Run, Mummy, Run

by Cathy Glass

  ‘On the count of three then,’ she said, and placed her hands, palms down, either side ready to push herself up. One, two, three, and she was standing. Her head spun and she steadied herself on the shed. Dried twigs and muddy leaves clung to her coat and she bent down and brushed them off. She took a couple of steps and felt her legs wobble, then strengthen as she continued gingerly over the lawn and to the back door.

  Reaching in, she tentatively switched on the light, and satisfied it was all clear, continued in, closing and locking the door behind her. She crossed to the sink, closed the window above, then poured a glass of water and drank it in one go. Pity there wasn’t any more mango squash, she thought, she really fancied some of that now. Turning, she went through the archway that led to the lounge, switched on the light, paused, and sniffed the air. Good. There was no smell, and no movement. But what a mess! The light illuminated the contents of Mark’s briefcase still in the middle of the floor.

  Aisha waited again and listened some more, half-expecting to hear Mark to tell her to clear it up, but the room remained quiet and calm. Reassuring herself that the house was truly empty and therefore safe, Aisha continued across the lounge and closed the bay windows, then returned to the unruly heap of papers beside Mark’s open briefcase. She knelt down and began rummaging through the papers until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out his address book. Aisha wanted to check on something, to see if she had remembered correctly. For while she’d been sitting in the garden, waiting and thinking, something had occurred to her – a realization, which had continued to poke and dig, chaffing her mind and making it sore.

  She opened the address book, and flipping through the first few pages, stopped at C. Christine, yes, she thought so; she had remembered correctly. She wasn’t so daft after all! She stared at Mark’s neat fountain pen entry, the stylish slant of his words. It seemed to be speaking to her, sending out a message, a clue, if she was smart enough to see it, which she was now. For Mark’s sleek black leather address book wasn’t very old, only a year or so she thought, and yet Christine’s address had been updated; which meant it was a recent move, and one that Mark had clearly been informed of.

  So why, Aisha thought, savouring the wisdom of her insight, why had he been told Christine’s new address, if he hadn’t seen her in ten years? She didn’t think it was for Christmas cards, although indeed he might have sent her one. But there was another, far more plausible explanation, obvious now, as it should have been years ago, if she’d had the wit and energy to see it. Quite clearly Mark had been seeing Christine, it was the only reason she could think of for him having updated her entry in his address book. The two of them had been carrying on behind her back, which meant, Aisha thought, Christine was as much to blame for her unhappiness as Mark had been. Her anger flared.

  Aisha stood and kicked his briefcase hard, sending it flying across the room. ‘Fuck you! The both of you!’ she cried out loud. ‘Especially you, Christine! I didn’t stand a chance with you waiting in the wings! What sort of woman are you who has an affair with a man who beats his wife and neglects his children? You’re despicable, that’s what you are! How long has it been going on? Or perhaps it never stopped! Is that why he treated me as he did? Because I was always second best? Did he tell you about me, and how pathetic I was? I bet he did! I bet he told you between the sheets and you gave him sympathy. In many ways you’re worse than him for without you he might have tried harder, but why should he, with you to run to? All those years of lies, deceit, and beatings! Did you savour your exalted position and laugh at my expense? I bet you did, you cow, you slut. The two of you have ruined my life, and while Mark has paid the price, you, Christine, his accomplice, have not!’

  Aisha paused, and looked down at the address book, still open in her hand. But wait, just a minute … now there’s a thought: she knew where Christine lived. And 10c Pleasant Road wasn’t so very far away, well within walking distance, if she fancied a walk .

  Which she did.

  ‘I think it’s time I paid you a visit, Christine, and found out what’s really been going on.’

