‘Ev’ry time we say goodbye, I die a little …’ Bella sang along with Ella Fitzgerald while sucking on a sherbert lemon, cursed at a driver surging onto the roundabout in front of her. ‘… why a little, why the gods above me …’ She should have left at lunchtime to miss the Friday exodus. Since Bella had moved, it was barely more than a fifty-mile journey to her parents’ place, a wisteria-covered house in a pretty-pretty village in Sussex, but it was turning out to be a slow drive, much of it cross-country on minor roads. If only she hadn’t got stuck on the receiving end of one of Seline’s interminable monologues about the various ailments of her cats. In the end, she had backed out of the door, shaking her head in sympathy: ‘How awful. Falling out in handfuls? Crusty scabs? Poor thing.’ They were always suffering from some disgusting condition, which would be related to everyone in the office, one at a time, so that all through the day she could overhear the same fragments – ‘Ooh, suppositories? Really?’ – as if played on a continuous tape loop. Why on earth didn’t Seline just shoot them and get some new, unscabby ones? She peered at the signs. Second, third exit; that’s the one. ‘… think so little of me, they allow you to go …’
* * *
It was properly dark now and the red tail lights of the cars in front bored hypnotically into her eyes against the deepening blue-black of the road and sky. Night driving seemed so full of promise, the road stretching out before her as if it could take her anywhere she wanted to go, her path plotted by a trail of lights like an unnamed constellation crossing the sky. Suddenly, the sign she had just passed filtered through to her consciousness. Her turn-off was coming up: A259 Rye, Hastings. She abandoned her attempt to overtake a Fiat that was even older than her red Peugeot, and nudged back into place to be ready for the turning. A reproving flash from the car behind. Concentrate, woman! If only she didn’t feel so tired all the time.
There was an old truck stop a couple of miles along this road, she seemed to recall, a relic of an era of bikers in black leather who roared their engines to impress girls in zip-up boots and miniskirts. By some miracle it had not yet been closed down or transformed into an Unhappy Eater or Loathsome Chef with smooth plastic seats, smooth plastic fried eggs and unsmooth, authentic bad service, heralded by badges proclaiming ‘Hi, I’m NIKKI. It’s my pleasure to serve you,’ their enthusiasm as convincing as a squeezed-lemon-faced aunt in a purple party hat. Why didn’t they just tell it like it is – ‘Yeah? I’m Charmain. I’ll bring it when I can be bothered.’
Bright lights, the sound of eggs spluttering into hot oil, the smell of all-day breakfasts. The few men at the tables looked up from their papers or their mugs of tea when Bella entered. She wished she’d stopped long enough to change out of her work clothes. The clacking of her heels seemed grotesquely amplified by the lino floor as she crossed to the counter to order, drumming out a message in Morse: Look at me, look at me. She buttoned up her tailored jacket, to compensate for her new skirt. The crisp horizontal of its hem framed her exposed knees. She fought the urge to tug it down.
‘Pay when you’re done, love,’ the waitress behind the counter said. ‘Here, hang on a tick for your tea. I’m just making fresh. I’ll bring your sandwich over in a minute.’ She emptied the teapot, spooned in some fresh tea. Steam billowed around her hands, clouding the shine of the metal teapot, the gold of her wedding band, as water rushed from the urn.
‘All right, Jim?’ she turned to a chunkily attractive man who had come up to pay. ‘Where you off to this time, gorgeous?’
‘Only Southampton. Better give me a roll for the road though, eh?’
‘Give you a roll anytime, Jim.’
‘Now, now, lady present. Take no notice,’ he said, turning to Bella. He had on a white T-shirt underneath his soft cotton checked shirt, the way American men often wear them. She could see the tendons flex in his tanned neck. He pushed back his sleeve to the elbow, absently rubbing at the dark hairs on his forearm.
‘All right?’ He nodded, smiling.
Bella looked down, suddenly aware that her gaze had lingered on him too long. Her eyes dropped to his hands. The nails were cut close, the fingers full of easy strength.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘You sure now? Need a ride or anything? You look a bit lost.’
‘No. Really.’ Bella snapped him a poised but distant smile. ‘I have my car.’ She folded her arms in front of her, then felt silly to be so pointedly defensive. ‘Thank you.’
‘No bother.’ He stepped back a pace, then smiled and raised his hand – Sorry. I’ll keep my distance – before turning again to the waitress at the till.
