Her Victory (15 page)

She stood up to take off her sweater, her loose and shapely bosom moving under her shirt. There was a warm and not unpleasant smell of sweat. ‘I don't get a penny from the father. I don't mind, because if I did he'd only come sniffing around now and again to put his head between my legs and cry. He's in the computing business now, and doing quite well after getting over his political tantrums – which I suppose all his sort do sooner or later – going from one grubby-knickered little dolly to another. I said the service of the dead over him years ago.'

The boy finished his tea, rubbed his injured face a couple of times, then sat on the settee and opened a schoolbook. ‘I only said I wanted a cassette.'

‘Get a paper round then, to pay for one,' she said.

‘I'm too young.'

‘Say you're twelve.'

The door banged again, and a ten-year-old girl came in, her schoolbag spewing pens and books when aimed at her brother.

‘That's Hilary,' Judy said, ‘the other bundle. But at least she's a girl.'

‘Am I?' Hilary examined the machine-gun knowingly, unclipped the magazine and set the bullets in ranks on the table, then removed the stock and wondered whether to take the rest of the gun to bits before having her tea. ‘I sometimes wonder.'

Judy stroked her hair, then drew away as if the feeling burned her. ‘You were when you had your bath last night,' she laughed.

Pam pointed to the gun. ‘Is it real?'

‘It's a replica,' Judy said. ‘My husband would spend hours assembling and taking it down, like saying his beads. We lived in a house then, and he used to practise jumping from the back window fully armed. But one day he broke his ankle. He left the gun when I threw him out, and Hilary took it over. She used to watch him playing with it from her cot. I think she thinks it's him now. I swear to God I heard her call it Daddy the other night. Leave it alone, and get your tea.' She cut and buttered some bread. ‘I'm going to take that gun into the garden tomorrow and give it a decent burial.'

Dark-haired Hilary smouldered under the deadly insults, but set it down as she was told. ‘No, mummy, please don't. I like to play with it.'

She turned to Pam. ‘When you think you're fit for a job, come and tell me. If I hear of anything I'll let you know. Or whatever else you need, just come and see me, even if you only want to rest your head on my bosom and tell me your troubles. I know how it is. It's bloody hard for a woman of any age who pulls out of the slave-state. You work like hell for a Lord of Creation because that's what your mother told you to expect out of life, and you don't even get any good sex for it. I don't think I ever had a thrill from a man, unless he did it deliberately before starting in on me, but I can give myself a thrill any time, and get an even better one from my girlfriend. Maybe you can't always trust a woman, either, but at least you know what to expect.'

Pam stood up. ‘I really think I must be going.' Her clothes were damp, and she felt herself sweating in the steam.

Judy laughed. ‘Do I shock you?'

She made an effort to smile, and sat down again. Everyone did what they liked, as long as they didn't bother anyone else. ‘Of course not. Why should you?'

‘I don't know. But I shan't try to seduce you. It only comes on me now and again. I don't do it for scalps, like men. You should see all the notches my husband cut into the butt of that gun. I never knew what they meant till Sam told me, though he was only six. “Daddy cuts that gun with his penknife when he goes with that girl,” he said. I'd been so innocent and trusting. Good job I was, I suppose. One day I threw the hot iron at him, and he left in fear of his handsome features, not to mention his life. I was a Judy he'd never seen. Six months later I was shopping on the Portobello Road and met this prissy little fair-haired woman with glasses who worked in Whitehall. She was a ready-made MoD type, and I carried her shopping home. From that moment I never looked back.'

In spite of her confidences Pam noted the occasional fragility of her expression. Whatever she was, her marks of servitude were undeniable, and no one broke free without wounds. Pam liked her for being so friendly and sympathetic. She certainly knew a great deal about herself. ‘Do you like living in this place?'

‘Why? Want to make an honest woman out of me? I'm always waiting for someone to do it, man or woman, I don't really mind, as long as it's under my conditions and not theirs. After all, they'd be getting more from it than I would.'

