The Woman Next Door

by Liz Byrski

  ‘I could never live in a place like that,’ Stella had said then. ‘It’s too regimented. I mean, they’re very nice, the people there, but it’s too . . . well, social, communal. I’ve never been any good at that sort of thing, and there’s nowhere like your own home, is there?’

  Now as Polly watches from the doorway she can see that Stella is thoroughly at home here, at ease in proximity to her fellow residents, enjoying things from which she would previously have turned away in disdain.

  ‘Polly,’ Stella calls when the music stops. ‘Polly, come and meet Agnes. This is my friend Polly, my best friend, she’s like a daughter to me.’

  ‘I’ve heard all about you,’ Agnes says. ‘Stella says you were in Neighbours with her.’

  ‘Well, not exactly in it, I was writing . . .’ Polly stops, remembering what Dorothy had said about things not having to be exactly right.

  ‘Well I’m very happy to meet you,’ Agnes says. ‘And we’re all looking forward to seeing Cassandra on the television again.’

  ‘She mixes us up,’ Stella whispers. ‘Me and the character, but I don’t mind. They all love Cross Currents. When will it start again, Polly, the new one?’

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ Polly tells her for at least the tenth time. ‘I thought you might like to come and watch it at my place with Joyce and Mac. I’ll come and pick you up.’

  Stella hesitates, looks thoughtful. ‘I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘I think I’ll stay with my friends here, they’re all so excited about it, and the staff too. I wouldn’t like to disappoint them.’

  Polly musters a smile, not without some difficulty. ‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’

  ‘I’m positive,’ Stella says. ‘It’ll be lovely. We can all sit together and watch it. You can come as well, Polly, if you like. I think we’re having sausage rolls, you love sausage rolls.’

  *

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Polly says the following evening as she hands Joyce a glass of wine. ‘It was such a shock that she wanted to be there with them, rather than here with us.’

  ‘It’s good,’ Mac says.

  Polly nods. ‘I know. She has everything she needs, and she really loves being the centre of attention. She wasn’t in the least disturbed when I told her I’d be away for several weeks.’

  ‘Come on, come and sit down,’ Mac says, grabbing the remote control. ‘It’ll be starting in a minute,’ and he turns up the volume as the last strains of the news theme fade down.

  They settle back in their seats waiting in anticipation through the trailer for a new documentary series, and then it begins. Dark water swirls across the screen to the sounds of the sea, dawn light breaks in the distance turning the waves from black to deep blue, to dazzling aqua.

  Good, Polly thinks, well done Gareth. Great start.

  In the foreground the names of the four main actors float up in ripples from the white crests of the waves followed by ‘Cross Currents’ scrawled across the screen. The light increases with a few more secondary actor credits, and then against the bright white and blue of the morning sky the figure of a woman appears on the rocks high above the water. She is wearing a long white nightdress and a tattered blue dressing gown. Wisps of wild grey hair lift and tangle in the wind as she gazes out to sea, her back to the camera. Slowly the shot closes in and suddenly she turns, steely grey eyes boring into the camera lens. More white letters rise from the water forming into words And featuring Stella Lamont as Cassandra as the music swells. Stella tosses her head, the wind whips tendrils of hair across her face and her grey, unblinking eyes flash suddenly red as she lets out a fearsome laugh, and her image starts to spin, tornado like, and disappears into the distance.

  Polly, as anxious as if she herself had written the script and directed the action, sits tense on the sofa, frozen with anticipation, while her heart pounds in her chest. Alongside her Joyce moves a little closer and reaches out a hand. Without looking Polly takes it, hanging on to it as though to a life raft.

  ‘It is going to be wonderful,’ Joyce whispers.

  And Polly nods, still speechless, and leans in closer for reassurance as all three of them hold their breath, waiting for Stella to come back as the best she’s ever been, to launch herself into the final steps in her own hall of fame.

  Five kilometres away Stella sits in the centre of the front row of the chairs that have been set out in three neat, curving lines in front of the huge widescreen television. Everyone seems very excited about it, but for the life of her she can’t remember what it is.

