His eyes shine green. He nods at their empty glasses: what are you having?
He plunges into the crowd. Madeleine studies a paragraph about various kinds of small cakes. For financiers you combine stiffly whipped egg whites with melted butter, sugar, ground almonds and flour. Do bankers in the Bourse in Paris particularly relish financiers? Monsieur brought them home occasionally. He nibbled their crisp edges. He dabbed his lips with a silky white square.
Emm returns from the boil and hubbub of the bar, bearing their drinks, sits down opposite her again. He tilts his glass to his mouth. That’s better. What a day. So intense.
He tells her about the counselling conference he’s been attending at Westminster Hall. His green eyes snap. Outreach services planned to the inner city, beginning with the poorest parts of south-east London. Tomorrow, Good Friday, he returns to his parishioners in Surrey. He describes a 1930s vicarage with lawn and rosebeds. In a small nineteenth-century church with a leaking roof he preaches the love of God, leads his Anglican congregation in hymns. I’m retiring this year. This’ll be my last Easter. But I’m going to continue my voluntary work, this mission we’re planning for people hard hit by the recession. Poverty brings such emotional distress. We want to help with that. As well as offering practical support of course.
Bloody hell. A vicar. Just my luck.
She swirls her wine, sips it. He celebrates Easter. Does he believe that Christ rose from the dead? A literal truth for him, or a symbolic one? She remembers Piero della Francesca’s image of the resurrected Christ, which she and William gazed at in Sansepolcro, thirty years back, on their honeymoon. The strong, beautiful man thrusting himself out of the darkness into the light; his muscular arms heaving up the lid of the coffin confining him; forcing his way back into the bright world.
Emm asks: you married? She says: I’m divorced. Ten years back. Emm says: I’m a widower. The community’s been wonderful to me. The funeral was a very difficult day. People were unbelievably helpful and kind.
Madeleine says: if you read the mainstream papers, journalists’ columns, I mean, you get the impression kindness is a form of stupidity. All that matters is being cynical and ironic. Cool. In control!
She pauses. Drinks more wine. She says: not the journalists’ fault, I suppose. They’re just reflecting the culture they live in. You’re supposed to care only about yourself. Getting ahead. But not everybody’s like that.
Emm says: people care a lot about their children. Want the best for them. Most people want to become parents.
Madeleine did once she met William. Night after night they made love: passionate, bawdy, intent, messy, blissful. Practising, William called it. Practising for what? For the next time, the next night.
Emm says: in my job I’m supposed to be kind. Kindness is what people demand of me. Suddenly it was the other way round. Parishioners kept turning up with casseroles. Offering to do my laundry. Weed the garden.
He glances at her. She feels he wants to go on talking about his loss. She wants to savour her wine, not his sorrow, certainly not her own. She queues at the bar, buys them both another drink, then smiles at Emm and picks up her book. He gives her a smile in return, a nod, pulls out a newspaper.
Half an hour later she decides it’s time to go home. She bids Emm goodbye. Happy Easter, he says.
The cold air slaps her out of tipsiness. A woken dog whimpers as she passes. His owner’s dark shape sags on a bench, her wheelie bag nearby. Where will that woman sleep tonight? Madeleine’s boots spring her along. Skirt hitched up above her knees for ease of movement, bag clutched under her arm. Strung amber beads of street lamps. Shadows flicker in front gardens and behind parked cars.
A stitch slows her; she halts, a hand at her side. The wind wraps a cold metallic ribbon around her bare neck. She claps a hand to her shivery flesh.
Behind her someone shouts. She jumps. A male voice stirs the darkness. Madeleine. Wait!
Emm rocks up to her, panting. He holds out a soft droop of material. You left this in the pub.
She winds her scarf around her neck. Instantly it blots the cold. He says: I’ll walk with you a while, if I may. Hands shoved into his jacket pockets, he jolts along by her side. She says: but you’ve hurt your foot, running. I’m so sorry. No, Emm says: I did that at the weekend. Just blisters. I’ve taken up walking in the countryside, and I’m still breaking in my new boots.
