One
In a call-box on Fortune Green Road, where Hampstead ends and Kilburn begins, a telephone was ringing. Francine Snaith heard it, and being possessed of the conviction that destiny had it continually in mind at any moment to summon her, felt it was intended that she should answer.
It had begun to ring just as she reached the top of the road, its call clear above the humming, dusky swarm of the pavement, and its imperative grew louder as she made her way alongside the throbbing traffic towards it. Several people walked quickly past the call-box, shaking their heads as if angered by its unsupervision, but one or two had stopped and were watching it with interest. The compelling pulse was loud in her ears as she reached the scene, and she felt herself drawn by it out of the crowd. In the glances this action drew she saw the natural acceptance of her distinction, and the busy pavement seemed to part before her. She opened the door, releasing its clamour into the street.
Once alone inside the shrilling enclosure, Francine was wrapped in warm air oily with urine and cigarettes, the manifestations of an anxiety she had often witnessed as she walked to and from the bus stop but to date had never shared; for the grooves of her daily routine, though rigid, at least ensured her safe passage past the brutalized individuals always to be glimpsed here, desperately shoving scrabbled coins into the hungry slit while from their downturned mouths Francine could occasionally hear snatches of a dark bureaucracy: ‘Just one night’, ‘I’ll pay you back’, ‘But you said you sent the cheque’, and, most often, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Her revulsion at these creatures was tempered by the safety of her distance from their misfortunes, and her confidence that the divide which separated them was fortified by sheer impossibility even permitted her to tend a small patch of pity for them. When she picked it up, the receiver was tepid and greasy with use.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh yes, hello,’ said a man’s voice, with an impatient sigh.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Well, yes, love,’ said the man after a pause. ‘As a matter of fact you can. Look to your left and you’ll see a red door.’
Francine looked and was surprised to see it right there, as if it had just sauntered up and stood outside without her noticing. It was scarred with a peeling eczema of paint.
‘I see it,’ she said.
‘Well, go over and ring the bell, if you would. Tell the bloke who lives there it’s Mike for him.’
Francine placed the receiver on the metal shelf beside the phone and left the call-box. The door of the house gave directly on to the pavement and necessitated only a few steps to reach the bell. She rang it three times and when nobody answered returned to the call-box.
‘There’s no answer,’ she said.
‘Oh. Must be broken, I suppose. Try shouting up at the window on the top floor.’
‘What should I shout?’
‘Terry, love. Shout Terry.’
Francine left the call-box and returned to the front of the house. A small group of people had gathered murmuring on the pavement. Having gained the impression that the situation concealed little personal profit Francine had been considering the possibility of escape from it, but the presence of an audience imbued her with exigence.
‘Terry!’ she shouted. ‘Terry!’
Moments later she heard the pounding of footsteps and the window being opened above her. A fine snow of dry paint drifted down to her feet as the sash hit the top of the frame.
‘Look, he is in,’ said a woman nearby, pointing up.
A fat man with a dark beard put his head out.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Mike’s on the phone for you,’ called up Francine.
‘Oh, not again!’ said the man, slapping his forehead. ‘Tell him I’m busy, will you?’
He slammed the window shut and pounded off. A few seconds later the house began to shake with the sound of loud music.
‘He says he’s busy,’ Francine dutifully relayed to Mike.
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Mike. ‘That bleeder owes me money! Three weeks I’ve been after him. Tell him I’ll be round – go on, tell him, see how he likes that.’
‘I can’t,’ said Francine. ‘He’s playing some very loud music.’
‘Well, what’s that got to do with anything? Chuck a brick through his window if he can’t hear you. See how he likes that,’ added Mike firmly.
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea. Why don’t you write him a letter?’
‘Who do you think I am? The bloody postman? I just want my money!’
‘I’ve really got to go,’ said Francine. ‘Goodbye.’
She put the phone down and left the call-box. Moments later, as she walked down the darkening street, she heard it ringing again behind her. She turned into Mill Lane just as the street lamps were switched on.
* * *
She had been on her way home through the premature dark of an overcast winter afternoon from the local park, where she had spent a chilling, unsatisfactory interlude during which the rare and strenuous exercise of solitude had failed to warm her. She had gone there with the intention of substantiating the illusion of being out, lest the seeds of the previous night’s party should, in her absence, bear fruit in the form of a telephone call; but also to get clear in her mind by a detailed reconstruction of events from whom she might, reasonably or not, expect one. She had been disappointed by the park, for having decided to grace the art of contemplation with her indulgence in it, it had not occurred to her that the proper accoutrements for its execution would fail to present themselves. The infrequency of her excursions into nature had given her vague, generic assumptions concerning its appearance, and in her search for the verdant scenery of thought she had not prepared herself for the discovery that such places might have problems of their own. The park was revealed to be a barren island circumnavigated by fuming rivers of Saturday afternoon traffic, unpopulated save by a small stream of pedestrians passing through it on the way to somewhere else. Lodged awkwardly on a bench at its perimeter Francine was comforted at least by the thought, which she met like an overnight train arriving from the previous evening’s events, that the world was neither so complicated nor so exclusive a place as she had imagined.
