The Good Mayor: A Novel Read online

  Agathe clipped down the Town Hall’s marble stairs in her high heels and trotted over White Bridge to Braun’s department store where she squandered a purseful of notes on several, almost invisible, items of underwear. “It’s all so expensive,” she gasped, “and it’s hardly even there.”

  The elderly shop assistant smiled. “That’s because it’s made by fairies—woven from the cotton they find in the tops of aspirin bottles on the night of the full moon. Hans Christian Andersen wrote a story about it and some genius developed an entire mathematical formula to explain why the price of knickers rises as the size of knickers falls. Do you want them?”

  “Yes, I’ll have them.”

  “You’ll freeze to death. Listen, for the price, I’ll throw in a nice thick undershirt. Wear it.” She wrapped everything carefully in layers of pink tissue and sprinkled broken lavender heads between the sheets and tied it all in ribbons. Then she put the whole thing in a shiny red cardboard box, with “Braun’s” written on it in gold, and tied up with a yellow raffia cord.

  It dangled hopefully from Agathe’s little finger as she hurried back to work and it sat in her in-tray all afternoon. When the sun came through the office window and warmed it, wafts of lavender began to drift round the room. The scent of it thrilled her.

  Agathe spent the rest of the day glancing from her work to the little red box and from the box to the clock above the door to Mayor Krovic’s office. She was tingling. Her stomach was fluttering. She went to mark up another entry in the mayor’s diary but her hand trembled so much that the pen left an ugly blot on the page. Coffee. Time for coffee. She must have some coffee.

  As she stood by the machine watching the coffee splutch, splutch, splutch into the glass lid, Agathe danced from foot to foot, singing a song about “The Boy I Love” that her granny had taught her when she was a little girl. She had sung it to Stopak when they were first walking out together. It was only then, when she was older, that she had understood how naughty the words were. It made her happy. It made her happy to remember Granny and the old days with Stopak and the thrill of it—and the naughtiness—and it made her happy to think of that little red box and the naughtiness to come. She was happy anyway. It wasn’t the song. It was the box and hope that made her happy. A little box full of hope, like Pandora’s box but without the bad stuff. Just the hope and a little bit of naughtiness and she would be glad to let that escape out into the world.

  The coffee machine gave a final snort, like Stopak just before he rolled over in the night, and Agathe poured out two cups—one for her and one for Good Mayor Krovic. Then, with a couple of ginger biscuits balanced in the saucer, she wiggled through the office, past her desk and towards the mayor’s room. Before she even opened the door, she heard him whistling “The Boy I Love.”

  “I haven’t heard that song in a long time,” he said, taking the saucer. “My grandmother used to sing it.”

  “Mine too,” said Agathe.

  “She was a wicked old woman, my grandmother.”

  Agathe laughed. “Mine too. She was the child of pirates, you know.”

  “She was not!”

  “No, truly. The child of pirates or a lost Russian princess. Nobody knew. They found her when she was very small, wandering along the beach one morning, sucking her thumb and cuddling a velvet blanket with red and gold stripes. A kind farmer took her in and made her his own. But I think she must have been more pirate than princess. Imagine teaching a young girl a song like that!”

  “All things are pure to the pure,” said Tibo. He pointed with his pen and asked, “Is that for me?”

  Agathe was puzzled.

  “The Braun’s box? A present for me?”

  She was surprised and a little embarrassed to see the scarlet package swinging from her left hand. “This? Oh, this! This. No. Not for you. Sorry, I bought it at lunchtime. I must have picked it up by mistake. No. Not for you. Sorry. Just for me. Well, that is. No.” Agathe began to back out the door but Tibo called her back.

  “Everything all right, Mrs. Stopak? I mean things at home. I know you and Stopak … well, a sad time. We were all very sorry. If you could do with a day or two off work, we can manage. I can get one of the girls from the Town Clerk’s Office to come in. It’s not a problem.”

  Agathe put on a solemn face. “You’re very kind, Mayor Krovic, but, honestly, things are fine now. Things have been bad but they’re better now. Honestly. Much better.”

