‘Mmm, nice,’ Ruth said, sipping her rum and milk. The dark circles under her eyes were more vivid than the faint bruise on her cheekbone and she looked suddenly old. It hit me then that Ruth might have had higher hopes of life than most of us. Life not living up to your dreams perhaps did not rank highly in the league of sorrows, but it was a sorrow nevertheless and a common one at that. And as sometimes happened when I was tired or drunk or both, that particular sadness joined all the other sorrows in the world until it seemed to me as if the entire universe were crying. I wanted to block my ears and sing something silly really loudly because it was all too much to bear. Instead I reached out and put my hand on hers. She looked surprised and that too upset me.
‘Couldn’t you please try and tell me what is going on?’ I asked.
Her eyes welled up and she was shaking her head, swinging it from side to side like a mournful donkey. Then she said, ‘Robert didn’t actually hit me.’
‘Ah’, I said.
‘But he did shove me out of the way and that’s when I stumbled and knocked into the door–post.’
‘He shouldn’t have shoved you.’
‘No, he shouldn’t have. It was pretty frightening.’ The memory seemed to cheer her up a little.
‘Of course it was.’
She wiped her tears and gave me a timid smile. ‘Thank you for taking me in.’
I waved her words away. ‘Don’t be silly, least I could do.’
‘I really am very comfortable in my little room.’
‘It’s the biggest one, I promise.’
‘I know. I just don’t understand why you insist on being in that horrid little attic one?’
‘I like it.’
‘Fair enough.’
She smiled again, that timid little smile. A very un-Ruthlike smile. Then she grew serious. ‘I shouldn’t have alarmed you. It wasn’t such a big deal.’
‘I expect it felt like a big deal. Being shoved by someone you love and trust and ending up hurt must be a shock.’
She put her hand on my arm. ‘I knew you’d understand. That’s why I wanted to come here. After all, there’s nothing like family.’
In the past, the assumption of closeness would have made me feel uncomfortable, but not now. Now I felt strangely pleased.
‘We had a terrible row. Lately, we seem to be having them all the time. He tells me I’m being paranoid. And I know I’m not. And I tell him, please just admit it. Just tell me the truth. I can cope as long as you’re straight with me. And he looks at me, always the same look, as if he’s a parent dealing with an hysterical child. And then I begin to wonder if I really am imagining things, if I really am paranoid.’ Ruth drained her mug. ‘But I know I’m not. Eliza, I know I’m not.’ She got to her feet, heavily, leaning for support on the table.
I didn’t know what was better, to agree with her that her husband was probably cheating on her again or to agree that she was probably paranoid. So instead I just said that either way she was welcome to stay here for as long as she needed to.
She bent down and flung her arms round me. ‘Thank you. Thank you, Sis, it means a lot.’
‘Oh, don’t mention it . . . er, Sis.’
I finished my drink standing by the window, looking out at the square. It looked particularly pretty at night. I suddenly longed for winter. This place was made for Christmas wreaths and snowflakes falling in the golden light of the street lamps. Across at Number 12 a dark figure stood framed by an upstairs window. Like me, Jacob Bauer, because I expect it was he, seemed to find comfort in the view.
Thirty
I looked up from my work to find a small face with big dark eyes under heavy brows peering in through the studio window. I walked out of the side entrance. ‘Annie, what are you doing?’
‘Looking,’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Working.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Not really. I need to concentrate.’
‘You’re not working on my thing, I saw.’
‘You shouldn’t peer through people’s windows.’
‘Why?’
‘Privacy.’
‘But windows are for looking through.’
‘Only from inside out. You wouldn’t like it if people were spying on you through your window. “What is hateful to yourself do not do to your fellow man,” ’ I quoted.
She squeezed past me into the studio. ‘Daddy is always saying that to me.’
‘He is?’
‘But they can’t anyway because my window is on the third floor in Daddy’s house and even higher in Mummy’s flat.’
‘I was talking of the principle.’
‘Ah,’ she said.
‘How old are you, did you say?’
‘Nine, almost.’
‘How almost?’
She glared. ‘My daddy says it’s impolite to ask someone’s age.’
This sign of awareness of social niceties from Jacob Bauer surprised me as much as it surprised me that he had been endeavouring to teach his daughter Rabbi Hillel’s Golden Rule. If we could only get him out of that anti-social car and into recycling he might become a valued member of the community after all.
‘What are you smiling about?’ Annie asked.
‘Was I smiling?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve forgotten,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’s only rude to ask someone’s age if they’re grown up. When it’s a child, it’s obligatory.’
‘Ah,’ she said again. ‘I’ll tell Daddy.’
‘Do,’ I said. ‘Don’t you have school?’
‘It’s half-term,’ Annie said, making herself comfortable in the saggy armchair in the reception area. ‘That’s why I’m staying with Daddy.’
It was my turn to say, ‘Ah.’
‘So what are you doing?’ she asked again.
