by Jill McGown
She shook her head.
‘More coffee? Or would you like a brandy now?’
‘No,’ she said.
He switched off the lamp. ‘Kisses by coloured lights?’ he said, with a little laugh, and this time he met with success.
They went into the bedroom, arms round one another. The room was chilly; Judy shivered a little as she pulled off her sweater. Lloyd’s lips caressed hers as he began to unbutton her blouse.
‘It’ll be a lot quicker if I do it myself,’ she said.
Lloyd smacked her hand away. ‘And a lot less fun,’ he said. ‘You have no soul. Andante, Sergeant Hill. Andante.’
But Lloyd didn’t realise just how many layers of clothes she wore in weather like this. He soon found out, laughing with delight as he discovered what he insisted on calling a vest.
‘It is not a vest,’ said Judy. ‘It’s a T-shirt.’
‘It’s a vest. And you thought you could whip it off while I wasn’t looking.’
‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘You get yourself undressed.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, grabbing her. ‘I don’t want to miss anything. What have you got on under the trousers?’ He took a peek. ‘Long johns,’ he said.
‘They’re tights,’ she squeaked indignantly. ‘It’s all right for you – your car’s got a heater that works. They keep me warm.’
‘They don’t,’ he pointed out.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘They’ve got feet. They’re tights.’
But Lloyd had discovered skin, and was tickling her. They collapsed in a heap on the bed, and the more they laughed, the more andante it became, and the more they enjoyed it.
Judy had thought about this moment on the way to the flat. She had thought it would be awkward and intense if it happened at all; at best, she had imagined it would be a kind of self-conscious re-establishment of the status quo. But instead, it was like this, and she lost herself completely in the laughter and the love.
Which was why, when her senses returned, she got up, taking Lloyd’s dressing-gown from the door as she went into the sitting room, pulling the belt tight around her. She stood for a moment in the near darkness; she wanted a cigarette, a B-movie cigarette, and she felt in her handbag for the packet, not wanting even Lloyd’s seduction lighting. Her hand trembled as she struck the match.
She heard Lloyd arrive in the room; she didn’t turn round.
‘And I thought it was the faithful come to Bethlehem,’ he said, after a moment.
She didn’t need him talking in riddles. She inhaled deeply, and expelled the smoke. ‘What?’ she said, still not looking.
‘Joyful and triumphant.’
She smiled, despite herself. ‘It was.’
‘Then what’s wrong?’
The smoke was drawn through the coloured lights, curling round the tree. ‘I’m frightened,’ she said.
‘Of me?’
She didn’t dignify that with an answer.
‘Of us,’ he amended, and this time she didn’t have to answer.
He came up to her. ‘Because you forgot to keep back a little piece of yourself?’ he asked.
She put her cigarette in the ashtray, and turned to look at him. Acting came to Lloyd as naturally as breathing. His voice, his expression, his mood. But he dropped the act with her. He pretended that what was underneath was just another act, but it wasn’t; it never had been.
‘But it makes you so vulnerable,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
She hugged him close to her. ‘I love you,’ she said.
He reached past her, and switched on the lamp, which seemed suddenly brilliant.
‘What did you do that for?’ she asked.
‘Say it again. When I can see your lips move.’
She hadn’t meant to say it in the first place. She had spent fifteen years not saying it.
‘Where did you get that?’ Judy touched the sleeve of the new dressing-gown that Lloyd was wearing.
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘It’s nice,’ she said, and glanced down at the one she had wrapped round herself like some sort of fig-leaf; it had afforded her about the same protection.
‘The kids gave me it for Christmas.’
‘They’ve got better taste than you,’ she said.
‘Say it again.’
‘They’ve got better—’ She smiled. ‘I love you.’
‘You’ve never said that before.’
‘I’ve said it now.’ She smiled again. ‘Twice. So that should keep you going for another fifteen years.’
