Sheer Blue Bliss (28 page)

Then? The whole point of that life was the waiting. What now? Oh what
has
he gone and done? Just walk on. Walk.

TWELVE

Connie doesn't take her eyes off the girl but she works against the wiry pain and the weakness in her arms at the tape on her mouth, loosening with her tongue, scraping with the tape on her wrists until at last there is flap loose enough to let her suck in air, to speak audibly.

‘Hello,' she says. Her voice sounds strange and creaky to her own ears after even so short a time. By poking with her tongue she frees the other edge.

‘Lisa.' No answer. She tries again, louder. ‘Hello, Lisa.'

A moan. Oh thank God, the girl's alive. With a renewal of vigour she brings her wrists up again and frees her mouth a bit more. ‘Hello, Lisa.' She doesn't know what else to say. The girl groans and blinks, rolls over a bit so that Connie can see her face. Oh yes, recognises her, the rosy girl who came with the photographer. Yes, Lisa, that's right. Not so rosy now. Lisa opens her eyes and blinks, looks up at Connie, dazed.

‘It's Constance,' Connie says. ‘Remember? Constance Benson. Know where you are?'

The girl says nothing, lies there, blinking, her eyes very pale blue in the sun, dust on her cheek. Eventually her lips move. The voice when it comes is flimsy and dry as tissue paper. ‘Yes. I know.' With obvious difficulty she moves, pushes herself into a sitting position. ‘Ow.' Her hand goes to her head, fingers probing the thickness of dried blood in her hair, the slight oozing. She brings down her fingers to look at them, thin wet streak of red.

‘He brought you upstairs.'

‘My head …'

‘It's stopped bleeding, nearly.'

‘But it hurts.' She starts to cry, looks down at her legs, one black nylon, one blue mottled flesh, remembers. ‘Oh God … the bastard …' Her hands go back to her head, ‘Oh it hurts. The bastard, the bastard … and
you
…' She suddenly registers Connie's plight. ‘Oh you … he …?' She gets to her knees and crawls to Connie. ‘I'll get it off.' She reaches for the tape that remains stuck to Connie's top lip.

‘Do it quick,' Connie says and shuts her eyes.

‘OK. Wait …' The tape is off and Connie's lips sting as if someone has swiped her with a nettle.

‘Thank you,' she says, tears rising in her eyes. ‘Oh you poor child.'

‘I feel sick.' Lisa sits back on her heels.

‘Could you just …' Connie holds out her wrists, the girl looks at her blankly.
‘Lisa.'
Lisa picks weakly at the edge of the tape.

‘Just help me get free and I'll help you.'

‘I'm trying.'

‘That's right.'

‘Why did he do this? The bastard. I thought …' Fresh tears fill Lisa's eyes.

‘It's all right,' Connie says, aware that it's anything but. ‘It's all right now.' She wants to touch the girl to comfort her, remembering suddenly the incredible comfort in Sacha's hands reaching to her through the chaos of her grief, that hand the only real, the only solid, thing.

Lisa finds the end of the tape and picks at it but she has to stop every minute or so to press the heel of her hand against her mouth as if to hold the horror in. ‘It's all right,' Connie says again, ‘just keep calm, we're all right,' speaking as much to herself as Lisa. The last bit of tape is the hardest, painful, the skin feels almost melded to the tape, it's like being skinned, she half expects to see raw sinew where the tape has been instead of a white ridge, slightly swollen, edged with angry red.

‘Thank you.' The feeling of freedom is amazing. To be able to move her hands. She flexes them backwards and forwards, feeling a sharp fizzing as the blood returns. She rubs at the sticky ridges which are both sore and numb, then extends a hand to stroke Lisa's head. ‘There,' she says, ‘there, there.' Lisa flops her head against Connie's knee and sobs, choking out words. ‘It hurts, oh it hurts to cry, the bastard, bastard.' Connie waits a while, lets the girl cry on, watching the thin trickle of blood that is still leaking from the wound.

‘Lisa,' she says after who knows how long, ‘Lisa, we must get down from here. You need some hot sweet tea, we both do, we need to … to
do
something.'

Lisa raises her head and winces, gives a gulping shudder. Her blue eyes are sore from the crying, smudged about with something blue. Her tears have soaked right through Connie's skirt and tights.

