The Private Parts of Women (28 page)

I could fancy a bit of something sweet tonight, something in the pudding line. But I've got nothing like that in, only blessed biscuits. A suet pudding soaked in golden syrup, creamy custard made with eggs. Oh Trixie Bell pull yourself together, do.

I cannot quite be calm because I've a nagging, niggling feeling that something is not right in the house. As if a door is hanging open or a gate banging. But it is nothing like that. It could be nothing.

I think I fainted on the bridge. Next thing, a searing whiff of smelling-salts. People all round me, all looking down and a woman kneeling beside me holding the bottle.

‘She's come round,' she said in a deep, rough voice. ‘Here darlin' …' She held the bottle to my nose again but I turned my face away. The people loomed over me, a wall of dark cloth, so that I felt I would suffocate.

‘Shall I fetch a doctor?' somebody asked.

‘No … she's all right.' The woman had a big jaw, dark skin, greasy black hair and she looked kind.

‘What about the coppers?'

‘Now what'd we want with them gentlemen? You all right then?'

I nodded my head.

‘Get her to the Sally Army place,' someone suggested. But I shook my head.

‘Tell you what, darlin', you come back with me for a cup of tea … how's that sound?'

‘Yes, thank you.'

She helped me to my feet. ‘Show's over,' she said.

I felt so strange. Not faint any more. It was like … one afternoon that woman next door showed me some of her photographs. Double exposures they were, one image overlaying another. Experiments, she said. And that is how I felt that evening, still myself but with another woman superimposed, the edges not quite together, quite experimental.

‘What do they call you?' the woman asked as we walked off the bridge.

‘Ada,' I said, without thinking, thinking only that I would not give my real name.

‘I'm Doll,' the woman said. ‘You up to a bit of a walk?'

We walked along the Embankment where down-and-outs were congregating for the night and I looked away for fear that I should see a familiar face – or be recognised myself. We turned away from the River and in my strange state of mind, I thought I heard it sigh. The sun had been setting as we started and it got dark as we walked. A fine drizzle dampened my face. We walked north between wet, black buildings. I was in a daze. Sometimes I came to for a minute to discover we were still walking and it was as if we had been walking for ever.

Near Liverpool Street we stopped at a tall, cramped house. I did not like the smell: perfume, beer, cinders. I was not innocent of the world, my Salvation Army experience had seen to that, and it didn't take me long to realise that I was in what once I would have called ‘a house of ill-repute', that Doll was a madam, a soul ripe for, crying out for, saving. Not only that, but through the house ran a constant stream of such souls. Once I would have rubbed my hands and thanked God for this opportunity to do battle on His behalf.

But.

This is the worst of it because I did know what I was doing.

It was really me.

And yet it was not me, not entirely. I was not myself. Oh those words, how they have echoed down my years. Not myself. Not yourself, dear. Not yourself.

I was myself but not myself.

There is a thread of dusty spider's web hanging from the light-fitting. I never think to clean the ceiling. It twizzles in the heat from the bath, twizzles and floats. The tap drips and it sounds like the ticking of a clock, but not regular. Like time, the space between the drip ticks varies.

I do not feel alone. But that is good Trixie Bell, that is good, not bad. God is here in the dripping of the tap, the cobweb, the pressing weight of the towel. Do not be afraid. God is with you. Do not be afraid of your own self.

BOY

I am here

I am going to be out

I will out of her

She can almost feel me now

Because I am getting the strongest

Because boys simply do have this thing that is strong about them

And bad and all that

Will not be kept in

So do not make me angry

Crawling out of a heavy thing

Asleep for years

But now awake

And sleep do make me strong

I have outed

And I will out

MOTHER'S RUIN

It's bloody freezing up here and my throat is sore with shouting. There are two things I can do. Try to escape or wait. I have tried the door but it is solidly locked with a mortice lock. What kind of person has mortice locks on their inner doors? A crazy person, that's what. The only window is the little skylight. It doesn't appear to open, I can see no way of opening it. I could smash the glass – but then what? I'm not squeezing out of a jagged glass hole on to a slippery slate roof in the rain. The situation is not
so
desperate. I'd break my neck.

