The Versions of Us

by Laura Barnett

  It was, Eva had believed, a friendship – perhaps this Bella Hurst (she thought of the girl always, for some reason, with her surname attached) was looking for a mentor. And Jim: well, she’d had no reason to doubt him since that long-ago dalliance, or whatever it had been, with Greta. And Jim had been quite open with her about Bella – had told her how much he enjoyed talking to her about art, that she had ideas he’d never really debated before – ideas about practice, deconstruction, about the dissolution of the old boundaries between high and low art. Privately, Eva had thought these ideas rather pretentious, but she had stopped short of saying so aloud.

  Jim had even invited the girl to dinner: Bella Hurst had sat there, drinking their wine, eating the food Eva had prepared. She was impossibly young and tiny in her workman’s vest and loose dungarees; her eyes, beneath that unruly thatch of hair, were entrancingly mismatched, one blue, one black. Eva had felt a twinge of something then – even if it was only shameful envy of her youth, her freshness, something that she and Penelope might try to emulate with lotions and night-creams, but could never retrieve – but she had filed it neatly away at the back of her mind. She was just too busy to be bothered with suspicion: busy with research for the book, with newspaper articles, with radio series and discussion shows and the Booker. (She was a judge for the 1987 prize, and spent much of 1986 working through a teetering stack of novels.) Even when Jim had come to Eva last year, told her that a space had come up in Bella Hurst’s studio – that he wanted to rent it, go there on weekends, during holidays – even then, her reaction had only been one of delight that he was working again. ‘That’s a fantastic idea, Jim,’ she’d said. ‘Of course you must take it. Perhaps a fresh start, in a new space, will be just what you need.’

  Eva can only think, now, that it had been a case of deliberate blindness on her part, and their hiding in plain sight. How stupid they must have thought her – if they had thought of her at all. Or perhaps Bella Hurst had considered their marriage a permissive one; perhaps Jim had even told her it was such. Could he have found out about Leo Tait, about their brief liaison in Yorkshire? Eva doesn’t think it likely – she has never mentioned that night to anyone, and can’t imagine that Leo would have done so. But now, anything seems possible. And had it been, with Bella, just a one-night thing – a physical urge that Jim couldn’t resist, as she herself had been unable to with Leo – then she might feel differently; but there is no way that Jim’s note can be attached to a casual affair. Thank you for bringing me back to life. Each word a bullet to Eva’s heart.

  Yesterday, in Peckham, she had found Bella Hurst unruffled, implacable. Eva had rung the bell to the studio, told a bored-looking man in paint-spattered overalls whom she was there to see. He had left her standing at the open door – she had read the name on each pigeonhole in the hallway with its peeling paint, its greenish sproutings of mould, over and over again; watched the letters of her husband’s name rearrange themselves into an incomprehensible jumble.

  She had felt light-headed; had put a hand to the wall to steady herself, wondering what she would do when she was face to face with Bella Hurst; wondering what she could possibly say that might lessen the weight of her pain. There was nothing, surely – this was the end of everything, the ripping apart of the life Eva and Jim had worked so hard, for so long, to build, and to maintain. The giddy joy of falling in love, of finding each other; their honeymoon; their months in New York; their beloved house in Gipsy Hill. Jennifer. Daniel. The loss of Vivian, of Miriam. Those terrible years in which Eva had feared they were drawing apart, and yet they’d found a way back to each other, hadn’t they? They’d pulled through. What could she possibly say that would make this girl – this child – understand what it meant to be shown a picture of your life as you know it – a picture of substance and beauty; the hours and weeks and years that make a shared life, a family – and then see it ripped unceremoniously from its frame?

  When Bella had eventually appeared, she had done so smiling, her naked face serene above a loose white shirt, black leggings, a man’s tweed waistcoat (not Jim’s). Eva had showed her the postcard – told her, in a voice she couldn’t keep from trembling, that she had found something that she presumed belonged to her.

  ‘Well,’ Bella said, those blue-black eyes hard as marbles. ‘It’s useless to say I’m sorry, I’m afraid, because I’m not. But I hope it won’t be too hard on you.’

