Conrad & Eleanor (15 page)

She nods. ‘It's all right,' she says. ‘Apart from one thing. There's one big skeleton in this town's cupboard.'

‘Really?' He sees her clocking that he's afraid she's a nutter; she adjusts, and gives a little laugh.

‘Sorry. It's my obsession, but there's no need for me to bore you with it. You probably came here for some peace and quiet.' She half-turns her chair, so that she's facing the window, and stares fixedly into the street.

Why did she sit by him? Is she trying to pick him up? The thought almost makes him smile, but why not? ‘What is this skeleton? You can't leave me in suspense like that.'

‘You'd be surprised how many people don't even know. There's a vivisection laboratory. Where they do experiments on living animals.'

As soon as she says it he realises he knew she would. She is part of the same nightmare, but at this stage he does not realise her role. ‘Do you work there?'

‘God forbid! I love animals. I'm a pacifist. I don't believe we should ever hurt animals, or people.'

Why is she telling him this? And what's the reply? He sips at his coffee. ‘My son's a vegetarian,' he offers.

‘That's good. So am I.'

They sit in a brief silence; the librarian takes small bites of her sandwich and quickly chews them. ‘I've joined a protest group,' she tells Con. ‘Against animal testing. They test make-up, you know. They put the chemicals in dogs' eyes. And sweeteners, they feed them artificial sweeteners till they die of poisoning.'

‘Better poison an animal than a human,' says Con automatically.

‘Oh no, they force-feed them huge doses of the stuff, more than a human would ever consume, and that's why they die. From the overdose.'

‘I see.' The woman has soft downy hairs on her upper lip; when she turns they catch the light. He has a sudden pang of – what? Jealousy? – for her complacency. Her cleanliness. He knows he is still contaminated by the stench of the animal house. ‘You haven't been inside?' he says.

‘No. No. I don't think I could bear it.'

‘So how do you —?'

‘PECA. Prevent Experiments and Cruelty to Animals. The protest group. Sometimes they manage to get information, or pictures. Photos really help because anyone who sees them knows they want this to stop. Even a small blurry picture, it turns your stomach.'

‘So how do you protest?'

She smiles at him gratefully and he finds himself smiling back. She looks younger when she smiles. ‘The main thing is to let people know. Education. Because people don't imagine such things can be done in a civilised society. Nearly everyone loves animals, don't they?'

He visualises the motley assortment of Evanson family pets: the short-lived funfair goldfish, the escaping budgie, Megan's rats, Paul's hens. El's constant opposition, ‘Haven't we got enough to look after with four kids, never mind a menagerie?' Yes, nearly everyone loves animals. El never stops to stroke a cat or pat a dog. Hard-hearted, practical, busy El. Yet it is Con who tortures monkeys. The woman is looking at him. ‘Yes. Of course. But how do you educate people?'

‘Posters. Articles. Protests. We hold monthly vigils outside the gates, and we advertise them in the town, sometimes new people join us. And online, of course; if we get any information we put it on the website. That's the way to reach people.'

‘But does it have any effect?'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Does it make any difference to what – what they are doing in the labs?'

‘Don't you think it would?'

Why is she asking him? ‘I suppose if someone who worked there saw it from a protestor's point of view…'

‘Exactly! Cruelty becomes routine – well, look at the Nazis – and then if you step outside the routine a moment you realise how awful it is.'

‘I'm sure they aren't Nazis.'

‘No, but I often wonder, do you think they have pets? D'you think they go home after a day of inflicting pain on their fellow creatures, and take the dog for a walk?'

Con drains his coffee. It is enough. He needs to find his own thoughts again before it's time to go back. ‘I expect they do,' he says, pushing back his chair.

‘I believe in the power of love,' she says. ‘Sometimes I go and sit outside the fence and will love and strength to the animals.'

‘On your own?'

‘Yes. I want to give them hope.'

