Chapter 21:c

In which we watch Carla’s thoughts as she feeds Dinah

Carla studies the microwave instruction book as she feeds a sleepy Dinah. The pull on her nipple is sensual, almost erotic, and she feels a reciprocal build-up of sensation elsewhere.

Wistfully she turns her mind back to the translation, presumably from the Japanese original. It’s hopeless. The missing and mis-used words make nonsense of the list of precautions. She puts it down on the floor at her feet, trying not to smother Dinah as she leans forward.

Helen must have been in a very generous mood – that or she believes a microwave is a necessity, something no one should be without, and has decided to relieve Carla’s pitiable condition.

Then again, as Dinah’s head slides away from the nipple, it might be a toy for people who’ve grown out of cookers. She props the baby against her shoulder to burp. The trouble is, it seems to take away most of the fun. No flame, no careful adjustment of a knob to simmer the food, no decisions about which oven shelf to deposit the food on. Just quick, neat, and convenient. Possibly cleaner too.

Rather like Helen in many ways. Or at least the Helen she first met. Icy, glassy, marbled. Untouchable except on the surface of the mind. Everything proper and correct. The woman has changed quite a lot since then. She’s less sure inside herself, definitely troubled by the frequent strange memories. Carla is worried about her. They talked a bit after she brought them the news of Rebecca’s attack. Said she’d made an excuse to come and hoped she’d be forgiven for intruding,  but she just needed someone to talk to right then. Pity she didn’t explain that to Addison.

Carla smiles gently. Maybe she should let her talk more often. It was certainly odd to have put all that stuff away in an old chest and left them there without knowing why. They’d had no time to discuss the various items because of the attack on Rebecca.

No doubt Rebecca would have something to say about it all if they told her, some intuitive light to throw on the situation, but the old lady seems a bit put out with Helen. And Malcolm – well, he’s rarely mentioned. Carla realises she has no idea whether he’s involved in all this or not. Helen is still quite a private person in many ways. She hasn’t even talked about the moving down south and it must be the one thing on her mind, surely.

Almost as if not mentioning it makes it not happen, Carla reflects sombrely.

Swapping Dinah for the freebie recipe book, Carla makes up her mind to use the microwave today. She’d better, if she isn’t to offend Helen. Though it wouldn’t be surprising if she never came again after Addison’s swipe at her.

The thought fills Carla with apprehension. She realises how much she’s come to expect the cheerful smile, the ready help, even help that’s not needed. In fact, just someone to share and laugh with. A friend.

She will phone her if she doesn’t come tomorrow.

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Chapter 21:b

In which Addison feels satisfied

Swinging left past the parish church, Helen reads the noticeboard from top to bottom before it passes. It would seem this place offers sustenance to every individual group in turn during the week. She smiles as she recalls the noisy crowd at Holy Wind. No segregation there. They even let the children take a proper role. Perhaps that is the clue to why people go. A friendly meeting is preferable to a boring task. Perhaps whatever it is they’ve got there keeps the depravity from surfacing. And some attendees will doubtless be adept at dissimulating if need be.

She feels a definite lessening in her annoyance with the Preacher, Maybe she should go again. It was good. She enjoyed it. But she will have to decide what to do about his accusation earlier today. Was that also true?

***

Addison turns the envelope over and over as he stands on the slowly moving escalator watching the lower shops sink out of sight beneath his feet and the upper ones descend from the glass dome until he can stare directly into the gaudy displays.

What a racket. Piles of goods for sale, loads of useless trinkets with no value beyond the materials they’re made of. No one can possibly need much more than they already have, except the poor – and they don’t have the money to spend. How stupid. An old conundrum pops into his head: The rich lack it, but if the poor eat it they die. What is it? Why, nothing, of course! He contemplates trying it out on the old woman sharing his escalator step. She has her hair in curlers. Better not. More effective as the opening sentence of a sermon.

The original line of thought reappears. What a brilliant idea the seven-year system was. God knew a thing or two in those days. If every seventh year you got back what you’d lent or sold, and all debts were cancelled and all slaves set free, you sort of reverted to square one again and a new start. Even the fields lay fallow, although, Addison assumes, someone must have staggered the resting of the fields in some way or the Israelites would have starved! But no matter, the rule was sound. Modern life – at least the sort that exists here in the Priory centre – is just out to grab your money. At least he’s found a better way.

