Lying Together (23 page)

But Bill bothered me. He made me take notice. It was those clean jeans, that open-necked shirt, those blue eyes that didn't at first glance look bloodshot. He seemed to smell of the open air – gardens with lawns, trips out with the kids. As if he'd never been in a saloon bar in his life.

He used to joke that he was with us by accident. Although he had a history (we soon got the tale of his marriage to Cheryl), the night in question he was under the limit. And the kid had come from nowhere. A six-year-old, out at nearly midnight; it was hardly Bill's fault. And he made a good showing in the witness box, could never forgive himself and all that crap. Got off with a six-month ban, walking out of court thinking it was all over. But then there was all the stuff in the papers, and the letters from the kid's family, and then the nightmares. He'd gone on week-long binges, lost his nice comfy job. Then the lovely Cheryl had ditched him, and since then he'd done everything – detox, the lot – and landed up with us. Dempster did his bit, warned him off me the first day: ‘She's bad news, that one. A sex-fiend. And a liar. She'll get you into trouble.'

Well, I had to, hadn't I? He was asking for it, coming in looking so smug, joking with Jenkins, giving the impression he wasn't staying long. I had to prove he was just like the rest of us. And I did it. Pulled him down with me and my bottle behind that old prickly bush, made him slurred and swollen, helpless as a baby, jeans stained with grass and vomit, shirt creased and sweaty. I could have killed him for making it so easy.

I nearly did kill him, that last time when he'd gone on Antibuse and I didn't know. ‘Happy now?' said Jenkins when he'd been taken off to Intensive Care, babbling rubbish. ‘Now you've brought him down to your level? Now he's half-psychotic?'

Dempster started on about how Bill should have taken his advice, but some men could never resist a bit of skirt, the cheaper the better. I went for him with Jenkins's pencil, stabbing his cheek: ‘It's not my fault! I didn't mean to hurt him.' Of course, I wanted to say, ‘I love him.' But I can't use that word.

‘Liar,' said Fat Margaret, turning the tap on like she always does. ‘Dirty little liar! You'll go to Hell!'

‘Glenys isn't going anywhere.' Jenkins gave me one of her more meaningful looks. ‘Glenys is set fair to be one of our permanent residents.'

I don't know why it came as such a shock. Up till then I'd have welcomed the idea of staying around on a permanent basis. I'd always panicked when they started the crap about Halfway Houses and Taking a Step into the Community. I always made sure I did something really spectacular to disgrace myself, persuade Dr Barker I just wasn't ready for the outside world.
Just when you were doing so well, too. Is this significant, Glenys?

But Permanent Resident was scary. I looked into the metal mirror in the bathroom and saw myself old and grey. Other people coming and going, whispering, ‘Take no notice; she's the Permanent Resident.' I'd be a ghost, a sort of non-person. It would be better to finish it, stop everything right there, dead before my time, a tragic loss. If they left me long enough, I could do it. The window glass in the toilets was thick and grey, but it could be broken.

I used both hands and all my strength, bringing my wrists down together. So when the window suddenly opened – swung out as though it had been oiled – I nearly fell out. I'd geared myself up for the thud of pain, the spurt of blood and the sound of my own screaming, so the sight of trees and the fresh smell of earth came as a shock. It was an ordinary afternoon, but it was so bright and real it was like a kind of vision. I could see the red tops of the buses sweeping along the main road behind the brick wall. And there were people walking past the gates and taking a short cut through the grounds – women, men, children, dogs. I supposed they'd always been there, but I'd never really seen them. It made everything in the hospital behind me seem tawdry – the horrible shiny walls, the squeaky high-backed chairs, the drab notice-boards, the ripped baize of the pool table in the corridor, the stink of food and medication. And the everlasting noise of the television, somebody always talking through it, irritating someone else. Suddenly it wasn't a cosy place any more. And I wanted to escape. Properly. Like a normal person. Walking out of the front door. Walking out of the gates. Getting on a bus and going somewhere ordinary.

I haunted the windows every day after that, re-learning the ordinary things, trying to hold them in my head. I watched the gardener plant a flowerbed. It took him all morning – digging each hole, setting in each plant, putting back the earth, firming it down. Then the next one, same routine. I sat in my dressing gown until he had finished. I felt as satisfied as if I had done the whole thing myself.

Then I asked to go shopping. I bought underwear, pure white, respectable. I bought a blue suit and a pink dress, and a soft woollen jumper. I had my hair done (not too blond). I was going to be a normal person. I was going where normal people go. On holiday perhaps. One thing was definite, I was not coming back. They all laughed.
You're not going anywhere. You like it here
.

