Everything Has Changed Page 13

  ‘Ach, don’t mind me. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘She seems miles away sometimes. Like she’s not quite “in the room” – do you know what I mean? Or she’s worrying, maybe?’ Victoria looked at his beautiful teeth as he spoke. He seemed to really care. And Simon? Of course, the voice scolded, of course he cares, he’s marrying her.

  ‘Sorry you were saying?’

  He looked at her. ‘I’m saying, with Lulu – there’s something, a bit quare, you know, odd, out of reach, like,’ his voice softened. ‘She’s got such potential,’ he went on. ‘A long, long time ago I worked for a record company, as a talent scout. Things didn’t work out and I left, but it did give me, you know, clues about what to look for – for, well, talent.’ He looked ahead. A woman walked past them pushing a pram. The baby was just visible, tucked up under a yellow blanket, blissfully asleep. ‘Do you know why she walked away that day? When I ask her she just smiles, turns it into a joke, says, Do you know how stressful it is to go to West End auditions? But really, she’s just shutting me down. It’s just—’

  ‘Go on.’ Victoria shivered as she stared at the pram. A tiny head covered in a white bonnet, eyes closed shut. Victoria was lost in snatches of muddled memories, the pink ribbon, glittering mobiles… Suddenly Markie was speaking.

  ‘Look, it’s none of my business.’ Markie sat back.

  ‘Tell me Markie.’ Victoria took a sip of coffee. It was cold.

  ‘I don’t know – I just can’t see her in a house, with a mortgage and two-point-four kids, so I can’t.’

  And that was the problem. Neither could Victoria.

  19 Victoria

  Victoria clasped the brooch tightly in her fist. The pin at the edge pierced her skin and she flinched. She was setting the table in the kitchen; everyone was coming for lunch. James had given her the brooch when they were on holiday in Greece. Since she’d found those photos and that list, more had come back to her. It’s beautiful, like you. It was a white pebble, polished till it gleamed and there were tiny pearls surrounding it. She remembered the beach, Izzy and Jake had run into the waves and then come out and rolled in the sand. ‘Chicken nuggets’ they’d called them, pinching their toes. They must have been about five. And then James, holding a squealing twin under each arm, armbands bulging out the sides as he plunged into the water. She’d watched, her sarong gently flapping across her legs. There were flashes of vivid memory.

  Life had been uncomplicated, hadn’t it? They loved each other, they had two adorable children, James was trying for promotion and they were trying for another baby – or were they? It was a bit fuzzy. And then what? It seemed life had come along; the twins had grown up and they’d mismanaged their marriage. Had all the wet towels on the floor, the unanswered text messages, the late hours at the office, the headache of bringing up twins with two sets of everything from homework to nits – had that all seeped into the fibre of their marriage like rain soaking through a faulty roof, until the rot had set in?

  It made her think of Rachel, an old school-friend, when she’d come round, sobbing. She could remember this clearly. Actual heaving breaths when she had opened the door to her. Told them that she and Rob were separating. They had been the golden couple, the ones who’d married young, Rachel and Rob. R&R everyone called them. Had they headed the same way? Relationships that hadn’t worked out. Plenty of them. We’re not going to be like that, they’d said to each other, tucked up that night in bed, holding onto each other, as if by pressing their bodies tightly together they could ward away any evil marriage spirits. Or other times, when she’d heard about yet another casualty at the school gates, she’d find herself holding his hand that evening, squeezing it tightly and saying ‘I love you’ to remind herself that she did and what she had. How did people do it? Walk away from years of love, of building a fortress against the outside world, a barrier made of stories, of love, of family holidays, of squabbles, of sex, of knowing it’s sugar in coffee not tea, of leaving the light on at night, of sending flowers to say sorry, of sleeping on the side of the bed next to the door in strange hotels because your wife got scared, of quietly creeping out on Christmas Eve to check you’d hung the kids’ stockings in their bedroom while your husband lay sleeping, of cleaning out a messy car and not getting angry. The cement in the bricks of marriage. How does that erode away? Not us, she’d thought. The twins will never tell a counsellor, ‘Mummy and Daddy have fallen out of love.’ Or will they?