  “I’m glad,” said the mayor. “Look, I won’t need you any more today. Why not take the rest of the afternoon off?”

  That made Agathe very happy—after all, she had some new clothes she wanted to try on. She thanked him and left the office. From behind the door, she heard him shout, “And thanks for the coffee.” Good Mayor Krovic.

  The sun was still sparkling in the fountains of City Square as Agathe left the Town Hall. With her coat thrown over one arm, she crunched over the gravel along the boulevard on the banks of the Ampersand. She strolled along the avenue, switching from pools of sunshine to dark blobs of elm-shade and back into sunshine, swinging her handbag as she walked in time to “The Boy I Love” playing inside her head. At Aleksander Street, she stopped at the delicatessen to buy some bread and cheese and cooked ham but she came out with all that and more—a green papier mâché carton of strawberries, the first of the season, a bottle of wine, a bar of chocolate and, at the bottom of her bag, alongside the little scarlet package from Braun’s, two bottles of beer. “If St. Walpurnia does her job, he’ll need to build his strength up,” she said to herself.

  There was a black kitten curling itself round the bins at the bottom of the stair that led to the Stopaks’ little flat. Agathe stopped to pick the cat up and pet it. “Black cats are lucky,” she told it, “but I’ve got all the luck I need in this little box so you’ll just have to stay here for tonight.” And she put the cat back on the pavement and began to climb the stairs.

  Her bag was becoming heavy and the string handles were cutting into her fingers but she hardly noticed. The little red box made everything seem light.

  Agathe bumped the door of the flat shut with her bottom and emptied her groceries on the kitchen table. She took a sharp knife and cut the bread, spread the cheese and ham neatly on a plate, arranged everything just as it should be with the beer bottles wrapped in a wet cloth on the window ledge.

  She was satisfied. “Nothing to burn, nothing to dry out. Ready to eat.” But she decided to leave the wine for Stopak to open. That could be his job—a man’s job. Then she took the little box, locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the taps.

  Steam rose and filled the room as she undressed. Agathe unbuttoned her dress. In the mirror above the sink, another Agathe did the same. The Agathe in the bathroom, our Agathe, looked at her appraisingly. The Agathe on the other side of the glass looked back and smiled. Both Agathes let their yellow dresses fall from their shoulders and whisper to the floor. Our Agathe picked up her dress and hung it from a hook on the back of the door. She would need it later. The Agathe in the mirror probably did the same but it was impossible to be sure, since she had drawn a modest curtain of steam across her window. On this side, in the Dot where traffic drives on the right and where Agathe’s beauty spot was just a little above her left lip, this Agathe took off her underwear and rolled it into a ball. She would not be needing that.

  Naked and plump and luminously beautiful, she undid the package from Braun’s. The sensible thick undershirt, the make-weight gift from the old lady in the shop. That was a kind thing. Agathe smiled and put it aside on top of the green wooden bathroom stool. And then there was a layer of pink tissue paper. A scattering of lavender flowers fell to the floor as she opened it and Agathe giggled and stooped to pick them up again, pinching them from the tiles between finger and thumb. She did not notice how the movement stirred her own scent through the steamy room. Tibo would have noticed.

  In a moment or two, Agathe had retrieved her new lingerie. She held it up to the g
round-glass window and admired it, admired its opalescent transparency, its softness, its barely-thereness. She leaned over the steaming bath and hung it from the string where she usually hung her stockings to dry overnight. Pinned there she could admire it while she lay in the bath.

  Agathe carefully gathered all the tissue paper from the package and folded it into a neat book. “I’ll save that for Christmas,” she said. At the bottom of the Braun’s box there was still a purple layer of lavender blossom. It smelt wonderful—clean and bright and sharp and summery. With her nose in the box Agathe breathed it in deeply, held the smell of it in her lungs, savoured it. Then she emptied the box into the bath and stirred the blossoms round.

  She put the little red box on the floor, well away from damaging steam or water splashes—it was a keepsake to treasure—and stepped into the bath.

