The House on Fortune Street

by Margot Livesey

  “Christ,” said Millie. She seized the arms of Dara’s chair and leaned so close that Dara could see the dark pinpricks left by plucked hairs beside her eyebrows. “You’re the kind of stuck-up bitch who doesn’t know her twat from a hole in the wall. Free to do this, free to do that. You don’t have a clue what my life is like.”

  “So tell me”—Dara tried not to edge back—“if you want to.”

  “If you want to,” Millie repeated mockingly. “You should fucking hear yourself.”

  It was what Dara had been trained to say, what she believed, but suddenly the words struck her in the way they struck Millie: empty and fatuous. And then Millie reached out and grabbed her left breast. “The trouble with you is you’re not getting any.”

  She gave a brisk squeeze, let go, and sauntered out of the room.

  For a few seconds Dara was completely undone. Even while her body recoiled from Millie’s behavior, her mind was agreeing with the girl’s brash assessment of her situation. She was thirty years old and, since university, she had never, even for a few months, had a relationship that seemed likely to lead to what she most wanted: a partner and a family. And she had no idea why. She was modestly pretty, kind, intelligent, loyal, and gainfully employed. Day after day she saw women who were plain, bad-tempered, dull, in debt, and yet had accomplished this thing that eluded her. Before she moved to London she had gone to see a counselor, hoping to discover some obstacle in herself that was keeping her single. After two sessions the woman had urged her to get out more. “Join a church,” she had said. “Or get involved in a sport: football, or squash. You can’t expect life to hand you everything on a plate.” Dara had not gone back.

  A knock interrupted her misery. Had Mille returned? Before she could do more than hide her handkerchief, Halley appeared. “I met a girl—” she started to say, and hurried across the room. “Are you okay?” She bent to take Dara’s hands. “What happened?”

  Dara blinked several times; Halley’s clasp was warm and steady. Presently she managed to explain that Millie was really Frank’s client. “I said something that upset her and she stormed out. I should have gone after her but I just needed a minute to pull myself together.”

  “No harm done. I showed her the door. If she rings for another appointment, let’s transfer her to me. That girl’s out of control.” She gave Dara a final pat and stood up. “We must get together soon. It’s ages since we’ve had a chat.”

  “I’d like that.” Eager for Halley’s company but not her attention, Dara asked how she was.

  “I’ve been better. Thank you for asking. One of the odd things about this brouhaha is that no one says anything. Some days I come in and I want to shout. It’s so bloody English, no one mentioning the elephant in the room.”

  “People don’t know what to say,” said Dara. “And you’re not very forthcoming.”

  “Of course.” Halley flicked back her braids. “I want concerned sympathy, but on my own terms.”

  “Aren’t you angry? All this fuss Joyce is causing in the midst of your trying to get a new job.”

  Halley pressed her lips together and her eyes darkened. She looked, as she hardly ever did, Dara thought, sad. “The job is the least of my worries,” she said. “I’ll get it, or I won’t. In the meantime there’s Joyce, the grief, the bad vibes. I’ve spent six years making this place and now I’m smashing it to bits as hard as I can.”

  In her vivid scarlet dress Halley seemed to droop. Dara reached to embrace her. “Don’t worry,” she said. “This will get sorted out soon.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Halley. “But thanks.”

  THE SHRILL OF MILLIE’S VOICE, THE TOUCH OF HER HAND RECEDED, but Dara was left with the fear that her longings were visible, even to a self-centered teenager. She redoubled her efforts to pretend that all was well. This was another kind of magical thinking she had learned was common. When she wasn’t keeping ill fortune at bay by imagining crises, she was doing her best to attract good fortune by pretending it was already present. The following week, as she bicycled over to have supper with Abigail—Sean was in Oxford—she resolved on no account to mention Millie; Abigail’s sympathy would only bring back the painful encounter. Instead, once they were settled, each with a glass of wine, at opposite ends of the sofa, she described the feud at the center. Abigail, who had met Halley and knew about Joyce, was the ideal audience.

