Family Drama 3-in-1 Box Set: String Bridge, The Book, Bitter Like Orange Peel

by Jessica Bell

  It is a time to be merry, Ailish. Smile. Enjoy the holidays.

  She spots Eleanor standing outside Readings, where she told her to wait, and flashes a forced grin. Not because she doesn’t want to see Eleanor, but because she can’t seem to muster a natural expression amid the chaos playing devil’s advocate in her mind. She should be thankful, relieved. Kit has finally met Eydie, and she knows Roger’s whereabouts. If Kit were to change her mind and decide to visit him after all, Ailish could get to him first. The cat’s legs are out of the bag. She doesn’t need its body too. What could possibly go wrong now? There’s technically nothing to worry about.

  But it’s not worry that is burdening her. It’s guilt. Guilt is the catalyst for the stiffness she is constantly trying to shrug off from the inside out. She knows she’s never going to feel normal again until Kit actually meets Roger.

  The secret is safe with Harold. Of course it is. And surely Samuel wouldn’t know. He is probably as naïve about Roger’s past as everyone else is. There’s no way Kit will ever be affected by this now.

  Eleanor waves, and glances at a passerby, scratching the side of her nose.

  We forgave each other. We’re fine.

  Ailish takes a deep breath as she approaches. They kiss each other’s cheeks, holding their gaze a little longer than might seem natural, and linger in a silence that borders on the uncomfortable.

  “Turns out no surgery today, then?” Ailish asks, focusing on a small scar under Eleanor’s left eye. As much as she despises the use of idle chitchat to begin a conversation, she can’t grasp any other solution fast enough to ease her discomfort. Ailish rests her hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. Eleanor rests her hand on top of Ailish’s and gives it an affectionate squeeze.

  “Nope. Baby’s not quite strong enough for it yet. We’re going to wait a few more days.”

  “Oh.” Ailish nods and flicks her tongue from her front teeth with a sigh. “So who are we buying for first?”

  “Well, we might as well take a look around and get something for Kit while we’re here. Didn’t you say there was some particular book she wanted?” Eleanor picks pills off her overworn tank top and blows them from her fingers. They land on Ailish’s shoulder. Eleanor doesn’t notice.

  “No, but there is a book I’d like her to have.” Ailish stops Eleanor from entering the shop by tugging on her top. “Elle, we are fine with everything, aren’t we?” Ailish searches Eleanor’s eyes for the young, compassionate, selfless individual she met twenty-five years ago, a woman she seems to have lost touch with since the girls grew up.

  Eleanor makes soothing noises in the back of her throat and takes Ailish in her arms. Her hug is just what Ailish needs. But it feels forced.

  “Of course we are. The past is the past. We’re alive, healthy, and so are our children.” Eleanor releases the embrace and shakes Ailish by her shoulders. “And it’s Christmas. Let’s enjoy it.”

  Ailish, on the brink of becoming teary, swallows the urge to break down. It is not the time or the place. In fact, it never is.

  They browse the bookstore separately. Eleanor heads toward the autobiography section and Ailish toward fiction. She scans the shelves like a sniffer dog until she finds exactly what she’s looking for. Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. She picks it up. Strokes it. Waits for its potent aura to travel through her fingers, her arms, toward her head. But the giddiness she usually feels doesn’t surface; the book’s unique and mystical quality seems tarnished, flawed, false like plastic flowers. She can see its beauty, but she can’t smell it.

  She opens the book and stares at the blank white inside cover.

  She closes her eyes.

  Flicks through the crisp white pages. They fan her face.

  It’s not the copy hidden in her desk drawer. The slice of the Roger she used to know.

  Yes. Why didn’t I think of that before?

  “Did you find it?” Eleanor approaches with a couple of books, inch-thick, hooked under her arm. Ailish blinks a few times, as if being woken up from an accidental doze. Eleanor frowns and rubs Ailish on her back. “Are you all right?”

  “I found it, but I actually don’t think it appropriate after all.” Ailish puts the book back on the shelf next to Gilead and Home.

