Her Victory (69 page)

Rolls of cloud lay on low hills ahead. If she met Judy by the kerb of the tree-lined road she would give her a lift, providing they were going to the same destination. It was laughable to be free. The ease of driving with no one else in the car was so much greater. She could go on for ever, until coming bang up against frontier or coastline, when it would be seen that the car wasn't in her name. Even then, she might get through.

She would ride awhile and go back. She loved him too much to let him worry. He must be wakened for supper. She saw him sleeping, his exhaustion at last in repose. It was rare enough, these days. She wanted to be with him, and looked for a place to turn.

At a traffic island she went left instead of right. A car from the opposite direction smashed into her left side. Too late to avoid or beneficially stop. There was a rending of metal, a smash of windscreen and headlight, and a fearful jerk at the neck that spun her eyes into blackness.

14

By nine at night Hilary and Sam were so deadbeat that few squeaks or mumbles were still to come. They'd had their baths, been fed and sent to bed, and nothing could break the tranquillity of the hours that followed. Traffic noises diminished, and even the muted beat of the sea contributed to peace.

The security of living in Tom's flat, minus the tension of wondering where the next tenpenny piece was coming from, made her feel more bodily worn out than she ever had. Having no worries, she decided, will be the death of me, unless I get used to it. The fight was worth making, considering, as she did, that her struggle had been sufficient to pay any debt towards sin and sloth that she might at some time have incurred.

She put her supper plate on the piano top, and set up the card-table by the fireplace. Her unease was caused by wondering when such good fortune – there was no other word for it – would end. She tried not to care. Her body and spirit wallowed in the succour that had dropped from heaven in the shape of this seaside flat and the money Tom allowed her.

The painting of the dead officer above the mantelpiece was taken down the day they came in, and stood in the hall where no one could see it. Sam had cracked the canvas by a nudge from his elbow, and a stab from the heel of his boot, on a race to the door with Hilary, injuries which distorted the pink-glo cheek and changed the angle of the gun barrel. But she joined the cracks with glue and coloured them with a child's painting set, and hoped the wanderers wouldn't notice on their return. She couldn't remember when Sam had last shed tears, and his distress at the damage to what she considered to be the vilest bit of painting she'd ever seen almost brought tears to her own eyes.

She cooked at midday so as to have an easy time in the evening, when she fixed a cold supper of bread and cheese, and made a pot of black coffee in the fancy alchemical percolator of Tom's old aunt. The kids had a dinner at school, and more or less looked after themselves, but she gave them breakfast and kept the flat in order, and spent any spare hours reading her way through shelves of novels by Trollope and George Eliot. Time passed, but the golden days would end, because Pam had phoned a few days ago to say they were on their way home. She expected them any moment, and then where would she be?

She sipped scalding coffee between bites of sandwich, trying to decide who she was in love with. The absence of Tom and Pam emphasized the isolated unreality of her feelings, which she hoped wouldn't be altogether denied when they got back. She had been surprised by the realization that there had to be a man as well as a woman in her life. Perhaps such deficient people as myself, she thought, need both, but if so I don't mind being in that category, especially if it leads me to become less deficient.

She was consoled by the fact that she could admit the truth at last. To indulge in dreams was a cure for exhaustion, a necessary exercise because at the moment there was neither man nor woman to comfort her. Perhaps there never would be again. They'd surely be too involved with each other to give any attention when they got back, especially now a baby was in the offing, but at least she would have passed time in that twilight aura of knowing there was one way which would allow her to live fully. And anything better than nothing was as good as having everything. If her hope to be with both of them turned out to be no more than her favourite fantasy, the knowledge of her possibilities would remain, and perhaps lead to a resolution of some kind.

After the children got into bed she changed to wearing one of the long skirts and high-necked blouses from the cupboard where Tom's aunt had stored them. Slacks and sweater were slopped around in during the day, or put on to go out shopping. If it was chilly she donned Tom's Merchant Navy overcoat, which seemed to be fashionable among the young these days. But for evenings she needed to feel different, hoping to reach part of herself long since forgotten.

