Mother was never one to do things by halves, but she’d pulled out all the stops and then some. She could’ve been feeding the five thousand with the sheer weight of food on the gaudy dining table, spindly legs ready to snap under the burden of sharpened knives, asparagus spears and oysters bare against once tight shells. Mother preferred to pick at her food. She wasn’t big on the whole meal concept.
They were dressed in their usual get-up, like they’d wandered in off the set of some landed gentry melodrama. Once mentioning my mother’s wardrobe had a section dedicated wholly to silk scarves, there wasn’t much else to say.
‘Darling, drink up. This is cause for celebration. Where in the cellar did you find this, Howie? It’s an excellent year,’ she scoffed, the Spanish red churning against the glass before she admired the bouquet.
Her voice was taut like her neck, skin strained over bone. The words came sieved through veneers already yellowing, like old Tupperware. Like Stable Hill Manor she was ageing, one loose thread and split fingernail at a time. She also didn’t know what she was talking about when it came to the claret. One paltry wine tasting course and she was a sozzled and seasoned pro, apparently.
‘She’s not interested in wine.’ My father observed me through square lenses while scratching at his beard, probably stashing a morsel of food for later. The facial hair was a prerequisite of his later years. He’d never sported a beard before negotiating the heights of his late fifties, though for work (which was now only part time), it remained neat and trimmed.
‘She’s not interested in the food either,’ Mother added. ‘What on earth is the matter with you? You’ve hardly said two words all day. I only heard you pipe up when you thought Will was forming the welcome party. And what are you wearing?’
I looked down, pulling at the viscose. ‘It’s called a playsuit.’
‘It’s called go-and-put-something-else-on. Honestly, it’s upsetting my inner-ear imbalance.’
‘It’s Pucci!’
‘It’s a monstrosity. Take it off.’
The blond bob wobbled like a wig, the gold draping her frame like the extra weight was too much; a walking advertisement for how not to grow old gracefully.
She grimaced at my father and then at me. I had my weapon cocked and ready but waited for the right moment to blow the scorn off her face.
Joe may have insisted on this journey, but he’d refused point-blank to join me, worried his appearance might give my mother a heart attack. I’d told him it would take a hell of a lot more to kill a woman like my mother, though now I was here I knew who’d had the better idea.
My father shot me a purposeful glance. ‘We’re just glad you’re home. Chicago is not the place for you. Some things are meant to stay in the past and that city is one of them.’
‘I can’t stay here,’ I blurted out. ‘I’m going back in a couple of days.’
‘Back where?’ Mother chimed in.
‘Umm, Chicago?’
‘But you’re home now. Howie, tell her she’s home now.’
‘Rosa . . .’
‘But of course you’re staying. You can meet with Will and we’ll book Appleford church for next month.’ Another bob-wobble. ‘We can get this mess sorted as soon as possible.’
‘Church? Mother, I’m not marrying Will. We’re not together!’
‘But that’s why you came back. Surely that’s why you came back.’ The concern grew like a rash, the bob going into overdrive.
‘It had nothing to do with the plane ticket you forced on me after ringing a thousand times?’
‘You’d have come home eventually. What was the harm in it being sooner?’
‘I got married. In Chicago.’
Shit. Misguided in my desire to confess, my imagined scenario on the plane had gone a little better. Judging by my mother’s densely grave expression, anyone would have thought I’d killed the pet pooch.
‘Married? Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve not been gone a month, and I know Will hasn’t left the country. God knows, I don’t think he’s left the house, Margaret was saying.’
The Spanish red quivered, her free hand wavering like she was conducting the London Philharmonic. She huffed and puffed, rearranged the cutlery, then folded and unfolded the floral napkin before exhausting herself of things to tidy.
My father reached for her arm. ‘Rosa, let her explain.’
They both looked at me like I was about to pull a rabbit from a hat.
‘He’s a delivery driver for UPS,’ came my tiny voice.
‘Are you saying it’s true? You’re married?’ she asked.
