Blue Skies Page 9

  We found wood in a shed and built a fire. Putting out the lights, we sat in front of it, glowing redly at each other. There seemed nothing to say. Pieces of wood expanded and popped softly. It was getting much too hot. She spoke and grew pale. Did I know, she asked, that when a body was cremated in India, its relatives stood in silence round the flames, waiting to hear a loud pop. When it came, they clapped and cheered and gave thanks, because the small explosion meant that the dead person’s spirit had burst through the skull and was free of the body at last. I said that I hadn’t heard of it, but that India was a country I’d often felt I should like to visit. As I was thinking of all the weird things I had heard about India, she said ‘I know what it feels like. Often I can feel something tapping about in my head. I think it’s my spirit lurking round my skull looking for a weak spot to get out through.’

  I supposed she was joking, but she looked very serious. She said that the doctor called it migraine, but she knew the cause, if not the name. She said she also knew the cure.

  I didn’t ask her what it was, because James had appeared in the doorway. I was used to James’s comings and goings being announced by a fanfare of squeaks and banging doors, like those of a giant mouse, if not a rat. I blinked, expecting him to vanish. Instead he said hello and smiled very nicely. I said hello back and started to laugh, suddenly realising that he must have left the car on the road and crept round the house to catch us out. Gloria looked on in astonishment as I snorted and rocked about beside her on the rug. She saw James and fluttered her fingers up at him in what I considered an arch and irritating way. She had picked up a lot of these annoying mannerisms while she was away. I supposed that that was what was meant by travel broadening the mind. Meanwhile James hovered in the doorway clutching a new bottle of whisky wrapped in green tissue paper.

  ‘Sorry to barge in on you like this, girls. Didn’t know it was ladies’ night. I thought Ben might be about. There’s something I want to say to him.’

  It seemed best not to enquire what. ‘Well, he’s not. He’s gone out. To see his sister. So you’ve wasted your time—come all this way for nothing.’

  ‘Not really. I’ll run you home if you’re ready. Mum’s pretty wild with you. She says you ran out on her this morning when she told you she wasn’t well. She reckoned I should come and fetch you back.’

  I ignored this. ‘Well, I’m not ready to leave just yet,’ I said. ‘Anyway, Gloria’s got a headache, and she could do with a drink. Couldn’t you, love?’ Gloria didn’t reply but sat cross-legged peering into the fire.

  I rose and went through to the kitchen. James followed me out and stood in the doorway, watching as I stretched to get glasses from the cupboard. As I turned to leave the room, he slowly rearranged himself so that he blocked the doorway. This obscurely threatening behaviour surprised me. Mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent was changing into his Superman gear before my very eyes.

  ‘Better get back to Gloria then, hadn’t we? Give the married ladies a little drinkie.’

  His voice was deep and funny, and I wondered whether he’d been drinking, and tried to decide whether I minded or not. On balance I felt grateful to him for sparing me a boring evening listening to Gloria.

  He took the glasses and led me back to the sitting room. Playing gentleman, he stepped back to let me through first. As I knew he would, he ran his hand over me as I passed, patting me like butter, as if he were trying to remould me. I stamped down on his lovingly polished boot and sat back by the fire, dumbfounded by anger and other emotions I thought quite excessive in the circumstances.

  ‘You spend an awful lot of time on the floor,’ he observed to nobody in particular.

  He stood over us, smiling sweetly down on our heads. He lined up the glasses on the mantelpiece, opened the whisky, poured, and handed the glasses round. He took out a squashed soft pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and gave us each one. He then patted himself lovingly all over to locate his matches and failing to find any collected up our cigarettes again and lit each one himself with a glowing stick from the fire. As I smoked mine, I could taste his mouth and grew moist with sexual memory. He watched me, making foxy smiles as I fell for his corny tricks. He rubbed his hands together, a nasty rasping sound, and sat down between us on the rug.

  ‘Well now, girls, you just carry on. I’ve always wanted to be the fly on the wall at a real live hen night.’

  I looked at Gloria. She sat unhelpfully still, her drink between her palms, the cigarette burned down between two fingers. A thin trace-line of smoke curled round the glass.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ he asked. ‘I see the window’s broken. What happened?’

