An Unremarkable Body

by Elisa Lodato

  The following morning my mother’s arm was operated on. The surgeon repositioned the shattered bone fragments and then screwed a metal plate to the outer surface of the ulna. As my mother recovered and her strength returned, my grandmother became efficient on her behalf. She contacted Nicola to explain that her daughter’s injuries would prevent her from continuing to work at the library. It was a simple headline to a much more complex story – and Nicola knew it. But she accepted my grandmother’s explanation and wished my mother well, full of sorrow for her broken life.

  My grandmother set about interviewing my father for a position my mother knew he’d jump at. She asked him about his relations with my mother, what his plans were, where his parents were. Jan Rowan, the woman who had diligently dropped her son at Surbiton Library every morning in the hope of his applying for a job or a course of study, received a phone call from my grandmother, who told her, very bluntly, that her son had made her daughter pregnant and would she please come up to Kingston Hospital where Katharine was recovering from a road accident. Their baby was still alive and due in April.

  On Thursday, 15 January 1981, just two months after her accident and five days before her twentieth birthday, my mother and father were married at Kingston Registry Office. Nicola had read the notice of their upcoming marriage and went along, uninvited. She sat at the back of the room and noticed another young woman who stood with her head bowed for most of it, and who left just before the end.

  My mother and father made their way to their first home together, a rented two-bedroom flat on Lovelace Road, Surbiton. The first three months’ rent had been paid by Jan Rowan in apology for her son’s actions. My father had until his child was born to find himself a job.

  Tom returned from Tenerife the following Sunday evening. He emailed his flight details, but because he’d left his car at Gatwick we decided there wasn’t much point in me driving out to meet him. His flight landed at half past four and he was at my front door just after six o’clock.

  I had already decided to tell him about Dave. I spent the days before his return going over events, trying to downplay the seriousness of our relationship. I’d managed to order things around the absence of the l-word and reasoned that, because he’d held back from telling me he loved me the night before he went away, we were still at the beginning of something. I thought that my honesty would open up the possibility of forgiveness.

  But seeing his face when I opened the front door hit me hard: it was both tanned and happy, eager and joyful. He dropped his bags and opened his arms. Of course he wanted me. I felt his chest meet my body as the first stone hurled at a ruined woman. The impact of his love felt like some kind of judgement on my stupidity. I’d really gone and fucked things up.

  He took a deep breath of my hair and my neck and began kissing my chin and then my lips. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘I know. Me too.’ I wanted to go with him. As he pulled me towards the bedroom, I saw that it wasn’t too late. That with a simple withholding of the truth I could join him again. We made love quickly, urgently, afterwards remarking on his tanned bits and what we were going to order for dinner. I felt the heavy weight of duplicity – it was suddenly everywhere: the lone pubic hair shed on the sheets, the pillow Tom had folded in half to prop his head up. Our life together suddenly built on a lie.

  ‘Will you order? I’m just going to have a shower.’ I walked into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and cried quietly to myself.

  By the end of August, the deception had become part of me. Like an unsightly skin tag, my only option was to tie a rubber band around it and cut off the blood supply. I hoped that by pretending it had never happened, I could kill off the recollection entirely. In private apology to Tom, I became a much more enthusiastic girlfriend.

  We spent every weekend together; he drove over to Balham after work on Friday night, where we’d order a takeaway and drink wine on the sofa. On Saturdays we woke late and headed down to Borough Market on the tube. Tom loved to agonise over cuts of meat and vegetables, prompted to his purchases by an impossibly complicated recipe, while I sipped my coffee and rolled my eyes. And sometimes he’d buy me a bunch of flowers. If I hadn’t been too sneering.

  Afternoons were spent back at my flat: I’d sit at the table in my living room and write or edit, while he simmered dinner into submission. And we were happy. Or he was happy, and I was content to have made him so.

  One Sunday morning at the beginning of September my father came to see me. His visit was unannounced, and his voice at the end of the intercom completely unexpected. Tom was in the shower, singing to himself.

  ‘My dad’s here,’ I shouted as I opened the door.

  ‘What?’ He had been washing his hair but quickly put his hands over his soapy groin.

  ‘My dad. He’s coming up.’ And then, looking at the position of his hands, ‘I’m pretty sure he won’t ask to see your knob.’

  ‘Very funny. Let me rinse off.’ I went to go and open the front door. ‘Laura! Close the bloody door!’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry.’

  My father was apologetic and sheepish. ‘I should have phoned first. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry. Come on in.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He stepped into the hallway and heard the shower. ‘Do you have company?’ He was wary.

  ‘Yes.’ It was my turn to be sheepish. ‘Someone I’m seeing. A boyfriend, in fact. His name is Tom.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said, nodding. ‘Laura, I’ll leave you to it. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’ He began stepping back towards the door.

  ‘No, Dad, don’t be silly. I’d like you to meet him, and I should have said something. Come on in. He’ll be out in a minute.’

  We walked down the hallway, past the bathroom door and into the living room. I put the kettle on while my father sat down on the sofa. As I was pouring the hot water into three cups, I heard Tom open the bathroom door, pad across the hallway and go into my bedroom, closing the door firmly behind him.

