About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  When I achieved Lucy’s flat, which thankfully was empty, everyone being at work – or play, in Minna’s case – I fully intended to consult the train timetable, pack and clear out. Strangely, though, I found myself straying into Lucy’s bedroom. I looked longingly at the bed. That cosy Moroccan bedcover. Those ethnic cushions. Just five minutes. With my eyes wide open, I decided, so I didn’t nod off. Then I’d be away. I kicked my shoes off, lay down in the foetal position and within moments, Morpheus had claimed me.

  Sometime later I heard the doorbell go. Or was it a dream? It was faint. Distant. Perhaps it was my head still buzzing, or perhaps it was a subconscious clarion call summoning me back across the oceans of sleep into which I’d plunged. Happily it stopped and I went back to my sea bed. At length, though, it resumed in a more intrusive manner. Louder. More persistent. Impossible to ignore. I glanced at my watch, realizing I felt almost normal, like a proper human being, but then that was hardly surprising considering I’d been asleep for five hours. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Shit. Bugger. Four o’clock. Nico, the dogs – so stupid to lie down like that. I sat bolt upright. Thankfully my head was mobile and my brain alert and such boldness could be accommodated. Why had I awoken? Oh yes, the doorbell. I darted to the door. Yes, I could dart too. I pressed the intercom machine, but whoever it was had been waiting too long and had gone away.

  Thanking the Lord I’d at least been roused – how galling would it be for Lucy to discover me fresh from work – I set about collecting my things, smoothing down my daughter’s bed, and even had a piece of toast and a cup of coffee since irritatingly, my timetable informed me I’d missed one train and had an hour to wait until the next. In an attempt to adopt a philosophical approach to life’s vicissitudes – which broadly involved me not looking at my phone in case it was Nico – I gave the kitchen a thorough clean. Then, just as I was making ready to leave, bag in hand, I saw feet descending the external staircase through the bars of the basement window. The doorbell went again. It occurred to me that this was the third time of asking. It was impossible to get much of a view of the persistent caller in this subterranean basement, but I’d seen enough to spot smart jeans and expensive Italian loafers. One of Lucy’s admirers, no doubt. I pressed the intercom machine.

  ‘Hello? Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Henri.’

  I stared at the machine on the wall. Stepped back from it. Blinked at the red light still flashing. Then I moved forward again.

  ‘Henri?’

  ‘Yes. Can I come in?’

  ‘Um … just a mo.’

  I leaped up on to the sofa to peer in the mirror. Found a brush nestling on the back of it and flew it through my hair. Then I found a lipstick – this was clearly the girls’ dressing room – and slicked it on, but it was too dark, too young, so I rubbed it off. I jumped back down, realizing that had taken a few moments and he might have gone, interpreting the pause as a subtle message to withdraw, a disinclination on my part to see him, but as I opened the door, there he was. Henri Defois. Stepping into my daughter’s flat. Second sighting in as many days and before that not for five years. As he shut the door behind him I absolutely knew the previous calls had been his. I thought how this was the last thing in the world I needed right now, but also, the very best. It had been so lovely to see him last night. Until Felix had come along and … well, claimed me.

  ‘Henri.’

  ‘Molly.’

  In that moment as I waited for him to signal what to do next and how to react I was flooded with irrepressible thoughts. He was such a mnemonic for my old life, my old days: here, in the seclusion of a small room, rather than in the open, crowded street of last night, I was almost knocked over by the force of the memories. My heart banged for my old self in that moment. His too, I believe, as I held his eyes. Not only had we been so much to each other, we represented so much, too. A different family dynamic, a different way of being, of living. Sunny, happier times.

  ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘Forgive me, I asked Alice. I had a hunch you’d be staying with Lucy.’

  ‘And she knew where?’

  ‘She did.’

  It struck me anew that Lucy had been very secretive about her friendship with Alice. She’d never mentioned it. Or the fact that her parents had divorced. I remembered that young girl in her nightdress, listening, at the top of the stairs. She had her memories. Her reasons for keeping things to herself. For keeping Henri and me apart.

