by Lex Lander
Now it really was over.
To a silent outcry from bruised and mangled limbs I struck out for the dinghy.
Thirty-Five
My sister’s pleasure at finding me on her doorstep was not obvious. The cheek I kissed was frigid, the look searching and rimed with frost, the armful of red carnations accepted without thanks or comment.
‘Are my flies undone?’ I cracked, looking pointedly down.
‘Oh no, you’re quite immaculate,’ she replied, adding, as we went through the hall towards the living room, a sardonic ‘As usual.’
What was that supposed to mean? I wondered. To create a solid, respectable presence for the promised explanations I was soberly suited under a tweed overcoat. Maybe she saw through this for the window-dressing it was.
‘Is it that time of the month then?’ I said spitefully as I chucked my coat over an armchair back, only to have it whisked huffily away. I folded my frame into a second armchair, Willie’s favourite TV-goggling perch. Willie himself wasn’t home, no doubt still slaving over a hot desk someplace in the City.
Julie had chosen to ignore my last question. Rightly so.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered to her resentful back.
She stepped away from the carnations, now gracefully arranged in a fat vase fashioned in the shape of a woman’s torso. She was in her pearls and twin-set mode, her hair drawn back into a severe bun. Her appearance alone spelled hard times to come.
‘Do you want some coffee?’ she asked, an unbending of sorts. ‘It’s freshly perked.’
‘Not for now. Are the girls home?’
‘Which ones?’ A quick, false smile. ‘Cathy and Christina are at school. Lizzy is … upstairs.’ Her look was now decidedly hostile. ‘Waiting for you to take her away.’
The message was beginning to seep through. My bad odour was connected with Lizzy.
‘How is Lizzy?’
‘As well as can be expected,’ she said stiffly.
‘Good.’
‘Drew …’ she began, then made a little noise in the back of her throat and put her fingers over her mouth as if she were about to burp. Now she was avoiding my eyes.
I guessed she would find it easier addressing my back, so I got up and sauntered over to the French window that accessed a terrace and a wilderness of back yard. The bare branches of the horse-chestnut tree were like a fracture in the surly February sky. Near the top a solitary leaf bobbed from the very tip of a branch, dead but refusing to let go. The lawn was an anaemic grey-green, dormant pending the arrival of spring; in the centre was a stone pedestal with a sundial on top. The tip of the gnomon was broken off.
‘Drew …’ Julie began again, dubious, tentative. ‘Look … this is very difficult for me, your being my brother, but there are some things I have to know.’
‘Such as?’
A few seconds of silence.
‘Are you …’ An audible swallow. ‘Are you aware that Lizzy … oh my God … is on drugs … heroin? I mean …’ I visualised Julie behind me, twisting the pearls into knots as she was wont to do under stress. ‘I mean she’s addicted to the stuff.’
‘Yes.’ My voice was strained.
‘And not only that, she’s … in love with you.’
My shoulders slumped. My ‘yes’ was lower, subdued.
‘Did she tell you that?’ I said a moment later.
‘Yes, but don’t be angry with her, please. She’s so unhappy. She had to talk to someone.’
‘I’m not angry with her, Jules,’ I said tiredly, turning. She was, as expected, abstractedly knotting her pearls. Later, Christina would be given the job of unravelling them. She was rather proficient at it, exploiting her prowess by charging for the service.
‘Anyway,’ Julie went on miserably, ‘I just wondered how far it had gone. She’s an extremely attractive girl. Looks older than she is too, which doesn’t help.’
Attractive? Didn’t I know it. I who had held out against her teasing allure for months.
‘She behaves and talks as if you and she …’ Being something of a moralist-traditionalist, she couldn’t bring herself to accuse me of having sexual relations with a girl of sixteen.
‘Forget it!’ I said, and it came out harsh. Julie’s indrawn breath told me she interpreted my brusque dismissal as an admission of guilt.
