Still Me
Page 43
‘But – but you’re my age. How can you know for sure? I can’t tell most days if I’m going to want to stick with the same brand of hair conditioner. Lots of people change their mind when –’
‘I am not having children with Leonard,’ she snapped. ‘Okay? Enough with the talk of children.’
I stood, a little reluctantly, and her head whipped around, her expression fierce. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I caused you trouble.’ She pushed at her brow with the heel of her palm. ‘Okay? I’m sorry. Now I am going for a run. On my own.’
Ilaria was in the kitchen when I walked in a few moments later. She was pushing a huge lump of dough around a mixing bowl with fierce, even strokes and she didn’t look up.
‘You think she is your friend.’
I stopped, my mug halfway to the coffee machine.
She pushed the dough with particular force. ‘The puta would sell you down the river if it meant she saved herself.’
‘Not helpful, Ilaria,’ I said. It was perhaps the first time I had ever answered her back. I filled my mug and walked to the door. ‘And, believe it or not, you don’t know everything.’
I heard her snort from halfway down the hall.
I headed down to Ashok’s desk to pick up Agnes’s dry-cleaning, stopping to chat for a few moments to try to push aside my dark mood. Ashok was always even, always upbeat. Talking with him was like having a window on a lighter world. When I arrived back at the apartment there was a small, slightly wrinkled plastic bag propped up outside the front door. I stooped to pick it up and found, to my surprise, that it was addressed to me. Or at least to ‘Louisa I think her name is’.
I opened it in my room. Inside, wrapped in recycled tissue paper, was a vintage Biba scarf, decorated with a print of peacock feathers. I opened it out and draped it around my neck, admiring the subtle sheen of the fabric, the way it shimmered even in the dim light. It smelt of cloves and old perfume. Then I reached into the bag and pulled out a small card. The name at the top read, in looping dark blue print: Margot De Witt. Underneath, in a shaky scrawl, was written: Thank you for saving my dog.
15
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Hi, Mum,
Yes, Halloween is kind of a big deal here. I walked around the city and it was very sweet. There were lots of little ghosts and witches carrying baskets of sweets, with their parents following at a distance with torches. Some of them had even dressed up too. And people here seem to really get into it, not like our street where half the neighbours turn their lights out or hide in the back room to stop kids knocking. All the windows are full of plastic pumpkins or fake ghosts and everyone seems to love dressing up. Nobody even egged anyone else that I could see.
But no trick-or-treaters in our building. We’re not really in the kind of neighbourhood where people knock on each other’s doors. Maybe they’d call out to each other’s drivers. Also they’d have to get past the night man and he can be kind of scary in himself.
It’s Thanksgiving next. They’d barely cleared away the ghost silhouettes before the adverts for turkey started. I’m not entirely sure even what Thanksgiving’s about – mostly eating, I think. Most holidays here seem to be.
I’m fine. I’m sorry I haven’t called much. Give my love to Dad and Granddad.
I miss you.
Lou x
Mr Gopnik, newly sentimental about family gatherings in the way that recently divorced men often are, had decreed that he wanted a Thanksgiving dinner at the apartment with his closest family present, capitalizing on the fact that the former Mrs Gopnik was headed to Vermont with her sister. The prospect of this happy event – along with his schedule of eighteen-hour working days – was enough to send Agnes into a persistent funk.
Sam sent me a text message on his return – twenty-four hours after his return, actually – to say he was tired and this was harder than he’d thought. I answered with a simple yes because in truth I was tired too.
I ran with Agnes and George early in the morning. When I didn’t run I woke in the little room with the sounds of the city in my ears and a picture of Sam, standing in my bathroom doorway, in my head. I would lie there, shifting and turning, until I was tangled in the sheets, my mood blackened. The whole day would be tarnished before it had even started. When I had to get up and out in my running shoes, I woke up already on the move, forced to contemplate other people’s lives, the pull in my thighs, the cold air in my chest, the sound of my breathing in my ears. I felt taut, strong, braced to bat away whatever crap the day was likely to greet me with.
And that week there was significant crap. Garry’s daughter dropped out of college, putting him in a foul mood, so that every time Agnes left the car he would rail about ungrateful children who didn’t understand sacrifice or the value of a working man’s dollar. Ilaria was reduced to constant mute fury by Agnes’s more bizarre habits, such as ordering food she subsequently decided she didn’t want to eat, or locking her dressing room when she wasn’t in it, so that Ilaria couldn’t put her clothes away. ‘She wants me to put her underwear in the hallway? She wants her sexytime outfits on full display to the grocery man? What is she hiding in there anyway?’
