‘She was my mother.’
‘Of course.’
‘I was the one who found her. In that room down there.’
‘Oh, Lawrie. You didn’t say.’
I turned to the darkness where he was pointing, and felt a preternatural repulsion, an overwhelming desire to walk in the opposite direction. But I didn’t move; I didn’t want him to see me scared. ‘Gerry’s held together with whisky and sticking plasters,’ I said. ‘You should be kind to him.’
‘And what about me?’
‘I’ll be kind to you, Lawrie,’ I replied, taking his hand.
WE LAY SIDE BY SIDE on Lawrie’s eiderdown, hearing Gerry shuffling beneath us, until a door closed and the house fell silent. ‘You shouldn’t live here,’ I said.
‘I know.’ He turned on his side to face me, propping himself on his elbow. ‘But it’s all I have. This place, Gerry and a painting.’
‘And me,’ I said. ‘You’ve got me.’
Gently, he ran his hand down the side of my face. The window was still open, and I heard a blackbird, so musical and effortless, singing in a tree like it was dawn. ‘Come on, Writer. What’s your favourite word?’ he asked.
I could see he wanted to change the subject, so I obliged. ‘You’re asking me to pick? All right. Lodgings.’
He laughed. ‘You had it ready – I knew you would. That’s so stodgy, Odelle.’
‘Is not. It’s cosy. “My lodgings were clean and comfortable.” You?’
‘Cloud.’
‘Such a cliché,’ I said, inching towards him and giving him a squeeze.
We talked on – for now, mothers and step--fathers and paintings forgotten, or pushed away at least, banishing them to the outer edges of our memories as much as we could. We talked about how beautiful the English language could be, in the right hands – how varied and nuanced and illogical. Hamper and hamper, and words like turn, that seemed boring at first but were deceptive in their depths. We discussed our favourite onomatopoeia: frizz and sludge and glide and bumblebee. I’d never been so happy alone with another person.
Because of the blackbird singing in the tree, we ended up drifting into a game of bird--tennis, our intertwined hands the raised--up net, and a kiss for each bird that we exchanged. Plover to lapwing, honey--creep, lark. Coquette and falcon, manakin, hawk. His hands upon my skin, curlew, oriole, and mine upon his. Jacamar, wren. Then the birds flew away, their names turned to kisses and a silence that spelled a new world.
?
The next morning, I woke very early. Lawrie was in a deep sleep, his expression peaceful. I considered the astonishing moment he’d pushed inside me, how that was never going to happen for the first time again. I put on his shirt and woolly jumper, slid out of the bed and tiptoed along the corridor to the bathroom. Had Gerry known I’d stayed? How mortifying it would be to cross him now.
I went to the toilet and felt between my legs; a little dried blood, but the more obvious symptom was the stomach pain I could feel, slight, low--seated, a dull ache, a sense of having been opened up and bruised. I had never even been naked with a man, had never been touched like that before; it was strange that one might feel pain over something that had been so pleasurable.
We had broken through a frontier, and I had told him, very quietly, that I loved him, and Lawrie had pressed his ear to my mouth, saying, You might have to repeat that one, Odelle, because I’m getting on and these days I don’t hear so well. And so I said it again, slightly louder, and he kissed me in return.
I LOOKED AT MY WRISTWATCH; five--thirty. Below me, I could hear Gerry’s snores. What a place to be, I thought; urinating in a clapped--out Victorian toilet in deepest Surrey over a man called Gerry’s head. I would not have predicted it; and I was glad of the lack of forewarning. Had I known such things were going to be promised me, I would have been too intimidated by their weirdness and they probably wouldn’t have happened.
I finished, washed my hands and face and used a little soap on my upper thighs. I felt the sudden desire to tell Pamela that this had happened, to give her the gift of my gossip, to make her birthday present worth it after all.
I came out of the bathroom and was about to head back to Lawrie’s room, when I hesitated. I turned to my right, looking down the long corridor to where, last night, Lawrie had pointed out the room in which he had found his mother. There would be no other time, I knew; with Lawrie awake it was unlikely he would lead an expedition down here. And for me, the curiosity was too great.
The door was slightly ajar. It was her bedroom, Sarah’s bedroom; you could tell. There were still lipsticks on the dressing table, a silver powder compact in the shape of a shell; paperback novels and old magazines. Along the sill were china and glass ornaments, vases of flowers, now dried out. The curtains were open, but the sun was not yet up. The silhouettes of naked trees were crooked against a lavender sky.