Seven Days of Us

by Francesca Hornak

  She took the briefcase from the floor and sat on the bare mattress, the case on her lap. The feel of its smooth sides and sharp corners took her back to another era—when she seemed to be permanently standing in the hall in a dressing gown, handing Andrew his work things and restraining an infant Olivia. Was that when things had started to go wrong? Something like sadness heaved inside her. She realized she was still rather tipsy from all the wine at dinner. Her fingers fiddled with the brass catches, as she pondered what she might find inside. Adoption papers for scores of other bastard children? Fistfuls of photographs of Jesse’s beautiful, exotic mother? Or perhaps something more prosaically sordid—a spare mobile phone, the better to lead a double life. She bent closer, to see the little combination locks. One nine five zero—even her soupy brain knew it would be his birthdate. The catches clunked open. She parted the case, breath suspended. And then—nothing. It was empty. She picked it up by one handle so that it flopped fully open, then took both handles and turned it upside down with a shake. Then she laid it flat out on the bed and rummaged through every pocket. Still nothing. All she found was a crumpled receipt from Boots, Gatwick, dated 1987. She sat back on the bed, feeling a total fool. It was like that scene in Northanger Abbey, she thought, when Catherine Morland opens an old, Gothic chest and finds nothing but bed linen. Who had she become, first checking Jesse’s passport, now snooping through her husband’s briefcase? She didn’t want to be this woman. Damn Andrew. This was what his hiding Jesse’s e-mails had turned her into—a jealous wife. She felt almost tearful as she relocked the case, and put it back exactly where she’d found it. Walking through the main attic, she stopped to ram all the boxes on the floor against the wall, out of the way. Why didn’t the girls ever tidy up after themselves? It was only when she was halfway down the back stairs that she remembered the briefcase had a secret pocket in the lining.

  Andrew

  THE SMOKING ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 10:20 P.M.

  • • •

  Andrew stayed sitting on the sofa, thinking. His oldest daughter, who usually shunned him with evasive eyes and brief answers, had opened up. They had had something amounting to a real conversation. Then he remembered why—she’d come to complain about Jesse’s misplaced advice. In twenty-four hours, Jesse had managed to alienate Andrew’s entire family—first Phoebe, then Emma, and now Olivia. Yesterday, Andrew had naively assumed that Jesse was doing rather well. Emma had warmed to him, Olivia appeared to accept him—and no doubt he would have charmed Phoebe in time. If anything, Andrew was the one struggling to make sense of this sunny stranger. But today, Jesse had messed it all up with his well-meant opinions and advice. It made Andrew feel unexpectedly defensive, as if he’d known his son for much longer. Besides, he was convinced Jesse was right about George. He thought of the boy’s vile, openly expressed homophobia—not to mention his obscene Lycra. Phoebe had really had a lucky escape. But when Andrew had put all this to Emma for a second time, before dinner, she’d shut him down. “It’s very normal that you’re making sense of your own son being gay, but that’s nothing to do with George,” she’d said. Bloody condescending. When he’d protested, she’d changed gear and said that Andrew was obviously “infatuated with Jesse.” She never stuck to a linear argument. And he wasn’t infatuated with Jesse. In fact, Andrew decided, he’d show her that right now, by telling Emma about his talk with Olivia. He didn’t really expect Emma to take Jesse’s dubious medical advice seriously. But this was the first thing Olivia had asked of Andrew since she was a child. He wanted to keep his word.

  Emma

  THE BACK HALL, WEYFIELD HALL, 10:27 P.M.

  • • •

  Emma almost smacked into Andrew in her hurry to the smoking room—just as he was walking out of it. He put a hand on her elbow to steady her. She recoiled, and barked, “Come to the cellar!”

  “What?”

  “The cellar.” He looked baffled, and she didn’t care. It was a Hartley tradition to have tricky conversations in the cellar—it guaranteed privacy in a house full of servants. Not that she and Andrew needed to consider such things. She switched on her torch as she opened the cellar door and began to descend the stone steps, their edges rounded by her forebears. There was something comforting about the cellar, the buried depths of the house. She breathed the distinctive, musty smell, like a church, looking round the bell-shaped space at the bottom of the stairs. A wine rack to her right still held the last of their wedding claret, which Andrew was saving for God knows what.

  “This,” she said, handing him the handwritten letter she’d found in the briefcase lining. He seemed to recognize it at once.

  “How did you— Oh, Christ,” he said, sitting on the bottom step and rubbing his forehead.

