Years After You

by Woolf, Emma

  Julien glanced at the clock beside his bed. “It’s nearly three.” He laughed. “I think Mum’s being tactful.”

  “I could really do without this tonight,” Lily called to Susan through her open bedroom door. “Obviously I’m glad they’ve agreed to meet Dad, but I’ve had enough drama for one day.”

  “But you’re happy?” Susan said. “Things are back on track with Julien?” She had come upstairs to babysit for the evening and was playing with Stella in the living room while Lily dressed.

  “I think so.” Lily stood in the doorway, eyeliner in one hand and hairbrush in the other. She looked tired but radiant. “He said he’s had a horrible few months too. It was just a major breakdown in communication, both of us assuming the worst and retreating into our shells.”

  “Did you tell him about seeing him with the running girl?” Susan asked, smiling.

  “No!” Lily said. “God, I feel like a fool. Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick. Or as Julien says, the wrong end of the nettle.”

  “All’s well that ends well.”

  “But, Susan, think how easily it might not have ended well. If Marie hadn’t mentioned that her niece was staying in London, if we hadn’t run into Julien in Belsize Park, if we hadn’t spoken . . .”

  “If, if, if . . . Don’t waste time with what-ifs, Lily, life’s too short. The important thing is that you both feel the same way.”

  “You’re right,” Lily said. “We should have talked ages ago.”

  “Well, it sounds like you’ve had quite a day. And now a de Jongh family reunion to oversee.”

  “I know.” Her phone began to ring. “It’s Cassie, they’re downstairs. I’ll just buzz them in.”

  They had decided on no partners for dinner—just the four of them. Walking through Belsize Park to the restaurant, Lily noticed that James looked nervous. Even Olivia was subdued. She thought back to France and her first meeting with her father at Lyon airport that day with Stella. She had felt sick with nerves on the flight, and then, as soon as she’d met him, instantly OK. She squeezed Olivia’s hand and murmured: “It’s going to be fine. He’s really nice.”

  Claude was already at the restaurant, sitting at a large table in the window. He stood as they entered and came forward, arms open. He kissed the girls and shook hands with James. Lily watched the two men and was struck again by the similarity. They were the same height and build and had the same blue eyes, but it was more than that, something indefinable. Standing next to each other, they could only be father and son.

  “I’ve ordered champagne,” Claude said. “As it’s a special occasion.” No one said anything. The champagne was an attempt to be jaunty, even jovial, but he seemed nervous too. Lily thought he was paler than usual, his voice strained. He looked like he hadn’t had much sleep. Cassie, Olivia, and James were polite but guarded with him, and Lily knew how desperate Claude was to make this work. Couldn’t they at least smile, put him at his ease? There were three of them and only one of him—she was surprised to find herself on his side. It wasn’t a battle; there were no “sides.” Just that he seemed so vulnerable, in the face of these silent children. Lily’s heart twisted with love for him.

  “Thank you so much for coming tonight,” Claude said. “And I might as well say it now: I’m sorry. Sorry for leaving when you were little, sorry for missing your childhoods—your birth,” he added, to James. “Sorry for hurting your mother . . .”

  A waiter appeared and hovered by the table with the bottle of champagne. Claude nodded at him to pour and they sat in silence, watching the man fuss with flutes and ice buckets, mopping up spilled drops and adjusting napkins.

  “Anyway,” Claude continued. “I don’t know if Lily has told you what I told her, or if you want to ask me questions, or not talk about it at all? Or I can tell you what happened?”

  “Sure. You can tell us about it,” James said, his tone cold.

  So Claude told them again what he had told Lily the summer before: that he had been deeply in love with Celia, but it had all happened too fast, too young. “I was struggling with depression at the time too and still pretty immature. We had one child—that was you, Cassie—and then we had two, three, and then a fourth on the way. You were all deeply wanted and loved, but we hadn’t planned to have so many children so quickly. I suppose I panicked at the weight of responsibility. But I honestly never meant to leave. I thought I’d go away for a bit, to get some headspace as they say, but weeks turned into months . . . The longer I had been gone, the harder it became to come back.”

