They walk away from the pub and Jason puts his arm around Sarah’s shoulder again, squeezing her upper arm with firm fingers. The sun is lower than before, casting a rose tinge across the pale skyline. ‘Take no notice of that lot. They’ve got nothing better to talk about. Tell you what, bet they were all wishing they were in my place, though. Sitting next to the prettiest girl in town.’ He lets his arm drop, and gives her a little bump with his shoulder.
‘Hardly,’ she says, pushing her fists further into her coat pockets. She looks up at Jason, who’s squinting against the strange sky. His face is bathed in pink light, and the blue of his eyes appears almost unnatural. ‘How old are you?’ she asks, regretting it immediately.
He laughs, surprised. ‘Thirty-nine. Why?’
‘Just couldn’t work it out, that’s all.’
‘Why, d’you think I look younger?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’
‘You’re a darlin’!’ he says, giving her a swift peck on the cheek. ‘I know I feel it, sweetie. That’s for sure.’
Sarah, Jason and Patty are sitting down to watch a film and eat their takeaway by half-seven.
Jason brings out a can of Strongbow for Sarah, and a lager for himself. He eases himself into the armchair nearest Sarah and pulls the coffee table closer for his feet.
‘What’s the film?’ asks Sarah, puffing up a cushion behind her back.
Patty’s beside her on the sofa, with her feet curled up underneath her bottom. She’s got her food on a tray, and a glass of water sits on the table alongside two little pills.
‘Remind me to take those in an hour, love,’ she says to Jason as she snaps a poppadum in two.
‘It’s National Lampoon’s Vacation,’ says Jason. ‘Chevy Chase. It’s meant to be really funny.’
Sarah’s pleased it’s a comedy. She can’t stand the horror films that Dante used to go on about. The more she thinks about Dante, the more she hates him.
‘I could do with a laugh,’ says Patty. She’s already eaten half her curry before Sarah’s even started.
Sarah kicks off her slippers and Jason turns off the main light. He passes her a poppadum, his fingers brushing hers as she takes it. She looks up at him as he sits back in his seat. He smiles furtively, knowing that Sarah is blocking Patty’s view of him. Sarah wriggles down into the cushions and eats her korma, acutely aware of Jason’s proximity as the film trailers run.
Halfway through, Jason pauses the video to fetch more drinks. Sarah visits the toilet in the break, and when she returns Jason passes her another Strongbow. She picks up the first can she’s been sipping slowly for the past hour and knocks it back quickly. Patty doesn’t seem to mind that Sarah’s drinking cider; Kate must be able to drink at home whenever she wants to. Patty takes her tablets and stretches her legs out on to the coffee table, flexing her toes and rotating her ankles. She’s wearing those special socks with rubber pads on the bottom to stop you slipping. Slipper socks. They’re a faded aqua colour with pink pigs knitted into the design, bobbled around the tops where they’re worn.
The film is so funny that once or twice Sarah almost spits her food across the living room. Jason’s roaring, clapping his hands and covering his eyes at the toe-curling embarrassment of the Griswold family’s blunders. Patty gives little ‘ha-ha’ laughs as she grows visibly sleepy on the sofa beside Sarah. Her eyes begin to sag a little, and eventually she pushes herself up out of her seat and clears the plates.
‘That’s me done for,’ she says. ‘Sorry to desert you, love. I can’t keep my eyes open a moment longer. I’ll see you in the morning, won’t I?’
Sarah shifts on to the edge of the sofa. ‘I’ll probably get off quite early, to get the house ready for Dad. They’re sure he’ll be home tomorrow afternoon.’ She smiles at Patty, who’s vacantly running her fingers through her wiry hair.
‘That’s good. Well, night-night.’
Sarah hears Patty put the plates on the side in the kitchen and trudge up the stairs with weary footsteps and a yawn. The upstairs toilet flushes and Patty’s bedroom door clicks shut.
As they continue to watch the film, Sarah becomes intensely aware of her own breathing. Jason nips out to the kitchen and returns with a box of Matchmakers. He sits in Patty’s place, but he’s closer to Sarah than Patty had been. He rattles the box in front of her, and starts to unpeel the outer layer of packaging.
‘I love Matchmakers,’ Sarah whispers, her eyes still on the TV.
