by Penny Feeny
‘No thanks,’ said Allie, putting down her glass on a book of crossword puzzles. ‘But I still don’t understand . . . If Liddy and Mum were at school together, how come she never said?’
Squeezing through the obstacle course of a lifetime’s clutter, Daphne made her way to an enormous bookcase. ‘Let me show you.’ She heaved an exceptionally wide photograph album from the shelves. ‘It was necessary to use those rolling camera shots to fit the whole school into the picture. Now what years are we looking at, mid-seventies, yes?’
Allie was partly repelled, partly intrigued as she turned the pages. Daphne’s finger landed on the back row of a sea of identical uniforms. Allie peered closer at the two girls she indicated. They were standing next to each other, one a head taller, both scowling. She would have been amused if the proof had been less disturbing. But, even a quarter of a century later, there was no doubt about it: Liddy Rawlings and Helen Liddle – her mother’s erstwhile best friend – were unmistakably the same person.
Liddy’d had an exhausting week. She itched to pour herself a gin and tonic as soon as she got home but she had a complex about drinking alone. She was upstairs, changing from a stiff-collared blouse into a loose-fitting polo shirt, when she heard the key in the lock, the scrape and skitter of Rolo’s claws. She hastened downstairs and skidded on her way through the large square hall, where the parquet was polished to a high shine. Allie was filling Rolo’s bowls in the kitchen. The girl’s resemblance to Helena unnerved her anew, transported her back decades. When she straightened up she towered over Liddy. That was when she noticed the stain down the girl’s front, the reek of alcohol.
‘I was going to suggest a gin,’ she said. ‘But if you’ve already . . .’
Allie didn’t register the implication or the wrinkling of her nose. ‘I don’t drink gin,’ she said, with unusual belligerence.
Liddy clinked ice from the dispenser in her brushed steel American fridge. ‘Something soft then? I have mineral water.’
Allie took the bottle she held out and drank directly from its neck. Her face had a healthy glow, a youthful sheen, but her eyes were frosty. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t tell me,’ she said.
‘About what?’
‘About you and Mum.’
The lemon Liddy was slicing bounced from granite counter top to limestone slabs. She retrieved and rinsed it, glad of the distraction and mercifully relieved that Allie now knew, that she didn’t have to go through the awkward, shameful explanations involved in setting out their story. She couldn’t help wondering how Helena had reacted, what attitude she’d taken when she heard the two of them had met. ‘What did she say?’ she asked, dropping the lemon segment on top of her ice.
‘Oh . . . that you were friends at school. Thick as thieves or something.’
The tonic bubbles fizzed and hissed. ‘Nothing else?’
‘Well, she showed me some photographs.’
‘She’s here?’ Presumably she’d come back to collect the broken ornament or whatever it was and Allie had told her about their encounter. And if she’d only mentioned their schooldays, did that mean she’d sheared Ischia from her memories? Was that a good sign?
‘Who do you mean?’ said Allie.
‘Helena, of course. Your mother. It’s been such a long time, but I’d love to see her again. It’s sad when you lose touch with people, especially friends you’ve been very close to and fond of. Maybe it hasn’t happened to you yet, but –’
‘You must have visited my house when it was my grandmother’s. I mean, like loads of times.’ Allie shook her head in perplexity. ‘That’s weird.’
‘Sometimes you don’t want to rake over old ashes.’ Liddy made a wry face. ‘You’re afraid of getting burned. But, now Helena knows, I’m glad we can start afresh.’
‘Knows what?’
‘That you’re walking my dog.’
Allie was lolling against the breakfast island with her hands behind her back: her default position. From this angle it was possible to see that the left arm was a few centimetres shorter than the right – though most eyes would be drawn to her slim and shapely legs. No wonder she wore such short skirts – if it was a skirt. ‘Oh I see!’ she exclaimed. ‘But you’ve got it wrong. I told Mum about Rolo, but she doesn’t know anything about you. It was this old woman who told me.’
