The girls nearly fell off their stools.
The four women were there. They clattered in together just after Joan and Alun, talking in high-pitched voices in a mixture of London accents. ‘Old hens,’ Alun muttered as they nodded a greeting on their way past. They dined in the alcove next to them, talking loudly and playing cards. They started off with whist and rummy but by the time Alun and Joan had finished eating they had degenerated to snap. Every now and then, one would bang the table and they would all scream ‘Snap!’ in unison. The level of hysteria rose gradually. One of them shrieked at the waiters, ‘ ’Ere, Pedro, let’s have another bottle of vino!’ When he brought it over, the same voice cracked, ‘ ’Ow about a kiss?’ More shrieking. Alun rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
Alun and Joan went back to their apartment, Joan dawdling to breathe in the cool, clean night air. Inside, Alun sat down to read the day-old paper they had bought in Torrievieja that afternoon. Joan sat in the chair with a puzzle book on her lap and stared out of the sliding doors which led onto their balcony. Funny to think it’s a Monday evening, she thought, and that somewhere else, my ordinary life is carrying on, as if there is another Joan who went into work today and talked to Helly and Annette and asked them if anything had happened with Richard and watered plants and filed correspondence. I wonder how my impersonator is getting on. She tried to think of it the other way around, that her perspective of the world had merely shifted from London to Torrievieja, but it was hard to grasp: the one thing we never manage to get hold of, she thought – a sense of our own absence.
Their curtains were open. She gazed through the patio doors out onto the balcony and beyond. That blackness out there, she thought, that is the sky, and the sea.
The days remained cloudy. Each morning Joan woke, left Alun’s silent bulk in bed and padded into the little kitchen to put the kettle on. This was the best bit, being alone in the tiny room with nothing familiar around. All was new and white and clean, a fresh start. She went to the toilet while the kettle boiled, then tiptoed into the bedroom and pulled a cardigan on over her nightie. She returned to the kitchen and filled the stainless steel teapot they had brought from home. While it was brewing, she went over to the patio doors, slid them quietly back and stepped outside.
It was chilly. The sky was white, with clouds here and there which folded into grey. A light morning breeze whisked across the courtyard, ruffling the surface of the swimming pool. Sun-loungers and plastic tables were piled high at the side, waiting for the peak-season hordes. She imagined how it must be in July and August: rows of girls in coloured bikinis, tanned boys diving into the pool, hot blue sky, bottles of cold beer, radios blasting out.
The only figure she ever saw was a cleaning man in a blue overall who wandered around with a garden fork. One morning, she saw him saunter over to the deserted pool, reach out and drag a large white plastic bag over to the side. It had been floating there for two days.
They read a lot: Joan her puzzle book, Alun his papers. Most afternoons they went for walks along the deserted front, past the little supermarket and the boarded up souvenir shop. The main beach was a huge strip of sand ten minutes’ walk from their apartment block. Pale gold, dusty, empty, it stretched into the distance. One afternoon they met an elderly Scandinavian walking his dog. He invited them to have a cup of coffee in a sea front café. Joan looked at Alun, expecting him to say no, but he merely shrugged. The café was the other side of the road from the beach and made of wide windows and blue-washed stone. Inside were two other couples from the group and Joan nodded to them. They drank coffee and ate cake and the Scandinavian said he came from Norway and his name was Bill. He had lived in Torrievieja for thirteen years. He spoke such good English because his wife was English. She was a belly-dancer from Newcastle-under-Lyme. They had married just after the war and divorced two years later. He had fought in the Navy, in a ship that was sunk by a U-boat. Only he and four others had survived. They were sitting by the window and Alun stared out at the sea while he talked. Every now and then, the wind chucked a light handful of rain against the glass.
The day before they left, the weather brightened. Joan rose and found the sky a brilliant blue. Out on the balcony, she breathed deeply. The cleaning man was whistling as he did his rounds. She waved to him.
At lunchtime, the waiters set some plastic tables outside the restaurant and served sandwiches there. Joan and Alun had just begun theirs when they were joined by two of the four loud ladies.
