Don't Get Me Wrong

by Marianne Kavanagh

  Once she’d paid the driver, and the car had sped off down the street, she stood there, unable to move, wishing she hadn’t come at all.

  The porch of number 62 had been glazed over to protect it from wind and rain. Inside, on the red tiles, Kim could see a line of Wellington boots—two adult pairs in black, and two much smaller ones, a red pair and a blue pair, decreasing in size. His sons, thought Kim. The half brothers I’ve never met. How old would they be now? Twelve and eight? Jia was pregnant soon after he moved out to live with her. Sealing their relationship before he could change his mind.

  Leaning against the wall were two umbrellas, one with turquoise-and-white stripes and one bright scarlet. I wonder what she’s like, thought Kim. I wonder if he went for another Hitchcock heroine, with pale blond hair and a tiny waist.

  Kim took a deep breath. She rang the bell.

  For a long time, she heard nothing. She wanted to laugh. All this fuss and tension, and they’re not here. At the cinema, maybe, or doing the supermarket shop. She started to wonder how long she’d wait if no one came to the door. They could be away the whole weekend. Gone to visit Jia’s mother, perhaps. The grandparents Kim didn’t know would be gathering up the little boys she’d never met in huge enveloping hugs before finding a stash of chocolate in a kitchen cupboard. Don’t tell your mother. It’s our secret.

  Kim felt a tiny drop of rain. She lifted her face. The sky was turning dark gray.

  And then the inner door opened and there, in the glass cabinet of the porch, was her father.

  When he saw her, he didn’t look surprised. Perhaps he didn’t recognize her. After all, she’d been fourteen when he left—thinner, straighter, even angrier than she was now. He pulled open the outer door.

  “Kim,” he said.

  He made no move towards her. But then, he’d never been one for physical contact. They might have stayed like that, staring at each other, if it hadn’t started to rain in earnest. He stood back, and she walked past him into the high-ceilinged hall, which seemed to be a corridor that ran all the way to the back of the house. She didn’t know where to go, so she stood by the foot of the stairs waiting. And then he was by her side again, gesturing for her to go ahead, which is how she found herself in a great square kitchen full of light. At a rectangular wooden table, seated in front of the remains of Sunday lunch, was a woman with a red shirt and long black hair, and two boys who looked away quickly as soon as they saw her.

  Her father said, “This is Kim.”

  To her great credit, the woman pushed away her surprise very quickly and got to her feet, smiling. She was tiny, with dark eyes and high cheekbones. Asian. Very pretty. How does he do it, my father? How does he attract such good-looking women? It seemed, for a moment, such a complete mystery that Kim turned and stared up into his face, examining him carefully. Maybe it’s because he looks so serious. A furrowed brow, as if he’s thinking great thoughts.

  Like a young Gregory Peck. You know Hitchcock’s Spellbound?

  But if he is thinking great thoughts, he keeps them to himself.

  “So would you like some tea?” said Jia. Her accent sounded Chinese.

  Kim nodded.

  “Your father didn’t say you were coming.”

  Because he didn’t know. I didn’t want to ring him at home in case Jia answered. I thought about ringing him at work because I had it at the back of my mind that he had a job at the university. In the library. Special collections. Ancient books on insects and Roman remains. But I wasn’t sure. Not sure enough to make investigations. Not sure enough to track him down.

  The younger boy was staring at her. He had his mother’s high cheekbones and black hair. Kim thought her father might introduce them. But he didn’t. He just stood there.

  Jia was by the sink, filling up the kettle. “So you’ve come from London?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how is your mother?”

  “Fine, thank you.” She glanced at her father. “She got married again.”

  “That’s nice,” said Jia.

  The older boy said, “Dad, can I be excused?”

  Kim’s father just looked at him.

  Jia came back to the table with a tray. “Sit down, Kim. Boys, you can go and watch TV.”

  He does nothing, thought Kim. He just allows himself to be waited on. Kim sat down in the nearest chair, and her father settled himself opposite, and they both watched as Jia set down mugs of tea and a plate of pink sugary cookies on the table, and then rapidly refilled the tray with the detritus of lunch, piling up plates and glasses, scooping a clatter of cutlery onto the top. Eventually, like a solo violin player against the background percussion of a full orchestra, her father said, “On the train?”

  “What?” said Kim.

  “You came on the train?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t drive?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  Her father thought about this. “Have you got a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “I’m regional development manager for a housing charity.”

  “I would have thought,” said her father, frowning, “that you’d need a car for that kind of job.”

  “No,” said Kim. “You don’t.”

  I suppose, thought Kim, he might have looked like a film star once. Years ago. If you squint and stare really hard, and take away the gray hair round the temples, you can sort of see bruised and smoldering. Like Eddie Redmayne. Or Adrien Brody.

  Her father said, “Where do you live in London?”

  “In Sydenham.”

  “Pissarro.”

  “What?”

  “Camille Pissarro. French impressionist. There’s a famous painting in the National Gallery. Called The Avenue, Sydenham.”

