After Purple (8 page)

Leo refused to let me move. He knew exactly how to trap me, muzzle me with his body, until I was wild with having to be still. Any man can let you thrust. I worshipped Leo because he didn't let me, and yet he made my stillness more fierce, more frenzied, than any amount of movement. I could hear myself shouting out above the rain. I could also hear Karma howling for his master. His howls drove me on. I came three times just thinking of him jealous and outraged. We had snuffed him out, so that he was only a broken shadow at our heels. Leo was
my
master now.

He was coming. I clung on. Leo has great seething, swelling, violent, anguished comes which swallow up me and him and everything around us. It was starting now. I dug my fingers into the earth to get a grip. He likes me to squeeze and squeeze and yell out words and almost fight with him. I shut my eyes and saw a shadowy group of swarthy park-keepers creeping up on us, bending down to watch, the gold braid of their uniforms scratching rough against my back. Their flashlights were blinding me, the hot breath of their tracker dogs panting through my breasts. I was moving now. We were all moving, all coming. Shouting, pounding, bucking, hurting, coming. Karma was coming and the keepers coming and the whole world and sky and earth and world and Leo Leo Leo Leo Leo …

We slept together that night — I mean
really
slept, in the same bed, in the same bedroom, with all twenty dragons crouching and rejoicing over us. In the morning, Leo left for work like a normal man, and I sat down with a piece of paper, Adrian-fashion, and tried to make a plan. Normally, I hardly listen when Adrian rattles on about getting jobs and settling down. But things were different since the baby. I knew I'd really lost him now. He wasn't just a couple, but a family. There'd be other kids (all Daddy's boys); bright, shining, cheerful, jolly Christmases; parent-teacher meetings; football workouts in the park; bruised shins, broken legs. I sat and thought about the broken legs. I hoped there'd be a lot of them, fractured skulls as well, deformities.

Somehow, I had always thought of Adrian as being in the background of my life, like a sort of supplement, or back-stop, a universal comforter. Janet hadn't counted. Even with all those ‘J's' on everything, I felt I could always peel them off. They were only transfers, not tattoos. But now, she and Adrian were indissolubly united. The baby had pooled their genes, tied them together with its umbilical cord, imprinting their new, combined formula for ever and ever down the generations. I shivered. I had only Leo, now. I would have to change him, mould him, batter against him until he let me in. Adrian was right. I couldn't drift and doze for ever, letting Leo keep me, own me, trample me, treat me like his second, smaller dog.

I stared at Adrian's wedding ring, mocking on my finger. I was married to Leo now. He'd never buy me a nine-carat noose from a high-street jeweller's. He'd never buy me a ring at all — full-stop. All the same, I liked it when people looked at us and assumed we were married because we both had the right bit of booty on our wedding fingers. Leo's ring was a heavy antique gold one he'd bought from a market stall. It was no more connected with me or marriage or mating than Adrian's ring united me to Leo, but people didn't
know
that.

I twisted the band round and round and round. I felt a racking spasm of energy like a labour pain. I wanted to scour out my life like a saucepan, sweep through all the mess and complications with a rough, scratchy broom. If pregnant women get the urge to purge and clean, then I was the one who was pregnant.

I swept my hand across the table and stemmed the tide of magazines and papers; stuffed them in a cupboard, weighted them down with the peanut-butter jars, the dictionaries, the playing cards, all the things which Leo had dug out weeks ago, or years ago, and never put away. I banished the bread and tea and branflakes to the larder. It was crammed with fancy, foreign delicacies — guavas and black-eyed beans, bird's nest soup and lumpfish roe — exotica he'd bought in Soho delicatessens and forgotten to enjoy. I threw out every tin and jar and packet which looked strange or stale or rusty, or was priced in old pence. I cleared the dishes, cleaned the sink. I didn't dust or polish. The kitchen was so gloomy, you couldn't see the dust, so there was no point in going to extremes.

