The White Room (35 page)

They talked some more. Then Ben excused himself to go to the toilet. Inside, he looked in the mirror, fixed his tie, hair and cufflinks in place. Coming out, he found Sharon standing in the narrow corridor away from the dining room, back against the wall, smoking a cigarette.

‘Hello, darling,' he said, fixing his smile in place. ‘Enjoying yourself?'

‘No, I'm bloody not,' she spat at him. ‘You've ignored me all night. Talked to that shifty-looking architect instead.'

‘It's a business dinner, you know that.'

‘Business.' She gave a harsh laugh. ‘D'you know, I must know every person in that room. And d'you know what they'll be thinking? There's Jack Smeaton's wife. What's she doing here?'

‘Ex-wife.'

‘It doesn't matter. They'll all be thinking the same thing. Whore.'

They both fell silent as a town planner squeezed past them on the way to the gents.

‘Should I call a cab? Take you home?'

‘A cab? I want more than a cab, Ben. I want you to marry me. Make it legal.'

Ben swallowed back anger, sighed.

‘This conversation can wait until later.'

Sharon pushed her face in Ben's. ‘No, it can't. No, it can't bloody wait. I don't want to walk back in there and have them think the same about me. Now I've been loyal to you. I think it's about time I got something back. It's about time I got some commitment.'

Ben looked at her long and hard, unsmiling, then spoke.

His eyes were like flint.

‘All right, then,' he said. ‘It seems I've got two choices. I can either throw you over or marry you.'

Sharon's eyes lit up slightly, grasping the words.

‘Now, if I dump you, that's that. Finito. End of story. If I marry you, then you've got to know why. D'you want to marry me?'

‘Oh, yes, Ben, yes, of course I do.'

She smiled at him. His eyes remained like flint.

‘Then you'd better know why. You'd better listen to the rules. Just so you can't say later that you weren't told. Now, if I marry you, it's because I want a good-looking woman to take to parties, be a good hostess, lend me a bit of respectability. Stability. Someone my own age, so it doesn't look embarrassing either way. In return I'll give you money, buy you clothes, get you a car, a Mini or something, even pay for your kid to get good schooling. But don't think I'm in love with you. Because it's not about love. Or anything approaching that. We might still have occasional sex together. But that's all.'

She stared at him, unmoving, unblinking, cigarette down to her fingers, burned down to ash.

‘And that's another thing,' he said. ‘Sex. I'll be fucking other women. Other girls. It's expected of me. But you can't fuck other men. That'll make me look weak. So if I so much as suspect you of playing around, you're out on your ear. And I'll make you hurt before that.'

He stood back, regarded her coolly.

‘That's the deal. Call it a … pre-nuptial agreement.' He smiled at the good phrase he had just made up. ‘What's your answer?'

The town planner chose that moment to emerge from the gents. With mumbled apologies he squeezed past them, rubbing his body against Sharon as he went.

Sharon didn't notice, didn't move, just stared at Ben.

‘What's your answer?'

She remained still, staring. Ben gave a harsh laugh.

‘If you didn't want to hear the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. Don't throw some stroppy, hissy fit with me and expect me to back down. You're not with Jack fucking Smeaton now.'

Sharon remained staring. Ben sighed in exasperation.

‘You going to fucking answer, or are we going to stand here all fucking night?'

Sharon looked him in the eye. She looked like she had been physically punched. Numbly, she nodded.

‘Good,' said Ben. ‘Now get back in that room and start smiling. That's what I expect from a wife.'

Sharon somnambulated back into the dining room.

Ben followed, shaking his head, hoping John Poulson was still there, hoping they could put a bit of business together.

The glass pane was small, square. The putty holding it in old, shrunken, hard. One tap from the half-brick and it smashed.

Mae put her hand in, felt for the snub on the inside lock. Carefully, so as not to cut herself, she found it, turned it. The door swung open.

Mae giggled, felt a powerful elation run through her body. She hadn't expected breaking into a school to be so easy.

‘Howay,' she said, ‘we're in.'

