Page 104 of We All Live Here
“Ah, Lila, c’mon…”
“No,youcome on. Little test for you: who do you think is the exact last person that my father should see right now?”
That got him. He reels slightly at her use of the word, and blinks almost disbelievingly at her as if he hadn’t realized her capable of such cruelty. But Lila is filled with blind rage at the sight of him, at his thoughtless audacity in thinking he could just turn up here, not even mindful of the potential harm he could cause.
“I just—I just wanted to make sure he was okay. We—we were pals, for a while at least, you know?”
“No. I don’t know that. I know that you managed to get on for a couple of months until we all discovered that you were an even worse human being than we had previously thought. And that bar was pretty bloody low. I told you to stay away from my family, Gene. So now I’m going to tell you again, because you are clearly incapable of consideringanyone else’s opinions, or anyone else’s needs. Bill needs peace and quiet—that’s what the doctors have told us. He needs to stay calm. The last thing he needs is you walking in just as he’s finally about to go home. So please just leave.”
When he doesn’t move, she adds: “Now.”
Gene shakes his head. “Honey, it’s not how you—”
But Lila cuts him off. “I’m not going to continue this conversation. I actually don’t have the bandwidth for it. You’ve done enough. Just go.”
Finally, he seems to hear her. Gene gazes at her for a moment, and then he compresses his mouth, as if he is trying not to say anything else. Finally he gives a small nod, turns, and starts to walk back along the hospital corridor. Lila watches, just to make sure he is not about to turn and try to come back, and when he goes round the corner, she buzzes the door of the ward. After taking a deep breath, she walksin.
Chapter Thirty-five
Francesca
Francesca McKenzie had spent her whole life trusting her body to make decisions for her. She felt things deep in her gut, she was fond of telling people. So many people were disconnected from the many wise ways in which a body could speak to the mind. From their earliest ages they were told to ignore it—No, you can’t be hungry. Give your uncle Don a hug. Go on, you’re not scared, just jump into the water. All those feelings of anxiety or resistance they were taught to override. She listened to her body as one would monitor a particularly finely calibrated compass, noting its tiny movements, trusting it to give an accurate picture of where she was. But as she awoke in the tiny hotel room in Dublin and gazed at the sleeping man beside her, Francesca McKenzie was forced to admit that on this occasion her body had been very wrong indeed.
•••
She had feltout of sorts for months, waking with a tight, nervous feeling in her chest, struggling to sleep, feeling a kind of existential bleakness settle over her, so at odds with her normal demeanor.I don’t feel like myself, she had told her doctor, and he had seemed almost impatient with her, told her she had no medical symptoms, that it was probably hormonal given her age, that she should make sure she had a good exercise routine and a healthy diet, maybe take up a new hobby. He even uttered the dread phrase “Just go for a long walk.” The implication ran under everything he said:You’re a middle-aged woman, probably still going through the change. Of course you don’t feel like you used to.Francesca had tried to count her blessings, had joined an outdoor swimming club (she found being cold utterly miserable), told herself she was just having an unsettled period, and tried to plow through it. She took long walks, supplements, hot baths, listened to her favorite music. She read books about psychology, replanted her garden, in the hope that watching things grow would bring her some ease with the notion of time passing. But the feelings of disconnection and vague unhappiness didn’t seem to go away.
Bill, bless him, wasn’t much help. He seemed so perfectly content with his life, and confused that what had satisfied her for so long now seemed not to be enough. “How about we take a holiday?” he had said, after she had yet again tried to articulate how she felt. “I hear Madeira is very nice at this time of year.” But Bill was part of the problem: she did not want to visit flower gardens or go hiking in the hills. Bill was many things, but he was not capable of those moments of surprise, of the spontaneous joy of her younger years, and she felt its absence like a missing limb. He seemed suddenly so much older than her.Is this it?she kept asking herself. And then:Why can’t I just be satisfied?
She didn’t want to bother Lila with it: she and Dan were clearly having problems, and Lila was permanently overworked and stressed by trying to juggle her work with the baby. Her friends were busy with their own lives, and Francesca had always been the one they turned to for help: it seemed alien to her to ask them what she should be doing. But the unhappiness grew, as did her efforts to hide it, until she felt as if she was struggling to get through each day, to raise the necessary smiles, to feel what she was clearly supposed to be feeling.
