Still Me
Page 47
‘Washington Heights?’
‘You should go there. It’s a very mixed area. Quite different from … here. I mean some bits of it are gentrified but this bit –’
‘I know Washington Heights, Louisa.’ He tapped his fingers on the desk. ‘Have you spoken to Agnes about this?’
‘I thought I should probably mention it to you first.’
He pulled the file towards him and flicked it open. He frowned at the first sheet – a newspaper cutting of one of the early protests. The second was a budget statement I had pulled from the city council’s website, showing its latest financial year.
‘Mr Gopnik, I really think you could make a difference. Not just to Agnes but to a whole community.’
It was at this point that I realised he appeared unmoved, dismissive even. It wasn’t a sea-change in his expression, but a faint hardening, a lowering of his gaze. And it occurred to me that to be as wealthy as he was, was probably to receive a hundred such requests for money each day, or suggestions as to what he should do with it. And that perhaps, by being part of that, I had stepped over some invisible employee/employer line.
‘Anyway. It was just an idea. Possibly not a great one. I’m sorry if I’ve said too much. I’ll get back to work. Don’t feel you have to look at that stuff if you’re busy. I can take it with me if you –’
‘It’s fine, Louisa.’ He pressed his fingers to his temples, his eyes closed.
I stood, not sure if I was being dismissed.
Finally he looked up at me. ‘Can you go and talk to Agnes, please? Find out whether I’m going to have to go to this dinner alone?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ I backed out of the room.
She went to the mental-health dinner. We didn’t hear any fighting when they got home but the next day I discovered she had slept in her dressing room.
In the two weeks before I was due to head home for Christmas I developed an almost obsessive Facebook habit. I found myself checking Katie Ingram’s page morning and evening, reading the public conversations she had with her friends, checking for new photographs she might have posted. One of her friends had asked how she was enjoying her job and she had written, ‘I LOVE it!’ with a winky face (she was irritatingly fond of winky faces). Another day she had posted: ‘Really tough day today. Thank God for my amazing partner! #blessed’
She posted one more picture of Sam, at the wheel of the ambulance. He was laughing, lifting his hand as if to stop her, and the sight of his face, the intimacy of the shot, the way it placed me in the cab with them, took my breath away.
We had scheduled a call for the previous evening, his time, and when I’d called he hadn’t picked up. I’d tried again, twice, with no answer. Two hours later, just as I was getting worried, I received a text message: Sorry – you still there?
‘Are you okay? Was it work?’ I said, when he called me.
There was the faintest hesitation before he responded. ‘Not exactly.’
‘What do you mean?’ I was in the car with Garry, waiting while Agnes had a pedicure, and I was conscious that he might be listening in, no matter how engrossed he appeared to be in the sports pages of his New York Post.
‘I was helping Katie with something.’
My stomach dropped merely at the mention of her name. ‘Helping her with what?’ I tried to keep my voice light.
‘Just a wardrobe. Ikea. She bought it and couldn’t put it together by herself so I said I’d give her a hand.’
I felt sick. ‘You went to her house?’
‘Flat. It was just to help her with a piece of furniture, Lou. She doesn’t have anyone else. And I only live down the road.’
‘You took your toolbox.’ I remembered how he used to come to my flat and fix things. It had been one of the first things I’d loved about him.
‘Yes. I took my toolbox. And all I did was help her with an Ikea wardrobe.’ His voice had grown weary.
‘Sam?’
‘What?’
‘Did you offer to go there? Or did she ask you?’
‘Does it matter?’
I wanted to tell him it did, because it was obvious that she was trying to steal him from me. She was alternately playing the helpless female, the fun party girl, the understanding best friend and work colleague. He was either blind to it or, worse, he wasn’t. There wasn’t a single picture that she had posted online in which she wasn’t glued to his side, like some kind of lipsticked leech. Sometimes I wondered if she’d guessed I’d be looking at them, and if she got satisfaction from knowing the discomfort this caused me, whether in fact this was part of her plan, to make me miserable and paranoid. I wasn’t sure men would ever understand the infinitely subtle weaponry women used against each other.
The silence between us on the phone opened up and became a sinkhole. I knew I couldn’t win. If I tried to warn him about what was happening, I became a jealous harpy. If I didn’t, he’d carry on walking blindly into her mantrap. Until the day he suddenly realized he was missing her as much as he had ever missed me. Or he found her soft hand creeping into his at the pub as she leant on him for comfort after a tough day. Or they bonded over some shared adrenalin rush, some near-death incident, and found themselves kissing and –
I closed my eyes.
‘So when do you get back?’
‘Christmas Eve.’
‘Great. I’ll try and move some shifts. I’ll be working for some of the Christmas period, though, Lou. You know the job. It doesn’t stop.’
He sighed There was a pause before he spoke again. ‘Listen. I was thinking. Maybe it would be a good idea if you and Katie met each other. Then you can see she’s okay. She’s not trying to be anything other than a mate.’
