I paid him, Alison thought. At least one of the bastards is paid out. Or did I pay out two? “Mrs. McGibbet,” she urged, “go on.”
“I’m sure,” said Mrs. McGibbet, “I never heard the moment Morris Warren ceased to laugh. I never looked in the dogs’ bowls, curious to see what they were eating, for if you came near them they’d bite your leg off. And therefore I couldn’t have noticed MacArthur’s eye plop off a spoon and fall into a dish—surely I must have dreamed it, for such a thing could never be. And if your little self, no more than eight, nine, ten years old, were to have cried out, ‘Now wink at me, can you, you bloody bastard?’ I wouldn’t have known it because I was searching down the back of a cupboard for Brendan. And if Mr. Donald Aitkenside ran down the road in a panic, I wouldn’t have seen him. Still less the fella they call Pikey Pete jump in his van and drive screaming in all directions at once.”
Al walks down the road. She is eight, nine, ten. Once again she hasn’t got her swimming kit or her gym shoes or anything else she should have for school. Lee and Tehera are just behind her, then comes Catherine Tattersall; she looks back for Catherine, who is lagging, and there on the pavement she sees MacArthur’s eye, rolling along. “Look,” she says, and they say, “What?” She points, “Look at that,” she says, “at that.” Catherine steps right on MacArthur’s eye, and squashes it into the ground. “Yeachh!” Al says, and turns aside. “What’s up wiv you, Al?” Catherine says. When Al looks back, the jelly has bounced back again, to a perfect orb, and MacArthur’s eye continues to roll along.
It followed her to school one day, it was against the rule:
It made the children laugh and play, to see an eye at school.
It is evening. She is coming home from school. At the street corner, the half-crippled little bloke called Morris Warren leans against the wall. Eff off, she says under her breath. As she approaches, she expects him to reach out and make a grab at her breasts, as this is his usual habit. She prepares to swerve; that is her usual habit, too.
But today he doesn’t grab. He just looks at her, and as he looks, he almost falls over. It seems as if his crooked legs won’t support him; he grabs the wall for support, and when he speaks, his tone is amazed. He says, “Take off his bollocks, yes! But take out a cove’s eye? I’ve never heard of it before.”
She bangs into the house, casting a glance down into the stained bathtub, thinking, I better get something and scour that out, it looks bad. Emmie comes at her as soon as she gets in the door: “I saw MacArthur’s eye on a spoon, I saw MacArthur’s eye on a fork.”
“Which?”
“I saw you standing there with a knitting needle in your hand, young lady. He didn’t deserve that. He was only doing what men do. You was all over Capstick when he pulled the dog off you, but then you was all over MacArthur when he bought you sweeties. So what was he to think? He used to say, Emmie, what have you bred there? She’ll do anything for a bag of chocolate raisins.”
Al sits in her kitchen, her kitchen at Admiral Drive. Older now, suddenly wiser, she asks the empty air, “Mum, who’s my dad?”
Emmie says, “Leave off, will you!”
She says, “I cannot rest, till I know. And when I know, then possibly I still cannot rest.”
“Then you have to ask yourself what’s the use,” Emmie says. “I dunno, girl. I would help you, if I could. It could be any one of ’em, or it could be six other fellas. You don’t see who it is, because they always put a blanket over your head.”
Back, back, go back. She is at Aldershot. Darkness is falling, darkness is falling fast. The men are moving a bundle of something. They are passing it between them. It is limp, doll-sized, swaddled. She pulls the blanket aside with her own hand, and in its folds, dead-white, waxy, eyes closed tightly, she sees her own face. And now back she goes, back and back, till she is smaller and smaller, before she can walk, before she can talk: to the first wail, the first gasp: to the knitting needle pricking her skull and letting in the light.
At Whitton, Colette opened the wardrobe. “Where are Zoë’s things? Surely she doesn’t take everything with her when she travels?”
A pity. She had been looking forward to trying her clothes on, when Gavin went to work. She wished he would clear off, really, and let her go through all the drawers and cupboards, instead of hanging about in a sheepish way at the back of her and sighing like that.
