Seahorses Are Real (12 page)

By the time the key turned in the lock she was wound up to a pitch of such intensity she could barely think straight, let alone lie in a position that convincingly looked like sleep. She'd forgotten how loud a drunk could be: puffy little breaths, snorts, trips, farts, burps, hummy little skips – he'd had a whale of a time by the sound of things whereas she... He seemed to take an age getting up the stairs and she lay there stiff as a board, hard as a poker (like the soldier in the fairytale who couldn't bend for toffee, couldn't change his nature), clenched as a nutcracker and there he was doing his own little nutcracker suite, slide guitar, air guitar, legato scales around the room. Oh, Tchaikovsky, what have we got here? A drunken little man who could do with a metronome.

The lights blazed on and the bright outline of objects fizzed beneath her eyelids.

Oh, aren't we precise? Laying your money belt down beside your keys in the basket full of chinking coppers that should have been taken to the bank long ago, but then, you're such a dope; placing your watch just so on the bedside table... God, what a reek! D'you think you're going to sleep with me tonight? Fat chance! In your dreams! How do I know where you've been? You might have been chatting up a girl behind the bar, thinking she was more fun than I could ever be. What was she like? Bacardi and coke? Silky sheeny stockings and mascara'd eyes? Did you impregnate her on the sly and me none the wiser, thinking you could come home right as rain, nice as pie? (They say it happens all the time.) Are you sick in the head? You can't see straight, fumbling and tumbling like a little mole on crutches, tripping over sonatas at the edge of the bed in your dirty great boots that should have gone to Doctor Barnardo's long ago but then again, you're such a dope... (And mine like a water nymph's... what sort of a match is that?) Oh Tchaikovsky, get a load of this: a clarinet quintet on legs making a dash for the littlest room. Oh Ludwig B, cup your ear to him if you dare: symphony number two down the lavatory pan with apparent gusto, with feeling, with a bombardment of staccato noises and no consideration whatsoever for the neighbours. You turd. You shit. Sometimes I wish that you were…

‘Where have you been?' Out loud, fully fledged, following him into that stinking, rotting sarcophagus of a night.

‘What?'

She tutted in exasperation for she knew he'd heard, of course he'd heard; he was simply stalling, playing for time, waiting to judge her responses, mood, inclination, attitude – as if he didn't know, sozzled to the eyebrows as he was.

‘Where have you been?'

‘Out.' A defiant slamming of the lavatory seat, a slight swaying under the hot tap.

‘Out where?'

‘Anywhere,' a dab of the towel and a parting shot, ‘to get away from you.'

She stood stock-still, stung to the quick, then turned and followed him almost robotically as he charged through to the sitting room. ‘Fuck off then, if that's how you feel. Go away and stay away. You obviously don't give a shit.' She stopped in the doorway, trembling like a Victorian ghost in the white cotton nightdress that seemed to shrink a little more every time it came back from the launderette; he was staring at the mangled tape and swaying a little in the dirty yellow light. He looked the picture of dejection. And drunk, she reminded herself. And drunk.

‘Every time you go off I'll break another one of your tapes.'

‘Fair enough,' he said quietly.

Even now, she thought, stepping into the room, even now it could all be over, if he would just turn and take her in his arms, throw himself down on his knees and apologise for leaving her, leaving her alone for hours on end when she was alone all day – ill, out of work – and promise never to do it again, promise never to abandon her, never forsake her, never hurt her, never stop loving her; but he stood there in front of her, swaying before her very eyes, a little dishevelled, a little tired, reeking of God knows what and emanating who knows where.

She smiled, a reflex action, a nervous tick, and began pacing the room. ‘I rang your father. He says you've got to ring him back. He says you're a silly little boy – that's what he said. You're a silly little boy and he's coming to take you home.'

‘Course you did.' She watched him slump, like an old man, onto the sofa and pass a hand over his eyes as if to blot her out. Somewhere outside came the sound of glass breaking; and a cat howled eerily, spookily. His head moved wearily in acknowledgment of the sound.

