The Gravity of Love

by Noelle Harrison

  ‘Oh, Joy, why do you want to know? Why on earth would you want to find out the details of a woman who rejected her baby? What kind of woman is that?’ She looked at her daughter with pleading eyes. ‘Can you tell me? What woman willingly gives up her child?’

  ‘But maybe there’s more to the story –’

  ‘Surely you of all people should understand? What did you do when you got pregnant at seventeen? You didn’t give your baby up for adoption, did you? You married Eddie.’

  ‘But that’s only because he asked me –’

  ‘Darling, I know who you are.’ Her mom’s face softened. ‘Nothing in the world would have made you give up Ray. Yet she gave you up.’

  Joy couldn’t deny it – her mom was right. And yet she felt strangely protective of her unknown Irish mother.

  ‘Your Daddy loved you so much, Joy.’ Her mom’s voice was loaded with emotion.

  ‘I know, Momma.’

  ‘I miss him. Sometimes so much I find it hard to breathe.’

  ‘You’ll get through, Mom.’

  ‘I don’t know, darling; I just don’t know if I can. He was everything to me.’

  Tears were running down her mother’s face, and Joy felt terrible. What was she doing? Hounding her poor mom for details about a woman who clearly never cared about her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, hugging her mother hard and praying she would learn to appreciate all that she had rather than hankering for the unknown.

  *

  Samantha had already left for work. Lewis looked in the wardrobe mirror. What would Marnie think if she saw him now? He had filled out since he was twenty-five, his face was marked with lines and his skin was darker after all his years in Arizona. His hair was streaked with grey. He had aged, no doubt. Yet he felt just the same inside. Once he peeled back the layers of all those years, he was still that young man living the dream in London.

  Not only had he tried to delete his past, but nothing in his present life expressed who he was. He had slept in this bedroom for fifteen years yet nothing in it represented him in any way. It was all Samantha.

  His wife loved bright colours. Three of the walls were painted peacock blue and the fourth – behind the bed – was a vibrant orange. He couldn’t believe he had let her decorate their bedroom like this but he supposed he had been trying to keep her happy.

  ‘You’re such a visual snob, Lewis,’ she’d complained. ‘I want to make our place free-spirited!’

  Combined with the vivid hues of the walls were rainbow shades woven into the rugs, a rustic Mexican dressing table and matching wardrobe. Samantha was obsessed with multicoloured Mexican beadwork, and the bedroom was filled with her hoard: little bead dolls of men and women, bead bulls, bead fish and two skulls painted vibrantly: one beaded, one plaster. She had put one skull on the table right next to their bed. Lewis hated it. But worst of all was her statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the dressing table. She thought it quaint, but that’s because she hadn’t been raised Catholic. Lewis detested looking at that statue and wondered what would Marnie have made of it.

  On a spontaneous, rebellious urge he picked it up off the dressing table and dropped it in the basket bin. This was one thing he was going to insist on when Samantha got home. No more religious stuff.

  His wife was also passionate about the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Much as Lewis appreciated Kahlo’s artistic vision from a historical point of view, he found it difficult to look at the print of the painting ‘The Henry Ford Hospital’, depicting the artist writhing on a bed following a miscarriage, red tubes emanating from her bloody body and connecting her to surrealist objects, one of which was a red foetus. What exactly had Samantha been trying to say when she put that picture above their fireplace?

  In all their years of marriage they had never discussed children. Samantha just never got pregnant. He had thought that she didn’t want children, but maybe his wife had hidden a private sorrow from him all these years.

  It was too late now. He was forty-seven and Samantha was forty-five. He had convinced himself it was a good thing they hadn’t had any children. He had no idea how to be a good father.

  *

  After Joy had tucked her mom up in bed again, as if she were the child, and closed her curtains against the brightening day, she drove home to make Eddie his breakfast.

