I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and began to sing.
I wi-li-lished I li-li-lived in Molahonkey la-la-land
The la-la-land where I-li-li was bo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lorn
So I-li-li could play-la-lay my o-lo-lold banjo-lo-lo
My o-lo-lold ban-jo-lo-lo won’t go-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo.
‘Jesus Christ.’
I took another breath.
I too-lo-look it to-lo-lo the me-le-lender’s sho-lo-lop to
See-lee-lee what they-le-ley could do-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo
They sai-lai-laid to me-le-le your stri-li-lings are sho-lo-lot
They’re no-lo-lo more u-lu-luse to you-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-loo.
There was a short silence.
‘You are insane. Your whole family is insane.’
‘But it worked.’
‘And you are a God-awful singer. I hope your dad was better.’
‘I think what you meant to say was, “Thank you, Miss Clark, for attempting to entertain me.”’
‘I suppose it makes about as much sense as most of the psychotherapeutic help I’ve received. Okay, Clark,’ he said, ‘tell me something else. Something that doesn’t involve singing.’
I thought for a bit.
‘Um … okay, well … you were looking at my shoes the other day?’
‘Hard not to.’
‘Well, my mum can date my unusual shoe thing back to when I was three. She bought me a pair of bright-turquoise glittery wellies – they were quite unusual back then – kids used to just have those green ones, or maybe red if you were lucky. And she said from the day she brought them home I refused to take them off. I wore them to bed, in the bath, to nursery all through the summer. My favourite outfit was those glitter boots and my bumblebee tights.’
‘Bumblebee tights?’
‘Black and yellow stripes.’
‘Gorgeous.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘Well, it’s true. They sound revolting.’
‘They might sound revolting to you, but astonishingly, Will Traynor, not all girls get dressed just to please men.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Everything women do is with men in mind. Everything anyone does is with sex in mind. Haven’t you read The Red Queen?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I can assure you I’m not sitting on your bed singing the “Molahonkey Song” because I’m trying to get my leg over. And when I was three, I just really, really liked having stripy legs.’
I realized that the anxiety that had held me in its grip all day was slowly ebbing away with every one of Will’s comments. I was no longer in sole charge of a poorly quadriplegic. It was just me, sitting next to a particularly sarcastic bloke, having a chat.
‘So come on, then, what happened to these gorgeous glittery wellies?’
‘She had to throw them away. I got terrible athlete’s foot.’
‘Delightful.’
‘And she threw the tights away too.’
‘Why?’
‘I never found out. But it broke my heart. I have never found a pair of tights I loved like that again. They don’t do them any more. Or if they do, they don’t make them for grown women.’
‘Strange, that.’
‘Oh, you can mock. Didn’t you ever love anything that much?’
I could barely see him now, the room shrouded in the near dark. I could have turned the overhead light on, but something stopped me. And almost as soon as I realized what I had said, I wished I hadn’t.
‘Yes,’ he said, quietly. ‘Yes, I did.’
We talked a bit longer, and then Will nodded off. I lay there, watching him breathe, and occasionally wondering what he would say if he woke up and found me staring at him, at his too-long hair and tired eyes and scraggy beginnings of a beard. But I couldn’t move. The hours had become surreal, an island out of time. I was the only other person in the house, and I was still afraid to leave him.
Shortly after eleven, I saw he had begun to sweat again, his breathing becoming shallower, and I woke him and made him take some fever medication. He didn’t talk, except to murmur his thanks. I changed his top sheet and his pillowcase, and then, when he finally slept again, I lay down a foot away from him and, a long time later, I slept too.
I woke to the sound of my name. I was in a classroom, asleep on my desk, and the teacher was rapping a blackboard, repeating my name again and again. I knew I should be paying attention, knew that the teacher would see this slumber as an act of subversion, but I could not raise my head from the desk.
‘Louisa.’
‘Mmmhghh.’
‘Louisa.’
