After You (16 page)

‘Did you keep in touch with Holly?’

‘Not really. There’s no point when you can’t actually see each other.’

I had a vague memory of the intensity of teenage female relationships, more of a passion than a normal friendship. ‘What do you think you’ll do? I mean if you really aren’t going to go back to school.’

‘I don’t like thinking ahead.’

‘But you’re going to have to think about something, Lily.’

She closed her eyes for a minute, then put her feet down and peeled some purple varnish off her thumbnail. ‘I don’t know, Louisa. Perhaps I’ll just follow your amazing example and do all the exciting things that you do.’

I took three deep breaths, just to prevent myself stopping the car on the motorway. Nerves, I told myself. It was just her nerves. And then, to annoy her, I turned on Radio 2 really loudly and kept it there the rest of the way.

We found Four Acres Lane with help from a local dog-walker, and pulled up outside Fox’s Cottage, a modest white-rendered building with a thatched roof. Outside, scarlet roses tumbled around an iron arch at the start of the garden path, and delicately coloured blooms fought for space in neatly tended beds. A small hatchback sat in the drive.

‘She’s gone down in the world,’ said Lily, peering out.

‘It’s pretty.’

‘It’s a shoebox.’

I sat, listening to the engine tick down. ‘Listen, Lily. Before we go in. Just don’t expect too much,’ I said. ‘Mrs Traynor’s sort of formal. She takes refuge in manners. She’ll probably speak to you like she’s a teacher. I mean, I don’t think she’ll hug you, like Mr Traynor did.’

‘My grandfather is a hypocrite.’ Lily sniffed. ‘He makes out like you’re the greatest thing ever, but really he’s just pussy-whipped.’

‘And please don’t use the term “pussy-whipped”.’

‘There’s no point pretending to be someone I’m not,’ Lily said sulkily.

We sat there for a while. I realized that neither of us wanted to be the one to walk up to the door. ‘Shall I try to call her one more time?’ I said, holding up my phone. I’d tried twice that morning but it had gone straight to voicemail.

‘Don’t tell her straight away,’ she said suddenly. ‘Who I am, I mean. I just … I just want to see who she is. Before we tell her.’

‘Sure,’ I said, softening. And before I could say anything else, Lily was out of the car and striding up towards the front gate, her hands bunched into fists, like a boxer about to enter a ring.

Mrs Traynor had gone grey. Her hair, which had been tinted dark brown, was now white and short, making her look much
older than she actually was, or like someone recently recovered from a serious illness. She was probably a stone lighter than when I had last seen her, and there were liver-coloured hollows under her eyes. She looked at Lily with a confusion that told me she didn’t expect any visitors, at any time. And then she saw me, and her eyes widened. ‘Louisa?’

‘Hello, Mrs Traynor.’ I stepped forward and held out a hand. ‘We were in the area. I don’t know if you got my letter. I just thought I’d stop by and say hello …’

My voice – false and unnaturally cheery – tailed away. The last time she had seen me was when I helped clear her dead son’s room; the time before that at his last breath. I watched her relive both those facts now. ‘We were just admiring your garden.’

‘David Austin roses,’ said Lily.

Mrs Traynor looked at her as if noticing her for the first time. Her smile was slight and wavering. ‘Yes. Yes, they are. How clever of you. It’s – I’m very sorry. I don’t have many visitors. What did you say your name was?’

‘This is Lily,’ I said, and watched as Lily took Mrs Traynor’s hand and shook it, studying her intently as she did so.

We stood there on her front step for a moment, and finally, as if she thought she had no alternative, Mrs Traynor turned and pushed the door open. ‘I suppose you’d better come in.’

The cottage was tiny, its ceilings so low that even I had to duck when moving from the hall to the kitchen. I waited as Mrs Traynor made tea, watching Lily walk restlessly around the tiny living room, navigating her way among the few bits of highly polished antique furniture that I remembered from my days in Granta House, picking things up and putting them down again.

‘And … how have you been?’

Mrs Traynor’s voice was flat, as if it were not a question she was really seeking an answer to.

‘Oh, quite well, thank you.’

Long silence.

