Easy Peasy (12 page)

detachment of Aust … and wash and … and teak I … orchids … ible variety … ugly chocolate brown … purple … fleshy and a mass of mauve…

I can't look at this any more. He should have had it back.
He
should have had the choice. The dead man, the Reverend Priest, should have sent it back to him. I feel a spurt of anger that he lied to my father. Anger with his widow for sending what was left of the diary to Mummy instead of directly to him. Anger with Mummy for sending them to me instead of giving them to him. For not respecting Daddy enough to allow him to make his own choice. They were
his
memories, nobody else's. And, inevitably, anger with myself for not taking action sooner, for putting it off until it was too late. Now he can never forgive his cowardly friend. Would he have forgiven, laughed it off, the disgusting fate of most of his diary? Would he have understood? I don't know. I did not know him well enough to possibly know. What was in his head when he died? Why choose yesterday instead of today, tomorrow, this time next year? I wonder if these scraps, these scrubby bits of paper would have helped, would have saved him? When he stood on the chair, or the step-ladder, whatever he stood on, when he slipped his head through the noose – how did he know how to make a noose?
I
wouldn't know how. When he kicked away the chair, when he felt the rope jerk and clench his throat, heard the clatter of the fallen chair, felt the pressure … what …?

No. I cannot. No. What shall I do? What shall I do?

My Daddy.

I need … I cannot … I must calm down. Must breathe. The kitchen floor is cool and clean beneath my feet. My feet are white, my nails are cut. The knees of my pyjamas are bagged. What will I wear tomorrow? Black? I often wear black anyway. There used to be rules, precise periods of mourning: two and a half years for a parent, three months for an aunt. Each period had its own uniform. Black crêpe and bombazine for deepest mourning, shading through heliotrope or grey for half-mourning. Black silk ribbons threaded through the hems of the drawers and petticoats of Victorian women. I bought a job lot once. Long white drawers with black ribbons. They sold well. Mourning drawers. I should have kept a pair back. It's so free now. You can wear what the hell you like, yellow to a funeral, black to a wedding. Who will give a damn?

A tiny fragment drifts to the floor. There is no breeze. No movement. But it seems to pick itself up and flutter to the floor. Almost as if it has been selected by invisible fingers. Goose-pimples rise on my arms as I bend down for it. It is the scrappiest little bit of paper, eaten by ants or something until it is nothing but grubby lace. I strain my eyes but there is no message there for me. I thought maybe … I cannot pick out a single whole word. Is that it then finally? No message.

I hope Mummy is asleep, and Hazel and Huw, though it makes me lonely to hope that. It's as if they are on the other side. As if I am dead and they are alive or the other way round. But not forever. One day forever, but not yet. I hear the sound of an engine outside, a car starting up and my heart lifts. Someone is up and awake and off to work. Outside the window, the street is dark, the street-lamps flick on as I look, dull red brightening to orange. The glass is cold and soothing to my brow. At the door I put on a pair of Wellingtons, Foxy's, too big for my cold bare feet, gritty inside. I open the door and go down the concrete steps on to the front path, in time to see the car disappear round the corner. I listen to the sound die away. There are lots of sounds – more weighty vehicles, juggernauts, on the distant motorway, the thin dreamy wail of a child. Several lights on in the flats opposite. Daft to imagine myself alone. I should get a computer and hitch myself up to the Internet – then I could connect with people in another time-zone, or form an insomniacs club in this one. Perhaps there is already one in existence, a network of bleary-eyed folk, having virtual sex, virtual relationships, living virtual lives all through the lonely night.

A cat slinks up to me, its eyes collecting and refracting what little light there is into crazed gold. It rubs against my boots. I pick it up and snuggle my face in its cold fur but it struggles and I put it down. It stands for a moment beside me, its tail held very high. It reminds me of myself. It wants to be close but not to be held. I feel trapped with arms around me for more than a moment. Even
Foxy's
arms. I cannot stay in them for long without feeling breathless. I try to remember my father's arms around me. I don't think they ever were though surely he must have held me as a baby. Sometimes there was the bristly whisky-scented brush of a kiss on the cheek, whisky-scented because he would have been drinking if he was moved to kiss me. And now his lips, his mouth, is dead. Bristles keep on growing after death and finger and toe-nails. My toe-nails are clipped, gathered and put in the bin. Dead bits of me. I want to wake Foxy. I can't be alone any more. I'm frightened. It is homing in on me, settling like a swarm, not just the fact of Daddy's death but the fact of death, of mortality. Mine.

