She hadn’t heard it but Mr Reilly – her father-in-law – must have closed whichever door his wife had been behind because their voices, if they were speaking, were inaudible. The only sounds were the clock and the wind as it buffeted the front of the house. A draught stirred the bottom of the net curtain in the bay window.
After some minutes, there was movement in the corridor. Hannah turned and in the doorway behind her she saw a woman of seventy or so, her hands clasped together in front of her chest as if she were praying. Her face was heavily lined but Hannah could see that at least one thing Mark had told her was true: his mother had been beautiful. Her eyes were large and gentle, still a lovely deep blue behind her glasses, and her lips were soft and full. She was wearing pale pink lipstick – did she always wear it at home or had she just put it on? Her eyes were wet and Mr Reilly put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re pleased to meet you but it’s . . . well, it’s a shock for us.’
‘No, I understand. For me, too – I didn’t know you were . . . here.’
‘This is my wife, Elizabeth. I’m Gordon.’
‘Hannah,’ she said to Mrs Reilly, who was looking at her with unabashed curiosity, taking her in, detail by detail.
‘How long have you been married?’ she asked. Her voice was quiet, with a hasty, furtive quality, as if she were worried about drawing attention to herself and only dared speak quickly.
‘Since April. Not long.’
‘We didn’t even know.’
Hannah felt ashamed, as if she were to blame, but before she could say anything, the woman shook herself, said, ‘Tea,’ and whisked away like the White Rabbit.
Mark’s father came awkwardly into the room and gestured to the higher-backed of the armchairs. ‘Please sit down. I’ll put the fire on. We normally wait until the evening, the price of electricity these days, but it’s cold this afternoon. We’re quite exposed to the wind, here on the hill.’ At the far side of the fireplace, he hitched his trousers at the knee and bent slowly. The snap of a switch and then he straightened, came round to the front and pressed the button on the outdated two-bar electric heater set into the grate. He stood back and watched, as if he’d laid a real fire and wanted to make sure it would go. ‘There,’ he said with satisfaction when the ends of the coils started to redden.
A fussy chintz pelmet hid the bottom of the armchair and it wasn’t until she’d sat down and it lurched alarmingly that Hannah realised it was some sort of rocker.
‘Sorry, I should have said. That’s Elizabeth’s chair – I forget it does that.’
‘I shouldn’t take it if it’s her’s. Here, let me . . .’
‘No, no.’ He motioned her back down. ‘It’s the best one – she won’t be happy unless you have it.’ He took a seat himself on the far end of the sofa, smoothed his trousers and looked at her. Hannah smiled at him and he smiled back, Mark at seventy. Struggling for something to say, she felt a dizzying sense of vertigo. Why had she come in? She’d found out what she’d wanted to know: they were alive. Wasn’t that enough?
The clock ticked on, measuring the silence.
‘Have you come from London?’ he said.
‘Yes, just now. The roads were terrible – the traffic, I mean.’ Traffic? She stopped before she could say anything even more inane.
From the hallway came the rattle of china and Mrs Reilly entered with a tray that she lowered gingerly on to the copy of the Herald. ‘Oh, I should have asked, shouldn’t I?’ she said, face a picture of dismay. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer coffee?’
‘Tea’s fine – perfect. Thank you.’
She smiled gratefully. ‘How do you take it?’
Mr Reilly watched his wife as she poured milk into the bottom of a cup and topped it up with a weak stream of tea from a pot in a crocheted cosy. Hannah tried to imagine Mark in this room and failed. It was a struggle to imagine his world and this one even co-existing. She remembered him in Montauk, his almost animal energy as he’d jogged up the beach from the sea, the water furrowing his chest hair as he’d lowered himself down on to the sand.
The cup tottered on the saucer as his mother handed Hannah her tea. Elizabeth poured some for her husband and herself then sat next to him on the sofa, straightening her navy polyester skirt as if preparing to be interviewed or told off by the headmistress. Hannah searched for something to say but Mrs Reilly spoke first.
‘How did you meet, you and Mark?’ she said. ‘I’m sorry – do you mind me asking?’
