Elegance and Innocence (19 page)

One Saturday morning, I awake to the sound of muffled voices. Shuffling into the hallway, wearing my new, guaranteed opaque robe, I pause to listen by the living-room door.

‘And you think they’re getting a divorce?’ This is a woman’s voice, but one I don’t know.

‘Yes,’ Colin says, ‘it’s pretty much certain now.’

The woman sighs. ‘Sex or money, darling. Mark my words. It always comes down to sex or money.’

I knock gently. ‘Hello? Sorry to disturb you.’

Colin rises and the woman, slim and tiny with flaming red hair, smiles at me. She’s wearing a tweed skirt with an emerald green twin set and she sits with her ankles crossed, her feet arched delicately.

‘Morning, Ouise! Did we wake you? I don’t believe you’ve met; this is my mother.’

I grin apologetically, aware of how bedraggled I look and badly in need of coffee. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Riley.’ I cross and shake her tiny hand.

‘Please, call me Ada.’ Her voice, smooth and cultured, betrays just the slightest hint of an Irish accent.

‘I’m about to make some coffee, can I get you some?’ I offer.

‘No.’ She rises. ‘I really should be getting on before your father misses me. It was lovely to meet you, Louise.’

Colin holds her coat out and she steps into it. ‘I’ll see you out, Mum.’ And I hear them whispering as they make their way down the steps.

When Colin returns, he joins me in the kitchen.

‘Your mum’s an early riser. What was all that about?’ I ask, pouring a bowl of cereal.

He leans his head on the door frame and closes his eyes. ‘It’s my father,’ he sighs. ‘He’s playing up again.’

Colin’s father, Patrick Riley, was once a famous Irish tenor and his mother Ada, a dancer in the Royal Ballet. They met at Covent Garden in the fifties and were married shortly afterwards. Very quickly, five children followed, of which Colin is the youngest. However, Patrick’s career came to a sudden and tragic halt when he lost his voice during a performance of
Cavalleria Rusticana
in the late sixties. Unable to conceive of a career in anything but music, he struggled to support his family as a voice coach and music teacher, but never fully recovered from the loss of prestige from his Covent Garden days. Always highly sensitive, he began to succumb to dark periods of depression and lock himself away in his study for days on end. As he grew older and his children left the family home, his mood swings became increasingly violent; sudden, uncontrollable outbursts were followed by tears and pathetic promises that he would ‘pull himself together’. But he was unable to effect any real or lasting changes on his own. The family rarely spoke of ‘Da’s condition’, but lately things had been worse and Ada was beside herself. And he was always particularly bad around the anniversary of his final, devastating performance, which was in a month’s time.

‘Mum thinks that maybe we should organize some kind of tribute to him. You know, gather all his friends and family and have a party to celebrate his career, but I don’t know. It could go either way; either he could really enjoy it or it might just send him into another bad bout of morbid reflection – though, chances are, he’s going to no matter what we do.’ He shook his head. ‘I just don’t know, Ouise. I really don’t know what to do.’

‘It’s a tough one.’ I poured him out a cup of coffee. ‘I wish I could help.’

‘Well, there is one thing …’ he hesitated.

‘Just name it.’

‘If she does decide to go ahead with this whole thing, will you come with me?’

‘Sure, Col. No problem. Although she might just want family only, don’t you think?’

He studied the kitchen floor a moment. ‘And their partners,’ he added quietly.

‘Partners?’

He looked up. ‘You see, I’ve never really told them I’m gay.’

For a moment I thought I would laugh. ‘And you don’t think they know?’

He sighed heavily. ‘It isn’t a matter of them knowing, Louise. But they’re not of a generation that find it necessary to discuss these things. Do you understand? What they know or don’t know is not really my concern. My
telling
them doesn’t help. We all get along better when it just isn’t an issue.’

‘And how do you accomplish that?’

‘I just don’t put it in their faces and they don’t ask.’

‘That’s fine now, while you’re single, but what about when you have a boyfriend?’

‘Louise,’ he seemed tired and irritable. ‘Trust me on this one. They don’t want to know. They want me to be happy but they don’t want to know. Some things are just better left unsaid.’

