I knew there wouldn’t be any sweets in the sweetie tin, but I opened it.
About a year after we’d moved into our own house in Totleigh Way, I was looking in Kathryn’s drawer for a bar of soap. She kept soap in her underwear drawer for the fresh smell.
But instead of soap I came across an old sweetie tin. On the outside, there was a picture of toffees in all kinds of wrapping.
Inside was a small pile of photos – there couldn’t have been more than twenty – held together with a piece of white lace. I slipped the lace off. It was soft and wide, with a blue bow on it, and it was threaded with elastic.
It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised this was a wedding garter, and that Kathryn hadn’t worn a garter on our wedding day.
The top photo was of Jack, smiling, on a motorbike, both feet firm and flat on the ground. I recognised Kathryn’s house behind him, the neat hedges that her father always kept so well. Jack was wearing wide trousers, with a sharp crease down each leg.
I let the photographs fall on the eiderdown.
‘What are you doing?’
I tried to scoop the photos back up into the box, but my fingers seemed to have jammed in one useless position.
‘Howard? What are you doing?’
Kathryn snatched at the photos and turned away from me. ‘You’re getting them in a muddle!’ She began to sort them, placing each one out on the bedspread so she could survey them. ‘What were you thinking?’
I stood behind her and watched her shuffle the photos. She was careful not to touch anything but their edges. ‘What a muddle,’ she kept saying.
She slipped the garter back around the photos. I had an idea then that it looked like one of those fancy ribbons people tie round the necks of poodles and other silly dogs.
I reached out and tried to draw her to me, but she kept her arms rigid at her sides, holding the photos in one hand.
‘Please don’t touch them again,’ she said. ‘They’re all I’ve got.’
For the next month, I stopped myself from opening that sweetie tin. Every Saturday when Kathryn was at the library and I was alone in the house, I made myself go into the garden and away from that drawer. I told myself that I must not invade her privacy, that to peek would be unforgivable, that anyone with an ounce of integrity would leave the photos to lie there in their ribbon, wrapped and safe and in the past, just where she left them.
But I kept seeing the image of Jack on the motorcycle, his feet so steady, his smile so wide. And I kept imagining what would be on the other prints: Kathryn and Jack smiling in all the local beauty spots, Hepton Lock, Whitley Clumps, Shotton Hill, Bradley Woods in the springtime, for the bluebells. I had to look to see if it was as perfect as I imagined it to be. To see where he’d taken her so I could avoid going there. To see how I could take better photographs than him.
So the next Saturday morning, not a minute after Kathryn had left to catch her bus, I was upstairs. I stood in front of her underwear drawer for a few minutes, listening to my own breath and knowing I was going to look inside the sweetie tin.
I delved my hands into her piles of knickers. My fingers trawled through cotton and elastic until I felt the hardness of the tin. I dragged it out. A pair of pink knickers that I hadn’t seen before came with it and I flicked them back into the drawer.
I sat on the bed, opened the lid and slipped off the garter. My fingers were trembling, the tips wet with sweat. I was sure I’d mark the garter, sully its whiteness.
I fanned the photos out in my lap.
As I picked up each one and examined it, the thing that struck me was that you could tell there was no one else in Jack and Kathryn’s lives, because no one was ever around to snap them. There was only one photo of the two of them together. In all the others they were alone, but in the same location; there’d be one of Jack standing there, posing, and then another of Kathryn in exactly the same pose, in exactly the same place. Like they were mirrors of one another. As if they couldn’t bear to do anything differently.
Kathryn on Jack’s motorbike, her bare legs against the metal, her black eyes squinting against the sun. Kathryn on a picnic blanket, her thick hair curled up on the top of her head, holding what looked like a chocolate éclair to her open mouth. Laughing.
It seemed that in all the photos her mouth was wide open, her lips pulled back over her teeth. I didn’t remember ever really looking at her teeth before, but now here they were, bared. And her chest was pushed out into the air; each breast seemed to be showing itself somehow, showing itself to him.
A couple of the photos were on a beach. I guessed from the new-looking pier that it was Bournemouth. One of them showed a flat expanse of sand, with KATH LOVES JACK scraped into it. It was the capitals I hated. So definite. The sun must have been low behind him when he took it, because I could see his long shadow in the corner, spreading over her letters.
