Cold to the Touch Read online

  It was an advantage not to feel indebted to the landlady who had left her cottage full of J. Dunn’s dog hairs. The original mess of it gave her freedom to change it as much as she liked and there were so many other compensations. Location, location, location, which meant an angled view of the sea from the attic-bedroom window if she stuck her head out and craned left and it was this tantalising glimpse that drove her out every morning, straining to go like a dog on a leash, wondering what fresh smells today? There was an energising advantage to a limited sea view and creaking stairs.

  Wanting to get out every morning never meant she was unwilling to return. It was thrilling to go up to your own front door with a good feeling even though it was not quite her ideal house, only the one she could get. The village had been selected for her by chance through knowing Jessica and she was a great believer in spontaneous coincidences like that, but the house itself was hers only because it was available. She had made a visual examination of every other visible house within her size range and already knew that she would swap her cottage for one of those in the two rows right down by the beach, set apart from the rest and looking out directly to the sea, but this was good for starters. A sweet, sad house in need of rescue, thus catering to her own speciality, also with certain vital ingredients, such as a porch at the front with the promise of honeysuckle growing over it in summer, and a small south-facing yard of a garden at the back, almost empty apart from dead things in pots and a tiny border. It was the stuff of dreams all the same, the life-lottery win, the almost perfect existence promised by a six-month lease on a cottage with honeysuckle round the door and the sea at the bottom of the road, with room to nurture cabbages and flowers.

  The realist in Sarah had always known that such a dream was only a kind of analogy for something else, such as being reconciled to disappointments, free of duties, responsibilities and obligations, not having to go to work and being able to pay the bills with ease. A state of not wanting anybody or anything other than what there was, like living on one side of a river without constantly craving a better place on the opposite shore. All summed up in a vision of a cottage in a village with a large expanse of water attached, about as far distant from central London traffic and a pressurised career as it could be without emigrating. Being in a place where the land ran out; the delightful end of the road. Not that she had ever been deluded by the notion of a perfect way of life; ambition and discontent and even a little bit of fear were so vital to achievement and survival, after all, but she knew the importance of dreaming. Of getting a dream, kicking it about, trying it on for size like a new skirt and then, if necessary, chucking it away and trying on something else. The cottage with roses round the door could mean a state of not needing, but a state of complete self-sufficiency would have to involve a complete frontal lobotomy. It was not natural. She might regard herself as profoundly irresponsible, wanted to be divinely irresponsible, a merely optional extra in other lives, but that was not quite possible, either. She was far too interested in humankind to remain aloof; could not quite disengage however hard she tried; responsibility followed affection and that was that.

  It would be nice if you got to know my mother, Jessica had said. But you don’t have to. Just be happy. I’m not going to bugger things up for you with introductions. You don’t need them.

  You’ll go crazy here, Mike had said when he’d delivered her to the door in an uninsured, mysteriously obtained white van, without something to do. He was a case in point. He loved her, but he would do perfectly well without her and that was all she had ever wanted for him and he was right about her needing something physical to do and she had embarked on that immediately. She had redecorated every place she had ever occupied, whether she owned it or not (ownership was all in the mind, after all) and most of the bubbled walls in her cottage were already liberally covered in ‘orchid white’. Paint always lived up to its promise, never disappointed, and she took immense satisfaction in the very names they gave to the stuff. Sarah had breathed on the honeysuckle branches to make it grow and the backyard was littered with trays of seeds and bulbs. She was going to stay here long enough to grow cornflowers and sweet peas at least and learn not to uproot them just to see how they were doing. That was what people did with relationships. Not a good idea to question things about their right to grow or not.

  The walls were incompletely fresh; there were the few things she had brought with her standing alongside the utilitarian pine furniture left either by her landlady Mrs Celia Hurly or by J. Dunn. For the first two weeks she had been here it had rained incessantly and that had been when she had made it home. She was accustomed to big high-ceilinged rooms and found small ones so much of a doddle to paint that she looked forward to the challenge of the vicarage for further distraction. She felt detached, but she could only ever be semi-detached.

