Becoming Strangers (3 page)

The wife would say, just to egg him on, 'Whenever you get a phone call these days it's to say old so-and-so has passed on, makes me glad I gave up my friends years ago, when I married you.'

'Nobody asked you to give up your friends when you married me.'

'Well, we moved to the country, didn't we?'

After the war,' he'd tell her. 'You had the chance for plenty of friendship during the war when I was away.'

She'd not look him in the face then. 'Well, we left London and I never did see Glenys Guthrie again. Nor any of the other girls from the paper mill.'

It provoked him, so he'd stop her from what she was doing and stand in front of her to have it out.

'You wanted to raise the kids in the country, fresh air, you said, and it was me what made it happen with the idea for the nursery. In thirty-odd years I couldn't make anything of it but I stuck with it because it was what you'd said you wanted.'

'I never asked you to stick at it!' she'd cry, getting shrill like she had a whistle stuck in her throat.

They always argued about the past, they couldn't seem to share it.

He could feel his heart pumping just thinking about it. Why did it all matter so much now when it was all too late? As if he was arguing for his life.

'You married a man that stuck at things. Tough luck. Couldn't you have written letters to bleeding Glenys Guthrie?'

'I did,' she'd falter, her bottom lip giving way.

'AN'...SHE ... NEVVAH ... WROTE ... BACK ... TO ... YUH,' his voice went all London when he was at the end of his rope.

'I forgot to put the address in.'

'She'd got other things to think about. We all did. There's me breaking my back in that bloody mud, pulling lettuces no bigger than weeds out the ground hoping to make some money and one thing after another going wrong, and this and that needing fixing or buying new ... Look at me, what have I got out of life?' He'd see that she was about to subside, and then he'd say it again, just to con the both of them that there was something left to fight over. 'Well, what have I got?'

'You've only got yourself to blame!' she'd say, dying down as soon as she'd said it.

Because she'd start with the friends business regularly now, they were at each other's throats nearly every week. He didn't know what was wrong with her, harping on about the same thing. He ought to be able to let it drop, seeing she didn't seem to hear anything he said, but sure enough she'd start up the next week with 'Of course I had to drop my friends.'

'You're losing your marbles,' he said.

And you're going deaf, so that makes us even,' she
retorted and her teeth got in the way of her lips, so quick and so pleased was she with her reply, like when she'd got a word with an 'x' in it when they used to play Scrabble.

The week before they came away, he wouldn't talk to her for three days. Then their younger daughter came by to take some cuttings from the geraniums. What with the others coming for photos and medals and bits of crockery, relics, it was like a museum with a takeaway, he said to his friend Norman.

Nigh on sixty years together and they'd had their share of love, in a practical sort of way, but there'd been hate too. You couldn't tell him that there was any marriage that wasn't equal measures love and hate. That was the way it was and it killed you off in bits and pieces, got you ready for the end, like stewing meat for the pot.

'Put that in your pipe and smoke it,' she'd said and that was one thing he'd noticed lately she did that she didn't do before. She was getting spiteful and triumphant with it. She wasn't content to have the last word; she had to have it twice. That was why he'd headed off to the bar, he'd told her he was going out for a spot of fresh air and some normal company.

'Go on then,' she'd said, 'see if I care. Even if you find someone to talk to, you won't hear them.'

So he'd left her in the room and as soon as he put his foot outside the door he'd felt bad about it, angry with himself and with her, sick of it all. He ought to
have turned about and made it up with her, but it was too late for all of that. Their bad habits would go with them to the grave now.

'She wasn't keen to come, the missus,' he admitted to Jan. 'She's a stay-at-home sort. She's sitting in the room now. Blimey, we might as well be at home. She's got her book and a cup of tea, she's all right. I've always had to drag her along with me to whatever we did. She wasn't always a homebody but she's got worse lately, likes to sit on her arse all day; thinking, she says she is, or reading,' he raised his eyebrows and sighed. 'Always seems as if she's on the same page.'

'I suppose my wife feels that way about me,' Jan said, finishing his drink.

'Oh yes?'

'Sure. I also like my own company.'

