by Sarah Laing
‘I used to think your mum was the coolest, that amazing garden of hers, all those Cape gooseberries and redcurrant bushes, the enormous bowl she filled with cherry tomatoes at the end of summer. And she talked to me like I was an adult, when everyone else was still treating me like a child. I really liked that. I wanted to be like her when I grew up.’
‘Yeah, I suppose she is cool. I never appreciated her as a teenager. I always used to be embarrassed that she wasn’t like other mums. All that hippy turquoise jewellery, that long grey hair I wished she dyed. I wanted her to be more like your mum.’
‘Yeah, but my mum thinks that I’m wasting my life and the sooner I go back to New Zealand and take up nursing or teaching, the better. She was the only one who wasn’t surprised when I returned from London without a degree. She’d never really thought it was a serious option in the first place.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to make it here then. Find that band. Buy that computer.’
We head east, towards the botanical gardens. ‘The Japanese Esplanade,’ I say, pointing at the rows of cherry trees in blossom, candy floss-pink. We walk underneath and the petals float down on us.
Bruno takes my hand. ‘Here comes the bride, all fat and wide. Here comes the groom, skinny as a broom.’
I whip my hand out of his. ‘I’m not fat,’ I say.
‘And you’re not married.’
‘Are you?’
‘No, but I’ve got a girlfriend.’
‘Really?’ I feel punched in the guts; he has someone else. But he’s here alone — perhaps he’s thinking of leaving her. ‘Who is she?’
‘Her name’s Fenella.’
‘Fenella? Does she have a pony?’
‘She did when she was growing up. But it’s in retirement at her parents’ place. Getting drunk on half-rotten apples.’
‘I bet it’s not a place. I bet it’s one of those mansions with an east and a west wing.’
‘I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been there. Fen avoids her parents. Her dad’s high up in the Tory Party.’
‘Is he some kind of lord? What does he do?’
‘He’s in banking.’
‘So what are you doing, dossing with me when your girlfriend’s got a trust fund?’
‘She doesn’t. Her dad disowned her for protesting too much outside Parliament. I met her in Burma. She had dreads down to here.’ Bruno touches the small of my back and I shiver. ‘We shared a tree house.’
God, she’s a bloody princess, I think. One of those good and kind and gentle ones that wears rags and picks the stones out of the lentils. They’ll probably get married and she’ll invite her dad and serve the meat without salt. Only it won’t be meat; it’ll be tofu with organic shoyu.
‘So do you live together?’
‘When we’re both in the same country. Usually she’s off in Morocco or South America or something, and I’m off in Botswana. We live in a group house with some other activists, so it’s not like I’m alone much.’
‘Here’s the Japanese Lake. Look, a tortoise.’ I point at the shelled creature sitting on a rock in the middle of the green water.
‘Isn’t that a turtle? Turtles are the ones that swim, right?’
‘I don’t know. I’m surprised they’re even here. You would have thought that someone might have eaten them, or else they would have been polluted to death.’
‘It’s very peaceful here.’
‘We should go check out the magnolias and the fish ponds. You should have seen them in winter, all the fish were swimming under the ice — very slowly. I think their metabolisms slowed down.’
‘Can’t we just sit for a while? I remember that about you, Beck, you were always restless. Wanting to move onto the next thing before you’d appreciated the first.’
‘What do you mean? I appreciate things.’ I don’t remember him pointing this out while we were together: maybe that’s how he rationalised our break-up. ‘It’s just that there’s so much to see here, it’s like a whole world.’ Also, I don’t want to sit still beside Bruno. I don’t want to have to think about my hand so close to his, to risk all those thoughts bubbling out of me, Sometimes I dream about us having sex. He features in strange places, underneath a crab apple tree on the verge of the road, naked on my bed here in Brooklyn. Sometimes Toby’s in my dreams as well, observing us, but we just keep on fucking.
‘I like to sit,’ says Bruno. ‘I’ve taken up meditation. I’ve found it really helps. It’s very energising — it’s amazing how scrambled you can become throughout the day.’
