Crash, page 17
The next step in executing my plan, the one I most dreaded, was to speak to Tom. He was in his bedroom, lying on the bed, listening to music through earphones. He saw me enter and removed his headphones, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to make space for me to sit down.
‘You know Fran is staying overnight,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure if I made it clear to you that she’s coming because I’m staying the night in London. I’m going to see an opera.’
Tom gave me a formal, bright smile. ‘That’s fine, Mum. I hope you have a good time. Thanks for telling me.’
I hesitated. This wasn’t what I had expected from my son, my worst critic. ‘Beatrice is here, thank goodness, so your dad will be looked after. If Oliver texts you and asks to visit, please say no and don’t let Claudio in. It’s not fair on Fran or Beatrice to have to deal with visitors or face your father’s dealer. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll behave myself,’ Tom said, sounding twenty years old rather than fifteen.
I squeezed his knee and waited. Tom kept his gaze steady, his pleasant smile fixed. This wasn’t right. I glanced at my watch, realising I had to leave. At the door, I looked back at him, already lost in his music, his foot tapping in time to the beat. He saw me hesitate, gave me a reassuring grin and blew me a kiss.
Tom was performing but there was no time left to interrogate him. I could only hope that whatever was on his mind, whatever scheme lay behind his fake smile and false words, would be no worse than typical adolescent misbehaviour. Perhaps Carl was right, I had to learn to trust.
TWENTY-THREE
SATURDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER
There is a point below Dan’s ear, about an inch below his earlobe, where I can breathe in the salted almond smell of his body. I leaned over, inhaling deeply, running my hands across his back and over the wide sweep of his belly. Dan rolled over to face me and resting on his elbow, touched my cheekbones, the bridge of my nose and traced the outline of my lips with the tips of his fingers. He kissed my neck, then my breasts and our hands travelled through the familiar mounds and creases of each other’s bodies. Our breathing quickened, and my world narrowed to the sensation of Dan’s touch. We moved together, kissing mouths, necks, earlobes until there was only hard, practised rhythm. Dan held his breath, stilled, and sighed. His weight settled over me and we stroked and whispered words of love as if we might never hear them again.
I woke from a sleep that was deep enough for dreams but light enough to make me aware I was dreaming. I had forgotten to meet my mother. Where were we going? Remembering that she was dead was reassuring, not sad. I hadn’t let her down after all. I moved my head back to look at Dan’s face. From this distance, the lines on either side of his mouth, the grey hairs in his eyebrows, the mole on his left cheek, just below his eye, seemed more visible than his features. It was like looking at a map instead of a photograph, his precious cartography. I lifted my head and saw our shopping bags resting haphazardly against each other on the sofa, a trail of shoes and clothes cast like stepping stones towards the bed. I knew I should get up and shake out my linen trousers but allowed the moment to pass, resting my head on the pillow and watching the folds of oatmeal-coloured fabric at the window pucker and billow as the curtains were caught and released by an updraft of warm air from the street. I heard traffic ebb and flow at lights, the orchestration broken by fractious brakes and horns. If I listened particularly carefully, I could hear voices, laughter, a shriek, a baby crying. I turned back to Dan and looked at his body, splayed out in sleep. I wanted to run my hand through the soft, grizzled fur across his chest but instead, I closed my eyes and thought about the precious gift of afternoon sleep, allowing the sounds of his breathing to pull me back towards him.
Before Dan woke, I slipped into the bathroom and ran a deep bath, luxuriating in my choice of lime and bergamot bath oil. The sound of rushing taps must have roused Dan because he pushed backwards through the bathroom door, his body wrapped in a white towel, holding two glasses of champagne. He placed my glass on the edge of the bath and as he stood up, the towel slowly unravelled and fell to the floor.
‘Damn, so much for my romantic entrance.’ Dan sat, naked, at the tap end and drank his champagne. ‘Do you want me to wash your back?’ I nodded and leaned forward with my forehead on my knees while Dan soaped me, lifting my hair away from my neck.
