“It was the way he just lay there, not moving.” She shivers. “It was so horrible.”
They all drink their coffee.
“She’s a friend of Terry’s,” says Laura.
“Sheena,” says Terry. “Friend of my Julie’s.”
“She’s got my ring,” says Laura.
They don’t understand.
“What do you mean, Mum?” says Carrie.
“I’d know it anywhere. She’s wearing my ring.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“She can’t have your ring. It must be one that looks like it. She just can’t.”
“It’s my ring. It’ll have our initials inside. You look.”
“How can I look? Mum, I nearly killed her son. I can’t go up to her and say, Where did you get that ring?”
“I know,” says Laura.
She feels a little sick, the kind of sick you feel when you lose a clear sense of up and down. Nothing makes any sense. But she knows her own ring. That’s for sure.
Terry gets up and starts pacing the bleak reception area, swinging his muscular arms. He goes over to stare at the dolphins.
Toby puts down his cup of coffee, half drunk.
“Where is she now?” he says.
“Outside,” says Laura. “Having a cigarette.”
Toby gets up.
“I’ll have a word with her.”
“Toby,” says Carrie. “Her boy’s all smashed up.”
“I know how to do this,” says Toby. “You wait here.”
And they do. He speaks with such quiet confidence that they almost believe he has some magic power. And no one else has a better idea.
He goes out through the glass doors and there’s a line of ambulances, a police car. And over to the right there’s a low wall topped by a green metal-mesh fence. Here’s Sheena, in the afternoon sunshine, standing by a “No Smoking Anywhere On The Premises” sign, smoking.
Toby goes over to her side and looks through the mesh at the view. Sunlit rooftops, a school playground, the top of a thin church spire. The great sea beyond.
“Spare a ciggie?” says Toby.
“Sure,” she says.
She gives him her little book of matches so he can light up.
“Not allowed,” he says, pointing at the sign.
“It’s outside,” she says. “It’s fresh air.”
“Hey, if we’re going to get lung cancer we’re in the right place.”
“I ain’t getting no cancer,” says Sheena. “Two fags don’t give you cancer.”
“You know what cancer is?” says Toby. “It’s your body turning on itself.”
“Is that right?”
“Like one part of your body wants to destroy the other part.”
“Why’d it want to do that?”
“I’ll tell you why,” says Toby. “You know how we’ve all got a survival instinct? How we fight to stay alive?”
“Most of us,” says Sheena.
“Well, we’ve got a self-destruction instinct too. We want to stay alive and we want to die.”
“I got a boy with a self-destruction instinct. He’s in there now with a broken pelvis.”
“We all do crazy things,” says Toby. “Depending on which instinct’s doing the driving.”
“You’re right there. Sometimes you look at what someone does and you say, What’s that about? That’s going to do him in. But he still goes on and does it.”
“Simple rule in life,” Toby says. “People do what they want to do. If they want to destroy themselves, they’ll find a way.”
“They do that,” says Sheena.
Gulls wheel overhead, shrilling their sad cry.
“Can I tell you a story?” says Toby.
“It’s a free country,” she says.
“It’s a love story,” he says. “It’s about this woman who met this guy, and they fell in love and they decided to get married. He bought her a ring, a gold ring with a ruby on it. He gave it to her, and he told her, Every time you look at this ring you’re to remember I love you forever. On the inside of the ring they had their initials engraved. Hers was L. His was H. She wore that ring every day for twenty-seven years. Then one day she lost it, and it was like she’d lost her love. That was yesterday. She looked everywhere for it, but she couldn’t find it. So I said to her—you see, I’m in this story too—I said to her, Don’t worry, you’ve dropped it by mistake. Someone will find it. They might even give it to someone else. But as soon as they know who it belongs to, they’ll give it back. They’re keeping it safe for you, until they find the owner. They know how a ring can mean so much. They know it means love forever.”
