The Private Parts of Women (30 page)

Maybe Trixie/Ada is going to kill me.

Don't be silly. Why should she? But what if she was to have a stroke say, and die? Or drown in the bath? I could be shut up here forever. Oh stop it, stop it.
No foe shall stay his might, though he with giants fight
. I wish Richard was here with me, to see me, to touch me.
He will make good his right. To be a pilgrim
.

I wish someone would let me out.

Trixie
!

DOLL

I hardly know where I am. I am at home. If it wasn't for the television to keep me here … What? What now? It is
dadadada-dum-dum
‘EastEnders', that is all right. ‘EastEnders' is finished. I know where I am then, and when. All safe by the fire in my dressing-gown, all safe.

But why is she making so much noise? Why, when I long for the companionship of noise is she so quiet, and tonight when I cannot bear it why does she make such a noise? She is evil. She is like the Devil in my head, worming in the folds of my brain.

Oh what's up there in my head, no, no, not in my head in the top of the house where I do not care to go. Is the noise in my head or in my house? In the attic? That is where bad dreams live among the dust and cobwebs. Where the wardrobe is. I can almost feel its black weight above me. I never go up there. The door is safely locked. Stupid! What do I think would come creeping down those stairs if the door was open? It's only a room full of junk.

Still, better that it's locked, better for my peace of mind.

Terrible not to know where you are. That confusion when you wake and everything is strange, a split second that echoes down the day.

When I woke at Doll's, I did not know where I was. Or even who I was. I lay waiting for it to fall into place. Sun shone on my bed. Then I remembered the jump. I could not believe it. I might have laughed. I could not even do
that
right. A spectacular failure.

The little room was hot and stuffy. I got up and at the end of my bed, found my skirt, neatly mended and ironed. I wanted to wash, to start the day. I needed to find out: what happens next.

I opened the door and crept along the landing that was full of the smell of sleep, the sound of sighs and snores. I found the bathroom, slipped off the nightdress Doll had lent me and washed. There was a long mirror and I could not help seeing my body though I avoided my face. I could not help thinking that it was a lovely body, white as marble but for the dark nest of hair, the pink nipples, the bright red of the little rose on the thigh.

I dressed, the uniform seeming odd in this house, pious and somehow silly. Wrong for me now. I thought about going back. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't bear to remember what Mary and Harold had said to me. They had as good as killed me. I thought that as I buttoned my blouse: they had killed me. I was dead and whatever I did now it didn't matter. Trixie had jumped in the river and drowned. Now I would be Ada.

Downstairs it was quiet. The curtains were all closed against the sun. I opened them and let it stream in so that dust glittered in the air. I could have just walked out. There was no need to stay. But where would I go? Where would Ada go?

The thought of my house made me shudder. I could not enter that house again, the house of Trixie's childhood, the house of shadows and fear. I could not bear the sickening soup of dread that slopped in my stomach whenever I thought of Ivy or the children. Or even Harold and Mary.

At least I was not poor. I could do anything. Cruise to the United States. Buy myself a motor car. Learn to fly, ha!

I made a cup of tea. The kitchen was big and dark, no sun at the back of the house, a tap dripping a brown ring in an enamel sink. There were gin and beer bottles in a box by the floor – but it was clean. Every dish and glass washed and put away. The wooden draining-board scoured, the floor swept. Doll was right, it was a clean house.

I sat at the table and sipped my tea. A girl in a satin dressing-gown came into the kitchen. She gave a start when she saw me sitting there in my uniform and then laughed.

‘Doll's new friend …?' she said.

‘Yes, Ada.'

‘I'm Gracie – I sewed your skirt.'

‘Thank you, it's beautifully done.'

‘Just one of my many talents.' She lifted an eyebrow at me as she poured herself a cup of tea and sat down. Her dressing-gown was trimmed with wispy down, pale like the hair of Ivy's children. I couldn't get that wretched family out of my head. Gracie's hair was pale and smooth as butter. She looked no more than sixteen.

‘Hungry?' she said, jumping up. ‘I could eat a bleeding horse. Bacon and egg?'

‘Yes, thank you.'

She clattered about with pans and lard, whistling like a man, cracking the eggs and holding them high to splat in the pan.