Behind her, Eileen gave one of her hoarse guffaws and quickly followed Mae inside.

Eileen. Mae's new best friend.

Mae's only real friend.

Eileen was twelve to Mae's ten years, but inside much younger. She was large-framed, always wearing the same washed-out flower print dress or one of its twins, her large workboots and an old overcoat. Her hair was hacked and bobbed; a hair grip bearing a small, porcelain flower kept it out of her eyes, was her only concession to outright femininity. She was always smiling, as if finding savant-like wonderment in the world or uncomprehending bafflement at life.

Mae had found her one day when she had been aimlessly wandering around the area, trying to do anything rather than go to school. She had stood and watched the wrecking ball smash into the side of a row of old terraced houses, saw the walls collapse with a force that rocked the pavement she stood on. Laughed at the amount of rats that had come running out of the rubble, disappearing into cracks and crevices of houses opposite. Making new homes for themselves.

She looked around. A girl sat on the wall watching the workmen, laughing at the rats also. Mae sat down next to her. The girl looked at her, stopped laughing, kept smiling.

‘Hello,' she said. ‘I'm Eileen. What's your name?'

‘Mae.'

‘Will you be my friend, Mae?'

Mae looked at the girl, suspicion in her eyes. Why was this older girl wanting to be friends with her? Did she want the same from her that the men did?

‘Why?' said Mae, stone-faced.

‘Cos I like havin' friends an' I haven't got one. So will you?'

Eileen smiled. Her face open and unthreatening.

‘All right, then.'

And Mae had found her first friend.

Mae had the time of her life. The first time she could remember being happy. Eileen never judged: Mae could say anything, do anything, tell her anything and Eileen just smiled and nodded.

Mae loved it. She could clown and fool and Eileen smiled and laughed. She could shout and scream and Eileen smiled and laughed.

Eileen knew all the younger children too. The little kids, the pre-schoolers. And Mae became friends with them. They would follow the two girls around, laughing, like rats to the Pied Piper. Mae loved it, played up to it.

Her first friends: the feebs and the babies.

Mae Blacklock, the Outsider Queen.

Sometimes Mae did things just to get a reaction, just to see Eileen's face change. Mae felt she had within her a vast, deep, black reservoir of rage. Unfathomed. Untapped. Sometimes a great geyser of it would belch and bubble to the surface. And Mae would direct it at Eileen. She would swear, scream, call her names; she would pinch her, poke her, hit her. Eileen would look confused, ask her what was wrong, but still offer her uncritical friendship.

The rages were becoming more frequent.

And Mae couldn't control them.

Eileen gave Mae licence to voice ideas, to do things she would never have had the nerve to do on her own.

Like break into the school.

Mae hated school, felt hated within it. Wanted to take her rage out on it. So she did. And took Eileen, smiling and giggling, along with her.

They were in. Mae looked around.

‘Come on.'

Mae ran down the hall, Eileen following. She pulled over bookcases as she went, knocked objects from shelves, pulled corners of displays, ripped them down as she ran. Eileen followed her lead, echoing the mayhem.

Mae found her own classroom. Where she was supposed to be when she wasn't playing truant.

‘In here.'

Eileen followed Mae.

The room was neatly ordered, everything put away, ready for the next day.

‘Let's wreck it.'

Desks were upturned, contents spilled over the floor. Chairs kicked over, projects torn down from walls, objects of interest smashed on the floor, books pulled from shelves, covers and spines ripped off. Mae found the paint cupboard. She pulled the paints out, threw them at the walls. She felt a slight twang of guilt – she had always enjoyed painting – but not enough to stop what she was doing.

She stopped, admired her work. She smiled. The room was wrecked.

She smiled at the devastation. Her chest was heaving with exertion. She felt something else building within her.

‘I need to do a shit,' she said out loud.

She looked around; the teacher's desk. Her teacher: always sneering at Mae, belittling her. Making her low opinion of her known.

She climbed on the desk, hitched up her skirt, dropped her knickers.

And shat in the middle of the desk.

Eileen giggled.

Mae finished, wiped herself off with a piece of paper from the desk, redressed herself.

