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  ‘Ros told me your girlfriend died.’

  Of course, other people’s tragedies were just cheap, between drinks gossip for Ros. I knew how it was. I even quite liked her despite it all. But it still irritated me. And I wondered who’d told Ros, because she certainly hadn’t been around at the time.

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Even so, that must have been awful... I can’t imagine.’

  ‘It was.’ Strangely though, I found that I could talk about it without emotion. ‘She was on her way back from sleeping with another woman,’ I said.

  She knew. I could tell. I wondered how many more of my personal humiliations were common knowledge among my friends.

  ‘Has it made you prefer being alone?’ she asked.

  Prefer?... A strange word.

  ‘Maybe – it’s safer.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be... Why was she unfaithful?’

  ‘Why’s the sky blue?’

  And why did I bullshit so? Turner threw this question straight back to me where it belonged. ‘God knows darling, something about the light I think... You should know. You’re the photographer... And you haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know... She was scared of commitment I guess... with me at any rate. Maybe I’m not a very interesting person to live with.’

  Turner’s eyes didn’t flinch away from my loneliness and I realised suddenly that I didn’t even feel ashamed about it with her. This was a new feeling for me. It felt almost like an embryonic form of trust.

  Then she almost wrecked it. ‘Some people just aren’t designed for commitment,’ she said, stretching suddenly and disentangling herself from me, just as Corinne would have done.

  Instantly the old barriers slammed down inside me. They cut off a silent scream that went... ‘Well, fuck off then, and don’t patronise me with your understanding!’ I put my hand over my mouth and pretended to be stifling a yawn.

  Turner was standing by the window now, shielding her nakedness behind the curtain as she gazed out over the garden.

  I was sure I’d hidden my anger from her. But she said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and it felt uncannily like she’d read my mind.

  Reassured, a little, by her stillness, I allowed myself to really see her as she stood there, thoughtful, still a little sad, wrestling with whatever it was she needed to put into words.

  ‘I stopped myself being hurt by all that kind of thing when I was very young,’ she said. ‘And I never could find it in me to care what Adam did.’

  Something in her voice told me how awful it must have been to feel so cold. She sounded perplexed and slightly wistful, as if she knew she had missed out on something.

  Then suddenly everything changed... The light; the sounds drifting into the room; something about the way she looked. She was staring down into the garden, distracted, as if she’d caught a half glimpse of something and was trying to locate it again.

  I was beside her in an instant, looking down. The only intruder was the neighbour’s cat, peeing on the flowerbed. I resisted the temptation to hammer on the window.

  ‘Turner?’

  She smiled uncertainly as she folded herself into my arms and kissed me.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I have to go. I want to see you again though. Soon, if possible.’

  Instantly my pride went flying out of the window.

  ‘Name a time.’ I heard myself say, awarding myself instant mistress status... anytime, anywhere, all on her terms. ‘I teach my nightschool group on Thursdays, otherwise I’m all yours.’

  She rewarded me with a smile of such tenderness I figured it was probably worth it.

  ‘Wednesday’, she said. ‘I could meet you from work if you tell me where to come.’ She’d composed herself very quickly. Her voice was soft and very sexy again. Her eyes caressed me, but it was all an act. She wasn’t relaxed anymore, I could tell.

  I gave her the address... ‘Six o’clock?’

  ‘Sure.’ Already she was pulling her dress over her head. She smoothed it down over her hips.

  My mouth was dry. I could still taste her on my lips.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ she said. ‘Now – I’d better use your bathroom before I go.’

  She called goodbye to Kay as I let her out of the front door.

  When I got back into the sitting room Novotna was crying on the Duchess of Kent’s shoulder.

  ‘Who won?’ I asked.

  Kay didn’t answer my question. Instead she launched straight into an attack.

  ‘You’re turning into the kind of person who lets her friends down just because somebody more exciting has come along,’ she snapped.

  I was hurt and aggrieved. ‘Well that’s not fair,’ I retorted. ‘It was you who packed us off to see the “etchings”.’