  ‘The kid kicked a ball through it,’ I said, not wanting to give away anyone else’s secrets. Or my own.

  ‘Did he now, the little bugger. Boys still will be boys then, eh?’ he laughed approvingly. Still she didn’t speak. He asked her if she was all right. Then he asked me.

  ‘Yes, she’s OK. Just tired. She had a heavy day at school. You know how it is.’

  ‘I know how she feels,’ he said, topping up my drink. He refilled his own glass and touched it against mine with a soft clunk. ‘Cheers, then,’ he whispered. It was romantic. Not like being married at all. I didn’t say so to James, lest he accuse me of being childish.

  We talked of lots of things, murmuring so as not to disturb the other woman’s thoughts. He was amusing. I wondered at how I had misjudged him. We chatted, whisky-witty, down the length of the bottle. Outside, the bus came. It stopped in the road near the house. I shushed him. The driver was revving the engine, making it roar.

  ‘You are listening to the mating call of a bus,’ I told him softly.

  ‘Like that, is it?’ he whispered back. ‘Confession time at last?’ Shattering horn blasts followed. The engine was switched off. ‘Sounds like that old bus is waiting out there for something. Seems like he ain’t shifting out of there till he gets what he came for,’ he said, using his John Wayne drawl.

  I stopped his mouth with my hand, scared that the driver might come up to the house. James softly chewed my fingers as I sat listening. To my relief, the bus started up and drew away. The engine note slowly tapered to nothing. In my silence I heard Gloria’s soft regular breathing, mixed with the slurping noise James made as he sucked at my fingers. Gloria had gone to sleep, curled on her side in front of the fire. The untouched drink was carefully placed beside her on the stones of the hearth. I crawled over to her. One of her cheeks was bright red from the fire, and I touched the hot skin with the back of my hand.

  ‘Take your shirt off and chuck it over,’ I told him.

  He did so, bringing it across to us. I tucked it against her face, shielding it from the glare. She didn’t wake. James knelt nearby, watching as I smoothed strands of her sweaty hair away from her high forehead.

  ‘What a pretty sight,’ he murmured and held out his arms. I went into them and cuddled close, sucking softly at the places where his neck and shoulders joined. I looked to see if I was raising the little pink pin marks on his skin.

  ‘Little sucker fish,’ he breathed, lifting the hair from my head in handfuls and licking round my ears like a mother cat. ‘Come to bed with me.’

  It was impossible to break off into the separate cold. ‘I can’t. Never get there. Let’s stay here.’ I mouthed my words against his skin, my tongue tapping out my morse code.

  ‘Supposing she wakes up. Won’t you mind?’

  His skin was softening like pulp under my lips. I dragged my mouth across his chest. Fine silky chest hairs trailed in the moisture inside my lower lip. I caught one between my front teeth and jerked it out. He sucked in his breath and drew back, filling my ears with sea roar. He put one hand on each side of my head and held it tight, pressed his mouth on mine and spoke into it. His voice came out from my own mouth, echoing up into my head.

  ‘Yes, we’ll stay here. Don’t change your mind. You’re too late.’

  We moved in silence o
n the floor. Zips peeled open softly. His hands no longer rasped, they glided with his usual stunning attention to detail—all the correct buttons pressed. He put his hand over my mouth to shut me up. At last I relaxed under him and he let me breathe. ‘OK?’ he mumbled. ‘Was it OK?’

  I wondered why he was stopping to chat. Perhaps he really had had a hard day. I assured him everything was OK. I asked him how it was for him, to be polite.

  ‘Great, really great. Hang on a minute and I’ll show you.’ He seemed to be gritting his teeth. They grinned down at me, gleaming in the firelight. Superman swooped down through the darkness.

  Afterwards we lay silent and nervous as our left over heavy breaths shuffled slowly round the walls looking for a way out. I hoped we hadn’t woken Gloria up. I counted slowly twice to ten, pulled myself away and sat up. I turned to look at her. She lay in the same position, her breathing soft and regular. I watched her carefully for a moment, feeling I couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t awake and pretending. Then I knew that I would never know and that it didn’t matter. I turned back to James. He was stretched out on his back, hands neatly folded on his chest, his feet side by side pointing skywards—the dear dead knight on the marble tomb. I leant over him and put my face between him and the ceiling.

