The Ugliest House in the World, page 12
Mary says she only rang us once. She called from her hospital bed just before the final operation. She says she knew she was doing the right thing. She just wanted to talk to someone before they put her under. "Martin's last words," she says and pulls a face.
Mary used to ask me about Helen all the time and I told her a little about us and Carol, because it seemed only fair after everything she told me. She asked to see a photograph of Carol, which struck me as odd. I almost wanted to say, "Well, let's see a photograph of Martin," but I said I'd bring one with me next week and she was surprised that I didn't have one in my wallet. When she saw it she began to cry. I tried to take it from her, but she wouldn't let go and she kept saying, "How beautiful, how beautiful." It crossed my mind that it was the hormones again, but nothing would make her stop and people in the pub were beginning to look. I had to put my arm around her in the end and she pulled herself together.
"I never had children," she explained. "Of course, I can't have them now. The doctors are good—God bless 'em—but not that good."
After that, she began to say that she'd like to meet Helen, which seemed even odder to me. I had to be careful seeing Mary as it was. It would be pretty hard to explain if Helen ever found out. In the end, I told Mary that Helen would be jealous, which made her beam, although she knew only too well that many people had a bad reaction to her operation.
Consolation is a curious thing. A woman called me up and told me her name. "You've probably heard of my case," she said. "There's no point being coy." She was right. I had seen it in the newspapers. Her little girl had been missing and they had found her in a wood a month later. The woman said they'd buried her that morning, which I knew because Helen and I had seen the funeral on the news before I went out. I asked her how she was feeling and she said, "All right. Better than I have for a long time." She said that an old woman had come up to her as she was leaving the cemetery.
"You don't know me," the old woman said, "but I know you. People will tell you you'll get over it. I lost my boy twenty years ago. You'll never get over it."
I asked the woman on the phone how that made her feel and she said, "Euphoric. It was the most consoling thing anyone has ever said to me." She thought it might be wrong to say that, but she didn't really care. Her husband didn't understand, she said. She just had to share it with someone.
I did get a call once from a father who'd lost his daughter. When he told me I felt this panic. I thought about getting his name and meeting him. I had this mad idea that we could be friends. I was lucky I'd been taking calls for a while by then. I kept everything professional and I think I helped him. It can never really be the same, I thought later. Carol was killed two years ago now. She was standing on a corner and a lorry took the turn too sharply and toppled over onto her. This man said his daughter had died of cancer. He sat by her bedside for three months. He called us because he said he couldn't mourn her properly. He said he forgot her for long stretches at a time and he would have to stop himself because he knew there was some reason to feel sad. "Am I a bad father, do you think?" he said. "I don't know," I said gently. "What do you think?" I thought that perhaps he had been mourning her all along while she was dying, but I couldn't tell him that.
I don't know if she planned it, but in the end Mary did manage to meet Helen. We were out in town one Saturday and I heard someone calling my name. It was Mary. She told Helen that we knew each other from the office and then she said how much she liked Helen's hat. She was just going for a cup of tea and she asked why didn't we join her. 1 said I had to get back to the car because it was on a meter, thinking that Helen would come along, but she said she hadn't finished her shopping and Mary took her arm and they told me they'd meet me at a café. By the time I got there, they were already the best of friends. It hurt me because they were talking about Carol and I said, "This is ancient history," but Helen said softly, "Did you know that Mary lost her own son?"
"No," I said. "You never told me that."
"You just have to cut yourself off," Mary said. "It sounds awful, but you have to. It's the only way."
"Oh yes," said Helen, and her eyes were bright.
I didn't think I'd ever see Mary again after that, but Helen kept on and on about her. I almost told her the truth about Mary, but I couldn't do it. It annoyed me that Mary was deceiving my wife, especially as I knew Mary would be pleased about it, but I couldn't say anything. Helen just wouldn't stop talking about her. In the end, she called and invited Mary to dinner. I talked to her too, and she asked me if it was all right if she accepted and I didn't have the heart to say no. Then Helen took the phone back and said, "Oh, and bring your husband, of course."
Mary arrived with this bald, stocky fellow, Brian. I talked to him nearly all night, because as soon as they arrived Mary ran into the kitchen to be with Helen. I wasn't sure how much Brian knew, and he might not have been sure of me either, because all we talked about was football. He thought United should sell their old stars and invest in their youngsters, but I said I liked the old players. They weren't much good, but I knew them. "They're a bunch of has-beens," Brian said. "It's about time they let them go." Even after dinner, Mary said that she and Helen had important things to discuss and that she was going to help with the washing up. I listened to Brian drone on—he must have gone through the failings of every player on the team—but all my attention was fixed on the low murmur from the other room.
In bed, I asked Helen what Mary had said, and she told me, "Oh, she just wanted to explain about Brian. He's just a friend. Her husband ran off. Can you believe it? She didn't say, but I think it was around the time that her son died. Isn't that terrible? At least we have each other. We should be grateful for that."
I reached out and found her hand under the bedclothes and held it for a minute.
