England's Lane (9 page)

It's true, you know: there really could be nothing better, nothing nicer … here is how Fiona Barton would idly be talking, how she would languidly confide in you … nothing at all she could think of, nothing whatever that swam into her mind—with just possibly the exception of a quarter or even a half pound, goodness, of violet creams from Miller's up the road—that was quite so very heavenly, so indulgent, as a deep hot bath at the end of yet another very ordinary day. Or so, anyway, is the way she remembered it. That was how she recalled it had been in the past. But in this rather beastly bathroom she now was forced to cope with, may the Lord have mercy upon her, we have an altogether different circumstance. The bath itself, well … cramped, very—and there is a curious, tawny and curling stain loosely meandering down from a big old tap which forever is seeping, and nearly to the plughole, so little chrome still flecking the brass beneath. Sometimes the water is brownish, which yes I suppose might go some way to explaining it. The stain, I mean—not at all why the water should be brownish. There stands alongside it a large and squat black meter—no no, it's true, I am not joking, believe me. Would that I were. And therefore—rather in the manner of one having to make a series of telephone calls from
an outside box—a great number of pennies has to be consciously assembled before a bath of any substance may even be contemplated. I crouch down—oh yes I do, just one more thing to which I am these days reduced—I crouch right down and insert the first of the pennies into the ugly gash there, and then I dutifully revolve a sort of key thing until the coin is heard to clang down into the box. I then must wind back this key thing, this twisty little handle sort of affair, and repeat once more the procedure. Five times if a puddle is all you require—a foot bath, no more, and charged with Radox—though easily a shilling if the water is to cover you. And when I think back to the house, the old house—that wonderful old house where we all were so terribly happy, the sunlight forever lighting up our faces … yes well. Best not to dwell, I think. Far better not. Just get on with it, really. What else is there? Except to dwell. And dwell I do …

So, the bathroom notwithstanding, I still do go through the business of pretending to enjoy what used to be—and, if Jonathan is to be believed (of course an unfeasible premise, at even the best of times) one day will be again … a luxurious soak at the end of every evening. I close my eyes. The green of the walls is hardly conducive. One finds oneself irresistibly tracing the descent of this or that little rivulet of condensation. I try so hard not to be aware of the clanking in the pipes, the plumbing's moan as it shudderingly recovers from the breathtaking exertion of having disgorged its bounty with seemingly pain and a deep reluctance—its only purpose, after all, but still there would appear to be harbored an abiding resentment within the rusty guts of it to ever be a party to the entire affair. But when Jonathan enters the room, as is generally usual—unless, of course, he is off again into the dark on yet one more of his unspoken and wholly probably unspeakable night excursions—well then when Jonathan comes in so very silently, I will snap open my eyes and
look at him in fascination. For still he maintains this grip upon me—I can see him only in awe. Why, I can only suppose, I still am here with him. Why else would I be? Stranded in this measly little flatlet above a meat shop. Why else would I be? If not from love, and an ever deeper passion—one which neither of us could even come close to understanding, while needing very badly all of its warmth (and are dazzled by its edge, so stark). Except that he feels it to be his due, my patent adoration—that much always I have seen in him. Despite his behavior, his extraordinary attitudes, nothing less than reverence could ever be acceptable to him … oh yes, I have always seen that in him. And much to my own surprise, sometimes anger, and always resignation … I am able to supply it, unequivocally. There is not even effort involved—a sort of wonderment exudes from my pores, and I know he must smell it.

