We All Live Here

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-three

Dan calls when she is three-quarters of the way through chapter five. The writing has come remarkably easily since she got the deal. She is back into what Instagram calls her “healing” journey. She has been looking online at the experiences of other newly divorced women for inspiration and her literary vocabulary is thick with words and phrases like “boundaries,” “red flags,” and “emotional self-awareness.” With luck, by the time she gets to the end of this more feelings-based chapter, she will have some other bedroom escapade to write about. Or, as the Instagrammers put it, she will be embracing her full womanhood and owning her sexuality.

Gabriel has been texting again, usually in the evenings. He is affectionate in tone, complimentary, a little vague on actual plans, but right now she will settle for him just showing up on her phone. He calls her “Bella” as if it is a nickname. At first she had sent him question marks, wondering if he had actually meant to text someone else. He had lived in Italy in his twenties. Of course he had. “Hi, Bella,” “Night, Bellissima.” She finds herself glancing surreptitiously into mirrors as she passes, wondering what he can see.

Dan, on the other hand, always greets her as if he is putting down a marker. “Lila.”

“I’m in the middle of writing,” she says coolly, dredging up the research she has done on boundaries. “I’d appreciate if we could talk afterward.”

“It won’t take a minute. I wanted to see if we could switch weekends. My parents would really like to see the kids and they can’t do my weekend. Can I take them this week?”

“Why can’t they do your weekend? They’ll have had enough notice.” Their calendar is a constant rebuke, a shared digital document that makes Lila’s skin prickle every time she has to consult it.

The sound of rustling in the background. Dan’s voice is distracted, as if he is doing fifteen things and she is the least important. It used to irritate her when they were married, his inability to make her feel she was the sole focus of his attention. “Dad has a golf thing and Mum wants to get her hair done.”

“So you want me to change all my plans because your mum may or may not get her hair done?” Lila does not have any plans but that is not the point.

“Marja can only do this weekend. Next weekend Hugo has some kind of trip planned with her ex. He’s coming over from Holland.”

“Oh. So this is about Marja. I see.” Dan is taking the whole family up north to see his parents. A lovely blended family trip. How perfectly cozy. Lila feels her calm resolve start to leach away.

“It’s not just about Marja, Lils.”

“Don’t call me Lils.”

“Why? Why are you being like this?”

“Because ‘Lils’ implies an intimacy we no longer have.”

He sighs. He has this way of engaging with her as if he’s at the end of his tether, dealing with an irrational madwoman. “Okay. Lila. Please can I take the kids this weekend. You can have them next weekend and the weekend after.”

She takes a moment to consider how helpful she wants to be. “Fine by me. But you’ll have to ask Celie. She has her own plans these days.”

“Well, anything she wants to do she can just do from mine?”

“I’m not saying she can’t. I’m saying it might be wise to ask her. She’s practically an adult.”

“Fine. I’ll ask her.” There is a short pause, and Lila prepares to put the phone down.

“Oh, and I was wondering if I could pop round this week to pick up some of the baby stuff from the garage.”

“What?”

“The old cot and baby seat for the car. I think there’s some other stuff in those boxes too. I’m going to need them soon.”

Lila is poleaxed by the casual sense of entitlement. “But—they’re not yours.”

“They’re as much mine as they are yours.”

“Dan, they were our family things. They were our children’s. You don’t just get to come and pick them up for your new family. That’s just—that’s just—No.”

“Lila, you’re being ridiculous. What do you need them for?”

She opens her mouth to speak but the cruelty in his comment has briefly winded her. “No,” she says finally. “You can’t have them.”

“Lila, this is nuts. I’m having a baby in a few months’ time. I have no money. You are never going to use those items again. Or, if you do,” he says with exaggerated equanimity, “it’s not likely to be for at least another year. So I’d like to come and pick up our baby things.”

“They’re gone,” she says quickly.

“What?”

“I threw them away. When I was having a clear-out.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Lila, you’re being irrational and selfish. They are not your things to dispose of.”

“We had an agreement, Dan. You took everything you wanted when you left. You literally said it to me, that you were taking everything you needed, like you were telling me we were the unwanted part of that equation. You don’t get to swing by whenever you fancy it and help yourself to more.”

