Colouring In (25 page)

Nine years of marriage to Bill. Then he passed away very suddenly – luckily not in the marital bed. I’m not one of those who’d fancy lying next to a corpse. No, he was apparently struggling to do up a button on his shirt – he’d put on a bit of weight – in his brother’s house in Burnley. At least that was the story that I was given.

I was shocked, of course. The news of a sudden passing gives you a lurch even if you don’t know the person well: so a husband dying unexpectedly, at a youngish age, is bound to shock. But in all honesty I can’t say I was much affected. The children hardly took it in and didn’t show any signs of disruptive behaviour that some nosey parker counsellor warned me they would. I just packed up Bill’s clothes, gave them to a charity shop, and more or less forgot him. Bill was no more than a passing dull cloud in my life. Unlike Barry, who will always shine on in my mind.

Thinking these things on the way to the police station I quite forgot to be nervous. Then, in a funny way, I began to enjoy myself. The policemen were all so kind, and polite. I was asked to wait a while and one of them brought me a cup of tea. He was such a nice young man. I happened to mention my new coat, and he complimented me on my choice of green. Not many so smart come in here, he said.

Another very polite young officer took me along to a strange sort of room with a panel of one-way darkened glass. So I could see the line of men, but they couldn’t see me. For a moment I thought what a waste of £59 on a coat – but it wasn’t, really, because the police had been so appreciative.

Anyhow, I looked along the line of men brought in. Take your time, the officer said, and I did. I scrutinised the faces before me very carefully. They were black, white, one Asian. All the men were of similar height and build, none of them smartly dressed. There were good faces, bad faces, frightened eyes, guilty eyes, innocent eyes. Not one of them was remotely like Gary, or the face that I can scarcely recall that looked down on me. I’m sorry, I had to say. But none of these.

The officer seemed disappointed. He asked me to take one last look. This time, there was one particular face that struck me. I don’t mean I thought he was the culprit – no: he stood out for me because of the goodness in his face.

He was quite a bit older than the others, in my opinion. A man well into his sixties, You’re a mature woman in a late decade of life, not a young girl I should say. Fair hair, wavy. Blue eyes with crinkles all round as if he’d been smiling all his life. He had one of those faces that stand out in a crowd because…it’s hard to describe to myself. But it’s the kind of face that you can see is uncluttered, somehow, by any badness in his past. It would be inconceivable that he would mug or steal, that man. I know that. I was convinced of that. I couldn’t imagine why he was in the line, but I suppose they have to scrape around and get anyone willing, for these sort of line-ups, who roughly fits the description of the person they’re looking for. I wondered about him. – No, the man who attacked me is definitely not there, I told the officer. Perhaps, I added, to cheer him up, one of the other victims in a similar case to my own will recognise the offender. The officer gave what I’d call a very tired smile, and took me back to the front entrance. Bit of an anti-climax, I felt, walking home. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, quite. But the whole prospect of the line-up had gingered me up for a few days, and now it was over I felt a little, I don’t know…

But life is full of surprises, as they say. I got home to find a letter from the north, Ernie’s writing. He said he was sure I’d be pleased to hear that his partner Eileen had given birth to a little girl, Gwyneth. He didn’t mention when. – Well. My. A granddaughter. I sat down, coat still on. I hadn’t heard anything about this Eileen – he’s not one for letting me know the news, is Ernie. It was Lynne, last time I heard. But I was pleased, of course, to think I was a grandmother. I had a sudden longing to see the child.

But that didn’t look as if would be possible for some time. For Ernie went on to explain that there was no chance for them to come south in the foreseeable future, and it would be difficult for me to stay over with them as the second bedroom was now given over to the baby. But perhaps in the New Year something could be arranged.

Perhaps it could, I thought. But the New Year was a long way off.

I sat for a long time at the kitchen table, didn’t even bother with a cup of tea, thinking things through. My mind turned to what was going on in number 18, the preparations for the dinner tonight. I looked forward so much to telling Mrs. G on Monday about my grandchild. She’d be so pleased.

And then I thought – I don’t know why, I really don’t know how it came into my head – I couldn’t let the news of Gwyneth pass with no celebration. I had nothing but cheap sherry in the house – I use it for perking up a white sauce when I’m feeling down – and what I’d really like, though this was a very, very unusual feeling, was a strong alcoholic drink.

