Her Living Image

by Jane Rogers

  Chapter 21

  Getting up and dressed in the morning somehow resulted in them making love again, which slowed the whole business down considerably. Caro was persuaded easily into accompanying Alan to work in the car. She would be late again, if she went on the bike. But to her astonishment he started to drive away from town, in the opposite direction.

  “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

  “I need a clean shirt.”

  It took her a while to realize that they were going not to Mike’s but to Alan’s house – the house where his wife and children lived.

  “How dare you – what do you think you’re doing? God, if I was her I’d throw them all away. You told me you’d moved into Mike’s – you liar –”

  “Your argument would be more coherent if you knew whether you were angry for yourself or Lyn. And I have moved in to Mike’s. It just so happens that all three shirts I have there with me are dirty.”

  “Well, I’m not washing them for you!”

  “Fine. I didn’t expect it. Kindly allow me to go home and fetch a clean one.”

  Caro sat in outraged silence, as they drove past the flow of commuter traffic pouring into town, past the big houses with their tall hedges and deep green gardens. The sun was shining.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” he said. “Nice part of town.”

  He turned off the main road, into an avenue lined with lime trees. The houses were all set well back from the road. “Solid investments, houses like these,” he said. “Go up by a few thousand every year. Pleasant too – nice class of neighbours. And look at the gardens; roses, wisteria, blossom in the spring –” They drove past a neat modern primary school. “Close to all facilities, schools, transport –”

  “What are you talking about?” she shouted furiously. “What are you trying to do?”

  “Nothing,” he said pleasantly. “Just showing you what a nice neighbourhood I used to live in.”

  “Used to? Nobody asked you to leave.”

  He slowed down and drew to a halt outside a big house with mock-Tudor beams on the front. There was a beautiful Japanese maple, she noticed, in the middle of the front lawn. “Pretty, isn’t it? I should think it’s worth about fifty thousand pounds by now.”

  Caro realized it was his. “You shit – you –”

  “Careful. Someone will see you.”

  Almost hysterical with rage, Caro folded her arms and bent her head low over them, so that her face could not be seen from the outside. Alan jumped out and strode up the path to the house, whistling. He didn’t knock on the door. He’s still got his key, she thought. Of course he has. The footsteps came back down the path almost immediately. When he opened the car door he swung in a white shirt on a hanger, before he got in himself.

  “How d’you have the nerve – how d’you have the bare-faced cheek – ?”

  “Oh it’s easy, when you’re as wicked as I am.” He began to whistle again, a hateful piercing noise. They turned a corner, into a newer, less established street.

  “This used to be green belt,” he said informatively. “They changed the planning regulations in sixty-eight. Sold it in lots to private builders. Of course, we older residents look down on it all. Rather tasteless, most of it. That’s Bellamy’s on the left.”

  The houses here looked raw and naked, lacking the full hedges and trees of the Victorian streets. Bellamy’s house was as ugly as Alan had said. Despite her rage, Caro stared at it. The garden was being landscaped. There was a mound of black earth and rubble at one end, and piles of –

  “Stop. Alan. Stop.”

  He glanced at her and stopped the car. Caro jumped out and ran back down the road. He watched her in his mirror. She was staring into Bellamy’s garden. Then she came slowly back to the car.

  “Well?” he said, as she got in.

  “He’s – he’s got our bricks.”

  “Our bricks?”

  “Yes. Blind garden bricks. Bricks from the park.”

  Alan glanced in his mirror and drove off from the kerb. “How d’you know?”

  “Because they – they’re the ones that were painted. Spray-canned. Red. They’ve got that red paint all over one side.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “And he’s got topsoil – and a heap of paving stones. . . . He must have stolen the lot.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You’re such an innocent,” Alan said contemptuously. “It happens all the time. Of course people are nicking stuff.”

  “But he said – in the paper, that interview about vandals – and they’re taking Kevin to court over one bag of topsoil. . . .”

  Alan shrugged. “That’s the way it goes.”

  “Well I – I – I’ll go to the police.”

  “That would be silly.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’d lose your job. Look, Caro – how many people are already turning a blind eye? That stuff’s been on site once, hasn’t it? So the contractors must have brought it out again for him. They’re all in on it. The police’ll laugh at you.”

  “But it’s not fair.”

  “That’s life.”

  She subsided into silence. After a while he said, smiling, “You’re a ridiculous idealist.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not. I think you’re silly. But I’m forced to admire your sense of fair play.”

  “I don’t want you to admire me. I don’t want you to think I’m silly.”

  When they got to the car park he said, “Can we stop it now?”

  “Stop what?”

  “All this bickering. Kiss me.”

  “What on earth makes you think I want to kiss and be friends?”

  He shrugged. “All right. Let’s have another forty-eight hours of hostilities, then. Shall I see you tomorrow night, when you’ve cooled down?”

  She was so angry she couldn’t speak, and nearly fell out of the car in her haste to get away from him.

