by Alice Jolly
Sorry. I shouldn’t have.
No. You shouldn’t because you don’t even believe that.
He’s surprised that she’s read him accurately. It sometimes happens in circumstances like this that people who appeared entirely one-dimensional are suddenly found to have insights you never could have imagined. This is one of the gifts of pain. The best things about people arise from the places where they are most broken.
Before you said that everything has a purpose to it, she says.
Yes, well. Maybe. But, you see, comfort is what I used to do for a job. Meaning may only be a game people play in their heads but that doesn’t mean they should stop playing it.
Don’t, she says. Please don’t tell me it’s all a trick. It made everything possible for me. Whatever strange thing you did, it worked for me.
I didn’t do anything.
Yes. You did. Why do you mind me saying that?
I find it difficult. Other people’s expectations. I could never really cope.
You’re coping with mine.
You were an accident, he says. I didn’t intend anything.
When they get back to the church he doesn’t want to say goodnight to her – but both of them admit to being suddenly, overwhelmingly tired. So he kisses her chastely on the cheek, watches her as she heads off down the street. As he walks up the bare wooden stairs, no bodies appear dangling from the rails. In his flat, he expects the vases to speak, to taunt or accuse him, but they’re silent. He walks to the window and looks out for a moment at the haloes of city light spreading outwards into the starless night. In his bedroom he pulls off his clothes and falls immediately into that long and deep sleep which has eluded him for so long.
30
BEFORE
Lara – Brighton, June 1984
Outside the Stepping Stones Employment Agency, Lara takes a piece of gum out of her mouth, sticks it under a railing and hitches her bra down. After eighteen months it still doesn’t fit properly. It was Mollie who’d suggested this particular agency. You know, that one in Queen’s Road. With pink striped chairs and flowers in the window. A bell tinkles as Lara pushes the door open. Before she came out, she had a bath and washed her hair but still she worries that the smell of bottled baby food hangs about her. She weighs the leaden burden of her own exhaustion, feels hysteria bubbling below it.
You’ll need to speak to Ms Carver. The lady at reception shows Lara through to an office at the back. Just wait until she’s off the phone.
Lara smooths down her skirt. She’d found it difficult to decide on the right clothes and even now she isn’t confident that she’s got the look right. A black Lycra pencil skirt, a black roll-neck jumper, sheer tights, plenty of make-up, a gold necklace and large gold earrings shaped like hearts. She’s scraped her hair back off her face to make sure she looks tidy but perhaps she’s wearing too much make-up? She needs it to hide the bags under her eyes. Through the door of the office, Lara can hear a voice, low and smooth, confidential and flirtatious.
No, you didn’t. Well, you really shouldn’t. What, on the washing machine?
Lara isn’t certain. Should she close the door? She steps back, clears her throat.
Sorry. Someone’s here. I’ll call back. I definitely need a few more details.
Lara hears the phone go down, knocks on the half-open door.
Come in.
Ms Carver is in her thirties and wears red-rimmed glasses, a black suit with Channel-swimmer shoulder pads. She looks Lara up and down carefully, taking in every detail, then gives her a coercive smile, asks her to sit down, offers a coffee. As Lara sits, her skirt feels sleek across her thighs. She hasn’t worn a skirt, or high heels, or make-up, for months. Pushing the pram around the park annihilates the need for image, or fashion. She must remember to keep her hands behind her back so Ms Carver can’t see the raw marks on her knuckles. The doctor says they’ll go but they’re getting worse. Lara sometimes wonders if she caught the infection – or whatever it is – from Liam. His parting gift to her, something to keep forever. That – and Jay.
Ms Carver opens her desk drawer and takes out a form. The office is warm and drowsy, the carpet thick beneath her feet. Everything feels padded and safe. Lara looks around her, enjoying the pink candy-striped armchairs, the grey carpet, the walls stippled with pink paint. A vase of carnations perches on a glass side table. Surely they’re too perfect to be real? Outside the window is a bare brick wall, frosted glass windows, the metal steps of a fire escape – but even this manages to suggest New York-style urban grit rather than Brighton squalor.
Name? Ms Carver asks.
