by Kerstin Gier
As if someone had turned on a faucet inside me, I began shedding tears. They ran down my cheeks, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Oh, damn it! This was too much! That stupid door had to be somewhere here. Blinded by tears, I felt my way along the wall.
“Liv!” Henry took my forearm in both hands and turned me around to face him. Without stopping to think, I freed myself with the move I’d practiced with Mr. Wu over and over again, until it was part of my flesh and blood. And when Henry immediately made another grab for me, I drove my fist into his sternum. That was the gua tong choy move.
But instead of bending double under the force of my blow, Henry put out his hands and tried mopping the tears off my cheeks. “Livvy, please! Don’t run away.”
He was back in jeans and T-shirt again, and perfectly dry, and that made me furious as well. He obviously had the nerve to think of his outward appearance in this situation, while I was wandering around the place on green feet, naked, soaking wet, and in floods of tears.
To make matters worse, he made a bathrobe appear out of nothing and held it out to me. And yes, there was definitely pity in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that, Liv,” he said softly. “Here, put this on.”
That was the moment when my tears dried up, and I went rigid with fury. It cost me only a tenth of a second to get myself fully clothed and without a hair out of place. I’d even imagined my glasses on. And now at last I could see clearly again: there was a door covered with fabric right beside me.
“There we are,” I replied, and even my voice was rigid—frozen rigid as an icicle. I raised my chin and looked straight into Henry’s gray eyes. “Sorry to have disturbed your rendezvous. I had no idea you fancied older women. She’s terrific, no doubt about it—except maybe for her musical tastes.” Celine Dion was still yowling over the loudspeakers, saying her love was safe in her heart, her heart was still beating, and life went on. How nice for her. “But, hey, you can’t have everything.”
I tossed my hair back, turned on my heel, and flung the door open. I’d studied the art of making a dramatic exit from watching Florence. Stupidly, I had picked the wrong door. This one led into a cupboard full of towels.
Damn it, damn it, damn it! I couldn’t even make a proper exit.
Behind me, Henry said my name again, but before I could turn to face him, I felt heavy pressure on my chest. And then I made a dramatic exit after all, because a gigantic furry ginger paw broke through the domed roof and kicked me out of B’s dream.
18
IT WASN’T REALLY a gigantic paw, because Spot’s paw was rather small by comparison with the rest of him, and he was patting my cheek with it. The cat was sitting on my chest, purring loudly, and I was so grateful to him for waking me from my dream that I didn’t even scold him. In fact, I let him go on sitting there and tickled him under the chin until my pulse had calmed down a little. I’d never before longed so much to be back when a bad dream was nothing but a bad dream. There was a large lump in my throat, because the tears I’d shed in my dream had all gathered there. But I knew that if I gave way to my urge to cry it would be like breaching a dam—there’d be no stopping it. So I tried to concentrate on the soothing sound of the cat’s purr and just not think.
However, Spot wasn’t there simply to be tickled under the chin. He gave me a gentle reminder in the form of another pat on my cheek.
“How did you get in here, anyway, kitty?” I cautiously put him on the floor, switched on the bedside lamp, and got out of bed. Someone must have opened my door, because I’d definitely closed it before going to sleep.
“Or have you found out how to push door handles down?” Spot was still purring as he rubbed around my legs. I glanced at my alarm clock. Three thirty. Presumably the cat wanted to go out on his usual nocturnal mouse hunt. Normally, Grayson was responsible for letting him out (it was also Grayson who had to remove the dead voles that Spot brought home and left on the doormat), but today Spot seemed to have chosen me to open the door.
“Okay, come on, then,” I said, and Spot went out the half-open door ahead of me. He waited at the top of the stairs as I checked that Mia was in bed and sleeping peacefully (she was). Downstairs, I opened the door from the kitchen to the terrace for him, and as usual he suddenly wasn’t in any hurry, but sat in the doorway washing himself, while I stepped from foot to foot to keep warm as I slowly froze into an icicle. All the same, I watched Spot regretfully when he finally felt like setting off. There had been something comforting about his presence. Or at least, it had kept my thoughts occupied. When I went back to bed, I felt sure I’d have the images from my dream before my eyes at once: Henry taking off his bathrobe and plunging into the whirlpool; Henry smiling at B; Henry saying, in a deep voice, A woman like you shouldn’t let anyone treat her so badly.
