Claustrophobia

by Tracy Ryan

  Their old stomping ground, after a fashion. They kept to the side away from the hospital, the mental ward. But that was all long ago.

  Derrick spread the plaid car rug on the grass and they sat half in shade, half in sun. People were dotted all over the lawns and under trees; you couldn’t ever get real privacy. Every so often machinery revved and whined – a mower, a chainsaw – and then died, so that the smaller sounds of birds and insects seemed to balloon against the silence.

  Beside them a crow with a broken-off beak tilted its head back so another crow could feed it.

  ‘Would you look at that,’ said Derrick. ‘Not the way we think of crows, is it? Not exactly nature red in tooth and claw …’

  ‘No, only humans are like that,’ Pen said. She felt a shudder – arsonists had been through here on more than one occasion, and diggers of shallow graves …

  Suddenly the able crow lunged at their lunch bags, and missed. Pen and Derrick both laughed.

  ‘It’s good to see you happy, Pen,’ Derrick began. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’

  ‘Why?’ Pen was genuinely surprised.

  ‘Is something stressing you? Something bothering you, at least.’

  Pen shook her head, curling her lower lip.

  Derrick paused a while. ‘I’ve been wondering, you know, how you want to handle the holidays. Not the term ones – I guess I’m doing German camp on my own this year, if you don’t have leave. But there’s the long summer break.’

  ‘That’s a little while off yet.’

  ‘Yes, but I mean – we won’t be able to do the Albany thing, clearly.’

  They’d always had the long school holidays together, but this year would be different. Pen hadn’t worked a full year at the new job yet, and even when she had, her holidays would only be four weeks long.

  ‘I’ll still get a week off from Christmas to New Year. The library will be shut then.’ She felt a chill as she said it. At home a whole week. Why did that trouble her now?

  Derrick sighed. ‘It’s not quite the same, though, is it?’

  ‘Things can’t always stay the same,’ Pen said. ‘You wanted us – we agreed to try to be more open to change. More spontaneous.’

  ‘In any case,’ she thought, ‘I shouldn’t have to apologise for the conditions of my job. Not all spouses work in the same place and take their holidays at the same time!’ But she couldn’t say that aloud.

  ‘Okay, I can see that. But it’s an awfully long time for me to be by myself.’

  Pen smiled gently, but as she leaned back and gazed at him, the sun making a soft halo of his curls, she thought, for the first time, ‘He’s a grown man afraid to be alone.’ Once that would have made her glad to be needed. Now for some reason it felt heavy.

  ‘Well, there’s always the house,’ she said lightly, because the renovations were still only half completed. ‘Or if you get bored with that, you could write your book.’

  Derrick had been saying for years he wanted to write his own language textbooks, frustrated with the shortcomings of those on the market, which were always American or British, and hugely expensive.

  ‘I guess I could do that,’ he said, brightening. ‘And I could come down and meet you for lunch like this more often.’

  Pen swallowed. Her ‘yes’ was merely mechanical. Her legs were numb beneath her, and her palms, where she had leaned, stippled with small twigs, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking, suddenly, that Kathleen’s summer holidays would be at least that long, worse than Derrick’s. Didn’t academics take months off-campus? Perhaps she would even go overseas, some kind of study thing. That’s what they did.

  Pen hadn’t factored that in. She must move – she must make her move – and soon.

  8

  According to some legends, vampires had to be invited in. And statistically, even outside legends, your murderer was likely to be someone you knew – maybe even someone you asked over. When it came to your nemesis, your destiny, all too often, it seemed, you were ‘asking for it’.

  All that time plotting to get near Kathleen, and it turned out to be as simple as a dinner date, at her instigation.

  Pen hovered around the buckets of flowers at the 24-hour store – too much choice. Waxy-looking tulips in three shades; orchids proffering their silent throats. Cut flowers were such a sinister thing – they’d wilt and stink before long. Which bouquet might Derrick have brought Kathleen, all those years ago?

  ‘I’d love to,’ Pen had said, ‘but I can’t stay late … I’ve got a long drive home.’

  ‘If you want, I could come to you. I mean, bring some food around.’ Kathleen was that keen, then.

