The Private Parts of Women (32 page)

But Trixie backed away.

‘Ada,' she mouthed, her fingertips crammed in her mouth.

‘Trixie … it's all right …' and waking up a bit, I looked down at myself, at the black mink open to reveal the crushed velvet underneath.

‘Oh the clothes!' I got up and approached her, caught sight of myself in the mirror, black wig askew, lips smudged huge and scarlet. ‘It's not Ada! It's only me.'

I paused by the mirror, giddy, watching myself sway through the dust on the glass, I could see why I frightened her so. How could I have thought I looked beautiful? I was grotesque. I turned, but before I could reach her she had slipped out and there was the rattle of the key in the lock even as I reached it.

I shook the door handle and hammered on the door with my fists: ‘No – o – o – o,' I screamed. ‘Trixie! Trixie! Trixie! Let me out! Trixie!' I could not believe it. It was not possible that she'd been in and I'd let her out. And I was still there. I bashed the door with my knee and kicked it and then I sank down on the floor, my head pounding, a thin sting of bile rising in my throat. How could I have been so pathetic? It was not fair, not fair, not fair. It was a nightmare; I was trapped in a bloody nightmare.

I dropped my hot head in my hands and wept.

BENJAMIN CHARLES

I am out

I am out

I am out

Hurrah I AM OUT

I can run and I can shout

I am a boy and I am free!

She is cracked wide open I am free

I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT

Just wait

I am sucking her rock what the lady gave her

It's very sticky and it's got a word in it but I can't read it

Because reading's for girls

I am a danger and a disgrace

And I am free

HURRAH

HURRAH

HURRAH

I will never go in again

See me I am clever and bad

See me

But, my father could not see me. I stood in front of him and he only saw Trixie

Oh she will be sorry now

I am a boy see I am a boy see my thing

I am a big boy

Big as a man full growed

Air all round me

I can move my arms and legs and I can kick and thump

Sucking the rock into a spike with red in it from the word

No I am not a boy I am a man

See me I am a man

I truly am

See my thing

I could stick my thing in the lady in the attic

Or I could kill her

ROCK

The sun is shining in. I keep looking at my clothes on the floor. Clothes that I hate, feel bad in. The wrong shape jeans, a jumper that makes me look sallow. I wear them a lot. Why do I wear clothes that make me feel ugly? I save my best clothes up for best. For never. In a minute I'll get up and take off the velvet and the musty fur and put my ordinary things back on. Then she will let me out.

Then I will go home.

And I will wear my best clothes.

I will feel good.

I will love my children, I do, I do love them.

And Richard too.

A ray of sun shines on the stocking dangling from the lampshade and lights it up like a spirit leg all gauzy gold and floating, stirring the dust motes with a glowing toe.

When she'd slammed the door I'd crawled across the floor and back to bed and lay here, too dry to cry much. Useless anyway. Part of me wanted to laugh. Locked in a mad woman's attic, something wrong there Inis, something upside-down.

She is coming. I hear her feet on the stairs, surprisingly sprightly. I heave myself up. No time to change but I don't care. This time I will get out, I'll simply barge her. This time I will be free.

She opens the door and I am ready for her. She has something in her hand … I don't get it … the stick of rock from Blackpool all sucked and sharp. There is sticky pink all round her mouth – no teeth – all caved in – how she must have sucked and sucked to get such sharpness.

I go to the door and she … Trixie! and there is pain. I don't … pain in my chest I don't know what to …

But I am all right I try to pass her but she is backed against the door … what is she … as if she is shoving the rock up my skirt as if … I want to scream a laugh as if …
raped with a stick of rock by a mad woman in an attic
but her face close to is fierce and lined and streaked with sticky glistening pink.

‘Trixie!'

‘I am not Trixie.'

‘Ada, then Ada!'

‘I am not Ada!' Warm spit flecks my face.

‘I am Benjamin.'

All I can do is push against her oldness and her snapped off rock and her collapsing face. In her dressing-gown pocket, I see only as her hand goes down, is a knife.

