Читать книгу Living Upside Down - John Hickman - Страница 10

EDWARD AND ZELDA

In the seaside municipality of Brighton, famous for among other things its cobble stone beach, Edward is sitting quietly in his drawing room. After being discharged from the RAF in 1946 without a job to go to, an unfair dismissal from a senior management position in the early 1960s seemed to herald his downward path. He is convinced the last few years have been significantly cruel to him and yet he is able to convince himself, without any difficulty whatsoever, how impeccable his planning has been. His misfortunes are obviously at the behest and instigation of others.

Zelda, his second wife, who has only recently returned home from full time office work is sitting exhausted in one of her favourite antique leather armchairs.

“Edvard, vhat vill you do? Ve are short of money,” Zelda barks. “I vork but cannot perform miracles.”

Zelda is leggy, tall, and elegant with dyed brassy, blonde hair. Edward is thinking her hair today resembles more the colour of dirty egg yolk. Slightly stooped at the shoulders, she is slim almost to the point of being consumptive. Her slightly turned-up, if not judgmental, nose gives her a supercilious air.

Her physical downsides are the lines of a heavy smoker etched around her bright red lipstick thin mouth that makes her look as if she is sucking on a sour lemon.

Dressed impeccably as always, Zelda is wearing a long pleated black skirt and white blouse. Her touched up hair and makeup expertly accomplished.

She is indeed a handsome woman, Edward thinks. After the death of Alice, Zelda was eye candy personified to Edward. A tidy dresser with a 1940s look, accentuated by the way she wears her hair. Her daughter, Charlotte, is one year younger than his own daughter, June.

“True, we are short of money,” Edward replies slowly, and then with an edge of sarcasm, “but as we are ensconced in this luxury flat. A flat we can ill afford, what would you have me do, Zelda?”

Zelda glares at Edward. Her eyes catch and hold him, intimidating as hell.

“You done bad, Edvard.”

Edward sighs deeply. He realises the failure of his recent hotel ventures hardly herald a success story.

He senses that Zelda is becoming a hovering black eagle observing him as the uneasy mouse.

“You are a valking bill-board of zhe personal problems,” Zelda looks hard at Edward.

Here we go, again, thinks Edward.

“You came into mein life at a difficult time for me, Edvard.”

“Yes, Sweetheart,” Edward sighs deeply, “I know. You’ve told me many times how hard you tried before your divorce, even allowing your now ex-husband to bring his motorbike into your house.”

Edward’s sarcasm kicks in as part of his defence mechanism.

“I’m sure your ex’s fan base meets with him every afternoon in a telephone booth down the road,” Edward continues.

“And den you come along, Edvard, vhen ve met through zhe agency.”

“I thought, we agreed, Zelda, not to mention the introduction agency. It sounds so much better if we get used to telling everyone how our doctor introduced us. Especially as we both had the same GP.”

“Ja ja, fiddle faddle.”

Edward primes his pipe and as he does so, he feels the anger of betrayal rise in him more than usual. “You chose divorce, Zelda. I did not choose my wife to pass away. Alice died in 1965 she was only 38. A sudden, terrible, cancer that took her in a matter of weeks. My situation was entirely different to yours.”

“Mein Gott, Edvard. I know Alice vas a good vife und mudder. She was very lucky to have you survive de var as a Lancaster bomber pilot.”

Zelda is right. Physically whole, Edward displays none of the horrific war trauma carried as shocking trophies by so many surviving RAF crews, but he still feels down.

The relaxed ambience of their surroundings is doing nothing to make Edward feel better about his situation right now. The small but elegant crystal chandeliers, floating overhead like candlelit funeral shrouds, are supposed to cast a calming light, but he and Zelda are far from enjoying calm.

Too late, about three years too late, Edward realises he is having doubts about his marriage to Zelda; she is a proven fine actress, he gives her that much, but a very dangerous woman to cross.

According to her ex-husband, whom he has met with on occasions when releasing the girls for visits, she is a beautiful liar who her ex is pleased to be rid of.

In her younger years, might she have been the scourge of many a middle-aged man?

“Uh huh.” Edward agrees. “All I want is a little peace and quiet, Zelda.” He cast his eyes around their expansive drawing room, taking in the discreet wall lights illuminating the embossed, velour wallpapers in their rich burgundy colours. The expensive fabrics evoke a high style of sophistication while the deep pile carpets swallow their footfalls adding to the exclusive ambience. If he has to be miserable, he would rather be miserable in style.

“Vhat rubbish you talk!”

Edward loses his calm. “For Christ’s sake, Zelda, what part of fucking peace and quiet don’t you understand?”

Zelda sulks.

