A Hidden Life

by Adele Geras

  One day, when the business had started to do well, when things seemed to be on the up and up, she’d asked Mickey a question out of the blue. They’d been sitting at the twin desks that took up most of the space in Mickey’s study and Nessa had suddenly said, ‘What if we lose all this, Mickey? What if we fail?’

  Mickey had looked up, surprised. ‘We’ll manage,’ she said. ‘We’ll recoup what we can and think of something else to sell. Don’t worry, folk are forever needing things, aren’t they? We’ll work out what and give it to them. Now, stop fretting and get on to Prague and see what they’re doing about the silk orchids. Should have been here two weeks ago.’

  ‘And do you think it’s okay to call the business Paper Roses when so much of our stuff isn’t made of paper at all?’

  ‘It’s fine – it’s a song title, for goodness’ sake – everyone knows that. And we’re famous for the paper range anyway, aren’t we? Prettiest paper flowers in the world … Look, it says so, right here in this catalogue! Relax, why don’t you? I know you find it hard.’

  Nessa took a tea towel from the drawer and began drying the spoons and putting them away. She wondered what Mickey would say about this will and its implications.

  ‘I’ll talk to Justin,’ said Ellie.

  ‘It won’t do any good. He won’t let this slip out of his grasp. He’s been after it for years. You’ve been abroad, you don’t know how he’s been sucking up to Constance in the last couple of years. He practically lived here. She had him running errands for her all over the place. And they were quite sickening together – darling this and sweetie that and forever kissing her and saying how beautiful she was still – that kind of thing. And, naturally, Constance saying he was beautiful too. It made me sick to my stomach listening to them sometimes.’

  ‘Aaah!’ Ellie stabbed the air with her cigarette. ‘That’s it. He knows how to talk to women. You have no idea, darling, how important it is to be told over and over again how beautiful one is. And you have to admit Justin is rather gorgeous. Though I’m probably not the one to be saying so, he takes after me.’

  ‘And I take after the person who was your husband so long ago you’ve practically forgotten his name.’

  Tears sprang into Nessa’s eyes. Her father had never been around much even when he was married to Ellie, and his early death from a fever caught in Kenya on a business trip meant that he disappeared from his children’s lives when they were both very young. No one ever asked children anything. No one consulted her and Justin about being adopted by Matt and Phyl. Even though they called their new parents by their first names, they had both taken on the Barrington surname. As it happened, Ellie’s first husband’s name had been Connor, which was okay but not something whose loss one would actually mourn. Unless it was yours, of course, Nessa thought, remembering how long it took her to get used to the change. Justin had loved Barrington from the very beginning. He said, ‘It’s long. Long names are better than short names, aren’t they?’ No one contradicted him.

  ‘Pat Connor. You can thank him at least for your lovely colouring, dear. Black hair, white skin, green eyes. A proper Colleen.’

  But not gorgeous, just about okay. A bit too thin, no tits to speak of, good hair. That’s it. Justin, on the other hand, has people staring after him in the street and has done since childhood.

  Ellie went on, ‘You’re a lot prettier than Louise, even though she’s improved a great deal. She’s a bit too big, isn’t she? Not fat, not at all any longer … but a bit too tall for a woman and well built.’

  When Louise was born, Nessa had just celebrated her tenth birthday. She’d loved the baby, and her best memories of childhood were looking after Lou. That didn’t last long. The moment Lou could walk, as soon as she began to speak, everything changed. She quite soon became a burden, trying to follow Nessa and her friends everywhere, wanting to join in with their games, and crying as though she were being murdered when she was denied anything. A bloody nuisance. And how many hours of unpaid babysitting did Phyl get out of me when I was a teenager? Nessa reflected. She couldn’t help feeling she was owed something for those times when she’d had to stay home and take care of Lou and Justin while her friends were busy somewhere else, doing something a whole lot more interesting than gazing at the telly.

  ‘You know your trouble, darling?’

