‘You both look pretty good too,’ Felix said. ‘Crime and art must be flourishing. I may have to touch you for a loan if I don’t write something soon. I seem to have spent most of the money I went abroad not to pay tax on. God, what a sentence.’
‘I thought Tony Blythe was meant to keep you in idleness for the rest of your life,’ Helen said.
‘That was the plan, yes. But it’s come unstuck somehow. I think I’m bored with him, silly little sod. I might even kill him off, how about that? Inn at the Death I shall call it, about these two gays who run a hotel. Then he can go out with a bang and a whimper and I’ll have to write the great English novel. I’ve had enough of crime and Tony Blythe.’
‘Don’t be too hasty,’ Richard said. ‘He’s been good to you.’
‘How’s Sally?’ Elizabeth asked Helen, as if anxious to change the subject.
‘Fine. She’ll be down in a minute but she’s not eating with us, she’s going to a disco.’
‘She’s got into Sussex,’ Richard said, ‘so we’re rather proud of her.’
‘I’m actually quite frightened,’ Felix said. ‘If I don’t get another TV series pretty soon, I’m a ruined man.’
‘You always say that,’ said Richard, ‘but you keep going. I think you need the fright to make you work.’
‘Bloody masochism,’ said Felix. ‘What a ridiculous business.’
Sally came pounding down the stairs, wearing jeans and a shirt and silly shoes, with kohl round her eyes. She had never learned to walk lightly and Helen had given up trying to make her.
‘Hullo,’ she said, ‘nice to see you. How long are you back for?’
‘For ever, I think,’ said Felix. ‘We’re too old and decrepit to run away again.’
‘You speak for yourself,’ said Elizabeth, and everyone laughed.
Sally came round the sofa to greet them and they both kissed her on the cheek.
‘Well done about Sussex,’ said Felix.
‘Thank you.’ She blushed. ‘It’s only if my grades are OK, so fingers crossed. Well. See you all later.’
‘I’ll fetch you at one o’clock,’ said Richard.
She made a face. ‘I’m going with Maria and Jackie. They’ll walk me home.’
‘And I’ll wait round the corner so as not to embarrass you.’
‘Honestly. I’ll be OK.’
‘Don’t keep on,’ said Richard, ‘or I’ll fetch you at midnight.’
Sally laughed. ‘You are silly,’ she said fondly.
The front door slammed behind her. She had never learned about shutting doors, either, Helen thought, or tidying her room, but apart from that she was pretty near perfect. Helen hoped the great warm gush of soppy love she felt for Sally was not too obvious to everyone in the room.
‘My God,’ Elizabeth said. ‘What a beauty. Hasn’t she grown up.’
‘Well,’ Helen said, ‘you have been away three years.’
‘Time to eat,’ said Richard. ‘I can smell burning stew.’
* * *
Over dinner the conversation drifted to Inge, as Helen had known it would. She heard herself becoming strident.
‘In theory it ought to be better now the boys are older,’ she said, ‘but in practice it’s worse. Now Richard doesn’t have to visit her to see them, she has to keep thinking of other ways to get him to go round there. D’you know, one time she actually pretended there was a gas leak.’
She knew she shouldn’t have said it but she couldn’t stop herself. She didn’t look at Richard but she could feel his tension.
‘Don’t they have an emergency service?’ Elizabeth enquired mildly.
‘Of course they do but she said they wouldn’t come.’ Helen was surprised at the anger in her own voice about things she thought she’d got over.
‘I thought they had to come if you say you can smell gas,’ Elizabeth persisted, as if this were an ordinary conversation, entirely missing the point.
‘Maybe she’d pulled the same trick once too often.’ Felix looked up, ever alert at the prospect of a row. ‘What did you do, Richard? You didn’t go, did you?’
‘Of course he did,’ Helen said. ‘Inge snapped her fingers and off he went. On my fucking birthday, too.’
Richard said pleasantly, ‘With two kids in the house I didn’t have much choice.’