  She could hear her husband singing one of his cheesy cowboy songs in the shower as soon as she walked in. It made her smile – it reminded her of when he used to play the guitar the times they’d gone camping, when the kids were small.

  She hurried into the kitchen, took out the pan and put it on the stove, then pulled a tray of eggs out the fridge.

  ‘So did you see them?’ Eddie asked her as he walked into the kitchen. ‘I saw your note.’

  Her husband looked sharp in his suit, his blonde hair slicked back and his face clean-shaven.

  ‘It was spectacular,’ she told him. ‘I wish you could have been there.’

  ‘You know I’m not really into stars and that kind of stuff, Joy.’

  She wanted Eddie to come over and kiss her, but he had already sat down at the table and opened the newspaper, waiting patiently for his eggs. She turned the heat down under the pan and walked over to stand behind him then bent down and kissed his cheek. He looked up at her, surprised.

  ‘What was that for?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I love you,’ she said.

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ he replied, looking back down at the paper. ‘So are you gonna make me an omelette? I have to get going.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said tightly, returning to the stove and turning the heat back up. She had been about to suggest they took a tumble on the bed but now her courage had deserted her. It had already been a few weeks since they had last made love. It wasn’t like him. She and Eddie had never stopped wanting each other.

  ‘Is everything all right, Eddie?’

  He looked up. ‘Sure – of course. I’m just super busy, baby. Trying to make all this money for Heather’s wedding.’

  His eyes were dancing, unable to rest on hers.

  ‘Don’t forget to order the invites today,’ he reminded her, folding up the newspaper and putting it down on the table as she placed his omelette in front of him.

  ‘Honey, do you think Heather’s doing the right thing?’

  ‘Course I do. Darrell’s a good kid,’ Eddie said, picking up the salt and ruining her omelette with it.

  ‘But they’re so young.’

  ‘We were younger.’ Eddie looked up, those dancing eyes still refusing to meet hers.

  ‘Yeah but that was different.’

  ‘Well, yes, at least Heather isn’t knocked up.’

  She winced. It pained her to imagine that Eddie had only married her because she had been pregnant. In her heart she knew it wasn’t true. Eddie had been wild, edgy and irresistible to her when she had been seventeen, and she knew she’d had a similar effect on him, yet she saw none of that chemistry between her daughter and her fiancé. There were no sparks flying. It was as if Heather and Darrell were playing at being in love, all ‘darlings’ and pecks on the cheek.

  ‘I mean, we were crazy about each other.’

  Those weeks before Joy had discovered she was pregnant had been so exciting. Eddie would roll up at her house in his fast car and take her off under the disapproving gaze of her parents. They would ride right into the desert where no one was witness to their passion apart from a jackrabbit or a pack rat. She squeezed her thighs at the memory of all that sex. They hadn’t been able to get enough of each other.

  ‘Other things are more important, Joy,’ Eddie said, cutting up his omelette. ‘Darrell’s a good guy. He’s already asked me to find them a house in Scottsdale. Told me it’s the best place to raise a family. He’ll be a good provider.’

  Joy was shocked by her husband’s words. How could anything be more important than being in love?

  ‘A few weeks ago I overheard Heather and Carla talking about the
wedding and it sounded like Heather might have some doubts –’

  ‘Carla’s jealous of Heather. She’s stirring her up, that’s all. She’s just like her mom was, jealous of you and me.’

  Joy looked at her husband in surprise.

  ‘Rosa’s never been interested in you, Eddie. She’s my friend.’

  ‘If you say so, darling,’ he replied, polishing off the last piece of omelette. ‘I don’t have time to chat about this any more.’ He got up from the table and dusted down his lap. ‘Don’t be filling Heather’s head with nonsense. I’ve paid so much up front we can’t cancel the wedding now.’

  He patted her on the head as he went towards the door. She knew it was meant to be affectionate, but it just felt patronising.

