by Mavis Cheek
Sometimes though, like now, she played with the idea of being taken care of for ever, but people always buggered off in the end. Like this one would. But she couldn't have buggered off yet. Not leaving Erica here and with permission. She'd return. For the moment this was OK. A little bit of peace. Something must have come up unexpectedly. Well, Erica von Hyatt could wait.
She stretched, enjoying the freshness of her smell. No one had really damaged her on the inside, and on the outside she still looked great, better than most when she had a chance to clean herself up. Some people were just strong. She was. She liked herself because she could get through anything, and she liked the way she looked because it was part of the getting through. She kept her naturally fair hair very long, because when she did get the chance to wash it, it was really lovely. Her face looked more healthy than some of those secretary tarts she saw rattiing their way along the morning streets. Her waist, hips, bum and thighs were all just as neat as when she left home, and, if anything, her knockers had improved since the baby, got bigger and stayed bigger - not gross or anything, just a decent size. Dawn would be about four now and she'd be really happy. Erica von Hyatt knew this because she knew exactly who the father was and he had a sunny nature just like she had a sunny nature, so Dawn would be the same. Erica was known as Mona Lisa among her peers, but the priest who ran the crypt sanctuary told her it wasn't very accurate because the Mona Lisa smiled in a sort of sad way, whereas Erica smiled with a sparkle. He had kissed her on the forehead after saying this and she - generously, she thought - had offered him one despite his gender, but he had jumped like she'd bitten it off. He told her she had to learn to separate the kinds of love there were in the world and find the one she wanted.
She was still thinking about that one. But in the meantime -she stretched lazily - in the meantime there was this little number here and she'd hang on to it for as long as possible. Nowhere was safe for ever, but this one was safe for the moment. It was warm, really luxurious if a bit on the small side, sustaining and, more to the point, she had got it to herself.
Of course the owner would come back some time or other, but that wasn't really a problem. Erica judged that little would be asked of her beyond the favours of what her body could do, and that was never a problem either, you just let yourself into overdrive for that, coasted through it where possible, and if it got more sophisticated and dangerous, then you got your head together quick and went along with that, too - only with more awareness. She doubted if there would be anything like that here. Sylvia had been quite kind, and younger than many, with a body that was all right - if a little slack. Erica ran her hand over her stomach, quite good still, not slack at all. She doubted if she would ever reach the sort of age when it would go droopy, but she didn't feel bad about that - it just made sense to live for the moment. And for the moment this felt good. Occasionally she allowed herself to dream that this was her real home, but it made her feel quite maudlin, so she quickly stopped. Real homes were what other people had - the respectable people. She would never be one of those and, well, really, when she looked at them, she wasn't altogether sure she wanted to be. They all said one thing and did another. Anyway, fantasies about home were best left alone. In a way she was looking forward to the real owner of this place coming back. That would stop the fantasies. Sometimes they got quite painful.
Erica thought about it, sucking on the individual pomegranate seeds as she did so. The main thing about this one was that she was rich without, apparently, that streak of meanness which often accompanies the state. They had eaten a really nice meal that first night, delivered, which was very posh. It was quite spicy and very filling, and afterwards they had mucked around in the bed for ages with scents and oils and stuff. All quite nice, really. And although the woman had held on to her very tight in the night, an aspect that Erica found difficult, being used to sleeping alone,
she could put up with that for a while. No, no, Erica von Hyatt was not about to lose it all just for a bit of temporary hunger. She was not going anywhere unless she was told, absolutely, that she had to. So she would wait. She had been told to wait, and she would wait. She stuck out her pretty chin with an unselfconscious gesture of determination; she was an invited guest and just let them say she wasn't. She would eat the halva, drink the coffee, risk another pomegranate and, if nothing had changed by the time she had done all that, she would think again. But the answer would be the same. Stay put. Why look a gift horse in the mouth when the time passed so easily?
