The Snakes

by Sadie Jones

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she said.

  ‘It’s not a confession, Bea.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I needed to think. And you’ve got enough on your mind. I didn’t want to get into it.’

  ‘Think about what?’ she asked.

  ‘Just wait. Give me a chance.’

  The things he needed to say were pushed out by everything he mustn’t, three years of laws she’d laid down for him, without saying a word. Never mention her money. Never even acknowledge its existence. Riches hung above their heads like a golden sky he had to pretend not to see. She waited, her eyes steadily on his.

  ‘Go on,’ she prompted.

  He couldn’t think straight. ‘He only offered, because he wants to help.’

  She was studying him. He could see her thinking.

  ‘Bea, basically, he loves you. He might be doing it for tax reasons or whatever, but he loves you.’

  ‘It’s not love, it’s money.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with money?’

  ‘Not money. His money. He gets it from turning London into a shopfront.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as dirty money or clean money.’

  ‘No, fine then, it’s all dirty, but my mother lives off his, and that makes it untouchable.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve talked about this.’

  ‘Not really, babe.’

  ‘Dan, it’s so late, I’m –’

  ‘You talked about it, and you never told me how much he had. I mean, you haven’t been exactly straight with me. You made a decision about our future, about our security, without ever really discussing it.’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss.’

  ‘Why not? He makes his money selling luxury flats as futures trading. It’s not people trafficking.’

  ‘Money he made in the sixties, keeping the Windrush generation in his slums –’

  ‘Yeah, don’t lecture me about my history –’

  ‘It’s my history, too.’

  ‘I’m not talking about that –’ he said.

  She wasn’t listening. ‘He hardly pays tax! He has no scruples!’

  ‘Shut up!’ he shouted.

  Now she was quiet, but her hollow-eyed silence was worse judgement than her lecturing.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.’

  ‘I don’t want his help,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I don’t want his little offshore company, or anything of his. I’m happy how we are. I love who we are. What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘You’ve got your career,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a vocation. It’s all right for you.’

  ‘We came away, didn’t we?’

  ‘So it’s my fault now?’

  ‘No, I was happy to come, I didn’t mean that. I just want you to find your path.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘I’m not the one stopping you, Dan. You could do your own work if you wanted to.’

  ‘You think I don’t want to?’

  ‘I think you don’t believe in yourself. I think that stops you.’

  ‘Oh, right, it’s not because I’m already working sixty hours a week to pay the fucking mortgage?’

  ‘Artists do have day jobs. People find a way.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Most people don’t make a living out of their art.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘They work weekends,’ she said. ‘They do.’

  ‘Yeah? How many? How many of them don’t have any financial help? These “people”, Bea, are the entitled middle class – how many of these “people finding a way” are like me? How many are black? How many are working five, six days a week, in a fucking estate agent’s, and still – Jesus, what are you like? You’re a – how high are your standards? What do you expect from me?’

  ‘I don’t have the answers, Dan. All I know is that whatever we do, or whatever money we make, it must be just ours. It’s good, how we live. It’s good. It’s ours and it’s clean. I need that, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s right, hit me with that.’

  ‘With what?’ she said.

  ‘Morality. Knockout punch.’

  ‘It’s not a fight.’

  ‘Oh yeah? You got me. I’m down.’

  ‘I don’t want to bring you down.’

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘You’re totally uncompromising.’

  She was surprised. It was almost funny to him how surprised she was. ‘Am I?’

  ‘I can’t speak to you,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t speak to me?’

  ‘No.’

  She shook her head and rubbed her face. ‘You got me out of bed at three in the morning,’ she said. ‘You’d better try.’

  ‘Then stop staring at me. Come on. You mess up my head. I can’t think with you looking at me like that.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t want to be uncompromising,’ she said. She thought for a moment. ‘What about if I cover my face?’

  ‘What?’ said Dan.

  ‘Like this.’ She put her hands over her eyes. ‘Better?’

  He could only see her nose and mouth.

  His anger went away. He had dragged her out of bed to fight with her and she was still trying to help him. And she looked so vulnerable, waiting, blind and hopeful, for him to say his piece. He looked at her mouth, beneath her hands.

  ‘That’s kind of hot,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘Maybe you can say it now, how you feel.’

  She was right – wasn’t she always? – it was easier not to see her eyes. He took a breath and said it. ‘When your parents die, you’ll inherit their money.’

  He looked for a reaction but could not see one. It was perfect. He was released.

  ‘Griff’s in his seventies,’ he said. ‘When he goes, you’ll get something like – I don’t know, millions, right?’

  He noticed she was breathing more quickly. Her lips were parted.

  ‘I’ve heard about this stuff. I bet he’s got money in trust for you already. Is there money I don’t know about?’

  She nodded.

  ‘OK. So am I meant to not think about it? How can I?’

  She didn’t say anything, or move.