There was only one photograph of the two of them together, in front of one of the pools by the power station. They must have stopped some stranger and asked for a snap, Jack smiling, handing over the camera, explaining how it worked, no doubt, while Kathryn stood waiting and laughing in front of the pool, one hand on her skirt to stop it blowing up too much in the breeze.
In this photo Jack was leaning forward, grinning, and Kathryn looked so small beside him you might have thought she was his little sister. She had both arms flung around his middle, gripping him, and her head was squeezed into his armpit. Behind them, the pool looked black, wide and bottomless. I studied Jack, his confident pose, the way his hair stood up off his forehead, the way his clothes seemed just that little bit too large for him. He looked like he had room. His big body had room for manoeuvre.
Then there was one of Kathryn alone. This one didn’t have a mirror image with Jack in the same pose. And it was the only photograph that was taken inside.
She was lying on a double bed. On the wall behind her was a painting of the sea. A lamp with a tiny fringed shade was in the corner. I guessed it must be a Bed and Breakfast room. We’d never stayed in such places.
She was lying on the bed in her underwear. Jack had taken a photograph of Kathryn in her underwear. Her bra was black and lacy; the pattern swirled around her breasts, and I remembered the lace of her petticoat, the one I’d seen in the library that day, and I thought of how I hadn’t seen it since. Again, her chest was pushed forward. Her knickers were pushed down over her hips so you could see her white stomach bulging just slightly over the top of them.
And she had her make-up on. Her eyes were the blackest things in the photograph. I had never seen Kathryn with make-up on in bed.
I looked at that photograph for a long time, wondering who the woman in it was.
I cut open the steak and there was blood, just as I like it. Kathryn speared a piece of cheese omelette.
I couldn’t taste anything, so I reached for the salt.
‘You should watch your salt intake, Howard,’ Kathryn said, swallowing her omelette. ‘Dr Webb was in the library today and he was telling Audrey about the dangers of high blood pressure. Apparently her husband – ’
‘Did you tell Jack what to put on his chips?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Did you tell Jack what to put on his chips?’
She put her knife and fork down.
‘Don’t say his name in that way.’
‘I asked you a question. Did you tell Jack what to put on his chips?’
Kathryn was holding on to the edge of the table as if it might blow away at any moment. Her hair was clasped at her neck with a gold clip, which seemed to pull her cheeks tighter. ‘Don’t say his name in that way,’ she repeated.
‘How am I supposed to say it? Tell me, Kathryn. How do you say it?’
She stared at her plate.
‘How do you say it? Because I’ve never heard you say it.’ ‘I won’t have this,’ she whispered, still gripping the table.
I stabbed my fork into the solid meat of the steak.
Kathryn stood up. ‘I can’t have this, Howard.’ There was a tremble in her voice.
I took a big bite of meat and chewed on it.
‘You have no right.’ Her mouth was twisted. She reached up and touched her hair clip.
I could see she was close to tears but I carried on chewing for a while. Then I swallowed. ‘I think I have a right to know.’
She said nothing.
I shook more salt on my chips. A few of the hard crystals bounced across the tablecloth.
‘I have a right to know, Kathryn.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m your husband,’ I said. ‘For Christ’s sake. I’m your husband.’
I did everything I could to be near to her. I liked to walk with her so I could lead her by the arm. If she was going up the shops I would go too, just so I could touch her sleeve, steer her by the shoulder, and then, when we were in the shop, I could place my hand flat against the small of her back as she paid for half a pound of bacon, and everyone would know that she was my wife. That she was my Kathryn.
After I saw the photograph Jack had taken, I thought about her in her black underwear, the little bulge of her stomach shelving suddenly down into the top of her knickers. I thought about the lacy pattern of her bra, the dark shadow of her nipples blooming beneath it.
When I held her in bed before we slept, I worked out the words in my head. I would say, ‘Why don’t you come to bed in your underwear?’ Or, ‘I’d like to see you in your bra and knickers.’ But these were words I’d never used in front of my wife. Bra and knickers. They were women’s words. Like period and pregnancy.
The closest I came was one night after we’d been to the pictures to see The Graduate. Kathryn knew about these things, what films were on and where and what they were about and whether they were any good. I just went along to have a look, and usually enjoyed them, whatever they were.