‘Doll's a respectable woman,' she said suddenly, turning to me quite fiercely. ‘She saved me from worse you know. It's a respectable house.'

The door opened and Doll came in, splendid in an embroidered silk kimono. ‘Dad, mum, tit, tat,' she said. ‘And refer. Know what they are, Gracie?'

‘No, Doll. Sit down.' Dramatically solicitous, she pulled a chair out for Doll. She wiggled her forefinger at the side of her head and winked at me.

‘Get stuffed!' Doll batted her with her hand. ‘Palingdromes, that's what, eh Ada? A.D.A.'

‘Yes, darlin'.' Gracie sat down and yawned through her long white fingers.

Doll shuffled her rump around on her chair. ‘Good night,' she remarked, rubbing her finger in the corners of her eyes. ‘Here watch those rashers.'

Gracie got up to attend to the frying-pan.

‘So has Ada here shown you her tattoo?' Doll asked.

‘No.'

I was startled. My hand went to the place.

‘Show her A. There's no harm in it.'

Well, I thought, I'm Ada now. Ada wouldn't be backward in coming forward. I slid my chair back and lifted my skirt to show her the rose. She breathed in. ‘Ooh … that's lovely,' she said. She ran her cool fingers over the place and I shivered.

‘Can I have one, Doll, can I? Go on.' She stretched out and her dressing-gown fell open to show her long bare legs. She opened her thighs and pointed to the shadowy hollow just below the wisps of light hair. ‘Just here. Or else on me tit. A little bird I'd have, I think, a swallow or something.'

Doll yawned and stretched until her ribs cracked.

‘Do you have to, Doll?' Gracie said.

Doll frowned at me. ‘You're a dark horse, Ada. I'm most perspiwhatsit, as a rule. Tell like that …' she snapped her fingers, ‘good, bad, dangerous … goes with the job. But I can't seem to get the measure of you. Perspicacious,' she added with satisfaction.

‘Doll loves her words,' Gracie said, licking egg yolk off her finger.

Doll looked at me. ‘So what are we going to do with you?' she asked.

‘I'll go,' I said. ‘You don't have to do a thing.'

‘Seems a bleeding waste,' Gracie said. ‘Think what our gentlemen would make of that.' She nodded at my thigh.

‘Eat up,' Doll said. The bacon was sweet and fatty. ‘We'd call her A,' she continued through a mouthful of bread, ‘if she was to stay.'

‘Just think of it,' Gracie said, giggling … ‘No,' she held her hand up to me, ‘no harm in thinking. A. sitting there with me and Nan and Edie, all of us in our glad-rags and whatnot and A. sitting there cool as a bleeding cucumber in her uniform. No lipstick nor nothing.'

‘Quite a looker though,' Doll added, ‘quite a figure underneath it all.'

‘When the punters come in; the gentlemen friends I mean,' Gracie smiled apologetically at Doll, ‘what wouldn't I give to see their faces!'

‘Some of them'd go for her just like that … but what if she was to slide her skirt up, show a bit of leg …'

‘Right up to her stocking top … show that rose …' Gracie sucked her breath in.

‘Falling over themselves, they'd be,' said Doll. ‘Still.'

MOTHS

I don't think she'll come tonight now. It must be late. The moths are fluttering near the candle flames. Stupid things. Giant flame shadows wobble about on the sloping ceiling, the shadows of the moths among them, shuddering smudges.

There is nobody to miss me, except those who have been missing me all along. The swaying shadows make me feel sick, the stocking hanging from the lampshade stirs, the room itself seems to be swaying. The lilies are cold and fleshy and their scent is rank.

Perhaps she had a son who died? Why else would she keep the clothes. Poor, poor Trixie. I thought I knew her but I don't know her at all. So sad that the little clothes are moth-eaten, so sad.

It is strange to be lying here in the redness of her bed, dressed in velvet, silk and fur and to be too pissed to move. It is not like me at all. I am thirsty, so thirsty, but there is nothing to drink but more gin.

I'm afraid one of those moths will burn itself. What is it that attracts them to the flames? I could blow out the candles but then it would be dark. If I could be bothered to move, the first thing I'd do is shut the wardrobe, there is something stupidly menacing about the door lolling open, the dark, mothy, crammed interior.