SAINT BRUNO

I took the rock upstairs and a knife too. I took Trixie's sharp knife from the kitchen drawer. I tried it on my thumb and blood came out. I put it in my pocket.

The lady was still dressed like Ada.

She shouted and pushed me but I am a man. I am clever and strong. I got my back against the door. I stuck the rock out and got her in the chest and the point of the rock broke off.

Her hand went up and she sort of laughed. I don't know if it was laughing or crying or what.

I didn't know what next. I wanted to pull her dress up and do it to her but I had the rock in my hand.

I couldn't … she was too close, pushing.

She was making stupid noises like laughing and crying at the same time and snot was coming out of her nose and she kept saying
Trixie, Trixie
, just like Father used to when he couldn't see it was me and not Trixie.

I said I was not Trixie. I got hold of her all fur and stinking scent. I could not let go to undo my clothes so I tried to push the rock in her, up her skirt.

Now the rock has blood on. Real blood, I think, only when I suck it it is only sweet and mint. When she saw the knife she made a stupid noise, a bleat like sheep do.

I sat on the floor and I saw I was still wearing Trixie's things, her nightie and dressing-gown. The knife was on the floor.

And on the floor I saw my things that I had when I was a boy, that Father made Trixie wear to try to make her into me.

And now I am me but they are only boy's things. They would be too small for a man.

But in the wardrobe is Father's jacket. Father did love me only he never saw me. He thought I had died but only the baby died.

Because baby boys
should
die and make way for the men.

And ladies should die with their silk and their private parts which are nothing. Only nothing where there should be something.

Father's jacket is all scratchy when I put it on, the collar hairy against my neck and it has his smell.

He is dead. But I am out. Never will go back.

In the pocket is his pipe and his tobacco. Saint Bruno.

Saint Bruno has a lovely, lovely smell which is nothing like babies or women at all. Not at all.

No lighter, but a candle alight. The pipe is hard to light. Bits of paper but they just singe my fingers and go out. You shouldn't play with fire but I don't care because I am bad. I light bits of cloth. I make little fires on the floor trying to get the pipe alight. It takes lots of goes but I do.

All the little fires go out so there is only ash and no flames.

The pipe is lit and the taste is the wonderfulest thing. It tastes like Father smelled. In the mirror, wearing the jacket, I see that I look like Father. I do. Very like.

The wardrobe is open. That is where Father told me to go.

I have to throw out all the old shoes and boots and things to fit in. All the dresses against my face again. The smoke filling up all the flat and silky places. Smoke and silk, velvet and fur.

STOCKINGS

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.

But I am out.

I must get away from here.

Pale and dreadful in the mirror. Hand shaking: mascara, lipstick. Scrub off lipstick. Quick. The greasiness like last night, like last night settling on my shoulders and head like a flock of crows. Stave that off, last night. My scalp prickles and my palms slip with sweat.

Because, Oh God, Oh God, I nearly died.

A bruise on my chest, a speck of blood from the sharp rock.

Only rock. But what if it had been a knife? There was a knife. What if I had not knocked it away?

Oh God. Oh do not think. Keep it off. Safe now. Going home now.

I do not understand last night. How can I? All I know is … I don't know. Last night was … I don't know.

I have folded her clothes into a pile. Not a neat pile – they will not be neat. They slither and slide, velvet on silk on fur.

So now, ready. A last look round. A last breath of this house now that I can breathe. It's not so cold. It's not so bad with the sunshine through the smeary window lighting up the yellow Formica with its pattern of old brown cup-rings.

Not a bad place. Some regret. For a time my home.
Mine
. Darkroom, white paint with the roses blooming through. A place I made.

I must go
now
. I am alive. Trixie only the other side of this wall. Trixie or Ada or … oh I don't know. Tonight I will be with the people I love. I can't think now. Distance is what I need before I can even think.

Step out into the passage, put down the bags, close the door and lock it. That's that.

Running again.
To
love instead of away. Running from what?