  ‘I just had this terrible feeling that last night was a one-off and I wouldn’t see you again for another five years,’ Henri said. ‘I couldn’t bear that.’

  ‘You could have found me earlier, through Alice, at the farm.’

  ‘I didn’t want to instigate anything. Burden you with more guilt. I didn’t think it was my place.’

  At the mention of guilt, an ancient roll of terror came loose and unfurled in my head like a blackout blind. I remembered not being able to walk: literally staggering from side to side down a long corridor in that terrible building in Worcester, after I’d identified David. Realizing, as I swayed from side to side, what I’d done, each unsteady step ramming it home. For a moment I wondered what I was even doing in this room with Henri and glanced behind him at the outside staircase, desperate for escape. Then something steadied me. His eyes perhaps. Telling me it was OK. Not to give credence to the demons in my head, which weren’t real. I took a breath to balance myself. He waited. At length, he reached out and took my hands in his.

  ‘Moll,’ he said softly. His eyes were very tender. It rocked me again.

  ‘Henri, don’t say it like that,’ I whispered. ‘You can’t still feel like that. Not after all this time. After everything that happened.’

  ‘I can. I do. I can’t help it. But I do also know it didn’t happen to me. It happened to you. So it’s easier for me.’

  ‘Yes. It was my husband who died.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So … because of that … I may as well say it right now, I could never find it again, Henri. Could never feel it.’

  ‘You mean you could never act on it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Which is different from feeling it.’ He led me gently to the sofa and we sat down together; perched on the edge. ‘We didn’t kill him, Molly,’ he said softly. I inhaled sharply at the vocalization of it. Felt my breathing become very shallow.

  ‘We did. We as good as did. Or I did.’

  ‘He lost control and drove his car into a tree, not you.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ I covered my face with my hands, remembering leaving the morgue, driving home. A brick wall at the side of a building had presented itself and for a split second, I’d thought of heading the car straight for it. I withdrew my hands slowly.

  ‘Henri, I could never do it to David’s memory, you know that. You know me.’ I clenched my fist and thumped it to my heart. ‘That’s why you haven’t called in five years. Because you absolutely know that about me.’

  Henri stared sadly down at his hands, limp between his knees, in recognition. Hands I knew. Loved. Creative, yet capable. The sort you’d trust the care of your children to. On swings in the park. In a Mirror dinghy in Cornwall, where they’d sometimes join us. He nodded. ‘I know. But then last night, I thought – it’s fate, seeing her out of the blue like this. It’s a sign. Why else would we bump into each other? It’s as if someone,’ he jerked his head to the heavens, ‘up there thought, enough time, enough pain, enough sadness. Time to—’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted softly.

  He took a deep breath. Let it out shakily. ‘David wouldn’t want you to be on your own for ever,’ he said stubbornly.

  ‘True. But he wouldn’t want me to be with you. I’d see his face every time I saw yours. See you both walking home from the station after work together, having a quick pint in the pub, in our back garden doing the crossword.’

  ‘He’s dead, Molly! That’s got to be bollocks. We’re the living!�
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  ‘My children,’ I said brokenly. ‘Lucy. Particularly Lucy.’ He nodded as tears flooded my eyes. I took a shaky breath. ‘She’d never forgive me.’

  ‘She knew?’

  ‘She found out. Heard us rowing.’

  He sighed. ‘I often wondered.’

  I cleared my throat; a regrouping gesture. Then I crossed my legs. ‘Anyway,’ I said, trying to change the mood, the tempo. ‘I’m seeing someone.’

  ‘Oh?’ He jerked his eyes up from the floor, alert.

  ‘Is that so strange? It’s been five years, Henri. And as you say, David wouldn’t want me to be alone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You saw him last night.’

  Henri blanched. ‘I did?’

  ‘Yes, Felix Carrington.’