  He smiled. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Nothing’s happening. She’s asleep and I want to go home.’ I wanted to go home very much. To curl up forever in some great dark soft bed with him. The room was grey and chilly. I wanted to sleep and forget it. I thought of what Gloria had said about not wanting to think. Being asleep would stop her doing that, so she wouldn’t need me.

  James groaned and sat up on his elbow, looking suspiciously about him for some trap or other. ‘I suppose you’re right. We’d better be making a move. I’ll feel terrible in the morning. Won’t be fit for anything,’ he complained. As if the whole thing were my fault, as if I’d sneaked up and drained off all his vital fluids on purpose or something.

  He groaned again and got onto his knees. ‘Well, if we’re going we might as well go,’ he moaned. ‘I could use a cup of coffee, though. Wake me up for the drive.’

  ‘There is no coffee,’ I told him.

  ‘Well, tea then. It doesn’t matter what it is. I just fancy a hot drink.’

  ‘There’s no tea either. It got spilt.’

  ‘Well, hot milk then. I’ll go and make some.’ He staggered up and started rummaging through his clothes.

  He tugged vigorously at his underpants, trying to untangle them from his trousers, and hopped idiotically round the room trying to get them on. I felt sure he would wake Gloria and I hissed at him to be quiet. Gloria slumbered. Perhaps she was afraid to open her eyes.

  The fire was almost out. The room looked different, empty and sad. I felt I wouldn’t come here again.

  Gloria stirred and groaned; she turned over onto her side and shivered. The room was cooling. I dressed quickly and went into her bedroom, collecting a pile of blankets and two pillows from the beds. I tucked them round her, lifted her head, and put the pillows under it. The queen on the chopping block. I took one pillow away.

  I decided to leave her a note.

  James was dressed by now, leaning gracefully against the mantelpiece, clutching his mug of hot milk. He kicked a bit of fire-blackened wood with his foot, and it fell to ashes. The cosy little mug of milk reminded me fleetingly of Ben, rampaging alone somewhere out in the bush, scornful of such human comforts. I stared into the dying fire, lost in admiration at his courage. ‘Give me freedom or give me death,’ cried this phantom Ben, hurling himself at the nearest exit, not caring if it was open or shut, risking death by a thousand cuts in pursuit of a dream. I sighed, and James nudged me impatiently to get on. He skimmed the skin from the top of his milk with his little finger and flicked it into the fireplace.

  ‘Say when you’re ready,’ he said.

  I told him I wouldn’t be long. I couldn’t find pencil and paper for my note and went to look in the workroom.

  I switched on the light, screwing up my eyes against the glare. Objects appeared and reappeared as if on an old flickering film-strip. A swooping grey shadow moved backwards and forwards over the room. There seemed to be some large bird trapped there, crashing through the air looking for an escape, and I crouched down, covering my head with my arms. Peeping through my fingers, I saw that the light bulb, hanging on a flex from the ceiling, was blowing about in a draught coming from a broken window above the table. I taped a piece of stiff cardboard over it and the light slowed down. The room became normal.

  Gloria hadn’t mentioned the broken window, but the room was a mess, as she’d said. Drawings had been ripped up. A pile lay on the table, torn exactly in half. A few had been reduced to confetti heaps, scattered, perhaps by the draught, all over the floor. Wrung-out paint tubes lay everywhere. The paintings were untouched. I looked at the one of my head, curious to see how it was. The small middle-aged woman mowing her lawn had gone from the corner. She had been painted out. Instead she was mowing away in the middle of my forehead, standing there defiantly, like a caste mark, or a visible obsession. I was surprised. We hadn’t spoken of her all that much. She hadn’t been mentioned at all today. This proved her lack of importance—I felt he was wrong.

  ‘What are you doing? Hurry up.’ James stood looking over my shoulder.

  ‘Not bad is he? Interesting stuff. A bit weird, though. Could be very good, I reckon. Needs to sort himself out, though. Bloody awful mess in here. Something’s been going on, whatever you say.’

