The Diamond Waterfall (63 page)

Perhaps she had wanted to ask, but could not? Sylvia did not feel she could open the subject again. And later that same day they were to become fully occupied with a dying Ludwig. He was ill for two days only, losing the
use of his back legs, then running a high fever. The third evening he died, Willow sitting on one side of his basket, Sylvia the other. They both wept. Willow said she couldn't remember when there hadn't been a Ludwig. “We're the same age, nearly, except he's
had
his thirteenth birthday.” Naughty Wig, who'd once stolen a whole leg of lamb, but who never snapped and was always always obedient. Sylvia wept because she remembered Geoffrey coming through the doorway, the puppy in his arms.

“One less mouth to feed, old thing,” Reggie said, arriving home later. “Don't go replacing him, will you?”

The younger children's grief didn't last long because of the excitement of going to the seaside with Lily. Up to the last moment Willow had tried to persuade Sylvia to come. Lily too. But she didn't want to. She was afraid to leave Reggie. What terrible thing might not he do, left on his own?

She wasn't sure which worried her the most: the heavy drinking—drink they could ill afford—or the suicidal rages and despairs it led to. When she'd spoken to the doctor, visiting the two youngest with measles, she'd either explained badly or been misunderstood.

“Is he ill with it? Hung over? How's his digestion?” But Reggie was able to tolerate vast quantities. That was not the problem. “Of course I can't
make
him come and see me. So, better wait a little—shall we? And what about yourself?
You
don't look too good. Pop into the office sometime.”

She did not, could not, say that Reggie had struck her. Once on the breast, another time about the head. The first time, but not the second, he had remembered and been repentant. Too repentant. Abject: “Got carried away, old thing. Went a bit too far. Was thinking, when we get our son, must never … Won't do to let a son see …”

“What about daughters?” she had asked. But he had not been listening. Of course they could not afford a son now, nor could she be forever childbearing. It was that, and a painful miscarriage six months after they were ruined, that caused her to sell a few shares at a loss and go to Wimpole Street to have a Grafenberg ring inserted. She did not tell him. What could he not do with the knowledge?

They had been hard days since the Crash. So much had had to be concealed from her family. She had forbidden the family lawyer to speak with her mother at all. She wondered sometimes how much they knew.

The small Victorian house in North London, its main advantage that it had no space for Angie, the school where Willow was happy, the minor clerical job Reggie had found, and which she continually feared he would lose. The penny-pinching. Her own fierce pride. “We're
all right”

Downstairs, she began supper. The enervating August heat made food unattractive. She wasn't often hungry these days, yet hadn't lost weight. Was puffy if anything.

In fact, she seldom felt well now. A dragging sensation, dizziness, sometimes
blinding headaches. One was creeping up on her now. She tried to ignore it. She should have been at the seaside resting, but had fobbed Mother off with a story of going away later with Reggie, when he gets his holiday. Someone in to look after the children.

A salad: she carefully washed lettuce, peeled tomatoes, cut cucumbers into patterns, the better to tempt Reggie. She had chopped up the last of Sunday's lamb and set it in aspic. Fetching it now from the larder, she heard the frantic buzzing of flies. She'd left the back door open to air the small kitchen. She saw outside the old wire-mesh safe where Ludwig's meat was kept. The sound came from there, and when she opened the safe, the smell too. Flies clustered thickly on his forgotten lumps of scrap meat. Even when she had dealt with it, throwing it away in several thicknesses of newspaper, the smell lingered.
How
could I have left it so long?

She found herself crying—for Ludwig again. He was only a dog, she told herself. Only a dog.

She went upstairs to have a cool bath, change her dress. The glass in the bathroom was clouded. Then as she stood there, it cleared, and her face stared back at her. Heavy black circles under dull eyes, her skin rough, drawn. Stringy hair made worse by the perm which she had thought would simplify her life but which had succeeded only in enraging Reggie. Her hair was breaking—the perm had been perhaps too strong for it.

Even when some time ago her looks had begun to go, she'd thought, There is always my hair. Easy, gives no trouble. Hair that others had envied and she had scarcely appreciated. I was not vain, she thought. What I had was only wonderful, beautiful, because Geoffrey loved me.

