Bread and Chocolate

by Philippa Gregory

  The washing machine must work through the night on cheap rate electricity. The central heating system is his, it switches itself off as he departs in the morning, and comes on only as he arrives home at night. I sometimes think that the house is applauding his return. The boiler gives a little ‘huff’ and roars into life half an hour before I hear his key in the lock. The house readies itself for the return of the owner.

  ‘It’s a waste to heat the whole house all day when you only use the kitchen,’ he tells me. As the house cools around me all day I cling to the little convector heater in the kitchen and make little sorties into the cold bedrooms to Hoover and wipe down and dust.

  The telephone too is his; I rob him every time I make a call. I telephone only when he is out of the house, and I put down the receiver when I hear his car in the drive. To see me start at the sound of the boiler coming on and quickly finish my call would make anyone would think that I am keeping a secret; but I am not. The only secret is that sometimes I need to hear my own voice. Sometimes I long to hear myself talk and laugh and gossip as if I were happy. As if it were my telephone and I had friends to call.

  He knows that I use it when he is out of the house. He has put a timer beside it. I am supposed to turn the dial to 3 every time I make a local call. I am not supposed to make any national calls until after midday, or preferably after six. ‘If you must phone your sister, do it at the weekend,’ my husband says when he opens the telephone bill. Then he always says as a joke the slogan they use on children’s programmes when they invite children to call in: ‘Always get permission from whoever pays the bill.’

  When I first saw the house, with the low sweeping branches of the untouched wood overhanging the rich churned earth, I thought we had bought a house in the forest, with trees within touching distance of my door. But he hired a chain saw and amputated them one Saturday morning, working without a break from quarter to nine till after one, in a frenzy of noise, in a cloud of dim blue exhaust fumes, while one branch after another tore, split, fell.

  He piled the wood into a pyre on the poisoned earth, soaked it with petrol from the chainsaw – ‘No reason to give them back the unused fuel!’ he said cleverly – and burned it all, burned it all up, until there was nothing but a pile of pale woodash, soft as talcum powder, and nothing left of the trees but white scarred limbs where the branches had once bent low and whispered with their leaves to the grasses and the little hidden flowers.

  I closed the door against the haunting scent of wood-smoke. It stung my eyes and made them as red as if I had been crying for the trees which I thought would blow gently around my new house.

  My husband is a great one for his garden. He never will let me touch a thing, and when the trees were wounded, the ground poisoned, when the wild flowers drooped their scarred heads and wilted, and the thick plastic tub of the lily pond was lowered into place, then I felt I did not want to touch his garden. I did not want to sit in his garden, I felt as if the dead earth beneath the concrete mock-cobble finish had died of some disgusting injury, like gangrene from a rotting limb. And as it slowly died, something of my pallid spirit died too.

  He tried to tempt me with his shoddy chairs. With his blow-away dining table, with his twin-wheeled barbecue set. ‘Come and see the lily pond, it looks a picture!’

  I went to see. It was easier than saying ‘no’. There were two ominous watery growths in small plastic crates. Their roots trailed like sly watersnakes across the azure floor of the pond. ‘Put a couple of koi carp in there,’ my husband says proudly. ‘Think how they’ll look!’

  I know how they will look. They will gaze up at me; their goggling bemused eyes wide and despairing. They will swim round and round their plastic prison, finning through the grasping roots of the lily plants. I do not think I can bear it, to share the poisoned garden with two prisoners. But I say nothing. The garden is his.

  Now he buys plants. Rack upon rack of bedding plants he buys from the garden centre and brings them home like kidnapped children, alien force-bred seedlings, each in a polystyrene pot like strange lonely growths from a science lab. He taps them out into his hand, and crushes them into the flowerbed, one and then another, and another. When he comes in for his tea I look out of the patio window and see another little row of helpless soldiers, marching along the strict line of grass. Limp and lost.

  I have taken to straying.

