Before I Knew You

by Amanda Brookfield

  No, Beth needed a new focus, but not in the form of a job … William closed his eyes, smiling to himself as he toyed with a boyishly simple plan of hiding the yellow pack of little pills she kept in her bedside table. The smile deepened into a sigh as he allowed his imagination to conjure an image of his petite wife transformed by the wild voluptuousness of pregnancy – such a turn-on first time around that Susan, during close moments, had liked to tease him for being a perv.

  Slipping his phone out of his pocket, William called home and then Beth’s cell, only to be greeted by messages on both. ‘Hey, darling, it’s me …’ he whispered. Through the window the brown and grey scenery of New Rochelle was coming into view, looking drabber than usual under the screen of rain. ‘Just to say you were quite right about job-hunting. I wasn’t thinking straight. Sorry, baby. Given everything else, it would clearly be a mad undertaking right now. Forgive me, won’t you? And I’m afraid I’ll be late again tonight – I’ve got a five o’clock that’s bound to run on. In fact, it’s going to be like that for a while … tough times and having to make up lost ground for being away, et cetera. But you are beautiful and wonderful and I love you and don’t ever forget it.’

  For the remaining twenty minutes of the journey William wrote emails to his sons, managing – in spite of his full heart – to strike a jocular note with the younger two (how hopeless they were as correspondents, how he would be signing up forthwith to Facebook to keep track of them) before adopting a much more serious tough-love tone with Harry.

  Since you still haven’t replied to any of my messages, I have gone ahead and put out a few feelers re work experience for you over here – for which you should have the decency to be grateful. However much you might wish it, Harry, life does not arrive on the proverbial plate – it has to be sought out and worked at.

  Maybe Mum could pull her finger out and help you find something closer to home – I would be fine with that. In the meantime I have no intention of ‘cutting you off without a penny’, as you so dramatically put it when we spoke that last night in London. Surely you can understand why I would be a lot happier to continue forking out an allowance while you do something USEFUL, as opposed to just meeting up with your mates to beat drums. (That’s called a hobby in my book – great for weekends and evenings.)

  Sorry for sounding harsh, but if your own father can’t give you a reality check then who can? For the record, I still think retakes (then university) are the way to go – there are loads of places in London that I’m sure would take you, but with the academic year about to start, time is running out. Think of it this way: given the recession, jobs are hard to come by so it’s a brilliant time to be a student. And you would love it, I know you would. Why not apply for English next time instead of History? You always said you found that easy. Just a thought. Dad

  PS And please reply to this, fella. You’ve made your point. No need to take it too far.

  After a two-hour search Beth arrived home despondent and wet, desperation having driven her to explore various sections of parkland on foot in only her thin raincoat, without a hat or gumboots. She had also stopped at the mall in Darien and spent thirty minutes hurrying in and out of stores to check for sightings, doing her best not to be knocked back by the glimmers of pity in the eyes of those not too busy to offer a response. Leaving the drug store she had walked right into Carter and Nancy, hurrying through the parking lot under an umbrella, bags of groceries in their arms and their fat old dog wheezing on its lead.

  ‘Any news?’ Nancy asked at once, clutching Beth’s wrist with her usual theatricality before somehow steering the conversation to her new ‘wonderfully challenging’ role in a day-time drama.

  ‘We’re getting wet here, honey,’ Carter eventually interjected, casting Beth a look that seemed to suggest he shared some of her darker thoughts. ‘They were good people, the Chapmans,’ he had added, ducking out from under the umbrella to make sure Beth heard the comment. ‘I can tell you, they felt real bad about the princess taking off – especially Sophie. She looked and called for hours every day.’

  Reflecting on the conversation as she stood, dripping, inside her front hall, Beth found her discomfort and disappointment merging with a fresh, irrational spurt of vitriol towards the Englishwoman. What use was the looking if she hadn’t found anything? And what could a creature like Sophie Chapman know anyway – so pretty and privileged, with her sheltered, fairytale life – about feeling ‘bad’?

