She lit two cigarettes, passing one to him. ‘Jonathan liked to come in here,’ she said. ‘He had a special fondness for the Brontë sisters.’
‘I don’t want to talk about Jonathan any more.’
‘You’re angry with him.’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘No. I just feel very, very sad. Empty.’
Bart leaned back, relaxing his legs. ‘I’m just far more comfortable with anger.’
‘Hmm. You remember learning about humourism? The four humours?’
Bart nodded. ‘You’re going to say that I would be diagnosed as being a choleric and you’d be a melancholic.’
‘That is what I was going to say, actually.’
‘It’s all horseshit.’
‘Of course it is.’ She plucked a slice of lemon from Bart’s glass and chewed it. Grimaced. Placed the rind on the armrest. ‘If this was a party at our house, someone would be lying under that table over there with their knickers around their ankles.’
‘This isn’t a party.’
‘I know. I’m just saying.’
His cigarette trembled between his fingers. ‘I don’t want any more of those parties.’
‘Me neither.’ She kissed his forehead, her thumb automatically swiping away the lipstick mark. His eyes were spilling tears, turning his grey-green irises to quivering puddles. Bart had always been fairly comfortable crying in front of her. It was at odds with his character.
‘I was just starting to get fond of the bastard,’ he said.
‘You liked to play cards with him,’ she said. ‘I always wondered what your conversations were like.’
‘Pretty one-sided for the most part.’
‘I can imagine.’ She lit another two cigarettes. ‘Bart? Can I tell you something?’
‘Of course.’ He wiped his eyes, blinking, and pulled a hanky from his pocket to blow his nose.
‘I think I want children.’
He stared at her, the hanky over his nose.
‘Bart? What do you think?’
He balled up the hanky and looked at it with a curious frown. ‘I’ve been sitting here this whole time thinking the exact same thing. Isn’t that the—’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Well, that and unsolicited flashing images of your brother’s corpse. Death and life, death and life, blah blah.’
‘It is rather predictable, isn’t it?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not always a bad thing to do predictable things. Nothing makes death easier to bear than new life. It’s why everyone started fucking like rabbits after the war.’
‘I don’t know how we’ll carry it off though,’ she said. ‘Physically, I mean.’
‘That’s partly what I was thinking about actually, just before you came in.’ He started picking the skin off his lower lip. ‘Suppose we tried it in the dark? The pitch dark? Minimal contact? Imagine having to face each other when the lights come on after. Can you imagine?’
‘Maybe it would be funny,’ she said. ‘Maybe we could make it funny.’
He grinned. ‘I could dress like a clown.’
‘I could honk your nose.’ She reached out and squeezed an imaginary nose. ‘Barp.’ And they fell to sudden laughter – it was loud and ferocious and it filled the huge room with echoes. They leaned into each other, gasping. ‘I could – I could put clown’s noses on my – ha! I don’t want to say it – oh sod it: nipples! I’d have clown’s noses on my nipples and you’d…’ She whipped her head back, shrieking, all her teeth showing. ‘You’d – ha! Oh dear, oh dear. You’d…’ She reached out again and enacted the imaginary squeezing with both hands. ‘Beep beep.’
‘I’m glad someone’s having a jolly time.’ Lucille. In the doorway. With a cigarette and a tumbler of booze. ‘I hope you don’t behave like this at my funeral.’ She tossed back her drink and eyed them with a look that Bettina could only describe as rancid.
‘Sorry,’ muttered Bart, fanning his face with his hanky. ‘We didn’t mean any disrespect.’
Lucille nodded. ‘Of course you didn’t. Of course you didn’t.’ Her words slurred. She came into the room, almost stumbling on the edge of the rug. She looked down at the floor, her legs firmly planted as if she were in a boat, riding a storm, and waved a finger at the slippery rug. ‘Stay,’ she said to it.
‘Oh, Christ,’ whispered Bart.
‘Go and help her,’ whispered Bettina.
He shook his head. ‘She won’t let me.’
‘What are you two collaborating about?’ Clabuhratin. Lucille lurched over to the sofa and dumped herself between Bart and Bettina, her wide behind pushing the two apart. ‘Thick as thieves, you two. Always were. Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Such good friends, such good friends.’ She swung her head in Bettina’s direction. ‘When are you going to give my son a child?’
Bettina glanced at Bart. He shook his head: not yet.
Lucille took a long drag of her cigarette, her eyes gunky crescents; mascara and eyeshadow had gathered in the corners, liquid black seeping into the tributary network of wrinkles. Her usually light-green irises were dull as hay. ‘Are you withholding, dear?’ she said, her head nodding. ‘Would you like me to order you some whores? They could stand at the end of your bed and wiggle their udders to get you in the mood, then maybe you’ll open your legs for my son.’
Bettina’s mouth snapped open.
‘Mother!’ said Bart. ‘You shut your mouth!’
That awful head swung around in the opposite direction – it was like some mossy gorgon-like figurehead, lurching as the ship got battered by a sea storm. ‘No! You shut your mouth!’ She hit Bart around the head, bracelets jangling, sparks flying out of her cigarette. ‘How dare you tell me to – I’m your mother!’ Her head flopped back to Bettina. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Bunch of women, bunch of whores, pulling down their knickers for you. I know girls like you – I’m not stupid, I’ve heard stories about you. I know girls like you.’ She was jabbing her cigarette at Bettina’s face, the lit end coming close enough to warm her skin. ‘Tell you what, pudding’ – and here she affected a simpering, kindly tone – ‘I’ll get that she-man who runs the public house in Hove; I’ll go and fetch her and maybe she can get you warmed up for my Barty. Great big bull-dagger with man’s muscles and a clit like a blessed bell! You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
She glared at Bettina, her head dipping and rising – a gentle tide now for the gorgon mast. Bettina’s hand was balled up into a pearl-knuckled fist. She held Lucille’s gaze and said, arctic-cool, ‘I think I would like that, Lucille. Very much. What a kind mother-in-law you are, to go to such lengths for me.’
Lucille’s frown twitched as she processed this. Bettina focused on the sloppy black crud in the corner of her mother-in-law’s left eye. Bart was perched on the edge of the sofa, his hand clamped to his mouth, eyes screwed shut. And then Lucille’s face collapsed and a great huff came out of her chest and she was crying, really crying. Bart plucked the cigarette out of her hand, tossed it in the ashtray and wrapped his arms around her, saying, ‘There, there,’ and giving Bettina traumatised glances from over her jittering head.
She pulled a hanky out from between her cleavage and blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Sniffing, she turned to Bettina and grasped her wrist. ‘I do like you, Bettina. I haven’t always shown it, but I’ve always liked you, in my way. And there’s nothing wrong with it!’ She smiled in a way that was both sweet and gruesome and shook Bettina’s wrist, her jewellery tinkling like a bell in a shop doorway. ‘Nothing wrong with it.’ She grabbed Bart’s wrist too and held them both, like Jesus reassuring his apostles. ‘Nothing wrong with it,’ she said again, to Bart this time, still smiling that crooked, bittersweet smile. ‘You think I haven’t lived?’ She looked back and forth between the two of them. ‘You think I haven’t tried it?’