They pass under a row of plane trees, their lopped branches ending in black knobs, clustering fans of leaves. Two-dimensional shapes in the shadowy night. Like cut-outs. Almost abstract. Flat as Rose’s shadow puppets that so delighted the children. But Emm, tilting gently along, his arm brushing hers, is not flat. Solid chest under his jacket. His face curved towards hers. The pace of Madeleine’s heartbeat suddenly increases. Blood thumps at the back of her throat; in her ears.
They turn into Orchard Street. Red cigarette tips glow in the darkness of the little park, a bottle crashes, someone swears. They swerve round the jumble of overflowing rubbish bins, between the cracked, drying coils of dog turds. Madeleine waves a hand at the spearhead iron railings marking the corner of Apricot Place: I live along here.
They reach her gate. She halts. Why not take a risk? She says: come in for a glass of wine, if you like. Sorry I haven’t any beer.
Clutching the cold handrail she goes ahead of him down into the area, her feet in their flat boots feeling for the edges of the wedge-shaped steps. She fiddles her key into the lock, opens the door.
A dry, woody fragrance rushes out. Brandy. How on earth? Anyone would think she’d been at some cheap cooking tipple, getting drunk, upending the open bottle onto the floor.
She says: can you smell brandy? I don’t know where that’s come from. I never drink brandy!
Emm breathes in. No, I can’t smell it.
She shakes her head, tells herself to forget it. Out of the corner of her eye, as she opens the cupboard, gets out a bottle and glasses, she watches Emm survey the small sitting-room, its dusty, grey-painted floorboards studded with stalacmites of books, its two blue basket chairs with dented cushions, its packed bookshelves, its pictures. A cobweb veils one corner. Madeleine does her housework just before friends are due to visit. Unexpected guests have to accept the presence of apple cores in saucers, drifts of papers, scatters of pens. What Nelly called a heap of tack, Madeleine names lovely mess. If you leave clearing it up as late as possible then you really notice the difference.
Madeleine puts bottle and glasses on the table, which bears a laptop at one end, wedged in between a chipped pink soup tureen, a pile of stencilled yellow soup plates, a big blue willow-pattern bowl, a stack of unironed pillow-cases. Scarlet tulips flare and contort in an orange jug encircled by fallen petals. Emm gives an almost imperceptible shrug.
Madeleine says: I expect you employ a cleaner, don’t you? Or do the ladies of the parish fight over whose turn it is to help you?
She’s being sharp with him because she suddenly feels shy. She fiddles with her scarf, unwinds it, throws it over the back of a chair.
She says: those bits and pieces were my mother’s. Not the laptop, though. Dad died ten years ago, then Mum died this January just gone, six months after I moved here. I couldn’t bear to get rid of her stuff all at once, so I kept lots of it. Even the things I don’t like.
Emm’s green eyes gleam in his creased brown face. So much loss in your life! I’m sorry. Being alone is really tough.
Madeleine starts. I’ve got plenty of friends, thanks very much. Good neighbours too. The people round here are really friendly. Well, most of them.
The older ones, especially, like to stop for a quick chat. Madeleine greets everyone she meets along her little street. You’re my neighbours and so I’ll say hello. Some, resentful, mumble at their feet and stride past. Mad bitch invading their space. Others nod and greet her back.
Emm says: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be patronising. That was clumsy of me.
Out on Walworth Road, anywhe
re you pause, a stranger may smile at you, crack a joke, complain humorously about this or that. At the bus-stop, at the newsagent’s, in the market queues. Passers-by briefly join themselves together: a wry look, a shared grimace at someone’s antics, something odd happening, a few words exchanged; then off they swirl again. Moments of human contact: a startle of warmth. Sometimes she meets Rose loping along, foraging for sculpture materials. Eyes darting left and right. A scavenged plank balanced across her shoulders, a couple of old posts under one arm, or the side of a chest of drawers, she’s a bird flying on wooden wings, an angel walking on wooden stilts. She’s always available for talking. I’m moving out from my nan’s, Madeleine. My friend Jerry’s squat up near the Elephant, they’ve got a room come free.
Madeleine says: I feel lucky, living in this neighbourhood. It’s run-down in lots of ways but it’s got soul. I love it.
