Something I'm Not Read online

  SOMETHING I’M NOT

  Something I’m Not

  LUCY BERESFORD

  First published in 2008 by

  Duckworth Overlook

  90-93 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6BF

  Tel: 020 7490 7300

  Fax: 020 7490 0080

  [email protected]

  www.ducknet.co.uk

  © 2008 by Lucy Beresford

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  The right of Lucy Beresford to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Extract from Your Face Tomorrow, 1: Fever and Spear by Javier Marías Published by Chatto & Windus, reproduced by kind permission of The Random House Group Ltd.

  SIDE BY SIDE BY SIDE and BEING ALIVE (from the musical play “Company”) Words and Music by Stephen Sondheim - ©) 1970 Range Road Music, Inc., Jerry Leiber Music, Mike Stoller Music and Rilting Music, Inc. - Copyright renewed. - All rights administered by Herald Square Music, Inc. (ASCAP) - International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. Lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Carlin Music Corp., London NW1 8BD.

  Something I’m Not is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eISBNs:

  Mobipocket: 978-0-7156-4324-2

  Epub: 978-0-7156-4323-5

  Library PDF: 978-0-7156-4322-8

  This book is for Guy,

  my eternal flame

  We tend to be incredibly distrustful of our own perceptions …

  we do not trust ourselves as witnesses …

  and ultimately we surrender and give ourselves over

  to a process of perpetual interpretation,

  applied even to those things we know to be absolute fact …

  — JAVIER MARÍAS, Your Face Tomorrow, 1: Fever and Spear

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twent-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Epilogue

  Ackmowledgements

  Prologue

  ‘I DON’T KNOW if you ever catch Robbie Taylor,’ says Amber, by way of avoiding Dr Ramji’s question. ‘We had him on in the car coming here. He runs a sort of therapy phone-in. Not sure I’d broadcast the secrets of my psyche to an audience of millions—’

  Amber hesitates. The woman in the opposite armchair sits absolutely still. Amber wants to continue, but she is distracted by the woman’s eyebrows, immaculate crescents of smooth, dark hairs along the line of the brow. Anger flutters at Amber’s throat, and she wants to shake the woman. Is it jealousy, in the face of such perfection? Shame, at being caught skirting the issue with therapy small talk? Or a fear that Dr Ramji knows all?

  ‘—so it took a radio show to make me see that, actually, I’m very lucky.’ Strident is how Amber hears herself sound.

  ‘Lucky,’ says Dr Ramji, her voice a warm drink on a cold night. She cocks her head in a way Amber bets she has to practise. ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Well, my husband says—’

  ‘Matthys?’

  Panic prickles Amber’s skin, as if this woman’s correct pronunciation of Matt’s Afrikaans name has somehow upped the stakes in a hitherto covert competition. Amber glances round the room, with its surfaces free from paperwork, before noticing a pinboard on the wall. It is covered with a collage: various Madonna and child postcards, and Polaroids of newborn babies. Amber’s stomach churns, and she refocuses on the doctor.

  ‘Where was I? Oh yes, Matt. Well, he’s a psychiatrist. He works with people at their wits’ end. I guess you get them like that here, too.’ The doctor makes no comment. ‘Which makes me realise that the life I’ve created is good.’

  ‘So it’s been a conscious process,’ says Dr Ramji.

  Amber feels the words brush against her skin. She senses the minute movements of air between the doctor and herself. Always there are hidden meanings in a woman’s speech. Again she glances at the pinboard, her eye drawn to a postcard by Joshua Reynolds. It’s of a girl hugging a puppy. And, maybe it’s her imagination, but in the room she now catches a warm scent of incense.

  ‘There was a letter.’ Again the doctor remains silent, and Amber feels tears welling up in her eyes. ‘I was five or six. My school was perched on the shingle bank beside a bird sanctuary. The school rented the building from the sanctuary, and most days we had nature study. Brent geese flew in from Russia, and we plotted their route on a map in the classroom. Sometimes we got to hold newborn chicks, their warm bodies flickering in our hands.’ Amber looks up. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to hear this—’

  Amber notices the doctor tuck stray hairs of her geometric cut behind one ear. It’s a simple gesture that makes Dr Ramji suddenly seem very competent, very containing. Amber can whisper secrets, tell her anything, and Dr Ramji will make sense of it all.

  ‘There was a letter.’ Amber clears her throat. ‘To parents. From my teacher, Miss Gibson. Announcing the arrival of baby field mice, and future plans to loan them out at weekends. To responsible children. A sort of rodent sleepover. The letter was to get parental permission. I ran all the way home that afternoon, to make sure my mother got it as quickly as possible.’ Amber stares into her lap.

