Easy Peasy (20 page)

She closes her eyes for a moment, sighs. ‘Does it matter now?'

She has not asked me how I know.

So if it is not Kris who is the danger, then…

The question hangs there between us, unasked but plainly in existence.
Who is she?
No. I do not want to know. A sensation in my gut like fingers slithering but if I know nothing definite they cannot get a hold. I will not ask her who it is.

‘I've been feeling … I don't know … itchy, twitchy. You know? I love you and I like living with you. I will not leave you if you can stand it but knowing you, Zel … I don't think you could stand it.' The smile wry now. Loving?

I can't help it. ‘Who is she?'

‘No one, no one in particular.'

How can I believe her when her eyes won't meet mine? She is such a terrible liar it is almost endearing.
Almost
. Her glasses are pushed up into her hair, her lipstick is even more smudged than usual. Her hair is going grey, for Christ's sake. In some lights she looks old. I like it. It makes me safe that she looks so much older than me but that is crazy because I am not safe. I am anything but safe.

‘Who said anything about a
she?'

‘Not a
man?
' For an instant surprise jams itself between myself and the pain.

‘No, course not.' But you never know with her. She is maddening.

I flinched away from the hand reaching out to touch me and went to the window. Streets, houses, sky – across which an aeroplane makes a slow white scratch. Trying to breathe into the cramped space of my lungs, discovering my jaw was clenched, I experienced rage. A sudden flash of my fist in her face, smashing her perfect nose.

But no. Instead I went out walking. She didn't try to stop me. I walked until it grew dark. I sat in the Minster breathing the antique air, listening to the pure voices of boys rising and evaporating on the stone. I sat in a café and let a cup of tea grow cold. I walked home several times but never went in. I did not know what to say. Before I went back, I wanted to know what to say.

I walked back to the Minster and gazed up at the bulk of it crouching against the glassy blue of the sky. A beautiful night, I suppose, crisp, shrill stars, an edge of frost. Late, where did the time go? The night a speeded-up film, lights blinking on and off, traffic, ropes of light, shop fronts dimly illuminated. My feet hurt, my shoes not made for walking. I stopped and looked in a shoe shop. Saw some comfortable leather boots, thought, what if I take a stone and smash the window and take the boots and run? Why should I ever be caught? And walking on, painfully now, shoes tightening with every step – and the growing sensation of someone behind me. I remember noticing nobody until then, though people there must have been. But now, late, alone, a male, following. The fear almost a relief at first because it was something else. I walked fast, biting my lips against the pinch in my toes, I walked to Second Hand Rose. The security shutters were down, the lights out, but standing back I could see a leak of light from between the curtains that showed Connie was in her flat above the shop.

I rang the bell. No answer. Awareness of the figure behind me lurking made me prickle. A thought: if I was murdered now … how sorry she would be. I dared to look round but the figure had hidden himself. I rang and rang: the bell was loud up there. Connie would have to come down. I stood with my back against the door, breath shallow and panicky, scanning the street, my thumb pressed over my shoulder on the bell, a long far off fizz of sound. Eventually I heard the thud of energetic feet on stairs, the rattling of locks. The door spilled light and I shoved my way in and slammed the door behind me. My heart was beating fast and hard and blackness crowded in at the edges of my vision. I bent down, my hands on my knees, breathing deeply, staving off a faint.

‘What's up?'

I looked up at the young stranger who had opened the door. He was regarding me oddly, there in the half-light among the racks of clothes.

‘Thought I was being followed.'

‘Want me to go and look?'

I shook my head. Maybe I'd imagined it, maybe not. It hardly mattered now that I was safe inside.

‘I'm Zelda,' I said, straightening up.

‘Yeah I know. Ian – I'm with …' he nodded at the door to the stairs. He was
very
young, hardly twenty by the look of him. His bare chest was smooth, and there was the glint of separate, soft gold whiskers curling on his chin – though not what you could call a beard.

‘All right if I go up?' I was already moving towards the stairs.

