by Lisa Jewell
But they had not talked about the things that needed to be talked about. They had not talked about Bill. They had not talked about the father of Beth’s child. And all the while, Lorelei’s house sat behind them, with its thick layers and crusts and walls of composted newspapers, waiting, patiently, ominously, for them to unclog its arteries and bring forth its buried secrets.
Megan could feel herself physically bristling with questions. They were like tiny crackerjacks going off under cushions. She had barely recognised her sister standing there outside the house. She looked so solid. So substantial. Her black hair, which had been drab and dry last time she’d seen her, was gleaming and multi-hued. Her skin was plump and soft, like a girl half her age. Megan had had to remind herself that Bethan was actually thirty-eight years old. Nearly forty. Not a child. Not the wan, feeble thing who’d fainted on her sofa all those years ago. And that bump! So big, so proud. So full of baby and wonder and awe. But where the hell had it come from? For all the dazzling good looks and the big tits and the shagging of her husband, Beth had always seemed curiously sexless to Meg. Like her dad. The two of them. The dark horses.
She had never before contemplated the possibility of Beth having a baby. Because Beth had always been a baby. She’d always been the biddable dolly in the pink polka-dot raincoat. Even Bill had said she wasn’t sexy. Not in that way.
And now here she was, awesomely, in-your-face fecund. And sexy with it.
‘Where have you been?’ she wanted to screech. ‘Whose baby is it?’ ‘What made you decide you were ready to be a mother?’ ‘Why did you leave me alone for so long?’ ‘What the hell have you been doing all this time?’ ‘Who are you?’
She saw Bethan eyeing the wedding ring on her left hand. She pulled it away subtly. Bethan clearly had questions of her own, but not now, she thought, not yet. They could wait. Right now they had a hoard to sort.
Colin left the house for an hour and returned with four large storage boxes. ‘One for each of us,’ he said. ‘For things we want to keep, for ourselves.’
Megan eyed it suspiciously. The thought of anything from this mouldering freak show of a house coming back into her own temple of pristineness made her feel queasy. But as the day went on she did find herself slipping the occasional object into the box: a set of four cereal bowls in lustrous pearlised pastels, an art nouveau soup ladle with roses on the handle, four unopened packets of plain red paper napkins (perfect for dinner parties), a simple turquoise glass vase, an ornate bone-handled cake slice. Beth found things to keep too: a pair of mosaic vases, a set of fish knives in a velvet-lined box, lace-edged napkins, newborn nappies, unopened packets of pink Babygros, baby muslins and a box of brand-new baby bottles. Molly put aside some trashy jewellery, retro sunglasses, candles, opaque tights, bundles of multicoloured elastic hairbands and a framed painting of a kitten which she said was ‘so bad it’s good’. They filled the two skips again, mainly with newspapers and broken furniture, out-of-date food, things that smelled and things that had no use.
In between they drank cold water in the garden and lay in the sun. Like any challenge in life, once the mind was focused on the job in question, it became a simple matter of getting on with it, inch by inch, step by step. They tried not to ponder the magnitude of the project, tried not think about the big picture – just each box, each bag, each drawer, each cupboard. And in this way, it began to feel almost normal, what they were doing here.
As the shadows grew long across the unkempt lawn (Colin was saving the mowing of the lawn back into stripes as a treat to look forward to once the house was cleared), Meg told Molly she’d be back soon, and she took cold Cokes and a bag of Maltesers to the end of the garden, where she’d seen Bethan heading a few minutes earlier. Beth was lying in the green rope hammock, cloaked in gold light, her bare feet crossed at the ankles, her hands resting together on her belly.
‘Hammock’s still here,’ said Megan.
Beth nodded and smiled and pulled her feet towards her to make space for Megan. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘hard to believe. And still in good nick.’
Meg sat down gingerly, fairly convinced that the thing would rip apart beneath their combined weight, feeling pleasantly surprised by the sense of being the lightest sister on the hammock, the smallest person. ‘Here.’ She passed Beth a Coke. ‘Unless you’re doing one of those really uptight, my-body-is-my-baby’s-temple kind of pregnancies?’
