Easy Peasy (25 page)

‘That you understand … Daddy.'

‘Because I am deaf.' I pull a face at him, flooded with a woozy fondness. ‘And I was … I was a poor little thing.'

‘Little spook,' I say and I am caressing his knee while part of me peels away, aghast. I force my hand away and pick up my glass. My hands are trembling, everything outside our hot circle of breath is out of focus.

He smiles, lop-sided. ‘Yes. Little spook. He used to talk to me, you know.'

‘Daddy?'

‘On and on. He used to tell me things.'

‘What things?' An awareness of the heat of his thigh but at the same time my eyes prickling. He never told
me
anything.

‘About … all sorts … about the war. About when he was a prisoner-of-war.'

A chilliness. What I want to know. Maybe now I can. But from him? I am quiet, we both are. Lorries roar past, silent for him, or perhaps he feels the vibration.

‘He talked to me because … because I couldn't hear him.' I want to cry but I won't. Instead a drop of sweat from my arm-pit meanders down my side. ‘I did catch some of it though. And then … he did talk to Mum.' And was that worse, more unfaithful, more a betrayal, than the sex? How can I possibly puzzle such a thing?

‘She loved him,' I say.

He nods. ‘She was broken up when he died. “He was the love of my life,” she said.'

‘She said that? But Stan …'

He smiles. ‘Mum's nothing if not a pragmatist. She was getting on. Wanted not to be … on the game. And Stan the man came along … offering her the stars.' He extends his hand ironically to indicate the miserable proportions of the room. ‘And anyway, Ralph was married, wasn't he? He wasn't about to leave.'

‘Did he think of it?' Now the salty creep of a tear on my cheek. Though would it have been so terrible? I am more amazed than upset. Astonished, dizzied by how much I did not know. I stick out my tongue and catch the tear as it passes my mouth. Only one tear. Vassily shakes his head: because he doesn't know? Because he thinks he's said too much?

‘So he talked to Wanda?'

‘He told her just about everything, I should think. She's a good listener, Mum. She let him talk. I think, I think
now
that for
him
that was what was between them more than …'

‘Sex?'

‘Yes.'

A moment of clarity in the booziness, something I will know. ‘I know a bit … about Vince.' I focus on his face.

‘Yes.'

‘You know who I mean?'

‘Of course. Poor Ralph.' I wait, but he stretches. ‘Oh dear, drunk too much. Coffee?' He turns from his stretch and his face is very close to mine. I don't know what I'm doing. It's not what I want, I want to know about Vince. It's not me doing anything now it's the alcohol animating my limbs and my lips. I kiss him.

His response is ambivalent but he does not pull away. His lips are firm but I cannot feel his tongue, I feel the rough edge where his bristles start. He lets me kiss him. There is heat in my belly. I push away the tangle of thoughts, motives, turn my body against his. I put my leg over his leg, I rub my hand on his thigh, slide it up the inside. I brush his groin but all is cool and soft. Nothing. He lets me kiss him, that is all. No response, no heat. I don't stop immediately, I'm too embarrassed. I rub some more but nothing happens. This is nothing but a cool man allowing himself to be kissed. I remove my hand, my leg, my mouth from him.

He wipes his lips on the back of his hand. ‘I'll make that coffee.' He staggers a bit when he gets up. I stare at the whisky bottle which is empty to just below the label and my face grows fatter and hotter with each beat of my heart until I fear it will burst. My lips itch. Blood is beating in my ears. I scrub my crawling lips with the sleeve of Wanda's sweat-shirt. I kissed Dog-belly.
I
kissed him, not the other way round. No, no, not me, the loneliness and the desperation kissed him; the whisky and the wine in me. Not me. But stupid, ill-judged. Why do I always do that? Misjudge everything.

I wish the floor would open up and swallow me … such a cliché but I do wish it, I really do. I want the flowered carpet to stretch and rip, thread from thread; the rusty blossoms to split; the floorboards to rear up and splinter; the foundations to crumble and the raw black earth to yawn open and take me in. And all to close above me.

I cannot move. I hear him on the stairs, gently opening and closing Wanda's door. I hear him in the kitchen, the rush of the kettle coming to a boil, the sound of pouring. He brings through the glass jug and two mugs.

I can't even look up, until, when he speaks, I do so with surprise. ‘Remember Hiroshima?' he says.