‘Do you mind?’ one of them said. ‘It’s just, we’re dying to have lunch outside and there aren’t enough tables.’
Joan smiled nervously and said, ‘No . . . of course . . .’ glancing at Alun. To her surprise, he put down his paper and said, ‘No of course not ladies. Why not? Now what will you be having?’ He got to his feet and rubbed his hands together. Joan looked up at him.
The ladies beamed. ‘Sangria!’ said one, ‘as it’s our last day. Here . . .’ she began fiddling in her handbag.
‘No, it’s okay,’ said Alun, ‘this one’s on me. Two sangrias. Usual, Joan?’ Joan nodded.
When Alun had turned away, one of them pulled a packet of Fortuna cigarettes from her bag. ‘These are pretty disgusting,’ she said chummily to Joan, ‘but in for a penny in for a pound, that’s what I say.’ She offered one. Joan shook her head.
‘Nice, your husband,’ said the other. ‘Quite a surprise. I said the other night he looked like a miserable old git.’
‘Glenda!’ said the other.
‘Oh, she doesn’t mind . . .’ said Glenda, laughing.
Joan said stiffly, ‘I think I should go and give my husband a hand.’ As she left, the woman with the cigarettes was saying, ‘Glenda . . .’
Later, the other two arrived. They had just climbed a hill, they said, and they were knackered. They dragged chairs out from the restaurant and plonked themselves down. Noisily, the four women decided that a whole jug of sangria was called for. Glenda went to organise it.
After a while, Alun said to Joan, ‘Think I’ll go back for a kip.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ll just finish up then,’ indicating her drink.
‘No, it’s alright. You stay if you like,’ he said.
‘What about a game?’ said Glenda. The other women groaned.
‘Do you play games?’ she asked Joan.
‘Puzzles,’ said Joan. ‘I do puzzles.’ When she looked round, Alun had gone.
They played poker. The afternoon sun grew so warm they called one of the waiters over and asked him to fetch an umbrella. There was much hilarity as he tried to insert the metal spike into the hole in the middle of the plastic table. Glenda told him what he needed was more practice. When he had finished, they gave him a round of applause and he responded with a smile and a bow.
When Joan next checked her watch she saw that it was nearly four. She rose from the table. ‘I should just go and check on Alun,’ she said to the women apologetically. Glenda opened her mouth to say something and one of the others shot her a warning look.
‘I’ll see you later,’ Joan said firmly.
She hurried back to the apartment. Alun must be wondering where on earth I am, she thought.
The apartment door was unlocked. In the living area she found him, asleep on the sofa. She took her shoes off so that she could walk around without disturbing him. She filled the kettle very slowly and plugged it in. Then she sat down on a kitchen chair while she waited for it to boil.
Joan observed her husband. He was not attractive when he slept. It made him look older. The skin on his face seemed grey and his mouth loose and slack. He looked vulnerable.
All at once, she was overwhelmed with a rush of tenderness. She remembered their honeymoon, in Devon. It had been a hot summer, that year. The hotel had been wonderful, the staff so polite. Everyone loves a honeymooning couple. She had never been treated so well. On their first day on the beach they had got sunburnt. That evening Alun had laughed at her red face and dabbed cold cream on
the end of her nose. Then he had smoothed some on her forehead, very gently, and said, ‘Do you know, Joan, it’s very odd. Has anybody told you? Sunburn or a tan makes your eyes look more green.’
She watched him on the sofa, watched the skin on his throat as it rose and fell with his breath. His thin hair lay across his speckled scalp. I love you Alun Hardy, she thought, I really do. Not for what you are but for what we have been through together, all these years. Not exciting years, perhaps, not filled with noise or fun or children, but our years. After all, we have been through our lives together. She resolved, there and then, to try and understand him more. When he wakes, she thought, I will tell him. I am going to be more pleasant and lively. We will enjoy our lives.