Back and back. There is an interval of darkness, dwindling, suspension of the senses. She neither hears nor sees. The world has no scent or savour. She is a cell, a dot. She diminishes, to vanishing point. She is back beyond a dot. She is back where the dots come from. And still she goes back.
It is close of day, and Al is plodding home. The light is low and greyish. She must make it before dark. Clay is encrusted on her feet, and beneath them the track is worn into deep ruts. Her garments, which appear to be made of sacking—which may, indeed, be sacks—are stiffening with the day’s sweat, and chafing the knotty scars on her body. Her breath is coming hard. There is a stitch in her side. She stops and drinks from the ditch, scooping up the water with her fingers. She squats there, until the moon rises.
In the kitchen Colette was opening cupboards, staring critically at the scanty stocks. Zoë, she thought, is one of those people who lives on air, and has no intention of putting herself out to cook for Gavin; which is a mistake, because left to himself he reverts to fried chicken, and before you know where you are he’s bursting out of his shirts.
She opened the fridge, she pushed the contents about. What she found was unappealing: a half-used carton of full-fat long-life milk, some Scotch eggs, a lump of orange cheese which had gone hard, and three small blackened bananas.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell Zoë,” she said, “not to keep bananas in the fridge?”
“Feel free,” Gavin said.
“What?”
“Look in all the cupboards, why don’t you? Look in the dishwasher. Don’t mind me. Look in the washing machine.”
“Well, if it’s empty,” she said, “I’ll just pop in one or two things of mine that I brought with me. I didn’t like to leave my dirty laundry behind.”
He followed her into the sitting room as she went to pick up her bag. “You’re not going back then?”
“No chance. Gavin, excuse me, don’t stand in my way.”
“Sorry.” He sidestepped. “So won’t you miss her? Your friend?”
“I’ll miss my income. But don’t worry. I’ll get it sorted. I’ll ring up some agencies later.”
“It’s quiet,” Gavin warned.
“Anything at your place?”
“My place? Dunno.”
She stared at him, her pale eyes bulging slightly. “Gavin—correct me if I’m wrong.” She squatted and opened her bag. “Would I be near the truth if I said you’re still out of a job?”
He nodded.
She plucked out her dirty washing. “And would I be near the truth if I said you made Zoë up?”
He turned away.
“And that rustbucket out there, it really is your own car?” Damn, she thought, isn’t that just typical, he’s more embarrassed about the car than everything else put together. Gavin stood rubbing his head. She passed him, went into the kitchen with her bundle.
“It’s temporary,” he said. “I traded down. But now you’re back—”
“Back?” she said coldly. She bent down and retrieved a grey sock from the washing machine. It was a woolly sock, the kind you darn; the heel had gone into holes. “How long were you intending to leave it before you told me Zoë didn’t exist?”
“I thought you’d work it out for yourself. Which you did, didn’t you? I had to say something! You went on about this Dean guy, and the rest. Dean this and Donnie that. I had to say something.”
“To make me jealous?”
“Yes. I suppose.”
“I only mentioned Dean once, as far as I remember.”
“He going to come after you, is he?”
“No
,” she said. “He’s dead.”
“Christ! Really? You’re not winding me up?”
She shook her head.
“Accident, was it?”
“I believe so.”
“You’d lost touch? I’m glad he’s dead. Suppose I shouldn’t say it, but I am.”
She sniffed. “He was nothing to me.”
“I mean, I hope he didn’t suffer. Kind of thing.”
“Gavin, is this sock yours?”
“What?” he said. “That? No. Never seen it before. So what about this psychic stuff, have you given it up?”
“Oh, yes. That’s all finished now.” She held up the sock to examine it. “It’s not like you usually wear. Horrible grey thing. Looks like roadkill.” She frowned at it; she thought she’d seen the other half of the pair, but couldn’t think where.
“Colette … listen … I shouldn’t have told you lies.”
“That’s all right.” She thought, I told you some. Then, in case she seemed to be excusing him too readily, she said, “It’s what I expect.”
