Going Loco (23 page)

‘You don’t have to take my side, Belinda. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I take theirs. I know what I did was wicked. I doubted their love. I thought love could be switched off, you see.’

‘Can’t it?’

‘No.’ Linda sounded quite fierce. ‘Anyway, you asked me why I changed my name and left Crawley, and that’s it. That’s all. Now you know.’

The evening of Viv’s unexpected visit, Stefan came home as usual at six thirty. Three months had passed since Malmö, and a lot of things had changed. As he came through the door this evening, for example, he did not carry a book of English idioms, determined to incorporate ‘How green was my valley’ or ‘Go and chew bricks’ into the conversation. He carried the poems of Tomas Tranströmer, Sweden’s ‘buzzard poet’, a book with a discouraging monochrome snowscape on the front. For reasons connected with the demise of the real Stefan, he had gone terribly Swedish all of a sudden.

At weekends, for example, he haunted IKEA in Croydon,
correcting people’s pronunciation, explaining the effect of the little bubble on top of the vowel. Twice security men had asked him to leave the building, because they thought he was warning people not to buy the kitchen cupboards. He watched Bergman films on video with masking-tape covering the subtitles, and read biographies of Strindberg, for fun. He hummed Abba’s ‘Chiquitita’ as he walked down the road to the bus and wore his moose-hat at unlikely hours of the day and night.

‘But you’re not Swedish,’ Linda hissed to him tonight, as he selected for the umpteenth time the CD of Swedish football songs,
Mama, Take Me Home to Malmö.

‘I need to do this,’ he said. ‘You understand. You do love me, Linda?’

‘I do love you, George. Yes.’

It was inevitable that Linda and Stefan should make a bond, when Linda knew his secret. True, Jago now knew some of his story, but only to Linda could he confess his feelings. Jago’s idea of sympathy was to push the back of your neck so hard that you almost dislocated your head. Belinda’s now total absence upstairs threw him increasingly into the company of Linda, too – especially at the literary festivals and the New Labour media parties. And it didn’t help his relationship with his wife that, shortly after Stefan’s return from Malmö, Belinda had overheard them talking about Ingrid, and jumped to the unflattering conclusion that the subject of their discussion was her.

‘It’s her selfishness that was always so hideous,’ he said.

(‘Hideous!’ gasped Belinda.)

‘Yes,’ agreed Linda. ‘It’s hard for anyone to be happy around selfish people.’

‘She always refused to make little Stefans – that’s the point.’

(‘He wanted little Stefans,’ she yelped.)

Belinda had wept bitterly when she heard this, but nowadays
comforted herself by eating a Mars bar in a suggestive manner. Looking around at the life Linda had given her, the life she’d desired so badly, she felt a familiar pang of loss and confusion. Because although she might have said she wanted lots of peace and quiet, and may even (oh God) have wanted her mother to disappear, when exactly had she told anybody that she didn’t want sex any more?

She stroked her own enlarged breasts, absently, and tweaked her nipples. More than ever she desired Stefan; her body ached for sex, grieved for it. But by becoming physically gross and affecting tracksuits, and by moving upstairs after the death of Mother, and moreover by being hideously selfish and refusing to have little Stefans, she’d somehow removed herself from the carnal world. It would be obscene to caress Stefan now; to lick him all over, as she formerly did. Such a gorgeous man would need to be tranquillized first. However much it hurt her, it made sense for Stefan to partner Linda. He wanted babies, suddenly. In fact, he was broody. Linda was young, fit, sexually desirable, talented, and keen. Belinda had to face it: she herself was none of these things.

Meanwhile Stefan felt wounded and rejected by Belinda, who had moved upstairs just when he needed her most urgently. Returning from Sweden on the plane after the basement ordeal, all he could think of was how furiously he would fuck Belinda, the first chance he got. He pictured himself, naked in the moose-hat, driving himself into her on the hall floor, again and again, sucking her breasts and clutching her wrists until both of them exploded. But instead he’d got home and found a big empty bed, and a wife in the attic who said, ‘No, don’t, I’m too yicky,’ whenever he tried to touch her.

‘You are not yicky, Belinda,’ he assured her. ‘I don’t marry yicky women.’

‘I am. I’m so selfish and yicky.’

‘All right. Let’s say you are. But I don’t mind if you are yicky.’

