Chapter 41: Juliet - The Golden Hours

He’d hardly spoken to her at Stella’s wedding. Of course not, in front of all those relatives! And of course they couldn’t leave together. It was kind of funny to be fooling everybody – at least it would have been if she’d felt really close to him when they were alone. Or if she didn’t feel so bad about Louise, who had been so good to her. But she’d made her decision, and cast her lot. It was her and Neville against the world.

She was humming ‘I’ve Been Loving You Too Long’. Otis Redding understands, she thought. She wasn’t sure Neville did, though. She didn’t tell him about how the emotions of the wedding day had overwhelmed her, seeing everybody for the first time in so long, knowing that she could never have a wedding, never wear the dress and revel in the attention. And never, it was beginning to occur to her, have children. She hadn’t mentioned her outburst at Clary, or her sudden departure. But there’d been no repercussions. Perhaps she hadn’t said as much as she thought she had.

And anyway, he hadn’t come to the boat since the wedding, and he hadn’t rung her up, and she hadn’t been able to get through to his flat, so she’d had no chance to tell him anything. She was going a bit crazy waiting. So she put Red on her pink lead, and went down to Chelsea, to look in the estate agent windows herself, because why shouldn’t she? Serve him right if she wasn’t in when he rang, or there if he came by. It’s not the nineteenth century.

There didn’t seem to be any warehouses except practically in Fulham. But there were some beautiful flats. She dreamed a little, even went in and said, ‘Could I have the details for the one on Paultons Square, please, and the one on Tite Street?’ She tucked the pieces of paper with their black-and-white photographs into her bag, feeling grown-up yet knowing somehow that she was cheating; that the agents would have seen through her, a mere girl, pretending she could own a flat, or even rent one; pretending she had the money, the power, the possibility. So then she looked in the windows of the boutiques along the King’s Road, and loved the beautiful, funny, modern clothes. At lunchtime she went to the Mona Lisa, ordered sardines and got chatting to some girls who wanted to pat Red. She was wearing a linen dress she’d made, with appliqués up the back – just one big white and yellow daisy on a plain green stalk, on a navy background – and they wanted to know where it was from. Her bust was too big for it really, but they said it was lovely. She missed girls. Longed for them, actually. Missed Pansy, and Robert. Missed everyone.

After lunch, she decided to drop in on Ladbroke Grove. She could just jump on the 31. It could be nice to see Clary and Archie, family without it actually being Mum and Dad or Louise. She could apologise to Clary for having been so moody at the wedding. So it was that she rang the bell. And after some minutes, Neville answered: his shirt untucked, his hair standing on end, and a swiftly vanishing look of incomprehension on his smiling face.

‘Darling!’ he cried. ‘Come in! What are you doing up this way? Come in, come in!’

‘I’ve been shopping,’ she said, and allowed him to welcome her, as if he lives here, she thought. ‘Are Clary and Archie not here?’

The place was an absolute tip, even by Juliet’s standards. Bottles, glasses dull with red wine detritus, full ashtrays, what looked like a body on the sofa, newspapers, clothes. The downstairs loo door was shattered and off its hinges.

‘They’re in France,’ he said, steering her towards the kitchen at the back. Dishes were piled high; chairs in the wrong place, the floor sticky under her feet. ‘Let me just get my jacket,’ he said, grabbing it from a pile beyond the dresser, ‘and we can go for a coffee.’

She didn’t demur.

‘Ne-Verl,’ came a rather booming voice, and its owner strode in. A woman, six foot tall, skinny, blonde hair standing out like a diabolical halo, a cigarette in her fingers, stark naked but for a tiny pair of black pants stretched across her hip bones. Her breasts were literally like fried eggs and her feet were huge. Red started barking at her, skipping about.

Juliet sat down suddenly. ‘Oh no,’ she said, and leaned back. ‘Let’s have coffee here.’

‘Who is thees?’ boomed the blonde. She was completely relaxed, except that she moved like a model, standing and leaning at peculiar angles. Her nudity didn’t bother her at all.

‘I’m Neville’s sister, Juliet,’ Juliet said, before Neville could speak. She had never seen him silenced before. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Gabi,’ she said. She pronounced it Gar Bee.

‘Hello, Gar Bee,’ said Juliet.

Gabi pointed her chin at Neville. ‘Lover,’ she said. ‘Are you making Coh Fee?’

Juliet was swaying. Red had run back to her, and was sitting by her feet.

