Family of Women (42 page)

Alan raised a hand in salute, though he didn’t smile.

‘ ’Llo,’ he said gruffly.

‘Hello. How’s your mom?’

‘All right. Same really. Let’s go, eh?’

She swung her leg over the saddle and soon they were speeding north out of the estate, up past Pheasey and out into the country. Linda was filled with the usual sense of elation, the two of them like king and queen of the world, the rushing air, like flying away from everything, the sun, hanging between zenith and evening, hot on their faces.

‘Where’re we going?’ she yelled.

He shouted something back that sounded like ‘Anywhere’, but she couldn’t hear. Now he had the bike he always seemed to want to get right out of town, to the middle of nowhere. Fancies himself as the Lone Ranger, she thought. Only he wants me there too.
Needs
me, as he kept saying. She hugged her arms tighter round him.

He had his canvas bag resting on his thigh, the strap across his back. She slid her hand down and felt the hard bottle shape inside, and was immediately uneasy. The bike swerved and she quickly held on tight round his waist again. That fear again, like it had been with Dad.
Don’t let him drink too much . . . Please don’t let him.

They passed the last of the sprawling new estates and headed into the countryside. It was such a beautiful afternoon, wheat and barley ripe and gold in fields stretching away from the road and tucked around green hills and clumps of dark trees. She saw that they were back close to where they had been last week, and soon Alan stopped and they found a beautiful sloping spot, where they left the bike tucked in by the hedge and walked a bit further up.

Alan took her hand and it felt nice, that they belonged together, just the two of them.

‘Did your dad go with you today?’ she asked as they found a place to be.

‘Nope.’ Alan swung the bag round and lifted the strap over his head. He put it in his lap and uneasily she saw him take out the bottle. For a moment she thought it was a bottle of water, then read the label: Vodka, this time.

‘He’s not here,’ Alan said, unscrewing the cap. He spoke in a tight voice, as if he was keeping angry emotion under control. ‘He’s in America.’ He took a swig from the bottle.

‘
America?
’

‘Some institute in Boston. He’s working with Dr Rutenburg – Stanley’s dad. He wouldn’t take me with him, the mean old sod. Said I didn’t deserve a free trip at his expense after all the trouble I’ve caused. That I need to knuckle down and stick it out with my job.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘In a sweet shop!’ That was the latest thing.

‘Maybe next time he goes . . .’

She felt so angry for him. There he was, alone in the house with just that housekeeper coming in. Dr Bray acted as if he didn’t even have a son! Even her own father had paid a bit more attention to them all. Once he was sick, anyway, and couldn’t drink. She thought of he i aaaaale I& Heim staggering to Joyce’s wedding, looking like a ghost. Dr Bray probably wouldn’t even notice if Alan got married.

‘He won’t ever take me,’ Alan said flatly. ‘He just won’t – I know it.’

He swigged at the bottle, drinking as if it was water. Linda didn’t want to see. She stared down between her knees. There were ants, a tobacco-brown line of them.

‘Your mom,’ she said gently. ‘Did you tell her your dad was away?’

There was a long silence. Alan twitched one knee up and down. Tersely, he said, ‘No. It wasn’t much of a conversation.’

She dared to touch his arm. ‘Why not?’

‘She just – what she was saying. It didn’t make any sense. And her face . . .’ Suddenly he was struggling not to cry, his face working. ‘I’ve never seen her as bad. I don’t think she’ll ever get better . . .’

‘Oh, surely she will!’ Linda said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

‘What do you know?’ he snarled. ‘It won’t happen just because you say so!’

‘I know . . . sorry . . . I didn’t mean it like that.’

After a minute he rubbed his arm across his face and said, ‘Sorry.’ Anxiously he turned to her. ‘I love you.’

‘Love you too.’

In the hedge, close behind them, were flowering nettles. She picked one, thinking of Lucy Etheridge who had told her the stems of the flowers taste sweet, like honey. There had been some in Lucy’s garden.

She plucked the pale flowers and sucked.

‘Here – try,’ she said to Alan.

He put the ends of two in his mouth.

‘Can’t taste anything. Too much of this.’ He patted the bottle and drank again. She wanted to tell him to stop, but didn’t dare.

