(1990) Sweet Heart (2 page)

Charley’s bike had fallen over earlier in the day and the pedal now caught the chain guard with an irritating clack … clack … clack as she pedalled in her sodden clothes, head down against the fine June rain that hung like orange gauze over the sodium streetlights. A stream of cars sluiced past, then a lorry, too close, its filthy slipstream shoving her like an unseen hand in towards the kerb; she swerved.

A thumping beat of music rose up through the rain as a river boat, draped in bunting and lit up like a Christmas tree, churned through the inky water of the Thames and slid out of sight beneath her.

She rode across the roundabout, then up into the quiet of the Tonsleys and turned left into the Victorian terraced street, past the silent parked cars, smart GTIs and BMWs and a couple of Porsches. When they had first moved here, fifteen years ago, it had been a rundown area with derelict cars and mostly elderly people. As first-time buyers with no capital it had been all they could afford. Now it was Des-Res London, with sandblasted façades and smart front doors and satellite dishes pinned to the rooftops like badges of an exclusive club.

As she dismounted she saw Tom’s car parked a short way down the street and felt a beat of excitement. She still looked forward to seeing him at the end of each
day; looked forward to seeing him as much as she had when they had first met, twenty years before, when she’d been sixteen; more, she thought sometimes. Especially after some of their arguments, increasingly frequent these days, when she was frightened she might come home to find a note on the table and his clothes packed and gone.

Rain lay on the dark pavement like varnish. She wheeled her bicycle up to the front door, unlocked it and parked the bike on the oak flooring of the hall.

Ben greeted her with a rubber dummy of Neil Kinnock’s head in his mouth. ‘Hallo, boy!’ she said, kneeling and rubbing the golden retriever’s chest vigorously with both hands. ‘Good to see you boy! Yes it is! No, don’t jump!’ She shut the door. ‘Hi!’ she shouted. ‘Hi!’ Tom called from upstairs.

Charley shook water out of her hair, pulled off her cape, slung it over the newel post and glanced in the mirror.

‘Shit!’ Her streaky blonde hair was partly matted to her head and neck and partly sticking up in spikes, and her mascara had run down her right cheek. She pulled a face at herself, a charging Apache warrior expression, then prodded her hair with her fingers. ‘Not great, huh?’ she said to the retriever.

A trickle of rainwater ran down inside her pullover as she went upstairs, followed by Ben, and down the corridor into Tom’s den.

The room was dark, cosy, lit with a single pool of light from the Anglepoise bent over the tidy desk. Tom was studying a sheaf of documents bound together with looped pink ribbon. He looked round. ‘Hi.’

He was wearing a navy V-neck pullover over his striped shirt and had removed his tie. A tumbler of gin and tonic was by his right hand. He had open, uncluttered good looks with a hint of brooding temper
simmering below the surface that rarely flared with other people, only with herself. A temper that could frighten her with its sudden rages, with the distance it put between them, frighten her because it could stay, like unsettled weather, for days. The way it was now.

‘Working late?’ she said, walking over and kissing him on the cheek.

‘Someone has to earn the money.’

‘Hey!’ she said. ‘That’s not fair.’

He stared back down at the documents.

She watched him, flattened. ‘Did you play squash?’

‘No, had a crisis with a client. Husband’s grabbed the kids — had to get an injunction. How was your day?’

‘OK. I went to acupuncture, helped Laura in the shop, then we saw
Shirley Valentine
.’

‘We’ve already seen it.’

‘Laura hadn’t. Anyone call?’

He yawned. ‘No. How was the acupuncture?’

‘Unpleasant; as always.’ She sat on his lap and crooked her arm around his neck. ‘Don’t be bad tempered.’

He put his hand against her stomach. ‘Does your acupuncturist think it’s going to work?’

She shrugged. ‘Yes, he does.’

‘At thirty quid a go he would.’

She looked at his clean, manicured nails. He had always been meticulous about his appearance; even when they had no money at all he had always managed to turn out looking smart. She stole a glance at her own nails, bitten to the quick, and wished she could find the willpower to stop. He used to chide her about it constantly, now he only did when he was irritated by something else.

He wriggled. ‘God, you’re sopping!’

‘The forecast was wrong.’

‘I don’t think you should be biking.’

‘That’s daft. Helps keep my figure.’

