As the weeks wore on, Tilly found that she wanted, in some low-key way, to express – to Susie – her appreciation of this attitude. At the same time, she wanted to make it plain to William that she didn’t need to be treated like a princess in a tower any more; that in fact she’d quite like to leave the tower without a gallant arm to support her and even slay a few – smallish – dragons unaided. It would be difficult to get both speeches right so that Susie wasn’t disgusted – Susie couldn’t bear girly displays of supportive affection – and William wasn’t wounded. William, Tilly could see, had taken on a role he rather liked, of berating Henry for his treatment of Tilly. He sent Henry regular e-mails, he told Tilly. They did not pull any punches, he told Tilly. He waited, sometimes, for Tilly to thank him for taking her part so unequivocally. Tilly wanted to tell him to stop, to tell him that her feelings for him and her feelings for Henry were in no way altered by William’s nobly intended e-mails. Only once had she lost her temper with him since Henry left, and he’d looked as if she had slapped him, for no reason.
‘I’m here whenever you want me,’ William had said.
Tilly had felt like stamping. She’d been ironing at the time while William lay on the sofa waiting for Susie to be ready to take out.
‘Don’t say that,’ Tilly had said. ‘Don’t say all that stuff.’ She mimicked a voice from an American soap opera: ‘“I’m always there for you.” Don’t say it. Why do I have to be responsible for your loyalty to me when I didn’t even ask for it, in the first place?’
William had been very hurt. He’d got up off the sofa and gone into Susie’s room, and, when they came out together fifteen minutes later, he still looked bruised.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tilly said.
‘It’s OK—’
‘I really do value your support, I really—’
‘It’s OK,’ William said.
Susie turned up the collar of her purple leather coat. ‘I like it,’ she said to Tilly, ‘I like it when you turn out to be a bad-tempered cow just like the rest of us.’
The trouble was, William had seen her bad temper as merely an aberration. If anything, he had treated her with even more gentleness since her outburst. Walking home one night from the tube station carrying her black canvas briefcase and a bunch of red-and-orange flowers tied up with raffia sent to her by a small business grateful for a mention in Arts and People, Tilly resolved that it was time – more than time – to find a way of saying to William that a person’s recovery from a severe emotional blow could be hindered, rather than helped, by too much sympathy.
As she walked up the street she could see that the lights in the sitting room of the flat were on. She liked that, she quite liked knowing that Susie would be there, lying on the sofa watching television or sitting on the kitchen table in nothing more than a T-shirt, waxing her legs because the light was best there. Susie wouldn’t have thought about supper, of course, or collected the towels from the launderette, but her failure to do so would remind Tilly that too much forward planning, too much order, could lead to a kind of sterility.
‘You want to watch out,’ Susie had said to her once in a rare moment of seriousness. ‘You want to watch all this control stuff. It isn’t good for you.’
Tilly opened the street door and went up the stairs past Mrs Renshaw’s dejected house plants. There was a strong smell of cooking, old-fashioned meat and bones cooking; it hung on the landing outside Mrs Renshaw’s door like a miasma. Tilly went on up the stairs and stood on the footprints mat to open her own front door. There was no music on, no sound of television.
‘Hi there,’ Tilly said uncertainly.
‘Hi,’ Susie called.
Tilly dropped her briefcase on the floor and went in to the sitting room. William was sitting on the sofa with his elbows on his knees. Susie was sitting on the floor. They both looked up when Tilly came in.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Cool flowers,’ Susie said.
Tilly put the flowers down on the back of the sofa behind William. She began to unbutton her coat.
‘William?’
‘Hi there—’
‘What’s the matter?’
Susie pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms round them.
Tilly said, ‘Have you had a row?’
William shrugged. Tilly took her coat off and came to sit by William, her coat bundled in her lap.
‘I’m going to Spain,’ Susie said.
‘Spain—’
‘Yes.’
