by Beth Miller
On Sunday, when I told Alex that Genevieve had asked me to go see a film with her, he said irritably, ‘Seriously, again?’
‘She’s split up with her boyfriend.’ The lie came easily. ‘She wants someone to do things with.’
‘She must have some friends other than you. We haven’t done anything together for ages.’
‘I thought you’d be glad I’m building up my social life.’
‘I am, of course I am. But I want us to do things together, too. You’re out so much, I feel I’ve barely seen you properly for weeks.’
We agreed a compromise; I’d go out with my ‘friend’ in the morning, and spend the afternoon with Alex. I saw Zaida, had lunch with Mum and some of the others; I avoided Dad completely; and then I came back in good time, and Alex and I watched the next film from his list, Some Like It Hot. Afterwards, we made love.
It was a memorably good day, because it was the very next one that things were blown apart.
I left the flat at my usual time, but on the way, I phoned work and said I was sick. I really wanted to spend as much time as possible with my family. I didn’t think about it any more deeply than that. All I knew was that when I was back in my parents’ house, I felt whole again, in a way I hadn’t felt for a long time. I changed into my old clothes at Brixton tube loo as usual, got to Mum’s shortly after eight, and borrowed her sheitel. I was getting better at putting it on straight, and even starting to get used to the heat of it. It felt less hot, anyway, now that we were properly into autumn. I went through the connecting door into the annex to make Nathan breakfast. But he was already sitting at the table. That was new.
‘Oh! You’re up. Shall I get you some coffee?’
‘No thank you. Please sit down, Aliza.’
His voice was quiet, but surprisingly commanding. I sat opposite him. He looked directly at me, and try as I could to maintain eye contact with him, I had to look away.
‘Do you think you made a mistake?’ he said.
I looked at him then, all right. ‘Pardon?’
‘A mistake, when you didn’t marry me?’ His voice shook a little, but he still looked straight at me.
I studied my hands. ‘I think it was the right thing at the time.’
‘It was scarcely more than ten months ago. Are you that changeable?’
‘I haven’t changed! I’m still very much in love with Alex.’ My voice wavered saying Alex’s name out loud. It was the first time I had said it to Nathan. It felt like the most intimate thing I had ever said to him.
There was a silence, then he said, ‘Well, in that case, Aliza, I don’t know why you’re here.’
I didn’t answer. I was struggling to explain it to myself, let alone to him. Why was I here, more mornings than not? Why was I was making him breakfast like the subservient Jewish wife I had so spectacularly failed to be? Was I trying to make amends for jilting him? Was I worried about his post-jilted state and trying to make sure he ate a good breakfast, at least? Was there more to it? He had a right to know what it meant. If it meant anything.
‘Well, if it comes to it, I don’t know why you are here either,’ I said, playing for time.
He laughed, and rubbed his hand across his brow. ‘I have been wondering that myself rather a lot, lately.’ His face went back to its habitual serious expression. ‘I gave up the flat we were going to have. You and me.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I’d never seen this flat, which Nathan had found for us, a few streets away from his family.
He waved his hand, to say that was the least of it. ‘I went back to the yeshiva after we… I thought I could resume my life back there, but it didn’t work. They said I’d had a breakdown and they sent me back to my parents.’
‘Oh, Nathan. I’m…’
‘You’re sorry. Yes, I know. I couldn’t stand it with my parents, though. I couldn’t bear the, the, the, scrutiny. The pity.’ He wiped his mouth with a tissue. ‘Your mother is wonderful, and leaves me to myself.’
‘She is wonderful.’
‘So, that’s why I’m here. Why are you here, Aliza?’
I stared down at the table. I wished the answer was written there. ‘I… I’m not really sure.’
‘Did you get scared, out in the big world?’ His voice was mocking. ‘Being a secular girl not working out how you hoped?’
‘I missed my family.’
‘I’m not your family, but you seem to be spending a lot of time with me. Playing house. Fussing round me.’
‘I’m sorry if it’s seemed like fussing. I was trying to show how sorry I was that I wrecked things.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Aliza. I’ll bounce back. I’m not wrecked. Which is more than I can say for you.’