  The phone rang, sounding threatening in the empty room, bringing city to village with a clarion call. Jessica; it had to be Jessica. Sarah took the phone out into the backyard and sat on an upturned pot. There were young seagulls on the roof next door, jockeying for position on a TV aerial, howling for Mummy. A March wind blew gently.

  Sarah didn’t like mobiles. Jessica Hurly lived by hers, could talk in a train, a bus, a taxi, in the middle of a crowd or a meal, went everywhere with the thing glued to her hand. She would hold up the checkout line, chattering and arguing while fishing for her money, completing a purchase with gestures and smiles while talking throughout, and then getting away with it by saying sorry and being gorgeous. She liked the challenge of talking against a background, giving away where she was, and although Sarah had once detested the horribly public nature of such conversations the irritation had long since been counterbalanced by the wonderful eavesdropping opportunities. She longed for people to shout out confidences in crowds, especially Jessica whose phone was vital to her health because without it she might fall down the nearest black hole. Jessica needed another voice to make her pause; another opinion to clarify her own, an echo for her every sentiment. Jessica could play the whole scale of her emotions on a number of instruments, but only her mobile phone could prevent her from acting them out. Thankfully, one of her many saving graces was a melodious voice.

  She could see Jessica stabbing the phone with her long trademark blue-varnished nails.

  Sarah tried to list the most frequent phrases she used when she spoke back to Jessica, then and now, face to face or on the phone. They were mainly brief and to the point, such as Perhaps not; Think again; I wouldn’t if I were you; and Don’t. How Jessica had ever concentrated long enough to become a chef was a mystery: she must have taken in knowledge through the skin, acquired the instincts at her mother’s knee, perhaps, in the same way that Sarah had learned a talent for painting walls in the early hours of the morning. Jessica was a cook par excellence and being an emotional prima donna went with the territory although high temperament was not always welcome in someone catering private parties for those who paid highly for the privilege of having the last word. Jessica had never quite mastered the deferential mentality required for such occasions and her career was precarious, to say the least. Sublime food was no compensation for broken crockery and noises off and nor did Jessica’s magnificent appearance always reconcile an aggrieved host to the state of his kitchen, unless she remained behind to offer something additional to the menu. As for men, she seemed to be as obsessive about their particulars as she was about culinary ingredients, but unlike her instinctive skill with the latter she never seemed to get the mix right. As mistress of many a humiliating compromise herself, Sarah was a sucker for a person who refused to do it, but her affection and admiration for Jessica was compounded by a slow-burning nagging worry because Jessica was gelignite and Jessica in a state of unrequited love was like a piece of volatile explosive with a tricky fuse.

  ‘Guess what? He told me to fuck off,’ she said without introduction.

  She had resiled from this theme for a week; now she was back. Once launched, thou
gh, her recitatives on the subject were always continuous, assuming the respondent’s intimate knowledge of the last episode of the long-running saga of her life, whether she had mentioned it or not. Sarah could only respond in the same way.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘Yes. Again. The stupid shit. I wrote you an e-mail about it, didn’t send it, so don’t look. I did what you said, waited at least a day, but then my blood boils again. Anyway, I’m going to sort it out with him. If he thinks he can treat me like that he’d better think twice, the shit. I thought I’d go down to that pretentious restaurant of his and vomit all over his tables. What do you think?’

  You don’t want to know what I think. Nothing had altered. The same obsession, the same man as before. Shame. Sarah had thought that Jessica had stabilised, but no chance.

  ‘Why?’ Sarah said.

  ‘What do you mean, why? He bloody well deserves it.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For saying fuck off, the shit. How dare he do that?’

  ‘Because your dogged devotion was boring him? Because you were embarrassing him? Because you were bad for business?’

  ‘How can I be bad for business? The last time I went there I was in that black dress. You know the one I mean? The vintage killer? And I was nice.’

  She had not mentioned that. Sarah stayed quiet. There was a big dark sigh.