“I’m not ‘helping myself.’ I’m asking for the baby seat and cot that I helped pay for—items you don’t need—to look after my new baby.”

Lila’s jaw has clenched. “Sorry,” she says. “I took them to the dump ages ago.”

There is a long, loaded silence. A silence that tells her he knows she is lying, and that she knows he knows it.

Finally Dan says: “You are fucking impossible.” And puts down the phone.

···

Lila is loading the baby seat and cot into the Mercedes when Jensen arrives. She has been rooting through the garage, which still contains a teetering mass of boxes from when she and Dan moved in—she can’t remember what most of them contain—and is pulling out an overstuffed crate of large plastic baby toys. She dumps it on the back seat when she sees him standing by the gate. She’s had to lower the roof of the convertible to get everything in, and now the plastic arc of dangling ducks, an enormous rubber giraffe, and the wooden bars of the cot stick out of it, like some kind of clown vehicle.

“Having a clear-out?” he says.

“Something like that.”

He watches as she adds a plastic baby bath. “I’ve caught you at a bad time. I’ll come back.”

“No, no, it’s fine. What is it?” She is aware that she’s radiating ill-humor. The call with Dan has left her in a filthy mood. She hates that they’ve been separated this long yet he can set her off, like a hair trigger, reducing her to tears of rage and impotent fury. But he is not having her precious baby things for the new child. The idea of Marja carrying Lila’s car seat into the playground—the car seat that should have housed her third baby—makes her feel as if her head is exploding.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

She lets out a long breath and brushes the dust from her jeans. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

“I just came to drop an invoice off to Bill.”

“What invoice?”

“The latest installment of the garden.”

She frowns. “Bill’s been paying for that?”

Jensen looks briefly uncomfortable, as if he has just revealed something he shouldn’t. “Uh…yes?”

“No,” she says. “I’ll pay it. It’s my house.”

“But he—”

“Just give me the invoice.”

He hands it over reluctantly. She unfolds the piece of paper, reading it and wincing reflexively before she reminds herself that this is fine. She will get her first payment for the book within weeks. “I’ll sort it out when I’ve done this,” she says, mustering a smile that isn’t really a smile at all.

His hands are thrust deep into his pockets. He seems troubled, which makes her feel bad, but right now she has to head to the dump. Some small part of her is afraid that Dan will even now be on his way here, convinced she is lying, and she wants to be able to throw open the garage door and reveal that she is not “fucking impossible” actually, because the items really have gone. So take that, Dan!

They stand there for an awkward moment. Then Jensen takes a step backward and lifts a hand. She sees his pickup truck parked across the street and experiences a residual prickly glow, thinking of the two of them in it in the dark, the weight of the vodka bottle on her lap.

“That’s it, really. I guess…I’ll see you Monday.” Jensen gives her a little wave, then turns and walks back toward the van.

Lila gets into her car, checks she has her purse and her phone, and turns on the ignition. A click. Then nothing.

She wiggles the gear stick to make sure it’s in neutral, and unlocks the steering wheel, then tries again. The engine resolutely refuses to turn over. “Bloody hell.”

She tries to calculate how long it has been since she started the Mercedes, whether she has left lights on, draining the battery. It is clearly not going anywhere. She tries one more time, even though she knows what will happen even before she does it. Then she bangs the steering wheel with a fist and lets her head come slowly down to rest on it. Why the hell had she bought a stupid unreliable vintage car instead of the sensible modern runaround she could have got for a tenth of the price? She had heard her mother’s voice in her head when she had seen it: Lila! Darling! You should do the thing that will make you happy! Always use your finest, most favorite things for everyday!

“Flat battery?”

She isn’t sure how many minutes she’s been there, her eyes screwed shut, but when she opens them, Jensen is standing a few feet away on the drive.

She nods, oddly embarrassed. He must have witnessed the whole thing.

“Want me to go home and fetch my jump leads? I could start you up.”

She makes a few mental calculations and pulls a face at him. “I don’t think I have time.” She sighs. “Jensen, could I ask you a massive favor?”

He waits.

“Could you drive me to the dump?”

···

“Have I done something to offend you?”

