What Red Was
Page 23
“There are just things you can’t know about a person until you live with them,” she said. “I mean, I always knew he was careful with money. But splitting the cost of toilet roll by usage was just too much.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know. I’d never really thought of myself as a feminist until then, but I really did feel discriminated against.”
“Just because you don’t have a penis,” Kate lamented.
“Exactly.”
“It sucks that it didn’t work out,” Kate said. “But I’m glad you’re here.” She paused. “I’m sorry I’ve been absent these last few months.”
They both knew that it was years since they’d been as open with one another as this. But Kate meant what she said. She could think of few people she would rather be with at that moment. That evening, Kate told her friend what she had been wanting to tell her for months now.
“I had no idea,” Claire said when Kate had finished.
“How would you? We’ve hardly seen each other. I’ve been doing my best to hide it. But you know, I think that might have made it worse.”
“Does Alison know?”
“No.”
“And Max?”
“Yes. But he doesn’t know who.” She told Claire then what she had told Andrew earlier that day: that it was Max’s cousin who was responsible. It felt like a relief this time to say it. Claire was almost more shocked by this piece of information than the news that Kate had been assaulted.
“I suppose,” she said, after a moment’s pause, “this means I probably can’t have sex with Max, doesn’t it?”
Kate laughed. “Not necessarily. I mean, he is single, so…”
Claire patted her on the leg. “I won’t,” she said loyally. “I’ve got your back.”
“It’s part of the reason I had to move out,” Kate said. “The fear of bumping into him has been wearing me down.”
“He was too good to be true, probably, wasn’t he? Max, I mean.”
“We were never together,” Kate said.
“I know. Doesn’t mean it can’t break your heart, though, losing someone like that.”
36
In December, Kate and Claire booked the same train as Max to Gloucestershire, two days before Christmas. The journey from Paddington always felt to Kate like a trip to a former life, but the difference between that old life—or those old lives—and this felt all the more pronounced now she was traveling with Max, as if making the journey together were a futile attempt to travel back to the way things had once been. When she first saw him, slouched on a metal bench in the middle of the concourse, sunglasses on and a weekend bag between his knees, Kate supposed she had been wrong to think that the journey would hold equal significance for him. But he brightened as soon as he saw her, hugged her tightly, and pulled her ahead of Claire with his arm through hers to the platform.
“It might be my last Christmas there,” Max said, as they went through the turnstile. “They’ve got an offer on Bisley House. Some mad local aristocrat wants to buy it.”
“Next year you can come and stay with me and my mum,” Kate said. “I promise not to break everything.”
“Thanks,” said Max, though he didn’t really seem to be listening. Kate thought of her mother’s house—her famous nonalcoholic mulled wine—and was glad that Max had not been more enthused by her invitation.
The train was crowded, the seats and even the aisles filling as soon as it opened its doors, leaving Max, Claire, and Kate, who had been at the back of the queue, still on the platform. Kate had been about to suggest that they wait for a later one, when Claire set off down the platform. In the doorway to the first carriage of the train the guard asked to see their tickets, and Claire took out her standard-class ticket and handed it to him.
“It’s full everywhere else,” she said bluntly.
“OK,” said the guard. “But you need to move into standard after Reading.”
“Excellent work,” said Max to Claire. The first-class carriage was only half full, and he pushed his weekend bag up onto the luggage rail above a set of cushy leather table seats. Once they’d left the station, Claire went to the buffet car to negotiate for them free coffee and biscuits, though the man serving her drew the line at champagne.
“Is it just you and your parents, then, Max?” Claire said when she sat back down.
“And Nicole. She’s my sister. My uncle’s coming too, with my cousin.”
“Who’s your cousin?” Claire ignored Kate, who was widening her eyes in alarm.
“Lewis. You know Lewis, right?” Max looked at Kate, who nodded.
“He gave me a lift,” she said. “Back from Bisley one year.”
“I remember.”
“And he was at one of your parties. Just before we moved in together. Eighteen months ago.”
“Oh yeah, at my parents’ house.” Max fell silent for a moment. “Bit of a weird guy.”
“Weird how?” said Claire. Kate’s heart was thumping, but now Claire had started, she didn’t want her to stop.
“I don’t know, just a bit tricky. Always on the defensive. He’s upset about the house, actually.”
“Why?” said Kate. She couldn’t imagine Lewis being upset about anything.
“Just doesn’t want them to sell it. Thinks it should stay in the family and that we’re being ripped off. I don’t really get it, though. I know my dad’s sad about it, but he did actually grow up there, unlike Lewis. Like I said, weird guy.”
Claire didn’t ask any more, though a part of Kate had hoped that she would. Part of her was enjoying this subtle power she and Claire now shared. Claire put her earphones in, and she and Max both started to doze somewhere past Reading: the guard had forgotten to come to ask them to move. Kate looked out the window, wondering how it would be if they could choose never to reach their destination and instead remain beneath this rushing sky. People would be upset, she supposed. Not least the other passengers. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud tapping on the table between them, whose cause, Kate saw, was an ivory-tipped stick held by an elderly woman in a tweed jacket.
