Adore (6 page)

She stared, and began to cry. He simply got off the bed and went off into the bathroom. He came back clothed, and did not look at her.

There was something here . . . something bad . . . some
place where she must not go. Mary understood that. She felt so shocked by the incident that she nearly broke off from Tom, then and there.

Tom thought he might as well go back home. What he loved about being ‘up here' was being free, and that delightful condition had evaporated.

This town was imprisoning him. It was not a large one, but that wasn't the point. He liked it, as a place, spreading suburbs of bungalows around a centre of university and business, and all around the scrubby shrubby desert. He could walk from the university theatre after rehearsal and find himself in ten minutes with strong-smelling thorny bushes all around, and under his feet coarse yellow sand where the fallen thorns made pale warning gleams: careful, don't tread on us, we can pierce through the thickest soles. At night, after a performance or a rehearsal, he walked straight out into the dark and stood listening to the crickets, and above him the unpolluted sky glittered and sparked off coloured fire. When he got back to his father's, Mary might be waiting for him.

‘Where did you get to?'

‘I went for a walk.'

‘Why didn't you tell me? I like to walk too.'

‘I'm a bit of a lone wolf,' said Tom. ‘I'm the cat who walks by himself. So, if that's not your style, I'm sorry.'

‘Hey,' said Mary. ‘Don't bite my head off.'

‘Well, you'd better know what you're letting yourself in for.'

At this, Harold and Molly exchanged glances: that was a commitment, surely? And Mary, hearing a promise, said ‘I like cats. Luckily.'

But she was secretly tearful and fearful.

Tom was restless, he was moody. He was very unhappy but did not know it. He had not been unhappy in his life. He did not recognise the pain for what it was. There are people who are never ill, are unthinkingly healthy, then they get an illness and are so affronted and ashamed and afraid that they may even die of it. Tom was the emotional equivalent of such a person.

‘What is it? What's wrong with me?' he groaned, waking with a heavy weight across his chest. ‘I'd like to stay right here in bed and pull the covers over my head.'

But what for? There was nothing wrong with him.

Then, one evening, standing out under the stars, feeling sad enough to howl up at them, he said to himself, ‘Good Lord, I'm so unhappy. Yes, that's it.'

He told Mary he wasn't well. When she was solicitous he said, ‘Leave me alone.'

From the periphery of the little town, roads which soon became tracks ran out into the desert, to places used by students for their picnics and excursions. In between the used ways almost invisible paths made their way between the odoriferous bushes that had butterflies clinging to them in the day, and at night sent out waves of scent to attract bats. Tom walked out on the tarmacked road, turned on to the dusty track, turned off that and found a faint path to a
little hill that had rocks on it, one a big flat one, which held the sun's heat well into the night. Tom lay on this hot rock and let unhappiness fill him.

‘Lil,' he was whispering. ‘Lil.'

He knew at last that he was missing Lil, that was the trouble. Why was he surprised? Vaguely, he had all this time thought that one day he'd get a girl his own age and then . . . but it had been so vague. Lil had always been in his life. He lay face down on the rock and sniffed at it, the faint metallic tang, the hot dust, and vegetable aromas from little plants in the cracks. He was thinking of Lil's body that always smelled of salt, of the sea. She was like a sea creature, in and out, the sea water often drying on her and then she was in again. He bit into his forearm, remembering that his earliest memory was of licking salt off Lil's shoulders. It was a game they played, the little boy and his mother's oldest friend. Every inch of his body had been available to Lil's strong hands since he had been born, and Lil's body was as familiar to him as his own. He saw again Lil's breasts, only just covered by the bikini top, and the faint wash of glistening sand in the cleft between her breasts, and the glitter of tiny sand grains on her shoulders.

‘I used to lick her for the salt,' he murmured. ‘Like an animal at a salt lick.'

When he went back, very late, the house dark, he did not sleep but sat down and wrote to Lil. Writing letters had not ever been his style. Finding his writing illegible, he remembered that an old portable typewriter had been
stuffed under his bed, and he pulled it out, and typed, trying to muffle the sharp sound by putting the machine on a towel. But Molly had heard, knocked and said, ‘Can't you sleep?' Tom said he was sorry, and stopped.

