by Ruby Soames
‘And what did he think of you?’
‘He was the only man who paid no attention to me at all. None! The joke is, I thought he’d be easy. I thought I was doing him a favour picking him when he wasn’t much to look at and no one else fancied him. But I’d been there a year before he even knew my name!’
‘What did you do? You know, to make him fancy you?’
‘I used to spray his brief ribbons with perfume! I’d stay late in the evenings hoping he’d say “let’s have a drink” – that’s what the others did. But he’d just say, “Goodnight” and walk out. And I’d be just left thinking, what did I do wrong? My friend Jessie, she used to shag all the lawyers – when I went into work she’d have been there all night – she just went right into the day without even changing her clothes and there was Sally as well, I told you about her, didn’t I? The one who invested in a small flat in –’
‘But what did you feel about Henry?’
‘Oh? Well, I guess you could say I’d fallen in love – idiotic romantic – romantic idiot – that’s what I was. Had I been like Sally –’
‘So then what happened?’ Mum’s digressions were as inevitable and frustrating as the adverts interrupting an exciting TV show.
‘I’ve told you this a million times!’
‘Tell me again!’
‘Really,’ she huffed. ‘So one Friday night, it was raining hard and I’d had to go court to bring him some papers for the next day’s case. I was waiting outside for a taxi to get me home – they paid for stuff like that – it was late afternoon but it looked like midnight. And then I saw him waiting next to me too. When a taxi pulled up, he offered it to me first and then,’ she laughed, ‘then he went all funny. What had happened was that the rain had drenched my white blouse right through and he could see my bra! It was black. Lacy. He could see everything! So much for perfume and roses, all he wanted was to see some tit! So he goes, “Jump in!” all very posh like. “Jump in!” Well he just carried on staring at my breasts through the blouse. He couldn’t even speak! When we arrived at Onslow Gardens, South Kensington, where he lived, the cab stopped and he just grabbed me – put his mouth on mine and just pressed it, hard as possible. It’s a wonder I didn’t pass out.’
I put my hands over my face in embarrassment! ‘Was it … like … amazing?’
‘What, suffocating?’
‘No! The kiss – what was it like?’
‘It was … indescribable. I felt something really, really important had begun.’
‘And?’
‘And … nothing.’
‘What happened the next time you saw him?’
‘Just that, nothing. And not the next day, or the next, or the next. Weeks went by and he acted like it had never happened, I began to wonder if it had. If anything, he was a little sharper with me, but it was difficult to tell.’
‘What happened then?’ I asked.
‘Quite a while later I stepped into the lift at work and he was already in it. We said “hello”, I expected the same old glacial nod, but as we went down, he turned me towards him and kissed me – a real passionate snog. When the doors opened on the ground floor, he wished me a good day and let me walk ahead.’
‘Why didn’t you ask him out?’
‘Good question. Why don’t we just come straight out and ask people anything? I suppose it’s easier to live in a world of possibility and our own interpretations – keep the odds stacked on our side.’
‘So then, what happened?’
‘Anyway, the big moment came when there was a work function – cocktails to celebrate a case or a partnership – Mummy even came down to London to help me pick out a dress beforehand. Maybe I made out things were a little more mutual between Henry and me. Go and get the dress I wore, the blue dress, in the cupboard –’
I knew exactly which blue dress it was. I took it out and we both looked at it lying on the bed as if all my mother’s expectations still clung to it.
‘He didn’t talk to me all night until right at the end and he said, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” ‘
‘That night, was it … everything you dreamed of?’
‘Yes, I suppose it was. We kissed, he wanted to go further – they always do. I knew I shouldn’t … but he was strong, forceful, he told me that he loved me … all those things men say. So I spent the night – and that’s when I knew, he was the one.’
6
Henry and Florence would meet every Sunday at his father’s little pied-a-terre – after his visit to the family estate in Oxford.
‘But you never met his friends, his family?’
‘He said he wanted to keep me a secret. I didn’t ask. I just so desperately wanted to be with him, I was afraid of pushing him or losing what I had. And I see now that I felt ashamed, like there was something wrong with me and that I should have been grateful for whatever he gave me – I hope you never understand that.’
So over the months my father would lure her into a bed that stank of his father’s Labradors. It never occurred to her that Henry’s father’s flat existed so he could do exactly the same thing with girls who weren’t his wife.
‘But didn’t you want him to meet your parents?’
‘God, yes – I couldn’t wait. But he just said weekends were difficult.’
‘Did he ever say he loved you?’
‘Not exactly … but … after … y’know … doing it, he’d play with my hair and we’d talk. I got to know the real him … the Wombat man – not the young upstart everyone else saw at work.’
‘And what was he like, the real him?’