‘No!’ She snatched the can from Meg’s hand and cracked it open. ‘No way. Thank you.’
She took a sip and then said, ‘Sorry. I needed a break.’
‘I didn’t come down here to tell you off. I think we’re about done for the day anyway. You’ve done brilliantly. Considering.’
Beth smiled and stroked her stomach.
‘Are you having a good pregnancy?’
Bethan nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So far so good.’
There was a brief silence. Hardly surprising, as everything in the universe sat on the other side of it.
Megan pulled open the bag of Maltesers and offered them to Beth. In another world they would be like the girls in the adverts, finding childishly adorable ways to make each other laugh with a packet of sweets. In this world they were about to be very serious indeed.
Megan started, because Megan always did. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Where are you having her? Will you stay here?’
Bethan nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s good timing.’ She flushed at the realisation of her words. ‘I mean, God, obviously, it’s not good at all. But I’d been dithering for weeks about where to give birth. And then I got your email about Mum. And it made my mind up for me.’
Megan nodded and then let loose the next big question. ‘And what about the father?’
Bethan shrugged, plucked at the ring pull on the drink. ‘Good question.’
‘I mean, will he join you here for the birth? Is he Australian? Or …?’
‘I don’t know.’ Beth stared darkly into her own lap. ‘I don’t know who the father is.’
Megan nodded, possible scenarios crowding her head.
Beth sighed and raised her gaze to the back of the house. ‘It could be … I mean … I went through a kind of phase. I don’t remember much about it now. It was after therapy. I had all this therapy. After … you know, Vicky’s funeral, and it wasn’t just that, what happened that day. It was everything. It was the panic attacks, the blackouts. It was Jason and Richard and you and Rhys and Mum—’
‘Me?’ Megan cut in.
‘Well, yes, I mean, my relationship with you. With everyone. Not just you. But you were part of it. And we went over so much stuff, I mean, things I hadn’t remembered, thought about for so long. Like, for example, we worked out that the reason I’d always been teetotal was because of the smell, that day, when we found Rhys, and Mum and Vicky, their breath, the red wine. It was so strong on them, so rancid. And Vicky’s teeth were stained red and I’d obviously made this association, subconsciously, between alcohol and tragedy.’ She looked at Meg, then dropped her gaze and shook her head. ‘And I got better and better and the panic attacks stopped and I was strong and excited and thinking about coming home, thinking about you and Bill and the kids and Mum and …’ She stopped again. ‘I went kind of too far the other way. Started drinking.’
‘Drinking?’
‘Yes, I know. And sleeping with lots of men. Lots and lots of men. One-night stands, mainly. I don’t know why. I really don’t. I mean, I’ve never been that interested really, in men, in sex. Christ, I know that probably sounds weird to you …’ She finally looked at Megan then. Her eyes were filled with shame.
‘Well, no,’ said Megan, ‘no. Bill said you weren’t that into the, you know …’
‘Urgh.’ Beth shuddered and brought her arms around her knees. ‘God. Sorry. I mean, shit. Sorry! Meg! I can’t even …’
‘It’s fine.’
‘No!’ Beth snapped at her. ‘No! Of course it’s not fine. It’s awful. It’s evil. It’s shockin
g. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my whole entire stupid life! And I don’t understand it! I really, really don’t. I mean …’ Her gaze went once again to Megan. ‘You’re my sister. My sister!’
‘But honestly, Beth …’ Meg’s voice was soft, soothing. She’d come so far since that day at the funeral. She’d come through the long nights when she could have killed Beth with her bare hands. When she might have thrown Beth and Bill out of an aeroplane and enjoyed watching them spiral to their deaths. She’d come through fury and humiliation and shock and agony. And now she was here. In this bland place. And she didn’t want her sister making it raw again. ‘Honestly. That was then. We were all different then. I was different, Bill was different. And now we’re different again.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t forgive what I did, does it? Nothing could ever do that. Not you, not the passage of time, nothing. It’s here –’ she clutched at her heart – ‘buried in there. All the time. Everywhere I go. And it hurts me.’
