The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine (16 page)

The lights turned green. I put my foot on the accelerator and roared ahead into Dorset Square. He leapt back on to the pavement. In my rear-view mirror I saw him run back to his car. I realized he was going to chase me! I sped down Dorset Square and jumped the lights into Rossmore Street. This is not the way to my flat, but the road was empty ahead and I wanted to put as much distance between him and myself as I could. I kept checking the rear-view mirror, expecting to see the bonnet of his red car behind me. I was breathing short, shallow breaths and felt dizzy. I turned left then left again. Finally I parked and waited, my heart hammering. I had shaken him off.

‘People are so damned angry these days. They don’t know why they’re full of murderous rage,’ Douglas said.

We were sitting in the kitchen over dinner with Fiona and Douglas. ‘Things are tough out there now, for many people, and, yes, people are turning against each other,’ Markus said.

‘You know I’d had a bad day,’ I said. ‘These things seem to happen when you’re already wound up. I guess I could have let him overtake me...’

‘Oh, the smallest thing can trigger it,’ said Fiona. ‘I mean, what was at stake? Being one car further up the line.’

We had just eaten my
bacalhau com natas
, layers of cod and onion and fried potatoes in cream. Usually cooking calms me down. Tonight it hadn’t worked and I was still hot and headachey. I got up to clear the plates away. Fiona helped me, and then I heard Billy grizzling in his room.

‘I think I’ll get Billy up,’ I said to Markus. ‘His cheeks were really red this evening and I’m sure he’s teething again.’

I brought Billy into the kitchen and he stretched out his arms towards his dad and Markus took him on to his lap.

‘He didn’t want to miss the party,’ Fiona said.

I brought the salad and the cheese board to the table.

‘Three favourite Portuguese cheeses,’ I said.

‘Wonderful,’ said Fiona. ‘Where do you find all this stuff?’

‘There’s a great place in Highbury, and they do the best olive oil too.’

Markus passed Fiona the salad bowl. He had made the dressing for it and it was very garlicky and almost startling to eat.

‘This is so good,’ she said, piling radicchio, cress and rocket, viscous with his dressing, on to her plate.

Douglas spread thick butter on his water biscuit and then piled a wedge of Serra on top.

‘Douglas, you don’t need butter as well as the cheese!’ Fiona wailed.

‘I like it like this. I like the taste of butter under the cheese.’

‘Think of the cholesterol!’

I gave Billy a piece of bread to chew on.

‘I was in Finland a few years ago, on a research project,’ Douglas said. ‘We were trying to gauge attitudes to change; mainly in Helsinki, which I really liked. I also spent some time in the villages along the coast. I think small communities can be pretty angry places too.’

Markus nodded his agreement.

‘Oh, yes, angry and narrow and mean-spirited,’ he said.

‘When were you there?’ I asked Douglas.

‘About four years ago.’

‘Well, one of my team used to be a well-known TV presenter in Helsinki – Heja Vanheinen.’

Markus stood up and said to Fiona, ‘Will you have Billy? I need to get more wine...’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ she said, taking Billy on to her lap and bouncing him up and down gently.

Markus picked up the empty wine bottle and took it to the recycling box.

‘What does she look like?’ Douglas asked.

‘Very blonde, high cheekbones...’

Markus got down another bottle and started to tear off the foil.

‘There’s one cooling in the fridge,’ I said.

He nodded and turned towards the fridge and I wondered why he was looking a bit grim.

After Fiona and Douglas had gone I scraped the plates on to a spread newspaper before putting the leftovers into the bin. My head was pounding from the heat and stress of the day. I watched the oil from the cream sliding into the newsprint and felt a wave of disgust and weariness.

Fiona rang the next morning.

‘Thanks for last night. That was a fantastic meal.’

‘It was great to see you, and Markus really liked you both. Sorry I was a bit on edge.’

‘You were fine. I see why you fell for Markus. He’s gorgeous!’

