Living In Perhaps (35 page)

'You're off to America?'

'Great, isn't it? I might stay on if all goes well. I can see myself
in America.'

He was grinning, drunk, so pleased with himself and the life
he'd got sorted out. So stupid.

I stepped away from him.

'I don't want your lousy job. I don't need it. In my spare time –
time which
you
don't know about – I'm a life model. I pose for
artists. Loads of them. And I sleep with them, too. That's all part
of the deal. Patrick started it. Your dad started me off. He was the
first one.'

What banal little words. They sounded as dirty and suburban
as I felt.

'Yeah, sure.'

He was still grinning, still pleased with himself.

'It's true.'

'No, it's not,' said Tom happily, his grin wide and crazy like a
cartoon animal's. 'Because you're Miss Caroline Clipper, and you
never do anything
your dad
wouldn't approve of.'

It wasn't true. If he had given it even a moment's thought he'd
have known it wasn't true.

I hissed at him, 'I don't know who my dad is, so how the hell
could I do anything he wouldn't approve of?'

Tom's grin was still in place. Nothing got through to him.

'I don't know who my dad is, I don't know who my mum is. I'm
nobody from nowhere. You don't know anything about me and
you never have!'

It was a shout, a scream. The noise of it shattered the still night
air, rang off the rooftops and the windows and the empty milk
bottles standing neatly on the step.

I tore back down my pathway and pushed open the front door.
As I passed, the curtains in the bay window twitched, but no one
came out of my parents' room and nothing moved inside the
house.

I was getting up from lunch and saw that Moira was hanging
about in the doorway, eyeing me. She came over, that trotting
pony-walk she always does making me irritated before she even
reached me.

'You're down for a visitor this afternoon,' she said. Consulting a
scrap of paper in her hand, frowning over the scribble on it, she
added, 'Two o'clock. Tom?'

I wonder what a heart attack feels like?

I went up to my room and stared in the mirror. At least I could
comb my hair. Wide blue eyes stared back, looking as wild as a rat
in a trap. I'd like to say I barely recognized myself, but sadly I did.

There was a time I would have died for Tom to come and see
me. Not now. Perhaps I could say no, perhaps I could refuse a
visitor who had come
all that way
. Despite the pleasant drive and
the delightful scenery they might well be pretty fed up, after
making so much effort. It might go against me, too, with Lorna
and her colleagues. Not cooperating, yet again.

I put on my least faded T-shirt, and the more faded of my two
pairs of jeans, and combed my hair. I held out my hands to see if
they were shaking. They were. But maybe not enough to be visible
to someone else.

*

Moira walked me down the corridor. We passed the first room,
and the second and the third. She opened the door to the last
room, which was bigger. There were two windows, and three
chairs. On the middle one, with his knees apart and his hands
clenched and his head bowed, sat Tom Rose. It was the first time
I'd ever seen him wearing a tie.

Of course it wouldn't have been Tom Hennessy. I don't know
why I ever entertained that thought.

Moira had shown me to the room, but it was another member
of staff who waited outside, one of the uniformed ones, in a
buttoned white tunic; tall and very broad, more than a match for
Tom Rose. Should the necessity arise.

I sat down carefully. My knees were still shaking. Tom
Rose looked older. His forehead was corrugated with permanent-looking
lines. He didn't smile – at least he pressed his lips together
and stretched them, but it could have been an expression of pain,
or wind, or displeasure. I couldn't tell.

'Hi,' I said. It was a silly little word and it quivered in the air
between us.
Hi
.

I could more or less understand why my aunt Stella had come
to visit: a mixture of curiosity and guilt. I had no idea why Tom
Rose was here. I hoped to God Moira wasn't busy behind the
scenes arranging us some tea. I wanted this over as quickly as
possible.

'I had to say I was your cousin,' Tom said, squeezing his
knuckles even more tightly and looking sideways, not at me. 'They
won't let you in otherwise.'

'Thanks. You shouldn't have.'

'On your mum's side.'

Poor Uncle Bob, I thought. But let it go.

'Didn't they check?'

'How? Show them my birth certificate? It wouldn't be the same
name anyway.'

'No, I suppose not.'

'They wanted ID, though. I just showed them my student card.'

He sat there glowering at the floor. I didn't know what else to
say.

When his voice came out again it was a croak. 'How're you
doing?'

'OK. What about you?'

That was when he looked at me, looked up, hollow-eyed.