A woman like you … Instead of going back to bed, I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. Without glasses or contact lenses, I couldn’t see myself very clearly, but even so I knew I couldn’t compete with B. I was the opposite of beautiful, grown-up, and sexy. It was pathetic.
As if on cue, I thought of all the nasty things Secrecy had written and the comments of the other students. Maybe they were right to say that Henry and I hadn’t slept with each other yet only because I was too childish and immature for him.
The opposite of desirable.
And then, without further warning, my tears began to flow, and Spot wasn’t there to take my mind off them. I was unable to stop crying, although I really did try to. I hung over the basin, bent double as if I had a bad stomach upset, and cried harder than ever before in my life.
When someone knocked on the door, I couldn’t have said how much time had passed. I didn’t want to know either. I didn’t want to know anything anymore. There must be some way of deleting the last few hours from my memory. The only question was, where could I find a hypnotist to do it for me in a hurry? Apparently electric shocks could do it, too, but perhaps the hard bathroom tiles would work if I just banged my head on them hard enough. There was another knock on the door.
“Liv? Are you in there?” That was Grayson, and he sounded tired and irritated.
Couldn’t I be left in peace in this house, even at night? I wanted to be alone. Alone with the tiles on the bathroom floor. “Go … go and use the guest toilet, Grayson,” I said, sounding just as irritated. The worst of my sobbing was over, but it had left me with hiccups.
Grayson muttered something to himself on the other side of the door.
Even without contact lenses, I could tell from the mirror that my face was blotchy and my eyes swollen. I tried cold water, but that did nothing for me, so I took a cotton pad, soaked it in Florence’s orange face tonic, and dabbed my face with it. It didn’t do anything about the blotchiness either, but at least it smelled delicious. What I needed was soothing face cream. Maybe I’d find some among Florence’s expensive little pots and jars, although Mia and I were forbidden to touch them on pain of death. So far I hadn’t, but now I felt an urgent need to unscrew the golden lid of one of them. Calendula cream. I couldn’t read the small print, but calendula sounded healthy and reassuring, the natural enemy of red blotches. I slapped plenty of it on my face.
“I can hardly break the door down, can I?” Grayson was obviously still leaning on the other side of it.
“No, but you can—hic—just go away,” I said.
“I’m not talking to you—and no, I can’t, not without rousing the whole house.… Liv, what are you doing in there?”
“Have you—hic—lost your marbles?”
I could hear Grayson’s sigh through the door. “Not cutting your wrists, are you?”
What? “No, I’m rubbing cream into my face.” And now the delicate little golden glass lid slipped out of my hand and fell into the basin. “Oh, damn it! Hic.”
“Did you hear me? You’re fine, both of you.”
Who was he talking to out there? I hoped it wasn’t Florence. She’d murder me when she found
out that the lid of her calendula cream was cracked. Maybe I could conceal it with a little gold nail polish? I’d seen some on Florence’s toenails the other day. I opened the drawer where she kept her bottles of nail polish, about sixty of them.
“No, you idiot, I can’t see it with my own eyes,” said Grayson outside the door in annoyance. “Because I don’t happen to be able to see through walls … No, how could I … Liv, please open the door! I have to convince myself that you’re all right with my own eyes.”
“You’re out of your mind,” I said. There—gold nail polish, next to a bottle of pale brown! Florence had sorted them out by color.
“Don’t say that, Henry, not to me,” said Grayson.
The little bottle of nail polish slipped out of my hands, but I just managed to catch it before it hit the tiled floor. Henry! The shock had cured my hiccups as if by magic.
“He couldn’t reach you on your cell phone, so he called me,” said Grayson. “And now he’s driving me insane and keeping me here outside the bathroom door.”