‘Thought you might,’ Jason replies, sliding open the tray and removing the inner paper.
They watch the rest of the film crunching on chocolates and laughing together. ‘That was good,’ sighs Sarah as the credits roll up the screen. She laughs again. Jason hands her another Matchmaker, and they sit quietly munching, gazing across the living room. She knows she should go to bed now.
‘Show you a trick,’ says Jason, pulling up one knee so he’s facing Sarah on the sofa. ‘Hold this between your teeth and close your eyes.’ He puts a matchmaker between her lips, so that it sticks out in front of her face horizontally. ‘No peeking. Just keep your eyes closed until I say.’
She closes her eyes, the tip of her tongue feeling at the centimetre of rough chocolate stick held carefully between her teeth. Time seems to freeze, and her neck grows hotter with each passing second. She imagines she feels Jason leaning in, not touching her, just breathing into her skin as she sits there, waiting, waiting. Is he watching her? The chocolate in her mouth slowly softens, exposing the sharp embedded mint crystals. Her tongue returns to roll around the stick in a circular rhythm; round and back, round and back. She’s sure that the Matchmaker is starting to tremble between her lips, but she keeps her eyes clamped shut, hearing nothing but the blood that rushes through her ears. Jason’s mouth gently grazes her lips with moisture before his teeth bite the chocolate stick off at the base. The click of their teeth is fleeting, but audible, huge in the now silent room. Sarah gasps, but still her eyes remain closed. She can feel the pressure of Jason’s chest against hers now, his lips lightly feeling their way down her neck and into the dip of her throat.
‘OK?’ he sighs into her skin.
‘OK,’ Sarah replies and her limbs wilt against the cushions of the sofa. She lets him kiss her, doesn’t remove his fingers as they unbutton her clothes and slide beneath the layers of thin fabric. Her desire is crushing, and when he lifts her from the sofa, and lays her across the deep pile carpet of Kate Robson’s living room floor, Sarah gives herself up.
Deborah’s car pulls into the drive around teatime. Sarah stands over the kitchen stove, feeling sick with the weight of her secret. So much has changed in the space of so little time.
She’s been at home alone since seven this morning, having risen early to cycle back before Jason or Patty woke. When she’d walked in through the front door the house had felt damp and hollow, having been shut up for several days, and dust motes rose in illuminated billows, surprised into action as she walked through the dreary hallway and up the stairs. She threw her bag in through the bedroom door and ran a deep bath, scrubbing herself clean and sobbing into the vapour, replaying the scene over and over in her mind’s eye.
‘So, you’re not such a good girl after all?’ Jason had said as he pushed himself up from the carpet, buttoning his flies, still breathing heavily. ‘I could tell the first time I laid eyes on you.’ Sarah had scrabbled up on to her knees, hugging a cushion to her lap to cover her dignity. Her eyes kept wandering back to the chicken korma smear on the glass coffee table. She was overwhelmed with self-loathing. Jason winked and switched off the TV, which was buzzing grey where the video had run to its end. She pulled on her leggings as quickly as she could, inwardly cursing them as they hooked on her toes, causing her to stumble against the sofa.
‘Time for bed,’ Jason said as he flicked off the side light and left the room. ‘And no creeping into my room asking for more.’
Sarah takes the pan off the stove now, and walks down the hall to open
the front door.
‘Sarah-Lou.’ Dad smiles as Deborah helps him out of the passenger seat. He’s lost weight.
Ted leaps out of the back seat and sprints towards Sarah, jumping up on his back legs to be picked up. Deborah opens the back door of the car and lifts out Dad’s overnight bag.
‘We got him back in one piece,’ she calls over to Sarah.
‘Who? The dog, or me?’ asks Dad as he shuffles across the gravel, waving Sarah away when she moves to help him. Anger buzzes in her fingers as he passes.
‘I bought some cod in butter sauce for dinner,’ she says, careful to control her voice. ‘It’s the boil-in-the-bag kind that you like. Would you like to eat with us?’ she asks Deborah, hoping she’ll say no.
Deborah smiles appreciatively. ‘I’d love to, Sarah.’
She makes a pot of tea, and they sit in the living room and talk lightly for a while. Dad produces a leaflet called Advice for a Healthy Heart along with a bottle of pills. ‘Rat poison,’ he says.
