Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  It had to stop. She would stop it.

  At times she hated Rundle but she knew he wasn’t fundamentally bad. He was simply a man who took what was offered. First she’d offered him her virginity then, next day, gone back for more. The rendezvous in Trafalgar Square was at her instigation, as was her follow-up visit to Brighton. She’d finished with him several times then been unable to stay away. He’d never attempted to sway her. When she was with him she didn’t have to be clever or brave or considerate. All she had to do was let go. No one else had ever had this effect on her and, because of this, he was a threat.

  Mrs Channing had shown them a wooden box, every facet of which was inlaid with mother of pearl and ivory. When she shook the box, it rattled tantalisingly but there appeared to be no way to get in. The trick was to find the sliding panel which would allow another panel to slide, and then another, until the box revealed its contents – a miniature wooden lotus flower. Very occasionally, Rundle opened up a little. ‘We’re two of a kind, Tessa. We’re not like the rest of them. We write our own rules. Then break them.’ He was a puzzle box which might contain everything or nothing.

  From the moment she’d seen him with Mike Stoddy, she’d allowed herself to be controlled by him but she was sure she didn’t exist for him unless she was standing in front of him. They might be ‘two of a kind’ – what a thrillingly conspiratorial phrase – but it didn’t follow that he needed her.

  The brakes squealed and the train came to a halt. Come on. She was impatient to get there but there was a problem on the line and the train limped fitfully through the Sussex countryside. By the time they reached Brighton, she was feeling sick with apprehension and unsteady from the alcohol.

  Rundle’s car was parked outside his flat and, looking up at the first floor, she saw that his kitchen window was open. She rang the bell, inclining her head towards the entryphone, listening for his voice, ringing again when there was no response. She unlocked the door and went in to the communal hallway then tiptoed up the stairs to the first floor. She tapped firmly on the door to Rundle’s flat, giving him another opportunity to answer before letting herself in.

  The room smelled of freshly made coffee.

  ‘Rundle?’

  In the beginning she’d assumed that he tidied up before she came but she soon realised that the place was always immaculate. He never left dirty crockery in the sink or a tea towel over the back of a chair. Books went back on the shelves, clothing on hangers in the wardrobe. No doubt he was the same at work – tools in the right place, records up to date. She imagined that after she left he’d have changed the sheets and given everything a wipe down with Dettol before she reached the station. Once, irritated by his orderliness, she’d snapped, ‘I’m surprised you don’t put a plastic sheet down, to save the mess.’ ‘Sounds kinky,’ he’d replied.

  She went in to the kitchen. The kettle was still warm. He couldn’t be far away. The sensible thing would be to leave a note then catch the next train home. Dear Rundle, I shan’t be coming here again. Thanks for everything. Good luck in the future, Tessa.Factual. Final. Magnanimous. Why even pretend that she could do it that way?

  It wouldn’t be a good idea for him to find her in his flat and she decided to come back in an hour or so. Suddenly she felt the urge to take a memento of the man who was fucking up her life, something to punish him and to remind herself never to become this vulnerable again.

  There was a small chest next to his bed and she eased out each drawer, careful not to disturb anything. Hankies. Balled socks and folded tee shirts. Sweaters. In one of the small top drawers, a box containing cufflinks and tiepins. And a man’s wristwatch, square-faced, with an expanding metal strap. The shape of it and the elegant Roman numerals slanting in to the corners told her that it was special. She dropped it in her bag.

  Then, she found a pub where she spent the next forty minutes bolstering her courage and wondering when Rundle would return home.

  The door phone crackled. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me. Tessa.’

  The mechanism buzzed and she pushed the door open. She climbed the stairs, this time knowing he was there, a fusion of excitement and anxiety rising inside her.

  He was wearing a white tee shirt and jeans. His hair was damp as though he’d just washed it. His feet were bare and there was a sticking plaster wrapped around the little toe of his left foot. An ironing board stood in the middle of the room, a pile of shirts on the sofa, a couple more on hangers dangling from the picture rail. Dylan was rasping softly from the turntable.