'I don't know, Caro. You tell me.'

I hate these visitors. I hate the way they have the right to come
here and invade you. I'm glad Hanny's boyfriend never showed
up. I'm sure that would have been the final straw for her. David,
sitting here, wringing his hands and looking cow-eyed and
apologetic. It's all right for them, they can walk out of here and get
in their cars and go home, back to their lives and their little everyday
worries. They can gaze out at the attractive scenery, and
maybe stop for tea and scones on the way home – or, better still,
a couple of stiff drinks – and thank their lucky stars they're not
banged up in here with the loonies.

'You look different.'

'I thought I looked remarkably the same.'

'
Remarkably
. You always did come out with those big words.'

I didn't think that
remarkably
was a very remarkable word.

'So, what are you up to these days?' I asked, to head off any
more questions from him.

'I've finished uni, got a job in London now.'

'Oh yes?'

'Pays peanuts but it's a foot on the ladder. I'm staying with
Barbara. She shares a flat with two other girls.'

'Anyone I know?'

Tom Rose shook his head. 'Friends from college. Barbara and
me – we – we're kind of – going out.'

Barbara and Tom Rose? Now there was a turn-up for the books.
I thought she'd always hated him. Circumstances must have
thrown them together. I hitched my feet up and sat cross-legged
in the easy chair. It might even be possible to enjoy this visit.

Tom Rose stretched his arms out in front of him, cracked his
knuckles, stretched his hands over his head and brought them
down on to his face, rubbing the whole surface, keeping
them there. I couldn't see what was going on behind them.

'It's been rough for her – she's had a rough year.'

It's rough in here.
I've
had a rough year.

'What about Tom? Did he come back?'

'Yeah, and then went away again.'

'Where is he now?'

'Um, Boston, I think. He chucked in his course, and he's working
as an assistant to some sculptor. Someone Patrick knew from
way back when.' Of course. To London, to Boston. Typical
Hennessy trajectories.

I was getting tired of this.

'Why have you come here? Is it to gawp?'

'No. I came because of Barbara. She's got a bad conscience.'

She's
got a bad conscience?

'Because when the police said it wasn't accidental, she put two
and two together.'

Don't tell me: five?

Barbara, whose advice to troubled women was always impatient
and extreme – 'Kick him straight out!', 'Cut off his balls!' – recognized
a gesture when she saw one. Or believed she did.

'And you came all this way just to tell me this?'

'I've come out of – out of friendship. Because she feels bad
enough as it is, and – about you, she feels—'

'But why would she think that?'

He looked as if his belly was giving him a pain again. I hoped it
was. I hoped his guts were mangling.

'She knows what your temper's like.'

I don't know what she means about my temper. I've told Lorna
I don't have one. Isn't my word good enough?

'The big bust-ups you and she would have. That final falling
out.'

I unhooked my legs – they were stiff with cramp – and
stretched them to the floor. I could see now that my tennis shoes
were ragged and filthy. So much for the glass slipper; now hand
me that woodcutter's axe.

'She said you were mightily pissed off at Patrick, and she could
quite guess why. He's the love'em and leave'em type.'

Or the don't love'em and don't even bother to leave'em type.
Use and discard, then pretend they never existed. Erase them
from the record.

'And you were always in the house. Even when everyone else
had gone. She said Tillie said' – God, it sounded like playground
tittle-tattle! – 'that even then you'd hang around, when there was
no one else to talk to, that you'd plague Tillie. Taking up her time.
They didn't know how to get rid of you. You were getting as bad
as your brother.'

'And Tom? What did she say about me and Tom?'

He had the grace to look uncomfortable.

'Not much.'

I tried to drill into his eyes with mine, make him look at me
again. He knew how it was with me and Tom, he knew all about
those odd arrangements. He was part of them.

'And what did you say to her?'

'Not much, either.'

'Well, that was probably for the best. The truth's not very
palatable.' He winced, but I think it was only at the big word.

'The truth is, it was always you more than him, Caro. And you
wouldn't see it that way.'

Oh yes, I did. That was clear from the start. But I existed on
scraps. That's the way it is with a pet, a pet that's not really
cherished or loved but kept out of habit, under sufferance, out of
guilt. Not that Tom ever felt any guilt. He was blissfully unburdened
with that. They all were.

