We rented a TV and on Saturday mornings we lay in bed, with mugs of tea on our stomachs, watching Swap Shop. On Sundays we wandered down the streets, past windows with their curtains closed all day, as ours were – windows with ‘Freehold Investment For Sale’ boards outside, and dustbins crammed with wine bottles and with milk cartons because nobody got around to having a milkman deliver. It was that sort of area.
All Sunday the big church stayed padlocked. There were drifts of rubbish against its fences and cars jammed in its driveway, not for Holy Communion but to save on residents’ permits.
‘Does nobody believe in God?’ Ali asked.
‘Only you.’
He kept asking me to marry him. He wanted me to bear his children. I expect he pictured one of those Span houses along the motorway, with him and me in it.
‘Why would that change things’, I asked, ‘when we’re together anyway?’
‘I want to be sure of you. I never feel sure.’
He was standing in the kitchen doorway. I was chopping up ginger for a curry; I liked Pakistani food and I was learning to cook it.
‘I’m never sure . . . that I’m getting there.’ He moved his hands, trying to express – what? A vacuum?
‘I love you more and more,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I feel quite desperate.’
When I was little I prayed for things. I prayed to God for patent leather party shoes. I prayed for the sort of party my friends had. I prayed for my Mum to be there when I got home from school. I soon found that nobody had been listening.
I poured seeds into the blender. ‘Do you pray about me?’ That stabbing edge had crept into my voice. ‘Do you, when you’re on the rug?’
‘Don’t put it like that.’
‘When you’re praying, then.’
‘Heather, my prayers aren’t like that. I told you. They’re not pleas, or confessions. You don’t even come into them.’
‘Don’t I?’
‘They’re for our Prophet . . . they’re adoration, and submission . . . They’re –’
‘Wait.’
I switched on the blender motor. The engine rasped, the spices rattled round. I leaned on the top, holding it down. Him and his prayers – why did I feel so excluded?
When the motor stopped he said, gently, ‘Perhaps you’d love me better if we were married.’
I said flatly, ‘You don’t want to marry me.’
‘I do!’
‘I don’t believe you.’ I peeled the garlic with my sharp knife.
‘You think it’s just . . . well, physical? How can I convince you?’
‘You needn’t bother,’ I said.
‘Don’t you trust me?’ he asked. ‘Darling, you seem to have a poor view of human nature.’
‘That’s my problem.’ I stabbed open the papery skin. ‘You needn’t worry about it.’
‘How can I make you believe me? What can I say?’
‘Words never do any good.’
‘They’re not just words . . . they’re my feelings.’
‘Don’t like feelings,’ I said. ‘Don’t like prayers . . . bloody prayers . . .’
He stepped into the kitchen and touched my hair.
‘Why do you try to spoil things, when they could be so perfect? What’s the matter with you? Suddenly, these ugly words.’
I went on cutting, my knife flashing. My eyes smarted from the garlic fumes.
For the first time in months I dreamed of Jonathan, crow-like in his black school blazer. I’d spoiled that all right. He was probably married now, with two kids. Like Ali, he was the marrying kind.
How could Ali love me? I started dropping hints about my past, hurting him. I willed him to see how worthless I was. One Sunday we went rowing in Hyde Park. He rowed and I lay in my flounced, yellow dress. I felt clammy and painted, but he said I looked as pretty as a milkmaid.
‘You’ve got a funny idea about farms,’ I said.
He just smiled at me. He was happy, remembering similar outings under a hotter sky, with his sisters and his aunts and his cousins. I could never count all his relatives. The laughter, he said, the warmth.
He thought he could start another family with me. I wished he didn’t. He sat in his shirt-sleeves, pulling the oars. His face glowed. He looked so innocent. His family had kept him that way. I realized: he looked younger than my little brother Teddy.
He was still reminiscing. ‘Your new dress . . . yellow’s always been my favourite colour. I used to believe that it was invented when I was born.’
‘What?’
‘That it didn’t exist until then.’ He paused. ‘You know, I’ve never told anyone that.’
