Easy Meat

Twenty

Hannah had gone to the smaller of the two Broadway cinemas that afternoon and seen a Tunisian film, The Silences of the Palace; herself and perhaps half a dozen others watching a woman returning from exile to a newly independent country and slowly coming to terms with the demands of present and past. The woman, a singer, among other women for whom silence was the only option. Hannah had sat at the end of one row, close against the wall, trying not to fight against the deliberately slow passing of time, fighting her prejudice against the harsh sounds of Arabic. Gradually, the film had won her over, so that, by the end, she was immersed in its rhythm, and when she left, the voices and the movement in the Café Bar next door seemed relentless and loud. She resented the traffic and the crowds out on the streets. Crossing the end of Clumber Street towards the Old Market Square, she thought she spotted Sheena Snape among a group of half a dozen or so girls, noisily blocking the pavement outside the bank.

There were young men in the square wearing football shirts with black and white stripes, threatening to push one another into the fountain. Hannah maneuvered around them and walked up St. James Street and past the Tales of Robin Hood, heading uphill towards Lenton, where she lived in a terraced Victorian house overlooking a swathe of grass and a children’s playground, a church, and a crown bowling green.

The light was blinking twice on her answerphone.

There were people, she supposed, who could take off their coat, change their shoes, put on the kettle, empty the rubbish, do any number of other things before pressing the button marked “play.” She was not one of them.

The first voice was her father’s, calling from the French village to which he had moved three years before. Now his time was taken up in restoring a crumbling barn with the woman for whom he had left Hannah’s mother, an architectural student and would-be writer almost ten years younger than Hannah herself.

“She’ll leave you, Dad,” Hannah had said, out there to visit last year, the pair of them sitting in the shade while Alexa busied herself inside. “You know that, don’t you?”

He had taken both Hannah’s hands in his and kissed the bridge of her nose. “Of course she will. In time.” He winked. “Just so long as we get this place finished first, eh? Then at least she’ll leave me with a roof over my head to be miserable under.”

On the tape, his voice was robust, happy; happier than she could ever remember him seeming in that commuter town in Kent, in every day on the seven twenty-three, home on the six fifty-four.

Hannah thought the second caller might be her mother, the family symmetry perfect, but it was Joanne, a colleague from work; she had a doubles court booked at the tennis center at ten tomorrow morning and someone had dropped out, did Hannah want to take their place? Hannah thought that she might; she dialed Joanne’s number, but the line was engaged.

She would try later. Now she made the tea and drank it with a slice of coffee-and-almond cake and that day’s Independent. There was a frozen lasagna she could pop into the microwave, the makings of a salad, two piles of folders on the table waiting to be marked. She had treated herself to the new Marge Piercy and it sat, fat and white, on the arm of her chair in the window, asking to be read. The Longings of Women. Ah, yes, Hannah thought, we all know about those.

She was just pouring herself a glass of wine when the phone called her into the other room; certain it would be Joanne, checking about the tennis, she was ill-prepared for her mother’s brittle cheeriness, wanting Hannah’s advice about holidays-walking in Crete or painting water colors at Flatford Mill? Hannah understood it was her mother’s way of saying, see how well I’m surviving, being positive, still turning your father’s desertion into an oasis of opportunity. Go to Crete, Hannah wanted to say, you’re more likely to meet a man. Some swarthy shepherd who will adore your trim, well-articulated body and white skin. As if that were all she-her mother-any of them-needed. The Longings of Women indeed!

Fifteen minutes later, not unkindly, Hannah told her mother there was marking she had to finish, replaced the receiver, and took wine and book upstairs to the bay windowed room which she used as her study and which looked out over the park. She had arranged a wicker armchair stuffed with cushions close against the window and, curtains open, she liked to sit there in the evenings, reading, glancing out at intervals to watch the light fading through the tops of the trees.

