When the phone rang a few minutes later Charlie, negotiating the stubborn zip on his wife's dress, growled at her to ignore it. ‘It will be the daffy one at Reception, asking which paper we want. I don't care what they give us, the Sun, Gardeners' Weekly, Worm Lover's Gazette…’ The dress parted as he spoke, revealing the soft, inviting expanse of Serena's back, the skin on either side of her spine like two smooth pages of an open book.
‘Sweetheart… we should…’ Serena wriggled near enough to the bedside table and picked up the receiver. ‘Pamela… hello…’ She made a face at Charlie, who groaned and rolled over to the other side of the bed, clutching his head in mock-despair. ‘Is everything all right?’ She tried not to look at Charlie, contorting his face and slicing his finger across his throat. ‘No, of course, not a bad time at all…’ She manoeuvred herself into a sitting position, while her husband began, with exaggerated, noisy attention, to lick her toes. ‘Ed? What about Ed? Is he there? Could I…’ She was prevented from finishing the sentence by Charlie who, alerted to the possibility of crisis by her sudden change of tone, lunged across the bed and snatched the phone. ‘Mum… oh, Ed, it's you. What's going on? Are you all right? He's drunk,’ he hissed to Serena, who had wriggled on to her knees beside him and was wringing her hands. ‘There are other things in life than alcohol, you know, Edward,’ he barked into the phone. ‘Behaving like this again the moment our backs are turned, when you're supposed to be looking after your grandmother, is just not on, do you hear me? Just not on.’ Serena was tugging at his arm, mouthing at him to be kind, but Charlie, with his romantic evening shot to pieces and his son slurring at him about, of all things, needing money, felt little inclination to be gentle. ‘I know you want to get your hands on your trust fund – your mother has told me about it. But I can tell you now you won't get a penny of anything, my boy, until you can learn to hold your drink or, better still, not drink at all. Do you understand? Now, apologize to your grandmother and get yourself to bed. You're a disgrace, Edward, do you hear me? A bloody disgrace.’
‘I think we should go home,’ moaned Serena, after Charlie had slammed down the phone.
‘Now? It's ten o'clock at night. Don't be ridiculous.’
‘I just feel… I…’ Serena, still kneeling on the bed, her dress dangling round her waist, dropped her face into her hands. The panic was welling inside her again, feeding off this new drama as it seemed to feed off everything. ‘I want to go home… Everything feels wrong… I… Ed needs us.’
‘Ed needs a good hiding, that's what Ed needs. Exams or no exams, his behaviour recently has been unacceptable. You can't cling to him, you know,’ he snapped. ‘You've got to let him go.’
Serena could not have felt the force of the remark more if he had slapped her across the cheek. ‘Like I let Tina go?’ she whispered. ‘And your mother? Like I let her wander off to pick vegetables that didn't exist?’
‘Sweetheart, don't –’
‘Don't sweetheart me.’ She got out of bed and pulled off her dress, leaving it in a heap on the floor. ‘Somewhere, somehow, you've stopped trusting me, Charlie.’
‘Of course I trust you. What is this?’
‘My feelings.’ She slapped her bare chest. ‘You don't trust my feelings. You're afraid of them. You don't want to deal with them. For months now, ever since your aunt's funeral, you've been treating me like an invalid, like – like your bloody mother, tiptoeing around everything for fear of stirring it up. Well, I am stirred up. I don't know why and it may not be pleasant, but I am. And since you refuse to let us go home I'm going to send our – my – son a text, telling him I love him because in the end that is all that matters and if he's getting drunk he needs reassurance not a bollocking.’ She dug her phone out of her handbag as she talked, listening absently to the brief message from Cassie before she punched in a few words to her son: ‘It will be all right. We love you. Let's have a proper talk tomorrow.’
After that they lay side by side in the dark, as cold and rigid in their respective misery as stone figures on a tomb. Around them the shadowy shapes of the room's opulent furnishings stirred in a breeze from an open window, each rustle like a whispered accusation of failure.
‘Come closer. There, that's better. Are you comfy?’
‘Oh, yes, very… You have the most perfect body, has anyone ever told you so?’
