Separate Tracks Read online

  He smiled broadly at her, and she gave an embarrassed little nod, colouring as she handed her ticket to the collector.

  “It’s a return.” Richard hugged her, and felt her squirm with embarrassment as he did so.

  She released herself quickly, fumbling with her bag and her ticket. “Which way out?”

  He led the way, glancing sideways at her face, which was composed into a careful mask. The station was crowded and oppressively hot, and outside was much the same. The sky above the city was a grey lid, the air that lay under it stale and overused. Richard took her into a coffeeshop. They sat in silence till the waitress had brought their drinks.

  ‘Well, how are you then? You’re looking extremely demure.”

  “Demure?” Irritation flickered in her face.

  “Yes, demure; self-contained, ladylike, prim and proper.”

  “Huh.” She picked up her coffee spoon and started drawing tentacles out of a few drips of spilt coffee on the formica table. Richard saw himself unpleasantly clearly, as an ageing stranger with nothing to say, trying to jolly a reaction out of her. Don’t ask about Eileen. Or school, yet—wearily he cast about among the prickly subjects for a way in to communication.

  “Nice journey?”

  “OK.”

  “When did you break up?”

  “July 18th.”

  “And have you any great plans for the summer?”

  She shook her head. “I might go cycling with Chris.”

  Christine. A stupid horsey girl. “That will be nice. . . Whereabouts?”

  “Dunno, maybe in Cornwall.”

  “It’ll be crowded down there this time of year. You might be better off in East Anglia. . . it’s nice and flat there.”

  “But there’s nothing to see.”

  He stopped himself from asking how she knew that since she’d never been, and asked her what she’d like to do today. She shrugged, as he had known she would. He outlined his carefully laid plans-for-a-daughter-who-is-determined-to-be-bored. A visit to the African collection in the museum (last time they met, she had told him about a TV programme on the Masai that she had been interested by; probably she’d forgotten). A pub lunch and then delicious rest, a film matinee of her choice. From there it was downhill all the way—maybe a stroll by the river, a nice meal—and he could pack her off on the nine-thirty train. She listened without changing expression, in silence.

  “Well, let’s be off, shall we?” He tried to subdue the anger in his voice. “I wouldn’t like you to get bored.”

  They went down to the museum. Under the oppressive grey sky, a slight heat haze shimmered. Richard’s eyes pricked in the glare, as if grains of sand had been sprinkled in them. He blinked, imagining that his eyelids could stick to his eyeballs. Crossing a busy road he unthinkingly reached for Emma’s hand. Safe on the other side, he was surprised by it. She did not let go, though his own hand was sticky with sweat, and he did not dare to release her, afraid of seeming to reject this passive advance.

  At the museum she betrayed no recollection of her interest in the Masai, but obediently followed him around the exotic masks and fetishes, stopping and staring when he pointed to an item of interest. The colour and vigour of the ancient faces gave him, as always, a surge of pleasure, recharging him with energy. She was quite untouched. As he turned from the furious passion of the masks to his expressionless child, he felt himself becoming desperate. Surely there was a response in her somewhere?

  “Look at this one—my favourite!” The case contained a carved warrior, big as a ten-year-old child, grimacing through the glass with fixed, crossed eyes. Beneath his flat wooden belly proudly rose the remains of what must have been a gigantic penis. It had been rudely sliced off at a length of three inches or so—to placate a missionary, Richard assumed.

  “Isn’t he fine? A real victim of Christianity—cut short in his prime!”

  The girl flushed to the roots of her hair and moved away abruptly. Her embarrassment was electric. He wondered if he had done it deliberately. What was subconsciously at work now? Perhaps he was merely playing the role she expected of him—crude, insensitive. He was aware of a certain pleasure at having embarrassed her. He had found a nerve he could touch, even though it would make her bury herself more deeply.