  How had it begun to rot? She realised with a jolt that maybe some of the fissures of their marriage had started with her. Had things become so desperate that her only way to flag up a failing marriage was to head for the Botox and beauty treatments? As if by wrapping up the present as sparkly as she could, she would entice her husband back. Why hadn’t either of them realised that the decay had started, and that they should fix it, shore it up with love, or at least feed it with a proper conversation instead of silence? But that takes guts, doesn’t it? It’s hard to say ‘is this enough?’, to face the fact that midlife and older children mean the beginning of – what? The end? Certainly the beginning of a new era, of taking responsibility for your own happiness, accepting that shuttling kids to the school bus can only count so much as a shared hobby. Surely it could be the beginning of something new, too?

  But I don’t think it was all for me. James’s barbed comment flashed through her mind.

  What had she done?

  Victoria moved round the table and mechanically placed knives and forks opposite each other. The napkins, the salt and pepper, it was all new to her. Household items were a surprise every time she opened another cupboard. Yesterday, she’d phoned the hospital and demanded to know when her next scan was – the secretary said she would send her an email. She’d been quite sniffy. It was alright for her, wasn’t it? She wasn’t the one who was a stranger in her own life. Who had messages on her phone. She’d peeked at them again last night. She felt sick. Yet she didn’t really know. Everyone was being so bloody polite.

  ‘You’re wearing the brooch?’

  She abruptly turned round as James walked towards her carrying a dish of salad. ‘Yes.’

  He glanced at it and she stared at his jaw, at his shirt collar and tried to remember how many times she might have lain against the crook of his neck, crying sometimes, laughing perhaps, sharing a secret? Where had his passion for her gone? The spark? She could feel it, she couldn’t miss it, fizzing up inside her. What about him? She studied his mouth. It was moving. ‘Where do you want these?’ He stared at her.

  ‘In the middle, please.’

  ‘What time are Lulu and Simon arriving?’ James stood next to her. So near she could see the pattern of freckles across his nose.

  She glanced at her watch – nice watch, leather straps and little diamonds on every hour. Classy. Was she classy? ‘About two-ish.’

  It had been Lulu’s idea to get everyone together. ‘Might jig your memory a bit more, sis. Be good for us all to try to be a bit normal.’ Whatever that was. ‘Get to know each other, um, again, before the wedding,’ she’d said. And she’d had a kind of weird look on her face, Victoria recalled, like she was summing something up.

  She had made mushroom risotto. Izzy had announced she was now ‘part-time vegetarian’, and somehow, as she measured out the cream and the butter and the mushrooms, it came to her, the chopping, the right ingredients. ‘It will be like that,’ the consultant’s secretary had advised when she’d asked about the next scan, ‘remember? Procedural memory, but some other chunks of memory—’ the secretary had sniffed down the phone and hesitated – ‘will take longer to recover.’

  ‘What about my wedding day?’ Victoria had demanded of the poor woman.

  ‘I’m sure it will come back. Look for triggers. Your wedding dress?’ Her voice had been softer and Victoria had felt overwhelmed with it all, thanked her and put the phone down. Victoria had thought about her veil and knew i
t was in that box, the secret box that held memories of her James, her life, her past. And what else did her past hold? whispered a tiny voice in her head. Well, whatever it was, a new voice commanded, it wasn’t her. They belonged to Another Victoria.

  20 Lulu

  Simon is carrying a large bouquet of lilies, it’s gigantic, bless his monogrammed socks. We’re crunching across Victoria’s gravel driveway, trying not to be late for Sunday lunch, Simon hates being late. Everybody likes lilies, he’d said. But I know Victoria adores roses. ‘But she can’t remember,’ he’d said, ‘I’m sure she’ll like these.’ His confidence is out of this world, it’s one of the things which attracted me to him, feeling safe with him, valued; he can fight any battle. Fixes things. But he couldn’t fix his wife dying and it’s left a hole. And should he fix you? I hear my conscience asking.

  Simon’s nervous about seeing Victoria for the ‘first’ time. Only it isn’t the first time. They’d met several times before the accident, it’s just that she can’t remember.

  ‘Hello!’ Victoria opens the door with gusto – and a frilly frock. Has she been drinking? Her face is super red. I glance at my watch – it’s only twelve.

