Alligator Playground Read online

  Perhaps better would be to say he wanted out when she was feeling so good that his decision couldn’t possibly be upsetting or, gallant and kind, he could soften her up with a couple of bottles of champagne over dinner, so that she would be too fuzzed to let his announcement worry her.

  Another tactic was to persuade Denise, his girlfriend, to telephone and own up to their affair. No, he would lose her as well, because Diana could be very amiable with anybody but him, and he knew what might happen if she got into a confessional mood with another woman.

  He straightened his back with a laugh of self congratulation, ingenuity at last coming up with the very it of everything, his gesture almost knocking the bottle off the table. To strike free of the marriage with the maximum drama and satisfaction he would arrange to be moving his clobber into the car while a dozen guests were arriving for a dinner party that Diana had planned for weeks and sweated hard to make a success. Everybody would expect him to greet them, smiling at Diana’s side, even her crumbly old folks from Sevenoaks. Tom however would pass each person as they came in with: ‘Hello, how are you? So glad to see you,’ but adding with contemptible brightness: ‘I’m not able to shake hands because we’ve just decided to split up, and I’m taking my stuff out of the house before she burns it.’

  Norman Bakewell, wearing a Greek fisherman’s sweater and a sea captain’s hat, glass in one hand and a steaming cigar in the other, swayed over from the bar. ‘Why don’t you just clear off, clandestinely, as it were, and take a flat somewhere? Don’t contact her for a few weeks so that she’ll be worried to death about the housekeeping money. I did it once. Works wonders.’

  Whatever Tom decided, he had been too long in the waters of the alligator playground to let Norman influence him anymore. ‘Oh, belt up, you cherry-headed old fart.’

  ‘Do it, though,’ Bakewell insisted. He wanted to understand peoples’ anguish, as a writer must, and see into the heart of everyone, especially when halfway through a chapter. All the same, he existed in a fog of comprehension, his barbed advice coming from concentrated pain, which he described in such language as he hoped would be amusing to read. ‘Put my finger on it, did I? A man is only thinking of one thing if he lingers so long over his grog.’

  ‘Why don’t you fall down,’ Tom said, ‘and leave me alone?’

  ‘I can’t. Won’t, rather. And you know why? It’s because I like to see a real live publisher suffer. Most of them I can’t, because they’re just a computer stuck in an airtight underground bunker, clicking and flicking in different coloured lights, and I’m no longer strong enough to lift a sledge hammer.’ He put down a lily-white hand to support himself at the table. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I let a fart tickle its way out, as even the Devil must.’

  Tom decided to laugh rather than throw up. ‘Go home to your little wifey and wash the dishes. Then she’ll let you write me a novel, you old fraud.’

  Barbara Whissendine at the next table was talking to Emmy Brites about her new novel, and Norman’s blast of wind brought a glare of disgust from both.

  ‘I wrote one last night,’ he said, ‘and burned it this morning. I’d got as far as the third draft, but it wasn’t wicked enough.’

  Tom laughed. ‘Too kind to me, was it? Tell me, though, Norman, why are you such a dreadful old sinner?’

  He finished drinking, and jelly-rolled his words. ‘Don’t know, old boy. Suppose it’s I want to come across God one day and see how someone does it who’s better at it than me.’

  ‘Got to go, anyhow.’ Tom didn’t want to strike a match for his cigarette in case he and his most profitable author blew up in a composite explosion that destroyed the club. He just hoped he would have the necessary sleight of hand to get his key in the car door.

  ‘Marriage is the best system yet devised that halfway works,’ Norman went on, as if he had been wound up and still had some distance to go. ‘It’s a factory for suffering, the only heavy industry left in the country after Thatcher. The alternative would be too frequent visits to St Onan’s Well. So don’t despair. Just remember that the first forty years are the worst.’

