by Louisa Young
‘We can all share him,’ I said, hopefully, but Lily had already turned her attention to a bag of crisps that Omar had acquired somewhere along the line, so the concept of sharing had a more immediate application in her mind.
When we got home there was a package for me on the kitchen table, in white tissue. It was a box, like the one he had given his mother. A carefully lettered card said: ‘Thank you for having me.’ I suspected Lily had helped him. She loved the box, and that night I told her what I could remember of the story of Nut and Geb, and she jumped up to look out the window at Nut’s tummy, and there it was, starless, clouded orange and purple, reflecting our sins back at us.
*
When she was asleep, I went to ring Harry. As I approached the phone, it rang. I left it for the machine, because I didn’t want to talk to anybody else. And it was Harry. I picked it up when I heard his voice.
‘I was just going to call you,’ I said.
‘We always were on a ley line,’ he said. ‘You go first.’
‘No, you. It’s your bill.’
‘Um,’ he said. Whenever Harry starts with Um I know it’s something hard for him. ‘I thought I might come round and cook you dinner.’
‘Oh,’ I said. It wasn’t that surprising – he’s a nice cook, tending to the oriental, the enterprising stir-fry and the coconut curry. But it was anachronistic.
‘When?’
‘Half an hour? An hour?’
I didn’t realise he’d meant tonight. I wasn’t up to talking about what I wanted to talk to him about tonight. And I didn’t want to talk to him about any of the other things that were on my mind. I’d been up to my ears in people and situations all day. Two parent and child reunions in one day is too much.
He may not be her father.
Whether he is or not, it’ll clear the air. If he’s not, it will at least clear the space around me, and I’ll just find myself true love, and true love’s object can be surrogate father. I’m not traipsing through Janie’s address book searching out which of her disgusting little customers it might have been.
If it was Eddie we’ll never know now.
If it was Ben we don’t want to know. It’s not Ben. Look at her, how beautiful she is.
‘Oh, Harry, I’ve been out all day …’
‘All the more reason to get your dinner cooked for you,’ he said.
Well we don’t have to talk about it, I thought. We can just make up. I accepted graciously.
EIGHT
Harry Cooks Dinner
He brought chicken breasts and a gnarled lump of ginger and two fresh little red chilli peppers and a fat sweet potato and four bottles of Singha beer and a plastic bag of some crispy green leafy thing that I’d never seen before, recommended, he said, by the bloke in the Thai shop. He drank, chopped, browned and sizzled ferociously for half an hour, then berated the idiocy that resulted in no noodles – his for not buying any, mine for not having any. ‘Why don’t you have noodles! Everybody has noodles!’ The only answer I could give was bound up with the subject I wanted/didn’t want to broach (Lily ate them all).
While we ate he was funny. He told me all about Tornado Tony who used to ride the Wall of Death at the Kursaal in Southend: how he had whiskers like Terry-Thomas and a cravat, and to make the show more interesting he acquired a lion cub which would sit in the front of his jacket, then when it got too big for that he trained it to sit on the tank of the bike, the old Indian Chief (probably not that old in those days) that they always used because the throttle stayed open by itself, so you would be free to turn to face backwards, do somersaults, waltz with your lion cub, whatever, without having to hold your speed; then when the lion got too big for the tank he built it a sidecar, and the lion sat in the sidecar, its whiskers waxed like Terry Thomas, cravat round its neck, riding the wall of death profile to profile with the head-dressed chrome Indian Chief on the front mudguard … then when the lion died, he got himself a giraffe-necked woman of Borneo, who rode the handlebars and snarled at the crowd just as well as the lion used to … ‘But where the hell did he find her! In Southend! Where did they meet! You learn every other damn thing about the story, except what the giraffe-necked woman of Borneo was doing in Southend. Strolling the front, as you do, when you’re a giraffe-necked woman. Catching the Wall of Death show at the Kursaal, as the denizens of Borneo do on a Friday night …’ Oh, he was sweet.
