She took off her coat, sipped her tea, decided it was too cold, and slopped it down the sink. ‘Even so.’
‘Take a look at her in half an hour, to make sure she’s still sleeping. I’m going out for a while.’
‘You’re used to giving orders, aren’t you?’
‘Not to people like you, thank God.’ He had few charts for this kind of ocean, and what he did have were recklessly out of date.
‘I’ll see to her,’ she said.
That’s what he called for, he told her. ‘The door’s unlocked. I won’t be gone long.’
‘If I think she’s not well, I’ll call a doctor.’
‘I’d expect you to.’
He was past caring, and glad to get into the outside air, as if he too had caught more than a good dose of poison gas.
3
It was chilly on the landing but icy when she closed the door. Pam’s head was below the line of blankets, and there was no sign of breathing.
Judy lit the fire. She put her hand into the warm damp bed. She might wake up with pneumonia. On the other hand she would be all right, though so ashamed at what she had failed to do that she’d try again. They all did. But she would talk the message into the darkness of her pathetic brain that no man is worth extinguishing yourself for.
She sat by the bed, knowing that in herself there was a light that couldn’t be got at any more. It had almost gone out once or twice, but she’d never tried any such suicidal move as this poor thing, having always said she would rather cut a man up than do herself in, or that if she did think to end her misery it would be a better policy to take one with you, so that one of them at least wouldn’t get away with it any more. It was as good a reason as any for killing a male of the species, Phyllida had pointed out, for once unable to resist saying what was on her mind.
She lit a cigarette, and poured coffee from the flask. He had been playing house as well as nurse, and seemed quite good at it. He had never confided in her, nor tried to impress her as a man. Didn’t need to, she supposed. In answer to the question as to whether or not he was married he told her in a tone that didn’t want the matter to turn into a conversation that he was not, and as far as he knew, never would be.
They had remained friendly because he only came to the house every month or two, and regarded her more as a neighbour than a woman which, while proving that he could keep his distance, disappointed her because he was in no way influenced by her as a person. He prized neighbourliness more than he liked women, since he had spent most of his life out of their company. Because he was naturally reticent, it was not difficult for him to treat everyone as his inferiors, though she couldn’t fault his politeness, which was always well developed in those who really knew how to treat inferiors. She could read his bloody mind all right.
His speech and manners, and an ability to say little and still have a will of his own, reminded her of Phyllida. She knew nothing of his background, but assumed he had been to some minor public school and, not being bright enough for university, had been put into the navy by his parents so that at least he would be able to earn a living.
She was sorry for shouting at him, because he had, after all, tried to save someone’s life, in no matter how risky and left-handed a manner. She hated her own big mouth when it gave her no choice in what she really wanted to say. On the other hand such words as came out often had the right effect, and were what she’d hoped to say anyway, though to think so could only be decided by hindsight when she’d seen the effect on whoever was listening.
Being a sensitive person who could not resist allowing her thoughts to speak for her, she also craved the glamour of appearing enigmatic, and had not yet found a way of combining the two desires. Though you could be more than one person at the same time to yourself, it rarely worked with others. She regretted her outspokenness, and the harsh reactions of those who occasionally revealed her to be someone whom she had thought she was not.
Phyllida was quite the opposite, which was why they were able to tolerate each other. Or perhaps the similarities were sufficiently concealed for them to be able to deceive each other that they did not exist. Mutual but loving deception made existence livable, and men were unable to deceive, she had found, and wanted everything their own way. They hadn’t the time, the inclination or the intelligence for it, and they were, in general, too fearful of their own sex and identity. There was a positive side to deception when it was done to enhance a relationship, to build understanding. It became a creative endeavour born of love, and not to be used in a negative way as a weapon or with a view to damage – something you couldn’t trust a man not to use even if he was sensible enough to know about it.
Phyllida, who had taught her to be aware of such nuances, at the same time only spoke when she had something to say. Her talk was seldom interesting, though it might have been more so if she had let it out loudly and with a little of the peripheral junk that cluttered most minds. But she couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. It was too deep to tell. Her speech was prim, measured and, inevitably, to the point. Being well brought up, well controlled, and well trained in her job, she never let go of herself, except at those moments when both choice and intention were taken from her.
Even at nearly forty years of age Judy had not learned how to be other than she was. Wanting to dissimulate and be more controlled, and knowing that she might never achieve it, caused her to appear more irresponsible and passionate than if she didn’t care how she felt. She was occasionally upset by it, though only for a moment or two, because such misery was at least something about herself which she never showed to others.
Either Tom had made the room tidy in his sailor-like way before going out, or Pam had done it as part of wanting those who found her body to realize that even in death she was still a housewife, and who by killing herself had known what she was doing. It wasn’t so. She hadn’t planned anything, must have realized there was someone next door who would find her before it was too late, otherwise she would have done it the night before.
Judy turned from the mirror and walked across the room to pick up a sapphire ring which glinted under the bed. Strips of sticky paper hanging at the window like streamers from a lost election indicated that Pam’s attempt had been more serious than she allowed for. The ring clattered to the middle of the table and lay still. Pam must have chucked it away in a rage before flicking the gas on. It still smelled of the soap she had used to pull it off. Or had she decided to kill herself after thoughtlessly getting rid of it, feeling so vulnerable that nothing else was possible?
Pam turned with a cry to the wall, saying words too garbled to decipher. In her dreams was a dark and frightening barrier. She jerked her legs, and the bedclothes slid towards the floor. Judy pulled them back and covered her, then held her cold pale hand to calm the nightmares, hoping Tom would never come back because it would be nice to sit like this for ever.
She had no work today, and would shop soon with the last couple of pounds till she got the children’s allowance, returning by the market stalls to pick up enough vegetables for a soup, an old stand-by when cash was short. She liked the peace of a room that was not hers, a solitude in which she could reflect intensely because another person was sleeping near by who had far worse problems than her own. She could always get money from her mother in Colchester, but disliked the idea of her father answering the telephone, or moralizing over her letter when he came home from the office. They sent clothes for the children, but she would take nothing else.
She couldn’t believe in what had made her marry the man she did, was astonished and appalled whenever she looked back on it. Every act had been swamped by a thoughtlessness which drew her to the lowest common denominator of what she then imagined her spirit required. The primal aim had been to brush aside all that her family and friends wanted of her, so as to find out exactly what it was she wanted of herself. She wouldn’t let them use her fate for the gratification of their inferior wisdom, and wanted to be free, so without any consideration for them (or for herself, as it turned out) she left university after a year and took a room and job in London. She was too stupid to realize that striving for independence was self-indulgence, and too young to know – which now seemed obvious – that self-indulgence leads only to self-destruction.