Meg nodded and touched Bethan’s knee. ‘It hurt me too. It hurt more than anything ever hurt me in my life. But look at us now. You’re about to have a baby. Me and Bill are happy.’
‘Are you?’ Beth sniffed and looked up miserably at Megan. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. We are.’
‘But I don’t understand how you could be.’
‘Because we wanted to be,’ said Megan simply.
Beth flinched. ‘You’re married,’ she said, after drawing a breath.
Megan glanced at her ring. ‘Yes. Last year. Finally. Although we got engaged a year to the day after I let him back into the house.’
‘How long was he out of the house?’
Megan sighed. She didn’t want to do this. She’d put this all in a box and had no desire to unpack it again. ‘A few weeks.’ She shrugged. ‘It was bad. He wanted me to understand. I did not want to understand.’
‘He’s always been nuts about you.’
Megan frowned. ‘Yes.’
‘I was just …’
‘I know what you were. He told me. He said …’
Beth stared at her imploringly. She wanted to hear it. She didn’t want to hear it. It would hurt her. It would help her. Meg sighed. ‘He said that you were the other side of me. The side I wouldn’t let him get to.’
Beth flinched. ‘I know,’ she said after a moment. ‘I knew. It was obvious. I knew it was never, ever about me. It was always about you. Everything was about you.’
‘Is that what your therapist told you?’ Meg asked with a grim smile.
Beth laughed a small laugh and let her head fall on to her chest. ‘Kind of, I suppose. He said lots of things. Lots and lots of things. You were definitely part of it. But, shit, I mean, there was so much other stuff. About Mum, and Rhys. I think …’
Megan watched her sister searching for words. She was plucking at the loose threads on the hammock, her Coke can nestled in the triangle between her crossed legs.
‘I think,’ Beth tried again, ‘that something happened, the night before he killed himself. And I think I might have seen it. Or been part of it.’
Megan straightened at these unexpected words. ‘What?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just this feeling, I’ve always had it. Like it was my fault. Like something happened and it was my fault. And I’ve kind of blocked it out. I used to have these dreams.’
Megan stared at her encouragingly.
‘Awful dreams. About all of us. Kind of … sexual.’ She shuddered lightly.
‘Well, that’s fairly normal, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes. And no. Because I was never in them. It was the rest of you. I was watching the rest of you.’ She shuddered again. ‘And Rhys. Always Rhys. My therapist and I, we never got to the bottom of it. But he thinks it’s connected. To that night.’
Megan shook her head lightly, trying to rearrange her thoughts into a recognisable pattern. ‘What did we do that night?’ she said. ‘I can’t even remember.’
‘Neither can I. Not in any detail.’
‘I remember I had to sleep on a mattress in your room,’ said Meg. ‘Because Mum had dumped loads of stuff in mine. I remember us lying there in the dark, talking about you coming to live in London.’
Beth smiled sadly at the memory. ‘It was before that,’ she said. ‘Early evening. It was still light.’ She sighed loudly and stroked her belly. ‘Everyone was downstairs playing Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit or something. Something noisy, anyway. I came upstairs for some reason or another – I can’t remember – and I saw Mum coming out of Rhys’s room. And she looked … I can’t really explain it but she looked freaked. Totally and utterly freaked out. And I stared at her and she stared at me and I said, “Are you OK?” And she nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t. And I just knew that something awful had happened, and I felt like it was something …’ She stopped. A significant silence stretched out. She smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’ll never know. And maybe I’m imagining it, anyway. You know, maybe I was so desperate for there to have been a reason for why he did it that I invented one.’ She shrugged.
Megan smiled at her sister. She patted her kneecap and said, ‘The hardest thing to accept is that some things happen for absolutely no reason at all.’
