The White Room Read online

  ‘What now?’ Joanne said to Sharon, putting bone china sideplates in a cupboard.

  ‘That’s it for now,’ said Sharon. ‘Why don’t you go and ask the men if they’d like their glasses topping up?’

  Joanne made a face. ‘It’s so boring in there. All they do is talk. And those cigars stink.’

  ‘That’s what men do,’ said Joanne’s mother, Jean, from the sink. ‘And you’d better get used to it. Go on, now.’

  Joanne gave a reprise of her face and stomped from the room in mock annoyance.

  Sharon watched her go. Her mind slipped tracks.

  ‘You all right?’ said Jean.

  Sharon blinked.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Miles away.’

  ‘I’m making tea. Would you like one?’

  Sharon nodded.

  ‘Thanks, yes.’ She turned from the kitchen. ‘D’you mind if I just go for a sit down?’

  ‘Are you all right, pet?’

  Jean crossed towards her, concern etched on her face.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, honestly. Just felt a little dizzy there.’ Sharon smiled. ‘Must be tired or something.’

  Jean looked at her, expression unreadable.

  ‘Yes, dear. Go in the other sitting room so as not to disturb the men. I’ll bring you your tea when it’s ready.’

  Sharon smiled and did as she was bidden.

  The sitting room air was cool yet stale, as if the room wasn’t used much. Dinner smells had seeped in, lingering on in the rest of the house. The heavy wooden door kept the sounds of the house from reaching her. The room was crammed with the same highly polished, dark wood furniture and walled with the same heavy flock paper as the rest of the house; its pristine, preserved quality, its silence and the chill on the air gave it the feel of a mausoleum. She sat down on the settee, stretched her legs out, sighed.

  She had met Jack at a dance. He had been there with others from work. Even then he had stood out from them. With them but not of them. Either possessing something or lacking something the other men in the group didn’t have. All beer breath, Brylcreemed hair and tight suits they looked like they couldn’t wait to shrug off, their eyes roved the dancehall hungrily.

  But not Jack. He was different. Going along with the game, playing by the rules but not caring if it was ladders or snakes. She and her friends had already attracted the attention of several in the group. Sharon was used to attracting men. She knew how good-looking she was, thought it pointless to hide the fact. She didn’t believe her looks were God-given, though. She put it down to parents who had fed her well and brought her up accordingly. She was secure about her looks, her body.

  ‘Hey,’ one of the young men beer-breathed at her, ‘you look just like Marilyn Monroe. Anyone ever tell you that?’

  Sharon sighed. Yes, she thought. Often. If not Marilyn then Diana Dors. Or Grace Kelly, or Kim Novak or any blonde film star.

  ‘Marilyn Monroe?’ she said. ‘That’s nice. Thank you.’

  The young man smiled, swaying as he did so. ‘D’you wanna dance, then?’

  ‘No, thanks. Not at the moment. Maybe later.’

  ‘Aw, c’mon …’

  ‘No, I’ve just sat down. I’m just talking to my friends here.’

  The young man looked at her, mentally decided what he thought of her, then turned back to his friends. Sharon wasn’t sure, but above the dance band’s cheerful tune she thought she heard the word lesbian.

  She smiled to herself, head down. Better that, she thought, than him.

  She looked back up, still smiling. And saw another one of the group looking at her. Here we go again, she thought, but on catching her eye he looked away.

  Sharon looked again at the young man. Tall, dark-haired and good-looking. Dressed smartly, but with an air that set him apart from his companions. He didn’t exude that desperation, that hungry-eyed, sexual need.

  Intrigued, she looked at him again, deliberately trying to catch his eye this time. She did so, smiled at him. He almost smiled in return, but turned away quickly, blushing. Sharon was surprised. A big, handsome man like that? Blushing?

  She smiled at him again, mouthed the word ‘hello’.

  He smiled back, mouthed the same word in reply.

  Sharon sat there, waiting for him to move towards her, her body language neutral, inviting. He stepped, hesitantly at first, over to her.

