Behind Closed Doors

by Catherine Alliott

  I didn’t have to say any more. He understood immediately. He nodded at the ceiling. Remained silent. After a while, he spoke.

  ‘Does it still help?’

  ‘Yes.’ I hesitated. ‘But these past few weeks … well. I’ve needed it less, I’ve found.’

  He smiled, accepting the allusion to his presence in my life.

  ‘You’ve filled a dark hole,’ I went on, emboldened.

  He swallowed, and I could tell he was moved. ‘D’you want to talk about it? The accident?’

  I did. And I also told him that it was the first time I’d ever shared and explained my past. I told him at quite some length. How it had happened. The images I remembered from that night. An old woman, running in her apron from a cottage in the lane, her hand over her mouth: stopping dead, then turning back to phone the police. The way Liam had slid, eventually, off the car bonnet on to the road. How I’d once walked past his mother in town: how we’d both stiffened with recognition. I’d seen a photo of her in the local paper, at the funeral, and of course, she’d made it her business to know who I was, even though she’d never met me. My parents had insisted on going alone to the coroner’s court. I told him how a boy in a leather jacket had deliberately knocked into me in a local pub. Spilled the drinks I’d been carrying. A friend of Liam’s, I later learned. How moments like those had set me back, sent me reeling. There were many terrible moments, a lifetime of them, which is different, naturally, to a terrible lifetime. I told him how I’d been incapable of talking about my feelings, even though my family had tried, principally because I felt there was no script for a tragedy like this. How I knew my life had changed immeasurably. How I used to think of Liam every single day, and had imagined that would persist forever. And how, to my shame, it had begun to stop. Was more intermittent. When I’d finished, Michael was silent.

  I’d been lying on my back, but I rolled over and lay in the crook of his arm. We were silent for a while, and I could tell he was thoughtful. I asked him about his parents, then. He turned and looked at the bedside clock. It was two in the morning.

  ‘Another time, little Luce,’ he said, giving me a squeeze. ‘I’ll tell you about it another time.’

  He didn’t, though. And in a small part of my head, I realized I’d given him something very precious. Something very intimate. A part of myself, if you like. And he hadn’t reciprocated. And he never did.

  5

  The first time Michael surprised me was on a plane going out to Majorca. He wasn’t on the plane, but a stewardess came down the aisle bearing a bunch of flowers. She stopped beside me. Then she checked my seat number and handed them to me. They were from Michael. I flushed with delight.

  ‘Oh my God!’ My girlfriends got up out of their seats and crowded around. ‘You’ve got flowers! How did he do that? Oh my God, he is so gorgeous. Luce, you are so so lucky!’

  I was. I really was and I knew it. Flushed with pleasure, I handed the small posy of white roses back to the stewardess who promised to put them in water. Then, when we got to Majorca, I transferred them to a vase in the room I shared with Sara for the week. I felt a thrill of pleasure every time I saw them on my girls’ sunbathing holiday. How had he managed that? Talked the stewardess into it? Well of course, Michael would find a way.

  When we got back to a heaving Stansted, at some godforsaken hour in the morning, girding our loins for the Tube to London, he surprised me again. Because there he was, smiling at the barrier, ready to whisk me away to his flat in his convertible MG. No room for anyone else, sadly, by the time my luggage was in, so my girlfriends – who, if they had boyfriends, had boys their own age who barely even had cars – were left gaping in astonishment. I was indeed a very lucky girl.

  We were an established couple by now, and did pretty much everything together, although Helena encouraged me to have my own life. She said it was healthier, and I got the point of that, to keep up with friends my age, even though I was totally immersed in his glamorous, clever Cambridge set. They were mostly in the arts, either actors or writers, and had met in the Footlights, which Michael hadn’t quite got into. He’d wanted to act, he told me, but hadn’t cut the mustard. Michael had lots of friends, and was very much the life and soul, but strangely, after a party, he was always quiet on the way home. I knew not to break into his thoughts. If I did, he’d snap at me for wittering, but then instantly recover and apologize profusely: say he’d forgotten himself, which was a good way of putting it. He genuinely had.