I remembered him saying, you broke me. I didn’t think he could have got mended so quickly. I stood up. ‘I was only trying to be nice, Nathan.’
‘I thought I’d find some peace here.’ He raised his voice. ‘A quiet flat, be on my own, try and work out what I’m going to do next. And then you turn up, wafting in and out like this is your house, like I’m your husband. I’m not your husband. I wanted to be, but you, you, you…’ He didn’t finish the sentence, but instead bowed his head and closed his eyes, shutting me out.
‘I’m sorry I disturbed your peace.’ I felt desperately sorry for him. I looked down at him, at the top of his head, at the blue skull cap nestled in his hair, the curls on his collar. I felt sorry for myself, too. ‘But you did choose to stay in the house of the family whose daughter… You weren’t exactly keeping your distance.’
His eyes snapped open. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here, did I? Your father sat shiva for you. You are meant to be dead.’ He spat out the last few words, and then he stood too. We faced each other across the table. Same height. Eye to eye.
‘Well, I’m here,’ I said, and that, at least, was unarguable.
‘We both seem to be having difficulty letting go,’ he said. He walked over to me, stood close enough that I could feel his breath on my face, and for one crazy prickling moment I thought he was going to kiss me. Then he walked past me, took his coat from the hook by the door, and left.
I’d eaten an emergency platzel to calm my nerves, and was sweeping up the dropped bits of onion when my phone rang. I put down the dustpan and looked at the screen.
I made my voice as casual as possible. ‘Hiya, Al!’
‘Hi,’ he answered. ‘You left very early this morning.’
‘Oh, yes, I had a planning meeting. Everything OK?’
‘Where are you, Eliza?’ he said.
‘I’m at work, of course.’
‘Eliza, seriously, where are you?’
Oh, god. ‘What do you mean? I told you, I’m at the school.’
‘There’s only one of us at your school, and it’s not you. I’m at your school. I dropped by to bring your travel card. You left it on the shelf in the hall.’
Oh, GOD. ‘Oh yes, I had to pay for a ticket. Damn nuisance.’
There was a silence.
‘Eliza, if you’re not at work,’ Alex said, his voice very quiet, ‘do you think you might be so kind as to perhaps tell me where the actual fuck you are?’
The next day was Alex’s birthday. I gave him a card with a penguin on the front. Inside I wrote, ‘I’d be lost without you’. And I bought him a subscription to a film club which sent out a surprise DVD every month. I was pretty pleased with myself, but I was the only one who was.
‘Very thoughtful,’ he said. ‘Films for me to while away the empty evenings.’
‘Oh, Alex, please.’
He read the card, and raised his eyebrows. ‘Lost without me, huh, Miss Fickle? Surely not. You know exactly where you’d go without me.’
I was Miss Fickle now, after my about-face with regard to contacting my family. I wished I had been less ‘that’s it, I’m never seeing them again’ when we first married and my father slammed the door in our faces.
So I was ‘Changeable’ to Nathan, and ‘Miss Fickle’ to Alex. They h
ad even more in common than they knew.
Unpleasant though it was, at least Alex was talking to me. After the ‘where the actual fuck are you?’ phone call, he’d insisted I come straight back to the flat. He was there waiting for me – he’d called in sick himself – and we had the mother of all rows. We both cried, he kept saying, ‘I don’t understand,’ and I confessed everything. I told him about reconnecting with my family, and that I hadn’t really been doing an evening class or seeing Genevieve. Well, I didn’t tell him quite everything. I left Nathan out of it, because he wasn’t relevant. Even without any mention of Nathan, Alex was absolutely furious. He went on and on about trust and lying and honesty. I tried to explain how much I’d missed my Zaida, but he didn’t even let me finish.
‘Look, I’m not pissed off because you wanted to reconnect with your family. That’s natural. I think some of them were shits to you, so I’m not entirely sure why you want some of them back, but hey, that’s families for you. I’m pissed off, Eliza, because you lied to me.’