Not from everything. In my pocket, the silk of the stockings which I am taking home.

BLOWSKI

Blowski is there, first she can smell his breath, then she can see his face, close to hers, engraved like a silver coin. Her mouth is bitter, her lips taste of … something … leather, old leather, Father … men, a proper man's taste in her mouth whatever is it? Oh tobacco.

‘Trixie … you all right now? Trixie Bell?'

‘It wasn't me,' she says, shrinking away from him in her chair. ‘It wasn't.'

‘Trixie, thank the stars.' Blowski smiles.

‘I didn't do it. I didn't. It wasn't me. I never touched it.' Trixie's voice all wet and childish.

‘No, no, you didn't do nothing,' Blowski says. ‘Everything all right. Everything tickety-boo.'

Huddled up in her chair, she looks up at him, suspicious, then hopeful.

‘Tea,' Blowski says.

He goes into the kitchen. The tobacco is sour in her mouth. Her mind scrambles. What has she been thinking, what doing? He was helping her down the stairs, she remembers that. The stairs seemed to go on for ever. And … his hot knotted hand pulling her out from somewhere, from between something, his voice soothing. Like some dream. What is happening? Some dream about men. Not Blowski, but other men, paying men. Paying? For what? Oh no good pretending. Trixie Bell did it.
Was
it. That was no dream.
Paying
men. But that is over. That was over fifty years ago. So what else is it? Why is her mind full of man and boy? Something not right. Some absence. Something funny going on.

Please no.

All right. Only the memory playing tricks, tricksy memory, Trixie.

What is happening, oh what is happening? She did not do it. Do what? She's done nothing. Her hands are all sticky and when she licks her finger it tastes sweet. She runs her tongue around her gums. No teeth in. Her stomach churns with shame. She tries to get up from her chair, but Blowski is there again with a cup of tea and the memories shrink back, vanish, like silk scarves whisked through a ring.

‘I put sugar in, for shock, yes?'

‘Shock. What shock? Where?'

‘Settle down, Trixie Bell, settle down.'

He turns the fire up. Trixie sits with her hand curled over her mouth.

‘Blowski, what are you doing here?' She drinks the top half of her tea in a scalding slurp that steadies her. ‘It's early.'

‘Just passing,' he says, ‘first thing: get out, get milk and paper, like every morning and I pass and … I don't know … something tell me something up and I come in … and …'

‘And?'

‘And here you are and I make you tea. End of story. Yes?'

Trixie slumps. That is not quite right. There is more. What about the stairs, the smoke? But Blowski is so kind to her. He is a dear, her dear old friend. ‘I make you breakfast,' he says. ‘Then I go to shops and go back to Brenda. She be having kittens. “Where is he? Where is that bugger,” that what she say …'

He switches on the television for Trixie; two ragamuffins sprawled on a bed, a lot of silliness. Then the advert for Coco-Pops again. Trixie puts down her tea and taps her hand on the arm of her chair. ‘I'll
have another bowl of Coco-Pops.'

‘I'd like to try those, Blowski,' she says.

‘I get you some, later. I come back, later, me. See you all right. I get your Coco-Pops, all your shopping.'

Something is different, some clamouring inside her is stilled. It is almost like peace. She smiles and touches his arm.

‘Oh Blowski, you are too kind.'

He flaps his arthritic hand in front of his face and snorts.

ONE

Well, well, well. I was wrong to think we could never be one. The boy has gone.

The boy has gone up in smoke.

Trixie … Trixie and I are drinking tea through the same lips. Blowski is doing our shopping.

I cannot be sure but I feel there is no filter between us. There is a merging like a sigh of relief.

We are simply too old for all that nonsense now.

And the boy has gone!

He has gone up in smoke!

I know that
I
am here.

That I am Trixie, almost, now that the boy has gone. And Ada too. We are the same. We sit together by the fire, an old woman in love with an old Pole who is the husband of two other women.

Ha!

Always cheerful, always cheerful
,

I was made for lo – ove
…

Next-door has slammed the door and gone.