  Small, disjointed scenes were struggling to play in Kim’s mind. Her mother and father standing in the yellow kitchen in Nunhead, both tense, her mother tearful, her father bewildered, her mother shouting, “What’s wrong with you? Why do you never understand?” Her father’s habit of coming home with useful things he’d found in Dumpsters—antique window stays, broken chairs, wicker cat baskets—which, because her mother refused to have them in the house, heaped themselves up outside like abandoned toys. His inability to pass up a bargain, even if he had no use for a mop, a garden hose, or a five-pack of golfing socks. His insistence on keeping all forms of documentation—old passports, used train tickets, guarantees for kettles long since thrown away—as if life was only real if you had a receipt.

  “So, Kim, would you like a cookie?” said Jia.

  I didn’t realize, thought Kim, when I was fourteen, how strange this all was. How completely ill matched they were. It was as if my father was trying to make sense of random objects while my mother was trying to make sense of him. She wanted him to notice her. She was constantly flirting with him, eyes huge as if he was her only focus. Dancing round the living room, her 1950s skirts lifting in a perfect circle. That little laugh in her voice as she teased him. Look at me, look at me, look at me. And all the time, that same expression on his face—anxious, preoccupied, as if he couldn’t really work out what was going on.

  No wonder they couldn’t stay together.

  Jia said, “So how long are you in Leicester?”

  Kim turned to her father. “I need to tell you about Eva.”

  His expression didn’t change.

  “Your sister,” said Jia. “Who had the baby.”

  “A little boy,” said Kim, still looking at her father and finding, to her distress, that her voice was trembling.

  “I said he should see his grandson,” said Jia. “But he doesn’t want to go to London.”

  “Is that true? You didn’t want to see him?”

  Still, her father said nothing.

  “I think maybe he wasn’t sure he would be welcome.”

  Kim whipped round, staring at Jia with furious eyes
. “Do you always speak for him?”

  “Most of the time. He’s not good with people.”

  Kim realized, to her intense surprise, that Jia wasn’t trying to score points. She was just telling Kim what she thought was the truth.

  “That’s the thing with your father,” said Jia. “He’s good at his job. He knows all the books in the library. But people confuse him. He doesn’t know what they mean. So I tell him. I tell him what they mean.”

  Kim swallowed. Her father was mute, like someone who doesn’t speak the language.

  “He earns the money. I do the rest.” Jia smiled. “When I can. Because he is very stubborn, your father. I remember when your sister wrote him a letter saying she was having a baby. And I said to him, So don’t sell the house now. Because she needs somewhere to live. London is expensive. Help her. We don’t need the money. But he wouldn’t listen, because he said she was grown-up. She has to be responsible. And I said, But this is your daughter. And your grandchild. But he doesn’t pay attention. Because he believes he is right.”

  Kim’s head was blank, like an empty wall.

  “So,” said Jia briskly, “is that why you come today? Does she need some money, your sister? Because I think your father should give her some money. For his grandson.”

  Kim shook her head.

  Jia studied her carefully. After a while, she said, in a quiet voice, “So there is something wrong.”

  Kim, holding her mug of tea, looked down at the table.

  There was a long silence.

  “Kim,” said her father, speaking for the first time, “what is it?”

  She was aware of a small flurry of movement to her right. When she next looked up, through a blur of tears, Jia had gone, shutting the door behind her.

  • • •

  Kim had bought a new black suit. Damaris had gone with her to the West End. They found it in Selfridges—a slim-fitting sleeveless shift dress with a black jacket over the top. The jacket had three mother-of-pearl buttons. The whole effect was classic and understated. Kim stared at her reflection in the mirror.

  “That’s the one,” said Damaris.

  When the assistant was carefully folding it all away in crackling white tissue paper, Kim wanted to say, It’s for my sister’s funeral. She didn’t know why she wanted to say that. Maybe to make it real. Because nothing much else was real these days. Outside the shop, on Oxford Street, Kim stood on the pavement and stared at the big red bus getting closer and closer until Damaris put her arm round Kim’s shoulders and tugged her away.

  They bought new dark-blue corduroy trousers for Otis. They had to guess the size because he wasn’t with them. He was with Izzie in Sydenham, playing with his train set. When they got back, he didn’t want to try them on, and Kim didn’t have the energy to insist. But on the day of the funeral, when Otis got dressed in his new clothes, Kim said, “Oh look. They’re the right length.” And then she saw Damaris and Izzie exchange glances and she realized there was a story behind it somewhere—the trousers had been exchanged, or taken up, or made longer.

  But she was glad no one had told her. Because she didn’t really care.

  Her father hadn’t brought Jia or his sons. When he saw Otis, he said, “And how old are you?” But Otis just looked at him with blank eyes.

  Grace was crying.

  At the crematorium, which was packed, the music was too loud. Otis sat on the wooden bench and his legs swung like a puppet’s in empty space. There were white flowers. The coffin was covered in a red velvet cloth. Something was hurting in Kim’s head like an old hangover, but she knew it would pass if she didn’t think about it and concentrated instead on the blue hymn books and the November light flooding through the big tall window.

