The Private Parts of Women (11 page)

If she heard him, Brenda would come slopping forward from the back of the shop saying, ‘Take no notice, love. He's all trousers, our Stefan, all talk and trousers aren't you my cherub?' and she'd pinch his cheek between her fingers and kiss him on the forehead – she was inches taller – as if he was some sort of pet when to me he seemed such a man.

Yes, I don't mind admitting I had a thing about Blowski for a while, I used to walk miles to wear my heels out so that I could get them mended. Not only for that, for exercise too. I had no real intentions. Him a Married Man, and me … well. I walked miles between the trees, following the river out through the parks, right out into the countryside sometimes. When I took my shoes to be mended, I'd walk past the shop once first, glance in, past the mechanical cobbler, just to be sure it was Blowski behind the counter. If he wasn't there, I'd try again next day. Oh I did love the smell of that shop, pungent glue and rubber, the sort of smell you could get drunk on.

One day, an icy day, years after we'd known each other slightly, maybe fifteen years, he knocked at my door. When I opened the door and found him there I was so surprised I was struck dumb. He held out my mended shoes. ‘Special delivery for special lady,' he said. ‘We have no bloody boiler today so shop shut. So today, you understand Blowski have different hat. Delivery boy, today, me.'

I asked him in and made tea. It was odd to have a man in the house, to have anyone in for that matter. I saw his eyes travelling round. Funny to see your house through someone else's eyes. I was almost embarrassed although it was quite respectable, just dull and poky. Plenty good enough for me alone. But it was like a private bit of me all on show.

‘Aah,' he breathed. ‘Piano. You play?'

‘Barely,' I said. ‘It was my aunt's, she left it to me in her will. She wanted me to learn but … I can pick out tunes, but not what you might call
play
.'

‘Me,' said Blowski, taking off his gloves with a flourish. ‘
I
play. I may?' I nodded. He lifted the cloth I keep draped over and folded it back. Then he sat down and stiffly at first, then more easily began to play. They were not tunes I'd heard before. It was dance music, waltzes, mazurkas. I went into the kitchen and poured the tea, smiling all over my face at the sound, the fact of him in my house. When I came back into the room he stopped playing, and I saw that his cheeks were wet. He didn't mind me seeing, he wiped the tears away with the back of his hand.

‘I big baby, I know. I not play since …' He sat on the stool with his back to the piano and accepted his cup of tea.

‘You don't have a piano?' I asked.

‘Brenda, she not to hear of piano in our house. “Ugly thing,” she say, “taking up so much space.” But I, “What we want more space for,” I say, “more bloody china dog?”'

‘You must come and play whenever you like,' I said.

‘Maybe we get it tune?' he suggested and I felt a softness inside my chest, a warmth at his use of the word ‘we'. I had not been part of a ‘we' for so, so long. ‘Miss Bell, you funny,' he said. ‘You mind me saying?' I shook my head. ‘You are beautiful sometime, but you all alone. No children shoes, no man's, only your little shoes with heels worn away.'

‘I prefer my own company,' I said.

He smiled at me in a quizzical way that made me uncomfortable, as he finished his tea and got up to go. ‘More shoes to take,' he said. ‘Thank you for tea.'

‘You'll come again and play for me?'

‘Ah … you not like so much always your own company?' he said as he left. I sat down at the piano and picked out the tune of a hymn, feeling a bit put out as well as pleased. I was in two minds about him at first, just like I am about that Inis now. But I don't know what I'd have done without Blowski, all these years, I really don't.

I can't go out, not in the street. That fall in the garden has done for me. What if I was to go down like that out the front? Strangers helping me up and I don't know what. Coming in, nosing into my business,
invading
. So I needed help – and help has come. Like the answer to a prayer, God has sent me Inis. Or has He? Was it God or was it the other one? I am not such a fool as to take anyone at face value. Not after my life. Is she real, this good neighbour of mine, or does she masquerade? Swap two letters of her name and what do you get: I sin. That floated into my head the other night. A devilish joke. Don't think
that's
escaped me.