His features spread out in a self-satisfied grin as he remembers the incredulity of the young men when they saw their new home this morning.

‘This ours, then?’

‘All yours, to do up. Like it?’ He knew the answer but wanted to hear it from their lips. Didn’t do any harm to encourage gratitude. The healed lepers mostly forgot but even God might have liked some encouragement.

‘You’re great, Addison,’ the more forthcoming of the four said. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll soon have this sorted. Good to have a place where they ain’t gonna turn you out.’

‘Dead right. You’ll be able to get jobs as decorators and builders mates soon as you’ve learnt the stuff here on your own spot. God’s got good plans for you lot. I feel it in my bones.’

Yeah, they’d been pleased and grateful someone cared. He’s doing the right thing, if only he can withstand the enemy’s arrows.

Absent-mindedly, he again examines the writing on the envelope, and shrugs. Then he jumps off the escalator and makes like a homing pigeon for the red and gold signboard outside Action for Homes.

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Chapter 21:a

In which Helen grasps something of the truth about life

Helen walks abnormally briskly in the afternoon sun. Her stress levels are high. It was a busy morning’s work, in no way alleviated by the air-conditioning. The heat seemed to emanate from inside her, flooding through her in waves of indignation and humiliation.

It is lessening somewhat as she strides along and allows the beauty of the district to impinge on her consciousness. The trees lining the avenues are in full glory still, showing no sign of the drought nor any indication of impending autumn, and the lower boughs seem to extend towards her, inviting her to relax with them.

She barely needs to consider whether to turn left or right at any crossing of the ways since she could never become lost. Each porch, every paved drive and all the disparate hardwood doors are assignable to a certain place on a particular road, as are the meticulously tended gardens with their rockeries and shrubs like so many silent memorials, sweating out the summer with extreme passivity. These are her markers. This is her territory despite her comparatively recent arrival here. She has strolled, meditated, planned and simply enjoyed herself time and time again in these avenues and is as reliable as a St Bernard.

But her walk today began in agitation. She has rarely allowed herself to get upset over anyone (mostly she can’t be bothered), but Addison upset her.

She has grown sufficiently used to his eccentricities to ask herself now whether this time he hasn’t in fact flipped. The tone of his voice when he accused her of taking the family over was not a jocular upbraiding from an acknowledged different view of life nor an outspoken ill-advised joke that could be forgiven. There had been a harsh edge to it, full of bitterness – though whether against her or against himself, she cannot tell as she replays the mental tape. The distinction matters. The latter she might overlook and even work towards solving in some way. The former would constitute a direct attack on their friendship.

She becomes aware of a pungent smell close by. Surprised, she looks around sharply, but there is only the drain by the pavement’s edge. The stench is quite localised. She passes another with similarly fetid emanations. She wrinkles her nose in distaste. The summer has been too dry and hot. Relentless weeks of heat wave can make people mad – according to the local rag. Rain is needed to fill the reservoirs, torrents to wash the streets and sweep away the human pollution that threatens them under their feet. Goodness, it’s as bad as Park End Road. And with that thought, she immediately notices a lager can squashed and stuffed in a privet hedge. It is not difficult in the wake of this discovery to notice other blemishes all around: the partially obliterated scrawl of a message on someone’s end wall; cigarette stubs outside certain driveways where, no doubt, the teenagers are obliged to keep their habits to themselves; several fence junctions with nooks of rubbish rounded up by the breeze – as if the droppers blatantly disregard others or, more likely, feel that pavements belong to no one in particular.

Suddenly, with exquisite clarity, Helen’s mind fills with images of Addison. And whatever the picture – flamboyant, preaching, teasing his daughter, depressed – she hears only his one message: mankind is corrupt, depraved, selfish and like sheep without a shepherd.

Addison has identified truth and is trying to make others see what is so clear to himself. The reason she and others find him odd is simply that they are in league with an illusion of everything being okay. How else did she not see the rubbish here before?

