‘Well, yes.’
‘Like when?’
She curled her arms around herself.
Like that dinner dance at the Dorchester.
It could have been the bubbles, or the pep it gives a man to wear white tie. It pulls him up, draws his shoulders back and loosens him, from top to toe. Fred Astaire all over.
But he held my hand as we took the stairs, passed beneath the sign and a fat ledge of close-packed carnations in bands of red and white. People watched as we went, and wondered if we were someone.
Was it my gown, perhaps? His pleasure at the press of my hip through the drop of silver silk, or the cut of clavicle I had emphasised with a mineral sweep under the bathroom bulb?
‘You know that hollow there?’ his boss asked, later, drunk, with an audible swallow and his finger, smudged with Béarnaise, trembling at my neck.
‘I’d like to drink champagne out of that.’
‘Shall we dance, sweetheart?’ Chris called to me across the table.
‘Why not?’ I said.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, as he took my hand, but I pushed my cheek into his collar and we moved nearer to the band. We danced for hours, telepathic, step perfect, and when Sinatra came on, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’, and the packed floor pushed us even closer, he broke into a crackled whisper; he sung to me, at the chorus, I’m sure he did.
We were our best selves at a distance. Together, across space. His face high above me and the idea of each other brilliant in our minds.
‘My god, what does it take to get a woman like you?’ that drunk man called as I went for my wrap.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Chris said, under his breath, and we dashed for our cab.
‘We liked to dance,’ I told Anja. ‘That was nice.’
‘Oh great,’ she said. ‘What type?’
‘All sorts.’
‘Cool. So what went wrong?’ she asked.
‘Hard to say. We were not a good match.’
‘How come?’
All surface and activity, Chris. Then huge swathes of silence.
‘What is it that you want?’ he once cried, in a rare flash of feeling. ‘This thing that is so important to you, that I lack?’
‘We just miss each other. Every time. We can’t seem to meet,’ I told him.
‘I don’t even know what that means. You’ll never be happy.’ The row ended there.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Anja. We weren’t quite right. That can spread, you know. Grow solid.’
She asked me why I left my daughter.
I tried to explain, but I’m not sure she understood.
‘What about your mother?’ she said. ‘And the aunts?’
‘We fell out. We didn’t speak again,’ I said.
‘Not ever? Not even Frannie?’
‘Once or twice. She sided with my mum.’
‘That’s sad,’ Anja said. ‘That makes me feel sad.’
Anja got cold, her clothes so horribly thin. I lent her my scarf and asked what she’d done with the yellow one.
‘Oh, yes!’ she said. ‘In my bag somewhere?’, and I knew that she had lost it. I told her she could keep the one she wore.
We ate two dodgy ploughmans of supermarket cheese and soft pickled onions and went back to the car.
In the footwell I found a luggage tag from the day we first met. I chucked it in the back, my throat all closed.
We got home, held each other briefly, still in coats, and said our goodbyes. She told me not to worry and I said that I would try. I stood at the door as she pushed off on her bike, her strong calf pulling the leg of her old jeans tight, the bag on her back threatening to topple her.
And she was gone, and it was Buster and I once more.
43
A month on. Christmas a week away. It might sound strange but this is my favourite time of year. The backdrop of life changes, or rather assumes an earlier, more familiar shape. I have renewed relevance on the high street and in the adverts; even the music they play is old. I recognise it all.
The boys were to host, though I must stop calling them that. We were fine once more, and hadn’t spoken of what went on. I imagine they felt ashamed of their part. They are good men.
Maureen was coming too – she planned to do her stuffing, plus sausage rolls. She’d been surprised to hear that Anja had left, and in such a rush, but hadn’t lingered on it. She is a woman who knows when not to ask.
I had offered to bake but they told me to bring Prosecco instead, and bags of oranges to press for Buck’s Fizz. And treats for the dogs’ stockings.
I could not wait.