  Away from his pack, she got a good look at him. Tall, fit beneath his suit, good-looking with dark, shining hair. But his eyes drew her to him. They seemed to hold things she knew nothing about, tell of life seen in places a world away from her own. But those things seemed hidden, as if he only wanted to see his present world, only believe in what was around him, rather than look at the other one.

  She smiled again.

  The band struck up.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, for real this time.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  She glanced side to side, waited.

  He looked around as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening, what he was doing, then back to her.

  His companions were watching him. Sharon’s friends were watching her.

  ‘Would you like to dance?’ His voice was dry and dusty, his face red again.

  Sharon stood up. ‘I’d love to,’ she said and held out her hand to be escorted on to the dance floor.

  They walked there together; he took her in his arms and, gently at first, swept her away.

  That dance, that night: Sharon hadn’t gone out expecting anything. Just a night out with her girlfriends, a meal, a few drinks, a few dances perhaps. An opportunity to catch up on lives lived in separate directions since school.

  School for Sharon had been Dame Allens, a private girls’ school on the outskirts of Newcastle. Her parents had wanted the best for her, so they found the money to afford it. She was bright, an only child, and she loved her parents, had been happy to go along with their wishes. On her eighteenth birthday, her birthday card contained a poem her mother had clipped from one of her magazines. It told how they had sacrificed holidays, new cars, consumer goods and a better house for Sharon and her private education. It was given with love, but it just gave Sharon something to live up to, to be grateful for.

  All her friends either had good jobs, university courses, or husbands in waiting to support them. Sharon had none of this, because Sharon had not known what she wanted. Her parents had been very supportive but, she suspected, had privately despaired of her. She enjoyed reading, so they enrolled her for a degree in English at King’s College, which meant they could still have her living at home. She had gone along with the plan so as not to upset them but didn’t know what she would do at the end of it. Teach, perhaps.

  And then Jack Smeaton had waltzed hesitantly into her life. And suddenly she wanted to live her own life and not the one that her parents were vicariously living. Here was a man who was so different from the students on her course, who was doubtlessly intelligent but didn’t feel the need to grow a wispy beard and talk incessantly about Kerouac and Ginsberg in order to prove it, who didn’t need to spout beat poetry and existentialism to impress her into bed. He was a builder, and unashamedly so, but not what she expected a builder to be like. He believed he was doing an important job, creating a new future, a new environment, a new city. He was just as passionate about his politics. When he spoke on these subjects, his hesitancy fell away, revealing a strong, committed individual, both inspired and inspirational.

  He had fire inside him. That fire began to burn within her.

  She fell in love.

  She told her parents, explained she was leaving college before the end of the first year to marry a builder.

  Her parents were horrified; saw their years of investment and abnegation coming to nothing. Their high expectations horribly lowered. But once they had met him, once they saw how happy he made her, how determined she was, their doubts evaporated. Or if not evaporated, then retracted to a size manageable enough to be boxed and withdraw
n from view whenever the happy couple were in sight.

  The wedding came soon after. Sharon’s father gave her away, Ralph Bell was best man. Jack’s own family marginalized from the proceedings. Both sides seemed happy with that.

  Then, afterwards, life as a married couple. True New Elizabethans. A newly built starter home in Jesmond Dene. Their arrangement: Jack would bring in the money, Sharon would make all the decisions about the home. She read magazines and newspapers, visited shops, made informed decisions. The décor was up to the minute, Festival of Britain modern. She refused to live in the past; no dark reproduction furniture in her house. Look forward, always. Never back. Jack went along happily with her. He didn’t want to look back either.

  Jack: sometimes she caught him looking at her with so much love in his eyes it embarrassed her. Gave her something impossible to live up to. Other times his eyes would be vacant, gaze distant, off in another world she was denied access to, a time in his life in which she played no part. She had asked him about the war, about his life before her.

  On the war: ‘You don’t want to know. And you certainly don’t want to have to go through it.’

  On life before her: ‘I had no life before you.’ Then that blush again.

  On growing up in Scotswood: ‘As rough as you could imagine. But as you say, we’re going forwards, not backwards.’

