Come Clean (1989) (20 page)

‘Can we go upstairs?’

She made sure there was no pause before she answered. ‘I should think so. Wait.’ She went to lock the garden door and turn the deadlock on the front.

‘Are you certain it’s okay?’ he said.

‘Of course.’ It was another step. He had come into her house for the first time, and they would make love here for the first time, but what did the venue matter? Although she might
have resented Ralph being on their ground, Ian was another matter. Oh, yes, very much another matter. He did not belong either, but she could have wished he did. Perhaps to be with him in the house
was a new and bigger betrayal, a special kind of symbolic blow to the marriage, but there had already been enough blows to knock most of the life out of it. She wished she could think of another
word than blow, and almost smiled.

As lightly as she could manage she said: ‘This is pretty scary, going into our bedroom.’

‘It really bothers you?’

‘I’m surprised, but, yes, it really bothers me.’

‘Well, let’s use another one.’

‘No. A room’s a room, a bed’s a bed, nothing more. I shouldn’t think I’m the first wife to do this. They say Harpur’s lady – Oh, but you don’t
know these people, and I shouldn’t gossip.’ By insisting on this room she was again trying to make up to him for what she had said to Margot, but he could not be told that. It was like
a re-affirmation, and had to be powerful and glaring, strong enough to rout all scruples. Wow, this fuck had taken on symbolism. But, then, so did many others. Crossing the room quickly, past the
unmade bed, she pulled the curtains over. Perhaps the neighbours would be intrigued by that, too, but never mind.

In fact, to coin a phrase, stuff them. She knew what was happening to her and felt almost entirely grateful: the fierce, glory-filled, juvenile disregard for most of those customary restraints
among which she usually lived had taken over again. Not bad in someone going on strong for thirty-seven, and before ten o’clock on a chilly morning. So as not to appear ludicrously eager or
hungry she took her clothes off at a decently methodical pace, like someone in a general changing room, but it was difficult, and it was a disguise, because she did feel eager and hungry. The
conversation with Margot seemed even more unbelievable now. Where were the doubts she had felt about him, and the resentments? Hadn’t they been miserably trivial, a reflection on herself, not
Ian? She was on one leg, rolling her tights and knickers down, and staggered slightly: could that be the unbalancing impact of penitence – for misjudging Ian, not because she was about to
take him into the marriage bed? The thought made her giggle.

‘What?’ Ian said.

‘You’re looking very, very well.’

‘It’s cod liver oil or malt.’

‘Oh, thanks. I thought it was me.’

‘Well, you do come into it.’

‘No.
You
come into it.’

‘Oh; God, are you being coarse again? Which side does he sleep on?’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll take the other.’

‘
Quelle délicatesse
.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘It means you’re full of surprises, Ian.’

‘But you’re bothered about it, too. You said so.’

‘I was. Now, no. This is my bed and I want my lover in it. What could be more natural than that? It’s not complete until you’ve been here.’

He lifted the duvet and moved in beside her. ‘I’ve missed you rotten,’ he said, stroking her face.

‘Yes, it hurts, doesn’t it? Worse for me. Half the time, I don’t know where you are, but you can always find me.’ Expertly, she climbed on top of him. ‘May
I?’ She guided him into her, and everything was so right, and such a reproach for all the time they wasted not together.

‘Astraddle? You’ve seen
My Beautiful Launderette
.’

‘Actually, I knew about this sort of thing before.’

‘That so? Well, it
is
beautiful.’

‘Yes, it is.’ She began to move on him, slowly.

‘Oh, yes, yes, love,’ he said. But in a moment he rolled her over, without separating, and kissed her on the ears and neck and nose, gazing down at her. ‘I’m so used to
looking at you from here.’

‘Ian, stay with me,’ she whispered. ‘Try not to leave me like that again.’

‘All right.’

She put her arms around his waist and gripped her own wrist, locking him to her and pulling him harder against her body.

He said: ‘Sarah, I –’

‘I don’t want to talk now.’

‘No. Right.’

But after a while she found herself muttering between her fine, animal grunts of pleasure, ‘Alive, yes, alive.’

‘What?’

‘I feel alive.’

‘True.’

‘In this bed, I don’t, usually. But I’m entitled, aren’t I?’

‘Of –’

‘Didn’t I say I don’t want to talk?’

‘
You’ve
been talking.’