The bacon was thick and salty, between chunky slices of hot buttered toast. Bella tore into her sandwich and slurped her tea in an I’m-all-right-Jack, independent sort of way. Lady, indeed.
Standing at the counter waiting to pay, she saw that they had those solid slabs of bread pudding, the indigestible sort that her dad liked so much, a world away from the vanilla- and cinnamon-spiced faultless desserts her mother made. She ordered two slabs.
‘I’ll just take for those then, love. Jim paid for your tea and sandwich.’ Bella looked at the woman blankly.
‘Said he hated to see a damsel in distress. I think he took a fancy to you,’ she sighed. ‘Lucky you. I wouldn’t mind a ride with him myself.’ She laughed and Bella smiled, bawdy conspirators.
For the rest of the journey, she found thoughts of her knight-in-checked-shirt returning insistently. She imagined saying yes, she did need a ride, then climbing high up into the lorry cab.
He would stand below, watching as her skirt rode up, revealing the backs of her thighs as she clambered in. Sitting next to him in the lorry, high, high above the road, with the night close in around them, she’d turn to absorb his profile silhouetted against the star-pricked sky, breathe in the smell of male skin, fresh sweat, cotton.
Here, in the warm bubble of the cab, the vibration of the engine thrumming through the soles of her feet, she feels safe. No need to talk, to spoil the heavy hum with the thin clatter of words. There is just him and her and the road ahead. The thickness of his body next to her seems like some rock or standing stone, solid and unyielding. She wants to feel his hands, his fingers warm on the back of her neck, the shock of his rough chin against her cheek. To be held in silence.
Then, she reaches out and her fingers trace a path over the faded denim of his jeans, feeling the cloth stretched taut across his leg. He turns to face her, to see her eyes, her assent. Puts on his hazard lights, pulls over onto the hard shoulder.
Now he leads her round to the back, stretching for her hand in the orange flick-flick of the lights. He lifts her up effortlessly into the back of the lorry, his hands firm and confident around her waist. She steps back and leans against a stack of boxes, waiting. His shape in the darkness moving towards her. A hand on her hair. His mouth. Hands. Hitching up her skirt. The smell of anticipation. A sharp intake of breath at his touch, warm against the cool skin of her thigh. His voice, murmuring low in her hair, her neck. His hands. His—
A car flashed her, coming the other way. She was frozen in the glare for a moment, then realized and dipped her headlights. You sad spinster, you, she told herself, fantasizing about lorry drivers. What next? Dreams about builders saying, ‘I hear you’ve got some excess moisture that wants seeing to’? Electricians offering their services: ‘I’ll just turn you on now’? Delivery men asking, ‘Where shall I put it, love?’ Good grief. For God’s sake, go and have a proper fling, woman. It was all very well having a gap after Patrick, but this was getting beyond a joke. She was probably technically a virgin again by now, all sealed over the way pierced ears went if you didn’t wear earrings in them.
It was always strange returning to the parental home, immersing herself in that peculiar mixture of pleasure and frustration. There was delight in the house itself: the gleam of well-polished furniture, its quiet colour schemes, its tidiness and orderliness – so different from the flat she had shared with Patrick, and from her new house with its brilliant cushions and exotic rugs, the pictures, still packed in boxes, that would line the walls, the trailing house plants that already spilled from the shelves; there was enjoyment of her mother’s cooking, one thing they shared, and of her father’s easy good humour, his guilelessness, his pleasure in seeing her.
Irritation was never in short supply either, however. The way her parents always expected her to go and say hello to the neighbours she didn’t like, even though she was sure they were as baffled by the need for this periodic politeness as she was; the way they used wineglasses that must have been hand-blown in Lilliput so that she felt she was filling up her glass almost every minute, her hand reaching for the bottle noted by silent eyes; the way Dad was so in-furiatingly slow and fair all the time, always seeing everyone’s point of view; and, most of all, her mother’s unruffled efficiency, her air of stoic disappointment.
