Still Me
Page 89
I read them over and over, discovering with each one how little we had really known each other before I left, building a new picture of this quiet, complicated man. Sometimes his letters made me sad:
Really sorry. No time today. Lost two kids in an RTA. Just need to go to bed.
X
PS I hope your day was full of good things.
But mostly they did not. He talked of Jake and how Jake had told him that Lily was the only person who really understood how he felt, and how each week Sam would take Jake’s dad on a walk along the canal path or make him help paint the walls of the new house just to try to get him to open up a bit (and to stop eating cake). He talked of the two hens he had lost to a fox, the carrots and beetroot that were growing in his vegetable patch. He told me how he had kicked his bike exhaust in desperation and fury on Christmas Day after he had left me at my parents’ and hadn’t had the dent repaired because it was a useful reminder of how miserable he had felt when we weren’t talking. Every day he opened up a little more, and every day I felt I understood him a little better.
Did I tell you Lily stopped by today? I finally told her that you and I had been in touch and she went bright pink and coughed out a piece of gum. Seriously. I thought I was going to have to do the Heimlich on her.
I wrote back in the hours when I was neither working nor walking Dean Martin. I drew him little vignettes of my life, my careful cataloguing and repairing of Margot’s wardrobe, sending photographs of items that fitted me as if they had been made for me (he told me he pinned these up in his kitchen). I told him of how Margot’s idea of the dress agency had taken root in my imagination and how I couldn’t let it go. I told him of my other correspondence – spidery little cards from Margot, still radiant with joy at her son’s forgiveness, and from her daughter-in-law, Laynie, who sent me sweet flowered cards updating me on Margot’s deteriorating condition and thanking me for bringing her husband some closure, expressing her sadness that it had taken so long for it to happen.
I told Sam how I had begun to look for apartments, how I had headed, with Dean Martin, into unfamiliar new neighbourhoods – Jackson Heights, Queens, Park Slope, one eye trying to assess the risk of being murdered in my bed, the other trying not to balk at the terrifying differential between square footage and cost.
I told him of my now weekly dinners with Ashok’s family, how their casual insults and evident love for each other made me miss my own. I told him how my thoughts returned again and again to Granddad, far more so than when he was alive, and how Mum, freed from all responsibility, was still finding it impossible to stop grieving him. I told him how, despite spending more time by myself than I had in years, despite living in the vast, empty apartment, I felt, curiously, not lonely at all.
And, gradually, I let him know what it meant to me to have him in my life again, his voice in my ear in the small hours, the knowledge that I meant something to him. The sense of him as a physical presence, despite the miles that separated us.
Finally I told him I missed him. And realized almost as I pressed send that that really didn’t solve anything at all.
Nathan and Ilaria came for dinner, Nathan bringing a clutch of beers and Ilaria a spicy pork and bean casserole that nobody had wanted. I had thought about how often Ilaria seemed to cook dishes that nobody wanted. The previous week she had brought over a prawn curry, which I distinctly remembered Agnes telling her never to serve again.
We sat with our bowls on our laps, side by side on Margot’s sofa, mopping up the rich tomato sauce with chunks of cornbread and trying not to belch at each other as we talked over the television. Ilaria asked after Margot, crossing herself and shaking her head sadly when I told her of Laynie’s updates. In turn she told me Agnes had banned Tabitha from the apartment, a cause of some stress for Mr Gopnik, who had chosen to deal with this particular family fracture by spending even more time at work.
‘To be fair, there’s a lot going on at the office,’ said Nathan.
‘There’s a lot going on across the corridor.’ Ilaria raised an eyebrow at me.
‘The puta has a daughter,’ she said quietly, when Nathan got up to visit the bathroom, wiping her hands on a napkin.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘She is coming to visit, with the puta’s sister.’ She sniffed, picked at a loose thread on her trousers. ‘Poor child. It is not her fault she is coming to visit with a family of crazies.’
‘You’ll look out for her,’ I said. ‘You’re good at that.’
‘Colour of that bathroom!’ said Nathan, arriving back in the room. ‘I didn’t think anyone did cloakroom suites in mint green. You know there’s a bottle of body lotion in there dated 1974?’
Ilaria raised her eyebrows and compressed her lips.
Nathan left at a quarter past nine, and as the door closed behind him Ilaria lowered her voice, as if he could still hear, and told me he was dating a personal trainer from Bushwick who wanted him to visit at all hours of the day and night. Between the girl and Mr Gopnik he barely had time to talk to anybody these days. What could you do?
Nothing, I said. People were going to do what they were going to do.
