The White Room (16 page)

His prognosis was based on guilt and blind hope. The realization hit him like a wrecking ball to his chest. Kenny wouldn't get better. He knew that. Then felt angry with himself for thinking that.

And round and round his mind went. Faster and faster, deeper and deeper. Further and further down. He couldn't help it.

Fingers trembling, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the piece of paper Dr Shaw had given him. He looked at the words written on it. His breathing became heavier.

‘It won't solve all your problems,' Dr Shaw had said to him, ‘but it will alleviate them for a while.'

Ralph had nodded.

‘I think you'll enjoy it, though,' Dr Shaw had said. ‘I can always spot a fellow—' he put his head back, staring at the ceiling, searching for the right word; he found it, returned his head forward, locked eyes with Ralph ‘—enthusiast.'

‘I … I'm, I don't think, I'm not …' Ralph had said. His face had flushed red.

Dr Shaw smiled.

‘Not yet,' he said, ‘but you will be. Like I said, I can always spot them.'

Ralph looked again at the paper.

‘What's this line here for?' he said.

Another smile.

‘My little joke. That's the line you cross. Once you've gone over it, there's no going back.'

Ralph had nodded, folded the paper, pocketed it.

Now he looked at it again.

The line.

He had dropped Joanne off at her halls of residence. She had smiled, kissed both Jean and himself goodbye, not able to mask the concern in her eyes as she did so. She had stopped short of expressing it, though, gone forward into the Leazes Terrace halls to her new friends, her new life.

Ralph had driven Jean back home. He hated that house now. With its chunky, dark furniture and its dead, stale air, it was like living in a mausoleum. He tried to spend as little time there as possible. And Jean had changed too. Drifting around the house, her clothes drab, shapeless, shroud-like, she was like the living shadow of the woman she had once been. A spectre looking to be reunited with its corpse, hoping for a spark of reanimation. And Ralph felt guilty.

He looked again at the piece of paper.

‘It's a wonderful experience,' Dr Shaw had said. ‘Very cathartic.'

Ralph had nodded. He didn't know what the word meant.

‘But be warned,' Dr Shaw went on. ‘You won't just be able to go once. It's very addictive.'

‘Good,' Ralph had said. ‘That's what I'm hoping for.'

He folded the piece of paper, put it back in his pocket. Looked around. No one could see him.

Good.

‘I'm going straight out,' he had said to Jean, dropping her off at the mausoleum.

She had just nodded, expected him to say something like that.

‘Got to meet somebody,' Ralph had felt compelled to explain. To find something that would fill the spaces between them. Words. Small words.

‘Has to be tonight,' he said. ‘Only time that's free.'

Jean had just walked up the garden path. She hadn't looked back. He didn't see her enter. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. Like the house had just silently drawn her in.

He had driven away.

Now he hauled himself out of the car, locked it. He felt uneasy about leaving the car in the area he was in, but he had no choice. This was where he had to be.

In the distance, down the bank, he could see the fledgling tower blocks: surrounded by scaffolding, loomed over by cranes. He expected his heart to be filled with pride at the sight.

It wasn't.

His heart was too full of other things for that.

He checked the address on the piece of paper again, even though he had committed it to memory.

He started walking.

Monica checked her face in the mirror.

The make-up was powdery-thick and stuck to her skin. She brushed it on as tenderly as she could, hiding the bruising on her cheekbone. She applied the last touches, put down the brush, looked in the mirror again. The bruise was covered but the swelling was still noticeable. It made her face look lopsided, misshapen.

Her eyes left her cheekbone, wandered in mirror image around the rest of her face.

All she saw was make-up. A fake skin, a false face.

Her eyes were surrounded by pale skin, fringed by long, dark lashes. The dark rings were gone, the skin no longer grey, dead and putty-like.

Her nose was prim and pale. No spidery capillaries tracing from her nostrils.

Her cheeks were heavily shaded, accentuating her bone structure. The broken veins, the splotches of ruddiness, the sunken hollows, gone.

