We All Live Here

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-two

Gene has won two roles. The first is a straightforward toothpaste advert: a day’s filming in which he mostly just has to show off his impressive dental work. Apparently the selection of older English actors he was up against had teeth like yellowed fence posts. He is also to be an elderly businessman visiting from New York in a well-funded period drama and has so far spent a week “in character,” harrumphing gently at the dinner table and pontificating about the dreadful charlatans of Wall Street. His two lines have required endless rehearsal, and from any point in the house one might at any given moment hear the carefully projected words “But, Mr. Arbuthnot, if one owns a shipping line then one is guaranteed a lifetime of security. Can you really say that about Dow’s list of stocks?” spoken in an infinite variety of ways, with the emphasis placed variously on guaranteed , lifetime , and stocks . Violet can now repeat the lines verbatim, and has taken to muttering them under her breath while watching television or brushing her teeth. Truant has been triggered by an over-emphatic shouted recitation of the second line and now grumbles audibly whenever Gene starts speaking. It is one day’s filming, at a stately home in Oxfordshire, and Gene has rarely been more cheerful.

“They pay well, honey,” he says to Lila. “I’m going to be able to give you some rent! And, you never know, if I make an impression in this drama it could be a recurring part.”

She should be pleased for him. But while she accepts his hugs, and smiles at the latest infinitesimally different performance, she sometimes wonders whether she will ever feel about Gene as one is meant to feel about a father. She can never just see him as he is, because she sees simultaneously the shadow version of him at the same time: the gap in the little gathering of mourners around her mother’s grave, the missing paternal arm around her shoulders when she needed it most.

He has been taking Truant for a walk in the afternoons “so you can focus on your work.” Bill says, with some surprise, that it’s a nice gesture, but all Lila can think is that it’s pure Gene: he cannot bear it if there is one person who does not love him, and if this person happens to be a dog, he will simply charm that dog into submission too.

Eleanor says she should give him a break, he is at least trying, and you cannot hang on to anger forever (apparently at this age it’s terrible for your naso-labial folds) but she still finds herself niggling at him— So when’s the next audition, Gene? Any news on that other job you went for? —all underpinned by what she actually wants to say, which is When are you going to leave again?

She stands at the sink, watching as Gene takes advantage of Jensen’s arrival back at work to recite lines at him in the garden. He is now wearing a tweed jacket of Bill’s (he has asked to borrow it) and a cravat, and Jensen is standing in front of him, his hands resting on a metal gardening fork as Gene walks up and down declaiming in what might well have been a statesmanlike manner, had he not been wearing a pair of faded Stars and Stripes Y-fronts underneath the tweed jacket.

“But, Mr. Arbuthnot, if one owns a shipping line then one is guaranteed a lifetime of security…”

Jensen’s eyebrows are raised and he is nodding in an encouraging manner. He seems to have an infinite amount of patience for these old men and their foibles. But, then, he doesn’t have to live with them.

Lila looks back at the washing-up, then at her phone, checking for text messages she may have missed. Gabriel has not suggested another date. When Eleanor had asked about follow-up she had simply said, “Oh, yes, he texted,” with the kind of secretive smile that suggested content that cannot be shared in public. Eleanor had been a bit nonplussed by the whole palm-kissing thing, but as their tastes are clearly very different in the sexual arena just now, Lila isn’t going to worry about that.

Bill, meanwhile, is preparing for his dinner with Penelope Stockbridge. He has changed his mind about the menu three times, eventually settling on sea bass with a fennel and lime salad followed by a lemon parfait pudding. This has required three separate trips to the supermarket as Bill, normally possessed of an ordered mind, has clearly found the idea of a dinner date so discombobulating that he has forgotten vital ingredients, mislaid roasting pans, and lost confidence in his dish choices twice.

“Pal, you could order in two hamburgers for all she’s going to care. She just wants a big ol’ slice of Bill pie, you know what I’m saying?” Gene says laconically, dipping his finger into the parfait and jumping when Bill swats him with a tea-towel.

“I don’t know whether it’s too informal to eat in the kitchen. Is it too informal? Does it suggest a certain lack of finesse?”

“Serve it on a tray in the bedroom,” says Gene, with a lascivious wink, and at that point Lila has to ask him to take Truant for another walk.

He is just leaving, having been reminded twice to put on some trousers, when Jensen appears at the back door. “Hey.”

