Seahorses Are Real (26 page)

‘Hold on a minute though, something's coming up on the screen.'

‘Oh?' She propped her chin in her hands and leant forward, pretending interest.

‘I've got some good news here... Marlene.'

‘Oh?' She wondered if they were upping her dole cheque.

‘The Limes are offering you a job on a trial basis.'

‘What? Are you sure?' Marly was appalled. ‘I haven't had an interview or anything.'

‘Well, your application form obviously did the business. You're to start a week on Monday. There'll be a day of induction, health and safety etc... and then you're off.' He clicked to print out some details for her.

‘There must be some mistake.'

‘Not at all. Don't be so hard on yourself. It says here that you're just the sort of person they're looking for. Well done. Congratulations! Good to see the back of you so to speak. No offence like.' He waved his pointy nails and smiled vacuously.

‘Thank you.' Marly took the piece of paper and got up to go, then turned suddenly on impulse.

‘Is Bernie Mungo here today?' she asked quickly.

‘Who?'

‘Bernie Mungo.'

‘You mean the security guard?'

‘Yes.' She wondered how many Bernie Mungos they employed.

‘Oh no. He left for Jamaica two days ago.'

The words rang in her ears as she pushed past the queue, out into the cold white sunshine. Left for Jamaica two days ago. Left for Jamaica two days ago. He'd gone and got his plane ticket out of here. He'd gone and left her behind. No longer would he stand, counting his rings like lucky stars, or wander round looking at the jobs for he was there right now in the land of his dreams, the land of talcum sand that burnt your toes, coral reefs that cut your feet, palm trees, azure seas, warm and oily mangoes. Everything was new, changing, different. Everything was new, changing, different; and she didn't like it one bit.

She nipped across by the Daisy launderette full of blood, chocolate, stains, vomit (Have you heard our Daisy scream?), picking up her pace out of sheer agitation. Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job. She was to start a new job. How ridiculous! Just the sort of person we're looking for, my foot. No one else had applied for it; that was the truth of it. No one else had applied! She made her way into the park and her feet beat out the rhythm on the tarmac path that she was to start a new job: Dee de de deeh de de deeh. Dee de de deeh de de deeh
:
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A week on Monday was not enough time to cut her hair, wash her clothes, be rid of the wart on the end of her nose... a week on Monday was not enough time. There was never enough time and always too much to say the things that needed to be said and do the things that needed to be done. (Ivy ever dying in HA HA HA HA HA domestic bliss; and she had just sat there deaf and dumb to it.) Never enough time and always too much.

She sat down on the bench by the memorial for the dead to catch her breath, gazing wildly around for the gardener with her volatile hair, tramps with their beer cans, even the old gentlemen and ladies guzzling nasturtium seeds in the shrubbery, but there was no one around. It was very cold – crows kaarked in bare-limbed trees and a solitary fly buzzed round an old rose bush – but the little bench caught the sun and was really quite hot, almost burning. She took off her coat to bask in the heat though inside she was whirring with the news that Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job. How ridiculous, for goodness sake, was
that
? She tapped the ground nervously with her toe, willing the gardener to appear if only to distract her. She even stood up and peered at the van parked by the library gates; but it wasn't Lizzie's Lady Gardeners with the little vinegar bottle stashed away on the dash board (in readiness for snacks, chips, pasties and samosas); it was a cleaner, whiter looking van and a pale bespectacled man was getting out of it, laden down with what looked like a load of old school annuals. People were scurrying into the library as always, from all directions, bringing back their books and records, CDs and videotapes. It was the busiest place in town, that library. She sat back down and turned to stare morosely at the memorial for the dead. Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job. Someone had thrown a wreath of lilies around the statue's neck and stuck a red bobble hat on his head. Possibly the work of 9T9 Flake. It gave him a slightly comical air, a seasonal, cheerful, festive air, quite at odds with the desolate park. Why wasn't the gardener filling the beds full of Christmas, Santa; New Year Good Resolution flowers? Lilies were flowers of death apparently, flowers of death and eau de toilette, of Christmas talc and funeral parlours. (Someone had sent her mother a wreath of white lilies without message or card. An old admirer perhaps. It had all been very strange. Marly had taken a solitary rose.) Lilies were flowers of death like poppies and forget-me-nots. Like the poem she'd read:
Steffi Vergissmeinnicht
. Steffi forget me not. In the end all that was left was a photograph torn and his stomach blown open like a cave.... The pale bespectacled man was stumbling back into his van, still laden down with the old school annuals. He must have renewed them, Marly thought. Why not? School annuals were a great place to live. (You were quite safe with them. You could read them in bed.) If she could have been anyone she'd have been a character in an old school annual.

She got up then and made her way along the little old path beside the Darenth. The river had slunk back into its bed for there hadn't been rain in days despite what the man with the nails had said. Still no sign of it either in the sky: the clouds were too white, too small; too high. Everything was glimmering, bright, reflecting; and the water burbled along quite merrily, giving off a little steam in the sunshine like some happy singing kettle. Marly knew that if she leant over the bank she would see her reflection broken up among the rocks and weeds, beer cans and old boots. Why had she never confessed the truth? Terry would have understood. He'd been here many times before and knew his way around the block. Why had she never confessed it? It lay on the tip of her tongue, at the back of her throat, stuck in the crevices of her stopped-at-the-doll's-house body.... She crouched down on the grass and peeped over the edge, her long grey skirt brushing the tops of frosted cobwebs like tiny silken tents or fairy trampolines. The surface reflected the side of her head, the sky; the trees. It looked like a portal to another world, some secret underwater kingdom. How easy to believe you could just dive in. How easy to be fooled by the illusion. Is that what happened to Narcissus? Had he gazed too long and taken it for real? Had he gazed too long and taken it for real?

