27. Guest v. Finbow Day Five #3
We were at the threshold, when the bathroom door handle rattled again.
I swiveled around in surprise, Anna turning more reluctantly.
Someone else had been inside it with her.
Another flushing sound, a familiar cough, then the door sprang open.
Lawrence walked out of the same bathroom, pinching his nose.
“Hullo,” he burred, glancing mischievously toward Anna. “The other one was busy.”
Mary’s childhood bed was between us, the eiderdown rumpled from where I’d been sitting, a wide gulf of cream carpet surrounding it. Anna stood by the open door, coaxing us both downstairs.
“Guests aren’t supposed to be up here!” she repeated, matronlike, as if they hadn’t emerged from the same place.
But it was too late, for as Lawrence approached, he also caught my eye. One second passed. Then another. He held my gaze. I wanted to turn and place my forehead against the bedroom wall forever, but there was no chance of it. He lifted his glasses.
“Aha, it’s you!” He squinted at me and I cursed him inside: his thick neck, the hair on the back of his hands, the threatening alignment of his neat, sharp teeth. “Now, I know you from somewhere.”
We were by the door now, all three of us. The room felt unbearably crowded, but there was no escape. Anna folded her arms and looked at me with impatience. She was high, I could tell. Agitated with it. “Do you two know each other?”
I smiled thinly. “Not really—”
There was a pause. Law squinted at me again, then his face shifted in recognition. I wanted to collapse. Fall to my knees or fight him.
“Rome. We met in Rome,” Lawrence said, his eyelids flickering. “Don’t tell me. One of my students. What year were you? Don’t tell me—was it Grace?”
“Gus,” I said quietly.
He beamed, and I knew I was discovered. “That’s it! I’d never forget a face like yours. You were one of our models, weren’t you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“A couple of years ago, wasn’t it? That’s it! You kept emailing us about your portrait!”
“Don’t be absurd, Laurie,” said Anna. “You’re pissed.” She looked apologetically at me. “He thinks everything is always about that bloody school!”
Anna strode out onto the landing. We followed. My limbs felt light as I estimated how many stairs existed between me and the front door. I wondered if this was now the moment. If I could run now.
“You were Mary’s model.”
Anna turned, laughing, on the top stair. With her hand resting on the banister, and the great staircase beneath her, she was beautiful, like she’d stepped from a portrait herself. Then a shadow crossed her face. Her jaw tightened.
“Gussie doesn’t know Mary. She’s our help. She lives in the north.” There was a pause. Her gaze searched me, seeking reassurance. I couldn’t meet it. “Please tell me he’s confused,” she whispered. “Please?”
“He’s not confused,” I said, my voice shaking with self-disgust.
“No?” said Anna softly. “No?”
“But I can explain—”
“No!”
Lawrence and I stared at each other. The skin on his neck was flushed, and I wondered if he regretted what he’d just blurted out.
Whether he knew that it might implicate him.
In the horror of my uncovering, this was a shred of consolation: I would share Mary’s confession.
Anna and Bonamy had to know. I would not go down alone.
“He’s not confused,” I said, rushing my words. “I knew Mary. But it’s important you understand: She wouldn’t be gone if it wasn’t for Lawrence.”
Anna was too furious to listen. She fled down the stairs, and when she reached the bottom step, she looked up in outrage.
Her face was full of motion, like the hard edges of a rock loosening and giving way to reveal more hard rock beneath it.
“Not you, Gussie,” she cried. “Not you as well.” A sob escaped from her as she turned and fled. “ Please , not you as well!”
I raced after her into the kitchen. The room was empty now, wine bottles littering the kitchen counter like fallen skittles. Anna crouched over the sink, breathing deeply. When I approached her, she flinched.
“I knew there was something strange about you. You were always just there. Always hanging around, hanging on. Normally, I can spot them. Fantasists. But you! Wow!” She gave a cruel laugh and pointed. “You were really fucking good.”
“Please,” I stammered.
“You leech. We told you everything!” She spat out the words. “We trusted you!”
“Anna, stop. Please, calm down.”
“I think she should go,” Lawrence muttered, sidling up to Anna. I hadn’t seen him enter the kitchen. Fury coursed through my veins as he started talking about how much I’d had to drink.
