Weekend (9 page)

Marion imagined her still sitting there, merging with the emptiness outside her windows. She seemed to Marion at the moment the core of Willowvale, as definitive of the place as the female gargoyle she had noticed on one of the outer walls had become for her. It was as if, in Marion’s mind, the labyrinth of corridors and rooms could lead only to the woman.

The Dr Jekyll who becomes Mr Hyde seems almost to illustrate Christopher Fry’s observation on the nature of names:

Our names. They make us broody; we sit and sit
To hatch them into reputation and dignity.
And then they set upon us and become despair,
Guilt and remorse.

We can begin to wonder what our names represent.

‘David?’ she said.

She was on the only chair, reapplying her makeup. He found her concentration impressive. It was as if this was all there was, as if the small circular mirror in her hand showed
her the whole world. Presumably he had fallen off the edge of it for the moment. Maybe that was one way to handle the situation. For what the hell was there to talk about? He hoped she would go on making love to her face for the next few hours. Then they could both escape. But that seemed unlikely, even for her. He could always pretend to be asleep, except that his head was going like a factory, trying to process the chaos of the future into some kind of usable commodity. He wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes shut. They were too busy staring into the sudden unknown.

He had opened the curtains and he was standing at the window. She wondered what that was about. There was nothing to see, unless he was getting messages from the moon. She hoped he didn’t start howling or growing hair on the back of his hands. He had enough there already. She would have to stop putting on her face soon. People had been known to take less time painting the Forth Rail Bridge. But she had to take her time. She had to think. This took careful playing. There were possibilities here. Especially now. And they weren’t just academic. He hadn’t been bad. Not at all bad. Her eyes were looking good. They stared back at her vividly as if they were trying to tell her something.

She glanced across at him.

That was ominous. He mustn’t look back. Only disconnect. The longer he managed to maintain silence, the less time they had to talk. The less time he had to say all the things he didn’t mean. But if they did start talking, he would have to say them. He was vulnerable to her now. Telling her the truth was not an option. He had to get through the next few hours without angering her. The truth would certainly do that. He needed to get clear of this situation, defuse it. Then he would have the time to work things out. She could interpret the silence any
way she wanted. Silence was proof of nothing. They had to stay quiet till time and distance disempowered her. This room was a hand-grenade sitting in his life. Talk might pull the pin. She was gazing in her mirror again. Good. Enjoy the view.

But she was no longer applying makeup. She was communing briefly with her face in the glass. At least you have me to work with, it told her. Not a bad start. If you can’t make effective use of this, you’re hopeless. He was still staring out of the window. He hadn’t returned her look. This could go on all night. But it wouldn’t do to tell him to snap out of it. He was sensitive Byronic man, gazing appreciatively into his own sadness. Enter his female counterpart – understanding woman, handmaiden to his sorrow. She practised a compassionate face.

The compact snapped shut.

Since she was sitting to his left, he turned slightly to the right, grimacing into the moonlight. This was it. Curtain up. This was a play he didn’t want to be in. The script was going to be crap. But he’d better try to be convincing.

‘I’m sorry that had to happen,’ she said.

‘So am I.’

‘I’m really sorry it happened.’

‘I know.’

‘Really sorry.’

Jesus. Put a hammer through the CD.

‘Don’t let it worry you,’ he said. (Not that I imagine it will. It’s not like smudging your makeup, is it? That would really be a tragedy.)

‘I feel so guilty,’ she said.

‘It happened.’ (You probably don’t go to bed without putting your face on. In case you get burgled.)

She put her compact in her handbag, put her handbag on
the floor. She noticed the bottle of wine they had gone to fetch, still lying on the bed where he had thrown it when they came in. She fancied a glass but thought that perhaps the timing wasn’t right. It might come in handy later.

‘We were having such a good time, too,’ she said.

‘Yes, we were.’

At least he was moving from the window.

‘I blame myself,’ she said.

‘Hey. Don’t, love.’ (Don’t flatter yourself.)

He sat down on the bed, leaned his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands and stared at the floor as if he could see through to the flames of hell. It was amazing how men could put on a conscience with their trousers.

