Can't Let Go (7 page)

Something was off from the moment I arrived in San
Francisco. Joanna wasn't there to meet me at the
airport. That's odd, isn't it? Y o u tell your mother's
oldest friend, your sister's godmother, what time your
flight arrives, you expect her to be there to meet you. It's
part of the job. I rang her number. She answered,
sounding like she barely remembered who I was, and told
me to catch the airport bus.

The 'airport bus' was a minibus, driven by an ageing
hippie. Six or seven of us – some Japanese students, two
men who I assumed were gay, a pair of German tourists and
me – gave him addresses and directions and he wove his
way around the city, dropping us off in turn. I tried to take
up as little room as possible as I stared out of the window
and took in the scenery. Restaurants and fast-food places –
ugly buildings in the middle of big car parks. Petrol
stations. Here and there a small shopping mall. Random
outcrops of luxury houses. Then the city began. Slummy
streets, homeless men in doorways. Cars, buses. A glimpse
up a vertiginous side street. Big Victorian mansions. Up
and down hills, unexpected glimpses of the sea. A
skyscraper like a skinny pyramid or a needle pointing
towards the sky. Pocket-handkerchief parks. Apartment
blocks next to tiny wooden houses like something out of a
fairy tale. Corner grocery stores – Italian, Indian, Korean.
A stretch of main road where suddenly everything was
Chinese: the street signs, the names on the shops. Shop
windows full of embroidered silk slippers and bright red
chicken carcasses. And, everywhere, hills. A switchback
ride. The sun low in the sky, glinting off the sea and off
windows. A city of beautiful, brief peep-show views.

Joanna's home was a picture-book Victorian wooden
house painted blue and white, with steps up from the
street, a wooden porch wrapped around one side, a
profusion of bay windows and a turret with what I learned
was called a widow's walk – a high circular balcony with
a wonderful view of the city. Everywhere the house was
decorated: intricate lacy woodcarvings edging windows,
balconies and the porch. The minibus driver hauled my
case out of the back of the bus and set it down on the
pavement next to me. I stared up at the house for a few
moments, taking it all in. Then I lugged my suitcase up to
the big square porch and rang the doorbell.

Joanna stood there, cigarette in hand. She didn't smile,
she didn't hug me, she didn't ask me about my journey.
She looked at me and her expression said it all: annoyance,
disappointment, regret. She didn't want me there. She
wished she'd never invited me. She'd invited a passionate
actress, a blossom in an appalling frock. And when I
arrived at her doorstep she realised she'd got a scared
eighteen-year-old small-town girl in cheap tarty clothes
from Top Shop.

Joanna's house was full of
things:
pottery and paintings,
stained-glass hangings, bits of tapestry and embroidery
on the walls. My room was in the attic, an airy, sloped roof
room with a double bed that took up almost all the
floor space and with my own little bathroom tucked under
the eaves. Next to my bed was an elaborate Victorian
planter containing a nearly dead dusty ivy.

The heart of the house was the kitchen, a huge room in
the basement, four floors down from my room. Joanna
held court there, and in the evenings people came round
for dinner and there was wine. There was also conversation
that flew over my head. Sometimes a young man
would appear, some guy in his late teens or early twenties,
perhaps; often the son of someone else sitting around the
table. 'Elliot's studying at Berkeley,' or 'Jonas is a very
talented photographer,' Joanna would tell me; and always
she would introduce me in a way that was difficult to live
up to. 'Lizzie's a very promising actress,' or 'Lizzie is a
budding writer.'

Was I? Had I given her any reason to think these
things? Or was she just trying to make herself feel better
about having a very ordinary teenage girl as her house
guest for the summer? I would have to spend the evening
talking to some skinny, intense guy who would later ask
me out, as if it were his duty. And the next day I would
meet him for lunch or coffee or to tour an art gallery or a
museum, and we would stumble through an awkward
conversation before saying goodbye, both of us
apparently relieved that the ordeal was over.

Joanna was trying to find me a boyfriend (the generous
interpretation) or was trying to find someone to take me
off her hands. Having a guest is a chore, I'm sure of it. It's
like a ghost in your house who keeps popping up when
you least expect it. I tried to be self-sufficient, setting off
every morning with my public-transport map and my
guidebook, staying out all day sightseeing, or even just
sitting in cafes with a book. But every evening there I was,
back in her house, back in her kitchen, back in front of her
and needing to be fed and talked to and dealt with.

