by Adele Parks
He is holding out a ring box, which he opens, quite clumsily, his hands are shaking and in that moment I feel something so powerful, so tender, it has to be love. I want to stop his hand shaking. I want to make him happy. He’s irresistible to me. The pause between us, the expectation, is painfully potent. ‘I’m thirty-nine years old, Daan.’
‘I know that.’
‘Children. There might be— Well, it’s most likely to be harder, if at all.’
‘I don’t want children. They have never been part of my plan.’
‘You say that now, but you’re young enough to change your mind.’
‘I want you.’ His green eyes, framed with thick, long lashes bore into me. Insistent, almost impatient. ‘Will you marry me, Kai, my beautiful darling?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes.’ I nod and hear people around us oh and ah. There’s a slight pattering of applause – people too British to commit – as he slips the ring onto my finger. A heavy ring, three enormous diamonds on a platinum band.
I love it.
12
Kai
It would be sensible if the engagement was at least a year because, obviously, we need to get to know one another, work out each other’s habits, needs, routines and lifestyle. To find a way to fit together. Or I could leave. By anyone’s standards we are being impetuous. Foolhardy. Agreeing to marry him makes no sense at all. Part of my brain knows this. The other part thinks I have won the lottery. When we spend the night together and I can feel his breathing against my back, I sometimes think that is all I’ve ever wanted. It’s enough. It’s everything. But of course, it isn’t.
It is not as easy to push our two lives together as Daan assumed it would be. Now that he lives in London, he expects me to move in with him straight away. He is delighted when I tell him I only rent and don’t have a flat to sell. He wants to see me every day. That’s quite a leap after seeing one another just once a month. I’m overwhelmed by the expectation. The reality. I have to explain that my work takes me away a lot, and my mother is ill. I have responsibilities. Daan, to his credit, accepts my obligations, relishes my independence. I discover he is very easy-going. Not possessive or controlling like some men can be. He is straightforward, direct. He respects the boundaries that I put in place, acknowledging that my life is more complex than that of other women he’s dated. From what I can gather those women did not have careers, just trust funds. They did not have family responsibilities, just frivolous friends. They spent their days in hair salons and spas preparing themselves for him. They were always available. I don’t know if he realises I’m more complex than he is. I’m more complex than most people are. He’s too lazy to bother trying to work me out, to understand me. He just wants a quiet life. I have to try not to take it personally and remind myself this is a good thing; I don’t want him getting too close.
‘I love you,’ he says, over and over again.
I say it less, but I mean it more because I am risking more. More than he knows, more than he can ever imagine. More than anyone could.
We power through a fast-track course on getting to know one another. Every time I am with him it feels like we’re on a particularly successful first date. Each revelation, each discovery, is a delight.
‘If you could hop on a plane right now, where would you go?’
‘New Orleans. The hospitality, the music, the food. I’ll take you one day. You?’
‘Bora Bora, French Polynesia. I’ve never been. I’ve just seen pictures. It looks like paradise.’
‘I’ll take you there too,’ he says joyfully. I consider my inheritance. The obscene amount of money my father has left me. At least an obscene amount as far as I am concerned. It crosses my mind that I can take Daan to New Orleans or to French Polynesia. I can fly us both there, first class. There would still be plenty left. I could buy property, invest, start up a business. There are a number of things I could do with the money. That’s the point of money, it affords opportunities. I haven’t told anyone about it yet. Not even Daan. It’s only just cleared, and it’s sat – currently untouched – in a bank account that I opened specially to receive it. I don’t understand the inheritance. The money my father has left me means for the first time in my life I don’t have to work. Not if I don’t want to. The idea is an anathema to me. When my father left, my mother struggled financially. We lived a life expecting to drown and then he left me enough money to sail off into the sunset. Was it a gift, a way of begging for forgiveness, a way of making up to me at the very end? Or was it a final divisive act? Deliberately calculated to cause destruction and aggro? That thought is so painful whenever I have it, I feel a stabbing sensation in my stomach. I’m training myself not to think that way. Put that idea out of my head. Sometimes not thinking about something is the only way forward. The only way to survive. But the inheritance has caused a schism. It has guaranteed none of my brothers want to continue any sort of relationship with me, they are all hurt and furious. They think I must have schemed and plotted to secure such a chunk. I did not. It makes me wonder, did my father ever like them after all? Did he like any of us?
