would have been here as well if she had stayed and married a man whose only hope of work was down the pit – being bossed about by this woman who had set herself up as their leader.
‘The men are used to the work, and get good money,’ Enid said. ‘It’s the only job they can do, and there’s no other. If many more pits close it’ll be a disaster. Even now, all these villages are dying, and the crime rate’s soared. At one time you could go out without locking your door. We used to police the place ourselves, you might say, but nowadays the young lads break in and tek everything. It goes on all the time.’
‘Enid’s one o’ the best,’ her father whispered. ‘None better. The salt o’ the earth.’ Such phrases suggested matiness, and bigotry, yet she listened, asking the right questions, with words and gestures natural to her. Still feeling a fraud, yet knowing they had more of a case than anybody else, she signed the petition, and gave a tenner for the fighting fund.
Enid told her father he had a lovely daughter, and there were tears of pride in his eyes. He held her hand affectionately by the back door, but let it fall as they went in, for fear her mother would see.
On the third day she said she had to go home and look after Tom, and was as happy to get away as the first time, unable to smile till reaching Doncaster and heading south. To have stayed longer might have turned her back into someone she had always had a horror of being, only feeling what she assumed to be her real self when a tea tray was brought to her table at the hotel in Stamford.
Tom was away in Frankfurt again – or was it Bologna – conferring with publishers about translations, reprints and bestsellers. He was all over the place these days, but would shine in tomorrow, merry and bright before burying himself back in the office.
The melancholy notes of Elgar stopped, and Tom’s voice vibrated at her ribs, as if he had been dead a year and was talking from the other side of heaven or hell, if there were such places, which she wouldn’t believe till she had been there and seen for herself. His tone was low-pitched, and eerily confidential in case someone who shouldn’t be was pressing an ear to the other side of the door.
‘Diana? Tom. It’ll be marvellous. Can’t bear to wait. I know. Have to, won’t I? We both will.’ He gave a sneaky laugh, new to Angela. ‘It’ll be worth it, I know.’
She sat in an armchair, and his voice was clearer. Her flesh felt as if coated with ice. Last night she had been to see a play at Notting Hill Gate. He had come in before her, and complained of exhaustion when she got into bed with nothing on and laid lovingly by him.
‘No, I won’t pick you up. Get a taxi, or a minicab, if you like. All right, a proper black cab. Safer these days. I’ll see you at the check-in. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be there. Who? Norman Bakewell? How did his interview go? Yes, he’s always very good. I’ve never known him not to be, providing he’s interviewed by an attractive woman. You saw him afterwards? What did he say? No, he doesn’t know about us. Nobody does. He is a vile old gossip. Angela? Glad to get rid of me, I expect. How do I know what she does? Of course she doesn’t, so don’t get nervous. I must hang up, though. See you at the check-in. You’ve got your ticket and passport?’ Another sneaky laugh. ‘You’d look a right charlie getting there and finding it was out of date. I’ve heard of it happening. Mine? I check it every morning before brushing my teeth. Can’t wait, either, my darling. Love you. Yes, a lot. Love you, then. ’Bye. All right. ’Bye, love.’
No more voice. She knew she should laugh, but her lips wouldn’t untwist. Like an episode from one of Bakewell’s gloating and cynical books. Well, the next chapter would be hers. The heating was on full but her hands and feet were cold. Maybe an unknown voice would come out of the hissing tape with the gen on how to kill herself. Better still if it told her the best way of doing him in without being found out.
She couldn’t think, so neither was likely, head blocked solid till her eyes were sore. At the end of the Elgar she had needed to go into the bathroom and pee, but didn’t want to anymore. When she did she might squat over those lovely bespoke frilly fronted shirts he was fond of poncing around in.
Diana, he had called her. ‘Diana,’ she said aloud, ‘I’ll fucking Diana her. I’ll dish him, as well. I’ll make the bastards spit tacks.’ The only time he had shed tears was once when she asked him to peel some onions before a dinner party.
TOM TOOK INTO account only the surface features of life, and never went properly into the depths to try and make sense of the turmoil, and bring it under some form of control. In any case, to imagine it would be beneficial or worthwhile or – more important – costeffective, was futile. Wasn’t the dazzle of the surface more attractive than trawling for significance in the stinking slime? Such nitpicking was the work of novelists like Norman Bakewell who, in their hit or miss fashion, manage it fairly well, and make it amusing to read about.
Any answers might be too gloomy to endure, or too bland to respect, and only those without a satisfying life deceived themselves into thinking an explanation could be dragged out of the subconscious (whatever that was) or that any good was to be had from fruitless revelations. And suppose you were telling someone about yourself, who would be interested in self pitying maunderings rather than hearing of bizarre and manly events that made a fascinating story?
Only pathetic and inferior people got involved with the therapy of analysis, or took drugs to blast a way through the obfuscations to a mind that was still as puerile when the dust had blown away. Tom thought that the less he knew about himself the more of a puzzle he would seem to everyone else, and there was much advantage to be gained from that.
After three days of unmitigated sex he travelled back on a different plane to Diana, thus avoiding any taint of suspicion. He left nothing to chance, yet his unthreaded spirit plagued him as he stretched both legs in first-class and poured from a half-bottle of champagne. The stewardess wondered why he laughed, and why he drank so obviously to himself by holding the glass up to her. Poor slob, she thought, he’s put his girlfriend on another flight, and now he has to go home and face his wife.
Tom found it encouraging to believe that whenever he had been to bed with Diana – or whoever else – any young woman within range would be curious about him. It could be that his marriage to Angela had made him an interesting if not near perfect man for other women who, being clever and intuitive, felt it – which thought made him smile as he fastened his safety belt.
Yet things didn’t seem as right as they ought to be, and there were times when he felt timid and insignificant, having nothing, deserving nothing, and existing in an aura of boring mediocrity, an utterly dissatisfied state of mind which no one else was allowed to suspect. To lift himself out of this near fatal fit of corroding worthlessness needed such energy as, when he succeeded, gave him a shark-like and not unsubtle advantage in dealing with anyone at work (and elsewhere) who stood in his way. He never knew the reason for this sudden descent into a bleak landscape, had no indication as to where it was or where it had come from. God-given and God-smitten, was all he could say. Maybe it was the curse of the black dog, which resulted from too much good living, too much hard work, and too much sex.
A glimpse of Hyde Park between the cumulus helped him back to an awareness of the world, making him feel as if London and everyone in it belonged to him. He never travelled with enough luggage to put on the conveyor, so could go through the nothing to declare – but not too quickly in case the Customs people suspected his briefcase to be bulging with crack – and take a taxi straight to the office.
The M4 was blocked as usual, by a lorry that had
