Porky (28 page)

He paused. ‘Home isn't.' He didn't light the match. ‘Not now.'

Lights dazzled us as a car swung out. More people came out of the pub, singing. For a moment I thought his mates were going to come over and tap on the window.

‘What do you mean?' I said dully.

‘Not since you've been gone. Not the same.'

‘There's Teddy,' I said. ‘And Mum.'

‘Don't see so much of Teddy. Always off, he is.' He looked at me. ‘It's yourself I'm talking about.'

There was a silence. I don't know how long it lasted; I didn't dare break it.

Then I heard him draw a breath, his lungs whistling, and he said, ‘Don't seem much point, you see.'

‘What doesn't?' I whispered.

‘Nothing don't. Nothing I do. Not when you're not there to see it.'

Another minute passed.

‘Even . . . getting myself up in the morning. Knowing that little room next to me's empty . . .'

I tried to answer this. Finally I attempted to laugh. ‘You've never been much good at that.'

‘At what?'

‘Getting up in the morning.'

He paused. ‘You know you're the one . . . that mattered. You've always known that, Heth.'

I fiddled with the key. ‘Where are you thinking of moving to?'

‘Might not have behaved myself . . . once or twice. But I'm forgiven now, aren't I?'

I gazed at the steering wheel.

‘All in the past now,' he said. ‘All forgotten now . . . Right?'

‘Oh yes,' I said quickly.

‘Glad about that. See . . . it's been worrying me.'

‘You needn't.' I turned the key, and started the engine. ‘I haven't told my boyfriend.'

‘You what?' He shouted above the motor.

I was reversing now, looking over my shoulder. I said casually, ‘I haven't mentioned anything to him.'

‘You said boyfriend?'

We swung backwards into the road. A car swerved, hooting. I crunched the gear into first.

‘Didn't I tell you?'

‘Tell me what?'

‘I'm living with my boyfriend.' I turned left. Another car hooted, because I'd forgotten to use my indicator.

There was a silence. Then he cleared his throat.

‘You said two girls.'

‘That was to spare your feelings.'

‘Why're you telling me now then?'

‘Well, it's not two girls. It's a boy. We love each other very much.' I was driving badly. I flashed the car in front, to hurry it up. ‘So you see, I'm fine. Needn't worry about me.'

‘You been keeping it from me all this time?'

‘I've got my own life now, Dad. So don't worry about the house.'

He paused. ‘You'll be bringing him home to meet us? You planning on marrying him?' His voice was louder.

I said airily, ‘I might. At the moment we're just living in bliss . . . Getting to know each other.'

I slewed up the drive; we bounced over the potholes.

At last he said, ‘Didn't know about this . . .'

I braked, with a jolt, in the yard. I unstuck myself from the seat; despite the chill I was sweating. ‘I've got my own life now, Dad.' I felt sick with my triumph.

Dad was getting out of the car slowly, like an old man. By the time he stood up I was indoors, where Mum sat watching the telly, and where he could no longer reach me.

ALI AND ME
, living in bliss. That's what I'd told Dad. That's what Ali called it too.

‘We love each other,' he'd say. ‘Don't we?'

It seems years ago, not weeks, that he was talking like this. It's the end of September now. Blank space separates me from our rented rooms. Our own little kitchen, where I stood stirring the saucepans . . . I liked strong, hot curries too, the hotter the better, and for the first time in my life I was cooking proper sit-down dinners . . . That narrow room, rich with the aroma of our false domesticity.

Ali and me, living in bliss . . . his solemn, handsome face in the candlelight. He bought candles for our evening meal. He believed in it all. This was the beginning of our life together, that's what he believed . . . Mutual love, and trust. He longed for me to trust him.

He knew a bit about my past. He tried to trust me about that. A few times, when he was out at work, I leafed through the phone books downstairs and found one or two old contacts. I dressed myself for a lunch date. A couple of Bacardis, that's all I had, but in the evening he could smell my corrupt, boozy breath. He kissed me without flinching, but I knew he felt queasy. Then he'd ask casually,

‘Been out to lunch?'