‘Bloody nit-picker.’ She unclasped her wrist and ran her palms up over his back and shoulders, then down his sides and his hips, beating the bounds, as she liked to think of it,
marking out ownership.

He seemed to sense what she was doing: ‘And your legs,’ he said. ‘Haven’t I told you how much I like that?’

She wrapped them around him, her heels digging into the back of his thighs.

Later on, when they were resting, she said: ‘And speaking of films, this – you and me, here, in this meaningful bed – this is our answer to that flabby and fashionable bloody
homily,
Fatal Attraction
, the bloated monogamy ad.’

‘Is it? Is that what it is? If it hasn’t been on telly I haven’t seen it.’

‘That lingering shot of the family photograph at the end. Holy smarmy matrimony. God.’

‘Yes? It upset you?’

Yes, it had upset her, and she hissed: ‘Yanks. What a people. Always have to assert the pieties. Just think of
The Caine Mutiny
.’

‘The what? How does that come into it? Bogart? The yellow captain called –?’

‘At the end the supposed great radical lawyer, Jose Ferrer, must suddenly turn round and say the monster Queeg was right all the time, because he was the captain, the law and order
man.’ Occasionally, she liked to cut loose, range a bit, to show Ian she had a mind.

But he had a mind, too, in his way. ‘I thought law and order was your pay packet.’

That she ignored. ‘It’s a nothing, burger culture, the States. Christ, they’ve even got a wine burger.’

‘What? Oh, I see, Weinberger.’

‘And they –’ Someone rang the door bell very hard and long. They lay silent. The ring was repeated, and then repeated again.

‘Who?’ he whispered.

She shrugged. ‘Not Des. He’s got a key.’ Play it as a joke, even if she did not feel like laughing: ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses?’

‘It’s that bastard, Ralph?’

‘Ralph? He wouldn’t come here.’

‘But no time ago you thought he
was
here. In the kitchen, you did. What goes on, Sarah? Tell me, now, honestly – honestly – it’s him?’ He gripped her wrist
hard, as she had gripped it herself not long ago, to fix her to him and make her feel they belonged to each other, despite everything. That was not his object. He wanted to hurt her. His voice,
although so subdued, suddenly had all that roughness and suspicion in it once more.

‘Let go,’ she told him. ‘I’ll try to see.’

But he did not release her. ‘Wait.’

There was another long peal on the bell and then the sound of someone rapping a glass panel in the door with a coin.

‘How do you mean, he wouldn’t come here?’ he asked.

‘Not to the door, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Where then? He does come here, but not to the door. Is that what you’re saying? What goes on?’

‘No, he doesn’t come here,’ she muttered wearily. ‘He lurked in the street. Once.’ They lay silent again for a few moments. He still held her wrist.
‘Gone?’ she said.

‘Maybe. He could have trailed me here. He’s sharp.’

‘They’ve given up,’ she said. But immediately then they heard someone try the rear door, and, when it did not open, start to shake it. She reached down to prise his fingers
apart. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’ll try to see.’ This time he allowed her to free herself and she swiftly left the bed and went out naked on to the landing, where there
was a window overlooking the garden and rear door. Approaching it carefully from the side, she glanced out, and saw Margot walking hesitantly down the garden towards the wilderness.

Sarah went back to the bedroom. It’s all right. One of my friends.’ Swiftly, she began to dress. ‘I’ll have to go and see her.’

‘Which friend?’

‘Just a friend. Margot.’

‘You never mentioned her.’

‘Didn’t I?’ No, there had never seemed a reason to tell Ian she was taking expert advice about her marriage, and there seemed no reason now.

‘Why go and see her? She’ll give up and leave, won’t she?’

‘She might be worried. My car’s there, so I ought to be in. She’ll be puzzled.’

‘Well, so bloody what?’

After what had been said on the telephone Margot might be perturbed enough to call Desmond. ‘I think I’d better see her. Ian, you stay.’

‘We shouldn’t have gone to bed here. It was bound to turn out wrong.’

‘Ian, you sound like
Fatal Attraction
, as if we’re being punished for something. It’s not the Day of Judgement.’

‘Talk sense, will you, for Christ’s sake – about us, here, now, not fucking make-believe movies.’

