Lily's House

by Cassandra Parkin

  Benefits: I’d no longer have to live with Daniel, but I’d be close to my daughter, seeing her regularly.

  Risks: Daniel would not go quietly. He’s told me over and over that Marianne and I are the only things that matter to him, that without us to love and cherish, his life would have no meaning. In my heart I know that Daniel’s plans for his music career will never achieve anything, that he has talent but not genius, good looks but not stage presence, technical skills but no fire in the belly. But what I know is unimportant. Daniel would not forgive me leaving. Daniel would be heartbroken. Daniel would be ashamed of his failure. Daniel would want to make me understand how much I’d hurt him.

  Daniel would kill you, says Lily, shaking her head. Tell the truth, Jen.

  I know. Daniel would kill me.

  But you don’t believe that.

  No, you’re right, I don’t. Murderers don’t sob on the floor and clutch your knees and beg for forgiveness. He’s wearing and he’s suffocating but he’s not frightening.

  That’s because you’re frightened of the wrong things.

  You know what? I don’t want to talk about this any more.

  Option two. I leave Daniel, send Marianne home on her own and stay here.

  Benefits: no more Daniel. No more getting up in the middle of the night to complete the chores he can’t stand to see me doing, but seems incapable of doing himself. No more Saturday night duty sex, which means drinking white wine until my head swims, then climbing into bed and gritting my teeth and pretending to enjoy his lips searching for mine, his tongue licking at the roof of my mouth, his fingers fumbling for my nipples, his flesh pressed inside me. No more tender places marking the times when I’ve failed to successfully maintain the fiction that I’m content with him, that his contribution is adequate and even generous, that he is a successful musician and a wonderful father and a beloved husband. No more tightening in the belly as I turn my key in the door. Instead, the vast peaceful comfort of a home empty of resentment.

  Risks: Marianne. Even if I could bear to leave her behind – which I can’t, because I’m at least as greedy for my daughter as he is – if I decide not to live with him, I can’t let her do it either. I sweep the cluster of shells away with my hand.

  Of course you can’t leave her with him. My darling, he really has beaten you into submission, hasn’t he? But don’t worry. Keep thinking. You’ll find the solution.

  So, on to option three. Marianne and I stay here. We’ll walk away, the two of us, leaving everything behind. Daniel can have the house, take over the tenancy. The furniture, the music room, the contents of the kitchen cupboards. He can have our savings. He can keep the car. I’ll mortgage Lily’s flat to pay him his share of what I’ve just inherited. Once I find a new job, I’ll pay him a monthly allowance if that’s what it takes.

  Benefits: oh, everything, everything. Our own little home, the perfect size and location, in a place that, for me, is crammed with happy memories. A place where Daniel has barely been. The beach for Marianne; a new start in a new school. The cat can live with us too if she wants, that’s probably why Lily bought her in the first place…

  Well, of course it is, says Lily. I’m surprised it took you so long to realise. Something for Marianne, to make up for leaving everything else behind.

  Risks: as if Daniel would ever let that happen. He’d come down in the night and burn the place to the ground first.

  Yes, says Lily. He would.

  Which leaves only option four. I keep on doing what I’ve done for years. I do everything Daniel wants. I put Lily’s home on the market. It will sell quickly, of course – a dream purchase for any well-heeled yachting type or newly retired business owner. We bank the cash, in the full knowledge that we’ll never build our own house because Daniel will fritter it away in dribbles and chunks, paying for producers, studio time, session musicians, trips to Los Angeles, always convinced the next bend in the road will bring the lucky break he craves.

  And what about you? What will you do with the rest of your life?

  I’ll go back home. I’ll try harder. I’ll accept that I’ve made my choice and if I want to keep my daughter, this is what it will cost me. I’ll work on my career. I’ll find satisfaction in knowing I’ve done my best.

  Benefits: Marianne.

  Risks: Marianne.

  All the options are impossible. There’s nothing I can do.

  There’s always something you can do. Lily is willing me to understand something. Don’t give up.

