Life Without Me

by Anna Legat

‘The so-called auntie must still be there. I don’t want to see her.’ Emma punched a little green Christmas tree air refresher hanging from the rear view mirror. The tree orbited the mirror, then rested.

  ‘We can go and check.’ On closer inspection, the boy was a wimp. Emma chose her men wisely.

  ‘And then what? You’ll leave me there. I want to go with you. I promise I’ll be no trouble.’

  Brandon lit a cigarette. He blew the smoke out the window. ‘Your dad will be worried where you are.’

  ‘Right now Dad doesn’t know what day of the week it is. He won’t notice me gone.’

  ‘No, we can’t do that to him.’

  Both Emma and I could see he was yielding under pressure. She resolutely refused to get out of the car, and waited. Brandon finished his cigarette and flicked the butt out of the window. ‘OK then, but there are some conditions …’

  ‘Anything!’

  ‘You’ll have to bring your books with you and do some revision, yeah?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And you’ll introduce me to your dad. So that he knows where you are. As in: in safe hands.’

  Emma exhaled like a pricked balloon. ‘You’re sure you’re up to meeting my parents?’

  ‘Em, I want to do it right. I feel shit, hiding in shadows, like we’re criminals. We don’t want them to find out the wrong way, do we?’

  ‘I don’t care if they don’t find out at all!’

  ‘But I do. Anyway, it’s just your dad. You said he was harmless. Let’s face it, Em, it’s your mum who was the issue. You said she’d have had a problem with me. You said she’d have a cardiac arrest if she knew about us. Well, she’s already had a cardiac. She’s sort of out of the way, no offence intended!’ None taken, humph! ‘So it’s down to your dad. Is he going to mind me?’

  ‘Dad doesn’t mind anything and if he does, he’ll be too polite to say.’

  ‘So, let’s do it. We’ll all feel better for it.’

  I don’t think Rob registered anything that happened in the next two minutes. It had not taken more than two minutes for Emma to burst in with Brandon in tow. Rob was in the kitchen, trying – in vain – to make cheese on toast. He had put both the bread and the cheese directly into the toaster. The cheese started melting and burning inside it. The smoke activated the alarm. It was wailing while Rob was waving a tea towel in front of the detector.

  ‘The windows!’ Brandon sprang into action, opening the kitchen window and pushing open the front door to let the smoke out. Without a word to her dad, Emma shot straight up the stairs to her room to fetch her books. The alarm stopped. Rob and Brandon found themselves face to face in the narrow landing under the smoke detector.

  ‘Thank you! I never … I mean … I thought I’d have cheese on toast. What could be simpler? Well … It got a bit out of hand. Sorry about that,’ Rob was stammering. ‘I’m sure you’ve got more important … I mean real emergencies. You are a fireman?’

  ‘No Dad!’ Emma was back with a couple of thick volumes under her arm. ‘He’s my boyfriend. Brandon – Dad; Dad – Brandon.’

  Rob looked like he needed his kettle. ‘Oh, I see. Not a fireman? Yes, of course. How could a fireman arrive so quickly? A boyfriend, Brandon … Naturally! Pleased to meet you at last. Emma’s told me so much about you I feel I know you.’ He was shaking the young man’s hand with great vigour. It was civility taken way too far in my humble opinion, but then no one seemed to concern themselves with my opinions any more.

  ‘Brandon isn’t a fireman. Where did you get that idea from? He is a palaeontologist.’

  ‘Dubbing as a chef,’ Brandon chirped in and returned Rob’s enthusiastic handshake.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything to –’

  ‘I have to be going. My shift’s about to start. Just quickly: I work in La Rochelle.’

  ‘La Rochelle? Is that …’

  ‘It’s a restaurant in Broadmead. I thought you ought to know something about me. Kind of.’

  ‘So you’re the fireman?’

  ‘He’s a chef, Dad!’

  ‘I thought you said a fireman.’

  ‘No, you keep on about a fireman! Brandon is a palaeontologist!’

  ‘Not a chef, then?’

  ‘I am a chef, sir.’ Clearly Brandon felt compelled to intervene before the debate got out of hand. ‘I’ll take Emma with me, if that’s OK with you. She’ll get something decent to eat at the restaurant.’ Brandon gazed at the blackened toaster. ‘I’ll bring her back home after ten.’

