He didn’t ask more because his response scared him. Me too. In fact, nothing much had happened on my jaunts. A few drinks, a few hints. On their home ground, English men remember their upbringings.
Out of the country it was different. I flew a lot last August – Singapore, Tokyo, LA. There were more opportunities then, and I’d become bolder. During that period there were several delayed flights. On stopover you’re living in limbo anyway, but an overnight delay is even weirder. Time doesn’t exist. You have this vacuum of hours to fill and then forget. People do things they’d never dare, otherwise, and afterwards my brain was wiped clean. Sometimes I pictured Ali, dancing like a midge at the edge of my vision. He’d be mouthing words at me but I couldn’t hear them. And he was so tiny.
You must hate me now. But I’m not really talking to you, I’m telling this to myself. It’s just easier, pretending that there’s someone listening. I’ve made people out of you, to help me . . . I’m still believing that you were once sympathetic.
It could have been such a happy ending, couldn’t it? Ali, lifting me away on the wings of true love. He wanted to fly with me to Pakistan, where a house had been built for him. His family would forgive him, real families always do. He told me they would. He said they’d welcome me, if only I brought him home. Already his mother sent us packages of sweetmeats: crumbly marzipan balls that smelt of soap.
He would forgive me my past exploits, the ones he’d heard of. You can imagine the effort this cost him because he was naturally a jealous person, and also terribly proud. But he loved me so deeply he was prepared to do it.
He thought it would be all right; he really did. He believed you could forget the past and start afresh. He thought love could solve it all, because he believed in fairy stories.
The first weeks of September were brilliantly sunny but I stayed in bed most of the time with the curtains closed. We’d been together for four months and he still insisted that he adored me. But I think I knew, by now, that he and I were doomed.
I felt tired all the time; the only emotion I felt was faint surprise that it was taking him so long to find out what I was like. I came back from Frankfurt with bites down my neck. He saw them when I was putting up my hair, ready for a bath.
‘Darling, what’s happened to you?’
‘These?’ I stood at the mirror. ‘I wish you wouldn’t come barging in like that.’
‘But what’s happened?’
He stopped abruptly, as he realized.
He paused, then he said in a low voice. ‘That was rather a stupid thing for me to say, wasn’t it?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
His voice came closer. ‘Somebody did those. Is that it?’
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
‘Tell me the truth!’
‘Ouch!’
His fingernails dug in harder. ‘Go on, tell me!’
‘It wasn’t important. I’d had a bit to drink.’
I felt nervous now. I was naked and his nails hurt.
‘What else did he do?’
‘Stop it!’
‘What else? Tell me.’
‘Oh . . . you know. Nothing much.’
He slapped my face, hard. ‘You slut!’ he whispered. ‘You whore!’
‘Get away from me!’
I cringed back and sat down, heavily, on the edge of the bath. He grabbed my hair and yanked up my face.
‘How could you?’ he hissed. ‘What goes on inside there?’ He jabbed at my forehead.
‘Don’t!’
‘You’re a vandal – know that? Just like your little brother.’
‘Leave Teddy out of it.’
‘But you’re worse than him – you do it with people.’
Suddenly he moved away and sat down on the toilet, sobbing. He buried his face in his hands.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ he said, muffled.
At once I panicked. What had I done? I’d gone too far.
I moved over and knelt beside him. If I lost him, I’d have nobody.
‘Don’t say that, Ali. I’m sorry . . . I won’t again.’
He grabbed me and held me close, my face pressed against his shirt buttons. It was awkward, but I wouldn’t let him go.
‘I try so hard,’ he muttered into my hair, ‘to make you love me . . . To understand that funny little mind in there.’ He paused. ‘But just when I think we’re close – then you go and ruin it. Why do you spoil everything?’
He squeezed me tighter. ‘It’s probably my fault . . . I feel such a failure, not satisfying you.’
‘You do . . . Honestly.’
‘But even . . . well, in bed. You don’t look at me, you want it dark. You feel . . . so mechanical –’
‘Don’t say that!’
