Lily's House

by Cassandra Parkin

  I dream I’m walking up the winding hill towards Lily’s house. I’m the age that I am now, but my hand is still tucked into hers, and when we cross the road, she makes me change sides so that she can continue to shield me from the traffic. It’s only when we reach the driveway that I realise Marianne is with us too, toddling along on stumpy legs that tremble with the exhaustion of the climb. I swing her onto my hip and we stand together in a little cluster, three generations of women drenched in the evening sunlight that slants between the trees and warms our faces.

  “You can stay here with me for ever,” Lily tells me.

  “But where’s Daniel?”

  “You left him behind,” Lily says, calm and smiling. “I told you he wasn’t good enough for you, remember? So you saw to it that he’d never hurt you again.”

  And as she speaks these words I remember something terrible. When Marianne and I left that morning, I closed the door of our bedroom on Daniel’s cold corpse as it hung and twirled from the light fitting.

  I wake with my heart and my head pounding, wondering if I’ve screamed aloud or simply in my head. Daniel sleeps peacefully beside me. I’m ravenously hungry – we both skipped dinner – so I creep downstairs to find something to eat. The kitchen is a mess. The whole house is a mess. But I can fix it.

  Moving stealthily and carefully, I unload the dishwasher, and refill it with dirty pans and crockery. I throw away the chopped onion from the casserole and hide the sausages in the fridge. I empty out the washing machine, transfer the clothes into the tumble dryer, creep into the bathroom and gather up another load. A quick wipe around the surfaces, a few minutes straightening the lounge, and my house feels an entirely different place. Later, when Marianne and Daniel wake, I’ll make us all pancakes.

  I crave toast, crisp and crunchy and laden with lime marmalade, but when I take the bread out, I see it’s spotted with mould. I open a box of cereal instead, shivering in the cold kitchen as the milk chills me from my stomach outwards. I try to forget that last night in my sleep, I killed Daniel so I could leave him.

  This is the first time I have this dream. It will not be the last.

  Chapter Twenty-Five – Friday

  When I wake, Marianne is up before me, pottering around the kitchen in her ludicrous pyjamas, making pancakes in that meticulous way she has. Every step is checked at least three times against the recipe on her phone. The egg whites are whisked into smooth foamy peaks, the tops scrutinised to see if they stand up (acceptable) or flop over a little (more whisking required). Each spill and spatter is instantly wiped with the damp cloth that remains within arms’ reach at all times. The smile she gives me looks natural and relaxed, as long as you don’t look too closely.

  “I thought I’d make you a nice surprise breakfast,” she tells me. “You sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea. You deserve a rest.”

  In any normal household I would revel in this unexpected gesture of thoughtfulness, but this is what Daniel and I always do the morning after we’ve—

  —the morning after he’s hit you, says Lily. It’s all right, you can tell me. I knew it the first time I saw him. I tried to warn you, but I don’t blame you for not listening. No one ever wants to believe it.

  It’s become almost routine, in its own hideous way. Or perhaps not a routine, since I never know exactly what will trigger it off. Maybe a ritual. Yes, that seems right. Blood and sex, feasting and mystery, power and terror; an ecstasy of self-abasement. In the very worst times (which are also the very best times, for the passion that comes after) I wonder if I deliberately provoke these episodes, because the time after is when we’re closest. The moments when his hands, remorseful, caress my back, my face, my breasts. His vulnerability, as he pours out all his sorrow and need. I bring it on myself; I know that he hates being reminded of the imbalances between us, but I remind him anyway. This is what all women in my position say: It’s my fault, I wind him up, he can’t help it. But that doesn’t make all of us wrong. Some of us have to be telling the truth.

  And now my daughter, my beautiful only child, is in the kitchen making pancakes and wiping the surfaces clean, because this is what she’s seen her parents do whenever they’re confronted with the violence that lurks at the dark heart of their marriage. Cook something nice, clean the kitchen, act as if everything’s all right. Shove the beast back in its cage.

  “Do you have a lot of jobs today?” Marianne asks me, her face very bright and cheerful.

  “A few.” I’m cautious and careful, treading carefully around the subject we’re not ever going to discuss. “Sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay, I don’t mind.”

  “You know what? Let’s go to the beach again.”

  “No, Mum, I didn’t mean that.”

  “No, I know you didn’t. But I think we should.”

  “But you’ve got stuff to do. You’ve got to get everything sorted out here.”

  “We can afford a day off to go to the beach.”

  “Dad will be angry.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “Yes he will. He texted me last night to ask me what we’d been doing.”

  “What did you say? No, never mind, it doesn’t matter. These pancakes are delicious.”

  “Yes, it does matter. I told him you were working really hard, Mum. Because I don’t want him to be mad with you.”

  The pancakes are light and fluffy and the golden syrup pours clear and delicious from Lily’s dainty cream jug. I force myself to smile and swallow. “Don’t be silly. He won’t be cross.”

  “Yes, he will. I know what he does, Mum. You don’t have to hide it from me and pretend.”

