A Place for Us (30 page)

Lucy

“
T
HE
I
NDIA
C
LUB.
The Strand. It’s just before Waterloo Bridge. After the Courtauld.”

Lucy listened to the message again, and stared around her, bewildered. Buses and taxis shot past at an alarming speed, and pedestrians crossing from the Strand to Lancaster Place pushed past her, buffeting her. The first days of warm weather had foxed her, as they seemed to every year—she was in a navy wool-mix long-sleeved dress, and it clung to her back, now slick with sweat. “I can’t bloody see it,” she muttered, standing back and staring up at the shops in front of her. “Arrgh,” she said, letting out a low groan. “Oh, Florence.”

“Florence?” An amiable-looking middle-aged man standing in a doorway stepped forward. “Are you—I’m sorry to interrupt. Must seem a bit odd. You’re Lucy, aren’t you? I’m Jim Buxton. I—I know your aunt.”

He held out his hand, and Lucy shook it uncertainly. “Good day,” she said crisply, thinking if she sounded like a heroine from a BBC war drama she might somehow deter this strange man from mugging or murdering her, if that was indeed his intent. “I’m looking for the India Club. I’m supposed to be meeting—”

“I’ve just left her here. It’s upstairs,” Jim said with a smile. He pushed his phone into his pocket, and opened a scuffed black door. “I’ll show you.”

•   •   •

Two floors up, Lucy found Florence in the small restaurant, which had murky yellow walls and was almost empty. She was seated at a large table,
papers strewn everywhere, scribbling furiously, an uneaten dosa at her side.

“Hi, Aunt Flo,” Lucy said loudly. She wasn’t sure if Florence would hear her or not.

“Florence,” Jim called. “It’s your niece. I found her on the street.” He said tentatively, “It’s . . . Lucy.”

Florence looked up then, pushed her glasses up her nose, and broke into a smile. “Hello, darling.” She enveloped Lucy in a big, messy hug. Pieces of paper flew to the floor. “So you know Jim?” she said, slightly confused, scrambling to pick them up.

“No, Florence,” said Jim patiently. “I bumped into her outside.” He pulled at the arm of his glasses, slightly like Eric Morecambe, and then hugged the Daunt Books cloth bag he was carrying closer to his chest. “I forgot to ask. Are you in for supper?”

“No, Thomas wants me for a conference call with the lawyers.”

“Well, Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.”

“Bully for you,” said Florence, shoveling papadum into her mouth. Jim slung the bag over his shoulder.

“I’ll leave you some casserole out, that suit?”

“That’d be marvelous. I left the
LRB
review on the kitchen table, by the way. Do look. Utterly wrong about Gombrich, but it’s a good piece.”

Lucy, not understanding a word of this conversation, sat down, glancing longingly at the dosa.

“Is Amna back tonight, by the way?”

“No, she’s not,” Jim said. Something in his tone made Lucy glance up, curious. “She’s gone till May, I’m sure I told you that, didn’t I?”

“The lawyers need to talk to her.” Florence slid the menu over. “Pick something, Lucy, it’s all wonderful.”

“What do they want to talk to her about?” Jim asked.

“Oh, it’s rubbish. Peter’s lot are saying you and I are having an affair. That you’re not a credible expert witness. Et cetera.” Florence rolled her eyes. “Bloody idiot. I think it makes him sound pretty desperate, I must say.”

Jim pulled at his tufty gray hair. “I see. Florence—maybe we should discuss this all later.”

“Of course,” Florence said heartily. “I am living with you, it must
look rather odd. But we need to be clear on the matter. I hoped Amna could clarify or provide some kind of statement. . . .” She shuffled through some papers. “It’s here somewhere. Ah. Now, I’d forgotten about this passage.” She pulled out a cracked Biro and started writing furiously.

“Good-bye. Nope, she can’t hear me.” Jim smiled at Lucy. He put his hand on Florence’s shoulder gently, then turned to Lucy. “Good-bye. It’s very nice to meet you. Very nice to meet any of Florence’s family, in fact. I was starting to think she was a water-baby or something. Have the pakora, it’s jolly good.”

“Oh—” Lucy began, but he’d gone. Florence waved vaguely at his back and carried on, her huge, looping handwriting covering the paper.

“Just a moment.” She scribbled one more line, and put down her pen. “Sorry, Lucy. Thank you for coming.”

“My pleasure. It’s so good to see—” Lucy began tentatively.

