‘All right.’
‘Marvellous. The Dorchester, please. See you then.’
A smarmy ploy, this: and its shrewdest reproach was Rachel herself. She seemed less posh, less assured, altogether less formidable. She seemed physically smaller, too, and emphasized this by pouting a lot, playing dumb, deliberately mispronouncing long words – the whole routine. I didn’t mind, even when she crinkled her nose in girly indecision, or popped her eyes in cute astonishment. If she’s stupid, boring, ugly and affected, I thought, it’s all right by me.
Anyway, I had had to show some independence, counter-pointing my abjectness of the Tuesday. And I needed a breather, time for more research. And my face was in no condition to take the Centre’s somewhat unkind neon. And the ludicrous business about going riding at least explained my wrecky clothes. And there was nothing I could do about it; my conceit is an unmanned canoe, leaping imaginary rapids.
I think it was that afternoon I began work on the Letter to My Father, a project which was to take up many a spare moment over the following weeks.
Now, I thought, assembling fountain-pen, inkpot and notes, I’m really going to hit the bastard with everything. Forty minutes later I had written:
Dear Father,
This has not been an easy letter to write.
When I went upstairs for some tea. Jenny was in the kitchen bathing the half-faded shiner Norman had given her on Tuesday night.
‘How is it?’I asked.
‘Not too bad now. That flipping doorknob.’
Jenny, these days, was silent, but her silence had plenty to say. In the days immediately after the punch-up she went on As Normal: Don’t worry about me I’m perfectly … all right, patrolling the house at two miles per hour in search of extra-gruelling chores, every time she bent over or began to climb the stairs letting slip – for all her courage – a groan of exhaustion or a pained sigh.
Towards the end of the week, certainly by Smith’s Friday, she had taken to her bed, becoming a spectral, ever-dressing-gowned figure, occasionally to be glimpsed on the staircase or preparing starchy snacks in the kitchen. Sometimes you could hear her cruising round the top floor and making descents to the bathroom. Sometimes, in the early evenings, when Norman was out, she would come down and have a cup of something with me. On these occasions I always tried to look tranquil, approachable, full of dear-Marje wisdom; with no results.
Saturday week, nearly a fortnight after my arrival, six days after Norman’s great pots-and-pans speech, I was off to the Tate Gallery, and had gone upstairs for a quick tup in the sitting-room (just to keep the cold out). I stood looking down the square, shivering as the mouthfuls of warm gin began their priestlike task. Jenny’s voice, both languid and anxious, came from the bedroom next door: ‘Noorman … ?’ So I popped my head brightly into the room and said that it wasn’t in fact Norman, but me, and asked if I could get her anything.
Five minutes later I was trying to slot a tea-mug in among the rubble on her bedside tray. The room smelled of make-up and breasts: half-full coffee-cups, overflowing ashtrays, dank eiderdown; a collapsed pile of magazines on the floor; beneath the dressing-table Bina and Tiki batted empty lipstick tubes. However, Jenny, in red cotton nightie, bloomed – warm-cheeked, nice greasy skin, lustrous hair, bringing to my notice once again the fact that I would not be averse to seeing her in the nude.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried asking her how she was. Jenny drew her knees up into a supine crouch.
‘Fine,’ she mouthed, as a mascara tear welled up out of her puffy right eye. She sniffed, and reached for her mug with an apologetic smile.
I felt a lump in my throat – of grief, I was pretty sure, not phlegm. I opened my mouth to speak, but there was nothing there.
‘Just tired,’ said Jenny.
We had both wanted to talk, I think; I don’t know why we didn’t.
Spent a whole day getting ready for my Monday tea date with Rachel. I shouldn’t think I’m being very representative here. Indeed, such deadpan contingency-meeting must largely be the preserve of the over-thirties. Yet, given the frail, heapy, anxious teenager…