They’re unloading the pickup truck at the dump, having finally reached the head of a long, bad-tempered queue, the cars packed full of attic detritus and garden waste, and are moving swiftly between PLASTICS and RECYCLABLES. The contents of the boxes she has grabbed seem to be divided into multiple categories, and Lila can feel the impatience of the drivers behind her while she rummages through them, trying to work out what goes in which.

She hurls the enormous rubber giraffe into NON RECYCLABLES, feeling a brief stab of discomfort as its cheerful, innocent face disappears. Sorry , she tells it silently.

“I thought we got on well the other week. We had some nice chats but since I’ve been back you’ve been kind of…avoiding me.” He pauses while he removes the pieces of the cot from the back of his truck. “Are you really skipping this? Should we not put it by UNWANTED ITEMS? Someone might have a use for it.”

“Oh. Maybe.”

He pauses while he walks the cot pieces up to a different section, then returns. “I mean I wasn’t expecting us to have some big relationship on the back of…what happened, but it would be nice to feel we were at least friends…”

“Of course we’re friends.”

His expression is so genuine, and his sense of hurt so palpable, that she deflates. She stands there, the baby car seat in her hand. The feel of it is so oddly familiar: it brings back a thousand small journeys, the curled, shrimpy weight of her sleeping baby locked over her aching arm. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You are—It was a really great night. And I haven’t deliberately avoided you. Things have just…got a bit complicated and I just can’t—I can’t—”

Jensen interrupts her, pointing: “That should definitely go in UNWANTED ITEMS.”

She pulls a face. “It’s really grubby. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to put a baby in there.” She can see the food stains on the padded cushioning, and all over the blue vinyl belt. At least, she hopes they’re just food stains.

“They can wash the cover, surely?” He is about to take it from her when a man in a high-vis jacket approaches. “We don’t take car seats,” he says. “They might have been in an accident.”

“But it hasn’t,” says Lila.

“So you say,” the man says, tapping his nose, and walking off. Lila stares at him for a moment, then sighs and throws it into NON RECYCLABLES. She can practically feel the drivers bristling behind them.

“Hey.” Jensen holds up a hand. “It’s fine. I had zero expectations. I know you’re coping with a lot right now. I just—I guess I just wanted to make sure we were okay.”

“We’re fine,” she says, throwing a box of broken plastic toys into the skip with a loud clatter. She’s not entirely sure which of those things she feels more guilty about.

···

He asks again when they pull up outside her house twenty minutes later. “We’re definitely cool, then? I mean, I’m going to tell you—when you didn’t respond to my texts I was a little worried that I went too far that night. I felt—well, actually, I really worried about it.”

She shakes her head firmly. “You absolutely didn’t. I promise. Remember? I even did a phone recording to absolve you of any responsibility.”

“You were kind of drunk, though.”

“I was good drunk. Not paralytic-incapable-of-saying-no drunk.”

He moves his head from side to side as if weighing this up. “You absolutely sure? You don’t feel weird about it?”

She can smile at him then. She does not want him to feel anxious. “Jensen. I’m really fine. Not weird in the slightest. I just—I just have a lot going on right now. And we kind of agreed that this wasn’t a thing.”

The flicker of surprise that passes across his face makes her wonder if he had thought it was a thing.

“Okay,” he says, as if gathering himself. “No. Sure.”

They sit there for a moment. Then she reaches for the door.

“If you wanted more of a thing, I’d be happy to give it my full consideration,” he says.

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“I can’t guarantee I would think about it immediately. I’m a very busy man. But I absolutely would put it on my very long list of things to consider. Maybe even higher than two-thirds of the way down.”

“Thank you,” she says. “I’m immensely flattered.”

And then, just like that, things are fine between them. She thanks him again for the trip, and climbs out.

“I’ll charge your car battery Monday when I come,” he calls through the window, one arm lifted in salute. And then he drives away.