We drifted on. He shipped the oars and we slid silently through the water. I closed my eyes. Willow leaves brushed my cheek, gently, as if blessing us both. I couldn’t bear it. I felt stifled, as I’d felt on the garage roof with Jonathan.
‘Ever done it in a boat?’ I asked.
‘Done what?’
‘Done . . . you-know-what.’ My voice was stupid and pert.
A silence.
‘You know I haven’t,’ he said at last, in a level voice. ‘I’ve told you about my two, unsatisfactory . . .’ He stopped. ‘Well? Have you?’
I kept my eyes closed, so I couldn’t see his face. ‘Ever so rocky.’
I heard the oars bump as he fixed them on the rowlocks.
‘Shut up!’ he hissed.
Then the boat was pushing violently through the water, the branches scraping my face.
That night he was rough, heaving me over like a sack of coal – as if I were heavy, but grubby too. I was grubby; I was worthless. Why had it taken him so long to realize? My face pressed into the pillow as he entered me from the rear, pushing in with difficulty. Behind my head his breaths were quick and shallow. He didn’t speak. His hand slid under me, humping me up against him; his fingers sank into me, and it hurt.
I bit my lip, refusing to cry out. My brain locked shut. He went on for ages . . . I counted to fifty, in French, and started again. Afterwards I fell into a heavy sleep, as if I were dead.
Chapter Sixteen
IN JUNE, TEDDY came for the day. I fetched him in the car. I was terrified that he’d mention the pigs, but I didn’t want to warn him because then he’d be sure to.
I needn’t have worried. You know how children just talk about themselves; Teddy was full of some war he was having with Darren’s gang at school. He didn’t notice that there was no sign of two girls in the flat; I knew he wouldn’t. In a way, it was a relief that he was eight years old and had grown so tough. I no longer felt that tight, pained protectiveness at the very mention of his name.
I felt disembodied, walking along the pavement with Ali and my brother; my two lives had always been so separate. It felt odd, bringing them together. Teddy clattered a stick along the railings. At crossroads, when the lights changed red and the cars had to stop, he walked in front of them with his hands held up importantly. The drivers glared at him through their windscreens; I knew, from experience, how infuriating it was. Teddy did this sort of thing even when his mates weren’t there to giggle with him; that’s what made him a ringleader.
Ali had been looking forward to meeting him, though I could tell he was shocked by Teddy’s filthy language. He didn’t touch me when Teddy was around, he was too polite for that. We were going to the Natural History Museum; clatter-clatter went Teddy’s stick.
‘Yesterday guess what we did,’ he called.
‘What?’
‘Stole the caretaker’s clothes off of his washing line.’
Ali laughed. ‘You scallywags. Sounds just like our pranks, when we were at school.’
‘What did you do with the clothes?’ I asked Teddy, dreading the answer.
‘Burnt ’em.’
Ali was silent. The pavement was littered with bones. We were near the Big T Bar-B-Q, that was why. Teddy danced ahead, kicking an orange rib; he zig-zagged, the bone skittering. Couples separated at his approach.
At the museum he hardly looked at the exhibits, which I’d never seen either. He wanted to go to the shop. Ali gave him a pound, but he’d soon spent that. He came out, ducking under a dinosaur poster.
‘Got any more?’
‘Teddy!’ I said.
‘Pay you back.’
‘How?’
‘I’m gonna be rich.’
‘Oh yes? How’s that?’
He leaned towards me. ‘Wanna know something? It’s a secret.’ Then he tapped his finger on the side of his nose, just like Dad did. ‘He told me it was a secret.’
‘What?’
‘We’re sitting on a gold mine, that’s what.’
I stared at him.
‘We’re what?’
‘Say no more.’
I shook his shoulders. They surprised me, they still felt so frail. ‘What’s Dad said? What’s happening?’
‘Mum’s the word.’
He tried to look mysterious – a narrowed, peaky look – but I could tell that he hadn’t the first idea what he was talking about. He’d just been given hints, like I’d been given them, years before.