‘But what does loving me mean?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It means I’m here, when I should be at home with Michael. And his parents. God knows what I’ll tell them. I’m a rotten liar.’
‘So tell them the truth.’
Mrs Hill probably wouldn’t believe her if she did, thought Judy.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Forget it. Do you want something to eat?’
‘Poor Lloyd,’ she said smiling. ‘You’re hungry.’
‘Starving,’ he said. ‘What would you like?’
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve got to go, Lloyd.’
He let his arms drop away from her, and walked off into the kitchen, slamming the door.
It was bitterly cold, and the wind had come back, moaning through the trees. But George stood in the garden in his shirt sleeves, looking across at the castle, its battlements visible in the clear, starlit night. He was trembling, already. Because it was cold. Too cold to stand out here. The frozen snow glistened as the temperature dipped even further.
The coldest Christmas period since eighteen seventy-something, the radio said. Hypothermia was a killer, they said. Make sure old people wear lots of layers of clothing. Tell them to heat one room only if they’re worried about bills. Make sure they have hot meals.
He had ten years to go before he collected his pension, before he was consigned to that section of humanity assumed to be incapable of making sure for itself that it wore warmer clothes in winter – who couldn’t even listen to advice on the radio. Ten years to go before other people had to listen to the radio for him, and tell him what it had said. Ten years. He wasn’t old. And yet he felt old. Too old to start again.
He could go across the fields, to the castle. To Eleanor. She wanted him there. She needed him. But he wouldn’t go. He would stay at home with Marian.
‘George?’ Marian’s voice. ‘George, are you all right?’
‘Just getting some fresh air,’ he said.
He could hear her footsteps crunching on the snow, as she walked over. She came up to him, putting her arm round him. ‘A bit too fresh,’ she said. ‘Come back in. You’ll catch cold out here.’
‘I always understood that you could only catch colds from other people,’ he said.
‘And you’re testing the theory?’ Her arm tightened round him. ‘We’ve just got to carry on,’ she said, in a quiet voice.
He looked at her, and smiled. ‘You’re better at that than I am,’ he said.
She kissed him, her face warm against his. ‘Don’t make yourself ill,’ she whispered. ‘It’s happened. We’ll survive it. We’ve survived other things.’
Lost babies, lost parents, lost dogs. And it was always Marian who kept herself and everyone else together. He kissed her, suddenly and fiercely. But she couldn’t help him through this.
‘Dinner’s ready,’ she said.
He gave a short laugh. ‘Not much point in my eating it,’ he said, patting his stomach.
‘Is it just as bad?’
George looked at the castle. ‘It won’t get any better until this business is over and done with,’ he said, and he followed her into the house.
For a few moments, out there in the cold, it had gone. Out in the sharp, breathless cold, there had been no desperation in the pit of his stomach, making him ill.
But now it was back.
Lloyd turned down the gas under his rice, and surveyed the mul
ti-coloured piles of matchstick vegetables, ready for stir-frying. Slicing them up had been good therapy. Removing a table mat and fork from the drawer, he went into the sitting room. She wasn’t there.
He picked up the ashtray, in which Judy’s cigarette had burned away, leaving ash and melted blobs of nylon ribbon. They were lucky she hadn’t set the place on fire. As he put it down, it reminded him of something, and he frowned, looking at it again.
He set his solitary place, and went into the bedroom, where Judy sat, dressed and ready to leave. But she hadn’t.
‘I thought you were in a hurry,’ he said.
She looked up at him. ‘I didn’t want to leave while you weren’t speaking to me,’ she said.
Lloyd sat beside her, and took her hand in his. ‘I want to explain how I feel,’ he said.
She looked away. ‘This must be later,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ Her hand still rested in his; his thumb moved back and forth across it as he tried to phrase his statement. ‘Judy,’ he said at last. ‘Going to bed with you is lovely. It’s great. Tonight, it was better than ever.’ He paused. ‘Look at me,’ he said.
