In My House

by Alex Hourston

  ‘That’s not the issue,’ Paul said.

  ‘Where d’you leave it?’ I asked.

  ‘Maggie –’

  ‘Which drawer? A drawer she always goes in, I suppose.’

  ‘You’re being deliberately obtuse. The thing is, she took the money. Several hundred pounds. Out of our home. She broke our trust,’ Paul said.

  ‘You set her up,’ I replied, and heard the violence in my voice. ‘Did you think that you were helping?’

  A kind of tremor travelled through me; a stimulus that demanded some response.

  ‘It’s not that,’ Peter said, taking a step towards me.

  ‘Because that is the most patronising.’

  ‘Look at least you know,’ said Paul.

  ‘Know what?’ I said.

  ‘That she –’ but he paused there.

  ‘That she what? That she is desperate? That she has nothing?’

  ‘No, Maggie.’

  My argument was finding form. Pulling away from me. Peter saw it.

  ‘OK –’ he said, wide palmed.

  ‘And nothing to lose? And no one to look after her?’ I went on.

  ‘You’re making excuses, Maggie, I’m sorry, but.’

  Peter broke in: ‘Look. We would never call the police. We don’t want to get her in any sort of trouble. We wouldn’t dream of it. We just needed to be sure. To know what sort of person she is.’

  ‘And what sort of person is she? Come on. I’d be really interested to know,’ my voice rising, fractured.

  But they could not answer. I wanted to knock that glass. Hear it smash, see their shock. Destroy something that was theirs. But I had not learnt nothing across the years. I left them pleading in my wake, a thick wad of disappointment in my throat.

  36

  I walked home fast, the park churned and empty, my mind caught on a loop. I opened the front door and the house was all dust and dog. I decided to clean. The old trousers I changed into felt tight around the waist; this, I thought, is what happens when you become one of a pair.

  I bent under the sink, impatient for the monotone of the task, but the box, when I reached for it, was full of unbranded products. She must have bought them cheap, from god knows where. I felt the bottles in my hands. They were alien and ugly, their plastic thick, opaque and hard to squeeze; their packaging brute and the names on them functional and obvious. The product inside ran liquid and clear and uncompromisingly chemical and I wondered how long they had been there, unknown to me, and what else there might be, of hers, in hidden places in my home? My mouth tasted acid. She was everywhere around.

  I went down on my hands and knees and got into all the nooks.

  I wiped the kitchen cupboards; found an abandoned toothbrush and used it to gouge age-old dirt from between the tongue and groove.

  I cleaned the glass with newspaper and oiled the stainless steel with Johnson’s.

  My eyes ran and my cuticles throbbed and the skin on my fingertips cracked. I found some rubber gloves and started on upstairs.

  There were a number of her hairs curled into the plughole, red and black-rooted, suds clinging to them. I dug them out with a tissue and flushed them away.

  I went through the basket and binned three of her socks.

  I pulled the door to her bedroom shut. That could wait.

  My head was ringing and my back in spasms and I sat on the top step for a moment and I think I might have cried, had the letterbox not rattled.

  I waited; silence settled, and it happened again and this time the flap stayed open. I saw a slice of movement behind it and felt fear and next, how ludicrous, how very unlikely.

  A man’s voice called: ‘Hello.’

  The possibilities narrowed.

  A handle twisted brusquely, the one that no longer worked.

  Another small stretch of waiting.

  I edged down the stairs and stood by the door, listening to the stranger’s sounds. That got me nowhere.

  So I tiptoed through to the sitting room and pressed my back against the last part of wall before it gave way to window. I peeped around meekly.

  There was the back of a man in a raincoat, immediately expensive, my age or younger. He started down the path and I ducked, not that this helped, leaving me head and shoulders above the sill. He opened my gate, stepped through, and pulled it shut hard behind him. It banged on the latch, as it does, and then he stopped. I watched him kneel to the fitting. It was dark and my vantage obscured, but the care he took and the suggestion of ownership pissed me off in a very specific way.

  The man straightened and saw my shape in the pane. I stood, my back yowling, and opened the door; to Chris, my ex-husband.