  Aisha snapped shut the address book and dropped it on the bureau beside the photograph, then took off her coat, and leaving it on the hall stand, went upstairs and into the main bedroom. The smell had gone, and there was no shadow lurking in the corner. She closed the bedroom window and then stopped still. It was all very well thinking she was going to wash and change before she visited Christine but what exactly was she going to change into? No point in looking in her wardrobe; she went instead to the built-in cupboard and took down the old cardboard box containing her belongings from home. Carefully removing the china ornaments and school certificates, she took out the flat tissue-wrapped parcel beneath. She knew what was in it, she’d recognized it before when she’d been searching for her driving licence. Carefully unwrapping the tissue paper, she took out the only decent piece of clothing she possessed – specially made for her, and worn once at her graduation fifteen years before. It was her one and only sari.

  She shook out the long piece of gaily printed blue silk. She remembered her mother saying that blue suited her, and her father had called it ‘becoming’. Draping it over her arm, Aisha went to the small cabinet which contained her few clothes, and took out the cream bodice which went under the sari and which fortuitously she had kept, and a clean pair of pants. With her thoughts calmer and more focused than they had been in days, possibly years, she crossed the landing and entered the bathroom. It was cold, but there was no hint of his aftershave. She closed the window and laid the sari carefully on the toilet lid, then took off her old clothes and turned on the shower. Once the water had run hot, she stepped under the shower. It felt good, purifying, and she wondered why she hadn’t done it sooner – with Mark gone she could have a hot shower whenever she wanted; she must remember that, she thought.

  The steam rose around her and Aisha reached for the tablet of lavender soap and worked it into a lather between her palms. She ran it all over her body, once, twice, three times, then watched the jet of water carry the suds in a murky stream towards and down the plughole. There wasn’t any shampoo, it had run out a long while ago and she’d never had the money to replace it. She had thrown away all Mark’s shampoo, so she would have to use the soap, just as she did for the children’s hair. But whereas Sarah’s and James’s hair was always well groomed and washed regularly, hers was now so greasy and matted she found it impossible to work it into a lather. She tried again and again, rubbing the soap directly into her hair, but while her scalp felt reasonably clean, when she tried to massage the lather though to the ends of her hair, her fingers caught in the knotted strands and wouldn’t go any further than her shoulders. There was nothing else for it, she decided; she’d have to cut it.

  Rinsing off the last of the soap, Aisha turned off the shower and stepped out. Using the one remaining towel, which had been hers and the children’s, and was clean although threadbare, she dried herself, and then pulled on her pants and bodice. She turned to the wall cabinet and slid open the glass door and felt along the otherwise empty shelves for the scissors. She knew she’d kept the scissors because they were hers, given to her by her mother when she had left home. Although Mark had commandeered them, recognizing their quality, he had never used them so they were not tainted and could be kept. ‘A good quality pair of scissors is essential,’ her mother had said as she trimmed Aisha’s hair when she’d been living at home.

  Her fingers alighted on the cold metal and she took down the scissors, then flexed them open and shut a couple of times, watching the sharp metal blades clash together. Turning to the mirror over the sink, she rubbed the glass clear of mist with the towel and examined what she saw. How thin she was! She knew she had lost weight, her trousers were loose, but she hadn’t realized just how much. Her ribs stuck out from under the cream bodice so much so she could count them. And her hip bones, once rounded, now jutted either side of her concave stomach, and were visible at
the top of her pants. Nothing she could do about it now, she thought, it would take months to put the weight back on, and fortunately no one was going to see. ‘Best get down to the job in hand,’ she said stoically.

  Aisha looked at her hair in the mirror. ‘Now, where to cut? Here or here?’ She ran the open blades up and down her straggling wet hair. ‘Or we could be daring and go for a completely new style. Yes, why not? We’ll have a neat bob like Belinda’s, that will impress Christine.’ And for a moment Aisha thought she should also blame Belinda – for bringing Mark and her together, but decided Mark was such a good liar he could have fooled anyone.

  Aisha separated out a manageable clump of hair, and placing the open scissors at chin level, slowly closed the blades. A thick skein of long wet hair dropped to the floor and lay snake-like at her feet. She checked in the mirror. ‘Not perfect, but it will do. After all, it’s not the queen I’m going to visit, more a scheming bitch!’

