Close Relations

  And how proud she was of Erin! She felt very much in love with her that evening; she had hardly seen her all week and she missed her. The audience’s attention charged up Erin; she glowed. She wore her nipped-in satin jacket and a tie; her hair was slicked back with gel. She looked like a plumaged bird compared to the drab sparrows of her devotees.

  They burst into applause. Erin moved to another table to sign books. Maddy eased her way through the crowd.

  ‘Hey, this is a queue, you know.’ A woman with a shaved head glared at her.

  Maddy joined the queue. It shuffled forward. Eventually she arrived at Erin who sat there, her pen poised.

  She looked up. ‘Darling. How did I sound?’

  ‘Great,’ said Maddy. ‘I’ve got the van outside. I thought you’d like a lift home.’

  ‘Sweetheart, I can’t. I’ve got to go out to dinner with the Waterstone’s people.’

  ‘But I’ve bought some supper. You said you’d be home tonight.’

  Erin smiled. ‘Oh dear. You sound just like a wife.’ The woman behind them tittered.

  Maddy turned round and pushed her way through the crowd. Tears stung her eyes. She pushed open the door and stepped outside, into Notting Hill. She hurried down the street, her bladder bursting, her heart bursting. She got into the van and drove home.

  Embarrassment is the tyrant of the young. It eases its grip with age. That was what Dorothy told herself as she sipped a glass of wine with her first date. His name was Raymond. Such a nice man, that was what made it worse. Her embarrassment, unlike that of the young, was not just on her own behalf but on his, too. It was a cosmic pity for the two of them. They sat in a pub in Holborn. Buses passed outside. In them she glimpsed people with whom she wished so strongly to change places that her body ached.

  Raymond took out a photograph of his wife. ‘She passed away last spring,’ he said. ‘She was a wonderful woman.’

  His skull was blotched with liver spots. His skin was papery; when he put away the photo his hand shook. While Dorothy had been married, men had been ageing. She supposed that she had been ageing too. Was this what she looked like? This man mirrored not just her own loneliness – indeed, a loneliness that seemed to engulf the world – but her own mortality. She wondered if he were looking at her with horror and thinking the same. In a long marriage neither partner grows old; their wrinkles are visible yet not recognised, for both people remain at some indeterminate age – not the age when they first met but some blurred stage in between.

  ‘I play golf, for my sins,’ he said. ‘Do you enjoy any hobbies?’

  ‘Well – I used to play badminton.’

  ‘How interesting,’ he replied. ‘When was that?’

  ‘At school,’ said Dorothy.

  There was a silence. She could sense his desperation; she could smell it, coming off his body. He was frightened of dying alone.

  Prudence and Stephen were not alone in the flat; her mother had long since gone but Kaatya remained. Kaatya was a guest who could not be removed; her ghostly presence was a gas, poisoning the air. It was getting worse. Prudence had never seen her; she had only heard her voice on the phone, harsh and foreign: ‘Can I speak please with Stephen?’ That she hadn’t learned such a simple English sentence by this time seemed insulting. From remarks dropped by Stephen she had clues to his wife’s appearance – black-haired, like their sons, and inclined to wear startling clothes she had picked up in Oxfam shops. In Prudence’s imagination Kaatya was beautiful, as unknown rivals always are; as time went by her beauty increased and by now, fuelled by Prudence’s jealousy, she was dazzling. She had wide, sensual lips, like the women in the Heartbeat books that Prudence published. Prudence’s own mouth was small. She rolled her own cigarettes – how rollicking and carefree that sounded! She drove a battered 2CV which she was constantly scraping – Stephen at that very moment was struggling with the latest insurance claim. She was volatile and creative; Prudence felt, by contrast, pinched and dowdy. A lusty woman, she could drink Stephen under the table. She was physically powerful; once, on holiday in Greece, she had picked up a sheep and put it on a wall to take its photograph. Prudence, torturing herself, pictured Kaatya in bed with Stephen, vigorously manhandling him. He had lived with Kaatya for fourteen years, six of them married; they must have made love thousands of times – in Dulwich, in Amsterdam, on countless holidays in hotel rooms and under canvas – probably, from what she had heard of Kaatya, in the open air. Prudence felt sick.

