Lewis remembered all the times he and Lizzie had stood side by side on the doorsteps of other people’s houses. His chest felt tight. He didn’t need those memories to crowd him now.
As if she could read his thoughts, Lizzie turned, her face suddenly gaunt, her eyes steeped in sadness in the fading light. ‘Do you remember the day we arrived at Uncle Howard’s house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Remember the two paintings I showed you back at my flat just now? They’re set in his garden, did you notice that?’
‘No, I didn’t . . .’
Lewis pictured those blood-red jungle paintings with their poisonous vines, choking plants, and drama of suffocation and pain. They could not be more different from his memory of Uncle Howard’s country garden, the gentle roll of the lawn to the river, the shade of the giant cedar tree, the chink of the bails falling off the stumps as his uncle bowled him out at cricket.
‘Uncle Howard’s garden wasn’t like that.’
‘No.’ His sister sighed. ‘I suppose we remember it differently, don’t we?’
Lizzie’s pupils were black tunnels. He was drawn into the longing in her face, pulled towards some dark secret. Was it just because they were stoned? Or did she want to tell him something?
‘What is it, Lizzie?’ he whispered. His words echoed on the doorstep, but before she had a chance to reply the door swung open and they were bathed in light.
‘Well, hi there.’ An American accent floated out above their heads. Lewis turned to see a girl standing in the doorway. She had long blonde hair and a similar slender build to his sister, but she looked a lot healthier. She was tanned, with not a spot of make-up on her honey skin, and wearing flared blue jeans, out from which peeped her bare feet, her toenails painted an innocent baby pink. The overall effect was refreshing and somehow out of place on a doorstep in the chilly London evening.
‘Hi, Sammy.’ Lizzie hugged the girl. ‘I brought the painting.’
‘Oh great!’ Sammy said. ‘Jim will be so happy.’
‘This is my brother, Lewis.’ Lizzie waved behind her. ‘He drove me over.’
Sammy smiled at him. She had perfect white teeth and pale pink lips, no lipstick. He thought how there was nothing fake about her.
‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked. ‘I can make you a cup of tea.’
‘I can’t, sorry. I have to go.’
‘That sure is a shame.’ The girl looked genuinely disappointed. ‘Lizzie is always talking about you. You’re a graphic designer, right?’
‘Yes, I am,’ he said, looking over at Lizzie. She winked back at him.
‘Well, why don’t you come back later? We’re having a party. We could hang out together.’
Her American drawl snaked down his spine. He could tell that she liked him, but he wasn’t interested. The only woman he wanted to be with was Marnie.
‘See you later, bro.’ Lizzie dismissed him with a wave.
As the door closed he saw a pair of legs coming down the stairs. Lean and muscular, in tight leather trousers, with strong bare feet. They clearly belonged to the mysterious Jim. Was this man sleeping with both his sister and this Sammy? Lewis felt an intense hostility towards him already, and not only because of the sex thing, but because he was wheeling and dealing with his sister’s talent. Now he was the owner of a huge, explicit portrait of a naked Elizabeth Bell. The idea made Lewis squirm.
Again he had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d let his sister down. All his life he’d been her protector, yet he’d never managed to get it right. Their mother had abandoned them both, but that loss had always hit Lizzie the hardest.
London, 27 July 1955
The London of his childhood was a city still emerging from the trauma of the Blitz – muted, sombre, smoggy. Lewis was thirteen, tall for his age and skinny. With his head hung in embarrassment, his feet heavy, he followed his mother as she stormed up to the front door of a tall red-brick house, dragging Lizzie with her.
He gripped the Swiss army knife Uncle Howard had given him in his pocket.
It had been one of the rare times his mother had lost her temper. It was Lizzie she was angry with though, not him.
‘How could you do such a thing, Lizzie?’ his mother spat at her. ‘The shame of it!’
She opened the door with her own key, dragging Lizzie by the arm into a musty dark hall. Lewis followed, still squeezing his Swiss army knife. He looked around at the pea-green walls, dotted with framed photographs of people he didn’t know. He had no idea whose house he was in. Was it Mr Drewe’s? Or had he already driven off in his shiny black Rover and been replaced by another lonely widower?
