Life Class

by Pat Barker

  ‘Why do you think he sends them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think he’s drunk when he writes them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably.’

  ‘Did he always drink? I mean, when you first met him?’

  ‘You mean, did I drive him to it?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Yes, he drank. Only it didn’t seem to have the same effect on him then. He just got a bit …’ A faint, unconscious smile. ‘Cuddly. But then after we married he started drinking more and … Well, if he was bad-tempered when he started it made him fifty times worse. Whatever he was feeling it made it worse. I’ve seen him sometimes, on a Saturday night, he’d have offered his own Granny out to fight.’

  ‘Where did he get the money?’

  ‘He worked for it. He was a furnace man. They work bloody hard. And they do need the drink. You see them come off shift, it’s straight across the road into the pub. They’ll sink five, six pints, think nothing of it, and they’re not drunk on it either. And if he was ever short of a few bob he only had to go bare-knuckle fighting. Take anybody on. The other lads used to lay bets on him.’

  The warmth faded from her face.

  ‘Have you got a photograph of him?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

  ‘If he’s going to kill me I’d like to be able to recognize him. If you don’t mind?’

  She went to the sideboard, reached under a tablecloth in the top drawer, and brought out a photograph. It was a wedding portrait, the two of them together, standing outside a church. Teresa was plump, smiling, full of hope, pretty, but not beautiful as she was now. Halliday was tall, dark-haired, not bad-looking, though his head and neck were unusually long so that his shoulders seemed to be surmounted by a tower.

  Teresa stared at the photograph and her expression softened. Oh, she’d loved him once. How on earth had they got from the moment outside the church to where they were now?

  ‘I suppose he still loves you.’

  She waved the letter. ‘You call that love?’

  Her face was white and shrivelled. Coarse. For the first time she repelled him. Knowing it was the wrong thing to do, he began interrogating her. When had she left Halliday? How often did he turn up? When was the last time? She became restless under the questioning, and no wonder. He was being tedious, bad-mannered. No, worse than that, he was behaving like a bully, but he kept on. It was a relief when she finally lost her temper and told him to get out. He went without argument. He’d got as far as the door when she came after him, holding on to his arm, begging him to stay.

  He let himself be persuaded. As she led him along the corridor to the bedroom, he felt the same urgency of desire as he’d felt the first time. He knew he ought to break off the relationship now, but he couldn’t. Beside these moments: the salty taste of oysters on her tongue, the fumbling with her dress, the smell of her skin, the rumbling of a train that shook the bed, besides these moments the threat from Halliday meant nothing.

  After their lovemaking, he lay in the candlelight absent-mindedly stroking her hand. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, but worse – because it seemed to symbolize the power of the past more trenchantly – the flesh on her ring finger was permanently indented. Unconsciously, he began picking at the groove in her skin until she snatched her hand away.

  Paul lay for a moment in silence. Then: ‘Was he a good lover?’

  ‘Who?’

  Who indeed. ‘Jack.’

  ‘No, not really. He only cared about himself.’

  He wondered what she’d say about him. After a while she turned away from him and he heard from her breathing that she was asleep, but it was a long time before he was able to follow her and even then he had long confused dreams that were always threatening to turn into nightmares. In one of them he sat by his mother’s grave drinking a cup of tea, with a plate of sandwiches and fancy cakes balanced on his knee. When he looked up everybody he knew was there, eating and drinking, talking, laughing, their chairs turned in to face the headstone. And then, looking down, he saw the grave was open.

  He came awake with a jump, staring around him, but gradually his breathing quietened. Nothing to be afraid of, he told himself, knowing all the time that he had every reason to be afraid. She’ll never rest, his grandmother had said. And she never had. Night after night she walked the corridors of his dreams.

  But he was used to her presence. He didn’t mind. Pressing his cheek against Teresa’s back, he breathed in the smell of her hair, and, after a while, drifted back to sleep.

  Normally Paul left before breakfast, going back to his own flat to shave and change his clothes, but this morning he lingered. They ate toast and drank coffee lying in bed and then she went off to the bathroom to get ready for her day.

