By Flower and Dean Street Read online

  Connie was leaning, elbow on the table, head resting in her hand, precariously. Her eyes were unseeing and the exact purpose of the evening was no longer clear.

  ‘For two,’ said Mark.

  ‘Twenty pound a night,’ shouted Jane.

  Connie heard, quite clearly, another voice say, ‘It’s fourpence a night for the doss house, Liz. Otherwise it’s the casual ward.’

  ‘It’s ten pound each, stupid,’ said Jane.

  The other, a rough, deep Cockney voice, said, ‘If you go in the casual ward you’ve got to stay there two days.’

  ‘You don’t want to try Flower and Dean Street?’ Connie said and her head lurched off her hand. She jerked it up again.

  ‘What?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘In Buck Row it’s mixed. You can sleep two to a bed,’ and Connie giggled.

  They all stared at her. ‘Are you all right?’ Jane asked.

  Connie, suddenly bewildered, tried to laugh. ‘Of course I’m all right.’

  ‘Well, what’s all this two-to-a-bed?’ asked Jane.

  Connie tried to laugh again. ‘Just a joke.’ She poured some wine and her fork fell on the floor. A vague sense of her position as hostess came back to her and she said to Mark, in a loud voice, ‘Congratulations!’

  They were staring at her. Then Jane said firmly, ‘It’s a hell of a price for one night,’ and drew the men’s attention off Connie. ‘I’d rather sit up. Wouldn’t you? Except of course if you’ve got the kids with you. Then no price would be too high.’

  ‘The other night she put the chain on the door,’ Daniel told Mark, quietly.

  ‘Well, that’s not such a bad idea,’ he murmured.

  ‘No. That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t even sleep in a wagon-lit,’ said Jane. ‘It’s either too hot or too cold. It’s always noisy.’

  ‘We’ve lived here for over ten years,’ said Daniel. ‘She loves this house. It was my mother’s house.’

  Connie gulped her wine and poured some more. Her way of drinking became unfamiliar. It was out of control, angular.

  ‘Half the time the back door isn’t locked even when she goes out,’ Daniel said. ‘We’ve got nothing to steal after all.’ He looked at Connie, who was swaying a bit, and winced.

  ‘It may be her nerves,’ muttered Mark. That was a complaint he was familiar with.

  Jane pounced on ‘nerves’. She knew all about ‘nerves’. ‘It is not her nerves. Anyone can see she’s pregnant.’

  The men looked at Jane, astounded. She’d got their attention and she meant to keep it. ‘Women go through funny changes at the beginning of pregnancies.’

  ‘But she’s not been like this before,’ Daniel said, timidly.

  ‘Every pregnancy is different, Daniel. She’ll be all right after the 12th week. Anyway, she wanted another one.’

  Connie was poised between the desire to pour her next drink and oblivion. She stroked her thigh in an inviting way, then looked down sharply.

  ‘What have you dropped?’ asked Jane.

  ‘I touched my dress. It felt rough. Then I look down. I see velvet.’ She hiccoughed.

  ‘They’re lovely flowers,’ said Jane brightly.

  ‘Daniel got them for me. He gets me such lovely presents.’ She emphasised the ‘lovely’ and giggled.

  Daniel clapped a hand over her glass. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘I wish Mark would,’ said Jane. ‘Get presents I mean.’ She hooted with laughter.

  Connie started singing, at first hesitantly.

  ‘Oh, they say I killed a man, so they said.

  Oh, they say I killed a man, so they said.

  For I hit him on the ’ead

  With a bloody great lump of lead

  Damn ‘is eyes.

  Oh they put me —’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Daniel.

  Jane took her arm. ‘What about a bit of air? Come on.’

  Connie wouldn’t move. There was a different expression on her face. She looked — lewd. ‘Pass the bottle, love,’ she said to Mark.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Mark, waving his eyebrows at Jane. ‘We’ll walk back. It’s a fresh night.’

  Connie bawled,

  ‘Oh they put me into quod

  All for killing of that sod.’

  Daniel, aghast, said, ‘Shut up!’

  ‘They did so ‘elp me Gawd

  Damn their eyes.’

  Embarrassed, Jane tried to join in, but she didn’t know the words.

