The Face That Must Die

Chapter XXIX

“ Shall we eat vegetarian tonight?” Peter asked.

Cathy knew at once that he was tripping. When he embraced her, his smell had changed. That dismayed her. It was as though he’d become someone she didn’t know – someone who might not want to know her? “All right,” she said dully.

She’d hoped to interest him in homes for sale, and to discuss their budget – some hope, no doubt. Or might the trip have made him more suggestible? It was impossible to tell, for during the meal he insisted on listening to Mozart. He looked relieved, triumphant.

In a lull between movements she said “Is that Fanny?”

Surely she’d heard a vague noise. Perhaps Fanny had come home early. The music scurried brightly. She made to turn it down, but saw his growing unease. Her question must have made him paranoid for some reason. She’d go down later, and knock.

They were washing up when Sue and Anne called. The girls looked timid, anxious not to tarry. Well, that was a relief. “We’re going to stay with some people,” Sue said.

“ We don’t like the house any more. We nearly had a bad trip today.”

Cathy glimpsed Peter’s grimace. She didn’t especially care that he’d taken his trip with the girls: if he had to take the stuff at all, what did it matter who his companions were? But it depressed her that he didn’t want her to know.

When the girls had gone, he turned the record over. All right, she didn’t want to talk either – not to him. A flute and a harp played together, blithe as children. She sat and closed her eyes. She felt exhausted. The music faded as she withdrew into herself in search of peace.

His voice woke her: her name, or some word. “What’s the matter?” she said irritably.

“ You were asleep.”

“ Yes, I know that.” Perhaps he didn’t want to be left alone while he was tripping, but he would never let her doze: he was like a spoilt child who couldn’t bear a moment’s inattention to him.

He gazed at her reproachful stare. “Don’t you want to?”

“ What?”

“ You know.” He gestured at his genitals.

In their lovers’ language they’d had a word for it. Now he resembled a child begging for a sweet. “Do you love me?” she said.

“ Yeah,” he said restlessly, and stood up. “Come on.”

“ No you don’t.”

“ All right then, I fucking don’t. Christ, why do you want to be told all the time? Can’t you feel it?”

“ No.” That was precisely the trouble.

He slumped on the bed. “What the hell. It doesn’t matter.”

She couldn’t talk to him while he was in this condition. Either of them might say something they couldn’t take back, and destroy their marriage. “I’m going out,” she said.

“ Go on then, fuck off.”

She tramped downstairs, dizzy with suppressed emotions. Need she go out in order to talk? She knocked on Fanny’s door. Was that sound the muffled echo of her knock? She pressed her ear against the door, but the silence seemed total; any sounds were inside her head. Suddenly she realised that the time-switch was about to give out. She would never find it in the dark. She ran towards the switch. Footsteps came behind her – her own, resounding. She jabbed the switch and ran down to the porch.

Glancing back from the van, she saw that only her window was lit. It couldn’t have been Fanny, after all. Peter was alone at the top of the emptying house. Well, it was his fault. She drove to the Halliwells’.

Angie read her feelings. “Give Cathy a drink, Frank.”

The alcohol released her speech – not that she needed much persuasion to talk. Talking relieved her, even if they couldn’t help. “I don’t know if it’s worth it. I don’t know if we have a marriage left any more. I don’t know if I want to keep us together because I love him or just because I can’t bear to think of a marriage breaking up.”

“ What seems to be the problem?”

“ Oh, Frank, for heaven’s sake,” said Angie, as though he were displaying typical male insensitivity.

But Cathy hadn’t explained. “All sorts of things,” she said. “He’s been taking drugs.”

Frank tapped his glass. “Well, so are we.”

“ Illegal ones, I mean.”

“ It must be a substitute for something,” Angie said. “I think children would be good for both of you.”

“ We can’t have children till we have a house.”

Frank dawdled over pouring himself a whisky. He kept letting snatches of soda fizz into the glass. Eventually he said “I can’t promise anything.”

Had she asked him to? Cathy blinked at him, bemused. “But I know of some houses that may be going cheap,” he said. “They’re no palaces, mind. They need improvement work. The thing is, there might be a way to get you a loan for the purchase. Someone owes me a favour. Don’t count on it just yet. I don’t want to build up your hopes.”

When she drove home the night seemed mellow. The sodium glow that embraced houses looked like firelight, constant and warm. Was she just heartened by alcohol? Had alcohol made Frank encouraging? No, she was sure he could do what he’d said. He must be able to. She drove slowly, though she was eager to talk to Peter.

She parked. She was more drunk than she’d thought, too much so to have been driving: why, she was seeing a light beyond Fanny’s curtains. She couldn’t focus on it; it seemed dim and mobile. It must be the light from her window, leaking down to Fanny’s. She climbed the emptily reverberating stairs.