‘What old woman?’ Even as she asked the question, Liddy suspected the answer. The same old woman who had first set her off in the direction of Marine Terrace. Daphne/Ariadne poised in the centre of her spider’s web.
‘She said she was your teacher in the sixth form. Daphne Myers.’
‘They didn’t have much to recommend them, our teachers. Where on earth did you meet her?’ She groaned. ‘Oh no, Rolo didn’t slip the leash again, did he? I told you.’
‘In the street,’ said Allie. ‘She recognized him. She asked me to help her with her bottles.’
‘Bottles? Oh, I see.’ Liddy topped up her gin. The great appeal of a colourless drink was that no one could see how strong it was. The fragrance of juniper was comforting, old-fashioned. She held it in her mouth, let it spill over the edges of her tongue, glide down her throat.
Allie pulled her hair back from her face, so that her cheekbones jutted like her hips. ‘You and Mum, you were really good mates, right?’
‘Yes, we were.’
‘So what’s the mystery? Why didn’t you stay in touch?’
In the dining room, hall and living room three clocks chimed in unison. The handsome clock on the kitchen wall with its bold numbers and brass and walnut surround was silent – and two minutes behind. ‘Well, I think,’ said Liddy, ‘what probably happened was you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. Helena never told me she was pregnant. We lost touch before you were born and I suppose we took different paths. When were you born? I mean, when’s your birthday?’
‘Twenty-first of February.’
‘Oh, goodness!’ She hadn’t expected such an early date. She didn’t know what to make of it. She tried to recall when they’d arrived on Ischia, to calculate whether Helena could have been pregnant already. ‘I don’t know why she didn’t let me know. I’d thought we didn’t have secrets, but then I was naïve. There was lots she didn’t tell me.’
‘She wasn’t keeping anything secret,’ said Allie. ‘She didn’t know herself.’
Liddy didn’t believe that for a moment. She thought of the years since her marriage, all those false alarms and wasted pregnancy kits, the hormone injections, the courses of IVF that didn’t work and would probably never work now.
‘How could she possibly not know?’
‘Because she was on the pill. Still taking it and getting periods. It can happen apparently. I was a real shock.’
‘How did she find out?’
‘She saw a doctor,’ said Allie, as if she couldn’t believe the stupidity of the question. ‘She kept fainting and stuff.’
Liddy ran her finger around the top of her glass and it made a low humming sound. ‘Do you know where she was when . . .?’
‘Did I know she was in jail for smoking weed? Yeah. She still smokes sometimes, actually. So do I.’
‘I wasn’t prying,’ said Liddy. ‘It’s just if you hadn’t already been told . . . I got into enough trouble with your mother before you were born and I’ve regretted our falling out ever since. I’m sure you’ll have heard her say that life’s too short for regrets. Too short to bother with people you’ve left behind.’
‘Something like that, yeah.’
‘I suppose she didn’t mention my name or tell you what we were doing in Italy?’
‘Oh, were you on the art history course too? She did tell me that loads of the other students smoked but she was the only one to get caught.’
‘No, I studied straight history. I joined her later in the summer. Has she . . . is she very resentful?’
‘No. Why?’
‘When something happens,’ said Liddy, ‘or doesn’t happe
n for that matter, you can’t help thinking, why me?’ She glanced fleetingly at Allie’s shoulder. ‘You must know the feeling.’
‘Oh, she was really upfront with me,’ said Allie. ‘Obviously, she got pregnant by accident, and she admitted that if she’d realized soon enough she’d have come back here for an abortion. But she couldn’t get out, could she? She was trapped, so . . . It’s kind of odd to think I might not have been born but it doesn’t affect the way we, like, relate now. Shit happens and you deal with it. Sometimes, when she’s mending stuff, putting it back together, she leaves the join showing. She says it’s more honest that way.’
