Ten Things I've Learnt About Love

by Sarah Butler

  When I emerge from the bathroom, Hunter holds me by both shoulders and sniffs approvingly.

  ‘She’ll love you,’ he says. ‘Now, I have to go see a man about a jacket. I’ll be back.’

  And he is. The jacket is brown cord.

  ‘To match your trousers,’ Hunter says, and grins.

  It’s a bit tight round my armpits. The lining’s ripped, but you can’t see that when it’s done up.

  ‘It’s nice,’ Lady Grace says, and then blushes.

  ‘It’s fucking perfect,’ Hunter says. He spins me around. ‘It’s fucking perfect.’

  ‘I don’t have any—’ I put my hand into my trouser pocket. I have a couple of quid, in silver and coppers, but I don’t want to give it up in case I need to buy you something.

  ‘Daniel.’ Hunter slaps me on the back. ‘It’s a gift, man. I wish you well.’

  * * *

  When I wake up this morning, Hunter’s gone.

  ‘He left this,’ the girl on reception says, and hands me an almost empty can of deodorant. It’s for women. Pink musk. I go into the bathroom, lift my shirt and spray it under my armpits.

  I give my old jacket to the girl as I leave, ask her to pass it on to anyone who wants it, or just bin it.

  ‘Good luck,’ she says. ‘Break a leg.’

  * * *

  I walk all the way to you. I feel tired right to the centre of my bones, and that knot’s back in my stomach. The picture only just fits into the left-hand jacket pocket. The heart spray – which is nearly empty – and my ball of cotton bulge in the other. I’m sweating and I smell like a woman.

  When I get to the house it looks different. It takes me a moment to realise it’s the tree. Someone has chopped it back so it barely reaches the windowsill. Black bin bags with branches and leaves bursting through the plastic sit in a pile on the small square of gravel at the front of the house. The place looks exposed. When I walk up to the door I see the furniture huddled in the centre of the room, covered with plastic. The walls are white, but I can still see the red underneath. You are getting ready to go. You have already left. I lean against the wall to steady myself.

  I picture Hunter wielding a pair of kitchen scissors, try to remember the touch of his hands on my face, pulling the skin taut so he could shave me close. Don’t waste this.

  But I can’t ring the bell. Panic pushes at my throat. I have done my groundwork. I am clean and freshly shaved. There isn’t much time left.

  I have nothing to offer you.

  I picture your mother in my tiny flat in Hornsey. It had a green carpet dotted with tiny pink and white triangles. The window frames were rotten and there were burn marks on the kitchen surfaces. I took her there a month or so before that afternoon in the cafe. A friend lent me his car and I picked her up from the edge of the Heath.

  She didn’t want to come in. You’re my escape, Daniel, she kept saying, don’t make this everyday. But I insisted. I had this idea that she’d come and live with me, that we’d wake up together every morning for the rest of our lives.

  We drank tea in the kitchen, made love on the fake leather sofa. She was kind, now I think about it, she didn’t sneer. Afterwards, she had me drop her off at her house. I’d never seen it before. It must have been intentional – a way of explaining how things were. At the time I didn’t care much, because she had chosen me, because I got the best of her, I thought. But later, I understood what she was saying. Why would she give up that for me and a grotty studio flat in Hornsey? I had nothing to offer her, nothing more than we already had.

  * * *

  But I have come this far. I put my finger on the doorbell and turn to look through the window. The light shifts and I see a shadow of myself overlaid onto the room, and in that moment I realise I can’t. I have come this far and I can’t do it. I look back to my finger on the doorbell; the skin’s still dirty, despite my efforts. I am an old tramp, I tell myself. I have nothing to offer you. I don’t even have any proof. You might give me a pitying look; you might – God forbid – reach into your purse for a couple of quid. What else can I expect?

  All this, for nothing. I am sorry. Alice. Daughter. Love. Sorry. Father. I am sorry.

  Ten things people say to you when your father dies

  1) You were lucky to have him, you must remember that.

  2) A clever man, Malcolm – he was quiet, but there was a lot going on up there.

  3) It’s a big job, when the last one goes – a lot of work, a lot of business to sort out.

