Lying Together (13 page)

‘Ill? Well, yes and no.' She turned to him, that deep intense look that used to shake his bones. ‘Stephen, I need help. You will help me, won't you?'

‘Of course,' he said, picking up the horrible lolling bag with its seedy contents, and feeling his heart sink. ‘Now, for God's sake let's go and have that drink.'

‘You're married,' she said, eyeing his wedding ring as he brought the drinks to the table. She'd chosen one in the darkest corner.

‘No prizes for that,' replied Stephen. ‘What about you?'

‘She's expecting you, then.' Morella looked at the flowers lying on the table in their Cellophane wrap, the colours all reduced to shades of salmon pink in the dim red light of the pub. She stroked a wilting petal. ‘Will she mind?'

‘Mind what?'

Morella shrugged. ‘Me. You. This.' She took her vodka and downed it in one.

‘Of course not. We trust each other.' But he knew he was never going to tell Sue about Morella. He'd have to think up an excuse. Meeting an old university friend (implication male), going for a quick drink, getting talking, forgetting the time …

‘What's her name?'

‘Sue.' How short it seemed. How plain and ordinary.

‘Sue.' She rolled the name around her mouth as if she were tasting it. ‘
Sweet Sue.
I expect she
is
sweet, isn't she?'

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, she is.' He felt himself rise a little in Sue's defence.

‘Not like me, then.'

‘Rubbish.' He gazed at her. She still had the terrific cheekbones, the kitten face. ‘You're very sweet.'

‘Do you still think so?' She lit another cigarette. ‘Oh, Stephen, I'm really in a mess.'

I'm really in a mess:
that had always been a mantra with her, her eyes full of tears, her mane of black hair hanging down over her face as she confided her latest problem. Stephen eyed her threadbare clothes, her hair, her hands, her awful plastic bag. ‘So what's the matter?'

She shook her head and twiddled her empty glass. ‘I need some money. And somewhere to stay. Just for a short while.'

It had always been short-term with Morella. A loan, a bottle of wine, a packet of cigarettes, the rent. She always promised to repay, but the promise passed with the crisis. And she was frequently in a crisis. That was how he had first met her in the house on Madingley Road when Ian Cresswell had brought her back late one night. ‘Just been thrown out of her digs, poor girl. Needs a bed for a couple of nights and Bigsby's round at Sarah's far as I know, so I thought
noblesse oblige
and all that. Could she borrow your sheets, Steve? They're bound to be cleaner than his.' Stephen had dragged his newly washed sheets off his mattress, tucked them into Bigsby's bed at the top of the house, putting his own patchwork coverlet on top. Morella, wide-eyed as a fawn, had smiled at him: ‘All this trouble. You're so sweet.' Stephen, lying awake that night on the rough blanket with his dressing gown on top, had not been able to think of anything except Morella's supple body between his sheets, in the room directly above his own.

The next night she was still there, and the following day, too. In fact, she'd just stayed on, and Bigsby, on the nights he was at home, had found himself sharing a mattress in the back bedroom with Paul and his unpleasant rugby boots. Suddenly the bleak, untidy house was full of her sexual presence; the
Carmina Catulli
tapes she played very loud all day and deep into the night; the vases of paper flowers on the landing; the strange green underwear in the bathroom; the poetry she wrote; the paintings she owned. Great abstract canvases hung in prominent positions all over the house. ‘That's
Sexual Intercourse
,' she'd explained one day, seeing Stephen scrutinizing a black and purple canvas she'd put on the wall above the kitchen table. He'd tried to make sense of the violent interlocking shapes every morning over his cereals, and wondered whether she had just been teasing him.

Her main passion was acting. Sometimes she'd hide herself upstairs for days, learning lines, creating a sense of seriousness and privacy so strong that Stephen had hesitated to invade it by so much as a knock on the door – although through his ceiling he could hear her moving about, and occasionally detect the tapping of the typewriter above the soaring operatic voices. Sometimes she'd throw herself into days of relentless socializing, turning up with armfuls of groceries to cook spectacular meals for dozens of loud-mouthed people whom Stephen didn't know and who looked at him with barely disguised amusement. She'd paid the rent when she remembered. More often it went out of her mind: ‘Oh God, I'm sorry. Next week, I promise.' The five men in the house had put up with it. She seemed exempt from normal censure.

