Paradise (10 page)

“I’ll walk myself, then.”

“Nope, you can come with me and Mercy.” Jake pulls her toward him, nods at Danny, like he’s doing him a favor. “See you, Billie.” He grins at me now. “Good to meet you.”

“Yeah,” I say, “good to meet you, too, I mean.” Shit.

Eva rolls her eyes. “See you around.”

And then they’re gone, their backs disappearing behind the wooden slats of a stall. And it’s just us. Me and Danny.

Alone.

We walk up Camborne Hill in silence, a hand span between us, inches that crackle with possibility. But Danny’s hands are deep in his pockets, mine clasped around me, hugging my rain-heavy coat tight against the cold, trying to contain the insects that are in me again, flapping their wings in fear and excitement.

We reach the top and I feel my stomach tighten. Do I ask him in? What if Mum’s up?

But when we get to the gate I can see the stained glass of the door is dulled to murky browns. The lights are out. They’re in bed.

“This is it,” I say.

“Nice house,” he says.

I shrug. “It’s kind of old, inside. Old person.” I stare down at the tiles, trying to find courage in the tight tessellation. “So —”

“Did you mean it?” he interrupts.

I look up. “What?”

His eyes are on me, in me. “About not swimming?”

I drop my head again. “Yeah,” I say quietly. Like an apology. Because it is. Because I’m this no-clue city girl, and he, he must be born to it. Him and Jake and Mercy and Eva, all of them. And it’s not like it’s a fear or anything — not like Mum, who shivers at the thought. Just that she never took me, and school, well, there’s other stuff to learn in Peckham. Swimming’s not really a survival skill there.

“I could teach you,” he says.

“What?” I blurt, shocked.

He’s defensive. “No. Sorry, bad idea. You should get lessons —”

“No, that would be great. Thanks.” God, what am I saying?

“Oh. Right. I’ll check out the pool, find a good time.”

“Cool,” I say, not knowing if I mean it or not.

“Cool,” he repeats.

Then the silence is back, the crackling gulf.
I should say it now,
I think. Ask him if he wants a cup of coffee. But the courage I found on the tiles is gone. The words won’t come out. Not now. Not tonight. Instead I push my key into the lock, turn the handle.

“I should —”

“Right, yeah.” He comes to.

“Thanks for walking me home,” I say.

“Anytime.”

“’Night, then.”

He nods. “’Night.” Then he turns and is gone.

I shut the door behind me and lean against the wall, my breath coming in short gasps. I’m laughing. I clap my hand over my mouth to cut off the sound. Don’t want to wake anyone. But then I see it, a rectangle of pale green spreading across the carpet, the telltale fluorescent glow leaking out from under an ill-fitting door. I was wrong; someone is up.

She’s in the kitchen, sitting at the table, surrounded by our dinner plates congealing with the last of the spaghetti Bolognese, staring at a big fat nothing on the wall.

“Mum?” I say.

But if she hears me she doesn’t show it.
Ears and mouth muffled by the wine,
I think.

I wonder if she’s been sitting there all night. Nothing’s moved since I left, it seems, just Finn, gone to bed. But then I see something else in the sea of dirty plates and glasses. A glint. Treasure.

I reach down and pick it up. It’s a silver chain, a locket. Not hers. Or mine. I open my mouth again to ask her where she found it, whose it is, but I feel a dizzy rush, realize I’m going to be sick, and instead I drop the locket, turn, and run.

I hunch over the toilet bowl, but nothing comes up. Why should it?
Only four vodkas,
I think. Cass could do nine before she puked. My eyes and stomach ache from the heaving, though. So I flush and, ignoring my toothbrush, walk slowly back along the corridor to Mum’s old room, wrap myself in the covers, and sink into sleep, a rabbit in my hand, and Danny in my head.

AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD
Het eyes the silver thing in her mother’s fingers. The thin chain hanging like a single thread of cotton, and, clutched in her palm, the pendant, a cold, hard metal lozenge. Open and shut she flips it, open and shut. Each time ending with a satisfying click.

It is seven in the evening and Het is lying on her parents’ bed, chin resting in her hands, watching as her mother goes through the motions of getting ready. The Pan-Stik, powder, and rouge. The thick pink grease on her lips, and black smudges on her eyelashes. The droplets of Chanel that drift gently to the floor like a perfumed curtain call, signaling that she’s done. Ready. For something Het longs for and dreads at once. Parties and people and life.

Tonight it is cheese and wine at the Listers’. Jonty’s parents. Het has heard them argue about it. Her mother says she is tired. That she would rather stay at home with the children. But her father dismisses this, brushing it off like a speck of lint on his suit sleeve, says the girl will be here to babysit any minute and she must change into something more suitable, or does she intend to wear trousers to a party? As if it would be a crime so great she might be punished infinitely. So Eleanor drifts up the stairs, Het trailing her like a shadow.

Eleanor holds the chain up to her throat, drapes it around her pale skin.

“Het?” she says. “Can you . . . ?”

Het drops her bare feet to the carpet, stands, and takes the gossamer metal in her hands. The fastening is tiny, and her fingers struggle with it, her thumb straining to hold the clasp open while she feeds the loop through. Het can feel her mother’s breath quickening, her limbs tensing, but finally it is done, and she releases the clip with a gasp.

Her eyes meet her mother’s in the mirror, and for a fleeting second there is a connection, an understanding. But then the door rattles in its casing and he is there, stiff in his blazer and gray wool trousers. His face reddened with port and effort. And Het shrinks back to the sanctuary of the bed, draws her knees up tight and holds them, making herself small, so small he won’t see her.

