Alys, Always (22 page)

After tea, while Rufus and Toby quarrel over the last chocolate Santa in the dish, she takes herself off for a bath. Charlie is slumped behind the
Telegraph
’s festive quiz, oblivious.

The noise goes on and on until at last my mother switches on the television.

Every year at this time I’m forced to face my shortcomings, the many things I lack. And though this year is different, though I have my promotion (which everyone is dutifully pleased about) as well as my secret (which I turn over in my mind when I am alone, consoling myself with its exotic heat), I remain, as far as my family is concerned, the same funny old Frances. Uptight. Increasingly set in her ways. A little bit stuck, perhaps.

On his return from Biddenbrooke, Laurence gives me a small framed pen-and-ink drawing of the Heath as a late present. He seems low after the holiday. The children had agreed it would be good to do things differently this year, so they’d kept themselves busy and spent the day itself elsewhere, with friends. But as expected, he says, it was a rather wretched sort of Christmas.

Things appear to be fine at the office: the pages are working well and Mary seems pleased with me. When I am
introduced to Malcolm Azaria at the Sunderland prize ceremony I do not mention the Kytes. Instead I ask whether he’d be interested in contributing to the
Questioner
, and so he starts to write the occasional piece for us. Strangers approach me at literary events: PRs, publishers, other hacks. I’m building up my contacts, putting out my feelers. I begin to feel as if I belong in this world, as if I deserve to be a part of it; as if it accepts me. Respects me, even.

I know how fickle it is, though, and I’m careful not to attach too much importance to its whims.

From time to time I find myself next to Sasha in the tea-trolley queue or the lift and she tells me about Oliver: he’s contributing to a late-night arts show on a satellite TV channel, he’s blogging, he might have a book deal. ‘Give him my best wishes,’ I say, and she says she will, but I know if she does mention me, it will be a joke they share over a drink in some bar or other.

Well, let them.

The anniversary of Alys’s death is approaching. Laurence has not asked me again about that day. It’s as if he’d like to believe we dealt with it fully when I first met the family all those months ago. But then I’ve found out that he won’t speak to me about Alys at all. When I mention her, asking questions about their shared history or her likes and dislikes, his answers are brief and bland, evasive.

Although his rebuff is always polite, he makes me feel ill-mannered for inviting it, as if I’m testing his loyalty.

Maybe that’s exactly what I’m doing.

‘Do you mind me wearing this?’ I ask one morning, when his glance snags on the long wool cardigan I’ve pulled on. It’s an amazing colour: an inky-dark purple. ‘I found it in a cupboard, I wasn’t sure if you’d mind.’

‘I don’t mind,’ he says shortly. The next time I look for it, I see he’s finally cleared her possessions from the chest of
drawers and the wardrobe and the hooks in the hallway. All those shoes – the heels with the bright red soles, the walking boots, the ballet flats in silver and bronze and black, the tall Hunters marked with old pale mud – have been removed. The bathroom cabinet has been emptied of its interior skyline of face creams and bath oils. The mascaras and bottles of foundation and the little blunt stubs of candy-coloured lipsticks in their chrome tubes: all gone.

The wisp of oyster silk is no longer hanging on the back of the bathroom door.

I’m confused by the way this makes me feel: should I be gratified to see her go, or should I be offended that I’m unfit to use her things? It’s hard to know what to think.

‘I see you’ve had a clear-out,’ I say at supper. He tells me Mrs King organised it at his request. Many items were thrown out or given to charity, and the jewellery has been put in a bank vault for Polly, but some of the clothes have been bagged up and put away in the loft. He supposes Polly may want to go through them at some point in the future.

I want to ask how this has affected him but I know, looking at his face, that I can’t. It’s not something he wants to talk about, and I daren’t push things. Maybe later. Not yet.

The date comes and goes, and I do not have the nerve to refer to it directly. We make no arrangements to see each other on the day itself, or indeed during the days on either side. I wonder what he and Polly and Teddy have planned, if anything.

I suspect Teddy takes a day’s holiday and Polly is excused from college and the three of them spend it together. Maybe they visit the grave in Highgate cemetery first thing, followed by a blowy walk on the Heath and a low-key lunch at the Spaniards Inn. I imagine Polly crying all day, off and on. Laurence not saying much but putting his arm around her.
Teddy wavering between melancholy and a desire to cheer everyone up.