  He rubbed his gloved hands, gave an exaggerated brrrr.

  ‘Hello, Margaret. At last. I’m cold. I’ve been waiting out here for hours.’

  Textbook Chris. A bad start. It was as if we had parted only yesterday, in the worst possible way.

  ‘Are you alone?’ he said. ‘Before I come in?’ He peered over my shoulder.

  ‘Yes, Chris, I am,’ I said.

  ‘OK. Fine.’

  I took a breath, looked at the floor. Felt a tight bud of fury in my chest.

  ‘Shut the door, Maggie, will you, it’s freezing.’

  He slid off his scarf in his own matchless way. Pulled down his shoulders, dipped his nose and tugged. The scarf – cashmere, though the move worked better with silk – moved cleanly across his skin and over the curve of his neck. It dropped, weighted by the plush of its tassels, and he snatched for it with the hand that still held the near end. He raised the scarf to me, neatly halved, offered up like something won. Then saw my face, and buried the gesture in removing his coat. He followed me to the kitchen and settled his things, slippy and uncertain, on the narrow width of counter.

  ‘Hmm. Very nice,’ he said, with a cursory scan of the room. ‘Did you not get any of my messages, Maggie?’

  His tone was neutral, ambivalent.

  ‘Of course I did,’ I said.

  He looked the same. He had aged well. Kept slim, no hair loss, his bone structure holding. I cruised the kitchen, moving things needlessly.

  ‘This is the first time I call you in, what is it, in all these years?’

  I paused at the window, watched the hoppings of a bird.

  ‘So did you not think it might be important? Did I not make this clear last time we spoke?’

  ‘Hold on a minute, will you?’ I said.

  I left him. Stood in the hall for a minute. Pinched the crook of my elbow as hard as I could, something I hadn’t done since I was a girl. My focus narrowed on the pain. When I stopped, the skin was marked with two crescent imprints. I felt more space and went back through. He looked angrier.

  ‘Can’t you just sit? Do you not want to know why I’m here?’

  Fear then, the feeling I had been trying to keep down. Fear, after all; not fury.

  He blew a breath through pursed lips, and told me, rather gently, ‘She’s fine. Bella’s fine. But she knows, Maggie. She knows about you.’

  I shouted, an unplanned cry, and swept his carefully laundered clothes onto the floor. The coat caught on a stool as it fell, its innards splayed, a ghastly paisley.

  ‘Well, that’s hardly going to help, is it?’ he said, righting his things. ‘I’ll give you a moment, shall I? I need to make a call anyway. This way to the garden?’

  I drank a glass of water straight and listened to the low rolling of his voice. Touching base with Jan, no doubt.

  ‘OK?’ he said, when he came back, and the conversation set off down a well-worn path. Chris calm, rational, pedantic; me fearful and butterfly-brained.

  ‘I suppose it was the papers,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ which I hated myself for, the second it was out.

  I pictured Jan, cross-legged at her breakfast bar, grapefruit untouched, coffee upended. Clutching at that slender neck in shock.

  ‘No, Maggie. It wasn’t that. It was your mother,’ he said. ‘God.
You do know that she’s passed?’

  I did, a solicitor had called six months ago with the fact of it, as she had specified in a letter, an adjunct to her will. But no message, nothing more.

  ‘Your mother told Bella. The two were very close.’

  I remembered their affection. In the first months it had brought me comfort.

  ‘It was at the very end. I’m not sure she even knew what she was saying.’

  He wore his contemplative face, one of my very least favourites.

  ‘Did you and she ever? Your mother, I mean,’ he asked.

  ‘No. She never made contact,’ I said.

  He passed a hand through his hair, then ran his fingertips the length of his parting, flipping errant strands left and right, into place. The old affectation, dating him so painfully.

  ‘What did you say to Bella? Afterwards?’ I asked.

  A final shake to settle things. So neat it looked sewn in.

  ‘You know the answer to that. Just as we agreed.’

  ‘But how though?’

  His hands were still beautiful; more so now. Less manicured, a bit of heft.

