by Penny Feeny
She must be drunk, thought Allie. She’s all over the place. Unacknowledged, however, was the suspicion that she knew exactly what her mother was getting at. That somehow she’d found out about Liddy’s attempt to make amends and this was making her very unhappy indeed.
‘I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘What, the sharp pointy end that cuts your palm to ribbons?’
‘All she wants to do is –’
‘She?’
‘You know who I’m talking about. You must do or you wouldn’t be behaving like this. Liddy told me it was her fault you got locked up. I understand why you feel the way you do about her, but it was a long time ago and it’s silly to have an ongoing feud, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t have a feud! Good grief, I haven’t even thought about the woman in twenty years. I just don’t like the underhand way she does things.’
‘Like what?’
Helena clamped the hat back on her head. All Allie could see was the deep shadow it cast over the upper half of her face, the truculent swing of her earrings and her fast-moving mouth. ‘Like ingratiating herself with you, for a start. Buying you little sweeteners, softening you up, turning you into some kind of doll.’
‘I’m not a doll. For God’s sake, Mum.’
‘Look at those twee plaits. Raggedy Allie! All you need is bright spots on your cheeks and a frilly pinafore and you’d be a dead ringer for that Play School programme you used to watch when you were little.’
‘Stop it! That’s vicious. We were only messing with my hair. She was showing me how because I can’t do it myself. Braiding, that is. And I told her to leave it in yesterday because I liked it. All she’s done is give me bits of advice about the house, like any neighbour.’
Helena’s manner calmed. She rested her folded arms on the table and said, ‘Neighbour?’
‘She’s from that posh bit, Blundellsands, but it’s not far when you’re walking a dog. She used to live nearer, didn’t she, when you were at school together? Her parents have moved down to Wales, but she showed me their old house. She said she’d never expected to find herself living so close to where she grew up.’
‘Half the residents of Merseyside live within a couple of miles of where they grew up.’
‘And when she said she’d like to see you again,’ Allie persisted, ‘I thought I could be the go-between . . . I thought you’d act like two civilized adults. I wasn’t trying to start a riot.’
Helena covered Allie’s left hand with her own. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to explode like that. It’s alarming to realize how deep old wounds can be. But I couldn’t have seen her or been civil to her, if I’d come across her without warning. I daresay you had good intentions but, you know what, good intentions can be downright meddlesome. We’ll let it pass now, shall we?’
‘What about the money? Do you want it back?’
‘No, darling. You keep it. Buy yourself a hat.’ She took off her own. ‘Really, it’s yours. Put it towards your trip. How are the plans coming along?’
‘Fine. You’ll be proud of us. We’re going to do loads of cultural stuff, not just lie about all day.’
‘The ticket takes you all over Europe?’
Allie nodded.
‘So where are you off to?’
‘Oh . . . you know, Paris, Munich, Vienna, Venice . . .’ She hesitated, the list was long enough surely? ‘We’re still working out the details.’
13
Liddy was the youngest member of the book group. She was treated like a mascot, willing but inexperienced compared to the rest: all formidable quasi-retired professional women. When she floundered, they might throw her lifelines or conciliatory remarks, but they were confident in their superiority. She rarely held her own in their discussions, either because she hadn’t time to finish the selected book or because their vocabulary unnerved her and she didn’t like to admit her ignorance. Really, she should have left and found a more companionable group, but the whole point was self-improvement.
Tonight it was her turn and she wasn’t feeling up to it. She’d had a terrible day. In the morning, within moments of arriving at the premises of a small IT company seeking to restructure, she had injured herself. Twisting, bending, swivelling – she couldn’t say exactly which motion had been to blame – she’d felt a searing pain and her legs had given way. She was used to living with a nagging backache, but this sensation was different. She lay on the grubby floor in one of her favourite suits while strangers stood above her discussing the likelihood of a slipped disc and whether they should call an ambulance. She hated the indignity of her situation. It wasn’t fair that such a small, awkward movement should have such a powerful effect.
