‘Are you all right, Eliza? Forgive me for saying so but you’ve been rather odd all evening.’
I drained the red wine, hoping that following the two glasses of white, it might render me unconscious. ‘I’m fine. Just a bit tired, perhaps.’
‘This is very good.’ Gabriel raised his fork on which was speared a piece of lamb.
I forgot the green beans,’ I said, getting up from my chair. ‘I’ll go and put them on now. They only take a minute.’
‘Really, don’t bother. There are vegetables in the casserole. And we’ve got the delicious bread. Really, this is lovely.’
So I sat back down again. ‘Uncle Ian gave me several of his mother’s notebooks,’ I told him. ‘They’re filled with stories: fairy tales, myths. He wants me to illustrate them. I never liked the man she used for the published volumes. His work was very seventies brown and orange and almost Stalinist in its lines. You know, the prince sticks his chin out and raises his sword to the skies. And the trolls look rather evil, which I think is wrong. Ugly, yes, cross, yes, but misunderstood I’d always say, rather than evil.’
‘Maybe you should do it,’ Gabriel said.
‘Do what?’
‘The new illustrations.’
‘I’m too rusty. My technique’s not up to it.’
‘Don’t be defeatist.’
‘I’m not. I’m realistic.’ But then I remembered Uncle Ian and I said, ‘Though I could go back and do some evening classes.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Gabriel said.
I beamed at him.
Silence fell.
After a while I asked, ‘So how have you been?’
‘Fine. Busy busy busy.’
‘I don’t suppose it can be much fun coming home late to an empty flat after a hard day’s work and having to cook and . . .’
He looked down at his hands and then back at me. ‘Actually, I’m not coming back to an empty flat.’
‘You’re not.’ I swallowed hard. The odds on Gabriel having got a cat were low.
‘I’m seeing someone.’
‘Ah.’
‘She, Isobel, is a registrar at the hospital.’
‘Ah.’
‘She’s divorced, too. She’s got a little boy, Edward.’
‘Edward,’ I repeated. ‘Is it serious?’
‘We’re not living together yet, not officially, but they stay over most of the time. We’re looking to get a place together.’
Now he’d got over the hurdle of breaking his news to me he seemed unable to stop talking. They were hoping to find a house in this very neighbourhood as that would be the most convenient both for the hospital and for little Edward’s school. Edward was a real bright spark. Just like his mother. Who had this amazing energy and joie de vivre. In spite of the fact that her life had not been easy.
I had tried to keep a neutral to interested expression on my face while my heart lurched and twisted in my chest. In the end I couldn’t stop myself. ‘So she needed you,’ I said. ‘She needed rescuing.’
He frowned. ‘I can see where you’re going with this but you’re wrong. She’s very independent.’ His face softened. ‘Well, she’s had to be, poor little thing.’
‘Orphan, is she?’
He looked puzzled. ‘No.’ Then his brow cleared. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been banging on rather, haven’t I? It’s just, well, I’m happy. I’ve told Isobel, by the way, that you are and always will be very important to me. And she completely accepts that.’
Good old Isobel. In the midst of my misery and my anger I felt this tenderness towards him as he sat there, all excited and pink-cheeked and sparkly-eyed, and so utterly without any understanding.
‘In fact, she really wants to meet you.’ He relaxed in his chair. ‘I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you understand. Then you always were understanding.’ He put his hand out across the table and searched for mine.
‘Was I?’ I fished my right hand up from under the table where it had been scrunching my napkin into a little sweaty ball, and reached out to him. We held hands for a minute or so. Then I eased my hand out from his grip, but reluctantly. I had always loved the touch of his hands, that were warm and dry and a little bit rough. I stood up.
‘Pudding.’
He picked up his plate and was about to follow me but I told him to remain seated.
‘You’re a guest,’ I said.
‘You’ve been crying?’ he said as I returned. He stood up, taking the bowl of Eton Mess from my hands. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I thought we were OK. I thought we . . . I mean, it’s been three years.’ We stood there, looking helplessly at each other. Then I shrugged and turned away but he took a step towards me and hugged me close. I tensed up as I tried hard not to press up against him and my arms remained limp at my sides.
