Vanessa picked up The Golden Notebook. She was on page 327. The characters were discussing the ending of a great love affair, she remembered, wondering if it had even been that great. She’d been smiling to herself that evening when the phone started ringing: Lizzie must have missed this bit; she’d never have let Vanessa read about great love affairs. ‘You’re better off on your own,’ she said, whenever Vanessa went into one of her depressions about Gerald. ‘Anything’s better than living with the enemy.’ Vanessa’s eyes lingered on the page: ‘… as if he were denying my existence.’ She shut the book and dropped it on to the coffee table.
Lizzie had washed up the dishes Vanessa had left in the sink and there was a bottle of milk in the fridge. A sheet of paper stuck to the door was obviously Cordelia and Esme’s work. WELCOME HOME M VANESSA was printed across it in irregular shaped capitals with a border of red-crayoned kisses. Vanessa fingered the black smudge before her name. She knew what it was. Cordelia had struggled when she first told the children she wanted to be called by her real name rather than Mummy, and even now would begin most sentences with ‘Mu …’ before she remembered. It was an idea Lizzie had come up with from a book she’d been reading about identity and motherhood, and Vanessa had gone along with it. She often wished she hadn’t – it would be nice to be called Mummy again.
Vanessa set a saucepan of milk on the cooker to boil. Spooning drinking chocolate into a mug, she watched bubbles form on the milk’s surface. She carried her mug upstairs to the hall. She took her toilet bag from her suitcase, picked up the post from the table and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She turned on the bedside light and dropped the post on the pillow. She’d never got used to sleeping here on her own. There were still two empty drawers where Gerald had kept his underwear and sweaters. She never let her clothes encroach on to what had been his side of the wardrobe. When she couldn’t sleep, she would open the wardrobe door, close her eyes and convince herself she could smell the leather of his jacket.
She pulled a nightie over her head. When Gerald was here, she’d always slept naked. She slipped under the covers and curled her legs up under her. She hated stretching them out into the chasm of cold sheets.
The drinking chocolate slipped down her throat, warm and comforting. She extracted the blue airmail envelope from the pile, her fingers tracing the Argentinean stamp. Three months had gone by since the last letter.
My darling one
What’s new? I think of you every day and wonder what you’re doing. How are Cordy and Esme? You must send me a new photo. I’ll write again with an address. Next month I’m moving into an apartment in Buenos Aires. I’m going to be teaching at the university for at least six months, so it makes sense to rent somewhere.
You said you have a job. I still can’t believe you spend your time knitting, let alone designing stuff to be made on machines. You should have let me know if you’re short of cash. I’ll instruct the bank to increase the cheque starting next month. Vanessa, you’ve got talent – you must get back to something with some credibility.
I’m in a pit as regards work. I’ve got a commission for a piece to stand on the waterfront near the new opera house in Sydney. It’s a magnificent building, but I don’t feel inspired. I haven’t done much that’s any good since I left England.
That’s it for now. Be strong. Be happy.
My love, for what it’s worth, is yours.
Gerald.
Vanessa pushed the letter under her pillow and turned out the bedside light. With her fingers resting on the flimsy paper, she fell asleep.
‘I’ll pick the kids up from school,’ Lizzie said when Vanessa phoned. ‘Come round this afternoon and we can have supper together.’
Vanessa had a bath and washed her hair. She wound a towel around her head and took her bag of rollers from the suitcase. She remembered Catherine’s wild mane. What the hell! She’d let it dry naturally.
She wandered round the empty house. Cordelia and Esme’s room was a mess, just as they’d left it that morning when Lizzie had arrived to take them to school and Vanessa had set off for Heathrow. There was a slight indentation on Cordelia’s pillow. Vanessa lay down and fitted her head in the space. She picked up her daughter’s pyjamas and held them to her face. Cordelia had changed in so many ways since Gerald left. ‘Such a serious child,’ her teacher said. ‘She prefers being on her own at playtimes.’
