After You (18 page)

‘What makes you think he was gay, Daphne?’

‘I found things when I was looking for one of his ties. Those magazines. Men doing things to other men. In his drawer. I don’t suppose you would have those magazines if you weren’t.’

Fred stiffened slightly. ‘Certainly not,’ he said.

‘I never mentioned them,’ said Daphne. ‘I just tucked them back where I found them. But it all started to click into place. He was never very keen on that side of things. But I thought I was lucky, you see, because I wasn’t either. It’s the nuns. They made you feel dirty for just about everything. So when I married a nice man who wasn’t jumping on top of me every five minutes, I thought I was the luckiest woman on earth. I mean, I would have liked children. That would have been nice. But …’ she sighed ‘… we never really talked about such things. You didn’t in those days. Now I wish we had. Looking back, I keep thinking, What a waste.’

‘You think if you’d talked honestly, it might have made a difference?’

‘Well, times are different now, aren’t they? It’s fine to be homosexual. My dry cleaner is and he talks about his boyfriend to every Tom, Dick and Harry that walks in. I would have been sad to lose my husband, but if he was unhappy because of being trapped, then I would have let him go. I would have done. I never wanted to trap anyone. I only wanted him to be a bit happier.’

Her face crumpled, and I put my arm around her. Her hair smelt of lacquer and lamb stew.

‘There, there, old girl,’ said Fred, and stood up to pat her on the shoulder a little awkwardly. ‘I’m sure he knew you only ever wanted the best for him.’

‘Do you think so, Fred?’ Her voice was tremulous.

Fred nodded firmly. ‘Oh, yes. And you’re quite right. Things were different back then. You’re not to blame.’

‘You’ve been very brave sharing that story, Daphne. Thank you.’ Marc smiled sympathetically. ‘And I have huge admiration for you picking yourself up and moving on. Sometimes just getting through each day requires almost superhuman strength.’

When I looked down, Daphne was holding my hand. I felt her plump fingers intertwine with mine. I squeezed hers back. And before I could think I began to talk. ‘I’ve done something I wish I could change.’

Half a dozen faces turned to me. ‘I met Will’s daughter. She sort of landed in my life out of the blue and I thought that was going to be my way of feeling better about his death but instead I just feel like –’

They were staring. Fred was pulling a face.

‘What?’

‘Who’s Will?’ said Fred.

‘You said his name was Bill.’

I slumped a little in my chair. ‘Will is Bill. I felt weird about using his real name before.’ There was a general release of breath around the room.

Daphne patted my hand. ‘Don’t worry, dear. It’s just a name. Our last group we had a woman who invented the whole thing. Said she had a child died from leukaemia. Turned out she didn’t even have a goldfish.’

‘It’s okay, Louisa. You can talk to us.’ Marc gave me his Special Empathetic Gaze. I gave him a small smile back, just to show him I had received and understood. And that Will was not a goldfish.
What the hell?
I thought. My life is no more mixed up than any of theirs.

So I told them about Lily turning up and how I had thought I could fix her and bring about a reunion that would make everyone happy, and how I now felt stupid for my naivety. ‘I feel like I’ve let Will – everyone – down again,’ I said. ‘And now she’s gone and I keep asking myself what I could have done differently, but the real truth is I couldn’t cope. I wasn’t strong enough to take charge of it all and make it better.’

‘But your things! Your precious things got stolen!’
Daphne’s other plump, damp hand clamped onto mine. ‘You had every right to be angry!’

‘Just because she doesn’t have a father doesn’t give her the excuse to behave like a brat,’ said Sunil.

‘I think you were very nice to let her stay in the first place. I’m not sure I would,’ said Daphne.

‘What do you think her father might have done differently, Louisa?’ Marc poured himself another cup of coffee.

I wished, suddenly, that we had something stronger. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But he had this way of taking charge. Even when he couldn’t move his arms and legs you got the feeling he was capable. He would have stopped her doing stupid stuff. He would have got her straightened out somehow.’

‘Are you sure you’re not idealizing him? We do idealization in week eight,’ said Fred. ‘I keep turning Jilly into a saint, don’t I, Marc? I forget that she used to leave her hold-ups hanging over the shower rail and it drove me absolutely potty.’

