The Private Parts of Women (20 page)

So next day I said no. Because of Mary, I said, because Mary is my friend, because I do not love you, is what I said. Because of the lust in your eyes that excites something bad in me, because I cannot let you know me, is what I thought.

If I had married Harold where would I be now? Sometimes I wonder if that was my one chance, if I had been fooled by a sort of double bluff – the Devil made me see evil and lust in him when there was only goodness and love. Perhaps I would have had children, two girls and two boys. No, not boys. Not babies at all, oh no, no, no. I could not bear to be near a baby. I'm worn out with these everlasting memories, going round and round in my head, what if this? what if that? questions, questions and no answers. Never, ever, an answer.

Time for my quiz: Countdown. I like this. You can make answers to this. I keep a pad by my chair with a pen attached, to save a scramble every afternoon, and I try to beat the contestants at their own game, and sometimes, on a good day, I do.

ADA

My love for Frank. Oh … you cannot imagine. The sight of Frank made Trixie shudder. Poor Trixie who knows nothing. I do love her, of course I do, she is my … she is my … I have responsibilities. I have work to do. There is the boy I have to keep him in. Somebody has to.

That boy is a monster.

Frank killed people but he killed them according to the rules because criminals do have rules. The rules are more exacting than the ones they cross. Break a rule, get the knife. Simple.

No, I do not agree with killing but, a funny thing. His killing hand on my body it made pleasant gooseflesh.

Can you explain?

One day, a hot windy day. We were in torment. Trixie was trying to move her Salvation life into our childhood home. Trying to deny the strengthening me. I was feeling bad, knowing I would hurt Trixie with my love for a bad man. The boy was weak then, it was me that was the other mover.

The country, Epping Forest. He drove me in his Armstrong-Siddeley black and shiny as a stag-beetle. We drank beer outside a pub in the sunshine. We walked past a hedge full of blossom. Bees hummed and bumbled. The grass was long and soft about my ankles. I had hardly seen him outside. Under the shadow of his hat I saw his skin was scarred, little bluish zig-zagged lines on his cheekbones. He had thin crooked lips but eyelashes like a girl's.

Up against a tree.

‘Let me love you,' he said.

I looked around. There was nothing and no one, only green trees swaying and creaking and childish white flowers like stars in the grass. He lifted my skirt and moved aside the lacy edge of my knickers. The tops of my thighs were a shocking blue-white in the sunshine.

Trixie's thighs too.

‘Not here,' I said, aware of the hardness of the tree trunk against my back.

‘Where?' he said.

‘Mine,' I said, thinking of Trixie, thinking, can I? Can I? I knew if I could stay
me
, stay away from Mary then I could bring him back. ‘Tonight.'

‘You're on,' he said. He took off his hat and put his head down. I saw for the first time that his hair was thinning on top. I thought he would kiss my thigh but instead he nipped the flesh between his teeth. A sharp nip. When he stood up, he smiled. I think it was the first time I'd seen him smile a whole smile. It revealed the sharp ivory of his narrow slanted teeth. Rat's teeth I thought, and the thought was not repellent.

FEVER

Two whole days and nights in bed. I think it must have been flu or something, worse than a cold anyway. I was so ill, time just hung in the room around me and didn't pass and my dreams were like stale tastes in my mouth when I woke. I staggered to the lavatory once or twice, and to fetch water to drink. I oozed tears into my pillow because there was no one to look after me. My mum used to wipe my hot head with a cool flannel when I had a temperature, bring me fruity drinks, change my hot rumpled sheets for smooth, cool ones. Richard would bring me medicine and cups of tea and try to keep the children away. But there was no one – and it was my own fault.

Something strange, I remember, a bit like a dream. I got out of bed, feeling ghastly. I went to fetch a glass of water from the bathroom. Before I got back into bed, I pressed my hot forehead against the cold window. It was either early morning or early evening, anyway, barely light, but Trixie was outside in her dressing-gown. I thought she was looking at her plants but then I saw that there was a cat in her garden, a big black-and-white Tom, he prowls round my garden too, a nice cat. As I watched, Trixie leant down as if to stroke him and then, with a quick movement, caught him by the tail and pulled so hard she jerked him off the ground. The cat's scream was frightening, but what was worse was the sound of her laugh as the cat ran off. A
sort
of laugh, horrible, jeering. If I hadn't seen with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed Trixie could do such a thing.

