The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

Bettina turned her strawberry mouth down, just at the corners. Her big eyes—unripe fruits—were bulgy with incomprehension. “I know it’s old-fashioned,” she said, “but I don’t see that it’s funny.”


Should I have noticed at this point, that they’d got together, left me in the cold? I lacked insight this summer—that’s how Lobotomy would put it. Yet when the patients come in I seem to see straight through them to the bone. I can hear their hearts flutter, hear their respiration, their digestion, estimate their tick-over speed and say whether they’ll be with us for Christmas. It’s September now, and I still feel wrecked by London—I am hot, filthy, desperate when I get back to Staines for a bath or shower. For comfort I retain this picture in my mind: one day I’ll get further out of town. Somewhere just big enough for me. Somewhere small and quiet.

Next day I bought a bunch of lilies as I came through Waterloo. I pressed them into Mrs. Bathurst’s hands. “Sorry,” I said. “About the cruel remarks I made.” She nodded, absently. She left them on the table in the hall, didn’t put them in water; I could hardly do it myself, could I? That evening she and Bettina left together. On her way out she just casually scooped them up, without looking at them. I’ll never know if they went home with her or went into a bin.

Next day, Bettina came up from the basement. She stood inside my door, leaning on the frame. She looked faintly bruised and blurred, as if her outline had become fuzzy. “I’d like to talk to you,” she said.

“Of course,” I said, rather coldly. “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

“Not here,” she said, looking around.

“Meet me at one-fifteen,” I said. I told her how to find the French place. They’re even cheaper at lunchtime.

I was there first. I drank some water. I didn’t think she’d come, thought she’d lose the address, lose interest; her problems were easily soluble, after all. One-thirty, she came flouncing in—cheeks pink with self-importance, coloring when the waiter took her cheap little rain-proof jacket. They brought the menu; she took it without seeing it; she pushed her curly fringe from her forehead and—as I could have forecast—burst into tears. It’s been a long, difficult summer. It came to me what Mrs. Bathurst said, about the need to move on: I said, “I suppose you’ll not be with us much longer, Bets?”

She locked her eyes onto mine; this surprised me, to see those great blue-violet orbs assume a purpose. “You don’t realize, do you?” she said. “My God, when were you born? Don’t you realize I’m seeing Bathurst, most nights now?”

Seeing, indeed. I kept a very judicious silence: that’s what you should do, if you don’t quite know what people mean. Then she did something odd: her elbows on the table, she put her fingers to the back of her neck, and seemed to massage the scalp line there, and raise her roseate hair. It was as if she were trying to show me something. A moment, when her eyes challenged mine, and then her hair fell back against her short white neck. She shivered; she drew one hand across her shoulder, slowly, and allowed it to graze her breast, brush her nipple. One of the old waiters passed and scowled at me, as if he were seeing something he didn’t like.

“Oh, come on Bets, don’t cry.” I extended my hand, let it cover hers for a moment. Okay, so you’re that way; I should have known, shouldn’t I, when you came into my cave to giggle about sexual perversity? “Lots of people are like it, Bettina.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she said. All her sweetness had gone; she was foulmouthed, sweating, pallid. “It’s like an addiction,” she said.

“There are support groups. You can ring up and get advice, about how to come out. I wouldn’t have thought it was a problem these days, especially in London. It must be easy enough to find people with the same … orientation.”

Bettina was shaking her head, her eyes on the check tablecloth. Perhaps it was her family at home she was thinking of; different mores in Melbourne? “Think of it like this—maybe it’s just a phase you’re going through.”

“Phase?” She lifted her head. “That’s all you know, Todd. I’m like this forever, now.”

Setting aside my prejudices—which is not easy, and why should it be?—I have to say I have no high opinion of Mrs. Bathurst, though as a work colleague she’s a lot brighter recently. Now she’s hooked up with Bettina, she’s energized, brisk. Her eyes are bright and she keeps looking at me. Wants to make amends, I suppose, for attacking me in the street. She’s asked me to visit her next weekend. I don’t know if I’ll go or not. Come for a bite, was how she put it.



OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON