The Crime Writer

by Jill Dawson

  ‘Ginny’, as she insists I call her, now wants to see the study (she assumes it’s where I write, and is surprised to see only the wood-working tools, the bench, the easel, the half-squeezed tubes and little glass jar of paint brushes in muddy, stream-coloured water). There is the portrait I’m doing of Sam as a great long white orchid, stretching and arching, gazing down at me, but at least it’s safely hidden behind other propped-up sketches, and I don’t allow her to flick through them. I kiss her in the doorway, figuring that will be the best distraction. She groans and practically melts to my feet but I manage to steer her towards the bedroom. Her mouth is lovely, warm, tasting of wine and toothpaste and a hot smoky flavour that is all her own.

  There she strips off entirely – under the swirly green dress is a black slip with lace, whipped off in a second and pants and pantyhose briskly abandoned – and leaps into bed, like a child, pulling the sheets up to her chin, coquettish and giggly. I have a flash of white skin, the youthful flanks of a lacrosse player, slim waist, fine, developed arms. I hope she’s not expecting me to undress in the same reckless way. I leave her there while I pad downstairs for whisky and glasses, the tremble inside me that wars with the sensible voice saying, What are you doing have you lost your mind completely do you want to be undone? and the other self, the deeper one, the one I’ve always listened to, that goes steadily on, pouring drinks.

  So I hand hers to her in bed and she sits forward and kisses me and puts her glass down with a clunk on the coaster – a picture of a little church in Lavenham – on the table beside her. I step out of the brogues and leave them neatly by the bed, toes pointing outwards. I take my shirt off, and unclip my brassière, then my jeans and underpants. I fold them and leave them on the rug beside the bed. I climb in beside her. Her big eyes seem to swim up at me, dazzled, and she smiles a big, crazy kind of smile, and I’m almost, for one second, mesmerised, made dizzy and sick by the delicious extravagance of her; of her youth, her gorgeous excess, the ridiculous loveliness of those girlish breasts, that tumbling hair, that mouth, that smile, those big, big, Bambi eyes . . .

  But where to next? How experienced is she? Our naked skin is chilly to the touch. I’m afraid to be crude, too knowing, too rough: I don’t know here what she’s used to, though it’s clear from all she said, from every hint about ‘Izzie’ and various clubs, that we both know she’s no novice. She begins at once to feel for me under the sheets and probe and stroke and knead with rude confidence; well, I guess people are the same in bed as they are elsewhere, and that’s her style – boisterous (she strokes my back as if rubbing dry a dog), gauche, devil-may-care and sure. In the end she’s skilled enough, and her strength (one arm at my waist, pulling me closer), her kisses (on my neck, my breasts) and her fingers are producing a flow and a heat and a rhythmic certainty that I’m craving, yes, that’s it, I’m thinking, surrendering at last, opening my eyes to smile at her as her fingers melt a little deeper, letting her know that the ball of her hand is pressure on exactly the place. I want to be here and there and also dangerously far away; how would it feel to be peeled, found out, to give it all up? I put my mouth to her breasts. How would it feel to cease to exist?

  In the early hours I am bolt awake and something cold is washing over me. Sweat. Shame. Oh, God. Sam. My darling Sam, all alone in her grief, in that big draughty home in Highgate. Sam. What on earth will I say to Sam? I’ll have to tell her because – because Sam is the only one who knows me, who knows everything about me, the worst of me; if I have secrets from Sam I’ll lose everything. I’ll never feel close to her again.

  The whisky bottle is empty and I can’t remember finishing it but the feeling in my head, as if four sharp fingers clamp my scalp in a spiteful grip, tells me that I did. Oh, Sam, Sam, darling, I’m sorry! I feel for my pyjamas, under my pillow. I must put them on under the coat and slip my feet into the cold brogues and go out; telephone Sam. A hot solid lump – of Ginny, as I now think of her – is beside me, rumbling lightly with snores; the low threat of a volcano.

  And then, under my gaze in the semi-dark, the volcano erupts. She opens her eyes and mutters: ‘I love you.’

  Holy crap. No.

