I told her about the conversation with the detective.
‘Alex,’ she said, ‘you do know that that woman is not your friend? Anyway, Millicent’s basically OK. Or she was last time I checked in. June’s colleagues have been very professional, at least.’
‘Do you think she did it?’ I said. ‘I mean, no one could really believe that, could they?’
‘Alex,’ she said, ‘I’m your wife’s lawyer. You pressed charges against Millicent. That puts you and me on opposite sides of the table. I’m sorry.’
‘Please,’ I said, ‘please, I’m all at sea here.’
‘You did the right thing, Alex.’ She ended the conversation.
Millicent was sleeping when we got home. Max didn’t ask to see her. He went willingly upstairs to bed, and by eleven he was asleep too.
Arla and I ate a tomato salad and shared a pork pie from the delicatessen. Something in Arla’s demeanour told me she knew, that Millicent had told her I had pressed charges.
We made careful, precise smalltalk about things that didn’t matter: we spoke of Israel and of Palestine; we spoke of racism, and homophobia, and we spoke of the Russian Federation; we spoke of the impoverishment of Britain, and we spoke of the national debt. On any other day these subjects would have mattered. But today we made other people’s suffering the subject of our smalltalk. The most important thing was not to disagree.
I spent some time wondering whether I should give my side of the story, explain to Arla how I had come to press charges against her sister. In the end I decided not to. I could read in her eyes exactly what she thought of me.
Then Arla asked me why Millicent and I seemed to have so few friends these days.
‘Do we?’ I said.
‘Yeah, remember your wedding? It was a cumulonimbus of awesome. You guys were stratospherically popular. So question: where are all your friends these days, Alex?’
I explained that life seemed to have become largely about survival since Sarah’s death.
‘Are you saying that’s some sort of trigger, Alex?’ she said.
‘No,’ I said, ‘but it makes you more discerning about your friendship.’
‘So, Millicent has – who, Alex?’
‘Me,’ I said. ‘Millicent has me. And Max.’
‘Sounds like she’s kind of lonely. Max is lonely, which has to be the only reason he hangs out with his aunt. And you have?’
‘Fab5.’
‘About that,’ she said. ‘He came round. Asked me out.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Wow.’
‘Hope that won’t be a problem,’ said Arla.
‘No, Arla. No, it’s not a problem.’
‘You know,’ she said, ‘two promiscuous people in a big city, finding each other.’
On any other day that might have stung. But right now it didn’t matter at all. Right now it was smalltalk.
26
Arla went to bed at two. At three I went upstairs. I found Millicent lying on top of the covers, her fingers curled around Max’s book. He must have put it there before he had gone to bed. What was he trying to achieve?
I tried to pull the book from Millicent’s hand, but her fingers clung to it stiffly and instead she woke. She looked at me, then looked down at the book.
‘Yep,’ she said, ‘well, my son still hates me. Hello, Alex.’
‘Hello, Millicent.’
‘How was it?’
‘How was what?’
Cold disbelief in her eyes. ‘Your father’s funeral, Alex?’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘It was OK.’
She was shaking her head now, her eyes fixed on mine. ‘I guess really I’m asking you about Max, and not whether you thought the funeral was OK.’
‘Max is fine,’ I said. ‘He did well. He read, and it was very moving. I think it helped him. You would have been proud.’
She smiled, and for a moment her coldness lifted. I could take you in my arms, I thought. I could hold you and talk to you about our beautiful son. Then the coldness descended again, and I knew that I could not.
‘Here’s where you ask me about my last two days, Alex.’
‘Millicent,’ I said, ‘Millicent, I’m so sorry.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘You’re sorry? Not a problem, Alex.’
‘I did a terrible thing.’
At this she looked almost amused.
‘Let me condense the experience for you, Alex. Four main questions. Did I have an affair with the neighbour? Did I have a business relationship with the neighbour? Did I kill the neighbour? Why did I withhold information? To which my answers were, consistently, yes, no, no, and I’m sorry I withheld information, detective, but I did a stupid thing and was scared of what everyone would think. Over and over and over again, till they ran out of time and had to release me.’
