The Gravity of Love

by Noelle Harrison

  The door swung open. Standing in front of him was the last kind of person he’d been expecting. It wasn’t the maid nor housekeeper of an ancient aunt, nor even the old lady herself, complete with dusty white curls and yellowing lacy sleeves. Nor was it a statue of a butler, unenthusiastically ushering them in. A young man had swept the front door wide open. He had a half-eaten apple in one hand and was holding an excited-looking red setter by the collar with the other hand.

  ‘Oh hello there, you must be Philip’s two?’

  Lewis was speechless. For once it was Lizzie who spoke up. ‘Who is Philip?’

  ‘Why your father, of course.’ The man beamed at her. ‘And aren’t you a pretty little thing, just like your mother?’

  He turned to Lewis and looked him up and down, before throwing his apple core away over his head and releasing the dog so that it chased after it.

  ‘Where is Sylvia?’ he asked him.

  ‘My mother had to go . . .’ Lewis mumbled.

  ‘With Mr Drewe, in his car,’ Lizzie told the stranger. Lewis coloured with shame. Why did Lizzie always have to spill the beans?

  ‘Ah! I see, no surprises there.’ It was said pleasantly enough, but Lewis detected a slight edge to the man’s voice. Still he looked very friendly as he stepped forward and picked up both of their cases.

  ‘Well, come in, do; we’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Already Lizzie was being rude, but the man didn’t seem to mind her question.

  ‘Why I’m Howard,’ he said. ‘I’m your father’s brother, which makes me your uncle.’

  He whistled for the dog. That’s when Lewis saw it. His uncle had the same smiling eyes as his father. Lewis had been a baby when his father had left to fight, but he had a photo of him. He had looked at it so many times the image of his father’s face was tattooed inside his head: wide forehead, greased-back hair, a dicky bow and a broad smile – big teeth and a thick bottom lip with a cigarette stuck to it – with a dapper moustache finishing off the look. A complete charmer. It was not the photograph of a condemned man.

  ‘Come on, slow coach,’ Uncle Howard was saying to him as the dog bounded past him into the house. ‘Let’s have breakfast. I’m famished.’

  His time with Uncle Howard had been the best months of his life. For once he had been living in a man’s house – a man’s world, in fact. Howard had confided in Lewis that although he liked the odd tryst he was a confirmed bachelor. The only female Lewis had had daily contact with apart from Lizzie was Howard’s rather dotty housekeeper, Angela, who lived in the local village and cycled over every day. It had been a relief for Lewis not to be fussed over by one of his father’s female relatives. He hadn’t even missed his mother. Rather than sending them to the local school, a friend of Uncle Howard’s from Oxford had been employed as their tutor, and the house in Berkshire became Lewis’s universe. Uncle Howard would often invite his other bachelor friends down from London and they would all go shooting with Alfie, the red setter, Lewis included. Howard had treated him like an equal, not a little boy.

  Lewis had never forgiven his mother for moving them on again less than a year later. He’d thought that Uncle Howard would have them for keeps. But that’s not how things turned out. He lost Uncle Howard forever, and it was all Lizzie’s fault.

  Five

  Escape Velocity

  Scottsdale, 23 March 1989

  IT’S TIME

  That was all that was written on the back of the postcard in the same block print as before. On the front was a picture of two children and a donkey in a green field. Both children had mops of startling red hair that stood out against the green of the field, especially as the boy was in a bright yellow top and the girl in a red jersey. The donkey had two basket panniers filled with turf on either side of it, and in the distance Lewis could see blue mountains. At the bottom of the card was printed: ‘Collecting Turf from the Bog, Connemara, Co. Galway, Ireland’.

  Lewis flipped the postcard over again and examined the handwriting. This script in thick black ink gave nothing away: block letters without a twirl of individuality.

  It had been over a week since he’d received the second card. He had begun to wonder if that was it, and yet he had a feeling there was more to come. That was why he had got up before Samantha every morning and nipped out to the mailbox before she had a chance to check it herself.

  It’s time for what? Lewis wondered. Time for him to return to London, or go to Ireland and find Marnie again? Time to face the truth of his life, his failures and his regret?

  Lewis slipped the postcard into the inside pocket of his jacket. He had taken to carrying them around with him. Sometimes at work, he might take one of them out and turn it over and over in his hands – raise it to his face, as if he might smell a trace of Marnie upon it. He hankered for the past, and for the man he’d once been.

  *

  These books soothed her. Ever since her father died Joy had come here nearly every day. At first it was just to sit between the racks of books, on the worn carpet, and hide from her life outside. In the library she could shelve her sorrow, take it out and thumb through it, cry silently within the comfort of the building’s sanctuary then put it away again. She could go on home, cook the dinner, wash the dishes, put out the trash and make love to her husband and he would be none the wiser to her grief. Eddie hated death. No. It wasn’t specifically death itself he hated but more what went with it: the hospital visits, the hospice – the place of the living dead as he called it – and then there was the funeral, and worse still the wake, if there was one.