  Their conversation hadn’t stopped her from worrying. Ever since she had overheard Heather and Carla arguing out on the porch, she’d had a growing feeling that her daughter was about to make the biggest mistake of her life. She remembered Carla’s last words: ‘This is your life, Heather – think about what you really want. You know you don’t love him!’

  Joy hadn’t seen her daughter’s best friend since.

  Darrell wasn’t a bad kid. Like Heather he was Scottsdale born and bred, studying to be an accountant with plans to set up a business in Phoenix. He had never expressed any desire to travel outside of the state, let alone leave America.

  Was this her daughter’s future, to be stuck in Arizona just like she was? Her light to be hidden away, the star that could never be allowed to shine?

  *

  The last thing Lewis expected to find was a second postcard lying in his mailbox. He stood paralysed on the front lawn, his chest constricting. What if Samantha had checked the mailbox before she’d left for work? How could he have explained that what was happening was so unexpected? She wouldn’t have believed him, of that he was sure.

  Again all that was written on the back was one line. This time a question:

  AM I YOUR SHINING STAR?

  There was no name, no return address. The postmark was Ireland again.

  The picture on the front of the postcard was of a lighthouse. The image was made up of tones of blue: the sea was calm, night navy, and the coastline zigzagged through it, layers of wet, jagged indigo rocks. In the background was the lighthouse. A beacon of blue and white stripes, surrounded by white cottages, and topped by its light shining out into the night. It was right on the edge, tipping the navy clouds, with the glimmering light of the dying day seeping through.

  Lewis flipped the card over and read it again. The words reminded him of The Great Gatsby, one of the few novels he had read and liked. Gatsby had been transfixed by the green light at the end of Daisy’s pier.

  Were the image and the words upon this postcard Marnie’s beacon? Was she waiting for him to see the light? He had once called her his shining star, and he had meant it, not just because of the talent that brimmed out of her, but also because she had been a bright light in his life. She had made him want to be better than he was, and when he’d been with her he had managed to forget his sorry childhood – the demands made by his mother and sister.

  At the end of the day he hadn’t chosen her light, had he? He remembered how that last day had unfolded between them. Its passionate beginning, and his plan to tell his boss George about her. His intention had been to end the day on bended knee, asking her to marry him. How could it be that everything had happened so differently? During the hours of just one long day he had let everything fall apart.

  London, 13 April 1967, 8.43 a.m.

  Lewis manoeuvred his racing-green roadster into a tight spot. Steam was rising from the wet pavement as he walked briskly across Russell Square. The air was glossy with morning light, as if it had only rained for the purpose of brightening up London, reminding him that he lived in the best city in the world.

  Three girls in miniskirts walked in front of him. The two on the outside were wearing black, the one in the middle white. They all had the same haircut: a short geometric bob. He imagined their shared flat, the mixture of all their scents with pairs of black and white stockings hanging off radiators, empty wine bottles with candles in them littering the tiled floor and a folded-back paperback of Lady Chatterley’s Lover on the side of the bathtub. A saggy sofa covered in a stack of bright cushions, crumpled from the night before, and the imprint of red-lipsticked lips on a tissue, discarded on the floor like a lost kiss. Lewis loved the new modern girl. These three looked like op art as they bounced up and down in front of him. It made him think how effective that style might be for the poster he was designing for Dalliance Shoes.

  These girls were forthright, just like his sister Lizzie; just like Marnie. He took a cigarette out and lit it up. He wasn’t going to think about his feelings for Marnie now. He was going to focus on work.

  Lewis didn’t know any other advertising company in London that was as up to the minute as Studio M. It was a bold new world, full of colour. It was time to live in the now and not worry about tomorrow.

  But he did want to think about tomorrow. He wanted to be remembered for groundbreaking designs, like his boss. He couldn’t help this constant need for George’s approval, and he knew it was why he had avoided the subject of Marnie with him for so long.

  He took a last drag of his cigarette, glancing back down to the end of the street, hoping to see Marnie marching towards him in her emerald-green coat, but she was nowhere. A double-decker bus swept past, leaving a swirl of exhaust behind it as he hurried inside Studio M.