  Emma moved on to the Egyptian section and with infuriating slowness paused to examine each pot, each fragment of stone and dusty utensil on display. He stared unseeingly through the window, willing the day to end. There would be a terrible fuss if he sent her home now though;

  “You deign to see her for one day after three whole months, and then you send her packing at lunchtime. . .” He could hear Eileen’s indignant telephone crescendo.

  And himself; “There’s no point in my seeing her. She’s yours.” A nauseating wave of self-pity swept him to gather her up and take her to lunch. At least he could have a drink.

  He refrained from drawing her attention to the mosaic round the bar and the idiosyncratic carvings. Who in their right mind could expect the girl to be interested? He wondered if she had any interests, now. He downed a couple of pints as she sipped her half of shandy. She had told him she didn’t go to pubs.

  “What do you do with yourself of an evening, if you don’t go to pubs?”

  Her hands twitched on the table top. He felt a distant pity. “I read. Sometimes I go out. The bus service isn’t very good.”

  He stared at the bar and with a slow refocusing saw the pot-bellied men standing there and the dry curls of blue smoke in the air, the weight of brown panelling and the unhappy stranger tacked to the table beside him with a sticky glass. He wouldn’t ask to see her again.

  He rose and she followed him out. He walked at his normal speed, she had to do little runs to keep up.

  “Why are you in such a hurry?” she asked.

  “It’s not a very pleasant walk,” he replied savagely.

  “D’you like that dress?” A long haired girl in a billowing Indian dress passed them on the other side of the road. It was deep blue with red and gold patterns on it.

  He considered. “Yes. It’s a bit like wearing a label though, isn’t it? You can bet she burns joss sticks and was a flower child and eats vegetarian food.” Too late he asked, “Do you like it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Well, to look at. I don’t suppose I’d wear one.”

  He was sorry for his clumsiness. “What sort of clothes do you like?” He would soon be out of his depth.

  “Oh, it depends.” She sounded almost eager. “I love some, you know, that I could never wear—really slinky things, crêpe and sequins. . . ”

  “Why could you never wear them?”

  “Well, where would I?” There was no answer. The speed of their walking had made him sweat all over and his shirt was sticking to him. Mingled with the stale petrol smells of the street, he could scent his own bitter sweat.

  She had chosen Gone with the Wind. Though the cinema was like the inside of an oven, he lay back in his seat with thankfulness and let the lurid colours and emotions of the film lap over him.

  At the end she said, “It was good, wasn’t it?” She had enjoyed something today at least then. “Are we going to the river now?”

  He glanced at her. “Well, how tired are you? It’s a fair walk.”

  “That’s OK. I’d like to see the sea.”

  He was unpleasantly surprised. “But you can’t see the sea from here. It’s just a river—an estuary—you know, like the Thames.”

  “How far down does the sea begin?”

  “Well, it’s hard to say—the tide comes up, I mean it’s sea after a bit, you couldn’t actually say it begins or ends here. . .”

  “Ah.” She was staring at her feet. She seemed disappointed, though he couldn’t see why.

  “What’s so special about the sea?”

  “Dunno. I just fancied it. It’s hot, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, do you think it will rain?”

  “I hope there’ll be a storm!” she said,
almost enthusiastically.

  From the immense depths of his weariness he tried to summon up a little kindness. She was obviously coming out of her shell a bit, even if he no longer could. Give the girl a chance. “OK. Let’s go. We’ll walk to the ferry.”

  “Good.”

  The awful silence came down on them again, and he dared with the question he’d been biting back all day. “How’s your mother?”

  “All right.” The silence continued. Fair enough. Fair enough. He told himself he had no right to expect more. They started to go downhill.

  The girl stopped suddenly. “Can you smell it?”

  “What?”

  She sniffed exaggeratedly. “The sea! You can smell it!” She quickened her pace. He could smell nothing. But he caught a glint of moving water between the rooftops and pointed it out to her.