He held my hand as I climbed out of the tub and wrapped a clean, warm towel around me, pulling my body towards him. I closed my eyes as he lifted me to the bed and felt him kiss my face and dry the ends of my hair. He peeled the towel away and I felt the touch of cool hands as he worked his way down my body, stroking droplets of water from my skin.
Our taxi dropped us in Covent Garden an hour before the start of the opera. I hooked my arm through Dan’s and we forced our way through crowds who watched street performers or huddled around the cafés and bars, eating ice cream, or drinking wine.
‘Look.’ I tugged his elbow. A statue on a plinth had turned and winked at me. The figure rolled its eyes as a large woman hurried past and the crowd roared when she turned around and kissed the statue on the backside.
‘Can we find somewhere to eat outside?’ I called to Dan, over the babble of different languages. ‘I’d like to watch the crowds.’
‘Not likely. If we’d been here by four o’clock…’
‘We had other things to do at four o’clock,’ I said, scanning the tables outside an Italian café. An elderly couple signalled to us, gesturing towards two empty seats at their table.
I shouted to them, ‘Are you leaving?’
They gestured again and waited for us to find our way through the wicker fence that marked the boundary of the café, ignoring the sign that said diners had to wait to be seated, apologising as we squeezed past crowded tables.
The man spoke in an American accent. ‘Sit here, please, while we finish our coffee. If you two are going to the opera, you’re cutting it fine.’
‘Thanks for the table. I’m sure we’ll make it. Could you order us a drink for the interval?’ Dan turned to me and winked.
After the Americans left, we ordered wine, ravioli and salad. Our food came quickly and we ate fast, without speaking, drinking our carafe of red wine as if it were tap water. I caught Dan’s eye and laughed.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t think he realised you were joking. His wife looked a bit shocked … when you asked them to order us an interval drink.’
‘Oh well.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not going to complain if they buy us one, are you?’
Twilight faded into darkness and the candles around us trembled in their glass shades. The waiters’ white shirts flitted between the hum from the tables. I felt the wine blur my senses until everything seemed wrapped in a soft mix of light, the smell of good food and conversation.
‘The last time I was able to do this was in the nineteen seventies when eating outside meant a picnic in the park. Pavement cafés hadn’t been invented then. Carl hated eating outdoors because of his allergies and more recently his worries about spies or some other nonsense.’
Sadness flickered across Dan’s eyes and lips, and I regretted allowing our other lives to intrude. He searched inside his jacket for his wallet and threw two notes onto the saucer left discreetly at his elbow.
‘You will be well again and once you are, we’ll eat outside whenever you want.’
‘Even if it’s snowing?’
‘Especially when it’s snowing.’ Dan smiled and I knew I was forgiven.
Our seats were at the end of a row and I shivered from the draught flowing through doors left open for the last of the audience. Dan offered me his jacket, but I shook my head and wrapped my shawl around my bare shoulders. The orchestra warmed up, its discordant sounds creating the tension of anticipation. A bell rang to chase latecomers from the bar.
‘These seats must have been expensive,’ I said.
Dan looked around us and above to the balcony and galleries. ‘You’ve no idea… even worse because they were last minute. Let’s not worry about it. Have you been here before?’
I turned to look up at the Wedgewood blue dome. Tiers of golden angels descended from the top, with cherubs at the highest point growing into full-breasted women just above our heads.
‘We were in that box there,’ I pointed. ‘We brought the children to see The Nutcracker one Christmas. It was my idea of course, always trying to do the happy family thing.’
‘We took ours to see The Nutcracker on ice at Nottingham Arena. The girls kept hoping the dancers would fall over.’
‘I think our driver enjoyed it most. Carl fell asleep, Ella read one of her boarding school stories, Fran constantly needed the toilet and Tom kept scrambling over the seats.’
‘This is my first Madame Butterfly. Actually, my first opera,’ Dan confessed.
I put my hand on his arm. ‘Ssh… it’s starting.’