  ‘We’re all going to watch it together,’ Dorothy had said when she had come to collect her from her room.

  To Stella it all seems a bit of a chore, but Dorothy went on and on about it, and so eventually she had given in and allowed herself to be wheeled into the big communal sitting room where Agnes had saved her a place in the front row.

  ‘I hope it’s not football or rugby,’ she says but no one takes any notice.

  Stella loathes football, but they watch a lot of football here and get very worked up about it. ‘Boring! A lot of men running around in shorts kicking a ball,’ she says, more loudly this time, leaning closer to Dorothy, who is sitting beside her.

  ‘It isn’t football, Stella,’ Dorothy says. ‘It’s your new series.’

  Stella looks at her wondering what on earth she can be talking about. ‘I haven’t . . .’ she begins, but everyone shushes her. Stella sighs and watches blackish sea water on the screen; it looks vaguely familiar, and she thinks she’s heard the music somewhere before too. Words appear and disappear before she can read them. It’s all gone from dark to light now and an old woman, looking like a witch, is wandering across rocks in a dressing gown. Dorothy nudges her and smiles as the camera moves in close to the back of the old woman’s straggly hair. Two words come up: ‘Cross something,’ she reads aloud, and she jumps as the witchy woman, who looks a bit like someone she used to know, turns suddenly and stares straight at her. More words appear and a little cheer goes up from the people in the room as they read the words on the screen.

  ‘Stella, Stella, Stella,’ chants Jim, who has the room next door to hers. And he makes a fist and punches the air.

  Stella thinks he must have gone completely barmy.

  ‘Stella, Stella, Stella . . .’ several of them are at it now.

  ‘Oh shut up,’ Stella says. ‘Who is that?’ she asks above the vaguely familiar music. ‘I think I know her.’

  ‘It’s Cassandra,’ Dorothy says, taking her hand, holding on to it tightly.

  ‘It certainly is not,’ Stella says, ‘Cassandra is dead.’ But the familiarity of it, the scenery, the music, that face – it’s all so unsettling. ‘Cross Currents,’ she says again now, ‘that’s what it is, Cross Currents.’ The old woman’s eyes flash red and Stella’s heart jumps and she puts a hand to her chest. ‘Cross Currents,’ she says again, irritably this time. ‘No wonder it’s familiar, that’s just typical of the ABC these days, it’s all repeats, repeats, repeats.’

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Early April

  Leo wakes from a deep, red wine induced sleep and lies staring up at the hotel ceiling, his head pounding. Sunlight pours ruthlessly in between the open curtains, and he screws up his eyes, rubs both hands over his face and hair, picks up his watch and realises that at this very moment he should be waiting in the arrivals area at Charles de Gaulle airport to meet Polly. As he sits up the contents of his head crash around and seem to explode like crockery smashing on a tiled floor. The room sways and he has a horrible queasy feeling in his gut. He really should know better, he’s never been able to handle too much red. Polly – what should he do? Briefly he registers that things would be easier if he had a mobile phone but the twin horrors of availability and accountability still loom: anyone can find you at any time, can ask you for things, demand answers to questions, expect to speak to you at
embarrassing moments. He staggers to the bathroom, puts as much of his head as possible under the cold tap, towels it dry, drinks a glass of water and then goes back into the bedroom and stares at the hotel phone.

  Sitting down on the bed again he dials Polly’s number, forgets to include the international code, misdials the second time and at the third attempt it starts to ring and he gets the answering message.

  ‘Polly, I am soooo sorry,’ he says, attempting to sound contrite rather than just hungover. ‘I was in a very early meeting and lost track of time. Can you grab a cab and come straight to the hotel? I’ll wait for you outside the café next door. See you very soon.’

  He puts down the phone, yawns and stretches. He has, he reckons, at least an hour, probably more, before she arrives: time for a shower, coffee and something to eat.

