burned it, he wondered, or torn it up? Or had she done neither, but laid it aside for her private consideration? And what would she do to him now?
Slowly he sat upright, letting his hands lie loosely on his knees, gazing at himself in the dressing-table mirror. He formulated a phrase or two: the last thread of my aspirations has been cut. He felt self-conscious, rocking this startling grief, while the Old Spice soaked into the carpet. It’s all right for you to laugh, he said angrily to the face in the mirror, but it matters to me, it matters a lot. He knew he was not formed for tragedy. Everything he had done and thought had been contained within the streets, the gardens, the motorway loop of this sad English town. But why did he need a wider sphere of action? The town was in itself a universe, a universe in a closed box. There was no escape, no point of arrival, and no point of departure. Every action, however banal, opened into a shrapnel blast of possibilities; each possibility tail-ended or nose-dived into every other, so that there was no thought, no wish, and no perception that did not in the end come home to its begetter. He slid forward onto his knees, meaning to investigate the stain that was growing at his feet. Of course, I could pray, he thought.
It’s me, Colin Sidney; it must be, oh, ten years, God, since we were last in touch, but what’s that against the aeons? I asked an awful lot, a decade ago, but now all I want’s a bit of peace; isn’t Peace your specialty? There was no answer, just a faint chatter and rustle, the sound of pigeons coming home to roost. He took out his handkerchief and began to dab at the broadloom.
CHAPTER 6
Breakfast time again. Sylvia slapped some diet margarine onto a minute square of toast and slowly spread it out. “Do you know what I read? I read that women of my generation had four children because that’s how many the Queen had. Subconsciously, you see, we looked up to her as a role model. What do you think of that?”
“I’ve never heard such a load of tripe,” Colin said.
His wife sat ruminating for a moment; for it was Point 9 of her 12-Point Diet Plan to eat at a leisurely pace and make each mouthful last. “But it might be true, mightn’t it? I mean, a couple of years ago what would Suzanne have done? Straight off for a termination. But now…fertility’s the in thing.”
“I see what you’re driving at. You don’t find Princess Di nipping off to the abortion clinic, do you? You don’t find her popping out for a quick vacuum extraction.”
“Exactly.”
“There could be something in it.” Strange, Colin thought, how the preoccupations of the sane reflect those of the insane. And vice versa, of course.
At the second phone call Jim had softened his line a little. He had stopped offering Suzanne the money to terminate her pregnancy, and told her to do what she bloody well liked. Suzanne did not repeat his exact words to her parents, or his sentiments, even inexactly. She was convinced that once Jim had got over the immediate shock, he would rally round and have a serious talk with his mad wife about an imminent separation.
On Tuesday morning, when Muriel arrived to clean at Buckingham Avenue, she stepped inside and found the atmosphere instantly familiar. The curtains were not drawn back properly, and the place was half in darkness. Upstairs, a long shadow slid across the landing. She heard a door slam shut. Sylvia sat at the kitchen table, slumped over a cooling cup of coffee. “Help yourself,” she said. “The kettle’s just boiled. The milk’s sour, though.”
“You’re drinking milk, Mrs. Sidney?”
“Why not?” her employer said. “What does it matter? We’re all getting old. I’m not going to keep my figure, I’m just fooling myself.” Sylvia looked away. Her mouth was set in a thin hard line. “My daughter’s pregnant.” She propped her elbow on the table and sucked despondently at a thumb nail. “Lizzie, you haven’t got a fag on you, have you?”
“Oh no, Mrs. Sidney, I never touch them.”
“Don’t you?” Sylvia’s voice was dull. “I thought you had all the vices, duck.”
“Which one is it, Karen?”
“Christ no, she’s only thirteen.”
“They say you can never tell these days.”
“It’s true, you can’t. Better get to the shops, I suppose. Need anything?”
“No, but thank you all the same for asking. What a good woman you are, Mrs. Sidney! It’s a privilege to wash down your fitments.”
Sylvia smiled weakly. How odd the woman was. “But how could you be any other,” Lizzie asked. “Now that you see so much of the Reverend Teller? Oh, and by the way…”
Sylvia looked displeased now. “Yes?”
The daily was fishing in the pocket of her apron. “I saw Mr. Sidney, God bless him, he was rooting through the dustbin. Is this what he was after?” She held out her palm. On it were the two halves of a photograph. “Picture of Mrs. Jim Ryan,” Lizzie said.
“What?” Sylvia stared down at it, horrified. “Picture of who?”
“It’s a lady called Mrs. Ryan.” I’ve seen her at the hospital, she was going to add, but bit it back in time. Her night job was another life, wasn’t it?
Sylvia’s fingers trembled. She took the photograph from Lizzie. She tried to fit the halves together; the girl’s face, dreadfully bisected, stared back at her. There was a knowing look in each eye.
“It can’t be. You’ve got the name wrong.”
“Oh no, madam, I’m acquainted with this lady, I couldn’t make a mistake.”
“You’re quite sure? You’re quite positive, are you, who this is?”
“On my mother’s life.”