Sitting there she remembered the dark, glittering room – an art gallery, she had been told – whose floor, to her secret and continuing concern, had been thickly strewn with dry autumn leaves. They had covered her feet with a light, rustling crust and she had had to kick them away with unfaltering vigilance in deference to the high-heeled shoes she had gone out and bought specially at lunch-time. There had been paintings on the walls, their violent, mangled surfaces quiet in the shadows like undisturbed car accidents, and she and Julie had looked at one or two of them, just as a laugh because no one had spoken to them yet, even though the room was alive, palpable with the proximity of flesh and the flash of faces. It had seemed like ages that they stood there on their own. Julie had been temping at the gallery for almost a month, and she kept pointing out people she knew.
‘Why don’t we go and talk to them?’ Francine had said impatiently.
‘Oh, we’d better not.’
‘We look stupid just standing here.’
‘Look, I’ll find someone in a minute.’
While Julie had been craning her head around in search of an opportunity – so obviously, Francine thought, that it was almost embarrassing – a man with a bald head had suddenly come up and stood right in front of her. He was wearing an overcoat, even though they were indoors. To her surprise, he took her chin in his fingers and held it while he examined her face.
‘Beautiful!’ he said appreciatively, giving a chef’s flourish with his hand.
Before Francine could say anything, he turned on his heel and swept off, his coat flapping behind him. She trailed him with her eyes in the hope that he would look at her again, but he didn’t.
‘Did you see that?’ she said triumphantly.
To her annoyance, Julie laughed.
‘Oh, that’s just Fritz, one of the artists, don’t mind him. He’s always doing that to people. He’ll probably say he wants to paint you next. He asked me to model for him once.’
‘Did you do it?’ She tried to hide her disappointment by looking nonchalantly around the room.
‘Of course not – he’d have wanted me to take my clothes off, wouldn’t he! Lara on reception says it’s just his chat-up line.’ She looked around too, her face haughty with experience. ‘I’m not that stupid.’
Francine wondered if Julie was lying. She wasn’t even that pretty. Fritz had probably gone off the idea, or maybe he hadn’t even asked her at all. Also, she was so superior, acting as if her job was so wonderful and glamorous, when it was clear to Francine that everyone looked down on her. It was glamorous, though, being here: she had entered her own daydream and the fervent scene of her desire was all around her. The room was filled with the kind of faces she had looked at as if through shop windows, lovely, unaffordable things, the invisible throng of their luxurious, unimaginable lives springing up behind them. They glittered in their nocturnal majesty, a human zodiac cavorting across the heavens of fashion, far above the obstructed hives of office blocks, the blackened scuttling pavements, the swarming underground tunnels of the city they secretly commanded. It was everything she had hoped it would be – the proof that the things she wanted did exist! – and it only remained now for her to conquer the scene, to subdue its magic and train it with her own hand. Her envy of Julie distilled into a more palatable pity. She, after all, wore the public mark of her inferiority here, while Francine’s mysteries remained intact.
‘I love it here,’ Julie said now, sighing. ‘I could never go back to corporate. It’s so uncreative.’
Francine wished that she could go off on her own, but then the girl called Lara that Julie had been talking about came up and started talking to them. She was quite pretty, Francine thought, but too fat. She had brushed her hair around her face to try and make it look thinner, but it was still obvious.
‘I’ve just met these two hilarious blokes,’ she said to Julie. She was shouting, even though the music wasn’t very loud. A mask of perspiration coated her features with cellophane. ‘They’re a right pair of jokers.’ She shook her head deliriously, as though their double antics had exhausted her. ‘We had a right laugh. Do you want to come and meet them?’
‘Why not?’ said Julie, glancing sideways to give Francine a supercilious look.
Francine followed them across the room, dropping slightly back in case her evident separateness should tempt anyone to ensnare her. She felt a new sway in her body, as if the party’s elegance were an element she had imbibed. Several people looked at her as she passed, and where their eloquent, penetrating eyes touched her she felt the tangible thrill of happiness. Lara and Julie plunged through a dense thicket of bodies and she stepped lightly along the path they beat until she sensed them stop ahead of her. For a moment she disengaged herself, luxuriating in the tropical heat of the room and the promiscuity of its possibilities, but then a hand thrust itself towards her in greeting.
‘And who is this?’ said a well-spoken male voice.
‘Oh, that’s Francine.’