“Please, Anna. Just let me explain! It’s that man, that bully , who should terrify you.” I walked over to where Lawrence stood by the kitchen table. “Do you get a kick out of being here?” I snarled. “In her home? Doing coke with her mum in her bathroom?”
Lawrence laughed scornfully and shook his head, though the skin on his face was growing red, too.
“Is this your coat?” He spoke to me as though I were vermin, and picked up the nearest garment to hand, which he pressed, hard, into my stomach. “I think it’s time to head off now, isn’t it? You’ve had a lot of punch—”
“Not enough to forget the truth, Lawrence.”
“Are you still in touch?” Anna interrupted, seizing a glass of wine and walking toward me, her eyes traveling angrily over my face as she spooled backward through the last few months.
I could feel her replaying all our little trusting chats, the details she had relayed about the trial.
The questions I had asked about Mary. The breadth of my betrayal.
“Please tell me you’re not communicating with her?
” I hesitated, remembering Anna only knew about my relationship with Mary, nothing of Jean.
I bit my lip as Anna gestured at me clumsily with her glass.
“I let you hear everything. Everything!”
“I don’t know any more than you do,” I snapped bitterly.
“Oh, so you weren’t actually friends,” she jeered. “Of course not.” She laughed to herself. “You’re a complete nobody .”
“We were close enough for her to tell me the fucked-up things he did to her,” I cried, pointing across at Lawrence.
“What?” said Anna, aghast.
“When she was sixteen!”
“She was like this in Rome, too, Anna,” Lawrence boomed in a bored tone.
“ Completely obsessed with your daughter. Deluded about her. The other students talked about it. Wasn’t healthy.
Now, now.” There was frightening force in his chuckle as he reached for my arm, gripped it.
“I think it’s time to leave, don’t you? Come on, let’s go. ”
“Get off me!” I shrieked, shaking him clear. In an instant, I was Mary at the party, stumbling away from him, toga unraveled, her hair all matted. I blinked, feeling light-headed as I tried to suppress the memory.
“Oh, I get it,” said Anna sarcastically, going over to the kitchen table and sitting down. “She’s swallowed all those rumors about you, Lawrence.” She winced. “That’s what happened.”
“In Mary’s case, it’s true.”
A look of dread passed over Anna’s face. “What do you mean?”
I knew then that Mary had it wrong, that Anna had no idea about what had happened to her as a teenager. Jean had twisted things, consciously misinterpreting Mary’s misgivings to weave the far darker story that Anna and Bonamy had known about, or even condoned, Law’s behavior.
“Listen to me, please,” I rushed on. “You can’t have him speak at the trial. You categorically cannot call him as a fucking character witness—”
“This is outrageous ,” said Lawrence, stepping toward me again.
“It’ll destroy Mary. She’ll never come back, not to any of us—”
“You’ve said your piece,” said Lawrence. “Now, out!”
“Just let her finish, will you?” Bonamy stepped into the kitchen from the garden, pulling the door behind him. I felt a wave of relief at his presence. Weakly, I smiled at him. He looked away.
“Do you remember the costume party in Rome, Anna?” I asked, speaking quickly. “The one on the island? You won’t remember it, but we actually talked. I remember your outfit, so clearly.”
Lawrence called from behind me, “Enough with this madness—”
“You had all these paper butterflies stuck to your eyelashes.”
“You shouldn’t have let her anywhere near your family,” Lawrence said, now addressing Bonamy. But Anna looked rattled. A flicker of familiarity crossed her face.
“I saw them together at that party,” I said flatly. “Lawrence and Mary.”
Lawrence interrupted angrily. “Anna, don’t listen to this parasite. ”
I turned on him then. “Mary told me everything. How much you fucked her up. On family holidays. At parties. She thinks you knew, Anna!” I said, a sob escaping from me. “She told me you’ve always known!”
Anna gazed, glassy-eyed. There was a moment’s pause, and I wondered if my words, although difficult to hear, might actually have reached her. Then her manner shifted. Her jaw reset in utter distaste.
She turned, slowly, to face me. “How dare you come into my home and spread this utter bile about my closest friend? Lawrence has been a part of our family for years. Whereas you are a liar. A liar who we trusted with everything!”
