Cold Shoulder (3 page)

She took out a cigarette, hands shaking. He watched as she tried to light it. She inhaled deeply. ‘You remember that day, Mike?’ He sighed. She looked at him, tilting her head to one side. ‘Best day of my life. You’d just qualified and… what happened, Mike? I feel like I don’t know you, like I’m drifting in some kind of sea. I hate what you’re becoming and I’ve gone along with it, never felt I could say anything to you but it’s all changing between us. You want success more than you want me.’

Mike poured himself two fingers in the tumbler she had used and drained it. It was as if someone was pulling the rug from beneath his feet. Suddenly everything he had been striving for was ragged at the edge. He sat down, cradling the glass in his hands. ‘Nothing has changed between you and me, nothing. I love you. I always
have
loved you. Okay, maybe I’ve had to put in more hours lately, but then so have you. You know I wanted you to give up work, you think I didn’t notice the strain you were under, but you’ll never talk to me.’

She knelt down at his feet and wrapped her arms around him. ‘I want things to be the way they were when we both had nothing.’

‘You had your career. It was me that had nothing,’ he said petulantly.

‘But you know why? I worked hard so we’d have a home and you’d have your chance.’

He kissed her forehead. ‘Maybe you haven’t noticed that I’m earning good money now — you haven’t needed to work for years and you’re missing the girls growing up.’ She leaned against him and he slipped his arm around her. ‘Whatever happens, we’ll come through this together.’

They went to bed and made love for the first time in ages. That evening, Lorraine began to prepare dinner, even putting candles on the table. Then it started, the panic. It swamped inside her, beginning, as always, with fast flashes of faces. Lubrinski, then Laura Bradley, and now the boy? A boy running with a yellow stripe down his sweater. All she could think of was to get just one drink; then the panic would stop and the pictures would blur into oblivion. She wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable, so trapped. Just one drink would do it and she’d be all right. She went on with the dinner, having just one more, then another and another.

Mike didn’t come home until after midnight. He saw that the table had been laid for some special occasion; the candlewax had melted over the cloth. In the kitchen he found two wine bottles and the Scotch bottle, all empty in the trashcan with the remains of dinner.

Lorraine was asleep, still in her dress. He didn’t wake her, not even to tell her that Donny had offered him a partnership. He pulled the quilt from beneath her and laid it gently over her. He went round the apartment and threw every liquor bottle he could find into the garbage chute. Not until he slid into bed next to her did he see that Lorraine was cradling the picture of Lubrinski in her arms. When he tried to take it from her she moaned and turned over. Maybe there had been a lot more to their partnership than he had realized.

Next morning, Lorraine was up early, cooking breakfast for the girls. Mike could hear her laughing and talking. By the time he went into the kitchen, they were ready for school.

‘I’ll drive them,’ she said. ‘You haven’t had breakfast yet!’

He snatched up his car keys. ‘I’ll drive them, okay?’

‘When will you be home?’

‘I’m in court today so I’ll be late.’ He walked out without kissing her goodbye, slamming the front door.

She was making the bed when he called. He’d booked her a doctor’s appointment.

‘You did what?’

‘Listen to me, sweetheart, he’s somebody you can talk to, friend of Donny’s—’

Lorraine interrupted, ‘I don’t need a god-damned shrink, especially not some asshole friend of Donny’s. There’s nothing wrong with me that a few days’ rest—’

Mike was adamant, not wanting to sound angry but unable not to. ‘Yes, you do, Lorraine, listen, don’t hang up—’

Her voice was icy, calm and controlled. ‘No, Mike, I don’t need anybody, I am not sick, okay? That’s final. I’ll see you tonight.’

Lorraine made no contact with the station. She checked the newspapers for articles on the case, but was afraid to read about herself. She was afraid, too, to be seen on the street and for the next few weeks she led a double life. When Mike left in the morning she did some housework and ordered in groceries. When Rita brought the girls home, she played with them, read to them and cooked dinner for Mike. He knew she was drinking but she denied it and he never saw her with a glass of alcohol in her hand. He had no idea that she spent her days sitting in front of the television with a bottle of vodka. She appeared sober, keeping herself at a sustained level, and every night he would look for empty bottles. Mike hid from himself that she was drinking consistently, partly because it meant less tension between them. He asked Rita to tell him if she ever saw Lorraine drinking, especially in front of the girls.

