Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

Michelle knew that there could be only one kind of reality, that Fiona had led the police to believe she and Matthew, the gentlest and most civilized of men, hated their neighbor’s partner so much that they were capable of killing him. In a neutral voice she said, “I’d better think about getting our lunch.”

Not that she would eat anything. Since Jeff’s death she had lost her appetite and often felt that food would choke her. In death as in life, he had given her invaluable help. What would the police think if she told them that? That she was mad or that she’d killed Jeff to make sure she’d lost her appetite? Matthew, on the other hand, had discovered the pleasures of a food new to him, ciabatta, the best thing he’d tried for years. Fiona had tried it on him last week. Before Jeff died, before she betrayed me, Michelle thought, as she cut two slices of the Italian bread and put them on a plate with cottage cheese and twelve salted almonds.

For Zillah it had been a terrible day, an awful night, and a worse morning. First, of course, the media crowding her, the flashbulbs going off in her face, the bombardment of shouted questions.

“How does it feel to be married to two men at once, Zillah?” No one called her Mrs. Melcombe-Smith anymore. “Why didn’t you get a divorce, Zillah? Did you get married in church both times? Will you and Jims marry again? Properly this time, Zillah? Is this your little boy, Zillah? What’s your name, darling?”

It was then that Mark Fryer, the rat, had deserted her and run off. Several young women with notepads pursued him. Zillah had put her hands up in front of her face, leaving a gap in the mouth area, through which she shouted, “Go away, go away, leave me alone!”

She’d scooped up Jordan, who was crying as usual, and not just crying but sobbing, bellowing, shrieking in fear. One of the porters had come down the steps, not looking sympathetic but with a dreadful expression of disapproval as if he were silently saying, This isn’t the kind of thing we expect in Abbey Gardens Mansions, here under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament. But he provided her with a coat to cover herself and escorted her into the building, the other porter doing his best to keep the crowd back. Zillah was very nearly pushed into the lift. The doors closed.

The moment she entered the flat the phone started ringing. Ten minutes later she knew better than to answer it but this first time she lifted the receiver.

“Hi, Zillah,” a man’s voice said. “The Sun here. Come out into the sun, right? Can we have a few words? Now, when did you first…”

She slammed down the receiver. It rang again. She lifted it tentatively. It might be her mother, it might be-God forbid-Jims. But she’d have to speak to him. Jordan sat in the middle of the floor, rocking from side to side and screaming. This time the caller was the Daily Star. He must be on a mobile, she could hear the traffic in Parliament Square, Big Ben chiming.

“Hi there, Zillah. How d’you like being the center of attention? Fame at last, right?”

Having unplugged the phone and the one in Jims’s bedroom and the one in her bedroom, she went to bed with Jordan in her arms, hugging him close and pulling the covers over her. Later on, she reconnected her bedside phone and called Mrs. Peacock. Would she fetch Eugenie from school?

“I will this once, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith. But I’m not going to be able to carry on with this much longer. If you’re happy with that I’d like to pop in tomorrow morning about ten and have a frank chat about things, talk it through.”

Zillah wasn’t happy about anything but she felt too broken to say so.

Eugenie came in half an hour afterward, saying Mrs. Peacock had brought her to the flat door, rung the bell, and gone down in the lift without waiting for it to be answered. “Why are the phones all pulled out? My friend Matilda is going to phone me at six and she won’t be able to get through.”

“You can’t have phone calls at your age, Eugenie.”

“Why not? I’m seven and seven is the age of reason. Miss McMurty told us.”

I haven’t reached it yet, thought Zillah with unusual humility, and I’ll be twenty-eight next month, but she refused to plug in the phones and Eugenie sulked all evening. That night Zillah was awakened by Jordan screaming in an apparent frenzy. He was soaked in urine and so was his bed. She changed his nappy and his pajamas, brought him into bed with her. What was wrong with him? She ought to do something about it, take him to that child psychiatrist. At his age his sister had left babyhood behind, was clean, dressed herself, chatted away about anything, only cried if she fell over.