Connie, at the top, was dressed in a long white Victorian nightgown. A stock nightgown.

‘Zelda.' She was in the act of lighting a cigarette, squinting through the bluish smoke. I was looking at the nightgown that went so oddly with her skew-whiff orange bee-hive. It was the most decorous thing I'd ever seen her wear – except she had no right to be wearing it. For once I did not care.

‘Can I sleep here?'

‘Course. Have to be the sofa.' Her fag-holder pinched in the corner of her mouth, she started tipping clothes and papers on the floor. ‘What's the problem?'

‘Coffee?' Ian said. He had put a Greenpeace T-shirt on now and tied his hair back. I recognised him. He'd often been in the shop with his girlfriend choosing clothes and getting Connie to make sense of his pornographic dreams. I threw Connie a look but she refused to catch it. She fetched me a blanket.

‘No thanks.' I sat down and pulled the tight shoes off my throbbing feet. ‘You get back to bed.'

‘Zelda …'

‘Not now, Connie,' I snapped. I had to be alone, away from Foxy and alone. I wasn't in the mood for Connie and her peccadilloes.

‘I'll say good-night then.' I watched a worm of soft ash slowly bend and fall from the tip of her cigarette on to the bodice of the nightgown.

‘Yeah.'

The bedroom door closed behind them. I could hear muffled voices, and Connie's deep cough – but no sex, thank God. I could not have stood that.

I lay down and curled up under the smoky blanket. I closed my eyes and waited for my heart to slow. I experimented with a thought: why should I care if Foxy has other lovers? The cushion was scratchy under my cheek. I shifted. Outside I heard an ambulance siren in the distance. What if we both had other lovers?

I tried it but found anger rising and struggling in my chest. If you love someone with a passion then how can you share them?
I
cannot. I could not bear it. I could never switch off my imagination. How could I rest easy with Foxy in someone else's bed. But
she
could bear it, wanted it. What does that mean? That she is a better, a wiser, a more generous person than me? Or that she does not love me with a passion that corresponds to mine?

I wanted to run, to somewhere she doesn't know, where there was no possibility of contact. And then I thought of Wanda. I had received a postcard, sent via my mother, from Vassily, telling me how ill Wanda was now, how much she wanted to see me. I'd shoved it behind the clock, thinking feebly that I
should
visit but making no plans.

Curled foetally on Connie's sofa, I decided that to Wanda's was where I must run.

2

OK then, you get your way, it's finished. When I leave Wanda's I'll go and stay with my mother or … I don't know. I will be away for a week. While I'm away I want you to move out
.

I want no trace of you in that flat when I return
.

The flat might be in your name but it's you who did this, ruined everything
.

I'm going to a solicitor who says

Remembering all the good times we've had together, all the promises you've made, I've thought you made, though if I think about it I see how careful you were
not
to make
.

There's a postcard from Kris hidden in the kitchen drawer, came when you were out couldn't bear to give it to you
.

All my love (still) Kris.

Well I hope you're happy
.

I don't care who you have any more, Kris, Dana, woman, man, donkey, banana I don't give a shit
.

You are a fucking cow
.

But I love you
.

I hate you

Remember the time when you gave me that

The stairs creak. The carpet glistens nylon in the electric light. I turn the handle gently. I don't want to wake Wanda, if she's sleeping, but no, but she's sitting up in bed, painting her nails. The bed is strewn with grubby cotton-wool balls smeared with old brown varnish. The room reeks of acetone.

‘False,' she says.

‘What?' I put the mugs down on top of the pile of magazines on her bedside table.

‘Nails. Fell out with the chemo. That's a
very
rare reaction.' She sounds proud. ‘I've stuck them on but I want them
this
colour. Tango. You can't buy them this colour.'

I sit down on the edge of her bed. She paints a final nail, screws the lid back on the varnish bottle and splays out her orange spiked fingers.

‘What d'you think?'

‘Yes.'

‘All those years, trying not to bite my nails, longing for talons. That's so easy with false.'

‘Mmmm.'

Her rings are loose on her wedding finger.

