer examination, that it was a carrier bag caught on a twig. ‘What happened to your friend?’ I said. ‘The one who had the affair.’

  Sheila looked momentarily nonplussed. ‘Oh,’ she said, recovering swiftly. ‘She took up dressmaking. It’s always good to have something to do with your hands, isn’t it?’

  On the other side of the road, Tom Spencer walked past with his head down, ignoring us. He wouldn’t find the book if he went to look for it. I doubted that he’d even try.

  There was a slight dip in the road beyond the bus stop. I usually wished buses into existence, hoping their curved roofs would soon crest the slope like triumphant green beetles, but now I stood there hoping that none would come. I’d had to signal an apology to three bus drivers – each one stopping courteously for me, although it was a request stop and I hadn’t – before Adrian drove up. I didn’t recognise the car but the lights flashed as it slowed down. He didn’t get out, he only indicated putting my case in the boot with a wave of his hand. I looked at the time as I pushed the catch on the lid. He was forty-five minutes late. When I got in beside him, he ruffled the hair on the back of my neck like a man petting a dog. ‘Okay?’ he said, spinning the car rapidly away from the kerb.

  I didn’t think we were in the same sort of car as before. I wasn’t sure as I’d hardly been concentrating the last time, but I didn’t recognise the dashboard and when I put my hand over the door release, I was sure it was different.

  ‘Thinking of escaping?’ said Adrian, seeing my fingers on the handle.

  ‘Is this your car?’ I said.

  He paused. ‘It’s not. It’s Aggie’s.’ He glanced sideways at me. ‘Domestic stuff. Very dull. Full tank of petrol, though. Hey!’ He gestured angrily at the driver of the car alongside. ‘Move over. Wanker!’ Unlike Michael, who drove with the exaggerated courtesy of a much older man, Adrian yelled and gesticulated at other drivers constantly. He argued with traffic lights and harangued road signs. For him, the road was peopled with idiots and beset with confrontation. I smiled at him. He caught my eye. ‘You all right?’ he said. We were on a long, uncontroversial stretch of dual carriageway, with nothing around for him to confront. He hummed a tune and tapped the rhythm against the steering wheel as if he were alone.

  ‘I can’t really believe we’re doing this,’ I said. ‘I think it’s rather clever of us to have managed it.’

  He flipped the indicator stick down with a flourish. ‘You bet,’ he said, swinging the car into a lay-by. We came to a halt with a lurch. ‘I need a couple of things,’ he said. ‘One of them is a wazz.’ I watched him pick his way over to a tree. I looked away as he prepared himself. He got back into the car and leaned over and kissed me.

  ‘The other thing I want is you,’ he said. ‘Let’s not wait till tonight.’

  ‘Here?’ I looked around nervously. I had no idea where we were. The road was empty, but surely someone could appear.

  ‘Yeah. Good idea, isn’t it?’ he said, and kissed me into agreeing, which didn’t take long.

  He undid his trousers while I levered myself forward till I was almost off the seat. I managed to pull everything I was wearing below my waist to half mast. Every so often, one of us collided with the hard surfaces or unexpected protrusions inside the car. There were a lot of them. I was just wondering how much more pain I could bear from the point where my thigh met the handbrake when he stopped.

  ‘Are you on the Pill?’ he said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Christ, why not?’ he said, shifting round and opening the glove compartment. He retrieved a packet from beside the little figure of a toy soldier. One plastic arm was raised in salute. ‘We should have got in the back seat,’ he said when it was far too late to move much at all.

  ‘All right?’ he said afterwards.

  It was like the view from a not-very-high hill: there was not much effort involved but no real reward, either. Despite that, I felt curiously comfortable. I thought I’d like to stay there for a while, with his weight on me and my arms on his back. I liked the heavy, dense smell of him and the sway of his regular breaths. I dozed for a while, tangled with some dreams.

  Adrian looked up from where his head lay against my shoulder. ‘Oh Christ,’ he said in a low whisper. ‘Don’t look now.’

