by Beth Morrey
‘Milish … Mishilent. What’s that smell?’
‘Smoke. I’m trying to light a fire.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s cold.’
‘Is it? Never mind. There’s a party. For a new poetry magazine.’
‘Oh good. Have fun.’
‘No. You have to come with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t find it.’
‘I’ve got nothing to wear.’
‘You can borrow something.’
‘I don’t feel like it.’
‘There’ll be wine. And it’ll be warm.’
Which was how I found myself, wearing one of Alicia’s black dresses that was too short and big in the bust, tottering through the streets of Cambridge as we searched for the Women’s Union in Falcon Yard. When we finally got there, I wished we hadn’t bothered. So loud and dark, with pockets of light illuminating the jazz band, and people reciting verse that made me cringe. I’ve always found poetry – particularly the reading aloud – excruciating. Like religion and Bongo Boards, best practised in private.
Alicia weaved off and disappeared, so I went in search of the wine she’d promised. At least it was warm, with all those people, all that hot air. There was a poet standing in the corner, head flung back as he declaimed to an earnest little throng – something about buttocks and crystals. Good Lord, it was awful.
I stood with my back to the wall, gulping wine, examining my lack of cleavage and wondering how soon I could escape. And then, across the room, there he was. Like everyone else, he was drunk. But he was the only man wearing a suit, rather than a turtleneck, and that, along with his height, made him distinguished. He saw me, and grinned as though he knew me, and that moment was a homecoming. He ambled over, still smiling. Then, as he drew nearer: ‘Oh, gosh, sorry! I thought you were someone else!’
Up close, he was even drunker than I thought, swaying like a great oak in a gale. But he was very handsome, big and blonde, a Labrador of a man, and I was emboldened by the wine.
‘Who else do you want me to be?’
I’d always been a terrible flirt. I just couldn’t do it, even with lubrication. Luckily it was so loud in there, with the jazz and the poetry and people smashing glasses, that it didn’t seem to matter.
‘Well, since the girl I thought you were doesn’t seem to be here, shall we have another drink?’
He led me over to the long table stacked with bottles, and poured me a glass while I tried to think of something clever to say.
‘It’s a terrible name for a magazine, St Botolph. Sounds like something to do with church,’ I blurted. Oh blast, he was probably one of the editors. But he just laughed.
‘I know, but this party puts paid to that notion. Definitely nothing godly about it.’ He dodged a wine bottle as it sailed past. ‘Do you like poetry?’
‘Not really. It’s a bit self-indulgent for me.’ I didn’t know why I was so forthright all of a sudden. Probably the alcohol, but also a strange sense that I couldn’t stop myself unfurling – a flower opening up to the sun.
‘Really? What do you study?’
‘Classics. But I’m more of a prose person generally.’
‘Tell me something you like.’
I looked around the room. ‘One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.’ I felt very erudite.
‘Ain’t that a shame,’ he replied, reducing me to gauche schoolgirl again. Across the room there was a couple ferociously kissing, or wrestling, I wasn’t sure which. I had to do something spectacular, be spectacular, so that he would remember this point, and when people asked how we met, we would be able to say, ‘now, there’s a story …’
Instead, Alicia Stewart chose that moment to re-enter the room, waving a glass of wine, tripping over a discarded bottle, grabbing a tablecloth to break her fall and vomiting spectacularly over her old black dress, with me in it. The poet stopped reciting for a second, looking at us curiously, then resumed his discourse on bloated knaves.
‘Shit.’ She lay on the floor, drops of red wine caught on her eyelashes like beads of blood. Roaring with laughter, my knight stooped to help her to her feet. In the circle of his arms she looked up at him admiringly.
‘Oooh, you’re nice!’ Alicia exclaimed. She shifted her glance to me. ‘Milly, you’re covered in sick. You look dreadful. You should go home before you disgrace yourself.’
I glared at her and used the tablecloth to wipe myself.
‘I shall have the honour of escorting you both,’ said our hero, offering us his arms.
‘Lovely,’ slurred Alicia, grabbing hers like a drowning woman. ‘I’m Alishia and this is Milish … Milish … Misha.’
