With Your Crooked Heart

by Helen Dunmore

  Sonia puts out her hand. She places her finger under Anna’s chin and raises it so that they look into each other’s eyes.

  ‘She looks like you round the mouth, Paul.’

  ‘No. She looks like her mother.’

  He crosses to the window and looks out at the greyness of London. It’s getting darker, even though it’s the middle of the day. The sky is like paper that someone is colouring in, grey stroke by grey stroke.

  ‘Tell her about the wedding,’ he says.

  Sonia takes his arm. ‘I booked a table for one o’clock, Paul,’ she says. ‘Anna and me, we’ll get together and have a proper talk about it another time.’

  ‘All right. Listen, Anna. After the wedding you’re going to a new house, a house in the country.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Ten to one, Sonia. You go on down, I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  But Sonia reaches into her handbag and brings out a narrow white package with a red ribbon tied around it.

  ‘We were in the jeweller’s,’ she says to Anna. ‘We saw this for you.’

  Anna holds the package without opening it. A flush begins deep inside her, like a wave, and breaks on the pale surface of her skin.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ asks Sonia in her quick, sharp voice, but she is still smiling. Anna pulls the end of the ribbon, undoes the paper, opens the box.

  ‘There,’ says Sonia. ‘You can wear it at the wedding.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to say something, Anna?’ asks Paul.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Thank Sonia. It was her idea. She chose it.’

  ‘Thank you, Sonia.’

  Anna sees that Sonia is cross, but won’t show it. Her face remains smooth, but her body stiffens.

  ‘Where does she go to school?’ she asks.

  ‘St Ursula’s. She’s getting a good education.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says Sonia. Her beautiful, pearly shoes glide over the carpet. She stops, opens the door and says, ‘There won’t be anywhere like St Ursula’s in Mexford Bridge. It’s the back end of nowhere. Still, we’ll have to see what we can do. Bye then, Anna.’

  ‘Bye,’ says Anna.

  As the door closes her father turns away from the window. He comes over to Anna, bends down, picks her up in his arms. Her face is level with his face. He might say she isn’t like him, but she knows that she is. She can read him as if he’s herself. His dark skin, his dark hair, his dark eyes. The steady heat of him that makes her want to lean in and curl herself against his chest like a cat. She puts her two cold hands up, one on each side of his face, framing it. She knows he’ll let her, because they’re alone.

  ‘You all right, Anna?’ he asks.

  She nods.

  ‘This house, you’ll like it. It’s got a great big garden and a river down the bottom of the hill.’

  ‘I like it here.’

  He frowns and shakes his head slightly as if shaking off what she’s said. ‘You don’t want to think like that. Anyway, we’ve got to move. The lease here runs out in April. We’ll need to keep on somewhere in London, but we’ll get a flat. Sonia wants something more up her street.’

  ‘What about —’ School, she makes herself think. My friends. Not the huge thing that can’t be said. Every week a car comes and takes her to see Mum. Down the streets, across the park, through rows of lights flicking red and green. She nearly knows the way. As the car takes the corners she leans against the window and memorizes the route, shop by shop, street by street. If anything happened, she’d be able to walk there. ‘Will a car be able to come and get me from the country?’ she asks.

  ‘What are you on about now?’ He smiles indulgently, as if she’s said something more childish than her age allows.

  ‘You know. A car to take me to…’

  One of his hands comes up and lifts her hands from the side of his face. ‘You don’t want to worry about that,’ he says. ‘I’ll take care of all that.’

  When he’s gone downstairs to join Sonia, she picks up one of the balls of drawing and uncrumples it. The cat and the rabbit are both quite good. What’s wrong with the drawing is that something’s missing.

  She picks up her crayon and draws in bold clear strokes the muzzle of a tiger, rising above the oblivious cat like the face of the morning sun.

  Eight

  It’s a registered letter. Paul always sends them registered, so I can’t pretend they’ve never arrived.

  The postman rang when I was just out of the bath. I pulled my kimono round me and opened the door just wide enough to reach round and take the parcel, or whatever. But he didn’t hand it over.

