Empty World (11 page)

The sense of loss, the misery, was much worse than on that first morning after meeting her. He had a chest-pinching sense of desperation, a sickness in the stomach, an overwhelming need to gulp air. It was partly physical, then entirely so. As he passed the vacant hulk of a Green Line bus, halted forever outside the Brompton Oratory, cramp struck, a crippling pain that bit into his side. He had to dismount and wait, doubled over, for it to go away.

The enforced delay gave him a chance to think more clearly, despite the pain. He saw Lucy again in
his mind's eye and realized how absurd his imagining had been. It did not matter about Billie; he knew Lucy would not have betrayed him like that. The agony of cramp had ebbed. He straightened up and took a tentative breath, followed by a deeper one. Then he remounted the bicycle and rode on, no longer in a hurry.

He met Billie first, at the top of the stairs. She said, with a note of disgust:

“You're back sooner than we thought.”

He said indifferently: “Am I? Where's Lucy?”

She came out of the kitchen: all blue, in a guernsey with slacks of a lighter shade. She looked at him, past Billie.

“You're back!”

The words were the same, the intonation very different. Neil grinned cheerfully at her.

“Yes. I'm back.”

• • •

Billie next morning went foraging on her own, and returned excited over a discovery. She burst into the sitting room where Neil and Lucy were having coffee, and talked about it volubly. She had been exploring westwards along the river bank and had
found, in a small house in the poor area around Lots Road, an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine. As far as she could tell, it was in perfect working order. There was a pile of mending on the table beside it which showed that it had been in use.

Neil gathered, as she went on, that this was meant to represent the fulfilment of a long-standing desire of Lucy's. Apparently dress-making had been a hobby of hers in the past; and on some occasion she had expressed frustration to Billie over the fact that, while sewing machines were available for the taking, they were all useless without electrical power.

It would be easy enough, Billie suggested, to bring it over in a wheelbarrow: the house was not much more than a quarter of a mile away. She looked at Lucy expectantly; like a dog, Neil thought, expecting to be patted for performing a trick.

Lucy said: “Well, thank you, Billie, but. . . .”

“I could get it this afternoon.”

“I'm not sure it would be worth it, until things are more settled.”

“More settled? How?”

“If we're going to move out into the country eventually. . . . I think Neil's probably right about
that. We ought to start taking a longer view of things—plan for the future. And we'll need to travel as lightly as possible when we do move. For that matter, it probably won't be difficult to find an old sewing machine outside London. There were two in my village that I know of.”

Neil waited for Billie's reaction, expecting a heated argument at the least. But she merely stared at Lucy in silence for some moments; then said, in a quieter voice than usual:

“I think I'll make some tea.”

She walked heavily away towards the kitchen. Neil watched her go very cheerfully.

11

B
ILLIE WAS NOT ABASHED FOR
long. That evening after supper she came into the sitting room from the kitchen to find Neil playing a Stones tape on the recorder, and launched a bitter attack. He had no consideration, she said: he was always playing some horrible row or other. She was sick and tired of the Rolling Stones, and the rest of them. And he might at least turn the volume down.

As far as Neil could see, Billie didn't really like music at all. She had a few tapes which she occasionally put on, of fife and drum music and Scottish
ballads, and she would sit tapping her foot throughout, just out of time. He put his hand to the volume switch, and then changed his mind. Lucy quite liked the Stones; he saw no reason why they both should be deprived because Billie was tone-deaf.

He said as much, and the argument started. It raged till Lucy came in, when they both appealed to her. She said:

“We could have it a bit lower, Neil, couldn't we?”

He was willing to oblige her, and the volume
was
too high unless you were listening by yourself. He turned it down, and was rewarded by a smile from Lucy. Billie, though, was not satisfied. She turned from music to the fact that he had not helped with the washing up. Neil said hotly:

“I offered. Lucy told me to go and sit down.”

“And you were quick enough to do it!”

“I'd rather he did. There isn't room for three of us out there,” Lucy said.

“I don't see why he shouldn't take his turn.”

“Does it matter about turns? Look, I'll do it by myself in future. I'd rather.”

That didn't suit Billie, either. “No, you won't. I
just don't see why he should get away with things.”

Lucy managed to calm things down, but another row flared up later when Neil said something which Billie took to be a criticism of North Country ­people. That one raged until bedtime, and started afresh the following morning.

The difference, Neil recognized, lay on his side. Previously he had put up with Billie's criticisms and insults, out of fear that Lucy might side with her and yield to her pressure to abandon him. He was confident now that that wouldn't happen, and saw no reason why Billie should rant at him unchallenged.