Vanessa glanced into her workroom. The week in the States meant she was behind with her designs. She had a part-time job working on factory machine knits. She’d also been asked to give presentations to buyers from some of the high street shops. It meant she had money apart from Gerald’s monthly cheque.
‘Financial independence is essential,’ Lizzie told her.
‘But I need something more,’ Vanessa argued back. ‘The feel of the yarn in my fingers, the magic of creating stitch by stitch.’
Lizzie was in the middle of writing a magazine article. She might not have written her novel, but her commitment to women’s liberation meant her voice was being heard.
‘You look different,’ she said. ‘What have you done to your hair?’
‘I washed it and left it to dry.’
‘It’s wonderful.’
Vanessa thought her hair looked a mess. She could scarcely get a comb through it.
‘At least you’re not trying to look beautiful for some man.’ Lizzie’s lips tightened. ‘When I think of the hours I spent manicuring, creaming, plucking … all to keep that bastard happy.’
Vanessa looked at her friend. Lizzie’s hair hung straight to her shoulders; she never wore any make-up and her trousers and sweaters were still uniformly black. She’d never tried to kiss Vanessa again, but sometimes, when she was tired or the longing for Gerald was bad, Vanessa wished she would. She looked at Lizzie’s mouth as she talked. ‘Germaine Greer … Kate Millet … the personal is political … sisterhood, it’s all about sisterhood … ’ and she imagined putting her lips to it, feeling its softness and warmth, her tongue sliding into Lizzie’s mouth.
While Lizzie went to collect the children from school, Vanessa paced up and down the hall. Suppose Cordelia and Esme weren’t pleased to see her? Suppose they preferred Lizzie’s well-ordered home, meals on the table promptly, clean clothes in appropriate drawers, instead of their own chaotic existence? She needn’t have worried. Esme bounced up and down on her lap as if she was a baby again, and Cordelia didn’t leave her side, even when the other children went to watch television, but sat curled against her on the sofa, her fingers twirling Vanessa’s hair into even tighter knots.
‘Your hair looks pretty,’ she said.
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes. I missed you, Mummy. Did you miss me?’
Vanessa held up her hands shoulder width apart. ‘I missed you this much. No – ’. She spread her arms wider. ‘I missed you this much. No – ’. She moved them further and further away from each other until they were almost touching behind her back. ‘I missed you this much.’
Cordelia grabbed her face and kissed her.
That night at home the two girls slept in the big double bed with her.
Vanessa stopped to watch the tourists feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square. Today was a good day. She’d made up her face carefully: dark brown shadow across her lids and up to the bone, black liner rimming her eyes. She’d chosen her new denim bellbottoms and a brown shirt with a waistcoat she’d crocheted in a vivid orange yarn. She crossed over to the north side of the square, passed the Church of St Martin’s in the Field and walked up to the National Portrait Gallery.
She tried to visit a gallery or exhibition once a month. She always read the papers on a Sunday to see what was on where. The other week there’d been a glowing review of a new book by the highly successful illustrator, Carla Scott, a companion volume to her earlier work on death. Several of her drawings were reproduced in the paper. They showed aspects of birth, honest and brave depictions of this un
ique experience, the reviewer wrote. Vanessa threw the paper across the kitchen table. Stupid slag! What did she know about giving birth? All she knew was sleeping with other women’s husbands.
Vanessa liked to pick out a particular work to study, reading up on the artist and sitter before she went. Portraits were still her favourite. She loved the different ways character could be observed and how paintings from other centuries reflected those other worlds. Today she had chosen Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie. Lizzie had given her Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women to read.