‘Don’t be too sure,’ said the sales manager. ‘I knew someone who tripped on uneven ground and knackered their spine. In a wheelchair for life now.’
Liddy assured him she would be fine in a moment. She had no history of slipped discs and as soon as the pain subsided she’d be back on her feet. All of which happened in due course, although the pulled muscle (for that was the diagnosis everyone agreed on) continued to grumble and bite through the rest of the day. She was considered heroic for battling on with her assignment, but she was determined to erase the embarrassing image of three men helping her into a standing position as if she were some decrepit crone.
Once home she found Michael had already gone to play golf and he would spend the rest of the evening in the clubhouse so as not to disturb her guests. She picked up the phone, thinking to ring him to compare notes – his hobby had cost plenty of muscle twinges – but his mobile was switched off. Then she contemplated trying to cancel the book group. But seven calls issuing the feeble-sounding excuse that she’d hurt her back – ‘It was absolute agony this morning, I was completely felled by it’ – sounded, well, unconvincing. She replaced the receiver and swilled down two extra-strength paracetamol. She shut Rolo in the utility room and lined up her most fragile cups and saucers on a tray. She arranged superior biscuits, bought yesterday from the delicatessen, on a white porcelain plate.
The novel she should have read by now was Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. She remembered it being amid the pile of Jake’s books in his room above the nightclub. ‘Vesuvio,’ she’d joked at the title. ‘Popacatepetl actually,’ he’d said. It had stuck in her mind, sparked her curiosity, but she hadn’t followed it up. In fact, she’d forgotten about it entirely until her turn to choose. It was a twentieth-century classic, which was a point in her favour; on the other hand, they’d probably already digested it along with To the Lighthouse and Ulysses and Herzog.
However, the women with the long flapping skirts and the sensible wide-fitting shoes took her suggestion in their stride and those who already knew it were happy to revisit. She suspected they got through at least three books a week anyway. They didn’t struggle, as she did, to finish one a month. She would sit mute with admiration listening to Beatrice’s acrobatic sentences or watching the elegant, pincer-like movements of Janet’s fingers when she wanted to illustrate a point. It wasn’t that she ever needed to name-drop philosophers, but the art of casual referencing seemed to be worth acquiring. An over-anxious girl becomes an over-anxious woman; Liddy had grown deft at compensating strategies.
She filled the kettle with water and waited for the doorbell. No one was more than a polite five minutes late. Felicity was first to arrive. She had an insubstantial look: flyaway hair the colour of a mouse and chiffon scarves that fluttered like pennants around her neck, a voice as light and thin as her freckled arms. She might sound quavery but her opinions were immovable, set in concrete.
Liddy swung open the door and put on a brave smile as a shower of needles stabbed at her spine. ‘What a lovely mac, Fliss,’ she said, believing that payment of a compliment is always a good beginning. It shows the other person you are on side.
‘Perfectly useless,’ said Felicity. ‘Doesn’t keep me dry at all. Or anything else for that matter. I borro
wed the Lowry from the library, put it in the pocket and now the pages are curling with damp. I expect they’ll make me pay for a new one.’
‘I didn’t quite get to the end of my copy,’ confessed Liddy, ‘but I figured it didn’t matter too much. It’s obvious what’s going to happen, isn’t it?’
Felicity toyed with the ends of her scarf. ‘But isn’t it your turn to lead the discussion? To give an overview? I should have thought you’d put yourself at a disadvantage not reading the whole thing.’
‘I injured my back,’ said Liddy, making an exaggerated grimace of pain as she hung Felicity’s mac from a high hook. She’d meant to share a confidence, not set herself up for disapproval. There was no point in bemoaning how busy she was because she knew Felicity wasn’t free from commitments either. She was caring for a recalcitrant mother in the early stages of dementia in a small terraced house that was far from luxurious. For this reason Fliss never hosted the book group.
