Selfish People

She bit her sandwich and chewed and chewed it but she couldn’t swallow. When she did the food fell into her stomach as if it didn’t want to be there. She stirred her soup but she couldn’t eat that either. If I don’t eat I will get ill and I won’t be able to cope. Al is always telling me I don’t eat enough, that’s why I have no energy … I must eat. But she couldn’t. Then all the fear from last night came back.

I’m going to die. She pushed away the plate and began to cry. She rested her head on the table. She could hear herself crying as if it were somebody else and she couldn’t stop it. If I don’t leave I will die. I have to leave this place. I have to leave.

She didn’t hear Al come in. He had bought a bunch of flowers, which he put on the table. She accidentally touched them and looked up. She was so startled she screamed.

‘They’re for you,’ said Al, pushing the flowers towards her.

They were a mixed bunch, the sort one buys at garages. She tried to stop crying.

‘I’m sorry … about last night.’

‘Oh? Oh?’ She was convinced he was still angry with her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as if she hadn’t heard the first time. She was still crying. ‘I was out of control. It was wrong. I know you’re not bonking Bailey. It got mixed up with everything … There’s a lot we have to sort out. We have to do a lot of talking … Can you please stop crying.’

‘I can’t,’ wailed Leah.

‘I’m sorry I hit you. I didn’t mean to. Can you hear what I’m saying? Leah, I’m trying to sort things out.’ He waited. He ate the sandwich and the bowl of soup. Leah stopped and was wiping her nose on her sleeve.

‘How are you feeling?’ said Al.

‘I don’t know.’ But she did know. She felt totally and utterly wretched, but she wasn’t going to tell Al that.

‘We have to find a way of relating properly. Communication between us is appalling. If we are to progress we are going to have to be more honest with each other …’

‘I’ve had enough,’ said Leah.

‘I see.’ He sounded slightly irritated.

‘Al, you don’t understand, I’ve had enough. I have. This is the end.’

‘Well, naturally you are going to be feeling negative –’

‘No, Al, listen, it’s the end. I don’t want to go on.’ She looked at the flowers. They would be dead by the end of the week. ‘It’s the end.’ And she could see he finally understood. An expression passed over his face which she hadn’t seen for a long time, an incredulous expression that had none of his recent anger or cynicism. He used to say, ‘Are you sure?’ and Leah would say, ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Leah the way she used to when they first met, before they had children and everything had gone wrong. But his face was hardening up again.

‘Well, that’s ten years down the drain. Now what? I’m not going to move out.’

‘I could go somewhere,’ said Leah vaguely. She couldn’t think about details.

‘Where? You know what the housing situation is like. And what about the children? They’re my children too, I’m not letting them go.’

‘We could sort something.’ She rested her head in her arms. She felt she could sleep for a week. Al was dividing up the furniture. ‘You’re not having the music system or the telly, I bought that …’ She closed her eyes.

He shook her. She sat up with a start. ‘Leah, go to bed. The children will be back soon. Go and have an early night.’

‘Was I asleep?’

‘Look, I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry, Leah.’ He led her to the foot of the stairs. ‘Everything’s going to change now, it’s all going to be different. You get your own place, then we won’t wind each other up …’ He was almost crying. ‘Then we can start appreciating each other again … Oh, and I forgot to tell you. I’ve packed in college, but we can discuss that in the morning …’

CHAPTER SIX

I’ve been in bed all Friday and most of today. Al brings me cups of tea and bits of food. He’s keeping the children away. He is being very nice. I’ve been dreaming and thinking and my thoughts are like my dreams. I’m thinking about Al.

I met him when I was at university in Norwich. He used to stand on the campus steps selling Anarchy Now. He was dirty then and dishevelled with his hair down his back and a stained old boilersuit. I was a first-year English student all keen to have discussions about postmodernism and structuralism and everything was so very very exciting … my hair in an Alice band and I wore pretty blouses and flowery skirts. I had never met anyone like Al before who was also reading English but he used to storm out of seminars shouting, ‘This is bourgeois crap!’ I had never even seen anyone like Al before. I was clever. I got As and Bs for my essays but Al and the anarchists they got straight Fs and didn’t care. They called me ‘Miss Brainbox’ and ‘Miss Middle Class’. I thought, why are they so angry? I sat opposite Al in the coffee bar and I said, ‘Hello, I’m Leah,’ and he said, ‘Who do you think you are? Fuck off.’ But I didn’t and it sort of went on from there.