  As soon as he heard the bathroom door close he was out of bed. He began searching through her drawers, the bottom of the wardrobe, the sideboard, anywhere, not even trying to justify his behaviour. He needed to know – that was all. He didn’t even admit to himself what he was looking for, until the last second, when he held it in his hand.

  A cheap blue notepad. Going across to the window, pressing his shoulder against the glass to get as much light as the grey morning allowed, he saw that the paper was the same weight and colour as the letter she’d received last night. He put the pad and the letter side by side, rubbed the bottom edge of the pages between his thumb and forefinger, held them up to the light to check the watermark. Identical. That, by itself, didn’t mean much – notepads like this were sold in every corner shop and every branch of Woolworths in England. But on the first page of the pad he could see the indentation of letters where the writer had pressed hard. The K in KILL was particularly sharp and deep, but if you looked closely you could make out the whole sentence.

  I’LL KILL THE PAIR OF YOU – JACK

  There could be no doubt. He saw no way round it. She’d written the letter herself.

  Eight

  He was out of his depth: too intelligent not to know it, too proud to admit it. He needed to talk to Elinor, who knew Teresa better than anybody else, but it was difficult to get hold of her. At last though he managed to corner her in the Antiques Room and she invited him to tea at her lodgings after college.

  Prompt at six o’clock, he knocked on her door. He heard his name called and stepped back to see Elinor leaning out of a window on the third floor, her heavy dark gold hair swinging forward in two sharp points on her cheeks. ‘Hang on a sec, I’ll come down.’

  Footsteps, quick and light, and then the door was thrown open and she looked out at him, smiling.

  ‘Doesn’t your landlady mind men calling?’

  ‘Men?’ She peered round him. ‘Oops, he’s brought the regiment. No, she’s down in the basement. As long as there’s not too much noise, she lets us get on with it. She’s even letting us redecorate.’

  Elinor led the way up a broad staircase whose dark green carpet had a beige strip in the centre where the pile had worn through to the backing. She was clearly in the thick of decorating – he smelled distemper the moment she opened her door. Lolling tongues of rose-trellised wallpaper lay on the floor where she’d simply seized it and pulled it off the wall. A bucket of grey, glutinous sludge, a table and a stepladder occupied the centre of the room, but a sofa and two chairs had been pushed together at the far end so that some kind of normal life could continue.

  ‘What colour are you doing it?’

  ‘Stone. I thought grey might be a bit too depressing.’

  ‘And you’re doing it all yourself?’

  ‘No, Ruthie comes round to help. She’s on the floor above. We’re doing mine first and then we’ll do hers.’

  ‘It’s a big job.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind, I like it. Anyway, there’s no choice. I can’t work with that stuff on the wall. There’s another room, if you’d like to see?’

  The bedroom. Elinor’s bed under a patchwork quilt, a chair, a wardrobe. Noth
ing else. Sunlight came in through the smeared window and crept in parallelograms of light across the faded carpet. From below came the hum and rumble of traffic.

  ‘I’m leaving this till last.’

  He scarcely heard her. He was staring at a painting she’d propped against the wall: a female nude, facing away, rubbing a bath towel down her left arm. The ends of her glossy black hair stuck in wet coils to her white shoulders. ‘Teresa.’

  ‘She modelled for me. I said. Don’t you remember?’

  He did, now she mentioned it, but still it came as a shock. They gazed at the painting together. He felt a surge of desire, not for Teresa, but for Elinor. He imagined kissing her, and the image was so vivid that for one crazy second he thought he’d done it, and was groping about in his mind for some way of repairing the damage.

  ‘That’s the one I won the scholarship for.’

  He realized she’d brought him here into her bedroom to show him this, but he didn’t know why. A natural pride in a good piece of work? Or something more fundamental: a demand that he should recognize her as an equal? Well, if that was her motive she needn’t have bothered. There could be no question of equality. If he stayed at the Slade another ten years he’d never be able to paint sunlight on wet flesh like that.

  ‘It’s wonderful. I’m so glad I’ve seen it.’

