The Other Me (30 page)

‘I wrote to him. I don’t think he got the letter. Communication was sporadic, unreliable. It felt as though we’d been forgotten. After the war was over, they kept us locked up for three more years.’ I turn my face so that I look at her with my good eye. ‘What did Otto tell you about me?’

She shifts in her seat, crosses her legs. ‘He told me that you were never close. Even as children. That you had your life in America, and it was too far and too expensive for us to visit, and anyway, he said there was no communication between you… he said it was better that way.’

She reaches across the table and takes hold of my hand. I flinch. She examines my fingers, runs her own small fingers over the blunt, reddened ends of mine. I feel the squirm of shame in my belly.

‘And how did you lose these?’

‘Frostbite.’

She winces, screws up her face. ‘How did you manage to survive all of that… all that horror… without God?’

‘I believe in man, not God. I believe in the good in people. Even inside all of that evil, good existed.’

She places her other hand over the top of mine, so that I’m cushioned inside her fingers. ‘What you see as goodness – that’s what I see as God.’ She lets go of me. ‘I think I will try some of that drink now.’

I watch her moisten her lips from my glass, a grimace contorting her features. Then she tips her head back and downs the lot. She gasps and blows out through her mouth.

I smile. ‘Take it easy. We don’t want you getting drunk.’

She unscrews the cap, refilling the glass. ‘Maybe I want to.’

We stand at the sink, shoulder to shoulder, as if we’ve known each other for years. She scrapes at streaks of mashed potato, washes and rinses our plates, handing them to me to dry; I stack the dishes on the draining board; she flicks soapy suds at me, giggling like a schoolgirl, and I see that she’s languid with drink. Her movements have that loose, unfettered feel, and when she slips on a pool of water, losing her balance, she clutches at my sleeve with a chirruping laugh.

Our domestic duties done, we go into the neat parlour and I set the needle down gently on a Billie Holiday record. Gwyn turns off the overhead light, bends to switch on a side lamp. We collapse on the sofa, heavy with drink and food, our heads lolling back, and I ask her how she met Otto.

‘There was a lot of freedom for the prisoners, especially the ones who worked on the farm, like Otto.’ Gwyn tugs at the neck of her jumper, so that I glimpse a roseate stain over her collarbone, the flush spreading towards her chin. ‘He looked like a film star. He was different with me. He talked to me. Opened up. It was like being with a wild creature that would let only you touch it.’ She sits forward, perching on the edge of her seat. ‘When he told me he loved me,’ she gives a small shrug, ‘I was overwhelmed. I loved him too. I left my home and family for him.’

‘And do you love him now?’

I shouldn’t have asked her. I begin to apologise, but she puts her hand on my knee. ‘I’m a grown woman. Not a little girl anymore. Love means something different. He needs me. He’s the loneliest person I’ve ever known. He breaks my heart.’

I can’t concentrate on her words; her touch is making my nerves hum. My muscles contract with yearning. ‘Come on,’ I get to my feet abruptly. ‘Let’s dance.’

I wait, holding out my arms. She uncurls herself slowly and stands for a moment, like a swimmer at the edge of an ocean. And then she steps forward over the brink, into my embrace.

‘I haven’t danced in years,’ she murmurs.

I inhale. A scent of lavender comes from inside her clothes. Her hair reminds me of apples and butter; stale cooking smells coil inside it, rise from the wool of her jumper. Her breasts move against my chest; my hands slip down to circle her waist. The button on her skirt is under my fingers. She rests her cheek against my shoulder, and we sway together, letting the music hold us.

One song stops and another begins. Billie Holiday is singing ‘All of Me’. Gwyn shivers. Saxophone notes fill the small room. I keep my eyes closed, losing myself in the scent and the texture of her. Billie Holiday’s voice is imploring,
take my lips, I want to lose them
.

I know it’s a mistake. But I don’t pull away. I can’t. Gwyn is drunk. I know that too. But when she tilts her head towards me, I put my mouth over hers. It feels as though I am coming home. Music and shadows cling to us, wrapping us inside a sense of safety, of secrecy. It feels as though what is happening between us has nothing to do with the rest of the world.

It is she that leads the way up the narrow stairs and into my bedroom. I hold her hand and stumble in the darkness. She pulls the orange curtains across the window. She doesn’t speak, taking off her jumper in one impatient unpeeling; she does a strange little wriggle as she pushes her skirt and slip over her hips with rough tugs, letting them drop around her ankles and kicking them away. Her breathing quickens, and she gasps in frustration when her stocking twists and catches over her foot. I kneel below her and try to help, my stumpy fingers fumbling about her heel, yanking at slippery, taut fabric. And then we are naked, with no space between us.

