Chapter 9:d

In which Helen stands exposed

‘Where’s your preacher fellow gone, then?’  

Rebecca is sitting upright on a dining chair, legs stretched out a little too far apart in a rather ungainly posture. The hands holding the rather under-used cup and saucer are steady, despite the brown markings of age on the skin.

Addison has disappeared to his meeting. Helen cannot remember hearing him say anything to Rebecca in the quarter of an hour of luggage-moving, greeting and kettle-boiling that has just undone the neat preparations Helen made. Perhaps he did. But he was very quiet, much less boisterous than usual. 

Helen drowns a smile in her tea. Possibly this bold octogenarian will prove his match. 

‘Good stuff, this bilberry.’ The visitor has carelessly sloshed some  in the saucer. She looks at Helen. ‘Fortifying.’ 

Helen allows her amusement to surface legitimately. She has second-guessed the visitor perfectly. ‘Glad you like it…’

‘Carla’s mother did, too. Probably still does. Too much of a mish-mash of taste in those other teabags. You’ve got to find what you like and get it pure, I say.’

Helen is aware her job is done. ‘Well, I’d best get off. I hope we have a chance to meet again soon.’ She knows she sounds like a child wheedling her way rather too obviously towards a further invitation. But what if she is not needed now the Great Aunt has come?

‘Don’t leave on my account. Stay and talk. It’s not teatime yet, is it?’ Sharp, bright eyes flash around the room, first on the walls, as if seeking confirmation from a timepiece, then on Carla who is feeding Dinah, then with disconcerting penetration on Helen herself.

Carla shakes her head absent-mindedly. So Helen stays; Malcolm will not be home before seven. 

‘I’m off upstairs to pay a visit,’ the old lady declares. She bustles across the room and into the staircase at the far end with no hint of rheumatics or sedateness. Her boots are countrified and slightly grotesque in this heat, but otherwise her dress is unremarkable. Carla and Helen stare at her disappearing backside.

‘No flies on her,’ Carla whispers, hauling Dinah from one breast to the other. (The empty one embarrasses Helen with its undersized droop.)

Helen suddenly feels like an intruder. These two are family in a way that Carla and Addison are not, except by legal ties, and therefore Helen is an outsider again. She will leave soon.

‘Noisy old thing,’ says Rebecca, speaking over the clanging that has resulted from her absence. ‘Now tell me, Carla Jo, why are people throwing bricks at your windows?’

Not even the familiar name detracts from the starkness of the inquiry. Helen is glad she herself is not subject to the old lady’s inquisition. Some families talk, others co-exist. Will she ever get used to the jugular approach?

Carla explains what happened about the brick, and then adds: ‘It may be people round here who don’t like a preacher living on the road. Or someone with a grudge against Addison personally…’ Her voice falters.

Or someone who resents the performance car parked outside, Helen thinks, aware that she has immediately conjured up a superficial reason rather than acknowledge fully the vague fear that someone may be dogging their steps. Though the two things could be linked, as intent and evidence of intent so often are. She wonders what Carla really thinks. Hadn’t she hysterically claimed that someone was trying to kill her?

‘It could be pure chance,’ Rebecca states firmly. ‘Don’t expect to find a reason for everything. Someone feels like exercising his aim – and your window is the target. Hard luck, but that’s life.’ Her eyes are still darting round the room – a disturbing trait that keeps Helen alert, unable to relax under the recurrent scrutiny.

She realises Carla is not going to mention the scrawled accusation and threat that accompanied the missile. Was it loyalty or tact that silenced her? 

There is a moment’s awkward silence, broken by a tiny burp from the somnolent Dinah, who is rewarded with being returned to the carry cot.

‘It will be nice to talk this evening,’ says Carla, somewhat shyly. ‘You can tell me about the island and what you do these days.’

‘I shall most probably go out for a game of bingo at that hall round the corner,’ Rebecca says.

‘Bingo!’

The word escapes Helen’s mouth before she can modify the tone to one of surprise from scorn, before she can remind herself she is a visitor here.

‘Yes, bingo. And why not?’ The eyes cease their darting and fix very rigidly on Helen’s flushed face. Helen can feel them like two ice-pricks on the warm rush that has overtaken her. She knows the old lady can see right through her, through the strict upbringing, the fear of breaking loose and the refusal to ever countenance a lower-class fling.

She shrugs in resignation. ‘I just…’ 

What can she say in defence? The only certainty is that she must stay her distance from Great Aunt Rebecca or stand exposed to the very core.