‘What?' I laugh, almost a real laugh, a momentary relief from humiliation.

‘Hiroshima – and Nagasaki for that matter.'

‘Yes. Terrible. But what's that got to do with the price of fish?' My words slurring. The prishe of fish.

My nostrils flinch at the dark snarl of the coffee as he pours it out.

‘Black OK? Without Hiroshima,
you
would not be. Ralph would have died – along with thousands more.'

‘Well yes, but … so?'

He says nothing for a moment, then: ‘Just that there are two ways of looking …'

‘Only two!'

He opens his mouth as if to reply, then closes it again. Why has he brought up this, now? He is as drunk as me and I am unequal to a logical sequence of thought. The coffee scalds the roof of my mouth. I don't like it so strong. I pull one of my feet up on to my lap. The sole is very pink and slightly shiny. I pumice my heels every week so as not to snag my fine stockings. I run my finger over the heel, smooth and cool.

‘So … so what are you saying?'

‘Just a thought.'

‘Would
he have died?'

‘He was near death. Starving of course, cerebral malaria, tropical ulcers …'

I let my foot go. I've never considered that Hiroshima had anything to do with me. Hiroshima – I used to think it was a lovely word. A sudden slotting into place, an awkwardness never explained: Christmas again, must have been, we only played such games at Christmas. ‘Favourite words Grizzle?' A quick-fire round you had to answer on the count of three, or pay a forfeit, funny how the mind goes blank, all of them pointing their fingers at me and chanting together one, two and as they reach three I cry out ‘Kamikaze' which was, still is, a favourite word – not for what it means, just for the sound of it. A grey pall falling sudden as a blanket and Daddy, the life and soul only moments before, leaving the room. The game over, the atmosphere soured. Never an explanation. Japanese word. Surely that wasn't really why?

‘Forget it,' Vassily says. ‘Time to turn in. I'll be off first thing so you won't see me again.' He stands up, yawns, stretches his arms above his head. His finger-tips almost touch the ceiling.

‘Where will you sleep?'

‘Here.' He indicates the sofa, though it's not half long enough for him.

‘No, you must have your room. I'll sleep here.'

‘No.' Very firm. ‘I'll get my head down for a couple of hours to sleep off the …' He indicates the bottles on the table. I think it will take more than a couple of hours. ‘Then I'll get on the road, miss the traffic, take Naomi to nursery before work.'

‘OK.' I get up and go to the foot of the stairs. There are more things I want to ask him, there is more I should say. There is something but it eludes me. I feel low and sluggish and slightly sick. Straight into a hangover. I fill a mug with water in the kitchen and go upstairs. ‘Good-night', I call, ‘Good-bye', but I call it from the stairs and he doesn't hear. It doesn't strike me why he didn't answer until I'm shivering in the bathroom.

6

The bed is double and the sheets aren't clean. Not quite dirty but not fresh either. When I pull back the duvet I see that they are rumpled and that there are hairs on the pillows. Whose? Too cold to undress, I climb straight in and pull the duvet over me. The bed feels dampish – or maybe it's just that it's so cold. The room rocks and swirls about me. I lie very still on my back waiting for it to stop. And who
would
wash the sheets? Not Wanda, not Vassily on one of his flying visits, probably not Stan. There is no hope that I'll sleep. Foxy's warmth is what I would need for that. Oh how I lie to myself, I would be warm, but still I would lie awake. I could have her still. I could go back tomorrow and say, yes, I love you and I want you to stay – and I want you to be free. The drink makes it seem
half
possible. The drink – or the cold space beside me – make it seem impossible that I'll ever have the strength to leave her or to throw her out.

‘Foxy, I love you. Do what you like, come and go as you like, I will always be with you.'

Doesn't that make me sound like an albatross? Can it really be what she wants me to say?

‘Foxy, there is someone else … don't be hurt, we can still be friends, still live together if you like, but this is something I must explore …'

If only there bloody was someone else.

Maybe when I get back she will be gone and I can toss and turn all night, pace around in the blazing light without disturbing a soul. I can have the curtains open and all the windows and the doors … though the thought of all that draughtiness does make me shiver.

I do not switch off the light. The 60-watt bulb is a dull fruit above me, cobweb strands across the shade. My cheeks blaze with the sudden memory of that kiss, my heart squirms and my body writhes, so mortified I don't know where to put myself.