We fall onto the bed, pushing awkward limbs under the covers, clinging to each other. I press my mouth to the smooth inside of her wrist, the tick of her pulse trembling under my lips. I need to know the contours of her body, want to imprint the shape of her onto my soul. The way her skin feels against mine is more than the flickering of sensations, more than a sexual turn-on. It is human. She is crying. She takes my head in her hands and kisses my blind eye, licks all the tight, pale lines of my scar with the tip of her tongue.

PART THREE

THE TELLING

KLAUDIA

1996, London

When the letter comes from the Laban Centre, I grab the envelope from the mat almost before it has had time to waft down from the letterbox. I’m unable to stop my fingers shaking as I rip it open.

Words repeat in my head. They are inviting me to come for an audition. Relief makes me tremble. In the kitchen, I stand by the window and look out at the garden. It’s been battered by rain. Patches of bruised dirt show through the lawn. My audition is after Christmas, in January next year, so I’ll have plenty of time to prepare. I’ve already sent Josh a note apologising, explaining that I won’t embarrass everyone by coming back to work. I’ll have to look for a new job. Find a place to live. Rehearse. One day at a time, I tell myself. I feel like an invalid. But this is something to keep going for.

My father moves behind me, his heavy tread making the floorboards creak. I clutch the letter and turn to face him.

‘I have an audition. For the dance school.’

He doesn’t appear to hear. He’s boiling the kettle, bending to take out a cup and saucer.

‘If I get in, I won’t turn the opportunity down. I can’t,’ I say loudly, watching for his reaction.

He drops a tea bag into his cup. I hover by the window, waiting.

‘I’m sorry if you don’t think I’m doing the right thing,’ I blurt out. ‘I’m sorry if you’re disappointed.’

He pours the boiling water and turns his head, raising his pale eyes slowly. ‘I don’t agree with this dancing nonsense, Klaudia. But I’ve changed my mind. You can stay.’ He stirs his cup. ‘I was too hasty. You’re… you’re my last link with your mother.’

I unstick my lips, holding my breath.

‘Sometimes, I look at you and suddenly there she is.’ He stares at me, his expression brightening. ‘My Gwyn. Her smile shining out of your face.’

‘I… I didn’t think I looked anything like… her. Like Mum.’

A strange warmth seeps through my limbs: the child in me squirming inside his unexpected approval.

‘Not your colouring, no,’ he waves a hand as if conducting a jerky piece of music. ‘And you don’t have her spirit. Her goodness. But I see her features in you, even the way you laugh, sometimes you sound like her.’

I take a step closer, wanting to touch him. ‘I know how much you miss her…’ My voice breaks. ‘I do too.’

He clears his throat, and his cup and saucer clatter together, spilling tea. He puts the saucer back on the counter and rips off a piece of kitchen roll. His hand is trembling.

I sit in the hall, cross-legged on the carpet, hugging the phone to me, twirling the cable round and round my hand, as if I can pull Meg closer, reel her in. Within moments, the easy banter that we shared at university comes back; and I hunch over the mouthpiece with her voice in my ear.

We have so much to catch up on. It’s a relief to tell the truth. Not to watch my words, make sure I don’t slip up. I tell her everything that has happened since we left each other at the airport up until the moment I danced at the burlesque club. ‘And Cosmo was there to see you dance?’ she laughs. ‘Wish I’d seen you too, strutting your stuff. And I bet his face would have been a picture… what happened? Did you sort it out?’

‘No,’ I admit. ‘I put off telling him the truth, and then he found out in the worst way possible. Someone from my past showed up straight after I came off stage. He told Cosmo that I wasn’t Eliza.’ I lean over my legs. ‘And so now he despises me.’

‘How do you know he despises you?’ Her voice comes down the line. And I hear the cynicism in it, Meg preparing to argue.

‘You didn’t see the way he looked at me,’ I say quickly. ‘Anyway, he’s in Rome now. He only came back for a couple of days.’ I change the subject, because there is nothing to be gained in going over it. It hurts too much. Instead, I tell her about my plans to switch degrees. The audition at the Laban Centre. Meg is supportive, interested.

‘And what was all that about your father?’ she asks.

