by Luana Lewis
I turn back to the front door. I pull on my coat and my boots, I pick up my bag and my keys, and I leave.
On the ten-minute walk to Vivien’s house, the rain is soft and persistent. By the time I reach number sixty-three Blackthorn Road, my hair lies damp and limp against my skull. My coat is covered in tiny droplets of water, glistening under the orange streetlights.
The stucco-fronted Victorian villa is set back behind wrought-iron railings. The steps leading up to the front door are marble; the rounded topiaries, one on each side of the front door, are a matching pair. Two Range Rovers lie quietly on the driveway, like slumbering guard dogs. The shutters on all four floors are closed, but light seeps out through the ground-floor windows.
I press the buzzer, looking directly into the camera. Before long, the lock on the gate snaps open and I walk along the short path and climb the shallow steps. I’m expecting to see my son-in-law at the front door and so I’m caught off guard when his driver opens up instead. Isaac is a man of around my age, solidly built and shaven-headed. We’ve met a handful of times before, but only briefly. The last time we saw each other was at Lexi’s birthday party, where, like me, he hovered around the edges; he was helping guests with coats and parking permits. I remember Vivien insisting he have a piece of cake, handing him a pink paper plate, laughing.
He ushers me in out of the rain. ‘Ben’s upstairs; he’s putting Alexandra to bed,’ he says. ‘Here, let me take your coat.’
‘Thank you.’ I shrug off the damp cashmere and hand it to him. I’ve already left muddy footprints all over Vivien’s Victorian chequerboard floor.
Isaac opens the cupboard next to the front door and slips my coat onto a hanger. Inside, I catch a glimpse of Vivien’s black fur – the goatskin – still hanging in its place. On the floor of the cupboard, there are three pairs of navy wellington boots arranged in order of size.
‘I was hoping to see Lexi before she fell asleep. Do you think I can pop upstairs to say goodnight?’
‘I think it’s probably better if you wait down here.’ Isaac looks somewhat uncomfortable as he says this.
‘Of course,’ I say.
I’m disappointed but not surprised. I understand that spontaneous visits are still not welcome.
It looks as though Isaac was just about to leave the house: he’s wearing a long tan mackintosh. But it appears that now he’s going to wait, watching over me until Ben comes downstairs. I run my hands over my wet hair, trying to smooth it down.
Isaac is looking at me, as though there’s something he wants to say. I imagine a little softness in his eyes.
‘I wanted to say how sorry I am,’ he says. ‘I can’t imagine …’ His sentence trails off into silence.
‘Do you have children, Isaac?’
‘I have stepdaughters. Twins.’
‘Then you probably can imagine,’ I say.
I didn’t intend to but I’ve made him uncomfortable. I’m irritated at not being allowed to do something so simple as go upstairs and kiss my granddaughter goodnight. He looks away, glancing hopefully upstairs, but there’s no sign of Ben.
We stand, awkwardly, in the middle of the entrance hall. Isaac has his hands clasped in front of him, his feet apart. I smooth my hair down again.
Vivien is everywhere around us. Each object has been chosen with great care. Tall glass vases, silver picture frames and stone sculptures are positioned just so. On the walls, bold oil paintings hang alongside charcoal sketches. Everything clashes and yet fits together.
I hear the creak of Lexi’s door on the first floor and I look up. My son-in-law stands at the top of the stairs, staring back at me.
In the living room, Ben presses his palm flat against a panel in the wall and it opens to reveal a mirrored cabinet filled with glasses of different shapes and sizes, and row upon row of bottles. The Bell’s Special Reserve, already two-thirds empty, stands forward from the rest. Ben half-fills his glass with whisky. He doesn’t bother to replace the lid of the bottle.
‘Would you like a drink?’ he says, half-turning towards me but not quite looking at me.
‘A glass of water, thank you.’
After all these years, the two of us are polite strangers, our connection to each other oddly tenuous in Vivien’s absence. Ben leans down to open the fridge in a cupboard under the drinks cabinet. He takes out a bottle of Perrier and pours.
