by Adele Geras
‘Now, Megan, I’m very sorry to have to say this, because as you know, I avoid clichés like the plague … ha! ha! But he isn’t worth crying over, really.’
‘As you don’t know who it is I’m crying about, you have no idea if he’s worth it or not,’ I said. A silence followed and I began to mop at my eyes and nose with a screwed-up tissue I’d found in the pocket of my trackie bottoms.
Felix looked down at his hands and sighed. ‘I do know, actually. Don’t look like that. No one else does.’
I was too stunned to cry. I sat there with my mouth open, astonished. I’d been so sure that nothing, nothing I’d done could have given away my secret. I said, feebly: ‘How? How do you know? When did you find out?’
Felix said, ‘Well, I don’t know why everyone else in the place is so unobservant. I noticed how you kept your eyes on him at meetings. You blushed every time he walked into the room. You said his name as often as you possibly could. Do I have to spell it out?’
‘You must think I’m—’
‘No, I don’t. I also noticed something no one else seems to have grasped.’
‘What’s that?’
Felix stood up. ‘I’ll just go and get myself another coffee, if you don’t mind. Won’t be long.’
‘Don’t go. Wait. Get your coffee in a second. Tell me first. What do you mean? What did you grasp?’
He came back and sat down next to me. ‘I mean … I’ve been at lipstick longer than Simon. I was there when he was appointed editor and I know him pretty well. He’s always been Mr Cool and Uncaring before but with you—’
‘What, what with me?’
‘He unbent. He was almost tender with you. I don’t think anyone else saw it but I did.’
I thought: tender. I changed him from Mr Cool to someone tender. Felix carried on as though we were having an ordinary conversation. As though he’d cheered me up and we were gossiping about someone we both vaguely knew. He couldn’t possibly have known what his words were doing to me. He took my hand in his and patted it. He said, ‘He obviously didn’t think as much of you as you did of him. You’re far, far better off without him, you know. Good riddance, I’d say.’
I felt bruised and raw all over.
*
‘Is it true, Granny? Are we really going to have a nanny? Like in the olden days?’ Dee and Bridie were sitting on the red velvet sofa in the study. The children called it a squashy sofa and that described it well. Eva had had her fill of hard armchairs in Agnes Conway’s house. She made sure that any sofa she ever bought was one you could sink into, and had lots of cushions piled on to it as well. Bridie was hugging one of these now. She was probably, Eva thought, pretending it was a creature of some sort. The child had a repertoire of complex imaginary games and was good at keeping up the pretence. Dee, who was much more practical, had tucked her long legs under her and was fiddling with one of her red-gold plaits, looking worried. ‘Like Mary Poppins or Nanny McPhee?’
‘No, nothing like them, I’m sure,’ Eva answered. The girls often came to see her in the morning before they went to school. Eva looked forward to this time, between the end of breakfast and before they left the house with their father. He worked from home but Eva didn’t take too much of an interest because the whole subject (IT and everything that went with it) bored her, but she was glad to have him around. She was even more glad that he spent most of his time in his own study, a purpose-built shed (far too big and grand for a real shed but that was what Conor always called it) erected in a distant part of the garden. As for Rowena, what she did in her accountancy office was even more mysterious. Eva imagined her adding up numbers but of course that was ridiculous. She’d be dealing with people’s tax problems and the kind of fiscal complications that made Eva’s eyes water. She’d relied on her accountant for many things but it was hard to imagine other people being so dependent on Rowena. She clearly had a talent with numbers. Perhaps my father was an accountant, Eva thought. The last time I saw him I was too young either to know what he did or to care very much.
Rowena would already be on the train to London. For a split second, Eva saw the morning through her daughter’s eyes: how horrible it must be to get up before anyone else and leave the house while it was still dark for much of the year. The very next instant she thought: I did it. While I was still working in London, I did it and never complained. But it wasn’t for long and it wasn’t easy, said an inner voice which Eva chose to ignore. She went on talking to the girls.
