The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine

by Lythell, Jane

  He grimaced at my words.

  ‘I’m a bloody fool,’ he said, ‘a hopeless case.’

  He always could disarm me with his charm and his self-deprecation. We had played this scene too many times before and I had to harden my heart against him.

  ‘How’s the work going?’

  ‘OK; keeps me busy. I’ve got a junior working with me now. I’m training him up.’

  ‘That’s great; you’d be a brilliant teacher,’ I said warmly.

  Eddie was an inspired gardener and he could transform an ordinary London back garden into a place of beauty and enchantment. Unfortunately his work had always been erratic. He took a gulp of his coffee.

  ‘This is stronger than you used to make it. I’m doing more garden design now too.’

  ‘Good. You always liked that best.’

  ‘But I’m miserable,’ he said, hunched over his mug.

  I didn’t reply as there was nothing I could say.

  ‘I hope this Finnish bloke is treating you OK?’

  He looked at me searchingly. I found my eyes moving away from that direct green-eyed gaze. I felt confused and I really didn’t want to talk to Eddie about Markus.

  ‘Do you want to see Billy?’ I said, standing up.

  He followed me into Billy’s room and we both stood looking down at my baby son.

  ‘What a great little lad and don’t take this the wrong way, I can’t see a trace of you, K.’

  ‘You’re right. He is a hundred per cent Markus.’

  Billy stirred, his eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes. He saw me and put his arms up to me. I bent over the cot and picked him up. He was all warm and sleepy and then he started to grizzle a bit against my shoulder.

  ‘Let me,’ he said.

  I handed Billy to Eddie and he walked around the room and rocked him gently until Billy fell back to sleep in his arms. He was looking down at Billy and as I watched them I felt this ache, thinking that if things had been different we could have had this, a beautiful child together. He placed him carefully back into the cot and put the blanket over him.

  ‘Where did you learn to do that?’

  ‘I looked after the younger ones a lot,’ he said quietly.

  He looked sad now. He may have been thinking what I was thinking. He hugged me tightly then, kissed me on the neck and left the flat in a rush.

  I stood there in the hall after he had gone, thinking all these warm thoughts about him. I adored him once; I adored him for years. We’d had some very good times together. I remembered that day years before when I had gone off for my first day working at a magazine as a junior features writer. I’d been so excited to have my start in journalism at last. When I got home that night Eddie had filled our flat with flowers and made Irish stew for us to eat. He said how proud he was of me and that he knew I would make it in magazines.

  I pulled myself up and told myself to stop romanticizing the past. Three months without booze, but he would turn to it again. Unfortunately his periods of abstinence never lasted.

  Heja

  JUNE

  I heard her tell Aisha that Markus was away in Durham. So she would be alone with Billy. It was late when I drove to Baker Street and parked in her street.

  I got out of my car and walked to a good position where I could watch the building. I had the keys to her flat in my pocket. I could see several lights were on in the rooms. I worked out that the lights were from Billy’s room and Markus’s room and the kitchen. I saw her moving in the kitchen at one point. And then, some time later, I saw a man approach the window in Billy’s room and he was holding Billy in his arms!

  Markus was away for a couple of nights and she had a man in the flat with her. And that man was holding the baby. I felt outraged on behalf of Markus. It was late, nearly eleven. Who was this man? Why was she letting him hold Billy? He walked away from the window. I was transfixed to the spot, watching the window intently.

  Some minutes later, I do not know how many, I saw the large entrance door to the block being pushed open and the man walked out. I followed him down the road. I wanted to see who he was more clearly. He was walking rapidly with his head down. He had curly hair and was dressed in jeans and a rough checked shirt. He wore work boots too. He hurried to Baker Street tube station and I saw his face as he stopped to buy a ticket. Mid-thirties, tanned face, who was he? He went through the barriers and I walked slowly back to my car.

  The next evening I dressed warmly even though it had been mild that afternoon. I feel the cold. I put on my soft white leather lace-ups, which make no noise. I locked my flat at around eleven p.m. and decided I would go there by taxi tonight. I walked along the path by the river until I reached Blackfriars Bridge. The river is low this year. You can see the chalky green watermark on the rusty struts of the bridge. The water is well below that line and a whole strip of shingle has been exposed that for many years lay underneath the Thames. I have stood at my window on long Sunday afternoons and watched children with their parents scouring this newly revealed shingle beach, heard their cries of excitement as they found a piece of clay pipe or an old ship’s nail.

  I told the taxi to drop me one street from her flat. There has been a strong dry wind blowing for the last two weeks. It has blown without respite, so that it has come to seem quite sinister. The trees have been partially stripped of their early summer fullness. Tonight the wind had stilled. The streets carried the debris from the trees. Withered brown leaves, dead before their time, lay in my path. It was all wrong. Dead leaves belong in November, not in June.

  I had left it later tonight. I reached her street and scanned the windows. Two lights were on. One light, shining through pale orange curtains, was Billy’s room. The other light was her bedroom. After a few minutes the light in her bedroom went off. I would need to wait at least thirty minutes to be sure she was asleep. I walked to a pub on the corner of Baker Street and bought an orange juice. I did not drink it. The minutes ticked away. This would be a major test of my strength and my willpower.

