Trial by Fire (20 page)

'Come on, Jack, we'll miss it. You'll be lost for ever. Get on, get on, quickly, quickly.' Helen stirred with the languor of a native, ambled off the train as the others boarded, unhurried, unfazed by multitudes, refreshed with the blessed familiarity, the sheer anonymity of it all.

From the heaving mass of foreign confusion in the foyer, circulating in search of the right exit, she stepped leisurely into the roar of the circus and thus began the business of the day.

There was, of course, no method at all to the business of Helen's shopping; it did not matter how or where she started, stopped, or progressed.. The nearest likely shop was the beginning, the last one the end. In the course of a very slow perambulation around dozens of departments she would stop for coffee in three or four different back streets, cappuccino or black as the mood dictated, teeth-defying bread or stale pastry for energy, cigarette for sheer joy, and back into the fray. Food was irrelevant but part of the haphazard pleasure.

Over a space of hours she would try on an assortment of garments, most of them unsuitable; would be happily tired of taking off clothes and putting them on, wishing she had worn something better suited to the purpose like a track suit without buttons and more comfortable shoes; would look at herself in mirrors and detest what she saw, the existing skirt, even the clean underwear beneath it, dead and grey against the backdrop of all the newness.

She would shake with suppressed laughter in communal changing rooms at the vision of herself looking like a dartboard in a dress of vivid yellow check; would give and receive opinions, joke, help to fasten hooks and eyes. She would rehang neatly on hangers everything she had taken off because she knew what it was like to be a shop assistant and she would try to be pleasant, however rude or pushy they were, making them laugh in the process. She would pull a dozen faces; considered herself obscenely fat on the beam, too muscular in the arms, too skinny in the shank; be hideously depressed by her own silhouette, obscurely and maliciously cheered by the vision of another infinitely worse, if she could find one.

She would be shocked at the prices, discuss them with others in whispered tones, swear at buttons, zips, and the endless obscurity of the ladies' loo that seemed necessary at any given time; would drink her coffee like an addict while recognizing on her wrists the perfume sampled at counters under eagle eyes, by now a cacophony of scents. I smell like a tart's parlour, she told herself finally, while all original ideas of what she had wanted to buy drifted by the board.

An excellent afternoon.

She had spent one thousand pounds in her mind and acquired no more than a bar of soap, admired fabric for curtains she would never buy, sat on a three-piece suite she could not own, wondered how the world could be as rich as it seemed and who bought these things, and debated the purchase of a microwave. She dreamed of eating a baked potato and promised herself chocolate on the way home. Not now, later.

Stuck in the bowels of Selfridge's, looking at do-it-yourself items for reasons she could not and did not want to fathom, since both subject and the practice of it were anathema to her, she even forgot the time. Helen could always forget the time without Bailey to remind her. He never forgot, but with Bailey all this would never have happened. Moving upstairs, thinking vaguely she should go home now and wasn't it time the store closed and forced her on to the street, she also remembered she had first set out in search of a coat, and for the first time in several hours, she went to look at coats.

`Can madam be helped?'

`Well, yes, if you'd tell me where you keep my size. Nothing else, really. Please don't trouble because I probably shan't buy, if you see what I mean. One of those days when indecision is rampant and I'm feeling fat.'

Àh, yes, I know what you mean: nothing suits a fat day, madam, nothing at all, but please look.'

The shop was becoming empty when she tried on the coat, the first one on the rack, a brilliant non-conservative blue, soft as cashmere, a coat with swing enough for Helen's stride, room enough for Helen's business suits, sleeves and hem corresponding to Helen's size and with style that took away her breath and left her delighted. In other words, a coat in which to live and die after too many changing rooms had reduced her self-image to that of squat scruff with scowling countenance, face slightly drained of colour. But in this coat she was transformed. Six inches taller, suddenly elegant and authoritative. She examined the label and groaned out loud.

`That's our designer range,' said the assistant, beaming approval. Ìt would be,' said Helen.

There then followed a procedure as mandatory as it was pointless, quite inevitable all the same. It involved Helen progressing through the racks of coats in the hope of finding similar inspiration in a cheaper equivalent, furiously calculating as she shrugged them off on the hows and whys of affording the first, rounding up three alternatives like sheep in a pen, and looking at them all.