I started on myself, instead. I washed my hair in Fairy Liquid, dried it with a drier, and secured it with a brown velvet ribbon, with long streamers hanging down the back. I got out all the pots and bottles and lotions my mother had been giving me (in mingled hope and reproach) for the last ten Christmases and spread a selection of them on my face. There was no mirror in my room upstairs and the bathroom one was always cracked and steamy, so I sat at Leo's dressing-table and stared at my reflection. My hair is my best feature. It's very thick and straight and reaches almost to my waist. It's the sort of middle brown which was described as dark when I was married to (sandy) Adrian, but looks almost mousy when I'm standing next to Leo. It's the same with my eyes. They started off a good, strong, uncompromising brown, but once I lived with Leo, they paled and faded as if someone had left them out in the sun for too long. My skin is sallow like Leo's, though not as smooth, but I have better teeth than him. I rarely bother with my looks. This time, though, I messed about with scents and salves and varnishes, until I felt very frail and precious and new-born, like something which had climbed out of an egg and still had damp feathers and shaky legs. I pulled on a dress sprigged in dark purple flowers, with a tiny collar and a row of fiddly buttons down the front. I looked modest and demure. I pinked in my lips and gave myself high Slavonic cheekbones out of a bottle. I stared at the woman in the mirror. It wasn't me. It wasn't even a Mayfair receptionist, more like the owner of a Bond Street picture gallery. I shivered. I know nothing about art. I'm the sort of person who muddles up Vorticism with Expressionism and hasn't a clue what either of them mean. (There are probably more ‘-isms' in art than in any other field, except sex.) But I wasn't going to think about sex — not today. This was reform day, new-start day, get-a-job day, cook-a-meal day. I took off the dress and put on a suit in fine grey tweed which my mother had bought me in an attempt to wean me off my dungarees. I coiled my hair on top, removed the ribbon, and changed my lips from ‘Dusky Pink' to ‘New Dawn'. Now I was a receptionist, perhaps not quite Mayfair, but getting closer all the time. I didn't have a coat and it was January outside. Well, I'd simply have to freeze. Leo's sheepskin would only turn me into someone else.

I stood for a full ten minutes outside the employment agency before daring to go in. When I did, everything was mustard-coloured vinyl, including the plants. There were only two interviewers, but they appeared to be handling the entire London job market between them. Phones were screaming, temps jostling for their pay cheques and every available mustard-vinyl chair was in use. A Girl Friday who looked as if she'd just made it into double figures was trying to keep control. “Temp or perm?” she asked me.

I paused. I would have loved to have said ‘permanent', but it's not a word I have much faith in.

“Oh, temporary, I think.”

She handed me a form so long and detailed, I almost walked straight out again. There's never enough of me to spread on forms. I've only got one Christian name to start with, and that a mere four-letter one. They'd left so much space for your educational record, I doubt if Einstein could have filled it. I invented a few O-levels to make it look less bare. There were whole long lists of skills you were asked to tick or cross. Some of them I'd never even heard of. I thought of ticking every third one, just to show I was keen, but in the end, I ticked the four most likely. I'd like to have compiled my own list. There'd be ticks for praying, then, and for fellatio and making fudge, and being the only girl in London who'd eaten every one of Baskin-Robbins thirty-one flavours in the same week. (That was last July and cost me as much as half a pair of new jeans.)

I'd just put a zero in the box which said ‘Number and Ages of Children' when the girl came back. I took my half-completed form and followed her over to a metal desk which had a notice on it saying, ‘No time-sheet, no pay'. Behind it was a woman made of stainless steel with a smile on top. The smile was so insistent, it must have been cut right through her, like letters in a stick of rock.

“
Do
sit down.” The smile bent in the middle, but still stayed put.

I sat. The soggy vinyl chair was still warm from the last applicant. The interviewer scanned my form, still smiling. I wondered if she practised the smile at night, or switched it off the minute she got home, and started kicking cats or roughing up old ladies. So much charm seemed suspect. Every time the phone rang, she said, “
Do
excuse me,
please
”, as if she'd peed on the carpet, and when a girl butted in to demand her pay cheque, she threw me so many extra little smilelets, I almost picked them up and started a smile collection. I found myself simpering back. I felt like a schoolgirl sucking up to the head prefect or the history mistress. Any minute now, I'd be offering to carry her books. She so inspired me, I concocted delightful and exciting little lies for her. We were going over my employment record now, and I told her tales of jobs I'd manned for gruelling and devoted years (most of them I pinched from Janet), and how I'd only left to nurse my (long-dead) grandmother. She must have been impressed, because she phoned the Mayfair job I wanted there and then, and even persuaded them to take me on without an interview. (It was Friday afternoon and they were desperate.)