  A gap opened up in his fence. It is behind his potting shed and he has not yet seen it. Some dog in the night has wriggled between two newly creosoted six-by-five panels of fencing, and left a gap. I am thin, as thin as a child now, and I can bend the fence back and slide through. In the afternoons, when I should be ironing his shirts that have washed all night and danced on the scaffold of the dryer all morning, I bend back the fence, and slip through and out to the woodland.

  It is only a small wood. Our housing estate encroaches on the west side, to the south are fenced fields and then the town. To the east and north there are roads and houses. But it is a very old wood. The trees are thick-trunked, mossy, tall. There is a yew tree with branches as lush as a jungle, blackly green. There are oak trees with mangled craggy bark; there are beech trees, half a dozen within whispering distance of each other. The silver birches shiver their heart-shaped leaves, in every corner. There are many birds, they whisper and sing in secret places. The forest floor is soft with dried leaves, mossy by the drainage ditch that is full of stagnant water and wriggling life. And in the heart of this little wood, where no-one walks but me, where there are no paths but the faint print of my house slippers on rustling leaves, in the heart of this little wood there is a fallen tree where I lie on my back, stretch out and look up through the branches to the sky.

  ‘Where were you this afternoon?’ he asks at teatime. ‘I telephoned you, I needed the Bullens’ address.’

  ‘In the garden,’ I say quickly, without thinking.

  ‘You didn’t touch anything, did you?’ he asks, immediately anxious. ‘I have a plan for all the plants. You have to keep on top of a garden, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t touch anything,’ I say.

  I look past him to the garden through the patio window. He has planted gladioli and iris in strict painful rows and their little green heads are pushing through the earth, viewing the close-mowed grass, and the marching ranks of the limp-leafed bedding plants.

  ‘What it is to be a lady of leisure!’ he says like a joke. But it is not a joke. He will be watching now, for some chore left undone. He spends the evening looking around the room, and he is triumphant when at bedtime he thinks he has caught me out.

  ‘I need black socks for tomorrow,’ he beams. ‘I always wear black socks on Fridays, to go with my black suit. Branch meeting on Fridays, I always wear my black suit.’

  ‘They’re airing,’ I say. ‘They’ll be ready tomorrow morning.’

  He gives a short laugh. ‘All that lazing around in the afternoon,’ he says. ‘And now we see who pays the price!’

  I smile as if I believe he is joking. His face is sharp, like a keen little rodent. ‘Did you bring the cushions in?’ he asks suddenly. ‘After you had finished sitting in my garden? Did you bring the cushions in and put them in the right place in the cupboard under the stairs?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. In my mind I can see the flutter of the green leaves of the beech trees as they interlaced the sky above my upturned face. The sunlight flickered through them into my eyes; it was as green as leaves, that light. But when I closed my eyes against its brightness there were circling moons of blood red on my eyelids.

  He goes to the bathroom with a magazine. I know by this that he is moving his bowels and he will be there for a long time.

  When he flushes the handle and comes out the seat will be intimately warm and the air will smell stale and old. I sit and wait on the edge of the bed until he has finished in the bathroom. Even the time that I may sleep is dictated by him.

  I wake in the night with a start. The curtains have parted and the mo
on is shining full upon my face, as imperative as a tug on the sleeve. My husband is on his back, his mouth is open, his tongue slack. He breathes out loudly, and then snorts in through his nose. I turn away from him and look at the moon.

  I have never seen it so close, it seems impossible that it should be so close, it is drawing closer and closer, ready to settle on the wood itself, it will drown us in its blue and white radiance. I can see the shapes and shadows of it. I can see every little contour. They have all been mapped and named, foolish names, pompous names, names chosen by men trained as scientists but trying to be lyrical, men straining for effect. Tonight I can see it as if it were taking revenge for being landed on. Tonight it is going to land on me.

  I slide out of bed. I am so thin that I barely shift the covers. I put my towelling dressing gown around me and tie the belt tight. I go downstairs barefoot. The patio doors are well oiled, they do not squeak when I push them backwards. Then I step out into his garden in the moonlight.

