Shadow Play (24 page)

T
hursday dawned with a milky sweetness. The fog sank against Helen's basement windows as daylight pushed itself into her dreams. Nothing but the fog peered through the bars which covered the panes, and although she loathed the necessity for this iron security, she could not have slept alone without it. It was a slow January light, with fog making her think of the sea and of being far away.

Thursday. For the untroubled it was a day of promise when the back of the week was broken, but Helen rarely came into that category. The morning's work would be easy enough, but all played to the tune of Wednesday's emotional hangover. Helen did not think of Logo as she dressed. Pondering cases in lieu of counting sheep was proving a distraction which no longer worked. An obscure guilt was nibbling at her bones; guilt for things done badly or not at all; guilt for somehow missing the point and for not making sufficient progress with that girl, Rose, and for discussing her with Dinsdale the night before. Guilt for drinking white wine with Mr Handsome, as much as anything else, while knowing there was something wrong in this intimacy, however much she defended it by saying it was Wednesday and no phone call from Bailey this week, he deserved whatever he got.

Come now, there are no real, concrete commitments between Bailey and me. Oh yes there are, for all there is nothing on paper: the unspoken promises are the most important you have ever made.

‘I don't know what ails that child,' Helen had been saying to Dinsdale about Rose, while they sat in a wine bar which was, by mutual consent, a long way from the office and prying eyes. Perhaps it was that which made her less comfortable, this definite movement towards the clandestine. ‘One minute she's open, next, closed for the day. One minute an ordinary giggly girl, next sulky and unpredictable.'

‘
Cherchez l'homme
,' said Dinsdale. ‘Moaning hormones. How's the new man?'

‘In hospital.'

‘Not the best place for love to bloom, might have something to do with her moods.'

‘I don't think so. Monday and Tuesday, she's brilliant, then this morning she didn't want to come to court at all, I practically had to force her. Then she kept her head down in her hands, did everything grudgingly, as if she was hiding … Don't know why.'

‘Do you suppose,' Dinsdale ventured, ‘there could be any truth in the Redwood theory? That Rose could be the one who's been sandbagging the system?'

‘No. I'd literally stake my life on it. What a silly, dramatic thing to say.'

‘Yes, it is. Anyway, you should know better than that.'

Helen watched his fingers round the stem of the goblet, holding it with the casual delicacy of a discriminating drinker. The bowl of his glass never became dirty, greasy or marked as hers did with fingerprints and lipstick long before the bottle was empty. She wondered how it was he managed to keep himself so clean, and also why it was she was struggling to keep the conversation on neutral, fixed to the main highways of law and objective gossip, away from anything to do with themselves. They had been playing with each other for several weeks, an element of teasing in all this chat. It amounted to nothing less than a prolonged flirtation, admittedly of an obscure kind, consisting as it did of two people listening to one another with the intentness only given to a potential lover. Now as the tenuous nature of the relationship began to slip, as it began to slide in the direction of an affair, and she knew he was teetering on the brink of either proposition or declaration, Helen, who had been as enthusiastic as Dinsdale for the flattery each gave and received, was thinking twice.

She had left the wine bar in full flight with an excuse which sounded as false as it was and now she felt furious with herself. She was a grown woman, she should have talked to him, she shouldn't have let things go so far. What she had wanted was the attention, she admitted bitterly. She had required fresh armaments in her war with Bailey, needed the uncritical, unreserved admiration which her younger colleague gave with such generosity along with Dinsdale's support while he laughed at her pathetic jokes. She had not really wanted to give anything back. Cock tease. And what is so wrong in that? She asked the mirror. Am I not supposed to
talk
to men and enjoy their company? You have every right, her conscience answered back; but you knew this was different. Did she really like Dinsdale, with his patrician manners, splendid articulacy and shining cleanliness? Yes, apart from the last. Yes, yes. So that was all right then. An honest cock tease.

