Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (25 page)

After I'd returned to the room and put away my clean clothes, unironed because I wouldn't ask to borrow Libby's iron, I decided to make some Nescafé. I hoped I might see Kate Bristow on the landing, but one of the Indian medical students was there, cooking a pungent mixture over a gas ring.

‘Ah, Miss Thacker –'

‘Good evening.' It seemed discourteous just to say ‘Hallo'when he was unfailingly polite. I felt ashamed that I didn't know his name. He was the smaller and darker of the two.

‘Miss Thacker, will you please have some of my vegetable curry?'

‘No, thank you,' I said, putting the kettle on the other ring. ‘I just want some coffee.'

‘But I do most honestly and sincerely beg you to share my curry, Miss Thacker. I assure you there is plenty.'

‘Thank you, but I don't want it, really.'

He smiled, infinitely sad. ‘Ah, Miss Thacker – I had the temerity to hope that you would not be racially prejudiced.'

Damn it all, it wasn't racial prejudice not to want to eat curry at ten-thirty in the evening. Racial prejudice was something we'd often discussed at school, and we'd all condemned it without ever having any opportunity, in deepest Suffolk, to put our beliefs to the test. Now I was caught. I didn't see how I could refuse without offending the man, so I allowed him to spoon a little on a plate for me.

‘Would you care to come to my room to eat it, Miss Thacker? It is a very comfortable room and I have a fine collection of Beatles.'

‘Yes, I know, I've heard them. But really, I'm just going to bed. Thank you very much, this is delicious.'

Embarrassed, conscious that the unaccustomed spiciness was bringing me out in a sweat, I ate the curry with my teaspoon and then made a mug of Nescafé. The Indian stood watching me, polite but disconcerting.

‘Where's your friend?' I asked, feeling obliged to make conversation.

‘He is going out. With a nurse from the hospital.'

‘There must be a lot of other nurses,' I said, trying to be encouraging.

‘Miss Thacker – would you perhaps come to the cinema with me one evening?'

‘Thank you,' I said faintly, and retreated to my room. I didn't see that going out together would help either of us. I needed someone to whom I could explain everything, and how could he possibly understand? And whatever he needed in the way of sympathy and understanding, I felt totally inadequate to supply. Now I should have to try to dodge him as well as Libby. It was a ridiculous situation. And four long weeks to go to the end of term. And then, where could I go for Christmas?

The euphoria I'd felt after speaking to Kate Bristow evaporated. I'd hardly seen her before and I didn't see her again. Her invitation had obviously been a polite formality, and I was as much alone as I had been before. I started room-hunting in earnest, cutting lectures to tramp round agencies and hunt down addresses, but anything I could afford was either unbearably squalid or snapped up before I got there.

Inevitably, I had a row with Libby. One evening I went back to our room early, soon after she had returned from college.

‘Yours, I think,' I said, picking up a skirt and a sweater and some unwashed tights from my bed and tossing them on to hers.

‘You needn't throw them.'

‘You needn't put them on my bed.'

‘Why not, for God's sake? What's so special about your bed?'

‘I'd like to keep it to myself, thank you.'

Libby laughed. ‘Well, nobody seems eager to share it with you! You haven't heard from that rustic boy-friend since you've been here, have you? I'm not surprised. I didn't think you would. You're a real drag, do you know that?'

‘I don't get in your way.'

‘You just irritate me. I saw you in college today, wandering round looking as though you were a thousand miles from home. Why the hell don't you make some friends, or go out and try to enjoy yourself?'

‘I'm looking for somewhere else to live, if you want to know.'

‘Thank God for that.'

‘Amen,' I snapped, and grabbed my poncho and stamped off, up Holland Park Avenue to Notting Hill Gate, down Church Street, along Kensington High Street, up Addison Road. Bloody Libby, bloody college, bloody London. It was icy cold, and my boots hurt. My feet felt as tortured as though they'd been put through Gran Bowden's great mangle, cast-iron frame and wooden rollers and all.

I went to bed early, and was woken by Libby coming in and putting on a reading lamp. Only she wasn't alone, she was giggling with Ed.

