Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  No. Nothing more. Wilf gave you the email, didn’t he?

  Darling, really there’s no need. Leave the washing up. My arm is fine. You know, it’s just— Your father hasn’t been in touch.

  Lara finds mugs for tea. As she places them on the table, she looks at her mother. Mollie seems to have grown smaller, become thinner. But she’s still charged by the same buzzing energy, although her eyes have fallen further back, into the depths of her face.

  Hasn’t been in touch. Not for weeks now. The voice is plaintive, a hand-wringing, eyes-pleading voice. Lara hates that voice.

  But he’s with Baggers, isn’t he?

  Well, yes. I suppose so. I don’t know. I ring Baggers and he says he’ll pass a message on but he doesn’t say anything much else. So I just don’t know. Leave that washing up. Sit down, love, sit down. Particularly at a time like this, you’d think he’d keep in touch. You know, he always calls. I don’t think there’s been a day of my married life when he hasn’t called.

  Briefly Lara remembers a game she used to play with Jay when he was a child. Cards showed the head, the middle section, the legs of different characters – a policewoman, a tennis player, a nurse. The game involved putting the different cards together to make a whole person but it began with the legs of a tennis player, the middle section of a policeman, the head of a nurse. Difficult sometimes to fit a whole person together but you’ve got to try. No lies, no delusions. But, as ever, Mollie is more difficult to deal with in the flesh than in the imagination. Lara picks up dirty sheets, heads to the washing machine, wonders if there’ll be any washing powder. Now, with Jay in such danger, shouldn’t they all just be kind to each other?

  Please, Lara. Those sheets have already been washed.

  Oh. OK. Sorry. I was just.

  Lara lays the sheets back down in the basket, feels air drain from the room. Look for biscuits, put them on a plate. The biscuits can surely be relied upon.

  You know I just keep thinking and thinking, Mollie says.

  I know. So do I.

  Things back in the past. You know I’ve got this girl staying – such a lovely girl. But she asks all these questions – about Ludo.

  Oh yes.

  Yes. And looking back. It was my fault, of course.

  We were talking about Dad.

  Yes. Yes, of course. No, dear. No. Don’t touch that cupboard door. The handle keeps dropping off and then I can’t get it open. Let me. There’s a knack to it. What are you trying to find?

  Biscuits.

  Oh, do you want one?

  No.

  Neither do I.

  OK. All right. Sorry. I’m just trying to help. Lara can’t keep the petulant note out of her voice.

  Mollie sighs, stands with her hands pressed down onto the kitchen table. What I need is for you to drive me to London. I just don’t trust the car. I could go on the train but it isn’t easy – all the way to Hampstead, to Baggers. But I do need to get there because if I could talk to him—

  Biscuits and sheets. The truth. The truth.

  Mum, I’m sorry. Really. But don’t you think? Maybe it’s time?

  Well, it’s been time for you for years.

  No. No. Listen, you know I’ve given up my job. And all this waiting. And waiting. If we’re going to help Jay, we’ve got to be honest.

  About what?

  Well, everything.

  Lara makes herself very tall, feels the weight of the room behind her.

  Since we’re on the subject – Dad, she says.

  Mollie is theatrical, waves a hand in a grand gesture. Oh yes, Dad. Dad.

  Silence appears for a moment, solid as a wall. Lara takes a shivering breath.

  Well, go on then, Mollie says. What particular truth is it that you want to tell me? Do you honestly think there is anything you can tell me about your father that I don’t know? What do you want? To repeat some cheap bit of gossip about a girl?

  Mum. It isn’t cheap gossip. You know it isn’t.

  Of course, I know. Of course.

  Mollie is tossing her head, flashing her pride.

  What do you think I am? Entirely blind and stupid? I know all of that. But I love your father and he loves me. And he’s a very talented man, a man with an artistic vision, someone who stays true to what he knows, at least in the artistic sense.

