Amy had said that a lot, Mary guessed. Mary betted that Amy had said that a lot. Amy: what was Mary to do about it all? Amy had been bad, Amy had been mad. Did this matter, and, if so, how much? Well, one thing was clear: being mad didn’t matter. Being mad didn’t matter. If being mad mattered, then nearly everyone was obviously in terrible trouble. Most people were mad, and it was okay. (Was Prince mad? No, probably not. Prince was probably un-mad. He could probably call his thoughts his own.) And how about bad, how bad was that, how serious? Who minded? The law did, and other people. The law did, but the law was quite hard. You had to be pretty bad to break it, whatever Prince said that time. The law wasn’t as delicate as other people and their bits and pieces. The law wasn’t as delicate as Trev’s mouth or Trudy’s nose or Mr Botham’s back or Alan’s spirit or Michael’s heart, or the heart of Mrs Hide, all of which had got broken at some time. The law was hard to break. But God, I hate her, thought Mary.
‘Mary?’
She turned. It was Ray. ‘Some guy for you on the blower,’ he said.
Mary went into Norman’s room. She feared the worst.
‘Hello, it’s me, Jamie. Do you know the man I mean?’
‘Yes. Hello,’ said Mary.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Quite bad. How are you feeling?’
‘Terrible. I’ve got this incredible hangover. Still it’s better than nothing, I suppose. I rang to ask you if you’d like to come to lunch?’
Mary said yes. She was pleased, she had to admit. It would be nice to get out of the house and, besides, the change of air would do her good.
Mary went upstairs again. She hesitated in the noiseless-ness outside Alan’s room, but decided against it.
She sat on her bed. For the first time she thought seriously about clothes. Apart from warmth, protection and propriety, what was the idea of clothes exactly? Why had Jamie said that about hers? Patently the idea was to express something through the medium of shape and colour. But express what? Were clothes just saying ‘Look!’? Money and sex seemed to be the main commodities on offer here. Clothes could deny or affirm either of these. Mary speculated what her own clothes might have to say on the topics of money and sex. Could clothes express a lack of one and a simple bafflement about the other? Yes, but that wasn’t what clothes were in business to do; that wasn’t clothes’ line; that wasn’t what clothes were keen on expressing. Clothes were interested in the other things, in abundance and expertise. Obliquely and perhaps inadvertently, clothes also did a third thing: they told other people about the soul they encased by dramatizing your attempted lies about money and sex … Mary had a bath next door to Alan’s room, which was still in silence. Alan used to spend a lot of time in here, Mary reflected, especially before coming to her bed. What occult ablutions, what bleak rethinks, took place among all this lino and iron? Wrapped in a towel she returned to her room. She brushed her hair and heightened the colours of her face. She put on white pants, tugging them up into the tight nexus of her body; then she put on red shoes and a white sweater and a white skirt, all things she had bought with Jamie’s money … As Mary came down her stairs she saw Russ emerging from Alan’s room. He said nothing. He looked at her in a new way, with challenge but also with respect or fear. Mary’s eyes faced his; but she knew his look said he thought her clothes lied.
Mary walked. She had consulted Norman’s book of graphs about how the city lay and memorized her route, which took her through the great park. It was nice of whoever could stop you doing this to let you go on doing it. The day was clear and equipped with wind; there was a stretched, splintery brightness in the lines of the sky, and in the distance important clouds had gathered. The people were outside in numbers. Those who were alone seemed to stick together with a newspaper each, lolling by the park’s exits and entrances or walking briskly from one to the other. People with families or just with lovers of their own ventured further afield. Mary kept an eye on the couples and wondered what it would be like to be part of one. It looked pretty good to her. It was obviously a matter of the confidences they shared. The best couple was circling the water that was the park’s heart. They gave each other pleasure by four simple expedients: by being there and not being anywhere else, and by being themselves and not someone else instead. Mary had never felt part of a couple, a part of anything, when she was with Alan. They had just done the thing, in pain. They had never lightened each other’s load. God, she hoped he would be all right.
In the end she let her mental notes blur and asked other people the way: if you had time, it was an infallible method of getting to other places. The place where Jamie lived was improbably vast, but then lots of other people probably lived there too. She pressed the right buzzer and, almost immediately, the heavy half-glass door responded by giving a buzz of its own. Mary stood back, hoping that this wasn’t going to prove serious. The door went on buzzing for several seconds in mounting impatience, then broke off exasperatedly. She heard footsteps. A girl with a baby slung over her shoulder appeared in the passage and pulled at the door with a frown.
The door opened. ‘Has it gone wrong again?’ asked the girl. The baby looked at Mary with open astonishment.
‘I hope not,’ said Mary.
‘Are you coming to lunch?’
‘If that’s all right,’ said Mary.
The girl turned neutrally and preceded Mary along the passage, the baby’s consternated face bobbing over her shoulder. They shunned the caged lift and climbed the stairs. Mary thought it was a shame that Jamie had a family already. No wonder the baby looked at her with such puzzlement. Halfway up the stairs, Mary heard the sound of many voices through the open door above. She remembered her memory of the time when as someone young she had prepared to enter a room containing other people—and the intimate pink of the dress slipping past her eyes. In some ways other people had worried and excited Mary more then than they did now. So much was already impossible; she knew there was no true limelight you could step into. Mary was aware, and had been aware from the start, that other people spent hardly any time thinking about other people.
Mary followed the girl and the baby down a long passage to the brink of a tall room full of people and light. And full of couples, Mary quickly sensed. But before the room could confront or absorb her, Jamie’s head appeared through a nearby doorway and he wiggled a finger at her to come inside.
‘Hi,’ he whispered, and closed the door behind them. They were in a big kitchen, bigger even than the one at work. And it was clean and light, not kippered and sallowed with that coating of damp dust on everything you touched. Jamie’s fine hair was in disarray, and his eyes contained much agitation and heat. ‘Do you want a Bloody Mary?’ he asked.
‘What’s a Bloody?’
‘It’s—God you’re strange. You don’t know shit, do you? Here. There’s only one cure for a hangover.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Getting drunk. But Bulgakov says spice helps too, and I believe everything I read. That’s why it’s so spicy. Don’t you like it?’ he asked in an offended voice.
‘No, I do.’
He walked to the circular white table in the centre of the room. Mary noticed that he had a limp. His legs were equally long but one was a lot stiffer than the other and he used it more carefully.
‘It’s a summer-thunder one, my hangover. They’re a classy kind to have. I don’t feel ill, just mad. I bet berks don’t feel mad at all, just incredibly ill. And now I’ve got all this horrific food to deal with. Can you cook and everything?’
‘No.’
‘At all?’
‘At all.’
‘ What? You’re a girl, aren’t you?’
Mary nodded.
‘Then what do you think is the point of you if you can’t cook? You must have a pretty high opinion of yourself, young lady. Wait a minute.’ He straightened a trembling finger at her. ‘Can you make beds?’
‘Yes.’
‘And do you pee sitting down?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ he said, considerably mollified, ‘I suppose two out of three isn’t bad. Come on, you can give me a hand with this stuff, can’t you. Come on, be a pal.’