Close Relations (36 page)

She thought all this and yet she was dying. Her mother knocked on the door and came in.

‘I wanted to tell you myself,' she said. ‘Oh, Immy . . .' Already she looked like a single parent – peakier, more battered. She wore her old gardening trousers though she hadn't been gardening. She sat down on the swivel chair. It swung round in a carefree way; she stopped it with her foot.

‘I hate Dad,' said Imogen, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘How could he? I'm never going to see him, ever again.'

‘Don't, darling. It'll only make it worse.' Her mother pushed back her hair. She had large hands, dry and reddened
from looking after her family. ‘Don't be angry with him. He feels terrible too.' She paused. ‘The bastard.' She tried to smile; it was a poor effort.

‘Is he going to move out?' asked Imogen. ‘Are we going to stay here? What's going to happen to Skylark?'

‘I don't know. Nothing's worked out yet.'

Imogen swung her legs round and got up. She looked at her suitcase. When she had packed it, a week ago, what a sad little squit she had been! ‘When's he back?'

‘The usual time,' replied her mother. ‘He wants to take you both out.'

‘Why?'

‘For a meal. To talk to you.'

‘You must be joking.' Imogen left the room.

‘Darling, wait . . .' her mother called out weakly.

It was three in the afternoon. Imogen fetched the bridle. She went out into the meadow. During the past week the field had become furry with grass; dandelions were flowering and the hedge was misted with green. How stupid nature was, pushing up the plants, blind to everything!

She caught Skylark. When the horse tried to pull away she jerked her head back roughly. She saddled her up.

Every Tuesday, Karl shod the horses at the Valley View Stables, where Imogen had learned to ride. It lay five miles away, across the A40 and out towards Whitton.

She thwacked Skylark with the crop. The mare, surprised, jerked forward. They set off at a trot. Her mother ran out of the house but they had gone.

The clouds were torn open; rods of sunlight poured out of the gap. The countryside was bathed in molten light. Imogen thought: nothing is beautiful any more, it's all ruined. She kicked Skylark's swollen flanks; how fat her horse was becoming, what a slug! Skylark broke into a canter. The track
was stony; Skylark stumbled but Imogen kicked her on. She thought: I will never be happy, ever again.

It was four-thirty when she arrived at the riding school. It was the Easter holidays and the place was full of kids. Karl's van was parked in the yard. A little girl led Crackerjack, a skewbald gelding, out of his loose-box; her face wore that look that small girls have when they are anywhere near a pony – bossy, proprietorial, as if they were responsible not just for an animal but for the whole country. Imogen had been like that once; how funny. She dismounted. This place had once been her heaven on earth; now she gazed at it with detached pity.

Jackie, the owner, emerged from the tack-room.

‘I was just passing by,' said Imogen. ‘I've got a message for the blacksmith.' She felt like a hologram, a ghostly presence floating over this place.

She tied up Skylark next to the watering-trough and loosened the girths. Karl was working in the next yard; she heard the rat-a-tat-tat of metal against metal. She felt her past slipping away. She walked in a trance, towards the hammering of her own heart.

‘First it's my grandad, then it's my own fucking father,' she said.

They were sitting on a bale of straw. With his knuckle, Karl wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘You poor bugger.'

Despite her misery she felt proud to be sitting next to him. The blacksmith, with his curly black hair – it had grown. How jealous the girls must be! Sure, Imogen was crying, but no doubt they thought it was a lovers' tiff, something way beyond their feeble little lives.

‘I just had to tell you,' she said.

He picked white hairs off her jodhpurs. The insides of her thighs were stuck with them; her legs felt sweaty from riding.

‘I must look horrible,' she said.

‘You've got a great tan.'

She smiled weakly. She urged him to respond in the way she wanted. If he disappointed her she would be utterly alone. Despite her passion for him she hardly knew him at all; she saved their moments of intimacy for when she was alone. In real life she saw him once a week, on Thursdays, when he came to the village pub to play chess with his mates Spider and Baz; she sat next to him like his girlfriend and afterwards he chastely kissed her goodnight. The rest of the time she daydreamed about him so intensely that when she saw him again she blushed.

