Alligator Playground (21 page)

He went for a walk, so she put on the front-room light and gazed at the jigsaw, finding it hard to pick from the multitude of pieces. About a third was done, and the ominous French ship was taking shape through smoke and bloodshed. A chair eased her aching back, and she wasn’t sorry to lose the overall view.

Dabbling among the blue-grey of the upper right she found three pieces to slot in. Then she stared, discouraged at what was yet to be done, though glad they had accomplished so much. The mast of the
Victory
was reassuring in its girth. Sailor had assembled it in earlier days, his face like a child’s while it came together. She smoothed a finger up and down, as if there were no curving interlocking lines and she was carressing three-dimensional wood.

He made no mention of her progress, but sat in his usual armchair by the fire. ‘You look as if you went a long way,’ she said.

‘I did, but not too far from you, and that’s what keeps me going.’ After a silence he turned to her. ‘I saw a face I had to leave behind.’

His fear alarmed her. ‘What face?’

‘I can’t explain. I just want to rest, love.’

If there was more to his walk than was hinted at she would only find out by following him, but would die of shame if he turned and saw. On the other hand maybe the act of doing so would prove her love.

Whisky cooled his tea, and she reached for the bottle to pour some in hers as well. ‘Eating and drinking will wake me up.’ He drained his cup, and took a piece of cake. ‘Do you believe in God?’

Such a question could only be answered by saying yes.

‘Why?’

‘I’ve got to,’ she said.

He relished another fill of potent tea. ‘What sort of a chap do you think He is?’

‘I don’t know. How could I ask?’ The talk disturbed her. ‘But I’m sure He’ll look after us.’

He stroked Midnight, who jumped down, sensing his unease. ‘I think He’s got it in for me.’

‘Why’s that, Sailor?’ She couldn’t bite her tongue and keep silent. ‘Is anything wrong with your life?’

He altered tack, her question warning of further turmoil. ‘I’d just like to be able to make you happier.’

‘I’m as happy as I want to be, and it’s all because of the way you care for me.’

‘I get this ache up my left arm.’ He lifted it, let it fall. ‘It might be rheumatism.’

‘You should see a doctor.’

‘It comes and goes.’ He splashed more whisky into his cup. ‘But this puts the melters on it.’

She would believe in God a little less if He had it in for Sailor. ‘Still, you should call at the doctor’s,’ though she knew he wouldn’t, and hoped her heart would go bang before his, a massive cardiac explosion landing her in the middle of nowhere for ever and ever.

Blue veins pulsed on the back of his hand. ‘I will. But if God has it in for me I can’t say I blame Him. If I’d been Him I would have killed me years ago.’

Silence was the only way to question him. She stroked his face, a drop of clear water falling onto her hand, and he fell asleep before she could ask.

He only came alive in the morning after getting at the bottle. Nor did she feel part of the world till the first strong drink had gone down. Neither said much after it had. The lines of walls and windows sharpened as the liquor took effect, and whoever felt like it stood up to make breakfast.

Through the mist of her apparent wellbeing Sailor sat with smouldering pipe, looking as young as ever. In the hours that passed he told matelot stories in a clear voice, Ann not caring that they’d been heard before. The ghost that threatened him was harmless while he talked. After tea they sat drinking till going to bed at eleven, by which time two bottles had gone dry.

He rubbed a hand across his eyes as if to order the thoughts behind. ‘It gets worse, and I don’t know why that should be.’

She hoped he wouldn’t say, as if any revelation would be too late. ‘What does?’

‘It’s eating me to death. I’m starting to see them everywhere. I know it wasn’t my fault, but that don’t help, though I had to live through it.’

To tell something dreadful about herself might have comforted him, but all she could do was listen, pulling Midnight onto her lap for comfort. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Sailor.’

‘It’s my first wife I’m talking about. She did it on me a few times, though I was no angel, either. We had a daughter, a wonderful girl she was, and then my wife told me she was somebody else’s. She let me know in such a way that I could see a mile off how true it was. I’d loved Melanie for ten years as my own kid, but she had been put into my wife by somebody else. I went mad. That sort of thing’s murder land.’

Ann didn’t know whether her face went flour-white or blood-orange red at the certainty that he had killed his wife, and that that was his appalling secret.