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Chapter 9:c

In which we find things changing yet again

Suddenly, green and red lozenges jump the garden wall. Not this time in panic and anger, but in joy. Addison has bounced back in the last week and he has worn this particular waistcoat every day.

His mood-swings intrigue Helen because she knows that Malcolm uses moods as a deliberate ploy to get his own way, whereas Addison was genuinely down and impotent, but has pulled himself together as soon as possible. ‘Praise God’ is his verdict, but Helen believes his innate selflessness was what rescued him.

‘Hinds’ feet in high places,’ he says exuberantly. ‘Sorry to startle you. What are you thinking of?’

‘Oh, things,’ says Helen. She is less intimidated this week than last. Something about the poppy, the brick, the helplessness. ‘I’ve finished here. Dinah will wake soon – now, if you shake the pram much more.’ 

Addison jogs the baby awake deliberately and then coos sympathetically as Dinah whimpers.

‘Addison!’

‘Don’t be an ol’ straitlace. It doesn’t suit you,’ he retorts. He  grabs the baby and circles the pram as if she were his dance partner. ‘What’s for a snack? I’ve got to go to a meeting at four.’

When he’s around he includes her as if she lives here. She likes this lack of pretence, and the tiniest touch of special treatment that slips in. It’s like having a whole rum baba for a mid-afternoon snack where a biscuit would suffice. It is generous, totally irresistible and leaves a strange sensation of fullness. Helen rarely succumbs to biscuits.

She makes him up one of her freshly baked bread rolls with grated cheese, and he munches, happily dropping the odd sliver or crumb on the carpet. (Helen is making herself learn not to frown, or wince – she would quite like to not even care, but she does.)

Carla comes in, bleary eyed.

‘When did you say Mingy Beck was coming?’ she asks. 

Helen is business-like but solicitous. ‘I’m off to fetch her from the station in a minute. Are you okay to take over again?’ 

Addison says: ‘Carla, she isn’t mingy. She may be the devil incarnate but she’s coming to help. How you gonna remember to call her Rebecca?’

Carla grins suddenly. ‘When you see Mingy Beck, you remember, just like that.’

‘There’s something to be said for strictness. He whom the Lord loves he disciplines.’

‘I know. You’re always telling me. But just look how you spoil that daughter of yours.’ 

Helen can tell Carla is not worried, either by Addison’s dogmatic attitude or the inappropriateness of the ‘yours’ that slipped out. In any case, Addison is not listening. He is pushing a tiny twist of grated cheese at the corner of Dinah’s mouth. Carla snatches the baby. ‘Give her here this minute.’

There is a loud ‘hoo-hay’ from outside. Startled, they turn. Then they stare: the gaunt figure striding through the gate can be no other than Mingy Beck herself, Great Aunt Rebecca.

Momentarily Helen is annoyed at having been thwarted. Then, instinctively, she straightens the gingham cloth on the table, attempting to counteract the woman’s immediate impression of a mass of unruly hair subdued at one side with a green plastic bangle. Finally she is dumbfounded before the torrent of explanations that accompanies the old lady up the path and through the open doorway.

‘Caught an earlier plane, an earlier train, and decided to grab a decent stretch of the day in this city of yours… A bit cramped here, isn’t it. What the heck do you breathe? The luggage has come too, courtesy of this gentleman and his taxi. Can’t understand a word he says. The accent gets worse the further east I travel.’ She stares round accusingly at the startled group.

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Chapter 9:b

In which Helen takes on a new identity

Throwing out the weeds with a viciousness she has not summoned before, Helen reflects that this is not infidelity. That kind of behaviour would leave Malcolm knowing he wasn’t loved and then compound it by weeks of fear, suspicion and volatile behaviour; whereas she loves him as much as she has loved anyone. On the other hand, this is… 

Helen cannot find a word to describe her new behaviour. There is a compulsion, an obsession to be here and do this. But there is also a real need to be met, a moral responsibility on Helen to help if she can. It’s not at all one-sided. And if she enjoys it, then Malcolm will have to live with the fact. It is only temporary at best.

She sighs, digging at an obstinate tap root.

With a small amount of juggling among the volunteers, she has completed her usual hours at the charity. A suitable house is becoming available for renovating and she feels almost excited about it, as if she too were involved in Addison’s work. She must remember to tell him.