  My own friends he indulged now and then, but he wasn’t overly keen on mixing too much, and I could see why. He’d moved on from chat about internships and the cost of London rentals forcing them out to places like Crouch End, which he’d never even heard of. He was polite, but I could tell it bored him.

  So following Helena’s advice – and trust me, my sister’s quite bossy – I went on my own to supper parties, one of which was indeed in Crouch End. When I emerged at about midnight, there he was, in his blue MG, waiting for me. I stopped in surprise on the pavement. The passenger door swung open and I leaned in and stared at him in astonishment.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Back end of bloody beyond,’ he grumbled. ‘How are you supposed to get home from here? No cabs are ever going to take you.’

  ‘Tube,’ I told him as I climbed in, ‘like the rest of the world. I cannot believe you’ve driven over here! That is so sweet!’

  I did, indeed, think it unbelievably sweet, and it happened a couple more times. Closer to home in Clapham, and then, down the road, in Fulham. Helena’s eyes widened when I told her.

  ‘He sat outside Sara’s supper party waiting for you?’

  ‘Isn’t that divine?’

  ‘Or slightly creepy?’

  I frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, hasn’t he got a life of his own? Why does he have to keep such firm tabs on yours?’

  This was so like Helena, who’d been dumped a couple of months ago, and, as always, when she was unhappy, lashed out at the nearest person – her flatmate and sister. The situation was often tense in the flat. In her unhappiness at losing Ant – who was completely gorgeous, incidentally, a kind, unassuming boy, unable to take the heat of high-maintenance Helena – she increasingly took it out on me. With this in mind, when Michael suggested I move in with him, I thought it a good idea. I’d get to be with my boyfriend, and Helena would be better off sharing with a friend, who she’d have to be more considerate of. Plus I knew Millie, her best mate, was looking.

  My family, however, were not so thrilled.

  ‘I thought you liked him,’ I said in surprise to Mummy when, having been encouraged to come on my own, I went down for the weekend. I was chopping a salad with her in the kitchen.

  ‘I do,’ she said carefully. ‘But Luce, you’re only twenty-two. And he’s thirty-one. And much as I can understand he’s ready to settle down, I’m not sure you are. I’d say you’ve got a lot more living to do. And he’s only your first serious boyfriend since … you know.’

  ‘The accident,’ I said shortly. ‘Liam.’ It still hurt to say it, that name, but not as much, I realized. Now that I shared the guilt and sadness. Now that someone was carrying some of the load with me. And that that someone should be anything other than loved and thanked by those around me, for bringing me back into the real world, from out of my dark place, seemed to me an abomination. A travesty of justice.

  ‘It’s Helena, isn’t it?’ I seethed. ‘You’ve only met him once and you and Daddy both said how much you liked him. Helena’s poisoned you against him.’

  ‘Now that’s much too strong,’ said my mother mildly, doing something creative with radishes and simultaneously taking a sip of her Martini. ‘Helena’s just concerned. And you’re right, we have only met him once, which isn’t much, considering you’re moving in. It’s Ant who’s concerned, actually.’

  ‘Ant? Really? You know he’s finished with her, by the way.’

  ‘Yes, but that�
��s another story, and one that I agree doesn’t cover your sister in glory. Trying to make him buy a flat when he’s got no money and leaving copies of Brides magazine lying around. But the point is, Ant would never speak badly of anyone.’

  There was no disputing this. Ant had been going out with Helena for years, he was a local boy and was very much part of the family. But the only contact Ant had with Michael was professional, which was bound to be fraught, as I pointed out to Mum now.

  ‘Actors hate critics. They’re scared of them, it’s well known.’

  ‘Not all of them, he says. He says Michael can be spiteful.’

  This was unusual for Mum, who, equally, rarely had a bad word for anyone, and I looked at her in surprise. ‘In his writing, yes. Sardonic, satirical humour. Acerbic, sometimes. But also very funny. That’s his job, and also his trademark. Surely Ant can see that?’

