‘Sorry,’ Maddy said.
Maddy shook a primula out of its pot. As she did so, she thought about Erin’s novel. Reading it had been a painful experience. The graphic sexual passages had shocked her, for though no prude she was unused to reading novels of this nature – in fact, she seldom read novels at all. She had been startled by her feelings of jealousy – gut-scouring, cheek-reddening jealousy, waves of it – for the heroine of the book was recognisably Erin and even now, bundled up in her old gardening coat and wrenching open a sack of peat, it was all too easy to picture Erin lying on a beach in Goa, annointing the nipples of her girlfriend with honey – a scene from the early pages of the novel, and one which culminated in passionate underwater lovemaking. Maddy was unused to such fierce feelings, her love affairs with men having been somewhat tepid, and though she was grateful to find herself capable of such ardour she was unprepared for its dark underbelly – jealousy.
Erin left as dusk was falling. Maddy rescued a worm and flung it out of the way. Five minutes after Erin had gone it started to rain. Maddy felt resentful. It was as if Erin controlled not only her, but nature, which didn’t dare to send down the rain until she was out of the way.
Maddy sat in the van. In the mud outside, a footprint filled up with water. Erin’s boot had made the print. Gazing at the pitted surface she suddenly felt dizzied with love. How lucky that water was to collect in the space where Erin’s foot had been!
The rain ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Maddy started packing up. How simple her former life had been; how confusing it was, when one finally opened one’s heart!
In the conference room Brian, the art director, was showing Erin the mock-up of her book jacket. Prudence hovered anxiously. She found Erin intimidating. Even the woman’s dirty fingernails seemed a statement of superiority, as if Erin were engaged in more honest toil than these media types.
‘It’s a great read,’ said Brian. ‘Your name goes here, thirty-four-point.’ He was a sixties whiz-kid, one of those Cockney lads who had made good. Though wizened now, he had a certain twinkly charm to which Prudence presumed that Erin was immune. ‘No, seriously, my girlfriend couldn’t put it down. She missed her stop and ended up in Hounslow East.’
‘That’s the reaction we’re getting from everyone,’ said Prudence.
Brian pointed. ‘The title goes here, Playing with Fire.’
‘Are these supposed to be women’s bodies?’ asked Erin.
Brian nodded. ‘People’ll spend so long working out who’s doing what to who they’ll end up buying the book.’ He laughed. ‘No, seriously, we’re dead pleased with it.’
Prudence asked Erin: ‘What do you think?’
‘My novel’s about language,’ said Erin. ‘It’s about a woman’s search for freedom.’
‘Yeah, but there’s a lot of bonking too,’ said Brian.
Prudence froze, but Erin smiled. ‘Why do you think I put it in?’ she said. ‘We want this book to sell, don’t we?’
Prudence smiled. ‘So let’s go for it!’
Her relief, however, was short-lived. Walking to the lift with Erin she asked: ‘How’s Maddy?’
‘Fine,’ said Erin. ‘She’s working with me now. She’s very good with plants.’
‘You must come round to dinner soon. It’s all been a bit chaotic this past month, what with Dad, and the move to this place. Maddy seems very happy – you know, with you.’
Erin nodded. ‘She’s finally stopped running.’
‘Running? What’s she been trying to get away from?’
‘You, of course,’ said Erin.
They had arrived at the lift. Two secretaries from
Prudence’s department, dressed to go home, stood there.
‘Me?’ asked Prudence.
‘You and your sister.’
‘What do you mean?’ Prudence stared at her. The two secretaries listened with interest.
‘She always felt inadequate compared to you two,’ said Erin. ‘Didn’t you realise? Louise so beautiful . . . you so clever. And your father didn’t help. She’s a very damaged person.’
Prudence stood there, numb. The lift doors opened. Erin and the two girls stepped in, and the doors closed behind them.
At six-thirty Prudence left the office. It had stopped raining. Stephen sat on a wall. He was illuminated by the arc-lights of the car-park. Unshaven and raincoated, he looked as if he were waiting for Godot.