  She was a goddess. Titian could not have done her justice. She was Diana bathing in a forest pool out of sight of mortal eyes. The water rushed back in ripples, eager to touch her. It lapped the rim of the bath as she moved, sinking down deeper, sighing with relaxed enjoyment. Agathe piled her hair up to keep it out of the water and dark tendrils coiled on her neck in the rising steam. She looked up at her extravagant new underwear and smiled. She imagined Stopak’s reaction, what it would urge him to, what she’d submit to—eagerly—for his sake.

  She looked down at her body, pinked by the heat of the water, little toes wriggling under the faraway taps, melony, rose-tipped breasts awash in lavender-scented water and, between, dark fronds that moved like black anemones in the beat of the bath-tide.

  Agathe, so long without a touch, caressed herself. And stopped. She reached for the soap. Soaping was permissible for a respectable married woman but only soaping. Through clenched teeth she gave a little growl of fury and frustration. “Oooh, Walpurnia, you’d just better!” Then she held her breath and sank under the water.

  HEN STOPAK CAME HOME FROM work that evening, Agathe was sitting in her chair by the window, wearing the yellow dress again. She got up at the sound of his key in the lock and hurried to the door to meet him.

  Stopak stood like a gatepost as she kissed him and, though Agathe pretended to herself that she didn’t notice, even that was another acknowledgement of another tiny rejection, another chill draught in the house. She took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen.

  “I got some wine,” she said, “for a treat, since it’s such a nice day. But I can’t open it. You do it, Stopak, you big strong man.” And she “oohed” and “aahed” over his muscles.

  Stopak sat at the table and pulled the cork. It was the only sound in the flat and it went off like a pistol shot. There were two glasses on the table. Stopak put the bottle down between them. The wine stayed unpoured, a red exclamation mark upside down on the table.

  “Pour me some wine, then, you silly man,” Agathe said and managed a laugh.

  He filled two glasses and handed one to her. She took a sip. He emptied his and filled another. She forced another laugh. “My word, lover, you must be in the mood.”

  “These days,” he said, “I’m always in the mood.”

  “Good. Oh, good,” said Agathe. “I like a man with an appetite.” And, under her breath, in a panicky whisper, she said the name “Walpurnia.”

  She made a hasty step towards the table. “Here, let me help you.” She sat down and began to pile bread and cheeses and ham on to a plate for him. She made a huge open sandwich, glistening with yellow butter on bread with a crust that gleamed as if it was varnished, and heaped with salt ham. She picked it up and held it out to him. She wanted to feed it to him, as mothers feed their children or lovers feed each other.

  “I can feed myself,” he said coldly. “I’m not a …” but he didn’t say the word. Even now, months later, he couldn’t say the word.

  Instead he started to reach out across the table, grabbing things for himself, slapping them down on the plate in front of him, wolfing them down angrily.

  Agathe pretended not to notice. She stuck to the plan. She was going to enjoy a picnic with her man. Not quite warm enough to take a basket to the park but they’d have it here and then there would be love again.

  She had a conversation planned, things to talk about, and she kept talking about them even when it was obvious that she was the only one talking. “I thought we might go on a trip over the holiday weekend. There was a brochure, well, a big pile of brochures, on the front desk at the Town Hall. They’re bringing the pleasure steamer back—you remember, the old thing they used to have, almost an antique now. I wonder where it’s been, but it’s coming back. We could go over to the islands. We could see your uncle in Dash. We haven’t seen him for a long time, apart from, well, that time, but not for a long time. You like him. I like him and he’s always been nice to us. I wouldn’t ask him to put us up but, if we stayed in that little boarding house down by the smokery, we could manage. It’s a bit fishy but it wouldn’t be expensive. We could afford it and we could do with a couple of days away. You must be due the time off and the whole town shuts down for the holiday weekend anyway. There’s no point staying open just to watch nobody coming in.”