  A shadow crossed. Thought it was a man, poor chap – or a cow from the field. Corned beef for breakfast. If a meal was waiting (make me laugh again) he would thumbs it down because the chops from lunch were still heavy in his stomach. The wash of booze in his system had fogged the difficulties of his drive, so he would relish an argument about that. On the other hand he dreaded it, but dread was the emotion that brought them on. Stamping on the brakes sent him into a fifty-mile skid along gravel into a flowerbed. She won’t like that, either. Planted them herself, playing Mummy in the garden.

  The porch was illuminated by an automatic alarm system against predators, and Diana, stout and desirable under the floodlight, stood with a levelled twin-barrel twelve bore as if to confirm that he hadn’t exaggerated the extent of their marital difficulties.

  He weaved towards her. ‘I’m Captain Skylight on the nightshift.’ She should be so lucky. ‘So go on, do me a favour.’

  Was it loaded and primed? It was. She had found the keys to the filing cabinet where the shells were stored, but he was too head in the air from drink to be alarmed. If a woman couldn’t scare her husband with a gunful of death what love was left between them?

  She took the cartridges out and put them in her smock pocket – His and Hers.

  His gestures towards her were always abrupt, as if to intimidate and keep her on edge, but among other people he moved with ease and rhythm. In the beamed dining-kitchen he flipped a pair of free-range eggs from their slots in the fridge. Not hungry, but he needed her to feel guilty – or at least remiss – and jerked up the lid of the Aga. ‘A fry-up for you as well?’ Recalling the loaded firearm he added: ‘My love?’

  If she didn’t say what was on her mind the words were wasted, and though on this occasion (as on most, these days) there was much to be said for saying as little as possible, she knew that if she didn’t hear the sound of her own voice she would be dead. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  For two years he had been doing his best to drive her mad, while she had tried to make him sane and responsible. Could anyone get more cross-purposed than that? He had turned her into a mouse by tormenting her with the malice of a cat, knowing that to send someone loopy all you had to do was push them into a state they had never imagined living in.

  The innards of the eggshells slopped onto the hotplate instead of into the pan, causing a necrophiliac stench. She regretted not having squeezed both triggers.

  ‘Sorry, darling.’ He hoped she would respond, with venom or without. Either would be soothing, any words preferable to silence but, when none seemed in the offing, he closed the lid.

  Looking at her with a resentment he couldn’t seriously admit to feeling he ran across the hall and up the stairs, darting from side to side as if, should the malignant part of her stand like magic and point the gun from the landing, he would have a chance of avoiding the lethal spray.

  Seconds after getting into the spare room he was launched down the slipway into an uneasy oblivion.

  Malice was his hunchbacked playmate, and jingle bells his music. He had planned his theatrical set piece all the way back from town, but how much longer could she let the two of them curdle her life? To blame others signified something flawed in oneself, so it was time to pull the chocks clear and run.

  She lit a cigarette and flicked on the kettle to coffee herself up for a couple of precious hours alone. No use trying to sleep. She had loved him from the moment they had crossed glances at Charlotte’s lunch party, but had never imagined that, of the two people he had become, the worst would one day stay in the ascendant. He was on top form as an unkillable romantic whose aim in life was to stifle all that was human in everyone else, and as the closest person to him as far as she knew, she was most in danger from the knives of his Scythian chariot.

  The coffee was good in being bitter, and strong enough to keep her alert. Nothing could wake him, n
ot even the television yackering away, two newsreaders mouthing instead of one because she had worried her way through three large whiskies waiting for him to come home, or waiting to hear from the police that he had spiralled the car and himself round a tree. How otherwise could she have been so insane as to load the gun, when she’d had no intention of turning it on herself ?

  You can work when I’m not here, he often said, but it was impossible because she didn’t know where he was when he wasn’t. His fanciful existence stopped her painting, which was why she’d been tempted to squeeze both triggers. Let someone else do him the favour. Maybe he craved it to avoid turning into an object of pity or hilarity when he took to groping young girls at bus stops in his old age.

  He no longer tried to hide his affairs, the ultimate contempt of the bachelor-husband who lacked the finesse to do as he liked, and at the same time show he cared for whoever he lived with. He needed an absolute dictator to bring him to order, which would mean giving up all her waking and sleeping minutes, and becoming someone else entirely.