  Lily thought of Julien’s words earlier that day: I cut myself off because I didn’t know what else to do. By the time I wanted to talk to you, it seemed like it was too late . . . Her skin burned at the memory of his touch, how gentle he’d been, and how he’d brought her close to tears.

  Before this afternoon, she had almost convinced herself she was going to be OK without Julien. After such a miserable Christmas, and then his silence all through January, she had to pull herself together. She was a mother, not a lovesick teenager; Stella needed her, and she had no right to fall apart. She hadn’t fallen apart when Harry killed himself and she wouldn’t fall apart over Julien. She had toughened up, gritted her teeth, and tried to put him out of her mind. Now, just when she’d rebuilt her life without him, here he was again. Until he’d kissed her this afternoon, she hadn’t realised how lonely she’d been.

  She forced herself to focus on the conversation. James was interrogating Claude about Marie.

  “So you walked out on Mum and then found someone else to replace her?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Claude said. “For a long time I was on my own, or having brief, meaningless relationships. There was no responsibility, no commitment. I was lost. For years I couldn’t settle to any job, to any relationship, I couldn’t even stay in one country.”

  James frowned. “So you just drifted around, doing whatever you wanted?”

  Claude nodded. “Pretty much, I suppose. But not quite the way it sounds. I was unhappy for a very long time. More than once I thought seriously about ending it . . .”

  Lily felt sick. She took a gulp of champagne.

  “None of this is an excuse,” he went on. “I’m not asking for sympathy. I brought the situation on myself, I know, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. I’m just telling the truth.”

  Olivia had been listening, silent. “But Marie, she had children?”

  “Yes, she has two boys—obviously you know Julien”—he smiled at Lily—“and a younger son, Vincent.”

  James cut in, his voice harsh. “That’s what I don’t understand,” he said. “You say you couldn’t cope with your own children, but then you settled down with a woman with two kids of her own . . .”

  “You replaced us with a different family,” Olivia added.

  Claude shook his head. “It was never like that. I didn’t meet Marie until fifteen years ago, at Berkeley. We’d both been through some difficult years. At first we were colleagues, and for a long time it stayed that way, just colleagues and good friends. Her boys were teenagers by then, at university back in France.”

  “And we were nearly teenagers too and we had no one.” Olivia had tears in her eyes.

  “Mum had no one,” James said.

  “I know,” Claude said, in a low voice. “I know.”

  Lily had to look away, her heart was so full of love and sadness. Over the past few days, she had been worrying more about Claude than about her brother and sisters; she hadn’t realised how much they were hurting too.

  There was silence for a moment. Then Cassie, her arms resting lightly on her stomach, said: “But you found happiness in the end, Dad?”

  She said that final word so quietly, Lily wasn’t sure if Claude heard.

  Gradually the atmosphere thawed. They had needed that bloodletting, but once the hard questions had been asked, the air cleared. Claude wasn’t looking for sympathy or even fo
rgiveness. Just to know his children.

  They ate large pepperoni pizzas, plates of calzone, tagliatelle; Claude ordered red and white wine, and more sparkling water for Cassie. He insisted that everyone should have dessert. Lily went to ring Susan to check Stella was OK, and when she came back to the table they were all talking: James was arguing with Claude over the relative merits of Liverpool and Chelsea, Cassie was showing him some of the baby scans on her phone, and Olivia was asking if anyone would share the profiteroles with her. Thank God, Lily thought, it was going to be fine.

  “After that family dinner, I thought I’d survived the worst of it,” Lily said. “But I can’t actually believe today.”

  She was sitting on the kitchen counter, dressed in pyjamas bottoms and a vest. Next to her, Julien chopped basil for a pesto sauce. The events of the weekend had taken their toll on them all; even Stella had fallen asleep the moment Lily put her in her cot. Julien had driven Claude and Marie to the airport for their flight to the West Coast and then come back to the flat with fresh pasta, salad, and a bottle of wine.

