“I’m sure she is too busy with her studies and friends to bother with an old thing like me.”
Despite regularly sending parcels of treats, and sometimes a card with a bit of money stuffed inside, Marion hadn’t heard from Lydia since she began her studies at Birmingham Met more than a year ago. It wasn’t so much Lydia’s behavior as John’s relish in pointing it out that gave Marion a tight feeling in her throat.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, John, a delivery arrived for you this morning. It’s in the hall.”
John left the room, then returned a moment later carrying a package. After placing it carefully down on the table, he stood looking at it for a few seconds as if savoring the moment. The brown wrapping made a papery shriek as he ripped it off with a knife; he then ran the palm of his hand across the box upon which was printed a picture of a dark gray aeroplane.
“What do you think of that then, Marion? The Avro Lancaster.”
“Very nice, I’m sure.”
“Nice?” John chuckled. “I don’t think the people of Hamburg thought this beauty was very nice; the Lancaster was used by the RAF to bomb the city in World War II. One of the air attacks took place after a spell of such warm, dry weather that it created a firestorm nearly a thousand feet high.” John paused to flick his tongue across his bottom lip. “The roads and even the water in the rivers burst into flames. People were swept up into the blazing tornado like dry leaves.” He removed his gaze from the picture of the plane to fix it on her. “Can you imagine that?”
Marion gasped. “How awful!”
“It had to be done, to win the war.” John patted the box affectionately. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. George Orwell said that, Marion,” he said, wagging a thick, red finger for emphasis.
“It never ceases to amaze me the things you know, John.”
? ? ?
AT TWELVE THIRTY exactly Marion rang the bell by her neighbor’s front door. Judith appeared dressed in leggings and a wraparound cardigan, dyed-black hair pulled into a bun. Her clothes and posture gave her the controlled, impatient look of a ballet mistress. She squinted at Marion as if unsure who she was or what she was doing standing on the step, then her thin red mouth curved into a smile.
“Oh, there you are. Well, come in then, lunch is already on the table.”
Marion followed her into the house, which despite being built in exactly the same style as the one next door, seemed to exist about a thousand years in the future. Everything in the open plan kitchen/dining room was sterile as a laboratory, and as she entered, the brightness of a dozen overhead spotlights stung Marion’s eyes. The entire rear wall of the house had been replaced by glass, through which you could see a Japanese-style garden and small gazebo overlooking a pond.
“Shall I grab your coat?”
“No—no—it’s all right—I’ll keep it on, thank you.”
“Isn’t it warm enough in here for you?” asked Judith.
In fact the house was much warmer than Marion’s; the outdated boiler next door did little to fight the sharp drafts that were forever chasing each other around the edges of windows and doors. But Marion was thinking of the struggle she had getting the zip up in the first place. If she got it stuck again and had to struggle to get out of her coat, Judith would get that annoying amused look on her face as if Marion were a clown brought in especially for her entertainment.
“Maybe I’ll take the hood down.”
She must have tied the knot too tightly beneath her chin because it was impossible to get undone. Marion had to stretch the hood back over her crop of dark frizzy hair. She sat down on one of Judith’s funny modern chairs made from a piece of curved plastic, then struggled not to slide straight onto the floor, as her nylon-covered bottom offered no grip against the shiny surface. The room was decorated with artworks from the gallery on Northport High Street that Judith owned. A giant abstract picture that looked like it might have been a lady’s breast hung on one wall, and several disembodied dolls’ heads that had been, for reasons incomprehensible to Marion, roughly crammed into an old medical cabinet stared out at her.
On the opposite wall hung two black-and-white portraits of Lydia. One had been taken when she was about five years old, her round face framed by a puffy halo of hair, and there was a solemn look in her huge eyes as though the camera had disappointed her gravely. In the second, taken more recently, she was wearing a white linen shirt and sitting on a wicker seat, her fine features framed by long straight hair. Marion felt a surge of warmth as she looked at the pictures.
The table was set out with things like tomatoes, peppers, and artichokes drowned in bright yellow olive oil, all arranged on glossy white plates, so they looked like medical specimens.
“I’ve got bottled water, Marion, or would you prefer tea?”
“Tea would be nice. Milk and two sugars, please.”
“I don’t have sugar. Or milk. If I have a drop of dairy, I swell up like a balloon. The human gut isn’t really designed to handle it. You know you must have a real espresso,” said Judith, forcing the word from between her lips with a hiss. “Greg brought me this fancy coffee machine back from Milan.”
She went over to a huge metal contraption that sat on the counter and then began messing with tiny cups and pouring jugs of liquid through funnels.
“Go ahead and eat,” said Judith as she began cleaning already spotless surfaces, taking things out of cupboards, wiping them, then putting them away again, moving with a whirr of sharp angles like some kitchen apparatus set to fast motion.
Marion tried to cut off a piece of baguette, but the bread was so stale, it shattered instantly into sharp brown crumbs, leaving her with a small elbow of crust. There was no butter, and the crust cut into her tender gums as she took a bite. A tiny cup of black coffee appeared in front of her. Marion took a sip. The coffee was so bitter that her tongue shriveled like a slug doused with salt.
“So, Marion, what have you been up to?” Judith, having completed her flurry of activity, positioned herself on a plastic chair, pulling up a bare foot and placing it across her thigh.
“Well, not much, really.”
“You know, Marion, you should get out more, take up a hobby or join a club. They have all sorts of classes at Northport Methodist Church. Someone left a pile of leaflets in the gallery—here, I brought you one.”
Judith pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from her bag and began smoothing it out on the table.
“Monday is adult literacy, then on Tuesday an AA meeting, well, presumably you wouldn’t need either of those, Wednesday is computer skills, and basic maths, but look, on Thursdays they do beginner’s French—ooh la la—you never know, you might meet someone.”
“Someone?”
“A man. A romantic interest, Marion.”
The sound that came out of Marion’s mouth was more like a screech of fear than laughter.