Calendar Girl Page 9

  “Oh yeah, the money. Well maybe she’s just a con-artist. Conning drunks to buy champagne and conning John Clark to give her all his money. Perhaps she’s the baddie after all.”

  “You think so?”

  “I don’t know. Everything else just seems so extreme. I know Calendar Girls sounds like something out of a movie, but actually all the girls are really nice, and it’s not as if we don’t know plenty of women in London who’ve paid their way by hostessing.”

  “Yeah Saz, only most of them were gay.”

  “Who’s to say September isn’t? John Clark said they were ‘friends’ – he was very clear on that. And I believe him – I don’t think he’s the type to have an affair …”

  “What’s ‘the type’?”

  “You are Carrie, remember? Now shut up and listen. So we assume she wasn’t shagging Mr Clark and though I don’t like James, that’s more because he’s just one of those slimy arrogant men, than because he might be … whatever he might be. But none of the girls would seriously consider having an affair with him – the odd fling maybe, but he certainly isn’t take home to your mother material. All the same, I think he is exactly what he seems …”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A slightly nasty, definitely shady bloke, who’s involved in something which is bigger than just the facade of ‘Calendar Girls’ – but that’s all. It’s not as if we haven’t come across similar set-ups back home.”

  “Yeah sweetheart, but neither of us have ever actually worked in them.”

  “I know, but you know what they’re like, you’ve heard the stories – it’s bound to be to do with gambling or drugs or whatever … but despite everything, the strangest person here is still September herself right? The woman who comes over here regularly from London, who has dinner with John Clark and who no-one seems to be able to put a name to. So the answer must lie with her. I still need to get closer to her.”

  “Check his records.”

  “CDs?”

  “No! Records stupid! He must have personnel records. Go through them. See what he’s got on her.”

  “Well how do I do that?”

  “Oh for God’s sake Saz, you’re the ‘detective’ here, remember? How on earth did you persuade them to give you that Enterprise Allowance?”

  “Told them there was a lot of debt collection work in south-east London. Funnily enough, they believed me. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Well you’ll have to get access to his files somehow – I don’t know, break in, scale the drainpipe, bribe the cleaner, marry the owner … do some detecting!”

  “I hate all that climbing through windows in the middle of the night shit.”

  “When have you ever done it?”

  “I haven’t, I just hate the idea.”

  “Then walk through the door in broad daylight – which I might point out, is only a few hours away and some of us have creative work to do tomorrow – go to sleep.”

  “OK, sorry. Goodnight.”

  Saz turned out the light and thought for a while as she watched the lights from the cars in the street play with the shadows on the ceiling.

  “Hey Carrie?”

  “Yes? What?”

  “Do they deal in microfilm at that college of yours?”

  “Microfilm?”

  “Yeah, you know, like in the movies?”

  “Oh Lordy! I’ll find out. I suppose you’d need a micro camera too?”

  “I guess so. Do you think they do exist in real life, now that the Kremlin’s dead?”

  “Sweetheart – this is America – the Iron Curtain may be dead but the FBI and the CIA are alive and kicking. I expect we can find you some secondhand spy equipment from somewhere.”

  “How exciting!”

  “Yeah. Just don’t get caught! How are you going to get hold of his files anyway?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll dream on it and then work it out when I go for my run tomorrow. Something will come up. Something always comes up.”

  “Yeah, like daybreak – shut up!”

  “OK. Goodnight sidekick.”

  “See you in the morning gumshoe.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Easter eggs and matzos

  Things calmed down after that. She called her parents and told them we were going away – we didn’t, but it meant she didn’t have to visit them for about a month. She stayed with me, we stayed together. My gym routine lapsed, she came straight home after work. When I didn’t have gigs in the evenings we’d spend those dark hours together. I started cancelling work. It was like the first days of our relationship – only soft and calm – wanting to be with each other all the time like at the beginning, but now knowing each other so less frenetic, less panicked – we were in love again. I wanted to spend all day in bed with her, lying beside her smooth skin, cocooned in our relationship.

  I didn’t know she’d already begun her own metamorphosis.

  She’d come home, I’d make dinner and then we’d watch a film or just go straight to bed, lying thigh to thigh, two lots of smooth girls’ skin lying alongside each other, we’d hold hands and look up at the ceiling. In the weekends we stayed in bed until three or four, just getting up to eat and drink and then back to our nest. It wasn’t so much the draw of sex as the lure of each other. She was magnetic for me. I didn’t want to be away from her. She started coming to gigs with me – she didn’t like to come in, it was too smoky, too loud, there were too many other people. She’d drop me off and I’d run in, have a quick drink, do the twenty minute set, collect my money and run out again to where she was waiting for me in the car. What used to be an evening’s work, a social event talking to the other comics, became a quick hour-long trip so we could run back to our burrow. It was late winter and I felt like we were hibernating. Storing up our love against the long dark nights. I like the dark, it’s safe.

  I dreaded the spring.

