by Lisa Jewell
Vicky, still unshowered, still in her banana-print jim-jams and matching yellow hair, nodded enthusiastically and said, ‘Marvellous. Really.’
‘She looked very thin, last night,’ said Meg, pulling shreds off her croissant and depositing them delicately into her mouth. ‘And what’s with this bald patch?’
‘Oh, gosh,’ said Vicky, ‘I don’t know. It’s just one of those things, isn’t it? You know, it’s been a hell of a couple of years for her, all in all.’
‘She’s been through worse.’
This was a pointed comment. Meg had never forgiven Lorrie for not being more upset about Rhys. And Vicky really couldn’t blame her. It was the one thing, really, of all the odd things about Lorrie, that she absolutely couldn’t get to grips with. She’d been there. That evening. Oh, even now, eight years later, she couldn’t think about it without being there, you know, actually properly being there. She could taste her red-wine breath and feel the dizzy splendour of intimacy, her and Lorrie in the snug, by the fire, putting the world to rights. She felt a kind of retrospective guilt that she had not said to her new friend, ‘Where’s your youngest? I’d love to meet him,’ that she had not been interested in the person missing from the lunch table. But that was only now, now that she knew them all, now that this was her family and this house her home. At the time, why should she have cared?
And even now, she could feel the pit of her stomach contract and expand, contract and expand at the memory of the wee thing, hanging like a forgotten Christmas decoration from his bedroom ceiling, the panicky feeling that she must get the others away, back down the stairs, back to their perfect childhoods. And the sudden, gruesome exhumation of the buried memory, her first love – not a boyfriend as she’d told them at the time, because she didn’t yet know them and she wanted them to think of her as conventional, but a girl called Hazel with blue eyes and black hair who couldn’t quite come to terms with everyone hating her for being gay.
It was a baptism of fire, the quickest journey into the inner world of another family it was possible to imagine. One moment she was just the woman next door, the next she was a central component of their personal history. Awful, the whole thing, just absolutely awful. And she had waited for Lorrie to do what she herself imagined she would do if one of her lovely children had taken their own life; she waited for her to lose the plot, to scream and grieve and kick and scratch and cry and die a little. But she never did. She just kind of got on with it. Eerie. Unsettling. But also, maybe, depending on your outlook, utterly utterly marvellous.
Vicky still hadn’t quite decided.
She nodded thoughtfully at Meg’s last comment. As much as she would like to argue the toss with her on most matters, on this point she really could not.
‘I still think she needs some help,’ Meg continued. ‘Honestly. It’s been going on too long now. She needs some therapy. She needs to talk to somebody. She’s fifty-three. She’s still relatively young. She’s got another thirty, forty years to go, God willing, and I can only see all this –’ she gestured aggressively at the space around her (even the kitchen was now beginning to show the signs of Lorrie’s rampant over-shopping and refusal to throw anything away) – ‘getting worse. And as for the Rhys thing. I mean, that’s the sort of thing that can give you cancer, you know, sitting on a wound like that, not dealing with it …’
‘Morning, girls!’ She was standing right behind them. She didn’t question the tail end of the conversation she absolutely must have picked up on. She just smiled and rubbed Vicky’s hair. Maddy and Sophie appeared behind her, bleary-eyed and tangle-haired. Lorrie picked up a mug, began to fill it with tea from the pot, pouted childishly when it ran out halfway through, waited for Vicky to get up, refill the kettle and put it on to boil, and then she turned to the girls and said, as she had every single Easter morning since Vicky had known her and, she was sure, for the many years before, ‘So, who’s looking forward to an egg hunt?’
Rory and Kayleigh arrived shortly after ten. They were staying in Cirencester, with Kayleigh’s cousin, the cousin who’d originally introduced them to each other all those years ago. The only room that was free at the Bird House was Rhys’s old room and no one slept in there. Not ever. It was for the best, anyway, Vicky felt. The first and only time that Lorelei had met Kayleigh had been nothing but awkward; Lorrie didn’t like her and frankly, Vicky didn’t like her either. And who knows what state Rory would be in now, after four years in that weird commune.