“Hey!” she says. She is wearing rubber gloves covered with soap bubbles and has to lift her arms to push her hair off her face.

“Just…wanted to say a proper hello. You’re not…the most talkative on text.”

Lila winces internally. He had sent a further two texts in the ten days he had been away and she had been so consumed with thoughts of Gabriel that she had failed to respond to the second and sent a simple cheery Hope you’re having a nice time with your folks to the third.

“Yeah,” she says awkwardly. “Sorry. I’m not really a big texting person.”

He doesn’t seem to mind. He stands on the threshold of the garden door, his boots covered with dirt, his sandy hair awry on one side, like that of a toddler who has just been roused from sleep. “No problem. I just wondered…if maybe you’d like to go out again sometime.”

When she falters a response he adds quickly: “Not a big deal. I just enjoyed our chat. We could go for another Diet Coke.”

“Sure!” she says, too brightly. “But I—uh—can’t do this week. Absolutely flat out with work. And, you know, these two…”

He studies her face, then looks away, back down the garden. “Bill’s pretty worked up about this date, huh?”

“He really is.”

Eleanor would no doubt say she should date them both, keep her options open. But what she feels for Gabriel is so consuming that it feels wrong to string Jensen along.

“So what are you doing while the dinner is happening? I hear you’ve all been banished from the premises.”

“Oh, we’re just going to get a pizza.” The way he stands there makes her wonder if he’s half hoping to be invited along, and there is a brief, weighty silence. Finally he looks at his feet. “Well. Better get on with it.” He looks up, as if struck by a thought. “Hey—don’t forget that tree. I don’t want to load you up with problems but you need to do something about it. I think it’s listing a little more than when I left.”

“Sure,” she says, waiting for him to go. She wishes this didn’t feel so awkward. She smiles, and it feels horrible. Not a real smile at all.

Another elongated pause, and then—after a beat—he nods and heads back into the garden.

···

Sometimes Lila misses her mother so badly she feels she could become one of those people who sit by gravestones and talk to the dead. If it wasn’t so damp out and if she could be bothered to drive all the way to Golders Green, this would be exactly the kind of day when she would sit among the faded plastic flowers and the engraved marble urns and talk to Francesca. How do I tell someone nice that I’m not really interested without hurting his feelings? How do I know if the man I am interested in is interested in me? How am I meant to cope with all this stuff , all of the time? Francesca had had a way of looking at you, her gaze intent and direct behind her tortoiseshell-framed glasses, as if she was really absorbing the question, and taking your feelings into account, even if they were probably not the feelings you should be having. And her answers were always wise, filled with compassion and not too prescriptive: Oh, darling, that’s very tough. I know you can find a way through this but if you wanted some advice, I’d suggest… or What is your gut telling you, Lila? You’re a terribly smart person. I think you probably know the answer to that one already.

Lila had been able to talk to her about anything. As a teenager, hers was the mother who never judged but who talked to her as if she were an adult, treating the most minor problem as if it was of utmost importance. She would take Lila on drives so that she didn’t face her directly (she told her long afterward she had read that you should discuss things with teenagers while not looking them directly in the eye—“you know, like dogs”) and while she never condemned Gene in front of her, she was always scrupulously honest in how she described her own feelings, admitting to anger or sadness or a sense of abandonment in a way that somehow managed to tread the tricky tightrope between truthfulness and overwhelming Lila with adult emotions she could not yet handle.

There was a period—Lila was fifteen or sixteen—when even Lila’s friends would ask Francesca for advice, sitting in the kitchen with her while she made them tea or handed out homemade muffins, and told them what she would do, and the many ways in which they were all doing wonderfully and were going to be absolutely fine. For a while, Lila had been slightly annoyed by how much her friends wanted to hang out with her mother. But in the trickier years of her marriage she could talk to Francesca about Dan without fearing that, like some mothersin-law, his failings would be totted up and stored away as evidence to be used against him at a later time when Lila inevitably felt more benevolent toward him. She would always preface her responses with Well, you know I adore Dan and always will , followed by careful statements like but in this case I think he may be being a little unreasonable. I’m sure he’s not doing it deliberately. Why don’t you ask him gently how he would feel if the positions were reversed? She was also, enjoyably, not averse to the occasional They can absolutely fuck right off if the situation merited it. With hindsight, she had just seemed better at being human than anyone Lila had ever met. She had been not just an ally but someone whose advice always seemed so firmly rooted in what was right, or appropriate, that Lila had felt she had a permanent hotline to good sense. Until, thanks to a number 38 bus and an unseasonably rainy day, she didn’t.

