All the Way Home and All the Night Through (30 page)

“I'll let you go all right. I'll let you go because I don't care whether you stay or leave. We're finished. I don't need anyone like you. My God, when I think of the last year when I could have been enjoying myself instead of tying myself to a bird like you.”

I laughed like a hyena. Janet lay on the bed, half leaning against the headboard, looking at me as though she had never seen me before. She was still and quiet. A tear began to trace a path down her face but her face itself was cold and expressionless.

“You think I've been faithful to you, don't you. You think I've been sitting in my digs twiddling my bloody thumbs while your mother had you trapped in that glass menagerie of hers. Well, I've not. I've been out and about. I'm Victor Geoffrey Graves and there's been some people glad of my company. You believed all that stuff I gave you, didn't you? Well, I'll tell you why I said it—”

She got up from the bed on the side away from me. She began to walk round the bed to my side of it and to the half-open door. She looked down at the floor. Tears rolled down her face, but her face was empty as though no expression could describe the feelings that were in her.

“No, wait,” I said as she drew level with me. “I've not finished yet.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. She tried to pass me. I gripped both of her shoulders.

“Just a minute,” I said. “It was to get you into bed because that's all—”

“Get out of the way. Get out of my way!” she screamed, tears flowing quickly now.

She tried to push me away, beating at me with her fists. I gripped her all the more tightly.

“Let me go. Let me go,” she sobbed, struggling with me, her face contorted in anguish, her eyes closed, not wanting to look at me. The final red of my trembling violence burned into my eyes and I hit her across the mouth and pushed her as hard as I could into the bedroom wall.

We stood facing each other. Everything snapped back in my mind. I saw what I had done. My mouth hung open at the comprehension of the last few minutes. Janet's face went suddenly blank at the impact. She leant against the wall, staring at me, her eyes wide.

“Oh God,” she said. Her mouth formed a smile of disbelief. “Oh, my God.” She laughed. “Let me get out of here. Let me get out. Oh, God.” She laughed again and began walking to the door, her handkerchief against her mouth as though to keep the laughter back.

“Janet. Janet, wait.” I moved toward her. “Listen to me. You must listen. Wait please.”

She began to go through the door. I put my hand on her shoulder. She spun round.

“Get away from me. Get away!” she screamed. I tried to hold her.

“Get away. Don't touch me!” She tried frantically to struggle free.

“Listen. Oh please wait. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

“It's over; it's over and get away from me.”

I gripped her with all my strength and pulled her over to the bed, pushing her down on it.

“Listen to me. Listen. You know I didn't mean it, don't you? You know why. Please, tell me, Janet. It wasn't true, any of it.”

She still struggled to free herself from under me.

“I don't care, I don't care.” Tears continued to shine on her face. “Leave me alone. God, please.”

“I didn't mean to hurt you. Janet, Janet you know I love you. That's why I'm like this. But God, I hurt you. Oh, hell. Hell.” Tears came quickly. “Please help me. I love you. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. I didn't, I didn't.” My face pressed into her neck. She had become still again. Her breasts rose and fell steadily beneath my chest.

“Please. You know I love you,” I said.

We stayed like that for over an hour. Janet never moved once. I kept repeating my useless words over and over.

I got up from the bed. Janet had fallen asleep. I left the room and went downstairs.

That's it, I thought. It's over. I was too empty to feel remorse and too ashamed to feel apology possible or worthwhile and too shocked to feel as demoralized and as pained as I should have done. And most of all, I felt that what I had done and said was too awful to allow me to ask Janet to forgive me.

I sat on a chair in the kitchen. The party was virtually finished. The table was awash with beer. I stared at my glass, listening to the last guests going out of the front door. In the other room, sounds of traditional jazz floated from the record player. A few minutes later, Joan came into the room.

“How's Janet?” I said, still staring at my glass.

“I think she's all right now. She's gone back to sleep again.” She sat down on a chair at the other side of the table. She smiled, sadly and sympathetically.

“Janet—told me what happened, Vic.”

“I expected she would.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I don't know.”

“I know Janet very well, Vic. You meant everything to her. She used to tell me about you. I envied her very much, the fact that she could feel like that about someone. Why didn't you trust her? It's as if you had no idea of how she felt.”

“I know.”

“Anyway.” She got up from the chair.

“What's going to happen?”

“I don't know. She may need time... She doesn't know what to think at the moment.”

“I've ruined everything. Haven't I?”

“I think she loves you enough to forgive you, if it's any conso-lation. But when, I don't know.”

Harry entered.

“I thought you'd gone home,” I said.

“So did I but I woke up behind the settee.”

“Do either of you feel hungry?” asked Joan.

“Yes, please,” said Harry.

Anne made us some cheese on toast and a cup of tea.

“You'd better stay,” said Joan. “You won't be able to get home otherwise.”

“Ta,” said Harry between the bites.

“Janet's sleeping in your room?” I said to Joan.

Harry looked at me then carried on eating.

“I thumped her up, if you must know.”

“Well, there's a thing now,” he said, cutting into his second round of toast.

The next morning.

I awoke next to Harry. We were in a double bed in a south-facing bedroom. I got out of bed and looked out of the window. The fields rolled away down to the river, and across it I could see my hometown sharply defined in the morning sun.

Harry switched on the radio next to the bed. “Children's Choice” cut into the lifeless-seeming atmosphere of the large bedroom. I lit a cigarette and got dressed.

The memory of the night before lay like lead at the bottom of my stomach. My hangover was only noticeable as a fitting minor parallel to my feelings of sick emptiness.

Harry climbed out of bed and sat on the edge. He was still wearing his shirt. He picked up his detachable rounded collar from the carpet and examined it.

“Is this collar mucky or is it mucky!” he said.