I was to start on Monday, which gave me the whole weekend to get myself in order. It all seemed neat and businesslike, like one of Adrian's timetables. My boss had an OBE and a double-barrelled name, which I felt was even better than the luncheon vouchers.

Once I was accepted, the smile switched abruptly off, like a sort of ‘file closed' sign, and I could feel the interviewer trying to edge me to the door.

“I'll have to take up your references on Monday, but I'm sure there'll be no problems.” She was already smiling over my shoulders at the next one in the queue.

“No,” I assured her. I'd given her the names of two ex-lovers, both of whom owed me favours.

I swept through the door, looking pityingly at the other applicants still grovelling for employment. I was now a fully-fledged receptionist, with my own time-sheet and introduction card, shoring up the economy, contributing to society — a success, a salary-earner, a slave.

When I got back, the receptionist and I sat down to a proper lunch. It would be fatal to change my character too soon. I could ruin everything by flinging off my suit and munching a Mars bar, or scraping out last night's saucepans in my nightie. I made myself a dainty little
omelette aux fines herbes
(dried-up parsley I found in one of Leo's jars) and ate it with a chicory salad and a piece of Camembert. It all felt very Mayfair. I laid the table properly and used one of Leo's hand-painted Chinese plates which had a peony on it. As the omelette went down, the petals grew bigger and bigger, until there was no egg and all flower.

I was sipping my second cup of coffee (Melitta filter) when Leo rang. He said all sorts of luscious, creamy things until I felt I'd consumed a very rich, succulent pudding or been crammed with liqueur chocolates. Leo's like that. He can scream abuse at me one minute, and then pick every flower in paradise the next, and lay them at my feet.

“I'm bringing back some friends,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

I panicked. Leo's friends terrify me. They're all artistic and unpredictable and do things like shiatsu or batik or Reichian psychology or water-divining.

“How long are they going to stay?” I asked. I pushed my plate away. The peony was wilting.

“No idea.”

“I mean, will they want a meal?”

“Course. That's what they're coming for.”

“I'll cook it, then.”

“Don't be silly, Thea. You know you never cook.”

“I do. I used to. I'd
like
to cook this time.”

“Just make sure you're in, that's all.”

“I'm
always
in. Leo, listen …”

“And looking good.”

“Leo …”

“What?”

“I've got a job.”

“Congratulations. Where?”

I was starting to tell him about the employment agency when the pips went for the second time. He was phoning from a public call-box at a picture dealer's. I waited for the phone to ring again. I felt sure he'd call me back, but nothing happened.

My coffee had gone cold with a sort of scum on top, but I made myself sit down and finish it. Mayfair receptionists don't panic because a few odd friends decide to drop in for dinner. Leo always coped, in any case. He'd come in early and concoct complicated things, like bouillabaisse or dolmades, flinging in brandy and garlic, and using all sorts of exotic seasonings like dillweed and juniper berries. Or he'd storm the local delicatessens and return piled high with pitta bread and taramasalata, goat's cheese and salami, smoked eel and stuffed olives. I just hovered in the background, emptying waste-buckets and washing up the debris.

Not this time. This was cook-a-meal day. I'd already planned it, and if I had to cook for a crowd instead of two, well, all the better. It was more of a challenge, a more dramatic start to my new-year timetable. I wouldn't go too far. I wouldn't do a Janet on them and serve
Noisettes d'Agneau à la Francaise
, with lighted candles and the butter cut in little whorls. It would be aubergines in some form or other. There is something noble and classless about an aubergine. Somehow, you can't be criticised, even if they turn out wrong. And, most important, Leo likes them. If I wore my purple dress, I'd even match them. I could make the whole meal purple. Leo loves
themes
for things. He was always having Greek dinners (retsina and stifado) or Spanish ones (sangria and paella) or sixteenth-century feasts with mead and boars' heads. I'd have a
purple
theme. We'd have bortsch to start with, which would suit Leo's (probably) Russian mother, and something damsony to finish with. I'd spied bottled damsons in the larder, dark, swollen ones, bobbing about in brandy. Even though they were old, I hadn't thrown them out, because they'd somehow reminded me of baby Lucian, pickled in his jar.