  ‘You didn’t phone,’ he said. It was a statement of fact.

  ‘“It’s lovely to see you, Tessa. I’ve been counting the days,”’ she chanted.

  ‘Is that what you want me to say?’

  She must remain detached, say what she had to say then get out, but Rundle, shape-shifted by domesticity, wrong-footed her.

  ‘Take your jacket off and I’ll make us a coffee,’ he said.

  ‘No.’ She held her hand out as if to fend him off. ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He turned back to the ironing board, taking the next shirt off the pile. His lack of interest was more painful than a slap across the face.

  ‘I won’t be coming here any more.’ It sounded as though it was the place that she had taken against and she had another shot at it. ‘I don’t want to see you again. Ever.’

  There was no interruption to the movement of his arm as he pushed the iron back and forth across the shirt front. ‘You’re the boss.’

  Go. Go now. She reached the door then hesitated.

  He glanced up. ‘Am I supposed to dissuade you? You’ll have to tell me if I am.’

  ‘Get stuffed.’

  Slamming the door behind her, she ran down the stairs and out into the street, not looking back, running until the stitch in her side doubled her up and brought her to a halt. She found a seat in a little park and waited until the blood had stopped pounding in her ears. She felt fired up yet damaged, like a soldier who had escaped from an ambush but in so doing had lost a limb.

  Everything had changed. And she had changed it. Suddenly the pillar box on the corner looked redder, the blossom on the street trees, frothier. She put her head back, the sun warming her face. She was free. Free. It was a glorious day. Why was she rushing home? Dan was in Italy and she had nothing pressing to do. She would go and find the sea – wasn’t that what people came to Brighton for?

  The promenade was thronged with people walking mangy dogs or roller skating or gazing at the horizon. On the beach, children screamed as the grey-brown waves churned the pebbles; mums watched to see that their offspring didn’t drown and dads read the Sunday paper; teenagers snogged and groped each other under beach towels; Granddads dozed and grannies fiddled with Thermos flasks. Ordinary people doing ordinary things and now she was one of them.

  *

  Later that evening she wrapped Rundle’s watch in newspaper and, placing the parcel on the bread board, she pounded it repeatedly with a hammer. After a while she set the hammer down. ‘Abracadabra,’ she giggled, lifting her whisky glass and wafting it above the flattened package. But when she unfurled the paper the watch was mangled beyond repair.

  VII

  1987

  Chapter 32

  It had taken Lewis a while to get used to teaching in a co-educational school. Girls were inclined to doubt their own abilities and needed sustained encouragement. Boys, on the other hand, were cocky and boisterous, triumphant when they were right and quick to jeer anyone, male or female, who faltered. Boys shrugged off criticism but girls crumpled.

  One girl in his fourth form set, a shrimp of a thing called Michelle Haldane, took the jibes particularly hard. When something she did or said provoked ridicule, she flushed a blotchy scarlet and sniffled into the sleeve of her cardigan. She had no mates, no one to shout up for her and when Lewis spotted her sitting on her own in the school canteen, it struck him that his daughters, pale and timorous, mig
ht suffer the same fate.

  He picked his way between the tables. ‘How did you get on with the homework, Michelle?’

  She blushed and stared down at her plate. ‘Dunno, sir.’

  ‘Well, don’t let on to anyone but I do actually get paid to teach you maths. So if there’s anything you don’t understand…’ He gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

  Her cheeks reddened further. ‘Thanks.’

  When he passed her in the corridor, he made sure to nod ‘hello’. If they happened to be crossing the schoolyard at the same time, he walked a little way with her, asking about the sort of music she liked or if she’d had a good weekend, demonstrating that there was more to life – hers and his – than quadratic equations. Sometimes, after a lesson, she stayed behind, and, safe from the boys’ ridicule, asked him to go over something she ‘didn’t get’. Standing dumbly at his side whilst he ran through it again, she gave no indication whether she grasped it but, during the course of the term, her maths marks showed a definite, if slight, improvement. She was less timid in class, making eye contact when he addressed her, occasionally flashing a nervy smile. Most satisfying of all, he noticed that she had been adopted by one of the leading fourth form cliques. What Michelle Haldane had to offer them was a mystery, as was most of what went on between girls of that age, but he felt that he was, in some small way, helping.