‘It’s a lovely village.’

‘Yes. Well. I couldn’t really stay in Stortfold …’ She poured boiling water into the teapot and I couldn’t help but be reminded of Della, moving heavily around Mrs Traynor’s old kitchen.

‘Do you know many people in the area?’

‘No.’ She said it as if that might have been the sole reason for her moving there. ‘Would you mind taking the milk jug? I can’t fit everything on this tray.’

There followed a painfully laboured half-hour of conversation. Mrs Traynor, a woman infused with the instinctive upper-middle-class skill of being all over any social situation, had apparently lost the ability to communicate. She seemed only half with us when I spoke. She asked a question, then asked it again ten minutes later, as if she had failed to register the answer. I wondered about the use of anti-depressants. Lily watched her surreptitiously, her thoughts ticking across her face, and I sat between them, my stomach in an increasingly tight knot, waiting for something to happen.

I chattered on into the silence, talking of my awful job, things I’d done in France, the fact that my parents were well, thank you – anything to end the awful, oppressive stillness that crept across the little room whenever I stopped. But Mrs Traynor’s grief hung over the little house, like a fog. If Mr Traynor had seemed exhausted by sadness, Mrs Traynor appeared to be swallowed by it. There was almost nothing left of the brisk, proud woman I had known.

‘What brings you to this area?’ she said, finally.

‘Um … just visiting friends,’ I said.

‘How do you two know each other?’

‘I … knew Lily’s father.’

‘How nice,’ said Mrs Traynor, and we smiled awkwardly. I watched Lily, waiting for her to say something, but she had frozen, as if she, too, were overwhelmed, faced with the reality of this woman’s pain.

We drank a second cup of tea, and remarked upon her beautiful garden for the third, possibly fourth time, and I fought the sensation that our enduring presence was requiring a sort of superhuman effort on her behalf. She didn’t want us there. She was far too polite to say so, but it was obvious that she really just wanted to be on her own. It was in every gesture – every forced smile, every attempt to stay on top of the conversation. I suspected that the moment we were gone she would simply retreat into a chair and stay there, or shuffle upstairs and curl up in her bed.

And then I noticed it: the complete absence of photographs. Where Granta House had been filled with silver-framed pictures of her children, of their family, ponies, skiing holidays, distant grandparents, this cottage was bare. A small bronze of a horse, a watercolour of some hyacinths, but no people. I found myself shifting in my seat, wondering if I had simply missed them, gathered on some occasional table or windowsill. But no: the cottage was brutally impersonal. I thought of my own flat, my utter failure to personalize it or allow myself to turn it into any kind of a home. And I felt suddenly leaden, and desperately sad.

What have you done to us all, Will?

‘It’s probably time to go, Louisa,’ said Lily, looking pointedly at the clock. ‘You did say we wouldn’t want to hit traffic.’

I gazed at her. ‘But –’

‘You said we shouldn’t stay too long.’ Her voice was high and clear.

‘Oh. Yes. Traffic can be very tedious.’ Mrs Traynor began to rise from her chair.

I was glaring at Lily, about to protest again, when the phone rang. Mrs Traynor flinched, as if the sound were now unfamiliar. She looked at each of us, as if wondering whether to answer it, and then, perhaps realizing she couldn’t ignore it while we were there, she excused herself and walked through to the other room, where we heard her answer.

‘What are you doing?’ I said.

‘It just feels all wrong,’ said Lily, miserably.

‘But we can’t go without telling her.’

‘I just can’t do this today. It’s all …’

‘I know it’s scary. But look at her, Lily. I really think it might help her if you told her. Don’t you?’

Lily’s eyes widened.

‘Tell me what?’

My head swivelled. Mrs Traynor was standing motionless by the door to the little hallway. ‘What is it you need to tell me?’

Lily looked at me, then back towards Mrs Traynor. I felt time slow around us. She swallowed, then lifted her chin a little. ‘That I’m your granddaughter.’

A brief silence.

‘My … what?’

‘I’m Will Traynor’s daughter.’

Her words echoed into the little room. Mrs Traynor’s gaze slid towards mine, as if to check that this was in fact some insane joke.

