After You

  “You’re being dramatic, Dad.”

  “How is this dramatic? Sundays are family time. We should have family Sunday lunch.”

  “Mum’s entire life has been family time. Why can’t you just let her have some time to herself?”

  Dad pointed his folded-up newspaper at Treena. “You did this. Your mammy and I were perfectly happy before you started telling her she wasn’t.”

  Granddad nodded in agreement.

  “It’s all gone pear-shaped around here. I can’t watch the television without her muttering, ‘Sexist,’ at the yogurt ads. This is sexist. That’s sexist. When I brought home Ade Palmer’s copy of the Sun just for a bit of a read of the sports pages she chucked it in the fire because of Page Three. I never know where she is from one day to the next.”

  “One two-hour class,” said Treena mildly, not looking up from her books. “On a Sunday.”

  “I’m not being funny, Dad,” I said, “but those things on the end of your arms?”

  “What?” Dad looked down. “What?”

  “Your hands,” I said. “They’re not painted on.”

  He frowned at me.

  “So I’m guessing you could make the lunch. Give Mum a surprise when she gets back from her poetry class?”

  Dad’s eyes widened. “Me make the Sunday lunch! Me? We’ve been married nearly thirty years, Louisa. I don’t do the bloody lunch. I do the earning, and your mother does the lunch. That’s the deal! That’s what I signed up for! What’s the world coming to if I’m there with a pinny on peeling spuds on a Sunday? How is that fair?”

  “It’s called modern life, Dad.”

  “Modern life. You’re no help,” Dad harrumphed. “I’ll bet you Mr. bloody Traynor gets his Sunday lunch. That girl of his wouldn’t be a feminist.”

  “Ah. Then you need a castle, Dad. Castles trump feminism every time.”

  Treena and I started to laugh.

  “You know what? There’s a reason why the two of you haven’t got boyfriends.”

  “Ooh. Red card!”

  We both held up our right hands. He shoved his paper up in the air and stomped off to the garden.

  Treena turned and grinned at me. “I was going to suggest we cook lunch but . . . now?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to perpetuate a patriarchal oppression. Pub?”

  “Excellent. I’ll text Mum.”

  My mother, it seemed, had, at the age of fifty-six, begun to come out of her shell, first as tentatively as a hermit crab but now, apparently, with increasing enthusiasm. For years she hadn’t left the house unaccompanied, had been satisfied with the little domain that was our three-and-a-half-bedroom home. But spending weeks in London after I’d had my accident had forced her out of her normal routine and sparked some long-dormant curiosity about life beyond Stortfold. She had started flicking through some of the feminist texts Treena had been given at the GenderQuake awareness group at college, and these two alchemic happenings had caused my mother to undergo something of an awakening. She had ripped her way through The Second Sex and Fear of Flying, followed by The Female Eunuch, and after reading The Women’s Room had been so shocked at what she saw as the parallels to her own life that she had refused to cook for three days, until she had discovered Granddad was hoarding four-packs of stale doughnuts.

  “I keep thinking about what your man Will said,” she remarked, as we sat around the table in the pub garden watching Thom periodically butt heads with the other children on the sagging bouncy castle. “You only get the one life—isn’t that what he told you?” She was wearing her usual blue short-sleeved shirt, but she had tied her hair back in a way I hadn’t seen before. It made her look oddly youthful. “So I just want to make the most of things. Learn a little. Take the rubber gloves off once in a while.”

  “Dad is quite pissed off,” I said.

  “Language.”

  “It’s a sandwich,” said my sister. “He’s not trekking forty days through the Gobi desert for food.”

  “And it’s a ten-week course. He’ll live,” said my mother firmly, then sat back and surveyed the two of us. “Well, now, isn’t this nice? I’m not sure the three of us have been out together since . . . well, since you were teenagers and we would go shopping in town on a Saturday.”

  “And Treena would complain that all the shops were boring.”

  “Yeah, but that’s because Lou liked charity shops that smelled of people’s armpits.”

  “It’s nice to see you in some of your favorite things again.” Mum nodded at me admiringly. I had put on a bright yellow T-shirt in the hope that it would make me look happier than I felt.

  They asked about Lily, and I said she was spending more time with her mother, and had been a bit of a handful, and they exchanged looks, like that was pretty much what they had expected me to say. I didn’t tell them about Mrs. Traynor.

