The Lie of You: I Will Have What Is Mine (6 page)

And it occurred to me that maybe we could run a series on these magnificent buildings in the magazine. I had no idea how many there were. I went back to my study, turned on the laptop and looked up World Heritage Sites. I found a list of all the locations and there are over nine hundred and sixty sites worldwide. Some of the sites are natural phenomena – caves and gorges, volcanoes, forests and barrier reefs. Then there are the world-famous architectural sites: Chartres Cathedral; the Acropolis and the historic centre of Siena. I got excited as I read through the list. If we concentrated just on the cultural sites in Europe we would have enough material to fill a pull-out survey for a year; a popular guide to the sites.

I’m sure I can sell the idea to Philip. It will be expensive to produce, as some of the sites will need to be visited and photographed, and he always puts up a fight when we want to spend money. He’ll want a business plan of course. A guide like this would attract lots of advertisers. I felt inspired and I started to type up a first draft of my idea.

The phone rang in the kitchen. It was Markus and he sounded really cheerful.

‘It went very well. We’re through to the last two,’ he said.

‘That’s brilliant! Congratulations.’

‘The other team is strong, though. We’re going to have to work hard to win it.’

‘You can do it.’

I was so pleased for him. I didn’t mention my idea because this was his moment. I wanted to tell him that I was missing him, until I remembered he would be standing in the hotel with his colleagues close by.

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘We’ll have dinner and plan our campaign.’

‘In the hotel?’

‘No, I saw an Indian restaurant on the way here. It’s called Curry Paradise.’

I laughed.

‘Tomorrow I’m going to spend time walking round Durham. I need to take a lot of photos so I think it best if I do one more night here.’

‘Of course; I’m so pleased for you, Markus.’

I returned to my study and to my list. The United Kingdom has twenty-eight World Heritage Sites. Some you would expect, like Stonehenge and Hadrian’s Wall, Canterbury Cathedral and the city of Bath. And then there are more unusual places, like the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape. I saw that Durham Castle and Cathedral were on the list and I took this as a good omen: perhaps everything was going to be all right.

Markus and I were still adjusting to being new parents and to living together. It was bound to be difficult at first. I just needed to stay calm and cheerful about it and not panic, which I have a tendency to do. I was tapping away on my laptop when the buzzer from the front door sounded. I looked at my watch; it was nearly ten, so who could that be?

I checked Billy quickly and he slept on peacefully; the buzzer had not woken him. I walked down our hall and buzzed the front door open and waited as I heard the lift coming up slowly. Then the lift door clanked open and Eddie stepped out.

‘Eddie!’

‘Hello, K.’

He walked over to me quickly, slipped his hands around my waist and kissed me on the lips.

‘I was just round the corner. Can I have a coffee?’

‘You can’t just show up like this! What if Markus had been here?’

‘So he’s away?’

I looked at him hard. He wasn’t drunk and he didn’t smell of drink. His green eyes crinkled as he grinned at me and said, ‘It’s so good to see you.’

‘One coffee, then, I’m knackered and I don’t do late nights any more.’

He followed me into the flat and into the kitchen and sat down at the table. I busied myself making the coffee and was finding it disconcerting just how attractive I still found him; his brown hair was all curly and unkempt as it always was. He was wearing his work clothes and his face was tanned and freckled from working in the sun.

‘How are you? Really?’ he asked.

‘I’m exhausted. I never knew tiredness like this before and I’m finding it tough doing the job as well as Billy...’

‘Ahh, get a grip. My mum had five of us.’

‘I’m sure she was Super-Mum. I doubt she was also editing a magazine!’ I said crossly.

‘True.’

He beamed his disarming smile at me and I stopped feeling cross. He was teasing me, as he always used to do.

‘So married life is not all it’s cracked up to be?’

I placed a mug of coffee in front of him. ‘Stop being provocative and tell me about you. How are things?’

His smile faded and he leaned towards me over the kitchen table.

‘I miss you.’

‘Oh, Eddie...’

‘I’m not drinking. It’s been three months. I know what a bloody nightmare I was.’

‘I couldn’t do the chaos any more. It made me so unhappy.’

‘I know.’