‘Making use of odds and ends.’
‘What do you mean?’ She got back up from the chair and went to stand behind me at the bench. ‘It’s broken,’ she offered helpfully, pointing to the yellow china budgerigar lying on its side, one red china leg in the air.
‘I know.’
‘Are you going to mend him?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because to mend him, give him back his leg and his wing and fill in all the chipped bits, would be a vast amount of work and he’s too ordinary a bird for that.’
‘Daddy has to mend everyone, even, he says, people who are utterly loathsome.’
‘Of course he does. But he’s a doctor. And he’s talking about people, not porcelain. Anyway, I’m not discarding the little bird, I’m simply giving him a different function.’
‘Different from being a bird?’
‘Well, he isn’t really a bird, is he, at least not in the way of flying and hopping and chirruping and stuff. He’s a china ornament whose function it is to be pretty and I’m going to make him pretty in a new way.’
‘How?’
I sighed. ‘You must have stuff to do.’
‘No. I like being here.’
‘Fine, stay then.’
‘Why are you putting the bird on the plate?’
‘Because I’m interested in exploring objects and their roles as both functional tools within the domestic environment, and as the means by which we express or define ourselves.’ I would have quite liked to have added, ‘so put that in your pipe and smoke it,’ but one didn’t talk like that to children, probably.
Annie, however, seemed perfectly happy with the explanation. ‘Fair enough,’ she said.
‘You’re sure you’re not fifty-eight and a bit?’
Annie frowned. ‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said and I went to put some water on a cloth, and as I passed Annie I wondered if I should tell her not to pick her nose but I decided against it. I seem to remember finding that kind of thing quite hurtful when I was a child. Instead I passed her a tissue.
After a while she said, ‘So you and
my daddy are the same in a way.’
‘In what way?’
‘You both mend things.’
I looked at her. ‘That was a very Hollywood-profound thing to say.’
‘But Daddy tries not to leave people without their legs. Or wings, if they have wings. Which they never do.’ She sounded as if she regretted the fact. I knew how she felt. It would be nice to think there were people coming into the operating theatre with great big white feathery wings to be put back together by a skilful orthopedic surgeon.
‘Anyway, I might come to live with Daddy all the time.’
‘Really? What about your mother?’
‘She’s going away. To America. She said it’s better for me if I stay here because my school and all my friends are here.’
‘You’d soon make new friends in America.’
‘That’s what Daddy says. But Mummy says it would be difficult and anyway she has to work and she doesn’t have anyone to look after me there and she might come back after a year anyway and then I would have to start again with friends and things.’
I nudged the bird on the plate a centimetre off-centre. ‘But when you come back your old friends would still be here.’
‘That’s what Daddy says.’
I felt suddenly grateful for the literalness of children. Without it Annie might have realized that her parents were trying to palm her off on each other.
‘Why don’t I leave this to one side,’ I said, moving my bird on a plate to a shelf. ‘And I’ll show you what I’ve done to your jug so far?’
‘It’s almost ready,’ Annie said, pleased with her inspection.
The door opened. ‘And who have we got here?’ It was Ruth. She had been for a walk.
‘This is my neighbour, Annie Bauer. Annie, this is my stepsister, Ruth Perkins. Ruth is staying with me for a while.’
Ruth smiled down at Annie. ‘You’re Mr Bauer’s little girl.’
‘Do you know my daddy?’
‘Not exactly. But I’ve seen him around.’
‘Have you been looking through our windows?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Long story,’ I said.
Ruth went on muttering about how she would never look through anyone’s window but Annie and I both ignored her as I carried on explaining the various steps entailed in restoring her jug, finishing with, ‘All I need to do now is the touching up along the lines of the mends.’
On my way to put the jug back on the shelf I said to Annie. ‘It must be your teatime.’ I was keen to return to work on my broken bird and I needed solitude and silence.
Ruth ended up walking Annie home. She absolutely insisted. ‘I never allowed my daughter to go anywhere, not even the few yards to the sweet shop until she was much older than you are now.’
Annie looked at me and I raised my palms to the ceiling. ‘Best to let her,’ I said.
Annie shrugged her bony little shoulders. ‘OK.’
Ruth returned half an hour later, flushed with news. ‘Well, I’ve met your charming neighbour.’
‘Who?’
‘Anne’s father, of course. Mr Bauer. Why don’t you like him?’
‘I don’t not like him, I simply don’t know him.’
‘You’ve lived here for two months and you don’t know your neighbours? I am surprised. I would have thought this was just the kind of place where old-fashioned community values were still to the fore.’
‘I do know most of them, just not Jacob Bauer. He’s not the neighbourly kind.’
‘Well, he was very nice to me.’
‘Good.’ I cast a longing look at my bird.
‘I asked him if he knew Gabriel. He said they had met. He was really interested to hear that you were Gabriel’s ex-wife.’
‘Really, why?’
‘I don’t know. He was being friendly, I suppose. Chatting.’
