Where Love Lies Page 7

  ‘Do you think so?’

  She looks me up and down. It is always a little disconcerting when Lauren does this, because it’s hard not to feel that she has evaluated every single part of you. Fortunately, from years of long-distance and close-distance friendship, I know how kind she is inside.

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ she says. ‘Seeing you and Quinn together has almost made me change my checklist.’

  ‘Change your checklist?’

  ‘I said almost. Listen, when you invited me to your wedding, to be a bridesmaid no less, I won’t say I wasn’t surprised. A church wedding never seemed like your thing. Nor did settling down in a country cottage. But on your wedding day, it was so obvious. Everything was perfect.’

  ‘It rained.’

  ‘The two of you are meant for each other. Anyone can see it. You’ve put on weight, you look contented.’

  I tug down my top. ‘His mother is a good cook.’

  ‘You’re calmer than you used to be. More grounded. Quinn adores you. He looks at you as if he’s won the lottery. I always thought that it should be one hundred per cent equal between a man and a woman – income, background, ambition, everything – but you and Quinn make me think I might be wrong.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘We’re not equal. Quinn is much better than I am.’

  She laughs. ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘Don’t you feel …’ I begin. I’ve never said this aloud before. ‘Don’t you feel that love like that is a responsibility, though?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Like how you said I’ve changed, for example. What if I’m calmer and I’m slowing down because that’s how Quinn expects me to be? If I’m changing to please him, but I’m not meant to be that way at all?’

  Lauren shakes her head. ‘You’d rather be miserable and moping around with a broken heart?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘Forget about the dickhead ex-boyfriends who broke your heart. You’re past that now.’

  ‘Yes, but the thing is, Lauren—’

  ‘Hi, Lauren,’ says a guy, walking past pushing a cart of sandwiches. He’s got curly hair and is wearing a T-shirt saying TWO SLICES CATERING, LET US MAKE YOUR NEXT PARTY EPIC!

  ‘Hey, Bill,’ she says. I watch her as she watches him walk down the path.

  ‘You really have changed your checklist,’ I say.

  ‘What? No, I said I almost changed it. He’s just a bloke I say hi to.’

  ‘I didn’t spend all that autumn wandering around the cemetery,’ I tell her. ‘I spent some of it looking for my dad.’

  ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘No. I don’t know what he looks like.’

  She touches my hand. ‘This proves what I’ve been saying, Fliss. If you’re happy, you don’t go looking for a dad you’ve never met. You stay with the man who loves you and you settle down. And you’re happy with Quinn, in a way you never could have been happy with Ewan, whoever he was. Right?’

  My mother met Lauren a few times. After the second time, she tapped her chin with her finger and said, ‘There’s a woman who knows where she’s going. I wonder if she’ll know when she gets there.’

  ‘In a different way than I was with Ewan,’ I say. ‘I’m happy, yes.’

  But after I say goodbye to Lauren at the door to her building, I don’t go straight back to Paddington to get the train home. Instead, I take the Central Line to Stratford.

  It has changed completely since I was last there. The station is new, and Westfield shopping centre hunkers like an alien spaceship. I take a slow circle around and try to guess the direction I used to take, ten years ago. In the end, I decide to cross the road and follow my instincts.

  I was a student, and I walked from the underground nearly every day. It was a hot summer, hotter than it is now, though it’s June. The streets seemed crowded with cigarette smoke and steam. As I walk, I begin to see landmarks that I recognize, placed between the new buildings or old buildings used for new purposes. This is the small grocer where they stocked hair henna and chai tea, where the owner was friendly and greeted me in broken English. The vegetables outside look tired and wilted, covered with a fine layer of grime. The pub has been bought by a chain and renovated into something with chalkboards and pictures of burgers in the windows, but the building is the same. I pause on the pavement outside, remembering flashing lights on fruit machines and the taste of sweet cider. It used to be a horrible pub of soiled carpeting, yellowed walls and cracked vinyl, but there was a small wobbly table in the corner which was not visible from the road. I wonder if it’s still inside.

