Owen is increasingly reluctant to contact his parents. When he does, he works hard to describe a reflection quite unlike the one that stares back at him from the bathroom mirror. His father listens avidly to this Nicholas Nickleby son, to his daring exploits, to tales of his dashing days spent in the company of other actors. They do not discuss the infant phenomenon. The subject is taboo. Instead, they resort to that great British tradition and debate the weather, the oppressive heat, water rationing, plants suffering, reservoirs drying up, the desperate need for rain. That done, Owen improvises. He has told them that he has a job now in the box office of the Palace Theatre, where the extravaganza Jesus Christ Superstar is showing. He has offered to get complimentary tickets for them. He has even jauntily hummed a few tunes. His father has said that it’s a date.
What Owen does not tell them is that all attempts at securing an agent have failed, and the few open auditions he stumbled on in the magazine The Stage wanted trained dancers and singers. But Owen isn’t the least anxious that his charade will soon be discovered. He knows that his parents will never visit him. So he carries on describing the glamorous West End, the crowd of artistic, flamboyant friends he has made, how he is out every night hobnobbing with directors and producers. They receive the news that he has relocated to the heart of London with a mixture of awe and detachment. His father is awed. His mother is detached.
Owen only rings on the rare occasions when he is alone in the flat. They have a ’phone set on a small occasional table, just inside the lounge door. Sean actively encourages him to use it.
‘Family’s important, Owen. Your roots, so. Where you came from.’ Owen thinks of the beach in Devon, of the sand and the sky, of the cold indifferent sea, of his mother eating the sand, and of Sarah’s scrap of comfort blanket in the box on her bedside table. He breathes essence of Sarah, a bittersweet fragrance if ever there was one. That’s where he came from. He would give his soul to sever his roots, to cut the kite strings attaching him to his past and fly free. ‘You need to keep in touch. Your Mam might worry otherwise.’ The irony of Sean’s directive, as he lounges in a flat with his mistress, his own wife and baby home alone, seems to elude him.
Increasingly Owen’s calls are triumphs of invention. He always manages to impart some fresh titbit that signposts his path to fame. And, as if by tacit consent, his parents keep up their part in this apple-pie conspiracy. Neither of them refer to the night before he left home, to the stark red blood spattered on the lino floor. Entering the kitchen after supper, he saw his mother standing with her back to him, in front of the sink. Above her head on a wooden drying rack was a thick, white, china plate. The clusters of soapsuds were still sliding off it, drifting like light snow flurries into the sink. Behind his mother, to one side, hovered his father. He was whistling ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’, stooping and fumbling with a red-and-white checked tea towel. The glint of metal in its folds caught Owen’s eye. Brows deeply scored, he was bringing all his concentration to bear on the task of drying cutlery, as methodical with this as he was in cleaning Sarah’s shoes.
Suddenly his mother stretched her dripping wet hands upwards, in a gesture uncannily redolent of an act of worship. She plucked the pale china moon from its rack in the sky, wheeled round, and brought it crashing down on her husband’s bent head. A thud and a crack melded together. His shiny pate, criss-crossed with a few judiciously arranged grey hairs, juddered forwards, then dropped a foot or so. The segments of gleaming moon, rimmed in bright blood, clattered down, then rocked and seesawed on the tiled floor. The tea towel fluttered after them, cutlery spilling out of it. His father staggered back. He raised a shaky hand to his head in stupefaction, and stroked it over the dome of his skull. When he lowered it he saw, as did Owen, that there was blood on it, a shockingly vivid scarlet slash of it standing out bathed in bald white light. For a second they all froze, as if none of them really believed what had just happened. Then his mother fell to her knees and began gathering up slices of the moon, trying to piece the night back together. Owen took control. He helped his father into a chair, gave him a clean tea towel and told him to hold it against his head. Next he joined his mother on the floor.
