Vacant Possession (15 page)

He had no idea, of course, when she might possibly have removed the photograph. He had not been in the habit of checking that it was there. He thought it was a fragment of Isabel, salvaged and indestructible, but it was not indestructible at all. He had not been in the habit of taking it out to look at it; he had been in the habit of knowing it was there.

He had been a fool then; he knew that Sylvia might come upon it. It was more likely than not. But somewhere inside, perhaps he hoped that Sylvia would be redeemed, that finding the photograph and dimly comprehending its meaning, she would no more remove it than one would remove flowers from an enemy’s grave. Survival was the only victory; surely she would see that.

But this was unrealistic. Whoever thought there was anything dim about Sylvia’s comprehension? Had she burned it, he wondered, or torn it up? Or had she done neither, but laid it aside for her private consideration? And what would she do to him now?

Slowly he sat upright, letting his hands lie loosely on his knees, gazing at himself in the dressing-table mirror. He formulated a phrase or two: the last thread of my aspirations has been cut. He felt self-conscious, rocking this startling grief, while the Old Spice soaked into the carpet. It’s all right for you to laugh, he said angrily to the face in the mirror, but it matters to me, it matters a lot. He knew he was not formed for tragedy. Everything he had done and thought had been contained within the streets, the gardens, the motorway loop of this sad English town. But why did he need a wider sphere of action? The town was in itself a universe, a universe in a closed box. There was no escape, no point of arrival, and no point of departure. Every action, however banal, opened into a shrapnel blast of possibilities; each possibility tail-ended or nose-dived into every other, so that there was no thought, no wish, and no perception that did not in the end come home to its begetter. He slid forward onto his knees, meaning to investigate the stain that was growing at his feet. Of course, I could pray, he thought.

It’s me, Colin Sidney; it must be, oh, ten years, God, since we were last in touch, but what’s that against the aeons? I asked an awful lot, a decade ago, but now all I want’s a bit of peace; isn’t Peace your specialty? There was no answer, just a faint chatter and rustle, the sound of pigeons coming home to roost. He took out his handkerchief and began to dab at the broadloom.

Breakfast time again. Sylvia slapped some diet margarine onto a minute square of toast and slowly spread it out. “Do you know what I read? I read that women of my generation had four children because that’s how many the Queen had. Subconsciously, you see, we looked up to her as a role model. What do you think of that?”

“I’ve never heard such a load of tripe,” Colin said.

His wife sat ruminating for a moment; for it was Point 9 of her 12-Point Diet Plan to eat at a leisurely pace and make each mouthful last. “But it might be true, mightn’t it? I mean, a couple of years ago what would Suzanne have done? Straight off for a termination. But now…fertility’s the in thing.”

“I see what you’re driving at. You don’t find Princess Di nipping off to the abortion clinic, do you? You don’t find her popping out for a quick vacuum extraction.”

“Exactly.”

“There could be something in it.” Strange, Colin thought, how the preoccupations of the sane reflect those of the insane. And vice versa, of course.

At the second phone call Jim had softened his line a little. He had stopped offering Suzanne the money to terminate her pregnancy, and told her to do what she bloody well liked. Suzanne did not repeat his exact words to her parents, or his sentiments, even inexactly. She was convinced that once Jim had got over the immediate shock, he would rally round and have a serious talk with his mad wife about an imminent separation.

On Tuesday morning, when Muriel arrived to clean at Buckingham Avenue, she stepped inside and found the atmosphere instantly familiar. The curtains were not drawn back properly, and the place was half in darkness. Upstairs, a long shadow slid across the landing. She heard a door slam shut. Sylvia sat at the kitchen table, slumped over a cooling cup of coffee. “Help yourself,” she said. “The kettle’s just boiled. The milk’s sour, though.”

“You’re drinking milk, Mrs. Sidney?”

“Why not?” her employer said. “What does it matter? We’re all getting old. I’m not going to keep my figure, I’m just fooling myself.” Sylvia looked away. Her mouth was set in a thin hard line. “My daughter’s pregnant.” She propped her elbow on the table and sucked despondently at a thumb nail. “Lizzie, you haven’t got a fag on you, have you?”

“Oh no, Mrs. Sidney, I never touch them.”

“Don’t you?” Sylvia’s voice was dull. “I thought you had all the vices, duck.”

“Which one is it, Karen?”

“Christ no, she’s only thirteen.”

“They say you can never tell these days.”

“It’s true, you can’t. Better get to the shops, I suppose. Need anything?”

“No, but thank you all the same for asking. What a good woman you are, Mrs. Sidney! It’s a privilege to wash down your fitments.”

Sylvia smiled weakly. How odd the woman was. “But how could you be any other,” Lizzie asked. “Now that you see so much of the Reverend Teller? Oh, and by the way…”

Sylvia looked displeased now. “Yes?”