  Using her chin as a guideline, Aisha set about the rest, cutting as far as she could see round one side, and then going round the other. Snip. Snip. Snip. The hair rained down and formed a circle at her feet. A magic circle, she thought, protecting me from evil.

  With both sides more or less the same length, all that remained was the clump at the very back. This was going to be more difficult as it was impossible to see that far round. ‘What I could really do with is a friend to help me,’ she said, ‘but I haven’t got any of those, have I? You saw to that!’ She grabbed the final skein of hair, and drawing it up and forwards, over the top of her head, placed the open blades where it looked about right. An estimate, but preferable to leaving it looking like a Mohican with one long strand down her back. She made the cut and the skein came away in her hand: she threw it on the floor with the rest.

  Aisha stared at the results in the mirror. One side appeared to be slightly longer than the other, but she couldn’t do much about that without starting all over again, and making it shorter all round. Once it’s dry, she thought, it probably won’t be so noticeable. She gave her hair a good rub on the towel and shook her head, the hair fanned out and settled. Not bad, and it felt so much lighter, and made her feel lighter too. She picked up the sari, and pinching one end, held it to her waist, and began wrapping it round, then up and over her shoulder, as her mother had taught her as a child. She tucked the end into the waist and stood in front of the mirror, arms hanging loosely at her sides. Aisha barely recognized the Asian woman who stared back, her face thin, eyes wild, and determination set in her features.

  Leaving the mirror, she stepped over the pile of clothes and hair and crossed the landing. Taking hold of the banister with her left hand and lifting up her sari with the right, she began slowly down. She wasn’t used to wearing a sari, she hadn’t worn one since she’d met Mark, and she was having to step very carefully to avoid catching her feet in the hem. Halfway down the stairs, she heard a ringing, and it took her a moment to realize that it was the phone on the hall table that was making all the noise. Who on earth could be phoning her? She had telephoned the children that morning, and wasn’t expecting them to call back. In fact she wasn’t expecting anyone to call, unless it was the undertakers? Or more likely someone for Mark who hadn’t yet heard of his death.

  Cautiously she picked it up. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mrs Williams?’ It was a deep male voice that seemed vaguely familiar.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stan Calder.’

  She said nothing, still unable to place the caller’s voice.

  ‘Inspector Calder,’ he clarified. ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘I hope I haven’t disturbed you, Mrs Williams, but I thought you would like to know that our enquires are complete. I have filed my report, and you won’t be charged with dangerous driving. I’ll return your licence and insurance in the post.’

  She paused. ‘Oh right, I see, thank you.’ She hadn’t even been aware he was thinking of charging her with dangerous driving. Had he told her? Possibly, she couldn’t remember.

  ‘Also, at some point, Mrs Williams, and there’s no rush, you will need to make arrangements to collect and dispose of your husband’s car and bike. They are in the police compound, forensics have finished with them. There will be a letter in the post, explaining what you have to do.’

  ‘I see,’ she said again. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. That’s the end of my involvement then. Goodbye and take care.’

  ‘Yes, and you. Goodbye, Inspector.’

  The line went dead and Aisha stood for some moments listening to the tone, and then slowly replaced the handset.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Aisha really didn’t need that now, not exoneration. What she needed was to be blamed and punished. For who was she going to talk to now the inspector had gone and with it her lifeline of confession? All those nights since the accident when she’d sat alone in the chair, confessing, telling the inspector what had really happened and how she was to blame. To be let off now, absolved and pardoned, was more than she could bear. But if she wasn’t to blame then someone else must be. Christine loomed, ever more the accomplice.