‘Leave that, Mother,’ he told her, prising a wedge of china from her hands. ‘You might cut yourself. The edges are sharp.’ He spoke in the sort of tone you would use to address a timid child. He managed to raise her to her feet, and assisted her into the chair next to his father’s. And there the two of them sat staring straight ahead, like one of those famous medieval paintings of married couples. A worm of blood, only small, but a heart-stopping shade of pillar box red, made its way out from under the tea towel and slithered down his father’s forehead. It paused briefly on the shelf of his brow, gathering in the grey tangle of his father’s right eyebrow, before curling under it to skulk in the cave of his eye socket. He took his father to the hospital, clutching the now sodden tea towel to his gory head. It wasn’t fractured. They sewed up the gash with luminous purple stitches.
His last sighting of his father was on the railway platform at Didcot Station, next day, looking like a bewildered Frankenstein. His mother waved him off from their front door. Just before he climbed into the car he turned back, the sudden desire to run to her, to hug her, overwhelming him. But she had gone inside, and closed the door on him already. The Doctor prescribed his mother Valium for her nerves, and suggested she take a sabbatical from her work as a dinner lady in the local comprehensive. Probably just as well, considering how many plates she handled in her job, Owen ruminated.
Now he learns that his mother is well, extremely well actually, planning to return to work any day. She has gained so much weight that some of her skirts no longer fit. And not to be outdone, his father has been awarded a grant to buy gardening equipment, and is helping to plan the gardens for the new hotel they are building outside Wantage. In short, they are the iconic British family, as perfect as the Janet and John model who taught Owen to read in school – only, with a few significant differences.
See Father, see. See Mother, see. See John playing. John is playing ball. See the red and white ball. See it bounce high. See Janet splash, splash in the sea. Look, Mother, look. See Janet drowning. Look Father, look. See John playing. See John playing while Janet is drowning. See Mother running. See John running. See Father running. See him fishing Janet from the sea. See Janet on the sand, see Janet dying. Look John, look. Janet is dead. Janet has drowned.
Owen omits as much from their shared past, as he does from his present, in these telephone conversations. He does not tell his parents about his middle-of-night encounters with Naomi, or that when he scrutinized the patch of wallpaper she has been scratching at, he was certain he could faintly decipher a name. Mara. Nor does he report that one night, en route to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, he found Sean sitting at the dining-room table drinking alone, gabbling away to himself.
‘What’s up, Sean?’ No response. ‘Can’t you sleep? Sean, are you okay?’ Still no response. He sat down opposite him at the table. The windows were open, a slight breeze periodically making the half-lowered rattan blinds rattle. Sean swallowed and breathed fire, then looked straight through him.
‘Labasheeda,’ he mumbled. ‘Labasheeda.’ The lava lamp on the telephone table was the only light turned on, the orange globules bouncing up and down in slow motion like excited egg yolks. The room was untidy, streaked with light and shadow. ‘My mistress, my green mistress.’ The words hardly stirred his lips, and they were muddied so Owen had to strain them from the slurry. ‘Gap-toothed Finn saw her, saw little Iona O’Neil’s ghost jigging away on the water, tossing her long black hair. A chit of a girl swallowed by the hungry green lady, sucked down, they said.’ Owen felt his hair stand up on the back of his neck. ‘She fell from the boat, see. Taking the livestock over. The lass couldn’t swim. Mind, none of us could. Because, you see, the water’s bad, a jinx, a curse. They said there were devils lurking there. But that’s not what I found when I dived into her.’
‘Sean, do you want me to get Naomi?’
He gave an open-mouthed, mournful sigh. His breath smelt fetid and sour, and Owen fought the impulse to recoil. He was still dressed, crumpled shirt, creased trousers, the sharp odour of sweat. ‘Fuckin’ Brandon Connolly. He diddled my Da every week at the creamery, but the bloody fool didn’t see it. He didn’t have a head for numbers, my Da, not like me. He wasn’t clever. There was evil in the outhouse. It waited for me there, you know, lurking in the dark and the cold, so. They said that it came from the river, but they lied. It was in their own fields, in their milking sheds and barns, in their sick heads.’ Another pull on his drink, the glass hovering halfway to the table, returning to his lips. He drained it through a mouth burnt with booze. ‘He made me strip, stand naked and shivering before him. Emmet watched through a peephole in the wood. I stared at the ball of his eye framed in a knot of wood, stared and stared at it as the belt bit into my back, my buttocks, my thighs. I didn’t cry out. I was a rock for her. And all the while the thick blood from the pig carcass dripped into the tin pail, the sickly sweet smell of it filling my nostrils, and the leather whistled, and the brass studs crucified me. But not one tear did I shed for their delight. I was her brave warrior, brave as the warriors who marched through my dreams.’ Eventually Sean dragged himself to his feet and lurched off to bed, leaving Owen with little Iona O’Neil’s ghost tap dancing on the water.
