I Could Love You (19 page)

‘Walk.’

‘I told you. I can’t walk.’

Her gaze holds him, never letting go, accusing, needing. The anger breaks within him.

‘Then crawl,’ he says.

‘Oh, if your father were alive to hear you!’

‘He’s fine. He got away. I wish I could.’

‘So go away! I don’t care. Leave me. You’re no use to me. You never help me. You’re never here. You might as well just go.’

‘Right. I’ll be off in the morning.’

Always the same exchange, always the same conclusion. He can’t leave, and she knows he can’t leave.

‘If I wasn’t here to help you, you’d be walking all by yourself soon enough.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘I’m just pretending. I can walk.’

She takes a step away from the sink. For a brief moment she stands unsupported. Then as her legs start to give way she turns back, hands scrabbling for the sink’s edge. Heaving with exertion and stress, she pushes herself upright again.

Then she turns to Matt with a look that says, I told you.

But in that moment Matt sees something else. He sees his mother standing by the sink thirty or more years ago, turning round to smile down at him, happy to be interrupted in her chores. That unfailing welcome that you take for granted as a child. The simple profound conviction that this all-powerful being will love and protect you for ever. How do you ever repay that?

‘I wish you’d try harder, Mum. One day I’ll be gone. Then you’ll have to manage by yourself.’

‘Gone? Where have you got to go?’

‘I’ll get married. I’ll have my own house.’

‘Married! Who’d have you? What are you now? Forty? It’s a bit late to expect the girls to come knocking on your door.’

‘If you say so.’

This is where they always end: he just starts agreeing with everything she says. He does it because he doesn’t want to argue with her any more. But still they argue.

‘Why, have you got somebody?’

‘I wouldn’t tell you if I had.’

‘So you haven’t.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so. You’re like your father. He’d never have married me if it’d been left to him. Had to do it all myself.’

This too is an old refrain. Nothing hurts Matt more deeply than her contempt for his father.

‘There you are, then. You know it all. I’m going to go outside.’

‘Get my cup of tea first. And help me back into the lounge. Look at you, dithering in the doorway. Just like your father. I never knew whether he was coming in or going out.’

Matt stands there in the doorway, his powerful body caught between conflicting forces, one of which is his desire to escape, the other the lifelong pull of this bitter, lonely woman, his mother. Just as his father was caught.

‘Rosemary from next door says it’s pornography. She says that’s what all men have in their sheds. But I told her. He goes out there to play his violin. “Oh, it’s violins, is it?” she said, like we were talking about paedophiles. You’re not a paedophile, are you, Matt? You’re not locking little girls up in your shed, are you?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘It’s just violins, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Mum. Just violins.’

‘I don’t know why you can’t play it in the house.’

Because you put your fingers in your ears when I play, and make a face like it hurts. Because you told me from the start I was no good. Because you want to destroy anything I love that isn’t you. Because you love me too much.

‘I’m going back out now, Mum.’

‘Help me through first.’

She’s made herself a cup of tea. He helps her through, as she knew he would. Her weight so slight on his arm. And this the body that brought him into the world.

‘You only go out there to annoy me,’ she says.

‘That’s right, Mum. I sit there all by myself thinking how much I’m annoying you.’

‘With your little violin.’

He settles her back into the armchair.

‘There you are. Watch the telly. I’m going out.’

‘I don’t understand this film at all.’

‘There’s nothing to understand. Aliens are coming to earth, and all these people want to meet them, and then they meet.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know why.’

‘So why is he making a mountain out of clay?’

‘You’ll see. I’m going now.’

‘Matt—’

‘I’ll be another hour or so. No more.’

She reaches up her hand and he takes it. She squeezes his hand with hers, the slight familiar pressure that says, You know I’ll always love you. This strong hand that has held him all his life.

He returns the pressure, and lets her hand go. He leaves the room without saying anything more. It’s the only way to get away.

