I’m very involved with her in the photograph. I’m smelling her hair and my hand is on her slim, brown thigh, my index finger disappearing up the outside leg of her high-cut shorts. I remember how completely wrapped up in each other we were. We kissed in public and touched each other, behavior I find appalling when I witness it now. But then, in the very early days, nothing seemed real or important but that we were together.
It wasn’t all blindness. Susie’s wrong about that. I did know she had flaws, and I didn’t fall in love just because I projected things onto her, either. She had qualities that I had never even thought of before I met her.
She had a sharp analytical mind, could tease the essence from a phrase or picture, see grades of meaning in statements. I’m just not that bright or interested in dissection. She’d think of a joke and laugh uncontrollably before she told it. She wouldn’t ever give an inch over the house cleaning and always made me do my share before we found Mrs. Anthrobus. I loved the fact that she had principles and was so self-contained. Those weren’t qualities I went out looking for. They blew me away. It wasn’t blindness at all.
Margie’s sleeping through the night and seems to be adjusting finally. I wish I’d paid more attention to her before the verdict, but I was sure Susie would be coming back with me that night. We should have introduced the possibility that Mummy might not come home. I think she knows how bad it is. When she says “Mummy,” she immediately looks at me and Yeni, waiting for whatever reaction we’ve unknowingly been giving. She’s more clingy than she used to be. Still, she asks for Anna, her little friend from nursery, more often than she asks for Susie.
I know I should take Margie back to nursery as soon as possible, but I’m dreading it. They’ll have read the verdict in the papers. I told Mrs. McLaughlin that I wouldn’t see her for a while because Susie would be dropping Margie off for the next few weeks. I’ll look like an idiot.
If the other parents snub me, I’ll feel terrible, and if they’re nice, I’ll feel even worse. I’d like to move Margie into a different nursery and never see any of them again, but she likes it there and has made friends.
I wish I could sleep.
chapter eight
FOUND A CONTACTS DATABASE ON THE COMPUTER, AND WHEN I typedin “T,” I found this: Harvey Tucker, 191 Orca Road, Cambuslang.
Susie’s comment on the tape, about how love is a mistake, wasn’t directed at me. She could just have been pissed and showing off to the journalist, flirting with him, letting him think she was available. She’s entitled to a bit of private head space, allowed to talk to people without me there. That’s all she was doing. In some ways it speaks well of our relationship. I want her to feel autonomous. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
She managed to call me this morning, a full seven days after the verdict. The phone rang while I was standing in the hall eating hot garlic bread (all that’s left in the freezer). If I’d been in the living room, I could have used the cordless and gone off somewhere private, but Susie said that she couldn’t talk for long anyway. She’s been given a job in the laundry, Monday is their heaviest day, and it doesn’t pay well.
“I’ll need to phone Fitzgerald a lot in the next few weeks, and I should keep as much of the phonecard as I can.”
Why would she need to talk to Fitzgerald a lot? I thought the sentencing hearing was straightforward. Perhaps they’ve thought of something for the appeal, but I didn’t think to ask that until after she’d rung off.
“Susie, it’s great to hear your voice.” I kept saying her name to remind myself that she wasn’t dead, that she’d just gone away for a while. It was difficult to hear what she was saying. A woman was shouting in a singsong voice in the background. Another woman told her to shut up or move away from the phone area, and the singer let rip a string of expletives.
“But, Susie, Fitzgerald can phone you, can’t he?”
“No.” Her voice sounded distant, as if she were looking away from the phone, back at the shouting woman. “Well, I don’t know all the rules yet. Maybe that’s right.” Then, in a quietly muttered aside: “Shut her up, will you?”
“You can reverse the charges to here, as well, you know.”
“I think we’ve spent quite enough money already, don’t you?” she said flatly. “Anyway, we’ve got to buy our phonecards out of the wages they give us.”
“Can’t I send you some?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise the rich prisoners would get a lot more talk time than the poor ones, and that wouldn’t be fair.” She sounded scornful. I couldn’t tell if she was being sardonic about the system, the rules, or my stupidity in not instinctively knowing the rules about convicted prisoners’ phone calls.
“I’ve booked you visits on next Friday at three and the following Wednesday at eleven,” she said. “Bring cigarettes and a transistor radio and a big PP9 battery for it.”
“Okay.” I jotted the items down on the phone pad. “Did you get my letter?”
“No.” She sounded suspicious. “Why? What does it say?”
“Nothing special, just, you know, hello. You didn’t get it?”
“I got one. Did you send two?”
“No. How often can I visit you?”
“Four hours a month. Four visits really.”
“Oh,” I said, hiding my disappointment. “At least that’s one a week.” It didn’t seem very much at all.
“Yeah. We could have one or two big ones instead, but I’d rather the one-hour ones. Gives me more to look forward to.”
I was briefly resentful at the forty-minute drive each way but pleased that I would be the high point of her week.
“How are you, Susie?” I said. “I miss you.” I had the phone pressed to my ear, my chin to my chest, and was talking quietly, privately, when suddenly a shriek on the other end made my eyes water. I dropped the receiver. It was swinging by the leg of the phone table, but I could still hear the noise of a scuffle and Susie demanding that I answer her.
“It’s frightening in here,” she said quickly. “There’s a lot of disruptive people.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, shifting the phone to the other, non-bleeding ear. “We’ll get you out of there, just hang on, Susie.” I felt quite manly saying that.
“Is Margie there?”
“Well, no. She’s just gone to the park with Yeni. I’m sorry.”
She sighed heavily, sounding like a blustery wind in the earpiece. “I wanted to talk to her,” she said, near to tears.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d phone today, I’m sorry.”
Neither of us talked for a moment. We just listened to one another breathe.
“Is she okay?” she asked.
“She’s fine,” I said. “Really fine. She’s been talking more.”
“Has she?” I heard a hopeful lift in her voice. “What’s she saying?”
“Yesterday she said ‘Teddy’ and ‘sleepy’ and ‘Yeni.’ ”
I should have known. I should have thought it through before and known how upsetting that would be, but I hadn’t planned the conversation that way at all. Susie howled. She howled from the depths of her ruined soul.
“Don’t bring her,” she bubbled when she could finally speak. “Don’t bring her to see me.”
And she hung up.
I tried phoning back, but you can’t call in to the number because it’s a pay phone. I desperately wanted to comfort her, offer to let Yeni go, anything. I’ve been carrying the phone around with me in the hope that she’d call me back, but she hasn’t. I’ve had an emotional hangover all day.
Other telephone news: Mum and Dad phoned from Marbella this evening while I was tidying up. Mum said not to worry, the papers seem to have dropped the story. So that’s all right then. They invited me out for an extended visit, and by all means, feel free to bring Margie. She’s not even two yet. I can’t leave her alone in the bath. The card they sent for her first birthday had a Monet print on it and a tenner inside. They might as well have sent her duty-free cigarettes.