  ‘When we were first together,’ he said, ‘you told me about your family, you were like, They’re pretty well off – yeah, I think well-off was the word you used. You didn’t say My dad has a few hundred million in the bank –’

  She trapped her lips between her teeth to stop herself correcting him. It made him smile.

  ‘Just stay blind a little longer, babe.’

  Free from her gaze, he moved towards her. She waited, silently, for what he would do next, what he would say, breathing through her nose, her T-shirt rising and falling with her breath. Blind and dumb, she had made herself voiceless, just for him. It shouldn’t have excited him, but it did.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Listen. Every day, every time I, like, get a text I’ve gone overdrawn, or when I don’t hit my target at work, there’s this thing I get – in my head – I think, Bea’s dad has money. Then I feel guilty. And I stop myself. But I wonder, What is it, really, that’s stopping us getting some help? You didn’t kick up about my dad’s money for us, not at all. And he wasn’t even a father to me. I met the guy, like, five times in my life, and I don’t even remember. You know how that’s messed me up, but you were happy to take that twenty-five grand of adulterer’s cash, we even laughed about it.’

  ‘Maybe I should do blindfolded sessions,’ she said, behind her hands. ‘It works.’

  Holding up her arms had raised her T-shirt from her legs. He touched her knee and she jumped.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t see you coming.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Before. About my parents dying.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’


  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘I’m going to touch you,’ he said, to warn her.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, and pushed her backwards, slowly, until he was kneeling between her legs. He lowered himself onto her, his face tucked between her cheek and the sofa. Her hair touched his lips.

  ‘When they’re dead, you’ll have it anyway,’ he said in her ear. ‘So can you tell me – what are we doing?’

  Her voice was constrained by his weight. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I fucking hate it. Pretending we don’t have a choice.’

  ‘I won’t take their money, now or when they’re dead,’ she said. ‘I’m not pretending.’

  ‘What for? Why?’ he said into her neck. ‘It’s bullshit.’

  She wriggled, grinding herself back, into the cushions, to get away. She got her hands between them, and pushed him off. Now he could see her.

  ‘What is? What’s bullshit?’ she said through tears. ‘Us?’

  ‘No. No –’ He looked down at his hands. ‘Don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m not crying.’

  ‘I can’t do it any more, Bea.’

  She untangled herself from him and pulled the T-shirt down over her knees again. ‘What can’t you do?’

  Head down, he stared at his clenched fists pressed together, knuckles straining. ‘I can’t pretend I see only what you want me to see. It’s not about loving you or not loving you. D’you not get it?’ He looked up at her.

  ‘I thought we were happy,’ she said.

  ‘I hadn’t realised how much it was fucking up my head,’ he said. ‘But I guess it was. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said.

  There was silence. They stood outside their marriage, looking in. She got up from the sofa.

  ‘I’m going to bed. I’m tired.’

  ‘Yes. We can talk about it tomorrow.’

  She didn’t turn. ‘Yup.’

  ‘I’m sorry it came up like this.’

  He switched off the light, and followed her. In their room, she went to the bathroom and did her teeth again, and avoided herself in the mirror. She got into bed in the dark. They were two new people; the ugly rich girl, and her good-looking husband.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she whispered.

  ‘Night, babe.’

  She had always known she wasn’t strong enough to fight wealth. It was bigger and more beautiful, and it was fierce. Bea wasn’t beautiful or fierce. She was easily overshadowed. She felt his body move behind her, and he stretched. The birds began to sing. The sun would soon be up. She closed her eyes.

  20

  Half asleep, Dan felt Bea get out of bed, and heard her dressing, and then she tiptoed out. When she was gone, the room felt light and easy. He sat up and looked around. It was a heady feeling, opening a vein, and letting out the truth. He’d challenged her and the world still spun. All he asked was that she acknowledged reality, but he was sorry he had made her cry, his timing had been horrible. He picked up his phone and texted her.

  Babe, where did you go? Love you.

  He added kisses, then got up and made himself some coffee.

  Back soon, Bea texted, as she left the driveway, and then turned off her phone. She hadn’t slept enough. Her dreams had bled into the light of day, she couldn’t rid herself of them. She needed space to think. It wasn’t enough to turn the phone off, she’d be tempted. She looked around for somewhere to hide it, to collect on the way back. There was a log, behind the flip-top bins in the lay-by. She propped the phone against it and paused, to mark the place in her mind. She and Alex had stood exactly there, the night he went. In a few warm days, the bushes had grown thicker and higher along the small path that led back to the hotel. She remembered the light rain falling, and them walking together, and the small burning taste of brandy from the bottle he handed to her. She went back across the entrance to the drive, and along the roadside, as the hot sun dried the last of the dew, then left the road and went into the woods.