  Harry was on the other side of the aisle. He had his head down and his shoulders were shaking.

  Outside they looked down at the flowers on the ground. Kim didn’t know why the flowers were on the ground, but she didn’t really feel she could ask, as she was the one who was supposed to know what was going on. A big man with dreadlocks came up to her and said, in an Irish accent, “I’m so sorry.” And she thought, For what? Until she remembered. Someone else, who sounded German, held her hand and said, “Your sister was a wonderful person,” which made her cross, because she couldn’t think why anyone would want to tell her what she already knew. After a while, she switched off, which made it easier, and people came up and opened and shut their mouths, and she nodded until she was shivering so much that Christine came up and put her arm round her and said, “The car’s waiting. It’s time to go.”

  As they left, Kim hesitated, because it felt rude to leave without Eva. But then she remembered that Eva wasn’t there.

  Damaris guided her into the car as if she was a very old person.

  They went back to Christine’s. Christine had made little sandwiches, and tiny puffs of pastry filled with cheese, and miniature cakes with sugar icing. There was hot tea, and beer, and sweet sherry. Christine’s grandchildren played with Otis under the kitchen table. Conversation was hushed, like the whispering in the waiting room at the doctor’s surgery. But then more and more people arrived, all of them carrying plates of food and bottles and cans and glasses, and Christine’s house got fuller and fuller and you couldn’t breathe, because it was much too hot. And then a woman with long dark hair came over and said, “We wondered if we could play some of the songs she liked?” And after that it was better because Kim could see musicians bent over their big pale guitars, and the air was full of the music she had heard all her life, by the Mamas and the Papas, and Bob Dylan, and the Byrds.

  And there it was, King Solomon’s song. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to love, and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace.

  Kim bent her head and wept. She said to Damaris, “She’s the wrong age. You don’t die at thirty-one.”

  “I know. I know. She was too young.”

  No, I meant it should have been me. I’m twenty-seven. Like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain. That’s the danger age. The Twenty-Seven Club. That’s the age you die. Not when you’re thirty-one with a five-year-old child. Not when you’ve worked out what’s important. Not when you’ve realized that all the shit we’re meant to believe in—ambition, possessions, wealth—mean nothing at all, and the only thing that matters is love. Eva’s death makes no sense. And unless we see that it doesn’t, there’s no chance for the rest of us. We might as well give up. She so badly wanted to speak, so that people could understand, but her mouth was too full of tears. The pain in her head was getting worse. There was too much noise in the room.

  The light was blocked. It was Harry, towering over her. He was in shadow. She couldn’t see his face. “I’ve got to go.”

  She nodded, impatient. You’re not wanted here anyway. You made her worse. You made her tired. Didn’t you see how hard it was for her to smile? Day after day, forcing herself to look happy when she felt so ill. All you cared about was yourself. Treating it all as a joke. Harry said, “Tell me if there’s anything I can do.”

  She wanted him to go, to stop blocking the light.

  “If there’s anything you need.”

  “Harry,” said Damaris, “I think—”

  Kim struggled to her feet. Damaris reached up and put a hand on her back to steady her.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” said Kim.

  For a moment, their eyes met.

  “If you need money—”

  It was as if he’d slapped her.

  The people nearest to them stopped talking. The music faltered and faded away.

  “Get out.” Kim’s voice rang round the room. She stood there, swaying, deathly white. “Get out. I never want to see you again.”

  2013

  So how are you?”

  Kim didn’t like it when Jake was sympathetic. It was all wrong.


  “It’s OK. Worse for Otis.”

  “Ah yes.” Jake shook his head. “And how old is he now?”

  “Just had his sixth birthday.”

  “Tragic.”

  Kim swallowed hard.

  “So”—Jake swung round his chair and tapped hard on the keyboard like someone dealing a fatal blow to a wasp—“your annual appraisal.”

  “Jake?”

  “Hmm?” Jake appeared to be studying the screen intently.

  “Why are you doing this? And not Louisa?”

  “I volunteered.”

  Kim frowned. “Can you do that?”

  “Well,” said Jake, typing quickly, not looking up, “she’s so busy.”

  But this is embarrassing, thought Kim. I don’t want to discuss my ongoing personal goals with you. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “To be really honest—”

  “We could start,” said Jake, spinning round to face her, “with an overview of the things you think you’ve done well this year.”

  “What about the things I’ve done badly?”

  “We’ll come on to that.”

  “It’s just that I’d much rather—”

  “Bristol, obviously. A triumph. I would say you handled the whole situation extremely well.” Jake leant forward with an expression of concern. “All the more praiseworthy given your difficult family circumstances at the time.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And your standards of communication with the team at the head office are always spot-on. There’s never a time when I don’t know exactly what’s going on in the regions. Which is extremely valuable. Especially when I’m planning major campaign initiatives and needing to apply specific and targeted leverage.”

  Kim let out her breath in one long sigh. “Good. I’m glad.”

  “Lulu agrees with me by the way. Very impressed.”

  “So the feedback is positive.”

  “In that regard,” said Jake, “yes.”

  “Is there another regard?”