The Girl in the Red Coat

36

DAY 306

The one thing that once I would have said could never happen — happened. Me, Paul, Lucy became friends. More than that, we became close. Paul’s presence as a sexual being disappeared for me completely — the gap as vacant as the one left by Carmel.

‘You look thin,’ Lucy said one night at the weekly meals that had become our habit. The pink petal of her face floated in the steam rising from her bowl of risotto.

‘I’m alright.’

She stood and walked around the table and pushed the spoon into the closed tunnel of my fist and patted my shoulder.

‘There, eat,’ she said. I did — for her. Each week was a blessed touch of civilisation, she did everything properly: home cooking, silver cutlery, napkins.

‘Lovely food.’ Paul smiled across the table at her.

She’d become a mother to us both. I wondered sometimes how she could stand it, whether she’d stick around. I hated thinking of the nights I’d spent eviscerating her around the kitchen table with my friends, my mouth stitching bitter shapes as I talked. The wall-to-wall cream carpets, I’d cackled. The sporty little car. The hair straightened every morning, how mediocre. I’d cracked her open and spilled her over the table, dabbling my fingers in the mess. I bet she’ll have cosmetic surgery. I bet she wears those pads between periods that protect you from your own underwear. I bet she gets her home ideas from celebrity magazines. How would my Paul ever be satisfied with that — my volatile, romantic, outdoors-loving Paul? It wouldn’t last.

Now, my fervent hope was that it would. Lucy was helping to save me, helping me to survive, and the generosity of her actions humbled me weekly.

The same time the following week my appetite was still dormant. Paul was late tonight and I was hoping he wouldn’t bring anyone back with him like he’d done a few times before. I wanted Lucy and Paul to myself, my mummy and brother bear.

‘Where’s Paul?’ I grumbled, cutting up asparagus into tiny slivers in the hope that would ease the transit to my stomach.

‘He’s started properly back at kayaking club — he must have stayed on for a drink. He’ll be here soon. His food will keep.’

‘Kayaking club? Oh no, that means he’ll be bringing people back with him again. I hate it when he does that.’

The sound of Lucy’s spoon rattling down on her plate startled me and I jumped. ‘For God’s sake, Beth. Honestly, you two may as well still be married.’

Her eyes were bright, sparky. I sensed mettle in her I hadn’t seen before and how Paul would be attracted to it. I bowed my head. ‘I’ve taken your generosity too far,’ I said. ‘I should stop coming here like this.’

‘Stop it. No, of course not. It’s not that. We want you here, but living with this is … he has to do things with his life. I know it sounds harsh —’ She was swiping tears away with her napkin now.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Every day just seems like an act of survival and in the morning I have to get up and start all over again. It’s made me selfish, hasn’t it?’

She sighed. ‘I wanted children, you know.’

I was sitting bolt upright now. ‘You shouldn’t let this stop you.’

‘How can I? It would be like I was trying to replace her.’

There were raucous voices in the hall and I stood and started piling plates up. I went round the table and took her plate, repeating in an urgent whisper, before the others burst in, ‘You mustn’t let it stop you.’

Then there were three of them with Paul standing in their socks in the immaculate room, eyes slightly shiny from drink, and their antennae sensing atmosphere.

As I slipped away into the garden I heard, ‘We’re imposing, we won’t stay. You’re in the middle of dinner.’ Then Paul’s protests and them relenting, ‘Go on, just a small one.’

Outside, I was licking the gummy flap down on my cigarette when I heard movement behind me. Childishly, I wanted to kick the leg of the bench I was sitting on. If it couldn’t be just Paul and Lucy I wanted to be alone.

A tall figure came into view. I could see from the orange town lights it was Graham; I’d met him here before.

‘Can I join you?’ There weren’t many who sought out my company these days but still I wished he’d go away.

‘I guess.’

‘I’m after one of your cigarettes actually.’ He folded himself next to me. His beard jutting in profile resembled a carving in the half light.

‘A sneaky smoker?’ I handed him the tobacco.

‘I’m afraid so.’

He began rolling so inexpertly I removed the makings of the ciggie from his hands and rolled him one myself. When it was lit we both sat smoking. I remembered the first time I’d met him he’d chatted to me, told me that he worked as an engineering lecturer in the local tech college, that he’d never married but had a daughter that he saw every other weekend. I didn’t tell him anything about myself, even that I was Paul’s ex-wife. How could I find the words for it all? But the next time we’d met he’d made me laugh and I’d become suddenly offhand. I didn’t want men to make me laugh. I’d excused myself early, afterwards realising there had been something in the humanity of his brown eyes that had overwhelmed me. I couldn’t see them properly tonight in the weak orange light.

‘I’m the mother of the missing girl,’ I blurted out. That’ll see him off, I thought.

‘I know.’

*

When he turned up at my house two days later, I offered him tobacco again.

‘I hate smoking actually; I haven’t done it for twenty years. I wanted an excuse to talk to you. I was nearly sick afterwards.’

He had a tall man’s stoop even when sitting down. His beard, seen in proper light, was dark gold. I went to make tea and stood by the side window, looking out onto the gate, and I felt his presence behind me. The tremor that went through me was sudden, almost painful. I turned and started unbuttoning his shirt, quickly, before I had a chance to change my mind and the feeling that went through me was a warmth so intense I could almost feel the pain in my frozen bones as it splintered them.

Afterwards, I wondered if I’d been trying to save my own skin again — if this was just another way of losing myself. Already my mind was reeling ahead, how I’d have to meet his family eventually, his daughter. The next thing would be eating at each other’s homes, trips out. How one day he might talk about moving in and all the spaces that once held Carmel would get filled up.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, sitting up, ‘I think perhaps this can happen only once.’

‘It’s fine,’ he told me. ‘Don’t explain.’ And, relieved, I lay back down in the crook of his arm, smelling his skin, until we both slept a wonderful deep sleep.