  Connie slumped on to the table, knocking her glass over.

  ‘She did want another one,’ Jane said again.

  Connie murmured. ‘Another new bonnet, pretty one. It cost a sovereign. That’s not a bloody sovereign, you bugger. It’s a church farthing. You polished it up.’

  Mark, hoping to save Daniel further embarrassment, got their coats and waited in the hallway. Daniel opened the front door.

  ‘Just have a pee,’ and Jane ran upstairs.

  Mark hesitated, and then said, ‘Could I see you before the planning permission meeting? I’d like to get the idea across to —’

  Daniel shook his head abruptly. ‘I doubt if I’ll make the meeting. I’ve got the Bryant case all this week and I’m eager to get that derelict area near Lisson Grove used properly. They’re talking about building some damn silly composition football pitch.’

  Connie started singing again.

  ‘She’s got quite a voice,’ said Jane, adjusting her dress.

  Daniel almost shoved them out and then hurried back to the dining room.

  ‘Come on. Bed!’

  ‘Why should I go with you?’ She waved a finger at him. ‘You’ve got me mixed up.’

  Connie lay dizzily in bed, a cold flannel on her forehead, a glass of Alka Seltzer fizzing murderously beside her. She was talking into the phone, and every word had to be dragged up with great effort. David ran round and round the room.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night, Jane. Was I awful?’

  ‘Pretty drunk.’

  ‘I can’t remember a thing. Daniel’s furious. I spilt wine all over the cloth. He had to do every thing — this morning. I couldn’t move.’

  ‘Have you been sick?’

  ‘Not yet. Anyway, say sorry to Mark. It’s not something I’ll do again, believe me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. You’re just not yourself when you’re like that. It’s like being with a different person.’

  7

  Spring was early and Connie moved David’s toys on to the lawn and started preparing her flower borders and vegetable patch. She hadn’t seen Jane for some days and she arrived unexpectedly as Connie was running round the garden with David.

  ‘How’ve you been?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  They sat on the grass.

  ‘It’s such a good day I thought I’d go on the heath.’

  ‘I hope it doesn’t go cold again. It’ll kill everything.’

  ‘I’ve just had another set-to with Mark. I want a deep freeze and a hi-fi. He says we can only have a deep freeze. He’s astonishing. He’s not really mean, just careful, and there’s no reason for it, especially now he’s got the new thing from Daniel. You must come to dinner with us. Daniel’s amazing the speed he gets things done.’ After a pause she asked, ‘Done any more take-offs of the Good Old Days lately?’

  Connie shivered.

  ‘I know Daniel didn’t go much on the coarse bits, but Mark was terribly impressed. I mean, you knew it all through. Where did you learn it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You couldn’t have heard it at boarding school — though on the other hand boarding school is probably just the place you would.’

  ‘That must be it.’

  ‘What would you do about the hi-fi? I feel like just going and getting one.’

  ‘Well, do.’ Connie was preoccupied.

  ‘Don’t you and Daniel ever have rows?’

  She shook her head without thinking. />
  ‘You don’t belong in Hampstead. With a marriage like yours you ought to be living in Golders Green.’

  Connie, wearing her latest dress, yellow, short and backless, stood at the sink. The sound of voices talking and shouting, police whistles, and feet running, started up among the clatter of plates and noise of running water.

  ‘No one came out of Buck’s Row.’

  ‘Some sneaky yid who wouldn’t pay for his fun.’

  ‘She cut up nasty.’

  ‘Come quickly for gawd’s sake. It’s something horrible.’

  She turned off the tap and, almost collapsing, held on to the sink. Around her there were only the ordinary noises of the kitchen. A plate was broken.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ asked Daniel, suddenly behind her. ‘It’s a very appealing number, but I don’t want strawberries and cream getting cold.’ He patted her bare back. ‘Back when I can, Catkin.’

  ‘Don’t go!’

  ‘Oh Connie.’

  ‘Please don’t go. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘What, dear?’

  And then she turned round and he saw her face. The fluorescent strip-light had whited out all colour from it.

  ‘Connie!’

  ‘Being alone. I can’t stand it.’