The fog helped. It always helped but it would clear before noon. Helen West loved the cold anonymity of winter. It was as if the void left by the non-existent pregnancy had been filled with a strange kind of longing to be different, to acquit herself well by someone in the world, instead of failing everyone in a subtle fashion, all the time.

 

S
ylvie's parents had debated long and hard the several issues raised by Granny's funeral. The first was, should Sylvie attend? Was this part of the necessary education of a child of such tender years, and would it make things easier to explain? Opinions had been canvassed, but they had come back in contradictory forms and it was pragmatism which won. An early morning call to Margaret Mellors had elicited no response; the child could have been shuffled off elsewhere, but there had been so much upheaval lately, it did not seem entirely right and there was no time to consider the alternatives. The second subject of debate was should they wear black, but there was no black garment in the house and no time to borrow. Mr and Mrs went to church in blue and grey and Sylvie, spoiling for a fight, in red.

It was the coffin itself which made Sylvie's mother weep, such a helpless weeping it had no self-consciousness and she clutched the child for comfort. Too late she remembered why children were left behind; not to spare them the sight of the coffin but the sight of the parent out of control. Letting go of the smaller hand, the mother clutched her solid husband instead. Sylvie forgot to fight in this alienating atmosphere. She picked up the hymn book her mother had abandoned and looked at it, before beginning to gnaw the cover with silent concentration.

‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die …'

Sylvie twisted round with the book still in her mouth. She saw the last member of the congregation come in and sit at the back. Her jaw worked faster. It was the man with the fingers. Sylvie searched for her mother's sleeve, saw her huddled away against Daddy, both of them smaller, ignoring her.

‘… We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.'

It all went on too long. When the priest led his tiny flock from church to graveyard, the daylight hurt their eyes, but the movement was welcome, although as soon as the coffin shifted on the shoulders of the dull, professional pallbearers who had been outside for a cigarette during the ragged singing of a single hymn, the bereaved daughter wept afresh. The coffin was so tiny: she could not imagine it actually held the remnants of a life. She imagined her mother in there, sitting cramped like a small animal in hiding, squashed into that box the way she herself had once carried a pet mouse to school. There was a fine drizzle outside; the hair of the priest rose in a frizz, but he did not seem to mind. He enjoyed traditional funerals for the opportunity they gave him to raise his voice in prayer, the only chance in his current existence to remind the agnostics of the power of God and the futility of these little lives without Him. So he warned them in sonorous tones of our traditions of the graveside, warned them how the coffin must be lowered to the tune of his prayers and then they must each throw earth. Denied contact with her mother, Sylvie followed him closely, fascinated by the flowing surplice and the dash of colour in his sash. Boldly, she stepped up to the grave and peered down. The priest shielded her: this was no time for sharp words.

‘In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek succour, but of thee, O Lord?' He cast a meaningful glance at the twenty still gathered. Sylvie was gazing down into the trench, looking for worms, her eyes held by a bright skein of royal-blue wool which seemed to shine artificially against the grey-brown of the crumbled earth. She knew without being able to say that there was a hand holding the wool. In the middle of the space left for the coffin, she could see a footprint and on the other side, half submerged, a shoe. No-one else looked into the grave: all eyes turned elsewhere, even those indifferent to the deceased did not wish to examine the depth to which she would descend. Sylvie's gaze ranged the length and depth, looking for the other shoe, saw instead more threads of the same, blue wool, and then her whole, small, punchy little body arched itself into a piercing scream. Sylvie had no real idea of why she screamed as she was hoisted away, kicking as the prayer continued and the coffin descended effortfully, held by straps, everyone ignoring the extraneous sounds.

‘… We therefore commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust …'

‘No!' Sylvie screamed. ‘No! No! No!'

With a soul full of anguish and guilt and one hand strained with the dirt of the earth she had just thrown, Sylvie's mother turned back from the side of the grave and slapped her daughter on the face. The blow was automatic and the sound of it as loud as the silence which followed.