‘Your mother and father will find a nice young woman to look after you. Just till they settle what’s going to happen about finding a new house.’
‘But I like this house,’ Bridie said. She was six years old, a solemn, sturdy, dark-haired child with a round face and a neatly cut fringe which gave her the look of an animated doll.
‘So do I, darling. So do I. Now, isn’t it time you went and found Daddy? You don’t want to be late for school. Come and give me a kiss goodbye.’
‘Will we be able to choose the person?’ Bridie asked. ‘The one who’s going to look after us? That’d be fair, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’m sure your mother’ll consult you,’ Eva said and made a note to remember to mention that to Rowena. Bridie was right. It would never do to appoint someone the girls had never laid eyes on.
After Dee and Bridie had gone, Eva went to sit at the desk under the window. The monkey-puzzle tree which grew a little too close to the house was just outside and to the left. It was the first thing you saw when you looked out at the lawn, which sloped away to the laburnum and magnolia trees fringing the edge of the property. The window had been quite small when they first moved in, but they’d had it enlarged and now it occupied almost the whole of the west-facing wall. She looked out at the long border. It had taken years to create the tapestry effect she’d wanted: dense, subtly coloured and ornate but she’d achieved it at last and now she would have to leave it to someone else.
For years, Eva had worked in the garden alongside a couple of young men she’d found in the village who used to come in and do the heavy work. She’d turned it, not quite single-handedly, into the beautiful place it now was. It had taken hours of poring over catalogues and visiting nurseries, as well as thousands of drawings almost as careful as the ones she did when she was still designing clothes for someone other than the Belstone Players, to get it to this point. Almost the worst thing about leaving Salix House would be leaving the garden behind. Wherever I go, she thought, I’m not likely to have anywhere like this to play with. I might get a nice little patio on which to make a minimalist Japanese-style garden. The trouble was, minimalist was the exact opposite of what she liked, but she determined not to worry about such things until she could no longer avoid it.
I can’t fight to stay here, she thought, because Rowena is determined and perhaps she’s also right, and it’s impractical and ridiculous to want to hang on to the past. But she had made this place herself. Everything in Salix House was there because she wanted it to be there. Everywhere else, since she’d arrived in this country as a small child, was somewhere foreign, someone else’s idea of a house and she’d had to become a person she wasn’t: someone put together from different bits of herself, but missing an important truth. She had always, from the moment she’d opened her mouth to speak her first English word, been part of a terrible lie. She came to England all by herself, Agnes used to tell her friends. Only Eva knew that Angelika had started the journey with her. Poor little thing, they would say and make ‘tsk’ ing noises with their teeth and pat Eva on the head or hands. Since speaking of her sister to the woman on the train, she had never said one word about her and no one, not Agnes nor anyone else, had ever guessed at her existence. Eva shivered to think of what she’d done.
5
Time goes by so slowly when you’re unhappy that it’s exhausting. I couldn’t do anything after Felix left yesterday. I haven’t been able to do anything today either. Jay and I had a long conversation on Skype almost as soon as
she’d got back from work. My eleven thirty at night.
‘All things considered,’ she said gently, ‘you don’t look too bad.’
‘I feel bloody awful.’
‘It’s not death, Megs. It’s grim for a bit but it’ll get better. You’ll meet someone else.’
‘I don’t want anyone else.’
She sighed, but not in an impatient way. More regretful. ‘That’s now. You can’t imagine anything else in the world but things change and they get better and you’ll find another job and meet other people and then … you’ll see. You’re not going to be single for ever you know. Statistically, that’s just unlikely.’
She looked so earnest that I smiled. ‘Oh well. Statistics have always been a great help in situations like this.’ She opened her mouth to say something but I interrupted her. ‘I’m sorry, Jay. I really am, only there’s no one else I can talk to like I can to you. I’m loading you down with my stuff. You’ve got stuff of your own and I never even ask you about it. Soz.’