  ‘You’re going to tell me, I’m quite sure.’ Nessa sighed and sat down facing her mother.

  ‘You often think other people are getting more than you are. That you’re missing out somehow. You always have, whether there was reason to or not.’

  ‘There usually was. I feel …’ She sighed again. Ellie wouldn’t understand. Nessa felt that a lot of things were simply unfair. She believed that other people had things better than she did. She was aware of how childish this was, knew that if she confessed to this envy, told Gareth about it for instance, he’d look at her in astonishment, so she said nothing. Sometimes she felt guilty about her behaviour. She knew she ought to try to control herself; not give everyone such a hard time so frequently, but it was difficult to change habits like this when it came to members of her own family.

  ‘You’re a great deal better off than Louise,’ Ellie said, standing up and moving to the door. ‘Think of other people for a change.’

  ‘Ellie?’ Nessa called after her. Her mother turned round, looking a bit uncertain about whether she ought to come into the kitchen again or not.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve just thought. Maybe you could speak to Matt? Prepare the ground for me? I want to ask him about the possibility of contesting the will.’

  ‘He’ll say you shouldn’t. I promise you, that’s what he’ll say, even though he’s angrier than you are, because of Lou being cut out like that. And why d’you think he’ll listen to me?’

  ‘I just think he would, that’s all.’ Nessa remembered the months after her mother’s abrupt departure. It seemed to her then that her stepfather hadn’t been very happy with what was going on, in spite of getting married to Phyl and even after a baby was on the way. He’d always, she reckoned, had a soft spot for her mother and probably still thought of her fondly. It wouldn’t hurt for Ellie to sound him out.

  ‘I think you owe it to me,’ Nessa said.

  ‘Oh, God, if you’re going to be injured all over the place, I’ll have a word with him. I’m not going to his office, though. Nor his house. He’ll have to come and meet me.’

  ‘Ask him, then. See what he says. Bet you he’ll jump at the chance to escape the clutches of the NWS.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Nessa laughed. ‘The Non-Wicked Stepmother. That’s what Justin and I used to call her sometimes when we were kids. She went to such lengths to be nice to us, it was quite unnatural. And we never did think of her as a mother. Constance was more like a mother than she was, whatever she did.’

  ‘Constance was always a hard act to follow, and I don’t know whether I’d have been as tolerant as Phyl was with you.’

  ‘You certainly wouldn’t. But thanks, Ellie, I’d be so grateful. Honestly.’

  ‘I’ll fix up something.’ She left the room again, leaving the door wide open behind her.

  Nessa laughed aloud. What a nerve! If ever anyone had gone through life thinking about precisely no one but herself, it was Ellie. Still, she did say she’d speak to Matt and she was right about poor old Lou. What a slap in the face for her! Nessa decided to phone her sister and commiserate. And of course they could bitch about Justin. It was many years now since they’d lived under one roof and, while Lou wasn’t her best buddy or anything, Nessa had given her more squished-up baby meals than she cared to count and sung her more lullabies than anyone else except Phyl – that had to mean something, even though they’d hardly seen one another in the last couple of years. Nessa had been too busy setting up Paper Roses to get involved in the family drama surrounding Ray the Abuser, which was how she thought of him, a bit like Vlad the Impaler. Naturally she’d heard all abo
ut it from Phyl, whose anguish for Louise and for Poppy, her beloved grandchild, was natural and commendable but meant she didn’t have much time or energy left over to enthuse over Nessa’s new business.

  Nessa sighed. Fair enough, she told herself. And ultra-bad luck on poor Lou, falling for a bastard halfway through her second year at university. A waste of her brains, too, working part-time for that obscure film company for a pittance. Fleetingly, she wondered whether there might be a time when Lou might work for her. Not now, but when Paper Roses had expanded into more than a mail-order business and she took on a shop somewhere … No, that was mad. Louise wouldn’t see the point of the product she’d have to sell. She’ll be on her way back to Phyl’s now, Nessa thought. Or maybe back to London. Do I even have her mobile number? I don’t think so. She stood up. I’m useless, she told herself. I’ll go and ask Matt. I’ll phone her.

