Brond (15 page)

‘We’ll have to make sure,’ I said.

A practical streak I hadn’t expected led her back out to the desk from which she produced a heavy-duty torch cased in rubber.

‘The only other place,’ she said, ‘would be the yard.’

A side door took us out into a paved court. It felt cold like a place the sun never reached. In reaction I looked up and felt a silly relief at seeing a patch of stars above the tenement walls.
The torch beam ran about the court into corners, across dark stains of oil and a litter of wind-blown trash. She settled it on an unpainted door that was heavily padlocked.

‘He couldn’t have got in there,’ I said.

‘There’s nowhere else.’

To show her how silly that was, I walked over and shook the door. The heavy shiny padlock fell open and hung gaping from the catch.

‘It’s not locked,’ she said.

‘I think it’s more than that.’

I heard myself whispering as if someone just outside the reach of our light might be listening. I lifted the padlock off and there were marks scored into the top.

‘It’s been broken,’ I said and added as she put her hand out to the door, ‘but whoever did it hung it back on the door. He can’t be in there now.’

She gave a push and the door swung open.

‘I can’t find the switch for the light,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know where it is.’

We stood in the doorway and let the torch play over dim bulks of sacks and ladders lengthy on the wall. I took the torch from her and put the light round again myself. Neither of us moved.

‘He wouldn’t be here.’

‘No,’ she said.

We came out and I hung the impressive padlock in place again.

Back in the room, she crouched on the edge of the bed. She looked pale and defeated and beautiful.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘He was too ill to move.’

‘Maybe it’s not your problem any more,’ I said. ‘Will I take you home?’

‘Yes,’ and she added in a lost way, ‘nobody’ll be there.’

‘Not Kilpatrick anyway. Not if he was as anxious to get away as you say.’

As I spoke, I opened the cupboard over the sink and rummaged inside.

‘There’s coffee and sugar. No milk . . . And here’s a tin. It’s chocolate biscuits. Looks like supper.’

She sat watching me while I filled a pan with water and sat it on to boil. I found two cups, surprisingly of china, each with a matching saucer. I even found a jar with milk powder. ‘Just
like home.’

She took the cup and I sat beside her on the bed.

‘Sweet drink and a biscuit. Take a biscuit. My prescription for shock,’ I said.

She wouldn’t take one but as she sipped the coffee the colour came back into her cheeks. I had put three rings of the cooker to high and left them on. As we sat, the little room grew warm.
I remembered eating breakfast in Margaret’s house.

‘You’ll have to knock when you get back or your visitors will think they’re being burgled.’

‘Visitors?’

It occurred to me that I hadn’t told her about spending the night in her bed.

‘Your father’s cousin and his wife.’ My mind went blank. I couldn’t remember his name. ‘From Ireland. Your parents are over there just now.’

‘Uncle Liam?’

She stared in disbelief.

‘That’s right. His wife and him. They’re going on to London – but they’re at your house tonight.’

‘But what time is it?’

I looked at my watch. It was nearly one in the morning.

‘Holy Mother of God!’ she said. ‘How can I go home now? What would Aunt Rose tell my mother? She never liked me.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’s just that they find you being perfect a bit hard to take.’

‘What are you talking about?’ At least she didn’t look defeated any more. She had come alive. ‘Are you telling the truth?’

‘How else would I know about your Uncle Liam? I went to your house this morning—’

‘And they saw you? Oh, what did you have to do that for? She’ll tell my father for sure – she’ll make a real story of it. My life won’t be worth living.’

‘Your Aunt didn’t see me.’

‘It doesn’t matter. He tells her everything.’

‘Oh.’

He had more to tell her than Margaret realised.

‘I can’t go home at this time of night,’ she said. ‘Not with her there.’

I took another biscuit. They were good although they must have been there since before the holiday fortnight. The sellotape round the rim must have kept them fresh.

‘Sleep here,’ I said casually.

A spray of crumbs spoiled the effect. She brushed them mistrustfully out of her lap.

‘There’s the bed,’ I said defensively.

‘What about you?’

