Sylvia came through from the kitchen carrying a duster and a tin of spray-polish. She was very pale, and looked suddenly much more pregnant.
“Oh, there you are. I’ll make some tea, then. I tried to get you up at ten o’clock, but you were sleeping like the dead.”
“I’m sorry. What a night!”
“You’ve nothing to be proud of, anyway.”
“I’m not proud. Do I look proud? Oh, for God’s sake, let’s not have a row.”
“I phoned Florence. I suggested she should bring them over on the bus. She didn’t seem keen. She’s waiting for you to fetch them.”
“Yes. All right.”
“The police said not to drive till late afternoon.”
“I’ll have to risk it, won’t I? How am I going to get to the car, is there a bus?”
“You can get the number ninety, and get off at the top of the hill by the Express Dairy. I think you’d better phone your solicitor, hadn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What’ll happen?”
“I’ll lose my licence.”
He felt almost tearful. Sylvia was treating him as if he were somehow disgraced, and yet he thought that he could have been in a much worse state, and that considering the circumstances he had managed extraordinarily well. Of course, he could not tell her what the circumstances were.
“What was that thing you had under your arm? Was it that file?”
“Yes.” He saw no point in denying it.
“What do you want to go and get involved for?”
“I’m not getting involved. I just want to give it back to the people it belongs to.”
“What’s Frank going to say when he finds it’s missing?”
“I don’t know what he’ll say.”
“Well, you’ve got to face him on Tuesday. Oh, I don’t know.” Sylvia said. “I’ll get that tea for us. I think you ought to have an aspirin.”
What day was it? Sunday. You got so mixed up at half-term. The streets had a Sunday quiet. He waited twenty minutes for the bus, his stomach rumbling, his knuckles turning mauve in the raw air. Not raining, thank God. Off the bus, he trudged by a dripping hedgerow, by grey litter-blown fields. At the first phonebox he stopped and dialled Isabel’s number. She answered at once.
“Colin here. I got it.”
There was a pause.
“I’m grateful, Colin.”
Isn’t she going to ask how? Clearly she’s not. All right, he thought, I won’t tell her about the party, I won’t tell her about the breathalyser, I’ll cut her out of my life. But he blurted out, “It wasn’t easy. I had to hit someone.”
“Oh, Colin.” She sounded…gratified? Embarrassed? “Did you?”
“It was Frank. My Head of Department. Isabel, are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m still here. But I can’t think of much to say.”
“Shall I bring it to your house?”
“Please.”
“This afternoon?”
“Well, if you can.”
“Will you be there?”
“Yes, I’ll be there. But my father will answer the door.”
“But Isabel—”
“I’m grateful. But it doesn’t change anything.”
I have to keep her talking, he thought, before I lose her altogether. “There’s just one thing—of course I’ve not read the file, but I noticed the name, and the odd part about it is that I know the Axons, known them for years. Would you believe it, they live next to my sister, round the corner. The daughter’s a bit backward, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” He heard tension creep into her voice; she wanted to be rid of him, he thought, she found him a nuisance.
“Will you be making a home visit to them now?”
“I’m in court tomorrow. A child battering case. Tuesday’s all spoken for.”
“But you ought to go, oughtn’t you, after such a long gap?”
“Maybe Wednesday. I’ve got the file. That’s the main thing. There’s no reason for you to worry about it, it’s for me to sort out.”
“You know, I’ve been piecing things together, and I realise you might have mentioned them once, and I just didn’t make the connection. We were in the pub, you see, talking—you said you didn’t like the case, you couldn’t come to grips with it.”
“I can’t discuss my clients with you. You know that. The fact that they’re your sister’s neighbours makes no difference to anything.”
“It’s funny, though, isn’t it?”
“These things happen. We live in the same town. It’s not such a coincidence, really.”
“But I lived in the same town as you,” he burst out, “and I never knew.”
“Yes, well, now you do. Thank you for getting the file back. Goodbye.”
“Is that all?”
“What else is there to say? The situation hasn’t changed.”
“But could I see you, just once?”
“You made your choice, I thought.”
“Shan’t I ever see you again, then?”
“I expect you will, sooner or later. After all, as you say, we live in the same town.” A moment’s pause, and she put the phone down. Colin came out of the box, and stood blowing his nose. As he tramped towards his car, it began to rain, little grey tears running off his anorak and trickling in his wake.
Evelyn sat in the kitchen staring into her teacup. It seemed absurd that she had suddenly become an invalid, but she felt she had hardly the strength to put out her hand, pick up the cup, and carry it to her mouth. The tea was going cold, her hand shook, the cup rattled in the saucer. The sleepless night had left her drained and muddle-headed.
The baby, which was born before dawn, had been very small. She could not bring herself to look too closely at it. At first it would not breathe. Muriel’s eyes signalled something to her. Leave it, she was saying. Shocked, Evelyn gripped the slippery thing and shook it. A thin hopeless bleating came out. A fine idea of Muriel’s, the ghost under their feet for years, learning in the parallel world to crawl, walk, and talk; and perhaps blaming them for its demise. She ventured downstairs, her flesh crawling, and brought Muriel some mixed biscuits on a plate.
Yesterday Muriel had been bothering her about a pram. As if she could push it about the streets, with her bad chest; as if Muriel was fit to be let out with it.
It was all as complicated as it could be. Muriel didn’t seem to have the knack of feeding it. Her milk hadn’t come, or the baby wouldn’t suck; it would have to have powdered milk out of a bottle, she supposed, but where was she to get such a thing on a Sunday?
“You realise,” she said to Muriel, “that if I go to the Parade asking for baby’s milk, they’ll probably ring up the Welfare? I’ll have to go where nobody knows my face. It’s a lot of trouble. Have another try with it.”
But Muriel yawned and rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes.
All that morning there were rappings and banging at the front door. The screams and laughter of spiteful children rang in Evelyn’s ears. She went down the hall at last, and threw the door open; but no one was there.
Florence will be furious with me, Colin thought. He sat in the car outside Isabel’s house; his sister had been expecting him for the last hour and more. He pictured his hand reaching out for the ignition key, turning it, engaging gear, moving off down the street. His real hands lay loosely inert, one at his side, one draped over the steering wheel. Driving about and driving about, that is all the last months have been, lying, driving from one set of hostile eyes to another. This is the last time I will have any business on Isabel’s street.
The eyes were not really hostile, of course. Just the bored indifferent eyes of strangers, slow to be roused to curiosity, slow to notice anything. Strangers in public houses, strangers by the roadside. He had long ago given up the writing class; he had got nothing from it, no pleasure, no profit.