I was very feverish.

Maybe it
was
a dream.

Today, though, I woke with a clear head and the aching in my muscles almost gone. My stomach was hollow, my skin all shivery and mottled, but still I feel much better. I looked at my parchment face and greasy hair in the mirror. I ached for a bath – but the boiler has completely packed up. I thought I'd ask Trixie if I could have a bath at hers.

There was nothing for breakfast, only a bit of stale bread, an inch of thick milk in a bottle, so I had to go out. Everything was sparkling, so bright it hurt my eyes. The fag ends and dog turds in the gutter were stiff and whiskery with frost. My legs felt hollow and weak. I was walking along the main road to the supermarket when I saw a little boy running ahead of me. He had blue padded trousers and a red jacket just like Robin's. His hair was dark, he was the same size. Just for a splinter of a second I thought he
was
Robin and my heart leapt. The little boy was running towards the busy road. It looked as if he wasn't going to stop. I didn't stop to think, I leapt forward and grabbed his hand. And he turned, surprised. And it wasn't Robin, of course it wasn't, quite the wrong face, a nice little boy but not my son. His mother hurried up and caught his hand from mine.

‘I thought …' I started to say but she did not care to know. She gave me a tight suspicious smile and whisked the boy away – and who can blame her? If someone had grabbed my Robin like that I would have reacted in the same way. I thought how I must look, pale, haggard, greasy. I could have been a mad woman for all she knew. The episode left me feeling faint. Instead of the supermarket I went into a café and sat in the window drinking coffee and forcing myself to swallow a toasted tea-cake.

Through the window I watched the procession of mothers and babies, mothers and children, pregnant women. It was as if someone had put a breeding spell on Sheffield. I seemed to be the only woman under the age of forty without a child in tow or brewing.

Then I walked back home, feeling exhausted, dispirited, so flattened that I forgot to post Richard's card. I'd had it in my bag but the boy had distracted me, wrenching me painfully into a moment of motherhood, responsibility, reminding me of the panic of protective love … I'd meant to buy a stamp and post the card but my surge of energy had evaporated. All the way home my hand kept clutching at the empty air.

I felt disgusting, ugly, smelly, caked in the cold residue of my fever. I needed to bathe and then to sleep. I knocked at Trixie's door. I was scared of her reaction. But I really needed a bath. There was no one else I could ask.

The door sprang open quickly, surprising me.

‘Inis init?' Trixie laughed as if this was a great joke. ‘Come in, always thought it a funny sort of name, funny
peculiar
that is. In is.'

I followed her in. She looked and sounded different, the whole room seemed different, though it was dark, the curtains were pulled against the sun and the light all came from the silently flickering television screen and the orange bars of the fire. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I was amazed to see that she was wearing lipstick and a raggedy chiffon dress sprinkled with shiny black beads. And the room smelt overwhelmingly of rank perfume. A huge perfume atomizer, with a silky black bulb to squeeze, stood on top of the piano. For a moment I thought it wasn't Trixie at all but a sister, perhaps a twin. Where's Trixie? I almost asked, but
she
knew
me
. And anyway, I could see that it really was Trixie.

‘Sherry?' she picked up a bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream. ‘I've been longing to offer you a sherry. Never mind tea.' She sniffed. ‘Old woman's drink.'

I opened my mouth to object, to explain what I wanted but already she had poured me a glass and pushed me quite firmly into a chair. All her movements had changed, as if she was a smaller, lighter, younger person. I didn't have the strength to refuse.

‘You've caught me unawares,' she said. ‘Only half ready, unprepared.'

‘I'm not well …' I began but she seemed not to hear.

‘It is an anagram of I sin,' she said, ‘your name. Has anyone at any time pointed this out to you?' I shook my head. ‘And Ada is a palindrome. A.D.A. Identical read backwards or forwards. Anna is another and Hannah another, the longest I've been able to devise with my feeble …,' she tapped her forehead, ‘is redivider. Whether that's a bona fide dictionary word I couldn't say, nor do I care if you want the truth. It is, in any case, a word.'

‘Well yes.'
Ada?

