A Rival Creation

by Marika Cobbold

  She went upstairs to run a bath, a bottle of wine and a glass in her hand, and while she waited for the tub to fill, she brought out her cuttings book. Her young, smooth-skinned self smiled back at her from the cut-out articles and publicity material. She smiled back a little sadly. Young, unscarred, sleek-thighed, and a writer; maybe it had all been a bit too good to last. On the other hand, she thought, pouring herself a second glass, middleaged, scarred, dimpled-thighed and a failure, was that not too bad to last? She turned the tap off and was about to put the cuttings book back on the top shelf of the wardrobe where she had found it, when she changed her mind and put it instead on her mother’s old dressing-table by the window. She undressed and got into the bath, lying back in the hot water. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to dream of having happiness restored to her like a stolen wallet with an apologetic note from the thief.

  ‘Dear Liberty’ the letter would say,

  ‘I can’t thank you enough for giving me the opportunity once more to see your work. There is no doubt that you have emerged from your period of silence, a great writer…’

  Seventeen

  At the Oast House Oscar lay awake next to his wife, every muscle tense as if he were trying to levitate from a bed of nails.

  They had been out to dinner and Victoria had laughed a lot and drank a lot and when she got inside she had kicked off her shoes and put on music. ‘I want to dance.’ With her eyes half closed, she had moved to the rhythm, arms raised and clasped behind her neck, hips snaking. Oscar had opened his eyes wide and bitten his lips to stop himself from bursting out laughing and Victoria had mistaken his vacant look for desire. Letting her arms drop, she unbuttoned her blouse and grasped his hand, putting it on her breast. ‘Come,’ she had given him a slow smile before disappearing up the stairs. Oscar had thrown himself down on the sofa and, burying his head in the soft cushion, he had let the laugh rip. Then to his horror he was crying. Furious with himself, he grabbed the cushion and threw it across the room, hitting the music stack. The music, Victoria’s music, carried on playing. He sat up. In the good old days, he thought bitterly, the needle on the gramophone would have slid and scraped its way across the record until it stopped, but a bloody CD just went on and on. He heaved himself out of the sofa and went across to turn the music off. Next to the stack lay a book in a spine-breaking attitude, and out of habit he picked it up and closed it. He noticed the title: The Secrets of the Eternal Honeymoon, written by a nearly famous actress. He leant back against the wall and opened the book again, flipping through the pages. His eyes stuck on a passage entitled: ‘The Secrets of Mid-week Sex’. He read on, ‘The man in your life’s coming home late, he’s tired, you’re tired. So don’t just sit yourself down in front of the telly. I know, it’s what millions do, but you are different.’ The next paragraph suggested that a wonderful way of injecting that honeymoon feeling into the man in your life was to greet him at the door when he arrived home, dressed only in high-heeled shoes and a fur coat. There followed some comforting words for the readers of a squeamish nature: ‘Fake is fine these days, in fact many of the most glamorous women in my circle won’t be seen in anything but.’

  Oscar smiled and shook his head; even Victoria’s daring burst of originality the other day had been borrowed from someone else. He closed the book and put it back where he had found it before going upstairs to bed.

  Now he lay staring at the small crack between the curtains, waiting for the first shaft of morning light to break through and rescue him like an outstretched hand across an abyss. He turned and raised himself on one elbow, looking at Victoria sleeping at his side, innocent of everything but being herself.

  He had met her when he was at the lowest point of his life and he had imbued her with a rare and beautiful mind to match her rare and beautiful face. He had been amazed that such a creature as she would be interested in him.

  ‘For one, I’m so much older than her,’ he had told a GP friend. ‘I have absolutely no idea what people her age like or do.’

  ‘It’s my guess that blue eyes and a few appearances on the box more than make up for that. Physically you’re in good shape. And there’s no need to worry about sex. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t go on happily bonking away until you’re in your nineties.’

