The House on Fortune Street

by Margot Livesey

  “Guess what?” she asked, even as she knew she shouldn’t. What she should do was get out of her chair, pretend to be going to the ladies’, and never come back.

  Alastair laughed softly. “That I was Mr. MacPherson, so to speak.”

  Oh, so that was all, she thought, and was amused at the force of her relief. “I know he didn’t pick me for my stunning acting. You and Fiona made it happen. She saw how hard up I was, that I hated to spend the summer as a chambermaid.”

  “No, not Fiona. Me. She liked you but she worried about you becoming too dependent on us. You really had no idea?”

  “There was the letter, the flat, the checks.”

  “The letter came from me, if you remember. So did the checks. There was a Mr. MacPherson, a colleague of mine, and he owned the flat where you stayed, but I paid the rent, and your little stipend. I always enjoyed your grateful letters at the end of the summer. I still have them in my files.”

  “So Fiona…?” So Fiona hadn’t sympathized with her, believed in her.

  “Knew nothing about it. It was my secret. Ours,” he amended.

  “But why?”

  “One,” said Alastair, holding up his fingers. “I was curious to see what would happen if someone gave you a hand. Two, I was grateful to you for helping Dara to get on her feet. Having you as a friend made such a difference. Three, I fancied you something rotten. As you surely realized that day you came round and I nearly succumbed. Remember we were talking about Dickens, about which book was the key to your life?”

  She picked up her handbag and stood up. At once Alastair was on his feet. Before she could move, he seized her shoulders and kissed her ardently, openmouthed. For a moment she kissed him back. And then she was out in Trafalgar Square among the hapless tourists and the scruffy pigeons.

  A FEW WEEKS AFTER LUNCH WITH ALASTAIR, ABIGAIL WAS WALKING home from the pub with Sean one evening when she asked him to pay rent. And a few weeks after that, she noticed that she was no longer immune to the glances of other men. The one person to whom she could have confided these changes was the one person to whom she couldn’t. Most weeks she ran into Dara but they seldom talked for long and, even during their brief conversations, she found Dara’s endless optimism about Edward hard to bear. Her friend had joined a cult in which all dissent was forbidden. And then one afternoon, when she was sitting in her office, two pages slid out of the fax machine, the first a curt note from Sean, the second a letter.

  Dear Mr. Writer,

  How is it that you don’t see what’s right in front of your face? Abigail was hanging out with Mr. Cupid in the pub last week and again yesterday, for all the world to see. Ask her who was with her in Manchester last March.

  You deserve better, Sunshine. Open your bright blue eyes and wake up.

  A well-wisher

  Her first thought was that the author had guessed her secret longings. One night in Manchester she had flirted with a young actor and narrowly avoided going to his room. And last Monday, when she and Sean’s friend Valentine had a drink—she loved the conceit of calling him Mr. Cupid—she had found herself flushed and laughing. Valentine flattered her outrageously and his confidence was attractive. As was his willingness to produce crisp twenty-pound notes to pay for their drinks. During their third round, in the midst of telling her about the latest row at the BBC, his hand had come to rest on her thigh; she had left it there.

  She phoned Sean to complain about the letter, and went home to make dinner. She could tell that he did, and did not, believe her; in bed that night she had to coax him. His doubt and his lack of passion justified what happened when she ran into Valentine at the pub the following week. “So listen,” she said. “Someone thinks we’re screwing around.” She told him about the letter.

  “Wild,” he said. “I wonder if they’re watching us now.”

  “Who knows?” She glanced around the room where there were at least half a dozen people she knew, including the stage manager and the accountant. Then she leaned over and kissed Valentine.

  When she drew back, he looked at her questioningly. “‘The grave’s a fine and private place,’” he offered.

  It was an old line but she drained her glass and rose to her feet. His car was parked nearby and every light was green. They both knew, she thought, where they were going and why, but at his flat he seemed nonplussed when she began to pull off her clothes. “Abigail,” he said, “are you sure you want to do this?” But she was already reaching for him. They fucked on the sofa and then, a second time, on the floor.

