Never Mind Miss Fox (9 page)

He had thought of her since that morning—of course he had—but only for as long as it took to spell her name out in his head:
El-i-ot.
At its closing consonant he repackaged the word and put it away.

He had not forgotten—he had neither forgotten nor remembered—until Martha, pregnant and explosive, had announced the name she wanted to give their daughter: Eliza.
E-l-i.
Clive had felt the clutch of the ghost at his arm and he had bent down to the floor—tying his shoelace, hiding his face, buying some time—before straightening up to reply. But what could he say?
No, not that name…

“Why not?” Martha would have demanded. “It was my mother's name, Clive. Why not?”

Because it reminds me of that girl we used to know…

Here she stood:
that girl.
He stood in front of her, turned to stone.

Eliot laughed. “You look as if you'd seen a ghost!” and hearing the chime of her voice Clive thought,
Perhaps it is going to be all right.

“Who is this guy?” asked Lynton. “Friend of yours?”

“I know him.”

“What's he doing here?”

“I don't know.” She turned to Clive. “What are you doing here?”

“I came for a document.”

“You're the guy? The barrister? From London?”

“That's right.”

“Small world,” Lynton said. His voice was chalky with distrust.

“You'll never guess how I know him,” Eliot said. “It's such a funny story—” She was watching Clive who swallowed and cringed in terror like a thieving, cornered dog.

“Oh yeah?” queried Lynton.

Eliot waited a moment with half a smile on her lips and then she said, “Never mind. I'll tell you another time.”

Clive wanted to dive through the glass and into the hooting metropolis but instead he licked his lips and tried to speak. “I had no idea—” he began.

But Lynton spoke too. “How did you—?”

Eliot interrupted them: “Let's have a drink,” she said. “Since you're here.”

She pulled a dress from the closet and slipped it on over her underwear, right there in the room. Clive and Lynton watched her but the other men did not even turn their heads. Then Lynton glanced—cat-quick—at Clive and caught him staring.

“Come on,” Eliot beckoned Clive. He followed her into the next-door room which contained the piano and, he noticed now, a bar. The men stayed where they were. “Lynton's team is playing,” Eliot explained. “He wouldn't move if you set him on fire.”

Behind the bar, Eliot pulled open a fridge door. Bottles of champagne were arranged in neat rows and she lifted one out, stripped the foil from the neck of the bottle and twisted out the cork. She paid as little attention to the task as if she had been snapping open a can of Coke or squeezing a carton of milk.

Clive watched her, waiting for a cue. She was very thin under the black, clinging stretch of her dress. He noted the sharp prongs of her shoulders, elbows and pelvis; the mark of each rib as she turned to pluck two glasses from a high shelf. Her face by contrast seemed unstructured—as pale, featureless and distant as a winter moon. Her hair was short and bleached to white; even her lips and eyes seemed to have been washed of their color. Most vivid were the glittering diamonds which swung to and fro below each ear.

Eliot did not ask him what he wanted, but pushed a glass of champagne towards him. She unwrapped a pack of cigarettes that was lying on the bar, and lit one. She did not come and sit next to him but stayed standing where she was.

He thought she might not say anything, and so he spoke. “You don't seem surprised,” he said.

She exhaled a gust of smoke. “I'm not. People always crop up again, in life. Didn't you imagine this would happen? I did.”

She had become sophisticated: Clive saw it in her dead-eyed look; he heard it in the flat tone of her voice. Nothing would be extraordinary; nothing would surprise her. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I did.” He had imagined a chance meeting, but never a conversation—and certainly not this. He was unmoored. “How are you?” he asked.

“Me? Great. Good. Brilliant, actually.”

“How long have you…”

“Been with Lynton? For a bit.” She seemed to have smoked the whole cigarette already, and ground out the stub. She stared at the packet, scratching the back of one hand with the nails of the other. Clive could tell she wanted another one. He was thinking,
She can't be more than twenty-one.

“So you're a barrister,” she said. “You said you were going to be. How clever of you”—she gave a flat, mocking laugh—“to have realized your ambition.” In a gesture that seemed to signify both defiance and surrender she took another cigarette and lit it before refilling both their glasses.