‘What’s the best meal you’ve ever had?’ Daan asks.
‘In Portugal, on holiday. We had the most implausibly good, deliciously tender, fresh-from-the-ocean octopus. It was sautéed and served in a huge cast-iron skillet bubbling with olive oil, garlic, and spicy sliced purple onions.’
‘We?’
‘I was with my dad, stepmother and brothers. You?’
‘Melt-in-your-mouth steak, eaten outside, cooked on the fire at our safari lodge in South Africa after a game drive.’
‘Our?’
‘My girlfriend at the time.’ Not one that earned a name in his potted history. He pulls me close, wraps his arms around me, kisses me. Stopping my mouth so I can’t ask any more about the ‘girlfriend at the time’. I am 100 per cent aware of this technique; I let it slide. I concentrate on the pressure of his lips, enjoying it gain in force and intent. The getting-to-know-you chats are constantly interrupted by sex. Our bodies are also getting to know each other. We’re aerobic, synchronised and insatiable. When we break apart sweating and temporarily satisfied, I ask, ‘Did you have a nickname as a child?’
And so it goes on.
Tell me something I wouldn’t guess about you.
Who do you talk to the most?
What are you most afraid of?
What do you think your most attractive quality is?
And your least?
I answer as honestly as possible, I think he does too. We are fascinated and fascinating. We charm and excite one another. I look my very best when I am with him. Partially because I try to, partially because I’m in love and don’t have to try. Daan has an air about him that is vaguely old-fashioned, almost otherworldly. He is extremely polite. He opens doors and insists, ‘After you’ – not just to buildings but cars too. He uses phrases like ‘You are the bees’ knees’ or ‘Best not to over-egg the pudding.’ He then smiles at me, waiting for me to acknowledge his expert control of the English language. He likes talking about the weather – ‘It’s a peasouper’ – and he refers to his umbrella as a ‘brolly’. Despite his youth and foreignness, he seems to enjoy presenting himself as some sort of English gent from a time not absolutely attributable, but most probably past. Am I part of that? Does he see me as a damsel who needs to be rescued? Does he see refinement and otherness where really there is simply caution?
My continual insistence that I can’t move in with him yet seems to entice Daan. He says he doesn’t see the need for delay. He doesn’t want a long engagement. His parents give him the deeds to the luxurious apartment by way of an engagement present. ‘We can redecorate, make it ours,’ he says, excitedly. He hates uncertainty and limbo, which he insists engagement is.
I can’t find a decent and robust counter-argument to Daan’s insistence that engagements constitute ‘limbo’ so three months later I walk into the Chelsea regis
ter office and marry him. However, despite the efficiency of the getting-to-know-you sessions, I’m not sure how well I do know him. I sometimes think I know what he is feeling, other times I know I don’t. But then again, how well does Daan know me?
13
Kai
Twenty-eight years before she met Daan
I like the station waiting room. When I’m in it I think of that TV programme that I used to watch when I was little about Mr Benn. Mr Benn was so lucky. He could just go into a changing room – OK, so admittedly a magic one – and then come out a totally different person, ready for an adventure, just because he changed his clothes. I think that must be really good, although impossible, and Dad says hoping for things that are impossible is pointless and stupid. ‘You don’t want to be pointless or stupid, do you?’ he asks. I shake my head. He asks those sorts of questions using a particular voice. I’ve thought about the voice a lot. It’s kind of fake cheerful. A mix between something like the voice girls at school use when daring you to do something and a telling-off that a teacher might fling out. It’s not nice.
Still, I find I do. Hope for impossible things.