The stage glowed and beautiful voices swept upwards with the orchestra, trying to elevate me into the fantasy world of Butterfly and her love for the hopeless Pinkerton but my own drama kept interrupting. I worried about Oliver and his threats, I made a list for the days I would be in hospital, I wondered about Carl, Beatrice, Fran, and Tom, the strangely reconstituted family I had left behind. How were they coping? Fran had been furious with me for abandoning her with Carl and her refusal to speak to her new grandmother had not been promising. By comparison, poor Butterfly and her serious misjudgement in her choice of lover, seemed of little importance.
At the interval, we followed the crowds into the Flower Hall and in the crush, I rested my head on Dan’s shoulder, fascinated by our reflection in the mirrored wall. We were together, in public. We looked like any other couple.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ Dan asked.
‘It’s wonderful but I’m distracted. I can’t bear that she’s going to wait for him and do nothing else with her life. I want to grab her and give her a shake. I think my impatience with Butterfly is shaking my confidence about my own future. She’s running out of chances, and perhaps I am too.’
There was a tap on my shoulder and our friend from the café stood behind us. Beyond him, his wife’s reflection pointed towards two glasses of wine.
We pushed back through the crowd to join her.
‘Dan was teasing,’ I said. ‘We didn’t really expect you to…’
The American man interrupted with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Did you guys get to eat?’
I heard Dan’s tone become formal and polite, much like he sounded when our paths crossed in public at the university. ‘We were served very fast. The cafés around here must be used to meeting theatre deadlines. Are you enjoying your stay?’
The wife spoke. ‘Americans aren’t travelling because the world hates us, which makes it easier for those of us willing to take the risk. London’s changed, don’t you think? Do you live here?’
We shook our heads, but she carried on regardless, her husband listening intently and giving little nods of agreement. ‘Nobody speaks English, everyone’s in a hurry, it’s so crowded. Next year we’re going to Edinburgh.’ She said this in the American way, as if the city’s name ended in ‘borrow’.
‘What’s happening in your financial sector?’ I asked, and then worried whether I had misjudged the mood.
The man paused before replying, squeezing his eyebrows between pinched fingers.
‘All I know is that the US government is bailing out mortgage brokers who lent money to anyone who wanted it, regardless of whether they could ever pay it back, but they’ve allowed a major bank to collapse. It doesn’t make any sense. We’re concerned about our pension.’
‘But they’ve rescued AIG,’ Dan interrupted, failing to notice the Americans’ discomfort. I squeezed his elbow in warning, a signal that we should leave.
He glanced at me and gave the smallest nod of understanding. ‘Please excuse us,’ he continued. ‘My wife hasn’t been well, and I think we should get back to our seats before the scrum.’
Dan swallowed the last of his wine in one deep gulp, but I left mine unfinished. We linked arms and pushed through the crowd, voices flooding around us like sounds heard underwater.
‘Your wife?’ I asked, as we settled into our seats.
Dan laughed. ‘Sounds good, doesn’t it?’
The second half felt different. My attention was gripped by Butterfly’s endurance and the moments of happiness she shared with her child and servant. My hopes rose with hers as Pinkerton’s ship sounded in the harbour but when he ran away, unable to face her, I despaired. I wanted to frogmarch him back and yell at him, ‘Look what you’ve done. Look at your child. Take responsibility.’
When Butterfly handed over the boy to Pinkerton’s wife, I froze in the grip of an old rage and then my body shook with sudden terror. I reached out for Dan and he grasped my hand, stroking my bare arm with his free hand. He didn’t look at me, but I saw his eyes shining damp in the light reflected from the stage. The audience rose to thunder their appreciation and we stood too. Dan pulled me towards him and pressed my head against his chest with one arm, the other around my shoulders. Afterwards, we remained sitting until the theatre was almost empty, allowing everyone in the row to squeeze past without bothering to stand.
‘Her love for Pinkerton stopped her from living, Dan. She was as much a prisoner of herself as of the men who controlled her. Women can be very stupid.’
Dan paused and I saw him choose not to comment. ‘Are you okay to leave now?’
