Close Relations (16 page)

Maddy packed her belongings into plastic bags and Erin drove her to Hackney, to her house. Romilly Street was a decaying terrace that backed onto a school. When Maddy arrived it was the lunch-break. The children's shouts echoed from her own past in Purley, from the school veiled by birches at the end of the garden. Stirred by her memories, she stood in the bedroom with Erin.

There was a step on the stairs. They turned. Allegra stood in the doorway.

‘What are you doing here?' asked Erin. ‘Why aren't you at school?'

‘Had to get my clarinet.' Allegra was nine years old, a wiry girl with dusky skin – her father was Indian.

‘Are you really sure you don't mind me coming here, Allegra?' Maddy asked.

She shook her head. ‘No. And you can call me Ally if you like.' She turned and went downstairs, idly scratching her bottom. ‘Hope you stay longer than the last one,' she called over her shoulder.

On the Saturday Gordon was dressed and ready. The sister passed his bed.

‘Excuse me, love,' he said. ‘Where's April?'

‘She's off today.'

‘But I haven't said goodbye.'

‘Shall I give her a message?'

He shook his head. He looked at the cassettes, stacked on his locker.

Dorothy arrived, and drove him home. Back in The Birches she settled him in the lounge. She tucked their picnic blanket around his knees. He felt pettish and restless; he longed for a cigarette.

‘It's stifling in here.'

‘I put up the heating.' She put down his bag and sat beside him on the settee. ‘Gordon, I've been thinking a lot this past week. Since all this happened.'

‘And what's that?'

‘I think you should retire.'

He stared at her. ‘Retire?'

‘Frank'll look after things, at least for the time being.'

‘Frank's an alcoholic.'

‘We'll sell up,' she said. ‘None of the girls are going to take over the business. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. I think we ought to move somewhere smaller, have some fun. Have time to ourselves, just you and me. Don't you?'

The cat had had an accident in the kitchen. Not an accident, actually – it was cold outside and he had simply not bothered to go out. Louise swept the result into the dustpan, walked out behind the stable and flung it onto the grass. As she did so she caught sight of a horseshoe, lying amongst the nettles.

She picked it up, fetched a hammer and some nails and attempted to hang it over the back door. Robert, who had a splitting headache – he had been to a company dinner the night before – came out in his dressing-gown.

‘You sound like the porter at the Gates of Hell.'

She pointed with her hammer at the horseshoe. ‘It'll bring us good luck.'

‘With your family you need it. Father has a heart attack, sister becomes a lesbian. What else does fate have in store?'

‘Nothing wrong with being a lesbian.'

‘I know,' he said. ‘I like having sex with women too.'

He took the hammer and banged in a nail. The horseshoe swung round, upside down.

‘Don't,' she said. ‘Something awful's going to happen.'

November is a melancholy month. The wind whips the leaves into the gutter; in gardens, small, silent deaths take place. Bones are chilled as winter approaches and summer's screen is blown away to reveal the ugliness that lies beyond. It is a time for facing the truth, even for a man such as Gordon, who was unsure what truth was being revealed to him or why he was being bowled along, as helpless as litter, by the unseen currents of his need. For he found himself driving towards Brixton, and as he drove he thought how some day he must die and the shops he was passing would carry on trading without him: Radio Rentals would never know that he had arrived on this earth and would some day leave it; he had lived his life never having sat on a number 3 bus, which he was stuck behind now. For once he didn't fidget; he didn't pull out and overtake. A troubled fatalism had settled upon him but he had no words to understand it; all he told himself was that he had cassettes in his pocket and an errand that he could put off no longer.

I live above Betterspecs.
He knew that from their conversations; also that there was a Burger King opposite. At this stage, before it all happened, these clues gave him a prickle of childish excitement. He found the place and parked. He stepped out of his car and into another world. It was a windy, bracing day; he felt like his granddaughter's horse, when it was led out of the kitchen – its ears pricked, its nostrils flexing.

Next to the optician's there was a doorway. There were two bells; he pressed the lower one. An age passed. A man walked by, arguing into a mobile phone; a car drove past, thudding with music. He was about to try the upper bell when he heard footsteps descending the stairs. The door opened; April stood there.