  Yes, Mum, but he’s also—

  Mollie’s head drops and her moment of courage is ended. Tears wash into her eyes. Lara wants to feel triumph but all she feels is pity. She’d been so sure that she felt able to deal with Mollie but she’s being defeated once again. Mollie is right. What truth is there to be told? They both of them know all that there is to know about Rufus. Lara considers all that she doesn’t know about her mother, all that she will never understand. She has spent so long endlessly trying to heal the wound, except she doesn’t know what the wound is. The dog in the Coventry Blitz with the child’s arm in its mouth? The pimp who seduced her when she was fourteen? Rufus pushing her off a roof? Those stories probably aren’t even true.

  And now finding Rufus will be like pouring acid on the wound – but Mollie wants that acid and why is Lara trying to stop her? This is meant to be an epiphany. She’s meant to be taking charge of Mollie, caring for her, guiding her towards some better path. Opening her up to the truth, liberating them all. But there is no great truth to reveal, no subsequent moment of light and liberation. Instead they are both of them falling deeper and deeper, further and further. But still Lara’s promised herself not to lie and so she picks up the acid bottle, pours.

  Mum, he’ll be with some other woman. You know he will.

  Of course, I know.

  Mum, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to do what’s right for Jay, that’s all.

  What would you know about what’s right for Jay?

  Mum, please.

  If you want to help – drive me to London.

  No. You’ve broken your wrist. You should be trying to rest.

  Mollie has pulled a chair out from the table now and sits down, collapsed, head in hands. Lara knows that she should move towards her now, lay a hand on her heaving back, but she doesn’t want to touch her. Mollie gets up suddenly, walks to the draining board, grabs a bottle of whisky and pours some into a mug, drinks it down.

  The past, she says. The past. Her hand grips her chest in a moment of manufactured drama. I think so often about Ludo. You know he never did. It was all my fault, my imagination. He was a good man.

  Lara swallows down a surge of anger. She knows Mollie’s repertoire so well. The evasions and exaggerations, the distractions and dramas. Somewhere, deep in the middle of Mollie’s skeletal frame a real person must exist and briefly Lara imagines seizing Mollie, digging her hands right into her flesh, groping around inside, pulling out the essence of Mollie, the person who has evaded her all these years. But all she can do is try to stick to the facts.

  I thought we were talking about Dad.

  Mollie pours more whisky, sobs. The kitchen seems crowded by all the words that can’t be said. Lara longs to reach up and pull them down, one by one, string them into sentences, make them into some structure of sense which will turn all the random junk of Mollie’s kitchen into a book which can be easily read. Mollie grips the side of the sink, shakes her head as though it’s come loose on her neck.

  I’m frightened, Mollie says. I’m frightened Jay’s going to die.

  I know. I know. I just feel sick all day every day – but he’s doing what he wants to do. And what he’s doing is right. We need to remember that. You read that email. What he did to stop the hospital being looted.

  She knows that isn’t quite what the email said, but it should have said that.

  I know but I’m frightened, Mollie says.

  Stop it, Mum. Stop it. What – you think I’m not? You think I don’t care? You think that just because when he was young I was working—

  Lara feels the air collapse. The possibility of building some new structure has gone. They’re b
ack where they always were, always have been. All these years. And, of course, it isn’t about the job. She always knew that. It’s about the appointment in London, the piece of paper with no name, only an address, the green looping writing. Mollie never even knew of the existence of that possibility yet still it lies between them. What particular truth is it that you want to tell me? Lara wonders now why she ever felt that she could change anything. She has no choice except to agree to what Mollie wants.

  Look, I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. I promised Wilf I’d help him. If you really want to go to London I can probably do it. Is that what you want?

  I think very often about the past, you know. Very often.

  Yes, I’m sure you do. Now look. Are you sure there’s nothing else you need? Will you be OK now? Are you sure?

  Yes, dear. Yes. I’m so sorry. You and I. We must try not to argue, when we love each other so much.

  I’ll sort it out – London.