  And of course I looked, wriggling from underneath him with some difficulty so that I could follow his gaze. An enormous lorry was parked behind us. It was some distance away, the cab a long way from the ground, but I could see the driver. His face was impassive. ‘Are we safe?’ I said, horrified.

  Adrian started to laugh. ‘Safe?’ he repeated as though it was an incongruous question. ‘Yeah, we’re safe.’ He pulled on as much of his clothing as he could in the confined space of the car, then tidied himself up standing beside it. When he was finished, he waved in the lorry’s direction as he walked round to his side of the car.

  ‘What did he do?’ I said, as we drove away.

  ‘Gave me a thumbs up,’ Adrian said. He squeezed my leg. ‘Great performance, eh?’ He was still laughing.

  ‘Are we nearly there?’ I said, not sure if I wanted him to say yes or no. An indeterminate background of fields and low barns slipped past the car window. As the buildings began to gather first into the separate sprawl then the busy assembly of a little town, I was almost disappointed. It began to rain.

  Chapter 73

  When the car drew up by the kerb, Adrian turned off the windscreen wipers. Almost at once, heavy drops of rain burst and fused on the glass. He leaned over me and pushed the handle down. ‘Out you get,’ he said. ‘It’s one of those.’ He nodded towards the squat houses beside the road. ‘I can’t park here, by the look of it, so you go on ahead.’

  I wished it wasn’t raining. I wanted to say: ‘Let’s arrive together,’ or: ‘Don’t make me go in alone.’ But the water washed away my resolve. ‘Shall I take my case?’ I said.

  He nodded and I hurried round to the boot, keeping my head down. He drove away as soon as the boot was closed.

  Most of the houses had names as well as numbers: Dunroamin, Wavecrest, Two Trees, Sea View. Not entirely accurate that one, I thought, looking around. The street dipped away to where the owners had unanimously decided that the sea must be, but it was out of sight behind other grey buildings. The houses clustered steeply on the hills behind me, as if they were standing on each other’s shoulders to get a better look at the view. Number 43, Ocean Cottage, had a tiny, patched lawn at the front with a cluster of gnomes as garnish. Two panels of frosted glass above the letterbox were covered on the inside with a thick screen of nylon curta
in. I couldn’t see a bell anywhere. I lifted a miniature knocker in the shape of a windmill and let it fall, with a tinny ping, back on its rest. I could see a grey shape behind the curtain, like something large and dense moving under water. The door opened. The woman standing there made me think of an illustration in Woman’s Realm. She wore a blue twinset and a skirt of nondescript tartan. Her face powder was so newly-applied it almost sat proud of her face. There were two tumbles of powder at either side of her nose, like tiny peach avalanches. On her head was a suspiciously even thatch of auburn hair. Spectacles hung on a beaded chain round her neck.

  She squinted at me through blue and glassy eyes. ‘Yes?’ she said, as if it were slightly odd that anyone called round at this time of day.

  I took a step towards her. I could feel the rain on my shoulders and spraying the backs of my legs as it bounced off the ground. ‘Mrs Marshall? I have a booking,’ I said. The woman stepped back too, as though I had brought the weather with me and she didn’t want it inside.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Mrs Thomas,’ I said.

  The woman raised her eyebrows. Perhaps I wasn’t saying my pretend name with enough casual familiarity. When you’ve been called something for a long time – the length of a marriage, for instance – you don’t have to think about announcing yourself, you’re already in the conversation beyond that point.

  ‘We’re staying one night,’ I said, to fill the silence.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the woman. She didn’t seem interested. We were just another reason to change the sheets.

  ‘Ade– Mr Thomas is parking the car.’ I indicated vaguely in the direction that Adrian had driven away. Supposing he’d just kept driving? Perhaps he wasn’t going to appear at all.

  ‘Do you want to wait here?’ The woman indicated a velveteen-covered stool in the hallway. The area itself was minute and the furniture was Wendy-house-sized, too. If the intention was to make the space look bigger by putting small objects in it, it failed.