He lived with the anarchists and five Germans in a farmhouse in Loddon. Their parties went on all weekend. I stayed with him and I stopped wearing blouses and flowery skirts. I got a boilersuit and I didn’t wash and I got drunk and stoned and fucked and loved it. It was all so exciting. He got kicked out of college and didn’t care and I still got As and Bs. He said I was drugged by the system and anarchy was the only way and the middle classes were to be demolished. His parents were at Oxford and he said they had forced him through a vile education based on repression and narrow-mindedness and he was going to establish a new method based on freedom. We moved to Brundall and he fell out with the anarchists. He did odd jobs in the boatyards and I was in my second year and my parents were having a fit … In the third year I was pregnant and I sat my finals with a belly like a barrel and that was in June and Jo was born in July. We got married because both our parents were having fits, but a wedding and a baby and they all became friends, even though Al’s dad writes books about Anglo-Saxons and his mum’s a specialist in Victorian women and my dad was just an English teacher in a tin-pot Catholic boys’ school and my mum’s, well, just a mum … But we were respectable and everybody adored little Jo. I got a 2.2, which was disappointing and Al kept working in the boatyards.

But he was always a rebel. He fell out with the boatyard owner and our landlord and we got evicted. Just before Christmas we left Norfolk with all our things in a van and went to Devon because Al wanted to learn furniture making. Six months later he fell out with the man who ran the course and set up on his own. And Ben was born. We lived in a tiny poky cottage and we couldn’t move because the rents were too high. Then Al’s mother did a generous thing: she bought us a house. I wanted to go to a town because I was sick of the countryside and being alone but Al liked it in Devon and we had plenty of rows about that. But we came to Bristol because there might be more work for him here but there wasn’t. Then Tom was born. I started going to the Project. Al was always angry with the world and now he was angry with me and we haven’t stopped fighting. He gave up the business and remembered his aim to transform Education and he started training to be a primary school teacher … and here we are.

She came down to breakfast on Sunday morning. Al and the children were round the kitchen table looking every bit of a happy family. I did the wrong thing, again. I was too independent and selfish. Why can’t I just shut up and be a mummy like all the other mummies and cook and sew and clean and smile at my husband. Why do I want a life away from all this?

‘Mummy,’ said Jo. ‘Daddy says you’re going to get a new house and live there and we’re going to stay here sometimes and see you sometimes.’ He looked at Al. ‘Does Mummy know yet?’

‘It was her idea,’ he said, glaring at Leah.

‘Will we have our own rooms?’ said Ben.

She sighed. As far as she was concerned it was still an idea. She sat down and helped herself to muesli. She felt quite hungry.

‘Can we have a big garden?’ said Tom.

‘Look,’ said Leah, ‘it might not be for ages.’

‘Oh really?’ said Al, tapping the table with a spoon.

‘Anyway,’ said Leah, looking at Al, ‘it won’t be till after Christmas, will it? It can’t possibly be, can it?’

He was triumphant and she felt how he could use this situation against her. He had told the children: everything to them was now, now, now.

‘You see,’ she said, ‘Mummy and Daddy keep arguing and I thought it might be better if I found another house because if we’re in different houses we might not argue so much.’

‘Why?’ said Tom.

She ignored this. ‘But it takes a long time to find a house, a long long time, like, not until after Christmas and a long time after that.’ To the children this would seem like years. She wanted them to go away. She wanted to talk to Al on her own.

‘What I can’t understand,’ said Jo, going pink, ‘is, why can’t you stop arguing anyway?’

The Project was quiet. Most people were out Christmas shopping or put off by the weather. The morning ticked over in the office. Leah wrote a presents list. At a rough guess it would all cost ₤200. She would have to discuss this with Al. The thought made her sick.

‘Hurry up and have your lunch,’ said Barbara.

The café was nearly empty. It was run by Joan and her son Johnny. He was a neat little man with a long spotless white apron and immaculately manicured hands. His mother left all the talking to him but made her presence felt with strong perfume and loud blouses.

‘Leah, darling. Done all our Christmas preparations, have we?’

‘None at all.’