  ‘Of course he can,’ said Dad, coming in and reaching for a bottle of red from the wine rack for lunch. He put it between his knees and pulled the cork, then did the same with another. ‘And personally, I think children have got to make their own decisions. So if we could have an end to all this girly chitter-chatter, I’d be grateful. The De Courcys are even now making their way up the drive in their new Jag, Nancy no doubt POA –pissed on arrival – and in need of a sharpener to stop her sobering up and becoming belligerent. Cecily, what’s that fillet doing sitting on the side? It surely needs a canter round the oven, no?’ He reached across and popped the beef in the Aga. ‘Rare is one thing. Heart still beating is another.’

  Dad’s word, as ever, was final and we shut up. I was still slightly seething and Mum was clearly flustered, having uncharacteristically spoken out as coached by Helena. Through we went, however, both a bit pink, to greet Nance and Martin. The former was indeed POA and we settled down to enjoy a noisy, convivial luncheon. No more was said that weekend on the matter, my mother, not the bravest, clearly feeling she’d done her bit. I’m not sure Helena would have agreed.

  I’d made an excuse to Michael about going home on my own. Usually we were together at the weekends. I’d said it was to do with talking about inheritance tax or something. My family never talked about things like that. They wouldn’t know what it was if it slapped them in the face, which it probably would one day. But I knew Michael would fall for it, seeing as it was a subject he knew a great deal about.

  He and his sister Amanda had inherited quite a lot when his parents died. I didn’t know how much, just that they were reasonably wealthy, and that when they’d gone to live with their grandparents, it had all been kept in trust. Which was why, it transpired, Michael was able to live so well and be a theatre critic, not, as his lifestyle might suggest, an investment banker or something. Even if he wasn’t a raging success, it certainly looked as if he was, as he himself would admit. ‘Important to look the part, even if it is only a part,’ he’d quip, which I liked. Although, as a pissed friend of his pointed out one night, Michael was always quick to tell a joke about himself before someone else did.

  Anyway, I did move in, or flounce out. Helena and I had had another blazing row. This time it was about Michael’s sister, whom Helena had met at a party. Having realized the connection, she’d then had a frank-and-fearless with her about the death of her parents, as only Helena could. Amanda had told her how, in a hotel bedroom in Greece, they’d both died in their sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning. And how this tragedy had left Amanda not only bereft, but traumatized. How, as a result, she’d never been able to make any real connection in a relationship. How, as soon as it got serious, she broke it off. For fear of getting hurt. For fear of abandonment later.

  Helena, probing and inappropriate as usual, had asked if she thought the tragedy had had the opposite effect on Michael? That through his own fear of abandonment, he’d make the connection too tight? Be too controlling? Amanda’s eyes, already no doubt swimming with booze, had widened in the light of this amateur psychologist’s claptrap. Yeah, she’d said. Yeah, you could well be right. In fact, it had happened before, to an ex of his called Rachael. She genuinely felt Michael followed her sometimes. She’d look behind her, and there he’d be. So Rachael had broken off the relationship. And sozzled old Amanda had said that of course she adored darling Michael and didn’t want to judge, but it was only natural they’d both suffered, as a result of such a brutal separation. She said it was why she found it so hard to stick at a job, to keep friends, and all manner of psycho-babble people blame their shit lives on, as I’d screamed at Helena, gripping the handles of my cases in the hall. I knew from Michael that Amanda blamed a lot of her loafing around, her trust-fund existence, her bust-ups with friends, on the death of her parents. But Michael wasn’t like that. He never even talked about it, for God’s sake. I’d had no idea how they’d even died until Helena told me – which obviously irritated the hell out of me – why couldn’t she just mind her own fucking business? Why couldn’t she just ‘STAY OUT OF MY LIFE!’ I’d screamed at full volume at her. And then I’d slammed out and clattered down the stairs.