`The first,' said the assistant.

`But the price,' wailed Helen.

Ìt's the best,' said the assistant. 'I wouldn't lie to you, madam, honest I wouldn't. It does things for you, madam. And we close in five minutes, madam. Nearly seven o'clock, it is. Long day.'

Òh, Christ,' said Helen, 'late night shopping. I'm two hours behind.'

Ànd the coat, madam?' She grinned conspiratorially.

`Yes, the coat, I'll have it. I have to have it, you knew all the time I would.'

Taking home the jewel-coloured coat, skipping into Bond Street station, she felt guiltily reborn, and bugger the bills. Bailey would like it, Bailey never resented extravagance, always mean with himself he positively encouraged her to spend lavishly and besides had a rare masculine eye for style. What else was there to tell him that was fit for the retelling? The desire to relate her adventures to Bailey was stronger than ever, which was saying a lot.

He enjoyed shopping as long as the experience was secondhand. Ah, yes, she would describe the woman asking the seller to wrap her silk shirt as small as possible so she could get it into the house without her husband noticing. Assistant nodding without blinking, understanding perfectly, a common request, folding the silk into a myriad creases and the size of an envelope. At least Helen did not have a spouse like that, and such reflections, plus the comforting bulk of the coat, were enough to arm her for the rigours of the Central Line.

This red line out of London was ever erratic, as if sulking from time to time. Nothing unusual to find the thing promising to go to Branston, but fussing to a halt at Mile End and refusing to go farther: This is your Central Line information service. All change, please. This train terminates here. The few passengers were resigned. Seven-twenty in the evening, downtown London suffering a lull while the population arrived home from work, not ready yet to re-embark disguised in different attitudes, towards the night's entertainments.

The platform at Mile End was a secretive, vulnerable place, double-edged, unguarded underground pavement for two sets of trains travelling east as well as west, a long and gloomy island punctuated by large flat pillars and copious freestanding signs giving directions. People leaned on the signs or lurked behind them seeking anonymity, making the station appear empty as Helen walked from one end to the other in search of a seat and the same anonymity.

She sat down on a bench hidden by a pillar, clutching the coat bag and the overstuffed handbag, from which she extracted the book, reconciled to the world because of the coat, ready to endure the next forty minutes with the help of the printed page, when she heard whispering as diffuse as underwater humming.

Òh, I'll be late, I'll be so late. They'll be cross. I told you I didn't like the tube: it never works.'

Òh, shut up, William, shut up. I'll be late, too. It doesn't matter. Nobody's going to hit us, are they? Be sensible, will you? No one will know if we're late. We're often late. You watch out for the train, will you? You might make it come faster.'

Helen slid to the edge of her seat, craned her neck so as to look behind the pillar, caught a glimpse of William Featherstone at the extreme edge of the platform and only a few feet away, standing with hands in pockets, gazing down the tunnel as if willing a train to emerge. He was completely absorbed, tense with anxiety, looking first at the tunnel, then at the tracks.

Òh, look, Evie, look: mice, real mice.' A whisper of excitement.

From behind the wall, where Evelyn squatted against the support, Helen heard a muttered expression of boredom. Her first response was amusement: two children at play, well, well, well. So they had known one another with the familiarity she had imagined; how coincidental to confirm their secret so far from home. The next reflection contained the thought that theirs was private mischief in which she should not intrude. The tube was as good a place for hiding as any; let them be. Helen might have moved away if their next moves had been as innocuous.

William knelt at the extreme edge of the platform, riveted by the mice who lived below the rails, a phenomenon that had often riveted her own eyes. While he watched, making odd little cooing noises to the mice, his voice echoing slightly in the tunnel entrance, Evelyn stood upright on her plimsolled feet, ran towards him, stopped short of him, turned and paced back to her spot. She did this twice, as if counting the yards between them, the second time retreating farther so that her distance from him was slightly greater. Then ran a third time, as silent and light as a bird, the extra yard allowing extra speed, retreated again, as if satisfied.