She brewed the tea and went to the bathroom. She combed her hair in the tiny mirror, peering at herself. She opened her mouth and examined her teeth. She had good teeth. I am not old yet, she thought, not by a long chalk.
When she went back into the kitchen, Alun was awake. He was sitting up and reading the newspaper.
‘Did you have a good sleep?’ she asked, as she poured the tea.
‘Not bad,’ he replied.
She looked at him. He looked exactly the same.
‘So what do you think of our new friends?’ she asked brightly.
He pulled a face. He shrugged.
She took the tea over to him and stood in front of him. She felt quite desperate. ‘Alun . . .’ she said.
He lowered the paper. He took his tea. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
She returned to her seat. ‘It’s our last night,’ she said.
He did not reply.
‘What shall we do?’ she said.
He shrugged.
‘Shall we go back to the restaurant?’ she asked. Her voice had taken on a slightly shrill tone.
‘Whatever. If you like.’
The next day they woke early and packed their things. The coach was coming at ten, to take them to the airport. The weather had gone back to being dull and grey. Joan checked all the cupboards and drawers to make sure they had not forgotten anything, even though they had never put anything in them in the first place. Alun sat at the kitchen table with an old pencil and a smoothed out paper bag and made notes on what they could afford to get in Duty Free.
At Alicante, the Young at Heart tour rep showed them to the check-in desk, then ran off to meet the next group which was arriving shortly. The queue was huge. ‘Bloody pain this is,’ muttered Alun. ‘There’s no one in that queue there.’
He told Joan to mind their bags while he went to ask a young man at a nearby empty desk if they could check in there. Joan watched him while they talked. One of the turn-ups on his slacks had started to droop. It hung down slightly, just visible above his comfy shoes, the corduroy ones she had talked him into that time they went to Brent Cross. She stared at his back, where his polycotton jacket strained over his rounded shoulders. My life is hell, she thought. My life is hell.
Helly did not enjoy menstruating at the best of times. Now was not the best.
She woke on that Monday morning with an abdomen of mangled chaos: blood and guts and soft, under-developed flesh. She clutched at it beneath the sheets and resolved, as she often did, that she was going to take up exercise. One day. Aerobics. Tennis, perhaps. She kept her eyes closed and thought of a green grass court with perfect white lines, blue sky above, yellow sun. She pictured herself in a white pleated skirt, her body trim and tidy, her arm swinging gracefully above her head.
From outside her bedroom door there came a loud, ‘Oh shit!’
Her mother was up.
Helly lay, absorbing the sound. Then suddenly, she sprang out of bed. She grabbed her towelling robe from where it lay on the floor and slung it around her shoulders as she ran out of her room.
Too late. Opposite her bedroom, next to the loo, was the airing cupboard. The doors stood open. There were some folded sheets and a faded yellow pillowcase. Otherwise, it was empty. ‘I’m going to clock her one,’ Helly muttered as she turned on her heel. She paused to tie her robe before crossing the landing to her mother’s room.
The door to her mother’s bedroom was closed. Helly knocked on it, loudly. There was no reply. She knocked again. ‘Mum!’ she called. ‘Mum!’ she hollered.
After a pause, her mother’s muffled voice replied. ‘What? What do you want?’
Helly opened the door. Her mother was sitting on a small stool in front of her dressing-table, the one with the scalloped wooden trim and angled mirrors. She was wearing a straight brown skirt over a slip. She had one arm raised and was holding her curling tongs. Wrapped round the tongs was her fringe. She scowled at Helly in the mirror but did not turn around. ‘What you yelling for?’
Helly folded her arms and glared. ‘Have you got my knickers?’
‘Oh for God’s sake Hels.’
‘You have, haven’t you?’
‘I didn’t get down the launderette this week.’
‘Give them here.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. Take them off. I handwashed them last night because I needed them this morning. What do you think I washed them for?’
‘I didn’t know you needed them, I thought you had some in your room.’
‘Bollocks. You probably set your alarm so you could be up before me and nick ’em.’
‘Oh piss off.’
‘Mum!’ Helly’s voice had reached a shriek of outrage. ‘I need those knickers. I’m on!’
