Abbie hobbled out to see Alexandra off. Now Abbie’s foot had been dressed and bandaged by her friend, she felt comforted, as scoured out of blame as her steel preserving pan had been scoured of caramelised jam. She hurt but she was OK.
‘If there’s anything I can do,’ Abbie said. The last of the plums had been dropping on to the roof of Alexandra’s car.
‘I’m serious about the plum tree,’ said Alexandra. ‘It ought to go. It brings bad luck.’
‘But the blossom is so pretty,’ said Abbie, ‘and the Japanese students like to draw it.’
‘Even so,’ said Alexandra. ‘Get rid of it.’
Abbie nodded.
‘There is something else you can do for me,’ said Alexandra, and explained.
Abbie wailed.
‘But I can’t, Alexandra. I would if I could, but I don’t have the time. How can I cope with a small child as well as everything else?’
‘By buying jam from the shop instead of making it yourself; that kind of thing,’ said Alexandra. ‘By giving up your domestic affectations, because that’s all they are. This is a world of convenience foods and microwaves.’
Abbie whimpered.
‘Sascha will be at full-time nursery school,’ Alexandra comforted her. ‘You’ll have Sundays and Mondays off while I’m home. Only five days a week till the end of the Doll’s House run. Then I’m home full-time. Until the next part comes along.’
‘But Sascha’s a handful, everyone knows!’
‘He’ll remind you of Ned,’ said Alexandra.
‘Oh don’t, don’t!’There were tears in Abbie’s eyes. ‘Please!’
‘But I won’t tell Arthur that,’ said Alexandra. She had lost ten pounds in the last week. Her eyes were larger than usual.
‘It’s blackmail,’ said Abbie.
‘I prefer to call it expiation,’ said Alexandra.
‘OK, OK, OK,’ said Abbie. ‘All right, I will.’
On the way home in the car Alexandra felt the familiar state of suspension descending; the landscape passed to either side as in a dream, not quite real. She was being propelled over water with a swift, smooth, silent motion, as clouds in a speeded-up film, towards the silent shore where Ned had disappeared: she was still in the light but the edge of the fog was near. Too near. She pulled into the nearest lay-by. She wanted to stay alive. Well, she supposed that was an advance. She slept a little. Woke. Worst fears, Leah had said. Expiation, she herself had said. Cows were being driven down the road: they were passing the car. It was in their way. They barged into its sides with their gaunt brown hairy flanks; concave where they ought to be convex; their monstrous udders swung from side to side, banged against their legs. Hormone supplements made the udders gigantic, stretched to bursting: they were on their way to be milked. Machines would do it – would offer relief – pull and relax, pull and relax. Heavy breath from black rubber nostrils patched the car windows with moist droplets. Huge red-veined brown eyes stared at her, not unkindly, but with a dreadful resigned and female melancholy. Our troubles are worse than yours.
These days farmers would just run the bull with the herd, not keep him trampling, macho and furious, tethered in the yard. In a field with sixty cows the bull is placid, properly serviced, properly servicing. Sex for all keeps everyone quiet. Perhaps that had been Ned’s notion.
The attacks of non-affect, of suspension, came less frequently and lasted for a shorter time than they had a week ago. Nor was the blocking-out of experience so intense. A boy with a dog followed up behind the herd: his task to drive the cows to the milking sheds, lucky old them. Woollen cap, muddy boots, old shirt, ancient trousers: long greasy hair, a sweet face. She even recognised him: Kevin Crump. She’d done some work five years back with the school drama class. Kevin had been its bright star. A good singing voice; a good stage presence, though always trouble with his lines. Now this. At least he had a job. She wound down the window.
‘You OK, Mrs Ludd?’ He was concerned for her.
‘Sleepy, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I took a bit of shut-eye. Dangerous to keep driving.’
He nodded. He found an old piece of paper in a pocket, abiro. He handed them to her through the window.
‘Could I have your autograph?’ he asked, tentatively. ‘Now you’re famous?’
‘Sure.’ She signed her name: the biro was on the brink of running out ‘Ludd’ didn’t seem to belong to her any more; it was appropriate that the word came faintly and she had to write over the two ‘d’s’ to make them legible. A mess. But so were his cows; not that it was his fault. So was she a mess, and it probably was her fault.
‘Thanks.’ He was hugely pleased, and passed on.
Worst fears. The curse of Leah.
Lucy Lint’s importance: Abbie’s unimportance. Alexandra had acknowledged that herself, without thinking. That it wasn’t sex, it was love. That Ned loved Lucy Lint. That at the sudden sound of Lucy Lint’s voice Ned’s soul would lurch. That when she came through a door his heart would lift. She could make him happy just by existing. That Ned would lie to and deceive Alexandra not because it turned him on sexually – that had been Lucy Lint’s interpretation, as she squirmed and wriggled and tried to hurt, and Alexandra had accepted it too easily, as the least hurtful of all options – but simply because Ned wanted to see Lucy, longed to see Lucy, had to see her, hear her, touch her, be with her. Because he hurt so when he was apart from her. That the hurt left when he was with her. That he had taken Alexandra to Lucy Lint’s house only because he couldn’t get rid of Alexandra and he had to see Lucy Lint, be with Lucy Lint, so the hurt would stop. And because in the light of this love she, Alexandra, counted as nothing. That Ned had loved Lucy Lint.
Worst fears.
That in the belief that a woman had to be beautiful, and sensuous, and witty, and wonderful, in order to trigger real love, erotic love, the kind of emotional drama that ran through to the heart of the universe, the hot line to the source of life itself, the in-love kind, Alexandra had been wrong. More, she had shown herself to be vain, and foolish, and shallow, and Ned had noticed. Not that his noticing had anything to do with it. You did not love necessarily where you admired: or cease to love when admiration failed. Love came and it went; it was there or it wasn’t. The blessing of the gods, and their curse.
Worst fears.
Lucy had not pursued, Ned had pursued. Ned had broken Dave and Lucy’s marriage; Dave was right. Lucy was a child, easily influenced; Ned’s victim. Ned in love. Now Ned was gone, Lucy was back with Dave.
Worst fears.
Best hopes? There were none. Start by saying Ned had fallen out of love with Lucy Lint: end by saying, but that instead of turning back to Alexandra, Ned had invited Abbie into his bed.
Alexandra started the car and drove back to The Cottage. On the way Mr Lightfoot’s private ambulance passed, travelling swiftly in the other direction. No doubt it had Ned’s body in it, with any luck neatly contained in a coffin (oak, current, £480), on the way to town for tomorrow’s funeral and cremation. The coffin would pick up a proper hearse at the other end: black, grand and glossy, but underpowered. A twenty-mile journey by hearse when you were dead made you a source of traffic hold-ups, especially up hills, and was discouraged by the police.