Edward cast a further glance towards their rattling front windows. Fierce rain lashes the glass turning any view into a muted shade of grey.

Edward knows Alice loved him despite his attempts to get rich. Schemes that despite his dedication and hard work, never came good. Alice wanted him to work in a steady day job that paid regular money. In hindsight, she was right; Alice was always right. Edward eases away into his memories.

The first thing Zelda noticed about Edward was his blue eyes, which she decided were pleasingly impish. A surviving bomber pilot and recent hotel owner, he was about as full of himself as any man could be.

Edward is aware that to his wife from a council shit tip, she feels that she married up. As his German Boudicea, she would surely enjoy putting a chain around his neck — if only she could. Edward smiles at his thoughts; Then force feed me Italian spaghetti meat balls to maintain my strength.

Zelda softens. “Vould you like a cup of tea, Edvard?”

Edward nods. “Yes, thank you, Zelda, Sweetheart.”

Zelda moves through their flat to locate Charlotte and stepdaughter June; as she goes she sets her Teutonic antennae onto dust or disturbance alarm.

Good, she thinks.

Now her Obsessive-compulsive disorder has kicked in and is operating at full pelt, all the rug fringes appear to be combed in to place, exactly how she likes each one to be. Fluff on the carpet unsettles her most.

Best I get the girls to re-vacuum the entire carpets, tomorrow! she thinks.

Paramount to Zelda is that Charlotte is alright and coping well with her homework. Not that she has any reason to suspect otherwise.

She finds both girls playing quietly together in their shared bedroom. Running a severe gaze over both, she sees little sign of homework being done, which puts her in a darker mood than usual.

“Vhat is dis? Vhy ist dere kein homevork done?”

The girls express some rebellion. “We’ll do it later, before bed,” Charlotte giggles.

“Be sure your homevork is done or de TV vill be verboten.”

June stares back at the tall, bony woman her Dad chose to take the place of her Mum. If only she had the strength, she would strangle the life out of the cow. Instead, she beams her happiest smile and thinks her Dad is barking mad. Can he not see Zelda is part viper, part fairytale evil?

‘A cobra in high heels and lipstick,’ is how her brother Roger describes her. ‘Not unlike the witch out of Hansel and Gretel,’ Roger said. June has learned the hard way. Not every secret shared with Charlotte, stays between them.

Zelda stares back at June, her dark eyes holding an indefinable measure of unfriendliness. She rummages for her soft pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes and after finding her Ronson gas lighter, lights up. Her face a picture of displeasure as her exhaled smoke hovers in the air.

June is seriously hoping that Zelda will spontaneously combust.

“Your fadder vants a cup of his hot, sweet tea. You vill make it for him, June, and I vood love anudder coffee, just de vay I like it.”

Turning on her high stiletto heels, Zelda struts back to join Edward.

June has been a problem for Zelda since marrying Edward. The little bitch kept calling her ‘Thingy’ instead of Mum, Mother, or Zelda. She soon put paid to that nonsense by disciplining the wayward child in a number of imaginative ways, ways that appeared harmless if not examined too closely. She could not help but smile at her own creativeness; excluding June from the clothes buying process by getting Charlotte to try everything on worked a treat, as had giving her stepdaughter more chores, such as making her father’s tea now.

Oh, how pedestrian is she now? thinks June.

Zelda sinks back into her favourite luxury leather lounge chair. She breathes in the aroma of Edward’s pipe tobacco hovering in the air like miniature cumuli and considers other battles she has won; such as establishing herself within the family as ‘Nanny’ and not being called ‘Granny’. She gave an involuntary shudder at the thought, but at least that is behind her now.

“June vants to make your tea, Edvard,” Zelda sighs her deepest sigh.

Overheard by June, Oh, yes, she thinks, but no, not quite. How the cow twisted that one! Can Dad not see through all this crap?

Whilst Edward remains paralysed in his memories, hoping his dreams might become realities, Charlotte joins June in the kitchen. Both girls cannot stop giggling.

“I’ll make Dad’s tea,” June offers, “you make her coffee.” Then, in a whisper, “What will you put in it that she doesn’t like?”

“How’s about Strychnine?” Charlotte replies with another giggle.

“No, silly I’m serious. Even if we had any that would show up on a post-mortem. How’s about too much milk, or not enough milk?”

“What about lukewarm water instead of re-boiling the kettle? We haven’t done that for a while.”

“No! She’ll catch on when she can’t hear it whistling.”

“Okay,” Charlotte draws the word out, “I’ll stir in a very small amount of sugar because we know she doesn’t like any at all.”

“But only add a small amount so it tastes a bit off but isn’t that obvious. And I’ll overfill the cup.”

Charlotte is no more star struck on her own mum’s behaviour than June is.

