[Phoenix Court 01] - Marked for Life Read online

  Her father was a religious maniac. When he drew pictures for Sam it had always been scenes from the Bible. She never had annuals for Christmas; she was given instead, in annual installments, his masterwork, a lavish comic-strip adaptation of the Old Testament. It was all disasters and fingers pointing out of tempests. Her mother hid the carefully bound volumes each Boxing day, in case they gave Sam nightmares.

  They still did and, when her father was dying, during her early teens, Sam found herself digging out the complete cycle of his work to read to him as he lay in the back parlour, coughing. The wallpaper was peppered with large red roses. Blood clots, she thought, retched up in the night. When she reread the captions of his comic strip and described to him the pictures (his eyesight went first) he had meticulously painted years before, she found that the pictures, glimpsed only once by her, each year after Christmas dinner, had been printed indelibly on her memory. She remembered each nuance, each twisted expression, each burning branch. She never knew what her father was dying of, painfully and inexorably; she still didn’t know. When she reread the Old Testament comic strip to him, she found that he had mixed his captions up in places. Here and there, the fervour of his religious convictions had gripped him so hard that he had the wrong people saying the wrong things. Several balloons were attributed to goats or servants, and the hand of the Old Testament God tended, at times, to point in arbitrary directions.

  Peggy never warned her how little time there was. The day he died, Sam was arguing with him about Moses, annoyed by a wasp in the airless room. As she ranted about the burning bush having the lines that the lawgiver ought to have, and her father rattled his final imperatives, she stalked the insect to the windowsill and brought down this particular hardbound volume, crushing it, with a loud bang. Her father expired with a gasp of holy fright.

  Guilt dogged Sam, but not today. When the lift reached the shrouded basement, she hauled the cardboard across the concrete towards the corner where the inert crushing machine bulked. Piece by piece she worked; fastidiously yet rapidly, eventually pushing down her first load and standing back against the railing as the machine screeched into action. Then Bob stepped out of the shadows in his Prussian-blue uniform. He even had his helmet on.

  “In case I get seen by one of your security guards,” he explained as she stroked his blue-black chin. “I can pretend to be on duty down here.”

  The security guards could appear at any time. When Sam had first learned to use the crusher, one had taken to creeping up behind her with handy tips.

  “But I also left it on because I know you like it.”

  He had neglected to shave, because she liked that too. He disengaged and set about making a rough bed against the wall out of cardboard and polythene. Sam resented Mark’s continuous shaving. It was because of his tattoos. Everything went; she had been startled, at first, at the sight of him, one arm raised, peering in the bathroom mirror, seeing to an armpit. Then they took to shaving each other’s legs in the bath, and it had been fun. But now she understood it was all narcissism. Bob had said as much, said Mark sounded queer, really, but Sam had let it drop at that. She found, though, that she resented having a hairless husband. His missing pubic hair weighed especially heavy here. She still felt bewildered and a little odd about that. Who was going to see the markings there anyway? Why had he had them done in the first place? It made him almost like a child and it gave her the horrors sometimes. She thought about the colours growing fainter as he grew erect, like a balloon, then turning brighter again in detumescence.

  So here it was reassuring, it felt real, to have Bob’s hair ground and pressing to her own. She savoured the rasp of their markings of maturity. The cardboard sagged and buckled beneath them, adapting to the shapes they threw on the floor, shoes scraping the dust, raising little clouds. Bob was spread right across her and she luxuriated in the sense of him covering her, a voluptuous, darkly uniformed wrap that worked and worked at her, prising open sections of her clothing with blunt fingers while she pressed herself down on his eager, clumsy prick. It was different, this shocking, abrupt sex with a police officer. When Mark made love to her, she was an object in space, almost free-floating; his possibilities, at their best, seemed endless. Here she was a front, an assemblage of female parts crammed on her back in musty-smelling garbage, for Bob to ease himself into and rummage against. Sometimes she found this preferable, however. She caught the tip of his cock with her hand, guided it into herself and found he altered the rhythm of his thrusts very little. He was nearly oblivious to her; for him she was a tender wall at which he could throw himself, time and again. Quickening his already ridiculous pace, he mistook her anger for excitement.