The rest of the members arrived within moments of each other. Liddy ushered them into her sitting room where they chose their favourite spots as if they had been allocated by divine right. She went into the kitchen to fetch the cafetière and the teapot. Her copy of Under the Volcano was also on the tray; tucked inside the cover were some notes she had made on a piece of paper. She handed out cups and biscuits to her guests, letting them relax against the cushions and spill out snippets of gossip as a necessary overture. She chose to perch on a straightback dining chair, partly because she wouldn’t have been able to get up from the sofa and partly in order to lead the discussion – though it soon ran away from her.
The book group liked nothing better than argument and analysis. Felicity stressed the novel’s autobiographical elements; Beatrice dwelt with relish on the protagonist’s spiral of self-destruction; Janet wallowed in the themes of guilt and repentance. Liddy, troubled and disturbed by what she’d read and by the inevitability of disaster, kept quiet. She had a picture of Geoffrey Firmin in her head, sitting over his glass of mescal at seven in the morning, and what she was most worried about was the fact that he wasn’t wearing socks – though she couldn’t explain why this troubled her and it seemed too trivial to mention. Some passages had been so hallucinogenic she’d had to skip them and she wasn’t sure whether she’d followed the plot or even if there was a plot. As the women’s exchanges intensified, she lost concentration and was unprepared when Janet suddenly turned to her and said, ‘Is that why you chose it?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Because Lowry’s a local author?’
‘Is he?’
‘Well, more or less. He came from Wirral, New Brighton. Didn’t you realize?’
‘Actually,’ said Liddy, ‘it was more that it was a novel I’d always meant to read. I saw it recently on a table of second-hand books outside the Oxfam shop. And I bought it because –’ Did she really want to confess she thought it might have been Jake’s copy? The same Penguin edition certainly, but to think she might open it and find his name inscribed inside was plainly preposterous. ‘– It reminded me of someone,’ she ended lamely.
These women – Felicity and Janet and Beatrice and Pauline and Ruth and Mary and Lucinda – with their keen, lined faces and brains stuffed full of strong notions and classic literature were as susceptible as any to the concept of a lost love.
‘Who?’ asked Janet at once.
‘An old boyfriend?’ said Ruth. ‘Before or after you met your husband?’
‘Before.’ She would not have told them otherwise.
‘First love,’ said Felicity dreamily.
‘More of a short sharp shock really,’ said Liddy. ‘Wildly unsuitable.’
‘A Geoffrey Firmin type?’
‘Oh no! At least I don’t think so . . .’
‘What happened to him?’
‘I’ve no idea. He was an actor. For ages I kept expecting to see his name in the credits for something.’
‘If he’d been successful you’d have heard more of him. My niece tried acting for a while.’ Ruth spoke with a condescension that Liddy found irritating. ‘It was a total disaster.’
‘Well, that’s how he started out but really he wanted to be a screenwriter. It was his ultimate ambition. For all I know he could be in Hollywood now.’
There was a moment’s silence as they considered this prospect.
‘Well,’ said Janet, ‘I’m sure everybody’s past has a whatever happened to whatshisname? Easy enough these days to find out. Have you tried Googling him?’
One or two of the others looked horrified, but Janet was addicted to the internet. She played bridge and Scrabble online and had sold off an accumulation of china on Ebay.
‘I don’t know if . . .’
‘It could hardly be construed as disloyal. Even if you track him down you’re not obliged to contact him.’
‘Haven’t you heard about the trouble caused by Friends Reunited? All these thirty-somethings revisiting their youth, ditching their marriages and running back to their teenage sweethearts?’
‘It wouldn’t be like that,’ said Liddy, holding her cup stiffly. ‘Anyway I doubt it’ll be easy to find him. I don’t know what name he’s using.’
‘What do you mean?’
Ruth intervened. ‘Actors can’t have an equity card the same as somebody else’s. You have to pick a stage name or add an initial or something.’
‘Then you could try variations. What was he called?’