  ‘I need a signature,’ he said. Not the usual postman, but then they change all the time. Young and cocky, staring at my kimono. I was still damp from my bath and the silk was sticking to me. Need a signature. That’s Paul all right. A signature to say we’re not married any more, a signature to say nothing that belongs to him belongs to me any more. Except Anna. Even Paul hasn’t been able to find a way to make me sign away Anna.

  I took the letter and signed for it, then printed my name. I didn’t want to read it straightaway. I was cold and I wondered if I ought to get back in the bath for a bit, but the water was blue and scummy on top, and I didn’t like the look of it. I pulled out the plug and the suction wheezed. I’ve got to do something about that waste-pipe. It isn’t draining right. There’s no time like the present, I thought. I was still wincing away from opening the letter. I went and rummaged under the sink and there was the plunger, orange and a bit smelly, with black spots on the inside of the rubber. I fixed the suction cup over the waste-pipe and plunged it up and down. There was a spurt of old, evil-smelling air, then a cloudy clot of dirt came up into the bath-water. I did it again. The pipe farted and cleared itself. I fetched my rubber gloves and the bath-cleaner and when the water had run out I scrubbed the enamel all round until the surface was white and sparkling. It’s quite a new bath, and it comes up beautifully. Then I got that stuff that takes limescale off chrome, and I cleaned the taps. I wished Paul could see it. He’s always saying I don’t take care of things, and I’ve let the house fill up with rubbish. Once he saw some sandwiches I’d forgotten about behind the armchair and he kicked the plate and said, ‘It’s a wonder you don’t have rats, the way you live.’ It was a chicken sandwich, dry, with a bit of mould on the outside. But nothing criminal. What I can’t bear is when he looks at me as if I’m like that, too. Going bad on the inside, where no one can see.

  I’m sitting in the armchair now, with the letter. I’ve got the clean, white bath in the back of my mind, to make me feel good, no matter what happens the rest of the day. I open the letter. It starts with words, not my name.

  I’m getting married next month. I told Anna yesterday and she’s already met Sonia, so it wasn’t a surprise. We’ll be keeping on a flat in London, but I’ve bought a place up in Yorkshire and that’s where Anna will be living from now on. It’s not doing her any good seeing you like this. She doesn’t know where she is. I’m not going to let you spoil Anna’s chances of a proper life. You’ll be hearing through my solicitor about the arrangements for Anna.

  I sit in the chair for a long time. A proper life. I keep thinking about it until the words come apart like stitches and don’t make sense any more. On Anna’s visiting days I’m always listening out for the car. It comes dead on time, Paul’s good like that. I watch Anna through the upstairs window while she gets out of the car. All her movements are small and neat. She lifts her legs sideways and lets whoever’s driving help her out like a little princess. Paul never drives her here. Then she stands on the pavement. I watch the top of her head, with the sun on her hair, until she moves, and then I run down the stairs so that I’ll be at the door before she reaches it. I don’t ever let her touch the bell. I fling the door open wide and there she is. Her little face is closed and polite, as if I’m someone else’s mother fetching her from school. She’s always pale.

  When she goes it’s a bit different. We get
her coat on and stand in the hall, waiting for the sound of the car again. We don’t say much, but by now she’s standing close to me. Once, just as I heard the car slowing, she bobbed forward and kissed me on my stomach, through my jumper. It was so quick and light I nearly missed it, and then she looked down as if she didn’t want me to see her face.

  When we hear the car, I say, ‘See you next week,’ and she nods. The bell rings and I open the door, and she goes straight out without looking at me again. I go upstairs. I watch her climb into the car, with someone holding the door open for her. It’s usually the same driver, because Paul is very careful like that. She sits back in the seat, he fastens the seat-belt. She never waves. When the car’s gone I find myself standing in the middle of the kitchen, but I can’t remember how I got there. I don’t know what I want. I go to the fridge but I’m not hungry. I look at the row of yoghurt pots and the chocolate cake I bought for Anna, with one slice cut out of it.