‘You should.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too.’

‘Then why can’t I have you?’

‘Because I love you too much to let you have sex with someone who’s so yicky.’

‘You feel guilty and confused because your mother died,’ Stefan said.

‘Yes,’ said Belinda. ‘Yes, I mean no. I mean yes.’

For a few weeks, the frustration experienced by both of them was intense. Belinda felt horny all day, every day, but tried to ignore it. This must be what it’s like to be Michael Douglas, she thought. She wrote erotic poetry to Stefan; she crept downstairs when he was at college, and sniffed his clothes in the laundry bag. But in the end there was nothing for it but to speak to Linda, and beg her to help.

‘But I can’t make Stefan love me,’ said Linda, embarrassed. ‘It doesn’t work like that. It’s not like taking your place on the
Today
programme. He knows I’m not you.’

‘He likes you, though, doesn’t he? Tell me what you talk about downstairs all the time. You’re always laughing.’

‘Oh,’ Linda blushed. ‘He tells me about Sweden. This and that.’

‘Haven’t you ever wanted to touch him?’

‘Belinda!’

‘He’s so lovely. And he’s a flirt. He must have flirted with you.’

Linda closed her eyes and thought about the times they had danced together. ‘A bit.’

‘You see? If you didn’t fancy him, I wouldn’t ask you. But you do. He’s so lovely. Tell me what you really feel about Stefan, Linda.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly.’

‘I love him.’

‘Oh.’ Belinda bit a lip and said, ‘I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.’

The two women looked at each other like Thelma and Louise before going over the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Belinda knew what she was doing. She was letting herself go, totally. Linda would love Stefan, and make him happy. It was better to see him with Linda than lose him. The thought of Stefan making love to anyone else was torture. But the absence of Stefan would kill her.

‘Stefan is a wonderful lover,’ she told Linda, now. ‘And you know he fancies you.’

‘He doesn’t.’

‘Did he give you a nickname?’

‘I can’t believe we’re talking like this. I don’t like it. He’s your husband. I would never hurt you. Nor would he. We’re on your side.’

‘Did he give you a nickname, though?’

‘Yes.’ Linda grimaced. ‘I can’t tell you what it is.’

‘I know.’

That evening, Belinda heard such unmistakable moans and cries from the kitchen that she gave up trying to read Nabokov’s
Despair,
and just listened. The woman who abhorred a vacuum had finally identified the last gap in Belinda’s life and filled it. Whether it was remotely similar to doing the
Today
programme, Belinda never inquired. As for Stefan, as he swarmed over Linda, he felt an intense mixture of guilt and relief, revulsion and desire – in fact, he felt more authentically Scandinavian than ever before. It was both agony and ecstasy to make love to the desirable, sympathetic cleaning lady. When she told him she loved him, he wept like beans.

Afterwards, as they ate their steamed sea bass with ginger
mayonnaise and kept kissing and touching each other without speaking, it occurred to Stefan that Linda was better than Belinda at everything; absolutely everything. He only hoped, for pity’s sake, Belinda never knew how much.

Naturally, Stefan couldn’t face Belinda after sleeping with the cleaning lady. He was grateful for her removal to the attic. Linda had moved into the bedroom; they made love discreetly, but all the time, and he thought about her constantly. The relief of being with someone who knew him as himself – and loved him for himself – was overwhelming. He suddenly wished he had friends and family for Linda to meet. He wished he could take her to Sweden. He phoned her six times a day, on her mobile, and made her laugh. He ambushed her in the shower, and wore her underpants on his head. Everywhere they went, people noticed their physical addiction to each other; jointly, Linda and Stefan gave off so much heat that the background wobbled. It was a thrill to touch her hand. Stefan was happier than he had ever been.

No wonder that he tried to banish Belinda from his mind. The only way to cope was to tell himself she had died. At Mother’s funeral (which Belinda and Linda attended under obscuring veils, like something from a Victorian novel) Stefan buried a number of people, including his wife. He buried Stefan and Ingrid as well as Mother, and he shovelled like mad to put six feet of earth over Belinda.

‘What was it Belinda used to say?’ he asked Linda one night, as they cuddled on the sofa in front of
Fanny and Alexander,
while Belinda made faint tap-tap-tapping noises upstairs. ‘The line from Keats. “When I have fears that I may cease to be before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain.” I think that’s exactly what’s happened. It’s an exact, gruesome description
of what’s happened to her. Her brain is still teeming, but she has completely ceased to be.’