  Afterward she carried her clothes to the bathroom where she peed and washed, avoiding the perfumed soap and her reflection. When she came out Valentine was sitting on the sofa, naked, smoking a cigarette. She sat down beside him, keeping her clothed self at a careful distance. “That was fun this evening,” she said, “showing off in the pub, but I don’t want to hurt Sean.”

  “Of course,” said Valentine. “That goes without saying. I wouldn’t hurt dear old Sean for the world.”

  So we’re going to do this again, thought Abigail. The letter writer was right.

  OFTEN ENOUGH IN THE PAST SHE HAD HAD MORE THAN ONE lover, but she had never before concealed the fact. Now she discovered that she enjoyed the scheming, and arranging. The company was touring, performing in various towns, most of them no more than a couple of hours from London. Valentine would meet her in dingy Indian restaurants after the show; they would eat quickly and then she would sneak him into the hotel. Sometimes he stayed for an hour; sometimes he stayed until dawn. Afterward, alone in bed, Abigail would imagine talking to Dara.

  You persuaded Sean to leave his wife and now you’re cheating on him?

  He already betrayed me, by regretting his decision to leave her.

  And you’re doing this with his business partner?

  Valentine is Sean’s friend. We’re careful not to hurt him.

  Abigail, that’s absurd. Of course you’re hurting Sean. Even if he doesn’t exactly know he must sense the change.

  But it’s a good change. I’m much easier to get on with these days. And he doesn’t sense anything. If he still sensed things about me, I wouldn’t be doing this.

  Back and forth the exchange would go, Abigail deftly conjuring up Dara’s criticisms, until the knowledge that her own behavior was indefensible, and that she had no plans to change it, would drive her out of bed and downstairs to whatever the hotel had to offer in the way of breakfast and newspapers.

  SHE HAD ALSO NEVER BEFORE HAD SUCH A SIGNIFICANT SECRET from Dara. Added to her doubts about Edward, it made it even harder to get in touch, but when they ran into each other at the supermarket in early November—she was buying food as an alibi for meeting Valentine—she was so pleased to see her that she at once suggested a drink. As she waited at the bar of the Lord Nelson, she glanced over at Dara sitting on the banquette, and was struck by how elegant she looked in her gray pullover and black skirt. When she set their wine on the table, she saw that Dara’s eyes were carefully outlined and her lashes dark. “How are you?” she said. “You look fabulous.”

  “I’m fine,” said Dara emphatically. She mentioned a new support group at the center. Then she said she’d been longing to tell Abigail about the amazing conversation she had had with her father the day they went to Sissinghurst. All her life she had believed him to be an only child. Now it turned out that he had had a younger brother, Lionel, who died in a rugby scrum when he was fourteen.

  “But what Dad has been carrying all these years,” she said, “is the fear that he killed Lionel by moving his head. Suddenly everything made sense. Why he was so distant, why he left, it all had to do with Lionel, and his guilt. I’m so glad”—she blinked—“that he finally felt able to tell me.”

  Within the awkward confines of the table, Abigail reached to hug her. She meant to comfort Dara, but she herself was comforted by her friend’s familiar warmth: a constant presence in her topsy-turvy life. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy,” she said whe
n she was back in her seat. “I hardly have time to brush my teeth.”

  “Yes,” said Dara in her counseling voice. “Sean’s told me.”

  At once Abigail could imagine Sean’s litany of complaints: so just, and so inaccurate. And what would Dara say if she revealed that she had left Valentine’s bed an hour ago? “I know the touring is hard on him,” she offered.

  “And the new book is a lot of work. When I ran into him a few weeks ago, he couldn’t stop talking about the interviews.”

  “I wish he’d kept going with his dissertation. I liked it when he came home from the library and told me stories about Keats and Fanny.”

  “But”—Dara set down her glass—“you started charging him rent.”

  Perhaps it was the pressure of her other secrets, the ones she could on no account divulge, that made Abigail say, “Your stepfather told me to.” Of course Dara asked what she meant and she explained about common-law marriage. “That’s why I broke up with Ralph. I couldn’t risk him suing me for half the house.”