She uncorks the bottle. The waft of brandy has faded. Replaced by the dark tannin smell of the red wine she pours into their glasses.
Emm looks down. I was speaking from my own experience, I suppose. We can all feel vulnerable sometimes. We all have losses to bear, don’t we? Some people are open about them, some aren’t.
Counselling bromides. Not the right technique for talking to someone you’ve only just met. A way of keeping a distance; keeping control. Madeleine also wants to keep control. They’re circling around each other like fighters, on their toes, fists bunched, weighing each other up.
She tastes the lovely austere red. How can she possibly tell a stranger, however sympathetic, how she feels about her mother’s death? That dislocation, the world unhinged, flapping loose, and herself too? Emm obviously means well. Perhaps he’s a skilled, helpful counsellor when he’s on the job in some impersonal consulting-room. Now, he’s just a nice-looking man with a weathered face, green eyes. A concern for people who suffer. A love of weekend walks.
OK, I’ll play. Just start the game in a different place. She selects a bright, clipped voice: how’s your foot? Why don’t you let me have a look at it? A foot massage might help.
Emm’s face tightens, then relaxes. She watches him decide to trust the moment, see what it brings. He discards his black jacket, tosses it onto a chair. She dims the light, pulls up a low wooden stool and perches in front of him. She unties his laces, takes off his brogues, unpeels his blue socks. She lifts his foot, the sore one, into her lap. He leans back and closes his eyes. She tips a few drops of rose geranium oil into her hand, starts to stroke, carefully avoiding the reddened skin around the pierced white flap of the empty blister. Her fingertips and palm massage his instep, push over and around the ball of his foot. Gently she pulls at his toes, one by one, easing her finger in between them, searching out the rough, dry patches, feeling the edges of the nails. She touches and kneads in silence, she presses her thumbs into the arch of his foot, and his skin softens under her fingers, and he grunts, and relaxes. She takes up his other foot and repeats the process.
Emm’s voice sounds blurry. Wonderful. The pain’s completely gone. His eyes flick open: you’re a witch.
The room smells of rose geranium. So calm. Just the sound of their breathing in the semi-darkness. Madeleine sits back, puts her palms together, letting the residue of sweet oil sink into her skin.
Emm sits up. What happens next, Mrs Magdalene? I’ll have to guess.
She smiles at him. In the Gospel story, after anointing the feet of Jesus she wipes them with her hair. As I’m sure you know perfectly well. But in my version they have supper. I’m hungry. Are you? Would you like to eat something?
At daybreak, she floats and rolls in towards shore on currents of dreams. Light streams in around the edges of the white curtains. She stretches, sits up, yawning. Soft boulders of pillows surround her. She draws back her fist and punches one.
A female voice begins to speak to her. Distinct as the chit-chat of birds beyond the window. Don’t take on so. Don’t fret. Come on, duck, get up. Time for breakfast. Hot cross buns? Why not? Although those nuns at your school believed in fasting on Good Friday, didn’t they? A bit of fish for your dinner and that was that.
Her grandmother Nelly. Warmth rushes through Madeleine. But Nelly’s been dead for over thirty years. Once as close as this quilt, and as comforting. That astonishing gift she gave the child: taking her seriously, bothering with her. Ticking her off, teasing her, chatting to her.
A little bit of what you fancy does you good, Nelly says: and enough is as good as a feast.
Madeleine says: whether there’s anything to eat for breakfast is a matter for conjecture.
Last night, she served Emm and herself their food by candlelight. She cleared a space on the end of the table, flung on a cloth. They wolfed the mushroom soup she’d left ready for her return from the pub. They sat back, drinking wine, talking about walks they’d taken: the Ridgeway, the Gower peninsula. They mopped their plates with the end of the loaf, polished off the cheese. Emm said: thank you for your hospitality. But I mustn’t intrude any longer. I must be off to my hotel. It’s not very far from here. I’ll walk.
Madeleine scoops up her green linen dressing-gown, lying across the end of her bed, dons it. She darts barefoot, soles flinching across the gritty lino, into the kitchen to make coffee. Waiting for it to bubble up, she tucks her arms inside her thin sleeves. Garment green as the vestment worn by the parish priest in her childhood when he said Mass on weekdays. On special joyful Sundays, such as Easter, he wore white.