  Caro was overwhelmed, in the course of the morning, by the sense of the impossibility of changing anything. Realistically, what could she do about Bellamy? It wasn’t even – she tried to add up the value of what he must have taken. It couldn’t amount to more than fifty pounds’ worth, altogether. People wouldn’t believe her because it was too ridiculous, for someone like him to have stolen such a paltry amount.

  She refused to let herself think about Alan at all; she could not face examining his motives for their morning drive. She passed a deeply frustrating morning telephoning woodyard after woodyard in an attempt to secure a new supply of seasoned sweet chestnut (the construction of the adventure playground was supposed to start in ten days’ time), and a depressing afternoon writing yet another internal report on the extent of the damage at the park. Work there had stopped completely, at the moment. There was not even the authorization to start building a new stores hut until the Council had met on Thursday.

  Over the next two days Caro found herself becoming almost manic, doing fifteen jobs at once at work, tearing round the house frantically at home. When Clare came in from her rehearsal the following evening, she found Sylvie and some of her friends in the TV room listening to deafeningly loud music, and Caro in the kitchen dismantling the oven.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “It’s filthy. Some of these bits haven’t been cleaned for years.”

  “But there’s a time – and a place, Caro. Why has it got to be done now, at –” she consulted her watch “– seven-fifteen on a Thursday evening? How can I cook tea?”

  “Have something cold. There’s some cheese in the fridge.”

  Clare got her to sit down, by making a pot of tea and a plate of cheese sandwiches. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Everything.”

  “Are you still – what’s happening with Alan?”

  “It’s a mess. I don’t know. I keep thinking it’s finished . . . then – He left
a note on my desk to meet at the George at nine tonight.”

  “Are you going?”

  Caro shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just not in control any more, at all. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Someone turned up the music in the next room, and everything in the kitchen began to vibrate to the bass beat, as if a huge heart had suddenly begun to thump under the floorboards.

  “That’s nice,” said Clare sourly, and they both suddenly laughed. “Shall I go in and throw my weight about?”

  “No.” Caro touched Clare’s arm. “Leave it. It’s like being in the jungle.”

  “Like being in the womb, more like. They play noises like that to babies, now, in trendy nurseries – just imagine what decibel level they’ll graduate to, when they’re Sylvie’s age.”

  “Clare?” Caro had not intended to tell her. But she suddenly craved the shrewd certainty of Clare’s response. She knew what it would be; but she wanted to hear it, like a craving for something strong and salty – anchovy, or Danish blue. “You know Bellamy? the councillor they interviewed in the paper the other day? I – I went past his house yesterday morning, and there were some bricks. . . .” She told Clare what she had seen.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well what – what can I do?”

  “Expose him! God, you could reduce him to shreds. All that stuff about respecting other people’s property, and standing up to be counted – Caro it’s brilliant!” Clare leapt up and hugged her.

  “But Clare –”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know . . . will anyone believe me? I mean, why should the police take any notice of me? All sorts of people must know about it already. . . .”

  Under the assault of Clare’s mounting indignation, Caro found herself mouthing all Alan’s excuses.

  “But what about that boy?” shouted Clare. “What about that boy they’re taking to court? For Christ’s sake, Caro – what are you saying? Is that what your fucking park boils down to? – free garden materials for the bloody rich councillors, and barbed-wire fences and court cases for the local kids? What are you talking about?”

  As always, another person’s certainty filled Caro with stubborn awkwardness. Why did Clare think she knew – any more than Alan did? Why did they all know, and think that she would do what they said?

  “What do you expect me to do? Be a private detective? Follow lorries? Snoop around gardens taking photos? The stuff he’s taken doesn’t amount to more than fifty pounds’ worth. Is it worth me losing my job for that?”

  A record ended and there was suddenly a shocking minute of complete silence, before the racket started up again.

  “I don’t believe it,” Clare screamed. “I don’t believe you can say that. For Jesus Christ’s sake, Caro – how can you? For years – ever since I met you – you’ve sat back and been too pernickety to soil your dainty white hands with anything real – but I always thought – I always thought you were – you would –” She shook her head incoherently. “I just don’t believe it. How can you carry on working there?”

  “Shut up!” yelled Caro. “Shut up! and tell me what the fuck you think I can do, if you’re so bloody righteous.”

  Clare studied her hands on the table top for a short time. When she spoke her voice was calm. “If it was me – I would – I’d find someone who knows about this sort of thing. You don’t want the police. You want the media. That’s what’ll destroy Bellamy. Someone who knows how to chase it up and ask the right questions. I’ll ask Jenny.” Jenny was a friend of Clare’s who worked as a researcher on the local TV news programme. “I’ll ring her now.”

  Clare got up immediately and went into the hall. Caro heard her shouting at Sylvie. The record was turned down. Caro glanced at her watch – eight-thirty. She ran up to her room and changed, and combed her hair. She was in the bathroom cleaning her teeth when Clare came to find her.

  “She’s out. They’ll get her to ring back in half an hour. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to meet Alan in the George.”

  “Don’t you want to talk to Jenny?”