I looked at him. His remark struck me as the funniest remark I had ever heard in my whole life. I laughed and laughed, tears rolling down my face, my laughter empty of body or of point.

Janet and I sat on the edge of her bed. She wore her dressing gown wrapped tightly round her.

“I don't know what I can say. I just don't know.” My voice sounded as though it was issuing across a cold void. Janet said nothing.

“It was because I couldn't trust you. Something in me wouldn't let me. What I said about the last year, about why I went out with you... I don't know why. It wasn't true. Nor about the other girls. You must believe that. But I don't suppose it makes any difference now, whatever I say. It's too late.”

“I don't know what to think.” Her voice was quiet and sounded very young. Her face was pale and she didn't look at me.

“I know. Now you'll never be able to trust me. Not that that's important. What I did last night kills everything, doesn't it?”

“I don't know.”

It seemed as if I had no energy to generate the words I wanted to say and yet to have said them, I felt would have been a further affront to Janet. I couldn't even say I was sorry.

Janet just sat there, numb and silent. I got up from the bed.

“I love you,” I said.

Janet looked at me. I didn't feel the right to touch her and tell her and persuade her to believe me again, so I walked out of the bedroom.

Half-past two. I walked in the back door of our house. I walked through the kitchen down the hall and into the living room. My mother was sitting on the settee drinking her coffee.

“Hello, Victor.”

“Now then, Mother.”

“Have a nice time?”

“Yes, not bad.”

“And Janet?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good.” She got up from the chair. “I expect you'd like something to eat.”

“Yes, please. Any news?” I meant news from the agency that currently had my work.

“No, nothing.”

“I wish they'd make their bloody minds up.”

“So do I and don't swear, love. It's not nice coming from you.”

At one o'clock on the following Tuesday, the telephone rang. My mother went out of the room to answer it. I had just got up and was eating my bacon and egg. My mother put her head round the door.

“It's for you, Victor. Janet.” She smiled. I looked at her for a minute and then got up from my chair. I took the receiver from my mother and sat on the stairs, closing the door as I did so.

“Hello? Janet?”

“Hello, Vic.”

“God, I'm glad you phoned. I really am.”

“Are you?”

“I was going to ring you. Believe me, I've been going to phone you every minute since I left you on Saturday. Sweetheart, I love you. Say you forgive me.”

She laughed.

“Forgive you? Why? I couldn't be more grateful for what happened on Saturday.”

“What do you mean? It was awful.”

“Awful? My God, it was nothing compared to yesterday.”

“Yesterday? Look, why do you say you were grateful for Saturday?”

“Because now I know what you're really like.”

“But Janet, you know why—”

“No, not because of what you did to me on Saturday. It's since then that's been important. What a fool I've been. God, when I think of it, of the way I've been taken in.”

“Janet, please tell me what you're talking about.”

“You. I loved you. You don't know how much. Trust me, you said. I trusted you, Vic. And then—now—” Her voice caught for a second, “and you didn't trust me. It's so funny.”

She began laughing.

“Janet. Tell me.”

She stopped suddenly.

“At college, on Monday morning, they all knew about Saturday. The bedroom door was open and one of the girls had been passing and she heard it all and she told everybody. All the people at college knew. I didn't want to talk about it with them, but I was upset and I sat in the cloakroom all morning, and they tried to cheer me up but they couldn't. I was so miserable. Then they told me about you. They enjoyed every minute.”

Her voice trembled but now there was a hard deliberate edge to it.

“They told me about the last year. They told me about you and—and all the other girls, Vic. The ones you said meant nothing. They told me how many there have been this last year while you've been seeing me. That orgy you were at with the band. How you bragged to Jerry about having me at his place. Everything. Oh Vic. Why? I just sat there and listened to them telling me. I wanted to die. You told me there couldn't be anyone else. You lied. You lied all the time. It was true what you told me in Joan's bedroom. It's meant nothing. You've been laughing at me, cheating me the whole year. And they said you told people at college how it was when we slept together.”

She began to cry.

“Janet, listen, you must listen to me. It's not true. Honestly I—”

“Don't lie anymore. I know it's true. Don't make it worse.”

“Listen to me. Please.”

“No, not anymore. I was a fool to believe you. I'll never believe anything again.”

“They're lying, Janet. They're lying. It was only twice. Only twice.”

“Then it is true. Oh, Vic.”

“It was only twice. Only twice. It didn't mean anything. You know it didn't.”

“It meant something to me. And at the beginning you saw Hilary while you were seeing me for months. And before you left college you'd been seeing a girl called Caroline regularly. I know, Vic. They didn't keep anything back.”

“It's not true, Janet. Bloody hell, listen to me. I had to see Hilary. She threatened all kinds of stupid things she'd do to herself if I didn't. But I only saw her a couple of times. I swear it. And the others: once was with Stella, the night after the Christmas dance—”

“After the Christmas dance! The first time we were together. And the next night—Oh, no.”

“Janet, sweet. Listen. It was because I thought everything would be all over with us. I was so sure. I know it sounds terrible. And the other time was with Caroline but only the once. Just the one time. That thing with the band. That's not true.”

“How am I to believe you now? You lied. You said we should trust each other. I thought it was wonderful, marvellous, the way we were, but you didn't mean anything you said, any of the words you said. It doesn't matter how many times.”

“You don't mean that. You know I love you. I do. I meant everything I ever said.”

“I worshipped you. I thought you were God. Oh, Vic.”

“Janet. Please. I can't tell you over the phone. I can't. I must see you. I'll come over tonight.”

“See me? My God, what do you think I am. See me? No, Vic, you're not going to do that. How could you think I'd want to see you now? Everything's changed. It's over now.”

“No, Janet. Not after this year. You know it isn't.”

“It is. It's too late. There's nothing for you to say. You can't change anything.”