‘I must. Darling . . . You do it so beautifully, but mechanically, as if you were ashamed – as if it was dirty.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘There’s something so cold in there . . . The way you tease me about – you know, the way I pray, and my ablutions. My gargling. It hurts me so much.’
He lifted his head. His face was damp with tears. Mine was dry, because his words frightened me. He kissed my slapped cheek.
‘I shouldn’t have said that . . . Will you forgive me?’ He touched my cheek. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘No.’
I squeezed him tighter . . . Oh, squeezing is easy. It’s the rest that’s difficult. Why did I behave this way with him? It was beyond my control.
What am I doing? I stood on the pavement outside our flat. It always struck me at this moment, when I was outdoors from our life. Beside me the sapling hadn’t yet shed its leaves, though they’d been born dead and stayed dead all summer. There was something wrong with that tree; its mystery blight. The leaves hung down, small and brown, twisted like corkscrews.
Mum had brought that pot plant once, remember? Oh yes, we’d watered it, like the council had cared for this tree, but I’d known its leaves would fade yellow, a slimy, translucent yellow, and fall on to the top of the TV set. I’d known they would.
I hitched up my shopping and started for the steps. Up on the second floor our curtains were closed, as if the flat knew us too well, and didn’t want to see.
Chapter Eighteen
I’VE ALWAYS HAD bad dreams. You know that. I’d be lying in Ali’s arms; I should have been safe there. He’d hold me, warm in our nest of blankets. You’d think that he could keep the nightmares away.
Nobody can. You’ll lie there, pressed against each other, your legs hooked together, cemented. And the tighter you hold each other, squeezing tighter and tighter, the more you’re fooling yourself. Nobody can reach you.
I’d wake slippery-wet and shivering. Ali gripped me, rocking me, talking to me, but nothing could get rid of the dreams. They haunted me for days afterwards. I could will my brain shut, locking it, but the nightmares escaped like poisoned air. I was helpless.
In one I was standing in a lift. There was a little girl beside me, wearing a red party dress that was much too big for her. A man was standing beside her, but I couldn’t see his face, the air was misty up there. The lift was going up.
‘She wasn’t precious enough, you see,’ he was saying. ‘Nobody wanted her.’
I looked at the girl. She seemed perfectly normal . . . at first glance anyway. But as he talked I inspected her again.
His voice went on: ‘. . . So I said to myself: action stations! And isn’t she the dinky one now?’
I looked at her again. Now I realized. Her eyes had been dug out. In their place were two red jewels, wedged into the skin – buried there, winking.
‘She’s precious now, all right,’ said the voice.
‘But she can’t see!’
‘They’re real rubies, those are.’
‘But she’s blind!’
‘Oh yes, they’ll all be wanting her now.’ The voice, up in the mist, was getting vaguer.
The lift was still rising.
&nb
sp; ‘Where are you taking her?’ I shouted.
No answer. I needed to know, terribly.
‘Where are you taking her?’ I shouted, louder.
But the girl turned her back on me, I heard the taffeta rustle, and then I woke.
Chapter Nineteen
I’VE HAD NO dreams tonight, because I’ve stayed awake in this chair. Outside it’s lighter now; I can see the blanket that I’ve wrapped around myself. It’s the brown blanket from my bed. Remember how I used to pull it over my head, so I couldn’t hear the noises that my parents made?
No sound from the next room. He’ll sleep for hours yet, judging by the amount he drank last night. Teddy’s still asleep too. Mum’s on the night shift, so she won’t be home for a while. The first planes are already taking off; the walls shake when they fly overhead.
He’s been drunk most of this week, my Dad. He says my face upsets him, but I’ve told him it’s not hurting nearly as much, now, as when I arrived. He hasn’t seen under the plasters, and I don’t dare look either. Tomorrow I’m going to Ashford General, to have the stitches taken out, but I’ll keep my eyes shut.