A week later I flew back from New York. I decided to stop at our house. Over the summer the garage had been expanded – remember the petrol station down on the main road? They’d built a concrete shell with the sign already up: ‘Same Day Exhaust Centre’. Each year there were new developments along our road. It was a golden, serene evening; I remembered those rabbits, an age ago, with the sunlight on their whiskers.
Dad was two dirty legs sticking out from under his lorry. He didn’t hear me, on account of his radio; anyway, Mum came home then so I couldn’t ask him.
‘Let’s go down the Magpies,’ I said later, when he’d emerged.
He gazed at me, his mouth open. He rubbed his hand across his moustache. Mum had aged but he still looked the same, except for the weight; it didn’t seem fair.
‘I’ll drive,’ I said.
‘Better smarten myself up,’ he said, ‘and tell mother.’
Ten minutes later he was squeezed in the Mini, his knees pressed against the dashboard. I drove fast. He sat beside me, trapped in my cramped little car.
The sun was sinking, hazily. I knew this road so well. Ali didn’t exist; he had never existed. It frightened me, how he dissolved. Along the banks of the reservoir the gorse was flowering again; above the ridge the sky glowed. I wondered for the hundredth time how much my father remembered of the past, and which parts he’d blurred and softened. I wondered what on earth went on in his mind and knew I could never bear to find out. I wondered if it would be easier if he were dead.
He wasn’t. He was here, filling the car with smoke. My eyes smarted. I think he was nervous; he was probably dreading that one day I’d actually talk to him.
I didn’t, in the Magpies. For a start, there were too many familiar faces there. I’d changed out of my uniform; I didn’t want him to show me off and make me remember how ashamed of him I’d felt . . . Yet it was not as simple as shame. Remember how I’d wanted him to show me off in my tartan frock? I’d longed for him to be proud of me then.
He was drinking more heavily nowadays, Mum complained about it, but he wasn’t really a drunkard. He was too erratic for that, and forgetful. But he’d always loved the boozer. He found solace there, in the rosy phoniness of a manufactured home, with the comfort of other bodies but without their demands, with nothing needed from him. Come to think of it, I was becoming like that. I didn’t drink like he did but I was spending plenty of time in bars, now, around the world, amongst the false smiles of people who had no need of me, nor me of them. It’s like being swaddled in clothes that you don’t own – no caring, no repairs, nothing that needs to be fixed . . . No responsibilities . . . It’s like living in a hotel. I’d grown up amongst the hotels, and I lived in them now.
We were two of a kind, Dad and me. Wasn’t it his fault, that I’d become this way?
Outside in the car park it was chilly, and the street lights were lit. We climbed into the car. Years ago I’d been sitting here waiting for him, but now it was me who held the key. When it was inserted, I paused.
You know that we were two of a kind. I didn’t have to speak, because at that moment he started fumbling for his tobacco and said,
‘Thinking of selling up.’
‘The house?’
He nodded.
‘Glad we’ve got this moment to talk,’ he said, ‘because I’d been planning on telling you.’
‘You’re really going to do it?’
I wasn’t looking at him but I knew the sounds so well: the scrape as he scratched his cheek; the wheezing breath, through his nose, as he felt for his matches.
‘Isn’t the same, you see,’ he said.
‘What isn’t?’
He paused. ‘Home isn’t.’ He didn’t light the match. ‘Not now.’
Lights dazzled us as a car swung out. More people came out of the pub, singing. For a moment I thought his mates were going to come over and tap on the window.
‘What do you mean?’ I said dully.
‘Not since you’ve been gone. Not the same.’
‘There’s Teddy,’ I said. ‘And Mum.’
‘Don’t see so much of Teddy. Always off, he is.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s yourself I’m talking about.’
There was a silence. I don’t know how long it lasted; I didn’t dare break it.
Then I heard him draw a breath, his lungs whistling, and he said, ‘Don’t seem much point, you see.’
‘What doesn’t?’ I whispered.
