The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher(17)

“Can’t imagine.” Mrs. Bathurst shook her head, as if the human condition was beyond her. “I’ll go down and commiserate with Bettina,” she whispered. “Poor little girl. What a shock.”

* * *

ONE SATURDAY, AFTER a long morning at Harley Street, I thought I’d stay in town and go shopping. By two o’clock I was worn out from the heat and the crush. I got on a tour bus, pretended to be a Finnish monoglot, and rested my legs on the empty seat next to me. There was thunder in the air, a clammy heat. Tourists sat dazed on the traffic islands and in the parks. The trees seemed wetly green, foliage hanging in great clumped masses, slow-rustling and heavy. Near Buckingham Palace there was a bed of geraniums—so scarlet, as if the earth had bled through the pavements; I saw the Guardsmen wilting in sympathy, fainting at their posts.

That night it was too hot to sleep. The night following I dreamed that I was in Harley Street. In my dream it was Monday; this is what people usually dream, who work all week. I was coming, or going: the pavement was stained—sunrise or sunset—and I saw that all the Harley Street railings had been filed to points. I had a companion in the street, matching me step for step. I said, look what they’ve done to the railings. Yes, very nasty points, she said. Then a big hand came out, and pushed me against them.

Next day I was groggy, missed my usual train and arrived at Waterloo twelve minutes late. Twelve minutes—what is it, against the length of a life? It’s the start of a foul day, that’s what it is—because then comes the scrimmage on the Bakerloo line, and Regent’s Park station with the lifts broken down. When I made it to the top I’d got to sprint—otherwise Smear and Shinbone would have their heads through my hatch, tapping their watch faces: Oh, where is Todd? I turned into Harley Street. And what did I see? Only Liz Bathurst heel-toeing it along. I caught up, put my hand on her arm: Late, Mrs. Bathurst! This isn’t like you! No sleep, she said, no rest. You too? I said. My dream was washed away; easily, I melted into sympathy. She nodded. Up all night, she said.

But in the next three, four, five seconds, I began to feel vastly irritated. I can’t put it better than that. God knows, Bettina wears me down, so amiable and dumb, and so do the doctors, but in that moment I realized that Mrs. Bathurst was wearing me down even more. “Liz,” (and I snapped at her, I admit it) “why do you go around the way you do? That cape—dump it, can’t you? Burn it, bury it, send it to a car-boot sale. You bloody depress me, woman. Get your hair done. Buy some emery boards, file your nails.”

My nails, she said, my hair? She turned to me, face sallow and innocent as the moon. And then without warning—and I realize I must have offended her—drew her arm back, and thumped her fist between my breasts. I careered backward, right into the railings. I felt them dent into my flesh, one bar against my spine and one behind each shoulder blade. Mrs. Bathurst flew off down the street.

I put my hands behind me, wrapping my fingers for a moment around those evil flaking spikes; levered myself away, and staggered after her. If I’d had any faith in our doctors, I might have asked one of them to look at my bruises. But as it was, I just felt shaken up. And sorry, because I’d been brutal—my fatigue was to blame.

All that day I felt raw. The noises of our house seemed amplified. When the doctors scuffed in and out, I could hear their Lobbs scraping the carpets. I could hear Gland’s wheezing and puffing; the snarls of her patients, and the sobs of the patients of Smear, as he pushed in with his cold speculum, while Mrs. Bathurst stood by. I heard the whine and grind of Snapper’s drill, and the chink of steel instruments against steel dishes.

I said to Bettina, is it Monday all day? Yes, she said; she was so stupid she thought it was a normal question. Ah, I said, then Dr. Lobotomy will be in, 2:30–8:30, first floor second door on the left. I think I’ll get a brain operation, or a major tranquilizer or something. I was really nasty to Mrs. Bathurst today. I laughed at her for wearing that cape.

Bettina turned her strawberry mouth down, just at the corners. Her big eyes—unripe fruits—were bulgy with incomprehension. “I know it’s old-fashioned,” she said, “but I don’t see that it’s funny.”

Should I have noticed at this point, that they’d got together, left me in the cold? I lacked insight this summer—that’s how Lobotomy would put it. Yet when the patients come in I seem to see straight through them to the bone. I can hear their hearts flutter, hear their respiration, their digestion, estimate their tick-over speed and say whether they’ll be with us for Christmas. It’s September now, and I still feel wrecked by London—I am hot, filthy, desperate when I get back to Staines for a bath or shower. For comfort I retain this picture in my mind: one day I’ll get further out of town. Somewhere just big enough for me. Somewhere small and quiet.

Next day I bought a bunch of lilies as I came through Waterloo. I pressed them into Mrs. Bathurst’s hands. “Sorry,” I said. “About the cruel remarks I made.” She nodded, absently. She left them on the table in the hall, didn’t put them in water; I could hardly do it myself, could I? That evening she and Bettina left together. On her way out she just casually scooped them up, without looking at them. I’ll never know if they went home with her or went into a bin.

Next day, Bettina came up from the basement. She stood inside my door, leaning on the frame. She looked faintly bruised and blurred, as if her outline had become fuzzy. “I’d like to talk to you,” she said.