  She regarded him as an egg: hard, brittle exterior, holding softness within. Or an awful mess that, once released, could never be put back.

  She respected his boundaries, left what was his alone.

  At night he dreamed and thrashed, or sometimes clung hard to her – fingernails digging in, waking her, like a drowning man clinging to driftwood and wreckage.

  She enjoyed her life with Jack on the whole, though found it a challenge to live with such a complex man.

  Challenging in a positive way. On the whole.

  ‘Here you are, pet.’

  Jean entered, carrying a bone china teacup and saucer. Balancing it carefully, so as not to spill a drop, with her other hand she extricated the smallest of a nest of three tables, all darkly carved, bandy-legged mahogany, placed it down next to the arm of Sharon’s chair, opened the second drawer down in the sideboard, reached in, withdrew a thick crocheted doilly, placed it on the table, set the cup and saucer down without any spillage.

  ‘Just so it doesn’t mark,’ Jean said with a smile of well-worn domestic triumph.

  Sharon smiled her thanks.

  Jean pointed to the hot brown liquid. ‘Make you feel better, drinking that. Can get a bit hot in the kitchen. Cooler in here.’

  Sharon smiled again.

  Jean returned the smile, a glint of something more than concern in her eyes.

  The shock of the look hit Sharon. Her stomach flipped over. She knows, she thought. She knows what’s the matter with me.

  Jean opened her mouth to speak.

  The doorbell rang.

  Sharon breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘I’ll just go and get that.’ Jean stood up, smiled and left the room.

  Sharon reached for her tea, lifted the delicate cup to her lips.

  Noticed how much her hands were shaking.

  A commotion came from the hall. Even through the heavy wooden door Sharon heard it. Voices, hurried footsteps. An added chill undercurrent wafted under the door as the front door let in the night air. She put her tea down and went into the hall, following the noise. There stood two uniformed policemen, blank faces verging on graveness. One of them looked up as she entered, gave her a cursory physical appraisal, drew a favourable conclusion for himself. She ignored him.

  Jean was opening the door to the other sitting room, calling to Ralph. He came to the door.

  ‘What?’

  Then saw her expression, the policemen. Stopped.

  ‘Mr Bell?’ said the older of the two policemen. ‘I’m afraid we have some distressing news. Is there somewhere we could talk?’

  Ralph looked between them, uncomprehending.

  ‘In here,’ said Jean, and led them into the room Sharon had previously occupied. The police followed, the younger one again running his eyes the length of Sharon’s body as he passed, Sharon again ignoring it, and closing the door behind them. Joanne appeared from the kitchen at her side.

  ‘What’s happening, Sharon?’

  ‘The police have arrived. They want to talk to your mam and dad.’

  Joanne turned immediately, made for the closed door. Sharon stopped her.

  ‘No, don’t,’ she said.

  ‘But I want to go in.’

  Sharon thought of the room, mausoleum-cold. Her undrunk tea.

  ‘Better wait a minute. See what they have to say first.’

  Tension seeped from Joanne’s body. Her shoulders fell.

  ‘I bet it’s my brothers.’ Her voice was low, mumbling. ‘Bet they’re in trouble again.’

  ‘Is this a regular occurrence?’

  ‘Thought they were getting better. Johnny’s all right. He can be quite kind. But Kenny is nasty. Really nasty.’

  She looked around hurriedly in case anyone in earshot should berate her for bad-mouthing her brother.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Sharon. She touched Joanne’s shoulder. Joanne almost smiled.

  ‘Sorry, but it’s true. If it wasn’t for Kenny, Johnny would be OK. But Kenny … I don’t know. Can you say that about your own brother?’

  ‘I suppose so. If you think it’s true.’

  Joanne nodded, confirming the opinion for herself.

