After Everything

by Suellen Dainty

  She didn’t care that she had to stand, hanging onto a strap like a peak-hour commuter, or that the man behind her had the breath of a dead animal. She was going home, to her house and her garden, away from the mess of Sandy and the past. They had been friendlier when they met, but they were still not friends. He looked older than she remembered. He was also funnier in his usual self-deprecating way, although he still talked about himself more than anyone else. Penny knew that he was reaching out to her and she chose not to respond. She wanted him at arms-length. For reasons of family loyalty, probably misplaced, she would always defend him because he was Emily and Matthew’s father, but she didn’t want to worry about him anymore.

  Frieda and Peter had been kind, more than hospitable. She liked Frieda, her wit and her good humour. Another good thing about getting older. Years of faulty acquaintanceships based on husbands’ careers or children’s schools provided an antenna for true common ground. You knew when someone was going to be a friend. Frieda, despite her impeccably minimalist style in furniture and clothes, had turned out to be a keen gardener and, like Penny, a fan of the old-fashioned designers: Gertrude Jekyll, Lawrence Johnston and Christopher Lloyd. She’d made Penny promise to email pictures of the garden and the doll’s house.

  ‘You don’t think it’s a stupid thing to do, pointless?’ Penny asked. ‘I’m sure that’s what the children think, and others as well.’

  Frieda snorted. ‘It’s no more stupid to paint a doll’s house than to paint a canvas. It’s wonderful to have something of your own, a way to express yourself. That’s what art is, isn’t it?’

  On the last night, Peter was running late for supper. Penny and Frieda chopped, seasoned and tasted in a companionable rhythm. Peter looked slightly put out when he arrived to sea bass cooked in a perfect salt crust, the table laid and Penny pouring the wine.

  ‘I feel obsolete,’ he said, nuzzling Frieda’s neck and kissing Penny on the cheek. Frieda brushed him off, like a buzzing fly. How ironic, thought Penny. Peter had always been so dismissive about his stream of lean blondes, with their glossed hair and pouting mouths. Now he was in thrall to a plump dark-haired woman who resembled his mother. It made her like Peter more.

  The best thing about her three days in London was seeing Matt. He was so pleased about his courier job and his steady, if minuscule, income. She didn’t have to ask about the drugs. His eyes were clear and his cheeks flushed healthy and pink as they walked back to Old Street after lunch at some over-priced chophouse near his base.

  ‘I guess Sandy will sort something out eventually,’ he said, wiping his eyes against the grit-laden wind.

  ‘Why are you calling him Sandy?’ asked Penny. ‘He was always Dad before.’

  Matt shrugged. ‘It feels better.’

  When she hugged him goodbye, his shoulder bones felt as fragile as birds’ wings. ‘I love you, dearest boy.’ She tried not to cry.

  ‘I know, Mum,’ he said. ‘I love you too. Don’t worry.’

  It was raining when the plane landed at Bergerac. She scurried through to the car park. Only an hour more before she turned into her rutted lane, then pulled into her own driveway, the best part of going home, leaving the other world behind and embracing her own life again. Tomorrow morning she would wake in her own bed and watch the clouds rolling over the mountains down to Sarlat. She would be happy.

  The car made a rasping noise when she tried to start it, then sputtered into silence. She tried again, pumping the accelerator pedal before remembering that would only flood the engine. She would go mad if she couldn’t get home tonight. Walking around her garden and sitting at her kitchen table were her magnetic north. Away from them for any length of time, she became disoriented, doubting herself. A deep breath. She turned the key again. This time she was in luck. The engine coughed, and began running smoothly.

  The rain was becoming heavy now, the sky was bruised and grey. She drove alert and upright, listening to the slap of the windscreen wipers and breathing in the moisture-laden air through the window. At each bend and glimpse of the river, her sense of anticipation grew. She could feel the smile on her face. She might have been going to meet a lover.

  It was nearly dark when she turned off the main road and began climbing up the hill, past the neat modern brick bungalow of her nearest neighbour, the pile of stone that used to be a barn, and then the last length of lane, where few people ever came and the overgrown hedges brushed against the side of the car. She turned into her bumpy little drive and stopped on the side of the courtyard. Home at last. She sat for a bit, watching the last light ebb away behind the mountains and listening to the rain on the pines.