  ‘Does it matter, Maggie? A car accident, if you must. Your mother’s idea.’

  I knew where she’d got it from. Those tragic old movies she loved. Cast me as a doomed Italian heroine. But also made it clear that I was reckless.

  ‘How ridiculous,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Well. It wouldn’t have been my choice.’

  ‘And that. Went OK?’

  ‘She was three years old. She accepted it, if that’s your question. It didn’t hurt her.’

  He adopted a tragic air, fully committed to the falsehood.

  ‘To be honest we rarely spoke of you, and I’m not saying that to be unkind. She just left it alone. Though she talked with your mother, it now appears. Who rather liked the subject, as I understand.’

  So she grew up with my mother’s edits. Quite the historian, Helen, with her claims to impartiality. ‘Don’t you worry about what I think. I’ll tell you all about it and you can make your own mind up.’ Character established by carefully chosen anecdote.

  ‘And Jan? She. They got on?’

  ‘She was wonderful, is wonderful. And extremely grateful to you actually,’ he said.

  I imagined a thank-you note, perfumed and cloying. I wouldn’t put it past her.

  ‘And there’s just Bella, is there?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. It was not possible for Jan. You know that,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Oh, well.’

  ‘Bella told us only recently that she knew you were alive. She had been hoping. To bury the knowledge, I think. Out of some sort of respect for our family.’

  He was lost now, in contemplation of his magnificent daughter and his own contribution to her. She’d made a fool of him – I saw that straight away – a stupid fawning old man of him.

  ‘I don’t think she wanted to betray your mother, or us for that matter. She wanted to keep things as they had always been. She is so. Such a thoughtful girl.’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘I told her the truth, Maggie. Nothing but,’ he said.

  ‘And what is that exactly?’

  His patience broke.

  ‘That you became pregnant with another man’s child. That you chose to go and make a new life elsewhere. The truth. At least the way I remember it.’

  He gave a short harsh laugh and spoke again.

  ‘Oh, you mean the sordid details? Well, no. I didn’t go into all that. What do you expect? Would any child want to hear it?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Maggie, I can see by the look on your face that you’re about to go into one of your. Episodes. So I’m going to get to the point here. Bella doesn’t want to see you, all right? Not now or ever. If she had her way, none of this would have come out. Jan and I, even, would still be in the dark.’

  ‘So, why, Chris? What the fuck are you doing here? Why tell me at all?’ I said; I shouted.

  He came towards me, just one step, and I wondered how far he could be provoked.

  ‘Because a woman has been hassling her, Margaret. That’s why. Someone claiming to act on your behalf, though it’s clear you know nothing about it. Anja Maric, whoever that may be. Not that I give a shit, to be honest. Just call her off. I mean it. Get her to leave Bella alone, if you have any decency at all. And unless you want me to fill her in on the rest of it.’

  He passed me an envelope.

  37

  Inside, two sheets of A4. Three emails, printed. A one-way exchange.

  Hi there,

  You don’t know me, but I am a friend. This may be a shock to you when I say I am close with your mother, Margaret Benson. She has said nothing of what happened in the past but I can tell you that she is a great woman. Look at this.

  http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/03/news/crime/local-woman-saves-trafficked-girl-gatwick-8925880.html

  I know you are the right person. You two look just the same. There are photos of her on Facebook, if you would like to see.

  I wanted to do something for Maggie. That is why I have contacted you. Please reply!

  I sincerely wish you well.

  Anja Maric

  Hi Bella,

  I am sorry not to hear from you.

  I don’t want to put you under pressure. I realise this is a big thing.

  Maybe we could meet and I could tell you a bit more about your mother? Do you know you have a sister? Her name is Rose. She has a child. Your nephew!

  Just to know that you are well would be so great for Maggie.

  Best wishes,

  Anja Maric

  Hi Bella,

  I am going now and your mother will be alone.

  I will have my own child soon. I cannot think why she would leave you but she must have had a reason and it hurt her very much. She grieves for you every day. I know this. SHE IS A GOOD PERSON.