We were sitting there together in the dark and I could smell the new perfume I’d bought her. It was strong and acidic, and it made my nostrils itch a bit; but the fact that she’d sprayed something I’d bought on her bare neck and her upturned white wrists pleased me.
When Mrs Robinson removed her clothes and shut Benjamin Braddock in the bedroom, Kathryn put her hand on my knee and squeezed. I closed my fingers over hers and she didn’t resist when I moved her hand further up my thigh.
I don’t remember the rest of the film.
Outside the night was clear and cold; a sparkle of frost was just visible on the road. We stood under the lights of the foyer and kissed. I reached my hand up into the heaviness of her hair. She held onto my fingers as we walked to the car, and though her hand was cold I felt I had enough warmth for both of us.
I drove too fast on the way home. Kathryn didn’t say anything; she just sat there smiling in the seat next to me.
‘I enjoyed the film,’ I said, changing into fourth as we hit the Darvington road.
‘I thought so,’ she said, with a look over at me.
‘We should go more often.’
‘Yes, we should.’ She squeezed my knee again.
I pulled up outside the house and jumped out to open Kathryn’s door. It stuck a little and I spent a few moments laughing and tugging at the handle.
She stepped out, her high-heeled shoe making a crunching noise on the frosty pavement.
‘You treat me like such a lady, Howard,’ she said, and I thought I heard a little sigh in her voice.
I followed her inside. The house was warm and I was pleased with the way I’d decorated the hall and the living room to match. The lights were just right, big paper globes that softened the glow. Kathryn had chosen them and I’d fixed them up for her. I’d spent two weekends sanding down the woodwork, undercoating and painting three thin coats of white gloss on. Now the doors and the skirting boards shone, and the embossed wallpaper she’d chosen for the hall hung flat and bubbleless, all the patterns matched up at the joins. I’d enjoyed flattening out that paper and wiping it over with the soft brush. Afterwards, Kathryn had stood with her hand on the wall and said, ‘It looks so much warmer.’
‘Let’s just go straight to bed,’ she said now, climbing the stairs.
I sat on our bed, waiting for her to finish in the bathroom. She’d bought a table lamp with a pleated silk shade in Woolworths. It was a dark pink, like the roses we’d decided on for the wallpaper. I didn’t know how to lie on the bed as I waited. Every position seemed too obvious, too lewd. So I sat on the edge and looked at the pink shade. Particles of dust played in the air above the bulb.
Water screamed in the pipes as Kathryn washed. Taking her make-up off. Then the light in the bathroom clicked.
I sat on my hands so they wouldn’t be too cold when I touched her. I would just ask her. I would ask her about her underwear. No, I would tell her I wanted to see it. I wouldn’t make it a question. She would respond to my demand. I was her husband. She would do this for me.
When she came in she already had her nightie on.
‘Where’s your underwear?’
That wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all.
‘In the laundry basket, you ninny. Where it belongs.’ She walked over to the dressing table and started dragging a brush through her hair. Crackles of static sparked around her head.
I sat staring at the shade.
‘Are you all right, Howard?’
She sat down beside me. Her nightie was pink with a lace trim around the neck and the hem. It had little puff sleeves and a bib of lace at the front.
‘I want to see you in your underwear.’ I looked at the roses on the wall in front of me as I spoke. The heat from the lamp made my cheek hot. That lamp made the whole room pink, I realised. Like a girl’s bedroom. I was sleeping in a girl’s bedroom.
She caught my chin in her hand and turned my face towards her, her nails sharp against my jaw. ‘Is that what you want?’ she said, the nick in her forehead deepening.
I reached one hand out and flicked the lamp switch off. Kathryn let go of my chin.
We sat in the darkness. I kept my thumb on the lamp switch. She didn’t move. I didn’t move. Although our thighs were close, they didn’t touch. I thought about touching her in the darkness, but the hand on the light switch felt cold and heavy, and the hand beneath my thigh seemed to have died.
‘Howard.’
‘Yes?’
‘Is that what you really want?’
I flicked the switch on again and looked at my wife. I studied her unblinking brown eyes, thinking that if I could only see deep enough I would know. I would know the strength of her feeling for me, whatever that feeling was.
I pressed the switch again and spoke into the darkness.
‘I want to see you in your underwear.’
Then she went so quiet that for a moment I thought she was holding her breath.