I nodded, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. We gathered our things and walked out through the empty theatre into Covent Garden. The cafés were still busy, and groups of tourists and locals mingled in the lights from shops, some of which were still trading. It was soon apparent that we would not be able to find a taxi and the entrance to the Tube station seemed dangerously crowded. Dan asked if I wanted another drink, but I shook my head and suggested that we walk a little further. The streets were tangled with people’s legs and feet, pub customers using the pavement as a terrace for evening drinking and all the theatres spilling out their dithering, blinking hordes at once. It was hard to keep together but I gripped Dan tightly, as he used his bulk to force a way through.
We reached Trafalgar Square and I stopped walking, tugging on Dan’s arm to wait. This was a Britain I had heard about but not seen. Groups of young people filled the square and many were already drunk, even though it was not yet midnight. There were loud voices, young males threatening each other and bursting into football terrace medleys in rounds of spontaneous harmony. The girls stood apart, shrieking and giggling, struggling to hold each other upright. One girl held another’s hair as she leaned over the gutter to be sick.
Dan gripped my hand, keen to hurry away.
‘No, wait, Dan. I want to watch.’
‘It’s not a zoo, Alice.’
‘The girls have almost nothing on.’
‘I know. It’s the same all year round, they wear next to nothing. When I see any group of teenage girls, I wonder where they’ve left their cardigans.’
‘Have you seen anything like this before?’
‘Every weekend in Leicester, when I pick the girls up from whatever club they’ve been to. Come on… it’s not very interesting watching other people being sick, and I don’t feel very safe. Let’s find a taxi.’
‘I feel safe with you.’
‘Yes, but I don’t feel safe with me.’
‘You collect the girls yourself at night? You are a good dad.’
‘They want to get a taxi home with their friends, but I worry one of them might be left behind or end up as the last one to be dropped off. Whatever time it is, I pick them up. It’ll be different when they’re at university. I won’t know anything about it.’
We stood at the side of the road and waited for a taxi. ‘When I was at university the streets were deserted after eleven. I remember walking back down Welford Road with Carl and Euan after we’d spent an evening at the union. There might have been a few other students but that was all. When did all this start? When was it that parents allowed children out so late and where do they get the money for all this alcohol?’
‘Come on, Alice, no one can be quite so insulated from the real world. Surely, Fran and Ella went clubbing at weekends, when they lived at home?’
‘I’ve not experienced it for myself,’ I said. ‘Carl insisted the girls were always picked up by our driver. They hated that, so maybe they didn’t go out much. I mean, they weren’t saints, but perhaps they went to friends’ houses, rather than this.’ I waved a hand expansively, to take in the square.
Dan held up his hand and flagged down a taxi. We sank into the seats and held on tightly to the straps as the driver executed a sharp U-turn.
‘Doesn’t Tom go out on Saturday nights?’
‘He can’t because of the lack of security. Carl would hire bodyguards to protect him and send our driver to collect him. One of Carl’s greatest fears is kidnap. It’s why we chose The Mount School with its walls and gates. I thought Tom had everything he needed but I understand why he thinks he’s missing out. It was good for me to see this, what other kids his age are doing at weekends.’
The taxi driver turned his head, catching the drift of our conversation. ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it? I won’t let them in my cab. They’re sick or refuse to pay.’
I leaned forward. ‘Do your children go out at weekends?’
He shook his head. ‘We don’t drink alcohol. My girls stay at home and help their mother. My sons,’ he shrugged and grinned at me in the driving mirror, ‘who knows?’ Dan grimaced, tilting his head back towards the youths in the receding square and pressed one finger against my lips to stop us both from laughing.
I sat against the open window of our room, my knees pulled up towards my chin, wrapped in a quilt. Dan snored deeply and rhythmically from the bed. I hadn’t been able to sleep, but I didn’t mind. It was so long since I had shared a bed with a breathing, moving body that I loved to hear his night-time sounds. Why had we never risked this before? We hadn’t even fantasised about spending a night away together. Perhaps we thought our affair would stay alive and exciting, if we avoided the inevitable domesticity of a shared hotel room, bathroom smells, dirty towels, and toothpaste. Now, this was all I wanted but the chance might never come again.