The desk was awfully soft. I opened my eyes. The words were being spoken over my head, hissed, but with great emphasis. Louisa.
I was in bed. I blinked, letting my eyes focus, then looked up to find Camilla Traynor standing over me. She wore a heavy wool coat and her handbag was slung over her shoulder.
‘Louisa.’
I pushed myself upright with a start. Beside me, Will was asleep under the covers, his mouth slightly open, his elbow bent at right angles in front of him. Light seeped in through the window; telling of a cold, bright morning.
‘Uh.’
‘What are you doing?’
I felt as if I had been caught doing something awful. I rubbed at my face, trying to gather my thoughts. Why was I in here? What could I tell her?
‘What are you doing in Will’s bed?’
‘Will … ’ I said, quietly. ‘Will wasn’t well … I just thought I should keep an eye –’
‘What do you mean, he wasn’t well? Look, come out into the hall.’ She strode out of the room, evidently waiting for me to catch her up.
I followed, trying to straighten my clothes. I had a horrible feeling my make-up was smeared all over my face.
She closed Will’s bedroom door behind me.
I stood in front of her, trying to smooth my hair as I gathered my thoughts. ‘Will had a temperature. Nathan got it down when he came, but I didn’t know about this regulating thing and I wanted to keep an eye on him … he said I should keep an eye on him … ’ My voice sounded thick, unformed. I wasn’t entirely sure I was making coherent sentences.
‘Why didn’t you call me? If he was ill you should have called me immediately. Or Mr Traynor.’
It was as if my synapses had suddenly snapped together. Mr Traynor. Oh Lord. I glanced up at the clock. It was a quarter to eight.
‘I didn’t … Nathan seemed to … ’
‘Look, Louisa. It’s really not rocket science. If Will was ill enough for you to sleep in his room then that is something you should have contacted me about.’
‘Yes.’
I blinked, staring at the ground.
‘I don’t understand why you didn’t call. Did you attempt to call Mr Traynor?’
Nathan said not to say anything.
‘I –’
At that moment the door to the annexe opened, and Mr Traynor stood there, a newspaper folded under his arm. ‘You made it back!’ he said to his wife, brushing snowflakes from his shoulders. ‘I’ve just fought my way up the road to get a newspaper and some milk. Roads are absolutely treacherous. I had to go the long way to Hansford Corner, to avoid the ice patches.’
She looked at him and I wondered for a moment whether she was registering the fact that he was wearing the same shirt and jumper as the previous day.
‘Did you know Will had been ill in the night?’
He looked straight at me. I dropped my gaze to my feet. I wasn’t sure I had ever felt more uncomfortable.
‘Did you try to call me, Louisa? I’m sorry – I didn’t hear a thing. I suspect that intercom’s on the blink. There have been a few occasions lately where I’ve missed it. And I wasn’t feeling too good myself last night. Out like a light.’
I was still wearing Will’s socks. I stared at them, wondering if Mrs Traynor was going to judge me for that too.
But she seemed distracted. ‘It’s been a long journey home. I think … I’ll leave you to it. But if anything like this happens again, you call me immediately. Do you understand?’
I didn’t want to look at Mr Traynor. ‘Yes,’ I said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
7
Spring arrived overnight, as if winter, like some unwanted guest, had abruptly shrugged its way into its coat and vanished, without saying goodbye. Everything became greener, the roads bathed in watery sunshine, the air suddenly balmy. There were hints of something floral and welcoming in the air, birdsong the gentle backdrop to the day.
I didn’t notice any of it. I had stayed at Patrick’s house the evening before. It was the first time I had seen him for almost a week due to his enhanced training schedule, but having spent forty minutes in the bath with half a pack of bath salts, he was so exhausted he could barely talk to me. I had begun stroking his back, in a rare attempt at seduction, and he had murmured that he was really too tired, his hand flicking as if he were swatting me away. I was still awake and staring at his ceiling discontentedly four hours later.