‘If you can divide something then you can redivide it. And if you redivide something you must become – however briefly – a redivider. Yes?'

‘Yes, I suppose so.'

‘Oh don't worry, my dear, I've had plenty of time to puzzle these things out in my miserable
waiting
existence.'

She swallowed down her own sherry and topped it up. I sipped mine. It was very sweet.

‘I didn't think you drank,' I said. ‘I don't know why, for some reason I didn't think you would.' Particularly in the morning, I thought.

‘Yes well, one can never tell can one? Thing is, it is my birthday.'

‘Oh Trixie, you should have said.'

‘How old do you think? Go on, guess …'

I hesitated. Truth is, she could have been ninety. ‘Sixty-five,' I offered, ridiculously, but she crowed. ‘Not far off, not too far off.'

I felt as if I couldn't breathe, what with the heat and the perfume and, I suppose, a sort of shock. I couldn't take Trixie in. I sipped at the sweet sticky sherry and my stomach lurched with alarm.

‘Thing is, Trixie,' I tried again, ‘I've been ill, there's no hot water …'

‘You do look a perfect fright,' she said, ‘take a tip …' She lifted a curly black wig from a shadowy place on the floor and fitted it over her sparse white hair. ‘There … my natural colour,' she said patting it into position. ‘Why does she have no mirror hanging? Jet black, almost blue-black.'

‘Who?' She only patted and preened. ‘Is anyone coming?' I asked. She looked so festive, the black beads and the nylon hair glistening warmly in the orange light from the electric-fire, her arms bare and withered under the ragged chiffon sleeves, her mouth an approximate, passionate slash in her white face.

‘There's you,' she said and my heart sank. I wanted only to crawl away. I had given up the idea of a bath. ‘And possibly a certain someone else,' she said mysteriously. In my pocket I could feel the edge of Richard's card. I thought I must get a stamp and I must send it.

‘Yes?' I said, politely. ‘Mr Blowski?'

‘The very same, if he can get away from his infernal vegetable. Brenda I mean, of course.'

‘Trixie!'

‘Oh that name,' she said.

‘I would have got you a card, a present.'

‘Don't be silly, I don't need presents when I have your presence.' She cackled.

‘But I can't stay long. Trixie, I've been ill, in bed for two days … no heating. I've been really ill.'

She was not listening. ‘Back to your photographs I suppose,' she mused. ‘How about a photograph of me … a birthday portrait?' She posed, pouting, hand on her hip.

I hesitated. ‘I thought …' I started – but what a gift. After the disappointment before. If I demurred she might easily change her mind. And she looked so … striking.

‘I love to be photographed,' she almost purred, ‘go on Inis, as a present to me, a reminder of me as I am today.'

‘Well, yes, thank you.' I put down my sherry and went to fetch my Leica. My house was so cold, the lens misted in Trixie's warmth. I used a wide-angle lens, cruel maybe, but the distortion was what would make the shot. I felt bad, taking advantage. She was so drunk I was sure she didn't know what she was doing. She was like another person.

When I got back she had opened the piano and was picking out a tune and singing:
Eadie was a lady, though her past was shady. Eadie had class
…
with a capital K
. The piano's sound was soft and plinky and slightly out of tune but her voice was fabulous, so different from the strident, hymn singing voice I'd grown used to, that had threaded its way into my ill, half-dreaming state. It was low and husky, almost gritty as if with yearning.

I didn't want to use flash, I didn't have time to organise lights – I thought she might change her mind, so I simply drew back the curtains and let the bright sun spill into the room and hoped for the best.

She seemed hardly to notice me as I photographed her, she was so involved in her song. I shot her at the piano and then followed her when she forgot it and began to sway around the room, the light catching her brilliantly, hands flattened over her belly and hips, head thrown back, eyes half closed.

When she'd finished she pulled the curtains again, and pressed more sherry on me. I'd started to feel quite drunk. It was something like a dream, like an extension of my feverish state, Trixie done up so glamorously – while I'd been gone she'd applied, crookedly, a pair of black eyelashes, and I suspect another drench of perfume. I sat down with my drink and then suddenly Mr Blowski was there at the door, his arms full of white lilies that flickered blue and tangerine in the television and firelight.