Rose had met her sister, whom she didn’t know she had. She called me with this news from the street, the first time I’d heard her voice in months.
‘I’ve met Bella, Mum. I’ve just come from Bella. My sister,’ she shouted.
‘What?’ I said, though I heard her perfectly well. She said it again, but I still couldn’t catch her tone above the traffic. I waited for her next sentence to fall, struck with certainty that this final great omission would mean the end of us.
‘It’s a lot, I know. But can I come round? Tomorrow would work,’ and I heard her excitement; elation even.
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Brilliant. I’ll bring Sam. Oh, no, I won’t, he’s at nursery. Can we do it before lunch? Something like eleven?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ve got about half an hour. See you then.’
I held it all at arm’s length, and opened the door to her next morning with no plan, no expectation.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, bright and vague and cooler, now. She came in for a hug, which was easier than looking at me. Brief and bony. She was the one to break it. She hung up her coat without thinking, on the same rack, in the same spot as she’d have found it in the old place.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘This is very weird. Kind of the same as home, but different.’
‘Yes. I suppose.’
‘Oh! I recognise this!’
The sofa, I think.
‘And who are you? I thought he – oh, that was the old one. Crikey. He’s friendly enough.’
Buster had jumped up and she caught his paws to save the front of her clothes. He stood chest high on two legs, panting happily, and I wondered what he saw in her. Still I told him off, to fill the gap.
Then: ‘Where’s my piano? I would have taken that!’
Her hair was shorter than I’d seen it, and better styled. A bobbed cut, longer at the front. I knew her hair, which had tightened into curls as she grew, and it would have taken a blow-dry to get it into that shape. She wore proper trousers and a decent pair of shoes.
‘You look smart,’ I said without thinking, and waited for her to prickle. But she didn’t. Instead: ‘I’ve got a new job. At an arts centre, raising funds.’
I couldn’t see Rose on the phone asking for money, but what do I know?
‘Weird, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘But I love it. And it feels worthwhile.’
I was happy for her. She prowled the room, looking out old things.
‘I’ll make us a hot drink, shall I?’ I said.
We stood opposite each other in the kitchen with a tea each, though she no longer took sugar, and it was heaven just to watch her. She had come into herself in looks, a late bloomer, as was I. She seemed strong and well and contented.
She could not match my gaze and talked a lot, but, baby steps.
‘I haven’t come to start it all again. I just want us to try and. Move on a bit,’ she said.
‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Me too.’
‘Do you want to know about Bella?’ she asked, tentative.
I wasn’t sure, and I think that must have shown on my face.
‘Because if you don’t, Mum, I understand,’ she said.
But she was here to talk; that was the levy.
‘No, it’s all right. If you like,’ I said.
She came towards me and we embraced
once more. It was better, this time; she smelt the same at the back of her ear.
‘You gave up a child?’ she said, above my head – I hadn’t remembered her so tall, though that would be the heels.
‘Christ, Mum. I can’t even imagine.’
The terribleness of it seemed to have afforded me some respect.
And so she started to tell me.
‘She messaged me first. Quite an emotional message. Explaining who she was and asking if I’d be willing to speak to her.’
She threw me glances to check that I could take it.
‘That must have been a shock,’ I said.
‘A shock? Well, yes. But more of a surprise. A wonderful surprise. Though she asked that we keep it a secret, at first.’
I felt this as an offering, held up to me to recognise; some shared attribute between me and the child I left behind.
‘So we emailed for a while. She told me how upset she’d been. By this. Anja person.’
Rose’s discomfort was plain.
‘Yes. Well. That wasn’t my fault. She did it without my knowledge,’ I said.
‘I realise. And Bella knows that too. But. I. Is everything OK there, Mum?’ she asked.
‘Fine. She’s just. I helped her, that’s all. And she went behind my back.’
I heard my betrayal of her, but how to explain it, as it had really been? That I had loved Anja. And I think that she had loved me too.