Together the girls make a good team as they enjoy being with Charlotte’s Dad and baiting Zelda.

Zelda being German had not sat right with Edward. After all, he did bomb the crap out of her country and killed thousands of Germans.

In bed after their first night, Edward’s husky voice wavered when he confessed, “I dropped my bombs, Zelda, and watched Dresden erupt in flames beneath me; flames a thousand feet high, temperatures of over a thousand degrees, even the air was on fire, the roads melting, rivers and canals boiling. I saw it burning to the ground.”

“An entire city, Edvard.”

“Not one combatant among them. Women, old men, and children numbered over 100,000 people dead that night.”

“Der is no doubt in my mind dat if die Allies had lost the war, Dresden should have been declared a war crime, Edvard.”

“You’re right. To my mind that deed turned Bomber Command into a byword for slaughter. I felt ashamed, which was why under target in my log book I wrote only three words; women and children.”

“That vas very clever of you, Edvard.”

“Clever?”

“Vell, if de Allies had lost de var dan Germans could have exonerated you.”

“I never thought of that. But I did check my RAF logbook before proposing marriage to you, just to ensure I wasn’t over Hamburg the night your house was bombed.”

Unfortunately for Edward, his parents, Roger’s grandparents, were too ensconced, too brainwashed by the British establishment, to accept Zelda. His own mother had said, “Bloody shame you didn’t bomb the house with the German cow still in it.”

Family wise that was the beginning of their big family split. He could see that now, but even so, then as now, he felt helpless to do anything about it.

After his hotel business venture failed, with son in tow, he secured a lease on another hotel, and in Zelda’s name. Creative accounting at a high cost helped him with that, but now he and Zelda, married by convenience, are as united as any two people could be. Together there is some financial future. Apart? Well, that is an entirely different story.

Edward likes long walks and good books, Zelda prefers to party. Where Edward is introspective and brooding by nature, Zelda tends to move at lightning speed and let the chess pieces fall where they may.

Zelda’s daughter Charlotte is proving easier to get on with than his own flesh and blood.

Edward relights his pipe. Zelda’s smoke joins his. Both seemingly hang from a single cloud of cigarette smoke. He continues puffing rhythmically.

“Your pipe reeks of burning leaves and vet dog, Edvard.”

Don’t sugar coat it, Zelda. Give it to him straight! thinks June.

Edward refuses to rise to the bait, instead he ponders as he puffs.

“Roger mustered well after the death of his Mum, I’ll give him that much,” Edward tells Zelda, “he did everything I required of him.”

“Ja ja, fiddle faddle,” Zelda exclaims. She blames Roger and his wife Sue for the failure of The Harewood Hotel. If they had been decent and appreciated all she had done for them, she and Edward would not be where they are now.

“Give him his dues, Zelda, it was remarkable he found a hotel I could buy without any money. That in itself was a master stroke.”

“Vee all vorked, Edvard.”

It is well known to the whole family that Zelda did nothing. She mostly upset staff with her Teutonic attitude and avoided front of house contact with customers by hiding in the office with Edward.

“Nevertheless, Zelda, I do feel that after I went bankrupt, Roger and my own parents should have been a lot more understanding of my plight.”

“Roger vas a director mit you, Edvard; he should not have got off scot free. It vas you who vent bankrupt, Edvard. Roger hasn’t suffered as you ‘ave.”

Edward nods slowly.

Zelda continues. “Den dere is Roger’s wife, Sue, mit deir two offspring from that union — Jayne and James.”

“I don’t fancy much being a grandfather,” Edward glares at Zelda, “not any more than you wanted to be a Granny.”

“Edvard,” Zelda’s firm voice has all the warning signs.

“Sorry, Sweetheart, I meant Nanny,” Edward smiles inwardly at his dig.

Zelda works normal shop hours at a local office while Edward manages a small chain of sex shops requiring his presence at odd hours. Edward detests his job and all the people associated with it.

Edward cannot help but think about the highlight of this week’s news.

“Word is Roger, Sue and their two children are migrating to Australia as participants in a ten pound assisted passage scheme.”

“I feel no anguish at their departure from the UK, Zelda. Those in charge here are only sponging toadies ready to receive any favour and give nothing in return.”

“Ve are to be left behind mit a rising pile of debts,” Zelda adds crushing out her cigarette and lighting another.

Zelda needs to relax. Talking about Roger and Sue has left a foul taste in her mouth.

She runs her bath and lays in it with one leg hooked over the other. She knows that they are good legs. The hot water takes the chill off her bones. With trembling hands, she reaches out to light a cigarette, and smokes it with her nerves all a-jangle.

