He backed off. A violent ache sprang up behind my eyes.
“Jenny, I’m going to phone Dr. Thomas.”
I looked down at him.
“Everyone uses that tone of voice with me, as if there was something the matter with me. There’s nothing the matter with me. They just need to catch this person and we’ll be back to normal. And you”-I flourished my gluey brush at him so a drop fell on his frowning, upturned face-“you’re my husband, in case you had forgotten, darling. For better or for worse, and this is for worse.”
I tried to smooth the paper onto the wall, bending down at a painful angle with my damp nightdress slapping against my shins, and prickles of dust and grime on my feet, but it creased terribly.
“It’s hopeless,” I said, staring round the room. “It is all completely hopeless.”
“Come to bed.”
“I’m not in the least bit tired, thank you.” And indeed I wasn’t. I was fizzing with energy and rage. “But if you want to do anything to help, you can phone Dr. Schilling and tell her it is at the very best dull, thank you very much. She’ll understand what I mean. You look pathetic in your socks,” I added spitefully.
“All right. Have it your own way.” His tone was a mixture of indifference and contempt. “I’m going to bed now. You do what you want. That strip is on back to front, by the way.”
At six, Clive left for work. He called good-bye as he left, but I didn’t bother to reply. Chris got himself up that day. I shouted at him to get his own breakfast. He stood and watched me for a few minutes, looking as if he was about to cry. Just the sight of him, standing in his blue pajamas with teddy bears, looking sad, with his thumb in his mouth, made me feel scorched with anger and impatience. When he tried to hug me, I shrugged him off, telling him I was all sticky. When Lena arrived, he ran to her as if I were his wicked stepmother. A new sidekick and pretend-best-friend, a small woman with a face like a fox who introduced herself as Officer Page, marched round the house, checking all the windows. She came into the spare room and said good morning to me in a careful voice, as if she was pretending that it was quite normal to find me decorating in my nightclothes. I ignored her too. Idiot. I had no use for any of them, no confidence in them at all.
When I had finished the walls, I had a bath. I washed my hair three times, waxed my legs, shaved under my arms, plucked between my eyebrows. I applied new varnish on my nails and put on more makeup than usual, lots of foundation because my skin looked oddly blotchy, a bit of blusher to give me color, eyeliner. My face was a mask. But I couldn’t keep my hand steady. The lipstick kept going outside my lips, which gave me the look of a drunken old woman. I got it right eventually: discreet plum color, hardly noticeable. It was me again in the mirror. Jennifer Hintlesham: immaculate.
I chose a thin black skirt to wear, with black mules and a crisp white shirt. It was meant to look businesslike, chic, cool. But the skirt hung off my waist. I must have lost weight. Well, every cloud has a silver lining.
I told Lena to take Chris to the London aquarium and then buy him lunch. Chris said he wanted to stay with me, but I blew him a kiss and told him not to be silly, he would have a lovely day. I gave Mary a week’s wages and told her she shouldn’t bother to return. I ran a finger over the top of the microwave and showed her the dust there. She put her hands on her hips and said she never wanted to come back anyway; the job gave her the spooks.
I made a list. Two lists. The first was of things to do in the house and didn’t take me long. The second was for Links and Stadler and was more complicated, and I drank four cups of strong coffee while I was doing it. They had said anything I could remember might be relevant, hadn’t they?
Dr. Schilling and Stadler arrived together, looking grave and mysterious. I asked them both to come into Clive’s study.
“It’s all right,” I said to them. “Don’t look so anxious. I’ve decided to tell you everything. Do you want some coffee? No, then do you mind if I have some more? Oops.”
I spilled a large splash on the desk, and wiped up the puddle with a document that was lying near the computer that said “Without Prejudice” at the top.
“Jenny…”
“Hang on. I made a list of things I thought you should know. I tried ringing the Haratounian woman, you know.”
Grace looked at Stadler, stared at him as if she was ordering him to tell me something. Stadler frowned back.
“I’ve met lots of strange men, if you want to know,” I said. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you’re all strange. No one sticks out as odd because everyone sticks out.” I laughed and drank some more coffee. “My first boyfriend, in fact my only boyfriend if you don’t count Clive, was called Jon Jones. He was a photographer-still is, maybe you know of him, he takes pictures of models wearing almost no clothes-and I met him when I was a model, only a hand model, of course, so I didn’t have to take my top off, or not in public, but he took loads of pictures of me in private. When we broke up, except that’s not what it felt like, breaking off-it felt as if he just ever so slowly withdrew his interest so that one day I couldn’t be sure if we were going out any longer. Yes, well, when that happened, and that’s about when I met Clive, I asked for the pictures back and he laughed and said he had copyright, so he must still have them somewhere.”
“Jenny,” interrupted Grace. “Would you like something to eat?”
“Not hungry,” I said, taking a violent slurp of coffee. “I was putting weight on my hips, anyway, before all of this. I don’t think I’m a very sexual woman, actually.” I leaned forward and hissed under my breath: “The earth doesn’t move for me.”
Grace took the coffee cup out of my hand. I noticed I’d left a ring on Clive’s desk. Never mind. I’d put that wonder polish on it later and it would vanish, like magic. I’d clean all the windows too, so that it would look as if there was no barrier at all between me and the outside world.
“That’s not what I wanted to say, though, except she keeps on asking about my sex life. I’ve made a list of men who I think act oddly towards me.” I waved it at them. “It’s rather long, I must say. But I’ve put asterisks by the side of the oddest ones, to help you.” I squinted at the list. My writing was rather erratic this morning, or maybe I was just too tired to see straight, except I didn’t feel tired.
Stadler took the list out of my hand.
“Can I have a cigarette?” I asked him. “I know you smoke, even though you don’t smoke in front of me, because I’ve watched you out of the window. I watch you, you know, Detective Inspector Stadler. I watch you and you watch me.”
He took a packet out of his pocket, took out two cigarettes and lit both, then handed me one. It felt oddly intimate, and I jumped away from him and giggled.
“Clive’s friends are odd,” I said, coughing extravagantly. The ground swam when I took a puff, and my eyes watered. “They look respectable, but I bet they all have affairs, or want to have them. Men are like animals in a zoo. They have to be put into cages in order to keep them from running all over the place. Women are the zookeepers. That’s what marriage is, don’t you think, we try and tame them. So maybe it’s like a circus, not a zoo. Oh, I don’t know.
“I tried to think of everyone who had come to this house, even those people who weren’t in my address book or date book. I don’t know where to start. Obviously there’s all the men working in the garden and in the house. Everybody knows the way that sort of men behave. But to be honest it’s the same everywhere I go. I mean everywhere. When I see the fathers at Harry’s nursery school, or when I’ve gone into Josh’s computer club. There are some pretty odd fish there. And… there was something else I was going to say.”
Grace laid a hand on my shoulder.