‘Millicent, I was out of my mind. I believe you. I know you didn’t kill the neighbour.’
‘Huh. Interesting. So I didn’t really get the chance to tell you,’ she said, her voice level, matter-of-fact. ‘I won’t contest the divorce. You’re free to leave me, Alex. You actually have to. For your own sake, and for Max.’
‘Millicent,’ I said. ‘Stop.’
‘In fact, you should really throw me out. You can have my share of the house. How’s that for an incentive?’
‘I’m not going to throw you out.’
‘No, you should. It’s your job to protect Max from bad things. You’re his father. And I guess I have to accept that I’m one of the bad things you need to protect him from.’
‘We lost our way, Millicent. That’s all.’
She was shaking her head. ‘I’m a horrible mother, and a horrible wife. And you both believe in vengeance, but only you can punish me. Because there’s this bond between you and Max, and you have to do what he can’t.’
‘I’m not divorcing you, Millicent.’
‘You will. We need to get this started.’ Still that matter-of-fact tone. ‘For me as well as you. It’s the next logical step in the process.’
‘Drop the cynical act, Millicent. You can’t walk away from this. I know you won’t walk away from Max. For the first time in your life you can’t simply jump ship.’
She shook her head. ‘The problem is I hate you too, Alex. I’m trying not to, because I know it makes me less of a person, but really I do.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘I should never have brought charges against you.’
‘Oh.’ She looked almost amused by this. ‘Alex,’ she said, ‘Alex, how could you think I wouldn’t know?’
‘Know what?’ I said.
‘Seriously? You’re really going to do this?’ She looked at me for an instant, then looked away again. ‘Max saw you,’ she said.
‘Saw me doing what?’ I wanted to ask. But I guessed, of course, what Max had seen, and what he had told Millicent about what he had seen.
What have I done?
Again Millicent turned and looked at me, and again she looked away. ‘I guess at least he let us have Norway. Though that kind of magnified the impact of the blow. He told me the night we came back. He’s a smart kid. I guess he knew it would destroy me.’
‘Max doesn’t want to destroy you,’ I said. ‘You’re his mother.’
‘He’s a tiny traumatised child, Alex. And the person he wants to spend time with right now is the woman he knows you fucked. You revenge-fucked his aunt, who also happens to be my sister. She’s actually the most stable influence on his life.’ Again that matter-of-fact tone, dangerously brittle. ‘And of course, you knew that all the time we were away. And then we come back here, and there’s a closeness between you and Arla that I can’t explain. It’s like you’re secret friends or something. And then Max tells me why, and it all makes sense.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about Arla when we were away,’ I said.
‘That’s a cute variant on the it-meant-nothing defence, I guess. Anyway, you don’t have to apologise. I deserve that you slept with my sister, really I do. I get that I
caused it by sleeping with Bryce. Intellectually I get that. It’s just that there will never be a day when I am comfortable with that fact. Not now, and not in some imagined future where none of us hate each other. I know that’s very black-and-white of me, Alex. But I can’t accept your apology, and I can’t forgive you, and I can’t forgive her, and I want her to leave.’
‘I’m done betraying you now, Millicent. It won’t happen again.’
The disbelief in her eyes was clouded by pain now. ‘You think that brings us back to some sort of Day Zero? You seduce my sister and you think you can press reset on me?’
‘Millicent,’ I said, ‘if you force the end of our marriage, Max will end up hating you like you say. Forever. Please don’t walk out of this.’
‘Are you trying to break me, Alex?’
She cried then for the longest time. I lay beside her, but she would not let me touch her. Then she stopped crying; she went out to the bathroom and ran all the taps; when she came back into the bedroom her clothes were wet and she had a towel wrapped around her head. She threw herself down on the bed and picked up Max’s diary.