‘How can I expect any decent man to want to marry me when I have two monstrous children in tow?’
‘This has nothing to with me,’ Lewis defended himself. ‘I didn’t want to leave Uncle Howard.’
His mother’s hand flew out and slapped his face. The sound of it hitting his cheek reverberated through the hall.
‘You could have stopped her, Lewis.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Lewis complained, his cheek smarting. ‘How was I to know that Lizzie would do that to Uncle Howard’s house?’
‘I didn’t burn it all down,’ Lizzie piped up. ‘Just the west wing.’
Their mother grabbed Lizzie by the hair. ‘Just the west wing,’ she mimicked. ‘In that case I’m sure your father’s family will forgive me. Yes, of course they’ll take you both back with open arms.’
‘Mummy, stop,’ Lizzie whined. ‘You’re hurting me.’
But their mother was in a fury. She pulled Lizzie around by the hair, the hall rug riding up around them like an ocean and his sister’s legs kicking out as if she was trying to swim away from their mother.
‘What am I supposed to do with you?’ she asked, her eyes wild. ‘I could have put you in an orphanage, but I didn’t. I find you a nice home with family, and look how you repay me?’
Lizzie’s arms were flailing about as she tried to protect herself.
‘Mummy,’ Lewis beseeched, afraid his mother might pull Lizzie’s hair out altogether. ‘Please – let go.’
His mother stopped dragging Lizzie and stared at Lewis. The depth of anger in her eyes frightened him.
His mother had a naturally sunny personality. That was why men liked her. Her smiling lips were always painted cherry red, her blonde hair sculpted into place, her trim figure tucked into a neat suit or a pretty dress. But on this day she was in disarray. Her hair had fallen apart, her lipstick was smudged and her eyes were full of tears.
She let go of Lizzie, and the girl collapsed onto the floor. His mother smoothed down her hair, took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes with it.
‘We will have to leave first thing tomorrow,’ she said crisply. ‘You can’t stay here more than one night.’
‘But where are we going?’ Lewis asked.
‘I don’t know yet. It seems that Lizzie has literally burned all of your bridges.’
‘Why can’t we stay with you, Mummy?’ Lizzie bleated from the floor.
Lewis looked at his sister in surprise.
‘You know why,’ his mother said.
‘But why is it so hard to find us a new daddy, Mummy? Why is it taking you so long?’
Sylvia Bell looked at her daughter long and hard. A shadow descended on her face, a conflict of loathing and love.
‘They don’t want you,’ she hissed at her. ‘None of these men want you. They just want me.’
Lizzie flinched. She pulled her knees to her chest and said nothing more.
‘Can we not go back to Uncle Howard?’ Lewis ventured.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘But he’ll forgive Lizzie. I know he will. He loves having us.’
‘Do you really think he’ll take you back after what Lizzie did?’
‘He might be angry right now, but he promised me he’d take care of us. He has to keep his promise.’
His mother sighed. ‘Lots of pe
ople don’t keep their promises, Lewis. But if you really think he might, I could give him a call . . .’
‘No!’ Lizzie stumbled to her feet and tugged at his jersey. ‘I don’t want to go back there.’
He looked at his sister incredulously. ‘Why ever not?’
‘Stop being such a madam, Lizzie,’ his mother said.
But Lizzie was off. She cried, she wailed, she begged. She refused to go back to Uncle Howard’s house.
In the end their mother packed them off to bed early with no dinner, long before her widower returned home for the evening.
‘Why do you have to spoil everything?’ Lewis hissed at his sister in the musty gloom of their attic bedroom. ‘I hate you. I wish you were dead.’
His sister said nothing back, just sobbed in the bed beside his. He felt sorry then that he’d shouted at her. He hadn’t meant what he’d said. He loved Lizzie, but why, oh why, couldn’t she be happy about going back to Uncle Howard’s?
