The Art of Losing Page 22

  ‘You OK?’ he asks.

  I shake my head. For a moment I imagine this scene rewritten; a sister coming to a brother with a problem to be shared, a companionable chat untainted by what we have done. I’m not sure that it could ever have happened. ‘I’m not OK,’ I say.

  Adam scrambles to sit up. He looks apprehensive, a little boy about to be told off. ‘What’s up?’ he says, his words tight and fearful.

  I had thought it would be easier not to look at him, but strangely I feel that I need to meet his gaze. ‘We can’t see each other any more,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, but there is no point in discussing it. It’s impossible.’

  ‘What?’ he says. He frowns, his head tipped to one side, a parody of confusion. ‘Why not?’

  I shake my head, not trusting the words that he doesn’t need to know not to spill themselves out if I speak. Adam has inched closer towards me, his hands appealingly placed on my waist. I feel the ugly chemistry buzzing between us; primal, powerful, but always with that dreadful undercurrent of resistance, of instinctive wrongness. I should have known. He is trying to kiss me, his lips searching for mine. I feel that nagging hunger waking up inside me, so recently uncovered, which will now have to be forced back underground and buried so deeply that it can never surface again. I want to scream with the unfairness of it. For a few light-headed seconds, I wonder whether this need matter. I let his mouth find mine, part my lips with his tongue, but as soon as I do so the nausea rises back up again. Our flesh, our blood, linked by a precarious bundle of genes. Linked by our father. ‘No,’ I say, and push him away, so hard that he falls back against the bed.

  When I dare to look at him again I expect to see hurt in his eyes, but instead he is angry. ‘I knew it,’ he says, his fingers tugging at his hair, wrenching it. ‘I knew it. Why am I so fucking stupid?’

  I am silent, watching him, unsure of what he means.

  ‘Look,’ he continues, ‘she means nothing to me, Lydia, I promise you. I’ll tell her not to contact me again. I should have done it ages ago, I don’t know why I didn’t, just some stupid fucking ego-stroking exercise, I suppose. It was just a cheap thrill, not like with us.’ He gesticulates across the room, and I see he is pointing towards his mobile phone, lying on the desk next to his computer. ‘I never just leave it lying around,’ he says. ‘It’s almost like I wanted you to find out.’

  Slowly, I piece together what he is saying. ‘You think I looked through your phone?’ I say.

  ‘Well, yeah,’ he says. ‘How else would you know about it?’

  I nod, slowly. ‘Isobel,’ I say.

  ‘Well, yeah,’ he says again. Now he looks cautious, concerned, as if he suspects he may have jumped to conclusions too quickly. ‘That is why, isn’t it?’ he asks.

  I wonder whether I should feel betrayed. The thought that he has been communicating with another woman, saying God knows what to her behind my back while telling me that he adores me and cannot believe his luck, is painful but somehow inevitable. I think: Like father, like son. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s why.’ I am grateful that he has given me his guilt, that I don’t have to feel that I am discarding him, throwing away what in other circumstances might have been the best thing that had ever happened to me.

  ‘Well, please, let’s at least discuss this,’ he says eagerly. ‘Anyone can make a mistake.’

  ‘It wasn’t a mistake, Adam,’ I say. Detached, I register that I sound calm. Reasonable. ‘I think Isobel is the one you should be with.’ I see him open his mouth to interrupt, but I shake my head, raising my voice as I continue. ‘I know you think that you care for me,’ I say, ‘but I also think that deep down you know that this is not right. You badly want it to be, I know that, but for some reason it just doesn’t fit and you can’t force it. You know what I mean, don’t you?’

  There is a long silence, and then he nods. Slumped on the bed, he looks defeated and young, all the stuffing knocked out of him. ‘I really did want this to work,’ he says. ‘I’m not lying, I really do think you’re amazing. I’ve never felt this way about any other girl. But—’

  ‘It’s not right,’ I repeat.