‘I met him at a bar. He proposed. We were married at St. Martinus Church on May twelfth. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I wanted to do it face to face.’
There was a short silence before my mother let loose a cackle. ‘May twelfth? But that was on Saturday. That’s when I rang you! You are having one of your episodes. You have lost your mind.’
My father again reached for her arm, like it could somehow soften the blow.
‘No, Howie . . . no,’ she scolded.
I hadn’t robbed anyone at knifepoint or almost overdosed shooting up. I hadn’t done anything worthy of my mother’s abhorrence. And this time? I’d simply followed my heart, or my gut, or both.
‘He sounds great. Right, Rosa? He have a name, darling?’
At least my dad was trying.
‘Joe. Joe Petrozzi. His dad was Italian . . . is Italian; I’m not sure. I haven’t met his family yet.’
‘You haven’t met his parents? These people could be anyone! These people could be . . .’ My mother stood with all the regality she could muster, folding her wafer-thin arms so tight they could’ve snapped. ‘Get out.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t you hear me? I don’t want you in this house!’
‘Wait, Rosa. Look at the poor girl; she’s in floods of tears.’
‘Get her out of here,’ came her monotone and rigid point.
Floods might have been exaggeration on my father’s part, but poised on my lower lashes the tears were ready and willing. ‘You don’t even know him!’ I shouted, but left it at that. I toyed with throwing in a he’s everything you don’t want for me, but didn’t want my mother’s head to explode. ‘Why are you doing this?’ Pulling at her arm, I was distastefully shaken off.
‘What is the matter with you? You haven’t caused this family enough shame already? Not only over Will, but . . . what happened, before.’
The walls began to flux, like the ebb and flow of a river.
‘Rosa, we don’t need to talk about those kinds of things.’
‘No, Dad. If she wants to talk about it, let her.’
But my mother didn’t want to talk about it. She closed her mouth and pursed her lips, like she was about to unleash fire and damnation on me, but it didn’t come.
I’d had some problems. There’d been a dash of psychosis and a lot of neuroses. The admissions were a precaution, for my own good, and every time I had an episode I was ferried back and prescribed more pills. I knew they wanted me back at the clinic, that only a crazy girl could abandon their fiancé without explanation, and now they knew about Joe, Mother’s manner had a definite whiff of clinic about it.
‘Now you’ve married a stranger, goodness knows how far beneath you, after only a month? How could you be so stupid? After the first shambles of a wedding, it’s a wonder Doctor Phillip didn’t admit me on grounds of ill health. Now look what you’ve done. I can’t show my face at the tennis club for months after this.’
‘Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Mother.’
‘Young lady—’
‘It’s Mrs Petrozzi now.’
I silenced her, but only momentarily.
Then she turned to my father. ‘Howie, don’t just stand there, go and book her a flight. She’s made her decision. Let her go back to the vagabond.’
‘Vagabond?’
‘What else is he? Most twenty-six-year-old girls would kill for a
wealthy connected husband. You almost had one, and you threw him away, for what?’
‘I didn’t want Will. I didn’t want him! We made each other miserable. Don’t you get that?’
‘You’ve thrown him away for a hoodlum. Yes, Will Edelmann’s nose is slightly unfortunate, but you could’ve done a lot worse. Evidently, you have. Will is poised to take over at Bryson’s next year, his father is Edmund Edelmann for god’s sake. Not a patch on a Domino’s Pizza boy.’
‘He’s a courier, Mother.’
‘Do you think that matters? Do you think anything matters after this? Howie, make sure the ticket is one-way. I assume you appreciate the connotation, girl.’ She herded my father through the dining room door before turning back to me like a toreador. ‘One day you’ll realise there’s more to life than following your heart.’
Upstairs, the sobs caught in my throat, my breathing a stuttering mess. The open suitcase beckoned me, my hastily purchased wedding gown pouring out over the sides.
I’d dragged it back to England to draw my new husband, and life, near. Quivering fingers traced the cigarette burn, my sorrow cold and clotted. I wasn’t torn in two but like my first wedding dress, I was a thousand pieces of silk.
