Imaginative Experience (17 page)

‘Lonely?’ enquired the barman. ‘Got no-one to go and visit? No old biddy to give you Christmas lunch and be grateful to you?’

‘Not really, no.’ Benson reviewed his sparse and inhospitable acquaintance. Then, ‘Hold it!’ he exclaimed. ‘I just might have. Where’s your phone?’

The man gestured through the bar. ‘At the back. You got change?’

‘Thanks, yes.’ Benson riffled through his pocketbook and made his way to the telephone. ‘I rang you a few days ago,’ he said when Madge Brownlow answered, ‘and you were out.’

‘Who’s that? Who’s that speaking? Do I know you?’

‘I’m the twitcher, friend of Giles Piper. You kindly gave me tea and Julia’s number.’

‘I rather regretted that. We are not in touch.’

‘So I gathered.’

‘You are the man who likes magpies. What d’you want? After you’d gone Clodagh wondered what you were after, since we couldn’t put you in touch with—’

‘Giles?’ Maurice Benson leaned against the wall.

‘Are you ringing from a pub? I hear pub noises.’

Maurice said, ‘Actually, yes.’

‘Giles used to ring from pubs.’

‘I suppose he would have.’

‘There’s been a blitz on the magpies. Somebody shot them, said he did it in the spirit of Christmas.’ Madge Brownlow laughed harshly.

‘I am more interested in rare birds,’ said Maurice ingratiatingly. ‘I was thinking of coming your way.’

‘Really?’ There was no welcome in Madge’s tone.

‘Got some news of Julia which might be of interest.’

‘I doubt that,’ said Madge Brownlow. Then, ‘What is it?’

‘She tried, no, succeeded in deafening me.’

‘How comical.’ Madge Brownlow laughed.

‘Glad you think so,’ said Maurice. ‘I—’

‘Tell you what.’ Madge Brownlow’s voice changed. ‘If you really are interested in rare birds, I can show you where a pair of ospreys come every year on their migratory route.’

‘Where’s that?’ Maurice stopped lounging against the wall. ‘I know they stop off at Slapton Ley,’ he said.

‘This is a lake in Somerset, Julia’s secret. Nobody knows except the people she worked for. I only found out by chance.’

‘You read her diary,’ said Maurice.

Madge giggled and said, ‘Interested?’

‘Very. I was planning to come your way,’ Maurice said. ‘Could I drop in?’

‘When would that be?’

‘Now, next few days.’

‘Not over Christmas. Clodagh wants a quiet time with her memories—’

‘Christy’s toys?’ He remembered the row on the sofa.

‘And the photographs, and the grave.’

‘Not very jolly for you, but what about this lake? Should I ask Julia myself?’ Maurice teased.

‘Julia would never tell you,’ said Madge.

‘Ah,’ said Maurice. ‘Ah—’

‘Come later on,’ said Madge firmly. ‘And if I think it’s the right thing to do I’ll take you there. Goodbye,’ and she rang off.

Maurice said, ‘Bloody inhospitable old bitch,’ and returned to the bar. He was ordering himself another beer when Peter Eddison and Tim Fellowes caught sight of him and, since they were feeling convivial, invited him to join the Christmas party.

I
T TOOK AN EFFORT
of will for Julia Piper to help with the magazines. It being Christmas Eve, both Patels were busy in the shop. As in previous years they would keep working until the last late customer was served before packing their children into the van and driving across London to spend Christmas with Mr Patel’s extended family. Julia knew that an hour spent unpacking and sorting the New Year magazines would save the weary Patels that much time. In previous years, when she had volunteered to do the job, Christy had been company for his friend who now played alone, tottering around her, his minute feet thrust into the shoes she had tiredly kicked off when coming back from her cleaning jobs earlier in the evening. As he lurched about and fell with shrieks of enchanted amusement, she gritted her teeth against the memory of Christy, who had instigated the game. She tried instead to sympathize with Joyful sitting nervously, uncertain of his role, lifting a whiskery nose out of reach of the baby who, able to crawl but not yet old enough to play the game with the shoes, cherished an ambition to seize and painfully twist his nose. From time to time, as the dog’s patience seemed about to break, Julia stopped her work to hug the baby, who fought for freedom, arched his back and slid back onto the floor. His brother, flinging his arms round her neck, goggled up with lucent black eyes demanding her attention also.

‘Everything OK?’ Mr Patel’s head poked round the door and vanished as quickly as it appeared.