A barrier reared between us. I glowered down at her, breathing hard through my nostrils, technically innocent of the charge, morally culpable. Julie wasn’t cowed. Now the subject was out in the open, she would pursue it, terrier-like, to a conclusion. She took a cigarette from the carved ebony case on the coffee table. A reformed smoker, it was unusual for her to partake of the weed nowadays.
‘It’s not you I’m concerned about so much as Lizzy. You can fight your own battles. But she’s alone in the world, and needs some stability in her life, whatever she’s done or had done to her.’ Creases of anxiety forked from the bridge of Julie’s nose. ‘Tell me the truth, Drew, something has been going on, hasn’t it?’
‘You silly bitch! She’s a drug addict. Of course something’s been going on!’
‘You know very well what I mean,’ came the stiff retort, and any further pretence on my part was pointless. ‘I mean between Lizzy and you.’
‘I screwed her, you mean? Why don’t you come out and say it?’
It was as if I’d slapped her. She shrank from me, horrified.
‘You … you admit it?’
‘Like hell I do!’ I roared, my self-control shattering. Under her harassed gaze I began to stalk the room. ‘The things that have been “going on”, as you put it, were not my doing. And the creatures responsible have paid for it. That’s all I’m prepared to say.’
‘That’s not good enough. I want to hear to hear the full story.’
‘No, Jules.’ This story was not for telling. Ever. ‘I couldn’t talk about it, not even to you. Better to stay ignorant. You might … over-react. I wouldn’t want you to, well, start erecting electrified fences around the yard and confining Cathy and Christina indoors on account of what I might tell you.’
‘It’s as bad as that?’
It’s worse than that, I could have said.
‘These, er …creatures you mention. How, specifically, did they pay for what they did to Lizzy? Were they arrested?’
‘They paid,’ I said without melodrama, ‘in the only way that was acceptable to me.’
She stubbed out her cigarette, and picked at the snarled-up pearls. ‘I see,’ she said, fortunately not seeing at all.
Visions of AnnRik forging through the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar with her consignment of corpses shut out the oak beams and the rustic decor and the crackling fire.
The battleship grey of the sky had dimmed to charcoal; night was falling early. Dismal weather for a depressing topic. I went to join Julie on the couch, and placed my arm around her shoulders. Such intimate displays, despite our mutual fondness, were rare, and her instinct was to stiffen, to resist my overtures. Then, with a tiny sigh, she relaxed against me. Runaway wisps of golden hair tickled my cheek. I blew them away.
‘Sorry … about the hair, I mean.’ Her hand touched my cheek tentatively. ‘About my suspicions too, I suppose. But we really must decide what to do about Lizzy. She’s expecting you to take her back with you to Andorra. To live together.’ The hand was removed as some of her lingering doubts staged a comeback.
‘So? She’s well over the age of consent.’
‘Is that what you want – to marry her?’
Reproof was woven into the words.
‘Now that you mention it, yes, I could bear to shack up with her …’
‘André!’ She jerked free of my arm. Her calling me by my full name was a sure mark of displeasure. The pearls were back in action. ‘You’re over twice her age!’
‘If I might finish? I was about to say, I could bear to shack up with her, but I’m not going to. At a practical level, it wouldn’t work. The age difference, chiefly. I don’t kid mysel
f that when I’m sixty and she’s thirty-six or seven, that she’ll still feel the same about me. Secondly, more importantly, I made a promise. I owe her a different kind of care and protection.’ I hesitated, feeling that once I said it, I would be committed. My sigh was visceral. ‘The parental kind.’
‘You made a promise? To whom?’
‘To myself, dear sister. That means it’s sacred.’
‘I see.’ Julie rested an elbow on the back of the couch, speared me with the brilliant blue eyes that matched mine so exactly it was like looking into a mirror. ‘Well, I have a better solution. Willie and I have discussed it, and we’d be willing for her to stay with us, for a few months at least, and maybe, if it works out, for longer.’
‘Sounds great,’ I said without enthusiasm.
‘On one condition …’
‘With you, Jules, there’s always a catch.’
‘You can visit her here as often as you like, but I’m not having any goings-on in the house.’
I couldn’t help laughing.