  Beth shook off her coat and shoes, but then slipped in her wet socks, tweaking her still weak ankle and thumping her hip painfully against the banister post. The antipathy surged with the pain, returning her to the dark, irrepressible suspicion that her recent tenant, not content to leave strands of her long hair lurking across the undersides of chair cushions and down plug-holes, had somehow sucked the happiness out of the house too – taken it back to England with her, along with tacky mementoes of New York and a suitcase of dirty clothes.

  She clung to the banister as the waves of pain and mad thoughts receded. She had to breathe deeply and stay calm. Too much, lately, had been slipping from her grasp – that was the trouble. She needed to throw up. Yes, that would help – it always helped: the blissful emptiness, the total control. Since the trip she had been trying to do it less, but really, what could be so bad about something that had so many benefits? A mere brushing of the back of the throat with her fingertip sufficed, not like when she had first started twenty-odd years before, jabbing with the toothbrush while the tap ran, every sinew strained for the sound of Uncle Hal’s breathing on the other side of the door.

  Wanting the security of her own bathroom, Beth forced herself upstairs, gripping the rail like she had when her ankle had been at its worst. Inside the en-suite, she dropped to her knees and hugged the bowl. Moments later her breakfast was swirling out of her, brown liquid dotted with black – pips from the kiwi, she knew, having puzzled over exactly the same sight on previous occasions. A second violent retch made her eyes water, but nothing came out this time. Beth sat back on her heels, blinking, waiting for the onset of the euphoria that made it all worth while – the brief, giddy rush of relief, the delicious hollowness. Instead her throat ached and the pounding between her temples quickened and thickened, feeling like the countdown to something unspeakable even before the figure of her uncle had slid back into her mind.

  The bulge of his gut, so hefty it hid his belt. Beth whimpered, but the image was already moving on, expanding.

  Are you sick, Bethan? The toilet in the apartment was so small her nose had been level with his fly. She was sure she had locked the door – fed the little hook into the brass loop on the door jamb – and yet here he was, standing next to her, his zipper so close the gold of it blurred in front of her eyes. She could sense him liking it – the power of that proximity – but she didn’t yet know why.

  If you’re sick we need to get you to a doctor. Or is it something else? Bethan, is it something else? There are other signs. Have you had other signs? Have you been a dirty girl? If you’ve been dirty you must tell your uncle Hal …

  He had always breathed heavily – his thick lips were dry with it, peeling round the edges. While chewing food, the breath came out in snorts down his nose. Asleep, the snores rumbled through the apartment’s thin walls. But that was the first time, aged fourteen, that Beth had heard the quick rushes of air coming from the back of his throat, so thick they fugged up his words.

  No, I’m not sick. She had fought her way out into the narrow corridor, half hoping, half dreading to see her mother emerging from the bedroom where she had lived out her life in those days. I ate too much, okay? A whole bag of cookies – they made me sick to my stomach.

  He had laughed then, catching hold of her elbow as she squirmed away. Don’t you go wasting away on me, you hear? You’re good just as you are. His free hand had fumbled for her waistline, squeezing its ugly loose folds in a way that hurt more if she tried to pull away; the way he called tickling but which had
always felt to Beth like pain.

  Beth stood up and pressed the shining chrome flush on the toilet. The roar of water drowned the throbbing in her head. She was going to be okay. Uncle Hal was a prick. The world was full of pricks and she had learnt to ignore them. William was her world now; William who, after their tricky exchanges at breakfast, had left her the dearest message any girl could hope for. She pushed her hair back off her face and tore off some toilet roll to wipe her mouth. As she did so, she noticed that the bedroom wastepaper basket had somehow strayed into a corner under the washbasin. Of attractive wickerwork, it had an inner silk lining, which was coming loose. Beth picked it up and clutched it under one arm as she made her way back into the bedroom. The dizziness was setting in now, forcing her to grope through her damp socks for the start of the carpet for fear of tripping over. She might even lie down, she decided, or perhaps fix herself a herbal tea to sip while she visited a few retail websites – nothing reckless. A spot of online shopping never failed to soothe.

