Seahorses Are Real (19 page)

‘Pity we can't export it!'

‘Yes,' she said automatically, turning in surprise. He'd crept up on her stealthy as a cat – hobble or not – or Gandalf carried on an invisible Shadowfax. The Labrador dog almost collapsed at his feet, panting like a grampus the way very old dogs do, even when they're sitting quite still.

‘Some countries haven't had rain for years,' the man went on sombrely, peering at her with an aggrieved eye from under his cap. ‘They can't get their agricultures started at all.'

‘It's a terrible shame,' Marly agreed, taken aback and wondering why the dog was dribbling onto her boot. She felt a little sorry for it and bent over to pat it on the head.

‘Make a mint, we would, if only we could export it!'

‘I'm sure we would.' Marly nodded vigorously, trying not to smile at the ridiculousness of the situation. The man's cap was quite drenched and he fingered the brim with a blackened nail. ‘You'll catch a chill like that,' he added. ‘Come on, old girl.' She thought for a moment he was talking to her but the Labrador dog started heaving itself, leg by shaky leg, to its feet and they lumbered off up the path. ‘I expect I will,' she called after them, a little annoyed and getting up because it seemed a bit odd to stay sitting after that. She wanted to bring the old man back, invite him home for a cup of tea so they could talk all day to their hearts' delight about rain and agriculture; but every second's delay sent him closer to the bustling town and she remained quite rooted to the spot, staring at the plimsole and fat black moustache, wondering what to do and where to go.

In the end she turned and made her way upstream along the same old route beside the Darenth, her coat billowing out behind her, her hair flying about all over her face. She just wanted to escape, to be left alone, to be able to live her life. He just couldn't accept her sitting in the rain like that. Oh no, he had to poke his nose in with his Catch a Chill Love and dog that looked like it had run a marathon. Exporting rain, my foot! He'd probably had the joke lined up for months, waiting to spring it upon the first person he could. Ha ha, funny man. Weren't they all such funny men? Couldn't they see she was close to the edge? Couldn't they see she was close to the precipice? ‘I am a wondrous thing,' she cried silently at the dark birds huddled in the boughs of trees that swayed and squeaked like cats on the prowl, ‘so full of goodness I could burst like the Thames.' It was best to say the good things. Replace negative images by positive ones, Terry had said, though inside she still did a sort of macabre dance when she proclaimed to the universe that she was good to the brim. She felt ashamed that she couldn't apply herself, couldn't get herself a job, couldn't even get up in the mornings when there were countries that couldn't get their agricultures going. She felt ashamed that there were refugees when she was clothed and fed by a man that loved her, though he used his fists.... Bad, rotten, riddled with guilt. A little old rotten thing packed away for lunch in cling film a long time ago... not worth living for, not worth fighting for... she stared from under her hood at the stream swollen up with old fish bones, sodden secrets, dead leaves and shiny bottles all heading for the locker of the oyster-lipped Davy Jones. There were many streams and many secrets, they really should have said, the fizzy sweets and the fortune fish and all of them led to the human heart, all of them led to Davy Jones' locker.... If she put him through hell and he came through it meant that she was worth living for. If she put him through hell and he came through it meant that she was worth fighting for. She'd put him through hell over the years and he'd come through with flying colours until now, until now. She was justified now in provoking him. She was justified now in provoking him by the way he reacted. Wasn't she? Wasn't she?

The rain stung her cheeks as she stepped gingerly around the old oak tree that had fallen in the bad November storm. It lay there horizontal to the ground, balancing on its crippled branches; its raw, jagged stem seemed to stare at the sky in mute supplication. The grand old matriarch had toppled at last one night when the lightning illuminated the heavens. (How are the mighty fallen, her grandmother was wont to gum-ble, poring over old photographs and tarnished silver spoons.) Little grubs, bugs and fungi teemed over her torso, despite the rain, getting their hands on what was left of her. The tree cutter would come soon, chop her into pieces and take her home for firewood or maybe a bedside cabinet or two. What a fate for a tree that had withstood aeons and aeons or what a relief, depending on your point of view – gone in a puff of smoke, just ashes on the breeze, or to be transformed into something that stood on a Persian carpet or parquet floor behind twitching lace curtains, never moving a muscle. The leaves on the grass looked like pieces from a jigsaw puzzle: Autumnal Scene on Sunset Boulevard or Fiasco in a Windswept Park. It seemed terribly sad to Marly that the old oak tree had fallen – it seemed like a portent, a symbol, a sign that something bad was going to happen, a break in the continuity of things, a rupture with history – and how could you ever break from your own history? She hated change, not because she liked it where she was but because she had a horrible feeling that change could be for the worse; she could never quite believe that change could be for the better. As a child she'd jumped off buildings onto breakneck cardboard boxes with her daredevil, tomboy friends but as an adult she quailed at the thought that a tree had fallen in a bad November storm.