Michael flitted through the apartment like a ghost, wearing the exhausted, harried expression of a man doing two jobs – and even Nathan lost some of his equanimity and snapped at the Japanese cat lady when she suggested that the unexpected deposit in Nathan’s shoe was the result of his ‘bad energy’. ‘I’ll give her bad ruddy energy,’ he grumbled, as he dropped his running shoes into a bin. Mrs De Witt knocked on our door twice in a week to complain about the piano, and in retaliation Agnes put on a recording of a piece called ‘The Devil’s Staircase’, and turned it up loud just before we went out. ‘Ligeti,’ she sniffed, checking her make-up in her compact as we headed down in the lift, the hammering, atonal notes climbing and receding above us. I quietly texted Ilaria in private and asked her to turn it off once we had gone.
The temperature dropped, the sidewalks became even more congested, and the Christmas displays began to creep into the shopfronts, like a gaudy, glittering rash. I booked my flights home with little anticipation, no longer knowing what kind of welcome I’d be returning to. I called my sister, hoping she wouldn’t ask too many questions. I needn’t have worried. She was as talkative as I had ever known her, chatting about Thom’s school projects, his new friends from the estate, his football prowess. I asked her about her boyfriend and she grew uncharacteristically quiet.
‘Are you going to tell us anything about him? You know it’s driving Mum nuts.’
‘Are you still coming home at Christmas?’
‘Yup.’
‘Then I might introduce you. If you can manage not to be a complete eejit for a couple of hours.’
‘Has he met Thom?’
‘This weekend,’ she said, her voice suddenly a little less confident. ‘I’ve kept them separate till now. What if it doesn’t work? I mean, Eddie loves kids but what if they don’t –’
‘Eddie!’
She sighed. ‘Yes. Eddie.’
‘Eddie. Eddie and Treena. Eddie and Treena sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.’
‘You are such a child.’
It was the first time I had laughed all week. ‘They’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘And once you’ve done that you can take him to meet Mum and Dad. Then you’ll be the one Mum keeps asking about wedding bells and I can take a Maternal Guilt Trip Vacation.’
‘It’s “holiday”. You’re not American. And like that’s ever going to happen. You know she’s worried you’ll be too grand to talk to them at Christmas? She thinks you won’t want to get in Daddy’s van from the airport because you’ve got used to riding in limousines.’
‘It’s true. I have.’
‘Seriously, what’s going on? You’ve said nothing about what’s happening with you.’
‘Loving New York,’ I said, smooth as a mantra. ‘Working hard.’
‘Oh, crap. I’ve got to go. Thom’s woken up.’
‘I am not having children with Leonard,’ she snapped. ‘Okay? Enough with the talk of children.’
I stood, a little reluctantly, and her head whipped around, her expression fierce. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I caused you trouble.’ She pushed at her brow with the heel of her palm. ‘Okay? I’m sorry. Now I am going for a run. On my own.’
Ilaria was in the kitchen when I walked in a few moments later. She was pushing a huge lump of dough around a mixing bowl with fierce, even strokes and she didn’t look up.
‘You think she is your friend.’
I stopped, my mug halfway to the coffee machine.
She pushed the dough with particular force. ‘The puta would sell you down the river if it meant she saved herself.’
‘Not helpful, Ilaria,’ I said. It was perhaps the first time I had ever answered her back. I filled my mug and walked to the door. ‘And, believe it or not, you don’t know everything.’
I heard her snort from halfway down the hall.
I headed down to Ashok’s desk to pick up Agnes’s dry-cleaning, stopping to chat for a few moments to try to push aside my dark mood. Ashok was always even, always upbeat. Talking with him was like having a window on a lighter world. When I arrived back at the apartment there was a small, slightly wrinkled plastic bag propped up outside the front door. I stooped to pick it up and found, to my surprise, that it was addressed to me. Or at least to ‘Louisa I think her name is’.
I opened it in my room. Inside, wrapped in recycled tissue paper, was a vintage Biba scarf, decorated with a print of peacock feathers. I opened it out and draped it around my neck, admiring the subtle sheen of the fabric, the way it shimmered even in the dim light. It smelt of cloves and old perfume. Then I reached into the bag and pulled out a small card. The name at the top read, in looping dark blue print: Margot De Witt. Underneath, in a shaky scrawl, was written: Thank you for saving my dog.
15
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Hi, Mum,
Yes, Halloween is kind of a big deal here. I walked around the city and it was very sweet. There were lots of little ghosts and witches carrying baskets of sweets, with their parents following at a distance with torches. Some of them had even dressed up too. And people here seem to really get into it, not like our street where half the neighbours turn their lights out or hide in the back room to stop kids knocking. All the windows are full of plastic pumpkins or fake ghosts and everyone seems to love dressing up. Nobody even egged anyone else that I could see.
