A Hidden Life

by Adele Geras

  The front-door buzzer sounded at precisely seven-thirty.

  ‘Hello, Harry!’ she said, as she opened the door. He stood on the landing, dressed in the same kind of clothes he always wore.

  ‘Hello, Lou. You look nice,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen you in a skirt.’ Then he frowned. ‘I’m sorry – is that too personal? I’m never sure if it’s okay to say someone looks good.’

  ‘It’s fine. Thanks … I like getting compliments.’

  ‘It’s a shame I’m not going to meet Poppy.’

  Lou felt awkward. ‘I know, she’s staying with my mum. I left her there for a bit to give me a chance …’ She stopped suddenly, aware that she’d nearly told him about the screenplay she was writing. She took a deep breath. ‘Well, a chance to get myself together. You know …’ Her voice faded. Was this going to be hard work? She went on, ‘Actually, I think my mum is the one who wants it more than anyone. She adores Poppy.’

  Harry perched on the sofa and waited for her to get her jacket and pick up her handbag. How, Lou wondered, did you do this? Everything she thought of saying sounded too hearty and jolly. In the end, she just went to the door, hanging on to the strap of her handbag for dear life, and looking at Harry for some kind of lead. He jumped up.

  ‘Sorry … you’re ready. Let’s go, I’m starving.’

  ‘Me too.’

  They stepped out and Lou locked the flat door behind her.

  ‘It’s not far,’ Harry said as they walked down the road. ‘D’you like Indian?’

  ‘Love it. It’s my favourite.’

  ‘You okay with the Tube?’

  Lou laughed. She couldn’t help it. ‘Sorry … only no one’s ever asked me that before. Yes, the Tube’s fine.’

  ‘I do have a car,’ Harry said. ‘It’s just not very reliable. Feeling its age. And it’s pointless driving in London. I just keep it for going away at weekends.’

  ‘Where d’you go?’ Lou regretted the question as soon as it was out of her mouth. Would he think she was being too nosy?

  ‘All over. I like Cornwall, and I’ve got friends who live in the Lake District near Kendal … Norfolk’s nice too. My parents live there.’

  They sat next to one another on the Tube, and talked about nothing very much. The train was quite crowded and noisy with tourists speaking in several languages, so Lou was able to gaze at Harry’s reflection in the window and think all over again how nice-looking he was, even if no one could call him properly handsome. She was beginning to enjoy herself.

  *

  I needn’t have worried about the talk drying up, Lou thought. Harry was deep into a discussion of the three screenplays he’d fished out of the almost pile by the time the poppadoms arrived, and by the end of the meal, they’d discussed them from every possible angle and arrived at a consensus.

  ‘Okay … that’s that,’ Harry said, pushing the bits of paper that had taken over a corner of the table into his briefcase. ‘I’m glad you agree with me. We’ll go for Hearts on a Merry-Go-Round. Fuentes is going to love it. Not a lot of people are doing this kind of La Ronde-type thing – I like it. It’s funny and touching and there aren’t enough love stories around, I reckon.’

  ‘Me too. I thought men didn’t go for that kind of movie, though. A chick flick. A date movie – d’you really like them?’

  ‘If they’re good. I like anything if it’s good. Chicklit, westerns, dramas, comedies, SF, thrillers. Not mad about broken-glass films.’ Harry smiled at her. ‘That’s my name for the kind of movie that has cars bursting through plate-glass windows, or else spaceships exploding all over the screen. Anything, really, with a lot of crashes and bangs and broken stuff about. Boys’ flicks, I suppose you’d call them, but I expect you could even do those well if you put your mind to it. A good script makes the difference.’

  Lou nodded, and nibbled absently at a piece of naan bread. There hadn’t been any of the silences she’d dreaded during the meal, but that was because it was an extension of work. And what’s wrong with that? I don’t want him making a pass at me, do I? But I do like him. Maybe … Thinking about Harry kissing her confused her suddenly because she didn’t know how she felt. Scared. Excited. Both together. What would she do if he tried to … He was speaking. She said, ‘Sorry, Harry. What were you saying?’

  ‘Nothing important. You were miles away. What were you thinking about?’

  Lou cast about for a convincing lie and said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Families.’

