A Sense of Guilt

by Andrea Newman

  ‘So,’ Inge said, licking her fingers. ‘Tell me. How is the cow? Does she still paint silly pictures that nobody wants to buy?’

  Felix wondered how best to answer that. ‘She seems to be very busy,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘She’s a cold woman,’ Inge said, lighting a cigarette. ‘No wonder her husband leaves her. So she steals mine. But he can’t be happy with her, I don’t believe it. You wait and see, Felix, he is going to come back to me one day and the cow will be all alone with her silly pictures and it will serve her right.’

  Felix watched ash falling into the frying-pan. ‘I could take you out for dinner, Inge,’ he offered.

  ‘No, the boys will be home soon and they are always hungry. Don’t you believe me, Felix, don’t you think Richard will come back?’

  ‘Well,’ Felix said, ‘after eight years it’s not very likely but I suppose there’s always hope.’ He was impressed by the way Inge made the whole thing sound so recent.

  ‘If I didn’t believe it, I would kill myself,’ Inge said matter-of-factly. ‘But you can take me out to dinner another time. I love to eat and I never get fat. Will there be another time, Felix? Are we going to have an affair or is this a one-night stand?’

  ‘Oh, I think an affair, don’t you?’ said Felix, startled.

  ‘Good. It’s very important to me to have regular sex. I don’t like one-night stands, they’re so much effort, but I have them. I see a man I like and I bring him home and we fuck and off he goes and I never see him again. If the sex is bad I don’t mind, but usually it’s good and still they go away. Isn’t it strange? If you have a good dinner in a restaurant, you go back, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ said Felix. ‘Very often.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s my fault,’ said Inge. ‘Perhaps I talk to them about Richard and they don’t like it. But you don’t mind, do you, Felix?’

  ‘No,’ Felix said. ‘I don’t mind.’ He was overcome by sudden compassion for Inge; he got up and put his arms around her and she hugged him with a fierce strength that she had not used in bed.

  ‘Oh Felix,’ she said, ‘life’s so sad, isn’t it? Sometimes I can’t bear it.’

  He felt her beginning to cry as he held her. The sausages smouldered in the pan; the cigarette burned on the pine surface. Felix felt sorrow for the whole world.

  ‘I always wanted to have an affair with you, Felix,’ said Inge faintly into his shoulder. ‘You understand about sex and love and how different they are. And you know about Richard. He doesn’t understand, you see. He gets confused. He’s like a child really.’

  The front door opened and the moment was gone. Inge pulled away, wiping her eyes, rescued the sausages and retrieved the cigarette. The boys that Felix recalled as children of six and eight when Richard, frantic with guilt, had left them, came in as young men with pink hair, shaven hair, leather and studs, and endless height.

  ‘You remember Felix, don’t you?’ said Inge. ‘He was your father’s best friend.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ they said. ‘Hullo.’

  ‘Hullo,’ said Felix, managing not to comment on their growth. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  ‘This is Karl and this is Peter,’ said Inge, pointing.

  ‘Yes,’ said Felix untruthfully, ‘I remember.’

  ‘Are you staying for supper?’ one of them asked, a polite enquiry, not indicating any preference either way. Felix hesitated.

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ Inge said. ‘We don’t have enough sausages.’

  * * *

  Felix left soon afterwards, feeling superfluous. Inge had a decidedly clinical approach to sex, he thought, which was both convenient and disconcerting. On his way home it occurred to him that he had been somewhat impulsive: there was no guarantee that she might not use the incident to make Richard jealous, if such a thing were possible. It might be as well to safeguard himself by discussing the possibility with Richard, as if nothing had happened yet. Then if Richard objected he could retreat and deny everything; while if he agreed he could continue with an easy mind, and hope that no one enquired too closely into actual dates. It was always these tiny details that betrayed even the most practised criminal, as both he and Tony Blythe knew only too well.

  * * *

  ‘Doesn’t he look old?’ Karl said, after Felix had gone.

