A Hidden Life

by Adele Geras

  But it hadn’t been. Ray told her he couldn’t live even one day without her and she’d believed him. She smiled. It had been true, but she hadn’t realized at the time that this love meant ownership. Almost as soon as she moved in with him, he changed. He became jealous. At first, she was flattered. She marvelled at her own power; at the way she could transform someone so big, so tough, so strong, into a kind of slave. She lay in bed and allowed him to caress her and love her and worship her – that was his word. worship you. I’d do anything for you. I can’t get enough of you. Those were the sentiments you thought you wanted to hear from your lover, but she soon discovered that when they were literally true, they became a threat.

  The first inkling that anything was wrong came after they’d lived together for a month. One evening, she’d made a couple of friendly remarks about Venice to the waiter at the Italian restaurant where they were eating and he’d said something back: something ridiculous and meaningless about Venice being a beautiful city for a beautiful lady to visit. Ray, sitting across the table from her, had frowned and said at once, ‘Come on, we’re not staying here.’

  She’d made some remark about being just about to order and Ray had turned to the waiter. ‘You can go away. We’ve changed our minds. We’re leaving.’ He spoke violently, as though he intended every word to fall like a blow. Then he walked over to her side of the table and grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Stop it! You’re hurting me. What’s the hell’s going on with you?’

  For an answer, he’d gone on pulling her. No way she could get free. He was too strong and too angry. His face was red now, puffed out of shape with rage. When they were safely out of the restaurant, he’d let her go and stomped off like a sulky child, up the road at a much faster pace than she could keep up with.

  And I ran after him, Lou remembered, lifting the edges of her omelette with a fork. I should have run back into the restaurant. I should have taken off in the opposite direction. I should never have gone back into his house. But she did go back. She was crying and calling after him all down the road, like a pathetic creature. Ray … wait for me. Ray … I’m coming. Please, please.

  He waited for her. He was in the hall as she came bursting in, and he caught hold of her by both wrists and yanked her up so that her feet were barely touching the floor and her face was on a level with his.

  ‘Don’t dare do that again,’ he said, quietly, almost whispering.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. Whore.’

  ‘Ray? What are you saying? WHORE? What’s got into you? Are you drunk? It’s me. Lou. I love you. How … how can you speak to me like that?’

  The injustice of everything: the pain in her arms, the shock of his behaviour, made her start crying. That was a mistake. He dropped her abruptly and slapped her across the face.

  ‘Shut up! Shut up crying! That’s what you do to make me feel bad. Fucking crying, for God’s sake. What the fuck have you got to cry about? I’m the one who ought to be crying!’

  ‘WHY! What have I done?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘You’ve fucked him.’

  ‘Who? Who d’you mean?’

  ‘That waiter …’

  ‘You’re mad, Ray. Are you serious? I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘That’s your story. I saw the way he looked at you. I just know. You’ve fucked him. Who else have you fucked? There must be others. Go on, tell me.’

  Thank God, Lou thought, sliding her omelette on to a plate and taking it over to the sofa, that I had the sense not to marry him. Not that he ever asked me to. Sometimes, she woke up in the night terrified that Ray might come back and knock on her door; take it into his mind that he had rights to see Poppy. Dad had explained to her about injunctions and legal things you could do to keep someone away, but she still felt scared from time to time. He’d thrown her out six months into the pregnancy, cramming her clothes into the two suitcases she’d come with and actually hurling them out of the window on to the street, like someone in a movie. All he’d said was, ‘Think you can tie me to you by getting yourself up the duff, do you? Well, forget about it. I don’t intend to fork out for that bastard you’re carrying, not a single penny. Only got your word for it that it’s mine, right?’

