The Private Parts of Women (17 page)

Jan is tall, slim and beautiful in a classy ageless way; she's talented and industrious; she's stylish even under pressure; she's tidy; she's sexy – I've seen even Richard's eyes linger on her bare shoulders at barbecue parties; she's a wonderful mother who never raises her voice and she's in love with her handsome architect husband. I like her very much – but I also hate her.

Jan was the person I saw most often before my … before I left.

‘Sure you're all right?' she'd say sometimes, looking at me quizzically with her slanting green eyes. ‘I could always have the kids for an hour …' I sometimes wondered if Richard had told her that he thought I couldn't cope. It's the sort of thing he would do, enlist support. Well sod that, I thought. I didn't confide in her because she was too perfect. If only she'd just put on a few pounds, or bawl at the children, or let her hair get greasy or her house plants die.

But I can hardly blame my frailties on her.

And one day, in her bathroom, I saw a marcasite brooch on the shelf, a beautiful one, a little curving lizard with the most delicate splayed feet. She wore it often and I'd always admired it. I don't know what made me – but I took it. I slipped it quickly in my pocket before I could stop myself. And then, and this is most strange, I forgot it, forgot I'd taken it. So there was none of the triumph I felt after Sainsbury's. There was no point.

Two days later I found the brooch in the pocket of my jeans when I was sorting out the wash. I was aghast, remembering the scene, my quick hand stealing. I felt sick when I saw it. I didn't want it. I could never have worn it, anyway, it was so much hers. Next time I went round I dropped it on the gravel front path and pretended to find it. Pretended successfully, I'm pretty sure. I don't think she saw through me.

‘Thank you,' she said, hugging me. ‘I'm so relieved. It's valuable you know, an anniversary present from Steve – used to be his grandmother's. I'd looked everywhere. Must have been this scallywag.' She ruffled Lily's hair.

‘Weren't,' Lily said, and Jan raised her eyebrows at me and grinned. So it was all right. But still.

It was in trying to prove Richard wrong about the free lunch that I spoiled everything. I thought just for the secret kick of it, I'd serve him a free dinner. I thought how delightful it would be to watch him eat it, watch him eat his own words.

He loves steak. I wouldn't choose it myself, but this was to be his dinner. Grilled rump, mushrooms, a spinach salad and a robust wine, something quite special.

Billie flopped asleep in the baby-carrier on my back. I let Robin walk round as long as he behaved and pinched him a banana to eat. Everything was very smooth to begin with. I slid the spinach and mushrooms under the bag in the trolley. Then I piled the legitimate stuff on top – even the nappies, I thought I'd pay for them for a change. The wine I chose carefully, hesitating between French and Australian and ending up with Chilean Merlot because it had the nicest label. I was wearing my kagoul with its long map-pocket in order to conceal the bottle in there. It just fitted. I left the steaks until last. I selected a well-sealed pack that wouldn't bleed, and slid it in my handbag.

A supervisor was standing at the end of the check-out as I went through. ‘Can I help you pack, Madam?' he said. He did so very methodically, clearing his throat and stopping a couple of times to blow his nose on a crumpled tissue. He lifted the bag out of the trolley to reveal the spinach and mushrooms. ‘Whoops!' I said. ‘Nearly got away with them!' But he didn't smile. I was very cool but it was as if electricity was pulsing in my veins and my ears were ringing with tension. I was conscious of the weight of the wine slanting across my heart, sure he could see the bulge. When I had paid, the superviser said, ‘Is that everything Madam?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Are you quite certain?'

My mind darted. I wavered. ‘What?' I said. ‘What do you mean?'

In the manager's office I wept. Poor Robin was confused but Billie didn't notice a thing. ‘I'm so sorry,' I kept saying. ‘I don't know how I could have been so silly…' They had found the steak in my bag, despite my carefulness, leaking blood on to the cotton lining. But they hadn't found the wine. I kept my kagoul on. ‘I didn't realise what I was doing …' I said. Robin's frightened face was the only thing that made me feel really bad. Someone cuddled Billie and gave Robin a tube of Smarties.