  ‘You knew she’d be a pain in the arse while I was trying to watch the tennis.’

  ‘I did not – and anyway, she wasn’t. She was only having a bit of trouble scoring, that’s all.’

  ‘Huh – bet that’s new for her, isn’t it?’

  I was furious. ‘Look, Kay – What’s your problem? I’ve been on my own for eight years and Turner’s the first woman I’ve met in all that time who’s made me feel like I might actually still be attractive... If you were in that position I reckon I’d be feeling happy for you, not giving you a load of grief.’

  Kay flinched. She looked uncertain for a moment. Then her voice softened as she tried to placate me. ‘Sweetheart, there’s nothing I want more than for you to be happy... you know that. I just don’t like Turner. She thinks she’s something so bloody special, what with her looks and her money. She just thinks everybody’s going to be dead impressed by her... Well I’m not impressed and I think she’s going to hurt you. Just look what she’s done to Suzanne and Mary.’

  ‘Funny,’ I snapped. ‘I thought Suzanne and Mary had done that all by themselves.’

  I stamped off up the stairs and back into my room, slamming the door as I went. It didn’t make me feel any better. My sense of well-being had been shattered. It seemed that this was going to be the pattern with Turner – not being able to hold onto the good feelings for long.

  I blacked out as I hit the bed.

  Then suddenly, I was struggling back into another place. Suffocating. My whole body oozing sweat. Plunged into the desperate terror of hearing something, distantly, quietly, just at the end of my mind, but there undeniably – calling me. It was a sound that echoed down to me through the ages. A sound I knew from my own pain. Not the universal despairing wail of raw, new loss we hear almost daily in tragedies on the TV news. Just the plaintive crying of a woman, heartbroken and alone. I felt my own heart faltering as I tried to struggle towards the source of the tears. And then I felt myself being pulled away...

  I thought the whole room was shaking at first and then I realised it was only me. And the voice that boomed in my ears was only Kay, repeating my name.

  ‘Hell, Gill, you scared me. I thought somebody was trying to murder you!’

  Her relief was palpable as I opened my eyes finally and managed to focus them on her. I felt sick, watching the room doing back-flips as I pressed my throbbing head into the pillow.

  ‘You kept shouting out for Turner,’ she said.

  ‘Turner?’

  ‘Over and over. You sounded terrified.’

  She seemed unusually subdued. I tried to smile to reassure her. ‘Must have been Ros’s bleedin’ mushrooms again – shifting around in my system. I’ll be fine in a minute.’

  If only the headache would go. It felt like a pile driver in my head.

  Kay scowled. ‘I dunno. You should be over that by now. Maybe I should get a doctor... It’d be hard to explain though, I guess.’

  She wanted to protect Ros and she wanted to do what was best for me, I could see that. There was a part of me that wouldn’t have minded landing Ros in it, though most of me could never actually be that malicious. And anyway, I had my own secrets to hide.

&nb
sp; ‘Nah, I’ll get myself a coffee and I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘You’ll see.’

  Kay bounded for the door, relieved to have something practical to do. ‘I’ll make it,’ she said. ‘Just you stay there. I’ll be back in a mo!’

  It was surprisingly good to be treated like an invalid. Kay brought biscuits with my coffee, fluffed my pillow, and retrieved the latest edition of Premiere magazine from the sitting room for me to read.

  I knew she was still really unsettled by what had happened.

  So was I... but at least I’d been here before. I remembered the shadows that whispered to me in my room in my childhood, the long months when I could see the sickness starting to inhabit my father... the séance at college and its aftermath... I’d become so good at blocking it all. I wondered how I’d come to be in this place again. I guessed the mushrooms must have triggered it. The problem now was how to put the lid back on. I didn’t want to end up back on medication like last time. Out of the corner of my eye, on my bedside table, I saw Luke’s book. I told myself I really ought to read it.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, to reassure her. ‘Truly.’