Fingers flying, I opened the bathroom door, and Grayson, dazzled by the light, narrowed his eyes. Silently, he held out his iPhone to me. “At last!”
I put my hand out, but then I couldn’t bring myself to take the phone. The mere idea of hearing Henry’s voice …
“Tell him I’m asleep,” I whispered.
Grayson rolled his eyes. “It’s a bit late for that. Anyway, I was asleep myself, and he couldn’t have cared less.” He yawned. “Liv, can’t you two sort out your problems in the daytime?”
No, I was afraid our problems couldn’t be sorted out at all. Either by day or night.
Grayson put the phone to his ear again. “Did you hear that? She doesn’t want to talk to you. But like I said, she’s fine.”
Oh, sure. I was really, really fine. Except for the tears coming to my eyes again.
“What?” Grayson was looking at me rather more thoroughly now that he was used to the light. He frowned. “Yes, I tell you! Perfectly normal. And now I’m ending this call, okay? It’s four thirty, and we’re all supposed to be fast asleep right now. If you call again, I’m not answering, is that clear? See you at practice.” With a snort, he ended the call. “What have you been doing to him?”
“What have I been doing to him?” I felt like snorting myself now, which helped a bit to get the tears under control. “I only disturbed him getting up close and personal with someone else, that’s all. Do you happen to know a woman called B?”
“Shhh!” Grayson reached past me and switched off the bathroom light. “Don’t go waking everyone else too!”
“I haven’t finished in here,” I said, switching the light on again.
“Oh, yes you have.” Grayson switched it off. “You ought to be in bed. Have you seen yourself in the mirror? You look terrible.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I tried to slam the bathroom door in his face, but he got between me and it, took my arm, and hauled me out into the corridor.
“We have an important game this afternoon, and our coach wants us to have extra practice. I’ve had enough of all this. I need some sleep.”
“Then go to bed, why don’t you?” I made a halfhearted attempt to shake off his grip, but I was thankful at heart that he had made me leave the bathroom. Otherwise I’d probably have spent days in there, doing stupid things with my head, the tiles, and Florence’s nail polish.
But Grayson wasn’t to be shaken off just like that. He didn’t let go of me until we were in my room and he had closed the door behind us. Then he leaned back on it and took two deep breaths.
So did I. I could see the pity in Grayson’s glance even in the poor light of my bedside lamp, and it was hard to take. I narrowed my eyes. I mustn’t cry in front of him. I wouldn’t either.
“What’s that on your face?”
“You mean my nose? Ugly, isn’t it? Like everything about me. No wonder Henry doesn’t want me.”
“I meant that white stuff…” Grayson raised his forefinger and ran it over my forehead. I’d forgotten all about Florence’s calendula cream. I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
“You’re not in the least ugly, Liv, just rather blotchy in the face—and like you’d been crying your eyes out.” Grayson looked at me seriously. “As for Henry … I’ve no idea what’s been going on between you two, but I’ve never seen him so distraught.”
Distraught? I doubted whether he needed calendula cream himself.
“What are you two getting up to in your dreams?” Grayson suddenly sounded angry. “Why don’t you simply stop it and concentrate on real life? Heaven knows that’s complicated enough.”
“You’ll have to ask Henry that question.” I let myself drop facedown on my bed. “Anyway, what you feel in dreams is just as real.” Unfortunately. And sure enough I started crying again. Oh, shit.
“One more reason to keep away from them.”
I’d buried my face in my pillows, but I could hear Grayson coming closer. He hesitantly sat down on the edge of my bed.
“Whatever happened between you is your business,” he said, and his tone of voice was considerably gentler now. “But I do know one thing: Henry would never hurt you, Liv.”
Oh, wouldn’t he? He just did. I stifled a sob in my pillow.
“I promise you that’s true,” said Grayson, a little more firmly. “I’ve known him since we first went to school, and since he met you … he’s been entirely different.”
I sat up abruptly. “Oh yes? Different how?”
A shadow fell on Grayson’s face. “It’s difficult to explain that to you.”