Nor did he confide to his parents that on the nights when Sean returned to his wife and baby, bizarre sounds in the flat made him start awake. Oh, not the whistling taps, they were a constant, a crackling radio that never tuned in. He was fast becoming immune to them. No, what made him wake with a start were the creeping footsteps outside his bedroom door. Indistinct conversations reaching him through the wall separating his and Naomi’s room. He did not say, Mother, I am frightened by what I have witnessed and heard. The time when nightmares could be scotched in a moment in her arms was long dead.
‘Owen, Owen, what’s the matter? It was a bad dream, that’s all. I’m here now. Mummy’s here. Nothing can hurt you now.’ He remembered how she would climb into his bed, and coat his shaking body with the heat of her own. Her kettle-drum heartbeat was strong enough for the two of them. The smooth flow of her breaths made him tranquil. But now all he sees in her brown eyes is the loathsome image of himself.
Meanwhile, the underground kingdom is steadily becoming more intoxicating to him. He is discovering that the incessant beat of those endless disco numbers stirs the blood as effectively as tribal drums are purported to. In this mole’s tunnel there is a razzle-dazzle, an alchemy, which makes the over-ground world seem dull by comparison. Goods, that Owen suspects will look cheap and tasteless dragged up into the glare of the sun, are transformed down here into something rich and glorious. Colours are subtly altered as well, as if enhanced by the pink glow of a theatrical lighting gel.
In fact his new environment is not unlike a buried theatre, subtly lit to obscure defects and exaggerate good features. It entertains and diverts with the entrance and exits of lively street cameos; illegal immigrants escaping the steaming kitchens; working girls more comfortable browsing in the half-light; hapless tourists drawn like moths to the motley bazaar; teenagers smelling of sex and exuding restless energy as they scuttle about. Words uttered in the market take on a value they can never achieve in the busy city. Far above Big Ben chimes out the hours, governments rise and fall, and all the while the exhaust-belching traffic-dragon writhes and slumps, slumps and writhes. Up there, Owen contemplates a sky full of shitting pigeons and streaking aeroplanes, where the hot polluted air dulls emotion. But in the market the basest feelings metamorphose, bread and water change into ambrosia.
As removed from her sleepwalking incarnation as Dr Jekyll was from Mr Hyde, the wide-awake Naomi draws him into the aureate orbit of her affections. Throughout the day she pulls him close, pets him, rests her head on his shoulder, kisses him on both cheeks, on his lips, on his brow. She links arms with him, runs a finger over his open palm, holds his hand, as if all this is the most natural behaviour in the world. He reacts as only an untouchable can, with desperate gratitude. One morning, Enrico waylays Owen as he returns to the stall with tea and rolls.
‘So you like it here now?’ he says, one arm impeding his progress.
‘Yeah, sure.’ Owen’s eyes are already scanning for Naomi.
With the pad of a thumb Enrico rubs a small mole on his cheek thoughtfully. ‘And your manager,’ he continues smiling, ‘Naomi, your manager, you are good friends with her now – flatmates, hmm?’ She has seen them. She smiles, beckoning Owen over, patting her stomach as if to demonstrate how ravenous she is.
‘That’s right. I’m staying temporarily. Enrico, we’re friends, just friends. That’s all,’ he says with emphasis. Enrico nods, accepting this. ‘Look, I’ve got to go.’ Still his arm obstructs Owen.
‘You need to take care. The market can be a funny place. It attracts all sorts.’
‘Yes, yes, of course I will,’ he retorts a touch impatiently. Again his eyes vacillate. The short man covered in Elvis tattoos is back, fingering the hanging rows of belts. Naomi giggles over his head. ‘The teas are getting cold.’ He attempts to extricate himself but Enrico moves again to block him. ‘Enrico!’ he complains. He comes closer until the plastic cups are almost crushed between them. Owen feels their steam rising against his chest, and smells spices, garlic and just the hint of a vinegary, animal scent. He is level with his tassel beard, with the knotted purple beads.