“I'm only a junior,” apologized Clive. “Not much more than an assistant, really.”

“Oh, don't be so hard on yourself, Clive,” she said in a voice that fell like salt. “And what else? Wife? Baby?”

“Yes.” Why did he not want to admit it? “Both.”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed. “Don't tell me: you married Martha?” She laughed even more when she saw from his face that she had guessed right. “How did you manage that? Did you get her pregnant too?”

Clive was shocked, and he hated her—that bitter voice would spoil everything it spoke of. He thought of home, of Eliza's face and the puff of her breath as she slept. “We've got a daughter,” he admitted, reluctant.

“How sweet,” mocked Eliot, taking a glug at her drink. “And what about Martha's ambition? I can't picture her as a housewife.”

Clive flushed. “She's fine,” he said. He waited a moment for the hot wash to ebb from his face and neck. Then he asked, “What about you? What are you doing?”

She didn't say anything for a moment. “Doing? I'm…” She looked around the room, as if for inspiration. “I like music,” she said, eyes lighting on the piano.

“You always did.” Clive's voice seemed to leap at the positive—at last he had been thrown a ball he could return. “Do you remember, you played the piano in the hotel lobby in France?”

She smiled and said, “Did I? What a little brat I must have been. Well: now I've got my
own
piano in my
own
apartment. How about that?”

“Where?” asked Clive.

She looked at him. “What do you mean, ‘where'? Here—right here in this room.”

“Oh, I thought you meant—” But he could not continue.
I thought you meant you had your own apartment; your own home. Anywhere but here.

There was another pause and then Eliot asked, “How's Tom?”

Clive did not want to tell her anything more, but his head hurt and he felt weakened by this awful torture. He might not want to speak, but he could not keep himself from talking. “He's fine,” he replied. “He's going to be a doctor, if you can believe it.”

“Yes, I can,” said Eliot. She had expected this too; she seemed to know everything. Clive quickly drank his champagne, blinking as he tipped the glass back. He noticed that in the ceiling above the bar little sparkling lights had been set so that there was something to look at when you drank.

“What are you doing tonight?” Eliot said next.

“Tonight?” Clive repeated, stupid and confused. “Nothing. I mean…no, nothing. Why? What time is it?”

“I've no idea. Does it matter? We're going to something,” she said, frowning, “but I'm not sure what. Some ‘do,' probably. Why don't you come?”

“I can't…” But in fact, he could; he could not think of a reason why not. “Well, I could I suppose. But it's a bit weird, isn't it? I mean, Lynton's my client.”

“Oh, don't worry about that. Lynton's adorable—”

Clive doubted this.

“—and in any case, you said yourself—you're only the assistant. It's not like you're a big silk who's going to get up and represent him in court.”

The way she put this point—which he himself had made—unnerved Clive still further. He was afraid.

“Come on,” went on Eliot, “will you? For me?” She turned the lit end of her cigarette around in the ashtray. She looked down at it and then up at Clive from under her lashes. “I'm so fucking lonely, Clive.” The words were a surprise—and she said them so quickly—he wondered whether he had heard her right.

“OK,” he said. “Yes.” Guilt would make him do anything she asked, he realized, for eternity. He feared her; he was paralyzed; he could not run away. He would stand quite still and wait for the plunge of her knife between his ribs.

Eliot smiled her half-smile and said, “I'll be back in a sec.”

In those days, if—when—Eliza woke in the night she cried with a loud, snagging, persistence that—although there was nothing wrong—did not stop. She did not have to be upset, hungry or uncomfortable. She might not even be awake. She might just cry, on and on.

Martha and Clive had different ideas about what to do. He would get up; she would not. “If you leave her,” Martha would say, “she'll stop.” But they never knew because they never did: Clive was always there, and Eliza was always nestled to sleep on his shoulder.

On that night—for the first time in Eliza's life—there was no Clive.

“What will you do?” he had asked, before he had left for the airport.

“Don't you trust me?” Martha had replied. To herself she had said,
I will not give in.

