Shadow Play

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘Don’t bother, will you.’

  Michael felt the huge wave of irritation for the wreck of a well-planned evening.

  Bailey woke with a crick in his neck. The fire was out and for a long half minute he wondered where he was. In the house of the woman where he had spent part of his afternoon, not innocently, but no actual disloyalty either? In his own home? He looked down at his own long length covered by blanket, tucked firmly if ineffectively round his stiff shoulders, bunched round his middle and kicked away by his feet. A covered corpse which had managed to move.

  Now he was in the present he liked the conclusions less than the confusion. He was hot and cold by turns, his hands sweaty, head chilly, and surely, she knew him well enough after three years to rouse him from a stupor and put him to bed. Wincing, he threw off the blanket and surveyed his crumpled suit in the soft light she had left on for his benefit. No doubt to stop him stumbling and waking her up. Then he looked at his watch, although he knew as he always did, roughly what time it was, just this side of midnight. There was no sound anywhere until he heard the faint rumble of the North London Line, vibrating to remind him.

  Well he needed a bed and he needed more sleep, so he rose stiffly, took off his clothes and slung them over the chair, padded naked to the bathroom and stood beneath the shower. A warm body is always more easily forgiven than a cold one, he reflected, making as much noise about his scouring as possible. Deliberately noisy, clumsy in any event from fatigue and headache, knocking things over. She had dishes and jars in her bathroom where he had merely closed cupboards and soap, it was easy to make his presence audible. During the teeth-brushing stage, which he did with great vigour, splashing the mirror, he noticed a new brush by the side of the basin, wondered briefly, decided he was too tired to wonder about the significance of anything. Then padded next door. He slipped in beside her and hauled her close without any resistance.

  ‘We aren’t doing very well, are we?’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you. And I’m sorry I didn’t say so.’

  ‘So am I. So did I. Miss you.’

  Silence. ‘Tell me,’ she said more distinctly, ‘if we split up, do you think we could just be good friends?’

  Silence.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t we just be lovers?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Margaret deliberately recited to herself the events of the last evening as a way of passing time and speeding the progress of the bus which went from the end of the road all the way to Oxford Street. Perhaps Eenie remembered the route, Margaret thought.

  The night before, Sylvie’s mother and father had come to collect her long after Logo had knocked, it was closer to midnight by the time Margaret offloaded one sleeping child. The mother was tear-stained: Granny in hospital was dying, she said, and Margaret remembered how nothing was ever quite as bad as the death of a parent. Not even a husband. Perhaps the defection or disappearance of a child was something worse than a death. Even with a clear conscience as far as Sylvie’s safety was concerned, Margaret could not triumph in her contribution to it. Her sense of guilt was becoming permanent and she worried about shouting at Logo. It did not do to shout: it was not her style. Neither was the habit of hiding things from anyone, although to do so was one of life’s clearest duties. So she had lumbered over to call on him after Sylvie went.

  His house showed no lights and no sign of life. Margaret knew she could open the door, but ever since she had seen the suitcase, she had not felt the same. It was not Logo who made her frightened, it was the ghosts, so she went home, wondering how she would ever manage to rediscover that love for him which seemed to have fled. She would just have to wait for it to come back.

  It wasn’t even lonely without him: the day had been too busy, replete with the promise of what she was doing now. Debenhams, Oxford Street. Coffee shop, half-past four, Saturday, just as the crowds were clearing. She had got up last night, one more time, to look at the letter in the knife drawer to make sure she had the time right. If only she had never seen the suitcase, if only there was some way to talk without breaking any promises.

  Debenhams had changed since Margaret had gone there first for knitting wools and sensible shoes. The present format of crowded escalators moving up past vast but cramped floors made her dizzy although she was glad they were not stairs. Holding on to the rail with one hand, juggling with stick and handbag, she felt she was being propelled into the sky by catapult and there would be no way down. She panicked. After four years, how would she recognise the runaway? Four years was enough for any young woman to change out of all recognition, but then she calmed herself as she managed to step off the last escalator with greater dignity than the first two. All she had to do was sit herself down and wait to be recognised; she knew she hadn’t changed at all.

