by Penny Feeny
At reception they looked up Liddy’s details. Apparently she had her own room. Many patients were allotted private rooms, but Helena suspected Liddy would have insisted on privacy in any event. She progressed along the broad, bland corridor and up a staircase. She marvelled at the security, at the number of intercoms and the necessity for identifying oneself. She was not expected and she had no idea how she would be received. She was making this visit on Allie’s instructions. She knocked, a decisive rap, at the door. It was opened by a man she knew at once.
‘You must think I’m stalking you,’ she said.
‘You’re a friend of Liddy’s!’ he exclaimed in delight, pumping her hand. ‘Mike Rawlings. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve met. That is . . . apart from . . .’ He grinned at her like a conspirator. ‘Come in.’
Liddy was sitting up in bed in an ivory silk nightdress with Elle Decoration on her lap. Her face was pale and drawn. When she saw Helena she blinked rapidly as if in disbelief. ‘Good Lord,’ she said. ‘How did you . . .?’
‘Allie told me.’
‘Oh, are you staying with her? Only I thought –’
‘No. I’m at a friend’s in town. Simon. You, um, met him that time you called round.’
‘The policeman?’
‘He’s not really a policeman.’
‘Yes, I know. I didn’t mean . . .’
‘The old house is full of plumbers. But Allie isn’t there anyway. She’s back in Birmingham helping to run some epic gig. I guess you know that since you’ve been advising her.’
‘PR and marketing?’ said Mike Rawlings jovially.
‘Music promotion.’
Liddy turned to her husband, wincing as if the movement were painful. ‘Darling, you know Allie – she’s been so good with Rolo. Helena’s her mother. We were at school together, but we lost touch until . . . recently.’
‘You’re her mother?’
‘Yes. I started young.’
He looked as if he were trying to recollect what he’d heard about her, but gave up, shaking his shaggy head. ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘If you two are catching up, I’ll be off.’
‘You don’t have to go on my account,’ said Helena.
‘No worries, I’ll be back this evening. And I was leaving anyway – hence the mag.’ He bent over Liddy in her high bed and laid his palm against her cheek. The stiff set of her jaw relaxed at his touch and the action was so gentle, so tender, the expression in his eyes so full of emotion that Helena had to look away. She sauntered over to the window as if to stress she’d no wish to interrupt their leave-taking. She looked out on to a parade of evergreen shrubs, strung with bright autumnal berries, glinting with scraps of tinfoil and trapped bottle-tops. The sun was already low in the sky. She heard the scrape of the bed as Mike rose; turning, she caught the warm intensity of his smile. Lucky Lid, she thought.
‘It was good of you to come,’ said Liddy, when the door had closed on his heels.
‘Simon’s place is only down the road. A stone’s throw. So how are you?’
Liddy grimaced. ‘Who’d be a woman?’ Her complexion was translucent, like water overlaid with a film of chalk dust, her eyes bitter and cloudy. ‘What did Allie tell you?’
Helena pulled off her hat and pulled up a chair beside the bed. ‘To stop fucking about and come and see you.’
‘Oh, right. Well, you just made it. They’re sending me home tomorrow. Did she also tell you . . .’ Her fingers plucked at the sheet. ‘They’d had to delay the operation because I thought I might be pregnant?’
Helena nodded. Allie had been eloquent on the subject of Liddy’s disappointment.
‘I shouldn’t have got my hopes up. My womb was so cluttered with those damn fibroids there was probably no space for a baby anyway. Really it’s stupid how much emotional energy one wastes thinking, maybe this time . . .’ Liddy’s fingers stilled; the copy of Elle slid gracefully to the floor. ‘I know I have to grow up and get over it, but it’s so hard . . . I don’t think anyone can understand quite how painful – unless they’ve been in this situation.’ She muttered so quietly that Helena could hardly hear her: ‘I can’t help thinking how things might have been different.’