She found the painting easily. She took out her notebook and jotted down a few points: painted 1792, oil on canvas, white blouse, black beret, head turned to right, heavy eyebrows, full mouth, light falling on her face and blouse … She looked up. The way Mary’s face and blouse were illuminated in contrast with the dark background was one of the most interesting aspects of the portrait. She needed to study it more closely, but there was someone standing where she wanted to be. She contented herself with sketching an outline of Mary’s face – the strong jaw, jutting nose, wide nostrils … She looked up again. The man was still blocking her view. He was really tall. Staring at his back, she willed him to move. Her eyes took in the yellow cheesecloth shirt, brown tank top, dun-coloured corduroy trousers. He had pale hair streaming over his slight shoulders. The strands shone as if they’d been polished. Vanessa would have died for hair like that. Move out of the way. It was all she could do not to say the words out loud.
She continued sketching. The facial features were well defined. There was a line under the lip where the chin tilted upwards. She glanced up again to check. The man had moved. He was at the end of the room now, in front of another painting. He had his arm round a woman. What was it about him? There was something about his shoulders, the way one seemed to be higher than the other.
Vanessa moved forward to take his place in front of the portrait. Mary was a heroine of Lizzie’s. She was one of the first people to apply the phrase ‘legal prostitution’ to marriage. It held a potent message for Lizzie. ‘Can you imagine?’ She paced up and down her sitting room. ‘Mary knew all this in the eighteenth century. What would she say if she could see how little we’ve achieved?’ Vanessa stared up at the painting. ‘What do you think, Mary W? Are we a pathetic lot?’ She glanced round. Had anyone heard her?
The man had moved from the end of the room back towards her. He was standing at the portrait on her right. She looked at him again. Yes, there was definitely something.
As if he felt her eyes on him, he turned his head. He smiled, a wide grin that transformed the serious set of his face. ‘It is you,’ he said. ‘I thought it was.’
His voice was so familiar, it was as if she’d heard it yesterday. She examined him: the beard, the intensity of his stare. It was the shoulder-length hair that seemed to change his appearance and confuse her. But it must be. ‘Andrew?’
His grin split his face further. ‘You do recognise me? I was beginning to worry.’ He took a step towards her, holding out his hand.
She pumped it as if the firmness of her handshake might ease the awkwardness. ‘Is it really you?’
‘Is it really you?’
She tried to take her hand away, but he held on to it.
‘I’ve imagined this moment,’ he said. ‘Planned my speech. Something clever and hip.’
‘Go on then.’
‘You’re joking. Now I’m here looking at you, I can’t think of a word to say. You go.’
‘Em … it’s good to see you.’
‘And you.’
She managed to extricate her hand. ‘Do you live in London?’
‘No, just outside Oxford. Faye and I are down for the day. Let me introduce you.’ He glanced over his shoulder. The gallery was empty. ‘Oh, she’s moved on.’
Thank God. Whoever Faye was, Vanessa didn’t want to meet her.
‘What about you?’ Andrew asked ‘Are you still in this neck of the woods?’
‘I live in Highgate.’
‘Very trendy.’
She made a face. ‘Not really.’
‘I hear you married Gerald Blackstone.’
Colour raced up her neck and across her cheeks. ‘Yeah.’
‘Do I have to call you Mrs Blackstone?’
‘We’re divorced now. I changed back to Vanessa Heaney.’
He pursed his lips and a low whistle escaped. ‘Married and divorced?’
‘Yes. And you?’
He shook his head. ‘Not married. Not divorced.’
‘Faye?’ The name was a whisper on her lips.
‘She’s my girlfriend. We’ve been together about a year.’
‘Oh.’
He nodded in the direction of the painting. ‘You were studying her intently. Special interest of yours?’
‘It’s such a strong face.’
‘A face that takes no prisoners. Do you still do portraits?’
‘I don’t get much time what with the children – ’
‘You have children?’
‘Two. Cordelia and Esme.’
‘Ah.’
‘What do you mean – ‘ah’?’
‘I mean ah, two pretty little girls, just like their mummy.’
He’d moved closer while they’d been talking, and he was only a couple of feet away. His beard was a thin straggly thing that he would be better shaving off. She could see the greyness of his eyes. ‘Are you mocking me?’
