Empty World (12 page)

12

B
ILLIE MADE NO COMMENT, THEN
or later. Lucy, when she was briefly absent, said to him:

“Try to make things easy for her.”

“Billie?”

“Yes.”

“If she'll let me.”

“She knows she's . . . a spare part. We mustn't rub it in.”

Neil liked hearing her say “we.” And in his present mood anything Lucy wanted he wanted. He said:

“I'll do what I can. It'll be difficult. She'll hate me more than ever now.”

But to his surprise Billie's attitude had changed. The sniping and criticism stopped completely. She appeared to go out of her way to be amiable to him. When the project for moving to the country was brought up again, she supported it enthusiastically. Almost too enthusiastically: she put forward ideas and suggestions without hostility but with a noisy assurance that Neil thought was even more irritating.

He much preferred to talk about it in the rare moments of being alone with Lucy. Spring was the obvious time for the move, and they considered the various possibilities. The difficulty was in deciding which to choose. In the end they agreed they would head first towards Oxfordshire. That was Neil's idea: he wanted to see the countryside in which Lucy had grown up.

Later, they thought, they would wander westwards, into the Cotswolds. They had a feeling, persuasive because they shared it, that they would find what they were looking for among the honey-­coloured villages and farmhouses deep in those friendly hills. Billie reappeared at that point, and Neil did what he could to look pleasant. It wasn't easy.

Nor did it get easier. He was able to control himself when Lucy was present, but increasingly when he was alone with Billie he found himself snapping at her. The fact that she accepted this meekly did not improve matters. He grew to loathe her subservience even more than he had her brashness and hostility. He tried to take refuge in blankness, in not responding to her in any way, but it didn't work. The fact was that every moment of her being there was a moment in which he could not be alone with Lucy. And this was something which would continue indefinitely. In the old world there would have been some hope of escape: there was none here. The sight of her coming into the room, her footsteps on the stairs, set his teeth on edge.

• • •

Billie had kept a record of the passing days; she had hung up a calendar on the sitting room wall and punctiliously marked it each morning. So it was she who drew their attention to the approach of Christmas. She was insistent on making it an occasion, and proposed an expedition so that they could get presents to give one another.

Neil thought it pointless, and said so to Lucy. She nodded.

“I know. We've got all we need. But let's humour her. Please?”

He shrugged. “All right. But don't expect a tiara.”

She caught his hand, smiling. “I won't.”

They went to Bond Street together; then separated to make their choices. Neil was soon back at the rendezvous, and waited restlessly until Lucy joined him. He was uneasy about her being away even for half an hour; he had wanted her to take the gun but she had firmly refused.

Billie was the last to return, and looked pleased with herself. She cycled ahead of them as they made their way back against a biting wind, singing, or rather shouting carols as she went. That evening—Christmas Eve, she reminded them—she played carols on the cassette player, well beyond the point of boredom.

They exchanged presents the following morning. Lucy had got a silver-backed brush and mirror set for Billie, and Neil gave her soft leather boots. Her
presents to them, not just gift-wrapped but decorated with a profusion of seals and ribbons, were far more magnificent: for Neil a gold Swiss chronometer, showing the time all over the world, attached to a gold bracelet which it was a distinct effort to lift; for Lucy, a necklace of diamonds and sapphires.

Finally they opened their presents to each other. Neil had got a small book of love poems for Lucy while hers to him was as simple: a set of detailed maps of England.

“So you can find the way for us,” she said, smiling. “I thought of getting a compass, as well, but I didn't see one.”

Billie's exuberance faded, and was replaced by a moroseness that lasted the rest of the day. Neil wondered if she thought they had actually planned to mock her costly gifts by the modesty of their own to one another. He couldn't help being pleased about it. It was another sign of the closeness between him and Lucy, a further reminder that where two was company, three was none.

Lucy did her best to sustain a festive spirit by cooking them a special meal, finishing with plum
pudding and brandy sauce; and producing a box of crackers to go with it. They all put on paper hats but it was hopeless. Billie sat most of the time without speaking, and went early to bed.