He sat now, in the kitchen, with his arm around his mother. He looked, of course, very brown. Brown as a berry, as her mother always used to say, although Vicky had never actually seen a berry that was brown. He had turned lean and sinewy and had three tattoos at various junctures up his right arm. His teeth needed attention. He had taken to chewing tobacco, like a hoary old cowboy. And drinking fifty-peseta red wine from unlabelled bottles, like a hoary old Spaniard. But his hair, it was a dream. The constant sun had turned his hair back to its childhood flaxen.
‘He’s a regular Timotei boy,’ Kayleigh said, playfully rubbing his brilliant mop. ‘You should only see the fuss they make of him out there. I think they think he’s a film star, you know, the reincarnation of Robert Redford.’ She arched her eyebrows sardonically.
Kayleigh herself looked well. She’d grown her hair long again; it was halfway down her back and dyed scarlet. She had a suggestion of a tan, though it was clear that her skin didn’t quite have the gumption to go properly brown, and she seemed well fed, or, at least, better fed than she had been four years ago. She wore a faded Lycra dress and heavy boots and had a tattoo on her right arm that directly matched one of Rory’s. (Vicky had not the slightest idea what it was supposed to be; nobody had roses any more, or anchors, it was all Sanskrit this and Celtic the other.)
It had been just as Vicky had hoped it would be, like something from a TV show, when Lorrie had seen her boy standing there in the hallway half an hour ago, with a bunch of daffs and a Black Magic egg the size of a head.
Meg and Bill and the little ones were next door, variously having naps and late showers. Colin was in the garden clearing cobwebs in advance of the egg hunt (Maddy had a phobia of cobwebs) and Beth was sitting next to Vicky, with Sophie on her lap, smiling dreamily at her prodigal brother. The oven was heating up, the lamb was on the counter draped over with stems of rosemary from the garden, the pastel-coloured eggs were in a bowl ready to be distributed, the sun was fighting its way through some dense black cloud. The scene was almost set for the first proper Bird family Easter lunch, since, well, since Rhys had died.
‘So,’ said Lorrie, smiling up at her boy with sparkling eyes, ‘what are your plans, you two? Are you back for good?’
Rory and Kayleigh exchanged a look. Clearly there was some contention here.
‘For now,’ said Rory.
‘Well,’ Kayleigh interjected, ‘for a little while. Maybe a week or two.’
‘Maybe longer …’
‘Maybe. And then …’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows.’
‘Well, we do kind of know …’
The sound of Meg and her family arriving saved them the effort of trying to find an account they could both agree upon of their short-term plans. But Vicky already had half an idea. It was in the way Kayleigh was tearing at the skin around her fingernails, the new bloom upon her skin.
‘Hello, hello!’ She got to her feet to greet Bill, who she had not yet seen this morning. She loved Bill. He was the type of man she’d like for one of her daughters. Solid and fun and just sexy enough. He flirted with Vicky, in that way that men felt they could now they knew she wasn’t going to take it seriously. They were cut from the same cloth, Vicky and Bill; no-nonsense, loud, warm, family-minded and up for a laugh. They always got along.
He was wearing one of his trademark brightly coloured polo shirts with the striped collar, 501s, trainers. His hair was still wet from the shower and he had Alfie in his arms, facing outwards, the way Vicky had noticed that men always h
eld their babies, like football trophies, for the world to admire.
‘Good morning, everybody!’ he boomed in his public-school accent roughened up from his years dealing with artists in edgy corners of London.
Meg came in behind him, holding a bag full of Easter eggs and wearing bunny ears. Her mouth opened wide at the sight of her little brother at the table and she squealed, dropped the bag of eggs, darted around the table and threw herself at him. Vicky’s heart sang a little song. Families should always be together, she thought, especially families who’d been through what this one had been through.
‘Bill,’ called Meg, holding Rory’s hands in hers, ‘Bill! This is Rory! Look. It’s actually, really Rory. Molly! This is your uncle, this is Uncle Rory. You know, from Spain.’
‘Uncle Rory,’ said Rory, looking slightly puzzled by the concept.
‘Makes you sound like an old perv,’ said Kayleigh. ‘ “Come on, sit on Uncle Rory’s lap, little one, I’ve something in my pocket for you.” ’ She acted this out in the voice of an elderly man.