  ‘Hallo, Gran.’

  There she was, a beautiful young creature. Oh, what would she be now? Margaret, of course, knew to the day, one whole month beyond nineteen years. Still with that lovely skin under too much make-up, why do girls do that when they need nothing at all? Funny hair, not the long dark curls which had bounced in abundance on her shoulders, such a waste. Thin as a reed, skirt too short: a mixture of beauty and a ferocious little beast, standing by Margaret, towering over her, half anxious, half defiant.

  ‘I can’t get up so easy,’ Margaret said. ‘But give me a kiss. Oh, Eenie, sweetheart!’

  With one bending awkwardly and the other raising thin arms restricted by the too hot winter coat, they clutched each other. ‘Oh, Gran, oh Gran, where have you been?’ said Rose with her face in the old woman’s neck, breathing in that scent of sweet powder which brought to mind a range of comforts, closeness and discipline. She was not going to cry: there was no time to cry, and although her need was great, Gran’s helplessness still made her obscurely angry.

  ‘Listen, I’ll get us some tea.’

  ‘I’m paying,’ said Margaret. ‘You fetch it, I’ll pay.’

  ‘I could get used to this,’ said Rose darkly, with a ghost of a smile, flouncing away while Margaret admired her ankles, dismayed by the short hair and the plait. Oh dear, oh dear, why couldn’t the young be themselves, and why was she thinking of that now? Don’t nag, Margaret, don’t nag just because she looks like all the others, a stranger. But she was, a stranger.

  ‘Shop tea’s never the same.’ To her horror, Margaret found herself grumbling when Rose came back having brazened her way to the front of the short queue. ‘But lovely, dear. Here, take the money.’ Rose opened her mouth to protest, shrugged, took the money. Now Margaret was peeved. Four years without a word and the child shrugged. Never mind. She was overcome with emotion, dazed with a delight which she had wanted to be uncritical, but wasn’t.

  ‘Eenie, you look marvellous, really you do. I’ve been all bothered since you wrote, been bothered and worried sick for four years, come to think of it. Why? I asked myself. Why? Did that little girl never love me at all? Was I so bad to you? What did I do wrong, Eenie, what did I do? Not a word from you, or your mother—’

  ‘Oh, you neither?’ said Rose with more than a trace of bitterness. ‘You and me both then. I hate her. She dumped me. And I did write to you. At least twice.’

  Margaret was only following slowly. ‘Where did she dump you, pet?’

  ‘I told you. With a cousin up north. One Dad wasn’t supposed to know about. We were both going to go, but we went from Legard Street to a hostel and then she put me on a train. She said Dad would find her, but might not find me, so it was better that way. She just couldn’t face going up north and getting a job, was all. I knew she’d either go back to him or off with some bloke she was seeing. That’s what she did do, anyway, wasn’t it? Went off? Her cousin said she never went home. I suppose that’s why you didn’t write either.’ Oh Christ, what was happening? Why was this so snappy? In her confusion, her mind buzzing with letters and more letters, Margaret remembered the suitcase with sickening clarity. Oh, yes, Mum had come home, and yes, Logo sometimes brought in her
post.

  ‘Didn’t Mum write to you then, after that? Not at all?’

  ‘Not ever, but she never was a writer and she said she might not. Then I ran away from the cousin, who was weird and demented. I got a live-in job at a school, but then I always liked school, would you believe. Got two O levels and got paid! They were good to me, a convent school too, they saved me.’

  Yes, Eenie had always liked learning. Margaret remembered a funny little girl, often withdrawn, accepting all those extra-curricular lessons she had given to a child whose parents had no idea how anxious she was to learn. She’d needed a firm hand, mind.

  ‘Oh why didn’t you come back, pet? The police came looking for you both. Your dad left it a little while, but he did report you missing.’

  Rose looked at her with complete incredulity, eyes darkening with anger at the other’s innocent partiality, forgetting all the anticipation of this meeting in its sudden sourness. All this time, and Gran still nagged.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ she taunted. ‘You just don’t know anything. Of course he knew where Mum was! She’d always joked about where she’d go if she ever left him, to that hostel where you didn’t have to pay … of course he’d find her if he wanted, only I don’t suppose he was in a fit state, oh never mind. Anyway, it doesn’t look as if he did want. It was me he was after. And I thought I’d killed him.’