‘For – for a holiday?’
‘For six months.’
‘She’s going with Vivi,’ William said with emphasis.
‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ Susie said.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘I’m going,’ Susie said, ‘because I’m sick of my job and I’m sick of London and I’m sick of the weather.’
Tilly looked at William. She waited for him to say, ‘And you’re sick of me,’ but he didn’t. He looked furious, mutinous, but not upset.
‘William?’
‘Now she tells me,’ William said. ‘No discussion, no “I wonder”, no “Do you think”, but just suddenly, out of the blue, air ticket, bikini, phrase book, going.’
‘That’s how I do things,’ Susie said.
Tilly looked at her.
‘And the rent?’
‘I’ll pay you till the end of the month.’
‘Two weeks—’
‘Yes,’ Susie said, ‘you’ll find someone else in two weeks.’
‘So will I,’ William said angrily.
Susie ignored him. She got to her feet. She looked at Tilly.
‘Sorry.’
William raised his head.
‘What about “Sorry, William”?’
‘I don’t owe you money,’ Susie said.
‘Owing isn’t just about money—’
‘I don’t do that kind of owing,’ Susie said.
‘Telling me—’
‘I’m rather envious,’ Tilly said. She lifted the bundle of her coat up and dropped it on the floor.
‘Come too,’ Susie said.
William whipped his head round and stared at Tilly.
‘You can’t—’
‘Course I can’t—’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘Because’, Tilly said slowly, ‘I’d be running away.’ Susie balanced unsteadily on one foot.
‘That’s what I’m doing—’
‘If I did,’ Tilly said, ‘I’d only be taking everything with me.’
‘Sexy Spaniards—’
‘Oh shut up,’ William said tiredly. ‘You’re so cheap.’
‘Why are you being such a pain about my going then?’
William held his head.
‘It’s the way that you’re going. It’s just the usual, typical, selfish Susie way of doing something.’
She bent over him.
‘Are you going to miss me?’
William said nothing.
‘I am,’ Tilly said.
Something flickered briefly across Susie’s face.
‘You’re really irritating,’ Tilly said, ‘just pushing off like this.’
‘Sorry.’
Tilly shook her head, staring down at her lap. Her hair was coming loose from the clip at the back of her head. William watched her. ‘Tilly?’
‘I’m OK—’
‘She doesn’t bloody think, does she, she doesn’t think about you being left here again—’
‘Shush,’ Tilly said.
‘I’m going to get us something to eat,’ Susie said. ‘I’m going to get us fish and chips.’
William didn’t take his gaze from Tilly’s face.
‘And some wine.’
‘Got any money?’ Susie said.
‘No,’ William said.
Tilly put a hand out for her bag.
‘I have—’
‘No,’ William said, ‘she can fucking well buy it herself.’
‘No double portions of
chips for you then,’ Susie said. She picked up her tote bag and Tilly’s coat. ‘Can I borrow this?’
Tilly nodded.
‘Pickled onions?’
‘No,’ William said.
Susie pulled on Tilly’s coat. It fell almost to her ankles. She looked down at herself with amusement.
‘Roll on Marbella.’
When Susie had gone, Tilly got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen. She took the clip out of her hair, shook it loose and scooped it back up again. Then she ran water into the nearest rinsed coffee mug and drank it, leaning against the sink and staring at the wall.
‘She’s a bloody pain,’ William said from the doorway.
Tilly looked into the empty mug.
‘Henry always thought that.’
‘I mean,’ William said, ‘I know we didn’t do love and in love and commitment and stuff, but we’ve been together almost two years.’
Tilly didn’t look at him.
‘She’s still free to go.’
‘Oh—’
‘If it’s just shagging, she’s as free to go as you are. Isn’t she?’
William leaned against the doorframe.
‘It’s never just shagging, is it, unless it’s a one-night stand—’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Tilly said.