Fourteen years now since … Shutting her eyes, she opened them again quickly, head turned away from the glass. Thirty-two and she could have been fifty.
He would not know me now.

She began to dress hurriedly, haunted by what she had seen.
Where did my beauty go?
It is not lying in wait for his return.
It is gone.
Destroyed. She felt a fierce anger at the waste of years. Why not have trampled on everyone, fled after happiness? For we would have been happy. (If he had not felt guilt, if I had not felt guilt.)
We could have been happy.

Now, I try not to remember much. To resist the recurrent temptation to trace him. Those letters (only a few over the years and always destroyed as soon as written):

You have a beautiful daughter, with fair hair and brown eyes. Willow, after the willow wood that is your name.

But, of course, she thought now, that's where my beauty has gone. It lives safely in Willow. Together with his, because for me,
he
was beautiful too.
The front door slammed as she reached the top of the stairs. Reggie, in the hall, called up to her:

“Sorry, late, old thing—sorry, Sylvie.”

She said, “It's only cold supper. It doesn't matter.” She saw him sway a little.

“No hurry then, eh? Little drink. Some time together? Quiet without kiddies. Meant to give them something to spend—donkey rides, ice creams, that sort of thing. Always short these days, though. But your Mama—plenty. She'll give them a good time.”

He went into the sitting room, which looked out onto the small garden— the fence at the end backing onto another house. The french windows were shut. A bluebottle buzzed angrily.

“No hurry to eat, eh?” He opened the radiogram, picked up a stack of records, and turned on the switch for the drop head. A Billy Cotton novelty number started up. He turned the sound louder. “Let's have a little drink—”

“I don't feel like one really. I'd thought if we—”

“Always spoilsport, Sylvie. Not your fault. We need old Angie here to shake things up, cheer you. Life always better when Angie's around.”

He toyed with the food, breaking up the aspic jelly, grumbling about the lettuce. “Lucy and Jessica's prize bunnies—give it them.” There was a boiled dressing. He poured it on lavishly, then pushed the plate aside. “Get a drink …”

She had stewed some greengages. She said, “What about pudding?” “Drink—don't want any more till I've had a drink. You have one. Sylvie have a drink too.”

“Honestly, Reggie, no. Look, the meal—”

But he had gone through to the sitting room. After a moment she followed him. The last of the records dropped down. Reggie, a full glass in his hand, drained it in two gulps.

“There you are. Now Sylvia have a drink too.”

“I said, no.”

“I'm feeling beastly. Reggie's down, pretty dumpy. Got dumps. Don't want to go on.” He turned. “Come here and sit on a chap's knee.” Reaching out suddenly, he pulled her to him, so that she stumbled onto his lap. Then, running his hand through her hair: “Hate those waves, curly stuff.” Hand over her breast, and on to her thigh. “Wait a mo. A chap needs a drink. Got to drink if he's to make a son. Best thing we can do. What I need is
son—”

Not now. Not that. She was safe. … but Reggie maudlin was perhaps worse than Reggie rough, angry. And how quickly he could change from one to the other.

“Well, old thing, Sylvie—we've been long time now—no babe, eh? I don't pay attention I ought, have to try harder, make a son.” His voice changed. Suspicious. “Not doing anything funny, are you?” He squeezed her
breast, kneading it. “Fellow I know, his wife had tubes tied, didn't tell him— poor chap found out too late.
Haven't had them tied, eh, Sylvie?”

She shook her head.

“You wouldn't, old thing? Not the way to make a son, that. And those cap things, sponges, all those … Nothing like that, haven't been putting anything up, eh?” He pulled her dress up roughly, his hand parted her french panties. Whiskey-laden breath.

“Reggie—
enough!”

He said angrily, “Caught you out, eh? Haven't put it in. One of those dutch cap things—Marie Stopes nonsense. If I find one in, know what? I'll tear it out of you—yes, that's it,
tear
it out. Can't make our son that way.” He paused. “You've been putting one in, eh?”

She said tiredly, “No. No, I haven't. I'm going to make us some tea, Reggie—”

“Don't want tea,” he said sulkily. “Don't want anything. Don't want to live. That's it—don't want to live.” He gave her a small push. “Get me a drink.”