‘Yes, fine,’ Julia shouted. ‘Nearly finished.’

‘Big party to be in your house tonight—’

‘Afraid so—’

‘Downstairs people cook big curry with lots of rice, I think.’

‘Oh?’

‘Upstairs is turkey and plum pudding, Mrs Beeton whoever.’

‘Ah.’

‘Something called glühwein for the upstairs and white wine and spirits below. Beer, too.’

‘I see.’

‘I say beer with curry so they buy many cases.’

‘Well done.’

‘My wife say music begin already. We sell out of lemons but she keep you two.’

‘Please thank her.’

‘We shut shop now, I think. No more customers.’

‘No, sweetheart, do
not
pull his whiskers.’ Julia picked the baby off the floor and, wriggling her toes at the older child, waited for him to surrender her shoes. Then, joining the Patels in the shop, she said, ‘The magazines are sorted. Do you want help with the smellies on Sunday?’

‘Not to bother.’ Mr Patel looked weary. Mrs Patel was twisting the door sign which said
Open
on one side and
Closed
on the other; there were smudges of fatigue round her eyes. Julia handed her the baby. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘that you will get some rest in the bosom of the Patels. Mind you see she rests,’ she advised Mr Patel.

Mr Patel laughed. ‘Fat chance! But she will be happy.’ And then he said, ‘And will you be OK?’ (How can I help? his eyes asked. This is your first Christmas without your child.)

‘I shall be fine.’ Julia touched the baby’s plump foot.

‘And the party? It is in your house.’

‘I’ll survive, don’t worry.’

She stood on the pavement watching the van diminish down the street. It was freezing and above the glow of London there would be stars. Joyful whimpered beside her. They set off walking towards the sound of jazz; someone was playing the saxophone rather well. Perhaps, Julia thought, I will be tired enough to sleep when I have fed Joyful. I will plug my ears with cotton wool. The street door was open and in the house people shouted from floor to floor. The party had begun.

At the turn of the stairs Julia edged past cartons of beer stacked in toppling piles. There was a heady smell of cooking, loud voices and clatter of pans. On the Eddisons’ landing, a middle-aged man with his hair in a pony-tail blew experimental notes on his sax, perrumph, perrumph, and as she sidled past he broke into ‘Night and day, you are the one’ while Angie, Peter and others in their flat raised their voices. Tum,
tum, tum, tiddly under the sun, Whether near to you or far, We wonder where you are, And call to You-ooo, Night and daaay
—’

‘Come in and get drunk,’ they shouted. ‘Food will be ready soon.’

With his tail between his legs Joyful broke into a run and was scratching at her door when, pushing past people sitting drinking on the stairs, Julia caught up with him, unlocked her door, let him in and, closing it, lessened the noise. ‘Poor fellow,’ she said, ‘poor fellow,’ and went to the window, which she had left ajar. Before she closed it, she leaned out to see revellers converging from both ends of the street.

A figure, detaching itself from a group running ahead, shouted, ‘We’ve got a very funny new game, Angie, a new game.’

‘What is it?’ Angie yelled; she had good lungs.

‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’

‘Doesn’t sound very funny to me,’ Angie yelled.

‘Hilarious after a few drinks. Is that glühwein I sniff? Super.’

Closing the window, Julia said, ‘This is going to be a rough night, Joyful. I can stuff my ears with cotton wool; what can I do for you?’ Then the saxophone started up again:
I cover the waterfront
—Shivering and whining Joyful raised his nose and warbled.

When the saxophone stopped, Julia heated herself some soup, fed the dog, undressed, had a bath, stuffed her ears with cotton wool and climbed into bed, pulling the duvet over her head. Since she was very tired, she fell asleep, but not for long; somebody with an electric guitar had joined the party and there was dancing.

Towards closing-time the party, which had shown signs of waning, gathered strength from an influx of people from the pubs. On the floor below the Eddisons turned up the volume of music and the whole house shook to the thump of Heavy Metal. Julia sat up in bed. The dog trembled.

The previous Christmas she had spent waitressing in an hotel while Christy and Giles stayed with Clodagh. The two years since she had endured the Eddisons’ annual bash had dulled her memory; now, huddled in bed with the dog, she remembered previous parties. The first year had been a relatively mild affair, Christmas Eve only, petering out by two; but by three years ago it had blossomed to full strength, starting on Christmas Eve and lasting over Boxing Day.