‘Why didn’t you come in?’ she asked, and instantly regretted it. Of course he wouldn’t come in. She took his arm. ‘Let’s have a drink.’
They drove off. Ten minutes later they found themselves in a Bovis estate of half-built maisonettes. Prudence backed the car out and turned it round. A one-way system swept them up onto a flyover, past Canary Wharf, down through an underpass and out onto a roundabout.
‘Where’s a bloody pub?’ muttered Prudence.
He looked out of the window. ‘Weren’t we here five minutes ago?’
‘Bloody one-way system,’ she said. ‘We’re caught in some awful loop.’
He pointed to a slip road. ‘Try that.’
‘Shit.’ She had missed it. She drove on, gesturing around at the no man’s land. ‘Welcome to the brave new world of publishing. Aren’t you glad you’re out of it?’
‘No, actually.’
‘Sorry. It’s been an awful day, and then Erin Fox came in and told me I’d damaged my sister by being too clever.’
‘I disliked that woman on sight. Bossy, humourless, fancying herself.’
‘She seems to have Maddy in her thrall,’ said Prudence. ‘I’ve never seen my sister so radiant.’
‘Maybe it’s better with a woman.’
‘I can’t remember what it was like with a man.’
‘Stop the car,’ he said.
‘I can’t!’
‘Just stop.’
Prudence slewed the car onto the pavement. Traffic thundered past them. She switched off the engine.
Stephen said: ‘Prudence, I’ve lost my job. I’ve seen you get it, which is fine, I’m delighted for you, but it’s hardly the most tumescing of circumstances. I’ve spent the last month hawking myself around every publishing house in London. I’ve even started filling in applications for selling insurance. How low can you get?’ He gazed out at a crane, poised over a warehouse. ‘My marriage is strained to breaking point. I’m in no state for anything. I can hardly manage to get my clothes on in the morning.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’
She paused. ‘It’s just – I can’t stand this any more. My father nearly died. You and me, we’ll both be dead one day –’
‘This is a cheerful conversation –’
‘What’s the point of it?’ She turned to look at him. ‘We’re living this half-life, not really living at all, just causing each other pain, a sort of non-everything. Only the pain is real.’ She looked out of the window. ‘And we can’t even find a fucking drink.’
‘Funny to hear you swear.’
‘Well, I do now.’
‘It’s rather nice,’ he said.
She gazed at the overflowing glove compartment. A lorry thundered past, shaking the car. She felt they were in the frailest of vessels, flotsam in the windy world.
‘Steve, we’ve got to stop. You know that, don’t you?’
They sat there, tears sliding down their cheeks. She didn’t turn, but she could feel him nodding.
‘Dot? Just going out. Be back later.’
‘Out where? You shouldn’t be driving.’
‘I’m fine. Just going into town.’
‘Why?’
‘Drop off some paint at Lavender Hill.’
‘But it’s Sunday.’
‘Yes – but then it’ll be ready for tomorrow, won’t it?’
‘Honestly, Gordon. Still, I’m glad you’re feeling better.’
‘See you later.’
‘Well, take care. Don’t start shouting at other drivers.’
‘Bye.’
Imogen heard the sound of an engine. Tripping over Monty, she darted to the kitchen window. It was his van. She hurried out of the side door and, when she turned the corner, sauntered casually across the gravel.
‘Hi,’ she said. It must show on her face. She felt transparent, like one of those grubs whose skin reveals the pumping organs within, the pulsing hopes and fears.
Karl picked up his bag of tools. Today he wore a peacock-blue shirt and spotted scarf. He had had a haircut; the curls on his neck had been shorn off. It made him slightly less attractive. As she followed him into the stable she felt grateful for this; it made it more possible that nobody else would want him.
‘Nice of you to come on a Sunday,’ she said.
‘It’s an emergency, isn’t it? And I’m booked up all next week.’ He lifted Skylark’s hoof. How glad she was that a horse couldn’t speak! ‘Must’ve been one hell of a wrench.’
‘She tripped on something and then I heard this clanking noise.’
‘When did I shoe her?’