But Bill didn't laugh. He said we'd do a deal. If I stayed off the bottle and didn't try to do him in again, he wouldn't mind giving it a go. We'd have a trial run, four weeks under Jenkins's eye. Then off to the wide blue yonder.

I couldn't believe he'd said it. Since he'd come back from Intensive Care, I'd lain in bed imagining the two of us together, walking in the country, holding hands, laughing. But he'd sat on the other side of the circle every Monday, and never looked me in the eye once. Perhaps it was the new hair that decided him. Or the blue suit. I'd paraded them in front of him, trying to show him I'd changed. But I didn't really believe it myself, so when he said that, the old feelings closed in. And when he started getting out maps and talking about dates I had a go sniffing the aerosols in the cupboard.

‘You are disgusting!' said Jenkins when she found me. But I couldn't face it. Bill was a stranger. I knew every bit about his agonies, his wife, the accident, his guilt – but I'd never walked down the street with him or knew what he liked to do in the evenings. Except drink. All we had in common was drink. And that was out. So I was scared rigid. And, as usual, covering it up with all sorts of stupid remarks, lying my head off. Yes, Gary and I had often gone touring. Yes, I'd been abroad; Spain I think, couldn't quite remember the place. I thought my mother might be living abroad, too. She had some foreign blood.

The driving was Bill's idea. To lay the ghost. And getting the car from Gary was mine. I hadn't spoken to him since we broke up, but he was willing enough:
I always had a soft spot for you, Blondie.
Kidding himself he looked big in Bill's eyes as he passed me on with his blessing like some kind of godfather.

The real terror came when we were on the road. The empty space between us, how the conversation drifted into silence, into stilted questions and short answers. O, Land of My Fathers, I was so scared it was all going to spoil; that it was going to be me as usual who'd spoil it.

The night in Ty Gwyn was so near the edge, I couldn't believe the next day that we'd slept so well, that breakfast was so nice and ordinary; that perhaps, after all, the women thought we were no different from hundreds of other tourist couples. They got quite chatty and told us about some Celtic cross we should look at, and waved goodbye from the front door, smiling.

‘Let me empty the ashtrays,' I said. ‘They really stink.' I got a paper bag and felt pleased with myself. I thought that in my new life I might like to be tidy.

‘Filthy habit, smoking.' Bill screwed up his second-to-last pack and threw it on the grass. ‘Come on, Newt, stop being the perfect housewife. I need you to navigate.'

‘What about the Celtic cross?'

‘If you like. We'll pass it anyway.'

It wasn't far, a little triangle of grass and a grey carved column. We got out and looked at it. Then got in again. In the wing mirror I saw another couple come after us and do the same.

We came to a crossroads. ‘Come on. You're supposed to know the route. Abergavenny or Raglan?'

I looked at the map, all wiggly lines and black print. I had no idea where we were, where we were going. But I wanted to make the right choice. ‘There's a castle at Raglan.'

‘Worth seeing?'

‘Oh, yes.' Please God.

‘Bet you can't remember, Newt.'

‘Yes I can. It's ruins.' Always a good guess.

‘I like ruins.' He smiled.

We turned off, passing the Red Dragon on our left, pointing the Mini uphill. I had the bag of fag-ends on my lap, and Bill's hands were almost firm on the steering wheel.

About the Author

Photo: Richard Battye

Gaynor Arnold was born and brought up in Cardiff, and read English at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Birmingham, where she was until recently a social worker with the city's Adoption and Fostering Service. She is married with two grown-up children and is now a full-time writer.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to my fellow writers in Tindal Street Fiction Group for their advice and encouragement over the period when most of these stories were written. Thanks also to all at Tindal Street Press, especially my indefatigable editor, Alan Mahar.

GIRL IN A BLUE DRESS

GAYNOR ARNOLD

‘Fabulously indulgent Victoriana' –
Observer

Longlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes – a novel based on the lives of Catherine and Charles Dickens.

Beloved writer Alfred Gibson's funeral is taking place at Westminster Abbey, and Dorothea, his wife of twenty years, has not been invited. Dorothea hasn't left her apartment for years, but when she receives a surprise invitation to a private audience with Queen Victoria, she is shocked to find she has much in common with Her Majesty. With her renewed confidence Dorothea is spurred to examine her past and confront not only her family but also the pretty young actress Miss Ricketts.

This beautiful new edition of the re-imagining of Catherine and Charles Dickens's marriage looks forward to Gaynor Arnold's next Victorian novel in 2012.

‘Arnold's knowledge of Dickens is impeccable …

Beautifully written, entirely satisfying' –
The Times

‘A fine work of imagination and compassion' –
Daily Telegraph

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