  “Let’s go and have a look elsewhere, and you can think about what you want in the meantime.” Eleanor lays her books down on a shelf displaying a vast array of colourful plastic folders. “I’ll come back for these later.” She winks. “I need to buy something for Ivy, but I haven’t the faintest idea what she’s into anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if her tastes have changed since living in Seattle. What do you reckon?”

  “Why don’t you just send her some money and have her buy something herself?” Ailish follows Eleanor through the food court, past the German sausage shop. Aromas of weisswurst, sauerkraut, and gourmet mustard fill her nose with a sudden need to splurge on junk. The last time she ate fast food was a year ago when she had a hankering for fish fingers and purchased three frozen packets from the supermarket, then ate them in secret, locked in the bathroom. Afterward she lit a joint and scribbled incomprehensible shite on her sketchpad.

  “Oh, you don’t know?” Eleanor jiggles her shoulders side to side. “She’s coming home.”

  “Oh. For good?”

  “Well, no, for Christmas. Far as I know. Unless she has other plans I don’t know about. Wouldn’t surprise me. She doesn’t tell the full truth about anything these days. I don’t know what’s got into her since the divorce. It’s as if her whole life has had to become this huge secret in order for her to be independent. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t see what there is to be ashamed of.”

  “Doesn’t that worry you?” Ailish clutches her handbag to her chest. An instinctual habit she’s adopted in large crowds since the surgery.

  “It did. Well, it does. But she’s made it pretty clear to me that she doesn’t need my advice. Well, want it, anyway. What I fear the most is that she holds back from seeking my help to maintain her ego. That can’t be healthy, can it?” Eleanor pauses in front of a salad bar to check out the array of fruit. She screws up her nose and flicks her hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t help that she lives on the other side of the world either.”

  “Didn’t you ask why she was coming back?” Ailish asks, praying Eleanor knows.

  “Of course I did. But she just said she misses her family and friends and would like to spend Christmas with us.”

  “Hmm.” Ailish wonders how society has caused the human race to fear honesty so much. And she is no exception. That’s a good essay topic. I might use that next term.

  They walk into Portman’s. Eleanor scans the racks of clothes, then heads toward the summer dresses that are on sale.

  “What do you mean, ‘hmm’?” Eleanor sifts through the dresses, feeling the fabric, checking the zippers and buttons for loose threads.

  “Well, doesn’t it surprise you that she suddenly wants to come home?” You’re kidding me. Now I have another secret I have to keep? No. You will not keep it. Just tell her what Kit said.

  “Not really.” Eleanor snorts. “She mentioned nothing about nothing. I seriously hope she and Kit kiss and make up before Christmas day. Otherwise it’ll be a snide-remark parade.” Eleanor smirks, glances at Ailish. “You know what they’re like. I’m telling you now—we’ll be constantly trying to talk, talk, talk to prevent that silence triggering some sort of confrontational verbal diarrhea. I mean, at least for our sanity, is there any way you can convince Kit to forgive her?”

  Ailish bites her bottom lip and pulls out a dress she thinks will suit Eleanor—a lilac cheesecloth V-neck frock—in the hope that it might cushion what she’s about to say. Eleanor pouts, nods, and hangs it over her arms before moving to the next rack. “Elle, I’m afraid Kit’s forgiveness is going to be the least of your problems.”

  “Why?” Eleanor looks up from the dresses with a frown.

  “Ivy called Kit the other day and told her she’s
decided to meet Roger.” Ailish scans Eleanor’s face in preparation to soothe her.

  “What?” Eleanor shrieks, stumbling and accidentally unhooking a couple of dresses from their hangers and letting them fall to the floor.

  Ailish picks them up and puts them back, making sure the sizes on the dress tags match the sizes marked on the hangers. “I thought I’d better let you know so you can prepare for the consequences.”

  Eleanor flings the dress she’s holding over the rack, buries her face in her hands, and walks out of the store. “Oh, shit, fuck, shit, fuck!” She takes a deep breath, holding one hand to her forehead and the other on her hip.

  Ailish chuckles. “Now you know how I’ve been feeling all this time with Kit.”