  ‘May I go up? I’ve got my things.’ I pulled my suitcase closer. Fat drops of rain still sat on top of it, threatening to spill at any second.

  The woman regarded it doubtfully. ‘Oh dear. I’ll get a cloth,’ she said, hurrying away.

  For goodness’ sake, I thought, everyone must bring in a case and they’d hardly all be pristine, would they? The woman reappeared with a fistful of J-cloths and set about dabbing the surface. She used all of them. She was wearing carpet slippers so worn down at the back that the heel had concertina-ed into a thin line.

  ‘You’re first floor,’ she said at last. ‘Follow me.’ She left me to carry my case. The handle was still damp.

  I walked behind her up the stairs. The woman wore dark stockings and her bulbous calves stretched the fabric to a shining circle with each step. Every available surface was covered in an array of little china bowls and glass animals, or vases too small to hold anything more than a daisy. I wished Adrian was with me so that we could catch each other’s eye and smile at the display.

  The woman shuffled along the landing past three flowery-name-plated doors and stopped in front of Pansy. ‘In here,’ she said.

  The door opened stiffly. The unmistakable smell of new carpet was almost cancelled out by an aggressive room freshener. It smelled floral but not of any particular flower. I couldn’t remember if pansies had a scent. The bed looked very small. It was covered with a candlewick spread and a quilted counterpane. The pillowcases had a deep frill, which hung over the edge of the bed on either side, threatening to dislodge yet more ornaments if they were moved.

  ‘Breakfast is seven until nine thirty,’ the woman said. ‘Full English, I expect?’

  I don’t know, I thought, I should have asked him. I began to feel slightly hysterical, as if each seemingly innocent question was in fact a trick designed to reveal our unmarried state. The woman was probably going to ask me which flowers I’d had in my wedding bouquet or where we went on honeymoon. There was a television programme like that, but you were supposed to find it funny if the husband and wife didn’t know much about each other.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said.

  ‘Right, I’ll wait downstairs for when your husband comes.’ The woman sighed, as though couples not arriving together added a huge workload.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll unpack.’ I wondered if the woman had spotted the fact I had the wrong initials on my case. They were embossed evidence of my guilt.

  ‘Wardrobe. Chest of drawers.’ The woman pointed to each. ‘Facilities are next door. Would you explain to your husband about breakfast?’

  She likes saying ‘husband’ to me, I thought, and she is looking to see if my pupils contract when I hear it, or if I do something else that gives the game away.

  The woman wrestled the door shut over the carpet as she left. Little lozenges of wool sat on the surface like lava spewed up from the underlay. There was not a single smooth surface anywhere. The runnels of the candlewick, the deep clefts of quilting and the flounces of fabric that sprouted from the bed swelled everything to well beyond their actual sizes. The anaglypta on the walls stood proud, despite the blurring of several layers of magnolia paint. There were fat lace mats underneath all the pot plants and at intervals on the dressing table, raising the little china trays and dishes high above the Formica. I had imagined both of us on a wide, untidy bed, with disordered covers and large, soft pillows. It was a vision of the bedroom I’d glimpsed through the open door on the landing at the party. That was the bed I wanted him on.

  I laid my case flat on the floor and opened the catches. My nightdress sat on top. I’d packed it last, because the thought of Adrian seeing me in it had made me feel nervous. I went to put it beneath the pillow and hesitated. I slept on the right-hand side of the bed with Michael. Adrian might be a right-side person, too. I put it back in the case. There was a small basin in the corner of the room. I ought to put my toothbrush there. The bowl didn’t look as if it had been used recently; there was a thick, white caking of limescale round the plughole.

  I was standing in the middle of the room when Adrian knocked at the door. ‘Hello, is that Mrs Thomas in Pansy?’ he said in a high falsetto, then shoved it open. He carried a small, battered holdall. It was almost ostentatiously shabby. He began to take his coat off.

  ‘Careful,’ I said. ‘You’ll make everything wet.’

