Let's Dance

by Frances Fyfield

  It could not end there: Derek was too quick, too strong, to be stunned by a blow on the back of his head. He pretended was all, falling across his table until George tried to drag him off, then whirling round and pushing a foul-smelling rag into George’s face. Hitting him below the belt, encountering rock, opening his mouth to speak, his wet, red lips forming an O. George smacked him in it, followed through to the ribs. Trust Derek to raise his hands to protect his pretty face, serve him right. He was soft in the stomach; all his power was in his head, that filthy little brain of his.

  He butted George, catching his forehead with agonizing accuracy, so that George saw redder than ever. Kicked away at Derek’s shins, so that he fell among a pile of chairs, screaming. One of the chairs seemed to explode into a series of legs. George took one and hit Derek in the lower part of his face. He used the wood like a hammer. More than once. He was not counting.

  Something crashed in the corner of the room. The furniture was closely and unsteadily stacked, the floor uneven. The shiver of breaking glass from a capsized wardrobe door stopped all other movement, so shocking was the sound. Without thinking, George dragged Derek in that direction. There was blood on his hands. There was the dim thought that if he placed Derek and wardrobe together, the damage might appear accidental, provided no one looked closely. Derek’s jaw hung crooked, broken, teeth smashed. There would not be much by way of words coming out of that gob for a while.

  Or ever? George listened for the sound of breathing, heard the rattling. He had his heel poised to stamp on the jaw, hesitated, stopped. Didn’t particularly want him dead.

  Someone would be in soon. No one left junk like this unguarded for long. He took his car keys from Derek, which felt, oddly, like some kind of theft, taking something out of someone’s pocket, and it was then he began to see the enormity of what he had done, the sheer, bloody-minded stupidity of it. It was not even as satisfying as he had imagined, this transitory sweetness of revenge. Five minutes ago he could have defended himself against the world. Now he could not. Ten minutes since he could have said he was still a free man. Now he could not. There was a set of overalls hanging on a hook in the back office. Huge, made for a bigger man than he, covered the blood nicely.

  Then he was out of there, remembering the car but wanting to run. Back to the hostel. Looking at the wreckage of the room. Took his spare sweaters and the old boots that no one else had wanted, stuffed into a polythene bag. Left an old envelope from the hall on his bed, bearing the legend, ‘Gone to relatives’. Chance would be a fine thing. If his relatives existed George did not know them. The message seemed sadly dishonest, so he changed it. ‘Gone home.’ People could impute whatever meaning they liked to that. He felt uncharacteristically clever as he walked out into the darkness, a clever fool with the mark of Cain branded on his forehead.

  Into a car which smelt of Derek and the sense of nowhere to go.

  The trouble with kindness was that it had to be first earned and then repaid. Isabel did not like these kind of debts. It was death to self-respect to begin and go on owing someone something. She could not accept that as her due. There was a nagging feeling which made her feel that she owed Andrew something, just as she owed the world, as if she still had to explain herself, justify her existence. Muddled it was, but she could not accept generosity with grace, even on behalf of someone else. She did not want victim support, either: it made her feel like a victim. She wanted the whole lot of them out of her hair, but tea must be made, biscuits produced, the situation talked about, as if the theft of belongings had been the most important thing about the invasion. She shivered. She was always cold. She made all the right, hospitable moves and would not let anyone around her settle.

  And when they were gone she looked at the letters. A formulaic, citizens’ charter type letter for Ma from the Electricity Board, an inventory of things stolen from Robert, and a letter from Joe. Mother waved from her new chair by the fire, struggled to get up. The sight of paper coming out of envelopes seemed to enrage her.

  ‘Darling!’ she yelled.

  ‘Don’t darling me.’ Isabel plonked into her lap three of the largest books with torn pages, sufficient to weigh her down into her seat without doing damage. Enough to get several minutes’ respite while the poor old sweetheart worked out a way to get them off her knees and on to the floor while darling daughter retired to the kitchen. Perhaps a letter from Joe would change the universe. Give the greyness a tinge of pink, if that could be imagined. Lift the afternoon fog. Stop everything from being animal, vegetable and mineral.