‘Well, anyway. I don’t suppose that matters any more. She hasn’t been in touch with Bella since. I guess you know that?’
‘Anja’s gone,’ I said.
‘Oh, good,’ replied Rose.
‘So, that woman stopped emailing and the whole thing could have ended there, but that was when Bella realised she didn’t want to let it go.’
I saw Rosie warming; how much she loved this idea.
‘She decided to get in touch. Too weird, obviously, with you, so she tracked me down instead. And do you know what she told me, Mum?’
She no longer sought my consent. She was borne along on the magic of her story, this fairy-tale connection she had found.
‘She said she was a Benson, deep down. That she had always known it.’
‘A Benson?’ I said, and felt my own heart stutter. ‘What on earth is that when it’s at home?’
‘Good question! We’ve been discussing it quite a bit actually!’
I dropped wonkily onto a stool. It tipped, and for a second I thought I would fall, but she had my arm: ‘Take it easy, Mum.’
‘You know Bella spent a lot of time with. Granny?’ The word shy in her mouth. ‘Well, apparently she talked about you loads.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
She smiled a huge screwy smile.
‘She said you were a real firecracker!’
Rose misread my face.
‘I know! Crazy, right? She told Bella this brilliant story. Do you remember some old dear – Marjorie, I think, Granny’s friend who used to lord it up over them?’
‘Marie, it was,’ I said; came for tea the last Friday of every month, gloves whatever the weather and hair she hadn’t touched since she was a girl, set twice a week at the place at the end of our road. I used to see her there on my way back from school, bubble-headed and oblivious in the window, looking down into a puzzle book while her hair dried; clicking the end of a long narrow pen as she thought.
‘Oh yes. Marie. That’s right.’
Frannie would bake; Bettie had flair but Fran’s results were more consistent. Mum made sandwiches the night before, all packed together tight and bound in a spritzed tea towel to keep them fresh. China out the drawer.
A family friend from the old days, Mum had told me. Come round for a catch-up, but it was clear she came round out of nosiness and spite. I hated their submission to her.
‘Bella told me what you did! How old were you? Ten?’ Rose said, bright-eyed at my rebellion.
Eight years old. My first real transgression and Mum’s first taste of my dissent.
I had sat myself apart from them, head bent to a book at the table. Not listening as such, but alert to dipped voices, which meant something worth overhearing.
They tried to please her. They offered her tea, but she would only take Earl Grey – ‘My latest thing!’ – which they didn’t have; had never even heard of. She scrunched her face at every name they mentioned: ‘Milly Henry? Don’t think I recall.’ Refused the cake I’d iced with Fran the night before, patting her tummy to show that she was full. Buttercream and lemon piped through the star-shaped nozzle in one unbroken swirl. I hadn’t tried it yet. I’d been told to leave off and wait my turn.
Marie stood – ‘Do excuse me’ – in the middle of Mum’s story, and walked past me to the loo. The sisters started up in whispers.
She was quick, I thought, when I heard the lock go. I saw her pause in the corridor, an ear out, and move deeper into the house.
She bent low to some photos on a corner table. Three of them, all my parents’ wedding. She rubbed a smudge off the glass with her thumb, which would have killed Mum to witness.
Then she straightened, and I looked down at my page, but she didn’t come back. She moved on to the kitchen.
Under the window, raised on its stand, stood the cake. Marie approached and took a long deep smell. She reached for a teaspoon on the draining board and ran it the length of the cake’s cut edge. I watched a thick shaving of icing curl into the spoon, and then she sucked it, eyes shut. As she came back through, she made a sudden pattering on my table with her fingertips. I’ve still no idea what she meant by it.
‘Perhaps I will have a slice,’ she said, sat down again. ‘Just a small one, mind.’
Marie’s mistake, I believe, was to overestimate the store my mother set by decorum. It might even have been a test. Either way, Mum was back in an instant, the cake held before her and brought to rest, with a wallop, across my book. Dangerously askew.
‘Well?’
