They walked towards Stephen. He sat on one of the plastic chairs, with his back to them. Prudence hadn’t seen him all morning; he had been in meetings. As they drew nearer she noticed something odd; cigarette smoke wreathed up in front of his head.
She said: ‘Stephen?’
He turned round in his seat. He didn’t get up.
‘This is my sister, Louise –’ Prudence stopped. ‘What’s the matter?’
Stephen took a drag of his cigarette. ‘They’ve made me redundant.’
Louise glared at her husband. ‘Don’t you dare call it market forces! He’s got to clear his desk by next week.’
Imogen rummaged in a carrier bag. ‘Got my tights?’
Louise pulled out a Sock Shop bag and gave it to her daughter. She had just arrived from London. Robert was mixing gin and tonics; her children were hovering, looking at the carrier bags.
‘Did you go to Red or Dead?’ asked Imogen.
‘Yes, I went to Red or Dead.’ Louise turned to Robert. ‘They’ve sacked ten of them, even the old boy who packed the parcels.’
‘Did you get my top?’ asked Imogen.
Louise thrust the bag at her. ‘Black, right? Just to make a change.’ She took the drink from her husband. ‘These horrible money men have taken it over.’
Jamie rummaged in the bags. ‘Did you get my CD?’
‘Vultures!’ She gave her son the CD. ‘And don’t play it so we can hear.’ She sat down at the table. ‘They’re absorbing everybody, or rationalising them, or whatever inhuman words you use –’
‘I didn’t do it,’ said Robert.
‘This nice, fusty old family firm that actually cared about books –’
‘Darling, you only read Hello! –’
‘And people like Stephen, who looks really nice, who’s devoted his life to literature, they’re just like old Kleenexes, just thrown away –’
‘Why do you care so much?’ asked Robert. ‘Just because he’s boffing your sister –’
She glanced at the children. ‘Robert!’
‘They’re not listening. They’re far too egocentric.’
‘It’s just such a vulgar way of putting it.’
‘Sorry, oh builder’s daughter,’ he said. ‘Thou hast never heard coarse language?’
‘Yes, but you went to Charterhouse.’
Imogen said: ‘I know about Stephen. He’s got two boys. One of them broke his arm playing football. They live in Dulwich.’
Louise stared at her daughter. ‘How do you know?’
‘I heard Aunty Pru talking to him on the phone. Last Easter.’
Robert laughed. ‘So let’s throw it open. Jamie, Imogen, some input here. Would you like to share your thoughts on modem management methods and their effect upon legover situations?’
The teenagers shrugged. Louise got up. ‘I’m going to make some supper.’ She turned to her children. ‘Did either of you dig up the leeks?’ There was no response. ‘I phoned!’
‘Yeah,’ said Jamie. ‘In the middle of Neighbours.’
Louise sighed. She went to the back door, pulled her old gardening coat off the peg, and stomped out into the dark.
Maddy’s love life had always been unsatisfactory. Her first lover was a man called Jake. He was a decent, bearded man who had run the adventure playground in Stockwell where she had worked. He had relieved her of her virginity so gently that she had hardly noticed it was happening. For two years they had worked together, building walkways in the sky and painting them primary colours, constructing a club house and a ping-pong room. They had toiled against the odds – gangs of youths from the nearby housing estate vandalising the place, the local authority threatening to close it down and build flats on the site. Jake was a saintly man. Doggedly he reglazed broken windows and cleared up the mess. Like all good people he never hated a person, only the actions of which the person seemed so unaccountably capable. At the beginning Maddy admired this but as time went by she found it frustrating. Why couldn’t he stand up and fight? Their relationship, never vigorous, petered out. His lovemaking no longer seemed gentle, just tepid. Perhaps it had always been tepid, she just hadn’t used that word for it. She wasn’t good with words. They had drifted into friendship, both secretly relieved that there had been no emotional showdown. Later, Jake found God and became a born-again Christian. It suited him. With his beard, his carpentry skills and his limitless compassion he had always resembled Jesus.