I tell you all this so that you can understand why I
assumed that Joanna intended Rivers Carillo for me on
that first morning she introduced us. He smiled at me. I
blushed. Joanna frowned. He winked, and my heart was
his.

'Where are you going today?' Joanna asked me that
morning.

'Alcatraz.'

'You'll have such fun,' said Rivers Carillo, winking at
me again.

An hour later I was down at the waterfront. My boat
trip to Alcatraz didn't leave for another half an hour,
so I was killing time watching the sea lions. I wonder if
they're still there. I guess they are – one of the most
popular free attractions in the city. A colony of sea lions,
assembled on wooden pontoons just off the pier. Huge,
sleek, dark brown creatures, so fluid in their movements
that you'd think they didn't have bones. They would sun
themselves and then, bored, restless or hungry, plop down
into the water and another sea lion would take their place.
Fights would break out – spats over a female, or a prime
place on a pontoon – and the fight would end with one of
the animals sliding into the water with barely a splash
before finding another pontoon to rest on. It was difficult
not to anthropomorphise them, to give each one a
character and motives. I was riveted. I felt I could have
watched them all day.

There was a lot of jostling for position, not just among
the sea lions but among the humans watching them.
People pushed and shoved to get to the front, to find the
best place to take pictures from. So when I felt a hand on
my shoulder I didn't think much of it. I assumed it was just
someone pushing me out of the way. The blowing in my
ear? That was a different matter. I turned, angrily, and
came face to face with a pair of dark, laughing eyes. Rivers
Carillo.

'I was wondering if I'd find you here,' he said. 'I
thought you might want some company on your day out.'

Alcatraz was awesome – literally, awesome. It was
forbidding and also beautiful: a cluster of dilapidated
buildings on a craggy island in the middle of a glistening
blue sea with matchless views of the San Francisco
skyline, which seemed almost close enough to touch.
Wild flowers grew out of the crannies in the rocks and
mortar. It was ruggedly beautiful, and I was there with a
ruggedly attractive man.

There was a particular prison cell at Alcatraz in the
corner of the jail building that was nearest the city. They
told us that on New Year's Eve prisoners in that cell could
hear the parties on the mainland, the fireworks and the
horns sounding on all the boats out in the harbour. I
shuddered when they told us that. I squinted through the
tiny outside window in the cell wall and tried to trace the
well-known skyline. I felt a hand in the small of my back
and then Rivers Carillo was nestling next to me, trying to
peer out of the same small window. I felt his stubble rub
against my cheek. His hand stayed on my back, and then
it moved – I'm sure it did – to rest on my bottom. It stayed
there for a while. I did nothing to stop it. In fact, I may
have encouraged him with a flirty wiggle. He grinned at
me; I grinned back. We were co-conspirators in jail
together.

There was another cell that they allowed you in and
then shut the door on you, with a loud clang. The cell was
dark and crowded, and I was standing very close to
Rivers, so close that I could feel his forearm touching
mine. I leaned in a little closer and I think he did too.
Perhaps he was standing a little too close to me for
propriety, but I didn't care. I felt his hand touch my hip,
but maybe it was just for comfort. It was scary, dark and
claustrophobic in that cell.

Later, we sat in the sunshine on the wall that overlooks
the drop down to the ocean and the skyline of San
Francisco. He asked me questions about myself: where I
lived, what books I liked, what music I listened to. He
asked me about my acting, my family, my plans for the
future. I tried to play the part of world-weary, cynical,
seen-it-all young adult in my replies, but I probably just
came across as a callow teenager.

Whatever. We were definitely flirting. He flirted with
me and I flirted back. He recited a poem; I said I liked it
and asked him who wrote it. He told me that he had. I
knew I should be asking him more questions about
himself but I didn't. Instead I let him ask me stuff and I
tried to sound as interesting as possible with my
responses. I was sure he liked me for my mind.

He took a photo of me, San Francisco in the background.
Then one of the other tourists offered to take a
picture of the two of us together and we moved apart
slightly. I felt Rivers stiffen. 'No. No, thanks. It's okay,'
he said. 'We're not together.'

On the ferry on the way back to San Francisco he said,
'That might have taken some explaining to your parents –
a photo of you looking cosy with a middle-aged stranger.'