  The guilt was missing today and she thought that it was the guilt and the thought of being found out that had made this rough, easy sex with Bob worthwhile. There he was, running through and through her, and she had no sense of what that ludicrous organ was doing inside her walls. This pleasure was, perhaps, a numb one; so near, so far. She had a sense of the inside of herself, moist and aching for simply the right touch; and Bob probing uselessly like a cack-handed water diviner, an inept xylomancer, bless him; but he was trying. She imagined the terrible pleasure of being starving, yet not able to eat from a sumptuous buffet. The saliva creeping up your gums’ tidemarks, threatening to spill. Despite herself, she chose to ignore the numb throb of Bob’s workaday fucking and concentrated on the bizarrely tender rustling of his hair.

  He came with a wrenching cry that filled the entire basement, which used to be a fairly sizeable car park. He collapsed to one side, slick hips still juddering to a faint pulse, trapped in his bones as if he were an overheated engine after a strenuous run. His shirttails were glued to his stomach, his eyes shrouded and misty. Sam felt the dusty chill of the basement running right up her cunt, so she hooked free her arms to pull up her knickers. Her fine blade of anger had lost its thrilling edge as a consequence of their swift tumble, and she felt able to deal with its cause. She jabbed Bob back to life and handed him the letter from her blouse pocket.

  “I found this,” she said in a voice she thought was astonishingly clear. “This morning. It came this morning.”

  He struggled up, still panting. She saw his penis retract almost completely inside him as she took the violet notepaper. She stared at the red, rumpled foreskin in its fluffed-up setting of hair and thought, He’s so natural and unspoiled this one.

  BOB HAD CROPPED UP INITIALLY IN THE LINE OF DUTY. SOON AFTER SALLY was proclaimed imminent, Mark vanished.

  They had been at the fair. Sam was driving a dodgem car and Mark was clinging to the rod that stuck out of its back and brushed with the ceiling, showering blue sparks. Sam drove recklessly and unfairly, barging into everyone, even when the proprietor screamed at her to stop. He looked unwashed; a Gypsy type by the look of him, so she took no notice. Mark clung on.

  “We’re pregnant!” Sam howled as they collided with two rough-looking lads in a bright pink car.

  Mark inhaled deeply; burning rubber and undercooked hamburger. A desolate sense of danger overtook him. “Take your fucking foot off the pedal,” he yelled, trying to grab the wheel. “What do you think you’re doing if—”

  She cackled and veered wildly, trying to shrug him off. The steering wheel jammed and they were thrown out of the congested whirl at the centre of the rubber floor, rebounding gently to the side. The motor cut out beneath them. “Look, they’ve stopped our go now.” She cursed, clambering out. He tried to take her arms. She frowned. “That’s you, messing about on the back. They don’t like that.”

  “How can you tell me you’re pregnant when you’re driving a dodgem car?”

  She hopped off the wooden platform, allowing the next lot through. He followed.

  “Have you got no sense of responsibility? What if…I mean, how do you think I feel, being told…?”

  Sam was already in the queue; she wanted to be put in a dark cage and whirled about in the sky, far above everybody’s heads.


  “What are you trying to do?” Mark cried, seizing her hands.

  “I was trying to enjoy myself.”

  “What if you damage…our child?”

  “And what about me, Mark?” she flashed dangerously.

  Mark waited by the rifle range when she went up in the cage. They went up in a group of ten, each strapped into place against a black grating that was silhouetted gruesomely against the murky evening sky when the cage was sent up to revolve, at first slowly, then faster…

  He vomited round the back of the amusements, and played on fruit machines till she had finished. Let her look for me, he thought.

  “Mark, isn’t it?”

  He kept his eyes on the one-armed bandit until the fruits stopped whirling and he knew he hadn’t won anything. He looked around to see a young bloke in a blazer, longish hair, white shirt and jeans. He was very pale. “Yeah?”