  ‘Well you were bloody wrong there,’ Oscar whispered, rolling over on his back. He lay, eyes wide open, staring up into the darkness. Suddenly, staring back at him from the ceiling, were two green eyes in a cherubic face. Smiling, he stretched his arm out and stroked the air as if he was running his finger down the pale, scarred cheek. The vision vanished and he sighed fretfully. Next to him Victoria stirred and woke. He felt her hand on his arm.

  ‘What’s the matter, can’t you sleep?’ Her hand moved on to his chest and then down to his stomach. She giggled softly. ‘No wonder you can’t settle. You naughty boy.’ She slithered across, lowering herself down on top of him. ‘You naughty boy.’

  On his way to work the next morning Oscar stopped at his aunt’s. It was only eight o’clock, but he knew Evelyn was an early riser. ‘By getting up at five,’ she had boasted the other day, ‘I’m prolonging my conscious life by two to three hours each day. Even if I only have one year left, that would still be a gain of at least seven hundred and thirty hours.’

  Oscar had agreed it was an irresistible argument; if one cared for conscious life, that is. This morning he wanted to talk to her about the latest in her series of articles on local footpaths. Evelyn had become something of a local celebrity. Her nature columns were hugely popular, but they were also increasingly controversial. Evelyn was spreading it on ever more thickly: insinuations about pesticides in the river, damage done to wild-life through cutting down hedgerows, stubble-burning, more and more each time until this week, when she pointed the finger straight at Derek Campbell.

  ‘You can’t name him like that. He’ll sue and the Tribune can’t afford it. I’ll get the sack for a start,’ Oscar said, sitting down at the kitchen table and accepting a cup of coffee and a burnt croissant. ‘If an actor can be awarded fifty thousand pounds for being called boring, what do you think the going rate will be for being told you’re responsible for the birth of a two-headed sheep?’

  Evelyn, dressed, but wearing her tartan dressing-gown on top for extra warmth, shrugged her shoulders. ‘Every word is true.’

  ‘I doubt you can prove it. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to tone it down a bit.’ He handed her the article feeling old, older than Evelyn, and gutless. And was that not what he had come down here for, to be old and gutless in peace? ‘I’ve marked the places.’ He put his hand over hers that was rutted like a dried-out river bed and stained inky-blue by permanent bruising. ‘I think you’ve made enough enemies, you know. I worry about you.’

  Getting up to leave, he asked her, ‘You haven’t had any more of those letters have you?’

  Evelyn looked away, scuffing her small, square men’s trainers against the flagstone floor. Finally she said, ‘Just one.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’ Oscar slammed his fist down on the kitchen table.

  Evelyn smiled impishly at him, giving Oscar a glimpse of the young Evelyn that lived just under the surface of the skin. ‘Because if I had, you would have stopped my articles. And you’re wrong, you know. If papers like the Tribune won’t stand up to be counted on local issues, who will?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Oscar said.

  ‘Very well.’ Evelyn stood up too. ‘Now we both have things to do.’ She pushed him off towards the back door. ‘I want to call in on Liberty in a minute. There is something the matter with that girl. I’ve hardly seen her in the last couple of weeks and when I have, she’s looked dreadful.’

  Oscar wandered off to his car and had already put the key in the lock when he looked across to Laburnum Terrace. What sort of name was that for a country cottage? He smiled to himself, then, putting the key back in his pocket, he strode across to Liberty’s front door and rang the bell. It was h
alf past eight now, she should be up. He rang the bell a second time, thinking that if he had woken her the damage would already be done. Shifting from one foot to another, feeling cold in only his tweed jacket, he pulled his woollen scarf up round his neck, and thrust his hands in his pockets. Morning mist hung across the sun like a net curtain, the still air carried only silence once the bell had stopped. It was the kind of morning he had dreamed of during that year in South America, an English winter morning. He looked round. Her car was in the drive. He rang the bell again. Evelyn had said Liberty had not been looking well. He felt the door. It was locked. He was about to leave but changed his mind, and walked round to the back. He put his hand up to knock, then he paused, moving closer to the door and peering inside the kitchen, his hands framing his eyes.