Gold damask plastered every inch of wall in this, my old room, now the master guest suite. They never had any actual guests, only hundreds of acquaintances, the sole pretence of the Gatsby-esque cocktail parties. Since the theft, few had been allowed into that hallowed hall of trust.
I knelt by the wall, tearing at a corner, peeling back the layers to uncover the peach flock, the band posters, the lost girl. It was bare. There was nothing but plasterboard.
My parents lived at one of Hertfordshire’s most prestigious addresses and weren’t ashamed to flaunt their stolen wealth. My dad’s Bentley Continental sat near the annexe as my mother’s Aston Martin occupied the drive. The garage was for their weekend cars. The Georgian-style exterior mirrored the manor houses littering the countryside for miles around. Dinner parties couldn’t pass without my mother noting she was descended from such wealth, but it was horse manure. I always felt like jumping in and explaining for all her airs and graces, my mother had grown up in a council house in Putney and had been a touring dancer when she met my father in Chicago. She wouldn’t know aristocracy if it jumped out of her lobster with thyme velouté.
Now this house was a reminder to my life passé, the one with Will and the first wedding, the thousands of pounds earmarked for flowers and a horse-drawn carriage (beyond tacky) to the Norman church. I was to wave at the well-wishers like a cross between a member of the Royal Family and a footballer’s wife. Then there was the reception, at Stable Hill. What better opportunity for my mother to display her wares? It wasn’t my day, but then again, it never had been.
Now I more than regretted my decision to abandon Joe so soon, to cross an ocean to be met by a condescending mother and long-suffering father. The only person I wanted, needed, was Joe, and he was thousands of miles behind me.
Returning to the bed, the dress clung to my cheek, my skin pricked by barbs of silk. This room, the candelabras, French grey bookcases and four-poster . . . it was like Laura Ashley had thrown up its spring/summer catalogue, a soulless piece of handy work designed to forget I was ever here. As soon as I’d moved to Kensington with Will, as soon as they were rid of me, they’d erased their only daughter for good, and now it was happening all over again. Mother only wanted me here so she didn’t have to cancel her tennis membership, so life could be neat again, the way they’d planned it.
From my seat on the bedroom windowsill the hours passed quietly, the chorus of birdsong incessant and trying. Lovebirds swooped over the lake, climbing in case danger lurked below the rippled top, hidden and secret in a place so serene.
And then it came, my taxi back to the airport, bouncing along the swooping drive like a rickety cart.
Before long I was out on the drive, swapping from my monstrous playsuit into denim shorts and a Breton top, and heading for the black Hackney carriage while fervently tugging my weighty case as it snagged on the gravel. I didn’t want to look back, but I knew my dad was watching my clumsy progress from the doorway. As I turned to say goodbye, he dared a little wave.
Now only the closed door remained. As the driver stowed my suitcase, I took my seat. Retrieving the printed flight itinerary, the hastily purchased flights my dad had insisted on financing, a blue slip of paper fell out onto my lap. In my father’s neat handwriting were details of the untouched account with Eagle First.
I gasped. Now I was leaving, and possibly forever, I understood why he’d done this, though I still felt unease, that somehow this was my pay-off and fee in exchange for never darkening their door again. No. My dad wouldn’t do that. He was protecting me, ensuring I was looked after for the rest of my . . . for the rest of our lives.
Five million dollars and fifteen years of interest. I wouldn’t tell Joe yet. I probably wouldn’t even touch the account. The police could still be monitoring it, waiting for someone to make a move. My own account was over two hundred grand in the black, thanks to my dad’s generous allowance. It wasn’t like I needed the money . . . yet.
As I put a hand to the taxi glass, Mother stared out from the sitting room window, my father the pale shadow behind her.
FOUR
Whoever said airline food was the work of the devil wasn’t kidding, and that was in Business Class. God, I was cranky. Maybe my mother disowning me, dissing my new husband and dispelling me from the house had something to do with it. There was some good news at least. I was going home; to my new life, old life, whatever it was. At least it was a life with Joe in it, and after a tearful phone call in the cab on the way to the airport, I was aching to see him.