So soon after six, still in my new coat, I set out on a journey I’d never made in my life before. All of a tremble I headed off for my local pub. All I planned was just to have the one drink to my granddaughter Gwyneth’s health, then return home very quickly.

I expect this high will turn into a low very soon. But for the moment everything is very, very good. I’m going to start the new play on Saturday morning. I’ve put the unfinished
Rejection
into the cupboard with all the others. I doubt I’ll go back to it: no, I don’t doubt it. I know I’ll never go back to it. Because the new one is storming into my mind. In the office I scribble down a few lines on a pad, fill my pockets with odd scraps of paper, hide them all in my desk when I get home. But I know my ritual: choose a date and a time to begin, and keep to it. It’s a sort of superstition. I wouldn’t want to break it. So all this week I’ve been keeping myself in check – excited, happy. Saturday can’t come quick enough.

Meantime there’s this evening: Bert and Carlotta to supper. Isabel, who’s been generally sunnier now normal routine’s been re-established with Gwen’s departure from the spare room and return to work, seems to be attacking preparations with especial gusto. I saw her starting on what I imagine will be a crème brulée. She only attempts this on special occasions, knowing it’s my favourite pudding of all time. Can’t say this evening’s going to be a special occasion. But I’ll love the pudding, and love Isabel for going to all that trouble.

Carlotta: oh, God, Carlotta. What I can’t get out of my mind is that picture of the two of us locked together in an embrace that was soaring out of control, and then hearing Sylvie. It’s a scene that haunts me, and won’t go away. I know that had it not occurred I wouldn’t have had a new play. But that isn’t good enough. There’s no way on earth I can justify such behaviour, and if my punishment is guilt for life, then that’s what I deserve.

I stood for a while watching Isabel, watching my wife, beating things in a bowl, her cheeks an excited pink like fuchsia in a breeze, hair falling over one cheek. My own secret excitement was so great I only just managed to stop myself going to her, taking the whisk away from her and telling her my news. But then I thought, what a selfish idea. She’d be glad for me, of course. Interested. But timing’s all, as Bert always says, and it was not the right moment. Her concern was preparing a wonderful dinner. It was not up to me to interrupt with irrelevant plans of my own. But when should I tell her? – Saturday afternoon, perhaps, once I’d started.

I went up to Sylvie’s room. She was bent over her desk writing a history essay. She’s been getting good marks in history of late. She even mentioned that she might like to be a historian, but her enthusiasms fluctuate. She said would I mind not interrupting her concentration, she’d speak to me at breakfast next morning. So I crept out.

I went down to our bedroom, changed my shirt, chose the latest tie that Isabel had given me. Then decided it would be ridiculous to wear a tie for supper in my own kitchen, and took it off. I know Bert doesn’t approve of going without a tie. He sees supper with friends as a good enough excuse to strap himself into waistcoats and pinstripes and the sort of extravagant silk tie that inspires compliments. – Then I lay on the bed, hands behind my head, a faint sense of guilt because I wasn’t downstairs helping Isabel. Try as I might to concentrate on the immediate future, all that came to mind were disinterested, unadorned thoughts: Bert, Carlotta, crème brulée, Chateau Margaux.

Then I swung my legs off the bed, urgently grabbed the pad on the table and wrote:
Philip: Whatever
.

Whatever
was to be the first word spoken in Act One, Scene One of the new play. Oh, for Saturday.

I couldn’t make up my mind – I’d been trying all day. Should I make my announcement this evening, say I was off to New York for an indefinite time? And if so, when and how should I put it? At the beginning? – No: everyone would want to be hearing about Bert’s time in Norfolk. Perhaps I should wait till it was time to go. Say I didn’t want to be late because tomorrow morning I’d planned to give in my notice.

How much would they all care? I wondered. Perhaps not that much. I mean, there’s nothing more I can do for Bert. He’s pleased with what I’ve done. He doesn’t want me for anything else. Dan: well, to Dan I suppose I’ve become a subject of guilt which he can’t shake off. He might be relieved to have me out of the way, though I believe he still likes me. Isabel? She might miss me sometimes, though she hasn’t shown many signs of great friendship of late. – No, my scrap of news, if I produce it, isn’t going to cause any great reaction. Ah well. The tides of friendship ebb and flow. Probably all three of them would feel pleased with my decision to move on, I thought, as I did my best to cover up the bags under my eyes caused last night by post-opera high jinks with some rich cad I never want to see again. Regret, regret. Living alone, the whirligig of hope causes one to make such stupid mistakes.

