Her mother continued to dig, scooping up the dirt and dropping it to one side, making a series of little molehills where the flowers had once grown. “You have to bury them to set them free.”
“How can they be free if they’re buried?”
“Their souls become free.”
Jem felt a frown beginning inside. “Do clothes have souls?”
“They have the souls of the people who wore them.”
“What would happen if you didn’t bury them?”
“Well then their souls would haunt the land.”
“And the house?”
“Of course the house.”
Jem’s throat felt sore and her eyes hurt. She was too hot, standing scratchy in her school uniform in the garden, watching her mother’s soiled hands clawing at the earth. She wanted to cry.
And then – “Marianne!” Her father’s voice, angry and growing louder as he came through the house. “Marianne!”
Jem wanted to run to him. Her mother paused, momentarily, in her digging. “Oh good,” she said under her breath. “Daddy’s home.”
Gil stood in the cat-swinging space between the table and the dresser and gazed around. “So this is it.”
“It is.” Jem felt ridiculously nervous, as if he were going to judge her not on the last weeks of great sex and intense emotional connection but on the cleanliness of her kitchen. It felt distinctly odd, having him here. He seemed taller, in her crammed cramped house. More exotic than he already was. She watched his eyes travel across the framed sketches on the walls, the miscellany of junk piled on the dresser, collections of mismatched crockery stacked haphazardly along the shelves. She had tried all afternoon to impose some sort of order on the natural chaos but there was just so much of it.
He smiled. “It’s an Aladdin’s cave.”
“Oh don’t say that. I spent ages tidying up.”
He laughed, hugging her. “I didn’t mean like that. It feels like home. A proper home.”
“It feels like a tip.”
“You should see my place, in Bristol. I have nothing. Minimum furniture, clothes, CDs, TV, that’s about it. I can’t get interested in it so it never feels like somewhere I want to be.”
“You could change that.”
“I think I’ve needed someone to change it for me. Someone to change it for.” He smiled. “What time will your dad be home?”
“In about an hour.” She took wine glasses from a cupboard, lifted a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from the rack. “Open that. Talk to me while I cook.”
“I could help.” He twisted the cap, half-filled their glasses.
“Do you cook?”
“Bloke cooking. Flinging things in a pan and chucking in a few spices. That sort of cooking.”
“And does it work?”
“Well, you know, it’s edible. Usually.”
She started to laugh.
“What?” he said, laughing too, drawing her towards him. “What?” He kissed her. Put down his wine glass and kissed her properly. “Every time I touch you I want to take you to bed.”
“Every time you touch me I want you to take me to bed.”
He groaned, releasing her. “I need distracting. Give me something to do. What are we eating?”
They cooked and drank and she listened to the lilt of his voice, watched his hands as he peeled and chopped, acutely aware of his changing expression as he talked, the line of his body beside her. His sheer physical presence had her breathless that he existed in the world, astonished that every day he chose to be with her. She wanted him to be the person who understood her better than anyone, her lover, best friend, guardian angel. She wanted to say, I love you but was terrified of the tumbleweed pause which might follow.
“So tell me,” he was saying, “about your dad.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What to expect.”
“Oh he won’t give you the third degree. He isn’t like that. He’s too wry and laid-back. He’s pretty cool actually.” She smiled, heard the sounds – click of the gate, footfall on the stone step outside the door – that she’d been hearing all her life. “And he’s here.”
Gil straightened immediately, as though it were a terrible faux pas to be caught lounging in the kitchen of the man whose daughter you were screwing. She saw the flicker of nervousness in his eyes, and as he came through the door the same in her father’s, dissipated in the next moment by his smile.
“Gil, isn’t it?” He held out his hand. “Sorry, still a bit paint-streaked. How are you? It’s good to meet you.”
“It’s good to meet you too.” Gil’s handshake was firm. “I’m fine, thank you. How was your day?”
“Busy, so I can’t complain.”
Jem watched them pretending not to weigh each other up. “Glass of wine, Dad?”
“Thanks, Puddle. I just want to get a wash first, won’t be long.”
There was a small silence after he’d gone. Gil said, “Puddle?”
“Beatrix Potter.”
He looked mystified.
“Jemima. Puddle…duck.”
“Oh.” He began laughing.
“Shut up.”
“Puddle. I love it.” He hugged her. “God, you look like him though, don’t you?”
They ate at the kitchen table, cosy with three of them around it, the atmosphere quickly becoming companionable. Jem thought how strange it was to see her father’s attention divided, to see Gil respectful and deferential. He asked all the right interested, perceptive questions about Alex’s painting, making her realise that she hadn’t seen him around other people before, that she didn’t know how he was with anyone but her.
“Have you always painted for a living?” he was asking.
“I have. Though for years there wasn’t much in the way of a living being made. It’s something of a curse, isn’t it, the need to be an artist.”
“Dad.” Jem was horrified.
“Oh it is. And if you’re not making any money it’s a terrible self-indulgence.”
Gil raised an eyebrow. “But the minute you do you become the poster boy.”
Alex smiled. “Well you might.”
