Crazy Paving (27 page)

The only figure she ever saw was a cleaning man in a blue overall who wandered around with a garden fork. One morning, she saw him saunter over to the deserted pool, reach out and drag a large
white plastic bag over to the side. It had been floating there for two days.

They read a lot: Joan her puzzle book, Alun his papers. Most afternoons they went for walks along the deserted front, past the little supermarket and the boarded up souvenir shop. The main beach
was a huge strip of sand ten minutes’ walk from their apartment block. Pale gold, dusty, empty, it stretched into the distance. One afternoon they met an elderly Scandinavian walking his dog.
He invited them to have a cup of coffee in a sea front café. Joan looked at Alun, expecting him to say no, but he merely shrugged. The café was the other side of the road from the
beach and made of wide windows and blue-washed stone. Inside were two other couples from the group and Joan nodded to them. They drank coffee and ate cake and the Scandinavian said he came from
Norway and his name was Bill. He had lived in Torrievieja for thirteen years. He spoke such good English because his wife was English. She was a belly-dancer from Newcastle-under-Lyme. They had
married just after the war and divorced two years later. He had fought in the Navy, in a ship that was sunk by a U-boat. Only he and four others had survived. They were sitting by the window and
Alun stared out at the sea while he talked. Every now and then, the wind chucked a light handful of rain against the glass.

The day before they left, the weather brightened. Joan rose and found the sky a brilliant blue. Out on the balcony, she breathed deeply. The cleaning man was whistling as he did his rounds. She
waved to him.

At lunchtime, the waiters set some plastic tables outside the restaurant and served sandwiches there. Joan and Alun had just begun theirs when they were joined by two of the four loud
ladies.

‘Do you mind?’ one of them said. ‘It’s just, we’re dying to have lunch outside and there aren’t enough tables.’

Joan smiled nervously and said, ‘No . . . of course . . .’ glancing at Alun. To her surprise, he put down his paper and said, ‘No of course not ladies. Why not? Now what will
you be having?’ He got to his feet and rubbed his hands together. Joan looked up at him.

The ladies beamed. ‘Sangria!’ said one, ‘as it’s our last day. Here . . .’ she began fiddling in her handbag.

‘No, it’s okay,’ said Alun, ‘this one’s on me. Two sangrias. Usual, Joan?’ Joan nodded.

When Alun had turned away, one of them pulled a packet of Fortuna cigarettes from her bag. ‘These are pretty disgusting,’ she said chummily to Joan, ‘but in for a penny in for
a pound, that’s what I say.’ She offered one. Joan shook her head.

‘Nice, your husband,’ said the other. ‘Quite a surprise. I said the other night he looked like a miserable old git.’

‘Glenda!’ said the other.

‘Oh, she doesn’t mind . . .’ said Glenda, laughing.

Joan said stiffly, ‘I think I should go and give my husband a hand.’ As she left, the woman with the cigarettes was saying, ‘
Glen
da . . .’

Later, the other two arrived. They had just climbed a hill, they said, and they were knackered. They dragged chairs out from the restaurant and plonked themselves down. Noisily, the four women
decided that a whole jug of sangria was called for. Glenda went to organise it.

After a while, Alun said to Joan, ‘Think I’ll go back for a kip.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ll just finish up then,’ indicating her drink.

‘No, it’s alright. You stay if you like,’ he said.

‘What about a game?’ said Glenda. The other women groaned.

‘Do you play games?’ she asked Joan.

‘Puzzles,’ said Joan. ‘I do puzzles.’ When she looked round, Alun had gone.

They played poker. The afternoon sun grew so warm they called one of the waiters over and asked him to fetch an umbrella. There was much hilarity as he tried to insert the metal spike into the
hole in the middle of the plastic table. Glenda told him what he needed was more practice. When he had finished, they gave him a round of applause and he responded with a smile and a bow.

When Joan next checked her watch she saw that it was nearly four. She rose from the table. ‘I should just go and check on Alun,’ she said to the women apologetically. Glenda opened
her mouth to say something and one of the others shot her a warning look.

‘I’ll see you later,’ Joan said firmly.

She hurried back to the apartment. Alun must be wondering where on earth I am, she thought.