‘That was nice knowing you were downstairs while I was asleep.' The smile on her face which has grown so narrow reminds me of Vassily's. I have never seen a likeness before, because her face used to be round and there was all the hair. I hadn't quite been able to suppress a gasp when I'd seen her this time. She has no hair left at all. ‘Half of it went,' she'd said, ‘so I thought sod this and had the rest shaved. Stan did it.' Her scalp is very pink and fragile, the ridges of her skull showing through. Now I notice how small and delicate her ears are, each one pierced several times with silver studs and rings. Since I've been downstairs she's tied a paisley scarf round her head and put on some make-up.

‘That smell won't do you any good,' I say. ‘Shall I open the window?'

‘If you like. I spilt a bit on the bed. I reckon you could get high on this.' She picks up her sheet and sniffs.

I force up the sash. The roar of the traffic and a cold blast of its fumes fills the room. I slam it down again.

‘Don't mind the sound of the traffic,' she says, ‘that make me think of Stan. He'll be back, tomorrow. Didn't want to go at all and leave me. But you know. Money and that.'

I hand her her tea.

‘Camomile, thanks. You
are
good. That's funny you turning up like this, just when Stan's away, just when I can do with a bit of company.'

‘It's been much too long.'

She nods.

‘Anything to eat?' I say. I feel out of my depth with someone so ill, I don't know what to do.

She pulls a face. She looks very striking in her headscarf, and, curiously, younger – or ageless rather. ‘Can't fancy anything now. Talk to me instead.' She pats the bed beside her.

I'd arrived mid-afternoon. She'd been watching the television, I could see the screen flickering in a corner of a room, otherwise I might have assumed she was out, she took so long to come to the door. When she did I had to smother my alarm. It was a shock to see Wanda – who lived in my imagination in a cloud of variously coloured fuzzy hair – bald, her face devoid of make-up. I really did not recognise her for too long a moment. But her dressing-gown was velvet, like the one I remembered from twenty years before – though surely
not
the same one. That was the only Wanda-ish thing about her.

‘Vassily said you'd come,' was what she said as she reached up to kiss me on the cheek. I am not tall but she reached up. I had not realised she was so small. Her body in my arms as I hugged her was soft and insubstantial. She had been very tired. ‘I was just off to bed,' she said, ‘but you'll stop, won't you?' She had gone upstairs and I'd gone for a walk through the town and down the steep hill to the sea-front. I'd stood on the promenade, watching the grey gulls bob on the darkening sea, attempting to assimilate Wanda as she was with what she has become. I wanted not to be shocked, appear shocked, when I was with her. I wanted to look her in the eye. I wanted to help her and I wanted to know about her. I wanted to ask her about Daddy.

I bought bread, fruit, eggs and a bottle of wine, in case she was up to a drink. I certainly needed one.

Now her face against the pillows is bright, vivacious. The crimson of her lipstick reminds me of Foxy and I catch my breath.

‘How's your love life?' she asks as if reading my mind.

I say nothing for a moment feeling the leaden weight of it in my chest. She leans forward, the question in her eyes, interest. I feel a corner lift, the possibility of a little lightness. Maybe I can talk to her.

‘My lover is bored,' I say, flinching at the dull, doom-tolling timbre of the word. ‘Yes, bored. Wants other … you know. Don't know what to do.'

‘And do
you
still want him?'

‘Yes, I … at least I think so. And it's
her,'
I add, daring. No idea what her reaction will be.

‘Her? Well fancy that.' She leans back and narrows her eyes. ‘Just fancy.'

I smile and the corners of my mouth lift the weight and do let in lightness.

‘I used to wonder …' she said. ‘I never had any experience of women, but … well you can't help wondering, can you?'

I find myself telling her all about Foxy. I never expected this. She listens very well, nodding, making all the right noises in all the right places. But what can she say? No good seeking an answer from her, from anywhere outside myself. The answer is in me somewhere and that is the only place it is. But the air of confidence is exhilarating and comforting at the same time. I finish talking and there is a long pause.