  *

  Lou let herself into the flat, closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She’d lied when her mother urged her to stay the night with them, to take some days off work, even volunteering to go up to London the next day and bring Poppy back with her. Phyl would have done anything to keep her daughter near her at a time like this, needing to be cared for, looked after, cherished. As it was, Lou had to promise to go back the following weekend. Phyl announced that she was inviting everyone to dinner. They had to talk, they all had to discuss the will and its implications. Lou didn’t see the point of that, but agreeing to come down to Haywards Heath very soon had allowed her to escape now, when she wanted so desperately to be alone. She’d put on a much braver face than she thought she was capable of and promised her mother that she’d go straight from the station to Margie’s house. No way, she’d told her, will I be on my own. Promise.

  She’d known she was lying even as she spoke. She had no intention of telling Margie where she was. Let her look after Poppy for the night as they’d arranged. Lou wanted the time to think about what had happened at Milthorpe House.

  She went into the tiny kitchen – okay, kitchenette – switched on the kettle and stared out at the night. What she saw was other people’s windows: some lit up, some in darkness, curtained and uncurtained, revealing, concealing, enticing. Lou loved the view, even though Mum shuddered every time she came here, which was as seldom as possible. It was thanks to Dad and Mum that this place now resembled something like a habitable space.

  Lou insisted on thinking of it as ‘the flat’. More like a shoe box, with its one bedsitting room, a teeny second room which was Poppy’s bedroom, and a bathroom and kitchen that looked like something from a doll’s house. The street wasn’t up to much either. When Dad and Mum came to see it, there had been a mattress in the front garden of one of the houses across the street and she could feel her mother shuddering and making a noble effort to say nothing. The wallpaper was grim, there was no washing machine and nowhere to dry clothes.

  ‘You can’t live here with a small baby,’ Mum had cried.

  ‘Of course I can. Lots of people live in places that are far worse,’ Lou said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You will be fine,’ Dad announced, ‘but only because we’ll fix it up and make it okay. We’ll get it painted, and put in a washing machine and hang some decent curtains and you’ll be all right here, for a while anyway.’

  In the end, she’d done all the decorating, with Margie’s help, and money had done the rest. Lou sighed. Money. Mum and Dad had always helped her, so how real was the narrative she’d made for herself of how she was managing on her own, being independent, doing her own thing? How could she justify working three days a week and paying someone else to look after Poppy while she struggled along reading scripts for Cinnamon Hill Productions and reporting on them for £50 a throw? By allowing her parents to help her. They paid for all the extra things that she would never have been able to afford, most importantly, Poppy’s nursery fees, but Lou paid the rent and bought the food. She glanced at the small pile of papers on the left-hand side of her desk and reflected that she could certainly get more money as a temp, but she liked her work, she liked being involved with movies, even down among the helots, and felt, maybe wrongly, that it gave her at least a tiny chance of making her dreams come true.

  She’d told no one about these, though her parents, if they’d thought about it for ten seconds, would have realized that their daughter might have had ambitions to be something other than a part-time script reader for a small film company. Didn’t they remember all those exercise books she’d filled with stories, poems, sketches and, above all, plays when she was a child? Didn’t they know how much she’d always adored the movies? Had they forgotten how she and Grandad used to spend hours and hours on the sofa at Milthorpe House gazing at flickery black and white films in the afternoon? Evidently her parents hadn’t put two and two together. What she wanted more than anything else was to write screenplays. She’d never told anyone but Grandad about this. He’d understood. He knew what it would be like to see her words spoken by actors, her ideas made visible on the screen, reaching out across the dark to everyone watching and lodging in their minds the way the films she’d seen as a kid were still within her, part of her mental furniture.

