Two Women (55 page)

She thought he was very sweet and idealistic. If a little naïve.

‘Maybe Susan Dalston just saw her chance - a chance to get him out of their lives once and for all?’ Geraldine suggested. ‘Perhaps the drink had done that to her. Spurred her on to take advantage of the opportunity before he awoke and the whole dreadful cycle started again. Maybe, seeing him like that, drunk, unconscious, she just saw
opportunity
. No other thought, nothing, just a chance to get rid of him.’

Colin heard the resonance in her words. She really knew what she was talking about. She understood the need that could come over someone, the need to make someone or something just disappear.

‘Maybe she just wanted him to leave her alone.’

Colin saw the earnest expression on her face and felt as if he had been given a glimpse of the real Geraldine O’Hara. The Geraldine beneath the designer outfit and the well-styled hair. And what he saw he couldn’t believe. He saw a frightened girl inside a very desirable woman.

She drank her wine in two gulps then, excusing herself, went to the toilet. Ten minutes later, just when Colin was terrified she had left without telling him, she came back.

She was once more the cool feminist barrister with good legs, a better brain, and that don’t-you-
dare
-touch-me look about her.

He was relieved and saddened both at the same time.

 

Matty awoke to sunshine and a strange feeling of loneliness. It was odd, missing someone. Especially someone like Susan Dalston. But Susan intrigued her. She found it difficult to understand someone who could be so selfless. Think constantly about other people, little people who did nothing but make demands on her. Her time, her attention, her few pennies.

She talked about them constantly, as if they were real people with opinions and thoughts and needs. When in fact all they had was needs.

Children needed and parents, fools that they were, provided for those needs. Without a second thought, without anything except their own need to give.

It would never do for her. She didn’t want anyone taking from her, least of all ungrateful people. People who couldn’t even feed themselves for ages or make themselves understood. Matty shuddered at the thought.

She wandered from the cell, bored. She walked to the rec room and tried to play a game of solitaire but someone would always try and strike up a conversation so she got herself some coffee and made her way to Rhianna’s cell.

Rhianna was inside with a young girl called Sarah. She was tall with great brown eyes and a heart-shaped face. She looked like she should be in a passionate Fellini film full of Italian men, all hairy and moustached.

Until she opened her mouth. Then she was broad cockney and romantic thoughts shot from people’s minds. She was suddenly a slut with a bad mouth and her beauty seemed to fade away.

‘Hello, mate, all right?’ Sarah had a happy-go-lucky disposition that was the envy of the wing. ‘You look like you just lost your virginity to the night screw.’

Her laughter was deep and infectious. Even Matty had to smile. Rhianna nodded to the girl and she sloped from the cell, all legs, hair and smiles.

‘She’s a funny one, that Sarah. No matter what she says, I never get the hump with her.’

Matty nodded.

‘It’s her disposition. Some people are like that. They never really see the shit they have made of their lives. It’s to be envied.’

Rhianna was quiet. When Matty was like this it was best to humour her.

‘Are you okay?’

Matty shook her head.

‘I’ve got the prison skits, as Sarah would say. I’m fucked off, pissed off, and feel like a fight.’

Rhianna relaxed. This she knew, this she could cope with.

‘I’ve felt like that for ages. You have to go with it, see if it disappears on its own. If not, have a puff. Have a trip. Get out of your head. The comedown normally sorts me out.’

‘Do you think Susan is all right? I mean, she seemed so out of it. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. There was such pain in her voice. Real heart-wrenching pain.’

Rhianna took a joint from her tobacco tin and lit it, blowing the smoke out noisily. She passed it to Matty who drew deeply on it.

‘You know what I think? I think, Matilda Enderby, that for the first time in your life you have been affected by another person. You actually care about Susan Dalston and don’t know what to do about it.’

She started to laugh and Matty sat on the bunk, not answering, letting her eyes roam over the cell. It was all male in here: males on the wall, males on magazine covers, male smells even. Dope, tobacco and stale sex.

