Sally Page 10

  ‘Sal?’

  ‘No!’ she said hoarsely, removing his hands from her face. She glanced distractedly around the room. ‘Impossible,’ she whimpered, refusing to meet his gaze. ‘Absolutely not!’ she said quite quietly as she found her mask and rummaged for her coat.

  ‘Sally.’

  She had found her coat and made for the door. Richard lunged forward and caught her. She wrestled back momentarily and then let her body go still. Still but rigid. Richard held her firmly and lovingly. He bent his head low and found unresisting lips which he kissed but which did not respond. He looked at her; she looked dejected, messy and small. Still he loved her.

  ‘You can’t love me,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t. You’ve got it all wrong. It’s all gone wrong.’

  She looked lifeless and incredibly tired. Like a rag doll with all the stuffing beaten flat, Richard recalled later. He let her go.

  I can’t let her go.

  Let me go.

  He let her go and watched her head for the door.

  ‘Sally?’ he implored.

  She shook a tear-stained face, caught his eye and held it deeply for a desperate, gorgeous, doomed moment. Then dropped her gaze and shook her head. She was gone.

  Bob passed Sally in the corridor, he was searching for his elusive Catherine.

  ‘Sally! What on earth …’

  Her face was wet but set. She walked past him with as much dignity as she could muster, straight out of the house like Cinderella. Bob looked after her and then, on hearing the door slam, turned back and saw Richard standing motionless in the doorway to his bedroom. As Bob walked towards him, Richard leant the weight of his heavy and tired body against the door post. Bob led him into the room and shut the door. And waited, patiently and sensitively. Richard went over to the window and lifted the curtains to look distractedly down the street. He let the curtains go and they fell back into position, obediently, silently. Without turning around, he spoke, flatly, quietly and devastated.

  ‘I told her I loved her.’

  Without turning around, Richard could feel Bob’s puzzled expression and hear his silent question.

  ‘I told her I loved her and she’s left me.’ Richard turned to face his friend who was looking at him in shocked, disbelieving sympathy. Bob shook his head and raised his eyebrows and shoulders.

  ‘I told her I love her more than anything, and as I’ve never loved before. And she left. She’s gone. She cried, Bob. Cried and she said “No”.’

  Bob racked his brains for advice, anything constructive, comforting, both preferably.

  ‘Richie, maybe she just needs time. God, women! You know, “been hurt before” and all that?’ Richard turned away and looked through the curtains again. He shook his head and Bob watched his shoulders slump.

  ‘But why say “No”? Why weep from the very soul? Why not say “I’m flattered, but I’m sorry”? Why not ask for time? Why the anger, the fear? It was as if she loathed me, Bob.’

  Catherine burst in, sobbing hysterically. The men looked at her in wide-eyed disbelief. She looked at them wildly.

  ‘Out! Get out! Leave me! Alone! Now!’ They didn’t need to be told twice. The men went next door into the spare room but Catherine’s weeping was too disconcerting so they left for Bob’s study at the end of the hallway. The men sat on different chairs, away from each other but very much with one another. The strength of their friendship and the deepness of their understanding saturated the room as supportive and nourishing silence. They were unaware of time passing. A feeble little patter at the door roused them from their sanctuary and Catherine popped a bedraggled face around the door.

  ‘Bob?’ she implored. Bob went to her. Richard remained motionless, statuesque, Rodin’s Thinker once again. But try as he might, he could not think why his declaration of love had been met by anything other than the reciprocation he had anticipated. Could he be that wrong? Could he have read her all wrong? Could proclaiming his love for her be wrong? He thought not. So why?

  Catherine pulled Bob into their bedroom and pointed to the waste-paper basket as explanation. In it he found her panties. Blood-stained.

  ‘Poor darling, no wonder you were feeling ropy. Did you spoil your trousers?’

  Catherine shook her head and gulped, holding out her arms for him. He came to her and held her.

  The last of the die-hard guests were making a lethargic and drunken effort to leave.

  ‘’Bye, Andy. You’re not driving, are you? Oh, Alex, you off too? Right then, ’bye. Happy New Year!’

  ‘Bob, what time did Richard go?’