Three days later, Colin confirmed that his mother had decided to go ahead with her plan; the party was to be held in their large family home and would be a surprise. And in the weeks that followed, Colin spent every spare moment coordinating arrangements between his mother and fellow siblings. They planned a buffet supper, a jazz trio for dancing, and Ada had arranged for some of Patrick’s star pupils to sing. Family and friends were scheduled to arrive from as far away as Dublin, and Colin’s brother Ewan had managed to find some old film footage of his father singing in
La Bohème
, which he’d had restored, to be screened at the end of the evening. The phone rang constantly and there was a buzz of real excitement in the air. The energy and enthusiasm with which the Riley clan launched themselves into Patrick’s party was unparalleled.

A week before the big night, Colin cornered me as I
was doing the washing up. ‘I think we ought to talk about what we’re going to wear.’

I handed him a tea towel. ‘Good plan. Let’s start with you.’

‘Well,’ he polished off a few glasses, stacking them on the kitchen shelf. ‘I’m thinking maybe my navy pinstripe, a pale blue shirt, and a red tie. You know, something very conservative, formal but not too formal … what do you think?’

I looked at him in surprise. ‘You own a navy pinstripe suit? I can’t imagine you wearing anything so sombre!’

He smiled. ‘Well, I’ll have to have it cleaned, but yes, it does exist. Alan bought it for me when he was trying to persuade me to go into banking. I tried to convince Mum to make it a black tie evening – everyone looks better in black tie – but she says that not everyone will have a tux and I’m sure she has a point.’

‘
Banking!
I can’t imagine you trying to control anyone’s spending, Col!’

He laughed. ‘Now it’s your turn. What did you have in mind?’

‘Well,’ I hesitated, ‘I’m not really sure. I’ve got my little black Karen Millen dress.’

‘Hummm.’ I could tell by the way he was concentrating on the drying that it wasn’t quite what he had in mind.

‘But then again, it may be a little … how do you say it?’

‘Tight?’ he volunteered.

I turned to face him. ‘Tight?!’

‘Well, then, form fitting. A little close, shall we say.’

I glared at him. ‘Colin, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that dress. Or the way it fits me!’

‘Yes, yes, yes, yes! Of course! I love it, Ouise! Really, I do. But I’m thinking something a little more subdued, a little more restrained … what’s the word I’m looking for? A little more Catholic.’

‘Like what? A habit?’

He sighed and put the tea towel down. ‘You have to understand, Louise, this is my family we’re talking about. When it comes right down to it, they’re a little old fashioned. Traditional even. Despite the showbiz roots. You and I are going as kind of a team, right? I’m wearing the blue pinstripe and you can wear something that goes with that look … don’t you think?’

I frowned at him. This was not the Colin I knew. Suddenly it was as if he’d been abducted and replaced by an evil twin – one that wanted us to perform some sort of bizarre charade for his parents.

And then it hit me.

‘Colin, did you by any chance tell them that I was your girlfriend?’

He picked up the tea towel again and started drying as if his life depended on it. ‘No! No, of course not!’

‘Really? ’Cause you’re acting really weird.’

He avoided my gaze and began stacking plates together. ‘Absolutely not, Louise! Really!’

‘But you didn’t
not
tell them I was your girlfriend either. That’s it, isn’t it? You were going to just say nothing and let them draw their own conclusions.’

He put the plates down. ‘Is that really so bad?’

I shook my head. ‘Why are you doing this, Col? You do know, don’t you, that you have nothing to be ashamed of?’

He closed his eyes and passed a hand wearily over them. ‘This is not the occasion, Louise, when I come out to my family. Can you understand that? This party, this night, is not about me. All I’m asking is that we blend in, that we remain anonymous. Just for this one night. Look, I’m not going to try to pass you off as my girlfriend, OK? As far as anyone’s concerned you’re my friend and my flatmate, all right? But all I want is for this one night to go smoothly. Can you understand that?’

I can.

I wrap my arms around him. ‘Listen, I’ll wear anything you like, OK? And we’ll have a good time and the whole evening will be a terrific success. Just wait and see.’

He gives me a squeeze. ‘I did take the liberty of borrowing something from the wardrobe department.’ He dives into the living room and comes back clutching a shopping bag. He hands it to me. ‘Go on, see if you like it.’