  She smiled. ‘Come on, I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. There’s only room for one.’

  He stood in the kitchen doorway while she boiled water and made salmon-and-cucumber sandwiches. He wanted to say more about the painting, but he’d always found it difficult to praise an artist to his face, her face, or even to accept praise gracefully himself. Though that hadn’t been much of a disability so far.

  ‘Right, I think that’s it,’ Elinor said, wiping her hands on her sides. ‘Here, you can carry the tray.’

  He set it down on a small table, which she cleared by sweeping piles of books on to the floor. They sat facing each other, the sofa and chairs so squashed together their knees were almost touching. She offered him a plate and a sandwich, but didn’t immediately pour the tea. He noticed there were three cups.

  ‘I got a note from Teresa saying her husband was prowling round.’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘Poor Teresa. She must be terrified.’

  Her eyes had gone black with anger. Her sympathy reminded him how very much he liked her, and he was reaching out to touch her hand, when –

  ‘Elinor.’

  Neville, gasping for breath after the long walk upstairs. He stopped in the doorway, registering the scene, and his face changed colour – not a flush, but the most extraordinary darkening, like a male fish that finds itself unexpectedly confronted by a rival. ‘Oh, hello, Tarrant.’

  Why does she do it? Paul wondered. Obviously she’d invited them both to tea, at slightly staggered times, implying, though not promising – for when did Elinor ever promise anything? – that each was to enjoy a tête-à-tête. Now she avoided looking at either of them.

  After an awkward pause, Neville produced a bottle of wine from the green bag he was carrying. ‘I thought you might like to celebrate the scholarship.’ He glanced at Paul. ‘You know about this?’

  ‘I’ve just been admiring the painting.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve got it back?’

  ‘Yes, this morning. Come through, I’ll show you.’ Paul listened to the murmur of voices from the bedroom. Neville loved her. It was unmistakable. He always spoke to her with a kind of clumsy, affable superiority, making the most of his extra years and his fame, but increasingly the mask of confidence slipped to reveal lust and pain and fear.

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without Teresa,’ Elinor was saying, as they came back into the room. ‘A model makes all the difference.’

  ‘Yes, and she’s a good model too, isn’t she?’ Neville sat down next to Paul. Are you painting her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll get some glasses,’ Elinor said.

  The two men were left alone. After a pause, Neville asked, ‘How’s the life class going?’

  ‘Oh, you know. I’ve more or less given up.’

  Elinor came back with three glasses and a bottle opener. Neville uncorked the bottle and poured. After they’d toasted Elinor’s success, there was silence. Then Neville said, ‘Oh. I’ve got something to celebrate too. I’ve bought a motorbike.’

  He looked so pink and glowing, so insufferably pleased with himself, that of course they had to troop downstairs and admire the gleaming monster. Another craze, Paul thought, dismissively, another fad. That was the kind of reaction Neville provoked. Not contempt, exactly, but something close to it. The vanity of the man. The wealth. And yet you had to share his delight in his new toy. He was such a child.

  ‘I don’t suppose I can tempt either of you to have a ride?’

  ‘No,’ Elinor said.

  Paul raised his glass. ‘Not at the moment.’

  Back upstairs, flushed with wine and triumph, Neville became more expansive, reverting to the subject of Teresa’s husband. He seemed to have forgotten Elinor was there. ‘Why does she live in that wretched little basement? There’s no need. She’s not that poor. And even if she was, some man or other would always fork out. If she was half as frightened as she says she is, she’d be only too glad to move. Look at it. No proper locks on the windows. Anybody could hide in that coal-hole, the bolt on the back door doesn’t work … One screw –’

  Too late, he stopped, stared into his glass and emptied it in one gulp.

  ‘She seems very happy there,’ Elinor said.

  Nobody replied. Paul smiled and stood up. ‘I think I ought to be going.’

  Elinor was looking up at him with some concern. He shrugged, then bent and kissed her, rather enjoying the expression of pain that flickered across Neville’s face. ‘Shall I see you in Lockhart’s tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One o’clock?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right, then.’

  ‘No, wait, I’ll see you out.’