'I'm not sure that's the case with the old girl. Sometimes it's hard to get through to someone even if you've known them your whole life. The years seem to make it harder, as a matter of fact. Like you've found thousands of ways to get around them, detours, you know, road closed, follow diversion. Do you know what I mean?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Shall we have another?'

Jan looked at the clock. It was one-thirty. Annemieke would not still be in the spa, she must have decided against joining him. Perhaps she'd found her own lunch.

D
OROTHY
D
AVIS WAS RUBBING HER TOES
through her stocking, perched on the edge of the bed, her bag beside her.

'I don't feel like eating a big dinner now. I had some scraps for lunch. No thanks to you. Got them sent up. Still, if you've made an arrangement we shall have to go and that's that. I'd prefer to have a sandwich in the room. But there's no point in making a fuss then, is there?'

'You won't give in to it, will you,' said George, taking his shirt off and wiping his armpits with it. He laid it beside her on the king-sized hotel bed.

'Open the suitcase, George, you'll find the dirty clothes bag at the top,' she said.

'We're on holiday,' he said, dropping a sweet wrapper into the ashtray on the side table and opening the doors that led on to the balcony, examining the mechanism as he did so. Nice work. He'd helped himself to a handful of the boiled sweets on the reception desk.

'I see from the notes here that everything excepting alcoholic beverages is included in the payment for your stay,' the chignon-haired woman down at reception had told him. Like a doctor's nurse. He'd loosened his grip on the sweets.

Their granddaughter had sprung this holiday on them. She was a thirty-year-old banker who earned a fortune. She sent them gifts from time to time, with incomprehensible notes, like 'Just because' or 'Happy Tuesday.' Now the granddaughter had provided for them their first and last luxury holiday. Left with the brochure between them on the coffee table in their front room, George had trailed a single finger down through the sample buffet menu descriptions. With the gas fire at full tilt and the rain lashing against the windows, he'd read aloud to her from it.

'Fresh oysters, crab, shell-on tiger prawns, filet mignon, seared tuna steaks, a selection of braised root vegetables, herb salads, and organic fresh-picked garden vegetables—these are some of the items you'd expect to find at our buffet bar.'

She'd shivered. 'A goose just walked over my grave,' she'd said, putting her library book aside.

'No goose,' he'd said, deadpan, not looking up, 'but listen to this; typical dishes from our chef Jean Martin's a la carte menu include, boeuf bourgignon, slow-roasted guinea fowl and duck a l'orange. Do they peel the Jaf-fas before they stuff them up their back passages, do you think?'

'It's a sauce.'

'I know that,' he'd said, sighing and shifting his bad leg off the spring-loaded footstool deftly, to avoid the jack-in-the-box retaliation, the smacking of the back of his calf. She'd heard him rattling around in the pantry, purposefully making noises that were bound to alarm her, and on cue—she had fifty-five years' worth of being on cue—she followed him out to the kitchen to help him make his tea.

'Call her,' she'd said to him there, her head round the pantry door, 'give her a ring and say we can't go, on account of your arthritis. She won't have paid for it yet.'

He didn't turn from the shelves, but took his reading glasses from his top pocket to squint at the label on ajar of piccalilli. 'She has. All we got to do is show up.' He handed her the jar and she set it on the side and went to get the cold ham from the fridge. There was nothing more to be said.

And now they were sat here, in this white room with its soft white rugs on a pale stone floor, billowing curtains, and a balcony that overlooked the sea. Strangers to the place, strangers to themselves. With no crossword to do, no post to bring in, no tea to get on, none of the regimented procession of news programming on radio and TV—seven a.m., eleven a.m., one p.m., five p.m., nine p.m. news; the same stories served different ways all day until they were stone-cold, what were they to do?

'See if there's an iron, George,' she asked her husband who was standing, clad in vest and corduroy trousers on the balcony, looking down at the pool below.

'Topless,' he said grimly. She raised her eyebrows.

'And what can you do about it, at your age,' she said, 'you're not the man you were.'

He went into the bathroom with her following. He gave the shower the scrutiny he usually gave to faulty radiators and used cars, checked the head on it and pronounced it safe for her to use if she wanted, but he'd just have a quick wash and brush-up, a quick wipe-over. Dorothy looked in the mirror at the bristle over her permanently puckered mouth. 'Oh Lord,' she said and felt around her cosmetics bag for the lipstick.