  “You look exhausted,” Julien said. “Here.” He poured her a glass of red. “Go and lie on the sofa and I’ll bring dinner through.” Lily could see that the weekend had been a strain for him too.

  She lay on the sofa, her eyes closed, listening to the stirring of pots and pans in the kitchen. She felt emotionally worn out, but happy. A few days ago, none of this was on the cards. No matter how much you thought you were in control, you weren’t, she thought. Life had a way of doing this, just unfolding in front of your eyes, for good or ill.

  After the tension of Saturday’s dinner with Claude and the siblings, on top of her own reconciliation with Julien, Lily had been looking forward to some peace. Then something which had not happened for over twenty-five years took place: a meeting of Lily’s parents—an actual meeting of their entire family.

  It wasn’t planned. On Sunday morning, her head a little foggy from the champagne and wine at the restaurant, Lily had been planning a quiet day with Stella. They were finishing breakfast when Susan popped upstairs to ask for Lily’s help tying up some roses in the garden. They were still in the garden, chatting over cups of coffee, when Cassie and Charlie rang the doorbell with James and Olivia in tow. “We ended up staying at Cassie’s last night,” Olivia said, “since she wasn’t drinking and had the car.”

  “They came crashing in around midnight,” Charlie said. “It was like a herd of elephants. This father of yours is clearly a bad influence.”

  “Yes, I blame Claude,” James said. “How’s your hangover, Lily?”

  “You all deserve your hangovers!” Cassie said. “I feel incredibly smug and clear-headed. Lil, we’re on our way to Kenwood for a picnic, and there’s a concert later—why don’t you come?”

  Lily ushered them through to the garden, and Susan insisted they stay for coffee.

  Lily had run upstairs to her bathroom to get some Nurofen for James when she received a text from Claude: Just having breakfast at Jules’s place, are you home? Marie wants to see Stella before we go—and Jules wants to see you! xx Lily smiled and texted back immediately—YES. Then she noticed another text, sent half an hour earlier, from her mother: Beautiful weather! Am driving over with Patrick to bring cuttings for Susan.

  Oh God, Lily thought.

  She went back outside and asked the others what to do.

  “It’s fine,” Olivia said. “They’re grown-ups. They’ll cope.”

  James agreed. “It’s been going on far too long anyway.” They both seemed to have forgotten that, until the previous day, they had been actively avoiding meeting their father.

  “Leave them to it, I reckon,” Olivia said.

  “Water under the bridge and all that,” James added. “Let bygones be bygones.”

  Lily looked at Cassie in disbelief. Her sister rolled her eyes.

  It was too late to put any of them off. Claude, Marie, and Julien walked up the front path as Patrick and Celia were parking their car outside.

  “It was terrible timing,” Julien said. They were sitting on the sofa, too tired to lay the table or even watch TV, eating plates of spaghetti. “I was standing outside your house with Mum and Claude, and I saw your mum getting out of the car and suddenly realised—I didn’t know whether to try and warn you, or stand between everyone, or what.”

  “I know,” Lily said. “I kept looking at Mum, and I was so worried she’d think I’d arranged it on purpose, like we’d secretly engineered this situation to force her and Claude to make up.”

  “Thank God they were adults about it,” Julien said. “I thought Celia was utterly gracious.”

  “It really helped, having Patrick there. She didn’t look some lonely spurned wife. And Marie was so kind—she assessed the situation and got everyone talking.”

  “And she got on so well with your mum! It was lovely, seeing the two of them playing with Stella, discussing the roses, acting like everything was fine. Poor Claude, though. It can’t have been easy for him.”

  “Yes, poor Dad. He looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up. Of course, he’s the one who caused the whole mess in the first place—but there isn’t much he can do about it now.”