  I looked round the room in which Ben and I had spent so many fun-filled afternoons. There would be no more of them. Gloria’s distress was too real. She had shed too much light, driven out all the fantasy with her sharp reality. There were no more interesting shadows.

  James sorted through the ruined drawings. ‘Here, write your note on this. Only hurry up. I need my sleep even if you don’t.’

  ‘All right. I won’t be long now.’ I couldn’t think, with him pacing about the room making remarks. ‘Why don’t you go and wait for me in the car?’

  He went out.

  I still couldn’t decide what to write to Gloria. Finally I said that James was dragging me home by the hair and I hoped everything would be all right and not to worry. I propped my note on the mantelpiece and left the room hurriedly, feeling guilty.

  In the back seat of the car I went to sleep. Halfway home James stopped and made me get into the front. He was having to take the bends too slowly, he said, for fear of tipping me onto the floor—at this rate we wouldn’t be home for hours. We reached his mother’s house just before dawn and collected Angelica. Mother-in-law had relaxed her eternal vigil and was taking a nap. James ran ahead as I wheeled Angelica round the corner and home. He was anxious to get to bed, he said. Besides, the shrieking pram gave him a headache. By the time Angelica and I squeaked up to the door James was in bed, the sheet pulled up over his head. Clearly he was not to be disturbed.

  I unloaded Angelica into her bassinet and went to the bathroom. I filled the bath with hot water and pine crystals and lay soaking and dozing until Angelica woke. Hearing her give forth a series of loud complaining hiccups, I regretfully pulled out the plug and watched the fragrant green-tinted water whirl all my sins away down the plughole. Anti-clockwise, of course.

  James was up again and grumbling around in the bedroom. He turned out drawers looking for this and that.

  I carried Angelica into the bathroom to watch her daddy shaving. I wanted to discuss the proposed picnic, if it was still on. He told me that it was. He chased a little trickle of blood down his chin with a scrap of toilet paper. Angelica smiled gummily, and James smiled back at her in the steamy mirror. He told me what to buy for the picnic at the local shop.

  He said he would be back by lunchtime the next day, and that we would try to get away first thing on Sunday. He had spoken to his mother about having Angelica for the day and she was only too pleased. Everything was arranged. He wa
s really looking forward to it, he said.

  I phoned Gloria at her school. The person who answered said she wasn’t there. She hadn’t come in today, and the boy wasn’t in his class. He supposed that one or other of them was ill, though if that was the case, it was odd she hadn’t telephoned to let them know. I said that it was difficult for her, living in such a remote place, to get to a phone. He said he supposed that was it, and hung up.

  As I wheeled Angelica along the narrow dusty footpath that ran beside the main road down to the small local shop and garage, I wondered what had happened, and wished I hadn’t left. I decided to phone the school again on Monday. I bought everything I could think of for the weekend and wheeled Angelica back home under a covering of cans, egg cartons and cheese. Her eyes squinted through at me, slightly crossed and confiding.

  Her Daddy was home in time for lunch the next day. He brought with him several bottles of wine and some olives from the Reffo shop near his work.

  After lunch, he set about a few Saturday afternoon chores. He oiled the pram and the door. Then, since he didn’t have a lawn to mow or a car to wash, he suggested we go down for a swim. I wouldn’t go, not wanting to see the beach smothered under a Saturday mob.

  Next morning I woke and James was not in bed. It seemed very early. I could hear him in the kitchen. I went out to find him cutting sandwiches. I perched on the stool and watched him. He stuck a mug of tea in my hand.

  ‘We’re making an early start,’ he said. ‘So when you’ve got the strength, go and get dressed. I’ll get Angelica ready. I’ve nearly finished here.’ He was talking so much he cut himself.

  We pushed Angelica round the corner and left her face down and dopey on his mother’s bed. James took the car keys from her handbag and we left.

  We drove fast down the coast road to catch a small ferry to an island just off the coast. I hadn’t been there before. It was narrow, straggly, bleak, bushy and scarcely populated except for a few clusters of battered wooden holiday shacks. The beaches were long and magnificent—James was sure I would like them.