‘And was there a gas leak?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Helen. ‘Don’t be silly, Felix.’
‘I knew there wouldn’t be,’ said Richard, ominously calm. ‘But it’s not a risk you can take.’
‘So she’s got you over the proverbial barrel,’ said Felix with interest.
Richard said, ‘Well, she can’t do it every week.’
‘It must be quite flattering though,’ Elizabeth said.
‘She’s amazingly persistent, isn’t she?’ Felix said. ‘Eight years of unrequited passion.’
‘Is this a record?’ said Helen bitterly.
‘It’s not flattering,’ said Richard, with the air of a man at the end of his patience. ‘It’s embarrassing and inconvenient and rather sad.’
Felix went on looking impressed. ‘Nobody’s ever loved me that much.’
Elizabeth said sharply, ‘Unless you count me, of course.’ Oh God, Helen thought, now what have I started?
Felix smiled. ‘But I haven’t left you for another woman, have I, darling?’
* * *
Inge sat alone in a corner of the wine bar, drinking red wine and smoking a Gauloise. She had dressed herself up in some of her more exotic clothes from the second-hand shop: a mixture of velvet, satin, fur, chiffon and crochet in various shades of pink, purple, orange and brown, with beads and diamante. It gave her pleasure to make herself look as eccentric as possible, to attract maximum attention. She could feel people staring at her, but when she stared back rudely, challenging them, they looked away, embarrassed.
Smug little couples, most of them, out for the evening, flaunting their togetherness. She hated them all.
But there was a man sitting near the door, another failure like herself, alone on a Saturday night, and hoping to drown the shame of it in alcohol and the chance of being picked up. She stared at him. He was nothing special, but there was something, the short curly hair perhaps, or the shadows under the eyes, that reminded her, ever so slightly, of Richard. It was enough. It would have to be enough. She went on staring until he felt the strength of her stare and looked up. She smiled, despising him for being alone like her, and he smiled back.
She relaxed and finished her drink. It was only a matter of time, she knew from experience, before he got up and came over to her table. He would buy a bottle of wine and they would make small talk until they were drunk enough to desire each other instead of the people they had lost. Then she would take him home.
* * *
Sally needed the music. She needed the noise and the fights and the other people dancing. She needed to blot out Shakespeare and Chaucer and Browning and Thackeray and iambic pentameter and objective correlatives and dramatic irony. Sometimes she felt as if her head would explode with it all, but the music could wipe it away, could create a cool white space where nothing else was. It made her laugh that Helen and Richard probably imagined she was there just to dance and pick up boys. Helen had been right about her shoes, though; she had already had to take them off.
She thought how lucky Maria and Jackie were, not to have any of this pressure put upon them. In spite of all the talk about unemployment, Maria was going to work in a bank and Jackie was going to train as a hairdresser. They would soon be earning money and they would not have to study in the evenings. They did not feel their heads were being crammed to bursting point with useless knowledge like a force-fed goose.
If only I was a bit more academic, she thought, I’d find it easy; and if only I was a bit less academic, I wouldn’t have to do it at all. Not good enough for Oxford and Cambridge but not bad enough to be turned down by everyone. A solid Beta plus. It made her want to scr
eam. Then she felt guilty because she was supposed to be grateful for opportunities that were denied to other people.
She noticed Chris standing by himself in a corner and watching her while she danced. He had on his wistful, hangdog look. It annoyed her, making her feel that she was meant to pity him. Why didn’t he understand that if he looked cheerful and sort of OK, maybe even ignored her a bit, she might fancy him again?
Eventually she had to sit down, get her breath back, have a Coke. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him coming towards her; not looking up, she saw his shoes arriving before she saw his face. She was intensely embarrassed. She felt everyone was watching her, feeling sorry for Chris, thinking she was a cow.
‘Can I take you home?’ he asked, but oh God, so humbly, adding, ‘I’ve got the bike fixed.’
