Love Always (22 page)

‘It’s a marriage, not just a home,’ Cathy says sternly. ‘For both of you.’

We had a home together, the two of us, until Oli went and ruined it. But the thing is, I think I want that home, I want us to be together. I don’t want to be out there again. I think I do still love him. That’s the trouble.

Chapter Twenty-Three

After Cathy leaves, I do some tidying up and sorting out. I put things away, I arrange my tools in my drawer under the workbench. I update my contacts folder on my laptop (a new state-of-the-art Mac, which I convinced myself – helped by Oli, it’s true – I had to have for work, when any old computer would basically have done). I email a few shops, some friends who are fellow jewellers to find if they’ll be at the next trade fair, in ExCel in May, and I get an application form from Tower Hamlets for a grant. Though even this feels wrong; I don’t think I deserve the money.

What I need to do, I know, is keep on like this. Keep doing things. Keep coming to the studio and actually making stuff, having a plan, having tea with the others, instead of using this place as an escape from the lonely, echoing flat, filled with Oli’s stuff. I open the unopened letters from the bank, putting them in a pile. I make a list of things to do. And as I stand up and stretch, slinging my bag over my shoulder, I put my sketchbook in the centre of the table, so it’ll be the first thing I see when I come in tomorrow. Feeling suddenly hopeful, I close the door behind me.

As I walk past Ben’s studio I’m about to knock, but I can hear him and Tania talking so I pause, listening for a second.

I can tell by the tone of their voices – slightly louder and higher than usual – that it’s not the kind of conversation you want to interrupt. Normally I’d knock anyway, or call out ‘Bye’ but perhaps I need to stop hanging out with them instead of going home. Yes, I’m going home.

I say goodnight to Jamie and as I have my hand on the door I open my bag, quickly, just checking. Yes, Cecily diary’s still there, nestling at the top of my things, folded up inside my sketchbook.

One of the weirdest things about my ‘situation’ at the moment is the labelling of it. Do I still say ‘we’ when I’m talking about where ‘we’ live or how long ago ‘we’ bought the new flat-screen TV? It feels so odd, yet to say ‘my status-TBC-husband and I’ is also weird. ‘We’ live on Princelet Street, off Brick Lane, a couple of minutes’ walk from my studio.

When I first left college I worked for two years on a stall in Camden Market and lived in West Norwood, so I know what a long commute is like. I was only there in the mornings, too – in the afternoons I’d do my own stuff – so it was nearly three hours of travelling for three hours of work, not a good exchange system. I had about fifty pence a week left to play with, if that.

We moved here after much negotiation. Oli flatly refused to cross the river, especially not to live that far out. He wanted to stay in North London. We compromised on East London, and it was one of our better decisions, because I can’t imagine living anywhere else now. I have lived in West, East and South and worked in North London, and this is where we both wanted to be. I don’t know what ‘we’ think about that any more, but I love it here, and though East London isn’t everyone’s favourite biscuit, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I know where I want to be. Until a decade ago or so round here, Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, all of it was a real no-man’s-land, abandoned since the days of Jack the Ripper, but now it is quite hilariously trendy. The slums they cleared people out of in the sixties, moving them into new-builds, are now Georgian terraces selling for half a million quid.

My road is not as posh as the great Huguenot weavers’ houses on Fournier Street, which is now almost all private houses or museums masquerading as private houses, each front door now a tasteful olive, dark grey or black, shutters immaculately reproduced in the original style and painted to match. Our street is one block up, a bit quieter, the houses a bit more dilapidated. If you half-close your eyes, you really can imagine some weaver hurrying back along the cobbled street through the mud and rain and opening the dark, sturdy front door to be greeted by a blaze of light and a warming fire. It feels less like something out of a film set and more like a place where people have lived and still live now. People like us.

I walk home that afternoon, past the guys pushing the empty rails from Petticoat Market, past the sweet Victorian primary school where it is home-time. Children are flooding out in their blue sweaters, throwing themselves against their parents, jabbering excitedly to each other. Two little girls are in a minibus, kissing each other and playing with each other’s hair, while an adult shovels more children in next to them. I stand and watch them, smiling, until one of the parents stares at me. Embarrassed, I walk on, pulling my scarf more tightly around me in the cold, hitching my overnight bag onto my shoulder.

