How to Measure a Cow (20 page)

‘Straight ahead, then left?’ Claire said.

She got a nod in return, and that was that.

It was more than straight ahead and then left. Claire had to ask again, but was luckier with those she asked. One woman insisted on walking her all the way to the end of a street, though it was in the
opposite direction from the one she herself was going in, and another woman gave her, in great detail, a way of taking a shortcut which completely disorientated Claire. Eventually, she got back to her car, and sat for a while to calm down. Why she was agitated bothered her. Nothing had gone seriously wrong – she’d merely been momentarily lost – but it felt as though it had. She’d panicked, not because she was lost, but because of Tara’s address, because of the feeling she had about the street and what it must have been like for Tara arriving here, to this no-man’s-land. How had she sunk herself into it? How would she get out?

She tried later to discuss it with Dan, but the whole subject of Tara and her strange ways bored him.

‘What was wrong with this street?’ he said. ‘Sounds a perfectly ordinary street in a perfectly ordinary town.’

‘But that’s the point,’ Claire said. ‘Tara isn’t ordinary, she’s just trying to make herself so.’

‘And?’ said Dan.

‘And …’ began Claire, and stopped. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t understand. I can’t explain, but I was frightened for her.’

Dan made a face. ‘Tara can look after herself,’ he said. ‘She always could. I don’t know why you seemed to think she was so wonderful. She was the most selfish person I ever met, all me, me, me, spouting all that nonsense she did.’

‘What nonsense?’

‘Oh, the tree-hugging thing, for one. She didn’t give a damn about trees. She just wanted her picture in the papers. And those rallies, marches, whatever you
want to call them. She hadn’t the faintest idea of the politics involved, she just liked the excitement.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Claire, ‘she
cared
about those causes.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Dan. ‘Anyway, I’ve had a long day and I’m tired. The last thing I want to do is talk about your silly friend. Goodnight,’ and he went to bed.

Claire lay awake for hours, walking Tara’s street again, thinking about Tara living there. She tried to see it as Dan would – a perfectly ordinary street – but couldn’t.

It seemed to her there’d been something more than just depressing about it, something there to pull Tara down. But, as Dan would say, she was getting carried away again. She wondered if she should visit the house again, at a different time, but phoned instead. There was no reply, and it didn’t switch on to answerphone.

The visit didn’t begin well. Tara noticed that Nancy had dressed up, a bad sign. She was, as usual, wearing a skirt but instead of one of her usual checked affairs, it was a plain pleated grey. Usually she wore a blouse and a cardigan but today she had on a bright blue twinset which looked as though it had never been worn.

‘Goodness,’ Tara said, ‘you look smart.’

Nancy didn’t like that. Tara suddenly understood the meaning of ‘bridled’.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘I like your twinset.’

Again, the wrong thing to say. Comments on clothes should not be made, apparently.

‘I’m on my way out,’ Nancy said. Tara wasn’t foolish enough to ask where she was going.

Tea was made, offered, accepted. Tea, as ever, helped a bit.

‘When are you off?’ Nancy asked, though she already knew the answer. ‘You won’t be sorry to leave,’ she added. ‘Cockermouth is more your kind of place, I expect.’

She sniffed as she said this, and though Tara interpreted the sniff correctly, she did not react to it. Very quietly, she put her cup down and said:

‘I’m sorry to be leaving you, Nancy, though I hope we’ll still keep in touch.’

Nancy took a noisy gulp of tea, and then coughed.

‘There are things I’ve never told you,’ Tara said, ‘about why I came here, what I was doing here. Haven’t you ever wondered, Nancy?’

‘I don’t pry,’ Nancy said. ‘I mind my own business.’

‘True,’ Tara said, ‘and I respect that, I really do, but still, you must’ve wondered, no? I always meant to tell you about myself but it was never the right time. I never felt we got to know each other well enough.’

Nancy shifted uneasily in her chair and said, ‘I have to go soon,’ but even as she was saying this one part of her was shouting in her head, ‘Let the girl speak.’

‘I know you do,’ Tara was saying. ‘I know you don’t want any messy confessions from me, but it would explain so much and might make sense to you, so I thought, before I moved, I should tell you about myself, as a sort of apology for being, perhaps, a bit strange. What do you think? Would you listen?’

The most Nancy could manage to do was shrug, and even that took an effort, full as she was of embarrassment at any hint of personal revelations.