Sheena stands motionless, silent. Then, slowly, she slides the ring off her finger. She turns it over and looks inside and sees the letters engraved there.
“It’s a beautiful ring,” she says.
“Lucky someone found it,” Toby says.
She hands the ring to him.
“Just a mistake,” she says.
“Anyone can make a mistake,” says Toby.
Sheena takes out another cigarette and she’s about to light up when abruptly she puts it away.
“Self-destruction instinct, right?”
“We’ve all got it.”
“Better go and see to my boy.”
She goes back into the hospital. She passes through the reception area without a word, eyes down. Toby follows.
He gives Laura the ring.
“Oh, Toby!”
Laura is astonished, blinking back tears. She puts the ring onto her finger. Carrie stares at Toby.
“What did you do to her?”
“Nothing. Just told her a story.”
Laura bows her head. She’s filled with an emotion she doesn’t know how to share.
“Did you make her feel bad?” says Carrie.
“No. It was just a mistake.”
Laura draws a deep breath.
“I’ll never understand,” she says.
She too gets up.
“Come on, darling. Let’s go home. We’ve kept Terry long enough.”
Terry nods at the mural of dolphins.
“I saw a program about dolphins,” he says. “If they see a shark attacking a swimmer, they make a ring round him to protect him.”
They make their way back through the hospital, up the long sloping lavender passages, to the multi-story car park. Terry leads, with Laura. Carrie and Toby follow behind.
“So what was this story?” asks Carrie.
“It was a love story,” says Toby.
“Oh, right. You being the expert on love.”
37
What is it about donkeys? You don’t hear of tortoise sanctuaries, or budgie sanctuaries. Go easy on the cynicism, says Mark. Don’t get too clever with it. Donkeys are lovable. Five hundred words that tell us something we don’t know, and leave a good feeling behind.
Pulling the car back into the yard, parking by the cart lodge that was supposed to be converted into Alan’s study, Liz feels a further wave of irritation, this time at the council pixie who came and made eyes at Alan and told them their plans would alter the character of the building. Then she feels angry at Alan, for giving up on things at the first sign of opposition. Then she feels angry at her mother for everything. And finally she feels angry at herself for being angry all the time.
She finds Alan and Cas in the living room with the curtains drawn, watching a DVD.
“For God’s sake,” she says. “It’s summer, the sun is shining. What are you doing in the dark?”
Alan comes out to join her in the kitchen, where she’s getting herself an angry drink.
“It’s Babe,” he says. “The talking-pig film. I’m watching it for work.”
“Fine. It’s work. Whatever you say. Did my mother call?”
“No. No one called.”
People don’t call these days. It’s all emails. She drinks wine, avoiding meeting Alan’s eyes.
br /> “We went over to the shoot,” he says. “I met the new writer. His first words to me were, I’m the jerk who’s fucking up your story.”
Liz doesn’t want to hear any more about Alan’s problems. She wants to unload her own frustrations.
“Good for you.”
She sees him blink as if she’s smacked him. She takes a long breath. Lighten up, for Christ’s sake.
“No, I mean it. It’s good that you went.”
He sees she’s trying, so he tries too.
“How were the donkeys?”
“What is the point of a donkey? Can someone tell me that? Why does everyone love donkeys? Is it because of Winnie the Pooh?”
Let the donkeys take the heat.
“Or Jesus,” says Alan.
“Jesus? What’s Jesus got to do with it?”
“He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. That’s supposed to be why they have a cross on their backs.”
“So is that it? It’s a Christian thing?”
Now Alan is helping himself to some wine too. Liz fishes in her bag for her MP3 sound recorder, which holds her talk with the owners of the donkey sanctuary.
“If you ask me,” says Alan, “I think it’s something to do with the way they look. You look at a donkey and you think, that donkey is unhappy. I can help that donkey. Actually the donkey may be fine, but that’s the way you react to it. And that makes you feel good. It’s that Marilyn Monroe look. The Princess Di look. I’m so fragile and only you can understand me. That’s what donkeys do. Only without the sexiness.”