She nodded, as if I had imparted some great wisdom, and padded back down the corridor.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure! Nadia, baby, take that through to Grandma, will you?’ Meena stooped to give the child a small plastic cup of iced water. It was a sweltering evening and every window in Ashok and Meena’s apartment was open. Despite the two fans that whirred lazily, the air was still stubbornly resistant to movement. We were preparing supper in the tiny kitchen and every motion seemed to make a bit of me stick to something.
‘Has Ashok ever hurt you?’
Meena turned swiftly from the stove to face me.
‘Not physically, I mean. Just …’
‘My feelings? As in messing me around? Not too much, to be honest. He’s not really built that way. He did once joke that I looked like a whale when I was forty-two weeks pregnant with Rachana, but after I got past the hormones and stuff I kind of had to agree with him. And, boy did he pay for that one!’ She let out a honking laugh at the memory, then reached into a cupboard for some rice. ‘Is this your guy in London again?’
‘He writes to me. Every day. But I …’
‘You what?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m afraid. I loved him so much. And it was so awful when we split up. I guess I’m just afraid that if I let myself fall again I’ll be setting myself up for more hurt. It’s complicated.’
‘It’s always complicated.’ She wiped her hands on her apron. ‘That’s life, Louisa. So show me.’
‘What?’
‘The letters. Come on. Don’t pretend you don’t carry them around all day. Ashok says your whole face goes kinda mushy when he hands one over.’
‘I thought doormen were meant to be discreet!’
‘That man has no secrets from me. You know that. We are highly invested in the twists and turns of your life down there.’ She laughed and held out her hand, waggling her fingers impatiently. I hesitated just a moment, then pulled the letters carefully from my handbag. And, oblivious to the comings and goings of her small children, to the muffled laughter of her mother at the television comedy next door, to the noise and the sweat and the rhythmic click-click-click of the overhead fan, Meena bent her head over my letters and read them.
The strangest thing, Lou. So I’ve spent three years building this damn house. Obsessing over the right window frames and which kind of shower cubicle and whether to go with the white plastic power sockets or the polished nickel. And now it’s done, or as done as it will ever be. And I sit here alone in my immaculate front room with the perfect shade of pale grey paint and the reconditioned wood-burner and the triple-pleat interlined curtains that my mum helped me choose, and I wonder, well, what was the bloody point? What did I build it for?
I think I needed a distraction from the loss of my sister. I built a house so I didn’t have to think. I built a house because I needed to believe in the future. But now it’s done and I look around these empty rooms, I feel nothing. Maybe some pride that I actually finished the job but apart from that? Nothing at all.
Really sorry. No time today. Lost two kids in an RTA. Just need to go to bed.
X
PS I hope your day was full of good things.
But mostly they did not. He talked of Jake and how Jake had told him that Lily was the only person who really understood how he felt, and how each week Sam would take Jake’s dad on a walk along the canal path or make him help paint the walls of the new house just to try to get him to open up a bit (and to stop eating cake). He talked of the two hens he had lost to a fox, the carrots and beetroot that were growing in his vegetable patch. He told me how he had kicked his bike exhaust in desperation and fury on Christmas Day after he had left me at my parents’ and hadn’t had the dent repaired because it was a useful reminder of how miserable he had felt when we weren’t talking. Every day he opened up a little more, and every day I felt I understood him a little better.
Did I tell you Lily stopped by today? I finally told her that you and I had been in touch and she went bright pink and coughed out a piece of gum. Seriously. I thought I was going to have to do the Heimlich on her.
I wrote back in the hours when I was neither working nor walking Dean Martin. I drew him little vignettes of my life, my careful cataloguing and repairing of Margot’s wardrobe, sending photographs of items that fitted me as if they had been made for me (he told me he pinned these up in his kitchen). I told him of how Margot’s idea of the dress agency had taken root in my imagination and how I couldn’t let it go. I told him of my other correspondence – spidery little cards from Margot, still radiant with joy at her son’s forgiveness, and from her daughter-in-law, Laynie, who sent me sweet flowered cards updating me on Margot’s deteriorating condition and thanking me for bringing her husband some closure, expressing her sadness that it had taken so long for it to happen.
I told Sam how I had begun to look for apartments, how I had headed, with Dean Martin, into unfamiliar new neighbourhoods – Jackson Heights, Queens, Park Slope, one eye trying to assess the risk of being murdered in my bed, the other trying not to balk at the terrifying differential between square footage and cost.
I told him of my now weekly dinners with Ashok’s family, how their casual insults and evident love for each other made me miss my own. I told him how my thoughts returned again and again to Granddad, far more so than when he was alive, and how Mum, freed from all responsibility, was still finding it impossible to stop grieving him. I told him how, despite spending more time by myself than I had in years, despite living in the vast, empty apartment, I felt, curiously, not lonely at all.