Her father had met Alexa in the same year that she had started living with Jim, her second attempt at a stable relationship and, she had been certain, the one which would succeed. Jim’s predecessor, Andrew, had been a volatile Irishman she had met when he was on a sabbatical from Queen’s College, Belfast: a robust, round-faced scholar who wrote long, earnest-and, Hannah now realized, extremely bad-poems about the blackness of peat and the saving grace of the pudendum. Andrew, who on a good day could put an entire bottle of Jameson’s away without blinking, and whose idea of good sex was to push her up against a convenient table and hoist her skirt up around her neck. On the first couple of occasions, though she thought it was politically incorrect to admit it, Hannah had found this distinctly exciting; after that, it had been a case of diminishing returns until all she associated Andrew’s love-making with were sore thighs and bruised hips.

Jim was different: a peripatetic music teacher whom she had first encountered schooling a nervous thirteen-year-old in National Health glasses through the first movement of the Mozart clarinet concerto. Jim had taken Hannah’s musical education in hand, too, had got her to realize there was more to Benjamin Britten than his love affair with Peter Pears and that it was possible to see a day of concerts featuring all six Bartók string quartets as more than an endurance test. They had lain in her bed and listened to Schubert, talking about where they would live when they were married, making up names for their children-Bela and Tasmin had been Jim’s favorites-and laughing about which reed instruments they would learn to play. A little less than two years later, Hannah still found signs of him around the house, a clarinet reed stuffed down behind the cushions of the sofa, the score of Billy Budd among the dusty folders in which she kept her old college lecture notes. Peripatetic had proved to be the word.

At the end of another chapter, Hannah closed the book and stood for a while at the window, gazing out. Lights blinked like fireflies from across the park. Downstairs, she called Joanne and said yes to tennis, picked up a folder of work and put it back down, told herself she shouldn’t really have another glass of wine, and then, after she had poured it, crossed the room to the stereo and rummaged through the piles of CDs which, since Jim’s departure, had resumed their previous disorder. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Rosanne Cash? She thought “Blue Moon with Heartache” might be a little difficult to take. “Shut up and Kiss Me!”, though, that was positive, nothing wrong with that. Maybe she should buy an extra copy and send one to her mum, something to put in her bag for Crete, along with sunblock and a Greek phrase book. Hannah had just set Mary Chapin Carpenter to play when the phone rang again. She nearly decided to ignore it.

“Hello?”

“Hannah?”

“Yes.” She had no idea who it was.

“I didn’t think you’d be there.”

Then why on earth did you call, she thought, still trawling through the file of possibilities. Someone on the staff? A friend of Joanne’s? Her partner for tomorrow? “Who is this?”

“Charlie Resnick, you remember me …”

Of course she remembered. She did now, now she recognized the voice. She could even picture him standing there, bulky, telephone to his ear, his mouth. “And was that why you phoned?” she said, smiling a little. “Because you thought I wouldn’t be here?” She was surprised at how pleased she was that he had.

“No,” he said, and then, “Is it too late for you to meet me for a drink?”

It was only when she put down the phone that Hannah realized she didn’t know exactly where the Polish Club was; she hoped the taxi driver would.

She had changed outfits three times waiting for the cab to arrive, reverting finally to what she had been wearing when Resnick phoned, a soft gray cotton round-neck top over recently washed blue jeans, black shoes, flat and comfortable, on her feet. Front door open, she lifted a stone-colored linen jacket from the coat rack in the hall.

Resnick was waiting for her when she arrived, moving from the shadows at the top of the steps as her taxi drew away.

“You found it okay?”

“The driver did.”

“You’ve been here before?”

Hannah shook her head.

The elderly man with white hair brushed back and a blue blazer, buttons shining, looked up at Resnick as he signed Hannah in, Resnick avoiding the questions in his watery blue eyes.

“Look,” Resnick said; he had stopped her in the hallway beyond the desk, hand barely touching her arm. She was vaguely aware of deep red wallpaper, framed photographs, music from another room. “There are people here I know, I can either introduce you or …”

“Or we can hide in a corner.”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

Hannah smiled back. “I’m not the hiding type.”

