Exposure

by Talitha Stevenson

  When she had gone, he went into his father's study and typed Arianne's name into the search engine: 20,024 hits in 0.45 seconds.

  'Jamie dating again! But who is the mystery girl?' he read. He clicked on the link:

  www.starsandcelebs.co.uk

  Jamie Turnbull, who split just recently from sexy co-star Elaine Dance has been spotted in the arms of a new babe. At the 1st birthday bash for trendy restaurant 'kink', Jamie's date for the evening was the mystery-girl who recently replaced Cindy Tayler in Ho—

  He clicked back and tried another site, for something—any thing—better. Surely the world could do better than this.

  www.hotaosmaaazine.co.uk

  Bad luck girls I It looks like our Jamie has found love. With her sultry looks and sexy French accent, Arianne is going to be tough comp—

  He turned the computer off at the mains.

  It was an hour or so before he returned to himself. Gradually, he noticed his face in the polished surface of his father's desk. Then he wiped his eyes and looked out of the window at the annexe. He must take them their sheets and pillows because his mother would be back soon. It was getting dark.

  He went to the linen cupboard and took the sheets for the bed in the first-floor spare room, then he went downstairs and gathered some of the cushions from the cupboard in the conservatory. He took the picnic blankets from the chest of drawers in the hall. On the way through the kitchen, he went into the storecupboard and took a packet of biscuits and a bottle of lemonade because they—or, rather, Goran—had eaten everything but the apples and the Go-Go bar at the Easy Dine Cafeteria.

  Luke was rather astonished by his efficiency. He was learning things about himself. He put the biscuits and lemonade under his arm, balanced the huge pile of bedding on his outstretched wrists, steadying it with his chin, and walked down the garden steps, past the empty beer bottles that he and Jessica had left there in a time of relative innocence.

  At first there was no answer to his knock. He said, 'Hello? It's OK, it's me, Luke.'

  Then Goran came to the door. He was swollen-faced with sleep. Luke gave him the bedding and explained he would have to go straight away as his mother would be back at any moment. He promised to come and wake them in the morning and tell them when it was safe to go out.

  Goran took the bedding and put it on the table by the door.

  Luke said, 'Oh, what am I doing? I nearly forgot to give you these. It's not much—just a snack. I hope that's OK. I can get you something more if—'

  Goran accepted the biscuits and lemonade. 'No, Luke, this is very much already. Please. Mila and I, we have talked.' He glanced back into the interior darkness to which Luke's eyes were not yet accustomed. Mila came out of it. Her hair was tangled and there were crease marks from the sofa cushions across her cheek. She tucked herself under the outstretched arm. 'Luke, we don't know what to tell you to say thank you,' Goran said.

  'Thank you,' Mila echoed. She glanced up uncertainly at Goran, who gripped her shoulder in encouragement. 'Thank you sincerely,' she said.

  'Yes. Like Mila says, we thank you sincerely. We rest for tonight and tomorrow we find job. I have address to go where is work.'

  Luke studied them briefly. They had brought out their best English word for him; Goran clasped Mila more tightly and rubbed her arm as if to emphasize his gratitude, as if she was a musical instrument on which to strum it out. She rested her head on his chest, absorbing these good-natured blows. They were a forcefield of emotion and hope.

  'One day there is something that we will do for you, Luke,' Goran said. 'You will tell us. We will never forget this help.'

  Luke tried to smile. He tried to make sense of the tears that had rushed into Goran's eyes again, just as they had by the till in the service station, but he could not. Goran, too, seemed amazed by them and wiped them away roughly with the back of his hand.

  'I hope you both sleep well,' Luke said. This practicality was all he could manage. 'I must get back ... inside.' He raised his hand.

  As he walked off, he heard Mila call softly, 'I hope also you will sleep well.'

  She had a lovely gentle voice. He pretended not to hear it.

  Luke knew that he would not sleep well. Why would he sleep at all? Arianne was with another man: 20,024 hits had brought this fact home. Her independent life had roared her off in a jet-plane, a space-ship, into a rarefied atmosphere he was not equipped to breathe. She was mixing with famous people now.