Seriously jetlagged and back on the other side of the Atlantic in an airport the size of a small town, the same three suitcases circled the baggage belt. Whispering a prayer to Saint Anthony in case mine was lost in purgatory, I gave the arrivals gate an expectant glance.
To say the trip back to the ’rents hadn’t gone quite to plan? Understatement of the year. Stable Hill had no neighbours but I gave it a week before news of my return, and my impromptu wedding, circumnavigated the village. When the story reached Will, I hoped the Chinese whispers had gone into overdrive: Did you hear? She married that guy from the new Superman movie. He’s huge in Hollywood. He’s even taking her to the Oscars.
Another wave of tears threatened, sunglasses necessity rather than fashion statement. I had to stop, to rescue my sanity and fourth application of foundation. Besides, Joe had never seen me cry, a very good thing. I usually resembled a red-faced baboon.
Practising a smile, I dabbed a tissue under my sunglasses as the cases emerged, battered and worn from their distressing journey in baggage class.
A quick survey of the entrance gate provided a sea of blank faces. Some were half hidden by unpronounceable names scrawled on ring binders and cards, like a bizarre United Nations. Attack dogs, AK47s and unyielding boys in blue guarded the vast windows over to my left as I looked out to a soundless outside, deaf to the exhausts and shouts and sirens with voices cut from the enunciating lips.
Through the tumult and off to the left was Joe, sunbathing on the bonnet of his Chevelle; glasses on, chest bare and a cigarette on his lips. My heart fluttered, like I’d breathed in too fast. His car was skewed skilfully over the loading bay. That must’ve taken at least three attempts, to sufficiently stick his middle finger up at authority.
Once out in the blinding sunshine and hot spring air, I was doing my best mime impression as I struggled over the concourse with my ten-ton weight of a case. I waved, only slightly manically, for Joe to help me the hell out, though it seemed I was invisible. It wasn’t until I negotiated the barrage of taxis and landed at his side that I poked him in the stomach and he jumped upright, discarding his earphones in the process.
‘Baby! That you? I mean, damn right it’s you. C’mere.’ From his seat on the bonnet he
pulled me in, giving me one of those long, lingering kisses I’d already missed. ‘How was the flight? What do you do for nine hours in a tin can anyway?’ His voice was gravelly as he slid down.
As I looked him in the eye I knew it was right, Mother was wrong and I’d found it. I’d found my forever. Doubts evaporating now I was back with Joe, it felt like I’d been pulled from a maelstrom. I hardly minded the cigarette smoke, especially as Joe had misplaced his shirt, yet again.
Instead of moving in for another kiss, he reached for my sunglasses. Joe wasn’t ready for the horror that was baboon face, but the boy moved fast. The glasses were whisked away before I had chance to protest.
‘What’s with the tears? I don’t want you upset.’
I could feel them dampening my cheeks. I felt stupid. I felt exposed. Surely I was stronger than this? ‘Why did she have to be such a cow about it? She could at least pretend she has a soul,’ I managed through calmed sobs.
Joe held me by the arms, whether to steady or comfort me, I couldn’t tell.
‘You mean your mom? Forget about her. If she can’t be happy for you, she’s not worth it. Now get in, damn it.’ With a grin, he pointed to the Chevelle’s open door.
Re-acquainting myself with the unique interior of Joe’s car, I could see he’d embraced the bag of air fresheners I’d bought him. It was like stepping into a forest of Magic Trees.
‘Listen, I know I was a dick about the wedding dress, about dropping the cigarette on it, I mean,’ he admitted while climbing in.
I batted the new car scent out of my face. ‘And errands.’
‘All right, over the errands too, so I’m taking you out tonight, some place real nice. No fried chicken, promise.’
‘No fried chicken. Hmm. Are we going to Wendy’s, per chance?’
‘Wendy’s? Come on woman, what do you take me for? We have a reservation at that place you mentioned. K2, is it?’
The Good Kind of Bad Page 3