I reach in and pull out an original Diane Von Furstenberg wrap-around dress in a bold crimson print. ‘Wow,’ I say, holding it up against me. ‘It’s kind of incredible.’

He beams at me. ‘
Now
you look like a banker’s wife!’

However, Colin and I never get to wear our carefully chosen outfits.

Two days before the party, while Colin is delivering spare plates and cutlery to his mother, they hear a strange noise from Patrick’s study. They discover him, slumped in a heap on the carpet, having swallowed a fatal dose of tranquillizers. There is no note.

Colin spends a week at his mother’s, helping with arrangements, and then, after the funeral, Ada departs for Ireland, to stay with family.

The day Colin comes back to the flat, Ria and I both take the day off. He comes in and goes straight to bed for four hours, while Ria and I busy ourselves baking scones. (She bakes. I watch.) When he finally wakes up, eyes swollen and red, we make a fresh pot of tea and try our best to force feed him the scones, and when that doesn’t work, we just sit there, in the living room, watching the sun melt behind the London skyline and listening to an old recording of Patrick singing famous Italian arias. The record ends and we sit in silence in the dark. And then Ria turns a light on and goes into the kitchen to make us all cheese on toast. Colin lies down and rests his head in my lap.

‘He was so much trouble,’ he says at last. ‘So unpredictable to be around. And yet I don’t know what we’ll do without him.’

I gently stroke his hair.

I want to tell him I understand, but I don’t. I’m one of the lucky ones.

When I was thirteen, I came home from school one day to find my mother sitting in one of the living-room chairs in her nightgown. She should’ve been dressed. And at work. But she wasn’t. She was here instead – pale, drawn, her eyes glassy and swollen. The nightgown she was wearing was faded and damp. It clung to her thin frame and there was some sort of stain on the front. My mother was never home when I got back from school.

I asked her if she was all right and she ignored me, staring straight ahead, her head wobbling on her neck as if it might fall off at any moment. I stood directly in front of her and asked again, but she looked at me as if she didn’t recognize me and blinked slowly. Far too slowly. Then her mouth just fell open and, in a single, horrible instant, I realized she was dying. The world seemed to move in slow motion; I felt my back pack slide off my arms and onto the floor and although I was running, my feet were made of lead. I pulled at the phone on the wall and dialled a number. A voice came on the line and I could hear myself screaming our address, telling them to hurry, and as I turned, I saw her slump forward, head on chest, a thin, strand of drool
sliding its way slowly down her chin. I let go of the phone and it crashed against the wall, as she crumpled to a heap on the floor.

Minutes later, the ambulance team arrived. I was rocking her back and forth in my arms, trying to get her to wake up. They pulled her away from me, strapped her onto a stretcher, and put an oxygen mask over her mouth. Then they searched the bathroom until they found some bottles. In a matter of minutes, they were gone. A neighbour came over, Mrs Klavinski, and rang my father. She was Polish, and although she was just trying to be helpful, her English wasn’t very good. When my sister and brother came home, she greeted them with the news that my mother had a ‘sickness of the head and was taking to hospital’.

It was months before she came home.

And when she did, she was different. Better.

And as I held Col, I thought of all the secret preparations that had been made over the past month and of how he and his mother found Patrick too late. And I thought again, for the thousand millionth time, of what would’ve happened if I’d been late home from school that day – if I’d loitered by the bus stop, staring at the boys from St Andrew’s or landed myself in detention.

Later that night, I rang home. Sitting in the darkness by the window, I listened to the phone ring, thousands of miles away. Then I heard a click and my mother’s voice came on the line.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Mom.’

‘Louise! What’s the time? It’s kinda late there, isn’t it?’

‘A little.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, Mom, I’m fine. I just called to see how you are.’

‘Great, Kiddo. Couldn’t be better. Your father’s a bit of a pain
dans le derrière
but I’m being very firm with him, so we’ll soon have that under control. It’s all about this new shed he wants to build in the back yard. Did you know your sister’s trying for another baby? No luck yet, but I’ll keep you posted. How’s the job? I spent the whole day planting bulbs, which I have a feeling the deer are just going to eat again. But I try every year, so I can’t start giving up now, can I?’