Keith chuckled. ‘Not for a while… a long while. Hey, have you seen the moon? It looks fake it's so perfect.’
Elizabeth raised herself on one elbow to gaze across Keith's bare chest through the open window next to the bed. A glistening yellow full moon shone in the middle of it, a burning hole in the black sky. ‘People go mad at full moon, don't they? Werewolves and so on?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Keith pulled her back on to the bed and rolled on top of her. ‘Haven't you seen my teeth, lady?’
Elizabeth giggled. ‘I have… nice and sharp and… Oh, Keith, don't leave this place, please don't. I can't remember when I was last so happy. Why leave when we've only just found each other?’
Keith rolled off her with a sigh and reached for his cigarettes. ‘Your mother saw us tonight, you know. I'm sure she did.’
‘I don't care. I gave up worrying what my mother thought about me years ago.’ Elizabeth laughed softly. ‘I'm fifty-four, for God's sake. So she saw us kissing in the drive. So what? If anything, she should be pleased for me.’ She stroked his chest, watching the smoke curl out from between his lips and float towards the window. ‘I'm pleased for me,’ she whispered, her voice breathy with a neediness she feared but was past disguising.
Keith feared it too. Feared it and relished it. The way she had fallen into his arms on the night of her birthday, a bundle of yearning, still felt extraordinary. Chemistry apart, it was a long time since he had felt the intoxicating empowerment of being wanted. Ever since that first encounter he had felt as if someone had pumped extra air into his trainers, like he was floating instead of working. The dullest, hardest jobs – rehinging the barn door, lacing fresh barbed wire round the vegetable garden – had felt sweet and effortless, as if something had re-energized his joints as well as his heart. ‘I can't stay here, Lizzy. I only meant to help out for a bit. I've got my boys to think of.’
‘Let's play a game,’ said Elizabeth. She didn't want to think about his boys. She had seen pictures of them, front teeth missing, hair sticking up from broad, innocent foreheads, eyes full of mischief. They were two years apart, he had told her, but could have been twins, with their tufty blond hair and snub noses. She couldn't deny him his boys, couldn't begin to compete with them. If they were the reason he was going, it was fair enough. She would have crossed continents to bring up Roland, walked on water, through fire – anything. Wanting to share in his sons' upbringing only confirmed what she knew already: that her new lover was a good man.
‘What game, babe?’ Keith stubbed out his cigarette, carefully blowing the last of his smoke away from her towards the open window.
‘A truth game.’
‘I don't like the sound of that.’ He pulled her more tightly into the crook of his arm. ‘Do I have to play?’
‘Yes, you do. It's what young lovers do…’
‘Young lovers, that's a laugh.’
Elizabeth giggled, happily aware of her straggling grey hair and unfashionable curves. Keith, she had discovered, liked the light on to make love. He also liked to talk as he touched her, asking her if she was enjoying what he was doing, telling her how good she felt and tasted. There was nowhere to hide – no room for shyness – and it was fantastic. It made her wonder how she had put up with Colin, who only reached for her if he was in a good mood, or Lucien, who liked to be drunk, or Richard, who kept his eyes closed and ground his teeth as he came, then gave reprimanding pats to the swell of her stomach afterwards, as if he liked her in spite of the way she was rather than because of it. ‘You ask each other questions and have to tell the absolute truth when you answer. I'll go first. What's your favourite colour?’
<
br /> Keith chuckled. ‘Begin easy, eh? Blue… blue, like your eyes.’ He pushed the hair off her face and planted a kiss on each eyelid.
‘That's cheating – and distracting. One answer only. Your turn.’
‘Hmm… what's your favourite food?’
‘Toad-in-the-hole with peas and mash and baked beans.’
Keith roared with laughter. ‘That's great. I like that. Better still, I can cook it.’
‘What are you most afraid of?’ said Elizabeth next, very quickly, while he was still laughing.
‘Ah, in for the kill now, are we?’ He sucked in his cheeks and blew out his breath, which smelt sweet from the orange juice he had been drinking. ‘That's a tough one. I'm not sure.’