‘I really am so sorry,’ he said again. ‘I didn’t realise.’
I freed myself from his awkward embrace and like actors after hearing the word Cut, we simply assumed our places. Pushing the bowl towards him I said, ‘Don’t be sorry. As you say, it’s been three years.’ Then a little vial of poison burst inside me. ‘Anyway, Isobel needs you. Not to mention Little Edward.’
He gave me an uncertain look as he helped himself to the Eton Mess.
I smiled politely. ‘Of course, I myself I have gone and contracted leprosy, silly me, careless as ever, but you know how it is? One minute you’re fine, then the next your nose is falling off. Plus we’ve got this termite situation. You know termites, the little guys who chomp their way though large timber structures in the time it takes you or I to eat a spoonful of Eton Mess. They came across with a consignment of bananas apparently and then they were brought to me by Ocado. But it isn’t all bad. No, not at all. In fact they could turn out to save everyone a lot of trouble and expense now the council has applied to demolish every house in the square to make way for that much needed bypass.’ I gave him another quick smile. ‘But enough about me.’
Gabriel was staring at me. Now he put down his spoon and said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing. Only you speaking of poor Isobel reminded me of my own small troubles, that’s all.’
‘You’re being very silly.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Maybe I should go.’
‘Isobel waiting, is she?’
He got to his feet. ‘No, as it happens. She’s at her own place this week. Half-term.’
‘Well, sit down, then, and finish your pudding.’
I watched him clear his plate. He had always had a healthy appetite. After a few minutes I said, ‘You mustn’t worry, though. I exaggerated when I said my nose might fall off. Your extremities don’t actually just fall off when you’ve got leprosy. No, what actually happens is that you lose all feeling because of the damage to the nerve-endings so you simply don’t notice when you chop a finger off while cutting up the carrots or that your nose is being scorched while you bend down to stoke the fire. But as I hardly ever chop carrots, preferring to eat them raw and whole, and as I can never get a fire to take, I’m glad to say that I should be safe.’ I got up from the table. ‘Coffee?’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘I think I’m fine.’
‘I’ve got an espresso machine.’
Once he had gone I went into Ruth’s room and stripped the bed, taking the sheets back up with me to my own room. I didn’t wash or take my clothes off but just crawled into bed and lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling and pretending I was counting stars. After a while my eyes were too wet for me to see properly so I closed them and tried to go to sleep.
Thirty-six
The next evening, as I sat down to write my email to Uncle Ian, I found it hard to know what to say. Should I lie and tell him that the evening had been called off? Or lie and say that the evening had in fact been a roaring success and that Gabriel and I were back together? Or should I not mention the previous evening at all and hope he wouldn’t remember that I had asked Gabriel over in a fit of hopelessly
hopeful excitement? The one option I couldn’t contemplate right then was telling him the truth; that once again I had failed to get my life back on track. ‘Be happy, Eliza,’ he’d said. Could I not at least do that for him?
The phone went. It was Ruth. She sounded odd. ‘Ruth, are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘It’s probably the reception. I’m in the car. I’d like you to come over please.’
‘Come over where? I thought you said you were in the car.’
‘I am. But I’m in the car at home.’
Robert’s silver Mercedes was standing in front of the garage, the engine running. It took me a couple of seconds to register that two people, Robert and a woman I didn’t know, were pinioned to the garage wall by the front bumper of the large silver car. I ran up and pulled open the passenger door. Ruth was in the driver’s seat, her hands clutching the steering wheel, her foot hovering above the accelerator pedal.
‘Get her out of there.’ Robert’s voice was high-pitched with terror, but at least he was alive, as was his companion, because she kept opening and closing her mouth.
‘Ruth,’ I said, as calmly as I was able. ‘Ruth dear, why don’t you . . .’
‘Brrrm brrrm,’ said Ruth, as her foot played above the accelerator.