Was anyone ever really a grown-up when they were with their parents, she wondered. You might think you were, but it was surely a sad piece of self-delusion. Perhaps you’d be discussing life or books or politics with them like any bunch of civilized adults of equal standing, then you’d utter one little opinion that was slightly provocative and your father would give that gentle, indulgent laugh, that little nod and smile that said ‘You will have your funny ideas, but we’ll humour you because you’re only young and you don’t know any better.’ Or your mother would purse her lips, carefully not quite concealing her disapproval: ‘It’s a shame you have that opinion. Perhaps you’ll grow out of it with time. Still, I suppose I’ve only myself to blame as I raised you.’
Going back home, Bella felt the inevitable yet unspoken questions hanging in the air:
Have you got another boyfriend yet? shone out at her from the ivory silk lampshade in the hall. Are you making enough of an effort? peeked at her from behind the velvet curtains. You’re running out of time, glinted at her from the silver salt-cellar. How much longer must we wait? whispered the soft carpets under her feet.
Alessandra, Bella’s mother, was more subtle, of course, with a diploma in Reproach by Implication so that even the most innocuous topic of conversation could become a minefield, hidden dangers lurking beneath every cautious tread. Her silences seemed multifaceted, glittering with doubt, shame and splintered expectations.
‘Do you remember Sarah Forbes, from the year below you?’ she had asked on Bella’s previous visit. ‘Who used to live in that house off Church Street with the fake bay window? Just married a lovely young man. She had such a pretty headdress for the wedding – and it drew attention away from her nose.’
The subtext was elaborate, but crystal clear: She’s a year younger and she didn’t have your advantages, but even she’s managed to get married. To somebody decent. And she’s not even nice-looking. You should do better than her.
Bella had sidestepped the shots neatly and returned fire.
‘How lovely. I’ll send her a card. Will she keep on her job at the shop, do you think?’
She may as well get married. She’s not exactly firing on all cylinders on the career front. Can’t you at least be proud of my talents and achievements?
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think she’d need to do that, Belladarling. Her husband’s a lawyer; a junior partner in a very reputable firm apparently.’ Alessandra smiled serenely. ‘He’s doing very well. Still, men can afford to concentrate on their careers, can’t they? They don’t have the same pressures as we women.’ Impressive: an attack on two fronts.
1. She’s hooked someone not just with money, but a professional with good prospects.
2. Men don’t have a time bomb nestling in their reproductive organs, so it’s fine for them to be ambitious and successful. Can’t you hear that clock ticking?
Feebly, Bella had lobbed back a boulder, a heavy and clumsy last shot.
‘A lawyer, eh? Oh, never mind. Couldn’t she find someone with a respectable profession? You know that old joke: What do you call a hundred lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean? – A good start.’ Pathetic. A damp squib.
It didn’t even merit a countermeasure. Alessandra had sighed softly, unimpressed, and patted the back of her hair, smoothing her already perfect chignon.
‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind making some coffee, Bella-dear?’ A furrowed-brow glance at Bella’s crumpled shirt. ‘I must just go upstairs.’ She had got up and said, over her shoulder, ‘There are home-made fiorentine in the blue tin.’
The coup de grâce.
If you can’t manage to find a man and give us grandchildren, you can at least be useful by making some coffee. Perhaps if you could be bothered to make your own biscuits, like I do, you would have a man.
And the way she pronounced foreign words so over-perfectly, as if she were a newsreader. Especially Italian, although Alessandra had actually been born in Manchester, her parents having come to England several years before. The way she said ‘Bella’ – with that preposterous lingering on the double ‘L’, the way an Italian waiter would as he poked his outsize pepper-phallus under your nose: ‘Black pepper, bella signorina?’
‘I don’t want a fucking man anyway,’ Bella wanted to tell her, to see her automatic flinch. As if her mother would believe that. What kind of woman could possibly want to be on her own? A nun? Alessandra’s face would wear that baffled look, frowning at her daughter as if she were an alien species. Perhaps she would become a nun. Imagined her mother’s expression as she informed her of the solemn decision: ‘Mother, I’m joining a convent. You’ll never see me again.’ That mixture of what might pass for feelings shadowing those tiger eyes: incomprehension, shame, the guilty glint of – what? – relief? She’d rather be an anchorite, a hermit. Who knows, in her austere cell she might even take up painting again, devoting herself to the glory of colour and shape in solitude, the world outside no more than fibres for her to spin into images. Alone, the patterns of her thoughts would be clear and vibrant, shocking the virgin paper with their boldness, her brush caressing and seductive. She snorted at herself: Saint Bella of the Divine Brushstrokes.