‘Helly!’ Her mother unravelled the curling tongs from her fringe and slammed them down on her dressing-table. ‘How many times have I got to tell you I’m sick of you screaming round the house and slamming doors. I’ve got to go and see someone and I didn’t know they were your only clean pair and if you think I’m taking them off you’ve got another thing coming. Now piss off. If you don’t like it, go and live somewhere else.’
Now that it was curled, Mrs Rawlin’s fringe appeared to take a rash dive off the top of her head, change its mind just above the eyebrows and spring back up. As she shouted at Helly, it bobbled merrily about.
Helly looked at her mother and took a deep breath. ‘Slag!’ she spat, then left the room, slamming her mother’s bedroom door behind her and sprinting for the bathroom.
She managed to shut the bathroom door and lock it just as her mother caught up with her. Mrs Rawlins hammered on the door with the flat of her hand. ‘I’m going to rip your head off you foul-mouthed little bitch!’ she screamed. ‘I mean it! No fucking daughter of mine talks to me like that!’
‘You and whose army . . .’ muttered Helly to herself, as she upended the laundry basket and started sorting through the underwear to find the least dirty pair of knickers.
She waited in the bathroom until she heard her mother leave the house. Then she crept out and dressed hurriedly. She was going to be late. Joan was back from holiday today and she had promised her that she would be on her best behaviour.
Half-way through dressing, she suddenly stopped and sat down on her bed. She put her head in her hands. A slow spiral of pain was twisting its way down her lower intestine. She always bled heavily for the first two days. She sat up, breathing deeply. Then she rose and walked around her room in two small circles. Walking seemed to help a little. Perhaps she should walk to work. If she was going to be late, she might as well do it properly. She pulled on her cardigan, went over to her window and drew back the curtains. There were no nets and her window looked out directly onto the back alley, so she usually kept the curtains closed. It was a grey, heavy day. Two school children walked solemnly past, like little monks, the straps of their satchels across their foreheads and the bags hanging down their backs. A dog was sniffing around the rubbish bins. Helly leant her face against the cold window pane. Nothing to lose, she thought. Nothing. She would walk.
On Lambeth Bridge she paused. Funny how different the view was, depending on which way you looked. Towards Westminster, there were the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s, the g
lamorous buildings. Look the other way and there were the ruins of industrialisation, the muddy sludge of businesses and people gone bust.
At the roundabout just before Horseferry Road, there was a roadblock. Pedestrians were walking through but vans or large cars were being stopped. There was a handful of civilian police directing the traffic and two soldiers in navy blue combat gear holding machine guns. Helly stared at them as she went past. They had stopped a small white van and the woman driver was giving details to a WPC who was relaying them into a walkie-talkie. The roadblocks had been stepped up in recent weeks but they usually took place in the City. It was the first time Helly had seen one on Lambeth Bridge. There had been talk on the telly last week that there would be random checks on all bridges following a series of security alerts.
As Helly passed the derelict Westminster Hospital an elderly woman, even smaller than herself and dressed in rags, approached her with a filthy hand outstretched, mumbling. Helly shook her head and walked on. Behind her, she heard the woman curse. Never mind love, Helly thought, I’m going to be homeless too, the rate I’m going. If only old Mrs Hawthorne would hurry up and die. Thinking about the old bat reminded her of her grandparents Joanna and Bob, Rosewood Cottage, Richard. Now that William had refused to help them, the prospects did not look good. Annette meant well but she had her own mess to deal with. Helly regretted involving Joan. Her job was probably on the line as well now. It was four weeks since Richard had stared her down in the lift. She had managed to avoid him mostly – he seemed to be out of the office a lot these days – but she knew now that he wasn’t the kind of man to let bygones be bygones. He would keep going till he got her. And if he couldn’t get her, he would simply make her life hell. There were plenty of ways he could do it. Either way, Helly thought with a bitter sigh, my days there are numbered. Good riddance. But how could she protect Joanna and Bob if she got the sack?
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