by Wendy Clarke
Once again, he’d spoilt it. Ria rolled over so she was facing the back of the settee, not wanting another argument. What was it she’d said that was stupid? That her parents wanted to meet him, or that she was surprised he might want to work on a Saturday?
‘The truth is,’ he continued, running his hand down the length of her body. ‘I was disappointed.’
She turned to look at him. ‘Disappointed?’
‘I’d planned to take you out somewhere special… Just the two of us. I wasn’t going to tell you as I wanted it to be a surprise.’ His hand rested on the curve of her waist. ‘But now you’ve made me.’
Feeling guilty that she’d misjudged him, Ria reached over and took his hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Gareth, I didn’t realise. You should have said. It’s a lovely idea, it really is, but I can’t let my parents down. Besides, they’re beginning to wonder if I’ve made you up. Please say you understand.’
‘It doesn’t sound as if they like me much anyway.’
‘How can you say that? They’ve never even met you. When they do, they’ll love you every bit as much as I do. Probably more, knowing my mum. Why don’t we go out the following week?’ She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. ‘You can choose where we go and I’ll pretend I didn’t know anything about it. Please don’t be upset with me, you know how I hate it.’
Gareth stood up, his face giving nothing away. ‘I’ll check when I’m free.’
He went out to the kitchen and came back with the calendar he’d bought to keep track of their comings and goings. Running his finger along the week, he stopped when he reached Friday.
‘That seems as good a night as any.’ Taking a pen from behind his ear, he noted it down. Ria smiled.
‘That’s a date then.’
It wasn’t until she checked later that she saw it was the night she was supposed to have been going out with Leo.
Twenty
Leona
‘How would you describe him, Leona?’
‘Describe who?’
For a moment, I’m confused, thinking she means Scott. I’ve been staring at the rows of books on Lisa Manning’s shelf, trying to imagine what it must be like to be her. Day after day, unravelling people’s lives and piecing them back together in a better order. I picture my little family like the squares in the game I used to have as a child – the pieces being moved around each other inside the plastic edge until they form a picture. Some days we’re in the right places; sometimes we’re stuck in a corner unable to move.
‘Who do you mean?’ I ask again.
Lisa’s expression is neutral. ‘Gareth. Describe him to me as a stranger might. Someone who didn’t know him.’
I put my hands in front of my face to help me think. ‘He was charming. Charismatic. Polished.’
‘Polished?’
‘Yes. He always looked perfect. Well-groomed, as though people might judge him if he had a hair out of place. He was good-looking too. We couldn’t take our eyes off him the first time we saw him in the bar.’
Lisa nods. Today, she is wearing a dress rather than trousers. I recognise it from White Stuff; I’ve got one similar.
‘Was anyone concerned about him? Apart from you, of course.’
‘People only saw what he wanted them to see.’
There’s a pause. A siren wails in the street outside, becoming fainter. ‘And what about Ria? What did she think?’
I stiffen. I don’t want to talk about Ria this morning. The panic attacks I’ve been having have become less frequent and I’m scared that by talking about her, they’ll come back.
Lisa waits. She knows that eventually my need to talk will overcome my fear of the consequences.
‘Ria loved him.’
‘Love or infatuation?’ She runs a finger down her notes. ‘She was very young when she met him.’
‘Oh, it was love all right. She didn’t see what he was doing and, when she did, it was too late.’
‘What do you think he was doing, Leona?’
‘He treated her like a princess, but he was grooming her to be what he wanted her to be. Compliant, dependent. He eroded her self-confidence and self-worth.’
‘How did he do that?’
‘Just little things at first, like telling her she’d loaded the dishwasher wrongly or saying he wasn’t hungry the one time he allowed her to cook for him. She stopped singing too. Even though the bar manager had offered her a regular Thursday night slot, she hadn’t taken it up, believing Gareth when he told her she wasn’t that good. Apparently, it had been her vivid blue eyes that had attracted him to her, not her singing.’