She looks down at a tabby who has been following her, purring pitifully. Satisfied at being heard, it rolls over and raises all its legs in a pleading gesture. Helen laughs out loud and leaves it sprawled behind her. She feels lighter, more calm, more stroked in her spirit: truth really is liberating. She will make an effort to keep her eyes open in future.

She rounds the synagogue, a place that signals the apogee of today’s walk.

No one ever suddenly became depraved. The Roman satirist Juvenal. Helen has always known the quote, learnt it in Latin at school, probably. How come she has only just recalled it? According to that, people must have the seed of depravity in their hearts, waiting to sprout and branch out, according to what life throws at them, more visible sometimes than others. In fact, that is probably what Addison’s Jesus was thinking about when he taught that man was sinful and in need of a saviour. Must have known it would break out in moments of distraction – when people fed it on the right mixture to cause a growth spurt.

No, Addison is not eccentric, just truthful. And it is by this truth that he is desperately trying to live his life. Almost immediately, Helen realises that he has taken on an impossible task. No one can live without error. She hopes he knows it too. Because one day the error he makes will be larger than can be atoned for through one of his periods of depression and remorse. He will need to counteract it positively – redeem himself, outweigh it. That’s how real life is attained in her book, not through adherance to religion.

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Chapter 20:d

In which things blow up

The door is opened immediately and Helen’s fair head peeps round. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘I’m just off to work. Thought I’d call and see how Rebecca is.’ Her eyes query them all in turn, Carla notes, and since no one responds she comes in anyway.

‘You should keep the door locked,’ she says.

Carla shrugs. Now is not the time to explain about the need to check on Dinah. It is odd, in fact, that Helen should come past here on her way to the Priory Centre. But she probably felt concerned about Rebecca as she rescued her. Carla has a feeling they would all have rather kept the present argument secret. After all, someone of Rebecca’s age probably never discusses money with anyone and they have upset her already. And Addison looks thunderous, which speaks for itself. And she herself, when she thinks about it, believes that airing a private grievance outside the family is a bit disloyal.

But Helen is here and retreat isn’t possible.

‘I’ll fetch Dinah in,’ she says, fearful that in the midst of such a commotion, the baby will be overlooked.

Then, because neither Addison nor Rebecca say another word, nor do they move or make an effort to divert the topic, Carla tries a tentative explanation to Helen, hoping she will not be accused of taking sides.

Helen is unconcerned by the atmosphere.

‘Look,’ she says. ‘There is always a way round such things. Give the money to me. I’ll use it to put petrol in and then take you all out for a day in a few weeks’ time. The disputed money will have been used by me and mine will pay for the excursion. How’s that? Will that launder the money sufficiently?’

There is silence, like that of a noisy class of children suddenly called to order with a stunning piece of simplicity. Carla nearly laughs out loud.

Then Rebecca and Addison speak together.

‘My dear Helen, there’s enough loot here to buy petrol till Christmas.’

‘I thought you were leaving soon – or are you planning on moving in with us now to organise us even better?’

Helen flinches so visibly that Carla sees in her a mirror of herself all those months ago when Steve in a rage would take a swipe at her head, her chest, anywhere he could inflict damage, and Carla would instinctively flinch before the blow hit home.

She turns on Addison in a fury. ‘How dare you say that to anyone. How dare you insult Helen after all she’s done for us. You’re acting like a spoilt child. You may not like gambling but Rebecca doesn’t like bad manners and there’s nothing to choose between the two of you.’

Silence meets this outburst. Carla can feel her heart thudding in fear. She has surely finished it off now. Addison will divorce her – after all, the marriage is not proper yet – and she will be on her own again, at the mercy of a murderous madman. She should not have spoken. Anger is destructive. Helen is quite able to stand up for herself.

Rebecca walks steadily over to the staircase at the back of the room. ‘A week has been enough to get you back on your feet, Carla. You sound fighting fit again. I’ll be off as soon as this injury settles down. Plenty to do back home.’

‘Please…’ Carla breaks off before the request is uttered. There is no point in pleading. Her fear will grow if she continues to allow it expression. It will bloat itself and fill the place and confront her at every moment. Eventually it will consume her. Better to keep it under lock and key. She shuts her mouth resolutely.