She might have yet another long, scented bath (that was another thing that was good here: the bathroom was crammed with potions and scents and all sorts of pretty, smelly things, like jewel-boxes with their colours and shapes), and then she would change the robe Sylvia had given her for another from the wardrobe. There were thirteen there, Erica von Hyatt had counted them, and they were all very beautiful - they made you feel good just wearing them. Then she would watch TV, read another of those yukky books Sylvia kept on her shelves, and perhaps be a little bolder with the bottles in the cabinet. She might even open the Jack Daniel's, which looked rich and golden and interesting. She had often dreamt of having a place like this to herself - and now she had. And what dream lasted for ever? While she had it, she would live it, and when it was over, why, then she would move on. No hard feelings. Why should there be? Hard feelings got you nowhere and spoiled your enjoyment of what was happening here and now. Before and after were things out of reach. Today was real. Today was all that counted. And today was being very nice to her. She put another pomegranate seed in her mouth and sucked it with pleasure. Life could be worse, after all, and she repeated to herself that whatever happened, she had been invited here and told she could stay. Whatever happened, even she, destitute Erica von Hyatt, had rights. She yawned and stretched at the pleasure of it all. Sylvia Perth would be back one day soon and in the meantime - well, in the meantime she would simply get on with the dream. Pity that the telephone broke into it from time to time, but, well, you couldn't have everything, and at least she knew there was no point in answering it since it certainly wouldn't be for her: she did not exist.
*
Square Jaw rang Melanie's number. It had taken several attempts and two glasses of white Rioja to make the call, and he wasn't sure why because, after all, he was only ringing her about her things in the box under the bed. He presumed that she would be needing some of them, or he wouldn't bother to ring. It felt very peculiar needing courage before tapping out that familiar number. He let it ring for a long time. After the build-up, it was hard to believe there was no reply. He replaced the receiver and felt relief. He hadn't really wanted to speak to her, anyway. He wondered for a moment where she was but put the thought from his mind very quickly. None of his business.
*
Red Gold jumped and Arthur looked up sharply from his notebook. She had catapulted rather than moved in her usual deliberate way and answered the call with a voice he had never heard. She turned her back and he watched how her shoulders sagged as she put the receiver down on the table. 'It's for you,' she said and left the room.
*
The Little Blonde Secretary removed her yellow plastic gloves and put them away neatly in the bucket under the sink. The house was clean and shining from top to bottom and she had two Marks and Spencer stuffed chicken breasts in the oven because it was Saturday night. She felt at peace with the world. Derek came through the back door, having removed his shoes in the porch.
She was pleased that he remembered and decided that he was a good husband really, had been very responsible since she told him about all that upstairs mess. She smiled at him encouragingly and said, 'Well done, Derek,' looking at his socked feet. He smiled back. She would have kissed him on the cheek, but he had not shaved. Instead, by way of illustration, she rubbed the very tip of her index finger down her chin, shaking her head.
The chicken breasts were very nice, they both thought, if a little too spicy. They had a glass each of Lambrusco and put the
rest away in the fridge for tomorrow. Then they went and sat on the new settee in the newly cleaned front room and watched the final episode of a Jeffrey Archer serial, which they both found very exciting. Later Derek made them a milky drink and they went to bed. She slept well and so did Derek, though both had disturbing dreams, which they put down to either the Lambrusco or the Jeffrey Archer, and in the morning Derek's chin was stubbly again.
*
Erica von Hyatt had developed a taste for Jack Daniel's mixed with milk and taken slowly in the bath. The source of the milk was her own streetwise cleverness. Bottles of it were delivered to the other flat in the building downstairs (semi-skimmed, alas), along with orange juice and yoghurt. Hearing the chink of the milk float had been one of life's better joys. Too much cushy ease had blunted her edge. Out on the street she would have had no compunction, would not have thought twice, about lifting the necessaries of life from the doorsteps of the Good Bourgeoisie. Here, with her comfortable trappings, she had momentarily lapsed into responsible citizenship. A foolish slip. So, quick as a dart, silent as a shadow, her golden hair streaming behind her, the rustle of her soft, pink robe scarcely disturbing the air, she had run down the stairs, even as the retreating milkman's rubber soles were still audible, and stood poised, thinking.