I wrinkled my nose angrily. “But an explanation would be really helpful,” I said. I’d meant to say that with an undertone of sarcasm, but it came out as a pathetic plea.
Grayson looked as if he’d rather be somewhere else. “Henry…” He hesitated again. “Henry’s had … quite a few girlfriends before, okay?”
Yes. Well. Good explanation. No doubt preferring older girlfriends who looked fantastic in whirlpools. If that was the best Grayson could do to cheer me up, I ought to have tried the bathroom tiles.
“But none of them ever lasted for long. And it was all superficial,” said Grayson hastily. He had guilt all over his face. “Henry never let anyone get really close to him, but it’s not like that with you. He’s different. He’s…” Grayson paused for a moment. “He’s kind of himself with you. Happy.”
This conversation was clearly going in the wrong direction.
I shook my head. “Happy? So what about the—” I stopped short. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Grayson about the naked mermaid. Even if he was with me, Henry obviously couldn’t leave her alone. That was simply too humiliating. “Yes, sure, and because he’s so happy he also tells me everything about his life!” I said instead.
“Liv…”
“It’s true. Even Emily knows more about him than I do.”
Grayson stood up and wandered over to the window. Only now did I notice that for a change he was wearing a T-shirt tonight. “Henry’s never talked about himself much, not even to Arthur and me. He’d sooner bite his tongue off. It’s just that over the years we’ve inevitably picked up this or that.”
“Like what, for instance?” I asked.
Grayson’s face was working. He turned back to the window and acted as if he were looking out. “At his eighth birthday party, we all had to leave early when his mother staggered into the living room and started cutting her wrists instead of the birthday cake. Because Henry’s father was having a relationship with the Swedish au pair. His thirteenth birthday was a total washout. That was when his mother went missing for a whole week, and Henry was left alone at home with Amy, who was four months old, and little Milo, while his father was sailing around the Mediterranean on a yacht and couldn’t be reached. He never could be reached when Henry really needed him. I can’t count the times Henry’s been late for school or for practice because he had to deal with some crisis at home.�
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Grayson had been talking fast and in a strained voice, as if what he was saying hurt him physically, and I felt the same. All this was much, much worse than I’d thought.
And yet, while the ghastly images of Henry’s family life that he was revealing made my heart heavy with pity, I knew they didn’t alter one fact: Henry had been in the process of deceiving me with someone else, and that hurt as much as ever. Except that to make matters even worse, I also felt I was being coldhearted and selfish because, although poor Henry had enough to put up with, what with his totally screwed-up family, I couldn’t forgive him for getting in the whirlpool with a naked woman.
I heard a miserable sound, and for a moment I thought Spot was back. That was before I realized that I’d made the sound myself.
Grayson turned toward me. I was afraid to look at his face, because if he looked at me sympathetically again, I’d have to go and lock myself in the bathroom again. Forever.
But there wasn’t any sympathy in Grayson’s eyes this time, only something like anger. “I’m an idiot,” he said abruptly. “It’s up to Henry to explain all this to you, and he ought to have done it long ago. No idea why I’m doing it for him now.”
“Because you want to be helpful.” I didn’t know exactly why, but suddenly I felt just a tiny bit better. Not so miserable.
“But if he’s done something that hurts you, then … then I guess my help isn’t much good.” Grayson grinned at me, embarrassed. “Apart from which I was laying it on a bit thick. I mean, back then he wasn’t entirely on his own with Amy and Milo. The gardener and the housekeeper were there too. And the pets, and the au pair. But he doesn’t trust them an inch when it comes to Amy. Au pairs, I mean, not pets.”
I tried to laugh, and sure enough, it worked a bit.
Grayson came over to me and looked hard at my face. “How long since you had a good night’s sleep?”
I shrugged my shoulders and leaned back on the pillows. Suddenly I was incredibly tired. Tired, exhausted, and overstrained.
He glanced at my alarm clock. “You could get a few hours’ sleep now—I’ll tell everyone to be quiet and not wake you. You don’t have to worry about Mia. I looked in on her not long ago, and she’s sleeping peacefully in her bed.”