She was still panting hard, but the fight had gone out of her, the adrenalin high fading.

‘Come on, then,' she said. ‘Let's go.'

They made their way out of the building, walking slowly through their trail of destruction.

Then into the night and away.

September 1966–May 1967:

Old Ghosts in the New Machine

Nineteen sixty-six and the statue had long gone.

Unveiled by Hugh Gaitskell and T. Dan Smith in 1962 as a piece of public art for the citizens of Scotswood, it soon became a target for vandals and graffiti artists. Huge metal mesh barriers were erected around it, imprisoning it in its own cage. Eventually the cage was smashed, the statue taken, the bronze sold and melted down.

No one was ever caught or blamed.

Then the tower blocks began to decline. The paucity of top-grade materials used in their manufacture became apparent. Lifts began to break down. Waste-disposal chutes became disconnected. Refuse piled up. Light bulbs on stairways and walkways would blow and not be replaced. Broken windows would go unmended. Opportunists began to emerge.

Muggers sensed easy prey in darkened alleyways. Crimes were plotted and carried out in shadows. Police became more hesitant about entering the estates. Neighbours began to mirror the decline in other neighbours, let themselves go.

A downward spiral. Starting slowly.

The new abattoir continued to thrive.

Dan Smith pressed on with his plans.

It was the same house, although no one would have recognized it as such. It had been totally transformed.

Sharon had walked without contesting. Jack had moved back, bringing Joanne with him. Gone were Sharon's clean, clinical lines; in came Joanne's warmth and softness. Her vibrancy and youth. Exciting colours replaced bare, muted tones. India prints replaced English severity. Jack was happy to let her do it, wanted her to feel at home, wanted Sharon's ghost exorcised.

They had kept a room for Isaac. He made occasional visits, stopped overnight sometimes. Always sullen, always near-silent.

He would talk to Joanne more than his father. Found her easier to approach. Joanne, diffident at first, began to enjoy his visits, look forward to them even. He didn't regard her as a surrogate mother, more as an older sister. Or a friend. Jack was pleased they got along.

Joanne got the impression Isaac wasn't happy living with his recently remarried mother and Ben Marshall at their big new house in Ponteland. So she should have expected the knock at the door.

January 1967. Christmas had been a quiet affair for Jack and Joanne. They had spent the time almost exclusively with each other. Joanne was studying her course in art therapy, and she had some nights out with her college friends. Jack was reading a lot, thinking about taking a course in something, but he hadn't decided on a subject. He was happy staying at home. They had spent Boxing Day with Isaac – Ben Marshall giving Jack a knowing smile that made his head ache when they returned the boy home – but apart from that they had been on their own.

And they had loved it.

They were true partners; they shared everything. The age difference fell away when they were together. Their love only deepened the longer they were together.

Then came the knock at the door.

A January evening, the air cold, threatening snow.

Jack put down his book, made his way to the front door, opened it. There stood a ten-year-old boy, gloved hands in pockets, duffel coat toggled up, hood pulled around him.

Isaac.

‘Hello …' said Jack, surprised. ‘What are you doing here?' Isaac looked up at him, his eyes wide.

‘Can I come in?'

‘Course you can,' said Jack, stepping aside to let the boy in. Before he closed the door he looked up and down the street, expecting to see Sharon's Mini. No sign.

He closed the door, turned to Isaac.

‘You on your own?'

The boy nodded. He was shivering.

‘Come on inside. Let's get you warmed up.'

Jack directed Isaac to the living room. It was warm with muted lighting. Comfortable. Joanne looked up from her textbook.

‘Got a visitor,' said Jack.

‘Hello, Isaac …'

Joanne got up, crossed to him, gave him a hug.

‘You're freezing. Come by the fire and warm up.'

Jack went into the kitchen, made coffee for himself and Joanne, warm Ribena for Isaac. He took the drinks in, handed them round, resumed his seat. He looked between the two of them. They had obviously been talking.

‘Well, this is an unexpected surprise,' said Jack.

Joanne and Isaac exchanged glances.