Occasionally when I kiss Foxy her lips do not move. She lets me kiss her but does not kiss back. Smiles at me vaguely when I draw away, lets me take something from her while her mind is elsewhere, burrowing in a past that's not her own.

Nonsense
she says in my ear, the warmth of her breath on my cheek,
the past belongs to everybody, it's a part of everybody
, she looks at me in an intimate way that seems to say
especially you
. She would if she was here.

Vassily. Oh no. My heart contracts again. Stop it.

Kamikaze, Mitsubishi, Sushi, Sake, Geisha.

Vassily. I could have said – forgive me.

Both icy cold and stuffy in this room, a camphorish smell like the inside of old wardrobes. So many of the clothes I buy for the shop smell like that and it's almost impossible to dispel, even after washing and drying them in the sun you can still catch a whiff of it. Perhaps Connie does me a favour with her Gauloises. More exotic than the moth-ball reek, at least.

Look, I need never see Vassily again. No one will ever know that I kissed him. That he … Forget it, Grizzle. No, no, Zelda, forget it. Imagining Hazel's face … ha! I will not even tell Foxy.

Pink and grey flowers close to my eyes, slightly textured, a scrape where furniture was carelessly moved. Walls against my face. The wall by the bunk, Hazel's bottom bunk, her list of dates. The dates of Daddy's dreams.

To sleep in a strange house is impossible. Vassily's feet on the stairs, the bathroom taps running.

I snuggle down. A little warmth leaking from me now into the mattress, into the duvet. I can smell my own sour boozy breath. Although it is
him
, a man who despises me, at least there is someone awake. What did he mean: Poor Ralph? About Vince? Question marks like twists of wire, sharp in my brain. Wanda through the wall in her drugged sleep. Wanda dying and all evening my head full of myself, yes, myself in relation to Foxy, Daddy, Vassily.

Oh the ants again and comfort gone. Only a game. Oh shut up, that lie is wearing thin.

It was not their fault but they had to die? What?

Kamikaze, Mitsubishi, sushi, sushi, sushi.

The splatter of rain on the window.

My thumb in my mouth. Well why not? No one to see, no one to know. Christ, I'm nearly thirty. Soapy tasting thumb-pad hooking into the ridged hollow, teeth catching just below the knuckle. A little squeak in my ears with each suck.

And I do sleep. Not long, but a soft, deep, oblivious slice of it, a small portion but a portion still, digested. I wake and grope for my watch. A flicker of pride. I slept two hours in a strange bed.

What woke me?

The drink is burning me up. I sip some water, very cold as if it has been in the fridge and almost drop off again but then I am disturbed by a groan. Wanda. The roar of traffic, the reek of camphor and exhaust fumes, the dull electric-light, the cold. Why does she live here?

Wanda, Wanda, what a place to choose to die.

I wait for Vassily's feet on the stairs but they do not come. More groans. Maybe he has already gone. She cries out and I am wide awake, my skin prickling with the cold as I sit up. Her cry is one of pain, there is no mistaking it. I stumble up, my head crashing, trip over something, bash my knee on the end of the bed. I open her door. The bedside lamp is on and she is turning this way and that, her head on the pillow rolling from right to left as if trying to escape something, her scarf pulled half off, her face grey and sunken. I don't know what to do.

‘Wanda?'

Vassily should have told me what to do. I stand, stupidly. My eyes hurt, dry and scratchy. I must look appalling. Stop thinking about yourself.

‘Should I call the doctor?'

She gives no sign of having heard me. I don't even know if she knows I'm here. Vassily's feet on the stairs at last. Of course he cannot hear. He zips up his trousers as he pushes past me into the room. I want to creep back to bed but don't, don't want to seem heartless.

‘Mum, all right, there, there, Mum …' His voice is loud but gentle, soothing, like a father soothing a child,
some
fathers. There is the bitter smell of part-excreted alcohol coming off him – and me too I suppose. He tips out a capsule from a pill bottle, scoops her head up in one palm, coaxes her to swallow it with a sip of water, dabs the trickle of water off her chin with the edge of the sheet. Then lies her down again. ‘All right, Mum,' he says, ‘just hang on in there.' She lets out a long moan. ‘Morphine,' he explains to me, ‘takes a while to kick in.'