Greyglass Page 3

  Between Saturday night and Sunday, Susan dreamed of her grandmother, which surely she had never done before.

  Somewhere she must have seen a photograph of her. Perhaps even somewhere in the vegetable house, though she couldn’t recall this, before or while it was eviscerated and cleared. This certainly was how Susan’s grandmother appeared in the dream, in a photographic sepia tone, and young.

  What she was doing, under her light-coloured, piled-up hair, Susan never noticed. Maybe nothing. Maybe she just stood there, young and slender, half-smiling, wide-lambent-eyed.

  “Who’s that? It’s Catherine.”

  In the dream all the name took on meaning for Susan, for she had seen it on a marriage certificate among dusty black boxes of things, as her mother swore and wrestled with the eldritch furniture.

  “Was this her?”

  “What? Yes, yes, that was her. And that was my father. Richard Arlen John Wilde. They were married in 1907.”

  “It says. But that’s her own name.”

  “That was her maiden name. It’s an odd name, isn’t it? She used to be proud of it.”

  So the old woman’s name was not Grandmother, or Susan’s Grandmother, or even Anne’s mother.

  Catherine Greyglass, that had been her name. How strange indeed, for had that been what Susan had been seeing all the time in her eyes, only that, glass – grey glass?

  II

  The summer, four years later, was incredible. Glowing day followed day, under skies of thick stretched blue light. It felt like Italy, or, when the dusty-spicy sunsets came, the edge of Africa in a film.

  In late August, one evening, walking home, and seeing the running honey sunshine reflected high up in the trees of the common, Susan felt that something, not just summer, was coming to an end. And it was.

  “What’s for dinner, Anne?” (Mum and Mummy – both were gone more than a year. “I want to call you Anne.” And, to Anne’s flawless, raised eyebrows, “You’re a person, not just my mother.” Irrefutable compliment. “Yes, all right,” said Anne, and became Anne. Because you couldn’t keep on saying Mummy, after you were fifteen.)

  “Dinner? Hyena on toast.”

  But it was salad. Anne had, for about eighteen months, been leaving her book-keeping job in central London at three-thirty, to beat the rush hour. “I’m indispensable, I’ve got another raise, too. No one can add up nowadays. Not even you.” This was true enough. Susan was sometimes impressively literate, but nearly innumerate, and had failed maths without a backward glance.

  “You don’t want to go back this new term, do you?” Anne had said.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to try Silverguilds?”

  They had looked at each other. When Susan didn’t reply, Anne said, “Art college is fine, Susan. Your Miss Whatsit said Silverguilds would certainly take you, and you could get a grant.”

  Susan shrugged. She was secretly afraid, at sixteen, of the enormous adult world she had always, until recently, hankered after. Its seeming freedoms having gradually, by her own observation, been revealed to her as slavery, a condition of grim responsibility and personal onus childhood had not equipped her for. And she must Work, have a Job. But what? For Susan, she existed. That was the Job. But it wasn’t enough. You had to earn money and take your Place. And surely she was fairly ungifted? You can speak French, they said. It could be got to a higher standard, and you could teach. (This thought was withering.) Susan began to stammer whenever she spoke French in class. Otherwise the art mistress, a long, pear-shaped woman with a wet nose, told Susan she might make a career in commercial art, and so the phantom of Silverguilds had swum into sight. “I won’t get in,” Susan said. Even if she did, art college was just another kind of school. The child’s, if not the adult’s slavery, would go on. Getting up at the crack of dawn in winter, told what to do, given homework, bored, frustrated. Not inarticulate, yet she did not say, could not sort it out to say, only look sullen. Would not enthuse. True to form, Anne ignored her. By August there had been a successful interview, the grant promised, everything settled.

  When the salad was eaten, Susan made coffee. They went on to the balcony to drink it, for this was not the flat of four years previously. Six weeks after the old woman died, they had moved nearer to inner London, and a couple of years after that, moved again, here, an upmarket, three-roomed apartment, with clean white walls and a view.

  It was Friday, and Susan knew Anne was going out again tonight. Then Anne surprised her by saying, “What will you do this evening?”