  How angry Dan must be, to fight with her, after what had happened to Alex. He must have lain there, watching her, getting so angry he had to wake her. He had watched her sleeping, and thought about her money, while she hadn’t known. It made her ashamed. Leaving Griff’s money, she hadn’t sacrificed anything, it had only been a release. Every day had been a day of celebration. Not for Dan. How smug of her, not to know, like a princess leaving the palace without her jewels and robes to do good among the villagers. Love me as I am. I’m virtuous. Her father was right. She wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t even good enough. She was boring. Puritanical. Ugly. Vain. She reached the towpath and the river’s edge, but the calmness of the view felt far away. The water wasn’t clear, but silty and slow moving. She had hardly any reflection. She didn’t need one. Round face, round eyes, fair hair, nothing. Her father had said it, and her mother had, too. It wasn’t a new thought, she’d been fighting it for years. She wasn’t stupid. She knew about the influence of childhood experiences on a person, she’d had the therapy and done the work. She’d read the books. She did not self-harm. She was not anorexic. She was not an addict. She’d taught herself. She was right to be proud. She had built herself from scratch, piece by piece, and it had taken years. In her mind’s eye, she saw Alex’s handwriting, circling and underlining words. The only way into truth is through one’s own annihilation. His broken car hung like a corpse from a noose. Annihilation was not in her armoury. She felt for another weapon.

  Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

  She grabbed at that, and said it to herself. But there was nothing good to pay attention to.

  Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

  She knew she looked stupid, standing there. She tried again.

  Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

  She tried again. She breathed.

  Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

  Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

  She looked down at the grass, and the earth, and the river pulsing at the edge of her vision. The sun beat down on her head, like the light was shining straight into her brain. She looked up and down the riverbank. Not a soul. She pulled off her shoes and went some way along the path. Quickly, she took off her skirt and T-shirt, and dropped them, and then, without putting a toe in to test it, launched herself out into the river. It was freezing, cold that stabbed like spikes. She took a gasping breath.

  ‘God!’ she shouted. ‘Shit!’ more quietly.

  She pulled up her legs, thought of parasites, worms and frogs, and kept her chin up.

  ‘Fuck it,’ she said, breathless from the cold. ‘Fuck that fucking shit. Bastard.’

  She took a breath and dived, and opened her eyes, and saw clouds of light, and her own hands, then came back up, water streaming from her hair and gave a yell of a laugh, then dared herself and put her feet down to touch the slimy bottom. She pulled her feet back up, triumphant. Disgusted, delighted, she scrambled back towards the bank. But then, looking up, she saw someone.

  A teenage boy was standing by her pile of clothes. Her foot slipped, and scraped against something sharp. She righted herself. The boy looked at her. Stopping, she crouched, feeling the deep water of the big river at her back, and the current, pulling. Bracing her legs, she wiped her eyes. She and the boy looked at one another; she low in the water, he, quite relaxed, on the bank. She felt the weight of her breasts in the saturated cotton of her bra. He was wearing a red-and-white striped T-shirt, like a blond, hatless Waldo. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his shorts, pulling them down below the bony channel of his hips. She recognised him, the boy from the tractor, at the Orderbrechts’ farm. Water lapped her collarbones.

  ‘Va-t-en,’ she said. ‘Can you go away?’

  His expression didn’t change. She remembered how he’d stared from the tractor as it passed.

  ‘
Go away. Va-t-en!’

  Her thighs ached but if she knelt her nose would be underwater. The boy began to move his hand, up and down inside his shorts. He watched her, rubbing himself, smiling as she registered the unmistakable movement.

  ‘Va-t-en now!’ she said loudly. ‘Go away!’

  He didn’t move, except the hand, inside his shorts. His mouth was slightly open. She thought of screaming, and then that she might laugh, but it really wasn’t funny at all.

  ‘I mean it!’ she shouted. ‘Fuck off!’

  Abruptly, he squatted down. He stared into her eyes, then pulled his hand out, spat on it, wiped it on his thigh, and reached out to her. His narrow face had a scattering of unsqueezed spots around the edges of his mouth. The sunlight reflected up off the water into his slanting eyes, which were mossy green and quite beautiful. There was something lacking in him. He gestured, as if she would walk towards him through the water and take his hand. She felt slow and calm. She took a big breath.

  ‘DAN!’ she shouted, confidently.

  The boy stopped smiling and looked over his shoulder.

  ‘DAN!’ she shouted again.

  He looked back at her.

  ‘DAN!’

  He glanced quickly behind again, then stooped, and picked up her clothes, laughing.

  ‘DAN!’

  Hopping with excitement, he bundled them into a ball and tossed them into the undergrowth, then sprinted off down the path, and out of sight.

  She tottered out of the water on crab legs, blue with cold, and fell onto the ground.

  Once she had got her clothes, and dressed, still shivering, she went back to the hotel.

  The warm air dried her skin and made it itch. She walked round the back, to go in behind the reception desk, but the seldom-used door was locked, and as she tried the handle, Dan came down the stairs and saw her. He walked towards the door and unlocked it, top and bottom and tugged it open.

  ‘Hey. Where have you been?’

  She couldn’t think what to say.

  ‘Nowhere.’ She started past him.

  He saw her hair was wet. He frowned. Her skirt was sticking to her legs, and ripped from where she had pulled it from the bushes, and there was blood on her arm.