  ‘Ah. Okay.’

  That wasn’t good enough. Lou added, ‘I was wondering about your family, actually.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Harry didn’t seem fazed. ‘Well, I’ve got a mum and dad in the aforementioned cottage in Norfolk. They’re retired now. My dad was a doctor, a GP, and Mum was a school secretary. I’ve got two much older brothers. One’s also a doctor. He’s in Scotland, near Aberdeen. That’s Martin. He’s married to Jeannie and they have two kids … great kids. Teenagers. They think I’m cool because I get them into movie premières from time to time. Sally and Tom, they’re called. My other brother lives in Cardiff. He’s an architect and single at the moment. He’s gay, which is a bit of a problem with my parents, though of course they don’t say so. They’d never say so and they make a big deal about it not mattering a bit, but that’s not how Jack sees it. That’s his name. Jack.’

  ‘And you get on better with him than with Martin. Is that right?’

  ‘It is, as it happens. For one thing, he’s nearer my own age. How did you guess?’

  ‘Just lucky, I suppose.’ There had been a warmth in his voice when he’d spoken about Jack. She wondered whether she could divert him on to himself. He was the one she was interested in. Could she ask him …? Why not? Nothing ventured.

  ‘What about you, Harry?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’ Had she gone too far?

  ‘I was married, but I’m not any longer. No children, I’m glad to say. Well, not glad to say. I really like kids, but it was easier to divorce without that to take into account. We married too young, that’s all. Nothing wrong with Maggie, but we were like two cats in a bag after a bit. I know people say they’ve had an amicable divorce, but we actually did. Well, okay, not amicable exactly but not as adversarial as it might have been. We were just both relieved to be out of the marriage. No one else was involved. We just … we annoyed one another. We didn’t get on. I felt as if I was in a game that had got out of hand, and the lawyers were like parents who come along and say, okay, we’re going home now. This game is over. I felt rescued. You know how it is.’

  Lou nodded and Harry added, ‘I’m sorry. Maybe you don’t know how it is, only – well, I knew you were single and I know you’ve got a baby, so I assumed that something must have gone a bit pear-shaped somewhere – and you don’t have to say anything, you know. I’m not prying.’

  ‘It’s okay. I don’t mind.’ Lou found she didn’t. ‘I wasn’t even married, but I know exactly what you mean. In my case, I felt as if I was in a permanent thunderstorm with lightning flashing around my head every day, threatening to strike me, and then it just blew away over the horizon and that was that. I felt relieved. I still do. Sometimes I worry that the storm might come back but I don’t think it will. He’s disappeared entirely. Actually, I don’t think he loved me … I’m sure he’s moved on to someone else, but my dad’s ready with injunctions and every other legal weapon at his disposal in case Ray – that was his name – does pitch up suddenly.’

  ‘Is Poppy his daughter?’

  ‘Yes. But he never believed that. He was … he was pathologically jealous. He thought I was involved with every man I saw. Waiters, postmen, the milkman – it didn’t matter who. Any man I spoke to was a suspect. It was, well, it was unbearable.’

  ‘Did he – was he – violent?’

  ‘Sometimes. That wasn’t the worst thing. It was the constant vile – what do they call it in the tabloids? – verbal abuse. That sounds kind of sanitiz
ed and almost respectable, doesn’t it? He just – he said such foul things to me all the time. I was …’ Lou found to her horror that her eyes were filling with tears. Oh, God, I must pull myself together, she thought. He’ll think I’m feeble. He’ll think I can’t cope. She made a supreme effort to sound light-hearted. ‘He was a bona fide, straight down the line, copper-bottomed bastard and I don’t want to spoil this evening by talking about him any more, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Harry said, and summoned the waiter over. ‘Let’s have a coffee, shall we? And a pudding if you’d like one?’

  ‘No, I’m so full, but a coffee would be good.’

  Harry smiled at her. ‘How long is Poppy going to stay with your mum? Are you happy about that, or do you miss her?’

  Did he really want to know the answer to these questions, or was he hoping to cheer her up by mentioning something he could be fairly certain she’d enjoy telling him about? Just as she was about to answer, he took her hand across the table and squeezed it. It was a friendly and not a romantic squeeze but it made her feel good. He said, ‘You’re wondering if I’m really interested in Poppy or if I’m just trying to cheer you up, aren’t you?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I’m a mind reader. But I am interested. Have you got photos?’