I looked at my friend in her smart Manhattan flat … apartment … I took in the suit (either Donna Karan or a good imitation. Probably the former), her very fair hair cut in the sharpest of bobs and her wide mouth, still immaculately lipsticked even though it was quite late in the evening. Stylish, that’s what Jay was. Would always be. I couldn’t imagine her falling to pieces over any man.
‘I don’t have time for love. Scarcely have time for sex, if I’m honest. Statistics have their downside, right?’
After I’d spoken to Jay, I made the mistake of turning on my phone and reading the messages from people in the office, expressing surprise, friendship, solidarity. Telling me to get in touch. I cried over some of them but I wasn’t strong enough to reply. There wasn’t a message from Simon and as I turned off my phone again, I knew that I’d only turned it on hoping that there would be. Some magic words, some spell that would make everything okay again. Nothing.
I was still, after more than twenty-four hours, feeling stunned. Tender, Felix had said. I’d turned Simon into someone tender. He couldn’t have been the way he was with me and not loved me a little. But he never said he loved you, I thought. Not even once. He hadn’t needed to. I told myself that actions speak louder than words. They might do for all I know, but the words mean something too. I could imagine him thinking to himself: Well, I haven’t lied to her. I never said I loved her. The fact was, by the time I started needing to hear him telling me he loved me, it was too late. I was besotted with him. Besides, every time we were together he proved how much he loved me. That’s what I thought, at least.
But it was my fault. I knew he was married and I could have had a bit more sense and self-control. Instead of doing what I did: trying to make him notice my eagerness for work and my enthusiasm for staying late at the office.
When I first came to this flat, I used to jump when the post was delivered because my flap made such a loud noise. I soon got used to it and now no longer noticed it. If I heard the noise in the afternoon and evening, it was generally a flyer from a takeaway joint. But because I was just sitting there, feeling unhappy and not doing much else, the noise of something being pushed through my letterbox caught my attention. Whoever was there was taking rather more care, as though trying to make as little racket as possible. I went to the door, and instead of a pizza flyer or a sheaf of coupons for unmissable offers at Asda, I saw a long white envelope. I could see my name written on it. Megan – not typed but handwritten. I recognized Simon’s writing and my heart began to beat alarmingly fast. Pick it up, you idiot, I told myself. It’ll be the cheque. The money he’s paying you for leaving lipstick. For throwing in the job you loved. I held the envelope in my hands and took it back to the sofa, wondering why I was making such a fuss about a perfectly business-like communication, which I’d been expecting. There was no stamp. He must have walked up to my door. He must have stood out there, while I was in here, and he hadn’t knocked. He didn’t want to see me. He couldn’t have made that any clearer. I took a deep breath and tore open the envelope.
The cheque was there. It was surprisingly generous. I read the letter that came with it about five times, trying to find a meaning in it that just wasn’t there.
Dear Megan
(after all this time all I merited was a Dear. Fuck him.)
Here’s the cheque as promised. I’m more sorry than I can say that you’ve left lipstick. I hope you’ll get the kind of job you deserve and as I said, any time you want a reference from me, just say.
Love, (not really love. Just the convention. He might as well have put luv like in a text.)
Simon.
Not worth keeping. I put the cheque in my wallet and tore the single page of the letter across and across again and dropped the pieces in the bin.
I slept badly that night and woke up very early, but as soon as I was sure that the newsagent down the road would be open, I went out to get the latest issue of lipstick. It was out today. At least I have that, I thought. My article about Eva Conway. My name in print.
A thin drizzle was falling as I walked. I was completely exhausted. Maybe it was because I was tired; maybe what had happened with Simon was bringing back the one thing I tried hard not to return to. Everyone, I told myself, has something in their life that they keep firmly under control. The last few months had been so busy that I’d managed not to think about my particular secret for a long time but now it had returned to the top of my thoughts. I thought I’d almost scrubbed it from my mind for ever, but no. For God’s sake, Megan, I told myself, anyone would think you were the only teenager ever to have an abortion. It had been my decision and I could’ve changed my mind, right up to the last moment. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that my parents disagreed about what I ought to do.