The apartment door was unlocked. In the living area she found him, asleep on the sofa. She took her shoes off so that she could walk around without disturbing him. She filled the kettle very
slowly and plugged it in. Then she sat down on a kitchen chair while she waited for it to boil.

Joan observed her husband. He was not attractive when he slept. It made him look older. The skin on his face seemed grey and his mouth loose and slack. He looked vulnerable.

All at once, she was overwhelmed with a rush of tenderness. She remembered their honeymoon, in Devon. It had been a hot summer, that year. The hotel had been wonderful, the staff so polite.
Everyone loves a honeymooning couple. She had never been treated so well. On their first day on the beach they had got sunburnt. That evening Alun had laughed at her red face and dabbed cold cream
on the end of her nose. Then he had smoothed some on her forehead, very gently, and said, ‘Do you know, Joan, it’s very odd. Has anybody told you? Sunburn or a tan makes your eyes look
more green.’

She watched him on the sofa, watched the skin on his throat as it rose and fell with his breath. His thin hair lay across his speckled scalp. I love you Alun Hardy, she thought, I really do. Not
for what you are but for what we have been through together, all these years. Not exciting years, perhaps, not filled with noise or fun or children, but
our
years. After all, we have been
through our lives together. She resolved, there and then, to try and understand him more. When he wakes, she thought, I will tell him. I am going to be more pleasant and lively. We will enjoy our
lives.

She brewed the tea and went to the bathroom. She combed her hair in the tiny mirror, peering at herself. She opened her mouth and examined her teeth. She had good teeth. I am not old yet, she
thought, not by a long chalk.

When she went back into the kitchen, Alun was awake. He was sitting up and reading the newspaper.

‘Did you have a good sleep?’ she asked, as she poured the tea.

‘Not bad,’ he replied.

She looked at him. He looked exactly the same.

‘So what do you think of our new friends?’ she asked brightly.

He pulled a face. He shrugged.

She took the tea over to him and stood in front of him. She felt quite desperate. ‘Alun . . .’ she said.

He lowered the paper. He took his tea. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

She returned to her seat. ‘It’s our last night,’ she said.

He did not reply.

‘What shall we do?’ she said.

He shrugged.

‘Shall we go back to the restaurant?’ she asked. Her voice had taken on a slightly shrill tone.

‘Whatever. If you like.’

The next day they woke early and packed their things. The coach was coming at ten, to take them to the airport. The weather had gone back to being dull and grey. Joan checked
all the cupboards and drawers to make sure they had not forgotten anything, even though they had never put anything in them in the first place. Alun sat at the kitchen table with an old pencil and
a smoothed out paper bag and made notes on what they could afford to get in Duty Free.

At Alicante, the Young at Heart tour rep showed them to the check-in desk, then ran off to meet the next group which was arriving shortly. The queue was huge. ‘Bloody pain this is,’
muttered Alun. ‘There’s no one in that queue there.’

He told Joan to mind their bags while he went to ask a young man at a nearby empty desk if they could check in there. Joan watched him while they talked. One of the turn-ups on his slacks had
started to droop. It hung down slightly, just visible above his comfy shoes, the corduroy ones she had talked him into that time they went to Brent Cross. She stared at his back, where his
polycotton jacket strained over his rounded shoulders. My life is hell, she thought. My life is hell.

Helly did not enjoy menstruating at the best of times. Now was not the best.

She woke on that Monday morning with an abdomen of mangled chaos: blood and guts and soft, under-developed flesh. She clutched at it beneath the sheets and resolved, as she often did, that she
was going to take up exercise. One day. Aerobics. Tennis, perhaps. She kept her eyes closed and thought of a green grass court with perfect white lines, blue sky above, yellow sun. She pictured
herself in a white pleated skirt, her body trim and tidy, her arm swinging gracefully above her head.

From outside her bedroom door there came a loud, ‘Oh shit!’

Her mother was up.

Helly lay, absorbing the sound. Then suddenly, she sprang out of bed. She grabbed her towelling robe from where it lay on the floor and slung it around her shoulders as she ran out of her
room.

Too late. Opposite her bedroom, next to the loo, was the airing cupboard. The doors stood open. There were some folded sheets and a faded yellow pillowcase. Otherwise, it was empty.
‘I’m going to clock her one,’ Helly muttered as she turned on her heel. She paused to tie her robe before crossing the landing to her mother’s room.