It was late when she arrived and her mother had already gone to bed. Bella peeked into the utility room to say hello to Hund, the dog, but he was asleep in his basket, curled into an old childhood blanket. Her father had waited up, however, and was sitting in the kitchen reading a glossy women’s magazine. He hugged her fondly and put on the kettle.
‘Guess what I’ve got, Dads?’ Bella put the slabs of bread pudding onto a pair of bone-china plates.
‘What a treat – don’t tell your mother. Is this true?’ Gerald asked, stabbing his finger at a page in the magazine. ‘It says 64 per cent of women are more likely to fall in love with a man if they see him cry.’
‘I doubt it. Didn’t you know, they make up 72 per cent of those statistics or they get them from asking five people in the office. Still, I suppose most women do want a sensitive man.’ She poured out the tea. ‘Not a wimp, of course, but someone in touch with their feelings and all that bollocks.’
Gerald snorted, laughing into his cup.
‘How delicately put.’
He broke off a wodge of the bread pudding and looked at her over his steel-rimmed glasses.
‘Met anyone, um, interesting recently? – he asked in his interfering-old-parent way.’
‘It’s OK, Dads. I don’t mind when you do it. ’Fraid not. You can keep your morning coat in mothballs for the foreseeable future. Might as well flog it, in fact – I can’t see it happening.’
‘Well, you know we love you whatever you do. We just want you to be happy.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Dutiful parental speech duly acknowledged. But you want grandchildren. You all do. My friends say the same. It’s just a phase – you’ll get over it.’
Gerald smiled.
‘But what’ll we do with the Winnie-the-Pooh breakfast set we’ve been saving? We’ve got twelve rolls of cute bunny-wabbit wallpaper in the loft.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ she said affectionately. ‘I’ve brought you your favourite bread pudding. What more do you want?’
Bella slept in her old room. It was very different now, rather more restful, she mentally conceded. Alessandra had had it redecorated the week after Bella left to go to art school in London, covering with tasteful tones of subdued peach the ambitious mural of a Rousseau-style jungle painted over one wall. Of course, you’re welcome to do another if you like, Bella-darling, perhaps something a little more simpatico, hmm? A spray of lilies could be very pretty on the wardrobe door. It had been getting very tatty anyway and she wouldn’t have been bothered to retouch the whole wall. The room had been altered at least twice since then, although it wasn’t even used very often. The bed was in the same position, though, next to the window, snug between the wall and the side of the wardrobe. Lying in it now, Bella felt she wanted to be tucked in tight and read to. She pulled up the quilt over her chin and turned off the light.
∼ ∼ ∼
She is lying in bed, whispering to Fernando, her toy frog. His fluffiness is flat in patches, where he has been cuddled to excess. The little side lamp is on, giving out a soft, warm glow because Fernando is afraid of the dark. The light has a pink headscarf tied around the shade, to make it less bright.
Bella can hear Mummy talking to Poppy on the landing. Poppy comes and babysits sometimes. Bella likes Poppy. She has frizzy hair with coloured threads woven into bits of it, chocolate raisins in her enormous patchwork bag, and once she let Bella stay up and watch the Saturday-night thriller, although she wasn’t supposed to.
Out on the landing, Mummy is saying:
‘– and don’t let her keep getting up. She often says she thinks there’s something under the bed, but don’t allow any nonsense.’
‘Rightio,’ says Poppy. ‘Have fun.’
The bedroom door opens and Mummy comes in.
‘We’re off now, darling. Don’t be a bother to Poppy now, will you?’ She comes over and leans down to kiss Bella goodnight. Mummy smells wonderful – of perfume, and silk, and sparkly earrings, and evening – and Bella breathes her all in and reaches up to put her arms around her.
‘Now don’t muss me, Bella. I’ve just done my hair. Goodnight, darling. Sleep tight.’
Daddy comes in behind her.
‘Just come to say night-night.’
He treads softly, although she is still awake, and sits down on the bed. He scoops his arms under her and squeezes her tight. She can feel the smooth, soft stuff of his tie against her cheek, the rough cloth of his jacket against her nose.
‘Will you check, Daddy? Please?’
He gets down on his hands and knees to look under the bed.
‘All clear,’ he says, getting up and blowing her a kiss from the door. ‘See you later, alligator.’
‘In a while, crocodile,’ she replies.
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