‘If you could just …' Connie indicates her ankles taped together, and, her shoulders still convulsing, her hands trembling, Lisa tries to undo the tape, but can't get it all off. ‘Take my tights off,' Connie suggests. Lisa half laughs, looking wild now, face mottled white from shock and pain, red from weeping. ‘It
is
rather undignified,' Connie says, as Lisa puts her hands up Connie's skirt to pull down her tights, and as Connie raises her hips from the chair to help her, the two of them do laugh, high and hysterical, Connie is horrified by her own wild cackle and it
hurts
her poor stiff shoulder, back, all of her, jarring with the stupid convulsions.

‘Oh I'm going to wet myself,' Lisa says. ‘Oh no …' and as she says it Connie can feel her own full bladder on which she has not allowed herself to dwell. And the two of them laugh, wiping away tears and groaning with pain, shuddering with horror and yet unable to stop. Connie can't tell if she's laughing or crying but tears keep coming anyway. Until Lisa manages to get Connie's tights down to her ankles, eases them over her feet and pulls them off. Then the laughter dies.

Connie watches Lisa get shakily to her feet and balance herself to put her foot into the empty leg of her elaborately laddered tights. Then changes her mind and takes them off altogether. She looks round at Connie, eyes open wide, scared. She looks so young and even through the stains of tears and smudged eye make-up she has a baby peachy look, her eyes the palest blue they could be and still be blue. She goes to the trap-door, sways, Connie sucks in her breath, watching her intently, willing her not to faint or slip.

Lisa stops. ‘You don't suppose he's …' her voice a whisper.

‘No, he's not there. He's gone. Don't you see? He's gone and left us.' For dead, she doesn't add.

Lisa goes down, her eyes staying on Connie's until her head disappears through the trap-door. ‘Oh the flowers,' she says. Connie looks round the room, at Patrick whose eyes are warm, yes they are,
concerned
, at the floor, the mess of it, the sleeping bag, smeared now with blood, curly whorls of tape, Lisa's tights and her own tights like two shucked skins and the sketches of Tony … crumpled now and trampled … sketches she almost enjoyed doing. Ha.

It's hard to stand. She has to force herself through the pain of it. Each movement sends a searing jar right through her. But she has to do it, has to go down. Each rung of the ladder feels like a blade to her poor footsoles. Down in the kitchen she stands amongst the ruins of a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, shakes her head at the stupid waste. Then she fills the kettle. Although it hurts so much even to lift her arm there is pleasure in the freedom to do such a simple thing.

Lisa comes in from the toilet, shivering. ‘I'm all sore,' she says. ‘How could he have done this to me? How could he? And the flowers … I bought them for you.'

‘Tea first,' Connie says, ‘then a wash. It's a shame about the flowers. But thank you anyway.' She can't bend down to pick them up. The air is filled with the chilly sharpness of their sap.

‘I'm cold.' Lisa sits down and lays her head on the table, her arms cradling it. Connie turns the gas heater up as high as it will go. ‘I'll get you a shawl,' she says. Goes into the dark hateful room, the floor going now, a hole where maybe Tony's foot went through. Oh the dank stench. If she could bring out the chest of drawers she need never go in there again, seal up the door. Forget it. She shudders. She brings out a pair of long woollen bloomers and an old red shawl, drapes the shawl over Lisa's shoulders. ‘Put these pants on to keep your legs warm.'

‘You shouldn't wash,' Lisa says, her voice pale and muffled, ‘if you're raped. It destroys the evidence. But I don't know … he didn't quite …'

‘What?'

‘Didn't quite … get in. But still, I shouldn't wash, should I?'

Connie pauses. ‘I don't know. I suppose not. I'm glad,' she adds. ‘That he didn't … quite.' Is that the right thing to say, the tactful thing?

‘But I have to wash, it's horrible and sticky.' She starts to cry again, ‘Oh, oh, it hurts.'

Connie doesn't know what to do, stands there helpless till the kettle begins to yell and she can turn to the task of the tea.

‘I'll put the kettle back on so you
can
wash if you want.'

‘Should go straight to the police.'

‘Lots of sugar in, for shock.'

‘Horrible sticky, how could he? I
liked
him. Why?'

‘Because he's not right in the head, dear,' Connie says tartly.

‘But I shouldn't have …'

‘Here's your tea. None of that. Not your fault. I was listening, remember.'