  The house is further down the street. It’s a three-storey brick terrace with big windows on the ground and first floors. The door is painted red. I stand outside it, holding my hair piled on top of my head with one hand.

  My mother, Esther Bloom, lived in this whole house for three years. I lived in it for one while I was starting art school, which I never finished. The studio was on the first floor, to catch the best of the light. My mother’s bedroom adjoined her studio; it had a mattress on the floor, because we didn’t own any proper furniture. I slept on the top floor in the back bedroom that overlooked the weedy patch of garden, in a proper bed with a single pine bedframe which had been left in the house when we moved in.

  My mother had become successful, but we still didn’t have curtains. We nailed swathes of fabric to the tops of the window frames and tied them back with twine. Some of the fabric was beautiful, woven by our friend Maria; some of it had been used as dust sheets and was spattered with paint, still smelling of linseed oil. In my own bedroom, I used a blue and red woollen blanket I had bought in Greece with Lauren.

  We had a new kitchen: worktops, appliances, cupboards, flooring. There hadn’t been anything when we moved in and Esther had cash by that point, so she went to John Lewis and spent it. She bought the entire kitchen, including the crockery, glassware, cutlery, and a set of expensive copper-bottomed pans which lived untouched in a cupboard. Esther rarely cooked, and I was pretty hopeless at it myself. Once I bought a tin of okra from the grocer’s and boiled it. It looked like pond weed and tasted like urine. Often, visitors brought us meals, or came to stay and cooked. There was always wine. I remember a giant man called John who made bread, his dark hands kneading the pale dough. He might have been one of the people who wrote to me, after my mother had died.

  I walk up the tiled path and up the steps to the front door. There’s a row of doorbells, and after some deliberation, I ring them all, one followed by another. After a little while, the door is opened by a short woman in her early twenties, with black hair extensions and a neon-pink sweatshirt. ‘Yeah?’ she says.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘My name’s Felicity. This might sound sort of funny, but I used to live in this house, and I wondered if I could have a look inside? Just for a minute?’

  She looks at me and then shrugs. ‘Whatever,’ she says, and turns around to go down the corridor. I follow her. For the first time it occurs to me that no one knows I’m here and I’m lucky that a woman answered the door, and not a six-foot-five crazed axe murderer. This woman could be a crazed axe murderer, I suppose, but she’s not really dressed for it. Her trousers are too tight.

  The corridor has hardly changed, though where we had a table for keys and post and shoes, there’s a large fly-specked mirror and a half-dead pot plant. The walls are a dull magnolia. What used to be an archway to the front room has been filled in, and there’s a flimsy-looking door set in what was the middle of it. There’s a similar door leading to what used to be the kitchen.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ I ask her.

  ‘Three weeks. Did you leave something in the flat?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘I don’t pick up any post that isn’t for me, so I don’t have any of yours.’

  ‘I really just wanted to have a glance around,’ I say. ‘Which … er, which flat is yours?’

  She gives me a look like I�
�m crazy. ‘The one you rang the bell for?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

  She begins to climb the stairs and I follow her to the first landing, where she pushes open another flimsy door. ‘Go ahead and look,’ she says. ‘But I have to go out in like five minutes, so …’

  I step through. It’s a bedsit, with a folded-out sofabed strewn with clothes. A small television blares in the corner. The tall window lets in a grimy light. It looks entirely unlike any place that I’ve been in before.

  ‘This was my mother’s studio,’ I say slowly, trying to superimpose a vision of the past onto the present. There used to be two windows; a partition has cut the room in half. The bare floorboards, spattered with paint, have been covered over with cheap carpet.

  My mother’s easel would have been near the other window, in what’s now presumably a different bedsit. Canvases were stacked against this wall where there’s now a small kitchenette. There was a leather chaise longue where I would sit talking with my mother as she sketched. When the light failed she would put down her pencil and we would prop our feet up on boxes and look out of the windows as the orange streetlights came on. On some nights we could hear an owl, even here in the city. I incorporated her into my stories about Igor: Adrienne, the city owl.