‘How is Lexi?’ I say.
‘She’s fast asleep.’ He walks over and hands me a glass of cold, fizzing water. ‘I try to keep to her routine,’ he says. ‘Vivien always had her in bed by seven-thirty.’
‘Of course. Routine is so important. But what I meant was, how is she in herself?’
‘I’m not sure. She eats the food I put in front of her. She goes to school. The school counsellor says to follow her lead, to answer questions as she asks them, not to push her to talk until she’s ready.’
‘That sounds sensible. I’m glad you have their support.’
The silence between us rankles as we stand facing each other. I’m glad I have the glass to hold on to, something to do with my hands.
Ben is less imposing in the flesh than in the many likenesses of him that smile from newspapers and web pages. He’s not the sort of man you would pick out of a crowd: of average height, not much taller than I am, his wiry brown hair is shot through with grey and he has a hint of middle-aged spread. Vivien used to say that because he is soft-spoken and unassuming, people tend to underestimate him. She used to say he reminded her of a teddy bear.
Thirsty, my mouth dry again, I take a sip of icy water.
At this moment, Ben does not look like a cuddly toy. He looks like hell. His eyes are dull and bruised and he’s aged ten years in the weeks since she died. But then I imagine I don’t look so great myself.
‘Does Lexi ask about her mother?’ I say.
‘She does. Every day. When I fetched her from school yesterday, she asked if Vivien was waiting for us at home. I explained it, all over again. I told her that her mother can’t ever come back. She seemed to understand. Then a few hours later, she asked again. She wanted to know if Vivien would be home in time to read her a story before bed. They say children don’t really understand what death is at her age.’
He takes a deep drink of his whisky. Another dark, deep gap falls between our words, between us.
On the large leather-topped desk at the opposite end of the room there is a silver-framed photograph of Vivien. She is smiling, her head tilted, coquettish, to the right. Her dark hair hangs poker straight to her shoulders and the ruffles of her blouse are buttoned demurely right up to her throat.
I blurt out, ‘Do you think you should still be living here?’
‘We’re not moving,’ Ben says. ‘This is our home, Vivien and the architect practically rebuilt it from the ground up.’
He takes another drink, looking into the bottom of his whisky glass as though he might find salvation there. He leaves my side to pour himself another, and once again he’s generous with the Special Reserve. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him drink more than a couple of glasses of wine. I don’t like the way he’s drinking now, but I’m not about to antagonize him by suggesting he stop.
There are practicalities, I suppose. The size of the mortgage, the reality of selling such a house so soon after an unexplained death. Perhaps Ben has to live here for reasons I am not privy to, not burdened with.
I walk over to the back window. Vivien has planted a row of trees along the back wall, in an attempt to screen out the ugly brown-brick council buildings behind, though the saplings don’t quite manage it, they aren’t tall enough yet. There are tiny lights buried in neat lines all around the edges of the compact square of lawn. A stone lion is mounted on the side wall, under a floodlight. His mouth is open in a silent scream.
Ben has come to stand beside me.
‘DS Cole asked me to go in to the station for an interview this afternoon,’ I say.
We make eye
contact in the window across our rippled reflections as he takes yet another, deeper drink.
‘What did she want?’ he says.
‘I don’t really know. She went over exactly the same ground we’ve covered before. When I saw Vivien in the week before she died, what she said to me, what I did that Friday.’
I’m not sure whether to say that DS Cole talked about the head injury, and a possible intruder. I decide it’s better to say nothing. If Ben is fearful, if that’s part of the reason he’s drinking, I don’t want to exacerbate his anxiety.
‘I assume they’re keeping in touch with you?’
He nods.
‘If you’re worried about your granddaughter’s safety,’ he says, ‘you should know I’m in touch with a security firm. We’re putting in a more sophisticated security system. Isaac is overseeing all of it.’