I want to see my babies. I'll bake a cake for them, buy presents. It's nearly Billie's birthday. My baby will be one. I'll buy such lovely things. And for Richard? I'll be his present in stockings and suspenders, silk next to my skin, it's the only thing, my dear, the only thing.

Poor Richard. He tried to make me sexy. Tell me your fantasies, he said, but my only fantasy was of ten hours uninterrupted sleep. Alone.

There was that weekend in the Peak District. We could have made love in the open air like we did in Greece. Then we found a little scoop of beach, overshadowed by pine trees, hidden by rocks and we lay on the firm sand and made love, right on the edge of the sea itself. I cannot believe we did that, Richard and me, it is more like something from a film about another woman. I can even see the rectangular edges of the screen. That holiday we did it all the time, everywhere, in the shower, in a rowing boat, in a car.

I wonder if Trixie would give me this dress, let me buy it? No, it is rotting.

The gurgling of the water tank is a friendly sound.

I think she has forgotten me.

All these mirrors. Lying down I can see myself in a mirror by the bed smudged with lipstick, she must have kissed the mirror. My roots are showing. I used to kiss the mirror sometimes too, to see what I looked like kissing, but you can't see, it's too close and you steam up. I look like a tart, what my dad would have called a tart, and my mum.

I'm so thirsty and my head is pounding.

Does she mean to hurt me, or am I only forgotten?

I'm parched, so dry I have to sip the gin just to wet my throat. You can understand sailors going mad. All that sloshing sea.
Water water all around and
…
all the sea was ink
. No.

I wonder what time it is? Middle of the night, that's what I'd tell Robin if he asked. I don't know if I've been asleep or not.

If all the land was bread and cheese and all the sea was ink, if all the
…
something about lemon curd?
I don't know. Robin knows it.

I want a tall glass of cold water, only that, the most simple request. One of those frosty glasses. First thing when I'm out of here, a glass of water, a pint of it, two pints. I won't be fit for much tomorrow.

If the moths would stop fluttering, then maybe the flames would stop fluttering. If everything was still it would be better. The shadows crawl like independent things, seem to crawl out of the wardrobe, like the ghosts of coats and shoes and frocks. Oh for Christ's sake.

If the clothes in the wardrobe are her past, then she must have had some past.

What did she mean about the police? What has she done then? What?

I could be scared, if I let myself. I could be very scared. I can smell burning wings.

GENTLEMEN FRIENDS

God had left me. At the moment I jumped. Or I had left God. The Devil had caught me by the skirt and delivered me to Doll. Delivered me into prostitution. How many gentlemen friends I had in that time I do not know.

Now I am clean. I am forgiven. Washed in the blood of the lamb. I am still shivery after my bath. Possibly I am catching that woman's cold. I am not myself. Oh that again. I should be in my bed with a hot drink and my little bedside telly on for company. There's a Bette Davis on after midnight. ‘A Stolen Life'. I do like Bette Davis. There is trouble in her eyes that I recognise. And something else. I know! That Inis! That's who she reminds me of. Fancy! All this time I've been tantalised. Give her some curls and lipstick and that's who she'd be. Bette Davis.

I'll see her tomorrow and I'll tell her. I'll be friendly. Cool though, cool but polite. I have to withdraw because she is a snake at heart, a snake with Bette Davis's face sent to rob me in the night.

Why do I not go to bed if I'm so tired and cold? A hot-water bottle or two at my feet and the lull of a black-and-white film. Instead I sit here too close to the fire, burning my shins and shivering. Some programme on the television while I wait for the film, I don't know, some pop group with matted hair, flailing, the sound turned down. Looks like an asylum, all that thrashing around.

What is it that is the matter? In this house there is nothing wrong. Everything is as it always is. And yet I cannot settle. It is as if I've left something switched on that should be off, or something open that should be shut, something undone that should be done.

It is her that has upset me, her next-door, with her treachery.

I wish that she would disappear.

I got it wrong back then. I thought I would be Ada. I thought since I was Ada, I would stay and be a whore, that would be my new life, that was the sort of thing she would have done. But I was wrong. Or not. Maybe she would have done it but it doesn't matter. It wasn't Ada – if there is even any such person – it was me, that is what I have to face. I was the sinner, not her.