  ‘He looked poofy to me,’ said Peter, eating. ‘Is he a poof, Mum?’

  ‘No.’ Inge looked fondly at them. They cared about her. They asked questions. They ate what she cooked. She loved them so much she sometimes felt quite faint. But it was always easier to love them after someone had made love to her.

  ‘I don’t remember him at all,’ said Peter.

  ‘He looks ancient.’ Karl sounded quite pleased. ‘He used to be all right.’

  ‘He’s still all right,’ said Inge, smiling. At that moment she felt immortal.

  ‘Oh blimey,’ said Karl, ‘he’s not your latest, is he?’

  Peter looked confused. ‘You said he was Dad’s friend.’

  ‘He is,’ said Inge. ‘But I’m lonely. I need someone.’

  ‘I thought you needed Dad,’ Peter said.

  ‘I do,’ said Inge. ‘But he’s not here, is he?’

  ‘Is he famous, this Felix?’ Karl asked.

  Inge considered. ‘He’s a writer. He’s well known.’ She wondered how Felix would like this description.

  ‘Is he married?’ Karl wiped a piece of bread round his plate.

  ‘Yes, of course. Don’t you remember Elizabeth? She was rather fat.’ Like most thin women, Inge regarded anyone less thin than herself as fat. ‘And they didn’t have any children.’

  * * *

  Richard passed the phone to Helen and went back to his pile of probation reports. Sally’s voice was bright and cold. ‘Hullo. How’s everything?’ She sounded like a stranger met once at a party and dimly remembered, the sort of person you gave your number to when you were rather drunk and then when they rang, you didn’t recognise the voice, couldn’t put a face to it.

  Helen said, ‘Hullo, love. How are you? How’s Sussex?’ She was shaking inside. Weeks of silence had demoralised her.

  ‘Oh, great. It’s wonderful. I’m having a fantastic time.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad.’

  There was a pause and then this brisk social person added, ‘I’m going to meet Dad actually.’

  ‘Oh, are you?’ It felt like a blow to the stomach.

  ‘Yes. He rang up. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not, I’m pleased. It’s about time.’

  ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? He’s playing in Brighton. He sent me a ticket and we’re going to have a meal afterwards.’

  She wanted to scream at Sally, to stop punishing her, to talk to her properly, to say she was angry and hurt and unforgiving, but at least to be real, not this dreadful phony stranger. ‘Good.’

  ‘He sounded awfully nice.’

  ‘Yes, he is. I hope it goes well.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it will. Look, I better go. I’ve run out of money.’

  ‘Shall I ring you back?’

  But the phone made a pathetic noise and Sally was gone. Helen hung up, conscious of Richard watching her. It was hard to speak normally.

  ‘She’s going to meet Carey. Apparently he rang her up. He’s sent her a ticket for a concert and they’re going to meet afterwards. In Brighton.’ She poured herself a drink.

  ‘Bit of a shock.’

  ‘Not really, they had to meet some time.’ She heard herself sounding defiant. ‘I’ve been hoping they would.’

  ‘Still. It’s a big moment.’

  ‘Yes.’ She blinked rapidly and bit her lip.

  ‘She didn’t talk for long.’

  ‘No. She ran out of money and she wouldn’t let me ring her back.’

  He said hesitantly, ‘I thought she sounded a bit distant.’

  ‘Yes. That’s independence for you. She’s trying her wings.’ The bloody awful tears managed to escape.

&n
bsp; He got up and put his arms round her. ‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’

  She nodded, not able to speak.

  ‘Darling. Don’t worry. She’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ The hug felt wonderful but dangerous: if she let herself relax into it too much she might cry and cry and end up telling him the whole story. The temptation frightened her. She kissed him and pulled away on the pretext of getting some Kleenex.

  He said, sounding tentative, ‘I did wonder… before she went off, just the last couple of weeks, she seemed very moody, and you and she… well, you seemed a bit scratchy with each other.’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned that at the time.’ It was a relief to be sharp. Much safer. It was so hard to deceive someone you were close to and it didn’t end with the abortion or with Sally leaving home, it went on and on. This awful secret would be between them for ever.