The bitterness in his voice is unlike the Ben I knew before. Ben who was Vivien’s rock, always on an even keel and so easy-going. Ben who was warm where Vivien was cold. For Lexi’s sake, I don’t want to see him change.
‘I trust you to keep Lexi safe, Ben. I didn’t mean it that way.’
Though he couldn’t keep Vivien safe. This conversation is a minefield.
‘I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, to sleep in that bed, to use that bathroom – what it will be like for Lexi, as she grows older, to know—’
I stop speaking because I fear I’m making things worse, for him and between us.
‘I don’t know which is worse,’ Ben says, ‘to think someone hurt her or to know she committed suicide. Isn’t that bizarre? Part of me would prefer murder. Then I don’t have to deal with the fact that she made the decision to leave us.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t think that’s bizarre at all.’
‘There’s no evidence of an intruder,’ he says, ‘and I don’t believe there was one. I think I didn’t see what was in front of me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I should have known. I should have done something to help her.’
‘You can’t blame yourself.’
‘Oh, I can.’
This room is too warm and I feel a familiar thudding headache coming on. From the corner behind me, a statue watches over us: a bird carved from black stone with an enormous hooked beak, so tall it reaches almost to the ceiling. How I hate this house. I worry about Ben and Lexi, as though the traces of what happened upstairs might poison them too.
I notice in his reflection in the glass in front of me that Ben is wearing a white shirt over black suit trousers. His tie hangs loose around his neck. He must be spending time in the office already.
‘Who will look after Lexi when you need to go back to work full time?’ I say.
‘Isaac is helping me out for the time being.’
‘Really?’
‘He has adult daughters of his own. He’s wonderful with her.’
‘It sounds like you’ve come to rely on him a great deal.’
He nods.
‘Ben, Lexi is eight years old. She needs a woman in her life.’
Ben does not say anything, but I imagine I can read his thoughts. His own mother died before he and Vivien even met, and so Lexi never knew her paternal grandmother. I feel sure Ben is thinking of her now, and wishing his own mother were standing beside him instead of me. I’m sure he believes his own mother would have done a much better job of loving Lexi. I am someone Lexi sees briefly at birthdays and at Christmas time. I am her grandmother in name, but not much more.
‘I’m looking into hiring a nanny,’ he says. He places his drink down on the coffee table. He begins fiddling with his wedding ring. ‘Rose,’ he sighs, ‘why exactly are you here?’
‘I want to help,’ I say. ‘I can take time off work. I can pick up Lexi from school. I can stay to help with her homework. I can cook. Anything you need. You only have to ask.’
‘I appreciate the offer,’ he says, though his tone says something different.
‘Is there a problem, with what I’ve said?’ I ask him.
‘Lexi isn’t used to spending time with you.’
I could say the same about him, but I don’t, I manage to keep myself in check. Ben is in pain. He’s grieving and he’s powerless. I have to be patient.
‘Ben, I promise you, my priority now is Lexi. My career comes second. I’ve stepped down as manager of the unit.’
‘Lexi is my priority too.’
‘Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to imply anything different. I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m not expressing myself very well. I think you know what I’m trying to say. I’m really not trying to make you angry.’
‘Do I sound angry?’ he says.
‘Yes. And understandably so.’
‘I am angry. Angry that I’ve lost my wife and that Lexi is going to grow up without her mother. And I’m angry at you, Rose. Angry that you disappeared from our lives after Lexi was born, after all we’d gone through in that pregnancy and at a time when Vivien really, really needed you. I don’t have any right to criticize you, Rose, and I have enormous respect for you, raising Vivien as a single parent and still managing to have the career you’ve had. But Lexi is so vulnerable. And she barely knows you.’
I want to protest at the unfairness of what he’s saying, but I don’t.
‘Please give me a chance,’ is all I say.
‘I’m trying to give Lexi some sense of a normal life,’ he says, ‘and to minimize the damage here. I really don’t know what you want from us and whether your relationship with my daughter is going to help her or make things worse. I worry that you’re using Lexi to deal with the guilt you feel for neglecting your own daughter all these years. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I do.’