"She told me she thought we were a lovely couple," Helen said. Even in the darkness, I could tell from her voice she was smiling.
The worst calls, the ones we used to really dread when we were in training, are the silent calls. Worse than suicides. Worse than hoaxes. Hoaxes, by the way, you just have to ignore. You can never tell if it's a hoax or not. I got a call in my first week from a boy who said, "I like it when my girlfriend puts her finger up my arse. Do you think I'm bisexual?" I thought it might be a hoax but you can never tell. Usually, if you treat them seriously and they're a hoaxer they'll get embarrassed eventually. That's what they teach us, but this boy got embarrassed and I think that's understandable.
I got a silent call in my first week. A woman. I had her on the line for forty-five minutes and all she did was sob and say how sorry she was and all I did was keep telling her I was still there and that she should take her time and calm down and tell me what the trouble was. She sobbed for forty-five minutes. Right in my ear. A total stranger. I could hear her breathing. I could hear the clock ticking behind her. And she never told me what was wrong. She just hung up. Everyone was very concerned, but really I felt fine. It was just an incredible experience. I think I was almost in awe. In awe of the telephone. In awe of her suffering.
I actually haven't had too many suicides, and none that I think have gone through with it. I've had a lot of calls from people who are just depressed about life and their jobs, money problems, and I feel comfortable with these. Calls about relationships I think are harder. Not that the caller knows it. I just feel less optimistic. You dread the suicides at first and then you begin to want one, which I suppose is a terrible thing. It's like soldiers, I imagine—professional soldiers, not like us doing our national service. You train for something and it never happens. You want to find out if you can take it. I suppose the readiness is what counts.
I started to go to the football more regularly with Brian and Mary. United started the season pretty well for them, but by January they were beginning their traditional slide down the table.
"Pretty soon they'll be the strongest team in the league," Brian would say every time they lost. He meant they'd be at the bottom of the table, propping up the rest.
Football was really the only time I saw Mary anymore, and not to talk to properly. She kept telling me I should bring Helen down to a game. "We can all step out together," she said. "You and Helen and Brian and me." She put her arm through his. "We'd make quite an outing of it." She still called Helen quite often, but usually while I was at Lifeline. I missed our talks and felt a little jealous, but really I thought this was the way it should be.
One evening Helen asked me what I thought of Brian and I told her he seemed all right.
"Why?" I said.
"Mary asked me."
"And what did you say?"
"I told her I thought they made a lovely couple."
I had to stop myself smiling, but Helen must have seen something in my face, because she said, "What would a man know about it? She likes him, I tell you. You should have seen her light up when I told her. She was that happy."
Afterwards, I thought Helen must be wrong. Apart from anything else, I couldn't understand what Mary could see in Brian. He was such a know-it-all when it came to football.
Then one Saturday Brian turned up at the match without Mary, and when I asked how she was, he said he didn't know. The way he said it made me say, "Oh?" And he said, "I never want to see that person again in my life. Don't ever ask me about them again."
When I got Home I tried to call Mary. I planned to say I was just calling to tell her about the match and see if she wanted to talk. I left the game early anyway, so as not to get stuck in the car park. United were getting stuffed, although Brian stayed on, screaming abuse at the players. I don't think I could have dragged him away.
No one answered the phone at Mary's and I tried again and again. I told Helen that I thought Mary and Brian had had a row, but I didn't say about what. She came and sat by me as I rang. She said, "Put your hat and gloves on and go round if you want. But she won't thank you." I knew where Mary lived, but she'd never invited me in. "Martin always was an untidy bugger," she said. She was afraid something in her house would give her away.
"Sometimes people need to be alone. They're probably making up right now," Helen said. I think my ringing and ringing had begun to annoy her. "It's not your job," she said. "If she needs to talk, she knows our number." I looked at her and she said, "She's my friend too."
In the end, just before midnight, I got through.
"Mary? It's Clive," I said.
She asked me what I was doing calling so late, and by then it was too late to talk about football.
"We were just concerned about you," I said.
"I'm fine," she said, although I could hear she had been crying.
"We could come over," I offered, but she said, "No. It's not necessary."
I asked her if she was sure and she said she was very sure.
"Look after yourself," I said. She was silent for a moment. I could hear her pouring a drink, the bottle against the glass, the glass against her teeth. Her swallow.
"And you, Clive," she said. And she hung up.
For some reason, I kept the receiver to my ear. If you make the call, even if the other person puts the phone down they can't break contact. You're still there if they pick up the phone. For a moment I was sure Mary would come back on the line. Now she'll pick up, I thought. Now. But nothing happened, and the tension became so unbearable I hung up. I shouldn't stick my nose in where it wasn't wanted, I thought.
The next evening I looked in the paper and there was an announcement of death for a Martin K. I suppose I must have been looking for it. The street given was Mary's. I didn't tell Helen. I'm sure Mary wouldn't have wanted me to.
I just said the paper didn't come that night, and when Helen found me weeping, I said it was for Carol and she held me and said, "At last."