  “I don’t know – I don’t know!” Caro pushed past Clare and ran down into the hall, before she burst out screaming or sobbing, or started throwing things around the room.

  She was in the pub by five to nine. Alan wasn’t there yet. He wasn’t there by nine-fifteen. He wasn’t there by nine-thirty. She left at quarter to ten.

  There was a long message from Clare on the telephone table – she picked it up quickly, but it wasn’t Alan. It was all about what Jenny had said. Caro scrumpled it in her palm. She went heavily up to her room, threw herself on to the bed, and cried.

  She was busy again next day. She avoided anywhere where Alan might be. It was the closing date for applications for the post of warden at the park field study centre. She and David spent four hours wading through the two hundred and thirty-nine applications, and attempting to select six to be interviewed. Council yesterday had huffed and puffed, and permitted work on the park to continue, as everyone had known they must do. She went down to the site to work out how long it would take them to clear up the fire mess, and how much of the old huts could be salvaged. It was a hot dry day, with a fitful wind gusting about under the metallic clouds. Although it had been hot, the sun didn’t seem to have shown itself for days. In the park, dust and ashes from the fire blew around in flurries and got into her nose, mouth, and eyes.

  She didn’t get back to the office till six. Alan was sitting at her desk.

  “What do you want?” she said.

  “You.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic. Go away. I’m tired and dirty.”

  He did not move.

  “Alan – look, it’s no good.”

  “Just come for a quick drink. I need to talk to you. Please. Go and have a wash, and I’ll meet you at the main door. Just one drink, honestly – OK?”

  She was too tired to argue.

  In the pub he was curiously intent and considerate. She wondered whether he had simply forgotten the previous evening.

  “What did you do last night?” she asked casually.

  “Oh – I don’t know. Had too much to drink. That’s right – I tried to ring you. I couldn’t get through.”

  “Why did you try to ring me?”

  “I don’t know. Because I wanted to see you, I suppose – Caro – we can’t . . . it can’t go on like this.”

  She nodded ironically.

  “No. I mean it. I’m sorry I’ve – I don’t know what I’ve been doing, half the week. I feel as if I’m falling apart. I want us to go somewhere for the weekend, away from everything else, and get ourselves sorted out – really, work out what we’re going to do, and then do it.”

  She sighed. “Who are you trying to kid? Me, or yourself?”

  “Well what then? D’you want to go on telling me it’s all over every second day, then behaving as if nothing’s happened the next time we meet?”

  She recognized that that was what she’d been doing, but it didn’t seem very fair of him.

  “Well what’ll be different at the weekend?”

  “I’ve been thinking – I want to talk to you properly, without all these interruptions – and away from work. I want us both to know. . . .”

  There was a silence. At last Caro shrugged.

  “I’ll come. On condition that we both do whatever we agree to over the weekend.”

  “Yes. That’s what I want.”

  “Right.”

  “Right.”

  They went to an empty Indian restaurant, the type that only fills when the pubs close, and had a meal in the cavernous red gloom before setting off. Caro found her mood of despair lifting like a cloud. There was a high-pitched wailing female voice coming through the stereo speakers. Alan began to speculate on what form of torture she was being subjected to. They agreed that she sounded as if she had been physicaly stretched from India to Millside, specifically in orde
r to make that noise here. Caro was almost light-headed with happiness. Why? What had changed since last night? It was still a mess – everything was still a mess. The only difference was that Alan’s presence made her drunk enough to ignore it.

  “I can’t imagine never sleeping with you again,” she said suddenly. “I don’t think I could bear it.”

  He laughed. “Will you write me a reference?”

  They called back at the Red House to get Caro’s things, and to make love, although they had assured each other that they would not get sidetracked.

  The weekend continued as it had begun. Very late that night they booked themselves into an empty little pub-cum-hotel, in Chapelmoor, a village twenty miles east of town. It was absurd to think about talking, discussing the future, organizing their lives, when each other’s skin and flesh and bones were within grasp.

  They surfaced on Sunday morning – “For our statutory walk,” as Alan put it. It was a brilliantly sunny windy day, and they walked beside a reservoir that had flooded the valley between two high moors. Fishermen were dotted along the shore, intent on the sparkling surface of the water. They walked in silence for quite a way, arms around each other’s waists, bodies moving comfortably in step. At last Alan said, “All right.”

  Goose-pimples suddenly came up on Caro’s skin, although it had not got any colder. She disentangled her arm from him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to listen to you.”

  “Well you can still hold me, can’t you?”

  “I – I – I can listen better if I don’t.” She put her hands in her pockets, hugging her arms to her sides, and stared at the water. The wind kept its surface ruffled, and the sun was reflected off the moving crest of every little wave. It was so bright it made her eyes ache.

  “I don’t want this to go on any more,” he said.

  “No.”

  “It’s a mess.”

  “Yes.”

  “I want us to live together. You’re right –” he went on more loudly, overriding her interruption “– we can’t do it here, I can’t just move in with you. We can’t suddenly swap round all the bits of our existing lives, like a jigsaw. It’s got to change completely. We must go somewhere else.”