Boys and Girls (50 page)

‘Why did you
do
it, Black? At what point did you – you of all people in the world – become just such an …
animal
?!'

‘
I
 …? I don't know what you … Christ, Susie – oh God I'm in such pain. I don't know what you're … Alan. Where's Alan? Get him to help me. Oh Jesus
Christ
 …!'

‘Ha! That's a good one that is, Black you bastard. Why should he? Why should he help you after what you've done to him? What makes you think he
can
help you, the state's he's in. How could you have
done
it? Did you use a
hammer
, or what?'

Black was desperate now to clamp down on all of his tortured core and just will himself to simply …
understand
 …!

‘Is Alan … all right? What's wrong? Oh God. Is he all
right
 …?!'

‘Of course he's not all
right
! How could he be, after what you've done? You're a bad bad person, Black. I was so very wrong about you. You attempt to rape my daughter, and now you viciously assault my husband!'

‘I—! I didn't! I've never—! I've never laid a finger on either
of them! How could I?
Alan
 …? I –
love
him …! Why do you think I—?!'

‘Because he
told
me, Black. All right? Yes he did. Just lying there in the hall, bloody and just half-conscious. He
told
me …!'

Yes he did – and I shall never forget it. I had hardly known what to expect as I determined to drive straight round here, as soon as dawn had broken. I had tried not to rehearse, to compose no speech. I knew it was too early for just all sorts of reasons: they both would still be asleep – and Alan for one takes just so bloody long to rouse himself, even with a pint of the strongest coffee. Also, the place might be littered with, oh God … girls. But as soon as day could be said to have struck, I could simply wait no longer. Whether or not I wanted to get back – I had to, you see, I had to: I just simply had to. The first thing I noticed was that the door, the front door, it was not quite to. My mind – spun back wildly to the time when a drunken Amanda had driven the bloody car into the old house, yes, that first night, yes, when Black was there. I gently pushed it open – I thought I might pluck out an umbrella from the stand as a sort of weapon in case of marauders. But all I did was gasp – I gasped and was hurt and sickened by what I saw there … Alan, poor Alan, askew on the floor, his jacket all torn – blood on his hands and clotted into hard encrustations in the wrenched-around and sweat-matted tousle of his hair. I rushed to him, and he stirred.

‘Alan! Oh my
God
, Alan …! What has …? Are you …? What happened? Who
did
this to you …?!'

Alan twisted around his head, and opened an eye. His voice was no more than a groan.

‘… Black …' he said. ‘Bloody
bastard
 …!'

Susan's breath was caught, her heart a welter of pain and shock. She ran upstairs to her bathroom, her mind now useless in the spin it was in, and hurtled back down again with armfuls of everything she had randomly gathered. She stung him with disinfectant, she cooled his forehead with a dampened towel, she dabbed at his contusions and she wrapped his hands in gauze (the tube of fake suntan, the tampon dispenser and two packets of dental floss she hurled away with impatience). She could see he was aware of comfort – his eyes were smiling the faintest thank-you, and she knew he would not die. And after the fleeting peace of that, there then came the blinding wall of fury. She flew back upstairs and crashed into Black's bedroom – plain and calm and quite untouched – and then she was running all over the house, banging doors and yelling out his name. When finally she found him, quite sweetly asleep in his armchair, a whisky at his side, her eyes were mauve with uncut rage and the need for attack. And here now – after all of that – before her on the floor was yet another bruised and damaged bastard of a man who of course, like all men, denies all knowledge, any culpability – he protests his innocence, and begs me for mercy. Well he won't get it. And yet … since I told him to his face just what Alan had said to me, Black … he was crying. I would have punched him hard for that, and yet … there was a pain of a different sort alive in him, now – he seemed at least remorseful. I might have relented, then – an attempt at human compassion – but then there was this vision that cut me: his fingers on Amanda, crawling – and now the splice of Alan's blue-and-red and bulbous face … and I drew back my fist and –
God
, I would have hit him, and just so hard, but my arm now, it was being constrained, but oh so very weakly. I glanced around and was shocked to see Alan,
bent double and swaying above me, my wrist in his tentative grasp, his other hand holding his side.

‘Susan …! Christ's sake.
Leave
him … what are you –
doing
 …?'

The effort, then, was just too much: Alan fell back into a sofa and just lay there, breathing hard.

‘But Alan – he—!'

‘He's my –
friend
. He's done nothing. He's my –
friend
 …!'

And Alan now was crying too. He eased himself forward and down on to his knees. Susan just watched him as he shuffled his way over to Black, his hand still clamped down on to his side, and he was wincing. One of his tears fell down on to Black's face – and Black, he did his damnedest to prise open his eyes and try to see above him. He smiled, then, at the sight of Alan, and Alan tried it too. Susan could only stare as Alan's stiff and bandaged hands clasped a gentle hold of one of Blackie's, and then more tightly. Alan stroked his brow and said shhh, shhh … and told him, softly, not to worry, not to worry, because everything now was going to be all right. Black had flattened his lips, and he nodded calmly, his eyes so very tender. He managed by degrees to lift up Alan's gauzy paw so that the tips of the fingers were just now touching his lips, which then so very slightly stirred. And in the silence, it was Susan, then, who was weeping.