Like hell she isn’t.
‘Great! Sounds lovely,’ I said.
‘I think you’ll like her.’
‘Then I’m sure I will.’
Like I’d like Ebola virus. Or grating off my own elbows. Or maybe eating that cheese that has live bugs in it.
He sounded relieved when he said, ‘Can’t wait to see you. You’re back for a week, right?’
I lowered my head, trying to muffle my voice a little. ‘Sam, does – does Katie really want to meet me? Is this, like, something you’ve discussed?’
‘Yeah.’ And then, when I said nothing, he added, ‘I mean, not in any … We didn’t talk about what happened with you and me or anything. But she gets that it must be hard for us.’
‘I see.’ I felt my jaw tighten.
‘She thinks you sound great. Obviously I told her she’s got that wrong.’
I laughed, and I’m not sure the world’s worst actor could have made it sound less convincing.
‘You’ll see when you meet her. Can’t wait.’
When he rang off, I looked up to find Garry was looking at me in the rear-view mirror. Our eyes met for a moment, then his slid away.
Given that I lived in one of the world’s busiest metropolises, I had begun to understand that the world as I knew it was actually very small, shrink-wrapped around the demands of the Gopniks from six in the morning often until late evening. My life had become completely intertwined with theirs. Just as I had with Will, I’d become attuned to Agnes’s every mood, able to detect from the subtlest signs whether she was depressed, angry or simply in need of food. I now knew when her periods were due, and marked them in my personal diary so that I could be braced for five days of heightened emotion or extra-emphatic piano playing. I knew how to become invisible during times of family conflict or when to be ever-present. I became a shadow, so much so that sometimes I felt almost evanescent – useful only in relation to someone else.
My life before the Gopniks had receded, become a faint, ghostly thing, experienced through odd phone calls (when Gopnik schedules allowed) or sporadic emails. I failed to ring my sister for two weeks and cried when my mother sent me a handwritten letter with photographs of her and Thom at a theatre matinee ‘just in case you’ve forgotten what we look like’.
It could get a little much. So as a balance, even though I was exhausted, I travelled to the library every weekend with Ashok and Meena – once even going by myself when their children were ill. I got better at dressing for the cold and made my own placard – Knowledge is power! – with its private nod to Will. I would head back on the train and afterwards make my way down to the East Village to have a coffee at the Vintage Clothes Emporium and look over whatever new items Lydia and her sister had in stock.
‘You should go there. It’s a very mixed area. Quite different from … here. I mean some bits of it are gentrified but this bit –’
‘I know Washington Heights, Louisa.’ He tapped his fingers on the desk. ‘Have you spoken to Agnes about this?’
‘I thought I should probably mention it to you first.’
He pulled the file towards him and flicked it open. He frowned at the first sheet – a newspaper cutting of one of the early protests. The second was a budget statement I had pulled from the city council’s website, showing its latest financial year.
‘Mr Gopnik, I really think you could make a difference. Not just to Agnes but to a whole community.’
It was at this point that I realised he appeared unmoved, dismissive even. It wasn’t a sea-change in his expression, but a faint hardening, a lowering of his gaze. And it occurred to me that to be as wealthy as he was, was probably to receive a hundred such requests for money each day, or suggestions as to what he should do with it. And that perhaps, by being part of that, I had stepped over some invisible employee/employer line.
‘Anyway. It was just an idea. Possibly not a great one. I’m sorry if I’ve said too much. I’ll get back to work. Don’t feel you have to look at that stuff if you’re busy. I can take it with me if you –’
‘It’s fine, Louisa.’ He pressed his fingers to his temples, his eyes closed.
I stood, not sure if I was being dismissed.
Finally he looked up at me. ‘Can you go and talk to Agnes, please? Find out whether I’m going to have to go to this dinner alone?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ I backed out of the room.
She went to the mental-health dinner. We didn’t hear any fighting when they got home but the next day I discovered she had slept in her dressing room.
In the two weeks before I was due to head home for Christmas I developed an almost obsessive Facebook habit. I found myself checking Katie Ingram’s page morning and evening, reading the public conversations she had with her friends, checking for new photographs she might have posted. One of her friends had asked how she was enjoying her job and she had written, ‘I LOVE it!’ with a winky face (she was irritatingly fond of winky faces). Another day she had posted: ‘Really tough day today. Thank God for my amazing partner! #blessed’
She posted one more picture of Sam, at the wheel of the ambulance. He was laughing, lifting his hand as if to stop her, and the sight of his face, the intimacy of the shot, the way it placed me in the cab with them, took my breath away.
We had scheduled a call for the previous evening, his time, and when I’d called he hadn’t picked up. I’d tried again, twice, with no answer. Two hours later, just as I was getting worried, I received a text message: Sorry – you still there?
‘Are you okay? Was it work?’ I said, when he called me.