Her later affairs had followed the same pattern. She met a man. They became friends and eventually drifted into bed. She enjoyed the sex but in a companionable way. Two bodies rubbed together in a vaguely comical manner; there was a spasm of pleasure and then both parties got a good night’s sleep. She didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Oh, it was pleasant enough but it didn’t touch her to the core, she could live without it. And for years, off and on, she did.
It took Maddy four days to pick up the phone. Finally, she did it. Erin said that she would come round that afternoon. She sounded brisk and businesslike. After all, it was a business transaction.
Maddy sat on the rim of the bath. She looked at herself in the mirror. The bathroom was lit by a frosted lozenge on the ceiling. Dead flies had collected in it; she could see their smudged shapes through the glass. She suddenly saw her surroundings clearly. What had she been doing all her life?
She looked at her face – properly, for the first time in years. Her tan had faded; in the harsh light she looked sallow. Her fringe was a straight line across her eyebrows; she had always cut it this way, it was the simplest. Under it, her face looked heavy. Square jaw, stubborn lower lip. She had always felt the odd one out; her parents had found her in a doorway and taken her home. That was why she had failed them and they had failed her.
Later, she remembered that moment when she sat in the bathroom, leaning against the blistered wall. She closed her eyes. She felt as if she stood at the edge of her old life, teetering on the rim. Ahead of her stretched an abyss. Did she dare to step out into the unknown? Upstairs, a woman shouted ‘Damon!’ She heard the clatter of pans. Upstairs, people’s lives were carrying on as usual. Wasn’t that strange?
The bell rang. Erin stood in the doorway. Maddy nodded hello and ushered her in. She opened the back door and stepped out onto the patio. She could feel Erin beside her. Kicking aside a bottle, she gestured around.
‘You see, I’d like to clear it up a bit, to thank the woman who’s lent me the flat. Maybe returf the lawn, it’s got all mossy, what do you think?’ She was gabbling. ‘I don’t know how much it would cost . . .’
The sun was sinking. It bathed the derelict garden in golden light. A blackbird sang, startlingly close.
Erin turned to her. ‘You didn’t ask me here to look at your garden.’
Erin unbuttoned Maddy’s shirt. She ran her finger down Maddy’s throat; she felt the hollow with her fingertip, the pulse beneath the skin. She kissed it, kissing her own finger there, including herself in Maddy’s bumping blood. She reached into her bag and took out a phial of oil. Tapping some drops onto her finger she touched Maddy’s throat, she anointed her temples. The scent made Maddy swoon. Erin ran her fingers over Maddy’s breast. Such sensitive fingers she had, as if she were reading the Braille of Maddy’s body.
‘Your skin, it’s wonderful,’ murmured Erin.
‘Is it?’
‘Has nobody told you you’re beautiful?’
Maddy shook her head.
‘You’ve been touched . . . but nobody’s really touched you, have they . . .?’ She moved her hands. ‘Here . . . and here . . . like this . . .’
Maddy shook her head. She sat on the bed, her shoulders and breasts naked, her shirt bunched around her waist. She felt like a fruit that had just been peeled.
‘Can you feel how lovely you are?’ Erin murmured. She bent her head and licked Maddy’s nipple.
A jolt shot through her. ‘I’ve never –’ she stopped.
‘I know,’ said Erin.
 
; ‘Kiss me.’
Erin kissed her – a slow, deep kiss. Maddy’s heart opened. Shyly, she stroked Erin’s face. She slid her hand beneath Erin’s embroidered jacket, beneath her satin blouse, and touched her shoulder. How smooth her skin was! How strange to feel skin that was as smooth as her own! Tentatively, she stroked her.
‘Do you have a candle?’ asked Erin.
Maddy stiffened. What was she going to do with it? She withdrew her hand.
‘It’s just this room’s so sad.’ Erin pulled a shawl out of her bag, like a magician, and draped it over the lamp. The dingy room was transformed; it was bathed in a rosy glow. ‘You must learn to love yourself, my darling.’
