The Sleeping and the Dead (8 page)

Outside it was hot already, though here on the coast there was usually a breeze. Just as well because she had on what she’d been wearing in the club the night before – a lacy black
dress and tarty sandals. The shoes were OK for dancing but they knackered her ankles if she tried to walk any distance. She took them off to go barefoot and as she stepped in and out of the shadow
thrown by the trees she felt the changes of temperature on the soles of her feet.

The houses round here were big Edwardian semis set back from the road. In one of these houses Joe lived. She took care not to turn her head as she sauntered past.

Her home was more ordinary. A tidy semi on a tidy estate. Her parents had bought it from new when she was five. It would have been her mother’s choice. They must have realized by then that
there’d be no other children. This boring three-bedroomed box would be big enough.

Inside she switched off the alarm and went straight to the kitchen. She put on the kettle, stuck a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster, took orange juice from the fridge and drank it
straight from the carton. Inside her head she heard her mother telling her off about that. How pathetic could you get? She was eighteen, an adult, and there was her mother, nagging away at her, a
worm inside her head: ‘For goodness’ sake, Rosalind, can’t you get a glass?’

In her bedroom, when she switched on the light the bulb fizzled and died so she had to open the curtains. She saw the place in daylight for the first time in months. There was an unpleasant,
musty smell, which she’d tried for too long to ignore. She pushed a window open. In the garden next door a neighbour was pegging baby clothes on to the line. Rosie waved to her. Before the
job in the pub she used to babysit quite often. The woman waved back. Rosie saw pity on her face, imagined her gossiping to the rest of the street. ‘Poor kid. Her dad’s left. And they
seemed such a happy family.’ When the woman bent to lift more laundry from the basket Rosie stuck up two fingers at her back. She turned over the pile of clothes on her floor like a peasant
turning hay with a fork. For the pub she had to wear a uniform – black trousers, white shirt, stupid little green apron and green bow-tie. The tie and the apron were still in the bag from her
last shift. There was a white shirt in the pile but the collar and the cuffs were filthy and there were spatters of red wine down the chest. Her father had left clothes when he’d decamped the
month before and her mother had been too civilized to throw them out. She’d moved them instead into the spare-room wardrobe. As if he might return one day as a lodger. There, on a hanger, was
a single white shirt.

There was no sign of the trousers and the hassle was starting to bug her. Her mother had recently dreamed up a rule about Rosie doing her own washing and since then things had been chaotic on
the clothes front. She’ll not have stuck to it, Rosie thought. It’ll be like all the other threats and ultimatums. She’ll not have been able to stand the thought of her daughter
going out in mucky pants. And sure enough her trousers were washed and dry with a load of towels in the tumble in the utility room. In the spirit of conciliation which had led her to phone her
mother she folded the towels and loaded the washing machine with part of the muck heap from the bedroom floor. She rolled the trousers into a tight ball and shook them out. She never understood why
anyone bothered with ironing.

She looked at her watch. She could have done with a shower but there was no time, so she cleaned off last night’s slap, put on more and she was ready. She only realized how dirty her feet
were when she pushed them into her flat work shoes. No one would see. The pub was a big, white place close to the sea front. It was called the Promenade, known as the Prom. She’d got the job
because she had the nerve to ask. Like all her friends she’d been drinking there since she was sixteen and she’d thought working in the place would be a dream. In fact when it was full
of kids in the evenings, being behind the bar was a bit of a drag, not the buzz she’d expected. She had to watch her mates drinking, having a good time and usually she was too busy to
exchange more than a couple of words. Sometimes she saw more than she wanted to, heard more too. It was as if the uniform made you invisible.

The first inkling she’d got about her father had been in the pub. Two lads, who she’d known fine well were in Year 11 and shouldn’t have been in the place anyway, were playing
darts. She’d been emptying ashtrays. It was a Friday night, somebody’s birthday. The Prom was packed. They’d had to yell.

‘They say he’s going to get the sack.’

‘You don’t get the sack for screwing someone you work with.’

‘You do if you screw them on the staff-room floor. My dad’s a governor. He should know.’

‘You can’t blame him though, can you? I mean, have you seen her on the trampoline?’