  “That whole Lily thing was a very odd situation. I can’t think much of that mother just handing her daughter over to you.”

  “Mum means that nicely, by the way,” said Treen.

  “But that job of yours, Lou, love. I don’t like the thought of you prancing around behind a bar in your next-to-nothings. It sounds like that place . . . What is it?”

  “Hooters,” said Treena.

  “It’s not like Hooters. It’s at an airport. My hooters are fully suited and hooted.”

  “Nobody toots those hooters,” said Treena.

  “But you’re wearing a sexist costume to serve drinks. If that’s what you want to do, you could do that at . . . I don’t know, Disneyland Paris. If you were Minnie, or Winnie the Pooh, you wouldn’t even have to show your legs.”

  “You’ll be thirty soon,” said my sister. “Minnie, Winnie, or Nell Gwynnie. The choice is yours.”

  “Well,” I said, as the waitress brought our portions of chicken and chips, “I’ve been thinking, and yes, you’re right. From now on I’m going to move on. Focus on my career.”

  “Can you say that again?” My sister moved some of the chips from her plate onto Thom’s. The pub garden had become noisier.

  “Focus on my career,” I said, louder.

  “No. That bit where you said I was right. I’m not sure you’ve said that since 1997. Thom, don’t go back on the bouncy castle yet, sweetheart. You’ll be sick.”

  We sat there for a good part of the afternoon, avoiding Dad’s increasingly cross texts demanding to know what we were all doing. I had never just sat with my mother and sister, like normal, grown-up people, having grown-up conversations that didn’t involve putting anything away or somebody being so annoying. But we found ourselves surprisingly interested in each other’s lives and opinions, as if we had suddenly realized that each of us might have roles beyond the brainy one, the chaotic one, and the one who does all the housework.

  It was an odd sensation, having to view my family as human beings.

  “Mum,” I said, shortly after Thom had finished his chicken and run back to play, and about five minutes before he would lose his lunch on the bouncy castle and put it out of action for the rest of the afternoon, “do you ever mind not having had a career?”

  “No, love. I loved being a mum. I really did. But it’s odd . . . Everything that’s happened over the past two years, it does make you think.”

  I waited.

  “I’ve been reading about all these women—these brave souls who made such a difference in the world to the way people think and do things. And I look at what I’ve done and wonder whether, well, whether anyone would notice a jot if I wasn’t here.”

  She said this quite evenly, so I couldn’t tell if she was actually much more upset about it than she was prepared to let on.

  “We’d notice more than a jot, Mum,” I said.

  “But it’s not like I’ve made an impact on much, is it? I don’t know. I’ve always been content. But it’s like I’ve spent thirty years doing one thing and now everything I read, see on television and in the papers, it’s like everyone’s
telling me it was worth nothing.”

  My sister and I stared at each other.

  “It wasn’t nothing to us, Mum.”

  “You’re sweet girls.”

  “I mean it. You—” I thought suddenly of Tanya Houghton-Miller. “You made us feel safe. And loved. I liked you being there every day when we came home.”

  Mum put her hand on mine.“I’m fine. I’m so proud of the pair of you, making your own way in the world. Really. But I just need to work out some things for myself. And it’s an interesting journey, really it is. I’m loving the reading. Mrs. Deans at the library is calling in all sorts of things she thinks I might be interested in. I’m going to move on to the American New Wave feminists next. Very interesting, all their theories.” She folded her paper napkin neatly. “I do wish they’d all stop arguing with each other, though. I slightly want to smack their heads together.”

  “And . . . are you really still not shaving your legs?”

  I had gone too far. My mother’s face closed off, and she gave me the fishy eye.

  “Sometimes, it takes you a while to wake up to a true sign of oppression. I have told your father, and I’ll tell you girls, the day he goes to the salon to have his legs covered with hot wax, then have it ripped off by a ruddy twenty-one-year-old is the day I’ll start doing mine again.”

  • • •

  The sun eased down over Stortfold like melting butter. I stayed much later into the evening than I had intended, but finally said good-bye to my family, climbed into my car, and drove home. I felt grounded, tethered. After the emotional turbulence of the past week, it was good to be surrounded by a bit of normality. And my sister, who never showed signs of weakness, had confessed that she thought she would remain single forever, brushing away Mum’s insistence that she was “a gorgeous-looking girl.”

