Nowhere Girl Read online

  It was very hot in the room, now. The sky darkened across the window, although it was only four o’clock. Sweat. Damp, scrumpled sheets. Aching throat.

  In a studio flat we could begin to collect contemporary pictures. Great bursts of colour on the studio walls. We would change them about. Pictures should be moved. In Jonathan’s parents’ house the pictures stayed in the same place for so many years that when they were taken down for their annual cleaning, they left black rims on the walls.

  Why was there no fresh lemonade with ice? Jonathan made the stuff by the pint. Joshua could only mix Bloody Marys.

  My hair was sticking wetly to my head.

  Perhaps Joshua could carve something big for the studio. He’d never done anything really big.

  Where was he?

  Hell, I wanted clean sheets, cool pillows, a voice telling me not to make such a fuss. Smooth hands, like Jonathan’s, on my head; the reassurance that he wouldn’t go away.

  Where was Jonathan, now? In his Roman attic, still, with his electric typewriter? Why wasn’t he here, comforting?

  And then this face grinned at me again, friendly, helpful. He didn’t speak, but he carried the basket covered with the white cloth, still, filled with things to make me better.

  *

  I was being shaken. Jonathan was here at last, rougher than usual, but with lemonade, perhaps, in our big blue jug.

  ‘Jonathan.…?’

  ‘It’s not Jonathan. It’s me.’ Joshua was crouched on the floor by my bed, his head close to mine. ‘You’re still half asleep. Having bad dreams?’ He smiled. ‘How are you?’ He touched my cheek with his flaky thumb. ‘You’re burning.’ He pushed the hair back from my forehead. ‘Speak to me.’

  ‘I’ve found some nice places to live,’ I said. Very slowly, his face tightened into a frown.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we can’t stay here for ever, can we? It’s too small.’ It hurt to talk.

  ‘I suppose it is,’ he said, then he got up. ‘Guess what I’ve brought you? Fresh limes. I thought we could squeeze them. And a bag of hot chestnuts for my supper. You won’t be able to eat those, will you? – your throat.’ He was funny, somehow. I laughed. Later he came back with a glass of pale green, sweet lime juice, filled with ice. He put it on the table, sank on to the bed, and lay heavily across me, taking my face in his hands.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ His mouth closed over my dry lips, his hands began to pull back the bedclothes so that I was suddenly cold.

  ‘Together, together, together …’ went on a voice. But it was Jonathan who had said that. Joshua was still kissing me.

  Chapter Ten

  Mrs Fox complained that Joshua, like the friends who had come to her party, had no sense of occasion. She spent Christmas Day with us, her festive spirit battling with his unseasonal one. We ate fried joints of supermarket turkey so that there would be no cold carcass to finish up. We ate frozen peas and baked potatoes and tinned Christmas pudding with brandy butter made by Mrs Fox. In comparison with everything else that, at least, was a triumph.

  A pink nylon tree stood on the table, glowing with silver balls spaced mathematically by the manufacturer. Joshua had bought it because, he said, it was the most anti-Christmas symbol he could find. He hated Christmas, but liked not to ignore it. He was good at his discontent, funny. To make up for his apathy he bought us extravagant presents. Mrs Fox had a fur muff and velvet cushions for her bed. For me, Indian jewellery and a set of Victorian prints in beautiful frames.

  After lunch we ate the box of crystallised gooseberries Mrs Fox had brought.

  ‘Henry’s favourites,’ she explained. ‘The only ones that didn’t get in his teeth.’ She was wearing, over her customary black dress, a cardigan made entirely of sequins. They winked and fluttered in the dull electric light. A bunch of goose feathers, dipped in silver paint and dried into hard spikes, was stuck in the band of her hat.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked. ‘Christmas afternoon is always such a problem. I remember, it always was. Edith always came to us for the day, of course, because she never had many social invitations, all her life. Edith never came immediately to people’s minds when they planned a party, if you know what I mean. So Henry and I always had her over. We’d have a nice lunch, then Henry’d always be off, in his black coat and carrying his bag, just as if it were a normal day. He wouldn’t wait for a call – just go off to a few of his patients who lived on their own, and take them a small present. Some of these, usually, for those who could digest them.’ She held up another gooseberry. ‘They loved him, Henry’s patients, and no wonder.’ She looked at us, sitting near her together on the floor, and sighed, smiling.