  The tip of Carter’s note was sticking out of the loose fold in the lining of the wastepaper basket, snagged between the silk and the outer wicker shell with sufficient firmness to have survived both Sophie and Ana’s assumptions that they had emptied it. As she plucked it free merely with the intention of dropping a stray piece of trash where it belonged, it was the unfamiliar handwriting that first caught Beth’s eye. And on closer glance, it was to Andrew Chapman’s beguiling letters of courtship that her thoughts initially swung: Sophie Chapman – irksome, enviable object of husbandly adulation – triumphs again. When her eyes had properly registered the author’s name, Beth – still untrusting of her state of mind – stared at it for several long moments, before she shuffled to the edge of the bed and sat down.

  That it was funny took several more readings to sink in. Carter – dull, fat, grumpy, old Carter, as bow-legged as his ancient dog – and Sophie Chapman … Beth flopped back onto the bed, her arms spread wide, hooting out loud as her emotions, near to breaking point just a few minutes before, ricocheted back upwards. Not so perfect then, the Englishwoman, and not so clever … no, not clever at all. To be that unguarded – signing his name, for Christ’s sake, not to mention hers – they had to have been smitten indeed. Oh, boy, it was delicious.

  Beth sat up, wiping her eyes as the hysteria drained away. Other people’s failings were always heartening. What to do, that was the thing. She tapped the note against her leg and then propped it against her bedside light before going downstairs to boil water for her tea.

  To: chapmanandrew@stjosephs.sch.org.uk

  25 September

  From: annhooper@googlemail.com

  Dear Andrew,

  How lovely to hear from you. I know we’re well into the fall now, but I am not exaggerating when I say that you are still spoken of in hallowed tones as ‘that great conductor from London’! Seriously, the fund-raiser was such a triumph and it was all thanks to you. Geoff has been missing you too – even less communicative than usual with his wife – and throwing himself back into work in the way that he always does when life is getting him down.

  So you can only imagine my joy at your suggestion. Yes! Yes! Yes! (As Meg Ryan would say.) I have already started speaking to people about possible venues – high schools being the obvious starting point, but I hope to get some more challenging ‘gigs’ for your choir as well. A capella is such a popular form of singing over here – although they’re usually all-male ‘barber shop’ groups, so your mix will have added appeal, especially given the kind of modern-classic programme you sketched out. Your dates don’t give us that much time – and the Christmas holidays are invariably busy – but I’ve always liked a challenge! Presumably you have to raise money, find sponsors or whatever … unless the St Joseph’s music budget easily stretches to encompass such things? (Given what I recall you telling me of the general excellence of the school, maybe it does?)

  Now we get to the Juilliard and Milly – of course I will find out anything helpful I can about ‘foreign’ applications. How delightful that she should feel so strongly. So many kids these days are content just to drift or follow obvious paths. That’s one of the reasons we were so thrilled when Katherine decided to take her biochemistry studies to the post-grad level – she turned down some excellent job opportunities en route but that subject is her passion and we totally respect that. And who would pass up on the chance to go to Harvard – right?! As to making sure none of this gets back to Sophie, you have my word. Like you say, at this very early stage it’s only fact-finding, isn’t it? So I’ll use this email address from now on, as you suggest.

  I miss you, Andrew. Can I say that, without it sounding weird?

  (I sincerely hope so since I already have!)

  I promise to be in touch again soon.

