Read The Hand That First Held Mine Online
Authors: Maggie O'farrell
Tags: #Literary, #Psychological, #Family Life, #Historical, #Fiction
The Hand That First Held Mine (2 page)
As she says this, Alexandra gets her first proper look at the peeping Tom. He has hair quite a bit longer than she has ever seen on a man. His shirt has an unusually high collar and is daffodil yellow. His suit is light grey needle cord and has no collar at all; the tie he is wearing is the colour of duck eggs. Alexandra comes two steps closer. Daffodils, her mind reiterates, duck eggs.
‘I wasn’t spying,’ the man is protesting, ‘I assure you. I’m seeking aid. I find myself in a bit of a fix. My car has broken down. Would you happen to know of a garage near here? I don’t mean to tear you away from your baby but I have to be back in London sharpish as I have a print deadline. Nightmare upon nightmare. Any assistance and I’m your grateful slave.’
She blinks. She has never heard anyone speak like this before.
Sharpish
,
fix
,
print deadline
,
nightmare upon nightmare
,
grateful slave
. She would like to ask him to say it all again. Then part of the speech filters through to her. ‘It’s not my baby,’ she snaps. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. It’s my mother’s.’
Sharpish
,
fix
,
print deadline
,
nightmare upon nightmare
,
grateful slave
. She would like to ask him to say it all again. Then part of the speech filters through to her. ‘It’s not my baby,’ she snaps. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. It’s my mother’s.’
‘Ah.’ The man inclines his head sideways. ‘I’m not sure I would categorise that as
nothing
to do with you.’
nothing
to do with you.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘No. It must at least be acknowledged as your sibling.’
There is a slight pause. Alexandra tries, without success, not to examine his clothes again. The shirt, that tie. Daffodils and eggs. ‘You’re from London, then?’ she asks.
‘I am.’
She sniffs. She adjusts the scarf across her forehead. She examines the bristles on the man’s chin and wonders why he hasn’t shaved. And, unfathomably, a half-formed plan of hers crystallises into a definite desire. ‘I’m planning,’ she says, ‘on going to live in London myself.’
‘Is that so?’ The man starts to rummage animatedly in his pockets. He brings out an enamelled green cigarette case, removes two cigarettes and offers her one. She has to lean over the hedge to take it.
‘Thank you,’ she says. He lights it for her, cupping the match in his hands, then uses the same match on his own cigarette. Close up, she thinks, he smells of hair-oil, cologne and something else. But he moves back before she can identify it.
‘Thanks,’ she says again, indicating the cigarette, and inhales.
‘And what,’ the man says, as he shakes out the match and tosses it aside, ‘may I ask, is holding you back?’
She thinks about this. ‘Nothing,’ she answers, and laughs. Because it’s true. Nothing stands in her way. She nods towards the house. ‘They don’t know yet. And they’ll be set against it. But they can’t stop me.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ he says, smoke curling from his mouth. ‘So, you’re running away to the capital?’
‘Running,’ Alexandra replies, drawing herself up to her full height, ‘but not away. You can’t run away from home if you’ve already left. I’ve been away at university.’ She takes a draw on her cigarette, glances towards the house, then back at the man. ‘Actually, I was sent down and—’
‘From university?’ the man cuts in, cigarette halfway to his mouth.
‘Yes.’
‘How very dramatic. For what crime?’
‘For no crime at all,’ she returns, rather more heatedly than necessary because the injustice of it still stings. ‘I was walking out of an exam and I came out of a door reserved for men. I’m not allowed to graduate unless I apologise. They,’ she nods again at the house, ‘didn’t even want me to go to university in the first place but now they’re not speaking to me until I go back and apologise.’
The man is looking at her as if committing her to memory. The stitching on his shirt is in blue cotton, she notices, the cuffs and the collar. ‘And are you going to apologise?’
She flicks ash from her cigarette and shakes her head. ‘I don’t see why I should. I didn’t even know it was only for men. There was no sign. And I said to them, “Well, where’s the door for women?” and they said there wasn’t one. So why should I say sorry?’
‘Quite. Never say sorry unless you are sorry.’ They smoke for a moment, not looking at each other. ‘So,’ the man says, eventually, ‘what are you going to do in London?’