‘Ssh,' she whispered. ‘Mustn't wake the sleeping beauty.'

‘I'd better not stay,' he muttered.

‘Come on in, it's all right.'

Libby crept to my bed and leaned over it. I pretended to be asleep. No point in making a fuss if she wanted to bring Ed in for coffee, as long as they weren't too noisy and didn't put on too many lights.

‘It's all right, she sleeps like the dead. Come
on
, Eddy –'

They didn't put on any more lights. There was a shuffling and rustling, then a scrunch from her mattress, and lot of heavy breathing. Then a gasp from Libby and a grunt from Ed, and a creaking from the floorboards under her bed. The creaking and breathing intensified, rhythmically, and I suddenly realized what they were doing. The shame and indignity of my being there overwhelmed me. I pulled the blankets over my head and stuffed my fingers into my mouth and wept in bitterness and desolation, while my own bed creaked in time with theirs.

Tuesday. Letter-from-Mum day. She wrote every Sunday afternoon and posted the letter on her way to the shop on Monday morning, so I knew that when I got back from college every Tuesday it would be waiting for me on the hall table, a square envelope covered with big childish writing, my name half-hidden by the stamp.

No rush to read the letter. I started to cook my supper first, scrambling three eggs because they were small and I was hungry, and at the same time keeping a look-out for Indians.

I opened the envelope while I waited for the eggs to thicken. Mum always wrote on lined paper, and so did I when I wrote to her. It was much cheaper than unlined Basildon Bond which I knew you were supposed to use for polite letters.

‘Dear Janet,' Mum wrote, and I recalled how some hang-up from her schooldays made her write with her left hand always cupped over the paper so as to hide her laborious words:

I hope the apples arrived safe I know how much you like them. I rapped them up separate so they should not get brused. I am sending a Parcel with a cake Im afraid it is sad in the middle Im afraid I don't bake like your poor Father. I am glad your getting on so well and I shall look forward to seeing you Xmas. I am doing alright at the Shop your Gran is worried about the new Decimal Money and so am I but I dont let on, we shall have to manage. Well Janet I am sorry to tell you some bad news Miss Massingham died Friday of Lung Cancer poor old soul. Tom Billings found her when he took the milk.

Well no more now I must close.
Your loving Mother.
PS Dont eat the sad bits of the cake you will get indigestion.

The eggs caught on the bottom of the pan. I snatched it away from the gas and stirred conscientiously, concentrating all my attention on what I was doing so that I didn't have to think about Miss Massingham.

Before Dad's death I wouldn't have been affected by Mum's news. Miss Massingham was old and it was natural for old people to die, they were doing it all the time. I hardly knew her. She was just an eccentric old lady who'd once been kind enough to give me two pounds. I'd have thought, ‘Poor old Miss Massingham,' felt sad for a minute or two, and then I'd have forgotten her again.

But Dad's death had raised my emotional dew-point. I'd been too shattered to cry over him, but instead I'd started to cry over the most unlikely things, bands playing in the streets and newspaper reports of cruelty to animals. I knew that if I let myself think about Miss Massingham I should cry my eyes out, so I stirred the eggs, scraping the flakes off the bottom of the pan and thinking hard about nothing.

I heard footsteps on the stairs but didn't bother to look up, so I nearly dropped the pan when someone took hold of my shoulder. I jerked my head to see who it was and found myself eye-to-eye with Kate Bristow. Her eyes were green-brown, glassy, and I could see myself reflected in her pupils.

‘That shook you,' she said with a lop-sided grin, and she didn't let go, and I realized she was using me for support. Her words were slightly slurred, and though she didn't smell of alcohol I was sure she must be full of either drink or drugs. I felt that I probably ought to do something for her, but I didn't know what.

She took the problem out of my hands. ‘Food! Marvellous. Come on, let's eat at my place.'

Holding the pan in her other hand, she fended herself off my shoulder and made for the door of her room. Mesmerized, I picked up the plate I'd been warming and followed her. As an afterthought I ran back and turned off the gas.