  “Oh, I’ll play records.”

  “Or,” Anne paused, “why don’t you come with me?”

  “But you’re going out.”

  “Yes.”

  Susan looked at Anne. “But you’re going out with a man.”

  “Yes. And the same one I’ve been seeing for quite a long time.”

  “Oh good.” Embarrassed, accustomed to total exclusion in this quarter, and happy by now with that, Susan felt a prickly unease creep through her body. “So…”

  “So, why not come and meet him.”

  This was unheard of. Unheard of for anyone. One’s mother’s boyfriend.

  “Why?” said Susan. She felt frightened. She often did, now. The fright was never coherent, yet vaguely everywhere, lurking.

  “Why not?”

  “No thanks.”

  “All right.” Anne gazed across at the trees of the common, divided from them only by the wide and noisy, fuming main road, the ashes of the day. “But you’ll be meeting him anyway, Susan. He’s coming to lunch tomorrow.”

  “Well, I can go out. Jo and I were going to look for some shoes –”

  “No, I don’t want you to go out. I want you to stay in. Doll yourself up and make yourself a pretty girl, and meet Wizz.”

  Susan’s mouth opened. A laugh leapt fluttering and cackling out like a demented hen.

  “Yes, it’s a funny name, isn’t it? A nickname. Glad you like it. He calls us Wizz and Wilde, the Unbeatable Duo. Alliteration, the thing you like such a lot.”

  Anne, at nearly forty-six, still kept her pure, scarcely-lined skin, was svelte and glamorous. Her hair was nowadays a shoulder-length, lustrous copper. On her good days, which were many, she looked forty or less. Only first thing in the morning, sometimes last thing at night, did she seem her age, or any real age at all.

  But Susan had still not become herself, and intuitively knew it. She was not pretty. Heavy, and inclined to acne, she hid in her own long fair hair, like a pig in grass. She hated, of course, to be inspected. Preferred to forget her outer case, waiting, in the hope of miraculous change, some science fiction invention that might save her.

  She had never, herself, essayed a boyfriend. No one had been ‘interested’. She had had ‘crushes’ on unattainable beings glimpsed on buses and trains, in films and on TV.

  Her mother was quite another animal, and lived in another world.

  “I can’t make myself pretty.”

  “Yes you can. Wear your blue dress.”

  “I spilled something on it.”

  “Oh for God’s sake. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you, Susan. Listen to me. Things have become serious, between Wizz and me.”

  “Wizz –”

  “Yes, Wizz. Wizz. His real name is Derek. He prefers Wizz. Wouldn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You have to meet him.”

  “Why? He’s yours not mine.”

  “You’re jealous?”

  “Of course I’m not –” Incestuously affronted, Susan felt her face go scarlet.

  “Listen, Susan. No more arguments. You’re going to meet him. It’s important.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to live with him, you stupid child. Are you really so dumb? And there is a chance – a wonderful chance – we may be going to America.”

  “Wh –”

  “Yes, the States. Now what do you say?”

  Told to open the door, Susan stood behind it for
as long as she could. Then of course he rang again. So she opened it wide and tried to smile confidently and in the correct hostess manner. But the smile stuck, keeping her face pulled open in a rictus, like the door. Wizz had amazed her.

  “You must be Sue.”

  “Yes, I’m Susan.”

  “Hi, Sue.”

  He was not American. From the little Anne had said, Susan had half expected him to be. But he had a strong East London accent. That was a surprise too.

  Over the years, very, very occasionally, Susan had caught odd glimpses of the men her mother was dating. They were seen from the front room window, for example, walking Anne home from the bus-stop, or pulling up in a car. Once even, one arrived at the flat when Anne was out with someone else. No one was ‘serious’, but they were all quite presentable, two had even been handsome.

  But Wizz looked like a film star.

  “Can I come in?” Wizz asked, with arch enquiry.

  She let him through, and straggled after him, and saw him go straight into the living room and plaster himself straight up against Anne. The x-certificate kiss left both Anne and Susan speechless.

  “What do you think?” said Anne, that night, when they were alone again. This too was arch – or nervous?

