Easy Peasy (28 page)

I hold out my hand to a girl in a mini-skirt and bare mottled legs. ‘Want it?' I say, as some of the coins scatter to the ground. I breathe her smoky teenage cheap and glamorous smell. ‘Cool,' she says, grinding out her fag on the carpet with her heel and holding out her hands. There's a phone number written in Biro on her wrist and she wears a puzzle ring.

I blink in the brightness of outside. The sky is in shreds now, the sun blowing through the tatters. I walk back to my shoes, still poised, pigeon-toed, on their bench. An old pair of stranger's shoes – who would want them? I could take them to the Oxfam shop. But instead, and with a sort of smile in my body, a burst of energy, I jump down on to the shingle, run and hurl them into the sea, one then the other, two twizzling arcs, two splashes. I walk faster in my new purple boots. I walk fast back to Wanda's house, stopping to buy food to tempt her with, home-cured ham and fresh white bread, yoghurt, a tub of chocolate ice-cream.

After I've eaten my sandwich and Wanda has failed to eat hers but toyed with a tiny bowl of ice-cream, we sit by the fire. Wanda is done up ready for Stan, a different scarf on her head, her eyes made up, her lipstick glossy, some eau-de-Cologne on her wrists. Close up, I notice that she has drawn her eyebrows on in green, wonder whether or not it's deliberate. She is snuggled in the shawl which suits her, as I knew it would. Sometimes a garment is just right for a person, you see it and you think of the person to whom it should belong. In the shop that happens, someone walks in and before they've said a word I know what they will go for. And Foxy too, of course, I always know what's right for Foxy. Wanda wears red velvet leggings, too loose on her thin legs, but she looks good, quite sexy. She is excited about Stan's return. I'll stay until he comes.

The television is on, some old black-and-white film, but neither of us is concentrating on it.

‘I reckon that was just an excuse,' Wanda says suddenly.

‘Sorry?'

‘The sex … I reckon that was a way of seeing me. What he really wanted was to talk.'

‘But you did …?'

She smiles and looks down. Is that a blush? Then angrily: ‘How could he do that? Top himself. I couldn't could you? Even like
this
I couldn't.' Her hand goes gingerly to her swollen belly. ‘That's such a shit thing to do. And if he were here I'd tell him.'

My stomach gives a startled flip at this outburst. If we cannot avoid referring to my father's death – my family, even Foxy – we refer to it now as if it was somehow natural. The shocking violence of it, the self-inflicted violence, glossed over as if it was bad taste on his part which we have politely overlooked.

I smile weakly, nod. ‘He used to have such terrible dreams,' I say. ‘I mean, he used to wake us.'

She gives a little grunt. ‘He never knew that. “Fortunately they all sleep like logs” is what he used to say.'

I almost want to laugh, she mimics him so well. It never occurred to me that he might not know he woke us. But how could he have known since no one ever talked about it, no one ever said? Our eyes go back to the screen. Something about the heroine of this film is like Foxy – the way she holds herself, the way she tilts her chin. My heart contracts.

‘Let her go,' Wanda says suddenly, sharply, making me start.

‘Sorry?'

‘Your …'

‘Foxy?'

‘First law of human nature … what you can't have you want. If you really want it, of course.'

I snort at her sensible nonsense.

‘Me and Ralph…' she looks wary, not sure if this is dangerous ground. I'm not sure either.

‘Yes?'

‘If … if he'd of
had
me, I mean split up with Astrid and left you all for me then odds on he would have …'

‘Regretted it?'

‘I would have lost my … my … allure.' We are both quiet then simultaneously burst into laughter. ‘Allooooor,' she repeats with relish.

‘But …' I wipe my eyes, laughter feels perilously close to tears today, ‘but it wasn't just your … allure … it was … he could
talk
to you.'

Her eyes shift back to the screen. The woman appears to be on her sick-bed now, firelight flickers dimly on her face, the background music is loaded with doom.

‘Let's turn this over,' I say, picking up the remote control, finding the end of some quiz.

She watches for a moment. ‘And you want to know what he said?'

I nod.

‘Why?'

‘You sound just like Mum. She doesn't understand.'