  One Saturday Lewis visited his father and discovered an estate agent’s sign planted amongst the rose bushes in the front garden.

  His father looked sheepish. ‘We thought we’d test the market. See if we get any interest,’ he explained.

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘We have, actually,’ Barbara chimed in. ‘A nice young couple who’ve got a little one. They want to move into the school catchment area and they’re happy to give the asking price.’

  Lewis tried to look unfazed. ‘So where are you going?’

  ‘Barbara thinks—’

  ‘We both think it’s the right time to look for something more manageable. A bungalow with a small garden, perhaps. On the flat. Handy for the bus. It’ll be a chance to dispose of all the junk we’ve accumulated.’ She smiled cheerily, as though their plan to ditch the family’s past was bound to win his support.

  ‘Isn’t this a bit … sudden, Dad? You didn’t mention anything.’

  ‘No need to get aerated, Lewis. Nothing’s settled yet. There’s many a slip.’ His father evidently thought a dose of pessimism was the best way to demonstrate the uncertainty of the situation.

  After a cup of tea, Lewis made his excuses. ‘Just a flying visit this time, I’m afraid. I’ve got to check something up at the house.’

  This wasn’t true. He didn’t need to go to Cranwell Lodge at all. He merely wanted to look at it.

  To start with, Lewis had organised the lettings himself. Sorting out inventories, dripping taps and faulty boilers was time-consuming but it kept him closely involved with his house and he liked that. After a while Kirsty had put her foot down – he could see her point – and he’d handed over its management to an agent.

  Dave and Sue Brown still lived next door and over the years they had become good friends. Lewis admired Dave’s ungrudging commitment to his wife and young family; he liked Sue’s honesty and refusal to be ‘cool’. He enjoyed visiting them, not only because they were good friends but from their back garden – in colder weather, through their kitchen window – he had an excellent view of the old house, imposing and enduring, little changed by whatever was going on within its solid walls.

  ‘Who’s your money on?’ Dave pointed at the pile of election literature stacked on the worktop. ‘The electorate must be wising up to her by now. The woman’s a megalomaniac. I fancy Kinnock.’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’

  Dave offered Lewis a chocolate biscuit. ‘We’ve just finished Tessa’s latest. What’s it called? Obsessed. That’s it.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Great. A bit saucy in places, mind you.’ Dave grinned. ‘We couldn’t decide if you figured in this one or not.’

  Promising to call again soon, Lewis left the homely chaos of the Brown’s kitchen. As he drove along Medway Avenue, he glanced at his watch. It was an age since he’d been to his mother’s grave. The cemetery gates closed ‘at dusk’ – an unsettling arrangement during winter months, the prospect of a night amongst the tombstones preoccupying anyone lingering there on a January afternoon. But it was six o’clock on a bright summer’s day and, after stopping at a phone box to let Kirsty know what he was doing, he found a corner shop selling flowers then drove the short distance to the cemetery.

  Leaving the car just inside the ornate iron gates, he negotiated the maze of solemn paths, preparing himself for what never failed to distress him. As he approached he saw a man kneeling in the grass next to the grave, not in an attitude of prayer but as if he were scrubbing the kitchen floor. He cleared his throat and the man turned around. It was Frank Swinburne.

  Lewis hadn’t seen his uncle since the Christmas before last when they’d all congregated at his father’s house. Frank had been quiet and seemed out of sorts. Later, when he and Kirsty were discussing the get-together, it had occurred to Lewis that Barbara and his uncle might not get on. She might even disapprove of her homosexual brother-in-law. ‘Mum thought he was wonderful,’ Lewis explained. ‘She came alive when he was around. But I’m not sure she knew about his … inclinations. Probably didn’t know that such things went on.’

  ‘Hello, Uncle Frank.’

  ‘Hello, Lewis, old son.’ Frank Swinburne struggled to his feet and they hugged. ‘Thought I’d come and give your mother a wash and brush up. This sandstone soon discolours. I told Dick at the time he should have gone for granite, but it was three times the cost.’