‘Well, while we’re talking about trust, what about you and Vicky…’ Most of me knew that this wasn’t fair, that mine was the greater crime, but there was a small part of me that thought, well you kissed someone else.
‘You’re not seriously comparing that to this, are you?’
‘You hoped I wouldn’t find out about it, Alex. It’s not that different.’
‘Yes, it is completely different! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, for heaven’s sake! While you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want me to get the right idea.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It seemed that all I was doing lately was apologising.
‘I don’t understand you, Eliza! There was absolutely no need to lie. I wonder, were you sort of loving the deception? Addicted to leading a double life? All that crap about going out with Genevieve, and saying I couldn’t come with you to see your grandfather, and pretending to go to work. Why did you do that? Am I an ogre? Are you terrified of me?’
I shook my head. I didn’t know now why I’d lied. I thought of Carolyn, the gambling addict who Kim dated, unable to stop herself. Was he right, was I hooked on my secret life? I suppose I hadn’t told Alex because I didn’t want him to be angry. Maybe that’s how Carolyn felt. Pretend there’s no problem, nothing’s going on, in the hope that the people you care about won’t yell at you. There was also something fluttering at the edge of my brain about Nathan, but I batted it away.
Now Alex put down my birthday offerings, and looked at his watch. ‘Well, Miss Fickle, don’t you have places to go?’
‘It’s not one of my working days.’
‘No, but isn’t it one of your return-to-the-fold days? Oh wait, that’s every day, isn’t it?’
‘This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d react badly.’
He blew out an exasperated puff of air. ‘Well, go on then.’
‘Go on, what?’
‘Go and see them. I’m going to do some work today, make up for yesterday.’
‘But… it’s your birthday. I thought we would do something together.’
‘Thirty-one, it’s nothing special,’ he said, and went out of the room.
I waited for a bit to see if he’d come back to make up, but he didn’t. So I got up and put on my frum clothes. Where else was there for me, if my husband rejected me? My legs were heavy as I trudged to the station. I felt that I could sleep for a week. In fact, I did nod off on the tube and startled awake only as we pulled into Seven Sisters.
Mum asked if I’d mind giving the annex a tidy. She said Nathan was out, so I didn’t put on the sheitel, but when I pushed open the door he was there, standing in the kitchen, his back to me, wearing nothing but a bath towel round his waist.
‘Oh!’ I said, backing out. He turned round, a strange unsettling expression on his face.
‘Hang on a minute,’ he said.
I stood in the doorway, holding my hand over my hair, as though that would hide it. ‘Mum said you were out.’
‘I was, but I came back.’
‘I was going to do a bit of cleaning. I’ll leave it for now. I don’t have my, uh,’ I gestured to my hair.
‘I’m standing here half-naked, Aliza. I think the time for modesty is over, don’t you?’
I’d never heard Nathan talk like that before. My breath caught in my throat. Without thinking about what I was doing, I stepped inside and closed the door.
Twenty-Six
April 2016
Deborah’s house is full of cushions. She loves them the way some women love shoes. I curl up in a huge armchair fat with cushions, and weep all over them. She hugs me, hands me tissues, and brings me tea and squares of honey cake at regular intervals.
‘Why am I eating so much honey cake?’ I finally ask, when I have stopped sobbing.
‘I’ve a freezer full of it,’ she says. ‘Everyone made honey cake last Rosh Hashanah.’ The Jewish New Year. ‘I made one, Mum made one, Pearl made one. I have three days to get rid of it all.’
‘I used to love helping Mum get rid of the cake.’
This was one of my favourite rituals as a child, the ridding the house of chametz (leavened food) before Passover. For eight days you’re only allowed to eat food that contains no wheat, barley or oats. You have to ensure the house is free of every crumb of that stuff, which is achieved partly by cleaning but mainly by getting your children to eat it all up – a great job. I loved watching Mum unpack the boxes of Passover crockery and cutlery, a whole other set to replace the usual ones. The Passover plates had patterns of ferns on them, and they seemed festive and special when I was young.