Liz gazes at Alan as he stands leaning against the sink, glass in hand. She’s starting to feel better. She likes it when Alan says strange things with a straight face. She likes it that he’s got a funny-peculiar mind.
“You’re cheering up,” she says. Meaning that she’s cheering up.
“Is any of that any use to you?”
“Donkeys look like Princess Di? Why not?”
She can hear the sounds of the television coming down the passage. Pulls the kitchen door closed, just in case.
“Come and give me a kiss. I’m so wound up.”
He takes her in his arms. They kiss.
“I’m turning into a bitchy wife, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” he says, kissing her.
“You’d rather have that snitty little planning officer any day.”
“Any night,” he says.
His hands on her bum, pulling her closer.
“What would you do with her?”
This is a game they like to play, but not usually in the kitchen. Liz realizes to her surprise that she’s aroused.
“I’d put my hand up her skirt,” says Alan, putting his hand up her skirt.
“Why would you want to do that?”
“So I could feel her knickers. Get my fingers into her knickers.”
His cock hardening in his jeans as he presses against her. His fingers feeling between her parted thighs.
“Doesn’t she mind you doing that?”
“She loves it. She wants me to fuck her.”
“She wants you to fuck her?”
Such a simple foolish game, playing that his desire is for another woman, even as his hand is between her legs. Why does it excite me so much? If he really was doing it with another woman I’d want to die.
“She wants to unzip my jeans and take out my hard cock.”
“And you want her to.”
“I want to fuck her.”
She has her hands on his crotch, feeling the hard ridge. The phone rings.
“Let it ring,” says Alan. “You’re not to move.”
So she stays there, pressing against him, warm with wine and melted anger and desire. Bridget’s voice comes through on the answerphone.
“I’m with Mrs. D now,” she says. “Everything’s fine. We’ve had a few little problems, but everything’s fine now. That’s right, isn’t it, Mrs. D? Just telling your daughter that everything’s fine.”
The phone voice falls silent.
“See?” says Alan, kissing her neck. “Everything’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t,” says Liz.
“You heard her. She said it three times.”
“Two times too many. And anyway, we can’t. Cas could walk in any minute.”
Alan sighs and lets her go.
“You’re right,” he says.
“I’ll have to go over there.”
“Oh, Liz. That’s the last thing you need.”
In a way it’s a relief. The thought of her mother has been hanging over her since she walked out on Tuesday. Now, suddenly, she’s impatient to be with her again. It’s too wearing, the low level of anxiety and guilt. She can work on the donkey piece later.
“I shouldn’t be long. Thank God for Bridget.”
“So I go back to watching my movie.”
“Which is work.”
“Actually it’s a really good film.”
“Lucky you.”
She gives him a long kiss.
“We fuck later, right?” he says.
“It’s a date.”
Back outside to reverse the car in the yard. She thinks of the way the snitty little planning officer stood there parroting her regulations and her original footprints. Then she thinks of Alan’s hand between her thighs, and how it’s her body and not the pixie body of the snitty little planning officer, and that makes everything much better.
Turning off the Brighton Road into Houndean Rise gives her the old shaky feeling. This is yet another of her many charges against her mother, that she has gone on living in the family house, and so as her own once-blazing light has faded, the shadows have reached out and darkened the memories of the past. Not that the past was all that great, but childhood is childhood, you make your zone of safety where you find it, and here is the kitchen that fed her, the garden that changed with the seasons, the bedroom that lulled her to sleep. All now overlaid by the specter of an unhappy old woman who wants more from her than she is able to give.
How do you know what’s right? How much do I owe my own mother? Where does the guilt end?
