I run back down the stairs, dragging the case behind me. They’re waiting for me in the hallway. I see my mother’s eyes narrow in uncertainty, wondering whether I have been packing for Manchester, or for somewhere else.
‘I’m going,’ I say, and through my anger, to my own shock, I hear my voice crack even though my eyes are dry. ‘Thanks for…for everything.’ I sound hard and bitter, but I don’t care. My father’s face is stern and set, betraying no emotion. I’ve seen him more animated in front of the TV.
‘There’s really no need for this, Violet. This isn’t like you,’ my mother says. I am silent. Again she looks to my father, and finds no encouragement. I see her grasping for words. ‘Perhaps a couple of days away will help you get things in perspective,’ she says. ‘When you’ve calmed down, then…Well, be in touch soon in any case, won’t you? Let us know where you’re staying.’ She sounds as if I’m going on holiday. Already I can tell that she’s reframing the incident in her mind, trying to force it within the bounds of acceptability, unable to cope with the reality of what is happening. She has always been a coward. I won’t turn out that way, not if I can help it. This is my chance to stop it happening.
I move towards the door, put my hand on the latch, hesitate for an instant. Now that I am on the point of leaving, it feels so surreal that I almost laugh. The fight threatens to drain out of me as I stand there. How much easier it would be to do as they want. I glance back and see my parents’ faces, and for a second they seem different, older. I look at the tiny wrinkles around my mother’s eyes, the sprinkling of grey in my father’s hair, and my heart contracts unthinkingly, taking me back to a time when I loved them so much that I couldn’t bear them to be out of my sight. It’s so long ago, but I can barely understand how we have got from there to here. I want to scream with the unfairness of it. I want those people back – not these two painted dolls who no longer know anything about me. It seems that in the past few years we’ve peeled apart so subtly that I’m no longer sure where the threads between us are, and now it’s far too late to stitch us back together, ever again. I have spent eighteen years following in their footsteps, and somehow I know that unless I act now, I will spend the next eighteen doing the same.
Sometimes the biggest decisions are made in a split second. In the half-light of the hall, I think I see my father’s face start to change and sag with sorrow, and I can’t watch. I open the door into the dark and pull it shut behind me. A light drizzle is beating down on to the ground beyond the porch, splattering wetly on to the gravel. I step out into it and start to walk. In fifteen minutes I will be on a train to London; in a little over an hour I will be with Jonathan again. Unless he offers me one, I no longer have a home.
Already I can feel my memories sealing over. If I am not to regret this decision and go crawling back out of weakness, I must put my parents in a box where no one can find them but me, and I’ll only open it when I’m ready. It’s a vow that I will keep to, and while they’re there, locked and trapped somewhere I don’t want to reach, I find that I don’t miss them much. I barely miss them at all.
I put on my best dress – black, dotted all over with tiny indigo violets. I hope that Jonathan will pick up on the violet reference, and find it endearing rather than trite. In front of his floor-length mirror, I brush my hair slowly and luxuriously, drawing out the crackling of static. I have spent almost twenty minutes doing my make-up, anxious to strike the right note. The tension between the sex symbol I want to be for Jonathan and the homemaker I want to seem to his parents still shows itself on my face, in the battle between my heavily kohl-lined eyes and the neutral, subdued gloss of my mouth. In the mirror I see him approaching behind me, buttoning a white shirt, naked but for boxer shorts from the waist down. He’s sizing me up, his eyes running carefully from top to toe. What he sees seems to please him; he comes closer and slips his hands round my waist, encircling me.
‘Stunning,’ he says into my hair, and I see his eyes flick up to look at us together in the reflection. ‘My father ought to like it anyway, randy old devil.’
‘Jonathan!’ I twist round in his arms. ‘He’s not really like that, is he?’
‘Ah, no,’ Jonathan says dismissively, loosening his hold on me. ‘Not really. We’d better get going – I said we’d be there by one.’
‘Better put some trousers on,’ I suggest, heading for the door. Nervous though I am, happiness floods me. Quickly, I run back through the events of the night before in my head: turning up at Jonathan’s door, finding him eager and unquestioning, not caring about what has happened with my parents or why, just pulling me into bed and making love to me until I was sore with exhilaration and exhaustion. Later, he did ask, but when I told him that I had moved out, it seemed to be taken for granted that I would stay on with him. Amazingly, this flat already feels like home. I love it, its slickly painted walls and gleaming polished floorboards, its tasteful array of ornaments and clean gleaming gadgets. Compared to what I have come from, it feels like a palace, and although I know it is disloyal to think so, I feel that it suits me. I should have been born to this.
Outside it is raining again. The harsh smells of diesel and damp ground press in on me as we step into the road. Jonathan hails a cab effortlessly, seeming to only briefly raise one hand for it to do his bidding and screech to a halt. I climb into the back and listen to him ask for the Sherbourne Club, reel off an address I don’t recognise. I barely know London at all. As we drive, I see the city rushing past the window: a jumble of streets and houses and towering industrial blocks, parks and roundabouts, all so unfamiliar that the instant they are out of sight I forget them again.
‘It’ll be fine, don’t worry,’ I hear Jonathan murmur next to me, and I realise that I am shaking. I look at him. In his casual suit, his blond hair just brushing the edge of his collar, he looks so beautiful and desirable that I can hardly bear it. His blue eyes are full of kindness and concern; a tenderness that I have never seen in them before.
‘I love you,’ I blurt out, and as I say the words I realise that I have still not heard them from him, not exactly, not in as many words. I hold my breath.
He just looks back at me, smiling. ‘Here we are,’ he says, moving across me to release the catch. It is almost as if he has not heard me. I force down my panic and follow him out of the taxi. On the pavement he takes my hand and squeezes it, and I remind myself that it is actions which count. Holding on to his hand, I let myself be drawn into the building’s lobby. Everything is panelled in luxurious dark oak, giving it a secret, cloistered feel. A long, low, green baize desk stretches out across one wall; an immaculately dressed receptionist sits behind it, her shining blonde helmet of hair dazzling my eyes. She smiles at Jonathan as if she knows him. Her eyes don’t move from his face. She knows who is in control here. For a perverse moment I almost want to stamp my feet and draw attention to myself.
‘We’re lunching in the club,’ Jonathan says. ‘Is my father here yet?’
‘Yes, Mr Blackwood and his wife took his table a few minutes ago,’ the receptionist says. ‘Mr Blackwood senior, that is.’ She laughs prettily, revealing teeth like polished pearls, narrowing her eyes so that her lashes sweep across them. She’s flirting with him. I steal a glance at Jonathan; he’s smiling back as if she has made the best joke in the world. I have to fight to keep all the muscles in my face under control.
‘Thanks, Alice,’ Jonathan says. ‘We’ll head through now, then. Oh…’ He stops, glancing at me. ‘This is Violet, by the way.’ He doesn’t put a label on me: my girlfriend, my lover – but it doesn’t matter. I smile genuinely at Alice now, but I know that my eyes are sending her a warning.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ says Alice sweetly. Her complexion is perfect and smooth, as if it has been painted