Three bottles of milk, one carton of orange juice and a packet of six yoghurts. Riches!
What she thought was this. If I take it all they will be watchful in future. If they are watchful in future, my source will dry up completely. If I take only the minimum I need, they may not notice. If they do notice, they will think the milkman has shortchanged them.
What she did was this. She took one pint of milk. She slid her thumb nail along the polythene packet containing six yoghurts and took two. She left the orange juice, deciding its loss would be too noticeable. In general, her experience showed that people with plenty were not blindly open-handed, but if you were careful, and took only a portion, very often they didn't notice its loss at all among what was left. So the orange juice had to stay.
The owner of the flat did not notice since his female companion took the remaining items in. He, frowning into the business news, was impervious to the contents of his refrigerator, as he was also, now sated, impervious to her dewy eyes and the curves of her naked body beneath his shirt. She made the coffee as discreetly as a geisha, poured milk on to the muesli, and dreamt of gaining a status beyond that of girlfriend by appointment.
Thus the Have gave to the Have-Not without suffering. Almost the basis of successful modern charity - with the exception of allowing the giver the knowledge that he had given, and therefore providing him with the pleasure of a warm glow, which would, of course, have made it perfect.
One yoghurt is as good as a feast to a shrunken stomach. A third of a pint of milk taken straight from the bottle, bountiful nurture. With black-cherry flavour reserved in the fridge for the morrow, Erica von Hyatt was happy again. With two thirds of a bottle of milk to play with and Jack Daniel's glowing in his Arabian-carved homestead, Erica von Hyatt could live a little. And that, to be quite honest, was as much as she had ever asked.
Chapter Eleven
G
RETCHEN O'Dowd had been with Sylvia for years. Man and boy, Sylvia used to say if she was feeling humorous. Gretchen did not mind. Over the years they had developed a comfortable companionship: Sylvia the mistress, Gretchen the servant. Neither inquired into the other's life beyond that. Gretchen ran the country home to which Sylvia came for weekends, and their lives were smoothly semi-detached. Gretchen was grateful and Sylvia was released from responsibility; it was like keeping a large, dependable, loyal dog in the country and no more rigorous in its expectadon than that. The brief fling that had united them was almost forgotten history, and if they shared a bed occasionally it was more to do with human hot-water bottling than passion or desire. It was as close as Sylvia chose to move in a relationship, and Gretchen was not ungrateful for its peace.
They had met at a publishing party where Gretchen was serving the drinks in a neat little black frock with a white pinny and a bow in her hair. In those days she shaved her legs and bleached her moustache and, though rather square in form, had a young woman's air about her. When Sylvia acquired her Queen Anne house in Oxfordshire with its substantial garden, Gretchen was the perfect solution - strong, healthy, amenable and not of a possessive nature. She installed her, paid her a basic wage, and knew that she could trust her completely, for Gretchen had been bruised by life. Who had not? Sylvia wanted to know. 'Stick with me, dear,' she suggested, 'and you need never worry your -' She was about to say, 'pretty little head,' but thought better of it, given that it was beyond any realms of reality, and substituted the more sensible 'self again . . .'
Gretchen's father had been a boxer. He had two requirements of any offspring. The first and most important was that the offspring should be a son and therefore made in his own image. Failing that, the offspring should be a daughter and made in an image as far removed from his as possible. Gretchen, perversely, was neither. She was a daughter with the physical attributes of a son. Her mother, a florist, was also disappointed. Where was the pretty, golden-haired child with delicate fingers and an eye for colour that she required? Still in her ovaries by the look of it.
