The clarity of her reflected features would have been seen only as a flat picture when sitting by her dressing-table in what used to be her home, an image pained and drab which she couldn’t bear to look at for long, so that she rarely had to worry about being caught examining herself. A mirror showed what was in your spirit, and there had been nothing more than a mask of indecision hiding what one day, after self-murder or emotional earthquake, might be revealed.
The woodwork around the mirror had been eaten with worm, so she bought a chisel and a screwdriver and, careful not to send any cracks through the silvering behind, eased each piece away. Tall and narrow, it leaned without borders against the wall so that when she stood back her whole form could be seen, enabling her to talk from a distance if anything special came into her mind.
She sometimes saw her son Edward as if he were behind her, sent by George as an emissary to bring her home. Walking through Bayswater he had been coming towards her, or standing on the platform of a bus that turned a corner. He was eighteen, and at college, but in her dreams Edward was eight years old, and talked as if he were herself, and also looked as if he were George, so that she woke with tears on remembering that part of her life. What she had lived could not be taken away, but anguish did not diminish on seeing the first light of another day straining at the window, which could only be pushed back by switching on the light and glancing in the mirror as she passed to brush her teeth at the sink. Change was a poison that had to run its course before healing could begin. But knowing such a thing did not make life easier to bear. Her inability to profit from self-knowledge created a further layer of torment.
She could reflect any person in her mirror, but it was another matter when it came to who was allowed into her dreams. The walls of rooms and corridors glowed with pale intimidating light. Such dreams caused her mind to labour all night long among frightening combinations of people she had known, permutations lacking any logic or reason. The underworld dogs of the past were set on her by George and his family now that they were no longer able to get at her above ground. They came through doorways, or sprang in mayhem from the waves of the sea or the muddy banks of rivers. With changing faces they pursued her towards disaster, so that she woke having bitten hard enough on her finger for blood to show. At breakfast it was impossible to reorganize every move of her night’s dreams.
If George had been unfortunate in meeting her, he had been even more unlucky with the family he had been born into. Perhaps such was the common burden of the self-made man, because having something to fight against gave inordinate resource and strength. It was impossible to get away from his family, but he never ceased trying, while making it obvious that his effort was as much for Pam’s sake as for his own, though she guessed that the process must have started long before meeting her.
They had broken with his brothers on many occasions, and though George felt safer and more at peace she knew that he also regretted the poorer spiritual surroundings in which he found himself. He had sharpened his ambition, and learned that the value of what you strove for was only equalled by the payment you made. Having taught him, she now had to learn the same hard lessons for herself.
George’s family despised his endeavours to become better off, gave their opinion that to say he’d been born would be putting it mildly. Hatched was more like it, for a money-grubbing weasel like him. You couldn’t deny their humour, as they clacked with laughter behind his back. When George first set up the workshop his three brothers got sacked from their jobs and expected him to set them on, to pay them more than his best men yet allow them to boss it over the others and walk around in clean overalls all day doing nothing, as if that was their right, on the cynical assumption that blood was thicker than water.
George, knowing them better than she did, was more afraid of them. They were a woebegone lot, he complained, always glued to the telly or a pint of ale, a rough bunch who knew nothing more than how to live from hand to mouth.
After one severance of contact they made telephone calls while George was at work.
‘Pam?’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Harry.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘I’m ringing to ask if you’ll lend us ten quid. We ain’t got a cent between us.’
‘I haven’t got it. We’ve nothing to spare.’
He waited for her to say something else, but she held back, though it was hard to do so.’
‘Mean bleeder!’ he said at last.
‘What do you want?’
‘Can we come up and watch a film on your colour telly?’
‘No. We’re busy.’
‘We shan’t bother you.’
Pause.
What next? she wondered.
‘You set him against us. Our George was all right till he married you.’
‘You’re off your head. Stop phoning.’
‘Why don’t you help us, then?’
‘We have done. Lots of times. You know we have.’
He lied. ‘You haven’t.’
‘Why don’t you pay us back some of the money that you owe us? It’s about time you did.’
‘I’m out o’ wok. How can I?’
‘Get another job, then. There’s plenty of work these days.’
Silence.
Then he shouted: ‘You’re a rotten whore!’
They knew what to expect from each other. She put the phone down. She dreaded any of them coming to the house, kept the door locked when alone, and never answered the bell if she saw one of them opening the gate. When she and George came back from the cinema one night a stone had been thrown through the front window. He said it was no use calling the police.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure it’s them, that’s why. But if it is, then I’ve got something against ’em now. They might be careful before they do anything else, in case I bring this up as well.’
He knew them better than she did.
They had no curiosity beyond that of wanting to pierce the future and find out what teams would score next Saturday, so that they could fill in the pools form for a sure win before sitting in front of the television to watch the match of the day.
There were better families, and no doubt far worse, but to get beyond the immediate cycle of work, food, shelter and sex wasn’t part of their lives. Their existence was ordered for them, while they imagined themselves independent. Perhaps they enjoyed life more than if they had striven to get on because, unless Alf’s telly popped a valve, or illness clawed Harry down, or the big end went in Bert’s car engine (they all had clapped-out motors in which to rattle around the streets), they were happy enough in their way, which blinded them to what the world might be doing to them, and stopped them saving what money they earned in order to better their lives.
These weren’t the proletarian revolutionary potential that the young man at the WEA had mentioned – if such existed, and she hoped it didn’t – though maybe they would be far worse if someone came along and persuaded them that it was about time they got up and inherited the earth. They had been to prison earlier in their lives, except George, who by a miracle – he admitted – had avoided it.
After the ringing of wedding bells, and the pushing of George’s ring on to her finger, there seemed no reason not to be friendly with his brothers. But all they wanted to do at the reception was eat and get drunk. George told her that this was only natural, but in her anxiety she was afraid of them. Coming back from the toilet after the meal she met Harry in the corridor who would not let her by: ‘Give us a kiss, duck.’
‘No.’