‘I’m going to work of course. Though I might not get a job,’ she says, suddenly despondent. ‘Someone told me that for secretarial work you need a typing speed of sixty words per minute and I’m currently up to about three.’
He smiles. ‘And where will you be living?’
‘You ask a lot of questions.’
‘Force of habit.’ He shrugs unapologetically. ‘I’m a journalist, among other things. So. Your digs. Where will they be?’
‘I don’t know if I want to tell you.’
‘Why ever not? I shan’t tell a soul. I’m very good about secrets.’
She throws her cigarette butt into the green, unfurling leaves of the hedge. ‘Well, a friend gave me the address of a house for single women in Kentish Town. She said—’
His face betrays only the slightest twitch of amusement. ‘A house for single women?’
‘Yes. What’s funny about that?’
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It sounds . . .’ he gestures ‘. . . marvellous. Kentish Town. We’ll be practically neighbours. I’m in Haverstock Hill. You should come and visit, if they allow you out.’
Alexandra arches her brows, as if pretending to think about it. Part of her doesn’t want to give in to this man. There is something about him that suggests he is used to getting his way. For some reason she thinks thwarting him would do him good. ‘That might be possible, I really don’t know. Perhaps—’
Unfortunately for everyone, Dorothy chooses that moment to make her entrance. Some signal on her maternal radar has informed her of a male predator in the vicinity of her eldest daughter. ‘May I help you?’ she calls, in a tone that contradicts the sentence.
Alexandra whirls around to see her mother advancing down the lawn, baby’s bottle held out like a pistol. She watches as Dorothy takes in the man, all the way from his light grey shoes to his collarless suit. By the sour turn to her mouth, Alexandra can tell at once that she does not like what she sees.
The man gives Dorothy a dazzling smile and his teeth appear very white against his tanned skin. ‘Thank you, but this lady,’ he gestures towards Alexandra, ‘was assisting me.’
‘My
daughter
,’ Dorothy stresses the word, ‘is rather busy this morning. Sandra, I thought you would be keeping an eye on the baby. Now, what can we—’
daughter
,’ Dorothy stresses the word, ‘is rather busy this morning. Sandra, I thought you would be keeping an eye on the baby. Now, what can we—’
‘
Alexandra!
’ Alexandra shouts at her mother. ‘My name is Alexandra!’ She is aware that she is behaving like a cross child but she cannot bear this man to think her name is Sandra.
Alexandra!
’ Alexandra shouts at her mother. ‘My name is Alexandra!’ She is aware that she is behaving like a cross child but she cannot bear this man to think her name is Sandra.
But her mother is adept at two things: ignoring her daughter’s tantrums and extracting information from people. Dorothy listens to the story about the broken-down car and, within seconds, has dispatched the man off down the road with directions to a mechanic. He looks back once, raises his hand and waves.
Alexandra feels something close to rage, to grief, as she hears his footsteps recede down the lane towards the village. To have been so close to someone like him and then for him to be snatched away. She kicks the tree stump, then the baby’s pram wheel. It is a particular brand of fury, peculiar to youth, that stifling, oppressive sensation of your elders outmanoeuvring you.
‘What on earth is wrong with you?’ Dorothy hisses, jiggling the pram handle because the baby has woken up, squawking and tussling. ‘I come down here to find you flirting with some – some gypsy over the hedge. In broad daylight! For all to see. Where is your sense of decorum? What kind of an example are you setting for your brothers and sisters?’
‘And, speaking of them,’ Alexandra pauses before adding, ‘
all of them
, where’s your sense of decorum?’ She sets off up the garden. She cannot spend another second in her mother’s company.
all of them
, where’s your sense of decorum?’ She sets off up the garden. She cannot spend another second in her mother’s company.
Dorothy stops jiggling the handle of the pram and stares after her, open-mouthed. ‘What do you mean?’ she shouts, forgetting momentarily the proximity of the neighbours. ‘How dare you? How dare you address me in such a fashion? I’ll be speaking to your father about this, I will, as soon as he—’
‘Speak! Speak away!’ Alexandra hurls over her shoulder as she sprints up the garden and crashes her way into the house surprising, as she does so, a patient of her father’s who is waiting in the hallway.
