Unbidden, a memory of his mother sprang into her mind: Grace, in the bistro, years ago, after the accident, drunk and tossing her long, dark hair. What was it she’d said then? It had made Flora blush…
Have you ever noticed how much firmer young men’s bodies are? I mean, their flesh doesn’t wobble like ours. It’s sort of taut - d’you know what I mean?
Flora hadn’t known then. She knew now.
Grace had given up trying to hoover round Charlotte’s discarded underwear and abandoned homework and she sat on the edge of her daughter’s unmade bed, leafing through Cosmopolitan. According to the results of a quiz, ‘How compatible are you?’, Charlotte appeared to be enamoured of someone scoring an improbable 17/20. Cosmo advised her to hang on to this paragon, while warning her that in all probability he was already married. Picking up a chewed pencil from the floor, Grace decided to answer the quiz herself.
She was dismayed to find that Rory scored only 6/20 even though she’d been careful to give him the benefit of the doubt and in one instance had lied. She was not at all surprised to find that Cosmo advised her to ‘Dump this one and move on. He’s not for you unless your speciality is ego massage.’
Grace scanned the floor for a rubber, found one and carefully erased her ticks.
‘My brother says he’s sleeping with your mum.’
Theo snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, yeah?’
‘No, seriously.’
He laughed again, then examined Charlotte’s face. ‘You are kidding?’
‘Nope.’
‘My mother and Colin?’
‘Apparently.’
‘He’s having you on.’
‘Look, if you don’t want to know what your mum gets up to in London, that’s fine by me, but shocked disbelief is getting a bit boring.’
‘Sorry. It’s just that it’s… it’s incredible.’
‘I know. Believe me, I find it hard to imagine anyone fancying Colin, even a desperate middle-aged woman, but I suppose that’s just because he’s my brother.’
‘But she’s twice his age! More than twice! Colin’s younger than me!’
‘Well, some women like younger men. And I suppose some men like older women.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Colin blabbed. Accidentally. But I think he wanted to tell someone. It’s been going on for months apparently. He says they’re very happy, but he doesn’t want anyone to know yet. I think he means Mum and Dad.’
‘But - it’s incest.’
‘Oh, come off it!’
‘No, technically, it is. You can’t marry your aunt. Or your nephew. It’s to do with something called consanguinity. The rules are all laid out in Leviticus.’
‘What’s Leviticus?’
‘A book of the Old Testament, you heathen child. When Dad was a vicar he sometimes had to deal with some dodgy situations when couples wanted to marry. It’s a nightmare these days. So many broken marriages, step-relations, adoptions, IVF. He says, “It’s a wise father who knows his own child”. ’
‘Meaning?’
‘You just don’t know these days who you might be related to. It’s one big melting pot.’
‘Well, obviously Colin and Flora aren’t bothered.’
‘No… Well, good luck to them,’ Theo said doubtfully. ‘If they make each other happy, that’s all that matters, I suppose.’
Charlotte sighed and said, ‘I’d better get going.’
‘Already?’
‘It’s late. Mum thinks I’m at a party and I promised I’d be home by two.’ She got out of bed and pulled on a T-shirt over her slim naked body. Theo propped himself up on one elbow, smiling.
‘What are you laughing at?’ she asked shyly. ‘Do I look funny or something?’
‘No, you look gorgeous.’ He stared at the dark triangle of hair below her T-shirt. ‘I was just looking at you and thinking, you’re so dark… and I’m so fair. We couldn’t be more different, could we?’
‘Opposites attract.’
‘I’ll say. Come here.’ He grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards the bed. ‘It’s not that late…’
When Colin and I had been together for over a year I received a carefully worded invitation from my mother to take tea at Orchard Farm. (Note the prodigal was offered tea, not even lunch.) I declined by return of post and awaited developments. After an interval I received another invitation - more of a summons really - to tea at the Ritz. Ma was clearly determined to say her piece in style. I was intrigued. I said nothing at all about the meeting to Colin. I had my hair done; I dressed up to the nines; I was practically sober. I hit the town and did battle with my redoubtable mother.
