The Exhibitionist, page 24
If only she hadn’t gone already, wasn’t Martyn’s girlfriend, didn’t live so far away. Her note said: P.S. obv. don’t tell the others I left this for you. There’s shouting upstairs from Ray; this means Patrick won’t see his mother for hours. He pats his pockets, checks his satchel. In his strange awakening this morning he packed as if heading off for a full day’s work: phone, book, pencil, various pebbles, wallet, jumper, penknife. Everything necessary is here.
He still feels cold and rigid as a park railing, could do with tea. But, quietly, he opens the gate.
Jess hurries along the platform, phone jammed under her ear like Quasimodo, waiting for an answer. She feels sick and so impossibly tired that she could ask the next tallish man to carry her, a beefy child to drape her along the top of her case and wheel her to her seat. There’s too much fog in her mind. If her mother picks up her phone, for once in her life, Jess could be dissuaded. It might be the magic sign she needs to be glad for everything she has, whether she wants it or not.
If she answers, I won’t get on this train.
Even if she won’t really talk, I’ll let this train go and then maybe Martyn will catch the next with me, and I’ll be grateful to be loved again.
If she answers, she’ll definitely tell me to stick with him, keep the . . . the foetus, and it worked for her, didn’t it? Hasn’t she had a happy enough life?
Awkward though, if her father’s already passed the door to Vivienne’s flat, and noticed the second George Gregory Pye is missing.
‘Hi,’ says Lucia. ‘Can you hear me? I’m in the garden, I have to be quick. No, just listen.’
Patrick can’t get hold of Jess. The bus is too open, a freezing box lurching up to traffic lights. Two shouty sisters and a huge-bellied man wearing a tiny camouflage T-shirt are staring at him; a baby begins to scream. He’s thinking he will have to get off on York Way but then a guide-dog-in-training called Billie rests her loose lips on his shoe, the wide calm bridge of her nose like maple, and the fear passes.
Jess, answer your phone.
King’s Cross booms with announcements and bellowing laughs and metal scraping. He wastes minutes staring at the Arrivals board, then waiting politely in a long queue for tickets. If he can catch her, he will have to be brave. He will ask her: when you left the first time, how did you dare go to college, how did you summon the nerve to defy him? Was it to save your own life? Am I too late?
Platform seven. The back of the five past East Coast Excelsior Rapide to Edinburgh is receding along the tracks as he arrives.
45
So, thinks Lucia. It’s over now.
Marie-Claude was neither surprised nor angry. She simply said ‘enfin’ which, as far as Lucia remembers, doesn’t mean very much. She began to describe what would happen in the next few days but Lucia stopped her.
‘I can’t . . . I need to know as little as possible about it. Sorry.’
‘OK.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Please. You need to end this habit.’
‘I’ll try. Also, what you said about visiting, you know, spending a lot of proper working time there . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Well. Could – can it start, the staying actually in Venice part, as soon as – well, right away?’
It’s dark out, and in. Ray snapped at Martyn when he suggested turning up the heating: ‘we’re not all wee runts.’ Leah, already in several wispy sweaters, fingerless gloves and something called wrist-warmers, looked scornful, then offered her father a hot chocolate, into which she poured the rest of the brandy. Martyn has never needed alcohol so badly in his life.
‘I should leave soon,’ he says. ‘For my train. Shouldn’t I?’
When Leah’s phone buzzes, she knows it’s Pablo, ringing to apologize. Life can flip like a coin; now her happiness can begin. She’s smiling as she picks it up.
It’s her mother.
‘What’s she saying?’ asks her father behind her. ‘What’s she want? Tell her to bloody h—’
‘I can’t hear,’ Leah says. She strokes her father’s shoulder comfortingly. ‘Shh, let . . . don’t get all riled up. Mum, are you with Patch? What the hell?’
‘That idiot,’ says her father. ‘Living the life aquatic. Well, you can tell him fr—’
‘Does he even know how to catch a train?’ She raises her eyebrows at Ray, grins, but in truth her spirit is sinking fast. ‘Well, it’s true. Wait, how do you know if you’re not with him?’ She doesn’t even bother to put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Dad,’ she says, ‘you’ll never believe . . . actually you will. Jess has gone back to Scotland. And Patch is apparently on the way to stay with her.’
‘What?’
‘I know.’
‘Unbelievable,’ Ray says, and her mother has some fiddly explanation, who rang who from which train, but she’s not interested.
‘Poor, poor Dad.’
‘They’re welcome to each other. Unbelievable.’
When she tunes back in, her mother’s making no sense. ‘You’re what? Mum, wait, come on, seriously? Well, not today. You can’t. There’s loads—’
‘What?’ her father’s asking. ‘She can’t dump this all on me.’
‘No,’ says Leah. ‘No! I won’t. You do it,’ and she hangs up.
She doesn’t look at her father. Martyn appears in the doorway. ‘Any news?’
‘Oh God,’ says Ray. ‘The ghost of sons-in-law future.’