  4) If you need anything, just give me a call.

  5) I remember when my father died. I didn’t get out of bed for a week. Lost a stone – would you believe.

  6) You’ll need to make a decision, about the house.

  7) The day he married your mother – I’ve never seen a man look happier.

  8) Do you know he was quite a rugby player, in his youth?

  9) It wasn’t easy for him, your mum gone and three girls to bring up, but it would take more than that to stop a man like your dad. He was proud of you girls, he really was.

  10) Are you the one who’s always on the other side of the world?

  I’ll fly straight to Delhi, or maybe Tokyo – somewhere busy, somewhere I can get lost. I bought a new rucksack this week, red with black straps, new hiking boots and a new waterproof coat. I used the money Dad gave me; I hadn’t touched it up until now.

  This house, at least, will be glad to see me go. I am stripping it back to its shell, to its walls and floors and windows. I am painting it a colour that claims to be the colour of magnolia petals, but looks more like skimmed milk. Next week, the red carpet that walks a line up the stairs, crosses the landing, and bleeds into Dad’s study, will be switched for a beige one. The attic floor will change from green to an off-white, flecked with coffee brown. Tomorrow, a man called Shaun and his assistant are coming to start on the kitchen. They will rip out the old cabinets and junk the cooker. They will fill up the space with white IKEA cupboards with long chrome handles, a hob embedded into a stone-coloured surface, an oven at waist height.

  Cee hates that she’s not in charge. It oozes off her every time she’s here. She screws up her eyes and looks for mistakes, she sucks her teeth and folds her arms when I tell her what I’m planning to do next. But she can’t deny it looks better; brighter.

  Yesterday was the first time I noticed it sounded different. I walked through the hallway and my footsteps echoed – hollow, like they were coming from a long way away.

  Michael is now officially our estate agent. He is ‘terribly excited’. There are photos of the living room with its new pale walls, ready to go up on their website. Sometimes I have to stop halfway through a job, press my hand against my chest and close my eyes, so I’m not sick.

  It turns out Dad didn’t throw away everything to do with Mama. I’ve found quite a haul: a turquoise evening dress with matching shoes; a postcard of Brighton pier – ‘I thought I’d come for the day but it’s not the same without you, J.’ written in confident black letters; a piece of paper ripped from an envelope with the same handwriting – ‘I promise. J.’; three books of poetry – Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare – with her name written on the title page; the necklace with the diamond teardrop she was wearing in the photo I lost; and then the jumper, the cushions, and the picture. Except for the picture, I put everything into a box and presented it to Tilly and Cee. The pair of them went white. Tilly cried, Cee just chewed at her lips.

  ‘I can’t believe he didn’t tell us,’ Tilly said.

  Cee fingered the necklace in its faded brown velvet box. ‘I suppose we just split it between us,’ she said.

  ‘Do you remember that time she tried to make you a birthday cake, Cee?’ Tilly said. ‘She bought that horrible fondant icing and tried to build you a fairy castle.’ Tilly was smiling, but Cee looked unimpressed. ‘And then the turrets collapsed halfway through your party.’ Tilly laughed. ‘God, she was in a state about it.’

  I can picture it, Mama
all red-faced and flustered, Cee tight-lipped and disappointed.

  ‘She had dress sense though,’ Cee said at last, fingering the turquoise silk that spilled from the box. ‘She always looked immaculate.’

  Tilly nodded. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, sat on the edge of the bath until I figured they’d have finished their reminiscing.

  I got the dress. I’m the only one small enough to fit into it. I tried it on once they’d gone, stood in my father’s bedroom in front of the wardrobe mirror, with my hair pinned up away from my neck. It’s beautiful, lined silk with a low neckline, long sleeves and a cinched waist. Even the shoes fit, give or take. I felt like a ghost.

  * * *

  ‘I know we’re not quite ready,’ Michael had said on the phone. ‘But let’s get the sign up, generate a bit of interest, and then we can start viewings in a couple of weeks. There’s nothing wrong with whetting people’s appetites.’