I wish I had my watch on. It's gone quiet downstairs now. She switched off the television, then there was a break during which I shouted and even screamed, then she began to sing. She sang one I did not know and then fighting hymns: ‘Onward Christian Soldiers'; ‘Fight the Good Fight'; I stamped and shouted but my voice was tired and my feet would keep stamping in time with the hymns, however hard I resisted. She's been quiet for ages now but snatches of ‘Fight the Good Fight' keep floating into my head. I haven't heard it since I was at school.

The water-tank has been knocking and gurgling, filling with a deafening waterfall sound.

I wonder if I could knock through into my attic? I think, if I am forced to escape, if she doesn't let me out soon, that is what I'll try. With the aid of something hard … maybe the edge of a mirror frame, or the stool, I don't know.

But I will wait. I'm sure she'll let me out, she'll come to her senses. It is almost dark. The light seems to be shrinking back through the skylight as if afraid of what it might illuminate. Oh stop it! I've tried the light-switch but the bulb is dead. There are candles stuck in bottles, the bottles completely disguised under thick, red, waxy drifts, the wax cascaded down so that the bottles are stuck hard to the surfaces they are on: the dressing-table, a chair, the floor, where the wax has fused itself to the fabric of the red-patterned carpet. I look around for matches. I am hungry. I found a dish of old sugared almonds, the pastel colours faded almost to white. They are dusty but if I was very hungry later, if, absurdly, I was still here later, I could try eating them.

There is a half-full bottle of Gordon's gin. I think it would be very stupid in this situation to drink any, but still … I am so shivery and there's nothing to do but wait. I haven't drunk gin for a long time. Not since Christmas, not since the night I seduced Richard. And I've never drunk it neat. It has a comforting taste, medicinal somehow. Mother's ruin. Ha!

I do feel truly better. I am out of the prison that was my despair and so I am free. God I'm getting poetic, but it
was
like a prison, the bars were my despair and against the bars pressed the ghastly faces of my fears, of the things I could do to my children, of the things that people, mothers too, do to the children they love. The terrible things. What is the urge to hurt the thing you love the most? The helpless thing. I don't understand. I give up. The gin
is
comforting. It's warming me up. At least I've stopped shivering now.
Fight the good fight with all th – y might
. I used to love singing hymns at school. I could still love singing. Maybe when I get home I'll join a choir. I feel like some old wino swigging from this bottle, but all the glasses are thick with fingerprints and encrusted with blackened lipstick.

The bars have dissolved and the grisly faces have receded. Maybe I even did
right
to leave my family while I was so afraid, so … what? … deranged? You could say that. But now I am better. The thing is, the thing that will make me really laugh when I'm out of here is that now I am free of that prison, absolutely free, I am a prisoner. I am free. And where do I discover my freedom? Locked in some crazy woman's attic. Who would believe it?

She's stopped singing but the words still ring in my ears:
Faint not nor fear, His arms are near
. I must find some matches.
He changes not, and thou art dear
. There must be some, or a lighter, else how would she light the candles? I open the dressing-table drawer, a long curved drawer with a fiddly knob on the front, latticed like a brooch. When I pull it out, powder rises up from it like a peachy ghost. Nothing in here has been disturbed for a long time. It is full of old perfume bottles, tickets to musicals, dried up make-up, a black lace glove, a man's handkerchief with a curly embroidered F in one corner. What did she call the lover? Frank.

But
could
she have invented him, invented the whole story? It has the flavour of a fantasy. I can't get my head round the fact that it is Trixie's story, staid old Trixie. But no. It was Ada. A man with an eagle on his back, her body pressed against … Could she have made that up? So vivid, I can almost see it, almost feel it. God, this is weird, it's making me excited, the idea of her white breasts squeezed flat against his tattooed skin. Stop it!