  Emma was already out of the door. ‘See you, Dad!’

  Brandon pointed at the toaster. ‘It’ll trip your mains if you try to use it again. Why don’t you try the grill instead?’

  ‘The grill.’ Rob looked inspired.

  ‘It was nice to meet you,’ Brandon assured Rob, and promptly retreated after Emma.

  ‘Sorry about the trouble. I’ll definitely try the grill.’

  Mark brushed by Rob at the front door. He too was on his way out. Freshly out of the bath, he left behind a trail of Radox Original body wash. His hair was still wet. His Drab and Proud of It T-shirt was replaced with its faithful grey replica stating I’m a terrorist.

  ‘Can I borrow your car, Dad?’ Mark opened the garage. It was empty. ‘Where is your car?’ Only I and Paula knew where the Mini had gone. Rob looked both puzzled and apologetic for his ignorance. He went to the garage to look for himself. He checked around carefully as if, by any chance, the car could have crawled under the box with screws and nails.

  ‘My car?’

  ‘Yes! The Mini. I am in a hurry, Dad.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I may have left it at work. No, hang on – I took a bus to work. No, no … Is it stolen, do you think?’

  ‘I’ve no time to think. I’m late.’

  ‘Perhaps I should report it stolen?’

  ‘Perhaps you should. I’ll take Mum’s car. Is it OK if I do? You’re not going anywhere, are you?’

  My car was parked in front of the second door of our double garage. They all knew I didn’t like anyone to drive it but me. Rob’s car, when it was being used, was normally on loan to either friends or family, or any odd stray cat in the neighbourhood. I cringed at my car being used without my permission: the seat being moved, the mirrors repositioned, an intruder helping himself to my Softmints. Rob hesitated.

  ‘I don’t think Mum would like that.’

  ‘It’s not like she’s going to need it tonight.’

  ‘I suppose what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad. Oh, and can I get a small loan? Fifty quid?’

  Rob patted himself on his chest and buttocks, in all those places where a wallet should be. ‘Um … I seem to have misplaced my wallet.’

  ‘Stolen? Like the car? Never mind, I’ll starve.’

  They were sitting on a bench by the quayside, eating fish and chips. I’d half expected Chi to tackle chips with chopsticks, or at least a knife and fork, but she was quite efficient eating with her fingers. Behind them was a fancy restaurant with glass walls and yellow lanterns whose light reflected in the water, rippled and smudged on the oily black surface. There was a gentle but nippy breeze coming from the river. Neither of them seemed to mind or even notice it. Mark looked exhilarated. You would think it was he who had died and gone to heaven. He joked. He laughed – genuinely laughed. He fooled around. I never knew him to be this carefree. Mark had always been a very serious young man, or perhaps – it occurred to me as I watched him now – he hadn’t been a happy one. He had a steady girl whom he had dated for four years. There was sex in it and a meeting of minds, surely. And yet it seemed that until now he simply went with the flow because he didn’t know any differently. Until one day, dutiful and anxious, he had gone to visit his dying mother in hospital, and incidentally bumped into his very own Yoko Ono. And all of a sudden he was John Lennon: avant-garde and shamelessly intoxicated. The extent of his happiness could be measured by the amount of ketc
hup he put on his chips: copious. The chips were bathed in sauce.

  ‘Does Chi stand for anything?’

  ‘Does Mark?’

  ‘Some saint or other.’

  ‘Chi is nothing as noble. It stands for a branch, a twig.’

  ‘Twiggy, in English?’

  ‘It may break.’ Her eyes belied her words. There was steely determination in them. Perhaps it was the shape or the heavy hoods of eyelids that made her appear stronger than him despite everything: her size, her displacement and her childlike pronunciation. I was looking at her and I remembered an image I once saw. A little Vietnamese girl, running away from pain, naked, a mist of napalm closing fast behind her. Chi just seemed as fragile, as vulnerable, and yet a survivor. She had come here for a better life and my son was treating her to fish and chips. In a way I was proud of him. He had a generosity of heart that didn’t come from his bourgeois upbringing. Three days ago I wouldn’t have recognised it.

  Mark gulped down his last chip, licked his fingers and threw the polystyrene tray in the bin next to the bench. ‘Thanks for that. I was starved. Sorry I didn’t have any cash, Dad’s lost his wallet.’

