Chapter 18
Lucy
When I let Dirk out, he’s apologetic. His eyes duck back to me, as if he fears he’s offending me, as if he’s reluctant to leave. Perhaps he’s uncomfortable alone with me. Does he think I tricked him into attending, and only invited him?
It’s not the first time I’ve hosted parties when most invitees fail to show, so I don’t mind. Bart’s colleagues, the journalists, were notoriously fickle. They’d either be too busy filing their next story, or out elsewhere, at some media event or free show, downing more free alcohol.
I’m just about to turn off my lamps when there’s a quiet knock at my front door.
Did Dirk have a change of heart, or leave something behind? I open it with a smile, to a tiny woman with long white hair and pale purple glasses, the lenses thick as coke bottles.
She pushes one pale hand out to me, tentatively. In her other, she cradles an ornate bottle of something the color of lemonade.
“Amaryllis Logan,” she says in a breathy whisper as she hands it over. “From Thirty Three. I hope I’m not too late?”
“Not at all, Amaryllis. Come right in.”
She hands over the bottle.
“Elderflower wine,” she says. “I make it myself. It’s alcoholic, just a little.”
“Amazing! Can I pour you some?”
She nods, and exclaims over my apartment and my lamps, so I ask her what colors she likes and promise to make her one. Everything about Amaryllis is tiny, but her joy is unmistakable.
“There’s nothing like a handmade gift, is there?” she says, and we toast the thought. Her wine is slightly fizzy, not too sweet and not too sour. It’s delicately delicious.
Over the next hour, I learn more about Brighton Court, and about her. A popular book reviewer, Amaryllis plays a small Celtic harp and sings along – ancient songs. She even composes new ones, with her own lyrics.
“Please don’t take it personally I arrived so late,” she says, her voice quiet. “I usually don’t turn up until a party is almost over. I’m an introvert. Too much company upsets me for days, but a quiet conversation is lovely, don’t you think?”
She clams up as she studies my décor, nodding with conviction.
“I love what you’ve done in here,” she says.
“How long have you lived at Brighton Court, Amaryllis?”
“All my life,” she says.
Before I can ask her about who lived here before me, and how it was decorated, she questions me again.
“What brought you to Brighton Court, Lucy, a stylish woman like you?”
I laugh and thank her for the compliment and shake my head.
“I’m no model. I started taking more care of my appearance when I became invisible,” I say.
“Invisible?”
The alcohol and Amaryllis’s earnest, agreeable company loosen my tongue. Donna knows me through and through, knows everything, but Amaryllis is a neighbor, maybe a new friend. I hope so. It’s the first time I’ve voiced my experience like this, put words around my losses.
“I just got divorced, Amaryllis. This is my fresh start. I love it here. I’m just renting, but if I could, I’d buy this place. I absolutely love it.”
“Brighton Court is special. You said you felt invisible?”
She’s listening, waiting. Do I share my story with this kind stranger? She’s a gentle person. I begin.
“I became invisible somewhere between the birth of my daughter, Phoebe and her graduation. She and Bart were always out, Phoebe with school and friends, and Bart with who knew who, his suit bag on the hanger and briefcase at the door, or not.”
Phoebe had always been so happy to sit in my lap for a story, or to have her hair done, or to go try on dresses with me and test them for twirl, or make chocolate cakes with me and lick the bowl.
Then Phoebe’s eyes became hard, in high school, and she’d rather be anywhere than at home with me.
“One night when neither Bart nor Phoebe was home, I was so beyond sad, I got angry with myself. I’d been so busy making their lives easy, my own life had disappeared.
I was an endless support system for my husband and child.
If I’d been a heroine in a novel, nobody would have bothered to read it. What a waste of a beautiful life!
“I’d once had dreams. I just couldn’t remember what they were. I ran on auto all day in a blur of chores, then zoned out on pay tv. No wonder Bart and Phoebe were bored with me. I bored myself.
“Meal times once anchored us. Around our table, we’d swap news of challenges and triumphs and laughter and tears. But those times became erratic. I’d have to guess at their news from their accusations and demands.”
“Demands?”
“Like ‘We’re out of eggs, Mom,’ or ‘Who ate the last of the peanut butter?’ or ‘I’ll need four shirts for this trip.’”
“You’re not a slave, Lucy,” said Amaryllis.
“I was the ghost who made everything possible.”
“That makes me so sad for you.”
I pull up. Have I said too much?
“Don’t be sad for me. I’ve had this beautiful fresh start.”
She smiles at me, sincere, expectant.
“Once I realized I was invisible, I thought long and hard, and in my large and clean and silent house, I searched through my cupboards. No wonder I’d become invisible to my most beloved people in the world.
My clothes were old and worn and faded and out of date, and the woman in the mirror was sad and ordinary. ”
“You are not sad and ordinary, Lucy.”
“Oh no. I took action straight away. I went to the largest mall I could find, in the centre of town, and found a hairdresser who could do my hair immediately.
I gave that hairdresser complete freedom.
I surrendered utterly as I lay my head back in the basin.
The warmth of the water down my scalp; the tropical smell of the shampoo; the head massage under his firm fingers. I sighed out loud.
“It was so strange to see my own wet head, slick as a seal’s when I sat and stared at the mirror.
I was a make-up artist at a tv network before I became a housewife.