“Young Max,” said the woman, peering over Max. Kate shoved him in the shoulder, and he jolted awake.
“Oh my God,” he said, when he saw the face looming above him. “Hello, Lady Caroline.”
“I thought it was you,” said Lady Caroline. “I could hear somebody talking about Bisley House, and I thought it must be one of the young Rippon boys. You, or the other one.”
“Granny always said you had good hearing,” Max said loyally. Later, he explained to Claire and Kate that Lady Caroline was always claiming to be deaf in order to lull her bridge opponents into a false sense of security. Lady Caroline reached up and twisted her hearing aid that, Max also claimed, was just for show.
“And are you taking these young ladies to see the house? You must be sure to make him show you the walled gardens,” she said, speaking to Claire and Kate now. “He’ll try to avoid it in this cold weather, but now I’ve told you that you must see the winter jasmine you’ll keep at him, won’t you?”
“We’re not going to Bisley,” Kate said. “We’re both from Randwick.”
“This is Claire,” Max said, “and Kate. Who I went to university with.”
“Oh,” said Lady Caroline, who had only ever been to Randwick to attend community outreach events.
“Lewis and Nicole are both still working,” Max said, taking advantage of Lady Caroline’s momentary speechlessness. “They’re coming down together tomorrow, though. And my parents are already there.”
“And your Uncle Rupert? Has he recovered from that awful virus?”
“Oh,” Max said. “That was, like, two years ago.”
Lady Caroline was not going to be put off, though. “I know how these dreadful things can persist,” she said.<
br />
“He’s much better, thanks,” Max said.
“He is often in my prayers,” she said gravely. “Well,” she went on, “I shall see you soon. Alasdair has told you I’m turfing you all out, no doubt. I’m coming by next week to value the paintings.”
“Well,” said Max wildly, “I’ll see you really soon then. That’s great.”
When at last she retreated, tapping her stick against every other seat as she made her way down the aisle, Max collapsed back in his seat. “Maybe Lewis is right about the house. Maybe we should take it back off the market and install a drawbridge.”
“What virus?” Kate said.
“The Rippon euphemism for depression,” Max said, rolling his eyes. “Nobody wants to admit it runs in the family, apparently.”
“Really? Doesn’t that bother Rupert?”
“I don’t know,” Max said, shrugging. “It was only really Granny who used to say it.”
“And Lady Caroline.” Kate caught Claire’s eye.
“And Lady Caroline,” said Max, ignoring the cynicism in Kate’s voice. “So she’s the one buying the house. It’s a terrible investment, but clearly she hasn’t been put off. She’s only doing it because she hated my grandmother.”
“I think she’s excellent,” said Claire, putting her earphones back in. “I can’t wait to be that old.”
* * *
—
Kate and Claire got off the train one stop before Max. Claire’s mother picked them up at the station and dropped Kate home. When Kate got to the door, the old knot in her chest started tightening again. She had avoided coming home for nearly the entire year and had seen her mother only once or twice up in London. Alison hugged her at the door, and Kate pulled away after only a second or two, fearing that by their proximity Alison would be able to sense the damage Kate had done to her own body, Alison’s own flesh and blood, since last they’d seen one another.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” Alison said as Kate disappeared upstairs with her bag.
In her bedroom, she was overwhelmed not by the sense of loss or nostalgia that she had felt when she had been there the year before, but by numbness. There was nothing new for her to feel here, there was only the old sadness of which she would never be rid. Alison brought her a cup of tea and lingered in the doorway while Kate began to unpack. Later, Kate ate half a bowl of pasta while Alison asked her a series of earnest and irrelevant questions. When Kate cleared away her plate, she put up the volume on the radio.
She was sluggish, reticent. Her hands shook as she washed up her bowl, and she thought then of smashing it deliberately, just for the sake of breaking something. She didn’t understand her own impulses. This was, after all, supposed to be a place of safety, and here she was, wanting to ruin it. Alison stood next to her with her own bowl, waiting to use the sink, but Kate took it from her and washed it up, too. As Alison cleared the rest of the table, Kate washed and pocketed the knife Alison had used to chop the onion.
Upstairs, Kate locked the bathroom door and turned on the bath taps. She undressed and looked at herself in the mirror. Her body was pale from months of winter, and her belly and the tops of her thighs were soft, a little rounded, though less so than they once were. How raw she looked, how uncooked. The bath was too hot, and its heat sent a flush of red up her calf, and set sweat prickling in her underarms and on her forehead. She fought with herself for a moment, until her desire for masochism was overridden by her body’s protective instincts, which would not allow her to put her foot in the water for more than a second or two, and settled instead on the cold edge of the bathtub, her feet balanced on the opposite side, running the cold tap into the water.
She ran the knife she had taken from the kitchen along her thigh, waiting for the clarity that usually came moments before cutting. But she could hear the radio downstairs and the sound of pots and pans being returned to cupboards. In her mind’s eye she saw Andrew, his fingers tracing scars, holding back on whatever it was that he wanted to say to her. She put the knife down.