‘I do yoga. I have a great yoga teacher with tattoos and a harmonium, y’know, one of those things the hari krishnas play? She’s got a shaved head and she’s really skinny. And there’s another who’s very regal, she could be Sargent’s Madame X. But my yoga teacher in Newtown was the best. I remember he came to class one day and was eating a meat pie. He said, “Look, yoga man eating meat pie. How wrong is that?” Then he finished it in front of us standing on his head and I had to buy one myself after class.’
‘Yeah, but are you doing yoga to be still, or to get fit?’
‘It’s great for managing my blood sugars.’ As it is, I can feel myself settling into a high; falafel kebabs are so dense with carbohydrate. Maybe if we keep on walking, I’ll be able to shake this irritable, sluggish feeling. ‘Look, magnolias. They’re the most amazing colours.’ I point at a giant tree, its trunk black, festooned with creamy, gold-tinged petals, and furry buds that are waiting to burst.
‘Oh yeah, that’s right, you’re diabetic. I’d forgotten that about you.’ He looks up at another tree of dark pink blossoms.
How could Bruno have forgotten that? It’s the one fact central to my existence. It’s the time signature of my score. It’s the silent party in my decisions, the arbiter of my moods. As much as I hate it and its infringements on me, scrambling my brain at critical moments, interrupting conversations, driving, sex, music, sleeping, eating, I wonder if it has also made me what I am.
‘You’re right, these magnolias are out of this world.’ Bruno points at the paler pink ones. There’s something very oriental about them, like they’re begging to have a haiku written about them. ‘Remember that movie? Steel Magnolias? That had a diabetic in it, right?’
‘Yeah, Julia Roberts. Wasn’t she really tragic, pregnant and about to die from diabetes? I hate that kind of movie. It depresses me.’
‘You’ll be fine. I can see you with a couple of kids.’
‘The thing that bothers me the most is that the scriptwriters always get it wrong. They base the entire plot on a paragraph from their Hypochondriac’s Guide to Medicine, then the actors are always shooting insulin intravenously and dying because they missed an injection.’
‘I want to have kids,’ says Bruno, turning to the hillside of grape hyacinths so I can’t see his face. Their violet blue is startling against the green grass.
‘Do you? Aren’t you too young?’
‘I’m thirty.’
‘What does Fenella think of that?’
‘She’s not so keen.’
‘Oh.’ Does that mean they might split up? I bite down on my lips as they wriggle into a smile. ‘That’s a tricky one. Toby’s keen on kids.’ But would I want to have them with him?
Back at the apartment, Wendy has colonised the dining table with her plans, fervid scrawlings and little swatches of fabric stapled to paper.
‘How was your client, Wendy?’
‘She was great, I’m going to make her place like a maharajah’s. I think she might take a few of my birdcages, as long as I can find a nightingale or a lark. I’m going to use an intense colour palette, saffron and fuchsia. I found this amazing supply of vintage saris.’
‘Indian widows have to wear white. That’s why they get rid of their coloured clothes,’ says Bruno.
‘Really?’ Wendy squints at him, taking him in. ‘So is this your ex?’
‘I was Beck’s first,’ says Bruno, looking proud, and I wonder wheth
er he wants to make a rug out of me.
‘Right,’ says Wendy, smiling knowingly, perhaps because her own first time is flashing in her head. ‘So, Toby’s pretty cool, isn’t he, letting you stay.’ It sounds like a challenge, or perhaps a veiled insult. Toby is an emasculated mumbler, she wants to say.
‘I can’t wait to meet him,’ says Bruno.
‘My ex was real jealous. If I even looked at another guy he’d make us stay home for the night.’
‘Wow,’ I say, appraising pasty Wendy, the bags beneath her eyes.
‘Shall I put the lentils on?’ says Bruno. We’ve picked up a few things for dinner from the co-op.
‘Yeah, go for it,’ I say, surprised that someone other than me will be cooking in the kitchen. Toby can cook, but he views food as fuel. When his mother left, his father and he opened cans of baked beans, fried sausages and boiled potatoes. They got their pre-diced vegetables out of the freezer. Sometimes Toby will make a curry, but everything is combined from a jar, and the rice is sludgy because he turns the tap onto the pot without measuring and then forgets about it.
Bruno pours the lentils into a pot, adding a halved onion and a bay leaf, which he finds easily, not needing to ask me where things are. He fills it up with water to boil. He moves around the kitchen like a dancer, not getting in my way, not asking Wendy to clean up her stuff.