‘My step-father’s coming for me.’ He had even cleaned his wretched shoes.
There was a pause. Surely he would go away now?
He said rapidly, ‘Why don’t I see you any more?’
‘You see me every day at school.’
‘You know that’s not what I mean.’
She looked up then, reluctantly, and saw naked pain in his face. She felt terrible: guilty but angry too. She felt she had meant to make a quick, clean, merciful kill but had only succeeded in inflicting a messy injury which she would now have to deal with. The coup de grâce, to put him out of his misery.
She said, ‘I’m sorry, Chris. I can’t.’ And shut her eyes while he walked away.
Jackie and Maria came over to her as soon as he had gone.
‘Why don’t you give him a break? He looks really miserable.’
Sally shrugged. She was afraid the shrug would make her look heartless, but she couldn’t explain. Had Felix noticed her blushing when he kissed her? Did he think she looked grown up now? Would he still be there when she got home? She had dreamed of him for so long, with nothing to nourish the dream, that it was hard to believe he was finally back in her life.
* * *
When the man tried to kiss her, Inge froze, turning her head away. ‘No, don’t kiss me,’ she said urgently, for it was vital that he should not ruin everything, just when it was going so well. He hesitated, and she used the moment to slide her legs on to his shoulders, to make the kiss more difficult and sharpen the angle of penetration to give herself more pleasure. He fucked her harder then until she came, screaming, and saw him smile.
‘Suck me,’ she said. ‘Go down on me, please.’ She was afraid that because she had come, he would think it was all right for him to come and it would all be over too soon.
She saw a look of slight irritation cross his face, as if she had asked him to do something onerous, a burdensome chore such as emptying the dustbins when he was happily watching television.
‘I did it for you,’ she reminded him, for that was how they had begun.
He did it, making her feel he was doing her a favour, but she didn’t care, she wasn’t going to let him spoil her evening. She tried thinking about Richard, but it seemed like blasphemy, so she ran an old reliable blue movie instead and came quickly, sensing that the man was reluctant enough not to persevere for long. He surfaced with relief, breathing hard, as if he had been drowning, and fucked her again until they both came, one after the other.
Almost immediately, as if by mutual consent, they separated and lay apart in exhausted silence.
Inge dozed; she felt relaxed, almost happy, peaceful anyway, and tired enough, she thought, to sleep without pills for once. Presently she peered at the bedside clock; it said half past midnight. She couldn’t remember what time they had started but she knew they had left the wine bar at eleven.
Suddenly she was exhausted and wanting to be alone. She yawned ostentatiously but he didn’t take the hint. ‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘You’d better be going.’
He made a strange noise, somewhere between a moan and a grunt. ‘What? I was nearly asleep.’
‘Only my husband stays the night,’ said Inge, her favourite fantasy.
‘I thought you said you’re divorced.’
He had an unpleasant accent; all resemblance to Richard had vanished as soon as she heard his voice.
‘I don’t want you here,’ she said, lacking the energy to be polite. ‘I can’t sleep with you here.’
He looked at his watch. ‘Christ, is that the time? I’ve missed the last train.’
‘There are night buses. Or you take a cab.’ She was desperate now to be alone, to be asleep.
‘Can’t afford a bleeding cab, can I?’ He sounded like a grumpy child deprived of pocket money. ‘You’ve cleaned me out.’
‘Come on,’ she said, shaking him. ‘You’ve got to go before my husband comes home.’ They usually went pretty fast when she said that.
The man got up, but he moved slowly, annoyed and suspicious. Inge longed for him to go while she could still remember the pleasure, before irritation took over. She watched him dress, tried to concentrate on the good part of the experience, when suddenly to her astonishment she saw him go to her handbag and take a fiver from her purse.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, shocked.
‘I reckon that’s the least you can do for me, after all I’ve done for you.’
She leapt out of bed. ‘No. That’s all the money I’ve got.’ It was not quite true but no matter. ‘I have two children to feed.’
