Her Living Image (24 page)

Councillor Bellamy had asked the same question, Carolyn recalled. They had held a site meeting on Thursday and he had turned up instead of the committee chairman they were expecting. He was the
new leader of the Council. He was a broad-chested, powerfully built man, with manners like a bulldozer.

“What happens when kids start breaking in here, eh? What’s your security like?”

“It – it’s not a prison,” she replied.

“I’ll tell you something, young lady, and I’ll tell you straight. If it’d been down to me, this park would never’ve been sited here. It’s a mess – the
whole area’s a mess. You mark my words – within twelve months of it opening, it’ll be a wreck.”

“Why?”

He shook his head irritably, as if she was stupid.

“Wrong area for a park. Waste of money, here. They won’t appreciate it. A prison’d be more useful, if you want my opinion.”

Ron had winked at her and steered Bellamy away, down towards the foundations of the leisure centre.

The answers Caro wished she had given him were still boiling and bubbling inside her.

“P–plant again. When they see the trees come back – and come back again – they’ll stop eventually. They haven’t lived near anything worth preserving
before.” She turned round slowly on the spot, critically examining the contours of the park’s three little hills (like molehills, Clare told herself) against the grey sky.

“It’s not wonderful – I know that – there’s hundreds of things wrong. I would have done it differently – OK, you know about the blind garden. But the point
is, at least it’s here – it’s a start. No matter how badly designed it is, it’s a thousand times better than what was here before. And I’ve salvaged some of the blind
garden, and I’ve got the tree planting. And next time I’ll have more – and more – till I finally
do
have the power to do something big, make something big.”

They walked on across the cleared area in silence. Snow was settling thickly on the raw earth, now, and on the blacker areas which had already been topsoiled. When they reached the canal Caro
turned right to walk along it. On the opposite side the canal’s former contents, removed by dredger, made a barricade of frozen mud and rubbish six feet high. Bicycle frames, pram wheels,
parts of cars, and nameless slimy objects protruded from the frozen mud like the jumbled contents of a newly excavated grave. Clare stopped and folded her arms, facing it.

“Caro, this is wonderful. This makes me glad I flew three thousand miles to see it. Millside’s answer to Guggenheim. All the galleries of New York do not contain its equal –”

Caro linked her elbow through Clare’s arm and turned her homewards.

“Shut up. Tell me what you’ve been doing, while I’ve been moving mountains.”

“Oh – exercising my cynicism on the American Women’s Movement; falling hopelessly in love; visiting my mother; failing to see my son. That sort of thing.”

The summary did not invite closer questioning. Caro nodded, consciously slowing herself down to Clare’s pace. Clare was more brittle and self-contained than Caro could remember ever having
seen her. They walked on home in silence.

Alan’s unhappiness was erratic and Carolyn never really discovered what it was about. She thought that he probably didn’t know himself. He was simply moody, he
went up and down more than she did. Over time, as that characterization formulated itself and stuck, Carolyn no longer wondered why. It was something to accept about Alan, like his height, his
untidiness, his charm. He was moody.

It was irritating – sometimes infuriating. There were rows. Once when she had invited various friends (including two of Alan’s people from work) to Sunday dinner, he announced in
the morning that he couldn’t stand it, and went off for a walk. He rang her at ten-thirty p.m., from a pub twelve miles away, asking for a lift home. Patsy from next door had to come in to
babysit. Carolyn had coped with cooking and hostessing and children, and covered for Alan with hints of illness among relatives. She was exhausted, angry and suspicious. Alan, when she found him,
was exceedingly drunk. His tale that he had been in the pub since it opened was clearly true.

Gradually she learned not to ask questions about these episodes, because it enraged him and made him turn his venom and misery against her. If she left him to himself he seemed to come round
more quickly. She could not stand it when he was angry, and went to great lengths to avoid confrontations. Several times, she had been frightened that he would break something, or hurt somebody.
Worse than that, she was frightened in a way she never spelt out to herself: for what might happen, in such a complete loss of control; for what irrevocable thing might be said, for what
destruction of things more precious than merely physical might be unleashed.