‘It was her,’ I said, straight away. ‘I saw her,’ and pointed at Marie, just to be clear.
The next part was fast. Marie, who’d never been so insulted in her life, left. The cake, poised above the bin, Mum’s eyes on mine, gone too; helped along, when it stuck briefly, with a cuff. Her hand still felt sticky as she yanked me up the staircase to my room. I stayed there through till morning. No tea. I never even tried to plead my case.
‘She thought you were so brave,’ Rosie said.
‘Pardon?’
‘Your mum. They laughed and laughed after you went to bed, Granny and her sisters. Fearless. That’s what she called you.’
‘I was in my room from four in the afternoon. She dragged me up. She left me there.’
I could still feel the injustice of it.
‘Well, she thought you were brilliant. That’s what she told Bella, anyway,’ Rosie said, and I wondered if I could remember laughter, much later, from upstairs in my bed.
‘I wish I’d known her – Granny, I mean,’ Rose said. ‘Oh, Mum, don’t look like that. I promised you I wouldn’t ask, and I won’t. Have you got a biscuit, by the way? I’m starving and I need to be gone in the next five minutes.’
I gave her one, and an apple from the fridge to take on her way.
‘So what’s she like then?’ I said, all in a rush. ‘Bella, I mean.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘OK. So. She’s a marketing director, for a big company in town. She did tell me who, but I forget. She’s single. I get the idea she’s putting her career first. Dark hair, like us, though actually blonde, you know, highlights. Kind of well put together. One of those chunky men’s watches – probably thousands. Blue eyes –’ She moved her face closer. ‘Darker than yours, actually,’ and so she ran on, and nothing that she said bore relation to the child that I had known.
‘But she was right, you know. After a while I did see a bit of Benson in her,’ she said.
Our stubbornness, perhaps; our temper, our spite?
‘Our s
ense of humour, for a start,’ said Rose, of all the things.
‘Our sense of humour? Whatever do you mean?’
‘Hmm. How to put it? Not obvious, I suppose’, and I had to smile at that.
‘I enjoyed this, you know. We should do it again,’ she said.
And we did. I popped over, the following week, to see Sam. A dear boy. Still, we agreed to take it slow.
The two girls speak regularly – to make up for lost time, Rose says, and seem in the throes of something close to romance. To say ‘my sister’ gives Rose a charge and this is a salve to me. What they are building together shrinks my failure of them.
After a while, Chris gave Bella, who in turn gave Rose, the name of her father. In getting it she seemed to forgive me completely.
‘Mum, honestly,’ Rose said. ‘I know you were married and he was married, and younger and your teacher and all, but really, not so very scandalous. Not these days.’
She gave a snort at the silliness of it. My silence, it appeared, had been my power, my significance. Once she thought she knew, I became as any other mother; tolerated, largely disregarded.
They found Ben on the Internet but he was dead, thank god. A piano teacher to the last, Rose told me, survived by a wife and two girls. But she would not be in touch. She would let sleeping dogs lie. This seemed the grown-up decision, she said, straight-faced.
‘Don’t you see, Mum? How easy it can be? No need for all these secrets!’
An aside as she sat at her laptop while I cooked my grandson tea. She thinks that she has worked out how to live, and wants to show me too.
I chopped and mashed. Said nothing.
And she has kept her promise. She has not asked for my version. Perhaps because she does not want to be disappointed, or maybe it is no longer important. I wonder what I would tell her if she did.
Would I mention the first time that I knew of Ben’s feelings?
That would be the moment of our introduction. He was a naive boy, a child, twenty-two to my twenty-eight and he swallowed too deeply as he took my hand; I saw his Adam’s apple bob. Chris saw it too; I think he might have even thought that it would help.
Or would it be when I saw that he would speak? Poor dear, it took him three attempts across the space of an hour, any one of which I could have stopped. But I let it happen, out of boredom, and because we all love to be loved, me more than most, once upon a time.
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