Limestone and Clay (11 page)

She sniffs, remembering the rough texture of the rug, its comforting smell, its fringe which she plaited into stiff tufts. She picks up her bike. The front wheel is twisted right round. She straightens it and notices that the chain is broken. It trails like some segmented thing, a fossil worm. Useless. ‘Shit,' Nadia says. ‘Shit, shit, shit.' She picks the chain up gingerly between her fingers and pulls the rest of it off. She puts it in the saddle bag and, hobbling a little, begins to wheel the bike the rest of the way to the pub.

‘You must be joking, mate,' Miles says. ‘It's been pissing down all week.'

‘Yes, well.'

‘Maybe next month?'

‘Maybe.'

‘How about a pint?'

‘No … Nadia, you know.'

‘She OK?'

‘OK.'

‘See you then.'

‘See you.' Simon puts down the telephone. Miles is right. What is the matter with him, he wonders, that he could have seriously contemplated …? And where the bloody hell is Nadia?

He might as well eat since she's not here. He's ravenous. Eat what? Should he cook for her? He puts on the kettle and surveys what's in the fridge. There is all the stuff he bought yesterday, the food he'd be eating if he was going caving. Well, why not? It is the food associated with caving that is one of its pleasures for Simon. As many calories as possible, hot, greasy comfort foods before and after. He eats bread and jam while his bacon and sausages sizzle in the pan. When they're nearly done he breaks in a couple of eggs. Nadia will be angry. She'll have planned something else, no doubt, realising that he's not going. Of course she's realised that, otherwise she'd be here, nagging and whinging. The voice of doom. He turns the eggs over and breaks both yolks. He swears, squeezes the bacon and sausages over to one side, slaps some more fat into the pan and adds a slice of bread.

While he's waiting he takes a stack of exercise books from his bag. He's planned badly this weekend. Thirty essays on Demographic Problems in the Third World to plough through, and a batch of badly drawn maps of the shopping arcade near the school. However did he come to be a geography teacher? What is Celia's definition of geography? The reduction of the fascinating and particular into the tedious and general. Cutting the world down to size – the size of a curriculum. But then she gave up teaching for something far more lucrative. Perhaps it's time for a change.

He tips the frying pan so that the hot greasy mass of food slithers onto his plate. He pours brown sauce on top, hitting the base of the bottle with the heel of his hand. If he
were
going … as he swallows he feels a lump rise in his throat as if to meet the food, so he has to swallow hard to get it down. It is a strange sensation – reminiscent of he doesn't know what. He eats all the food, speeding up, drinking great gulps of tea hot enough to scald his mouth.

Bloody Nadia. He'll give her a fright. He'll go out, take his stuff as if he's gone. And then what? He'll go for a drive, he's too restless anyway to stick around this evening. Nadia will be so smug. What would they do? The cinema? Most likely she's planned a meal. Well tough luck. He finds that he's blaming Nadia for his disappointment. Illogical. But still.

Resolved to go out, he washes quickly and dresses as if for caving, putting his jeans and shirt over his thermal undersuit. He picks up the rest of his gear, even stopping to fill his water bottle. If Nadia returns now, he'll feel a berk. He leaves a note. Nothing specific.
See you soon, sleep well, love Simon
. Leave her wondering. Silly cow. He hurries downstairs looking this way and that – she is not in sight. He gets into his car and drives away.

The single room that Nadia is shown into faces the road and the bleak darkening hills beyond. The pub is on a bend, an accident blackspot; cars veer dangerously past, headlamps swinging past the window.

‘Thanks,' says Nadia. ‘This is fine.'

‘Well, I'll leave you to it, dear,' says the landlady. She is a big smart woman with a hairdo as stiff and snowy as a meringue. Nadia's teeth grit against the pungency of her lacquer. She goes out, giving Nadia a doubtful look. No wonder. Nadia is wet, shivering, pathetic. It is chilly in the cramped room, which has a damp unaired feel, as if it has been empty and unheated all winter. Nadia hangs her cagoule on the back of a chair. She pulls her woollen jumper over her head and squeezes it over the sink. She hangs it on the radiator. Her jeans are soaked too, and ripped at the knees. She didn't notice before, they were so muddy and stuck to her skin. She peels them off her goosepimpled bluish legs, cursing herself for her stupidity in not bringing a change of clothes. She is effectively imprisoned in this room now until her things are dry. It is a miserable room. Just right, she thinks, looking at the limp olive curtains and the tin waste-paper bin with its pattern of racehorses. On a squat table is a kettle, at least, and some sachets of coffee, powdered milk and teabags.