  So what am I supposed to do? I beg. You had a plan for everything. You must have had a plan for this part too. How do I get him out of our lives?

  I’ve already given you the answer, Lily says, and stands up to leave. You’ll find it if you look hard enough.

  I feel her feathery kiss on my forehead, and then she walks away from me and towards the water, the sunshine shining through her, pausing briefly to run her fingers over Marianne’s rough hair as she toils back through the sand, her bucket held carefully in two hands as if she’s carrying something precious.

  “Look,” Marianne says as soon as she gets close enough. “Look what I found.”

  Resting in the bottom of the bucket, a tangle of pinky-green tentacles clings to a rock, swirling and drifting with the movement of the water.

  “I found this in a pool,” she tells me. “But I don’t know what it is. Is it a plant?”

  “It’s a snakelocks. A type of anemone.”

  “It’s so beautiful.”

  I put my hand in the bucket and rest the tip of my finger in the tangle of the anemone’s tendrils, feeling the tingle as it clutches and stings at my skin.

  “It’s very beautiful,” I say. When I take my hand out again, there is the slightest red flush where the anemone’s venom has touched me.

  “Is it poisonous?”

  “Only to tiny sea creatures. It tingles, that’s all. You can try it, if you like.”

  Marianne puts her finger doubtfully down towards the anemone.

  “It’s all tickly. How did you know it was all right to do this?”

  “Lily showed me,” I say, and take a deep breath. “She would have showed you too if I’d ever let you meet her. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” says Marianne automatically, still busy with the anemone, and then, “sorry for what?”

  What am I sorry for? For everything. For making such a mess of our lives. For thinking all this time that I was doing the best I could, when it’s becoming increasingly clear that I’ve made the worst possible choices at every opportunity. What am I sorry for? It’s too big a question. I kiss her instead, and tell her how clever she is to find the snakelocks.

  “I know you said a crab, but I thought this was more interesting.”

  “You’re right. It’s much more interesting.”

  “There was someone else with a crab, but I think it might have been the only one.”

  “They’re not as easy to find as they used to be.”

  “Have I hurt it bringing it in the bucket? I put some seawater in it and it’s got its own rock.”

  “It’ll be fine. Sea creatures have to be tough. We should probably take it back, though.” Marianne looks at the distance back down to the rocks, then nods stoically. “Unless you want me to take it for you?”

  “No, it’s all right, I’ll come with you.”

  “I don’t mind going if you’re tired.”

  “No, I don’t mind. It’s a different sort of tired down here, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know. It’s the sort of tired that makes you sleepy. Not the sort that keeps you awake. Are we going home after this?”

  The corner of the curtain twitches again. How many nights has my daughter lain awake, listening to what I’d always thought was secret? When it happens, do we make a noise that she can hear? I have no way of knowing.

  “Yes, if you like. And we can get takeaway pizzas for tea and eat them out of th
e boxes.”

  “And can we make chocolate pudding in a mug for pudding?”

  Fat and grease and salt and carbohydrate, followed by fat and sugar and chocolate and more sugar. “Oh, why not? Let’s go for it.”

  Our feet sink into the loose shale. Marianne’s anxious to find the place the snakelocks originally came from, but I persuade her that it will be perfectly happy in any sunny pool that’s covered at high tide. After some thought, we choose a deep gully and drop the rock carefully in, watching it sink down and down and down towards the bottom. The rock twirls and sways as it falls and I wonder if it will turn over in the current and crush the little snakelocks, but no, it rights itself and comes to rest on the pebbles.

  “And now it’s got a new home,” says Marianne in satisfaction, and empties the bucket of water in for good measure.

  On the walk back home, Marianne’s slow and sleepy. She leans against me as she walks, in a way that is confiding but also hard to manage, and it takes us a long time. When we get home, I tell her to jump in the bath and wash the salt out of her hair, while I walk down the hill into town to buy pizza. She tries to convince me to let her come with me, but I can tell her heart’s not in it. When I glance at our open bathroom window from the driveway, I see the small flick of a stripy tail as the cat leaps inside.