He ran his hand through his hair, and she got an eerie sensation of being whisked back in time.
‘Mocking?’ He raised his eyebrows, one arching higher than the other. ‘Far from it. I don’t know what to say. I’m bowled over. Speechless. A tongue-tied adolescent on his first date. How many clichés do you want?’
‘It is strange. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.’
‘No, but I hoped.’
There was a noise behind her and Vanessa looked round. A party of schoolchildren was crowding into the room. The teacher was trying vainly to get some sort of order.
‘Looks like the peace is over,’ he said.
‘Do you fancy … I mean, do you want to see about a drink. Cup of tea or a beer or something?’
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘Faye and I are off to a film.’
The noise from the children was growing. The teacher’s voice was getting more desperate. She backed away from him. ‘It was just an idea.’
‘Give me your number,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring you.’
The first call came a week later. Then he began to ring a couple of times a week, often late in the evening. It meant his warm voice echoed softly in her ears as she climbed into bed. They caught up on the years. Andrew had left college without completing the course. ‘All that experimentation – not my thing,’ he explained. ‘Besides I couldn’t stand seeing the great Gerald Blackstone lording it round college when I knew he was shacked up with you. Every time he saw me, he winked.’ Trust Gerald, Vanessa thought. He always had to remind people he was better than them. She waited for Andrew to say something about Faye, but he didn’t. He lived in a cottage near Woodstock – ‘I love it: it’s so peaceful’. He worked as a designer for a card company and spent his spare time on his watercolours. ‘Saturdays and Sundays, I’m out sketching. There are some great scenes round there.’
‘What about your girlfriend? Is she interested in art?’
Andrew laughed. ‘No, not her thing at all.’
Vanessa talked about Cordelia and Esme, about bringing them up on her own.
‘You’re lucky, though,’ he said. ‘I’d love some kids.’
‘You’d make a good father,’ she told him.
He said he was coming to London for a meeting and had to stay overnight. Could they meet for a drink or dinner?
‘Will Faye be with you?’
‘No, just me.’
When Vanessa put the phone down, the colours of the living room s
eemed brighter. The green of the vase on the coffee table had a luminous sheen that she’d never noticed. The next day she cleaned the house from top to bottom. Work didn’t seem a chore, and Cordelia and Esme were perfect, the most well behaved children any one could wish for.
Lizzie agreed to have the children overnight. ‘But that doesn’t mean I approve of going all gooey-eyed over some man!’
‘I’m not. Anyway, he’s got a girlfriend.’
‘All the more reason to get rid of the soppy expression on your face.’
Andrew was even taller than she remembered. He stooped forward and kissed her cheek. His beard was soft, not bristly, as she’d expected. His hair was sleek and shining, falling each side of his face from a centre parting.
‘You look lovely,’ he said.
‘Thank you. I didn’t know what to wear. I wasn’t sure about the restaurant. I mean how formal … ’ God, what was she bumbling on about? Shut up, she told herself. Just shut up.
He pulled out a chair for her, and she slid into it. It would be easier with the table between them.
She glanced round the restaurant. Andrew had chosen it. ‘It’s nice here.’ What an inane thing to say. Was that the best she could do?
It was a small place round the corner from Kensington High Street. ‘I usually come here when I’m in London,’ he said. ‘They do good vegetarian food.’
She scanned the menu. ‘I’ll have the mushroom omelette.’
‘Don’t feel you have to go for vegetarian. I only said it for something to say. They do steaks and things as well.’
‘No, omelette’s fine.’
Andrew ordered them both a beer. It was what they used to drink when they were at college. Since Gerald left, Vanessa rarely drank, let alone beer, but she liked the idea of following what they’d done as students.
‘Thanks for agreeing to come tonight,’ Andrew said.
‘I wanted to. I’ve enjoyed our phone calls.’
Unravelling Page 21