He imagines her, in her mousey grey coat, sitting on a plaid rug beside the prison-high fencing, her serious gaze fixed on the animal house roof, goodness radiating from her. ‘That's – well,' he gives a laugh and shakes his head, ‘that's impressive.' He is on his feet, threading his arms into his coat.

‘You're a scientist, aren't you.'

‘Why d'you say that?'

‘I saw you. I was by the fence. I followed you.'

When Con replays the scene this is the moment of pause. Why doesn't he walk away? She reveals her hand; she has already lied to him and manipulated him, she is far more serious than she has led him to believe. Why doesn't he walk away?

He doesn't walk away because she is his creature and he must collude with her. She is his, conjured out of his visit to that hell hole and his own guilt, spawned by his queasily churning stomach. She is his own distress made manifest. This must be how God got Jesus, he thinks. His own distress made flesh. What He saw in his great experiment, Earth, was so wicked, so unendur­able, that He conjured a human being to go deal with it; He externalised the simplest part of the argument. The good part.

He doesn't walk away because he thinks she is good. Conrad sits down on his chair again.

‘I'm sorry,' she says. ‘I had no right.'

‘No, you didn't.'

‘But your face looked so kind and I could tell you were upset by the way you hurried out. I just thought, he's my chance, maybe he's my one chance to try and save those poor innocent creatures.' She takes an instamatic camera from her bag and places it on the table.

So much for her fancying him. ‘How did you think I could help you?'

‘I thought you might tell me what you've seen, and I could put it online. Or you might be going back, you could take some photos for me.'

‘My research is based on some of these experiments.'

‘But you've seen what they're doing. You know it's evil. Don't you?'

‘It's not that simple. Experiments are done for a reason. To try to save human lives. I can't – this is a really long argument. Discussion.'

She bobs her head. ‘I know. I know. But there must be ways for you to find out what you need to know without hurting animals.'

‘If there were, don't you think I wouldn't choose an alternative?'

‘You would, you would. You're a good man. But some of it is so pointless – the cosmetics, the sweeteners – so unnecessary.'

He checks his watch: 1.15, time to head back to the animal house. ‘Look,' he says. ‘I have to… I have an important meeting now. I'm afraid I have to go.'

‘But you will help.'

‘I don't see how I —'

‘Oh, you can. Take my camera. I'll wait for you here.'

‘That's ridiculous.'

‘No. I know you can help, I knew it the moment I saw you.'

‘I don't know when I'll finish, and then I have a long drive home, I have to get back for my children —' Yes, he even told her he had children.

‘But just pop in,' she says. ‘You have to drive back through town. A quick cup of tea. I promise I won't keep you longer than that.'

He can't imagine how he will feel after he has been back in there. He'll tell them they're breaking the law, he'll have to threaten them with inspectors – whatever he has to do, a cup of tea with her afterwards will be easy in comparison. ‘OK.' He pockets the camera reluctantly.

This is the second pause. Why, after he has braced himself and been admitted to the wretched prison again, and waited in vain for anyone in a position of responsibility to appear, and walked about the place like a tourist of sadism, snapping pictures of the worst cases and finally realised that no one is coming and that anyway a carefully worded email from his desk would be more efficient and less liable to end in physical confrontation – why, after all this, does he return to the café? Why doesn't he just put his foot down and head for home? Because he has already committed himself by taking the camera.

Because she is what he deserves.

When he opens the café door she is there with a pot of tea and two cups. ‘It's just fresh,' she says. ‘I must be telepathic.'

He is shaking with pent-up anger and frustration, with all the unsaid things he has rehearsed for the animal house managers. It doesn't take much of her candid questioning for him to spill the beans, and for him to admit he took photos, though he draws the line at her seeing them. He winds the film on to its end, extracts it from the camera and pockets it. ‘I can't let you use any of this now. I have to try to get change within the animal labs first; I need to retain the threat of making the pictures public as a second line of attack.' He hands her back her camera.