  I asked him about the viewings, what I’d be expected to do. ‘Just be there, answer questions,’ he said. ‘Or don’t be there at all if you don’t want. Some people find it hard, like they’re a stranger in their own home. And often viewers prefer it when the owner’s not there.’

  ‘It’s not my home,’ I said.

  * * *

  It’s raining again. I lean my forearms on the back of the sofa and look out of the window. The gifts have stopped. The last one – the pearls – was a week ago. Since then, nothing. Kids, just kids, I tell myself; they didn’t mean anything. Even so, I find myself opening the front door to look, just in case.

  The people with the sign arrive in a white van. I watch them: a youngish man and a slightly older woman. The man holds the plastic part of the sign above his head to keep dry, while the woman fixes the long wooden pole into the ground. They don’t ring the bell. They don’t look up at me looking down at them.

  Someone else will live here. Someone else will put the keys that now sit in my jacket pocket, or Tilly’s handbag, or Cee’s key cabinet with a picture of a shepherd on the front, onto their own keyring, into their own bag. They will fit them into the lock and let themselves in. They’ll shout, honey, I’m home, and someone else will laugh, put down their cup of tea or their paper, and come into the hallway. They will look at the magnolia walls and say, don’t you think we should add a bit of colour? They will buy tester pots of green and blue, and paint rough squares on the wall – bicker about the best shade, ask their friends’ opinions.

  At two o’clock, the doorbell rings. I am not expecting anyone. I’m in Cee’s old room. There’s nothing much left of her in it – a couple of shells at the back of the top shelf, a rolled-up poster of a man holding a baby. She must have cleared it all out years ago, piled everything into boxes and put them in her loft, or thrown them away – the ballerina books; Barbie dressed in her striped sailor’s T-shirt and red mac; the wooden doll’s house with the wooden furniture and the tiny wooden fruit bowl which I wanted enough to steal, and then to fight Tilly when she made me give it back. The bell is loud, even this high up in the house. It echoes insistently off the hall tiles. I sit for a moment, balanced on my heels. Kal. His name sneaks into my mind before I can stop it, and I stand and half run down the stairs. I can tell by the shapes behind the glass it isn’t him, but even so, I feel a heart-smash of disappointment when I open the door to a couple in their fifties.

  ‘We’re very sorry to disturb you.’ The man steps towards me. He’s bald, his scalp wet from the rain. The woman stays on the step, her eyes sharp with excitement. She holds an umbrella, half closed, its jagged black angles like broken birds’ wings. ‘It’s just that we saw the sign,’ the man continues. ‘We’ve been trying to find a property in this area for—’ He looks at the woman and they both let out little breathy laughs. He turns back to me. ‘We can’t even tell you how long we’ve been looking. I know we should call the agency, but we were walking past, we were here, and we wondered if you wouldn’t mind us having a look around.’

  ‘Just a quick peek,’ the woman says, her mouth stretched into a smile. ‘We’d be awfully grateful.’

  ‘You’re the owner?’ the man says. I look down. My jeans are smudged with dust. I’m wearing a cheap green vest top I bought last week.

  ‘It’s my— It was my father’s.’

  He readjusts his features to display sympathy. They are both waiting for me to say something else. I watch the rain falling behind them, listen to it rushing through the gutters. I could call Michael. He’d tell me to pass them over. He’d get me off the hook, but I can’t bear the thought of his sugary voice.

  ‘Why don’t you come in?’ I say.

  They both beam at me and advance over the threshold before I can tell them I’ve changed my mind. The woman holds the umbrella in front of her. It drips onto the hall floor.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say. ‘Just stick it in the corner.’

  The man is twisting his head from side to side, up towards the ceiling, the stairs. He thinks the hallway has always been magnolia. I want to tell him there used to be a painting of my sisters right there, above the little table; I used to stand in front of it, screw up my eyes so the colours blurred, and pretend that I was in it too.

  ‘We’re not quite ready for viewings,’ I say. ‘We’re having new carpets put in, and a new kitchen. It should be done by the end of next week.’ I am standing between them and the living-room door.

  ‘Not to worry,’ he says. ‘We’re just grateful to have a look.’