And now, all these years later, she wanted money again. He watched her, wondering what she would ask for. Morella's extravagance had been legendary even in those student days.
Carpe diem
, she always used to say, when she came back laden with wine and oysters and truffles.
Don't be such a killjoy, Stephen my sweet. We could be dead tomorrow.
He looked now at her thin, pale, sexy face and thought with a shock that maybe she really was dying. She looked worryingly frail. ‘How much d'you need?'

‘What can you manage?' Her hands were trembling again. On her third cigarette in a row, ingesting it almost. He suspected some kind of breakdown. Drugs? Alcohol? On her uppers anyway – that awful bag.

He looked into his flaccid wallet. ‘Liquidity's a bit low at the moment.' He laughed wryly. ‘But I could get the hotel on my card, and we could stop off at a machine for some cash. Would a hundred do? I think that's all I can get out.'

Morella looked unsure. ‘A hotel? I was hoping … well, couldn't I stay with you? Just for a day or two? I really won't be any trouble –' She watched his face. ‘No, it's impossible. You're saying that, aren't you, Stephen? You're saying your wife won't like it.'

He mumbled, ‘Well you know, short notice and all that.' He knew that wasn't the reason. Sue would suppress a sigh at the need to get out clean sheets, move the ironing from the spare room and stretch the supper to accommodate one extra, but she'd be polite and hospitable even while hating the chain-smoking, and the odious appearance of the yellow plastic bag. But he'd have to explain. And the mere idea of Sue and Morella coming together was like a heresy. Sue was part of his sane and rescued life. Sue knew nothing of Morella, of the good old, bad old student days.

‘I really wouldn't be a bother, Stephen. I've got a kettle and some pans. I'd cook. I'd fit in.'

‘Fit in?' She was straight-faced; he couldn't help a snort of laughter. ‘Morella, if there's one thing I remember about you, it's that you always stood out a mile.'

‘Is that true? God, how awful …' She dropped her head, started to light another cigarette. ‘Okay, then. A hotel it is. Thanks.'

Stephen felt guilty. He knew he should take her home, introduce her to Sue and the kids, give her what she wanted, however bizarre. Look after her, not push her away the moment they'd met. But he couldn't face it. He'd never mentioned her name to anyone, or her part in his life. When he talked about his Cambridge days, it was about Ian and Bigsby, Sarah (up to a point), Paul and his rugby boots, even Tom and his crowd. But he had concealed Morella, stowed her away like a sacred icon, rubbed her out of the group photograph. It would sound strange if she started saying how she had shared his life for the best part of three years.

‘Would you find somewhere for me? Take me there? Stay a bit? Stephen, please?'

‘Of course.' He felt better: a solution. He could stow Morella and her wretched plastic bag safely out of the way, at least for this evening. He realized he was already experiencing those long-forgotten feelings of helplessness, panic and anger, which being with Morella had always induced. He knew the mess she was in would be a big one. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear about it.

‘Thanks. You won't dash off straight away, will you, Stephen? Please? I'm a bit wobbly on my own.' The limpid eyes fixed on him. He saw her in a torn dress, holding on to him in her attic bedroom:
Stay with me, stay with me, please!
And curling up with an eiderdown around her, crying into her coffee.

‘I'll stay as long as I can, but –' He raised his eyebrows, indicating there were limits. Sue would be waiting, wondering. He thought about ringing her, but decided not to. He wasn't sure he could trust his voice over the phone. Better face to face, with the flowers as a peace-offering. The blooms didn't look so good now, though. They seemed to have been shrivelling by the minute. They were probably half dead when he bought them. A con after all.

Morella looked around the bar. ‘Before we go – could I have another vodka, d'you think? Double, if you don't mind.'

He got up, returned with the glass. She took a large gulp. Then she leaned back and asked casually, ‘Have you ever thought about me, Stephen?'

He couldn't believe she'd said that. He studied his finished pint, hardly trusting himself to speak. ‘Only every day. After all, you almost ruined my life.'

