Separate Beds (43 page)

There was nothing so sad and wasteful as stupidity, or to be taken prisoner by your own worst side. And there was nothing so noble as to stand up against the menace of passing years and final oblivion when all would be silent and done.

The edge of the bath was uncomfortable to sit on and she got up and turned off the light.

Mike did not like the fact that sometimes she did not ring him back. It was not that she didn’t wish to, but there were reasons. Emily found it awkward to marry the Mike who directed operations in the office with the Mike who (very generously) carried her off to dinner and the theatre, made her laugh and took her to bed.

It was complicated and possibly rocky – and this from the girl who yearned for passionate engagement and for
the story of her life to begin. ‘I’ll lead where my own nature might be leading.’ The truth was – and Emily submitted her feelings to painful scrutiny – that mixed into her exhilaration were notes of doubt and apprehension. Would she be up to dealing with this? With Mike?

‘Are you playing games?’ Mike asked, when he finally got through to her.

‘No. But I’ve been sorting some things out.’

‘Like what?’

‘I’m moving out of my parents’ house. I’m going to live in Hoxton with a friend. We’ve just signed the lease. It’s nice. Two bedrooms, tiny kitchen, but reasonable sitting area. Quite near the square. We’re lucky to have got it.’

‘I’m interested, you know.’

‘I wasn’t sure.’

Mike was in a taxi on the way back from the airport because he had been away on a conference – Management Strategies for a Green Future. A team had flown to Barcelona and stayed in a very nice hotel, thank you. ‘Next time, I’ll see that you get on it, too,’ he said.

Emily’s immediate response was that things were either moving too fast or closing down in a way she had not quite got her head around. She rearranged a couple of biros on her desk and steadied herself. ‘I thought the point of green was not to fly. Plus I also thought we now had to tighten our belts.’

‘Even Greens have to confer in person. Shall we meet up tonight? I’ve got you some
turrón
.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Very sweet. Very nutty and punishing on the teeth.’

‘Sweet is good. Nutty is excellent, but not tonight. There’s something I have to do.’

‘What?’ He sounded gentle, almost tender, and her stomach performed a somersault.

Emily had not been sure about her plan until the day before. For several weeks now she had lain sleepless and uncertain as to how to handle the knowledge that had tumbled into her lap. This was unexpected. She had imagined that to possess knowledge others did not would be empowering. Instead it was agonizing and erected a barrier between her and the rest of the family. What to do? How to think through its implications and possibilities? When eventually a course of action had presented itself, she had felt shaky. On consideration, her plan cohered, crystal clear and imperative, and she would follow it through. Thus she told Mike, ‘I’m going to see my sister.’

‘But you could see your sister any time. Can’t you postpone?’

Emily reprised the long years during which Annie, and by extension all of them, had suffered from Mia’s absence, plus the painful, dislocating alienation and the gnawing sense that the Nicholsons were badly askew.

‘I don’t
have
to see my sister,’ she told Mike, ‘but I want to. This is a big thing, and it needs to be done.’

‘That important?’ He was a little huffy, but also disappointed.

Mike minded.
That was nice
. ‘That important.’ And she hung up.

Mia lived in Hackney in a street where the housing stock hailed from a century earlier than it did south of river. In general, it was smartly maintained but as Emily had headed further east in her pursuit a contagious decrepitude was
evident in damaged sash windows, the peeling paint and stone of the façades.

Overflowing dustbins flanked the house where Mia and Pete lived. Emily skirted them: they smelt bad and she wondered what changes in the fastidious Mia – lack of energy? Uncaring? – had permitted this to happen. Still, the geraniums in a pot by the door were managing a last bloom, which offered some encouragement. Their bright red burned into her vision while she collected her courage before ringing the bell.

Emily’s heart thumped. Everyone yearned for happy endings, especially her – it was hard-wired into the soul and fiction was littered with them. Yet in real life, on which she was embarking, no insurer on earth would underwrite one.

The bell had barely fallen silent when the door, swollen from damp, was dragged open and Mia was poised on the step. She gasped and clung to the door handle. ‘Emily …
Emily
– What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve come to see you. Can I come in?’

Mia looked bewildered, then resigned. ‘It had to happen one day … How on earth did you find me?’

