Don't Get Me Wrong (26 page)

“So what's new?” said Eva.

She doesn't even look like herself. The lines of her face are blurred and blubbery like someone made up in a film to look fat. Like Gwyneth Paltrow in
Shallow Hal
.

“I haven't been out much,” said Eva, “what with all this going on.”

The skin around the Hickman line was red and inflamed.

“I'm sorry I wasn't here.”

“You didn't need to be.”

I shouldn't have gone to Cardiff. I should have postponed
it. What's the point of it all, anyway? As Izzie says, If I keep on getting rid of people, there won't be anyone left to manage. I'll do myself out of a job.

“You clean it out with saline solution once a week,” said Eva. “To stop infection.”

Kim felt sick. “Do you need help with it?”

Eva smiled. “You?”

Why not me? Am I incapable? Kim took a deep breath.

“It's OK,” said Eva. “The nurse does it.”

Kim swallowed. “How's Otis?”

“He draws me pictures. To cheer me up. The Macmillan nurse is great. She's spending a lot of time with him. Helping him to understand.”

Kim felt suddenly tired and cold, as if she'd been out all night. She looked down at her lap.

“It's what I worry about most,” said Eva. “Because he's so little. I don't want him to think it's his fault.”

Kim heard a distant hum as if some brand-new appliance had switched itself on. Maybe it'll happen to us all one day. Maybe we'll all have lines going in, plastic tubes delivering energy, sugar, drugs.

“Kim?”

Like
The Matrix
in reverse.

“It's different for everyone. I know that.”

Kim wanted to look up, but it was way beyond her.

“Some people don't want to talk about it.”

It seemed as if Eva's voice was coming from a long way off, echoing, like a lifeguard shouting from the side of the pool.
Through the tears in her eyes, Kim saw the grain in the fabric of her black jeans magnified to tiny stitches.

“It's fine if you don't want to talk. Really.”

Kim said nothing.

“It's OK,” said Eva.

Kim's head shot up. She wanted to shout, It's not OK. It's not OK at all. It's evil and ugly and disgusting. Why are you so calm? Why are you just sitting there, accepting it? You should be yelling and screaming and throwing things at the wall. You should be raging and wailing and fighting. But her sister's face was blank, like white paper. It made Kim mean. “It isn't OK for Otis.”

Eva didn't flinch. “I was going to ask you.”

No. That's not what I meant. I don't want to talk about this.

“I need to know. I need to have it written down.”

Kim was in a tunnel, Eva's voice a tiny speck of light.

“Having a child around will change your life.”

Please don't ask me.

“It might not be what you want.”

Why aren't you asking Harry?

“Will you?”

Kim opened her mouth to say something. But she couldn't speak. She felt as if someone had knotted a rope round her neck. So, after a while, she nodded.

Eva took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “When we're a bit nearer, we'll tell him together, so that he knows what's happening.”

Kim looked away.

“Whatever you do, however you do it, it will be the right way. I know that. I trust you.”

Please stop. Please stop.

“But can I ask one thing?” Eva sounded exhausted. “It's a big thing. Don't cut Harry out of your life.”

Kim couldn't help herself. The words rushed out like tiny black spiders from a burst sac. “And what does Harry say?”

“About what?”

Kim lost courage. “About this. About everything.”

Eva smiled, her eyelids closing. Sleep was overtaking her. “Harry,” she said with difficulty, “says we should all be drinking a lot more wine.”

•  •  •

Kim had never been to Leicester before. She got the one waiting taxi from the station to the street where her father lived. The cab driver had a beard and a turban. He wanted to talk about Michael Schumacher retiring from Formula 1, but Kim couldn't think of anything to say. She didn't like cars much. And she thought driving them fast in a circle until the tires blew, and bits of flappy burnt rubber flew all over the track, was faintly ridiculous.