‘But what does she see in him?’ The boy put his fingers in his mouth and pretended to throw up.

She’d almost gone up to them to find out who they were talking about, curious, eager to share the gossip. Then they’d seen her and something about the look that had passed between
them had warned her, made her pretend not to have heard. Episodes, which had meant nothing to her at the time, slid into sharp focus. Miss Petrie volunteering to do the choreography for the play
her father was directing. Miss Petrie on the school trip to Stratford, though what interest could a brainless PE teacher have in Shakespeare? Every time she thought of the two of them together she
lost control of her body. Her breath came too fast and she almost fainted.

She didn’t mind the pub during the day. There was a different kind of customer then. Grown-ups. Old men sitting for ages reading a paper, office workers wanting lunch, tourists.

When she got there Frank was outside watering the hanging baskets. He looked at his watch and grinned. She always turned up with only a second to spare. Frank was the manager, fat and forty,
divorced. He’d been the one to give her the job. She’d chatted him up when he’d had a few drinks and allowed them a lock-in, then she’d turned up next morning for an
interview he couldn’t remember having arranged. She thought he’d given her a job out of embarrassment. It was only after learning about her dad and Miss Petrie (she couldn’t bring
herself to call her Eve) that she wondered if he might fancy her. He’d never tried anything on but she always made sure to keep her distance.

It was only twelve o’clock and the pub was nearly empty. Two old ladies with wispy hair and floaty dresses sat by the window in the dust-speckled sunlight, sipping brandy and lemonade.
When Rosie went over to collect their empty glasses they continued to sit, engrossed in conversation, making no move to leave or to order more drinks. They were lost in memory. They had come to the
coast when they were girls on charabanc trips from town. Back behind the bar, Rosie heard them giggle suddenly over a shared memory. It was a slightly awkward giggle. A boy was involved. Rosie
thought, Is that how Mel and I will be when we’re old? We’ll sit in the Prom getting pissed on brandy and reminiscence, laughing about Joe. If Mel lives long enough to get old, that
is.

Then, almost as if the thought had conjured him out of thin air, there Joe was, standing at the door, skinny as one of the pipecleaner men her granda used to make. She had to make an effort to
compose herself, to breathe slowly and regularly. Joe saw her and smiled, showing a mouth of gappy teeth. He looked crumpled, as if he’d slept in his clothes – baggy cotton trousers and
a T-shirt so tight that she could see the frame of his ribs. What could anyone in their right mind see in him? He had bigger feet than anyone else in the world. Black hair tied back in a loose
ponytail. He loped to the bar.

‘Mel said you’d be working.’

‘You’ve seen Mel this morning?’ She was surprised. She thought Mel would be dead to the world.

‘Spoken to her on the phone.’

‘Everything OK?’

He frowned without answering. She poured him a pint. Mel was usually the subject of their conversations. She demanded their attention. She had an eating disorder – anorexia, Rosie thought.
Rosie didn’t know the details, didn’t like to ask. She suspected Joe knew more than she did.

Joe fidgeted in his pocket for money. ‘Has she said anything to you?’

‘What about?’

‘She’s really stressed out about something.’

‘Isn’t she always?’ Rosie regretted that immediately. It sounded petty. But what was Mel about? She was bright and gorgeous and her parents doted on her. And so did Joe. So why
all the shit?

Joe took the pint, stared into it. ‘Have you started doing food yet? Any chance of a burger?’

Although he was so thin, there was nothing wrong with Joe’s attitude to food. She shouted his order through to the kitchen. Frank came in with the watering can still in his hand, letting
it drip on the carpet. He nodded to Joe, winked at Rosie. She knew she was blushing but Joe seemed too preoccupied to notice.

‘We’re going away,’ he said. ‘Mel and me.’

‘I thought you were skint.’ Joe worked all night shifts at the big supermarket on the ring road, but he never had any money. He spent it on drink, junk food, music, stupid presents
for them all. His parents were both doctors and could have bailed him out but they said he had to learn to budget before going to university. They took university for granted; Rosie wasn’t so
sure. Joe hadn’t done much work before the exams. He’d been too busy obsessing over Mel.