Tom Rose coughed and carried on, grumbling into his hands
again. 'Personally, I think she was being a bit harsh. I mean, we
both spent a lot of time there, didn't we? We both preferred it to
what we'd got at home. And it didn't seem a problem. Not for a
long time.'

I glanced back at the door. Maybe I could call the guard. Maybe I
could request his assistance with this young man who was bothering
me. He might enjoy rugby-tackling a visitor for a change.

Tom Rose said, more firmly now, 'But you've got to move on,
Caro. You can't keep stuck in one place all the time.'

I thought he was referring to my prospects now, to the future,
and life.

'Everybody grew up and moved on. And you stayed the same.'

I felt weak, washed up. But something rankled.

'What did you mean about Brian? My brother?'

Tom Rose rubbed his forehead again, and took a surreptitious
squint at his watch. He was as exhausted by this as I was.

'Oh, that he was a creepy little sod. Everyone knew that.
Lurking, spying, setting little traps and leaving signs he'd been
there, just to make you feel – I dunno – not right. Not quite safe.
That's how Barbara put it.'

Barbara, who stormed through the world scaring nuns and
shopkeepers – feeling not quite safe?

'She found a mouse paw in her hairbrush once.'

'She
what
?'

'Found a mouse's paw in her hairbrush. Just a paw. Dead,
obviously. Someone had put it there, for her to find, in her room.'

'She's just making that up!' Anyone could have put it there; she
had a house full of brothers. And besides, Barbara didn't possess
a hairbrush.

'And he was always setting fires. In the woods, in the fields. Just
little fires. But he knew how to do it.'

'This is just Barbara's say-so.'

Tom Rose looked to be in pain again.

'I don't know, Caro. It's all just one big mess.'

So that was Barbara's version of me – now I knew. Best friend,
blood brother. But we never took the vow.

'She didn't say it
was
you. And she was angry and upset.
Devastated.' Now there's a big word. 'She just told them where to
start looking.'

So it was Barbara. I never knew that. I thought those two
policemen arriving at the door, and the flock of professional-thises
and court-appointed-thats who followed on, were just part
of the inevitable parade. Because opportunities aren't just there
for the taking and nearly everything ends in trouble, anyway.
Because I'm the sort who always looks guilty. Because somebody
finally picked me out from the crowd.

Tom Rose sat back in his chair, collapsed now, hands loose on
his substantial thighs.

'Was she right, or not?'

Raining again. Trudy was right. So I'm stuck here in the patients'
lounge, feeling the opposite of patient. 'If wishes were horses,
beggars would ride.' That was another of my aunt Gloria's
phrases.

I close my eyes and wish it was a fine day, that I was
out there
somewhere, with the sun shining and a sweet breeze blowing. I
wish I was Carolyn. I'd be bowling along through the pleasant
countryside, not a care in the world. Driving my own car (open-topped,
of course), and wearing a summer dress and big
sunglasses and my hair tied back with a scarf to keep it out of my
eyes. The car's a birthday present from my father. ('Second-hand,
darling! We don't want to spoil her,' my mother warns him, but
with an indulgent smile.) I'd be on my way to a party or a date,
the whole weekend a glorious expanse before me. I press down
the accelerator and feel the tug of the open road, the fields and
hills around me beckoning.

Or, better still, I'm out in those green hills riding my milk-white
horse, with just the thump of his hooves and the clink of the
bit and the birdsong for company. And any moment now I'll
gather up the reins and spur him on and we'll gallop off over the
horizon, as far as we can go.

If wishes were horses.

I close my eyes and wish it with all my heart, and then I open
my eyes again and I'm still here.

It's dangerous, anyway, wishing with all your heart. Sometimes
what you wish for comes true, but in ways you hadn't meant. Or
not entirely. If you wish really hard for something bad to happen,
and it happens, then you must be responsible. Surely.

Today Lorna's bouncing with energy. She's full of fleeting smiles
and twinkly glances, as if she's on to something. Me.

She studies the file, pursing her mouth like someone in front of
a baker's window, trying to choose the most delicious cake. 'Your
brother was always the practical one. Good with his hands. And
you were the one with ideas.' A pause, one of her clichéd dramatic
effects. 'And both of you were angry with your mother.'

No, that's not it. That's not it at all. If we were angry with
anyone—

'To go back to my earlier point ...' she says.

What does she mean? It's not a game we're playing here. It's fact
versus fiction. Life or death. Brian's a man of action. I've always
been the dreamer. That's how I'd put it.