  ‘So Edith and I were faced with this long afternoon. Well, she wasn’t much of a walker, so we couldn’t go out. She didn’t play cards, or chess, or backgammon or any game. She didn’t do tapestry, or sew, or knit. So occupation-wise, if you see what I mean, we had a small problem. Then one year – what, thirty years ago, I suppose? – I hit on this idea. You see Edith always gave me the same present every year – a black fountain pen with a gold nib and a gold rim round the middle. She was funny like that: she always gave people presents that she would have liked to have herself. One of her peculiarities, you could call it. Anyway, she always gave me this beautiful pen – it was much too good ever to wear out in a year, of course, but I couldn’t tell her that could I? – and I knew what handling a new pen would mean to Edith. So one year I thought to myself, I thought: I’ll give Edith writing-paper, and she can spend the afternoon writing her thank-you letters with my pen. I found a beautiful box – I’ll never forget it, the box I found that first year. It was covered with violets, raised up sort of violets, on the lid, and inside the paper was the palest violet colour you could ever imagine. It even smelt of violets. I don’t mean those rubbishy synthetic smells they douse paper with these days. I mean just a trace of woodland violets. Each sheet of paper was stamped with a flower in the corner, and the envelopes were lined with purple tissue paper. Edith was quite taken aback. “Oh my,” she said. And I said to her, “Why don’t you use it now, Edith? We’ve got a long afternoon. I could help you with your thank-you letters.” “But I don’t have my pen with me, Eth,” she said. “Ha ha,” I said, “perhaps we can find a solution to that.” ’

  Mrs Fox paused in her story and with one hand rubbed over the lumps of ruby and star-sapphire rings on her fingers of the other, as if to warm them.

  ‘So I went over to the big roll-top desk by the fire and cleared a space among the cards on the blotter. Edith laid out the first page and smoothed it very slowly with her hand. She sat down, and I knew she was ready. I picked up my pen and handed it to her. Well, you should have seen her face. “But Eth, it’s the pen I’ve just given you,” she said. “Are you sure?” “Of course I am, silly,” I said. “I’ve even got you ink to match.” And I took out a bottle of lovely deep purple ink that I’d hidden in a drawer. Edith dipped the clean nib right into the ink, and filled it, and I remember she was trembling. And then the funny thing was, she held it over the paper, and she turned to me and said: “What can I write, Eth?” Well, of course, that was the start of it all. From then on, every year, I dictated her letters on Christmas afternoon while Henry was out. Not that she had many to write. But Miss Turner from the post office always sent her handkerchiefs, and her butcher once sent her a nice crown of lamb, and the woman next door always made her a woolly robin – rubbish, really – in a kind of arrangement which had to be thrown out when the holly died.’

  She stopped again, briefly, for breath. Then went on: ‘The funny thing about those afternoons was that as soon as we had fallen into this letter-writing habit they never seemed long again. In a jiffy, it felt, Henry would be back out of the snow, laughing at us and asking for tea. I would always put on the kettle, because Edith would be busy sealing up the envelopes. But somehow, after Henry died, we didn’t get
so many letters written. For one thing, Miss Turner died too, and I couldn’t find the quality of writing-paper to give Edith any more.’

  She had kept still for the whole story. Now she swivelled round in her chair to look out of the window. Her sequin cardigan flashed and flared again, kingfisher colours. She tapped at the waxy cardboard of the empty gooseberry box with her quick fingers.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked. ‘We should go out.’

  ‘We’re going,’ said Joshua. ‘To the country.’

  ‘What do you mean? Where?’ He hadn’t told me of any plans.

  ‘Annabel Hammond’s coming round. She’s invited us all to tea with her mother.’ He got up, his back to me. ‘Near Windsor.’