Everywhere, her tallow skin was hidden, enclosed. Her inner self camouflaged. Monica looked, she thought, as best she could.

She checked her wig, a peroxide beehive, tucking in any limp strands of hair. She stood up, smoothed down her skirt. Her body was still bruised from an earlier punter's overenthusiasm. She found it difficult to stand fully erect, to walk without wincing.

She slowly made her way to the kitchen, half-filled a glass with gin, topped it up with tonic from a screw-top bottle. She took two full mouthfuls, sighed. That felt good. That erased the pain.

For a while.

She checked her watch. Mae would be back soon.

Mae. Behind the mask her heart sank, spirits deflated. Mae. Monica's constant reminder that she wasn't getting any younger. Nothing ages a mother, or makes a mother feel aged, like a daughter. Other women could accept that fact, even live a vicarious life through their offspring.

But not Monica.

Mae was a child born out of hate and abandonment.

And Monica had never allowed her to forget it.

At first she had tried to mother her, look after her until her father came back. Until they could be a proper family. But then she saw the news. Heard the stories. And realized Brian would never be coming back.

Then everything coalesced: the loose threads of Monica's despair at her situation, anger at Brian for abandoning her, fear for her future, all gathered together and wrapped themselves in a tight knot of seething hatred and resentment around the baby Mae. Monica wanted Brian back. She wanted Mae to disappear.

His old friends had come round, Brimson and Eddie. Supposedly seeing how she was but really just wanting to use her body. And she had let them. Thinking that would make her feel closer to Brian, connected in some way. Instead it just made her feel further apart, more alone. After a while they stopped coming.

She kept working, putting out. The only thing she knew how to do. She watched younger girls coming up, getting her trade. Prettier faces, fresher flesh. She looked at herself, having to work harder just to keep up. Twenty-three but looking thirty-three. Or forty-three in a bad light. Life using her up, wearing her out. Ageing. Fast. Mae the constant reminder.

She wanted Mae to disappear. So she plotted. She planned.

An accident. That would work best.

First there were the sleeping pills. She spilled them over the living room floor.

‘Look, Mae,' Monica had said to the one-and-a-half-year-old, ‘Smarties. You love Smarties, don't you?'

Mae had looked at her, wanting to trust her but even at that age expecting some kind of punishment.

‘They're lovely, Mae. Your favourite. Come and get them.'

Hope triumphing over experience, the toddler approached the sleeping pills and slowly chewed them up. Her mother smiled at her. Mae, trusting, returned it.

Monica watched as Mae had slowly fallen asleep, staggering at first as if drunk. Monica had laughed out loud, finding that very funny.

She watched as Mae slipped away.

It was working. The further Mae went, the more Monica felt the burden lift from her.

And then there was a knock at the door.

Monica had acted quickly, picking up the near-empty pill bottle and placing it on the kitchen table. She rushed to the door, opened it. There stood Shirley, a neighbour from two doors away. Without waiting to be asked, she entered.

‘I'm not stoppin' long,' she said, then launched into a monologue about the problems with her husband.

When she reached the living room she stopped dead.

‘What's happened?' Shirley said.

She looked down at the little girl lying on the floor.

Monica knew that she had to act convincingly. If she didn't she would be in big trouble. That was no problem, she thought. She had faked enough emotions in the past.

‘She's sleepin', isn't she?' Monica said.

Shirley looked around, saw the pill bottle on the table.

‘Go an' call an ambulance, Monica. Look.'

Shirley held out the bottle.

Monica's hand sprang to her mouth.

‘Oh, my God …'

‘Quickly!'

Monica ran out of the house to Shirley's to use the phone. The ambulance arrived, took Mae to hospital. They pumped her stomach, brought her round.

Saved her life.

Monica had closed the door on the questioning policemen for the last time, stood with her back against it, heaved a huge sigh of relief. She had acted relieved, deflected questions as to how the pills came to be there, where she was at the time. Played the distraught mother. Played dumb. She had got away with it.