  ‘I just wondered… is that why she’s being a bit strange on the phone…?’

  ‘You mean is it all my fault?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t. As if I would.’

  ‘We did have a bit of a thing.’ She blew her nose and poured another drink. ‘Nothing serious. Just me being overprotective. I told you at the time.’

  ‘Not like you.’ She could see him being puzzled and hurt by her sharpness.

  ‘No. Well, there you are. Even I can act out of character. Baby leaving the nest and all that. I overdid the gypsy’s warning and she resented it, so now she’s sulking.’ Then she wanted to make amends so she added, ‘Want a drink?’

  ‘No.’ He was still watching her compassionately. ‘Don’t worry about her meeting Carey. It had to happen.’

  ‘I’m not worried.’ She heard herself being as bright and cold as Sally. ‘He’ll charm her. What else can he do?’

  * * *

  Carey told her there’d be a ticket waiting for her at the box office with her name on it. Our name, she thought with satisfaction, for that was one thing Helen had never been able to achieve, a change of name: she was still Sally Hinde, not Sally Morgan or Sally Irving. She had often thought that his name was all she had left of him and she was glad it was a pretty one; in history lessons about the Golden Hind she had seen herself streamlined and sinewy, darting about the forest or gliding through the water, animal or ship or a strange amalgam of both, with a glamorous pale gleam, like something she had seen in a commercial for petrol or butter.

  She looked up the programme and it was Shostakovich’s Fifth with a Rossini overture and the Sibelius Violin Concerto. A really jammy selection, she thought. Shostakovich was a favourite; she had often played him very loudly in her bedroom to remind Helen and Richard that it wasn’t just pop music she liked. Revenge through culture. A Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism. She liked to think that Dmitri had been rebellious too.

  She had never thought to ask Felix if he liked Shostakovich and now it was too late.

  It was hard to believe that she was actually going to meet Carey, that from being someone she didn’t remember he had become a voice on the phone and tonight she would see him and touch him. A bit like the Cheshire Cat in reverse, building up from the grin. When she was in her seat she looked at her programme and stroked his name in the list of viola players; when the orchestra filed in she strained to pick him out from among the others but couldn’t.

  Rossini was nice and cheerful as always and made her want to laugh out loud but she thought people would think she was mad so she made do with smiling. Sibelius was better than she remembered, so good in fact that she wondered why she hadn’t bought a cassette of it, except that she wasn’t particularly fond of the violin. She must remember not to say that in case he thought it meant she didn’t like the viola either and she did. In the interval she had a drink she didn’t really want, hoping it would stop her feeling so nervous. She wondered what other people would say if she suddenly accosted a complete stranger and announced she was going to meet her father whom she hadn’t seen since she was little. There couldn’t be anyone else at the concert for such a bizarre reason, she was sure of that.

  Then it was time for Shostakovich and she started to cry. Not hard painful sobbing that could block up your nose but a few luxurious tears spilling over. She felt wonderful. She also didn’t want the concert to be over because it was comfortable and exciting to look forward to meeting Carey but the actual meeting would be alarming; and then if they didn’t get on, the let-down would be so awful that her heart thumped at the thought and she had to take deep breaths to calm herself.

  Eventually, though, she couldn’t stop it being over and she had to go and wait at the artists’ entrance where he had told her they would meet. As usual she was surprised by the speed with which the players came out but he wasn’t among the first. Perhaps he was as nervous as she was, hanging about inside and putting off the moment until he couldn’t put it off any more. It was the first time she had considered his apprehension as well as her own.

  Then he came out and she knew it was him because he had her own face. She had always thought she looked like Helen; photographs of him had not made the connection for her. But now he was in front of her it was like looking at herself in the mirror. They stared at each other for a long moment and then identical smiles spread over their faces and he held out his arms.