  Constance’s voice rang in her imagination: You haven’t got time for silly dreams. You shouldn’t have had a child if you didn’t intend to look after her. No one forced you to do that. You have a duty to look after your daughter and not farm her out to someone else. How do you know you won’t scar her for life if you leave her with other people during her infancy? Lou blinked and made an effort not to think about her grandmother, but that was impossible.

  Earlier, she’d felt frozen. All the way back to London on the train, she couldn’t get her head round what had happened at Milthorpe. Her thoughts seemed to come up against a wall of ice and fall away to nothing. Now, Lou noticed that she’d spilled a little tea on the table. She dipped her finger into the liquid and traced a pattern with her finger on the yellow Formica. That’ll have to go soon, she thought, I can’t live with that colour much longer. She took a deep breath and considered what Constance had done.

  She’s disinherited me, Lou thought, and the word with its echoes of Victorian novels frightened her a little. It was a final word, a harsh one. It meant – what did it mean? That Constance didn’t just not get on with me, that she didn’t just like or love me less than Nessa and Justin, but that she hated me. It wouldn’t have been enough for her to give me less, she had to give me something which everyone could see she thought was rubbish and which would tell them that I was less than nothing in her eyes. Not even as much as Mum, whom she’d never liked and who’d got fobbed off with glass and china when Ellie had walked away with an armful of jewellery worth a fortune. She’s punishing me, Lou decided.

  What about Milthorpe House? Did she care about the house? Beyond its financial worth, what did it really mean to her? Apart from the insult, would not setting foot there ever again truly matter? Lou had never considered what would happen to the house when her grandparents were dead. You couldn’t imagine Constance not being there, and now that she was gone Lou realized that the place she carried always in her mind was more important than the bricks and mortar; more important than the garden and the land surrounding the property.

  The best days of her childhood were spent there, but all the best memories were of her grandfather and no spiteful bequests could take them away. Grandad was always in the hall to meet her when Dad drove her up there for the day, or to stay overnight. Fresh flowers everywhere meant that the hall was filled with fragrance. Constance saw to that, making sure that Alfie, the gardener, and his son, Derek, kept everything up to scratch so that she could fill the vases with whatever was in season. The roses were best of all: your grandmother’s pride and joy, Grandad called them.

  The best room in the house was Grandad’s study.

  ‘What on earth do you find to do up there?’ Constance often asked, and Grandad would say, ‘All sorts of things, darling. Isn’t that righ
t, Lou?’

  She’d nodded, and once or twice she’d noticed Constance’s lips tightening in disapproval. Sometimes she gave a not-quite-silent sigh. She was, Lou understood now, jealous. How astonishing! Grandad worshipped his wife. He was in awe of her. The story about how he was struck dumb by her beauty when he first saw her (He just stood there staring at me with his eyes popping out of his head and blushing like a rose) were common family currency. As was the tale of how Constance fell in love with him too, so completely that she didn’t listen to anyone who advised her against this hasty match, but married him in spite of her family’s disapproval. She told this part of the story now as though she’d made a mistake; as though her life would have been different and better if she’d heeded her parents’ wishes.

  By the time Lou knew Constance, she was the one who ruled the house and Grandad did exactly what she told him to in almost every department of their lives. She was the one who decided who to invite to dinner. She saw to the organization of everything in the house, even overseeing the post each day, making sure Grandad had given her all the letters he wanted to post and also going over anything that arrived at Milthorpe House. She used to sit at the table in the dining room before Grandad came down to breakfast and sort the mail into two piles: one for him and one for herself. Then there were the things she tore up. Lou was shocked when she saw it happening for the first time.

  ‘Why are you tearing those letters up, Granny?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Please call me Constance, dear … I do hate Granny.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Lou apologized, not feeling a bit sorry. She’d overheard her own mother calling this hatred of any variation on Granny ‘an affectation’ and while she had no idea what one of those was, she thought it couldn’t be very nice and so decided to agree with her mother. ‘But why are you?’