‘Eat up, now you need to help me get rid of the cake.’
‘Surely the kids will help?’
Deb and Michael’s twins, Eli and Noam, are still very little – three years old. She and Michael were married a good few years before starting a family, a modern move in our circles.
‘They are sick to death of honey cake. And I put some more in their lunch boxes today for nursery, so they’ll be cross with me when they get home. Eat, eat,’ she says, parodying our mothers, ‘you’re so thin, skin and bone.’
Deborah hasn’t asked many questions yet about my domestic travails, has just said that of course I can stay with them, as long as I want. I know Michael doesn’t approve of me, never has, though he is always perfectly pleasant. But Deb has mellowed out over the years. The woman who grudgingly wrote to me all those years ago – signing her emails ‘Former Best Friend’ – to tell me my Zaida was ill, has become someone altogether more generous, more forgiving. Getting older has improved her all round. She looks terrific, has given up on the wigs and now covers her hair with beautiful silk scarves, leaving her fringe peeping out, which makes me think of Julie Christie in Dr Zhivago. I suspect the reference will be lost on her, but tell her anyway.
‘I think I did see it, years ago,’ she says. ‘I remember it was very long.’
She and Michael have a television, something which would have been unthinkable when we were children.
‘So,’ she says. ‘Want to tell me what’s up, Goy Girl?’
Her using my old nickname makes me teary again.
‘I’m going to be forty next month, Deb.’
‘So? I’m already forty, and apparently I look like Julie Christie.’
‘But forty! And I’m still making the same mistakes I made in my twenties.’ I dab at the tears under my eyes. ‘I should never have married out.’
‘This again! I thought we were years past that.’
‘Have I told you about Leah’s new obsession? She’s been going to shul with Dov and Ilana, and she made me buy her long skirts. She’s stopped eating bacon-flavoured crisps.’
Deborah laughs long and loud. ‘Talk about the chickens coming home to roost! I almost wish your dad was here to see that, alav ha-sholom.’
‘I know, I know, I deserve it. I shouldn’t have locked it away from her.’
&n
bsp; ‘Ah, I’m starting to realise that whatever you do with kids, you can’t get it right.’
‘God, if you think that now, Deb, wait till they’re teenagers.’
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Deborah says, ‘in the same way I look forward to the mikvah. It will be cleansing.’
Cleansing is right. I take a breath, and tell Deb the whole sorry story. ‘Tell Auntie Deb all about it,’ she used to say. I start with Leah finding the fake wedding photo, and move on to Showdown at Shipwreck Sushi, and the Easter Endgame. It all pours out. Her eyes get very wide when I tell her about my night with Nathan. By the time I finish, my coffee’s cold.
‘So, that’s something you never told me… that there was more than a kiss between you and Nathan.’ Deb raises her eyebrow at me, as she’s always done when I’ve been naughty.
‘You guessed, though, didn’t you? When you gave me that massive telling off about mistreating Alex? You quizzed me so closely I almost caved and told you.’
‘We’re going to come back to your little fling with Nathan, don’t think we’re not.’ She wags her finger at me. ‘But first, I have to say I can’t believe Dov would have told his child all the gory details about when you and Alex separated.’
‘Nor me. I think it must be something Gidon has overheard.’
But as I say it, I realise I haven’t dwelt on this at all, about how Gidon had even heard of Nathan, or why Dov would have been talking about it. Nathan has, as far as I know, lived in Gateshead since 2001. And Dov has always been the most reliable constant in my life, my dearest brother, my dearest relation, in fact, now Zaida is no longer with us, Dov is the only one who never turned his back on me.
‘Anyway, back to you-and-Nathan,’ Deb says, ignoring my expression. ‘I did wonder at the time. If I remember correctly, I gave you quite a large opening to tell me. Why didn’t you?’
‘Oh, I was so messed up. I suppose I thought I’d made the mistake of my life with Alex, and that I could make it right by going back to Nathan. But it was a disastrous idea. You can’t suddenly choose not to be in love with someone. And you can’t suddenly choose to love someone else.’