It was only a few weeks later that Rita called him. ‘You’d better come home, Mr Page. I don’t know where she is — she left the girls by themselves — anything could have happened.’

Mike drove like a madman back to the apartment. The children had been alone for most of the day. After Mike had calmed them, he asked Rita to stay with them, and went out in a blind fury to find his wife. After searching in vain for three hours, he called home. Rita was in tears: Lorraine was back, she was drunk, unable to stand upright. A cigarette in her hand, she apologized, telling him that she had had an important meeting. She seemed barely to hear him when he talked to her, and if he touched her she screamed abuse at him. Then, as if terrified of something or someone, she begged him to hold her tightly.

Next morning, shame-faced, she promised him he would never see her like that again. Never again would she touch a drop.

Mike coped as best he could. He instructed Rita never to leave Lorraine alone with the girls until he was at home. But the situation grew worse. Time and again he confronted her with empty bottles he found hidden around the apartment. She would swear she hadn’t had a drink and even accused Rita of planting the bottles.

Mike was at breaking point. He tried to understand Lorraine’s frame of mind by putting himself in her position — she had shot an innocent boy and had lost the job she had always been so proud of — but all he felt was shame and guilt, of which she showed none. She seemed more intent on blaming his success for her failure.

‘You spoiled it. You wanted us to move up and we were happy where we were.’ The continual goading made him feel she was pushing him physically to hurt her. ‘You were the housewife, but I was out on the streets. You were the mother, but I had to earn for both of us, out on the streets with my breasts still full of milk for my babies.’

No matter what he said she twisted it against him. If he had any guilt about those years when she had kept him and the children, it was soon dispersed by her venomous onslaughts. She exhausted him; night after night he would come home in dread to find her ready for a row. At other times, she would kneel at his feet and beg his forgiveness, pleading for him to carry her to bed. And yet she seemed incapable of tears.

In the end Mike went to Donny’s doctor friend. He needed to talk it over with someone. The doctor warned him that unless Lorraine sought help Mike would be dragged down with her. He encouraged him to leave her and thus force her into taking medical help. But Mike’s own guilt and his awareness of how much Lorraine had done for him, held him back. When his daughters became scared of their mother, though, Mike made one last attempt.

Lorraine finally agreed and he accompanied her, quiet and sober, to the doctor. She spent two hours with him, talking first with Mike present and then alone. After the appointment she had appeared almost triumphant, admonishing Mike for wasting money. There was, as she had said to him over and over again, nothing wrong with her.

Mike returned the following day and was told that Lorraine had insisted that she was perfectly all right and able to cope with no longer working. She had refused to give a blood test.

But the drinking carried on and the rift between them grew deeper. Lorraine adamantly refused to admit anything was wrong: she had her drinking under control. She was becoming sly; apparently sober, she continued to dress well but rarely left the apartment. Mike continued to find empty bottles hidden away.

Only six months after Lorraine had left the force, he filed for divorce. He refused to make her leave the apartment, and signed it over to her with the contents. She protested when he insisted on custody of the girls but otherwise seemed not to care. He gave her five thousand dollars and promised three thousand a month in alimony. She was strangely elated when he brought the papers for her signature, which made him suspect that she didn’t believe he would go through with it. But she signed with a flourish and smiled.

‘You do understand what you’ve signed, don’t you, Lorraine?’ Mike asked quietly.

‘Yes.’

He gripped her tightly. ‘I’m leaving and taking the girls but call me if you need me, and I’ll do whatever I can to help. You need help, Lorraine, all I want is for you to acknowledge it.’ He felt wretched. She helped him pack, kneeling to lock the suitcase. She was wearing a pale blue denim shirt and her feet were bare. Her hair shone as she bent over the cases. Mike wanted to hold her, to make love to her. This was madness.

The Pattersons came to help with the cases. The girls, clasping Tina’s hands, thought they were going on holiday. It had taken only the afternoon to get everything packed and out, such a short time after all the years they had been together.