“You were too,” Jem said. She had only understood it as she grew older, the news-paper and magazine articles which concentrated on his looks and romanticised his widowed single-parent status as much as they celebrated his talent. She was going to say, it’s only a terrible self-indulgence if it affects other people, but decided not to go down that road; she knew where it would lead. Instead she said, “But people need things of beauty in their lives.”
Gil said, “They don’t need to pay a small fortune for my tables when they could buy one from Ikea for twenty quid.”
“I’d rather eat off a tray on my lap than buy a flat-pack.”
“That,” Alex said, “is because you are my daughter. And with the world as it is these days, Gil and I are lucky still to be in business.”
“Oh I know. But when things are bad we all need something to make us feel better, don’t we? Something beautiful to heal our souls and make us feel life is worth living. I’d rather buy the cheapest thing either of you made than the most expensive from somewhere like Ikea.”
Gil smiled. “It is a bit of a curse, though. I know what you mean. You have to set more store by freedom than security and sometimes that just looks like perversity and ego.”
Jem said, “I can’t imagine you not walking to the beat of your own drum.”
“No,” he agreed. “Kind of not who I am. Not who you are either.”
“True.” She liked that he had a pretty accurate image formed of her in his head, that it meant he listened to and thought about her.
“I hear you’re sculpting a Tree of Life,” Alex said. “How’s that coming along?”
While Gil told him she cleared the table and brought dessert, opened another bottle of wine. “I struggled with it at first,” he admitted. “I loved the concept straight off, but all I had in my head was a sort
of Disney monstrosity. I was having trouble reconciling it looking like a tree with being – I don’t know – dark and powerful, representing that deep pulse of life, the kind of life that can’t be suppressed or … eradicated.”
“So now it’s more of a Tim Burton tree,” she said.
He held her gaze, amused but challenging, would have grabbed her had they been alone, kissed her into submission. Instead he laughed. “Yeah, okay.”
Alex smiled. “Where do you exhibit your sculptures?”
“There’s a gallery in Bristol that takes my stuff, not far from my workshop. And there’s the website, though really that’s just promotional.”
“I’d like to see the gallery and your workshop,” she said without thinking, and caught her breath. But -
“Come up with me at the end of the summer,” he suggested.
“Really?”
“Sure.” He grinned. “You can tell me what to do with my flat.”
“There you go,” Alex said. “An offer you can’t refuse.”
Later she walked with him along the lane. He kissed her against the bindweed-threaded hedgerow, moths fluttering in the moonlight. “Thank you, for a lovely evening. Great food, by the way.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And you’re right, your dad is cool.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
Gil smiled. “I liked him a lot.”
“Good. I like him too.”
They made promises to find each other in the morning, to share breakfast before addressing the day ahead. She watched for a little while as he walked away down the lane, before he was swallowed up into the darkness.
Back in the kitchen Alex was clearing away their coffee cups. She danced over and hugged him. “Well?” she said.
“Well, he seems a very charming, capable young man and we have a lot in common and I expect we’d get on very well and he’s clearly entranced by you. So yes, I approve. Completely.”
She beamed. “He likes you too.”
“Excellent.” He smiled. “I haven’t seen you so happy for a long, long time. And I can’t tell you how relieved that makes me.” He added soberly, “You know this is it now, don’t you? That I’ll be gone in the morning?”
Her elation shrank away. She nodded.
“I’ll ring you when I get to Archie’s.”
“Okay.” She was tearful. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Oh Puddle – ” He embraced her. “Come on. You’ll be fine. You have Gil.”
“I know. But - ”
“And anyway.” He drew back, put his hands on her shoulders and held her gaze. “It’s time. Isn’t it.”
She nodded. “It’s time.”
Her father strode across the lawn towards them. She didn’t want to run to him anymore. His eyes were narrow and his voice was doing that loud raspy thing. “The school rang. They said they hadn’t seen either of us pick her up and there was no sign of Jem either. Mrs Thompson was beside herself.”
“Mummy forgot,” Jem murmured. “I walked all the way home.”
“Well you shouldn’t! You know you’re not allowed to cross that road by yourself.”
“There was a lady.”
“Marianne! For God’s sake.” He stared at her and Jem saw his anger change into something more complicated. “What the hell are you doing?”
“She’s burying the dead people’s clothes,” Jem said helpfully.
They both watched her folding the scraps of material into the hole, adding a layer of soil, more clothes, more soil. Like making lasagne, Jem thought. Her father said quietly, “Come on, Puddle. Let’s get you some tea.”
She followed him back inside, sat obediently at the kitchen table while he fetched her a glass of milk and a shortcake biscuit. “Thank you.”
He sat down opposite her. “I know you thought you were doing the right thing, and I’m really sorry neither Mum nor I came to pick you up, but you must promise me you won’t walk home on your own again.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not cross with you.”
“Okay.” She sipped her milk.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “What did you do at school today?”
“Reading. I’m on a new book.”
“Good. Do you want to read it to me later?”
“Yes please. And we did Numeracy. I don’t think I’m very good at Numeracy.”
Her father smiled. “You want to know something? Neither am I.”
“And Art. I did a sunflower. Mrs Thompson said it was like Vangolf.”