‘Better ask your old man then,’ he said with a kind of sneer. ‘If he ever turns up.’
They struggled over the money, Inge trying to snatch it from his hand while he held it just out of reach. They were like children in the playground. Then he got bored with the game, when Inge tried to bite him and kick him and knee him in the groin to make him give back her money. He hit her, not very hard, but enough to knock her off balance, enough to make her fall, so that he could run downstairs and out of the house. She heard him slam the front door. Lying on the floor with her face on the dusty carpet, she started to cry, more from outrage than pain. Then she reached for the phone. While she was dialling, she noticed the smell of herself and the man, a smell she no longer liked, and decided to take a bath as soon as her call was over.
* * *
‘No, I’ll be having a show in the autumn,’ said Helen, grateful to Elizabeth for asking, ‘but I can’t think about that now. Some bloody fool wants me to do the Seven Deadly Sins for him first. As quickly as possible. Can you imagine?’
It was after midnight but they were still drinking coffee and brandy.
‘Abstract?’ said Elizabeth doubtfully. ‘Won’t that be a bit tricky?’
‘It’s what they call a challenge,’ said Helen. ‘He’s a mad American called Jerome Ellis and he’s going to live in an oast house. He seems to want paintings by the yard. Magdalen introduced him to me and I loathed him on sight. He hasn’t a clue what my work is about but he says he likes my style, whatever that means. I think he imagines I’m a kind of interior decorator, only cheaper, of course.’
Elizabeth clucked sympathetically. ‘Can’t you turn it down?’
‘Not really. The van failed its MOT.’
The phone rang and Richard answered it. Helen knew there was only one person who would ring at a quarter to one.
‘Shame he doesn’t want the Stations of the Cross,’ said Felix.
Richard was saying, ‘Calm down, I can’t hear you. Now tell me again.’
‘Inge,’ Helen said, trying to convert fury into resignation before it choked her.
‘Are you all right?’ Richard was saying. ‘Ring the local nick. You’ve got to report it.’
‘Or a client,’ said Elizabeth.
Helen shook her head.
‘All right, I’m on my way.’ Richard hung up and turned to her. The look on his face begged her to understand. ‘Sorry, love, I’ll have to go. She’s hysterical. Some man’s beaten her up.’ His expression hardened as hers failed to soften, ‘I’m sorry. Can you fetch Sally?’
Helen heard herself saying,
‘Of course. She’s my responsibility, isn’t she? Just as Inge is yours.’
He turned away. ‘Sorry, Felix, Elizabeth. See you soon.’
‘Let’s have a drink one evening,’ said Felix, supportive, man to man. ‘I’ll ring you at the office.’
‘Hope she’s OK,’ said Elizabeth.
Helen could feel them both scoring the points she had thrown away. Richard went out and there was an uncomfortable silence. She felt herself branded as a bitch. Not for the first time, but it still hurt. If only Richard would get angry with Inge. All this saintly patience was very hard to bear.
‘Pity she didn’t get herself killed,’ she said, and meant it. What blissful relief it would be if Richard never had to go round there again. She didn’t stop to think who would look after the boys.
‘Oh dear,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Poor you.’
Now was the time, Helen thought, to be tactful, to play it down, to call it just one of those things and change the subject. Instead she chose to go into overdrive, just as one might choose to get drunk, a conscious decision, unwise but deliberate. She wanted to be sick, to make a scene, to spew out all the venom. Especially in Richard’s absence.
‘It’s typical, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Bloody typical. And he always falls for it. First she cut her wrists when he left her. Then she took an overdose when we got married. Then we had the gas board routine. Now she’s managed to get herself mugged. And round he goes each time.’ She was shaking; she poured herself another drink. The silence in the room alarmed her: they were waiting for her to go on. ‘Christ. After eight years, any other woman, any normal woman, would have found herself another man. And a job.’ All the years of Inge’s excesses spun in her head; she felt sick with rage.
A Sense of Guilt Page 3