I’d transformed so many others in my early career, and now, this stranger in a black cloak stared back at me with big, serious eyes, high cheek bones, expressive mouth and my skin still smooth enough.
Smooth enough for what, though? I smiled at myself.
I sat higher in my chair. I realized; Bart didn’t know what he was missing.
But by then, it was too late for our marriage. ”
There’s an awkward silence.
“I should go,” she says.
“No. No. Please, Amaryllis. Tell me how you make your wine.”
It’s a long process. Amaryllis tells me she gathers the berries from a friend she visits every year in the east during the fall, then there’s the right amount of sugar, testing acidity, the temperature ... It’s interesting, but I stifle a yawn.
“I’m boring you.”
“Not at all, Amaryllis.”
“Oh. Look at the time. I probably should have given you the short version. Not everyone is as passionate about elderberry wine as I am. But you know, I do love the idea that you can bottle the sunshine.”
“And it tastes so good! You must show me.”
“Not tonight. I need to get back to Merlin.”
“Oh?”
“My old cat. He frets if I’m gone too long. You must come down and meet him. Any time. I’m always home, except in September when I pick the berries.”
I clean up and turn out the lights, aglow with my new friendships. I love to think that Dirk is above me – a fine, fit, upstanding, attractive, retired doctor – and Amaryllis below; so interesting and welcoming.
In the quiet hours of the night, in my apartment, my mind drifts.
I’m not used to living alone. In those first few months after fleeing Bart, I lived with Donna.
On her sofa, rolling up my bedding and stashing it underneath each morning.
We took turns cooking, washing and sorting our clothes, shopping.
If I wanted to rant and rave about Bart, Donna ranted with me, and nodded without stop.
If I wanted silence, she was fine with that, too, or we’d chat about our working day, about the lives we’d unpacked, guessing at the details.
I should have married Donna, we joked, more than once, and in that way of friends.
I even worked out when it was time to leave, though she never said a word.
By then, along with the money from the sale of my shabby chic furniture van, I’d saved enough for rent, and was accustomed to living in a smaller space, without my workshop – so many projects half-finished, more shabby than chic.
My life had shrunk. My needs became simpler.
Food, shelter, money to live on, and working out how to reconnect with Phoebe.
In the darkness, I drag my mind to the present, to the generous proportions of these rooms, the ceiling rose above me in the centre of the room, the ornate light fitting. It glows like a pearl, like a milky opal. Calm.
I wonder who else has lived in this apartment.
It’s more than eighty years old, and unlike Dirk’s perfectly renovated penthouse, many of the features are original.
I love the old bones of this place, the polished floorboards, and especially the window seat where I often sit and stare at the busy view, of so many other buildings and windows, some with the blue and white flicker of television screens, others with Christmas lights winking.
Some are empty or dark – the residents deep in the slumber that evades me.
Some are lit with the romantic golden glow of side lamps like the ones I make, while others are bright with white lights, like workshops, dance studios and offices.
I tiptoe out to the living room and peer out.
A full moon stares across the city, huge and sombre, and I perch on the wooden window seat, my shadow streaming out into the moon, a ghostly silhouette.
I put out my arms as if to spook myself, but I can only laugh.
There is nothing sinister about this room, and though I miss Phoebe, and the glory years of Bart’s and my marriage, and my years with my parents – all too short – I am full of hope about the future, now that I’ve found this new home at Brighton Court.
I will make a cover for this seat, once I paint the room. The dark timber of the seat is ominous, a little dented and stained.
It’s only then that it occurs to me that the window seat might open, and in the darkness, I prise open the heavy lid.
It’s completely black inside, a cavern. I am thrilled.
Tomorrow, I will move my lamp-making tools from the spare bedroom and fit them all into this bonus space.
Yes, I miss my old workbench, purpose built by Delta Kitchens, a network sponsor, with drawers for my tools and fabric and a mighty expanse of flat space for cutting, but the floor will have to do.
I’ve been kneeling on a rolled-up towel.
I tiptoe back to bed and sleep without dreams.
Early next morning, when I open the seat, I find three dead moths, a shrivelled-up spider, the torn corner of a yellowed newspaper from 1979 and a rusty paperclip.
I wipe it all out with a damp sponge and let it dry.
It is only as I am settling the heavy portable glue gun into the rear corner that I notice the flooring wobbles.
Loath to damage my tools, or lose glue sticks and other supplies into the gap that opens, I peer further inside, and discover a whole floorboard loose.
Curious, I wiggle it back and forth then give it a bang and a yank and it is free, the space beneath it dragging my attention deeper.
If only I could see around corners. Gingerly I reach inside.
There’s something there, velvety and heavy.
It falls away from my flailing fingers and my heart rate spikes.
It can’t be a rat. It’s cold. My stomach jumps. A dead rat?
I can’t resist. I reach inside again and extend my whole body as far as I can, the edge of the window box hard against my ribs.
If it is a dead rat, I want it out of there.
I manage to pinch an edge of the thing and draw it closer, and closer again, until I can reach my fingers around it.
It’s awkward and surprisingly heavy. I haul it up and out and sit, the deep grey pouch in my lap.
I untie the string and unfold the edges of the old cloth and gasp. They shine and wink like a school of fish in the early morning light – teaspoons of every shape and size, chinking as I turn them over in my hands. Why were they hidden? Who lived here? A thief?