  ‘That is OK. I work, I have money. You are a pauper,’ Chi giggled.

  My lofty ideas about my son’s generosity took a nosedive.

  ‘Your English is so good. Have you lived here long?’

  ‘No, not long. Just under a year. Work experience. But I studied English in Vietnam. My family had this plan for me: they wanted me to leave Vietnam behind and go to live in America. Easy life: chewing gum, driving big cars.’

  ‘I’m glad you came here instead. We have treacle tart and double-decker buses. The weather may be crap, but we carry on regardless. It’s really a very homely place, though – if you’re an outdoor kinda girl – and our outstanding pubs deserve a mention.’

  They were grinning at each other, the stupid sort of grins of two people who find everything hilarious because they are plain happy. Chi managed to finish her chips and they decided to take a walk along the quayside. He was tall and gangly; she was dainty and supple. She could probably walk between his legs with her head held high if the fancy took her.

  ‘I am just passing here,’ she said suddenly. ‘My work experience is up next month. I am going home.’

  Mark was taken aback. For him it had only just begun. I felt for him. Still, this was only a little adventure. It was a shame it couldn’t last, but it would be safer for him if it ended sooner rather than later. This way he stood a better chance of not being found out. Charlotte was an astute girl and she would stand up for herself. She had the upper hand after all: she was wearing his ring even if – for now – he chose to forget it.

  ‘You could get a job here.’

  ‘Yes, I could, but I want to go home.’

  ‘Surely you don’t?’

  ‘You think Vietnam is not good enough?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

  ‘But you are right: Vietnam is a sad place, very poor. We still live in houses on stilts and eat rice three times a day … But it is my home.’

  ‘We have this saying in England: your home is where your heart is.’

  ‘That is a wise saying. Vietnam is my home. That is where my heart is,’ Chi put her small hand, palm down, on her small chest. ‘When I completed my English degree, I really wanted to please my father, but I could not bring myself to go to America. I took up medicine. I can do a lot of good being a doctor in Vietnam. More good than being a doctor anywhere else.’

  ‘How much time have I got?’

  ‘To seduce me?’

  ‘Yes, to win you over.’

  ‘Two weeks.’

  ‘That will have to do.’ I had never seen Mark look so determined. ‘Can I start straight away? Can I kiss you now?’

  The girl laughed: ‘I have been warned against European men!’

  ‘You’ve got to give me a chance.’ Mark was dead serious. He picked her up like a feather and carried her to the nearest bench. He stood her on it so that they faced each other and kissed.

  The rotten siren was back in my house. She was made up from head to toe, dripping with golden Max Factor foundation and oozing poisonous scents. Her face was like a spearhead: sharp and bony. Her cheekbones cut through the skin. Her lips pouted. She entered without ringing the bell, for which I couldn’t blame her considering that the front door stood ajar. Rob was having bread and cheese; he had long given up on trying to achieve cheese on toast. The grill was still on; hellish red heat was working its way through the fireproof glass door. Soon it would shatter and the stove would explode. The cat was cowering under the kitchen table, looking deeply troubled. Apparently animals can instinctively foretell natural disasters long before they occur. Rob’s cooking was a natural disaster of catastrophic proportions in the making.

  Paula waltzed in. The cat took one look at her, and scarpered. Clearly, Paula was more of a threat to him than the house going up in smoke. I smiled under my breath and for the first time in God-knows-how-long I thought of the furry creature with genuine affection. He knew a devil when he saw one.

  She frowned at the cat and headed straight for the cooker. With a flourish she flicked the grill off. ‘Burning the house down, darling Rob?’ She threw the key to the Mini on the table. ‘I borrowed your car. Hope you don’t mind. There is a tiny dent in the passenger door. This bastard four-wheel-drive parked so close, I couldn’t get out of my space without taking his indicator with me.’ She kissed Rob on the cheek. Both Rob and I recoiled.

  ‘How did you get in, Paula?’

  ‘The door was open, darling Rob.’ With a sigh she plonked herself on a chair, arched her back, and volleyed her tennis-ball tits at him. They levelled with his eyes, and hovered, defying gravity. I wished they dropped, just dropped from her chest.

  Rob gestured towards his plate, ‘Would you like some … something to eat?’