Marian Witczak took Hannah’s hand as a doctor might receive a slide on which a rare and potentially dangerous specimen had been prepared. She made the smallest of small talk while Resnick was at the bar and, when he returned, excused herself onto the dance floor. So much for her wanting to see me on the arm of a beautiful woman, Resnick thought.

Hannah accepted the glass of lager and relaxed against the worn leather seat. “When did that finish?” she asked, looking off in the direction Marian had taken.

“What exactly?”

“Your whatever-you’d-call it. Relationship. Affair.”

“With Marian?”

“Uh-huh.”

Resnick shook his head. “It never started.”

Setting down her glass, Hannah smiled. “Well, that explains the welcome, at least.”

They sat and talked for maybe half an hour, respective jobs, contrasting afternoons, Notts County seemingly as foreign to Hannah as Tunisia was to Resnick.

“You never go to the cinema?”

“Not really.”

“I go to Broadway most weeks, I suppose. They show all kinds of stuff. You know, things you’re not likely to see elsewhere, except on Channel Four.”

“Like films from Tunisia.” Resnick smiled.

Hannah nodded. He looked years younger when he did that, the broadening of the mouth, brightening of the eyes.

“You should go,” she said. “They have some good films. They’re not all Tunisian. And besides …”-smiling-“… they serve good food.”

What had it been, she was thinking, the sauce that he had dripped onto his suit and failed to wipe away? Bolognese? Matriciana?

The call for last orders came from behind the bar. They were on their feet when the accordion swayed into the last waltz.

“Should we?” Resnick said, head angled, fingers reaching again for her arm.

“I don’t think so,” Hannah said.

But once outside she slipped her arm through his and suggested they walk a little. He asked her where she lived and she him. At the junction of Sherwood Rise and Gregory Boulevard, a black-and-white cab came towards them with its For Hire light shining and Resnick stepped out into the road, arm raised.

“Oh, God,” said Hannah as he held open the door. “Your place or mine?”

The cab dropped them off at the end of the Promenade. During the short journey they had said little, Resnick aware of Hannah’s proximity, the sleeve of her jacket almost resting on his thigh, the sounds, faint, of her breathing, the way her hands rested in a loose cradle above her lap, fingers barely touching.

“This is it,” she said, her voice, for that moment unnaturally loud.

Resnick nodded: he had reasons for knowing this street. The houses, tall, to the left as they began to walk along the unmade road, little more than a path; to the right, iron railings and an uneven line of bushes and small trees which separated them from the park.

“I’m at the far end,” Hannah said, “the terrace.”

These houses they were going past, lights muted by curtains or filtered through lace, were semi-detached; small gardens at the front, squares of grass bordered by shrubs or flowering plants. Indistinct, the sounds of voices, laughter, television, dinner parties winding down. Resnick exchanged automatic greetings with a man out walking his dog. As they passed the house where Mary Sheppard had lived, something in the pit of his stomach knotted and turned.

When Hannah paused to ease back the gate which led to the few terraced houses at the end, she saw Resnick’s face, pale in the fall of the overhead light.

“What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

It had been a cold night, far colder than this, and Mary Sheppard had been naked to the waist, next to naked below; Resnick remembered her legs partly raised, arms at extreme angles to the body. The officers who had arrived there before Resnick-Lynn Kellogg and Kevin Naylor had been the first-had covered her with a plastic sheet and then covered that with coats taken from inside the house. Resnick had lifted these back, looked at her with a borrowed torch. Her eyes had been open, gazing up, unseeing, at the moon.

He followed Hannah up the short path towards her front door. When she turned, key in hand, it was almost into his arms.

“You are coming in? Coffee? A drink?”

For a moment he hesitated. “Maybe better some other time.” Regretful, the slow shake of the head.