When the taxi pulled into the street where her father lived, Kim was surprised. The houses were Edwardian and double fronted, well kept, each with a neat garden. Remembering the family home in Nunhead—the yolk-yellow paint of the kitchen, the broken concrete patio at the back, the missing tiles on the roof—Kim wondered whether she'd come to the right address.

Once she'd paid the driver, and the car had sped off down the street, she stood there, unable to move, wishing she hadn't come at all.

The porch of number 62 had been glazed over to protect it from wind and rain. Inside, on the red tiles, Kim could see a line of Wellington boots—two adult pairs in black, and two much smaller ones, a red pair and a blue pair, decreasing in size. His sons, thought Kim. The half brothers I've never met. How old would they be now? Twelve and eight? Jia was pregnant soon after he moved out to live with her. Sealing their relationship before he could change his mind.

Leaning against the wall were two umbrellas, one with turquoise-and-white stripes and one bright scarlet. I wonder what she's like, thought Kim. I wonder if he went for another Hitchcock heroine, with pale blond hair and a tiny waist.

Kim took a deep breath. She rang the bell.

For a long time, she heard nothing. She wanted to laugh. All this fuss and tension, and they're not here. At the cinema, maybe, or doing the supermarket shop. She started to wonder how long she'd wait if no one came to the door. They could be away the whole weekend. Gone to visit Jia's mother, perhaps. The grandparents Kim didn't know would be gathering up the little boys she'd never met in huge enveloping hugs before finding a stash of chocolate in a kitchen cupboard. Don't tell your mother. It's our secret.

Kim felt a tiny drop of rain. She lifted her face. The sky was turning dark gray.

And then the inner door opened and there, in the glass cabinet of the porch, was her father.

When he saw her, he didn't look surprised. Perhaps he didn't recognize her. After all, she'd been fourteen when he left—thinner, straighter, even angrier than she was now. He pulled open the outer door.

“Kim,” he said.

He made no move towards her. But then, he'd never been one for physical contact. They might have stayed like that, staring at each other, if it hadn't started to rain in earnest. He stood back, and she walked past him into the high-ceilinged hall, which seemed to be a corridor that ran all the way to the back of the house. She didn't know where to go, so she stood by the foot of the stairs waiting. And then he was by her side again, gesturing for her to go ahead, which is how she found herself in a great square kitchen full of light. At a rectangular wooden table, seated in front of the remains of Sunday lunch, was a woman with a red shirt and long black hair, and two boys who looked away quickly as soon as they saw her.

Her father said, “This is Kim.”

To her great credit, the woman pushed away her surprise very quickly and got to her feet, smiling. She was tiny, with dark eyes and high cheekbones. Asian. Very pretty. How does he do it, my father? How does he attract such good-looking women? It seemed, for a moment, such a complete mystery that Kim turned and stared up into his face, examining him carefully. Maybe it's because he looks so serious. A furrowed brow, as if he's thinking great thoughts.

Like a young Gregory Peck. You know Hitchcock's
Spellbound?

But if he is thinking great thoughts, he keeps them to himself.

“So would you like some tea?” said Jia. Her accent sounded Chinese.

Kim nodded.

“Your father didn't say you were coming.”

Because he didn't know. I didn't want to ring him at home in case Jia answered. I thought about ringing him at work because I had it at the back of my mind that he had a job at the university. In the library. Special collections. Ancient books on insects and Roman remains. But I wasn't sure. Not sure enough to make investigations. Not sure enough to track him down.

The younger boy was staring at her. He had his mother's high cheekbones and black hair. Kim thought her father might introduce them. But he didn't. He just stood there.

Jia was by the sink, filling up the kettle. “So you've come from London?”

“Yes.”

“And how is your mother?”

“Fine, thank you.” She glanced at her father. “She got married again.”

“That's nice,” said Jia.

The older boy said, “Dad, can I be excused?”

Kim's father just looked at him.

Jia came back to the table with a tray. “Sit down, Kim. Boys, you can go and watch TV.”