Helen turns at the door. ‘Sorry if I said the wrong thing. I was only trying to defuse the situation. Might be better if I stick to work.’ Her laugh sounds nervous. Carla wants to run to her and hug her but she is unable to move as the door is opened and closed again with the minimum of disturbance. The cool draught travels across the room to her very innards, freezing them in a tangle of anxiety, and passes on, oblivious of her quandary.

Soon she will have no one. She will be alone again.

Addison remains in the centre of the room, hands suspended loosely, staring pensively one way and then the other. He appears incongruously sad in his bright clothing, like a clown after a poor show, who is aware that his future hangs in the balance.

‘You have to meet the men at the house in half an hour,’ Carla reminds him levelly. She hardly recognises her own voice, but it is tightly in control and she breathes more easily. ‘It might be best if I went to the shops now. Alone.’

She sees the slight surprised flick of his head as he fixes his stare on her. No matter; one of them must be strong. They need time apart before they say anything else they regret. ‘I’ll be back before you leave, so Dinah can stay with you.’

‘I been thinking––’ he starts to say.

‘Don’t.’

Carla picks the shopping list off the counter in passing and closes the door quietly. One of them knows something she doesn’t. It’s difficult to put her finger on it but there is an atmosphere fuelled by something unmentioned. Out here in the fresh sun-filled air she may find what it is if she opens her mind to every possibility.

Chapter 20:c

In which Carla finds herself in the middle of a disagreement

Carla has begun to feel a gnawing need for security. No one is safe these days.

She has been standing pensively for a few minutes in the doorway to Rebecca’s bedroom when Addison’s voice announces his return; she has also unnecessarily tidied the bed – it was untouched. Probably just as well they kept the old lady in for observation at her age. They can’t risk something unseen developing a couple of hours later. But the incident has awoken a nervous watchfulness in Carla’s spirit.

When she settled Dinah earlier, in the sun by the open front door, she adjusted the pram net so that marauding cats would have no luck. She has glanced out of the front window every five minutes since, whilst clocking off the upstairs tasks. She does not really expect Steve to steal her: he will give her the two weeks. But a spreading sense of being not safe from anything at all is weakening her capacity to function.

Whether it’s the memory of Rebecca’s accident or merely an instinctive precaution is immaterial; each one of them in the house has become a victim. She, because of the brick thrown through the window, and Steve’s ultimatum, Addison because of his depression; now Rebecca, who is supposed to be looking after her, has been mugged. Without Helen’s strong presence they would be lost. It anchors them to the places in the world where these things are unthinkable. No one would attack Helen in a middle-class suburb.

She can’t risk anything happening to Dinah. Dinah is her way to freedom, her hope for the future, her guarantee that life will go on. She must be very, very watchful. If only they, too, could live somewhere safer… The idea is pointless – Steve would find her even in hell.

Addison’s rising tone breaks through her thoughts and she goes down.

‘Take your filthy winnings to drag someone else down? Oh no. Not likely. D’you know what you’re saying?’

Carla’s heart lurches. This is Addison at his angry worst. She goes into the room and quickly takes in the scene.

The door is still open how she left it. She crosses the room to close it, sparing a quick glance at the sleeping baby. The neighbours will not benefit from a showdown with the old lady.

‘Addison––’ she warns quietly.

‘Carla, keep out of this. Rebecca knows quite well how I view gambling. She can keep her ill-gotten gains.’

‘You’re being a bit rude,’ Carla persists, hoping to overlay some calm on the situation. ‘If Rebecca has won something and you don’t want the gift, you could at least say thank you but no, and explain quietly why you can’t accept it.’

‘I said keep out of this. How dare anyone think the Lord can’t finance his own work. We are talking about a mighty God.’ He turns angrily to face the old lady. ‘He don’t need to extort money from those who can least afford it. He abhors such things. And he’s plenty of resources you never dreamed of.’

‘Well Carla hasn’t, and I should think she’ll accept it as donation towards the housekeeping while I’m here.’ She looks expectantly at Carla. ‘Okay?’

Carla is trapped. If she refuses, then Rebecca will be hurt and perhaps take herself off home again just when Carla is feeling in need of some company for safety – even someone who herself needs help. And if she accepts… she can’t accept. Addison will completely flip.

‘I––’

There is a loud knocking on the door.