  The first weekend in March we went to Brighton. It was still very cold but we went for the tacky couple fun of it. To walk along the pier eating candy floss, to eat fish and chips within smelling distance of the sea, to skim stones on the barely rippling surf. We went to the Pavilion and gloried in its campness. She pictured herself pale and delicate on a chaise longe, I pictured myself roasting lamb on the spit in the kitchen. We both saw ourselves making love in the King’s four poster bed, on the cold flagstone floors of the kitchen, hidden behind the curtains of the music room. We both saw ourselves making love – saw it, we didn’t do it much that weekend though. We lay together quietly and talked of dreams instead. The Pavilion dragons everywhere came alive and spoke to us of quests and journeys and dreaming and we went back to our B&B and slept, holding hands, legs entwined.

  I dreamt I woke up and she was gone. She told me she didn’t dream. But I’d heard her cry out in her sleep and I said she must have. She said maybe it wasn’t her, maybe I’d heard somebody else crying.

  But I know what her tears sound like.

  We drove home through little country roads, avoiding the motorway – we went to see the site of the battle of Hastings. I marvelled at how one event can change history, she bought an art deco teapot. We brought home chutney and marmalade and lemon curd and a big bag of potatoes from the stall on the side of the road. We went away for a weekend and brought home more bricks and mortar to build up the wall of our domestic life.

  I’d stopped calling Dolores. I didn’t really think about it, it just happened. It wasn’t intentional, I hadn’t wanted her to know when I’d been unhappy and now that things were OK, I didn’t want to deal with anyone who might rock the boat. Dolores hadn’t been that close for a long time either. Her relationship with Annie was better than any she’d had in a long time and I assumed she didn’t miss me. She called me three times and each time I listened to the message on the answerphone and decided not to reply. I listened to a lot of messages at the time. I wasn’t interested in having conversations with anyone but the Woman with the Kelly McGillis Body. And I on
ly wanted to have conversations with her soul. And her body. Which was more like talking in braille.

  As I do now.

  Eyes closed, not looking, not talking, just feeling to converse with her body. And her soul.

  I was cutting myself off in order to entrench myself even further in our relationship and words seemed pointless.

  Dolores didn’t think so. One day I chose to pick up the phone. Bad choice.

  “Maggie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Here.”

  “Didn’t you get my messages?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing.”

  “What? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine Dolly, I just don’t really feel like talking at the moment.”

  “You haven’t felt like talking for months.”

  “No. I haven’t.”

  “Is it her?”

  “Yes it is her. But not in the way that you mean. It is her in that I don’t want anyone else. In that I don’t know why you’re calling.”

  “What the fuck are you on Maggie? I’m calling because I’m your friend and when I don’t hear from you for ages – literally months – I get worried.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “Maggie! I heard you were working out like a maniac. Then I heard you were cancelling gigs left, right and centre.”

  “Both right – your grapevine is flourishing! But there’s nothing to worry about. I only want to be with her.”

  “But I heard …”

  “I’m sure you did, Dolly. I’m sure you heard all sorts of things. And now you’ve heard me. I don’t want any interference, I don’t want any phone calls, I just want to be left alone.”

  “OK. OK babe, if that’s what you want, I won’t call again. I’m sorry. I’m your friend Maggie, I just want you to know that.”

  “I do know it Dolores.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I do. Give my love to Annie. Bye.”

  I hung up. Absurdly pleased with myself at having burnt yet another bridge. Happy to have cut out my oldest friend. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  But I am now.

  That was March. And then it was Passover again. Cleaning the flat. Clearing it out. Lent and the lead up to Passover. One season of deprivation and cleansing leading into another, both with a finale of feasting and celebration. Thanksgiving and rebirth combined. Like a wake and a christening. Jesus celebrated Passover. But when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey it was to have the Passover meal with his friends, not his family. He must have disappointed his mother. Thirty three and still unmarried.

  She was going “home” for Passover. Like our place was not her home – after four years. I didn’t mind so much this time, after all the pain of winter I felt secure. Scoured. Cleansed and safe. So she went “home” for Passover.

  April is the cruellest month. Not because of the lilacs. Lilacs unearth themselves. But because I started scrabbling around in what I thought was dead earth and I discovered nettles – very much alive and sharp and stinging.

  In the early afternoon of Good Friday, our kitchen clean even of hot cross buns, she left to go to her parents’ house. I had a short sleep in front of the television – the story of Barabas not holding the same appeal that it had when I was a child – and then I got up and went into our room.

  I had the cleaning bug. Celebrating Jewish festivals with your partner is all very well, but it’s easier to do when your partner is with you. When they go “home” to mummy and daddy and you’re still trying to obey the rules, it can be a little trying. Four years and I’d never once had so much as a slice of toast during Passover – I’d never developed much of an appetite for matzos either – but I liked the idea of “keeping faith” with her. Only she got to go and eat and drink celebration meals with the family, I was staying at home for a boiled egg by myself. So I had the cleaning bug. It was four in the afternoon – three hours to sundown and just enough time to clean out the bedroom cupboards.