  Even Kaatya’s many faults – her ruthless selfishness, her slovenliness, her lack of interest in anything remotely intellectual – even these faults, emphasised by Stephen no doubt to make Prudence feel better, only deepened her jealousy. They made Kaatya horribly real, as if she were there in the room. Besides, if his wife were really so impossible, why had he stayed with her?

  Prudence had confessed none of this to her sisters; she felt demeaned by it. She knew she was obsessed; she could stand aside and watch herself with a repulsed detachment. How could she presume to possess his past? It was none of her business, his relationship with his wife. Didn’t he tell her that he loved her, that living with Kaatya had been a sort of madness? She knew, however, that he couldn’t have been that stupid. For many of those years he must have been happy with his marriage. If she truly loved him she wouldn’t hope that he had been miserable, would she? Ah, but it was painful. When reminiscing about the past, he tried, tactfully, not to mention Kaatya. She stiffened, however, as if the conversation might detonate; however carefully he trod, the sudden ‘we’ exploded in her heart.

  She knew she had to take action. The day came one Saturday in March. Stephen had taken the boys down to Chichester to stay with his mother. Prudence showered; she made up her face with care. She knew this was stupid. For one thing, she probably wouldn’t see the woman; even if she did, she had no intention of revealing her own identity. She dressed herself in her artiest clothes – black velvet leggings and a boldly patterned sweater she had bought on impulse years before and never worn.

  She drove towards Dulwich. Half the roads seemed to have been dug up. She sat in a traffic jam, waiting at a temporary traffic light. Was this a sign telling her to go home? She thought of all the things she should be doing on a Saturday morning – reading manuscripts, collecting the dry cleaning. Ahead of her was one of those Toyota monster-jeeps, the sort that Louise drove. It belched exhaust smoke. How superior it seemed, how huge and armoured! Louise was safe in her marriage. Louise had children – something that Kaatya had shared with Stephen and that was a tie deeper than marriage.

  The cars shunted forward. Prudence thought about her mother’s outbursts about April. ‘She’s not even that attractive!’ Her mother’s jealousy seemed pure and fine – seemed utterly understandable – compared to her own curdled sickness. April had stolen Gordon’s heart and thrust her mother into the wilderness. Three months earlier Dorothy had been running a business and living happily in a large house in Purley. Now she was alone, issuing forth from a rented room to meet strange men in wine bars. This could be considered exhilarating – she was free, she could do anything, at last she could live for herself. Prudence had told her mother this, with false cheer, as if she were really capable of dispensing advice.

  She parked at the top of Agincourt Road and turned off the engine. Her heart thumped, just as it had all those months ago when she had sat there, looking at Kaatya’s and Stephen’s cars. It was March now; the trees were bare and she could see the house more distinctly. Even from this distance she could see that there was no Citroën parked outside. Maybe Kaatya had gone out. On the other hand, the car could be at a garage, being repaired. She looked up at the roof. It, too, had been repaired, by her father’s firm. Had Kaatya arranged this to lure Stephen back, or simply to upset him?

  Prudence lit a cigarette. Her hand shook. She thought: I just need to see her. The image of her had been building up for eighteen months; just a glimpse of her would surely prick the boil and release the poiso
n.

  Half an hour passed. Prudence sat there, inert. She didn’t even play the radio. Maybe if she sat there long enough these big Edwardian houses would be neutralised; the street would revert into being a comfortable, anonymous place, one of thousands of similar streets throughout London. Perhaps she could persuade herself to feel sorry for Kaatya, the abandoned wife. Perhaps – who knows? – Kaatya would emerge from the front door arm-in-arm with another man.

  Prudence was imagining this when the front door opened and a woman came out. It was unmistakably Kaatya – who else could it be? From this distance all Prudence could make out was a blur of black and white, with red legs. Kaatya walked off in the opposite direction.