‘You must have felt helpless.’
‘I did.’ I bite back the tears. ‘But there was nothing I could do to stop it.’
‘Why was that, do you think?’
‘Because of the negative comments he made about her friends. They were using her… They didn’t care about her like he did. Things like that. She saw them less and less and then, once she’d dropped out of uni, she stopped seeing them altogether.’
‘And how does that make you feel, Leona?’
‘I feel angry.’ My nails are digging into my palms. ‘She couldn’t see it was because he wanted to keep her all to himself. His possessiveness snuck up and took a hold of her, while she was busy believing it was love.’
Twenty-One
Beth
Beth picked up her phone. There were four missed calls from David. She hadn’t answered any of them; she never wanted to see him again.
Dragging her sketchbook from under her bed, she opened it to a blank page, then, taking a thin black marker from the basket on her bedside table, she started to draw. She did it without thinking, without caring, and when she had finished, she threw the book across the room and buried her face in her pillow. This had been the worst evening of her life. Carina was right: she was pathetic.
As she remembered the way David had pulled his hand from hers, she burned with embarrassment. She’d thought he liked her. Never would she let herself be made a fool of again. Turning onto her back, she stared at the water mark on the ceiling that had always reminded her of a whale, and when she could stand looking at it no longer, she folded her arms over her eyes and let the tears run down the side of her cheeks into her pillow.
There was a knock at the door. ‘Beth? Can I come in?’
It was her mum. Reaching for her pillow, she put it over her head. ‘Go away.’
‘Let me come in, darling. I hate seeing you like this.’
As soon as the front door had opened, Beth had run inside, ignoring her parents’ exclamations at the bedraggled state of her. Without answering their questions, she had run up the stairs and locked herself in her room, relieved when they hadn’t come after her. Now, though, as her mum knocked again, she could just imagine their conversation. Should I go up? Just leave her for a bit. Let her calm down.
‘If you don’t unlock this door, I shall get Dad to force it open.’
‘Do what you like. I don’t care.’
There was a pause, and then her mum’s voice again. Gentler now. ‘Please, Beth. I just want to help. There was a time, once, when you could tell me anything.’
Beth took the pillow away from her face. It had been true once, but she’d only been a kid then. Sometimes she wished she still was. Taking a tissue out of her pocket, she blew her nose. She missed those days.
The door handle rattled and she pictured her mum outside, her eyes creased in worry. Maybe she should let her in – she didn’t want to be the cause of another one of her mum’s anxiety attacks. But, if she did…
Beth pushed the heels of her hands into the sockets of her eyes. She wanted to tell her what had happened. Wait for her to say she’d done the right thing – that she hadn’t made a compete idiot of herself. She couldn’t, though. Her mum had been so distant recently that Beth was frightened of what she might say. Could she be having problems with Dad? Did she have cancer, like the mother of the girl Beth sat next to in Fo
od Tech?
She couldn’t bear to think of it and, if she didn’t let her in, she wouldn’t have to find out now. She was scared to know what it was – despite what she’d said to her dad, she was worried about her mum. But her need for her mum at that moment was greater than all these fears. Wearily, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, then walked to the door and unlocked it.
‘Are you all right?’ Her mum stood in the doorway, her eyes scanning the room as though there might be someone in there with her.
‘Yes.’ Beth stood her ground. ‘And now you know, you can go away.’
‘Not until I know what’s going on.’ Beth could see her mum taking in the soaking wet hoodie and jeans she’d pulled off and thrown into a corner. Then she saw the sketchbook that lay open on the floor where it had landed. Some of its pages had twisted away from its binding and there were splatters of tea on the cover from the mug that was lying on the carpet beside it.
‘There’s nothing going on.’
‘Then how do you explain all this? Your sketchbook, Beth. What have you done to it?’ Pulling a tissue from the box on Beth’s desk, her mum dabbed at the cover. ‘And the tears… It’s not like you at all.’