‘Your figure’s fine. Cycling’s not very relaxing in London and you’re meant to be relaxing.’ She felt a twinge of anxiety as he yanked open a drawer, pulled a book out titled
Infertility
and tapped it. ‘It says here that too much physical exercise worsens infertility problems. It dries everything up inside, or something. I’ll read it out, if you like.’

Please don’t let’s row again tonight, she thought, standing up and walking across the small room. She gazed at the bookshelves, at the toy Ferrari she’d put in his Christmas stocking, at a copy of
Inner Gold
. She picked up a Rubik cube and gave it a gentle twist; dust flew off.

‘Did you discuss it with the acupuncturist?’

A car hooted in the street outside; the cubes rotated with a soft crunch. ‘He had some pretty crackpot theories,’ she said.

‘So do you.’

‘They’re not crackpot.’

‘What about the crap therapy thing you went to with Laura. Rebirthing?’

‘Rebirthing was good.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘One session of rebirthing and no sex for two months.’ He rocked his drink from side to side, rattling the ice. ‘You don’t make babies without screwing — or didn’t anyone tell you that?’

She was silent.

‘You ought to get on and do this regressive hypnotism you keep talking about. You’ll probably find you were a nun in a previous life.’

‘Laura says —’

‘I’m not interested what Laura says.’ He drank some of his gin. ‘Do you really discuss our sex life with your friends?’

Three yellows lined up down one side. She twisted the cube again. ‘Don’t you discuss it with yours?’

‘There’s not much to discuss. We don’t have a sex life these days, we have scientific experiments. When did you last
enjoy
sex?’

She put the cube back on the shelf, walked over and kissed him again. ‘Don’t be like this, Tom. I always enjoy it. It’s just that’ — she bit her lip — ‘time’s running out.’

Tom’s voice became a fraction gentler. ‘Darling, everyone says you didn’t conceive before because you worked too hard, because of tension. That’s why you gave up work. No one said you have to give up sex.’ He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Listen, there’s a house I like the look of. The particulars arrived today.’ He flipped open a file with a wodge of estate agents’ particulars.

As she looked at the coloured photograph in the centre a fleeting sensation of familiarity rose inside her, then sank away like a shadow underwater. The photograph was fuzzily printed and the view of the house was partially obscured by shrubbery. Tudor, more a large cottage than a house, the lower half red brick and the upper plaster with wood beams. It had small mullioned windows and a steeply pitched roof tugged down over it like a hat that was too large. It seemed tired, neglected and rather melancholic.

ELMWOOD MILL, ELMWOOD, SUSSEX. A delightful 15th-century mill house in outstanding secluded position, with outbuildings including the original watermill and large brick barn. In need of some modernisation. About 3 acres. For sale by private treaty or auction at a date to be agreed.

‘I think I — I’ve —’ Her voice tailed away.

‘You’ve what?’ Tom said.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. I — I thought for a moment I knew the house.’

‘What do you think of it?’

‘It’s very pretty.’ She glanced through the particulars. ‘Doesn’t say a price — it’s probably way out of reach.’

‘I rang them up.’ He smiled triumphantly. ‘They’re asking two-fifty, but they might take two twenty-five.’

‘How come?’

‘It’s a complete wreck.’

‘Just what we want!’ she squealed, and Tom was suddenly touched by her glee and enthusiasm, by something that seemed rekindled inside her. A drop of rain water fell on his cheek, but he barely noticed. Even soaking wet she smelted nice. She always smelled nice; it was one of the things that had first attracted him to her. Her face was pretty with an impish toughness behind it, and there was an element of tomboy in her that had always appealed. Her body was slim, but strong and she could look dynamite in a mini and just as good in jeans. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had a raw animal sexiness about her that was part of the chemistry between them. It had barely dimmed in all the time they had been together. Until now.

He should be patient and understanding, he knew; he should be sympathetic and caring. Instead he felt chewed up inside. He was guilty about his resentment against her childlessness (when maybe it was his fault — or at least partly his fault). Moving to the country. That was what they had both decided to do. Get out of London, out of the Big Smoke and the Big Hassle. It would be different in the country. It would come right there.

‘I’ve made an appointment for tomorrow. There’s someone else keen, apparently,’ he said. ‘Three o’clock. OK?’

She nodded and looked down at the photograph. The sense of familiarity returned.