  ‘Hey, sis, how are you?’ I lean in and let the waft of Rive Gauche envelop me, it always gives me a sense of ‘home’, ever since Mum died and Victoria started to wear it. She used to get exasperated with my second-hand vintage ‘finds’, but, well, today it looks like she dressed head to foot in the stuff. I stand back. ‘You look charming.’

  ‘Charming?’ she laughs. ‘I’ll take charming! Found this at the back of my wardrobe, isn’t it fab?’ She does a twirl then looks at us. ‘Why didn’t I used to wear this more?’ She glances at us. ‘Simon, right? How are you?’ She swoops towards him for a hug. My sister, the cool customer hugging in a floral dress. Next, she’ll be barefoot.

  ‘Good, very good, Victoria, really good.’ He looks down at his shoes, then up again, suddenly remembering the flowers. ‘These are for you.’

  She clasps the flowers and smells them as I do a double take. The perfect hall is now trashed with shoes, muddy trainers and bags. Victoria sweeps them aside with one foot. ‘Come and have a drink.’ She presses her nose to the flowers again and starts to cough. ‘Lovely.’

  She ushers us into the lounge as James appears with a tray of prosecco. ‘Hi Lulu, Simon.’ He nods to us and holds out the tray formally. His face is drawn and there are dark circles under his eyes. I have no idea how these two are going to fix this. I can see why Victoria fell for him, on the outside anyway. He’s not my type, but it’s hard to ignore the perfect chiselled cheekbones and model looks you don’t always see. Tall, blonde, assured, green eyes with a killer smile, a touch of the Daniel Craig about him. But the charismatic dude from the wedding photos has been replaced by an avatar of his former self, with worry lines etched into his forehead, and he’s lost that confidence in his own skin.

  After a while, I glance at my watch. Only half an hour has gone by. I down another prosecco to ease my inner demons. Memories of Victoria in hospital, the twisty snake of shame I feel about what happened starts to gnaw at me and I refill my glass again.

  James turns to Simon: ‘So, Simon, mate, good to see you, how’s things?’

  I down my whole glass and zone out as my fiancé explains to James about end-of-year accounts, losses, tax issues, and all I can focus on are the mini sausage rolls on the coffee table and how I want to stuff about ten in my mouth and shout ‘boring’. But I don’t. That’s what ten-year-old Lulu would have done at Christmas parties, and then Dad would have sort of made a thing of telling me off, but be laughing really, and then they’d get out the karaoke machine – only I’d be the one up the most, the child they thought they wouldn’t have. (You weren’t unwanted, sweetie, just unplanned! Imagine! Vicky was twelve when I was pregnant with you, pumpkin! Mum’s nickname for me as she washed my hair, scrunching it all up on top of my head and planting a kiss on me.) Twelve years between me and Victoria was quite a gap. Sometimes, Mum was mistaken for my nan at pick up. She’d come home, light a cigarette and not speak till she’d finished every last drag, her cheeks hollowed out as she drew on the cigarette, staring out the window.

  ‘Lulu?’

  We’re at the table now and Simon is handing me something in a large earthenware dish. It’s possibly mushroom risotto, but it looks like puke. Where’s the roast beef?

  ‘This looks nice.’

  I glance at Simon’s plate. He’s taken a tiny portion, clearly expecting there to be some meat on the menu too.

  ‘We’re going vegetarian this week. Izzy has turned vegetarian, so we are too,’ quips Victoria.

  Jake glances at Simon. ‘Yeah, I was looking forward to roast beef, too.’

  Izzy looks up from her phone and shrugs. ‘Whatever. I don’t mind if you eat meat.’

  ‘No!’ Victoria announces. ‘We are going to support you every step of the way.’ I look over at Izzy who is scowling at Victoria. That kid sure is a moody teenager. A helter-skelter of emotions. One minute she’s up, up, the next slamming her phone down like a drama queen and leaving the room.

  It’s like I’ve landed in some kind of reality TV show: ‘Meet the fuck-ups.’ Simon is pretending to enjoy the risotto when I know for a fact he hates mushrooms. James’s cheeks are so pinched with the effort of being polite; and Victoria, what has got in to her? She’s acting like a 1950s housewife. Those synapses must be firing all the wrong way today. Where are the navy stilettos, the linen shift dresses?