  Grabbing her coat from the hall stand, Aisha went out of the front door and slammed it shut behind her. It was pitch dark now, with a biting cold wind, and she didn’t relish the prospect of the thirty-minute walk to Christine’s flat. With the monk’s five-pound note still in her coat pocket, and her father’s one hundred pounds untouched at home, she felt unprecedentedly rich, so she decided to take the bus. She vaguely remembered the area Pleasant Road was in, from having used a dentist there once when she’d first been married and had had toothache and was allowed to go to the dentist. She felt sure the number 32 bus would take her to just past the end of the road, and if not it would only be a short walk away.

  Aisha sat in a near-side window seat and stared out through the glass, monitoring the bus’s haltingly slow progress up the High Street. Every so often her eyes refocused on the glass and her unfamiliar profile with its chin-length hair. Aisha wondered where this stranger had come from, for it wasn’t the person who’d had a life before Mark – who had studied and worked hard and achieved; but neither was it the person who’d come after, who had cowered in obedience and was beaten for her trouble. No, the person in the glass was someone new, someone who was in the middle of before and after, and who was frantically trying to find answers – to unravel the knot of pain in her head, and put logic where there was none.

  The bus turned down by the old grammar school and past the playing fields attached to the college. Then it pulled into a bus stop and the automatic doors swished open with a sigh. Scooping up her sari, Aisha went down the steps and onto the pavement. She could see the end of Pleasant Road – it was where she had thought it was, although the corner shop had changed and was now selling electrical goods, its window full of lamps and dazzling chandeliers.

  She began along the road, past numbers 4, 6 and 8, which were bungalows. Set further back was number 10, a small, modern, infill development of flats, with a short path, flanked by shrubs, leading to the main door. She went up to the door and studied the illuminated labelled bells on a metal grid on the wall: Flat 10a – D Sharpe, 10b – Tony Hyde, 10c – Christine Price, 10d – P Waterman. She gave the buzzer to 10c one long press and waited.

  A female voice, distorted by the intercom, came through. ‘Hello?’

  Aisha leant towards the grill as she spoke. ‘Is that Christine Price?’

  A small hesitation, then, ‘Yes. Who is this?’

  There was no point in lying, she would find out soon enough. ‘Aisha Williams,’ she said evenly.

  Another hesitation, then, ‘Mark’s widow?’

  So she recognized her name, and knew he was dead; clearly news travelled fast in their close and doubtless select network of friends. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you.’

  A longer pause, then, ‘OK, come up. But I can’t give you
long – I’m going out in half an hour.’

  Very trusting, Aisha thought, she doubted she would have let her in if she’d been Christine.

  The front door clicked its release and Aisha pushed it open and went in; it shut automatically behind her. She stood for a moment and looked around the entrance hall with its immaculate inlaid wood floor free of scuffmarks, and spotless magnolia emulsion walls. A pine balustrade staircase rose elegantly before her. Doors to flats 10a and 10b led off either side of the hall, and outside 10a was a huge Chinese vase with a magnificent arrangement of dried flowers. All very pleasant, like its road name, Aisha thought bitingly. Doubtless Mark and Christine spent many a pleasant night in her flat.

  Hitching up the hem of her sari, she took hold of the wooden handrail and began to climb the staircase. She heard a door above open and glanced up; a woman in a white toweling bathrobe with a matching towel wrapped turban-like around her head appeared on the landing and smiled. Aisha looked down again and concentrated on the stairs. As she completed the climb, Christine came forwards to shake hands. ‘Hello Aisha, we meet at last.’ She was softly spoken with a London accent and not at all embarrassed by meeting her.

  Aisha would have liked to have ignored Christine’s offered hand and slapped her face instead. But even now her upbringing told her it was unacceptably rude. ‘Manners maketh the man,’ her father used to say, and ridiculously Aisha remembered Mark saying it too. She took Christine’s smooth, cool hand in hers and looked into her perfectly composed face. Her eyes were blue, almost the same shade as Mark’s, and her delicate pale skin was flawless without any trace of make-up.

  ‘Do excuse me,’ Christine said. ‘I was in the shower. I hope you don’t mind talking while I get ready.’ She dropped Aisha’s hand and without waiting for a reply, turned and led the way into the flat.