  *

  An hour and a half later he is sitting at a table on the pavement outside the café next door to the hotel. It’s a small place, the hotel, full of character, not the five-star variety to which he’s grown accustomed, but it has uniquely French décor and ambiance. He has stayed here in the past, and the location is ideal: in a narrow side-street just off the Boulevard St Michel, less than two minutes from the Seine and the Shakespeare and Company bookshop.

  ‘Encore un café, Monsieur?’ the waiter asks, indicating his empty cup.

  Leo shakes his still jangly head; he’s already had three, one more might have a disastrous effect on his stomach. He closes his eyes against the morning sun, cutting himself off from the steady stream of pedestrians and from the traffic cautiously nosing its way around them, and tries to get himself into the right state of mind for Polly’s arrival. His emails have done the legwork, things have, he believes, returned to where they were in the earlier months of their relationship, and believes he has regained the ground lost over Christmas. It’s just a shame that he bumped into a couple of acquaintances on the Eurostar yesterday. The three of them had polished off two bottles of wine on the train then repaired to their separate hotels to check in, and met up later. Then they each drank a couple of Pernods before dinner, then more wine, a lot more wine. He wonders now why he drank so much. To stop himself brooding, perhaps? He feels himself drifting towards delicious sleep until his head falls suddenly forward, jerking him awake just as a taxi draws up nearby. Fleetingly he wonders what lies beneath the interesting manhole cover on which his left foot is resting; if he could just disappear down there . . . escape into the darkness. A bit damp and smelly, but at least none of the women in his life could plague him with their expectations.

  Polly steps out of the taxi and follows the driver to the boot to collect her bag. She stands there briefly, chatting with him, nodding, laughing, sharing something that has been exchanged between them enroute from the airport. She is relaxed, unhurried, Leo feels a stab of something unfamiliar – a sense of exclusion perhaps, or jealousy? He gets to his feet, straightens up, strolls towards them. Any minute now she will turn to him, he will have her attention, she will focus on him in the way she does so well, looking into him, seeing what he wants her to see, making him her priority. He stands behind her waiting for her to turn away from the driver, but she seems unaware of him. It is the driver who is facing him who indicates his presence to Polly and causes her to turn to him.

  ‘Oh hi!’ she says. ‘I thought you were asleep at the table. Won’t be a moment,’ and she turns back to the driver and continues the conversation, which is too fast for him to follow. They shake hands, laugh, and at last the driver walks back to his seat and Polly turns to Leo.

  ‘Hi,’ she says again, and steps up to kiss him, stands back and looks at him. ‘An early meeting? It looks rather more like a very late night!’

  *

  A couple of days into their stay in Paris they settle at a pavement table outside Polly’s favourite café on Rue de la Bucherie, and order coffee and croissants. The sky is overcast, growing darker all the time.

  ‘Not a day for a romantic trip along the river,’ Polly says, ‘we’ll have to leave the bateaux-mouches for another day.’ She tears a piece off her croissant, dunks it and leans forward to eat it over the wide brim of her coffee bowl.

  ‘That is a disgusting way to eat a croissant,’ Leo says, dusting dry crumbs from the sleeve of his black cashmere jacket. ‘All soggy and messy, like baby food.’

  ‘It is,’ Polly says, leaning back in satisfaction, savouring the remains of the croissant. ‘It is also traditionally French: the café au lait in the bowl, the dunking, I love it. You are such a fusspot.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Leo fires back, ‘I just don’t like people messing with their food.’

  Polly rolls her eyes. ‘This is not messing . . . oh forget it.’ They have been together for two days now, two days in which perfect harmony and bursts of irritation and tension seem to alternate with annoying regularity. Leo, Polly thinks, is at his best and his worst, more changeable, more unreadable, more accessible and more withdrawn than ever. Earlier this morning she had called him out on this, and he had sighed and shrugged.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve got a lot on my mind.’

  ‘Okay,’ she’d said, ‘so do you want to talk about it, about what’s on your mind?’

  ‘No,’ he’d replied. ‘Let’s go out for breakfast and do something nice.’

  Now the first spots of rain start to fall, big fat drops splash onto the awning above their heads, and a sudden wind blows up, ripping at the white tablecloths.