Ben is in pain, his face mapped out with loneliness and regret. He is doing the best he can for his daughter and he believes I have no heart.
I have to be careful, because Ben holds all the cards. I’m frightened of being unimportant and of being discarded, and I see all too clearly that my place in my granddaughter’s life is far from secure. I have not understood until now that I might lose Lexi, too. I could lose everything. I have to tread carefully. So I don’t argue with him and I don’t defend myself and though I feel the pressure of the tears behind my eyes, I do not cry.
‘Well?’ he says. ‘Where have you been for the last eight years?’
‘We all do things we regret.’ I sound weak. Shallow.
‘Look,’ he says, his voice softening. ‘All I can think of is what it would have meant to Vivien to have your support with Lexi all these years. She needed you.’
‘I know this isn’t the right time,’ I say, ‘everything is so raw and Lexi is your priority, rightly so. But one day, I’d like to explain. We can sit down and talk properly.’
He picks up his glass and returns to the drinks cabinet for a refill. There’s no point in beginning this conversation now, no point trying to reason with him or persuade him of anything. He can’t be thinking straight after all that whisky.
‘Vivien was so lucky to have you,’ I say.
My daughter has crept back into the room. She is with us in the curves of the armchair and the lines of the charcoal sketches, in the polished silver of the picture frames. She is in the air we breathe, in the sensual mix of whisky and gardenia. She is the strong glass and steel frame that has been grafted onto the spine of this old house.
Ben returns to my side, at the window, and we stand in a more amiable silence as we stare out at Vivien’s twinkling lights. After a few moments, I ask him the question I’ve been wanting to ask since I stepped through the front door of this cursed house. I ask if I may go upstairs to see my granddaughter.
To my relief, he says yes. As long as I do not wake her.
The walls of the square landing on the first floor are covered with family photographs: Lexi on the day she came home from the hospital, Lexi in Ben’s arms, Lexi as a toddler taking her first steps. There is one
shot of the family together, as they pose on a beach. It is a beautiful photograph, because they are all laughing.
All three doors up here stand slightly ajar. Red and pink letters on the middle door announce: Alexandra’s Room. I wait in the doorway until my eyes adjust to the darkness and I can make out the sleeping figure of my granddaughter.
I step into the room and move closer, slowly, until I’m standing at the edge of her bed. Lexi is on her side, curled up, her eyes closed and her right hand cupping her chin in a pose that reminds me of her mother when she was little. A strip of light from the landing falls across her face, illuminating a skin so pallid as to be almost translucent.
She’s so still I feel afraid, just the way I did when she was a tiny baby in an incubator and I feared she would stop breathing. I place my hand against her back, against her cotton pyjama top, and I feel her chest move up and down with each breath.
I want to run my fingers through her ginger curls but I stop myself because I don’t want to wake her. Her sleep is peaceful.
Lexi’s quilt has fallen to the floor. I pick it up and lay it gently over her small body. The fabric is a delicate grey and there are little white stars embroidered around the edges. The same fabric has been used for the curtains and the upholstery of the armchair in the corner of the room.
As I look around, at the drawings on the walls, signed illustrations from Matilda, I think about how much time and thought my daughter put into the decoration of her only child’s bedroom. Somehow, her careful choice of bedding and curtains and etchings feels like an accusation: Vivien succeeded where I failed. Each phase of Lexi’s life has been documented and celebrated, portraits taken, birthdays celebrated. It’s as though Vivien was trying to replace everything she missed out on while I was working twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. As though she wanted to show me my failings.
I cannot stop myself; I bend down and kiss Lexi’s plump cheek. She still has that innocent, baby smell. I want to keep watch over her always, as though by watching I might keep her from any more suffering.
Chapter 3
The gate clangs shut behind me. When I look back at the house, Ben has already closed the gloss-black front door.