He takes more interest, she thought angrily, in a cat than in me; and she ran over to the phone and shook it grimly in front of him. ‘You've got to ring him back. You've got to ring him back.' She went shrilly on and on, gauging his reaction all the time, but he remained blank and indifferent, barely looking at her. That was the other thing – he never believed her. Never believed she'd rung his parents, never believed she'd leave, never took anything she said seriously. Everything was a joke, a bluff, just a lot of hot air, just Marly being Marly. She picked up the receiver, started dialling the number, then stopped at the last digit and put the phone down with a silly smile.

‘He says you're an idiot, says you've always been like it. He says you're an idiot and he's coming to take you home. Mind you, he's an idiot himself, a total waste of space.'

Something flickered in his eyes. Oh, she'd lit some­thing now alright. ‘He is though, isn't he,' she carried on, brutally working the knife in. ‘Bloody useless, just sits watching the television all day. No wonder you're like you are. Your whole family's dysfunctional....'

He stared at her with eyes full of hate. ‘I'm going to bed.'

‘Oh no, you're not.' She ran over, pushed him back down on the sofa. How easy it was. He was strong but she was stronger. ‘You're going to sit and listen to me for a change. D'you know what it's like? D'you know what it's like, huh, being left for hours on end…?' She seized his bullish neck between her twiglet fingers and, feeling a surge of power rush through her, began ramming his head against the back of the sofa. ‘D'you know what it's like, huh? D'you know what it's like?' How easily he submitted. How easily she mastered him. So close to the fire and yet not a flicker of flame in retaliation – in fact there was almost fear in his eyes. He was in her control, he was in her clutches; and she almost despised him for being there. ‘You're spineless, you're pathetic, you run away from everything. You can't drive, can't swim, but you can drink yourself silly alright can't you, you stupid bastard.' She kept ramming his head against the back of the sofa, barely knowing what she was saying, filth pouring out of her mouth, tears pouring out of her eyes. ‘You're a piece of shit. You're nothing. You make me sick. You…'

Suddenly, without warning, in one drunken, fluid movement he brushed her aside as if she were a gnat and stumbled past her out of the room, cursing and muttering under his breath. She heard him clattering about in the kitchen for a moment; then the bathroom door shut and bolt violently.

She picked herself up and examined her knees in the dirty yellow light. One was a little scraped and she blotted it with the hem of her white Victorian nightdress. The magnetic blue butterfly stared at her from the radiator, upside down as usual as though tricked by gravitational forces, its wings heading for earth. (Sometimes you flutter up, he'd told her, and sometimes you flutter down.) The cat howled eerily once more, somewhere beyond the windows, beyond the town even, somewhere out in space. She lay her head down on top of her knees, her anger slowly diffusing into a vague sense of unease and then, as the intensity of the silence penetrated, outright anxiety.

She leapt up, ran into the kitchen and hammered on the bathroom door. ‘Open the door. Right now. Don't you dare lock the door against me – this is my house. Open up. This minute.' She pressed her ear up against it (a double door, for hygiene apparently. It's regulations, her landlady had said a little primly, Parisian style no doubt.) She heard the taps running like the sound of a distant waterfall and faint murmurings and groanings above it. She banged again. ‘Open up, for Christ's sake, open up.' And then, a change of tactics: ‘Let me in will you, I need the toilet. I need the bloody toilet for Christ's sake.... I care about you,' she added. It sounded hollow even to her own ears, too much of a turnabout, too much of a ruse.

An expletive, drunken, drawling but clear as a bell came through the speckledy-hen walls, splotched with dried orange juice like stage blood. The orange gaped like a face off its hinges and the porridge bowl sat with the wooden spoon still in it.

She sank to the floor, sliding down with her back against the door until she was sitting on a level with the bin liner that stood for a bin; a pale pink flower blossoming on her hem; and her left big toe just inches away from the temptingly delicacied mousetrap. It stank to high heaven, reminding her of lunches Ivy had given her as a child, of ravioli on toast topped with cheese. Always topped with cheese...

‘I love you,' she screamed through to distract herself from the pain – and this time she meant it, at least it sounded like she meant it. ‘Let me in. I love you, David. Please… let me in....'

The bolt drew back and the door swung open. She scrambled through.

He was sitting on the edge of the bath in a cloud of steam, looking as if he might evaporate himself at any minute; his shirt beside him on the floor; three bright lines on his arm; and the bread knife clasped in both hands as if it were a sword, as if he were about to defend himself against some invisible foe. His body shook; his face was tight, distant; he looked like a little boy whose world had just shattered.

