‘Of course I can.’
She went out. I stroked Smog’s face, and he looked at me. ‘What’s all this?’ I said. ‘I’ve come to see you, and I wanted to take you out.’
‘Daddy’s dead.’
‘I’m your dad. I thought you knew. I always told you I was.’
‘You’re Uncle,’ he said.
‘I’m your dad now, as well.’ He was pale, his lips thin and pink as if somebody had tried to doll him up with lipstick. His feet kicked under the clothes. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘My head keeps ringing.’
‘Like a telephone?’
He smiled. ‘No, like a big single bell.’
‘I suppose that earwig got loose, and started swinging on it. Everybody’s head has got an earwig in it. But you know why they always get on that bell and make it ring?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘To tell you that they’re hungry. They want you to stuff some food into your mouth for them.’
‘I don’t feel hungry.’
‘But they do. Your earwig must be getting very restless, ringing that bell like that. If you want it to stop, you have to eat something.’
He leaned on his elbow, but fell back. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
He thought about it. ‘What do earwigs like best to eat?’
‘Depends. Some of ’em are like tigers, and only want raw meat. Others eat bacon and eggs. Mostly they like a nice breakfast if they haven’t eaten for a while. I should think yours is that sort. A bit of porridge to start off, warm, with some milk stirred in it. That’ll keep him quiet for an hour. Then try a bit of scrambled egg.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Listen, Smog, I’ve never told you a lie, have I? A few stories maybe, but no lie. So you try it, and if the ringing doesn’t stop, then you’ll know I’m telling a lie. Either that or the earwig wants scrambled egg.’
‘Where’s the porridge, then?’ he said.
‘I don’t know that there is any. I’m about to have my breakfast, starting with porridge. Bridgitte’s bringing it up to me on a tray so that I can talk to you while I’m eating it. There was only a bit left in the packet, but maybe I’ll give you a spoonful of mine, just to keep the earwig quiet. The thing is that if he doesn’t get fed soon he’ll call on his pal the hedgehog to get on that bell and help him to ring it a bit louder. Here’s Bridgitte, and I’m starving for my breakfast. I always eat porridge to start with, so you’ll have to look sharp if you want any of it from me.’
I was able to feed him nearly all of it. He wanted some scrambled egg as well, but I gave him a drink of water, then lay down with him on the bed so that in two minutes he was asleep. ‘It’s half past ten,’ I said. ‘We’ll wake him at one with some toast and egg. I’m sure he’ll eat now. If I stay all day, he’ll be back to normal by the morning.’
I was sweating with the effort of getting him to eat, and went down to the kitchen so that we could make coffee. ‘I knew you’d do it,’ she said. ‘That’s why I didn’t call a doctor.’
‘Thanks for having such blind faith in me, but it was Smog’s life you were playing with. Why all the packing in the living-room?’
‘I’m going to Holland, with Smog, for a couple of weeks.’
‘Then what?’
‘I’ll come back here. This house is mine.’
‘You’ll live here?’
‘I’ll sell it.’ I made the coffee myself, because first she dropped the milk, then tipped over the sugar.
‘Stay with me, Michael. I need some help.’
‘I’ll stay today. Tomorrow I’m working. I’m going to Switzerland for a couple of days. I’ll get in touch when I come back. We must pull Smog around. After coffee we’ll go to the living-room and put the cases away. We’ll arrange the furniture and clean the place up a bit, so that when I carry Smog down this afternoon he’ll see we’re all orderly and settled. I only care about him at the moment. I never believed it was women and children first, only children.’
We set the living-room to look more or less the same as it had before Anderson was killed. Bridgitte sat in one armchair, and I was in another by her side, both looking through the big windows and down over the lawn.
‘I’m sorry I’m such trouble,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘Your trouble seems like calm to me,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry Anderson died. This is the first moment I’ve had to tell you.’
‘I hated him,’ she said, pulling her hand away.
‘He couldn’t help being what he was. He was Smog’s real father, so I can’t finally damn him.’
‘He was Smog’s father as far as we know,’ she said.
‘I don’t give a bugger who his father was,’ I said sharply. ‘That’s never been a big point with me,’ She didn’t say anything, and neither did I, content to rest in this little calm whirlpool we’d unexpectedly made. Then I took her hand again and stood up, so that she did the same, pressing herself to me. Scalding tears ran on to my face.
‘What are you crying for? Don’t cry, love.’ I saw the picture of her when we first met, when she had been plump over the bones and pink-cheeked, when the eyes had been ingenuous and wide at my lies, and her hair fresh and too young to be tidy. Now the natural shape of her face had come out, the oval skin over the bone pear-shaped head, and eyes blank with misery she never knew how she’d got into. I took her face between my hands and kissed all parts of it, saying nothing because the time hadn’t yet come to use talk on her. Whenever I kiss someone I can’t help telling them that I love them. The words come as soon as the flesh of my lips touches theirs. A kiss with me was never only a meeting of skin, but something that reached right to the middle of me, where it releases those three words out of their box that lead either to pleasure or trouble. They were evidently the words to say now, because it certainly seemed as if she’d been waiting for them. I knew it always paid to tell a woman that you loved her, because unless she was unnatural and had a heart of stone she was bound to respond. But that wasn’t the reason I said it now, for it came spontaneously out of me. Her response was scorching, and we moved in on each other so that I knew we had to find a flat surface somewhere, even a bit of old board, though in such a house it was bound to be more luxurious than that.
‘You’re the only person who’s ever cared about me,’ she said.
‘I can’t help it. What else can I do if I love you? We’ve already been to bed together, and I’m bound to love somebody I’ve been to bed with, aren’t I?
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘I’m not asking you,’ I told her. We went upstairs, but I was disturbed because she could not stop weeping, as if she didn’t know who she was or where she belonged. I couldn’t do any more than lie down and hold her close. ‘Did you tell your parents about it?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Yes. I wrote a letter yesterday.’
‘Yesterday? A letter? Why didn’t you phone?’ I stood up and lit two cigarettes. ‘Or send a telegram?’
She smiled, as if pleasantly astonished at her own thoughtlessness. ‘I don’t know. Really I don’t.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘I know,’ she said, weeping again.
I held her. ‘You’re not. But stop it.’
‘I don’t like my parents.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘I came to England to get away from them.’
We made love, and she clung to me as if I were a tree and there was a gale trying to blow her away. When she came it was as if an electric shock had gone through her, and she nearly snapped my old man off. It was one o’clock, so we got dressed and went to see Smog.
He was lying with his eyes open. ‘I heard you,’ he said. ‘What were you doing?’