If she’d been my child, thought Liddy, I would have told her she was the most wanted, loved and cherished creature on the planet. I would have . . . Her hand tightened on her glass. The ice cubes had melted. Rolo had spread himself on the cool tiles of the utility room, his tongue hanging sideways in his mouth, panting. The light filtered through the slatted blind with a greenish, underwater tinge. If Helena hadn’t been remanded in custody, she’d have come back to England for a termination and continued her degree, Mimmo’s unexplained abduction a minor diversion in her career trajectory. The girl with the freckles and the tousled hair would not be standing here in this kitchen. Liddy had been responsible for Helena’s arrest and hadn’t been able to shake off the sense of guilt ever since. But look what else she had done: she had caused a life.
She felt an overwhelming need to sit down, but the kitchen was only furnished with bar stools, temporary perches for those who are always busy, about to rush off to an appointment or answer the phone. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere more comfortable?’ she said, hoping she sounded light and informal.
They settled themselves at opposite ends of the sofa in the sitting room, with a prospect of the restful, green garden beyond. Liddy had employed a designer who’d recommended that people who didn’t have the time for pottering about with secateurs should eschew short-lived flowers and problem-rife rose bushes in favour of tranquil swathes of foliage, using height, habit and leaf-type to create variation. She occasionally wished she might look out on to a splash of vibrant colour, but she knew, deep down, that this would be vulgar and inappropriate. If you consult a specialist (as she would often tell people), there’s no point in ignoring their advice.
She was struggling to find a place to begin. She’d imagined this moment often in the past two weeks, this point of revelation, but it had arrived with unexpected suddenness, thanks to Daphne Myers. She fidgeted in her corner, trying to get comfortable. She stroked the nap of the chenille cushion, watching the way shade changed with the direction of her thumb. She had to concentrate on this fresh and powerful information, this whole new spin on her alleged betrayal.
‘If she told you about the, um, drugs,’ said Liddy, ‘then she must have told you everything else. I mean, about the kidnapping and so on.’
‘Mum was kidnapped?’
‘No, no . . . the child we, I mean, she was looking after in Ischia.’
Allie looked even more perplexed. ‘But she was in Italy!’
‘Ischia’s an Italian island. We were both working there.’ Liddy wanted to pat her hand, those bitten fingernails.
A tremor was running through Allie’s body. ‘She never said anything about you.’
‘No? Well, that’s because she blamed me.’
‘Blamed you for what?’
‘For getting her arrested. She didn’t realize they didn’t give me any choice, that I was forced, basically. Police detectives, they trap you into saying the wrong thing, especially when you’re as young and idiotic as we were. I didn’t understand they were trying to implicate her or I wouldn’t have co-operated. You have no idea . . .’ This was absurd. She was getting agitated about the past, something she had no control over. This was against the rules, not ‘good practice’. Unnecessary. Stupid.
‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,’ said Allie. ‘She got busted, remanded and released. It happened to lots of people in the sixties and seventies. Right? Okay, it was more complicated for her because of being pregnant, but you’ve now come up with this whole other story. Like you actually wanted a part in the action.’
‘No, no.’ Liddy bent her head, massaging her temples. She couldn’t confront the girl’s open, angry confusion. ‘It’s not that. Look, do you have to get back? Don’t rush off. My husband’s away so I’m by myself. Stay and have a meal – I’ll ring the pizza place, or would you prefer Chinese? – and I’ll explain everything. I promise I’ve no axe to grind.’ She rose and fetched a fan of takeaway menus from a drawer in the hall table.
‘What’s to explain?’ said Allie, accepting a leaflet but not reading it.
‘Well, that summer in Ischia and the way it all went wrong. It was a seminal year you know, 1979, and not just for us. Everything was falling apart and there’ve been such changes since . . .’ She sighed; a whole generation had grown up in the interim. ‘But actually, the main problem back then was that I didn’t know about Helena and Fabrizio.’
‘Who’s Fabrizio?’
‘She didn’t even tell you his name?’
Allie’s face took on a stubborn cast, just like Helena’s.
‘I suppose it ended a long time ago. Maybe you never met him?’
‘I don’t remember anything before we came back to England. I was only two.’
‘But you must have wondered what had happened to your father?’