To see Ian so ravaged by panic sickened her and her uncertainties about him were coming to the boil yet again. She went from the room and downstairs. Margot had returned to the front and was
ringing the bell once more and, this time, calling Sarah’s name softly through the letter box.

She opened the door. ‘If you’d shouted before, I’d have come. I thought it was double-glazing, something like that.’

‘You’re all right?’

‘Of course.’

Margot came in. ‘Your call – I was damn worried.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

Margot spoke rapidly. ‘I drove up just to look at the house from outside, check you were all right. I wasn’t going to stop, but then, in your road – Sarah, some men hanging
about in a car.’

‘What men?’

‘Lord knows. But as if they were watching the house.’

‘Where?’

‘Twenty or thirty yards along.’

Oh, God. Again she wanted to scream out and ask what she had let herself in for. Maybe, after all, Ian was right to be so tense and changeable. Fright had started to affect her own ability to
think properly. ‘You’re sure?’

‘That’s how it looked, Sarah. These were men I wouldn’t want hanging about near my house.’ Today she was almost smartly dressed, like a manageress or high-calibre
secretary, in a light tweed suit and half-heeled shoes, not the trainers. ‘They watched my every move, really staring, you know, watched until they saw I’d noticed them. Then, all of a
sudden, they became, oh, so very busy, heads down, pretending to examine papers or something.’

Sarah took her into the living room and they sat down. ‘How many men, Margot? What did they look like?’

‘Two. One grey-haired but not old. Thin. The other fair, burly. I didn’t see him so well.’

Sarah wanted to ask whether the grey-haired man wore rimless glasses, like the one at the Monty, but decided it was best to act dumb.

Margot gazed about the room and then up at the ceiling for a time, as if she could see through it. ‘Ian’s here, isn’t he?’ she said, gently.

‘What? What are you talking about? In the house?’

‘Now, come on, Sarah – the delay in answering, curtains over, and you look like somebody who’s just got out of bed, not after sleeping, either.’

‘My God, Margot, would I risk –?’

She smiled at the objections. ‘Bringing him here is some sort of symbolic act?’

Sarah gave in. ‘Actually, the act felt quite real.’

‘Nice.’

‘He’s in danger, Margot. Those men in the street.’

‘They’re looking for him?’

‘Most likely.’

‘And for you?’

‘It’s possible.’ She walked to the window. The sitting room was in the front of the house, but hedges at the end of the garden prevented her from seeing the road outside.
‘Margot, what can I do?’

‘They know he’s here?’

‘I don’t think so. No, they’d be there to follow me, in case I could lead to his hiding place. As if he’d tell me.’

Margot stood up and seemed about to cross the room to her. But she remained near her chair. ‘Oh, please don’t be miserable, Sarah. He’s bound to be like that. It’s a life
and death habit, really it is. There would be nobody he trusts absolutely.’ Margot thought for a moment. ‘If you drove out, drew them off somewhere, Ian could –’

Sarah held up a hand to silence her. From upstairs had come the faint sound of movement and then a little while afterwards what could have been someone in the kitchen, although she heard nothing
on the stairs. Hurriedly, she left Margot and ran up to the bedroom. Ian was no longer there, and his clothes had gone. She checked the other upstairs rooms, without success, and then rushed back
down, yelling his name frantically. Margot came out and stood in the hall, her face anxious and sympathetic. In the kitchen, Sarah found the rear door open and she continued out into the garden,
but saw nobody. Sprinting across the lawn, she made for the wilderness again, still calling him. Yes, stuff the neighbours. This was two men’s names they could puzzle about now, neither of
them her husband’s. Although she did another search among the bushes and trees she did not find him. The fence was too high for her to look over, but he could have gone that way.

Margot joined her: ‘I thought you had doubts about wanting him.’

‘What? Which doubts? What are you talking about? Where is he? He could get killed, for God’s sake. He doesn’t know those people are waiting.’

‘They’re at the front of the house.’

‘The ones we know about are. How many others? This is a gang, you know. Anyway, which way did he leave? He’s not here. He might have gone around the side and up the drive into
Rougemont Place.’

‘Would he?’

Margot’s calm and logic enraged her. ‘Christ, how do I know?’ she shouted and ran back over the lawn, then went to the side of the house and up the drive towards the street.
Outside, Rougemont Place appeared as terminally sedate as ever. Margot followed again. ‘Where?’ Sarah asked. ‘Where’s this car with the men?’