A Clear Conscience
P
ROLOGUE
L
ife
was dull, monochrome. Live dangerously. It was her own perception of herself which made her take the risks. Such as not looking left or right when she crossed the road, staring straight ahead and moving slowly. She did not walk deliberately into the path of the bus, simply did not seem to notice the squeal of horn and fart of brakes. The same sloppy attitude, fed by exhaustion, made her take short cuts, although all she really wanted on the way home was to postpone getting there. It was hot inside her second-hand coat. The pub which she would have passed on the main road would have crowds against the windows, a few pretty girls drooping like half-dead flowers around the pool tables, waiting on busy youths with pectorals like carvings and small muscular bums; the girls so bored, they were looking for something to scorn. Someone ugly. One of them would notice her, point, sneer, and although she seemed to have mislaid the habit of thinking, she knew she did not want to be the subject of comment. In any event, concentration was limited to ten seconds a time.
So she went through the back of the leisure centre instead, into the park. There was a running track round the edge: she liked the feeling of the cinders beneath her feet, the shoddy barrenness of it all, and the sense of importance she got unlatching the gate at the opposite end and walking through as if she was the only person who knew it was there. The park avoided the street. Once, she would have chosen the route rationally. That point in time was a long while ago.
The leisure centre was run like a gospel church and looked like a warehouse from the outside. Local children, disbarred from the place for less than total devotion to either the architecture or the mystical purposes of the building, seemed to haunt it, inspired by a kind of envy for the mysteries within. The leisure centre was not really for the untouchables. She knew the reputation of this particular part of the neighbourhood â she lived here, could read the local paper as well as anyone else â it simply did not make any difference because it did not apply to her and she did not care. This was the way she was going to go.
Muggers
on a warm, spring night were unlikely to be fussy animals, she had to concede that. They cared as little as dogs round dustbins They would knock her down for the contents of her small and bulging shopping bag, but if all they wanted was two bottles of bleach, assorted cheap groceries, a packet of washing powder and her front-door key, good luck to them. And if the motive was rape, they would obviously turn back as soon as they saw her, look around for a better target. They would have to be blind to persist; youth could be wicked, but, surely, never so desperate. Not even a male on heat would do more than sniff at this small woman, twenty-five going on sixty, plodding down the alley which cut alongside Smith Street, led her round the edge of the kiddies' playground, wired in like a prison compound, whether to keep them in or keep them out she did not know, flanked by the tennis courts, also wired in, and skirted by the path which led to the gate, and then up a terraced road to her door.
She could have looked at the tower blocks looming to the left and felt gratitude for not having to live there, never again having to trudge all the way to the top of such spartan splendour. They were like the stars in the darkness â oddly glamorous unless you knew better, which, after a fashion, she did. Bevan was the most ominous, sticking up into the sky; but she was not in the mood for counting large mercies, let alone the small. The hurt, with grief and bruises, was all she knew as she trudged, feeling the slack skin of her arms rub against the worn cotton of her blouse. Her skirt rode up between her legs, bunching in the front under the coat, emphasising the slight prominence of her stomach, however slowly she walked in her training shoes. She had the beginning of a double chin, pasty cheeks, hair pulled into an elastic band and eyes already laced with fine lines.
She
walked with a slight stoop. Rape? Don't make me laugh, she told herself, to hide the first
frisson
of fear. They'd pay me to go away. You want good looks, find someone like my brother. He got them all. The niggle of fear persisted, despite her coughing to clear it. It grew like a bubble of air in her chest, felt like indigestion, at first merely uncomfortable, then becoming sharp, sticking in the throat like heartburn.
I
t was the sudden sound of the wind in the trees which began the alien sensation. Whispering branches, full of budding leaves set too high for vandals, added sibilant volume to the sound of bare limbs. Maybe there was nothing new in the sound, simply a novel ability in herself to notice the symptoms of the seasons. She registered summer because it was hot, winter because it was cold, that was all, but now the sound of the trees made a noise like a whispered command. Don't, don't. The fear grew larger, enraged her.
âDon't do what?' she shouted back, stopping to draw breath. The trees seemed to obey, falling silent for a minute, then began again, moaning. Trees were alien here, belonged in another place. They shed dirty leaves in autumn: they made a mess. She had never rejoiced in their triumph of survival. Now she did not look up or down, only straight ahead and did not allow herself any distraction: she would be fine if she kept going at the same pace with her eyes ahead and, all the same, she found herself walking faster.
There was always a point where she had to decide which way to take round the perimeter fence, left or right, to complete the circle, reach the other end and emerge through the gate. One way was longer than the other and she had chosen it by mistake, flustered by the trees. Walking faster with her ungainly stride, she tripped over the lace on her shoe, an accident, because of trying to hurry and the laces being too long, that brought her heart into her mouth, the shock of nearly falling, lurching instead like her brother did when he was drunk, bouncing off the wire fence, the almost falling always worse than the fall itself. She steadied herself, adjusted the bag which bit into a calloused palm suddenly slippery with sweat. Her skin, as dry as the washing she ironed most mornings, felt the texture of rough parchment. She could imagine a knife going through her plump, papery cheek: it would not bleed, not now. What was the matter with her? Come on, come on! No-one could possibly want her for anything, no-one knew her enough to think she deserved malice; there was nothing to fear, but the fear still grew from somewhere. The short route ahead seemed endless, lengthening in porportion to her silly attempts at speed, with the bag heavier all the time and the bathroom bleach slurping about in its bottle. And then when she reached the gate out of the park, it was shut. Not simply shut, six feet high and locked. Keep them out, keep them in.