  “Abigail, that’s insane. Why would Ralph sue you? And poor Sean. I remember your saying you wanted him to feel that the house was his home. How can he do that when you treat him like a tenant?” She leaned back in her seat as if this startling information required a fresh perspective. “So even at the beginning,” she said, “you had your doubts about Sean. That’s so sad when he gave up everything for you.”

  Finally, thought Abigail, they were having her imaginary conversation. “‘Everything,’” she said. “You sound like we’re in a Harlequin romance. He gave up a grubby flat in Oxford and a boring marriage.” She was surprised to hear her voice shrill. She had thought she was long past caring about how matters had unraveled with Sean, but Dara could still make her feel terrible. Afraid of what Dara might say next, or she herself, she asked about Edward.

  Her ruse worked. At the sound of his name Dara forgot to scold and gave a radiant smile. At last they had a plan. He would spend Christmas with Rachel and Cordelia and then, as soon as the kindergarten started again in January, he would move in with Dara. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said, “that I’ll be giving notice. We need a place that’s big enough for three.”

  “You mean Rachel?”

  “A baby.” Dara beamed. “We’re going to have a baby.”

  “A baby?” echoed Abigail. “But does Edward want a baby?”

  “Yes, yes, he does, very much.” Edward wanted a baby with her, and she—she smiled again—would have one tomorrow if she could. “I used to think all this talk about biological urges was a male chauvinist conspiracy but now I see babies everywhere. Don’t you and Sean ever think about having one?”

  “No.” Hadn’t she and Dara talked about this dozens of times at university? Didn’t she remember that it was Abigail who had made the comment about male chauvinists? Furious, she stared at the surface of the table which was marked with so many beer rings and cigarette burns that there was nothing left to spoil. “Let me know your plans,” she said brusquely. “I need to figure out what to do about the flat.”

  She stopped, dismayed. One thing to charge Sean rent, quite another to treat her oldest friend as if their relationship were based on money, but—and this was worse than everything else—Dara didn’t seem to notice.

  “Of course,” she said, reaching for her bags. “Maybe we should be getting home?”

  BACK AT THE HOUSE SEAN WAS IN THE KITCHEN, KNEELING BESIDE his upside-down bicycle, wielding a spanner. He barely looked up when she came in. So much for her fear that he’d been waiting for her. She explained that she’d gone to the pub with Dara and, as she put away the groceries, told him the news about Edward.

  “Oh,” Sean said, his face lighting up, “great. I’m so glad.”

  His pleasure intensified her own jumbled reactions. “But what if he doesn’t do it?” she said crossly. “He’s been vacillating for so long. Dara will be crushed if this doesn’t work out.”

  Clearly taken aback by her tone, Sean set aside the spanner and reached for the oil can. As he dropped oil into the gears, he said that not everyone was as decisive as she was. Of course he meant himself but as she listened to him, to his eloquence on her friend’s behalf, her distress and confusion subsided. She did love him; nothing she did with Valentine changed that. He finished his speech, stood up, and in one dexterous move turned the bicycle over. She crossed the room to rest her hand on the handlebars.

  “Would you like to come to Coventry?” she asked impulsively. “You could visit the cathedral, work at the library.”

  He smiled and, for a moment, she thought he was going to say yes. “I’d love to,” he said, “but I’m afraid my chapters aren’t very portable.”

  Was she disappointed that he wasn’t coming? Or that there would be no need to rearrange Valentine’s visit? To hide her uncertainty, she kissed him.

  EVER SINCE THEIR FIRST CHRISTMAS TOGETHER SHE AND DARA had, when in the same city, gone out for a festive dinner in December. This year, however, Dara said they were both so busy, why not meet when she got back from Edinburgh, in the new year. Abigail had been mildly dreading the occasion but, in the face of Dara’s reluctance, she discovered an attachment to their tradition. She suggested breakfast, lunch, a drink—until Dara agreed to a late supper on the Sunday before Christmas. They were both working that day and they made their separate ways to the dimly lit restaurant in Southwark.