‘So what shall we have with the lentils?’ I say. ‘Roasted baby beetroot and feta? A green salad?’
‘That sounds delicious,’ says Wendy, yet again assuming she will be invited to share. I should start insisting on money for the food she eats, yet she adopts a queenly air, as though she’s doing us a favour by letting us pay rent. I have to hand it to her; she’s remarkably skilled at surviving in this city on her wits.
‘I might ask Ryan, you know, that guy we met at the Chelsea Flea Market, to do some collages for my client. He’s been leaving comments on my blog, he’s a regular.’
‘Really? How cool.’ I remember the exchange: the URL written on a scrap of paper, slid down his sock. I thought it was going to be pulped in the wash.
‘Maybe he could do an entire tiled wall of Karma Sutra inspired-collages. If I got him a big commission, he might give me his Zebra in the Viennese Teahouse collage. He still hasn’t sold it.’
‘Worth a crack.’
‘I invited him over tonight to watch The Shining. Hey, do you think he could come for dinner? He gave me his cell. I’ll ring him and tell him to bring some dessert.’
‘There’s plenty in the pot. The more the merrier,’ says Bruno, before I can intervene. Bloody Wendy. How does she get away with that shit?
‘What about you, Wendy? What are you bringing to the table?’ I say.
‘Oh. I suppose I could buy a bottle of wine.’
‘Make that two,’ says Bruno, and Wendy looks alarmed but puts her coat on without protesting.
‘Can you make your eggplant parmesan as well? Ryan would love that,’ says Wendy.
‘Good idea,’ says Bruno. ‘Too much food is better than too little.’
‘Okay,’ I say. That’s Lydia’s specialty. I wonder who will make it: Bruno or me?
I take the leaves and red stalks off the beetroot. They have little hairy tails, but I leave those on. As I stand next to Bruno, I feel as though we’re in sync, not banging up against each other. He takes the big knife from me and his hand brushes mine. A sudden vision of us together in ten years’ time: a baby in the highchair, a small child undressing a doll on the living room floor. It feels like a natural progression.
When Toby comes through the door, I jump, pulling my board and the garlic I’m peeling away from Bruno so there’s a respectable distance. Wiping his fingers on his trousers, Bruno walks over.
‘Gidday, Toby, I’m Bruno.’
‘Hi Bruno,’ says Toby, shaking his hand. He comes over to kiss me hello, but I keep my mouth closed.
CHAPTER 20
London, 1994–5
I was met off the plane by a woman holding a board, my name pressed into the grooves in white letters. She was thin and pale, wearing high-heels and a pencil skirt, with hair that was either frosted or grey — it was hard to tell. She pulled her lips into a smile-without-the-eyes that didn’t reveal her teeth. ‘I’m Roberta Manning, the international students officer.’ She put out her hand, with its peach-coloured nails, to shake mine. It felt cool and thin compared with my swollen one. I was dishevelled, after a forty-hour journey and too many hours in a Singapore transit lounge. I had an oversized suitcase and my cello case, a shoulder bag strapped diagonally over my layers of clothing: fake fur mini-skirt, camisole top, jacket, boots. All the layers were at the wrong levels, riding up and bunching, pantyhose gusset halfway down my thighs, too heavy for the mild September morning, and my cheeks were puffy, half from sleeping on my shoulder, half for crying over Bruno.
We’d been spending lots of time together in the months before London, me taking the 11.35 p.m. bus back to Wilton even though my mother must have guessed by now that I was having sex. I’d got the morning after pill off her colleague when we’d run out of condoms, and he was incredulous that the daughter of a sometimes-Family Planning nurse could have forgone contraception. I went to Lydia’s for lessons, even though I would soon be moving on to the big guns. Sometimes Bruno would drive me around the harbour, and we would have dinner at Lydia’s together after my lesson. I would marvel at Lydia’s home-made pizzas, her frittatas and tagines. Bruno was awakening me at one end, Lydia the other. During my lessons, our relationship would be the same, but around the dinner table, Lydia would pour us glasses of wine, telling us stories about taking music lessons in Italy, about being thigh-deep in water for a Granada baptism. She’d tell us about the chickens she’d raised that had moved into her house, curling up on her lap when she watched television. I was in love with Bruno, but I also loved his mother. She had sold me her cello, not her best one, but her practice one, which was still infinitely superior to my hired one. She was a bit teary as she exchanged it for my cheque; it had taken her through music school. But she hoped, and here she gave me a coy smile, that it would remain in the family. I blushed; although I had imagined marriage to Bruno, I was only seventeen.