‘No problem. I can walk till I get to an all-night bus stop – or until I get home.’

‘And leave me here on my own?’

It would be an eerie place to be alone. The old building settling in the dark; the bulky shadows in the store across the yard.

‘I don’t mind staying.’

‘You’re not sleeping in this bed.’

‘I’ll sleep in the chair.’

That idea seemed to ring a bell for her. She must have seen somebody doing it in a movie. In the films, though, the chair wasn’t an upright, wooden-seat cane-back tucked under a desk.

‘You’ll sleep through there,’ she said.

‘It’s cold through there.’

Before she could argue, I went through and cleared the typewriter and folders off the table. I lifted it into the small room and went back for the chair. I set them both by the wall as far from
the bed as they would go. She didn’t really have a great deal of choice. There was no way she was going home or that she would spend a night alone here without protection.

‘Will you give me a chance to get ready for bed,’ she asked in a little voice.

‘Sure. I’ll wait in the shop.’

I didn’t want to risk putting the light on and attracting attention from that dark side street and so I took the torch. It didn’t take long to exhaust the sights. Standing in the
dark, I got childish: I spun the light in circles, threw it up and caught it; stopped when I decided this was one night I particularly didn’t want to spend in a police cell. I stood quiet and
let the light make discreet passes. As if it had a life of its own, it kept sliding back to a cash register on the counter. There was an illegal feel to the dark. I wondered how much Margaret was
taking off to go to bed. There seemed no harm in looking at the register. It was an old model. When I tapped one of the keys, nothing happened. I tugged at the drawer but it wouldn’t open.
There was a faint shout from Margaret. She must have got into bed. I got the trick of it – the drawer opened when you leaned on No Sale and pulled. They kept the petty cash in it; no notes
but a lot of coins. I picked out the big ones and dropped them in my pocket. Softly I pushed the drawer shut. My heart was pounding till I thought it could be heard outside. Apart from cakes out of
the bakers as a schoolboy, that was my first theft.

All that she had left outside the blanket was her face and a spread of black hair across the pillow. Trying not to be obvious, I looked around for her clothes. I thought she might have climbed
into bed fully dressed until I saw her stuff folded at the foot of the bed. She had spread her shirt on top so it was impossible to tell what was under it.

‘Put the light out,’ she said.

‘Where’s the switch?’

‘There by the door. No, the other side.’

I put the light out and then put it on again.

‘I’ll need a minute to work out where things are or I’ll break my neck.’

Conscious of her eyes dark and wide over the blanket like a fugitive from a harem, I padded around adjusting the chair so that I could tip it back against the wall and pulling the table forward
to where I could lift my feet on to it. I’d never seen an unlikelier sleeping arrangement.

‘That’s it then. It’s about as good as it’s going to be.’

I went back to the door and charted the route.

‘I’ll put the light out.’

The blackness was total. I stood still trying to get my eyes back. Suddenly, a breathless whisper asked, ‘Where are you?’

‘Here. By the door. It’s too dark to see.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m giving my eyes a chance to catch up.’

Gradually I decided I could make out shapes. The hatch window to the left of the sink didn’t so much give light as qualify the darkness. Slowly I edged forward. The side of my left hand
knocked wood and I knew I was by the table. I bumped the chair and it rattled away. When that happened, I heard her gasp. I lowered myself into the chair and tipped it back gingerly until it rested
against the wall. I put my feet up one at a time on the table. The silence was perfect.

‘Good night.’

‘Good night,’ I said. The chair cut into the back of my neck.

‘It was good of you to come with me.’ Her voice was low and husky. ‘I couldn’t have come by myself.’

Surprisingly, I slept. Perhaps it had something to do with the warm glow of righteous self-approval I was generating.

Even righteous sleeps end.

It was still dark.

‘Margaret?’

No answer.

I cleared my throat and tried a little louder.

‘Margaret? You asleep?’

Carefully I lowered the legs of the chair to the ground. It was a miracle I hadn’t tipped over and broken my neck. When I got up, my knees buckled. Blood must have stopped reaching them
some time earlier.