‘Have you fed Ben?’ she asked.

‘Yup.’

‘And Horace?’

‘Rats, I forgot.’

‘You never remember Horace.’

‘Teach Horace to bark and I might.’ He yawned and closed the file. ‘I must get on.’

‘How was the lasagne?’

He was already reading his documents. ‘Fine.’

She went downstairs. Ben ran after her and over to the front door. ‘Sorry, boy, I’m, not going out in that rain. I’m going to have a hot bath. You can go into the garden on your own.’ She walked through to the kitchen and unlocked the back door. ‘OK, boy!’

Ben sat down and sighed like an old man.

‘God, you’re a wimp!’ She went to the dresser. ‘Hi Horace, you don’t mind getting wet, do you?’ She pressed her face against the glass bowl. The magnified red carp swam over and watched her as if she were a good movie, mouth opening and shutting. ‘Had a good day, have you?’ She opened the lid of its food. ‘How do you feel about moving to the country, Horace? It’s a shitty old place, London, don’t you think?’ She dropped a pinch of food in and it spread through the water like a cloud of fallout. The fish swam unhurriedly to the surface and took its first glum bite.

Elmwood Mill.

Something stirred deep in her memory. Like a forgotten name on the top of the tongue it hung there, tantalising her, then slipped away.

She went upstairs and into the bathroom. As she turned the taps and water splashed out she felt, for some reason she did not understand, afraid.

The property was by a lake at the end of a mile-long lane that sloped continuously downhill. They had passed only three other houses, the last over half a mile distant. Charley saw the green and white estate agent’s board through the trees beside a crumbling brick wall which had jagged glass cemented along the top. Daylight glinted through the slats of the rotting wooden gates.

The appointment was for three o’clock. The car clock said 3.44.

‘He must have buggered off,’ Tom said.

Charley let Ben out. The golden retriever hurtled clumsily past her, shook himself, then bounded over and cocked his leg against the wall. Eight months old, still a puppy. They had got him when she’d given up full-time work.

The car ticked and pinged and smelled of hot oil. She stretched, feeling flat suddenly, and silently annoyed at Tom for picking her up so late. Always something. For over a year they’d been house-hunting, and every time something was not right. The rooms were too small or the neighbours were too close or someone else got interested and the price went too high. Both of them knew, but rarely spoke, of their need for a fresh start.

Black clouds like locomotives shunted through the blue sky. Gusting wind tugged at the roots of her hair. The foliage, lush from a long spell of heavy rain, bent in the wind and the sodden grass sparkled under the coarse sunlight. Moisture seeped into her shoes.

The lake stretched like a grubby carpet between the walls of trees around it, slapping its creases out against the banks. A solitary upturned skiff lay on a patch of grass in front of them under a faded sign nailed to a tree. ‘PRIVATE. NO FISHING. MEMBERS ONLY.’ Beyond it was a metal footbridge over a weir, and a path leading up into the woods.

A flock of starlings flew overhead. She felt the chill of the wind, more like March than June, and hugged her arms around herself. She heard the rattle of branches, the woodsaw rasp of a crow, the roar of water from the weir. Behind the sounds was an odd stillness after the bustle of London. Strange not to hear any traffic, or voices.

There was a sharp clank as Tom pushed the gate open, the metal bolt scraping through the gravel of the drive. He was unchanged from court, in his pinstriped suit and Burberry mackintosh. They must look odd together, she in her jeans and baggy pullover and bomber jacket.

Then her heart skipped as she stared down the sweeping drive at the cluster of buildings nestling in the hollow a hundred yards away, between mossy banks that rose up into the woods on either side. The house — a different view from the estate agent’s photograph — a brick barn, and a dilapidated wooden water mill.

There was little sign of life. The windows were dark. Water tumbled from the weir into a brick-walled sluice pond below them. It frothed angrily around the motionless wheel and slid in a fast narrow stream through the
garden, under an ornamental wooden bridge, past the barn and into a paddock beyond.

Excitement thumped inside her, although the house was smaller than she’d thought it would be, and in worse condition. Shadows boxed on the uneven roof as the wind punchballed the trees; an L-shaped single-storey extension seemed as if it might collapse at any moment on to the coal bunker and an oil tank beside it in a bed of nettles. Then she stiffened.