“Get yourself one.”

“I bloody well will. You have one. Come on”—his voice wheedling—“Sylvie have a drink.”

“I don't want one. I said—a cup of tea. And you, certainly you've had enough.”

“Telling me what I must and mustn't. So bloody good.
No
bloody good, that's what's wrong with you.” He reached for the whiskey, drank some straight from the bottle, then pushed the rim against her mouth. “Go on—I said, have a drink—
have a drink.
” He pushed her against the wall. She struggled—he forced a stream of whiskey down her gullet. Rushing, burning, choking her. Her mouth open to cough, she felt more poured down. She gagged. As she tried to shut her mouth, the bottle rattled against her teeth. He tilted it and the whiskey ran down her chin, through the top of her linen dress, trickling down her body.

She was whiskey-sodden. She sobbed, “How could you, how
could
you …” Running from the room, a bath, to wash it all away. Escape, get out before Reggie turned angrier, rougher.

She had hardly reached the foot of the stairs when she heard a bellow, as of pain. She rushed back in, her heart thumping.

Reggie had in his hand the Smith & Wesson. She said unsteadily:

“You fetched that quickly. I thought something had happened, that you were hurt—”

He waved the revolver in the air, then down again, brushing it against his empty sleeve. “Can't go on, Sylvie. This time really going to pip out, finish it all. Get us out of our misery …”

She was fighting nausea. Her head spun. She saw the brown patterned
lozenges of the carpet grow dim, then clear again.
I will not be sick. O God our help in ages past our hope in years to come …

“Reggie, listen. Listen. Put that revolver away and listen to me. You only feel—it's the drink. Come up to bed, have a rest, Reggie—”

“Come to bed, that's it, eh?
Come to bed.
What we want with any of that? Whore who goes to bed—have anyone in your bed. Wonder you haven't made money for us opening your legs, eh? Could have got us some of the ready, opening your—”

“Enough.” Her voice, meant to be sharp, came out wavering.

“Who are you, eh? Telling me enough. It's napoo, finee—just want to go, no money. We'd have been all right, listen to me now, Sylvie, all right if that bastard hadn't taken family money.” He paused. “Know what?” He spoke as if a revelation had just come to him: “Know what, Sylvie? You and that Doc you opened your legs for, I know what you did—
he
did it for you. Hurried off your father, hurried him off—that's what. Both of you to have money, Waterfall, all that. Be bloody rich. Only then
he went off you,
didn't he, after you'd been wicked? Knew you for a tart, eh? Sylvie,
queen of tarts,
didn't want Sylvie queen of tarts—so that's when old Reggie steps in, saves her. And what reward? Still a tart. But no dibs. Poor as a churchmouse. Poor churchmouse Reggie.”

She tried not to hear. Not to listen at all. To think only how to get the revolver from him.
How to stop all this.

“Why should I take Doc's leavings eh?”

He waved the revolver again. Fear took hold of her. And anger.

She put her head down as dizziness washed over her, then she came nearer to him, slowly. “Reggie, give it to me. There, there. Nothing meant. No upset.”

As she approached, he pointed it at her, directly.

Terror,
a drumming in her ears. She said, trying to keep her voice calm:

“You don't mean it—”

“Never more sober.” He hiccuped. “Never. It's napoo, finee. Both of us. Do you first, then Reggie goes. Clean like that. Want everything clean. Pity can't take—where's Cuckoo?”

“Reggie, darling—please, Reggie—”

“Where's cuckoo, eh? Cuckoo in the nest. Titwillow,
where's Titwillow?”

“You know where. You know, Reggie—quiet now.” She put out a terrified hand toward the revolver. Her hand was on his. Oh my God—he had only to press … If his hand would only relax, go limp. She fought dizziness—and again, dizziness, dizziness. Spinning world.

“No,
let
me. Got to … going to … Sylvie say where Titwillow is. You hiding her? Got an idea you—she's getting a big girl now, soon be big tart, Titwillow give us a tit show, big tart learn from you …” His face so
near hers was flushed, running with sweat. It shone dizzily. His saliva hit her face.