The daily was fishing in the pocket of her apron. “I saw Mr. Sidney, God bless him, he was rooting through the dustbin. Is this what he was after?” She held out her palm. On it were the two halves of a photograph. “Picture of Mrs. Jim Ryan,” Lizzie said.

“What?” Sylvia stared down at it, horrified. “Picture of who?”

“It’s a lady called Mrs. Ryan.” I’ve seen her at the hospital, she was going to add, but bit it back in time. Her night job was another life, wasn’t it?

Sylvia’s fingers trembled. She took the photograph from Lizzie. She tried to fit the halves together; the girl’s face, dreadfully bisected, stared back at her. There was a knowing look in each eye.

“It can’t be. You’ve got the name wrong.”

“Oh no, madam, I’m acquainted with this lady, I couldn’t make a mistake.”

“You’re quite sure? You’re quite positive, are you, who this is?”

“On my mother’s life.”

“There’s no need to go to that extreme,” Sylvia snapped. Her mind groped, very slowly, around the possibilities. “I want to know if you’re quite certain.”

“I told you. The old girlfriend, is she? Well, love makes the world go round, Mrs. Sidney. There’s only one reason the gentlemen keep pictures.”

“Shut up,” Sylvia said. “That has nothing to do with you.”

“Mr. Sidney seemed upset. Frantic, he was, throwing the rubbish about, got all yoghurt pots over his feet. I knew he was after it, but—” she gave Sylvia a broad wink—“us girls have got to stick together.”

I’d like to sack you on the spot, Sylvia thought; except that if we’re going to have a baby on our hands, I daren’t. “Now listen,” she said. “You don’t mention this to anyone, right? Not to Mr. Sidney. Not to Suzanne. Understand?”

“Clear as day.”

“So watch it.”

At least she doesn’t know the whole story, Sylvia thought. She’s put a name to the face, but she doesn’t know about the complications. And I won’t tell Colin I know; not yet, anyhow. “Go and do the bathroom,” she said. She looked down at the photograph again. It seemed to swim before her eyes. A sudden pain lanced through her right eye, her nose, her jaw. She was going to have a crashing migraine, any minute now.

Going up the stairs with her sponge and her bottle of nonscratch scouring cream, Muriel felt an intense gratification. There was no need to connive with destiny; the family were managing nicely for themselves. The air was choked with tension and spite, and on the landing all the doors were closed; it was just like Mother’s day. The children were locked in their rooms, sniffing glue and crying. From behind the doors came the soft sounds of breathing. It was nothing now but a matter of time. There would be strange pains in the dark bedrooms, despair in the breakfast room where Mother’s kitchen used to be. Food getting cold, food getting bad; soon the lightbulbs would go, and no one would bother to replace them. The bills would go unpaid, and dirty milk bottles would stand in a row on the sink. Sylvia’s hips would grow to 44 inches, as was their nature, and she would waddle and roll about the house, and hide when the doorbell rang. Just as Colin’s athletic joints would swell and crack with rheumatism, so autumn moisture would crack and swell the plaster and brick of the new kitchen extension. He would take to drink, perhaps lose his position. Sanctimonious Flo would be found out in some lewdness, and Suzanne’s untended child would wail from the back garden, bleating for the peace of the clouded water from which it came. The evergreens would grow, blocking out the light at the back of the house; foul necessities would incubate in the dark. Soon cracks would appear in the walls, and a green-black mould would grow along the cracks and spread its spores through the kitchen cupboards, through the wardrobes and the bedlinen. Given time, the roof of the extension would fall in. Where the lean-to had stood, the house would be open to the sky. Rubbish would fester uncollected, and the rat would be back. The girls, ostracised by society, would fall prey to crippling diseases. Alistair would be taken away to prison. No member of the household would fail to see their lives and motives laid bare. Their trivial domestic upsets would turn soon to confusion, abandonment, and rage. Acts of violence would occur; there would be bodies. Could they prevent it? She didn’t think so. There was Resurrection, in various foul forms; but what came after? Now Muriel’s rules were in operation, and the Sidneys were entirely in eclipse.

When Suzanne came downstairs at last, driven by hunger, Lizzie Blank said: “Don’t take on so. It happened to me once.”

“Did it?” Suzanne looked at her; she was interested. “I bet you’ve led quite a life.”

“Oh yes,” said Lizzie Blank. “A devastated charmer like me.”

“And what did you do?”

“I got rid of it.”

“That can’t have been so easy, when you were young.”

“No, but I had my mother to advise me. She knew all about that sort of thing.”

“Did you have a good relationship with your mother?”

“In ways.”