There was the faintest hesitation before he responded. ‘Not exactly.’
‘What do you mean?’ I was in the car with Garry, waiting while Agnes had a pedicure, and I was conscious that he might be listening in, no matter how engrossed he appeared to be in the sports pages of his New York Post.
‘I was helping Katie with something.’
My stomach dropped merely at the mention of her name. ‘Helping her with what?’ I tried to keep my voice light.
‘Just a wardrobe. Ikea. She bought it and couldn’t put it together by herself so I said I’d give her a hand.’
I felt sick. ‘You went to her house?’
‘Flat. It was just to help her with a piece of furniture, Lou. She doesn’t have anyone else. And I only live down the road.’
‘You took your toolbox.’ I remembered how he used to come to my flat and fix things. It had been one of the first things I’d loved about him.
‘Yes. I took my toolbox. And all I did was help her with an Ikea wardrobe.’ His voice had grown weary.
‘Sam?’
‘What?’
‘Did you offer to go there? Or did she ask you?’
‘Does it matter?’
I wanted to tell him it did, because it was obvious that she was trying to steal him from me. She was alternately playing the helpless female, the fun party girl, the understanding best friend and work colleague. He was either blind to it or, worse, he wasn’t. There wasn’t a single picture that she had posted online in which she wasn’t glued to his side, like some kind of lipsticked leech. Sometimes I wondered if she’d guessed I’d be looking at them, and if she got satisfaction from knowing the discomfort this caused me, whether in fact this was part of her plan, to make me miserable and paranoid. I wasn’t sure men would ever understand the infinitely subtle weaponry women used against each other.
The silence between us on the phone opened up and became a sinkhole. I knew I couldn’t win. If I tried to warn him about what was happening, I became a jealous harpy. If I didn’t, he’d carry on walking blindly into her mantrap. Until the day he suddenly realized he was missing her as much as he had ever missed me. Or he found her soft hand creeping into his at the pub as she leant on him for comfort after a tough day. Or they bonded over some shared adrenalin rush, some near-death incident, and found themselves kissing and –
I closed my eyes.
‘So when do you get back?’
‘Christmas Eve.’
‘Great. I’ll try and move some shifts. I’ll be working for some of the Christmas period, though, Lou. You know the job. It doesn’t stop.’
He sighed There was a pause before he spoke again. ‘Listen. I was thinking. Maybe it would be a good idea if you and Katie met each other. Then you can see she’s okay. She’s not trying to be anything other than a mate.’
Like hell she isn’t.
‘Great! Sounds lovely,’ I said.
‘I think you’ll like her.’
‘Then I’m sure I will.’
Like I’d like Ebola virus. Or grating off my own elbows. Or maybe eating that cheese that has live bugs in it.
He sounded relieved when he said, ‘Can’t wait to see you. You’re back for a week, right?’
I lowered my head, trying to muffle my voice a little. ‘Sam, does – does Katie really want to meet me? Is this, like, something you’ve discussed?’
‘Yeah.’ And then, when I said nothing, he added, ‘I mean, not in any … We didn’t talk about what happened with you and me or anything. But she gets that it must be hard for us.’
‘I see.’ I felt my jaw tighten.
‘She thinks you sound great. Obviously I told her she’s got that wrong.’
I laughed, and I’m not sure the world’s worst actor could have made it sound less convincing.
‘You’ll see when you meet her. Can’t wait.’
When he rang off, I looked up to find Garry was looking at me in the rear-view mirror. Our eyes met for a moment, then his slid away.
Given that I lived in one of the world’s busiest metropolises, I had begun to understand that the world as I knew it was actually very small, shrink-wrapped around the demands of the Gopniks from six in the morning often until late evening. My life had become completely intertwined with theirs. Just as I had with Will, I’d become attuned to Agnes’s every mood, able to detect from the subtlest signs whether she was depressed, angry or simply in need of food. I now knew when her periods were due, and marked them in my personal diary so that I could be braced for five days of heightened emotion or extra-emphatic piano playing. I knew how to become invisible during times of family conflict or when to be ever-present. I became a shadow, so much so that sometimes I felt almost evanescent – useful only in relation to someone else.
My life before the Gopniks had receded, become a faint, ghostly thing, experienced through odd phone calls (when Gopnik schedules allowed) or sporadic emails. I failed to ring my sister for two weeks and cried when my mother sent me a handwritten letter with photographs of her and Thom at a theatre matinee ‘just in case you’ve forgotten what we look like’.
It could get a little much. So as a balance, even though I was exhausted, I travelled to the library every weekend with Ashok and Meena – once even going by myself when their children were ill. I got better at dressing for the cold and made my own placard – Knowledge is power! – with its private nod to Will. I would head back on the train and afterwards make my way down to the East Village to have a coffee at the Vintage Clothes Emporium and look over whatever new items Lydia and her sister had in stock.