Some days, it feels impossible, just impossible, that she isn’t here anymore.

But Bill has a date with someone else, and she needs to sort out her own problems. Lila peels off her rubber gloves and heads upstairs to get ready.

···

There are pizzas, Gene is saying, and then there are pizzas. Sure, these are fine, but for real pizza the girls need to try Antonio Gatti’s place in downtown LA. “I mean, the guy comes from a long line of pizza-makers from Sicily. His father made pizzas, his grandfather made pizzas…They have a whole bunch of black-and-white photographs on the wall of the men of the family. The interior is nothing—you’d walk straight past it out on the sidewalk. It’s no fancy-pants kind of joint. But he does something to the base so it’s as light as a feather, you know what I’m saying? And the mozzarella…my God…”

Gene has been talking about the superiority of American pizzas for almost twenty minutes, and Lila is watching the girls and marveling at how patient they are. No phones or electronic devices are allowed at dinner time—a rule that extends to restaurants—but right now he has been going on for so long that she almost wants to offer them her own as an escape route.

Gene folds a slice and feeds it into his mouth. “I gotta say, though, I’m liking this spicy salami with the chili. Got a kick to it, doesn’t it? What you got there, Violet?”

“Ham,” Violet says, her mouth full.

“What kind of ham?”

“Ham ham.”

Lila watches Celie quietly and industriously demolishing a vegetarian pizza, pausing occasionally to push her hair behind her ears. It’s good to see her with an appetite.

“How’d it go today, honey?” Gene is talking to her.

Celie’s eyes flash toward Lila and then back at Gene.

“How did what go today?” Lila says.

“It went fine,” Celie says, cutting a piece of pizza with a knife and fork.

“Did you kill, though? Did you actually… destroy ?”

She allows herself a small smile. “I destroyed,” she says, and Gene explodes at the table.

“I knew it! I knew you could do it! Give me a high-five!” He swings his meaty palm across the table and, to Lila’s surprise, Celie’s hand rises to meet it with a resounding clap. “There’s no stopping you now, sweetheart. You got to listen to your old pal Gene. I got it all in here.” He taps the side of his head, leaving a smudge of tomato sauce on his temple.

“Do what?” Lila is struggling to keep up. “Hang on, what—what did you destroy?”

Celie looks down at her plate. “Nothing,” she says primly.

Lila is about to protest when her phone rings.

“How come you’re allowed your phone—” Violet begins, but Lila holds up a hand.

“Anoushka?”

“Are you sitting down?”

“Yes?”

“A hundred and seventy thousand.”

Lila blinks, takes a moment to register what she has just heard. “Are you serious?”

“For two. I think I can push them to one eight five but—”

“No! No! That’s fantastic! Oh, my goodness, Anoushka, that’s amazing news!”

“We retain world rights so there should be further sales available through translation. They’ve sent me a very compelling marketing plan, and they say this will be one of their tent-pole publications for next year. So I think it’s good news, darling.”

Anoushka talks on about the minutiae of the deal, giving her a breakdown of the negotiations and where there may still be “wiggle room,” but Lila is barely listening. She feels almost weak with relief. She says, “Yes,” when it seems appropriate, but her brain has basically become a giant humming thing. Her financial woes are solved. Her house will remain her house. When she finally ends the call, the rest of the table is looking at her expectantly. “I’ve got a good deal for my new book.” She is beaming. “I wrote four chapters and my agent sent it to a publisher and they’ve offered me a good deal.”

“How about that! Two pieces of good news!” Gene reaches across to hug her. She accepts it a little stiffly. “We should have a glass of champagne!”

“They don’t do champagne here,” says Lila, who has noted that Gene is two beers in.

“Is it a fiction book?” says Violet, lining up her crusts in a row at the side of her plate. Lila picks up her knife and fork again. “Um, no. It’s—it’s non-fiction.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s more about…real-life stuff.”

“What real-life stuff?” says Celie.

“Uh—it’s about—uh…” Lila is flummoxed. She hadn’t expected the girls to be remotely interested. They had been barely aware of the last book she published, thankfully. “It’s sort of about life at my age.”

“What about life at your age?” Violet pushes her plate toward the middle of the table.

“Just about—well, about how we have to juggle lots of things and try to find happiness in different ways from when we were younger.”

