Other People (6 page)

Mary didn't stir for some time. I'm dead, she thought. He's killed me. Why? How did he dare? And soon he's going to kill me again. So when she heard Trev start to cough himself awake, the idea came to her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She thought, no, not me:
him,
kill
him.
Quickly she groped among the plentiful rubble on the floor. She found a wedge-shaped brick; it was sharp and heavy. She hit him twice and there was a double-crack each time. She hit him in the mouth, of course. Where else?

She was ready when the others woke up. She had slept a little too—and the past had come and mangled her again while she was inert and helpless. She sat hugging her knees against the wall. In the far corner, buckled and wheezing on the floor, lay ginger Trev. Mary had inspected his face coldly—bottom half in red tatters—and turned it away so that it nestled against the stone corner of the disused fireplace. She waited. At length, Sharon and Jock came alive again on the floor, creaking apart from each other, letting out muffled moans of painful reproach.

Then Jock was standing in the centre of the room, stripped raw and panting faintly. 'My God. Trev took a knock then,' he said.

'I'm sorry,' said Mary, who was about to explain what she had done and why.

'Is not
your
fault.' He went closer. 'Fucking madman in his drink, Trev.' He knelt. 'Bloody hell, he broke his
mouth,'
he said, turning to Mary with slow bafflement.

'Go on, Mary,' said Sharon from the floor. Sharon looked at Mary palely. Sharon was gone. Sharon was on the other side.

Mary hurried up into the air. The light was still squeezing her eyes when a hard hand clamped down on her shoulder and she was being rushed out into the street, with someone's chest pressing flat against her back. Mary thought— naturally enough—that she was going to get fucked again.

'Just routine, my love,' said an indifferent male voice. 'Just relax and there'll be no grief. We'll have you sorted out in no time at all.'

Under a slackening grip he led her towards a black bus on whose haunches two men in silver-studded blue suits nonchalantly lounged. The bus opened up to let her in.

'She was on her way out, sir. Come on, my angel, up you get.'

Mary did as she was told. The doors closed again. She sat down on the narrow ledge and scratched her hair. A bank of sun beamed in at her through the caged windows.

It was a few dizzy seconds before Mary realized she was not alone. She felt his breath before she saw him, a square figure hunched on the facing ledge. She had to hold a hand over her eyes before she could see his—greenly glinting in the negative shadow.

'Name,' he said.

'—Name what?'

'You. What's your name?'

'Mary.'

He sighed. 'What's your other name, Mary.'

'Mary Lamb.' Mary Lamb: sounds good, thought Mary.

'Sounds good,' he said. 'Sounds innocent anyway. I've seen you before, haven't I. I know you.'

'I haven't seen you before,' said Mary. There was a long silence. Mary's blood was beginning to climb down again.

'What brings you along this way, young Mary Lamb? These people aren't your kind, are they?'

'No, I don't think they can be.'

'Stay with your own kind then. Listen. If I see you again there'll be trouble. Lots of it. Okay? Off you go then.'

'Thank you.'

He kicked open the door. 'Let her go, Dave,' he said. 'She's not one of them.'

Mary walked erectly down the street, a fire of eyes prickling on her back. Once she had turned the second corner, she leaned against a wall and pressed a hand to her forehead. The strangest thing about him was his breath. Its smell chimed with her earliest memory—two days ago, waking in that white room. She remembered now. Someone had been with her when she woke up; someone had asked if she was all right and told her to be good ... Well, I'll try my best, she thought, and started to walk again.

There was something else about his breath. Everyone else's breath was alive. His wasn't. His breath was dead.

• • •

Part Two

5

• • •

Gaining Ground

'More tea, love?'

'Yes please,' said Mary.

'How you getting on then?'

'Fine, fine. I feel better all the time.'

'Coming back to you, is it dear?'

'Well—a little,'Mary lied.

'It's just a matter of time,' said Mrs Botham thoughtfully, '—purely a matter of time.'

Watched and smiled at by Mary, Mrs Botham limped back to her seat—her inviolable armchair, wedged into the corner by the fire with toy flames.
Limp
hardly did justice (Mary coolly reflected) to the spectacular uneven-ness of Mrs Botham's gait: she walked like a clockwork hurdler. Mary attributed this to the fact that one of Mrs Botham's legs was roughly twice the length of the other. The standard limb sported its special extension, like a black brick; but that scarcely made up the disparity; and her longer leg seemed embarrassed by its own profligacy, bending outwards in a sympathetic arc. Mr Botham—and Gavin, too, naturally—spoke of something going wrong with Mrs Botham's leg a long time ago in her life. Something with a dark name had come and stretched it for her. No one said how or why.

'I knew a lady from the clinic,' said Mrs Botham, her head angled solicitously, 'she took a knock on the head one night, said that she couldn't remember, you know, hardly anything.'

'She was probably pissed,' said Gavin, who sat nearby on the couch, gazing, as was his habit, at a magazine full of glaring, near-naked men. They had all built their own bodies, and had all made a terrible mess of it.

Mrs Botham's head twisted round towards her son. 'She was
not
pissed, Gavin! I mean drunk,' she added, returning to Mary with her smile. 'She had
amnesia.
Her mind was a complete blank! In the morning she couldn't recognize a soul, not even her own husband who was cradling her in his arms or even her own little children, Melanie and Sue.'

'That's not amnesia, Ma,' said Gavin.

Mrs Botham's features, which until that moment seemed poised for resigned and melancholy sleep, hardened watchfully. '... What is it then?' she asked.

'It's called a hangover,' said Gavin, without looking up.

'Why do you behave in this way to your own mother, Gavin? Why? Please tell me why, Gavin.'