  ‘So what’s up?’ I said, sitting beside him on the sofa.

  ‘What isn’t? That would be a more accurate question. Oh, it’s nothing. Just had a little disagreement with Jenny, that’s all,’ he said, looking sideways at the entrance to the living room. Waiting for the boyfriend he’d been told to anticipate.

  ‘What’s the matter with Jenny? Is this about the house?’

  He nodded. ‘I need to sell it, Laura. It’s not just about some money for you and the other two. Jenny wants to move to Guildford, and if I don’t sell the house she’ll be moving there without me.’

  ‘What’s in Guildford?’

  ‘Her mum and dad bought a bungalow there a few years ago. She wants to be near them.’

  ‘And she’s not taking no for an answer?’

  He nodded again. ‘I always knew we’d have to decide what to do with the house. One day. I just didn’t expect your mother to go so—’

  ‘Suddenly?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Dad. Are you sure you want to sell?’

  ‘I think, on a purely practical level, it would benefit everyone.’

  Tom walked into the room, wearing the shirt he’d worn on Friday when he came over after work. My father put his cup of tea down on the carpet and stood up. They shook hands. He sat down again quickly, perhaps embarrassed by the difference in height.

  ‘I made you a cup of tea,’ I said, to break the silence. ‘It’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I got up and pulled one of the dining chairs over. He gave me a grateful look as he walked back into the room, sipping tea that was patently too hot.

  ‘What do you two have planned for the weekend? Or what’s left of it.’

  Tom coughed his voice into action. ‘We were going to walk up to the common and have lunch.’

  ‘Is that Clapham Common?’

  ‘Yeah, there are quite a few places round there. You’re very welcome to
join us.’

  ‘No thanks. I won’t stay long.’ He turned to me. ‘I just wondered if I could take you up on your offer to phone around estate agents.’ He raised his eyebrows significantly. ‘I just think it’s probably better if you do it.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll make a note of some of the local ones and get them round for a valuation.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, picking up his cup of tea and slurping loudly. He asked Tom where he worked, what he did, but I could tell he wanted to get going. The questions were a filler for the uncomfortable conference we suddenly found ourselves in. He stood up as he gulped the last of his tea and held out his hand to Tom. ‘It was nice to meet you. Take care of yourselves,’ he said, turning to me.

  ‘I’ll walk you out.’ Tom took the cups into the kitchen while we went downstairs to the entrance hall.

  ‘He seems like a nice chap.’

  ‘Yeah. He is.’

  ‘Listen, about the estate agents. Phone me on my mobile, not the landline, OK?’

  ‘OK. Bye, Dad.’

  ‘Bye, darling.’

  My mother’s house had been standing empty since February. It was common knowledge among the local estate agents that the sole occupant had fallen down the stairs and died. In other words, they were waiting for my call. I arranged for three of them to come and value the house on the second Saturday in September. As I followed the first one round, listening to the prosaic agent-speak, I began to see how the house of my childhood was to be marketed. I nodded my head to his view that it would need ‘updating’, but that its ‘generous proportions’ would attract young families. I suddenly saw my mother leaning against the work surface of the kitchen-diner with scope to extend, smoking away the trauma of that morning in the playground. The south-facing bedroom – with room for an en-suite shower – was the scene of her great depression and rejection of my father. And the entrance hall, with original coving, was where I’d stood as a little girl in pyjamas desperate to reach my mother and as a thirty-year-old woman who had failed to catch her.

  I phoned my father later that evening with the three valuations. He was happy for me to choose the agent I wanted to go with. I opted for the first one, not because I thought he was better than the other two but because I didn’t think there was enough of a difference between them to justify protracting the decision.

  I called on Monday morning and officially put my mother’s house on the market. There was to be an open house the following Saturday, and I had to drop off a set of keys to allow access to the property for viewings and marketing photographs.

  On Wednesday lunchtime I received a call from the same estate agent. He’d been into the house to take some pictures but, as he was locking up, the woman next door had asked him what he was doing. ‘I told her the family had made a decision to sell the house.’

  ‘OK. She probably just wants to know what’s going on.’

  ‘I’m sure she does, but she said she’d also like to speak to you.’

  ‘To me? What did you say to her?’

  ‘I said I’d pass the message on.’

  ‘OK, thanks. I’ll try to remember to give her a knock when I’m next over there.’

  He phoned again the following Saturday afternoon, around five thirty. The open house had been a big success in estate agent terms. They’d had seventeen viewings and four offers. All despite the fact that nobody was able to walk out of the kitchen and into the garden.

  ‘I told you, the key’s on a hook beside the French doors.’

  ‘I looked there and couldn’t find it. Do you have a spare set? We have another viewing on Monday at eleven.’

  ‘Not for the French doors. I’ll come and have a dig around in the house for it.’

  ‘OK. Well, if you find it, would you mind dropping it off over the weekend sometime? You can just pop it through our letter box.’

  ‘Will do. Thanks.’