‘So what’s the story?’ Martyn asks.
‘Listen.’ She needs to beam calm at her father. ‘Though the thing is . . .’ If Pablo were here, he’d stroke her hand. Her father will love him. ‘OK. But it’s a bit weird.’
‘Hurry up,’ says Ray. ‘I haven’t got all day. Everyone wants to discuss the show and b—’
‘Mum,’ Leah says, ‘also announced that she has got a work thing. Like, really last minute. Something small and boring, she said.’
‘Where? On a Sunday afternoon? That’s outra—’
‘Bristol? I think. Seriously. She’s such a cow. Poor Dad. Poor Daddy. Don’t worry, we’ll look after you.’
Martyn nods. ‘How long?’
‘Just a couple of nights.’ The minute she’s out of here she’s ringing Dr Mac.
‘Seen Patch, at all?’
‘Oh, yeah, the other thing is um . . . he’s caught a train with, you know. My sister.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I know, it doesn’t make sense. They talked from the train. He and she. Or Mum and Jess. God knows.’
‘She’ll ring me soon,’ Martyn says, nodding. ‘She probably realized she had leftover marking, that’s why she’s rushed back. Did she leave me a note?’
‘No,’ says Leah. ‘Not even for Dad.’
Martyn looks up out of the window, wrinkling his nose to keep his glasses on. ‘It’s raining again,’ he says, and gives a small cough. ‘I wonder if last night’s odd, you know, saving went to my chest.’
Ray ignores him. Leah watches Ray.
‘I – I, my Year Twelves have a study week, and the rest of them barely . . .’ Martyn goes on. ‘I can say I’m ill, rest a bit. The Head respects me so there’s no problem. Or no, I’ll tell him that there’s a family emergency.’
‘Well,’ says Ray. ‘There is.’
46
It is only two nights: not a future together. The future with Priya is grief.
Lucia stands on one leg, then the other, willing the Circle Line train to go faster. She keeps going back through her phone call with Leah; she sounded convincing, to herself, but her daughter is a deep, still pool. At least no one knows about the dusty clothes in the studio, the toothbrush and knickers. She’s imagined a sudden summons so often, yet still was unprepared.
Electric light glazes the sooty guts of the west-bound Tube tunnel, glinting off corners of pipe and wire. Her hand moves to her suspiciously overstuffed work bag. This time, she takes out her sketchbook. And, although the page stays blank, it is life, not Ray, which distracts her.
She has had her vision.
It’s only a short trip. They are separate things: Venice and Priya. Even if Ray never finds out what Bristol was really about, who she went with, nothing will lessen his rage when he hears she accepted the Biennale. She can fantasize all she likes about the thrill of being respected, a name at last, but it will end her and Ray. His fury will burn her to ashes.
But at least she’ll be in Venice, far from the blaze.
Every time her mind completes this loop, gazing through the Emergency Exit sign, she tries to visualize her and Priya together. But Priya is breaking her heart into ever smaller pieces; there’s almost nothing left to save. If she’s going to do this, face the fire, she might as well throw everything on.
She needs to force herself to end it.
The train’s arriving at Paddington. She shouldn’t go to Bristol. Or she could go, and Venice will still be waiting.
She can’t do it.
But who will save Lucia now, if not herself?
Acknowledgements
Thank you to:
Jess Phillips MP, for so generously answering my ignorant and/or personal questions about life in the House of Commons.
Olivia Camillo, Sandra Turnbull, Nicola Tassie, Raphaelle Bischoff, Rosie McFadzean, Charlotte Mayer, Charles Asprey and Sunita Kumar, for invaluable help and information.
The British Council and Cortina, Tanya, Youlya, Lidia, Ruth and Nicola Barker, for Moscow, Yasnaya Polyana and inspiration.
Claire Baldwin and Victoria Hobbs for publishing advice.
Kate Muir, Maggie O’Farrell and Sarah Waters for literary guidance and steadfast friendship.
Pat Kavanagh and Gill Coleridge for their faith; Peter Straus; Maria Rejt, my loyal and brilliant editor from the very beginning; the irreplaceable Camilla Elworthy, Becky Lushey and all at Mantle/Picador.
And, for their endless extraordinary support, kindness and wisdom, which helped me through it: Jane C. and Jane H.; Nicola Roche, Ros Eeles, Brenda Pinnock, Bridie McGillycuddy, Carly-Anne Lee, Jane Fior, Judy Sanitt, Joyce Lit; Marion Donaldson; Caroline Stofer; Alex, Lottie, Gabrielle, Polly and Shauneen; Elaine, Jean and Martha; Mag Leahy; Rick Mower; my sister; my parents; my children, Theo Mendelson and Clem Mendelson.
Also by Charlotte Mendelson
Love in Idleness
Daughters of Jerusalem
When We Were Bad
Almost English
First published 2022 by Mantle
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Charlotte Mendelson, The Exhibitionist