There is nothing to keep me here. There might be locks on
the doors and plenty of safety glass, but there are no bars on the
windows, no security fences, no watchtowers and spotlights and
screaming dogs. Only miles and miles of open countryside to stop
us running away, just fields and woods and pleasant rolling hills.

There is nothing to keep me here but Lorna's firm looks and
the gentle voice of Dr Travis urging me, 'Will you try harder,
Carol? Will you try?'

And the thought of where I might go instead.

I know what Lorna would like me to say, in order to
make some
progress
, and then, she hopes,
move on
. And presumably she has
got my best interests at heart. Though I know what Hanny would
say, too: don't you believe it! But Hanny doesn't know Lorna, her
dealings were all with Dr Travis. Dr Travis got her out of here. Or
maybe he let her down. I would like to get out of here, and not
back to that place I was in before, that stank of institutions and
sounded like an execution, that slamming and slamming of
doors.
I'd
like to move on.

To be honest—

To be honest, I say, and in my mind I'm stopped by Hanny's
hollow shout of laughter that picks up and punctuates every
contradiction, every slip from form.

To be completely honest, though, I'm tired. Exhausted. I'm not
fit to step out on to the tightrope. I can't remember half of what
I've said.

They said I got Brian to help me. They said he believed the house
to be empty. They said I had given him the information.

But Tillie never went away.

And I knew that.

This is what Lorna wants. She wants me to say what I did. She
wants me to say that I climbed the wooden steps ahead of Brian,
because I knew that the door was always unlocked, on the latch,
waiting for a bold kick or just the gentlest pressure of fingertips.
Or that I led him round the creaking boards of the veranda,
trailing my hands along the flaking wooden window ledges,
showing him by word or simply by gesture how tinder-dry, how
ready the whole place was, set like a batch of kindling in a hearth,
just lying there and waiting for a match. That I took him to the
back door, and into the silent kitchen, where glasses stood
upturned on the draining board, and a handful of ox-eye
daisies fading in a jar. On the table a small loaf left to prove, in the
blue striped bowl, under a damp tea-cloth. Only a small loaf.
The Van Hoogs were away, Tom in America, Patrick and the
boys camping in France. That I knew all that. No one else at
home.

Into the passage, so unusually quiet that the sound of the quiet
and of the dust circling slowly through the afternoon air was
palpable, like a gauze scarf falling softly over our heads and
settling on our shoulders. The black-haired girl in the passageway
staring her baleful stare. How Brian might have paused, staring
back at her cold flesh.

And so into the hall, where the blue curtain hung in dusty folds
at the foot of the stairs. No sound from beyond it. Up the stairs,
with the brown runner worn around the stair ends by so many
feet, so many journeys up and down, so that you felt your feet
going from beneath you at each step, without ever quite slipping.
Up through slabs of sunlight, picking out the dusty, dirty stairs.
On to the landing, the smell of dust, Hennessys, and above all
wood, wood, throughout the house. Throughout the house the
dry paper of a thousand books, comics, magazines, dry
begging fabrics, curtains, horsehair, tartan, shawls, the slippery
manmade fabrics of the clothes in Tillie's wardrobe. Canvases,
stacked, and flammable oils. Up, up, through the house.

Into the white attic. The long white attic, where the breeze
always blows. Or not. On hot, still days like this one at the very
end of summer, the attic was a furnace under the roof tiles,
collecting all the heat that rose from below.

What would we have seen then, Brian and I, always supposing
I had led him, deftly, with all my knowledge of the house? Would
we have found Tillie, in an interlude, painting? Lost in thought,
standing before a canvas, magnificently flooded with light, with
aspects of light?

Or perhaps she stood there in front of a blank canvas, blank
herself. It had been so long, she had lost her touch. Or lost touch
with any ideas she had of how to convey an image, or what image
to convey.

I prefer to think she stood in front of a half-finished picture, a
painting of tenderest luminous light. She stepped back a moment,
holding the brush, just to see how she was doing. She was doing
as well as ever.

In the heavenly stillness of the empty house, as she painted,
Tillie would remember how it was to be undisturbed, to fall back
into concentration like falling headlong into still green water.
Immersing herself, letting go, sinking to the bottom as the weed
streamed past, not heeding the calls back to the surface. There was
no one to call her back to the surface. Not today.

Did they think it was there that we dropped the first match? Did
they think that was how she was when the house went up?

What shall I say? What do you want me to say?