  ‘Has he gone?’

  ‘He has gone. Sally too, of course. Strange that they should just disappear like that.’ Bob sighed and, taking his wife’s hand, locked up, switched lights on or off and led her up to their room where he revealed the precious little that he knew. Not such a happy New Year after all.

  SIXTEEN

  Sally walked slowly to her car, a measured step to keep her bewilderment from running amok. Her hands, though, shook so much that the key missed its target again and again. Hardly surprising; she was using the ignition key. She fumbled with the key ring and was suddenly overwhelmed with hatred for the penguin dangling off the end. She pulled it and twisted it, she tugged at it, she even bit it. She grasped it and gave a determined yank. Off it came, the jag of metal tearing at the palm of her hand. Cutting deep, drawing blood. With venom, she hurled the penguin away from her and into the gutter. It stared back at her, an inane smile etched on its plastic face. Finally, she opened her car door and collapsed on to the seat. She pushed all the breath out of her in one long moan. She was involuntarily silent for a moment before a stuttering intake of air was released easily into racking sobs.

  What have I done?

  She beat her hands against the steering wheel. Her head dropped against her hands and she wept, tears of bitterness, wails of disappointment. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Suddenly she stopped and sat bolt upright. She was alert, her head was clear.

  Get out, get out, get away. Go.

  She kicked the car into life and it roared at her indignantly. She turned it on a sixpence and vroomed off and away, seat-beltless and silent. Sally, you’re doing sixty, slow down. Sally, that was a red light, watch out. Dodging the occasional pedestrian, she weaved in and out of what little traffic was there, like a pony in a gymkhana game.

  Get me North, get me North. Get away from West London, away.

  By the time she was at Hampstead, the roads were deserted and the pavements scattered sparsely with the odd reveller making a weary way homeward. Whitestone Pond shimmered in the new moon of a New Year but Sally gave it only a cursory glance. Hampstead Lane, and home was frustratingly near. With the Heath flanking her, dark and watchful, she belted along like a latterday Dick Turpin, fleeing to the safety of her stamping ground. Dick and Sally, fugitives in Highgate. Dick, Richard … no, no, not the same.

  Come on, Mini, don’t groan, carry Sally up the hill. She pulled her car around the corner into her road with a screech of tyres that was very Hollywood, most un-Highgate and very un-Sally.

  Darling flat, I can see you. Oh, I’m home. I’m home.

  Sally leapt from the car and left it unlocked, the steering wheel sticky with blood, headlights on. She didn’t notice and even if she had, she was too desperate for the sure solitude and safety of her flat to care.

  Sally is really quite beside herself. In fact, she is downright manic. She runs into the flat and greets everything that she sees. All is blissfully familiar.

  Hello, flowers. Hello, comfy chair! Little teapot! Hello, my lovely, darling bed!

  As she scampers from room to room, she sheds her clothes. She has ended up in the kitchen in her underwear, breathless, holding on to the ironing board, smiling at the crockery on the draining board, the dainty, matching teacup, saucer and plate from that afternoon which seemed a dream away and was indeed last year. Enough, Sally, go to bed, dissolve into sleep, empty your head, close your eyes and sh
ut out your distress.

  And Sally slept. She fell immediately into a fathomless and comatose world of soft dark numbness, a dreamless state in which Richard did not exist. And nor did Sally. Motionless and silent, sleep rescues her, she looks innocent and child-like. The weight on her shoulders, the burden she bears, now gone and forgotten until reverie will return it to the forefront of her being. Outside, her Mini stares down the street, its happy headlamps blaring away. Dejected, the battery withers and is completely flat by morning. On the seat inside, Sally’s mask stares vacantly up at the rear-view mirror. Unseeing.

  The first thing Sally noticed on waking was that the curtains were not drawn. Sunlight streamed in and momentarily she felt peaceful before memories assaulted her sleepy head and turned her stomach. She closed her eyes in a futile attempt to block them out. But she could neither do that nor fall back to sleep. Heart pounding, she lay staring out of the window at the linear patterns of the winter bare branches. She rewound the tape in her mind and played back Richard’s every word again and again. And again. And still she hated them. And hated him. And really rather hated herself too. Sighing a hopeless sigh of failure, she rose and looked about her. One shoe, a crumpled mound of black crêpe, a little clump of streamers – where had they been? In her hair?

