‘How could I?’ He turned to her, and she felt close again. ‘I couldn’t bear the sight of her, so I lit off. Not long after, she killed herself, and left a note saying it was because of me. I’d ruined her life. I was the worst person she’d known, the worst in the world. That’s why I couldn’t tell you. Nothing she said was true, but with a person like that you’ve got to take the responsibility. If I’d told her I’d forgiven her for what she did she might not have done it. It didn’t occur to me. Even if I didn’t mean it, I could have said I forgave her, then maybe she wouldn’t have gassed herself.’
‘I’ll never believe it was your fault, Sailor.’
He didn’t hear. ‘If I couldn’t believe that, I might live in peace for the rest of my life. But let me go on, because you haven’t heard the rest of it yet. Though Melanie wasn’t mine I never held anything against her. And she was my daughter by the time I’d brought her up. She left home at eighteen, and I saw her a time or two. She was happy enough. We got on so well she said she’d come and live with me when I left the Navy.’
‘That was nice,’ Ann put in.
He looked at rain making tracks down the garden window, unable to face her. ‘She did the same thing as her mother, took pills and killed herself when she was twenty. She did it out of the blue, just like that.’ His glass was empty, and he leaned towards her, his expression as dead as if he’d had no rest from the day he was born.
‘You can’t say it was your fault.’
‘I’ve got a conscience, though. The sharks were set on me, and they won’t let go.’
He had never been altogether hers, but at this moment he belonged to her more than he ever had, more than she could have thought possible. ‘It does no good to torment yourself.’
‘I know, and I feel a bit calmer for telling you. I did want to let you know about it on the day we were married, but I couldn’t bring it out. Troubles shared are troubles doubled, in any case.’
‘They wouldn’t have been, not with me.’ Troubles shared are proof of love. ‘And what if they are?’
She decided from now on to check what liquor was brought into the house, and when he came back with an off-licence plastic bag of new supplies she asked where the money had come from. ‘We can’t afford to go on drinking at such a rate.’
‘Never you mind about that, my love. We’re managing very well, as you can see. We’ll be all right, as long as the rent gets paid.’
‘That’s because I take it straight out of the pension every month.’
‘I bless you for that, but leave the rest to me.’
They tried to drink less, but two bottles were finished all the same, levels going down like sand in an egg timer. When Sailor fell out of his chair and lay full length before the fire he was hard to rouse. Bringing the story of his wife and daughter into the open had made things worse, a despairing thought she found impossible to endure while heaping blankets over his body so that he wouldn’t be cold in the night.
She rested her ear on his chest to find out if he was breathing. How daft to think he’s dead. His body shuddered, a heartbreaking sigh from deep inside. Midnight’s furry weight warmed her knees when she sat in the next chair knowing that before long she would get up and pour herself another drink.
Her credit card had gone from the cigar box, so it was obvious where the money was coming from. A smell of frying bacon filled the kitchen, Sailor singing with sleeves rolled up as he stood by the stove. Fearing the edict he knew must come, the ditty faded. She put two slices of bread in the toaster. ‘We’ve got to stop drinking, Sailor.’
His cheeks were purplish, hands shaking as he pushed the spatula around the pan. ‘Just as well stop living. Nobody knows how long they’ve got on this earth, and if I don’t drink I won’t last as long as if I do.’
Her look made him alter his mind. ‘That can’t be so.’
He set eggs, bacon, sausage, fried bread and tomatoes before her. ‘You may be right. We’ll give it a try.’
She carried two large bottles of water from the supermarket to pour into their glasses. ‘It’s time we had another go at the puzzle. It’d be marvellous if we could get to the end.’
‘I’ve been trying for years, but I was waiting to finish it with you.’ He was smiling with pleasure. ‘Come on, let’s get cracking.’
They had never fitted so many at one time. He completed the main deck of the Victory, and found the sail that was to become Nelson’s shroud, while Ann put together the uneven line of marines. ‘Now for the mizzen starboard tackle,’ he said.
He looked better after the nap. At moments she felt the hardship of resistance, and looked around for a drink, hands shaking no less than his. She caressed a glass, but wouldn’t be the first to give in, the struggle so consuming that she no longer bothered to clean the house.
Sailor came back from a walk, a half-bottle showing from each pocket. He put them unopened on the sideboard, and lay back in his chair. She sat by him on the arm. ‘What happened, Sailor?’
‘I turned a corner at the top of Hillcot Drive, and saw one of ’em.’
‘Who?’ She dreaded the answer.
‘Melanie looked at me from over a hedge, and the blood stopped in my veins. She was wearing a blue frock, and smiling like she used to be when she waited for me to come home after months at sea with a present. But she screamed, terrified. Her mother was there as an old woman, and she never was one. She came out of the door and tried to pull Melanie inside. I walked away as quick as my legs would take me. I didn’t care in what direction I made distance. They’ll chase me into the grave. Sometimes it’s all right for weeks. Then it hits me again. It gets worse.’
‘Maybe it’ll go away,’ though she didn’t see how it could, because as he talked she was seeing them herself, a flash of both by the kitchen door, doll-faces glaring at her with loathing.
He stood, pale and unsteady. ‘I’ll be in the front room, doing a bit at the puzzle.’
He took the terrors with him, as if they were built into his broad shoulders. She found him asleep, a few pieces in a clenched hand. She caressed him, then punched and pleaded till a half-opened eye made a window of light into his soul. ‘Come on, Sailor, let’s get you upstairs.’
The manoeuvre took half an hour, but she hoped he would stay in bed for as long as it took to bring him peace. The time she sat by him couldn’t be measured. Talking more about his curse would break the spell, she hoped, and it seemed to, for after three days in bed he walked almost normally to the pub, wearing his cap and the indestructible duffle coat, and using the stick Sidney had hiked with in his youth.
‘Smoke, noise and beer smells are my natural element after sea water,’ he smiled on opening the door. It had become hers as well, the one atmosphere in which she and Sailor could be alive together. ‘This’ll drive the sickness out,’ he said when they sat down to the first drink. ‘I’ve never known it to fail.’
They lay side by side in bed, and the terrors came into his dreams. He didn’t tell her, but she knew they did because they spilled into hers as well. Melanie and her mother sat in a deep armchair in the lounge of The Tummler Hotel. Ann saw the high chairs from the back, and on turning to look saw their bloody and decaying faces. The room wasn’t the same because bales of straw were scattered among grey cobwebs, and Sailor was hanging from a beam, but still living, his body turning and turning as if a high wind was blowing, at which gyrations Melanie and the old woman began to laugh.