The Girl Below (38 page)
Authors: Bianca Zander
“Christ, I needed that!” said Pippa, striding out of the water in her birthday suit and getting dressed on the sand.
I paddled back to the shore to join her. “Me too. You were right about the water. It was divine.”
“Cooped up in that villa,” she said, “I’ve been thinking the most awful things about everyone—especially Mummy—but it’s only because I couldn’t breathe.”
My dress was damp from doing the work of a towel, but it was a warm night, and the sensation wasn’t unpleasant. Halfway up the beach I realized I needed to pee. I told Pippa and she led us toward a building site, some tourist apartments that were going up in the lee of the cliffs.
“No one will see you in there.” She glanced up the beach. “But I’ll keep watch if you like.”
Among the slabs of concrete masonry and twisted iron cables was a perfectly concealed space, and I squatted there, trying not to pee on my feet–or the emerald boa.
“Are you done yet?” called Pippa from the lookout spot. “I think someone’s coming.”
I remembered the teen revelers and tried to hurry but had only just put my dress back in place when Pippa came round the corner, covering her mouth to suppress laughter.
“What is it?” I whispered.
She pulled me behind a concrete block wall and, still stifling giggles, pointed to the cliffs behind the building site. Squinting into the shadows, I heard sucking noises, and quiet sighs, and made out a nebulous pair of figures. They were kissing and frantically groping, trying to find a level spot in the dunes where they could lie down. For a second, they were swathed in moonlight and I saw Caleb, shirtless, with his hand between a pair of long, nut-brown legs.
“I
knew
it,” Pippa said, unable to contain her delight. “I knew he’d eventually run off with one of Yanni’s sisters. I just didn’t know which one.”
“You’re
pleased
about this?”
“I’m relieved,” she said. “He’s been in so much trouble lately, hanging out with the most awful gang of brutes—drinking, smoking, stealing, lord knows what else—and I just knew he’d lose interest in them once he found a girlfriend.”
“She might not be his girlfriend,” I said, realizing, and then cringing at, what a horny teen Caleb had been all along. “It might only be a casual fling.”
“Do you think so?” said Pippa, very interested. “I don’t think Athena would put up with that.”
“Not like me,” I wanted to say, but I had already said too much. I could never tell Pippa, or anyone else, what had happened. I’d not had a secret before that had to be taken to the grave, and I saw how, over the years, it would lead to many casual, well-intentioned lies. I would lie to protect Caleb and myself and I would also lie to avoid hurting Pippa.
Knowing that, ahead of time, made me feel crummy, and for a second or two, I saw that I was not the decent person I’d always imagined myself to be. I was flawed, just like everyone else. Just like my father. I did not think I could ever forgive him for abandoning my mother and me, but I could sort of understand why, once he had abandoned us, he could never look back. Starting afresh, not repeating the same mistakes, was sometimes the only way to make amends for what you’d done.
We had walked up the steep hill from the beach to the town, but Pippa was reluctant to return immediately to the wake. Instead she suggested we stop at a pint-size taverna in a narrow, cobbled alley for coffee and a slice of baklava. My arm did not need much twisting, and we were soon settled at an outside table, alongside a pair of toothless backgammon fiends. “By the way,” she said, suddenly looking up, spoon in hand. “I’ve a bone to pick with you.”
Her tone was light, almost mischievous, but my conscience was heavy, and I braced for an accusation.
“Last night, Caleb asked me a strange question,” she began. “He wanted to know if I’d ever ‘shagged’ some bloke in the bath. He said it was at a costume party, back in the eighties, at your parents’ flat.” She paused. “For someone who wasn’t even born yet, he seemed to know a lot about it.”
It was a chance to come clean—about one thing at least—and I took it. “That was my fault. I told him about something I saw that night.”
Pippa was no less amused, but she had started to blush. “What on earth were you doing? Looking through the bloody keyhole?”
I coughed through my embarrassment, pretending a piece of baklava had lodged in my throat.
Pippa studied me for a moment, and then took a sharp inhale of breath. “Oh dear God,” she said. “You didn’t think, all this time, that I was bonking your father, did you?”
“No,” I said, horrified that she had guessed the truth. “Absolutely not!”
“Good, because I never would have crossed that line.” She laughed, high and tinkling, and for a moment, her green eyes flashed eighteen again. “Though I crossed all the others,” she added.
