Four

It was pitch dark by the time Joz got home. So dark that, after getting out of the car, she had to stand for a while on her step, fumbling for her keys, trying to register shape: the shape of the door and the lock. I ought to get a porch light, she thought, one of those things that come on automatically. But then, I ought to do a lot of things, and I don’t.

The door opened on to a steep stairway. She had a Dockland terraced town house, four storeys high, overlooking a stretch of water seeping in from the Thames.

She had bought the place two years ago.

‘Move out?’ her step-father had said, astounded. Beside him, Ruth had been wringing her hands at Randolph’s fury. ‘Move out! But you won’t last three minutes on your own!’

He had stalked across the room to where she trembled in the doorway, her chin raised in unaccustomed defiance. Then, he had started to laugh and stroke her hair.

‘Oh, I see,’ he’d murmured, so softly that it was impossible for Ruth to hear. ‘Kicking against the traces? Yes?’

‘I shall be fine,’ she had said.

What had possessed her? The urges to get away from them both came like bolts from the blue, struck her dumb, made her head swim. They were dimly connected to strings of words, whispered as if in song …

But she had never before acted on these sudden desperations to break free. Randolph’s hands on her hair froze her to the spot. He had begun to laugh.

‘Go on,’ he was saying. ‘We shall see how you fly, little bird.’

‘I will,’ she had replied. ‘I will fly.’

He had kissed her on the cheek. ‘I will ring you every night,’ he said. ‘So that you feel you still belong somewhere.’

In the beginning, she had liked to stand in the luxury of the house, and stare out of the window at the rim of deserted dock, the red buses threading through other, lesser streets. She had liked to see the Cortinas prowling down the road, outside the brick-lined courtyards and patios and security systems. Kids came and hung on the railings of the renovated bridge, gazing at the apartments that had sprung up in the middle of desolation. But the novelty of being the princess in the castle had soon worn off.

She’d had great plans, at first, for how she’d decorate it. A dresser full of blue Delft in the kitchen, cream linen sofas in the sitting room, a yew desk, cream and gold and tan drapes. In the bedroom, Mediterranean yellows. The bathroom, green on green.

She locked the door now behind her, and felt for the light. It came on with a dull click. The house was revealed in its concrete drabness. Clothes were strewn on the landing banister, and the top was nearly blocked by a black plastic sack of rubbish. No paintings, no carpet on the stair, no flowers. The phone sat on the Yellow Pages by the door. No table, no mirror. A sheaf of scribbled notes—taxi numbers, client numbers, takeaways—littered the floor.

Joz looked at the phone for a moment, then unplugged it and carried it upstairs. And it was only half-way up that the smell hit her. Bilious and vile. She stopped a second, looking towards the dark living room, then turned away, and went into the kitchen, where the fluorescent light revealed more sluttish mayhem. Wrappers, half-cooked food in a pan, the door of the dishwasher open, stacked with dirty plates.

She made herself tea and looked in the fridge. A packet of wafer ham, a box of Belgian chocolates, a bottle of Jagermeister. No milk for the tea. She snatched up the chocolates and ate them, standing all the while. Half a pound or more, swallowed almost without tasting, and without pleasure.

She drifted out of the kitchen and stood on the landing.

‘Maxy,’ she called. ‘Maxi-mil-i-an …’

The dog in the living room whined. She heard him scrabble, trying to get to her. Then a small stifled groan as he lay back down. He was only a young dog, no more than a puppy, really. Yet for the last few days he’d groaned like an old man.

She knew that she ought to do something about him. She ought to take him to someone, someone who would put him to sleep. Or find him a home. She ought to find a better way than this. Some way to get rid of him that wouldn’t concern her; that would be clean. It was all so untidy, so complicated. She’d never had a pet before. Now she knew why. They were such a bloody fuss.

Max had been awfully nice when she’d picked him up. A friend of one of her clients had been going abroad, and she’d offered—it was on the spur of the moment—to look after him. His owners lived in Camden, an arty house in outdated ethnic. The woman was a sculptress, of all things. She wafted about in chinos and oversized shirts. She constantly bemoaned the fact of going to France, following her husband’s work.

‘But I simply can’t take Maxy there,’ she’d explained to Joz. ‘It’s only an apartment, in Lyons, so small, he would fret so much, and then, rabies, you know …’

The terrier’s blackcurrant eyes had pierced Joz, almost as if he knew what lay in store for him. He had been brushed furiously, until his fur stood up as though he’d had an electric shock. He was like a furry pompom, not a dog at all. He whined when Joz held out her arms. She had wanted to grab him, to squeeze him.