‘Tina’s going to take the girls in their car. Do you want to say goodbye to them?’ Mike asked.

‘No. I don’t want to upset them.’ She heard her daughters asking if they were going to see their granny and why was Mommy staying behind? She heard Tina reassuring them that Mommy would be coming to see them. She heard Donny call out that everything was in the car. She heard Mike say he would be out in a few minutes. She heard Rita saying goodbye, her voice breaking as if she was crying.

Mike walked into the kitchen. Lorraine turned and held up the glass. ‘Just milk.’

He leaned on the table. ‘I don’t want to go, Lorraine.’

‘Doesn’t look that way to me.’

‘I love you.’

She tossed her hair away from her eyes. ‘I love you too, Mike.’

There seemed nothing left to say. He crossed to her, reached out and held her in his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder, the way she always used to. He could smell lemons, a clean, sweet smell of freshly washed hair, and he tilted up her face and kissed her. She had the most beautiful clear blue eyes he had ever seen. She seemed to look straight through him, yet her lips had a soft sweet smile.

‘Promise me you’ll get help?’

‘I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me, Mike.’

Donny Patterson sat in the car. He watched Mike walk slowly down the path, looking as if he was crying.

‘You okay, partner?’

Mike got into the car and blew his nose. ‘I feel like such a prick. She doesn’t seem to understand what’s just happened.’

Donny put his arm round his friend. ‘Look, buddy, I been through this three times. It’s not easy, but, Jesus, now it’s over you’re gonna feel such relief. She’s got problems. You tried every way to help her, Mike.’

‘Maybe we’ll get back together,’ Mike said.

Donny gripped Mike’s knee. ‘Christ almighty. When are you gonna face facts? She’s a drank and she was dragging you down with her. If she won’t get help, you’re gonna have to forget her, act like she’s dead. Believe me, it’s the best way. Say to yourself she’s dead, be a hell of a lot easier.’

Mike nodded. His heart felt like lead. He closed his eyes. ‘I loved her,’ he said softly.

Lorraine sat on the sofa, flicking the TV from channel to channel. There was no need now to hide the half-bottle of vodka that lay beside her. She could do what she liked, she was on her own. She didn’t deserve anyone’s love or respect, she knew that. She was deeply ashamed that she didn’t have the guts to slit her wrists. Or was it because she didn’t deserve to die so easily? She was her own judge, her own jury. She had to be punished.

Lorraine finished the vodka and went in search of more. She looked around the bedroom, seeing the open wardrobe doors, the empty hangers where Mike’s clothes had hung, and backed out of the room. She discovered another bottle hidden in the kitchen and had drunk most of that before she wandered into the children’s room. She was humming tunelessly. She got into Sally’s tiny bed, holding the bottle to her chest. She could smell her daughter on the pillow; it was as if the little girl was kissing her face, she felt so close. She reached over to the other bed for Julia’s pillow and held it to her cheek. She snuggled down clasping the pillows. ‘My babies,’ she whispered, ‘my babies.’ She looked drunkenly at the wallpaper, with its pink and blue ribbons threaded round children’s nursery rhymes. ‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run…’

She could feel a lovely warm blanket begin slowly to cover her body, a soft pink baby blanket, like the one tucked round her when she was a little girl, like the one she had wrapped round the dead child’s body. She felt her chest tighten with panic, her body tense. She could hear him now. Lubrinski.

‘Eh, how ya doin’, Page?’

‘I’m doin’ okay, Lubrinski,’ she said aloud, startled to hear her own voice. ‘I’m doin’ fine, partner.’ She frowned. Who was screaming? Somebody was screaming, the terrifying sound going on and on and on, driving her nuts. She rolled out of bed and ran from the room. She tripped and fell to her knees until she was crawling on all fours into the bedroom. The screaming continued. She heaved herself up and caught sight of a figure reflected in the dressing-table mirror. She clapped her hands over her mouth, biting her fingers to stop the screams.
She
was the woman, it was
her
screaming. The terrible sweating panic swamped her.

It was Lubrinski’s smiling face that calmed her, looking up at her from the dressing table. She snatched up the photograph. ‘Help me, Lubrinski, for chrissakes help me.’