In the dark I started undressing. As I pulled off my trousers, change spilled jingling from the pocket. My breathing stopped until I heard the deep rhythm of hers. Mother naked I set out for the
bed.

This time I could see a little better but the bed was only a shape full of shadows. I thought she might be awake listening to the sounds I had made, pretending to be asleep or pretending it was
a dream. I was ashamed enough to go back to my upright chair until I imagined trying to find that scatter of clothes. A small cold breeze licked my buttocks and I explored the cleft of pillows and
sheet, peeled back the clothes and slid in.

She rolled over and put her arm round me. One problem solved: she wore bra and pants to bed. I lay still for a year or two and then softly ran my hand down her back. She had skin like warm
velvet. I eased under her pants and on the last little bone I came to, rubbed gently. She sighed and snuggled comfortably closer. I stroked my fingers down one side of her soft parting and back up
the other and pressed in between her cheeks.

‘Peter,’ she murmured and opened her legs so that mine slipped between them. Then I felt her hand come down and hold me.

Conscience apart it should have been all downhill sledging from there, but when I brought up my hand and touched her on the breast she trembled, let go as if I’d turned hot and threshed
like a swimmer going down.

‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’

I thought she was having a fit. She quietened.

‘What are you— Is that— Get out!’

‘Look,’ I whispered reasonably. ‘I’ve slept in that hellish chair. It must be your turn.’

There was a pause. She was still spread half under me. The size of my interest puttered against her thigh like an over-crowded motor boat.

‘That was a terrible thing to do,’ she said very quietly.

‘You haven’t sat in that chair for hours.’

‘But you’ve taken all your clothes off.’

‘I didn’t want to get my vest crumpled.’

If she would only laugh, things might go right even yet. It was like lying beside a furnace. The heat of her body beat round me. I licked her shoulder. It tasted salty and smelled like warm milk
and apples.

‘You’ll have to get out,’ she said calmly.

‘No.’

‘Please, now, you wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want you to.’

Somewhere about the middle of the next day, I would brood on what might have happened if I had yelled Yes and got on top of her.

‘Good God, no,’ I muttered soothingly into her neck. ‘I wouldn’t force myself on a girl. I’m not like that. I’ve never needed to force myself on a girl.
We’ll do whatever you want.’

‘Get out of the bed, please.’

‘Apart from that. It’s bloody cold out there. I won’t stop you if you want to sleep in the chair.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. There was an intensely practical strain in her.

Another pause. After a bit, I moved my leg closer imperceptibly; only she perceived it and said, ‘Will you lie still . . . And we’ll go to sleep. That would be fair.’

She freed herself and turned away. The dim bulk of her back was presented to me. I put my hand on her backside hoping for some repetition of the earlier effect. She reached behind her and picked
it off.

‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘That’s fair.’

‘Fair!’ I heard my voice squeak and deepened it for the next bit. ‘How can you talk that way?’

‘You’re a decent fellow,’ she said. Her voice began to trail away. Either she was the best actress since Sarah Bernhardt screwed on a wooden leg or she was falling asleep.
‘You’ve been good to me. I trust you.’

Sometime before morning, I fell asleep without abusing myself or murdering her – which must prove something about the resilience of human nature.

ELEVEN

T
here was a smell of frying bacon and since it was an illusion I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to be disappointed. Thoughts of the middle of the
night ebbed into the forebrain. By cautious fractions, I stretched in the bed.

I was alone.

‘You’re awake then,’ a measured cheerful voice asserted. ‘You’re a good sleeper when you start.’

Reluctantly I peeped out of one eye. Margaret was bending over the cooker turning something in a frying pan. She had found a kettle, too, and a wisp of steam plumed merrily into the air. It was
a scene of pleasing domesticity. I rechecked my memories of the night and clenched the eye shut again.

‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ she said. ‘The sun’s splitting the stones.’

I could hear the spatter of fat. Despite myself, my mouth began to water.

‘That can’t be bacon. Where would you have got it?’

Her laugh, like every sound and move she made, was music.

‘I found a little corner shop. There’s ham and eggs and coffee. And he had rolls. Do you like rolls?’