2008 - The Other Hand

by Chris Cleave

  The morning after Lawrence stayed overnight, I dropped off Charlie at nursery and I went home to see what I could do to help Little Bee. I found her upstairs, watching television with the sound turned off. She looked so sad.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  Little Bee shrugged.

  “Is everything okay with Lawrence?”

  She looked away.

  “What is it, then?”

  Nothing.

  “Maybe you’re homesick. I know I would be. Do you miss your country?”

  She turned to look at me and her eyes were very solemn.

  “Sarah,” she said, “I do not think I have left my country. I think it has travelled with me.”

  She turned back to the television. That’s all right, I thought. There’ll be plenty of time to get through to her.

  I tidied the kitchen while Lawrence was showering. I made myself a coffee and I realised, for the first time since Andrew died, that I had taken only one cup down from the cupboard instead of my instinctual two. I stirred in the milk, the spoon clinked against the china, and I realised I was losing the habit of being Andrew’s wife. How strange, I thought. I smiled, and realised I felt strong enough to put in an appearance at the magazine.

  At my usual time the commuter train was crowded with pinstripes and laptop bags, but now it was ten thirty in the morning and the train ran nearly empty. The boy opposite me stared at the carriage’s ceiling. He wore an England shirt and blue jeans, white with plaster dust. Tattooed on the inside of his forearm, in a gothic typeface, were the words: THIS IS A TIME FOR HERO’S. I stared at the tattoo—at the fixity of its pride and its broken grammar. When I looked up the boy was watching me back, his amber eyes calm and unblinking. I blushed, and stared out of the window at the flickering back gardens of the semis.

  The train braked as we neared Waterloo. There was a sensation of being between worlds. The brake shoes squealed against the train’s metal wheels and I felt eight years old again. Here I was, converging with my magazine on unflinching rails. Soon I would arrive at a terminus and have to prove that I could step off this carriage and back into my grown-up job. When the train stopped I turned to say something to the boy with amber eyes, but he had already stood from his seat and disappeared back into the cover of the barley field beneath the shade of the sheltering woods.

  I arrived on the editorial floor at eleven thirty. The place went quiet. All the girls stared at me. I smiled and clapped my hands.

  “Come on, back to work!” I said. “When a hundred thousand ABC1 urban professional women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five lose focus then so will we, but not until.”

  At the far end of the open-plan, Clarissa was sitting behind my desk. She stood when I walked over, and came round to the front. Her lip gloss was iridescent plum. She held her hands around mine.

  “Oh, Sarah,” she said. “You poor old thing. How are you coping?”

  She was wearing an aubergine shirt-dress with a smooth black fishskin belt and glossy black knee-high boots. I realised I was wearing the jeans I had taken Batman to nursery in.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Clarissa looked me up and down, and furrowed her brow.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Really.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s great.”

  I looked over my desk. Clarissa’s laptop sat in the centre, next to her Kelly bag. My papers had been shunted to the far end.

  “We didn’t think you’d be in,” said Clarissa. “You don’t mind me usurping your throne, do you, darling?”

  I saw the way she had plugged her Blackberry into my charger.

  “No,” I said, “of course not.”

  “We thought you’d like us to get a head start on the July issue.”

  I was conscious of eyes watching us from all around the office. I smiled.

  “Yes, that’s great,” I said. “Really. So what have we got so far?”

  “For this issue? Wouldn’t you like to sit down first? Let me get you a coffee, you must feel terrible.”

  “My husband died, Clarissa. I am still alive. I have a son to look after and a mortgage to pay. I’d just like to get straight back to work.”

  Clarissa took a step back.

  “Fine,” she said. “Well, we’ve got some great stuff. It’s Henley month of course so we’re doing an ironic what-not-to-wear for the regatta, which is a cunning pretext for some pics of gorgeous rowers, bien evidemment. For fashion we’re doing something called ‘Fuck Your Boyfriend’—see what we did there? That’s going to be girls with whips snarling at boys in Duckie Brown, basically. And for the ‘Real Life’ slot there’s two choices. Either we go with this piece called ‘Beauty and the Budget’ about a woman with two ugly daughters and only enough money to pay for cosmetic surgery for one of them. Ugh—yes—I know. Or—my preference—we’ve got a piece called ‘Good Vibrations’ and I’m telling you, it’s an eye-opener. I mean, my God, Sarah, some of the sex toys you can buy online these days, they’re solutions to desires I had no idea existed, God save us all.”

  I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of the fluorescent lights, the buzzing of fax machines and the fluid chatter of the editorial girls on their phones to fashion houses. It all seemed suddenly insane, like wearing a little green bikini to an African war. I breathed out slowly, and opened my eyes.

  “So which piece do you want to go with?” said Clarissa. “Cosmetic conundrum, or carnal cornucopia?”

  I walked over to the window and rolled my forehead against the glass.