  ‘No, no, it’s too far. And – it’s in the middle of renovations, things are a mess. Otherwise you’d be welcome.’

  Did it sound like so many excuses? The irony was, it was all true. Pen was glad she hadn’t suggested a restaurant. It wouldn’t do to be seen out.

  This time she’d swapped an evening shift with one of the other library staff. Derrick wasn’t likely to ring – she’d told him they were way too busy – and she’d switched her mobile off. She’d have to find some reason or other, when she eventually made up the shift. But there was a time limit beyond which her story would not seem credible. It was a skill that grew on you.

  ‘A skill Derrick must know all too well,’ Pen thought bitterly. Perhaps after many years, you even forgot your lie was untrue, because it felt true.

  The shop was icy, over-airconditioned, so that Pen chafed at her hands and arms. Odd people wandered the aisles, luxury-browsing, not the usual supermarket types. Perhaps they were all up to no good, like Pen. She was about to give up on the flowers and make do with the Belgian chocolate mousse – couldn’t exactly bring something homemade – when the scent arrested her. Hyacinths, pink and blue, growing in pots just outside the shopfront. Salt-sweet and pervasive; they’d always made Pen swoon. She grabbed one of each and put them on the counter.

  ‘You all right, ma’am?’ For all the gourmet chic of this place, the clerk was still a be-fringed teenager chewing gum.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘You sure? You look a little pale.’

  ‘I’m naturally pale.’

  Pen paid and hurried back to the car, through a maze of lanes and bays where drivers hunched angrily over their steering wheels as they waited to pounce on a spot. All potential road-ragers … She put the pot plants in the footwell, where they wouldn’t tip over as she drove, and sat the mousse on the passenger seat, thinking how once she’d imagined powders, poisons. Sparkling Cyanide, the first Christie she’d read. The lovely lady dropping off like a wilted petal. It could make you turn blue – like cyan in the printer cartridge they had at home. Like Picasso figures of the Blue Period.

  She imagined Kathleen’s fragile beauty in a Picasso sketch, as if bathed in moonlight. Those bluest eyes … But you’d have to put the poison in the individual serve, and make sure the right person got it. Especially if you were eating some yourself.

  So steeped in blue, Pen nearly ran a red light: the car sat slightly over the white line. She shook herself and glanced about for cameras. Imagine getting a fine – Derrick saying, ‘What were you doing on Walcott Street at that time of night?’ She switched on the radio, and it came on too loud – the ‘golden oldies’ station – ‘Tonight’s the Night’.

  Dad used to have a Rod Stewart album, when she was small. That raspy voice, the way her mother had hated the innuendo – well, you couldn’t even call it innuendo, it was plain-speaking, overt smut. ‘Smut!’ her mother would hiss. Still, Pen had always misheard the words, she realised now – instead of ‘your man’s desire’, she heard ‘your mad desire’. A mondegreen – that’s what they called it, she knew that from television. Like in that Tennessee Williams play, blue roses for pleurosis. Tonight’s the night … She started to laugh, until someone tooted their horn.

  The lights had changed.

  ‘You look – lovely.’ Pen hadn’t
meant to say it, but Kathleen in the doorway was radiant, a breath of summer in a simple cream linen shift, sleeveless and skimming just below the knee, so that her smooth arms and calves seemed like satin by contrast. Pen felt suddenly self-conscious in her T-shirt and cotton pants. It wasn’t that Kathleen dressed up – she wore flat scuffs and no make-up. It was the way she carried herself, fluid and strong. No wonder the younger, impressionable Derrick – and here Pen blushed – had let Kathleen take charge. She had natural authority. You were compelled to admire her, even despite yourself.

  ‘Thank you. Come through.’ She took the hyacinths with delight, and immediately drank in their scent.

  Pen felt a curious relief to be inside the house again, with its muted cream walls. Books lined every available shelf, yet did not seem to shrink the rooms. You could breathe in there – no fussy ornaments, no bric-à-brac. It was as if the house was allowed to be itself, and each object had been chosen carefully, not for display but for the pleasure and use it gave the owner.