  ‘I guess not. In fact,’ he says slowly, ‘I suppose that me still being in contact with Isobel at all proves that, doesn’t it? If everything was right with us, why would I have bothered?’ He is looking at me hopefully, appealingly, obviously wanting me to pat his shoulder and tell him that he has hit the nail on the head. I want to tell him that he is wrong. That sometimes novelty and cheap thrills are the only lures that a man may need to look outside any relationship, even one where nothing seemed to be out of kilter, where everything fitted. And that if some men are more predisposed than others to this, then his bloodline must make him more predisposed than most, and that maybe he will always be looking out for the next thing, never satisfied with what he already has. But I don’t. I just nod, and as I do so I see the tension drain out of his face and, cautiously, he smiles.

  ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out,’ he says, and stands up, comes towards me. He pulls me into his arms for a hug, resting his chin on the top of my head so that when he speaks again I can feel his words buzzing through me. ‘I’d like to think we’ll always be friends.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper. And more than that, I think, much more.

  ‘Do you want to stay here tonight?’ he asks, still holding me close against him. It has the ring of a proposition: one last night in Paris. Despite myself I feel a laugh bubbling up from inside me.

  ‘I think I’d better sleep in one of the spare rooms,’ I say. ‘I’ll take my case.’

  ‘Hey,’ he says jokingly, stepping back and raising his hands. ‘You can’t blame a guy for trying.’

  We laugh together and then the moment passes as quickly as it came, and his face drops and everything feels sordid and sad. I snatch my case from under the desk and heave it on to my shoulder. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I say. He nods, lips pressed together in such a way that it seems he might be trying to stop himself from crying. I don’t want to be around for the moment when he loses control, if it comes. I slip out of the room and close the door quietly behind me.

  In the red-painted room down the hall, I stand in front of the mirror and scrape my hair back from my ears, tie it back in a tight knot behind my head. I glance at myself from a distance, trying to see the boy that I could have been. I can’t see anything of Nicholas in my face. Even when I approach the mirror and place my hands on the glass, I can’t see him behind my eyes, dark and similar though they are. I know it proves nothing; I can’t see Martin either. I can see him even less.

  I lie down on the bed. Tomorrow, I will go home. I’ve been away too long, I tell myself, and I don’t want to be here any more in any case, don’t want to have to fight the thoughts of the unwelcome bond between us every time I see his face. But there’s something I need to do first. I already know that Adam and Naomi must never know the truth. As little as Nicholas deserves them, they deserve this even less. Nicholas, though, is a different matter. I want him to know that I know who and what he is. I want him to know that, despite his physical claim, he will never be my father, and that I am choosing to be rid of him and Lydia and everything that they have done. As I lie there, I imagine confronting him, a perfect speech spilling out from my lips. I know that if we were standing face to face the words wouldn’t come, just as they didn’t come sitting there opposite him in the study, what now feels like a lifetime ago. I need to find another way. When the idea comes to me, it makes me gasp and put a hand to my chest. I can feel my heart tapping an unsteady tattoo against my fingers. Suddenly and clearly, I know what I have to do.

  It is midday before I wake. I dress in white underwear and black clothes. The house is eerily silent, walls taut and tense as if they might crack. I brush my hair, seven long strokes in front of the mirror. Downstairs in the kitchen, I pour myself a tall glass of water and drink it down in one long gulp. I set the glass down on the draining board with a crash that splits the sil
ence open. Slowly I walk through the hallway. Through the half-open lounge door I can see Naomi, stretched out on the buttercup-yellow sofa, reading. I hesitate for a moment, peering in at her. My lips part to say goodbye, so quietly that she cannot hear.

  Carrying my case, I step out on to the driveway. Snow has fallen overnight, too wet to settle, gathering in greyish piles of slush along the gravel path. It collects and gathers on my shoes as I walk. It is so cold that my breath seems to freeze in front of my eyes, misting and fizzing into the air. I wait on the road for twenty minutes before the bus comes. My fingers are stiff and stupid as I fumble for my purse and feed the coins through the glass. On the upper deck the bus is clammy and humid, windows steamed up from the inside. I lean my head against the wet glass and watch indistinct shapes smearing across the windowpane as the bus carries me into the city. I get off when everybody else does and find myself on the High Street. Hundreds of shoppers jostle past me, bags full of Christmas presents and Christmas food. My own shopping list is short and cheap. I walk down to Boots and buy everything that I need. I think I see recognition and alarm in the eyes of the man behind the counter when I hand him my credit card, but of course it’s all in my head, and I give him a painted smile as he hands me my bag.