We were as good as made up, I suppose, but I won’t rest till I manage to get it if not in writing, then at least out loud. To avoid misunderstandings.
‘Hon,’ I said, lounging about on the sofa in the kitchen.
‘Hmm?’
‘If I were to say that you were jumping to conclusions about Eddie, would you take offence?’
He thought a moment.
‘No,’ he said.
That wasn’t enough.
‘Would you believe me?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
That wasn’t enough either.
Evidently there was more I wanted to tell him.
‘Do you want to know why I was so upset?’
‘I seem to remember I asked you exactly that at the time.’
‘So you do?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was because I’d hit him over the head, and might have helped kill him.’
‘I know that. I’ve known that longer than you.’
‘Yes I know but – but you didn’t do it. I did. And I only found out then. Hence shock and strange behaviour.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And …’ I said. Before thinking quite what I was going to tell him.
‘Hmm?’
‘His wife has been writing to me. At least I assume it’s her.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Dear old Christine. What’s she got to say for herself?’
‘She says I killed him.’
‘Ah.’
‘Fergus says she’s telling everyone that they killed him … but they didn’t, and I maybe sort of did.’
‘Do you think you did?’
‘If I say yes you’ll have to arrest me,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he said. I knew it didn’t. I had no fear that the law would blame me. The law is, apart from anything else, pragmatic. I didn’t blame me. I had no moral doubts at all. He jumped me, I walloped him. Serves him right. Happens everyday. Someone else wallops him a year later, he dies. Not my fault. The only murkiness is in what I did to him, unconscious. But nobody knows about that. Nobody but me. And I think I can live with it.
Looking back, my moral certainty amazes me. Actually, I didn’t know if I’d contributed to killing him. What I knew, somewhere very visceral, was that I was not, repeat not, accepting any responsibility, anyway, anyhow, anywhere. The slightly less complex moral issue of whether it’s all right to fuck an unconscious man who has just been trying to rape you – oh God, what am I calling less complex? OK, this was the situation: I had a life to lead and a child to bring up and I was not squandering any energy on Eddie Bates’s fate or my role in it. Not at any deep level. I had decided that without it even reaching my consciousness – hell I hardly even thought about it except to go through the motions for survival. This is what we do. Cope. Don’t talk to me, I’m coping. Stuff your subtleties, I’m alive, talk to me about it in five years.
‘No,’ I said gaily, ‘of course I don’t think I killed him.’
‘And you didn’t,’ he said.
‘But if she knows I walloped him?’
‘Does she?’
‘I don’t know.’
He was quiet a moment.
‘Tricky one,’ he said. ‘You can’t ask her because, well, then she’d know and you can’t ask anyone else … Hmm.’
‘You see what I mean,’ I said. ‘That’s what was going through my head.’
‘Um,’ he said. ‘Um. I’ll think about it.’
‘And you know Eddie and I weren’t … we didn’t …’ I couldn’t quite bring myself to an outright lie.
‘I know you weren’t,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad.’ There we go again. I can’t tell if he’s being a concerned and affectionate old lover, or basic-model patronising know-all. I can’t tell. Perhaps I’ll ask him. In the spirit of free communication and human connection. Worth a go. I was just gearing up to it – feeling flutes breathing a little fast in my belly – when he suddenly said: ‘Can I go and look at her? Lily?’
‘Of course,’ I said. Surprised by his asking, by his wanting to. By his feeling that he had to ask. Oh – of course. He’s being delicate.
‘I just …’ he said, and sort of smiled, and went in to her.
Then he went to the loo, and came back a moment later looking efficient.
‘Have you got someone staying?’ he asked.
‘Yes – except he’s gone away for a couple of days. Why?’
‘Just saw all this shaving stuff in your bathroom. Anyone I know?’
I told him about Hakim. Chatting, friendly.
It was nice being with him, being nice. His long legs spread across the same old sofa they used to be spread across when we were young and foolish, and his familiar handsome face. Have we changed? You think so, skidding around the surface, and then the unchanging trips you up and sends you flying, and you land, winded by familiarity.