  In a responsible tone he said, ‘Now look here. You were alone Sunday night and perfectly all right. I’ve got to do my stint at the Neighbourhood Law Centre. I can’t just not go.’

  ‘Not tonight. Please not tonight.’ She started crying.

  ‘You’ll wake the children! Oh Connie, I’m sorry.’ He touched her cheek. ‘Come on, old girl.’ He had no idea how to cope with the situation and he was badly alarmed. ‘You’ll be all right. You’ve got to do some pulling together. Now I’ll only —’

  She shrieked, ‘Someone is trying to kill me!’

  She stood, quite still, appalled at what she’d said.

  ‘Now stop it! Stop it!’ he said, anticipating a storm of hysterics. ‘Stop it!’

  She didn’t move or speak. Slightly reassured, he pulled over a chair and sat her in it. He gave her a drink of water. When she did speak her voice was calm.

  ‘That shadow came back and you wouldn’t see it. It came back even though you moved the box. I showed you but you wouldn’t see.’

  ‘The shadow didn’t change,’ he said.

  ‘You said the box made that arm.’

  ‘I moved the bloody box.’

  ‘The arm came back. It’s there now.’

  Exasperated, he said, ‘I’m going to phone Jane.’

  *

  Jane looked at the shadow and laughed loudly. ‘It’s — it’s — I don’t know what it is. It’s like the blotting paper test they do for your personality. Everyone interprets it differently.’

  ‘But how do you see it?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘A cloud. Oh, I don’t know.’ He was standing close to her, and she was suddenly embarrassed.

  ‘Well, Jane, would you say it looked like a man with his arm raised?’

  She hopped up and down, her body in a turmoil. She almost touched him. ‘Yes, it could be. Yes, now you come to mention it.’

  Downstairs, Connie waited, sullen.

  *

  Jane held Connie’s hand as they sat in the kitchen. She’d just cooked some dinner but Connie wouldn’t touch it. Jane nudged her. ‘Come on. Eat up.’

  The meat looked more meaty than it should. It was sinuous, knotty. Nauseated, Connie pushed the plate away.

  ‘You’re all right,’ said Jane. ‘I mean you’ve got everything.’

  Then Connie heard the sound again. In the distance the child’s voice cried, ‘Watercresses. Four bunches a penny.’

  She looked almost slyly at Jane. Jane hadn’t heard it.

  ‘You’ve got a bloke who’s nuts about you, a super house, good health, lovely kids that you wanted. This is no time to crack up.’

  Daniel came into the kitchen.

  ‘You’re early,’ said Jane brightly.

  ‘I came back.’ He took his coat off and looked at Jane, like a conspirator. Connie was staring at the pepper pot. They watched her for some time. She didn’t blink.

  ‘Eat up, love,’ said Jane.

  It echoed in Connie’s mind. ‘Eat up love or you’ll never go to heaven. Along came Jack and then there were seven.’

  ‘She won’t touch meat,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Then she is pregnant.’ Jane was triumphant.

  ‘No. She isn’t.’ He sighed, and sat at the table and took Connie’s other hand. ‘I’m getting an au pair because I think some of this — a lot of this — is strain.’

  Connie shook her head.

  ‘It can suddenly hit you. You go for years doing the same thing day after day and one day — bang!’

  Jane nodded energetically.

  ‘It isn’t that.’ Her voice was toneless and depressed.

  ‘Well, for Godsake what is it?’ he shouted.

  ‘Oh do leave me alone. It’s just my nerves.’ She shivered and near to tears said, ‘Please leave me alone.’

  Offended, he got up and went out of the kitchen.

  Connie’s eyes filled with tears and she lit a cigarette, her hands trembling. Jane who had never seen her like this, was astonished.

  ‘Come on. It’s not like you. What’s wrong? What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean — it’s voices.’ She sighed deeply. ‘They say things I’ve never heard. Everything changes, just for a moment.’ For once, Jane could think of nothing to say. She’d just realised Connie was nuts.

  ‘I don’t even smell like me.’ She wiped the tears off her cheeks.

  ‘I have a bath every day, yet sometimes I stink.’ She emphasised the word and looked at Jane.