  “We…I mean, I’m Vince. We met, um, a while ago, one summer in Darlington. Um.”

  “Oh.”

  They stared at each other blandly, Vince kicking at the grass, which was flattened here inside the hot marquee. He smiled, a little shyly. “What are you doing now?”

  “I’m married,” Mark said. “I’m really happy.”

  “Right.” Vince shrugged. “Well, it’s funny seeing you.”

  “Yeah. A coincidence.”

  “See you around then.” Vince couldn’t resist a parting shot before swanning off. “Have a nice life, love.”

  Mark rested his head against the cool metal of the one-armed bandit. He couldn’t even remember sleeping with that bloke. He remembered his face…but never…but there were all sorts of things that had gone on. He remember certain times, gruff and apologetic encounters in the open air…nothing to warrant abstracted reminiscences like that one, though. That Vince obviously read more into whatever went on. Mark was rueful; tattooed, he couldn’t help standing out. Especially naked; there was no anonymity for him.

  And here was Sam, breaking into his reverie and nausea with a whiff of brandy on her breath and gloating over her triumph. She was surprised at him, making a show of himself, slumped over the amusements. When he looked at her, it was through tears.

  “Listen, the baby’s fine. We’re both fine.”

  “I can’t…it’s the responsibility, Sam…”

  Gently and coaxingly she had lectured him on how he was eminently suited to taking up that responsibility. He knew that already; what he meant was, Sam’s recklessness terrified him. It was almost more than he could take.

  Three days later he disappeared. At first Sam thought it had nothing to do with the baby; she gave him a fraught twenty-four hours and then called the police to list him as a missing person. That was when Bob came to the house to take her statement.

  “He just popped out to the all-night garage for cigarettes,” she began, as they both sipped their tea. She was hugging a cushion to her stomach, she realised; for comfort and practice.

  Bob nodded at her, hung on every word, writing down every scrap she uttered. She was fascinated by his chin and the vivid red of his hands. She could see the white flex of his knuckles working beneath as he scribbled. I’m going off my head, she thought. It’s all too much.

  “You hear this all the time, don’t you?”

  Bob smiled reassuringly. “Every case is different.”

  “No, but the ‘he just popped out’ bit.”

  “Well, it turns up quite often, yes. But how else do people disappear if not by popping out? They never have a fanfare. They all do it quietly.”

  “But you think he’s upped and left me.”

  Bob carefully brought her round to describing her husband and mentioning any distinctive marks he might have. It was ten minutes later when she suddenly burst out, “But he’s got all-over body tattoos! You’re bound to find him!”

  The policeman was young and eager and very considerate. Sam told him about the pregnancy and, as time passed, about Mark’s evident qualms, their story, their song, his bisexuality and her doubts that he could hack it. Bob was appalled.

  “How could he go after anybody else with a beautiful wife like you?” he said, in the high-pitched voice people often put on the denote incredulity. On Sam it worked and she smiled tearfully. “And as for going after—” he shuddered perceptibly—”queers, well, that’s revolting. I shouldn’t say this, but I think you’re well shot of him.”

  Sam was torn. “You think he’s gone off with someone, with some man?”

  Bob shrugged diffidently; a man-of-the-world shrug, a we-see-all-sorts-of-queer-buggers-down-the-station shrug. And here he was, six years later, shrugging at her again as he tucked himself into his trousers and stood up in the basement of the shopping arcade.

  “It’s off some bloke?”

  “It’s off the bloke. The fucking love of my fucking husband’s life—Tony. I thought we’d heard the last. He’s been writing to him the whole time.”

  Bob handed back the letter. Suddenly he looked sick. “You think he’s still…seeing this Tony, on the sly?”

  She snorted. “Hardly. Tony’s in prison, has been since before we were married.”

  She watched what she was saying; not ‘almost at the same time as we were married’. She never told Bob that their getting married in the first place could be attributed to an imprisoning offence of Tony’s.

  “Your fucking husband!” Bob spat. He had met Mark only once, and hated him. Mark had returned after three days of hitching around the country, ‘getting his head together’. He came back filthy and found his wife being comforted by the law. Luckily the law had his clothes back on.