‘Nothing don’t. Nothing I do. Not when you’re not there to see it.’
Another minute passed.
‘Even . . . getting myself up in the morning. Knowing that little room next to me’s empty . . .’
I tried to answer this. Finally I attempted to laugh. ‘You’ve never been much good at that.’
‘At what?’
‘Getting up in the morning.’
He paused. ‘You know you’re the one . . . that mattered. You’ve always known that, Heth.’
I fiddled with the key. ‘Where are you thinking of moving to?’
‘Might not have behaved myself . . . once or twice. But I’m forgiven now, aren’t I?’
I gazed at the steering wheel.
‘All in the past now,’ he said. ‘All forgotten now . . . Right?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said quickly.
‘Glad about that. See . . . it’s been worrying me.’
‘You needn’t.’ I turned the key, and started the engine. ‘I haven’t told my boyfriend.’
‘You what?’ He shouted above the motor.
I was reversing now, looking over my shoulder. I said casually, ‘I haven’t mentioned anything to him.’
‘You said boyfriend?’
We swung backwards into the road. A car swerved, hooting. I crunched the gear into first.
‘Didn’t I tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘I’m living with my boyfriend.’ I turned left. Another car hooted, because I’d forgotten to use my indicator.
There was a silence. Then he cleared his throat.
‘You said two girls.’
‘That was to spare your feelings.’
‘Why’re you telling me now then?’
‘Well, it’s not two girls. It’s a boy. We love each other very much.’ I was driving badly. I flashed the car in front, to hurry it up. ‘So you see, I’m fine. Needn’t worry about me.’
‘You been keeping it from me all this time?’
‘I’ve got my own life now, Dad. So don’t worry about the house.’
He paused. ‘You’ll be bringing him home to meet us? You planning on marrying him?’ His voice was louder.
I said airily, ‘I might. At the moment we’re just living in bliss . . . Getting to know each other.’
I slewed up the drive; we bounced over the potholes.
At last he said, ‘Didn’t know about this . .
.’
I braked, with a jolt, in the yard. I unstuck myself from the seat; despite the chill I was sweating. ‘I’ve got my own life now, Dad.’ I felt sick with my triumph.
Dad was getting out of the car slowly, like an old man. By the time he stood up I was indoors, where Mum sat watching the telly, and where he could no longer reach me.
Chapter Seventeen
ALI AND ME, living in bliss. That’s what I’d told Dad. That’s what Ali called it too.
‘We love each other,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t we?’
It seems years ago, not weeks, that he was talking like this. It’s the end of September now. Blank space separates me from our rented rooms. Our own little kitchen, where I stood stirring the saucepans . . . I liked strong, hot curries too, the hotter the better, and for the first time in my life I was cooking proper sit-down dinners . . . That narrow room, rich with the aroma of our false domesticity.
Ali and me, living in bliss . . . his solemn, handsome face in the candlelight. He bought candles for our evening meal. He believed in it all. This was the beginning of our life together, that’s what he believed . . . Mutual love, and trust. He longed for me to trust him.
He knew a bit about my past. He tried to trust me about that. A few times, when he was out at work, I leafed through the phone books downstairs and found one or two old contacts. I dressed myself for a lunch date. A couple of Bacardis, that’s all I had, but in the evening he could smell my corrupt, boozy breath. He kissed me without flinching, but I knew he felt queasy. Then he’d ask casually,
‘Been out to lunch?’
I nodded and changed the subject. I tortured him by my delay, just as I’d tortured my father by the casual way I spoke in the car.
‘Anyone I know?’ Ali asked.
‘We don’t know anyone.’
‘I mean . . . anyone special?’
‘No, not special at all.’
He didn’t dare ask more. He’d been so ashamed that night, when he’d heaved me over like an animal. Next day he’d bought me five bunches of roses, from the man at the tube station. You know those expensive roses that stay buds and wither as buds, their little heads drooping? They’d drooped around the flat for two weeks, until one of us had the heart to throw them away.
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