‘Got to go,’ he said. ‘Um.’
Oh.
‘What to, at eleven on a Saturday night?’
He dipped his head for a second, then looked at me.
‘Well,’ he said.
I seem to spend my life trying to get people to say what they want to say anyway. Am I so hard to talk to? Or is it just the nature of things?
‘I’m going to pi … it’s one reason I wanted to come round.’
‘So you could go? Novel.’
‘To tell you.’
I waited. I didn’t like it. Niceness was receding double quick.
‘I’m going to pick up my … well, I’m seeing someone.’
I didn’t like it at all.
But it’s not for me not to like. A man can have a girlfriend. What, did I think he never would, just because I turned him down over a year ago? Just because we broke up for bad reasons ten years ago?
But I didn’t like it.
‘Gosh,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘No, well, you wouldn’t.’
‘Are you going to tell me about her?’
‘Her name’s Amygdala, she’s a TV scriptwriter …’
‘Amygdala! What’s … that’s part of the brain!’
‘Her father’s a brain surgeon. He likes the Amygdala.’
‘What are her brothers and sisters called then?’
‘Thomas and Daniel.’
‘So he’s a misogynist too.’
‘What do you mean, too?’
‘As well as being a sadist.’
‘Angel …’
‘What does she write then? The Bill?’
‘Yes.’
I laughed. He looked cross. Here we go again.
Actually, he was being very civilised and I was being a bitch.
‘What’s she like then?’ I asked, and tried to make it kind.
‘Actually she’s lovely.’
Of course she is. She would be. I should have known. No doubt he’s about to tell me I’d like her. No doubt I would, in the normal course of things. But I couldn’t help it. I hated her.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Good.’
And that was it, really. Nothing to say, so I said nothing. He had to go and pick her up, so he went to pick her up.
I went into my room and looked at Lily sleeping, scratching herself.
‘Sorry, babe,’ I said to her. ‘It’s going to be a bit more complicated than I thought.’ Though what I had thought I couldn’t imagine.
*
Next morning Brigid called in on her way from Mass. Her sister had taken the children home, and she wanted to take up the opportunity of an unencumbered cup of tea. In fact what she wanted was to tell me again that I should get a boyfriend. What was I doing with my Saturday nights, she wanted to know, I was wasting away and not getting any younger and if I didn’t pay attention before I knew it I’d be married to myself like she is, and she knew I wouldn’t like it.
Her timing was bad. In self-defence I mentioned that Harry had come round. She began to get excited.
‘To tell me about his new girlfriend,’ I said.
‘Oh no!’ she cried.
‘He’s not boyfriend material anyway,’ I said.
‘He is just,’ she replied. ‘He’s a very gorgeous man and I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘But we’ve done it, Brigid, it’s old stuff.’
‘It’s a damn shame, and you’re a fool. You could’ve had him.’
‘I don’t want him,’ I said. ‘I’ve had him already.’
‘Years ago,’ she said. ‘It’s a damn shame.’ I didn’t agree with her. But I was incredibly bloody pissed off about the girlfriend.
‘See?’ she said.
‘It’s not that. It’s Lily. She’s started the Daddy thing again and if it is Harry then …’ Brigid’s husband left her and the kids six years ago, when she was pregnant with Caitlin. The Daddy thing is a bit of a subject between us. Brigid doesn’t mourn John. He sends money. She says she’s well shot of him. She says it’s one kid less to fuss about, and she likes her children better under 21. She’s brave and tough and lets nothing touch her. ‘I had true love for years and it was a pain in the neck,’ she says, ‘but you’ve not done it and you should.’ I think she honestly believes this.
‘You want Harry to be her dad,’ she said, ‘don’t you.’
‘I could live with it,’ I said, wondering as I said it if it were true. ‘Lily wants someone. She’s a right to it. Harry thinks it’s him. If it’s true then it’s true, and if it is then I couldn’t stand in their way.’ Stand in their way. Making a unit out of Harry and Lily. Harry and Lily. I can’t even tell if she looks like him. I’ve seen children who look so like both their parents that they make their parents look like each other.