  His stomach, the battleground for all Luke's anxieties, clenched painfully. He told himself to remember that in a room behind him were people struggling to survive, sleeping in forests, hiding in lorries, not eating for two days. He remembered Goran's voice: 'We will never forget this help.'

  It was touching that all of their acts were mutual—even the most abstract, even memory. They had no money, no possessions, no home, no country, but wasn't it true that they would sleep deeply because they were together, while he would be tossed out alone on a cold star?

  Luke stopped by one of the rosebushes and, feeling like a very old man, he leant down to smell one of the blooms. He had not felt lonely like this until he met Arianne. She had brought with her all of the sharp emotions his life had been lacking—or free of. He thought about their first kiss, after the car crash, when she stood in his bedroom doorway, sleepy and confused by the painkillers. 'Does your head hurt?' he asked her.

  And then had come the first of her unforgettable scenes: 'No ... It was just ... I dreamt I saw God.'

  What was it she had seen? A 'burning, devouring light'—that was it. He had soon learnt that she loved those words: 'You know what? After pudding, I feel like devouring you,' she would say, with her hand down his trousers in a restaurant booth crowded with friends. 'Fuck, I'm absolutely burning for you,' she would whisper, in the middle of the film. 'Any ideas, Luke?'

  It was strange that it was in these terms that God had appeared to her. It was all very confusing and a little bit sinful. He shook his head. When he had sex with Arianne, his fear of life diminished in proportion with the distance between their bodies. For him, there had been no more terrified speculation about whether he would be a failure or not, about whether his father acknowledged his potential or even his existence: he had simply arrived at her mouth, at her soft stomach, at her hips and her breasts. Why had it not been this way for her? Sex with him had increasingly seemed only to amplify her fear and afterwards she took to lying silently beside him, like the survivor of a shipwreck, naked and vulnerable to the elements.

  He peered through the trellis at the next-door house. The family were all in the kitchen, eating. There was wine on the table, the smell of garlic and pastry mixed with that of the fresh-cut grass on the lawn. Upstairs, in a dark room, an unwatched TV pulsed light up a bare wall; Luke wondered if this was the loneliest thing he had ever seen.

  Was this what Arianne felt when she cried like that? Was this the fear with which she had come hurtling into his complacent arms? He hadn't even begun to understand it. It was no wonder she had not trusted him to protect her. Perhaps he had actually needed to lose her before he could understand.

  Didn't this revelation, which, after all, he was accepting with a considerable degree of nobility, didn't this signify human progress?

  Suddenly he felt capable of miracles. Of course he would get Arianne back.

  'Oh, Luke!' Rosalind said. 'Are you in the garden, darling? I've been calling. How lovely. Isn't it a beautiful evening?'

  'Mum?' Luke said.

  Carefully, Rosalind picked a few dead leaves off the honeysuckle. 'Yes, darling?'

  'Do you think you're ever going to be able to forgive him?'

  Chapter 14

  Rosalind sat down at the kitchen table in front of a tuna salad with a light vinaigrette dressing. She poured herself a glass of sparkling mineral water and laid her napkin across her lap. A brown roll lay on a plate beside her and to its right a pile of letters, which had been building for two weeks. She couldn't think w
hat had stopped her opening them. There had been desperate empty tracts of time spent staring at her shoes, her teacup, her hand—but somehow she had never picked up the envelopes.

  It was an unexpected luxury that Alistair had decided to stay away for the night. She had slept more peacefully free of the thought that her husband was in the spare room: even separated from its full significance, when her mind had expertly filled itself with practicalities, this thought was a loose thread on her hem or an appalling wine stain on the cream sofa.

  But last night Alistair had straightforwardly been away. Nothing could have been more ordinary. It was lovely to feel well rested for the first time in two weeks, and now that her son had gone back to collect him from Dover, there was no denying it was lovely to be alone in the house. No men wanting sympathy or wanting to be forgiven. Luke had attempted to discuss her feelings about Alistair and she had successfully put him off by saying she needed time to think. She did. She leant back in her chair, consciously enjoying the sounds you only hear when you are alone: the clock ticking in the hall, the hushed spin of the washing machine, the birds in the garden. A lawnmower was running a little way off.