Crouching in bed she remembered how Giles, choosing to be in London either because of a tiff with Clodagh or because there was another party he wanted to go to, had returned to the flat drunk but good-tempered and was undressing when the full blast of the Eddison’s party struck. With the sweet reason of the inebriate he had charged downstairs shouting at the Eddisons to ‘Pipe down, shut that bloody noise, cool it’. There had been a shouting match, a fight, a reconciliation. He had joined the party and the noise had increased twofold. Next day he had called her a spoilsport and a wimp for not joining in. Why, he had shouted in hungover rage, had she not, if she objected to normal people having fun, taken herself off elsewhere? Imposed herself on friends as dismal and boring as herself? Unaware, it seemed, that their years of marriage had lost her what few friends she had once had. Certainly there were none by that time whom she could knock up at one in the morning. Miraculously Christy, a gifted sleeper, had not woken. But now?

‘We need not put up with this,’ Julia said to the dog. ‘We will go out.’ She sprang out of bed, dressed and, locking her door, negotiated her way to the street; elbowing past couples slumped on the stairs or dancing on the landings. The street when she reached it was silent and the air brittle with frost. ‘On the other hand,’ she said to the dog as they set off walking, ‘we have nowhere to go.’

The streets of any large city in the early hours of Christmas morning are pretty deserted; there was no traffic other than an occasional taxi or a cruising police car. Julia felt exposed and alone as she walked, and surprised herself wishing she had bought Joyful a collar and lead so that there could be between them a physical connection tighter than that of his occasional brushing against her legs as they walked. Had she held a lead their connection would be less tenuous, more comforting, and she would not mind the widening gap between them when he paused to lift his leg, nor feel obliged to stoop and touch his rough coat when he caught up.

Leaving Chelsea behind she crossed into Kensington and climbing Campden Hill into Notting Hill came to a stop in Holland Park Avenue where, beginning to tire, she turned about and began to retrace her steps. By this time, she thought, the party would have died down; she could snatch some sleep, feed the dog. It was stupid, she thought, that she had not asked the Patels for a key; they would have given her shelter. But the shop and flat were locked and closed for days. Would it be possible to let herself into the woman journalist’s flat? Take refuge there? Nap on the floor? The idea was idiotic; the woman was unpredictable, might come back any time. ‘No,’ she said out loud to the dog, ‘I must stick it out in my own place. There will be a lull in the party, they can’t keep it up. I am being ridiculous.’

Turning presently into her own street her spirit lifted. Three minicabs were leaving the kerb; voices within shouted goodbyes. But Angie Eddison on the doorstep waved and yelled, ‘See you soon then for the turkey and plum pud. Peter will have mixed a fresh lot of booze. See you!’ Julia watched her go back into the house, leaving the door hospitably open. There were lights in all the windows but the music was less loud; she slipped quickly in, followed by the dog.

The Fellowes’ flat door was open; somebody groaned and was sick. Janet’s voice cried, ‘Oh God, oh God.’ She pushed the light switch for the stairs but the lights had failed; the stairwell was dark, lit only by a shaft of light from the Eddisons’ door. She climbed up cautiously. A couple deep in talk were propped against the wall on the Eddisons’ landing drinking coffee; they did not look up as Julia stepped over their outstretched legs. When the top light switch too failed to respond she fumbled in the dark for her key, and was feeling for her keyhole when a man detached himself from the floor and clutched her, dragging her close into the area of his breath, a mix of alcohol and tobacco.

‘Gotcha, Julia Piper.’ He held her. ‘I have waited long.’

‘Gerroff.’ She kicked out and drove her elbow into his stomach.

‘Now, now. Ouch! You deafened—Ouch! Christ! A fucking dog! Call it off—’ Then she was in through the door and slamming it shut, with Joyful whining and growling, his hair risen stiff along his back, listening to steps stumbling down the stairs and a yell. ‘I’ll be back.’

Opening a tin of dog food, her hand trembled and was cut by sharp tin. Holding the bleeding wound under the cold tap steadied her. ‘Any sensible person would go to her neighbours for help,’ she said out loud, ‘but I can’t.’

She watched the dog eat, gulping his food, upset, growling. She sat on the divan and watched the door, listened.

Much later she made herself some coffee, forced herself to eat, then left the house. It was lunchtime; the party was gathering momentum, swinging into a new phase, using its second wind. Someone cried, ‘Where were
you
when Kennedy was assassinated?’