There was a knock at the door and a black woman came in, wearing a smart green frock with a pinafore over it, and told them she was going to turn their bed down for the evening. Coming out of the bathroom, Dorothy went over to George, and both of them stood hands at their sides, backs to the wall, waiting for her to finish. They nodded and thanked her, and each noticed the accent of the other move up a tremor or two, posher.

'She's left a couple of chocolates on the pillow,' said George, going to get one. 'They're cold,' he unwrapped one and bit it, 'minty tasting. Do you want yours?'

She shook her head and he went back out to the balcony, leaving her to finish her face.

They got to the bar on the dot of six-thirty, taking a turn round the gardens at twenty past. They found they were pretty much alone apart from the barman. It was George's way to engage staff, anywhere, in chitchat. But the man would not be engaged, neither would he look them in the eye. Dorothy felt her cashmere throw—a birthday gift from the granddaughter—weigh upon her like an ermine mantle in the still heat.

George handed her the special welcome cocktail and removed the tiny paper parasol for her when she poked it up her nostril for the second time. After draining his
glass, he gritted his teeth and frowned, looking out to the sea. He'd been likened to Montgomery, physically.

As other people arrived, couples mostly, Dorothy and George stepped aside to allow them to get to the bar and then stepped back into the same space afterwards. When it was seven exactly, they went to the restaurant.

W
HEN THE WAITER CAME
to take their drinks order, Dorothy was buttering a bread roll and hadn't a clue what to ask for. George pressed her with impatience, thirsty himself.

'Come on, dear, ladies first,' he said heavily, rolling his eyes in the direction of the Caribbean waiter. The fans were spinning and the jazz music was loud, she felt rushed. She'd been thinking of the effort in laying the tables. She gave the buffet the same scrutiny a sportsman gives a game he himself plays. She saw it all in terms of the hours worked, as if it were her own arms that were doused in pineapple juice, as if there were cheese under her fingernails, flour on her slippers.

A sherry,' she said hastily, wishing she could think of the name of a cold drink she liked.

A beer, thank you,' said George with a courteous but clipped smile. She knew he was afraid of waiters. To him, it might have been Saint Peter standing there, judging him.

'You look nice,' he told her.

She was wearing a long-sleeved, long-skirted dress she'd bought for their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

'Oh, this. You remember this. Bought it in Eastbourne with the girls. It's washed up all right, hasn't it,' she smiled, adding, 'you look all poshed up yourself.'

He had his polka-dot braces on over a brown checked shirt and was wearing a lightweight beige jacket he'd needed to get dry-cleaned before they came. He was drumming his fingers on the table, making the fragile vase of flowers skip a little, and craning his head at the double doors.

'I wonder if I should give their room a call,' he said, looking at his watch.

'It's only just gone seven.'

'He wanted to eat at eight, see. But I said, the wife and I prefer to get going at seven if that suits. And he said, all right, but you never know if they've understood, do you?'

'Doesn't he speak English then?' said Dorothy, her lip trembling.

'Oh, yes. He's got a proper accent too, none of the old "zis" and "zat" nonsense.'

'How about his wife?'

'I don't know, haven't met her. She was getting herself a treatment at the spa, he said.'

'Is she young then?'

'He didn't say.'

'Well, how old is he?'

'Don't know. Middle-aged, I suppose.'

'Oh.'

Jan and Annemieke rounded the double doors, side by side, Annemieke placing her hand on his arm as if to guide him. The Belgian man was wearing a sports jacket and chino-type pants, and his wife a waisted dress with beads at the hem and a low-cut flounced neckline. She had been at her make-up palette with fury, put green on her eyelids, dark brown over the sockets of her eyes, a shimmer blush along her pronounced cheekbones. She wore a tawny glittery lipstick, like marmalade congealing.

An old woman!' thought Annemieke, taking a look at Dorothy and turning her face to Jan, hoping to catch his eye so that she could let him know she was not impressed. If she wanted to have supper with old ladies on her holiday she could have gone to see her own mother. 'This is my holiday,' she started to say to herself, preparing a conversation she would be having later.