  She took a mouthful of crisp lettuce and started on the letters. She began with the bills, saving the handwritten envelopes for last. Her mind habitually began with practicalities: the personal letters would be a reward, like chocolate for Luke and Sophie if they had their jabs without making a fuss, or unpacked and brought down the laundry right away after a holiday. After years of this kind of thinking, she still mothered herself.

  The bills were all overdue, a fact which would normally have caused her deep anxiety. But today she felt nothing. There was one from the dry-cleaner, who had recently done the drawing-room curtains, there was the car insurance, which Alistair would look at, and there was her subscription to Town and Country Interiors magazine. There were various offers and big prize draws, which scattered out of the envelopes in novelty shapes and insistent colours. It was irritating to have to pick them up. One said: 'Spot the hidden monkey and win .£100,000!' The world seemed very mysterious.

  At last she got to a stiff, pale mauve envelope, which contained a card. It was from her friend Cynthia, who was 'just sending love at this difficult time'. There was another card saying much the same thing from their dear old au pair Claudia, who had married and settled in England. She appreciated her friends' tact: 'Thinking of you and all you are going through'; 'Just wanted to send a quick note to let you know I'm here for you.' They conveyed sympathy without hurting her by appearing to know all the sordid details.

  It was unlike Rosalind to be so conscious of the mechanics of friendship. In the past couple of weeks, though, she had found herself overwhelmed by the intricacy, the complexity of human relationships. The number of conflicting things you could feel about a person as you filled a cup with coffee and passed it to them! This was something that had occurred to her.

  Lastly, there was a plain white envelope addressed in familiar handwriting. She could not quite place it for a moment. She recognized the looping 'L' of Langford, the dramatic, oversized 'W' of 'W8'. She opened it and took a sip of her mineral water. She read,

  Dear Mum,

  I'm writing to you from Heathrow airport.

  Rosalind put down her glass. It was Sophie's handwriting—although it was Alistair's she had remembered because it was almost indistinguishable from Sophie's. She continued:

  I've decided to give up my job and go to Ghana for a year. You remember I did that course which qualified me to teach English as a foreign language? You probably do remember—I'm sure it cost you and Dad a lot of money. Well, I thought I might as well use it, I suppose. I know I did the course ten years ago but I really haven't moved anywhere since I was twenty anyway.

  Mum, I know you'll think I'm doing this because I want to run away from Dad's mess. Well, you'll just have to believe that's not true—or, at least, that it's not the whole story. The main thing is that you and Dad—and Luke in his own way—have done nothing but worry about me for years, since I first got ill with the anorexia, and I'm sick of it. It's like I've diagnosed myself and, whatever was wrong with me before, at least I know what's wrong with me now: I'm sick of being an emergency.

  I'll write as soon as I get there and let you know I'm OK. And I will be OK. Please don't see this as another disaster for you to cope with. This is the most hopeful I've felt in years—ever, really.

  It's funny. You know I would have written this letter to Dad if all that terrible stuff hadn't come out. I'm sure you know what I mean—just that he's the one I would naturally have confided in. Well, I wanted you to know that I'm glad I'm writing it to you—I'm glad you're the one I'm telling.

  I'm thinking of you, Mum, all the time, coping with so much betrayal. I'll send an address when I'm settled. I know Luke will think I'm evil for going away, but I have to do this. I'm not sure why I feel this so strongly, but I know you'll understand.

  Love,

  Sophie

  Rosalind's daughter left her breathless. She always had. The emotion, the power of that thin, blonde girl, exploding right in your face. 'Coping with so much betrayal'—there it was, in black and white. Sophie exploded, she attacked, she insisted. These were not Rosalind's ways. Sophie had her father's loud voice and she actually screamed during arguments: terrible emergency screams, like someone trapped in a burning building. The loudest thing Sophie had ever screamed was 'LET ME SPEAK!' when she had refused to go back to boarding-school and Rosalind and Alistair found her sitting on her trunk in the hall in protest. She and Alistair had instinctively covered their ears and the glass lampshade on the hall table had hummed for a few moments afterwards.