  I started with the drawers, throwing out old cotton buds, plastic bags. Junking pairs of holey tights I’d never wear again and happily filling rubbish bags with tired pieces of the recent past. I made piles – things I knew I didn’t want, things I might want and things I’d have to ask her if it was OK to throw out. Eventually, at about six, I came to a halt. I bravely threw out both the “definite no” and the “maybe” piles and put the “ask her” pile into a plastic bag for disposal at the back of the cupboard above the wardrobe. Standing on a chair, I pulled down the fifteen or so winter jumpers we share so I could put the “maybe” bag behind them. There was a small suitcase there. I pulled it down to make room and as I did so the single clasp flew open and the contents of the case fell on top of me. I got off the chair to pick the stuff up and put it back. It wasn’t much, a couple of thin little cocktail type dresses that I hadn’t seen her wear for a long time, a flimsy pair of shoes and an envelope.

  I know I shouldn’t have opened it. I ruined Christmas for myself once, I was about seven, both my parents were at work and I opened all my presents – saw what they were and then re-wrapped them very carefully so no-one would know I’d done it. Christmas morning came and not a yuletide surprise in sight. But I pretended. How I pretended – couldn’t risk mummy and daddy finding out. Pretended all day and went to bed with a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach. You’d think I’d have learnt my lesson. It wasn’t addressed to me. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. But I couldn’t help myself. I think I’ve said before, I always want to know everything. Curiosity kills and all that, unfortunately I don’t have a cat’s nine lives. Or its indifference.

  The envelope wasn’t sealed, it was folded into itself. Inside was a card. It was dated the day of my birthday.

  Thanks for another lovely evening,

  hope you had a great time in New York,

  all my love, John.

  And it was signed with kisses.

  I dropped the card and ran in to the bathroom to throw up. She’d lied to me. Lies on top of lies. I threw up until I had nothing more inside me. I lay with my head against the cool white of the toilet bowl. Lay for an hour or more, my world reeling. Then I got up, left her stuff where it was, packed a bag and walked out. I didn’t know where I was going or for how long, but I had no intention of waiting patiently for her to come home. I took all the spare money either of us had lying around, my keys and left.

  It was early evening when I walked outside. I sat on a bus for about an hour, got off, got on to the tube and sat on a train for another hour or so. Then I went to Annie’s house where Dolores took one look at me, gave me a fiercely strong gin and tonic and put me to bed.

  I hoped never to wake up again. I dreamt of lilacs.

  But you always do wake up into the nightmare don’t you?

  CHAPTER 16

  Tightrope walking

  Saz waited until most of the customers had left. It was 3am, she walked out on to the balcony at the back of the building and collected her thoughts. In another hour the whole place would be hers, she could get the information she needed and leave New York the next day. She breathed in a cold blast of air from the night and walked back into the lounge.

  “What are you doing hiding out there, September?”

  Saz was startled to find Simon James a few feet behind her. He hadn’t been in all night and it was unusual for him to turn up so late. In the five minutes she’d been out on the balcony, the room had cleared of the last clients and they were alone.

  “Oh, Mr James, you startled me.”

  “Why September, what have you got to hide?”

  “Nothing, it’s just that I thought there wasn’t anyone here, and well … this is New York after all.”

  “Yes, of course, New York, how silly of me to forget. The city of sin and muggers and a murder every three minutes – that’s what you English think isn’t it?”

  “Something like th
at Mr James.”

  James moved across to Saz and sat on the chair beside her.

  “Well, perhaps we’re not quite as bad as the movies paint us. I’d like you to call me Simon, September. Would you join me for a drink?”

  “Ah, well … Simon, I really should be getting back, it’s very late.”

  “One little drink?”

  Now that he was closer, Saz could see that James was actually very drunk, the thin lines of red veins standing out on his fine chiselled cheekbones and the tart smell of whisky on his breath. He reached out and took her hand.

  “I really do like English girls, you know September.”

  Saz decided to play along, reasoning that James couldn’t be any more forceful or arrogant than the men she’d been dealing with nightly for the past week.

  “And I like American men, Simon. Let me fix you that drink.”

  Saz crossed to the bar, where she mixed herself a gin and tonic, containing about as much gin as one ripe juniper berry and a very large whisky for James.

  “Ice?”

  “Yes please.”

  He slurred a smile across at her and Saz added the ice to his whisky.

  “Here’s hoping you crash on the rocks any minute now,” she thought.

  Saz sat with Simon James for the next hour, in which time he had three more large whiskys and told her most of his life story – poor kid, violent father, loving mother, too many in the family, older sister died in a nasty car accident, brother stayed in small town, worked hard, achieved nothing, whereas he worked hard, made a few “wise investments” and was now “comfortably off”. Saz, looking at his Rolex and Cartier cufflinks couldn’t help comparing his idea of comfortably off to her dream of a new answerphone. She also knew that she believed his story about “wise investments” almost as much as she believed the one he was starting to tell her now about how his wife didn’t understand him.

  Steering him away from the subject of his unsatisfactory home life, Saz went back to the question of the business.

  “But tell me about how you set yourself up here. I mean, it’s a … well, it’s a great place … and if, as you said, you had such a difficult childhood, then it’s all the more impressive that you’re doing so well now.”