Selfish People Read online

  ‘It’s mega flaky,’ said Bailey, drinking all his wine and starting on Mike’s.

  ‘What? Just what is what?’ shouted Mike.

  ‘That’s another question entirely.’ And Declan handed Leah the fourth joint.

  I’m on the sofa, smoking and thinking, and what did I just think? That I’m myself, I’m Leah and I’m not somebody’s mother or somebody’s wife … I’m here because I’m myself … and the music is through the ceiling and all the furniture and down the street and inside me … it’s dreamy and perfect … ‘What time is it?’ she asked. Mike was going to bed.

  ‘It’s three … in the morning,’ said Declan.

  ‘My God! I really really have to go. I really do!’

  She got as far as the front door. Bailey was there, all brilliant colours and smiling.

  ‘Oh Bailey, I don’t want to go home!’

  ‘Well, don’t then,’ he said.

  She woke up on the sofa. Cold and under a musty-smelling blanket. She rushed into the kitchen. Bailey was making toast. Relaxed and clean in a different outfit. Leah looked at the clock. ‘Oh my God, half-past nine, oh my God!’

  He handed her a cup of tea. Her mouth felt like a furry glove.

  ‘Oh Bailey, what a thing! I’ve never … Al’ll be furious, he’s always furious and today’s bonfire night and I’m selling sausages at the Project …’

  She rang up Al. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry. I just got drunk and fell asleep …’

  ‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been up all night … I rang the police, I rang the hospitals.’

  ‘Oh Al …’

  ‘Couldn’t you have phoned, eh?’

  ‘I did think about it.’ She could hear children crying in the background.

  ‘Yes, your bloody mother is perfectly all right!’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Where the hell are you, anyway?’

  ‘I’m at Declan’s.’

  ‘And who the fuck is Declan?’

  ‘He’s Bailey’s friend.’

  ‘Bailey? Bailey. What, that ponce in the tracksuit?’

  She was about to say he wasn’t a ponce but Al shouted, ‘Oh I see!’ and slammed down the phone.

  In the kitchen Bailey gave her toast and a sympathetic smile. ‘Rough, was it?’

  ‘He thinks … but I didn’t … we didn’t … did we?’

  ‘Drink yer tea.’ She did and ate half a piece of toast and watched him eat four. He did have an incredible appetite.

  ‘Bailey, what shall I do?’

  ‘You’ll be all right.’ And he patted her hand.

  Bonfire night was dreadful. Al didn’t speak to her. She saw Bailey again briefly on Wednesday at the Project.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, feeling flushed. He was in a hurry.

  ‘Mega naffed off. Declan’s mate died and he’s been writing poems ever since.’ And he was gone.

  Now he was watching television with a face like marble. Leah stood up.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ she said to the children. ‘Say goodbye to Bailey.’ She led them into the hall. He was still staring at the telly.

  ‘I’ll see you, Bailey.’

  ‘You probably will.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Al had convinced himself Leah was having an affair with Bailey. The whole business became another thing to row about. They didn’t sleep together, they barely conversed, Al was fed up with his teacher’s course, Leah was fed up with Al and the house was full of mould and crumble. But these things weren’t important. Leah was bonking Bailey. ‘But I’m not,’ she said, quite desperately now. Al came back from college. They pushed tea into the children and put them to bed. Then it all started.

  ‘Did you go down the Project today?’ Leah was tidying up the kitchen. Al was smoking, smoking and watching her.

  ‘Oh yes … for a bit.’ She had her back to him.

  ‘For a bit of what!’ He laughed but there was an underlying hysteria in his voice.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said, rinsing the last plate. ‘I think I’ll go to bed soon.’

  ‘No you won’t.’

  She looked at the window and the stained flowery blind and the wet night behind it. ‘I’m tired,’ she said again. Tired and dry and shrivelled up like an old leaf.

  ‘Why don’t you be honest with me –’ he tried to sound reasonable – ‘then we can deal with it. Why hide it. Why lie all the time?’