  ‘Oh, right, I think I can see what you mean. Not good for business to have a row in a posh restaurant like DK when his place is full of people. Anger doesn’t work, right? Shit.’

  ‘So when were you going to stage this sad repeat performance?’

  ‘Like now. Just when they’re queuing up for lunch.’

  There was the sound of traffic and footsteps behind Jessica’s voice. Sarah could see her, standing on a corner next to a Tube station and part of her hoped that all the passers-by were enjoying the obstruction and the conversation as much as she would have done if she had been one of them. It gave her a sudden wave of city-homesickness. Must go back soon, before I forget what it’s like. I don’t want to forget what it’s like.

  ‘Hmm. Could we think back a little? What was it you wanted to achieve?’

  ‘I want him to love me. I love that man so much. We’re made for each other. He has to love me. We belong.’

  Sarah suppressed a laugh. Love, that many-splendoured thing, to be avoided at all costs, especially with this wretched man of Jessica’s who, even from brief misdescriptions, sounded like everything that Sarah herself would dislike. She imagined him as large and carnivorous, a man who might take a bet on a gifted girl like Jessica who was good enough to grant an opportunity, plus a few introductions, until he grew tired of her demands and dumped her. Such was life: Sarah knew that round of that particular carousel all too well and knew you had to jump off. He owned or managed a restaurant: that was probably part of the appeal, as in something to talk about. Sarah halfway understood the in-between bits, such as Jessica working for him or with him once, briefly, until he did not need her any more. She knew only a fraction of it: the information came out in gulps between rapid changes of subject as Jessica veered away from and then towards self-indulgence, shame for it, and sudden fits of secrecy. Despite her gratitude, Sarah could feel herself beginning to yawn. Such all-consuming passion for a lost cause of a man made her weary and glad to be beyond it.

  ‘Well, making a scene isn’t going to do it, is it?’

  Echoes upon echoes. A revving car, urban voices, someone shouting See you, bye, sounds of the bleep, bleep, bleep of a pedestrian crossing, then Jessica’s own clickety-click heels crossing to the other side and that heavy breathing of hers which indicated hesitation.

  ‘So you don’t think it’s a good idea, then?’

  ‘No.’

  Sarah looked at her watch. Early London lunch hours. Jessica’s threat was probably an empty one, like so many of them were. Sarah could hear her reaching the same conclusion, as if Jessica had only just thought of how a big gesture might be ruined for lack of an audience. Jessica could vomit by a sheer act of will.

  ‘You told me I was magnificent when I was angry,’ Jessica said.

  ‘So you are, but I doubt if it’s universally appreciated,’ Sarah said sharply. ‘And if you love him,’ she went on into the ensuing silence, ‘doesn’t that mean you want him happy? With or without you? Isn’t this just selfishness?’

  That was a long sentence in the circumstances. There was a lot more to say, such as you’re a beautiful, spoiled child, and there will always be someone else, as there has been before, will be again, and all the blah, blah, blah she herself might not have believed when she was twenty-three, plus other platitudes, such as look, go to work on yourself; no man is ever going to cure those insecurities, especially if you pursue him beyond the grave. Beyond the grave? Where did that come from? She’d been reading too much and she shivered as she listened and stayed silent, waiting for the sound of gears turning in Jessica’s mind. She was not going to sound like a wise old aunt telling Jessica to concentrate on what she was good at, like food and artless generosity, grow up.

  ‘I always know where I can find him,’ Jessica said. ‘If he doesn’t love me, and I’ll die if he doesn’t, I could almost wish he was really dead.’

  ‘Maybe, love, but you don’t want him wishing you dead, do you?’

  Another pause for silence and the click-clack of heels before Sarah spoke again, trying to lighten the tone.

  ‘So what’s with the rest of the day? Everything else going OK? I can hear all those London noises. It’s so quiet here.’

  Jessica seized upon the change of subject with suspicious speed as if she had overstepped the mark, revealed too much. Giggled. Crisis over.