  “But I’m a single mother,” she’d said. “And worse, I don’t do flirting. I wouldn’t know how to flirt with someone if Louisa stood behind him holding up cue cards. And the only men I’ve met in two years have either been frightened off by Thom or after one thing.”

  “Oh, not—” my mother began.

  “Free accounting advice.”

  Suddenly, looking at her from the outside, I’d felt truly sympathetic. She was right: I had been handed, against the odds, all the advantages—a home of my own and a future free of any responsibilities. The only thing holding me back was myself. The fact that she wasn’t actually eaten up with bitterness over our respective lots was pretty impressive. I hugged her before I left. She was a little shocked, then momentarily suspicious, patted her upper back to check for KICK ME signs, then finally hugged me back.

  “Come and stay,” I said. “Really. Come and stay. I’ll take you dancing at this club I know. Mum can mind Thom.”

  My sister laughed and closed the door of the car as I started it. “Yeah. You dancing? Like that’s going to happen.” She was still laughing as I drove away.

  • • •

  Six days later I returned home after a late shift to a nightclub of my own. As I came up the stairs of my block, instead of the usual silence, I could hear the distant sound of laughter, the irregular thump of music. I hesitated for a moment outside my front door, thinking that in my exhausted state I must be mistaken, then unlocked it.

  The smell of weed hit me first, so strong I almost reflexively held my breath rather than inhale. I walked slowly to the living room, opened the door, and stood there, not quite able to believe at first the scene that confronted me. In the dimly lit room, Lily was lying on my sofa, her short skirt rucked up somewhere just below her bottom, a badly rolled joint midway to her mouth. Two young men were sprawled against the sofa, islands amid a sea of alcoholic detritus, empty crisps packets, and polystyrene takeaway cartons. Also seated on the floor were two girls of Lily’s age, one, her hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail, looked at me with her eyebrows raised, as if to question what I thought I was doing there. Music blasted from the sound system. The number of beer cans and overflowing ashtrays told of a long night.

  “Oh,” Lily said exaggeratedly. “Hi-i-i.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Yeah. We were out, and we sort of missed the late bus, so I thought it would be okay if we crashed here. You don’t mind, do you?”

  I was so stunned I could barely speak.

  “Yes,” I said, tightly. “Actually, I do mind.”

  “Uh-oh.” She began to cackle.

  I stood in the doorway and dropped my bag at my feet. I gazed around me at the municipal rubbish dump that had once passed for my living room. “Party’s over. I’ll give you five minutes to clear up your mess and go.”

  “Oh, God. I knew it. You’re going to be boring about it, aren’t you? Ugh. I knew it.” She threw herself back on the sofa melodramatically. Her voice was slurred, her actions thickened with—what? Drugs? I waited. For one brief, tense moment, the two young men looked steadily at me and I could see they were assessing whether to get up or simply to sit there.

  One of the girls sucked her teeth audibly.

  “Four minutes,” I said slowly. “I’m counting.”

  Perhaps my righteous anger gave me some authority. Perhaps they were actually less brave than they appeared. One by one they slowly clambered to their feet and sloped past me to the open front door. As the last of the boys left, he ostentatiously lifted his hand and dropped a can on the hall floor so that beer sprayed up the wall and over the carpet. I kicked the door shut behind them and picked it up. By the time I got to Lily, I was shaking with anger. “What the hell do you think you are playing at?”

  “Jesus. It was just a few friends, okay?”

  “This is not your flat, Lily. It is not your place to bring people back as you see fit . . .” A sudden flashback: that strange sense of dislocation when I had returned home a week ago. “Oh, my God. You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Last week. You had people here and then left before I got back.”

  Lily climbed unsteadily to her feet. She pulled down her skirt and ran her hand through her hair, tugging at the tangles. Her eyeliner was smudged, and she had what could have been a bruise, or perhaps a hickey on her neck. “God. Why do you have to make such a big deal out of everything? They were just people, okay?”

  “In my home.”

  “Well, it’s hardly a home, is it? It’s got no furniture, and nothing personal. You haven’t even got pictures on your walls. It’s like . . . a garage. A garage without a car. I’ve actually seen homier petrol stations.”

  “What I do with my home is none of your business.”

  She let out a small belch and fanned the air in front of her mouth. “Ugh. Kebab breath.” She padded to the kitchen where she opened three cupboards until she found a glass. She filled it and gulped down the water. “And you haven’t even got a proper television. I didn’t know people even still had eighteen-inch screens.”

