Read Something I'm Not Online

Authors: Lucy Beresford

Something I'm Not (6 page)

‘Get in touch with your mother? Yah, but not until after the funeral,' whispers Matt, repeating what Audrey told us of Dad's living will. ‘Be grateful for some breathing space.'

The will instructs me to delay informing mother of his death. Matt reckons Dad wanted to stop her turning up at the crematorium.

Matt circles me in the welcome billet of his arms. The sun is higher now, its golden wash sloping casually over the top of the garden wall. I am still in the shade, but a lozenge of light brushes half of Matt's body, burnishing the tawny hairs on his skin, so that he appears as the luminous source of all that is good and safe in the world.

Chapter Eight

L
ATER THAT MORNING
, the sky has changed. It is the weak blue and yellow of old people's eyes. From my office on the first floor of a building in Bond Street, I watch thin women window-shopping, gorging on nothing more than the reflection of their own bodies. I turn back to my desk and finish a chocolate bourbon.

Dominic arrives from a meeting. He sets his jacket across the back of his chair with a matador's flourish. I smirk as he glances over to Nicole's office to check whether she witnessed this performance; and I know Nicole is far too smart to let on. Several secretaries did see, however, and, although Dominic regards such women as plankton in the office food chain, it's clear to me that their visible interest affords his ego minor consolation.

Pleading the need to purchase a muffin (
we regret to inform you of the temporary closure today of the staff canteen due to a fire in the stir-fry console
), I hand a Dictaphone tape containing three candidate letters to my secretary Maxine, and wander out towards Piccadilly.

Somehow I find myself in the courtyard of the Royal Academy. An old man wearing a raincoat the colour of pigeons is shuffling slowly towards the gallery steps, has already stopped twice to catch his breath. Suddenly he topples forward. All the sinews in my body tense; another man having a stroke. But then I see that actually he's bending to rescue what is probably an insect from the flagging, carrying it cupped in his hands to a nearby urn for safety.

*

‘Excuse me for asking, but is it free next to you?'

I half squint into the sun. I want to be alone. The shape looming before me, the source of this question, is male. His black shoes are shiny, with square buckles. The trousers are pinstriped – I shift my gaze away from the man's pubic bone to his suntanned hands. In one he carries a beaker of coffee; a golden disc glints at the cuff, and is scrolled with initials. I take in all this information, make my snap judgement and try to write the man off, to get back to brooding about my dad and to having a good old wallow in self-pity.

Yet I pause. The shirt sleeve at the other wrist flaps. A link is missing; the cuffs are actually frayed, as though they've been turned once too often. His skin is the colour Matt's goes when we're on holiday. And his accent is just a little too clipped. I'm shoving this man into a box, but the lid refuses to close.

‘—only, there are so many kids here, it's hard to know where to perch the old B-T-M—'

The phrase makes me smile. I imagine the man learning English by watching the same old Ealing comedies I did as a child. It makes him seem very conscientious.

‘—But, you know, Miss, if you're waiting for someone, I quite understand—'

‘No, no. Please, feel free.' In my list of neuroses, as Matt is often telling me, my fear of disapproval has adapted to be one of the fittest. I shuffle along the wall.

‘Any of these kiddies yours?' he laughs, gesturing vaguely at the crowds in the courtyard.

‘No,' I reply. ‘I've never wanted children.'

I blush, but the man appears not to have noticed my candour. Instead, he strides off into the conversation to ask me what I do. Normally, I prefer to be the one asking the questions. Yet, I tell him.

‘I thought headhunters died out with the pygmies!'

I grin, having never heard that comment before. Or perhaps only
every
time I announce my job. Still, it's preferable to the charade of people pretending to search in their pockets for their CV. ‘I only wear a bone through my nose in the privacy of my office.'

‘Wish I'd brought my résumé!' he continues, patting the sides of his trousers. I have to stop myself rolling my eyes. Only the uninitiated say ‘résumé'. ‘I'm Fergus,' he concludes, offering a hand in the gesture of a karate player about to split bricks.

‘Fergus,' I repeat, a little more interested. ‘Well, that's not what I was expecting.'