  Lewis felt ashamed. Not only had his uncle spotted that the stone needed attention, he’d toiled here with a jerrycan of water and a wire brush, then spent goodness knows how long scrubbing away the grime. He’d brought flowers too – pink roses, his sister-in-law’s favourite – making his own offering of carnations look like the tired afterthought that it was.

  ‘She was a lovely woman.’ Frank’s tone wasn’t in the slightest bit maudlin. ‘A shame the way it turned out.’

  They stood together, each silently remembering their own Margaret Anne Swinburne.

  ‘Are you still at the same place?’ Lewis asked as they walked back to the cars. ‘Conway Road, isn’t it?’

  ‘We left there six months ago. We’re down near the back of the station now.’

  Lewis, resolutely ignoring the ‘we’, continued. ‘D’you fancy a drink? I’m not rushing back. We never seem to have time to—’

  ‘No, thanks, Lewis. Next time, maybe. I’m expected home.’ He held Lewis’s gaze, steady and open.

  ‘No worries. As you say, next time.’ Not knowing what else to do, Lewis shook his uncle’s hand.

  They drove away, Frank Swinburne behind him until, at the traffic lights, he turned left and his uncle carried on towards the train station and whoever was expecting him home.

  After an eight year break, during which she’d doubted whether she would ever get another novel published, Tessa had found a dynamic new agent who secured her a reasonable advance on a two book deal. Although she’d given in her notice at Gallery Seven as soon as she’d signed the contract, Mark Hollinghurst had hosted the launch of the new book – set in an artists’ commune in Cornwall – and rounded up as many of the ‘old crowd’ as he could. The event attracted plenty of media attention and the book sold well. Tessa’s agent was currently negotiating with a production company who were interested in adapting it for television.

  The follow-up, Obsessed, was a stark tale of abuse and revenge in which the relationship between her two central characters wasn’t quite … healthy. She’d written it in just a few months, the words pouring out in a bitter torrent. ‘Terrific stuff,’ her agent had enthused. ‘Nothing the punter
likes more than a soupon of soft porn; a touch of voyeurism.’

  The publishers arranged for Tessa to do a series of book signings, one of which was in Hove.

  ‘Why don’t I come with you?’ Dan said. ‘We could stay overnight. Stroll along the prom like a couple of old fogies. Eat fish and chips. Perhaps there’s a pier. I love a good pier.’

  The holiday season was getting underway. The town seemed charmingly faded and soft-edged after the grind of London. It was a while since they had been away together and Tessa had forgotten how much fun it was to visit a new place with Dan. He had an eye for abstracting things from their context, seeing juxtapositions of colours and shapes where she saw buses and awnings and lampposts. ‘That’s what artists are for,’ he explained, ‘to view the world through the eyes of an alien. Oh, and to ravish lady writers.’

  They’d intended to stay in a hotel but in the end plumped for a guesthouse on the strength of its ridiculous name – Valhalla. They weren’t disappointed. Their landlady had attached explanatory and cautionary messages everywhere, anticipating every possible problem. Water very hot. Window latch stiff. Extra pillows available on request. She had an extensive collection of Toby jugs and an alarming enthusiasm for knitting which extended beyond coy toilet roll covers and antimacassars to matching Fair Isle sweaters for herself and her gummy-eyed Labrador.

  Tessa’s grandmother had knitted a Fair Isle sweater for her when she was thirteen or fourteen – too old, anyway, for home-made clothes – its blue and green intricacies chasing around her chest, swamping her developing breasts and rendering her androgynous. Now, seeing the zigzagging rows, Tessa felt wool rasping on her cheeks, smelled its damp hair scent as, nose flattened and temporarily blinded, she’d pushed her head through the tight neck. She’d detested it but her mother had forced her to wear it. Forced her? How had Peggy Swinburne forced anyone to do anything? ‘It took Gran months to knit that, Tessa. It would be terribly unkind of you not to wear it. And it’s lovely and warm.’ That’s how.