“You’re sure?” She laid her hand on his, the cold hardness of the key, the sudden warmth of her skin. Resnick didn’t move. Hannah was trying to see his face, read the expression in his eyes. After a moment, she turned and slipped the key into the lock, pushed back the door; there was a light burning, warm orange, in the hall. She looked back, then stepped aside as Resnick followed her in.

There was an old fireplace in the living room, decorated tiles at each side, a vase of dried flowers standing before the matte black grate. Postcards stood on the mantelpiece, a small family photograph in a gray-green frame. A two-seater settee pushed up against one wall, two brightly covered armchairs, cushions on the floor. Not knowing where to sit, Resnick stood.

From upstairs he heard the flushing of the toilet, Hannah’s feet upon the stairs

“What’s it to be?” She had taken off her jacket; he noticed, for the first time, two rings, silver with a glint of color, on the outside fingers of her right hand.

“Coffee, tea? There’s a bottle of wine already open. It’s not too bad. Actually, it’s pretty good.” She was smiling with her eyes.

“Wine sounds fine.”

“Okay.” She flapped a hand in the direction of the settee. “Why don’t you sit down? Put on some music if you’d like. I’ll just be a minute.”

Resnick bent over a small pile of CDs beside the stereo in the corner of the room bearing names, mostly female, that he didn’t know. He looked at the cover of the case that was standing empty, presumably what Hannah had been playing when he’d called. Stones in the Road. Resnick thought he knew some of those.

In the square kitchen, pouring wine, Hannah was amazed at the unsteadiness of her hand. Hannah, what the hell’s the matter with you, she asked? And what on earth do you think you’re doing?

“Here.”

He was still standing there, too big for the middle of the room. When he took the glass his fingers burned for an instant against the edge of her hand.

“Why don’t you let me take your coat?”

“It’s okay.” But he put down his glass, shrugged off his suit jacket, and Hannah hung it in the hall, beside her own.

“Please, sit down.”

Hesitating, Resnick took the settee. Not quite able to sit beside him, Hannah sat in the easy chair nearest to the stereo.

“You didn’t see anything you fancied?” she said, indicating the CDs.

“I didn’t know.”

“Not your kind of music, then?”

At last, Resnick smiled. “I’m a jazz man myself, I’m afraid.”

“Well,” Hannah said, reaching round for the controls, “nothing ventured …”

The sounds of a piano, tentative at first, rolled out across the room. Then a woman’s voice, slightly husky, unaccompanied, warm but bare. Why walk, she was singing, when you can fly?

When the other instruments came in behind the vocal, Resnick thought, for a second time that evening, he could hear an accordion. He leaned forward and lifted his glass from the mantelpiece and, without drinking, placed it on the floor beside his feet. Hannah watching him, her lips moving, just faintly, to the words. The space between them seemed a million miles wide, uncrossable. Resnick moved his foot and the glass overturned, spilling wine.

“Oh, shit!”

“It’s okay.” Hannah was on her feet, heading for the door. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry.” Returning with a tea towel in her hand.

“I’m sorry.” Resnick was still sitting there, legs apart, all but empty glass in his hand.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hannah assured him, pressing the cloth hard against the carpet where the wine had spread. “That’s why I bought this color. Nothing shows.”

“It’s my fault for being so clumsy.”

“No, there. See. Nothing. Well,” laughing, “nothing much.” Straightening, she placed her hand on his leg; as she reached her other hand towards his neck, the darkened towel fell away. His mouth was closed against hers and then it was not. Wine on his tongue. Somewhere inside Hannah’s brain she was thinking, I should have waited for “Shut Up and Kiss Me!”, but track six was too far on. Resnick’s knees were tight against her side, his hand in her hair.

“Charlie,” she said, some fifteen minutes later. He had swung one of his legs round onto the settee, and she was half-lying across him, trying not to get a cramp or notice that her hip was rubbing rather painfully against the settee’s sharp edge.

“Mmm?” he mumbled, close against her face. His tie had disappeared and his shirt was mostly undone.

“Come up to bed.”