I skid on a puddle and nearly slip. ‘Mind how you go,’ says one of the ever-present waiters who stand outside the curry houses all day, trying to entice punters inside. ‘It’s cold, freezing, be careful, yes?’

It is freezing, I feel it now. I am sick of this winter. It’s been never-ending. It’s almost March, and still so cold. I look up at the grey-white sky, heavy with cloud. The contrast with Cornwall is total, in fact. There are no trees on Brick Lane, only brightly illuminated signs, flashing LED lights, misleading banners (‘Winner of Best Curry Restaurant’ – Where? When? According to whom?), comforting, spicy smells which make my confused stomach lurch with nausea and at the same time growl with hunger.

It is past five and getting dark. It is a night for staying in, for going to the Taj Stores opposite and loading up on poppadoms and chutney, it’s a night for wrapping oneself in scarves and blankets and curling up on the sofa. I think how nice a takeaway from the Lahore Kebab House would be. If Oli was here perhaps he’d get it on his way back from work. If Oli was here we’d watch a few more episodes of
Mad Men
on the new flat-screen TV, and then I’d put my head in his lap and half-read a book while he watches the football.

I turn into Princelet Street, waving at another waiter, standing outside the Eastern Eye Balti House. ‘How was the funeral?’ he says, bowing his head slightly as if acknowledging it. He wears a pale blue waistcoat and shirt. He must be freezing.

‘It was . . . fine,’ I say, touched. I will never know how to answer that question properly.
It was . . . funereal, thanks for asking.

‘That’s life,’ the waiter calls after me, nodding philosophically. ‘Life and death.’

Just as I am getting into the flat, my mobile rings. I struggle with my overnight bag and my scarf, getting tangled up as I delve into my handbag to find the phone and press it immediately to my ear.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello? Darling? Where are you?’

It’s my mother. I freeze. ‘I’m at home,’ I say, after a moment. I dump my overnight bag on the floor. ‘Er – where are you? Are you still in Cornwall?’ I stare at the bag.

‘Yes,’ says Mum. ‘Off tomorrow evening.’

‘Um—’ I don’t know what to say to her. There’s a silence. ‘So . . . how’s the clearing up going?’

‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘Fine. We’re seeing the solicitors tomorrow, to sort out the foundation and the funding. Archie and I.’

‘Oh, yes. Is – is Louisa still there?’

My mother lowers her voice. ‘God, yes. Of course she is. I wish she’d just leave, to be honest, but no . . .’ She pauses, as though she’s looking around. ‘She’s still here. Pretending to be the dutiful daughter, even though she’s not.’

I am recasting everything in my mind, now: everything I thought I knew. I knew my mother and Louisa didn’t get on that well, but I thought it was simply because they’re so different. Now I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what actually happened that summer, after all, but I can tell Mum was difficult even then, based on just a few pages of her sister’s diary. Does my mother know what they say about her? That behind her back people whisper about her, like those old friends of Granny’s at the funeral, that they say, You know, it was never proved, but Miranda . . . yes, that one over there, you know they always had trouble with her. They say she killed her sister. Oh, it wasn’t an accident . . .

It occurs to me, as silence falls between us, that she does, always has done, that she has always known that’s what they say about her.

Are they right, though? And if so, why? Why would she do it? What happened?

‘I didn’t ring for that, though,’ Mum says. ‘I rang to see how you are. Um—’ She pauses. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about you and Oli.’

‘Look, Mum, I’m really sorry about it,’ I say. ‘I feel awful, but it was only three weeks ago, and I wanted to keep a lid on it until I knew what I was going to do—’

‘Oh, Natasha, you always want to bottle things up,’ she says. ‘You never talk about things! You should have told me. It was awful, finding out like that. At the same time as Louisa! And
Mary Beth
. I mean—! When do we ever see Mary Beth? Who is she?’

I am not in the mood for her amateur dramatics, her sighing and hair tossing. ‘I had my reasons,’ I say. ‘I told you that. I’m sorry if you feel left out.’

She pauses. ‘Well,’ she says, sounding slightly flattened. ‘Anyway – oh, darling. I don’t know what to say.’

