The Road Home (35 page)

“How much are you paid, Vitas?”

“Minimum wage. But, like I said, no rent. And we buy our food cheap at the co-op. And Midge gives us free potatoes.”

“Free potatoes? That’s good.”

“Yeah. Better than stinking London, I’m telling you. You should come.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

Lev walked slowly home, past the deserted tennis courts and the beds of roses, all weeded and tidy for the day when their petals opened. Found he was making a picture in his mind of Vitas’s life, living in the middle of a field, frying potatoes on a single-burner stove, staring down lines of lettuces translucent in the dawn.

Back in Belisha Road, Lev heated a tin of beans and ate these ravenously, with a spoon; then he lay down in his room, propped his head up with the faded giraffe pillows, and began to read
Hamlet
.

It wasn’t that he really wanted to struggle with it, endure the difficulty of it. He began to read as a kind of atonement for his treatment of Lydia.

He opened the paperback. Didn’t glance at Lydia’s inscription, or at any of the learned introductions. Hurried on to Act One, Scene 1.

Who’s there?

Right. Well, he understood the first line. It struck him as a thrilling way to begin a play.
Who’s there?
The notes in the back of the book explained to Lev that these characters, Bernardo and so on, were soldiers, keeping watch on a
platform,
a place where guns stood. So, okay, it was a guard’s nervy utterance. But wasn’t it—also—the question he kept asking himself:
Who’s there in my life? For me or against me. Who’s left? Who’s yet to come?

He returned to the soldiers. Couldn’t imagine them yet, so long ago, in Denmark. Only remembered how, in Baryn and in other cities, he used to stare at the faces of army personnel. Always, they looked right past your stare, kept their faraway gaze, apparently seeing some orderly vista of which you formed no part. He’d both feared and pitied them. Their hats were stiff and round, like boxes of chocolates. They clutched their old Kalashnikovs to their chests.

. . . ’tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

Lev liked this, too. For this was how the soldiers struck you when you’d passed by, when you were out of the orbit of their expressionless faces: this was the afterthought, that they were freezing in their lonely sentry posts, in their desolate walking up and down. And didn’t Rudi once say, as they passed two boy conscripts guarding some ministerial blockhouse in Glic, “They look heartsick. Like they were weaned from the tit too soon.”

Enter Ghost.

Lev saw this instruction waiting on the right-hand side of the page, skipped some stuff he didn’t understand to get there.

So, it was going to be a story about the dead. Probably this was why Lydia had selected it as her Christmas present to him: knowing him better than he’d ever admitted, seeing him still haunted by his father, by his old life at the mill, by Marina.

And now haunted by yet other things: by the kitchen at GK Ashe, by the black trees outside the windows of Sophie’s flat, by the flare of happiness that had lit up a pathway and then gone out . . .

Better to read on, though, to try to become immersed in
Hamlet,
than to think about all that. Lev waded through speeches where meaning went out suddenly, just like the happiness flare.

It was about to speak when the cock crew.

Lev closed his eyes and let the book fall. It was so absurdly difficult. This difficulty was of a different order from most day-to-day things. But Lev felt Lydia’s critical eye on him, a look that said, Don’t let me down, don’t do what you always do and set me aside. So he tried to obey her. Picked the book up again, struggled on . . .

A king and queen came whirling in with their retinue, but what was their connection to the ghost? What was an “imperial jointress”? Who were Young Fortinbras and Old Norway? What were “suits of woe”? Back and forth to the notes. Then he skipped on, not lingering on Old Norway, to get to Hamlet himself, as if thinking, Once he’s alone and talking directly to us, all might be clear. Stared at the words
Exeunt all but Hamlet
.

Lev lit a cigarette. He took the smoke deep into him, imagining Hamlet alone on the stage now, ready to speak what was in his heart. He’d be young. Probably about thirty. Young and thin, like the boys who used to come down to the Baryn lumber yard in winter, looking for work. Not princes of Denmark: boys who’d never known work. They used to stand around, silent in the low light, watching the shrieking saw coughing out sparks and orange dust as it ate into the pines. Imagining how it would be to join this world where men labored through every season—in snowfall, under arc lights on black afternoons, in driving rain and raw cold, in the first song-struck days of spring—and took home money, week by week. Lev hated to see them there, didn’t like to look at their faces. Afraid to see his own face in theirs.