‘I mean, you win, Alex,’ she said after a while. ‘Morally, you win. My humiliation is complete. I surrender. I’m sure you and Max will be very happy together, without me. Arla can stay for as long as she wants. I’m going to gracefully withdraw from your lives. We’re done.’
‘No,’ I wanted to say, ‘I’m going to fight for the family, for you, for us. This time you don’t get to walk out on trouble. This time we face things together.’
I lay on my front for a while, wondering what to say that wouldn’t make things worse, struggling against sleep. When I felt its weight descend upon me I shook it off, then lay on my back, staring upwards, tensing the muscles in my legs and in my arms. I knew that to give in would only make Millicent hate me more. But presently I also knew that there was no fighting it, that sleep had me in its loving embrace, was pinning me down, gently pressing against my limbs, easing them downwards; soon it suffused me; it was in my spine now, and there was no hope for me; sleep had me; it would not let me go.
Millicent came into the bathroom while I was shaving and peed matter-of-factly. For a moment I wondered whether this was a sign of forgiveness, or at least a suggestion of forgiveness. But when I smiled at her and she smiled back, there was an emptiness behind her eyes that told me everything.
In the kitchen Millicent and I drank coffee and ate nothing. Arla and Max drank orange juice and ate Pop Tarts; they spoke only to each other.
‘So,’ said Arla, ‘last day of school. Wanna play hookey with me?’
Max looked over at me, then at Millicent. We smiled our smiles. Max looked unnerved.
‘I should probably go to school.’
‘I could call your head teacher.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I actually want to.’
‘You do?’
‘Thanks, though.’
He got up and put another Pop Tart in the toaster.
‘Max,’ I said.
‘What?’
I looked at Millicent, who flashed me another eviscerating smile.
‘Nothing,’ I said. Let him have his Pop Tart. This was not a time for a talk about sugar.
Max sat down. Then he stood up and went into the front room. Millicent, Arla and I sat in silence, the air heavy between us. Max came back in and sat down again.
‘I get off at one, though. Do you want to come and get me?’
‘Sure,’ said Arla. ‘Want to put a Pop Tart in the toaster for me?’
‘Why aren’t you my mum?’ said Max. ‘You’re so much better at it than Millicent.’
Millicent’s smile was gone. Then it was back.
‘Max,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Just …’
‘It’s what you think too, Dad.’
Millicent’s smile was very broad now. ‘Good idea, honey. Would you like to be his mother, Arla?’
Arla’s own smile flickered out. She could feel the anger in her sister, but she didn’t yet know what Millicent knew. She looked at Millicent, then at me, then at Max. Then the California smile was back, warmer than ever. Breezes and cotton candy, bodies in the surf.
Millicent knows, Arla.
But Arla only smiled back at me.
‘Shh,’ said Max. ‘Listen.’
The timer on the toaster. Traffic and birds through the back door. Nothing more.
Max stood up, very deliberately, and went to the back door. He opened it wide, and went out into the garden. He came back, carrying one end of the stepladder, dragging the other across the lawn.
‘Max, the grass.’
‘You don’t care about the grass,’ he said.
He dragged the ladder into the kitchen and past the table, and out through the door into the front room.
‘Aren’t you going to help him, honey?’
‘He can do it,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he’s done it before.’
Whatever Millicent’s true reaction was, she quickly masked it behind a smile. But the anger behind the eyes was no longer there. There was something else. Fear, perhaps?
Sound of the ladder being dragged up the staircase, hard and metallic against the softness of the wood. Then everything was very still.
Part of me wanted to say, ‘Arla, Millicent knows.’ Someone was going to have to say those words, in one form or another, and soon. But it couldn’t be now.
I could hear Max’s bare feet on the stepladder. Then nothing. I thought for a moment about the loft, and wondered if I should tell him to be careful. Only beams and plasterboard. Then I could hear Max’s voice, speaking softly, then his feet on the stepladder again.
In the kitchen we made a play of shrugging at each other. Arla shrugged at Millicent. Millicent shrugged at me. I shrugged first at Arla, then at Millicent. Everyone smiled. Only Arla smiled with any warmth.
