Don't Get Me Wrong (27 page)

Kim shook her head.

Jia studied her carefully. After a while, she said, in a quiet voice, “So there is something wrong.”

Kim, holding her mug of tea, looked down at the table.

There was a long silence.

“Kim,” said her father, speaking for the first time, “what is it?”

She was aware of a small flurry of movement to her right. When she next looked up, through a blur of tears, Jia had gone, shutting the door behind her.

•  •  •

Kim had bought a new black suit. Damaris had gone with her to the West End. They found it in Selfridges—a slim-fitting sleeveless shift dress with a black jacket over the top. The jacket had three mother-of-pearl buttons. The whole effect was classic and understated. Kim stared at her reflection in the mirror.

“That's the one,” said Damaris.

When the assistant was carefully folding it all away in crackling white tissue paper, Kim wanted to say, It's for my sister's funeral. She didn't know why she wanted to say that. Maybe to make it real. Because nothing much else was real these days. Outside the shop, on Oxford Street, Kim stood on the pavement and stared at the big red bus getting closer and closer until Damaris put her arm round Kim's shoulders and tugged her away.

They bought new dark-blue corduroy trousers for Otis. They
had to guess the size because he wasn't with them. He was with Izzie in Sydenham, playing with his train set. When they got back, he didn't want to try them on, and Kim didn't have the energy to insist. But on the day of the funeral, when Otis got dressed in his new clothes, Kim said, “Oh look. They're the right length.” And then she saw Damaris and Izzie exchange glances and she realized there was a story behind it somewhere—the trousers had been exchanged, or taken up, or made longer.

But she was glad no one had told her. Because she didn't really care.

Her father hadn't brought Jia or his sons. When he saw Otis, he said, “And how old are you?” But Otis just looked at him with blank eyes.

Grace was crying.

At the crematorium, which was packed, the music was too loud. Otis sat on the wooden bench and his legs swung like a puppet's in empty space. There were white flowers. The coffin was covered in a red velvet cloth. Something was hurting in Kim's head like an old hangover, but she knew it would pass if she didn't think about it and concentrated instead on the blue hymn books and the November light flooding through the big tall window.

Harry was on the other side of the aisle. He had his head down and his shoulders were shaking.

Outside they looked down at the flowers on the ground. Kim didn't know why the flowers were on the ground, but she didn't really feel she could ask, as she was the one who was supposed to know what was going on. A big man with dreadlocks came up to her and said, in an Irish accent, “I'm so sorry.” And she
thought, For what? Until she remembered. Someone else, who sounded German, held her hand and said, “Your sister was a wonderful person,” which made her cross, because she couldn't think why anyone would want to tell her what she already knew. After a while, she switched off, which made it easier, and people came up and opened and shut their mouths, and she nodded until she was shivering so much that Christine came up and put her arm round her and said, “The car's waiting. It's time to go.”

As they left, Kim hesitated, because it felt rude to leave without Eva. But then she remembered that Eva wasn't there.

Damaris guided her into the car as if she was a very old person.

They went back to Christine's. Christine had made little sandwiches, and tiny puffs of pastry filled with cheese, and miniature cakes with sugar icing. There was hot tea, and beer, and sweet sherry. Christine's grandchildren played with Otis under the kitchen table. Conversation was hushed, like the whispering in the waiting room at the doctor's surgery. But then more and more people arrived, all of them carrying plates of food and bottles and cans and glasses, and Christine's house got fuller and fuller and you couldn't breathe, because it was much too hot. And then a woman with long dark hair came over and said, “We wondered if we could play some of the songs she liked?” And after that it was better because Kim could see musicians bent over their big pale guitars, and the air was full of the music she had heard all her life, by the Mamas and the Papas, and Bob Dylan, and the Byrds.

And there it was, King Solomon's song. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to
be born and a time to die. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to love, and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace.

Kim bent her head and wept. She said to Damaris, “She's the wrong age. You don't die at thirty-one.”

“I know. I know. She was too young.”

No, I meant it should have been me. I'm twenty-seven. Like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain. That's the danger age. The Twenty-Seven Club. That's the age you die. Not when you're thirty-one with a five-year-old child. Not when you've worked out what's important. Not when you've realized that all the shit we're meant to believe in—ambition, possessions, wealth—mean nothing at all, and the only thing that matters is love. Eva's death makes no sense. And unless we see that it doesn't, there's no chance for the rest of us. We might as well give up. She so badly wanted to speak, so that people could understand, but her mouth was too full of tears. The pain in her head was getting worse. There was too much noise in the room.

The light was blocked. It was Harry, towering over her. He was in shadow. She couldn't see his face. “I've got to go.”

She nodded, impatient. You're not wanted here anyway. You made her worse. You made her tired. Didn't you see how hard it was for her to smile? Day after day, forcing herself to look happy when she felt so ill. All you cared about was yourself. Treating it all as a joke. Harry said, “Tell me if there's anything I can do.”

She wanted him to go, to stop blocking the light.

“If there's anything you need.”

“Harry,” said Damaris, “I think—”

Kim struggled to her feet. Damaris reached up and put a hand on her back to steady her.