• • •

Snow came soon after; at first in a flurry that melted as it fell but later in a steady down-drift settling more and more thickly on roofs and ledges and pavements. It snowed all day and much of the night; then, after a dry grey morning with the wind whipping fallen snow into drifts against the walls, it set in again.

The blizzard continued off and on for several days, and afterwards the going was too difficult to venture far. They only went out to collect snow to melt: the pipes had frozen and taps were no longer working. Most of the time they were obliged to stay indoors.

During this period of confinement, Neil found Billie getting on his nerves worse than ever. She had got over her sulks and was trying to be helpful but there was something about her appearance of cheerfulness that maddened him. She had always had an
annoying habit of whistling through her teeth: now she did it almost continuously, and always the same tune—“The Cock o' the North,” off-key. In the end, when Lucy was in the kitchen, he said to her in a low but savage voice:

“If you don't stop that whistling, I swear I'll kill you! I mean it.”

She looked at him, crestfallen. “I'm sorry, Neil.”

He turned away without answering. Even his own name, spoken in her voice, rasped on his nerves.

Next morning, though, they awoke to bright sunshine, and the sound of water dripping from the eaves. The thaw was rapid, and by mid-day the roads were passable. Billie, euphoric again, proposed that she and Neil make an expedition to the Supermarket.

“Do we need to?” He looked at Lucy. “How are supplies?”

“Low in cooking oil and nearly out of potatoes. But we could manage for a couple of days.”

“It might snow again,” Billie said.

“Doesn't look like it.”

Neil pointed to the unblemished blue above the roofs opposite. Billie said:

“I don't think we ought to take a chance on that.”

Lucy nodded at him from behind her, urging him to be accommodating. He said:

“All right. I'll come with you.”

He slipped the gun into his anorak pocket before leaving the house; it had become a routine action by now. Outside it was even better than it looked: a mild spring-like day with water gurgling in the gutters. There were patches of snow in places, but not enough to impede their bicycles.

They rode side by side and Billie chattered cheerfully at first. Neil did not respond—he did not feel like it and Lucy wasn't there to spur him—and after a time Billie fell silent, too.

They parked their bicycles and Neil pushed open the door of the Supermarket. A window had collapsed during the blizzard and snow had drifted in. It was melting messily, with soggy cornflake packets sticking out like artificial boulders. Year by year, of course, the ruin would increase and spread—the winters dragging things down, and spring and summer turning seeds into saplings and finally into foundation-wrenching trees. But it wouldn't matter:
they would be a long way from here, in a place where nature could be tamed.

He and Billie had split up. He heard her moving about in the kitchenware department, and remembered her talking of getting Lucy a new casserole dish to replace one that had cracked. He put a tin of oil and half a dozen tins of potatoes by the door, where they could be easily picked up, and wandered along the aisles to see if there was anything else worth taking. Sardines: they must be getting low on them. He scooped up tins, and carried them over to put with the rest.

He heard Billie coming while he was bending over the stack of tins. He paid little attention, but then was struck by something: her footsteps had a quieter, more purposeful tread than usual. He straightened up, and turned to look. As he did, she rushed the last few paces, the kitchen knife bright in her upraised hand.

Neil tried to fling himself to one side, but she was too close. He felt the blow on his chest, seeming to punch more than stab, and staggered, almost falling. But he could still think clearly. He thrust a hand
in his pocket, and found the butt of the revolver.

Billie came at him again. Her face was strained, as though she were concentrating hard. He pressed the trigger, heard the hammer click futilely, and was just in time to throw up his left hand and grasp the wrist of the hand that held the knife.

He managed to divert that blow, but she was struggling to get at him and her strength surprised and shocked him. They swayed together, and he felt the warmth of her breath. His chest felt as though a heavy weight was pressing against it. He had a frightening sense of weakness, a despairing conviction that she had him at her mercy, and would show none.