‘Want some?’ He held it out to her. She shook her head.

‘Have you finished your script yet?’

‘No.’

Something in the way he said it stopped her asking any more. She wanted to talk about being out here last week, about what had happened and how it mustn’t happen again, but his mood was so low and he felt so distant from her that she didn’t dare.

After a moment he put the bottle down and put his arms round her, lips searching for hers. He kissed her hard, desperately. Sometimes she almost felt he was trying to suck the life out of her. His arms were tight round her and they tumbled back, lying there wrapped round each other.

‘Don’t ever leave me, will you he ` ifyv he?’ He stared deep into her. He had ‘drink eyes’ already, glazed, too intense.

‘Not if I can help it,’ she said. But she felt helpless suddenly, and frightened. Whatever he needed from her it felt too much. She loved him so much that it was an ache inside her, but now, when he was like this, she just wanted to get up and run away from him.

They slept for a time, in each other’s arms. When Linda woke and stiffly sat up, the sun had sunk to orange, a last half-circle of it disappearing as if into the fields in the far distance. The sky was turning a mauvish blue. Alan was still asleep. She picked up the bottle, holding it up in the dim light. He had drunk a good half of it and she could tell by his breathing that he was very deeply asleep. He looked as if he might stay that way for hours. She looked at his sleeping face, feeling like a mother looking down at a baby. Even Mrs Bray had asked her to look after him.

Then she panicked. What time was it? She was really going to get it from Mom if she wasn’t back on time tonight! Alan had a watch and she leaned over him to look at it. A quarter past eight. They’d better get going.

‘Al – Al!’ She tugged at him, shook him, wondering in panic for a moment if he was actually unconscious and she wouldn’t be able to rouse him. Eventually he opened his eyes and stared ahead as if he was blind, then up at the pale sky, not seeming able to focus. How were they going to get back with him in this state?

‘Alan – come on. It’s getting on for half past eight.’

His eyes rested on her and to her relief he seemed more alert.

‘How long’ve I been asleep?’ he asked, muzzily.

‘I dunno – an hour? Maybe more. But we need to go.’

Alan sat up and reached for the bottle again.

‘No!’ She tried to snatch it but he pulled it out of her grasp. ‘Don’t have any more, for God’s sake!’

‘Need a drink.’

There was something lost about him, as if he had let go and fallen from a great height and was now lying crushed with nothing else to lose.

He drank, then got up, staggering.

‘Come on then.’

She didn’t feel too well herself, especially once they were walking. Everything seemed distant and her head hurt, a hard ache in her left temple, and she was queasy. The thought of the ride ahead was dreadful.
I don’t feel safe
, she thought hazily. But how else was she going to get home from the middle of nowhere?

He started off slowly. It was going to
be all right, she decided, relaxing, her cheek pressed to his back. He was talking, but she couldn’t hear him. He started to pick up speed, and she could feel he was flinging out words with a violence which vibrated right through him.

‘What?’ she yelled. ‘I can’t hear you!’

He didn’t turn or say anything to her. Then she realized he was cursing and swearing, she could feel the force of the words, and knew he was in a world of his own and she might just as well not have been there. She was really frightened then.

‘Al – slow down!’

Instead they were picking up more speed, the bike going full throttle so that it began to judder, the light of the lamp jerking in the dusk.

‘Al – for God’s sake – you’ll kill us!’

She was tugging at him, her legs gripping so tightly to the saddle she felt as if the bones in her groins would crack.

‘Al, please – you’re scaring me!’ She started sobbing, hitting at his back, but he didn’t seem to hear whatever she did, and her cries cut out to a terrified gasp as the bike bumped into a hole in the road and he only just managed to keep it upright.

‘Stop . . .!’ She hated him suddenly for making her so afraid, just wanting to get off and be anywhere but on this hellish machine where she had no control and he didn’t seem to care about her at all. But there was no getting off, as they swung along the curved road up a hill, the night air beating against them and hedges, trees, gateways flashing past in a blur. She closed her eyes and buried her face against his back, crying to deaf ears for him to stop.

