Down Among the Gods (11 page)

Jessie believes, despite her setbacks, that she has the ability to attract the attention of men and the power to make them desire her. And men do desire her. She has taken good care of herself. She also has an underlying kindness, so that men do not generally feel threatened by her. She is a listener to male woes and a flatterer of male egos. But these various qualities are not hers. They are lent to her by Hera and by Aphrodite, and they can withdraw their loans whenever they want to. If it comes to the crunch, Jessie will find that she has no bargaining power whatsoever.

She checks her face in the bathroom mirror as she’s getting out the towels. She is a bit dishevelled from her hours in front of the desk but the new excitement is showing. Her eyes are bright and her colour is good. All perfectly satisfactory.

But Patrick, she soon realises, is not in any condition to notice. When she offers him a towel he just leans forward and holds it over his face until she takes it away from him and dries his hair with it. She has managed to find a tracksuit bottom, a collarless shirt and a baggy sweater which will fit him, but she practically has to shake him before he gets the idea and changes into them. He does it in front of the fire, shameless as a child, while Jessie occupies herself carefully with the tea.

When she comes back he is wearing her clothes and sitting down again on the wet velvet jacket. She rescues it this time, but it is unlikely that it will ever recover.

The first sacrifice.

Patrick leans back in the chair while Jessie takes his wet clothes and leaves them on the floor in front of the washing machine. Then she pours out the tea.

Rain rattles the window at Patrick’s back. Outside this house there is a storm and he has been in it for years without ever knowing. Jessie hands him tea, offers sugar, sits down with her own in the chair opposite. He stares at the mug in between his knees. It is warming his hands.

After a while Jessie gets up and kneels on the floor beside him. She puts a light hand on his shoulderblade and rubs, gently. ‘Maybe you’d better tell me what’s happening?’

Patrick nods but finds that he can’t. He doesn’t know. His walls are becoming fractured.

The kindness of women.

Something gives within. In a gesture that feels like a long overdue surrender, he drops his head on to her shoulder.

D
IONYSUS DOES NOT TAKE
kindly to opposition in any form. The first time he wandered across the world, consumed by madness, determined to prove his divinity, he was resisted by the King of Damascus, on the banks of the Euphrates. Dionysus flayed him alive and continued on his way.

Jessie decides to keep some of the nicer pieces of furniture from her mother’s house just in case she ever does get that cottage in Wales. The idea has been ticking over gently in the back of her mind, but she approaches it carefully. It is still fearful enough, and capable of scaring her off. It has, however, occurred to her that she will be able to do her editing work almost as well from Wales as from Camden. And with the distractions of city life removed, she couldn’t fail to find time for her own writing. Now that the house is sold, there is nothing bar the technicalities to get in her way. All she needs is courage.

Gregory has got the use of a lock-up garage that belongs to a friend of his in Highgate and has arranged to take the day off work to help Jessie with the furniture. She picks him up at his house at 9.30, and they set off for the U-Haul depot to collect a van.

‘Guess what the wind blew in last night?’ says Jessie.

Gregory fastens his seat belt and settles down to enjoy the drive. ‘What?’

‘Guess.’

He doesn’t need to. It is written all over her face. ‘Not that fellow with the hat?’

‘Without the hat, actually,’ says Jessie, ‘but the same fellow.’

Gregory punches the ceiling of the car. ‘Zowee!’

It is still raining, but not so heavily as it was. Jessie turns the wipers down to intermittent. ‘Not quite,’ she says.

‘No?’

‘No. ‘Fraid not.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Oh dear is a bit closer to the mark.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

There are signs of a major tail-back ahead. Jessie makes a quick decision and takes evasive action. She swings into a side street and accelerates away between lines of parked cars. ‘He spent half the night telling me his sorrows.’

‘And the other half?’

‘Sleeping, I hope. I put him to bed.’

Gregory lights a cigarette and Jessie opens the window a couple of inches. ‘He’s obviously in some sort of awful mess,’ she says. ‘I’m not sure I’m quite happy about leaving him with the run of the house. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Gregory, ‘I haven’t met him. But it doesn’t sound too bad to me. Did he cry?’

‘No. Why?’