  “I can see,” she said irritably, as if she had had it in view for hours. As they went down the hill, the water appeared as a backdrop to every building, in fluid motion behind the solid ranks of stone. The girl ran the last hundred yards or so and on to the wooden jetty for the ferries. She went as close as she could get to the water, hanging over the rail. He caught her up. Her face had come to life.

  “It’s lovely! Smell it! It smells of the sea—and it’s so wide—it’s lovely!” Inadequate before her enthusiasm, he looked across the grey slopping waters.

  “Look!” She pointed down river, where the dirty waters were flanked with grey smoking chimneys, warehouses and a distant red barge.

  He didn’t know what to say. Guide-book talk to the rescue. “That’s Birkenhead on the other side. You can cross by ferry.”

  She looked across. “There aren’t any bridges.”

  “No,” he said. “There’s the tunnel.”

  “Yes, but there aren’t any bridges are there?” she said insistently.

  “No.”

  “I hate tunnels. I wouldn’t go under there for anything. Never. Dark, and shut in, when you could be—” She stared around her again, her eyes alight.

  He felt the need of some answering gesture to this exuberance. “Would you like to go on the ferry?”

  She hesitated. “Can we?”

  “Of course we can. It only takes ten minutes.”

  “Oh, can we? I’d love to.”

  The bell rang as they stepped on, they were nearly the last. She rushed up to the front of the boat and positioned herself like a figurehead, face to the wind. The boat swung round and started to move across the water. He sat next to his daughter, watching her.

  “Look,” she commanded. “The water, it just goes on—oh! it smells of going away, of holidays—” He looked down the river, his eyes following the thick ribbon of water through the city, and saw its fluid silver beauty and at the same instant felt the hesitancy of the deck under his feet rising to meet a wave. He was afloat, with the lit moving sea before him.

  “I wish it wouldn’t land,” she said passionately, staring towards the sea. And so do I. Sudden love lashed against him and he stretched his hand blindly to grasp her warm shoulder. The dry day washed away, and silver water rippled and shone on all sides.

  Looking back on that day, the girl always experienced the uncleanness of guilt, though she had not exactly lied.

  It had been a boring day. What was the use? He’d taken her to his usual old buildings and museums and lectured her for hours and tried to ask her things and make her feel ignorant. And despised her for wanting to see Gone with the Wind. Finally, they’d gone to the river. That cheered her up, but he seemed to be—he’d stopped being superior and gone all soppy. What other word was there for it? Till she had actually felt superior, as if he was in her power in some way. She skirted and avoided the incident in her memory as she would have avoided repeating a dirty joke.

  It was the last time, really, that he would have any effect on her. That day stayed hot in her memory in a way that later encounters did not. They did not understand each other. She felt she was able to discard him painlessly—part of the past, of when she was little and didn’t understand. From now on she would understand. She would be on equal terms with people. The world was full of more interesting people, who were not so difficult and embarrassing.

  Looking back on that day, her father remembered the way the water had lifted the boards that they stood on. He remembered a poignant moment of closeness with his daughter; an oasis. He determined to try to see his daughter more often and cultivate the closeness which, despite all his mistakes, existed between them.

  Chapter 7

  Eileen waited up for Emma after her visit to her father. Eileen had been a nervous child, often subject to butterflies in the tummy. Today her stomach had been churning continuously. When she went to the toilet, the food she had eaten shot out of her in a scalding watery brown jet. She knew why. Him. She certainly didn’t think he would ever come back. But the walls of her stomach seemed to know differently.

  By late evening she is sitting straight-backed at the dining table, controlling her breathing. She makes herself the image of a coal fire, where she must labour to keep the heat fierce and to rake out from the glowing face of the fire any sticks or coals or individual items so that only the red heat of the pain is there and she’s not distracted by incidents. She must hold in her head the red pain he has made, and not be betrayed by the watery longings of a weak stomach.

