Chapter Twenty-Nine
Stephen
The address was in Brooklyn Heights at a grey tower block that wouldn’t have looked out of place around where I’d grown up.
Inside the building was echoey and smelt of bleach.
We took the stairs as it was only four floors up and I suppressed my ingrained habit to let Elle go first. That way I wouldn’t be tempted to watch her behind, or the way her summer dress floated around her thighs, as she climbed in front of me.
Best behaviour. Best behaviour. That had to be my mantra now.
I was not here to notice the dizzying curve of her hips or the way her hair smelt of citrus fruit or read into that moment in the kitchen when we’d stood ridiculously close and still, like we needed a breather from pulling against the forces urging us together.
Or maybe she’d just been waiting to see if I was going to keep to my word or pounce on her.
Christ, how I had wanted to pounce on her, press my mouth to her exposed neck, press my –
Best behaviour, Stephen.
When we reached the apartment, Elle was breathing heavily from chasing me up the stairs, her chest rising and falling in a very distracting way. God help me, it was like I’d never been attracted to a woman before.
My desperation to distract myself had me ringing the buzzer without a moment of hesitation. We could hear the TV coming through the door, but no one was answering. ‘Shall we write a note?’
‘Maybe. Let’s try once more,’ Elle said.
She was so good at keeping me going. That pep talk at Coney Island, when I was tired of traipsing around after the man who’d abandoned me, had been just what I needed.
And it was the reason I’d brought her with me for this, too.
Or part of the reason. The other parts being made up of needing her inquisitive brain and…
just wanting to be around her, I had to admit.
It’d barely been a day after Coney Island when I realised that I was impatient to get to Saturday.
Not to continue the search, but to see Elle.
To be sure that things were going to be OK between us and…
well…get my fix of her company, for what good it would do me.
I banged on the wooden door this time, the blue paint tacky in the heat. Finally, the volume of the TV dipped, and a woman appeared. Her hair was faded blonde, cut in a wiry bob around her face. She wore a tank top and long shorts and a pissed-off expression.
‘Yeah?’ If this was the woman my father had lived with, I had a feeling that she wasn’t going to be terribly helpful.
‘Sorry for bothering you – would you happen to be Lorna Smith?’
Her eyes narrowed, her hand tightening on the doorjamb. ‘And who are yous?’ Her New York accent was thick, the kind I’d heard more in films than during my stay so far.
Elle stepped in, introducing herself. ‘I’m a writer and we’re looking for a man called Trevor. We heard he lived here a while back?’
‘Oh yeah? What’s he done? And why is a writer looking for him? You gonna do his autobiography? Ha. I could write that. Born in England. Grew up to be a fucking jerk. Will die a fucking jerk.’
And there it was. This was the other side of the coin I was used to hearing about him. Heads: charming ladies’ man. Tails: despicable human. I’d definitely heard more of the latter growing up, my mum in the kitchen talking to her best friend, or even David in a low voice.
‘Wow,’ Elle muttered, ‘that’s some character reference.’
‘Isn’t it just,’ I agreed, distractedly. I was too busy trying to figure out what Trevor had seen in her that was anything like my mother – but then he hadn’t stuck around with my Mum and it sounded like he hadn’t stuck around with her either. Perhaps any type of woman was his type?
Was that how it was for me? I’d never really had a ‘type’ – there was a lot to appreciate when it came to women, so I’d never really understood men who only went for blondes or a certain body type. Was that just greedy?
Lorna sneered at our comments and then her eyes narrowed on me with suddenly renewed interest. ‘Oh my fucking God,’ she said after a long moment. ‘You’re his boy, aren’t you? The one he left back in London?’
I took a deep, involuntary breath, like she’d just slapped me.
Elle’s head snapped in my direction, but I couldn’t look at her. Didn’t want to see her expression now she knew the type of father I had. That he’d left me behind like the pair of worn out trainers he’d decided weren’t worth the space in his suitcase.
‘He told you about me?’ I asked, lips numb. I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought it was possible that I’d played any part in his life at all, even in conversation.
‘Oh, yeah.’ She leaned her shoulder onto her door frame and her smile was full of spite.
‘He’d get drunk sometimes and talk. Said he felt guilty.
Never made him put it right though, did it?
I mean, that’s why you’re here, ain’t it?
He never went back for you; else you wouldn’t be tryna track him down on my doorstep. ’
I didn’t know what to do with that information. I’d spent so long telling myself that I didn’t care. There was a box with my feelings about him locked up inside me. It meant none of them got out, but it also meant I didn’t know how to put any new ones in it.