No matches. The powder makes me sneeze. I don't like the dark. Silly. I spend half my life in my darkroom – but that's about light. Making light. And there's the friendly red glow and the magic of the pictures appearing. I've never got over that magic which is actually a perfectly explicable chemical reaction. It used to make me feel so warm and happy in a deep muscular way, as if my stomach was smiling, when I saw my babies' faces floating up through the liquid, as if, almost as if I was creating them all over again. Soon I'll be able to hold and touch and sniff them. Lick the milky skin of Billie's neck.
Only believe and thou shalt see
. Oh this bloody woman. LET ME OUT! When will she come to her senses? I must find the means to light these candles before it is entirely dark.

Thank God for the gin.

Oh. It is so cold. And I feel filthy. It is so dirty, a dusty, clinging female dirt. Everything I touch coats my fingers in pinkish grey powder. She will have to let me out.

ILL-REPUTE

Condensation is running down the tiles. The cobweb is hanging limp. The towel that hides me from myself is cold and the water is cooling. I hardly have the strength to stand up, hardly the will. This is why I hate baths. I should not have stayed in so long. I do so hate the cold. I want someone to look after me, someone kind. Someone to worry about me. Not her next-door, never again. Blowski would do if only he would come. Kindness has hardly ever been shown to me. Perhaps I don't invite it.

Doll was kind, whatever else she was, genuinely kind. She helped me on the bridge purely out of the goodness of her heart. You might not think that but it is true. If Doll was the Devil then the Devil has a kind face and makes a good cup of tea.

I followed her into the house of ill-repute, through the hall and into a comfortable room. She lifted a sleeping tabby cat off a chair and sat me by the fire. It was good to get off my aching feet. She drew the curtains and lit the lamps.

‘Now, Ada,' she said putting strong sugary tea in front of me. Every time she said that name I flinched; thinking I should say I am Trixie, not Ada. But then I did not want to be Trixie anymore. I sat in a low armchair. The pattern on the hearth-rug was red, blue and green and made my eyes jump. The tea cup was encircled with ivy leaves that made me think of Ivy and her baby. The cat got up, stretched its feet out behind it and yawned, flicking me quite a look as it settled itself down against the hearth.

‘It's a palindrome,' I said, surprising myself. It was as if another voice was speaking through my mouth, another face floating to the surface leaving me, Trixie, mute.

‘What's that?'

‘A palindrome, reads the same backwards or forwards. A.D.A. same both ways.'

Doll twisted her face with the effort of imagining it, then smiled. ‘It does and all! Well a palindrome, eh? You learn something every day.' She gazed into the fire for a minute, then, ‘Oxo!' she said triumphantly, ‘the drink, Oxo.'

‘Yes.' I sipped my tea. I had drunk tea in so many houses and I liked it strong like this. I could almost feel the fur growing on my tongue. I did not feel like Trixie. I did not want to be Trixie. I thought I would try to
be
Ada. Although I did not, still do not, know who Ada is.

‘Well,' Doll said after a moment. ‘Ask no questions and all that … but it don't take a detective to see you're a Salvationist.'

‘Was.'

‘You
was
a Salvationist. What is it, darlin'. In trouble?'

I shook my head. ‘Not the usual sort.'

‘Usual sort! I've seen the lot! There isn't no
usual
sort. Here, this isn't some Salvation stunt?' Doll said leaning forward, smiling but only half-joking, ‘I save your life, you save my soul … nothing like that?'

‘No!' I was me again. I felt a weight descend. It was no good, I was Trixie. Speaking with the other voice, that I must call Ada's, I had felt different, fun and flippant, with a lightness in my limbs that I had never known before. Carefree, is the word. Whereas
I
am loaded down with care. I felt envious. Envious of part of myself? I came to understand that my body was not only mine but shared with this … this … stranger. Ada.

I thought she was nicer than me. I was envious. So I tried to be her, pretended. And got it wrong.

The room we sat in had a mirror. Oval, like
the
mirror, hanging over the fireplace. All it reflected, from where I sat was the dark red curtains, a picture on the opposite wall of a bird, bright, maybe a cockatoo.

‘I wanted to end it,' I said, my Trixie-voice heavy.

‘Well that much was obvious. You're not … up the spout?' She looked at my stomach. I looked down at the long rip in my skirt.