The lady from reception appears with a cup of coffee in a white china cup, a mini biscuit perched on the saucer. She places the cup on a low table and gives Lara an encouraging smile. Although she’s sick with nerves, Lara is worried that she might fall asleep because she’s been up since four thirty. She reaches for the coffee and drinks it down hurriedly although it’s too hot. For a moment she’s seized by panic. Something is missing. Jay? Where is Jay? Then she remembers. And the bag with the nappies, the sterilised bottle, the bag of rusks? Mungo, the felt dog? She left those with Mollie too.
Well, Lara, you’re a good-looking girl, Ms Carver says.
Lara is surprised by how much pleasure this compliment gives her. No one has said anything kind to her for a long time, no one has even noticed her existence. She feels herself begin to unfold. Settling back into her chair, she crosses her legs, fiddles with her hair. She’d almost forgotten that she’s a good-looking young woman – or not bad anyway.
You’re not what I usually have here, Ms Carver says.
I was at Frencham Heights, Lara says. She knows that Ms Carver will have heard of the school. Lara mentions her A levels – one A and two Bs.
Wonderful.
I had a place at university, Lara says. I was going to Exeter to read law but then I decided against it – I thought I’d rather get straight down to work.
Well, you’re very well placed, Ms Carver says. I don’t have many people with your qualifications.
Lara is amazed by how easy this is. She’s back in a world she understands, the world of the good girl with high grades and a promising future. She remembers how to display herself, how to charm.
Well, just let me write down a few more details. Address?
Block 2, 13B Brunt’s Court.
Ms Carver raises her eyebrows. She knows Brunt’s Court because everyone in Brighton knows it. A man was stabbed there two weeks ago and last year Social Services found a baby with maggots in its nappy. Ms Carver nods but, behind that purposeful smile, her eyes are doubtful.
Ms Carver is looking at the form again. Marital status? Single?
Yes, Lara says.
Definitely and completely single. The coffee has made her stomach churn.
Children?
Lara hesitates. Ms Carver has asked this question because she’s looking for the missing piece in the puzzle but Lara is reluctant to oblige. The promising young woman ruined by the early pregnancy is such a cliché – and yet she’s become that cliché. Perhaps Ms Carver won’t find her a job if she says she’s got a child? And she does want a job – or at least a reason to get out of the flat, just for an hour or two. If she can’t do something other than push the pram around the park, then she’ll kill herself. She remembers Mollie’s voice – Well, I don’t know, love. But you can’t go on like this.
No, she says. No children.
Ms Carver nods, pushes the form aside. Well, as it happens, Lara, I think you’re in luck. She begins to explain about a job that is available straight away. The boss is a friend of mine, she says. Craig Riven. In fact, I was on the phone to him just as you arrived.
Oh really.
Yes. Odd coincidence, isn’t it? Fate, you could say. Craig and I go back a long way. Charming man. He runs a highly successful interior design business. Craig Riven Designs. Anyway, he was explaining the type of person he wants and I just wasn’t sure who I c
ould find – but now... Ms Carver shrugs and smiles.
Lara likes the idea of interior design. She’s always loved looking at design magazines and sometimes she designs rooms in her head, planning the curtains, the furniture, the colour of the walls.
It’s a stylish place, Ms Carver says. Creative. They need someone temporary right away, but between you and me, they’ll make the job permanent if they get the right person. And they’ve plans to open a London office.
Lara begins to imagine. The offices are like this room, minimal, barely more than the meeting of a few carefully designed lines. Cups of coffee are served with little biscuits on the side. The men wear square-shouldered Italian suits and they ask her out for drinks after work. She’ll get herself a suit like Ms Carver’s and perhaps some red-rimmed glasses. Move to London maybe.
And he’s prepared to offer up to eight thousand, Ms Carver says.
She’s taken out another form and is talking about skills. Lara’s head is full of striped wallpaper. If she took this job then she might be able to have a flat of her own, move out of Brunt’s Court, buy some new clothes, make a lovely nursery for Jay with a wooden toy box and a bunk bed.
Shorthand? Ms Carver says. Filing?
Lara claims to have worked as a receptionist before and to be competent at shorthand, although she isn’t quite sure what it is.
