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THE next morning she arrived at the reading room where the other assistant, a postgrad she recognised, had already started working on the papers. ‘Matt, this is Rita. I thought you could do with the help.’ Matt clearly thought otherwise but agreed to explain the filing system and colour-coded dots they needed to stick on each document.
‘Right,’ he said, his eyes fleetingly meeting hers. Her heart stopped, as, it seemed, did his. ‘I’ll leave you both to it then.’
That afternoon, at his flat by the river, after he answered the door, he pulled her inside to kiss her, carrying her backwards, tumbling onto the sofa, then off the sofa onto the rug.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, as he was lifting off her top. ‘I just can’t keep my hands off you.’
She kissed his mouth, her hands around his neck, revelling in the taste of him: ‘Forgiven.’
There were four more glorious days, when they became reckless, and, despite earlier reservations, she stayed over each night. Evenings when he did not only undress her; he unwrapped her. He was, it seemed, interested in everything about her, and a seasoned inquisitor; she talked about herself more and more, in answer to his queries. Her family, her mother’s sewing trade, growing up in London. Her cousin Seline, the stories of Kathak, her teacher Jayshri. The first night she stayed, he ran a bath: he wanted to share it with her. In the tub, she leaned back against his chest, between his legs, as he wet her hair and shoulders with a sponge, lathered her back and then her breasts and before long he was inside her again, his mouth searching round for hers, water splashing out onto the floor. She would wake to find his hand touching a part of her as he slept, as if to ensure she would stay near him, that she was real. Mornings were filled with the anguish of knowing that she would need to wait another eight hours before she could lie in his arms again. The first morning she took the earliest bus back, to let herself into the room she was renting, quietly, before her landlady woke. The next, more careless behaviour: he drove her back, dropping her on the street in front of her landlady’s building. And with each encounter she became more adept at pretending that he was a widower of sorts, ignoring the photos, not many to be said, of him and his wife. She padded around their flat in bare feet, wearing one of his shirts.
Then his wife returned. He had warned her the previous night, driving her back to her lodgings just before midnight in a heavy silence, kissing her briefly on the lips with a sad smile: Good night, Rita. He still came into the reading room first thing in the morning, to greet Matt and her, but he avoided her eyes. It was the end, and she pined for him; each evening she was tempted to take herself back to his flat by the river. But she didn’t, and there was silence for five days: no messages, no invitations. She could only imagine the scenario back in his flat: would his wife have returned, unsuspecting, and they had fallen back into the routine they must have shared for decades? Perhaps he had lied: perhaps he took his wife to bed, picking her up at the front door as he had done her, made love to her to assuage any feelings of guilt on his part or any fragments of suspicion she might have. How could she, a mere girl, displace a woman he had known since he was the age she was now, and a beautiful, accomplished woman at that?
The time passed inexorably slowly; every minute was spent wondering whether he would arrive suddenly at her side: come with me, Rita. In the evenings, she returned to her lodgings where the landlady, who had taken her in on Ben’s request, expressed some surprise that she was staying in so much when the weather was so fine and, Rita knew, in contrast to her prolonged absences the previous week. On the Thursday afternoon, as she and Matt were packing away the boxes of files, he came into the reading room.
‘Thanks, both, it’s looking great,’ he said. ‘Let me invite you for a coffee – my treat.’
She had expected Matt to accept – he had fuelled himself on a steady supply of coffee and pastries everyday – but for some reason he shook his head. ‘No, I’m good, thanks, Ben. I’ll be off now, actually,’ then glanced briefly at Rita. There was something in his eyes when he then returned them to Ben – a lack of surprise, or even a hint of disapproval – but she pushed the thought out of her head.
They went to the café on the square, as if both were thinking: better to be in plain sight. On entering, inevitably, they bumped into one of his colleagues, who was leaving, her young daughter in tow, and who offered them her table. She was a professor in the department but now, in a blouse and jeans, holding her daughter by the hand, appeared as human and harried as any mother.
Ben introduced her casually, ‘Do you know Rita? She’s working with Matt on my filing . . .’
‘Lucky you,’ was her response. ‘How did you get any money out of the department?’
‘It helps if you’re on the committee for funding allocations . . .’
‘I’ll remember that,’ she laughed, then, turning to Rita, ‘Don’t let Ben take advantage of you.’
Her words hovered above them uneasily as they ordered drinks and sat down. He said little as they sat opposite each other. She sipped her tea; he did not touch his espresso. He looked tired.
‘Well, you and Matt will be done by tomorrow,’ he said finally, ‘And then will you hang on until the semester begins?’
‘I’ve not decided,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of getting in touch with Maria to see if she needed any help.’
‘Well, the room’s available for another fortnight or so.’
‘Yeah, I suppose . . .’
‘I appreciate you coming back up to help out . . .’
She said nothing, only shrugged her shoulders, unwilling suddenly to keep up the pretence.
After some silence, he spoke again, in a low voice: ‘I’ve missed you . . .’
She looked up into his eyes boring into hers and tried to steady her voice. ‘Vice versa,’ she said, and he smiled weakly in acknowledgement.
Then, ‘You and Matt seem to have got on very well.’