Shivering in the pale yellow light seeping around the edges of the white calico blind and scalloping the fall of its cord strung with plastic pearls, she runs her eyes over the open shelves, looking for biscuits, for Ryvita, for anything at all. She’s got flour, butter, sugar, lemon, eggs. Very well then. Whisk up some madeleines. She’ll eat a couple for breakfast once they’re done, take the rest into work. Display them on the tiered glass cakestand on the café counter.
Ten minutes beating everything together, dripping melted butter onto the mixture, folding it in, and the tray slides into the oven. She opens the back door, treads up the four steps. Sunlight fills the courtyard garden. Clutching her cup of coffee she bends to check the nasturtium and sweet pea seedlings, the green tendrils of jasmine and honeysuckle. The lilies of the valley poke up their pale snouts, and the roses and daisies are in bud, glittering with dew.
Cool air on her face and throat. She can have breakfast outside, if she wraps up warm enough. Will Emm, in a few hours’ time, be preparing for the Good Friday ritual? In her childhood that meant the church shrouded in darkness. No flowers or candles. The priest chanting Christ’s reproaches from the cross: my people, what have you done to me, answer me.
What sort of service will Emm lead? High or Low? What will he wear?
Preparing to leave, he got up from the table, looked about for his black jacket. He smiled at her. His green eyes gleamed, as though they held tears. You’re so nice. I wish I could stay longer, get to know you better.
He hesitated. Madeleine sat still. He tugged the black sleeves up over his arms. Fished in his jacket pocket, brought out a wallet, a phone. Hesitated again.
He blurted: but do you do this a lot? Leaving your scarf in the pub like that, a bit obvious, wasn’t it? And d’you offer a massage to all the men you bring home?
He was fingering his wallet, preparing to open it. Madeleine blinked. She said: d’you want me to charge you for services rendered, then? So that I can turn into a repented prostitute, and you can convert me! Is that it? You Jesus me Mary Magdalene. You really are a stickler for that story, aren’t you!
Emm stiffened. That’s not fair. That’s unkind. I wanted to show you the photo of my wife I keep in my wallet, that’s all. Don’t be so defensive. I’m not reproaching you for anything.
Madeleine muttered: yes, you are.
Emm said: no. Not at all. Please don’t be upset. I’m really sorry. I think you’re a lovely person. So free! My wife has … had, I mean … fair hair too, long and curly, rather
like yours.
Madeleine said: why are you talking about your wife? What d’you mean, your wife has long curly hair?
Emm wrinkled his mouth in a sad smile. He opened his phone. Will you give me your number? I’d really like to see you again. If I may.
Tears of wax dripped down the candles. The room smelled warmly of soup. Their empty bowls, butter-smeared plates, stood on the table. Bread crusts, rinds of cheese.
Madeleine got to her feet, folded her arms. She’s not dead at all, is she? You made that up.
Emm bent his head. His voice cracked. She may as well be dead. I’ve left her. We were very unhappy together. We’re separated.
His mouth had greasy crumbs at the corners. The Monsieur in Paris, that fastidious man, had lifted a napkin to his lips. Emm hadn’t bothered to wipe his. Disgusting. Like encountering loops of slimy milk skin when you drank your cup of coffee. You recoiled; involuntarily spat.
Madeleine said: I certainly don’t want to see you again. You lied to me. You can have a dozen wives for all I care. But you shouldn’t tell lies.
Emm’s face hardened. You’re very happy, taking the moral high ground, aren’t you? You like being in the right, don’t you? Real life’s not that clear-cut. Haven’t you ever found life complicated, difficult?
Madeleine moved towards the hall doorway. She kept her voice calm. She said: going out with married men is not a good idea. I did that often enough, when I was young, to have learned better.
Emm seemed to bunch, to become all muscle. But we were making friends. How can you be so unfair? Let me explain.
Madeleine said: you don’t need to. You’ll probably go back to your wife, see if you don’t. That’s what usually happens.
He gave a cry, loomed over her, reached for her. She twisted away, ran into the front hall, held open the door. Get out.
The Walworth Beauty Page 9