  I was working on an article on the increasing number of council flats being sublet across the capital’s housing estates. I’d had a tip-off that there were a handful of unofficial tenants in Peckham who might be willing to speak to me, but – perhaps worried by the prospect of eviction – they had all become very difficult to track down. My big exposé was looking decidedly tenuous.

  Tom volunteered to take my car and drive to Surbiton to look for the key. I carried on cutting and pasting until the copy became so fragmented it ceased to make sense. I was just about to phone Andy and concede defeat when Tom came home. He closed the door quietly. I waited for him to walk down the hallway but several seconds passed and still he didn’t move.

  ‘Hello?’ I shouted and stood up.

  He was standing by the door, his hand on the latch. He hadn’t taken his jacket off.

  ‘You were a long time. Did you manage to find it?’

  ‘No sign of it. I had to call a locksmith to fit a new lock.’ He delivered this information without looking at me once.

  ‘OK. Thank you. What’s the matter?’

  He had a piece of paper in his left hand. It was hanging by his side.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘What were you doing at The Kings Arms Hotel on the eighth of August?’

  The receipt. He’d found the receipt for the room and Prosecco in my car. I’d stuffed it in the door pocket that day as I tried to phone Helen. I opened my mouth to say something but no sound came out.

  ‘On the way home I tried to come up with all sorts of reasons why you might check into a room on your own. And order Prosecco! But then I remembered that ex-boyfriend of yours. The married one. He lives in Buckinghamshire, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He hung his head and smiled. As if it all made sense. But then I saw his shoulders heave with a huge sob. I walked towards him but he put his hand up. The one still holding the receipt.

  ‘Please, Tom. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So that’s what you were doing. While I was away thinking about you, worrying about the inquest, you were busy fucking someone else.’

  ‘It was a moment of insanity. Totally stupid. I wish I could take it back.’ My gaping inability to speak had given way to clichés.

  I watched his hand on the door latch and thought desperately of what I could say to bring him back to me. But I knew it was the absence of speech that had done for me. I should have told him. The truth would have given us a chance. He took his hand off the latch and fished in his pocket for my car key and the new keys to the French doors. He threw them on the floor, dropped the piece of paper and opened the door.

  ‘Please don’t go,’ I whispered as he closed it hard behind him.

  The mouth, tongue and thyroid gland were unremarkable. The nose was intact and the nostrils were unobstructed.

  When faced with calamity, our first instinct is to find out what happened. We probe the edges of something before moving to the centre – an external examination before the internal one. I was so angry with myself for leaving the receipt in my car that, as I stood in my hallway staring at the closed front door, I began castigating myself for my stupidity: if only I’d thrown it in the bin, shredded it, left David to pay the tab. I wasn’t ready to really consider why I’d betrayed Tom in the first place. I kept going back to the moment I got into my car after leaving the hotel. In my absurdity I found myself blaming Helen: if she’d only answered my fucking calls and emails, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  And as if to confirm my hypothesis, Helen phoned me that afternoon. I was sitting on my sofa, half a bottle of wine down and starting to feel hungry.

  ‘It’s about time. Where have you been?’

  ‘I was on a school trip to Croatia and then … well, then September happened, and I’ve been trying to keep my head above water since then.’

  ‘I sent you an email about my mother’s inquest. You never even replied.’ The wine and heartbreak had made me bolshy.

  ‘I know. I know it all. I couldn’t bring myself to attend, and I knew I couldn’t explain it to you o
ver email. Laura, I’m sorry. Did you go on your own?’

  I thought of David on top of me – his mouth hot and hurried as he thrust inside me. I closed my eyes and felt them burn. Poor Tom.

  ‘Laura, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here. No, my dad came along as well.’

  ‘Oh, he did. That’s good. Listen, I’d love to see you again soon. Do you fancy another walk in Richmond Park?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I mean, yes, but I need to let the dust settle here for a bit.’

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘It’s fine. I’ll give you a ring next week.’

  ‘OK. And listen, I’m sorry for going off the grid there.’

  I wanted to tell her that my life was in pieces again; that I felt broken and unreachable. But she’d already gone.

  I came into a light sleep at around six on Sunday morning. I could tell from the effort of opening them that my eyes were puffy from crying. I checked my phone, hoping for a message from Tom. Even an angry one would have been something, but his silence was like a substantial wall built suddenly overnight, ugly in design and uncompromising in its message. There was nothing to say. I knew I couldn’t spend the day alone. I phoned Andrea.

  ‘Hi love. How are you?’

  ‘Tom and I have broken up.’

  ‘Shit! You’re joking. Why? When?’

  ‘Because I slept with David. Yesterday.’

  ‘You slept with David yesterday?’

  ‘No, he broke up with me yesterday. I slept with David back in August.’

  ‘Fuck. Oh, God. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘Because I’m an absolute idiot. I don’t know, Andrea.’ I started to cry. ‘I just felt like I needed to do something crazy, sort of destructive. It makes no sense. But anyway, it worked. I’ve ruined the one good thing in my life.’

  ‘Oh, love. Maybe when he’s had time to think about it he might come round. You’ve had a pretty rough time of it. You never know, do you?’