There’s a silence. I don’t know what to say either. We can’t help each other, my mother and I, we never have been able to. The ties that bind us together are so tight there’s no room for friendship. We’ve put up with the cold, with crappy one-bed flats, with creepy landlords and no money, too-small winter coats, meal after meal of pasta or baked beans, watching a tiny TV with a coat-hanger aerial, and spending night after night in each other’s company, always making out to our family and friends that the life we lived was bohemian, carefree, simple and all the more tasty as a result. We don’t run towards each other’s company now. We don’t really have anything in common, now we’re both adults. Whoever my father is, he and I must be pretty alike. I often think we’d probably get on like a house on fire. My mother and I haven’t really had that luxury. Instead we’ve tried to respect each other, and we don’t go into any more of it than that.

Now, everything has changed, and I don’t know what we do. Perhaps she’s trying to be a good mother. And I don’t believe Octavia, I don’t believe my mother is responsible for Cecily’s death. But then I’m beginning to realise I don’t know anything.

‘Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ I say.

She sighs. ‘It’s fine, honestly, darling. I know it’s been a hard time for you.’

It’s very odd, hearing her voice. ‘Well, it has for you, too, Mum,’ I say. ‘Granny’s only just died.’

‘I know.’ She sighs again. ‘A lifetime and a week, a week and a lifetime.’

‘What?’

My mother gives a small laugh. ‘Nothing. I’m feeling a bit mad at the moment. Being with one’s family will do that to one, won’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘It’s just hard, packing away the house, knowing we’re leaving it empty, leaving all these memories behind.’ She sounds tired. ‘All these lovely pieces in the house, and I don’t know what to do with them – whether Archie’s right about it all. I’m sure he is, but – well, there’s Louisa.’ Her voice hardens again. ‘Bossing us around.’

‘You should talk to . . . I don’t know, someone who knows a bit about that stuff.’ I remember back to that scene in the kitchen. ‘Guy, perhaps.’

‘Guy Leighton?’ Mum stops me. ‘No. I don’t like Guy.’

I remember how angry she was with him in the kitchen, just before I left last night. Only twenty-four hours ago. ‘Why not? He seemed quite nice. As if he knew what he was talking about.’

‘Well, he’s not nice,’ Mum says. ‘He makes out he’s nice as pie, all sticky-up hair and glasses. He’s worse than the rest of them. No, I’m not having anything to do with him.’

‘But don’t you have to, if Granny asked him to be on the committee?’ I ask.

She clears her throat. ‘Believe me, Natasha,’ she says. ‘Guy Leighton is not what he seems. Just steer clear of him, if you can.’

‘What?’ I say. ‘What does that mean?’ I wind a strand of hair tighter and tighter around my finger. ‘What’s he done?’

She seems to hesitate. ‘Well. He was a complicated fellow.’

‘Yes?’ I say expectantly. ‘And?’

There’s a silence. It’s so long that after about ten seconds I think she must have been disconnected, and I say, ‘Mum? Are you still there? What did he do?’

‘Oh.’ And then she sighs. ‘Perhaps I’m being unfair. I haven’t seen him for years and years. It’s a long time ago. Forget it!’ She trails off. ‘I’d just rather do it at my own pace, and Archie agrees. Jesus.’ She breaks off, and suddenly says, ‘By the way, did Arvind give you anything? Yesterday?’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yes . . . Sorry. He gave me a ring.’

The instant I say it I know I shouldn’t have. I know it’s a mistake.

‘A ring?’ Mum says instantly. ‘What ring? Arvind gave you a ring?’

‘Yes, Granny’s ring, the one with the flowers.’ I hear her inhale sharply. ‘Sorry, Mum, I didn’t think to tell you.’

‘Well, I wish you had.’ She sounds really cross, agitated even. ‘We’ve been looking through Granny’s things today, and I couldn’t find it.’ She hesitates. ‘Nothing else? He didn’t give you anything else?’

I take a deep breath and lie. ‘No. Nothing.’

I am wary of her now. I know what she can be like. And I feel, all of a sudden, as if we are playing a new game, one we’ve never played before.

‘It would have been good if you’d told me, Natasha.’

‘I didn’t realise,’ I say, nettled. ‘I didn’t think it was your ring to give away. Of course, if you want it, I don’t want—’ It’s still round my neck and as I touch it I know suddenly I absolutely won’t give it to her. I know Arvind didn’t want Mum or Archie to have it, though I don’t know why. ‘It was in Granny’s bedside table,’ I say. ‘He said Cecily wore it. On a chain.’