I am silent, squeezing the receiver. I’d forgotten that I’d mentioned him in the letter.

‘You said you thought he was a Nazi or something?’

I am aware of my father moving around upstairs. His slow steps cross the landing and the bathroom door shutting.

‘Not a Nazi,’ I whisper. ‘He’s German. It’s complicated. I’ll explain when we meet.’

We keep talking, slipping easily into other subjects, reminiscing, laughing. The objects around me melt away: the rise of stairs, bannisters, side-table legs, coats hanging on pegs and the front door with its oblong of frosted glass. I am lying on my bed in my room with Meg flopped next to me, a half-drunk bottle of wine on the floor; we’re sitting across a table in Café Flo bleary-eyed with our cups of coffee, sharing a Kit-Kat, or looking into the Seine with the frosty air making clouds between us.

When I put the phone down, my hand is cramped and aching. My ear sweaty where I’d pinned the receiver to it. I get up off the floor stiffly, aware that my one-sided conversation would have sounded loud in the silent house.

My father comes out of the bathroom, switching the light off behind him with a sharp tug on the dangling cord.

‘My friend from Leeds,’ I explain. ‘She’s a dancer too.’

I hope he’ll ask me about her. I would like to share it with him. But he just grunts, and disappears into his room. I realise that he hasn’t done his morning exercises recently. He looks shrunken. He moves carefully, as if his joints hurt. And he is always alone. He manages chapel once a week, but he hasn’t gone to prayer meetings since Mum died. If only he had some friends. I remember the old Caribbean men that sat around tables in the Atlantic pub in Brixton with their games of dominoes. How they laughed and slapped each other on the back, their glasses of rum by their elbows. The easy curl of their talk, the banter slipping and sliding between them as they slumped over the table.

The house is a shrine to my mother. Both of us seem to be stuck, and I have no idea what to do about it. I go to bed wishing for something to happen, some unexpected event that will shake us free of each other and the past. I’ve been investing my hopes in my audition, imagining the kind of life I could have if I got a place at Laban and moved out of here. But that was before my father said that I reminded him of Mum, before I saw that he was vulnerable too.

I kneel on the floor in front of the under-sink cupboards and root around for cloths, disinfectants and polish.

After I left home, my ingrained habits of cleanliness were hard to break. When I moved in with Meg and Lucy, I couldn’t stop myself from tidying up their dirty dishes and mess. They never made their beds or cleaned the bath.

One of Lucy’s sisters, visiting from Manchester, a Greenham Common badge on her jumper, began to lecture me when I rolled up my sleeves to wash the kitchen floor. ‘It’s only dirt.’ Her mouth turned down. ‘Do you think women starved themselves to death and threw themselves under horses to get the vote so that you can play into the male perception of the little woman?’

It shocked me to realise that I hadn’t really escaped my upbringing. It was ingrained. It hadn’t occurred to me to be interested in politics. I’d been too busy trying to fit in, trying not to draw attention to myself. Politics reminded me of Shane, his leaflets and his hard fists. I was ashamed that I was so narrow-minded and conventional. The endless round of domestic tasks that I’d been brought up with at home seemed trivial and useless.

But here I am with a scrubbing brush in my hand, because I can’t think what else to give my father as a peace offering. I balance precariously on a stool in the bathroom and rub at the limescale on the showerhead, breaking a nail. I use vinegar and newspaper on the windows, the way Mum always used to. In my parents’ room, I drag the bed and chest of drawers to one side so that I can vacuum properly, going underneath things, sucking the clumps of grime that have gathered in the gloom. I push thoughts of Cosmo back into the shadows, concentrating on bringing a shine to furniture, purging the place of dust and cobwebs, scrubbing at surfaces as if I could wipe everything clean.

It’s as I move the small table on my mother’s side of the bed that I notice the writing on the wall. The furniture had been covering it. Letters scratched into the paper. I lean close.
Help me.

I catch my breath and re-read the words, my finger touching torn paper, the jagged meaning rough under my skin.
Help me
. The uneven letters look as though they’ve been made with the point of a pair of nail scissors. I reel back, my heart thumping, and clamp my hand over my mouth. Reading those words brings Mrs Perkins’ sour face close, her lips opening and closing. ‘Your mother,’ she’s saying. ‘Screaming at night.’ And Mum’s coat hangs in the hall, when of course it shouldn’t be there at all, because she would have worn it when she left the house. Her stepping out in front of a car, as if she was ever careless of traffic. None of it made sense. It has never made sense.