‘But that’s the way stuff happens, isn’t it? Totally random. Like my getting pregnant on the pill.’ Helena spread her arms in a gesture that encompassed the entire gynaecology ward. ‘No way could I ever go through something like that again. I got my tubes tied after Allie was born. Once was enough for me.’
‘Was it really so awful?’
‘Let’s say I don’t have any regrets about the decision.’
Liddy poured a glass of water from the jug on her bedside cabinet and held it to her mouth. She seemed to have difficulty swallowing. Helena opened her bag and took out the nectarines. ‘I bought these for you,’ she said. ‘It’s marvellous what you can get out of season nowadays, isn’t it? And they felt as if they should be ripe. Hope you enjoy them.’ She placed the punnet next to the water jug.
‘Thanks.’ Liddy put down her glass. With an effort she said, ‘I’m sorry I encouraged Allie to go off to Ischia like that. I know I shouldn’t have interfered, only when I met her it felt like I was being given the chance to put things right, make amends . . . I wouldn’t be punished any more.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I know it sounds a bit Old Testament, but –’
‘You’re a rational educated person, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Yes, I know . . .’ Liddy looked so frail and vulnerable that Helena bit back the further cutting remarks that tempted her. ‘It’s just, you see, when you want something really badly and this need grows out of all proportion and there simply isn’t any logical reason for failure, then your brain loses its logical function too. You start to make stupid bargains with fate. You start to dredge up all your misdemeanours. You assume it’s your fault, so you feel guilty.’
‘I don’t,’ said Helena. ‘And I think you’ll find men don’t either. It’s a female handicap and I’d banish it if I were you.’
‘So you’ve forgiven me?’
‘For my jail sentence?’
‘You didn’t actually get sentenced, did you? I thought you were let off.’
‘Let off, let out, whatever. I should bloody well hope I’ve moved on by now.’
Liddy had gone back to pinching folds in her coverlet and smoothing them flat again. ‘After everything, it came as quite a shock when I heard the DNA results for Allie and Fabrizio . . .’ She faltered. ‘It had honestly never occurred to me, but surely you must have . . .’
‘What?’
She hadn’t thought it possible for Liddy’s face to blanch further. ‘Surely you must have wondered if Jake might be her father.’
How many times had she pored over the calendar for summer 1979, calculating the chances? She sighed. ‘I couldn’t be certain, though. And frankly, I couldn’t bear the thought of her being rejected a second time. That might sound paranoid, but imagine how awful it would have been! At least Fabrizio was prepared to offer us support and a bit of stability.’
‘Is that why you let Jake go?’
‘God, Liddy, you knew what he was like. He didn’t welcome encumbrances. He always travelled light, remember?’
‘I tried to keep in touch with him. He didn’t have an address so I’d write poste restante. I got a couple of breezy postcards, but he never replied to an actual letter.’
‘He wasn’t very reliable. Lots of charm, totally self-centred.’
‘You always acted like there was an unmentionable secret between you.’
‘Did I?’
The room was overheated. Helena slung her jacket over the back of the chair. On a high shelf a blank television screen was angled at the bed. An extravagant autumnal bouquet wilted on the trolley beneath it. From Mike, she presumed. The walls were buttermilk, the curtains and upholstery a soothing sage, the washbasin spotless. It was still a hospital room, though; an artificial capsule from which time was
absent.
‘There was something, wasn’t there?’ said Liddy. ‘Something you were keeping from me – but I never understood why.’
‘Basically because you wouldn’t have believed me. You’d have thought I was being vindictive. You were so besotted you wouldn’t listen to any warnings. You didn’t want to hear a word against him.’
Liddy gave her a stricken look, as if she were deliberately trying to withhold information. ‘Then try me now.’
‘Well, it was trivial really. He always said I overreacted and he may have been right. It was the end of May, just before the course finished. I came home one afternoon after lectures, thinking the place was empty.’ If she shut her eyes she could see the images unspooling: her girlish self meandering down the narrow street, spared from the sun’s strength by the height of the apartment buildings, trotting up the staircase, poking the oversized key in the lock, entering the dim shuttered space. ‘In fact, someone must have let Jake in. My room had a huge antiquated wardrobe which took up the whole of one wall. He was standing in front of it.’