I still wish really hard that this station waiting room is like Mr Benn’s changing room for me. Even though wishes, even those you make on birthdays, never come true. I have to be a different person when I end my train journey from the one I was when I began it. The waiting room has two doors and I always make sure I go in one and out the other. I don’t have to, it’s nothing to do with which platform the train pulls in at, or anything logical, it’s just a thing I keep doing. To see if things change. To see if I am different. To see if everyone is. I haven’t told anyone about my waiting-room habit, Dad would be very angry about it. Dad likes me to think rationally. ‘Like a boy, not a hormonal or superstitious woman. You don’t want to be a hormonal, superstitious woman, do you?’ I knew to say no, even before I had to look up both words. Neither is a compliment. Compliments are words like beautiful, reasonable, intelligent. He was not clear about which woman he thinks is ‘hormonal or superstitious’. I don’t think he means his new wife, Ellie. Most likely he means Mum, although he doesn’t directly talk about Mum to me. Not ever.
He once told me that Ellie ‘doesn’t make a fuss’ which I could tell he thought was a really good thing because he said it in his kind, content voice. I guess this must be true because she had my baby brother, Freddie, before she even married my dad and she did it so quietly no one knew anything about it, except presumably Dad. I guess he must have known. He just didn’t tell me.
Freddie is very cute, although a bit annoying at times when he doesn’t know I’m bored of a particular game and he just wants to keep playing, ‘again, gen, gen’ is like his war cry. The games he plays aren’t proper games, obviously, as he’s only two. He likes being swung around in circles, which kills my arms after a bit. He likes kicking a ball backwards and forwards, not exactly between us, because his aim is terrible. And when he’s in the bath he likes me pouring a cup of water over his head. He thinks that is hysterical. But once he laughed so hard and kicked his chubby little legs so much, he slipped and then banged his head on the tap and Dad went mad with me. He was really angry. He made a big fuss, but I think it’s different with men. If they make a fuss it is not hormonal, it’s because they are cross with their stupid wives or stupid daughters. True, Ellie did not make a fuss, but she didn’t really speak to me properly for days and kept giving me bad looks. Like the girls at school sometimes do if you wear the wrong jeans.
Ellie must be hormonal though because she is actually pregnant again (gen gen? how many babies are they planning on having?! I wonder). Mrs Roberts, my science teacher, said pregnant women have a lot of ‘hormonal changes’. This information was given during the lessons on reproduction education. I wish that had not been taught this year. It is really embarrassing that Dad and Ellie keep having babies because everyone in my class knows they must be having sex when other parents are obviously not. I wish I had parents that just did the same as everyone else’s parents. Like telling them off about their untidy rooms, getting a takeaway from the Chinese on Saturdays and complaining about the cost of school trips. To be fair, my dad does do all these things, but he also has sex with his new wife. He has a new wife.
Ellie’s belly is so weird. I can’t keep my eyes off it. She is really skinny everywhere else but now has this mound to carry around in front of her. She doesn’t like me staring, though. She says I am ‘unnerving’. I looked that up too. Also, not a compliment. She says I’m weird. Me?! I’m not the one with a Space Hopper up my jumper. I try not to get caught staring though because it makes Dad cross if I upset Ellie. ‘She’s very good to you,’ he says all the time. As though saying it all the time makes it more true.
There is a kiosk in the waiting room that sells teas and coffees and breakfast to people rushing to work in the city. There are no tables though, the place is too small. People have to eat their breakfasts standing up or take them on to the train and hope to get a seat. My favourite breakfast is a bacon buttie. I love the smell of warm fat sizzling and white bread frying; it reminds me of my granddad cooking breakfast for me when I was little. It’s usually a woman who serves behind the counter, but sometimes it’s a man. They are from Taiwan. I know because I heard the man tell a customer once. I didn’t know where Taiwan was, and it took ages to find it on Dad’s globe. Most of one Sunday afternoon, but I didn’t mind really, because it was something to do.