  In the coolness of the white light I can see the damage he has done. The little plants cast helpless shadows, like one blot after another in a rigorous line. The iris and the gladioli stand like sentries behind the bowed heads of the pansies, of the daisies, of the staked and spiked clumps of wallflowers. The water lilies in their cages in his pond spread their waxy flowers on the trapped water, the little cherry tree in the corner has spread two spindly branches and put out rosy despairing buds like fingers clawing for release. In the moonlight I can hear them all, I can hear them all calling to me.

  He has a wheelbarrow, a large wheelbarrow. I am suddenly able and quick, I go to his garden shed and I take out his shining spade. In the moonlight it is silver, sharpened silver, like a sword. I take the little tree first, digging down to gather all its roots. As I thought, it has kept the shape of its pot, it has not dared to spread its roots into the earth he poisoned, it was never planted; just laid to rest in his dead garden. It lifts easily from the pot-shaped grave and I put it in the wheelbarrow.

  I am stronger than I have dreamed. I dig for the iris, for the gladioli. They come up easily, gladly, as if they were escaping from the sourness of his earth. They leave gaping holes like empty catacombs. I go to the fence. I cannot squeeze the barrow through the gap. I have to take a panel of the fence down. I struggle with it – it is heavy and well set. I feel as if I am breaking a prison wall. When it lurches to one side and falls I can hear them cheer in their soft voices.

  I trundle the barrow into the wood, across the rustling leaves, over the wet moss. My feet are smeared with mud and my dressing-gown hem is embroidered with soil and leaf mold. For the first time in years I can feel myself growing wet between my legs and when I laugh it is a breathless sound of an aroused girl.

  I have brought the spade and I dig a deep hole for the cherry tree. When I set it down I can see its roots stretch out, snake towards the good untouched earth. Around it I plant the iris and gladioli, I watch their heads rise under the shower of moonlight, grow straighter, sweeten. I weave between the trees with his wheelbarrow. I do not want a path to mark these woods. I must be devious, cunning.

  I use a trowel to steal his bedding plants. They come to my hand like trusting small birds. I pile them, limp and wan as they are, into the belly of the wheelbarrow until it is filled with their bodies. Then I take them to the heart of the wood and clear pockets in the leaves for them. I set them deep in the clean earth, jostling each other at random. Broken out from their ranks they look like living things at last. I can see their leaves spread, taking their own space. There is a strange wild sound in the moonlit wood and I realise it is my voice singing.

  Lastly I take the caged water lilies and tear the plastic pots away from their sweet white roots. They wrap around my hands like snakes as I plunge them into the drainage ditch. I see them dip and sway on the stagnant water. I see them spread their net of roots. Little water boatmen swim under their leaves, the flowers open under the moonlight and I can smell a faint potent sexual scent.

  Last of all I take the koi carp in a bucket and tip them into the ditch. They flicker out of sight into the green depths of the water. They do not look at me. They do not mirror my old anxious goggling face. They are free.

  Very quietly, I take the wheelbarrow home, wipe the handles, wipe the spade and the trowel. It is a forensic exercise; I am copying his television programmes. No one will find a trace of the crime on me.

  The garden is a desert pitted with holes where the plants were once imprisoned. It looks like a sacked town, like a broken jail. The plastic chairs stand guard over gaping holes. The concrete cobbles edge empty beds. The blind statues see nothing in the moonlight.

  I put the fence back in its place. I rake and then sweep away the track made by the wheels of the barrow. Nothing can tell him where the plants have gone. He will believe it is the envy of neighbours, the malice of vandals, the misplaced humour of spiteful children. The plants are hidden. They are safe from him. They are a secret garden, as far from him as Eden.

  I wash my hands, my face, I brush my hair and leaves fall from my head as if I were a tree-woman. I pick them off the bathroom floor and hide them in the wastepaper bin. My spattered dressing gown goes in the washbasket, I slide into bed beside his stiff sleeping body and I turn my face to the setting moon and close my eyes. I am exhausted by joy. I fall asleep at once.