For a smile he managed a bleak jack o’ lantern grimace. ‘No, my love, I never touched her. It was too big a blow. I’d take nobody’s life. Nor have I ever gone in for hitting women.’

She wished there was some way of stopping him, because what did anything from the past have to do with the way they lived now? His blue-glow eyes looked ahead, as if he was telling everyone in the world because he could hardly bear to let her
know, or recall it himself. ‘You should have told me before, Sailor.’

‘How could I?’ He turned to her, and she felt close again. ‘I couldn’t bear the sight of her, so I lit off. Not long after, she killed herself, and left a note saying it was because of me. I’d ruined her life. I was the worst person she’d known, the worst in the world. That’s why I couldn’t tell you. Nothing she said was true, but with a person like that you’ve got to take the responsibility. If I’d told her I’d forgiven her for what she did she might not have done it. It didn’t occur to me. Even if I didn’t mean it, I could have said I forgave her, then maybe she wouldn’t have gassed herself.’

‘I’ll never believe it was your fault, Sailor.’

He didn’t hear. ‘If I couldn’t believe that, I might live in peace for the rest of my life. But let me go on, because you haven’t heard the rest of it yet. Though Melanie wasn’t mine I never held anything against her. And she was my daughter by the time I’d brought her up. She left home at eighteen, and I saw her a time or two. She was happy enough. We got on so well she said she’d come and live with me when I left the Navy.’

‘That was nice,’ Ann put in.

He looked at rain making tracks down the garden window, unable to face her. ‘She did the same thing as her mother, took pills and killed herself when she was twenty. She did it out of the blue, just like that.’ His glass was empty, and he leaned towards her, his expression as dead as if he’d had no rest from the day he was born.

‘You can’t say it was your fault.’

‘I’ve got a conscience, though. The sharks were set on me, and they won’t let go.’

He had never been altogether hers, but at this moment he belonged to her more than he ever had, more than she could have thought possible. ‘It does no good to torment yourself.’

‘I know, and I feel a bit calmer for telling you. I did want to let you know about it on the day we were married, but I couldn’t
bring it out. Troubles shared are troubles doubled, in any case.’

‘They wouldn’t have been, not with me.’ Troubles shared are proof of love. ‘And what if they are?’

She decided from now on to check what liquor was brought into the house, and when he came back with an off-licence plastic bag of new supplies she asked where the money had come from. ‘We can’t afford to go on drinking at such a rate.’

‘Never you mind about that, my love. We’re managing very well, as you can see. We’ll be all right, as long as the rent gets paid.’

‘That’s because I take it straight out of the pension every month.’

‘I bless you for that, but leave the rest to me.’

They tried to drink less, but two bottles were finished all the same, levels going down like sand in an egg timer. When Sailor fell out of his chair and lay full length before the fire he was hard to rouse. Bringing the story of his wife and daughter into the open had made things worse, a despairing thought she found impossible to endure while heaping blankets over his body so that he wouldn’t be cold in the night.

She rested her ear on his chest to find out if he was breathing. How daft to think he’s dead. His body shuddered, a heartbreaking sigh from deep inside. Midnight’s furry weight warmed her knees when she sat in the next chair knowing that before long she would get up and pour herself another drink.

Her credit card had gone from the cigar box, so it was obvious where the money was coming from. A smell of frying bacon filled the kitchen, Sailor singing with sleeves rolled up as he stood by the stove. Fearing the edict he knew must come, the ditty faded. She put two slices of bread in the toaster. ‘We’ve got to stop drinking, Sailor.’

His cheeks were purplish, hands shaking as he pushed the spatula
around the pan. ‘Just as well stop living. Nobody knows how long they’ve got on this earth, and if I don’t drink I won’t last as long as if I do.’

Her look made him alter his mind. ‘That can’t be so.’

He set eggs, bacon, sausage, fried bread and tomatoes before her. ‘You may be right. We’ll give it a try.’

She carried two large bottles of water from the supermarket to pour into their glasses. ‘It’s time we had another go at the puzzle. It’d be marvellous if we could get to the end.’

‘I’ve been trying for years, but I was waiting to finish it with you.’ He was smiling with pleasure. ‘Come on, let’s get cracking.’