  Sharon knew about Joanne’s brothers. Everyone did. Kenny was wild, angry at something no one, least of all him, could identify. Johnny was the simpler, kinder of the two. He didn’t possess Kenny’s vicious streak, but then again he didn’t have Joanne’s strength either. Sharon had met him a few times and found him affable enough on his own, less so when Kenny was around. But, like a maggot-ridden apple, she thought his surface undamaged but inside she felt there was something soft and rotten at his core. It was a feeling she hadn’t been able to share with Jack, knowing how close he was to Ralph but, nevertheless, it was a feeling she couldn’t shake.

  Neither of them were good workers, Jack had told her. They were happy to coast along, doing the bare minimum in the firm in the jobs their father had arranged for them. Virtual sinecures, in fact. The boys were Ralph’s soft spot, and they knew it. They could get away with anything, and Ralph knew it.

  The door behind Sharon and Joanne opened. Jack and Dan Smith stepped into the hall.

  ‘What’s happening?’ said Dan Smith.

  Sharon told him.

  ‘Right.’

  He walked to the closed door, knocked and entered. They heard his voice.

  ‘Hello, gentlemen, I’m Councillor Smith. Can I be of any help?’

  The policeman explained. Jack, Sharon, Joanne and Dan Smith’s wife listened. The policeman’s voice was muffled by the door and Dan Smith’s body. They picked up key words, filled in the rest themselves: brothers hurt. Fight in a pub. Hospital. Critical. May lose his life. If he’s lucky he may just lose his sight. Damaged hand. Hospital will see what they can do. Still looking for the attacker.

  Joanne pushed the door open, knocking Dan Smith aside, rushing into the room. Her mother opened her arms, numbly enfolded her.

  ‘They’re good lads, really they are,’ Ralph was repeating, mantra-like, but no one was listening.

  ‘We’ll have to go and see them,’ said Jean, her words urgent, her voice sounding like it came from the opposite end of a long tunnel.

  ‘Of course,’ said the first policeman. ‘I know this isn’t a good time, but I’m afraid we’ll need to ask you some questions.’

  Ralph and Jean nodded dumbly.

  ‘Can’t that wait, constable?’ said Dan Smith. ‘These good people are suffering a great deal.’

  ‘I appreciate that, councillor, but if we’re going to catch whoever did this, we’re going to need as much help as we can get.’
/>   ‘Of course, of course.’ He turned, addressing the room. ‘Well, we’ll give these good people the time they need.’

  He motioned with his hand, gestured everyone but Ralph, Jean and the two policemen from the room. Outside in the hall he turned to his wife.

  ‘I think we’ll all have another cup of tea.’

  She nodded, went to the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll help,’ said Joanne. She followed.

  Dan Smith looked at Jack and Sharon.

  ‘Shall we have a sit down?’

  The three of them entered the living room. Sharon coughed slightly at the cigar fug, the brandy fumes, waved her hand before her face.

  ‘Sorry about the smell,’ said Dan Smith, concern in his voice. ‘That’s men for you, I’m afraid.’

  Sharon smiled out of politeness and sat down. Her head spun from slight nausea. Jack sat on the settee beside her, rubbing his stomach. Dan opposite in an armchair. He sighed but said nothing. None of them spoke. There was nothing to say. Silence hung in the air, more pungent and sickening to all of them than the cigar fumes had been to Sharon. To speak would have been to dissipate the hanging silence, weaken it, dilute its gravity.

  The door opened. Ralph entered. His face was ashen. When he spoke, it sounded like ashes had lodged in his throat.

  ‘We’re going to the hospital. We’ve told them what we can. Which wasn’t much. They wanted to know if anybody … if they had any … enemies …’

  The words fell from his mouth as heavy as bricks. He shook his head. The others waited.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ralph said.

  Dan Smith stood up, crossed to him, placed his hand on Ralph’s arm.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to apologize for, Ralph.’

  Ralph gave a weak smile.

  ‘What a way to end an evening.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Look, if there’s anything I can do, anything at all … I’ll make some phone calls. Ensure they have the very finest care.’

  ‘Thanks, Dan.’ Ralph sighed again. A huge, tectonic shift of a sigh. ‘They’re not bad lads. They’re good workers. They’re just … a bit wild.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dan Smith, voice dripping sincerity.

  Jack remained silent.