The sun has moved round the back of the house since lunchtime. She drops the trowel and takes advantage of the shade to sit and ponder. She is part of this family now. Almost three weeks have passed and she can barely focus on the time before she tripped on Carla’s foot near the bus stop.

She enjoys Addison’s company, too, when he’s around. She’s becoming captivated by his strange, multifaceted nature; accustomed to his handshake, the frequent touch accompanying his words; less uneasy about the physicality of his presence.

But the closeness with Carla, which came so unexpectedly in the aftermath of the vandalism, has not entirely continued. A tiny spear of loss pierces her chest when, from time to time, she detects an almost imperceptible resentment on Carla’s part. Of course, she may have imagined it, since the girl protests her gratitude. But Helen wonders and wishes. Friendship based on gratitude is not quite–– Well, this is only a miniscule cloud on a bright horizon. 

The brightness assumes dazzling proportions every afternoon when Helen holds Dinah on one knee and jigs her very gently in time to the dance tune Carla belts out on the piano. 

‘Look at her face,’ Carla giggles. It is an afternoon ritual, played out daily. Like two schoolgirls they fool around over the baby and forget about everything else. Helen imagines Dinah to be a willing accomplice to the ritual, though she is still very careful with her. Eventually, Carla takes the baby and cradles her until the little eyelids droop, and they sit in companionable silence for a moment longer. 

Always she transfers the baby to Helen’s arms, and then turns back to the piano. The tunes she plays and sings quietly now to accompany Dinah’s dreams are becoming familiar to Helen: Lift Him Up, We Praise You, Take My Heart. Strange titles – they could be songs about sexual love – but they are insinuating their way into her brain; she finds herself humming them when back in her own kitchen. (At these moments she seems to detect Carla’s presence among the copper pans hung on the overhead rail, and around the plants trailing from the window ledges.) 

She wipes a slightly grubby hand over her forehead and listens for any sign of fidgeting from the pram. Reassured, she relaxes into reverie once more.

She knows the Followers sing these songs at their love feasts, but feels no threat while she is sitting here in Carla’s garden a couple of miles away from the barn. In fact the songs are part of the intimacy. When the heat shimmers in the air around her, and the air vibrates with music, it is difficult to remember who she is and what she is doing here. She could be someone else – Carla even.

At other times, the practical arrangements here are mechanical and orderly. There is no crossover. The afternoons are the exception.

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Chapter 9:a

In which Helen takes over Carla’s life

Helen is an irresistible force meeting an immovable object as she labours in what passes for a front garden in Park End Road. She takes after her mother in this respect, though Helen doubts if the Costa Dorada requires much rearrangement these days. (She idly wonders if they will come for a visit this autumn only to find her and Malcolm gone; she really must write more often.)

The houses in the terrace have a patch either side of the concrete front path, no more than three metres from wall to pavement. The narrower strip in front of the scullery window is occupied by the wheely bin to which she makes frequent trips with weeds and rubbish.

Every now and then she checks on the baby, asleep in the cat-netted pram parked in one corner. Carla is resting in the front bedroom. Helen has persuaded her that she will easily hear the baby from there.

Within a week, Helen has wrought structure from chaos inside the house by importing her own kind of routine to the day. It is what she is best at and what she believes Carla needs in order to regain some sense of life continuing. It isn’t just a matter of the brick; the baby has brought its own disorder with it.

Of course, there are still intermittent protests, but as the past week has unfolded even Carla saw that it really was the only way she would get enough rest and keep her milk from drying up as threatened. The clinic was concerned enough to advise taking it easy and Helen constantly reminds her of this fact. She does want to keep on feeding, doesn’t she? Sensible to leave the organising of the less pleasant chores to someone who is not tired and sleeps a full eight hours every night. 

Helen has prevailed. She calculated she would.

Now she has the satisfaction not only of washing the nappies and overseeing the drying, but of tidying and vacuuming and doing most of the meal preparation, before returning to her own home ahead of Malcolm’s arrival. 

It is timed to perfection. He barely ever remembers where she has spent the day and if she is careful to avoid mentioning Carla then he does not suspect she has been elsewhere. There has been an uneasy truce since her return home the night of the vandalism – was it only a week ago? – and she is aware of his withdrawal to a taciturn distance and is not overly concerned about it. Silence was always his way of showing his disagreement with her. He expects her to capitulate as usual, to put everything back the way it was, to let him have total control of their lives. He expects it because she has allowed it.