‘I really must go.' But it was hard to get up. There was much that was likeable about the place, and the people.

‘Don't forget, then, any time you want to talk, or watch the telly, just walk in. I let these two look at it for three hours a week. Don't stew too much by yourself up there. If you get depressed, remember that your big troubles are over. You've only got little ones from now on, such as feeding yourself and keeping warm. Come down for a chat with Judy. She's harmless, really!'

‘Thank you for the tea. I enjoyed it.'

‘Come any time you like. Don't forget.'

‘I don't want to intrude.'

‘Fucking lesbians!' said the boy.

Judy's large hand clenched and reached out, but she drew back as if thinking he had been knocked silly enough for one day. He didn't flinch. With such an upbringing, he'll probably go out and conquer the world, Pam thought.

‘I won't mind if you do,' Judy said to her.

If she didn't move she would be here all night. The miasma of cooking – there was a huge long-handled iron pot on the stove from which a meaty smell emerged – was sending her into a doze. She stood up, but stayed near the door.

‘Phyllida never comes here,' Judy was saying. ‘She's got a thing about children, which is understandable, considering these two. So I go there. Makes a change.'

‘She don't like us,' said Hilary, stripping the gun for a second time, and setting parts over the table, ‘but she gives us presents.'

‘Now and again,' said Sam.

‘That's because you pester her, you scroungers.' Judy lifted a pair of trousers for patching. ‘She may hate you, but she's a generous little Phyllida, all the same.'

Pam walked up the stairs, glad now to get away from a series of well-worked-out relationships in which she had no part. Judy had her life finely organized, having the straitjacket of kids to look after. Maybe my mistake, she thought, was not to leave when Edward was three or four, and take him with me.

17

Though her watch said twelve-thirty she didn't have to go to bed till she felt like it. Bone idle, they would have said. Spoiled rotten. Don't know she's born. When she's got to go to work things'll be different. She could sit still when her limbs had no wish to move, keep her legs stretched when she felt no desire to alter her position. She was being born again, without father or mother, blessed with a second life minus the aches and pains. She and the cane-bottomed chair had grown together, a weird animal never to be divided. There had been no such feelings when George was in the room, nor even when he had been out of the house, not in all the years of her marriage. She cringed before those simple wonders which were apparent for the first time.

She didn't want to go to bed, but no longer had to witness George's crippled note of concern as if there were no words left that he could speak affectionately and direct from the heart. ‘I'm off upstairs, then,' he'd say. ‘You can come when you like, love.'

Every minute by herself carried its own stone-weight of guilt which would have to be paid for by his surly expression at breakfast. If she stayed half an hour she would know from his breathing and decisive tug at the clothes after she got into bed that he was still awake. Wanting to be alone when everybody else was in bed was nothing less than plain selfishness, he said. It wasn't natural for him to go to bed while she stayed downstairs on her own. He liked to know that all doors were locked, that the lights were off, and that she was already by his side going to sleep. If he was already asleep, she was bound to wake him when she came up, and he had to get to work on time hadn't he? It wasn't fair. Separate rooms? He stamped on that one. What did we get married for?

It was time for bed, but she wanted to eat, so stood up without even considering the act of separation from the cane-bottomed chair, and went to the cupboard for cheese, bread and a tin of beer. She spread them on the small round table. George had looked at her, his tone stiff. ‘Sickening for summat, love?'

‘Just hungry.'

‘Fry an egg, then.'

‘These biscuits are enough.'

‘An egg'll do you more good. Two, in fact, with some bacon.'

‘I don't like bacon.'

‘Shall I do it? Won't tek a minute.'

‘I don't want to get fat.'

‘Can't see that happening.'

She hated her apology. ‘I just want a biscuit.'

‘Wouldn't do you any harm to put on a stone or two.'

Her voice was at the edge of a precipice of sound, and he detected it sooner than even she did. ‘It would if I say it would.'

‘Don't get like that,' he retorted.