They didn't call the police. The manager, though stern, was kind. He was one of Richard's patients, he said. And he and his wife had small children, he understood the tizzy women got themselves in on shopping day, he'd give me the benefit of the doubt this time. But he did ask me not to shop at Sainsbury's for a month or two. And made it clear that another time the police would be involved.

So it was all right. But all the coloured fizz had gone out of the day. We ate fish-fingers with the kids that night, washed down with orange squash. Richard never asked me why. I'd got away with the wine but couldn't bear to look at it. It's still in the cupboard under the sink at home, behind the shoe-cleaning stuff – unless Richard's found it.

I will never steal again.

It's too corny to say I've learned my lesson. It isn't that, it's just that it's spoilt for me now. It was my game, my secret gamble. Now it's wrecked.

INHERITANCE

Not quite a year after I'd left home to join the Salvation Army, my father died. If I had known he was to die so soon, I might have waited. And then perhaps things would have worked out better. But he did die, suddenly and unsaved. I'd always presumed Mother would go first, there was so little life in her.

Auntie Ba had been to see me shortly before. I'd sent her my address, and she'd called in after she'd been to visit my mother. Proudly, I sang to her; together we sang ‘The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies'. She hugged me and said, ‘I always knew you had it in you. There's never been a girl in the family yet that couldn't sing. Look, I know what Charles's attitude is to …', she gestured at my new uniform, ‘but let me tell you Trixie Bell,
I
am proud of you and so would your mother be if she was in a fit state.' She tried to persuade me to visit my parents. ‘They miss you, whatever your stubborn father says.'

‘The only way I can
be,'
I replied, ‘is separate from them.' She nodded sadly. ‘Perhaps one day,' I said. Sincere or not I am not sure.

And then there was the letter. Father had been taken seriously ill with a stroke, although he was only fifty-five. He had collapsed on to the floor during Sunday afternoon tea and Mother had done nothing. It had been Louise's afternoon off and she had only found him, found them, when she came in next morning: Mother sitting wet and cold in her chair by the ashes in the grate, Father stretched out stiff on the floor. I have a picture of them frozen like that lodged in my head, clear as a snap-shot. The letter made my heart beat so violently that I had to sit down. I did not know what to feel. I sat on the edge of my bed, the letter shivering between my fingers, waiting to be hit by emotion. Sorrow, I expected, and guilt. Perhaps relief. But there was nothing.

I wore my uniform to the funeral, not mourning for that is not the Salvation Army line. To wear mourning would be a negative reflection on the providence of God. Mary said she'd come with me but I did not want her there. I wheeled my mother into the church in a chair. I don't know if she realised what was going on. I don't know what went on behind those dull eyes. There were no tears. Her hands gripped the arms of the wheelchair so hard that her knuckles stood out like yellow marbles. She had caught a chill on the night of Father's death sitting in her soaked dress, stiff and still all night, and the only sound that came from her was a sound like rustling paper that was her breath. I sang the hymns loudly and proudly, thinking that perhaps Mother might hear me, that I might reach her. Now that
he
was gone I felt fonder of her.

The coffin was draped with the firm's flag. The church was full. Aunt Harriet, my father's sister from York, had turned up and organised the funeral tea. The house reeked of boiled ham and in the kitchen were basins of water crusted on top with white fat.

Auntie Ba only came to the church for the service. She stood beside me in the churchyard, one hand in mine, one on my mother's shoulder and watched while the coffin was lowered. Since Mother was incapable, I flung a handful of soil on to the coffin lid, a dry rattle of grit. A little sigh of something like satisfaction came from Mother and I looked at her sharply, but there was no expression. I saw the eyes of the other mourners upon me waiting for tears, for a seemly show of grief, but there was no feeling in me. I tried to imagine my father under the coffin lid, a scowl on his face, fists clenched, dead eyes glaring furiously up into the dark.

Auntie Ba left then. Her older daughter, Bea, was about to give birth and she was preoccupied with that. Naturally she wanted to be there to greet her first grandchild. I stood by Mother's chair receiving condolences.