He will nod to me, Jonathan, as he stands before the mirror to loosen his tie. His glance encompasses my breasts, which I never would seek to conceal, though alas the water is never so deep that they may float, buoyantly. He afterward will take out the iron and press that tie where the tightness of the knot has been, then hang it on a rotating rack, and with care. His trousers he will place between two flat boards beneath the mattress. It is a knack and a habit, he told me so very many years ago. One more knack and habit, picked up along the way. And then he shaves. Unusual, one may think, to shave last thing in the evening—but he is so very meticulous, you see. His appearance is so terribly important to him. And to me, of course. Oh yes. And to me. For Jonathan, though, it need not at all be the end of the day, you see. Sometimes, yes—sometimes he will get into his bed, having put on his hairnet and the gauzy cover for his mustache, and sleep immediately. Other evenings, late, he will change his underthings, shirt, tie and suit, and off he will go. I used to inquire. At the beginning I did. And then I think I became
wiser. Why invite a lie, an evasion, some very undignified subterfuge? Because he would always respond to my inquiry with elegance and a disarming plausibility—an apparently so very open agenda … though who knew? On occasion it might even have been the truth. And then he would smile the smile that soothed all things: even as I basked in it, he was gone.

Sometimes, at night, he is, I know, attending to business. I am aware of comings and goings, and always under the generous cowl of darkness. Business is a fine thing: I enjoy the fruits of this terrible trade to which he has so very deftly taken. I like to buy beautiful things. Apart from Amanda, my sweet Amanda, this is all that is left to me—though often my trinkets act as no more than a savage reminder of before. But mostly, of course, it's women. Always there have been women. Though I am not at all convinced that he has a “type,” you know. I have known him with all sorts, many ages and colorings, backgrounds and even nationalities, but I believe even he might draw the line at a negress—though of course one can never really know. A fine face and figure would appear to be mandatory, together with a modicum of intelligence. Not necessarily education … though I think he wouldn't tolerate even a hint of crudeness, a lack of manners or femininity … but other than that I think that no fleeting potential may be safely discounted. And I mind, do I …? Well I don't, no. Not. I really ought to, I do quite see that—I should be burned by the white heat of outrage, I should feel betrayed, insulted, less of a woman, failing in my wifely duties—all these tedious and rather humdrum things which you read about in the magazines—but of course I don't. I have tried—I really did try in the early days to muster a smidgen of moral anger, even a touch of hatred. But it never really was coming—not to me; and he … I doubt whether even in passing he observed my muted attempt. But you see … he is a man, after all. A very fine and nearly
greedy man, and I honestly do believe that in his place I would do the same. Were I a man too. Not through need, but simply because it was possible. Because there was fun and diversion to be had—something new and exciting. I cannot see for the life of me how pursuing such ideas could be wrong in any way. How much worse not even to sense them, to be quite unbound from lust and curiosity. Or to feel these things keenly, and then stamp them to death—but never quite to death, no, so that a mewling whimper of hopeless protestation always is dimly to be heard, a feeble just-alive gesture from a mangled and bleeding almost corpse. It is sex, after all—only sex. Do you see? A mere release. What is that, when compared to his love for me? The one thing I know to be true. There was just one occasion … only one—still we were in the house at Henley—when his abiding passion for another did cause me such very serious pain. For he had, you see, fallen very helplessly in love with one whom he believed to be a goddess, and as a consequence, and for good long time, my future and even that of Amanda did lie in considerable peril. I said not one word, extraordinary circumstances intervened, and now all that is passed. And so … as he walks into the bathroom, just as my water is cooling, do I feel love for this utterly tremendous man before me? I do. It pulsates. And it collides in the air with his love for me, the soft explosion and the balm from that, they engulf me.

“I trust you are well, my dear. All seems secure.”

Which is what he always says, when first he approaches me—stoops down then to kiss the top of my head. It makes me feel so safe, protected, while even as I sense his caress, I am alarmingly aware—inside and around me—of my retention of such tremulous screaming at this so spectacular a folly: to succumb if even for a moment to so rosy an illusion. A nebulous threat is never distant, of course I know that, and yet mercifully Jonathan is able to raise
up a barricade so as to screen at least the looming prospect, to contain its swell, to muffle the very worst of its maniacal hammering.

“Just rested, thank you Jonathan. And your day …?”

Jonathan gazed in seeming astonishment at his own reflection in the mottled mirror hung above the basin. As if genuinely amazed that it should be he who was in there, tired, wide-eyed and calmly staring back out at him.

“Ah … my day. Yes indeed, my day. Well it was quite a day, that may be said for certain. A day unlike others, I should regard it. But then, in their ways … each one is. No?”