He said: ‘When I've finished up I'll drive you home.'

Her heart thumped. ‘Really?'

‘Get them to stable your pony. There's no way you're riding back. It'll be dark in a while and we don't want anything to happen to you, do we?'

He touched her cheek. She felt very close to him just then. He had seen her cry; he had comforted her. They had negotiated a hurdle together, far higher than the hurdles she had jumped with Skylark.

‘She's not a pony, by the way,' said Imogen. ‘She's a horse.'

In the van, she said: ‘I don't want to go home, ever.'

He said:
Come and live with me
.

He didn't. He said: ‘Come on, I'll buy you a drink.'

They stopped at a pub. She phoned home. Her mother answered.

‘It was getting dark so I've left Skylark at the stables,' she said. ‘I'll be home later.'

‘How are you getting back?' asked her mother.

‘Sandra's here. Her parents'll give me a lift.'

She put down the phone. Emboldened by her lie, she gulped down the rum and coke that Karl put in front of her. ‘I want to do something exciting,' she said.

‘No you don't.'

‘What do you think I am, a sissy?'

‘Sissy!' He laughed. ‘Oh sooper-dooper.'

‘Stop making fun of me. You're always making fun of me.'

He ruffled her hair. ‘You're a sweet girl.'

‘Stop patronising me!' she shouted. The couple sitting next to them turned to stare. She didn't care; for once, she didn't care about anything. ‘It's not my fault – my school, my stupid bloody family, any of it! You think I'm just a little squit. Well, fuck you!' She stood up.

He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down in her seat. ‘I'm sorry. Have a crisp.'

‘A crisp. Oh, that'll make everything all right.'

He grinned. Her insides turned to liquid. They had quarrelled! He bought some more drinks. She took one of his cigarettes. He lit it for her; she inhaled deeply and blew the smoke through her nostrils without choking.
Ruddles,
said the beer mat. What a ludicrous word!

‘Who mates for life anyway?' she asked. ‘Certainly not badgers.'

‘Hey, I never saw your photos.'

‘Elephants do.' Her head swam. ‘But who'd want to be an elephant?'

‘You're a funny girl. Know that?'

‘Funny, ha-ha? Or funny she should be locked up?' She drained her glass and held it out. ‘Go on, get us another.'

When they got up, she staggered; he took her hand. The pub seemed to be suddenly full of people. As she pushed her way through them, holding his hand, she felt as proprietorial as the girls with their ponies. She felt the solemnity of the drunkard.
I'm his woman,
she thought.

In the van, Karl kissed her. She buried her face in his jacket and smelled the horse-sweat. Wedged against the gear-stick, she pressed her body against his. He stroked her breast, kneading it through her sweater. The van smelled of burned hooves – an acrid, singed smell, the smell of her hair shrivelling when she and Jamie had played with matches. She kissed Karl more deeply, burying her fingers in his hair.
I love you,
she told him silently.
The world is burning, all those bones burning, the hair shrivelling, bugger the lot of them.

He disentangled himself and started the engine. ‘I'm taking you home,' he said.

‘No! I'm not going home, ever.'

‘Yes, you are.'

‘Take me somewhere exciting.'

He pulled out of the car-park. ‘Okay,' he said.

He drove through the dark. How long had they been in the pub? Hours? He drove for some time in silence. She kept close to him, shifting sideways when he changed gear. Some time later he pulled off the road; ahead of them, a gate was illuminated in the headlights.

They got out of the van. He climbed over the gate and held out his hand. She grabbed it and jumped down. He led her up a rutted track. She thought: this darkness, we're always stumbling through it together. She thought: how sweet we were when we went to watch the badgers. She giggled.

It was a moonless night, she couldn't see much. When they reached the top of the hill, however, she could discern the orange glow of London. The immensity of it! She thought how pitiful her parents were, their little lives.

He said: ‘Feel this.' He took her hand and laid it on a stone wall. ‘It's a church. St Cuthbert's.'

‘Cuthbert,' she giggled. ‘You can't have a saint called
Cuthbert
.'

They stepped over some rubble. The place was open to the sky; she could sense this, by the air. The holiness had evaporated; it was just a husk.

‘Know when this was built?' he asked.

