Vacant Possession (24 page)

“It’s not a toy. Suzanne’s just given birth, so where else would she be? And I understand she’s left home already.” He turned the head about. “Faculty of Combativeness.”

“It’s rubbish anyway,” Sylvia said. “It’s discredited.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Colin felt his skull above his left ear. “Opportunities for self-knowledge are so limited. It doesn’t do to be dogmatic. I wonder what I’d find if I read Florence’s bumps?”

“I think I’d rather not know. I’d rather not know more than I do.”

“‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.’”

“Another quotation,” Sylvia said. “It’s like Christmas every day, living with you. Out come the mottoes and the silly jokes, and the coloured plastic distractions, all the penny whistles and cheap novelties. And when the day’s over, what happens? All the trash is left under the table, for me to clear up.”

He didn’t answer. Surprised by the fluency of her outburst, he sat on the sofa, his eyes indignantly wide, staring at the phrenological head. Sylvia went into the kitchen. He heard the fridge door open and shut, and the clink of glasses. She whipped back into the room, ignoring him, and began to rummage around in the drinks cupboard.

“Oh, are we drinking again?” he asked.

“I am. I need one, after that episode with Suzanne. Have you ever known anybody so ungrateful? What more does she think I can offer her?”

“Pour me one.” He sounded forlorn.

“I’m having vodka.”

“That’ll do. Don’t put anything silly in it.”

Her voice floated through from the kitchen: “What do you call silly?” The telephone rang. Sylvia nipped back, dumped the glasses, picked it up; she thought it was Suzanne, changing her mind about things. He saw her back stiffen. “Yes,” she said carefully. “Yes, it is. Yes, he is.” She lowered the receiver, muffling it against her left breast. “It’s Mrs. Ryan. She wants to know if she can speak to you. If it’s convenient.”

Colin leaned forward and took up his head. The pottery bones were cool and firm beneath his palms. “She being sarcastic?” he asked.

“Just hold on,” Sylvia said into the receiver. To him, “What?”

“When she said ‘If it’s convenient?’ I mean, does convenience enter into it?”

“Hold on, Mrs. Ryan.” Sylvia put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Are you going to speak to her or not?”

“I mean, it’s a pretty hollow concept, convenience,” he said. “After ten years. She’s known where I was, this past decade.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve been here, haven’t I, at Buckingham Avenue? Where’s she been? God only knows.”

“You could have found out,” Sylvia said. “I daresay it wouldn’t have been beyond you. You could have made enquiries.”

“Oh, I could.” He upended the head and peered inside it. “But they might have led somewhere. Then I’d have had to take action. Then where would I be?”

“Mrs. Ryan,” Sylvia said, “I don’t think he wants to talk to you.” There was a pause. “She says she must know from you.” She held the receiver towards him. “I’ll go out of the room if you like.”

He shook his head.

“He shakes his head,” Sylvia said.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Colin banged the head down on the table. “There’s nothing to say. There’s nothing left. It was a delusion.”

Sylvia bowed her head over the receiver, and like a confidential secretary repeated the message. She listened. “I’ll tell him.” She put the phone down gently, and watched it for a moment, as if she thought it might ring again. “She says to tell you, that’s exactly as she supposed.”

He knew, by the careful repetition of the phrase, that the words were Isabel’s, exact; he knew, too, that they’d be the last she’d speak to him, directly or indirectly, the last ever. “Drink your drink,” Sylvia said. “I don’t mind if you have a cigarette. I know you’ve got some in your jacket pocket.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” he said.

He straightened up from the awkward posture he had assumed, crouching over the low table, and sat down at one end of the long sofa. Sylvia sat down at the other. She crossed her legs carefully, as if she expected to sit for some time. Both looked straight before them, like people in an airport lounge who fear that the journey ahead will be time enough for them to become acquainted.

Presently Sylvia shivered. “The central heating’s gone off again,” she said.

“There’s something wrong with the time clock. I expect Alistair’s been moving the tappets.”

“He must be doing it by remote control then, he hasn’t been in for days.”

“No, I’ve not seen him either.”