  Lou had been so happy to go that she didn’t deny a thing. Let me just get out of here, she’d thought. She hadn’t heard a word since. He’d vanished out of her life and that was something she never stopped being grateful for. She’d picked her suitcases off the pavement and hailed a taxi and gone straight to Victoria station, phoning her mother from the back of the cab to let her know what had happened. The first thing I have to do, she thought, is change the sim and get a different number on this phone. Make myself as out of reach as I can. But Ray could always find me through Dad’s firm. When Mum opened the door, Lou remembered now, she was crying with relief and I started crying too. He never had got in touch with her, for which she was profoundly grateful.

  Enough memories. She still had to pack for going down to Haywards Heath tomorrow, and not just for her, but for Poppy as well. There was less clobber to pack these days, because Phyl had duplicated practically everything to save her the trouble, but there were always the current favourite cuddlies and odds and ends. What did Dad think of having one of the spare rooms turned into a nursery at his time of life? He was almost as besotted as Mum with Poppy, so he probably loved the whole idea of storing a travel cot and baby wipes and extra nappies for whenever they came to visit.

  Lou wasn’t a bit sure that this meeting of the five of them to discuss the terms of Constance’s will would do any good whatsoever, and the very idea of sitting round a table with Nessa and Justin and Mum and Dad would only remind her of when she was a little girl and the others all talked over her head about things she didn’t understand. Once, she’d emptied a bowl of cereal into Nessa’s lap because she wouldn’t include her in the conversation. I can’t do that now, she thought, even though there’s bound to be something someone says that will irritate the hell out of me.

  She finished her omelette. It was amazing how little appetite you had if you lived on your own and never had to cook for anyone. For a second, a scene of her making supper for Harry flitted into and out of her mind. Come on, she told herself, why would he want to eat with you, anyway? He’s sure to have a girlfriend. Or even a boyfriend. You’re being pathetic. Harry, for goodness’ sake! She put her plate into the sink and turned on the tap, making a mental note to try and find out about Harry’s romantic situation from Jeanette or one of the others. There’s nothing wrong, she told herself, with wanting to know stuff about your colleagues. It’s natural curiosity.

  She knew perfectly well that if Harry were to make a move, she’d probably run a mile. How long was it going to be before she could consider going out with another man? At the moment, the idea of sex terrified her. Something wrong with that, she told herself. You’re in your early twenties – are you honestly going to be celibate for ever? In theory, she knew that one day she probably would want someone to touch her, to hold her and kiss her … but whenever anyone tried to get close to her, the very thought of what it might lead to turned her hot and cold in turn and she made sure to avoid that person in the future.

  She’d made up her mind to read some of her grandfather’s first novel after supper. She’d meant to get reading straight after the funeral and somehow Deathbeasts and other things had got in the way. The prospect of the novel didn’t exactly fill her with glee, much as she’d loved her grandfather, but she wanted to be able to say how marvellous it was if Nessa or Justin asked her. She was going to say it was brilliant whatever she thought of it. It wouldn’t be so bad. She’d get into bed and read there: just a few pages and then an early night. Poppy was waking up at dawn lately and tomorrow was going to be a long day.

  *

  Four hours later, at half past one in the mor
ning, Lou turned out the light and closed her eyes. She was breathing fast, as though she’d been running. Which in a way, she thought, I have. When she’d settled herself in bed with the book, she’d begun at a section quite near the beginning of the novel:

  Why, Peter wondered, couldn’t he go with his father and the other men into their camp? There was something feeble, something disgraceful, about being put into the same category as the women and children. The camp wasn’t what he expected. He looked around and what he saw was a collection of long huts, like the ones in Kampong Aya that he used to look at on his way to school: up on stilts, with leaves on the roof and no glass in the windows. No grass anywhere, only sand that got into his sandals and made his feet itch. The sun was high: a huge ball of white light that burned all colour from the sky. It must be lunchtime, but no one had eaten since they’d left Jesselton, hours ago. Sweat dripped down between his shoulder blades and the heat blurred the outlines of everything he looked at. The trees at the edge of the compound shimmered in the glare. The high fence topped with barbed wire had a guard post in each corner. The main gate, made of bamboo and wood, was as high as a house. No one could climb it, because it, too, was wrapped round in barbed wire. His mother and Dulcie stood in a line of women and didn’t say a word, not to one another nor to anyone else. Some Japanese men were shouting. He looked at these men carefully … the enemy. They didn’t look very frightening, and he didn’t know why he was stiff with terror. The men were short and skinny, and their voices sounded shrill and angry. Some children were crying. He wasn’t. He wouldn’t. He’d be brave. If Daddy can’t be here to help Mummy, then I will, he thought. And Dulcie. I’ll help her too. His mother was going to have a baby. Would the baby be born here, in the camp? Did they have doctors? He worried about that.