Kate's room was about the size of mine at home, very small, and not even Libby could have created such a mess. It was difficult to tell whether her bed was made or not. She had a clothes line instead of a wardrobe, and coats and skirts and dresses hung suspended across the room. But drunk or drugged, she parted the clothes accurately to reveal a tallboy and she knew which drawer to rummage in for a couple of forks.

I stood holding my plate like Oliver Twist, except that I hadn't had anything yet. Kate helped me to some egg, and started to eat her own share straight from the pan. ‘Mm, this is good. Thanks, love, I was starving. Were you making some coffee?'

I went out and made two mugs of Nescafé, Kate's extra strong. When I returned with it, she was sitting on the floor in front of the gas fire. The single armchair was occupied by folders and a typewriter, with my plate balanced on top. After a moment's hesitation I sat down beside her, ignoring my share of the egg which by now had congealed. After reading Mum's letter I wasn't hungry any more.

‘Thanks for the coffee. You're a friend in a million,' Kate said, and I felt absurdly gratified. She took two cigarettes from a packet of Gauloises, lit them both, passed one to me, then leaned back with her head against the side of the chair and closed her eyes.

I puffed at the cigarette, and coughed as the strong foreign smoke hit the back of my throat. I couldn't help thinking of poor old Miss Massingham choking over the cigarettes that were killing her, so after a bit I stubbed it out.

I thought perhaps Kate was asleep, and I ought to leave, but I didn't want to. Sleeping company was better than none. But she stirred and drew on the cigarette she'd been holding in her fingers.

‘Do you know where I'd like to be, right now?' she said. She stretched her arms towards the fire, smiling at what she saw in her head, oblivious of me. ‘High in the Alps, in a mountain inn with a roaring stove and deep snow outside. Do you know the French Alps?'

I started to tell her that I didn't know any Alps at all, but she wasn't listening.

‘French Alps for preference, but in the mountains anyway. I love the mountains – sun and snow and the scent of the pines. The air's like wine and the wine's like wine and you're drunk all day with the joy of it. And instead we're here, stuck in this bloody city, just existing.'

It was depressing to find my view of London confirmed by someone who was older, who had a job and a salary and a room of her own.

‘You can get drunk in London,' I pointed out.

She looked at me sideways. ‘How very literal of you. Vodka. No smell, no headache, and it doesn't make me weep. Two gins and I'd have been pouring out my life story to you, but when I'm on vodka you don't have to worry.'

‘I'm not worried,' I said. I was getting uncomfortably cramped on the floor. I shifted to ease my muscles, and tried not to think about the news in Mum's letter.

Kate was talking about abroad again. She told me about last year when she (‘we', she said) had travelled Western Europe in a little car that she described as a corrugated-iron coal scuttle on wheels, working in ski chalets and summer caravan camps. It was interesting, but she smoked too much and the smoke made me cough, and coughing made me think of Miss Massingham, found dead or dying by Tom Billings when he took the milk.

‘Cigarette?' she said, for about the third time.

‘No, thanks, I ought to be going.'

‘Oh. All right, then, push off if you want to. No, don't – I'd like you to stay, if you can bear my talking. I'm sorry, but I want to get it out of my system. That was the most wonderful eight months of my life and it's hard to adjust to reality. I need someone to talk to.'

I wasn't entirely enthusiastic. Despite her assurances about the vodka, it was clear that if I stayed I was going to hear her life story. But I could hardly leave now without being rude, so I stayed.

I offered to make more coffee, but Kate was sober enough to heat some water over a gas ring that was sited perilously close to her bed. I shifted my legs again, refused another cigarette, and heard that the other half of the ‘we'she had talked about was a Frenchman. They had been inseparable during those eight months in Europe, working and playing and laughing and making love. Making love in particular. I boggled over the unimaginable details she casually revealed, but she didn't notice my discomfort. Yves was, apparently, a fabulous lover, and Kate was crazy about him.

‘Can't you go back to France again?' I said.

‘No, because the bastard's dumped me. Being French, damn him, he's under Maman's thumb, and she has now found him a prospective wife. He's buckled down to work in the family business, and he's getting married next month. Oh, he says he still loves me. It's not that he loves the girl – but he says he'd like to get married and she's very suitable and both families are happy. And he has the nerve to say he hopes I'll be happy for him, too!'