  I walked back to her apartment block. All was in darkness except for Billy’s room. This time I walked up the stairs, remembering the clanking lift door. No sound came through the doors of the apartments I passed. This is a well-made block with thick walls and doors. I reached her flat. I could open the door and she could be standing there in front of me. Her bedroom light was off and I had to assume she was asleep by now. I opened the front door very carefully and stood in the hall and listened intently. All was silent. There was warm light spilling out of Billy’s room. This was the light I had seen from the street, a night-light in the shape of a great yellow flower. He was lying on his back in his white wooden cot. Above the cot a mobile of grey papier-mâché seagulls with orange beaks stirred gently. I leaned over the side of the cot and examined him closely for many minutes. His hair is fine and white. He is a little Markus. He is a true northern baby.

  Then I walked silently into their bedroom. It took a few minutes for my eyes to become accustomed to the dark. As I stood there in the darkness I could smell her perfume, faint yet persistent. Slowly my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Shapes became apparent with a kind of grainy texture. There was a large, high chest of drawers just inside the door and a wooden bowl with a clutter of bottles and jewellery in it. Their bed was large, king-size.

  She was lying on her stomach on the left-hand side of the bed. An open book lay on the bedside table next to a digital radio clock with ugly red digits. I wanted to take in all the details and store them for later, so I can visualize their life in this flat when I am lying in my bed five miles away. I think about him being with her in the dark wastes of the night when I feel very low. It makes me even more determined. I can work, I can plan. My mind is on patrol. My will is strong and getting stronger.

  I moved into the room and stood closer to her at the foot of the bed. Her head was turned on the pillow towards the clock. One arm lay above the dark quilt, which covered the bed. She was wearing a white cotton
nightdress. The sort with lace around the neck and sleeves, modelled on Victorian nightdresses. He would not have given that to her. He hates reproductions of any kind. A chair at the bottom of her bed had clothes piled on it and a mess of shoes beneath it. There were a couple of those gauze cloths that mothers wipe their babies’ faces with lying on the bed. I took one of them.

  I was eighteen when I met Markus. He was nineteen. We were both in our first year at university in Helsinki. I was studying history of art. Markus was in the school of architecture. We had both gone to a film-club screening of Bride of Frankenstein. The film club held screenings once a week in the university’s biology lecture theatre. It was an uncomfortable place to watch films. We sat in long, hard rows with a narrow wooden shelf in front us. The seats were steeply raked. At the front of the room there was a large screen. Every Thursday night some enthusiast from the film club would project a classic film onto that screen, usually a 16 mm copy that was scratched and jerky.

  Bride of Frankenstein had just started with a crash of music and the opening shot showed a violent storm breaking over a sinister-looking house perched on a cliff-top. A young man in Romantic dress was standing at the window, looking out at the storm. As he turned towards his companions I felt someone join the end of the row where I was sitting. I liked to have the aisle seat so I moved along for the newcomer rather grudgingly. He whispered his thanks, balanced a big folder of papers on the shelf in front of him and sat back. During the film most of the students laughed at certain scenes. I could not understand why they were laughing. There was so much cruelty in the film and the monster had more dignity than any of his persecutors. The film came to an end and the credits rolled and the harsh fluorescent lights of the biology theatre flickered on.

  I bent down to pick up my bag and the man next to me said, ‘Rather an apt place to show that film, don’t you think?’

  I must have looked puzzled.

  ‘Doctor Frankenstein could do his experiments here...’

  He nodded his head towards the examination table that stood in front of the screen and the scrubbing sink at the side by the door.

  ‘Ah, yes, I see...’

  ‘I’m Markus. Can I buy you a coffee?’

  ‘I’m Heja.’ We shook gloved hands.

  ‘Do you know somewhere round here?’

  We walked through the cold night air to a coffee shop and found a table near the back. I took my gloves off. My hands were numb in spite of them. He brought two coffees and a ham sandwich to our table and sat back in his chair, his eyes full on me. I looked down at my purple and blue tweed skirt, smoothing it over my knees. His eyes were extraordinary.

  ‘It will snow tonight,’ I said, feeling foolish as I stirred sugar into my coffee and held the cup to warm my hands.

  He said, ‘Did you enjoy the film?’

  ‘Yes, I did. It was sad, though. Why did everyone laugh? I didn’t think it was funny at all.’

  ‘It had its moments.’

  ‘I liked the monster and I hated his persecutors. Even the bride they made for him rejects him. His last hope of contact with another...’

  ‘So he destroys them both, saying, “We belong to the dead.” By the way, did you want any of this sandwich?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘If you like them, they’re showing classic movies late on Friday nights on the main channel,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t like watching films on television. I think they should be projected.’

  ‘I thought you might be a purist.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because you plait your hair so perfectly...’

  And we were together from that night for the next nine years.

  I looked into her chaotic study again. This was the room I needed time to go through, not tonight. I could feel my power growing as I walked silently around her flat, unknown to her. I am so much stronger than she is. I had to go into her room once more before I left. Still she slept and was oblivious as I walked to the side of the bed so that I stood inches from her. I could see the rise and fall of her chest and the puffy, almost childlike quality of her sleeping face.

