Next time she stopped she had a pain in her side which was more than a match for the one in her back. Her shoulders were rigid and achingly tender, as if newly beaten and the backs of her legs trembled. Her upper arm throbbed with the effort of gripping the box close to her side, and sweat ran into her eyes.
She was about to rest her bags when she noticed a foul mess by her feet. Squashed chips, greasy paper, a chicken rib-cage crawling with flies, a pile of excrement. Somehow she dragged herself up eight more steps, sitting down on the final one, resting her aching head on her knees, struggling not to cry.
She sat there for a long time knowing that she could climb no further, at least if accompanied by the bags. Perhaps she could stash them in a corner somewhere and carry on alone. Then, after greeting each other, Janet would tell Trixie all about the delicious things she had brought and they would come down together and collect them. This idea led Janet to recognise how the certainty that Trixie would be present at Number Seventeen - with or without the mysterious ‘V’ - had been growing in her mind. Now she saw all three of them laughing and eating Prawns Won Ton, champagne foaming down the side of slender glasses. She looked around for a hiding place.
The front doors of the four flats to her left opened on to a single narrow frontage which some three-foot-high brickwork transformed into a balcony. Janet took the bags to the far end, putting her other parcel on the wall whilst she stowed them away in the corner. Suddenly, at the window only inches away, a German Shepherd dog appeared snarling and snapping furiously. Alarmed, Janet jumped sideways and knocked the box off the edge.
Crying out, grabbing at space, her fingers brushed the ribbon then the box was gone. It fell slowly and lightly, turning over in the air. Alerted by her exclamation, the boys she’d encountered earlier looked up. She watched them move, walking towards where the object might land. Foreshortened beneath their brightly coloured caps, squat bodies and spindly legs sidling across the ground, they resembled a swarm of preying insects.
Janet turned away and began once more to ascend, grateful that at last she was able to make use of the handrail. Before she reached level four all her carrier bags had vanished. By level five the boys had kick-started their machines and were zooming between the bollards, churning up the pathetic barren earth. Tied to their aerials, along with the mock-fur tails and pennants threatening megadeath and destruction, were fluttering strips of blue-green silk.
Trixie snuggled down into the narrow bed, pressing herself against the thin knobbly ridge of her sweetheart’s backbone. They had made love and slept, made love and slept. She exhilarated with pleasure, he thankful, happy but still nervous in case it was all a dream. In case his wife returned.
She had caught them once before six months ago. Had locked Victor in the bathroom and worked Trixie over. Then, after pushing her, bruised and bleeding, out of the front door, she’d retrieved Victor and made mincemeat out of him. She was a big girl was Hedda.
Trixie had fled overnight to her sister in Hornchurch then, seeing a poster in a book shop, to the Golden Windhorse. Her job in a separates boutique had been no great loss but Victor was something else. Ringing frequently, hanging up if Hedda answered, she eventually found him alone. She had told him her location and he had rented an accommodation address. They exchanged letters and sometimes anguished telephone calls. She never reproached him for lack of courage, recognising the same omission in her own character.
She kissed him now on his small neat ears and saw his irresolute mouth curve into a smile, as if remembering her presence in his sleep. The atmosphere in the room was stale and spicy. Several foil dishes from the Mumtaz Takeway were on the table and some empty Ruddles Bitter cans. Last night they had celebrated Hedda’s departure. She had gone to live with a professional wrestler at Stamford Hill. All her things had disappeared so it must be true. But V was still nervous.
Trixie was not. She had swaggered happily into the flat, kissing her lover, laughing in a new and quite boastful way. On her third beer she had said, ‘What would you think if I told you I’d killed someone?’ Victor had laughed, ‘You, pretty kitten?’ and taken her on his knee. Trixie let him tease her, thinking it’s a fact though and if Hedda comes back I shall tell her, and she’ll see by my face it’s true and leave us alone.
At the sound of footsteps along the balcony, Victor’s eyes opened, becoming quickly alarmed. Trixie - although her heart beat a little faster - said, ‘It’s all right ... keep quiet ...’
She put her arms around him and they lay huddled together beneath the duvet, absolutely still. It was not Hedda, the lightness of the step told them that. Perhaps it was someone from the council. A snooper trying to make trouble.
The letter box rattled. Trixie smothered a laugh, covering her mouth with the corner of the sheet. Victor whispered, ‘Sshh ...’ They rested motionless, hardly breathing. Victor whispered again. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Nothing. Don’t worry. They’ll go away.’
And, after a long while and a lot more rapping, they did.
Chapter 13
The evening group-meditation on the terrace was a failure. Everyone sat on seats of thyme-fringed paving slabs, separately locked into fretful inner disturbances. When it was over there was a sad bit of discussion about the Master’s funeral. They all seemed to think the sooner it was over the better. Suhami said she couldn’t bear the thought of his physical shell lying in a metal drawer in the dark. He should be resting on a high catafalque she believed, on the seashore perhaps, under a benign sun. Everyone had voted for a cremation rather than a burial.
‘That would be his own wish,’ said May. ‘Spirit of air and light that he was. Blowing in the wind.’
Ken said, ‘That was a lovely album.’
He and Heather glanced with shy unease at the heirs regnant. Yesterday they had expressed their surprise and pleasure roundly, like everyone else, when May and Arno had told their exciting news - but the couple were still not sure if they would ever be well thought of or trusted again. Their smile now was the smile of people in tight shoes. From inside the house, the telephone rang and Heather cried, ‘I’ll go, I’ll go!’
The meeting broke up. May disappeared to prepare a herbal sleeping draught for Felicity. Suhami left to milk Calypso. Chris tried to follow, was gently rebuffed, tried again and finally went into the house - his face dark with anger and distress. Heather returned, explaining that the call had been a wrong number and asked if Arno could help her get Ken to his feet ready for his walk. Ken had been told that it was important to exercise his uninjured leg and every couple of hours would have a discreet little hobble about. Now Heather suggested that, as the main gates were now news-hound free, they might take a turn around the village.
Arno watched them go, Ken complaining loudly that it was much too far, then he set off for the kitchen to wash up the supper things. He knew he should be feeling indignant about how the Beavers had behaved but the fact was that he found himself in such an extraordinary state of mind that other people’s presence, let alone their transgressions, hardly registered.
It had all started yesterday. Shortly after the remarkable disquisition of the Master’s Will, Arno had felt stirring within his for-so-long-timorous breast a bracing current of embryonic confidence. He was chosen! Obviously not for any outstanding qualities of spiritual leadership (Arno had never been one for self-deception), nevertheless he had been thought capable. That night before climbing into bed to fall instantly into a calm and happy sleep, he’d extended his prayers to include a request for strength to shoulder courageously his new responsibilities.