‘And leaving you in the lurch—’
‘Oh, I’ll find someone else. There’s a girl at work, in fact. I’ll miss her though.’
William said, ‘I’m going to make sure I don’t.’
‘Is it up to you?’
‘I’ll make sure it is.’
‘So,’ Tilly said, refilling her mug noisily, ‘you’ll embark on another Susie-style, no strings, no-commitment type, fuck-for-free relationship?’
There was a small pause.
‘No,’ said William.
Tilly drank her water.
‘Oh good.’ She looked at him. ‘Why can’t you grow up? Why can’t you see that real relationships are what mature people do? What’s more pathetic, I wonder, than the prospect of a sad bunch of forty-year-olds still hanging free like they were kids with their first motorbikes?’
William peeled himself away from the doorframe and sat across a corner of the kitchen table.
He said, ‘Did you talk to Henry like that?’
Tilly said nothing. She finished her water.
‘I didn’t actually mean tonight to happen,’ William said. ‘I didn’t even plan on seeing Susie tonight. I came round after work because I needed to see you.’
Tilly put the mug down. She turned and leaned against the sink, looking at William.
‘William, I’m OK, really I’m fine. I mean, I’m not, I’m heartbroken still, but I won’t be able to stop being heartbroken if you’re so nice to me, so kind—’
‘It’s not about that,’ William said.
‘Oh?’
‘One of the reasons I got so furious with Susie is that I had something to tell you and then she jumps in with all this Spain stuff and occupies centre stage, as usual.’
‘She’s out now,’ Tilly said reasonably.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, tell me—’
William stood up. He came and leant against the sink beside Tilly.
‘It’s Henry.’
Tilly went very still.
‘It isn’t anything specific, it isn’t anything I can put my finger on, but his e-mails are different, the tone is different—’
‘Oh well,’ Tilly said tightly, ‘I know he’s happy. I know how happy he is.’
William stared at his feet.
He gave a huge sigh, and then he said, ‘I think he’s seeing someone.’
Chapter Fourteen
The Saturday morning train to Oxford was full, and it was difficult for Tilly to find a seat. Achieving one meant asking a boy in headphones reading a computer magazine to take his bag and leather jacket off the empty seat next to him. He sighed and glared, and then heaved both on to the central table between the seats so that there was no space left for anyone else to put their belongings down. Then he returned to his magazine, head bent low enough to ensure oblivion to his fellow passengers.
Tilly sat down, wedging her overnight bag behind her feet. Now that she was actually on the train, committed to this journey, she regretted the impulse that had led her to telephone her mother and ask to come for the weekend. It had been, at best, a most bizarre impulse. As Paula would have put it, Tilly and her mother didn’t do staying. They did occasional lunches and art exhibitions in London; they did twice-monthly phone calls; they did remembering Christmas and birthdays, but they did not do crises and confidences. When Tilly’s mother left Tilly’s first stepfather for her second stepfather, there had been no confessions, no recitals of an old anguish and a new ardour. Tilly had been, at the time, almost offended that her mother had not chosen to confide in her, but then her mother wasn’t a woman given to such intimacy. She was hugely sociable and simultaneously hugely distant. She did not seem to need – Tilly was most envious of this capacity – the approval of those around her. She did what she wanted or needed to do, attracting in the process all kinds of people drawn in by her apparent certainty, including three husbands. Tilly had never heard her mother apologize. It was a trait which, in the days when he could still acknowledge her existence, Tilly’s father was most obsessed about.
‘She betrayed me,’ he’d say, fists clenched, staring at the table top during dismal meals together. ‘She betrayed me. She betrayed you. She left us. She left her only child. And she can’t say sorry. She can’t even say sorry.’
Henry used to say that Tilly should count her lucky stars. He said that to have a mother who didn’t always want you to be sorry for her, who didn’t always insinuate that you owed her something for giving life to you, for bringing you up, for making sacrifices for you, was a fantastic freedom, a gift even.