  Dinner was laid out on the table already, to make the most of the time. Here was the same simplicity – plain cream cloth, streamlined setting, warm aroma – that put you immediately at ease. Pen remembered how her grandmother once said to her, ‘There’s a huge difference between the word house and the word home.’

  ‘It looks – lovely,’ Pen stammered, realising she was parroting herself. Two steps inside and all her composure was gone.

  Kathleen just laughed. ‘I’m afraid I bought the food in. I’m no good at it, and I’ve never really taken time to learn. I love eating, however!’ She turned away to open some wine. ‘My ex did all the cooking.’

  ‘How long have you been – alone?’ Pen asked. ‘If that’s not too personal a question?’

  ‘Ages. I should make an effort. But life’s too short. And it seems too much bother to cook just for yourself, don’t you think?’

  Pen smiled. ‘Well, I got a store-bought dessert, too. So at least it will match.’

  Starters of fragrant falafel with hummus and pink ginger, then lamb and tagine-cooked vegetables, spicy couscous – Kathleen said, ‘I know it’s silly of me, but it’s because of a little place I went to once in Paris, fond memories, you might say. Les Délices des Pharaons, not far from Notre Dame – do you know it?’

  ‘I’ve never been to Paris,’ Pen said.

  ‘Well, you must! I try to get back once a year – I have to, really, for work. I’m actually going this summer – though it’ll be winter there, of course, and not quite the same.’

  ‘For the whole summer?’ Pen said.

  ‘I wish. No, only a few weeks. It can be quite expensive. Compared to here. I mean, I have friends to stay with, but you can’t impose for too long. Besides, I like to be independent, to get around and do things. And I try to bring back resources, for teaching, so it’s not just a holiday. Where do you go for your holidays?’

  ‘Albany,’ Pen said.

  ‘Ah, well, that’s even lovelier.’

  ‘And probably just as cold as Paris around Christmas,’ Pen said ruefully.

  ‘True.’ Kathleen cleared the plates away. Pen reached to help her stack them, then blushed as she grazed Kathleen’s fingertips. ‘Why don’t you try Paris this year? I’d be happy to show you around. And my friends would be pleased to have you,’ she added, as if suddenly conscious it might be beyond Pen’s budget. ‘There are still some good fares available.’

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘Why not?’ Kathleen ushered her through to the lounge room, and then went for the mousse, set out on a tray in little glass dishes, with the same strong coffee they’d had last time. ‘There’s got to be a first time.’

  ‘But you hardly know me,’ Pen said.

  ‘I’d like to get to know you.’

  Pen stared at her. ‘Why?’

  Kathleen laughed. ‘You funny thing. Why shouldn’t I? I like you. I liked you straight away. You’ve got a kind of intensity about you, and an intelligence, and you’re sweet – what’s not to like?’

  Pen lowered her face, burning now. ‘If she really knew me …’ she thought – but her anger seemed dissolved. What she felt was a mixture of shame and gratitude. Shame at thinking ill of Kathleen, gratitude for the reflected self-image, even if it was a mistaken one. For the moment she forgot all about her emotional vendetta. Forgot Derrick, even. All she wanted was to bathe in the present moment.

  She studied the room again, which seemed now to rotate around the pots of hyacinths, which Kathleen had placed at the centre, on a low table with an old lace runner. They altered the whole composition, dominating even the painting that had so struck her the first time she came.

  ‘Do you like the hyacinths?’ Pen said shyly.

  ‘I adore them. You know, they remind me – it’s not the same as lilacs, but the perfume is so strong … I had the most wonderful experience years ago, the kind of thing that stays with you and you know that, say, at the moment of your death, you’ll remember it, or hang onto it.’

  Pen wanted to say: Don’t talk about death. But Kathleen was off in another space.

  ‘It was an early evening in Paris, and my friends had all gone out to dinner but I was going back to my hotel. I stopped on a little bridge crossing the Seine, and everything was entirely still – silver water, perfect sky, and nobody else there – which is rare in the spring – and I was utterly overwhelmed by the smell of lilacs. It was like something supernatural. Time had stopped. Your hyacinths – even though the scent is not the same – when you walked in with them, that’s what I thought of.’