. . . O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

This was better. He could understand more words.

. . . Heaven and earth!

Must I remember?

Remember what? Back and forth, back and forth to the notes, his mind a saw, trying to shriek through a tough bark of words.

A little month . . .

. . . within a month . . .

She married.

So that was it. A woman’s treachery! As it would be, thought Lev. Because it’s what the
women
do that kills us. On our own, even out in the cold dark of the lumber yard, we men survive. We stamp our feet in the snow. We drink tea out of old flasks. Someone tells a joke. Our shoulders ache like the shoulders of an ox under the eternal yoke. But we shake each other’s hands, plan fishing trips, get drunk together, carry on . . .

Lev heard the doorbell ringing, but didn’t move. It was past midnight.

. . . married with my uncle,

My father’s brother; but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules . . .

The bell rang and rang. Wearily, Lev climbed out of his bunk and shuffled to the door. He picked up the intercom.

“It’s Sophie. Let me in, Lev.”

He said nothing, did nothing, just held the intercom receiver to his ear, as though waiting for some further instruction.

“Lev. Please let me come up.”

Already he was feeling it, that thing he felt when he heard the choke in her voice. He wanted to send her away, shut himself out from everything that belonged to her, everything that surrounded her—her celebrity friends with their crass achievements, the disdain they showed him—but he just wasn’t able to send her away, not when she talked to him in that sexy voice of hers.

He pressed the door release. Heard her footsteps on the stairs. Opened the flat door and retreated to his room, as if here, where she’d never deigned to sleep, he’d be safe from her. Fumbled for a cigarette.

She stood at the door and looked at him. Her cheeks were pink from the night air, her hair flattened by her cycling helmet. But he could smell the kitchen on her, the beautiful steel kitchen from which he was now cast out. He lit the cigarette, picked up the copy of
Hamlet,
which had fallen onto the floor, folded down the corner of the page he’d reached.

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

“Wow,” said Sophie. “You reading
Hamlet
?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it difficult for you?”

“Sure. Everything is difficult.”

She looked hot and awkward, standing in the door, wearing her cycle gear. She began unwinding her scarf. That same yellow scarf: the one he’d always loved. Lev looked away from her. She came and sat down on the floor, where Frankie’s shop had once stood. She was wearing red-and-black-striped stockings and black boots. She took off her black velvet jacket.

“Lev,” she said gently, “I came to say I’m sorry about it all.”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t mean it to go like this. But—I don’t know . . . it’s like Howie’s just
overwhelmed
me. I’ve never felt so ridiculously in love before.”

She lowered her head. She seemed contrite, like a child. Lev thought that it wasn’t difficult to imagine Preece’s body crushing hers. She looked up and said, “I want us to be friends, Lev. You mean a lot to me and I really want us to stay friends.”

Friends.

A little month . . .

. . . within a month . . .

Not anything like a month. A matter of days . . .
hours
. She had a new lover, a man so rich and famous he could buy her anything she asked for. He had nothing. No love. No job. Nothing. He smoked and stared at her. Knew this silent stare discomforted her.

“Lev?”

He stared at her knees. Wanted to put his hand there, let it move slowly upward, find the stocking top, pause there, wait to see what she did, hear her breath once more, close to his . . .

“I know it’s really tough on you, what G.K. decided,” she said. “It’s very tough, and I’m sorry. I didn’t ask him to do that, but I guess it wouldn’t have worked any other way . . .”

Lev smoked. He just didn’t want to talk to her.

“Lev, please. Try to understand?”

He looked not at her face, with its dimples and its high color, only at her clothes and her body beneath: the red skirt tight across her rounded stomach, a jumper of the same red color, soft over her breasts; remembered the turquoise bra and G-string, her arse lifted toward him in front of her fire . . .