‘Met your friend Mr Blowski,' she said yesterday when she called with my vegetables, all sweetness and light. ‘Nice old fellow.'

And what did he tell you about me?
I wanted to say, poking her in the chest with my sharp finger because she has a nose on her. I see it when I let her in, like a bloodhound, snooping and sniffing, her eyes swivelling everywhere. But I didn't say that, or poke her, of course. I was noncommittal. ‘Yes,' I agreed, ‘very nice.' I must be fair. Perhaps it
is
only neighbourly interest, concern. The second commandment incarnate – ha, I don't think so. Well, whatever, I'm not having her camera in here. There, that's a decision made. I'm not having her lens pointing, snapping, snipping moments away from me. I know what I said and I don't go back on my word as a rule but I can't be … compromised, that's the word.

What has happened to my Christian charity?

I said nothing more to Inis on the subject of Blowski. I don't want to encourage interest. I don't want them putting their heads together behind my back, that's the last thing I want. I want them separate. She can help me with the practical side of things. He can give me friendship. Blowski, arthritic old Pole.

We have a history, Blowski and me and I don't want her in it. He used to come to play the piano. Sometimes I opened the door to him, sometimes not. Brenda gave me suspicious looks from the back of the shop when I went in. I really couldn't imagine what he saw in her. I'm not a snob I don't think, the things I've seen, the people I've known, but she was … not common, I have no argument with common. She was coarse. That's it: she was coarse and he was fine. It didn't seem right somehow, they weren't a fit pair. I don't think I was jealous. I didn't
want
him. Even if Brenda had gone up in a puff of smoke. I have to be alone.

I think there was talk on Mercy Terrace. I'm certain there was: the married Polish cobbler visiting the standoffish spinster from number 101.

The night before last I didn't open the door to him. I don't know why. I so look forward to his visits but somehow I wasn't up to it, talk, closeness. I heard him knock and there was a sinking in my stomach like a sponge when you open the oven door too soon. And then I heard him talking to Inis, not the words, just their voices and her door shutting. For a minute I thought he'd gone in and I went cold all over, but then I heard him sigh and saw his shadow flit past the front-room curtains.

I am sorry now. I would like to see him now. I hope he comes tomorrow. He has grown thinner than ever lately and his knuckles are all askew. His patience is not what it was either, he's quite cantankerous at times. But still, I like him.

If he knows some of my secrets, then I certainly know his. He is a bigamist.

‘There is something Brenda do not know,' he said one afternoon. He had been playing a waltz and I had been watching his quick fingers on the keys, pretending just for the duration of the waltz that he was mine. That he would finish playing and we would lock the door, go upstairs together, draw the curtains. That I was the sort of woman who could do that. His nose was rather long and sharp in profile and his chin all rough with stubble. He sighed in a shuddery way, quite theatrical.

‘Yes?'

He turned to face me. ‘I can trust you?' he asked. ‘It is secret but it hurt always to keep it secret.' He put his hand over his heart and clenched it.

‘Who would I tell?'

‘I have two wife, me,' he said. ‘One, I left at home. And never return.'

‘But why?' Everything he'd said had led me to believe he had nothing to go home for when his country had become communist.

‘Hypocrites. Liars. Me, I hate law that betray a whole bloody people. I turn my back. Now I have no home. But Marika …' he said, his dark eyes glittering.

‘Why didn't you go back to her … or couldn't she have come here? Why marry
Brenda?'

‘Oh God,' he said. ‘Let me ask you, Trixie Bell. You have ever been in love … I mean
real?'
I started to consider but he shook his head before I could speak. ‘No, I see you have not. I
love
Marika. She so … beautiful. I never see woman, not single woman in this whole bloody world who hold candle to Marika.' He clenched both fists against his heart now. I did not know what to say. The kettle whistled and I went to make the tea.

‘So why?' I said when I'd returned.

‘She not love me.'

‘Oh I'm sure …'

‘No, no, no.' He waved his hands. ‘She absolutely not. “You nice man,” she say. “You so kind.” When we marry I think maybe she love me, but, oh she not find me
sexy
, you understand?'