I nodded and changed the subject. I tortured him by my delay, just as I'd tortured my father by the casual way I spoke in the car.

‘Anyone I know?' Ali asked.

‘We don't know anyone.'

‘I mean . . . anyone special?'

‘No, not special at all.'

He didn't dare ask more. He'd been so ashamed that night, when he'd heaved me over like an animal. Next day he'd bought me five bunches of roses, from the man at the tube station. You know those expensive roses that stay buds and wither as buds, their little heads drooping? They'd drooped around the flat for two weeks, until one of us had the heart to throw them away.

He didn't ask more because his response scared him. Me too. In fact, nothing much had happened on my jaunts. A few drinks, a few hints. On their home ground, English men remember their upbringings.

Out of the country it was different. I flew a lot last August – Singapore, Tokyo, LA. There were more opportunities then, and I'd become bolder. During that period there were several delayed flights. On stopover you're living in limbo anyway, but an overnight delay is even weirder. Time doesn't exist. You have this vacuum of hours to fill and then forget. People do things they'd never dare, otherwise, and afterwards my brain was wiped clean. Sometimes I pictured Ali, dancing like a midge at the edge of my vision. He'd be mouthing words at me but I couldn't hear them. And he was so tiny.

You must hate me now. But I'm not really talking to you, I'm telling this to myself. It's just easier, pretending that there's someone listening. I've made people out of you, to help me . . . I'm still believing that you were once sympathetic.

It could have been such a happy ending, couldn't it? Ali, lifting me away on the wings of true love. He wanted to fly with me to Pakistan, where a house had been built for him. His family would forgive him, real families always do. He told me they would. He said they'd welcome me, if only I brought him home. Already his mother sent us packages of sweetmeats: crumbly marzipan balls that smelt of soap.

He would forgive me my past exploits, the ones he'd heard of. You can imagine the effort this cost him because he was naturally a jealous person, and also terribly proud. But he loved me so deeply he was prepared to do it.

He thought it would be all right; he really did. He believed you could forget the past and start afresh. He thought love could solve it all, because he believed in fairy stories.

The first weeks of September were brilliantly sunny but I stayed in bed most of the time with the curtains closed. We'd been together for four months and he still insisted that he adored me. But I think I knew, by now, that he and I were doomed.

I felt tired all the time; the only emotion I felt was faint surprise that it was taking him so long to find out what I was like. I came back from Frankfurt with bites down my neck. He saw them when I was putting up my hair, ready for a bath.

‘Darling, what's happened to you?'

‘These?' I stood at the mirror. ‘I wish you wouldn't come barging in like that.'

‘But what's happened?'

He stopped abruptly, as he realized.

He paused, then he said in a low voice. ‘That was rather a stupid thing for me to say, wasn't it?'

‘No, it wasn't.'

His voice came closer. ‘Somebody did those. Is that it?'

He grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

‘Tell me the truth!'

‘Ouch!'

His fingernails dug in harder. ‘Go on, tell me!'

‘It wasn't important. I'd had a bit to drink.'

I felt nervous now. I was naked and his nails hurt.

‘What else did he do?'

‘Stop it!'

‘What else? Tell me.'

‘Oh . . . you know. Nothing much.'

He slapped my face, hard. ‘You slut!' he whispered. ‘You whore!'

‘Get away from me!'

I cringed back and sat down, heavily, on the edge of the bath. He grabbed my hair and yanked up my face.

‘How could you?' he hissed. ‘What goes on inside there?' He jabbed at my forehead.

‘Don't!'

‘You're a vandal – know that? Just like your little brother.'

‘Leave Teddy out of it.'

‘But you're worse than him – you do it with people.'

Suddenly he moved away and sat down on the toilet, sobbing. He buried his face in his hands.

‘We can't go on like this,' he said, muffled.

At once I panicked. What had I done? I'd gone too far.

I moved over and knelt beside him. If I lost him, I'd have nobody.

‘Don't say that, Ali. I'm sorry . . . I won't again.'