  She turned round. He was sitting with his feet on the table, rocking the chair. His hair was all over the place. He was wearing his blue stripy dungarees which were the only clothes he had that Leah liked. In the last two days he had managed to get red paint on them and coffee and tobacco ash.

  ‘You’ll break the chair,’ she said.

  ‘Fuck the chair!’ He looked demonic.

  ‘I go to the Project to work,’ she said in her calmest voice. ‘You know what I do there. I help out in the office. I answer the phone. You know this.’

  He relit his cigarette. He smoked roll-ups and they always went out. ‘You go there to see Bailey. Ponce-bag Mr Sexy Lycra-shorts.’

  ‘Al, I do not.’

  ‘Was he at the Project today? Was he?’

  ‘No … I mean yes … he came in to collect some keys.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘He said nothing? The other week he had you out all night and now he’s saying nothing to you. What do you feel about that?’ He put his feet on the floor and straightened up.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? Nothing? Is that all you can say? Don’t you feel anything? God, you amaze me.’ He tossed his fag-end into the sink and rolled himself another. ‘Your boyfriend’s ignoring you and you feel nothing?’

  ‘I’ve told you this a dozen times. I don’t even know why I did it. I just felt …’

  ‘What? What did you feel? You tell me you feel nothing!’

  How can I explain this? I felt I was myself and I didn’t belong to anybody.

  ‘What?’ he was yelling. And she started to cry because she was tired and it all seemed impossible and where was the end?

  Al hated her crying. He smashed the table and made the cheese dish jump.

  ‘Don’t break it!’ sobbed Leah. There had been too much broken crockery lately.

  ‘Is this all you care about, bits of china? Don’t you care about me?’

  This made her cry more. She could only think about being alone and peaceful. He was storming up and down the room banging his fists on the wall. ‘Tell me!’ he screamed, loud enough to wake up the whole street.

  ‘Tell you what?’ sobbed Leah.

  He stopped. ‘You are so fucking stupid I don’t believe you. Look at you. You’re pathetic. All I want to know, it’s so simple and you can’t answer me, is why did you go off with that … ponce. OK you didn’t bonk him. OK you don’t fancy him …’

  ‘I don’t. He’s got big ears, he’s ugly and stupid.’ She wasn’t looking at Al but at the table and the cheese dish. She had found it in a junk shop and wasn’t it pretty with flowers and gilt. She wanted to pick it up and protect it. ‘Bailey’s thick,’ she said, trying to calm herself. ‘He wears stupid clothes. He’s an idiot.’

  Al relit his cigarette. ‘Then why did you go off with him?’

  She looked at him and his hungry tired face and his matted hair. ‘I felt I wanted something different.’

  ‘Different?’ He picked out the word and inspected it. ‘In what way?’

  ‘From this,’ she said softly. ‘I wanted something different from this.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Goodnight.’ And he walked out of the kitchen and out of the front door. She waited. He was given to storming out and storming back in again, but this time he didn’t. She went upstairs. She felt defeated and insignificant. On the landing was Jo, her eldest child.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’

  ‘He’s gone for a walk. It’s very late. Go back to bed.’ She hated i
t when the children woke up in the middle of a fight. Jo was ten, he was skinny and pale. His pyjamas were too small for him and showed an expanse of bony leg. She wanted him to go away. She opened her bedroom door. ‘Go to bed, dear,’ she said. He looked baffled and half asleep. She felt a pang of pity for him. ‘Be nice to Daddy in the morning.’

  It was Thursday and the last week in November. Leah was in the bath. It was her day at the Project. She stayed in the water until it was quite lukewarm. She wanted to be queen of the fairies in a bubbling stream, but she wasn’t, she was Leah in a mouldy bathroom in Garden Hill.

  She dressed in her brightest clothes. An egg-yellow jumper and pink leggings. She still felt blank. She put on bright pink lipstick and a coral-coloured coat and went outside.

  Garden Hill wasn’t much of a hill and even less of a garden. There were four roads. Garden Hill, at the bottom, Arthur Road, Clarence Road and Walter Road, all named after turn-of-the-century local dignitaries. At the top of the hill were two modern tower blocks also named after forgettable notables. They were built on the site of a large house and gardens demolished in the fifties. Older residents could remember it. A late Victorian heap owned by a successful draper. Around his house terraced rows had crept up right to the garden walls until he was so hemmed in by urban life he sold up and moved elsewhere. There had been an orchard but all this had gone to the tower blocks.