  “Well?” she said, looking at the sheet in his hand.

  “Emma, I’m, I’m a fool. I’m so stupid, I—”

  “A fool? Incompetent, certainly. I presume you never intended to tell me? You thought that would be an end to it?”

  “It just, it seemed better that way. I thought it would cause you needless pain. I was planning to burn it, if you must know. But then—”

  “Better to burn it? To lie, to cover your tracks like a snake in the night?” She knew she was muddling her metaphors, and she didn’t care.

  “Emma—if you’ll let me finish—I was planning to burn it, but then Jesse arrived and I thought, well, I thought he deserved to see it, one day. It’s all he’ll have of his mother.”

  “Oh, right. How noble of you. So you think you deserve a medal, do you?”

  “Emma—please don’t be sarcastic. You have to understand, I didn’t even believe that letter when I got it. I thought it was a hoax, or that the woman was delirious. It wasn’t until Jesse e-mailed me that I realized it was genuine, and that—”

  “But you’d still kept it all that time?” she interrupted. “Hidden away, for over a year. Just in case?”

  “Mmm.”

  Neither of them spoke.

  “I never replied to her,” said Andrew eventually. “We never had any correspondence.”

  “Andrew! You still don’t understand, do you? I wouldn’t have given a flying fig if you’d replied to that poor woman—in fact, that would be the right thing to do, for fuck’s sake!” It was exhilarating to finally swear. Her heart was pummeling her rib cage. “It’s your lying that’s the problem. Hiding things, burning things! What sort of man does that? How can I trust anything you say anymore? Anything you’ve ever said?”

  “Emma—”

  “Don’t! I don’t want to hear your feeble excuses! I thought you were a decent man, despite everything.”

  “I’m sorry? Despite everything?”

  She realized she was in too deep to go back.

  “Yes. How you’ve treated me, all of us.”

  “How I’ve treated you? How have I ever been anything but the supportive husband?” He stood up, looming over her. His face was indignant, now. She was glad. She wanted a fight, a real fight. She needed him to be angry, not contrite.

  “Ha! Supportive?” she said. “Do you have any concept of the sacrifices I’ve made for you? D’you know what it’s like to give up everything you’ve worked for, to look after small children, so that you could do what you wanted? And you repay me by, by—” She didn’t want to lose momentum. If she gave him a way in, he’d remind her that she’d stopped working by choice. “You repay me by sulking, snapping, moaning—forcing us all to walk on eggshells every time the subs remove a word from one of your snarky columns.”

  “So that’s what you think of my work?” he said quietly. His eyes were slits. “You think this is what I wanted? To be reviewing restaurants, when I could be reporting on the real world? You’re not the only one who gave something up, y’know, Emma!”

  “Christ, you still haven’t got over it, have you? I’m sorry I dragged you back from a war zone, when you had two daughte
rs! I’m so sorry I spoiled your fun, because I wanted them to grow up with a father, not a hostage or a . . . a headstone.”

  “Civil war isn’t fun, Emma. It is important, though.”

  “More important than your own daughters?”

  He said nothing.

  “Some father you’ve been, anyway,” she added. She wasn’t ready to stop yet.

  “What?”

  “Surely you’re not oblivious to that, too?”

  “To what?”

  “You and Olivia! You barely speak to her! You never even try to, not properly. It’s always been you and Phoebe. How do you think Olivia feels? Why d’you think she’s never here?” She wondered if she’d gone too far.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Emma,” he said tightly. “For what it’s worth, Olivia and I had a very enlightening conversation earlier. I was just coming to find you to tell you about it.”

  Emma hesitated. She wanted to know what they’d talked about, but didn’t want to ask.

  “She hasn’t had an easy time of it, being back,” he went on. “No doubt you’re congratulating yourself on making a fuss of her. But you don’t know the first thing about what she’s going through—what she’s been through.”

  “Oh, and you do?”

  “I have more idea than you.”

  “I’m sorry, Andrew—but what does that have to do with you keeping something like this”—she snatched the letter from him—“secret from me?”

  “You brought it up, Emma! And for the record, I’m not the only one in this marriage with secrets. God knows when you were planning to tell me you had cancer. If Jesse hadn’t said—”

  “Jesse? Jesse! What about the rest of us? What about me?” She felt her grip on her temper loosening, years of composing herself unlocked. She yanked the neck of a bottle from the wine rack on the wall and held it up above her head, feeling like she was watching someone else—someone unhinged. Everything slowed down as she let go, and it met the stone floor with a crash. Andrew flinched at the explosion of crimson and broken glass, the wine splashing onto his socks and the bottom of his trousers.