  “Look, you might think you sometimes saw—”

  “I know what I saw. I know I sleepwalk sometimes and see things, but I can tell the difference.” She’s hesitant but clear. “Please, Mum. Listen to me. You can leave him. And I’ll go home and look after him. I don’t mind.”

  “We’re not talking about this any more. Eat your pancake.”

  “Think about it.”

  “Here, have the rest of this syrup.”

  “I’m fine, I’ve finished.”

  “Then I’ll make you another.”

  I suspect Marianne’s telling me she doesn’t want another pancake, but I turn towards the stove so I don’t have to see and ladle out a perfect pale circlet of batter. Little bubbles rise and pop on the thick surface. The edge begins to crisp, and I flip it onto its back so it can cook through. When I drop the pancake onto Marianne’s plate, I give her the brightest smile I can muster, to show I’m not angry. She eats the pancake dutifully, her dark eyes never leaving my face.

  If I keep moving I don’t have to think. I clean the kitchen, scour the bathroom to a polished shine, then whirl towels and swimming costumes into a bag so we can go to the beach. Marianne tries to protest, but she’s only twelve and the lure of sunshine and seawater, topped with the promise of an ice cream after lunch, combine into something she can’t possibly resist. I march proudly down the stairs with the bag on my shoulder. My phone vibrates, warning me Daniel is trying to reach me, but I ignore it. I don’t need to jump to Daniel’s command. I can ignore him and afterwards claim a flat battery or a dropped signal, and nothing bad will happen. I’m a strong woman and I’m taking my daughter to the beach, because I’m not afraid of my husband.

  The hallway is cool and empty. Marianne glances towards James’s door, but it’s closed. There’s no sign of the cat. Perhaps she’s finally got the message and accepted her new home. The gravel shifts and yields beneath my firmly planted feet.

  “Let’s run,” I say to Marianne, at the top of the hill.

  “But what about the road?”

  “We’ll stop at the bottom.”

  She starts to say something else, but I take her hand firmly in mine and run down the narrow pavement. We dodge bin bags and car mirrors, leap wildly around a man wearing an anorak and carrying two shopping bags, skitter to a halt at the bottom to check for cars
and then career on again, upwards this time, gasping and uncoordinated, arms flailing, hopelessly out of time with each other. We stop for breath at the crossing and Marianne tries to ask me why, but then the green man beckons us over and we’re off again, tearing down the broad slope toward the beach and the ocean, until Marianne suddenly tugs hard on my arm and stops, pressing her hand against the spot beneath her ribcage.

  “I’ve got a stitch,” she says. Her face is crumpled with pain. “Sorry, Mum. You go on. I’ll catch you up.”

  “No, it’s all right. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Honestly, I don’t mind. I’ve got to learn to be more independent.”

  “Don’t be daft. You’re only twelve.”

  “Exactly. I won’t always live with you.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  She looks at me steadily and I feel a chill. She is terribly persistent, this daughter of mine. She takes her time to think about things, but once she’s made up her mind, persuading her to change it back is difficult. I can’t think of a time when I’ve ever managed it.

  “I think you should leave him. I don’t want him to hurt you any more.”

  “But you could live with me?” This isn’t what I meant to say. We can’t discuss this as if it’s a thing that might actually happen.

  “No, that’s not fair on Daddy. We can’t both leave him.”

  “But… do you want to live in a different house to me?” I ask. This is unforgiveable. And besides, she won’t choose me. Given a choice between two options, Marianne will always select the less desirable one. Is this what I’ve taught her to do?

  “I want him not to hurt you any more,” she repeats, and walks away from me, towards the beach.

  Panic, shame, terror; these are hard emotions to sustain. If you’d told me a week ago that I’d be openly talking to my daughter about all that I thought I’d hidden so successfully, I would have pictured the end of everything; torn hair, torn garments, smashed possessions, myself lying shuddering, dying by inches so I wouldn’t have to face any further discussion. And yet here we are, sitting peacefully against the sunny wall, sifting through the sand for tiny shells, negotiating over ice creams and when we can have them. Only intermittently does the horror come over me, like a wave of scalding water, like a curtain whisked back to show the seething blackness behind.

  It’s my fault. I provoke him. If any other woman said it, I’d tell her she was deluding herself. But, unlike all these other imaginary women conjured into my head by magazines and newspapers, I really do provoke him. I’m hard to live with. I complain when he makes a mess. Although I’ve never said it out loud, I don’t believe in him or his music. I have no faith that it will ever come to more than what he achieves now, which is essentially a time-consuming hobby that occasionally brings in a few hundred pounds.

  I’ve lied to him for the last twelve years, passing off another man’s child as his own.

  Does it matter that Marianne is, strictly speaking, not his daughter? He wasn’t there when she was conceived but he’s been there for every moment after. He held her when she was less than a minute old, stroking her sticky head in wonder. Whatever else is wrong with our marriage, we’ve both loved Marianne. Sometimes it feels as if she’s the only thing holding us together. Maybe that’s because she is the only thing holding us together.

