Her Victory (4 page)

He had never been able to tolerate her yammering when they sat side by side in bed before turning out the light. When it happened downstairs he was at least able to stand up now and again if he felt like killing her. Looking across the table and wondering whether or not she would stop yammering, on sensing this perfectly natural desire in him, he would walk to the fireplace hoping not to offend her even more, at which her yammering would get louder and absolutely to the point. Thinking his head would burst he would get up from his easy chair and shamble into the kitchen to put the kettle on that played ‘Annie Laurie' when it boiled, not to throw water over her, or to get the spout steaming so that she could hurl it across at him, but simply to make the age-old gesture of brewing a cup of strong tea in a crisis. At the same time he would be careful to leave the door open so that she wouldn't think he was maliciously trying to get out of earshot, which would justify her in complaining for another half hour at least.

But once they were in bed and the yammering commenced, or resumed, after a short break during which his cup of tea had really worked its effect of hot flushes or spots before the eyes, or throughout the short time of getting ready for bed, there was no escape, and he had to sit there and listen. The more she went on, the hotter it became in bed, her legs and thighs so warm that his own limbs felt scorched, so that as well as craving to get away from the sound of her voice he was also disturbed by the heat coming from her body and wanted to avoid that as well.

As for why she was yammering, there was no answer to it. She had been at the game almost twenty years, and though he heard (it was impossible not to) he no longer listened, knowing from experience after the first few occasions that it was best not to, since if he did his head would burst with the fiery violence of a paperbag overfilled with her cinder breath. Listening was beside the bloody point entirely, because she just yammered for yammering's sake, though it was also true that she was only a yammerer because he could not bear to listen. If he had been a born listener she wouldn't have been a yammerer, and they would have got on so well that everyone might have called it having a cosy conversation.

What he could not understand was how a man like him, whose favourite pastime never had been listening (neither did he like to talk much, except perhaps when he was away from home), had married a woman who did nothing but yammer. This constant machine-gunning yammer tormented him because there was little he could do except keep his ear tuned to it, which forceput he loathed so much he was ready to kill her, had in fact to fasten his hands to his side with mental sticking plaster to stop them getting up and doing so, but when she began to yammer he listened and that was that.

His misery was a simultaneous three-pronged pain in heart, gut and arse, compounded by a loathing of himself which made him feel he was walking in the ebony darkness of an enclosed cave so that he couldn't move in any way whatsoever. If they were downstairs he could get up so as to give himself temporary relief, though only in order to tolerate another half hour before standing again for the same reason. And he had to be careful, in case she thought he wasn't tuned-in, whereby that accusation would be added to the list she seemed to be reading from with such an accusing rhythm.

Anything wrong with her life, and she blamed him. She blamed him for everything because he was incapable of discussing anything. He saw this, yet even her attempts at ‘talking things over' in a husband-and-wife way began by her holding him responsible for the fact that it was necessary for her to make the effort in the first place. He began to think she had only married him in order to have someone to blame for all that had gone wrong in her life. It was conceivable that in the track of such verbal convection he really did end by doing her sufficient injustice to blame him for, but only so that she wouldn't destroy herself utterly by being completely unjust to him.

She seemed to blame him for having been born, because this accusation did not make her feel any better she blamed him for having been born herself. He could see no way out except through death's wide gate, but in spite of her yammering he liked being alive, so what could he do?

The truth was, and he told it aloud to prevent his brain continuing its invidious yammering at
him
, that she had in fact hardly ever yammered. It wasn't in her nature to do so, though he recalled having driven her to it once or twice during their long marriage – which seemed short enough now that she had gone. But, his anger struck in again (though he prayed such destructive wrath would soon leave him alone for good), even once had been too often, and he found it hard to forgive her.

He used to think it was pleasant being married because he had found someone who was as good as a mother to him. She was better, in fact, because his own mother had as often as not ignored him, there being so many kids that she had little time for any of them. So he found in Pam a mother who, by and large, because she was a mother herself, he mostly couldn't stand. By the time he met her he no longer needed a mother, but having married he found himself lumbered with one.