  Sweetheart,

  No word from you and I do miss you! What do you do all day? Life here is busy, busy, busy! But there is a window coming up soon, a whole free weekend, so do you think you could get away, just before Xmas? Or I could come nearer you! There must be hotels in your neck of the woods! I don’t suppose you’d want to bother your mother, and I wouldn’t want to bother her, of course, but on the 16th, 17th (or thereabouts, depending on you), I’m all yours!

  Issy, I know I’m slow about a lot of things, but I have been thinking about you …

  A series of pictures rose into her mind in a rising tide of panic. What would he think of this place, the patrician grandeur of it, the lack of any kind of amenity he held dear? The second image was Aunt Mab saying out loud, this one is not worth his salt, my niece is worth far better, my niece is the price of rubies. She shoved that image away along with the first. Thought instead of Joe climbing all over her like a man faced with the Matterhorn, protesting allegiance to no other cliff face. The shivering of cold began again. All those bloody exclamation marks. Shallow, Mab was shouting: men are as shallow as puddles. Isabel finally felt nothing but a lethargic sadness. A fog of melancholia which mirrored the garden outside. Until she heard her mother shouting. Torn books had a use after all. They were fuel for the fire, which sparked and caught the edge of Serena’s long corduroy skirt. The hem was smouldering into a half-hearted flame.

  Isabel seized her under the shoulders, hauled her upright where she stood uncertainly, grabbing the mantelpiece while her daughter stripped the skirt from round her middle. Plumped her gasping mother back down in the damn chair, chucked the skirt on the fire, knelt at her feet and checked her legs for damage. Nothing. She could have used that big, heavy skirt as a fire screen, or blackout curtains. Sitting in suspenders and heavy stockings beneath faded silk drawers, Serena looked ludicrous. She spoke urgently, reached out her hand. The shock was not going to kill her. The screams were more rage than fear.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said. ‘Tell you things. Like I didn’t ever. Got to tell you things.’

  ‘There, my sweetie,’ Isabel crooned, looking with something like pleasure at the image of her mother, knees apart, thighs pressing against suspenders, old-lady knickers, all of it resembling some dreadful parody of glamour. ‘You just sit still. It’s so good to see you without your dignity,’ Isabel crooned. ‘Get some idea how it feels, do you? I hate you: do you know that? I hate you.’

  Andrew found his father’s little helper. There was a sharp smell of blood, urine, faeces, marking the spot where Derek had begun to crawl in a circle. Whichever way he looked, there was a view of wooden panels, legs, a forest of inanimate things offering nothing but impediment. Derek could not pull himself up with his hands: if he took his hands from his face, his face would drop apart. Andrew stared at the face. It recalled a previous fascination with surrealist paintings.

  Andrew had nursed an invalid, was no stranger to the stench of human excrement. He knew how to control revulsion. Ambulance, yes. Turn the man on his side and clear the airways to ensure he did not choke, yes. He knew that his footsteps going away to the phone would create desperation. He did not hurry.

  He had always disliked Derek with peculiar intensity. Compassion for him now did not mean the same thing as liking; nor did it defy his instinctive conclusions. It was a small town, after all.

  ‘In a minute, Derek, in a minute. Going to be
all right in a minute. The ambulance is on its way.’

  Derek had such sweet blue eyes. His nails, spread in a fan across his blood-streaked cheeks, looked dirty and pale. A film of varnish clung to them.

  ‘You fell into the chairs,’ Andrew said evenly. ‘And then, half dazed, you staggered into the wardrobe. Raise one of your little pinkies if you understand.’ The fingers remained still, the look desperate.

  ‘This piece of wood,’ Andrew continued, holding it up, then throwing it away, so that it clattered and echoed, ‘has nothing to do with anything. Just as George has nothing to do with anything. If it was George, you get tied in with a burglary, or why would he hit you? Not that he did. Of course. Not George’s style, is it? And you had nothing to do with any burglary, of course. It would never cross your mind.’

  This time the index finger raised itself in a kind of salute, which Andrew acknowledged. There was the comforting sound of the phone ringing.

  ‘You’ll be all right, Derek. Dad’s got an insurance policy against accidents on the premises. Only accidents, mind. Not assault.’