‘When the time's right,' Mr Bolt, Father's manager said to me, embarrassed by his own forthrightness but unable to resist his curiosity, ‘we'll have to hear your plans.'

‘Plans?' I said.

‘For the business.'

‘Oh, I'm not to inherit,' I said. ‘Nothing to do with me, Mr Bolt.'

‘Then whom?' he said.

I shook my head. I really had no idea. Father hadn't been one for having ties with people. Aunt Harriet was married to a wealthy man and there was no particular fondness between my father and herself. He certainly wouldn't leave a scrap to Auntie Ba or her family. There was no one else.

When the solicitor read the will the following day, I found that I was wrong, Father had not done what he'd threatened. He had not cut me off. I was to inherit everything. Whatever he had not been, Father
had
been a good businessman. He had recently turned over most of his capacity to the manufacture of rubber tyres, and despite continual labour problems, business was flourishing. I was suddenly a very wealthy woman. There were two conditions attached to my inheritance: one; that I, personally, take care of my mother for the rest of her life and two; that the Salvation Army was not to benefit, in my lifetime, from my wealth.

I lay in bed that night staring at the flowered curtains and realising that they were
mine
. That this was
my
house now. That I had money to burn if I wanted. I was young single and rich. It was so like Father to attach those conditions to the money. A last spiteful jab of his finger from beyond the grave. But I was more worldly than I had supposed. I accepted the conditions and thus the inheritance.

Next morning, according to the solicitor's advice, I became a sleeping-partner in the business, the major shareholder. I wanted nothing more to do with the business. I knew nothing of it. As a girl I had not been considered worthy to be told anything about it; as a woman I chose not to learn.

I walked back to Curry Street to see my friends. I didn't mention the money but told them that I was moving back home, temporarily, to nurse my mother. When I returned I walked round every room, except the mirror room, touching the things that were mine, though still imbued with my father's essence. Apart from Louise, I was once more alone with my mother. I sang hymns to her.

‘Look Mother, listen, I can sing!' Every morning, though it was late summer and fine outside, Louise lit the fire because it was a dark room that didn't catch the sun except on summer evenings, and Mother's stillness made her cold. We sat one on either side of the hearth. I had my song book with me and I sang hymn after hymn. Louise joined in the well-known ones sometimes, as she moved about the house. When I didn't know the tune I made it up. I sang until my throat ached and my mouth was dry.

Mother sat unmoving while I sang at her, while I tried to make myself love and forgive her. Anyone else I could have forgiven anything, but this was my mother. Her face was yellow-white and the lines looked dark in the shadowy firelight. Her hair, which had turned silver, was pulled back from her face, I did it for her every morning like that, brushing hard and wrenching it back tight like she used to do to me, but still little curls escaped and fizzed out round her forehead.

‘I forgive you,' I said once but the words jarred in the air like a lie.

‘The Reflective Punishment,' I went on. ‘What Father did. What you let him do.' But it was no good. I couldn't make myself mean it. God has the power to forgive all sins but I am not God. The more I tried to forgive her the more my voice retreated. I heard and felt it weakening. ‘Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear, light …' I sang and my voice withered to a dull flat thing, and my tongue was thick.

‘I wish I could leave,' I said, and even my speaking voice was changed, was hesitant and childish. I could never bear to say my name when I was a child and a stranger asked it. Trixie Bell. It sounded so silly and fanciful like a fairy name but I was not a fairy child, nothing like, so I always mumbled. Now I mumbled again. I almost expected her to say, ‘What?' and lean forward irritably, jerking her chin, ‘Speak up girl.'

The brown curtains were drawn against the bay-window. I remembered a little girl sitting behind them, her knees drawn tightly to her chest. I wanted to leave the house that moment. I knew I must put my mother to bed and then I would have to go out. I could go and visit Mary. I might catch the end of the meeting. I needed a breath of fresh air, of friendship, of God. I was scared. It was ridiculous but I was scared of my helpless mother. Silently, I prayed. The fear was nonsense, nothing.

The back room had been converted into a bedroom for my mother since it was too hard to get her up and down stairs. Louise helped me get her through there and we sat her on the commode. She did nothing.