‘Oh you ask so many questions! You are going to be lawyer – not just a secretary to a lawyer – the real wig and gown, you!’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, it wasn’t what he said so much as how tender he was, how vulnerable being naked made him. He said he’d only ever been himself with me. He used to say –’ she actually blushed as she remembered, ‘–he used to say I reminded him of Botticelli’s Venus – it’s a famous painting by the way, I’ll take you to Florence one day and show you. I think he worried he wasn’t a good lover but … I managed to make him feel he was the best. I called him Mr Wombat,’ she laughed at the thought, ‘because without his glasses he couldn’t see a thing. And Mr Wombat would –’
Curious as I was, I didn’t want all the details.
Mum chose to interpret his secrecy for seriousness and commitment, imagining that their great love had to remain undiscovered only to be disclosed at the moment juste. So while her friends collected oversized crucifixes and backcombed their hair, mum doodled pictures of wedding dresses and practised what she hoped would be her future signature, Mrs Florence Hardwick.
One Saturday, when she was wandering through the Great Gear Market on the King’s Road with her friend Sally, she felt sick. She gulped back the salty water that filled her mouth and the feeling passed. She saw Henry the following Sunday night. It was one of their sweetest times together. She bathed him and he splashed like a baby. She rubbed him dry with a towel and they laughed and heated up a meal for two in front of the TV. Instead of ordering a cab and going their separate ways as usual, Henry asked her, quietly, almost nervously, if she would stay the night, all night.
The next morning, waiting for the taxi to take them into work, his fingers grappled for hers and intertwined in her hand. She nearly told him then that they were going to have a baby together.
‘And then a few weeks went by and he didn’t call. But that was his modus operandi – Latin, Sarah, you’ll need it for your law studies. He’d let his guard down, be tender and gentle with me, and then pretend I didn’t exist. But when I knew for sure that I had our baby was growing inside me – you were just developing your little ears – it was driving me mad. I’d already learnt that any pressure on him pushed him further away, so I tried to stay calm. Then one Sunday when he didn’t call and I felt so scared and lonely, I did the unthinkable. I found his parents’ hom
e phone number through Directory Inquiries and called Henry. I told him that I had to see him immediately. I’d had one or two drinks, not much –’
I know mum after one or two drinks. It’s always too much.
‘We met at the office because his father was using the “love warren”, as he called the Barbican flat. When he saw me he was pretty over-excited – well, Mr Wombat was pleased to see me! He said he’d always wanted to do it on his desk – sorry, close your ears. He even offered to drive me home afterwards as he’d brought the car down to London. I accepted. It was … magic … sitting next to him, a Sunday night, being a couple when I’d missed him so much –’
‘But you hadn’t told him –’
‘No. I waited until he got to my door. Then I said I was pregnant.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He asked, “Any idea who the father is?” As if? Can you imagine? I didn’t even say, you! He knew – but he didn’t want to know. The way he looked at me, with this face I didn’t recognise. Like something out of a horror film – he had these bloodhound eyes and no words seem to come out of his lips – he was anything but my Mr Wombat. His forehead was bulging and I couldn’t see his eyes behind his glasses. I started crying, saying things like, “I know it’s come a little earlier than we wanted, we can still marry before it comes, I’m sure our parents will be delighted –”
And then he shouted at me: “What are you on about?” He was so angry.
I said, “Wombat, what difference does it make, now or later.”
And then he said, really quietly, like I was stupid or something, he said, “But Florence, I’m engaged.” ‘
I heard the drains of mum’s oesophagus clearing, alcohol down, tears back, pills in.
‘The next day, Henry was in Manchester working on a case. I was called up by the employment agency who’d found me my job, they said they were placing me somewhere more “appropriate”. I didn’t know what they were talking about. I’d been there over two years! They said the chambers were restructuring and didn’t need me. I was given excellent references. Do you know, I didn’t ever think that this had anything to do with Henry? I actually thought he’d be livid when he heard! How naïve I was! But I had to leave and once again, no word from Mr Wombat.’
Florence didn’t think about what she was going to do with the rest of her life, all she wanted to know was, who had Henry chosen to marry? That’s when her obsession with Caroline Baxter-Smith started. Apparently Caroline was pretty and popular and everyone was mad about her. Henry was ‘mad about her’ – or so said one of his colleagues, who Mum went out with a few times to make Henry jealous.
‘A few weeks after I’d lost my job, he met me in Green Park and told me he loved me and that he was sorry he’d not been honest with me. He said he thought I knew about Caroline, it hadn’t been a secret. But he was adamant that there was no way he could back out of this arrangement unless he wanted to lose the family home and his inheritance. The Baxter-Smiths had a long-standing relationship with his family. He and Caroline had been going out for three years and had plans to marry in the next year. She was the reason he went home most weekends. He was pretty clear that a child out of wedlock would be a disaster.’
Henry promised that after Mum terminated the pregnancy, let him get married and waited a decent period – two or so years – he’d divorce Caroline on grounds which suited him. He assured her they would be reunited and in a position to start their own family. He’d even come out richer.
