Smile Page 8

  I froze; it was her. It was Sue. Her blonde hair was curly now; her smock billowed in the breeze from the fan and she was walking straight towards me.

  ‘Ouch!’ whispered Angie. ‘You’re hurting.’

  I let go her hand. Sue came nearer.

  ‘Darling,’ she whispered to Condom, ‘have I missed a lot?’

  Her face looked scrubbed; her skin bleached and freckly. Those light-blue eyes … She looked cleaner, and older, and even more beautiful.

  She sat down beside me, hip to hip. You know the saying: his bowels turned to water? Mine felt like that. At any moment she would recognize me. She mustn’t.

  Sue, of all girls. Sue. I kept my face turned away.

  I was gazing straight into Angie’s eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘We’ll all be doing it together. You needn’t be worried.’

  ‘Me, worried?’

  Chairs scraped as everybody stood up. I tried to escape but Condom tapped my shoulder. ‘This is Susan,’ he said.

  She said ‘Hello’ before she met my eye. Then she said: ‘Good grief.’

  Condom said: ‘You knew each other?’

  She paused. ‘Briefly. Slightly.’

  ‘Terry was just talking about girls from the art school.’ He turned to her. ‘But you’ve never mentioned him.’

  She smiled. ‘We hardly knew each other.’

  My shirt was sticking to my armpits. Now we were all walking over to the cushions. I tried to nudge Angie towards the far corner but Sue and Condom were behind us, and when we were told to lie down we all lay down together. Angie on one side of me; Sue the other.

  The Indian tent picked its way amongst us, smiling down. ‘First we have to relax. I know this may seem strange to some of you … We’ll be doing First-Stage breathing … Deep breaths, one, two, three …’

  In the corner of my eye I could see the dome of Sue’s belly. Stretched out beside me, she was breathing heavily, in and out, as instructed. I could smell her perfume.

  Sue and me, lying beside the gas fire. I’d got the living, breathing Sue in my arms. Her suede mini-skirt up around her waist … her leg wrapped around me … and my hand sliding down through the elastic waistband of her tights … we were rolling over, bumping against the fender …

  ‘OK? Relaxed? She’s fully dilated by now, and moving into the Second Stage of labour … Time for the shallow pants.’

  Sue, panting in my ear … the rasp of her tights as she rearranged her limbs … she’d done this before. After all, she was an art-school girl …

  ‘Can I?’ My voice was husky; I had to clear my throat. ‘Can I?’

  I squeezed my eyes tight shut. Around me, rising and falling, they were panting en masse.

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  But could I?

  ‘The contractions are coming on stronger now, keep panting, with each wave … Each wave growing more and more powerful …’

  Crouched over myself, I was lumbering to my feet to switch off the light … behind me she lay waiting, glowing in the firelight … I was fumbling for my wallet.

  A whisper. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Help by rubbing,’ said the voice. ‘Rubbing her back, Dads. Help by breathing with her, breathing her through … Now she needs your support …’

  Crouched there, my trousers round my ankles. I kept my back to her. Silence. I could hear her breathing behind me, waiting.

  Stealthy, crackling sounds. My hands big and useless as sausages. And there it lay, dwindled …

  I sat, hunched like a miser over my humiliating little offering.

  ‘She’s needing reassurance now, Dads. The contractions are much, much stronger …’

  ‘You all right?’ she asked.

  Untruthfully, I nodded.

  She put her arms around me. ‘You’ve done this before?’

  A pause. Then, untruthfully, I nodded again.

  She set to work, tender and deft. Tenderly she tried, with her warm hands.

  No bloody good.

  All those matchboxes … all those sessions in our Arctic toilet … and in my creaking bed, through the wall the answering scrape-scrape of my sister’s hamster going round its wheel. And when it came to it …

  ‘Terry.’

  A hand touched my arm. I jerked upright. Angie was sitting up, so were the others. I heard grunts as the women got to their feet.

  Angie dusted down my suit, and smiled. ‘You did it marvellously. Sounded as if you were having the baby, not me.’ She paused. ‘Wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  Behind my head I heard Sue murmuring to Condom. Was she telling him about it now? Or would she save it till later, for the togetherness time on their corduroy sag-bags? Some things are best left unsaid … But you can bet they’d talk this through.

