After Purple (9 page)

An enormous purple strength was flowing through me like a blood transfusion. I felt almost equal to Leo, as tall as him, as strong as him, with metal in my bones. I took the largest basket and went out shopping to all his favourite shops and bought aubergines and olives and minced lamb and onions and fat hot beetroots and double cream and five different cheeses and black grapes. Money was a problem. In one of the Pakistani shops I got credit, and another accepted a cheque. (It would take them at least until Tuesday to realise it was only a boastful scrawl on a piece of paper.) I paid for the rest with two ten-pound notes I'd taken from Leo's bureau. It wasn't actually stealing. They were his friends I was feeding, after all, and I could always pay it back with my first week's wages.

When I returned, I removed my suit so as not to spoil it, but I kept the hair and the cheekbones. I had no desire to sink back into that over-sexed slut again, who couldn't cook and wouldn't work and let people walk all over her.

I overdid it, I suppose. I made so much food, there was hardly a dish or pan I hadn't used. I didn't even know how many friends were coming. It could be two or three, or nearer twenty. You never knew with Leo. I even tidied everything. I went through the entire two floors, scooping up clutter and confusion from every surface. Most of it was Leo's. Even in my part of the house, his possessions had gate-crashed and intruded. It was a strange sensation, stuffing Leo into cupboards, flinging him in waste-bins, shutting him in drawers. I draped a large purple shawl over the kitchen table and found some purple ostrich feathers which I arranged in a dark blue vase. It looked sensational. The food wasn't perfect. I'd never made bortsch before and it came out rusty rather than purple, and had little oily globules floating on the top. I hid them with some parsley I had left over from my omelette. The damsons curdled the cream. I'd whipped them together to make a sort of mousse which was a definite disaster, especially as I'd forgotten to remove the stones. But it would be dark by the time we reached the dessert, so people might not notice. The aubergines were better. I had stuffed them with the lamb and rice and onions, and they looked dark and smug and swelling.

By six o' clock, I was exhausted. I lay in the bath (Leo's — my part doesn't have a bathroom) and sipped the rough red wine I'd bought to moisten the aubergines. I'd only used a cupful and it seemed a shame to waste it. I was getting frightened now. My cheekbones had run into sweat, and my hair was falling down. Once I was naked, it was much more difficult to keep up the Mayfair receptionist facade. For one thing, I'm too fat. People who win are always slim (like Gandhi and greyhounds and Disraeli). For another, I was dreading seeing Leo. All very well standing up to him when I was safe in Adrian's semi. But supposing he came in angry or exhausted, or had splurged all his money on his own choice of food and was furious when he saw I'd done the same. Or had decided on a cold buffet instead of a hot sit-down meal.

Or needed the twenty pounds to buy more wine. (Mine was only a trickle now.)

I stepped out of the bath and stared into the cracked and steamy mirror. I could see already that my face was slipping. The craven, shabby, jobless whore was sneaking back again. My double-barrelled boss would know immediately I wasn't a receptionist. I'd be sitting there, at my six-foot rosewood desk, between my Moyses Stevens orchids and the switchboard I knew I couldn't operate, and my past would show through like a tumour on an X-ray. No good pretending to be a Janet. Janets don't need to daub make-up on their souls, or draw themselves new contours. I might get by first thing in the morning, but by five pm, I'd have cracked and melted. All those creamy hessian customers would know I'd screwed a fifteen-year-old waiter, after only two small brandies, and had stolen a floral duvet-cover from Swan & Edgar's. (No one caught me. The waiter took six and a quarter minutes and I left the duvet cover on the counter of the next big store I came to. I didn't even
own
a duvet. But it was still a crime.)

I wrapped myself in Leo's rough black towel and rubbed myself almost raw with it. The flesh needed punishing. I must drub it down, deodorise it, force it into another mould. I dragged on a pantie-girdle which was far too tight and left red weals across my bottom. I heaved up the straps of a wired and armoured bra. Already, it was hard to breathe. I put on the purple dress with the fastidious little buttons. My fingers were trembling as I tried to fasten them.

“Liar!” they muttered. “We know you're not demure. They'll find you out.”