  Despite its impression of modernity, Studio M was run very much like the painting studios of the seventeenth century – George Miller was the master, and Lewis, Pete and Frankie were his underlings.

  Every designer or commercial artist Lewis knew coveted a job at Studio M, yet he had managed to pull it off not so much on the basis of his portfolio but with his charm. From the moment he and George had met they had got on. Yet during his first two years of working at Studio M he could tell that George had been a little disappointed in him. If Marnie hadn’t come along Lewis wondered if he would still have a job. Thanks to her, Lewis now suspected that George was grooming him for partnership one day.

  ‘Boys, I’m not getting any younger you know!’ he’d say every now and again over tea and jam tarts during their afternoon break. He would follow this up with, ‘I need someone young to keep the flag flying at Studio M,’ and Lewis, Pete and Frankie would all eye each other over their mugs.

  Although he was talented and industrious, Lewis could tell that Pete irritated George slightly. He was too meek. Yet Lewis liked Pete. He was hard-working, with no airs and graces. He was also honest. Lewis was more wary of Frankie, their Italian designer.

  Both Pete and Frankie were already at work when Lewis walked in. The blinds were still down and the room was full of cigarette smoke.

  ‘Christ, it’s suffocating in here.’ Lewis pulled up the blinds then opened the window. ‘Come on, men; let’s get some light and fresh air in.’

  ‘What fresh air?’ Frankie complained, putting out his cigarette and sweeping his arm dramatically. ‘It’s a load of car fumes outside.’

  ‘Where’s Marnie? I’m dying for a cuppa.’ Pete leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head as he surveyed his handiwork.

  As if on cue, the door opened and in walked Marnie.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Regan,’ Lewis said, helping her off with her coat.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Bell.’

  This pretence turned him on no end. Marnie busied herself at her desk, whipping the cover off her typewriter, putting a new ribbon in and sharpening her pencils. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Did the others sense what lurked beneath their professional veneer?

  ‘Tea for all?’ Marnie asked once her desk was all set up for the day.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ Pete smiled at her in appreciation.

  ‘Coffee, mia amora.’ Frankie blew her a kiss from across the room.

  She shook her
head at him, but she was smiling too. Lewis felt a twinge of jealousy.

  ‘Yes.’ He pulled at her arm. ‘Tea for me too.’

  Pete looked at him in surprise. ‘Hey, stop manhandling the girl Friday, mate.’

  Marnie shook him off and went into the little kitchen to the side of the office, and Lewis heard her bustling around with the stove and kettle.

  Then Marnie popped her head round the door. ‘Is Mr Miller in?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ Pete told her.

  Marnie caught Lewis’s eye. As if he could forget his promise to her. He looked down at his drawing board, picking up a pencil and pressing its lead tip against a blank piece of paper until it snapped.

  How would George react when he knew the full extent to which he and Marnie had teamed up? He had lied. There was no getting around the fact. It was all getting too complicated. Marnie wanted them to set up together as designers. It was a big risk. What if George offered him a partnership? Once he had that in the bag he could look after Marnie and make her part of the team. Why couldn’t she just wait?

  Lewis sat down. His eyes fell on a framed photograph on his desk. It was of himself and his sister Lizzie, taken just last year at her first art exhibition. She had said that since there were no surviving pictures of them as children she’d wanted to have some happy memories to collect.

  She looked radiant, her hair swept up off her face, red curls tumbling out of a loose bun. She was wearing a scarlet maxi dress and she wasn’t as thin as she was now. She was smiling, for real, and so was he. He had been so proud of his sister that night. Her show had practically sold out. At last she was getting the adulation she deserved. And yet her night had ended in drunken tears. The one person she had really wanted to come and see her pictures never showed up. Their mother. It frustrated Lewis that Lizzie still cared. He had long since stopped giving a toss what his mother thought of him.