Mum, she's like – out? I don't know where she goes, and I so used not to care, you know? But she's kind of been having a hard time lately, like everything's really done her head in and she never lightens up. Sometimes when she goes out it's got to do with getting stuff for my – omigod,
flat
, can you believe? I mean it's not like a new flat or anything, it's just the basement
really, right here in the old house. But when I said to her, Mum – listen, OK? There is no
way
I am going back to Richmond, not after all what I saw. And it kind of broke me up in one way though because my room there, oh wow. And my black-and-white bathroom and everything. And Mum, I thought she was going to go Oh don't be so
silly
, Amanda – of course we're going back, it's our
home
, isn't it? And your
father's
there, isn't he? But she never. She just said she was like hearing me, and what she'd do is she'd get Mr Clearley's people to come round here and like break in a side entrance? And that would be just for me? And there's going to be a proper bathroom, yeh, and a chill-out space and even like a microwave and other gear. I just said cool: what's not to like? And she's been really amazing about other stuff too – like when I told her that to cover for this so-called Switzerland jag I'd written this like note to the school? Doing her signature and saying I was ill? And then I said to her, Mum: I so don't want to go back there either. Yeh – and I was just like ready for all of her usual stuff: what are you
talking
about, Amanda? Of
course
you have to go back to school – you're not yet
sixteen
, and there's the sixth form and then there's university and—! But she never. So I've got this, like – tutor? She comes every day – Eileen, her name is, and she's really pretty cool. I'm even like learning stuff because she doesn't make it all just so boring like they did at school, you know? So yeh – Mum, she's just so like not being Mum any more, and so when she said she was going to come with to this new appointment at the clinic, I told her what I'd been thinking. I half wanted her to tell me I was nuts and like drag me there, but if she did that I was so going to go crazy at her. But she never.

‘Oh,
Amanda
 … I don't really think you understand what it is you'd be taking on. You're so terribly
young
 …'

‘Yeh but a lot of girls do it now, don't they Mum? And you'll be here and help me and stuff, won't you? I just feel it's … right. You know?'

And Susan could only sigh, not really sadly, and nod at the inevitability. Because despite all of the more practical considerations, well – it
is
right, of course it is. In the eyes of God. But Amanda, she's never had to cope with even a minor responsibility, let alone something such as this. Though she's quite correct when she says that I'll be here and, yes – that I'll help. For where else now could I possibly go? And what have I left to do? It is a relief in many ways that I'm not getting back – it was never, at base, what I wanted, and yet I did believe that it had to be done … though I can't now even remember why. But the morning following that most hideous night … when Black was in the hospital with Alan close by him in constant attendance … well, I did not consider even broaching all that I had determined – bestowing upon them the gladdening news that I was repentant of my actions, that my passing insanity was cured, that I was prepared to be large and overlook too their recent … misdemeanours. No. No no, I said not a word. Even simply standing there, I had felt as an intruder: it was they who were together, Alan and Black, bonded not just by their raw and crusted injuries. And some days later I received from Black just the sweetest little note: no recrimination, not an atom of bile – just the insistence that I continue to forward onto him all incurred expenses and to in no way consider myself a stranger. Alan had added his name, and a kiss. More hot tears from me – my eyes were always then so thoroughly reddened and sore – though if someone had asked me quite why this time I was crying, I could not possibly have answered them. And of course, had Black not continued with his infinite
generosity, all the new plans could just never be. As it is, the house, the old house, is well on the way to being split into two quite separate but intercommunicating entities; Amanda, for once, seems actually to be applying herself to her coursework and curriculum, and the Harley Street gynaecologist is nothing but encouraging.

‘But what about … the father, Amanda? Why should he be able to get away with it? The bloody shit.'

‘It wouldn't be like that. I just so don't care about him. I mean, yeh – we could get him banged up, I suppose – but what's the point? You know? And he's got no money or anything. And it's not like I, oh God –
love
him, or something. I just so don't care about him. I can deal. Anyway – it's
my
baby. Mine. Got nothing to do with him, the bloody shit.'

So it's easy then, is it, Susan wondered idly. If you have help and you don't love someone – it's easy then, is it? I suppose it is. I suppose it must be. I wouldn't know, because I do love still: I continue to dangle at the mercy of the give and pull of a long elastic yearning. He rang me, Herb: he said – What's wrong? Susan? What's wrong? Why can't we, you know … go on the way we were? Susan? You listening? Why can't we? I just put the phone down. And then I said Because we
can't
. That's all. It wouldn't be right: you're married.

‘Well, Amanda … if you're really really
sure
, my darling … But know it won't be easy. Like the way you were so terribly sick this morning, yes? Well … that will happen again.'

‘You
think
 …?'

‘Yes well. So long as you know. And I suppose you have not given the slightest thought to what you'll be doing to
me
 …?'

‘To you? Don't get …'

‘What you'll be
making
me. A grandmother! At my age!'

‘Oh. Oh that. But you're beautiful, Mum. You're beautiful.'

Susan was so surprised.

‘You've never said that to me before, Amanda.'

‘No well. I guess everyone else in the world has. I never said it before because I always wanted to be as beautiful as you.'

‘Oh but, Amanda – you are, you
are
a beauty! What are you saying? And you're
young
 – so very very young. The very essence of beauty, youth.'

‘I'm not
really
young – don't feel it. I'd like to be sometimes – just rocking up to whatever and just being like fifteen, you know? But I don't feel it. I'd like to, like –
believe
in stuff. Like I was reading that book again –
Grimm's Fairy Tales
? I read it just over and over and I want to believe it's true, but I can't. I mean – I know they're
fairy
tales and they're not meant to be true, but you still kind of have to
believe
them, you know? I maybe didn't put that right. Anyway – I know what I mean. Susan felt again the heat and sting of impending tears.

‘I have to go out, Amanda. Mr Clearley and another of them are working downstairs. Offer them – you know: coffee and things.'

Amanda watched her as she got up to go.

‘You cool, though – aren't you, Mum? About, you know: stuff?'

Susan harnessed a smile as she gathered up hurriedly her handbag and a jacket.

‘Oh
thoroughly
, Amanda, I do assure you. I am perfectly “cool” about “stuff”.'