  “I guess he’s doing the only thing he can,” Julien said. “Saying he’s sorry and showing he’s sorry. It was good that they talked—your parents, I mean.”

  Lily nodded. “It was strange, seeing them together for the first time.” She paused. “Maybe not the first time, I must have seen them together as a child. But I don’t remember it.”

  “I know,” Julien said. “My memories of my dad are hazy too. Sometimes I don’t know if I remember him at all any more. If I’m making things up.”

  Neither of them said anything. Julien took their empty plates, set them down on the coffee table, and gently pulled her head down to rest on his shoulder. From the sofa, they gazed out of the window, watching the evening sky turn dark.

  “Julien, can I ask you something?” Lily said. “What you just said—about your father?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t want to rake over the past or force you to talk about something which is painful. It’s just something Claude mentioned, and what you said just now. We’ve never talked about your father. And we’ve never talked about Harry either—Stella’s father.”

  She could barely see his face in the shadows. It was a moment before he spoke.

  “You’re right, we should talk about all this. What I said yesterday, when we discussed why things went wrong between us—well, it wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth is that I talked to Marie while I was in California. As soon as I got out there, she could see I was upset, and she guessed it was about me and you. I hope you don’t mind, but I was so confused about the situation—if your feelings had changed, or if I’d done something wrong—and I thought that Mum might help. Then she told me about Harry, I mean how he died. I had no idea.”

  “Yes. He killed himself,” Lily said. “I suppose there was never a good time to talk about it. When we first met in France, you were just one of Marie’s sons. I assumed we’d be sort of half-brother and sister.”

  “We’re not related in any way.” Julien smiled. “You do know that, right?”

  “I know, I know.” She smiled too. “But it was never the right time to tell you about Harry, certainly not in France. Then we came back to London, and I didn’t know whether you were interested in me in that way. Actually, I never know what to tell people when I’ve just met them, about me and Stella, about what happened to her father. It seems either too little or too much . . .” She sighed. “Does that make sense?”

  He nodded, stroking her hair.

  “I assumed that Marie or Claude would tell you, or maybe I was putting it off—I didn’t know what to say. The whole thing about suicide, even the word, it’s like a taboo. It’s such a big concept for people who haven’t been through it—”

  “T
hat’s the thing, Lily,” Julien interrupted. “I don’t know if Claude said anything—I don’t even know if he knows—but my father committed suicide.”

  “No.” Lily was shocked, despite her previous conjecture. “No, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. Dad didn’t say anything. When—what happened?”

  “It was years ago, nearly twenty now. I’d just turned thirteen. My father wasn’t well—I guess he was depressed—but no one realised how bad it was. I came back from school one day; Mum and Vincent had gone to a carol concert. I found him, hanging, in the garage.” He paused. “It was worse for Mum than for us. Children are pretty resilient, aren’t they. We had friends, we had school, all that. Mum took it very hard though. She never talks about that time, but the next few years were truly awful; I think she had a sort of breakdown.”

  “Poor Marie. I can’t imagine how she coped, bringing you two up alone.”

  “That’s why we left Paris for a few years,” Julien said. “We moved around, staying with family in the US, then in Europe. Later Mum moved back to the States and started working at UC Berkeley, where she met Claude.”

  “I don’t think Dad knows about it,” Lily said.

  “She never talks about it, or almost never. Anyway, California has been good for her. She loves teaching, and the sunshine, and meeting Claude—meeting your dad—was the best thing that could have happened. Selfishly, I’m really glad they met.”

  “Not selfish at all,” Lily said. “They’re an amazing couple, I’m glad they’re together too. But what about you, how did you cope with losing your dad?”

  “I’m OK,” he said. “For years afterwards I had this dream, it was a replay of that afternoon, coming home and finding him in the garage, trying to get him down, trying to get help. The same dream every time. But it doesn’t come often now.” He smiled. “But it happened just before Christmas, so that tends to be a really shitty time of year for me. That’s not an excuse, but it sort of explains what happened in December. Why I lost the plot.”