Their voices were carefully neutral and flat; polite people, feeling their way into conversation, thrown together in cramped accommodation by mere chance and the necessity of having to travel at all.

“Sometimes I think I’d like to run away,” Sylvia said. “If kids can do it, why not parents? I can’t cope with this place.”

“Everything seems to be falling apart, doesn’t it?”

“Did you know the washer’s packed up altogether? The only thing to do is to go and leave it all behind. It’s like, what do you call it? The House of Usher.”

“It’s like the house of Atreus,” Colin said. “Now there’s a coincidence for you. You eat this pie, and it just happens to contain your children.”

Sylvia turned on him. “You’re doing it again.”

“You started it, with the House of Usher, I’m only putting a word in.”

Sylvia jumped to her feet. Her face contorted with anger. She ran out of the room. Alarmed, he sped after her. He caught up with her at the foot of the stairs and threw his arms around her waist, swinging her round. The small effort put him out of breath; he would be no good these days on the squash court. Sylvia struggled; he lifted her almost off her feet and dumped her down on the third stair. “Don’t move,” he said. “Let’s have this out. If we don’t straighten it out now then we never will.” He took her left wrist in a secure grip and sat down beside her. It was a tight fit. Sylvia had been expanding lately. They were red in the face; emotion and the moment’s struggle had knocked the breath out of them both.

“You know the House of Usher?” Sylvia said, when she recovered herself. “I saw it on TV. It’s better than TV, living here.”

“No licence fee, only the mortgage. No adverts to interrupt you.”

“I’d be glad of interruption at times.”

“Did you throw out my photograph?” Colin said.

“Yes.”

“I suppose you think you did it for my own good.”

“No. I did it for my own.”

“Thanks a million.”

“That was her, wasn’t it? It’s all the same woman.”

“Yes, I’ve often thought that.”

“I’m not stupid,” Sylvia said. “I can put two and two together.”

“I don’t see how.”

“I have my sources of information.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

“What would have been the point?”

“That’s that,” he said. “Ten years of mental agony.”

“It can’t have been. Not ten years solid. There must have been bright spots.”

“She’s an alcoholic. Her husband told me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“C’est la vie,”
Colin said. “I saw her coming out of the bank. I thought she was a figment of my imagination, some sort of mirage. So I let it go. There’s a moment for everything and when that moment’s passed you might as well strike camp and stamp out the bonfire—and get back to daily life. You’ve been away too long.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking…I’ve something to tell you.”

“Oh yes?”

“If you really want to run away…do you remember Frank O’Dwyer?”

“Could I forget him?” Alarm and dislike crossed Sylvia’s face: it was an old colleague, whose dipsomaniac company she had never relished. “What about him? I thought you never saw him since he went to County Hall.”

“Only occasionally. I mean, the Educational Advisors don’t come by that often. They might be contaminated by contact with the kids.”

“And?”

“He’s had an accident. He was over at the Forty Martyrs Comprehensive last week, and he’d been drinking whisky in the office—you know what the Brothers are like, very hospitable. Anyway, they couldn’t find him. Thought he’d gone—then Brother Ambrose turned him up in the gym. He’d been on the equipment, you know, swinging from the trapeze and putting his feet through those rings that come down from the ceiling. Broken both legs.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t.” Sylvia covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, it’s awful, laughing at people’s misfortunes.”

“Anyway, that’s the last straw. He’s had warnings. Early retirement. The point is, if you were willing to move, I could have his job.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s unofficial. It’ll have to be advertised, but I think I can swing it. Everybody says so. They’ll want to appoint soon, for September.”

“Do I want to move? Oh Colin, I can’t tell you how I want to move.”

“Two hours ago you wanted to adopt a baby.”

“I want to move.”

“We could look for a house.”

“But September? That’s months away. I can’t see myself in September. I can’t imagine it. Gemma will be seven months old. It’ll be a different world. I can’t imagine lasting out till then. Something awful will happen.”

“Such as?”

“You’ll change your mind about that woman. You’ll be ringing her up. I expect you’re planning right now to ring her up. You’re only telling me all this to throw me off the scent.”

He squeezed her wrist. “That hurts,” she said.

“Get the book. The telephone book.”