So Tara plunged in. ‘For a start, as I told you before, my name isn’t Sarah Scott. It’s Tara Fraser.’

No response from Nancy, not a flicker of astonishment or surprise in her tight face.

‘And I’ve been in prison. For a long time, ten years.’

Now there was a reaction Nancy couldn’t control, and her lips disappeared, so complete was their compression. She didn’t ask what Tara had been in prison for.

‘Well,’ she said, after a long pause, ‘well, then.’

‘I was here to make a new life,’ Tara said, ‘so I took a new name, and I tried not to think about the old me. You were an important part of my new life.’

Nancy looked startled.

‘Not me,’ she said, before she could stop herself, without thinking what these two words might mean. ‘I’ve nothing to do with you,’ she added, knowing she was making things worse. ‘I don’t want to be involved, I don’t want any trouble, I don’t want to be mixed up in anything.’

Tara stayed calm. No good saying how disappointed she was. She’d anticipated this, and prepared for it.

‘Do you remember, Nancy,’ she said, ‘when I went away for a week, in June? I went back to see three old friends of mine, friends since we were seventeen. They invited me to a reunion, and I went. But what I went for was to make them ashamed because they didn’t stand by me when I needed them. It didn’t work, really. They had perfectly believable excuses, reasons. I wished I hadn’t gone. I wished I’d stuck to my new life, to being Sarah, living in this street opposite you. You steadied me, Nancy.’

Nancy got to her feet.

‘I have to go,’ she said, ‘all this daft talk, it doesn’t make sense. Steadied you? What does that mean? I haven’t touched you. Now, where’s my coat?’ She knew she was red in the face with sheer exasperation – ‘steadied’ indeed.

‘I’m sorry,’ Tara said. ‘I just wanted to be straight with you before I left. I felt I owed it to you.’

Nancy walked to the door, but Tara was quicker. She stood with her back to the door, and said: ‘Sit down, Nancy, please.’

She didn’t shout, nor was there anything threatening in her tone of voice, but Nancy felt alarmed. People didn’t
do
things like this. She was more astonished at this woman’s impudence than anything else – what a way to behave.

‘I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘Get out of my way.’

‘No,’ said Tara. ‘I won’t. I can’t let you leave like this. You haven’t understood what I was trying to tell you.’

‘I don’t care about that,’ Nancy said. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. Now let me out, I have to go.’

Still Tara stood there.

Nancy went closer. She hesitated, unsure whether she could bring herself to touch Sarah, shove her to one side, but a horror at the thought of the tussle that might follow held her back. Two women fighting? Shocking thought, like something which happened on the tougher council estates. Amy would be turning in her grave at the thought of such a thing happening in her house.

Furious, Nancy turned and went towards a wooden chair, an old-fashioned dining-room chair, and not
towards the armchair she’d just vacated. She perched on it uncomfortably, saying nothing, her handbag on her knees, held securely in her hands. Tara didn’t move.

‘I was trying,’ she began, ‘to explain about why I was so odd, and how much it meant to me that you helped me. I thought you were a friend, a new kind of friend for me. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Well, you did,’ snapped Nancy, though she had vowed not to speak at all.

‘Then I’m sorry,’ Tara said, ‘truly sorry. Can we at least part friends, even if you never want to see me again?’

‘We were neighbours,’ Nancy said. ‘That’s the point.’

Tara frowned, then slowly moved away from the door. There were tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks as she gestured towards Nancy, indicating that she could open the door and leave.

Shocked, Nancy said, ‘Sit down now. I’ll make some more tea.’

Tara said nothing, just stood in front of the armchair. Nancy took hold of her shoulders, though she hadn’t wanted to touch her, and gently pushed Tara into the seat.

‘There,’ she said, ‘stay there.’

The whole simple business of making fresh tea was a relief. Nancy stood beside the kettle, suddenly loving its shiny chrome surface, Amy’s old kettle still in use. The teapot was another relic, never used, so far as she knew, by Sarah, Tara, whatever she was called. It was a pleasure to rinse it out with hot water, and would have been an even greater pleasure to put real, loose
tea in it, but she could only find teabags. She knew making this tea was simply a diversion, a cliché, one used on all kinds of occasions to calm things down, to treat shock. Well, she was shocked, had been shocked. The melodrama of this woman barring the door! It was a wonder she hadn’t passed out.