  Back out on the street I pause. I’m not sure where to go. Eventually I head back in the direction I have come. When no more than ten minutes have passed, the tall, Gothic structure of a college looms in front of me. I’m not even sure which one it is, but it doesn’t matter. The porter doesn’t look up when I pass through the lodge; to him I’m just another tourist. It takes me a while to find what I’m after. A stone staircase, leading down into a dark basement. I walk down the narrow stairs: four toilet cubicles with steel doors, one rusty shower, a row of scuffed metal washbasins. I go into the shower cubicle and lock the door.

  I cast my clothes to the floor. My blue fingers search in my plastic bag and tear at the packet of bleach. The shower head sends out a reluctant trickle, quickening as I turn the handle. Cold water dampens my long dark hair and my breath hisses in sharply as it lashes at my body like a whip. I rub the dye over my scalp, drawing each handful of my hair through my fingers right to the tip. I can feel it burning at the roots, sparking and crackling like electricity. Naked, I sit back against the steel wall and wait. The hands of my watch crawl round. When the time comes I rip open the second packet of dye. A girl smiles out at me from the cover, blonde and beautiful, long hair whipping around her face in a way that reminds me of memories that I barely knew I had. I tip my head back and rake the dye through my hair.

  When I have towelled it dry I pull my white underwear back on. I turn to my case. Under the lining the dress lies pressed and folded. White linen, straight and short, a slash of red silk running all along the hem. They wanted to bury her in it. Martin told me. He kept it for me. Seventeen years ago he washed and pressed it, wringing out the violence that clung to it, but as I raise it to my face I think I can still smell her in its folds. I had thought of it as a talisman, nothing more, the only thing I had left of her. It has not been worn since she died. I pull the zip all the way down and step into the dress. It moulds to my body as if it was made for me, white linen clinging to my hips and breasts like water as I zip myself inside. Red silk settles across my knees like a supple line of blood. Red shoes, arched and delicate, silver buckles perched on top like bows on a Christmas present. They fit my feet like Cinderella’s glass slipper.

  I stand up and go to the mirror, scissors in my hand. Framed by the curtain of white-blonde hair, the face doesn’t look like mine. I comb the hair over my eyes with my fingers, hold it in front of my face and cut. I snip her fringe out across my forehead. Pale hair falls like ash into the basin below. When I step back, her outline bounces back at me.

  I fetch the make-up I have bought and line it up on the ledge in front of me. I coax her out from under my skin. Blusher to define my cheekbones, make them crueller and sharper. Pale pink lipstick, plumping my lips and setting them in a new light, provocative and possessing. Light grey shadow to hollow out the socket of my eyes, cradle them like jewels in the paleness of my face. Emerald powder dusted across my lids, calling out the green that lurks around the pupils and making it shine.

  When I step back again, my vision fails me for a moment and I can see nothing but bright shapes, bobbing crazily against the mirror. When they clear, they leave me light-headed and shaking. She is staring into my eyes. I have brought her back from the dead. But she doesn’t feel like a mother. What she fills the room with feels close to evil.

  I leave my possessions behind in the dark basement. When I step back into the outside world, the cold sinks its teeth into me and shakes me from head to toe. I’m shivering as I walk, ignoring the curious glances that flit across me as I go. Curiosity is not all that’s in them. I see the lust in the men’s eyes, the way their heads whip round and stare at me, the way their throats rise and fall as they swallow. This power feels corrupting, compelling. My hips sway under the thin dress. Under my feet, slush and ice slide against the heels of her red shoes, making me feel as if I am walking a tightrope. I can feel my cheeks burning, blood rushing hectically under the skin like fever.

