After You'd Gone (17 page)

Ann leans on an ornamental breeze-block wall stippled with sharp plaster spikes. The hospital surrounds her on four sides. The garden in which she is standing is so prefabricated that she can see the lines in the lawn where they laid down the turf sods. It's getting dark already. On her left-hand side is the corridor in which her daughter lies unconscious, shaven-headed, insensible to the world around her, lungs automated to inhale every four seconds.

Ann opens her cigarettes, pulls one out and, gripping it between her lips, searches her coat pockets for her box of matches. She has to strike the match's purple tip against the rasp of sandpaper three times before it catches flame. She holds the smoke in her mouth, watching the tip of the cigarette glow orange in the darkening air, then allows it to curl down into her chest, infiltrating each flower-like alveolus. She counts along the windows of the corridor, working out which one is Alice's.

Ann knows she should grind her cigarette into this wall, get back to the room, sit down next to her husband and

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daughter. But, for now, she doesn't. She stands, letting her smoke drift away from her on the breezeless air, watching the light blaze out in strips through the metal blind over Alice's window.

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Elspeth stands at the bay window at the back of the house, looking out at her granddaughters. On the lawn, Beth turns cartwheels and calls to Alice every now and again, 'Were my legs straight then? Did you see? Watch this time.'

Alice, who has recently razored the ends of her hair into uneven jags and dyed a long streak of it an alarming kingfisher blue, lies on her stomach along the edge of the patio, clad entirely in black, reading. In a flash of skinny legs, white knickers and a rumple of skirts, Beth does another turn. 'That looked great,' says Alice, not looking up from her book.

'Did it?' Beth says, her face flushed with exertion. 'Did it, Kirsty?'

Kirsty, in a bikini, sits in the sun with tufts of cotton wool jammed between each of her toes. She shakes her nail-varnish bottle and, unscrewing the lid, says, 'Yeah. Perfect, Beth.'

'It's an absolute crime,' says a voice next to Elspeth. Elspeth turns to see Ann standing next to her. Three days have passed since that day in the Lodge. It's the weekend and Ben is out playing golf on the links by the sea.

'What is?' asks Elspeth.

'That,' Ann says, exasperated, pointing towards Alice. 'It's a crime to do that to hair as lovely as hers. I don't know what she thinks she looks like.'

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Elspeth leans her hand on the window-sill and faces Ann.

Above their heads are the black, sooty streaks from when , years ago, Alice inexplicably set fire to the curtains. 'There are worse cn
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mes.
^'

Ann looks at her, surprised no doubt by the vehemence of her words.

'Don't you think, Ann?' Elspeth persists.

Under Elspeth's fierce look, Ann flushes a hot red. They stare at each other, Elspeth willing herself not to be the first to look away. Ann's head turns back towards the garden.

'Do you know what the Greeks did to adulterous women, Ann?'

There is no answer. Ann presses her hand to her mouth. 'Do you?'

Ann shakes her head without speaking.

'They were strapped to the back of a mare in the middle of a courtyard, filled with the family of the man. A stallion was then let loose and they all watched as the woman was slowly crushed to death as the stallion mounted the mare. '

'Please . . . don't,' Ann says.

'And do you know what else? I always thought what an utterly barbaric thing that was to do to anyone. Until now. '

'Does Ben know?'

'No. And he won't, if you can swear to me that you'll never see that man again.'

They look out, Elspeth at the girls, Ann's eyes focused somewhere on the horizon.

'Do you love him?' Elspeth asks. 'Who? Ben?'

Elspeth gives a short laugh. 'No. Not Ben. I know you don't love Ben. The other one.'

Ann shrugs defiantly. 'I don't really think I have to answer that question.'

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'How long has it . . . have you . . . ?' 'Years.'

Elspeth sees that Ann is turning to go. She puts out a hand, grips her tiny, fragile wrist and drags her back to the window. 'People have always remarked -idly, I always thought and now I wonder just how many people do know - how odd it is that we have two small blonde girls and one tall dark one.' Elspeth pulls her round and forces her to look out of the window with her. 'And as I was standing here, I too was just thinking how odd it is. Look. Alice looks like a different species next to her sisters, she could be from a different family. Or a different father, perhaps. Odd, too, how Alice isn't in the least bit scientific like everyone else in this family, how she spends all day reading or playing the piano. Strange that her nature is much more tempestuous and impulsive than anyone else's. I can't think of anyone in my family who's like her. Can you? Can you think of anyone she reminds you of? Anyone at all?'

Ann fights against Elspeth's strong grasp. Elspeth releases her at last. 'Tell me.'

'Tell you what?' 'Is Alice Ben's?'

Ann looks out at Alice through the window. She is standing now beside Beth on the lawn, ready to catch lier ankles when she does her handstand. 'Slowly,' she is saying, 'slowly, Beth. Otherwise you'll kick me in the face.' Kirsty is painting her toenails in laborious strokes, her personal stereo clamped over her ears.

'I . . . I don't know . . . I can't be certain . . . I' m almost sure she is.'

'Almost? What does that mean?' 'Exactly what it says.'

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Alice wakes with a start. Something is not quite right. She swivels her eyes suspiciously from left to right. It is morning. Sunlight is streaming in through a large bay window. It's very quiet. No traffic. She can hear birds singing. Birds? Her clothes are on an antique chair just in front of her. She moves her head fractionally. The pillow case is white cotton with lace borders. She looks up; she's in a four-poster bed. She looks down; there is a male arm curved around her ribcage. She stares at it blankly. It is strong-looking, tanned, with black hairs. Its fingers are curled round its thumb. Its owner appears to be lying behind her, pressed up against her back.