He grabbed me and held me close, my face pressed against his shirt buttons. It was awkward, but I wouldn't let him go.

‘I try so hard,' he muttered into my hair, ‘to make you love me . . . To understand that funny little mind in there.' He paused. ‘But just when I think we're close – then you go and ruin it. Why do you spoil everything?'

He squeezed me tighter. ‘It's probably my fault . . . I feel such a failure, not satisfying you.'

‘You do . . . Honestly.'

‘But even . . . well, in bed. You don't look at me, you want it dark. You feel . . . so mechanical –'

‘Don't say that!'

‘I must. Darling . . . You do it so beautifully, but mechanically, as if you were ashamed – as if it was dirty.'

‘How can you say that?'

‘There's something so cold in there . . . The way you tease me about – you know, the way I pray, and my ablutions. My gargling. It hurts me
so much.
'

He lifted his head. His face was damp with tears. Mine was dry, because his words frightened me. He kissed my slapped cheek.

‘I shouldn't have said that . . . Will you forgive me?' He touched my cheek. ‘Does it hurt?'

‘No.'

I squeezed him tighter . . . Oh, squeezing is easy. It's the rest that's difficult. Why did I behave this way with him? It was beyond my control.

What am I doing?
I stood on the pavement outside our flat. It always struck me at this moment, when I was outdoors from our life. Beside me the sapling hadn't yet shed its leaves, though they'd been born dead and stayed dead all summer. There was something wrong with that tree; its mystery blight. The leaves hung down, small and brown, twisted like corkscrews.

Mum had brought that pot plant once, remember? Oh yes, we'd watered it, like the council had cared for this tree, but I'd known its leaves would fade yellow, a slimy, translucent yellow, and fall on to the top of the TV set. I'd
known
they would.

I hitched up my shopping and started for the steps. Up on the second floor our curtains were closed, as if the flat knew us too well, and didn't want to see.

I'VE ALWAYS HAD
bad dreams. You know that. I'd be lying in Ali's arms; I should have been safe there. He'd hold me, warm in our nest of blankets. You'd think that he could keep the nightmares away.

Nobody can. You'll lie there, pressed against each other, your legs hooked together, cemented. And the tighter you hold each other, squeezing tighter and tighter, the more you're fooling yourself. Nobody can reach you.

I'd wake slippery-wet and shivering. Ali gripped me, rocking me, talking to me, but nothing could get rid of the dreams. They haunted me for days afterwards. I could will my brain shut, locking it, but the nightmares escaped like poisoned air. I was helpless.

In one I was standing in a lift. There was a little girl beside me, wearing a red party dress that was much too big for her. A man was standing beside her, but I couldn't see his face, the air was misty up there. The lift was going up.

‘She wasn't precious enough, you see,' he was saying. ‘Nobody wanted her.'

I looked at the girl. She seemed perfectly normal . . . at first glance anyway. But as he talked I inspected her again.

His voice went on: ‘. . . So I said to myself: action stations! And isn't she the dinky one now?'

I looked at her again. Now I realized. Her eyes had been dug out. In their place were two red jewels, wedged into the skin – buried there, winking.

‘She's precious now, all right,' said the voice.

‘But she can't see!'

‘They're real rubies, those are.'

‘But she's blind!'

‘Oh yes, they'll all be wanting her now.' The voice, up in the mist, was getting vaguer.

The lift was still rising.

‘Where are you taking her?' I shouted.

No answer. I needed to know, terribly.

‘Where are you taking her?' I shouted, louder.

But the girl turned her back on me, I heard the taffeta rustle, and then I woke.

I'VE HAD NO
dreams tonight, because I've stayed awake in this chair. Outside it's lighter now; I can see the blanket that I've wrapped around myself. It's the brown blanket from my bed. Remember how I used to pull it over my head, so I couldn't hear the noises that my parents made?

No sound from the next room. He'll sleep for hours yet, judging by the amount he drank last night. Teddy's still asleep too. Mum's on the night shift, so she won't be home for a while. The first planes are already taking off; the walls shake when they fly overhead.