‘Isn’t he a love?’ she had said.

She imagined him wriggling about next to her, looking devoted and making her laugh, like the Highland Terriers in the dog-food adverts on TV. It had seemed a great idea. At the time.

‘I’ve got his dear little brush—it’s bristle, look, with Rupert the Bear on the back—oh, here, and yes, his toy and blanket,’ his owner said, as she tearfully arranged his belongings for Joz to put in the car. ‘He likes a walk before breakfast and one after lunch and one again in the evening. Don’t go too far. Just a mile at most.’

The woman had ruffled his head as Joz turned away. The dog had a tartan collar and lead, a tartan basket and blanket. His toy was a grey rubber mouse.

Joz had wanted him. She really had. She thought it would be nice—a novelty—to look after the little chap. People did that, didn’t they? They had pets. They had hobbies and collections and preferences. That was how it worked. Those were the things that occupied you, when you were grown-up and lived alone. She watched, so she knew. She could be like that too, if she tried.

She went out with him obligingly the first day, and that night when she got home, and everything was all right, and he was quite sweet when he tugged and pulled at his toy, and snuffled around under the beds, exploring. She fed him pieces of tikka masala chicken, and whipped up two eggs and sugar in milk. He was sick about midnight, and she grudgingly cleared it up. He came and slept on the bed, because he was used to it. She had to lock him out, shoving him down the stairs, because she was not.

‘I don’t want you. Get out,’ she’d told him, and he scrabbled for purchase on each step and she pushed him down with her foot.

Of course, there was no alternative but to tie him up. He bit things. Chewed things. He chewed the corner of the sofa on the first day he didn’t get a walk. She took the basket and blanket away because they reeked. She got a piece of nylon washing line and tied him to the lock of the patio door, by threading the line through the handle. He thought it was a game, and rolled and chewed at the line, pulling at it, and then staring at the lock, defeated and puzzled. But at least, that way, there was no damage to her furniture at night.

‘Just be a little petal and lie down until tonight,’ she’d said in the morning. ‘I’ve got to dash to Canterbury, it’s hours, I must go.’ She glanced back at him, standing four-square on the discoloured carpet, begging her with his eyes to take him too.

On the fourth day, she came home to find he’d peed on the floor. She realised that she’d not walked him at all that day, but still the sight of it infuriated her. ‘You little bastard,’ she’d yelled, incensed. ‘You filthy thing.’

Rolling up a newspaper, she’d frightened the hell out of him, slamming it down all around him, catching him from time to time across his back and head. He started to bark at her, and she yanked at the line and hauled him off his feet, until he hung, half-strangled in her grasp, his legs weakly kicking. Out of disgust, she had dropped him. He fell to the floor silently, like a bag of washing, and lay there motionless, only his eyes following her as she went out of the room.

She didn’t even look in there the next morning. She closed the door and shut him out of her mind. If she didn’t think about him, he wouldn’t exist.

On the sixth night, however, she took pity on him. She stood at the threshold of the room, gagging at the smell, and yet feeling surprisingly sorry for the wet little bundle, that shivered in the darkness as she walked towards him. He had tried biting through the line, and had cut his jaw. ‘Oh … look at you,’ she had murmured.

She had picked him up and taken him to the downstairs utility-room sink, and shampooed him and combed him, and dried him with a hairdryer. She had put antiseptic on the mouth, fixing him tight as he struggled, feeling his bony little rib cage and spiny—so tiny, so fragile. You could snap it with one hand, she thought, intrigued.

I wonder if I could.

I could, if I liked.

He had gnawed on her thumb as she dried him, like a baby, sucking at her as if she were able to feed him through her skin. And, babylike, she’d wrapped him in a towel until only his face showed. He panted heavily as she clutched him to her chest.

She used to be carried like this once. All wrapped up after bathtime. Suffocating. Difficult to breathe. When she was good, she was very very good … Randolph’s friends at a party. What was she … seven, or eight? She was sat, purposefully, on someone’s knee. When the man touched her, she bit him.

You mustn’t do that. That was your step-father’s friend. He is a very important man. You mustn’t upset an important man. You must be nice to them all. You must listen to the things they tell you.

And when she was good, she was very, very good.

And when she was bad, she was horrid.

She took the dog back upstairs, cradled in her arms, forgiving him aloud for being so dirty, such a trouble, and stroking him all the while. She had fed him a little bread and a half a biscuit and a small saucer of milk, just a morsel at a time over the next hour or so.

‘You poor thing,’ she’d told him. ‘What did I do, then? What did I do?’

She had to tie him up again, so that he wouldn’t come in the bedroom.

