Janice Gentle Gets Sexy (16 page)

During Question Time in the House she did not listen but watched him. Characteristically, he had his arms folded, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. She remembered the body beneath the blue serge and how it looked and felt naked. From a distance he looked only a
little
changed — perhaps fleshier, perhaps greyer, perhaps more formal, but still him. She thought that if she closed her eyes, she could smell his smell again. Love me, she sent the message across the House, love me one more time
..
. Only once more, and that will be enough.

They had a brief tea. He asked her if he was forgiven, he kissed the palm of her hand (that, she wanted to say now to Arthur, is where you kiss a woman's hand - not the cold, bony back of it, but the fleshy, warm softness of its centre. Fool). She lied and said she was terribly, terribly (the language of the thrown scarf coming back, too) happy up in the northern country. That Arthur was a dear, that her garden was beautiful, that . . . And then she had looked him in the eyes, defia
ntly
, and said, 'I should like to go to bed with you one more time,' and he had said, so that her heart leapt and the place between her legs tingled, 'Only
one
more time?'

In the taxi back from Fortnum's she took his hand and kissed the palm of it as he had done hers, then she slipped it beneath her heather mixture handknit, under her plain cotton brassiere (oh for the lace and teasing bows of yesterday, the oyster satin, the peachy silks), and for a brief moment yielded herself up to the searing experience of passion rekindled, until they reached the top of St James's, where they parted.

'Is it possible?' She stood on the pavement, holding the open window of the cab, so that it would not go until she was ready.

He knew what she meant.

He called her his dearest Alice, and it was as if the years had been wiped away. Her breast tingled. She looked at his hand, long, sensitive white fingers, curved and properly kept nails, and she thought with surprise of where it had recently been; they looked so innocent, those fingers,
he
looked so innocent, this Establishment Man.

She was rapturous.

During the last part of the conference she could not stop smiling and chuckling to herself, which caused Mrs Lovitt a great deal of confusion since the final session was about child abuse.

She arrived home, back to being Alice again. She told Arthur all the minutiae of the trip, including a description of the fat female eccentric whom she had sat next to in the tube.

'London seems to be full of madness,' she said, but she said it happily. She wanted Arthur to make love to her that night, but he did not come to bed for a long time. She suddenly remembered that she had left his
Church Times
in the tearoom. It was probably that which had offended him - he had been strange when he met her at the station.

Downstairs Arthur sat sipping malt whisky and wondering why his wife had come back wearing perfume and make-up, and why her eyes, always blue, looked as if she had changed the batteries in them, so brightly did they shine and sparkle now. She misses London, he consoled himself; she should have had a child, he consoled himself. He did not want to think beyond either of those. Nor why, in a desperate search for a collar stud (or was that true?), he had come across a powder compact and other little

fancies in the back of her dressing-table drawer. He thought it was the one he had bought, but it was not. It was much finer. And it had a message of enduring love entwined with her and another's initials on the lid. He sipped on, the book of
Piers the Ploughman
and his open Bible forgotten at his side.

Chapter Ten

J

anice
opened the window of her
little
balcony, but there was no air, only the midday heat and the smell of cars and tarmac. She was beginning to panic. Nothing had happened yet. This morning she had received her monthly cash delivery from the motorbike messenger, which seemed chillingly normal. Perhaps she had dreamt it? Perhaps Sylvia Perth had not died at all? Below her she saw Mr Jones in his boiler suit retreating down his steps. He would know, but she didn't want to ask. What could she say? 'Do you remember anything of a peculiar nature happening here recently?' Suppose he said no? Would she then go on to jog his memory? 'Something odd. In the lift, hmm? A body or anything?' Hardly.

Yesterday, drawn by an urge that was stronger than the fear of madness, she had telephoned Sylvia's apartment. She had neither visited it nor telephoned it before, but Sylvia had given her the information to be used in emergencies. Well, this
was
a very real emergency, and though she had no expectation in mind, she dialled - quite unprepared for the shock of hearing Sylvia's voice.

'I'm sorry that I am not able to take your call right now. Leave a message and I will get back to you.'

Janice swallowed. It was as if she had not gone away at all, as if she had not ever died, as if she was still there, chic, bright, alert, a living thing. Janice ate a pound of maple Brazils while considering this phenomenon. She reached no solution, save it just felt
wrong.

After that she rang the number several times, always to hear that voice, firm and alive, making the image of the torso in the lift seem unreal and remote
...

Erica von Hyatt leaned against the scratchy, e
mbroidered scene of Khomi (beauti
ful sloe-eyed adulteress) pursuing Khani (sacred bell-girl disguised as a boy), and wondered what to do for the best. What little food there had been in the flat she had consumed, and she was now down to a packet of halva, a tin of dried milk (rapidly diminishing), half a tin of coffee and a few dried pomegranates, which might or might not have been put there for decoration. There was also a highly ornate drinks cabinet, into which she had so far made only furtive dips, but that could change if nothing else happened soon.

'Do not answer the telephone,' Sylvia had said, 'and I will bring you something nice when I come back tonight.' Well, that had been so long ago that Erica von Hyatt had lost count of the days. She was not altogether disturbed by this, since life in general was a series of broken promises and fraying ends - but, all the same, she had not expected it to go on for quite so long. On the one hand it was much pleasanter here than hanging out in Piccadilly, on the other it was boring. The telephone had been going non-stop and the persistent whine and whirr of the answering machine had become like a coda in her life. Click, whirr, click, pause, whine, whine, whirr. She knew it very well and it took quite a lot of self-control not to throw it to the floor and stamp on it. She had placed a couple of sequinned cushions over it, which helped, and after the first couple of days the ringing eased off considerably. Only very occasionally now did it ring, and she almost didn't hear it any more.