She understands. She clasps his hand in gratitude and he finds himself strangely moved by the contact. Her skin is cool and dry, contained, like her quietly confident face. He finds himself thinking, she does not often touch other people. This is an important day for her. Balm to his own distress.

By the time he is ready to leave they have exchanged names (Maddy) and email addresses and he has promised to keep her informed about how he gets on. She in turn promises to keep what he has told her a secret. When they stand to leave he almost hugs her. It is only on the drive home that he has doubts, and wonders why he has told her quite so much.

If he is honest, it was always bad going into an animal house. Even when he was dealing with his own animals at the university. Treating the monkeys was always bad. He remembers steeling himself against their pretty faces, resolutely not giving them names. Occasionally in extreme grogginess they would submit to his syringe almost willingly, allowing him to feel for a tender self-deceiving moment that he could minister to them, help them, heal them. Instead of making them more sick. Sitting up and folding his knees up to his chest, Con rocks on the bed. There was a reason. Good in bad. Bad in good. It runs through all things. The best time was the worst. Think of it. The year after Cara's birth. Its random-seeming contentment. Its surprising satisfactions. Its joy. Were
because
of the bad. Would not have existed without the bad. And what is he to make of that?

There was something very strange about the year after Cara was born. There was more time. How could there be more time, when they had three children instead of two, and no au pair to help out? There was more time, Con supposes, because Eleanor was at home. She took a full six months' maternity leave. She was reading and working at home, of course, she never stopped thinking and working, but she was there – there when he left in the morning, there when he came in at night. They were a team, functioning perfectly together. She would pass Cara to him when he came in, and Cara's round wondering face would slowly fix on him and blossom into a smile. He'd run the tepid bath and swoosh her in it so she gasped with delighted laughter, Paul and Megan leaning over either side of him to brandish bath toys at her, a hippo that spouted water, a fish-shaped sponge, and Cara like a plump pink starfish herself beaming up at the three of them, waving her arms and legs. When Cara was done they poured in their own bubble bath and hot water and shrieked and giggled and piled each other's heads with froth while he dried and powdered Cara, and El cooked. After they'd eaten, El gave Cara her evening feed while Con cleared up. And all the time, they talked. He loved having no au pair, having the whole house to themselves; would have been happy never to go out. He was dismayed when her sister asked to come and stay that autumn.

El's younger sister Minnie had been living in Italy for six years; Con hardly knew her. Now she was in crisis – her boyfriend had broken her heart, she wanted to move back to England, and she had no base, no job, no friends.

‘Why does she have to come to us? Why can't she go home to your mum?'

‘Because my mum would drive her nuts, you know that. It'll be nice for the kids anyway, an aunty.'

‘It'll be as bad as having another au pair cluttering the place up.'

‘Con, we've got two spare bedrooms. And anyway, she's looking for a job. She'll go out – she'll do stuff – it'll be OK.'

Minnie arrived pale and tragic, and monopolised El for two days of low, urgent confidences. Con's worst fears were being realised; after he'd put the children to bed he sat grimly in front of the TV while the sisters' continuous murmur ran on in the kitchen, with only the most random and infrequent accompaniment of chopping or stirring to indicate that dinner might ever arrive. When he cracked and went in to join them and open a bottle of wine, he was hurt to see they were already halfway through one and El had not even thought to offer him a glass.

But after a few days, alliances shifted. Coming to bed early for the first time since Min's arrival, El rolled her eyes at Con and shook her head. ‘She's slurping up sympathy like a great sheet of blotting paper.'

‘She's slurping up
wine
like a great sheet of blotting paper.' They cackled, together.

‘But she has had a horrid time.'

‘Go on.'

‘Oh, he's been seeing someone else for months and stringing her along with stuff about it being a brief passion he needs to get out of his system, 'cos he loves her really.'

‘He's told her?'

‘Asked her permission. He's been bringing this female back to where they live.'

‘So has he got it out of his system?'