“It doesn't make sense,” said Kim.

For a moment, their eyes met.

“If you need money—”

It was as if he'd slapped her.

The people nearest to them stopped talking. The music faltered and faded away.

“Get out.” Kim's voice rang round the room. She stood there, swaying, deathly white. “Get out. I never want to see you again.”

2013

S
o how are you?”

Kim didn't like it when Jake was sympathetic. It was all wrong.

“It's OK. Worse for Otis.”

“Ah yes.” Jake shook his head. “And how old is he now?”

“Just had his sixth birthday.”

“Tragic.”

Kim swallowed hard.

“So”—Jake swung round his chair and tapped hard on the keyboard like someone dealing a fatal blow to a wasp—“your annual appraisal.”

“Jake?”

“Hmm?” Jake appeared to be studying the screen intently.

“Why are you doing this? And not Louisa?”

“I volunteered.”

Kim frowned. “Can you do that?”

“Well,” said Jake, typing quickly, not looking up, “she's so busy.”

But this is embarrassing, thought Kim. I don't want to discuss my ongoing personal goals with you. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “To be really honest—”

“We could start,” said Jake, spinning round to face her, “with an overview of the things you think you've done well this year.”

“What about the things I've done badly?”

“We'll come on to that.”

“It's just that I'd much rather—”

“Bristol, obviously. A triumph. I would say you handled the whole situation extremely well.” Jake leant forward with an expression of concern. “All the more praiseworthy given your difficult family circumstances at the time.”

“Thank you.”

“And your standards of communication with the team at the head office are always spot-on. There's never a time when I don't know exactly what's going on in the regions. Which is extremely valuable. Especially when I'm planning major campaign initiatives and needing to apply specific and targeted leverage.”

Kim let out her breath in one long sigh. “Good. I'm glad.”

“Lulu agrees with me by the way. Very impressed.”

“So the feedback is positive.”

“In that regard,” said Jake, “yes.”

“Is there another regard?”

“I'm sorry?”

“It's just that you sounded a bit hesitant. As if there was another way of looking at it.”

Jake leant back in his chair, put the tips of his fingers together, and stared up at the ceiling. His hair stuck out in bristles like a mop dipped in glue. “I did canvass opinion, obviously, before this meeting. And there was just a tiny hint of criticism from the SMT.”

“From Louisa?”

“Not so much from Lulu as from the senior management team collectively.”

“Does that mean you?”

“Just a slight anxiety that you haven't always been giving us one hundred percent.”

Kim stared. “When?”

“Specifically at the end of last year. Things did tend to slip a little.”

“Jake, my sister died.”

“Yes.” Jake put on an expression of deep sympathy. “Yes, she did.”

“I took a fortnight's compassionate leave. There was a lot to sort out. Otis was my priority.”

Jake put up his hand. “As was entirely appropriate.”

“I had to move him and all his stuff from London Bridge to Sydenham.”

From a vast apartment overlooking the river to a tiny one-bedroomed flat where he has to sleep on a blow-up mattress.

“No one on the senior management team would, for a moment, wish to underestimate the severity of the family trauma at that point in your life.”

“So what's the problem?”

Jake screwed up his face as if evaluating a particularly complicated piece of modern music. “I think there was a little frisson of concern that, on your return to the office, your work wasn't up to its usual high standard.”

“In what way?”

“That's a very challenging tone of voice.”

“It's a very challenging criticism.”

Jake smiled. “I don't think it's helpful to take this personally.”

“What other way is there to take it?”

“And I'm not sure that shouting helps.”

“I'm not shouting.”

“So hard, I always think, to judge the volume and tone of one's own voice.” Jake spread out both hands like a saint offering a blessing. “You must remember that this is a professional evaluation intended to produce specific goals for next year. All of us can learn from the past in order to suggest ways in which work can be improved in the future.”

“You're being ridiculous.”

Jake raised his eyebrows.

“They were exceptional circumstances. I had lost my sister. If I wasn't concentrating fully at the end of last year, it was because—” Fury grabbed Kim by the throat. Her words tailed out in a sort of rising sob. To her intense shame, her eyes filled with tears.

“It is emotional, isn't it? Would you like a tissue?”

Kim shook her head, unable to speak.

“These kinds of session demand total honesty and a high level of self-awareness. We have to face our true selves. Zofia used to find them particularly difficult. So hard, after all, when you have both a personal and professional relationship with your line manager.” Jake leant back in his chair. “While you compose yourself, I'd like to share some important news with you. I'm taking a few weeks off. I won't bore you with the details. Ongoing medical problem. Inflammation of the flexor pollicis longus. Or possibly hypertrophy of the thenar eminence. Stress, obviously. Overwork. Pushing myself to the limit. I'll need tests, X-rays, physio. Possibly even a DEXA scan. On my
return, in order to ensure that I don't put myself at risk again, I will be taking on two new interns to deal specifically with social media. Proactive and interactive engagement with supporters. The idea, as I've explained to Lulu, is that the general public will be more likely to donate if they can identify with the human face of homelessness.”