‘Sean is mixing with bad people.’ His voice is low. Owen looks up and their eyes hold for a moment.
‘I know. I’ve tried to tell him but it’s no good.’
Enrico shakes his head. The plaited orange tail arcs distractingly. Owen can feel his breath on his face. ‘I’d keep your distance from them, if I were you.’
‘Thanks for the advice.’ Enrico shrugs and stands aside. He has only voiced his own growing concerns, and his sense of impotence. He has failed to warn Sean off Blue, the notorious thug who haunts the market. Enrico has not been back to the flat since Owen’s first night there. They had words and Sean told him that he was not welcome any more. He suspects, though, that it will only be a matter of time before the brash Italian breaks the embargo. But far from improving Sean and Naomi’s relationship, over the last few days it seems more strained than usual. So far what he has observed of them has been both passionate and volatile. But now he senses a darker element to their affair, something more malignant than erotic.
It is with this in mind that he chooses to take a leisurely stroll to the corner shop in the evening, to give the two of them an hour alone together, bridge making. July, and it is still unbearably hot, with temperatures in the mid thirties. The sky, mottled with blotches of shell-pink and rose red, dulls in the teal gleam of the Thames. The images of the buildings ripple on the moving water. Height becomes width. On the way home, weighed down with his groceries, he dodges commuters hurrying to Waterloo Station. Scooters and bikes have become a common sight, zipping along the London roads, dodging traffic. The wind whips up twists of litter. Exhaust fumes, soot and the many odours of the river percolate through the dusty air.
Being on the third and topmost floor, he is out of breath by the time he reaches the front door. As he fumbles for his key, raised voices reach him. Hesitantly he lets himself in, and sets his bags of shopping down in the narrow hallway. He takes a moment to stretch and ease his throbbing fingers, letting the blood re-circulate where the plastic handles of the carrier bags have dug into them. Through the screen of the beaded curtain the argument suddenly becomes more strident.
‘I want to keep it.’
‘We’ve already talked about this, Naomi. If you think I’m stupid enough to pay for Enrico’s bastard, you’d better think again.’ Sean’s pitch is rusty with controlled rage, then the two sounding together like a clash of cymbals.
‘I told you, I never slept with him. He’s just a friend. But you’re so paranoid, you distort it all in your head. Perhaps if you didn’t drink so much—’
‘All right, Naomi, you go ahead. You have this brat. But I’m nobody’s fool. You won’t get a penny out of me.’
There is a shriek followed by a crash, then strangled words. ‘What is the difference between my baby and Catherine’s? You . . . tell . . . me that, Sean!’
‘No. It’s not the same. She’s my wife.’
‘Oh, and I’m what? Your whore? Is that what you mean to say, Sean?’
‘No, of course not. But I told you, I’m not supporting a child that isn’t mine. Go to him, why don’t you. Perhaps he’ll be more sympathetic. Though somehow I doubt it.’ Then a cry of frustration from Naomi. ‘Look, it’s not my fault you’re pregnant. I told you that I was happy to deal with that side of things, but you said you’d take care of it – so take care of it . . . or clear off !’ His accent has become more entrenched with his rising ire.
‘So you’re happy to fuck me, but not to deal with the consequences. Why’s that, Sean? Am I so different from your sainted wife who, let’s face it, can’t be that hot, or why would you come sniffing round me?’
‘Shut up! Don’t talk about Catherine like that.’ This last is delivered in a vicious hiss. But Owen can still discern every word lifting to him on the nip of the consonants. ‘I’m not debating this any more. If you don’t take care of it, I want you out of this flat. And I don’t want you working at the market any more either. Not on my stall, anyway. Of course, I can’t speak for your Italian lover boy.’
‘You can’t throw me out of my own home.’ The passion is gone from her timbre now, only a frosty vitriol remains.
‘Have you forgotten who pays the rent, my darlin’? Who pays the bills?’