  Poor boy! Lou imagined the heat, pressing down like an iron, flattening everything. Sunlight so bright it hurt you to stand in it, and being made to stand in it or be punished in ways that the mind shied away from because they were so horrible. Strange smells: brackish water, salted fish, orchids with fleshy petals. Cries of pain. A baby being born. The mother’s agony. A child crying and no one able to soothe it. Fever. Sweat. Enemies everywhere. And hunger. Always, always, not enough to eat or drink. Frantic longing for food and water that could drive you to do desperate things. The image of the moon, the blind moon of the title, was important. Whenever anything happened in the camp, whenever a particularly dreadful thing was described, there it was, hanging in the sky. Peter and his friends played a game in which they pretended the moon could see what they were up to, but all through the book, the moon was described as blind: blueish, pallid, glowing in the dark and when full looking like an enormous unseeing eye, peering at them all out of the black sky. Most important of all, rising out of the pages breathing and alive, their words burning into her brain, their deepest feelings entering Lou’s bloodstream like a transfusion, came the characters: Peter. His mother, Annette. Her friend Dulcie. What Grandad had read to her was, she now realized, a tiny fraction of the novel and it was no wonder he left most of the story out. It would have freaked her completely to hear about such horrors when she was a child. He concentrated on the boys’ pranks and adventures and left out the tragedies. No one tells children that this – these things – are what can happen. You try to shelter the people you love. You try not to show them the world when it’s like this. That’s why Grandad hid most of the book from her.

  Tears formed in the corners of Lou’s eyes as she thought about John Barrington and the sadnes s of his not being here now when she needed to ask him about his book. About all his books, but this one most of all. She sat up suddenly, remembering something. Dad had spoken of two boxes full of Grandad’s papers. She wanted them. She wanted to go through every scrap of what he’d left behind. There would, there must be clues of some kind. I’m going to find out everything I can about why Grandad wrote his books, and what they meant to him. There might be a diary or something in the boxes. I’ll ask to bring them home with me. Dad and Mum won’t mind. Dad’ll be glad not to have to think about them and Mum’ll just be pleased to have them out of the house. Lou knew Phyl would regard them as dust-gatherers. She began to look forward to the next day. The ordeal-by-family meal would be worth it after all.

  3

  Don’t let anyone say it’s just like old times, Nessa thought as she looked around the table. There was something about this house, something about Phyl, which set her teeth on edge, and now she came to think of it, had been doing exactly that since she was nine. She took a piece of chicken which looked (she had to admit it) quite tempting. Justin was already in charm overdrive. He couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Just like when we were kids, Phyl, isn’t it? And I see you’ve made my favourite … Sticky Chicken, I used to call it. Super.’ He helped himself to three wings, and then to the vegetables and the sauté potatoes and attacked his plate with every appearance of pleasure, managing to smile at his stepmother even as he was eating. Today he was dressed in designer jeans and a black shirt. He looked terrific. Nessa had long ago stopped being jealous of her brother’s beauty.