  Again Margaret did not follow.

  ‘You nearly killed him,’ she said sternly. ‘He drives everyone insane, talking about you, asking about you. It’s made him strange. You’ve got to help him, Eenie, put him out of his misery before it drives him mad. Come home for a bit. He’s your dad, after all.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, God! You haven’t the faintest idea.’ Rose gulped tea, shook her head and went on talking more to herself, so Margaret strained to hear, deafened by puzzlement. ‘I’ve moved address twenty times. I don’t know why I moved back so close to home; I don’t know what it is, I hate it anywhere, but there’s something about … something draws you back to what you know.’ She looked at Margaret challengingly. ‘I wanted my mum. I thought I might run into my mum. I want my mum every day. I wanted my mum.’

  ‘Is that why you wrote to me after all this time?’ Margaret asked humbly. ‘Because you wanted someone? Your mum? Not me?’

  She was irritated by the selfishness of the girl, loved her at any price, was hurt, confused, unloved. You never talked about yourself to the young: you only listened since that was what they expected of you, as if you had nothing to say. The meeting bore no relation to the cloudy script she had played over in her mind a dozen times, tears and copious huggings and reminiscences. All she wanted to do was stroke this strange, prickly adult and be held; remind her of her childish loveliness and the chasm of loss and memory in between. Instead, remembering the schoolgirl Eenie had been, she let a scolding note creep into her voice.

  ‘You’ve broken his heart, Eenie. Your mother did and now you. And both of you broke mine. You haven’t got anyone else but your dad. He loves you and so do I.’

  The word ‘love’ seemed to sting Rose into a fury.

  ‘I’m not called Eenie any more. And did Dad tell you what I did to him? I bet he did. You were always on his side. I bet he told you and cried all over you: he was good at that too. Why do you think Mum and I went that day? Why? You silly old cow!’

  ‘Shh,’ said Margaret, red with embarrassment at the noise. ‘Keep your voice down. People can hear.’

  ‘I don’t care if people fucking hear. They can fuck themselves. Oh shit.’

  Margaret was crying. Great gobs of soupy tears running rivulets down her powdered cheeks, dropping on to the formica table top. Heads turned. Rose glared back, stuck up two fingers in the air, then leant across the table.

  ‘Oh, listen, Gran, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry, got a short fuse, you know that, I’m sorry. Christ, you’ve got me going too.’ She scrabbled for a handkerchief, but the piece of tissue had finally died, so she used the stiff, unyielding paper napkin instead. It reminded her of something. ‘Listen, Gran, don’t cry, I’ll make it up to you. Look, I bought you a present.

  ‘Four years,’ Margaret was murmuring. ‘Four years, and you shout at me.’ With shaking hands, she accepted a carrier bag, opened it uneasily. Talcum powder in a presentation box, the finest kind, her favourite, relatively expensive and saved for high days and holidays. A treat she had always demanded for birthdays and used sparingly for two decades.

  ‘You remembered,’ she said tremulously.

  ‘I remember everything, don’t think I don’t. Are you all right to get home?’

  They sat staring at one another hungrily. Other tables had resumed talking. The row had been dismissed as a squabble about a birthday present.

  ‘Home? Why? You aren’t going now! You can’t, there’s so much I’ve got to tell you, please, pet, please … I’m worried, Eenie, I’m getting frightened—’

  ‘Not now, Gran, eh? I’ve had all I can take. We’ve got to do this in stages, you know, and I’ve got to go.’ The powdered face was crumbling again.

  ‘Gran, please. Listen, I tell you what. Same place, next Thursday, six o’clock. OK?’

  ‘Why don’t you come and see me?’ Margaret wailed softly. ‘Only I’m waiting for this hip, it’s not so easy for me to get about—’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere near Dad, Gran, I’m just not. Don’t ask me why, you won’t want to know the answer. And you mustn’t tell him or I’ll never speak to you again. Promise? You never broke a promise.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Right, come on then, I’ll take you to the bus.’