Bruno almost threw in his masters thesis to come to London with me, but Lydia didn’t think it was a good idea. ‘You’re doing so well, Bruno. Maybe you could go on and get a PhD. Besides, it’s going to be very intense where Rebecca is going. She doesn’t want to have any distractions. She’ll be living like a nun.’
‘Let’s meet up next year in Asia,’ he’d suggested, and although it was unbearably long to wait, it was probably for the best. Being with Bruno rendered me dreamy and unfocused. My dad was looking forward to a time when he could upgrade his administrative assistance, and they’d hired a contractor to fix the database I was meant to be in charge of.
Roberta looked at me sternly. ‘We’re not quite done yet. We’re still awaiting a viola player from the States, and a tuba player from Australia — he was on the same flight as you from Singapore. Aah, there he is. Very hard to miss, tuba players.’ The small thin boy lugging his tuba towards us looked as though he’d yet to reach puberty. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea while we wait for Lilian.’
‘So which part of Australia do you come from?’ I asked the tuba player.
‘Gosford,’ he said, rooting around in his bag. I marvelled at his pale skin; I thought that all Australians had tans.
‘Where’s that?’
The tuba player pulled out a book, its cover veined with cracks in the gold foil. ‘Near Sydney,’ he said. He flipped it open and then inside out, as if it were a magazine, but not before I saw the Terry Pratchett cover. A fantasy geek. I bet he played Dungeons and Dragons as well. He propped his small feet up on the tuba and tuned out.
Roberta returned with polystyrene cups, containing grey and insipid tea. She was sighing, and looking up at the arrivals and departures sign that clicked over hypnotically. I felt my eyes sliding into
my head like water down the drain and I forced them open again, making a note to myself to see what way the water went down here, clockwise or anticlockwise. But then I couldn’t remember which way it went at home. I thought about how it would be dark there, how everyone would be settling down for dinner, a half day ahead of me, and it seemed strange that I could have gone so far, yet travelled a short distance in time.
‘Are you a musician too?’ I asked Roberta. She had pianist’s fingers.
She looked at me sharply. ‘No, of course not.’
I wondered whether that was true, or whether she had been a soprano who’d lost her voice because of a broken heart, and now could only cawk like a gull. She had that slightly pinched look about her. But then again, if she’d failed in music, then she would have distanced herself from other musicians. Maybe she wanted to warn us: the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.
‘I’ve been to New Zealand, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, I used to work on a cruise ship. Ah, look, Lilian’s plane has landed. I’ll change the sign.’ She opened up her bag and pulled out what seemed like a sack of Scrabble letters. She rearranged our letters to spell out LiliAn cRu, scrabbling around in her bag to retrieve a Z. ‘I don’t have any accents. I hope she isn’t offended.’
A brown-skinned woman with a shaved head and enormous soulful eyes stopped when she saw the sign. She had a pack on her back and a viola case under her arm, covered in stickers like mine. Greenpeace, The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy. ‘Hey, that’s me. But you can call me Lily.’
‘Right, this way,’ said Roberta, and we pushed our trolleys after her, mine with its pack, a fresh New Zealand flag stitched onto it, and my cello wedged on the front. ‘The van’s in the parking building. Really, we should have taken the tube, but I thought you might be tired after your long flight, and you instrumentalists always have such a load.’ She looked displeased, as though it would be much more considerate if we were singers. We followed her down corridors, left, right, into lifts, down, then across dark concrete rectangles, the Australian tuba player lagging behind, then up another lift until, finally, we reached a van with the college insignia on its side. Our instruments were placed in the back, untethered after their seatbelted trip across the equator, and we sat, one student in each row. The Australian found his book again, and I felt carsick on his behalf. Lily Cruz pulled out her CD discman and placed her headphones over her ears. She flicked through her discs and inserted one by The Breeders. I decided I wanted her for a friend.