She removed Maddy’s shirt from around her waist. She took off her own jacket and blouse. Beneath it she was naked. She had large, heavy breasts and dark nipples. Maddy turned to her and buried her face in her, smelling the scent of her hair, the scent of oil on her throat. She moved her face down and smelt the sharp, animal scent of Erin’s armpit. She shuddered.
Erin laid her on the bed. She lay down beside her and pushed the hair from her face. ‘You’re here at last,’ she murmured. ‘Isn’t it lovely that you never knew what you were waiting for?’ Maddy thrilled to her voice. Erin kissed her skin with feathery kisses, light as butterflies. She ran her finger over Maddy’s mouth. ‘All your loveliness . . . it’s been waiting for me . . .’
Maddy lay there, trembling, while Erin unzipped her jeans. She pulled them down, with her knickers, and threw them on the floor. Erin took off her own clothes. The two women lay there, skin against skin. Erin stroked Maddy’s belly; she stroked her thighs. She stroked her alive. Erin’s hands knew her body, they were her own self caressing it, inflaming it.
Outside, darkness had fallen. Maddy lay still. Erin moved over her body, lighting each place upon which she landed. Maddy surrendered herself to Erin’s hands and to her mouth, her fingers and tongue. Her breathing quickened as Erin’s head moved down, between her legs.
Afterwards, Maddy sobbed. Erin gazed at her tenderly, and wiped her eyes with the edge of the duvet.
‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Maddy.
‘Why?’
‘I haven’t cried since I was a child.’ She laced her fingers through Erin’s. ‘I feel . . .’
‘What do you feel, my darling?’
‘I feel I’ve come home.’
Erin put her arms around her. Their skin was slippery with sweat. She enfolded Maddy, who buried her face in her shoulder.
‘I never thought it would happen to me.’ Stephen drained his gin and tonic. ‘I read all these articles about it in the Independent but it was like reading about an earthquake in Korea or something.’
‘Who’ve you tried?’ asked Prudence. They were sitting in a pub in Goodge Street. It was lunchtime; a week since he had left the office. ‘Have you made a list?’
He nodded. He longed for another drink but he felt Prudence’s eyes on him, monitoring him. ‘Random House, Reed . . .’ He knew people in most of the publishing houses, many of them he considered his friends, but suddenly a barrier had come down between them. Oh, they were sympathetic all right, they had read about his redundancy in the Bookseller, but they couldn’t help and then their other phone started ringing. ‘People are always in meetings, all the people I want to talk to. It’s most peculiar. I feel I’ve got an infectious illness. I feel ill, actually.’ He silently urged Prudence to finish her glass of wine so he could get them both another.
‘Oh Steve . . .’ She stroked his fingers. She gazed at him with her frank, clever face. Prudence was his sorrowful and sympathetic friend – far more of a friend than his wife – but even she couldn’t understand. She was safe. Her brown hair was pushed back with a velvet snood-thing – her office hairstyle; she wore her businesslike blue blouse and jacket, unembellished by fripperies. She was a working person. He was out in the wilderness. He had been thrust into a cold, windy place that was in the outside world but not part of it. Of course, other people were out there, too – the unemployed, all those statistics. He knew many people who had lost their jobs. Strangely enough, this didn’t help. He still felt utterly alone. It was terrifying.
‘Where’s that food?’ He glared at the counter. ‘They only have to bung it in a microwave.’ He picked up her glass. ‘Let me get you another while we’re waiting.’
He went up to the bar. Prudence watched him. From the back he seemed to have shrunk. His shoulders drooped. Maybe it was because he wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a sweater. He looked, literally, as if the stuffing had been taken out of him. Poor Stephen. What on earth was he going to do? He would be paid some redundancy money but it wouldn’t amount to much, he had only been working at Beveridge and Bunyan for three years.
The question was: would he get another job? Only that week, Viking Penguin had announced that another thirty staff were to go. She looked at Stephen; he stood at the bar, scratching the back of his neck. She suddenly saw him clearly, as others might see him – a man whose chief asset was his charm, but where did that get anyone nowadays? A man with an only-average track record, who had never stayed anywhere long and who had muddled along with the help of efficient assistants and his old boy connections. A man who was good at lunch.