The mattress gave a sudden bounce as she stood up. I heard Kathryn’s feet padding on the carpet and over to her chest of drawers. I could hardly keep track of her shape as she moved, a black ghost in our bedroom.
I thought of all the women’s underwear I’d ever seen. Underwear actually on a woman’s body, with flesh inside it. There was Susan Lively, a girl with long ginger curls at school. She’d done handstands so her skirt fell over her head and all the boys could see her white pants. She’d hold them for quite a while, too. At the back of the playground, by the wall of the orchard. There’d be bruised apples on the ground, holey from the worms, and Susan’s legs flashing up into the air. One sock scrunched down around the top of her ankle strap. I remembered the neat frills around the tops of her legs, the way her thighs spilled out of the elastic, and the way that lovely bone stuck out and then curved into a hollow.
‘Brazen hussy,’ the teacher called her. ‘Susan Lively you are a brazen hussy, get inside now. And you boys should be ashamed of yourselves too.’
And Mum, that time I walked in on her getting dressed in the kitchen. I must have been twelve. On winter days it was so cold in our house that she would go down in the morning and light the gas stove, then leave the oven door open all day. She’d dress down there, on the mat by the sink. I knew she was in there, and that I wasn’t supposed to open the door. She was stooped over, gripping the enamel of the sink with one hand while she adjusted her stocking with the other. White spongy flesh hung between the top of her stocking and the bottom of her bloomers. When she saw me she said nothing, just walked over to the door and closed it. And then when she came out of the kitchen, fully dressed, it was like nothing had happened. She looked at me, sitting on the stairs, hiding my red face in my hands. ‘Aren’t you at school yet?’ she said, with a gentle shove on my shoulder.
When she hung her knickers out to dry they blew in the wind like shopping bags; only after that they weren’t like bags at all, because I knew that Mum’s flesh had been inside them, spilling out of the sides and warming the cotton.
Over by the drawers, Kathryn stooped down and hooked the hem of the nightie around her fingers. I could just see the outline of her now. Her curvy hair and body. The tips of her breasts moving slightly as she pulled open the drawer. She sighed as her fingers rummaged through its contents. I thought how hard it must be to tell what was what in this darkness, wondered how she would choose the best pair. But I didn’t turn the light on.
She closed the drawer, letting her hips fall against it to shut it fully. I thought of the way she’d slammed the library filing cabinet closed as I watched her. Swing and slam. But this wasn’t like that at all; it wasn’t nearly as definite. She held the knickers out before her and stepped into them, one leg at a time, wobbling a bit. Then she reached into the straps of a bra and hoisted herself into it. It took a minute for her to hook herself up.
‘What about your legs?’
‘What?’
I tried to think of a word I could use that wasn’t stockings. ‘Wouldn’t you usually put something else on?’
She put her hands on her hips. ‘Howard – ’
‘You would usually be wearing something else.’
I heard her blow upwards into her fringe, as she had done on that day in the library. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘All right.’
She sat down on the opposite side of the bed as she rolled up the stockings. The mattress bounced as she leant over and came back up again, smoothing each leg with her hand, the hardness of her wedding ring rasping along the sheer fabric.
‘Bugger.’ She turned round to face me. ‘I think I’ve got a ladder.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
She blew up into her fringe again. ‘I can change them.’
‘No. Don’t do that.’
We sat on our opposite sides of the bed. I kept one cold hand on the light switch; the other lay dead under my thigh. She drummed her fingers lightly on the mattress. She was in her underwear, as she had been for Jack. I wanted to see her, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to turn the light back on.
‘I’m getting cold,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get into bed.’
‘Yes. Don’t get cold.’
She pulled back the covers and slid into the bed. Shivered.
I stood up and undressed.
We lay in bed together. The sheets felt hard, frozen. I thought I wouldn’t be able to move under the cold weight of them, but then Kathryn’s hand caught my fingers and led them over the cold expanse of the mattress and onto her breast.
I let my hands run over the pieces of fabric that covered those parts of her body, my fingers pulling on elastic, the tips of them feeling the roughness of lace, the flimsiness of nylon. She lay there, quietly breathing, as I removed it all, piece by piece, and she didn’t help me when I struggled with the hooks of her bra and her suspenders, she just let herself go loose in my arms so I could turn her whichever way I wanted and I knew she wouldn’t break, or even make a sound, as I pushed my fingers into her and called her my wife.