William was quite oblivious, still whispering to the mice. 'Come here, fella. It's not nice down there. I'll take you home. What happens when a train comes? Please climb up here, please.'

Evelyn was coiled like a spring in a sort of squatting race start, equally unaware of observation; both were utterly concentrated.

Helen watched, mesmerized, felt on her face the slight breeze that heralded the approach of an engine yet unseen and heard, knew it to be ominous, tightened her grip on her package, watched. She is going to push him; that is what she is going to do, push him over the edge just before the train bursts out of the tunnel. I know that is exactly what she is intending to do. She chose this deserted end of the platform, this distant platform, measured the distance. She planned it all. I know.

From the tunnel came the rumble of movement, the distant shriek and hiss of brakes, then growing sound. A slight vibration pushed the air forward, blowing strongly in Helen's face as she rose. William heard it, began to stand upright; Evelyn caught his intention in a glance, and was ready to run. Helen ran too, behind William, blocking the path between them, braced herself for the impact, felt Evelyn's tough little body slam into her from behind.

She stumbled against William as the train crashed into the light, dropped the coat bag.

The coat half spilled in a flash of blue. William shouted in anger. In an action quite as automatic as her running forward, Helen bent to stuff the coat back into the bag as the train strained to a halt, seeing at the same time from the corner of her eye one pair of jean-clad ankles hurrying away beyond the pillar. She rose, as the carriage doors slid open, to face the puzzled regard of the boy.

`What you doing? What you think you doing?' Furious, confused, looking around in sudden panic. 'And where's .. . where's. . . ?' The train tick-ticking, breathing impatience.

People appeared from nowhere, stepping aboard, others, fewer, alighting. `Where's . . .

Where's . . .?'

`She's gone, William. Get on the train, quickly. You're late.' Her voice emerged with brisk authority.

William's look of animal confusion vanished, replaced by a vacant gaze, the clearing features of a boy who has remembered well-rehearsed lines after a moment of panic. 'Who's gone?' he said loudly, jumping on to the train with unnecessary energy. 'Who do you mean?

Must be mad . .

But as Helen followed, sat next to him, she watched him stretch and peer through the closing doors, scanning the platform as the train moved past, desperately seeking clues, a sight, a glimmer of the paste earrings or the plimsolled feet. Helen's limbs were trembling; so, she noticed, were his. They sat in silence, drowned by the noise of the train until it thundered through the tunnel into empty, floodlit Stratford. Outside Stratford, alongside the graveyard for cars, motion ceased entirely. The lights in the carriage flickered.

September summer: humid, storm-filled, feeling like winter darkness, an inky daylight black, scarcely relieved in the heavy-breathing train. Even less light in this last of all compartments and no people, either; William and Helen sitting as silent companions, frozen with unease.

He turned and looked at her with cunning curiosity. 'No one's gone,' he said with conviction. And then, 'I know you. You come in the bar. I know you. And you talk in court.

You're one of them.' He nodded vigorously; she nodded in turn. Sitting on a train, the two of them, lately prosecutor and defendant. Helen was glad that the resentment of the defendant was less often directed at the prosecutor than towards the policeman who felt the collar, and William was clearly feeling no resentment at all. Feeling nothing, apparently, apart from anxiousness to convince her in words of one syllable that he had been accompanied by no one. No one had gone: he had asked his questions of air.

`There are mice on the tracks, did you know?' he asked, beaming goodwill.

`Yes, there are,' said Helen. 'William, how long have you known Evelyn? I know her, too.'

Èvelyn? Evie . . . Don't know Evelyn. What you mean? No one's gone.

Èvie, Evelyn. Evelyn Blundell, the girl with the earrings. Your friend.'

`My friend . . . Yes, my friend. No, she isn't. Which Evie? Don't know her at all. Stop it, that's silly. Stop it.' He muttered in agitation, squirmed, and looked towards the door for escape. The train was obdurately still, locked in a semi-silent signal-failure zone between one civilization and the next, a kind of no-man's-land, while someone was probably calling someone else out of a pub. She patted William's arm to soothe the quivering; she was not a parent after all, not here to cross-examine.