  The courtyard flagstones were slippery and in the dark she took small careful steps to the kitchen door, making a mental note to replace the bulb in the sensor light the next morning. She unlocked the kitchen door and reached for the switch. The light flooded out into the courtyard, so bright.

  She didn’t scream, or run back into the darkness, or rush for the phone. She stood in the doorway and clutched her stomach, as if someone had punched her, hard, and she was waiting for the numbness and shock to disappear. All her plates, cups, mugs and dishes had been smashed and lay in shards on the table and on the floor. The refrigerator had been emptied, its contents flung everywhere; weeping fruit, squashed tomatoes spattered with what she thought was blood at first, but on closer inspection was jam, studded with splinters of glass. Under the sweet smell of the fruit, there was another odour: urine.

  She picked her way to the dresser. They were gone. Her mother’s Georgian silver teapot and milk jug. The drawers were upturned on the floor. She righted them. The silver teaspoons and coffee spoons, always kept in their velvet-lined boxes, were gone as well.

  She should leave the house, get in the car, telephone the police from her mobile. But something kept her moving, past the debris in the kitchen and into the hall. They had flung her vase of spring foliage against the wall. Leaves and twigs lay in puddles of water. Wind gusted in from the open front door. The key was still in the lock. Nigel was right. She should never have left it on the outside ledge. Still she moved on, into the sitting room, dreading what she knew she would see.

  They had smashed it into matchwood, every meticulously painted column, every tile, every delicate piece of furniture. All her secret memorabilia stamped on and destroyed. She stepped on something sharp, like a nail, and bent down to pick it up. It was the mangled head of Matthew’s Lego man, hurled from his bed and his quilt. No sign of his body among all this mess. They had thrown her precious doll’s house around the room. The ash from the grate was flung everywhere. Everything was dead, desecrated. She slid down the wall and began to weep, crumpled into a heap on the floor.

  After that, there was the shivering, the feeling of being flayed, then unimaginable tiredness. She wanted to sit there and not move, to keep her eyes closed and see her house as it was before she left for England: the morning sun playing on the honey-coloured fruitwood table, the sprig of mimosa on the kitchen bench, her Georgian doll’s house outlined against the window.

  She told herself not to be stupid. She could have surprised the intruders, been raped or murdered. It’s just things, she kept saying to herself, just things. Things don’t matter. I am safe now. They have gone. I am safe. I will telephone the police. After they come and inspect everything, I will lock the door, go upstairs and go to bed. It will be better in the morning. I won’t give in to the fear. I’m not twelve anymore, dreading coming home every day to the empty house, terrified to open the door and never telling Mum because she had enough to worry about with working so hard and never enough money. Nothing happened then. Nothing will happen now.

  She made her way up the stairs, exhausted by each laborious step. There was a moment on the landing as she snapped on the lights when she thought they might still be in the house, waiting for her. But all was completely quiet, everything familiar and exactly as she’d left it: the neatly folded pile of linen on the window seat waiti
ng to be stored in the cupboard, the pile of books on the hall table.

  Nothing had been touched in the bathroom either. Her nightgown still hung on the hook behind the door, the potted jasmine still scented the room. But in the mirror another version of herself stared back, white and wild-eyed. I am safe, she repeated to herself like a prayer learned by rote. I am safe now. They will not come back.

  After the police go through the house, I will wash my face and clean my teeth. I will sleep with the lights on. I will bathe in the morning, and then I will clean my house. I will sift through the wreckage to find what I can and make everything good again.

  The bed was perfect, just as she’d left it, freshly made with the thick linen sheets she liked. The bottle of mineral water was by her bed, the copy of Bring Up the Bodies with the bookmark peeking out from the pages. But something was missing. Perhaps it was her fractious nerves, but she couldn’t work out what it was. She moved closer to the chest of drawers. So they had found that as well: her mother’s jewellery box with her modest engagement ring and her cultured pearl necklace. All the things she had planned to give to Emily.