  Kathy

  JUNE

  This morning I had to present my proposal on the World Heritage Sites guide to Philip Parr and to Victoria. She is our head of PR and Marketing and wears these sexy little suits, has a flirty style with Philip and I’m never sure quite how much influence she wields with him. He’s a known womanizer. She’s friendly enough towards me, though. I was well prepared and arrived early. He kept us both waiting outside his office for ten minutes, so I took the time to show Victoria the board I had made up. It was a picture and text layout on Siena as a sample article.

  I was fine while explaining my ideas to Victoria. The moment Philip called us into his office my stomach went into spasm and my mouth went dry. He stood up behind his desk and indicated that we should sit on the stylish, uncomfortable chairs in front of his desk. He leaned back in his executive swivel chair and said I had ten minutes to make my pitch.

  I had spent hours making that display board on Siena and I handed it to him now.

  ‘There are three hundred and eighty plus World Heritage Sites in Europe and they include some of the greatest architectural masterpieces. These are the buildings people want to see when they go abroad. They like to come home and say they saw that important building. So we will produce an accessible guide that gives our readers all the information they need to understand and appreciate these sites.

  ‘The guide will be visually strong with stunning pictures. Some pictures can be commissioned and we’ll get the rest from existing sources. We’ll put in key information on the history of the sites and the style of architecture. The guides can run as pull-outs in the magazine for a year. I would like them to have a reference quality to them, so that people will want to collect them and keep them.’

  He looked at my display board for several minutes.

  ‘Nice idea, Kathy, but this would cost a lot. Think of the travel and hotel bills,’ he said. ‘We’d have to pay a photographer and a writer to go to all these sites.’

  I had known he would raise the subject of cost.

  ‘Yes, there are costs entailed. We can use local photographers. I have contacts all over Europe, some very good names. The team here would do all the writing as part of their core work. I’ve done a draft budget and I think the advertising sales will exceed the costs.’

  I handed him a spreadsheet with my calculations and I gave a copy to Victoria too, as I wanted to keep her onside. Philip examined the sheet for several long minutes. When he’s thinking his whole face tightens and he purses his mouth in an unpleasant way. I’ve never really liked him. He’s one of those men that people describe as ‘political’, and by political they mean devious and into power. As the silence stretched out I started to feel angry with myself. I try too hard; I know I try too hard. I wished I didn’t care so much. I wished I could be cooler about things.

  Finally, he put the spreadsheet down on his desk and he kept me waiting while he said, ‘What do you think, Victoria?’

  ‘I think it’s got a lot of potential. There are some very glamorous sites on the list. I’m sure we could sell a lot of travel advertising. And it will have a long shelf life too. I might be able to do a tie-in with one of the Sunday supplements, a competition – you know, win a trip to the historic city of Siena.’

  ‘We wouldn’t need to send writers to every site,’ I said, hoping to clinch the deal. ‘We could get a lot of material from other sources.’

  ‘OK; I like the idea. I want to check these figures. In principle, it’s a yes. I’ll need you to do a presentation to the board. They like to be kept informed and they’ll need persuading on the costs.’

  ‘Of course; delighted to do that. Thank you, Philip.’

  He’s famously hard-headed so this was quite a victory. Victoria and I left the office together.

  ‘Well done!’ she said. ‘Your team just lucked out.
’

  ‘We all did, and there are more than enough great sites to keep everyone happy. Thanks for your support today, I really appreciate it.’

  My euphoria lasted all afternoon. I couldn’t tell the team about it just yet because Philip had said ‘in principle’ and I didn’t want any idle chatter about it to derail the project. I was feeling so cheerful, though, so I treated them all to coffees and a box of home-made cupcakes from the local patisserie. I chose vanilla and strawberry cakes and bought one for Victoria too. Aisha and I sat in my office and we ate the deliciously soft cakes, which were topped with sweet buttercream. I told Aisha in confidence about what Philip had said.

  Then I sat and wrote notes for most of the afternoon. Ideas for what should be included in the guide came thick and fast. I planned to cover the Portuguese sites myself. It would mean that Markus and I could make that long-promised trip to my parents in Lisbon and I could show him all my special places there.

  I was home before Markus and as soon as I heard his key in the lock I rushed up to him in the hall. I’d been looking forward to telling him my news.

  ‘Philip agreed,’ I said. ‘It’s on.’

  ‘That’s really good news.’

  I wanted a hug and stood in front of him. He didn’t reach for me so I initiated the hug and we stood in the hall holding each other.

  ‘Do you want some wine?’ I said. ‘To celebrate...’

  ‘Better not, I’ve got to work tonight.’

  ‘Well, I think I will.’

  I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine, talking all the time.

  ‘He only agreed to us doing the really important sites from scratch. I had to tell him we would use archive sources for a lot of places, so it’s not a complete triumph. If it takes off, who knows?’

  ‘You’ve come up with a good formula.’

  ‘Thanks, I’m so relieved. I was worried my ideas had stopped coming. I can start on the Portuguese sites soon. We can have that week in Lisbon. What bliss...’