  ‘A good day for the Louvre?’ Polly suggests. She knows Paris and its landmark places so well, but she likes the idea of being a tourist with Leo, the chance to see familiar places in a new light.

  Half an hour later as the taxi approaches the Louvre, the rain has become a downpour.

  ‘Bugger that,’ Leo says, spotting the length of the queue of visitors by the glass pyramid. ‘I don’t queue for anything. We’ll go somewhere else. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘I want to go to the Louvre, and that’s where I’m going,’ Polly says. ‘We won’t have to queue.’ She leans forward and speaks to the driver, who nods and changes direction.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Leo asks.

  ‘I’ve asked him to take us as close as he can to Porte des Lions,’ she says. ‘You rarely have to queue at that entrance, and it leads straight through to the Italian galleries, which is where you said you wanted to go.’

  Leo sits back in his seat and says nothing, and she hides her desire to smile; he hates it when she knows something that he doesn’t.

  They make their way up the steps between the stone lions and, once inside, are heading towards the Italian gallery when Leo stops suddenly.

  ‘Hang on a moment,’ he says, ‘I’ve just seen someone I know.’ And he strides away from her towards a short, thickset man who is pulling on a trench coat and heading for the exit.

  Polly follows him slowly, looking around, picking up a couple of fliers about special exhibitions. Eventually, sitting on a bench, she watches Leo, his back turned towards her, talking intently to the man, whose eyes are wandering around the foyer. He looks at his watch and makes as if to leave, but Leo won’t let him go. She gets to her feet, walking towards them as the man looks at his watch again, and smiles at her approach.

  ‘Hi,’ she says, and he smiles, his eyes moving between them, obviously uncomfortable that she is standing there unacknowledged, but Leo is in full flow about a piece he is thinking of writing about politics and art, something he’d tried out on her at dinner last night. Now, he glances sideways at her, then turns back to his friend.

  ‘Hello,’ Polly says, this time moving closer into their space, holding out her hand as Leo pauses for breath. ‘Polly Griffin,’ she says.

  Leo turns to her looking slightly affronted.

  ‘Ted Sparks,’ the man says, shaking hands. ‘Your name’s familiar. Did you write the book on the erotic writers group?’r />
  ‘I did,’ she says, surprised.

  ‘Congratulations, terrific book. I read it a couple of months ago and was planning to find an email address and write to you. I’m working on a history of gay men in Paris in the same period – there are some interesting intersections. I have to rush off now, do you happen to have a card?’

  ‘I do,’ she says, and she reaches into the side pocket of her bag and passes one to him.

  ‘Great, thanks,’ he says. ‘Here’s mine. Sorry about the rush but I’ll be in touch.’ And he pats Leo on the arm. ‘Good to see you again, Leo, I guess we’ll bump into each other again sometime.’

  But Leo will not let him go. ‘Look, Ted,’ he says, walking beside him towards the exit, ‘I’d really like to catch up with you back in London, can we make a time . . .?’

  They are out of hearing now, and Polly watches as Leo walks out with him, putting up the umbrella, urging Ted underneath it, and they disappear out of sight.

  *

  ‘So where the hell did you get to?’ Leo asks, several hours later. He stands in the entrance to their room, his face like thunder. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

  Polly, who is sitting in the armchair by the window, gets to her feet. ‘I went to the Louvre, to see the things we had decided to see together,’ she says, seething.

  ‘Well you could’ve waited,’ Leo says, pulling off his jacket.

  ‘I waited for twenty minutes in the foyer,’ she says, coldly, wishing she was a woman who could scream and shout. ‘How dare you treat me like that, ignore me, not even introduce me to your friend and then disappear with him. And he was trying to get away from you, Leo, couldn’t you see that? Do you have any idea how overbearing you can be? Do you ever give a thought to the effect you have on other people, or is it always all about you?’

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Marla moves over to the pot on the stove and shakes it. ‘Joyce,’ she says. ‘Come, Joyce, now you can put beans.’