  When I reach the faculty they have already started to arrive. Tall men in dark suits, women in well-cut dresses and high-heeled shoes. I slip into the throng. Glasses of wine are lined up along a long table at the side of the waiting room, lines of white and red twinkling like fairy lights against a green tablecloth. I stretch out my hand and take a glass of white wine. It is sour, cold and sharp, prickling the back of my throat. Out of the corner of my eye I can see them again: men, talking to their wives but looking at me. I toss my long white-blonde hair back from my face and see a dozen of them following its curve and sweep with their eyes. All of them want me. They want to take my body and use it, suck the life out of it, just like him.

  The heavy oak doors swing open. The crowd starts to pour through into the lecture hall. I follow. A man at the door is taking tickets, but I slip past him, manoeuvring quickly and lightly into the hall. I take my seat halfway back, at the aisle, next to a man of sixty or more. From behind his glasses, I can see his eyes roving furtively, darting back and forth from my legs to my breasts to my face and back again. I stare straight ahead and wait.

  Nicholas strides on to the stage to a swell of applause. Gravely, he inclines his head. Like a conductor, he raises his black-clad arms to quiet the crowd. He goes to the microphone and starts to speak, and his voice rings out, harsh and cutting, across the full length of the hall. His knowledge is etched on his face. As he speaks his hands slash and grasp the air. His dark eyes burn into the crowd, seeing everyone, seeing no one. He has them all in the palm of his hand. I let him talk for fifteen minutes, perhaps more. He has settled into his rightful authority, pacing his speech, confident and brooking no denial. From time to time he pauses, searching around the room as if daring to find a man who will disagree with him, but the audience stays rapt and silent.

  The rhythm of his words rolls around in my head. I rise to my feet and stand alone. The people around me start to mutter, nudge each other, frowning and whispering. I step in to the aisle and walk towards him. My heels click on the wooden floor. Slowly, like a man in a dream, he turns. His voice grinds, falters and stops. Blood drains from his face. He grips the lectern for support, his lips parting with words that he does not know how to say. He looks as if he has seen a ghost. I walk closer, never taking my eyes off him, hypnotic, powerful.

  He has forgotten the murmuring crowd. Who are you? he whispers.

  Nicholas

  2007

  When I see her, I do not stop to think about the impossibility of her being there, or the strangeness of her sudden appearance through the crowd. The thoughts that pulse through me are deeper, dragged up from somewhere far beyond reason or rationality. She has come back to me. My words dry up in my throat. The speech that I have run through internally for weeks, honing and polishing every word
, slips from my mind. I search for the next line. Briefly I glance down at the notes propped on the lectern in front of me. I see the scrawled words, but they might as well be written in hieroglyphics. Darkly curved symbols dance meaninglessly in front of my eyes. I feel my gaze dragged back to her, my heart beating in such a way that my whole body feels rocked with shock, and something close to fear.

  As she comes closer I see that of course she is not Lydia at all, and yet she is. She has Lydia’s clothes, Lydia’s body, Lydia’s hair, Lydia’s high, sharp cheekbones. But she is someone I don’t know.

  ‘Who are you?’ I whisper, and hear the words swept up by the microphone before me, whipping and echoing round the hall. I step away from the lectern. At first I can’t help seeing the sea of faces seated before me, all with the selfsame expression: puzzled, uncomprehending, bordering on indignant. For a moment I hesitate, look back, but the impossibility of carrying on with the lecture, or of making any attempt to explain, is stronger than any other sensation. I mumble something, clear my throat, say it louder, to everyone, to no one. You must excuse me. And then I take her by the arm. My fingers close around solid flesh and bone, and I am half surprised. I lead her up the aisle away from them all, walking faster and faster until I can hear her high-heeled shoes clacking to keep up with my pace. As I let the oak door slam behind us, I can hear the murmurs of discontent explode into an outraged babble, but I close my ears to the throng and stride down the corridor. I lead her into a small, musty lecture room, heavy green curtains drawn across its windows shutting out the light. I back a chair up against the door, barring them from coming in and her from going out. And then I look at her again.