Vicky laughed out loud. She felt she had to, as she knew nobody else would.
Molly looked at Rory, aghast, and hid her face between Bill’s solid thighs. Rory laughed. ‘Look what you’ve done now, Kayleigh,’ he teased.
‘It’s probably for the best,’ she jested, ‘you know, in the long term. What with your being a paedophile an’ all.’
Vicky laughed again, so loud that she almost made herself jump.
‘Kayleigh,’ said Rory, taking her hand in his, ‘this is my big sister, Meg.’
‘I have heard a lot about you,’ said Kayleigh, not rising to greet Meg, but absent-mindedly putting out a limp-wristed hand as though handing a soiled stocking to a housemaid.
‘Likewise,’ said Meg, taking the hand firmly and smiling slightly – it had to be said – imperiously.
Vicky held her breath. Meg and Kayleigh. The queen bees. This was a match worth watching.
‘And look at the size of you!’ said Kayleigh, eyeing Megan’s bump with a strangely hungry look. ‘You are the ship in full sail, you really are.’
Meg squeezed in next to Rory, and Vicky saw Bethan move along to make space for Bill on her side of the table, smiling shyly at him. Bill leaned across the table with his hand extended. Rory met him halfway. ‘Nice to meet you at last,’ said Bill. ‘After all these years.’
‘Same here,’ said Rory. ‘We just missed each other, didn’t we, back in, when was it …?’
‘Ninety-five,’ said Meg. ‘Nineteen ninety-five. Just before Molly was born. You went then.’ She smiled tightly and continued, ‘Literally three weeks before my due date.’
Kayleigh pulled a face. ‘Uh-oh,’ she said, ‘we’re in trouble.’
Meg laughed. ‘Hardly,’ she scoffed. ‘It was just a pity, that was all, to have missed the birth of your first niece by three weeks.’
‘Ah, well,’ said Kayleigh, answering once again for her boyfriend, ‘you know, they’re all very dinky when they’re new, all little tiny teeny, but they’re much more interesting at this age. Big girls are much more interesting than boring little babies. All boring little babies do is piss and shit’n’ scream. Isn’t that right, Molly?’
Molly stared at her and then stared at her mother for direction, which did not come. Meg had been rendered speechless.
‘Ah, bless her,’ said Kayleigh, ‘she’s adorable. Isn’t she, Rory?’
Meg’s face softened and Rory nodded and Vicky felt it was time to gently prise the conversational reins from between Kayleigh’s fingers.
‘So’ she said brightly, slapping her hands down upon her lap. ‘Who’s ready for an egg hunt, then?’
Across the table she caught Lorrie’s eye. There was a hint of dark resentment there. Vicky caught her breath. She’d gone too far, she’d crossed a line. It was always such a blasted balancing act with Lorrie, between caring for her, picking up the slack, and disempowering her, and she was always always getting it wrong. ‘Lorrie,’ she soothed, ‘darling. Egg-hunt time! Over to you.’
Lorrie’s dark look diminished and she smiled girlishly, delightedly. Clap clap went her long bony hands, clap clap, and there it was, sunshine, literally, not figuratively; the sun appearing from behind the thick wall of cloud, casting its good mood across the room, across the family, across Easter.
Beth lay in the hammock, contemplating her feet. She had never before thought of her feet as alluring in any way. In fact, she’d never really thought about her feet at all. They had just lived quietly on the ends of her legs; a narrow size six, slightly sinewy, sometimes with coloured nails, sometimes not. But she looked at her feet now and tried to see what he saw, tried to see them as objects of sensual, remarkable erogenousness. He had told her that her feet were beautiful. And maybe they were. She wanted to believe every word he said.
She turned her head to look up towards the house. She could hear the clatter of things being put into the dishwasher, other things being placed on shelves, children fighting, adults laughing. She heard her mother call out, ‘Oh, Meg, it was nothing like that, nothing at all!’ She heard the back door opening and closing and then she heard the sound of Bill’s voice. She heard him say, ‘I’m off for a smoke, Meg, keep the kids away.’ She smiled. Bill’s children didn’t know he smoked.