Perhaps if she hadn’t looked quite so old, so frail, so pathetically small, I might have been kinder to her. She sat hunched in her chair, her clothes (at least twenty years out of date) hanging in folds on her wasted frame. Something seemed to be missing apart from flesh. I couldn’t place it to begin with, then realised it was her gardening hat. I’d rarely seen her without it. I checked her feet for galoshes but she’d shoe-horned them into boat-like brogues that made her pale stockinged legs resemble pipe-cleaners. She was visibly in pain and I felt guilty for dragging her up to London. I couldn’t forgive her for that either.
It was a shock seeing Ma. I’d always thought of her as old, even when she wasn’t. Now she was, which meant I was no longer young myself (a fact I’d managed to ignore by surrounding myself with young people and avoiding mirrors). I’d spent ten years trying to forgive Dora for being the sort of mother one couldn’t turn to in a crisis, the sort that didn’t deal in truth or unconditional love and I thought I’d made some headway. Could any mother have heard the truths I needed to tell with any kind of equanimity? ‘Ma, my husband’s gay and he’s in love with my brother. Oh, by the way, so am I. And there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you about Theo…’
No, I hardly think so.
I forgave my mother for imposing silence on me, but for some reason I couldn’t forgive her for being old. The sight terrified me and I remembered the words of the pop song: ‘Hope I die before I get old.’
As things turned out, I needn’t have worried.
1987
‘How dare you judge me!’
Dora fixed her daughter with faded blue eyes, still astute, still steely. ‘I may be very old, but I am not yet a fool. Colin is twenty-one and you are forty-four. At best it’s mutual infatuation. Put an end to it now before Colin is hurt.’
‘Why should I? It’s not as if he’s a child. Or particularly immature. He wasn’t even a virgin, actually.’
Dora winced and held up her hands in protest. ‘Please! I don’t wish to hear details of Colin’s private life. Or yours for that matter.’
‘So why is it wrong? Tell me. He says he loves me. And I - I’m terribly fond of him…’ Her voice faltered. ‘We have a lot of interests in common,’ she added quickly. ‘And we enjoy sleeping together. Why is that wrong?’
Dora looked down at her hands, registering the throb of pain in her arthritic knuckles. The ugliness of her once beautiful hands never failed to repel her. She looked up into Flora’s still lovely face and, against her better judgement, relented. ‘I don’t know if it’s wrong, but I do know that one day you’ll regret it. I think you will feel…’ Dora cast around for a word and seemed almost surprised by her choice. ‘I think you’ll feel ashamed.’
Flora laughed, a high, barking sound that had nothing to do with mirth. ‘Oh no, Ma! That’s one thing I won’t feel. I was inoculated against shame a long time ago.’ She stood up and brushed crumbs from her skirt. ‘Well, thanks for tea. Tea at the Ritz… What a way to celebrate our reunion! I suppose you thought if we had it within these hallowed walls I wouldn’t make a fuss or turn up drunk. We should do this more often,’ Flora said brightly. ‘Shall we meet up again in another ten years? But I might have given up sleeping with young men by then, so we’d have to find something else to talk about.’
‘
Flora, please. Don’t leave. I didn’t want it to be like this. I really—’
‘Did Rory put you up to this?’
‘No, of course not. But he’s very unhappy about what’s going on.’
‘Is he? Well, poor Rory. My heart bleeds for him. Goodbye, Ma. I’ll give your love to Colin.’
Clutching helplessly at her napkin, Dora watched her daughter’s retreating figure. She’d hoped to spare Flora a visit from Rory but it seemed that was unavoidable now. Her attempt to intercede had failed. Dora leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes and tried to think. It was so difficult to know what to do for the best.
It always had been.
1958
Dora lifted the lid of the shoebox and gazed in dismay at the hank of blonde hair coiled inside. ‘Oh, Rory! How could you?’