‘How do you know it’s not like me? You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know that something’s happened – that you’re angry and hurt. I just want to help.’
Sitting on the edge of the bed, her mum flicked through the pages of the sketchbook. Pages filled with eagles and kites and buzzards. As she did, something in her expression changed. There was no longer concern in her eyes but something akin to fear. It was Beth’s turn to be worried.
‘Why do you draw these, Beth? When you could draw anything else in the world?’ She jabbed a finger at the page. ‘Why this?’
The question surprised Beth. She pushed her hair back from her wet face. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t lie to me. You must know. What do you remember?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Her mum took her wrist, her fingers pressing into her skin. ‘Ria… What do you remember about Ria?’
‘Stop it, Mum. You’re scaring me.’
Then as quickly as it had happened, the moment passed. With a look of horror, her mum dropped her hand. ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.’ She pulled Beth into her arms. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’
Beth looked at her white face. ‘You’re not well, Mum. I think you should see a doctor.’
‘Everything okay in here?’ Her dad stood in the doorway, rubbing at his beard. Beth wasn’t sure how much he’d heard. She glanced at her mum, who was staring at her as though willing her not to say anything.
‘Yes. Everything’s fine.’
‘That’s good then. It’s late and I could do with my bed. Coming, Leona?’
He offered his hand and her mum took it. As she got up, the sketchbook slipped onto the floor. Neither of her parents looked at it as they went out. Beth picked it up. She stared at the eagle’s feet she’d drawn in the black marker. The talons sharp and deadly. She hadn’t lied to her mum; she didn’t know why she had drawn them.
Closing the book, she got into bed. It was late before sleep would come, and when it did, it wasn’t David she dreamed about. It was a faceless woman called Ria.
Twenty-Two
Ria
Ria could hear voices in the square outside the apartment. Putting down the baby book she’d been reading, she went to the window. Her mum and dad were standing in the street, studying the brass numbers on the houses. Satisfied they’d got the right place, they climbed the steps to the front door.
‘They’re here.’ Getting no answer, Ria went into the hallway. ‘Gareth, I said they’re here?’ The last time she’d seen him, he’d been in the study doing something at his computer, but she could see, from the open doorway, that he was no longer in there. Where was he?
Hurrying to the front door, she felt the nerves begin again. What would her parents make of the apartment? It was nothing like the student flat she’d shared before moving in with Gareth. Neither did it resemble her parents’ rather chaotic semi with its cheap mismatched furniture and dining room table covered in motorcycle parts.
Opening the door, she was greeted by her mum’s cheery smile. ‘Happy birthday!’
‘Thanks, Mum. How was your journey?’
‘We got the bus. Fifty minutes door-to-door.’
Her dad was running his hand down the stucco pillar that supported the first-floor balcony above. ‘Not bad, this.’
Giving them both a kiss, Ria ushered them inside, taking their coats and hanging them on the black coat stand. As she showed them into the living room, she couldn’t help seeing the place as if through their eyes: the blond wood flooring and the black ash furniture with its clean minimalist lines. No cushions and no knick-knacks or photographs like the ones that graced her parents’ mantelpiece. The only artwork was a huge frameless black and white photograph of a New York skyscape that hung on the wall above the black leather settee.
They stood awkwardly in the middle of the room and Ria felt as though she was showing clients around a show home.
‘Sit down and I’ll get us a drink. What would you like? Sherry? Whiskey? Or there’s some chilled wine in the fridge.’
Her dad looked at his watch. ‘Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm. It’s not as though I’m driving. I’ll have a whiskey.’
Ria could see he’d made an effort, exchanging his usual uniform of oil-smeared jeans and jumper for a pair of cord trousers and a shirt. Her mum was wearing a dress Ria hadn’t seen before and she wondered whether she’d bought it specially.