Hey Bella. Hope your day is going well x

Not bad thanks! Usual chaos. How are you? X

So-so. Lennie struggling a bit this week. Missing her mum and can’t remember her lines for the school play so that’s my job in the evenings. But we’re basically doing okay x

Glad to hear it. Do you fancy another drink some time? X

Love to, Bellissima. Missed you at the school gates x

She cannot work out whether Gabriel Mallory is chaotic, a bit vague, or just still grieving his late wife to a debilitating degree. He is charming and attentive, but frustratingly hard to pin down to actual dates. When they had finally agreed on one, he canceled at the last minute due to a work meeting. On the flip side he calls her every other evening or so, and they usually talk for a delicious half-hour, or until Lennie summons him from upstairs and he has to go. The conversations are lovely, full of tales of his work, his difficult clients, what he is watching on television, and sometimes how he is feeling. He is always careful to ask after her, how she is, what is happening in her world. He is drily funny, his voice soft and intimate, tells her that nobody makes him laugh as much as she does. He is the absolute opposite of Dan: when he’s talking to her he makes her feel that nobody in the world is more important. She confides in him when she’s feeling sad, when she’s frustrated by the girls, her fury at her dealings with her ex-husband, and he always knows the right thing to say to make her feel better (usually something along the lines of Dan is an idiot, he’ll regret what he did, she’s better off without him, she’s doing amazingly). She comes off the phone glowing, his compliments ringing in her ears.

Sometimes she thinks about his dead wife, how awful it would have been to lose a partner. If you had been wounded that badly you wouldn’t want to jump straight into a different relationship, would you? You’d be cautious, a little wary. Lila tries to be accommodating of this state of mind and doesn’t push for clarification. Things will pan out as they pan out, she tells herself. And tries not to check her phone twenty-nine times an hour.

One afternoon, the previous week, he had called her, flustered, and said his mother was stuck on the other side of London and his babysitter couldn’t pick Lennie up: could she possibly help him out? She had collected Lennie with quiet pleasure, noting how the gaggle of school mums registered with pointed glances the extra child in her care, and whom she belonged to. She’s pretty sure Lennie has never been to any of their houses. When they had arrived home, and once the girls were settled in front of the television, she had raced upstairs to check her makeup and tried to work out whether there was enough food to invite him to stay for supper. She had gone twice around the living room and kitchen, trying to make it look a little more stylish, a little less of an insane mismatch between two determinedly different old men and two young girls. She had shut Truant into her bedroom, so that Gabriel wouldn’t be put off by a swivel-eyed barking dog. She had squirted room spray in every corner, hoping to make her house feel pleasant and welcoming. But he had arrived at the door at a quarter past six, told her, distractedly, that he had to race off for a Zoom meeting, and after effusive thanks— You’re a lifesaver. Thank you so, so much— had kissed her cheek and left her standing on the doorstep as he and his daughter jogged down the road with barely a backward wave.

···

Gene is anxious about filming tomorrow, his anxiety manifesting itself in an almost manic need to recite his lines repeatedly, talk, tell jokes, or just be in front of an audience. Even Truant has slunk off to bed, exhausted by the attention. So Lila takes Gene on the school run. Her motivation is not entirely altruistic: since her last conversation with Dan she has felt slightly nervous about the possibility of him turning up, or whether Marja will have reported what happened between them to the other mothers. The school playground can feel gladiatorial at the best of times and it helps to go in armed with another person. Plus Gene loves a potential audience: she feels him straighten up slightly as soon as he spots the clusters of women, his eyes already scanning their faces to see who might have recognized him.

“So this is where you come every day, huh?”

“Yup.” Lila briefly catches Marja’s eye as they pass her, and both women look away.

A small part of her knows she might have been a little childish and mean to throw away the baby things, but another part of her is still yelling silently that it’s utterly unfair to have to give the items you bought for your precious family to your husband’s mistress for his new baby. This is what she keeps telling herself in the moments when she feels uncomfortable about it.

Gene, she notes, as they settle into Gabriel’s corner, has already been spotted. She had been spared this experience for most of her life having grown up on a different continent from her father, but since he has been living with her she has become aware of the little frisson that passes through a certain age demographic when he passes—a sort of double-take, followed by a frown, or a smile, a muttered Is that the guy from… Eyebrows furrow, little flickers of recognition…Gene, for whom this is his lifeblood, loves it. He seems to feel that any day in which he is not recognized is a day wasted.

It takes all of three minutes before one of them sidles up, a mousy-haired woman whose name Lila can never remember. She is always accompanied by a buggy with a mute, bottle-sucking child inside, almost obscured by the hood of a padded anorak. “Hi, Lila,” she says, looking straight past Lila. “Um…I’m sorry to interrupt but I have to ask, were you the actor in…” The woman is gazing at Gene, her smile half hopeful. “I mean you just look so like—”

Gene steps forward, cutting her off. “ Star Squadron Zero . Yes, ma’am. Captain Troy Strang, reporting for intergalactic duty.” He salutes, then holds out a hand for her to shake.