The old Canterbury road was busy as always and she had to wait a while before darting across in a gap and sliding down the bank, her boots skidding over the wet mud. It was calmer by the lake and she pulled her hood down the better to look about her. One or two fishermen were hiding under their black umbrellas or inside their green tents doing God knows what; and the rain pitter-pattered softly over the trees, the leaves and the wooden slats of the tiny jetty before sliding silently into those strange concentric circles on the lake. (What a lot of bangles the river gods must have.) She made her way along the gravelly path, hopping over little puddles, dog shit and bulbous roots as she went. It was always the same... every day, every day... circling round the same old lake as she circled round the same old thoughts in her head. Just a variation on an old refrain. Violin strings. Theme by Paganini. Yes she loved him. But not enough to take the risk. Yes he loved her, more than anyone else ever did but did it make up for the fact that he used his fists? Past
Harlequin
and
Albatross
trussed up in tarpaulin by the rotten old boatshed. She'd never actually seen them out on the water, they just lay there trussed in tarpaulin, propping up the rotten old boatshed and what a foolish name for a boat
Albatross
was in any case. Come to think of it, she'd never seen any boat out on the lake, just endless rows of fishermen round the edge, holding their sullen rods over the moody water. The silver birch trees shimmered as always in the rain, their wet bark like canvas or naked skin, their branches entwining like a pair of Siamese twins sharing the same fetal heartbeat.... She'd learned to lie still and quiet as a mouse. She'd learned that he was bigger and stronger than she. She'd gone to him for comfort after he'd hurt her, though it was he that had hurt her. When the person that loved you hurt you as well you had to pretend it was somebody else. You, me and number three. Same old refrain in a different key on a theme by Paganini, Elgar, Saint-Saëns and Edvard Grieg... she felt the rain wash over her face and watched the strange concentric circles ripple and disappear. It was a bit like the butterfly effect. A butterfly fluttering its wings in Tobago could affect the state of Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Arctic, even the gods might feel a fluttering near to their hearts if only they could feel hard enough. Lungs, gills, butterfly wings, all rippling to the rhythm of the one gigantic heartbeat. That fisherman over there touched water that had brushed past dolphins, clouds, maybe great freighters, deep sea divers. It was all connected. She felt a vague sense of peace at the thought that it might all be connected, the joy and sadness collected together and that it would all pass and it didn't matter; and the trivial point of her life would end and something else would take its place. Every argument they had was The End though they always began again – and it didn't matter and it would all end and then begin, variation on a same old theme.

So why did the anger cut through her like a dagger? And why did it matter right here right now? You couldn't just sink away into death, the mind revolted at such a step. You clung on to life for better or worse, whatever the cost you kept on existing in the hope against hope (for hope was hard to kill) that something better lay round the corner. Killing yourself was a complicated affair – you couldn't just hack away at your wrists or pop a cyanide tablet down your neck like they did in the war movies, you had to get things in order, set things straight, get on a clean pair of pants at the very least for when they found you. (They used a mop to get that woman out of the lake at Crayford. The note just said: Can't stand it any more. Thanks. Cheerio. Don't forget to feed the cat.) She'd discussed the options with David: the Roman way, overdosing on pills, jumping off the Dartford bridge and helium balloons. They'd seen on TV how to die by helium balloon and David had laughed and said you better not change your mind halfway through and try calling for help cos your voice would come out all squeaky! She smiled at the thought of his jokes and his laughter, his warm strong body and the solidity of his spirit that kept her centred, kept her rooted. Her rock, her velveteen rabbit… he was like a Christmas bauble, a beautiful, golden Christmas bauble at the top of the tree and something quite perverse in her head, something quite unbelievable made her want to smash it to pieces, smash it into smithereens. She didn't know why. It was some kind of reflex action. She hurt him so he hurt her back and then she had to hurt him again. Just variations, escalations, endless rings and butterfly…