  I move over to one side of the sofabed. This is where they set up the vases of frangipani. This is where he stood. I watched him from beyond where the flimsy door now stands.

  I breathe in and smell stale perfume and carpet cleaner. On the TV, there’s an advert for yogurt that will get rid of bloating. I know this is the same house, I know this is more or less the spot where Ewan stood for days and days while he was being painted. But I can’t feel it.

  ‘Everything’s changed,’ I tell the woman. She looks at her watch. ‘Thanks,’ I say, and she nods.

  On an impulse, instead of going down the stairs at the landing, I go up a flight. The carpet is new, but the stairs are the same. My hand trails on the banister, polished by many hands, including mine. I ran up these stairs, with Ewan behind me, both of us in a fever of anticipation. He carried me up them once, when we had drunk too much, and he nearly dropped me at the top.

  The wood is smooth and holds no trace.

  The door to my old bedroom is unchanged and for a split second, gazing at the white-painted pine and the bronze doorknob, I slip back through time. My bed is through there, the single bed which we fitted into as if we’d been made for it. My books and my alarm clock that ticked too loudly and the Greek blanket that let the sun through in the mornings so it would slant against my cheek and wake me up, and then him.

  Then I see the metal number 6 on the door, and the Yale lock that’s been added over the doorknob.

  It’s all gone. I remember it, but it’s with the knowledge that it was a long time ago and it is over now. The immediacy I felt the other day, the love as fresh as new, isn’t there. It’s finished. It’s like when I smelled the bottle of Frangipane perfume: there are hints of what I once experienced, but it’s been overlaid with change.

  I don’t have to do anything about this feeling for Ewan. I can leave it in the past where it belongs. It’s a relief and a sadness, all rolled up into one.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘CAN I LOOK yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘It’s been hours, Quinn. My eyelids are going to grow together.’

  ‘It’s been one hour and seven minutes exactly. You have your eyes closed for much longer when you sleep at night.’

  ‘How do you know? You’re always asleep too.’

  Quinn doesn’t answer. He hums lightly along to the radio as he drives. We’re on a motorway, but I’m not entirely sure which one, and haven’t a clue what direction we’re driving in. All I know is that tomorrow is our anniversary, and this morning when I woke up, Quinn put my suitcase on the bottom of the bed and told me to pack for a weekend away. He’d already packed his own bag, and he wouldn’t tell me what kind of clothing I’d need, so I filled my bag with dresses, rain gear, high heels and hiking boots. After breakfast he tied this scarf around my eyes and led me, by the hand, out to the car.

  ‘Give me a little hint, at least. The time will go faster if I’m guessing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anticipation is half the pleasure, you know. You’re robbing me of it.’

  ‘Tough.’

  I sigh happily and lean back in my seat. This is exactly what I wanted to happen for our anniversary. Exactly.

  I’ve been thinking about what Lauren said, about how Quinn has changed me for the better. And I’ve decided that what’s really important is the here and now. My relationship with my husband who loves me, and whom I love in return. Memories, even intense ones, belong in the past.

  And the proof is what’s happening right this minute. Quinn’s obviously put a lot of effort into arranging something especially for me, something that will make me happy. He knows I like surprises, even when I’m complaining and saying I don’t. He knows that the pleasure of wherever he’s taking me will be enhanced a hundredfold by the fact that I haven’t had to plan it or think it through beforehand … just as I know that a great deal of his pleasure will have been in the planning.

  The car slows and I enjoy trying to follow its progress. We’ve pulled off onto a slip road now. Stopped, waiting for traffic, and here’s a roundabout. I can hear us going through a tunnel and then I feel several more roundabouts, and then the car slows further, almost to a crawl. Over speed bumps. Quinn pulls it into a parking space – I can hear that, because the engine noise changes as the car is closely hemmed in by others – and he switches it off.