She walked the room, and poured a glass of brandy. The telephone sounded, but she let it ring. Poured into coffee, the brandy warmed her. Most likely it was a wrong number, or a heavy-breather wanting his night's sport. There had been such cases lately. She sat in the armchair with legs resting on a stool. If the noise went on for a long time she had enough will to last it into silence.

One had to know the basis of one's relationship to love before connecting properly to life. Most people had the facility, she thought, because they reached the extent of their capacity early on, or imagined they did, which was the same thing. A proper existence must be founded on a correct appreciation of the half-hidden love that inevitably surfaced, and she knew that she had been in the presence of an enduring lustful affection which she called love ever since meeting Tom, and from the moment Pam had walked into her room one day out of the rain. It was an event of the lost meeting the lost, and feeling a sense of fulfilment as soon as they were in each other's presence, or arms.

She remembered that they had needed cornflakes and butter for the larder, so went into the kitchen to scribble on the shopping-list before she forgot. The vital pushed out the banal. To bring food into the flat was at least as important as her thoughts, though she'd never known a time when space hadn't been found for both.

The ringing stopped. She refilled her glass, the last drink before going to bed. Sleep would encircle her, like a ring of flame never to be broken out of. She would not take pills, though scores of boxes were in the bathroom cabinet. Most nights she lay with a book, sipped her drink and read till she fell asleep with the light on, and Sam woke her at half-past seven with a cup of tea. She would then get up and make breakfast, foul-tempered and zombie-like in her movements. Established in their new school, they went happily out at half-past eight, but not before looking downstairs for postcards from Tom and Pam. They had run back up with a few to show. He had written and told them to find the places on the map, like the good father he ought to have been.

She would not leave when they got back. They would surely fit into the scheme of the flat. Not wanting to be idle and live off anyone, she would look for a job, only wanting to stay with them, and know that life was settled for a while.

Such effrontery made her laugh. She called herself a fool, yet saw no reason not to indulge in such expectations. In the morning she would be her old self as she shouted at the kids to make sure they were clean before going to school. The raw day was a good cure-all. We are made up of dreams that can't be real. Anything that becomes real was never a dream, but a hard-headed idea. Dreams were gorgeous, nonetheless. When the telephone sounded again she snapped off the receiver even before the second ring, her fingers ready to press out any obscenity:

‘Hello?'

‘Judy?'

The horror was that her husband had found the number, and was trying to get back with her. He had lost his job, flat, dolly-bird and car, and was on the streets with nowhere to go, and nothing more than the rags he stood in.

‘This is Tom.'

She laughed. They were at Newhaven, and would be here in half an hour. There would be no sleep that night. They would drink and talk till dawn about their adventures.

‘Tom! You sound half-dead.' He must have whacked himself by driving day and night.

‘Listen, Judy …'

‘I'm hearing you. Where from, though?'

‘In the middle of France.'

‘That's a fine place to be!'

‘I have to tell you about Pam.'

‘What the hell do you mean?'

‘Bad news, I'm sorry to say. Where were you all evening? I couldn't get through.'

‘I was in the bath, I suppose.' She must have found she's not pregnant after all. ‘What news? Tell me, for God's sake!'

She pressed a hand across her breasts, undoing a button of her blouse and fastening it while he tried to speak.

‘She had a smash in the car.'

‘Oh no!'

‘She went for a drive on her own. But I do feel
dead
. You're right.'

She broke in. ‘How is she?' – thinking that the bloody fool had got her killed.

‘Neither of us are, though.' He tried to laugh. He was putting a good face on it – the bastard.

She couldn't hear what he said. ‘Speak louder.'

‘She took the car, and had an accident.' The pause lasted years. I'll go grey twice over. But she wasn't dead, or he would have said it as the first item on his official report.