‘Hello, Misha. I’m Leo.’
‘Ooooh, Leo the lion!’ she crowed. ‘Take us back to your lair, Leo!’
We picked our way through the broken glass, swiping a half-empty bottle of wine along the way. Outside in the corridor a girl was sobbing and being comforted by a bony young man who kept patting her shoulder, saying ‘Don’t worry, he was a sod anyway.’ He was always going to be the friend who picked up the pieces.
Outside we could see puffs of our breath in the frigid air as we weaved through the cobbled streets. The sky had cleared, and when we emerged on to King’s Parade it was swathed in a velvety blanket of stars that winked above the chapel. Even they were mocking me.
As soon as a decent interval had elapsed I dropped Leo’s arm and fell behind so they could walk together. But I kept the wine. The streetlamps caught the golden tints in Alicia’s hair as she gazed up at him, doing that tinkly little giggle she affected with men – her real laugh was more of a charlady cackle.
We crossed the bridge on Silver Street, and I looked down at the sluggish River Cam, remembering how I’d imagined Cambridge would be all punting to Grantchester, and cycling through quads with my gown flapping in the breeze – skimming stones that barely rippled the waters. Instead I got the bolt at St Botolph’s, following my sozzled neighbour home in the early hours, covered in her sick, while she seduced someone I saw first. ‘Odi et amo’. Draining the last of the bottle, I threw it in the river and watched it slowly sink into the depths. I suppose it’s still there somewhere.
Chapter 6
The following Tuesday, there was a fight at my new café.
After my encounter with Sylvie in the chemist, I took to loitering around that row of shops, the café in particular, until the smiling waitress began to recognise me and serve my coffee with plain cold milk, none of that frothy nonsense. They gave me a little card that got stamped every time I bought a cup, eventually resulting in a free drink. The bread in the Turkish shop next door was cheap and fresh, and I browsed the children’s fiction in the charity bookshop, picking up a Thomas the Tank Engine book for Arthur for fifty pence.
I’d never bothered with any of these local explorations before – I’d been busy with the children and running the household, and later, when he got ill, looking after Leo. I didn’t have to worry about money then either, whereas now I spent my time rooting out meagre bargains as if it would make the slightest difference. My meanderings whiled away the hours and the pennies, but there was still no sign of Sylvie.
That Tuesday, enjoying my regular ‘Americano’, who should come in but Angela, this time without Otis. She was unkempt as usual, tendrils of too-red hair escaping from a topknot, smudged eyeliner, leather jacket and scruffy boots with buckles that clinked as she walked. At first I didn’t notice the woman she was with, but as they sat down together in the corner I saw she was crying, and that Angela appeared to be comforting her. She was speaking quickly, persuasively, but the woman kept shaking her head, wiping at her cheekbones. She was terribly thin, with a sucked-in look that led me to conclude she was probably on drugs.
Then Angela suddenly sat back, smacked the table like she was finished, and the other woman got up and cannoned her way out of the café. Angela half-stood up and called out something that sounde
d like ‘Flicks!’ but maybe she was just cursing. The woman stopped in the doorway and turned around, mascara in streaks down the hollowed panes of her face, her mouth twisted into a snarl.
‘You don’t get it,’ she snapped. ‘You’ll never get it.’
They both seemed oblivious to the other customers, who had fallen silent at the spectacle, watching over the rims of their cups as they appreciated this little soap opera scene.
‘I want to help you,’ said Angela. ‘Please.’ She held out a hand.
Like a tennis match, all eyes darted across to the other woman in the doorway.
‘Then stop interfering. Leave me alone,’ she spat, reaching for the door handle. What happened next was extraordinary. Angela leapt forward and pushed the door shut, barring her way; the woman tried to shove her aside, and they grappled in the entrance, pulling each other this way and that. Occasionally one of them would say, ‘no!’ or ‘don’t’, as they continued their ungainly shuffling, oblivious to the dropped mouths of the onlookers. Then the other woman suddenly lifted her hand and slapped Angela across the face. She fell back with a short cry and there was a collective gasp from the customers; one of the row of laptop-workers stood up, as if to protest, then thought better of it as Hanna the waitress hurried forwards and pulled Angela back a step. The other woman watched them for a second, chest heaving, hair askew, then wrenched the door handle and stumbled out into the street.