‘I'm going to have to hurry you,’ she teased, taking a sip of the white wine he had poured on her arrival, noting happily that it was warm from neglect and thinking that falling in love was a bit like getting drunk: euphoria, dizziness, laughing at tiny things… but without the price of a headache. No wonder people said it made the world go round. Keith had surprised her by opting for orange juice. He hadn't had a drink for years, he had admitted, giving her a look that had made her curious to know more, to peel off his layers, unwrap him like a parcel, get to the core of him. ‘Come on,’ she urged now, getting impatient. ‘I know what scares me.’
‘What?’
‘Being alone.’ Elizabeth breathed deeply, feeling less afraid already as she released the confession. Keith might go north to be near his children, but he wasn't leaving the planet. They would work something out.
‘Mine is… being found out.’
‘Found out? Elizabeth laughed, happy and incredulous. ‘In what way?’
‘As a bad person… someone who never did the right thing.’
Elizabeth let out a dismissive whoop. ‘That's mad given that doing the right thing is clearly your forte –’
‘It's not, Lizzy, it's not,’ he interrupted, his voice low and urgent.
Elizabeth felt his arm stiffen under her head. ‘Keith, what is it?’ She sat up, wanting to look at him, wanting to read his expression and fathom the urgency, but he had swung away from her, planting his feet on the floor and facing the window so that all she could see was his bare back. There was a scar, she noticed, a faded silvery snake curling in from the tuck of his waist and down to the cleft of his bottom. She reached to touch it, delighting in yet another discovery, but he flinched. ‘Keith, what is it?’ she said again.
He got off the bed, slipped a towel round his waist and went to the window.
‘Look it's just a silly game, I'm sorry I started it… The last thing I wanted was to upset you. I just wanted us to get to know each other better.’
He glanced at her over his shoulder, with an expression so forlorn, so haggard, that Elizabeth let out a cry of dismay both in compassion and at her own foolishness. She didn't yet know him, nor could hope to do so by firing a few questions at him. Knowing someone took months – years – of sharing and effort. ‘Keith, I've been an idiot. Forgive me.’
‘No, you haven't. You Harrisons think the best of people. Why do you do that?’ He pressed both hands against the wall and dropped his head between his arms. ‘I'm going to tell you why I have to leave this place, Lizzy.’ His voice was muffled, directed at the floor. ‘It's a…’ he made a growling sound ‘… a hard thing to do because I like you lot, and when I tell you, you won't like me. But at least you'll understand why I have to leave. At least things will be… clear between us.’ He sighed, shaking his head and raising his gaze to the moon, which glowed still, like a perfect pearl on a dark cushion. ‘We… I should never have let things get this far… I never meant to… I just liked you and…’
‘And I like you,’ Elizabeth wailed. ‘Oh, please, don't tell me anything you don't want to, Keith. I never meant to pry or make you so unhappy. Please, let's enjoy –’
‘I ran over a child. Coming home from the pub, soon after June and I moved to London. I ran over a child and I didn't stop. She appeared from nowhere, between two parked cars. Dark hair, dark clothes, I never saw her. There was just this noise, a weird soft noise – nothing, really – and then she was in the air. I saw her land, her head at a bad angle – I knew it was a bad angle – and I drove away. I drove home and June made me a cup of tea and asked how the pub had been, and I said I hadn't liked it much and wouldn't go there again.’
‘No, Keith, no…’
‘The police found me anyway because I'd shot a red light and they caught it on film. A witness said it wasn't my fault, that the girl had run out into the road, which was true but, still, I could – I should – have avoided her. I should, above all, have stopped.’ He turned to face her, leaning his head against the wall and crossing his arms. ‘I got two years. June made a few visits, then left. I didn't – I don't – blame her. I'd have killed one of my own sons rather than that little girl. She was ten years old, her parents were Pakistani… an only child apparently. I tried to see them after I got out but they had left the country. I stayed in London, got odd jobs, tried to keep my head together… even had counselling for a while – six sessions, courtesy of the NHS. Are you getting all this, Lizzy? Are you seeing where it's going?’ he snarled, reaching for another cigarette and watching her intently as he lit it and inhaled. All he could see of Elizabeth now were her eyes, wide and horrified. She had drawn the bedclothes round her, as if trying to protect herself from his words… protect herself from him, of course, as he had known she would. Even without the niece – that dreadful, extraordinary parallel revealed to him unwittingly by Cassie four months before – her reaction would have been the same. He had killed a child and run away. No matter that it had ruined his life – that the crime had indeed proved to be the punishment – he had still done it, branding himself untouchable in the process.