  Bath. Let’s have a bath. That’s what they do in the films, in books. Wounded heroines soak long and contemplatively in hot tubs, soothed by billows of bubbles.

  Sally is shocked. Her stomach is swiped with blood, dried now and therefore brownish, but blood, definitely blood. And it’s on her left thigh. She ventures over to the mirror and finds it smudged on her left cheek. She looks at her left hand and sees that her nails are dirty with it, the cracks of her fingers are trailed with it. She turns her palm uppermost and sees the gash, quite nasty, scabbed over with a very dark brown, crusty, shiny slug of it. What would a palmist say, the lines and troughs picked out in blood? Sally bravely holds her hand steady under a hot tap. The water stings, the scab is but temporary and is washed away. She looks deep into the cut, intrigued.

  This is what God must see, looking down and into an earthquake, she reasons.

  The phone rings. Sally is frightened and sits awkwardly in the bath willing it to stop. It does. She cries. Her face is sweaty. Her nose runs. The bath concept isn’t working at all.

  ‘Diana?’

  ‘Ho, Sally! Don’t you sound fragile today!’

  ‘Diana?’

  ‘Sally? Sal?’ (Don’t call me that.) Diana heard a faint strangled yelp. ‘I’ll be right there, Sally. Just hold on a short mo’.’

  0181 348 6523.

  Sally, Sally, I’m sure you’re there. Answer it, answer the bloody phone, talk to me. Sal, talk to me.

  Sally stared at the phone. It rang pleadingly. She did not answer it. Richard hung up, his head hung low. He went for a run. His head ached, but he went for a run. Five miles, fifty minutes, shit time, shit time. What a shit time.

  Diana caught a cab to Sally’s. The walk would have taken only twenty minutes but she felt a strong pull to be there as soon as possible. She walked the short path to Sally’s door and noted that the curtains in the front room were ominously closed.

  But it’s one in the afternoon.

  She pressed the bell. And pressed it again.

  I’m here, Sally, it’s me.

  Sally heard the bell and backed into her bedroom. It sounded again. She had forgotten that Diana was coming. She heard the letter box flip up. She stood stock still.

  ‘Sally? It’s me! It’s Diana.’ Sally was released. It’s Diana. She bolted to the front door, checked the peephole just to make sure and flung open the door and threw herself at her black and red confidante. And there she clung, Diana having to steady herself.

  ‘Hey hey, Sally, let’s go inside.’ Diana sat Sally down in the Comfy Chair, the Lloyd-Loom with the tear and the faded, lumpy, patchwork cushion. She drew up a low stool and took Sally’s hand, looking into her face, a wide-eyed and sorrowful world. Diana waited. She held Sally’s hand and she waited. Suddenly Sally looked her straight in the eye, directly and unflinchingly. It was disconcerting. And so was her voice. Flat, toneless but strong.

  ‘Richard,’ she paused, ‘is in love. With me.’

  Diana broke into a spontaneous and genuine smile. She squeezed Sally’s hand. Sally glowered.

  ‘Richard is in love with me. The man has gone and fallen in love with me!’ she cried indignantly. Diana was baffled. Sally leapt up and marched, irritated, over to the mantelpiece.

  ‘Don’t you see? It’s all gone wrong. This wasn’t meant to happen. He was not to fall in love with me. But he has. It’s spoiled everything. It’s all ruined.’ Diana was amazed.

  ‘But Sally, it’s, it’s lovely. Surely. Isn’t it?’

  The women looked at each other. Sally suddenly felt let down in some sort of way. Defensive. Confused.

  ‘No, I don’t think it’s lovely at all.’

  ‘But why not?’

  Sally had to think. Suddenly she didn’t feel like talking, she had neither the energy nor inclination to explain.

  ‘Just because, Diana. Because actually I did not want him to. He wasn’t meant to. But he’s gone and done so.’ Diana bit the bullet and shot her the fundamental question.