‘He is easy on the eye, isn’t he?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me he was famous?’

‘Famous? What do you mean?’

‘Douglas said it was niggling him all night because Markus looked familiar. Then this morning he remembered. Apparently Markus was a well-known radical in Finland.’

‘No!’

‘Yes! There was some big student protest and Markus led a mass demonstration in Helsinki. It got nasty and he was arrested. Hundreds of students marched to the police station and demanded his release.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘It’s true, you know Douglas and politics. Your Markus was a pin-up for thousands of university students!’

‘Incredible. I knew none of this. Nothing... it would explain a lot.’

So ask him about it.’

‘I’m not sure. He’s touchy about talking about his past. I’m almost scared to raise the subject.’

‘You should be able to talk to him about it.’

‘I should but... well... things aren’t perfect, Fiona. Markus can be so reserved and some days I find his coldness really gets to me.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘I keep thinking give it time. It’s been a major adjustment for us both. I just wish he’d be more open with me.’

‘You should have called me.’

‘And Eddie pitched up here the other night.’

‘Oh, Kathy you’re not...’

‘No, no, of course not; he just turned up out of the blue.’

‘His drinking made you very unhappy.’

After our call was over I did something that it hadn’t occurred to me to do before. I looked up Markus on the internet. I typed in ‘Markus Hartman Finland’
with a feeling of guilty apprehension, as if I was doing something mildly stalkerish. What would I discover? Five photographs of a much younger Markus came onto my screen. Three of the pictures looked like a student demonstration as there were banners and a crowd and Markus was at the front of the crowd. The text was all in Finnish, from various newspaper reports, so I couldn’t get a lot of information from it, only the dates and that these demonstrations had happened years ago. There were also two solo shots of Markus, a head-and-shoulders shot and one of him standing in front of a building. Again there was no English text so I couldn’t establish where these had been taken.

It seemed that what Douglas had said was true – Markus had been involved in student politics and had been a kind of leader. Could this be what he was keeping quiet about? It was nothing to be ashamed of. Or had something else happened to him that made him reluctant to talk about his life in Helsinki? I stared at the photos and he looked so young and fired up and handsome and I knew I wouldn’t ask him about them.

While I was at it I decided to look up Heja too. I typed in her name and lots of pictures came up this time. There were a series of glamorous shots of her seated behind a news desk, and what looked like several PR shots of her that had a glossy edge to them. There was a picture of her interviewing a man who looked like a politician. There was some accompanying text in English that described her role at the TV station and some information about programme ratings. It seemed that she had indeed been one of the top news presenters in Finland. It was all information about her work, who she had interviewed and the events she had covered.

There was nothing personal. I could find no links to Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter. Well, that figured. Heja would be the last person to share information about herself on any social media sites. Why, she shared little enough with her colleagues who she saw every day. I still could not understand why she had left such a high-profile television job. She was in her mid-thirties and would have had more TV years ahead of her surely; and all to make the jump to writing about architecture for a magazine? It was odd.

JULY

Early in July I received a letter from my mother, Solange.

My dear Heja

You are proving so elusive this year that your father and I have decided that if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain we will come to you.

Your father has not been himself and I am concerned about his health. He will keep working and pushing himself quite unnecessarily. However, I have persuaded him to take a four-week holiday. We will be taking a ten-day cruise in August. We start in London, then on to Paris for two nights before taking a train to Marseille to board the ship. We then visit Genoa, the Amalfi coast, Sicily, Carthage and Barcelona. The cruise returns us to Marseille. We then plan to spend two weeks in Provence. It will all be very comfortable and Father is keen for you to join us on the cruise. I too think it will do you good to have a break from your work. Father is happy to pay for everything.

If, however, and as I expect, you say that you can’t get away for so long we plan to fly to London early so that we can spend some time with you. We have been recommended a good hotel right in the centre, the Brownsage Hotel in Charlotte Street. I would be grateful if you would check it out for us before I confirm the booking.