  ‘No you’re not.’ She shook her head. ‘You’ve been acting weird for days and I don’t think it’s anything to do with Ros’s bloody mushrooms. It’s that frigging woman. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s her, I’m sure. It’s like she’d got under your skin. I’m getting to hate her. I’m sorry, but I am. And if I’m angry with Ros for anything, it’s for bringing her into your life.’

  I stared at her, shocked at the tears running down her cheeks. I couldn’t bring myself to fight about this anymore.

  ‘Who did win the tennis?’ I asked, changing the subject.

  Kay mopped at her face with her shirt tail.

  ‘Graf,’ she muttered. ‘Look, Gill, you don’t have to keep seeing her, do you?’

  Our eyes met and locked, angry.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t have to do anything. But I will keep seeing her, because I want to.... because I like her – okay?’

  So, there we were... stalemate. All those years of living together. All the complications of how we met. And this was the first really major fall-out we’d ever had.

  An Engagement

  On Sunday the weather closed in on us in a thick hot blanket of humidity. The day felt like a preview of what hell would be like for me if I didn’t mend my ways and stop sleeping with married women. I’d propped myself up on the sofa, still fragile after my illness of the day before, drinking a can of supermarket own-brand cola that really wasn’t very nice. I felt hot and sticky and miserable.

  And then my mother phoned.

  ‘Sinclair has asked me to marry him,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea Mum. I’ve never met the man. Are you happy?’

  ‘Blissfully darling... There’s just one problem.’

  ‘He’s an international jewel thief?’ This wasn’t very tactful in the light of my father’s criminal activities. I kicked myself as soon as I’d said it. But, of course, I needn’t have worried. My mother always had been attracted to men who were “mad, bad and dangerous to know”.

  ‘No... nothing as glamorous as that,’ she said, giggling.

  ‘He’s already married?’ Like I had any room to talk on that one!

  ‘No darling – I mean, he has been – but he’s divorced now.’

  ‘What then?... Don’t keep me in suspenders...’ This was an old joke, probably a line from one of the ‘Carry On’ films my mum had been an extra in, or Frankie Howerd or somebody... corny but typical of how the two of us talked to each other.

  ‘He’s thirty five.’

  ‘Bloody hell!... er... I mean, oh well...’ I was trying desperately to be supportive and failing miserably. ‘Everybody’s doing it these days. Look at Cher...’ I limped to a halt.

  Mum wasn’t daft. ‘You don’t approve, do you?’

  Well, since she came to mention it....

  ‘Of course I do,’ I lied. ‘The important thing is that you love each other, isn’t it? I don’t know how I’ll manage at the wedding, mind you. How’m I going to give you away and take the photos?’

  Kay looked up from her Sunday Crossword as I put the phone down.

  I was in shock I think.

  ‘Mum’s new bloke’s younger than I am,’ I said. ‘And she’s going to marry him.’ I collapsed in a heap on the sofa and took a huge gulp of the lukewarm cola in an attempt to regain my equilibrium. It didn’t help – just clogged up the back of my throat with a kind of syrupy silt that left me as thirsty as ever. ‘What the hell does somebody younger than me see in my mum?’ I asked, bewildered.

  Kay grinned. ‘Your mum’s a very attractive lady Gill – hadn’t you noticed?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t noticed. She’s my mother.’

  ‘Well, Ros fancies the pants off her.’

  ‘WHAT?!’ I was outraged. ‘How come Ros has even met my mother?’... Of course, mum spent half her life hanging out in gay bars with her theatrical cronies and sundry other hangers on. She probably spent more time out on the scene than I did.

  Kay avoided my eye. She knew she’d put her foot in it again. ‘We bumped into her down at the tea-dance,’ she edged. ‘Anyway, don’t be such a prude Gill. You should be pleased. It means you’ll probably wear well too. It’s probably in your genes.’

  ‘Huh! In the bloody HRT more like!’ I glared at Kay, feeling irritated and snappy for no good reason. ‘Anyway, I thought he was that distinguished grey haired guy in the adverts... You know, the one who’s dispensing sage advice to his newly divorced son over cups of instant coffee....’