He held out the cassettes. ‘Just passing by,' he said. ‘Thought I'd drop these in.'

‘Come in.'

He looked at her. ‘You all right?'

He followed her upstairs. She let him into her flat. A chair lay smashed on the floor. A mirror was broken and something – it looked like coffee – had been flung against the wall. April sat down on the arm of a settee.

‘We had this row last night. He started hitting me. I thought he was going to kill me! So I got out and went to stay with my friend Beverley, and when I got back he'd gone.' She burst into tears. ‘I don't know what to do.'

He stroked her hair – how wiry it was! It was pulled back with gold plastic clips. He thought how odd it was to see her in normal clothes – a red sweater and jeans. She was transformed from an angel of mercy, ministering to him. She was now a distraught young woman in need of his help. He felt a shameful jolt of pleasure.

‘Don't worry, love. I'm here.' He removed his hand. ‘You think he'll come back?'

She shook her head. ‘That's what the row was about. I saw him coming out of the gym with this girl . . . you can tell, can't you, just by looking . . . body language.' She caught her breath. ‘He's always been really jealous of me, and all the time he'd been – oh, I hate him!' She slumped into the settee. ‘No, he's gone. He's taken his stuff.'

‘You sit there. I'll make us a cup of tea.'

‘It's you who should be resting,' she said.

‘You looked after me. Well, it's my turn now to look after you.'

‘Shouldn't you be at home?'

‘To be frank, I was going barmy at home.' He looked around the room. Its big, grimy window faced the high street; a bus passed, startlingly near. People sat on the top deck. ‘I'll have this place sorted out in no time.' Apart from the mess, the room was in need of a good lick of paint. ‘You own the flat or rent it?'

‘It's mine, I bought it.'

He went into the kitchen. He filled the kettle as if he lived there. It was the first practical task he had done for nearly two weeks; it felt exhilarating. She came in and opened the cupboard. That door needed fixing too; one of the hinges was broken. She took out a packet of tea-bags. It felt domestic to have her beside him, as if they had been doing this for years.

She fetched the milk. ‘I'm glad you came.'

‘I'll tidy up now, and I'll come back on Sunday with my tools,' he said. ‘You working Sunday?'

She shook her head.

‘That's all right then.' He tore off a piece of kitchen roll and gave it to her. ‘Now, blow your nose like a good girl.'

Maddy and Erin were in Cheyne Walk. They were planting winter-flowering primulas in the garden of a Lebanese banker. Maddy was discovering that she loved the job. She loved driving around London in the van, part of the working current of the city and then for long periods separate from it, sealed off into the birdsong of hidden gardens. Maddy was tough; she didn't mind rain and cold. This gave her a rare sense of superiority over Erin, who suffered from poor circulation. Otherwise, Erin was the boss. A natural teacher, she was in her element instructing Maddy on soil composts. Like many bossy people she was gratified by someone else's ignorance and her pleasure in imparting information made her kind, even gentle. She had seven regular clients – both private gardens and business premises. Her jobs ranged from weekly maintenance – lawns, window-boxes – to landscape design and larger replantings. For Maddy, whose life had been rootless for so many years, the simple act of handling plants was soothing. Even in this dying season she felt invigorated, digging in the soil, lowering her leafy children into their beds and pressing down the earth around their stems. She was starting to feel healed, even safe. But could she trust in this?

‘Has nobody lasted long with you?' she asked.

‘We're here, now,' said Erin. ‘Isn't that all that matters?' She straightened up and looked at her watch.

‘So that's why you're checking on the time?'

Erin shook her head. ‘I've got a meeting at five. About the book.' She wiped her nose, leaving a smear of earth across her cheek.

‘Will you be seeing my sister?'

Erin nodded.

‘I told her about us a couple of weeks ago,' said Maddy. ‘In a funny way, she didn't seem surprised. Sometimes I think my sisters know me better than I know myself.'

‘Maybe they do.' She scraped the earth off her trowel. ‘Darling, could you pick up Allegra from school and take her to her dance class?'