Let me know as soon as possible if you wish to join us, as Father will need to reserve your cabin on the ship.

With love, as ever,

Solange

I can think of few fates worse than spending ten days on a ship with my mother, vying with her for my father’s attention. She is the most jealous woman in the world. Why, if Dad fills my glass before hers there is a scene. And it is quite clear that she does not want me to join them.

I remember when I told her I was leaving my job in television. She was furious with me. She may not have loved me but she had enjoyed having a famous daughter. I couldn’t tell her the real reason I was giving it up. I hoped she might see the suffering daughter beneath the façade I presented to her. She saw nothing. She could not have been more icy or critical. I gave up on her then. I do not even call her mother any more. She is Solange to the world and Solange to me.

When my parents arrived in London a couple of weeks later I took Robert along to act as a buffer and to stop the usual questioning I always got from her. She was standing in the foyer of the Brownsage Hotel, elegant in a dark green shirtdress and jacket. Robert kissed her on the cheek and she gave him a little smile. It had been obvious she liked him the night before when we had joined them for dinner at their hotel. She turned to me.

‘Pieter won’t be coming with us this morning. He had a bad night and needs to rest. He’ll meet us for lunch.’

‘He didn’t look well last night,’ I said uneasily.

‘I made that clear in my letter, Heja. He’s not been well.’

‘What is it?’

A spasm of irritation moved over her mouth and cheeks, a passing tremor.

‘He’s got a heart problem,’ she said, lowering her voice.

‘How serious is it?’

‘He needs to be careful.’

‘Can’t they do anything?’

‘They are doing all sorts of things and it’s under control. He just has to take it easy sometimes.’

Robert could feel the tension between us. He pulled his mouth down in the way he does when he is holding back words. He stroked my arm and said to Solange, ‘Do you still want to go to Tate Modern? We could call it off.’

‘No, no, I very much want to go and Pieter wants me to buy him a catalogue.’

I was looking at the geometric pattern on the floor of the hotel’s foyer. There were grey and white blocks of marble cut and laid with precision. Robert pressed my arm again.

‘Shall we go now?’

‘I’d like to stay and keep Dad company here. Would you mind terribly?’

I looked up at him and then over at her.

‘Your father needs to sleep,’ she said crisply.

‘I wouldn’t wake him. Give me the keys to the room. I’ll sit in there and when he wakes up I’ll make him some tea.’

‘You were going to show us around.’

How I hated her. I had not seen my father for months and months and yet she resented us having any time on our own.

‘I’d be delighted to show you around,’ Robert said.

‘Thank you, Robert.’

She turned to me. ‘We’ll see you both at the restaurant, then.’

‘The table is booked for one-fifteen,’ Robert said, giving me a conspiratorial look as if to say, yes, he could see she was a difficult woman.

Dad was not asleep. He was sitting in his dressing gown in an armchair by the window.

‘Darling, where are the others?’

‘They’ve gone to the Tate. I wanted to keep you company.’

He stood up and we hugged tightly.

‘I’m so pleased,’ he said.

I sat next to him and looked at his face lit by the light from the window. His colour was not good.

‘Did you have a bad night, Dad?’

‘I didn’t sleep very well, just wanted to take it a bit easy this morning, nothing to worry about.’

I stroked his hand. ‘It is exhausting going around the Tate. It’s huge,’ I said.

‘Yes, I read all about it.’

‘You can’t do it all in one go, although I bet Robert will try!’

My father smiled. ‘I liked him. He’s a clever man.’

‘Yes, he is, very clever and civilized...’

‘Now, those are not very warm words to use about him.’

‘Robert is excellent company. I’m not in love with him.’

‘Oh, dear, I think he’s mad about you.’

I shrugged. My father knew how much I had loved Markus and how much it had hurt me when he left.