Liddy’s hoot sounded more like a yelp of pain, even to her own ears. ‘Do you think I would tell you? No, picking up this book just gave me one of those jolts into the past that are hard to shake off sometimes. I expect now I’ve read it, it’ll go away.’
They didn’t look convinced. She didn’t convince herself. She knew that as soon as they left – and yes, this time she would accept their offers to help clear away since her muscle spasms were slowing her down so much – she would go and switch on her computer.
Under the Volcano was thrust back into handbags and Liddy felt a frisson of regret that for her this was a tale still unconquered. She poured herself a very large brandy and took it upstairs to her study, along with an extra cushion. Michael’s was adjacent, his desk a proliferating mess of documents that only he could decipher. When they first met he’d called her his saviour because she’d been brought into the firm to salvage his paperwork. That was ten years ago, her mission accomplished within months; she would have found it unsettling to share their working environment for longer.
She calculated that she had an hour to spare before he came home and anyway her search would mean nothing to him. She wasn’t ready to admit it, but the temptation to seek out Jake was spurred on by her failure to appease Helena. She found it hard to believe she’d refused to see her. Point blank. ‘No,’ Allie had said on the phone. ‘She’d rather not.’ Any rebuff would be hurtful, but the contemptuous, ‘She’d rather not,’ rankled, made her feel inferior and disposable. She’d thought her attempts to reconnect had been subtle and unthreatening. It wouldn’t have mattered if she hadn’t become so fond of Allie: looking forward to rubbing down Rolo with her, sharing a drink, hearing her throaty laugh.
She typed Jake Knight into Google and slumped in disappointment: only a couple of irrelevant results came up. She tried James Knight and found a saxophonist, a firm of accountants, a tennis player, a doctor. She followed up the doctor – he could have gone back to medical school to complete his qualifications – but the dates were wrong. Next, she keyed in actor/film/TV/screenwriter as an extra filter, wondering if throughout cyberspace lonely people were scanning the internet for evidence they had once been loved. Not that she was lonely – or unloved, for that matter, although the blot of infertility was staining her marriage. Michael couldn’t see what the fuss was about, the hunger inside her. And if he couldn’t understand, that was already a rift, wasn’t it?
A link to a film production company looked hopeful. She clicked on it: the titles indicated the type of corporate tr
aining films she used herself in the workplace. She swilled her brandy and felt the alcohol surge to her fingertips as she tried to open a PDF and cross-reference the company. Her computer was slowing down. It needed upgrading. The one in Michael’s study was newer, faster, but it was too risky to use it now when he might be back at any moment. She chewed her knuckle in impatience as the file downloaded.
The company’s website appeared to be under construction and, according to the small print, registered in Australia. Well, he’d always said he’d never come back to Britain. She scrolled through the credits and gasped: there he was, listed as director. Of course it could easily be a different James Knight, but along the bottom of the home page ran a montage of photos and she was almost certain she recognized his face. Australia was so far away it couldn’t do any harm to send an enquiring email. They wouldn’t know where she was writing from and even if they replied she wouldn’t have to take it any further. She could nurse the information secretly while she waited to see how Allie got on. Information was power – hadn’t Jake once said that? It was worth hoarding.
It took a good twenty minutes of false starts and unconvincing lies to compose her message. ‘I have come across your training films,’ she typed, ‘and would be interested in more information about them. As consultants we are involved in putting together packages for our clients and we are always looking for new production houses. Are you using the same film unit and director? In any event I shall look forward to hearing from you.’ At least she’d given nothing away; no one could guess at an ulterior motive.
She leaned against the cushion at her back. In the excitement of getting nearer to her goal, she’d forgotten her excruciating collapse that morning. She felt better – a fact worth celebrating in itself. She tipped her glass and swallowed the rest of the brandy. Now came the big question: was she really going to send this email? Didn’t it need a bit of tweaking? Wouldn’t it be better to sleep on it and save it for another day? Wouldn’t it be more sensible to delete it altogether?