  Tomorrow I shall sit in my secret garden.

  Tomorrow and everyday.

  The Last Swan

  I was eight when I started at the Siddleset Ducklings. You could join at six, so when I arrived there was already an established clique of arrogant little girls who had their favourite locker and their favourite peg in the changing room, and whose mothers had their favourite seat at the side of the corporation swimming pool. On Monday night the pool was closed to ordinary people, only the swimming clubs were allowed in. It was quite something to be in the swimming clubs in Siddleset, even if you were only the newest Siddleset Duckling.

  The teacher of the Siddleset Synchronised Swimming Club called herself Madame Louisa, and all us Ducklings called her Madame. She was French and she had taught ballet before she fell in love with water – she said that, not me. She always talked like that. ‘I fall in love with water,’ she would say, spreading her arms wide as if the Siddleset Corporation Baths were some mystical elemental force. ‘And so now I share my passion for ballet and my passion for water and I teach my girls to dance in the water.’

  If the teams hadn’t been so successful they wouldn’t have stood for this in Siddleset, which is a no-nonsense sort of market town south of Darlington. But they were successful: county champions three times running, national runners-up twice, and last year Moira Field won Most Promising Newcomer at the national competition, and Madame said she was certain to win the National Synchronised Solo Swim in the summer.

  We all warmed up together on the side of the pool and did our stretching exercises and then us Ducklings swam first, while the others did stamina exercises. Then we got dry and changed and came out to our row of chairs by the poolside. We were expected to wait till the Cygnets had finished and then watch the Swans do their routine. ‘You learn by observation,’ Madame said. ‘So observe. Swim in your minds. Swim in your minds.’

  I never minded waiting, because if I waited I would see Moira Field. I loved Moira Field. She was the most beautiful girl in Siddleset. Out of the water she didn’t look much, but when she had her cap on, and her nose clip on, and she went underwater, you could see then that she was the most beautiful girl on the team and probably the most beautiful girl in the world. She could hold her breath for ages, and sometimes, when she was underwater and her white pointed feet were criss-crossing above the surface of the pool, you would think she would drown before coming up.

  Madame liked Moira Field too. Everyone liked her. Madame was sure she would win the National Solo Synchronised Swim and then everyone would know about the Siddleset Swans, and we would all have our picture in the paper.

/>   Us Ducklings had our competition routine as well. We swam to ‘Down in the Meadow in the little Fishy Pool …’ It was really babyish, we hated it. We had to stand on the edge and flap our elbows like ducks before we jumped in the water and did our swim. It was stupid and none of us liked it. ‘Smile!’ Madame would say. ‘Look happy! It is a playful little dance for the Ducklings!’ We did as she said but we thought it was stupid. We all wanted to be one of the Cygnets team who had ‘Fame! I’m going to live forever …’ which was brilliant, and they did a little disco dance before they dived in. They were allowed to dive, while we were only allowed to jump. Things like that matter when you’re a synchronised swimmer.

  None of us wanted anything as much as we wanted to be in the Cygnets. We never even thought about the Swans. They were as far above us as stars above the roof of the Corporation Baths. They had three different costumes, all with millions of sequins sewn on by hand. They didn’t wear caps at competitions but gelled up their hair with special waterproof hair gel. They wore special waterproof makeup which they painted on with little sponges, all over their faces and their necks and even their shoulders. They had three events: one for the full team, one for half the team, and one for a pair. Then Moira did her solo.

  There were other solo dancers in the team; but none like Moira. No-one else could stay underwater as long. No-one else’s arabesques were as straight or as still. When she was right way up she smiled with such serenity that there was no way you could tell that her legs were barrelling away underwater. When she did her leap out of the water with her hands above her head it looked as if someone had lifted her and flung her upwards, she went so high. When she swam out at the end she might be out of puff but you could never tell. She was still smiling.