  And on and on like that she heard herself, rattling on and on like a sewing machine spooling out an endless seam of words, mouth noise because it was the only thing that would hold off the quiet and, if it was quiet, she would have to look at him, saying nothing, and he might glare at her with that mixture of boredom and disgust which must mean that he found her boring and disgusting when she was not boring and disgusting. She was not. She knew she was not. He was wrong about that. It was Stopak who had gone wrong. But she could cure him and table talk wasn’t part of the cure. The plan said the cure would come later, just a couple of hours later.

  “And curtains for the bedroom. I thought red would be a nice change. Cheer the place up. They usually have a sale at Braun’s about this time of the year and there’s bound to be some old offcut lying round in their basement. I’ll bet I could find something that would just be perfect for curtains and I might even cover your old chair.” And on and on until, “Had enough? But don’t you want some strawberries? I got them specially. Save them up for later. I bet I can tempt you later. Go and have a seat and read your paper. I’ll clean up. You’ve had a hard day.” And the scraping of the chair and the flap of the newspaper and the sigh of the sofa springs.

  Agathe stood by the sink, mopping the dishes and singing “The Boy I Love” softly to herself, but there was a catch in her voice and her eyes stung. When she was finished, she emptied the sink and carefully mopped all round it. She dried everything and stacked it and put it away. She hung the damp towel from the rail in front of the oven to let it air and she took an old knife from the drawer in the kitchen table and began to hunt for grease. Agathe ran the blunt blade along every edge in the room—round the enamel rim of the stove, under the hood where the flue passed out through the wall, on the tops of cupboards, along skirting boards. Tiny, almost imperceptible shavings of grease spooled off the blade and clung there. She washed them away in the sink and filled a bucket of hot soapy water and rinsed everything down.

  She had calculated it would take almost exactly two hours—just as long as it would take Stopak to wring every last drop of ink out of the evening paper. She knew. That was how long it took every night. Nobody could get value out of the paper like Stopak. And then, when it was done, the kitchen would be clean, the kitchen where they would meet across tomorrow’s breakfast table as lovers again, the kitchen where he would hold her and look into her eyes and acknowledge that she had saved him. It would be so wonderful. Like the morning after their wedding. Like a new wedding. She was drying the last of the cupboard doors when she heard the springs creak in the sofa again and Stopak got up to go to bed. He left without a word. No goodnight. No warning that he was leaving. Silence. She heard him sit on the bed. A shoe dropped. Sighs. A shoe dropped. Agathe took her bucket and emptied it into the sink. She looked down at her hands. Pink. Roug
h. She turned the cold tap on hard and held them under the flow of water until the pipes began to screech and knock in the walls. Better. Calmer.

  Anyway there was a jar of cream on the dressing table. She thought about taking handfuls of it and smearing it on Stopak. No. No. No. Not the plan. She tidied up and walked through the flat to the bedroom where Stopak lay like a corpse in the bed.

  “Hello,” she whispered teasingly and lit the lamp on her dressing table.

  Stopak made some grudging acknowledgement. “I was trying to sleep,” he said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I won’t be long.” Agathe let the yellow dress fall to the floor at her feet. She kicked it away with the toe of her shoe and stood there, more naked than naked, wrapped in whispers of pink gauze. She bent over unnecessarily to pick up the dress and stepped to the wardrobe where she hung it over the door. Stopak’s eyes were boring into her.

  “What do you think?” she asked, preening herself, running her fingers over the slivers of cloth that decorated her.

  He lay in bed and said nothing.

  Agathe crossed the room again and sat down on the little stool by her dressing table. Her stockings whispered against each other as she crossed her legs elegantly and there was a metallic sound as she unscrewed the lid from a jar of lavender-scented cream. She scooped a little out and began to rub it slowly into her hands. Slowly. Watching him in the mirror as she did it, blowing him kisses and making baby faces at him.

  “You mustn’t hate me. It was so expensive. And it barely covers me here …”—and she pointed—“or here …” and she pointed again. “And it’s so thin. I bet you can see right through it, you bad boy. You mustn’t peek.”