True to her word, Mrs. Peacock arrived at ten sharp.

“We’re not going to have to be looked after by her again, are we?”

“No, Eugenie, you’re not,” said Mrs. Peacock. “Never again, if I may so put it. Have you looked out of your window this morning, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith? A rat pack is outside. I believe that’s the current expression.”

Zillah went to the window. The media people looked like the same lot as yesterday. They were waiting patiently, most of them with cigarettes and a couple with flasks of something. A lot of merriment was going on, they all seemed on the best of terms. As if in protest, Jordan began to cry.

“I brought some papers for you, in case you haven’t seen them. You’re in them, on all the front pages.”

“Thank you. I prefer not to see.”

“Frankly, I’m not surprised. May I sit down? It’s rather early, but all this has been a shock to me and if you don’t object, I’d like a glass of Bristol Cream.”

Zillah poured it, a large schooner. She could quite clearly hear the laughter and chatter from the street two floors below. The phone rang. She pulled out the plug, watched closely by Mrs. Peacock.

“Now, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith-though to be honest with you I doubt if you’ve any right to that name-when you phoned yesterday I was, as you might say, in a state of innocence. Things have changed. I’ve read the newspapers. As you may imagine, I could hardly believe my eyes. Abbey Gardens Mansions is no place for you, Maureen Peacock, I said to myself.”

“There are two sides to this,” said Zillah. “I can explain everything.”

The innocent never utter these words and perhaps Mrs. Peacock knew it. “We need not go into that. Who touches pitch shall be defiled. I shall be reluctantly forced to terminate our agreement. You owe me fifty-seven pounds, twenty-five pee, and I’d like cash. You never know with some people whether checks won’t bounce.”

A little of her old spirit returned to Zillah. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that!”

Mrs. Peacock ignored this. She got slowly to her feet, emptied the sherry glass, and wiped her lips with a small lace handkerchief. “Just one other thing before I go.” She pointed to Jordan who, by this time, was lying on his back, writhing and weeping. “There’s something seriously amiss with that child. He needs help without more ado. I knew a child like him twenty-five years ago, always crying and screaming. And what d’you think? Nothing was done and he grew up to be a psychopath. He’s in prison now, in a straitjacket, one of those places where they put violent people who are a threat to the community.”

But Zillah had gone to her bedroom to fetch the money. The amount was more than she had in the flat and she had to take a five-pound note out of Eugenie’s piggy bank. Eugenie, who was really a very strange child, perhaps a genius, started laughing as soon as Mrs. Peacock had gone. Zillah could hardly believe she’d understood what the woman had said but something had made her laugh and after a second or two Zillah joined in. She put her arms round her daughter, preparing to give her a hug, something she hadn’t done for a long time. Eugenie stiffened and pulled away.

Jims might have been trying to get through to her but it didn’t matter much. She knew he’d be here by lunchtime. He’d have canceled his engagement in Casterbridge and driven straight home. There was very little to eat in the flat and obviously she couldn’t go out shopping. If Mrs. Peacock hadn’t been so abominable and rude and defiant, she’d have asked her to get a few things in. The children could have scrambled eggs, though they’d had rather a lot of these lately, and Eugenie had already told her eggs were stuffed with cholesterol and did she know?

It was just after twelve when Jims came. Unlike her, he wasn’t so foolish as to run the gauntlet in Great College Street, he’d have seen what was going on when driving past in the car, but still there was no escape for him. Media people were round the back as well. Zillah, shaking with nerves, heard the lift come up and its doors open. Malina Daz was with him, wearing a sea green salwar kameez and with her hair done like a Japanese geisha’s.

Jims opened the living-room door, took a step inside, and surveyed his little family the way uncharitable people look at asylum seekers. To the children he said not a word. He addressed Zillah in an Arctic voice. “Malina and I are