‘But I had to abort. That was his condition. So I said, “No. I’m having the baby and you can come and find us when you’re ready to marry for love and not money.” ‘
Florence convinced herself that Henry would choose her and their baby, that he just needed time to recover from the shock. She stayed in London doing temp work until her pregnancy and her doubts started to show. At six months pregnant she returned to see her parents in their 1930s semidetached in Northampton. Her mother asked one question on opening the door, ‘Where’s your husband?’ But she knew the answer already. When Florence walked into the living room, her father lifted up his newspaper and said, ‘There appears to be a tart in the house. Please see it leaves by the back door.’
His daughter’s pregnancy embodied all they loathed about this new world, everything they’d read about in the Daily Mail and all that their heroine, Margaret Thatcher, despised. If she was doing this just to get a council house, well, she was free to live in one.
Florence knew it was unlikely that she would ever see her parents again – unless, of course, Henry stood by his responsibilities.
Florence went back to London and joined the end of the line at her local DHSS office. She was placed in a room at a boarding house in Ealing until a council house was ready. She became good friends with the main booker at her temp agency, Shelley, who is my godmother. Shelley gave Mum any work that could be done at home. In her spare time, she stayed up late at night writing letters to Henry, they were returned to her, unopened. When the last of her savings dried up, she gave birth to me on St Clement’s day as the weather turned icy cold.
Florence had been assured by girlfriends that the moment Henry laid eyes on his baby, he’d be bowled over with love and want to protect his child. I was a few weeks old when Henry came to see me.
‘So what happened when he saw me?’
‘I could tell he was horrified by where we lived – it was terrible – odd types spitting in the corridors, people shuffling around in their bedroom slippers, blocked toilet, I shared a bathroom with the six other families. I made him tea which he didn’t drink. I’d spent the last of my money on a cake which he didn’t eat. He was in a hurry to get out. It was raining.’
‘But what did he say when he saw me?’
‘He didn’t really look at you, darling: he had a taxi waiting.’
Florence knew then that he was never coming back, however, a significant amount of cash in white, typed envelopes would appear every month, with no note or signature. It fired her hopes that the postponement plan was on. Years later, after her father died, she learnt the money wasn’t from Henry but from her mother. ‘Denial makes the world go round, darling. But the hope kept me breathing.’
She heard all about Henry’s marriage from Sally who was her spy on the inside. It had been the traditional country church wedding, marquee, multi-tiered white cake and honeymoon in the Maldives – Florence’s dreams all went to Caroline Hardwick née Baxter-Smith. A few years later, she read that they’d had a son.
7
Ferdi’s mother sure knows what to put in a health drink. Maybe it’s the potion, the sun and the sea but after a few hours in the hotel’s beauty salon, I am a new person. My hair is cut and coloured, I’ve had a facial, manicure, pedicure and the chrome-coloured skin has been replaced by a St Tropez tan.
I pass under the golden palm-tree arches leading to the Paradise Beach Club’s Shopping Arcade and see a new shopping experience: rows and rows of glass fronts, no customers, simply shops open throughout the night so if I get restless at two in the morning, I can pop down and comfort myself with a little cashmere wrap or a Bulgari tiara. I walk into a shoe shop having spotted a great pair of sandals.
I’m aware of someone else in the store before I hear, ‘Hey! Hey! Bring me this in 4½!’ The tone is harsh, more than supercilious, it’s vindictive. In the corner of my eye I see the other shopper drop a pair of black thigh-length boots into the salesgirl’s hands. I wonder what kind of person would buy these on a beach holiday, when I look, I see the woman from the park, the departure lounge. It’s my father’s new wife. My step-mother.
I watch her in the mirror. She’s a newly-kept woman and looks like she relishes the chance to humiliate others. She fiddles with the gold bangles on her wrist, rotates her naked foot in the air, blows out air from her nose and hums. I wonder if she’s entirely human – all that hair and silicone – she makes me think of a hirsute squid. I wonder how she can breathe through that tiny nose
– it could have been stolen from a baby. Her wide, inflamed lips are outlined with a dark brown lip-liner and filled in with a pallid, oily lipstick. She looks around with eyes that are naturally small but seem to be pinned open by invisible strings. The windows to her soul are blackened with kohl and synthetic lashes fan out from the side of her face like dragonflies attempting to take off. She plays with her hair relentlessly, scrunching it up, bringing it down, massaging the vast slippery strands and encouraging the coils to spring up of their own accord. She’s a strange combination of petite doll, but also frightening with her dominatrix boots and long white nails the same length as her fingers.
She lies down on the banquette and kicks her legs in the air while fondling a red, suede thong she’s picked up off the shelf in her kitchen-scissor fingers. She sings a little song to herself: Whoa, I’m going to Barbados … Whoa, I’m gonna see my boyfriend!
My father has married this woman, this play-thing, this toddler, a witch from a fairy tale. I have only a few minutes left to decide if I want to get into the story.
My father’s new wife throws off her shoes and stretches out her feet, then lurches her body over her knees. Straightening up, she looks at me and squints as if trying to place my face or, possibly, check out a pair of diamond heels behind me.
I take in a deep breath and reassure myself that there’s no way she could have seen me watching their wedding in the park, or at the airport or that she could ever guess I’m Henry Hardwick’s long-lost daughter.