My father and mother married late. He was well over forty when I appeared, and already going grey. He looked more like my grandfather by the time I got to school and this embarrassed me a bit but I loved him. Mum was a Catholic but I had no idea that her religion meant anything to her until I got pregnant. She never said so, but that was what really split them up. Dad thought Mum was getting at me, trying to force me to keep the baby, and he hated it. He’s not an easy person to row with, but after it was all over, he quietly announced that he was leaving for New Zealand.
‘You’ve found someone else,’ my mother fumed at him. ‘How can you just abandon us? What’ll we do?’
He deliberately misunderstood her. ‘We’ll divorce. Lots of people do it. No need for dramatics. I think we’ll both be happier if we did. Megan can come and visit me, can’t you, Megan? You’d like New Zealand.’
I didn’t say a word. Part of me did feel abandoned. He was the parent I loved best: how could he just let me carry on here without him? Still, what he said was true and I could see why he wanted to go. There’d been a coolness between my parents for years. My pregnancy turned it into a battle.
My mother begged me, pleaded with me, to have the baby. She said she’d look after it. She said the birth didn’t have to spoil my life, spoil my chances. She didn’t quite say that the child would be far better off with her as a mother instead of me, but she thought it. I know she did. My father simply said: ‘You should let Megan decide what she wants to do. It’s really none of our business.’ He looked straight at me and smiled. ‘I’ll help you, if you want to have an abortion. Of course I will. Financially and in every other way.’
I was so grateful to him. My mother tried a different tack.
‘What about the father?’ she asked. ‘You won’t tell me who it is, but doesn’t he have any say in the matter?’
‘No,’ I answered.
‘That’s disgusting. That’s immoral.’ She was almost spitting at me.
I said nothing. I didn’t want to dignify the person who’d fumbled clumsily with me during a drunken party with the title of ‘Father’. I felt ashamed at my own behaviour. I hardly knew the boy and that was what he was: a boy. We were both sixteen. He was the cousin of s
omeone at school. Neil. For twelve years, I’ve made an effort to not think about him – to push his name down into a dark place in my head where it doesn’t disturb me. If I met someone called that now I’d be okay, I think, but for a long time I dreaded coming across a Neil and having to speak the word aloud.
To give her credit, my mother did help me in the end, when she saw I wasn’t going to give in. She knew Dad wouldn’t be of any practical use whatsoever. She dealt with the medical stuff; she took me to the clinic. She brought me tea, cup after cup. Then two things happened; three, if I count my father and mother divorcing and him leaving.
The first was that I felt that my mother loved me less because of what I’d done. She withdrew a little. She wasn’t exactly the most demonstrative person before, but afterwards, she seemed to become detached from me. That was how it felt anyway. I should’ve spoken to her about it, I can see that now, but I didn’t because part of me was happy not to have her on my case, nagging and reproaching. Her coolness was a reproach, but I could deal with that better than I could face constant yattering on about how I’d ruined my life. I told myself it didn’t matter. I’d be away at college soon. I wasn’t going to live at home after graduation. The paper that took me on (and I knew I was lucky to get a job, any job) was in my home town. So, I found myself a tiny flat to rent – not much more than a bedsit really – even though my mother thought I was mad not to come and sleep in the bedroom I’d had since I was three. I went to visit her of course, but I was getting more and more desperate to leave Northampton, to go to London and part of that was wanting to be a journalist, longing to write. More than anything I dreamed of getting on to the staff of a magazine. I was sick of covering school events and local sports and petty criminal stuff, but I knew that I’d also be much happier a bit further away from my mother, a little less liable to get a visit from her whenever she felt like it.