Don't Get Me Wrong (7 page)

And I remember thinking, No, this is the way it works: you'll have a good time, he'll have a good time, and I'll just sit there getting in the way. Like I always do. Sitting on the big gray pebbles watching you and him cavorting in the waves.

I'd spent years trying to make sense of it. Once Eva was sitting in the garden playing her guitar, pretending to be Mama Cass (which she really could do, pretty much, because she had
the same kind of voice), and I went and sat next to her on the grass, pulling at those stiff stalks that stick up all over the place and never break, just bend. When she'd stopped singing, and was letting her fingers walk over the strings, trying out new sounds, I said, “Why does Harry spend so much time at our house?”

It was probably that same summer as the Brighton trip. Or maybe the year before, when I was doing my GCSEs.

She said, “Why? Don't you like it?”

Even then, we weren't always straight with each other. I don't know why. Maybe in case the truth was too frightening. “I just wondered.”

She smiled and picked out the tune of “It's Getting Better.”

I said, “Doesn't he have a home of his own?”

“Have you asked him?”

Me? Why would I ask him anything? “No.”

“Maybe you should.”

Why? Why can't you tell me?

But Eva had a way of sliding off anything she didn't want to talk about. There wasn't any point in haranguing her when that happened. You could go on and on asking questions forever and she'd just smile.

The worst time was my birthday. My eighteenth birthday. Saturday morning. February 2003. We were sitting there in the kitchen, Christine and Damaris from next door, Eva and me. Mum wasn't there. We hadn't seen her for days. She'd gone off to have dinner at the Ritz and never came back.

And then the doorbell rang, and Eva smiled, the way she does, and I thought, OK, so this is some kind of surprise she's
cooked up for today, and I was so excited I could hardly breathe, and then suddenly, filling the doorway, there was Harry. Grinning from ear to ear. And the atmosphere changed because Damaris looked down, all flustered, and Christine started fussing about whether he'd had breakfast, and Eva was all shiny, like she always is when he's around. And he handed me a tiny blue box with a white ribbon. Everything was in slow motion. Time became all long and pulled out, like a slippery silk scarf. On the box, it said
TIFFANY & CO
, and inside were diamond earrings. In the shape of flowers. Daisies.

Christine said, Well, Harry, in a voice that was almost disapproving, like she thought he'd spent half his yearly salary (because she didn't know he was always throwing money around on flash holidays and restaurants). Damaris was making silly, girly, fluttery noises, which she never did, because she had her head screwed on and was going to be a doctor. And Eva said, Shall I help you put them in?

It's hard putting earrings in for someone else. You can't find the holes, and it takes ages, and it's like waiting for water to boil when the gas isn't even alight. I sat there, in my old jeans and Bikini Kill T-shirt, and the longer it went on, the more I wanted to cry, because it was all ruined, everything was ruined. He was making some kind of point, but I didn't know what it was. Except that it was big and male and squashed me flat so I couldn't breathe.

Then Eva stood back and said, They're beautiful, they're so beautiful.

And I looked up, and Harry was staring at me. I hated it. I felt myself going bright red. And for a moment, I thought he
was going to come out with one of his horrible remarks, one of those lazy laughing digs at my feminist reading group, or being antinuclear, or trying to wake people up to climate change, and I tensed, waiting, just waiting for that big grin before he put the knife in, that big grin that said, Lighten up, Kim, lost your sense of humor, can't you take a joke?

But he didn't smile. He just looked at me. And he said, in a quiet voice, Happy birthday.

And I had a really funny feeling that I'd done something wrong. And this made me mad, because all I'd done so far was get up, get dressed, open a card from my dad with a check in it, and tear the sparkly paper off presents from Eva and Damaris and Christine. What did he want me to do? Burst into tears and say, Oh, Harry, Harry, diamond earrings, you shouldn't have, just what I always wanted?

And we just stared at each other. And then he looked away.

I never wear them. Ever. They're in a drawer in my bedside table, still in their Tiffany box. I try not to see them even when I'm looking straight at them. Because they make me sad. And I don't know why.