‘Five weeks ago,’ she said promptly. ‘But I’ve been doing lots of riding.’ She stroked Skylark’s neck. ‘In fact, I’ve been trying to find that badger’s sett.’
‘Badger’s sett?’
‘You know, that you were telling me about. In Blackthorn Wood.’
Karl held the new shoe against the hoof. ‘I know the one.’
‘You said you’d show it to me.’
‘Did I now?’
‘I love badgers,’ she said.
He started hammering. ‘We’ll see about it then.’
‘I’m free most evenings.’ She added hastily: ‘I mean, I’m out quite a lot, but if I knew in time –’
He looked up at her. ‘How old are you?’
‘Sixteen. I told you before.’
‘Well, sixteen-year-old, you should be staying home doing your homework.’
‘I bet you never did.’
‘Now how did you guess?’ He grinned at her, and rubbed his shorn neck. Who had cut his hair, a hairdresser? He didn’t look like the sort of person who went to a hairdresser. He said: ‘Okay. How about tonight, then? At dusk.’
She nodded. She felt the heat spreading over her cheeks.
It was Gordon who wore the uniform now – his overalls. There was a pencil slotted behind his ear. He lowered his Hitachi drill and pointed.
‘I been thinking. See, if we moved that over there . . . you could put your table that side, gives you more space. The door won’t keep banging into it . . . Build a little cupboard there, for your videos . . . sort out that damp over there. My guess is that it’s a cracked downpipe. Have to talk to the freeholder about that.’
April smiled. ‘You’re always like this, aren’t you?’
‘Like what?’
‘Sorting things out.’ She pushed a cushion back into its cover; she had been washing the covers in her machine. ‘You’re wasted in your job. Should be running an army.’
‘I do. Except they’re all deserters. Specially on Monday mornings.’
She laughed and zipped up the cover.
‘Used to make my daughters laugh.’
‘Don’t they any more?’ she asked.
‘Not at my jokes. I’m a bit of a liability, as far as they’re concerned.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m their dad. A dad’s always in the wrong, isn’t he?’
She plumped up the cushion and put it on the settee. ‘Wish I’d known mine. When I was six he sent me this pair of boots, red suede, really pretty, but I couldn’t get them on. I suppose I’d grown up faster than he’d realised.’
‘How could he leave somebody like you?’
She stuffed the next cushion into its cover. ‘He didn’t feel like that, did he.’ She paused. ‘Last thing I heard he’d gone back to Jamaica.’ She dropped the cushion onto the settee. ‘Sometimes I think about him. When I’m on nights. You have time, then. It’s like the whole world’s asleep. It’s just you and these, like, these souls in your care. Just their heartbeats jumping in the monitors. They’re, like, all your children and you’ve got them safe. Just for the night.’ She shrugged. ‘I think about him then. And I don’t even know what he looks like.’ She jerked her head at the room. ‘Easier to sort this out.’
Gordon gazed at her. He felt the room ebb away, like a wave hissingly pulling away from a beach. He and she were left there alone, high and dry.
It had been one of those dirty November days, grey and smeary, a day that held the dusk within it throughout the hours of daylight. Imogen, in her room, put on her star-shaped earrings. She looked at herself in the mirror. Earrings for badger-watching? She pulled them out.
She went downstairs and unhooked her coat. Her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘Where’re you going?’
‘To Sandra’s,’ said Imogen.
‘Why?’
‘To watch a video.’
‘You said you’d never talk to her again after she taped over your Withnail and I. Anyway, you’re not going out till you’ve tidied your room.’
‘Mum –’
‘It’ll only take half an hour.’
‘I can’t!’
‘The video can wait. That’s the point of videos. Phone her up.’
‘I can’t!’
Imogen rushed out.
Jamie sauntered out of the kitchen, eating taramasalata from a tub. Louise turned to him.
‘What have I done wrong?’ she asked. ‘I was never like that with my parents. I was nice and neat and tidy.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘I helped my mother. I laughed at my dad’s jokes.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘It’s true!’