Typing speed? Lara has no idea what this means.
Forty perhaps? Ms Carver says.
Yes, Lara says. That would be about right.
The hours are eight thirty until six.
Oh. Oh.
Is that a problem?
Well.
I did assume you want full time?
Sorry. Yes. No. I don’t think I could really do full time. Perhaps a couple of days a week maybe? Or three – possibly.
Oh, Ms Carver says. Oh. Well, that’s a pity. A great pity. Because we never really have much part-time. In fact, we haven’t got any at all at the moment. Lara senses that Ms Carver enjoys giving her this last piece of information.
Oh, Lara says. Yes, I see. She reaches her hand up to rub her eye. Ms Carver has noticed her scalded knuckles but Lara doesn’t care now. She’s no longer the bright girl from Frencham Heights with the university place. She’s forgotten her lines, stepped out of character. The curtain has come down, the show is over. She’s so tired she wants to lie down on the floor. She shouldn’t have come, can’t possibly do this. She’s a single mother living in council accommodation with a baby son who never sleeps. How could she have been so stupid as to hope for something more?
Childcare problems? Ms Carver says.
Lara nods because, in her sleep-deprived state, she doesn’t remember what she said before. Ms Carver considers her over the distance of the pine desk. Lara knows she needs to get up and leave but she hasn’t the strength.
You know, love, if you want a job, then you’ve got a perfect right. I’ve four at home and there’s no way I’d spend the day there.
Lara stares at Ms Carver in disbelief.
Yes. I set this agency up myself but all the money goes on the au pair. I don’t care. People say how difficult it is running a business, going out to work. But jobs aren’t work. In fact, nothing which doesn’t involve looking after small children is work.
Lara finds tears running down her cheeks and looks in her bag for a tissue.
It’s up to you, love. You decide what you want. If I was you, I’d take that job. I’ll tell Craig you can only stay until five. But I’m not pressing you. Something part-time might come up. The tax office or vehicle licensing – anyway, you give me a call about it later. See what you want.
Lara promises she’ll call later, says goodbye to Ms Carver and leaves, her stomach still churning. Outside the weather is indecisive. In the distance a weak sun shines but overhead the sky is ash grey and rain dribbles down. Briefly a segment of rainbow appears above the roof of a building and then is gone. Lara longs to spend some time wandering through the town, sitting in a café, window shopping, but her father will be back around four and she wants to pick Jay up before then. Of course, she can’t take the job, she knows that. She fought to keep Jay and she’s not going to give him up. Still she’s grateful to Ms Carver who at least told the truth. Why do women always lie to each other? Why do they so diligently promote the myths that deprive them of their freedom?
Across the street, she sees two girls who might have been at school with her. She doesn’t actually recognise them but she knows the type – good teeth and pink lip gloss, only the slightest hint of make-up, smooth blonde hair held back by Alice bands. Navy and white spotted ra-ra skirts, round-neck lambswool jumpers, hanging long. Scruffier than everyone else in the street but also more stylish. Perhaps they’re home from university for the holidays? Just back from skiing in the Alps or on their way to Jamaica or Lanzarote for some early summer sun? When she was at school she’d been invited a couple of times – a villa in the South of France, a chalet in Méribel. For a moment, Lara feels a sting of jealousy. She’s exiled from all that – permanently. Teenage pregnancy is not a language they speak in that country.
Turning away, she finds herself staring into the window of a toyshop. She wants to buy something for Jay, although she hasn’t really got any money for toys. She looks at a Duplo train and a toy tool set but both are too expensive. So she chooses a jigsaw with a farmyard scene on it – brightly coloured pictures of cows, chickens, sheep. She imagines his tiny, smiling face, his hands clapping together. Reaching his arms up towards her so that his T-shirt rides up and his tummy sticks out.
When she gets back to the Guest House, she hears the hoover, and the radio playing. Mollie and Jay are in room three on the second floor. Jay isn’t wearing any trousers and he’s got a lollipop stuck in his mouth. Mollie is hoovering and Jay is helping her, holding the pipe and running it back and forwards across the floor. Jay laughs so much he falls over.