‘I was just wondering. I like it when they cry.’

‘Gregory!’

‘Sorry,’ says Gregory. But as Jessie pulls the car up at a traffic light, they exchange a conspiratorial wink.

They take their time with the furniture. By midday they have loaded most of what Jessie wants into the van, but now she is facing some difficult decisions. It was easy enough the first time round to put aside the bits and pieces that she was sure she had no use for, but there are borderline things now, things she doesn’t really know whether she likes or not, and things she doesn’t like but which have sentimental value. Jessie wanders indecisively around for a while, picking things up and putting them down again, then she sits down in an armchair beside the empty hearth in the drawing-room.

‘I need a break,’ she says.

Gregory is examining a Chinese watercolour which lies on top of a pile of pictures in the middle of the room. ‘You ought to keep this,’ he says. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘Do you want it?’

‘No. I don’t want anything. But you should keep it.’

‘I don’t know what to keep at this stage. I’d like to keep everything. It’s getting ridiculous. I can’t think straight at all. I keep wondering what Patrick is up to.’

‘Not jealous already?’

‘Don’t be glib, Gregory. I hardly know this guy. He could be suicidal, you know? Or crazy. He could be burning the place down right now. He could be loading all my stuff into a van.’

‘That would be ironic, wouldn’t it? Some con trick, too.’

‘You’re not taking this seriously at all, are you?’

‘Sorry. But what can we do? Do you want to go back and check on him?’

‘What? Right back into London and out again? In the van?’

Gregory shrugs. ‘Phone him, then.’

Jessie brightens. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ she says.

The phone in the house has been disconnected, and they walk half a mile towards the centre of Bromley before they find a public one. Jessie sorts out change and goes in. Gregory squeezes in beside her. ‘It’s raining,’ he says.

Patrick sits bolt upright in bed, his head full of vague and disturbing images. He has no idea where he is.

The bell is strident and alarming. A siren which wakes him from a dream of sirens. He jumps out of bed and finds that he is wearing clothes he doesn’t recognise. It is a moment of profound terror.

But the bell, he comes to understand, is a phone and demands an answer. As he searches through the house for the handset, he dimly remembers the surroundings.

‘He must have gone,’ says Jessie. She is haunted by an image of the house, empty and ransacked, its front door standing open.

‘Maybe he’s asleep?’ says Gregory, just as the line opens.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Patrick.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Jessie! How many other people have your number?’

There is a silence on the other end. Gregory’s ear is pressed against Jessie’s. He frowns and raises one eyebrow.

‘Patrick?’

‘Yes. Sorry. I’ve only just woken up. I’m just getting my bearings.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine.’

‘I shouldn’t have woken you. Sorry about that.’

‘No, it’s all right. I should have been up.’

‘You probably needed the sleep.’

‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘Quarter past one. I just phoned to see what your plans are.’

There is another silence.

‘It doesn’t make any difference to me,’ says Jessie. ‘But I was just going to do some shopping. If you’re staying, I’ll count you in for dinner.’

At the other end of the line, Patrick is engaged in a struggle. This is what women do. This is what they always do, right from the start. They organise you, regiment you, tie you down.

Jessie herself is a little surprised by her white lie. She hadn’t intended it. It slipped out, somehow. Despite her resolution that she never would, she is already beginning to make the same mistakes all over again.

‘I’m not sure, yet,’ says Patrick. ‘I’m not really awake.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I can play it by ear. But you’re welcome to stay if you want to.’

‘Thanks. I suppose I will, then, probably.’

Gregory winks. Jessie winks back and goes on: ‘It’s just that if you do go out, you won’t be able to get back in. I don’t have a spare key in the house.’

‘Right. I don’t suppose I’ll need to go out.’

‘As long as you wouldn’t go out and leave the door open or anything like that.’

‘No, I wouldn’t do that. Of course not.’

‘OK. I suppose I’ll be back around five, then. Somewhere around then.’

‘Great.’ Patrick’s voice is more assured. ‘See you, then.’

‘See you.’

Patrick puts down the phone. For the moment at least, it seems as though he is in if he wants to be.

And as he wanders round the empty house, he knows that he does want to be. Whatever the cost, he doesn’t want to be out on his own again. Not for a while.