  Derek closed his eyes and attempted to nod. The effort was alarming, an audible movement of bone and the granular sound of torn cartilege.

  ‘One last thing,’ Andrew mentioned evenly, standing up so his feet were level with Derek’s head. ‘Did any of you buggers touch Isabel?’

  The tortured face, swollen to twice its size, looked at him in blank denial. Enough, Andrew thought. Enough. I have implicated myself in sufficient violence for today. First Isabel’s, then my own.

  It was not Isabel’s house. Her house was in another place, another time zone, almost another climate. Circling round her mother, who had taken that evening to following her like a shadow, behaving like a hungry cat rubbing round calves in an orgy of cupboard love, Isabel made herself feel homesick. For the metropolis, for useless Joe and the sound of sirens, alarms and other punctuation marks which made her life seem crowded. Knowing that the rereading of his letter to her might implode this self-induced longing, she consigned that to the fire. Along with Mother’s damaged petticoat. There was no protest from the owner, only a cry of admiration, reminiscent of fireworks, as the remnants of it burst into flames and flew up the chimney. When Isabel traversed the dark corridor to the kitchen, Mother was her shadow, talking aimlessly. When Isabel went upstairs to the lavatory, Mother went too, hanging about until she had finished, like a person lost. Chatter, chatter, chatter. Worse than the deafening sound of the music machine she had confiscated.

  What was she talking about with the stream of words she produced in response to enforced silence? Things, Serena said. Things. There were snippets of ancient grievances Isabel recognized from previous tellings hitherto ignored. About darling Aunt Mab always washing up. About parties. Each room visited created a pause, a change of subject. She was suddenly affectionate, wanting to touch. She stroked the living-room walls as she might have stroked a cat. Patience wore thin.

  ‘Got to tell you things, darling. Where are my letters? I need my letters.’

  Isabel doused the fire. ‘You didn’t write letters, Ma. You used to. Oh yes, you used to do that a lot. Then you wrote letters to people abusing them, didn’t you Ma? I found some of the drafts on the floor. Some you sent, I suppose, others you forgot, left in the desk. You wouldn’t want Doc Reilly or George to see those, would you, Ma?’

  She kicked the coal. ‘You probably got this wonderful idea writing letters to my lovers. Jealous cow,’ Isabel continued, talking to herself. ‘Probably just as well they got posted.’

  ‘What letters?’ Serena asked, head on one side. The bruise above her eye was rainbow-coloured, could have been the result of an extreme application of cosmetics. ‘Letters,’ she repeated with wonder. ‘A, B, C. See?’

  ‘And all you write now is a list of favourite words. I saw those too.’

  Serena tapped her forehead. ‘Words, darling. I need them to tell me things.’ She looked slowly about herself, as if expecting to find them littered all over the floor. Words she wrote but never said out loud, because they were rude.

  They were back in the kitchen. The security system was so simple a child could work it, the man said. Serena had watched with avid curiosity while it was put in place, enjoying her view of the broad back of the man who installed it. She had examined the keys for the new locks with apparent indifference; she examined them again now. Let her get out, then, if she wanted, Isabel thought. I don’t give a shit what happens to me. She felt as if she was being followed by a cloud of flies. Tomorrow Serena could have back her music.

  ‘Isabel, darling?’

  ‘Yes? What?’ Cross to the point of fury.

  Big eyes, hooded lids ready to burst in that lined face. ‘Why do you hate me? What have I done?’

  Fucking nothing. Bitch.

  ‘Isabel? Can you take me down?’

  ‘Down where?’

  ‘Down into the snow. I don’t know. I don’t know the way.’

  ‘What snow? What way? Say what you mean. Follow the lights.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Good-night then, my lovely cat. Goodnight.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Serena had a certain step, slow, quick, quick, slow. She could do it in a kind of dance, as if she measured indecision with every set of steps. The music acted as a design for movement. Slow, over the difficult stairs; fast down the smoother corridors, like a waltz, or a polka needing a partner at every turn.