  We could make a cake together one day. She’d like that. I’ll buy a cake-mix, one of those where you only have to add an egg. It’s funny, she’s only here for two hours but it seems like a long time when you have to fill it. She hasn’t got her things here, that’s what it is. Everything we do is stiff, like artificial flowers.

  Need a signature. Not this time, Paul. I’ve signed everything else, but I won’t sign this. I’ll fight. I’ll go to a lawyer, one of those ones with a picture outside of two stick people leaning forward over a table. They give a free consultation.

  Isn’t it strange how you think thoughts and they make you feel better, even though you know you won’t ever do what you’ve promised yourself in your mind?

  I stand by the fridge. I take out a packet of cream cheese, then I put it back. There’s a bag of big red apples which I bought for Anna. She likes them, she likes biting into the shiny, tough skin. But these were woolly inside, no taste, you had to spit them out. I don’t know why I’ve kept them. I don’t fancy anything.

  The thing is, I can’t go against Paul. I know him too well. We’re like two halves of a bone that’s been broken and knitted together so the join’s stronger than the bone was. And now he tells me he’s going to marry Sonia, and I know I ought to be angrier than I am. I can’t take it seriously, because it isn’t real. Anna is real, and he’s mixing her up with things that aren’t.

  He thinks I could stop drinking. He said, ‘You could stop drinking.’ His eyes burned into me. I knew he was angry because he thought we could go back and be as we were. He has hopes I haven’t got any more.

  There’s a bottle of Martini, three-quarters full. It’s very cold. I open it and pour out a glass, just a small one. It’s oily on my tongue, then there’s a bitter, herbal taste which ought to be doing me some good. It makes me tired, right down to my feet. I want to sit down. I pick up the bottle and the glass and go back to the sitting-room, but this time I don’t sit in the armchair. I choose the sofa, in case I feel like putting my feet up. The Martini’s moving round inside me already, getting everywhere. Nice. I get up again and find a lemon in the fruit-bowl. A bit wrinkled, but it’ll do. I cut it into quarters and put them on a saucer. It looks good to put a slice of lemon into the Martini, as if it’s a proper drink you might pour for yourself before going off out somewhere for dinner. I suck the last drops of the Martini from around the lemon quarter. It’s a funny noise, and it reminds me of something. I fill the glass and the lemon bobs to the top. After a long time bits of fruit get sodden and they lie in the bottom of the glass no matter how much more you pour in.

  I know what the sucking noise reminds me of. It’s the noise of the bath water going out slowly, before I cleared the waste-pipe with the plunger.

  The bath is white, clean. It smells of lemon bath-cleaner. I did a good job there. I keep it in mind.

  With Paul, you don’t go to lawyers. Not if you know what’s good for you. Men don’t make the money Paul’s made without being quick on their feet. I’ve seen him run rings round Planning, round Environmental Health and the Inland Revenue.

  Paul said I could have this house as long as I wanted. It’s not in my name but I can have it as long as I behave myself. And the money every month. I’ve even got some savings: Paul doesn’t know that. When Paul says ‘as long as you behave yourself’, he looks at me with that hot, angry look again. He’s still appalled at what we’ve come to and where we are. He can’t understand that I’m not appalled. I understand where we are, and I could look back and show you each step of the way that’s got us here.

  I behave myself. Drinking doesn’t count. I see Anna. Anna comes in the car every week. I see her standing on the pavement, and I run downstairs so she won’t ever have to ring the bell.

  Anna doesn’t look like me. She looks like Paul, that’s why he wants her.

  He’s buying a place in Yorkshire. Anna won’t be able to come in a car every week from Yorkshire. He’s getting married. Well, I knew that was coming. He told me a long time ago.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I told him. I was laughing. I knew it was my moment. ‘Marriage is for ever.’ He knows that. I married Paul when I was very young and we’ve been through a lot of things together. I know things about him not everybody knows. I used to think it made us close. It took me a long time to understand that it was what was pushing us apart. He was trying to make everything better for us all the time, for me, for Johnnie, for Anna, and there I was, stinking of where he’d come from.