“Doesn’t seem like seven years. Since we split.”
“Must be. Must be about that. It was the summer that Diana died.” She walked around the kitchen, her finger dabbing at sticky surfaces. “Looks like six years and three hundred and sixty-four days since you gave these tiles a wipe-down.”
“I’m glad now we didn’t sell up.”
“Are you? Why?”
“It makes it like before.”
“Time doesn’t go backwards.”
“No, but I can’t remember why we split.” She frowned. Neither could she, really. Gavin looked down at his feet. “Colette, we’ve been a couple of plonkers, haven’t we?”
She picked up the woolly sock, and threw it in the kitchen bin. “I don’t think women can be,” she said. “Plonkers. Not really.”
Gavin said humbly, “I think you could do anything, Colette.”
She looked at him; his head hanging like some dog that’s been out in the rain. She looked at him and her heart was touched: where her heart would be.
Admiral Drive: Al hears the neighbours, muttering outside. They are carrying placards, she expects. Sergeant Delingbole is speaking to them through a megaphone. You can’t scare Al. When you’ve been strangled as often as she has, when you’ve been drowned, when you’ve died so many times and found yourself still earthside, what are the neighbours going to do to you that’s so bloody novel?
There are several ways forward, she thinks, several ways I can go from here. She accepts that Colette won’t be back. Repentance is not out of the question; she imagines Colette saying, I was hasty, can we start again, and herself saying, I don’t think so, Colette: that was then and now it’s now.
Time for a shake-up. I’ll never settle here after all the name-calling and disruption. Even if, when all this dies down, the neighbours start to cosy up to me and bake me cakes. They may forget but I won’t. Besides, by now they know what I do for a living. That it’s not weather forecasting; and anyway, the Met Office has moved to Exeter.
I could ring an estate agent, she thinks, and ask for a valuation. (Colette’s voice in her ear says, you ought to ring three.) “Miss Hart, what about your shed, which is of local historic interest? And what about the black cloud of evil that hovers over your premises. Will you be leaving that?” Memories are short, she thinks, in house sales. She will be forgotten, just like the worms and voles who used to live here, and the foetus dug in under the hedge.
She calls Mandy.
“Natasha, Psychic to the Stars?”
“Mandy, Colette’s walked out.”
“Oh, it’s you, Alison. Oh dear. I foresaw as much, frankly. When we were at Irene’s, looking for the will, I said to Silvana, trouble there, mark my words.”
“And I’m on my own.”
“Don’t cry, lovie. I’ll come and get you.”
“Please. For a night or two. Till it dies down. You see, the press are here. Cameras.”
Mandy was puzzled. “Is that good? For business, I mean?”
“No, I’ve got vigilantes. Demonstrators.”
Mandy clicked her tongue. “Witch-burning, isn’t it? Some people are so narrow-minded. Are the police there?”
“Yes.”
“But they’re not trying to arrest you or anything? Sorry, silly question; of course not. Look, I’ll bring Gemma for a bit of muscle.”
“No. Just come yourself.”
“Take a nice hot bath, Al. Unplug the phone. Spray some lavender around. I’ll be there before you know it. I’ll have you out of there. A bit of sea air will do you good. We’ll go shopping for you, give you a makeover. I always thought Colette gave you bad advice. Shall I book you a hair appointment? I’ll line up Cara to give you a massage.”
Three hours later, she is ready to leave the house. The police have not had much success in dispersing the crowd; they don’t, they explain, want to get heavy-handed. Sergeant Delingbole says, what you could do, probably it would be for the best, would be to come out with a blanket over your head. She says, do you have an official blanket you use for that, or can I choose my own? They say, feel free: the policewoman helpfully runs upstairs and looks out at her direction her mohair throw, the raspberry-coloured throw that Colette bought her once, in better times than these.
She places it over her head; the world looks pink and fuzzy. Like a fish, or something newborn, she opens her mouth to breathe; her breath, moist, sucks in the mohair. The policewoman takes her elbow, and Delingbole opens the door; she is hurried to a police vehicle with darkened windows, which whisks her smartly away from Admiral Drive. Later, on the regional TV news, she will glimpse herself from the knee down. I always wanted to be on TV, she will say, and now I have; Mandy will say, well, bits of you, anyway.