  Chapter 20

  Sandy swaddled himself in domestic routine. Eating. Clearing up after eating. Eating again. Not clearing up after eating. Watching Catherine on the evening news. Every afternoon he walked, mostly around Clapham Common, noticing the green fuzz of new growth on the trees under the mizzle of spring rain. Coffee with Jeremy occupied two of his weekday mornings except when Jeremy was away on business, which was often. Last month it was Brazil and India. This week it was Moscow.

  He was beginning to look forward to his meetings in the church hall each Wednesday. They provided a coda to his week and he liked Duncan and Imogen. Two of the girls had left, replaced by an anxious skinny woman with bleached hair whose name Sandy never caught. Imogen’s attendance was erratic and when she did appear, her sleeves were rolled down and her eyes were bloodshot. When Sandy asked her if she wanted to go outside for a cigarette, she told him to fuck off.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said and retreated to the coffee urn. He would never get it right. Duncan appeared beside him and took three biscuits from a plate.

  ‘It’s not to do with you,’ he said, puffing as if he’d walked up a hill. ‘You needn’t be offended. It’s just hard for her a lot of the time.’ He was so painfully thin. The shanks of his thighs were visible under his jeans when he sat down. The tip of his nose was still red from the cold outside and wisps of gold red hair peeked out from under his beanie.

  ‘I seem to offend most people sooner or later. I’m used to it,’ said Sandy. He sipped his coffee. It was brackish and undoubtedly instant. He thought of Jeremy’s perfect espressos. ‘I guess it’s our turn soon, the moment of truth.’ Sandy laughed. It came out as a nervous cackle. The little group may have appeared casual, but everyone was expected to speak at some time and he knew it. ‘I’m still working out my opening line.’

  Duncan wiped his nose. ‘It shouldn’t be a circus act. Aren’t we meant to just say what happened?’

  ‘So, what did happen?’ asked Sandy. ‘Let’s practise on each other. You go first.’

  Duncan’s face suffused with a painful blush and he flinched, as if he expected to be hit. His eyes welled up and he breathed in and out rapidly.

  ‘I know you’re in the music business. I recognised you, even though we don’t give surnames.’ Duncan hesitated. ‘You came to my house once when I was little. You were going to do something with my dad.’

  Sandy was bewildered. There was another pause. Duncan studied a point somewhere on the hall ceiling.

  ‘My Dad is George James,’ said Duncan, blushing again.

  ‘I remember – you lived in Hampstead. Fabulous house,’ said Sandy. ‘Fantastic Art Nouveau drawing room.’

  ‘Art Deco actually,’ said Duncan.

  ‘I always get the two confused.’

  Poor kid, Sandy thought as he gabbled on about George’s talent, the way he could electrify an entire arena. Poor bloody kid. Five-times-a-night gorgeous George for a father, and one of the most enthusiastic groupies of all time for a mother, and that famously open marriage. No wonder Duncan had problems.

  ‘Your dad and I spent much more time talking about things then, instead of doing them.’

  Now, Sandy could see George’s famous halo of golden frizz had been replicated on his son, but Duncan had nothing of his father’s bravura personality, the patina of sexual confidence. Why would he? There would have been no room for anything or anyone else in that enormous house except for the parents, their egos and their publicity-conscious libidos.

  On the sofas behind them, Imogen was telling the man with a beard that she hated her life. Duncan opened and shut his mouth like a gaping tadpole.

  ‘When I was growing up, what I remembered most was my parents having sex with all these different people,’ he said. ‘The whole house stank of it. Dad used to bring his girls in for breakfast. Some mornings I’d go into the kitchen and there’d be Mum and Dad canoodling with their lovers. Mum even had an affair with one of my friends when I was about sixteen. She said she was training him up. In the end I took my grandmother’s name. It seemed easier.’

  ‘You poor little shit,’ said Sandy. Duncan scrubbed at his eyes with one hand and tried to disguise the trembling of his chin with the other. At least Matthew had been spared that.