  We eat our pizzas straight from the box. Marianne keeps one eye on me as she eats, and quietly drops oily strings of cheese for the cat that hovers, all pink mouth and melting eyes, whenever she thinks I’m not looking. Cleaning up is ridiculously easy. Next, chocolate pudding. Merely standing in the cool comfort of the pantry is a pleasure, among the ingredients arranged in neat orderly rows, every jar filled, every space occupied.

  Do you remember? Lily asks me.

  You know I do.

  You spent hours in here. Especially when it rained. If I couldn’t find you I knew this is where you’d be.

  Did you mind?

  Of course not. I used to make sure I had everything I needed out on the counter the night before so I wouldn’t disturb you.

  I never knew that.

  I never wanted you to know that, says Lily. That would have spoiled it for you. I told you, didn’t I? I always loved you best. And I still do. That’s why I’m saving you.

  We’re having a peaceful evening, Marianne and I. I turn away from Lily so I don’t have to look at her, and spoon out flour, sugar, cocoa, oil. An egg. Chocolate drops. Vanilla essence. Stir well and into the microwave for three minutes. In the short time I’ve been gone, Marianne has curled up on the sofa and fallen asleep with the cat tucked into the crook of her arm. As children do when they sleep, she’s regressed to her baby self, her cheeks soft and flushed, her lips slightly parted. I kiss the top of her head, stroke the cat’s outstretched stripy paw, and go to the kitchen to turn off the microwave.

  The sun’s beginning to sink behind the trees. I light the lamp in the bay window and admire the paradox of the two light sources together. It reminds me of the print that hung on the wall of the room Daniel and I shared in those first blissful weeks at university. The Dominion of Light. Those weeks were happy ones, good ones. Surely we can get back to where we were then? How did it all go so wrong?

  In the corner beside the lamp, Lily raises her hands to speak, but I turn away. I don’t want to talk any more. I don’t want to hear her opinions on Daniel and me.

  Why is it always her talking to me? Why does she get to judge me and my marriage, while her own past remains a closed book? She’s dead and I’m still alive. I should be the one defining her, summing her up, tidying her existence away and moving on to the next thing. That’s what I’m here to do. I reach for the photograph album and carry it to the sofa. I’ll drown out Lily’s judgement on me by forming my own judgements of Lily.

  Here is Margaret again, the woman who might or might not be my real grandmother, swelling with life even though her own death was so close. My finger runs over the curve of her belly. Is this my father? Or some poor lost baby who didn’t even live to be named?

  Beneath Margaret’s skirt, my fingers find a long flat ridge like a fold. I trace its path, follow it along the whole length of the photograph and up the side. There’s something hidden behind this picture too.

  Stop it, I tell myself fiercely. Stop thinking. Stop looking. Lily is dead. Margaret is dead. My father is dead. All of this is ancient history. I’ll close the album and pretend I never found anything. Except I can’t. I can’t. I can’t make myself stop. My fingers delicately prise out whatever Lily has concealed beneath the portrait of her pregnant sister. What will I find? My father’s real birth certificate? A signed confession?

  It’s another photograph, badly composed and clearly taken in haste. The world it captures is tilted within its frame. Margaret sits hunched on an unmade bed, one blurry arm held in front of her as if trying to ward off a blow. There is dried blood at the corner of her mouth. One eye is swollen shut. Her face and neck are stained with bruises.

  I have to clutch the arms of the sofa to keep myself from floating away into space. The photograph flutters from my fingers. My heart beats against the wall of my chest, trying to escape. Who did that to Margaret? Why would Lily record it? What does it mean? What should I do?

  Beside me on the sofa, Marianne sleeps on, undisturbed. The cat rolls onto her side and stretches her back legs blissfully. I was afraid I might have made a noise, but it appears not. I take a deep breath, pick up the photograph and force myself to look again.

  Margaret’s face, bruised and terrified, her arm going up to shield herself from the pitiless gaze of the camera. Had Lily done this to her? No, that’s not it. Margaret is afraid of the camera, not the person holding it. She’s begging Lily not to take the picture. The injuries you want to hide are the ones that come from someone you love. And Lily, ignoring her sister’s pleas, took a photograph as evidence, just as she kept her meticulous, furious record of what was happening to James. She refused to let it stay hidden. But would anyone have taken any action?