She looked up again, into the sky. It was lilac, veined with jet trails and wisps of cloud. Then she peered down, into her dress, plucked at the top of her bra, gazed at her breasts. Her lovely firm, youthful breasts (he’d told her that too). She thought of the way he grabbed them as though they were handfuls of dough, the way he licked them and cupped them and held himself between them. She shuddered slightly, with a kind of awful disgust. And then she heard his feet against the grass, soft and strong, and there he was, standing alongside her, pulling a pack of Camels from the back pocket of his jeans. He offered the pack to her, silently, with one eyebrow raised.
She plucked one out and let him pull her to a sitting position.
‘Well,’ he said, lowering himself gently down alongside her. ‘That was … different.’
‘Kayleigh, you mean?’
‘Christ above, what a piece of work.’
Beth laughed. ‘She is that.’
‘Poor Rory,’ he sighed, lighting Beth’s cigarette for her. ‘She’s got his balls in a vice.’
Beth smiled and didn’t say, ‘Haven’t they all?’
They smoked their cigarettes in silence for a while, enjoying the proximity of each other’s bodies, knowing that there was nothing more for them here than this, smoking cigarettes, chatting in the dusk. There were other places for the rest of it. This was not one of those places.
‘He’s very different, isn’t he?’ said Bill, bending down to grind his cigarette out in the grass. ‘Different to the rest of you?’
Beth put her hand up the back of his T-shirt and ran it up and down the small of his back, his satin skin, the points of his spine. He arched against her touch.
‘We’re all different to the rest of us,’ she said. ‘We’re like a badly planned dinner party.’ She turned her fingertips into claws and scratched at his skin.
‘Ooh, yes,’ he said, ‘just there, just there, no, there, there, up a bit, just to the left, to the right, back to the middle, ooh, yeah, yeah, right there, right there!’
Back-scratching was one of their things. Along with foot-kissing and breast-licking and a special position that they honestly believed they must have invented because they’d been through the Kama Sutra more than once and failed to find it. Beth had always thought she didn’t like sex. Bill was doing everything in his power to prove to her that she did. She was still only half convinced. She still couldn’t really work out what the point of it was. But it made Bill happy and as long as she was making Bill happy, Beth was happy.
Beth quickly snatched her hand from under his T-shirt at the sound of a voice in the top garden. They both sat straight-backed, unnatural.
It was Vicky.
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br /> She smiled when she saw them there. ‘Hello, you two!’ she boomed, zipped up snugly inside a purple Boden body-warmer, her strong arms swinging at her sides. ‘What on earth are you doing out here in the half-dark?’
‘We’re dissecting,’ said Bill.
Vicky looked from Bill to Beth and then back again. Beth gulped and felt her skin prickle all over with guilt. Bill was so good at this, so blasé.
‘She’s a pill, all right,’ said Vicky, leaning against a tree trunk and tucking her hands into her pockets. ‘She just told me that I’m not really a lesbian.’
‘What!’
‘Yes, and – I will not attempt to do this in her accent – she said, “You’ve just decided to be gay because you wanted your feet under the table here.”’ Vicky hooted loudly. ‘Outrageous! The girl doesn’t know the first thing about me.’
Beth smiled tightly. She had no idea if Vicky was a real lesbian or not, and she was still too uncomfortable sitting here, squashed up against her sister’s partner, in a hammock, in the dark, even to begin to join in this conversation.
‘What the fuck is a “real lesbian” anyway?’ said Bill. ‘It’s all shades of grey.’
‘Well, yes,’ agreed Vicky, ‘exactly. Who’s to say? I mean, would you decree that a person was not a “proper” heterosexual because they’d once had a crush on the head girl?’ She tutted and sighed. ‘Well, anyway, all I can say is that I’m jolly glad she’s not a permanent fixture. She adds a certain colour but with a rather bad flavour, if you see what I mean.’ She pulled her hands out of her pockets and slapped them against her legs. ‘Well, I’d better get back inside, make sure Lorrie’s OK. Are you coming in?’
She glanced again from one to the other, and then up to the darkening sky. A look passed across her eyes, as though she were doing long division in her head. Beth flinched.