One last thing about confidentiality. I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea. I felt a bit funny the first time I told someone about a call, but now I know it has to be this way. Once, a young fellow rang me up and said he was frightened that his girlfriend was suicidal. He said she had been suicidal before he met her, and he thought that he could help, but now he no longer believed that. She was dragging him down and he wanted to leave her. "Is it terrible to want to leave her?" he asked me, and I had to say, "I don't know. What do you think?" And he said yes, he thought it was. He wasn't sure she wouldn't hurt herself, but he thought it was him or her now. He felt it was just survival now. The problem was he had no one to talk to about this. He thought it was disloyal to his girlfriend to say these things. That's what really convinced me that we have the right idea about talking to each other. I shouldn't have, but I told the boy some of the other ways to tell if someone is serious about suicide.
If they've put their affairs in order, that's another sign of seriousness. If they've made a will, or given things away, or settled old scores, those are all signs.
If they've thought of how they'd do it. Not just speculated about whether pills are better than gassing themselves in the garage, but thought about how many pills and which ones to take. If they've bought things to do it with, that's also a sign.
If they've tried before, it may or may not be a sign, I told him.
He told me it helped him. "You can only do so much," he said, "and then you have to let go for yourself. You can't look after them all their lives."
Of course, I never found out what actually happened to him or the girl.
Coventry
FRANK AND I are waiting for Lady Godiva. It's five to twelve and we're sat on a bench in Broadgate opposite the big clock waiting for the pubs to open. We've just been down to sign on and we need a pint.
"Come on," Frank says, his eyes on the clock. "Shake a leg, darling."
A group of old-age pensioners on a tour have begun to gather in front of us. Their guide, Lisa, is telling them all about Lady Godiva and her husband, Lord Leofric: how she rode naked through the streets of Coventry to protest his unfair taxes and how the peasants, when they heard what she was doing for them, ran indoors and pulled their shutters and sat in the dark until they heard her horse go by. "The original poll-tax demonstrator," Lisa calls her, and the OAPs chuckle and repeat the line to each other. Lisa is seventeen, but dressed older in a two-piece blue suit that makes her seem more skinny and angular than when we sleep together on her days off. She wears a light blue sash with the tourist board logo. It flaps against her chest in the wind.
"Wouldn't mind a cushy job like that, eh?" Frank says, a little too loudly.
"You'd look like bleeding Miss World," I tell him.
The clock strikes at last, and for a moment even the few shoppers hurrying for their buses stop and look up. The doors in the clockface slide open and Lady Godiva rides out onto the narrow balcony. She's painted bright pink apart from the yellow hair that falls over her shoulders. One thick rope of it runs down her back and spreads like a cape over the horse; the other falls like a sheet into her lap. She gets about halfway around when another door opens above her and a huge leering face, almost as big as Godiva herself, leans forward. It's Peeping 'Tom. He stares out for a moment, covers his face with his hands, and is drawn back into the darkness.
The OAPs ooh and aah and Frank complains for the umpteenth time that it's not very realistic. "She's too pink," he says. "And nobody has that much hair."
"You'd be pink," I tell him. "Bollock-naked on a horse."
"The horse is shite too," Frank says, and there he does have a point. It's drawn around the balcony on rails, and it's not bad enough that it glides, but it totters, too, as it corners. The last chimes die away and we watch Godiva wobble back inside for another hour.
Peeping Tom, Lisa is saying, was the only one of the townsfolk who spied on Godiva. "And he was blinded for his trouble."
"Blinded by who?" one of the old women asks eagerly, and Frank laughs. Lisa looks over at us and glares.
"By her husband, was it?" one of the old blokes chips in hopefully.
"Actually," Lisa says above the laughter, "the legend doesn't tell us. Just that he was struck blind. By God, I suppose."
The old people look a little startled by that, and Lisa says, "Excuse me," and walks over to where we're sitting.
"Just piss off, wouldya?" she says to Frank.
"Ah, we're only having some fun, pet. We were just saying how well you're getting on." He looks at me for support, but she never takes her eyes off him and I keep my mouth shut. The OAPs are watching nervously.
"Here." She digs around in her pocket for a moment and then thrusts her hand out under his nose. She's holding a tenner. "Take it," she says.
"Put it away," Frank says.
The note is new and it quivers a little in the breeze.
"Go on, Dad," she says, more softly, and gently he plucks it from her fingers. He takes it in both hands as if studying it, and only when his eyes drop does she give me a look and I nod to let her know it'll be all right. She walks slowly back to her group and I watch her go. She has her hair tied up, but one loose strand flickers across her neck. The old people are still looking worried, and I feel like calling out to them, "It's all right. It wasn't God. It was shame, Tom was blinded by shame."
Instead, I slap my hands on my thighs and say, "Opening time."
I only moved down here last year to be with Karen after we left college, so I don't have that many what you'd call mates in Coventry. The ones I did have, through work and that—the ones I used to watch football with or talk to about cars or holidays or mortgages—I've lost touch with. It wasn't their fault. I just stopped calling them after a bit.