‘And we’ll certainly never find out if it’s anybody else,’ I said. ‘And Harry’s a decent man. I know him. I think we could do it …’
‘Yes but do what, exactly?’ she said.
‘Be parents. Go to school open days. Ring each other up and say did she leave her pyjamas there.’ The idea of Lily leaving her pyjamas at Harry’s house. Oh, it’s strange.
And anyway I don’t know what he wants. He said a year ago that he wanted to see her. And me. Maybe he only said he wanted to see her because he wanted to see me. Or vice versa. No, he doesn’t want me, so he must want to see her, genuinely. Or did then. Any way you look at it, I’m running ahead of myself here, sending her round to his for the night. His! Harry’s flats have always been bachelor dives par excellence, all Horace Silver tapes and brown duvet covers. All he owns is a coffee percolator, a toolbox, and yesterday’s Independent. Oh, and the vehicles: the Pontiac and the Ducati, both of which he had when I first met him. He’s living in Kilburn now. I haven’t been there.
I don’t know who he is. I know he’s not the man I loved years ago. I know he’s not the running boy for Eddie Bates that I thought he was last year. I’ve got to sort this out, girlfriend or no girlfriend.
Brigid was still talking. ‘But not set up home for her, with both of you?’ she was saying.
‘Brigid, I can’t just snap my fingers and make things happen. Anyway I don’t want him, for me, and anyway she’s used to home with just me. She doesn’t need him here.’ I said this glibly, but I have thought a lot about all this. About what a child needs, and whether (and, if so, how the hell) I can give her what she needs. I’ll never forget her saying to me, when the question came up during the Night of Chaos, ‘You’re my daddy,’ and me saying, ‘No I’m not,’ and her reply: ‘But you’re not my mummy either, so it doesn’t matter.’
‘You could find a decent fellow and marry him and he could be fath
er,’ Brigid was saying. And pigs could fly and we could all go and live on the moon, I thought, but people tend to tell me I’m being defensive when I say things like that.
‘I haven’t found one yet, have I?’ I said instead, endeavouring to be positive. ‘After all these years?’
‘Yes, and if you did meet a good man you wouldn’t know what to do with him anyway. Anyway I say if Harry’s her dad you’ll have to marry him.’
‘Not,’ I said. ‘Brigid, let’s stay in the real world.’
‘Funny old place, the real world,’ she said.
Then it was time to go round to my mum’s for lunch.
*
My parents live in Enfield, a fact which I find it hard to forgive. Nothing personal about Enfield, just that it’s too far away on the wrong side of the city. I’ve got a big urge to make them move back. But you can’t tell grown-ups what to do. They’re only in their sixties but one day they’ll be really old, and then they’ll start dying, and one of them will be ringing me up in the middle of the night, or some policeman or something will, and it will all be so cold and far apart and miserable. And they’ve lost a daughter already.
I was thinking about all this as we drove over on Sunday morning – presumably so I wouldn’t have to think about razor blades, love poems, Harry, and the fact that I was, just was, going to have to have a big talk with him. Lily was talking to her Teletubby in the back, singing with it: ‘Willoughby wallaby wee! An elephant sat on me! Willoughby wallaby woo! An elephant sat on you! Willoughby wallaby wama! An elephant sat on Mama!’ By the time it got to ‘Willoughby wallaby winky winky! An elephant sat on Tinky Winky!’ we were coming off the North Circular and I had decided to talk to them about it. Come home, was all I wanted to say. Be with us. Before you settle in to ancientness and become immovable.
So when Mum opened the door, and Lily hurtled off in search of her grandfather, off whom she might be able to blag orange-flavoured Tictacs, I said, halfway through the conversation (in my own thoughts, if nowhere else), ‘Mum, why don’t you just move house? It would be so much easier and everything would just be better …’
‘What would?’ she said, unperturbed.
‘All sorts of things,’ I said, slightly surprised to find myself in the middle of a real conversation rather than an internal one. ‘We could see you, and you could see us, and …’