Secret Smile

CHAPTER 13

The couple who lived in the house in Ealing had hired two skips, and they were already almost full. When I left, I peered into them. Among the jumble of old rugs, chipped plates, broken furniture, I saw a computer that looked quite new, a laser printer, two telephones, a large oil painting of a greyhound, several cookery books, a standard lamp, a wicker basket. I should be used to it by now. I often see people throw away TVs still under guarantee, year-old cookers and perfectly functioning fridges. In my job, we're always ripping out new things and substituting the even newer. Last year's fashions are replaced with this year's. Whole kitchens disappear into skips, bathtubs and beds and cupboards, garden sheds and miles of shelving. Recycling centres are mountains of obsolescence. It gives us extra work, I suppose. The people we do jobs for are always talking about beginning again, as if the stainless steel and glass that we're installing everywhere at the moment won't soon be replaced by old-fashioned, newly trendy wood. Everything comes round again. Every decade falls out of favour and then re-emerges in a slightly different form, like the flares on my trousers, which Bill is always laughing about because they remind him of when he was young in the Seventies.

I surreptitiously reached in and pulled out a cookery book. I'd rescue that at least. Recipes from Spain. I put it in my hold-all, along with my paintbrushes.

At home, Brendan was making a great fuss about washing up a few bowls and Kerry was standing over the stove, stirring something. She looked sticky and irritable.

'We're cooking for you tonight,' she said.

'Thanks.'

I took a beer from the fridge and retreated to the bathroom. What I needed was hot water on the outside of my body and cold alcohol on the inside of my body. I was lying in the bath feeling pleasantly woozy when the door opened and Brendan came in. I sat up abruptly and hunched my knees against my body. As if he were alone, he took a piss into the lavatory which was next to the bath. He zipped himself up, rinsed his hands and turned to me with a smile.

'Excuse me,' I said sharply.

'Yes?' He stood over me.

'Get out.'

'Sorry?'

'Get the fuck out of here. I'm in the bath.'

'You should have locked the door,' he said.

'You know there isn't a lock,' I said.

'There you are, then.'

'And you haven't flushed it. Oh, for God's sake.'

I stood up and reached for a towel. Brendan took it from the rail and held it just out of reach. He was looking at my body. He had a strange expression, a triumphant smirk. He was like a little boy who had never seen a naked woman before.

'Give me the fucking towel, Brendan.'

'It's not as if I haven't seen your naked body before.'

He gave me the towel and I wrapped it around me.

The door opened and Kerry came in. She looked at Brendan and then she looked at me. Her face sharpened with disapproval.

'What's going on?' she asked.

'Miranda didn't lock the door,' Brendan said. 'I didn't know she was in here so I barged in.'

'Oh,' said Kerry, 'I see.' She stared at me and I felt a flush rising up my face. I pulled the towel tighter around me.

'There isn't a lock,' I said, but she didn't seem to take any notice.

'Supper will be ready soon,' she said after a pause. 'Brendan? Can I have a word with you?'

'Ooops,' said Brendan, and gave a wink in my direction. 'Trouble from the missus, eh?'

As I got dressed I told myself that this wouldn't go on for long. I just had to get through it, then I could get on with my life.

Kerry had done all the cooking and Kerry isn't really someone who has ever bothered about food. She had made macaroni cheese with peas and bits of mince added. It was stodgy and too salty. Brendan opened a bottle of red wine with a flourish. Kerry loaded much too much on to my plate. Brendan poured too much wine into my glass. Maybe getting drunk was a good idea. Brendan lifted his glass.

'To the cook,' he said.

'To the cook,' I said, and took a very small sip.

'And to you,' said Kerry, looking at me. 'Our host.'

They both clinked their glasses on mine.

'It's a pleasure,' I said because they seemed to expect me to say something.

'That's good, in the circumstances,' said Brendan.

'What do you mean?'

'There's something we've got to ask you,' said Kerry.

'What?'

'Well, our flat has fallen through.'

Suddenly my face felt like a mask made out of hardened clay.

'What happened? You were about to exchange, for God's sake. You said it would be a matter of days before you could move in.'

'They were pissing us around,' said Brendan.

'In what way?'

'You don't want to hear the details,' he said.

'I do.'

'The main point is that we walked away.'

'You walked away,' said Kerry with sudden sharpness.

'Whatever.' He waved his hand in the air as though that were a trifle. 'I'm afraid that we'll have to trespass on your hospitality for a little more.'