‘But … you can’t be.’

Lily recoiled.

‘Mrs Traynor, I know this must have come as something of a shock –’ I began.

She didn’t hear me. She was staring fiercely at Lily. ‘How could my son have had a daughter I didn’t know about?’

‘Because my mum didn’t tell anyone.’ Lily’s voice emerged as a whisper.

‘All this time? How can you have been a secret for all this time?’ Mrs Traynor turned towards me. ‘You knew about this?’

I swallowed. ‘It was why I wrote to you. Lily came to find me. She wanted to know about her family. Mrs Traynor, we didn’t want to cause you any more pain. It’s just that Lily wanted to know her grandparents and it didn’t go particularly well with Mr Traynor and …’

‘But Will would have said something.’ She shook her head. ‘I know he would. He was
my son.
’

‘I’ll take a blood test if you really don’t believe me,’ said Lily, her arms folding across her chest. ‘But I’m not after anything of yours. I don’t need to come and stay with you or anything. I have my own
money
, if that’s what you think
.’

‘I’m not sure what I –’ Mrs Traynor began.

‘You don’t have to look horrified. I’m not, like, some contagious disease you’ve just inherited. Just, you know, a
granddaughter
. Jesus.’

Mrs Traynor sank slowly into a chair. After a moment, a trembling hand went to her head.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Traynor?’

‘I don’t think I …’ Mrs Traynor closed her eyes. She seemed to have retreated somewhere far inside herself.

‘Lily, I think we should go. Mrs Traynor, I’m going to write down my number. We’ll come back when this news has had a chance to sink in.’

‘Says who? I’m not coming back here. She thinks I’m a liar. Jesus. This
family
.’

Lily stared at us both in disbelief, then pushed her way out of the little room, knocking over a small walnut occasional table as she went. I stooped, picking it up, and carefully
replaced the little silver boxes that had been laid out neatly on its surface.

Mrs Traynor was gaunt with shock.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Traynor,’ I said. ‘I really did try to speak to you before we came.’

I heard the car door slam.

Mrs Traynor took a breath. ‘I don’t read things if I don’t know where they’ve come from. I had letters. Vile letters. Telling me that I … I don’t answer anything much now … It’s never anything I want to hear.’ She looked bewildered and old and fragile.

‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’ I picked up my bag and fled.

‘Don’t say anything,’ said Lily, as I got into the car. ‘Just don’t. Okay?’

‘Why did you do that?’ I sat in the driver’s seat, keys in my hand. ‘Why would you sabotage it all?’

‘I could see how she felt about me from the moment she looked at me.’

‘She’s a mother, plainly still grieving her son. We had just given her an enormous shock. And you went off at her like a rocket. Could you not have been quiet and let her digest it all? Why do you have to push everyone away?’

‘Oh, what the hell would you know about me?’

‘You seem determined to wreck your relationship with every person who might get close to you.’

‘Oh,
God
, is this about the stupid tights again? What do you know about anything? You spend your whole life alone in a crappy flat where nobody visits. Your parents plainly think you’re a loser. You don’t have the guts to walk out of even the world’s most pathetic job.’

‘You have no idea how hard it is to get any job, these days, so don’t you tell me –’

‘You’re a
loser
. Worse than that you’re a loser who thinks you can tell other people what to do. And who gives you the right? You sat there at my dad’s bedside and you watched him die and you did nothing about it. Nothing! So I hardly think you’re any great judge of how to behave.’

The silence in the car was as hard and brittle as glass. I stared at the wheel. I waited until I was sure I could breathe normally.

Then I started the car and we drove the 120 miles home in silence.

I barely saw Lily for the next few days, and that suited me fine. When I came home from work a trail of crumbs or empty mugs confirmed that she had been there. A couple of times I walked in and the air felt oddly disturbed, as if something had taken place I couldn’t quite identify. But nothing was missing and nothing obviously altered, and I put it down to the weirdness of sharing a flat with someone you weren’t getting on with. For the first time I allowed myself to admit that I missed being on my own.

I called my sister, and she had the good grace not to say, ‘I told you so.’ Well, maybe just once.