I didn't listen. I picked up my lipstick and drew a cupid's bow. I made my eyes larger and more innocent. I painted health and wholesomeness on my cheeks. I pared down my face into more aristocratic lines. It was all a colossal lie. I was a sallow, base-born slut who had once masturbated with a Mars bar. I ought to ring them straight away and tell them I couldn't take the job. It wasn't fair to them, misleading them, lying in the interview, cheating on the forms. I trailed over to the phone. I could hear the bortsch spitting and glugging on the gas. I couldn't even cook.

There were two rings, two clicks and then an Ansafone. “The Burton Bureau is now closed. Please phone at nine o'clock on Monday for the best jobs in London. The Burton Bureau is now closed … now closed, now closed, now closed …”

Nine o'clock on Monday, I was expected in almost-Mayfair. Mr Double-Barrel OBE would be peering at me through the flowers. He'd have made me out a timetable, by then. First month, cells divide; second month, baby's limbs begin to … Adrian. I had to ring Adrian. He'd know what to do. He could tell Mr Mayfair I wasn't well again. I dialled his number.

“Oh, hallo, is that …”

“Sister, thank God! How
is
she?”

“Wh … what did you … ?”

“That's Sister Maddox, isn't it?”

“Who?”

“Oh, I'm
sorry
, I thought it was the hospital.”

He didn't even know me. Adrian thought his own wife was Sister Maddox. Anyway, what was he doing talking to a hospital, when
I
was the one who was ill? In all our married years, I'd never allowed Adrian to be poorly. That was my privilege.

“Adrian, it's me, Thea.”

“Oh, my God. Look, Thea, not now, I can't … It's …”

I could feel panic boiling up like bortsch. Adrian never said “not now”. He was always there, like the English Channel, or the Houses of Parliament, or Harrods.

“I've got a job, Adrian, like you said. I've done
everything
you said, but it isn't working. The job's impossible. I can't stand it there. I'm working for a man called Moyses Stevens and he's …”

“Thea, listen, the baby's dead.”

“What baby?”

“
Our
baby. Janet's baby. It's dead, Thea. It was born dead.”

“Oh,” I said. “Really?” I sat down on the floor. My legs had suddenly gone soft, useless, unformed like a foetus. Adrian was making whimpering and spluttering noises like the aubergines when I first put them in a hot oven. They sounded wrong on him. He never cried, or felt any strong emotion.

“It was a boy,” he stuttered. “Perfect. Hair, toes, fingernails, everything. But dead.”

I tried to feel sorry for him, but all I could hear was the way he said “our baby”, meaning Janet's. If he hadn't put it there, sliding and runting on those yellow nylon sheets, I might have comforted him, put an arm round his shoulders down the phone. As it was, I just rang off. The room was very still, very silent. Even in the middle of London, with all the traffic screaming, you can still hear death.

£5.72 — that's what it cost to kill a baby — the sum I'd given to the priest to say his Mass; less, far less, than the bill for this evening's dinner. I shivered. God had got it wrong. I hadn't really meant kill. Just negate, erase, undo — something vague like that.

“I didn't mean …” I stammered.

There was no one there. Take responsibility for your own actions, Leo always said. Which meant I was a murderer. My body started shaking. I sat and stared at it. How could you take responsibility, when your own body was always sliding away from you, slipping out of your control, like a slimy nylon sheet. I didn't choose to shake. I didn't want to cry. It would only ruin my makeup. It was the same with sex. Somebody else made me wet between the legs, hard around the nipples. It was nothing to do with me.

“Stop,” I mumbled. My feet juddered on the floor, my hands drew zig-zags in the air. Perhaps it wasn't me. Maybe the earth had slipped off its axis and was wobbling off course. I was crying myself away, melting into the carpet. When the phone rang again, I could hardly pick it up. I wanted to comfort Adrian, but I didn't know how. He had always comforted
me
.

“Adrian, I …”

“What the hell do you mean — Adrian? It's
Leo
.”

“Oh, I see, I …”

“Change of plan. We're going to eat at Otto's place. Can you get here, Thea?”

“I've killed Janet's baby.”

“Bring some wine, will you? You'll find two bottles of Beaune in the cupboard in my room.”

“I paid the priest to kill it. It was a boy. They called it Lucian.”