The door to her mother’s bedroom was closed. Helly knocked on it, loudly. There was no reply. She knocked again. ‘Mum!’ she called. ‘
Mum!
’ she
hollered.

After a pause, her mother’s muffled voice replied. ‘What? What do you want?’

Helly opened the door. Her mother was sitting on a small stool in front of her dressing-table, the one with the scalloped wooden trim and angled mirrors. She was wearing a straight brown skirt
over a slip. She had one arm raised and was holding her curling tongs. Wrapped round the tongs was her fringe. She scowled at Helly in the mirror but did not turn around. ‘What you yelling
for?’

Helly folded her arms and glared. ‘Have you got my knickers?’

‘Oh for God’s sake Hels.’

‘You have, haven’t you?’

‘I didn’t get down the launderette this week.’

‘Give them here.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Take them off. I handwashed them last night because I needed them this morning. What do you think I washed them for?’

‘I didn’t know you needed them, I thought you had some in your room.’

‘Bollocks. You probably set your alarm so you could be up before me and nick ’em.’

‘Oh piss off.’

‘Mum!’ Helly’s voice had reached a shriek of outrage. ‘I
need
those knickers. I’m
on!
’

‘Helly!’ Her mother unravelled the curling tongs from her fringe and slammed them down on her dressing-table. ‘How many times have I got to tell you I’m sick of you
screaming round the house and slamming doors. I’ve got to go and see someone and I didn’t know they were your only clean pair and if you think I’m taking them off you’ve got
another thing coming. Now piss off. If you don’t like it, go and live somewhere else.’

Now that it was curled, Mrs Rawlin’s fringe appeared to take a rash dive off the top of her head, change its mind just above the eyebrows and spring back up. As she shouted at Helly, it
bobbled merrily about.

Helly looked at her mother and took a deep breath. ‘Slag!’ she spat, then left the room, slamming her mother’s bedroom door behind her and sprinting for the bathroom.

She managed to shut the bathroom door and lock it just as her mother caught up with her. Mrs Rawlins hammered on the door with the flat of her hand. ‘I’m going to rip your head off
you foul-mouthed little bitch!’ she screamed. ‘I mean it! No fucking daughter of mine talks to me like that!’

‘You and whose army . . .’ muttered Helly to herself, as she upended the laundry basket and started sorting through the underwear to find the least dirty pair of knickers.

She waited in the bathroom until she heard her mother leave the house. Then she crept out and dressed hurriedly. She was going to be late. Joan was back from holiday today and she had promised
her that she would be on her best behaviour.

Half-way through dressing, she suddenly stopped and sat down on her bed. She put her head in her hands. A slow spiral of pain was twisting its way down her lower intestine. She always bled
heavily for the first two days. She sat up, breathing deeply. Then she rose and walked around her room in two small circles. Walking seemed to help a little. Perhaps she should walk to work. If she
was going to be late, she might as well do it properly. She pulled on her cardigan, went over to her window and drew back the curtains. There were no nets and her window looked out directly onto
the back alley, so she usually kept the curtains closed. It was a grey, heavy day. Two school children walked solemnly past, like little monks, the straps of their satchels across their foreheads
and the bags hanging down their backs. A dog was sniffing around the rubbish bins. Helly leant her face against the cold window pane. Nothing to lose, she thought. Nothing. She would walk.

On Lambeth Bridge she paused. Funny how different the view was, depending on which way you looked. Towards Westminster, there were the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s,
the glamorous buildings. Look the other way and there were the ruins of industrialisation, the muddy sludge of businesses and people gone bust.

At the roundabout just before Horseferry Road, there was a roadblock. Pedestrians were walking through but vans or large cars were being stopped. There was a handful of civilian police directing
the traffic and two soldiers in navy blue combat gear holding machine guns. Helly stared at them as she went past. They had stopped a small white van and the woman driver was giving details to a
WPC who was relaying them into a walkie-talkie. The roadblocks had been stepped up in recent weeks but they usually took place in the City. It was the first time Helly had seen one on Lambeth
Bridge. There had been talk on the telly last week that there would be random checks on all bridges following a series of security alerts.