She knelt in front of him, placing her hands over his. ‘I love you,' she murmured softly, prising his fingers loose from the blade – stiff little piggies about to go to market – then throwing it quickly into the sink. She turned off the taps, picked up his shirt, moving the upper part of her body slowly, gently, careful not to startle him, careful not to betray the slightest hint of impatience, disapproval, disgust, keeping up a soft pitter-patter all the time as if he were a child or a nervous horse. ‘There, that's better: I couldn't hear myself think with all that racket. Phew, it's like a Turkish bath... it's like a Turkish bath in here.' She opened the window just a fraction of an inch then took up her position again crouched in front of him, tilting her face up in an effort to meet his eyes; but they slid away from her, furtive, ashamed. She felt a surge of fierce, protective love gush up in her and she alternately clasped his knees; chafed his hands roughly, mercilessly; scolded him lovingly, fiercely; rolled her eyes, playing the fool; grinned from ear to ear like a clown. ‘Oh, you're an idiot. Well, you are though aren't you? What are we going to do with you? Honestly… I don't know. You…'

His eyes lifted in response to her antics and it gave her the courage to make a joke about his torn and bleeding arm. ‘A couple more lines, a squiggle and two dots and you'd have a bass clef.' She giggled, pointed hysterically, wildly; their eyes met; he smiled weakly, gratefully in return.

‘I love you.' His voice was gruff, fragmented, as though it had been torn from the depths of him.

‘I know.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘I know.'

She crouched in front of him, squeezing his hand and staring at his face though her mind was filled with the three bright lines, bobbing, fizzing, fermenting below the surface. It would all have to be gone into later, she told herself, this sickening, appalling, ridiculous act. She would have to understand quite clearly this pain made visible, this inflicted hurt out of her control, out of her dictates, that had brought a new chaos, she felt sure, to their lives. She would have dipped her fingers in the cuts (like the saint who delved in Jesus' wounds) to see if they were true; but for now she was patient in denial, willing to play the game, play the bluff, play the lightheartedness of bass clefs and Turkish baths... the rest would all come later. They would pay for it all soon enough, their credit cards of bitterness and recriminations. It would all come soon enough.

For now she knew her role a little too clearly; his dry sobs a sharp rat-a-tat on her subconscious and, taking him in her arms, she took him to bed.

Eight

The road to hell is paved, they say, with oh so many good intentions. Marly had never understood the phrase before but she thought she did now – it meant you had to follow through on the good intentions, there had to be a logical sequence of lights, camera, action; thinking, speaking, doing – no room for gaps, no room for buts, no room for deceit (though deception for her was a matter of course). The fact that she was the abuser stuck out with the awfulness, the truthfulness of bone through skin; and in an attempt to take responsibility for this unpalatable truth she fumblingly mumbled out loud to herself: ‘I am the abuser, I am the abuser, I am the abuser,' trying the words out for size, rolling them around in her mouth like a sour old wine, ready to spit them out at a moment's notice leaving only a temporarily bad taste on her tongue. (That's what you did with unpalatable truths, you rolled them around in your mouth for a while then spat them out; you allowed them to skim the surface of your mind like swallows over the Nile, though they plunged later, deeper, harder, of their own accord and the heart was never ready to receive them, the heart never had time to prepare.) It was a little like when Ivy had died and she'd practised out loud: ‘She is dead. She is dead. She is dead' as if it might make a difference because those words, those particular words had a flavour of one of her own lies about them; a ring of deceit, of escaping, of getting out of things; and indeed for several months she hadn't dared say to anyone ‘she is dead' not because the sound of it made the fact more real but in case they caught her out, tripped her up and replied a little astoundedly, a little sharply: ‘What on earth are you talking about? I saw her yesterday weeding the garden, in her pale blue shorts and gold charm bracelet.' That would have spelt the end, it would have meant the whole thing really was a total figment because as well as a golden melodious harp, silver whistle, sprig of white heather and mother-of-pearl star, the gold charm bracelet also had on it a tiny penknife, perfect for deadheading and stripping petals; and as a child she'd watched her mother using it many times, in their small, walled garden, with venomous abandon.