The best thing about trips like this, he thought, is telling Kim about them afterwards. She’s so appalled by the decadence, extravagance, and overindulgence that she goes pale with fury and splutters. It’s always entertaining to see her lost for words.
Giles prodded Harry in the ribs. “I think you might be in there.”
In where? Harry followed Giles’s gaze. Emily, the only female analyst on the trip, was being helped by a very attentive coach to position the shotgun into the hollow of her shoulder. She gave a little toss of her red hair, as if she knew she was being watched.
“She keeps giving you the eye,” said Giles in his Etonian drawl.
“I think you’re imagining it.”
“Wish I were. Wouldn’t mind getting in there myself.”
Harry smiled. “I’m spoken for.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot. The terrifying Titania. The Iron Lady. No one ever calls her Titty, I notice.”
“I think they might regret it if they did.”
Giles roared with laughter. “I tell you, Harry, if you ever get tired of her, you let me know. I’ll be over like a shot.”
“Pull!” shouted Emily in a loud, clear voice. The target arched out of the skeet into the murky gray sky, and she fired.
“Score!” shouted Giles, an explosion of excitement.
• • •
“Kim? Can you hear me? I’m by the pool. At Jean-Marc’s house. Such a beautiful old villa. Up in the hills. Lemons, figs, oleander. But I don’t know how good the reception is.”
“I can hear you perfectly.”
“I’ve booked my flights. Three weeks’ time. Nice to Paris, Paris to London. I get in at two in the afternoon, September sixth. But of course, I don’t expect you to meet me at the airport. I can easily carry my own bags.”
“No, I can be there.”
“Such a shame you don’t drive. But I don’t think the Heathrow Express will be that exhausting, will it?”
“I could book a cab. Although it’s quite—”
“Only if you’re sure. It’s probably not that much more expensive if there’s two of us. Or three, if Eva comes.”
“She might be teaching.”
“Teaching?”
“Guitar.”
“How extraordinary.”
“She’s been taking on more pupils because it’s going to be harder to get around from now on. She can’t really travel round Europe as she used to.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m coming. To give Eva some moral support. Of course, she’s not going to be the only single parent in the world. But this can’t be easy for her. So I don’t want to put either of you to any trouble.”
“It’s fine. Really. You can have my room. I would offer you the box room, but it’s full of junk. A lot of it’s yours—”
“I was thinking of booking into a hotel. But then of course I wouldn’t be able to spend so much time with my daughters.”
“Really, Mum, it’s no problem. I can share with Eva for a few days.”
“In the big room? My old room?”
“The one at the front.”
“Such a lovely bright room. So important to make the most of whatever sunshine there is in England. Because you know I do suffer from SAD. Seasonal affective disorder. That’s why I went to the South of France, really. For the sunshine.”
“Are you saying you want Eva to move out of her room?”
“Oh, good heavens, no! She’s pregnant. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience her in any way. How’s she feeling at the moment?”
“She gets heartburn.”
“Oh, I remember that. With both of you. Although of course it’s the birth itself that causes the long-term problems. Especially if the baby’s late. Like you were. And how’s she sleeping at the moment?”
“Fine, I think—”
“I only ask because the mattress in the big room is quite soft. I remember that. Fine for me, obviously. But she might find a firmer mattress suits her better as she gets bigger.”
“Are you saying that you’d like to have Eva’s room, and Eva should move into my room, and I should sleep on the sofa?”
“Why—do you think that’s a good idea? It hadn’t even occurred to me. But I’m completely happy if you think that might be the best solution.”
• • •
What I don’t understand, thought Kim, at the top of the loft ladder—peering into an attic full of the accumulated junk of twenty-five years’ worth of family chaos—is how Harry managed to get himself so mixed up in our lives. None of my friends have their sisters’ attachments coming round for Sunday lunch, turning up at birthdays, hanging round on bank holidays, and inviting themselves round for Christmas. He doesn’t ask. He just assumes. A family friend. Like a creepy uncle.
I never liked it. Even before I found out he was cheating on Eva. Like the time he turned up just as we were going to Brighton for the day. Kim, holding on to the aluminum ladder, stared into space. It was the summer I was seventeen. Eva was going to her Welsh commune for a month, teaching guitar workshops, and this was our last special day before she went, before I lost her for the whole of August. I stood there in my straw hat and blue sundress and said, What’s he doing here? We had the picnic all packed, with Mr. Kipling fondant fancies, and cloudy lemonade, and salt and vinegar crisps, all silly stuff reminding us of our childhood, and it was going to be just me and Eva on the pebble beach, in the Lanes, on the pier. Just the two of us throwing chips at the seagulls. And then, suddenly, there was Harry in a white T-shirt that showed off the muscles in his arms, looking at me as if this was some kind of huge joke. She said, Don’t stress, he can drive us there. And I said, But we were going on the train. A special offer on the train. And she said, But the car will be quicker. And I said, But why’s he coming? Why’s he here? And she just smiled and said, We’ll have a good time.