On the Friday, as agreed, Laurence comes round to see me. He’s spending more time at mine now; I sense I’m less welcome at the house. Polly’s unplanned visit rattled us both and at some point after that – around the time of the cardigan episode, come to think of it – the flat became the default meeting place.

He says it’s less complicated this way: ‘It’s easier to be anonymous in a flat. Look – you don’t know anyone on your street.’

And he’s right: I know the girl who lives downstairs but only to say hello to, and otherwise – apart from the woman at number 18 who recommended her decorator – the road is full of strangers. ‘You’ve no idea how interested my neighbours are in my life,’ Laurence adds, wearily. ‘It really would be much simpler if we didn’t involve them.’

So he rings the bell, and I let him in.

‘I thought of you all on Monday,’ I say.

‘That was good of you,’ he says politely. Then he leans towards me and all my intentions, all my questions, blow away like smoke.

Later that night I lie beside him, listening to his slow and easy breathing, wondering whether things will ever change. I’m starting to be unable to imagine why they would. It strikes me that Laurence is quite content with things as they are: the widower with his discreet little secret. Perhaps he is having his cake and eating it, as he always has.

I see Oliver as soon as I go in. He’s standing in the corner, nose to nose with S. P. Nicholl. His rather wild laugh travels and unravels across the room.

He’s wearing skinny jeans and very pointed lace-up shoes
and his absurd hair is looking particularly toiled-over. He’s plainly drunk but I still feel daunted by his presence. Maybe I’ll get away without having to speak to him.

The party – held in an upstairs room at a Soho members’ club – is crowded and noisy. Anne Abbott Smith, the reason we’re all here, is holding court by the window, near the table stacked with copies of her memoir. I’m only showing up to say thank you to Erica, the publicist who gave us the first interview, so I work my way round to her, nodding and smiling at people as I inch past them.

‘Hope you were pleased with the coverage,’ I say when I finally reach Erica, and she says she thought Gemma Coke was a little unkind, but oh well, never mind, you can’t look 1,200 words in the mouth.

At the edge of my vision Oliver is being abandoned by S. P. Nicholl, who detaches himself with almost forensic elegance and floats away in search of more congenial company. Looking around for fresh blood, Oliver lurches off in the direction of the group surrounding Anne Abbott Smith, weaving towards her, a little unsteady on his feet. He pushes past the girl from the
Times
and into the semicircle and I can see him introducing himself. Oh my, he’s actually
bending over her hand
and
kissing it
. Anne Abbott Smith stares at him stonily, implacable. I can hear him saying, ‘The quality of your prose …’ and that’s enough, I don’t have to stay any longer, I’ve done what I needed to do.

I’m just at the door when I hear his voice, and he’s calling, ‘Wait up. Frances! Wait up!’

I turn around, adjusting my expression. I want to look cordial but not too inviting. A little cool. But I soon realise any subtleties are going to be wasted on him tonight.

‘Thought it was you!’ he’s saying, clapping his hands on my shoulders and coming in close for a kiss. ‘Good old Frances. Out fishing for diary stories, are you?’

‘Something like that, mm,’ I say. ‘How are you doing, anyway? Where are you working now?’

‘Bits of radio, bits of telly. ’S terrific fun. Probably going to do a book. Best thing is, no more Mary. How is the bloodless old witch?’

‘Oh, missing you,’ I say evenly.

He cocks his head. ‘You’re taking the piss, aren’t you, Frances. Oh, you are bad.’

I start to protest, but there’s not really any point, so I shrug and pull my coat tighter and start walking down the stairs, towards the street. Oliver’s right behind me, though his glass is still in his hand.

‘Do stay, Frances,’ he says, losing his footing on the last three steps, spilling some wine and then giggling and righting himself. ‘I want to hear how it’s all going without me.’

‘Oh, you know. It’s going,’ I say as the door is opened for me and I step into the cold night air. Some taxis go by, and then there’s one with a yellow light. As Oliver follows me out I put my hand up to hail it, but I’m just too late. ‘We’re managing somehow.’