“A fucking fantasist!” said Lawrence.
“You didn’t really trust me, Anna!” I snapped. “You just argued in front of me. No wonder Mary wanted out of your family. She said it was toxic.”
Anna made a cry of outrage, then steadied herself.
“Bonamy,” she said, breathing deeply. “Get her out. She’s dangerous.
Where’s the dog? Does she still have the dog?
” Then she looked me up and down. I was wearing the dungarees she’d once admired.
“Are those my fucking clothes ? Did you steal them from Mary? This is too much! You actually terrify me!” Bonamy approached me slowly, and Anna kicked at the table leg. “Get her out, now!”
“I’m telling the truth, Anna,” I sobbed as Bonamy guided me upstairs and toward the front door. “I promise you, it’s the truth.”
“Liar!” she shouted. “Get out!”
After a moment, Anna stomped up the stairs and prowled after us. By the front door, she grabbed my arm.
“Hang on, I think I do remember something, actually,” she said, leering viciously into my face.
“Mary did mention you once. She came home one weekend and talked about her model . She said that you had rather a crush on her, I think.” The door opened, but she held me there on the step and leaned even closer toward me. “You embarrassed her.”
She slammed the door, but, to my surprise, Bonamy led me right out of the front gate, pausing under the lamplight. I started to feel faint. I looked around helplessly for somewhere to slump down.
Grip the earth, I said to myself. Name the smells .
“We gave you a chance,” Bonamy said. “We made you quite comfortable. All we asked for was a bit of loyalty in return—”
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I never meant—”
“What is it you want from us? Is it money? Is that what this is about?”
“That’s the last thing I want.” My voice trembled. “I don’t want money. I just want Mary to be…” I paused as I searched for the words. I knew I couldn’t say mine . “Free.”
“But this stuff about Lawrence?” His face was pale, the muscles of his mouth puckered with emotion.
“Bonamy, please believe me,” I begged. “Mary thinks you and Anna knew. And ignored what was happening, or even supported it.”
Bonamy’s lip quivered. “I’m just realizing that I mentioned him. I bloody said his name when I saw her at the Tube. No wonder—” Then he turned, interrupting his own thoughts, surveying me with seriousness. “You said you knew her in Rome?”
I nodded. “That’s when I first saw them together.”
“But, hold on. If you knew Mary as you claim to do, then why didn’t you say?” His voice cracked. “You might have helped us.”
“Because,” I stammered. “Because it was Mary I wanted to help, not you. I thought she needed help, from someone outside her family. An adult she could trust.”
There was a long pause. I could hear Bonamy’s mind piecing together the facts. “So was it you who took her to—” Bonamy brought a fist to his mouth. He turned from me, unable to utter her name.
“To Jean?” I nodded, my chest tight as I confirmed it.
Bonamy swore. I stood there numbly for a moment, then I tried to explain. “This thing with Lawrence, it really fucked her up. At the time, Jean was treating me. I thought it might help. She means well, I promise. At the beginning, she does actually mean well. I definitely believe that.”
“I’ll kill him!” Bonamy roared suddenly into the darkness. He turned back, wild in his eyes and breathing loudly through his nose. “You’re still in touch with her?” he stammered.
“With Mary?”
“No,” he hissed. “Jean.”
I held my breath. “Sometimes.”
“And you’ve, you’ve told her things ?”
“She asked me to,” I said, hating myself as I sobbed and lied. “It was her idea to—”
“Hang on—” Bonamy cut me off, looking at me with an expression of utter loathing.
Then a thought seemed to pass through him.
A jolt of realization. “And you claim you wanted to help my daughter?” I glanced up hopefully.
“Then you will find yourself a solicitor and make a statement. Against Jean. You can join our defense.”
The thought of betraying Jean in public made me want to be sick. Still, I nodded.
“And then?”
“And then ?”
“What about Lawrence?” I ventured.
Bonamy’s gaze traveled all over my face. First, there was sadness in his pale blue eyes, then anger. Finally, a ghost in his glance, fading away as I was outcast: Mary.
“And then, Gussie, you will leave my family the fuck alone.”