‘No, of course not. I had a job in New York – advertising – and some friends of ours there introduced us. We hit it off and . . .’
‘New York,’ said Mr Reilly, as if he’d heard of it and didn’t much approve.
‘Last year – the summer before last. Mark was doing a big project with DataPro’s New York team and . . .’ The look on Gordon’s face told her he hadn’t known there was, or ever had been, such a thing.
‘And you were married in April this year?’ said Elizabeth Reilly.
‘Yes. In Chelsea, at the register office.’
‘Do you live in London now – with him? You’re not in America any more?’
‘No, I moved back a few months ago. It didn’t make sense living apart once we were married.’ She took a scalding sip of tea.
‘That’s right, isn’t it? No point being married at all if you’re not going to be together.’ Elizabeth glanced at her husband with a look that was almost shy. ‘Do you have children? No, of course you don’t – what am I saying? You haven’t been married long enough. Not that that matters,’ she said quickly, ‘being married, not these days . . .’ She trailed off, embarrassed. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Hannah smiled. ‘But no, we don’t.’
‘Would you like them?’
‘I . . . Well . . .’
‘Elizabeth, you shouldn’t put the woman on the spot like that,’ Mr Reilly cut in.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking mortified now. ‘It’s just I know so little about his life these days, what he’s doing, what he thinks about things . . .’
‘When did you last see him?
‘Ten years ago, at the trial . . .’ She faltered and looked at her husband aghast, as if she’d blown a terrible secret.
‘I know about Nick,’ Hannah said. ‘The court case. Patty Hendrick, I mean.’
‘We don’t talk about it,’ said Mark’s father, voice sharp. ‘I’m sure you understand. For us, it was . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘And now this other one – the doctor, Hermione.’ He put his tea down, the china tinkling.
Mrs Reilly actually flinched. ‘Is that why you’re here?’
‘No.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s nothing to do with Nick. I just—’
‘Then why?’ said Mr Reilly. ‘Why come now?’
‘Does he want to see us?’ Mark’s mother’s eyes lit up with sudden hope. ‘Is this his way of . . .?’
‘No,’ said Hannah as gently as she could. ‘I’m sorry.’
Mrs Reilly nodded but then dipped her head and focused on her hands.
The carriage clock struck the hour, three tiny cymbal crashes.
‘Mark’s hurt his mother very badly, as you can see,’ said his father. ‘I’m not saying there aren’t elements of his behaviour we understand – doesn’t he think we’d like to forget, too? – but even so . . .’ He looked at Elizabeth’s bent white head. ‘Nick was the perfect excuse,’ he added.
Hannah frowned. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Mark was looking for a reason to cut us off and Nick gave it to him.’
‘Why would he want . . .?’
‘He’s ashamed of us, isn’t he?’
‘I—’
‘Look at us. Look at how we live. Do you think he’d be proud of us? We’re an embarrassment to him – the boring, ordinary, petit bourgeois people – he called me that once, to my face – he had to leave behind in order to create whoever he is t
hese days, Mr Big Shot. Look at us and then look at him with his success, his money, his lifestyle.’ Gordon’s voice was full of disdain. ‘You. With the greatest of respect, you seem decent but you don’t fit here – advertising, New York, the way you look. I knew he didn’t send you – he wouldn’t want you to see us, what he came from.’
‘No, I’m sure that’s not . . .’ Hannah started.
‘It is – if you’re his wife, you must know it is.’
‘I don’t blame him,’ said Mrs Reilly quietly. ‘Not for that. He’s worked so hard for what he has – all his life he’s worked hard. If he chooses to live in a certain—’
‘You don’t blame your son for scorning you?’ demanded her husband with venom. ‘For dismissing you from his life like an underperforming member of staff?’
‘Oh, Gordon, that’s not what I . . . Don’t make it sound like that, please don’t.’
‘It’s the truth, isn’t it? And she’s married to him; she knows what he’s like. Anyway, it’s not just about being ashamed, I’ve worked that much out. He wants to punish us, too, doesn’t he?’ He directed his question to Hannah.
‘For what?’ she said.