‘She asked me to!’ His voice cracked comically, something that happened now only when he was agitated. Dora told herself she was arguing with a boy, but now that the maturity of his body almost matched that of his intellect, she felt as if she were confronting a man.
‘If Flora asked you to commit a crime, would you do that too?’
‘Cutting hair isn’t a crime.’
‘But it was wrong. You know it was wrong!’
‘No, I don’t!’ he said indignantly. ‘It’s her hair! It’s up to her what she does with it. It’s nothing to do with you! I was just… helping. Anyway, I think it looks a lot better.’
‘That’s hardly the point, Rory.’
‘Yes it is, it’s the whole point! She doesn’t like what she looks like. She wanted to look different. Be different!’ Dora stared at her son, uncomprehending. He shrugged wide, bony shoulders and plunged over-large hands into his pockets. ‘If you ask me, I think Flor hates herself.’ He seemed shocked by his words and looked at his mother, his grey eyes wide, not with anger now, but guilt. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t understand!’
‘And I suppose you do?’ Dora replied with heavy sarcasm.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ he said simply. ‘She’s my sister.’
1987
Flora ignored the door-bell and turned over in bed. The bell rang again, more persistently. Colin had not long since left the house and she wondered if he’d forgotten his key and come back for it.
The bell pusher was now pressing continuously and Flora decided it must be Colin. Cursing her lover and her hangover in equal measure she hauled herself out of bed and reached for the nearest garment - a crumpled shirt of Colin’s, discarded on a chair, the buttons still fastened. She swore again, pulled it on over her head and hurried downstairs.
From the silhouette on the frosted glass panel Flora could see that it was Colin, his arm extended, leaning on the bell. As she turned the handle she yelled, ‘All right, all right! Stop ringing the sodding bell!’ She yanked the door open and stood face to face with Rory.
He was thinner than she remembered. His sandy hair, dusted with grey, was paler now, almost ashen. Lines ran from the sides of his nose to his jaw, hard lines that drew attention to his mouth, set in a line, unsmiling. He appeared composed, almost stony, apart from his eyes which seemed to have grown larger, staring out at her from bony cavities. She saw shock and confusion in their grey-green depths, then a flicker of something familiar as his eyes travelled, taking in her dishevelled appearance: her hair unkempt, her legs bare, her small body swamped by Colin’s shirt.
Flora shivered and folded her arms across her breasts, hugging her ribcage for warmth. Rory opened his mouth to speak but made no sound. She was ambushed by an old sensation of panic, but then he opened his mouth again and said, ‘Is Colin in?’
‘No, he’s—’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve come to see you.’
She hesitated, then said, ‘You’d better come in.’
Rory stepped across the threshold and she shut the door behind him. They stood facing each other in the cramped hallway.
Flora scraped her hair back behind her ears, then tugged nervously at the hem of Colin’s shirt, as if it might stretch and cover more of her thighs. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’
‘Don’t bother. I mean, this isn’t a social call. I won’t stay long.’
‘It’s been three years, Ror,’ she murmured.
‘Three and a half.’
‘You know, there was a time when I believed I would actually die if I was separated from you for three months, let alone three years.’
‘Flora—’
‘I know why you’ve come,’ she said briskly. ‘You want me to give him up.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I would have thought that was bloody obvious.’
‘Not to me. Or Colin.’
‘You’re living off him. He’s in debt. And you’re older than his mother. Get out of his life and get your own.’
‘He says he loves me.’
‘He’s twenty-one! What does he know about love?’
She shrugged. ‘What does anybody?’
Rory didn’t answer, then said scornfully, ‘You think you love him?’
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’
‘So you don’t. I didn’t think it very likely. So what is it - just sex?’
Flora turned away and grasped the door-handle. ‘I’d like you to leave, Rory. I refuse to be bullied by you. I know what I’m doing.’
‘No, you don’t! You never have. Your life is a complete bloody mess!’
‘And whose fault is that?’ she cried.