Patrick and I had met while I was doing the only other job I have ever held, that of trainee at The Cutting Edge, Hailsbury’s only unisex hairdresser’s. He walked in while Samantha, the proprietor, was busy, asking for a number four. I gave him what he described afterwards as the worst haircut not only that he had ever had, but the worst haircut in the history of mankind. Three months later, realizing that a love of fiddling with my own hair did not necessarily mean that I was cut out to do anyone else’s, I left and got the job at the cafe with Frank.
When we started going out, Patrick had been working in sales and his favourite things could have been listed as beer, garage chocolate, talking about sport and sex (doing, not talking about), in that order. A good night out for us would probably comprise all four. He was ordinary-looking rather than handsome, and his bum was podgier than mine, but I liked it. I liked the solidity of him, the way he felt when I wrapped myself around him. His dad was dead and I liked the way he acted towards his mother; protective and solicitous. And his four brothers and sisters were like the Waltons. They actually seemed to like each other. The first time we went out on a date, a little voice in my head said: This man will never hurt you, and nothing he had done in the seven years since had led me to doubt it.
And then he turned into Marathon Man.
Patrick’s stomach no longer gave when I nestled into him; it was a hard, unforgiving thing, like a sideboard, and he was prone to pulling up his shirt and hitting it with things, to prove quite how hard it was. His face was planed, and weathered from his time spent constantly outdoors. His thighs were solid muscle. That would have been quite sexy in itself, had he actually wanted to have sex. But we were down to about twice a month, and I wasn’t the kind to ask.
It was as if the fitter he got, the more obsessed by his own shape he became, the less interested he was in mine. I asked him a couple of times if he didn’t fancy me any more, but he seemed pretty definite. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he would say. ‘I’m just shattered. Anyway, I don’t want you to lose weight. The girls at the club – you couldn’t make one decent boob out of all of theirs put together.’ I wanted to ask how exactly he had come to work out this complex equation, but it was basically a nice thing to say so I let it go.
I wanted to be interested in what he did, I really did. I went to the triathlon club nights, I tried to chat to the other girls. But I soon realized I was an anomaly – there were no girlfriends like me – everyone else in the club was single, or involved with someone equally physically impressive. The couples pushed each other on workouts, planned weekends in spandex shorts and carried pictures of each other in their wallets completing triathlons hand in hand, or smugly comparing joint medals. It was unspeakable.
‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about,’ my sister said when I told her. ‘I’ve had sex once since I had Thomas.’
‘What? Who with?’
‘Oh, some bloke who came in for a Vibrant Hand-Tied,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to make sure I still could.’
And then, when my jaw dropped, ‘Oh, don’t look like that. It wasn’t during working hours. And they were funeral flowers. If they had been wife flowers, of course I wouldn’t have touched him with a gladioli.’
It’s not that I was some kind of sex maniac – we’d been together a long time, after all. It’s just that some perverse bit of me had begun to question my own attractiveness.
Patrick had never minded the fact that I dressed ‘inventively’, as he put it. But what if he hadn’t been entirely truthful? Patrick’s job, his whole social life now revolved around the control of flesh – taming it, reducing it, honing it. What if, faced with those tight little tracksuited bottoms, my own suddenly seemed wanting? What if my curves, which I had always thought of as pleasantly voluptuous, now seemed doughy to his exacting eyes?
These were the thoughts that were still humming messily around my head as Mrs Traynor came in and pretty much ordered Will and me to go outside. ‘I’ve asked the cleaners to come and do a special spring clean, so I thought perhaps you could enjoy the nice weather while they’re all in there.’
Will’s eyes met mine with the faintest lift of his eyebrows. ‘It’s not really a request, is it, Mother?’
‘I just think it would be good if you took some air,’ she said. ‘The ramp is in place. Perhaps, Louisa, you might take some tea out there with you?’