Gavin turned another page of his magazine, and another tiny head beamed out from its fortress. 'Because you're an alcoholic, Ma,' he said.

'No she's not,' said Mr Botham, who as usual had been sitting in cheerful silence at the table. 'She's an ex-alcoholic.'

'Ah, no, my dear,' said Mrs Botham, her face all abrim again, 'now that is where
you
are wrong. There is no such thing as an ex-alcoholic ...'

'Only an alcoholic.'

'Only an alcoholic.'

'Only an alcoholic,' they all said at once.

'And she was an
amnesiac!'
Mrs Botham told her son. '... And you're just a queer anyway.'

'That's right, Ma,' said Gavin, and turned a page.

'You see, Mary,' said Mrs Botham: 'once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Oh, if I could've just got Sharon to come to Al Anon! But she'd never come. She was too drunk all the time. Do you know, Mary, that the true alcoholic'— and here she closed her eyes—'they fear nothing. Nothing. Oh, I've had the lot, I admit it, Mary. Methylated spirits. Turpentine. After-shave. The lot. Silver-polish. Weedkiller. Paint-remover. Washing-up liquid. Everything. Disinfectant. 4711. Cough-mixture. Nasal decongestant.

Windowlene. Optrex. I've had them all. You see, Mary, that was before I came to value my sobriety above all things. I
treasure
my sobriety. Have you ever looked up
sobriety
in the dictionary, Mary? Have you? You see, it doesn't only mean not being drunk. It means honesty, quietude, moderation, tranquillity, sanity, dignity, temperance, modesty, honesty...'

Mary settled herself more comfortably. Mrs Botham had already explained to Mary about sobriety, half an hour ago; but Mrs Botham was so drunk by now that she either couldn't remember or perhaps didn't care anyway. Mary wasn't about to mind. She iked her eyes on Mrs Botham's lost numb face, seeing Sharon everywhere, and employed a skill she had learnt to perfect over the past few days. When Mrs Botham was talking to you, you just looked her way without really listening. Mrs Botham wasn't about to mind. As far as she was concerned, talking was the main thing. It wasn't really to do with you: it was to do with her. Mrs Botham acknowledged as much, quite frequently. She kept saying how nice Mary was to talk to. She said that was what she really liked—someone to talk to.

Mary even glanced around the room from time to time, or she sent her restless senses out on their patrol. There on the table was the empty blue plate, the teapot and its family. At nine o'clock every night Mrs Botham would lollop into the kitchen and shut the door behind her. She said she hated the Nine o'Clock News. Mary didn't blame her. Mary feared the television too. It was a window with everything happening on the other side—it was too much and Mary tried to keep it all out. At half-past nine Mrs Botham would emerge in processional triumph, bearing the small metropolis on her tray: the twin stacks of toast woozy with butter, the boiling pink tea so powerful that it made the mouth cry, the fanned brown biscuits like the sleeping dogs on the tin from which they came. According to Gavin, Mrs Botham always got drunk again while she was in the kitchen alone. Mary believed him. Mrs Botham was certainly very anxious to talk about sobriety on her return. But Mary didn't mind. She was very grateful to Mrs Botham for everything she had done in making her so welcome here.

'Don't worry,' Gavin told Mary on the first night. 'I'm queer.'

They were to share a room and a bed. Mary was still terrified, seeing no good reason why she shouldn't get fucked again.

'What does that mean exactly?' she asked.

'It means I like men. I don't like women.'

'I'm sorry,' said Mary.

'Don't worry,' he said again, looking at her with his knowledgeable eyes. 'I like
you
. I just don't want to fuck you or any thing.'

'That's good,' said Mary to herself.

'It's a drag actually,' said Gavin, taking off his shirt. He had built his own body too, but he hadn't done it quite so badly as the people in his magazines. 'It's supposed to be okay liking men. I don't like it. I don't like liking men.'

'Why don't you stop?'

'Good thinking, Mary. I'll pack it in tomorrow.' He sighed and said, 'I know a man who's queerer than me. He only likes Spanish waiters. Only them. I mean he doesn't even like Italian waiters. I said, "That's funny. I like all sorts." He said—then you're very lucky. But I'm not lucky. I'm just not as unlucky as him. Do you, can you remember who you like?'

'No,' said Mary.

'That'll be interesting, won't it.'

'Perhaps I'll like men too.'

'That won't make you queer.'

'Won't it?'

'We'll see. Good night, Mary.'

'I hope so,' she said.

• • •

Queers like men more than women because they liked their mothers more than their dads. That's one theory.

Here is another: queers like men more than women because men are less demanding, more companionable and above all cheaper than women are. Queers, they just want shelter from the lunar tempest. But
you
know what queers are like.

Soon, Mary will know too. She will learn fast here, I'm sure. The Bothams were just what she needed. She isn't alarmed by them and, more importantly, they aren't alarmed by her.

Mrs Botham is in fact alone in her conviction that Mary is an amnesiac—hence her constant spearheading of this unpopular view. Gavin, who spends more time with her than the others, has vaguely formed the opinion that she must be somehow retarded: Mary had the mind, he thought, of an unusually bright, curious and systematic twelve-year-old (she would be very clever when she grew up, he often found himself thinking). Mr Botham, finally, and for various potent reasons of his own, is secretly under the apprehension that Mary is quite normal in every respect. Granted, Mr Botham is something of an enigma. A lot of people—neighbours and so on, Mary, perhaps you yourself—assume that he must be a man of spectacularly low intelligence. How else has he managed to live with an alcoholic for thirty years? The answer is that Mr Botham himself has been an alcoholic for twenty-nine of them.
That's
why he has stuck to Mrs Botham's side during all these years when she's been drunk all the time:
he's
been drunk all the time.