She still allows it – but with a mental distance between them which he resents. She permits him to take her Bohemian-fashion, by leaving him her body, slightly tense but finally acquiescent, in the luxury of their bedroom, while her mind and emotions revisit Park End Road and experience repeatedly the hours of Carla’s company, Carla’s smell and looks, Carla’s way of doing things, Carla’s husband and Carla’s baby. Malcolm’s silence is welcome, his final heaving grunt a disruption to be noted and distastefully dealt with before sleep engulfs them both.

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Chapter 8:b

In which an ugly chest of drawers and a strange warning take centre stage

Passing along the landing with an armful of clean sheets, pillow cases and a duvet cover, Helen pauses by the Jacobean oak chest of drawers. Usually she ignores it – they purchased it at the start of Malcolm’s interest in antiques and she dislikes its 17th-century brass knobs and escutcheons. If they replaced it she would go for walnut (and pay six times the price) but it would still be only a chest of drawers. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be into antiques.

She stares at the third drawer down. Her drawer. A safe place, away from prying eyes. The top two are in general use; the third never.

Mentally she penetrates its panelled front and sifts through the contents, unwrapping the paper bags and polythene carriers; then she gazes for a moment out across the landing at the virtual reality of these objects displayed somewhere prominent; then looks out across time itself all the way back to their acquisition: some older, some newer, some inexplicably obtained. 

 She can feel a glowing as she stands mesmerised on the shagpile carpet. Something in amongst the hidden collection is exuding a power. She must investigate. 

But stooping to pull the brass knobs, she hesitates. No. She will be late for Carla if the bed is not changed now. 

***

Helen calls in at Marks and Spencer and buys a baguette and French cheese, a small bottle of multi-vitamin drink, a curd tart and two yoghurts. Lunch. She doesn’t want to hurt Carla’s feelings but she prefers not to have white bread again. She would eat it rather than not have lunch, but there is a choice.

***

In the cramped room, Carla is surrounded by a group of girls, and a toddler, all admiring the baby. Standing boredly aloof is a young teenager in school uniform, whose identity mark seems to be the stripe shaved from forehead to nape through his black hair. Helen smiles at him but, receiving no response, hesitantly joins the main group. She is there by invitation even if they do not know it, and this arms her with courage to join in.

Carla introduces her (Followers, as she suspected) and the conversation regains momentum. They ask her about the attack, as though she can somehow improve the account by adding her own version to Carla’s. 

Helen finally says, ‘I’m going to do some washing for Carla, and I think Carla should have a rest before lunch.’ 

She is surprised to hear her own words. She did not know she was aware of what Carla needed. Perhaps it is intuitive in all women to know such things. Or perhaps she has just read the signs: Carla’s tired face, the effort she is making to be sociable, the bucket of nappies soaking by the back stairs.

Her reward is Carla’s relieved smile. Dinah is returned to the carry cot. The girls are thanked for coming. The one called Talie says to Helen, ‘See you Sunday?’ and Helen is deliberately inscrutable, offering a mere shrug of the facial muscles. That is the last thing on her mind. 

She picks up the bucket and goes into the galley kitchen. Talie follows her, pulling the toddler by one hand, and pokes her head round the doorway. The rebellious-looking teenager stands a step behind and Helen figures that he, too, belongs to Talie. 

After a moment staring in a way that disconcerts Helen, Talie says softly, ‘Addison has a habit of dragging all sorts in.’ Her mouth is set in something akin to a sneer but Helen is at a loss to know whether the girl refers to Helen herself or Carla. She remains silent. Talie shrugs in her turn. ‘Thought I’d warn you,’ she says and leaves with the others, snapping something unintelligible to the dark-haired boy as they go down the path.

Helen returns to her self-appointed task. It will be easy to slip into a practical presence here. The clinic this afternoon may even be fun, and tomorrow she can start being a daily support and an extra pair of hands for Carla, a shoulder to lean on and – a friend, perhaps. She would really like to be her friend. She has never felt such a longing for the closeness of another person.

The liquid wash trickles into the little drawer on the facia and briefly Helen imagines that the nappies belong to her own baby. 

There are exactly thirty-one days in August, says the voice in her head.

Helen slams the washing machine door.