  Kay grinned and I realised my mistake without her needing to explain.

  ‘Okay... I get it....’ I said bitterly. ‘He’s the bloody son, isn’t he?... I’m going to lie down. I think the whole world’s gone mad.’

  Then I got another cola out of the fridge and gave up on trying to stay upright for the day.

  The Garden

  On Tuesday evening, Kay tried to talk to me again. I was outside, watering the garden amidst a cloud of midges. They were taking rather too close an interest in me and I could have done with one of those wide-brimmed Crocodile Dundee hats with corks to keep them at bay.

  Even so, it was a beautiful, gently warm summer’s evening and I was feeling nice and mellow as I worked. I’d been thinking about Turner and I was in tune with some pretty sensual memories. The softness of the air caressing my bare arms and legs reminded me of our lovemaking. I found myself smiling up into the evening sky as the shadows lengthened.

  Then I heard the back door opening and turned to welcome Kay.

  ‘It’s looking really good,’ she said, ambling up to me. She had a cheese and Branston sandwich in one hand and a condensation beaded can of Carlsberg in the other. She wafted lazily at the midges.

  ‘We could do with a smoker out here,’ she said. ‘That’d keep ‘em away.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I stepped back onto the crazy-paving to take a look. Everything seemed much fresher now that I’d watered it. I might even have smelt the freshness if it hadn’t been for the sour tang of pickle leaking from Kay’s sandwich.

  She bit through the two thick slabs of wholemeal bread and munched heartily. The very sight of it made my jaw ache. The lager looked tempting though. I reckoned there must still be another one left in the fridge.

  ‘No Ros tonight?’ I asked, brushing my hair back out of my eyes and flopping down onto the garden bench.

  Kay sat beside me.

  ‘No, she’s at her yoga class.’

  ‘Yoga, eh?!’

  We grinned at each other, amused.

  ‘Don’t suppose it’ll last any longer than her Transcendental Meditation phase,’ she added. ‘Anyway, how are you feeling now?’ She sounded very tentative suddenly, knowing she was heading into a sensitive area.

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘No more spooks then?’

  ‘No.’
The shadowy sense that had felt so alien at first was almost a part of me now... Like a transplant that had taken.

  ‘You’re losing weight.’

  Was I? Now I came to think of it, my trousers were feeling a bit on the baggy side. I looked down at myself.

  ‘Oh well,’ I said. ‘I probably needed to.’

  Kay looked dubious. ‘You’re really pale too,’ she persisted. ‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you... if you were worried about anything?’

  I nodded, not really listening. I was fascinated, as always, by the way she was eating her sandwich. She kept twisting it round 180 degrees and licking the edges to stop pickle dripping everywhere. She was wearing stone coloured shorts too. I feared for them.

  ‘What kind of day have you had?’ I asked.

  I knew it had been a long one. She’d only just got in.

  ‘Oh, not bad.’ The sandwich was all gone now. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and took a swig of the lager, perching her foot up on the edge of the wooden seat and resting her elbow on her knee. She scowled across over next door’s privet hedge, into the setting sun. ‘Granny group this morning. Mixed singles tonight. I spent the afternoon checking out some new equipment in the gym. I suppose all jobs get to be pissing boring when you’ve done them for long enough.’

  I was surprised to hear her talk like that. I hadn’t realised she was so fed up.

  ‘I’ve never got bored with mine,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, well I don’t suppose I’d get bored either if I spent most of my life photographing women in their undies.’

  She rubbed at her eyes and nose, irascibly, digging around in her pocket for a tissue. It didn’t seem like a good time to ask what the difference was between undies and leotards in the interest stakes. The pollen was obviously bothering her. Her voice was getting thicker and snufflier by the minute. She blew her nose loudly. ‘Anyway... Look, Gill...’ she hesitated, and I knew she was going to say something I wouldn’t like. ‘I think you ought to know that a friend of Georgie’s was out on the town last night and she saw Suzanne.’