'You're not a stranger,' I said.

He looked at me, shook his head and laughed. 'Wrong
response. You were supposed to say, "You're not middle aged."'

I looked at him. He was grinning.

'How old are you, anyway?' I asked.

'Thirty-eight. Does that seem really old to you?'

I shook my head, firmly. I was surprised, but
determined not to show it. He was twenty years older than
me. More than twice my age. I smiled to myself. There
was something magical about that figure. Twenty years
older: he was Mr Rochester or Maxim de Winter. Rivers
Carillo was the perfect age for me.

An eighteen-year-old girl in charge of her own
sexuality is at least as dangerous as an eighteen-year-old
boy in charge of his own car. She might
even be
more
dangerous, because there's no test that you
have to pass, no theory, no practical. One minute you're
at school dreaming of pop stars and T V actors and romantic
heroes in novels; the next minute you're out there, all
tits and legs, tarted up and made up and ready to go.

I knew what love was. I'd read about it in books and
seen it in films. I knew it made your heart beat faster and
your eyes glow, and it made you feel alive. Love made
stuff like eating and sleeping seem mundane and
unnecessary. I knew so much about love that I'd ended
things with my home-town boyfriend a couple of months
earlier because he made me feel none of those things. I'd
watched my sister Sarah with her fiance Chris and I'd
shaken my head sadly, full of teenage wisdom and
understanding, when I'd decided that they couldn't
possibly be in love because Sarah was so calm about her
forthcoming wedding.

I was a deep and passionate person, and I was destined
to fall in love deeply and passionately with a deep and
passionate man.

Or I was an annoying, naive, pretentious teenager
destined to have her heart broken into tiny pieces.

I thought that Rivers Carillo was the hero of a romantic
novel: the dark, mysterious older man brought back to life
by the young innocent girl with hidden depths. He was
Rochester, enchanted by the ethereal, pixie-like Jane
Eyre. He was Maxim de Winter, all gruff and forbidding,
proposing abruptly over breakfast to the poor, plain,
nameless heroine.

In fact, as it turned out, Rivers was another character
from romantic fiction: the married seducer who preys on
innocent girls. I know that now; I didn't then.

I was in love with Rivers Carillo, I'm pretty sure that I
was. I counted the days, hours and minutes since I'd
seen him, or until I'd see him again. He would turn up for
dinner at Joanna's sometimes, and we would pretend that
we barely knew each other. His foot would find mine
under the table, or he'd wink at me, or he'd grab hold of
me in the hallway as he left and whisper instructions on
where we should meet the next day. It was always somewhere
public: the food court in the basement at Macy's on
Union Square, the lobby of the St Francis Hotel, the
cable-car turnaround at Powell and Market Streets –
places where I might find myself anyway, places where
two people might accidentally bump into each other.

He took me sightseeing. One day he showed me
around Chinatown, and took me into shops that I would
have been too shy to enter on my own. He showed me the
strange foodstuffs – the bright red chickens, the birds'
nests, the eggs boiled in tea – and he struck up conversations
in pidgin Chinese/American with old, toothless
men behind the shop counters. I admired the silk slippers
and shoes and purses, running my fingers over the gold
embroidery of lions and dragons and flowers. There was
a pair of green slippers I particularly loved. 'Those would
really suit you,' said Rivers, suddenly close to me and
talking right into my ear, his stubble against my cheek. I
thought he was about to offer to buy them for me but he
didn't.

Another day we 'bumped into each other' on the steps
of Grace Cathedral, a huge Gothic-style church on top of
one of the highest hills in the city. Just outside the
cathedral there was what looked like a maze, paved into
the stonework on the ground. It wasn't a maze, though,
strictly speaking; it was a labyrinth, a path to follow that
took you inexorably from the edge to the centre,
supposedly to represent one's twisting spiritual path
through life. I was enchanted by it. Rivers sat down on a
low stone wall nearby, so I left my bag there with him and
started walking through the labyrinth. Around and
around, doubling back on myself, I twisted my way along
the path, feeling the exhilaration of being at the very crest
of one of the highest hills in San Francisco. It was a bright,
sunny, breezy day and I was very happy. I finished the
labyrinth. I reached the centre. I gestured across to
Rivers, my fists in the air in triumph. But he wasn't there.
My bag was, sitting all alone by that stone wall, but he had
gone.