She turned, her face a little apprehensive.
‘But it’s not why I want you here,’ he said. ‘It’s not what this is about. And your being here just long enough for us to hop in and out of bed seems . . . sordid, somehow.’
‘Sordid!’ She turned away again.
‘Yes, damn it! Sordid. It’s not all I want out of this,’ he said. ‘But I’m – well, I’m afraid that maybe it is all you want.’
She looked back, her face angry. ‘That would be funny,’ she said. ‘If it wasn’t so—’ She pressed her lips together, and took a moment before speaking again. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘I’ve been married to Michael for ten years. Ten years, Lloyd.’
Lloyd was listening. But she was saying nothing new. ‘So he’s got the prior claim, is that it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said, her voice exasperated. ‘He has, I suppose, but that’s not it. Because I don’t think it would break his heart.’
Lloyd was lost again.
‘Until this year, he spent half his time abroad,’ she said. ‘He did what he pleased when he was away, and I could have done the same, I suppose. But I didn’t.’
‘Until I came along?’
‘Not even then,’ she said. ‘Because this isn’t the same, is it?’
Every time Lloyd thought he’d got hold of something, she seemed to change tack. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What are you saying? That you were faithful to Michael until I came along and seduced you, or what?’
She closed her eyes. ‘No,’ she said, opening them again. ‘You,’ she said. ‘If I was faithful to anyone, then it was to you. Because I’ve never wanted anyone else.’ The tears weren’t far away when she spoke again. ‘So, no – I’m not just after your body,’ she said, her voice bitter.
She had been hurt by that; Lloyd put his arms round her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Truly, I am. Take no notice of me.’ He held her close. ‘But I don’t understand why you won’t just leave him,’ he said.
‘Because I’m a coward,’ she answered, her voice muffled. ‘You said I was frightened to leave him, and you’re right. I’m scared to change my whole way of life just like that.’
‘But you wouldn’t be on your own!’
‘I know,’ she said, standing up. ‘And I do have to go,’ she said.
‘It’s this or nothing? Is that what you’re saying?’
She nodded. ‘Unless it’s too sordid for you.’
He looked up at her. ‘My tongue gets carried away sometimes,’ he said. ‘It’s Welsh. You have to make allowances.’
She didn’t reply. After a moment, he heard the outside door close.
He’d done it again. It was some time before he could make himself move, go into the kitchen, and carry on. And he ate his stir-fry, but his appetite had gone, and he didn’t enjoy it. He tried to watch television; some of the proper programmes were back, but they were all, to his jaundiced eye, unwatchable. After the news, which he would have been better advised not to have watched, he went to bed, at an unreasonably early hour for him. He was tired, but he took his book, as he always did.
He opened his eyes when it landed on the floor. Blinking, he picked it up again, and carried on reading, as though to fool it into believing that he’d never been asleep. The words were easy enough, but he didn’t know what they meant. Then the print moved and swam before his eyes, and the book slid away again. This time he caught it, admitted defeat, and closed it. But the action involved had made him properly awake, now, and he might as well carry on reading.
He opened the book, almost against his will, at the inscriptions. A hastily written ‘Best wishes from’ followed by the indecipherable signature of the author. Underneath, in her neat, clear, writing, ‘and from me.’
But he didn’t want to think about Judy, or the arrangement that he no longer wished to live with, or without. He closed the book again, and switched off the light.
He was drifting off to sleep again, when an image came into his mind. George Wheeler. George Wheeler, emptying ash from a dustbin on to the vicarage driveway. Grey ash, black speckled.
Just like the melted nylon ribbon in his ashtray.
Marian Wheeler watched her husband as he got ready for bed. At first, he wasn’t aware of it; she watched him become aware, try to ignore it. She watched him become awkward, as if she were a stranger.
He buttoned his pyjama top. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Why are you staring at me?’