Matt does more in his shed than play the violin. He builds violins. He buys old and broken violins in junk shops or at car boot sales. Sometimes they’re undamaged but undistinguished instruments no longer wanted by owners who’ve found out how many hours of practice it takes to make an acceptable sound; but mostly they’re in a bad way, the belly cracked, the strings gone, the bridge broken. The Collin-Mezin, his best find, was in pieces when he chanced upon it. But there was the signature in pencil, dated 1889. He paid £10 for the bag of fragments. When restored he’ll get maybe £7,000 for it.

He’s never told his mother. She’d say it was all a waste of money.

His tools line one wall. Violins in various stages of renovation line another. His workbench is brightly illuminated by two powerful daylight lamps. A bandsaw the size of a fridge-freezer fills one corner. A tailor-made rack houses his prized possessions, a collection of bronze Lie-Nielsen planes. Whenever he sells a violin he pours the proceeds back into the buying of tools. This shed must house several thousand pounds’ worth of instruments and mater ials. So it’s not about making money. It’s about peace of mind.

He takes up the bridge blank he’s been working on, and a small carving knife, and continues the slow careful process of fitting the bridge to the belly of the violin. The violin is a Jesse Dennis, bought in Brighton for £40 cash. The bridge is French maple, made by Aubert. The carving of its feet alone will take him hours. The fit must be perfect. But once in his workshop time ceases to exist for Matt. He has passed into eternity.

He works away steadily, his knife shaving the bridge in microscopic slices, and so slips into a concentration so absolute that his mind is free to roam where it will. His mind chooses to think about Meg Strachan, her face in her hands, weeping. No surprise that this has had a strong effect on him. It’s natural when you see a woman in tears to want to help. But it goes deeper than that. It’s as if this single sight, her face raised up to him, her eyes shining, her cheeks running with her tears, has penetrated to his innermost soul and taken possession of him.

A bit late to expect the girls to come knocking on my door.

‘Meg,’ he says aloud as he works.

The sound of her name brings her into the shed with him.

‘You’re the one for me, Meg.’

There it is: the ridiculous truth. But there’s no one here to laugh. Matt has never known a conviction like it in all his life. He looks on it with awe. It’s come from nowhere, for no reason, and so he trusts it. This must be what it’s like to be greeted by an angel. The angel appears and dazzles you, and whatever the message you accept it, because of the way it’s delivered. Follow that star, the angel says. Fine, you follow it. You don’t know why, or where you’re going. You just do what the angel says.

She lives alone. That much he knows.

Matt is observant in his way. A bathroom tells more than you might think. Just the one toothbrush. A modest array of makeup materials. A lavatory seat that won’t stay up unless you hold it. Strange how many builders don’t know how to fit a lavatory seat. You have to turn the off-centre hinges so that the base of the hinge is thrown forward, not back. Then the seat will lean against the cistern. Get it wrong and it won’t stay up without your hand holding it, which is awkward to say the least. Matt always carries a small adjustable spanner with him, so that he can refit wrongly-fitted lavatory seats. It only takes a couple of minutes. It just bothers him too much, to think of the house owners enduring the faulty fitting for month after month, as if it were some kind of natural hazard.

Most people are so helpless. It’s odd, he never thinks of himself as better than others, but why do they tolerate poor workmanship? Why don’t they make their gates close properly, and their tables not wobble? Why live with low-level irritation when you can do something about it? It’s not hard. He’s no genius, God knows. All it takes is a little care, a little close looking, a little time. You get a reputation for being handy, for being able to fix things, and people throw jobs your way, even jobs you know nothing about. But you get into the habit of having a go, and you find most things aren’t really so difficult. Even violins.

People see a violin in pieces and they think that’s it, it’s over. But violins never die. You could run over a violin with a truck and still put it together again. If you take your time with it no one will ever see the joins, and the sound will be as good as ever.

I had a bit of bad news, she said.

Crying her eyes out. Why? Maybe one day I’ll be able to ask her. Maybe one day I’ll be able to make things better for her.

By being hurt, Meg has placed herself within his reach. His mother says, who’d want you? Matt does not disagree. He has as low an opinion of his powers of attraction as his mother could wish. But in other ways, and at the same time, he’s a proud man.

Who is there who knows me? Who is my superior? Who can judge me? No man I ever met.