  ‘The next morning, over porridge, I watched my mother sign the form and slide it into a used envelope. At registration, Miss Gibson collected the forms (mine was the only one in an envelope) and announced that on Thursday she’d post a rota on the noticeboard—’

  Amber cannot sit still. The Reynolds painting keeps catching her eye. The girl’s cheeks are flushed with pleasure as she squeezes the puppy on her lap. Amber has not recalled the episode of the mice for thirty years. And yet, it’s as though something inside Amber has lately cut loose. The letter to Miss Gibson is now as vivid as this evening’s drive through the November drizzle to Dr Ramji’s clinic.

  All week, she’s imagined the mice (christened Hector, Kiki and Zaza) in her home. It’s like waiting for Christmas. And she wants so badly to see her place on the rota she decides to set off for school earlier than usual. She can feel her heart pumping.

  The Reynolds girl, clutching her pet, gazes down at Amber. Amber blinks away.

  ‘I stood in front of the noticeboard
for ages. I knew how to spell my name, and the names of all my friends, even long ones like Stephanie’s, because I went to her birthday party, and wrote in her card. But where was my name? Its capital A? Why wasn’t I on the list?

  ‘I turned at the sound of Miss Gibson walking towards me. I used to think the tap of her heels in the corridors was like a white stick on a pavement. “What are you doing here so early, Amber?” she said to me. “I didn’t expect to see you reading this list.” She looked confused. My eyes filled, blurring her. I wanted to say that she’d forgotten my name, but the idea in my head was too jumbled up.

  ‘“I am sorry your name won’t be on the list, Amber,” Miss Gibson said. “You should have told us the truth.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “You might have become seriously ill. Thank goodness your mother saw fit to inform me that you are highly allergic to animal fur.”’

  Amber reaches into her handbag and retrieves a tissue. Dabbing her eyes, she notices a pair of unfamiliar ankles, elegant, precisely crossed, and remembers where she is. She looks up and tries to smile at Dr Ramji. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not sure where all that came from.’ She blows her nose, and tucks the tissue up her sleeve.

  ‘What did Miss Gibson say when you told her the truth?’ asks Dr Ramji, in an even voice.

  ‘When I told her?’ cries Amber, fresh tears sliding down her cheeks. ‘What could I say? That it was my mother who dislikes helpless creatures? I overheard her at coffee mornings, saying she didn’t really like children. Although all mothers love their own. Don’t they?’

  Dr Ramji leans forward in her chair. ‘You don’t seem so sure.’

  Amber’s gaze darts once more to the Reynolds girl before settling on the doctor’s groomed brows. ‘My friends are my family now,’ Amber whispers.

  ‘In what sense?’

  Amber flicks an imaginary thread from her trousers. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘You know you can take—?’

  ‘—my time. Yes, but everyone’s waiting downstairs. Shouldn’t we just get on with the surgery?’

  ‘They can wait,’ says the doctor emphatically, reaching out across her polished coffee table to activate an answer machine.

  And, as the doctor settles back in her armchair, Amber finds herself taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly before starting to speak.

  Chapter One

  I’M THE kind of person who plans my spontaneity. Matt’s not on call this weekend and, apart from some CVs I’ve brought home, our weekend is free. Which means a structure is in place.

  The CVs should only take a couple of hours; those that mention long gaps in employment and a large family to support are the hardest to read. Then, while I’m preparing supper, I’ll watch a video of last month’s men’s Wimbledon final; it’s how I like my sport, knowing from the start who’ll win. Supper is for catching up with my oldest friend, Dylan. Or, rather, meeting his new boyfriend.

  The heat this summer has been relentless. Strangers complain to one another of discomfort. London Underground’s schedules have disintegrated, and, with them, commuters’ patience. Weather forecasters sound increasingly apologetic, as if they know their bulletins to be morally reprehensible. A vicar in South Wales declares the hellish temperatures to be a sign of God’s wrath over America’s homosexual bishop. And it seems to me that the known world is suffocating, and that this will be averted only when hand-knitted ghosts from our past are cast off.

  And I’m reminded of Dad, currently snoozing upstairs. He and his friend Audrey are staying the weekend. This morning we went to what he calls the Stately Tate, meaning the old one. Escaped the heat by entering its coolness. I watched as, at eighty, he hurried down the corridor the way a mother might bustle into the kitchen to fetch treats. You’d never guess he’d had a minor stroke earlier this year. By the time Audrey and I, in our leisurely gossip, had finally caught up with him, my dad the erstwhile potter was busy studying the ceramics made by a well-known transvestite. Classical-shaped vases evoking genteel sensibilities, yet decorated with disturbing images and text. ‘Wonderful,’ my father wheezed, tears in his eyes. ‘Just exquisite.’