So the last time Belinda saw Stefan was at the funeral. It was the last time she had seen anybody except Linda, now she came to think of it. Maggie had been there, with the lumbering sports writer from Viv’s dinner party. Viv had attended, too, and even said a few words in the chapel, which was fitting, since Viv and Mother had always hit it off. She said Mother was a fighter, a trooper, who defied the tides of time. It made her sound like Horatius holding the bridge, not an ungenerous old woman who refused to have crow’s feet. Everyone was terrifically impressed.

As a parting gift to her vain parent, Belinda chose to have an open casket for Mother, to show off the features that had cost so much, and that had finally settled so nicely into a beautiful face. All Mother’s old friends were invited, so they could admire the handiwork for one last time and gnaw the pews with envy. The biggest shock had been seeing Auntie Vanessa, whose naturally ageing features had operated as a kind of Dorian Gray picture for Mother – showing precisely her alternative fate. One need hardly point out, of course, that with all her lines and saggy bits, Auntie Vanessa looked fine.

Meanwhile ‘Age Shall Not Wither Her’ was the chosen epitaph for the headstone, which had the benefit on this occasion of being literally true, and a kind of coded warning to future grave-diggers. Her undertakers agreed. Like the tanner discussed in
Hamlet,
Mother’s facial construction would last in the ground nine years.

Over tea, Belinda had kept her veils on and watched how Jago made such a strange fuss of Stefan. Linda explained to her that the ‘boys’ had met by chance in Malmö and become
firm friends. Aside from that, the funeral was socially a disappointment. Maggie and Viv both kept their distance; Stefan did not comfort her. She rather wished she hadn’t come. But then Stefan chose his moment beautifully and read aloud a haunting poem by his favourite chap Tranströmer.

As always at funerals when people read poems, there was a lot of shrugging and coughing. But Belinda loved it. Her squeeze of congratulation when he resumed his seat was the last time she’d touched him. She’d have squeezed him longer, if she’d known.

And now it was June, Linda was pregnant, and Belinda weighed fourteen stone. She hated all the academic books around her, and longed to write a Verity story, for a bit of excitement. But Linda had started writing them, to general acclaim, so what was the point? The publisher loved all the new developments in Linda’s first draft. As Belinda quickly acknowledged, Linda had combined the original simple tone with a more sophisticated psychological insight – for example, explaining with bold strokes the pain of childhood rejection that drove Verity’s rival Camilla to be so selfish. Linda had also (another bold stroke) killed off Goldenboy, Verity’s number-one pony.

‘You can’t!’ gasped Belinda, as she read it, weeping for the loyal pony, who rolled his eyes just one last time as he lay on his straw and offered a hoof of farewell. The fictional death of Goldenboy was as devastating to Belinda as the real death of her own mother. Tears rained down her cheeks. As always, however, she had to admit that Linda was right. Sentiment and complacency were all that had detained Goldenboy from this, his best ever fictional moment. Why had she never seen it? This horse was born to die! The postbag would be enormous.

Belinda wished she had some magazines to read. All these
hours to kill, day after day, while Linda and Stefan assumed she was writing the
magnum opus.
Perhaps she could take up nail-painting. She wondered what they would think if they knew her favourite pastime was seeing how many pencils she could retain comfortably in the folds of her body and still move from one side of the attic to the other. Her personal best was twenty-two.

Unconditional love was what she had, though. She derived much comfort from that. This might look like a crummy life to anyone who didn’t understand. But it came from, and amounted to, unconditional love. A dozen times a day she reread the poem Stefan had read at the funeral, pondering it. The whole of life and death was in it, in a gloomy Swedish kind of way. And she didn’t mind thinking about death, particularly. Because here was another obstacle (the ultimate one) that Linda had thoughtfully cleared from her path. In the corner was a little box of medical, anaesthetizing stuff – bottles, needles, masks. It was left over from Linda’s days at the hospital, when she was Viv. Belinda gazed at it for hours at a time, thinking about the oblivion it offered.

‘If you ever want to go,’ Linda said solemnly, one night, ‘I’ll help you. There’s no greater love than that, Belinda. No greater love.’