‘Don't know, don't care.' She took his hand and closed it with hers. Her heart was bumping; could he sense it? ‘Let us pray,' she chortled. ‘Let us pray that my father rots in hell.'

She thought: I've left my horse behind; I've left it all behind. I'm spinning in space, up above the carcass of this church, up into the corrupt sodium sky.

She knelt, pulling Karl with her. He practically fell. She pulled him close, his knees pressed against hers.

‘Our father,' she said.

‘Forgive us our traspisses – trespers –'

‘Trespasses,' she corrected. ‘As we forgive them that trespass against us . . .'

‘For thine is the kingdom –'

‘Blah blah,' she said.

‘Amen.'

He kissed her. Toppling over, he gripped her shoulders to steady himself. She realised, with gratification, that he was even more drunk than she was. They lowered themselves to the ground. She extracted a piece of metal, it felt like a bedspring, from under her hip and flung it away. She squeezed her eyes shut and surrendered herself to oblivion. It was chilly; she thrust her hands inside his jacket, feeling his flesh through his shirt. Karl's tongue explored her mouth; his breathing quickened. Awkwardly, hoisting himself on one elbow, he tried to unclip the side fastening of her jodhpurs. She did it for him. His hand slid inside her knickers. She gasped. It was so strange to have another finger there, where only her own had been. She parted her legs, as much as her position would allow. His finger slid inside her.

‘Is that nice, sweetheart?' he muttered. He had never called her
sweetheart
before. His finger moved inside her; he pressed the fleshy part of his palm against her pubic bone. Heat spread through her. ‘Aah, you're wet,' he murmured. His breathing grew hoarser. He pushed his finger in and out. ‘I've got nothing with me,' he gasped in her ear.

‘I'm on the Pill,' she whispered.

‘Yeah, but still –'

She stopped him. She moved her hand down to the front of his jeans. She rubbed the bulge there. He groaned louder. What power she had! She rubbed harder. He shuddered, trembling.

His hand guided her to the zip; with difficulty she pulled it down. His finger stabbed frenziedly inside her, faster and faster. Then suddenly he pulled it out. She lifted her bottom; he pulled off her jodhpurs and knickers. She helped him.

He laid her down. She felt him shifting as he pulled off his jeans. Then he moved on top of her. He licked her ear and her neck; Boyd, her rabbit, did that to the does when he was preparing to mate. Karl's breath rasped in her ear. He positioned her, spreading her legs beneath him. He did this in an expert, workmanlike way. His penis nudged her belly as he moved her to one side, where the ground was softer; it bumped against her thigh. He wedged her legs wider apart with his knees; then he took his penis and pushed it into her.

Imogen yelped. She pressed her fingernails into his cold, shockingly bare buttocks as they clenched and unclenched. He thrust inside her, his hips moving as if they were oiled. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Boyd, gripping the furry rump of a female, juddering. Karl was mating with her. His movements quickened; he shoved his hand under her and pulled her rhythmically against him. She tried to move with him; she wanted him to think she had done it before. Then he groaned, loudly, and gripped her in a spasm. She felt him pumping inside her, waves of pumping, a warm flood of it. Then he loosened his grip, exhaling. He lay on her, a dead weight.

So that was it. She had done it. A bird screeched, that eerie cry of their badger night. After a moment his breathing grew more regular. He kissed her forehead and drew back.

‘I shouldn't have done that,' he said.

‘It was sooper-dooper,' she replied. His face was a pale glimmer above hers. She couldn't see if he smiled.

‘Look at them,' said Jamie. It was Saturday morning. Tesco was full of mums and dads with their brats. ‘Look at them, the sad fuckers.'

Jamie and Trevor were unloading vegetables. Trevor lifted up a cucumber; he hoisted it to his shoulder, took aim and made a machine-gun noise. The effort exhausted him. He leaned against the shelves, coughing his smoker's cough.

‘Let's blow the place up,' said Jamie. ‘It's time we did something exciting.'

Trevor emptied a box of carrots into the display trough. One of them fell on the floor. It was a good size. He picked it up and looked at Jamie. ‘Want to take this home for your mum?' he asked. ‘Think she needs it?'