Nadia fills the kettle, awkwardly twisting it to fit the straight spout under the twisty little tap. She turns the lukewarm radiator up and is startled by its fierce clanking. The back of her T-shirt is damp but she keeps it on. In her rush she didn't even think to bring a nightdress. She wraps a starchy towel round her shoulders and climbs into bed with her cup of tea. Yellowish blobs of undissolved milk-powder float on the surface. She wonders what Iris could read into these. She has nothing to read – didn't think to bring a book. There is nothing here but a Gideon Bible and a pile of pamphlets advertising local attractions: a tram museum, a sculpture park, a stately home, illuminated show caves. Fun for the tourist. She begins to cry.

As Simon's car swooshes along the wet road, he reflects on how many rules he would be breaking if he was actually to go underground tonight. No sane caver would attempt it in this weather. Suicide, some would call it, if they didn't appreciate how well Simon knows the cave system, didn't realise the extent of his skill. Never venture underground alone – well, that is a rule made to be broken. A rule for the uninitiated. Always inform others of your whereabouts. Nadia knows, or will when she returns and reads his note. If he
was
going to do it, he would be covered in that way. As it is, all he is doing is driving. He might stop and look at the entrance to Curlew since he's going that way. Rehearsing, one might say, enacting the possibility. He switches on the radio and music swells, a voice urges him to tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree and he laughs and joins in, feeling suddenly idiotic and free. He drives very fast, on the edge of danger, turns up the music. It
is
almost freedom. He swallows and recognises now the lump in his throat: once he played truant, flagrantly walking past the school, flaunting the rules. Then, as now, he had this difficulty swallowing. He laughs at himself, a grown man, a teacher now himself, a deputy head possibly, before long, if he sticks with it. He swings past a pub on a dangerous bend. Its windows are dull rectangles of light. He considers stopping for a pint but the pub is behind him before he's decided. He doesn't want to turn back, this rushing forward is thrilling.

No alcohol for twenty-four hours before a caving expedition, that is the strict – largely ignored – rule. It is good to be alone – but if only he could be going underground this evening. Though, of course, if he was going underground he wouldn't be alone. Miles and Celia would be in the car. Or Miles, at least. And they would talk trivially, laugh, find humour in the slightest thing in the suppressed excitement of their anticipation.

It is another planet underground. There are places where no human foot has ever trodden, which no human eye has ever seen. Cave exploration is pioneering. The idea makes him feel grand. There is dignity in discovery.

Roland must have felt this on his last journey, driving on this road. Not in this weather, of course, and not in the evening. Afterwards his movements had been pieced together: he'd set out on an early morning in June – the longest day. Simon imagines the tender pearly blue of the sky, the trembling newness. How Roland's heart must have thudded at this adventure. The ultimate challenge of a solo descent. What fineness! What pride he must have felt. And fear perhaps – for Roland knew the risk he was taking. For glory, Nadia would say, a sneer in her voice, as if glory was a petty thing, a paper rosette to pin on your chest. But Nadia is simply wrong. There
would
be a sort of glory in a solo discovery – once it was known – but glory wouldn't be the main thing. Not the nub of the achievement. That would be personal. That would be private, would be … oh what would it be? There would be a growth, an inner growth, a spiritual growth. Simon is uncomfortable in the realms of the metaphysical. He changes gear unnecessarily and shifts in his seat. But it
would
be something beyond the physical. It would be an expansion, a new knowledge of self, of the limits of endurance … the pitting of self against nature … he squirms, imagining Nadia's hilarity if only she could hear his thoughts. However. There is something, something he hasn't the vocabulary for, which is worth the risk of life. For Roland this had to be undertaken alone, it could not be a shared experience, for a shared experience is – however extraordinary – rendered common by the sharing. Simon understands this now. Forgives Roland for leaving him out.

