Nine Days (6 page)

There’s a quick pizza—cash exchange and, as the man says his thankyous, I lean forward and say, ‘Excuse me.’

‘Yes?’ For a moment, his mouth considers smiling.

Can I have a slice?
‘I’m looking for Violet Church. Perhaps I have the wrong address?’

He tells me she’s not home and offers to take a message. I have seen Violet once a week for almost a year. This man is too young to be either the old husband or the older lover.

‘Are you expecting her soon?’

‘Are you a friend of hers?’

We could go on with this routine all night. Someone’s got to give. He looks fit; he’s holding that pizza box like it weighs nothing. I’m weak from hunger.

‘My name is Stanzi Westaway. I need a quick chat with her. She knows me.’

The corners of his mouth turn down. He says my name, rolling it around in his mouth like he’s learning a foreign language. ‘You’d better come in,’ he says.

I thank him, admire the hall, which is a different shade of beige, insist he begins his dinner. ‘They’re not as nice cold. The anchovies get extra furry. Don’t let me stop you.’

He laughs, if you can call it that. ‘This?’ He raises the box. ‘This isn’t mine.’

He abandons it on the marble benchtop without even taking a peek inside, ushers me to the lounge and gestures to a two-seater the colour of oatmeal. Then, just as I sit, he says, ‘What kind of name is Stanzi?’

‘The regular kind. Short for Constance.’

He nods, as though my answer has given something away. ‘Pays well, does it? Counselling?’

‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘I didn’t throw it. Len Church. Violet’s father.’

Well, well. Before I can reply, I hear the front door opening. ‘Daddy?’ Violet calls.

‘In here, baby,’ he says. ‘You have a visitor.’

Violet has opted for the full Newton-John: pastel leotard, high ponytail and fuzzy wrist bands. When she sees me, she
drops her gym bag and it clatters on the parquetry. ‘Oh,’ she says. I say hello and wave. She does not wave back. Then she says, ‘Did the pizza come?’

He points to the kitchen and we wait in silence while she disappears and comes back with four slices on a plate: two on the bottom, two upside down on the top. A pizza sandwich. I ask her if we could speak, in private.

Len narrows his eyes, settles further into his chair and rests his fingertips together like a Bond villain. Violet shrugs and sits on the wide arm of his chair, leaning back with her arm over his shoulder.

‘I’ll only tell him after you leave.’

‘All right then,’ I say. ‘Good to know where we stand.’

I take a deep breath, and I tell them a gentle, circuitous story, one that cannot possibly offend, about how easy it is to drop things and how careless I am about putting things away in their right spot among all the things in my office, and how the coin is missing, the one I was showing her just hours ago. ‘I thought you might have seen it. It might have fallen into your bag, or your pocket. I could have accidentally knocked it off the desk. It’s my father’s. It’s very important.’

Violet stares at me, eyes wide like a skinny muppet. For the astonishment on her face I might be speaking Urdu.
That’s it,
I think for a second. That blank look is an admission, of sorts. Shock that she’s been caught and confronted after all this time, after all these stolen objects. A confession. Then she snorts and laughs and covers her face with her hand.

‘As if I’d steal something so lame. A dirty old coin. What’s it worth? Nothing.’

‘I wasn’t implying anything.’

‘You should know I’m a lawyer,’ Len says.

‘Of course you are,’ I say.

Violet sniggers at the thought of her avarice and skill spent on such silliness and all at once I know the coin is not here, not in Violet’s bag or pocket or secreted in her bra. It’s back in my office, on the floor under my desk, edge-downward in the deep-pile rug. It is exactly where Charlotte said it would be.

‘I’m sorry to have wasted your time.’ I stand, hand on my bag.

Violet and Len do not stand. ‘Darling.’ He takes her hand and folds his fingers around her talons. ‘I’m happy that you’re talking to someone. I’ll pay for anything you want. But can you honestly tell me it’s helping, seeing this woman?’

‘It does help.’ Violet smiles up at me conspiratorially. ‘It does. Every time I see her, I feel so much better. She makes me feel so grateful.’