‘Not for ages, no.’ Allie unfolded and refolded the leaflet in her hand, tamping it down to a tiny rectangle. ‘In the beginning we hung out with other single parent families, shared houses and stuff, so our set-up seemed quite natural. Mum didn’t want a semi-detached life; we managed perfectly well. Then she hooked up with Ian and he became my stepdad. They split when I was eighteen but I’d left home by then. And I still saw him quite a bit anyway.’ She paused, lowering her defences. ‘To be honest, it’s only just begun to matter because he’s moved to Edinburgh and has a new family and . . .’
‘You’ve started to get curious?’
‘His twins are gorgeous but, you know, we’re not actually related so when I see them it brings it home to me. That I don’t have many blood relatives, I mean.’
‘So what has she told you?’
‘That my biological dad was an Italian communist without a bean in the world or any sense of commitment – except to his cause. He’d given me a gift for music, but that was all.’
Liddy gaped.
‘And there are only two of us,’ Allie said, ‘so I need to trust her, don’t I? It’s not like he’s on my birth certificate or I’ve got any records to follow up. She said there was no point trying to find him.’
Liddy pretended to study the menu, waiting for her power of speech to return. When she glanced up, Allie’s gaze was steady, questioning. ‘You met him?’ she said. ‘You actually knew him?’
‘Fabrizio? Yes. But he wasn’t . . .’
‘Wasn’t what?’
‘I don’t think I should interfere with whatever your mother told you.’ Helena must have had a spectacular fall-out with Fabrizio to have misled Allie so. ‘Goodness, she’d know her own love life better than I would. Like I said, she kept me in the dark about all sorts of things.’
‘You can’t bring him up and then not tell me about him.’
Liddy reached for the phone and placed an order with no reference to Allie, who waited, frowning. Then she said, ‘I can only tell you what I was aware of, what I saw happen. It won’t be a complete picture. But it might be of some help, I suppose . . .’ Once again she was shouldering a responsibility she hadn’t chosen, but she’d gone too far to back-pedal. Maybe, if she trod carefully, she could even put things right.
12
As soon as she passed through the double doors into the street, Helena felt disorientated. She stood with her back to the Conservation Centre, its brick walls sandblasted to their former rosy glory, and tried to make sense of the vista before her. She puz
zled over the smoked glass and steel Millennium House to her right, the plethora of bars and cafés – even a hotel – to her left. She remembered an open derelict site with cars parked at random and unlicensed stalls selling cheap crockery. She remembered vacant buildings with ravaged pediments where pigeons and starlings roosted, squirting thick grey-white slime down the sooty façades. She remembered a walkway on stilts weaving across Roe Street to Williamson Square, ascending and descending to no purpose. The landscape of her youth had changed beyond recognition.
Rebuilding was galvanizing the city and even if some of the new edifices did look like cheap plywood sheds with stuck-on fretwork, they were a testament to change. The concept of restoration was one she was ambivalent about, despite the nature of her day job. This, she’d come to by chance, seeking work she could do from home. She’d found she had a knack for what she described as ‘cobbling things back together’ and it provided an income more reliable than her erratic endeavours in ceramics. She’d let her mind roam while touch and sight concentrated on the particular, on flakes of porcelain so small she’d wear a jeweller’s eyeglass, so delicate she’d use tweezers, a fine-haired dusting brush.
Tonight she would be staying in the old house. It was strange to think of it as belonging to Allie, but it didn’t trouble her. She didn’t care who slept in the bedroom above the wrought-iron trellis that was sturdier than it looked (as she and the friends who’d scaled it many times could attest). She didn’t miss the view of the river, its nuances of light and shimmer. The past was a place she’d left behind. It was up to Allie to take decisions now; though she hadn’t made much progress.
‘I’ll get friends to move in,’ she’d said to start with. Then: ‘I’ll advertise for lodgers. It always worked out for us, didn’t it?’ Then: ‘I’ll need to fumigate and redecorate. Some of the rooms are rank.’ Now it was: ‘I’m going to have a holiday first and mull it over.’ She’d reeled off the names of the friends who might go with her, but her plans were hazy. InterRailing in Europe was mentioned as a possibility.