When she woke up she lay in the dark and listened to those lonely, miserable sobs in the neighboring room:

“Uh-hic—hook—raawl…Uh-hic—hook—raawl…”

Martha remembered the vow she had made to herself. She closed her ears.
I will break this habit,
she thought.
It will be an achievement.
She was determined. “No, Eliza,” she said. “Not this time.” She put a pillow on her head and fell asleep.

Waking from a tiring, rasping, clattering dream—something precious lost; something left undone—she heard the same noise, relentless, but louder and more urgent. Eliza had not stopped.

Oh God. That sound. Please, no more.

Martha switched on the light, looked at her watch and was frightened. She got out of bed, trembling a little and saying “All right all right all right—” half to herself.

In the next-door room she stared into the cot. “What do you want?” she asked. “Tell me.” But Eliza did not even open her eyes to see, she just cried, and the stress of crying had turned her face to blotches. Now her legs shuddered and her fists beat on the mattress. Now her mouth was huge—huge—but not breathing, only yelling; now that sound was continuous, dreadful, inhuman: a yowl like a desperate cat.

“Hushushush—it's OK—” With a snatching, worried movement Martha plucked Eliza from the cot and cuddled her to her chest. Why had she not done this before? She cursed herself and folded her daughter into her arms but it seemed to be too late: Eliza did not understand—or believe—that this was rescue, fighting her tormentor as if she were struggling out of a knotted sack. She wriggled and pummeled, kicked and screamed.
Oh,
Martha begged her, mute,
please stop.
Tears filled her eyes and she felt both their hearts pounding, loud and fast, frantic and feverish. Pressed together like this their fractious tussle was gathering pace and Martha could see no end—she could not make it stop and Eliza did not know how.

And then:
milk.
The idea came into her head and she swept Eliza upstairs. She put her down on the kitchen rug and knelt before her. “Please,” she begged aloud, “stop. Please—” But Eliza took no notice, turning her head from side to side and yelling.

Martha sat back on her heels. Watching this angry, twisting creature she wondered, fearful,
What are you?

Once this monstrous thought was let loose it disturbed others—panic, rage and terror—which tumbled from Martha like angry wasps.
Shut up shut up!
The fear which she could bat away by day—
Eliza hates me
—hovered and droned about her head and she could not seem to frighten it off. From this fear grew a sulky distemper and then a resentment which seemed to spread like a vile, toxic mold.
I should have left you lying there,
she thought.
It makes no difference what I do.

She felt an icy detachment. Standing up, she switched on the kettle and turned to the fridge.
Milk.
But what was the point? Nothing she did would satisfy Eliza. This crying was like an alarm going off in the street: at first it drew attention—people came out of their houses and wondered who to tell—and then all the front doors were shut, and life went on as before. The noise stopped in the end.

She thought she might make tea for herself but she fumbled and dropped a mug. Picking up the two pieces—handle; cup—she noticed her hand was shaking. She turned to Eliza:
See what you've done to me?

Eliza struggled for breath—
“Hook-hook-hook”—
and the kettle murmured and puttered on the counter.

“Oh, Eliza, please,” Martha begged, “please.” She knelt on the rug and repeated it over and over; a monotone, a prayer, a chant. The blue light from the kettle glowed and lit them from above. “Please, Eliza, please.” But Eliza did not stop.

There's something wrong. There must be.

Martha sat back on her heels again. Damn Clive! “All right,” she said, “you win. We'll phone your dad.”

The word alone had an immediate effect. To Martha's relief—and dismay—Eliza continued to wriggle and gasp but she switched off her yelling at once. She turned her head and quizzed the room. Martha could see the question in her face:
Where is he?

Feeling quite hollow inside, Martha got to her feet. Eliza lay curling and hiccupping on the floor while she searched for the number of Clive's hotel. When Eliza began to mewl again, Martha exclaimed, “Oh fuck—oh God—” She checked herself and took a deep breath. Now she saw it: a large yellow note on the wall with the words “New York” and a number. Clive had stuck it to the wall where she could find it in a moment, if she needed to. But now where was the telephone? Nestling among the cushions of the sofa in the next-door room.