But no trick-or-treaters in our building. We’re not really in the kind of neighbourhood where people knock on each other’s doors. Maybe they’d call out to each other’s drivers. Also they’d have to get past the night man and he can be kind of scary in himself.
It’s Thanksgiving next. They’d barely cleared away the ghost silhouettes before the adverts for turkey started. I’m not entirely sure even what Thanksgiving’s about – mostly eating, I think. Most holidays here seem to be.
I’m fine. I’m sorry I haven’t called much. Give my love to Dad and Granddad.
I miss you.
Lou x
Mr Gopnik, newly sentimental about family gatherings in the way that recently divorced men often are, had decreed that he wanted a Thanksgiving dinner at the apartment with his closest family present, capitalizing on the fact that the former Mrs Gopnik was headed to Vermont with her sister. The prospect of this happy event – along with his schedule of eighteen-hour working days – was enough to send Agnes into a persistent funk.
Sam sent me a text message on his return – twenty-four hours after his return, actually – to say he was tired and this was harder than he’d thought. I answered with a simple yes because in truth I was tired too.
I ran with Agnes and George early in the morning. When I didn’t run I woke in the little room with the sounds of the city in my ears and a picture of Sam, standing in my bathroom doorway, in my head. I would lie there, shifting and turning, until I was tangled in the sheets, my mood blackened. The whole day would be tarnished before it had even started. When I had to get up and out in my running shoes, I woke up already on the move, forced to contemplate other people’s lives, the pull in my thighs, the cold air in my chest, the sound of my breathing in my ears. I felt taut, strong, braced to bat away whatever crap the day was likely to greet me with.
And that week there was significant crap. Garry’s daughter dropped out of college, putting him in a foul mood, so that every time Agnes left the car he would rail about ungrateful children who didn’t understand sacrifice or the value of a working man’s dollar. Ilaria was reduced to constant mute fury by Agnes’s more bizarre habits, such as ordering food she subsequently decided she didn’t want to eat, or locking her dressing room when she wasn’t in it, so that Ilaria couldn’t put her clothes away. ‘She wants me to put her underwear in the hallway? She wants her sexytime outfits on full display to the grocery man? What is she hiding in there anyway?’
Michael flitted through the apartment like a ghost, wearing the exhausted, harried expression of a man doing two jobs – and even Nathan lost some of his equanimity and snapped at the Japanese cat lady when she suggested that the unexpected deposit in Nathan’s shoe was the result of his ‘bad energy’. ‘I’ll give her bad ruddy energy,’ he grumbled, as he dropped his running shoes into a bin. Mrs De Witt knocked on our door twice in a week to complain about the piano, and in retaliation Agnes put on a recording of a piece called ‘The Devil’s Staircase’, and turned it up loud just before we went out. ‘Ligeti,’ she sniffed, checking her make-up in her compact as we headed down in the lift, the hammering, atonal notes climbing and receding above us. I quietly texted Ilaria in private and asked her to turn it off once we had gone.
The temperature dropped, the sidewalks became even more congested, and the Christmas displays began to creep into the shopfronts, like a gaudy, glittering rash. I booked my flights home with little anticipation, no longer knowing what kind of welcome I’d be returning to. I called my sister, hoping she wouldn’t ask too many questions. I needn’t have worried. She was as talkative as I had ever known her, chatting about Thom’s school projects, his new friends from the estate, his football prowess. I asked her about her boyfriend and she grew uncharacteristically quiet.
‘Are you going to tell us anything about him? You know it’s driving Mum nuts.’
‘Are you still coming home at Christmas?’
‘Yup.’
‘Then I might introduce you. If you can manage not to be a complete eejit for a couple of hours.’
‘Has he met Thom?’
‘This weekend,’ she said, her voice suddenly a little less confident. ‘I’ve kept them separate till now. What if it doesn’t work? I mean, Eddie loves kids but what if they don’t –’
‘Eddie!’
She sighed. ‘Yes. Eddie.’
‘Eddie. Eddie and Treena. Eddie and Treena sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.’
‘You are such a child.’
It was the first time I had laughed all week. ‘They’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘And once you’ve done that you can take him to meet Mum and Dad. Then you’ll be the one Mum keeps asking about wedding bells and I can take a Maternal Guilt Trip Vacation.’
‘It’s “holiday”. You’re not American. And like that’s ever going to happen. You know she’s worried you’ll be too grand to talk to them at Christmas? She thinks you won’t want to get in Daddy’s van from the airport because you’ve got used to riding in limousines.’
‘It’s true. I have.’
‘Seriously, what’s going on? You’ve said nothing about what’s happening with you.’
‘Loving New York,’ I said, smooth as a mantra. ‘Working hard.’
‘Oh, crap. I’ve got to go. Thom’s woken up.’