Liddy had been leaning forward to listen; she flopped against her pillows and waved her hand dismissively.
Helena said, ‘I suppose you thought I’d found him in my bed rogering some bit of fluff he’d picked up? He’d a reputation for screwing anything that wasn’t nailed down.’
‘He was faithful to me,’ said Liddy.
Helena let the comment pass. ‘Anyway, he wasn’t that predictable. He was admiring himself in the mirror.’ Beyond the double glazing there was the wail of an ambulance siren, the squeal of a brake; in the corridor the clip of footsteps. She broke off until they had passed the door. ‘And he was wearing my clothes.’
‘He was an actor. Actors dress up.’
‘The thing was, he looked quite like me. Similar height, similar complexion. Long hair. Not like a drag queen or a tranny. He looked like a woman. I flipped, ended it there and then. I wanted a proper man, Liddy. Not the competition. Not someone who kept switching sides. He tried to excuse himself, laugh it off, but sometimes there’s stuff you just don’t want to hear.’ It had unnerved her: the sight of Jake filling her clothes with such style and swagger; she didn’t enjoy being outshone. ‘So I stormed off and called Fabrizio. We got back together and I had the brainwave of getting him to employ us in Ischia . . . It was meant to be a treat, to seal our reconciliation.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I hardly expected Jake to end up there too, but I reckon we acted pretty civilized in the circumstances. We managed to stay friends, didn’t we?’
After a moment’s silence, Liddy rallied. ‘However Jake behaved, it didn’t alter the way I felt. I couldn’t forget him . . . and I’d always half expected his name to show up somewhere . . . That was why I tried to find him through the internet.’
Helena was glad she could feel calm, composed. ‘Yes, Allie said.’
‘Even though he’d gone back to using the name James, it was horribly easy. It wouldn’t have been ten years ago, but with Google . . . Anyway, I discovered he’d been living in Sydney for ages, making educational-type films. And that he’d drowned in an accident.’ Tears brimmed on her lower lashes.
It was ironic, Helena thought, that Liddy had cared so much more for Jake than she did, was so moved by her memories that she could weep for him. ‘Of course it’s tragic when someone dies young, but Allie never even knew him – she can’t mourn a stranger. And she has an extremely good relationship with the man who actually brought her up.’
‘Yes, but –’ Liddy closed her lips on a little blurt of pain.
‘It seems to me,’ said Helena, ‘in the two minutes I saw him, that you have a fine husband yourself.’
‘I know. I only wish –’
‘So don’t cry over Jake.’
‘There’s more,’ insisted Liddy. ‘Something else I found out.’
‘Nothing I learned about Jake would surprise me –’
‘He’d been living for years with a male partner. Happily, it seemed.’
‘– except that he settled down at all. Though that’s good, I suppose.’
‘I haven’t told Allie. I thought I should leave it to you. I see quite a lot of him in her, actually. His good qualities. Don’t you think?’
Liddy’s arm flailed in her direction and Helena moved to catch hold of it. In the process of connecting they knocked the punnet of fruit from the cabinet; the nectarines spun and rolled like giant marbles. Helena stooped to collect them up, reminded of Mike Rawlings and the card rack. Was this her fault, the effect she had on people?
‘Oh dear,’ said Liddy. ‘They’ll be bruised now.’
‘Not if we eat them right away. Come on.’ She rinsed two nectarines under the tap and handed one over. They took simultaneous bites. The flesh was dry and woolly. Helena was tempted to lob hers into the bin. ‘Shit, I’m sorry. What a letdown. That’s the trouble when stuff’s forced and not allowed to ripen naturally. What you really want is to pick a fresh, juicy fruit straight off the tree.’