  Telling all this to Penelope, Eva can feel herself wincing at the crass banality of it all: the middle-aged man, just shy of his fiftieth birthday, falling for a girl just a few years older than his daughter; the wife finding the lovers’ note, rushing to confront her rival. She pictures herself, standing there in that foul hallway in her oldest, least flattering jeans, her hair unbrushed – emptying the car boot had been the last stage of a spring clean, and she hadn’t thought to change. Jim has turned her into the oldest cliché there is – the wronged wife – and she hates him for it; hates herself for playing the role. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

  She is crying now. ‘Oh, Pen. I must have looked such a state.’

  Penelope covers Eva’s hand with her own; with the other, she reaches into her handbag for a tissue. ‘I’m sure you didn’t. But that’s hardly the point, is it?’

  ‘No.’ Penelope hands her the tissue, and Eva wipes her eyes. From the hall comes the squeal of the telephone.

  ‘Shall I get it? Tell whoever it is that you’ll call them back?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Eva scrunches the tissue into a ball. ‘It’s probably Jennifer. I don’t want her to know anything’s wrong. Not yet.’

  It is Jennifer, calling about the arrangements for Tuesday night: they are to celebrate Eva’s birthday in the upstairs room at the Gay Hussar. At the sound of her daughter’s voice, Eva’s fragile composure falters; she smothers a rising sob, but not before Jennifer catches the sound. ‘Are you all right, Mum? You sound upset.’

  Breathing deeply, looking at the framed photograph on the wall above the hall table – the four of them a few years ago, on the beach at St Ives – Eva draws on her last reserves of strength in order to say, her voice strong, unwavering, ‘I’m fine, darling. Thank you for asking. Penelope’s here for lunch. I’ll call you later on.’

  In the kitchen, Eva slumps into her chair, places her head in her hands. ‘God, Pen. The children. I can’t bear it. What am I going to do?’

  From her handbag, Penelope produces a packet of cigarettes. She lights one, hands it to Eva, then lights another for herself. ‘We’ve given up,’ Eva says, but Penelope bats her objection away. ‘For God’s sake, Eva – if we ever needed a smoke, it’s now.’

  After a moment or two, she adds, ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Apart from punch him in the guts?’ Eva looks up, meets Penelope’s eye, and even now, even here, they can exchange a thin smile. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I mean, I’ll have to speak to him, of course – see if he really means to leave. Bella certainly seems to think he does. But I’ll have to hear it from him.’

  ‘Of course.’ From her red-painted mouth, Penelope emits a small cloud of smoke. Eva can sense that she’d like to say more, that Penelope is holding herself back from revealing the depth of her own sense of betrayal – her anger on Eva’s behalf, of course, but her own anger too. Penelope has always adored Jim; has always strived to see things from his point of view. They have all been such good friends, and for such a long time, but now, a line must be drawn in the sand. ‘And if he says it’s over with Bella? That he’ll end it?’

  ‘Well.’ Eva draws deeply on her cigarette. ‘Then I’ll have to see what’s left between us. I simply don’t know whether we could carry on.’

  Eva’s words hang in the air unanswered; unanswerable. Out in the garden, beyond the French windows, the weak spring sun is lowering over Jim’s shed, over the steeply inclined sweep of lawn. The tree where Daniel’s old rope-swing still hangs is just coming into blossom; the borders are lush with the sh
rubs Eva and Jim planted together years ago. The terrible realisation strikes Eva that she may not be able to keep this house if they divorce; not for financial reasons – she is the greater breadwinner, has been for years – but because it will be too full of all the things that had, until yesterday, defined the contours of her life. The furniture, the photographs, the children’s younger selves practising scales at the piano, filling each room with their shouts, their smiles, their heartfelt babyish demands: all this, now, she will have to reassign to memory.

  A key turns in the front door. Eva looks back at Penelope, quickly stubs out her cigarette. ‘Daniel. Don’t say anything, Pen.’

  ‘As if I would.’ Penelope takes a last drag, then extinguishes her own cigarette.

  Here is Daniel, sloping into the room – all sixteen-year-old, five foot eleven of him, his bare knees black with mud beneath his rugby shorts. He loves the sport, and Jim, though indifferent to it, takes him to matches at Twickenham; stands for hours on the side of the pitch at Daniel’s school games, cheering him on, clapping his hands inside thick wool gloves. Will Jim still do that if he leaves us? Eva thinks. How can anything ever feel normal again?