And I remember thinking, No, this is the way it works: you’ll have a good time, he’ll have a good time, and I’ll just sit there getting in the way. Like I always do. Sitting on the big gray pebbles watching you and him cavorting in the waves.
I’d spent years trying to make sense of it. Once Eva was sitting in the garden playing her guitar, pretending to be Mama Cass (which she really could do, pretty much, because she had the same kind of voice), and I went and sat next to her on the grass, pulling at those stiff stalks that stick up all over the place and never break, just bend. When she’d stopped singing, and was letting her fingers walk over the strings, trying out new sounds, I said, “Why does Harry spend so much time at our house?”
It was probably that same summer as the Brighton trip. Or maybe the year before, when I was doing my GCSEs.
She said, “Why? Don’t you like it?”
Even then, we weren’t always straight with each other. I don’t know why. Maybe in case the truth was too frightening. “I just wondered.”
She smiled and picked out the tune of “It’s Getting Better.”
I said, “Doesn’t he have a home of his own?”
“Have you asked him?”
Me? Why would I ask him anything? “No.”
“Maybe you should.”
Why? Why can’t you tell me?
But Eva had a way of sliding off anything she didn’t want to talk about. There wasn’t any point in haranguing her when that happened. You could go on and on asking questions forever and she’d just smile.
The worst time was my birthday. My eighteenth birthday. Saturday morning. February 2003. We were sitting there in the kitchen, Christine and Damaris from next door, Eva and me. Mum wasn’t there. We hadn’t seen her for days. She’d gone off to have dinner at the Ritz and never came back.
And then the doorbell rang, and Eva smiled, the way she does, and I thought, OK, so this is some kind of surprise she’s cooked up for today, and I was so excited I could hardly breathe, and then suddenly, filling the doorway, there was Harry. Grinning from ear to ear. And the atmosphere changed because Damaris looked down, all flustered,
and Christine started fussing about whether he’d had breakfast, and Eva was all shiny, like she always is when he’s around. And he handed me a tiny blue box with a white ribbon. Everything was in slow motion. Time became all long and pulled out, like a slippery silk scarf. On the box, it said TIFFANY & CO, and inside were diamond earrings. In the shape of flowers. Daisies.
Christine said, Well, Harry, in a voice that was almost disapproving, like she thought he’d spent half his yearly salary (because she didn’t know he was always throwing money around on flash holidays and restaurants). Damaris was making silly, girly, fluttery noises, which she never did, because she had her head screwed on and was going to be a doctor. And Eva said, Shall I help you put them in?
It’s hard putting earrings in for someone else. You can’t find the holes, and it takes ages, and it’s like waiting for water to boil when the gas isn’t even alight. I sat there, in my old jeans and Bikini Kill T-shirt, and the longer it went on, the more I wanted to cry, because it was all ruined, everything was ruined. He was making some kind of point, but I didn’t know what it was. Except that it was big and male and squashed me flat so I couldn’t breathe.
Then Eva stood back and said, They’re beautiful, they’re so beautiful.
And I looked up, and Harry was staring at me. I hated it. I felt myself going bright red. And for a moment, I thought he was going to come out with one of his horrible remarks, one of those lazy laughing digs at my feminist reading group, or being antinuclear, or trying to wake people up to climate change, and I tensed, waiting, just waiting for that big grin before he put the knife in, that big grin that said, Lighten up, Kim, lost your sense of humor, can’t you take a joke?
But he didn’t smile. He just looked at me. And he said, in a quiet voice, Happy birthday.
And I had a really funny feeling that I’d done something wrong. And this made me mad, because all I’d done so far was get up, get dressed, open a card from my dad with a check in it, and tear the sparkly paper off presents from Eva and Damaris and Christine. What did he want me to do? Burst into tears and say, Oh, Harry, Harry, diamond earrings, you shouldn’t have, just what I always wanted?
And we just stared at each other. And then he looked away.
I never wear them. Ever. They’re in a drawer in my bedside table, still in their Tiffany box. I try not to see them even when I’m looking straight at them. Because they make me sad. And I don’t know why.
“What are you doing up there?”
Eva was looking up from the landing beneath, her blue dressing gown tied over the bump. Eighteen weeks.
“I thought I ought to make a start at clearing out the loft.”
“Really?” Eva leant against the wall, looking exhausted. “I don’t think anyone’s been in there for years. There’s probably even some of Dad’s stuff up there.”
Which will go straight in the bin.
“And Harry’s.”
“There’s Harry’s stuff up here?”
Eva nodded.
“Why?”
“Oh, you know,” she said vaguely. “Boxing gloves.”
“What?”
“Boxing gloves.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Eva yawned and rubbed her eyes. “You know. Right hook. Jab. Uppercut. Do you want a cup of tea?”
And she wandered off downstairs to brew up raspberry leaf or chamomile or whatever pregnancy-friendly health-food stuff she was drinking, and I stood there on the aluminum ladder—half in the loft, half out—and thought, Boxing? No. Not Harry. Harry doesn’t fight people.
He just hurts them by laughing at them.
• • •
“And then I got to the box on the form that said, Why do you want to be a teacher? And I thought, But I don’t. I don’t want to be a teacher.” Izzie looked up in distress.