She glanced at him. ‘I suppose.’
They fell silent, and the silence began to unnerve her; the tears she was holding in were pressing at her eyelids. She was about to get up, leave – she had no wish for him to see her crying again – when he spoke again, quietly. ‘If I seem a little off,’ he said, ‘it’s because it’s unbearable to be sitting here and not touching you. And I am stupidly, hellishly jealous of Matt.’
She looked at him in surprise; his eyes were full of suffering. He looked down at the table, his fingers casually toying with a packet of sugar, belying the emotion in his voice. She smiled at his words, at their ridiculousness, and somehow he seemed to know that, because he raised his eyes and met hers. For the first time she could feel what it would be like, when time had passed and she was more assured of herself, when she would and he would regard each other as equals. He gave her a slight smile in response, as if he was seeing into the same future, then he tore the sugar packet in half, spilling the sugar into the saucer of his cup. They watched as the granules rained down, as if he had made an ad hoc egg-timer for the next exchange.
She spoke quietly. ‘Does your wife know?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Pretending everything is all right has become a particular skill of mine.’
The bitterness in his voice took her unawares.
‘I don’t like seeing you like this,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t like seeing you all sad . . .’
He smiled again, another smile which did not reach his eyes. ‘Well, take it as proof then,’ he said, ‘of how much you mean to me, Rita.’
His words made her ache; her chest felt tight. ‘Ben,’ she said, then drew in a breath so she could continue, ‘what do you want to do?’
‘I want to be alone with you,’ he said. Then, as if catching himself, he said, ‘If you don’t mind being alone with me, that is. Can we go somewhere else?’
They left the café, and as if they were both persons with a singular lack of imagination, they returned to his office. The corridors were by then conveniently still. But
when they entered his room, he suddenly seemed unsure of how to begin. He sat down in his chair, pulling one over for her, in a parody of their previous meetings. When she did not take the chair but pushed it aside and sat in his lap, he looked grateful to her for making the first move.
She held his face between her hands and kissed him, as she felt his fingers unbuttoning her shirt, her skin melting at his touch. Then he ducked his head lower and put his mouth on her breast, his tongue slipping inside her brassiere, and as much as this gave her pleasure, she also realised that he was seeking a consolation, something she, her body, was able to give him. And the words that they shared afterwards, when she held him to her, as if she were the older and wiser, were as much part of why she loved him, why she could not consider not seeing him, not hearing his voice, whatever was at stake.
Back in the room she was renting, on the phone to her parents to whom she had invented a reason for her early return, she could barely concentrate, still absorbed by the memory of their love-making. His wife had returned, but they would continue: now she knew. Her whole body was still tingling, longing for the next moment.
But that next moment never arrived. The following day, there was an accident. A few lines in the paper reported that the car Ben Martin was driving, with his wife Clare Armstrong in the passenger seat, had swerved out of control, off the road. Both occupants were killed instantly.
In the last year of primary school, when she was not yet eleven years old, she had once, when walking home from school, been invited to a friend’s house. She was allowed to walk home from school, but she was forbidden from making unvetted detours. She knew, however, that her mother was only due to arrive back later in the evening, so no one need know the actual time she had returned. But as soon as she entered her friend’s house she knew she had made a terrible mistake: there was an air in the house that she could not define. The house, like all her friends’ houses, was much better decorated than her own home. There was a vase of flowers in the hallway, the furniture matched, there were pictures on the wall arranged at pre-determined spaces: all unlike her eclectic home. It was not for lack of comfort that she felt uneasy; there was a sadness that pervaded the house.
The mother gave her a bright smile, and the father was home, another difference: her own father only ever appeared in time for a late dinner. Both parents had an air of forced gaiety on her arrival, exclaiming that her visit was fortuitous. They had a film the girls might want to watch. And her friend seemed changed too, her face become diffuse. There was no other way to describe it, like each of her features did not like the other. The sadness followed them into her friend’s bedroom, which was, conversely, bright, full of books, a patchwork counterpane, cuddly toys arranged on the bed. She left later that evening, only to hear the following week that her friend had moved away, changed schools.
It was only years later, when she and the girl found themselves in the same class in high school, by then aged fifteen, that her friend revealed that her brother, three years her junior had died from leukaemia earlier in the year that Rita had paid an impromptu visit. Her parents, it appeared, never fully recovered themselves – her friend’s words – and divorced a year later. Her mother had remarried, and she had a baby half-brother. She liked her stepfather, and her father had a new girlfriend. She was fine, her friend said, but Rita could only remember that sense she had of a deep disquiet, of not understanding her own intuition. The thought of the dead little brother upset her, the fact that her friend had spent all those interim years coping with that loss.
And when she had left her friend’s house that evening, she had found that Joy was home for some reason – an unannounced appearance. He did not know that Rita was late coming home; he did not know of her subterfuge. But the fear that when later her mother arrived he would let slip of when he had seen her tainted the whole evening. On reuniting with her friend and learning of her little brother, she realised her own fears those years ago of being discovered for her detour were despicably trivial – nothing compared to the sorrow of a family who had lost a child.