Tara was still weeping when Nancy took the tea through. She made no sound, no movement, but the tears streamed on.

‘Dear me,’ Nancy said, ‘dear, dear me,’ and she took a handkerchief from her pocket and cautiously attempted to dab Tara’s face. ‘Now, that’s enough, it’s enough.’

Tara’s eyes were so huge. Nancy wondered why she had never really noticed this before. How could she not have registered the size of these doe-like blue/grey eyes, now still pools of tears? It was like treating a child, making soothing noises and dab, dabbing away till the handkerchief was sodden.

‘I’ve made such a mess,’ Tara then said. ‘I always do, I mess things up.’

‘The only mess,’ said Nancy, ‘is your face. Here, blow your nose,’ and she produced another handkerchief. (There was one in the right-hand pocket of her coat as well as in the left, and tissues in her handbag. At all times.)

Ten minutes later, with no tea drunk, and Sarah/Tara silent, though the tears had stopped, Nancy wondered if it was safe to leave. Might Sarah/Tara do something? She looked as if she was going to stay for ever slumped in that chair, eyes now closed, but what if, the minute Nancy left, she took some pills, or picked up a knife to harm herself? Nancy wasn’t
used to not knowing what to do. She’d always been decisive, good in an emergency people said (though she knew fine well that she’d never been involved in a real emergency). Eventually, after a good deal of thinking, she said, ‘I don’t like to leave you like this, but I have to go, I’m meeting a friend.’ At the word ‘friend’ Tara’s tears started again. Nancy sighed, and sat down.

Tara finally controlled herself but sat, listless, with her eyes closed.

‘Now then,’ Nancy said, ‘that’s better. No point in upsetting yourself.’ She thought about patting Tara’s hand but decided not to. She cleared her throat. ‘You should get away from here,’ she said. ‘Isn’t there somewhere you can go for a while? Family, maybe?’

Tara shook her head. Nancy wasn’t sure whether that meant she had no family, or that she didn’t want to go to them.

‘Friends?’ she queried. ‘One of those friends you mentioned? Down south, are they? I’m sure they’d be glad to see you, make up for letting you down, eh?’

No response.

‘Well,’ Nancy went on, ‘we all get let down.’ She paused. ‘And we do our share of letting down.’

She felt herself flushing, appalled at how she was talking, what on earth had got into her. But Tara had opened her eyes.

‘Have you been let down, Nancy?’ she said.

The most Nancy could manage was a nod. There’d be questions now and she didn’t want questions.

But Tara didn’t ask any.

‘I tried,’ she said. ‘I really tried, and I’m still trying.’

Nancy thought she would just keep quiet.

‘I thought I could make a new life here, and be a new, contented, unadventurous person, working at a dull job, taking pleasure in routine, enjoying simple things like the countryside, the views, minding my own business, like you mind yours, Nancy. I took my lead from you. I wanted to be you – no, honestly, I did.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t have,’ Nancy said, ‘it was daft, a young woman like you. It’s a waste.’

‘Of what?’ Tara asked. ‘What would I be wasting, trying to be like you?’

‘Oh, you’re off again,’ Nancy said, ‘twisting things, it’s silly. You know what I mean. You’re bright, you’re clever underneath, all that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth look. I don’t know much about you but I know you were educated, sticks out a mile, and you probably had a career, I don’t know what, and you can’t wipe those out. And it’s daft – I’ve said it already and I’ll say it again – it’s daft to think you could be like me or anyone like me. Who’d want to be me? You don’t know what goes on in my head. And don’t start – I’m not going to tell you. Now, get up, wash your face, and go for a walk or something. I’m going to the club. I’ll see you before you go.’

And with that, Nancy left the house. Could Tara have killed her husband, or someone else, to be put away so long? Probably, if she’d been in prison ten years, then the sentence was bound to have been longer. Nancy felt sick thinking of Tara being a murderer. Why had she done it? What had this husband, who she described as ‘not a good man’, done to her? Maybe he hadn’t done anything to her. Maybe it was what he’d done to others. Tara had wanted to tell her, but she’d been too
embarrassed to listen. Embarrassed! How could she have been
embarrassed
? Yet that had been her reaction. To run away, escape from the awful atmosphere which had built up in that confined space. Why did people have to
tell
things, why not keep things to themselves and deal with it? But, she reminded herself, Tara had tried to deal with it, and it hadn’t worked. She, Nancy Armstrong, had resisted it working.