  ‘A glass of wine’d go down well, darling Rob.’ She knew where to find the next bottle. She uncorked it expertly and poured two glasses. ‘Shall we sit in the lounge? Put our feet up? These chairs are so damn uncomfortable.’ She clearly had dishonourable intentions: she went around the house, snooping, asking if the children were home. Rob was ill at ease with her next to him on the couch, side-twisted like a mermaid, bony knees digging into his left thigh in an attempt to tunnel through to his groin. I knew he was impervious to her charms. The woman was delusional. She ran her fingertips down from his lips, across his chest and to his belt buckle with a confident familiarity which unnerved me and Rob. I wished he had the guts to send her packing. Instead, he emptied half of his wine glass in one go. Not a good sign.

  ‘I spoke to that Polish doctor today,’ she said. ‘I take it you know the prognosis?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he sounded hollow.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rob darling,’ she threw her arms around his neck and gazed into his eyes with an expression that could easily pass for earnest concern if you didn’t know she was a trained actress. ‘Believe me, I am sorry.’ Rob remained unresponsive so she let go of his neck and took hold of his hands instead. ‘But just remember I am here for you now. For you and the kids.’

  ‘Thank you, Paula. It’s kind of you.’ Rob finished off his wine and smiled at her faintly, his lips burgundy red. Was he really buying it? The witch was creeping into our life like poison ivy – a blind man would see it with his eyes closed!

  ‘I am here and I won’t go away. Not this time,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve never stopped thinking of us. We’ve always been meant for each other. You were my first. All I wanted was to celebrate us and all I could do was to keep quiet. It hurt, it hurt like hell! When I saw you at the wedding, I didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh … Of course, I wouldn’t ruin your wedding day – it’s just not me! And of course it was hard to walk away and take our secret with me …’ She lowered her gaze and adopted a pensive expression. ‘Our bitter-sweet secret – I took it away, nourished it, pampered it, loved it for
both of us … All those years … I stayed away, gave you a chance to forget me. But I am back. Here for you. Here to stay.’

  What the hell was she raving on about? Was this part of one of her entirely fictional performances or was there, hiding in the recesses of her madness, some truth to it?

  ‘Paula, it’s OK. I’m OK.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re in denial. I know the symptoms, I’ve been there. You go around building up your little life, from scratch, brick by brick putting a wall around your true feelings. But they are there, ready to break free.’ She kissed him, this time on the lips, and he let her. ‘Just like our first time, remember?’

  ‘Well … It was –’

  Well, what?!

  She wouldn’t let him finish a sentence. She crossed his lips with her finger, and went on with her monologue peppered with a bit of chuckle and a touch of poise. ‘I will never forget your face when you saw me at the wedding? You were … what’s the word? Ah, yes! You were transfixed. Did you feel the same way I did – that lightheaded sensation when all the blood drains from your brain? That exhilaration! That utter loss of control!’

  Oh, yes! That one joint too many!

  ‘It was a surprise.’ Rob – the master of understatement!

  ‘It was destiny that we should meet again!’ Paula – the mistress of exaggeration! ‘How we craved each other! How we were drawn towards the inevitable!’

  If I had my body on me at this very moment, if my blood was circulating in my spectral veins, it would’ve drained all the way to the floor. Paula and Rob! Was I really in a coma, doing the Big Brother watch over my husband and sister, or was this a dream? A bad, bad dream, but I would wake up from it to find myself alive and well next to my snoring husband.

  ‘It was instant, wasn’t it? We found each other just like that,’ she clicked her fingers. ‘Remember how it felt?’

  ‘I was surprised,’ Rob repeated haplessly. ‘I was surprised you were Georgie’s sister. It was too much of a shock …’

  ‘You wanted me then, just like the first time, that New Year’s Eve’s night. Damned wedding! Damned Georgie! Always in the way! But you can have me now and no one shall stop us. Take me! Take me as I am!’ She threw her head back, eyes shut. Nothing happened so she opened one eye and assessed Rob’s paralysed form, impotent, incapable of action. She rose like a phoenix and flew at him with revived energy – striking while the iron was hot. She intoned, ‘Now we can go back in time, Rob darling. There’s nothing – no one – standing in our way. It was worth waiting for …’ It was the second time that day that someone had referred to me as out of the way. A thought had crossed my mind that they had all been conspiring to get rid of me.