  Helena and I didn’t speak for a while after that. When we did, Michael and I were already planning our wedding, having recently discovered I was pregnant. Well I know, it wasn’t ideal. And the thing was, I’d become so brilliant at the rhythm method, which Michael had told me about. I’d stopped taking the Pill because he’d sweetly said he didn’t want all those rubbish hormones and toxins in my lovely young body, and it had been working perfectly well for months, until blow me down, I missed a period. I did a test and there it was: the famous blue line. We went home and told my parents. They were brilliant, in fact. I’d actually already rung ahead and told Mummy, and I’d quite wanted to go and speak to them on my own, but Michael insisted it looked bad if he didn’t come, particularly since we were getting married. And yes, I was thrilled we were. I mean, obviously I’d moved in, so in some unformed, hazy way, my intention must have been to marry. But it was just all so sudden.

  Mummy and Daddy were brilliant, but they were also quite serious and quiet. They listened, and thanked us for coming to tell them of our intentions, but the whole day was rather subdued. And Daddy didn’t get the champagne out as I thought he would. My family can turn anything into a celebration, which this surely was.

  On the way home, Michael leaned across and patted my hand. ‘All right, little Luce?’

  ‘Yes.’ I turned back from gazing out of the window. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Your parents were so good about it, weren’t they? I mean, given the circumstances?’

  ‘Yes. They really were.’

  I knew, though, that had it been Helena and Ant, an unplanned pregnancy, a mistake, a wedding, there would have been whoops of delight. My mother would have clasped her hands in joy. Daddy would have rushed to the drinks cupboard. Ant would have stammered a sheepish apology, whilst Daddy pooh-poohed it, saying, ‘Nonsense, dear boy!’ Whereas Michael had slightly stolen the show. Done all the talking about how things were going to be, and how he was going to look after me. Patting my hand, like he was now.

  Two days later, I received a letter from my father, and I can’t tell you how unusual that was.

  Dearest Puss,

  Forgive some interference from a crumbling old fool, but something in your demeanour yesterday inclined me to put pen to paper. The thing is, my love, I’m slightly concerned. Are you happy? Is this genuinely what you want? Because Mummy and I can’t be sure. I can see it’s what Michael wants, and I’m sure he really loves you, but darling, do you feel the same? Because if not, please, please examine your options.

  In the first place, you don’t have to have the baby, this isn’t the 1950s. If that idea is morally abhorrent to you, as Michael said it was, then of course, we understand. But please know that we would also one hundred per cent support you as a single mother. You could come and live with us and we would welcome you with open arms. Or, why don’t the two of you live together, but wait a year or two to get married? It is far from unusual to h
ave a toddler at a wedding, these days. What I’m trying to say, my love, and no doubt in a clumsy fashion, is that you do have alternatives. You don’t have to get married now.

  I’m in London on Friday seeing Mike Dubarry about some terrible new scheme he’s got for flogging wine to the French – aka ice to Eskimos – but could meet for lunch? How about Wheelers, one o’clock?

  Anyway, have a think.

  Best love,

  Daddy

  I stared in wonder. Stood up from the stairs where I’d been sitting reading it. Michael’s voice behind me made me jump.

  ‘All right, little Luce?’

  I swung around. He was at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  ‘Who’s the letter from?’

  I stared at him. ‘Helena. Haranguing me again. Apparently I’ve got some of her clothes.’

  ‘As if she hasn’t got an entire shop-full!’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  I pocketed the letter. And then later, something made me burn it. I rang Dad and said all was well, but thank you. And we were both quite brisk on the phone. Quite … polite. I knew it was as far as he’d go.

  We got married in Twickenham, in the same church where Michael’s parents had married, and where they were buried in the churchyard. Obviously I showed a bit in my dress, but everyone said I looked lovely. I would have preferred a registry office, under the circumstances, but Michael insisted, and the vicar didn’t seem to mind. There was quite a lot from the vicar – a family friend – in the address about Michael’s parents. And quite a lot in Michael’s speech, too. About how he wished they could be here. He had to stop as he got emotional: whipped his hanky out. Amanda was sobbing quietly and had to be led away. It wasn’t really the most joyful of occasions. And if I’m honest, in a funny sort of way, I felt a bit miffed. He never spoke about his parents to me, and yet here he was, talking openly to lots of people. But the moment passed. And it was good later on, when my family and friends hit the champagne at the reception and danced like mad.