Hi, Lara calls, over the noise, but neither Mollie nor Jay hear.
Mollie chases Jay with the hoover, then pretends to hoover up his trousers, which are lying on the floor. As they stick to the end of the pipe, she whoops in horror, and then snatches them away, as though saving them from the jaws of death. Jay waves his hands above his head, screams with laughter.
Hi, Lara calls again, but still they don’t hear so she moves further into the room, waves at them.
Darling. Hello. How are you? Mollie yells and waves. Jay’s got hold of the hoover and is manoeuvring it up and down the floor.
Jay, Lara calls. Jay. She bends down to his level but still he doesn’t see her. She waves at him and he looks up. We could do a jigsaw, she says. I’ve got you a new jigsaw. Do you want to come and see? But Jay continues to wave the pipe of the hoover.
Don’t worry, dear, Mollie says. We’re just finishing off up here. We’ll come down to the kitchen. You go on down and get us a cup of tea.
Mum, we’ve got to go.
Oh no, dear. Don’t worry. Your father rang, he’s not back until six. Stay for tea. Coffee cake and doughnuts.
Lara stands up, conscious again of her tight skirt, her heels. She stands at the bedroom door and watches as Jay swings on the pipe, Mollie making zooming and whooping noises, pretending to suck up the side of the bedspread
Heading downstairs, she puts the kettle on, sits down at the kitchen table. Looking up through the area railings, Lara sees that the weather has now decided on rain and is throwing spears of water down with vigour, as though making up for earlier indecision. She wants Jay to come down, to do the jigsaw with her. She minds about the fact that he isn’t wearing any trousers. She always insists he’s properly dressed. But, of course, she won’t say that to Mollie because it isn’t fair to criticise someone who’s just done two hours’ childcare for you. Mollie and Jay bump downstairs with the hoover, Jay still laughing and shouting. Lara pours out tea.
Mum, thanks so much, she says. Thank you. It’s really kind of you to look after him. It’s always like this. She
’s always thanking Mollie and it’s only right that she should because Mollie does so much to help. She wouldn’t have got through the last eighteen months if Mollie hadn’t come around every day. But what Lara can’t understand is why, no matter how many times she thanks Mollie, it never feels enough. She wishes she could understand. Was it the pimp who seduced Mollie when she was fourteen? Or the fact that Rufus pushed her off a roof? Lara isn’t sure if these stories are true.
You do look better, Mollie says. Much better. It’s what I said. You need to get out a bit more.
Lara tells Mollie about the job.
Darling, how wonderful. I told you there’d be hundreds of jobs for you.
So Mollie has proved right again. She’s always right about everything. It’s never worth going against her advice because she’ll always turn out to be right. And Lara’s success is never her own, always Mollie’s. Lara hates her mother for this, and she hates her for her goodness, and her simplicity and her ability to bear everything with a defiant smile.
Interior design, Mollie says. Right up your street.
Yes, but Mum – it’s full-time and I can’t.
Why not? You could do. If you want to.
Mum, you can’t look after Jay all the time. It isn’t fair. You’ve got enough to do already, with Dad and the guests.
Yes, dear, but I don’t find Jay a trouble. In fact, he keeps me company. He can just play around the place while I’m working. Really he’s no bother.
No, Mum. It’s too much.
Really, dear. I don’t mind in the least. And you’ve got to do something.
But what about Dad?
Well, he’ll just have to get used to it, dear. I mean, Jay is his grandson and he does enjoy having him around, no matter how much he pretends he doesn’t. All that’s the past. Your father has a lot of faults but he doesn’t bear a grudge.
Lara doesn’t bother to contradict this – even though Brunt’s Court is the result of Rufus’s grudge. She could have had Jay at home if it hadn’t been for Rufus. How strange that he has the power to ban her from the Guest House when he doesn’t own it. He must have heard from Mollie about Brunt’s Court. The armies of woodlice crossing the kitchen floor, the snail tracks on the sofa, the axe holes in the front door, the tape over the letter box so that people don’t piss through it – but he’s never suggested that perhaps she should move back home. No, Rufus doesn’t bear a grudge. He just dispenses with anyone who doesn’t fit into his plan.