‘I found out from Kate Sinclair where you worked. The school wouldn’t give any details so I hung about outside like some grim flasher until you came out and I followed you here. Easy.’ Emily grinned. ‘Actually, it wasn’t that easy. I’ve lost my childhood tracking skills, plus I thought you’d spotted me on the bus.’

How much less technicolour and less threatening Mia close up appeared than the Mia of her imagination. The ethereal, beautiful girl floating through her dreams and memories turned out to be no bigger, bolder, flashier or
prettier than most. Furthermore, this Mia’s eyes were sad and haunted where once they had been all sparkle and beauty. Emily swallowed. Despite everything, Mia and she were connected in a profound, indissoluble way and she couldn’t bear to see that her sister was unhappy.

Mia said, ‘Oh, my God,’ stepped forward and kissed Emily on the cheek. She smelt of cheap detergent with a fleeting whiff of turmeric – so alien to what Emily remembered.

‘
Can
I come in?’

A hesitation. Then Mia beckoned Emily in with a thin, ringless hand.

The house was divided into two flats and Mia led her up an uncarpeted staircase dotted with piles of old post and flyers. ‘Flock wallpaper,’ Mia pointed to it. ‘Very jolly and hides the sins. I like it.’ At the entrance to flat two, she turned to face Emily. ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’

The bones of the flat were good and Emily looked around with interest. Big windows and original wood floors … reasonable dimensions … but the furnishings were cheap and kept to the absolute minimum – one easy chair, one sofa, which had seen better days, no pictures and, to Emily’s surprise, not that many books.

Mia gestured to the sofa. ‘I’ll get us a drink.’ She reappeared with a tray on which sat a bottle of lime cordial, a jug of water and two cheap glass tumblers.

Emily viewed the lack of alcohol with some dismay. She needed a slug of wine. Then she transferred her scrutiny to her sister, whom she had spent far too much of her life envying and longing to be. Mia was thinner than ever, hair still cropped, and dressed in grunge, which did not suit her.

A glass of lime cordial was pressed into Emily’s un willing hand. Oily textured and acid-sweet, it puckered the lining of her cheeks.

Mia drank hers with relish, hopping from sofa arm to chair. Ultra-restless and on the defensive. ‘Needed that. Haven’t had time to drink,’ she said. ‘Too busy. Lessons one after the other.’

‘Or to eat, by the look of you,’ remarked Emily.

‘Tell me how everyone is.’

Emily précised the family news and Mia listened – greedily, Emily thought. ‘So, that’s it,’ she finished. ‘All under one roof.’

Mia fiddled with her glass. ‘Why are you here?’

Emily did not answer that one immediately. ‘Where’s Pete?’

‘Pete.’ Mia’s expression was unreadable.

Emily looked round the room for signs of another person and couldn’t find any.

‘He isn’t living here any more.’ Mia lifted a hand in warning and her eyes were huge with despair and self-loathing. ‘Don’t say anything, Em. I forbid it. It’s the usual story. He found someone else. I wasn’t prepared for him to run two women. He chose. I stayed here. The teaching goes on. I can manage. End of story.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Emily was. ‘But you didn’t think to tell us? After everything that happened?’

‘You see?’ Mia flashed. ‘You’re still judging me.’

‘Sorry,’ Emily backpedalled. ‘Sorry, sorry. But you should have said. Then it wouldn’t have been so long.’

Mia smiled, and something of the old lightness and wickedness flashed over her features. ‘To confess Pete’s
buggered off when I’d invested so much in this relationship being right? Anyway, not having a family becomes a habit. You’ll see.’ She poured herself another glass of cordial. ‘I made such a point of hating them, didn’t I? Or, rather, what they
were
.’

‘Do you still think they’re spawn of the devil?’

Mia was quick to pick up Emily’s disapproval. ‘Dad so set himself up.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘He talked and talked about enlightenment but couldn’t stand my political beliefs. Mum wasn’t that much better.’

‘Dad was trying to protect you.’

‘Oh, well.’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps. You and I never did see other’s point of view. I felt I had to make a stand – I felt I had to dig deep into what I had got myself into, but I didn’t mean it to be a long-term estrangement. But that’s how it turned out. I wish …’ The corners of her mouth clamped down but Emily couldn’t make out if it was regret or fatalism. ‘It doesn’t matter what I wish.’ She made a visible eff ort and subjected Emily to the full force of the Mia gaze, which hadn’t changed. ‘So, what have you come to say?’