Julie’s voice appeared to come from a distance, her accent even more grating than usual in its pronouncement of the name. Francine felt her hand shaken in a disembodied, humid grip, but only after the bulk of Lara’s back had shifted to one side did she see who held it.
‘Stephen Sparks,’ he said, reeling himself towards her along their joined arms and presenting himself. His face was flushed and handsome, and his hair stood damply away from his forehead. Their clasped hands made Francine feel suddenly as if they were linked in some intimate exertion and she permitted herself a pleasurable aloofness.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said coolly.
‘And I you.’ He bowed comically, as if he were making fun of her, but his eyes reassured her that he was merely trying to entertain and she laughed. ‘Very pleased.’
Another figure emerged from the crush and loomed at his side expectantly, as if to take part in the conversation. Stephen seemed unaware of him. Francine glanced at his face, but it appeared to be in shadow and she couldn’t make it out. Stephen saw her eyes stray and he started round.
‘Ah, Ralph!’ he said, as if he were surprised. He ushered Ralph into the circle with his arm and smiled conspiratorially at Francine. ‘I imagine you’ve come to pay court to Francine. We must all pay our homage to Queen Francine.’
‘Hello,’ said Ralph stiffly. He didn’t put out his hand. Taking her cue from Stephen’s dismissiveness, Francine didn’t reply to his greeting. He lingered silently for a moment, watching her. ‘It’s an unusual name,’ he said finally. His expression was pained, as if he had strained something.
Julie suddenly wriggled out from behind him and joined the group.
‘Lara’s been sick all down her front,’ she announced. ‘I had to take her to the toilet.’
‘Is she all right?’ said Ralph, ungluing his eyes from Francine.
‘Charmant,’ muttered Stephen, looking at her as if to reestablish their intimacy. She smiled her acknowledgement of it, a feeling of excitement tight in her chest. ‘What do you do, Francine?’ he said wonderingly, taking her in. ‘Let me guess—’
‘She’s a secretary,’ interjected Julie. ‘Like me.’
‘Really? Ralph’s a secretary too,’ said Stephen, winking at Francine to show that he was joking.
‘Thanks,’ mumbled Ralph.
‘Really?’ said Julie. ‘I didn’t know men were.’
‘Are you an artist?’ said Francine, keen to change the subject. Ralph and Julie were now mired in conversation. It was really quite clever how Stephen had palmed them off. He laughed hilariously at her question, and she felt the mild disturbance of uncertainty while the taste of its sophistication was still on her tongue.
‘Of piss, perhaps,’ he said.
‘Oh, right,’ she said, not understanding him.
‘Only joking. I’m a journalist.’
He said something else, but Francine was distracted by the enthralling mention of her own name beside her, in remarks the noise prevented her from construing. She could feel Ralph looking at her, and she modified the plan she had formulated for cooling off relations with Julie into a more direct resolve to telephone her the next day to find out what he had said. It was altogether a better idea, and should Fritz ever decide he wanted to paint her Julie would have no reason not to give him her number.
‘How much do secretaries charge for their services these days?’ Stephen was saying. He was laughing again, but his eyes held her through the disruption of his face and she was sure now that he liked her. The thought excited her. He seemed very aristocratic. ‘I’d say you’re at the top end of the market. Can I afford it?’
‘Oh, it’s only temporary,’ she said, embarrassed that he had returned to the subject. ‘Just until I find something more’ – she searched for a word – ‘creative.’
Stephen had laughed again and this time, not knowing what else to do, she had joined in. Their laughter had met and intertwined, rising confidently above the murmur of voices, the percussion of glasses, the sensuous thud of the music; and everything had seemed to crystallize for Francine then, as she felt herself truly enter the warm temple of privilege and partake of its sacraments.
A figure was moving along the path at a distance across the park. An eccentricity of motion snagged Francine’s gaze and with the sudden latent shock which signals the imminence of danger she fell from her reminiscences and plunged back into the present moment. She understood from his wild, loping walk that it was a deformed man, his hunched body flailing sideways like that of a crippled bird. As she watched, he struck off into the grass and began running in circles, light footed and graceful, as if he were dancing; then he stopped and gazed beatifically at the empty sky, flinging out first one arm and then the other in a seed-sowing gesture. He looked up, and before she could contrive to glance away he had caught her in his sights and begun lumbering over the grass towards her. Immediately Francine left her seat and started walking quickly towards the park gates. Her heart thudded and strained ahead, alert for the sound of footsteps behind her, but when she reached the road and looked back she saw the man standing beside the empty bench, talking and waving his arms wildly. She crossed quickly, grateful for the firm body of traffic which now lay between them. In the distance she could hear a telephone ringing.
Copyright © 1995 by Rachel Cusk
