Part 11 (1/2)
At the second phone call Jim had softened his line a little. He had stopped offering Suzanne the money to terminate her pregnancy, and told her to do what she b.l.o.o.d.y well liked. Suzanne did not repeat his exact words to her parents, or his sentiments, even inexactly. She was convinced that once Jim had got over the immediate shock, he would rally round and have a serious talk with his mad wife about an imminent separation.
On Tuesday morning, when Muriel arrived to clean at Buckingham Avenue, she stepped inside and found the atmosphere instantly familiar. The curtains were not drawn back properly, and the place was half in darkness. Upstairs, a long shadow slid across the landing. She heard a door slam shut. Sylvia sat at the kitchen table, slumped over a cooling cup of coffee. ”Help yourself,” she said. ”The kettle's just boiled. The milk's sour, though.”
”You're drinking milk, Mrs. Sidney?”
”Why not?” her employer said. ”What does it matter? We're all getting old. I'm not going to keep my figure, I'm just fooling myself.” Sylvia looked away. Her mouth was set in a thin hard line. ”My daughter's pregnant.” She propped her elbow on the table and sucked despondently at a thumb nail. ”Lizzie, you haven't got a f.a.g on you, have you?”
”Oh no, Mrs. Sidney, I never touch them.”
”Don't you?” Sylvia's voice was dull. ”I thought you had all the vices, duck.”
”Which one is it, Karen?”
”Christ no, she's only thirteen.”
”They say you can never tell these days.”
”It's true, you can't. Better get to the shops, I suppose. Need anything?”
”No, but thank you all the same for asking. What a good woman you are, Mrs. Sidney! It's a privilege to wash down your fitments.”
Sylvia smiled weakly. How odd the woman was. ”But how could you be any other,” Lizzie asked. ”Now that you see so much of the Reverend Teller? Oh, and by the way...”
Sylvia looked displeased now. ”Yes?”
The daily was fis.h.i.+ng in the pocket of her ap.r.o.n. ”I saw Mr. Sidney, G.o.d bless him, he was rooting through the dustbin. Is this what he was after?” She held out her palm. On it were the two halves of a photograph. ”Picture of Mrs. Jim Ryan,” Lizzie said.
”What?” Sylvia stared down at it, horrified. ”Picture of who?”
”It's a lady called Mrs. Ryan.” I've seen her at the hospital, she was going to add, but bit it back in time. Her night job was another life, wasn't it?
Sylvia's fingers trembled. She took the photograph from Lizzie. She tried to fit the halves together; the girl's face, dreadfully bisected, stared back at her. There was a knowing look in each eye.
”It can't be. You've got the name wrong.”
”Oh no, madam, I'm acquainted with this lady, I couldn't make a mistake.”
”You're quite sure? You're quite positive, are you, who this is?”
”On my mother's life.”
”There's no need to go to that extreme,” Sylvia snapped. Her mind groped, very slowly, around the possibilities. ”I want to know if you're quite certain.”
”I told you. The old girlfriend, is she? Well, love makes the world go round, Mrs. Sidney. There's only one reason the gentlemen keep pictures.”
”Shut up,” Sylvia said. ”That has nothing to do with you.”
”Mr. Sidney seemed upset. Frantic, he was, throwing the rubbish about, got all yoghurt pots over his feet. I knew he was after it, but-” she gave Sylvia a broad wink-”us girls have got to stick together.”
I'd like to sack you on the spot, Sylvia thought; except that if we're going to have a baby on our hands, I daren't. ”Now listen,” she said. ”You don't mention this to anyone, right? Not to Mr. Sidney. Not to Suzanne. Understand?”
”Clear as day.”
”So watch it.”
At least she doesn't know the whole story, Sylvia thought. She's put a name to the face, but she doesn't know about the complications. And I won't tell Colin I know; not yet, anyhow. ”Go and do the bathroom,” she said. She looked down at the photograph again. It seemed to swim before her eyes. A sudden pain lanced through her right eye, her nose, her jaw. She was going to have a cras.h.i.+ng migraine, any minute now.
Going up the stairs with her sponge and her bottle of nonscratch scouring cream, Muriel felt an intense gratification. There was no need to connive with destiny; the family were managing nicely for themselves. The air was choked with tension and spite, and on the landing all the doors were closed; it was just like Mother's day. The children were locked in their rooms, sniffing glue and crying. From behind the doors came the soft sounds of breathing. It was nothing now but a matter of time. There would be strange pains in the dark bedrooms, despair in the breakfast room where Mother's kitchen used to be. Food getting cold, food getting bad; soon the lightbulbs would go, and no one would bother to replace them. The bills would go unpaid, and dirty milk bottles would stand in a row on the sink. Sylvia's hips would grow to 44 inches, as was their nature, and she would waddle and roll about the house, and hide when the doorbell rang. Just as Colin's athletic joints would swell and crack with rheumatism, so autumn moisture would crack and swell the plaster and brick of the new kitchen extension. He would take to drink, perhaps lose his position. Sanctimonious Flo would be found out in some lewdness, and Suzanne's untended child would wail from the back garden, bleating for the peace of the clouded water from which it came. The evergreens would grow, blocking out the light at the back of the house; foul necessities would incubate in the dark. Soon cracks would appear in the walls, and a green-black mould would grow along the cracks and spread its spores through the kitchen cupboards, through the wardrobes and the bedlinen. Given time, the roof of the extension would fall in. Where the lean-to had stood, the house would be open to the sky. Rubbish would fester uncollected, and the rat would be back. The girls, ostracised by society, would fall prey to crippling diseases. Alistair would be taken away to prison. No member of the household would fail to see their lives and motives laid bare. Their trivial domestic upsets would turn soon to confusion, abandonment, and rage. Acts of violence would occur; there would be bodies. Could they prevent it? She didn't think so. There was Resurrection, in various foul forms; but what came after? Now Muriel's rules were in operation, and the Sidneys were entirely in eclipse.
When Suzanne came downstairs at last, driven by hunger, Lizzie Blank said: ”Don't take on so. It happened to me once.”
”Did it?” Suzanne looked at her; she was interested. ”I bet you've led quite a life.”
”Oh yes,” said Lizzie Blank. ”A devastated charmer like me.”
”And what did you do?”
”I got rid of it.”
”That can't have been so easy, when you were young.”
”No, but I had my mother to advise me. She knew all about that sort of thing.”
”Did you have a good relations.h.i.+p with your mother?”
”In ways.”
”I wish I had a good relations.h.i.+p with my mother. She's trying to push me into an abortion, you know, but Jim and I want this baby. Didn't you ever regret it, Lizzie?”
Lizzie thought for a moment. ”I suppose I did. Not at the time. But nowadays I miss it. I reckon we'd have been two of a kind. And I need company.”
”That's so honest of you, Lizzie. You're...such an honest person.”
”I'd have liked to give it an inheritance. A lovely house like this.”
”Do you think this house is lovely? I hate it. It stifles me.”
”You'll be out of it soon enough.”
”I'm going to get a flat or something, just till I get things sorted out with Jim.”
”Jim your intended, is he?”
”Oh yes. But he's got to go through the divorce, you know. These things take time to sort out.”
”So you could be on your own till the baby's born?”
”I hope not. I'm going to find a place, and he can move in with me as soon as he makes Isabel see sense. I mean, there's no point in dragging out a failing marriage, is there?”
”None at all. Mind, his wife will stop in the house, you'll need furniture, all that. Door furniture and fire irons I can get for you cheap, I have a friend. But I expect you'll need a cooker, you won't be able to afford to go out to restaurants.”