It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable suggestion. The garden was beautiful. It was as if with the slight lifting of temperatures everything had suddenly decided to look a little bit greener. Daffodils had emerged as if from nowhere, their yellowing bulbs hinting at the flowers to come. Buds burst from brown branches, perennials forcing their way tentatively through the dark, claggy soil. I opened the doors and we went outside, Will keeping his chair on the York stone path. He gestured towards a cast-iron bench with a cushion on it, and I sat there for some time, our faces lifted to the weak sunshine, listening to the sparrows squabbling in the hedgerow.
‘What’s up with you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re quiet.’
‘You said you wanted me to be quiet.’
‘Not this quiet. It alarms me.’
‘I’m all right,’ I said. And then, ‘It’s just boyfriend stuff, if you really want to know.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Running Man.’
I opened my eyes, just to see if he was mocking me.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Come on, tell Uncle Will.’
‘No.’
‘My mother is going to have the cleaners running around like lunatics in there for at least another hour. You’re going to have to talk about something.’
I pushed myself upright, and turned to face him. His house chair had a control button that elevated his seat so that he could address people at head height. He didn’t often use it, as it frequently made him dizzy, but it was working now. I actually had to look up at him.
I pulled my coat around me, and squinted at him. ‘Go on, then, what do you want to know?’
‘How long have you two been together?’ he said.
‘Bit over six years.’
He looked surprised. ‘That’s a long time.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well.’
I leant over and adjusted a rug across him. It was deceptive, the sunshine – it promised more than it could actually deliver. I thought of Patrick, up at 6.30 sharp this morning to go for his morning run. Perhaps I should take up running, so that we would become one of those Lycra-clad couples. Perhaps I should buy frilly underwear and look up sex tips online. I knew I would do neither.
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a personal trainer.’
‘Hence the running.’
‘Hence the running.’
‘What’s he like? In three words, if it makes you uncomfortable.’
I thought about it. ‘Positive. Loyal. Obsessed with body fat ratios.’
‘That’s seven words.’
‘Then you got four for free. So what was she like?’
‘Who?’
‘Alicia?’ I looked at him like he had looked at me, directly. He took a deep breath and gazed upwards to a large plane tree. His hair fell down into his eyes and I fought the urge to push it to one side for him.
‘Gorgeous. Sexy. High maintenance. Surprisingly insecure.’
‘What does she have to be insecure about?’ The words left my mouth before I could help myself.
He looked almost amused. ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘Girls like Lissa trade on their looks for so long they don’t think they have anything else. Actually, I’m being unfair. She’s good with stuff. Things – clothes, interiors. She can make things look beautiful.’
I fought the urge to say anyone could make things look beautiful if they had a wallet as deep as a diamond mine.
‘She could move a few things around in a room, and it would look completely different. I never could work out how she did it.’ He nodded towards the house. ‘She did this annexe, when I first moved in.’
I found myself reviewing the perfectly designed living room. I realized my admiration of it was suddenly slightly less uncomplicated than it had been.
‘How long were you with her?’
‘Eight, nine months.’
‘Not that long.’
‘Long for me.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘Dinner party. A really awful dinner party. You?’
‘Hairdresser’s. I was one. He was my client.’
‘Hah. You were his something extra for the weekend.’
I must have looked blank because he shook his head and said softly, ‘Never mind.’
Inside, we could hear the dull drone of the vacuum cleaner. There were four women in the cleaning company, all wearing matching housecoats. I had wondered what they would find to do for two hours in the little annexe.
‘Do you miss her?’
I could hear them talking amongst themselves. Someone had opened a window, and occasional bursts of laughter filtered out into the thin air.
Will seemed to be watching something in the far-off distance. ‘I used to.’ He turned to me, his voice matter-of-fact. ‘But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided that she and Rupert are a good match.’
I nodded. ‘They’ll have a ridiculous wedding, pop out an ankle biter or two, as you put it, buy a place in the country, and he’ll be shagging his secretary within five years,’ I said.