  “What the hell has got into you?” he shouted, backing up the steps.

  Emma looked at the mess and burst into wild tears and giggles, all at once. A tiny voice in her head wondered if the flagstones would stain, and whether she should fetch the salt.

  Olivia

  THE WILLOW ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 11:03 P.M.

  • • •

  Olivia drew the curtains, stopping for a moment to look out the window. She could just see the puddles on the marshes, gleaming like black glass. Cocoa slalomed through her legs and she gathered him up, leaning her cheek on his silky, prism head. She used to hug him this way as a teenager—whispering grievances in his folded ear, taking his purr as sympathy. It was around that time she’d stopped calling Andrew “Daddy,” half hoping he’d object. But only Emma had seemed to mind. It had been strange to hear him talking as if they were allies, just now. For as long as Olivia could remember he and Phoebe had had their private thing. And Olivia had got used to that. Phoebe was the enchanting one. But perhaps her sister was right—perhaps Olivia and her dad were more alike than she knew. She’d long assumed that Andrew had quit war correspondence by choice, not Emma’s coercion. It was like looking at a room she’d always seen from one side, from the opposite wall. Phoebe and Andrew had all their media in-jokes, but his early work in war zones was a lot more like Olivia’s. And it had seemed, just now, as if he’d wanted her to see that. She felt warmer at the thought. Warmer, and disconcertingly weepy for her teenage self. The too-big fourteen-year-old who used to sit hugging the cat, listening to Andrew and Phoebe leave for yet another restaurant.

  • • •

  Her iPad chimed, and she released Cocoa to refresh her e-mail. Everything inside her jolted at the name in bold at the top of her inbox: Sean Coughlan. She opened the message and began to read.

  FROM: Sean Coughlan

  TO: Olivia Birch

  DATE: Thurs, Dec 28, 2016 at 11:00 p.m.

  SUBJECT: Re: PHEW!!

  Olivia Birch! So I’m back in the land of the living . . . With an iPad and everything . . . I won’t lie, it’s not been the merriest of Christmases. Mostly because I was so worried about you. Are you sure you’re OK? Promise you’d tell me if anything is wrong. I felt awful that I had no way to contact you, or even check if you were all right.

  It was so good to read your blogs (thanks for sticking up for me!) and get your e-mails. So it sounds like it’s been an eventful quarantine . . . How are the Birch family dealing with your man Jesse showing up? So sorry to hear about your mother, that has to be hard. Guess you just have to keep trying to talk to her.

  I’ve not told my family about us either, but I might have to . . . They’ll realize by this stupid grin I can’t keep off my face. Counting the hours till your quarantine is up, and I can see you again.

  I have to go, my nurse is hovering—we’ve to do a lumbar puncture. I think she has a crush on me, as a minor celebrity. FYI she’s at least sixty.

  Missing you, stóirín.

  Happy Days Haag-negative kisses,

  XXXXXXX

  Olivia kept reading and rereading. She wished she could bottle this feeling—a delicious Venn diagram of joy and relief. Coming after the chat with Andrew, it was like the day had turned around. She would e-mail Sean first thing tomorrow, she decided, curling up under the heavy blankets. A barn owl screeched outside. For now, she wanted to savor not waiting for a response.

  • 8 •

  December 29, 2016

  Quarantine: Day Seven

  Andrew

  THE SMOKING ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 4:16 A.M.

  • • •

  Andrew couldn’t get comfortable. The sofa appeared to have potholes. He ripped off his airline eye mask, pressing his face into an itchy embroidered cushion instead. The fight still seemed utterly implausible. It was so unlike Emma—the accusations, the histrionics, the bottle smashing. It had been a 1980 Margaux, too. And all because of his sheer idiocy, in assuming he could keep Leila’s letter from her. What had he been thinking?

  Mentally, he retraced his steps. The morning of the bonfire he had buried the letter in a box of newspapers, ready to throw on the flames. But he had sensed Olivia watching him and stalled—the box still at his feet. And then Jesse had arrived. And with every passing hour, Leila’s words had needled more fiercely. If, some day, he contacts you, please tell him that not a day passed when I didn’t think of him. My dying wish is that he has been happy. How could he burn those words—the only words Jesse might ever have from his mother? It felt too final. And so he’d retrieved the letter from its newsprint coffin and hidden it in his briefcase again last night. He still couldn’t think how Emma had found it. He’d gone to the absurd lengths of flushing a lavatory on his way down from the attic last night to excuse his creeping around. As far as he knew, he’d only encountered George torturing a spider. Not that it really mattered. She knew now.