  Rain is spattering the window – a sliver of splashed glass appearing between the curtains with the pinky-gold glow of dawn – and I lie on my back staring up at it. A cold, ugly, familiar feeling tiptoes up my body. How I despise those who fall for stupid, ridiculous, wicked and murderous me. How sensible lovely Sam is in never declaring herself, so that I can respect her.

  How to answer this silly slip of a girl? How not to hurt her but to make it clear, absolutely clear? I slip my arm out from under her head. I roll over and immediately cover myself in the unsexy bathrobe, tying the waist tight. ‘I’ll go fix us some coffee,’ I say. Her smiling face instantly freezes. That was not the answer she expected. She pulls the sheets up to her chin and a frown line appears between her brows, but she says nothing.

  When I come back up with two cups of coffee on a small tray and milk in a separate jug, she’s all bounce again, and sitting up with her black slip on, and asking for cigarettes. I light one for her and she nods her thanks.

  ‘Daddy says I’ll grow out of it. It’s just a phase but he says he should never have sent me to an all girls’ school.’

  ‘Your father knows? The high-court judge talks to you about it?’

  ‘He said Izzie had dyke’s thighs. That was the giveaway. Daddy had lots of experiences – he went to Eton. One grows up and gets married and tries not to succumb. That’s what he says will happen to me.’

  Ha. I roll my cigarette in the ashtray absently, thinking about Sam. Desire flickers again as I notice that Ginny is letting the strap of her black lace slip fall a little as she stretches her white neck, lifts her hair. (Maybe if I’m going to give her up for ever – go cold turkey – I could have one last binge.) She’s a hot, heaving sort of presence. I realise that from the first occasion I met her she always gave me this vividness, this availability, possibility. The opposite of Sam, with her grace, her restraint, her infuriating coolness. Ginny wants to present it, offer it, that audacious body! And then leave it to you to make the first move so that the responsibility is never hers. Despicable female behaviour. Yes, exactly like a child.

  ‘Avoid it all you want,’ I say. ‘I know girls like that. It won’t make you happy.’

  ‘But you’re the most unhappy person I’ve ever met! And you’re open, as open as it’s possible to be.’

  Sudden fury at this jibe gives me the energy to rid myself of her.

  ‘What makes you think I’m open? What a damn stupid thing to say. Who can be open? In a place like this? You’re not going around saying that about me, are you?’

  ‘No, no – of course not. I wouldn’t say a word. I shan’t say a word. I understand the rules.’

  ‘I wrote a novel about it. But wouldn’t you think that if someone published a novel under another name they didn’t care to have the whole world know?’

  She nods, trying to appease me, I can see. So I say: ‘This – it can’t happen again. Biographers don’t make love to their subjects, do they? Or only in their writing.’

  She even smiles at this and settles herself into the covers as if not deterred at all, planning to stay awhile. ‘But I’m only the research assistant! It’s perfectly legitimate, surely, being a biographer. Perfectly human – nosy, sure, I’ll grant you that, but not wrong to be fascinated by someone. To want to tell the story of another’s life. To study their work.’

  ‘Let the work speak for itself. It’s all there, if you’re any good. Then it can mean something different, more or less, to whoever cares to read it.’ I finish the cigarette and roll over onto my side to stare at her. She certainly is a beauty and I see that she knows it; she watches me and the direction of my glance, all the time trying to catch a light there to ignite. The devil with Ginny Smythson-Balby. I’m determined not to give so much as a glimmer.

  ‘One minute you claim you don’t
care if people know you’re queer, you don’t care for the opinion of others . . .’ she says.

  ‘When did I say that? I never said that—’

  ‘But biographies are so fascinating,’ she interrupts. ‘Haven’t you ever read one? What about Dostoevsky and the fact that he was almost executed and reprieved at the last minute? Isn’t that relevant when reading him and his thoughts on life, on how we want to cling to life, no matter what?’

  ‘There you go again. Confusing his characters with his own position. As if a writer wasn’t capable of putting things in a character’s mouth that he didn’t happen to feel. Or spread them between two characters. I happen to think the white space is where the meaning is held.’

  When Ginny opens her mouth to disagree I’ve suddenly had enough and cut her off: ‘At any rate, what I’ve mostly learned from biographies is that someone has some pretty bad habits in bed or is a lousy tightwad about tipping in restaurants. So what?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure that, one day, you’ll be glad people remain interested in you. Don’t you keep diaries, after all?’