With relief, I laughed too, and then we fell into an easy silence, broken only by the occasional clinking of ouzo glasses and a frenzied rattling of dice. It was the first time in a long, long while that my mind had been comfortably blank.
“You know, if you wanted to, you could stay here until the end of the summer,” Pippa said. “There’s plenty of space at Elena’s—so long as you don’t mind sleeping in the crypt—and you might even get work at Soteris’s taverna.”
Her mention of the coming months caught me off guard, for the present had been so consuming that I hadn’t given any thought to what I’d do next. The idea of going back to London, to an endless, fruitless job hunt was abhorrent, but so was the thought of returning so soon to New Zealand—even though I’d worked out that it was my hang-ups, not the country, that had pushed me to the edge.
In the absence of a long-term plan, spending what was left of the summer on a Greek island with a family that wasn’t my family, but who’d nonetheless made room for me, was about the most idyllic situation I could think of. I was sure that by the end of it, I would have an idea of what to do. “Thank you,” I said at last. “That’s a very kind offer.”
When our baklava had been reduced to a few sticky crumbs, we ambled toward the taverna, where Peggy’s wake had quadrupled in size and was spilling out in waves across the cobblestoned piazza. Around the impromptu band, a group of men and women had gathered in a circle, and were clapping wildly in time to the music. Some distance from the mayhem, Pippa hesitated, and I thought perhaps she didn’t want to get any closer, that the balalaikas were wigging her out, but then the crowds parted a little, and she ran forward eagerly to get a closer look at what everyone was going so crazy over. In front of the band, a traditional Greek dance was under way: a line of women at the back and in front of them a line of men with their arms around each other. The music they were dancing to was repetitive and getting faster, building up a head of steam. At the center of the male line were Harold and Ari, kicking up their heels in manic imitation of the locals they were arm in arm with, their pink, shiny faces creased with unbridled joy. With something like a whoop of delight, Pippa dashed forward to link arms with her husband and brother, and before I could talk myself out of it, I followed her into the fray.
M
y fantastic agent, Lisa Grubka, committed to this book when it was a long way from finished, and her dedication and enthusiasm continue to impress me. At Morrow, my editor, Katherine Nintzel, nimbly located the last piece in the puzzle but kindly let me think I’d found it myself. (So that’s what the very best editors do!) Her patience, acuity, and wit made the final phase of writing this book a most pleasurable collaboration. My sincere gratitude goes out to everyone else at Foundry and Morrow who have helped launch this book, but in particular to Stephanie Abou, Hannah Brown Gordon, Caspian Dennis, Mary Sasso, and Katie Steinberg.
Without the (extremely premature) encouragement of Curtis Sittenfeld, this novel would never have got off the ground, and without the tireless cheerleading of the Sittenfelds—Michelle Arathimos, Sarah Bainbridge, Janis Freegard, Jared Gulian, Anna Jackson, Amanda Samuel, Kate Simpkins, and especially Sarah Laing—it would never have made it to a first draft. (Who knew there would be ten or fifteen more?)
For creative contributions and support of all kinds, I’d like to thank Rob Appierdo, Wallace Chapman, Anita Coulter, Jen Craddock, Marianne Elliott, Jess Feast, Rachael King, Emily Simpson, Jane Ussher, and Juliette Veber. A special warm fuzzy thank you to Kirstin Marcon for the manifesto. (Can you believe we did it?!)
I’m so lucky to have great and loving parents, David and Azedear, who have been steadfast supporters of my unpredictable career. My beloved brother, Nick, I sincerely hope you read this and decide to do better (as I know you can). Chris and Lesley Saville, thank you for giving us a home, and so much more. Charlie, Zoe, Adrienne, and Alex, thanks for all the babysitting. And Gillian, whose battle is all through this book, rest in peace.
Matthew, my lion-hearted husband, thank you for believing in me all the way; I know it hasn’t been easy. Hector, special boy, thank you for being so awesome.