'Why did you walk away?' I persisted.

'Lots of things,' said Brendan.

'Miranda? Is that all right?' said Kerry. 'We feel terrible. We're desperately looking for somewhere else to move to in the meantime.'

'Don't worry about it,' I said drearily.

I didn't say much for the rest of the meal. The food had started to taste like wallpaper paste and it took all my concentration to eat it without vomiting. Kerry made me have a second helping. She had bought a frozen lemon meringue pie for pudding, and I ate half of a small slice and then said I had a headache and I had to go to bed. Was that all right?

When I got to my room I threw the window open and took several deep breaths as if the air in my room were contaminated. I had the most terrible night. I was awake for what seemed like hours making feverish, deranged plans for the future. I could get married to Nick. At around three in the morning, I seriously considered emigrating and started to rank countries according to how far they were from North London. New Zealand seemed especially tempting. This dissolved into a dream in which I was going away and had to catch a train. I had so much to pack that I was never able to escape from my room. Then I was staring into the darkness of my room and wondering if something had woken me up and then I cried out. I couldn't stop myself. I had made out a shape in the semi-darkness and befuddled as I was I could recognize Brendan looking down at me. I fumbled for the light and switched it on.

'What the fuck?' I said.

'Ssshh,' he said.

'Don't "sshh" me,' I hissed, shocked and angry. 'What are you doing?'

'I, er… I was looking for something to read.'

'Get the hell out…'

He sat down on the bed and actually put his hand over my mouth. He leaned down and spoke to me in a whisper.

'Please don't shout,' he said. 'You might wake Kerry. It might look strange.'

I pushed his hand away.

'That's not my problem.'

He smiled and looked around the room as if it were all a bit of a game.

'I think it is, really,' he said.

I pulled the duvet up over my shoulders and forced myself to speak calmly and reasonably.

'Brendan, this is all wrong.'

'You mean about you and me?'

'There is nothing between you and me.'

He shook his head.

'You know, Miranda, I was once looking at you. It was the second time we slept together. I took my clothes off more quickly than you did and got into the bed. This bed. I lay where you're lying now and watched you. When you unclipped your bra, you turned away from me, as if I weren't about to see your naked body, and when you turned round you had a funny little smile on your face. It was beautiful and I wondered if anybody but me had ever noticed it before. You see, I notice things like that and I remember them.'

At that moment in the midst of all the confusion, all my anger and desperation and frustration, I was able to think with an absolute cold clarity. If I had been in love with Brendan, this would have been tender and beautiful. But I wasn't in love with him and I felt physically repulsed. I felt as if he were a parasite that had crawled into my flesh and I couldn't rid myself of him.

'This is quite wrong,' I said. 'You've got to leave.'

'None of this matters,' he said. 'Didn't you hear what I said? There's this secret smile you have. I've seen it. I know you in a way that nobody else does. We share that. Good night, Miranda.'

The next morning I woke and it was like an awful dream I'd emerged from, and then with a lurch I remembered him standing over me and what he had said and that it hadn't been a dream. My mouth felt as if it were full of dry fluff. I had a headache and there was a stabbing sensation behind my eyes. I had a shower, dressed and drank a black coffee. Nobody else was up. Before I left for work, I returned to my bedroom. I looked at the bookshelves, trying to determine by sheer force of concentration whether anything had been moved. I reached for an old novel I had been given as a girl. It's my special emergency hiding place. Tucked inside the book was some money. I counted it out. Seventy-five pounds. I replaced it. I tried to think of something to do. I remembered something I had seen in a film once. I tore a small strip of paper an inch long and maybe a quarter of an inch wide. When I closed the door I wedged the piece of paper in the crack, exactly at the height of the lower hinge. As I left, I asked myself: how can I be living in such a way that I have to do things like that?

It kept coming into my mind all day and I tried and failed to push it away. Partly I regretted having done it because it felt as if I had poured corrosive liquid on to my body and was watching it bubble and steam as it ate away at me. And what good would it do me, whatever I found out? If I found the paper still in place, would that reassure me? If I found it lying on the floor, what would that prove? Kerry might have popped in to borrow my deodorant or run the vacuum cleaner over the floor. But was that what I wanted? Was I looking for ways to become even more angry and suspicious?

When 1 got back to my empty flat and ran to my room, I found something I hadn't even considered. The slip of paper was held fast in the door, but now it was fully a foot higher than where I had left it that morning.