Joe shrugged. ‘Mel says she needs to get away. It’s like she’s really spooked by something. She won’t let go. But she won’t talk about it either. Haven’t you
noticed?’

No, Rosie thought. I’ve had my own problems lately. If you hadn’t realized.

Joe was continuing. ‘Her mum and dad say they’ll pay. We’re only going for a week. They think she could do with a holiday. It would do her good. A friend of theirs has a villa
in Portugal.’

‘Very nice.’ This time Rosie managed to keep her voice noncommittal. She was thinking, It’s not Mel who wants to go away. It’s their idea. They’ve just had enough
of her illness. They’re fed up with seeing her like that. They want the problem to disappear for a while.

They’d sent Mel away before and Rosie couldn’t blame them.

‘I’m not sure I can handle it,’ Joe was saying. ‘It’s the responsibility. What if something happens while we’re away?’ He paused. ‘They want her
to think about going into hospital but she’s dead against it. They want me to persuade her.’

‘She doesn’t seem too bad to me,’ Rosie said. ‘No worse than usual.’

A punter came up to the bar. A salesman, she thought. Suit and a briefcase. He was sweating. It was very hot out now. From where she stood she could see the glare on the water as far as the
horizon. Families walked past in shorts and skimpy tops and they seemed to turn pink as she watched them. Making the most of the summer. She expected the man to order a meal and a bottle of lager,
but instead he barked, ‘Scotch. A large one.’ His voice was desperate. She watched him take it to a table in the shade, knew he’d be back in five minutes for another.

Joe slid back along the bar so he was facing her again.

‘You don’t have to go,’ she said reasonably. ‘Explain how you feel.’

‘I can’t let her down.’

They teased him sometimes because he’d been a choirboy as a kid. He said he’d been dragged along to church by his parents but she thought some of it had rubbed off. He had too many
principles.

‘When do you leave?’

‘A couple of days.’

‘Mel didn’t say anything to me.’ Rosie convinced herself that was why she was so angry. She felt herself close to tears. They were supposed to be best friends.

‘She wanted to keep it a secret. I don’t know why.’

Because she likes secrets, Rosie thought. She likes keeping things to herself. She’s a hoarder. Perhaps that’s what the stuff with food is about.

‘What was all that with your mum last night?’ he asked with a complete change of tone. He pulled a prim, schoolmistress face. This was the Joe the others knew, the gossip and the
clown.

Rosie was cross. Hannah was an easy target. ‘She’s had a bad time. All the talk. You know what it must be like, finding out that your husband’s a rat after twenty years. And
she has it rough at work. It’s not a bunch of laughs in the prison.’

‘No,’ he said quickly, seeing that he had offended her. ‘It won’t be. I didn’t mean . . .’

The businessman came back to the bar. He held out his glass to her. She saw that his hand was shaking.

‘Your mum’s all right,’ Joe said. ‘We were being stupid.’

Rosie served the customer and let it go.

His burger came. He ate it quickly, holding it in his hand and tearing away at it as if he were ravenous. He stood still when he’d finished and she thought he was going to say something
else about Mel. Perhaps he wanted to enlist Rosie’s support in finding out what lay behind the paranoia. But he just nodded.

‘See you in a week then. If I don’t catch up with you before we go.’

And he was gone.

That evening at a different pub, Rosie’s local, it was still warm enough to sit outside. She’d eaten the veggie lasagne her mother had cooked for dinner, had a
shower and changed into a sleeveless frock. The beer garden was at the back, away from the road, though there was still a far-off hum of traffic. A row of conifers separated the pub from playing
fields. There were tubs on the terrace and shrubs under the trees, a faint exotic smell of flowers and pine.

‘Melanie and Joseph are going away,’ Rosie said, using the full names as if it were a formal announcement. As in ‘I, Melanie, take you, Joseph’. That wouldn’t
surprise her either. Joe was besotted enough to do it and he’d always been into crazy gestures. Melanie’s parents would be delighted. Melanie would have a full-time minder and they
could go back to the real business of making money.

‘Isn’t Melanie’s name Gillespie?’ her mother asked.

Rosie hardly heard. She was imagining Mel’s dress, the church, the flowers. Her as chief bridesmaid. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Melanie Gillespie.’