As she takes it, her face lights up. “Oh, my goodness! It is you! I loved watching your show when I was little. My mum had such a crush on you!”

Gene beams. “How about that! Please give her my best.”

“Oh, could you sign something for her? It would make her day.” She starts rummaging in the back of the buggy and eventually pulls out an envelope. “Honestly, we even had one of your calendars up in our kitchen. She used to say she had a different Captain Strang for every month!” Gene, it turns out, despite his chaotic habits, is never without an autographing pen. He scribbles a message, checking the spelling of the woman’s name, asking polite questions about her, her health, how she’s doing. As they pose for a selfie together—“Oh, my goodness, she is not going to believe this! Captain Troy Strang in our playground!”—a few other mothers, emboldened, trickle over, bearing phones or bits of paper. Lila notes with mild irritation that Marja is among them. She is walking with the gait of a heavily pregnant woman now, her pelvis rocking slightly as she moves, one hand unconsciously supporting herself as she approaches.

“It’s Troy Strang! Captain Troy!” the woman is saying, and suddenly Gene is in the midst of a hubbub, Lila pushed gradually to its edge, watching as her father signs and poses, his manner garrulous and charismatic, his smile as wide as a mile. “No,” he is saying. “No plans to bring it back just now. But we’re working on it!” and “Yes, Lila’s my daughter. You didn’t know? Well, I had to spend a lot of time away filming…We’re just loving hanging out again.” It’s all Lila can do not to roll her eyes.

“And who are you?” he says, readying his pen as Philippa Graham rummages through her handbag. “Oh, I can’t find any paper. Do Marja first,” Philippa says, her head down as she searches. Marja steps forward, cautiously, holding out a tiny notebook.

“Marja?” says Gene, becoming suddenly still. He glances at Lila, searching her out above the other heads. “ The Marja?”

There is a sudden hush. A few mothers exchange glances.

There is nothing for it. Lila nods.

Gene looks her up and down. “So you’re Marja. Huh. I guess you guys have worked your stuff out, if you have to see each other here every day.” His smile has vanished, and he keeps his eyes on Marja as if assessing her.

Lila and Marja exchange quick, embarrassed glances. “Um. Not really,” says Lila, after a beat.

“What do you mean, not really?”

A couple of mothers drift away awkwardly. “We—we haven’t actually spoken. Since Dan…” Lila feels herself color, unsure why this is making her so uncomfortable. She stares at the school door, willing the children to be let out. Willing this to end.

Gene frowns at her. “You both come here every day and nobody says anything?”

“Gene, we really don’t need—”

“Since he left you?” He turns to Marja. “Hang on, you’re telling me you’ve never even said sorry?”

“Sorry?” Marja’s voice is halting.

“For breaking up a family? For sleeping with my daughter’s husband? You literally come here every day and don’t say a word to my daughter? Jesus! How English can you all get?”

“Actually,” says Philippa, stepping forward, “she’s Dutch. And she doesn’t owe anyone an apology. Things happen. It’s just life.”

Gene swivels round and looks at her incredulously. “And who the fuck are you?”

Philippa lifts her chin, coloring. “I’m Philippa Graham.”

“And what business is this of yours, Philippa Graham? Or are you just here because you enjoy the drama?”

Philippa’s eyes widen. “That’s a horrible thing to say. I’m just… looking out for my friend.” She looks down at Marja’s belly. “And her unborn child.”

“Ohhh,” says Gene, his face softening. “That’s nice. You’re looking out for the unborn child. Right. Looking out for the children.”

With this affirmation of her benevolence, Philippa’s equanimity is restored. She nods primly. Gene smiles. Lila lets out a small breath. He starts to write on the paper she has proffered. “So, Philippa Graham,” he says, still looking down at the paper as he writes, “have you been looking out for the actual children involved here as well as the unborn? Dan and Lila’s children? The ones whose lives were upended? The ones who are still struggling with what happened to their family? How much have you been looking out for those children, huh?”

Philippa’s jaw drops.