I picked up my bag, checked that my purse was still
there, and stood for a while, trying to see where he'd
gone. Eventually I spotted him, in the small park
opposite the cathedral. I was about to run over but then
I noticed he was talking to someone. A woman. The set
of his body said he didn't want to be interrupted. I
walked across to the park and sat on one of the swings. I
kicked it higher and higher, all the while watching
Rivers talking to that woman. And when she left, I
brought the swing to a stop so suddenly that I scuffed the
soles of my sandals. Rivers came and sat on the swing
next to me. He smiled at me. He didn't say anything
about the woman, and neither did I.

You see, I did know that something was strange, off,
about our relationship. I did realise – at least subconsciously
– that he didn't want anyone to know about us. I
did notice that he never took me into restaurants, or
introduced me to people. I was grateful for that later, of
course; many times I've thought, 'Thank God no one ever
saw us together.' Back then I was annoyed and offended,
but I figured it was just one of his funny ways. He didn't
want people disapproving of us, or of the age difference
between us.

'Joanna doesn't know about us, does she?' he asked me
one day. And I was proud of myself for keeping the
whole thing a secret. I knew my sister's godmother
wouldn't approve of my relationship with a man who was
twenty years older. But I hadn't realised why she would
be extra disapproving about my relationship with this
particular older man.

There was one day that Rivers came back to Joanna's
house with me. I forget why, exactly. I think I had bought
something heavy, or maybe I had a blister or my shoes
had broken. Whatever it was, I remember being a bit
whiny, so Rivers hailed a taxi and then got in it with me.
'It's okay, Joanna's out all evening,' I said.

'I know,' he told me. He winked and squeezed my
knee.

We got a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses from the
kitchen and climbed the four flights of stairs to my little
attic bedroom. Rivers put the glasses on the windowsill
and poured the wine. I put a tape on, one by Wilson
Phillips that I'd bought just a couple of days before. The
summery sound of the music suited my mood. I grabbed
my wineglass and sat down on the bed, acutely aware that
it was the only place to sit.

Rivers looked around the room. He picked up the book
lying next to the bed –
Pride and Prejudice
– and flicked
through a few pages. He rummaged through the pile of
tapes by my stereo. He looked at the ivy in the pot and
pulled off a few leaves. 'This is dead,' he said. He stepped
into my little bathroom and glanced around, fiddling with
the bottles of lotion and the make-up on the shelf under
the mirror. Finally he came and sat beside me on the bed.
He kissed me on the lips, and his mouth tasted of the white
wine we were drinking. I opened my mouth slightly and
he kissed me again, this time taking my bottom lip
between his lips. We each had a wineglass in one hand,
and we were balancing our glasses as we kissed, trying not
to spill the wine. I leaned towards him and tried to make
him kiss me harder. But he pulled away from me. 'I know
you want more,' he said, 'but that's all you're getting for
now.'

I did want more, but also I didn't. My body told me I
wanted more. I wanted to go on kissing him, to feel his
tongue in my mouth, to feel him bite down on my bottom
lip. I wanted to thrust myself at him, to have him fondle
my breasts and more. But, at the same time, I didn't want
it. I was still a virgin. Not only that, I was a vicar's
daughter, a nicely brought up vicar's daughter. My
virginity was the one thing I thought I should keep, at
least for now; at least until I was sure that he loved me.

Rivers stood up, still with the wineglass in his hand. He
unfastened the little French doors that led out onto a tiny,
rickety balcony, walked out there and took in the view.
'Shit,' I heard him say.

'What is it?'

'Joanna's back early. Go downstairs, grab her and keep
her talking while I make my escape.'

He kissed me quickly again as I left my bedroom to go
downstairs. And once again, there was the wink.

I knew barely anything about Rivers Carillo at this
point. I knew he was thirty-eight and a poet. I knew,
because he told me, that during term-time he taught
literature at some university in Indiana. But every
summer he came out to what he called his 'spiritual home',
San Francisco, to 'reconnect with his muse'.

Yeah, I know. I should have realised then that he was a
shallow, pretentious fraud. But I was a naive eighteen-year-old
with a thing for older, artistic men. I was a naive
eighteen-year-old who took people at face value. And so
I thought he was talented, artistic, deep and passionate –
the kind of man I had always been destined to fall in love
with. I was a stupid, stupid girl.