  He stared at me. ‘Felix Carrington? Oh, don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘What? Why shouldn’t I be seeing him?’

  ‘Felix Carrington? Felix Carrington is un salaud.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A cad. He’d sell his own grandmother. You certainly shouldn’t be seeing him if you are. And anyway, he’s been with the same girl for years – although apparently he cheats on her.’

  I went cold. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You mean his ex, Emmeline. He broke up with her ages ago.’

  ‘So he says. But anyway, no, I don’t think that’s her name.’

  ‘Yes, it is, she lives in America,’ I insisted. I was cross now. He stared at me as the full horror dawned.

  ‘Oh God, Molly, seriously, don’t fall for Felix Carrington. That way madness lies.’

  ‘I haven’t fallen for him, I’ve just been on a couple of dates with him.’ I went hot and then cold in quick succession.

  ‘Well, thank Christ for that. Keep it that way. You certainly don’t want to end up in his bed.’

  ‘Why not?’ I gasped, clutching my pearls.

  ‘Because you’d just be another notch on his belt, that’s why not. Shit, you haven’t already …’

  ‘No! No. I absolutely have not.’ My mind flew to last night’s lurid antics, gaudy highlights of which, for all I knew, included me dancing naked with a lampshade on my head, or doing my interpretation of Anna and me at Zumba class, which the children found hilarious when I played to the gallery in the kitchen, but which might not translate so well to a cool dude’s Docklands bedroom.

  ‘Anyway, yesterday you said you barely knew him!’ I retorted.

  ‘True. I don’t really. Only by repute.’

  ‘Which often stems from jealousy.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not jealous of the man, Molly.’

  ‘No, I meant the rumours. They could have originated from people who are.’

  We regarded one another angrily, both hurt. Two pairs of pained eyes. At length I took his hands. ‘Don’t let’s argue, Henri, it’s so lovely to see you.’

  He nodded. ‘And it’s beyond lovely to see you.’ He opened his arms and I moved easily into them. We held on tight. I felt his heart beating under his shirt; inhaled his smell: good soap, cotton. At length we drew apart but I knew he’d wanted to hold me for longer.

  I looked into his dark, liquid eyes. ‘I don’t like to think of you living alone.’

  ‘I don’t. I’ve got Alice and Tatiana with me.’

  ‘Oh! They didn’t stay with Caroline?’

  ‘They didn’t want to.’

  ‘Gosh. Quite a compliment.’

  He shrugged. ‘I didn’t take it too personally. They would have had Giles knocking around as a stepfather and his abandoned wife and children down the road.’

  ‘Bloody hell. No shame. Is that how it panned out? Caroline and Giles in your house? I thought you said Battersea?’

  ‘They moved there recently.’

  ‘But you left, not her?’

  ‘Once I knew, I couldn’t bear to stay. I rented across the river and the children wanted to come with me. Caroline agreed to it for a bit to let everyone calm down. They just never went back. It all happened by accident, really. The luck falling with me, I suppose.’

  ‘You make your own luck.’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe. I dare say if I’d left their mother and sugared off with another woman they’d have stayed with her.’

  I gave him a long look. ‘And would you?’

  ‘Have sugared off with you? Yes, I would, Molly. I didn’t think for a moment I would when we first started to see each other. Or should I say, play tennis together. You weren’t my type at all.’

  I laughed, despite myself. ‘Not pretty enough.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to. You thought I was safe.’

  ‘You grew on me.’

  ‘Like bindweed.’

  ‘No, like another skin.’

  I was taken aback.

  ‘And now I’m going to ask you the same question, Moll.’

  ‘Would I have left David for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I gazed at him. Shook my head. ‘No. I’m sorry, Henri, but I wouldn’t have left David for anyone. Not that I didn’t love you more than him. I believe at the time I did. I was certainly infatuated with you. But I couldn’t have left my children. And I have a feeling they might have done what yours did.’

