Vacant Possession

  When Suzanne came downstairs at last, driven by hunger, Lizzie Blank said: “Don’t take on so. It happened to me once.”

  “Did it?” Suzanne looked at her; she was interested. “I bet you’ve led quite a life.”

  “Oh yes,” said Lizzie Blank. “A devastated charmer like me.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I got rid of it.”

  “That can’t have been so easy, when you were young.”

  “No, but I had my mother to advise me. She knew all about that sort of thing.”

  “Did you have a good relationship with your mother?”

  “In ways.”

  “I wish I had a good relationship with my mother. She’s trying to push me into an abortion, you know, but Jim and I want this baby. Didn’t you ever regret it, Lizzie?”

  Lizzie thought for a moment. “I suppose I did. Not at the time. But nowadays I miss it. I reckon we’d have been two of a kind. And I need company.”

  “That’s so honest of you, Lizzie. You’re…such an honest person.”

  “I’d have liked to give it an inheritance. A lovely house like this.”

  “Do you think this house is lovely? I hate it. It stifles me.”

  “You’ll be out of it soon enough.”

  “I’m going to get a flat or something, just till I get things sorted out with Jim.”

  “Jim your intended, is he?”

  “Oh yes. But he’s got to go through the divorce, you know. These things take time to sort out.”

  “So you could be on your own till the baby’s born?”

  “I hope not. I’m going to find a place, and he can move in with me as soon as he makes Isabel see sense. I mean, there’s no point in dragging out a failing marriage, is there?”

  “None at all. Mind, his wife will stop in the house, you’ll need furniture, all that. Door furniture and fire irons I can get for you cheap, I have a friend. But I expect you’ll need a cooker, you won’t be able to afford to go out to restaurants.”

  “No.” Suzanne looked bemused. “I expect I’ll need a cooker.”

  “I’ve got money put away, you know. I can always let you have a loan.”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Lizzie. But I hope I won’t need it.”

  “Well, I like to oblige my friends. You’ll have to look in the paper for a place to rent. I got mine out of a window at the newsagent’s. But it wasn’t easy.”

  “I know. There’s not a lot of accommodation about. It’s the same in Manchester, until I got my place in Hall I had to sleep on somebody’s floor. But you can’t do that with a baby.”

  “You could always stop with me a bit, until you sort yourself out.”

  “Oh, Lizzie.” Suzanne burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it. To think that you should be so kind, when you’re almost a stranger and don’t know me at all, and my family who’ve known me all my life should be so horrible.” Impulsively she threw her arms around the daily woman and kissed her violently rouged cheek.

  “The offer’s there,” Muriel said.

  The last days of the summer term were worse this year than Colin remembered. There was the usual rush and muddle, the disorderly behaviour on the corridors; and then there was his mood. For three days running he lost his temper before Assembly; the days went downhill from there. He was churlish in the staff room, and was seen kicking the stencil machine. He lost an entire stack of reports—Form 3C’s—and they were turned up at last by one of the cleaners, who would surely reminisce about it for a year or more. He stayed late, signing them, tidying his desk, then lurked about in the staff lavatories, butting his head at a square of ill-lit mirror, trying to spot grey hairs. He couldn’t wait for the term to be over; though what ease, what leisure awaited him at home, better not to speculate. Better not to think too far ahead. He was conscious of an almost physical revulsion, a shrinking away, whenever he tried to imagine how his tangled circumstances might be unknotted. Even when school was let out and his pupils were set free to run amok down the High Street, he paced the empty corridors warily—echoes, white tiles—as if expecting an ambush.

  Sylvia flew about the house, bossing the daily woman, nagging the children; she jangled her car keys and sprinted down the path. He tried to corner her, scrutinise her expression, lead her into conversational byways which would perhaps reveal what she made of the situation. Nine years ago she had been obtuse. Now social intercourse had sharpened her wits. Weekly at the Bishop Tutu Centre she listened to tales of human improvidence, criminality, and perversion. Nothing shocked her, she said. Let her only enquire too far into current events, and she might have to swallow her boast.

