The Family Upstairs(32)

‘Come Sunday,’ he says. ‘Come for lunch. It’s Joy’s day off Sunday so we’ll have the place to ourselves.’

She feels the bile rise from her stomach to the base of her throat. ‘What time?’ she manages to ask breezily.

‘Let’s say one. I’ll put some steaks on the barbecue. You can make that thing you used to make, what was it? With the bread and tomatoes?’

‘Panzanella.’

‘That’s the one. God, you used to make that so well.’

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘thank you. I hope I’ve still got the magic touch.’

‘Yeah. Your magic touch. I really, really miss your magic touch.’

Lucy laughs. She says goodbye, she says she’ll see him on Sunday at 1 p.m. Then she puts down the phone, runs to the toilet and throws up.





23




CHELSEA, 1990


In the summer of 1990, when I had just turned thirteen, I came upon my mother one afternoon on the landing. She was placing piles of clean bedding in the airing cupboard. Once upon a time we’d had our laundry taken away once a week in a small van with gold lettering on the side and then returned to us a few days later in immaculate bales wrapped in ribbon or hanging from wooden hangers under plastic sheets.

‘What happened to the laundry service?’ I asked.

‘What laundry service?’

Her hair had grown long. She had not, as far as I was aware, had it cut in the two years since the other people had moved in with us. Birdie wore her hair long, and so did Sally. My mother had worn her hair in a bob. Now it was past her shoulder blades and parted in the middle. I wondered if she was trying to be like the other women, in the same way that I was trying to be like Phin.

‘Remember? That old man who came in the white van to collect our laundry, and he was so tiny you used to worry that he wouldn’t be able to carry it all?’

My mother’s gaze panned slowly to the left, as though remembering a dream, and she said, ‘Oh yes. I forgot about him.’

‘How come he doesn’t come any more?’

She rubbed her fingertips together, and I looked at her with alarm. I knew what the gesture meant, and it was something I’d long suspected, but this was the first time I’d had it confirmed to me. We were poor.

‘But what happened to all Dad’s money?’

‘Shhh.’

‘But I don’t understand.’

‘Shhh!’ she said again. And then she pulled me gently by the arm into her bedroom and sat me on her bed. She held my hand in hers and she stared hard at me. I noticed she wasn’t wearing any eye make-up and wondered when that had stopped. So many things had changed so slowly over such a long period of time that it was hard sometimes to spot the joins.

‘You have to promise, promise, promise,’ she said, ‘not to talk to anyone else about this. Not your sister. Not the other children. Not the grown-ups. Nobody, OK?’

I nodded hard.

‘And I’m only telling you because I trust you. Because you’re sensible. So don’t let me down, OK?’

I nodded even harder.

‘Dad’s money ran out a long time ago.’

I gulped.

‘What, like, all of it?’

‘Basically.’

‘So, what are we living on?’

‘Dad’s been selling stocks and shares. There’s still a couple of savings accounts. If we can live on thirty pounds a week we’ll be OK for at least a couple of years.’

‘Thirty pounds a week?’ My eyes bulged. My mother used to spend thirty pound a week on fresh flowers alone. ‘But that’s impossible!’

‘It’s not. David’s sat down with us and worked it all out.’

‘David? But what does David know about money? He doesn’t even have a house!’

‘Shhh.’ She put her finger to her lips and glanced warily at the bedroom door. ‘You’ll have to trust us, Henry. We’re the grown-ups and you’re just going to have to trust us. Birdie’s bringing money in with her fiddle lessons. David’s bringing money in with his exercise classes. Justin’s making loads of money.’

‘Yes, but they’re not giving any to us, are they?’

‘Well, yes. Everyone is contributing. We’re making it work.’

And that was when it hit me. Hard and clear.

‘Is this a commune now?’ I asked, horrified.

My mother laughed as though this was a ridiculous suggestion. ‘No!’ she said. ‘Of course it isn’t!’

‘Why can’t Dad just sell the house?’ I asked. ‘We could go and live in a little flat somewhere. It would be really nice. And then we’d have loads of money.’

‘But this is not just about money, you do know that, don’t you?’

‘Then what?’ I said. ‘What is it about?’

She sighed, softly, and massaged my hand with her thumbs. ‘It’s, well, it’s about me, I suppose. It’s about how I feel about myself and how I’ve felt so sad for so long and how all of this’ – she gestured around her grand bedroom with its swagged curtains and glistening chandelier – ‘doesn’t make me happy, it really doesn’t. And then David came and he’s shown me another way to live, a less selfish way. We have too much, Henry. Can you see that? Way, way too much, and when you have too much it drags you down. And now the money has virtually gone it is a good time to change, to think about what we eat and what we use and what we spend and how we fill our days. We have to give to the world, not keep taking from it. You know, David …’ I heard her voice ring like a spoon against a wine glass when she said his name. ‘… he gives nearly all his money to charity. And now, with his guidance, we are doing the same. To give to needy people is so good for the soul. And the life we lived before, it was wasteful. So wrong. Do you see? But now, with David here to guide us, we can start to redress the balance.’