  “The nerve of her,” she exclaimed when Dara revealed that Joyce had tried to persuade her too to bring a complaint against Halley.

  “I said something she misconstrued and now she simply won’t hear my explanation. She’s determined to hold on to the wrong end of the stick.”

  Without answering, Abigail stood up and began to prowl the room, straightening a book here, rotating a plant there. She was wearing baggy white trousers and a dark blue pullover, the sleeves rolled up to reveal cream-colored streaks on her forearms. “Joyce must have a crush on Halley,” she said, bending to snap a dead frond off a fern. “It’s the only thing that makes sense of how contrary this is.”

  “Maybe,” said Dara doubtfully. “There is a rumor that she and Halley had a fling, but ages ago.”

  “So who’s in charge when it comes to complaints?”

  “The borough liaison officer. She seems pleasant enough.”

  “Phone her,” said Abigail decisively. “At least you can explain that you’ve no axe to grind. Now come and watch me cook and tell me about your love life.”

  At the kitchen table Dara confided the details of her three dates with Edward. “We always have a good time. Then he disappears and I never know if I’ll hear from him again.”

  “I remember that stage with Sean.” Abigail stirred the risotto. “What made it faintly bearable was that we both knew Tyler.”

  “But Edward and I don’t have any mutual friends.”

  “You could make some,” said Abigail. “You could invite him to your house. That way he’d be in your world. And having a bedroom nearby might help. Sean and I would still be groping each other like teenagers if I hadn’t brought him here and fed him gin and tonics.”

  This was a new version of his insatiable passion, thought Dara. Dutifully she asked how he was. Was he settling down to life in London?

  “I think so. We’re painting the top bedroom, making it into a study for him. I want him to feel that this really is his home.”

  “Nice color.” Dara pointed to the streaks.

  Abigail glanced carelessly at her arm and added mushrooms to the rice. It wasn’t easy, she said, after the months of drama, adjusting to daily life. Suddenly they had time for stupid arguments about recycling, and money. She hadn’t realized that Sean was quite so broke. And her tenant was planning to give notice. “If you hear of anyone who’s looking for a place, do let me know.”

  “But”—Dara clutched her glass—“this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  For nearly a year she had listened to Abigail strategize, with boundless optimism, about her campaign to conquer Sean. On the one occasion when she had asked if he was worth so much trouble, Abigail had stared in amazement. “You don’t understand,” she had said solemnly, “I’ve never felt this way before. Nor has Sean.” And Dara had glimpsed that she was in the presence of something extraordinary. Now the possibility that true love had triumphed, only to be proved as mutable as any other emotion, seemed, like Joyce’s fury, Millie’s lunge, to call into doubt all that she was aiming for with Edward.

  Perhaps Abigail didn’t notice her dismay, or perhaps, in the midst of grinding pepper, she didn’t hear the question. “Did I tell you that it looks as if the play is going ahead?” she said. She spooned risotto onto plates and began to talk about her fledgling theater company.

  DARA FOLLOWED ABIGAIL’S ADVICE TO THE LETTER. SHE INVITED Edward over to the house when Glen, the journalist, was cooking. The meal went well, everyone joking about Glen’s stir-fry—was it slightly better, or slightly worse, than the last one?—a
nd gossiping about their eccentric neighbors. Afterward her housemates drifted off to watch TV or make phone calls. Dara led Edward to the living room and kept refilling their glasses until he put his hand on her thigh and suggested they go upstairs. In her room she closed the door and turned on the bedside light. She had given him a tour of the house when he first arrived and he had admired her room with its blue and apricot walls and many pictures, mostly by her, some by her mother. Now she stood there, not knowing what to do with her eyes or her hands or her feet, not wanting to sit on the bed, which sent one kind of message, or to choose a chair, which sent another. She was staring at the pictures, trying to think of something to say, when he stepped across the room, gazed down at her for a few seconds, and kissed her.