They had never fitted so many at one time. He completed the main deck of the
Victory,
and found the sail that was to become Nelson’s shroud, while Ann put together the uneven line of marines. ‘Now for the mizzen starboard tackle,’ he said.

He looked better after the nap. At moments she felt the hardship of resistance, and looked around for a drink, hands shaking no less than his. She caressed a glass, but wouldn’t be the first to give in, the struggle so consuming that she no longer bothered to clean the house.

Sailor came back from a walk, a half-bottle showing from each pocket. He put them unopened on the sideboard, and lay back in his chair. She sat by him on the arm. ‘What happened, Sailor?’

‘I turned a corner at the top of Hillcot Drive, and saw one of ’em.’

‘Who?’ She dreaded the answer.

‘Melanie looked at me from over a hedge, and the blood stopped in my veins. She was wearing a blue frock, and smiling like she used to be when she waited for me to come home after months at sea with a present. But she screamed, terrified. Her mother was there as an old woman, and she never was one. She came out of the door and tried to pull Melanie inside. I walked away as quick as my legs would take me. I didn’t care in what direction I made
distance. They’ll chase me into the grave. Sometimes it’s all right for weeks. Then it hits me again. It gets worse.’

‘Maybe it’ll go away,’ though she didn’t see how it could, because as he talked she was seeing them herself, a flash of both by the kitchen door, doll-faces glaring at her with loathing.

He stood, pale and unsteady. ‘I’ll be in the front room, doing a bit at the puzzle.’

He took the terrors with him, as if they were built into his broad shoulders. She found him asleep, a few pieces in a clenched hand. She caressed him, then punched and pleaded till a half-opened eye made a window of light into his soul. ‘Come on, Sailor, let’s get you upstairs.’

The manoeuvre took half an hour, but she hoped he would stay in bed for as long as it took to bring him peace. The time she sat by him couldn’t be measured. Talking more about his curse would break the spell, she hoped, and it seemed to, for after three days in bed he walked almost normally to the pub, wearing his cap and the indestructible duffle coat, and using the stick Sidney had hiked with in his youth.

‘Smoke, noise and beer smells are my natural element after sea water,’ he smiled on opening the door. It had become hers as well, the one atmosphere in which she and Sailor could be alive together. ‘This’ll drive the sickness out,’ he said when they sat down to the first drink. ‘I’ve never known it to fail.’

They lay side by side in bed, and the terrors came into his dreams. He didn’t tell her, but she knew they did because they spilled into hers as well. Melanie and her mother sat in a deep armchair in the lounge of The Tummler Hotel. Ann saw the high chairs from the back, and on turning to look saw their bloody and decaying faces. The room wasn’t the same because bales of straw were scattered among grey cobwebs, and Sailor was hanging from a beam, but still living, his body turning and turning as if a high wind was
blowing, at which gyrations Melanie and the old woman began to laugh.

‘What’s the matter, love?’

She grasped him. ‘I was having a bad dream.’

‘Seemed like a nightmare the way you screamed. But don’t cry. You’re all right now. You’re with me.’

‘I’m sorry I woke you.’

‘I’m glad you did. That’s what I’m here for. But go to sleep now. You’ll be all right.’

In the morning Sailor was comatose and could hardly breathe, but he got out of bed and came down for breakfast, a lifetime’s drill helping him to live. ‘You’ll have to see the doctor,’ she said, but knew he wouldn’t when he reached for the bottle even before eating.

The cat scratched to go out and do its business, and so, putting away the temptation of another drink, she opened the garden door to follow. Teddy shouted in argument with his mother, and the echoing smack of a hand which must have come from his father set him on a long wail of rage and protest.

Evening clouds formed a hose for letting down rain. She hoped the ululation of a car alarm wouldn’t waken Sailor, who said they reminded him of danger signals on a ship. A white sparrow perched at the nuts finished gorging then flew off with one in its beak.

The end of the June day turned chilly, and she sat mindlessly till the first drops of water told her it was time to go in. Annoyed at the smell, she assumed Midnight had messed before being let out, though he had been a well-behaved cat, ever since Sidney had put its kitten’s paws into a pat of lard so that it wouldn’t forget where it lived.