‘Oh, leave it to the last minute, why not? Mummy, Leah’s done nothing for Christmas and you were making puddings in November. She’s very well prepared.’ She came in with a plateful of mince pies and put them on the counter. ‘And there’s nobody to eat them,’ moaned Johnny.

She sat at the far end of the café and listened to Joan and Johnny planning the next week’s menu. She ate her casserole, mainly for Johnny’s benefit. Then Bailey walked in. All those stupid rows were about you.

‘Mr Bailey, what can I get you?’ Nobody called Bailey ‘darling’.

He ordered a massive fry-up with chips and three cups of tea. He plonked his sportsbag by Leah’s table and sat down with a thump. She looked at him. He was unshaven and grim.

‘Just thought I’d tell you. I’ve cancelled this arvo.’ He drank his first cup of tea.

‘You could have phoned in.’

‘Nah, I wanted me lunch.’ Johnny put Bailey’s steaming plate in front of him. Bacon, egg, sausage, chips and beans and chips. He began to plough into it.

‘What’s the matter? Are you ill?’

Bailey, with a mouthful of food, shook his head. He took a swig of tea: ‘Nah, it’s something else.’ She waited. He finished his lunch and lit up a cigarette. At this point Vic Rodgers came in.

‘Our sports chappy smoking? Can’t have that. Did you tell him about the bins?’

‘Er, not yet,’ said Leah.

‘Well, the compost bins are going to be moved to the back of the sports hall.’

‘So what,’ said Bailey.

‘Exactly. No problems, I thought so. Sometimes the direct approach is needed.’ And he left.

Bailey snorted.

‘You mustn’t mind Vic, he’s terribly influential. He used to be on the Council.’

‘He’s a plonker,’ said Bailey.

They sat without talking. Leah realised he was looking at the faint mark above her eye and instinctively she covered it with her hand. ‘What was it you wanted to see me about?’ she said.

‘Can we talk?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Not here, I can’t talk about it here. Come back to my place.’

She was once again in Bailey’s blue sitting room. She was anxious and he was not helping. He paced about, fiddling with everything: the fire, the ashtray, the newspapers. Eventually he sat down.

‘What’s the matter, Bailey?’

‘I’m going to have to pack in me job. That’s it.’

‘Why? I thought it was OK. Don’t you like it?’

‘It’s not that. It’s not the Project, or you, or nuffin. It’s me. I can’t hack it.’

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ She was exasperated. Now there would have to be selections, interviews, and all before Christmas. ‘You can’t pack in your work just like that.’ She stopped. This was a man who had walked out on a wife and baby just like that. He was on the sofa looking despondent.

‘Why did you leave France?’ she said suddenly. He looked at her sideways. She had made a connection.

‘I can’t sleep,’ he said flatly. ‘I get bad dreams.’

‘So you have to pack things in. That’s weird.’

He coughed. He was sitting tensely as if holding back an enormous force. She moved on to the floor. She was near him, but not touching him. ‘Bailey, why do you get bad dreams?’

He winced and a look of panic flashed over him. I am stepping on ice here. I can hear it creaking and sighing.

‘It’s my past,’ he said.

‘Your past?’ she said, moving closer. He said nothing although several times it looked as if he were about to. He coughed again, and made a choking noise, but she didn’t back away. Then he said it. ‘I get bad dreams. I can’t sleep. My dad used to rape me.’

She was shocked and caught her breath. ‘When you were young.’

‘He did it a lot.’

‘And your mum?’

‘She didn’t know. She worked nights.’

‘And France?’

‘I forgot about it. Until I had Ghislaine. Then I had the dreams and then I started to remember. I thought I was going mental. I thought I was fucking mental.’

‘So you left?’

‘When I came back to England I was off me head. Then it went away …’

‘But it’s come back.’

‘Yes, that’s the probs.’

‘Well, I suppose it will, you can’t run away from it.’ They looked at each other. I have crossed the ice and we are now both hack on the ground. She had a headache from concentrating. Bailey was exhausted.

‘When did you last sleep?’

‘Dunno, seems like ages.’

‘You sleep now,’ said Leah, ‘and I’ll stay for a bit.’ He lay down on the sofa with his head on the cushions. He lay there stiffly.

‘By the way, it’s a secret. I don’t want folks to know.’

‘Of course.’