‘You’ll always matter to me.
Always
... But I’ve got Billy now.’

He grimaced at my words.

‘I’m a bloody fool,’ he said, ‘a hopeless case.’

He always could disarm me with his charm and his self-deprecation. We had played this scene too many times before and I had to harden my heart against him.

‘How’s the work going?’

‘OK; keeps me busy. I’ve got a junior working with me now. I’m training him up.’

‘That’s great; you’d be a brilliant teacher,’ I said warmly.

Eddie was an inspired gardener and he could transform an ordinary London back garden into a place of beauty and enchantment. Unfortunately his work had always been erratic. He took a gulp of his coffee.

‘This is stronger than you used to make it. I’m doing more garden design now too.’

‘Good. You always liked that best.’

‘But I’m miserable,’ he said, hunched over his mug.

I didn’t reply as there was nothing I could say.

‘I hope this Finnish bloke is treating you OK?’

He looked at me searchingly. I found my eyes moving away from that direct green-eyed gaze. I felt confused and I really didn’t want to talk to Eddie about Markus.

‘Do you want to see Billy?’ I said, standing up.

He followed me into Billy’s room and we both stood looking down at my baby son.

‘What a great little lad and don’t take this the wrong way, I can’t see a trace of you, K.’

‘You’re right. He is a hundred per cent Markus.’

Billy stirred, his eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes. He saw me and put his arms up to me. I bent over the cot and picked him up. He was all warm and sleepy and then he started to grizzle a bit against my shoulder.

‘Let me,’ he said.

I handed Billy to Eddie and he walked around the room and rocked him gently until Billy fell back to sleep in his arms. He was looking down at Billy and as I watched them I felt this ache, thinking that if things had been different we could have had this, a beautiful child together. He placed him carefully back into the cot and put the blanket over him.

‘Where did you learn to do that?’

‘I looked after the younger ones a lot,’ he said quietly.

He looked sad now. He may have been thinking what I was thinking. He hugged me tightly then, kissed me on the neck and left the flat in a rush.

I stood there in the hall after he had gone, thinking all these warm thoughts about him. I adored him once; I adored him for years. We’d had some very good times together. I remembered that day years before when I had gone off for my first day working at a magazine as a junior features writer. I’d been so excited to have my start in journalism at last. When I got home that night Eddie had filled our flat with flowers and made Irish stew for us to eat. He said how proud he was of me and that he knew I would make it in magazines.

I pulled myself up and told myself to stop romanticizing the past. Three months without booze, but he would turn to it again. Unfortunately his periods of abstinence never lasted.

JUNE

I heard her tell Aisha that Markus was away in Durham. So she would be alone with Billy. It was late when I drove to Baker Street and parked in her street.

I got out of my car and walked to a good position where I could watch the building. I had the keys to her flat in my pocket. I could see several lights were on in the rooms. I worked out that the lights were from Billy’s room and Markus’s room and the kitchen. I saw her moving in the kitchen at one point. And then, some time later, I saw a man approach the window in Billy’s room and he was holding Billy in his arms!

Markus was away for a couple of nights and she had a man in the flat with her. And that man was holding the baby. I felt outraged on behalf of Markus. It was late, nearly eleven. Who was this man? Why was she letting him hold Billy? He walked away from the window. I was transfixed to the spot, watching the window intently.

Some minutes later, I do not know how many, I saw the large entrance door to the block being pushed open and the man walked out. I followed him down the road. I wanted to see who he was more clearly. He was walking rapidly with his head down. He had curly hair and was dressed in jeans and a rough checked shirt. He wore work boots too. He hurried to Baker Street tube station and I saw his face as he stopped to buy a ticket. Mid-thirties, tanned face, who was he? He went through the barriers and I walked slowly back to my car.

The next evening I dressed warmly even though it had been mild that afternoon. I feel the cold. I put on my soft white leather lace-ups, which make no noise. I locked my flat at around eleven p.m. and decided I would go there by taxi tonight. I walked along the path by the river until I reached Blackfriars Bridge. The river is low this year. You can see the chalky green watermark on the rusty struts of the bridge. The water is well below that line and a whole strip of shingle has been exposed that for many years lay underneath the Thames. I have stood at my window on long Sunday afternoons and watched children with their parents scouring this newly revealed shingle beach, heard their cries of excitement as they found a piece of clay pipe or an old ship’s nail.