  A stab of remorse, as he relived the row in the cellar, bled into dozens of tributaries. The way he’d taken Emma for granted, exploiting her good nature and capacity to keep cogs turning. The way he’d allowed their love to drift from the notes in the attic to their rubbing along today—shrouded in forced jollity. He thought of what Emma had said about how he never talked to Olivia, knowing it was true. What stopped him from telling his daughter that her work was remarkable? He’d had the chance earlier. Dawn leaked through the curtains, and he flopped onto his back to start dissecting his own life. Why had he given up on any drive to do good when he’d resigned from The Times? What had happened to his ambition, his grit? He thought of all the poor restaurant owners whose businesses he’d wrecked for a snigger in his column. That snide voice wasn’t really him. Or at least, it hadn’t be
en. It was a pose he’d learned to put on for the job, just as he used to pull on his flak jacket and go in search of the truth. Each regret seemed to summon another, as if he’d turned over a log in his mind and revealed a writhing mass of wood lice.

  Except, hadn’t there been something strangely invigorating about the clash with Emma? It was years since they’d voiced raw feelings, uncensored. Even their exchange by the chaise longue, after Jesse’s arrival, had been restrained—as if they’d both looked over a cliff and decided to teeter on the edge. There was relief in seeing Emma lose it just now, dropping the head prefect act. She used to get angry, sometimes, when they were young. He’d found it sort of sexy at the time. But when Olivia arrived, she took to damming any conflict with a hissed: “Not in front of the baby.” And then, at some point, they’d given up on fighting along with everything else. Part of him longed to crawl into bed beside Emma now, as if her body might soothe his fevered thoughts. It used to, years ago, when he was woken by dreams of bombs and bullets and bodies in dusty roads. But he knew she wouldn’t want that.

  Phoebe

  THE DRIVE, WEYFIELD HALL, 9:00 A.M.

  • • •

  Phoebe stood on one leg in the drive, hoping to catch some signal. The cold wormed into her ears and stiffened her fingers. Still, it was better than being indoors. She couldn’t face her family, or—worse—Jesse, and she couldn’t bear the bungalow, where George’s aftershave haunted every breath. She thought she could actually feel a pain in her heart, like a shard of glass, somewhere behind her left breast. She’d lain in bed for hours this morning, trying to absorb what had happened, raking over the past weeks. What had made George change his mind? She’d tried so hard to be the perfect girlfriend. Her bikini line had remained pristine for months, while she waited for him to propose. All that smarting agony, and this was what she got in return. She kicked out at some dry leaves in rage, forgetting too late not to swing her sore foot and yelping with pain. Was it all the drama this week at Weyfield that had freaked him out? She shut down the voice that told her George should be able to deal with illness, secrets, arguments. Approaching the road, she caught a bar of signal. She stared at it, willing it to grow, to bring a message from him. But when a lone text came it was Lara, asking What are you and G doing for New Year’s? and Phoebe realized, with a bump, that she was no longer part of “you and G.” She was just Phoebe, with nothing to show for herself but an embarrassing job. “You and George” had been part of who she was for so long now. Being half of a couple was the only thing that made her a grown-up. A gray Audi, like his, swept past and she contemplated another bout of sobs. She was already sick of crying, of the puffy feeling in her face, the stinging eyes, the aching throat—and it had only been a day. She still hadn’t contacted him, on her mother’s advice. She didn’t know what she’d say anyway. It was hard to disentangle her pride from her heart, to know which had taken the more crushing blow. She still felt sick when she thought of trying to tell everyone that the wedding was off. But the same voice at the back of her mind kept asking: “Are you surprised, really?” She thought of the way she’d struggled to picture their wedding, their children, George as an old man. Perhaps she’d never truly believed it was going to happen. And then she thought of the thing Jesse had said, which she knew, deep down, made too much sense not to be true. The way George was so disgusted by gay men, but always pointed them out in public. Calling everything gay all the time. How he’d never been that fussed about sex. The hot humiliation of it crawled over her skin. She would ask him outright. She might not be able to see his face, but she’d be able to tell by his voice. She deserved to know. He owed her that much.