  Of course they wouldn’t. Lily is with me again. No matter what I do I can’t get away from her; she won’t be denied when she has something to say. It’s hard enough now, but you can’t imagine what it was like then. No one wanted to hear what Stanley was doing to my sister. So I had to deal with it myself. Margaret thought she was trapped, but she got away.

  My accountant’s brain begins to tick, assessing, evaluating, looking for the thread that holds everything together. At some time after this photograph was taken, Margaret’s husband died and she and Lily moved here to open their hotel, two young widows making the best of a tough situation. This is where your life begins. I think about James Moon, who allowed his wife to take out her rage on him. I think about how ruthless Lily was, how cruel she could be on behalf of those she loved. No, that’s ridiculous. Lily was a lot of things but there’s no way she was a…

  Lily looks at Marianne, and smiles.

  How well did I know Lily? Who was she really? My father’s mother, or my father’s aunt? The wise beloved matriarch of my childhood, or the banshee at my father’s funeral?

  She was a woman with her own opinions, confident and secure in what she believed. A woman with the charm and cleverness to carry off a deception so successfully that I may never know for sure whose child my father was. A woman who could scream insults at her daughter-in-law over a freshly filled grave. A woman who tried to help her downstairs neighbour escape from the hell of a violent marriage. A woman who knew plants and their uses, so well I used to think she was a witch. A woman who believed in taking action. I turn the pages over.

  And there he is again, on the page before his pregnant wife. Margaret’s husband Stanley, a black shape passing through a front door, caught in the act of vanishing. And beneath it, Lily’s inscription:

  Stanley Walker

  1907–1946

  Wishing you the peace you deserve

  Innocent enough, a simple and elegant memorial to her sister’s husband. Exc
ept that the picture is framed with foxgloves, which even I know can be deadly for the heart.

  I turn more pages, over and over, passing through my father’s childhood and my own, onto the handful of photographs that come after. A page before the picture of James Moon, I find an old woman sitting on a bench in the garden. She looks tiny and wispy, as if a strong wind might blow her away.

  Ramona Moon

  Lost in Paradise

  Ramona sits beneath the strong impetuous tumble of a huge tropical shrub, long orange flowers dangling like trumpets above her head. Lily has echoed this in her choice of blooms for the border. The datura blossoms have lost some of their vibrancy in being pressed, but there’s no mistaking that distinctive tubular shape. Datura is a poisonous hallucinogen. Lily never let me even touch its flowers. Foxgloves and datura. For Lily, flowers always had meaning.

  Did James know? Is this the secret he was keeping for her? Was he trying to protect me from this final discovery?

  Beside me on the sofa, Marianne stirs. I pat her gently on the shoulder until she breaks through the surface of her slumber and sits up, bleary and blinking. The cat jumps to the floor and begins washing her face. I help Marianne to her feet and steer her to the bathroom, putting toothpaste on her brush for her as if she’s still four years old. I can tell from the way her feet stumble against the tiles that she’s not properly awake. In the morning she’ll have no memory of how she got into bed, and when I tell her she cleaned her teeth and climbed beneath the covers basically in her sleep, she’ll look at me as if I might be the one who dreamed it.

  You were the same, Lily says. You used to sleepwalk sometimes. I’d find you in the hallway or in the pantry, sitting and staring at the shelves. I used to worry you were going to eat things and make yourself sick.

  I remembered the conversations in the morning, but not the wandering itself. Do you remember getting up in the night? Lily would ask me, her face amused and mystified. No, I’d say, and then she would describe to me what I’d done – the rooms I’d wandered into, the words I’d said – none of it even faintly familiar. It wasn’t until the first time I found Marianne, eyes unfocused and face soft, standing mutely at the bottom of the stairs, that I realised how strange my sleepwalking must have seemed. Back in the sitting room, the cat sits up like a meerkat and begs to be stroked.