“Did she? I’ll pick you up tomorrow, I might ask her if I can see it.”
Jem was delighted. She swung her legs while her father got up to run water into the kettle and switch it on. Mrs Thompson liked her father. She wondered what he’d meant when he said she was beside herself. How could you be beside yourself?
The kitchen door crashed back against the vegetable rack, sending carrots and potatoes bumping and rolling across the floor, her mother moving so fast she was a streak of blonde hair and flapping skirt, her hand raised then coming down hard across her father’s face.
He gasped. She wheeled out, into the hall, through the front door and into the lane, leaving the door standing open.
Jem stared at him. He wiped his mouth. His hand was shaking a little bit. Blood trickled from the corner of his lip.
She burst into tears.
Chapter Nineteen
We drive fast through the night. It’s quiet but I can’t sleep and if there’s a speed limit on the main road to Nice, Gil doesn’t care. He’s foot to the floor all the way. We don’t speak of course because there’s nothing to say. I remember hours, days, when all I did was talk to him, spilling out every single detail to try to make some sort of sense of it all. And he listened. He’s good at listening, though you wouldn’t expect it when you first meet him. You’d expect him to be dismissive and self-absorbed, to have an ego which didn’t take anyone else into account. But he isn’t like that. He’s sensitive and perceptive and he involves himself in other people’s lives. He was involving himself in someone else’s life the night I first saw him, diving into the water to save a boy from drowning. He didn’t know anyone was watching.
There was a time, too, when he talked endlessly to me, pouring out the story of his life. I remember all the connections we discovered, to our delight and surprise, as though they meant something. I remember saying it was fate.
My God I was naïve.
So I eventually told him everything, the whole truth as I knew it then, which turned out not to be even half the truth, because I had hidden from that all my life. And he helped me to confront it, except all the while he was doing so he was withholding his own truth – the Big Truth. And that’s why we’re here.
I still can’t quite keep it all in my head. Some of it I understand and I can read it like a picture. But then the rest snags and crinkles and rolls away into dark corners. It won’t all hang together. Maybe I just can’t bear it to. Maybe the whole thing, unfurled before me, would just be too much. Because this is where my nightmares come from, I’m well aware. Everything I now know, everything I’ve done, crawling towards me like some monster bent on revenge.
I’d just like some little bit of it to go away.
We drive fast through the night and this is what’s in my head. I sneak glances at Gil and it might be what’s in his too. He’s paler than usual, eyes darker than usual, though that could be an effect of the streetlights above us, of the headlights which glare and wash over us. In the end I can’t take any more of the silence.
“How will we know,” I say, my voice dry with disuse, “when the trains are to Venice?”
“There might be a timetable,” he replies sarcastically. “At the station.”
“We’ll need to stop before then.”
“You’ll have to hold on.”
“It’s not me. It’s the petrol.”
His eyes flick to the gauge. “Fuck.”
There?
??s a garage a few more miles down the road. I stay in the car while he fills the tank. It’s dark out there, cold. I close my eyes; easier to relax without him rigid with tension beside me. I know I have a few minutes – it isn’t Pay at the Pump and there’s a dim yellow light on in the kiosk across the way. I think of dumping the car like we did back in Plymouth, of the anonymity of Nice, of a long train journey to another country. On and on. Further and further. Travelling without end. I want somewhere safe to stop now. A squat, a cave, a hole in the ground. I just want to sleep.
When I open my eyes he still isn’t back and I don’t know how long it’s been. There’s no sign of him anywhere – at the pumps, over by the kiosk. My heart’s thumping. I clamber out of the car on stiffened limbs. “Gil?” My voice quavers in the empty darkness. “Gil?”
And there it is, parked in the bushes a dozen yards away.
The car with the smiley face.
Chapter Twenty
Gil stood in the centre of his room and contemplated the tree. It contemplated him right back. It was now a don’t-mess-with-me tree, Jem had said. A kick-ass, Quentin Tarantino tree. He saw what she meant but it wasn’t quite what he’d been aiming for. He’d wanted something mystical and powerful, something you would be awed by, not something that if it came to life might sock you in the jaw with one of its branches. And maybe mystical and powerful were still possible. He wanted to recreate it enough that when she saw it this evening she would be impressed, but the precise alterations to make eluded him and he had done this before, rushed a change he hadn’t been sure how to effect, hacked away too much, shaped something badly, ruined it beyond rescue. So he stood staring at it, thinking instead of Jem and her dry, off-the-wall observations and New Age sensibilities, of her common sense and flights of fancy; she too was a mass of contradictions. It was one of their work days and they had therefore spent last night apart: they had agreed to work and play alternate days but when they woke tangled together in his bed neither had any inclination to go anywhere else. Lunches were lingered over into late afternoon. Early evening cocktails became dinner and an easy surrender to the distraction of the night. The balance to his days now was of being with her, working, being with her, the worst excesses of summers past having dropped away and been replaced by such elation he didn’t miss a minute of them. He did, however, miss Cecily and beach parties and nights at Patrick’s, and he wondered would it be a terrible mistake to begin gently introducing Jem to what had been his life, despite her showing no sign of introducing him to hers.