  ‘Voted with their feet.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And you wonder how Caroline could have done that – left them?’ I didn’t answer. He held my eyes. ‘OK, fair enough, so you couldn’t have left them five years ago, but your kids aren’t children any more. They’re young adults.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And you can’t live by their rules for ever.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s unrealistic. And after a while, there’s a funny smell.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Like burning martyr.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ I went to get to my feet but he seized my wrists.

  ‘I mean it, Molly. You can’t live in purdah for ever, drifting round Wales with a burning cross in your hands, flogging soap and three-legged—’

  ‘Herefordshire, and don’t make fun of my business! Who told you—’

  ‘Alice. Or Lucy, on occasion.’

  I gasped. ‘You see Lucy?’

  ‘I told you, I live with my children. Their friends come round.’

  ‘You said Facebook …’ How could she even bear to see him? For some reason this seemed incredibly treacherous of my daughter. I didn’t know why.

  ‘Well,’ I fumed. ‘Bully for her. Bully for all of you. How very cosy. How perfectly lovely in – where is it these days, Henri, Chelsea?’

  ‘Pimlico.’

  ‘Pimlico. Splendid. Lots of kitchen suppers, lots of trendy food from fancy cookbooks—’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Lots of chat about poor old Mum, up to her eyes in mud and soap and horse shit—’

  ‘Only when I ask, and then only some throwaway line in response which I have to turn away to hear so she doesn’t see my face and which makes my heart pound if she did but know it. And she’s only been round twice, if I’m honest. And on both occasions I was supposed to be away, but turned up unexpectedly. Alice knows Robin. His sister’s her best friend.’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t know that.’ So much I didn’t know. So much Lucy had hidden.

  ‘And the only reason I’m telling you—’

  ‘Yes, why are you telling me, Henri?’ I rounded on him.

  ‘Is to prove to you she’d be all right with it. Lucy. Eventually. She didn’t stalk out when I arrived back at the flat, she behaved herself. Even talked to me. Because she’s an adult, Molly. And because people change. Grow up. They have to. I know you think it’s an insurmountable hurdle, always have done, but the fact that she can even set foot in my house when she knows what happened all those years—’

  Whatever else he’d been about to say was lost as a high-speed jet roared overhead, seemingly inches above us, making us both duck in reflex and certai
nly drowning words. As its sonic blast filled our ears he pulled me close to him, as if the unearthly noise was our cover, as if we could enter another world. I buried my face in his shoulder. Found his ear.

  ‘It’s been five years, Henri. Five whole years.’

  ‘Tell me they don’t just roll back.’

  He’d taken my face in his hands and then I couldn’t reply because a whole host of jets – a fleet, even; was it the Queen’s birthday? Were we being invaded? – whooshed overhead so that it seemed as if we really were in some strange parallel universe, in another country, or another life, a long time ago. He rested his forehead on mine and we both shut our eyes. The noise also, of course, drowned anything local, anything proximate, like footsteps down a staircase, or a key in a door. Voices, even. What it didn’t mask, however, was the flood of light pouring into the room, which made us spring apart. At first all I could see was white light and dark figures, silhouetted in the doorway. But in a heartbeat, my eyes adjusted. There, on the threshold, shopping bags in hands, eyes wide, faces aghast, stood my daughters.

  20

  Henri and I froze, transfixed in the glare of their horrified faces: caught, like a couple of Nico’s doomed rabbits in a hunting lamp, their eyes round like the barrels of his gun. Eventually Lucy found her voice. It was ominously quiet.

  ‘I just do not believe you, Mother. The other night I find you getting with some man in a club, then Nico tells us you’ve groped our vet in the lane, and now this. With him!’

  Henri looked slightly horrified at this news. He shot me an askance glance as he collected himself and got to his feet.

  ‘No!’ I spluttered, getting to mine. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, it’s not like that, Lucy!’

  ‘What is it like then?’ she demanded. ‘Why were you kissing him?’

  ‘I was not kissing him!’

  ‘Why were you so close?’

  ‘Just – just for – old times’ sake.’