‘The funny thing was,’ he continued, feeling almost relaxed now, but manically so, as in his sessions with the counsellor when it all poured out like the vomit it truly was, ‘bumping into Steve after all those years felt like a turning-point. He'd had a crap deal as a kid and there he was, polished and successful, different clothes, different accent, a different man. And I thought, I can be different too, turn myself round. I felt inspired.’ He laughed, the sound thick with self-recrimination and smoke. ‘When I first heard about Tina – from Cassie – I felt even better. I thought, Here's a chance to do some good, to help put things right. That's why I took this job – that, and being sort of curious, I suppose, wanting to see the other side… I mean, how the fuck do people get over losing a kid, Lizzy? How? And then I get here and it's unreal – saving the old bird, the kindness, the gratitude, it made – it makes – me want to throw up, because I don't deserve it, because I'm a fraud and –’
‘Serena and Charlie must never know,’ said Elizabeth, sitting up and drawing her knees into her chest. ‘As for me, it changes nothing.’
‘What?’
‘It changes nothing,’ she repeated, dropping the side of her head on to her knees and staring at him. ‘I can see now why you want to leave, but even if you do, my feelings… they…’ she wrapped her arms round her shins ‘… they remain the same.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Keith murmured, picking up his packet of cigarettes and putting them down again, not knowing what to say, what to do, where to look, even. ‘You can't mean that,’ he gasped at last, ‘you can't be sure…’
‘I've never been more sure of anything in my life,’ said Elizabeth, simply. ‘How you deal with that is up to you.’
Ed saw the light on in the barn as he crossed the drive. He paused, toying vaguely with the notion of taking Keith up on his offer of a beer and during the course of it telling him everything. The man was all right, he knew that now, not just because he'd risked his neck in the lake when it turned out he couldn't even swim but because he'd seen Ed late, drinking or smoking, countless times and Ed had known he wouldn't say a thing. He watched, sometimes in an almost spooky way, but he was always kind and solid,
like it would never cross his mind to judge what he saw, unlike all the other adults Ed knew, who spent their lives passing judgement about things being good or bad or disappointing, like they had some secret agenda for how every kid ought to be to pass muster as a human being.
Above the roof of the barn, the moon shone like a golden eye; a spying eye, Ed decided, shivering a little as he turned his back on the house and set off down the lane. He was still a little drunk. Three beers with Jessica and a load of vodka after getting home, it was little wonder. He had been lying on the floor by the drinks cabinet in the dining room when his grandmother had stumbled on him, bottle in hand and cabinet door open in the hope that he might be able to conceal the evidence of his wantonness should the need arise. Except that when his grandmother's thin, stockinged calves had come into view, moving slowly, cautiously between the table and chair legs, Ed had been too slow and drunk to do anything much except sit up, groan and then laugh at his own ineptitude. Without the laughter he suspected his grandmother might have let him off but, as it was, she bristled and tutted, then turned on her heel for the telephone. Ed remained slumped on the dining-room carpet, trying to consider his options, but managing only to see all the images he had hoped the vodka would hide: Jessica showing off the new barrel of her belly, the popping buttons of her skirt, wheedling for affection one minute and hurling abuse the next, threatening to tell her mum – his mum – and then sobbing that she wouldn't do anything he didn't want, that she loved him to death and was his to command. Except for having an abortion… There would be no commanding there. It was their baby, she said, and she wanted it. A schoolfriend had had a kid, she said, and it was really cute and nice. Cute and nice? Ed had found himself stumped and powerless at the sheer inanity – the absolute understatement – of the words. A baby would make her happy, she claimed, even if he kept away and only sent money and never loved her. Come what may, she was going through with it.
The Simple Rules of Love Page 24