There was a barely perceptible sigh of disappointment as she exited – the fun spoilt when it was just getting going – but I’ve always found such public displays sordid. Leo and I once had an argument at a party, sotto voce out the sides of our mouths, lifting our glasses and nodding to passing guests. People have no standards nowadays; they just let it all hang out.
Angela, a livid mark on one cheek, sank into her seat, took a cigarette packet out of one pocket and lit up right then and there. Hanna went back over to remonstrate with her. Grimacing, Angela stubbed out the cigarette in a saucer. She sat with her head in her hands for a while, then picked up her bag and made her way to the door. As she passed my table she caught sight of me and raised her eyebrows wearily.
‘Oh, hi, er …’ Unlike Sylvie, she’d forgotten.
‘Millicent.’
‘Hi, Millicent. You OK?’
‘Fine, thank you. Um … you?’ To my dismay she suddenly hefted her bag on to the floor next to me and took the seat opposite, beckoning Hanna over to take her order.
‘I’m fucking awful, as you can see. I’m just gonna sit here for five minutes if that’s OK, stop me doing something stupid.’ Pulling the bowl of sugar cubes towards her, she crunched one between yellow teeth. She was very pale, with dark circles under her eyes. Probably all that hard drinking with Sylvie.
‘Of course.’ I hoped this didn’t mean I would have to pay for her coffee.
We sat in silence for a few seconds as she picked at the skin around her fingernails, which were bitten to the quick and flecked with chipped nail polish. Hanna delivered her coffee and she slurped it, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
Eventually she looked sideways at me. ‘You married?’
I caught my breath. ‘Yes. But he’s not … he’s not …’
She waved away the question. ‘I’m not,’ she said grimly. ‘And sometimes I’m so fucking relieved, you know? More trouble than it’s worth.’
I was intrigued enough to venture a question of my own. ‘What about your son? Is his father … around?’
She snorted. ‘Didn’t want to know. Better that way, trust me. Anyway, I’m not talking about me. You got children? Grandchildren?’
‘Yes, two children. And one grandchild.’
‘Boy or girl?’
‘A boy. Arthur.’
She grinned. ‘Bet he’s a terror.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A terror.’ But she’d drifted off again, staring into space, drumming her fingers on the table in time to the jazz playing in the background.
‘She’s got to get the kids out. And Bob. That’s the trouble,’ she mumbled, more to herself than to me.
I sat in silence, waiting for her to work it out. Women like her always have some drama or other. Just as I was wondering if it would be rude to signal Hanna to bring the bill, Angela leaned back in her chair, rubbed her face and heaved a great sigh.
‘You’re right, I can’t get involved,’ she said.
I inclined my head, and caught Hanna’s eye.
Angela pinched the bridge of her nose and huffed again. ‘Fuck.’
The expletives that pepper today’s conversations are particularly unsavoury, so ugly and unimaginative, although it was more the repetition that bothered me than the word itself. Angela’s curses were so frequent that they were like punctuation points, each one provoking a twinge of distaste, a sourness in my mouth and hers. Her speech was as sloppy as her scuffed shoes. I picked up my bag and put it onto my knee, ready.
Hanna brought over the bill. As she put the saucer down in front of us, she briefly squeezed Angela’s shoulder, but before I could decide what the gesture meant, Angela tweaked the paper between her fingers. ‘I’ll get this.’
I shook my head, ‘Oh no, please don’t,’ fumbling coins out of my purse. Angela waved them away, ‘No, go on. I barged in on you, it’s the least I can do.’ She slapped a five-pound note on the table and gave a hovering Hanna the thumbs up.
‘Well, there was no need. No need at all. But thank you.’ I stood up, feeling awkward as always, on the cusp of conversations. Beginnings and endings, I’m never sure how they should go. ‘Er, goodbye then. Hope you manage to … sort it out.’ But as I backed away, she grabbed her bag and slid out of her chair. ‘I’ll walk with you, I could do with the fresh air.’ I muttered an oath of my own.