  Lara hugs her mother stiffly, hates herself for crying. Why must she always be defeated? She gathers up her bag and leaves, walks out into the listening street. A Sunday-evening quiet has settled, the evening is supple, a warm breeze faintly stirring. What can she do now? The only option is to walk back to Roma Street. All her life she’s been trying to carve out a little space on which to stand. Her flat had once been that space and now it’s gone. Now there seems to be no space at all, just an exposed headland on which she stands, buffeted and battered from all sides. She always wanted to be different from her mother, but a person established only in opposition to another person isn’t real.

  She finds herself taking the road along the side of the church. It’s unlikely that Oliver will be at home because Sunday is a busy day for him. She pushes open the glass doors, wanders towards the closed door of the café, peers briefly into its abandoned spaces – chairs up on the tables, light shining listlessly onto the stainless-steel counter, the clock continuing its motionless crawl. Around her she hears the spaces where music usually plays, where wheelchairs or bags or dance kit are usually stacked. She opens the door marked Private, starts to climb. The light from above has been sifted through endless unwashed windows. She knocks on Oliver’s door without hope but he opens it immediately, his face preparing itself for bad news.

  It’s OK, she says. Nothing happened.

  Oh, he says. Oh good.

  Can I come in?

  She wants him to be that place where she can stand. She wants him to have that certainty that he had when they first met.

  Are you all right? he says.

  No.

  He comes towards her, wraps his arms around her. Her face is against the scratchy ribs of his jumper. She holds him as though holding the core of the earth.

  It’s my mother, she says. I can’t.

  He sits her down, moves to the kitchen, switches the kettle on. Those words taped to the wall – He who saves the life of one man, saves the whole world. It all sounds so simple. She gets up, unable to keep still, moves through to the kitchen, switches the kettle off and takes hold of a bottle of wine that stands beside the toaster. As he finds glasses, she notes how carefully he balances, sees that he’s determined to steady her, even though he isn’t steady himself. As they move back to the sitting room, those sea water vases – splashes of green and blue, the twisting shapes of waves – watch them from their shelf, their lips tightly closed. Lara moves to take the bottle from him. Wine blurs her lips, warms her throat. She might live, after all.

  My mother, she says. She’s always been this good woman, oppressed by this monstrous husband. The endless victim. But you know, despite all of that she always gets what she wants – always.

  Oliver nods, pours himself wine.

  And you know what? You know what I’m going to have to do now?

  She pauses for effect, raises a hand in a gesture of surrender, insists that Oliver should understand the weight of this decision.

  I’m going to have to. I’ve got no choice.

  What? he says, happy to play the game. What?

  I’m going to have to ring my father and ask him to come home. Can you believe it? When I’ve spent all my life waiting for him to leave?

  Oliver nods and Lara sees him bend his will towards understanding the gravity of this situation. But he fails to convince either her or himself and so slowly, creaking and gasping, Lara starts to laugh. His lips twitch but he will not let himself laugh until she lays a hand on his shoulder, leans against him, allows herself to be washed away by a sudden burst of mirth. Then he holds her, laughs against her hair.

  Fuck, she says. Fuck. I don’t believe it.

  She steps away from him, drinks.

  I ask a lot of you, she says. When you don’t even like me.

  I do, actually. I didn’t expect to but I do. Very much.

  He puts out his hand and she takes hold of his fingers, tightly.

  You saw Jay’s email? she asks. I left a copy for you.

  Yes, of course.

  She sinks into a chair, pours herself more wine.

  I read it like I don’t know him, she says. I never knew he could be that person. Someone so... amazing.

  He has an amazing mother, Oliver says, and moves towards her, slides his fingers into the tumble of her hair. She leans against his hip, snorts with laughter. Oh shut up, she says. Shut up. But she’s touched by the compliment, wonders if it contains an element of truth.

  Later, as the evening flows on, washed forward by wine and a determination not to sink, not to drown, she finds herself lying next to him on his narrow, short, single bed. They cling together like children, seeking warmth. Their closeness is devoid of desire but the comfort of him brings a similar oblivion. Three pairs of his shoes stand crooked against the wall, pigeon-toed, duck-footed, light from the kitchen touches on the pale blue cotton of a shirt hung on the back of a chair. Her hand lies on his chest and she feels the rise and fall of his breath. He asks her then about Liam.