I feel a rush of warmth for the scrawny little thing. I’ve come here, ready to accuse her of nicking something, of violating our counsellor—client relationship and she’s defending me to her plastic father. I could almost hug her.

‘Thank you, Violet. That means a lot to me.’

‘It’s true. Every time I see Stanzi, I think to myself: no matter what troubles I have, what else is going on in my life.’ She smiles, and it’s the sweetest, warmest smile I’ve ever seen. And then she says, ‘At least I’m not fat.’

And I am captured, standing here, a smiling giant statue of myself carved from granite, massive hand on my bag, huge legs, half-astride, atop bulbous feet as if I was about to walk to
the door. Back when I could walk. Even my face is petrified. It is a carving of wood that turned to stone long ago. It retains the appearance of a warm smile but the muscles are destined to remain like this for eternity.

Violet stands. ‘I’ll show you out.’ Then she notices the plate of pizza on the coffee table. She flips the top piece over so its guts are exposed. ‘I always order too much. I just feel bad for the driver, you know, coming all this way to deliver a small pizza. It doesn’t seem worth his while.’

On top of the pizza, the cheese has congealed. The salami is round, shiny and prettily pink. It could be jewellery. The tomato looks like rust. All at once, I am amazed that this is considered food at all.

She smiles at me. ‘Would you like to take it with you? It’s a shame to waste food, don’t you think? Go on. Take it. It’ll only go in the bin.’

I am sitting in my mother’s kitchen in Malvern. I have a vague recollection of saying my goodbyes, of driving here. I can only hope I did not cry before the door shut behind me. I think it’s possible I called her Vivian.

I drove back to my office and knelt on the rug beside my desk—hold the chair, steady now, first one knee, then the other—and threaded my fingers through the pile until I found the coin. It is in my fist, in my pocket, sweaty and sticking to my fingers. I don’t know how long I sat on the rug before hoisting myself up, but I am here now. It is late. My mother’s
kitchen is wallpapered in orange baskets of fruit: orange oranges and orange pears and orange grapes on a psychedelic orange background. She has made me tea with lemon, strong and sweet. Staring at me from the kitchen bench is a photo of me and Charlotte in our late teens, arms around each other, grinning. I’m not huge but there’s a roundness in my cheeks and throat that marks my future. Charlotte looks the same as she does now. She’s wearing Mum’s amethyst pendant, so the photo must have been after our eighteenth birthday. I wriggle. These chairs are uncomfortable despite the padding. My thighs hang over the side.

‘Would you rather something else?’ Mum is wearing her dressing-gown, the one with the satin cuffs that I bought her. It’s pulled tight around her slender waist and tied with a bow. Her hair is thin, that special shade of little-old-lady lilac. I am holding her tea cup in my mitt; one squeeze of my paw and it would shatter. The china is eggshell-thin, almost translucent, and old. So old I wonder how many people have held it as I am, how many lips have pressed against it just where mine would be. Kisses from strangers, transmitted by porcelain from afar. I lift the cup and lean it against my forehead, then my cheeks, and the heat seems to soften the hard pain in my head. It’s late, I know. She was already in her dressing-gown when she opened the door. I should let her get to sleep.

‘Mum,’ I say.

‘Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat? Toast. I could cut you up an apple. There’s pumpkin soup in the freezer. It’s five minutes on defrost. Five minutes.’

I shake my head and she waits, in that way she does. She
sips her tea and looks nowhere, as if she’s looking for nothing, as if everything she’s ever wanted is within reach and there’s nothing to search for, nothing to do. The photographs of us are framed on the walls, the kitchen bench, on top of the buffet. In her youth she had a luminous perfection that radiates even from the old photos, the black and whites of her on her own. And that smile! Even now when she smiles, there’s no one else in the whole world but you and it’s impossible not to smile back.

Now her beaming face is a little shrivelled apple, red cheeks, all faux-indignation and a sly lopsided smile. In the right light, she’d pass for her mid-fifties. She’s had a charmed life. Only child brought up by her father who died just before she married, a saint of a man who adored her. Dad was her first boyfriend and only love; she went from being looked after by one man straight to the bed of another. When you’re beautiful, life is easy. Someone will always look after you.