  Looking up the hill Leah could see the blocks in the mist. Ugly grey shapes hanging above the houses of Walter Road. The end of Garden Hill had been bombed in the war and there was now a children’s playground, with four swings and a seesaw. From here, on the other side of the railway line she could see all of Bristol. She looked as she always did. The sky was low and heavy, the buildings were shades of grey and the air, too, felt heavy and damp. She could see her breath and she walked on.

  The road went under the railway line in a sudden steep lunge and from here on it was flat. This was Brewery Lane. It led to the Project past the tyre sales depot and the masons’ yard. Above it was the railway embankment. She walked along past the stone dust and the fumes of burning tyres, then suddenly there was a country hedge and rowan trees. This was the Garden Hill Project.

  It was on four acres of land bordered by Brewery Lane and, on the other side, a huge printing works. It was most unexpected to find a part of the countryside here, but here it was. Twelve years previously a group of local people got fed up with this piece of land earmarked to be a lorry park and they took it over and turned into allotments. Then came the community gardens, the pond and the wildlife area. The Council gave them a grant to make a community centre. When Leah moved to Bristol the Garden Hill Project was bursting with children, old people, plants for sale, vegetables for sale, soup, tea and cakes and sports sessions. Leah worked in the office. She was also on the committee.

  The office was a poky room in the old Brewery building. It was not a nice place to work. Lesley answered the phone, booked the various rooms and typed letters, usually at the same time. Barbara dealt with petty cash and salaries and Debbie worked with the children. The phone rang all day. Staff came in to collect keys, management came in to collect staff and anybody else who had a problem or a query. Today, the cleaner was off sick and several mothers were complaining about a dirty floor in the play centre. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Lesley, ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ and soon everybody in the office was apologising. Lesley and Barbara were working mothers with teenage children. They dressed in smart clothes as if they worked in a proper office and not a badly lit room with wobbly shelves crammed full of files. The women left. Barbara made coffee. The phone rang.

  Then Bailey burst in. ‘The floor ain’t been swept!’ He was furious. Lesley disappeared to the bank; Barbara was suddenly busy with the accounts. This left Leah. He was the last person in the universe she wanted to see.

  ‘I’ve got a class at two and I’m not doing it on that bloody floor!’

  ‘The cleaner’s sick,’ said Leah. Bailey was wearing his best lime green tracksuit. His hair was in a red band. He seemed to fill up the whole room.

  ‘I’m not doing a class on that floor!’

  ‘The cleaner is sick,’ said Leah.

  ‘That’s your fucking problem.’

  Barbara coughed. Bailey wasn’t her favourite person. He made a fuss every week about his pay cheque.

  ‘There is nobody to clean today, we are very short-staffed –’ began Leah.

  ‘Then there’s no bloody class, that’s it, I’m off!’ and he slammed the sports hall keys on the table.

  Oh God, I am so sick of angry men! ‘What do you want me to do, clean the floor for you? I’ll show you where the broom cupboard is.’

  ‘I’m not paid to clean floors!’

  ‘Then you won’t get paid at all. Barbara, Bailey isn’t getting paid today.’

  ‘You can’t do this, I’m on a contract!’

  ‘Yes I can, I’m on the committee!’ They stared at each other. Leah was charged up and raging. ‘This is the way to the broom cupboard,’ she said, and Bailey followed her, slamming the office door.

  The sports hall was a newish building on the other side of the Project. Leah stormed past the café, Bailey still following. People in the café watched them with oh-yes expressions on their faces. ‘This,’ said Leah, pushing open another door, ‘is the broom cupboard.’ It was a small room filled with brushes and mops and various cleaning fluids. They went inside and the door shut behind them.

  ‘This,’ said Leah, ‘is a broom.’ And she handed one to Bailey. He looked at it and held it at arm’s length. He sniffed and patted his hair. He looked so vain and ridiculous she began to giggle.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he snapped.