Music was the clearest signal of his moods. Carolyn hardly ever used the stereo. It was Alan’s, as was the growing collection of classical records and tapes. At the beginning he had
never listened to music, but since Cathy’s birth he had started buying it. When he was depressed he shut himself in the study and played the same things over and over again, until Carolyn was
filled with the kind of anxiety that made her say “Yes” to the children without knowing what they’d asked. Brahms, Symphony No. 2, Bach, Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor. She hated
the sound of them. And she knew he knew she didn’t understand them. It gave her the same unease she felt on the rare occasions when they visited Lucy and Trevor. But he had played the violin;
his mother was a musician, she reminded herself. When he suggested buying a piano for the children, she was relieved. If the children could
do it, they would bring it within her
world.

It was a long time before she realized how much he was drinking. The Sunday dinner episode seemed a lone instance, and excusable (if it was at all excusable) in that he had been twelve miles
from home; a pub was the obvious place to spend the evening. They kept assorted alcohol in the house, and Carolyn replenished stocks whenever guests were coming, but it did not disappear with undue
speed. Carolyn knew of course that Alan’s job was not the nine-to-five sort. Obviously he spent a lot of evenings (most) working late, and sometimes went for a quick drink before coming home.
But he never appeared drunk. Often she was glad he had been for a drink, because then he was more talkative and cheerful, and they were more likely to sit and have a pleasant half-hour over a nip
of whisky or a mug of Horlicks, and go to bed and make love. And she was usually relieved when he was late home because she seemed to have things to do, things that just couldn’t be fitted
into a day of getting breakfast, cleaning up, walking Chris and Annie to school, dawdling for half an hour before taking Cathy to Nursery, rushing home to use the precious hour and a half of
Cathy’s absence to shop or clean or (delicious luxury) have a cup of coffee and a child-free talk with Patsy next door, collecting Cathy, collecting the others, giving them dinner, walking
the older two back to school, preparing the evening meal, doing the washing, playing with Cathy, collecting the children from school again . . . and so on. Often there was ironing, or letting hems
up or down, or messy things like making jam or decorating, to be done in the evenings when the children were in bed. If Alan had to work late it seemed fair enough for her to do the same. If he was
home she felt that she should sit and relax with him, and he was restless and impatient – or else he watched television in a moronic stupor which she thought excluded her, but then asked in
hurt tones why she wasn’t sitting with him, when she left the room to get something useful done.

Even after that weekend which she saw in retrospect as a milestone, and came to regard (when she knew the end) as the beginning of the end – even after that weekend, she did not think
of him as an alcoholic, but rather as someone who was dangerously susceptible to alcohol. An alcoholic, she thought, woke up and reached for the sherry, and kept bottles hidden behind books on the
shelves. Alan was simply moody, and liable to drink when he was down. She needed to keep a closer eye on him at such times – as she did with the children when they had colds (which made them
more susceptible to nasty ear infections).

That weekend gave her a taste of a fear which she had not experienced before; a metallic, lingering taste which it was impossible to wash from the mouth. He had been moody for some time, and
busy every single evening. Then he said he would have to work all the coming weekend, to finish some drawings. Carolyn decided to take the children to visit her parents, because it was something
that Alan hated doing anyway. It was easier to go into the city and out again by train, than to drive on her own with all three children. They caught an early train on Saturday morning, and
returned at four-thirty on Sunday.

Alan was not at the station to meet them, as he had promised to be. After waiting half an hour, with Cathy refusing to be carried and continually trying to run in front of the taxis, and
Chris and Annie repeatedly shouting “He’s coming now” when he wasn’t, Carolyn telephoned the house. There was no reply. She took a taxi home. The curtains were drawn,
although it was not dark. She was scared, and made the children wait in the car while she went and unlocked the house. Alan was asleep on the sofa. There were a lot of bottles on and under the
coffee table. There were dozens of beer cans, and he had finished all the alcohol in the house, except for a half-bottle of liqueur. She shepherded the children into the kitchen and gave them their
tea. She looked in on him once, but their noise was not having any effect on him. There was vomit in the sink.