I nodded. I thought he was sexy. I supposed I would have done, if I was that sort.

‘So why did she marry you?'

‘Ha! I was good, what you say, catch, me. Like fish, eh?' He smiled bitterly. ‘Good profession, good family, good look. But someone else she like better.
Love.'
I thought for a horrible moment he was going to spit on the carpet, he said this word so fiercely. ‘He strong, he loud, he big. What man! Before me, she go with him. Then we marry, I think it finish, Marika and he. Then I find out, all the time, before marry, after marry, all time she still see him. I tell you, if I went home after war Marika be with him. I know it, me. I could not bear it. So I think, Blowski, you must start again. New profession, new woman, new country, new start. And I meet Brenda, she think me sexy, think I'm bloody
miracle
. So I feel good, I feel sod Marika. I live happy with Brenda, business all right. But sometime I remember … the music remind and sometime you, Trixie, you remind me of Marika.'

‘Oh!'

‘Oh you not so beautiful … well you older, you not so
alive
but something in your eyes …'

I felt like slopping my cup of tea right in his stupid sentimental face. He was so wrapped up in himself, his eyes so far away and dreamy, he didn't even realise what he'd said. Although I don't know why I was hurt. I knew I wasn't beautiful. I even knew … even felt sometimes that I was only half alive, so he spoke the truth.

It was several weeks later, I don't know exactly when, that he learned
my
secret. He is the only person I still know, who knows.

I got a letter from him out of the blue and it was a letter I couldn't understand. A letter I have still.

Dear Trixie
,

Thank you for last night. I so surprise by you. I think you friend only. I keep think of the rose. I not think you that way. I did not mean. I only come to play piano. Of course, I don't tell Brenda. I see you soon
.

Best wishes, do i say love?

Stefan Blowski
.

That was the start of a bad spell for me. I didn't know what he meant. I remembered nothing, not even a blank space. I did not reply to his letter or open the door to him again for months, nearly a year. I ached inside. If there was music on the television or the radio that sounded like his music, I switched it off. I stayed put mostly. When I did go out I made detours so I did not have to pass his shop.

Often he knocked at the door. I knew his knock, always the same, ratata
ta
ta, always twice, then a wait, then once more, then he'd swivel on one heel and walk away. Then I'd sit on the floor and hug myself and moan until the misery had washed over me and left me high and dry.

But one day I met him in the street, there was no avoiding it. I'd been in the butcher's buying a lamb chop. He caught me as I came out of the shop.

‘Trixie Bell!' He looked delighted. He clapped me on the upper arms with both hands, not quite a hug. The contact almost hurt. I caught a whiff of his rubbery cobbler smell. I'd forgotten how dark and wiry his eyebrows were or quite how bright his eyes. ‘Stranger, eh, Trixie?' He smiled. I could not look away from him. His teeth were as bad as ever but did not spoil the warmth of his smile. He let me go. ‘I miss piano,' he said, wiggling his fingers in front of him. There was no suggestiveness in his face or in his voice. ‘And I miss my friend,' he said.

‘You can come again.'

And we returned to the old routine, the old friendship. It was different for me, of course, because he knew a part of me I didn't know myself. Only once did he refer to what had happened.

‘Blowski understand,' he said. ‘You not you, and I, I take advantage. I apologise, I stupid, me. I get carried away. Not again.'

And now we are just old people who meet now and then, he plays the piano hardly at all, his hands are so warped and stiff. We drink tea together and grumble about the changing times as if we are quite normal.

ADA

See how sweet I am, see how gay,

I'm adorable and coming your way.

Poor Trixie. If only she would let go then she could rest. We could wear the lovely dresses. If we could reach our toenails we could paint them. Without Trixie I think
I
could, supple as I am you cannot have failed to notice. And with our scarlet toenails we could dance. If Blowski would come now and it was me.

Oh Blowski, the only one since the other one, since Frank.

Blowski, a
good
man. It is not wrong to love him.

The only one to see right through Trixie to
me
.

It used to be more. Whole evenings and nights.