  He has a neat goatee. He tugs it between his thumb and forefinger and starts asking me questions. How many bedrooms? Bathrooms? Are the fireplaces functional? Have we decided on the asking price? What about the garden? Is it a quiet neighbourhood? What council-tax band does it fall in? He stands in the centre of each room and turns slowly around, nodding, calculating. She touches the walls, the doors, walks to the windows and looks out.

  I manage not to panic until we get to Dad’s room. I watch them walk around it. The woman is almost purring. It’s the master bedroom, of course. They will bring a wide metal-framed bed. She will have a dressing table with three mirrors angled so she can catch her profile. I can see her, sitting on a low cushioned stool, rubbing night cream into her skin. He’s in bed, a velvet-trimmed lamp pooling light onto his book.

  ‘Is it for a family?’ I ask.

  The woman tugs at the hem of her coat. ‘No, just the two of us.’ She gives me a watery smile.

  I nod. ‘It’s just—I’m not sure it’s a house for kids.’

  They exchange glances.

  ‘I never felt that comfortable here.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ the woman says. She is fingering the edge of the wardrobe.

  ‘If we could have a quick look at the top floor?’ he says. ‘Literally, a couple of minutes, just so we get the whole picture.’

  ‘You’ve been so kind,’ the woman says. She is wearing a belted cream coat and brown leather boots. She’s in good shape.

  They follow me up the stairs. I open the door to my old room. I don’t want them in here.

  ‘It’s important, you’re right,’ the woman says.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘To find a house you feel comfortable in. A real home. I can’t think why you didn’t like it here.’ She gestures towards the desk, my mother’s picture, the view of the back garden, the pine shelves with the smattering of things I haven’t thrown away yet – kids’ books, pebbles, an old teddy bear. ‘It’s perfect,’ she says.

  I remember the first time Dad left me at home on my own for an evening. I was fourteen, maybe fifteen, and the idea of being home alone was a luxurious one. I could do anything, eat anything, watch anything on TV. Yet once he’d left, smelling of aftershave and soap, and I’d made hot chocolate with three spoons of sugar and settled myself in the battered leather armchair in the living room that was usually his domain, I heard the deafening silence of the house and started to feel unsure. I turned on the television and upped the volume
, but the silence still strained against me. I felt my mouth start to dry out, my heart skip faster. I told myself I was being stupid. It didn’t help. I tried asking myself what it was I was frightened of. Burglars, rapists, ghosts, fire, all the lights going out, flooding – or maybe something else, something about the bricks and the plaster and the door frames and the windows, the fireplace with its polished cream tiles and their sinewy green leaves, the hulk of the red-striped sofa and the dark, heavy bookcases. I flicked through television channels but couldn’t settle on a programme. I needed the toilet, but there was no way I was leaving that room. By the time Dad got home, my bladder felt like a bag of sharp stones. He held a hand to my forehead and asked if I was OK. I brushed him off, and walked as slowly as I could up the stairs to the bathroom.

  Bathroom. Cee’s room. Tilly’s room. Attic. I run my fingers along the wall all the way back down to the front door. The couple spend an age thanking me. She retrieves her umbrella and I smile and nod, and at last they leave. I close the front door behind them and lean my head against the crumpled glass. I need some fresh air. A brisk walk. Nothing like it, Dad would say – blow the cobwebs away.

  The streets are quiet. The air smells of wet tarmac. Cars hiss their way past. On the Heath, there are a few resigned-looking dog walkers. A couple giggles beneath the broad arms of a tree. The wind tugs at my umbrella. I collapse it, and feel the rain lick at my skin.

  If my father was here, he would shake his head and tell me to stop being an idiot. Stop fretting about the house, he’d say, it’s just a house. And put your umbrella up, or you’ll catch a cold. I know you, he’d say, you’ll feel good for thirty seconds and then wet and cold for the rest of the day and you’ll moan about it. I have tried not thinking about him at all, but I can’t seem to manage it.

  I leave the umbrella on a bench down by the ponds – someone will be grateful for it. At the top of Parliament Hill I stop and look at the misted-up view of London; the buildings have turned into ghosts of themselves.