‘Do they know what caused it?’ Sarah asks, taking the leaflet from him and scanning the information.
‘The good life,’ Dad chuckles. He finishes his tea and sinks back into the sagging sofa.
Sarah scowls. ‘It’s not funny, Dad.’
‘Sorry. I’ve got to change my diet, so no more chocolate biscuits for me. Or butter. All puts a strain on the heart and that’s what brought it on. They said it’s a good job I don’t smoke as well. I should thank my lucky stars it was a mild one – more like a warning than a proper heart attack, really.’
Deborah pours him another cup of tea from the pot.
‘Got any cake to go with that?’ Dad asks with a stony face, turning to raise an eyebrow at Deborah.
‘God, Dad! You’re not taking this seriously at all! You could have died!’ Sarah’s face flushes with rage. Stupid, stupid man.
‘I’m off to the little boys’ room,’ he says, easing himself from the sofa. He slaps Sarah’s hand as she tries to help him from his seat. ‘Get away, woman!’
Deborah and Sarah sit in silence until they hear the door to the toilet bolt shut. Sarah shakes her head at Deborah, still fuming inside.
‘It’s all bravado,’ Deborah says. ‘It scared the living daylights out of him, Sarah. He just doesn’t want to let on to you.’
‘I know. Bloody stubborn old fool.’
Deborah smiles. ‘Yep. Want a hand with supper?’
Dad’s in bed by six, barely able to keep his eyes open after eating. He could only manage a child-sized portion of fish and mash, and didn’t even touch his vegetables. Deborah and Sarah return to the living room after settling him in his room.
‘I could murder a drink,’ says Deborah. Her voluminous purple tunic flutters as she walks across the room.
Sarah opens the drinks cabinet in the adjoining dining room. ‘Port? Sherry?’
Deborah joins her to choose from the various dusty bottles. ‘A sherry should do it. I expect you could do with a small one too?’ She unscrews the cap and reaches up for two small crystal-cut glasses, brushing them off on her shirt.
‘OK,’ says Sarah, returning to the sofa and letting Deborah pour the drinks. She watches her as she places the bottle back in the cabinet and shuts the glass doors. She seems so at ease.
‘Tell me about Dad, when you used to work together,’ Sarah says when Deborah sits on the sofa opposite.
Deborah smiles wistfully, as if she’s remembering something amusing. ‘Well, when we met, we were both in the same boat. We started at Stokely around the same time, and, even though it wasn’t a first teaching job for either of us, the older staff used to treat us as if we were still green young things. It was all a bit stuffy. Your dad was such an irreverent young man; I remember laughing a lot whenever he was around. I was thirty, so that would make your dad about thirty-five. We worked together for fourteen or fifteen years, before he left for the university at Tighborn.’
‘So he must have met my mother when he was at Stokely?’
‘Yes,’ says Deborah with hesitation. ‘I could do with a top-up.’ She crosses the room and returns with the sherry bottle, refilling both glasses as she sits back.
Sarah picks up her glass. ‘Why don’t you stay over tonight? I can make you up a bed on the sofa?’
Deborah smiles, and wiggles her sherry glass. ‘Might not be a bad idea.’
It’s still quite bright outside; yet the living room always seems so dusky, no matter what the weather or time of day. The early evening light highlights the grimy fabric of the net curtains which cover the windows along the length of the living room wall. They look filthy. Sarah leaps up and drags a chair beneath the window, unhooking the nets in one quick movement.
‘That’s better,’ she says as she bundles them up into a small ball. She places them next to the doorway, so she’ll remember to stick them in the laundry basket on her way to bed. ‘So, did you work with her?’ asks Sarah, determined to prevent Deborah from shutting the subject down.
Deborah sighs. ‘I feel uncomfortable talking about your mother without James here, Sarah. It doesn’t seem right.’
Sarah leans on to her knees with her palms held up plaintively. ‘But that’s the thing! He never talks about her; it’s as if she never existed. All I’ve got is one photograph of her when she was really young, and that’s so blurred you can hardly make out her face. There’s not even one of her and me together. I’ve asked and asked over the years, but he just gets upset and shuts himself in his study. I deserve to know about her!’ She doesn’t dare blink, for fear that the tears in her eyes will spill over.