At the door he stopped her, catching at her hand. “Look, Hannah, are you sure?”

He was startled by the ferocity of her laugh.

“What is it?”

“Sure?” she said. “I don’t know if I can afford to wait that long.”

The bedroom stretched across the top of the house between two sloping roofs. The floorboards had been sanded and polished; two chests of drawers and the wardrobe were in stripped pine. There were two rugs, one at either side of the bed, one white, the other blood red. Plants hung in baskets from the ceiling, fronds pushing up towards the light that, even now, showed through the uncovered skylights, one at each side of the room. In the city it was never quite dark. Hannah would lie there some nights, staring up, vainly searching for stars.

Now she lifted herself up onto one arm and was surprised to find that she was still shaking a little; she had not made love to anyone since Jim and that already seemed longer ago than it was. So strange, the first time with anyone new; after the first blind excitement of caressing and undressing, the clumsiness of finding that fit, the almost stubborn awkwardness of it. She remembered in a film she had seen once-Robert De Niro, was it, and Uma Thurman? — charging at it headlong, a mêlée of arms and legs and sheets that ended up with the pair of them, startled and breathless, on the floor. And, of course, in movies there was never that embarrassing non-conversation about the condoms. Which of you, if either, has them and are they within reach? The answer had been on the upper shelf of the bathroom cabinet, behind the mouth ulcer gel and the spare dental floss, down on the second floor.

She noticed Resnick’s breathing change and thought he might be asleep again, until, fleetingly at first, he opened his eyes.

“What time is it?”

Hannah narrowed her eyes towards the digital clock on the floor. “A quarter to four.”

Resnick eased himself up onto his elbow and lay facing her, this woman he scarcely knew who had invited him into her bed. He felt honored and would have liked to have told her so, but couldn’t quite find the words. He kissed a corner of her mouth instead.

“Do you have to go?”

“I ought to, soon.”

“An early start?”

“Responsibilities.” He smiled. “Cats. And I have to change out of this suit. That suit.” The trousers were somewhere between the bed and the stairs.

“And if you stay the night,” Hannah said, “it might mean something more.”

He looked at her; in this light her eyes were gray-green, stone polished by water. “Might it?”

With a swift movement, she was out from beneath the duvet and on her feet. “We’ll see.”

Resnick watched her walk, barefooted, across the floor; the dark ends of pubic hair visible between her legs before she disappeared behind the door.

In the kitchen they sat and drank tea while the light slowly changed behind the window, Resnick dressed in everything save his suit jacket, Hannah in a T-shirt and chenille dressing gown, dunking stale dark chocolate biscuits, all she had been able to find. How, Hannah thought, had she ever kept chocolate biscuits long enough to go stale? Her self-control must be better than she’d imagined. Until tonight.

Resnick sat listening for the sound of a car engine; the cab company had told him twenty minutes to half an hour. When he heard it on the road near the rear of the house, he quickly swallowed down the last of his tea.

Slippers on her feet, Hannah walked with him along the narrow alley to where the driver was waiting.

“I’m not much good at one-night stands,” she said.

“Neither am I.” He didn’t know if that were true.

She held two of his fingers tight inside her hand. “Then I’ll see you again?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. If that’s what you want.”

On the pavement, he kissed her softly on the mouth and she kissed him back; she watched as the car drew away, out onto the Boulevard, indicator blinking orange light. Well, Hannah, she thought as she turned back towards the house, so the earth didn’t move, what did you expect? At the gate, she laughed lightly. “You didn’t even see stars.”

The phone was ringing when Resnick entered the house.

“Charlie, where the fuck have you been?”

Taken aback by the ferocity in Skelton’s voice, he didn’t know how to respond.

“Where the hell was your bleep?”

There on the hall table; he had forgotten to transfer it into the pocket of his suit.

“What’s happened?” Resnick finally asked.

“Bill Aston,” Skelton said, his voice like sour milk. “He’s dead. Some bastard’s killed him.”