The log of memory splits down the grain. So you can’t remember the quiet times, the outings, the jollity, the running jokes, even the legal studies, which fill the gap between that last exchange and the day when, worried by a succession of late returns from the Village, you say to her, quietly and unchallengingly,
‘I know you don’t always go and see Joan when you say you do.’
She looks away.
‘Have you been checking up on me, Casey Paul? It’s a terrible unloving thing to do, check up on people.’
‘Yes, but I can’t stop worrying, and I can’t bear to think of you alone in the house with… him.’
‘Oh, I’m quite safe,’ she says. There is a silence for a while. ‘Look, Paul, I don’t tell you about it because I don’t want the two parts of my life overlapping. I want to build a wall around us here.’
‘But?’
‘But there are practical matters to discuss with him.’
‘Like divorce?’
Immediately, you feel ashamed of your sarcasm.
‘Don’t badger me like that, Mr Badger. I’ve got to do things in my own time. It’s all more complicated than you think.’
‘OK.’
‘We – he and I – have two children together, don’t forget that.’
‘I don’t.’ Though of course, you do. Often.
‘There’s money to discuss. The car. The house. I think the place needs repainting this summer.’
‘You discuss painting the house?’
‘That’s enough from you, Mr Badger.’
‘OK,’ you say. ‘But you love me and you don’t love him.’
‘You know that’s how it is, Casey Paul. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.’
‘And I suppose he would like you to return.’
‘What I hate,’ she says, ‘is when he gets down on his knees.’
‘He gets down on his knees?’ In his elephant pants, I think.
‘Yes, it’s awful, it’s embarrassing, it’s undignified.’
‘And, what, begs you to stay with him?’
‘Yes. You see why I don’t tell you about it?’
The Fancy Boys used to turn up at Henry Road and sleep on the floor, dossing like dogs on piles of cushions. The more of them there were, the more busily relaxed Susan became. So this was all good. Sometimes they brought their girlfriends, whose reactions to Henry Road used to intrigue me. I became expert in sensing covert disapproval. I wasn’t being defensive or paranoid, merely observant. Also, I was amused by the orthodoxy of their sexual outlook. You might have thought – mightn’t you? – that a girl or young woman in her early twenties would be rather encouraged by the notion that something exciting might happen to her nearly three decades on: that her heart and body would still be excitable, and that her future didn’t necessarily have to be a matter of rising social acceptance combined with slow emotional diminution. I was surprised that some of them didn’t find my relationship with Susan a cause for cheer. Instead, they reacted much as their parents would have done: alarmed, threatened, moralistic. Perhaps they were looking forward to being mothers themselves, and imagining their precious sons being cradle-snatched. Anyone would have thought Susan was a witch who had entranced me, fit only for the ducking stool. Well, she had entranced me. And to feel the disapproval from women of my own age merely increased my pleasure at Susan’s and my originality, and my own determination to continue offending the prim and the unimaginative. Well, we all have to have a purpose in life, don’t we? Just as a young man needs a reputation.
Around this time, one of the lodgers moved out, and Eric, having broken up with his (moralistic, marriage-demanding) girlfriend, took over the free room on the top floor. This brought a new dynamic to the house, perhaps even a better one. Eric thoroughly approved of our relationship, and would be able to keep an eye on Susan when I couldn’t. He was allowed to pay rent, which made it seem the more illogical that Susan wouldn’t take any from me. But I knew how she would react if I renewed my offer.
A few months passed. One evening, after Susan had gone to bed, Eric said,
‘Don’t like to mention this…’
‘Yes?’
He looked embarrassed, which was unlike Eric.
‘…but the thing is, Susan’s been nicking my whisky.’
‘Your whisky? She doesn’t even drink whisky.’
‘Well, it’s her, or you, or the poltergeist.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I put a mark on the bottle.’
‘How long’s this been going on?’
‘A few weeks. Maybe months?’
‘Months? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Wanted to make sure. And she changed her tactics.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, at some point she must have noticed that there was a mark on the bottle. She’d have her nip or glug or however much it was, and then fill the bottle back up to the mark with water.’
‘That’s clever.’
‘No, it’s standard. Banal, even. My dad used to do that when my mum was trying to get him to stop.’
‘Oh.’ I was disappointed. I wanted Susan always to be as entirely original as she still appeared to me.
‘So I did the logical thing. I stopped drinking from the bottle myself. She’d come up, have a swig, fill up to the pencil mark with water. I let it run and run, until I could see the colour of the whisky fading. Eventually, to confirm it, I had a glass myself. One part whisky to about fifteen of water would be my guess.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Yes, fuck.’
‘I’ll have a word with her,’ I promised.
But I didn’t. Was it cowardice, the hope that some alternative explanation might present itself, or a weary refusal to admit my own suspicions?
‘And in the meantime, I’ll keep my booze on top of the wardrobe.’
‘Good plan.’
It was a good plan, until the day when Eric said quietly,
‘She’s learnt to climb up to the top of the wardrobe.’
He made it sound like a kind of monkey trick rather than a normal piece of behaviour involving a chair. But that’s how it felt to me too.
You notice there are times when she seems, not squiffy, but out of focus. Not bleary of face, but bleary of mind. Then, by chance, you notice her swallowing a pill.
‘Headache?’
‘No,’ she replies. She is in one of those moods – lucid, unself-pitying, yet somehow beaten-down – which bend your heart painfully. She comes and sits on the edge of the bed.
‘I went to the doctor. I explained what had happened. I explained that I’d been feeling depressed. He gave me some cheering-up pills.’
‘I’m sorry you need them. I must be letting you down.’
‘It’s not you, Paul. And it’s not fair on you either. But I think if I can get through the… adjustment, then it’ll get better.’
‘Did you tell him you were drinking a bit too much?’
‘He didn’t ask about that.’
‘That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have told him.’
‘We’re not going to quarrel about this, are we?’
‘No. We’re not going to quarrel. Ever.’
‘Then it’ll all come out right. You’ll see.’
Thinking about this conversation later, you begin to understand – for the first time, really – that she has more to lose than you. Much more. You are leaving behind a past, much of which you are happy to let go. You believed, and still believe as deeply, that love is the only thing that counts; that it makes up for everything; that if you and she get it right, everything will fall into place. You realize that what she has left behind – even her relationship with Gordon Macleod – is more complicated than you had assumed. You thought chunks could be cleanly amputated from a life without pain or complication. You realize that, if she had seemed isolated in the Village when you first met her, you have made her more isolated by taking her away.