  For years afterward Abigail would think about that evening and her many failures of attention. If she had seen Dara across the room perhaps she might have noticed how thin she’d grown, might have been concerned that her sweater had a hole in one sleeve and her dark trousers were frayed, but close up she still saw her familiar friend. When Dara filled their glasses and a few drops of wine splashed on the table, she attributed it to clumsiness rather than to Dara’s trembling hands; when their food came and Dara feigned eating, moving the food around her plate rather than to her mouth, Abigail carelessly assumed she was, once again, trying to lose weight. The truth was that she was preoccupied. Coventry had brought several unwelcome revelations. While she and Valentine were in bed, he had made a joke about Mr. Cupid. In an instant she had guessed what she should have known all along: he had written the anonymous letter. When she confronted him, he had laughed and said who else. She had laughed too; if she had any power left it lay in not letting him see how upset she was. Then she had fucked him, and asked him to leave. The following morning, when she tried to take refuge in the newspaper, there was more bad news.

  Now she confided this last humiliation. “I got a terrible review in Coventry. Not just the play but me in particular. Everyone was very nice about it but I knew it was true. I’ve got sloppy recently. Please.” She raised a hand to stop Dara interrupting. “More than anyone, you know how far I’ve come. But for the last year or two, I’ve stopped getting better. I’ve become one of the scores of second-rate actors who almost make a living in London. I always used to wish that my grandparents could see me act. Now I’m glad they can’t.”

  Dara set aside her silverware. “I’m sorry about Coventry but you’re not second-rate. You were fantastic in The Three Sisters and you were great in that Caryl Churchill play. Your grandparents would be very proud of you. I know they would.” For the first time that evening she sounded like her old self.

  Abigail was suddenly unable to speak. She cleared her throat, trying to pretend it was just a cough, knowing Dara would know it wasn’t. When she trusted her voice again, she said she’d been remembering something her father’s friend Yoav had said. “He had a theory that Dad’s lack of ambition was a way of rebelling against his parents. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I do know that I grew up believing that you went for walks by the river, had some nasty experiences with rats and factories, and became the world’s most famous writer. If I went to school and worked hard, I was destined for greatness.”

  Abashed at her own naivete she fell silent, but Dara was nodding. One of the first
things she’d learned in their friendship, she said, was that Abigail had this core of ambition that she lacked. “We both had our lives fall apart when we were ten, but that only made you more determined to succeed. Whereas I ended up with the illusion that paying my dues as a child meant I’d be rewarded as an adult. But the truth is,” she was speaking faster and faster, “and I see this all the time at the center, most people who get a difficult start in life continue to reap those difficulties. Damage gets—”

  Abruptly, as if some renegade thought had leaped across her synapses, she broke off. Before Abigail could question her—what happened to damage?—the people at the next table launched into “For she’s a jolly good fellow.” By the time the cheering died down, Dara was back in counseling mode. Maybe Abigail hadn’t given her best performances in Coventry; perhaps she needed to cut down on administration, take some classes. Abigail allowed herself to be consoled. The idea of classes at once appealed.

  Over Black Forest cake they exchanged gifts: a biography of a well-known actor for Abigail, a necklace for Dara. They exclaimed and Dara tried on the necklace. In the shop Abigail had pictured how it would suit her new elegance, but now the beads hung gaudy and askew. She was glad when Dara didn’t go to the ladies’ to look.

  There was no part of the evening that Abigail could recall without dismay, but the taxi ride home was the worst. She talked blithely about plans for Christmas; she and Sean were going to Tyler’s house in the country. “Maybe the four of us can go there in the new year,” she said. “Revisit the spot where Edward fell at your feet.”

  From the other side of the dark taxi came a sound, at the time Abigail thought, of agreement. Later she realized that Dara must have been choking back a cry of grief, a howl of rage. How could her lighthearted remark have seemed like anything but the keenest cruelty?