Then the sounds of a struggle. Something drops on the floor. Sean swears.
Owen pushes through the curtain and sees them both standing in the middle of the room squaring up to one another like a pair of prize fighters. A chair lies on its side, and there are pieces of a broken china cup on the floor before the fireplace. The record rack has been knocked over, and records have fallen out and partially slipped their colourful sleeves. Cushions too are strewn about, and the sheepskin rug is rucked up in a corner of the room, exposing bare floorboards.
‘Naomi! Sean! Stop this!’ he begs, but neither of them pay him any heed. She has her back to him, but Sean’s normally passive face is puce. In that second his hand sings through the air, striking her face such a blow that she stumbles backwards. One leg buckles under her, and for a moment she looks like a wild animal that has been darted with some powerful sedative. She starts to over-balance, then rallies and regains her footing. ‘What have you done, Sean?’ Owen steps to assist her. But she forestalls him with a raised hand. Then in two quick strides she is at her lover, lashing out, her ragged nails raking his cheek.
‘I despise you!’ She hawks the words out, bunches her own cheeks then arrows a gob of spit into one of his eyes. He flinches back a pace. For a brief instant there is a hush, then the rasp of Naomi’s panting breaths. She is flushed with exertion and fury, her eyes shrunk to jewelled dots. Owen gropes the air, trying to crank up his voice from the shaft it has sunk in. Sean’s mouth gapes open. One hand gingerly probes his cheek where bright beads of crimson blood are threading together. He exhales a breath slowly from his lungs, lowers his hand disbelievingly and stares at the red smears.
‘See to it, Naomi.’ This, a low monotone that trembles from his lips. For long seconds their eyes hold. Then he glances briefly at Owen, his Adam’s apple working as he swallows. The expression he wears is one of profound regret. The next moment, he storms out of the flat, sending the bead curtain swinging, slamming the door behind him. For a shocked second Owen stares after him, unable to believe what he has seen and heard. Turning slowly, his gaze rests on Naomi and he is jogged into speech.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asks, hesitantly touching her arm. Without looking round she shakes her head. ‘Sit down. I’ll make some tea.’ She sinks down, her face now impassive. Glancing at her as he prepares the tea, he sees that she is focusing on the Bob Dylan poster pinned to the wall next to the one of Hendrix. ‘The Free Wheelin’’ Bob and his girlfriend, pictured walking down a road in Greenwich Village, New York, a VW camper van in the background. He spoons extra sugar into her tea. It is really too warm for hot drinks. But then, sweet tea is recommended for trauma, he knows. He recollects making it for his parents the night the moon dropped out of the sky. He sits beside her, hands her the mug of tea, waits, hoping that she will speak first. ‘I’m sorry,’ he dredges up eventually. ‘I’m sorry about the . . . the baby.’ She clasps the mug close to her face. Little curls of steam veil her face. ‘What are you going to do?’ She volunteers nothing, hunched on the settee, her beguiling eyes still on the poster.
A woman would probably have known what to say, but he is hampered by embarrassment. He pats her back awkwardly, tries to make the gesture more sympathetic than hearty. Although he has experienced a tragedy, the physical brutality he has just witnessed is entirely alien to him. Unwittingly he is becoming embroiled in circumstances that are ugly, and far too real for comfort. It makes him want to run, and if this is cowardly then perhaps he is a coward. But he is also decent, and walking out on Naomi in this crisis seems a desertion so callous as to be unthinkable.
Finally she sets down her mug on the occasional table and turns to him. The cardinal-red impression of Sean’s hand on her cheek is clear as print on a page now. She does not wait for him to make a move towards her, but impetuously winds her arms about his waist, and burrows deep. The sensation recaptures the memory of Sarah’s last embrace, jarring so agonizingly that it is as though he has been winded. Naomi feels matchstick thin, breakable. He touches her cropped hair, smoothes it. Then his hands meet behind her back, move up and down, feeling the separate nodules of her pronounced spine. Her natural hair colour is growing out fast. Her roots are black as a witch’s hat.
‘Shall I get you something to eat?’ he offers.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she mumbles into his stomach.