When Lewis woke up the next morning, Lizzie wasn’t in her bed. He shouldn’t have said such horrible things to her. She was his only family, after all. But his remorse was short-lived. His sister was already downstairs, curled up on the sofa beside their mother. When she looked up at him with her doleful eyes, red from crying, he knew she had won, yet again.
His mother glanced up from her newspaper. ‘Darling, I’ve been thinking it over. I really don’t think going back to Uncle Howard’s is such a good idea.’
He shoved his hands in his pockets, twisting his Swiss army knife around and around. He pressed the edge of one of its blades against his thumb.
‘You’ve never met Great Aunt Dorothy, have you?’ his mother went on. ‘She lives in a cosy cottage in a darling village in Norfolk, very near the sea. She said she would love to have you both stay until you start school in September.’
He dug the end of the blade into the pad of his thumb, felt it pierce the skin. He didn’t care about the pain because he wasn’t going back to Uncle Howard. He was never going back.
Lewis and Lizzie spent just one night in that big house in London before they were sent off to Norfolk. It had been a dreadful August; listless days spent in Great Aunt Dorothy’s cottage. His only company, apart from Lizzie, was a King Charles spaniel called Pip, a spoilt and petulant creature. It had rained and rained, and he had spent hours with his face pressed against the misted window, staring at the endless downpour, an unread copy of Treasure Island on his lap. He hadn’t wanted to read about another boy’s adventure. He had wanted adventures himself. Lizzie would loll on the sofa singing to Pip and scratching his tummy, while Great Aunt Dorothy plied them with bowls of boiled sweets. But they were so old that some of them were stuck together and they tasted sour, and smelled of mothballs – like her.
That long deadly month the sun had never seemed to shine. On the days it wasn’t raining it was foggy. Lewis would drag Pip out for walks on the fens, a flat dull landscape that stretched forever and made him feel even more bored and lonely. How many times had he hoped he would come home from his walk and find his prayers had been answered?
Down Great Aunt Dorothy’s front path, through her laden pear trees, past the pansies and the petunias, he dreamed he would find Uncle Howard waiting for him, standing on her doorstep. Alfie the red setter would be sitting obediently at his heels, in marked contrast to the King Charles spaniel tugging on his lead and snapping at the superior beast. Alfie – the epitome of canine elegance, with his glossy russet fur and regal bearing. Uncle Howard would be sucking on his pipe, his eyes bright with mischief as they always were.
‘Come along, old chap – let’s get going,’ he would say to Lewis.
But it never happened. Uncle Howard never came to rescue him.
Seven
Reaction
Scottsdale, 23 March 1989
Joy was taking the cake out of the oven when she heard the front door open and the sound of voices, her daughter’s distinctive laughter trailing down the hallway.
‘That smells gorgeous, Mom,’ Heather said as she walked into the kitchen.
Her daughter’s hair was up in a high ponytail. Darrell appeared behind her, immediately circling his arms around her slender waist and drawing her into him. He was even taller than her and able to prop his chin on the top of her head.
‘Hi, Mrs Sheldon, that sure smells good.’
‘It’s my mother’s fig-cake recipe.’
‘Daddy’s favourite,’ Heather said. ‘You sure are a busy bee today, Mom. You already made us apple pie this morning.’
Joy regarded her laughing daughter. Really she must have imagined the moment with Carla. Looking at Heather now in her yellow dress, enveloped in the arms of her rugged fiancé, she looked not remotely like Joy’s idea of what a lesbian might be. Did lesbians wear dresses, grow their hair long, like pink and want to be cheerleaders? And yet, now Joy thought of it, there had always been something about her daughter, a kinship with her girlfriends right from when she was small.
‘You know we’re real excited about the house, Mr S showed us today.’ Darrell beamed at Joy.
‘It’s in one of those new gated communities, Mom. Only ten minutes away.’
‘Remind me again, what’s a gated community?’ Joy asked, sprinkling brown sugar on top of the cake.
‘Do you not know anything, Mom?’ Heather rolled her eyes. ‘It’s like most of what Dad is selling now.’
‘They’re like prestige communities, Mrs Sheldon,’ Darrell told her. ‘They have their own security so they’re safe, and exclusive. All you need is within them – like stores and leisure facilities – and the gates keep the trash out.’