I must stop thinking.

Foxy.

It is cold out here with a clean lemon line of dawn just starting to edge the roofs. The sky is punctured by a single star.

In bed. She grumbles a bit in her sleep when my cold feet brush against her, my cold knees nudging into the heat of the back of hers. I should not, I should leave her but my cold hands are desperate for her warmth. My face presses against her back, I move my hand on to her belly that has slid sideways with the gravity of sleep. I feel goose-pimples spread on her skin as my chill affects her, as I steal her warmth. I slide my hand up to her breast and feel the nipple pucker. I push my body closer. If I was a man I would enter her like this. How it must feel for a cold and lonely man to bury himself in a woman. Just now I can feel the weakness of a man, his penis tensed and shuddering, yearning towards completeness. I slide my hand between her legs. She is awake now. Not that she has given a sign, but the quality of her awareness has changed the minute tensions in her body. Her breathing is deeper. Her body grows hotter, she pushes her back against me, her bottom, and her heat floods me. Her live heat.

But one day she will be dead.

I cannot do it, touch her any more.

This is the morning after the day my father died.

One day the hand that absorbs her humidity will be only bones, she will be bones. I take my hand away and she gives a disgruntled sigh.

Foxy – Sybil to me then – came into Second Hand Rose to buy a hat for somebody's wedding. It was years since I'd graduated and I was surprised she remembered me. We couldn't find a hat to do her justice, but she tried on a lace blouse, stepped out of the changing-room to ask my opinion. The old-gold lace lit up her hair and skin, clung to and sculpted the shape of her breasts, the narrow curve of her waist so that I could hardly speak. She bought the blouse and returned next day to suggest a drink. I could only say, yes, but I was confused, quite terrified of her in a way. Did she mean
just
a drink? I thought she was amazing, so elegant, so bright. The welter of words that can trip off her tongue when she gets going, that spill from between her bright and smudgy lips. The slim elegance of her hands and feet, that make me feel peasant-like beside her. We shared a bottle of wine in a wine bar that's gone now, knocked down to make way for a car-park. We shared a pizza, discovering a mutual passion for anchovies. All evening I was anxious and tantalised. I had never been with a woman before. Was this simply friendship or was it a prelude to something more? Surely the warm lingering looks she gave me; surely the way she touched my arm, my knee, my thigh; surely the husky intimate note in her laugh promised something more than simple friendship? But I did not know, did not want to make a fool of myself by misjudging her, misreading, in my usual clumsy way, the situation. All my lovers had been male. I'd never even considered sex with a woman. But this woman … And in the end when we kissed the taste of anchovies was strong in our mouths, the taste of anchovies and lipstick.

I kiss the back of her neck and her hair tickles my lips.
Foxy, please don't leave me
.

‘Zelda?' A question in her voice.

‘Sorry.'

‘Let me hold you.'

‘No … I'm getting up again. Sorry, sorry.' She turns and I edge away from her heat, from her arms.

She sighs. ‘What time is it?'

‘Nearly five.'

‘No sleep? You must sleep, pumpkin, just a little.'

‘I can't.'

She puts her hand on my arm. ‘You're trembling.' I let her hold me for a moment, then I pull away.

‘What have you been doing all night?'

‘Looking at my father's … looking at some papers.'

‘What?' Suddenly she is alert.

‘Bits of a diary, from Burma … or Thailand.'

‘From the war? You never …'

‘I wanted to wait till I saw him, but …' and I start to cry. Not as if I'm crying. It's as if I'm a conduit for someone else's gulps, someone else's hot salt tears. She plucks tissues from a box by the bed and wipes my eyes.

‘Oh Zel …'

I take a deep breath. ‘I'm all right.'

‘I'll go and make some tea. Or coffee?'

‘I didn't mean to wake you.'