  I began to pick up the cans, shoving them into a plastic bag. “So who were they?”

  “I don’t know. Just some people.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Friends.” She sounded irritated. “People I know from clubbing.”

  “You met them in a club?”

  “Yes. Clubbing. Blah, blah, blah. It’s like you’re being deliberately thick. Yes. Just some friends I met in a club. It’s what normal people do, you know? Have friends they go out with.”

  She threw the glass into the washing-up bowl, where I heard it crack, and stalked out of the kitchen, giving me a resentful look.

  I stared at her, my heart suddenly sinking. And I ran next door to my room and opened my top drawer. I riffled through my socks, looking for the little jewelry box that contained my grandmother’s chain and wedding ring. I stopped and took a deep breath, telling myself I couldn’t see it because I was panicking. It would be there. Of course it would. I began picking up the contents of the drawer, carefully checking through each item and throwing them onto the bed.

  “Did they com
e in here?” I shouted.

  Lily appeared in the doorway of my bedroom. “Did what?”

  “Your friends. Did they come in my bedroom? Where’s my jewelry?”

  Lily seemed to wake up a little. “Jewelry?”

  “Oh, no. Oh, no.” I opened all my drawers, began dumping the contents on the floor. “Where is it? And where’s my emergency cash?” I turned to her. “Who were they? What were their names?”

  Lily had gone quiet.

  “Lily!”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You said they were your friends.”

  “Just . . . clubbing friends. Mitch. And . . . Lise and—I can’t remember.”

  I ran for the door, bolted down the hallway and hurled myself down the four flights of stairs. But by the time I reached the front door, the corridor and the street beyond it were empty, but for the late bus to Waterloo sailing gently, illuminated, down the middle of the dark road.

  I stood in the doorway, panting. Then I closed my eyes, fighting back tears, dropping my hands to my knees as I realized what I had lost: my grandmother’s ring, the fine gold chain with the little pendant she had worn from when I was a child. I knew already I would never see them again. There were so few things to pass down in my family, and now even these were gone.

  I walked slowly back up the stairs.

  Lily was standing in the hallway when I opened the front door. “I’m really sorry,” she said, quietly. “I didn’t know they would steal your stuff.”

  “Go away, Lily,” I said.

  “They seemed really nice. I—I should have thought—”

  “I’ve been at work for thirteen hours. I need to figure out what I’ve lost and then I want to go to sleep. Your mother is back from her holiday. Please just go home.”

  “But I—”

  “No. No more.”

  I straightened up slowly, taking a moment to catch my breath. “You know the real difference between you and your dad? Even when he was at his unhappiest he wouldn’t have treated anyone like this.”

  She looked as if I’d slapped her. I didn’t care.

  “I can’t do this anymore, Lily.” I pulled a twenty-pound note from my purse and handed it to her. “There. For your taxi.”

  She looked at it, then at me, and swallowed. She ran a hand through her hair and walked slowly back into the living room.

  I took off my jacket and stood staring at my reflection in the little mirror above my chest of drawers. I looked pale, exhausted, defeated. “And leave your keys,” I said.

  There was a short silence. I heard the clatter as they were dropped on the kitchen counter, and then with a click the front door closed and she was gone.

  16

  I messed it all up, Will.

  I hauled my knees up to my chest. I tried to imagine what he would have said if he could see me then, but I could no longer hear his voice in my head and that small fact made me even sadder.

  What do I do now?

  I understood I could not stay in the flat that Will’s legacy had bought me. It felt as if it were steeped in my failures, a bonus prize I had failed to earn. How could you make a home in a place that had come to you for all the wrong reasons? I would sell it and invest the money somewhere. But where would I go instead?

  I thought of my job, the reflexive way my stomach now clenched when I heard Celtic panpipes, even on television, the way Richard made me feel useless, worthless.

  I thought of Lily, noting the peculiar weight of the silence that resulted when you knew without doubt that nobody but you would be in your home. I wondered where she was, and pushed the thought away.

  • • •

  The rain eased off in the morning, slowing and ceasing almost apologetically, as if the weather were admitting it hadn’t really known what had got into it. I pulled on some clothes, vacuumed the flat, and put out the bags of party-related rubbish. I walked to the flower market, mostly to give myself something to do. Always better to get out and about, Marc said. I decided I might feel better