‘I’m just wondering, though,’ she said. ‘Where do we go from here?’

She said it softly but the remark went off in his head like a klaxon. His reply was on tiptoe.

‘Who knows?’ (As far as possible in opposite directions?)

‘I wish we’d had more time to get to know each other properly. Before this.’

It won’t stop us being together again, was what he mustn’t say.

‘I suppose that’s the way it goes,’ he said.

Oh, do you? I know too much about you to pretend that one discovered infidelity is blighting your life. You had Alison Miller last year. And who knows how many others before and since? Now it’s my turn. I can take that. I know that’s the game you play. But at least I’ll have some say in when the game is over. This time I decide when the dumping’s done. And it’s not yet.

‘Uh-huh,’ she said.

He put his right hand over his eyes. Then he took his thumb
and forefinger and worked his eyelids vigorously. What was he trying to do? Make her disappear?

‘David,’ she said. ‘What is it you want?’

Total silence. How about that? A moratorium on your voice. Peace. Perfect fucking peace.

‘Just tell me,’ she said.

He kept his fingers on his eyes.

‘Jacqui,’ he said. ‘Have some sensitivity. Please. Think of how I must be feeling. Could you leave me alone with my thoughts for a minute?’ (Or alternatively shut the fuck up.)

Pardon me. Now that your cock’s gone AWOL, your head has reattached itself to your body. That’s nice. Sensitive, is it? You were very sensitive when you were riding me like a roller-coaster and wailing like a banshee. You were so sensitive I was afraid the management was going to turn up and chuck us out.

‘Of course, David,’ she said. ‘I understand.’ (I understand that the performance of your phoney pain is going to take longer than I thought.)

This might be a good time for the wine. She crossed and took the bottle from the bed, being careful not to touch him. With a man as sensitive as he was, it might leave a bruise. She went to where she had left the corkscrew she had brought and lifted it from the desk. It was then she noticed that the wine bottle was a screwtop. She managed to lay the corkscrew gently back on the desk instead of throwing it. The noise might shatter his concentration. Screwtop wine. Maybe that was why he was in despair. With taste like his, he should be. No worries here about whether the wine was
chambré
. She unscrewed the metal top, missing the evocative popping of a cork that always came to her like an invitation to a party. She
thought about rinsing the two glasses they had used earlier, which were sitting on the desk. To her, they looked poignant there, small memorials to pleasure past. She made a sentimental decision not to wash them. Anyway, he wouldn’t notice. Despair did that to people, made small niceties irrelevant. She filled the two glasses with the new wine, which promised to be a less uplifting vintage than the previous one, and not just because of the screwtop, which she replaced on the bottle. She lifted the glasses and moved to where he was. He was still covering his eyes. She put the cold edge of the glass against his forehead. His hand came away quickly and his eyes opened. They were beautiful eyes.

‘Here.’

He smiled ruefully.

‘Thanks.’

He took the glass and held it, facing the wall.

She crossed back to where the chair was and sat down. She noticed that his right foot was resting on her discarded thong but perhaps it wasn’t the best time to mention it. The image looked like a corny metaphor for something. Virtue trampled underfoot? Except that any virtue which was trampled hadn’t been wearing the thong. Of course, neither had she been at the time. She felt sorry for his wife. She had looked like a permanently sad soul. But the real fault was in the pathetic naivety that could put its trust in a man who would have chatted up a barber’s floor because it had curly hair on it. She wasn’t about to give too much sympathy to someone hiding behind marriage like a mask. Welcome to the real world. She had had to learn to live there herself. How long was he going to sit here? Harry Beck wouldn’t have done this. But he wouldn’t have done the other stuff as well, it seemed. Nor Mickey Deans. With him, you would have to put your lust on
hold till he grew up. That could take a long time. About as long as this was taking.

She had finished her wine. She stood up and moved back to the desk. She screwed the top off and refilled her glass, wondering why hotels always provided you with thimbles. Still holding the bottle, she turned and gestured with it towards David.