  Margaret Mellors was paralysed by the briskness of it all. They were floating down the catapult and out into the street without another word. She clutched her handbag, the carrier bag with the talcum, her stick and Rose’s arm in alternate grasping movements as people pressed by them on the way out. Margaret kept saying sorry. The bus appeared obligingly and uncharacteristically as soon as they were outside in the breathtaking cold. She staggered, found herself assisted aboard, holding on to the rail, unable to wave with her hands fully occupied and that was what she remembered later. Watching Rose waving and smiling until the crowd closed around her and her not waving or smiling back. And not understanding anything at all.

  PC Michael Michael, No. 711749, turned up for late-turn duty as clean as a new pin. This did not reflect the fact that his Friday night out had gone according to plan, or that he was luxuriating in any kind of wellbeing. It simply meant he had had more time at his disposal than he might otherwise have had if all yesterday’s expectations had been fulfilled. He had taken his girlfriend home to her flat instead of his own, at 1 a.m., which meant he had gone training at the gym the morning after, with time for his domestic chores as well. His mother would be proud of what he’d achieved in an hour on Friday, but perhaps not of what he had had in his mind. Wait till you find a good one, Michael boy, before you let her indoors. Wait till you find love, then go for it, his mother had said. Well, he hadn’t waited, in the virginal sense, but he hadn’t exactly gone mad on wild women and whisky either. Saving and boxing had preserved him from much, and he thought he’d found love in Rose, an utterly gorgeous, bad-record, mixed-up kid, thrust at him by fate. Only he was just now realising how fragile and complicated a plant love could be. No wonder Ma had said, Wait. She was only trying to ensure his survival.

  His mum had been wild, so his policeman dad had confided in closet admiration, ever so wild. It hadn’t stopped her being marvellous, the envy of other men, as well as other sons, and that was how Michael thought he knew the difference between what was real in a girl and what was shadow, but it didn’t stop him wondering why it was all so difficult.

  The late-turn relief was idle on Saturday afternoon, idle and fretful. No football, no major events to police, no major traffic breakdowns, in fact nothing to laugh about at all. Even shoplifters were kept indoors by the cold, although someone was bound to steal or have
a fight at home after Saturday lunchtime drinking and the enforced proximity necessitated by the cold. Just now, there was plenty of room for friendly chat in the panda car, manned by three of them, for a change. Scope for that or malice, whichever came first. Even since yesterday, word had got around about Williams and Logo. For a man who had been seen almost crying on parade, Williams had a lot of image to build. He was trying as best he could.

  ‘See that fight last night?’ Williams was saying in the locker room. ‘See that bloke get it in the third round? Whoom!’ He was feinting blows at his locker door. ‘Whoom! Down he goes! But he hasn’t been done proper, see? Up he gets, and then the other bloke hits him between the eyes, then he really goes down …’ Williams was dancing round the open door, pulling out a creased jacket. There was silence in the place, the silence of men resenting a lost weekend, towards a boy with something to prove. Michael sauntered by Williams’ locker. ‘Mind if I borrow a spare pair of gloves, Paul? Only I left mine at home.’

  It was an excuse to look inside. Williams was too naïve to respond until he noticed the intensity of Michael’s brief inspection. Then he slammed the door. ‘Sorry, mate, gloves are off.’ He walked away, humming loudly, but not before Michael had seen a vicious-looking pair of handcuffs, a bowie knife and two truncheons, one more than regulation and both more than he carried. Plus a lot of mess. Michael shook his head and passed on. He had a sudden, disgusted sympathy with a frightened man like Williams. Last night, Logo had scared him half to death. He wished he had been more sympathetic, less sharp on the subject, with Rose. Love was as fragile as smoke, but at least his uniform was durable.

  As Williams strutted on to the parade, twitching his shoulders and standing to attention ostentatiously, grinning left to right as if a grin assured acceptance, the sergeant thought he was a right nasty little toad, who fancied himself as well. Williams looked at Michael for consolidation of that view, but Michael refused to catch his eye.