“Is it about us?” says Celie. Her huge, pale eyes are locked on Lila’s face now. Her gaze is unwavering.

“Not really. I don’t mention you by name.”

“Then what are you writing about?” says Violet. “You always say me and Celie are your life.”

Lila seems to have developed a stutter. She takes a swig of her water. “It’s—it’s more just adult stuff. Just, you know, all the things I—I deal with in a day.”

“Am I in it, sweetheart?” says Gene, cheerfully. Evidently he cannot conceive of the possibility that he would not be included in the most positive light.

“Uh—possibly? I haven’t got that far yet.”

“You need to make it clear that I’ve done a lot of stuff. I mean if this thing does well it could open doors for me. You can check my IMDb page if you need the details. Can you make sure you include Star Squadron Zero ? It’s good for everybody to be reminded of that one.”

“So what have you written about?” Celie is still staring at her. “You said you’d written four chapters.”

“Shall we get the bill?” Lila looks at her watch. “Surely Bill and Penelope will have finished their main course by now.”

“You said we could have ice cream.” Violet crosses her arms.

“Honey, it’s only half past eight. Give the guy a chance.” Gene puts a hand on her arm. “You know Bill—it will have taken him this long to warm up! Let him have a couple of glasses of wine with her at least.”

Lila smiles awkwardly. “How do we think he’s getting on, then?” she says brightly, trying to change the conversation. “Do we think Penelope will be wearing something extraordinary?”

“Butterfly shoes!” says Violet, delightedly. “And a hat made of zebras!”

Lila lets out a small breath, and waves for the pudding menu. But when she looks over again Celie is still watching her.

···

They walk back to the house at a sedate pace, Gene off to the side, taking advantage of the walk to smoke a cigarette. Normally, Lila would be slightly frazzled by the girls bickering animatedly behind her, but tonight she registers the snappy conversation and muttered insults with only half an ear. She had never considered the possibility that Celie might be interested in the contents of the book. What would happen if she actually read it? Would Lila need to have a conversation with her to prepare her for it?

She tries to imagine how her mother would have handled it. Francesca had Scandinavian levels of nonchalance when it came to sex and nudity. She would walk around the house with nothing on while searching for things to wear, and because she had done it since Lila was small, Lila had thought nothing of it. When Lila, as a teenager, had protested about the noise emanating from her mother’s bedroom one night, Francesca had looked bemused. “But, darling, sex is lovely! You can’t be inhibited just because someone might hear you. It’s only happy sounds after all.”

Lila is not convinced Celie would be entirely overjoyed to hear about Lila’s happy sounds. For a start, Lila has never been a walking-round-the-house-naked kind of person. It was fine when Celie was a baby (although she could probably have done without Toddler Celie telling her she had a “funny floppy belly”) but Dan had never been hugely comfortable with random nudity and she had slowly absorbed that vague discomfort for herself. They got up; they showered; they were always dressed downstairs. They only had sex when they could be sure both girls were fast asleep, and often checked on them twice beforehand just to be sure. Is Celie likely to take after Francesca, relaxed about sexuality, comfortable with the idea of her mother having an erotic life? Or will she be appalled?

As they approach the front door, she is pulled from her thoughts by the tinkling of Penelope’s laughter. The sound of a jazz piano recording drifts toward them. She checks her watch: 9:40 p.m. Gene mutters, “Attaboy,” and grins at her, and they let themselves in.

Penelope Stockbridge and Bill are bent over an old photograph album, their heads almost touching. The lights are low and two candles burn gently in the middle of the table, the detritus of the meal pushed to one side. The dirty plates, unusually for Bill, are piled up on the work surface, for washing later. The air is filled with the smell of good food and wine. Penelope looks up abruptly as Lila walks into the kitchen, as if she has been lost in her own little world.

She glances down at her slim watch, then back at Lila, her neck flushing. She is wearing a 1940s-style tea dress in dark red silk, and an ornate comb made of something like ivory pins her hair into an elaborate dark brown twist.

“Hi,” says Lila.

Penelope looks instantly awkward. “Oh, is that the time? Goodness. I had no idea.”

Gene’s voice booms from behind them. “Hey, kids, don’t break up the party on my account! I’m headed into the garden for a smoke anyhow.”

Lila sets her handbag on the side and gives Penelope what she hopes is a reassuring smile. “I’ll be putting the girls to bed. Please don’t get up.”

“I don’t need putting to bed,” says Celie. “I’m sixteen.”

