For half a minute there was no sound from inside. Then, eventually, he heard dragging footsteps (she’d be wearing open-backed sandals, he guessed, and they made her walk ragged), and Charmaine opened the door. Her face was not made-up, and its nakedness made even plainer response to his standing there. She was unpleasantly surprised.
“Marty,” was all she managed to say. No welcoming smile, no tears.
“I came on the off-chance,” he said, attempting nonchalance. But it was obvious that he’d made a tactical error from the moment she sighted him.
“I thought you weren’t allowed out-“she said, then corrected herself, “-I mean, you know, I thought you weren’t allowed off the estate.”
“I asked for special dispensation,” he said. “Can I come in, or do we talk on the doorstep?”
“Oh . . . oh, yes. Of course.”
He stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him. There was an uncomfortable moment in the narrow hallway. Their proximity seemed to demand an embrace, yet he felt unable, and she unwilling, to make the gesture. She compromised with a patently artificial smile, followed by a light kiss on the cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she said, apologizing for nothing in particular. She led him down the hallway to the kitchen. “I just didn’t expect you, that’s all. Come on in. The place is in chaos, I’m afraid.”
The house smelled stale; as though it needed a good airing. Washing, drying on the radiators, made the atmosphere muggy, like the sauna back at the Sanctuary.
“Take a seat,” she said, lifting a bag of unsorted groceries off one of the kitchen chairs, “I’ll just finish here.” There was a second load of dirty washing on the kitchen table-hygienic as ever-which she began to load into the washing machine, her chatter nervous, her eyes never meeting his as she concentrated on the matter in hand; the towels, the underwear, the blouses. He recognized none of the clothes, and found himself ferreting through the soiled items looking for something he had seen her in before. If not six years before, then in visits to the prison. But it was all new stuff.
“-I just didn’t expect you-” she was saying, closing the machine and loading powder into it. “I was sure you’d call first. And look at me; I look like a wet rag. God, it would be today, I’ve got so much to do-” She finished with the machine, pushed the sleeves of her sweater back up, said: “Coffee?” and turned to the kettle to make some without waiting for an answer. “You look well, Marty, you really do.”
How did she know? She’d scarcely taken two glances at him in her whirlwind of activity. Whereas he, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He sat watching her at the sink, wringing out a cloth to swab down the counter, and nothing had changed in six years-not really-just a few lines on their faces. He had a feeling in him that was like panic; something to be held down for fear it make a fool of him.
She made him coffee; talked about the way the neighborhood had changed; about Terry and the saga of choosing the paint for the front of the house; about how much it cost on the subway from Mile End to Wandsworth; about how well he looked-“You really do, Marty, I’m not just saying that”-she talked about everything but something. It wasn’t Charmaine talking, and that hurt. Hurt her too, he knew. She was marking time with him, that was all it was, filling the minutes with vacuous chat until he gave up in despair and left.
“Look,” she said. “I really must change.”
“Going out?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“-if you’d said, Marty, I would have cleared a space. Why didn’t you ring me?”
“Maybe we could go out for a meal sometime?” he suggested.
“Maybe.”
She was viciously noncommittal.
“-things are a bit hectic just at the moment.”
“I’d like a chance to talk. You know, properly.”
She was getting edgy: he knew the signs well, and she was aware of his scrutiny. She picked up the coffee mugs and took them to the sink.
“I really must dash,” she said. “Make yourself some more coffee if you want. Stuff’s in the-well, you know where it is. There’s a lot of things of yours here, you know. Motorcycle magazines and stuff. I’ll sort them out for you. Excuse me. I have to change.”