  “I couldn’t have lived if Tony hadn’t been away,” Sam said. “I didn’t think they were in touch. I didn’t even know they let prisoners send letters out into the outside world.”

  Her policeman nodded wisely. “Oh, yes.” He watched her crumple the letter.

  “He’s so vile about me.”

  “Twisted.”

  “Prison must turn them…”

  “Turned from the start, if you ask me.”

  She sighed. “Don’t start on that. I’ve accepted Mark. He’s safe, we’re all safe…if I can accept his…” She gasped; Bob had seized her wrist.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, pet—you don’t get lilac-coloured notepaper and envelopes in prison.”

  “You what?”

  “The bastard’s lying or he’s mad as a bloody hatter—but he’s not in gaol; I’ll tell you that for nowt.”

  EIGHT

  THE WORLD IS VERY SMALL, OR SO IT SEEMED TO IRIS. SHE WAS PEELING vegetables on Christmas Eve. She whittled and rolled a smooth yellow potato round in her hands, until it disappeared almost into nothing.

  These were preparations for tomorrow’s dinner. Tonight they were eating out, but Iris liked to have things ready.

  Yes, it’s all so small and, really, if one puts one’s mind to it, well, anything can be accomplished. We arrive at the states we are in through a simple matter of choice, whether conscious and rational. Her life had been a ragged and bumpy, but ultimately safe, progression towards this point: living happily with Peg in this cosy house on the outskirts of a new town in the northeast. It was a small, ossified and provincial corner of the world, but she had chosen it, she thought.

  The idea of choice is a terrifying one. The roads not taken are dizzyingly profuse. People choose too early if they are lucky enough to panic and choose at all. They pick one turn-off and stick with it.

  Iris liked to think of her style of living as rather like the way she had observed working-class people eating spaghetti. Not teasing out and winding up strands, but using knife and fork to chop it into shreds, then wolfing the whole lot down. Certainly that was the way Mark Kelly had eaten spaghetti, at their last meal together.

  In the end, though, you have to limit yourself. God knows, life imposes its own limitations, but you must make your own, too, so you don’t send yourself bananas in the vertiginous buffet of lifesty
le options. So yes, she could see that she was, in a sense, exiling herself to this place and this life, but she thought that was probably all right. She was happy and she was aware she was limiting herself for the right reasons; she was in love.

  Iris plunked the shaved potatoes one by one into the pan to save them going brown. She gave a self-deprecating chuckle. Still in love; a miracle in itself.

  In this town she behaved as if in exile. She moved through the shopping centre unsure of the language. In the bakery and the newsagents they looked blankly at her because of her accent, which was perceived as posh. Her clothes were old but of good quality. That showed in the way they had worn and were worn. She was a Liberty-print island adrift in a town where people wore shell suits to shop. And yet, originally, Iris’s family had come from this place, had owned a farm on the flat, slightly boggy land where Mark and Sam’s council estate had been built. She ought to feel quite rooted.

  One morning, about a year ago, Iris had taken a walk with Mark and little Sally to a broad patch of waste ground at the back of that estate. The wind whipped the long yellow grasses as she hunted around for evidence of rubble beneath the undergrowth. She gained her bearings from the trees that were still standing and soon found the ragged foundations of the farmhouse, partially collapsed into the mildewed cellar.

  “It’s intact,” she breathed, hands on knees and peering into the hole. She wished she had brought a torch and could explore the dank space where she and her brothers had held hallowe’en parties, ritual sacrifices and pretend opium dens with stolen cigars.

  Keeping Sally back at a safe distance, Mark said, “It’s terrible. Somebody could fall and break their neck in that.”

  Briskly she chopped broccoli and carrots. She had a heavy chopping board and a good knife so sharp it whistled. “Expensive utensils,” she heard Mark say. “You can’t beat the best.” He would say it as a double-edged compliment; he thought her middle-class and complacent, she was sure. Probably because she went on about Florence and Paris, and so on. In conversation sometimes she could feel Mark cringing and wriggling about.