Marian took a deep breath. ‘What’s making you sick, George?’ she asked.
‘I told you,’ he said lightly. ‘This business. You know what I’m like – I used to be sick for a week before exams. I was sick in the vestry before I gave my first sermon.’
‘Is it because you’re being unfaithful to me?’ she asked, when he’d finished.
George closed his eyes briefly, and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing happened on Christmas Eve, Marian. I went there to get my tie. That was all.’ He sighed. ‘But I realised that I could stay there or come back here and spend the evening with my son-in-law. So I stayed.’
Marian didn’t speak.
‘Nothing happened then, and nothing’s happened since. I’m not being unfaithful to you.’
‘Because you haven’t actually slept with her?’
George looked away.
‘Why don’t you, George?’ she said. ‘Perhaps it would settle your stomach.’
‘Marian—’
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘If you want to break commandments, go ahead and break them. Don’t agonise over it.’
George didn’t say anything at all. He turned the bedclothes back slowly, and got into bed.
Marian put out the light, and lay back. She had known about Eleanor Langton’s effect on George long before he had noticed it himself; she had prepared herself for the reckoning, unlike him.
Poor George, making a fool of himself over a girl not much older than Joanna; becoming, Marian was sure, the subject of behind-the-hand murmurings amongst the other play-group mothers. Making himself sick with worry and guilt, and for what? A fantasy. Well, Marian would back herself against a fantasy any day.
And yet, she was grateful to Eleanor Langton, in a way; at least she had been with George on Christmas Eve, and that proved that he couldn’t have killed Graham.
If only she could be that sure of Joanna’s whereabouts. But nothing she could say would make Joanna tell her where she’d gone that night. Marian toyed with the idea of a similar assignation to George’s; she even considered the possibility of Joanna’s being pregnant by another man. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t told them about the baby.
Perhaps it was this man that Graham met in the pub; why he got drunk, why he became violent. It would explain why Joanna had just stayed in the sitting room after she and George had come home, because she wouldn
’t want to answer questions until she was ready. It would explain why she hadn’t taken them into her confidence about where she had been that night. For it would be natural, wouldn’t it, to go to him, to tell him what Graham had done.
It explained everything, but Marian knew that it was nonsense. Joanna had been too hung up on her odious husband to have been looking elsewhere.
Chapter Nine
It was nice, not being stared awake by Tessa. Nice, but odd. Eleanor switched on the light, and looked at the clock, to discover that habit and worry had overcome freedom. Six o’clock. That was even earlier than Tessa’s start, but she was awake now, and she could never go back to sleep. She lay back, and considered the situation, which didn’t seem so bad, after a night’s sleep. She felt calmer now that she’d spoken to George, even if it had been an unsatisfactory communication. He couldn‘t have told the police, or surely the inspector would have asked questions? Or would he? He was fond of drama. The anxiety returned, as she slowly got out of bed.
Not even daylight, she thought, as she ran the bath that at least she could have all by herself, without Tessa’s ministrations. She could soak for hours, if she wanted.
The knock on the door made her jump. My God, who came at this time in the morning? Police. It had to be the police. Shouting that she’d just be a moment, she hastily grabbed her clothes, hopping about on one foot as her jeans refused to co-operate. She pulled on a sweater, and opened the door to George. Her mouth opened and closed again.
‘When you say first thing, you really mean it,’ she said; when she had got her breath back.
‘I had a bad night. I could see your light, so I came over.’ He went into the sitting room.
Eleanor followed him in. ‘You told them you were here,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He was by the window, looking out at the courtyard. He didn’t look at her.
‘So did I,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He turned from the window. ‘Just as well we told them the same thing,’ he said. ‘Or it might have looked rather odd.’
‘It might.’ Her eyes searched his, trying to make contact with him through the barrier of his blank, bland stare. ‘Why were they checking up on you?’ she asked him.
He shrugged. ‘They have to suspect someone.’