‘What happened, then? How is she?'

‘She'll be all right – in a while.'

‘What do you mean “All bloody right”?'

‘We thought she had broken her neck. She's badly bruised. A few cuts. The baby will be all right. We won't be back for a while. There's a lot to say. I have to square the police.'

‘Don't say that. They may be listening.'

She thought he laughed. ‘It's nothing like that. Just a bit of form-filling.'

‘Thank God.'

‘I saw her tonight. She's in the clinic here. She sends her love.'

‘What place are you at? Tell me, and I'll come down. The kids can stay here. They're very good at looking after themselves.'

‘Bless them!' he said.

He sounded drunk. Must have been at that flask again. Tears came to her eyes, but she clamped them back. ‘I'll get to where you are by tomorrow evening.'

‘It's all right. But thank you. If there's any need I'll phone you. I'll phone tomorrow, in any case.'

She couldn't talk. Neither could he. Then she said: ‘Give Pam my love. And my love to you as well.'

‘We'll be all right. Keep well.'

‘I love you both.'

‘I must hang up now,' he said.

She put the phone down. Goodbye, you poor stupid kids without me to put in a harsh word. You don't need Judy, either, do you? But what have you been up to? Wait till I get my hands on you. They don't know how to look after themselves, because they have no idea what real love is all about.

Her drink unfinished, she went to bed without a book, and slept – though not before wondering whether to tell the kids when she woke up in the morning. But they were too grown up not to be told.

15

The smash had come from pink dust and white lights. She would tell Judy when she saw her that the explosion had shaken every molecule of her bones. The explanation ran through her mind while they stood silent on the platform waiting for the quick train to Paris. Tom paced up and down, but always came back in case she needed anything or wanted to speak.

Not even time to jam the brakes on, she would say, by then perhaps able to laugh about it. Why did I turn left on the roundabout, instead of right? The old subconscious was dead-set on my assassination, she supposed. Good to know it wasn't as all-powerful as she had often given it credit for, since the plot or impulse had clearly failed.

The other driver was a woman, and neither had she put her brakes on. All happened too quickly. Good job she had been a woman, and hadn't hurt herself. More helpful than angry she was, a schoolteacher on her way home, young but with a severe face, dark hair pulled back to show the shape of her skull, features I'll never forget, but most likely won't see again, though Tom in his appreciation left our address so that she could stay in England any time. He was always quick with the generous thought when someone did a favour, especially if it was for me. A wonder he didn't have an affair with her while I was in hospital, but he couldn't because he spent nearly every hour at my bedside.

I blubbered at the trouble I'd caused, but he laughed, and said it didn't matter as long as I was all right, and I was, because everything turned out even more superficial than they had thought. ‘I got both of us, and the car,' he said, ‘insured to the limit before we left, so the motor club can bring the car back when it's fixed, and we'll have a leisurely return by train and boat.'

The schoolteacher came to see me in the clinic, and brought flowers, as well as a get-well card from some of her pupils. I could have fallen for her myself with her English as good as mine, and probably more correct in its grammar. She was very charming – and generous. Tom took her to dinner one night, and I was glad, otherwise he would have drifted around the town like a lost soul, as if he'd just come off one of his old ships, or stayed in the hotel room supping on his bottomless whisky flask.

Why I turned left instead of right I'll never know. I was happy and unthinking, a wrong state of mind because how can you be responsible if you are so stupidly relaxed? You have to pay for the air you breathe by being vigilant all the time, no matter how wearing. In the flash and crunch that followed I was in despair because he would think I had taken the car to do myself in, or get myself an injury so that I'd be in hospital for months and not have to worry about anything. Then he would wash his hands of me because I'd tried a silly stunt once too often. He'll leave me high and dry, I thought when I was collapsed like a piece of regulation jelly outside the car, and then what will I be able to do except make my own way back and cry on your bosom for the rest of my life?