Maybe he would try to find her. On the other hand perhaps he wouldn't, since he had no idea where to search. She was bound to come back, because she had no way of getting money. She couldn't look after herself. No mothers can when they suddenly don't have anyone else to work for. And she had to come back to look after him because if she didn't, who would? Now that he had lost her he realized that he loved her as well. He certainly had no mother to go to, so maybe he would look for her. At the same time, perhaps he wouldn't. She didn't deserve such consideration.

I'll tell the doctor I'm depressed, he decided, having driven round the city centre for the last half hour. He'll give me some pills. But you only went to a doctor if your arm was hanging off, or you had gone blind, or if you were carried in having lost your legs in the wickedest kind of car smash. Otherwise you went on with life, and considered that all such minor ailments would sooner or later pack up and vanish. At least he had disentangled himself from the inner-city traffic system that was so irrationally complicated that occasional motorists from other localities abandoned it after several hours trying to get their bearings, and went off quietly to cut their throats in some leafy lane near Sherwood Forest. He would toss up a coin as to whether he would go to the doctor or not.

He drove by the station and towards Castle Boulevard. I ought to kill her for leaving me in the lurch. The car behind stopped following, was lost somewhere in the one-way spirit-traps. All mirrors had disappeared except his own. He touched the end of his nose to see if he was real, and the tip was ice-cold, so he assumed himself to be healthy. The doctor could stuff his pills up his arse where they should have stayed in the first place.

The only thing he wasn't afraid of was his work, and he was happy when he turned into the cul-de-sac street that backed on to the canal and saw his workshop at the bottom. The men were already waiting for him, and one of them waved a friendly greeting.

5

‘Don't like it here.' She might even add: ‘Coming home today. Expect me soon.'

‘Don't come back,' he would write, if she sent him an address. ‘You're dead.'

So she wouldn't send any of the leaden words that clamoured at the end of her biro. The post office was warm compared to her room. She screwed up a telegram form before beginning another. People in the queues looked. She needn't have thrown the paper with such force. Every morning after buying food she called at the post office to write a telegram. It might be better to live with George than rot in the fifteen pounds a week hole of a room she had landed in. Pneumatic drills and traffic shook her nerves, and at night the Shepherd's Bush hooligans roamed noisily on their way home.

When not walking she wanted to be lying down, but was terrified at never getting up again, so she went along muddy lanes of wintry trees in Holland Park, with a plastic bag of shopping, and several crumpled telegram forms in her pocket. She looked in a pool of water, and saw a squirrel run over her face. The pain of its claws and grey bush paralysed her lips more than the wind, but children passing in a gang from the school were happy, and she smiled at them.

The semi-circular screen of the peacock's tail was blue-gold and veined-red against darkening foliage. She fed bread to sparrows. Her pride would never forgive her if she sent a telegram saying she didn't like it here. She was two people. One was imperious and able to cope, plain but presentable, cheerful, imaginative, solid in all her perceptions. The other person was timid, incompetent, everchanging, and half-mad. She knew them well, often walked with one at each hand, like two illegitimate children that she was forced to drag along for their daily outing.

She was neither of them. She was somewhere in between – but now that she lived on her own each fought more violently for her absolute attention. At her best moments she inclined firmly to the former, and at her worst lapsed alarmingly towards the latter. In spite of such inner turmoil, she liked it here, even though it meant spending most of her time being afraid. A long walk was needed before her thoughts became helpful. She passed Lord Holland's statue for the fourth time, and decided to go home.

Hunger was as real as the rain as she crossed the main road. Motor-cars speeding on either side were also real. She stayed on the island, unable to go back or forward, even when there was no traffic. Time passed, and she was unwilling to reach a decision. Her fingers were frozen. Then she found herself on the opposite pavement without having made up her mind.

