Soft (14 page)

She sat up and switched on the light beside the bed. She could never tell how long he'd be gone. Sometimes he just went out for air. But he was also quite capable of going to a bar or a restaurant or a cinema without her. Then it could be hours before he returned. Once, when they were in Miami, he flew to New York and back, and she never even knew. ‘It was a meeting,' he said later. ‘Kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.'

She picked up the remote and turned on the TV. It took her five minutes to make the Video Checkout Facility disappear. Then she channel-hopped until she found an old black-and-white film, the women in shiny, tight-fitting dresses that almost touched the floor, the men in dinner jackets, black bow-ties. Everybody in the film talked very fast, and almost everything they said was funny. She wondered if there were really people like that; if there were, she hoped she would come back as one. While she was watching TV, she happened to notice her face in the mirror that hung on the wall directly opposite the bed. She was smiling. She realised she'd been smiling the whole time.

As soon as the film was over, she became aware that she was hungry. When was the last time she had eaten? Twenty-four hours ago, in the Café Roma. She looked through the hotel information booklet for a menu, then she called Room Service. This was something she had learned from Tom, and the novelty of it still delighted her. She ordered a
bowl of oatmeal with honey, some wheat toast and a glass of milk.

‘In fact,' she said, ‘make that two glasses.'

It was almost midnight when Tom came in. He had changed into jeans, a black shirt and a pair of snakeskin boots with Cuban heels. She'd never met anyone in London who dressed like him. She thought he looked good, though.

‘It's dark in here,' he said.

She moved her tray of empty plates and glasses on to the floor. He turned two lamps on and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing away from her. He ran both hands through his hair, then he picked up the phone and started dialling. She watched him as he talked. Odd phrases reached her, meaning nothing. She could only see parts of him from where she lay – his hair cut short at the base of his neck, almost razored, his shirt stretching tightly across the muscles of his back, his right hand gripping the receiver low down, near the mouthpiece. He had such strength in his hands. In his body altogether. When they were making love, he would sometimes hold her down so hard that she had bruises on her upper arms for days, bruises the shape of fingers, thumbs.

He was on the phone for a long time. In the end she stopped watching him and watched the TV instead. They were showing a Western – the old-fashioned kind, with wagon-trains and Apaches. When, at last, Tom finished, he put his feet up on the bed and sat beside her, with his back against the headboard.

‘What's this?' he said after a while.

‘I don't know. A film.'

‘This all you've been doing? Watching TV?'

She looked at him. ‘I ate something.'

He didn't take his eyes off the screen.

‘What about you?' she said. ‘What did you do?'

‘I went out. Saw some people.'

‘Friends?'

He nodded.

She looked away. This was a typical conversation. He would trap her into questions and answers, and the answers told her nothing. And she knew there was a limit to the number of questions she could ask; if she kept on at him, he would only lose his temper. She knew something else as well: there would be no more sex. Often, with Tom, it happened once, on the first night. After that, it just didn't come up. He would lie on his back under the covers in his white vest and his boxer shorts, silent and withdrawn, untouchable – at times like that she imagined a veil stretched over him, a veil she couldn't penetrate, still less remove – or he would turn on to his side, facing away from her, a few strands of hair showing, an ear too, perhaps. She watched a spear thump into the chest of a man wearing a dark-blue jacket. His eyes closed and he fell backwards, both hands clutching at the shaft as if it was precious to him, as if he couldn't bear to part with it. The Indians were riding their horses over the fallen wagons now, the makeshift barricades. They always did that, didn't they.

The wedding reception was being held in the country, about an hour's drive from New Orleans. That was all Glade knew. They set off in the convertible at midday, after a breakfast eaten in near silence. Once they left the city suburbs behind, the roads were almost empty, and Tom drove fast, as though impatient to have the whole thing over with. She sat quietly beside him, wearing sunglasses, her hands folded on her lap. It was a hot day. Trees steamed gently in the dull yellow light. Leaves drooped. She saw a lake of pale-blue water, its surface motionless, and dense as mercury. Everything seemed to weigh too much, including the air above her head, and for once she was grateful that he didn't expect her to talk; she wasn't sure she could have heaved the words out of her mouth.

