‘That’s not Tony.’ Carla came running up, keen to make it all right. ‘This is Larry. He is my mother’s friend. The one who sees her on Sundays while you have me …’
Then she clasped her hand to her mouth because, of course, Lily thought Mamma had been working. Not lying in bed with Larry.
Now Mamma would be cross with her again. But instead, she seemed confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Tony, what are you doing?’ Lily was staring at Larry with a strange look on her face.
Mamma started to sound scared. ‘This is no Tony. You have made a mistake. Larry! Tell her.’
But Larry pushed her hand away and was moving towards Lily. His neck was very red. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.
It was difficult to hear exactly what he was saying in the corner, although she caught words like ‘appreciate’ and ‘confidential’, both of which she could spell perfectly because they had been at the beginning of the dictionary.
‘You want me to keep quiet about your sordid affair?’ Lily was shouting now. Then she turned to Mamma. Carla had never seen her friend’s eyes flash like that. ‘How could you go off with someone else’s husband? Don’t you have any shame? As for you, Tony, if I see you again with this woman, I will tell your wife.’
Carla had a sudden picture of the curtains closing in the house they had walked past at Christmas.
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘There’s a child involved here, Tony. I’m warning you. I meant what I said just now.’
Then Lily stormed back into her own flat, slamming the door behind her.
‘Why is she angry?’ asked Carla as Larry pushed them into their own flat.
‘How do you know Lily?’ frowned Mamma, pulling at Larry’s sleeve.
Larry wasn’t red any more. He was white. ‘She,’ he said, pointing, ‘needs to go to her room.’
‘No.’ Mamma stamped her foot. It reminded Carla of the dancing noise through the wall at night, but her mother wasn’t dancing now. ‘My daughter hears too. You tell lies to me? Then you tell lies to her too. We deserve to know the truth.’
We? A lovely warm feeling ran through Carla. For the first time since Larry had come into their lives, it felt as though she and Mamma were a team again.
Larry’s face had its angry look on. ‘As you wish. You know I have another family. I made that clear at the beginning.’
Mamma hung her head as if hearing something she didn’t want to.
‘I work with Lily. She doesn’t know about … about my life at home. She doesn’t know about us. Nor does anyone else. I told you my name was Larry to keep some kind of anonymity.’ There was a deep sigh. ‘But my name is really Tony.’
‘Tony Smith like Larry Smith?’ whispered her mother.
The angry look had gone. Instead there was a sigh. A big, tired one. ‘No. Tony Gordon.’
Mamma’s lips were moving as if she was repeating all this to herself. Or maybe she was saying her Ave Marias.
‘I understand,’ she said at last. ‘We will have to be more careful.’
Tony took her in his arms. ‘Francesca, listen to me. We will have to have a break until this blows over. I can’t risk Lily telling my wife …’
As he held her, he looked at Carla. She knew what he was saying. Knew it as clearly as if he was speaking. Go away. You are not wanted right now. This was her chance.
‘What about the woman in your car?’ she burst out. ‘The woman you were kissing before my birthday. Do you love her too?’
There was a terrible silence. Her mother took a step backwards, falling against the kitchen table as she did so and knocking the telephone directory out of place. Larry opened his mouth and roared, ‘You conniving little –’
‘Get out!’
At first Carla thought Mamma was screaming at her. But no. It was at Larry. ‘Get out, get out!’ she yelled again. Horrified, Carla watched as Mamma hurled a tin at him. A tin of baked beans. It missed. Just. Then another. This time it was a tin of tomatoes. Italian tomatoes.
Larry’s face was so angry that Carla thought the tomatoes had broken out of the tin and painted his cheeks. ‘You’ve made a big mistake, young lady,’ he said, bending down to her level. ‘You will see.’
Then he stormed out, leaving Mamma to weep, kneeling on the floor with her body folded over, rather like a snail’s shell.
‘I am sorry, Mamma,’ Carla whispered. ‘I should not have mentioned the lady in the car. I promised Larry I would say nothing. That was why he gave me the caterpillar …’
Mamma lifted her face. It was red and blotchy. Just like Larry’s had been. ‘He bribed you?’
Then Mamma cried even more. She cried so loudly that Carla’s stomach began to hurt. The pain grew worse and worse so that it became a knot that throbbed inside her.
When the phone rang, they both ignored it.
‘I’ve got a tummy ache,’ said Carla quietly.
Mamma was still lying on the floor. ‘Do not expect me to believe you,’ she sobbed. ‘I will believe no one. Ever again. Not even myself.’
That night, Carla’s pain grew worse. In her dreams, it became a red-hot stick, beating her inside. Someone was holding it. Maria. Lash, lash, against her body.
‘Maria!’ she called out. ‘Please stop. Let me play!’
‘It’s all right, little one.’ Mamma’s voice floated over her. ‘The doctor is coming.’
23
Lily
By the time I come back from Hampstead, it is nearly seven o’clock. Ed is sitting at the kitchen table, working on a sketch.
‘We won,’ I say.
He starts, and I can see that he’s been so involved with his work that he’d forgotten today is verdict day. Then he collects himself. ‘Wonderful,’ he says, leaping up and throwing his arms around me. ‘We must celebrate! Open a bottle.’ His face tightens. ‘Then we can have that talk you’ve been promising.’
My hand shakes on the fridge door at the thought of the conversation ahead. My heart sinks. The Pinot that had been there at breakfast time is gone. No guesses as to who drank it. But I don’t feel up to having an argument.
‘We’re out of drink,’ I say shortly.
‘I’ll go round to the off-licence.’ He’s trying. I’ll say that for him.
‘Let me.’ Even though I’ve only just returned, I’m already feeling claustrophobic. My heart is juddering so badly at what I must do that I simply have to get out of here.
As I make a move, I see a man through the window, striding towards the front entrance. His hat is firmly down over his forehead but there’s something about that walk that looks familiar.
I close the front door behind me and step into the corridor.
My eyes struggle to understand what they’re seeing.
The man who was striding towards our apartment building and who is now twirling Francesca round and round in the air (while little Carla watches in her white pyjamas) is Tony.
‘I love you,’ I hear him say, as he puts her back down. ‘We won the case! Wanted to tell you before I went home!’
Coincidences are one of those things which sound contrived until they happen in real life. During my short time as a lawyer, I’ve already seen so many. Most of them tragic. The father who ran over his toddler by mistake on the day his new baby was born. The grandmother who was held up at knifepoint in the dark by her adopted son, neither aware of the connection at the time. The woman who had a child by a nightclub bouncer, who turned out to be the father who’d left before she was born – he, unaware of even having a child.
And now Tony and my neighbour.
I am disappointed. And fiercely, overpoweringly angry. How can someone uphold the law when they are acting immorally themselves? Such hypocrisy.