‘For not seeing it, for not understanding about Nick. He did, Mark, from very early on he got it, but to believe that one of your own children could be capable of . . .’ He looked sickened. ‘I hope you never know what it’s like, to have to face your neighbours, see them acting normal when you know they’ve been reading about your son in the papers, every sordid detail of what he did. That they all know what kind of monster you’d been . . . incubating.’
‘It must have been hard for Mark, too, having Nick as a brother,’ she said tentatively. ‘I mean, it sounds like he felt a lot of responsibility for . . .’
Mr Reilly gave a snort. ‘Responsibility? He was never responsible for Nick, never, whatever he might have told you. How could anyone be responsible for . . . that?’ He spat the word off his tongue.
‘It was my fault.’ Mrs Reilly looked up from her lap. ‘The way I handled them when they were growing up. When Nick was born, he was so easy. After Mark . . .’
‘Easy?’ Mr Reilly was outraged.
‘At the beginning, Gordon – when he was younger. That’s all I meant. He was easy,’ she said, directing herself to Hannah. ‘Mark was . . . different. Difficult – there, I’ve said it; he was difficult. Even when he was a baby, I felt like I was battling with him, like there was someone in there, an adult, looking out at me from his eyes, challenging me all the time. Judging me – that sounds ridiculous, I know, but it’s what it felt like.’
‘Elizabeth . . .’
She glanced at her husband, her face anxious, but she carried on. ‘He was so bright – it was obvious right from the start that he was special. And then we had Nick – I got pregnant again almost straight away; they were born within a year of each other – and that’s when Mark started to change. I knew at the time I wasn’t treating them the same but I couldn’t help myself. Mark was . . . he seemed to want something from me that I couldn’t give him. He stopped sleeping, he wouldn’t feed, and then he started having moods, not tantrums like other children but moods – he used to disappear, go inside himself, as if he was trying to punish me. Nick was sunny, smiley, and . . . I couldn’t help it, he was easier to love, he just was.’
‘Elizabeth, stop,’ said Mr Reilly, but she ignored him.
‘Mark saw it,’ she said. ‘I know he did. He saw it and he felt rejected, and then he got angry, and the angrier he got, the harder it was to . . . get through to him. That was when it started – his shutting himself off from me. By the time he was five or six, he was closed, self-contained – like a bubble. He’d taken his world inside himself. He didn’t need me any more, or even want me, but Nick . . .’ She stood up suddenly, her movements much less of a struggle than her husband’s, went to the bureau and tugged open the lowest drawer. From underneath a stack of papers she pulled out a small navy blue photograph album.
‘Elizabeth, for pity’s sake.’
‘No, Gordon, I want to,’ she said. ‘I’m going to. He’s still my son.’
By the fireplace there was a chintz-covered footstool. She carried it round to the side of Hannah’s chair and sat down, avoiding eye contact with her husband, who stayed on the sofa radiating anger. The album was A5-size and covered in leatherette. Inside, the polythene envelopes that held each picture were misty and crackled with age. Mrs Reilly handled them with reverence as if, were she alone, she might caress each one before turning it over.
She paged through several then lifted the book on to the arm of Hannah’s chair. ‘We went camping in Devon, our summer holiday. He’s eight.’
The picture had been taken at the campsite and the background was dominated by a large square tent, inside the pinned-back door of which the silhouette of a man – Gordon, Hannah guessed – was visible leaning over a table. Mark sat in the foreground, just off centre, on a fold-out stool. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and as they protruded towards the camera, his knees were almost comically bulbous above his skinny shins. His expression, however, was deadly serious. The photographer – his mother, presumably – had called his name and he was looking up from the book in his lap with the weariness of an elderly scholar. It wasn’t tiredness, though. When Hannah looked again, she saw exactly what Elizabeth Reilly meant: he was closed off. Having no choice in the matter, he was there in person, his expression seemed to say, but the real him, the part that mattered, was somewhere else, locked up and unreachable, private.
‘You see?’ said Mrs Reilly. ‘And look – here.’ She flicked forward several pages to a picture of Mark in uniform, grey trousers and a grey V-neck sweater with a maroon stripe at the collar and cuffs, a rucksack at his feet. Another picture taken under duress: in this one, Mark’s anxiety to get away was palpable. He was at an angle to the camera, his shoulder already turned, his weight on the back foot. Again his face was blank, closed, but this time there was something else, almost masked but definitely there: disdain.