  It was Joy’s mother who had been centre stage the day of her husband’s funeral. Teresa Porter had been regal, dignified, yet broken all at the same time. They had walked down the church behind the coffin, hand in hand, her mother’s hand cold as ice within her own, and Joy had felt strange and disorientated. The words kept repeating inside her head. I am not of her flesh and blood. I am not of her flesh and blood.

  Joy had known it shouldn’t matter. She should have been thinking of her father, sending prayers skyward for his soul to rest in peace, and yet all she had been able to focus on was her mother’s bloodless hand in hers. The big lie had dug into Joy, like the spine of a prickly pear in her flesh. Her whole life had been based upon it. She had felt cheated and, worse, unstable, like a boat adrift, lost from its moorings.

  That’s how the library helped. Here she could sit for a little while, breathe in the aroma of books – not even look at them, just smell them – and feel the presence of all those minds contained within one building. This building had anchored her after her father’s death.

  *

  At home as he was in galleries, Lewis felt out of place in libraries. And he knew this went back to his childhood. The only thing he’d been good at in school was art. Despite the fact his job dealt with text – typesetting words all day long – he appreciated the visual composition of each individual letter, even the pattern that words made, but had never been that interested in the content. Books intimidated him. It was something Samantha could be cruel about, especially as she taught English literature at the local high school. She constantly acted surprised that he had never read Dickens, or Hardy, or even Shakespeare. Over the years he had tried to impress her, but he had only managed short novels like The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men or Heart of Darkness. And those had held little appeal either.

  There was a hush in the library that made Lewis want to call out, just to break it. He headed for the reception desk, the stack of freshly printed leaflets in his hands. He put the leaflets down on the counter and rang the bell. He had to get the delivery note signed.

  A young guy in a checked shirt with a mess of curly hair appeared. He didn’t look in the least like the austere spinster librarians of Lewis’s childhood. The guy signed the delivery note and Lewis was released. This was his last job of the day. He was on his Easter holidays now. He should be going home. He had planned to cook for Samantha before she headed
off to Santa Fe, but instead of leaving the library, he found himself wandering through the aisles.

  Lewis was drawn towards a display of art books. He trailed his fingers along the spines, and just as he was about to walk away again he jolted to a stop. The spine of one book leaped out at him: British Graphic Art of the Sixties & Seventies.

  He pulled it out, flicking through the pages. It was a directory of all the major British graphic designers of that era. Of course there was no mention of him. Why would there be? He had left before he ever got the chance to spread his wings as a designer, yet Lewis knew several of the other designers listed. Of course he found George Miller. An old black-and-white shot of the pompous bastard, looking sternly at the camera with his black-rimmed glasses on.

  George Miller, born 1917, died 1979.

  So his old boss had been dead for ten years. He wondered what had happened to Eva.

  George Miller made his name designing a series of wartime posters for the Home Office. From the late 1940s he was one of the leading practitioners of International Modernism . . .

  Lewis slammed the book shut. It did him no good to read any more. He had chosen a different life. He was part of a family in Arizona. That was more than he had ever had in London.

  He reached up to put the book back on the shelf, but it slipped out of his hand and landed on the floor with a loud thud. A couple of other browsers glanced over at him disapprovingly. He bent down to scoop it up, but the book had fallen open. He froze in shock as he stared down. It hadn’t even occurred to him to look for Marnie, but there she was in all her glory. A large black-and-white picture dated 1968, just one year after he had gone. She was looking intense and mysterious. The long hair he had known was cut short into a Mary Quant bob, and her eyes were lined with black kohl. She was smoking a cigarette and looking so damn cool it made his heart throb. Had he really known this girl? This super-chic style puss from the sixties had been his girlfriend once.

  Marnie Piper née Regan. Born 8 August 1943. Starting out in 1966 as girl Friday in George Miller’s iconic graphic art agency Studio M, Marnie Regan quickly advanced into the position of designer. She was the driving force behind the company’s award-winning Phoenix International Airlines branding campaign in the summer of 1967. Regan married fellow Studio M designer Pete Piper in August 1967, and Miller made the couple partners in the agency in 1971. Under the joint creative talents of the Pipers and Miller, Studio M grew to be one of the most significant British design agencies of the era, developing not only major branding campaigns but also branching out into album cover design. Major clients include Bosch, Macht, Dalliance Shoes, the National Health Service, the Department of Education, Pepsi Cola, Samsung, BMW, Beagles Whisky and Gordon’s Gin. They also designed album covers for The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Fairport Convention and Led Zeppelin, among others.

  In 1979 George Miller and Pete Piper both died within one month of each other. Marnie Piper and George Miller’s widow, Eva, shut down the Studio M agency. In 1982 Piper moved back to her homeland of Ireland. She currently works as an art and design teacher at the College of Art in Sligo. Marnie Piper has been recognised as one of the few female designers who made a significant impact on the development of graphic design in Britain during the late 1960s and 1970s.

  Lewis squatted on the floor, his breath heaving in his chest. He couldn’t believe it. He’d found Marnie in this book. He was even more stunned by what she had achieved. So her star had shone. But what about Pete? He was shocked that Marnie had married Pete less than four months after Lewis had left London. He’d never been aware of any attraction between the two of them. He couldn’t get his head round it. How could Marnie have gone from him to quiet, geeky Pete?