I told the taxi to drop me one street from her flat. There has been a strong dry wind blowing for the last two weeks. It has blown without respite, so that it has come to seem quite sinister. The trees have been partially stripped of their early summer fullness. Tonight the wind had stilled. The streets carried the debris from the trees. Withered brown leaves, dead before their time, lay in my path. It was all wrong. Dead leaves belong in November, not in June.

I had left it later tonight. I reached her street and scanned the windows. Two lights were on. One light, shining through pale orange curtains, was Billy’s room. The other light was her bedroom. After a few minutes the light in her bedroom went off. I would need to wait at least thirty minutes to be sure she was asleep. I walked to a pub on the corner of Baker Street and bought an orange juice. I did not drink it. The minutes ticked away. This would be a major test of my strength and my willpower.

I walked back to her apartment block. All was in darkness except for Billy’s room. This time I walked up the stairs, remembering the clanking lift door. No sound came through the doors of the apartments I passed. This is a well-made block with thick walls and doors. I reached her flat. I could open the door and she could be standing there in front of me. Her bedroom light was off and I had to assume she was asleep by now. I opened the front door very carefully and stood in the hall and listened intently. All was silent. There was warm light spilling out of Billy’s room. This was the light I had seen from the street, a night-light in the shape of a great yellow flower. He was lying on his back in his white wooden cot. Above the cot a mobile of grey papier-mâché seagulls with orange beaks stirred gently. I leaned over the side of the cot and examined him closely for many minutes. His hair is fine and white. He is a little Markus. He is a true northern baby.

Then I walked silently into their bedroom. It took a few minutes for my eyes to become accustomed to the dark. As I stood there in the darkness I could smell her perfume, faint yet persistent. Slowly my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Shapes became apparent with a kind of grainy texture. There was a large, high chest of drawers just inside the door and a wooden bowl with a clutter of bottles and jewellery in it. Their bed was large, king-size.

She was lying on her stomach on the left-hand side of the bed. An open book lay on the bedside table next to a digital radio clock with ugly red digits. I wanted to take in all the details and store them for later, so I can visualize their life in this flat when I am lying in my bed five miles away. I think about him being with her in the dark wastes of the night when I feel very low. It makes me even more determined. I can work, I can plan. My mind is on patrol. My will is strong and getting stronger.

I moved into the room and stood closer to her at the foot of the bed. Her head was turned on the pillow towards the clock. One arm lay above the dark quilt, which covered the bed. She was wearing a white cotton nightdress. The sort with lace around the neck and sleeves, modelled on Victorian nightdresses. He would not have given that to her. He hates reproductions of any kind. A chair at the bottom of her bed had clothes piled on it and a mess of shoes beneath it. There were a couple of those gauze cloths that mothers wipe their babies’ faces with lying on the bed. I took one of them.

I was eighteen when I met Markus. He was nineteen. We were both in our first year at university in Helsinki. I was studying history of art. Markus was in the school of architecture. We had both gone to a film-club screening of
Bride of Frankenstein.
The film club held screenings once a week in the university’s biology lecture theatre. It was an uncomfortable place to watch films. We sat in long, hard rows with a narrow wooden shelf in front us. The seats were steeply raked. At the front of the room there was a large screen. Every Thursday night some enthusiast from the film club would project a classic film onto that screen, usually a 16 mm copy that was scratched and jerky.

Bride of Frankenstein
had just started with a crash of music and the opening shot showed a violent storm breaking over a sinister-looking house perched on a cliff-top. A young man in Romantic dress was standing at the window, looking out at the storm. As he turned towards his companions I felt someone join the end of the row where I was sitting. I liked to have the aisle seat so I moved along for the newcomer rather grudgingly. He whispered his thanks, balanced a big folder of papers on the shelf in front of him and sat back. During the film most of the students laughed at certain scenes. I could not understand why they were laughing. There was so much cruelty in the film and the monster had more dignity than any of his persecutors. The film came to an end and the credits rolled and the harsh fluorescent lights of the biology theatre flickered on.