  “Colin,” said Sylvia.

  “Yes?”

  “You ought to go and see this man Jim Ryan, and find out what’s going on.” She turned away, so that he couldn’t see her face.

  Colin swallowed. “Where, at his home?”

  “No, not at his home, Colin. At the bank.”

  “Oh, but the fuss…at his place of work…”

  “Is there going to be a fuss?”

  “Well…that depends on his attitude.”

  “Perhaps you’d rather I go?”

  “No,” he said hurriedly, “no, Sylvia, I wouldn’t want that. I’ll deal with it. I promise you. We need to give Suzanne a little more time to come to terms with the reality of the situation. Then if she still insists that this man is going to set up house with her, I’ll do whatever’s needed—only please, Sylvia, let me do it in my own way.”

  “You’re sweating, Colin.”

  “The topic makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would.” He searched her face. “Perhaps I could ask Francis to talk to her,” she said.

  “You can hardly ask a clergyman to talk her into an abortion.”

  “Oh, Francis has some very modern attitudes. He’s full of common sense, you’d be surprised.”

  Here we go, the same sickening conversational merry-go-round. Why doesn’t she take off with Francis, if that’s what she wants? I won’t stop her. And Suzanne should have Jim. And I should have Isabel. Even if it is some other Isabel; I should marry her for a penance, and for the sake of her name.

  I think I’m going mad, Colin thought. And not a bad idea at that. Have the summer in a padded cell somewhere, and come home when it’s all over.

  Francis—the Reverend Teller—came round just after midday. Claire was in the kitchen, making one of her cups of tea for Brownie Tea-Making Fortnight. Colin and Sylvia were preserving, between them, a strained silence. Colin noticed how his wife’s face brightened at the sight of Francis passing the kitchen window. She looked alert and keen, like someone ready to tackle a major social issue.

  “Cup of tea?” Claire said.

  “Why thank you, Claire, that’s kind. I’d rather have coffee, if it’s no trouble.”

  “I don’t do coffee. Only tea.”

  Sylvia got up. “Hello, Francis. I’ll get it. Claire, come from under my feet.”

  “Don’t put yourself out,” said Francis in his relaxed way, which somehow implied that he was used to people putting themselves out but would waive his rights on this occasion. He was a solid man of forty-five, with blunt features and short cropped hair; despite his pacifist outlook, he was given to khaki clothing of military provenance, to ribbed sweaters with elbow patches, to epaulettes and complex trousers with pleated pockets buttoned on the thigh. When he laughed he showed pointed teeth which were unmistakably carnivorous. His whole person, Colin thought, exuded contradictions which were just too deep for hypocrisy and just too common for clinical schizophrenia.

  “Hermione’s got us on the old camomile tea,” he said. “Gets it at the health-food shop. Must say I get a bit tired of it. Cup of Nescafé, strong, black, that’s the way I like it. Got any sweeteners?”

  “How about sugar?”

  “Oh, of course we have,” Sylvia said. “Colin, do you have to embarrass me?”

  The phone
rang in the living room. Karen answered it.

  “Mum, it’s for you, it’s Meals on Wheels.”

  “All right, I’m coming.”

  “Try this,” Claire demanded, blocking her path and proffering a teacup. “Excellent, very good, or good?”

  “I’m going to the phone, Claire. Give it to your father.” Sidestepping her daughter, she gave Francis a sidelong glance as she left the room.

  “Francis, you’re an intelligent man,” said Colin.

  “Yes?” said Francis guardedly.

  “I have to ask you something. No, not now, Claire, put it down. Do you believe in coincidence?”

  “Coincidence?” The vicar took his pipe out and sucked it. “Funny you should ask me that.”

  Colin understood that the vicar had made a joke. A forced tremulous smile was his response. “No, but really?”