Once she had dried herself, she rubbed moisturizer into her legs, the tops of her thighs, and her stomach. It was coconut-scented and sickly, and stuck to her leggings as she pulled them on over her still-hot skin. Downstairs, her face still pink from the bath, she curled up on the sofa and pulled a blanket over her. When Alison came in, she turned on the television and sat next to Kate. Alison stroked her hair, plaiting it and then brushing out the plaits with her fingers before plaiting it again.
37
William was waiting for Max at the station with the radio on, and when Max got into the car he turned the volume down only a notch. He was listening to the final five minutes of a panel show repeat that Max recognized from Saturday lunchtimes at Latimer Crescent, when the four of them would sit around the kitchen table and William would laugh too loudly. He wasn’t laughing now, just humming quietly to himself, but until the show ended it absorbed all of his attention.
Max turned off the radio as the credits began to play. “Who’s already here?” he said.
“Your mother,” said William, glancing in his wing mirror, “and Rupert. He’s in good form, actually.” Inevitably, there was a note of surprise in his voice.
“And how’s the house?”
“You’ll see. It’s all rather sad, Max. I’m a little cut up about it, to tell you the truth.”
“You grew up there.”
“Quite. And, well. I just can’t help but feel things are changing for us, Max.”
“What do you mean?”
William shook his head. “Straight after somebody dies, you want to keep everybody together. Overlook differences. Forgive. One feels very resistant to change. But, inevitably, time passes, nearly four years now, and we have to let go of some of the things we’ve been holding on to. Objects, beliefs. Even hope. That’s what your mother is always telling me, anyway.”
“Is this about the bakery?” Max said. “Your sourdough starter?”
“Oh, Christ. No. Little fucker went moldy,” said William. “The wrong kind of mold, I mean, pink and scaly. Started to develop some kind of counter-culture, evidently. I had to throw it away.”
“Did you see Lady Caroline at the station?” Max said. “She had her driver waiting right by the platform. She cornered me on the train, trying to work out whether I was going out with Kate or her friend.”
“Oh, how is Kate?” said William.
Max shrugged. “Yeah, OK. New flat seems nice.”
William fell silent. “Good,” he said after a while.
* * *
—
The “For Sale” sign outside the house came into view at the top of the lane, before even the high limestone walls were visible. When Max had last been to Bisley House its chaos had at least been contained, boxed behind barely closed doors, hidden beneath dust sheets, none of it visible from the outside; but now there stood a dumpster on the front drive that was beginning to overflow with broken pieces of furniture, with those same boxes that had themselves split open. It was dark already, and so were the upper floors of the house: they were keeping to the lower floors, William explained, which had not yet been cleared.
William had insisted on buying a Christmas tree, but the decorations had been packed away somewhere obscure, so it was decorated only in the oversized outdoor lights he had brought in from the front—the same lights Zara had watched him wind around the driveway’s leafless trees the year before. The books had gone from the shelves, and the large spice rack that had hung next to the stove was bare. To Max, Bisley House looked far more like an extravagant holiday house than a home. Before he unpacked he circuited the upper floors and saw that the master bedroom and most of the spare rooms, including the one Kate had slept in last year, had been stripped of their mattresses, their furniture covered in white sheets.
Max was restless. Last year’s Christmas, w
hen Elias, who was spending this year’s holiday in Miami, had managed to either insult or irritate almost everybody, when Rupert had been mostly bed-bound, and Kate had turned up with a bloodied hand before vomiting everywhere, had by no means been perfect. But he quite liked a crisis, and he had enjoyed the feeling of being holed up in Bisley House, shut away with the people he was closest to, keeping the outside world from coming in. This year the house felt too quiet, too empty. So far his mother had spent most of her time trying to work through the last of her notes before they went on to editing, and William, who looked like he had aged about ten years somewhere between London and Gloucestershire, shuffled around the upper floors wearing his mother’s pink woolen hat and gloves and moving boxes from one end of the house to the other.
William had refused halfhearted offers of help from both Max and Rupert, and, on the afternoon Max arrived, the two of them had sat at the kitchen table. Max sat opposite his uncle, who was calmly reading a magazine. Max was waiting for Rupert to say something, but he just kept on turning the pages, sipping the tea he had made for himself, and as Max watched him he felt a sudden urge to rip the glossy pages from his hands. Instead, he got up and found a beer in the fridge.
“Do you mind?” he said a little more aggressively than he’d meant to. The question was only nominal: he had already taken the top off.
“Christ, no,” Rupert said, looking up. “It’s Christmas. How else is one expected to survive?”
“Cheers,” Max said, pushing his beer toward Rupert’s mug, and clinking it. He paused, and took a sip, studying Rupert’s face as he did so. With the first sip of beer, he felt his momentary aggravation begin to ebb. Rupert’s graying hair was shorter and neater nowadays, his skin less pink: a symptom of sobriety. “Will you never drink again?” Max said.