  ‘All right, Aunty Pen?’ he says. ‘Mum?’

  ‘We’re all right, darling.’ Eva reaches for a smile. She keeps her voice light, steady, as she turns and says, ‘How was the match?’

  VERSION TWO

  Father

  Cornwall, November 1990

  Jim wakes at six a.m., just as the train is leaving Liskeard.

  He lies still in his bunk, enjoying the warmth of the covers. He has slept well: lulled, no doubt, by the whisky he and Stephen consumed over an evening at the Arts Club, not to mention the champagne and wine they’d had with dinner. He had taken a taxi to Paddington at eleven o’clock, found his way, a little unsteadily, to his first-class, single-occupancy cabin; noting, dimly, that he was growing used to such luxuries. There had barely been time to change into his pyjamas, accept the hot chocolate offered by a uniformed guard, before sleep claimed him.

  A knock comes at the door: muted, polite. ‘Breakfast, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ He swings his legs down from the bed. ‘Just a moment.’

  It is a sorry meal – dry, coagulated scrambled egg, cold toast, bacon doused in fat – but Jim clears his plate, drinks the watery coffee. His head is pounding; as he dresses, he finds the packet of aspirin in his wash bag, takes three tablets with the mug’s last dregs. Then he slips on his coat, packs his few belongings into his overnight case, and steps out into the morning.

  It is a clear, still winter’s day, of the kind that he has always loved: the sky hazed and distant, the low sun dazzling, the last red and yellow leaves still clinging to the trees. And the icefresh air of Cornwall: in the car, Jim lowers the window despite the cold, takes in great gulps of it. This is what he can’t explain to Stephen, whenever his friend asks him, for the fiftieth time and counting, why Jim insists on continuing to live out here, hundreds of miles away from London. (Stephen seems to have conveniently emptied his memory of his own years at the Bristol gallery.) The air, the light, the striated seascape of water, rock, grass. The sense of standing right at the furthest limit of the land.

  The house is cool and quiet, the kitchen spotless – yesterday was one of Sandra’s cleaning days. Caitlin has filled the fridge; a note lies on the counter, in her neat, sloping hand. Congratulations again! I’ll be up around 10. C x.

  Jim makes a pot of coffee, carries it through to the living-room, where the light is so bright it hurts his eyes. The huge plate-glass windows frame a painter’s view: a rocky outcrop of garden, stretching down to the cliff edge; a solitary gull, caught on a thermal; the sea inky, borderless. He sits, sips his coffee. His headache is receding to a faint memory of pain, and he is home, with good news, and all is gloriously silent.

  He had been surprised, in the months after Helena left, by how quickly he grew used to living alone. He’d moved out as soon as he could – couldn’t stand another night in the cottage on Fish Street, where the silence was not the warm, expectant kind he has come to prize, but one born of painful absence: of half-empty wardrobes, of stripped cupboards and, worst of all, of his son’s vacated bedroom, cleared of all but one dog-eared drawing, left sellotaped to the wall above Dylan’s bed. On the worst days – there were several in those weeks, after the terrible afternoon when he’d come in from the studio to find Helena packing, Dylan crying, Iris standing tight-lipped and resolute in the hallway, telling him that he mustn’t ‘stand in the way of love’ – he had carried his duvet through into Dylan’s room, slept fitfully on his sheetless bed. Waking in the night to that same freighted silence, Jim had taken Dylan’s drawing down from the wall. It was an early scrawl – he, Dylan and Helena on the beach at St Ives, the sun round and weightless. Jim knew it was absurd to believe that this crumpled sheet of paper could somehow stand in for the presence of his son, and yet he found he slept better with the drawing beside him.

  From Fish Street, then, Jim had moved to a house on the outskirts of town – newly built, nondescript; a stopgap, where he turned the living-room into a makeshift studio. He was keeping the spare bedroom free for Dylan: Helena had promised to send him down from Edinburgh to visit, as often as Dylan wished. (Iris, it turned out, owned a house in the New Town; Jim had, at the height of his anger, observed to Helena that she could have moved further away – ‘to bloody Timbuktu’.) And Dylan wanted to come; he told Jim so on the telephone, their brief, truncated conversations pointing so clearly to his son’s confusion and homesickness that they were almost more than Jim could bear. But Jim forced himself to put his son’s needs before his own: it would, he agreed with Helena, be too disruptive for Dylan to come back down to Cornwall until they’d all found their feet, and settled him into his new school.