  ‘At home. I don’t carry them around with me. Except on my phone …’

  ‘Let’s have a look, then.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Absolutely. Hand over.’

  Lou did as she was told and Harry flicked her phone open and grinned at her. ‘You ought to get one which does videos.’

  ‘Oh, God, a phone freak …’

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  She watched Harry looking at each shot with every appearance of total absorption. He’d told her about his divorce, but not whether he was involved with anyone at the moment. It was none of her business, but she found herself wanting to know. Just not at this moment. Next time, she’d ask him straight out.

  *

  ‘Would you like another coffee, or a drink perhaps?’ Lou turned to Harry and asked this question, hoping very much that the doubts she was feeling about asking it weren’t obvious to him. The whole way home on the Tube, all the way up the hill to her flat, she’d inwardly rehearsed how to say it: lightly, as though she were used to asking men up for a drink and not as though she had no idea what she was feeling. She didn’t even know whether she wanted him to say yes or no. Her mouth was dry as she spoke.

  ‘I’d better not,’ said Harry, sounding completely normal and casual. ‘Very early start tomorrow and got to get back on the Underground.’

  Immediately, Lou felt guilty. ‘God, I’m sorry. I could have come home on my own, I always do. Really, I feel bad about this, Harry, taking you so far out of your way.’

  ‘Sssh …’ He put a finger out and touched her on the lips. ‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you come home by yourself. And it’s fine, honestly. We’ll do coffee another time, right?’

  ‘Right. Thanks, Harry. I enjoyed the meal so much.’

  ‘Me too. We must do it again. Night, Lou.’

  ‘Night, Harry. Thanks.’

  Was he going to kiss her? Shake her hand? She felt a fool just standing there, not certain what her cue was for moving up the stairs and into the house. He put his hands on her shoulders and leaning forward, kissed her hair, not quite on the top of her head, but almost. ‘Bye,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you next week at work, right?’

  ‘I’ll come in on Tuesday.’

  He walked away down the hill and Lou waved at him until he was out of sight. He turned round twice to wave back. She let herself into the flat and locked the door behind her, feeling happier than she had in a long time.

  *

  The next day, Lou went to the library to work. Concentrating at home was becoming more and more difficult and the space and quiet she’d loved so much when Poppy first went to stay with her grandparents was now a bit – a bit what? She didn’t want to admit it at first, but it was lonely. Once you had a baby, it was much harder to keep up with your friends. She was beginning to feel cut off, isolated, sitting all day in the flat without her baby and she was spending far too much time missing her, going into her room and staring at the mobiles she’d hung from the ceiling. The sight of the empty cot made her want to cry if she looked at it late at night. It was the left-behind soft toys (always called cuddlies) that did it, the rejected ones who hadn’t made the cut when it came to accompanying Poppy to Haywards Heath. They had been propped up against the sides of the cot, but most had flopped over and lay limply face down on the sheet. They look, Lou thought, like I feel.

  She’d taken to going to the library more frequently simply to get out of the flat for a while. She’d discovered this branch, hidden away in a square near Poppy’s nursery, just after Christmas last year, and she had a favourite place there which she privately thought of as hers: at a table near the huge plate-glass window, with a view of the small garden provided by the Council for the benefit of library users and others. Someone had had the imagination to plant an apple tree very near the window and all through the winter, Lou had been looking forward to what it would look like in the spring.

  Now, even though there was a storm of blossom blowing about on the other side of the glass, she was unaware of it. She’d come in to look something up about the prison camps in North Borneo during the Second World War but, with the book in front of her on the table, she drifted into thinking about last night’s meal with Harry and wondering why she was disappointed. What had she been expecting? She went over everything they’d said to one another; the smiles, the laughter, the finger on her lips, the kiss on the hair, the words we must do it again. We’ll do coffee another time. What they meant; what weight she was supposed to attach to anything.