  ‘Is Poppy asleep?’ Phyl asked, and Dad chimed in before Lou had time to say yes or no, ‘She’s so pretty, isn’t she, Nessa? Justin? Did you see her before Lou took her up?’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Nessa, trying to sound sincere. Well, the baby was sweet, and no one could deny that, but honestly, anyone would think there’d never been a baby born before. Clearly everyone had totally forgotten how cute Tamsin had been at that age. Still was, if it came to that. She’d turned out so lovely. Nessa caught herself looking at her daughter sometimes and finding her eyes filling with sentimental tears. Nessa was proud of her, and not just because Tamsin was slim and dark and a good dancer and athlete. She also couldn’t help feeling slightly relieved that Tamsin took after her and not Gareth. Suddenly the idea of staying married to her husband into old age filled Nessa with weariness. There were times when he bored her even now, and how was that ever going to get better? It wouldn’t. It’d get worse, for sure. She made an effort from time to time to recall how things used to be between them, but mostly she found she couldn’t summon up the memories of how they were in the old days.

  Nessa took a mouthful of Sticky Chicken and felt vaguely guilty at what she realized was a kind of disloyalty to her husband. There was one way of dispelling these thoughts and she decided to go for it. Time to take out the cat and set her down in the midst of what would doubtless be a lovely flock of pigeons.

  ‘Delicious food, Phyl, as usual. You’ve gone to such trouble. But I really think we ought to get down to why we’re here. We should discuss the will, don’t you think?’

  ‘Hang on a mo, Ness,’ said Justin. ‘We haven’t all been together in this house as a family for such ages. Can’t we enjoy the food and just chat for a bit?’

  ‘Well, no, I don’t think we can, if you want to know.’ Nessa could feel a note creeping into her voice that was only there when she was with her family, and she struggled to sound like a detached adult and get out of whiny sibling mode. She took a deep breath. ‘What d’you think, Lou?’

  Lou looked up, clearly astonished to be consulted. She said, ‘I agree with Nessa. I can’t eat properly if I know there’s going to be a thing coming up. It makes me feel nervous.’

  ‘Nothing to be nervous about, darling,’ said Matt. ‘We’re here to see what, if anything, can be done to even out the terms of my mother’s will.’ He helped himself to the carrots, cooked with honey, ginger, cumin and parsley, which were one of Phyl’s specialities, then went on. ‘She seems to have rather gone off the rails towards the end of her life.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Justin. ̵Perhaps she just knew her own mind and didn’t dare tell you, Dad. She knew you’d argue with her and try and talk her round. Make her change it.’

  ‘It ought to have been changed.’ Nessa glared at her brother. ‘How on earth do you justify her leaving Milthorpe House to you?’
>
  ‘Well, she had to leave it to someone. You’ve got a house. So has Dad. I don’t see anything wrong with her giving me one.’

  ‘But Milthorpe isn’t a house. It’s a massive property which you couldn’t possibly be intending to live in. How much is it worth, d’you think?’ Justin asked.

  ‘I’m not altogether sure, of course, but somewhere between two and three million, I’d have thought,’ Matt said.

  Justin had the grace to look astonished, but he soon recovered his poise.

  ‘But why shouldn’t I live there?’

  ‘You on your own? Unmarried and no children? It makes no sense.’

  Justin glared at Nessa. ‘I might marry and have five children. How can you, with your one daughter, say you’ve got more right than I have to inherit Milthorpe?’

  ‘Nessa … Justin … don’t start shouting at one another, please.’ Matt was trying to look severely at the two of them, Nessa thought, and was succeeding only in looking sad. He went on, ‘I just thought we could consider perhaps …’ He paused. ‘The thing is, there’s no way I can contest this will through the courts. I had a long chat with Andrew Reynolds and he says that Mother was perfectly composed and sane when he saw her, and her nurses and the doctor haven’t said a word about any – well, any change in how she normally was. So the thing is, it’s up to you, Justin. To do what I reckon would be the right thing. Have you thought, for instance, about the possibility of selling the property and dividing up the proceeds? If everyone’s honest, neither you nor Nessa actually wants to live in a huge old pile miles away from any of your businesses or work concerns. Isn’t that true?’