‘I’m sure you’ve guessed.’

‘Well, it can’t be life and death, and I trust the parents aren’t secretly ill or anything. I’m sorry about Dad’s job, and Gran’s illness. I’d been meaning to go and see her at the home. But I didn’t.’

The casualness with which this tripped off Mia’s tongue took Emily’s breath away. Was Mia so airy and careless with people because she relied on the fact that they loved her? ‘I’ve to come to say that it’s time we sorted the situation out.’ Emily felt angrier than she wanted to be, and checked
herself. ‘Do we want to continue with this estrangement?’ Was this really her talking – so much older-sounding than she felt? She met her sister’s headlamp gaze full on. ‘Mum suffers – and this might be the moment. Yes?’

Hands clasped in her lap, Mia digested the implications of Emily’s olive branch. ‘Dad told me to get out. Remember?’

‘That’s in the past. It’s what people say to each other. You lose your temper and what you say is like breathing. You don’t think about it until it’s done.’

Mia’s fingers twisted together. ‘But he should have thought about it. That’s his job as a parent. He was older and bigger than us. He couldn’t accept that I thought differently, had different politics …’

Greatly daring, Emily said, ‘Or was it just Pete?’

Mia’s eyes widened. ‘Unkind, Em.’ The old childhood nickname slipped out. Mia sighed and Emily knew she had scored a point. ‘The world is rotten, corrupt and unfair, and I had to believe in
something
that might make a difference. In some parts of the world if you speak out you end up as prison fodder or pig fodder, depending. I had to hold my own against Dad, and Pete was part of that.’

‘And Mum?’

There was a long, painful pause. ‘Guilty by association. She never replied to a letter I wrote her. I thought, maybe, she might say or do something …’

‘The point is, Mia, you don’t know if she did or didn’t. You didn’t stick around to find out. You have no idea what she’s been through.’ Emily inspected her practically untouched cordial. ‘You don’t have any wine, do you?’

‘God, no. Far too expensive.’ Mia jumped to her feet and, paced around the room like a cat, picking up a biro and
putting it down, nudging a newspaper towards the wastepaper basket. ‘How’s the twin?’

‘Jake? Struggling with the divorce. Jocasta wants to take the baby to the US and Jake is fighting it. She’s over at the moment for the psychiatrist’s interview and getting re acquainted with her daughter. Naturally, while Jocasta is here she wants to see Maisie, and he hates handing her over.’

Mia fiddled and paced. ‘What’s she like, this Jocasta?’

‘Jocasta aims to rule the world. Chillingly efficient. Funny, though, I grew to quite admire her. She abandoned Maisie, which was dreadful, but she’s regretting it and fighting like a tiger to get her back. It isn’t fair on us but proves she isn’t a monster.’

‘She’s Maisie’s mother.’ Mia shut the window with a snap and returned to her perch on the arm of the sofa. ‘And we know that mothers cherish their daughters.’ She twisted her finger. ‘Not.’

‘Stop it, Mia.’ Mia’s restlessness felt like the wash from a fast boat.

Mia turned her head away. ‘Sorry.’

‘Didn’t you find it difficult not being in touch with Jake?

‘No …’ The word was pulled from Mia. Aha! Her sister was more torn and equivocal than she was going to let on. ‘No. Yes. I was so used to us being bigger together than apart. You know what I mean? The sum of our parts … I don’t think it was very healthy, actually, because you came to believe that you were extra powerful and invincible. Pete didn’t like it much. Jake made him feel sidelined and I understood. When you’re in a relationship, you make sacrifices. Jake was one of them.’

Emily said, ‘I always thought he fell so heavily for Jocasta because you’d gone. There was a hole in his life.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Mia, you could put an end to this.’

There was a long silence.

‘It’s too late,’ burst from Mia. ‘I can’t find my way back. How can I? Oh, what the hell!’

Emily put her arm around Mia. ‘Try.’

Mia submitted to the embrace. Her fingers interlaced with Emily’s. ‘It’s too late.’

Emily tightened her grip. ‘Mia,’ she said, fired up by the spirit of her enterprise. If she could pull this off, she could lay claim to having
done
something, rather than written it. ‘
Think
about it. Come and see the baby.’ She glanced up to see if there was anything, anything, of Pete in the flat. And, as far as she could see, there was nothing. ‘Is Pete in contact at all?’