Stephen ordered the drinks. He looked at the other men standing at the bar. Were any of them in his position? Could they tell, just by looking at him, that he had lost his job? It showed; he was sure of it. Prudence would soon have to go back to work but he could stay here all afternoon. There was no shape to the day any more; it was as if the elastic that had held his life together had been snapped. It took him a moment to remember what day of the week it was.
He tried to rally himself. After all, he had only been out of work for a week; he had hardly started looking yet. But already he felt demoralised. How did other people stand it month after month, year after year, filling in application forms that asked them how many O levels they had got, for God’s sake, and then getting the polite rejections. ‘Unfortunately other candidates more closely matched our requirements . . . but we wish you good luck for the future . . .’ He knew what those letters were like because he had written them himself.
Stephen paid for the drinks. He counted the change and put it in his pocket. His attitude to money was already changing. Instead of flooding into his life on a regular basis like the tide flooding into a harbour, replenishing then ebbing, money was now a finite substance whose level sank with each transaction, as if run by a newly privatised waterboard which never repaired the cracks in the pipes. He thought: don’t panic. Don’t think about school fees. Don’t think.
He carried the drinks over to Prudence. She told him about some crisis at work – a Cabinet minister was making a fuss about his book jacket. Stephen’s attention wandered. Strange how involving all those books had once been – the biographies, the novels, even the celebrity cookery series. Now that they were somebody else’s responsibility they were utterly irrelevant. All those books being published, week after week; the world could exist quite happily without them. He had suspected this in the past, and now he was certain of it. In fact he had forgotten about them already.
‘Has anybody been offered my job yet?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I think they’ll get someone from outside.’ She stroked his cheek. Now that they were no longer working together she had grown bolder in public. Maybe she was just sorry for him.
‘What’s it like at home?’ she asked.
‘She tries to be nice but I feel I’m getting in the way. I am getting in the way.’ He pushed the lemon about in his gin and tonic. ‘She’s used to being alone during the day. She’s doing these huge messy collages, she needs the space. I think she wants to hoover me up. High spot of my day is getting the boys from school.’ He looked at her. ‘I miss you so much.’
She said: ‘I wake up with all these things I want to tell you, things in my head. Only an hour, I think, and I’ll be in the office. Then I realise.’
&
nbsp; He took one of her cigarettes and lit it. After twenty years, he had taken up smoking again. ‘Look, on Friday we’re taking the boys to my mother’s for the weekend. I’ll make an excuse for the Friday night and meet them on Saturday.’
‘What are you going to tell her?’
He gazed at her tenderly through the smoke. ‘I love you so much.’
She laughed shakily. ‘You’re going to tell her that?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll tell her I’m going to Nuneaton for the night.’
‘Nuneaton? Nobody goes to Nuneaton.’
‘I do. This chap I know, Edmond, he runs a desktop publishing company there. I’ll say I’m going there to ask his advice.’
‘You mean – we can have a whole night together?’
He nodded.
She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Suddenly I’m ravenous.’
Stephen went to the bar to chase up the food. Prudence was letting him do everything that day. She wanted him to feel manly – in charge of something, even if it was only lunch.
He waved his ticket at the man behind the counter. ‘Any chance of number twenty-four? A lasagne and a chicken tikka?’
The man went away. He returned a moment later. ‘Sorry, mate. The cook says he never got the order. Bit of a backlog now. You’ll have to wait.’
The man turned away to serve somebody else. Stephen stood there. His brief moment of optimism drained away. The man knew. He could sense that Stephen had all the time in the world, that other customers should be served their lunch first. Stephen was a non-person now, and he had better get used to it.
He went across to Prudence and told her. She looked at her watch. ‘Hell! I’ve got a meeting at two-thirty.’
‘Go to it then.’ His voice rose with self-pity. ‘Don’t mind me.’
She put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t be silly. Of course I’ll stay.’ She smiled at him. ‘Let’s talk about Friday.’
‘I always thought it was my fault,’ said Maddy. ‘With men.’