“Where did you get that?” he says.

His voice isn’t raised, but Het can hear the anger. Each word measured, calculated to dig in, to hurt just so much.

“I — I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking . . .”

“You never do,” he replies.

“I . . .” Eleanor trails off. His hand is at her throat now; he grasps the necklace in his surgeon’s fingers, pulls it sharply, precisely. Het sees it dig into whitening skin, threatening to strangle her, to slice into flesh. But the metal is too fragile; the links give way and it snaps, the locket falling soundlessly onto the floor, the chain following as he drops it like a dirty swab, wipes his hand on the blue flap of his jacket.

“Five minutes,” he says, then he turns and walks out, his tread steady on the stairs, trailing fury in his wake.

Het lets a sob escape and Eleanor turns in shock. She had forgotten her, forgotten this witness.

“Oh, Het . . .” She reaches a hand out, wants to pull the child into her lap, to tell her it is all right. But then she hears his words again, cutting through her like a knife into butter. She lets her hand drop and turns back to her reflection, forcing her lips into a wide coral-colored smile. “That’s enough, darling. It was just an accident. Mummy will wear the pearls instead. Now, run along, the babysitter is here. If you’re a good girl, she might let you watch telly.”

Het wipes salty snot on the back of her hand, then bolts from the room. But she doesn’t go downstairs. Instead she runs to her bed, slides between the mattress and bedsprings. Lets the heavy foam and flanneled bulk pin her down, the iron coils dig into her back.

When she comes out, it is dark. Het tiptoes along the corridor to her parents’ room. She opens the drawer in the vanity mirror, searches the sage carpet with her fingers, feeling for the hard metal. But the locket is gone.

IT’S LATE
when I wake up, past breakfast. Yet my limbs are still heavy with sleep, aching, pinning me to the mattress. For a few seconds I think I’m ill, that the endless rain and cold has leached into my bones, filling me with flu. But then I see my clothes in a heap on the floor, feel the last drops of vodka in my stomach, an acid sting, and I remember. Remember the way his smile plays on the corners of his mouth, then broadens into a slow, lazy grin. Remember his eyes, treacle dark. Remember the way I look reflected in them, standing on the doorstep, wondering, waiting for what might happen next.

But then the picture in my head changes, and I see something else. Someone else. Mum, sitting at the table, entranced, lost. And the warm-milk sweetness goes cold and curdles.

When I get downstairs, the drawing room is a war zone. The polished mahogany lost under a haphazard pile of china ornaments and dust-heavy leather-bound books. Finn is going through a box of cutlery, silver set against navy velvet, counting forks and spoons, like Fagin in his slum. And in the middle of it all is Mum, eyes wide and wild, surveying the chaos.

“What’s going on?” I ask quietly.

Mum swings around, eyes narrowing to see who has interrupted her, then smiles when it is me. “I’m having a clear-out.” The words are hammered out, fast, like shots. She is speeding, racing. “Isn’t it marvelous? Look at it all.”

I look. At the
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
s. The watercolors. Will’s trophies, stacked carelessly in a cardboard box. All that achievement tossed aside. Because, what? Because they loved him more? Because he died, leaving her alone with them?

And something else. On the table, chain dangling over the side, is the locket. I pick it up, let the delicate links tumble through my fingers, then click it open to see who is inside.

An oval photograph. A boy’s face. Blond hair and ruddy cheeks. Will. But where is Mum?

“Where did you get it?” I ask.

Mum snatches it out of my hand. “Nowhere. Doesn’t matter.”

She snaps the locket shut, looks at it in her palm. “The chain’s broken, but it’s silver. Still worth something. I’m going to sell it on eBay.”

“We don’t have a computer.” I state the obvious, though I know she’ll have an answer. She always does.

“I’ll call an antiques dealer, then. They’ll take the good stuff. The rest can go to a charity shop. We need some space. Light. It’s too cluttered in here. Don’t you think, Billie? Too cluttered.”

I want to tell her it’s mine, really. That I should get to decide. But I can see something in her. Not wine this time. Nothing she’s taken. But something that’s missing. She’s going. Slipping under. I can feel it.

So instead, I nod my answer. But she’s not even looking. She’s gone, to find a man who will take away all this junk, this treasure. This ephemera. Take away the lives of others so she can start living again.

The dealer comes later that afternoon. Kenneth Shovel: Call-Me-Ken. He has dandruff on the collar of his brown nylon suit. He says it’s not worth that much anymore, silver. Just what he can get for scrap. But he’ll give her two hundred pounds for the trophies and one of the paintings. A watercolor of the beach by no one I’ve ever heard of. Mum drops the worthless locket in a charity bag and takes the crisp notes like she’s been handed two hundred thousand. And Call-Me-Ken drives off in his white van, a smile like Simon Cowell’s and the bargain of the century.

“We should celebrate,” Mum says.

I watch as Finn counts the notes, recounts, assessing our fortune. Two hundred pounds. It’s nothing. Not really. A few weeks’ shopping. Or a few days’.

“We could save some,” I suggest. “In case.”

“In case what?” Mum is fidgeting.

“I don’t know.” Don’t want to say it: Because you don’t have a job. Because benefits never pay all the bills.

“Well, then.” Mum has won. “What shall we do? The world is our oyster.”

“I’m hungry,” says Finn.

“Dinner. Perfect,” says Mum, kissing him on the top of his head. “My boy genius.”

Then she turns to me, waiting for the chorus of disapproval. But I can’t. Can’t tip the fine balance.