Florence interrupted. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Lucy glanced at her aunt curiously. Florence wasn’t the kind of aunt who took you to the ballet, or to tea at Fortnum’s. She was the kind of aunt who’d spend hours playing battles or making up stupid songs with you. But she didn’t generally confide, or expect you to confide in her.

There was something else, too. Something that, since that awful day, had been pushed to the back of Lucy’s mind. The evening Southpaw died. Bursting into his study to fetch her for supper, Lucy had found Florence sitting in Southpaw’s chair, a glass of wine next to her and a postcard of a painting in her hand.

She was sobbing her heart out. When Lucy moved in the doorway and Florence saw her, she wiped her nose and gave a great, huge, galloping sigh.

“It’s true,” she’d said, staring right through Lucy, her swollen eyes glazed, and she’d pushed away a piece of paper lying on the blotter, crumpling it up. “Oh, no.” Her face collapsed again. “Oh, no. It’s really true.”

Lucy had reached to her across the desk. “Oh, Flo. What’s true?”

“Nothing.” She’d wiped her nose. “Absolutely nothing. I’m coming now,” she’d said, folding the postcard and putting it into one of her capacious pockets, but she didn’t move, didn’t move at all, until Gran went in and got her out.

Now she said carefully, “What’s up, then?”

“Why don’t you order,” her aunt said. “Then I’ll tell you.”

•   •   •

When Lucy’s pakora arrived—and it was delicious—she ate in silence for a few moments. She was ravenous. Lately, all she seemed to want to do was eat.

“You’re in Hackney, aren’t you?” Florence said. “Not that far from Jim and Amna.”

“Of course.”

“Jim’s a clever fellow. Very astute. Known him since Oxford, we rub along nicely together.”

“He seems lovely.” Lucy looked at her watch.

“You should come over one evening. It’s a great place. Stuffed with books. Jim is—”

“Flo, what’s this about?” Lucy interrupted. “I don’t want to be rude. It’s just I have to be back by two.” Her aunt looked startled, and Lucy said hurriedly, “Work’s horrible at the moment. I can’t be away too long.”

Florence picked at the uneaten dosa. “Oh. Why’s it horrible?”

“I’m not right for it. And my boss is gunning for me.”
Especially now Southpaw’s dead
, she wanted to say, but couldn’t. The article about Daisy was of course not possible now. There was no talk of promotion, and last week Lara had left to join
Vogue
and Deborah had looked at Lucy and said, “Not to be brutal, but it’d be a waste of your time. I don’t want to sound negative, though, Lucy. I’m just being honest. Okay?”

Lucy told Florence this.

“Oh dear. What would you like to do instead?”

The question caught Lucy unawares. It hadn’t occurred to her that she could do something else. She squirmed on her chair. “Oh. Well, I’d like to be a writer.”

Florence didn’t laugh, or look amazed, or cough in embarrassment. She said, “Good idea. Pleased to hear it. You can help me out, you know.” Lucy looked blank, and Florence waved her hands. “Luce, it’s a good idea. You can write. Remember those funny stories you used to tell Cat? What are you doing about it?”

“Oh. Nothing.” Lucy laughed self-consciously. “Well . . . I write down bits and bobs.” Lately she had taken to writing at all hours, on her laptop, late at night. About Dad, and Karen, about Gran and Southpaw. “I had an idea, about us—it’s . . .” She clamped her suddenly sweating
armpits into her sides, before remembering that Flo simply didn’t care about things like that, and relaxed. “Don’t ask me yet. I don’t think I’m quite there.”

“No time like the present,” Florence said grimly. “What do you want to write?”

“Stories,” Lucy said vaguely. Now that it was out there, now she’d said to someone,
I want to be a writer
, she wished she could pick up the string of words floating on the air between them and cram them back in like a jack out of its box. She shrugged and said brightly, “I’ll get round to it, one day. So—um, how long have you been in London, then?”

“Oh, over a month,” Florence said abruptly. “Had to go home—to Winterfold for the night last week. But I’m staying with Jim till June, I think. Have you heard about this court case I’m involved with?”

“Of course.”

“It opens next week,” said Florence. “I’m suing Peter for a share of the royalties of his book and a coauthor credit.”

“Golly. Is he the TV bloke? Didn’t you once—”

Florence interrupted. “Oh, yes. I’ve been a total idiot. And I didn’t want it to get this far.” She gave a grim smile. “I’m a bit afraid about what they’ll drag out, actually.” She laughed nervously, and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Embarrassing stuff.”

“Like what?”