His stare didn’t waver. The wall was more interesting than she was. She screwed the top back on and put the bottle down. She lifted her glass and walked back to her chair and sat down and took a sip of wine. This was long enough.

‘Let’s at least talk about it,’ she said.

‘We have to talk,’ she said.

Only the walls, it seemed, had ears.

‘For Christ’s sake. I’m here as well, you know. I’m involved in this. There are two of us involved here,’ she said.

She watched his eyes bounce off the wall to stare at her. It was meant to be intimidating so she tried, with some difficulty, not to smile. Contact.

‘Three,’ he said savagely.

‘Three?’ she said innocently.

‘My wife,’ he said, ‘is marginally a part of this mess, too. In case you hadn’t noticed. I have to think about my wife as well.’

Afterthoughts were nice. Better than nothing at least. Not quite in the same class as forethoughts, but never mind. So that’s where he was.

‘You think I don’t know that?’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry about your wife. But I wasn’t even sure you had one.’ (Until last year.) ‘At least you don’t have any children.’

He seemed to be renewing his friendship with the wall.

‘Do you?’

He said nothing.

‘Well, do you?’

‘No, we don’t as it happens.’

That was one possible problem out of the way. Any real guilt he might have was localised. You wouldn’t have to go all around the houses to confront it.

‘I don’t know her name,’ she said.

She waited.

‘What’s her name, David?’

‘Don’t even go there.’

Did she think because she’d dropped her knickers once she owned his private life? If you could call those knickers.

His foot flicked the thong aside. She watched him calmly.

‘It’s a simple question, David.’

No, it’s not. I know what you’re up to. You lure me into talking about my life and suddenly you’re inside my head. You’re part of the furniture in there. And whatever removals I make in my life, you’re liable to be going along with them. No way. You think I’m still in nappies? I’ve got possibilities. I’m not sure what they are yet. But I think I might know one. There’s somebody who might be delighted to know I’m on my own. I think so. If I’m jumping ship, it won’t be into another leaky boat. You were just a fuck by the wayside, darling. Watch me go.

‘All I’m asking—’ she said.

He was back fixating on the wall and his right palm was commandingly towards her. No through way.

‘All I’m asking—’ she said pleasantly.

‘We don’t talk about Sandra.’

He grimaced, and then his face relaxed in incredulity. He couldn’t believe what he had said.

She could. He was open now. He might take difficult
handling but voiced anger was a lot better than silence. It took you places you hadn’t meant to go. And who knew what might happen there?

‘Hm,’ she said. ‘That’s it?’

He didn’t look at her.

‘Sandra,’ she said.

He stared at her warningly.

‘Sandra,’ she said. ‘Nice name.’

She watched his fists clench. He made as if to rise but didn’t. She knew now that passion of some kind was coming, let it fall where it would. It was better than discreet silence or disappearing without warning into the distance. At least there would be fireworks. All she had to do was provide the match.

‘Sandra,’ she said. ‘Sandra, Sandra, Sandra.’

She looked at the surface of the desk that stood between her and the window. The objects on it had an eerie definition in the moonlight, a weird still life. The French term for it would have fitted her mood more exactly:
nature morte
. Her nature certainly felt dead. All she thought remained to her at the moment was an autopsy on her past.

Before her were the means she had given herself to perform it. It seemed a random and incongruous collection, the purpose of which would have baffled anyone else, like the tools of an esoteric trade. Perhaps one no longer commonly practised. Say, fletcher or lorimer. But the despair she was about to open up and explore was peculiarly her own. She thought she knew what they were for.

She moved them around absently on the desk. Maybe she
was simultaneously reminding herself of their purpose and arranging them in some mystically advantageous way, as if they might form a pentagram within which to summon up the meaning of the past.

The thought was laughable when she considered what the objects were. She had bought the packet of sandwiches on the ferry. They were egg-and-cress. The irrelevant exactness of that fact overwhelmed her. Egg-and-cress? The meaningless multiplicity of things was endless. The stiff triangular plastic container appeared strange to her. Who had made it? She thought she might need an instruction booklet to open it. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that. She hadn’t eaten anything since this morning. Why should she start now?