But the door closing had also ended her attempt to be free of Mae. The familiar weight descended again, her mood blackened. Mae was only a small child, but the house seemed too oppressive, too small for them both.

She would have to think of something else.

She did.

She gave Mae away.

She had avoided the adoption agencies. She didn't want some middle-class, middle-aged woman looking down on her, making judgements about her life. Keeping her at arm's length in case they caught something from her. She had to find another way.

She had heard of a couple who were emigrating to Australia. They were childless and desperately wanted a baby. She knew they lived locally, at the top of West Road in a bungalow in Denhill Park. Walking distance. She put Mae in her pram one afternoon, went up there. The whole street was one of well-tended front lawns, painted doors. The kind of house Monica would have liked to live in. But she had something they didn't. She would have gladly swapped. She rang the bell. A woman, early thirties, pleasant looking, answered.

‘I hear you're looking for a baby,' Monica said.

The woman looked at her, open-mouthed.

‘I hear you're goin' to Australia.' She pointed at the pram. ‘Take her. She's yours.'

Before the woman could speak, Monica turned and walked away up the road. She heard the woman calling after her. She never once looked back.

Walking home, she again felt the burden lift from her. She smiled to herself. Then mentally kicked herself. She should have asked for money. She should have taken cash for Mae. She stopped walking, almost turning round to go back, but deciding against it. The woman might have changed her mind, tried to give Mae back to her. It wasn't worth the risk.

She went back home, back to work. That night she was in the Crooked Billet, drinking and laughing. She turned down all offers to spend the night with her, wanting instead to wake up alone in her own house. Plan her new-found freedom. The next morning she woke up with a stinking hangover and was sick on the way to the toilet. No matter, she was happy. For a day or two she hardly faked any emotions with her punters.

Then on the third day there was a knock at the door. Thinking it was a punter, she opened it quickly. It wasn't.

Mae was returned to her. A neighbour of the couple's had heard rows between the husband and wife, seen a strange girl in their company, called the police. They had asked around, someone had mentioned Monica bragging in the pub about getting rid of Mae. The couple's solicitor managed to smooth everything over. The woman had wanted to keep Mae, her husband hadn't. If the child were returned safely to her mother, no charges would be brought. Against either parties. Mae was delivered to the doorstep clutching a caseful of new clothes and toys.

Monica closed the door, looked at her daughter. A wave of anger built up inside her, threatened to crash out through her fists on to Mae's body.

‘Get upstairs,' she shouted.

Mae did so. But as she turned, Monica glimpsed her daughter's eyes. They were hard and cold, pupils tight little kernels of hatred. Directed at Monica. Mae went to her room.

Monica had never considered it before. Perhaps Mae hated her as much as she hated Mae.

A two-way street of loathing.

Monica had sat down then, the invisible burden on her shoulders too heavy to keep her upright. This was it. For ever. So she had better get used to it.

She had made her way to the kitchen, helped herself to the gin bottle.

There had been another knock at the door then. Her punter. She had sent Mae out to play, robotically serviced the punter, pocketed his money. Afterwards, she sat in the front room, counting, drinking and looking at the case Mae had brought back with her. Feeling the tide rise within her again, she picked it up, dragged it to the back door and heaved it into the rubbish in the yard. Then went back to her drink.

That was that.

She gave up planning after that. Became more opportunistic.

Monica had some friends round the house one day: Shirley, Bert too, and others. Monica had put Mae out of the way, playing upstairs. As Bert came to go, he looked up the stairs. And stopped dead. Mae was standing by the open window, dolls on the windowsill. She stretched out, overbalanced. Bert saw that and ran, two at a time, up the stairs. He reached the child just in time, pulling her back into the window, into the house. Hurting his back in the process.

Monica started: she didn't know how that happened, Mae was a naughty girl for playing there. Reprimanded the child, smacked her. Mae started to cry.

Mae's legs were scratched and cut where Bert had pulled her in. Bert was struggling to get up, his back spasming in agony. Shirley was shouting at Monica, telling her she was irresponsible. Monica just wished they would all go away, leave her alone. Let her find some peace.