  Soil and trees gave off a healthy smell, clean and refreshing in the drizzle. She crossed to the barn – he’d be dead for eight hours so wouldn’t hear the double doors squeak open. She backed in the big old Peugeot, and put down the midway division so as to load all that was hidden under a heap of canvases. He would enjoy the victory of waking up and finding her gone like a thief in the night, but she had come by day and would go by day, not shred the place while he was at the office, like that bitch Angela, or poor pathetic Debbie.

  Back in the kitchen, she swallowed some pills to make sure of a few hours sleep.

  Curtains rattled along the rail, lightening the room enough for her to set a tray by his bed. ‘Darling! It’s nine o’clock, and time to get up.’

  She had checked everything: oranges freshly juiced, a pot of coffee just ground, the last two croissants warm from the bottom oven, a plate of wholemeal toast, home-made apricot jam from the Women’s Institute bazaar, and a block of his favourite Danish unsalted butter. All the way upstairs she had imagined crashing back down with the tray.

  Of course he was suspicious. He was no fool. ‘I was horribly drunk last night. I don’t think my legs stopped till they reached Australia.’

  Her laugh was familiar and friendly, so life was good. ‘I was rather sloshed as well, come to that.’

  He looked all of his late forties, and gaunt while guzzling the juice at one go. ‘I hope we didn’t do or say anything too bad.’

  He was always at his best when recovering from a frightful binge. ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘That’s good, then.’ Crumbs of toast sprayed the duvet. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Saturday,’ as he was well aware. His bile continually drip-fed towards another bout of spite. ‘We must do the provisioning this morning,’ she said. ‘We’ve eaten ourselves to the bone.’

  The one human activity he allowed himself was an occasional call at the supermarket. ‘Keeps me in touch with reality,’ he smiled, ‘to see what the poor have to pay for food.’ He enjoyed doing something halfway companionable, such as pushing the trolley, choosing goodies to eat and, of course, eyeing the women shopping on their own. Dashing back for a few overlooked items she once saw him talking to one at the checkout, though he generally behaved while helping Mummy.

  ‘Ready in half an hour, then.’ He chopped a corner off the butter and laid it on the toast. ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, darling. See you downstairs.’

  He had shaved, and looked his best in jeans, dark blue shirt and cowboy boots, lithe and fit as he walked to the Volvo. Better to leave a bastard, she supposed, than a grovelling wimp who whined every minute about how much he loved you. He sweated out his debaucheries twice a week at the gym, or played squash at the Lansdowne. ‘When I kick the bucket,’ he said, ‘I hope it’ll be sudden. That’s how I want it. A massive no nonsense cardiac arrest in the middle of nowhere, such as a wood, wearing a camouflage jacket so that no one will find me and rush me off to hospital for a quintuple bypass, and give me another six months of miserable life in a wheelchair.’

  Whether he felt such an end in his guts, or was weaving another fantasy, she couldn’t care less. She agreed with the sentiments, but didn’t want to hang around for the big day, preferring to let someone else get kitted out in black.

  Sitting beside her in the car, and fastening the safety belt with care, he wished he hadn’t talked about dying. Last night’s dreams, of serpentine horrors in blood-dripping caverns – not unusual after so much indulgence – swamped over him in spite of the delicious breakfast and Diana’s surprisingly good temper.

  As the cow-speckled fields sleeved by he wondered for the first time in his life whether he ought to make a genuine effort to keep his marriage going, and grow up like she had often implored him to do. They knew each other so well it ought to be easy, and it would certainly be worthwhile. He remembered that after two or three watered whiskies at Christmas her pompous old daddy would maunder with moist eyes about the frugality of wartime living. Well, maybe he was right, and that by comparison she and Tom had everything to eat and drink they could want.

  The house was a monument to ease and convenience, and they had two cars to trundle around in, so should be able to exist without the torment he continually hatched for his apparent amusement, and without all that she brewed up out of a mistaken idea that he didn’t love her. What was the use of being on earth if two people couldn’t make each other happy? ‘You drive, my sweet,’ he said, as if his thoughts had turned into reality, and their new life had already started.