I can’t get used to the new look of my house, and don’t like it – Lucky I don’t have to put up with it for long. My chair, in its impractical but no doubt fashionable linen dress, has lost all its charm. The only thing that really pleases me is the ice-maker in the fridge, from which pour more ice cubes than a single man on the brink of a new life could ever hope to use.

I left much sooner than necessary. Drove around a bit. It was one of those rather good autumn evenings in London: powdery sky over an undercoat of apricot, in Carlotta’s interior decorators’ language. Bronze fallen leaves cluttering the pavements of Isabel and Dan’s street: those left on the trees mere skeletons, and the patched bark of the tree trunks, looking like army camouflage, now fully exposed to coming winter. – My heart gave a wild flutter as I turned off the engine, ran up the steps to the front door.

I doubt any man would not have fallen in love with the woman who opened it. Isabel was clearly not expecting me so early. She was an untidy pink with tousled hair and a dishcloth wrapped round her skirt. When she smiled, and opened her arms, and we clutched each other, the pathos of the moment was so keen I could not speak for a moment. Loving, and that love forced to be denied, is an agonising combination. When we drew apart, laughing – why laughing? – she asked why I hadn’t let myself in, or had I lost my key? I admitted I had it on me and gave it back to her. I explained that in my hurry to see her – and Dan – I’d just automatically rung the bell. That was the extent of my message. She nodded. I followed her into the kitchen.

Dan was there, fussing about opening wine. It took only an instant to see that he was in high spirits, happy. I assumed this was something to do with the play, and waited to hear. But as he was not forthcoming I began to tell them about my stay in Norfolk. I described Rosie, claimed I’d fallen in love with her – she was exactly my kind of woman, I said. Beautiful, funny, curious, talented, solitary, kind, gentle…I strung out the adjectives, all of which applied equally to Isabel, who eyed me with a brief quizzical flash, till Dan begged me to stop. And did you ask her to marry you? he said. It was only then I confessed she was not far off eighty. Isabel’s back was turned, so I don’t know how she took that news. Just enjoyed the joke, I suppose.

Isabel took off her dishcloth and we sat in the window, the three of us, with glasses of Pol Roger, while they questioned me closely about Norfolk – hadn’t I been lonely, bored, eager to get back to London – all that sort of thing. With an almost perceptible effort they managed not to ask me about my future. Then I told them about Rosie’s nephew, a theatrical impresario always on the lookout for new work. Rosie had assured me, I told Dan, he was one of those who really did read the manuscripts sent in, and was always polite enough to respond. I took out my wallet and handed the man’s card to Dan. Immediately the old, familiar look of optimism – how well I know it – further brightened his face. Dan has an extraordinarily low threshold where hope is concerned: offer him the merest trace, and optimism floods through him. He’s always been like that and I can’t bear it for him that the only time he’s been rewarded by his writing was so long ago at Oxford. – Could come in useful, he muttered. I could see he was trying to contain his childlike anticipation.

Carlotta arrived noisily at almost quarter to nine – she was of the belief, rampant among a generation surely younger than ours – that to arrive not less than an hour later than you are asked is the acceptable thing to do. – Though I know she does make an effort to be a mite more conventional when asked to married friends with children and early mornings. – Dan went to let her in. There was a moment’s pause when, I suppose, they were embracing. I looked at Isabel who sat with eyes cast down, perhaps purposefully not looking at me. Then sounds of more laughter and mock berating came from the hall – why haven’t we seen each other for such ages? – and Carlotta came in.

She came in with a dash, then suddenly stopped, like an actress who has made a false move. In the moment before Isabel and I got up to greet her, it occurred to me she had taken in the quiet tableaux of us and she guessed something of my feelings for Isabel. If this was so, and I think it’s not over-vain to assume it meant something to her – she put a good face on it. She hugged Isabel, then me, and accepted Dan’s glass of champagne all in one curiously flowing movement, as if an invisible ribbon linked her actions. I could not take my eyes off her due to the shock – the annoyance – I felt caused by her dress.