He does nothing, thought Kim. He just allows himself to be waited on. Kim sat down in the nearest chair, and her father settled himself opposite, and they both watched as Jia set down mugs of tea and a plate of pink sugary cookies on the table, and then rapidly refilled the tray with the detritus of lunch, piling
up plates and glasses, scooping a clatter of cutlery onto the top. Eventually, like a solo violin player against the background percussion of a full orchestra, her father said, “On the train?”

“What?” said Kim.

“You came on the train?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't drive?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don't have a car.”

Her father thought about this. “Have you got a job?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of job?”

“I'm regional development manager for a housing charity.”

“I would have thought,” said her father, frowning, “that you'd need a car for that kind of job.”

“No,” said Kim. “You don't.”

I suppose, thought Kim, he might have looked like a film star once. Years ago. If you squint and stare really hard, and take away the gray hair round the temples, you can sort of see bruised and smoldering. Like Eddie Redmayne. Or Adrien Brody.

Her father said, “Where do you live in London?”

“In Sydenham.”

“Pissarro.”

“What?”

“Camille Pissarro. French impressionist. There's a famous painting in the National Gallery. Called
The Avenue, Sydenham
.”

Small, disjointed scenes were struggling to play in Kim's mind. Her mother and father standing in the yellow kitchen in
Nunhead, both tense, her mother tearful, her father bewildered, her mother shouting, “What's wrong with you? Why do you never understand?” Her father's habit of coming home with useful things he'd found in Dumpsters—antique window stays, broken chairs, wicker cat baskets—which, because her mother refused to have them in the house, heaped themselves up outside like abandoned toys. His inability to pass up a bargain, even if he had no use for a mop, a garden hose, or a five-pack of golfing socks. His insistence on keeping all forms of documentation—old passports, used train tickets, guarantees for kettles long since thrown away—as if life was only real if you had a receipt.

“So, Kim, would you like a cookie?” said Jia.

I didn't realize, thought Kim, when I was fourteen, how strange this all was. How completely ill matched they were. It was as if my father was trying to make sense of random objects while my mother was trying to make sense of him. She wanted him to notice her. She was constantly flirting with him, eyes huge as if he was her only focus. Dancing round the living room, her 1950s skirts lifting in a perfect circle. That little laugh in her voice as she teased him. Look at me, look at me, look at me. And all the time, that same expression on his face—anxious, preoccupied, as if he couldn't really work out what was going on.

No wonder they couldn't stay together.

Jia said, “So how long are you in Leicester?”

Kim turned to her father. “I need to tell you about Eva.”

His expression didn't change.

“Your sister,” said Jia. “Who had the baby.”

“A little boy,” said Kim, still looking at her father and finding, to her distress, that her voice was trembling.

“I said he should see his grandson,” said Jia. “But he doesn't want to go to London.”

“Is that true? You didn't want to see him?”

Still, her father said nothing.

“I think maybe he wasn't sure he would be welcome.”

Kim whipped round, staring at Jia with furious eyes. “Do you always speak for him?”

“Most of the time. He's not good with people.”

Kim realized, to her intense surprise, that Jia wasn't trying to score points. She was just telling Kim what she thought was the truth.

“That's the thing with your father,” said Jia. “He's good at his job. He knows all the books in the library. But people confuse him. He doesn't know what they mean. So I tell him. I tell him what they mean.”

Kim swallowed. Her father was mute, like someone who doesn't speak the language.

“He earns the money. I do the rest.” Jia smiled. “When I can. Because he is very stubborn, your father. I remember when your sister wrote him a letter saying she was having a baby. And I said to him, So don't sell the house now. Because she needs somewhere to live. London is expensive. Help her. We don't need the money. But he wouldn't listen, because he said she was grown-up. She has to be responsible. And I said, But this is your daughter. And your grandchild. But he doesn't pay attention. Because he believes he is right.”

Kim's head was blank, like an empty wall.

“So,” said Jia briskly, “is that why you come today? Does
she need some money, your sister? Because I think your father should give her some money. For his grandson.”