  Prudence got out of the car. She hurried down the road, drawing nearer. Kaatya carried a hold-all. Like a film star, she was shorter than Prudence had imagined – in her mind Kaatya had grown powerfully tall. She was wearing a fake-fur coat, red leggings and boots. She had a mass of black hair. Prudence could almost inhale her scent. Kaatya strode across the main road, narrowly missing a car. Prudence followed her.

  Down past the parade of shops stood an industrial building. Kaatya disappeared into it. The sign said The Old Brewery Fitness Centre. Prudence read the price list, pinned to the doorway. Membership £250 per annum. Stephen had paid that. He paid for everything. Throughout their marriage Kaatya had never earned a penny; she was too disorganised. She was one of those arty women who bought large amounts of equipment on their husband’s credit card and never finished anything. It was one of Stephen’s many complaints that just made Kaatya seem more attractive – impulsive, creative, highly sexed.

  There was an alleyway beside the building. Prudence walked up it and gazed through the window.

  The room was filled with women. She spotted Kaatya straight away. Kaatya wore a shiny green leotard. She was thin, with small breasts; even from this distance the nipples were visible. Her stomach was so concave that her pelvic bones jutted out. She stood, swinging her arms first one way and then the other. She twisted her body, rotating her hips as if balancing a hula-hoop. Those same hips had rotated beneath Stephen. She wiped her forehead, revealing black hair in her armpits. She had that loose-jointed look of someone who is at ease with her body.

  Prudence watched her with a close, ardent attention. Kaatya moved to the music. She had dark eyes; there was a haunted, mid-European look to her. Oh, she was handsome all right, but not in the way Prudence had imagined. By now her body was shining with sweat. She lay on the floor and parted her legs; she opened and closed them like scissors, making love to the air. Prudence, too, was sweating. She felt strangely aroused. She and this woman had shared the same body; they had both been entered by the same man.

  Kaatya clambered to her feet; she turned and spoke to the woman next to her. Prudence felt a surprising tweak of jealousy. She wanted Kaatya to speak to her. What was the matter? Was she a secret lesbian? Erin said that true desire was no respecter of gender; when she loved, the sex of her beloved was irrelevant. Prudence had thought this was hogwash – just Erin’s way of getting two for the price of one – but then she remembered her schoolgirl crushes, the hot flush of them, the jealousy and rapture.

  Prudence turned away. She walked back to the car. Seeing Kaatya hadn’t solved anything; in fact, it had made it worse. For Kaatya was a person now, flesh and blood. She could no longer be spirited away.

  ‘I’m fortunate to have travelled,’ said the man. ‘I’ve a collection of book matches from all the major capitals of the world. For service I would recommend British Airways but for legroom the Swiss.’ He gazed at Dorothy through his pebble glasses. ‘To be frank, Mrs Hammond, I’m looking for long-term commitment on a loving basis.’

  Dorothy must have managed to make her excuses because now she was leaving. She didn’t remember how she did it, maybe she had behaved oddly, she couldn’t recollect.

  It was a dazzling day, the first true day of spring. She crossed the Cromwell Road. To her left reared up the Natural History Museum. She had taken the girls there once, when they were small, way back in another century.

  She bumped into somebody. ‘Sorry’ She recrossed the Cromwell Road. Where was she going? Where was she supposed to go, for the rest of her life?

  It was then that she saw the van. It was parked outside a hotel. Somebody was carrying a bush, holding it like a baby. She settled it into a tub on the front steps of the building. It was Maddy.

  A jolt of pleasure shot through Dorothy. In the split second before she’d recognised her daughter she had seen her as a stranger would: a square woman – had she put on weight? – with cropped hair, dressed in army trousers and an old jacket. A woman who was desexed by her shapeless clothes. She worked, oblivious to the passers-by, pressing earth around the shrub.

  Dorothy hurried across the road. ‘Maddy!’ she called. There is something romantic about glimpsing someone familiar, even one’s daughter, in an unfamiliar neighbourhood.

  Maddy straightened up. ‘Mum. What’re you doing here?’

  ‘Can you stop for a moment?’