The porch has never changed. The oak door which she now knows is twenties repro, but which always seemed to her to have existed forever. The black iron ring gripped by an iron fist that was the knocker. Not fair to steal my childhood and substitute for it the miserable indignity of old age. Because face it, this is what’s coming my way too. My body will decay, my friends will die, and I’ll be on the phone to Alice, to Cas, and they’ll groan and put off other things they’d rather be doing and climb into a car to do their duty.
Her mother is sitting in her usual chair by the window in the kitchen. Bridget is on her knees with a brush, brushing under the table. Her mother looks up and meets Liz’s inquiring gaze with a look that is uncharacteristically dulled. Something has changed.
“How are you, Mum?”
Her mother shakes her head and points to the table. Bridget crawls out from under the table, dustpan clinking.
“Had a few little accidents,” she says, “but we’re all fine now.”
Mrs. Dickinson continues to point to the table. There stands a tray covered by a tea towel. There’s something underneath.
“She wouldn’t let me deal with it,” says Bridget. “Wanted you to see. What’s the use? I said, but that’s what she wants.” She raises her voice. “You want her to see, don’t you, Mrs. D?”
Mrs. Dickinson nods her head.
Liz lifts the tea towel. A guinea pig lies on the tray, unblemished, dead.
“How did that happen?”
“I killed her,” says her mother.
“No, you didn’t, Mrs. D,” says Bridget. “We’ve been over all that. Guinea pigs grow old and die like all the rest of us.”
“I am sorry, Mum,” says Liz. “I think we should bury her now, don’t you?”
Her mother nods, but she doesn’t seem much interested. Liz picks up the tray.
“Bridget can help me.”
/> She wants the chance to talk to Bridget alone. Outside in the garden she takes a trowel and digs a hole in the rose border, where Perry was buried.
“I came in this morning,” Bridget says. “I was that worried. You wouldn’t believe the state she got herself into. The mess in the bathroom! I don’t think she’s eaten for days. She was in this filthy nightdress, her hair I don’t know how. Oh, Bridget, she says when I come in, Don’t ever leave me again.”
“Oh, Lord,” exclaims Liz as she digs.
“You’d never believe the state of the place! I’ve been here ever since, cleaning up, putting things right. I gave her a wash and got her dressed, and she’s had some lunch, I did her a shepherd’s pie. Then I changed her bed and I’ve put in a clothes wash. But she wouldn’t let me touch the guinea pig.”
“You are wonderful, Bridget.”
“Well, I couldn’t leave her, could I? Whatever she says she wants. But I come in through the door and she says, Oh Bridget, don’t ever leave me again.”
Liz can feel it, the enormous, almost gluttonous satisfaction this gives Bridget. She has proved her worth. She’s needed after all.
“You’ll have to tell me how many extra hours you’ve put in.”
“Oh, don’t mind about that. I had two days off, remember? But I’m back on the job now. I never let anything beat me. That’s not my way.”
The hole in the earth is ready. Liz lowers the guinea pig gently into the shallow grave, just as she did as a child when they found a dead bird or a mouse. You can’t put animals in the dustbin. She and her friend Marianne once arranged a complete funeral service, with candles and made-up prayers. That would’ve been here, in this same garden, while her mother was in the kitchen preparing their supper.
She trowels the earth back over the guinea pig’s body, and pats the mound down to settle it.
“Rest in peace,” she says. “Off you go to guinea-pig heaven.” Then, to Bridget, “Did she tell you how the guinea pig died?”
“She’s in one of her muddles, your mum is. Doesn’t know what she’s saying. But our Kylie had guinea pigs and they was forever showing up dead. Great ones for dying, are guinea pigs.”
Liz stands up a little too quickly, and for a moment the garden round her turns into a blur. In that moment she is pierced by a memory of shocking clarity. She’s in her bedroom, standing looking out over the garden, this garden, and she’s saying to herself, I will get away from here. Like a prisoner serving a life sentence. It’s a promise to herself, an order. I will get away from here.