Unexpectedly he had a recollection of the last time he had wrestled with someone—his brother Andy, on a Sunday morning, with his father calling out to them to keep quiet. On that occasion he had been in the ascendancy, until Andy suddenly switched from push to pull and, caught off balance, he had crashed across the bed on to the floor. He tried it now, yielding to Billie's straining effort, dodging, and wrenching hard. She came flying past him and slammed into a display shelf. Bottles of sauce and
tubes of tomato puree cascaded round her as she fell.

Neil did not wait for her to get up. He ran for the door, grabbed his bicycle, and pedalled away. The weight on his chest was turning into pain, and he had noticed red specks in the drift of snow outside the Supermarket door. At the corner he risked a look back, but there was no-one in sight. The pain was worse and so was the feeling of weakness, but he forced his legs to pedal faster.

• • •

He was even more faint by the time he reached the house and pushed home the bolt inside the door. He leaned against it for a moment, clutching his chest. There was blood around the gaping slit in the anorak and on his trousers. Drops spotted the carpet as he went upstairs.

Lucy's face whitened when she saw him.

“You're hurt! What happened?”

He told her, briefly; it was painful to talk, even to breathe. She led him to the bathroom, supporting him, and eased off the anorak and the bloody shirt underneath. Although very pale, she was calm. She examined the wound closely.

“It's nasty,” she said. “But not deep. It must have slid off your ribs.”

“She meant to stab me in the back.” He winced. “She would have, if I hadn't turned to face her.”

“I'll sponge it. With antiseptic. It's going to hurt, I'm afraid.”

She busied herself at the medicine chest while Neil held a towel to stanch the blood. He said:

“I wonder how long she's been planning that?”

“It was probably on impulse—a sort of brain-storm.”

Neil reached painfully into his pocket, and produced the gun. He flicked the barrel.

“Empty. She'd taken the bullets out.”

Lucy stared at him. “Then she really meant to kill you. . . .”

Her face had tightened; it was as though she only now grasped what had happened. Neil nodded.

“I bolted the door downstairs.”

“And almost succeeded!” Lucy drew in breath, a small wail of horror. “You'd have been dead.”

He managed a smile. “I'm not, though. Ready with the sulphuric acid?”

It was more painful than he had expected, and he
could not help crying out at one point. Lucy looked at him with concern, but carried on with the cleansing until she was satisfied she had done a thorough job. The rest, the dressing and bandaging, was comparatively easy going. Afterwards she sat him in an armchair while she made tea.

Neil said: “I was ready for that.” He sipped it. “Whew! Brandy?”

She nodded. “I thought you needed something.”

“Good,” he said appreciatively. He felt it warming him. “I wonder where she is. Or how she is. It was a heavy fall and might have knocked her out. I didn't stay to check.”

“I hope she's dead.”

It was said calmly, but with conviction. Neil moved in the chair, and felt the pain pull at him.

“I don't think she'll come back here. But just in case she does. . . .”

“We mustn't take chances.”

It was odd, hearing the echo of Billie's remark about food supplies; odder to realize that had been only about an hour ago. He said:

“Bullets. On the bookcase shelf. Can you bring me a box?”

He reloaded the gun, and felt safer. Lucy said:

“She might try again. She could be lying in wait for you—anywhere, any time. We'll move, as soon as you're fit to travel.”

“I'm fit now.”

“No.” Her tone admitted no argument, “In a day or two, maybe.”

• • •

As the afternoon faded they sat and talked; about the future chiefly, about the place they were going to find, and what they would make of it. A vegetable garden, a potato patch, an orchard with apple—and pear-trees, cherries and plums and damsons. Eventually, maybe, a wheat-field, and they would grind corn and make their own bread. And animals, of course: hens, pigs, a small herd of cattle. Hard work, but worth the effort.

And it was a future, too, from which an unpleasant cloud had lifted. There was a positive joy for Neil in the thought of not hearing the flat voice grinding on, the heavy unmistakeable thump of her footsteps.