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Chapter 8:a

In which Helen tries to make sense of things

The expanse of Helen’s home seems totally filled with silence. She barely remembers Addison’s distress, his utter despondency, his blank stare, as she goes about her usual Monday morning chores. Nor does she dwell on Carla and her terror of being alone during the attack. She cannot hold the broad sweep of the past evening in mind all at once. Instead, against this background of silence, she sifts through pinpoints of memory: like her tasks, they are disparate, unrelated.

Settling Dinah successfully into the carry cot: it was easy once there was no choice about it.

The plastic mobile spinning crazily in the airstream from the broken window: a mockery of everything good and innocent.

The faint whiff of cigarette smoke, from the neighbours on the pavement, as it vied with the scented candle on the mantelpiece. Later it was engulfed by the oily reek of putty, and later still dislodged altogether through the inevitable falling away of interest among the local residents. July 31 would not mean anything to them in future.

And the sensation of stroking Carla’s long fair hair while she held her: she can feel it now in her fingers while she empties the washing machine. The involuntary tenderness made her awkward: she is glad the others were preoccupied with themselves. But the memory – altogether different. It is warm, sustaining.

Her mind moves reluctantly to the other stark image: the writing on the note: childish, illiterate, reminiscent of her threatening email, but with a clear message not a conundrum. Could it be the same person? Are they both being targeted by a psychopath?

‘Definitely someone else,’ she says out loud, to convince herself, pausing in her unloading of the dishwasher. ‘That was the work of an adult with a grudge and no intelligent means of resolving it.’ But the similarities bother her more than she will allow.

She recalls Addison’s words about making a mess of the job: is that an inner guilt about – something? Were those vulgar women at the church a little bit too near the mark for comfort? Helen shakes her head and writes a shopping list. It’s hard to say. She will be in a better position to judge soon.

Just before she’d left the house, Addison had announced dully that Carla must write to Great Aunt Rebecca and ask her to come earlier than intended. (There was something like reluctance in Addison’s voice but nothing to explain it.) She looks forward to making the acquaintance of the old lady. 

Helen will go over every day until then to keep Carla company. She had been wondering how the girl could be calmed and reassured about the baby, and Addison’s eyes had pleaded more than his words. So she promised him that much. And there is something about the email picture – something at the edge of her awareness about bulbs and flowers and girls and babies – that makes her stick to her guns. How dare anyone try to threaten her – they could at least say what they mean straight out. She will carry on as before. This is not her way of doing things.

A foolhardy disregard energises her. She puts back the empty cutlery container and stalks into the lounge. Taking the laptop to the table, she puts it through its opening performance and accesses once again the intruder file. 

The picture is still scary, still frightening, still with no real explanation. But she has the power now to do what she could not before: delete it. A grim feeling of omnipotence runs through her fingers as she proceeds to remove it from the Recycle Bin. There! Mind over matter will eventually deal with the ghost script that accompanied it.

Why then do her fingers shake, ever so slightly, as she gives a much-needed drink to the plants in the conservatory?

The last of the water is trickling out of the plastic can by the time an answer presents itself in an acceptable form: she is no longer certain that physical safety can be guaranteed where Carla lives. The odds of another attack are high. 

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Chapter 7:c

In which reactions take over

Carla tremblingly checks the baby is safe in her carry cot and asleep, and turns back to Addison.

‘We have to move,’ she says. Her voice is taut, spun out to a fragile web. She bites her lip to stop it trembling. ‘I can’t live here; it’s not safe. You must take us away.’ It’s fear of Steve that is talking. The bigger agenda: he may be around. This new fear has linked to that, like a homing missile about to penetrate its target.

Addison looks at her. For a long moment he says nothing. Then: ‘It don’t make much sense to say we trust God and then do our own thing. Surely you can see that?’ His voice is strained and his eyes seem to plead with her for understanding.

‘Addison––’ 

Desperation rises in her; she must make him understand.

‘Addison, it’s dangerous. He’s trying to finish us… The baby… We have to go.’ She is crying again. 

Helen puts a mug of tea into her hand. And an arm round her shoulder. ‘You can’t leave the window like that. I think I should ring for someone and then clear up the glass. Luckily, no one was near enough to get cut. Dangerous thing…’ She trails off as if hesitating to go on. Carla wonders what she is not saying. Whether she’s unwilling to take sides, perhaps. Her tears increase. That it should come to this.

She turns into Helen’s arms and buries her head on her shoulder. After a long moment, her sobbing subsides and she says with a wan smile: ‘Thanks, it’s okay. I’ll help you. Addison knows someone who can do a window.’