‘You’re not listening to me, Jules. Whatever Lizzy’s aspirations, she and I will not be having conjugal rights.’
Her expression reflected her scepticism.
‘You don’t trust me?’ I said, not really blaming her.
‘Trust you or not, the point is she’ll be better off as part of a family. We’re prepared to provide a home, to feed her, clothe her, love her too, I suppose. Even with the drugs and things, she’s a likeable girl. Perhaps even adopt her, if that seems the wisest course. We’ll get her the best medical treatment, get her cured. Whatever’s necessary, we’ll do it.’
As homes go I couldn’t do better for Lizzy. What it might do for me if I were leave her here was best put aside. There would be opportunity and to spare to brood over it in the long, lonely days ahead.
And in the longer, lonelier nights.
Julie agreed to my seeing Lizzy alone to break the news.
‘You’re allowed half-an-hour. Then I’m coming in, whether you’ve finished crying on each other’s shoulders or not. Understood?’
‘You’re a hard woman, Jules,’ I said.
‘I’d prefer strong to hard.’
‘I love you, little sis.’ If I’d ever told her so before it was beyond remembrance.
Her stern manner softened.
‘It’s mutual, big brother. I just wish …’
‘Wish what?’
Regret shadowed her handsome features.
‘It sounds silly, but I just wish I knew who you really are.’
Then she left me, to ponder in solitude that parting remark and the other things that had passed between us.
The pondering only lasted until Lizzy came. Crashing in like a bracing wind to shred the sombre atmosphere. Alive and aglow and achingly lovely. I had forgotten how lovely. The living reminder was exquisite pain.
‘Oh, Alan, Alan … I’ve missed you so. Sorry, I mean André.’
She was all over me, demonstrative as ever, her slender body hot through the rather dowdy woollen dress I hadn’t seen on her before (Julie’s influence?). She looked well enough. Slightly pinched around the cheeks and her pupils were dilated from drugs, but she had put on a bit of weight and her erstwhile zest and sparkle were firmly back in situ. The facial alterations were, unfortunately, permanent.
Telling her was going to be tough. I managed to fend off her kisses by swinging her round and round, and hugging her. Only by keeping the contact platonic could I hope to walk out on her.
‘How are you?’ I asked her.
‘Ace. Wonderful. Stupendiferous. Now that you’re here.’ Her arms were around my waist, her lips close to mine. Too close for sanity.
‘Have you been all right here?’
‘Terrif. Your sister’s a real beaut. Ever so kind.’
‘That’s good,’ I said abruptly. ‘Then you won’t mind staying on a while.’
The joy slid from her face like water off sealskin.
‘Staying on?’
I came straight, almost brutally, to the point. Told her that whatever there had been between us was over. That I would visit her here at Julie’s from time to time and that would be the sum total of our connection. That it should be so was better all round, I assured her, and most of all for her. We were all thinking only of her.
When I had spouted my piece and it had sunk in, she just stared dumbly at me like a kicked puppy.
‘Trust me, Freckles,’ I said, hating myself and the medicinal compound I was stuffing down her. ‘Here you can have a good life, a normal life. You’ll go to college, get some professional qualifications, spend vacations with Julie and Willie and the girls. They’re going skiing in Austria next month …’ I was selling hard, though my faith in the commodity was tenuous.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said, as if she hadn’t heard a word of it. ‘Don’t you want me anymore?’
Deep inside me, a lacerating.
‘Don’t be silly. This has nothing to do with what I want. It’s to do with what’s right for you, for both of us. You can’t wish a twenty year age gap away.’
Her face turned to stone.
‘You can’t maybe.’ Her eyes searched mine for a chink to prise apart. ‘I’ve only got you. Do you want me to beg? I will, if that’s what you want. I will beg.’ To my horror she fell to her knees and clung to me. ‘It’s not fair. Please take me with you. Please!’
I lifted her forcibly, held her at arm’s length. ‘Lizzy, believe me, I hate doing this. It’s just common sense.’ It was meant to sound firm and final, but she scented underlying indecision.