“I wish I had a good relationship with my mother. She’s trying to push me into an abortion, you know, but Jim and I want this baby. Didn’t you ever regret it, Lizzie?”

Lizzie thought for a moment. “I suppose I did. Not at the time. But nowadays I miss it. I reckon we’d have been two of a kind. And I need company.”

“That’s so honest of you, Lizzie. You’re…such an honest person.”

“I’d have liked to give it an inheritance. A lovely house like this.”

“Do you think this house is lovely? I hate it. It stifles me.”

“You’ll be out of it soon enough.”

“I’m going to get a flat or something, just till I get things sorted out with Jim.”

“Jim your intended, is he?”

“Oh yes. But he’s got to go through the divorce, you know. These things take time to sort out.”

“So you could be on your own till the baby’s born?”

“I hope not. I’m going to find a place, and he can move in with me as soon as he makes Isabel see sense. I mean, there’s no point in dragging out a failing marriage, is there?”

“None at all. Mind, his wife will stop in the house, you’ll need furniture, all that. Door furniture and fire irons I can get for you cheap, I have a friend. But I expect you’ll need a cooker, you won’t be able to afford to go out to restaurants.”

“No.” Suzanne looked bemused. “I expect I’ll need a cooker.”

“I’ve got money put away, you know. I can always let you have a loan.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Lizzie. But I hope I won’t need it.”

“Well, I like to oblige my friends. You’ll have to look in the paper for a place to rent. I got mine out of a window at the newsagent’s. But it wasn’t easy.”

“I know. There’s not a lot of accommodation about. It’s the same in Manchester, until I got my place in Hall I had to sleep on somebody’s floor. But you can’t do that with a baby.”

“You could always stop with me a bit, until you sort yourself out.”

“Oh, Lizzie.” Suzanne burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it. To think that you should be so kind, when you’re almost a stranger and don’t know me at all, and my family who’ve known me all my life should be so horrible.” Impulsively she threw her arms around the daily woman and kissed her violently rouged cheek.

“The offer’s there,” Muriel said.

The last days of the summer term were worse this year than Colin remembered. There was the usual rush and muddle, the disorderly behaviour on the corridors; and then there was his mood. For three days running he lost his temper before Assembly; the days went downhill from there. He was churlish in the staff room, and was seen kicking the stencil machine. He lost an entire stack of reports—Form 3C’s—and they were turned up at last by one of the cleaners, who would surely reminisce about it for a year or more. He stayed late, signing them, tidying his desk, then lurked about in the staff lavatories, butting his head at a square of ill-lit mirror, trying to spot grey hairs. He couldn’t wait for the term to be over; though what ease, what leisure awaited him at home, better not to speculate. Better not to think too far ahead. He was conscious of an almost physical revulsion, a shrinking away, whenever he tried to imagine how his tangled circumstances might be unknotted. Even when school was let out and his pupils were set free to run amok down the High Street, he paced the empty corridors warily—echoes, white tiles—as if expecting an ambush.

Sylvia flew about the house, bossing the daily woman, nagging the children; she jangled her car keys and sprinted down the path. He tried to corner her, scrutinise her expression, lead her into conversational byways which would perhaps reveal what she made of the situation. Nine years ago she had been obtuse. Now social intercourse had sharpened her wits. Weekly at the Bishop Tutu Centre she listened to tales of human improvidence, criminality, and perversion. Nothing shocked her, she said. Let her only enquire too far into current events, and she might have to swallow her boast.

“Colin,” said Sylvia.

“Yes?”

“You ought to go and see this man Jim Ryan, and find out what’s going on.” She turned away, so that he couldn’t see her face.

Colin swallowed. “Where, at his home?”

“No, not at his home, Colin. At the bank.”

“Oh, but the fuss…at his place of work…”

“Is there going to be a fuss?”

“Well…that depends on his attitude.”

“Perhaps you’d rather I go?”

“No,” he said hurriedly, “no, Sylvia, I wouldn’t want that. I’ll deal with it. I promise you. We need to give Suzanne a little more time to come to terms with the reality of the situation. Then if she still insists that this man is going to set up house with her, I’ll do whatever’s needed—only please, Sylvia, let me do it in my own way.”

“You’re sweating, Colin.”

“The topic makes me uncomfortable.”

“Yes, I suppose it would.” He searched her face. “Perhaps I could ask Francis to talk to her,” she said.

“You can hardly ask a clergyman to talk her into an abortion.”

“Oh, Francis has some very modern attitudes. He’s full of common sense, you’d be surprised.”

Here we go, the same sickening conversational merry-go-round. Why doesn’t she take off with Francis, if that’s what she wants? I won’t stop her. And Suzanne should have Jim. And I should have Isabel. Even if it is some other Isabel; I should marry her for a penance, and for the sake of her name.