Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-eight
Lila has been unprepared for how shaken she would be by Jensen’s reaction, this new version of him who finds her abhorrent, someone he no longer recognizes. She hadn’t realized how much she’d enjoyed having his benign presence around until it was gone. She finds it impossible to work on the book. Even the garden feels tainted—an immaculate green rebuke. Every time she sits down she hears his voice: Who are you, Lila?
It has become impossibly clear to her. How on earth had she thought she could write about her life in this way, without considering the impact on the people around her? She remembers Celie’s pointed questions at the pizza restaurant, her niggle of anxiety about how the girls would react to her stories. She hadn’t even considered Jensen’s feelings.
Eleanor, on their dog walk, pulls the kind of face that suggests his reaction is no surprise, which doesn’t make her feel any better. “You’re going to have to talk to your publishers,” she says, when Lila recounts the awful day.
“Without all the sexy stuff they’ll cancel the contract. And then I’ll have no money.”
“But you’re going to have to lose that chapter whatever you do. You can’t possibly go ahead with it. Not after this.”
Lila’s head drops into her hands. “Bloody hell, El. Do you think I’m a shitty person?”
“No. You’re a person who was in a mess and maybe lost sight of something.” Eleanor stops and puts a hand on her arm. “Though I had been wondering, Lils, how you’d feel when some of that stuff was published. It’s quite exposing, writing about your sex life. And I’m not sure you’re in the right place—or even that you’re the right person—to deal with that. Do you really want to be that person anyway? Selling your intimate life for money? It was one thing when you were writing about how to rescue a marriage—I can see that has value. But writing about your sex life—isn’t that just encouraging a kind of voyeurism? Opening yourself up to all sorts of judgment?”
“Says the woman who has spent the last eighteen months—”
“I know. I know. But me going to those parties didn’t affect anyone except me. And nobody knew who I was. It’s not something that’ll follow me around forever.”
Lila cannot talk anymore. So Eleanor talks, in the way that old friends do when they understand the particular depth of the pit you’re in. Eleanor has taken up salsa dancing. She goes to a place in Waterloo full of exotically dressed old men who want nothing more than to sling her around a dance floor. She has also started going for weekly massages, so that she can, as she puts it, stay connected to her body. “Only middle-aged women masseurs. Really strong ones who aren’t afraid to get their elbows in. Honestly, I feel great afterward and it costs a lot less than the sex parties once you factor in the sex gear and talcum powder. You should try it.”
“I can’t afford it,” Lila says.
···
One of Francesca’s golden rules was that if you were sunk in despondency you should move your body. Do something, darling . Go for a walk or empty a wardrobe or dig something in the garden. Whatever gets you out of your head and into your body. Lila has now stared at her screen for an hour and forty minutes and all she has achieved is to sink further and further into melancholy. When she is not melancholy, she is jittery, her brain refusing to be still long enough for her to focus on her work. Every time she reads what she has written she is flooded with shame, the angry voices of future readers.
Who are you, Lila?
It has turned cold, as if winter has arrived overnight, and the garden has felt chill and unwelcoming even without the drop in temperature so she decides to organize the house. Gene has brought back three large cardboard boxes from Jane’s house and, being Gene, has simply left them in the hall “because there’s no space for them in my room.” That there is definitely no space for them in the hall either is unacknowledged. As is the fact that he is now referring to “my room.” Between Gene’s extra stuff, and the never-ending exodus of things from Bill’s bungalow, Lila feels like her house has started to resemble one of those eccentric junk shops where a moose’s head sits on a chamber pot and the shelves are full of books that nobody will ever read.
She will clear some things from the attic. Gene’s boxes can go up there. If nothing else she can create some space in the hallway, and at least then she can feel as if she has achieved something. She is coming downstairs when she passes Bill on his way up. He has had a new haircut and looks oddly vulnerable and shorn. He is carrying a newspaper under his arm and in his right hand holds a tray with two cups of tea. Penelope is behind him. Lila wonders briefly if they are going to drink tea in bed.
“Oh, Lila, I saw Jensen yesterday.”
Lila’s stomach drops at the mention of his name.
“He was in a very odd mood. He was actually rather curt, if I’m honest.”
“Perhaps you caught him at a bad moment,” says Penelope. “He’s normally such a friendly chap.”