  ‘Quiet? Is it really? I don’t remember that, I remember all sorts of lovely noises. Anyway, I’ve got these prats to cook for this evening, twelve of them. Fucking stockbrokers in W12 on a tight new budget. Oh, shit, almost forgot. Must go, got things to collect. You’re right, no time to be mad. Look, if you’re homesick that makes two of us. I’m riddled with it, keeps me awake. I miss you. Hey, what are you doing down there, anyway? Lots of lovely walks? Has spring been springing? You don’t notice it here.’ Then, ‘Have you met my mother yet?’

  ‘No. Not yet. I’ve seen her in the distance. She looked well – and rather elegant, I thought.’

  Sarah did not quite know why she was being economical with the truth: that Mrs Hurly had left a distinctly unpleasant impression when Sarah had seen her in the vicarage. Or why she didn’t add in the fact that she was apprehensive and did not want to know Jessica’s mother at all.

  There was a sudden trill of Jessica’s infectious laughter and Sarah felt her shoulders relax as if some small danger point had been passed.

  ‘That’s all right, then. As long as she’s well. She is elegant, isn’t she? I’m proud of her really and I don’t blame her for not being proud of me, but I’ll make her proud of me. As long as she’s well. I’ve been writing to her a bit. God, I miss her shouting. You can always catch her in the butcher’s shop. She owns that, too. She just goes in there to torment them. She can be awful, got a temper like mine, doesn’t mean it. I love you, Sarah. I want to come home and show you everything.’

  She would finish the call before she started crying. Sarah knew that, because there were some limits to what Jessica would do in a public street and crying was one of them.

  ‘So why don’t you just come home?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘No, I don’t. You keep saying you’ll tell and you never do.’

  That much was true. There was plenty that Jessica wanted to say and couldn’t or wouldn’t. Jessica had a love–hate relationship with the place where she had grown up and it was her descriptions of this village that had lured Sarah to it. Oh God, Sarah, if you want a picture-book village hidden between cliffs, I’ve got the one. My mother owns four houses there. It’s the most perfect hell-hole if you like sea and greenery; greenery gives me vertigo.
There was more to her love and loathing of the place than that, but it had never been fully explained in their long, meandering, constantly-changing-tack conversations over Sarah’s kitchen table. Sarah had never known if this was withholding information or simply forgetting to include it. Or wanting Sarah to find out for herself, without prejudice. Or not wanting it, or not knowing quite what she wanted. That last guess made sense. Jessica did not know what she wanted about many things.

  ‘I can’t come back. They want to kill me.’

  Overdramatic again.

  ‘Nonsense, love,’ Sarah said, soothingly. ‘You’re far too beautiful for that.’

  ‘I am, aren’t I? Am I? So why doesn’t he love me? Oh, shut up, Jess. Where are you, Sarah? I can hear seagulls, oh my God, I can hear seagulls. I adore them. I love the seagulls. They’re brave and shameless. They scavenge for a living, like me.’

  ‘Like me,’ Sarah echoed.

  The gulls were still crying on the roof and Sarah held out the phone so that Jessica could hear them better. They did not sound musical to her own ears, only plaintive and haunting. Then she held the phone back to her ear, listening to Jessica’s footsteps, now free of the crowd and moving faster.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Jessica was saying, excitedly. ‘I’ll do it, I’ll come home. I can do it if I know you’re there. Maybe I can bring him back. No, why do I have to wait? I can sneak in under cover of darkness and sneak away before dawn. I can stay with you, can’t I? Just to look. Listen to those bloody seagulls and look at the sea. Make me a really long recording of the seagulls, will you? Send it to me.’

  Sarah was smiling at her excitement.

  ‘Why do you have to come under cover of darkness?’

  ‘I burned a lot of boats,’ Jessica said airily. ‘But I’ll do it, I’ll come back.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon. Any day now. Why should I wait? Soon as I can. Let me hear those seagulls again.’

  Sarah looked up to the roof. The gulls had flown. The phone call ended.