‘Her father might not have been able to do anything to help her at all. You have no idea. They might have loathed each other.’

‘She sounds like a complicated young woman,’ said Marc. ‘And it’s possible that you gave her as many chances as you could. But … sometimes, Louisa, moving on means we do have to protect ourselves. And perhaps you understood that, deep down. If Lily simply brought chaos and negativity into your life, then for now, it’s possible you did the only thing you could.’

‘Oh, yes.’ There were nods around the circle. ‘Be kind to yourself. You’re only human.’ They were so sweet, smiling at me reassuringly, wanting me to feel better.

I almost believed them.

On Tuesday I asked Vera if she could give me ten minutes (I muttered vague things about Women’s Troubles and she
nodded, as if to say Women’s Lives Were Nothing but Trouble, and murmured that she would tell me later about her fibroids). I ran to the quietest Ladies loo – the only place I could be sure Richard wouldn’t see me – with my laptop in my bag. I threw a shirt over the top of my uniform, balanced the laptop near the basins and hooked into the thirty minutes’ free airport Wi-Fi, positioning myself carefully in front of the screen. Mr Gopnik’s Skype call came in dead on five o’clock, just as I whipped off my ringlets Irish-dancing-girl wig.

Even if I had seen nothing else of Leonard Gopnik than his pixellated face, I could have told you he was rich. He had beautifully cut salt-and-pepper hair, and gazed out of the small screen with natural authority, and spoke without wasting a word. Well, there was that and the gilt-framed old master on the wall behind him.

He asked nothing about my school record, my qualifications, my CV or why I was conducting an interview beside a hand-dryer. He looked down at some papers, then asked about my relationship with the Traynors.

‘Good! I mean, I’m sure they would provide a reference. I’ve seen both of them recently, for one reason or another. We get on well, despite the – the circumstances of …’

‘The circumstances of the end of your employment.’ His voice was low, decisive. ‘Yes, Nathan has explained a lot about that situation. Quite a thing to be involved in.’

‘Yes. It was,’ I said, after a short, awkward silence. ‘But I felt privileged. To be part of Will’s life.’

He registered this. ‘What have you been doing since?’

‘Um, well, I travelled a bit, Europe mostly, which was … interesting. It’s good to travel. And get a perspective. Obviously.’ I tried to smile. ‘And I’m now working at an airport but it’s not really –’ As I spoke, the door opened behind me
and a woman walked in, pulling a wheelie case. I shifted my computer, hoping he couldn’t hear the sound of her entering the cubicle. ‘It’s not really what I want to be doing long term.’
Please don’t wee noisily
, I begged her silently.

He asked me a few questions about my current responsibilities, and salary level. I tried to ignore the sound of flushing, and kept my gaze straight ahead, ignoring the woman who emerged.

‘And what do you want –’ As Mr Gopnik began to speak, she reached past me and started up the hand-dryer, which let out a deafening roar beside me. He frowned.

‘Hold on one moment, please, Mr Gopnik.’ I put my thumb over what I hoped was the microphone. ‘I’m sorry,’ I shouted at the woman. ‘You can’t use that. It’s … broken.’

She turned towards me, rubbing perfectly manicured fingers, then back to the machine. ‘No, it’s not. Where’s the out-of-order sign, then?’

‘Burned off. Suddenly. Awful, dangerous thing.’

She fixed me, then the hand-dryer, with a suspicious look, removed her hands from under it, took her case and walked out. I wedged the chair against the door to stop anyone else coming in, shifting my laptop again so that Mr Gopnik could see me. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m having to do this at work and it’s a little …’

He was studying his paperwork. ‘Nathan tells me you had an accident recently.’

I swallowed. ‘I did. But I’m much better. I’m completely fine. Well, fine except I walk with a slight limp.’

‘Happens to the best of us,’ he said, with a small smile. I smiled back. Someone tried the door. I moved so that my weight was against it.

‘So what was the hardest part?’ Mr Gopnik said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Of working for William Traynor. It sounds like quite a challenge.’