  Sandy’s number came up a week later. He sat on the sofa, flanked by Duncan and the man with the full beard. Imogen and the newest arrival, a thirtyish mother of twins, sat chewing their nails, cross-legged on the armchairs.

  Sandy tucked his hands under his buttocks and stared into the pile of yoga mats.

  The ceiling lights were so bright. He couldn’t bear to look at anyone’s face, to see their interest, or even worse, sympathy. The room was silent and his throat felt raw. Again he thought, as he did in that sweet post-coital moment on Carolyn’s sofa, how liberating and cleansing honesty might be. But the thought disappeared as quickly as it emerged.

  He couldn’t do it. He was the same pitiful coward he’d always been. But he had to get his time on centre court over and done with as soon as possible. He’d make something up as he went along. If he despised himself for dissembling, it was at least a familiar feeling. And, he told himself, it wouldn’t really be a lie. It just wouldn’t be the truth. Whatever that was. He cleared his throat and began.

  ‘I always used to say I was fine, but I wasn’t. Even when I was judged a success and making a lot of money, I felt whatever I did wasn’t good enough. And eventually, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I really wasn’t good enough. I was just lucky for a while. I’d like to be able to say that something really bad came along to make my life begin to disintegrate, but nothing bad happened. It’s just that the good things stopped parking themselves by my front door.’

  He dared to look around the room. Justin was nodding with exaggerated empathy. The black beard was picking at his cuticles. Imogen and the new woman were regarding him with interest. Polite interest, Sandy had to admit, but interest just the same. They were buying this collection of navel-gazing clichés. All he had to do was keep it up for another few minutes.

  ‘I had a wonderful wife, two great kids, but I also had an urge to self-destruct. I fucked around. I neglected my kids. I’m not going to say I was tippling whisky before breakfast, or I was beating my wife. But my life wasn’t functioning.’

  Constructing this narrative was so much easier than he’d imagined, almost enjoyable. Like being a child again and telling a lie, then getting so carried away with the lie, and all the little details that went with it, that the lie became real and you could almost convince yourself that it was the truth. Almost, but not quite.

  ‘My wife divorced me. I realised I’d destroyed everything we had together because of my neglect. I hated being on my own. I started drinking, not too much at first but it crept up on me. Of course I was in denial about it.’ Sandy smiled. He was particularly pleased he’d re
membered to smile. It added a sincere touch to the proceedings. He should have been an actor.

  ‘What drinker isn’t in denial? We all pretend everything is perfectly all right. And the more it’s not all right, the more we pretend. But the pretence gets to you in the end and I ended up in hospital after I walked into the path of an oncoming car. Since then, I’ve thought maybe I intervened to save myself. Although I wasn’t aware of it, of course. I can’t remember exactly what I did, but I know why I did it. And I hope, with your help and a bit of my own strength, I won’t do it again.’ He nodded.

  Justin threw in a couple of questions about his childhood and self-esteem. Sandy paused for what he hoped was long enough to indicate the requisite level of contrition and self-awareness, then answered correctly. He’d listened to the others. He knew the score. As Jeremy always said, honesty was an overrated virtue and complete honesty was an impossibility.

  Chapter 21

  The bleakness of the Moscow night had gone. He’d made it disappear. That was one thing Jeremy was still good at. He’d spent too many days sifting through a pile of meaningless documents and asking questions that he knew would never be answered. He had to make the best of what was left.

  On the plane back to London, he began a mental draft of the email to the clients. By the time the taxi had jerked through the rush-hour traffic along the A4 to the Chiswick roundabout, he’d got the wording almost right. He’d decided to write a letter. An old-fashioned letter on thick heavy paper with his embossed letterhead, followed by an email. Action. No doubts. He wouldn’t wait until the client statements went out. He’d pre-empt that.

  Before he sent the letter, he’d gate what was left of the fund so they couldn’t access it. Then he’d side pocket the rest, perhaps into Canadian mines. There was a Toronto engineer he’d met a few times who seemed to have the right look of confidence and hunger about him. Or there was always Africa. As the taxi passed the North End Road traffic lights, then the super-sized billboards advertising films he’d never see, Jeremy made his final mental revision.