  ‘Bailey, it’s a broom,’ said Leah.

  ‘So fucking what? And that’s a lightbulb.’

  ‘Oh Bailey.’ She put her hand to her mouth and propped herself up against the wall. She felt quite hysterical. ‘And that’s the floor,’ she said.

  ‘You’re fucking mental, you are.’ He had the broom in one hand; the other was still patting his hair, his stupid red hair. There he was in his vile luminous green tracksuit with a pink stripe down one side and massive trainers with multicoloured laces.

  ‘Bailey, what do you look like?’

  ‘And what do you fucking look like … a liquorice allsort! You do, you bloody do, one of them liquorice allsorts.’ He began to sweep the floor.

  ‘Bailey, stop it!’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to do this.’

  ‘Out there, not in here.’ They were both laughing. He swept up clouds of dust which made them cough as well as laugh. Bailey opened the door. Go on, get out,’ he said and they stumbled into the foyer of the sports hall. ‘I’ve got a lesson,’ he said importantly.

  In the office Barbara was still doing the accounts. ‘That man!’ she said to Leah as she walked in and then, ‘Oh, heavens!’ because Leah’s face was grimy with dust and tear-marked from laughing.

  ‘What on earth happened?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure.’ Leah sat down. She felt shaky all over and completely crazy. Lesley came back from the bank. ‘Has he gone?’ she said, looking anxiously round the office.

  ‘Ask Leah,’ said Barbara.

  ‘What did he do?’ said Lesley, wide eyed because Leah looked deranged.

  ‘He thought it was funny … in the end.’ Leah was quite aware this wasn’t a satisfactory explanation. ‘I think I’d better wash my face.’

  In the loo she splashed herself with cold water. She was still shaky. He was angry, but I didn’t crumble. I changed it. But into what? I’m not sure.

  It was half-past three and the office was closing. Leah was thinking about children and what to have for tea. Barbara left and Lesley; Leah was going to lock up. Bailey came in with the sports hall keys.

  ‘Good lesson?’ asked Leah.

  ‘All right.’ He had showered and his hair was wet. He fiddled with the keys before putting them on t
he table. ‘What you doing tonight?’

  I was thinking about tea and children and Al coming back. ‘There’s a committee meeting.’ She put on her coat and picked up her bag.

  ‘What you doing after the meeting?’ He tapped the table and she looked at his finger, then up his arm and right into his greeny eyes.

  ‘Bailey, I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because … because last time I got into terrible trouble.’ She felt herself blush; she hated talking about Al and her.

  Bailey put his head to one side. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because … he thinks I’m having an affair with you.’

  ‘Well, he’s a dickhead because you’re not.’

  Then the whole business seemed much clearer. ‘I’ll see,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be in the Cambridge. See ya later.’ That was it, he was gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Al came back from college and slumped into a kitchen chair. The children were in the front room watching Blue Peter. Leah was heating up bean soup, which the children hated but if she gave it to them in front of the telly they might eat it.

  ‘Nice day?’ she said to Al.

  He did not look like a person who had had a nice day. ‘They’re bloody sending me to the Blessed Martyrs for teaching practice.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the Blessed Martyrs?’

  ‘It’s Catholic.’

  ‘Is that bad? Do you want some soup?’

  ‘I’m not going to go.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘I’m not going to that place, it’s so uptight. I can’t possibly work there creatively for six weeks … Catholic God and bullshit stuff … nuns – and I have to wear a tie!’ He ate his soup, spilling a large glob of it on to his jumper. He wiped it off with his hand, which he wiped on his knee. ‘I told my tutor, I said, I’m not going to that place, I’m not bloody going.’

  Leah had a vision of her husband as a child screaming, ‘I won’t go to school,’ and now he was a teacher and he still wouldn’t go. It made her smile.

  ‘Oh, you would think it was funny, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘It was something else.’ And she quickly took the children’s bowls to the front room. They were sitting in the dark watching the presenter making an Advent ring out of coat-hangers. They began to eat their soup mechanically.