  He looked surprised. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘It isn’t raining any more.’

  Of course, it isn’t, I thought. ‘Lucky you,’ I said. ‘I got soaked.’

  ‘Old Wiggy down there said you’d be in Pansy,’ he said, rather too loudly. He closed the door with exaggerated effort. ‘Ooh, that’s stiff,’ he said, going to sit on the bed. ‘This is a little one, isn’t it?’ he said, bouncing gently. ‘Christ, Marion, it’s like being in a Carry On film, everything’s a double entendre.’ He surveyed the room. ‘What a pad,’ he said. ‘Our Mrs Thingy doesn’t seem to have heard of modern design, does she?’

  ‘Why did you choose it?’ I said. I hoped it hadn’t just been with a pin in a directory. I feared that was exactly what had happened. I sat beside him.

  ‘It’s so perfectly un-“us”, that’s why. It’s a terrible little town and this decor is enough to give you a headache, but because it’s so different it’s all so ridiculously jolly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Which side do you want?’ I said. ‘Which side of the bed?’

  He looked at me for what seemed like a long time. ‘Shall I show you?’ he said. He slid his arm round my shoulders and kissed me, tipping me back on to the quilt. His kissing quickly escalated in tempo. He began pulling at my blouse, untucking it from the waistband and sliding his hands underneath. I was aware that I was still wearing shoes. Every item of my clothing seemed to have increased in weight and girth. I wished I was wearing silky things that slipped off, or soft, light wool that offered only the thinnest barrier to his hands. ‘You’d better get out of this yourself,’ he said eventually
, after some attempts to unzip my skirt.

  I stood up and instinctively tucked in my blouse before remembering that I was supposed to be taking it off. He was pulling off his clothes on the other side of the bed, dropping them where he stood. It was like getting ready for a games lesson at school, I thought, putting my shoes neatly beside a frantically tapestried chair. When I put my hands behind my back to unhook my bra, Adrian said, ‘Not yet, come here.’ He was lying on the bed. His small underwear was so tight it might have been painted on to his body. He looked incongruous against the riotously feminine bedclothes, on a bed that seemed to suggest that, while it was just about big enough for two, it was really intended for one chaste, female occupant. Adrian was categorically the opposite.

  I wished I could turn off the daylight. It made me feel ungainly, as if I were wearing a suit made of someone else’s skin. Adrian extended his arms out wide and they hung easily over each side. ‘I’m lying . . . in the middle. That answers your question, doesn’t it?’ He watched me take the few steps to the bed.

  I lay down carefully, as if I were measuring myself against him. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t make the room reassuringly dark. Instead, the light pressed red against my eyelids. He unhooked my bra and helped me out of my knickers efficiently, then wriggled out of his own. I was glad he didn’t want me to do it, I worried about getting them off over his trembling erection. He took my hand and placed it very deliberately on himself, the way you do when you want someone to help you with tying a knot. This part of him, which I couldn’t name even to myself, still felt utterly unfamiliar. The tip of it, bobbing beneath my fingers, was smooth and round, while Michael had a circle of skin there. They are all different, I thought. Like noses. This was such an inappropriate but vivid image that I smiled.

  Adrian caught my eye. ‘You like it?’ he said. ‘Me too.’ He looked down and regarded himself with affectionate pride, as if my hand was curled around him only to demonstrate his girth. He reached for another small packet from his discarded jacket and covered himself deftly and fast. He began to kiss and then touch me, spending just the right amount of time in each area. Sometimes he groaned or I yelped. I hoped the abundant soft furnishings would muffle the sounds. The mattress itself was as dense as marshmallow and about as supportive. It didn’t seem to have any springs at all. I tried to help him, moving my hands or twisting and turning as he instructed, but I felt out of step. It was as if he were hearing music I was deaf to and the rhythm of it was difficult to determine. It didn’t seem to matter to him that he was dancing on his own but when he slid inside me I stopped feeling as if I were in the way and joined in. The side tables shook, rattling their cargos of ornaments.