He didn’t whine. He just stared at her with those small coal-black shining eyes, and he pulled on the nylon line until she could hear him choking, panting desperately as she shut the door. She smiled as she went out.

The trouble was, there wasn’t enough time in the mornings. And it was out of the question that she should ever come home for lunch. And sometimes—like today—it was late when she got home. Impossible to go for walks. She never walked anywhere usually. She felt so stupid, trolling along with this rat on a string, trying to look the other way as he staggered about on one leg, or squatted on the grass. She felt just absurd. ‘For God’s sake, hurry up,’ she’d hiss at him.

She knew she should never have taken the wretched animal. He had been amusing for about ten minutes.

She stood now, biting her lip at the door of the living room. ‘Maxy?’ she whispered. ‘Hello … Maximilian?’

She picked up the phone from where she had left it, and walked upstairs. She heard the nylon line snap, and then slacken. She began to sing softly to herself.

Her bedroom was unfurnished except for the double bed and the fitted wardrobe with its mirror doors. There was a huge pile of fabric in here: swatches she had brought home about a year ago, intending to put up curtains and make a spread. Never had time. Couldn’t, now, be bothered. Those little things that you were supposed to do, to make it right, to make it a home, seemed to escape her. She didn’t seem to fit inside a room: those cushioned, draped and coloured places were for others. Anyone else. But not for her. Not her. She glanced at her reflection. Big; blank. She turned this way and that in the light from the landing, her head on one side, looking at herself.

Dozens of diets had failed her. She didn’t try any more. She didn’t care. The whole subject bored her to death. Size was a sort of fascism, a girl had once said to her. Another fat girl. Joz liked that phrase; she repeated it if anyone dared to mention her weight. ‘Size is fascism,’ she would say, in the violin-string pitch she could muster, her best Thatcher-in-Cabinet voice. Then she would lean forward. ‘Are you a fascist, darling?’ They would sometimes deny it.

‘Of course you’re not,’ she’d reply, gently. If the odd one retorted, ‘Yes, of course I am, what d’you bloody think?’ she’d say, smiling, ‘I couldn’t agree more. Size is important. Don’t believe it when they say size doesn’t matter. And so, darling, exactly how big are you?’

And she had a trick—it never failed, it was a hoot—that, as she leaned back, she would run one hand down a breast, lightly, no more than a hint. Tilt her head back slightly, momentarily close her eyes, as if luxuriating in the feel of her own body. She never wore tent clothes: oversized tops, or voluminous skirts. She had her clothes made, even her underwear, and, as a result, looked sculpted, generous, full-blown. Nothing too skimpy or too tight; everything expensive. She wore a size twenty dress and a size eight shoe. The fact was, she was big all over: big hands and fingers, large head, large mouth, broad hips, thick legs, thick ankles. She knew she was overpowering.

Strange, wasn’t it?

She frightened them all. And yet, she was ruled by him.

Slowly, she began to undress, putting the phone down alongside the bed. The mirror revealed a mountainous Venus, a Botticelli face on top of a Rubens body. She started to laugh, remembering Mark Estwood.

She’d bought him a fabulous lunch. He said he never had sea bass or scallops, and she’d ordered both to tease him, and a roulade and salad and cheese and pastries and coffee. Two bottles of Sancerre, one of Burgundy. Brandy, of course. The tablecloths had been white damask with yellow napkins, silverware, fresh flowers. Pure as the driven, a white and floral landscape, under which she wreaked her private havoc. She’d put her hand under the table and squeezed him. His face turned puce. She had begun to fondle and massage him, as he sat, petrified, with the ice around the sea bass melting and the glass half-way to his mouth.

In the hotel, she’d had the most godawful job with him. It was more like fifteen rounds with a flyweight; he kept slipping under her, gorging himself on her, exclaiming at her. They liked to be smothered, these schoolboys. They liked to be fed and watered. Shampooed, like the Highland terrier. It was such an effort not to laugh at him gaping and gasping, his hands fumbling about as if he were trying to find where she began and he ended. When it was over, she had looked out of the window at the Thames and thought how bored she was.

It was always like that. She could stand and watch herself in a man’s embrace. Outside. Always, always … outside …

‘You must meet my step-father,’ she had said.

He had brightened a little, flattered.

‘Do you know him at all?’ she had asked.

He had smiled. ‘There isn’t a person in London who doesn’t know Randolph Joscelyne.’

She had nodded, satisfied. ‘He would like to meet you,’ she had murmured. ‘He likes me to bring him fresh people.’

She took a shower, wrapped herself in a dressing gown, and laid down on the bed, the phone next to her.