‘I’m not sure I can ever accept that,’ she said and then her face brightened and she sat up. ‘Ouf,’ she said. ‘She’s kicking. Wow, really hard!’
‘Can I feel?’
Beth nodded and Meg put her hand on the hard, tight bump. And there it was. Bump against the palm of her hand. Bump again. The small heel or fist of her unborn niece. She looked at Beth, her baby sister, one of the greatest loves of her life, and she said, ‘I missed you.’
Beth took her hand, smiled and said, ‘I’m back.’
‘Are you doing this on your own, then?’
Beth nodded. ‘Just me and her.’ She looked up at Megan. ‘And you,’ she said, in a small voice, ‘if you’ll have me?’
Megan squeezed her hand. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
13
Saturday 5th February 2011
Thank you, Jim, for your honesty.
It was awfully nosy of me to ask but as ever you took me the right way. You are about the only person, Jim, in my whole life, who has really known how to take me. It is a glorious thing! It was fascinating for me to hear in your own words how you feel when you’re on a bender. Although it did, of course, also make me feel unutterably sad. It made me want to rush up there on the first train and look into your eyes and hold your hands and tell you that I had the key to make you stop. But I don’t, of course. I know as well as you do that only the individual has the key to change themselves. It’s buried deep inside each and every one of us and although someone else can help us to find the key, we’re the only ones who can use it. And there, of course, is the pathetic irony that in order for me to come to you and help you find your key I’d have to find my own first. It’s all just a series of tightly wound threads. It’s all just impossible, Jim, truly.
And thank you, as well, for sharing with me the things that happened to you when you were young. You poor, poor little thing. Is it any wonder, really, that some of us can’t cope with being grownups when adults treated us the way they did. If an adult cannot do a simple thing like take care of a child … well, it’s just an endless cycle. I’m sure your mother had her own stories, her own bad experiences and so it goes on. You wanted to know about the blemish on my childhood. I can see what you’re trying to do here, Jim, you’re trying to fix me, aren’t you?! Long-distance analysis so that maybe one day I might be well enough to come and see you. And my goodness I would like to be well enough to come and see you, so I will offer myself up to you for you – analyse away!
My mother was raped. By a family friend. I knew nothing about it at the time, but my sister told me when I was about sixteen. Turns out it was the same family friend who’d tried to stick his tongue down my throat the week before she told me. I’d laughed
that off, dirty old man, you know. But then to discover that that same sleazebag had done what he did to my mother. And no, we never discussed it. I always wanted to. I always meant to. Every time I found myself alone with my mother I’d open my mouth to ask about it, but the words wouldn’t come, I was terrified I was going to rip open a wound that had healed. And then she died. And then my dad died. And that was that. Her rapist turned up at her funeral. I punched him. Can you believe that? Me! Lorelei Bird! I punched a six-foot man, clean on his jaw, hurt me more than it hurt him, I’d wager. But it made me feel good. I think it changed me for ever, that punch.
But yes, there it was, all the way through my childhood, first the stillborn girl, then the rape and all the silence and all the secrecy. The atmosphere, always there like a sinister fog. The resentment (my father clearly believed it had something to do with my mother, that she’d brought it on herself in some way. He used to talk to her as if he HATED her) and the focus on the SELF that such a psychological injury can incur. My mother was always gazing at her own navel, to the detriment of her daughters. Awful, awful. So I leapt on the first undamaged man to cross my path and made him fill me up with babies so that I could do it my way. And hey, whaddya know, my way has ended up full of secrets and silence too!! Different silence. Different secrets. But still, it’s all there. The Things We Cannot Talk About. And I can see now how it’s poisoned everything. It’s all such a terrible shame.
But well, hopefully the rot will stop with Megan. She’s such a super mother and wife. Really. I know I moan about her and her obsession with cleanliness and order. But really, she is doing an amazing job. She’s so grounded and I have no idea how or why. Her children adore her and they adore each other. And as for her husband (if she can forgive him, then so can I), he worships the ground she walks on. So yes, hopefully, there it is. The end of the cycle. For them, at least.