‘You don’t have to sound so damn happy about it,’ Elle threw at the woman. I didn’t want to know what she was thinking about this revelation. I should have told her before.
‘Misery loves company,’ Lorna retorted and shook her head, still staring at me. ‘Damn but you look like him. Better-looking in fact. Trevor 2.0.’ Her eyes flitted to Elle. ‘I’d keep an eye on him if I were you. He’ll be at it like a tomcat every time you’re not looking.’
‘It’s not like that—’ I started but she cut me off.
‘That’s what he always said.’
The words dried up in my mouth.
Elle’s hand curled around mine, squeezing. ‘Look, fine. We’re obviously an unwelcome reminder of a man you had a bad relationship with, and it’s made you feel bitter, but Stephen’s done nothing to you to deserve your disdain, OK? Can’t you help us out? For solidarity’s sake or something?’
‘Oh, “disdain”, is it? You are a writer.’ Lorna laughed, harsh and short. ‘Honey, you got it bad. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I got troubles enough of my own without worrying about someone else’s bastard. Don’t come here again.’ And with that she shut the door in our faces.
Elle’s hand was still in mine, somehow an anchor when I felt like pieces of me had scattered and weren’t coming back together again.
‘I’d like to mail dog mess through that letterbox,’ she said and then tugged on my hand to make me follow her down the stairs to the street again.
Everything seemed unnaturally busy outside; all the bustle and the heat; blaring horns and chatter; shoes clattering on the hot pavement; the smell of suntan oil and food; the sun, relentless overhead and not a breath of air anywhere…
It was getting to me. The city never got to me.
London could be all this and more. The roads were even tighter, dirty pigeons picking at rubbish from skips and sticky, unmentionable substances over the ground. But it never bothered me.
What had Trevor done to that woman to leave her so angry for so many years?
I’d always thought of him as someone who couldn’t commit but she’d confirmed he was a philanderer, too.
Had he done that to Mum as well? Anger rose like a wave and crashed impotently against the fact I would probably never know.
‘Stephen,’ Elle’s voice sounded like it was coming at me from the other side of a pane of glass. ‘Are you still with me?’
‘Yes.’ But I’m done, I wanted to say. I want to go home, back to my air-conditioned apartment and have a shower, so I don’t feel so dirty. Lie on my sofa with a tall glass of iced water, in the quiet. I didn’t want to think about this anymore.
She frowned at me as though she understood all that and more. I didn’t want that either. Her pity and, most likely, the dawning realisation that she was correct about me being chronically promiscuous just like my father and utterly right not to want to touch me with a bargepole.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked, quietly.
‘I’m ashamed,’ I answered, my voice sticky and slow.
I don’t know what prompted me to say it.
It was more honest than I’d even been with myself but I’d lied to her so much about this situation already.
She’d asked for honesty from the outset and I hadn’t even had enough decency to give her that when she’d been trying to help me.
‘He walked out on you and your mom? Or she had an affair with him? Either way, you’ve got nothing to feel ashamed about.’
‘He left us. I’ve not seen him since I was three.’
‘What a piece of work.’ She stepped closer, so that I couldn’t avoid looking at her face, and repeated, ‘You’ve got no reason to feel ashamed, Stephen. That’s on him, not you.’
‘Are you certain? What was it you said about me? You’re not sure “guys like me” know how to do anything other than flirt?’
‘Flirting is not siring children and abandoning them to move halfway across the world. You wouldn’t do that, would you?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s why I don’t get in too deep. I don’t want to hurt anyone.’
Elle pressed her lips together hard before she spoke again. ‘You know what we need?’
‘Please, God, don’t make me go on a Ferris wheel again.’
Her laugh erupted from her, loud with surprise and what sounded like relief. ‘No, I promise. There’s a great place that sells lemon ice on the way to my parents’. We’ll get some, you’ll give me the full details and then I’ll take you to the barbecue and we’ll ask my dad for a favour.’
‘He’s not in the Mafia, is he? That woman was unpleasant, but I don’t want her offed.’
‘There’s my Stephen back.’ She reached up and patted my cheek, her grey eyes reflecting the expanse of clear blue sky above us.
Her Stephen. That sounded so wonderful but so unobtainable. A gift I’d never really receive because we both knew I didn’t deserve it; she was just trying to cheer me up.
She linked her arm through mine and led me towards the pedestrian crossing.
‘No. My dad is the opposite of the Mafia. He’s a detective.
And if we ask him, really, really, nicely, he might do a little search of the official records for us.
But I need you to be on your top charming form. So, what we need is lemon ice.’