‘Well, it certainly isn’t Colin’s! If you want revenge, hurt me! Hurt Hugh! We deserve it. But Colin doesn’t! Can you really not think of a better way of getting back at me? Is screwing my son supposed to keep me awake at nights thinking about you? About what I’m missing?’
‘Does it?’
He turned away and sat down on the stairs. ‘You’re pathetic!’
Flora leaned against the front door and looked down at him. ‘Let me get this straight. Do you want me to stop sleeping with your son? Or do you want your son to stop sleeping with me?’
‘Finish with Colin,’ he said wearily. ‘Get a job. Get your own place. Your own man. You still could. You’re only forty-four. If you bothered to make an effort, you’d still be attractive.’
‘Colin thinks I am. But then love is blind, isn’t it? Obviously Colin sees me through more forgiving eyes than yours.’
‘Colin’s just a boy.’
‘Oh, I think I should be the judge of that, don’t you?’
Rory stood up. ‘This is pointless. Goodbye, Flora.’
She didn’t move away from the door. ‘Do you think about me and Colin in bed, Ror? Is that why you’re here? You couldn’t stand it any longer? If you can’t have me, nobody else will - is that why you’ve come?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. All that was over years ago.’
Flora narrowed her eyes. ‘Was it?’
They stood facing each other and neither spoke for a moment, then Rory said, ‘And you - do you think about me? When you’re in bed with Colin, do you think about me? Is that why you want him? Because he reminds you of me? Oh, Jesus, Flora, you are sick.’
‘Your son is kind, affectionate, unselfish. He’s all the things you’re not!’
‘Which is why you don’t actually love him.’
She stared at him for a long moment, then said, ‘It started off as friendship. We just enjoyed each other’s company. Then it was friendship plus sex… And that was him, not me! The thought would never have crossed my mind. Well, it did, but I would never have done anything about it. Now it’s - well, I don’t know what it is. I don’t think he wants me to go. He’s never said so. Anyway, there’s nowhere I can go. I haven’t got a job. I don’t seem to be able to keep a job these days. And I haven’t got very good references.’
‘What do you expect if you sleep with your students? You’re a fool, Flora.’
She wasn’t listening. ‘I can see I’m going to have to lower my sights. Do some waitressing, bar
work, that sort of thing,’ she said vaguely. ‘Just to tide me over. I’m going to pay Colin back. I’m making a note of all that I owe him. He’ll get it back eventually. Every penny.’
Rory took out his wallet and withdrew five £20 notes. He handed them to Flora.
‘I don’t want your money.’
‘It’s not for you, it’s for Colin. I want you to give it to him. Don’t say you got it from me. Say Hugh sent you some money. Or Dora. Make it look as if you are paying him back.’
Flora took the notes, folded them and put them in the breast pocket of Colin’s shirt. ‘I realise you’re doing this to help Colin, not me. But thanks anyway.’
‘If you leave him I’ll pay off whatever you owe him.’
Her mouth fell open. ‘You think I can be bought off?’
‘No. I just hope so. Because I can’t see any other way of helping Colin. Or helping you.’
Her expression softened. ‘Are you happy, Rory?’
‘It’s not a question I ever ask myself.’
‘I mean, are you and Grace happy?’
‘I’m financially dependent on her. I can’t afford to ask if we’re happy. She provides me with a home, food, clothes and a modicum of self-respect. By giving up a promising musical career she’s allowed me, and our children, to lead a comfortable life. She’s given me the luxury of pursuing my own musical projects - such as they are,’ he added bitterly. ‘Teaching, composing, charity work… All of that is subsidised by Grace. I don’t ask if we’re happy, I just keep a tally of how much I owe her.’
‘Does she still love you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you still love—’
‘Flor, what is the point of all this? Why do we have to torture ourselves? Why do you have to make everything more painful than it needs to be?’
‘Do you still love me?’
He hesitated, unable to mouth the lie. His answer when it came was just a breath. ‘Yes…’
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