She looked astonished. ‘
I
did? Stephen, how?' She seemed genuinely shocked, reached for the vodka, finished it.

‘Well, tell me if I'm wrong, but as I recall it, you just took your things and went. No goodbye, no address, nothing. I'd seen you every day for the best part of three years and you didn't think I was worth even a telephone call or a bloody postcard.' The pain and fury rushed back as if it had been yesterday and he found himself raising his voice. The couple at the next table turned, glasses half raised to their mouths, and stared at him.

She shook her head. The smoke from her cigarette drifted up between them. ‘I did try. But we were never – oh, I don't know …' She stared ahead, glazed. ‘Why did you have to be so
serious
about me?'

‘Because I felt serious.'

‘But I wanted a
friend
.' She looked at him with that innocent, injured look, the run-marks of mascara around her cheekbones looking like bruises.

He lowered his voice. ‘Well, I
was
your friend. Don't you remember? I ran after you like a puppy-dog, hoping you might throw me the odd bone, the odd old bit of anything. But when you buggered off that night without a word, well, what was I supposed to think? I looked for you, you know. And then I stopped looking. And now, after fifteen years, you appear as if nothing has happened since.'

‘Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Forget it.' She got up, trying to stub out the cigarette into the thick glass ashtray. Stephen pulled her down again. Her arm felt pathetically thin even through the coat. She was trembling alarmingly now, her face streaked with black. Stephen was overcome with shame. How could he be treating her like this? The woman he'd once adored?

‘I'm sorry too. Let's forget the past for a moment. Too complicated. Let's get you to a hotel.'

The room on the seventh floor of the Regency Tower was bland and overheated. Stephen sat on one chintz-covered single bed, she on the other. She had taken off the old black coat, exposing a curious chiffon dress underneath. A layered affair, grey over green, spare and tight over her bones. And she was much bonier, now. She'd lost the wonderful suppleness of her youth. But, pale and pinched as she was, shorn and streaked with tears, her body still had the power to move him. He affected briskness, tried to ignore the arousal he felt. ‘I've been expecting to see your name in lights:
Morella Martin triumphs again.
Where the hell have you been hiding all this time?'

She closed her eyes and smiled, a queer, mad smile. ‘In a room, Stephen. A really horrid little room. But I escaped, as you see. I packed up my stuff and left. Left it all behind. Because I knew I'd found my future.' She threw herself back on the bed, arms stretched out, cruciform, abandoned. ‘You're my rescuer, Stephen. My guardian angel. I knew you'd be there, at the station. Ten minutes past six.'

He laughed uneasily. ‘How could you possibly know that?'

She looked up at him from the chintzy pillow, that sultry sideways glance, that sensual fold of skin across the edge of her eye. ‘I saw you there yesterday. I could hardly believe it, and –'

‘Yesterday?'

‘You were dashing past with your briefcase, Mr Commuter. You were too quick for me. But I knew you'd come through again. Same time, same place. You're that sort of person.' She smiled wanly. ‘So I packed my things, came back and waited for you.'

His scalp prickled. ‘I can't believe you just saw me by accident.'

She flashed the wonderful, engaging smile, just revealing her teeth. ‘Me neither. You seemed to appear right out of the blue. I thought what a nice coat you had on.'

‘It's the same one I've got on now.' It was making him hot in fact, but he felt safer keeping things formal. Morella's faded little dress was very skimpy, exposing the top part of her breasts. The hemline had ridden high over her thighs revealing a sinuous length of thin black nylon leg, a little white hole near one knee.

She smiled, stretching towards him, touching the cashmere with her fingers: ‘It's still nice.'

‘Sue chose it.'

She laughed. ‘Well, it's still nice.'

‘Thanks. But what about all your clothes? Is this really all you've got?' He indicated the yellow bag, spilling open on the textured brown carpet – a knitted jumper, some socks, a tangled bra, a plastic hair-brush, a quilted Air France toilet bag with a broken zip, the glint of something aluminium …

‘All my worldly goods. Shock you?'

‘Well, yes, to be honest.' He'd been embarrassed at the reception desk, Morella so waif-like, him so prosperous. It was as if he were picking up a hooker from the streets.