‘I didn’t think he was the chatty type.’
Ruth tossed back her hair and smiled coyly. ‘I suppose I have a knack of bringing people out of their shells.’
And that knack would be a pincer, I thought.
‘He’s rather a handsome man. I’m surprised he’s single.’
‘He wasn’t until recently,’ I said. ‘Anyway, he has a touch of the gorilla about him, don’t you think?’
‘I thought you said you hadn’t met him.’
‘I have seen him across the square a few times.’
‘Well, I’ve actually met him, and close up there’s nothing gorilla-like about him. He’s got a perfectly good forehead, for a start.’
‘If you say so.’ I thought of Gabriel. I supposed that compared to him most men looked coarse.
‘He obviously dotes on that little girl.’
‘Ruth,’ I said. ‘Why are you so interested in my neighbour?’
She looked stung. ‘I’m a people person. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’
‘No, no, of course not.’
‘You’re still hung up on Gabriel, aren’t you?’
‘Why don’t you run yourself a nice hot bath?’ I said. ‘I’ll be done here in a minute.’
I laid supper in the dining room. I had left the shutters open to the street and as the light faded I lit the candles on the table and on the small sideboard. I had prepared a chicken and mushroom and cream casserole and once I’d added a quarter of a bottle of sherry and some garlic it tasted good. I served it with mashed potatoes and green beans.
‘It’s all right for you to add butter and cream to everything,’ Ruth said. ‘You don’t need to worry about your weight. Although you’ve put on a bit, haven’t you? What are you now? A 14? Not 16, surely?’
‘12,’ I said. ‘If it’s a dress or a skirt and cut loose over the arse.’
‘Exercise would fix that,’ Ruth said.
‘Well, isn’t this cosy,’ I said. I looked across to the sideboard and the photograph of Rose and me on a family holiday. If Rose hadn’t died our parents might well have married and she would have been my stepsister. Instead there was Ruth.
Ruth traced my gaze to the photograph. Her fine dark eyes were bright like a bird’s. ‘You can always talk to me, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I know. And thank you.’
‘I don’t want to push but I’ve always heard that grief is best let out into the open.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Ruth, it was twenty-five years ago. It’s not exactly raw.’
Ruth stared at me, her mouth open in a little ‘o’ of surprise. She shook her head. ‘Still, if you’ve finally moved on.’
‘Moved on?’ I realised I had banged my fist on the table and I withdrew it and rested it in my lap. ‘Have some chicken.’
‘I wish you’d stayed with that course, the toxic guilt one. They would have taught you that guilt has no purpose beyond teaching us not to make the same mistakes again.’
I stared at her. ‘That’s so true.’
‘You don’t have to be so surprised. I do make sense sometimes, you know.’
I laughed. ‘I know you do. Anyway, I told you, they kicked me out.’ I poured us both some more wine. Ruth was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
‘What?’ I smiled, a little uneasy. She shook her head.
‘Is it Robert?’ I asked. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me?’
After a pause she said, ‘Yes, but it’s not anything to do with Robert.’
I lifted my glass of wine to my lips and drained it almost before I was aware of doing so. ‘So what is it?’
She sighed. ‘There’s been a barrier between us, Eliza. And it’s my fault.’
‘Really?’
She gave me a rueful smile. ‘I fear so. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been harbouring this . . . well, this resentment.’
I sighed. ‘I know. You told me about it the other day, remember. About your birthday party and the lifeboats and . . .’ I gave a helpless shrug. ‘I really am so sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘No. No, th
at’s just part of it.’
My shoulders slumped. ‘There’s more?’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’
I shook my head, feeling despondent. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to keep saying that. It’s not all your fault. It’s not your fault that you’re a favoured person. But you are. People see you. Have you thought about that? Even as you spend most of your time trying not to be seen, they see you. You walk into a shop and within moments an assistant has come up to you and offered to help. You enter a restaurant and you’re shown to a table by the window. At parties people come up to you and they ask you about yourself. And all this, not because you’ve done anything in particular to deserve it but because you were born that way, you were born visible. You even had Gabriel, for heaven’s sake. But me, I walk into a shop and the assistants continue to swap notes about their night out. I step into the restaurant and I wait by the door until eventually someone notices. Usually because someone like you has just come in behind me.’ She gave a little joyless laugh before continuing.
‘At a party I work my butt off and I still end up with the red-faced fat man who is there only because I’m the only other person who seems to find the topic of him as fascinating as he does. And I got Robert.’
It was hard to know where to start so I started at the end. ‘I thought you adored Robert. At least until now.’
She gave me a look that was both kind and a little contemptuous. ‘You would assume that, wouldn’t you. Robert with his ingratiating manner and sleazy charm. Robert with his too thin neck and his too long hair and his mannequin good looks. Robert with his big plans and small achievements. Robert with his desperate attempts at being a ladies’ man. Would you have wanted him?’
‘So why?’ I said quietly.
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