  Laugh it through, more like.

  ‘It’s the film now,’ Angie said. ‘Tamsin is Born.’ She paused: ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ll wait in the pub.’

  She pulled me back. ‘Terry, don’t feel threatened. I’ve seen it before, it’s terrifically moving.’

  ‘Well, I’m moving terrifically fast.’

  ‘Darling – look, it’s no reflection on your masculinity or anything if you find it a bit overwhelming. Nobody will mind.’

  ‘I’ll faint,’ I said. ‘I’m off.’

  But just then the lights were extinguished and it was too late. Grey numbers wobbled on the screen and I was trapped. The film began, in startling technicolor.

  And when tiny, red Tamsin was born, shall I tell you what happened?

  Condom passed out. He did, no kidding. There was this scrape, as his chair tipped over.

  Later, in the pub, I said: ‘Fancy old Condom fainting.’

  Angie gazed at me over her orange juice. ‘You’re smiling.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Why? Why this macho power-game, this stupid competitiveness? What are you afraid of?’

  I shrugged genially. I was well into my second pint, Jesus, it tasted good. I lit my third fag. I felt better. She couldn’t get at me now.

  Then she spoilt it. She sighed and said: ‘Your nice friend, what’s-his-name?’

  ‘Condom.’

  ‘Edward. He doesn’t behave like that.’ She gazed at me. Around my skull the band tightened.

  ‘Behave like what?’

  ‘Behave as if he’s frightened of failing.’ She paused, then she said: ‘Real men don’t.’

  • Horse Sense •

  WHEN I FIRST moved to the estate my only companions were Terry Wogan and a horse. Terry was just on the radio, but the horse was real enough. It was a big brown thing that lived in a field at the end of my garden. I’m not used to horses but soon it was hanging its heavy head over my fence and I was feeding it chapatis. At first it alarmed me, baring its slimy yellow teeth, stained like a smoker’s.

  I come from London. So does my husband. But we moved to this place near Swindon because it’s Silicon Valley and he was making his way in the world. I was proud of him then.

  The estate was full of children. They passed fast on their skate-boards; their laughter made my chest hurt. Sometimes, waiting for the bus, there would be a little girl standing in front of me and I felt weak, from wanting to touch her hair.

  The neighbours weren’t really unfriendly. We just didn’t have that much in common, me having no kids. I don’t think it was to do with prejudice – after all, I didn’t go around in a sari or anything. I was born and bred in England, the same as them. We didn’t perform weird rites. The only thing Ranjit worshipped was the silicon chip.

  I talked to the horse when I was hanging out my washing. It might have looked funny otherwise. I had these one-way conversations behind the flapping sheets. I told it what I was cooking for dinner, and what was going on in EastEnders. One day I said to it, quite distinctly: ‘I think I’m going mad.’

  That was the day I had been to the shoe shop i
n Swindon and made such a fool of myself. The horse went on eating, of course, and flicked away a fly.

  I should have told my husband but he didn’t like disturbance. He’s older than me – he had been a bachelor for years and his family had started to despair. The grey flecks in his hair gave him a weighty look, as if he had deeper thoughts than me. So I cooked and cleaned the house – when he saw a smeary surface he cleared his throat – and, before the panics got too bad, I took the bus into Swindon and went to Marks & Spencers. I had been married two years.

  I’m probably making him sound unattractive. I knew I would. But he was kind. He was always buying me gadgets for the kitchen. Have you tried a microwave? I only used it once, and after that I pretended. He would spear a baked potato and pronounce: ‘Ten minutes. A miracle.’ I would lower my eyes; in marriage you learn to be silent.

  He liked things with digital numbers; our house bleeped like a space-ship. He fiddled with the video recorder and indexed all our tapes. From the back I could see the small boy he once was. I wanted to touch him then, but he only handled me in the dark. And then, according to the statistics in my Woman’s Own survey, not often.

  But I didn’t mention that, even to myself. I told myself I was lucky. He didn’t drink like other men, coming home to a burnt dinner and an irked wife. He kept himself in trim. He never lost his temper. He gave me generous amounts of housekeeping each week. I tell myself these things, and I tell them to you. I don’t like to talk of them.