  From then on it was all haste and confusion. He undid a few buttons on her blouse and left her to manage the rest while he wrestled with his own clothes. She undressed quickly, eager to be hidden between the sheets. Edward, clumsy with his underwear, took a few seconds longer. Then he was beside her, the whole shocking length of him, and they were clinging to each other. It seemed to Dara that they were struggling to surmount some huge barrier—the barrier between not being and being lovers—and they must do whatever was necessary to get over it. There was one more fierce kiss, the awkwardness of protection, and then Edward was fumbling with her, on top of her, inside her.

  It was not pleasurable, not at all, but something even more powerful than pleasure: a painful, naked intimacy. Repeatedly both work and life had taught Dara that the act they were committing was well-nigh meaningless, or at least quite unreliable in its meaning, yet the feeling swept over her. Now we are lovers, she thought jubilantly.

  When he was finished Edward turned to her. “What can I do to please you?” he said, his chestnut eyes fixed on hers.

  “I was pleased,” she protested. “I am.”

  “No. I was rushing. Show me what to do.”

  She was embarrassed, fearful. What if he did everything and she still couldn’t climb over that other barrier, the one inside herself that often at such moments kept her slightly apart, observing her own experiences rather than experiencing them? Then he reached out and the barrier began to fall away.

  Perhaps twenty minutes later, perhaps half an hour, Edward got out of bed and started to dress. She assumed he was going to the bathroom, one of the inconveniences of a shared house, but he was bending down, kissing her, and wishing her sweet dreams. Alone, Dara rolled over to the place where he had lain. In her last waking moments, she summoned a series of comforting disasters: Edward struck by lightning on his way home, the house bursting into flames, herself penniless, lost, wandering in some barren landscape. And her dark imaginings worked. In the morning, before she had time to get anxious, Edward phoned to ask if she was free next Tuesday. There was a film he wanted to see.

  THAT WEEKEND DARA ACCOMPANIED HER FATHER TO A PHOTOGRAPHY exhibition. For reasons she didn’t care to examine she was usually late for their meetings, so it was not the sight of him, waiting patiently at a corner table in a café near Bond Street, that startled her, but his hair. For as long as she could remember he had worn it falling over his forehead, parted on the left. Now, barely half an inch long, it bristled salt and pepper, leaving his face oddly exposed. Beneath the pale expanse of his forehead his eyes were an almost deep watery blue.

  “Dad, you’ve cut your hair.”

  With an awkward shrug, he rose to greet her. “Louise claimed I was getting shaggy,” he said. “What a lovely scarf.”

  “You gave it to me last Christmas,” Dara said, kissing his cheek. That too, she was sure, had been Louise’s choice. Her hopes of getting to know her father were constantly colliding with his second marriage. For years he had said that she was always welcome at their house, but when she had phoned to tell him about her new job in London, his first words had been not “Come and stay,” but “Where will you live?” She had said not to worry; she’d stay with Abigail until she found her own place. The truth was, as she had come to understand over months of awkward meetings, she was welcome in her father’s life when she was in a good mood and could take an intelligent interest in Louise’s projects and had a home of her own. She was not welcome in need, or disarray, or pain.

  Now he insisted that the scarf suited her. “Would you like some coffee? Or a cake?” He waved his hand toward the counter with its trays of baked goods and, taking in their sparse contents, frowned.

  Watching his furrowed brow, Dara remembered those awkward outings in Edinburgh when he had plied her and Fergus with food as if this were the only way to prove his affection; any small problem, a restaurant running out of Fergus’s favorite pudding, a dearth of chocolate ice cream, had threatened disaster. “Let’s go to the gallery first,” she said, “and have coffee afterward.”

  “Good idea,” he said, sounding disproportionately relieved.

  In the street, walking past the sleek, expensive shops, he told her that his friend Davy hoped to open a second branch of his furniture shop in the neighborhood. “The rents are astronomical but he thinks it’ll put the seal of approval on the business.”

  That her father had a best friend from childhood was one of the things that made Dara feel more optimistic about her own relationship with him. “I finally went to his shop,” she volunteered. “Everyone who works there looks as if they belong in a fashion magazine. They were ignoring me until Davy came out of his office.”

  “I know. I’m always telling him how rude his staff are but he says people won’t pay his prices unless they’re abused.”