“What are you doing up there?”

Eva was looking up from the landing beneath, her blue dressing gown tied over the bump. Eighteen weeks.

“I thought I ought to make a start at clearing out the loft.”

“Really?” Eva leant against the wall, looking exhausted. “I don't think anyone's been in there for years. There's probably even some of Dad's stuff up there.”

Which will go straight in the bin.

“And Harry's.”

“There's Harry's stuff up here?”

Eva nodded.

“Why?”

“Oh, you know,” she said vaguely. “Boxing gloves.”

“What?”

“Boxing gloves.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Eva yawned and rubbed her eyes. “You know. Right hook. Jab. Uppercut. Do you want a cup of tea?”

And she wandered off downstairs to brew up raspberry leaf or chamomile or whatever pregnancy-friendly health-food stuff she was drinking, and I stood there on the aluminum ladder—half in the loft, half out—and thought, Boxing? No. Not Harry. Harry doesn't fight people.

He just hurts them by laughing at them.

•  •  •

“And then I got to the box on the form that said,
Why do you want to be a teacher?
And I thought, But I don't. I don't want to be a teacher.” Izzie looked up in distress.

It was a Saturday afternoon in late August. Every so often, the foundations of the Nunhead house shook as cars with speakers the size of dog kennels boomed their way past. The air was flat and useless, as if someone had sucked all the goodness out of it. Izzie had just arrived from Newcastle. She quite often dressed in a slightly haphazard way, like someone decorating a cake who starts off with chocolate buttons and decides halfway through that lattice icing would look much better. Kim suspected her mind was usually on other things. But today, her
choices seemed even more random than usual. Izzie was wearing small brown ankle boots, a long red taffeta skirt, a man's black waistcoat with silver buttons, and a double row of pearls. Her wild brown hair was piled on top of her head and secured with a pencil. The overall effect, strangely, was demure and conservative, like Edith Wharton at her country estate.

Kim, who only ever wore black jeans and a T-shirt, was deeply impressed.

“So I don't know what to do,” said Izzie, on the brink of tears. “I thought I had it all worked out. And now it's unraveling. Like a piece of bad knitting.”

Kim took a deep breath. This called for clear thinking. “OK, let's start with the negatives. You don't want to teach. What else do you definitely not want to do?”

“Live with my parents.”

Kim opened her mouth to speak and shut it again.

“It doesn't stop. Ever since I told them I'd changed my mind. ‘You don't have to teach forever, pet. But it's a useful skill to fall back on. Because you know life's not easy these days. There are bills to pay. There's gas and electric and water. And then you've got your Council Tax. Not to mention food. Have you seen the prices? Your father and I love having you here. Of course we do. But once we're gone, how are you going to manage?' ”

It was as if Izzie's mother was sitting in the room.

“It's not funny,” said Izzie.

Kim wiped the smile off her face. “So you don't want to be a teacher. And you don't want to live with your parents. Is there anything you do want to do?”

Izzie hesitated.

“What?” said Kim.

“Live in London.”

Kim's face lit up. “With me?”

“I could look after Eva's baby. In return for a free room.”

Kim frowned. “I might not be living with Eva.”

“Why?”

“I'm not that keen on living somewhere that Harry's paying for.”

Izzie opened her eyes wide. “He's going to pay for it? A whole flat?”

Kim nodded.

“What's that if it isn't a guilty conscience?”

As usual, whenever conversation turned to Harry, Kim felt herself squirming and coiling, like a worm exposed to sunlight. She said, to change the subject, “So what are you going to do? If you're not going to teach?”

Izzie shrugged. “Earn some money.”

“Doing what?”

“Stacking shelves?”

Kim looked gloomy. “I think you need a master's to do that these days.”

“Oh,” said Izzie, shocked. “You didn't get it? The research job?”

“I still haven't heard anything.” Kim bit her lip. “I'm trying not to think about it. But it was perfect. A national charity campaigning against homelessness.”

“Which, given your personal circumstances,” said Izzie, “sounds ideal.”