‘I reckon she does.'

I consider. ‘I don't know. She certainly doesn't approve.'

She shifts in her chair, easing the elastic on the waistband of her leggings and wrapping her shawl more tightly around her.

‘Don't you think it odd that I never wondered why he had such terrible dreams?' I say. ‘I mean it was just … just part of him … like playing golf or wearing glasses. I was just beginning to wonder … and then he …'

‘Did away with himself, the bugger.'

Despite myself I'm laughing again, and crying too.

Wanda gives me a moment, then says, ‘I think we need a cup of tea.'

‘Yes.' I stand up, pluck a tissue from the box on the table, wipe my eyes, blow my nose. ‘Anything else … you've hardly eaten …'

She sighs impatiently. ‘I don't know what I do want any more. That's the worst of this … that's the worst of this, this … disease, you can't
fancy
anything any more. You know what that's like to fancy something, a bit of chocolate or a cake … how lovely that is …'

‘Yes.' I think of the fat golden chips, how gorgeous it was to cram them in my mouth, to lick my salty lips. I pick up our plates, Wanda's ham sandwich untouched, a pool of melted ice-cream in her bowl.

‘There's nothing in the world that I could fancy. That's the saddest thing,' Wanda says. She draws her knees up to her chin once more and hugs them like a child. Her knee bones are sharp through the dark red velvet.

I don't know what to say. I don't know what to offer her. Something else. ‘I did see some bits of his diary …' I begin.

‘No … from the war?' Her green eyebrows rise. ‘He said he kept a diary but that got lost, or stolen or something.'

‘Yes.' I grimace thinking of the fate of most of the diary. ‘Well it turned up, some of it – half-eaten by ants – you couldn't make much out but there was something about a friend, a good friend …'

‘Ah, that'd be Vince.'

A juggernaut rumbles outside and the window trembles in its frame. On the television is an advertisement for dog food, red-setters bounding.

‘Yes, that's right, Vince.'

I wait, breath held, the plates balanced on my hands but she says nothing else.

I go into the kitchen to make tea, camomile for Wanda, PG Tips for me. While it brews I run upstairs to the toilet. My stomach cramps, I don't know why. Nothing she can say can make any difference to
now
. Whatever happened happened. And now he's dead. The flushing cistern is a roaring in my ears. There's a ring round the bath, I wipe it away, snap off a brittle nugget of blue wax.

Wanda's tea is too hot, she puts it on the table beside her. I don't know where her thoughts are now.

‘The shawl looks lovely,' I say, ‘it almost matches your eyes.'

‘Australian chap,' she says. ‘They hit it off … how sometimes you do.'

‘Yes.'

‘Well this chap, Vince, got injured …'

‘An explosion …'

‘You know?'

‘That's all.'

‘So, the Japs made him work, if you could stand you could work sort of thing … such pain. No pain-killers, of course.' She stops, clutches her arm, her eyes widening with the thought that there could be no pain-killers. ‘I don't know all the ins and outs of it, half of what he told me went straight in one ear, out the other …' She is looking at the TV screen as she speaks, not at me. The light changes on her face, some programme about vets now.

‘And?'

‘He told me dreadful things that'd make your blood run cold. But he couldn't tell me everything.'

‘But I thought…'

‘He couldn't speak everything. Say it. Even to me. So he wrote it.'

‘Wrote?'

‘He wrote me a letter.' There is a pause. She nods towards the television. ‘Shall we switch that off?' A cat is being held down on an examining table, its tail lashing. I turn it off and the room is instantly gloomier, the traffic noise more intrusive. I get up and switch on the light. She needs a lamp in here. If I stayed any longer I would buy her a lamp with a pink shade to cast a rosy softening light, rather than the harsh white bulb that strips the life from her face – and mine too I'm sure. I wait but she seems miles away.

‘Wanda, the letter … what did it say?'

‘There's a chocolate-box in Vass's … in the spare room. That's got photos and cards and stuff in, but if you look under everything you'll find it.'

‘Can I …?'

‘Bring it down.'