  “He’s very good-looking.”

  “Yes. He’s nine years younger than me. Oh, he knows. What’s nine years? And his clothes are so good. Even his casual wear is smart. He can afford a tailor.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Oh, this and that. He’s with a firm of importers.”

  As one would expect from a film star, Wizz’s teeth blazed white in a mahogany tan. His dark hair had that thick combed lushness. His long narrow eyes were clear, and of a pale arctic blue. His manicured hands were horrible, vulgar, hairy, with thick sausage fingers, one looking lethally constricted by its gold ring.

  His voice got louder during lunch, too, as they drank the wine he had brought. He smoked, and mashed out his fags, Chesterfields, on the plate.

  He acted like a boy. “What’s for pudding, Mummy?” he asked Anne. He said, innocently, of the flowers he had also brought, “Who gave you all those flowers?” Susan hated the stodgy expression ‘pudding’. Where had he picked it up? Why did he need re-thanking for the flowers? He spoke more or less grammatically, but his loud voice mangled the words. Sometimes he donned a fake American accent, like a DJ. He sprawled in the chair, spreading, his lunched waist bulging now he had undone his jacket. He smelled of expensive aftershave and something else.

  He boasted.

  “This guy, right, I’m telling you, we had nothing but trouble with this geezer. So I goes to him, Hey man, I said, Are you going to stop mucking us around or what? And this guy, you’re not going to believe this – this guy says, It’s the delivery boys. I said, And I’ve got fairies at the bottom of my arse.”

  Anne was tight from the wine. Wizz was either tight or drunk. Shut out from this camaraderie of the pissed, as she was from their sexual union, Susan felt older than either of them, impatient and annoyed. And petrified, scared of what they might do next.

  When she sobered up, Anne would realise this man was awful. Evidently, he could never have behaved like this before.

  But no, he must have. She thought he was all right.

  “Okay, ma’am,” said Wizz in a Texan accent. And Anne laughed.

  He made little conversation with Susan. He flashed her white smiles, (toothpicked pristine at the table) and expected, with a touching self-confidence, that Susan must like him. But within half an hour even his extreme looks were turning like eggs. The teeth, so displayed, were too long. His eyes too small. He was too – there.

  Wizz changed things. He never addressed Anne as Anne. When not calling her ma’am or Mummy, he called her Wilde. “Wizz and Wilde,” he said to Susan, “the Unbeatable Duo.” Susan he called, Sue, Suky, Sue-Ellen and once, Suey Fuey.

  “Here, I’ve got to go over there next week. Might have a couple of spare tickets.” He was speaking now of the U.S.A.

  Susan felt sick with terror. She had only felt startled before.

  He saw her face and said, “Never been up in a plane? Flying – nothing to it. Sometimes I do it four, five times a month.”

  “I’m supposed to start at college,” said Susan.

  “College’ll keep.”

  Susan offered to wash up. They let her. As she was running the water, she heard Wizz murmuring and then Anne said, laughing, “No, not now, Wizz.” “We’ll go in your room. She’s not a kid. She knows the score, don’t she?” “Not here.” “Send her out. Send her to buy something. What haven’t you got?”

  Later, when Anne was in the bathroom, he came into the kitchen, which was small, and so he seemed to take up all the space. He looked into cupboards, picked things up and put them down.

  “Well,” he said, “what d’ya think?”

  “Sorry?”

  “About The Trip?” It had two capital T’s.

  Susan mumbled something, trying to placate him. She was afraid they would accidentally touch if he didn’t soon leave the kitchen. His smell was overpowering, aftershave and booze and, somehow, some sort of bad smell she couldn’t identify, for he was immaculate.

  Afterwards, she could not, must not say to Anne, “He smelled funny.” Anne was fastidious and choosy. And she liked him. She slept with him, even if she wouldn’t do it in the flat when Susan was there. So… it must be Susan’s imagination, the faint stench.

  When she had finished the washing up, Susan had to go back to the balcony, where they were both now sitting in the sun.

  “How about I take both my girls for a ride?”