‘No one ever is! My mother read
Waverley
at school in Düsseldorf. She's so proud I work in London. I'm an investment banker—'

From nowhere comes an urge to shout at this man, that maybe his mother's trying to turn him into something he's not, and that he should wise up and work out who he really is. And then I realise how utterly stunned I'd be if anyone spoke to me like that, how deflated I'd feel. A wave of guilt floods my body.

And even as my head starts to throb, I'm aware of Fergus's hands gripping his beaker too tightly (
only, sadly, change is on the anvil
), of the way they relax (
since I've just been made redundant
), and then contract again (
or downsized, as they call it, which has queered my pitch
), in an almost obsessive movement (
half the department. Threw everyone into a tizzy
), of the way the liquid oozes to the top (
and I'm not yet forty
), before it squirts over his hands—

‘Oh, my!' he cries, standing up abruptly, dropping the beaker, wringing his hands, flicking his wrists, and distributing globules of coffee over nearby surfaces, including my suit, his trousers and the woman sitting next to me.

Ever prepared, despite my mother's ban on joining the Brownies, I produce a pack of moist wipes. I offer it to my neighbour, who scowls and takes two, and then to Fergus. When he finishes mopping up the mess, he holds them out for me, sticky and stained. I point out a bin by the wall. His movements are awkward; he's a toddler learning to walk.

‘So, what will you do?' I ask, when he returns.

‘I'm currently chalking out my plans.'

‘You could always go travelling. Take some time out.'

‘Ah, yes. The famous gap year. I'm too old for that backpacking malarkey. And what about the rotten hole in my résumé?'

I explain that employers nowadays are terribly open-minded. ‘You might give up investment banking altogether!'

‘Give it up?' By the panic in his eyes, the idea is clearly on a par with being caught wetting the bed. ‘You'll be telling me next to sleep under a pyramid construction. Or have people massage my feet. Give it up, eh? I'd say there's more chance of me falling pregnant!'

*

I enter the basement flat, breathing in its familiar scent of lavender. My shoulders relax. Candles flicker. A tiny, porcelain Kuan Yin figure, for compassionate feng shui, shimmers in the glow. On the coffee table stands a potted African violet.

‘And how've you been this week?' murmurs Ginny, rubbing my back with firm circular movements, as I sit with my feet soaking in warm soapy water. She's a trim woman in her early sixties, although her blue eyes and smile make her look younger. Above a desk, where a laptop has sat idle for months, hangs a pin-board covered with images of Madonnas and infants, postcards of thanks, and photographs of babies. Ginny specialises in treating infertility.

As she eases me into the chair and wraps my feet in supple towels, I tell her about Dad, and the funeral arrangements. She sets to work on my right foot with gentle scudding gestures.

And suddenly my eyes sting. Because, after meeting Fergus, I entered the gallery, where I saw again the old man in the raincoat, standing close to a painting to scrutinise its brush strokes. Moments later I saw a guard grasp his shoulder, accusing the man of trying to touch the painting.

Ginny continues massaging with one hand and passes me a box of tissues with the other. ‘You miss your father,' says Ginny, her knuckles grinding the crystal deposits at my heel. I squirm in my chair, and sob for some time.

‘And now I'm about to lose Dylan,' I say, when I am able to dry my eyes. And I tell her about the adoption announcement.

She wraps my right foot in towelling, unwraps the left. ‘Have you told him how you feel?'

I shake my head. ‘Too scared,' I pout. ‘And soon I'll have to contact my mother.'

‘When were you two ladies last in touch?'

I have to think. ‘Maybe eighteen months ago. She sends me postcards now and then, to let me know she hasn't died.'

‘She wants to make contact.'

‘Not so much that she phones! And when she does write, she rarely bothers to fill the postcard. She scribbles a couple of lines in her tiny writing, and then leaves a gaping space underneath.'

Outside, the evening light is fading. The day has used up its ration.

‘So that makes two of you capable of giving the silent treatment!' Ginny's eyes twinkle. ‘You're terrified of contacting your mother, and she's terrified—' Ginny stops.

The flutter of panic resurfaces. Ginny is being insufferably even- handed. I'm not courageous enough to enter that dark labyrinth of what might terrify my own mother.

‘I'm sorry, I have to go now,' I tell her, and start writing out the cheque.