‘You're pushing him to the edge of his limits,' his mother had said in her pretty lilting Welsh voice and she had replied, ‘Oh dear, am I really?' though inside she had thought well goody goody gumdrops, maybe now he'll know what it feels like to be rock bottom, at the edge of his limits and he might have some sympathy for me for a change. She didn't actually believe he could ever get as low as she – he didn't have the constitution for it. Eat, drink and be merry was his motto; and she saw him in her mind's eye as one of those cross-legged, beaming buddhas, all stomach, crinkly eyes, double chins and cheesy grins. ‘You're just a little Bacchus!' she'd said to him once, putting him down as always and a little pretentiously, though she didn't even know who Bacchus really was. ‘What what? You're kidding. I most certainly am not,' he had cried, eyes wide in mock reproach. ‘Bacchus was a fatty with no knickers, wasn't he!?' And she had replied, ‘Exactly, that's my point!' and they had laughed and laughed till the tears streamed down their cheeks.

She crept under cover of the trees, up the bank and out of sight of the fishermen with their prying eyes and sullen rods – she didn't want anyone else telling her it wasn't all that cold. She would go by the way of the horses. She didn't always go by the way of the horses because, for a start, they weren't always there – the gipsies spirited them away at night for months on end and then they suddenly appeared again one bright fine day, tethered to their spikes like goats; and staring at the M25 with their wall eyes, their white eyes, their frightened eyes and their oh-so-very-human eyes. And then again, she couldn't always bear to look at them, their moth-eaten coats, scraggy tails and ribs sticking out all over the verge. At first she'd thought of going to the pet shop and buying them bran and oats to feed them up a bit but then she decided it'd be worse for them when she went away to live by the sea which she would do soon enough with or without David. They would stand there waiting for her and she would never come. Best not get their hopes up. Better to live without hope if you could. As a child she'd cared for a pony called Zany who'd slept in a stable of soft golden straw. She'd fed him Maltesers and blackberries in the summertime and he'd nodded his head up and down when he ate them as if to say thank you very much; sometimes he spat them out! Once, the girl who owned him told her to get him some sugar and she'd come back with a packet of granulated. ‘Lumps, you silly fool,' the girl had shouted. ‘He's not having a flipping cup of tea!' In the dark recesses of her mind Marly had hoped the girl might get leukaemia, like Helen's cousin, and then Zany would be up for grabs. It didn't happen like that though; instead the girl just got bigger and bigger until she burst out of her jodhpurs and little riding jacket and got rid of Zany in exchange for a great big showjumper; it was rumoured Zany had gone for slaughter. Better to live without hope if you could... the sound of cars got louder in her ears as she approached the spot where the caravan always sat, its great big wheels like chocolate Wagon Wheels, its green-painted sides with the cream and silver chrome dancing horse and the piebald that stood, tethered to a wheel, sway-backed and staring at the sky. Her heartbeat quickened as she stepped across the rain-soaked grass, holding her long grey skirt up high and peeping through the trees in the hope of seeing some shape, colour, pattern, movement... ah yes, there he was, old Magpie as she called him, tethered to a wheel and staring at the sky as always, the green-painted sides more chipped than ever, the cream and silver chrome dancing horse yellowing with age. A grey pony stood a little further away, tethered to a wooden spike stuck in the ground, his body hunched up against the wind and cold rain. A dog barked sharply and Marly froze mid-step until a man's voice silenced it; the grey pony flinched and startled at the end of his metal chain. She felt sick with disgust and her bare fingers trembled on the barbed wire that separated her from the road and scrubby verge. She'd seen them riding their horses one cold January morning, red-cheeked and wild-eyed, careering madly over the scrappy fields around the motorway, whipping their horses over little boulders, thistles and tree stumps, bare-backed and high-handed and she hadn't been able to tell whether the horses were happy or simply frantic. The grey pony stumbled along the muddy track of his own strange carousel, straining to get at the grass that lay just out of reach. Even from where she stood she could tell he was stick thin, neglected, stunted as a windswept thornbush and no doubt full of tapeworm, ringworm, sweet itch, you name it.... He suddenly stopped and looked in her direction over the motorway – which must seem to him like a roaring river full of cars that swirled and snapped like crocodiles – stared for a moment as if he could see her through the trees then dropped his head again under the weight of the chain that went like a noose around his twiglet neck. The tears streamed down with the rain on her cheeks and she took off her glasses and turned away, trudging back the way she came. When would he get to his warm golden stable; that little lost grey pony? When would he get to his fields of praise?