‘Well, whatever, I'm awake now. We'll have some tea. It's morning.'

I feel her get out of bed, the mattress springs up. I pull her warm pillow down to fill the space she's left. Through my eyelashes I watch her putting on her dressing-gown, lifting her hair over the collar, tying the silky belt around her waist. She feels under the bed with her feet for her slippers. ‘Close your eyes,' she says. She leans over and puts a cool finger-tip on each of my swollen eyelids. ‘I'll bring you some tea in a minute.'

She goes out. My eyes won't open, it's as if she's sealed them shut.

It's morning
she said.

The relief swallows me up.

And when I wake it's light.

Foxy draws the curtains, sunshine floods across the bed. I squint against it. I'm stranded for a beat, don't remember a thing. A blessed beat of peace. I've slept, it's morning, Foxy's here with a tray of toast and coffee. Cutting through the aroma of coffee, a cusp of orange, the scent of marmalade. A smile rises to meet the day, I feel rich, I have slept. And then it slams back. The weight of yesterday. My father is dead. And Foxy, this Foxy, with her hair swept up now, her silk shirt and her jeans, this lover of mine is going to leave me.

‘What time is it?'

‘Eight.'

‘Eight!' I struggle to a sitting position.

‘You were sleeping so soundly … you needed it. I left you
this
long.'

‘Yes.' There is a cold, skinned-over cup of tea beside the bed. She picks it up. ‘See. Eat your breakfast now and I'll run you a bath.'

I cannot let her leave the room until I know the worst. If I'm going to be dumped I want the pain of it now. I want all the pain to come together.

‘Foxy …'

‘Mmmm? Must put some water in the radiator, check the oil.'

‘Last night?'

‘Yep?' She smooths her hair back, dips to look at herself in the dressing-table mirror.

‘Before … before you spoke to my mum …'

‘Mmmm?' She turns.

‘Were you … were you going to end it?'

She pauses. It's no good, she doesn't answer fast enough.

‘Don't worry.' I force coffee past the lump in my throat.

‘No,' she says, but it is too late. She studies my face for a moment and sits down on the edge of the bed. ‘No … I did want to talk but …'

‘Let's talk then.' My voice has gone very odd. It sounds hollow and echoey as if it is issuing from a cave.

‘Zelda, darling, not now.'

‘Why? Nothing's changed since last night has it?'

‘Yes. You know it has.' She fiddles with the silver filigree slide that holds her hair. I gave her that slide. She takes off her glasses and smiles at me. It seems to be a genuine smile. There are small red dents on each side of the bridge of her nose. ‘Things
have
changed. Something like a death … it
does
change things.'

‘But not how you
feel
.'

‘Yes, how you feel.'

‘No.' I swallow some more coffee.

‘Yes.' She rubs her hand against my duvet-muffled thigh. ‘It's not static, Zelda, a relationship,
you
know that. It's not the same two days in a row. I did want to talk to you yesterday, it's true. But not to
finish
us, just to talk …'

‘About what then?'

‘But
this
has superseded
that
.'

‘What?'

She shrugs. ‘Look, we can talk on the journey if you want. I must get the car ready.'

‘I'm giving you a chance,' I say. I feel very detached as if I'm not speaking or even thinking these words, but these are the words that come. ‘I'm giving you a chance to finish it now if you want to. I can drive myself to Norfolk. You can pack up and leave before I get back.'

‘But I don't
want
to leave.' She knits her fingers together as if she is quite upset. ‘I want to go through this with you. I want to … well
support
you, I suppose.'

‘And then?'

‘And then I might get struck by lightning, hit by a bus.
You
might fall madly in love with a Sumo wrestler.' Unwillingly I smile. ‘Who the hell knows?'

‘I s'pose.' I pick up a slice of toast, it looks enormous. I nibble a corner. The marmalade is warm and sticky.

‘I'll go and check the car and run your bath.' She straightens herself up, smooths her hair, replaces her glasses. The moment has gone. She never said the word ‘love'. She touches me on the hair with her lips before she goes out. Along with the marmalade I taste a bitter edge of resentment. I am not begging her to stay. I would not beg her.