*

In Sainsbury's, struggling to think of something for supper, I stand staring at a display of dead fish on ice. Ginny's parting words ring in my ears: that Mother can no longer hurt me. I want to believe her. I really, really do. But such blind faith, worthy of one of Dylan's religious retreats, feels reckless and beyond my reach.

Chapter Nine

W
HEN
I
WAS SEVEN
, my mother went to the doctor's, feeling unwell. She took the bus because she has never learned to drive. After she'd been gone for nearly two hours, my father received a phone call from the surgery receptionist, who said that my mother was suspected of having measles and that she was being held in isolation until someone could collect her.

When my father and I arrived, we were directed to the far end of the corridor, and a room off to the left. It was painted white, although the bright, fluorescent lights made it seem almost blue. Along each wall ran a line of cupboards, their surfaces clear. Each cupboard had a black plastic safety lock looped around the handles.

Mother sat on a metal chair in the centre of the room. She still wore her coat, and held her handbag on her lap. Held it as though she would never, ever let it go. Her skin looked grey.

There was a moment before we crossed the threshold when I remember thinking how small she looked with all the whiteness around her; like a child at school whose parents have forgotten to collect them.

Chapter Ten

I
'
VE BEEN TOO BUSY
to contact my mother. Firstly, we've had Dad's funeral: half an hour at a coastal crematorium, followed by scones and bridge rolls at Audrey's flat. Standing room only, what with all Audrey and Dad's bowls club friends in attendance. I gather they average two a week; for this crowd, funerals have become their social life. Dylan, I know, would approve.
Celebrate life
, he says.
Even in death
. Which frankly is hard to do when the person you want to celebrate with is dead. Audrey wanted me to do a reading, but I wasn't sure I could get through it without howling like a banshee, so Matt read, and I gripped Audrey's elbow throughout.

In the car on the way back to London, Matt reached out for my knee.

‘Do you remember the first time I met your father?' I knew what he was going to say. ‘How he shook my hand, and accidentally trapped the fleshy bit, here—' he wiggled his hand to show the webbing between thumb and forefinger, ‘And as we stood chatting, your father held on to me—'

‘—with his firm potter's grasp, no less!'

‘—leaving me crippled with pain. I was practically on my knees!'

‘Always makes me think of stags rutting,' I giggled.

It had, we agreed, been a good funeral.

The second reason for not contacting my mother is my job. I've been invited by one of my major clients to recruit the head of their American advisory committee, although the board is insisting on a three-way
beauty parade
pitch for the business. It's the economic climate, I tell myself; it in no way reflects on my past performance. All the same, it frustrates me having to compete.

As an only child, I've always imagined myself under-practised in the art of social dynamics. Unfortunate, then, that my office seethes with sibling rivalry. All the directors compete for the attention of Rex,
in loco parentis
, he with hands the perfect size for cupping secretarial behinds; competing, more specifically, for the baubles of lucrative non-executive directorships which lie within Rex's experienced gift; competing, above all, to be anointed heir to the partnership, the ultimate symbol of his parental approbation. The role of bullying office oldest sister belongs to Julia, Rex's PA, the type of woman who wears slacks with elasticated waistbands.

As a result, the office is riddled with the woodworm of insecurity. It's assumed that women will work up to two years before giving in to their hormones. My secretary, Maxine who has, under these unspoken terms, extended her apprenticeship by several months, has already been treated to two of Rex's little lunches, his infamous
tête-à-têtes
, designed to plant the seed (I trust the phrase is purely metaphorical) that motherhood is now the only route to fulfilment. Unsurprisingly, Nicole and I are regarded by the Rexes of this world as creatures defying nature for daring to compete with men. To them we are figures of suspicion.

Rather less convincingly, I've had no time to contact my mother, as I've been bonding with the cats. OK, so this is utter rubbish, because I loathe them and they know it, but I have until Saturday before Dylan returns from his retreat to reclaim them. I am the first to acknowledge that bonding is too concrete a term for what has been happening, but it seems vital to envisage tasks of substance. In this mental video, I see myself seated at the piano, one cat on my lap, the other dozing at my feet whilst I play: a picture of contentment and, above all, obedience.

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