  She sits with her feet flat on the floor, hollow back not supported by the chair. Hair black streaked with silver, shoulder length, untidy. Face wrinkled but not old; her skin is of the softness that melts to touch (as he had often quoted to her), flesh the senses dip into at each brushing contact. But softness can be revolting too, making you recoil as if you’ve touched something forbidden—almost as if the skin had been peeled off and you touch the awful silken bloody softness of the naked flesh inside. She rarely kissed Emma, but she had done so that morning and Emma’s own skin had crawled at the contact of that too-soft cheek; she had been appalled by the death in her mother’s skin.

  The softness on her face is puffy now (though the face itself is strong, high cheekbones, determined mouth). The eyes are tightly closed, the face tilted slightly upwards. She is breathing firmly and regularly, as if in preparation for swimming underwater. If her concentration is shifted for a second, her lungs will leap out like crazy frogs, her head and feet will spin off, she will explode like a worn-out star. Footsteps on the path. One set. The sound of Emma trying to open the door. Still her body is rigid, she knows, she has heard that he isn’t here—but her stomach doesn’t yet. Rustle of Emma hanging up her coat. Footsteps of Emma walking to the kitchen. Definitely, only Emma.

  She sits back slowly, untying the knots in her muscles. Is guilty at being discovered sitting idle and hurries towards the kitchen. Emma is looking in the fridge and is surprised to see her mother. She expected her to be in bed.

  Eileen sits at the kitchen table. “There’s some pressed beef on the bottom shelf. Are you hungry?”

  “I shouldn’t be, we had a three course meal. But it seems a long time ago.” Emma gets out the beef and tomatoes and finds a knife. Her mother watches her. She’s very pretty, very self-possessed. Does she look like me? She looks more knowing. But did Richard think so?

  The silence is too long. “Want some?” asks Emma, indicating the beef with her knife.

  Eileen shakes her head. “Did you have a nice time?” Emma’s mouth is full, she chews ostentatiously. The two women are alone in the world in the fluorescent bright kitchen with the black sky leaning against the window.

  Emma swallows. “OK. We went to a museum, the cinema, and on a ferry.”

  “You were out all day then?”

  Emma nodded. “We went to a pub at lunchtime.” Eileen wouldn’t let her go to pubs.

  “Well, was it fun?”

  “It wasn’t special. The ferry was nice.” She filled her mouth with half a tomato and chewed stolidly.

  Eileen stared at the table top. Her stomach was quietening. She
would be hungry soon. “Well, what did he have to say?”

  Emma frowned. “Not much. I always feel as if he’s expecting me to say things. He doesn’t talk about anything.” Eileen was glad. She was jealous. “He showed me this disgusting object in the museum.” Emma regretted that as soon as she’d said it.

  “Well—what?”

  “An African-type thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Like a statue, without any clothes on. A man.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Not very realistic—an effigy type of thing.”

  “Ah. Well, what was so disgusting about it?” Her father’s words about the statue being “cut off” still rang in Emma’s ears, it struck her as deeply obscene. She was embarrassed.

  Eileen was more and more intent. “Go on!”

  There was no way out. “Dad just said—well, it had been broken—you know—and Dad said he’d been cut off.”

  “He?”

  “The statue.”

  Eileen stared at her. She was repelled by the thought of them mentioning anything sexual. She imagined now how close they had stood, that Richard had perhaps kissed Emma when she arrived, how he had looked at her. He’d taken her to a pub. She was an adult in his eyes. Her stomach sides convulsed towards each other again. “So what did you say?” Her eyes were staring madly.

  “I didn’t say anything.” Emma felt ashamed and frightened.

  Eileen walked over and stared at the black outside. She would never know. “How’s his lady friend?”

  Emma sounded relieved. “I don’t know, Mum. We didn’t talk about her.”

  Eileen took the cigarettes from her pocket and lit one. She exhaled slowly. She wished she could blow him out like that. The helpful tone in Emma’s voice just now grated on her; what had she got to hide? Why shouldn’t she say what they’d talked about all day? He was her husband, wasn’t he?