Rosie Thomas - Strangers

Steve hadn’t said anything. There wasn’t any point in saying anything, both of them understood that. He had gone back into the kitchen and rummaged in the drawers for the coffee strainer. He had poured himself a mugful of coffee and leant against the grey-painted cupboard, staring blankly at the newspaper, while he drank it.

When he went back into the living room, Cass wasn’t there. He turned off the lights, went through into the bedroom, and found her.

She had made up her face, and changed out of her sweatshirt and track pants. Steve was used to her chameleon transformations, but now he stood still and stared at her. Later he remembered a black lace bra, French knickers slit high at the sides, suspenders and black stockings. Cass had painted pouting red lips over her own, but her black-rimmed eyes belied them. They met his, full of bewildered resentment. But she faced him squarely with one hand on her hip, posing.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time tonight. Shall I give you one now?’

‘Cass, for God’s sake …’

She came swaying towards him, reaching up to the catch of her bra but holding it over her breasts, sliding the straps off her smooth brown shoulders.

She was very pretty, tall and a little too thin, with hip-bones that jutted on either side of the soft concavity of her stomach. Against his will, knowing that she was manipulating him, Steve put out his hand to touch her. Her skin was warm, and he knew the intimate scent of it.

‘Cass,’ he whispered. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I am your wife, aren’t I?’

‘You are.’

He drew her to him and her half-naked body fitted against his. He kissed her, smudging the scarlet mouth, and she began to undo the buttons of his shirt. Steve tilted her sideways, down on to the bed. For a moment she lay looking up at him, then she rolled over so that she was on top. She undid the last button and her fingers moved to the buckle of his belt. She bent her head to kiss him and then looked downwards, dreamily, the soft ends of her hair trailing over his bare chest. For the moment Steve had forgotten the complicated sequence of their long-running battle. His fingers found the lace-trimmed edge of the provocative knickers. He slid them inside, reaching for her.

Cass pushed him away. She rolled out his arms and stood up. Without a glance back at him she went to her wardrobe, took out a coat and put it on over the black lace underthings. Then she lifted down a suitcase, opened a drawer and began to stuff clothes into it.

‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ Steve felt the heat of his anger fuelled by desire.

Cass didn’t look round. She put an armful of clothes on hangers into the case and slammed it shut.

‘I’m leaving you,’ she said flatly. ‘I hate you. You disgust me.’

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid.’

He had lifted himself up on to his elbows to look at her, and he felt his awkward heat, the frustrated redness of his face. His anger intensified. Cass put her feet into a pair of suede boots. She swept a clutter of things, keys and her chequebook and her precious Filofax, off the bedside table and into her bag.

She went to the door and then, finally, turned back to look at him.

‘Goodbye, Steve,’ she said. She hadn’t been able to resist the final pose.

‘Where the hell are you going?’

‘Nowhere that concerns you.’

His wife walked out, closing the door behind her.

Steve lay motionless for a moment, and then he flung himself off the bed and went to the window. He tucked his shirt back into his trousers and opened the curtain. He saw Cass come out into the street and put her suitcase into her car. It was a little gold-coloured Renault 5, and Steve remembered that he had booked it in for a service later in the week. Cass revved the engine, backed the car up and then shot forwards. He stood at the window watching the street for a long time after the Renault had vanished.

She’ll be back, he told himself. It won’t last more than a couple of days. But she had never come back.

‘I’ve never told anyone exactly what happened,’ Steve said. ‘I just said we’d split up. Out of shame, I suppose. But I’m telling you, now.’

‘I don’t think shame matters very much,’ the girl said quietly, ‘if you’re going to die.’

Annie heard his quick movement, and then his breath catch as pain gripped him somewhere.

‘We aren’t going to die,’ he said. ‘Do you hear?’ And then, when there was no answer, ‘Say something, Annie. We aren’t going to die . They’ll dig us out of here. I know they will.’

‘They’ll dig us out,’ she echoed him, at last. They lay still, their hands clasped.

Annie hated the quiet seeping around them. It seemed to be only a superficial quiet, masking all kind of noises, perhaps the first rumble of the avalanche that would bring the weight of rubble down to crush their precarious shelter.

‘Do you want her to come back?’ she asked quickly.

‘I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.’

Not any more. He still saw Vicky, and one or two others just like her. He worked very hard – it was his own production company, and he had to – and when there was no Vicky or anyone else he came home to the empty flat.

‘You sound sorry for yourself.’

Her words made him look into the blank darkness, wishing he could see her. He had had only the vaguest impression of her turning away from the counter and walking ahead of him towards the door. She had a pleasant, preoccupied face. Ordinary.

‘And you sound like a schoolmistress.’

She did. There was a faint bossiness, a moral certainty. No, it wasn’t a schoolmistress – it was a mother, used to delivering crisp reprimands. Steve heard something that might almost have been a low, painful laugh.

‘Don’t you think it’s odd that we’re buried here, holding hands and insulting each other?’ the girl asked.

His answering smile flickered automatically before the pain in his leg made him wince again.

‘I like the spirit, Annie,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s odd , down here, is it? Say what you like. Talk to me some more. Tell me, are you happily married?’

What was the cold hand that had touched her, when she remembered the day in the garden? It came again now, tightening its hold, and she was already so cold. The shivering took hold of her and she went stiff, trying to stop it because it shook the pain deeper into her side, like a knife stabbing her.

‘Yes. Yes, we’re happy together. I am. I think Martin is.’ She could hear herself gabbling and she made herself talk more slowly, shaping the words in her mouth before she uttered them.

Years, succeeding one another. Changing their texture a little, the colours fading from bright to dim, but all woven in the same, even way.

‘I’m just a housewife. I’ve got two children, boys, eight and three.’

Oh, Thomas, Benjy, I love you so much. Don’t let me die here without seeing you .

‘My husband’s a designer, interiors. His company does shops, that kind of thing. I used to do similar work, before Tom was born. Now I look after the children and Martin, and the house. I’m happy doing it. You can’t imagine what it would be like, can you?’

I know you now, Steve thought. I’ve seen you, all of you, in the park with your kids, or struggling to get off the tube with one in a buggy and the other hanging on to your coat.

‘Cass wanted to be like that, I think. For all her wild outfits and dotty behaviour. I think she really wanted to have dinner ready every evening at eight o’clock, get the holiday brochures in January and make plans for July, have a regular night out together every week.’

‘And you didn’t?

‘No, I didn’t. It was the routine of being married that I couldn’t bear.’