“Yes. Perhaps a bad moment.” Bill ponders this. “Oh, he did say I should remind you about that tree at the front.”
Lila feels sick at the thought of Jensen being unfriendly. It’s like nature going wrong—waterfalls running upward or cats barking like dogs. She has done that to him. “I’m going to sort out some things in the attic,” she says, in an effort to change the subject.
“Oh, good idea. I’ll come and help you when we’ve had our tea.” He turns to Penelope. “You’re heading off soon anyway, aren’t you, darling?”
Darling. Something in Lila contracts at the casual use of the word and she is not sure whether it is grief for her absent mother or just evidence of love that she seems incapable of grasping for herself.
“I am. Cameron Williams has a grade-four exam tomorrow and we need to practice his sight reading. But I can help for a little while if you think I might be useful.”
“You’re terribly sweet. But, no, I think Cameron’s needs are probably greater just now.”
They are still murmuring companionably about minor scales and arpeggios as Lila pulls down the loft ladder and disappears into the attic.
···
Lila sits on the dusty floor and gazes around her in the too-still air, watching the dust motes settle in the dim light, and wonders if this was actually a really stupid idea. There is something about an attic, after all, that induces a kind of melancholy. Perhaps it is the sight of long-neglected items gathering dust unseen and unloved. Perhaps it is the evidence of a family life that has long passed. Lila looks around at the many boxes, Dan’s old CD collection that he had failed to take with him, the small coffee-table he had brought from his parents’ house when they had first moved in together, the bags of the girls’ outgrown clothes that remind her of when they were small, needy, and affectionate. There are other boxes here too: three labeled “Francesca” that Bill brought round after her mother died, things, he said, that he couldn’t bear to have in the house but neither of them could throw away.
Then she thinks of Gene’s extra boxes in the hall, and remembers she needs to do something to make her feel she has a grip on life. Dan’s stuff will be the easiest to deal with. She hauls over the boxes of CDs, starts going through them, and then, overwhelmed by the sight of music they had enjoyed when they were first together, starts carrying the boxes downstairs without looking at them. She will text him when she has finished to ask if he still wants them, and if not, she will take them all to the charity shop. And that will be two boxes gone already. And Marja will be welcome to the best of U2, and the Smiths album she always had to pretend to enjoy.
She has been up there for almost an hour when Bill arrives. His gray head appears through the loft hatch and he holds up a mug of tea that she takes gratefully. “Goodness,” he says, peering around. “What a lot of stuff.” As if he hasn’t filled her house with his own, she thinks, but she thanks him for the tea and carries on going through the Christmas decorations. In this box there are baubles Francesca bought, clumsily painted modeling clay decorations that Celie and Violet had made at school and she had never been able to discard. Lila has to steel herself not to think too hard about the kind of Christmas she will never have again. She thins them out, removing everything too broken to be useful, and drops a bin bag with the threadbare tinsel and smashed glass balls onto the landing, feeling a vague sense of satisfaction at another small space cleared.
Bill works alongside her in near silence, going through a box of old photographs. He says her name occasionally, drawing attention to a picture of her when she was small or the three of them on holiday in Scotland when Lila was a child, Francesca beaming—always beaming, morphing steadily from blonde to gray. He chuckles sometimes, pointing out some of Lila’s more challenging teenage hairstyles, sighs softly at a picture of him and Francesca on honeymoon in Italy. “I think I should frame this one,” he says occasionally.
They break for lunch and Bill helps her carry some of the boxes to the car. They can only fit two boxes and three bin bags in the boot, but she decides to carry on with the attic clearing. She cannot contemplate sitting in front of the laptop, with its implicit impossible decisions. The girls are at Dan’s tonight, which means that in theory she can do as she likes, but some part of her wishes they were with her, their conversation and myriad needs providing her with distraction from what is going on in her head.
They clear almost one whole side of the attic: battered Lloyd Loom chairs that she accepts she will never repaint, stained rugs that she had thought might come in useful one day, defunct electronic equipment, impulse purchases (mostly Dan’s), and boxes of plastic toys she had forgotten they even owned. She stares at the toys, wondering whether she should take them to the dump to avoid Dan having them, but the whole thing seems too complicated to contemplate right now, just another mess she is somehow enmeshed in, and she shoves them to the low part of the eaves, not wanting to deal with it. It is moving these boxes that reveals the doll’s house. She and Bill let out a low aah as it is revealed, glancing at each other in a brief moment of nostalgia.