  “I say, this is jolly good,” said the vicar, tasting Claire’s tea. “Of course I believe in it. Otherwise, when you were out on the street, you’d never see the same chap twice, would you?”

  “Yes, well, that’s coincidence at its most basic level—”

  “Oh, very basic,” the vicar agreed. “I say, what do I do now, fill in this mark sheet?”

  “But I think I mean coincidence as a force, as an organising principle if you like, as an alternative set of laws to the ones we usually go by.”

  “Oh, Jung,” said the vicar. “Where’s a pencil? I see, so I put this little tick in here…Synchronicity, eh? The old acausal connecting principle. Arthur Koestler, old J. W. Dunne. An Experiment with Time.”

  “Yes, I know all that. But what do you think of it?”

  “Murky waters,” said the vicar. He took his pipe out of his mouth and indicated with it; Hermione did not allow him tobacco. “Look here, let’s pinpoint this, Colin. What exactly is it that you’re asking me?”

  “I don’t know. Please, Claire, no more tea. My life seems to be falling apart, or rather—well, reorganising itself on some new principle entirely.”

  “For instance?”

  “Oh, you know how it is. You have hopes, they’re disappointed. You put the past behind you, find a modus vivendi. Suddenly it’s under threat. The past seems to be the present. I look at the faces about me, some familiar, some not so familiar, and I imagine I can see echoes—shadows, I suppose you’d say—of other faces. The air seems to be full of allusions. I look at people and I imagine them to be thinking all sorts of things. I don’t know whether it’s reasonable or not.”

  “I wish you could give me a more concrete example.”

  “Cup number 27,” said Claire. “The milk’s smelling a bit funny again, never mind.”

  “Well, all this about my mother…it’s as if she’s come back from the dead. It’s so unnatural to see somebody sit up like that and speak for the first time in years…it’s deeply sinister, it’s predictive, that’s what I feel.”

  “Predictive of what?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did know, if I knew I could prepare us for it. Our lives have been quite calm, all considered, for the past ten years, as calm as they can ever be when there’s a young family growing up…. But now there’s something hanging over us.”

  The vicar smiled; comfortable little pads, like hassocks, appeared beneath his chilly eyes. “Oh, come now, Colin. A touch melodramatic, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Things happen…they seem to have meaning, but they don’t. A while ago I was mowing the front lawn. It was a lovely day. I was enjoying myself. Suddenly there was a set of teeth staring up at me.”

  “Teeth,” the vicar said. “Human teeth, Colin?”

  “Yes, human teeth. Claire, I can’t drink this. The milk’s off.”

  Claire burst into tears. “You’re supposed to put down for the tea, not the milk. How can I get to fifty cups if nobody will drink it?”

  The vicar said, “I’m afraid it sounds like a classic case of…something unpleasant.”

  “I’m glad you agree,” Colin said.

  “So have you thought of, you know, seeing someone? A chap?”

  Suzanne phoned up Jim’s house. Her heart fluttered wildly when she heard the ringing tone. There was a dull pain in the pit of her stomach, her throat was closed and aching. She wrapped her hand so tightly round the receiver that the nails turned white. All day she had been steeling herself to make the call. Again and again she had pictured it, rehearsed it in her mind. To make it easier for herself she had invented some superstitions and pegged them around her fear. I shall let it ring twenty times, and if after twenty times she does not answer I will be reprieved, and I can put the phone down with a clearer mind because it will be a signal that ringing her was not the right thing to do.

  Between ring twelve and ring thirteen, the baby has grown a little, added a few cells to the person it will be. She sees herself relaxing her grip, replacing the receiver, walking away and out of the room to climb the stairs and lie on her bed. She closes her eyes. At the nineteenth ring, the phone is answered.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice sticks in her throat; comes out as a shrill little gasp. “Is that Isabel Ryan?”

  “Yes, who’s that?”

  “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “I’m afraid not. Who are you?”

