Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
of them knew Annie, and so she could meet Steve now without feeling that they were being watched with any particular interest. But none of the staff knew her either, and so she could only come in at visiting times, like everyone else. Sometimes she had a long time to wait after her appointments were over before the wards opened. On another day the queues in the out-patients clinic were so long that the visiting hour was almost over before she could come to Steve. He never asked her again if she would come without another pretext for being at the hospital, and even she could only guess at the importance of her visits in the monotonous procession of days. Annie was able to blunt her longing a little with the round of housework and cooking and caring for the boys, but Steve had nothing except hospital and its constant reminder that he was trapped in it.
He protected Annie’s visits fiercely, by warning everyone else he knew not to come on those days. Most of them looked at his face and accepted the restriction, but just once, whether by a genuine accident or out of curiosity, Vicky came. Annie was already there, and when Vicky saw them they were not even talking. They were simply sitting together, drawing strength from being close enough to touch one another.
Their intent stillness stopped Vicky in her confident walk down the ward. But she only hesitated for an instant and then she went on, calling out to him, ‘Hello, love, I came today instead of Thursday because …’
Then Steve looked up, and when Vicky saw his expression the words caught in her throat. The fair-haired woman glanced at him, and then up at Vicky as the visitor put her package of new books and magazines down on the end of the bed.
‘I didn’t expect you today,’ Steve said softly.
‘No. Well, I’ve got a conference on Thursday, you see, so I decided I’d …’ The words stuck again as she looked at them. Even from where she was standing, Vicky could feel the current between them, deflecting her.
The fair-haired girl said, ‘Come and sit down. I’ve got to go in a minute.’ Vicky noticed that she had a warm voice, and her smile tried hard to be welcoming. The smile made the absence of one from Steve all the more evident. The girl made room for Vicky to bring up a chair, and while she waited for Steve to listen to what Vicky was saying she turned away tactfully to look at the shiny covers of the new novels.
‘So that’s why I came this afternoon,’ Vicky finished crisply. She had regained possession of herself now. ‘I’m sorry if I’m interrupting. Won’t you introduce us, now I’m here?’ She smiled at the other woman.
‘This is Annie.’ Steve held on to the name as he said it, as if he didn’t want to let it go. ‘And this is Vicky.’
‘I know.’ Vicky suddenly understood. ‘You were … you were there in the shop, that day, too, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, I was there,’ Annie said in her low voice.
‘It must have been horrible.’
‘I don’t think I would have survived down there if it hadn’t been for Steve.’
Vicky noticed that she didn’t look at Steve as she said it. As if she couldn’t trust herself to look at him as well, in case her face lost its composure.
There was a moment’s silence before Vicky said, as lightly as she could, ‘You were lucky to have one another.’
Neither Annie nor Steve spoke. It was left to Vicky to talk, and she did her best to fill the awkward quiet with snippets of gossip from her world and from Steve’s.
In a little while, when she judged that it wouldn’t look too much as if she were running away, Annie looked at her watch and then stood up.
Involuntarily, Steve’s hand reached out to catch her wrist. He made himself let go as soon as his fingers touched her.
‘Don’t go yet.’
‘I must. I’ll call in next time.’
She picked up her bag from beside her chair, and as she stooped her face was level with Steve’s.
Vicky sat still, knowingly watching for the goodbye peck on the cheek from which she could gauge how far their relationship had gone. But although neither of them moved for a second, they didn’t kiss each other. They looked, and then the wings of Annie’s hair fell forward to hide her cheeks. She scooped up her belongings and stepped away from the little group of chairs.
‘Goodbye, Vicky,’ she said formally and then, in a much lower voice, ‘Goodbye.’
She can’t even bring herself to say his name, with me listening, Vicky thought.
Annie went, not looking back.
Steve’s face was dark and stiff, and for the first time since they had met Vicky didn’t know what to say to him.
She tried, ‘It must help, being able to talk to someone who went through it too.’
‘It did.’
Summoning up her courage she asked, ‘Are you fond of her?’
‘Fond?’ Steve turned to her, examining her expression as if he had never noticed her before.
‘Yes,’ he said, and the word fell like a hard pebble into black water.
Vicky’s face didn’t change because she was too self-possessed to let her feelings show, but still the words formed inside her head. That’s it, then.
Annie walked back to the tube station with her shoulders hunched against the cold. Here in the middle of town the streets were littered and there were none of the tiny signs of spring that had triggered off her happiness this morning. She thought back to it in bewilderment as jealousy crystallized inside her. She could see Vicky’s face in front of her, younger than her own, with clear, pale skin. Steve’s girl had a clever, rather hard expression. She was the kind of ambitious, single-minded woman Annie had always found intimidating, and Steve had chosen her, hadn’t he? He had talked about her in the darkness. That was before Vicky came along, he had said.
Annie made herself breathe evenly to counteract the panicky waves that rose in her chest. She thought, What right do I have to be jealous? I’m going home now to my husband and children. I don’t have any claim on Steve. We can’t claim each other.
But she wanted to be able to. That was the truth, and the significance of it made her shiver in the February wind.
It was on that day too, Annie remembered later, that Martin first showed that he knew something was wrong.
He came home earlier than usual. Annie was washing up after the boys’ supper, and the kitchen was still untidy with dirty plates and scattered toys and crayons. She heard Martin’s bag thud on the step, and then the sound of his key in the lock. As the front door opened Benjy, who had been lying on the floor watching television, suddenly rolled sideways and snatched at Thomas’s Lego model. There was an immediate howl of protest and the children fell in a heap, shouting and punching each other.
Annie jerked her fingers out of the washing-up water. It was too hot, and she had thought that she was in too much of a hurry to cool it. She wiped her scalding hands on her skirt and pushed past Martin as he came in, without looking at him. She bent over her children and pulled them apart. She was trembling with anger as she shouted incoherently at them.
‘Stop it. Stop. Fighting all the time. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. Do you hear?’ She aimed an ineffectual blow at the nearest bottom as they wriggled past her. ‘Upstairs. Both of you. Get ready for bed.’
‘Dad …’
‘Do as your mother says,’ Martin said evenly.
They went, still squabbling. When the door had closed behind them Annie’s shoulders sagged. Her anger drained away as quickly as it had come, and left her with the blood throbbing dully in her head.
‘Hello,’ Martin said. ‘Remember me?’
Annie looked at him, seeing him framed against the closed door with its grey finger-marks,