‘Bet you were just like us,’ he said, and went back into the kitchen.
She followed him. Bags were heaped on the table; she had just returned from Sunday worship at the cathedral of Tesco. The bags were riffled, as if a rat had been at them; her children were experts at filleting out what they wanted to eat – Fruit Corners, taramasalata – and bundling the rest of the stuff back into the bags.
‘Maybe I should phone your granny,’ she said. ‘See how Grandad is. Haven’t spoken to them for a week.’
‘Such a good daughter,’ said Jamie.
Ignoring this, she punched in the phone number. As it rang, she pointed to the shopping. ‘Put that away, will you?’
‘Mum! I spend the whole week stacking shelves. Probably stacked these.’
Dorothy answered the phone. They were fine, she said, but she was worried about Gordon. He was restless and fidgety; he was finding it a torture to give up smoking. Over the past decades he had tried, several times, and failed. ‘I think he slips out of the house so he can have one on the sly, without me seeing.’
‘Put him on. I’ll read him the riot act.’
‘He’s not here. He went out this morning and he hasn’t come back yet. In fact I’m starting to feel worried.’
‘I don’t want a cigarette . . . I don’t want a cigarette . . .’ chanted April. ‘All nurses smoke. Funny, isn’t it, seeing as we know what it does to people.’
Gordon said: ‘You don’t have to do this, just to keep me company.’
‘I’m starting a new life. I’ve decided. Who needs blokes? I even ironed his shirts. Nobody irons blokes’ shirts any more.’ They were sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea. She squeezed her earlobe. ‘Do this, when you feel the urge coming on.’
He held his earlobe. ‘Like this?’
She leaned over the table and squeezed his earlobe. ‘Like this. My friend Beverley showed me. There’s these pulse-points, see, and this is the nicotine one. She learned it from her swimming instructor.’
It was strangely comforting, having his ear held. As she leaned towards him her breasts, in their paint-spattered T-shirt, pressed against the table. ‘How long do we do it for?’ he asked.
‘Till the urge goes.’
A minute passed. The fridge rumbled into life. Out in the back yard below her flat somebody was whistling. It was the opening number from Guys and Dolls – I Got The Horse Right Here . . . He knew the words by heart. He tried to concentrate on them, rather than his overpowering need to draw tobacco into his lungs. ‘It’s getting worse,’ he said.
‘You’re not trying.’ She took her hand away. She had strong, nurse’s hands, chocolate-coloured skin, pale palms and startling, milky nails. She placed his thumb and forefinger around his earlobe. ‘There. You don’t want one, do you?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s no good.’
She laughed, and held his earlobe again. Her hand was warm. ‘I can’t do this for ever.’
‘Why not? I’m growing attached to you. I think I’ll take you around with me everywhere.’
‘We might get some funny looks. Where will you take me, then? Somewhere exciting?’
He nodded. ‘How does Neasden grab you?’
‘Mmm, lovely.’
‘Ponders End . . . you name it, sky’s the limit.’
‘How about somewhere really thrilling, like East Bromley?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. They’ve got tigers there, I’ve heard. They come out at night, in the Bejam car-park.’
She laughed, and let go of his ear. He looked out of the window. Lights shone from the back windows of the flats opposite. Darkness seemed to have fallen.
‘Heck. I got to go.’ He looked at his watch. It was five o’clock.
He packed up his things. They went downstairs. She opened the door for him.
‘Thanks for everything,’ she said.
He said goodbye and walked round the corner, into the side street where he had parked his car. The Mercedes sat there in the lamplight. It looked strangely low, as if it had sunk into the road.
Then he looked again. The tyres had been removed.
She followed Karl down a muddy path. Branches brushed her shoulders. It was so dark that she couldn’t see where she was going. She stepped into a rut and stumbled.
He took her hand. How large and dry his hand was! Was he just holding hers to steady her?
He whispered. ‘No chattering when we get there. Right?’
‘I’m not going to chatter!’
They stumbled on.
Gordon gave her back the Yellow Pages. He had phoned three tyre suppliers; as he had suspected, they were all closed.