‘I will,’ said the doctor. ‘If you think it’s a good book.’
‘I do.’
The doctor wrote something on a pad. Elise supposed she was about seventy, steel hair in a bob, tortoiseshell glasses. A wedding ring; the stone in the middle old and dark, possibly an onyx. Elise wondered if she was a widow: so many men predeceased their mates. Her pen was an expensive, heavy thing. Her writing, even upside down, was exquisite, Arabic in flourish. Elise watched her lightly liver-spotted hands. One day, I’ll be that old, she thought. I hope I’m that elegant. Imagine being seventy! With an easy disavowal of her own life, and an understanding that she had no clue what the doctor’s was really like, Elise wanted it. Outside the traffic honked, but all Elise could see was sky.
‘Elise, you hurt yourself,’ the doctor said softly, laying down her beautiful pen.
Rude. Provocative. Not the doctor’s place to decide. ‘I don’t need to talk about it,’ Elise said, looking into her lap. She felt loosened, calmer. Matt had never commented on the bruises all over her body from when she hurled herself into the Pacific breakers. Connie had. What was the difference now, hurling herself down a flight of stairs?
‘The people who love you seem to think you should,’ said the doctor. ‘Your husband.’
Elise said nothing. She picked at her necklace and slid the E back and forth along its chain.
‘He’s very concerned about you,’ said the doctor.
‘He’s not my husband. And it’s a bit late for that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m fine. It’s been tough with a new baby, but I’m fine.’
‘How old is your baby now?’
‘She’s two months old.’
‘Are your own mother or father nearby?’
‘I have no contact with my father.’
‘And your mom?’
‘My mother is dead.’
The doctor laid down her pen. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Do you talk to Matt about that?’
‘No. She died of a tumour in her head. He knows that.’
‘Right,’ said the doctor.
Matt knew that, but Elise had not told him how Patricia had forgotten her words, and how, when she did learn them again, her speech was different, her eyes were different, how it felt as if she’d been replaced with another woman, a changeling mother that Elise couldn’t reach. How another tumour grew, like a stubborn vegetable in her mother’s head, attached to some eternal stem inside her, growing bulbous, a malignant gourd. Elise closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the doctor was still looking at her. ‘How old were you, Elise, when your mother died?’
‘I was nine.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Elise. ‘This isn’t about my mother.’
‘I want you to close your eyes again. Will you do that for me?’
Elise closed her eyes.
‘Now breathe slowly. Just be here, in the room. I want you to tell me, if you can: what words come to you when you think about your daughter?’
Elise breathed deeply. She saw Rose, her little eyes peering at the ceiling of the apartment, her small pink paw on the gold necklace of the Madonna around Yolanda’s neck. ‘Reaching,’ Elise said to the doctor. ‘Head. Smell. Good.’ She flashed her eyes open. ‘This is stupid.’ She felt a juddering sob and pushed it down.
‘Close your eyes again,’ said the doctor, still with a soothing voice. ‘Just take a little time. Keep breathing. What words come to you when you think about yourself?’
Elise did as she was told, again. She closed her eyes, and listened to the clock on the wall. She tried to think of a word for herself. With Rose it was easy. Rose was there, solid and helpless and extraordinary – but she, Elise, she could no more find a word for herself than scale the Eiffel Tower. There was nothing inside her. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’ Tears were coming now. There was no word for her.
The doctor leaned back in her sprung leather chair. ‘All right, Elise. It’s all right. Take a tissue. What you tell me in here is between you and me.’
‘You’ll tell Matt.’
The doctor interlaced her fingers and rested them in her lap. ‘I won’t. What makes you think I would?’
‘Because he needs to understand. That’s what he wants. That’s why he made me come.’
‘Understand?’
Elise sighed, and picked again at the necklace, sliding the E over her chin. ‘That’s a lovely necklace,’ said the doctor. ‘Did Matt give it to you?’
She dropped the necklace back onto her skin. ‘No.’
The doctor paused. ‘You’ve been through inexplicable things, Elise,’ she said eventually.
‘That’s a ridiculous exaggeration.’
‘Birth is not an easy thing.’
‘Millions of women do it.’
‘That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Neither is learning how to be a mother. Or learning how to be a daughter. They don’t give you a guide.’ The doctor paused. ‘Losing your mother like that can’t have been easy.’
‘Do you have kids?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Then you know shit.’
The doctor smiled. ‘Perhaps. Who have you talked to about how you’re feeling?’
‘You? I’m fine. I’m just tired. Can I go?’
‘I want to give you some medication, Elise. Just for a bit. Will you try it for me?’
‘OK,’ said Elise.
‘And I want you to come back and see me in a week or so.’
‘OK,’ said Elise, but she knew she wouldn’t.
45
Elise decided she did not need to take the pills. She needed to have her wits about her, to be alert. She did not need to be drugged. She began to dream of the girl again, trapped in the house with the collapsing roof, and she woke up with a shock, convinced Connie was lying by her side. But Matt was by her side, and Rose was asleep in her cot.
On the 3rd of September, she took herself and Rose in her sling to a movie theatre on the corner where Nassau Street met Fulton. The girl behind the glass at the ticket booth stared at her.