Deborah reaches out and touches Sarah’s wrist with the tip of her fingers. ‘Oh, you poor thing. Look, I can tell you that your father was very much in love with your mother. Which is probably why he finds it so difficult to talk about. When they got together at Stokely they were the talk of the staff room. I used to rib him about it at every given opportunity, and he’d get all flustered and tongue-tied. I’m just sorry we lost touch for so long.’
‘Dad said it was her heart – that her heart failed soon after I was born. Maybe I should know that kind of thing, in case I ever have kids?’
Deborah rubs her face with both hands. ‘I don’t know about all that. Really.’
Sarah lets a large tear plop on to her lap, and looks imploringly at Deborah. She’s seen her cry now; she might as well make the most of it.
‘Oh, darling!’ Deborah leaps up and moves on to Sarah’s sofa. ‘They’d both left Stokely by the time you were born, and we just lost contact.’ She embraces Sarah, breathing in deeply, and out again, like the tide. ‘You know, they made a lovely couple. The lecturers were always having flings with their students, but it was different with James and Susie.’
Sarah pulls away sharply. ‘She was his student?’
Deborah looks appalled. ‘Of course. He was a good twenty years older than Susie. Maybe more. You knew that?’
Sarah shakes her head and leans back against Deborah, who squeezes her and produces a clean tissue from her pocket. Sarah has never been hugged by anyone as large as Deborah before. She feels soft and yielding, like a warm pillow after Ted’s been sleeping on it.
‘Maybe he’s ashamed,’ Sarah whispers, ‘about the age difference. I mean, it’s not right, is it?’ She turns to look at Deborah.
Deborah tugs on the little gold studs in her earlobes. They’re tiny pieces of jewellery for such a large woman. ‘Darling, they were both grown adults. Your dad had been on his own for a long time, and Susie was old enough to make her own choices. The age gap never seemed important. And they loved each other! Now, I think we should stop here – and when your dad is feeling better I’ll have a chat with him. See if I can persuade him to talk to you?’
Sarah sinks back against the cushions, exhausted. The sherry is making a fuzz of her head, and she closes her eyes, feeling herself drift. She’s awake, but she has the sensation of being somewhere else, far, far away from her own body. Deborah rema
ins quietly beside her for a few minutes, before breaking the silence as she rises from the sofa.
‘Off to bed,’ she urges, helping Sarah to her feet. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find the sheets and things myself.’ She kisses Sarah on the cheek and sends her up the stairs.
As she lies in the cold dark of her cheerless bedroom, Sarah can see Jason standing over her, buttoning his flies, his smile now a sneer.
An emergency siren sounds off in the distance, from an ambulance or fire engine passing through the town. As the noise dims to nothing, Sarah turns on to her side and draws herself up like a ball. Uninvited pictures hurtle through her mind: Dante and Kate at New Year; Dad lying deathlike in his hospital bed, his pyjama shirt unbuttoned to the waist; Jason’s fingers on hers in the chemist’s. Tina giggling in Kate’s garden at the bonfire party as the firelight dances in the moisture of Kate’s eyes. Sarah stares wide into the night-dark room. She pushes the heels of her hands into the sockets of her eyes, as she tries to expel the swarming images. The sherry pounds behind her eyelids, and she flips over fitfully to face the other way, grasping the covers tightly around her ears. She visualises the faded old photograph on the wall outside her door and lets her mind travel to another place, a place of calm and peace where her mother is waiting.
Summer Term
1986
Back at school after the Easter break, the days seem unbearably long. Spring is in full bloom, and the scent of cherry blossom and jasmine lingers on the cool breeze. Spring is Sarah’s favourite time of year, but this year it is muted, the colours and fragrances somehow toned down, shaded grey. At registration she gazes through the windows of the classroom, out across the field where crows pick away at the gardener’s freshly sown grass seed. She imagines Deborah tending to Dad, taking him soup in bed and reading to him from the daily newspaper. Each day, she arrives just as Sarah leaves for school, staying on in the evenings to make supper for them all before she returns home. Her cooking is good, and she is kind and generous in all her actions. Sarah knows she should be pleased, but she doesn’t feel it.
Hurry Up and Wait Page 17