  Sheets of typed paper lay strewn across the black-and-white tiled floor and an empty wine bottle had rolled under the table. Liberty lay slumped across the desk in the alcove, her hair fanning out across her arms. The desk, too, was strewn with paper, as if someone had dropped a stack of it from a height, and across the pages blood was splattered like red ink from an exploding fountain pen. Oscar rattled the door but it too was locked so, taking a step back, he grabbed one of the large stones that edged the flower bed and wrapped his scarf round it. Raising his arm, he smashed the stone against the door, breaking the glass just above the handle. He reached in through the jagged pane, praying the key would be in the lock. Grappling round he felt the metal against his fingertips. As he turned the key, his wrist scraped against the broken glass and for a moment he looked down as his own blood, thick and stagey-looking, dripped down the glass and onto the white-painted wood beneath.

  Eighteen

  The cold air sweeping in from outside rustled the pages on the floor. In moments Oscar was at Liberty’s side. He took her arm to feel for a pulse.

  ‘Liberty, come on, wake up.’ He was so scared that his voice came out harsher than he had intended.

  ‘My God, Liberty.’ The blood caked in neat horizontal lines where she had sliced her arm right up to the elbow, making the grey-tinged flesh look as if it had been pressed against a griddle. Standing up, he slipped his arm under her chest, raising her up against him. He felt her forehead with his free hand, letting it run down her face. The skin felt clammy. Resting his cheek on the top of her head for a moment he grabbed the phone by his side. He felt a lump in his throat and swallowed hard. With only one hand free, he put the receiver down on the desk and put his finger to the dial when suddenly Liberty stirred, rolled her eyes and smiled up at him as sweetly as if she had just woken up from a good sleep.

  His heart was thumping so hard he thought the noise alone would have been enough to wake her. He swung the chair gently round so that she was facing him. Kneeling down again, he picked up her hand and put it to his cheek. ‘My God, why?’ he whispered.

  Again, Liberty smiled that sweet, disconnected smile. ‘It was no bloody good. No bloody good at all.’ She closed her eyes again, resting her head against the back of the chair.

  Oscar looked at the empty wine bottles, then he got up, fetched a clean tea towel and dampened it in tepid water. Returning to Liberty, he picked up her limp arm and rolled up the sleeve of her dressing-gown. Making his touch as light as he could, he washed the cuts. They weren’t deep cuts, he saw that now. Liberty looked as if she was sleeping, a still, soundless sleep. Oscar paused with the blood-stained towel in his hand, lifting her arm to take her pulse again; it was almost normal.

  ‘Liberty, Liberty, can you hear me? Can you stand up?’

  She stirred and her eyes opened with a blank stare. He pulled her to her feet and picked her up in his arms, carrying her upstairs. He looked into the first bedroom he came to. Her son’s, he decided, judging from the posters on the wall and the teenage mix of old toys and accoutrements of adulthood. The room opposite had to be the spare room, neat with uncluttered oak furniture that looked as if it had once belonged to a much grander room, and no signs of occupancy. As his arms tired, he reached the last bedroom, her room. Smaller than her son’s and not much larger than the spare room, it was pretty, and a little worn-looking, just like its owner. He hurried over to the double bed in the centre of the room and laid her down. Liberty stirred and mumbled but she did not open her eyes. For a moment Oscar stayed looking at her. He put his hand out, touching her cheek with the tips of his fingers, then he turned and walked out of the room.

  The bathroom was just across the landing, a tiny room, more like a walk-in cupboard, the ceiling pitched. Inside, he turned the taps on to run the bath, looking round until he found some bottles of scented bath oil. He took the top off the first, smelling it then replacing the cap. The second had a sharper, lemony scent and he chose that, measuring out two capfuls into the running water. When the foam reached almost to the edge of the tub, he turned the taps off and went back into the bedroom. Liberty was awake now, smiling up at him with fuzzy eyes. Smiling back, he perched on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Can you sit up?’