  ‘Do you mean to say that you are not in love with Richard?’ Sally stared at her blankly and then shook her head vigorously. ‘Really?’ said Diana, cocking her head, ‘Are you sure? Not just the tiniest bit? A little hint of it somewhere in the deepest recesses of your heart?’

  ‘My heart,’ Sally declared, avoiding Diana’s eyes, ‘is not in this.’

  Liar, thought Diana.

  SEVENTEEN

  0181 348 6523.

  Come on, come on, come on!

  January the second, the second time that day that Richard has called for Sally. January the first he spent listless and low. Today he feels determined and motivated, like someone with a big project to get under way. He lets the phone ring until an electronic voice suggests that he try later. Actually, Sally isn’t in, she’s walking on the Heath, trying to soul-search but failing. The space and the trees and the chill wind and the sharp bursts of sunlight are too distracting. She just walks and gazes and, in her aloneness, she feels safe and in control. Thank God. At last. Richard? Richard who?

  That evening Mozart failed to soothe Richard. It was quiet and dark outside. Enough he thought, enough. He left his flat with music and lights still on and marched to his car in shirt sleeves not noticing the cold.

  Highgate, I’m going to Highgate.

  And off he went.

  Blissfully unaware, Sally sat curled and comfortable in a chair, transferring her itinerary for Paris from mind to notepad. Antiseptic cream, plasters, underwear, two jumpers, one thick, one lightweight, alarm clock; she was engrossed in mundanity when she heard the car pull up. The engine was unmistakable, the Alfa Romeo purred and then whispered to a standstill.

  Hide. Hide.

  She ran into the darkness of her bedroom and waited. Not with dread actually, but with excitement. Footsteps; Richard’s. A pattern of knocks; Richard’s. A gentle voice; Richard’s.

  ‘Sally? It’s me. Can we at least talk?’

  Silence; Sally’s.

  Richard tried again. He rang the bell too. Still no response but he knew she was there. And she knew that he knew. And he knew that she knew that he knew. Game playing, with a winner and a loser; Sally was both. He knocked, he called for her. And then all was silent. He’s gone, he’s gone. But she was perturbed and not relieved. She found herself walking to the door. Why? To run after him? Why?

  I don’t know.

  She was halfway to the door when Richard knocked again and called her name; his name for her: ‘Sal, Sal, let me in. Please?’ She stood frozen to the spot. She saw the letter box flip open. As it shut she darted back to her room. A watched mouse scurrying back into its hole. The cheese can wait.

  I don’t want it anyway.

/>   You do, Sally. Oh, but you do.

  Richard stood outside. Now he was cold. But he guarded the door. He stood patiently, occasionally looking through the letter box, trying to detect signs of life through the drawn curtains, attempting to knock and call as imploringly and attractively as possible. Lure her out, lure her back. But how? It wasn’t going to work. Not tonight at any rate. Like a cat whose dignity had been compromised by a cocksure mouse, Richard quickly composed himself. He raised his hand and hovered over the bell. Then thought better of it. He sauntered away.

  I don’t really want the mouse. I only wanted to play. I’ll come back another time. She will be mine. She has my name written all over her.

  From her bedroom, Sally knew that he was going. She rushed to the window and pinched the curtains just enough to admit one eye. She watched him go. Excited. Disappointed. She watched the headlamps blaze into life, temporarily obscuring the car from sight. She heard the engine. She watched the swift, effortless three-point turn, and she watched the car slink away, rejected but graceful. Turning to the silent brightness of her room, she felt lonely.

  Why didn’t you knock some more?

  Richard absent-mindedly took a left, a right, he crossed some lights and took another left. He had no idea where he was going or where he was.

  Come on, mate. Stop a minute. Get a grip. Let’s think this one through.

  He thought it through and decided that Diana might have an answer of some sort. A bit late, past midnight, but then she was a night owl. He noted with a smile the gangly holly bush outside her house, its leaves inked black by the night, its berries still defiantly red. How very Diana. She was in and she was delighted and relieved to see him. They hugged and held on to each other like people mourning a lost friend.

  ‘What is she playing at? Is she playing? Has the whole thing been some long, perverted game?’