Angela lit up again as soon as we were outside, inhaling her ‘fresh air’, head back and eyes closed, the bruise on her cheek already darkening. She turned to me, smoke curling out of her flared nostrils.
‘Where is Arthur?’
I nearly stumbled, so discomfited – and offended – by the question that for a while I didn’t reply. There was something disturbingly direct and intense about her.
‘He lives with his father, my son. In Australia. They moved out there three years ago.’ The words had to be choked out, everything in me rebelled against them. Angela stared at me for a second, then turned and kicked a fallen leaf.
‘That’s some tough shit,’ she said. ‘What’s he like?’
The marble was back in my throat. ‘He’s four. He likes Lego, and football, and Batman, and all the usual things a boy of his age likes, I suppose.’ I stopped, then found I couldn’t. ‘I don’t see them often, but when I do … He’s busy. Always playing, running, fighting. He hardly ever sits still, he’s just fizzing with energy all the time, so when he does stop, you want to … pin him down, moor him somehow. It’s so hard to keep up with him. But I want to. I want to keep a version of him at every age. He just keeps getting better and better. But I miss all the babies and boys he was, and want them all back.’ I tailed off, embarrassed.
Angela nodded slowly. ‘Yes, it’s like that, isn’t it?’
‘What’s Otis like?’
‘Such a sweet boy,’ she said. ‘Nothing like me. Nothing like his father either, thank Christ. There’s no side to him, no edge at all. I get scared sometimes, by the love. I used to be hard as nails – had to be, doing what I do – but he’s taken it out of me, made me soft. Like when you bash a steak.’
‘Tenderized,’ I said.
‘That’s it. He’s tenderized me, the little sod. I’m no bloody good at my job any more.’
I still didn’t like her much, but she had Otis and I had Arthur. ‘Sylvie said you’re a journalist?’
‘Yeah, but freelance, so you’re always hustling for the next thing.’ She switched into interrogation mode again. ‘You’re retired, right? What did you do?’
‘I was a librarian. Before I had children.’
‘They’re
closing all the libraries now,’ she said glumly.
‘Well, this is me,’ I said, my hand on the gate.
Angela looked up. ‘Fuck me, the whole house? I’m just down the road, but in the top-floor flat. Postage stamp. You’ve got the whole house?’
‘We bought in the sixties. The area wasn’t quite so gentrified then.’ I thought of the riots, the strikes, the burglaries. The rubbish piling up in the street. We’d been pioneers.
Resigned to the fact that Angela wanted to come in, I made a last stand all the same. ‘Where’s Otis?’ I asked, hoping she’d remember she had to go and pick him up.
‘He’s at the childminder’s,’ she murmured, still gazing up. ‘The whole house. Jesus.’
Unlocking the front door, I could sense her behind me, hopping from foot to foot in anticipation. Pushing it open, we stepped inside.
The first time I went into that hallway was back in 1964. Heavily pregnant, and daunted by the wide sweep of stairs, I’d waddled left and discovered the most charming drawing room. A huge bay window sent sunlight flooding through, casting rays along the varnished floorboards; dark and light, dust particles rolling in the shafts as I wandered between them. Unfurnished – the previous owner had died and evidently the relatives had swooped in and snaffled the lot – it was a blank slate. While Leo argued with the agent about damp, the house whispered to me that it was mine.
Nowadays, of course, people would move in and immediately gut the place, stripping out and paring back so they can fill it all up again. New owners are so keen to ‘put their stamp on things’ – such an aggressive term, as if a house can be branded with one’s personality. We preferred to let the building’s own character shine through and didn’t change a thing, apart from re-painting one of the bedrooms for the baby. In fact, beyond general maintenance, it was still the same as it was just after Miss Edith Crawshay passed away in it.
‘Shit a brick,’ said Angela, seeing the kitchen. ‘This is a fecking time warp.’ It was rather outmoded, I suppose – the cabinets dated from the fifties. There was an Aga, which seemed incongruous in a city house, but it worked perfectly well, and to demonstrate, I put the kettle on the boiling plate. Angela had already prowled off. I scurried after her, keen to stop her before she reached …