  Liberty arched her back, a look of intense concentration on her face, then with a half groan, half giggle, she fell back against the pillows.

  ‘What shall I do with you?’ Oscar murmured. After a moment’s hesitation he loosened the belt of her dressing-gown and lifted her up against his arm. He pulled off the dressing-gown and she winced as the cloth rubbed against the cuts on her arm. She was wearing a bra and pants underneath, and after a moment’s pause he pulled them off too, quickly, keeping his eyes fixed on her face. Draping the dressing-gown over her, he picked her up and carried her across to the bathroom. Letting the dressing-gown slip to the floor, he lowered her into the tepid bath.

  ‘It’s cold,’ Liberty mumbled, opening her eyes and raising her arms up to him.

  ‘It’s meant to be.’ He sat silently on the edge of the bath while Liberty closed her eyes and rested her head against the hard edge of the tub. The dried blood on her arms coloured the foam pink and the tips of her hair curling down into the water turned pink too as if dipped in strawberry ice-cream. After a while Oscar reached for a bottle of shampoo. Pouring a little into the palm of his hand, he reached down into the water and began to wash her hair, just the ends, and then he scooped handfuls of water up over her arms to rinse away the last of the caked-in blood. When he had finished, he lifted her out of the bath and, steadying her with one arm, wrapped her in the large blue towel he had grabbed from a hook at the back of the door.

  ‘Put your arm round my shoulder,’ he said, but he was too tall and her arm slid down round his waist. So he put his arm under hers instead and, almost lifting her off the floor, he led her back into the bedroom. Sitting her down on the small upholstered chair by the window he asked, ‘Where do you keep your sheets? You should have clean sheets with all those cuts.’

  Liberty had kept her eyes fixed on his face as if there were an invisible rope between them keeping her upright. Still looking at him she said, ‘Over there, in the blanket chest.’ She tried to raise her finger to point but the hand was too heavy.

  The chest was almost empty but for a set of worn and mended white linen sheets and a lace pillow case. A white cotton nightdress fell out from amongst the sheets and he picked it up. When he had finished making up the bed, he brought the night-dress across to her and gently lifting her arms above her head, slipped it on her as the towel crumpled round her waist. He helped her in between the cool sheets, then he left her to telephone the office to tell them he would not be in until later.

  Before going back upstairs, he tidied away the blood-stained papers from the desk, wiping the veneer top with a cloth rinsed in cold water. He picked up the papers from the floor, putting them with the others in a heap on the kitchen table. He swept up the broken glass by the door and wrapped it in newspaper before throwing it in the bin together with the empty wine bottles. In the yellow pages he found the number of a glazier, and made an appointment to have the broken window pane fixed and then, before going back upstairs, he
taped some cardboard across the window frame to keep out the cold.

  Liberty was asleep. There was no colour in her face other than the scar, even her lips were pale. He stood looking down at her, listening to the light, steady breaths. Then he kicked off his shoes and lay down by her side, carefully, so as not to disturb her. He turned sideways to face her, allowing his fingers to touch the damp tips of her hair across the pillow.

  Liberty opened her eyes wide, then she smiled, nudging closer to him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘You’re very kind.’

  Nineteen

  Liberty woke, dry-mouthed and tender-headed, to find Oscar gone and Evelyn sitting, like a poor substitute, on the chair by the window. Disappointed, she sat up too quickly, making her feel as if her brain had dropped out of her skull and on to the floor. Groaning softly, her hands cradling her face she asked, ‘How long have you been here?’ Feeling ungrateful she added weakly, ‘It’s just that it’s all a bit of a muddle.’

  ‘If you mean was Oscar here getting you out of trouble? Yes he was. When he had to leave, he asked me to sit with you. I haven’t called your father.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ Liberty sank back down on to the pillows.

  ‘Oscar says you didn’t lose very much blood.’

  ‘I was very drunk.’ Liberty was apologetic.

  ‘I thought you had turned your back on all that suicide nonsense.’ Evelyn looked annoyed.

  ‘I did too. I just had rather a shock.’