‘That is the worst thing about being a parent,’ she said, as if I were one too. ‘You’re meant to be this serene, all-knowing, gracious person who can handle every situation. And sometimes when Thom is rude, or I’m tired, I just want to slam the door at him or stick my tongue out and tell him he’s an arse.’

Which was pretty much how I felt.

Work had reached a misery point where I had to make myself sing show tunes in my car even to make myself drive to the airport.

And then there was Sam.

Who I didn’t think about.

I didn’t think about him in the morning, when I caught sight of my naked body in the bathroom mirror. I didn’t remember the way his fingers had traced my skin and made my vivid red scars not so much invisible as part of a shared history – or how, for one brief evening, I had felt reckless and alive again.
I didn’t think about him when I watched the couples, heads bowed together as they examined their boarding passes, off to share romantic adventures – or just hot monkey sex – in destinations far from there. I didn’t think about him on the way to and from work, whenever an ambulance went screaming past. Which seemed to happen an inordinate number of times. And I definitely didn’t think about him in the evening when I sat home alone on my sofa, gazing at a television show whose plot I couldn’t have told you, and looking, I suspected, like the loneliest flammable porno pixie on the planet.

Nathan rang and left a message, asking me to call. I wasn’t sure I could bear to hear the latest episode of his exciting new life in New York, and put it on my mental to-do list of things that would never actually get done. Tanya texted me to say the Houghton-Millers had come home three days early, something to do with Francis’s work. Richard rang, telling me I was on the late shift from Monday to Friday.
And please don’t be late, Louisa. I’d like to remind you again that you are on your final warning.

I did the only thing I could think of: I went home, driving to Stortfold with the music turned up loud so that I didn’t have to be alone with my thoughts. I felt grateful for my parents. I felt an almost umbilical pull towards home, the comfort offered by a traditional family and Sunday lunch on the table.

‘Lunch?’ said Dad, his arms crossed across his stomach, his jaw set in indignation. ‘Oh, no. We don’t do Sunday lunch any more. Lunch is a sign of patriarchal oppression.’

Granddad nodded mournfully from the corner.

‘No, no, we can’t have lunch. We do sandwiches on a Sunday now. Or soup. Soup is apparently agreeable to feminism.’

Treena, studying at the dining-table, rolled her eyes. ‘Mum is doing a women’s poetry class on Sunday mornings
at the adult education centre. She’s hardly turned into Andrea Dworkin.’

‘See, Lou? Now I’m expected to know all about feminism and this Andrew Dorkin fella has stolen my bloody Sunday lunch.’

‘You’re being dramatic, Dad.’

‘How is this dramatic? Sundays is
family
time. We should have family Sunday lunch.’

‘Mum’s entire life has been family time. Why can’t you just let her have some time to herself?’

Dad pointed his folded-up newspaper at Treena. ‘You did this. Your mammy and I were perfectly happy before you started telling her she wasn’t.’

Granddad nodded in agreement.

‘It’s all gone pear-shaped around here. I can’t watch the television without her muttering, “Sexist,” at the yoghurt ads. This is sexist. That’s sexist. When I brought home Ade Palmer’s copy of the
Sun
just for a bit of a read of the sports pages she chucked it in the fire because of Page Three. I never know where she is from one day to the next.’

‘One two-hour class,’ said Treena, mildly, not looking up from her books. ‘On a Sunday.’

‘I’m not being funny, Dad,’ I said, ‘but those things on the end of your arms?’

‘What?’ Dad looked down. ‘What?’

‘Your hands,’ I said. ‘They’re not painted on.’

He frowned at me.

‘So I’m guessing you could make the lunch. Give Mum a surprise when she gets back from her poetry class?’

Dad’s eyes widened. ‘Me make the Sunday lunch? Me? We’ve been married nearly thirty years, Louisa. I don’t do the bloody lunch. I do the earning, and your mother does the lunch. That’s the deal! That’s what I signed up for! What’s the
world coming to if I’m there with a pinny on, peeling spuds, on a Sunday? How is that fair?’

‘It’s called modern life, Dad.’