  With love as ever,

  Ann x

  Andrew shifted his gaze from the computer screen to the view of the school playground, two storeys below. With the tarmac and high fences it looked like some sort of giant outdoor cage, which it was, really, he mused, given the close watch kept upon its occupants and all the rules about running and kicking balls. A group of younger boys were trading high fives and football cards in one corner, while in another some of their female counterparts looked as if they were practising dance-steps. Older pupils of both sexes – including Olivia, he noted, spotting his daughter easily amid a gaggle of chatting girls – were engaged in less strenuous forms of recreation, most of them involving the chance to plug into music or telephones. Some, like Milly, were at lunchtime clubs – St Joseph’s priding itself, among its many other virtues, on the broadest spectrum of extra-curricular activities, everything from tiddly-winks to fencing, and the students were encouraged to take full advantage.

  It was a wonderful school, Andrew reminded himself, turning his gaze from the caged playground to the faded print of Monet’s Water Lilies that hung above his desk. Private, co-educational, fiercely competitive, with a reputation for achieving excellent results on all fronts, music included, there would have been no question of affording it for the girls without the considerable discount that came with his position. Indeed, that had been a primary motive behind Andrew’s application for the job, since the boys’ prep school where he had been head of music previously had offered no financial advantage to a man with two daughters. Seven years on, and now the rumour mill had it that when the current head resigned (a move said to be imminent) the job of running the school would be Andrew’s for the taking.

  Andrew frowned at Water Lilies. Waiting for anything wasn’t pleasant, especially when one wasn’t even certain it would happen. The governors were bound to advertise the post. A host of better contenders would want the same prize. And if he was successful, it would mean appointing someone else to take over running the music department, cutting himself off from what had always been his natural area of strength – his source of joy, even if it was at second hand, these days, accessed via flashes of talent in students rather than himself. He already had an encouraging number of subscribers for the tour, Milly, happily, being one of them, although Olivia had yet to be persuaded. Blessed as they were with perfect pitch, Andrew knew that his girls would be a vital asset to his troupe and was determined to recruit both.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Sophie, the moment he answered the phone.

  ‘Oh, nothing much …’ Andrew cast another look down at the fenced tarmac of the playground. ‘Feeling a bit hemmed in, I think – inspectors breathing down our necks, cock-ups on the timetable, pushy parents, all the usual joys of running a department at the beginning of a busy term. At this very moment I’d give anything to rewind the clock and be back across the Pond.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be there soon, won’t you,’ Sophie pointed out, ‘with this choir tour thingy?’

  ‘Indeed I will.’ Andrew matched her light tone, not wishing to provoke further discussion of a subject that had already produced dispiriting quantities of wifely bafflement: scooting back to a place from w
hich they had only just returned, all with the added hassle of finance to sort out and fifteen teenagers to keep in check? Was he out of his mind? Connections needed to be exploited before they went cold, Andrew had countered, using logic to explain a pull he hardly understood himself, other than the desire not to lose touch with all that had happened in August, the renewed sense of inspiration, of self-belief – a portcullis lifting, one he hadn’t even known was there.

  ‘Well, my news,’ continued Sophie, brightly, obligingly moving away from the topic, ‘is that Karen and Jeremy have just phoned to pull out of dinner. Her mother is sick, apparently.’

  Andrew laughed. ‘Why “apparently”? They wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true, surely?’

  ‘I don’t know. She sounded funny on the phone and people make up all sorts of stuff when they’re trying to hide something, don’t they? Anyway,’ she continued quickly, ‘I’ve asked Gareth instead … and his new partner – I could hardly say no, could I?’ she cried, when Andrew groaned. ‘He landscapes gardens and is called Lewis and I’m sure he’s jolly nice. Besides, I’ve just bought six lamb steaks, so it would be a shame not to use them.’

  ‘We could have had seconds,’ remarked Andrew, drily.

  ‘Pardon? Oh, I see – without Lewis, you mean?’ It was Sophie’s turn to laugh, still so much her old happy self since the holiday that Andrew could feel some of his own restlessness retreat. They were back on an even keel and he should do everything to keep them there.