  ‘Very nice too,’ said Mrs Fox. ‘Anything but Kent.’ Joshua turned to face me and grinned. He picked up one of Mrs Fox’s new velvet cushions and flung it at my head.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘she’s coming with her friend Bruce. So don’t look like that.’ He turned to Mrs Fox. ‘The trouble with Clare is that she’s wracked with jealousy. If I tell her I spent a nice day on Brighton Pier with my mother when I was a child, a green flush spreads from her ankles upwards.’

  ‘Stupid,’ I said, half smiling.

  ‘If you’ve never had reason to be jealous, you’ve never had reason to love,’ said Mrs Fox.

  ‘Well, anyway, it’ll all be all right this afternoon.’ Joshua was pacing the room now, tweaking at things, the balls on the Christmas tree, the dying poinsettias, as he passed them. ‘We’ll all be together, and Annabel loves Bruce. – At least, he loves her. And we’ll have a terrific tea with Mrs Hammond. She’s the best cook I know. She’ll make Bruce a lovely mother-in-law.’

  ‘As I said,’ repeated Mrs Fox, ‘Christmas afternoon can be such a problem.’

  Annabel and Bruce arrived punctually at three o’clock. Annabel was tall and thin with smooth blonde hair strained back into a bow. She wore a leather coat with silver studs, pale knubbly stockings and fragile walking shoes made of suède. Perfect for Windsor tea.

  ‘I’ve heard so much about you – hello.’ She held out her hand. I took it. It was bony and compact, taut as a frightened bird’s wing. ‘This is Bruce Winham. Brucey, where are you?’ Without releasing me from her look, she folded her arm behind her back and tugged at a huge cable-knit sweater. A small man with hungry sunken eyes twitched eagerly forward. He had a neat black beard that was forced by the height of his polo-neck collar to stick out at right angles, and he wore gym shoes. He grinned at me, his mouth wide with merrily distorted teeth. A friendly, hopeful face. Joshua introduced Mrs Fox. She stood up smartly. Only Bruce shook her hand.

  ‘Why don’t we go straight away?’ asked Annabel. ‘We can take my car. It would be better than yours, if I remember it rightly, wouldn’t it, Josh?’ She gave him a narrow, knowing smile.

  ‘It’s changed since your day,’ he said, ‘but it’s just as uncomfortable. We’ll go in yours.’

  Annabel swung her efficient look towards Mrs Fox.

  ‘Can we drop your – aunt anywhere on the way?’ she asked me. ‘Or does she want to come too?’ Her tone was uninviting.

  ‘Mrs Fox is a friend,’ I said.

  ‘Of course she’s coming too,’ said Joshua.

  ‘Very well, let’s go then.’ Annabel clacked her long silver nails against the silver studs of her belt.

  Her car was a white Fiat coupé 124. Joshua, Mrs Fox and I sat in the back, Bruce hunched beside Annabel in front. He began rhythmically to tickle the nape of her neck with a prematurely old finger.

  ‘Stop that, Brucey,’ she snapped, ‘how can I concentrate on driving?’ Obediently he stopped. Joshua held my hand.

  We sped to Windsor in almost complete silence. There was ragged snow in the fields and barely a car on the road. It was curiously peaceful. Joshua had been truthful about Annabel. For the moment she was no threat.

  Mrs Hammond lived up a long laurel hedged drive. Icy puddles spat under the wheels of the car as Annabel screeched round the gentle corners. For a moment Mrs Fox clutched at Joshua’s knee. He covered her hand with his, and we jerked to a halt in front of the Tudor house.

  It looked warm and comfortable. A garland of holly and scarlet ribbon on the front door. Mullioned windows back-lit by fires and shaded lights indoors. Inside, it was full of labradors, real ones and china ones.

  ‘Typical sort of place,’ Mrs Fox whispered to me. ‘Henry had patients from these sort of houses. Smart lot.’

  Mrs Hammond stood in front of a large open fire waiting to greet us. She was a smaller version of Annabel, equally thin and neat. Her hair, jersey, skirt and shoes were all of a matching blue-grey.