‘What?’ said Elise.
‘Nothing,’ said the girl.
‘One for Heartlands.’
Elise bought her ticket and sat in the dark. She began watching the film wanting to hate Barbara, and she tried but couldn’t. It was a brilliant, career-defining performance. Barbara’s entire body was made for a camera, let alone her face. Her eyes told stories without the need for words.
It was strange. Barbara didn’t look like this in real life. But when the camera and lights were on her, and a character settled inside her, the angles on her cheeks and mouth created alarm and allure. She became someone else. Such was the quality of the script, the direction and the cinematography, that when Elise stumbled out into the main corridor of the movie theatre, staring at the dull pattern of the popcorn-strewn carpet, she wept.
She was not crying for what Connie had done to her with Barbara, nor for what she and Matt had done to Shara and Connie – but for the fact that the film had shown her how flimsy her own life was. The world of the film was beautiful and solid. It felt more like real life. Elise thought New York would give her solidity. It hadn’t.
She went on walking the streets around Nassau Street, up Fulton and onto Gold, before wandering back over Brooklyn Bridge. Rose was fast asleep. Elise stood in the middle of the bridge as the traffic thundered beneath her. It was getting dark. She’d been out for hours. Manhattan was blinking its lights on in the dusk. The Hudson was still.
What am I doing? she asked herself. How did this all happen? She imagined, suddenly, going straight to JFK and catching a plane to California, then a cab to Malibu – and knocking on Shara’s door, her arms extended, Rose resting on her hands. For you! she would say. See? I did it for you. Like you told me to. And then Shara would take the baby, and everything would be right in the world.
Elise imagined clambering up, right now, onto the iron of t
he bridge. Who would talk her down? Who would see her jump into the water?
*
It took her two more hours to reach the apartment in Covert Street. By now, Rose was screaming. When she got in, Matt was pacing up and down the living room. He froze when he saw her, looking crazed. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, bounding over to her, taking her by either arm. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been waiting hours. I nearly called the police—’
‘I went to the movies.’
Matt crumpled to the sofa. He put his head in his hands, and wept.
‘What’s wrong?’ Elise said, surprised.
‘I can’t do this,’ he said.
‘What can’t you do?’
He waved maniacally at her, the room, at Rose. ‘This is just madness, El. What have we done? I never know where you are, I don’t know what state you’re going to be in. You won’t go to the doctor, you won’t take your pills—’
‘I’m going to Yoli’s,’ she said. ‘Me and Rose are going to Yoli’s.’
He looked up in horror. ‘What?’
‘I’m going to go and stay with Yoli.’
‘Does Yolanda know you’re going to do this?’
‘It’ll be fine.’
He got to his feet, the tears still wet on his face. ‘I don’t understand. You can’t just invite yourself into someone else’s – you’re in no fit state—’
‘I can, Matt. Yoli understands me. She knows how to look after Rose. I need her.’
‘But I’m Rose’s father.’
‘It’s just for a bit. You can visit of course. I just – can’t be in this place any more.’
*
He didn’t stop her. She knew he wouldn’t. To stop her would be cruel and Matt was not a cruel man. If she wanted to take her new-born baby and stay with her friend, he was going to have to let her. And even if he had forbidden her, she would have slunk away when he was at work. He even helped her pack, disassembling the cot in order to take it over to Yolanda’s. Once he’d calmed down, Elise could sense the relief in him; finally something was shifting, she had made a decision.
He walked her to Yolanda’s apartment. When Yolanda opened the door to them both, she did not look surprised.
‘I can pay rent,’ said Elise.
Yolanda batted the air. ‘Not now.’
Elise handed Rose over to Yolanda in order to get her suitcase over the threshold. She turned to Matt. In the context of a new apartment, in the outside air, she could see him looking at her as if for the first time in a long time. His face was grey and exhausted. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said.
‘I hope so,’ he replied.
46
For two months, Elise lived under Yolanda’s roof. Being with Yolanda definitely felt better than being with Matt. Yolanda was a home cook, and her mofongo with fried pork, her deep-fried chicken thighs drenched in lemon, rum and garlic, and her little alcapurrias of ground beef and plantain sated the emptiness of Elise’s belly. Knowing that Yolanda would come home after her shift at the diner to feed her these delights brought a comfort to Elise that she found hard to understand, let alone verbalize.
Yolanda only had one bed in her apartment, and she had given it to Elise. Every evening Yoli slept on the sofa, and every evening, as Elise sank gratefully onto Yolanda’s mattress, spreading her limbs like a star as Rose snuffled in her reassembled cot, she swore she would insist that the next night Yoli could have her bed back. But Yolanda never brought it up, and every night, Elise found the bed impossible to resist.
Matt tried to see them both, but Elise engineered it that Rose was asleep when he came round in the evenings, and that he really couldn’t wake her. At weekends, he was harder to avoid. Yolanda, caught in the crossfire, tried to reason with Elise.
‘You can’t keep hiding for ever,’ she said. ‘And Rosita needs her papi.’
‘You don’t like me being here,’ said Elise. ‘You want me to leave.’