‘It’s a German colloquialism,’ Neville said. ‘She calls everyone lover.’ He came over to Juliet and did the shoulder massaging thing from behind on her. ‘Gabi, meet my beloved sister.’

‘Oh GORD,’ said Gabi, looking round the room. ‘So dizguzting,’ and Juliet watched as she pulled on a T-shirt and denim cut-offs that were almost smaller than her pants, garments that were just there, in the kitchen, and thought she might die. Then they did all go out, down the Portobello, and she and Neville and Gar Bee and Gar Bee’s eight-foot-long naked legs all had coh fee together in a cafe.

After an unbearable twenty minutes Gabi had to go hooome because she wanted a baahth. ‘Goodbye!’ sang Juliet cheerily.

For a few moments silence sat at the table.

‘Neville?’ she said.

‘I know!’ he said, suddenly in a flurry, as if he’d just been struck by a great idea. ‘Let’s go and look at flats. It doesn’t have to be Chelsea, does it? We could live round here. Easy for the Troubadour and the West End. Come on!’ He was putting his jacket on, paying the bill, almost, she thought, as if he couldn’t risk being looked at now they were alone together. ‘Sorry about Gabi,’ he said, bundling her out of the cafe. ‘She’s the girlfriend of a friend of mine. Slightly odd background. I think it’s a German thing, she has no sense of embarrassment. It’s interesting how it manifests. Her father is an ambassador or something. I sometimes think she must take drugs.’

‘Neville!’ she said, and his eyes when he turned to her were pale and almost frightened. But it’s me who’s frightened, she thought. Frightened to challenge him. Frightened to argue – he doesn’t want me for arguing with. Frightened of him not wanting me at all, after all this time. What if he really did want somebody else? If he was . . .

‘Neville are you sleeping with her?’ she blurted. It felt so grown-up. So tragic. Magisterial.

He put his hand to her face. ‘Sshh,’ he said. ‘I love you, for ever and ever. Nobody can ever replace you.’

Which, while it comforted her, didn’t answer the question.

She pulled herself up.

‘Why don’t we have sex?’ she whispered, stiffly, miserably, shyly, so embarrassed.

He put his head a little on one side, then grinned and pulled her to him, his hand on the back of her head, cradling, gentle. ‘Beautiful girl,’ he crooned, very quietly, into her hair. ‘My lovely girl.’ Then just as she was about to repeat her question, to seize the moment, he skipped away from her.

‘Anyway, you just missed Laura!’ he cried. ‘She was staying here while Clary and Archie are away. Uncle Hugh was here too! But he’s been taken ill. Dreadful really, poor Laura had to call an ambulance. You’ll probably hear about it.’

How she longed for him to trust her. To tell her. To explain and to let her in. Did she dare to say ‘Don’t push me away, Neville’, or ‘Talk to me. Tell me why you’re like this. I won’t hate you.’

It occurred to her that perhaps he didn’t know why he was like this.

‘All right,’ she said.

It would take time. She had time.

He was looking at her, with a different expression. ‘I want to do the right thing,’ he said.

Within a week they were moving into a scruffy but light first-floor flat on Oxford Gardens, off the bad end of Ladbroke Grove. All around was absolute mess: the council were knocking down whole streets just round the corner. Families were moving out, derelict terraces stood waiting for prowling bulldozers to bring them to rubble and dust. There was to be a huge new flyover looming over the neighbourhood, heading for Oxford and Birmingham. He’d bought a lease. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity,’ he said. ‘It’s cheapo, and when the work’s all done it’ll be lovely.’

Juliet never went back to the boat. He sent a friend with a van to bring her things. They took up the dusty mothy carpets and threw them out the window, and painted everything white. Juliet left the lights on all day and night, sewed colourful new curtains on her little green machine, and stared across at waving treetops, no mud or weed or tankers or dockers anywhere. She could hear the demolition and building work, she could smell the plaster dust, but she couldn’t see any of it.

He stayed with her for seven nights: half of each night in her bed, half in the other room.

On the Friday afternoon, he came home with a small box: an emerald ring. ‘Do you remember?’ he said, and she did. The cracker. He even rolled it to her, across their very own kitchen table – though it didn’t roll very well. The stone got in the way. But really that couldn’t have bothered her less. It’s all real, she thought. It is all possible. And then, holding her hand, he said she ought to know, he’d be paying for it of course, but he had put the lease in her name. And he had a job in Los Angeles.

She started saying, ‘Oh, not for too long I hope? When will you be back?’, but he stood up.

He was leaving the next day, he said, standing in the middle of the room.