Maddy nodded. ‘Do you think she minds me living with you?'

Erin shook her head. ‘She likes you.'

‘Did she like the others?'

Erin straightened up and looked at her.

‘Sorry,' Maddy said.

Maddy shook a primula out of its pot. As she did so, she thought about Erin's novel. Reading it had been a painful experience. The graphic sexual passages had shocked her, for though no prude she was unused to reading novels of this nature – in fact, she seldom read novels at all. She had been startled by her feelings of jealousy – gut-scouring, cheek-reddening jealousy, waves of it – for the heroine of the book was recognisably Erin and even now, bundled up in her old gardening coat and wrenching open a sack of peat, it was all too easy to picture Erin lying on a beach in Goa, annointing the nipples of her girlfriend with honey – a scene from the early pages of the novel, and one which culminated in passionate underwater lovemaking. Maddy was unused to such fierce feelings, her love affairs with men having been somewhat tepid, and though she was grateful to find herself capable of such ardour she was unprepared for its dark underbelly – jealousy.

Erin left as dusk was falling. Maddy rescued a worm and flung it out of the way. Five minutes after Erin had gone it started to rain. Maddy felt resentful. It was as if Erin controlled not only her, but nature, which didn't dare to send down the rain until she was out of the way.

Maddy sat in the van. In the mud outside, a footprint filled up with water. Erin's boot had made the print. Gazing at the pitted surface she suddenly felt dizzied with love. How lucky that water was to collect in the space where Erin's foot had been!

The rain ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Maddy started packing up. How simple her former life had been; how confusing it was, when one finally opened one's heart!

In the conference room Brian, the art director, was showing Erin the mock-up of her book jacket. Prudence hovered anxiously. She found Erin intimidating. Even the woman's dirty fingernails seemed a statement of superiority, as if Erin were engaged in more honest toil than these media types.

‘It's a great read,' said Brian. ‘Your name goes here, thirty-four-point.' He was a sixties whiz-kid, one of those Cockney lads who had made good. Though wizened now, he had a certain twinkly charm to which Prudence presumed that Erin was immune. ‘No, seriously, my girlfriend couldn't put it down. She missed her stop and ended up in Hounslow East.'

‘That's the reaction we're getting from everyone,' said Prudence.

Brian pointed. ‘The title goes here,
Playing with Fire
.'

‘Are these supposed to be women's bodies?' asked Erin.

Brian nodded. ‘People'll spend so long working out who's doing what to who they'll end up buying the book.' He laughed. ‘No, seriously, we're dead pleased with it.'

Prudence asked Erin: ‘What do you think?'

‘My novel's about language,' said Erin. ‘It's about a woman's search for freedom.'

‘Yeah, but there's a lot of bonking too,' said Brian.

Prudence froze, but Erin smiled. ‘Why do you think I put it in?' she said. ‘We want this book to sell, don't we?'

Prudence smiled. ‘So let's go for it!'

Her relief, however, was short-lived. Walking to the lift with Erin she asked: ‘How's Maddy?'

‘Fine,' said Erin. ‘She's working with me now. She's very good with plants.'

‘You must come round to dinner soon. It's all been a bit chaotic this past month, what with Dad, and the move to this place. Maddy seems very happy – you know, with you.'

Erin nodded. ‘She's finally stopped running.'

‘Running? What's she been trying to get away from?'

‘You, of course,' said Erin.

They had arrived at the lift. Two secretaries from

Prudence's department, dressed to go home, stood there.

‘Me?' asked Prudence.

‘You and your sister.'

‘What do you mean?' Prudence stared at her. The two secretaries listened with interest.

‘She always felt inadequate compared to you two,' said Erin. ‘Didn't you realise? Louise so beautiful . . . you so clever. And your father didn't help. She's a very damaged person.'

Prudence stood there, numb. The lift doors opened. Erin and the two girls stepped in, and the doors closed behind them.

At six-thirty Prudence left the office. It had stopped raining. Stephen sat on a wall. He was illuminated by the arc-lights of the car-park. Unshaven and raincoated, he looked as if he were waiting for Godot.