  He was enjoying her affection only by planning to steep her in misery when he found out it was a sham. Perhaps she was wrong, but his behaviour of the last months had reduced her to living his conclusions even before he rammed in the daggers.

  He let her out at the automatic doors and went to top up at the filling station. She hummed a tune and pulled a trolley from the pack. Tom at the pumps felt top of the world enough to let a woman slot in before him. The black attendant smiled when he went to pay. Back at main base, he parked as near the exit as possible. Inside it was easy to pick Diana from the weekend crowds: ultra white shirt, black skirt, cropped hair. The beacon of compatibility beamed him onto her with no problem.

  She had got beyond the veg section for the basics of spuds, and the silage of salad stuff, greens and fruit before he arrived. When the trolley was heaped almost full Tom rearranged it pathologically to order, though it still overflowed. ‘Go and get another from the entrance, darling.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered how many weeks we’d last in a siege,’ he said, ‘or a white-out, after one of these mammoth provisionings.’

  ‘More than most, I expect, with the freezer full.’

  He manoeuvered both trolleys to the fish counter. ‘That’s what I like to think.’ He kissed her on the cheek as if, she thought, knowing what she intended doing, and hoping she wouldn’t. ‘I’d be glad if we got snowed up together this winter,’ he said, ‘with no possibility of me getting to the office. We’d have nothing to do but make love, eat our fill, and drink.’ He scampered forward. ‘Oh, let’s have some of these fat prawns. They look delicious.’

  ‘Be lovely, wouldn’t it?’ A seductive situation, to be snowed in, but she walked on, reaching for rice, farinacery, tins of beans and tomatoes. ‘Don’t make a list,’ he always said. ‘Just get everything.’ But she had come with two or three sheets in her small neat writing, leading as if at the head of a convoy and ticking items off through preserves and cereals, butters and yoghurts and creams, then on to cheeses and bacons, sardines and pickles, Tom following dutifully with both trolleys almost too laden to manage. ‘Station yourself here, love,’ she said, ‘while I go and get soap powders and bleach.’

  He hardened his grip on both handlebars, and positioned himself at the top of an aisle by the cake and bread counter. Alone a few moments, though Diana was still quite close, he found it hard not to take pl
easure in looking over the woman in a tight mauve skirt, and a red blouse buttoned over a bosom which moved sublimely (albeit subtly) as she reached up for two packets of brown rolls. He wondered whether they would fall in love and be happy if she were the last woman on earth. She caught his interest and smiled as he put back the fruit scones which Diana would say they didn’t need if only because he had chosen them.

  She saw from a distance what they wouldn’t have to quarrel about anymore. Imagine finding her attractive, in such garish clothes. He had no colour sense at all. At parties his flirtations brought out stabs of rejection and jealousy, she envying the women, as well as him. She once lied that she was having an affair, hoping he would be stricken, but he smiled and wished her luck. Even a letter on the hall table, as if from a boyfriend, didn’t rile him, and only after three months did he taunt her with having read it.

  Jinking through the crowd made her thighs ache, but she was soon several alleys away. A coagulation of trolleys at all checkouts blocked her escape, till she found one that was closed, and stepped over the chain.

  Since he was still smiling and gesturing to the youngish woman, who was now holding a loaf, she wanted to go back and stay for as long as it took to torment him into the grave. On the other hand it wouldn’t be worthwhile if she had to be with him to make sure he got there.

  The Volvo, easy to pick out by length and luggage rack, started up with the spare key, and she threaded a way to the road between cars still coming in.

  Oh what a beautiful morning to be leaving the valley of salt. No more rain, she yanked the visor down to stop the dazzle on the five miles home. An aunt in Cornwall would give her a room while she found a cottage to rent. Winter was about to begin, with plenty of cheap places for the next six months, and then she would buy a house for herself. Today she’d do the three hundred miles, since tomorrow the inanity of shorter days began, and she didn’t relish the fatigue and peril of driving in the dark.