  “Please don’t do that, Sarah. It makes me nervous when you do that.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “I know, darling. That’s why it makes me nervous, because I know what you’re thinking. We have this argument every month. But we have to run the stories people read. You know we do.”

  I shrugged. “My son is convinced he will lose all his powers if he takes off his Batman costume.”

  “And your point is?”

  “That we can be deluded. That we can be mistaken in our beliefs.”

  “You think I am?”

  “I don’t know what to think any more, Clar. About the magazine, I mean. It all seems a bit unreal suddenly.”

  “Of course it does, you poor thing. I don’t even know why you came in today. It’s far too early.”

  I nodded. “That’s what Lawrence said too.”

  “You should listen to him.”

  “I do. I’m lucky to have him, I really am. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.”

  Clarissa came and stood next to me at the window.

  “Have you spoken with him much, since Andrew died?”

  “He’s at my house,” I said. “He showed up last night.”

  “He stayed overnight? He’s married, isn’t he?”

  “Don’t be like that. He was a married man before Andrew died.”

  Clarissa shivered. “I know. It’s just a bit creepy, that’s all.”

  “Is it?”

  Clarissa blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Sudden, I suppose I mean.”

  “Well, it wasn’t my idea, if you must know.”

  “In which case I revert to my original choice of word. Creepy.”

  Now we both stood with our foreheads against the glass, looking down at the traffic.

  “I actually came here to talk about work,” I said after a while.

  “Fine.”

  “I want us to go back to the kind of article we did while we were making our name. Let’s just, for once, put a real life feature in the ‘Real Life’ slot. That’s all I’m saying. I won’t let you talk me out of it this time.”

  “What, then? What kind of a feature?”

  “I want us to do a piece on refugees to the UK. Don’t worry, we can do it in the style of the magazine. We can make it about women refugees if you like.”

  Clarissa rolled her eyes.

  “And yet something in your tone tells me you’re not t
alking about women refugees with sex toys.”

  I smiled.

  “What if I said no?” said Clarissa.

  “I don’t know. Technically, I suppose, I could sack you.”

  Clarissa thought for a moment.

  “Why refugees?” she said. “Is this because you’re still cross we didn’t go with the Baghdad woman in the June issue?”

  “I just think it’s an issue that isn’t going to go away. May, June, or any time soon.”

  “Fine,” said Clarissa. Then she said, “Would you really sack me, darling?”

  “I don’t know. Would you really say no?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We stood for a long time. In the street below, an Italian-looking boy was cycling past the traffic queue. Mid-twenties, shirtless and tanned in short white nylon shorts.

  “Five,” said Clarissa.

  “Out of ten?”

  “Out of five, darling.”

  I laughed. “There are days when I would cheerfully swap lives with you, Clar.”

  Clarissa turned to me. I noticed the very slight mark of foundation left on the window-pane where her forehead had been. It hovered like a light flesh-toned cloud over the bone-white spire of Christ Church Spitalfields.

  “Oh, Sarah,” said Clarissa. “We go too far back to let one another down. You’re the boss. Of course I’ll get you- a feature on refugees, if you really want it. But I really don’t think you understand how quickly people’s eyes will glaze over. It isn’t an issue that affects anyone’s own life, that’s the problem.”

  I felt a lurching vertigo and I took a step back from the glass.

  “You’ll just have to find an angle,” I said shakily.

  Clarissa stared at me. “You’re bereaved, Sarah. You’re not thinking straight. You’re not ready to be back at work yet-.”

  “You want my job, is that it, Clar?”

  She reddened. “You didn’t say that,” she said.

  I sat down on the edge of the desk and massaged my temples with my thumbs.

  “No, I didn’t. God. I’m so sorry. Anyway, maybe you should have my job. I’m losing the plot, I really am. I don’t see the point in it any more.”

  Clarissa sighed. “I don’t want your job, Sarah.”

  She waved her long nails in the direction of the editorial floor.

  “They’re still hungry for it, Sarah. Maybe you should move on and let one of them have the job.”

  “Do you think they really deserve it?”

  “Did we deserve it, at their age?”

  “I don’t know. All I remember is how badly I wanted it. Didn’t it seem so thrilling, back then? I thought I could take on the world, I really did. Make real life issues sexy. Be challenging, remember? The bloody name of our magazine, Clar. Remember why we chose it? Nixie, for heaven’s sake. We were going to bring them in with sex and then immerse them in the issues. We weren’t going to let anyone teach us how to run a magazine. We were going to teach them, remember? Whatever happened to us wanting that?”

  “What happened to wanting, Sarah, was getting a few of the things we wanted.”

  I smiled, and sat down at my desk. I scrolled through the mocked-up pages on Clarissa’s screen.

  “These are actually pretty good,” I said.

  “Of course they’re good, darling, I’ve been doing the exact same story every single month for ten years. Cosmetic surgery and sex toys I can do with my eyes closed.”