I hesitated. The room was suddenly very quiet. ‘Letting him go.’ I said. And found myself unexpectedly biting back tears.

Leonard Gopnik gazed at me from several thousand miles away. I fought the urge to wipe my eyes. ‘My secretary will be in touch, Miss Clark. Thank you for your time.’ And then, with a nod, his face stilled and the screen went blank and I was left staring at it, contemplating the fact that I had blown it, yet again.

That night, on the way home, I decided not to think about the interview. Instead I repeated Marc’s words in my head, like a mantra. I ran through the things that Lily had done, the uninvited guests, the theft, the drugs, the endless late nights, the borrowing of my things, and ran them through the prism of my group’s counsel. Lily was chaos, disorder, a girl who took and gave nothing in return. She was young, and biologically related to Will, but that didn’t mean I had to assume total responsibility for her or put up with the turmoil she left in her wake.

I felt a little better. I did. I reminded myself of something else Marc had said: that no journey out of grief was straightforward. There would be good days and bad days. Today was just a bad day, a kink in the road, to be traversed and survived.

I let myself into the flat, and dropped my bag, suddenly grateful for the small pleasure of a home that was just as I’d left it. I would allow some time to pass, I told myself, and then I would text her, and I would make sure our future visits were structured. I would focus my energies on getting a new job. I would think about myself for a change. I would let myself heal. I had to stop at that point because I was a little worried that I was starting to sound like Tanya Houghton-Miller.

I glanced at the fire escape. Step one would be getting back up on that stupid roof. I would climb up there by myself without having a panic attack and I would sit there for a full half-hour, breathe the air and stop letting a part of my own home have such a ridiculous hold on my imagination.

I took off my uniform and put on shorts and, just for confidence, Will’s lightweight cashmere jumper, the one I had taken from his house after he died, comforted by the soft feel of it against my skin. I walked down the corridor and opened the window wide. It was just two short flights of iron steps. And then I would be up there.

‘Nothing will happen,’ I said aloud, and took a deep breath. My legs felt curiously hollow as I climbed out onto the fire escape, but I told myself firmly that it was just a feeling, the echo of an old anxiety. I could overcome it, just as I would overcome everything else. I heard Will’s voice in my ear.

C’mon, Clark. One step at a time.

I grasped the rails tightly with both hands, and began to make my way up. I didn’t look down. I didn’t let myself think about what height I was at, or how the faint breeze recalled an earlier time gone wrong, or the recurring pain in my hip that never seemed to go away. I thought about Sam, and the fury that invoked made me push on. I didn’t have to be the victim, the person to whom things just
happened
.

I told myself these things and made it up the second flight of steps as my legs began to shake. I climbed inelegantly over the low wall, afraid that they would give way under me, and dropped onto the roof on my hands and knees. I felt weak and clammy. I stayed on all fours, my eyes shut, while I let myself absorb the fact that I was on the roof. I had made it. I was in control of my destiny. I would stay there for as long as it took to feel normal.

I sat back on my heels, reaching for the solidity of the wall
around me, and leaned back, taking a long, deep breath. It felt okay. Nothing was moving. I had done it. And then I opened my eyes and my breath stopped in my chest.

The rooftop was a riot of bloom. The dead pots I had neglected for months were filled with scarlet and purple flowers, spilling over the edges, like little fountains of colour. Two new planters mushroomed with clouds of tiny blue petals, and a Japanese maple sat in an ornamental pot beside one of the benches, its leaves shivering delicately in the breeze.

In the sunny corner by the south wall two grow-bags sat by the water tank, with little red cherry tomatoes dangling from their stalks, and another lay on the asphalt with small frilly green leaves emerging from the centre. I began to walk slowly towards them, breathing in the scent of jasmine, then stopped and sat down, my hand grasping the iron bench. I sank onto a cushion that I recognized from my living room.

I stared in disbelief at the little oasis of calm and beauty that had been created from my barren rooftop. I remembered Lily snapping the dead twig from a pot and informing me in all seriousness that it was a crime to let your plants die, and her casual observation in Mrs Traynor’s garden, ‘David Austin roses.’ And then I remembered little unexplained bits of soil in my hallway.

And I sank my head into my hands.