  They sat in the hotel bar. The walls were hung with pictures of slaughtered birds. Maddy had washed her hands but there was still a raw, outdoors look to her.

  ‘Have a glass of wine,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘I don’t drink.’

  ‘Keep me company, just for once.’ Dorothy looked at her daughter. ‘Keep me company. Please.’

  Maddy ordered a glass of wine. There were two reasons why she didn’t drink. She didn’t like the taste, and if she did drink, it immediately went to her head.

  ‘I’ve done four, now,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘What do you mean, you’re done for?’

  Dorothy nodded. ‘I’m done for. I’ve met four of them.’ The muzak was playing the Tom Jones song It’s Not Unusual. She liked Tom Jones, a fact that her daughters had found hilarious. ‘One of them was a scout-master who lived with his mother. I think I want to die.’

  ‘There must be someone out there,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Who needs men? You don’t.’ Dorothy stopped. ‘I mean, who needs anybody?’

  ‘I do.’ Maddy took a sip of her wine.

  ‘But you’ve got – I mean – where’s Erin?’ She looked around, as if Erin might come through the door. The barman rubbed a glass.

  ‘At a conference,’ said Maddy.

  Dorothy waited. Silently, she urged Maddy to confide in her, but she didn’t want to pry. Besides, she didn’t like Erin and if one doesn’t like the person concerned one’s questions seem more intrusive.

  ‘She’s famous now,’ said Maddy. ‘She was on TV last night. Did you see her?’ She took another gulp. ‘She’s changed.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She just has.’ She drained her glass. ‘Shit, I’m drunk.’

  Dorothy suddenly asked: ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Have another go. You can do better than Dad.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Dad bullied you,’ said Maddy. ‘He kept you down. I used to listen to him eating. And then he’d light up before we had finished. He was a pig.’

  ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘Actually, I like him better now. At least he’s done something unexpected.’

  ‘I know you do,’ said Dorothy tartly. ‘But what about me?’

  ‘I told you, you’re well rid of him. He’s a control freak. Remember our holidays, when he planned everything with the map and we had to go exactly where he said. He had a bloody timetable!’ She ate a crisp. ‘He bullied you and you let him.’ She hiccuped. ‘It takes two to be bullied.’ She hiccuped again. ‘It’s sort of an unhealthy pact.’

  Dorothy waited. Her daughter didn’t continue. ‘Maddy –’ she began.

  ‘Try one more,’ said Maddy. ‘Go on. Just for luck. Just for you. Whatever. Let’s have bloody one of us being happy. You seen Prudence lately? She looks terrible. Let’s one of us be happy. Lou’s the only one who’s got off scot-free.’

  Louis
e had told nobody about the incident with Tim. She didn’t want to humiliate him by making him into a story. She could imagine, only too well, Robert’s reaction. Since it had happened, the week before, she hadn’t been to the shop. She thought how ironic it was that Tim’s declaration had deprived him of her custom.

  It was a beautiful day. The hedgerow was starred with celandines as if somebody had flung coins there. There was a breezy largesse to the air. She wondered what it must be like for Tim and his wife to witness this yearly renewal, when the one thing they had loved was stilled. She walked past the churchyard. The headstones leaned together like teeth loosened with age.

  Children’s shouts floated from the primary school down on the green. Louise loved children – in fact, she wished she had had more of them – mothering came naturally to her. She had been at her happiest when Jamie and Imogen had been babies. Now she helped six-year-olds learn to read, taking them, one at a time, out of the class. That morning, gazing at Sophia Wilmott’s bent head, she thought about Tim. He had no daughter to love, her blond hair scraped back into pigtails. Louise had never suffered, not really. Tim’s grief was too vast to comprehend. Perhaps – who knows? – it was the cause of his startling declaration. What on earth could she do? It had never crossed her mind that he harboured a secret passion for her. From now on, if she were friendly he would take it as an encouragement; if she were businesslike he would be hurt.

  ‘Goblin,’ she said, pointing to the sentence. ‘Wimbush the Goblin was the saddest goblin in the wood.’