‘Is he sick? A whole house? Just for her? But that’s not fair! What about you and me?’
‘It is fair, Jess,’ Charlie said. ‘Lucas is Ella’s uncle, not ours. He’s no relation to us.’
‘But he must be! If he’s Ella’s uncle and I’m Ella’s sister, doesn’t that make him mine too?’
I can’t remember how Charlie answered that one. He probably took out pen and paper and drew a family tree, showing how we all came from different branches. One more example of the complications of blended family life. Jess was still young then, I suppose, but I was used to it. All through school there seemed to have been ‘Draw your family tree’ projects. I’d had to stay back late once to finish mine, having added in Charlie’s branch, my branch, Mum’s, Dad’s, Walter’s … Looking at the finished product, it had struck me that all the branches had led to Jess. It was as though all these people, all the different relatives, had somehow come together merely to ensure her creation.
‘Do you actually like Jess?’ I asked Charlie several nights later, when the two of us were alone in the kitchen washing the dishes while she did somersaults around the dining room, or trapeze acts from the light fittings or whatever her latest antic was. I knew that whatever it was, Mum and Walter would be watching on indulgently.
He shrugged.
‘Charlie, you must have an opinion.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Charlie, it’s important. What do you think of her?’
‘She’s my little sister. That kid that lives with us. Sure I like her. Anyway, it’s not as if I can swap her with someone else. Remember, Ella, you can choose your friends but not your family.’
‘Don’t use clichés.’
‘Then don’t count your chickens before you spoil the broth.’
I flicked my tea towel at him.
‘Come now, Ella. Just because you’re jealous of Jess doesn’t mean I have to be too.’
‘I’m not jealous of her.’
‘No?’
‘I’m not.’ I flicked him again. ‘I’m not. Besides, I was here first. She should be jealous of me.’
More than a decade later, another man asked me a similar question.
‘You’re jealous of Jess, aren’t you?’
I was shocked when Aidan asked me that. We were on what I thought of afterwards as our first date. At the time it was a casual drink in our local pub, The Swan on Bayswater Road. It was summertime. I’d been in the kitchen tidying up and chatting to Lucas and one of the other tutors. Aidan had come into the room, thrown his bag onto the table and said, ‘I could murder a beer. Is anyone interested?’ I was the only one to say yes.
I’d talked to him before, of course. We’d first met one evening when I was back from my job in Bath for the weekend. I knew his first name was Aidan and that he was about my age. I liked his voice (his Irish accent was very strong, even though Lucas had told me he’d been in London for five years), I liked his hair (he could have been Lucas’s son – they shared the same mop of dark curls) and I liked the clothes he wore (as casual as Lucas’s too). In the baggy blue jumper, dark jeans and runners that he favoured, he looked like a roadie for a band, or a barman, not the talented language tutor I knew him to be.
He’d come into the kitchen while I was cooking dinner. It was an Italian pasta sauce that I was making for the first time. I’d fried pancetta first, then added tomatoes, red wine, garlic and chilli, hoping for the richness of flavours the recipe promised. He sniffed appreciatively and looked over my shoulder at the recipe book. That’s when I noticed he was slightly taller than me. I also noticed that he smelt good. Of shampoo and soap, rather than aftershave, but it was woody and, yes, sexy, especially in a kitchen already smelling of tomatoes and red wine and garlic.
‘That smells great,’ he said. ‘Bucatini all’Amatriciana? Grande! Il mio preferito.’ He sounded like an Italian native.
‘Have you just complimented me or told me off?’ I asked.
He smiled. That’s when I first noticed the gap between his bottom teeth. Standing that close to him, I also noticed that his eyes were slightly different colours. Months later, when we’d be in bed together, I loved to lie with my head on his chest and make him shut one eye and then the other, as I tried to decide exactly what colour they were. ‘They’re both just boring blue,’ he’d say, shutting his eyes. ‘They’re not,’ I’d say, lifting his eyelids, peering in, making him laugh. And they weren’t. One was bluey-green and the other was greeny-blue.
‘Here, taste it,’ I said, giving him a spoonful. I cared what he thought of it. I took my cooking duties in Lucas’s house very seriously.