The way she looked at me. Such pitiful eyes, not daring to believe I’d understand her. After all, what am I? Just the plumber come to fix the shower.

Maybe I’ll get hurt. Time I got hurt. Better to be hurt than go on the way I am.

All the time working away, shaving whispers of wood from the maple feet.

He has a clear visual memory of her face. Very pale clear skin. Those startled green-brown eyes, beneath dark eyebrows. Her hesitant look, checking to see how she’s being received.

On Monday he’ll pick up the replacement shower pump. Sometime on Tuesday he’ll go round to her flat and do the work. Then some words will be spoken. He has no idea what. Then his life will change for ever. Or it won’t.

20

The anger in Belinda hasn’t gone away. It’s grown.

Tom sits in his usual chair in front of the fire reading the papers, an early evening glass of wine by his side, as if nothing has changed. Belinda moves back and forth between the kitchen and the living room the way she always does when cooking dinner, except she’s not cooking dinner. There is no dinner.

Tom doesn’t know this yet. He thinks everything’s gone back to normal.

That’s how they think. They have a little fling, they say they’re sorry, life goes on. They say, ‘It’s nothing,’ and it’s all forgotten. Like hell it is.

The anger has been growing in Belinda all day. The initial shock has passed, and some of the panic fear that came with it. Now all she can see is the stupendous selfishness of what Tom has done. The careless cruelty. What he has done isn’t nothing, it’s a physical act with physical consequences. Like rape, when you think about it. Rape is when a man uses a woman’s body against a woman’s will for his own pleasure. Well, he’s used a woman’s body, hers, against a woman’s will, mine, for his own pleasure. This is a three-person sex crime. There’s an act of selfish lust, and there’s an injury. So why isn’t he being punished? Why is he sitting reading the paper as if nothing has changed?

She pours herself another glass of wine, her fourth, but does not offer to refill his glass. He gets up, puts more wood on the fire, resumes his seat and his newspaper. He must know she’s standing in the doorway watching him. Why doesn’t he say something? What does he imagine she’s feeling?

Pound slips below euro on Britain’s high streets. Brown moves out of Blair’s shadow. Arkansas woman gives birth to eighteenth child.

Even the newspaper’s playing his game, acting as if life goes on and we all still care about the financial crisis and the war in Afghanistan.

Husband shits on family home for fun. Leading surgeon lies and cheats and expects to be forgiven. That’s the news.

He looks round, lifts his spectacles.

‘Anything I can do?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Belinda. ‘You tell me.’

‘I mean about dinner.’

‘What dinner?’

There, that’s stumped him. He likes his food.

‘Don’t you want dinner?’ he says.

‘Since when did you care what I want?’

‘For Christ’s sake!’

It comes out like a shout of pain. Well, good. Time he shared some of the grief round here. But he’s choking it back. Mr Reasonable returns.

‘We’ve been through all that.’

‘Have we? Where did we end up?’

‘I just don’t know what more you want me to do. I’ve said sorry. I’ve said it’s over. What else am I supposed to do?’

You’re supposed to be punished. You’re supposed to hurt. But she doesn’t say it.

‘You’re such a fucker,’ she says.

‘All right.
All right!
But if we’re going to try to make a go of this—’

‘If!’

‘I want to. I’ve said so. It’s what I want. But you have to want it too. I can’t do this all by myself.’

‘You did the other bit all by yourself.’

‘Jesus, Belinda! Can’t we – can’t we – just move on?’

‘Pretend it never happened.’

‘No. Just … give it a rest.’

‘No. We can’t. It’s not that easy, Tom.’

He throws the newspaper onto the floor. What’s this? A tantrum. Are we throwing our toys out of the pram?

She goes into the kitchen. These twitches of distress almost hurt more than the other coping mechanisms, the let’s-be-grownup shit. Don’t cope, Tom. Join the party. Crack up.

She’s too proud to pity herself and too angry to pity him but there’s a load of pity going for the asking here.

He follows her.

‘Look,’ he says, his voice gruff and angry. ‘You may not want to eat but I do. I’m going to go into Lewes and get a takeaway pizza.’

‘If that’s what you want,’ she says.