I stand in the bedroom the letter in my hand. Addressed to Wanda, of course, not to me. I don't know what to do, attacked by a sudden scruple about his privacy. But I am so close to knowing now and she said I could read it. I take the letter downstairs and give it to Wanda. She removes the pages from their envelope, smooths them out, glances at them and hands them to me. I would rather take the letter away, away from her eyes, but that would feel somehow rude, so I sit down on the sofa. The paper is blue Basildon Bond and Daddy's handwriting is familiar and cramped, written in fountain-pen, probably the gold fountain-pen, which, when I left after the funeral, Mummy let me keep.

Why should I burden you with my memories? I have no excuse for my cowardice in doing so, just this rather ridiculous notion that somehow to tell someone, to tell
you
might make it better. This is hardly rational. But I can't tell even you the worst thing. Indeed now I have pen and paper in front of me I can hardly bring myself to write the words. Do not feel compelled to read what follows. Maybe it is enough that I write it and address it to you
.

I told you some of Vince's horrific injuries after the incident with the dynamite. He lost several fingers, suffered terrible flesh injuries to his torso and worse, worse perhaps for a man, certainly a young virile man, such injuries to his private parts that, well, that it was unlikely that he could ever father a child
.

This was the lowest ebb for many of us. I escaped severe injury but was constantly plagued with disease, tortured by the deep tropical ulcers on my legs that refused to heal. We were all – Japs as well – close to starvation. On Christmas Eve Vince collapsed. He was in agony. Have you ever been with someone in agony? Someone you care about? Until that moment I didn't understand what helplessness was. We had some hooch that someone had brewed from rice. Being so starved it took very little to make us immediately very drunk. In his agony Vince begged me to help him die. At first I refused but I thought it only a matter of time anyway and he was in such anguish. In short I killed him by suffocation. It took longer than you might believe to make him die, weak and co-operative as he was. Thus I am a murderer. I meant it well, but still I am a murderer. Sometimes I can't look at my children without remembering that
.

Worse. Next day, Christmas Day, we were given extra rations of fresh meat. Not till after we had eaten, the shreds of pink meat with rice and cabbage did we wonder what kind of meat it was. Unlike most of the bodies of our fellows which we prepared for burial ourselves, the bodies of Vince and another couple of men were buried by the Japanese before we held our services
.

Writing this makes me sick to my stomach
.

Oh Wanda, what would I have done without you?

With my dearest love to you and Vassily
,

Ralph

The letter is held in both my hands. My eyes stay on the last word, his name. I can feel Wanda's eyes on me. I swallow a mouthful of saliva. She is waiting for some response but what can I say? I feel almost embarrassed. What
is
there to say? I experience a sudden fierce itch between my shoulder-blades. I reach my thumb up backwards to scratch.

Oh Daddy.

There he is, suddenly, at the table, lifting the bottle of Tabasco, banging it with the heel of his hand, smothering the taste of his food, ruining it, Mummy said. I swallow hard, hug a cushion to my stomach, lean forward. I close my eyes and hear the trace of a scream, the rushing of water. My nostrils fill with the sickly air-freshener sweetness in the bathroom in the middle of the night.

‘You all right?' Wanda leans towards me.

My blood is beating in my ears.

‘Don't pass out on me for Christ's sake.' Wanda sounds frightened.

‘No, of course not.' I force a smile, remember to breathe. ‘I'm all right … really.'

‘I shouldn't have …'

‘It's all right.'

‘Sure?'

I look up. Something bright is caught in Wanda's shawl. I shudder, realising that it's another one of her nails come unstuck.

‘That he thought he was a murderer …' I feel a rush of compassion, a rush of … love? His face so closed in, the glasses a shield hiding his eyes from my eyes, a bright glassy shield, his hair wild in the night like the texture of his screams.

So hard, so impossible to marry the two men, the tortured soul who thought himself a murderer, who feared he had eaten the flesh of his friend, and the grumpy man I knew, the man behind the newspaper, the man forever at work or at the golf course. The man I didn't really know.

Wanda watches me anxiously. She picks up her tea and cups her hands round the mug as if to warm them, then she puts it down clumsily, slopping tea on the table as if it is too heavy to hold.