The Taiwanese couple tune their small radio into a classical music channel which seems to be surprising to the passengers, who always look astonished as they soak up the pianos and violins along with the smell of coffee and fried bread. It is certainly a change because in most shops and cafés only pop songs are played. I like the classical music because that also reminds me of my granddad who had old records of composers that have been dead for ages. I remember him telling me their names – Beethoven, Bach and Chopin – but I don’t really know which was which. My granddad died when I was eight which is so sad. If he was still alive, I think I would know which composer was responsible for which bit of music and maybe I wouldn’t even be sitting in this waiting room. I’d be sitting with him, most likely. In his lovely warm front room that had too much furniture for its small size but always smelt of sunshine and polish. Which was nice.
Obviously, Mum was more sad than I was about him dying because while he was my granddad, he was her dad and dads trump granddads. My dad said the way my mum grieved was indulgent and that it was disrespectful to the memory of my granddad, who liked people to be happy and would not want us crying. I don’t know but I did try not to cry in front of either of them because it upset them both in different ways. Because my mum cried so much, my dad made friends with Ellie. He’s explained it wasn’t his fault.
I think I must take after my granddad because I like people to be happy too. I think I am a person who is happiest when everyone else is happy. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
Waiting rooms are not peaceful; people always have a sort of jumpiness about them. I suppose they are worried they are going to miss their train. I know I worry, not if it is late but what if it was cancelled? What would I do then? Where would I go? But I like the place anyway. It feels safe, not one place or the other, just where I get to be me. Today it is rainy, so there are puddles of water on the tiled floor which are always tricky for the ladies in high heels and umbrellas are inconveniently shaken, scattering rain over me. Even so, I think this is where I am happiest because there’s no one to make happy here, but me.
The journey starts well. The train is on time. I get a seat with no one next to me, and no one talks to me or so much as smiles in my direction. It is best if they don’t because I’m not allowed to talk to strangers, but some strangers are women who look like grandmas; they don’t know the rules about talking to children, I don’t think. Then it’s embarrassing because my choice is to a) look rude by ignoring them or b) talk to them which
is against the rules. The journey starts to go wrong when there is no one to meet me off the train. There isn’t always. Sometimes I have to get the bus, but I thought today that Dad was going to pick me up. That’s what he’d said. So now I have to think do I a) get the bus but what if he is on his way and he arrives, and I am already gone. That will make him cross or b) wait for him here at the station but it is getting dark and it’s the last bus, if he doesn’t come and I miss the last bus, I’ll be in real trouble.
I get the bus.
It’s a ten-minute walk from the bus stop to Dad’s. ‘Nothing at all’, he says, although I have never seen him catch a bus ever. He drives a BMW. It’s raining hard now so I walk as quickly as possible, sometimes running, although it is hard to run carrying a suitcase. I do it in seven and a half minutes. I time myself.
I quietly let myself in with my own key. I saw a report on the news about latchkey kids. It made me feel a bit sad. Until then, I thought having my own key was grown up, now I lie to my friends about it, so they don’t think I’m weird. I pretend there is someone waiting for me with milk and biscuits too.
I take off my shoes and coat at the doorway, because I definitely don’t want to drip rain on the shiny tiled floor. I carry them and my suitcase straight upstairs because I don’t want to leave anything lying around for other people to trip over, because that’s just selfish and asking for trouble. Upstairs I can hear sounds coming from Dad and Ellie’s bedroom. I know I have to sneak past their room without them noticing me because I’m not stupid and I know what sort of sounds they are. Making sex sounds is even worse than rowing sounds. Their bedroom door is open. This is bad for two reasons a) because there is a greater risk of them seeing me b) because I might catch a glimpse of them, which would be gross!! I try to keep my eyes on the floor. I really do. Why would I want to see that but somehow my eyes don’t listen to my brain and I find myself just quickly flicking a glance that way. I don’t even know why I couldn’t stop myself. It’s utterly awful. Worse than I could have imagined. I can see my dad’s hairy bottom thrusting forwards and backwards into Ellie who is not lying on her back, like in the picture of women making sex in the textbook we were shown at school – Ellie is on her knees, bent over. They’ve got it all wrong. The sounds they are making – grunting, screaming, breathing fast like they’ve been running forever – prove that it’s wrong! He’s hurting her.