Her features pastry cut into him. The elfin chin, the straight nose, the warmth of her lips. He imagines what it would be like if he was not wearing his shirt. Would it be similar to Sarah’s face pressing into the mould of his flesh? Would he feel her butterfly-wing eyelashes brush against his skin?
‘What about your parents? Might they help?’ he asks quietly. ‘Your mother?’
‘My mother’s dead,’ she mumbles. Her breath seems to pass through the cotton, to burn his skin.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She shrugs. ‘Your father?’
‘No.’ He closes his eyes and pauses to summon courage. ‘Enrico?’ Will she spit and claw him like an angry cat? But no, all the choler in her seems to have died. She gives a dry, wistful laugh, and he reopens his eyes. Then she replies as he expected. ‘No, not him.’ They both know that in the real world, if married men do not want to be burdened with illegitimate babies, neither do the irresponsible, pleasure-seeking Lotharios. Owen cannot see an alternative to a termination of the pregnancy. But he has the sense to stand back, to let her make her own decision.
‘Don’t leave me, Owen,’ Naomi says in an eerie echo of Sarah’s last plea to him. And so they sit like this in the feverish heat, as the light ebbs away and the room is infused with darkness. Finally he pours her a brandy (Sean has left his customary bottle) and helps her to bed. ‘Stay with me for a while? Stay with me, Owen, until I fall asleep?’ she requests. He nods and sits on the bedside. Her fingers worry incessantly at the satin trim of the blanket. A chunk of light from the corridor weighs in through the open door. She wars with sleep. At last her tense body slackens, a rhythm is imposed on her flighty breathing, and her eyelids droop, flutter, close. He gets up, goes to the lounge and rings Sean. Catherine answers.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello, is that Catherine?’
‘Yes, who is this?’
‘It’s Owen. I work the stall with your husband. Is he at home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I have a brief word? It’s nothing important. Just business.’
‘Oh, okay.’ A pause. He hears the thin, distant wail of the baby.
Next, Sean’s voice. ‘Owen?’
‘Yes. Look, I need to take a few days off, to be with Naomi.’
‘Fine.’ Another pause. He wonders if Sean will offer to accompany her to the doctor, if he will see her through her ordeal. Surely this is the very least he owes her. Then, not much more than a whisper, ‘If she needs money, tell her, tell her I’ll pay.’
‘Okay.’ Suddenly the baby’s crying is much louder, as if Catherine has brought her into the room. ‘I’ll ring when . . . when it’s . . . it’s over.’
In the morning he accompanies her to the family planning clinic. He remains in the waiting room while she is examined. Half an hour passes. For much of it he studies his shoes, brown leather loafers that could do with a polish. The doctor judges her to be eight weeks pregnant. The abortion is carried out a couple of days later. Owen waits for her to be wheeled back to the hospital ward. Standing by her bed, he takes her hand in his. It is feather light and clammy, and the sight of her uneven nails makes the breath stutter at the back of his throat. Her eyelids flicker, stick, in that manner he has grown so accustomed to, and spring open. Her hand slips from his and moves beneath the sheet. Then her eyes widen as if in surprise. When he leans close, her cracked lips crawl in unsteady speech.
‘It . . . it doesn’t matter.’ She repeats it. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She is still woozy from the anaesthetic. She neither looks at him, nor seems to know him. It doesn’t matter, she has said. But it does. It matters more than Owen will ever know. Again, he is not sure what to expect, but he braces himself for a couple of rough weeks. The first few days he insists on staying with her, leaving Sean to cope by himself. She lies curled up in bed staring at a spot on the wall, only stirring very occasionally to visit the bathroom. He brings her cups of tea and coffee, a bowl of soup, bread and butter, a boiled egg. It isn’t the most appetizing of fare, but he seems to remember his mother arriving with a tray bearing just this sort of food when he was ill. In any case, she doesn’t eat anything. His attempts at conversation are stonewalled, so that he soon gives up. An unfamiliar, heavy, muddy odour lingers throughout the flat. He tries not to speculate as to its origins, though deep down he suspects it is blood.