Except the sex wasn’t male though it should have been.

‘I care nothing for Susan Dalston actually. It’s just that I have to share a cell with her, and if she’s going mad I think I have the right to know,’ Matty said airily.

Rhianna nodded, still laughing.

‘I’ve already asked about her so stop worrying. She’s fine. Back on wing this afternoon. Susan loves them kids too much to be incapacitated for any length of time. She wouldn’t give anyone the chance to say she wasn’t fit. Stop worrying, Matty.’

The last bit was said slowly, as if Rhianna could see inside her head and knew she was worried whatever she said.

Sarah drifted back into the cell then. Her huge eyes were glistening from LSD and her body crumpled as she slid on to the other bunk.

‘I fucking hate this place.’

No one answered her. There was nothing to add.

 

Susan listened to the psychiatrist. The man was elderly, with dyed brown hair and watery grey eyes. She liked his voice, though. It was a low Scottish burr and brought back dim memories of happier times.

‘How do you feel now, Susan? How do you feel about your life?’

She thought long and hard. What did she feel?

‘I feel like I did at home. When I was on top of everything. Then, just as I put in the last bit of washing, I would stand back, pleased with meself. And I’d see one sock. One dirty sock that had somehow escaped the machine. Then I would know that life was telling me there was always something or someone who got away from you. Or who ruined your routine, your life, your feeling of well-being.’

Doctor McFadden stared at the big woman before him and smiled. He decided he liked her, she was a philosopher in her own way. A dreamer who had never had the time to realise her dreams.

Like everyone else, though, she didn’t know that.

‘Do you ever think about what you did?’

She sighed then, a long, weary sigh.

‘Think about it, doctor. If you was me, would you think about what you’d done?’

He bit his lip and thought for a few minutes. Then shrugged.

‘It depends really, doesn’t it? It depends on whether or not you feel that what you did was wrong?’

Susan smiled.

‘You are a wily old fucker. I’ll have to watch myself with you, won’t I?’

‘Coming from you, Susan Dalston, I’ll take that as a compliment.’

Later in his notes, he wrote: ‘Full of guilt, full of love for her children with whom she should be at home if there was any justice in the world.’

He knew the high ups hated him, thought him too liberal, too easy on the girls he dealt with. But that was what years of listening to sorrow and heartache did to you.

Wendy had woken with the familiar pain, a stinging sensation between her legs that made it impossible for her to wee without wanting to cry. She wished she was back in her room with her soothing cold calamine lotion.

This happened to her periodically, a legacy from her father and what he had done to her. He had given her a disease. Wendy sometimes wondered if it was a punishment from God. Her father had already had it when he took her, so God must have given it to him expressly so he could pass it on to Wendy.

She never could make sense of it.

She closed her eyes and dreamed her dreams. She imagined she was at home, with her mother and her sisters and brother. Her father had miraculously died in a car crash or a fire and they were all happy and fed and warm. They sat in the lounge and ate crisps, tomato sauce-flavoured, and drank cream soda to their heart’s content. They watched
Bonanza
on TV and little Rosie took turns sitting on their laps and being fed tit-bits.

Sometimes it had been like that, when her father was away with his other woman, in his other life. Then they could all really relax and be happy as if his absence made their lives more real. They could all feel they existed for other reasons than being bawled at or pushed out of the way.

Their granny Kate would visit them with packets of Rolos and Wagon Wheels and a Jamboree bag for Barry who loved flying saucers that cracked his tongue with the sharpness of their sherbet. Granny would talk to them all with her lovely voice and her kind words.

She was dying now, couldn’t even visit them. It had taken her hard, guessing what had happened that night. She knew in her heart what her son had done. Knew he was capable of it, which Wendy knew was much worse for her granny. ‘Blood will out’ careered around in her head and she forced it away. Forced herself to think of something else but now the pain was growing worse.