She bought a pair of heavier shoes because her own got damp in the slightest moisture. Her second pair were also too thin. She bought grey tights and woollen stockings. In Nottingham, George had driven her in the car, or she knew all the buses, or she would occasionally drive the car herself, but here she was often afraid to do other than walk to get anywhere. There were blisters at both heels and along the tops of her toes, but she refused to limp. Pain wasn't considered while finding a way through the parks to Oxford Street. She got used to the nagging sores, glad when they made her feel that what remained of her was still alive. It was better than nothing.

The door key had been in her hand during the walk up Ladbroke Grove and into Clarundel Crescent. A drizzle beating against her face tasted of dustbins and petrol fumes, making her glad to get inside. The drilling-men had gone, and her footsteps creaked. Halfway up the stairs the automatic switch flipped off and left her in the dark, and she pressed the button again on the next landing. It came up immediately. Last night someone had stuck in a matchstick which kept the light on till morning. So she went up and let herself into her room by feeling the key into the lock.

She looked into the small alcove of a kitchen to make sure George wasn't there. It was colder than being outside. Keeping her coat on, she lit the gas fire, then closed the curtains in case George should look in at her. She turned on the cooking stove to get heat from that as well – not forgetting to open the oven door to check that George wasn't sitting curled up inside, ready to leap out.

She wouldn't have been seen within a mile of such an antique grease-caked monstrosity of a stove when living in her immaculate house furnished with labour-saving knick-knacks from the start of her marriage, but which made no difference because what had she done with any of the time that had been saved? The grease had been washed and scoured, so it didn't stink whenever a chop was laid under the grill.

She put on carpet slippers, hardly noticing the pain, knowing that as the hours went by she would begin to wonder where she was. Sooner or later her feet would harden and the throbbing would decrease. If George found her she prayed they'd be better so that she could tell him to go to hell before running as far away as she could get.

The knife and fork, on the small table set opposite the bed-wall, had cost a few pence from a barrow on the Portobello Road. So had the saucepan and frying pan. She regretted not having brought half the belongings of the house on a lorry. She ought to have deliberated, not fled, talked to George calmly and made arrangements by first finding a flat in London, then organizing a van from a removal firm to carry down what was hers. It was easier said than done. She had acted like a refugee, had fled in peril of her life, and was now hiding from George and his secret police.

But she liked the surprise of how simple life could be. The only expensive item was the shelter of her room, otherwise frugality attracted her. The pleasure of buying a knife and fork for ten pence instead of new ones for a pound or more gave a moral purpose to her existence. If she had never married, this was how she would have lived. Only the cup-and-saucer was new.

She wouldn't go back even if he crawled every inch of the road on his hands and knees and begged her. Emptying her pockets, she spread the half-filled telegram forms on the table. Why hadn't she noticed at their first meeting his deadly hollowness that could only be filled by whoever he latched on to for life? She laughed. He wouldn't want to see her again, in any case. And he was saying worse things about
her
, she could bet.

No need to see anything. But she dreamed about him, and woke up sweating because he was pulling her back into the trap. He was more interested in his motor magazines than talking to her. As he turned a page his fingers were immediately fixed at the bottom, ready for flipping to the next. He would go on the whole evening if she didn't say something, and when she did he answered in such a way as to make her feel guilty, implying that because he had worked hard all day, which he certainly had, he didn't want to be disturbed by her in the evening.

She had seen half a dozen of his magazines full of coloured photographs of naked women, their show-off figures strangely attractive, though most of the faces brazen or apathetic. Her own body could not compete, but was still firm enough, she thought, for him not to hanker after these pushed-out bosoms. When she mentioned them, he laughed. Most men liked to look at such things, if only for the sake of
beauty
. Some had their legs wide open, with hair and flesh exposed. He had found them, he said, piled up in Ted's room, and had taken them away from him. But Edward's only fourteen, she said. I know, he said. You're right: that stuff's for the youngsters, not chaps like me. You've seen one, you've seen them all. There was a threat in his voice, drawing her towards an area of life that she didn't care to take part in. His eyes wanted her to go on talking. He'd left the magazines under some shirts in his bedroom cupboard, where he had known she would see them.