‘I can’t be like normal people,’ he said, not looking at her.

‘We don’t want to be. Or need to be,’ she said, still not seeing.

‘You can be,’ he said. ‘I can’t be and you need to know that. You need to stop trying –’

‘I need to stop?’ she said.

‘You need to stop.’

She was dumbfounded. His face looked so different. He could have been a different man.

‘I haven’t been fair to you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be unkind.’

‘Well, you are being!’ she wailed.

‘I’m setting you free, though you probably won’t see it as that.’

‘You just gave me a bloody ring!’ she said.

‘I do love you,’ he said. ‘I just get it wrong all the time.’

That silenced her. It was true.

‘Clary can put you straight!’

‘Clary?’ she said.

‘Don’t hate me,’ he said.

That evening Louise appeared. Juliet let her into the building.

‘How did you know where I am?’ she said. On the landing, Louise wrapped her arms around her. ‘I’m so sorry, darling girl,’ she said. ‘You must be feeling awful. I understand, I really do.’

‘What do you understand?’ Juliet asked. ‘What do you know?’

‘That when something can’t be, it just can’t be. Sooner or later things fall apart,’ Louise said. ‘Look at you.’

‘I’m fine thank you, Louise,’ Juliet said. She stood in the doorway to the flat.

‘Of course,’ Louise said. ‘And I won’t stay if you don’t want. But what I wanted to say was, when you’re ready, let’s meet and see if we can find you some work.’

‘I don’t need work, thank you. I have money.’

‘And also, talk to Clary. She would’ve come, but you know they’re in France . . . And maybe better not yet, anyway.’

‘Clary, eh?’ said Juliet bitterly.

Louise was looking at her so gently. ‘Where do you have money from?’ she was asking.

‘I know you think Neville’s a creep but actually he’s been working very hard,’ she said. ‘And he cares about me.’

‘Oh,’ said Louise. ‘Good.’ They stood there.

‘All right then,’ Louise said briskly. ‘Here – have this. For when you’re ready.’

It was a card: Marka Stein. Psychotherapist, with a phone number and an address in Hampstead.

‘I’ve paid for your first four sessions,’ Louise said. ‘I’ve been so confused and unhappy most of my life and I can’t bear to see you –’

‘I’m absolutely fine,’ Juliet said.

‘For me, as a favour,’ Louise said. ‘Just ring her up and tell her how fine you are.’

Juliet walked over to the mantelpiece that Neville and she had so recently painted, and put the card behind a plant they had bought the day before from The Flowered Corner. What was happening? How did Louise know Neville was gone?

There’d be a reason, of course, there was always a reason. Neville would explain.

No. Neville would not explain.

Louise was still in the doorway, glancing around, waiting to be invited in.

‘Thank you Louise,’ Juliet said. ‘Is that all?’

‘Yes,’ said Louise. ‘Unless you want dinner?’

‘No thank you,’ she said.

‘Open invitation,’ Louise said. ‘Whenever you feel like it. Clary and Archie are just down the road. They’ll be back soon. Don’t be a stranger, as Bernardine used to say.’

Juliet said nothing.

Then: ‘So they know too? I suppose you’ve told Mum and Dad and you’ve all made him leave and everybody hates me now and thinks I’m a fool?’

‘I don’t think you’re a fool,’ Louise said. ‘And I don’t think he’s a creep, I think he’s a complicated man who is very much affected, sexually, by his mother’s death giving birth to him, and as a result he’s peculiar about women, particularly women in his family.’

Juliet stared at her.

‘There, I’ve said it!’ said Louise. ‘And we haven’t told your parents, and we haven’t made him leave. I’m not saying we didn’t think of it. But he rang Clary yesterday morning and told her he was going.’

‘So Clary made him go,’ Juliet said, desperately, knowing that was unfair but everything in her was loosening and failing her, and only pride was holding her up.

‘He chose to go,’ Louise said. ‘Because it was the right thing to do.’

‘Go away,’ said Juliet, as the tears rose, and flooded, and choked her.

She began, in that moment, to be aware that clouds of folly and delusion had been surrounding her, and she almost sensed that deep, deep cold lay ahead without them.

* * *

Louise held herself all the way down the stairs. The big black front door swung shut behind her. Lovely flat, bad area, cash, Marka’s number. Spare room if she wanted a flatmate. Open invitation. And Neville, God help him, far away.

A light touch and a long view, she thought. Someone had said that recently; who was it?

She let out the biggest breath she’d breathed for months.