  Jane remembered the perfume, the lovely summery perfume, and was secretly pleased. Then the moment passed, and she asked, quite kindly, ‘What of?’

  ‘Sweat. Nasty sweat. And other things. Sperm. Stale sperm.’ Her voice was pale, resigned.

  ‘What d’you do then?’

  ‘I wash again.’

  ‘Well, use something. A deodorant. No, not a deodorant. Something stronger. An anti-perspirant. You know, one of those you spray on. They last for hours and they’ve got a nice smell.’ She shrieked with laughter ‘Help! We sound like a TV ad.’ Connie smiled. ‘And shave your armpits. If you’re in a nervous state your sweat does smell. So remember — shave.’

  8

  Baffled, his world a hurting, inexplicable mess, Daniel arranged to meet Mark in a local pub after work. Mark as usual looked tired, but not as tired as Daniel. They stood at the bar, and Mark, having turned to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard — an eccentric precaution considering his small voice — mumbled, ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Anything apart from being alone in the house that worries her?’

  ‘Water.’

  ‘Water?’

  ‘Kids in the bath. The other night David — she was washing his hair — came up from under the water and she got a funny feeling he was drowned. She said for a moment he looked dead. Damned job calming her. She won’t let them near the pond at the top of the heath. It’s only two inches deep, for Godsake. She hears things. Said this morning she thinks she’s possessed.’

  ‘You don’t think she could be a — schizophrenic?’

  ‘Is persecution conflict — I mean mania — a part of schizophrenia?’

  ‘Does she have hallucinations? That’s the decisive symptom with schizophrenia.’ He was dimly trying to visualise the shelf of tatty psychiatric paperbacks he’d collected a month after marrying Jane. ‘Withdrawal from reality.’

  ‘Happens to everyone at some time or other,’ said Daniel. He was equally authoritative. ‘Three out of four women go in the bin at least once in their lives.’ He swallowed his beer quickly. ‘The figures may be inaccurate, but you know what I mean.’

  Mark nodded. ‘Change of life.’

  ‘For heavensake! Conn
ie’s a bit young for that.’

  ‘No. I mean, it disturbs them.’

  ‘First it was the doors, then the windows. I’ve had bars and grilles put all over the place. Damned job explaining to the kids. It takes quarter of an hour to lock up at night. Then, sod it, she gets out of bed on some pretext and checks it all. Now it’s the children and water.’

  ‘Symptoms of anxiety change.’ Mark looked at the ceiling. ‘You treat one thing. There’s another. The cause, you see, doesn’t change.’

  ‘You’re talking about an anxiety —’ He paused, fumbling for the name.

  ‘Neurosis?’

  ‘That’ll do. Neurosis. Not schizophrenia.’

  ‘Jane says Connie’s worried about smells.’

  ‘Smells?’

  ‘Body odours.’ Shyly, Mark took a long drink and plunged into the delicate question of underarms and sperm.

  ‘She really said that?’

  ‘The schizophrenia possibility aside, I would have bet it was a —’ A long silence, and then Mark dredged up, ‘phobic illness, if it wasn’t for this revulsion to the smell of semen. That’s important. It indicates sexual — uh — problems.’ He’d just read a thick book on sexual aberrations. He knew all about that.

  ‘She never has had. I mean —’

  ‘They’re deep-rooted. Is her father alive?’

  ‘Why yes. What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘A transference — uh — state is difficult to ... It could be a transference state.’

  Daniel urgently tried to think of an equally illuminating possibility. Mark definitely had the grip on all the good ones. He was deciding between nervous breakdown and premenstrual blues when Mark said, his voice croaking with pleasure, ‘Guilt.’

  ‘Sounds more like transference to me.’

  Mark looked at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘Actually, I’m not that sure what transference is.’

  ‘No. Well, I’m not absolutely certain about that one.’

  ‘I mean I know it’s what a lot of people go to an analyst for. But guilt is quite common. It causes all sorts of — traumas.’

  ‘Yep. Yep.’

  ‘I’ve got a suggestion, a tentative one. It could be suppressed nymphomania.’

  ‘Repressed nymphomania, you mean. The trouble is it could be anything. There’s so many damn things they get. Care for a short?’