It was a Saturday afternoon in late August. Every so often, the foundations of the Nunhead house shook as cars with speakers the size of dog kennels boomed their way past. The air was flat and useless, as if someone had sucked all the goodness out of it. Izzie had just arrived from Newcastle. She quite often dressed in a slightly haphazard way, like someone decorating a cake who starts off with chocolate buttons and decides halfway through that lattice icing would look much better. Kim suspected her mind was usually on other things. But today, her choices seemed even more random than usual. Izzie was wearing small brown ankle boots, a long red taffeta skirt, a man’s black waistcoat with silver buttons, and a double row of pearls. Her wild brown hair was piled on top of her head and secured with a pencil. The overall effect, strangely, was demure and conservative, like Edith Wharton at her country estate.
Kim, who only ever wore black jeans and a T-shirt, was deeply impressed.
“So I don’t know what to do,” said Izzie, on the brink of tears. “I thought I had it all worked out. And now it’s unraveling. Like a piece of bad knitting.”
Kim took a deep breath. This called for clear thinking. “OK, let’s start with the negatives. You don’t want to teach. What else do you definitely not want to do?”
“Live with my parents.”
Kim opened her mouth to speak and shut it again.
“It doesn’t stop. Ever since I told them I’d changed my mind. ‘You don’t have to teach forever, pet. But it’s a useful skill to fall back on. Because you know life’s not easy these days. There are bills to pay. There’s gas and electric and water. And then you’ve got your Council Tax. Not to mention food. Have you seen the prices? Your father and I love having you here. Of course we do. But once we’re gone, how are you going to manage?’ ”
It was as if Izzie’s mother was sitting in the room.
“It’s not funny,” said Izzie.
Kim wiped the smile off her face. “So you don’t want to be a teacher. And you don’t want to live with your parents. Is there anything you do want to do?”
Izzie hesitated.
“What?” said Kim.
“Live in London.”
Kim’s face lit up. “With me?”
“I could look after Eva’s baby. In return for a free room.”
Kim frowned. “I might not be living with Eva.”
“Why?”
“I’m not that keen on living somewhere that Harry’s paying for.”
Izzie opened her eyes wide. “He’s going to pay for it? A whole flat?”
Kim nodded.
“What’s that if it isn’t a guilty conscience?”
As usual, whenever conversation turned to Harry, Kim felt herself squirming and coiling, like a worm exposed to sunlight. She said, to change the subject, “So what are you going to do? If you’re not going to teach?”
Izzie shrugged. “Earn some money.”
“Doing what?”
“Stacking shelves?”
Kim looked gloomy. “I think you need a master’s to do that these days.”
“Oh,” said Izzie, shocked. “You didn’t get it? The research job?”
“I still haven’t heard anything.” Kim bit her lip. “I’m trying not to think about it. But it was perfect. A national charity campaigning against homelessness.”
“Which, given your personal circumstances,” said Izzie, “sounds ideal.”
• • •
Whenever she and Harry were alone together without Eva, Kim felt embarrassed. They were like two politicians meeting in a corridor in Brussels, desperately in need of a translator.
On this particular Sunday afternoon, Eva was upstairs asleep when Kim got back from the supermarket. Eva often disappeared to her room these days. “It’s all these baby cells multiplying and growing,” she’d say. “It’s exhausting.” Kim wandered into the kitchen, carrying her plastic carrier bags, to find Harry sitting at the table. It shouldn’t have surprised her. He still treated the Nunhead house as his second home. But her heart banged unpleasantly at the sight of him. One moment she was thinking about nothing very much—the crunch of Cox’s apples, how Condoleezza Rice
found time to play the piano. The next she was on red alert, marshalling her thoughts into a defensive position, turning herself into a fiercely guarded fortress with archers on the turrets and boiling oil at the ready.
Harry had the local paper open on the table in front of him. “So where should it be?”
“What?”
“Eva’s new flat.”
Kim put the shopping on the working surface by the kettle. “Ask Eva.”
“I have asked Eva. She said to ask you.”
Kim frowned. “Why?”
“Because she wants to be near you. Obviously.”
Kim turned her back and took out an economy jar of store-brand instant coffee. “Izzie and I are looking round New Cross.”
“Very edgy.”
“Edgy?”
“On trend.”
“You have no idea,” said Kim, swinging round to face him, “what you’re talking about.”
Harry laughed.
“We’re looking round New Cross because that’s all we can afford.”
“I could help.”
“No.”
“Just no?”
Kim narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want your help.”
Harry sat back in his chair. “Look at it this way. I work in the City and make an obscene amount of money. You’ve just got a short-term charity job that will pay you almost nothing. If I make a small contribution towards your rent, it’s a redistribution of wealth. Social justice in action. The triumph of New Labour.”
“It’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
Kim glared at him. “You’re Eva’s friend. If you want to pay for her flat, that’s fine.” It’s your bloody baby. “But you’re not my friend. I don’t want any money from you.”
Don't Get Me Wrong Page 5