My eye, by the way, is going to be all right. I can open it now, just a glimmer. Black eyes look worse than they feel; in fact, I’ve been quite detached, watching its colour changes: plum to reddish-green, like the lightening sky. Teddy’s fascinated by it; he wants one too. Now it’s fading to an unhealthy yellow.
It hurts when I yawn, my face does, and when I sneeze. It would probably hurt if I laughed, but I haven’t yet. The cuts must be healing now, because while I’ve been sitting here they’ve started to itch.
Ali’s ring did them. I forgot to tell you that he wore a signet ring; his father had given it to him. He must have forgotten too, because after he’d been hitting me for a bit he saw what damage he’d done. I felt quite sorry for him then.
My Mum was upset too, of course. But you know how she hates anything sticky and emotional; she’s always steered clear of that. She didn’t ask me many questions about Ali. Soon she was moaning about men in general, how stupid they were, what beasts. Brutes, she said.
‘You’ve learned the hard way,’ she said. ‘Oh yes, you’ve had a lesson and a half.’
It was almost as if she blamed me – as if I’d brought it upon myself. There was a note of satisfaction in her voice. And she’s been so ashamed of me. On Tuesday a man was coming to look at the land and she told me to stay in my room, as if I had leprosy.
‘Think this is my fault?’ I asked, pointing to my bandages. But she just looked pursed.
In fact, neither of them asked many questions. When you haven’t for years – when you’ve closed your eyes to what’s going on you’re not going to change that suddenly. You’re not used to it. Teddy’s the only one who goes on at me; when we’re alone, and I’m more relaxed, I might tell him some of the gruesome details.
Dad, when he’s had a few, he gets all worked up and tries to get me to tell him Ali’s name so he can go and beat him up, but when he’s sobered down he turns back into a coward.
Besides, I’ve no idea where Ali is now. When he ran downstairs to phone for an ambulance, I bolted myself into the flat and packed my suitcases. When the ambulance men arrived they behaved like my big brothers, they were so protective with me, and they wouldn’t let him near. He was hysterical by then, so they probably thought he was still dangerous. I knew he wasn’t, of course; he was wild with grief. But it looked the same to them, so I didn’t say anything. At that point, anyway, I couldn’t talk.
No, most of the questioning was in Casualty. The doctor was ever so young and earnest. You should have seen his reaction when he saw my face: him and the two nurses, bending over me. I heard the whispers, ‘permanent scarring’ and ‘disfigurement’.
After they’d done the stitching and the dressings he came back for a little chat and that’s when he said that in cases like mine, when the looks are affected, it was usual to refer the patient for counselling. I wouldn’t go. He said I was still in shock, that’s why I was behaving like this. In his gentle voice he asked several times how it had happened.
I didn’t tell him the truth, of course. I could hardly say, ‘I fed pork to my boyfriend.’ I’d be carted straight to the shrink. So I just said it was a quarrel, I was trying to give my boyfriend the push and he got wild. Hurt pride, all that.
But he went on and on. He said that my attitude worried him. Did I realize (clearing his throat, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down) – did I realize that I would be scarred for life, down my cheek and probably on my forehead too? He went on like that.
Another person joined him, an ugly girl wearing glasses. She went on about how many cases she’d seen; all women, she said.
‘Knocked about,’ she said. ‘Knocked up.’ She gazed at me with a little, pitying smile. ‘Victims of men.’
The doctor replied, ‘Let’s just call it victims of circumstance.’
I’ll tell you how it happened. It sounds so stupid, now.
I was going to cook us seekh kebabs for dinner. They’re like little minced patties, highly spiced. I went to the butcher, along the Earl’s Court Road. The butcher was a big, belligerent man with a line in heavily suggestive remarks. I didn’t like him – in fact I was nervous of him, he was built as powerfully as my Dad and he had an uncertain temper – but we always had these flirtatious conversations as he slapped the meat about, preparing to chop.
That day I asked for mince, but it turned out that he hadn’t any left. He just had some sausage meat. He started going on about ‘my sausages not big enough for you?’ so I cut him short by asking for a pound of the stuff.