‘What do you think?’ says Jessie, as she and Gregory walk further into Bromley to find a place for lunch.

‘He doesn’t sound very Irish. Are you sure he’s Irish?’

‘Certain.’

‘He sounds dishy, though.’

‘We’ve established that he’s dishy, Greg. But is he
compos mentis
?’

‘No one’s
compos mentis
when they get woken by the phone. But he sounded much better towards the end.’

‘He did, didn’t he?’

‘Yes. But I’d say that you’d want to tread carefully, you know?’

‘Why?’

‘Well, you said it yourself the other night. He’s definitely cagey.’

Patrick’s shoes have been stuffed with newspaper and left in front of the fire to dry out. His coat is on a hanger in the kitchen and the rest of his clothes are waiting to be taken out of the washing machine.

There is muesli and milk on the kitchen table, bread beside the toaster, tea and coffee beside the electric kettle. On top of the kettle is a note, repeating what Jessie had said on the phone about not leaving the door open. He stares at the note for a moment, then screws it up angrily and throws it into the bin.

The only thing wrong with breakfast is the muesli. Hamster food. It gives him stomach cramps. He searches the cupboards for cornflakes instead, and in the one above the fridge he encounters the bottle of whiskey. It is half empty, half full. Patrick stands and looks at it for a long time. Wobbling.

‘My god,’ says Corrie. ‘My god.’

‘Cornflakes,’ says Patrick, closing the door and trying the next.

It is six o’clock before Jessie pulls up the car outside Gregory’s door. The rain has stopped.

‘You’re very mean, you know,’ he says.

‘Why?’

‘Well, if anyone deserves dinner, it’s me.’

‘Oh, come on,’ says Jessie. ‘You know how it is!’

‘Course I do,’ he says. ‘I’m just envious, that’s all.’

‘You’re more optimistic than I am, then.’

‘Of course. I always am.’ He leans across and gives her a kiss on the cheek, then gets out of the car. The Chinese watercolour is under his arm.

‘Thanks for your help,’ says Jessie.

‘You’re welcome. And have a ball, you hear?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘But don’t forget the rest of us, will you?’

‘I won’t,’ says Jessie. But Gregory is out of her mind before she reaches the end of the street.

The house has an air of emptiness as she hangs up her jacket in the hall. As she crosses the living room the only sound is the rustle of the plastic bags full of groceries that she is carrying. Patrick’s shoes are gone.

The kitchen is spotless, everything put away. On the airing cupboard door, the hanger which held Patrick’s coat is empty. So is the washing machine.

‘Shit!’

She turns to put the bags on the table and, through the window behind it, she sees all Patrick’s clothes hanging on the line. He is beyond them, kneeling on the ground between the tiny, overgrown lawn and the jungly flowerbeds.

Jessie remembers her dignity and walks, doesn’t run, out to meet him. He stands up, trowel in hand, all smiles.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Good day?’

‘Yes. Quite successful on the whole.’

‘I was just straightening up these things.’ He points to the terracotta tiles which border the flowerbeds. They have been askew since before Jessie moved into the house. He has already done one whole side of the garden and half of another. ‘I started to do some weeding, but I wasn’t really sure what are weeds and what aren’t.’

Jessie laughs. ‘I’m not, either.’

‘I just came out to hang up my clothes. It’s really beautiful out here.’

He has had a wonderful afternoon. All his life he has hated gardens. Too many of his boyhood days were spent in back-breaking labour, bent over the family vegetable patch. But something has happened to Patrick. He has closed the door of the drinks cupboard.

And he is up for grabs, floating free for a while and fair game for any of the gods. Demeter, goddess of the earth, ancient and solid and fragrant, has got to him first.

‘Do you know that you’ve got potatoes?’ says Patrick.

‘What?’ Potatoes is one thing that Jessie hasn’t got and has forgotten to buy.

‘Look.’ He leads her over into the furthest corner of the garden. The ground still rises there slightly where she once, ill-advisedly, built a compost heap. It is more than two years since she abandoned it because it brought rats. Since then she has done nothing in the garden, dreading what she might find if she started poking around in the undergrowth.