Nadia holds the bedclothes up to her chest. Headlamps flit across the room. She has left it too late to murder Simon. She should have done it immediately. She should have waited for him in the kitchen, a smile on her face, a knife behind her back. The anger was there, and the strength. Now the strength has gone. The impulse to flee, then, was what made the difference between herself and a killer. Now the moment has gone. But one iota less resolve – a hesitation; the telephone ringing; stopping to find out what Iris wanted – any of these things and Simon would be a dead man. Might be. Oh so melodramatic! But all the same, it happens. She picks up the little plastic-covered New Testament and Psalms. At the beginning it has a list of topics for guidance. Where to find help when: Afraid, Attacked, Bereaved, Bitter, Choosing a Career, Conscious of Sin, Contemplating Marriage, Contemplating Revenge – she pauses at this one – Desperate, Distressed. So much to choose from, right through the alphabet to ‘You Have Left Home'. There is nothing beginning with Z to suffer from, it seems. She cannot choose from the headings, so she opens the book randomly, lets her fingers pick a verse from a psalm and reads:

My companion attacks his friends
;

he violates his covenant
.

His speech is smooth as butter
,

Yet war is in his heart
;

His words are more soothing than oil
,

yet they are drawn swords
.

Ha! Some comfort! She throws the book across the room where it hits the radiator and falls, open, on the floor.

What is he doing now, her oily companion? Missing her, pacing the flat? Or, more likely, waiting, unconcerned, feet up in front of the television, a can of beer beside him. Perhaps he is cooking her a meal. Or perhaps Celia has rung and told him that Nadia knows his secret. Perhaps they are together, fair heads touching, regretting the past, pitying Nadia. She grits her teeth. There's nothing to stop the two of them getting together. Now there's the baby, the future baby. Perhaps they'll fall in love again. How
could
Simon? How
could
he fuck Celia and then come home to Nadia with never a word or a sign? Did he come home and fuck her too? Did he hope to score twice, two successful impregnations in one night? Oh, what a stud he must have felt!

Again she feels the urge to stab. Interesting that it doesn't give ‘Contemplating Murder' as an option in the Bible.

She realises what Iris must have been waving at her – her Amazon eyeshadow. She snorts at the perfect irrelevance, typical somehow of Iris. There is the smell of cooking, the sizzling fatty odour of chips. Her room is directly above the kitchen, and occasionally a puff of steam wafts up from the small window beneath and clouds her own. Even if she was hungry she could not go and eat, not yet, not with her clothes all wet. Even if they were dry she could not face the thought of eating in a public place alone. She cannot face the thought of food at all, not with the embers in her belly still glowing.

Someone beginning with J will have a lump, Iris said. Suddenly it comes to her that her mother begins with J – she is called June. How curious that this hasn't occurred to her before. She thinks back to the last time she saw June. It was after her father had died, quite shortly after, at her mother's wedding. June had married an Australian called Pierre. They married in England before they flew away to set up home in Sydney, near Pierre's daughters and grandchildren. Nadia recalls the hurried little ceremony, her mother in an unlikely flowered hat strangling some freesias, the few embarrassed relatives eating vol-au-vents and searching for topics of conversation that avoided Nadia's father or the funeral only nine months before – where they had unfortunately been treated to an almost identical repast. Now June is widowed again and back in England, and, if Iris is to be believed, developing a lump.

Nadia lies down, curls her knees up to her chest. She is cold despite the radiator and the blankets. Her hair is still damp. Her skin feels chapped. The fatty kitchen odour mingles with the smell of drying clothes. Her palms and her knees sting. She doesn't know where Simon is or what he is doing or thinking. She has cut herself off. She cannot even telephone. Tears that feel surprisingly hot leak from her eyes. All she can do now is try to sleep. But how can she when the anger still lurks? It comes in waves, like labour, she supposes, a rhythm. That is how it works. No one can be angry every second. It ebbs and flows. When it ebbs she is engulfed in self-pity, but when she thinks about her predicament and why she is in it and how she has been betrayed it flows, it flashes, it flames.