At last they turned through a gateway on to a narrow, curving road. She noticed a glimmer of whiteness beyond the thick wall of trees to her right.

‘Is that it?' she asked.

Tom didn't answer.

She watched as the trees thinned and fell away, revealing the house, which stood on a gentle slope, the ground behind it rising to a smooth green ridge. The house itself was entirely white, and looked, to Glade, at least, as if it had been decorated especially for the wedding. It had shutters on the windows, a flat roof and a high front porch that was supported by two Doric pillars. On the left side of the house three verandas had been built one on top of the other, and a huge oak tree reached its branches towards their railings, deepening the shade.

Inside, the house was cool and dark, and filled with faces Glade didn't know, people of all ages. Standing near the bottom of the stairs, she watched a silver tray glide at head-height through the crowd with a steadiness that seemed supernatural. She lifted a glass of champagne from it as it passed by. As usual, Tom had disappeared, and she found herself talking to the father of the bride, a man with flawless manners and hair the colour of ivory. When he learned that she was English, and that she had never visited the southern states before, he linked her arm through his and led her into different rooms. The floors were American elm, a hardwood that was now rare, and the sideboards gleamed with candlesticks, clocks, cigar-boxes. White flowers floated in wide silver bowls, releasing a creamy perfume into the air, almost too rich to breathe. They were gardenias, the first that she had ever seen.

The house was old, he told her – though not by her standards, of course. It had been built in a style known as ‘antebellum', which, literally translated, meant ‘before the war'. His family had owned the property for more than one hundred and fifty years.

‘Don't ever lose it,' Glade said.

He gave her a curious look, moving his head a little to one side, as if he couldn't quite see her from where he was standing, as if, with that one remark, she'd disappeared round a corner.
Which in a way, perhaps, she had. Because she was thinking of the house in Norfolk, the house that had been her home, its pebble-dash walls and its window-frames painted green, the airless dusty silence of the attic in the summer where, lying on your stomach, you could contemplate the mysteries of the back garden – the rows of pear trees bearing fruit with strangely freckled skin and, just beyond the fence, the stream in whose clear water she had once discovered a man's gold pocket-watch. The house her father had abandoned when his marriage fell apart.

‘I only mean that it's beautiful,' she added quickly. ‘I don't think I've ever seen such a beautiful house.'

The man thanked her, lowering his chin towards his chest in a way that seemed nineteenth century. ‘And if I may compliment you in return, Glade,' he said, ‘that is a charming dress.'

‘You think so?' She glanced down at it uncertainly.

That morning, in the bathroom, she had hesitated, but in the end she had no choice. It was a long dress that reached almost to her ankles, the fabric light, and patterned with flowers, not fashionable at all. She couldn't think why she'd packed it in the first place, but she was glad now that she had. When she walked back into the bedroom, though, Tom took one look at her and asked her what she was wearing.

‘It's the only thing I've got that covers up my knees.'

‘Your
knees?'
He was looking at her as if she'd lost her mind. It was a look she was getting used to.

‘You don't remember?' She lifted her skirt and showed him.

He turned away, towards the window. He had hardly spoken to her since.

She followed the bride's father up a wide staircase of dark wood, noticing the slight curve of his spine through his pale linen jacket. On the second floor, in rooms that were used less frequently, the air smelled of walnuts and vanilla. The man talked about his daughter, who was studying to be a dancer
in New York. She was the youngest of his children. ‘She must be about your age,' he said, and looked at her sideways, with his head at an angle, and smiled with one half of his mouth. Through the windows she could see bright pieces of the countryside, their colours almost in relief against the soft gloom of the interior. Then, as they descended, she suddenly felt trapped and breathless. Each sound she heard seemed to have an echo attached to it. And, just for a moment, the staircase and the hallway far below it blurred in front of her, as if she was looking through water. She touched her forehead with the fingers of one hand. It was damp.

