Happiness existed in a world she didn’t feel close to, even though she had separated from the one that had buried her for so long. She’d try not to go back, for all this couldn’t be for nothing. On her own, a certain amount of happiness would come from being in control both of herself and of the peace this gave – except that he had bruised her to make sure she would come back.
Frosty breath floated like smoke from the mouths of cows. A tractor and its plough crawled on the brown earth of a field that sloped to the close horizon. A cloud of white birds shifted behind. God was in the oil of the tractor and on the wings of every bird, as well as in the separate vapour from each placid animal. She felt the warmth of their breathing. Perhaps God did exist, since she had made her move and could not explain what else had finally given her the courage to act. She pictured Him living below the ocean, under pebbles and soil at the exact middle of the land, a God of this earth only who directed billions of lives and held the fate of everyone in His power.
On her way through town she had taken four hundred pounds out of their joint account, a poor sort of golden handshake when there was so much more (in his name only) in deposit accounts and building societies and insurance schemes and national savings. He told her little about such amounts that were put away in all kinds of places. At the beginning of their marriage she had known how much there was to the penny, but for a long time she had been uninterested, out of pride and laziness. There was also the house and car, and a catalogue of other items which by rights were half hers. But the money she had drawn was merely the retirement fund from an untenable situation, a bit to tide you over when you lit off in a demented escape without saying a proper farewell. There was also sixty pounds in her purse, cash he had kept in an old cigarette tin under a shoe box at the back of the wardrobe, as well as various rings and a watch which might be good for a meal or two.
The bank manager looked from a half-open door. The girl who took her cheque went to see if she had as much in her account. She had it twice over. It was no business of the girl’s, who checked because she was new at her job and didn’t know her as the others did. Maybe the manager was looking at someone else. He smiled before closing his door.
How many fields were there in England? There must be somebody alive who knew. They jumped hedges, rolled up hills, were sucked into cuttings, darkened into nothing by woods and tunnels. They opened like fans, and were split by full meandering streams, pure fields of green, ploughed, half ploughed, scrubbed meadows and clattering patchwork by the window as if they would come in and cover her.
The door slid open.
‘Coffee, madam?’
He held a tray of sandwiches and drinks, and had come to laugh. He was tall, had fair crinkly hair that was somewhat long at the neck but went back in a vee at the front. There was nothing to do but look at him, and he didn’t mind, being fresh at the face and grey-eyed like a cat. His smile was friendly, and his appearance scattered the thoughts which she was glad to be rid of. He looked at her as if she were a younger woman, though perhaps it was his way with all customers, men and women alike.
‘Have you got any tea?’
‘Certainly, madam.’ She thought he added: ‘For you there’s whatever you fancy,’ but she could not be sure, because the train became noisier. He was cheeky, but she was safe, and smiled at him.
Too hot to hold, she set the cup on the hand-sized table. He clacked the door shut and went to other compartments, leaving her to wonder if George would come after her on the next train. Perhaps of a sudden at work he had driven home in a sweat to find out whether she had hanged herself or left him. He would speed at a hundred miles an hour down the motorway and wait by the ticket barrier at St Pancras. Like many men who didn’t care what you thought, he could be intuitively correct when his mind was put to it. ‘Got you, you whore!’
Let him say it. If he was there she would kill him. No mistake this time. He might say such things, but she had never been with another man since they had got married, though he might have carried on with women for all she knew. The fact that she didn’t care had harassed him beyond endurance, robbed him of his manhood, one might almost say. But that sort of game had never appealed to her, though she had known some couples play, using it perhaps as a station on the road to divorce, where most of them had ended up – happier no doubt than she was who in her deadbeat way had chosen another and maybe worse method of getting clear.
He wouldn’t meet her in London, would not even know she had gone till he got home, when she would be lost to him. She wasn’t an animal to be hunted. However much he searched he would never find her, because the world was a big enough jungle for anybody to hide in.
Most of her life she had lived in a small corner of one that had smothered her nevertheless. When he was away on business for a night she could recollect her dreams next day. But when he lay in bed by her side he fed off them all night long, and no matter how much she strove to recall them she hardly ever could.
On a restless night she might ask if he was awake, and get out of bed at sensing that he was, knowing it wouldn’t matter if he were disturbed by her movement. If he hadn’t been awake she wouldn’t have asked. In the morning she might wake him, so that he could then get up by himself and leave her sleeping for half an hour in warmth and peace. But when she got up in the middle of the night it was because something in a dream which she couldn’t remember wouldn’t let her sleep. So she would go downstairs and make tea. On her way into the toilet she realized that he had been awake for some time and waiting for her to get up, because he called out cheerfully: ‘Bring me a cup of tea as well, duck.’ At the shock of his voice she felt cheated. Though not lazy, he was a man who expected her to serve him in everything.
When he scratched himself in bed it felt as if he were trying to saw himself in half. If he succeeded there would be two of him to prey on her. He seemed at times to live in her skin, exerting such pressure that she began to know when her period was coming on because he got so moody. Otherwise she might not have known till the blood flowed. She longed for the day when its onset would take her by surprise. Freedom would be hers. She would feel blood on her thighs, and run into the nearest shop in a fever of embarrassment to buy a box of tampons, then hope to find a place to staunch the flow before going on her way.
The countryside went by in broad ribbons as the train cut a way at furious speed the nearer it got to London. Would she die if she opened the door and threw herself out? The thought was a hook that pulled at her stomach. She felt sick with alarm, and her effort to get rid of it was helped by the sight of the attendant who had come to collect her cup, his smile as grand as ever. He saw the reflection of her bruised face as the train went through a cutting, and was aware of her anguish. I bumped into something. Didn’t see it coming. Too bloody feeble. My husband clocked me one, she would say. That wouldn’t do, either. Maybe it would be best to say, with tears in her eyes: When my boy friend asked me to go away with him and I said no, he hit me. That might be better, though it was no bloody business of his or anybody else’s.
‘Looks as if we’re going to have good weather in London.’
He didn’t wait for her response. He would go home to his wife and children, and they would be happy to see him. She was sure he had photographs in his wallet, and after five minutes conversation with any stranger would flip them out like credit cards and give a long explanation about each one.