Florence said quietly, “Oh, Luce. I’m a solitary person. I’ve spent a lot of time in my own head, all these years. You get used to it in there. It’s rather nice.”

“I know what you mean.”

“You do, don’t you? One gets these ideas about things. . . . Anyway, I made a fool of myself over him.” Florence swallowed. “When I think about it for any length of time, I feel quite sick. And I feel quite al—alone.” She stumbled over the word.

“You’re not alone.” Lucy put her hand over her aunt’s, then pulled it away.

“I am. Believe me. Now that Pa’s gone and the rest of it—” She bit her lip, and put her hands in front of her face.

“You don’t have to go through with it,” Lucy said. “You could always pull out, couldn’t you?”

A change came over Florence’s face. She sat up straight and put her hands together. Her expression was determined, her chin stuck out. “All I have is my reputation, Lucy. Middle-aged men are seen as being in the prime of life. Middle-aged women are dispensable, my darling girl. Just wait, you’ll see.” She paused, and Lucy thought she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. “Look. I wanted to ask your help.”

“What do you need my help for?”

“Can you write an article? For your paper? A little bit of, I suppose one would call it persuasive PR on my side, would do me a world of good.” Florence leaned forward, brushing her hair in some chutney. “I don’t—want to look ridiculous. A nice piece about how respected I am—your—your paper would do that, wouldn’t they?”

“Oh.” Lucy put her fork down and dabbed her mouth with a napkin, buying some time. She caught Florence’s hair in her hand, brushing a blob of chutney off.

“Um. I’m your niece, Flo. That would look a bit ridiculous. ‘Why Florence Winter Is Great,’ by Lucy Winter (No Relation). They’d buy something on our family history—they wanted to do a piece on Daisy and Southpaw, but I couldn’t bring myself to, and then—everything else happened.”

“Well, can’t you now? With me in it?”

Lucy stared at her aunt rather helplessly. “Well, no. You can’t just write articles about your relatives without some sort of angle. That’s why I wouldn’t do it before.”

“What sort of angle did they want?”

“Oh, Southpaw’s sad early life, Daisy the missing daughter . . . et cetera. But it was too hard, and now, obviously, I’m not going to do it.”

Florence reached over and took a piece of Lucy’s chicken. “What if I could give you something else?”

Lucy looked at her aunt’s hands. They were shaking.

“What?” Lucy said, not really believing her.

Florence whispered, “I—well.
Come on, Flo, come on,
” she added under her breath. “Look, Lucy. I’m—I’m not your aunt.”

“You’re not—what?”

Florence’s heart-shaped face was gray with misery. “Oh dear.”

“Flo—what do you mean?”

“I’m adopted. That’s what I mean.”

Something stuck in the back of Lucy’s mouth. She coughed. “
Adopted?
Oh, no, you can’t be.”

“I am, I’m afraid.” Florence gave a twisted smile. “Daisy told me, when I was younger. I didn’t believe her, I thought it was one of her little games, but at the same time you never knew with Daisy.” She swallowed. “In fact, she was right. It’s true. I . . .” She stopped, and looked down at the congealing food on her plate. “I found my birth certificate. The night Southpaw died.”

“I saw you—” Lucy began.

“Yes. I was looking for Daisy’s passport, the police wanted it, your grandmother said it was there and I went to look for it. I was going through this old folder of his drawings, of Pa’s . . . Pa’s East End drawings, and there it was. Just tucked in there, thin as tissue. I almost threw it away.”

“Oh, my goodness. Flo . . .”

“I’ve—I’ve always known, really. Known I wasn’t like them. It’s just, finding out like that was rather a shock.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. She pushed her glasses furiously up her nose. “Anyway! I thought you could help me. Write an article, it doesn’t matter if you say you’re my niece or not. I just want some coverage that doesn’t make me sound like a crackpot. It’s become rather important to me now, winning this court case. I have to have some reputation afterward, don’t I?”

“Florence,” Lucy said, “please, wait a minute. Does Dad know? Who knows? Do you know who . . . who your mum was?”

She shook her head furiously. “Some eighteen-year-old girl. No idea of the father. Somewhere in London. I wrote her name down. Cassie something, Irish name.” She pressed her long hands over her face, and her shoulders shook. “I’ve always known my mother didn’t love me the way she loved the rest of you. I couldn’t work out why.” Her voice was muffled. “You can blow the whole thing right open, if you wish.”

“Oh, Flo, I couldn’t do that.” Lucy reached over the table. “Gran loves you, of course she does! She’s always going on about you to us, how amazing you are, how there’s nothing you can’t do.”