  I’ll tell you about the horse. It meant a lot to me. Silly, wasn’t it? But I stroked its neck and it blew into my hair. We were two lonely creatures together. My husband worked late; he was one of the marketing managers of a computer firm. Under my hand, the horse breathed.

  I’ll tell you what happened in Lilley & Skinners. I went into Swindon to buy a pair of shoes. A woman was there, with her child. He was a small boy, aged about six, and he wanted blue trainers. But she wanted him to have the red ones, and then he started crying and she slapped him. That was all. And I burst into tears.

  I felt such a fool. I had to leave the shop. It was such a small thing, wasn’t it? I felt a fool.

  Soon after that, it was a cold day in spring; the field was empty. The horse was gone. For a silly moment I thought I had told it too many secrets. The field was bare, with just the dents where its hooves had stood; pitted mud around my back fence. And a week later the bulldozers arrived and they ploughed up the field and started building a service station.

  So there was only Terry Wogan left but he was on the telly now; he had his own chat show and instead of talking to me there he was, making film stars simper. It wasn’t the same.

  I should have got out more. With the warm weather starting, other women went off to garden centres and MFI. People talked about a local beauty spot – a hill with the shape of a white horse cut out in it. Standing there, they said, you could see three counties. But now, just thinking about the bus made my heart thump. I was getting worse.

  I had these panics when I got to Swindon. It happened in supermarkets; in Sainsbury’s I’d break out in sweat. I couldn’t think what to choose. Little tins suddenly made me sad. I’d fumble in my bag for my wallet – it wasn’t there, I’d forgotten it, I’d forgotten my keys. What could I possibly choose to buy? How could I want all that stuff? And why? Wasn’t everybody looking at me?

  I kept glancing at my watch and worrying I’d miss the bus. I’d hurry to the bus station; there were so many buses, so many numbers. Sometimes they would roll the numbers around on the departure boards, losing me. It was the central depot, and though I knew my queue I pictured the wrong bus being there, or my own bus just leaving. However early I turned up, my stomach churned.

  I didn’t tell Ranjit. He always seemed to be doing something else. Besides, I didn’t want to worry him when he was working so hard. They were about to launch a new product, he said, and he was often away overnight – he had to give pep talks, he said, to his countrywide network of sales executives. He spent more and more time, too, working late.

  It was best not to speak. If I spoke I would alarm myself; once I made it real, into words, I would start panicking, in earnest.

  Then one day I lost my nerve and missed the bus altogether. For a week I had been putting off going into Swindon; just outside the estate, next to the newly-built filling station, there was a parade of shops and I’d been going there. I could do that quite easily – no timetables, no countdowns: just a short walk, whenever I felt like it, quite calmly. No problem with that.

  But I needed some upholstery fabric. Days went by and I made excuses to myself, delaying things until the last bus had gone and it was too late. Finally, on the Friday, I did make it to the bus stop. But when the bus arrived, I flunked it and went back home.

  The next Monday I did something that was out of character. We all do that on occasion, don’t we? That morning I picked up the phone book, found a number and ordered myself a mini-cab.

  And look where it led me. My advice: don’t do anything that surprises yourself. There’s a good reason why you’ve never done it before.

  Eric was the name of the driver and we got to know each other well. He was more responsive than either the horse or Terry. I could talk to the back of his neck, which was red.

  The first journey he talked all the way about his late wife. I think he was lonely.

  ‘There was fields here then,’ he said, nodding at the passing discount centres. ‘She grew up on a farm; all the fields they were yellow with cowslips.’ A lorry, hooting, passed us. ‘It’s an ancient bit of country, this. Those chalk hills, see, far over there? The oldest bit of land for miles.’

  I agreed politely, though I couldn’t see how one bit of country could be older than another. I was wondering if I dared tell Ranjit about the mini-cab. He would think me so odd. I would take the money out of the housekeeping and he might never notice.

  ‘Money, money,’ Eric went on. ‘Nobody doesn’t have any respect for the land. Plough it up, concrete it over, bung all those little boxes on it. There was a song once: “Little boxes and they all look just the same”.’