  They walked downstairs together. ‘Are you and Teresa coming to the Café Royale tonight?’ she asked, as he opened the front door.

  ‘Yes, I’m meeting her there. Are you coming?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ She jerked her head towards the stairs. ‘I’ll see how things are.’

  She was hugging her upper arms, though it wasn’t cold. For the first time since he’d known her she seemed vulnerable, not dashing at all, a little half-starved cat. He put his arm round her. ‘I’m really pleased about the scholarship.’ He hesitated. ‘Elinor …’

  ‘I know what you’re going to ask and the answer is I don’t know.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes, probably. But it was ages ago. Nev’s a troublemaker, you know that.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I know. I’ll see you later.’

  It was nothing to be miserable about, he told himself, walking off down the street, merely the confirmation of something he’d suspected since their first evening. What happened before they met didn’t matter. It was far less important than the threat – if there was a threat – from Halliday.

  Nine

  That Saturday there was a fair on Hampstead Heath. He asked Teresa to go with him but he wasn’t surprised when she refused. Instead, he arranged to go with Elinor and Ruthie, and with Ruthie’s friend Michael Abbott, a cheerful, sociable, self-confident young man who spent hardly any time in classes and yet never seemed to doubt his ability as a painter.

  They met at Elinor’s lodgings and went up together on the bus, sitting on the top in the open air. This was the first day that felt like summer. Paul managed to sit next to Elinor. As she twisted round to speak to Ruthie, her knee pressed into his thigh under the rain apron. He glanced at her sideways but she didn’t seem to notice. She was full of life, carefree, and suddenly his affair with Teresa seemed limited, shadowed by the bitterness of her marriag
e that he pretended to understand, but couldn’t. The cabbage leaves and the dark hole behind the dustbins seemed to epitomize everything he’d begun to dislike. But then he remembered the sound of the trains, the vibration of the bed as they roared past, the way Teresa’s skin gleamed in the candlelight.

  ‘Hoy!’ Elinor waved a hand in front of his face.

  ‘Sorry I was miles away.’

  ‘I know where you were. Couldn’t she come?’

  ‘She wanted to go to the Café Royal. I fancied a change.’ His words hung on the air, silence giving them a weight he hadn’t intended. Say something. Anything. ‘How about Neville? I’d’ve thought a fairground was just the ticket.’

  ‘He’s painting a factory in Leeds.’

  He sensed coolness, but whether directed at Neville or at him – perhaps she found the question intrusive – he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. It was a summer evening, and warm, and they were going to the fair together.

  At the fairground they stood on muddy trampled grass, breathing in smells of candyfloss, roasting chestnuts, chips, beer from the beer tents where men queued and carried away bottles, two or three in each hand. On the boat swings girls hung on to their skirts, shrieks of laughter slicing the air. They went on the swings first. He handed Elinor in and sat opposite her as the chocks were pulled away. Hauling on the tasselled rope they rose higher and higher. He saw her open mouth and knew she was laughing but couldn’t distinguish her laugh from the roar around them. At one point her skirt flew up. She squealed, like any shop girl on an outing, and he caught the hem and pinned it down with his foot. By the time their go was over he’d had enough and so had she, jumping down and swaying against him, so that her nose bumped against his shoulder. He took hold of her arms to steady her, she looked up at him and for a second they might have kissed, but Abbott, waiting behind him, said, ‘Hey get a move on. It’s our turn.’

  They waited. All around overtired children whinged, mothers snapped and slapped, fathers took refuge in the beer tents, gangs of youths roamed about, braying, jeering, contemptuous, excluded. Paul wanted to get Elinor somewhere quiet and alone, but she and Ruthie stuck together as they always did. As soon as Ruthie got off the boat swing they were arm in arm again, strolling towards the merry-go-round whose grinning, blue-eyed horses rose and fell. When it stopped, Elinor said, ‘Aren’t you coming?’ Her skin was orange in the light of the naphtha torches, which cast shuddering shadows over the heaving ground. ‘No, you go.’ You could only ride three abreast and so Abbott was in his glory, with a girl on either side.