“I can't talk, Thea. I can't even hear. It's far too noisy. There's twenty of us here. Look, get over as quickly as you can. We're all waiting dinner for you. I tried to ring before.”

“Dinner's
ready
, Leo.” I was shouting now. “I spent all day cooking it.”

“What are you talking about? You know you never cook.”

“First I killed the baby, then I cooked dinner. All the guests have arrived. We'll start without you, shall we?”

“Thea, for God's sake, be sensible. I've told you, everybody's
here
. It's only you we're waiting for. Libby's cooked a massive piece of beef — enough to feed an army. Just lock up and come straight over. Take a taxi, if you like. There's some money in my bureau drawer.”

“There isn't.” Voice petering out now, whispering.

“It's in the blue envelope underneath the blotter. I'll expect you in ten minutes. Right?”

I didn't answer. At least I wasn't shaking any more. I stared at my left thumb. It was purple from the beetroots. (I'm left-handed, which Adrian says makes for learning difficulties but Leo claims is a sign of genius, but only because he's left-handed, too.) I'd grated my thumb along with all the beetroot ends, and it was sore and feverish. If I was crying now, it was only for my thumb. The whole world's grief was throbbing in that thumb. I stuck it in my mouth and tried to comfort it. It looked fat and wet and helpless. Janet's baby was born with both its thumbs.

Slowly, I got up. It was dinner-time and everyone was waiting. My eyes were red and swollen, but if I turned the lights a little lower, they probably wouldn't notice. I was still well-dressed, well-corseted. My hair hadn't slipped its noose.

“Coming,” I called. “Please
do
sit down.” I tried to copy the Burton Bureau lady. I walked into the kitchen, tipped the soup into a cracked Spode tureen and carried it to the table. It looked magnificent, blushing against the pale white china, a faint steam curling from its nostrils.

“Dinner is served,” I announced, and sat down in my usual place at the purple-skirted table.

I dipped the tarnished silver ladle into the soup tureen. “Bortsch?” I said to the man beside me. He was a photographer with dark glasses and a denim suit. He didn't answer, so I ladled soup into his bowl.

“Start with the
ladies
,” hissed Leo in my ear.

I wasn't even flustered. I smiled at the out-of-work actress with no breasts, who faced me across the table. “It's home-made,” I told her. “I put almost thirty beetroots in.”

I filled her bowl. Strange how silent everybody was. I suppose they were concentrating on the bortsch. I sipped mine. It tasted thick and hot and sweetish, like blood. Janet's baby's blood. The telephone kept ringing, a brash, discourteous sound. I didn't answer. I knew I couldn't comfort Adrian, and anyway, they needed me to serve.

“More?” I inquired of the man with the velvet jacket and the goatee. He didn't seem to hear. He was probably meditating. All Leo's friends had a hotline to the East.

I had finished my own helping and felt ready for a second. I leaned across and swapped my plate for the borzoi breeder's, sitting opposite. I began to feel a little better as I sipped his untouched soup — warm and comforted and glowing. I could taste the mace I'd added and the juniper berries. It was an old Russian recipe which Leo always used.

“Aren't you going to try it?” I asked the photographer. He didn't answer, so I edged into his seat. His soup went down in seconds.

“Not hungry?” I said to the philatelist. It annoyed me, really, the way they wouldn't eat, when I'd taken so much trouble with the beetroots. I knew I shouldn't waste it. The mace itself had cost a bomb. I moved around the table, slipping into every seat in turn, finishing each plateful. I stopped bothering with a spoon, just tipped up the bowls and drained them. At the seventh bowl, I paused. The bortsch was cooling now, and a sort of heavy sediment falling to the bottom in little lumps and clots. It was difficult to swallow. Shreds of beetroot skin and onion were sticking their fingers down my throat. I swilled my mouth with water, then took a swig of wine. I had fetched the Beaune from Leo's cupboard, as he'd asked. It looked rich and blowsy, blazing in their glasses. It almost matched the bortsch.

“Try some wine,” I urged. “To help it down.” Nobody even murmured. I think they were distracted by the phone. It kept ringing louder and louder, like an obstreperous and drunken guest. Adrian was getting frantic, I suppose, but there was nothing I could do for him, not when I was hostess.