‘Modern life. You’re no help,’ Dad said, and harrumphed. ‘I’ll bet you Mr bloody Traynor gets his Sunday lunch. That girl of his wouldn’t be a feminist.’

‘Ah. Then you need a castle, Dad. Castles trump feminism every time.’

Treena and I started to laugh.

‘You know what? There’s a reason why the two of you haven’t got boyfriends.’

‘Ooh. Red card!’ We both held up our right hands. He shoved his paper up in the air and stomped off to the garden.

Treena grinned at me. ‘I was going to suggest we cook lunch but … now?’

‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to perpetuate patriarchal oppression. Pub?’

‘Excellent. I’ll text Mum.’

My mother, it emerged, had, at the age of fifty-six, begun to come out of her shell, first as tentatively as a hermit crab but now, apparently, with increasing enthusiasm. For years she hadn’t left the house unaccompanied, had been satisfied with the little domain that was our three-and-a-half-bedroomed house. But spending weeks in London after I’d had my accident had forced her out of her normal routine and sparked some long-dormant curiosity about life beyond Stortfold. She had started flicking through some of the feminist texts Treena had been given at the GenderQuake awareness group at college, and these two alchemic happenings had caused my mother to undergo something of an awakening. She had ripped her way through
The Second Sex
and
Fear of Flying
, followed up with
The Female Eunuch
, and after reading
The Women’s Room
had been so shocked at what she saw as the
parallels to her own life that she had refused to cook for three days, until she had discovered Granddad was hoarding four-packs of stale doughnuts.

‘I keep thinking about what your man Will said,’ she remarked, as we sat around the table in the pub garden, watching Thom periodically butt heads with the other children on the sagging bouncy castle. ‘You only get the one life – isn’t that what he told you?’ She was wearing her usual blue short-sleeved shirt, but she had tied her hair back in a way I hadn’t seen before and looked oddly youthful. ‘So I just want to make the most of things. Learn a little. Take the rubber gloves off once in a while.’

‘Dad’s quite pissed off,’ I said.

‘Language.’

‘It’s a sandwich,’ said my sister. ‘He’s not trekking forty days through the Gobi desert for food.’

‘And it’s a ten-week course. He’ll live,’ said my mother, firmly, then sat back and surveyed the two of us. ‘Well, now, isn’t this nice? I’m not sure the three of us have been out together since … well, since you were teenagers and we would go shopping in town of a Saturday.’

‘And Treena would complain that all the shops were boring.’

‘Yeah, but that’s because Lou liked charity shops that smelt of people’s armpits.’

‘It’s nice to see you in some of your favourite things again.’ Mum nodded at me admiringly. I had put on a bright yellow T-shirt in the hope that it would make me look happier than I felt.

They asked about Lily, and I said she was back with her mother, and had been a bit of a handful, and they exchanged looks, like that was pretty much what they had expected me to say. I didn’t tell them about Mrs Traynor.

‘That whole Lily thing was a very odd situation. I can’t
think much of that mother just handing her daughter over to you.’

‘Mum means that nicely, by the way,’ said Treena.

‘But that job of yours, Lou, love. I don’t like the thought of you prancing around behind a bar in your next-to-nothings. It sounds like that place … What is it?’

‘Hooters,’ said Treena.

‘It’s not like Hooters. It’s an airport. My hooters are fully suited and hooted.’

‘Nobody toots those hooters,’ said Treena.

‘But you’re wearing a sexist costume to serve drinks. If that’s what you want to do, you could do that at … I don’t know, Disneyland Paris. If you were Minnie, or Winnie the Pooh, you wouldn’t even have to show your legs.’

‘You’ll be thirty soon,’ said my sister. ‘Minnie, Winnie or Nell Gwynnie. The choice is yours.’

‘Well,’ I said, as the waitress brought our chicken and chips, ‘I’ve been thinking, and, yes, you’re right. From now on I’m going to move on. Focus on my career.’

‘Can you say that again?’ My sister moved some of the chips from her plate on to Thom’s. The pub garden had become noisier.

‘Focus on my career,’ I said, louder.

