The back stalls had been packed with muted families of theatre-goers; Peter and his friends had occupied the front three rows, passing joints and cheering when the cartoon mushrooms danced. She’d felt little affinity with either group.
Was that a faint desperate screaming overhead? In the thick light, the damp patch on the wall glistened red. Blurred by the dimness, the bloody shadows looked unnervingly shapeless. She felt a twinge of the panic she had suffered on the landing.
Perhaps Peter sensed her unease. Sounding embarrassed, he said
“ Hey, Jim, did you get that stuff?”
“ Yeah,” Jim said mournfully. “I’ve got some Congo bush too if you want.”
They wandered off to use the scales. If Peter hadn’t been expecting grass, what had he meant to score? A joint was making its round. What the hell – Peter would be half an hour at least, no doubt. When the joint was handed to her to pass on, she inhaled heavily.
She felt the cannabis reach into her brain. That was enough: she was driving. Too late: the joint had released all the thoughts she wanted to suppress. They seized her mind, and grew. Would she and Peter ever have children? Suppose they had waited too long, like Angie and Frank? Wouldn’t houses grow more and more expensive, leaving them always behind? What had there been on the landing?
Footsteps dawdled in the hall. The door opened sluggishly, to admit the faint shrieking. It sounded weaker now, choked. She stood up. She’d had enough of the stained wall and the cries.
“ Did you get some of Jim’s acid?” someone asked Peter.
Peter glared, but had to say “Yes.”
“ Peter.” Had she known he meant to score LSD, she would never have driven him.
He didn’t look at her, but at someone who remarked “You don’t see much acid these days.”
“ It’s gone out of fashion,” someone else joined in, now that the conversation had become interesting.
“ It was a sixties thing.”
“ An optimistic drug.”
“ Not for the seventies.”
“ There’s a lot of heroin in London now.”
Cathy waited on the pavement. She wouldn’t go back, however long Peter dawdled. Time clung to her. The street looked so intensely present as to seem unreal. She gazed at the neglected hedge. The stagnant people beyond the reddened curtain filled her mind. Wasn’t Peter growing more like them? Wouldn’t he withdraw deeper into himself on his trip, and become more inert?
She knew what had made him so passive and uncertain of himself: he’d seemed an unexpected miracle to his parents, late in their lives; they had treasured and spoilt him – but you couldn’t use your childhood as an excuse for the rest of your life.
Peter appeared, glancing about like the hero of an inept spy film. How could she argue him out of himself without seeming to want to emasculate him? He hurried to the van, his hands in his pockets guarding his hoard. He wanted to go home, to smoke until he was too stoned to roll another. She would sit in the flat, having nowhere else to go.
Oh, why couldn’t something happen to change their situation?
Chapter XXII
“ I want to join out,” the little boy said.
“ Do you!” Cathy exclaimed. The turn of phrase amused her. She would never have said “Do you mean you want to cease borrowing books?” as one of her colleagues did.
The miniature face stared up at her, impatiently serious. “You keep your tickets, then,” she said. “You might want to borrow books again sometime.”
The little boy went out shaking his head: he was too old for fairy tales. “You can go now, Cathy,” the librarian said.
She climbed the spiral staircase. She was proud of her sureness on the gallery; she’d conquered that fear, though she avoided looking down through the metal mesh. Would she be capable of walking on the top gallery of the Picton library, which was judged unsafe for the public but not for the staff?
In the staffroom, eggs jostled in a pan of bubbling water atop a cooker small as a gnome’s. Coats huddled on the back of the door. She sat; the chair exhaled. On her way to work she’d bought a leftover Weekend Echo. She ignored temptingly bizarre headlines – BLESSING OF DEATH FOR SKELETON DOG, SHOCK FOR SAINTS, GROUP TO FIGHT CLINIC’S AXE
– and turned to HOMES FOR SALE.
The prices were terrifying. The turning page whispered, as though to dissuade her from searching. She read on, glancing first at the price at the foot of each ad, like a reader making sure of the end of a book before starting. What was this price – a misprint? She read the ad, beginning to dare to hope.
Liverpool: Attractive terraced house. 2 bedrooms, bathroom/w.c., kitchen/dining-room, living-room.
Useful outhouse to rear.?3250. Callers welcome.
She read the address. It must be near Anfield football ground. “Useful outhouse to rear”! That sounded like a detail in a murder story; she giggled.
“ Callers welcome.” Today was her half-day. She could view the house this afternoon and then, if it appealed to her, show Peter round.
He mightn’t be at home now – and besides, she didn’t want an argument to delay her. Oh, she hoped it would be worth seeing! However often she imagined owning a house, she couldn’t fully conceive what it would feel like.
She clattered down the spiral. “You look pleased with yourself,” said an old lady who read four romances a day and who always chatted to her. Her words made Cathy feel more so.
Cathy hurried to the Aigburth Road takeaway, whose menu covered the wall with over six hundred dishes. On Lark Lane, light caught brass in an antique shop, like a glimpse of a sunset. Her wrapped plastic tray warmed her frosty hands. She’d walk in Sefton Park. Its nearness was one thing she still liked about the flat.
She walked, crunching water chestnuts. Her breath steamed and vanished. Fog diluted the edge of the park, where trees were grey silhouettes. People drifted vaguely in the distance, like smoke. When they reached the fog they dissolved.
At last she found a waste-bin, and deposited her tray and wooden fork. The litter was furry with frost. “Tumsey! Tumsey!” a woman was shouting. When Cathy realised she was calling her dog, that made her giggle more.
She walked by the lake, skimming pebbles over the ice. Frozen ripples wrinkled the surface like frowns. Ducks quacked, a muted creaking, among bushes. Trees shone pale against the darkly luminous sky, as though the landscape were printed in negative
By the bandstand, which was no whiter than the rest of the park, she left the path and walked beneath the trees. The ground squeaked underfoot. She gazed at the intricate tapestry of grass and fallen leaves. Every outline was vivid with frost; every blade of grass, however small, was separately visible. The dusting of frost on the dozens of colours only emphasised them. How could anyone need to take LSD?
She stepped over whitened antlers of branches. Frost drifted like stray snowflakes from the trees and touched her face. Birds the colours of the leaves hopped, searching. They glanced at her, but didn’t fly.
She headed for the avenue which led to the obelisk. That was the way to Lodge Lane, the 27 bus, Anfield, the attractive terraced house. She didn’t fancy driving in this weather. She hurried beside an iced bowling-green. Above the cafe, flags proclaimed Walls Ice Cream.
As she emerged onto the avenue, beside an old metal lamp-post that bore a lantern, she saw a man trudging towards the obelisk, between the trees that paled as they grew distant. She’d race him; it would take her more quickly towards Anfield. She could easily overtake him, for he was limping.