“Got it. I thought so.” He thrusts the paper at her. “Why don’t you skedaddle off over there, lady, and leave us to it, given this is clearly a family matter?”

There is a brief silence. Philippa glances at Lila and then at Marja. Everyone else has now drifted away, clustered into little murmuring groups across the playground, pretending not to be watching what is going on.

“Are you okay, Marja?” Philippa says pointedly, touching Marja’s elbow.

“I’m fine,” Marja says quietly.

Philippa waits another beat before she leaves, as if showing that she is not intimidated by this man, intergalactic battle captain or no. They wait until Philippa has moved ten, twenty feet away, looking repeatedly over her shoulder as she goes. And then Gene stands between the two women. “So you guys don’t speak. Never have. How’s that working out for you both, huh?”

“Gene,” says Lila. “Please don’t do this. I really don’t need you to get invo—”

“I’m sorry, Lila.”

Marja’s heavily accented voice cuts across them. Lila turns and stares at her. Marja’s mouth is compressed into a thin line, and she is clearly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I really am.” For the first time Lila notices how tired she looks, how pale. Lila wants to say something in reply but nothing will come out. She just stares at the woman who’s suddenly utterly unlike the glowing, calculating nemesis who has existed in her head for so long. Marja looks at her feet. “And I’m very sorry about your children.”

Lila cannot speak. Their eyes lock, and Lila thinks, My God, she actually does look sorry.

Then Gene claps his hands together. “There—that wasn’t so hard, was it? Oh, look! There’s my girl! Violet baby! Vi! Look who came to meet you! It’s your old pal Gene!”

At this point Lila has to take a step out of the school playground. It is too much: the stares of the other mothers, the odd discomfort she feels at Gene having made Marja apologize, the hideous, hideous visibility of it all. She is dimly aware of the other mothers filing past her onto the pavement, the snatches of conversation about Star Squadron Zero , and she cannot identify what she feels: sadness? Anger? Grief? Relief?

She is interrupted by Violet, tugging at her sleeve. “Mum! You still haven’t done the costumes! Mrs. Tugendhat needs to talk to you.”

“Oh, Violet, not now, lovey.”

“No, now! She said you were meant to bring them this week!”

She looks across the playground. Gene is standing talking to Mrs. Tugendhat, who, she can tell even from here, was a Star Squadron Zero fan. Her plump hand is pressed to her chest and she sports the kind of animated expression some people wear when overwhelmed by actual conversation with an actual famous person. Gene is smiling, his shoulders thrown back, his battered leather jacket standing out among the puffy coats and brightly colored Boden jackets.

“Mum.” Violet’s voice is urgent. “They’re starting dress rehearsals in two weeks. We have to know that everything fits.”

“I know, love. I know. I promise I’ll sort it.”

Violet is still tugging at her sleeve, but as she looks up, Gene is posing for a picture with Mrs. Tugendhat, taken by one of the mothers, and then, with a courtly kiss to her hand, letting her go. The teacher is walking back toward the school, her neck flushed purple with pleasure, the costumes apparently forgotten. Gene walks over to where Lila and Violet are waiting, nodding at a few stray mothers, who smile and blush as he passes. “You okay, sweetie?” Outside the gates, he pulls a cigarette from a packet and lights up.

“I’m fine,” says Lila. She actually wants to go and lie down.

“Nice lady! She’s going to bring me some memorabilia she has in her attic. Apparently her husband has an original Star Squadron Zero bubble-bath bottle! You know they did them in the shape of four of us back in 1980? It was me, Vuleva, Vardoth the Destroyer, and Lieutenant McKinnon. Mine sold out in a week if I remember right.”

“That’s lovely,” says Lila.

“Say, I should take a look on one of those auction sites. I have loads of that stuff tucked away here and there. I think Jane may have another box somewhere in her house. I bet it would fetch a fortune if I sold it.”

They walk halfway to the house before anyone speaks again.

Then Gene nudges her. “Hey—you want to know what I wrote on the piece of paper for that Philippa lady?”

Lila shrugs distractedly. “Your autograph?”

“I wrote: Dear Philippa, I’ve atom-blasted radioactive space demons who were nicer than you . Signed, your old pal Gene .” He is still chuckling to himself by the time they reach their street.