•  •  •

Whenever she and Harry were alone together without Eva, Kim felt embarrassed. They were like two politicians meeting in a corridor in Brussels, desperately in need of a translator.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, Eva was upstairs asleep when Kim got back from the supermarket. Eva often disappeared to her room these days. “It's all these baby cells multiplying and growing,” she'd say. “It's exhausting.” Kim wandered into the kitchen, carrying her plastic carrier bags, to find Harry sitting at the table. It shouldn't have surprised her. He still treated the Nunhead house as his second home. But her heart banged unpleasantly at the sight of him. One moment she was thinking about nothing very much—the crunch of Cox's apples, how Condoleezza Rice found time to play the piano. The next she was on red alert, marshalling her thoughts into a defensive position, turning herself into a fiercely guarded fortress with archers on the turrets and boiling oil at the ready.

Harry had the local paper open on the table in front of him. “So where should it be?”

“What?”

“Eva's new flat.”

Kim put the shopping on the working surface by the kettle. “Ask Eva.”

“I have asked Eva. She said to ask you.”

Kim frowned. “Why?”

“Because she wants to be near you. Obviously.”

Kim turned her back and took out an economy jar of store-brand instant coffee. “Izzie and I are looking round New Cross.”

“Very edgy.”

“Edgy?”

“On trend.”

“You have no idea,” said Kim, swinging round to face him, “what you're talking about.”

Harry laughed.

“We're looking round New Cross because that's all we can afford.”

“I could help.”

“No.”

“Just no?”

Kim narrowed her eyes. “I don't want your help.”

Harry sat back in his chair. “Look at it this way. I work in the City and make an obscene amount of money. You've just got a short-term charity job that will pay you almost nothing. If I make a small contribution towards your rent, it's a redistribution of wealth. Social justice in action. The triumph of New Labour.”

“It's not funny.”

“I'm not joking.”

Kim glared at him. “You're Eva's friend. If you want to pay for her flat, that's fine.” It's your bloody baby. “But you're not my friend. I don't want any money from you.”

Harry put his hand on his heart as if she'd wounded him. “Not your friend?”

“No.”

Harry looked down at the table. After a while, he said, “Eva's the only family I've got.”

For a moment, fleetingly, Kim wondered what he meant.

“She looked after me when I needed her. So I want to look after her.”

Oh, thought Kim. A new little game. Harry's soft and caring side. Showing just enough emotion to bring me to heel. But I won't play. I can tell, just from looking at your face, that you're hiding what you really think. “I'm not stopping you looking after her.”

Harry waited.

“But I don't want you to look after me.”

There was something in his eyes she couldn't read. It was like standing in a lit doorway trying to make out the shadows in a darkened room.

Harry gave an exaggerated sigh. “So we're back to where we started. I'm going to rent a flat for Eva. Where should it be?”

“Somewhere surrounded by trees.”

“Why?”

Kim shrugged as if his question was incredibly stupid. “Because she likes them.”

She looked down at Harry with what she hoped was a slightly patronizing expression. But somehow it all went wrong. He stared back, and there was a long and embarrassing pause. Her superiority dissolved into a kind of panic.

Oh, I wish he'd just leave me alone, she thought, turning away to unpack the shopping.

•  •  •

The brick wall was covered with graffiti—great circular shapes, like commas, in blue and white, covering fat red letters that spelt out
STUK
. It had been the same for years, thought Harry. But getting more and more faded. Maybe the artist didn't use his spray cans under the arches anymore.

Tommy's Gym was hidden on the outskirts of Brixton beneath the suburban railway line that ran into Victoria Station. It wasn't a secret. All the locals knew it was there. But if you were a stranger to the area, you'd be unlikely to run across it by mistake. From the street, it looked like some kind of shabby warehouse. The windows, with wire-mesh glass, were so high up that you couldn't see inside at all. In the old days, when Harry first came with Killian, the Dubliner with dreadlocks, you had to knock to be let in. Now you punched in a code. Five nine eight one. Easy to remember. Eva's birthday.