‘You didn’t flip. When I tell folks they usually flip.’

‘There was no need. Do you tell many people?’

‘No. Because they flip.’

She rested her head on the arm of the sofa. She wanted to sleep as well. Bailey’s eyes were now closed and his face was expressionless. She stayed, listening to the gas fire and the wind blowing up Steep Street.

I didn’t flip. I coped. I always cope. I never flip. Why didn’t I scream, my God that’s awful, that’s dreadful? But he would have ended it. He would have shut up like a clam. I held it. The whole weight of his confidence … I’m not sure I want it … You are so big and noisy it’s difficult to think of you as a small hurt person … but I’m thinking of you like that now, frightened and waiting for a footstep behind a door. No wonder you behave erratically.

But you forgot and that is so odd. How can you forget being raped?

His hand was under the cushion, under his head and then like a page turned in a book where one suddenly sees a shocking picture, she remembered.

There was a baby in a wicker basket … a baby … it was Tom, in a basket by my bed in my room in Garden Hill and I woke up. I thought it was the baby but it wasn’t, it was Al sitting on my bed in the dark and then, he didn’t speak, he got into bed and had sex … I didn’t make a noise or struggle because I didn’t want to wake the baby … but it was horrible. It was brutal and horrible. Then he went away and that was the end of it. I lay there in the dark and I thought, did that really happen? because if it did then he’s in charge and he can have me whenever he wants … but that was so scary and I thought it was a bad dream. He said nothing about it and neither did I. Then I forgot …

She turned away from Bailey and the tears were trickling down her face. And I stayed another four years with Al and I’m an adult with a rational mind. Bailey, you were a child. I remember I was scared because what happened was hate, and I couldn’t accept it, being hated like that. Bailey, I know what it’s like. I want to wake you up and say, I know, I know, but in spite of all this you are still a stranger.

Then Declan came home. He clattered his bike in the hall, but it didn’t wake Bailey. He went into the front room and saw Leah on the floor with her head on the sofa and he said, ‘Oh dear.’

‘He’s not very well,’ she said, unsure whether Declan knew about Bailey or not. ‘He hasn’t been sleeping.’

Declan looked tired as if he hadn’t been sleeping either. ‘Oh dear,’ he said again.

‘I have to go,’ said Leah. ‘My children will be back from school.’

Declan ruffled his hair and said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

Leah got up quietly but Bailey was in the deepest of sleeps. ‘He has bad dreams,’ she said, not sure how much she should reveal.

‘Not again! Oh no, oh dear. He never says. He never ever says.’ He sighed deeply. He too was a part of it all.

‘Will he be all right?’ said Leah.

‘He usually is.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Bailey, I’m worried about you and I can hardly think of anything else. Why did you tell me? We hardly know each other. You said, it’s a secret. I want to talk about this with somebody but I can’t. I can’t discuss it with Al. I mention you and he goes berserk. There are too many things to discuss with Al: money, Christmas, moving out. There are too many rows to be had.

Al gave her ₤80 and said, ‘That’s for Christmas,’ and Leah said, ‘It won’t be enough!’ and Al said, ‘That’s all we’ve got.’ She nearly burst into tears because it meant no presents for her brother and sister and mother. The children had made their Christmas lists long ago including things like mountain bikes, computers and videos – and who would tell them? She ran upstairs with Al shouting, ‘What did you expect?’ She shut herself in her room and looked through her jewellery, but anything valuable had been sold long ago.

Al was calling for her because Rachel was on the phone.

‘I’m back in the land of the living. Do you want to come out?’

‘I’d love to, I would. When?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Tonight? I’ll have to ask Al.’

Rachel made a tutting noise. She didn’t get on with Al. He was listening to the conversation. ‘Yes, go on bugger off, I don’t want you round here.’

‘I think he says yes,’ said Leah.

She took a long time getting ready. She changed clothes at least four times.

‘I don’t know …’ She was in a blue velvet dress and in front of the mirror. The children had just had baths and were jumping about with no clothes on.

‘Mummy’s all posh,’ said Tom.

‘Daddy will read the story,’ said Al. ‘Looks like Mummy’s too busy.’

‘If it’s a pub then I’m overdressed …’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ and he took the children into their room.