The bathroom is dark; she likes it that way. Edward will stay away from her. She has a lot of thinking to do. Their finances are in poor shape. Edward is not a stayer in any job, probably never has been, even when Alice was alive. Zelda enjoyed her relatively high life at both hotels, but that was too short-lived. Now a new variable into the mix. This recent news of Roger, his wife Sue, and their two rug rats going down under to Australia. Good riddance, she thinks. Her face turns into what is loosely considered a smile as the bathwater finally works its magic.

Her thoughts are interrupted when Edward appears in the doorway dressed in a smart yachting jacket, white turtleneck and beige slacks. He steps over the threshold hesitantly, like a well-trained dog that knows better.

“Zelda, I’ll have to leave for work soon, Sweetheart.”

She ignores him.

“Zelda, Sweetheart.”

When she speaks, her strident tone is not one of warmth and sweetness. “Vhat do you van’t, Edvard?”

He smiles thinly, “Would you like to cook, or should I get some fish and chips, take-away?”

“Cook! Mein Gott. I’ve not long finished vork Edvard and you vant me to, to, to prepare a meal?” Zelda waves her hands in the air, exasperated, her point clear.

Edward swallows nervously. “I’ll send out then.” He is complicit. His head cast down as he leaves her quietly alone, content to wage an inner debate with himself.

He smiles sideways at June and Charlotte and June catches herself smiling back.

If only they could have their life back but without Zelda. June thinks that often.

How much she misses her Mum, and why, oh why did she have to leave her. She misses her more each day becoming an icy heaviness in her heart threatening to topple her over.

If June was subjected to a natural disaster, it could not have come in a worse form than Zelda. A death in the family that broke their biological bond was tragic. She now feels as if flung aside like a piece of seaweed.

Zelda clears her bath, takes a large fluffy wrap around towel, and dresses.

The rain has eased and night is upon them. Edward returns from work with dinner. Back in the drawing room, she can see both her reflection and Edward’s in the window glass. He never takes his eyes off her but she doubts his interest is romantic. No. His interest, she knows, is the now fast failing light and not wanting to be alone.

Later that evening Edward struggles to fall asleep. Outside has returned to being wet and windy. What use are expansive sea views if you can rarely see the sea? he thinks.

His mind continually needs to unfold the day’s events and his dreams often return to the 1940s when he struggles to survive his bombing missions. Often he relives his Lancaster holed by flak and he is without controls. His flaps and hydraulics shot away, oxygen tanks exploding, flames spreading throughout his plane. As the plane begins its rapid decent, he leaves what controls he has to his co-pilot, unhooks himself from his seat and squeezes through the hatch into the belly of the flaming beast. There he goes looking for his crew crawling on bended knees but he cannot find them. In his dream he watches through a gaping hole in the fuselage another Lancaster go down. He feels another shockwave from a direct hit; beneath him a larger hole appears from a ground to air canon. The air rushes past him then turns and sucks him from his platform. He falls from the plane into the abyss. Edward awakes in a cold sweat.

Fuck!

He lays afraid to sleep should his demons revisit him. He feels as if he has been connected to an improperly calibrated drip of adrenalin as seemingly every ounce of belly bile begins to incinerate his throat. He draws long, grateful breaths.

As 57,000 RAF aircrew perished, Edward’s concerns were indeed very real. He knows how fortunate he was to survive that madness.

As he lays in the darkness next to Zelda, Edward struggles to collect his thoughts and return to being hopeful about his future. He speaks to Zelda essentially to see if she is awake.

Zelda’s sleep was thin.

“I’ve just had another awful dream. My Lancaster crashed, again.”

Zelda raises herself up on one elbow, moves closer, and takes Edward’s hand in her own.

“Ve all get de bad dreams, Edvard. I lost family and friends in dose raids. Mein Gott, Edvard, your bad dreams, don’t you tink I have zese nightmares. I vas a young girl in var torn Germany. De constant bombing, de hunger it vas no picnic. At least you ver a young man, I vas a young girl. Dere is a big difference. A girl must do many tings to survive und eat in vartime.”

Zelda has not told Edward about her pregnancy to her tall, squinty-eyed Sergeant in the SS. She had become well practiced at pleasuring a man by her mid teens.

“I know,” Edward squeezes Zelda’s hand in friendship. “I too lost people in the war Zelda but I’ve never quite mastered being alone at twilight.”

“I know Edvard. Shush now. I do know.”

Zelda moves away and lays quiet in deep thought. If she does not want sex, she knows now is the best time to fein sleep. In that all men are the same, she knows that.

As Edward drifts off to sleep, he wonders if the English novelist Aldous Huxley was correct when he philosophised, ‘Maybe this world is another planet’s Hell?’