“What’s wrong with Daddy?”

“He’s not very well. He’s been working hard, he needs a rest.” She was as calm as a sleepwalker. Had he been alone, or had someone else been here? She had to force
herself to look in the bedroom, but the bed was neatly made as she had left it. She put the children to bed with automatic calm, and sat hugging her knees on the landing until she was sure they
were all asleep.

He was snoring loudly, his mouth open. The room stank of alcohol.

“Alan,
ALAN
!”
She shrank from touching him. There was a bluish stubble on his chin, his posture reminded her of old men on park
benches. But she had to shake him to make him wake up. He sat up with a jerk, and stared at her for seconds before he showed any recognition.

“Carolyn – ? Lyn! What are you doing – how did you – ?”

“I got a taxi.”

“Are the kids – ?”

“In bed.”

“God – I should’ve – I’m sorry
–
I should’ve met you –
”

“What have you done?” she asked quietly, her control wavering.

He stood up unsteadily and waved at the room around him.

“Mike came round and we had a few jars. . . . God . . . I feel as if I’ve been blackjacked.”

“Last night?”

“Mmmm.”

“Have you done your drawings?”

“No. Bloody hell, no. What time is it?”

“Quarter-past eight.”

“Shit. Let me get some coffee.”

She followed him into the kitchen. “Alan?”

“What?”

“Why – why did you drink so much?”

He looked at her and frowned.

“Why not? Mike brought some beer in – we got talking. Why not? I like Mike, he’s very funny.”

“How did he get home?”

Alan laughed. “He had to get Sarah to come and collect him. She was furious. Absolutely livid!”

He turned his attention to the coffee.

Carolyn watched him trying to get the spoonful of granules out of the coffee jar. It kept knocking against the sides of the jar, and the granules fell back off the spoon. “What time was
that?”

“Christ knows.” He turned angrily, and threw down the spoon, spilling coffee over the work surface. She wished she had taken the spoon from him and made him the coffee. But that
would have angered him too. “What is this – an inquisition? Do I have to ask your permission to have a few drinks with a mate, in my own house on a Saturday night?”

She went quietly upstairs, to digest the fact that he did not think he had done anything monstrous or strange.

Carolyn was pleased when Alan got a new job, with the Metropolitan Council that covered the depressed area of town to the east of the city
– Millside. The money
was significantly better, and it also removed him from the company of Mike, his most constant drinking companion. She hoped that it might revive some of his idealism and enthusiasm. He was utterly
contemptuous of Lark and Clarkson, and often bitter about the way one of the partners would always step in, if he got something interesting to do.

“No matter how long I stay there I’ll never be more than office junior – until one of the bastards dies.”

When he was a student, Carolyn remembered, he had imagined designing houses and schools, buildings for ordinary people. From time to time he had taken her round newly built council estates
and pointed out to her with indignation how shoddy they were, how poorly designed. Perhaps, she thought, he will be happier now he is working on more worthwhile things. When he was happy, they were
both happy. There were still enough good days and nights for Carolyn to remain certain that it was the world outside which depressed Alan, and that if all other pressures were removed, they would
be perfectly happy together – the children, Alan and herself.

Three months in the new job were enough to convince Alan that it was no better than private practice. Work was done more slowly; procedures were more bureaucratic – and the whole thing,
frankly, was more boring. At least at Lark and Clarkson there had been some days that buzzed, when the phone rang all day, when he had meetings with clients, planners, the district surveyor,
deadlines crowding in on him. Here he was on the same tedious project all day long. And there were always, always, wrangles over money. It became, if anything, more depressing than his former job
– at least there had been a few clients who were interested in a classy finished product rather than the cheapest version possible.