She knows, Arla.
Max was padding down the stairs. His voice was small, soothing, and coaxing: not words so much as sounds. I did not hear him cross the floor of the front room. He entered, carrying the cat. He put her down on the work surface and turned on the tap. She lapped at the water.
‘Dad shut her into the loft.’ The reproach in his voice, in his angry stare. The cat must have slipped up the ladder behind me when I had taken Millicent’s letters. I had closed the hatch and shut her in. She had been there for two days. Why had she not mewed, or scratched?
‘It’s OK now, Foxxa,’ he said. ‘It’s OK, girl.’
‘It’s good that your hearing is so sharp, Max,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, it is.’
Arla took Max to school.
I was almost relieved when Millicent stopped smiling. I tried to speak to her as she stood in the front room putting on her shoes, leaning against the banister for support. All she would tell me was that she was going ‘out, Alex. I have a lot of thinking to do.’ She flashed one last smile at me, then closed the door delicately behind her to emphasise her point.
The cat, however, was kind to me. She sat in my lap, washing herself, contented after water and food. She nuzzled against my hand, arched her back as I stroked her. Then she got off my lap, and sat down beside a piece of string that was lying on the floor. She stared at the piece of string, then stared at me, chirruping.
‘No, cat,’ I said.
She patted at the piece of string, then looked at me, eyes wide.
‘OK,’ I said.
I got up and picked up the piece of string; she leapt at the end of it, turned a backflip in the air as the tip flicked out of reach, her body level with my ribs. Flexion and torsion: first her chest, then her stomach. Now her front paws pointed downwards, now her rear paws. She landed almost without a sound; made herself low, ready for the next jump. I drew figures-of-eight in the air, and she turned backflip after backflip, supple and young in the sunlight, predator and imaginary prey. A tiny pool of undeserved calm; everything else was maelstrom.
Shouting in the street.
‘No, you can’t! It’s not yours to effing sell.’
It was very close. I went up the stairs and into Millicent’s office. I drew back the curtains. Arla had left the window open.
There was a man, angry, outside the neighbour’s house. That much I had understood from the shouting. He was tall, bearded, with short black hair and dark olive skin. His light-grey suit looked expensive and cool. He kept walking away, hands folded tight into his chest; then he would turn, throwing out his arms as if pleading, and walking back towards the open door. I could not see who was on the other side of the door, but I could hear a female voice that I did not know urging him to be calm.
‘Jesus,’ I heard the man shout. ‘Tell me this isn’t true!’
The man did not look dangerous. As I stood and wondered whether to intervene, Mr Ashani came out into the street, walked purposefully past our house and over to Bryce’s front door.
‘All right, my dear?’ I heard him say to the woman who stood hidden there. He took the man by the arm. ‘This lady is not the source of your troubles, sir. She is here at my request.’
‘You brought in an effing estate agent? Effing unbelievable.’
Mr Ashani released the man’s arm. ‘I am the owner. Perhaps you wish to address yourself to me?’ Mr Ashani led the man across the street and away from the argument. I heard Bryce’s door close.
From this angle I could see the man’s features better. Indian, I thought. Handsome. Tall. Thin. Mid-thirties. I saw Mr Ashani and the man pointing over at our house, and wondered whether they could see me in the upstairs window. There was no point in pretending I wasn’t watching and listening.
I went to check my appearance in the bathroom. I looked tired, and my hair was a mess. I splashed water on to my face; I tried to do something about my hair; I went down the stairs and out into the street. The man was on his way, was about to disappear round the corner. I would have caught up with him if I wanted to; instead I hung back.
A hand on my arm. ‘That poor girl,’ said Mr Ashani. ‘He wanted to give her a piece of his mind! When it is I who own the house; yet he did not dare to shout at me. He simply made his excuses and left, like a coward. Tell me, Alex, sir, do I inspire fear in you? Do I ever make you uneasy?’
A Line of Blood Page 66