‘Brrrm brrrm, indeed. Absolutely, but why don’t you reverse, very slowly and carefully away from the garage door.’
Ruth poked her head out of the window and yelled to the woman. ‘You hear that, you stupid tart, it’s garage. Ga-ra-ge not garridge.’ She pulled her head back and smiled at me. ‘Sometimes you simply have to make a stand,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Of course you do. But why don’t you just reverse ever so slowly . . . No, don’t touch the accelerator until you’ve put the gear in reverse. I said don’t . . . That’s right. Gently. Gently does it.’
It took some doing but I managed to persuade Robert and the woman not to call the police. Instead I got him to pack Ruth a small bag and then I told him that I needed to take the car to drive Ruth and me back home as I didn’t think she was in the right frame of mind for public transport.
Ruth did not say one word as we drove though the summer streets of London. I thought she was about to as we passed Camden Lock; for some reason Ruth had it in for Camden Lock, and just then I would have welcomed a comment or two about tattoos and graffiti and perhaps a small follow-on mention about the idiocy of the contemporary art scene. But nothing. Ruth sat bolt upright in her seat, her hands clutched in her lap.
‘Goodness,’ I said trying to entice her back to normality. ‘Will you look at that wall. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took it down and rebuilt it as an exhibit at Tate Modern.’ When still she said nothing, I pulled out my trump card. ‘It’d get the Turner Prize, I bet you anything you like.’ But still nothing.
Once back home I helped the silent Ruth into bed and brought her a mug of warm milk with honey. I was about to close the door behind me when she finally spoke. ‘Eliza, what shall I do? Where shall I go?’
I swallowed a sigh. ‘Don’t worry about that. You’re obviously welcome to stay here for as long as it takes. Would you like me to call Lottie?’
Ruth shook her head. ‘No, absolutely not. Anyway, she’s in Chile. What can she do from Chile?’
‘All right. I won’t.’ I took a step back into the room. ‘Do you feel like telling me what happened?’
‘No.’
‘Right. Fair enough. You try to get some sleep. We’ll talk it all through in the morning.’
I went out into the front garden. The night was warm and heady with the scent of mock-orange. I stood there for a while, my face raised to the sky, as I attempted and gave up counting the stars. I thought of the lady painter, Marguerite, and her sister Anna. I wondered how much of the garden and the view of the square were the same now as when they had lived here. I wished I could step though a gate in time and visit them. We’d have a cup of tea, discuss the artists of the day and comment on the beauty of our surroundings. ‘This is our house,’ I’d say. Yours and mine and everyone else’s who called it home. We all live on in the fabric of the house, our essence melded with the paints and the varnishes and the very bricks of the walls. Then, and before I took my leave, I would assure them that I would take the greatest care of our little house and pass it on, eventually, in the best possible state.
A lone saxophone began to play, a mellow, lazy blues. At first I couldn’t hear where the sound was coming from but as the music rose into a melancholy A flat I realised it came from Number 12. I couldn’t tell if someone was playing an actual saxophone, or just a recording, but the sound was good.
I turned my head at the sound of a window being thrown open and saw Archie Fuller’s head popping out from his third-floor window with such speed and vehemence I half expected him to call out ‘cuckoo’.
Instead he shouted, ‘I say, do have some consideration for those of us who are trying to sleep.’
The saxophone responded with a mocking riff – either Archie had made his protest at just the right moment or the music was live. There followed a few last lingering notes and then there was silence. Archie’s head was gone, back to bed with the rest of him, I assumed. The lights of Number 12 went out and I walked back inside.
Thirty-seven
Sandra/Cassandra
To Rose, Julian was just the icing on the cake. But he was my lifeblood. Rose didn’t love him. She didn’t know what love was; she was a child playing an adult game. She would soon get bored with it but by then it would be too late.
The day before the dance, and after nights of lying unable to sleep and with my thoughts whizzing round my head like comets, I felt dizzy with anxiety, but I still had no idea what to do. I just knew that there had to be something.