‘It’s a bit unsupportive, though,’ Tilly had said.
‘So?’
‘Well, I never know how much she really cares—’
He’d kissed her neck.
‘I care.’
That had been fine, then. That had been enough. More than enough. Now, sitting on the train, her unread book propped against the computer boy’s bag, Tilly wondered if she was making a grave mistake; if her impulse to telephone her mother – what the hell had that been about, anyway? – would result in no more than the cool friendliness her mother had always shown her, which would, in the end, send her back to London as comfortless as she had felt on leaving it. If she’d wanted to talk and talk, after all, William would probably have listened for ever. But William wouldn’t do, nor would Susie, nor would her friend Julia nor her cousin Mel who had never liked Henry in the first place. She’d felt a need to go back somewhere, not forward; back to a place, even if it had only ever existed in her imagination, of simplicity and warmth and security. Tilly blinked. She had been so stern with herself about not crying, about not succumbing to anything that might even approach being related to self-pity. She sniffed. The computer boy looked up briefly, glanced at her and jerked his bag so that her book fell flat on the table.
‘Thanks,’ Tilly said furiously.
The boy said nothing. He gave his bag another jerk and then he went back to his magazine.
Tilly’s mother was standing on the station platform, her face half hidden by sunglasses. She wore jeans and high-heeled boots and a tremendous fringed shawl. She did not, Tilly thought, stepping off the train, look much like a mother, but she did look, unmistakably, dramatically, like a person.
‘Mum,’ Tilly said.
Margot unfolded her arms from her shawl and put them round Tilly.
‘Just bloody for you, sweet.’
Tilly nodded, her face briefly against her mother’s neck. Margot smelled as she always had, sharp and musky all at once.
‘I didn’t know whether to come—’
Margot took her arms away.
‘Cage door always open, Tilly. You can g
o any time. You know me.’
Tilly nodded.
‘You’re thinner,’ Margot said.
‘Only a bit—’
‘Better than fatter. Chocolate consolation only makes you feel worse.’
‘Self-disgust, I suppose—’
‘Now that,’ Margot said unexpectedly, ‘is never far from the surface anyway. Is it?’
Tilly bent her head. She felt suddenly unsteady.
‘No.’
Margot said, ‘Give me your bag.’
‘I can manage—’
‘Tilly. Give it. Don’t argue.’
‘I’m not ill, Mum.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Margot said. She took the bag firmly out of Tilly’s hand. ‘You can carry it yourself when you leave.’
Tilly’s stepfather, Gavin, was a professor of ancient history at the university. When Tilly’s mother first met him, he was living with his wife and two young adolescent sons in an unremarkable 1920s house in a cul-de-sac up the northern end of the Woodstock Road. Within two years, the wife and sons had been transferred to a flat in Cutteslowe, and Gavin and Margot were installed in half a curious Gothic house on Headington Hill. At weekends, in theory, Gavin’s sons left the flat in Cutteslowe for Headington Hill and a bedroom in a red-brick turret under a fantasy pointed roof. In practice, largely owing to Gavin’s first wife’s inability to come to terms with what she saw as Margot’s cavalier theft of her husband – and his spineless acquiescence to being stolen – they came only about once a month. They would have liked to have come more. They were, like their father, intrigued and beguiled by Margot. She never asked them about school or exams or sport: instead she talked to them rather as if they were just men she’d met at a party. The thought of their father – or mother – having sex was of course completely revolting, but oddly, the thought of Margot and sex was not only not revolting but possible to the point of being very nearly desirable. Their mother, sensing all this with the quiveringly acute antennae caused by jealousy and rejection, made sure that the boys went to Headington Hill as seldom as possible. Tilly had hardly met them. They had been her stepbrothers for nine years and were now post university and struggling with first careers, and she would have been hard put to it to recognize them in the street.
Margot had arranged for her to sleep in their bedroom.
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