  I wasn’t sure quite what to say. Did I really want Dad seeing pictures of abused children, or reading slogans about paedophiles? Did he even know they were there? Or was his approval, one artist to another, misconceived? I tried to lead him away.

  He laughed. ‘If a tranny potter from Essex can find ways in this world to be comfortable in his own skin, Amber darling, then so can you!’ And his bony hands had patted mine.

  I warned him years ago that Matt and I won’t be providing him with grandchildren. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be a mother. Not even when I was little was I drawn to dolls or small animals like my friends were; some took home the class mice for the weekend, but I was never interested. And, in any case, my mother told me that girls who played with dolls that wet themselves were common.

  As a teenager reading Jackie (when my mother hadn’t confiscated it), I fantasised about marrying the perfect boy, but never pushing a pram. Boyfriends came and went. Some of them I slept with. I asked none of them, in that dreamy post-coital haze, how many children they wanted. My last boyfriend was Matt.

  Matt had been at school with Dylan. And I am for ever in Dylan’s debt for fixing us up. Matt is tall and sandy-haired, his skin a flush of beautiful freckles. When we first met, he reminded me of an antelope, his athleticism exuding the good health of a childhood spent on an orange farm. I often imagine him as a boy, with skinny bronzed limbs, and always with a ball of some description in his hands. And somewhere deep down I think that, in marrying him, I hoped to marry into a childhood of vast, blue skies and ripe fruit.

  But first, of course, I had to have That Conversation. The one about having children. And, having fallen in love practically at first sight, I decided on full disclosure after we’d been dating only a fortnight. Better, I figured, to know up front than to torture myself for months or maybe years, and get it wrong. And so I cooked him coq au vin, and after a few beers, and wearing the white jeans Matt had told me made my bottom look peachy (I am nothing if not thorough), I confessed to a dormant maternal instinct. And Matt had covered my hands in his own and replied that he’d always felt ambivalent about children, and that in his view one needed to be very passionate indeed about the prospect of creating life. He had gone on to add that if he were to marry a woman desperate for children, he’d probably go on to be the father of a rugby team. But that that wouldn’t happen, because he wanted to marry me.

  Part of me was shocked by the speed of this declaration, how it propelled us to a new land I hadn’t realised I longed to visit. And part of me felt relieved that finally I’d been found.

  I turn my mind to the impending dinner party. That sweltering summer afternoon, I assemble ingredients. A childhood dazzled by Fanny Cradock and the Galloping Gourmet has fostered in me an addiction to mise en place. Dylan claims that I count out salt grains; that my food preparation is an art form which makes Shock and Awe look positively slipshod. I just like following recipes.

  I throw scrag ends of leek into the bin and lean against the jamb of the French doors. I inhale the scent of parched soil, and watch Matt tidying the borders of our London garden. He calls it a window box on steroids. In our marital ecosystem, Matt is head gardener, my glossy-haired Mellors. Watching him do practical things makes my arms tingle. His tongue peeps out when he does manual tasks. Weeding, he has his back to me, its broad sweep lightly brown. Matt only has to stick his head out the window to tan a mellow shade of butterscotch. I want to go to him and place a kiss on his neck, to drink of his sweetness. Just then Matt turns and, leaning into the trowel, displays one of his warm smiles. These never fail to delight me, for when Matt smiles grooves appear on either side of his mouth, elegant punctuation marks drawing attention to something significant. From the moment Dylan introduced us, I was aware of Matt’s enviable warm spirit; with smiles so benevolent, they appeared to offer redemption.

  ‘Wh
at time are we expecting the Pol Roger Padre?’ Matt grins.

  ‘The usual – the minute you uncork the wine!’

  The last of the sun grazes the top of the garden wall. Its colour reminds me of the carrot purée I’ve made in case Dylan’s on one of his short-lived food-elimination regimes.

  ‘Everything in the kitchen under control?’ Matt asks, getting up. His right knee creaks.

  ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘Dad and Audrey having their siesta?’

  I grin. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Only, I was thinking of getting out of these,’ he pulls off his gardening gloves, ‘and having a quick shower.’ He wears that smile which is like chewing toffee.

  I lead him inside.

  Chapter Two

  DYLAN AND DAVID arrive for supper with two cats – the unnamed runts of a litter dropped by David’s daughter’s pet. It takes me a while to get my head around all this, but what with a risotto, the purée, a jar of Audrey’s home-made chutney and a ripe Epoisse which I can’t eat but whose ribald smell is sufficient compensation, there is ample time to hear the story of what Dylan calls David’s ‘road to Damascus’.

  And, as David describes how he’d always suspected he was homosexual (enunciating all five vowel sounds, clearly relishing saying the word aloud), and how marriage to flame-haired Caryl only reinforced his suspicions, I find myself thinking about how our lives are changed by the choices we make, and how brave you’d have to be to have a change of heart.