  “What am I supposed to do now?” Eleanor asks, looking up with flushed cheeks and glazed eyes.

  “Just tell her. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this whole experience, it is that there’s nothing wrong with hiding something you fear might be disappointing to someone you love. It’s absolutely understandable and logical in its own right. She’ll forgive you. And to be honest, the visit will probably be so exciting, Ivy won’t want to leave.” Ailish’s stomach turns at her flippant sarcasm. The thought of Roger being a bore is almost as hurtful as the recent weeks put together. Roger used to be fuller of life and enthusiasm than anyone she has ever known. She can only imagine what the stroke has done to him.

  Eleanor massages her brow.

  “Ivy loses interest fairly quickly anyway,” Ailish continues. “We both know that. Let her meet him. Let her become disinterested, and then it’ll all be over with and we can get on with life, with everything, and go back to normal.”

  “Fuck!” Eleanor yells, clenching her jaw.

  “Eleanor,” Ailish whispers through closed teeth. “We’re in public.”

  “Sorry, it’s just that I knew the moment Ivy called to ask me where Roger was for Kit that everything would fall apart. Ivy is going to flip out. I told her I’d keep the money for whenever she was ready to use it.”

  “Well, just don’t tell her then. You told Samuel to keep it a secret. Right?”

  Eleanor nods.

  “There’s no reason she has to know. And it’s not all that bad a secret, Elle. Just think of it as an anonymous donation. There’s nothing wrong with that. You donate to the Royal Children’s all the time.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course. Why not?”

  “Okay. An anonymous donation,” Eleanor says with a sigh. “I can live with that. I can.”

  Ailish rubs Eleanor on her upper back and winces internally at the secret she is desperate to exhale.

  I will tell her. After Christmas.

  Ailish takes a deep breath, stands up, and holds out her hand. “Come on. Let’s finish buying those presents.”

  On Ailish’s way home, with a backseat full of gifts wrapped in recycled wrapping paper, she drops by her office at the university to grab the book. Just as she locates it and slips it into her bag, Harold pokes his head through the door.

  “‘The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one,’ Ailish. It’s Christmas, you should be imagining yourself without one,” Harold says, shaking his head and entering her office.

  Ailish turns around with a little spring in her spin and smiles with a flirtatious click of her tongue. “Why is it, Harry, that you only ever quote Oscar Wilde to me?” she asks, putting her hands behind her back and leaning forward to give him a quick peck on the mouth. “You’re not trying to hint at anything, are you?” she adds, lifting herself to her toes.

  “Ailish Healy!” Harold exclaims in a playful tone, folding his arms against his chest. “How could you possibly even suggest such a thing? I am, without a doubt, as straight as a lamppost, dear.” He winks. “I should be asking you such a question, should I not?”

  “What do you mean?” Ailish puts her arms around his waist and gazes upward with her chin resting on his chest.

  “I should be asking if perhaps you like to swing in the opposite direction.” He wobbles his head and raises his eyebrows. He takes her hand and spins her around to waltz. Ailish curtsies and follows his lead.

  “I beg your pardon?” Ailish asks, slipping smoothly into the dance. One, two, three. One, two, three. Harold hums “Air on a G String” before easing into his reply.

  “You’ve been willingly fooling around with me, on and off for ten years now, Allie dear, and you have never once followed through on any of my humble offers of commitment,” he whispers, kissing Ailish on the forehead. She rests the right side of her face on his chest in silence and closes her eyes.

  It’s time to let go.

  “Nor have you introduced me to your family. I’m very thankful, I think you must know, of finally having the pleasure of meeting your lovely daughter through her doing an internship here. Do you really think I’d have a problem with meeting the remarkable product of Roger and your beautiful self?”

  Ailish shakes her head without lifting it from Harold’s chest. His shirt smells vaguely of mothballs, but it’s comforting. She’d forgotten how much so. Harold maintains his lead, moving Ailish into each elegant step as if they are as light as carbon paper drifting to the ground from a high-rise building.