  ‘Darlings!’ She welcomed Joshua by curving clinically against his body, and reaching up with her skinny hand to touch, briefly, his face and hair with her diamond-ring fingers. ‘You haven’t been to see me for so long, my love? Why haven’t you been?’ Her voice was a whine.

  She all but ignored me, but was warm to Mrs Fox. Instantly benevolent, confident in her skill at dealing with other people’s odd relations, as she apparently supposed. At the other end of the room Bruce gave a little skip, light on his feet in his gym shoes.

  ‘Lovely thick carpets,’ he remarked happily.

  ‘What was that, darling?’ Mrs Hammond’s whine rose.

  ‘I said: lovely thick carpets.’ He skipped over to her. She disapproved of him, but could hardly resist him.

  ‘They are rather nice, aren’t they, on a parquet floor?’

  Annabel switched in with her organising voice again.

  ‘Why don’t we all go out before it’s dark? I feel like some exercise. Anyone else? Brucey? Josh?’

  ‘We’ll all come,’ said Joshua.

  Except Mrs Hammond, we all went. Annabel, in spotless gum-boots now, led the way through the misty garden. We followed her through a small gate into a ploughed field. Here, the hard black earth split through the old snow, leaving it to lie in frozen white snakes between the ridges. We began to walk single file round the edges of the field. The hedges, wet with cobwebs, scratched at our sides.

  Suddenly Joshua, who was in front of me, stopped. He bent down and scooped up a handful of the icy snow. Then he jumped at me and rubbed it quickly over my cheeks. It stung.

  ‘You dare!’

  ‘Catch me, then.’ I flung out my arms, but he had gone. Leaping over the plough.

  ‘I will.’ I sprang after him. I was aware of the other three, behind me, stopping and turning to watch. I chased him to the middle of the field, half-running, half-jumping from furrow to furrow. It was heavy going. The solid wet earth clung to my feet.

  ‘You’ll never get me!’ He stopped for a moment, panting, his face alight and excited.

  ‘I will.’ With mock ferocity I now made a snowball, picking up lumps of earth with the snow, in my haste, and threw it hard at him. He ducked, and it missed. He laughed.

  ‘Bad luck, Funny Face. It’s the aim that counts, you see. Look, like this.’ Quickly he made another snowball and leapt up, stretching his whole body, to fling it at me with all his apparent force. This time I turned my head to duck and dodge it, imitating his speed. I took a step backwards at the same time, tripped over a hard ridge of earth, and fell. I fell in the middle of a furrow, knees apart, hands askew beneath me. Icy bits of snow stung through my tights, and I felt the black earth push up behind my nails. Joshua was still laughing.

  ‘Are you all right?’ He came over to me, unconcerned.

  ‘I think so.’ He helped me up and brushed snow and earth from my coat.

  ‘You’re not much good, are you? Here, you’ve got mud on your face, too. How did that happen?’ He scraped it away with hard cold fingers. ‘Now you look marvellous.’

  ‘Don’t be funny,’ I said.

  ‘No, really, I mean it. Your cheeks are bright pink, for once, and your eyes are shining quite ridiculously.’

  ‘And I suppose you’d rather have me with
mud on my coat and an undignified mess than the immaculate Annabel?’ I asked, tightly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He held my hand. It was cold, but warmer than mine.

  We began to walk heavily back over the plough to the hedge. The others, equally spaced, stood where we had left them, watching our progress in silence. Mrs Fox stood to attention, her new fur muff hanging from a black satin ribbon round her neck, her hands clenched at her sides. Beneath the black sleeves of her coat hung small sparkling rims of cardigan, flashing silver and white now as the sequins reflected the scattered snow. She looked very serious.

  Annabel spoke first, as soon as we were in earshot.

  ‘That was very amusing,’ she said. ‘You always were so energetic, Josh.’

  ‘I think we better go back to the house,’ said Joshua, coldly. ‘Clare should get cleaned up.’

  ‘Oh heavens. Is it that serious? Surely no-one minds a bit of mud. I mean, we’ve only just started.’ Annabel stamped her foot. Her nostrils flared.

  ‘She’s pretty wet,’ said Joshua.