  Without George she was rootless. She went round the house, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, looking for him. Looking for someone. It was a big house; the empty ground floor echoed to the sound of footsteps. When they stopped Isabel wondered where they were: when they began again she wanted to scream. Poor soul. No cat to trail round after her, no man to mouth kisses, poor Mummy, who had to make do with her daughter and a daft dog.

  Serena liked the sound of her own steps: she put on her boots and stamped; she made as much noise as an army on the march, except at night, when she tiptoed. She wanted to talk all the time. Isabel stayed silent, wanting to punish. She took refuge, in her bedroom, in the corridors – so that she would know which way to run when the footsteps came towards her – and, finally, in the bathroom. The floor littered with towels. The place smelled of Mother.

  Can your mother wash unaided, she mouthed to herself? Oh, yes, all but the teeth. She likes to wash, morning and night, but in here, and everywhere, she leaves a trail of mess.

  A week after the burglary, Isabel squinted at her steamy reflection The face was not her own. An alien cast of features, set into a skull wrongly shaped for too long a neck, blurred back at her. Get into your car and go, she told it. Why not? Pride? A lack of confidence about that outside world, as if she were as incompetent in it as this old cow with her marching? She gave herself a wan smile. The distortions in the mirror were not entirely the premature ageing and brutalizing of a face. The glass was smeared with fingerprints. It could almost have been writing, someone writing in the steam. I DIDN’T DO IT, on one corner. She looked closely.

  There was a banging on the door.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’

  Isabel was mesmerized now, less by her own reflection than by the writing and the thought of fingerprints. George’s fingerprints in Mother’s bedroom. A fact forgotten. Cunning replaced impatience. Curiosity replaced a sense of futility.

  The thin policeman had been back, keeping an eye on the house. Isabel felt oddly brave about the prospect of the burglars returning. There was safety in the possession of a mobile phone and the simple alarm. Burglars with big pricks were not as intimidating as an animal, vegetable, mineral old woman who had come to behave like a malevolent ghost. And nothing was as frightening to Isabel as herself.

  ‘Come down to the kitchen, Mother.’

  Isabel got pen and paper, squashed Serena into a chair facing her writing implements. As a version of Playschool, this sometimes worked, although daylight
and writing did not always go together in Serena’s mind. Writing was for after dark.

  ‘Write it down, Mummy. Go on, write. You haven’t done your letters.’

  The therapy was not going to distract this time. Oh, how she detested her, pitied her, failed to recognize her. She wanted to guide that large hand, fuelled by that deficient mind, across the paper. Make her mother write once, and once only: I am sorry for what I have done to you.

  ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Get on with it.’

  One hour to go until the social worker arrived to take her to the Day Centre, probably the last time they could manage. It had never been a long-term project. The waiting between respites seemed interminable. Isabel had a sullen ambition to get inside Serena’s room and Serena’s bloody-minded mind. There was no privacy left to violate in this house. She had begun by vowing to respect her mother’s desire for that precious commodity. Left her desk alone, left her room alone.

  Serena cocked her head. ‘I heard my cat,’ she announced. ‘I did, I heard her.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Down the cellar.’

  Isabel was seized with malice. ‘Go and find it, then. I won’t stop you.’

  Serena could fall down all those steps, those damp and listing steps, fatal to old limbs. The door could be locked against her resurrection. If she were to choose her fate, it was surely better than burning to death.

  ‘I shall, but only if you come with me.’

  Serena spoke with a calm deliberation that sent a chill through Isabel’s spine. She was not mad, merely a stranger. A stranger with a terrible instinct for truth, bent to the task of forming words on a page with the slow patience of an industrious, dull-witted child. She seemed to guess how much Isabel loathed her, relished it. Don’t do it, said the words. Don’t.

  In an all too brief Day Centre respite, Isabel drove to the shops for food and bits and pieces, and, on impulse, stopped by the church on the way back. Maybe Mab’s grave would provide some inspiration. She would tidy it up again at least, a sop to conscience for the fact that the increasing untidiness of the house was becoming a matter of indifference. The days were so grey, the ration of light so mean, the barren lack of order seemed less accusing and Isabel remained constantly tired. The ghost of Mab might lift the resolve with earthy advice, remind her of duty and honour, and postpone the business of going home.