  I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Clarissa put her hand on my shoulder.

  “But seriously, Sarah?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Please just give yourself a day to think about it, will you? The refugee piece, I mean. You’re in a state at the moment, with everything that’s happened. Why don’t you take tomorrow off, just to make sure you’re sure, and if you are sure then of course I’ll make it happen for you. But if you’re not sure, then let’s not throw away our careers over it right now, okay, darling?”

  I opened my eyes. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take a day.”

  Clarissa sagged with relief. “Thank you, doll. Because it’s not so bad, what we do. Really. No one dies when we write about fashion.”

  I looked out over the editorial floor and saw the girls watching me back: speculative, excited, predatory.

  I took another half-empty train back to Kingston and arrived home at two in the afternoon. It was hot and hazy, with a stillness and a heaviness to the day. We needed some rain to break it.

  Lawrence was in the kitchen when I got back home. I put the kettle on.

  “Where’s Bee?”

  “She’s in the garden.”

  I looked out and saw her, lying on the grass, at the far end of the garden beside the laurel bush.

  “She seem okay to you?”

  He just shrugged.

  “What is it? You two really haven’t hit it off, have you?”

  “It’s not that,” said Lawrence.

  “There’s a tension though, isn’t there? I can feel it.”

  I realised I had stirred one of the teabags until it burst. I drained the mug into the sink and started again.

  Lawrence stood behind me and put his arms around my waist.

  “It’s you who seems tense,” he said. “Is it work?”

  I leaned my head backwards onto his shoulder and sighed.

  “Work was hideous,” I said. “I lasted forty minutes. I’m wondering if I should quit.”

  He sighed into the back of my neck.

  “I knew it,” he said. “I knew something like this was coming.”

  I looked out at Little Bee, lying on her back, watching the hazy sky’filling in with grey.

  2-94

  “Do you remember what it felt like to be herage? Or Charlie’s age? Do you remember back when you felt you could actually do something to make the world better?”

  “You’re talking to the wrong man. I work for central government, remember? Actually doing something is the mistake we’re trained to avoid.”

  “Stop it, Lawrence, I’m being serious.”

  “Did I ever think I could change the world? Is that your question?”

  “Yes.”

  “A bit, maybe. When I first joined the civil service, I suppose I was quite idealistic.”

  “When did it change?”

  “When I realised we weren’t going to change the world. Certainly not if that involved implementing any computer systems. Round about lunchtime on the first day.”

  I smiled and put my mouth close to Lawrence’s ear. “Well, you’ve changed my world,” I said.

  Lawrence swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I suppose I have.”

  Behind us the icemaker dropped another cube. We stood for a while and looked out at Little Bee.

  “Look at her,” I said. “I’m so scared. Do you really think I can save her?”

  Lawrence shrugged. “Maybe you can. And don’t take this the wrong way, but so what? Save her and there’s a whole world of them behind her. A whole swarm of Little Bees, coming here to feed.”

  “Or to pollinate,” I said.

  “I think that’s naive,” said Lawrence.

  “I think my features editor would agree with you.”

  Lawrence massaged my shoulders and I closed my eyes.

  “What’s eating you?” said Lawrence.

  “I can’t seem to use the magazine to make a difference,” I said. “But that’s how it was conceived. It was meant to have an edge. It was never meant to be just another fashion rag.”

  “So what’s stopping you?”

  “Every time we put in something deep and meaningful, the circulation drops.”

  “So people’s lives are hard enough. You can see how they might not want to be reminded that everyone else’s lives are shit too.”

  “I suppose so. Maybe Andrew was right after all. Maybe I need to grow up and get a grown-up’s job.”

  Lawrence held me close.

  “Or maybe you should
relax for a little while and just enjoy what you’ve got.”

  I looked out at the garden. The sky was darker now. It seemed the rain couldn’t be far off.

  “Little Bee has changed me, Lawrence. I can’t look at her without thinking how shallow my life is.”

  “Sarah, you’re talking absolute shit. We see the world’s problems every day on television. Don’t tell me this is the first time you’ve realised they’re real. Don’t tell me those people wouldn’t swap lives with you if they could. Their lives are fucked up. But fucking up your life too? That isn’t going to help them.”

  “Well, I’m not helping them now, am I?”

  “How could you possibly do more? You cut off a finger to save that girl. And now you’re sheltering her. Food, lodging, solicitor…none of that comes cheap. You’re taking down a good salary and you’re spending it to help.”

  “Ten per cent. That’s all I’m giving her. One finger in ten. Ten pounds in every hundred. Ten per cent is hardly a wholehearted commitment.”

  “Re-evaluate that. Ten per cent is the cost of doing business. Ten per cent buys you a stable world to get on with your life in. Here, safe in the West. That’s the way to think of it. If everyone gave ten per cent, we wouldn’t need to give asylum.”

  “You still want me to kick her out, don’t you?”