‘Are you feeling faint?' His voice sounded so distant that she thought he must have risen, like an angel, towards the ceiling.

‘Yes,' she murmured. ‘A little.'

‘It's become rather warm in here. All the people.' He was trying to be kind. Where they were standing, which was halfway down the stairs, it wasn't warm in the slightest, and the hallway was almost empty. Still, she allowed him to guide her towards a chair. He told her that he would go and look for Tom. She sat down. Propping her elbows on her knees, she held her forehead in both hands and stared at the floor.

When Tom came, he took her outside into the garden. Though he didn't complain, she could tell that he resented it. Being seen as somebody whose girlfriend wasn't well. Having to leave the party, even if only for a moment.

‘I'm all right,' she said, wishing he would go back in.

‘How much did you drink?' he asked.

‘One glass of champagne. It's not that.'

At the far end of the lawn they found a bench, its wrought-iron painted white and peeling slightly. They sat side by side, with their backs to the house. A cedar spread its curiously flat, dark branches above their heads. Tom leaned forwards, forearms resting on his knees, hands clasped together.

‘Talking of drinks,' she said, ‘have you ever heard of Kwench!?'

‘Kwench!?' He paused. ‘Yes, I've heard of it.'

‘I keep thinking about it.'

He turned slowly and stared at her.

‘I don't know why,' she said. ‘It's not normal, is it, to keep thinking about a drink you've never seen. And the colour too. Seeing the colour.'

Tom was still staring at her. ‘Maybe you should talk to someone.'

‘Talk to someone?' She didn't follow. ‘Who?'

‘I don't know. A shrink, I guess.'

She thought about that for a moment.

‘A shrink,' he said, nodding.

From where they were sitting, the land stretched away to the horizon, and the distance was blue, the same blue as the smoke that rises from a bonfire. Louisiana, she thought. I'm in Louisiana.

After a while Tom stood up. He walked a few paces, hands in his pockets, then he stopped and seemed to be looking at the view. ‘I can't figure you out, Glade.'

She smiled. ‘People are always saying that.' But she had never expected to hear it from him; she'd thought that it was one of the things he liked about her, the fact that he found her mystifying.

Tom faced her across the grass. ‘I think maybe it's best if we don't see each other for a while.'

‘We don't anyway.' She was smiling at the ground.

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘It's been four months. Since the last time.'

He was silent. Then she heard him breathe out.

‘You think it should be longer than that?' she said.

His silence lasted. And, though she knew she shouldn't be talking, she couldn't help herself. He was clever that way, making her talk when he knew she was no good at it. Her
love for him, it still existed, she could feel it, but it was the hero held prisoner inside her, it had been tied up, gagged, and her talking, that was the bad men winning.

‘If it was any longer,' she went on, ‘it would hardly be worth it.'

There. She had said it for him. And it had been so easy that she thought she might as well go further.

‘Do you think,' she said, ‘that we should just forget about it completely?'

He seemed to wince at the idea.

‘You can leave me. It's all right. I won't make a fuss.'

What else could she say?

‘I won't cry.'

She had used up all her words. If she opened her mouth again, nothing would come out. She decided she would wait for him to speak. However long it took.

‘Maybe it's best,' he said eventually, ‘for both of us.'

‘It's good for me.' She took a deep breath and looked into the distance, the place where the landscape vanished, not the horizon exactly, more like a kind of haze. ‘I'd like a drink of something.'

Tom stood over her. ‘Don't you think you've had enough?'

She suddenly remembered the words she had noticed in a shop window on her first night, while they were driving to the Garden District. She could see the exact shape and colour of the letters, and the way the sign tilted, as if a poltergeist had been at work.