The door swings open. ‘Stanzi!’ says Dad. He’s in his pyjamas, an old-fashioned blue stripe, required bedtime uniform for the stylish elderly. During the day, he still looks sprightly,
not a day over seventy-five
as he says, but now he seems fragile and vulnerable, almost like a small boy waiting to be tucked in. Just the sight of him, my heart flutters on a string.

‘I didn’t hear you come in. How are you, sweetheart? Stanzi?’ he says. Not
have you been crying
or
do you have any idea how late it is
or
you’re not upsetting your mother are you?
He bends to wrap an arm around my shoulder, and he kisses me. My father kisses hello and goodbye. Friends, family and random strangers. I don’t move. I can feel his warmth and bones and sinews through the flannelette. I don’t even lift my
huge arm to touch his hand. I want to tell him I’m good, I’m fine. I look at Mum.

‘Good night,’ Mum says.

‘What?’ he says. ‘Why?’

‘Later,’ Mum says.

‘Have I done something? I can undo it. Or if I haven’t done anything, I can. Just watch me.’

‘It’s nothing, Dad.’

‘I can help, whatever the nothing is,’ he says. ‘I’m an expert at nothing. Whenever anyone wants help with nothing, they call me.’

‘Kip,’ Mum says. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Secret women’s business, is it? Just pretend I’m a girl. A somewhat hairy girl.’

‘Good night, Dad.’

‘That’s so unfair. It’s discrimination, plain and simple,’ he says.

Normally he would stay and tease us more, this old joke of his. When we were little, Charlotte and I loved it when he sat on the floor with us, playing dolls or dressups.
Just because I’m a boy doesn’t mean I wouldn’t make a fine girl,
he would say, and we would laugh at our ridiculous father, so unlike the fathers of our friends. Dad is not the least bit feminine and of course that was the joke of it—this big man, nose bent from a break that hadn’t set right, folded on the floor, huge boots and wide cuffs, nestling down with us. His big hands dressing small dolls, rocking one to sleep, brushing another’s hair. But tonight is not the time to play. He glances at my mother’s face and gives up.

‘I’ll say goodnight then, my beautiful girls.’

There is something in the way he says it. He sees me, but still he says it. I look around at the photos: at all the Alecs and Libbys, the Mums, Charlottes and me. ‘I’m not beautiful,’ I say. ‘Mum and Charlotte are, but I’m not.’

He follows my eyes. ‘Fifty years of family photos, but none of Connie. If you had met her, you’d see. You look like her. Beautiful.’

He kisses the top of my head, then shuffles back down the hall. Mum and I sit in silence a little longer until it comes out of me, I don’t know where from.

‘It shouldn’t matter what I look like. What difference should it make? It’s not who I am. Why should I care what people think? Why should I look like everyone else?’

‘Of course it’s who you are. It’s your body, Stanzi, not anybody else’s. So it is part of who you are. It has to be.’

‘I don’t feel like this on the inside.’

She pours herself more tea. Her eyes are a washed-out blue. I know her eyes. They’ve been looking at me my whole life. There’s no hiding from them.

‘That’s a shame,’ she says. ‘The very least we can hope for is to recognise ourselves.’

‘I can hardly walk up a flight of stairs. My thighs bleed from chafing. My feet hurt. All the time.’

‘I know.’ She leans forward and picks a bit of fluff from my jacket. ‘Was someone mean to you?’

All I can manage is a nod.

‘Was it someone you care about? Someone whose opinion matters to you?’

I think about Lolita-Barbie, her pointy little nose, her pointy little mind, her stretched-face father. ‘No,’ I say. ‘It was no one I care about.’

‘A girl, was it? A mean girl. Right.’ She pushes up the sleeves of her dressing-gown in a dramatic fashion and waves her tiny fist in front of my face. ‘I’m going to get in the car and drive to their house and walk up to their front door and ring their bell and they’re going to get it from me. Them, and their no-good parents. Some people are badly brought up, that’s all. Wait till I get my keys.’