Last but not least, a big thank you to all my generous “sponsors” (most of whom are loyal family and friends). Long after the funds ran out, your allegiance kept me going (translation: after four years, I had to bloody finish it or you’d all come after me): Rob Appierdo and Jess Feast, Shandelle Battersby, Namila Benson, Helena Brooks, Jaquie Brown, Heather and Greg Bryant, Olivia Bryant, Clare Burgess, Kathryn Carmody, Paul Casserly, Wallace Chapman, Desiree Cheer, Nick Churchouse, Jacki Condra, the Coulters (Anita, John, Klara, Xavier, and Francesca), Jen Craddock and Will Smart, Liz DiFiore and Kevin Donovan, Lucy and Zelda Edwards, Raga D’silva, Patrick Fife, Janis Freegard, Tanya Fretz, Joanne Ganley, Hayley Garrett, Gemma Gracewood, Caroline Grose, Jared Gulian, Robyn Harper, Jason Hebron and Louise May, Cass Hessom-Williams, Nathan Hickey, Mei Hill, Matthew J. Horrocks, Anna Jackson and Simon Edmonds, Mel James, Matthias Jordan and Charlotte Ryan, Natasha Judd, Jonathan King and Rebecca Priestley, Rachael King and Peter Rutherford, Richard King, Rebecca Laffar-Smith, Bevin Linkhorn, Fiona MacKenzie, Peter Malcouronne, Kirstin Marcon and Paul Swadel, Aimee McCammon, Nic McCloy, Nathan and Miriam Meister, Carly Neemia, Suzy O’Brien, Dale and Geoff Olsen, Françoise Padellec, Rebekah Palmer and Bernard Steeds, Sibilla Paparatti, Mary Parker, Susan Pearce, Vicky Pope, Mark and Marion Prebble, Laura Preston, Vanessa Rhodes, Rose from Oxford, Marcia Russell, Peter Salmon, Lesley and Chris Saville, Lisa Schulz, Kate Simpkins, Emily Simpson and Steve Braunias, Mailene Tubman, Juliette Veber, Victoria University English Class 243: Contemporary Fiction (2007), Paul Ward, Neville and Jan Zander, the Zander-Joneses (Mel, Karen, Caitlin, and Oliver), and Margaret Zube. The following people must be singled out for their ridiculous generosity: Marianne Elliott, Eric Holowacz and Mo Hickey, David Stubbs, Mum and Dad. (I’m really sorry if I’ve left anyone out.)
Insights, Interviews & More . . .
Homeland Insecurity
(an essay)
by Bianca Zander
I
WAS BORN IN
L
ONDON
and grew up there, but it took me a long time— perhaps thirty years—to figure out I wasn’t really English.
The signs were there from day one; I just didn’t know how to read them. At my upright prep school in Kensington, this sense of being different was muddied with the usual British anxieties about class. The kids I went to school with—Arabella, Henrietta, Leanda— had country “hises” and great-uncles who were titled; we had renovations that were never finished. (My father managed building sites but seldom managed ours.) A shy seven-year-old girl called Nell once came over to play at our flat, took one look around, screwed up her nose, and said, in all seriousness, “What would happen if the queen came to tea?”
“The queen?”
“Yes,” said Nell, “She would be appalled.”
Nell was appalled—and Nell lived in a world where, conceivably, the queen might pop ’round for afternoon tea.
Around the same time, I started to notice that my parents spoke with funny accents—accents that were a notch above cockney, but only just. My father did strange, un-English things, like wear shorts around the house in the middle of winter, and when even the sniff of a rugby match came on the TV, he yelled so much he lost his voice. (He still does this, at age sixty-seven.) My mother, on her part, was too cool, too Bohemian. She picked me up from school wearing tight blue jeans and carelessly got pregnant with her second and last child when I was, gasp, eleven.
Actual proof that we were foreign came later, at my private, all-girls secondary school. My class was going on a day trip to Calais to eat cheese, but at the last minute, just as we were about to board the coach, I was hauled aside and told I couldn’t go. The night before, the visa laws had changed unexpectedly, and only those with British or EU passports were being let into France. Mine wasn’t either of those.
At thirteen, the worst thing imaginable happened: My parents announced we were moving to New Zealand, a country where all the dads wore shorts in the winter. My father was from there; my mother was Australian. It was the mid ’80s, Chernobyl had just blown, and my mother wanted to be as far away as possible from the threat of acid rain. I was so embarrassed about emigrating to an island on the other side of the world that I didn’t tell a single classmate I was going until a few days before we left.
We had been there not quite two years when I begged to return to England. That we did so surprised me, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized I couldn’t have been the only one in the Zander camp unready to be a New Zealander. My father was so unready for repatriation that he had been commuting back and forth between London and Auckland every other month, in those days a trip of thirty-two hours or more each way.