In the morning he finished the letter and posted it and wrote another. His father, peering to see the inscription, said, ‘So, you're not writing to your mother?'

Tom said, ‘No. As you see.' Family life had its drawbacks, he decided.

Thereafter he wrote letters to Lil at the university, and posted them himself.

Molly asked him what was the matter and he said he wasn't feeling up to scratch, and she said he should see a doctor.

Mary asked what was the matter and he said, ‘I'm all right.'

And still he didn't go back ‘down there'; he stayed up here, and that meant staying with Mary.

He wrote to Lil daily, answered the letters, or rather notes, she sometimes wrote to him; he telephoned his mother, he went out into the desert as often as he could, and told himself he would get over it. Not to worry. Meanwhile his heart was a lump of cold loneliness, and he dreamed miserably.

‘Listen,' said Mary, ‘if you want to call this off, then say so.'

He suppressed, ‘Call
what
off?' and said, ‘Just give me time.'

Then, on an impulse, or perhaps because he soon would have to decide whether to accept another contract, he said to his father, ‘I'm off.'

‘What about Mary?' asked Molly.

He did not reply. Back home, he was over at Lil's and in her bed in an hour. But it was not the same. He could make comparisons now, and did. It was not that Lil was old – she was beautiful, so he kept muttering and whispering, ‘You're so beautiful,' – but there was claim on him, Mary, and that wasn't even personal. Mary, another woman, did it matter? One day soon he must – he had to . . . everyone expected it of him.

Meanwhile Ian seemed to be doing fine with Roz. With his mother, Tom's. Ian didn't seem to be unhappy, or suffering, far from it.

And then Mary arrived, and found the four preparing to go to the sea. Flippers and goggles were found for her, and a surfboard. Within half an hour of her arrival she was ready to embark with the two young men, on the wide, dangerous, bad sea outside this safe bay. A little motorboat would take them out. So this pretty young thing, as smooth and shiny as a fish, larked about and played with Tom and Ian, and the two older women sat on their chairs, watching behind dark glasses and saw the motorboat arrive and take the three off.

‘She's come for Tom,' said Tom's mother.

‘Yes, I know,' said Tom's lover.

‘She's nice enough,' said Roz.

Lil said nothing.

Roz said, ‘Lil, I think this is where we bow out.'

Lil said nothing.

‘Lil?' Roz peered over at her, and pushed up her dark glasses to see better.

‘I don't think I could bear it,' said Lil.

‘We've got to.'

‘Ian doesn't have a girl.'

‘No, but he should have. Lil, they're getting on towards thirty.'

‘I know.'

Far away, where the sharp black rocks stood in their white foam at the mouth of the bay, three tiny figures were waving at them, before disappearing out of sight to the big beach.

‘We have to stand together and end it,' said Roz.

Lil was quietly weeping. Then Roz was, too.

‘We have to, Lil.'

‘I know we do.'

‘Come on, let's swim.'

The women swam hard and fast, out and back and around, and then landed on the beach, and went straight up to Roz's house, to prepare lunch. It was Sunday. Ahead was the long difficult afternoon.

Lil said, ‘I've got work,' and went off to one of her shops.

Roz served lunch, making excuses for Lil, and then she too said she had things to do. Ian said he would come with
her. That left Tom and Mary alone, and there was a showdown. ‘Either on or off,' said Mary. ‘Either yes or no.' ‘There were plenty of fish in the sea.' ‘It was time he grew up.' All that kind of thing, as prescribed for this occasion.

When the others came back, Mary announced that she and Tom were getting married, and there were congratulations and a noisy evening. Roz sang lots of songs, Tom joined in, they all sang. And when it was bedtime Mary stayed with Tom, in his house, and Ian went home with Lil.

Then Mary went back home to plan the wedding.

And now it had to be done. The two women said to the young men that now that was it. ‘It's over,' said Roz.

Ian cried out, ‘What do you mean? Why? I'm not getting married.'

Tom sat quietly, jaw set, drinking. He filled his glass with wine, drained it, filled it again, drank, saying nothing.