‘Nice,’ he said, putting the spoon in the sink.
‘Nice? The most boring word in the English language?’
‘It is, Ella. It’s very nice. Very good, in fact. But I’ve been spoilt. I grew up eating that particular sauce. It’s my mother’s speciality. People come from far and wide to try it. There’s some secret ingredient she puts into it. She says she’ll take it to her grave. I think she means it.’
‘Your mother’s Italian?’
He nodded. ‘When my father was in his twenties he went to Rome on an exchange trip. He was staying with an Italian family, a well-known restaurant family, and he fell instantly in love with the youngest daughter. Their families were against it, so they eloped. As they fled in the middle of the night, she took her grandmother’s recipe book with her, so she would always have something of home to cling to, no matter where they ended up.’
One of the other tutors came into the kitchen then. ‘Don’t believe a word he tells you, Ella. His name is Aidan Joseph O’Hanlon and he’s about as Italian as the Queen.’
Aidan grinned. ‘She’s got Italian blood, hasn’t she? Or is it German?’
The other tutor left and I went back to my stirring. Aidan stayed. I realised I liked having him there. Usually I became uncomfortable if anyone watched me cook. ‘So none of that was true?’
‘Sorry, no.’ He smiled again, looked at his watch and pulled a face. ‘I’m late for a class. I’d better go.’ At the door, he stopped. ‘I was wrong, Ella. I’m sorry. Your sauce isn’t nice. It’s fantastic.’
He wasn’t there for dinner that night. A week passed without me seeing him again. I knew from casual questions posed to Lucas that Aidan was one of his busiest tutors, his skill with languages very much in demand. I was at the stove again the next time we spoke. This time, I was trying to master a French recipe.
I heard his voice first. ‘Ella, hello.’
I turned and was surprised to feel a tiny jolt at the sight of him, like a little electric charge. ‘Hi, Aidan.’
‘I’m ravenous. I haven’t eaten since we last spoke.’
‘Not since that one spoonful of my pasta sauce?’
He shook his head. ‘Not even a crust of bread.’
‘You must be very hungry.’
‘Very,’ he said solemnly. ‘What culinary delight is this?’ Again, he leaned past me to see the recipe book. Again, I smelt the soap and the shampoo. Again, it mingled too well with the herbs, the white wine, the garlic. I felt another of those jolts.
‘Entrecôte à la bordelaise?’ he said, saying the name of the dish in what I knew had to be perfect French. ‘May I taste?’
‘Of course,’ I said, handing him a spoon, trying not to smile.
He tasted it. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘But sadly, not a patch on my mother’s version. You see, when my father was young, he moved to Paris and stayed with —’
I laughed and ordered him out of my kitchen. He gave me one more grin and then he left. I hoped he’d be back for dinner but he wasn’t. I didn’t see him again for three more days. Until he casually issued that invitation to go for a beer and I just as casually accepted.
‘Have fun, kids,’ Lucas called after us.
Over the first beer we talked about London, about his work, my work in Bath. Over the second he talked about Ireland, I talked about Australia. During the thi
rd we talked about my family. He laughed when I told him stories about Charlie, about his weekly email report. I told him about Jess too, my all-singing, all-dancing half-sister. I also told him how much Mum and Walter adored her. Doted on her. Spoiled her. Which was when he accused me of being jealous of her.
‘Of course I’m not jealous of her. She’s just my little sister.’
‘Half-sister.’
‘Sister, half-sister. Tomato, tomayto.’
‘Does Charlie get on better with her than you do?’
‘Are you a language expert or a trainee psychologist?’
‘I just wondered.’
‘He feels the same way about her as I do.’
‘Conflicted and jealous?’
‘I’m not. Really, I’m not.’
‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’
‘The man is a Shakespearean show-off, methinks.’
He smiled. ‘I can do Yeats, Heaney and Hardy too, if you like. Laurel and Hardy, even. I’m like a literary jukebox.’
I took a sip of my drink, thought about it, looked across at Aidan and decided to tell the truth. The truth that had just become blindingly clear to me in that moment.
‘You’re right. I am extremely jealous of Jess. She drives me absolutely crazy. She always has.’