  ‘They’re not,’ I said. ‘Ours has a through-lounge – some of them have a separate dining-room.’ I liked my house.

  ‘One huge suburb,’ he went on, ‘full of foreigners.’ He looked in the driving mirror. ‘Begging your pardon.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Most of us come from London.’

  He must have been about sixty. He talked about the days when he was courting as if it was yesterday. He said it felt like that. He said there was a big harvest supper and his wife-to-be was there, and how they had horses then to pull the carts. Being a town boy, he said, he was alarmed by their huge feet.

  While he talked, I thought how in a mini-cab I didn’t feel so panic-stricken, though I still felt twinges: should I tip him? Would he pick me up outside Marks & Spencers at the right time? He did.

  The weeks went by and I realized I was looking forward to our trips. His neck got browner in the sun. He said he subscribed to Psychic News and that he still talked to his wife. She wasn’t really gone. To him, she wasn’t. He said his house was on a steep hillside and in the evening, when the place was in shadow and he came through the front door, he heard her voice. She always seemed to be in the next room, but when he got there, the house was silent.

  ‘Do you have any children?’ I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  Outside the window the suburbs of Swindon passed. As I looked out at the industrial warehouses I thought of Ranjit, pyjama’d in the dark. Did he dream?

  I said to Eric: ‘Last night I dreamed I was in a plane but it wouldn’t take off. It just bumped through the streets, faster and faster. Its wings battered at the houses; it made such a mess. I was scared to death. I was sitting inside it; all the passengers were rolling about but it wouldn’t go up in the air. There was somebody next to me and he was telling me to open a parcel. The plane was lurching around; he forced me
to open it. I didn’t want to. Inside the parcel – it was made of old newspapers – inside it there was something moving.’

  I didn’t tell him there was a baby inside. To tell the honest truth, I don’t think he was listening.

  I do blush, though, when I think of the things I told Eric. The stuffy car made me careless and I just spoke to the back of his neck. I told him about my funny turns, and how I would speak to the furniture. It didn’t seem so odd when there he was conversing with his dead wife. At least the washing machine was solid. ‘Can you cope with all these sheets?’ I would ask it. ‘I’ve never fancied this pink shirt of Ranny’s. It makes him look like a disc jockey.’ At first it surprised me, hearing, in my empty home, my own high voice. But once you’ve been doing it for a while it seems quite normal. And at least I wasn’t speaking into thin air.

  I told him how I’d stand in the middle of a shop and suddenly feel so empty – a sort of scraped-out, hurting hollow – and I’d go up the escalators and buy three belts. I knew I would never wear them, they didn’t go with any of my clothes. But I would bundle them into the back of my cupboard and keep them safe.

  Ranjit wouldn’t have minded the expense – I told you he was generous – but he would have been worried. Eric was restful because nothing surprised him.

  I said: ‘Yesterday I burst into tears, thinking of all the chickens that must have died to make me live.’

  Eric just replied: ‘Once chickens tasted like chickens. Now they’re pumped full of hormones.’ No wonder I could talk.

  It was the hottest summer for years. At night I slept badly, dreaming of horses and slippery slopes. I was helpless; often the plane or carriage in which I was travelling was out of control. I heard trees creak as we knocked against them; banging along the streets, I heard the breaking masonry. Sometimes Ranjit appeared – an altered, panting Ranjit. His hands were rude, and he pulled my skirt up over my head and did such things to me, front and rear, that at breakfast I couldn’t meet his eye.

  Inside, the house was stifling. The garden was both too stuffy and too exposed – have you ever felt that? While Ranjit slept I stood on the lawn listening to the hum of the motorway. The filling station blared at me, close; its Texaco sign hurt my eyes – it reminded me of my childhood when I had dared myself to look at the sun. I hid behind the shed, where none of the houses could see me, and I gazed at the orange sky above Swindon. I pictured cows and wives buried under concrete and wondered if I would ever have a child. I thought suddenly: am I having a nervous breakdown? Is this the beginning of it? Perhaps I’m one of those housewives I read about in the newspaper. Inside, beside the bed, emerald numbers flipped on our digital clock, telling me that at least something was in order.