Gretchen did her best to be a good androgyne. She learned to box and she learned to arrange flowers. Had she been a son, in the prevailing climate of New Men she would have been lauded and honoured; as it was, she was a she and was not. A little confused, she began to make her own way in the world.
When her father passed out of the ring and immediately passed on, the floral tributes had been delightful. The neighbours in East Grinstead still talked about the cortege, and tried to recapture its charms whenever one of their number died. Unfortunately for Gretchen, the neighbours in East Grinstead also still talked about her and what they called her Perversion. At fifteen she had fallen in love rather heavily with one of her peers, and a teacher had found them at it in that quintessentially adolescent place, the bike shed. Unfortunately it was an all girls' school, and the peer in question was called Wendy. Wendy was saved from Perversion by coming absolutely clean and saying she would never do it again (which Gretchen was hurt to discover was not the truth), and Gretchen was permanently committed to hellfire by saying the opposite. So far as she was concerned, it was pure love and the only way, and she was much muddled that truth (which was supposed to be the ultimate Good Thing) should suddenly be so ultimately wicked.
Mrs O'Dowd, still basking in the admiration of her neighbours regarding the cortege and optimistic about a settled and respectable future now that the insurance had paid up, was not about to chuck it all away. As her daughter's oddity was apparently founded on unchanging rock, it was time for Gretchen to leave home. With a ten-pound note and an air of dazed acceptance, she was dispatched to London. Her moustache had come on considerably in the years from pubescence to maturity, and she was even more confused to find herself quite proud of it - though the world told her it was the brand of her sin and should, along with leg hair, be removed.
Her paternal aunt in London read tarot cards and occasionally held seances in polite people's houses. Gretchen lived with her and housekept for a time until she fell in love with a barmaid who had come seeking guidance about whether her husband would ever pay maintenance or not. The barmaid, married for fifteen years, one son, lapsed husband, was a trifle bored by men since she had her pick of the pub's clientele. For a time she turned her attentions to Gretchen, who loved and served her slavishly. But such slavishness became boring too, for it provided no grit.
'There is nothing worse,' said the barmaid one night, 'than being loved too well. The trouble with your sort of woman in our sort of relationship is that you never hit out. Frankly it gets very dull with all your tender loving care and understanding. What I need now and then,' said the barmaid metaphorically, 'is a bit of dash, perhaps even brutality. A bit of thrust, a bit of poke -even a punch on the nose wo
uldn't come amiss . . .'
So Gretchen, being down to earth and of a literal nature, duly punched the barmaid on the nose, forgetting that she was the sturdy daughter of a boxer now deceased. The barmaid, unwilling to accept complicity in the act of violence and with her face very much rearranged, terminated the love affair, and Gretchen, sadly, for she had loved her buxom partner dearly, moved on. There would always, she knew, be a place in her heart for barmaids.
She gave up the notion of love and decided to earn a living for herself. She ceased her unfeminine ways - dealt with leg and arm and upper-lip hair - and, though it by no means felt like an honest living, waitressed. Now she learned what life on the other side was like. Her bottom was pinched, hands wandered up to her thighs when her own hands were too full of glasses to do anything about it, obscene suggestions were whispered in her ear by wine-breathed men in dinner jackets, and she was frequently grabbed from behind while doing the washing-up. In the end the long-suffering Gretchen had had enough. When a wandering hand goosed her for the umpteenth time at a publishing party, she dropped a large tray loaded with dirty glasses, looked the perpetrator firmly in the eye and, in the astonished silence of the room, gave him a right hook that had the air of Zen it was so pure and so fine.
Tm sorry,' said Gretchen to the floorbound perpetrator, 'but I don't like men pinching my bottom.'
'Looking like you do,' said the floorbound perpetrator, 'you should be grateful for what you get.'
A hand reached under Gretchen's elbow, she was steered out into the Berkeley Square evening, and Sylvia Perth said, 'Well done, dear. What is your name? Let us go for a little walk.'