  You haven’t told him where Jay is?

  No. I’ve never told him anything.

  You said he was an actor, that he went to America.

  Yes. A glittering career.

  Would I have heard of him?

  I don’t think so. I did see him once on an advert for a cordless hoover.

  She feels laughter shudder inside him. The room is surely darker now. It must be night in that distant world of the street, the city. She twists a button on his shirt, is grateful for the half light.

  I always say that Liam abandoned me. I don’t know. I would never have known him if it hadn’t been for my father, my parents. I was trying to make it up to them. It’s complicated. But that’s what it’s all about. All this.

  She knows that he doubts that there is any – all this. Doubts that there is a key somewhere that will suddenly fit into a certain lock, explain Jay’s decision and all that has happened since. She’s said to him before that all this must be about the fact that Jay didn’t have a father. But he was doubtful, quoted Freud. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Now he takes hold of her hand, spreads her fingers one by one. In his touch she feels him accept that she will not talk more now. Sometime. Sometime.

  You know when we first met, she says. Jay – before he went to Iraq?

  The bed creaks as his weight shifts.

  What I said was true, Oliver says. We never talked about Iraq. Only – he wanted to know about healing. About who can heal and how. And he wanted to know about prayer as well, about whether it ever works.

  And what did you say?

  I said that God is beyond anyone’s influence. One should not rely on him. But then I talked about people. About how you should never underestimate what effect one human being can have on another. That might be prayer.

  Oliver’s voice is so quiet that she struggles to hear him.

  This whole thing he had about healing, she says. I never took it seriously because he had been ill himself.

  Yes, but people do heal from the places wher
e they are most broken.

  Maybe, she says. Maybe. But still I don’t understand.

  Sometimes people endlessly give out what they are actually hoping to receive. But have no capacity to receive.

  His voice fades out and she reaches up to touch his face, feels the bluntness of his chin, the prickle of stubble. She’s glad that Jay talked to Oliver before he left, not for the details of the words which were said, but simply because Jay must surely have taken some part of Oliver with him. Some courage, some calm. A talisman to put in his bag and keep with him in that distant country where story has broken down into strings of meaningless events, a cacophony of senseless babble.

  40

  BEFORE

  Lara – Brighton, August 1982

  Lara stands at the door of the Guest House kitchen, feels the floorboards shift beneath her, a gentle roll, as though the tide is coming in. Her stomach heaves and blood throbs in her head. She steps into the room uncertainly, positions her suitcase against the radiator, swallows, licks her sandpaper lips. Pulling off her jacket, she notices that the stain from the pub is still there, a shape like an upside-down horseshoe on her green suede jacket. So Liam has told Mollie and Rufus. He must have done. How very like him, poor stupid fool. And he didn’t even warn her. Lara knows she should blame Liam, blame him for so many things.

  There’s no question – he must have told them because Mollie has tidied the kitchen, and a bottle of champagne sits on the table in a bucket of ice. Lara feels fear squeezing her throat. She should never have come back here, she must leave – but where can she go? Not back to Liam. She takes hold of her suitcase again, steadies herself against the radiator as the floor shifts. From a basket in the corner three cats stare at her, forming their judgements.

  She thinks of school friends, of that world of houses with drives and double garages, skiing chalets, flats in London. Thank-you letters, boxes of chocolates, slender calf muscles, compliments which appear so sincere that you believe them. If she told any of those people her dirty little secret, it would only confirm what they’ve always thought – that she doesn’t belong. Her cover would be finally and totally blown. But she has two months still until university and nowhere to live. She turns back towards the stairs, gripping the suitcase. But she’s too late. Rufus is upon her, wearing a blazer, rubbing his hands. He has made an unsuccessful attempt to flatten his hair with a wet comb.