  ‘Now can I look?’

  ‘Not yet. Open the glove box first.’ I fumble for the catch and open it. ‘Now take out what’s inside.’

  It feels like paper. ‘Got it. Can I look now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I snatch the scarf off my head. In my hand is a sealed envelope. I rip it open and inside are two plane tickets to New York.

  I scream. ‘We’re going to New York!’ I try to launch myself at Quinn, who is smiling like crazy, but the seatbelt stops me. I snap it open and then actually do launch myself at him. The gear stick bangs my leg and my elbow hits the horn. I don’t care.

  ‘This is brilliant,’ I say, kissing him on the cheek.

  ‘It’s only for two nights, I’m afraid. I have to be back on Monday, so we’re flying back on Sunday morning.’

  ‘I don’t care! It’s New York!’ I kiss him over and over and over again.

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ he says, laughing, ‘but we have to get to the terminal. You took ages packing, and check-in opens in five minutes.’

  ‘You don’t actually have to be there two whole hours before your flight,’ I tell him. ‘There’s plenty of time. I’ve been late for lots of flights. They usually let you on.’

  ‘I prefer to be on time.’ He kisses me on the cheek and gets out of the car. I tuck the tickets and the scarf safely in my handbag and get out, too.

  Quinn carries both our bags to the car-park bus stop, where we catch the bus to take us to the terminal. I laugh and point to the pods going by on rails. ‘How long have you been planning this?’ I ask him.

  ‘A little while. I had some help.’

  ‘Lauren helped you, didn’t she?’ He nods. ‘She was singing your praises not long ago. I didn’t know you’d been plotting together in secret.’

  ‘I thought you were going to find out once or twice. You kept walking in when I was on the phone with her.’

  ‘Did I? I never noticed.’ I think back, and can’t remember anything. ‘I suppose I thought you were talking about work.’

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s incredible. You notice all these little things when you’re drawing or when you’re interested, but when you’re not, everything passes you by as if it’s not happening.’

  ‘Not everything. I notice … well, I noticed Cameron Bishop nicking your bike again yesterday. I actually caught h
im at it.’

  ‘It’s not a criticism. I’m a lucky chap, knowing that I could carry on a clandestine affair at any time and you’d be none the wiser.’

  I elbow him.

  ‘Or three or four affairs, maybe,’ he says. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I hope you can get one of your fancy friends to wash your socks.’

  ‘Seriously, I’m glad I could surprise you.’

  The bus drops us in front of the terminal. Quinn doesn’t bother with a trolley, though my bag, at least, is pretty heavy. Inside, he peers at the information screens and leads us across the glossy floor towards the check-in desk. I’ve never been to this terminal before. I haven’t travelled, properly travelled, for years. Everything is new and shiny, full of possibility and nowness.

  I dance across the tiles after him.

  Because of the time difference, we arrive in New York two hours after we left London. In the taxi, I wind down the window even though the driver gives me an irritated look for wasting his air conditioning in the July heat. I want to smell the city, breathe in the hot concrete and oil, petrol fumes and rubbish. ‘I love New York,’ I tell Quinn, holding my hair back from my face and closing my eyes. ‘I’m going to show you everything.’

  All through the seven-hour flight, I’ve been listing things that Quinn has to try and do. He’s never been to New York before. I’ve been several times; my mother taught here for a while, and I visited with Lauren, too. But the city is so large that I don’t have to be worried about being hijacked by memories. ‘It’s lunchtime, isn’t it?’ I say, picking up Quinn’s arm and twisting it to read his watch, because I haven’t adjusted mine yet to local time. ‘We should go straight to a deli and have enormous sandwiches. Reubens. You’d love a Reuben, it’s got corned beef and sauerkraut and some sort of mayonnaisy dressing and cheese, and—’

  ‘Let’s go to the hotel and drop off our bags first,’ he says, laughing. ‘I can wait an extra half an hour for a sandwich named after a man. Aren’t you tired at all?’