At last he said to Ian, ‘They're right, don't you see?'

‘No,' yelled Ian. He went into Roz's room and called her, and Tom went with Lil to her house. Ian wept and pleaded. ‘Why, what for? We're perfectly happy. Why do you want to spoil it?' But Roz stuck it out. She was all heartless determination and only when she and Lil were alone together, the men having gone off to discuss it, they wept and said they could not bear it. Their hearts were breaking they said, how were they going to live, it would be unendurable.

When the men returned, the women were tear-stained
but firm.

Lil told Tom that he must not come with her that night and Roz told Ian that he must go home with Lil.

‘You've ruined everything,' said Ian to Roz. ‘It's all your fault. Why couldn't you leave things as they were?'

Roz jested, ‘Cheer up. We are going to become respectable ladies, yes, your disreputable mothers are going to become pillars of virtue. We shall be perfect mothers-in-law, and then we shall become wonderful grandmothers to your children.'

‘I'm not going to forgive you,' said Ian to Roz.

And Tom said to Lil, low, to her only, ‘I'll never ever ever forget you.'

Now, that was a valediction, almost conventional. It meant – surely? – that Tom's heart was not likely to suffer permanent damage.

The wedding, needless to say, was a grand affair. Mary had been determined not to be upstaged by her dramatic mother-in-law, but found Roz was being the soul of tact, in a self-effacing outfit. Lil was elegant and pale and smiling, and the very moment the happy pair had driven off for their honeymoon she was down swimming in the bay, where Roz, a good hostess, could not leave her guests to join her. Later Roz crossed the street to find out how Lil was, but her bedroom door was locked and she would not respond to Roz's knocks and enquiries. Ian as best man had made a funny and likeable speech, and, meeting Roz in the street as she was returning from Lil's,
said, ‘So? Are you pleased with yourself now?' And he too went running down to the sea.

Now Roz was in her empty house, and she lay on her bed and at last was able to weep. When there were knocks at her door which she knew were Ian's, she rolled in anguish, her fist stuffed into her mouth.

As soon as the honeymoon was over, Mary told Tom, who told his mother, that she thought Roz should move out and leave the house to them. It made sense. It was a big house, right for a family. The trouble was financial. Years ago the house had been affordable, when this whole area had been far from desirable, but now it was smart and only the rich could afford these houses. In an impulsive, reckless, generous gesture, Roz gave the house to the young couple as a wedding present. And so where was she to live? She couldn't afford another house like this. She took up residence in a little hotel down the coast, and this meant that, for the first time ever, since she was born, she was not within a few yards of Lil. She did not understand at first why she was so restless, sad, bereft, put it all down to losing Ian, but then understood it was Lil she missed, almost as much as Ian. She felt she had lost everything, and literally from one week to the next. But she was not reflective, by nature: she was like Tom, who would always be surprised by his emotions, when he was forced to notice them. To deal with her feelings of emptiness and loss, she accepted a job at the university as a full-time teacher of drama, worked hard, swam twice a day, took sleeping
pills.

Mary was soon pregnant. Jokes of a traditional kind were aimed at Ian, by Saul, among others. ‘You aren't going to let your mate get ahead of you, are you? When's your wedding?'

Ian was working hard, too. He was trying not to give himself time to think. No stranger to thought, reflection, introspection, he felt that they were enemies, waiting to strike him down. A new shop was opening in the town where Harold was. They were waiting for their child. Ian did not stay at Harold's, but in a hotel, and of course visited Harold, who had been like a father to him – so he said. There he met a friend of Mary's, who had paid attention to him at the wedding. Hannah. It was not that he disliked her, on the contrary, she pleased him, with her comfortable ways, that were easy to see as maternal, but he was inside an empty space full of echoes, and he could not imagine making love with anyone but Roz. He swam every morning from ‘their' beach, sometimes seeing Roz there, and he greeted her, but turned away, as if the sight of her hurt him – it did. And he more often took the little motorboat out to the surfing beaches. He and Tom had always gone together, but Tom was so busy with Mary, and the new baby.