Wendy cried.

This was worse than any of the other times. She was so sore and could feel the blisters underneath her body as she moved. As if she had been burned there, by hot water or bleach.

She licked her lips with a dry tongue. What she really needed was some ice. Ice cooled it, made the hurt go away. Ice was good.

Mrs Eappen came blustering into the room, all hair spray and buttoned cardigan.

‘Are you thinking of getting up, child?’ Her voice was disapproving as usual, as if she automatically expected badness and therefore got it. Wendy hated to disappoint her and made a conscious effort to be bad if she could. She felt it cheered the woman up.

‘I really don’t feel well today.’

Mrs Eappen looked at her hard. She did look peaky, white and drained. She also seemed to be in pain.

‘Are you okay? Do you need the doctor?’

There was concern in her voice now and Wendy was ill enough to appreciate that.

‘It’s okay. Just my period.’

Mrs Eappen looked at her suspiciously.

‘You had your period not a week ago.’ She stared down at the girl on the bed.

‘I’ll get the doctor. Better to be safe than sorry.’

It was Wendy’s protest that made her phone in the end. The more the girl denied being in pain, the more convinced Mrs Eappen was that a doctor was needed. In her years in the service she had seen it all: home abortions with knitting needles and chop sticks, girls miscarrying in their nice clean beds with never a thought for the danger they put themselves in or the trouble they caused others.

The doctor duly arrived to find an hysterical girl who refused to allow him to examine her. Finally, Wendy was held by well-meaning arms and concerned faces stared down as the blankets were removed from her body and her terrible secret was exposed.

She heard the doctor whistle between his teeth and Mrs Eappen’s low cry of: ‘Dear God in heaven, what’s wrong with the child?’

Wendy was found out on a bright morning when she was at her lowest ebb. Suddenly she was deluged with people all wanting explanations of when and with whom she had had sex.

When being what they really wanted to know.

Especially Mr Potter, who looked miffed as well as annoyed. There was relief on his face and it galled her.

Wendy kept silent. She had not learned much in life, but what she had learned she had learned at her Granny’s knee. Granny Kate, who smelled of home baking and 4711.

‘People only know what you tell them, child. Remember that all your life. Only tell your secrets to people you know will keep them just what they are. Who will keep them as they were meant to be. Kept. Secret.’

Wendy understood now what getting old was all about. It meant you knew things other people didn’t know yet. It meant trying to warn them about the dangers of a life you were finished with. That was gradually winding down and emptying of everything but memories and secrets.

She lay in the bed and felt suddenly serene. She would tell them nothing. Let them guess the worst and they wouldn’t even scratch the surface.

Her father was gone, and she was glad. Nothing could ever really hurt her like that again. Not even this thing she had been given by him could hurt her as much as he had hurt her in the giving of it.

She looked at them all with her big wide eyes. But she answered them not one word.

She knew Mrs Eappen thought she had been shagging under their very noses. This knowledge gave her a small rebellious sense of smugness.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Roselle was with a Soho hard man called Danny. No one knew his last name and no one had ever had the guts to ask.

He was big, black as coal and handsome in a bald-headed, muscle-bound way. The hostesses loved him and he loved them. Though only for a night here and there. He was harder to catch than syphilis off a vicar as the girls put it to each other.

He didn’t talk much either, which suited them. They talked all night in the club, talked crap. Crap for men with dreams of perfect womanhood which were as far removed from real life as the moon was from the earth.

But they played the game and enjoyed Danny. His quiet strength, his lovely smile, and most of all his cock which was like a baseball bat or a cricket bat depending on who you talked to. He laughed at their jokes, understood their unhappiness and gave them a few hours of unpaid sex.

Roselle, however, knew him better than anyone. They went back years and when she needed a job done, he was the man she’d call. Now he sat in her car, all dark brooding looks and secret smiles, and she filled him in on the situation.