‘No. That bit where you said I was right. I’m not sure you’ve said that since 1997. Thom, don’t go back on the bouncy castle yet, sweetheart. You’ll be sick.’

We sat there for a good part of the afternoon, avoiding Dad’s increasingly cross texts demanding to know what we were doing. I had never sat with my mother and sister, like normal people, grown-ups, having conversations that didn’t involve putting anything away or somebody being
so annoying
. We found ourselves surprisingly interested in each other’s lives and opinions, as if we had suddenly realized each of us might
have roles beyond
the brainy one
,
the chaotic one
, and
the one who does all the housework.

It was an odd sensation, having to view my family as human beings.

‘Mum,’ I said, shortly after Thom had finished his chicken and run off to play, and about five minutes before he would lose his lunch on the bouncy castle and put it out of action for the rest of the afternoon, ‘do you ever mind not having had a career?’

‘No. I loved being a mum. I really did. But it’s odd … Everything that’s happened over the past two years, it does make you think.’

I waited.

‘I’ve been reading about all these women – these brave souls who made such a difference in the world to the way people think and do things. And I look at what I’ve done and wonder whether, well, whether anyone would notice a jot if I wasn’t here.’

She said this quite evenly so I couldn’t tell if she was actually much more upset about it than she was prepared to let on. ‘We’d notice more than a jot, Mum,’ I said.

‘But it’s not like I’ve made an impact on much, is it? I don’t know. I’ve always been content. But it’s like I’ve spent thirty years doing one thing and now everything I read, the television, the papers, it’s like everyone’s telling me it was worth nothing.’

My sister and I stared at each other.

‘It wasn’t nothing to us, Mum.’

‘You’re sweet girls.’

‘I mean it. You …’ I thought suddenly of Tanya Houghton-Miller ‘… you made us feel safe. And loved. I liked you being there every day when we came home.’

Mum put her hand on mine. ‘I’m fine. I’m so proud of the
pair of you, making your own way in the world. Really. But I just need to work out some things for myself. And it’s an interesting journey, really it is. I’m loving the reading. Mrs Deans at the library is calling in all sorts of things she thinks I might be interested in. I’m going to move on to the American New Wave feminists next. Very interesting, all their theories.’ She folded her paper napkin neatly. ‘I do wish they’d all stop arguing with each other, though. I slightly want to smack their heads together.’

‘And … are you really still not shaving your legs?’

I had gone too far. My mother’s face closed off, and she gave me the fishy eye. ‘Sometimes, it takes you a while to wake up to a true sign of oppression. I have told your father, and I’ll tell you girls, the day he goes to the salon to have his legs covered with hot wax, then have it ripped off by a ruddy twenty-one-year-old is the day I’ll start doing mine again.’

The sun eased down over Stortfold, like melting butter. I stayed much later into the evening than I had intended, said goodbye to my family, climbed into my car and drove home. I felt grounded, tethered. After the emotional turbulence of the past week, it was good to be surrounded by a bit of normality. And my sister, who never showed signs of weakness, had confessed that she thought she would remain single for ever, brushing away Mum’s insistence that she was ‘a gorgeous-looking girl’.

‘But I’m a single mother,’ she’d said. ‘And, worse, I don’t do flirting. I wouldn’t know how to flirt with someone if Louisa stood behind them holding up placards. And the only men I’ve met in two years have either been frightened off by Thom or after one thing.’

‘Oh, not –’ my mother began.

‘Free accounting advice.’

Suddenly, looking at her from the outside, I’d felt a sudden sympathy. She was right: I had been handed, against the odds, all the advantages – a home of my own, a future free of any responsibilities – and the only thing stopping me embracing them was myself. The fact that she wasn’t eaten up with bitterness over our respective lots was pretty impressive. I hugged her before I left. She was a little shocked, then momentarily suspicious, patted her upper back to check for KICK ME signs, then finally hugged me back.

‘Come and stay,’ I said. ‘Really. Come and stay. I’ll take you dancing at this club I know. Mum can mind Thom.’

My sister laughed, and closed the door of the car as I started it. ‘Yeah. You dancing? Like
that
’s going to happen.’ She was still laughing as I drove away.