“I’d forgotten it was even up here,” says Lila, softly, hauling it forward so she can see it better.
Bill sits on a plastic Ikea footstool. “I did enjoy making that,” he says, leaning forward to run his hand over the dusty roof. “You were so delighted when we gave it to you.”
“I really was.” Lila opens the front, revealing the five rooms inside. There are the tiny stairs, onto which he had glued dark red stair carpet, the bathroom with its claw-footed bath. The furniture and fittings have been stacked into Tupperware boxes, which they open and exclaim at the perfection of everything, the exquisite details, the smallness of it all.
“Your mother sent off to Germany for lots of these things,” Bill said, examining a set of plates. “She was determined to get the best. She had such fun setting it all up for you.”
“I think it’s the best present I ever received.” They exchange a brief, awkward hug, and Lila rests her head on his shoulder, feeling grateful that one man in her orbit thinks she is an acceptable human.
Lila is just pulling on a light switch, exclaiming delightedly as it comes on, when Gene’s head appears through the hatch. “Hey, hey! Is this a party?”
He is beaming. He has been to an audition this morning and Lila suspects it has gone well. When it hasn’t he usually retreats to his room for a few hours to watch old videos of himself and prop up his battered ego.
“We’re just clearing some space,” Lila says. “And we found my doll’s house.”
“Well, isn’t that a beauty!” Gene exclaims.
“Bill made it,” Lila says. “For my eighth birthday.”
It takes her a moment to register the change in atmosphere. She is still exclaiming over the lights, testing each room to see which works, when she realizes Gene is gazing at the house with something less than admiration. “Good job,” he says, his face expressionless. And there is a short silence.
“Did Violet not want it in her room?” says Bill, who seems oblivious.
Lila pulls a face. “She’s never really been a doll person.” The dolls Violet had inherited from Celie had tended to end up with punk haircuts and amputations. When Violet had seemed half-hearted at the prospect of having the doll’s house, Lila had not pushed her. She did not want the intricate little home ending up as Barbie’s Crack Den.
“Well, it’s just a doll’s house, right? I mean not everyone likes them,” Gene murmurs. He is peering into one of his boxes. “Not everyone wants to play house.”
“Lots of children love playing house,” Bill says, moving a stack of family albums. “Lila loved it when she was a little girl.”
“Sure. But she liked other things as well. It’s fine for kids to do something a little wilder and more adventurous.”
“But not everyone wants to be wild. Lila very much relished her little house when she was growing up.”
“How about we leave it up here and start on some other boxes?” says Lila, briskly.
She stands, a little stooped to accommodate the roof beams, and makes her way carefully toward some boxes near the water tank. She pulls one toward her and prizes open the lid. Immediately something gives inside her. It is one of Francesca’s boxes. She stares at the familiar handwriting on the letters, at her mother’s jewelry box, and has to let out a small breath. “It’s Mum’s stuff,” she says, to nobody in particular.
There is a short silence. Bill straightens behind her.
“Do we want to do this now?” she says, turning to him.
Bill puts his hand gently on her arm. “I think we should. It’s been long enough.”
“I’ll just take a look at these boxes Jane brought over,” says Gene from the other end of the attic. “I’ve got a load of memorabilia and my agent says there’s a fan convention coming up that’s contemplating including Star Squadron Zero .” Lila is not sure whether this is said from a position of diplomacy, or whether he is actually only interested in his old Star Squadron Zero junk, but either way she’s grateful.
She and Bill spend a quiet twenty minutes sorting through the first box. There are certificates and school reports Francesca had kept from her own childhood and from Lila’s. There are old passports and defunct bank books, costume jewelry and unfashionable scarves. She tries to be ruthless, telling herself she should keep only the things she would be happy to have on show. She tries to think of how Francesca would handle it. Lila darling, it’s just stuff. Keep a few beautiful things and try to focus on the future.
They pause when they get to the letters. There is one from Lila, on a school trip, telling her mother in childish, rounded handwriting how much she misses her, which makes her well up. There is a batch of love letters from Bill, wrapped in a dark velvet ribbon, which Bill holds to his chest briefly, then puts safely to one side. And then they are down to the detritus of the box, letters Francesca had sent to her own parents, or long-forgotten pen friends, a couple of old boyfriends from her teenage years declaring love from long distances.