‘It'll come,' Terry had said as if he'd known what she meant. ‘It'll come.'

She stood up, her knees clicking, and walked on, faster than a little black moorhen swimming. It was a beautiful day – clean and crisp – as if the window cleaner had been round with his rags and polishes, sparkling up the morning. She wondered if her mother was happy now. Had she found the land of her dreams at last, the land where all is forgiven, everything wiped clean. Was she pottering about the Elysian fields, planting her crocus bulbs, lilies and forget-me-nots? Or was she somewhere in between, a soul distressed, deadheading nettles and stripping petals with her tiny silvery switchblade?

She reached the old stump which was all that was left of the oak tree that had fallen in a bad November storm, one night when the lightning illuminated the heavens. It must have been older than the hills, that tree, older than Tiresias, older even than her grandmother who was really quite ancient. (I'm just an old zombie now, she sometimes said. Well past my sell-by date!) Counting the rings, encrusted in her stumps like lucky stars: silver, sapphire, amethyst and fire opal – each ring a memento, a year in the life of… no longer would she stand beneath the heavy boughs and shelter from the rain. No longer would she run and catch the catapulting leaves, just for fun and to make a wish. The top of the stump was perfectly flat like a dining room table, a little old mahogany dining room table. Did they come out at night and spread their table cloths, drink nectar from acorn cups and elderberry wine, have bun fights, play charades; and then, when daylight came, go spinning off into the pale white sunshine? ‘Goodbye, goodbye, what fun we had, goodbye.'

(
He told me fairies wake up the flowers, calling them by their botanical names. And he told me music came from heaven with thunder, hailstones, hurricanes and snow. And for bedtime stories, he read librettos.
)

‘Never get as old as this,' her grandmother sometimes said, counting her rings like lucky stars... each one a memento, a year in the life of…

I have no intention of it, Grandma. Absolutely no intention of it, though I am very old already, like Arwen, and he will have to prove himself.

How old could you get and still live?

Seventeen

The door banged shut and she heard his tread on the stairs... it could have gone either way... he was too well aware of her, had too deep a knowledge of her not to have known that it could have gone either way. The bang of the door – so vehement – and the tread of his boots (which should have gone long ago to Dr Barnardo's) – so sullen and unloving – turned her away from him and away from her heart. By the time he came through the doorway, she was towering over him, metaphorically, in her head, beating him down to the size of a nut, though she sat quite still at the table, with her book.

‘Hiya.' The voice was fake, cheerful; and she grunted a response.

‘How many people does he think live here?' David threw a load of letters and papers onto the carpet. ‘Honestly, how many people does he bleeding well think live here?' It was something of an ongoing joke that Jason put all letters not addressed to him at their door, and normally Marly would have entered into the discussion for Jason was a topic of great interest to her. She hadn't actually met him yet – if ever she was on her way out and heard the door open, she hovered on the stairs, giving him sufficient time to make his escape – but she knew that he did his shopping by catalogue, de-loused the vestibule floor every two weeks and sent off for offers with strange names like ‘Pandora's Box'. Today she simply remarked almost indifferently: ‘Maybe he thinks I'll forward them on.'

‘That's true.' David peered over her shoulder. ‘You've read that book before haven't you?'

‘No.'

‘You were reading it the other week, surely?'

‘No... and even if I was, I can read it again can't I?'

‘True.'

He flopped down on the sofa, picked up the TV magazine. Marly stared sightlessly at the words on the page, frustration mounting up in her. Why hadn't he asked her about her day for goodness sake, or at the very least told her about his own. Come to think of it, he never did tell her about his day and she never asked; for all she knew he never got to his pale blue tower but shot off to London on a shopping spree or went down the pub and chatted up a girl more fun than she could ever be – silky sheeny stockings and mascara'd eyes. Did he impregnate her on the sly (they say it happens all the time)? She leapt up suddenly and peered over his shoulder the way he'd done earlier.

‘I suppose you'll be watching
that
,' she jeered, stabbing her finger at the description of an erotic film showing later that evening on TV.

He sighed and looked up. ‘What's upset you then? Did something happen at Terry's? At the job centre?'

‘No.' She was whirring with the news that Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job but she wasn't going to tell him that now.

‘The horses were good the other night weren't they,' he said then, changing the subject.

‘The
horses
were, yeah.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Oh nothing,' she replied superciliously, as if he was too stupid to understand.

‘Which bit did you like the best?' he went on, humouring her. ‘I liked Siglavy Parhelion best.'

‘None of it,' she answered, hating herself for saying it. ‘It was all very unnatural… like robots. They should be left free to run on the hills or whatever it is they do.' She couldn't believe she was demeaning them like this, those glorious majestic creatures that had danced their way into her sick little soul. And she knew, for a fact, from her library book, that the horses loved their work, the performances, the attention, and when they were forced to retire often died or became suddenly old and decrepit, shuffling in from the pasture for their morning feed like senile old men.

‘Very unnatural,' she repeated, a terrible sadness coming over her. It was like stripping away beauty, deliberately stripping it away. Is that how her mother had felt, stripping petals from flowers?

He smiled at her blankly, a look of dislike in his eyes. That was a triumph of a sort, she supposed, that look of dislike in his eyes.

She went on and on then, on and on and on, unable to stop herself.

‘You like looking at things don't you. Typical man. Always looking at things.' She jabbed the magazine again, childishly.