  ‘Some people just like writing to themselves. That’s what a diary is, if you want the truth. Leave the novels alone – the unconscious bits should remain unconscious.’

  Her wide, finely carved shoulders and creamy skin were starting to work on me, like alcohol. I should get up. I should go downstairs and fix breakfast, at least squeeze us some orange juice. I could even slip outside and telephone Sam, because I’ll need to go to London today and suddenly I can’t go another minute without speaking to her.

  ‘I need to make a call,’ I tell her. ‘I have plans to confirm. I have to go to London now on the train from Ipswich and pick up my car. You were kind to bring me home.’

  I see the misery in her eyes but there’s no avoiding it. My eyes stray to my window ledge, the snails, inert at this time of day, in hiding. The most curious thought pops into my head, one I haven’t had since I lived in Pennsylvania with Marijane. ‘Did you ever think you were going to have the most unusual experience, one that you are marked out for in life, and you always knew, even as a child, and then, finally, you did?’

  Ginny beams at me. I guess she thinks I mean her. This is enough to calm her; she reaches for her clothes and swings her legs from the bed to come downstairs. Matter of fact, I’m thinking of something else entirely that I felt fated to do and a feeling I’d forgotten I’d had. But it was the right thing to say. A last romp would be ill-judged, if enjoyable. I see that now. Ginny meant it when she declared herself in love with me. I need a drink, and yet the whisky bottle is empty and I can hardly go and buy another at this hour in the morning. Another dreadful mess. And, as ever, of my own making. Making a mess, upsetting people, that’s what I do best.

  At the age of three I remember making a mud pie for Mother. I spent hours in the garden at our house in Fort Worth. I dug up the rich smelly black soil until it was deeply under my fingernails and smeared over my clothes and I imagined that it was the black gold – the oil that everyone spoke of – and patted it down into one of Granny’s flowered plates. I added little flowers and decorated the edges with blades of grass. It looked so pretty; I thought Mother would love it. So I ran in from the garden and held out the plate to Mother and said: ‘I made you Chocolate Mud Pie. Eat it.’

  ‘No, Patsy, sweetie, it’s just earth and flowers. It looks disgusting. I don’t want to eat it.’

  ‘Pretend to eat it!’

  ‘Why would I do that? You’d know I was pretending – and look at you! Look at your overalls – they’re disgusting!’

  ‘It’s a lovely pie. I’ve made it for you.’

  ‘Patsy. It’s soil. It’s dirt. Goddamn it – it’s make-believe. I’m about to go out. You be a good girl now and take a bath and—’

  ‘EAT IT!’

  Then I got a slap, a hard one, across my face or the top of my head or wherever she could reach as I scampered away from her, balancing my plate on one hand, like a head waiter. That was something. I knew where she was going that evening and I knew who with. The hateful Stanley. And I might have annoyed her, but she had hit me: that was something at any rate. It meant she knew I was still there: I’d gotten under her skin. That pleased me.

  ‘I could give you a lift to the station in Ipswich,’ Ginny says, pulling her green dress over her head. I guess there’s no avoiding her. Just as I reckoned: for those hopelessly, unrequitedly in love, even hurtful attention is worth it. A slap or coldness, it’s all the same to us.

  The trip to the zoo is not a success. The day pings with tension, things unsaid. What is Sam thinking? Does anyone suspect us? Have the police made more enquiries, or are we safe now? We’re like two birds on a high wire, with a strong wind blowing, clinging on by our toes.

  I keep glancing at Sam for signs. Her face, the way she is drawing her fur stole up to her throat, the gestures of her hands in pale blue gloves. What kind of gestures are these – and in what light would others see them? Does she appear nervous, guilty, ready to pop like a bubble and confess at the merest provocation? And when to make my confession, when to mention Smythson-Balby and get that out of the way? I walk beside her quick firm steps on the slick wet sidewalk with Minty on her other side, and none of the answers are clear.