‘No, no,’ said Yolanda, sighing, and Elise felt bad for this cheap manipulation of her friend. These kinds of words and accusations came to her mouth so easily.
‘Why won’t you go and see the doctor, Eli?’ Yolanda begged. ‘It’s good you’re eating, but you don’t leave the apartment and I’m worried. You gonna be a woman who lives in a box?’
‘Why not? There was a woman who lived in a shoe.’
Yolanda looked at her quizzically. ‘How she fit in the shoe?’
Elise laughed. ‘It was a big shoe.’
Yolanda seemed uncomfortable. ‘Mija, just tell me. Is it over for ever between you two?’
‘Yes,’ said Elise, as if she had only just realized. ‘Yes. It is.’
*
The days turned into weeks, and the weeks into another month. Eventually, Yolanda, her face looking tired and her movements heavy, sat Elise on the sofa and told her she’d been to see Matt herself to discuss the situation.
Elise was shocked. ‘You went to Matt to complain about me?’ she said.
‘No, Eli,’ said Yolanda. ‘I am just worried about you. I love you, but you can’t live here for ever.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him Rosita is OK. Told him you were eating more now. But not going out. Not washing enough.’
Unconsciously, Elise touched her hair. ‘Do I smell?’
Yolanda demurred. ‘He has called someone,’ she said. ‘A woman.’
‘A woman?’
‘Her name is Constance.’
Elise jumped to her feet. ‘Yoli, are you joking?’
A look of alarm crossed Yolanda’s face. ‘No. None of this is a joke. Do you see me laughing?’
‘He called Connie?’
‘She is coming to visit here,’ Yolanda said. ‘Matt said she was a friend of yours. That you’d be happy to see her.’
‘She’s coming here?’
‘Yes.’ Yolanda gave her a dark look. ‘I’ve got to clean the apartment.’
‘When is she coming?’
Yolanda shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’
‘You’re gonna see her though, yes? Your friend can’t fly all the way from London and be turned away.’
*
Yolanda went to her shift at the diner, and Elise got out her vacuum cleaner and mop. She used strong disinfectant to clean the bathroom basin, the taps and floor. She washed the cushion covers in the bath, and while they dried she plumped up their stuffing. She wanted to call Matt and berate him for palming her off onto Connie like this, as if she was a problem child that he was renouncing to a higher power. But if she did that, he would just say Elise was the one who’d left. Matt was such a coward.
She washed her hair – twice – and cut the scraggly ends, tying the fine limp mass of it in a little bun so that it would be wavy for tomorrow. She chucked her sweatpants in the laundry basket. She went out with Rose in the sling and bought fresh flowers – roses, of course – and some lilies, and a pistachio cake from the Turkish baker she frequented, and English-style teabags from a bodega.
Back at Yoli’s, she found a black dress in the closet that she thought would suit her, even if might be a little baggy, and she washed it in the bath, praying, like the cushion covers, that it wouldn’t still be damp tomorrow. She decided it would be, so she went back out again to take it to the laundrette on the corner.
‘Special night?’ said the laundry worker.
‘Something like that.’
It came out clean and dry and smelling good, and Elise buried her face in the hopeful newness of it. In the thrift shop next door to the laundrette, which she had never bothered to enter because it was dark and weird – even though in her past life it would have been a first port of call – she found a little lampshade, small and satin and pink. Back in the apartment, she screwed it over Yoli’s naked bulb where it spread a blush on the wall. Tomorrow, Connie was coming. Connie was coming!
>
*
When tomorrow came, the wait through the morning and afternoon felt interminable. The covers had dried and Elise dressed the cushions, placing them artfully in a line against the back of the sofa.
Yolanda, having achieved her aim of galvanizing Elise into action, now seemed agitated about the consequences. ‘You want me to stay?’ she said.
‘No, Yoli, it’s fine. I have to do this alone.’
‘This woman a witch, or what? Look at you. She’s got you under a spell.’
‘She hasn’t,’ said Elise. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Well, you call me at the diner, OK, if you need me, OK? The number’s on the phone.’
Yolanda left the apartment, neither of them realizing it would be the last time they would ever see each other. Elise changed the flower water again, so that the roses and lilies were drinking from the freshest liquid possible. She sliced the pistachio cake into perfect eighths. She washed the teacups once more. But all of these actions felt at a distance. She could do nothing until Connie came.
Connie was in Manhattan right now. In an attempt to distract herself, Elise ripped a page from the pad that Yolanda used for her grocery list, and dashed off a large rabbit with a felt-tip pen. She sat for a long time with the drawing before her, thinking about Connie. Wasn’t life a mystery – that her ex-boyfriend should be the one to bring Connie back? And wasn’t it a miracle, that Connie wanted to come? They had so much to talk about, so much to forgive each other.
Elise admitted to herself, finally, that she was excited. She had missed Connie so much. She felt something like love surging through her again. She thought it had died. But it was coming back, and so was Connie.
‘Shall we go and get some paint for this rabbit?’ she whispered to her daughter.
Tying the baby into her sling, Elise ambled the sidewalk, looking for a place that sold green paint. It was so important to find that paint, to give Connie this present.
The Confession Page 31