She wondered why she couldn't have a snack without any comment. ‘Like what?' – hoping she didn't resemble whatever he accused her of getting like, because it was bound to be unpleasant.

‘If you don't know, I don't.'

She didn't, and tried to be calm, but the attempt made her sound agitated, and she could do nothing because, behind his face of hurt concern, he was expecting her to be upset. ‘All I want is a biscuit and a cup of tea.'

‘Get it, then.' He had tried to be helpful, and been rebuffed, as usual. He knew what she was thinking, so looked even more offended in order to confirm it for her. ‘I only made a suggestion.'

‘Does it need all this discussion?'

‘You mean we talk too much? Don't make me bloody-well laugh.' Now he was getting at her for having got at him in the past for not being able to express his feelings. As if this sort of sniping was a civilized conversation! He wanted to talk, having first made it impossible for her to open her mouth without a tone of defensive rancour, but would he talk so much, and what would his reply be, if I threw the kettle of boiling water at him? Instead she said, exhausted by the continual fight between them, and unable to do anything about it: ‘I'm tired.'

‘Then what are you eating for? Why don't you get to bed?'

I'm not a rat, she thought, so stop cornering me. There were scores of accusations that she wanted to express, but searching for words that would hurt neither her nor George crushed them back. As people get older they get more selfish. It's plain a mile off, isn't it, George? No one can deny it, so how was it possible for increasingly selfish people such as you and me, George, to go on living together? It wasn't, isn't, can't be, can it, George?

‘I'm dying,' she said, ‘that's why I'm eating.'

He wondered why she tormented him so wilfully. ‘If you're feeling that bad, why don't you wait till morning and call on Dr Graham? He'll give you some tranquillizers. They'll make you feel better.'

She laughed. ‘I've never had that sort of pill in my life, and never will. There's nothing wrong with me that pills can cure.'

‘All I know,' he said, ‘is that you're always making arguments about nothing. Pills will keep you a bit steadier than you have been lately. Don't you see that, duck?'

‘And what about some pills to help
you
, then?'

‘Don't be so bleddy silly!'

Tears were running down her face. She was bitter with herself at having no control. She envied how he went out in the morning, lucky as he was, and forgot about her till he walked in at night. She didn't know whether she craved more to obliterate herself or him from her mind. When he was absent his voice remained with her. Marriage was a pitiless treaty.

‘I feel as if I'm dying in this place.' For the sake of peace she was ready to add: ‘Though I think I'll be all right in the morning' – but she didn't, and that sentence she was unable to speak was, in retrospect, the one that separated them.

‘Die, then,' he threw at her, and his accusing tread up the stairs thickened the blood at her heart. She didn't feel aggrieved at his response. She had deserved it. The food soddened in her mouth. She stood like a stone and recalled a radio talk in which some man suggested that those who came to life late at night were mentally unbalanced. The question was discussed, and she brooded in her stillness on how strange it was that after being exhausted all day, and wanting nothing but sleep, only the night promised liveliness.

But George could not live in such a way. He had his work. Even if he hadn't, he was a day man, a dawn-to-dusk man, a six-in-the-morning and a half-past-ten-at-night man, a person of habit and probity who had been unlucky enough to marry her.

Yet neither was it her wish only to wake up when everyone was stamping off to bed. The pattern had been forced on her as a final refuge. She did not consider herself in any sense mentally disturbed, and to prove it she had left him next morning and come to London.

18

No more of that. She liked it here because she could stay up for as long as she liked and not think of herself as a mental case. She could eat what she fancied when she wanted to, and think whatever jumped into her mind without wondering what the person in the same room would say if she let him hear her thoughts. She did not have to take into account either her own ill-will, or his resentment if what she said perturbed him in any way. If she didn't like what she thought then she, being the only person that mattered, could rid her mind of it whenever she wanted because there was nobody to keep pushing it back at her after altering it to suit their own image, as if what she had said was only so much spiteful and damaging rubbish. She could even talk aloud to herself, and if that wasn't freedom she didn't know what was.