  I wanted more, she thought gloomily. I wanted him to be more … more interested. Did I want him to make a pass at me? This was at the same time the most hopeful and the most despair-making thought of all, because if it was true that she was wanting Harry to go for it, then that meant she could be in the process of getting over her terror at the very idea of a physical relationship with a man. The despair came with the realization that he was probably just not interested. Okay, he liked her, he thought she was fun to go and have a curry with from time to time, but that was it. There was no evidence whatsoever for any other dream scenario she might have been concocting in her head. She stared at the page, not really seeing the words, not interested in them; outside the window the clouds of blossom blew about and she didn’t even turn to look at them.

  *

  ‘Mummy’s coming tomorrow, sweetie pie,’ said Phyl, beaming at Poppy who was sitting in her playpen in the living room, looking as though she might be about to become bored with the entertainment (soft bricks, board books, chunky little cars with brightly coloured wheels) her granny had provided for her. She pulled herself up on the bars of the pen and said, ‘Ummy.’

  ‘That’s right. It’s the weekend. Won’t it be lovely to see her?’

  ‘Teddy …’ said Poppy, noticing the one cuddly toy missing from the plastic compound.

  ‘He’s sleeping upstairs,’ said Phyl. ‘He’s having a nap. D’you want to go for a nap? Let’s get a bottle and go and find Teddy in the cot,’ she said, murmuring the words into the sweet-smelling skin of Poppy’s neck, loving the feel of her, the weight in her arms.

  Poppy clutched the bottle and the muslin cloth (called Muzzly) that had to accompany it as part of the feeding ritual and submitted to having her nappy changed. As Phyl did up the poppers on the baby-gro, she wondered whether there’d be time to unpack some of Constance’s stuff before Lou arrived. She’d already worked out where the main pieces would go. The two huge vases probably in the hall, or maybe in the conservatory, and some of the best china on the dresser. The pretty rose-sprinkled, gold-edged teacups deserved to be displayed. I can get rid of some of our mugs and ancient plates to Oxfam or somewhere. So many of the
m were chipped and stained. She left the room, smiling. Chip and Stain, she thought. A whole new way of paying for things. She listened for a moment outside the closed door and went downstairs to start on the china.

  She began with the pair of Chinese vases which had so impressed her on her first visit to Milthorpe House. She still loved them. They stood as high as her waist – what was that – three feet or so, she thought. They seemed to her slender and elegant in spite of their size, because the porcelain was almost thin enough to be translucent. Not too fat round the middle, with narrow necks and patterns of dragons and leaves and butterflies scattered over them in colours that were at the same time piercingly bright – turquoise and blue and red and gold and startling black – and so delicately applied that you could see the white of the porcelain through every stroke of the paintbrush. In the hall, one on each side of the door leading to the dining room – that would look good, she thought.

  Then suddenly, in her head, she could hear Rosemary’s voice. Phyl hadn’t seen much of John Barrington’s mother, who was quite old by the time she and Matt were married, but there was one day when they’d been standing in the hall in Milthorpe House and Rosemary had spoken quite firmly and also quite loudly. She always spoke, Phyl remembered, as though there was substance to what she had to say, even when the subject was trivial. She assumed that everything coming out of her mouth was of the utmost importance and interest to everyone, and now she declared: ‘If you’d been a prisoner of the Japanese, you’d think twice before giving house room to anything quite so Oriental.’ She made the word ring with contempt.

  ‘But, Granny,’ Matt came to his mother’s defence, ‘these aren’t Japanese. They’re from China, and they’re over a hundred years old.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Rosemary, stalking off in the direction of the library, and that was her last word on the subject.

  Phyl smiled. Then she fetched a damp cloth and began wiping the beautiful curves of the vase. Conflicted, that’s what Rosemary was about her experiences during the war. It was from Matt that Phyl gathered most of the story. John Barrington had spent time in a prisoner-of-war camp as a child. One of his books, too, had that setting. Perhaps she’d ask Lou to bring it with her this weekend. Maybe she should have read it before, but somehow it had never appealed to her. The trouble with me, Phyl thought, is that I don’t dwell on the past. Mostly, she knew, she forgot things almost as soon as they’d happened, and though she never said so to anyone, she reckoned sometimes that this was the reason for her general contentment. I don’t keep going over stuff that’s gone by, she told herself. I don’t fret.