“I mean, I tried to tell you, quite a few times, that it would never’ve worked,
long term
. All my friends knew that.
I
knew it. Because we’re too different. But we had some nice times, didn’t we? That day at Silverstrand?”

Was she wearing a G-string now? Did she lift herself like that, crouched on all fours, like a raunchy, smooth-skinned bitch, for Howie Preece? Did she beg
him
to hurt her?

“Remember Christy and Frankie jumping in the surf? The way the sun shone?”

Yes, but the sun had gone in. Had she forgotten that? Or hadn’t she noticed? Just as now she sat there chatting to him—almost brightly—as though he had no feelings, no longing, no lingering susceptibility . . .

“Lev, please, please talk to me . . .”

He stubbed out the cigarette. Got down on his knees. Still didn’t look at her face. Slammed out one arm, surprising her with the sudden movement, pressing her collarbone, pinning her against the wall. With the other hand, pushed up between her thighs, finding the stocking top, the hard bud of the provocative suspender belt, the solid flesh . . .

She tried to push him away.

He was over her now, his head nudging the wall beside hers, his hand finding . . . no G-string . . . no knickers . . . nothing . . . just her briny cunt, open to the world. So he told himself she was a whore, told himself what he already knew, that she was no better than a prostitute, no more decent than the brothel scum he and Rudi used to visit in Baryn, long ago. She was English: that was the only difference. But Christy had been right: English girls were racist, promiscuous, shameless. They—she, all of them—deserved what he was going to do. They deserved shame.

“Lev, we can’t do this anymore . . .”

She was Howie Preece’s girl. His faceful of jowls lay beside hers on the pillow. His tongue explored her mouth. When he woke, he heard her irresistible voice, guided her hand to his preening cock . . .

“Lev . . .”

He was unmoved, hard as knucklebone. Hadn’t she always been violent
with him
in their fucking?

He pressed her down now, onto the green carpet, her curls touching the door of the Wendy house. Closed his eyes. Closed his eyes and kissed her, like she’d once kissed him in the crowded pub, months ago, his teeth grinding against hers. And as he searched her mouth, he felt her tongue . . . despite everything . . . despite his present cruelty . . . begin to tangle with his, a remembered passion seeming to flood back into her, her resistance to him weakening, altering . . .

He hauled her legs up, up till her calves were resting on his back. Never left her mouth, not for a second. She was half crying, moaning, but not in fear—he could tell, couldn’t he? Couldn’t he tell that her fear was gone and she had it all back, her appetite, her insatiable, irresistible greed for the male . . .

Sophie.

Howie Preece’s whore, moaning like a fox. Beneath him and ready . . .

When he slammed into her, she was silky as oil. Straightaway, she began to move with him. She clung to him. He fastened his sinewy arms round her, pitched and rocked like a boat plunging through a humped sea, heard her head knocking against the child’s wooden house, felt her boots kick and bruise his arse, and liked it, liked the pain, pressed down on his thigh bones, to get even deeper in.

He still wouldn’t open his eyes to see her. Didn’t want to feel love for her. Told himself she was his
animal,
nothing more. She bit his lip, the vixen, drew blood, bit again. Harsh pain, but he felt this begin to trigger him. Oh God . . . Blood all over their chins. Wanted to curse and swear and say her name, heard words choked out of his blood-filled mouth. Then the trigger tightened, eased, tightened again, trembled, tightened hard, and slammed home.

He surfaced from darkness to feel her sliding out from under him, pushing him firmly aside.

He turned and saw her refastening one of her striped stockings, her sweet head bent over the task. Felt remorse, pure and deep.

“Sophie,” he said, “I’m sorry. I was rough. I didn’t mean . . .”

She didn’t reply, just went on with the tasks of fixing her stockings, smoothing down her skirt.

“Sophie,” he began again, “did I hurt you?”

“Yes,” she said. “You did.” Turned away from him, picked up the velvet jacket and tugged it on.

He got to his feet, went to her, and tried to hold her. She pulled away, snatched up the scarf from the floor, started to wind it round her neck and chin.