Aidan laughed. And so did I. It felt brilliant, so wonderful, to say it, to admit it to someone. For as long as I could remember, I’d felt bad for not instantly loving Jess, for finding her annoying, for not responding to her in the same joyous, admiring way as everyone else. And yes, I’d felt hurt that Mum and Walter showered her with so much attention, and I felt bad that I couldn’t sing or dance or enchant people like she could. I could read a lot, and I liked cooking, but they were all dull pursuits compared to the fireworks she could produce. She was much more beautiful than I was too, all dimples and curls and cuteness. I was like Pippi Longstocking next to her Shirley Temple. But I’d never said it out loud before, not even to my friends at school, at university. I’d hoped that if I kept agreeing with everyone when they said ‘Isn’t she adorable?’ that I would start to believe it myself.
But not now. Here, in this London beer garden, I told the truth. ‘I’m insanely jealous of her.’
Another smile from Aidan.
‘She ruined my life.’
An eyebrow lift.
‘She’s the most spoilt, over-indulged, cosseted —’
‘Don’t hold back, will you?’
‘Infuriating, attention-seeking, self-absorbed —’ I was laughing now. ‘I mean it.’
‘I can see that,’ Aidan said. ‘So, in a nutshell – you hate her.’
I nodded, happily. ‘I really hate her.’
‘Despise her?’
‘Completely.’
‘Grand. Let’s kill her, so.’
‘Great idea. Thank you. Would you do it?’
‘Of course. Do you want me to take Charlie out at the same time? Two for the price of one?’
‘Not Charlie. I love Charlie. But Jess, yes. Did you mention price? You’ll charge me?’
‘It’s murder. Of course I’ll charge you. What do you think this is, a charity? I’m an impecunious student, remember. Now, do you want her to suffer or will I make it quick?’
I pretended to give it some thought. ‘Quick but very painful would be good.’
‘A poison-tipped arrow?’
‘Perfect, thank you. How do I repay you?’
‘With a kiss,’ he said. Just like that.
I felt that unsteady feeling again, a kind of swirl, up and down my body. It wasn’t the alcohol.
‘Before or after you murder her?’ I asked.
‘Where is she?’
‘Australia. Melbourne.’
‘And we’re in London. A geographical obstacle. Let’s do the kiss now, and I’ll do the murder next time I’m in Australia.’
So we kissed. Across the table. For a few seconds which became a minute, which was the most extraordinary minute of my life. Until someone shouted, ‘Get a room!’ and Aidan laughed and I felt the laugh against my lips. If it was possible, I would have kept kissing him for the rest of that night. But we stopped and I blinked and he did too, as though we were coming out of a kind of trance. Months later, when we talked about when and how we knew, about when we’d first realised that this was going to be serious between us, we both said that kiss.
We had one more drink that night. Then his mobile rang. It was Lucas, not checking up on us, but to say there’d been a call to the house from a client in ‘something of a state’. One of the students was having a pre-exam meltdown. Was there any chance at all that Aidan could —
‘I’ve had three drinks, Lucas. Your niece has led me astray.’
I held up four fingers.
‘Sorry, Lucas. Four drinks. But I can still stand, if that’s helpful.’ Do you mind? he mouthed at me.
Of course not, I mouthed back. Go.
I was glad of a chance to stop and think about what had happened between us.
He told Lucas he was on his way and hung up. I watched as he switched straight back into work mode, all serious where he had been playful. ‘I’m sorry, Ella. I don’t want to go.’
‘I don’t want you to go.’
‘This is just intermission, then? Part two tomorrow? Same place. Eight?’
‘Same place, eight,’ I said.
He smiled. Then he leaned over and he touched my cheek and he left. He didn’t kiss me again. If he had, I don’t think I would have let him leave.
That’s how it started. Easily, warmly, quickly. That’s how it kept going. I’d had boyfriends before, but they’d always been short-term relationships, generally beginning at uni parties when we were both a bit drunk and then petering out before they properly started. There was one relationship in Melbourne that began in a more promising way – we were match-made by friends – but that soon became uncomfortable too, as if we were both wearing the wrong size shoes.