‘Pete Flowers.’ The Preacher’s voice seems to come from the wilderness. He fires the number in slow motion, like a weary gun.

Helen can picture Pete’s face as she makes the call: a memory from another time. Was it only this afternoon?  

Carla takes her lead as they clear the myriad of splinters from the carpet and vacuum every tiny trace of the outrage. 

Addison sits staring into the Last Supper. 

***

Malcolm is at the door as the car pulls up. He is relieved to see Helen. She looks a bit pale – probably the result of a hectic afternoon. She should have stayed in, or, better still, agreed to a quick run down to the new house. Never mind. She’s back safely.

‘Not as good as you thought?’ he greets her.

‘Malcolm, I’ve no time for your petty told-you-so’s. Something awful happened.’

Malcolm shrugs but holds his peace. He could have told her. ‘Give me those,’ he says, taking the car keys and her bag. ‘Nothing is ever as awful as you think at the time. Believe me. Before the evening’s over you won’t remember.’

‘You have an answer for everything,’ Helen says. She marches down the hall and then turns to face him. ‘Except you just don’t hear when someone speaks to you about anyone else. You just don’t care, do you? You have no idea of anything outside your safe little business world.’

‘Hey!’ he laughs. This is not how he planned it. She’s so uptight. ‘What did happen, then? What went wrong? Was it a den of thieves?’

Helen is on him before he knows it. The anger on her face is something he has never seen. Her face is contorted by it. He has to grab her arm or risk losing his nose. ‘Helen! Stop it!’

She is beside herself; she can barely articulate an answer. When she finally does, he is sobered. ‘Helen, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But they’ll get over it. It’s only a broken window. And it’s replaced, you say?’

The sudden silence is horrible. She is staring at him with an expression of sheer loathing. He can hardly bear to look at her. What has he said? 

He shrugs again: it’s too late for this. He releases her arm and watches as she storms upstairs.

‘We’ll be moving in a few weeks,’ he says to her back. ‘After that, we’ll take a holiday. We both need it.’

He lets Helen get to sleep before opening the bottle of Chablis and drinking the whole lot on his own. Then he sits staring into the empty fireplace.

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Chapter 7:b

In which we find out about the broken window

Carla breaks down finally as Addison catapults through the door. He has been so long coming. She runs into his arms, the baby clutched in the crook of her elbow. 

‘A brick… it was a brick…’ she sobs. ‘He’s trying to kill me.’ 

She knows she is losing control of herself. She has kept going too long and the recent memory of Steve and now the brick has finally broken her. Someone has to take over. Someone older, someone who can cope, who knows how to handle it. She’s run from her father, run from the pimp and now the violence is crashing through her window, flying round her, frightening her with its anonymity. 

And she has a baby.

Addison’s six-foot frame surrounds her like scaffolding. Her panic subsides into something more manageable. She relaxes against him: the rough linen of his shirt, the smell of mingled deodorant and man – and she feels him respond. How can it happen at a moment like this? Maybe in a few weeks… not now… The sobbing wells up again and chokes out of her.

‘The brick, Addison… A note––’ Carla is becoming incoherent. (She is only vaguely aware of Helen’s presence in the room. Glad of it. She allows the baby to be taken from her.) ‘A note… Don’t read it––’ She pulls away, goes for a tissue, grabs a torn scrap from the table and tries to stuff it into her pocket. 

But Addison is beside her instantly. ‘Angel, let me––’ And the spidery writing is there for all to see:

 

 hypocrite you bang girls

  while she away  Got it CominG

    WATCH ouT

 

‘It’s not true. I don’t believe it. You know I don’t believe it,’ Carla tells him, her voice cracked. ‘I know you wouldn’t cheat on me… Please don’t look at it. Don’t read it any more.’ 

She can’t see further than her fear of Steve, though this is unlikely to be Steve’s work, even if he were in the city. His threat would be looming and terrible, and very controlled. This is frightening but petty.

Addison is oddly mute. His face muscles move but no sound comes. His arm jerks as if he has brain damage. Carla takes his hand, makes a supreme effort to calm herself, tries to convey through her touch that she trusts him – but he crumples into the chair. She stands awkwardly by. The sight of this strong man brought low, and so unjustly, upsets her. Indignation begins to replace fear. Anyone who knows Addison would know he wasn’t like that. It’s malicious gossip from some sick person. Addison isn’t capable of anything so bad.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ says Helen.