As they swing onto the A322, she pulls aside the woollen folds and looks around her. Her lips itch from their contact with the throw; she presses them together, hoping not to smudge her lipstick. Sergeant Delingbole is sitting with her: for reassurance, he says. “I’ve always been fascinated,” he says. “The paranormal. UFOs. All that. I mean there must be something in it, mustn’t there?”
“I think you tried to come through,” she says, “at one of my dems. Couple of years back. Just after the Queen Mother passed.”
“God bless her,” says Delingbole automatically, and Alison answers, “God bless her.”
The day has brightened. At Worplesden, trees drip onto the fairways of the golf club. The policewoman says, “The cloud’s lifting. Might see some action at Wimbledon this afternoon.”
Al smiles. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
Before they reach Guildford, they pull into an out-of-town shopping centre. The exchange takes place in front of PC World. Mandy clip-clips towards the white van: high-heeled pastel pumps in pistachio green, tight pale jeans, fake Chanel jacket in baby pink. She is smiling, her big jaw jutting. She looks quite lined, Al thinks; it is the first time in years she has seen Mandy in full daylight. It must be Hove that’s aged her: the sea breezes, the squinting into the sun. “Got the consignment?” says Mandy, breezy herself, and Delingbole opens the back door and gives Al his arm to help her out of the van. She tumbles to the ground, her sore feet impacting hard.
The soft-top stands by, lacquered once again to a perfect hard scarlet. “There’s a new nail bar at the end of our road,” Mandy says. “I thought after we’ve had some lunch we could pop in and treat ourselves.”
For a moment Al sees her fist, dripping with gore; she sees herself, bloody to the elbows. She sees, back at Admiral Drive, the tape unspooling in the empty house; her past unspooling, back beyond this life, beyond the lives to come. “That will be nice,” she says.
MORRIS: And another thing you can’t get, you can’t get a saveloy.
CAPSTICK: You can’t get tripe like you used to get.
DEAN: When I get my tongue guard off, I’m going for a curry.
MORRIS: You can’t get a decent cuppa
tea.
DEAN: And then I’m going to get a swastika studded into it. I can hang it over walls and be a mobile graffiti.
MART: Tee-hee. When Delingbole comes you can wag it at him and then bugger off.
AITKENSIDE: Etchells could make a good cuppa.
CAPSTICK: She could. I’ll give her that.
MORRIS: By the way, Mr. Aitkenside.
AITKENSIDE: Yes? Speak up.
MORRIS: I only mention it.
AITKENSIDE: Spit it out, lad.
MORRIS: It’s a question of fundage.
AITKENSIDE: Warren, you have already tapped me for a sub. When I look in my wages book I find it ain’t the first time either. You are spending in advance of your entire income, as far as I can see. It can’t go on, me old mate.
MORRIS: I don’t want a sub. I only want what’s due.
MACARTHUR: He’s right, Mr. Aitkenside. It ain’t fair that Pete should keep all the money he got from Etchells’s personal effects, seeing as we all helped to frighten her to death, and especially me rising up with my false eye rolling.
AITKENSIDE: Pete! What you got to say about this? (pause) Pete? … Where is he?
CAPSTICK: Bugger me. Taken to the road. His wodge of cash wiv him.
MORRIS: Ain’t that his sort all over?
BOB FOX: What can you expect, Mr. Aitkenside, taking on pikeys?
AITKENSIDE: Don’t you tell me how to do my job, lad! I’ve got a diploma in Human Resources from Nick himself. We are working towards equal opportunities for all. Don’t tell me how to recruit, or you’ll be knocking on windows for all eternity.
CAPSTICK: We’ll have to contact the missus, then. If we want our cut. She’ll nail down Pikey for us. He likes her. He can’t keep away.
AITKENSIDE: Pardon me, but I don’t know if you’ll see your missus again.