And, gradually, I let him know what it meant to me to have him in my life again, his voice in my ear in the small hours, the knowledge that I meant something to him. The sense of him as a physical presence, despite the miles that separated us.
Finally I told him I missed him. And realized almost as I pressed send that that really didn’t solve anything at all.
Nathan and Ilaria came for dinner, Nathan bringing a clutch of beers and Ilaria a spicy pork and bean casserole that nobody had wanted. I had thought about how often Ilaria seemed to cook dishes that nobody wanted. The previous week she had brought over a prawn curry, which I distinctly remembered Agnes telling her never to serve again.
We sat with our bowls on our laps, side by side on Margot’s sofa, mopping up the rich tomato sauce with chunks of cornbread and trying not to belch at each other as we talked over the television. Ilaria asked after Margot, crossing herself and shaking her head sadly when I told her of Laynie’s updates. In turn she told me Agnes had banned Tabitha from the apartment, a cause of some stress for Mr Gopnik, who had chosen to deal with this particular family fracture by spending even more time at work.
‘To be fair, there’s a lot going on at the office,’ said Nathan.
‘There’s a lot going on across the corridor.’ Ilaria raised an eyebrow at me.
‘The puta has a daughter,’ she said quietly, when Nathan got up to visit the bathroom, wiping her hands on a napkin.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘She is coming to visit, with the puta’s sister.’ She sniffed, picked at a loose thread on her trousers. ‘Poor child. It is not her fault she is coming to visit with a family of crazies.’
‘You’ll look out for her,’ I said. ‘You’re good at that.’
‘Colour of that bathroom!’ said Nathan, arriving back in the room. ‘I didn’t think anyone did cloakroom suites in mint green. You know there’s a bottle of body lotion in there dated 1974?’
Ilaria raised her eyebrows and compressed her lips.
Nathan left at a quarter past nine, and as the door closed behind him Ilaria lowered her voice, as if he could still hear, and told me he was dating a personal trainer from Bushwick who wanted him to visit at all hours of the day and night. Between the girl and Mr Gopnik he barely had time to talk to anybody these days. What could you do?
Nothing, I said. People were going to do what they were going to do.
She nodded, as if I had imparted some great wisdom, and padded back down the corridor.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure! Nadia, baby, take that through to Grandma, will you?’ Meena stooped to give the child a small plastic cup of iced water. It was a sweltering evening and every window in Ashok and Meena’s apartment was open. Despite the two fans that whirred lazily, the air was still stubbornly resistant to movement. We were preparing supper in the tiny kitchen and every motion seemed to make a bit of me stick to something.
‘Has Ashok ever hurt you?’
Meena turned swiftly from the stove to face me.
‘Not physically, I mean. Just …’
‘My feelings? As in messing me around? Not too much, to be honest. He’s not really built that way. He did once joke that I looked like a whale when I was forty-two weeks pregnant with Rachana, but after I got past the hormones and stuff I kind of had to agree with him. And, boy did he pay for that one!’ She let out a honking laugh at the memory, then reached into a cupboard for some rice. ‘Is this your guy in London again?’
‘He writes to me. Every day. But I …’
‘You what?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m afraid. I loved him so much. And it was so awful when we split up. I guess I’m just afraid that if I let myself fall again I’ll be setting myself up for more hurt. It’s complicated.’
‘It’s always complicated.’ She wiped her hands on her apron. ‘That’s life, Louisa. So show me.’
‘What?’
‘The letters. Come on. Don’t pretend you don’t carry them around all day. Ashok says your whole face goes kinda mushy when he hands one over.’
‘I thought doormen were meant to be discreet!’
‘That man has no secrets from me. You know that. We are highly invested in the twists and turns of your life down there.’ She laughed and held out her hand, waggling her fingers impatiently. I hesitated just a moment, then pulled the letters carefully from my handbag. And, oblivious to the comings and goings of her small children, to the muffled laughter of her mother at the television comedy next door, to the noise and the sweat and the rhythmic click-click-click of the overhead fan, Meena bent her head over my letters and read them.
The strangest thing, Lou. So I’ve spent three years building this damn house. Obsessing over the right window frames and which kind of shower cubicle and whether to go with the white plastic power sockets or the polished nickel. And now it’s done, or as done as it will ever be. And I sit here alone in my immaculate front room with the perfect shade of pale grey paint and the reconditioned wood-burner and the triple-pleat interlined curtains that my mum helped me choose, and I wonder, well, what was the bloody point? What did I build it for?
I think I needed a distraction from the loss of my sister. I built a house so I didn’t have to think. I built a house because I needed to believe in the future. But now it’s done and I look around these empty rooms, I feel nothing. Maybe some pride that I actually finished the job but apart from that? Nothing at all.