Turning
round with a deliberate, deep breath, she saw him then, slinking away behind a tree. Just someone, some youth who would climb the fence with ease. Probably a black boy: they could climb like monkeys, robbed anything which moved, so she'd been told and so she believed, although she would not know. She only knew that without making any conscious decision, she was beginning to run in the other direction, round the link fence back towards the trees. As soon as she started she knew this was a mistake: there were no lights this side, and it had been the lights which had drawn her to the longer route in the first place. Here there were only dusty bushes by the side of the track, the cinder laid thickly, which made her slip. He was after her now; she did not have to turn to know he was there, jogging along behind her, his feet crunching, his wide, white eyes watching her graceless progress, waiting in the knowledge that she would never manage a real turn of speed. The shoelace snapped; she tripped again, righted herself and stumbled on. The sound of the trees grew louder as she reached them. Only the alley to go, leading out by the off-licence, round the corner from the very pub she had come this way to avoid. Don't, said the trees, don't.
Before the dark alley entrance, she turned, teetered in a staggering circle, letting the PVC bag carry her so she became a whirling cudgel, with her eyes shut against whatever she might see or hit. Nothing. The bag stuck to her hand making her overbalance, carrying her into the mouth of the alley, before it hit the wall with a crunch and the air was full of the caustic smell of bleach. A large hand, smelling of booze, grabbed at her hair, took a hold, hauled her back.
She
came to a trembling halt, dizzy, her arms by her side, the right still holding the dripping bag she could not detach, her mind wondering irrelevantly what had happened to the safety cap, her head yanked backwards, exposing her throat. The skirt was fully bunched round her waist by now, the coat heavy, the sweat pouring from her armpits, she would smell; and he was not even breathing faster, perfectly calm. She could feel the light of a lamp, made skittish by the moving branches of the trees, flickering across her face. Do it now. I shall not scream and I do not bleed: my cunt is so dry, you'll have to push. Put the bleach down my throat, only do not use a knife: please do not use a knife, and make it quick.
The hand released the hold on her hair. The elbow round her neck drew her closer. She could feel a rough jaw graze painfully against her own soft skin.
âI want,' a whisper in a honeyed voice, âI want â¦'
Slowly, she twisted towards him. âOh,' she said. âIt's you. Is it really you?'
âMe? Oh yes, it's me.'
The sound of his laughter rose into a shriek of hilarity. She knew that sound: he must have laughed in that same, uninhibited way since childhood. It went on and on and on, cutting across the sound of the trees and a distant yell of celebration from the pub. The diesel engine of a bus grunted in the near distance, and still the laughter went on.
The bleach from the bag dropped onto her shoes. She considered the waste of them and then, slowly, with all the repetitious obedience of passion and terror, she raised her mouth for the kiss.
ART
I
C
HAPTER
O
NE
I
f
it
ain't
broke,
don't fix it. Don't mess with the system. Leave well alone. Etcetera.
When I am old, Helen told herself, I shall cease even trying to be good. I shall have no conscience, wear lavender, lace and false bosoms, and, in the meantime, I shall never learn to wield an electric drill.
She continued muttering and shaking her head as a substitute for obscenities while she stood in her kitchen and watched the dust settle. An old friend was dead on the floor after all these years, lying among a shower of mordant flies and the remnants of breakfast. Deceased, still twitching in the extremities, filthy in parts with her own sweaty fingerprints. Murderess.
She watched the butter dish teeter on the edge of the table before a delayed landing, greasy side up on the floor among the other detritus. Someone from a laboratory could examine the life cycle of the dead flies to give an estimate of how many summers it had been since the roller blind had refused to roll further than half mast and only then after gentle treatment. Helen had simply forgotten the habit of teasing rather than pulling. Carelessness so often led to death, but, with the fickleness which so horrified her, the wavering thoughts moved on to rejection. Why had the blind been there? Why mourn it? Because it hid three panes of glass, one cracked, two dirty, in a window where the sash-cord was uncertain; a state of affairs reminiscent of everything else in the place: the chest of drawers which demanded pushing and pulling, the toilet roll on one fragile nail, the wonky chairs on uneven floors, the windows which did not shut. Everything in her domain required concentrated co-ordination of hand and eye to make it work, but there was nothing so broke it needed fixing; the whole place was merely a kind of assault course requiring extensive training. Strangers would need to know how to pull the lavatory chain only with a certain force, kick the hall cupboard before trying to open it, ease the living-room door over the rug and not touch the kitchen blind without further instruction. If it ain't broke, don't.