On the second day he pulls the spoon-back armchair up to a lounge window, for her to sit in. He lines it with cushions like a luxurious throne. Without discussion he takes her hand and leads her to it. She goes with him and reclines into them. Somehow or other she has found her way to his wardrobe. She is dressed in one of his shirts, green and far too big for her. ‘Why not sit here and watch the world go by? Perhaps tomorrow you’ll feel well enough to go for a stroll in the park, get some fresh air, put the roses back into your cheeks,’ he persuades, his hand resting on her shoulder. She gives a small shrug of resignation.
On Monday morning he returns to work. Naomi seems a bit brighter, and assures him that she is feeling much improved. He tunnels down into the welcome fug of the market. To Enrico’s inquiries as to the whereabouts of Naomi, he manages some bright chatter about a stomach bug. Throughout the morning he takes money, gives change, and trots out superlatives about swinging London to round-eyed customers. And all the while Sean’s eyes are pinned on him, until, choosing a lull in trade, he finally speaks up.
‘I’m sorry that you got involved in all of this. It’s unfortunate, you know.’ When he makes no reply, Sean touches his arm diffidently. Owen is polishing one of the bags, buffing the black leather until it shines like liquorice. He shakes the hand off and carries on rubbing.
‘It’s one of those things. Forget it,’ he mutters.
‘You probably feel I behaved very badly. I know it must look that way.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me, really. Let’s not talk about it, eh?’
‘It is not as clear cut as you might think,’ Sean says. Owen takes a breath, is going to say more and then changes his mind. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ He is reluctant to meet Sean’s eyes.
‘Oh, c’mon now, Owen. What are you thinking?’ Gingerly, Sean fingers his rash. It appears to be spreading, and Owen can see that a cluster of minute yellow blisters have formed there.
‘I don’t know . . . only that perhaps you should have been there.’
‘Christ, I don’t even know if it was mine,’ Sean mutters under his breath.
‘Does that really matter?’ And suddenly Owen is angry. This was his mess and he should have cleared it up. ‘If I hadn’t gone with her she would have been all alone. That’s pretty awful.’ He lets the bag drop and wrings out the duster as if it is a wet flannel. Then the glitz of the stalls diverts his gaze.
‘You’re right. But I’ll make it up to her. And I’m sure she’ll forget about it in no time.’
At this, Owen nods grudgingly. The entire episode has filled him with distaste and unease. He doesn’t want to be any part of it. But he cannot simply abandon Naomi, at least not immediately. When it has all calmed down, he thinks he will probably move on. He is here to escape tragedy, not greet it. He grew up in its shadow, and now he wants to emerge, to tackle a comic role that skims the surface of life. For the remainder of the day he is grateful that they hardly converse at all. Trade picks up and is brisk. The constant stream of customers robs them of the opportunity for any more confidences. Arriving at the flat, he lets himself in. Calling out her name, he feels like an actor in the opening scene of an Alan Ayckbourn play.
‘Naomi? Naomi? I’m home. Where are you?’
A malevolent hush surges back at him, devoid of humorous undertones. The only noise he can detect is the rasping of the taps. No more than a minute, that’s how long it takes to check the shoebox space, the empty lounge, to register the unoccupied chair by the window, to view the bedrooms with their vacant beds, unclothed and slovenly as louche women. Then he is outside the bathroom’s closed door, unaccountably afraid, his voice querulous.
‘Na . . . Naomi?’
The stillness is oppressive. He snatches a breath, depresses the handle and pushes. The door swings wide. He expels air on a long, horrified sigh. It is a scene of carnage. Naomi wears nothing more than bikini pants, black lace, and looks inappropriately sexy. She lies in a foetal position on the tiled floor. Her arms, elbows bent, are level with her head. Blood is smeared everywhere. It stains her pale body, streaks her blonde hair and oozes from her slashed wrists. Even her cheeks are rouged with it.
‘Oh my God!’ he gasps, dropping to his knees, taking hold of her shoulders. Her eyes are closed. He thinks she is dead. Don’t leave me, Owen. That’s what she said. But like Sarah, he left her, failed her. And now she is dead too? ‘Naomi! Naomi!’ He is shaking her frantically. Her eyelids twitch for a second before opening. Her lashes are wet; her tears are crimson. And her striking eyes stare vacantly beyond the gleam of a razor blade, held loosely between her fingertips. ‘Oh, Christ! Please, no! Naomi, what have you done to yourself ?’