  ‘Bit of a poet.’ Pen smiled.

  ‘Did I sound mushy?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I meant.’

  Kathleen got up and went to a sideboard. ‘Speaking of poets,’ she said, ‘though I hardly count myself among that company! – I thought we could watch this film – it’s about Rimbaud and Verlaine, but a drama, not a documentary.’

  She dropped the DVD into Pen’s lap and sat beside her on the sofa. Total Eclipse. Pen fingered the cover. She loved the idea – but it was late, she had to cover with Derrick. Derrick, for God’s sake! Already she had stayed too long.

  Pen checked her watch rather too obviously.

  ‘If you’re worried about the time,’ Kathleen said, ‘you could always stay over.’ She placed one hand on Pen’s shoulder, and gently turned her face with the other.

  Pen’s blood ran hot and cold. It was the adrenaline that always sang so loud in her, overruling. She opened her lips to speak, but Kathleen kissed them swiftly, before any sound came out. It was not even surprising – it was logical. Everything fell into place.

  Pen did not even stop to think: This is how Kathleen might have kissed Derrick.

  Afterwards, she had to concoct a story. The worst of it was keeping things from both of them. She couldn’t ring from Kathleen’s – it would have to wait until halfway home.

  ‘Darling, I’m at the after-hours GP.’ There was one at the hospital in Midland, not far from home. ‘Yes, I’ve had a bit of a fever this afternoon and I vomited in the dinner break, so I thought I’d better see someone … No, I’m okay to drive. I don’t think it’ll be too much longer. Probably just a virus. Hopefully one of those twenty-four hour things. I’ll give you another ring when I’m leaving.’

  Then on up to the John Forrest National Park. She’d never been in here at night – you could see the lights of the city from some angles. By daylight the city was often obscured with a dirty haze, and the sprawl was obscene; malignant growth on the coastal plain. By night it was deceptively beautiful, a chapelle ardente. Pen drove into a lookout bay, turned off the engine and waited, till enough time had passed to make her story believable.

  It all hardly seemed believable to Pen herself.

  In any case, the virus idea was a passable excuse, and it meant Derrick would have to keep his distance. At least for tonight.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay for work?’ Derrick said, buttoning
his shirt into the wrong holes, hastily pouring coffee for her. ‘You do look wan. I can ring in sick myself, take the day off to look after you, if you want.’

  Pen shook her head. That was Derrick at his most extreme – usually too conscientious for sickies, but ultimately more worried about her. And perhaps, too, trying to get back the time together that he felt he was missing.

  ‘No, you don’t want to lose a day. And neither do I. I’m pretty sure it’s gone. Maybe something I ate.’

  ‘That wouldn’t account for the fever, though,’ Derrick mused. He put one hand to her forehead. ‘Well, you don’t feel hot now. But you should take it easy. I don’t think night shifts are good for anyone. Research has shown they really mess people up.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s when they work right through the night and sleep by day,’ Pen said. ‘Anyway, I’d better get moving,’ and she kissed him lightly on the cheek and took the car keys.

  ‘Fever,’ she thought. Not the kind Derrick was thinking of. It was a species of madness, one that had never crossed her path till now. All she could think of was an Emily Dickinson poem:

  And now, I’m different from before,

  As if I breathed superior air –

  Or brushed a Royal Gown …

  The words, said aloud, made her laugh and shiver at the same time while she drove.

  She could have made it all more plausible by ringing in sick, but she couldn’t bear the thought of a day alone in the house, and her head was full of Kathleen. Longing to see her, and yet wanting not to. The new intensity of her feelings made Pen impatient with the need for inventing further fictions – she couldn’t be bothered. Derrick could just take her word for it. If this was a risky attitude, a kind of hubris – too bad.

  At lunchtime, Kathleen was waiting for her in the library café. Pen’s head spun. She pulled up a stool, leaned close and whispered, ‘If you come too often, people will talk.’

  Kathleen gave an uncertain smile. ‘Why would they? Friends can meet any time, can’t they?’ She put one hand on Pen’s hand, which Pen quickly withdrew. ‘In any case, I’m not ashamed of how things are.’