‘I bet you are,’ he says, and there’s a strange note of admiration in his voice. ‘You’re a survivor, aren’t you. I knew it. You and your connections—’

‘Connections?’ I say, walking faster now, and suddenly furious. ‘Whereas you, of course, with your father …’

‘I’ve heard some interesting stories about you recently,’ he’s saying as he hurries after me. ‘You’re getting quite a reputation, you know. Oh, it’s a good one. Hard worker. Sharp mind. Leaves nothing to chance. But everyone wonders where you’ve come
from
.’

‘How ridiculous,’ I say, spinning around and coming back to confront him. ‘I was on that desk with Mary for years before I got my break. I
earned
it.’

‘No, no, of course you did,’ says Oliver, and I can see he’s
taken aback by my reaction; he’s a little excited by it. ‘But people are talking. About your friendship with the Kytes.’

‘So what? Yes, I’m friends with the family. What of it? Is it any of your business?’ I wonder what he’s got on me. Has someone seen me with Laurence?

‘Well, there are these rumours …’ says Oliver, leaning in confidentially so I catch the wine and garlic on his breath. ‘You know what people are like. Only happy when they’re sinking their teeth in! I’ve been defending you, I should tell you that. You know, when people use this phrase “ambulance chaser”, I tell them where to get off.’

I stare at him, and I feel awful treacherous heat flooding my face. ‘Ambulance chaser? Who’s saying that? What on earth do they mean?’ But of course I’m thinking: Charlotte Black and Selma Carmichael. It’s Selma’s doing. I should have been more careful about turning down that job.

‘Isn’t it true, then? That you only got to know Kyte and his daughter because you’d witnessed the wife’s car accident?’

And in Oliver’s voice, I hear an echo of several conversations he has had over the last few weeks: conversations about me, my ambitions and my intentions. The thought of it, the thought of my vulnerability, fills me with a sort of horror. Oliver, running around town in his pointed shoes, shooting his mouth off, buying his way into the right parties with the right information.

But, I tell myself quickly, maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it. Though I hate the idea of Oliver cracking jokes at my expense in the corners of noisy rooms, I have to admit that the idea is not entirely unpleasant. Here is confirmation of my new status. I have become someone whose actions now serve as currency for the little people.

I could give you something to gossip about
, I think.

‘I didn’t witness the accident,’ I say, very patiently. ‘But I was the first person on the scene afterwards. I’ve never said
otherwise.’ And I haven’t. ‘How odd people are! I’ve never misled anyone. Why do they care, anyway?’

‘Oh, you know what people are like,’ Oliver says, but now that I’ve regained my composure he’s losing interest and glancing back over his shoulder at the door. ‘They love to talk.’

‘I suppose they do,’ I say, and I start to walk away, pulling up my collar. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Nice seeing you!’ he calls after me, and then I hear the door slam as he goes back to rejoin the fun.

I hide my anxieties from Laurence. I let him believe all this is enough for me.

My life shifts to accommodate him, though I cannot tell – and do not miss – what he has displaced.

Towards the end of the week, if I go to the supermarket, I might find myself buying croissants, a vacuum-sealed packet of the brand of coffee I know he has at home, an expensive wine I wouldn’t think of for myself. And sometimes – usually – he rings; and sometimes he doesn’t.

When I see him, I am careful not to articulate my feelings. I hold them tight to myself, as I held my bag with its telltale jangle of keys that evening when Polly nearly caught us in Highgate. I am fearful about putting pressure on him.

And then one Saturday in the spring the moment comes when I think it might be time to take a risk.

He calls on Wednesday, and we make a loose arrangement to see each other at the weekend. Does this mean Friday night? Or Saturday? I am not sure and feel unable to press him, so I spend the Friday, my day off, hanging around the flat, half-expecting him to arrive without warning.

Eventually, he rings on the Saturday afternoon. The lowered voice on the phone. ‘Are you free? Can I see you?’

I’ve been vacuuming the stairs and cleaning the bath. My hands are dry and chapped with detergent. I wedge the phone under my chin and squeeze out a little hand cream into my palm, and as I work it into my knuckles, my cuticles, I say, ‘Oh. Fine. If you like,’ wondering whether he’ll hear the timbre of my voice, the sound of dissatisfaction.

And this time when he comes round I do not hide my resentment. I’m a little cold with him. I pull back early from his kisses. When he runs a finger down the side of my cheek, I catch his hand and move it aside.