“Yes, you do,” says Violet, gazing at Penelope. “Or you’ll be playing gooseberry.” She says gooseberry with salacious relish.

Penelope blushes. “Oh I really wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome…” She glances at Bill, uncertainly.

“We were just looking at pictures of me in my army days,” Bill says. His voice is cheerful and he looks open and relaxed, a little like he did years ago. Lila feels a weird pang, unsure if the fleeting feeling is because of her mother, who should have been sitting across the table, or because she, Lila, is not having evenings like these, basking in the adoration of someone who wants nothing more than to be with her.

“Bill was terribly handsome in uniform, wasn’t he? Still is,” Penelope adds, then blushes again.

Truant, furious at having been left behind, has bolted to Lila and is now weaving himself through her legs, his eyes slightly manic and his tongue lolling, so that she has to grab the work surface to stop him knocking her over. In doing so she manages to unbalance a delivery box, which falls to the floor, along with an open cookery book. The noise and sudden chaos of the kitchen seem to unsettle Penelope. Or perhaps it is just that the atmosphere has shifted, a fragile little bubble broken. She stands, and smoothes her skirt.

“I should go. It’s late and you’ve all got things to do.”

“Oh, really. You don’t have to,” Bill begins, but she is already reaching for her coat, holding it in front of her with thin, pale fingers. “Then let me walk you back to your house.”

“Goodness! It’s only four doors down.”

“I absolutely insist,” Bill says, helping her into her coat.

Penelope is glowing. She smiles at them all. “It’s been so very lovely. Bill, the food was exquisite. What a wonderful cook you are. Thank you so much. I really have had the loveliest time.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual,” says Bill. “You are wonderful company.” And with a last burst of breathless thank-yous from Penelope they head to the front door.

“Are they going to snog?” says Violet, fascinated, as it closes behind them.

“Oh, God,” says Celie. “Yuk.” She trudges upstairs to her room, clearly exhausted by having to spend so much unscheduled time with her family.

“Does Bill have false teeth? Will he have to take them out first?” Violet presses her nose against the window as they pass. “Will they put their tongues in each other’s mouths?”

“No, Bill does not have false teeth, and I have no idea how or even whether he is going to kiss Penelope. That’s their private business,” Lila says, peeling her away and pushing her toward the hallway. “Now upstairs and brush your teeth. And don’t tell Bill you drank two glasses of cola. He’ll never forgive me.”

Gene reappears from the garden just as Bill walks back in, all of two minutes later. Truant is at Gene’s heels, looking expectant. She suspects he’s been feeding him cheese-flavored crisps again.

“Pal! What are you doing?”

Bill closes the front door. “What do you mean what am I doing?”

“You said you were walking her home!”

“That’s exactly what I just did.”

Gene throws up his hands in horror. “No no no no no! You don’t literally just walk the lady to her front door and walk away again. That’s the best bit of the evening! That’s the bit she’s been waiting for! What did you do?”

Bill seems a little discomfited. He glances at Lila then back at Gene. “I—I walked her to her front door, told her I’d had a lovely time, and made sure she was in safely.”

Gene smacks his hand against his head. “Bill! Get back there! With luck she’s not even sat down yet.”

“You really think I disappointed her?” He looks crestfallen. “I mean, I didn’t want to make any assumptions.”

“Bill, that little lady likes you. She really likes you. She’s brought you a hundred and sixty-nine tuna-pasta bakes. She wears little glittery clips in her hair hoping you’re going to notice. She listens to you play the same damn piano piece day after damn day. Her whole face lights up at your every word. Get back there, knock on the door, tell her you forgot something, sweep her into your arms and kiss her properly. C’mon. Don’t let the side down here.”

“You really think—”

“Stop talking, man! Go get her!”

Bill looks briefly uncertain, but Gene is already propelling him toward the door, and opening it. “Don’t come back in less than twenty minutes!” he yells, shoving him out onto the step.

With a slightly anguished look, Bill disappears from view.

“What if she doesn’t want to be kissed?” Lila says, as Gene closes the door again.

He grins at her, his smile wide and his unnaturally white teeth glowing. “Lila. I may be a fuck-up on many things, but on women I am an expert. You watch, in twenty minutes, old Bill there is going to walk back in here looking probably a little dazed, standing two inches taller, and insanely pleased with himself. I could set a kitchen timer to it.”

Annoyingly, he turns out to be absolutely correct.