  They passed a shop with a single black dress hanging in the window. As they waited to cross the street Dara asked whose work they were going to see.

  “It’s an exhibition of Charles Dodgson’s photographs, the man who wrote Alice in Wonderland. They’re meant to be exquisite.”

  The walls of the gallery were hung with large black-and-white photographs simply framed. Several couples and a very tall gray-haired man were looking at them. Her father stopped at the first photograph. A girl of perhaps eight or nine, wearing an odd, ragged costume, stood barefoot beside a wall. Her dark hair was bobbed and she gazed at the viewer with great intensity. “This is Alice Liddell,” he said. “Apparently her mother didn’t like this photograph. She thought it made Alice look like a beggar.”

  “I think she looks like a fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Dara offered. “Cobweb or Pease Blossom.” In fact the girl, with her knowing stare, resembled no fairy Dara could imagine, but she was glad to see her father smile.

  The next photograph showed a young girl, Alice again, pretending to be asleep. And the next showed two girls in Oriental costume, one holding a large parasol. A quick survey of the room confirmed Dara’s growing suspicion. All the pictures were of girls—the youngest maybe four or five, the oldest perhaps ten—each carefully posed, never smiling. Her father was talking about how complicated photography was in Dodgson’s day, what astonishing results he had been able to obtain using the wet collodion plates. “Look at the depth of focus,” he said, gesturing to a girl lying amid a mass of drapery.

  “Did he only take pictures of girls?” Dara said. Beside her the tall man leaned forward to examine the girl’s face.

  “No, he photographed many famous people, including Tennyson and Queen Victoria’s younger son. And he did landscapes as well. But this exhibition is his photographs of children. Don’t you like them?” In a gesture she remembered from childhood he tugged his earlobe.

  “Yes and no. The first one was beautiful, but when there are more and more girls, it gets a bit creepy. I wish they’d included some of the adult portraits.”

  “He never harmed them,” said her father. “He was a great friend to children. He taught them riddles, made up stories, wrote them letters. But he never harmed them.”

  “How do you know?” Quickly she pushed her hands into her pockets. “I don’t mean what is the documentary evidence, but how can we be sure what harms a child?
Some therapists claim that you can molest someone without touching them, without even saying anything. Just the inappropriate desire can be harmful.” Claire had never said what happened after her father came into her bedroom.

  Her own father gave a small cough and stepped back from the pictures.

  “Sorry, Dad. I don’t mean to preach. I can see these are gorgeous but I can’t rise above the content. In my book men who like young girls are bad news.”

  “Let’s go and get that coffee.”

  In the street she saw that his eyes, clear when they met half an hour ago, were bloodshot. If only she hadn’t been so strident in her disapproval. He had been offering her a part of himself—his enthusiasm for the photographs—and she had spurned it. Why was she so quick to fly off the handle? As they again passed the black dress in the window, she tried to make amends by telling him that she’d met someone. “A tall, dark Welshman and he’s a violinist. Maybe we can go to one of his concerts.”

  “That would be nice,” said her father. “How did you meet?”

  Dara regaled him with the story as they made their way through the crowds of Oxford Street to a café in St. Christopher’s Court. They each ordered cappuccino and cannoli. Reaching for the sugar, her father remarked how much he admired her work at the center, dealing with women from such diverse backgrounds. Dara listened and watched the sugar sinking, crystal by crystal, beneath the foam. All these compliments, she thought. He too was trying to make amends.

  When he paused to sip his coffee she said, “On my training course we figured out that, of the eighteen of us, sixteen had parents whose jobs didn’t involve people.”

  “Science involves people, but I know what you mean. So you were all reacting against your parents when you went into social work?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t speak for the others but I don’t think you had much influence either way. A friend asked me to do a shift at the Samaritans and I realized I was more interested in the clients’ stories than the ones I read in books. There is a theory that people go into counseling because they need help themselves—the wounded caregiver—but I think that’s because society distrusts the notion of altruism. At the same time”—she reached for her cannoli—“no one likes the idea that counseling is just a job.”