  “It’s Suzanne Sidney.”

  There was a long pause. She had expected it. She waited. There was no answer, but she had not heard the receiver replaced. Perhaps she had laid it quietly on a table and gone away. She could not imagine Jim’s house. He had never described it. She did not know where the phone was, in the living room or in the hall; or perhaps Mrs. Ryan was lying on her bed, talking over an extension, and the receiver now suffocated in Jim’s pillow. But somehow she sensed that Mrs. Ryan was still there; breathing, breathing quietly, gathering her wits. When the silence had gone on for a long time she said, “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes.” The woman’s voice sounded very far away. “Yes, I remember, I know who you are.”

  Suzanne waited. Then she said, “I think we ought to meet.”

  “You want us to meet? Why?”

  “I should have thought it was obvious. We have things to talk about.”

  “I can’t imagine what things. Suzanne, how old are you now?”

  “I’m eighteen. Don’t you know?”

  “I couldn’t remember. I’m not sure that I ever knew your age exactly.”

  “What do you know about me?”

  “Not much.”

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Suzanne, is something wrong?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “I see, and are you…distressed about that?”

  Mrs. Ryan’s voice had a strangely detached, professional note; as if the whole thing had nothing to do with her. What a cold woman she must be, Suzanne thought. Everything Jim has said is true.

  “No, I’m not distressed.” She licked her dry lips, tasting their salt. “I’m rather proud, actually. I just need to talk the situation out with you.”

  “Well…that’s all right, I suppose.” She sounded puzzled. “Have you talked to other people about this? Your father?”

  “Oh, he thinks I should have an abortion. Nobody seems to understand.”

  “You certainly should have proper counselling before you make your decision.”

  “I want to meet you. Alone, or all three of us, it doesn’t matter. I think we ought to talk this out.”

  “Suzanne—no, calm down now—I can’t think what to say, this has come upon me out of the blue. You see, how can I advise you? I don’t know you at all. I suppose he’s told you that I was a social worker…but really I can’t imagine what he’s told you.”

  “He’s told me a lot. Everything that matters.”

  “But there’s nothing left between us. It’s been over for years.”

  “That’s exactly what he said.”

  “Oh, so you think that an uninvolved person could help to sort out your problem??
??

  “You’re hardly uninvolved.”

  “Look, have you tried the British Pregnancy Advisory Service? Their number must be in the book—”

  “How can you be so callous? That would be very convenient for you, wouldn’t it, if I got rid of it? You don’t know how it feels, because you’ve never had any children.”

  There was a silence. She sensed that Isabel was deeply shocked by her remark. Perhaps she had gone too far; though it was no more than the truth. After a long time, the woman spoke.

  “Suzanne, listen carefully. Much as I regret the situation in which you find yourself, I don’t see how I can help you. What you do doesn’t matter to me, one way or the other. And even what your father thinks, that can’t matter now. I have troubles of my own.” She hesitated; a long hesitation. “Perhaps in some way I’m missing the point?”

  “I think you’re missing it by a mile.” Fright made Suzanne aggressive. “You do know who I am, don’t you? You do know about our relationship?”

  “We’re not related,” Isabel said. “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Oh, very clever,” Suzanne said. Her voice was shrill with exasperation. “He did tell me about you, how crazy you were, how you didn’t give a damn for anybody but yourself.”

  “He said that?”

  “And more. He said he sometimes wished he’d never set eyes on you.”

  Another pause. “Yes, I see. Well, I don’t really need to know this. Not at this juncture. Goodbye.”

  Click. She had rung off. The bitch, Suzanne thought; the monster. Jim had not told her then. He had not told her there was going to be a baby. Unless she did know, and was trying to ride it out. There was something very strange about the woman’s attitude altogether. Perhaps she was just one of those people who never face up to anything until they have to. Immediately she picked up the phone again and rang Jim at the bank. She asked to be put through to the assistant manager. He answered at once.