Lisa looks up, forgetting herself for a moment, meets Connie's eyes. ‘God, that must have been horrible,' she says.

Connie shakes her head. Oh the pain in the neck when it turns. ‘Worse for you,' she says.

‘Yes.' Lisa's mouth turns down again. ‘Get some of that tea in you. Should have brandy,' Connie says, ‘that's for shock. Got whisky, same sort of thing. Here, get that down you.' She pours a drop into Lisa's tea and then into her own. Notices her remaining wine glass is smashed on the floor. Everything smashing and crumbling all about her. All falling apart.

She finds her bottle of painkillers on the draining board. Only two left. That means the doctor's because there's no way she can live like this, if she had to live like this then she wouldn't live and that's for definite because it will get worse, get its claws in, make every slightest movement a misery. There is something else, another idea, but no … ‘Here,' she says, opening the jar and holding out a pill to Lisa. ‘One for you and one for me.'

‘What is it?'

‘Painkiller. Strong, take it.'

Lisa takes it in the palm of her hand and stares at it. ‘I feel sick,' she says.

‘Get it in you and some tea, go on. That'll perk you up, you'll be surprised.'

‘Perk me up,' Lisa repeats dully.

‘Go
on.'

Lisa puts the pill in her mouth and takes a swallow of the tea, she chokes a bit, and puts her head back on the table.

Connie swallows her own pill. ‘See,' she says, ‘that's better, isn't it?'

‘I need to sleep.'

‘No,' Connie says, ‘don't do that.' She's got a vague idea that you don't let head injuries sleep.

Lisa gives a weak giggle. ‘God, this is like some weird dream.'

‘Nightmare more like.' Connie scoops a tea-bag out of the sink in readiness for Lisa's wash. Questions are boiling up in her. She should not quiz the girl now, should not. They must think properly about what to do.
She
must, the girl's in no fit state. She might have concussion. What is right and what is fair and what is prudent? Good that she wasn't properly raped. That at least is good. ‘Why did you come?' she says, bites her tongue.

Lisa talks with her cheek still pressed against the table. ‘I keep having to remind myself that you're actually Constance Benson.'

‘Connie, please. Do sit up, dear, you might drop off.' What would she do then? She's never known first aid, always thought she'd learn, but didn't. Now, she doesn't know what to do for the best. Maybe she should offer something to eat?

Lisa sits up, one side of her face is pink from the pressure of the table, one side ashen. The blood has stopped trickling, drying in a long streak across her forehead. ‘You've been a sort of … a kind of hero of mine.'

‘Me!' Connie sits down opposite, takes a swig of the tea, good with whisky, fortifying. ‘Me? Well … fancy that.'

‘When I was, I don't know, twelve or thirteen my dad took me to an exhibition in Hastings, or somewhere …'

‘Brighton could it have been?'

‘That's it, the Royal Pavilion? And I saw some of your portraits there … so
brilliant
they made me want to be a painter.'

‘So, you paint?'

‘No. No talent,' Lisa gives a weak smile. ‘Absolutely zilch. But I love art, especially twentieth-century art … especially portraits … and especially yours. I don't suppose you remember … no.'

‘What?'

‘I did my dissertation on you. I wrote a letter … questions …'

‘And did I reply?'

Lisa shakes her head then winces with the pain.

‘Hush. You shouldn't talk so much. I'm sorry I didn't reply.'

‘That's all right. God. I do feel weird, the pill? Kind of floaty. What shall we do?'

‘I never was good at being organised. Always meant to answer letters but … and some of them asked the most impertinent questions. I'm sure
yours
didn't.'

‘Don't be so sure.' Lisa drops her head into her hands. She's shivering.

‘Get those pants on,' Connie says, ‘go on. Or are you going to wash first?'

‘Depends if I'm going to the police.'

‘And are you?'

‘I should.'

‘He shouldn't get away with it.'

‘No. He shouldn't. But … the thought of all the questions, all that, they look into your sexual history …'

‘Still.'

‘No, you're right.'

‘But we're stuck here.'

‘We'll have to get into the village.'

‘We could try my phone, but I don't think … It's in my bag.' Lisa nods at the handbag hanging over the back of Connie's chair. Connie takes out a small pink phone and hands it to Lisa. She pulls out an aerial, presses something, listens, shakes it, shakes her head again. ‘No. Bloody useless thing.' She takes the pants and pulls them up over her bluish legs.