‘Place must have cost a pretty penny.’ Her dad took the drink she handed him. ‘South Kensington’s a decent area to live. Hobnobbing with royalty, if you please.’
It wasn’t far off what Ria had thought the first time she’d seen the white flat-fronted terrace, with its pillared porches, in daylight. It was situated in a leafy square, its wide bay windows looking out onto private gardens enclosed by black railings, and was a million miles away from the semi where she’d grown up.
‘Yes, it’s very nice,’ her mum agreed, joining her dad on the settee. ‘You must have had a good tidy-up before we got here; the place is immaculate.’
‘Gareth doesn’t like a mess. It’s made me realise what a slob I’ve always been.’
Her dad stopped flicking through the pages of the shiny hardback he’d found on the glass coffee table. ‘I don’t remember it bothering you before.’ He closed the book and touched a roughened finger to its cover. ‘Vanity Fair – A Century of Iconic Images. What’s that all about?’
‘It’s Gareth’s. He’s interested in that sort of thing.’
‘Is he now?’ He looked at the door. ‘Where is he, anyway?’
Ria couldn’t admit to not knowing. ‘He just popped out to get some wine. He won’t be long.’
‘Thought you said there was some in the fridge.’
She was beginning to feel flustered. ‘He wanted to get another bottle in case we ran out.’
‘The man must think we’re bleeding alcoholics.’ Ria was relieved when he laughed. ‘Probably not far off the truth. What are you having, Pamela?’
‘I’d better have some of that white wine, now they’ve gone to so much trouble. Anyway, happy birthday again, darling. What’s it like being twenty-one?’
Ria laughed. ‘Not much different.’
‘It’s being a mother that will change you. How are you feeling?’
‘Not too bad. A bit sick in the mornings, but I’m twelve weeks now and it’s got a lot better.’
‘Well, you’re blooming. Unlike me when I was carrying you. I was as sick as a dog for most of it. That’s part of the reason we decided to stick to just the one.’
‘That and the fact that you thought it meant you’d be able to avoid any more “how’s your father” for the next thirty years.’
‘Stop
it, Brian.’ Ria’s mum gave him a slap. ‘Or I’ll leave you at home next time.’
Glad that Gareth wasn’t there to hear their conversation, Ria went to the kitchen to get the wine. Where was he? Looking around for a note or some other indication of where he might be, she found nothing. She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was twelve ten. They didn’t need to be at the restaurant until twelve thirty, but he’d known what time her parents were arriving. Taking the bottle of white wine out of the fridge, she unscrewed it and filled a glass, then poured herself some orange juice. Trying to hide her frustration, she went back into the living room.
‘Here you are, Mum.’
‘Thank you, love.’ Her mum raised her glass. ‘To you. I’ve got a present for you in my bag. Do you want it now, or shall we wait for Gareth?’
‘I’ll have it now, if that’s okay.’ She knew what her mother’s presents could be like and she’d rather open it while they were on their own.
Reaching into her bag, her mum brought out a package wrapped in bright red paper. ‘It’s not much, but I made it myself. I hope you like it.’
Ria took the parcel and sat down next to her. There was a label on it and she turned it over. In her unruly hand, her mother had written, Something for your new home. Ria’s heart sank a little. She couldn’t imagine Gareth approving of anything her mum would choose, let alone make. Slowly, she pulled off the paper, trying to put off the moment. What she saw inside confirmed her fears. It was a white cushion on which her mum had appliqued pink gingham hearts. Below them, she had embroidered Home Sweet Home.
Her mum looked around uncertainly. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a place for it.’
Ria forced a smile. She couldn’t let her think she didn’t like it. Leaning over, she kissed her cheek. ‘I will, Mum. It’s lovely, thank you.’
They drank and made small talk, and all the time, Ria watched the clock. If Gareth wasn’t back soon, they would have to go without him. By the time she heard his key in the door, she was near to tears.