“What?”

“Look up some estate agents and ring them up first thing tomorrow morning. Let’s do it, Sylvia, quick. Ask them for details of a nice house—three bed, Claire and Karen can share—modern, big windows, plenty light, nothing with a past; a nice jerry-built house like the one we used to have, with all the flaws built in.”

“The houses are all right, Colin. It’s us the flaws are built into.”

“Not any more. I’m being positive, I’m laying plans.” He paused, momentarily amazed. It’s easy once you start. The momentum carries you forward. “As soon as we find the house, we must move. I’ll have to stay at school till the end of the summer term, but I can commute. I can come on the new link road. It’ll only take me thirty minutes. If that.”

“Do you really think we could? Just get away? Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I was waiting for Frank to break his legs. A
deus ex machina
,” he said. “Every home should have one.”

“So that’s it then?” She spoke with finality and with hope, and a look of exhaustion crossed her face, from the strain of keeping up such complex and contradictory emotions. Colin looked up at the ceiling of the hall, still stained dark from the kitchen fire.

“Do you think we’ll sell this scrap heap?”

“I don’t see why not. After all, it’s not structurally defective, is it, except for that growth in Alistair’s room? We’ll have to scrape the walls and paint it with something. And in the hall, what you’ve got to do is keep the light off when people come. You wouldn’t notice. You’d just think it was a nice beige shade. You wouldn’t notice till you came to wash the walls down. Then it’d go all streaky.”

“That’s unscrupulous.”

“They get what they see. What they don’t see, that’s their problem.”

“That’s settled then. Get somebody round to give us a valuation.” He took her hand. “And what about Francis? What will he say?”

She looked down at her knees. “I don’t know, what will he say?”

“I thought you had something going.”

“Not really.”

“I thought at one time he was going to leave Hermione.”

“Leave Hermione?” she said scornfully. “She’s a bishop’s daughter. Anyway, do you know, I saw another side of him. When we were down at the night shelter—I didn’t tell you, did I? These two poor old men came in, wanting soup. Well, I didn’t recognise them, they were wearing balaclavas. They were having leek and potato. When Francis saw them he ran up and said, ‘These are the bastards who’ve been causing me all the trouble.’ He said he’d caught them laying a fire in the vestry. He kicked one of them quite hard—you know what big boots he wears. I was ashamed, I said, they were probably feeling the cold, you know what February is. He said, ‘You don’t set fire to cassocks, do you?’ He said it was arson. He phoned the police.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were taken into custody. They’ve been sent to a home.”

“They’ll probably be better off.”

“Oh, no, Colin. They’ll get institutionalised.”

“Still, I can see why you were disillusioned. Does he know you’ve gone off him?”

“Probably.” Sylvia dipped her head. A tear ran down her cheek, slow and singular, and quivered at the corner of her mouth. “He doesn’t care. He’s got other involvements.”

“Oh yes?”

“There’s this deaconess. Julie.”

“The man’s a philanderer! Well, never mind,” Colin said cheerfully. “Never mind, you’ve done some good to the community between you, which I may say is more than Isabel Ryan and I ever did. We were great theorists, but I don’t think we left anybody better off. How’s the canal clean-up going?”

“Oh, it’s going to be lovely.” She sniffed, and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “We’re going to have a nature trail. Anyway, I’ll tell you another thing about Francis. He has this fat crease in his ear.”

“What?”

“It means he’s going to have a coronary. Men with paunches and creases in their ears, they’re At Risk. I read it somewhere.”

“The
Beano
?”

“No, it’s true.”

“Have I got one?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure if I’m looking in the right place.”

“At least I know now why you keep staring at the side of my head.”

“There’s this new diet I’ve heard of. For the first two days you just eat apples. Any kind, but you mustn’t mix them; if you have Golden Delicious for breakfast you can’t have Cox’s for lunch. Then for two days you eat only cheese—if you have Edam for breakfast you must—”

“No,” Colin said. He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“No, somehow I don’t think so either. I’ll just get fat.”

“That would be restful.”

“Mrs. Ryan wasn’t fat, was she?”

“Skin and bone.”

“Colin?”

“Yes?”