“I suppose. In its detail. And after? Tonight, are you …?”

“Indeed I am, I fear. Some things just must be attended to. Tiresome, but there it is.”

Yes: there it is. There it very much is, damn and blast it. There is mess to be cleared. And mess I dislike intensely. Because today, well … all had not gone according to plan. Well in truth, of course, there had been no plan—how could I have formulated a plan, when nothing remotely of the sort was even anticipated? All was to be straightforward, just as it has been for how many months? But there was something about the man, this time. Not just an air, but something he was clutching within him, with glee—people of this class, they are incapable of concealment. This bloody man whom I had assumed all along to be no more than a Middlesex smallholder and of little brain, eager to conduct a bit of brisk business by moonlight, while creaming the goodness away from the Revenue. The acceptance of the pig, it never took too long. And very soon I had a young lady to attend to, did I not? So I was hardly eager then for a pig to detain me, and nor its loathsome breeder, whatever the bloody man's name is. Here was not a friendship, God in heaven—why ever should I have known his name? Soon my benevolent doctor would arrive to administer sedation to this gross and gently squealing
creature which—in a butcher's yard—scented something malign: its eyes were far from easy. And then two five-pound notes were in the man's hand—his signal, surely, to touch that greasy cap cocked so very comically upon a bony skull and be gone the way he came. But no: he then began to utter.

“Well then, Mr. Barton—everything sweet, is it?”

I imagine I must have looked at him in open amazement.

“I beg your pardon?
Sweet
, did you say …? I have no idea what you can be meaning. And now if that's everything, I really must be …”

“Ah no see—what I'm meaning, Mr. Barton—what I'm actually sort of getting at, Mr. Barton, is that I don't reckon it is. Sweet, see? Everything. In your life, if you get me.”

“What in God's name are you talking about? Now listen to me—I have neither the time nor inclination for conversation with a slack-jawed hooligan—whatever your name is. And what I certainly shall not tolerate is your own particular brand of impertinence. Now if you will please excuse me …”

“Well yeh—I will in a minute. And I apologize, I do, for myself, like. I can see that you're a man of breeding. A gentleman of quality. I know it can't be easy for you, talking to an uneducated man. A man such as myself. But there's no way round it, see? Point is, Mr. Barton, if you pardon me, is that I know. I know. All about it.”

“I sincerely believe you to be deranged. Kindly leave my premises. We shall not be conducting business in the future, do you hear me? Plenty of grubby and dishonest little farmers about, I think …”

“Dishonest, yeh—that's something you would know about, isn't it Mr. Barton? Your past—been a lot of that, far as I can tell. And much worse besides. I been digging a little, see? Little hobby of mine. Always quite fancied myself as a bit of a Sherlock Holmes.”

Jonathan Barton glared at the man, and took a step forward.

“You're a babbling idiot. Leave this instant. Do you hear me? If you refuse, then I'll—”

“What? You'll what? Call the police? I hardly think so.”

“It is not my slightest intention to call the police. I shall eject you forcibly. You are a miserable little weed, by the looks of you. I could break you in half with the fingers of just one hand.”

“Doubtless you could, sir. Doubtless you could. But consider this, if you will. I know about Somerset. See? John Somerset. Oh yes—that bit got to you, didn't it Mr. Barton? Know what I'm talking about now, do you? You gone all pale.”

“I don't know anyone by the name of John Somerset. Now leave. I'm warning you for the very last time.”

“Oh yes you do, sir. Lost time. Wants to be accounted for. That's what I were told. Though even more than that, if I got it right, is to exact some sort of … I don't know … vengeance? Would that be too strong? Maybe not, in the light of the son, of course. What copped it. Now me—I don't give two hoots either way. About the boy. Why would I? None of it's no skin off of my nose. Don't mind, do I? But I reckon it matter a lot to you though, Mr. Barton. As now you has taken to calling yourself. Am I wrong? And whether I keeps quiet, and whether I don't. See what I mean? I think you might do. So … now I laid the facts before you … what you say?”