John Harvey - Off Minor

Edith leaned forward from her chair, shaking an inch of ash from her cigarette on to the beige tiles surrounding the fire.

“She could’ve had an abortion, but I think she was too frightened. All she could talk about was adopt, adopt, adopt. I suppose somewhere inside I hoped that once she’d had the baby, held it, she’d think different. No. The only feelings Susan ever seemed to have were for Susan. Anything that was going to cost her more than opening her mouth, opening her legs, she didn’t want to know.”

Edith rattled down her cup and looked Resnick in the face. “Whatever made me think, after the mess I made of bringing up one daughter on my own, I could do better with another?”

Resnick took away the cup and saucer, stubbed out the cigarette and held her hands. “Listen,” he said, “what happened, it wasn’t your fault.”

She was a long time replying. She said: “No? Then who was it ran off and left her there? Off round the corner for a packet of fags? Who?”

Only when his arms were numb, the heat from the fire on his leg so strong that he could smell the material of his trousers beginning to singe, did Resnick seek to loosen her grip, let her go.

Outside the rain had stopped and the wind that cut across the street was keen as a knife. Hesitating for a moment before getting into his car, Resnick could just hear the swish and fall of sea, dull roll of the undertow. And because there was nothing else to do, he turned his key in the lock, the ignition, released the handbrake, adjusted the choke, indicated that he was pulling away.

“D’you see this?”

“What’d you say?”

“I said, did you see …”

“Lorraine, it’s no use, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” Lorraine remembered not to sigh or shake her head, pushed the paper a little to one side and sipped at her red mug of Nescafé, Gold Blend decaffeinated. On the ceramic hob, potatoes and carrots were simmering nicely; five minutes’ time, she’d empty some frozen peas from the large family pack into a small pan of boiling water, add a teaspoon of sugar and a shake of salt, the way her mother always did. She would check the oven at the same time; if the fish was ready inside its foil packet, move it down on to the lower shelf and adjust the temperature ready for the Sara Lee Danish Apple Bar, Michael’s favorite, served with double cream and custard both.

“You’re always doing that, you know,” Michael still toweling his hair as he walked into the room.

“What?”

“Talking to me while I’m in the shower, as if you expect me to understand what you’re going on about.”

“Michael, I wasn’t going on.”

“All right,” aiming a kiss towards her face and missing, “whatever you were doing, I didn’t hear it.”

They had bought the house a year ago, five thousand short of the asking price in a declining market and glad to get it, carpets and curtains thrown in. Though, as Lorraine had informed Michael at the time, as soon as they could afford it she was going to throw them out again; not her taste at all. Another thing Lorraine had insisted upon, new units in the kitchen, proper surfaces, wipe off and keep clean, electricity instead of gas. There was a small room off the kitchen, surely it wouldn’t cost a fortune to have it fitted out with a shower? That way they needn’t be getting under one another’s feet in the mornings.

And Michael Morrison, just married for the second time, a younger woman this time and with ideas of her own, bound to have, did what he could to ensure they managed. All the mistakes he’d made before, himself and Diana, he wasn’t about to let them happen again.

Besides, the extra shower was a good idea. Although he left the house quite a bit earlier to catch his train, Lorraine liked to be up too; partly to make sure he had a proper breakfast, but also because she enjoyed sitting over her coffee after Michael had gone, washing already in the machine, dishes stacked away, reading the Mail in her own time. There was always some little tidbit she could slip into her conversation with the other tellers at the bank, the customers even. “Did you read about …?” while she was weighing the bags of change. It made it more personal, as if she were making contact, not one of those machines set into the wall.

“What’s for dinner?” Michael asked, wandering through into the other room and coming back with the Scotch bottle in his hand. Lorraine wished he wouldn’t do that, knew he would have had one or two already on the train; once she might have said something but now she knew better. What you did, bit your tongue and kept mum.

“Fish,” she said.

“I know fish, but what kind?”

“Salmon.”

He paused and looked at her, then poured a couple of fingers of Scotch into the solid-bottomed glass.

“It’s fresh,” Lorraine said. “Sainsbury’s.”

“Steaks?”

She shook her head. “A whole fish.”

“Must’ve cost a quid or two.”

“It was on special offer.”

“Needing to get shot of it, then. You’re sure it’s okay? Fresh?”

What did he think she was going to do, pay out over six pounds for fish that wasn’t fresh? “This morning’s catch, his word on it.”

Michael added a little water to his Scotch, not too much; where was the sense in buying good whisky only to water it down? “You can never believe them,” he said. “Salesmen. Say whatever it takes. Stands to reason, it’s their job, selling. If you have to bend the truth a little, well …” tasting his drink “… you bend the truth.”

Michael was a salesman, sort of, himself. Machine tools, he had tried to explain in detail once, but gone off in a huff when she’d been slow to understand, accusing her of being thick. She stopped herself thinking about Michael, the occasions when he might be tempted to bend the truth.

“Anyway,” she said, “he’s not a salesman, he’s a fishmonger.”

Michael laughed and slipped a little more whisky into his glass. “Wears a striped apron and straw hat, does he?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he does.”

Michael leaned over and gave her a kiss; not on the mouth, but a kiss all the same. She wished he wouldn’t patronize her so much.

“How much was it then, this whole salmon?”

“Only four pounds. I told you, it was a bargain.” Michael sniffed. “Four pounds. Better be good.”

After dinner, Michael liked to stretch out in the lounge, swing one of his legs over the side of the armchair. When Lorraine had been growing up, it was something her mother had been forever telling her about, the way it stretched the covers out of shape. Together they would watch TV for a while, once Lorraine had finished in the kitchen. Usually she would have to nudge him awake and then they’d probably watch the headlines on the news and if there was nothing special, like a plane crash or another pile-up on the M1, start to get ready for bed.

Sometimes, especially at weekends, they lingered downstairs and Michael would put some Chris de Burgh on the CD player, Chris Rea, Dire Straits.

The first time he had made love to her, in the studio flat he’d moved to after separating from his wife, he had programmed “The Lady in Red” and then pressed the repeat button. This will be our song, Lorraine had thought, but never said.

Now, there were still times when, as she was getting undressed, moving between the dressing table and the bathroom, Michael would lean on to one elbow, reach out a hand towards her and touch the inside of her leg as she passed, fingers stroking the inside of her thigh.

Fridays. Occasionally Saturdays, especially if they’d been round for dinner with friends, Michael passing round the third bottle of wine and staring down the front of someone else’s wife’s dress.