Before she can investigate further, there is a knock at the door. She opens her mouth to say come in, but no sound emits from it. A few seconds later, she stares in astonishment as a girl with a mass of curly hair wearing a long, flowered skirt comes into view carrying a huge tray. 'Morning, Mrs Friedmann,' she says. 'Here's your breakfast. I'll leave it by the window.'

Alice is about to ask her why on earth she's calling her Mrs Friedmann, when the full truth suddenly hits her. Oh, Christ, oh, God, what is she doing here?

As soon as the door closes, she springs from the bed like a startled antelope, wrenching herself free of John's grasp. He grunts and topples into the dip her body has left in the soft

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mattress. Alice waits nervously, balancing on one leg. He opens his eyes. 'Hello,' he rubs his face groggily, 'you look lovely.' She feels that there is a strong danger she's grinning fool ishly. He certainly is. 'Breakfast's arrived,' she says, crossing the room to the window.

'Good. I'm starving. I didn't have any dinner last night. '

For something to do, she pulls back the curtains, feeling horribly conscious of the shortness of her nightdress. It barely covers her bum, for God's sake, but it's the only one she's got. She also suspects that against this strong sunlight it's very see-through. When she turns back to face him she can see from his glowing expression that it definitely is.

'What time did you arrive?' she asks him, in a rather formal voice.

'About three, I think. '

'How did you get on last night?'

He looks mysteriously panicked for a moment and then says, 'Oh, the play, you mean. Awful, actually. '

'Do you want some toast?'

'Come here,' he says, and holds out his arms.

'John,' she says, in a strangled voice, 'I can't. It's too . weird. I can't cope with all this,' she waves her hand around the room, taking in their bags, their crumpled clothes, the huge four-poster bed, 'before we've even . . . I mean, I haven't even kissed you yet. Not properly, anyway.'

He lets his arms drop on to the bedclothes. 'I know what you mean.'

'And,' she says, 'I've still got to hear about your mysterious secret. I mean, that is why we're here, isn't it?'

John is silent. Alice fidgets with the teacups on the breakfast tray and pretends to be admiring the view of Easedale.

'I'm very glad you said "yet",' he says quietly. 'Pardon?'

'I'm very glad you used the word "yet". You said, "I haven't even kissed you
yet ."'

'Well, I'd hardly be here if I . . . I mean . . .' She comes forward a few paces. 'John?' she says. 'Yes?'

'Are you . . . ?' She starts to giggle. 'Am I what?'

'Are you . . . ?' She giggles again. 'I mean, have you got any clothes on at all?'

He smiles proudly. 'Yes, I have. I kept my shorts on. ' He kicks back the bedclothes in an arc and stands up. They stand there, Alice in her nightie, John in his shorts, about three feet apart, regarding each other.

'I think,' John begins slowly, 'that we'd better go out for a walk.'

If this is living, then it's like living in a cave or submarine and having the slenderest periscope reaching up to the outside world; a periscope so slender it picks up only smell and sound - and rarely at that.

Yesterday, last week, this year, a minute ago, this morning, two months ago - it could have been any of these - my nose dragged from the air down to where I am now a certain smell. They say smell is the most evocative of the senses. (I once considered having a relationship with a man who had a very limited sense of smell - I like to think things didn't work out between us because of this. After meeting him once, Rachel pronounced him an emotional retard and she was right. But if I am more charitable, how could he have been expected to develop to full emotional capacity without this associative tool? How could anyone live without that crucial link between immediate physical environment and interior recollection?) As soon as this smell reached me, I was thinking of car

journeys as a child - stifled, sicky, bare legs glued to the seat covers, Beth's elbow pressing into my side, the three of us pleading for a window to be opened and our mother refusing because the breeze would mess her hair - and of a wardrobe we were forbidden to open, filled with immobile dresses strung by their shoulders from padded hangers. It was my mother 's perfume, sprayed once a day on the pulse of her jugular vein and again on her wrists, and allowed to air before she puts on her clothes. It's a smell that trails behind her like a tail, bites into the air of any room she has been in, any clothes she has worn.

It can only mean one thing: my mother has been sum moned. I feel somehow at a disadvantage in this - she can see me, but I can't see her. Is she there now, right now, this minute - whenever 'this minute' is? It's a horrible notion, that she could be there, sitting just outside my skin and I am crouched in here, waiting. She is somewhere up there, with my sisters, perhaps, and maybe even my father as well.

Alice and John walk around Easedale Tarn on a narrow path of stones and compacted earth. The terrain changes under her feet constantly, from dry, grassy turf to sodden, lurid-green marshy areas that cling, sucking, to her feet when she lifts them to step forwards. People pass at regular intervals. Alice says hello cheerfully, and so does John, but less cheerfully. He is walking about three paces behind her,' mostly in silence, and has taken off his sweater and tied it round his waist. She is waiting for him to begin some sort of confession or explanation, but none has been forthcoming so far. She feels a tide of frustration gaining momentum within her, and knows that if he doesn't come out with it soon, she is likely to do something drastic.

As if to put this thought out of her head, she stops and looks about her. High ridges surround them on three sides and ahead

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of them is the wide, mirror-still, slate-grey expanse of water. She is unnerved by the flatness of the lake: there is no wind and the only movement on its surface are the lines drawn by the ducks, who glide in fussy, noisy groups around its edges. John has come to stand close beside her. Rather too close, she decides, considering that he's made her wait for this bloody revelation for a good hour now. Suddenly she feels him take hold of her hand. She looks down in surprise. He is sliding his fingers between hers while looking out over the lake, as if unaware of what his hand is doing. This is most definitely not on. Alice extracts her hand from his and walks on. Behind her, she hears him mutter, 'Fair enough, ' to himself in a faintly surprised tone.