Lucy made it plain that she detested these scenes, and did her best to stop them. Neil himself did make some effort not to get involved, but without much success. The trouble was that Billie had a knack of needling him which he found unendurable. He found everything about her—appearance, voice, the way she stamped across the room so that the floor boards creaked—intensely irritating. The detestation, he was fairly sure, was mutual.

Hostilities dragged on for days, and culminated
in the most blazing row of all, which started quite innocently. Billie during supper spoke of going next day to the bookshop in the King's Road: she was running short of reading matter. Neil, bearing in mind an appeal Lucy had made to him earlier to keep the peace, was doing his best to preserve harmony. He suggested they might all go along: there were some books he wanted, too.

The ridiculous starting point was that he, naturally, said “books” in the southern way, with the short vowel as opposed to the long diphthong Billie had used. She chose to think that he was correcting her accent, trying to be superior, and said so. The fact that he had been bending over backwards not to cause trouble made Neil angrier than usual. In no time the battle was underway, with Lucy's appeals and remonstrances falling on two sets of deaf ears. This time no holds at all were barred, and they gave full vent to their loathing for one another. The verbal battle raged on until Lucy suddenly got up and said, in a strained trembling voice quite unlike her normal tone:

“I can't stand this. I'm going to bed.”

She left the room and Billie and Neil sat for some minutes in silence. Then, without speaking, he left her and went to his own room.

• • •

It was some time before Neil got to sleep, and when he did he slept heavily. He was awakened by someone tugging at his arm, and realized simultaneously that it was broad daylight and that Billie was bending over him. He wondered hazily if she had come upstairs to continue the row, and struggled to sit up. Her face was tense, but with something other than anger. She was talking but he couldn't properly make her out. He said:

“What's that?”

“Wake
up.
I said it's Lucy. She's not here. She's gone.”

She told him more while he pulled clothes on. She had wakened earlier, at first light, and seen Lucy moving about. She had asked what she was doing, and Lucy had told her to go back to sleep: it was just that she was feeling restless. This was not particularly unusual—Lucy was a light sleeper and sometimes did get up very early—and Billie had turned
over and slept on. But when she had finally woken properly and got up herself there was no sign of Lucy in the house.

“She's probably gone for a breath of fresh air,” Neil said. He looked out of the window into wintry sunlight. “It's quite a fine day.”

“That's what I thought,” Billie said. “I waited for her to come back. But it was over an hour ago, and she hasn't.”

She looked more nervous than he had seen her; frightened almost. He realized she would have had to be alarmed to have wakened him. He said, feeling the beginning of apprehension himself:

“We'll go out and call for her.”

The street showed its usual shabby emptiness. They stood in front of the house, and called in turn. Nothing answered but a screaming gull.

The sun shone still and the morning was not too cold, but clouds were building up over the roofs westwards. Neil thought of Lucy the previous afternoon, pleading with him not to get into another fight with Billie, and of the tremor in her voice when she said: “I can't stand this. . . .” He turned to Billie:

“We'd better go and look for her.”

“Where?”

“Well, round here, to start with.”

A quarter of an hour of searching and calling brought no result. Then Neil had an idea:

“The bookshop. . . .”

Billie nodded. “She might have gone up there. We'd better take the bikes.”

That was when they found the bicycle Lucy used was missing. They took their own and rode to the King's Road bookshop together. There was no sign of her; no answer when, in turn, they called her name. They looked at one another. Billie's face was strained. She was going to blame him, Neil thought—say how everything had been all right until he came. He did not care if she did: nothing mattered except the fact that Lucy was missing. But instead she said:

“Swears & Wells. . . .”

“What?”

“We were talking the other day about fur coats, with the winter setting in. She said we ought to go to Oxford Street, and choose some.”

Neil nodded. Anything was better than standing here.

“Right. Let's go.”

They cycled, in silence but side by side, through Knightsbridge and across the park to Marble Arch; then down the gloomy canyon of Oxford Street. Swears & Wells, when they reached it, was as blank and forbidding as all the other department stores. Moreover its doors were locked, and there was no sign of a forced entry. They checked all round, then stood together on the pavement under a lowering sky. Neil said:

“We might as well get back.”

Billie said nothing, but nodded. She looked as though she might be going to cry. He got on his bicycle, and she followed him.

They had not gone much more than a hundred yards before it started raining—a few heavy spots, soon turning into a drenching downpour. They had to take shelter in the doorway of one of the shops. It was a photographer's, the window full of expensive-­looking cameras. In front of them the rain sheeted down and the gutter soon was running full. Lightning
flashed, and he saw Billie shiver when the thunder followed.