  You have the power to make someone happy. Why not use it? Maybe if you do, you will make yourself happy too?

  We can change the past. Your mother taught me this.

  Good luck and best wishes in your future.

  Anja Maric

  I read them time and again. Examined them for tone and meaning. For a clue to her, to her intent; something I’d overlooked. But there was nothing beyond the words on the page. Her voice rang out, plain and artless. Her own truth, unvarnished. Bearing no relation to mine.

  38

  I never got to bed, that last night with my baby.

  Bet was given to theatrics and sobbed noisily in the hall for a while after my mother left, pressing my hands between hers. But Helen was waiting outside, terrible and implacable, and soon Bet went to her.

  When I came back in, I found Bella sitting on the stairs in a strange in-between state. This was not unusual; she often reappeared long after she’d been sent to bed, silent, on the edge of things, waiting to be noticed.

  I knelt to her and asked if she was OK but I knew she wouldn’t reply. I took her hand, warm and limp, and told her there was nothing in the whole wide world to worry about. I felt afraid of her like this, hearing but unspeaking, as though the wrong move might trigger something dreadful.

  She sat at the kitchen table, feet dangling useless above the floor. I got her milk and jabbered to fill the space. She drank it and laid her glass down gently but when I wiped her top lip clean with my thumb, she gave no sign that she felt my touch.

  It was half past five and I led her back upstairs. Her head touched the pillow and she slept. But as I left her room, a floorboard squeaked its long wonky note and she woke again. She sat up instantly, a different child, my usual child.

  ‘Mumma,’ she called with a slow Cheshire-cat grin. That last day began.

  Chris let himself in about nine and tossed his keys onto a table, noisily, to tell me he still lived there, no mistake.

  ‘Maggie. Are you there?’ he called.

  I let Bella go to him and heard him swoop and sw
ing her. It was not unusual for Daddy to arrive in the morning, or leave late at night. It was part of his allure.

  ‘Christ. Haven’t you slept?’ he said, when he saw me. I still wore my dress, spots of duck fat patterning the sleeves.

  ‘Do you want to watch the Mr Men video, love? I’ll put it on for you. Let’s grab a banana,’ he said, and did those things while I waited in the kitchen. His manner surprised me. He was not angry, or cold. He was careful and I felt frightened, then, of what he was going to ask of me.

  ‘OK, will you sit?’ he said.

  He had brushed his hair very recently and I imagined him parked outside, peering up into the thin slot of mirror. Both fastidious and vain. His nails were not clean though and I knew that he would hate that when he noticed.

  ‘This is a mess, OK? You and me both. I don’t deny it. But I have a proposal to make and I want you to hear me out.’

  I pressed my head against my palm, emptied out by tiredness, but some survival instinct must have triggered, for I felt pings of adrenalin in my temples, and straightened again.

  ‘Maggie, I think you are going to find yourself in a. In an uncertain position.’

  He steepled his hands between us, as if he were my lawyer.

  ‘I’m assuming this baby is what’s-his-name’s, the piano teacher’s, Ben’s?’

  I kept my face steady.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. But I’m not an idiot, you know. I could see there was something between you and I chose to let it run. Given my. Given what I had undertaken with Jan.’

  I wondered if he had loved me and if so, when he stopped.

  ‘This though? Pregnant? I thought you had more. Well, ambition, to be honest, if nothing else. Anyway, as I’m sure you are aware, he has a wife and two young children. The chances of him leaving them are small, I would have thought, but that’s your business. Still even if he does, do you know how much I pay him an hour to teach you? Not enough to keep you in. Hand-made curtains, for instance.’

  They hung in the lounge, purple and black stripe – my choice, I admit it – made from a fat book of swatches that a woman (Jan’s recommendation) had hauled out of her boot and left with me. She phoned every other day for a week wanting to know if I had decided, until I told her to hold on, flipped it open and chose what I found. The fabric name – ‘Ali Baba’, written on a sticker – was so stupid that I almost changed my mind, but the density of the pages had already pushed the book shut. And it was Chris who grabbed a thick fistful when they were up, stepped back to take a better look, declared himself thrilled.