‘Like we did in Italy,’ said Liddy in a plaintive whisper and then, because she was clearly not at her most sanguine, Helena tossed away her nectarine and settled on the bed. She took Liddy in her arms and let her rest her head against her collarbone. Her hair was newly washed and carried the fragrance of aloe vera; a trickle of tears soaked through Helena’s shirt. They stayed in this position, in fragile harmony, until a cleaner clattered in to empty the rubbish.
A light wind was blowing as Helena left the hospital, and she tugged her hat closer around her ears. It was a short walk downhill to Simon’s flat. In the distance, silvery patches of river nudged the clouds. A phalanx of new buildings was unrolling along the dockside but from this vantage point all she could see were the cranes dominating the skyline. She turned into Faulkner Square. The street was tranquil, deserted. The trees were changing colour, shedding flakes of copper and gold. In her youth, Faulkner Square had been a crumbling eyesore, its gracious terraces partitioned into squalid bedsits, kerb crawlers almost as numerous as the rats that ran in the back alleys. Now the area’s restoration programme was complete. The Georgian Quarter would never recover its past magnificence: the once-grand mansions were unlikely to revert to single dwellings, but their stucco had been repaired, their façades repainted, their interiors refitted; their weathered beauty was still imposing.
The walk was less than ten minutes, not long enough to dwell on her reunion with Liddy, if that’s what she was to call it. Perhaps next time we meet we’ll both be fully clothed, she thought in a moment of levity and buzzed Simon’s doorbell.
He was waiting for her on the top flight. She’d hardly gathered her breath before he’d ushered her into his kitchen. There was a mug in the sink, a used tea bag, but the counter tops were scoured. She knew he was tidier than she was.
‘Fancy a drink?’
‘It’s a bit early.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Okay I think.’
‘The rift is healed? The hatchet buried?’
‘Don’t mock. We’ve made contact, all right? That’s what she wanted. I didn’t, to be frank, feel I needed her friendship, but there is something comforting about the company of someone you grew up with.’
‘Whereas you and I, we have no history?’
‘I’m not making comparisons, Simon. What are you getting at?’
‘You might want a drink anyhow.’
‘Why, have you got some awful confession to make?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
She couldn’t interpret his expression – a hybrid of penitence and defiance – his mouth wry and his eyes serious. It put her on edge. She liked to think she could be one move ahead; she liked to be the first to dump. ‘Don’t spare my feelings,’ she said. ‘I can handle bad news. I’ve had plenty of practice. And if you want to call it a day –’
He seized her arm below the elbow and covered her mouth with his other hand. ‘Don’t say anything you might regret. Let me finish.’
>
She pulled herself free and sat on one of his leather-topped bar stools. She crossed her legs and waited.
‘I applied for a new job,’ he said.
The relief was like the tickle of soap bubbles bursting in a warm bath. ‘Oh? You didn’t tell me.’
‘I wasn’t sure I’d get it, but I did. I start in January.’
‘Well done. Onward and upward?’
‘Yes . . . but here’s the thing. It’s at Queen’s.’
‘Queen’s College, Oxford?’ So close to home. ‘Wow, that’s terrific.’
He shook his head.
‘Cambridge?’
‘No.’ It occurred to her that she’d rarely seen him flustered. ‘Queen’s University, Belfast.’
‘Oh . . . right.’
He moved towards his fridge, which was twice as large as any of the other appliances in the kitchen. ‘Beer? Wine? Vodka?’
‘Vodka. Thanks.’
He topped it up with ice and tonic.
‘Well,’ said Helena. ‘I guess we’d better call it quits.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘No, but then I’m not pissing off anywhere. I’ve been in the same house for seven years now, which is a record for me. And I’ll probably stay there, thanks very much. I don’t imagine you were inviting me to share your pad in Northern Ireland, but even if you were, the answer’s no. Coming back here is different, obviously, because of Allie. Though she may sell up after she’s finished renovations, the way house prices are going.’