He supposed he ought to console her, with words if nothing else, but the thought was unbearable. Earlier he had been able to forget his dislike; there had even been some sense of alliance since they were both seeking the same person. Now, inactive because of the rain, he was forced to think about Lucy, and the more he thought the more frightened he became.

It had been absurd to imagine she had gone on a foraging expedition of her own, either to the bookshop or the furriers. It was not the sort of thing she would do. Nor, he was sure now, had she abandoned them because of the bad feeling between Billie and him. And if neither of those explanations for her being missing was right, there seemed only one possibility: that something had happened to her.

She had gone out early, and taken her bicycle. In the morning dusk she might not have seen a pothole in the road, might have fallen and twisted an ankle—maybe broken a leg. He thought of that, willing it to be so, to keep the other image out of his mind. But
it would not be rejected: he saw her cycling, saw the spotted beast lurking in the shadows, crouching, springing. . . .

Billie said: “Oh God, I wish it'd stop.”

Neil did not answer. He hated her more than ever—for having gone back to sleep when Lucy went out, for having suggested this wild goose chase into central London . . . for being alive when Lucy might be dead. It was irrational, he realized, but he could not help it.

The rain slackened at last, and by unspoken agreement they got back on their bicycles and headed west. A thin drizzle persisted, and Neil was soon soaked to the skin. He did not mind the discomfort, welcomed it even: to some extent it stopped him thinking.

They abandoned their bicycles outside the house. Following Billie up the steps to the front door, Neil thought of what he was going to do. A quick rub-down, dry clothes and waterproofs, and out again. If anything had happened to her. . . .

He heard Billie's exclamation of relief as he reached the top of the stairs. It was only then he noticed there were lights on in the sitting room, and
felt the warmth from the paraffin heater. He ran the last few steps, jostling Billie as he entered. Lucy was in her usual armchair, sewing.

Billie said: “What happened to you? We thought. . . .”

She did not finish the sentence. Lucy said:

“It was a fine morning, so I went for a ride. I got as far as Chiswick Reach. I was luckier than you—I got back just before the rain started. You're both drenched. Go and change, and I'll put the kettle on.”

• • •

Neil was not alone with Lucy until the following morning when Billie made her delayed expedition to the bookshop. Neil did not, on this occasion, volunteer to go with her. She asked Lucy if she wanted to come. With satisfaction, Neil heard Lucy say:

“I don't think so, today. I've got things I want to do.” She smiled at Billie. “If you see a new cookbook that might be useful you can bring me it.”

When Billie had clattered down the stairs and the front door had closed behind her, Neil said:

“Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Go out on your own yesterday morning.”

“I told you—it was a fine morning, I felt like a ride.”

She had a strange look: defensive, distant. It made him feel defensive himself, and slightly ­nettled. He said:

“You could have left a message. We were worried about you.”

“I didn't mean to be gone long.”

“But you were.”

She paused. “I wanted to think about things.”

“What things?”

“Just things.”

Her evasiveness irritated him further. He said, aware of the sharpness in his voice:

“You should have thought of us—wondering what had happened to you.”

She looked at him in silence for a moment. In a small cold voice, she said:

“Perhaps I should. I'm sorry.” She didn't sound sorry. Her voice still colder, she said: “Weren't you going to see to that broken window?”

She turned away and went into the kitchen, where he heard the sound of pans being vigorously
cleaned. He resented that, too, and the cutting little reminder about the window. He angrily set about getting the materials together and went to work on the glass. It was a poor way of spending one of the rare hours without Billie on the scene, but that was Lucy's fault.

His anger evaporated while he worked. It didn't matter whose fault it was; the point was that minutes were passing and all too soon Billie would be back. He finished puttying the glass, wiped his hands on a rag, and walked towards the kitchen.

He was halfway across the sitting room when Lucy entered it. They stopped and looked at each other. She still had that strange look. She said scoldingly:

“You've got putty on your shirt.”

She came and stood in front of him and put her hand to his sleeve. The smell of the scent she wore mingled with the oily smell of putty. He put his hand on her shoulders, felt her draw back, but caught and kissed her all the same.

She was very still. He had the feeling he had ruined everything. She pulled back again, and he let
her go. He said, as awkward as the kiss had been:

“I'm sorry.”

She was smiling, and shaking her head.

• • •

He looked over her shoulder when they separated again. Billie was standing at the top of the stairs; for once she had come up quietly.