By eight o’clock she had tried on nearly everything black and she had decided. Black jeans and a black polo-necked sweater. It was lamb’s-wool and felt soft and delicious. She dashed downstairs to show Al, who was now watching telly.

‘How do I look?’

‘Why on earth should you care about what I think about how you look?’

She had forgotten. They were splitting up. She had forgotten everything. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘You look like somebody who spent three hours getting ready so they can look like somebody who just walked out of the door.’

Leah smiled. ‘Oh good,’ she said. There was a car beeping outside. Rachel never came to the door.

‘I don’t know what time I’ll be back,’ said Leah nervously.

‘You mean, don’t wait up and thump me. OK I won’t.’

‘Goodnight,’ said Leah.

‘Bugger off,’ said Al.

She had not seen Rachel since the visit after Ian had died. Lit up by streetlight she still looked pale and thin. ‘So, how are you?’ Leah asked.

‘I stopped walking around in sackcloth and ashes. Mummy and Daddy went home.’

‘Was that good?’

‘What do you think?’ and she screeched the car round a corner. She was not a careful driver. Leah grabbed the seat-belt strap and this made Rachel laugh.

‘Where are we going?’ said Leah, trying to be calm.

‘To the Queen of Sheba to see a band.’

‘I thought we were going for a quiet drink.’

‘God, no, it’s somebody’s birthday. Anyway I’m fed up with quiet. Quiet makes me fucking angry.’ She screeched round another corner.

The Queen of Sheba was a converted boat. It was dingy and half decorated. It smelt of tar and beer but it was a popular place. The hold of the old trawler was the bar. Rachel bought drinks. Leah looked at the other people. She didn’t know anybody. Rachel was wearing a huge bright pink sweater. She knitted jumpers and sold them in Bath but she hardly ever wore them. Tonight was an exception.

‘Come and meet everybody,’ said Rachel, leading her to a table. ‘This is Leah. This is Bill and Carol and Ange and Pete and the other Pete … and over there is Declan and Bailey, but you already know them.’ She turned, and at another table there they were, a whole heap of empty glasses in front of them. ‘Oi!’ shouted Rachel, ‘Leah’s here.’

Bailey stood up. He looked at Leah. He too was wearing a black polo-neck and black jeans. They faced each other. He sat down.

‘Stupid man,’ said Rachel. Declan waved, a big grin on his face, but his attention was diverted by Bailey telling a joke.

‘So you’re Leah,’ said somebody. ‘I’m Carol, sit next to me.’ Carol had a friendly face, lots of wavy dark hair and big square glasses. ‘It’s nice to see Rachel like her old self. We all knew Ian. It was so tragic.’

‘I only met him once,’ said Leah.

‘You’ll like Leah,’ said Rachel, sitting down as well. ‘She doesn’t go out much. Her pig-headed husband doesn’t let her.’

‘I’m leaving him. I meant to tell you earlier.’

‘Really?’

‘I really am … I really am.’ And she laughed because, yes, she really was.

‘I am sorry,’ said Carol, looking confused.

‘Don’t be,’ said Rachel. ‘This calls for a celebration. About time too. When? Next week?’

‘Not until after Christmas.’

‘Were you … married long?’ said Carol, embarrassed.

‘Whose birthday is it?’ asked Leah on a different tack.

‘It’s Bill’s birthday. This is Bill. I live with Bill,’ explained Carol.

Bill was small and dark. He had bottlebrush hair and little round glasses. ‘Rachel has such beautiful friends,’ he said charmingly.

Bailey was still with Declan. Rachel was getting drunk. Leah tried to distract her. ‘So, what do these people do?’ she asked her in a quiet moment.

‘Do?’ Rachel leaped up. ‘She wants to know what you all do.’ The conversation stopped and everybody looked at her. ‘Pete’s a social worker. Ange’s a nursery teacher. The other Pete’s in business management. My God, I’ve got interesting friends. Declan teaches. Carol’s an estate agent … that’s different, and Bill mends bikes.’

‘Bill the bike!’ shouted Bailey from the other end.

‘And Bailey does nothing except get drunk,’ shouted Rachel and sat down. She was being embarrassing and she didn’t care.

‘I do like you jumper,’ said Carol.

‘I don’t. I hate pink,’ said Rachel.

The band was introduced and the music started. ‘Venue says they’re a cheerful Nirvana,’ said Bill.

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