She felt, rather than saw, the bike reach the brow of the hill, and with a lurch inside her she knew that on the downhill it would go even faster. There was a bump at the top which left her stomach hanging sickeningly somewhere in the air, and then she felt them pick up speed even more, rushing downwards, ever faster, terrifying.

At the point when Alan lost control of the bike, she felt it at once. All she saw, opening her eyes, was the blur of faint outlines and darkness, but she felt the bike veer and hit the verge and a cry come out of her mouth and then she was wrenched away from Alan, being flung through the air, her arms and legs heavy, out of their element, then falling until the hard ground slammed into her from below.

‘You can see him now – just for a few minutes.’

The nurse led her along the ward to a bed where Alan was lying with his eyes closed.

‘He’s very drowsy,’ she whispered. ‘I doubt you’ll get much out of him.’

It was a shock. They’d told Linda what his injuries were, but the right side of his face was so bruised and swollen she could barely recognize him. There was something under the bedclothes, holding the weight of them off his legs, and above the line of the sheet she could see bandages round his left shoulder, up into his neck.

‘He’s in a mess,’ the nurse added disapprovingly. ‘He’s broken both legs, there are at least three cracked ribs and he’s dislocated his shoulder. He’s lucky it’s not worse.’

Linda sat on the chair by the bed, nursing her left arm in its sling. She had got away with scratches and bruises and a broken wrist, on which she had landed after being flung high away from the bike as it crashed. Alan had evidently clung tightly to it and gone down with it, he and the bike cartwheeling over together, and Alan ending up with it on top of him.

The ward was full of evening bustle, but she was oblivious to it. Her arm ached inside the cast and her head was throbbing. She had to move about very cautiously. Of course, they’d drunk a lot last night. When she came to, lying on the lumpy surface of the field, it had been pitch dark. All she could hear were night sounds: an owl, a car in the far distance, and her own heart. She was sure she’d heard that, thumping like a drum. She could remember lying there in the dark, gradually feeling colder. Nothing hurt, not until later. She was numb. Her head was all foggy, and although she thought about getting up, she never could seem to make her limbs move to do it. Vaguely, as if it was a dream, she wondered where Alan was. After a time she fell asleep, half waking on and off through the night, cold, but sinking back into unconsciousness again.

All she knew next was that it was dawn, and misty and she was wet. When she opened her eyes, everything seemed white – the sky and air – except for the black trousers of the man standing over her, accompanied by the hot breath of a brown dog.

‘Hello?’ the man was saying. ‘Miss – can you hear me?’

It seemed a queer question.

‘Yes,’ she said impatiently. ‘Course I
can.’

‘You’ve had an accident – you and your friend. You look in better nick than he does.’

His car was parked by the road and he went and called an ambulance. All day she had been in Good Hope Hospital, getting patched up, sleeping. Her hands and face were scratched and she felt bruised all over. They said the police would tell her mother what had happened. And Alan’s father. But of course, she remembered, Alan’s father wasn’t going to be back for two more days.

She was about to lean forward and speak to Alan, but stopped herself. She wanted to let him sleep – he’d be more hung-over than her – but it was more than that. She wanted to look, to
see
him, while he was not looking back at her. Last night, on the bike, he had cancelled her out as if she wasn’t even there. He hadn’t cared about her fear. It had cut something off in her.

He looked fragile, that was her first thought. Such a skinny boy and so defenceless lying there. A wave of tenderness went through her, wanting to stroke his forehead, his dark hair, to comfort him, but she still held back. Mixed with her tenderness was a great sense of weariness. There were so many thoughts she had not allowed herself while she was with Alan. About him, and even more about herself. She had felt wanted, honoured, by the way he clung to her, needed her help, her love, to heal him. But all that had happened was him sinking, drinking more and more. She could never truly help, never be enough. Something caved in in her as she stared at him under the bald light of the ward. All his dreams were his escape from pain, but he would never finish a script for a film, never go and work in America. Would he ever be able to make something of his life, or just spiral down into the hurt ski ` d. her whatof it, taking her with him? And hadn’t she taken shelter in him, used him as a reason to limit herself? It had felt so right, so exciting to begin with. Now all she could feel was the hurt and hopelessness of it.