The silence in the apartment was nice, and she had done a great deal of what she called luxury sleeping during the
time
she had spent alone, an enjoyable experience, but she wished she could go out now and then. Alas, if she did, she would not be able to get back in. It was tempting, though. She had found a ten-pound note and some coins in a drawer, and she knew that there must be a food shop somewhere round about, though the view from the window showed nothing but posh grey street. Perhaps she could just slip out, leaving the door on the latch and risk someone taking the opportunity to burgle the place? But supposing Sylvia came back and found it deserted? She would be angry and throw her out for showing such carelessness. Erica von Hyatt did not want to be thrown out just yet. She wanted to enjoy cleanliness and peace and quiet for a
little
while longer. Living on your wits was all very well and good for the ad
renalin, but it was no compensati
on for stretching
out on a couch and watching dayti
me television.
That,
Erica guessed, was what
real
women did.

Her stomach rumbled. Even around Eros there had been food, for Chrissake. If not from the tourists, then of the in-house variety: stolen fruit, the odd end of bread, a shared grimy cheese paring, all passed around with the same communal solicitude as a damp-ended joint. She did not question Sylvia's prolonged absence much. Erica von Hyatt had been left on her own a lot by her real mother before taking to the streets, and by a series of other mothers and fathers, all of whom had forsaken her sooner or later. Passing on was just a part of life, something you did when you had to do it. In her turn she had moved on from her own daughter when the time came. She had produced her, he
ld her, kissed her a couple of ti
mes, and then left her in a doctor's waiting-room; you couldn't keep a baby on the streets. Erica had decided to stick to women after that. You didn't get pregnant and - on the whole - they weren't violent. Leaving Dawn (called that because she was born at dawn) at the surgery made Erica von Hyatt feel that she had been a responsible mother, no matter what those sentimental dossers might say. She
was
responsible, really. After all, she had looked after herself on the streets for years, and she was twenty-seven (or possibly twenty-eight, things got a bit fuzzy) and nothing really bad had ever happened to her. She'd been beaten up, locked up, even raped a couple of times, but you dealt with those things as part of the common lot. And you passed on, politely if possible, when the time came. She knew how to take care of rape nowadays. You just told them you had AIDS - it wasn't hard to believe
when she was in her street gear
- and they backed off smartish. She was pretty sure she hadn't. There had been no more men after Dawn and she didn't do hard drugs. That really was for the birds. And you just looked out for yourself.

Sometimes though, like now, she played with the idea of being taken care of for ever, but people always buggered off in the end. Like this one would. But she couldn't have buggered off yet. Not leaving Erica here and with permission. She'd return. For the moment this was OK. A
little
bit of peace. Something must have come up unexpectedly. Well, Erica von Hyatt could wait.

She stretched, enjoying the freshness of her smell. No one had really damaged her on the inside, and on the outside she still looked great, better than most when she had a chance to clean herself up. Some people were just strong. She was. She liked herself because she could get through anything, and she liked the way she looked because it was part of the getting through. She kept her naturally fair hair very long, because when she did get the chance to wash it, it was really lovely. Her face looked more healthy than some of those secretary tarts she saw rattiing their way along the morning streets. Her waist, hips, bum and thighs were all just as neat as when she left home, and, if anything, her knockers had improved since the baby, got bigger and stayed bigger - not gross or anything, just a decent size. Dawn would be about four now and she'd be
really
happy. Erica von Hyatt knew this because she knew exactly who the father was and he had a sunny nature just like she had a sunny nature, so Dawn would be the same. Erica was known as Mona Lisa among her peers, but the priest who ran the crypt sanctuary told her it wasn't very accurate because the Mona Lisa smiled in a sort of sad way, whereas Erica smiled with a sparkle. He had kissed her on the forehead after saying this and she - generously, she thought - had offered him one despite his gender, but he had jumped like she'd bitten it off. He told her she had to learn to separate the kinds of love there were in the world and find the one she wanted.

She was still thinking about that one. But in the meantime -she stretched lazily - in the meantime there was this
little
number here and she'd hang on to it for as long as possible. Nowhere was safe for ever, but this one was safe for the moment. It was warm, really luxurious if a bit on the small side, sustaining and, more to the point, she had got it to herself.

Of course the owner would come back some time or other, but that wasn't really a problem. Erica judged that little would be asked of her beyond the favours of what her body could do, and that was never a problem either, you just let yourself into overdrive for that, coasted through it where possible, and if it got more sophisticated and dangerous, then you got your head together quick and went along with that, too - only with more awareness. She doubted if there would be anything like that here. Sylvia had been quite kind, and younger than many, with a body that was all right - if a little slack. Erica ran her hand over her stomach, quite good still, not slack at all. She doubted if she would ever reach the sort of age when it would go droopy, but she didn't feel bad about that - it just made sense to live for the moment. And for the moment this felt good. Occasionally she allowed herself to dream that this was her real home, but it made her feel quite maudlin, so she quickly stopped. Real homes were what other people had - the respectable people. She would never be one of those and, well, really, when she looked at them, she wasn't altogether sure she wanted to be. They all said one thing and did another. Anyway, fantasies about home were best left alone. In a way she was looking forward to the real owner of this place coming back. That would stop the fantasies. Sometimes they got quite painful.