  ‘Terribly good risotto, Victoria.’ Simon is helping himself to more, as I catch his eye and smile. He is a good man.

  ‘Oh good! It did take ages, but I thought it would be a nice change. By the way, please call me Vicky, I don’t know where Victoria has come from.’

  ‘That,’ James says in a booming voice suddenly, ‘is what we all want to know.’ He pushes his seat back and folds his arms. ‘No, let me tell you, because I think I do know. It’s come from about five years ago when you wouldn’t answer to Vicky and decided to become Victoria.’ I have a forkful of risotto mid-way to my mouth. James is staring at my sister with a look I can’t place. I look across at my sister and her cheeks are flushed.

  ‘Well,’ Simon clears his throat, ‘I love the chive on the top – and I like the name Vicky.’ Simon beams at Victoria. That pleasing Labrador image flashes through my brain again.

  Izzy mouths ‘Awkward’ to Jake who lifts his shoulders in a tiny shrug.

  Time to change the subject. ‘How’s school guys?’

  Both Jake and Izzy say in unison: ‘S’OK.’

  Right, nowhere to go there.

  ‘How are the wedding plans, Lulu?’ James stares straight at me, trying to fix the awkwardness. I feel compelled to gabble a long list of explanations from flowers, to venue – that little hotel which has a chapel, remember, that small road off the A892, you know the one? – pretty remote, and yes, food’s all sorted, Simon’s a whizz with menus, and my dress, I start to explain as my sister sits in stunned silence.

  Suddenly she pipes up. ‘It looks fabulous,’ she manages, picking up her glass and draining it. I don’t blame her. It’s like the worst kind of dinner party. Small talk, only small talk with your family. ‘I wish I could remember mine,’ Victoria fixes her gaze on me. ‘Lulu, sweetie, I can’t believe you’re getting married, I mean, six years ago—’

  ‘I was in a very different place!’ My voice is shrill.

  Victoria picks up the bottle of wine, fills up her glass and spills it on the table. ‘The problem is, last thing I remember, Lu,’ she leans on her elbows, ‘is that you were going for that audition, for Mamma Mia? At that hotel. Meeting some hoity-toity producer person. You basically were about to give birth with the excitement of it. Imagine, Mamma-bloody-Mia, you said to me. A dream come true, you said…’

  Her voice trails off as I hold my breath. ‘And I suppose I thought you’d be – I don’t know,’ she shrugs then carries on, ‘—maybe in an
other role at the West End by now! That I’d see my little sister on those bus shelter adverts or something!’ She puts her hands into a prayer pose, as if she’s about to say ‘Namaste’ or something.

  Thank God the doorbell sounds. Vicky means well, but she has no idea. I glance at her glass. Or maybe it’s the jolt she had during the crash. Or the strain of her and James. Anyway, the truth is, the day of the audition is not a day I want to remember.

  21 Victoria

  Victoria stood up and tugged at the dress around her bust. It was a bit tight. She was trying to channel ‘domestic goddess’, only it wasn’t working. What with the risotto which frankly looked like cat sick and that outburst from James. Opening the door, she was nearly knocked over by a small bundle of fluff who charged straight at her, jumping up at her knees. The ball of fluff turned out to be an energetic puppy, bouncing around the hall, grabbing a trainer between his teeth and growling playfully. ‘What on—?’

  ‘Hello, pet!’

  She looked up from the puppy to see her Dad surrounded by sunlight at the door. His hair was caught in a halo of light, it was as if her guardian angel – with bad hair – had just arrived.

  ‘Dad! What are you doing here?’ She felt overjoyed and confused all at once.

  ‘You invited me, poppet, remember?’ he said grinning.

  Oh God, yes, yes, yes. Damn her memory. She did remember now, thinking about it, but sometimes all these pesky memories both current and past collided and her mind was a tangled mess. Rather like those phone boxes you see men kneeling at, by the side of the road, pulling at different coloured wires, and you wonder how on earth they can fix your BT Openreach by yanking at them. Her mind was just like that. Her synapses needed a tug. Of course he was visiting, she remembered now, staying even – Jesus, the spare room was a tip.

  ‘I’ve been worried sick about you, pet,’ said her Dad, offering his hand in support, then pulling her in for a hug.