  “He was one of the smartest fellows I’d ever known. And I have definitely come to accept that, to you, no one can replace him. But.”

  Ailish lifts her head, ready to interrupt, but Harold gently pushes it back down again.

  “I certainly do not want to accept that you might not ever be willing to let me into your heart. As Harry. I know I will never replace Roger. But do you ever think you may learn to love me? For who I am?” Harold stops dancing and lifts Ailish’s head. “You know I love you. I have ever since the day I met you as an innocent, struggling student.”

  “Harry. I do love you for who you are. I just ...” Ailish stares into Harold’s kind slanting eyes, full of heed and yearning.

  “You know as well as I do that I am not the kind to judge.” Harold touches a finger to Ailish’s lips. He whispers, “You are a good mother, Allie dear.”

  Ailish swallows. Rests her head on Harold’s chest again. A tear melts into his shirt. “I am?”

  “Push what you saw from your mind. It’s been such a long time.”

  But I’m burdened with guilt. The longer I keep this inside, the more I’ll end up pushing Kit away trying to hide it.

  “So,” Harold says, holding Ailish by her shoulders at arm’s length. “You said you had a little surprise for me?”

  “Oh, yes. I almost forgot. How would you”—Ailish pauses and adopts an exultant smile, tilting her head to the side in lure —“like to join us for lunch on Christmas day?”

  Eleanor

  She sips her cup of coffee at the kitchen table, with The Age newspaper spread open in front of her, checking the clock every few minutes. It’s five a.m., and Ivy is due to walk through the door any second now.

  Eleanor had intended to pick her up from the airport, but Ivy sent her a message saying she had found a ride and would see her at home. A ride with whom, she has no idea, nor does she give a rat’s arse, but she sure hopes Ivy doesn’t invite them in. She can’t find the enthusiasm to get dressed and presentable for anyone, let alone a complete stranger after completing a forty-eight-hour shift at the hospital, and a major eight-hour surgery to boot. But perhaps she’ll slip on a sports bra just in case. No need to scare the poor stranger out of their wits with her droopy post-middle-aged breasts and daunting dark nipples crying, “Hey, look at Mama,” through the thin cotton fabric of her nightdress.

  After putting her undergarment on, Eleanor returns to the kitchen table and opens the newspaper to the puzzle pages to distract herself from her guilt-ridden anxiety. The stress of whether to tell Ivy she’s spent all her money on a man she is supposed to hate is beginning to grate on her psyche.

  One across. Crushed fare given to each tender convert. Twelve letters.
What? I can’t do cryptics to save my bloody life.

  “What do you think this one is, Allie?” she says out loud, as if Ailish were, in fact, sitting by her side.

  She looks at the clock again: 5:10. Does she tell Ivy the truth or not? And is it really a big deal when all she was doing was trying to protect a man from another disappointment? And after Ivy’s divorce, she couldn’t bear telling her he would no longer be the man he was. Ivy needs a strong, confident, and motivated father figure in her life. Not another weak and vulnerable influence to push her further down a dead-end road. So she made sure Ivy would never find out, by bribing his brother. Knowing very well he didn’t have the funds to rehabilitate Roger in a private hospital, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

  My actions were justifiable.

  “Right. You’re impossible,” she says to the crossword as she sifts for the entertainment section.

  What movies are on tonight? How ’bout it? A place where we won’t have to talk. That will at least get me through the first night. Eleanor clicks her tongue. “Relatively stress-free.”

  Ivy

  Ivy and Amir roll into Eleanor’s driveway in his company Smart. Amir has recently been promoted to cabin crew supervisor, and he seems proud of it. Probably more proud than he would have been if they were still together. A sign that he has most definitely moved on. Right?

  He switches off the ignition and turns to face her. The combination of crisp car interior and Allure Homme aftershave tickles Ivy’s nose. Ivy smiles and sighs, ogling Amir in his chic black-and-beige uniform, wondering whether it would be inappropriate to kiss him on the cheek for being so polite to drive her home. Amir clears his throat, pulls up the hand brake, and slips the gear stick into Neutral.