  When Sophie was fourteen, she wrote words on her arms with razor blades: 'bitch', 'meat', 'whore'. It was as if she was a piece of paper for writing angry letters to the world on. Like letters to the editor of The Times, which Alistair got so heated about. Rosalind remembered a christening they had been invited to, a row about whether Sophie would wear a silk shirt with long, concealing sleeves, which Rosalind had ironed for her. Sophie took it and dropped it out of the window like rubbish. It was so disorienting later to walk out into the garden and lift the shirt off the dripping wet blackberry bush where it had caught.

  Sophie brought together unlikely things to sinister effect, forcing you to hear a crackle of strangeness just beneath the surface of the ordinary world. It made Rosalind want to sort through the cupboard in the pantry as she was always meaning to do. It also made her want to go to church and sit very quietly listing the things she was grateful for, as she had done at school. She remembered holding her rosary, oddly conscious that there was a lot about her parents and the rest of the world that she didn't understand, and that she would never feel so safe again as she did then, in her starched school uniform, with the bell going for lunch.

  She and Sophie had never been very close. It was a great sadness to Rosalind, an absence powerful enough almost to invalidate the satisfaction of those sunny weekend mornings when she walked about the house checking the plants and looking at the framed photographs of her family.

  Basically, it had not been what she expected—having a daughter. Even as a little girl, Sophie had wanted mostly to play chess with Alistair or to read a book in her room, and so it had always been Luke who made fairy-cakes or pom-pom animals with Rosalind. A further disappointment was that Sophie hated clothes, and by the age of five had thought dressing up was 'for babies'. Rosalind had kept ribbons and pieces of fabric for the Dressing-up Box since she got married, saving them carefully while Sophie grew, but none of it was ever used. It wasn't suitable for Luke, who had shown a slightly unhealthy interest in trying on her jewellery, which she knew perfectly well she had been tempted to allow.

  She had longed for a pretty little daughter with whom she could re-enter the fantasy world of her own childhood. But Sophie was not interested. And it was just plain humiliating to be grimaced at by a six-year-old when you suggested dressing
up as a lovely Fairy Queen for the square garden fancy-dress party.

  The party—or one of them, since it was an annual event—stood out in the story of herself and Sophie. It was put on to raise funds for the upkeep of the pretty communal garden in the centre of Burton Square and it was held in the summer, when the garden was heavy with magnolia. All the neighbours contributed party food and helped with balloons and tables and streamers. All the children had pretty hand-made costumes. Hiring was seen as terribly vulgar. It was an event fraught with feminine rivalry. Some of the women began work on the costumes months in advance.

  Sophie, after much argument about whether she would go at all, had insisted on going as a judge. She was a sallow, thin litde figure in her father's wig and gown. She went about thumping her toy hammer by the other children's plates, making the crisps jump. One little boy burst into tears and Rosalind noticed Sophie being spoken to on several occasions by James Wardell from number thirty-eight.

  She had rarely felt more disappointed in her daughter than she did that afternoon. She stood behind her big smile, holding a bucket, collecting the children's five-pence pieces by the coconut shy. She could not help seeing the other mothers stare at her weird little daughter as they arrived and released their Cinderellas and Little Red Riding Hoods into the sunshine in a shimmer of frills and ringlets. At least Luke looked perfect as a sailor-boy, she told herself.

  But as wonderful as Luke was—and he was wonderful—she had always wanted a wonderful daughter. And instead she had Sophie. In her darkest moments—when Sophie had overdosed on sleeping pills and been taken into hospital aged fifteen—this was what Rosalind allowed herself to think. It was simply appalling for a mother to think something like that! It had made her feel so guilty that she stayed at the hospital all night, sitting on a chair by the bed, even though the doctors said Sophie was in no danger and would not wake up until morning.