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Chapter 20:b

In which Great Aunt Rebecca drops a bomb

‘And another thing you should know,’ Rebecca announces, ‘if I can just get myself comfortable on this awful, slippery seat,’ – she turns her head to fix him with her beady eyes – ‘is that Helen is besotted with Carla.’

Addison hopes the taxi driver cannot overhear them. Rebecca has turned the conversation, such as it is, several times away from herself to Helen. It must be deliberate. The eyes are limpid with no hint of remorse, the scrape on the side of her face more a badge of victory than of disgrace.

‘Mark my words. That woman means trouble. From all accounts, she spends most days with Carla – it just so happened she was ill most of this week. Carla had some respite.’

Suddenly Addison hears her. G.A.R. has seen something he has failed to become aware of: Helen is virtually living in their house.

‘God help me,’ he breathes, forgetting about Rebecca as his brain goes into overdrive. Not that too. He has problems enough already.

The taxi driver signals left and pulls across the junction in a kamikaze dive. Addison lurches against Rebecca, sends out a hand to grab the nearest door grip, and finds himself face to face with her shrewd gaze. He reads in her elderly face depths of understanding and discernment. How did he miss the warning signs in Helen? Was he so taken with her neediness and the novelty of being able to awaken something in her, that he failed to see what was really happening? Is Carla aware of this? Is she party to it? Is there something between them?

‘No,’ he protests. ‘She’s a friend. She’s helped us, been the Lord’s hand in time of need. It jus’ looks like you said, but it’s not how it is.’

‘Then why was she on her way to your house yesterday afternoon?’

‘Lucky for you she was. Anyone might have finished you off, the state you were in lying there. She came and told us.’

‘I know,’ Rebecca says quietly. ‘But she said that’s where she was coming anyway and that she’d tell you where I was. I mean, why was she coming over in the first place? She’d just gone home after church, hadn’t she? She sits with Carla all morning. Then she comes back for more.’

‘She brought a gift for Dinah. A fluffy rabbit…’

Even as he offers the reason, he hears the lameness. Surely that would have waited. But if she’d just spent time with Carla then she couldn’t have come for that reason either. He points this out to Rebecca, who merely raises her eyebrows and stares at him till he lowers his gaze, averts his eyes from the incursion.

At least the exchange has kept her from noticing the road past the bingo hall. In fact, it takes his own mind away from the anger he feels when he thinks of the whole episode of the mugging.

‘She works at the charity, you know,’ he says obstinately. ‘Several half days each week. So she isn’t here all the time. And Carla needs a friend. If you knew what she’s been through.’

‘Do you?’

‘Course I do. She told me ‘bout the home she left, the way she ran away. I found her in a refuge singing away at the piano. I rescued her,’ he says proudly. ‘She loves me.’ He keeps quiet about the enforced prostitution. It doesn’t seem the thing to tell a woman of her age, though she’s sharp enough not to have missed the fact that the baby can’t be his. Perhaps Carla told her anyway.

‘Vulnerable.’ Rebecca pronounces the word as if it’s a sin. ‘Vulnerable, and worldly-wise. A dangerous mix in a person for someone like Helen to team up with.’

‘How d’you mean? Man, it’s not a crime to make friends.’

‘Friends, no, but prisoners, yes. You just watch them.’

The driver swings into Park End Road. ‘Thirty-nine, was it?’ he asks, his face quite blank.

Before Addison can get out or find his wallet, Great Aunt Rebecca has pulled a wad of notes from her now scuffed handbag and unrolled one for the driver. ‘I should try driving more slowly if I were you,’ she tells him sharply. ‘If we weren’t acquainted already,’ and she waves a hand in Addison’s direction, ‘we should be by now. And I’m not all here today.’ She fingers her face tentatively.

‘Thought you needed to get home sharp like,’ he says, and pulls his hand back through the partition. ‘Did you want the change?’

Addison flushes in annoyance but proffers his hand to Rebecca as he arrives round at the kerb-side. With remarkable alacrity, she descends rather like some Victorian dowager and walks ahead of him, past the pram, into the house, her complete composure offering more of a reprimand to the driver than any retort could have.

Then she turns towards him and presses the bundle of fivers into his hand, ‘For that house project. I like the idea. I approve.’

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