I’d always felt I was to blame. I’d never known how to behave, how to be a girlfriend. I’d read somewhere that you learn how to be a woman from watching your mother, but that was no help to me. I was the complete opposite of my mother. I was tall, she was small. She wore bright colours, I liked dark shades. Her way with Walter was giggles, flirting, big eyes and helplessness. Her way with my father had only seemed to be arguing. As a teenager, I’d talked about it with Charlie. We were both children of broken marriages. How were we going to get it right ourselves?
‘Don’t ask me for advice,’ he said. ‘I’m just a fat kid. No one will ever fall in love with me. I’ll be lucky if I get even the scrapings.’
‘But what do men like in a girlfriend?’
‘I told you, I haven’t a clue.’ After more prodding he told me he thought what he would like was someone who would be like his best friend, but added, ‘It would also help if she was hot, so I could show her off to my friends. If I had any friends.’
Charlie had heaps of friends. I wasn’t the only one who found him great company. He was also very popular with the girls. He just hadn’t told me in case I ‘got a complex’, he admitted later.
But when I was with Aidan, I didn’t feel like I was trying to be anything. I was just me. I talked to him like I talked to Charlie, except the difference was I never wanted to kiss Charlie. I wanted to kiss Aidan all the time. Make love with him all the time. We slept together two weeks after our first date. In his room the first time, my room the second. Lucas gave us knowing glances when we came down for breakfast, the other tutors teased and made racy remarks, but we didn’t mind. We laughed. We loved it. For the first three months of our relationship, we couldn’t physically get enough of each other. I’d never felt anything like it. If he touched my hand, I’d want to go to bed with him. It was as if every cell came alive when he was around. It wasn’t just physical. There didn’t seem to be enough time to say everything I wanted to say to him, or enough time to hear all his stories. I wanted to look
at him all the time. I thought he was the most handsome – no, the most beautiful – man I had ever seen. He wasn’t a male model. Far from it. His face was a bit wonky, really, his nose a little big, his hair unruly, but when he smiled at me, it was as if something magical happened. I thought he had the most perfect face I’d ever seen.
He felt the same way about me. That was the incredible thing. He thought I was beautiful, sexy, clever, funny. He asked me question after question and listened so intently to my answers. He remembered everything I told him. He drew stories out of me – about Lucas, my dad, about Walter. He thought the story of Mum being discovered in a shopping centre was hilarious. He insisted on sitting down with me one day to watch all the MerryMakers DVDs she’d sent.
‘She’s funny,’ he said at the end. ‘A complete headcase, obviously, but she’s really funny.’
She was, I agreed. ‘And what did you think of Jess? Adorable? Talented? Funny too?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Much more adorable and talented and funny than you. And it’s obvious your mum loves her much more than she loves you. I’d say Charlie does too. And Walter. It is Walter, isn’t it? Or Wolfgang? Werner? Whichever one, I’d say he thinks she is wunderbar.’
‘I should have kept you to our murder pact.’
‘Oh, no. I couldn’t do it now,’ he said. ‘Not now I’ve seen her in action on your mother’s show. A nation would go into mourning. Can I start her fan club or has someone beaten me to it?’
I poked my tongue out at him and then I laughed. He made me laugh a lot.
I was already booked to go back to Australia for Christmas. Aidan came with me. ‘You don’t want to be in Ireland for Christmas?’
‘Let me think. Grey skies and freezing temperatures. Sunshine and warmth. How can I choose?’
‘You won’t miss your own family too much?’
‘I’ll battle on bravely without them.’
We’d been together for six months by then, but I still hadn’t met his family. It was the one subject we didn’t speak about much. I knew the details, of course – he had one older brother, his parents were now in their early sixties, they lived in Carlow, a county to the south of Dublin, still in Aidan’s childhood home. It wasn’t that he’d had a tragic Angela’s Ashes-style Irish upbringing, or a battered-by-the-priest one either. He said it had been happy enough. Not much money, but he’d had good teachers at school who recognised he had a gift for languages, first in Irish, then in French. He was the first in his family to go to university. His father had worked in a drapery, his mother had stayed at home. No, neither were alcoholics, he assured me. They were just ordinary, hard-working, regular parents. His brother Rory was a self-made success story, managing director of a car-hire company that was now one of the best known in Ireland.
The House of Memories Page 18