The Stranger She Knew. Rosalind Stopps
May said. But I’ve been cooking for an hour, she wanted to say, it’s a meal you like, and I haven’t been eating recently, I was looking forward to it too. It will be horrible heated up later.
She looked at Alain’s face. I’m so selfish, she thought, fancy thinking about myself and my fat stomach when he is so worried.
‘OK,’ she said, ‘let’s go upstairs to the living room. The students are in but they’re up in their attic, with their music. It’s more comfortable upstairs and I’ve been standing for a while.’
‘No,’ said Alain. ‘I’d like to talk down here. I’m fed up with wondering whether they’re listening to me every time I say anything.’
‘OK,’ said May. She felt wrong-footed somehow, as if she had been caught out.
‘While we’re talking about stuff that annoys us,’ said Alain, ‘maybe we should talk food.’
Are we, thought May, is that what we’re doing? Where did this come from? May didn’t want Alain to know how upset she was, it would make her seem so childish.
‘OK, fire away,’ she said, trying to sound amused.
‘I don’t want to be rude,’ Alain said, ‘but could we eat something that isn’t from the bloody Paupers Cookbook? If I eat another recipe made with cheap cuts of meat and tinned soup I think I’ll be sick, honestly.’
May tried to smile. She should have known, she thought, she really should have known that her cooking was completely disgusting. She was trying to cook on the cheap, that was the thing, and May wasn’t sure that Alain realised how hard up they were.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Seems reasonable to me. I’ll try some other stuff.’
‘I think it’s better if I take over, don’t you? Leave you more time for whatever it is you do in the daytime.’
May felt stung.
‘Al,’ she said, ‘Al, don’t be like this, I’m sorry about the surplus of mince, honest I am, but you’re not going to have time to cook when you’re working.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ Alain said, ‘the job, it didn’t work out.’
‘The Welsh Film Board?’ said May. ‘Oh Al, I’m so sorry, you must be upset.’ She moved towards Alain, instinctively wanting to comfort him, reassure him that she still cared about him. Alain stepped back, held his arms out as if to ward May off.
‘No need to get maudlin,’ Alain said, ‘no point talking about it, these things happen. They lost their funding, that’s all there is to it. I’m back in the market for a teaching job and that’s that. I’m sure one will come up.’
But what about the flat, May wanted to say, what about the money I paid for the hotel when we went to Bangor? They said they were going to refund it; will they still do that? And if not, how will we cope? She didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the right time. Alain’s face was set, he looked hard, like a person she hardly knew.
‘We’ll be OK, Al,’ she said. ‘We have each other, and the baby.’
It was the best she could come up with, but as soon as May had said it she knew it was the wrong thing. Alain looked at her in a way that made her shiver. She put her hands on her stomach as if she needed to protect the baby.
‘Really?’ Al said. ‘You’re sure of that, are you?’
May concentrated hard on trying not to cry. It’s just those pregnancy hormones making things seem worse, she thought, it’s all fine, just a little setback, that’s all. Everyone has moods. Count to ten, don’t say anything, keep your breathing even.
May could feel the tension in the room uncoil. It’s getting better, she told herself, see, it was just a blip. Alain smiled and reached out to touch her arm.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘don’t look so worried, it’s all OK, something else will come along. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
May felt as though the world had righted itself again, as though a comet that had been hurtling towards her, hurtling towards them, had changed course at the last moment. Perhaps it was all in my imagination, she thought, I’m ridiculous.
The students who shared their house came downstairs that evening. Alain usually liked to stay as far away from them as he could, but that evening he went out of his way to play the host. He cooked scrambled eggs for all of them and they sat together in the dining room.
‘Isn’t this lovely?’ Alain said, beaming round the table. ‘We should do this more often.’ He balanced the plates up his arms like a waiter and brought them to the table.
‘Ta da,’ he said. ‘Look at that, I’ve still got it.’ Alain did a little twirl and sang, ‘I did it my way.’
May caught a look between the two students. They obviously found him funny. May felt protective of him, annoyed with them for being so immature. They didn’t like him, that much was obvious, and he had tried so hard, it wasn’t fair. What did they know? They were both practically still teenagers. Both with long hair parted in the middle, and both hardly able to keep their hands off each other for long enough to eat the meal Alain had prepared. May felt so angry with them that she forgot how much she hated scrambled eggs, forgot how the gloopiness usually made her heave. Alain must have forgotten that too, she thought, hardly surprising when he had so much to think about.
May looked up from her plate and saw that the male student, Steve, was mimicking Alain’s expansive hand gestures. Ruth, the young woman, convulsed with laughter and covered her mouth with her hand to keep her food in. May looked at Alain and saw that this time there was no doubt that Alain had seen it. He looked crestfallen and May’s heart went out to him.
‘I’m feeling tired, Al,’ she said. ‘It’s been lovely, eating together, but maybe Steve and Ruth have got work they need to be getting on with. We don’t want to keep them.’
‘Ah, May is feeling tired,’ Alain said. ‘So we must all do as she says, eh, you two?’
He winked at the students. They shuffled awkwardly, hilarity forgotten. They were clearly almost as embarrassed as May.
‘I only meant…’ she said before tailing off.
‘And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,’ Alain said. ‘She only meant, and we her humble slaves can do nothing but obey.’
He lit a cigarette, picked up May’s hand and kissed it.
‘Your servant, ma’am,’ he said, bending his knee to the floor with a dramatic flourish.
Alain laughed as though he had made a great joke and the students stood up. May stood still, trying to resolve what had just happened. Was he mocking her? Surely not, surely that was her being insensitive again, not getting it. He meant well, he loved her.
‘Let us do the washing up before we go,’ Ruth said. ‘Come on, Steve, roll your sleeves up.’
‘No need, no need at all, it was our pleasure, wasn’t it, May?’ Alain said.
May nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The students went upstairs, but later, when May came down to get some water, she bumped into Ruth on the stairs. Ruth had a strange expression on her face and for a moment, May couldn’t place it. She was back in bed and lying down before she realised what it was. Pity. She had seen the same expression on the faces of her mother’s friends at the funeral. Poor May, they had said to each other, thinking that she wasn’t listening. Poor May.
November 2017
Lewisham
It’s not quite as bad here as I thought it would be.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s