Deborah Crombie - All Shall Be Well

"Roger, couldn't you-" Meg began, then stopped, unable to find any words that might encourage him to go without incurring his temper.

"Want me to go, do you, sweetheart?" Roger said softly, crossing the room and sitting down beside her on the bed. Her stomach spasmed and her hands began to tremble. "Leave you all by yourself? I'd never do that, would I, Meg darling?" He ran his fingers lightly down her spine. "You know what this means, don't you, Meg? It won't take long for Jasmine's will to clear probate, and then we'll be set. A decent flat, maybe a holiday somewhere. Would you like to lie on the beach in Spain, Meg? Soak up the sun and drink pina coladas?" He'd been unbuttoning her blouse as he spoke, and now he traced a fingertip just under the edge of her bra.

Meg felt her nipples draw up, felt her stomach tighten in unwilling response. "Roger, we can't. Mrs. Wilson'll-"

"She'll be having her after-lunch kip in front of the telly. She won't hear a thing. Not if you're a good girl. And I want you to be a good girl. Not like this morning when you made such a scene. What was the Superintendent to think, darling, with you ranting and raving like a fishwife?" He pushed her back against the pillow and lifted her legs up on the bed. "It won't do, Meg. Do you hear me?" he asked, his voice even more gentle than before.

Meg nodded. In the cold, gray light from the window she could see the faint dusting of freckles on his skin and the flush beginning where the vee of his shirt exposed his chest. She clung to the memory of her defiance of him that morning, wrapping it about her like a second skin.

Roger pulled down his jeans and lifted her skirt, not bothering to finish undressing her. The rumpled bedspread made a lump beneath her shoulder blades and Meg focused on the discomfort, thinking that if she concentrated hard enough on that pinpoint she might block her body's traitorous rush of desire. Roger lowered himself onto her, his breath escaping in a soft grunt.

Meg turned her face to the wall.

As soon as she felt Roger's breathing slow to the deep rhythm of sleep, Meg slid carefully from beneath him and stood up. She refastened her clothes and ran a hand through her tangled hair. Slipping into her shoes and lifting coat and handbag from the back of the armchair, she tiptoed toward the door. A loose board under the floor matting creaked and she stopped, her breath held, her heart thumping. Roger snorted and turned over, his bare buttocks exposed.

He can bloody well freeze , Meg thought spitefully as she turned the knob and let herself out of the room.

She walked, mindlessly, aimlessly, stopping to stare in shop windows at items she didn't see. The smell of hot grease and frying fish drifted from the open door of a chip shop and she hurried on, her stomach churning with nausea.

It was only when she found herself standing at an intersection on Finchley Road that she realized where her wandering feet had taken her. She shook herself, hesitated, then crossed with the light and began the long climb up Arkwright Road into Hampstead.

In spite of the cars lining both curbsides, Carlingford Road felt deserted, held in mid-afternoon repose before its occupants returned home from work. Meg climbed the stairs to Jasmine's flat and fished the key from the inside pocket of her handbag. She listened a moment, then unlocked the door and stepped inside. Sid regarded her from the bed, then curled himself back into a tight, black ball. "Wish I could do that," she said aloud. "Shut it out. Shut it all out."

Closing her eyes, she rested her back against the door and breathed-breathed in the stillness, the faint spicy scent that clung to Jasmine's things, the beginnings of the chill mustiness that signals an unused room.

Over the months the flat had become her safe haven, an inviolate space, and soon it would be lost to her forever. Meg pushed herself away from the door and walked slowly around the room, touching familiar things. She moved to the window, where Jasmine had often stood and caressed the carved wooden elephants as she watched the Major working in the garden. Today even the colors in the garden were subdued, the blaze of the tulips and forsythia muted by the moisture in the air. Her fingers traced the familiar pattern on the smallest elephant's back, the wood silky from much stroking. It brought no comfort. A sound from the hall caused her to start guiltily and drop the elephant back on the sill with shaking fingers. The doorknob turned, then someone tapped softly.

Panic closed Meg's throat, cramped her stomach. She forced it back, forced herself to think reasonably. It couldn't be Roger. The rapping knuckles had been much too tenuous. But whoever it was would have heard the elephant knocking against the windowsill.

She crossed the room, pulled back the latch and slowly opened the door. Theo Dent stood in the hall, looking as awkward as Meg felt.

"I'm sorry… I didn't realize," he said, the rest of his face coloring to match the end of his nose, which Meg assumed was pink from exposure to the chill wind. Damp beaded his curly hair. "I just came on the off chance… I didn't expect… I don't know why I came, really," he finished lamely. "I missed my train. There won't be another until the commuter rush."

Meg pulled the door open wider and stepped back. "I didn't intend to come here, either," she said as Theo entered. She smiled at him, struck by a feeling of kinship. "I've no right to be here. It just seemed…"

"You do, you know." Theo wiped his hand under his nose and sniffed. "She left it to you."

Meg stared at him. Roger had talked of the flat in cash-in-hand terms so often-sell it and use the money for something else-that somehow the idea of ownership hadn't penetrated. She looked around the room, seeing it in a new perspective. She would actually possess this flat, be able to do with it as she pleased-sell it, lease it, even live here if she chose.

For a heady moment she imagined herself inhabiting these comfortable rooms, putting her own stamp on them, but the vision faded. She sensed that Jasmine's imprint was too strong for her own less assertive personality to take root. And Roger… she'd never escape from Roger here.

But the reminder of ownership gave her a new confidence. She knelt and turned on the radiator, then switched on a lamp and shed her coat. "I'll make us some tea."

Theo followed her into the kitchen area and watched her quietly for a while. "You must have spent a lot of time here with her. I envy you that. I suppose I thought that if I came here I could… I don't know… place her here more firmly."

"It's not fair, her leaving the flat to me instead of you." Meg turned from the kettle to regard him earnestly. "I argued with her about it, but she wouldn't-"

Theo held up a hand. "You mustn't say that. She did enough. All these years she did enough. More than she should." He took off his spectacles, looking blindly around for something to wipe them on. Meg handed him the tea towel. "You see, I've been a rotten failure all my life, and Jasmine always picked up the pieces." He hooked the spectacles back over his ears and pushed them up the bridge of his nose with a forefinger. "Everything always sounded so glorious at the start, and then somehow-" He shrugged and let the sentence hang.

Meg poured boiling water into two mugs, sloshed the teabags around for a bit, then plopped them in the sink. "There's no milk. Sugar?" Theo nodded and she stirred in a spoonful before handing him the mug. They moved to the table and Meg sat in her usual chair. She rubbed at a smudge in the wood's dark gloss, marveling at this sudden surge of proprietary feeling. She'd never really possessed anything-a few bits and pieces bought for the furnished bedsit, her sister's castoffs-never anything that inspired a sense of pride, of expanding the boundaries of her self past her own body.