  * * *

  He took her to a Chinese restaurant and she talked about Sussex.

  ‘I keep telling Mum and Richard I like it, it’s OK, it’s fantastic, whatever I think they want to hear, just to keep them happy, but really I can’t believe I’m there. I mean, I keep thinking, is this it? At school they go on and on to you about university and when you finally get there, it just isn’t how you imagined it. I don’t know what the difference is but it doesn’t feel real.’ She heard her voice running on but she didn’t know how to stop it. ‘Maybe it’s me. It’s like sleepwalking somehow. I feel I’m just drifting through and I needn’t bother to make an effort because soon I’ll wake up and I won’t be there any more. I’m sorry, I’m talking too much.’ The effort of stopping was terrifying: it jolted her, as if she had deliberately steered into a tree.

  He said, ‘Helen did tell me what happened.’

  ‘Oh.’ The sound came out very small. She felt relieved but also somehow deflated. She would have liked to tell him herself. And knowing he knew also meant knowing he had not offered to help. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. ‘I should have written to you but I’m not very good at letters.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I probably wouldn’t have answered anyway.’

  Now she sounded angry.

  ‘It must have been awful for you.’

  ‘Oh well, it’s all over now.’

  He said, ‘Are you very angry with me?’

  She shrugged, embarrassed by his directness. It was too awful if they were going to quarrel when they had only just met.

  ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t want to meet me. After all, I haven’t been much of a father, have I?’

  ‘You haven’t been a father at all.’ It was a shock to hear the words come out. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said mildly. ‘It’s true.’

  Now she had tears in her eyes. ‘But I’ve been longing to meet you, I’ve been counting the days, and now I’m being rude. I meant to be very nice and careful and make a good impression. I actually wanted you to like me. And now it doesn’t seem to matter, I can say whatever I like. It’s as if you’re a stranger on a train. It’s weird. I don’t understand it.’ Helen and the doctor would probably say it was her hormones, she thought with resentment; they were bracketed together in her mind as powerful people.

  ‘Sounds like a good thing to me. Come on, eat up.’

  ‘I’m not usually like this but I’ve been feeling funny lately.’ She applied herself to the food. ‘This is lovely. I didn’t realise I was so hungry.’

  She ate in silence for a while and he didn’t speak either. When she looked up from her plate she
found him watching her with a wistful expression that she found puzzling. ‘D’you think we can possibly make up for lost time?’

  She didn’t know what to say. It seemed such a large question.

  She had intended to get the train but in the end he insisted on driving her. They discussed the amount of lager he had drunk and decided it wasn’t very much. Going from the restaurant to the car broke their concentration and made a different atmosphere. She was conscious of feeling suddenly very tired, thinking how lovely it would be to be back in her room and alone and able to lie down and think and go to sleep and not have to please anyone.

  She said, ‘It was a lovely concert. I love Russian music, it’s so over the top. Was he a good conductor, d’you think? I can never tell.’

  ‘Don’t know, didn’t look.’

  She was so tense now that she laughed much harder than necessary and he seemed pleased.

  ‘The old jokes are the best.’

  ‘But I hadn’t heard that one before.’

  He said urgently, ‘Every year I meant to write to you. For Christmas. For your birthday. And I never did. It was too painful. I kept thinking of you and Helen and Richard all cosy together and I felt it might be better if I kept away. And the longer I left it, the more impossible it got.’

  She felt cross. He had behaved like that and now she was expected to forgive him. ‘It doesn’t matter. Really. We’re here now, aren’t we?’

  ‘I think I was afraid of seeing Helen again and wanting her back. And frightened you might reject me. And there was Marsha and all the children.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, raising her voice slightly. ‘Honestly it is. I had a very happy childhood. You didn’t ruin anything. There’s no need to feel guilty about it.’

  Then they drove in silence till they were on campus and she had to direct him to East Slope. She wondered if she should ask him in to see her room but it was late and she was tired. Another time, she thought.