  The Christmas lights are on in London; it’s dark by 4 p.m.; car tyres swish sadly as they roll through puddles. Minty’s eyes do not light up at the dangling white and red Santa Claus outside a department store, and she says nothing when Sam remarks softly: ‘If only this rain would turn to snow like last year . . .’ Minty is a watchful, shrewd girl in a raincoat over a pinafore dress, with big dark eyes and a sullen expression. She misses nothing; so much like myself at her age. She has her mother’s fair beauty but Gerald’s sneaky, sinewy quality, and gives one the horrible feeling that she is only biding her time, enduring her childhood for as long as she has to; waiting for the moment when she can rise to her full height and take up her place as the judgemental country matron she was always destined to be, presiding over husband, children, hens, whatever.

  Only the fat sea lions being drizzled on in their concrete bunker produce a spark of interest.

  ‘There’s blood on that one,’ Minty says, pointing to a long, slug-like shape and a sly eye, and, sure, there is: a wet patch, gleaming under the rain, of dark blood.

  ‘Oh, poor thing. They must have been fighting,’ Sam explains, although my first thought is not fighting but mating. There’s another sea lion enduring his cell with him, smaller, clearly female, and there’s blood on her rump, too. But I don’t say that, of course. Sam is fiddling with an obsidian pendant, oval-shaped, nestling in the dip in her throat, lifting it, dropping it again. I long to put my hand over hers and still her.

  Minty doesn’t laugh, as the other children do, when the keeper puts a hat from a Christmas cracker on a chimp, and tries to get a little one and its mother to pull the cracker apart; they simply hit each other over the head with it and begin chewing on it. Sam looks worriedly at her, and then at me, and says, in her warmest tones: ‘Oh, darling, aren’t they funny?’ but no one is responding.

  And I know I am brooding, and Sam will accuse me of this later, of not trying harder to be talkative, or fun, for Minty’s sake, of shaking off the rain in Liberty’s café, and drinking my cocoa in silence, but the possibility of not thinking of Gerald is not there. It looms between us: a great cloud of extraordinary proportions, a noxious gas, something we’re breathing in but not breathing out. I long to tell her about the visit from the police, of Mrs Ingham and her suspicions, of Smythson-Balby, of all the small tribulations and terrors I’ve borne – for her sake, for her sake, of course – and I long to have her reassure me, tell me that nothing has happened in the weeks since the funeral, no further conversations with policemen or anyone else. That all is fine between us . . . But she’s said nothing, she’s . . .

  ‘Children can’t grieve openly. It’s so cruel,’ is all Sam says, finally, when we’re back at hers,
our legs aching, our hair and coats soaked through, the smell of miserable, cooped-up animals still clinging to us, our umbrellas making puddles in the large ceramic pot in the hall. Minty is in the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel. I don’t care for the discovery that it’s Minty she’s been thinking about all day, rather than the anxieties I’ve been suffering over our predicament (and what to do now that Gerald is out of the way) but I say nothing.

  Minty’s footsteps thud dully overhead and Sam stands at the bottom of the stairs and calls up to her that she’s to go to bed; she’ll bring her a hot-water bottle and some warm milk in a little while. Another twinge of irritation pangs through my body. When will Sam turn her attention to me, quit worrying about all that apple-pie order here? When will we get to our vitally important conversation?

  While Minty was on the stairs on her way up to bed, I had put my coat back on and stood at the front door as if to reopen my umbrella. I called goodnight to her over my shoulder and then, once she was safely away, I stepped back into the living room, removed my coat, and sat down in front of the hearth.

  A fire crackles there and the room is full of the smell of burning; Sam has barely noticed my charade about leaving. She is trotting up and down the stairs with things for Minty and I hear murmurs of the maternal conversations I presume to be about tooth-brushing and when bedside lamps must be switched off and then at last – at last! – she appears in the living room beside me, a bottle of wine and two glasses in her hands, the corkscrew awkwardly under one arm.

  How to move us along to the main subject, the subject of us, the future? How long must we wait? What should we do now? Would she move to Suffolk? She opens the wine and pours some into my chilled glass, a delicious Pouilly-Fuissé, so light and refreshing, from a case in Gerald’s cellar. Perhaps we should go to France, I’m about to say, sipping it. I’m feeling restless again, and rather done with Suffolk. Or could I move in here with her, or nearby perhaps? Once the child is back in school, of course, and . . .