‘Please, Alan, sorry, André. I couldn’t bear it if you went away.’
I cast around helplessly, but nobody was about to come to my rescue. The floor didn’t swallow me up either.
‘Oh, I know about the risks of marrying outside your age group and all that shit,’ she said with scorn. ‘Perhaps that’s right, perhaps it can’t work. But what’s the harm in giving it a whirl. All I know is I love you like crazy, and if it all falls apart some day in the future what’s the difference between that and it all falling apart today. If we’re still both going to be miserable I’d rather put it off as long as I can.’
It made a weird kind of sense. It still didn’t move me.
‘No, honey. Leave it be.’ I took her hands, squeezed them. ‘Stay with Julie. I’ll come to visit you. We’ll have days out together.’
Her mouth had the stubborn set I recognised so well.
‘Days out together,’ she mimicked. ‘What will we do – go to the zoo? Have picnics in the country? Oh, how lovely! You know, sometimes you talk to me as if I’m a kid.’
‘Give me a break here. I’m trying to do the right thing.’
She looked as if she wanted to hit me.
‘Fuck you! And fuck the right thing! You know what I think?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I don’t believe I’ll ever see you again. I think you’re going away and not coming back.’ Her eyes were fierce, her hands made into fists. The temptation to embrace her, to comfort her, to take back every last hurtful utterance was unbearable. The house of cards of my good intentions was in danger of collapse.
Then she took a step back. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? You’re going to leave me and never come back.’
‘I have to come back,’ I stalled. ‘Julie’s my sister …’
‘You can get round that. You could make sure I’m out, or arrange to meet her away from the house, or … or, oh, anything at all.’
‘Sweetheart …’
‘Tell the truth, André !’ She began to beat at me with her fists. ‘Don’t be a coward. Tell the truth!’
‘All right, all right! You’re right, I’m not coming back. Seeing you now and again would be worse than never seeing you at all. Are you bloody satisfied?’
Although she had prophesied it accurately, her hand flew to her mouth. Ashen, the grey eyes wide, believing yet disbelieving, she backed away as if I were a dangerous animal about to
pounce.
I stretched my arms towards her, inviting her inside, my need to have her close to me this one last time probably even greater than hers. But she warded me off, making little mewing noises. When I took a step towards her, she whirled round and ran to the door.
‘Lizzy, wait!’ I shouted, but she had the door open and was gone. Her heels clattered across the hall, another door slammed.
I started after her and cannoned into Julie.
‘What on earth’s going on?’ she demanded as we clutched at each other, tottering. ‘Was that Lizzy I just heard?’
‘Yes,’ I snarled. ‘She doesn’t agree with the decision we made about her future.’
She held on to me, restraining me from pursuit. ‘Oh André, André, what did you expect? Calm acceptance? She’s bound to be upset. She’ll get over it. A month from now she’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.’ She shook me gently. ‘Believe me.’
Oh, I believed her all right. The trouble was, Lizzy learning to live without me was what I feared most. Doing the right thing, I decided, was a painful business. It was, nevertheless, the right thing. About that I had not the slightest doubt.
I left without seeing Lizzy again. No goodbyes, no parting hugs. I simply had to get out of there. It was dark. It was raining. I walked, wandered rather, through suburban streets. Hoping to burn off the torture and the torment. First Clair, now Lizzy. How many blows can a man absorb before becoming punch-drunk?
Cars scurried past, the rain highlighted in the flare of their headlights. People came towards me beneath tilted umbrellas, intent only on getting out of the rain, getting home. To live their cosy suburban lives, wrestle with their petty, suburban problems. To ogle TV, to decorate the bathroom, to plan vacations, build castles in Spain, pay the electricity account, make out shopping lists; eat, sleep, make love. Had my life ever been as ordered as that? If so it was gone for good, never to return.
Then all was noise and light: a white glare, intense, dispersing the darkness. Locked wheels rasping on asphalt, air brakes hissing, the blast of a horn.
A shout. ‘Oi! What the fuck are you playin’ at?’