Outside, blushing, I hesitated with my package. I didn’t want to go back in there and ask for something else. I stood there in the sunshine. Then I thought: what the hell; Ali won’t know it’s pork. And I started back to the flat.
So you see it wasn’t planned. I can promise you that. But as I walked home I wasn’t simply feeling what the hell. Not if I’m going to be truthful. It was more a tingling, uneasy, queasy feeling of anticipation. I’d felt it often before – a sort of shameful, sexual feeling.
Ali came home from work. I cooked them, using a lot of chilli powder. I cooked rice as well, and popadums. After we’d taken a few bites we started snuffling with tears.
‘Delicious,’ he said. In the candlelight he looked foolish and young. He blew his nose. ‘Honestly, you could’ve been cooking this sort of food all your life.’
‘I haven’t.’ I wiped my eyes. ‘I’ve spent my life frying sausages.’ I said that to settle my conscience; I wasn’t going to say any more.
He paused, munching. ‘Do you know, you put on this flat voice when you talk about your home. A flat, complaining voice.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Your face closes up. You should see yourself.’ He paused. ‘I wish I could meet your parents.’ He went on quickly, ‘Are you ashamed of me – is that it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then why can’t we go? I won’t let you down . . . I’ll be terribly polite.’ He looked at me, his eyes damp. ‘Is there something you’re keeping from me?’
‘Of course not. They’re just – very ordinary.’
‘You despise them for that? I won’t, I promise you. There’re worse things than being ordinary.’
‘Terribly ordinary and boring. I had a terribly ordinary childhood . . . You know, friends round to play, lots of toys.’ I took a breath. ‘Want to know? Really? I’ll tell you . . . Lots of pets, kittens, dogs . . . rabbits, guinea pigs.’ I remembered Gwen’s. ‘My guinea pig was called Tosca.’
‘Tosca? How highbrow!’
I hated him for making these words come pouring out of me.
‘My Mum made me á lovely party dress. Know what it was made of?’
‘What?’
‘Pink taffeta,’ I said, my voice rising. ‘Oh yes, and long white socks. And a ballet dress – yes, she made me that too! In fact, we made it together.?
?? I was shouting now. ‘In fact Dad helped too!’
Ali tried to interrupt me, but I went on recklessly. ‘And he used to drive me to ballet classes – he did! He took me. I went to them, and I’d meet all my friends there.’
‘Darling –’
I stopped him. ‘I had another little bed in my room, there was always somebody staying the night with us.’ I blurted it out, my voice high and cracked. ‘They did! And you know what?’
‘What?’
‘They put Smarties on our pillows, just for us! Little tubes of Smarties!’ I tried to catch my breath, and hurried on. ‘I had lovely birthday parties, you should’ve seen them! Oh, I was famous for that . . . Games in the lounge . . .’ My voice shrieked it out. ‘Jellies! Jellies and trifles! Then there’d be a knock at the door and it was my Dad, dressed up as Father Christmas –’
‘On your birthday?’
I sat slumped in my chair. ‘Oh, I don’t know. What does it matter?’
‘Stop it, Heather! Don’t cry!’
‘I’m not. It’s these blasted chillies.’
‘Heather . . .’ He leaned across the table.
‘Shut up!’
‘Here, have my handkerchief.’
Shuddering, I grabbed it and blew my nose.
‘Please – stop crying,’ he said.
‘I told you, I’m not!’ My voice was ugly and shrill. I hated him seeing me crying, I couldn’t bear it. Why did he have to be here?
I looked at him across the table, his eyebrows raised, his hand out, ready to touch me.
‘Don’t touch me!’
‘Darling . . .’
I longed for him to disappear, to snap into the empty air. I hated him looking at me.
‘Heather . . .’
He’d made me say all that. Wasn’t that hateful of him? He’d forced it out . . . all my words, pouring out.
‘Darling . . .’
Suddenly I felt terribly tired – never, in my life, had I felt so exhausted. I felt as if I’d been vomiting for hours, and there was nothing left.
I looked at him. I felt entirely empty . . . Nothing left at all. After a moment I said flatly,