Lila finds a letter from Francesca’s oldest friend, Dorothy, and starts reading about Francesca’s trip to Dublin. “People don’t write letters any more, but they should. These are so lovely. It’s like hearing Mum’s voice,” she says, scanning the text. “Oh, sweet, she talks about Mum buying Celie a dress while she was there. I think I still have that dress somewhere. It was white with blue checks. Violet would never wear it.”
Bill shifts to see what she is reading. He frowns. “Are you sure she said Dublin? She told me she’d only been to Ireland once, as a child. She can’t have gone again.” He takes the letter from Lila’s hand, examining it. “What date is the letter?”
Lila sees the date before he does. And blinks.
“Why would she be writing about Francesca going to Dublin? We never went there.”
“This is dated 2006?”
“I’m sure it was lovely to be in Dublin. Of course Gene met you at the Temple Bar—of course he did. I can imagine the riotous atmosphere once he got everyone going…”
Lila makes to snatch the letter from Bill, but he has seen it too. He stares at Dorothy’s writing, then looks up at Gene. “Francesca was in Dublin…with you?”
“Uhh…she—she—Say, can I have that?” Gene has come over, and is holding out his hand.
The atmosphere in the attic has stilled. It is as if a monstrous vacuum has swept in and sucked out all the air. Gene’s glance flickers between them. “I was filming over there. She just…came to hang out for a few days.”
When nobody speaks, Gene rubs at the back of his head. “It was just a short trip. Look, pal…we go back a long way.”
Bill stares at Gene, taking in what is implicit in Gene’s few words, his unusually awkward manner. Gene looks at Bill and then at Lila. “It didn’t mean anything,” he says.
“To you! It didn’t mean anything to you! It meant everything to me!”
“It was only that one time…”
“Oh. Well, that’s all right, then.”
“It was…” Gene clears his throat. “We were both feeling a bit down. I was with Jane at the time and it was a little tricky. The whole menopause thing. She was really emotional about everything. And your mother she…well, she—”
“She what?”
“Oh, you don’t need to go into the details.”
Bill is completely rigid. “I absolutely do need the details.”
Gene pulls a face. He sighs. “I think she said she was…just a bit…bored.”
“Bored?”
“Hey, I’m sorry. It was just that old…connection, you know? We couldn’t help ourselves. We go back a long way, like I said. These things are hard to resist.”
Bill is breathing hard. He sits very still, staring at the floor. He looks like someone who has been punched, hard, in the stomach and is working out which of his internal organs is no longer operative. Then he swallows, and makes his way quietly and abruptly toward the loft hatch. As Gene and Lila protest, he climbs through the hatch and starts making his way down the metal steps.
“Bill!” Lila tries to go after him but he holds up a hand. “Bill, where are you going?”
“I need some space,” Bill says, his voice quiet and choked. She can just see the top of his head now that he has made it to the landing. “I’m going home.”
Lila watches as he walks carefully down the stairs, one hand on the banister. A few moments later she hears the front door close.
The house is silent. Lila’s head is spinning. She looks up at Gene. He holds his hands up. “Well, I didn’t know she was going to write a damn letter about it.”
“Of all the people in all the world you could have slept with you had to sleep with Mum? You had to wreck the one thing Bill had left of her?” Her voice is shaking. Suddenly Lila erupts. It is as if thirty-five years of pain and frustration and loss have burst through. She wants to throw the box of letters at him. She wants to push him out of the loft hatch. “You wreck everything! My God! You just crash through people’s lives with no thought for how it impacts on them!”
“Sweetie, I—”
“You could have left her alone! Hadn’t you caused us all enough damage already? She loved Bill! And you couldn’t bear it, could you? The one chance you got and you wrecked that too. You’re a monster!”
“Lila honey—”
“Get out!” she yells. “I should have known you’d destroy this too. It’s all you do, isn’t it? Come blundering in, seduce, get bored, and destroy everyone’s happiness. You’re like—you’re like some terrible disease. Just go. Go! I never want to see you again.” Lila scrambles down the stairs, and runs, sobbing, into her bathroom.