  ‘I’m divorcing you,’ he said.

  ‘Divorcing me,’ I repeated. It wasn’t unexpected. But divorce doesn’t mean the end of a marriage. As I said, we still sleep together. Or rather, fuck.

  ‘We’ll still be married,’ I said, ‘in the eyes of God.’ I said it to taunt him.

  ‘The eyes of God,’ he said. He stood still and looked at me. I saw how fast he was thinking and I saw the things he doesn’t want anybody to see, about where he’s come from and what he’s done to get where he is now. I saw the idea of frightening me flick in his face, then sink down and swim away. He’ll never do that. I don’t know why I know, but I do, even though Paul is far from being a scrupulous man.

  ‘I’ll get an annulment, then,’ he said.

  ‘You won’t,’ I said quickly. ‘They’re not such fools as you think. You can’t wipe out what’s happened. We’ve got Anna to think of. What would that make her, a bastard?’

  I knew he was listening, though he didn’t want to. He’d got it wrong for once. He thought that when you’d got enough money you could do what you liked. Not that he’d send a wad of used notes to some Monsignor, that’s not Paul’s style any more. No, he’d put a new roof on a convent. But it wasn’t going to work this time.

  ‘You can divorce me,’ I said. ‘You can marry whoever it is you want to marry, if you like. She won’t care. But you’re not getting an annulment. You’re not saying we were never married and Anna was never our child, that we both wanted.’

  He was surprised, I could see that. It was a long time since I’d said anything he didn’t want to hear, and made him hear it. I was clear in my mind as a glass of gin.

  So we’re still married. We’re divorced, like I agreed, but we’re still married in my eyes and Paul’s eyes and the eyes of anyone else who counts. I don’t bother about the eyes of God, it was just something I said to make my point. But thinking about it makes me tired now, like looking into the fridge at all the food and not being able to imagine eating any of it. I don’t know how I put all this weight on. I don’t eat anything.

  I’ve never been to Yorkshire. It’s a big house on the side of a hill, looking over a valley. High up. It’ll be good for Anna. She’ll go to school in the next village and she’ll be able to play out in the fields and the woods, Paul says. It’s all in the letter.

  I’m not drinking. Just this glass, that’s all. I’m going out later to look at some curtain material. In a little while I’ll ring for a taxi.

  Fields and woods. Don’t make me laugh. I wish he was here now to say
it to my face. What does Paul know about fields and woods? What do either of us know? There wasn’t even a park, where Paul grew up.

  I’ll do something about it, once I’ve had time to think. After all, if I don’t look out for Anna, who will? Her own mother.

  There’s a day nursery down the street. I see women arriving in the morning, with babies in car seats. The women are dressed for work, not for babies. They lean into the back of the car and I see their legs strain as they lift the baby out. So many things in their arms. The baby, the baby-bag, the handbag because they can’t leave it in the car. They kick the door shut because they haven’t got a hand free.

  When they come out of the nursery they’re always frowning. They move fast, climb into the car, slam the seat back as if they’ve suddenly grown taller, then take off. They’re already late.

  I tighten the sash on my dressing-gown, and think about getting ready. I can’t seem to get myself dressed before the afternoon. I was reading an article in a woman’s magazine yesterday, on how to manage your time. There was a chart to fill in, with everything on it that made up a proper life. Childcare, daycare, after-school, pre-school, dentist’s appointment, supermarket trip, Christmas shopping, school run, eating out, mammogram, leg-wax, promotion, pension. Apparently Christmas shopping can be your main leisure activity for as much as three months.

  It made me feel as if I was standing by the hole in an aeroplane’s belly, waiting to jump. But I don’t jump. I don’t do any of it. Anna came with new shoes last time, but I don’t know what size her feet are any more. I think, What am I? I’m worth nothing. But I can’t feel it. I feel the same for Paul as I’ve always felt, and for Johnnie, and for me.