Now, more than eight years later, she had the same sense of entering a sad house. But this time the sadness penetrated the buildings that she passed like damp, soaked the streets like rain. She walked as if she was always going to return home to find someone who would be able to divulge her misdeed. But it was more than a misdeed, more than a transgression. Willing everyone who saw her, who had seen her, whether by his side or not: Don’t say anything. And again, her role – the disobedient child, the student-mistress – was diminished, belittled, when held up against the loss of two people. One a wife, a daughter, a sister. The other a husband, a son, a brother.
Part Two
7
THE back garden – where the tables were laid out and where the small band, friends of the groom’s brother, were playing – was dusty. The guests had trampled over the patch of lawn, which was why the bride had insisted that they go back inside the house to take the photographs. But in each room they encountered groups of women taking shade from the heat, some in tight-fitting dresses which hugged ample bosoms, others with turbans and long brightly patterned kaftans, West African style. Only in the back, where it seemed the family stored the heaviest items of furniture, did they find an empty bedroom. The dark wood sucked out the light. He pulled the curtains as far back as he could, thinking that he would have to persuade the couple to take some more shots outside, which he did, in the bright glow before the sun began its descent.
Then, at the insistence of the mother of the bride, he joined the party, found himself handed a bottle of beer and a plate of rice cooked with tomatoes, grilled chicken and salad. He ate standing up, the beer in the crook of his elbow, while Gildo, whose half-sister was the bride, and who was by now quite drunk, pontificated. Taking his leave, he was kissed goodbye by several women, their lips impossibly soft against his cheeks, their hair and skin scented with rich emollients. The bride was the most tentative, worried about disarranging her elaborate hairdo, but in compensation she pressed herself against him in gratitude. Gildo accompanied him to the van, where he locked his gear in the back, declining any assistance from his now maudlin and emotional friend.
He drove back to the city, the windows rolled down, his head full of memories which returned with the soft kisses of the sweet-smelling women: of the city in southern Africa, on the shores of the Indian Ocean, where he and Gildo had formed their friendship. Of the power cuts and the heavy heat, followed by the deluge of rain. It was a lifetime ago, but this day was as hot as many he remembered. Before long the back of his shirt and the seat of his trousers were sticking to his body. It would rain later, but for now the air was oppressive. The sky was charcoal-coloured with delicate, lacy-white clouds, these becoming less distinct as he neared Lisbon, where the air was fresher, a breeze blowing in from the river. It was dark, a liquid oily black, when he parked his van on the street in front of his building, then half-jogged further up the road and flagged a taxi to Lucie’s apartment. He let himself in and skipped up the stairs to the upper level, calling her name. She was in the bedroom, slipping bracelets over her wrists, and gave him an exasperated look when he appeared at the doorway.
‘You’re late,’ she said.
‘I’ll take five minutes to get ready. You go ahead and I’ll follow.’
She nodded, pressing her lips together. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, but she tried to push him away, wrinkling her nose: ‘You smell.’
He laughed, tightening his hold of her. ‘After good honest toil.’
She leaned against him, but there was still a tightly coiled feel to her body.
‘What’s wrong?
She gave a shrug, seemed ready to brush him off, but then she said quietly, ‘I had an argument with Josef.’
He massaged her shoulders, and as she drew closer he could feel both her breath on his neck and in his stomach the familiar knot of irritation at the boy.
‘You’re a wonderful moth
er . . .’
She left, soothed, trailing behind the scent of her perfume and of her guilty emotions. Her son now lived with his father in Cologne, sent back because he had been caught selling weed at the private international school where Lucie taught German, grudgingly, so that her son could enrol for subsidised fees. Now he was gone, four months had passed, and Lucie was still in Lisbon and still teaching; the small jewellery-making trade that was her passion was not as dependable a source of income.
He showered quickly and dressed – he always left a set of clothes in her flat – and arrived at the gallery, where she along with two others were exhibiting their jewellery. If no crowd had gathered, she would be a bundle of agony behind the serene facade. But as he ran up the steps he could hear a buzz and, thankfully, he had difficulty pushing open the door: there were at least forty people squeezed into the small interior. Lucie was in deep conversation with a woman whom he vaguely recognised. He relaxed: Lucie would feel vindicated; he could have a drink and enjoy himself. In the next fifteen minutes, he devoured two samosas and drank two glasses of the chilled vinho verde he normally avoided. He perched himself on a windowsill, behind a couple who were speaking animatedly in German: no doubt members of her set. When his phone vibrated against his chest, he lifted it out of his pocket and checked the caller. Because it was his father, he went into the corridor.
‘Dad, how are you?’
‘Are you alone, son?’
‘No, I’m at one of Lucie’s things.’
The signal was weak; he could hear his own words echoed back at him. He glanced at his watch. ‘Let me call you back in an hour.’
‘We may not be able to talk then . . .’
Something in his father’s voice made him pause. He was due to visit his parents in London in September, but he realised, guiltily, he had also made tentative arrangements with Lucie to visit her son in Germany first. Perhaps his mother had got wind of this. He waited, but his father did not speak. The silence extended beyond what was normal.
The Inheritance Page 6