  Jim wondered, at times, whether he could have fought harder for his son; whether he should have contested Helena’s assumption, as Dylan’s mother, that she had the right to take him with her, even though she was the one leaving Jim. But he was determined not to make Dylan a witness to some awful custodial tug-of-war; and Helena, to her credit, felt just the same. She’d written him a letter, after she left. It was measured, controlled; she asked Jim to forgive her, to understand that she had fallen for Iris quite suddenly, with her whole heart, and felt that she had no choice but to leave, to strike out for happiness. She asked him not to forget that they’d had so many good years together, and produced their wonderful boy. Jim, once the flame of his anger had burned down, would eventually find some comfort in that letter.

  But for the time being, Jim had only the unlovely house, with its empty, magnolia rooms. Working there was difficult, but was also the only thing he had. He had channelled his fury (it was still burning brightly then) into a series of portraits: dark, full of shadows. Iris, fat-cheeked and orange-haired. Helena, shown from behind, her hair tugged into an unflattering ponytail. Dylan at her elbow, his nine-year-old face turned towards his father (unseen, beyond the frame). And Vivian, stealing from her bed in the blackest moment of the night, Sinclair sleeping on beneath a mound of blankets.

  He had called the series Leaving, in Three Parts. When it was done, Jim found that he began to sleep better, even to appreciate the order and peace of living alone. At his next exhibition, in September 1980, Stephen had sold the series, intact, to an undisclosed collector, for £150,000. This, together with the proceeds from the sale of The Versions of Us – that figure had made the papers, and Jim’s reputation; he had wanted to change their lives with it, buy them a house – had made him rich. And when Sinclair died a few months later – neatly, with minimal fuss, just as he had always lived – Lewis Taylor’s small legacy passed to Jim, together with Sinclair’s portfolio of investments, carefully managed, and left to Jim in lieu of any children of his own.

  It all amounted to a sum Jim had never imagined might be his. And with it came the uncomfortable sense – inherited, like so many other things, from hi
s father – that art was not, in its essence, something that ought to bear any connection with money. Jim put the larger part of it away in a trust, for Dylan; with the rest, he bought this house. The House (the literal name amused him): low-slung, boxy, built in 1961 of wood and concrete and glass by a local architect obsessed with Frank Lloyd Wright; perched incongruously on a clifftop like a beached boat. The nearest village was eight miles away, and Jim, nursing his solitude, was glad it was no closer.

  Now, the coffee finished, he carries the pot and mug back through to the kitchen, takes his overnight case upstairs. In his bedroom, he undresses, steps through into the shower. What was it the man from the Tate – David Jenson; unctuous, smooth-mannered – said last night? A landmark show, bringing father and son together for the first time. Great British portraiture spanning two generations.

  Jim had not seen it coming – like Stephen, he had thought the gallery’s board was simply considering adding a new painting to their collection. His shock had been so great that he had, for several seconds, been unable to speak; and so Stephen had stepped in. ‘What a wonderful idea, David. We’ll find a date for you to come down to Cornwall, see the work. Set the wheels in motion.’ That was when Jenson had ordered the champagne.

  In the shower, Jim thinks about his father. There is so little about him that he remembers clearly: his lopsided, goblin face; his smell of turpentine and pipe tobacco. The way he stiffened when Vivian shouted; Lewis rarely shouted back, but when he did, his voice was deafening, sent Jim scuttling to his room. The day Mrs Dawes had collected Jim from school – Vivian was away, visiting her parents – and he’d found a strange woman in the kitchen, naked under his mother’s blue silk robe, layering a slice of bread with butter and jam. Lewis had made them all tea. Jim remembers the woman’s black hair and slender neck, the creamy expanse of her skin. He doesn’t remember her name, but he remembers Sonia’s: recalls watching his father pack a case while she waited outside in the car, and Vivian screamed, and the good china shattered on the flagstones.