‘If you want something badly enough you’ll get it,’ that’s what my parents always told me. And I’d thought, well, they can’t have wanted anything very badly at all. I wanted Julian so bad it felt like my insides were on fire. And it came to me that maybe I should just talk to them, the princesses, be straight, tell them what Julian meant to me and appeal to their better nature. I’d say to Rose, ‘Look, you can get any boy you want, so please – don’t take him.’
The princesses were crowded into Portia’s cube with Celia Hunter and Hannah Maitland. I stood in the doorway, a goblin peering in. Eliza looked up from pinning some kind of crazed corsage to the waist of Celia’s frock, and tried to give me a smile with a mouthful of pins. She finished the job and spat out the rest of the pins in the palm of her hand.
‘Aren’t you going to get ready?’ she asked me then turned to the others. ‘Cassandra’s dress is absolutely gorgeous. Brilliant colour, too.’
I smiled back. Oh, it was easy to be nice, I thought, when you have everything. ‘I wanted to have a word,’ I said. ‘With Rose mainly.’
Rose, who was plucking her already perfect eyebrows, turned round. ‘Sure. Shoot.’
‘Can I have your tweezers when you’re done?’ Celia asked Rose.
‘C’mon everyone, it’s only two hours to show-time,’ Portia said. ‘I haven’t even done my nails. Have you done yours, Rose?’ Rose held out a dainty foot. ‘You haven’t. Well, hurry up then. At least I’m wearing sandals but yours will have to be completely dry.’
‘I wondered if we could have a word in private,’ I said, looking at Rose. My voice was casual enough but I was looking at her intently, hoping she’d pick up on it being important. She didn’t. Nor did anyone else. Not even Eliza.
‘Look, Sa . . . Cassandra, can it wait? I’ve got masses of stuff still to do. We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?’
I actually looked quite good once I was dressed and ready. I had used the heated tongs Aunt Gina had given me for my birthday and for once my frizz did resemble golden curls. I used almost an entire can of strong-hold Elnette so as long as it didn’t rain the look should last the evening. Beads of sweat kept rising to the surface of my a
rmpits and the palms of my hands. I dabbed them away with a tissue and sprayed on some more of the Fenjal deodorant. It was really expensive and I knew only one shop that sold it, but Julian loved the smell, he had told me.
The party committee had turned the assembly hall into a glittering grotto with the aid of some old sails and a load of fairy lights. It looked pretty cool, actually. Miss Grant, Miss Robbins and Mr Loftus, the three members of staff in charge, were wandering around trying to look as if they were comfortable. Mr Loftus looked ridiculous in a pink shirt and a black knitted tie. Miss Grant and Miss Robbins just looked like they always did but in brighter colours. The boys’ coach had arrived but I couldn’t see Julian anywhere. I couldn’t see the princesses either. I pushed through the throng to the far side of the room but still they were nowhere to be seen. ‘Oi, watch where you’re going.’ It was Celia. I hadn’t even realised that I’d bumped into her.
‘Have you seen Rose and Eliza anywhere? Or Portia?’
‘No. You look weird. Well, weirder. What’s the matter?’
I narrowed my eyes at her and she rolled hers and we walked off in opposite directions. I saw Hannah by the drinks table. I waved and called out. ‘Have you seen the others?’
‘What others?’
I swallowed my annoyance. ‘Eliza and Rose and Portia. Why aren’t they here?’
‘Are you all right, Sandra? You look . . .’
‘Don’t call me Sandra.’ The correction was automatic because just then I didn’t care what anyone called me as long as by the end of the night he, Julian, was back to calling me his baby.
Hannah shrugged. ‘Sorry. Always forget. Anyway, I don’t know where they are. Have a glass of punch. It’s almost as revolting as it looks.’
‘No, thank you.’ I continued on until I got to the emergency exit right at the other end of the hall. I slipped outside and the next thing I knew I was face to face with the three of them. ‘Hi, Cassandra.’ Eliza gave me a big smile as if seeing me was just the best thing that could have happened to her at that moment.
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