As she reaches the bedroom she is forced to share with three of her younger siblings, she can still hear her mother’s voice, screeching from the garden: ‘Am I the only one in this house to demand standards? I don’t know where you think you’re going. You’re supposed to be helping me today. You’re meant to be minding the baby. And the silver needs doing and the china. Who do you think is going to do it? The ghosts?’
E
lina jerks awake. She is puzzled by the darkness, by the way her heart is fluttering in her chest. She seems to be standing, leaning against a wall of surprising softness. Her feet feel a long way away from her. Her mouth is dry, her tongue stuck to her palate. She has no memory at all of what she is doing here, standing in the dark, dozing like this against a wall. Her mind is blank, like a ream of unmarked paper. She turns her head and suddenly, with a great heaving, everything swerves on its axis because she sees the window, she sees Ted next to her, she sees that she is not in fact standing. She is lying. On her back, hands clasped over her chest, a stone lady on a tomb.
lina jerks awake. She is puzzled by the darkness, by the way her heart is fluttering in her chest. She seems to be standing, leaning against a wall of surprising softness. Her feet feel a long way away from her. Her mouth is dry, her tongue stuck to her palate. She has no memory at all of what she is doing here, standing in the dark, dozing like this against a wall. Her mind is blank, like a ream of unmarked paper. She turns her head and suddenly, with a great heaving, everything swerves on its axis because she sees the window, she sees Ted next to her, she sees that she is not in fact standing. She is lying. On her back, hands clasped over her chest, a stone lady on a tomb.
The room is filled with the sound of breathing. A pipe somewhere in the house shudders, then falls silent. There is a slight scratching on the roof tiles above her, like the clawed foot of a bird.
It must have been the baby who woke her, shifting its curled position inside her, stirring perhaps after a long sleep, a leg kicking out, a hand flailing against skin. It’s been happening a lot lately.
Elina swivels her head to look around the darkened room. The furniture, crouching blackly in the corners, the blind over the window that glows with same dirty orange as the streetlights. Ted beside her, hunched under the duvet. Books are piled up on Ted’s bedside table, his mobile phone glows green in the gloom. On her bedside table there is a stack of something that looks in the dark like outsize handkerchiefs.
There is another noise that comes from somewhere near Elina’s head, a sharp, sudden
heh-heh
sound, like someone clearing their throat.
heh-heh
sound, like someone clearing their throat.
She starts to turn over in bed, towards Ted, but she is struck with a searing pain in her stomach, as if her skin is splitting, as if someone is holding a blowtorch against her. It makes her gasp and she puts down her hands to check, to reassure herself with the feel of the drum-tight skin, the swell of the baby. But there’s nothing there. Her hands encounter only space. No swollen bump. No baby. She clutches her stomach and feels deflated, loose skin.
Elina struggles upright – the scald of that pain again – letting out a strange, hoarse scream, and seizes Ted by the shoulder. ‘Ted,’ she says.
He groans, burying his face in the pillow.
She shakes him. ‘Ted. Ted, the baby’s gone – it’s gone.’
He springs from the bed and stands in the middle of the room, in just a pair of shorts, his hair spiked, his face stricken. Then his shoulders slump. ‘What are you talking about?’ he says. ‘He’s right there.’
‘Where?’
He points again. ‘There. Look.’
Elina looks. There is indeed something on the floor beside her. In the half-darkness, it appears to be a bed that a dog might sleep in, an oval basket. Except this one has handles and inside it something is swaddled in white. ‘Oh,’ she says. She reaches for the light switch, clicks it on and the room is immediately flooded with yellow brightness. ‘Oh,’ she says again. She looks down at the empty skin of her stomach, then at the baby. She turns to Ted, who has flopped down again on the bed, muttering about how she’d scared the shit out of him.
‘I had the baby?’ she says.
Ted, caught in the act of plumping his pillow, stops. His face is uncertain, frightened. Don’t be frightened, she wants to say, it’s all right. But instead she says, ‘I had it?’ because she needs to establish this: she needs to ask, to vocalise it, to hear it asked.
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