Panic seizes him and he acts instinctively, grabbing up towels, slipping the blade from her hand, using it to shred them, then lashing the strips round her bleeding wrists. He races to her bedroom, yanks the blanket off the bed, charges back with it. She does not resist as he lifts her to her feet, bundles her up, carries her through to the lounge and lays her down on the settee. But when his hand reaches for the ’phone to call an ambulance, hers whips out to stay it.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks. Owen looks at her in frank amazement, at her impossibly bright eyes peering out at him from a face sponged with blood.
‘I’m calling an ambulance. What do you think I’m doing?’
‘No.’ The hand, tacky with fast-drying blood, grabs his. Her grip is surprisingly strong.
‘What do you mean, no? You could have died. You’ve lost a lot of blood.’ When she shakes her head, Owen erupts. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ He tugs free, and still holding the receiver, starts dialling. But again she prevents him, bringing her closed fist down on the cradle and disconnecting the line.
‘I am not going to die,’ she announces calmly. ‘Don’t be so irrational. You must compose yourself, Owen.’ The reproach makes him mistrust his own senses. She has just tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists, and yet here she is, telling him to moderate his behaviour. He flings down the receiver and it hits the wooden floorboards with a clatter.
‘For fuck’s sake, this is insanity! You need to go to hospital,’ he shouts, his arms spiralling about him in vexation.
‘If I go to a hospital, do you know what will happen?’ she says coolly.
‘They’ll stop the bleeding and make sure you’re okay,’ he fires back.
‘I’m fine now. Listen to me, Owen. If I go to hospital they will want me to see someone, a psychiatrist probably. They will think I am not well and—’
‘Well, you aren’t,’ he mumbles, his mouth as unwieldy as wet clay. An image of his mother flashes into his mind, of the plate crashing down over his father’s bent head, of the blood that slowly soaked into his tea-towel turban.
‘No, Owen. They will think I am not well in here,’ she retorts. She taps her head with a bloodied index finger. ‘And they’ll try to fix me, to lock me up. I couldn’t stand that.’
‘All right, all right,’ he rejoins tersely, ‘but you have to see a doctor.’ She sighs with exasperation. ‘I mean it. I’m not arguing about this.’
For a moment she considers, then acquiesces with an ungracious shrug. ‘Very well. But a private doctor and they must come here.’ He agrees quickly. At least he will have peace of mind knowing that she has been examined by a physician. After this has been decided he washes off as much of the blood as he can, careful to keep her bandaged wrists dry. While she is tucked up in bed, he succeeds in tracking down a private doctor who is prepared to make a house call. He mops the bathroom floor as he waits.
Doctor Laidlaw is a man of imposing stature, a Scot with a neatly trimmed, battleship-grey moustache and beard. He appears unruffled when he emerges from her bedroom. He follows Owen through to the lounge, the expression on his face phlegmatic.
‘Your . . . um—’
‘Flatmate,’ Owen chips in.
‘Ah yes, well, your flatmate should be fine,’ he tells him in his practised bedside manner. ‘I’ve bandaged up her wrists. The main thing is to keep them dry for a few days.’
Owen rams his hands deep into his trouser pockets. A feeling of unreality has persisted ever since his grim homecoming earlier this evening. ‘But won’t they need stitching or something?’ he asks, astonished, unable to believe such a potentially serious injury can be dealt with so simply.
‘Goodness, no! The cuts weren’t really very deep and they were nowhere near the main arteries. I think it was more a cry for help than anything else. They’ll heal well enough on their own.’ He exudes an aroma of tobacco and spicy male cologne, and there is a kind of permanence in his solid stature which reassures Owen more than any platitudes can do. ‘She’s a wee bit depressed after the termination,’ he goes on. ‘A common reaction. These things take a while to get over.’ He shoots him a shrewd look, and it strikes Owen with something of a shock that he probably assumes the baby was his. ‘It’s just a question of time. I’ve left some spare bandages, but I should think a sticking plaster will do well enough in a day or two.’