  She’s in the water now, splashing around and laughing. The curtain has fallen and we’re a happy family again, a happy family of two, playing in the sunshine on the beach where all my best memories were made. Marianne, I can see now, is made to live by the sea. Her olive skin is designed not for the cool pale comfort of city living, but for the sharp bite of the Cornish wind and sunshine. Her hair wasn’t made to be straightened and styled and smoothed to a glossy shine. It’s at its best soaked with salt water and left to dry in spirally unbrushed tangles. She’s terrible at team sports and uncoordinated on a tennis court, but in the water, her jerky anxious movements become lithe and graceful. This is the life we could have had, if I’d made a different choice that day in the churchyard. This is what Lily was offering.

  You can still have that life, Lily tells me, kneeling down beside me on the warm sand. It’s not too late.

  I could have taken Lily’s hand instead of Daniel’s and left my job and come back here to live. While Marianne was tiny, we would have lived with Lily, and when I found work and a place for us to be independent, Lily would have helped me. Her tall upright figure, crowned with white hair, would have greeted Marianne’s rosy face as she came out of school on the days I was working late. There would have been family trips to the beach at the weekend, and in the long summers, I would have enrolled Marianne at the surf school. She would have grown up knowing this place deep in her bones.

  A terrible houseful of women, Lily laughs. But that’s all right. Sometimes life is better without men.

  Would there have been any men? What about the boy who got me pregnant? I can’t think of him as Marianne’s father, any more than I can think of James as her grandfather. All I can remember now is that he was gentle and sweet and not very curious, on a night when gentle and sweet and not-very-curious were exactly what I craved. Would we have had a future together? Surely not. He had his own plans, none of which involved making a life with a stranger whose only connection with him was a single evening of fruitful pleasure.

  He wouldn’t have had to know, Lily says, serene and powerful. It’s easy to keep that kind of secret if you want to. Women have done it since the dawn of time.

  His grandfather lives downstairs. How was he not going to find out?

  He moved to New Zealand that summer. That’s why he was visiting. He came to say goodbye.

  James knew as soon as he saw her.

  James would have kept quiet. He’s good at keeping secrets.

  I look up from my handful of shells and see Marianne making her way up the beach, laborious and shivering, her feet wincing away from the pebbles.

  “Let’s get you dry.” I wrap a towel around her trembling shoulders.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “No one. Myself.”

  “I never saw you do that before,” Marianne says, not challenging me exactly, but clearly worried. No one likes to see their parents doing something new. “Is it because you’re thinking about—”

  “Shush.”

  “But Mum—”

  “No, I mean it. Shush. We’re having a nice day. Let’s not spoil it.” Except by saying the words, Let’s not spoil it, I’ve managed to remind her of what I want her to forget. “Do you want to go and get us some ice creams?”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “There’s only two of us. Can’t you manage?” Too late, I see that this is the wrong thing to say. What’s the matter with me today? I can usually read Marianne’s moods as if they’re my own. “Actually, no, I’ll come with you.”

  “You don’t have to, I can carry them.”

  “I know you can, but it’s easier if I help. They melt so fast, it’ll drip all over you.”

  “But I need to be independent!”

  “No, you don’t, not yet.”

  “But Mum, I have to learn. I can’t rely on you to look after me all the time.”

  “Please stop going on with all that rubbish about being on your own. And stop worrying about me.”

  “I’ve got to worry about you. You don’t worry about yourself. Someone has to.”

  She’s right, says Lily. You don’t worry about yourself. I think it’s time you started.

  “Look.” I stroke Marianne’s cheek with the ball of my thumb. “You need to stop fretting.”

  “But what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll work something out.”

  I can see from the look on Marianne’s face that she has no faith there can be any plan better than hers. She’s already shutting down, withdrawing, saying goodbye. She’s preparing for a future without me in it. When she takes my hand on
the way up to the ice-cream stand, she clutches it tight. The quivering of her fingers is not solely from the cold water.

  The ice creams are no fun but we gulp them down anyway, forcing ourselves to finish them even though we’re both pushing them past the knots in our throats. It’s a feeling I’ve grown familiar with over many years of putting a brave face on for Daniel. How many other times has my daughter been my silent companion, gallantly playing her part to keep up the loving fiction that Daniel is a good man, a successful husband, a successful father? Afterwards I send her down to the rock pools with a bucket, telling her to try and find me a crab. The rocks have been picked bare by a century’s worth of beachcombers; she’ll be gone for a while.

  I need to evaluate my options. Evaluating options is what I do, it’s the way I make my living. I assess the possibilities, I assign each one its costs and benefits, and I recommend what will be, on balance, the most rewarding course of action. Sometimes I’m listened to, sometimes I’m not; sometimes I point out a risk that never materialises, sometimes the solution I propose proves unworkable; but on balance, my answers are generally good ones. I don’t have my spreadsheets, I don’t even have a pencil and the back of an envelope, so I arrange shells in patterns to help me think.

  Option one. I could leave Daniel, taking Marianne with me, but stay close to him. With the money from selling Lily’s home, we’d be able to finance two separate dwellings. Of course, running costs would be a problem, and Daniel would have to get a job; which he would hate, and which would prove difficult, since he’s spent the last fifteen years dossing around the house pretending to be a professional musician. But with care, we could manage.