Joy was shocked by her prospective son-in-law’s tone. ‘Trash?’
‘You know, druggies, illegal immigrants, welfare claimants . . .’
She was speechless. The idea sounded horrendous to her. Why would you want to live somewhere that excluded the very colour of life? But she decided to say nothing. After all, she would be undermining Eddie if she expressed her real thoughts on the subject.
‘Is Dad at work?’ Heather asked.
‘Yes, I’m going to take him over the fig cake.’ Joy picked up a knife and used it to loosen the cake from the tin.
‘You sure he wants you to bring him a cake right now?’ Her daughter cocked her head to one side.
‘Why not? It’s a surprise.’
‘Hey, I hope you surprise me like that when we’re married as long as your mom and dad.’
Darrell kissed the top of Heather’s head. It irritated Joy – as if he was doing it just for effect.
‘I saw Carla today.’ The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop herself, and she tried not to look too closely at her daughter’s reaction.
‘Oh, really?’ Heather was trying to feign indifference, her expression impassive.
She felt guilty for having mentioned it, but now that Joy had brought up the subject of Carla she might as well continue.
‘I thought she was your bridesmaid. What happened?’ she asked.
Her daughter shrugged, slipping out from within Darrell’s arms. ‘She’s heading off to San Francisco. Besides, she’s gone all weird on me.’
‘You can say that again,’ Darrell exclaimed. ‘You’ll never guess what she’s been saying, Mrs Sheldon.’
‘Shut up, Darrell,’ Heather said, her cheeks flushing.
Joy watched her daughter as she put the cake tin in the sink to soak. No one spoke for a moment.
‘Well, are you going to tell me what she’s been saying?’ Joy pushed, aware that it wasn’t like her to be so persistent.
An uneasy glance passed between the young couple. Darrell looked back at Joy, and she thought how his eyes seemed even bigger and more fish-like than his mother’s.
‘She’s only told Heather that she can’t come to our wedding cos she’s in love with her!’ He gave a loud guffaw. ‘Can you believe it, Mrs Sheldon? Carla’s a dyke! What a waste, eh?’
‘I tol
d you to shut up, Darrell,’ Heather snapped at him.
‘Why does it have to be a big secret?’ Darrell countered. ‘Shouldn’t your mom know why Carla isn’t coming?’
‘God, Darrell, sometimes . . . sometimes . . . you’re so . . .’ Heather gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Don’t you think we should respect Carla’s privacy?’
Joy avoided looking at the couple, picking up a cloth to clean the table.
‘Hey, I’m sorry, okay,’ Darrell said, but Heather had already flounced out of the room. They both listened to her thump up the stairs and slam her bedroom door.
‘Sit down, Darrell,’ Joy said, suddenly feeling sorry for him.
He slumped at the kitchen table, looking forlorn and embarrassed. She finished cleaning up. All the while Darrell said nothing, just tapped his fingers on the tabletop.
‘She’ll come back down in a minute,’ Joy assured him, arranging her cake on a plate.
‘I don’t know why she’s so mad about it. I kinda think it’s funny.’
‘Funny?’ Joy said. ‘Imagine if you found out your best friend was gay and in love with you.’
Darrell looked horrified. ‘I’d kick his head in,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Maybe she’s angry with Carla,’ Joy said, but when she thought about it she knew her daughter wasn’t angry with her old friend. It was another emotion that had caused her reaction. It was that defensive flare of anger that comes with a mixture of fear, guilt and shame.
Heather had feelings for Carla too, but Joy couldn’t quite believe her own daughter was gay. So what if she was? Joy didn’t even want to imagine how Eddie would react to the news, let alone the huge financial loss of a cancelled wedding.
She should go upstairs and talk to Heather, but she was afraid of what her daughter might admit. She wished desperately that she had never met Carla today. Why the hell had she brought it up? It could all have been forgotten about.
Before she had a chance to decide what to do, Darrell was making his way to the kitchen door.
‘I’m going to go up to her, say I’m sorry,’ he said.
The Gravity of Love Page 15