The current of the shrieking was abruptly stopped: the child's face was white with one dirty imprint to the left of her nose. Scooped into her father's arms, she did not turn the other cheek, but remained speechless for a minute more and silent until he had walked her back towards the entrance with his hand steadying her head against his shoulder. Then she muttered, ‘No, Daddy, no, someone down there, Daddy. There is. Don't put the box on top, Daddy.' He cooed at her and patted her back, out of his depth and blushing for shame at the behaviour of his family in front of others. His anger embraced the whole world except his child, but it did not mean he listened to what she said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one mourner backing away from the edge of the crowd, a faintly familiar figure, looking towards him. He felt Sylvie stiffen in his arms and hold tighter.

‘It's that man,' whined Sylvie. ‘That one, the sing-songing man with the funny hands.'

‘There, there,' he said. ‘We'll all go home now, shall we? Nice cup of tea?'

 

I
n the early evening of Thursday, Rose sat in Debenhams' coffee shop, chewing her nails and letting her tea grow cold. She had raced down into the bowels of the Central Line to get here in time, and Margaret was late. Rose remembered the old lady teaching her how rude it was to waste all those particles of someone else's life, by being late. Then she thought, with a greater panic, how Margaret did practise what she preached, unfailingly, and this was nothing to do with tardiness, accidents or bombs. She simply wasn't coming. After that, Rose ceased to think in any consistent way at all. What she felt among the plastic ferns and wooden seats was merely a numbing hurt, followed by loneliness and finally fear. Margaret hated her, had decided she did not want to know her, had defected finally, did not care, had told her father about this meeting. On this thought, Rose was unable to move, even to pick up the cup. Shop tea, Margaret had said, not like I make in front of my oh so cosy little fire. Telling Daddy all about it. Oh no, surely she would never do that, could always, always keep a secret. And she isn't a bitch.

Daddy. In court yesterday with his malevolent, pale blue eyes and his tiny, destructive little self, his face like a coloured balloon, but still his face, passing her, reaching out to touch her, surrounding her with the smell of his dirt and his curses. That was fear incarnate, and yet she had pitied him too. As if she had not tried, tried to extract his papers and put them in the shredder, as she would the next time, so that their paths might never cross. But she could not do it, could not leave Helen West to face the music, had done her errands on Daddy's case like a good girl, and then hidden, wrenchingly sick, among the graffiti of the public loo, where the walls bore last week's legends. Level with her eyes as she sat staring, there had been a fading felt-pen scrawl which said, poignantly, ‘Is there anybody out there?' and Rose knew there wasn't. Now that Margaret had failed to arrive, she knew it even better.

Rose looked round, surreptitiously, beset with a brand-new fear. Would Margaret have told her old friend Logo? Was he lurking round here now, waiting to follow her home to an address he'd already found from a postmark? Was that why Granny had not come, displacing one loyalty with another? It was dreadfully possible.

Rose felt safe in company, in shops and in large buildings. Dad used to take her with him office cleaning: it somehow dictated her present choice of destination. She picked up her bag with a degree of decorum she did not feel, catapulted down to the ground floor and bought a toothbrush and a shawl, waiting with bated breath to see if they were daft enough to take her overstretched credit card. Then she dived back on to the Central Line, still full of shoppers. At the other end she ran from the train, stopped at the hamburger shop on the corner and the off-licence next door just before it shut, spending her last pence. Then she bounded up the steps, past the comforting railings, to the office entrance where the night doorman sat blearily.

‘I bought you something,' she said, handing him the bottle in blue paper. ‘Oh, and I'm going to be working ever so late, don't mind me, will you?' He smiled, bemused. Rose tramped upstairs. There was something corrupt about earning a man's goodwill with a half-bottle of whisky, particularly a horrible, leery man like that, but it had worked between her mother and her father.