‘His first day at senior school,’ his mother said. ‘I just wanted one picture, a record, but—’
‘That’s enough,’ snapped Mr Reilly. ‘The woman hasn’t come here to sit and maunder over old photographs.’
Hannah felt an urge to protect his wife, shield her from his corrosive anger. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Nice, I mean. I’ve only ever seen a couple of pictures of him when he was young. It’s good to . . .’
‘I’m amazed he has any at all. Or perhaps he likes them – maybe they’re part of his creation myth: look at what he had to overcome to get to where he is today,’ scoffed Mr Reilly.
Next to Hannah, Mrs Reilly gave a quiet sob.
Outside, there was a gust of wind and then a sudden sharp cracking sound as if someone had thrown a handful of gravel against the bay window. Hail – the clouds that had been gathering all afternoon had finally reached critical mass. In seconds the room was dark.
Mark’s mother closed the album and returned it to the bureau, stashing it back beneath the papers in the bottom drawer. When she turned around, she looked at Hannah, avoiding her husband’s eye. ‘Would you like to see his room?’
From deep in Mr Reilly’s throat came a sound of disgusted resignation.
Outside in the hall, his wife gave Hannah a look that mixed gratitude with a hint of conspiracy and led her to the back of the house. Through a half-open door Hannah caught a glimpse of a small, neat kitchen with units so dated they had to be from the sixties. Outside the last door Mrs Reilly paused, her hand on the cheap handle. ‘I haven’t changed it,’ she said. ‘It’s exactly how it used to be.’ She lowered her voice until it was almost a whisper. ‘Gordon doesn’t like it, it makes him angry, but I won’t let him touch it.’ There was unexpected fire in her eyes as she pressed down the handle and ushered Hannah inside.
For a second or two she was confused. The room was schizophrenic. One half of it had clearly been a teenage boy’s: the
re was a huge, obsolete black stereo with a stack of CDs; a punch-ball on a stand; and, beneath a behemoth of a television with a back about two feet deep, some sort of games console in a nest of cables. On the shelf above an ugly veneered desk, piles of GCSE Letts Revise guides and graffiti-covered exercise books kept company with a foot-long red model Ferrari and a stack of Loaded magazines.
The other half of the room was immaculate and almost empty. Both sides had single beds but where the first had a duvet in a charcoal-grey cover, this one had been made up with starched white sheets. This bedside table held a lamp with a wooden base and plain cloth shade, not an Anglepoise, and where the other half had posters of Bob Marley and generously endowed women in impractical swimwear – how Mrs Reilly must love those, Hannah thought – here the walls were bare. The shelf above an identical ugly desk was empty apart from a box-file like the one Mark used for his financial papers.
‘They had to share,’ Mrs Reilly said. ‘We’ve only got two bedrooms.’
‘Mark’s side?’ Hannah indicated the cluttered half, thinking that his mother must have cleared Nick’s in horror after he went to prison, but Mrs Reilly shook her head.
‘No,’ she said, ‘this is Mark’s.’
‘I thought you hadn’t changed it?’ Hannah frowned.
Again Mrs Reilly shook her head. ‘I haven’t. He took his clothes and books when he went up to Cambridge, but otherwise this is how he kept it.’
‘It’s very . . . tidy,’ Hannah said, as the word ‘monastic’ came into her mind. That wasn’t right either, though. That implied asceticism, but the white sheets and plain lamp suggested a deliberate aesthetic, a less-is-more minimalism.
‘He left this,’ said Mrs Reilly. Turning, Hannah saw that she’d taken the box-file down from the shelf. ‘I found it pushed right back underneath the chest of drawers just after he went to college. He wrote to me, actually, asking me to send it on to him, but I said no, he could come and collect it himself if he wanted it so badly.’ She gave a small smile, embarrassed by her show of toughness but proud of it, too. ‘It was a lure – I knew he wouldn’t visit otherwise.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘It didn’t work, obviously.’
Before We Met: A Novel Page 26