  Wizz was including Susan, trying to make her adult and important, attractive, valuable enough to be a possession: my girls. Susan smiled wanly. “You go. It’s all right.” As if tactfully giving up a treat so the lovers could let rip.

  She thought Anne would argue, insist. But Anne only laughed. So they went. From the window, Susan saw Anne and Wizz (Wizz and Wilde) drive off the flat forecourt in his big, expensive, gleaming car. It was three o’clock. Anne came back at midnight, alone. “That car is so comfortable. That’s the fifth car he’s had since I’ve known him. He’s always changing them.”

  “What does his firm import?” Susan asked in desperation; obviously they had to talk on and on about Wizz.

  “I don’t know. Everything, I think.”

  “How did you meet?” Trying to be interested, to please Anne.

  “Oh that.” Anne, taking off with cold cream her cosmetics, what Wizz had left of them, paused. “He came into the office. There was some kind of palaver about something. I wasn’t really listening. Mr V got in his usual flap. Then… he came and leaned over my desk.”

  In the stories Wizz had told, stories which never seemed to have a beginning or any real ending, the other characters were always making excuses, crawling – in a flap, like Mr V.

  “What did he say? Did he just ask you out?”

  “He just said, Are you free for dinner tonight? I said, No, I can’t. He said, Tomorrow then. I said, Yes.”

  The flat had smelled on and on of Wizz after he left, despite the summer-wide windows. A stagnant odour, like old plant water.

  They had had cocktails, apparently, at the Waldorf. And probably, Susan thought, gone up to a bedroom.

  “I’ll write to Silverguilds. You can start the course a week or so late. It won’t hurt.”

  “No, I don’t want to go.”

  “Don’t be silly. Not go – to the States! I haven’t been abroad since I was in my twenties. Never America. I can’t wait. Of course we’ll go. Thank God I got the passport situation sorted out last month. There, you see, you’ve even got a passport. That’s a thrill isn’t it?”

  “I don’t –”

  “Air travel is nothing. It’s easy. They won’t expect us to fly the plane ourselves.”

  “It’s just –”

  “Susan, listen to me. Soon he may be going to live
over there. Indefinitely. And he wants me to live with him, and I want to, Susan. Oh God, do I. I’d get shot of this flat. No rent to find. He’d see to visas, everything.”

  Susan felt her carefully knit expression cracking into sections, which slipped from her and lay along the floor.

  “Don’t pull that face. What’s the matter with you? It’s a glorious, wonderful chance. Christ, Susan, what’s here that’s so special? Silverguilds? You’ve never shown much enthusiasm.” Susan found to her own shock that she started to cry. “Stop it. Stop it, Susan. I don’t want to spend the rest of my bloody days in this dump, breathing in car fumes, working in some hole-in-the-corner job. I want to see some action.” A phrase Wizz might have used? “New York – oh, Susan, you can’t begin to see, can you, it will be so exciting. Any other girl, she’d be crazy to go.”

  “He’s weird,” Susan blurted. “I think he’s a crook – a gangster –”

  “Oh don’t be so ridiculously melodramatic and –”

  “All those men he told us about, saying sorry, sorry, and blaming other people – and he smells.”

  Anne’s face reached a crescendo of rage and burst, unexpectedly – to both of them, it seemed – in a torrent of helpless mirth.

  “Smells? You’re mad, child. Smells of money, yes. Of life. Go to bed for fuck’s sake.”

  And so they parted for the night, Anne laughing, Susan crying.

  In the morning, as usual in the holidays, Anne left for work before Susan woke. Anne had pinned a note on the corkboard in the kitchen, but all it said was, Please get another pint of milk and a large Hovis. Merci.

  Susan showered and dressed rebelliously. She made up rebelliously, painting out her spots by the accustomed method, using a paintbrush and disc of white eye make-up, then applying layers of powder and blusher. Jo had once told Susan she put shadow on her lids like a panda. Anne, though, her mother, never made a criticism like this.

  “It won’t happen,” Susan said to the painted face in the mirror, (make it laugh at that.)

  After she had gone out and bought the milk and bread, and a pound of plums, Susan checked her funds. There seemed quite a lot of money saved from her allowance.