  He turned the page and there was a picture of Pete himself. It had been taken a few years after Lewis had known him, but he still looked as awkward as ever, skinny and tall with his unflattering glasses, and wearing a jacket that was cut all wrong for him. He would have been pleased for Pete, that he had become so successful, but why did he have to go and marry Marnie? Lewis felt furious at his old friend. Ridiculous since the man was dead, and at a young age as well. But how dare Pete swoop in and take over where he had left off? And how could Marnie have let him?

  He flicked to the front of the book and checked to see when it had been published – 1984. Five years ago. It wouldn’t be hard to find out if Marnie was still living in Ireland. He flicked back to her biography and stared at her face. The photo was in black and white, but he could still see those flaming blue eyes staring back at him. How they had blazed the last time they had spoken. She must have been so hurt. Had her revenge been to marry Pete?

  He slapped the book shut and pushed it back on the shelf.

  His Marnie had just transformed from a fantasy into a real woman. She had been a successful graphic designer. And now she was a respected art and design teacher. All her achievements were stacked up in front of him. And what had he to offer her? How could he face Marnie now, with all his lost potential? And yet, he told himself, it was she who was looking for him with those mysterious messages on the postcards. That was so Marnie: the intrigue, the game-playing, the secrecy. She was a woman who liked to challenge, to provoke. It was one of the reasons why he had wanted her – why he still wanted her.

  London, 13 April 1967, 11.38 a.m.

  In the entrance hall at Studio M, Lewis pushed Marnie up against the damp walls. He could feel her heart beating through her dress, the heat of her penetrating his skin.

  ‘I want you now,’ he said, beginning to kiss her lips.

  ‘Are you mad?’ she protested. ‘Someone will see us.’

  Nevertheless she kissed him back.

  ‘You drive me mad, Marnie; I can’t stop thinking about you.’

  She said nothing, just picked up his hand and led him down the hallway. She pushed the lavatory door open and they fell in. She put her hands behind her, locking the door. It was a tiny space – the toilet and a sink, a mirror over it. She wrapped her arms about him. He could feel the hunger pulsing inside her.

  ‘Say you want me,’ he whispered, sitting down on the toilet lid.

  She shook her head. He reached out and put his hand up her blue dress. God, he loved minis.

  ‘I know you want me; I can feel you. Say it,’ he commanded

  ‘I do.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Yes, I do.’

  She sat on top of him, and he slipped into her. The feeling of being inside her was sublime. He felt so aroused, and safe as well because inside Marnie was exactly where he belonged. She lifted herself all the way up to the tip of his cock and then slammed herself back down again so he was deep within her. He tried to remain quiet, but the intensity of their lovemaking was too much. As he came, a groan erupted from his mouth.

  She put her hand over his lips, her eyes a warning. Her palm tasted of erasers and ink. All the girls he had dated before, no matter how free-spirited, wanted to get a ring on their finger, or some kind of commitment after a couple of months. Yet Marnie seemed to want the opposite. She even lived on her own, with no need for flatmates or other girlfriends.

  Eventually Marnie climbed off him. She leaned over the tiny sink and splashed her face. He picked up her lacy pants, dangled them off his hand.

  ‘Don’t forget these now, Miss Regan.’

  She grabbed them off him, smiling despite herself.

  ‘Why do I let you do this to me?’ she asked as she wiggled back into her underwear.

  ‘Do what?’ he said innocently. ‘Make love to you, give you pleasure? Now tell me what on earth could be wrong with that?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ She tried to frown, but it didn’t work.

  ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Put on your lipstick. You’ll be missed.’

  She opened her bag and took out her lip sheen, smearing it over her lips so they were fresh and glossy again, then repinned her hair.

  He saw her looking at him in the mirror.

  ‘Lewis,’ she began, sounding seriou
s. ‘It’s time.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s time to tell George about me.’

  He didn’t reply. He looked away from her, out of the little window, which was permanently stuck open. It had started raining again. The wind had picked up and a few stray drops spattered him. An upturned umbrella, abandoned, was being blown across the road in gusts. A taxi drove over it, crushing it on the tarmac into a twist of metal and nylon.

  ‘Do you hear me, Lewis?’

  He looked back at her and into her eyes. They were the same colour he imagined those Irish loughs to be. Such a deep blue you would never find the bottom.

  ‘I’ll tell him about you, of course,’ he promised. ‘We’re a team.’

  Scottsdale, 23 March 1989

  Joy picked out a book on Ireland. Of all the books in Scottsdale library for her to look at, it seemed apt that it was a large reference book stuffed with pictures of Ireland that she should choose.

  She carried the book to one of the chairs facing the full-length windows that looked out upon the manicured civic-centre gardens, stretched her legs out onto the sill and began to peruse its pages. It was full of glossy photographs of sumptuous green pastures, white thatched cottages and the sea – oh yes, the tempestuous western ocean. Beneath each photograph was a quote from a famous Irish writer: W.B. Yeats, Edna O’Brien, Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney.

  It wasn’t her imagination – she really did feel drawn to this landscape. This land was the essence of her, even though she’d been taken away as a baby.