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Chapter 7:a

In which we momentarily divert to Malcolm

Malcolm is again mildly irritated that the regular pattern of news bulletins is disrupted on Sundays. He resignedly flicks through teletext.

Hardly worth the eye-power. Yawn stuff. Boring politicians still prognosticating: do they really think people are that gullible? Further insistence by industry chiefs that inflated salaries attract men of calibre (they should get out into the offices and do a spot of observation, he growls). The usual foreign problems (can’t tell one from another these days). A prostitute murdered. A lone walker mugged and robbed.

Instantly Malcolm remembers Helen and wonders what she’ll be doing now. Is she safe? Probably so – she never does anything silly like some of these impetuous twenty-somethings he has to deal with. She knows how to look after herself. Never gets unwittingly involved with people – not until this last escapade. What was she thinking of? 

His watch beeps seven. What a waste of his free time. 

There really hadn’t been a need to row about the invitation. He hadn’t even wanted to. But Helen doesn’t understand how busy he is, how impossible it is to get his mind around anything else these days; it’s not that there wasn’t time to go, he just couldn’t clear his head enough to circumvent his initial antipathy. Damned work – it buys your soul, saps your energy, and makes you too weary to think further ahead than the next business meeting.

He picks up an antique 3D sliding puzzle from the shelf and fiddles with its colours. He is unsettled, he knows, by Helen’s departure from her normal behaviour.

At least he knows she’s not wandering around that area alone, so the chances are she won’t be mugged. And the car: that should be some kind of safeguard. Anyway, she’s wearing jeans, not some mini contraption to show off those rather nice legs she’s kept over the years. Yes, it’s not likely anything will happen to her.

The years… That must be the problem. Something’s made her peculiar of late. Change of life, or whatever. Stifled, was it she’d said? Stifled, in this place? She’s gone crackers. Ample room and time to do whatever she likes. Yes, she must be getting to that age.

Malcolm stops, his finger on the blue tile. The menopause… 

As a couple, they never mention anything like that. Nor their health, their age, even their lack of children. What if she’s been wanting to discuss that? Children have never figured in his plans, though if it had happened he’d have managed – or rather, Helen would have. Not a problem for the man, really.

What if the menopause were to change their sex life? Would she go off him, find it awkward? Dry, don’t they say in the ads? … Can’t be that. She never complains. She’d surely say if he was hurting her?

He remembers hurting her the first time. She’d seemed embarrassed at their nakedness, frigid even. Not wanting him to see her body. He smiles at the memory – her body is very attractive, no cause for concern. He’d hated hurting her more than she’d hated undressing. 

Oh yes. He was too gentle in those days, afraid of harming anyone, always ready to put himself aside for others. Luckily, he’d learnt fast how to push himself forward and ignore the later self-rebuke. He’d managed to squash his sense of guilt at becoming pushy; started to quite enjoy it. That way he’d got rises and promotions others only dreamt of. 

Malcolm finishes the puzzle and puts it down with a smile. This latest promotion has removed him from the north at last. Next stop, Surrey.

Only he really must do something about a holiday this year. Their previous holidays have been happy, but it’s two years since they took one. This year they can afford to go anywhere. 

He flicks over to channel 3 and spends a few moments idly reviewing the exotic destinations… Bahamas?… Philippines?… Mongolia?

Then a faint annoyance. If Helen were here now they could be discussing actual plans; this is just a further waste of time. There are reports awaiting his attention in the study. She should be here when he has a minute to spare.

They have drifted apart a little recently. Doing separate things, meeting different people. 

He never could understand her decision to do charity work… Should he have let her continue to work in the library all those years ago? But that’s ridiculous. Why have both of them earning when his salary alone was, and is, enough? Much more streamlined to have different roles in life. And she has always kept their various houses beautifully, just as he likes them. She really has been good for him.

Malcolm gets up from the sofa. The problems are only recent, they won’t last long, especially with the move in a few weeks. By September, they will be together on the next leg of life’s journey. And they always say that like sticks to like in the end, and they’re not the sort of couple to split up. But he should have been less stubborn with Helen. It’s definitely the change of life. She probably can’t help herself. Better bear that in mind from now on.

He goes to the cellar and puts a bottle of wine to chill; then swiftly up to the bedroom where he closes the blinds but leaves the curtains tied back, turning the room into a cavern streaked with rogue light from the slits. He moves both lamp-switches to red setting. There can’t be much to keep her at Carla’s: when she comes in he will make it up to her.

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