It was the Week of No Sleep that did for her. Francesca who, for her whole life, had drifted off with ease had found for months that as soon as she put her head on the pillow her brain was racing like an out-of-control motor, whirring and spinning, her thoughts jumbling and looping. She would lie there for hours, increasingly enraged by Bill’s peaceful slumbers beside her, despairing as she understood that tomorrow would be another day darkened by exhaustion and snappiness as she stumbled through it. It seemed to be a vicious circle: the less she slept, the more anxious she felt about going to bed. It culminated in a week where she barely slept at all.
That week she could hardly speak, felt hallucinatory and ill, could summon up none of the energy for the things that might make her feel better. She felt angry with Bill and angry with herself for feeling angry with Bill. He seemed helpless in the face of this new Francesca, tiptoeing around her and offering awkward platitudes that just made her crosser. She had nobody to turn to, no way of changing how she felt about it all. And then Gene had sent her a birthday greeting, Gene, who had barely remembered his daughter’s birthdays, had, unexpectedly, sent a text message.Hey, sweetheart! I just remembered it’s your special day! I’m filming in Dublin—God, these guys are crazy!—just a low-budget thing but it’s great craic as they say here. Sending love and hope you’re feeling great. You deserve it. Your old pal Gene x
“Your old pal.” From the man who had broken her heart and destroyed her little family. A man who, for the longest time, she had thought she would never get over. At first it almost made her laugh, his absolute lack of self-awareness and reflection. Plus it wasn’t her birthday: that had been the previous week. But the message had stuck in her head, its suggestions of fun and energy, a different place to be, perhaps even a different way to be. Francesca felt the pull to be somewhere else like a rope tied around her waist, urgent and inescapable, tugging at her through her days.
She told Bill she was going to see her old school friend Dorothy in Nottingham, and Bill had seemed almost relieved, as if this might change the dynamic and, more importantly, absolve him from the responsibility of having to work out how to do it. He had been so sweet about her “little break,” making her snacks for the train journey, insisting on driving her to the station. She had told him she might not call—the signal at Dorothy’s was terrible and, besides, she just wanted to forget everything for a few days—and he had accepted that with grace. “Just let me know when you want picking up,” he had said. “Send a text and I’ll be there.”
That was the point at which she had almost changed her mind, but she was committed, as if a magnetic force was pulling her in this new direction. The change of momentum was almost inevitable: she couldn’t stay where she was, not for another moment.
The minute he had driven out of the station car park she had bought her ticket to Heathrow.
She had met Gene at the Temple Bar, a short distance from her hotel. He had been thrilled when she messaged him to say that—coincidentally—she was due to be in Dublin visiting a friend so why didn’t they meet up, and had suggested the bar, which had become a favorite in the three weeks the production had been there so far. They were all still with him when she arrived, and she had a sudden memory of how that hadirritated her when they were together, his need always to be the center of any party. But the feeling disappeared almost as swiftly as it had come: she was relieved, confronted with the reality of him, of the actuality of her mad idea, that there were other people there to defuse the oddness of seeing him again.
He had spotted her almost immediately over the crowds of revelers in the pub, had thrown his arms wide, pushed forward, and swept her into a bear hug. He had always been the most tactile of men. Now he felt alien and utterly familiar at the same time. “Look at this!” he kept saying, so that she blushed. “This is my ex-wife! Francie! Look how gorgeous she is! How lucky was I, fellas, to be married to this girl?”
Francesca cannot remember the last time anyone called her a girl, but that is the beauty of seeing someone you knew in your youth. There will be a part of yourselves that only ever remembers each other in that way. “Lucky, but not smart enough to stay married to me,” she had responded smartly.
Gene had clapped his hands over his heart. “Ouch! She’s killing me already!” But it was said with warmth, and he had immediately turned to get her a drink. The more curious glances of his colleagues faded as they realized there was no drama, just two old friends enjoying a moment.
She had sat in the middle of the group for two hours. They were mostly crew: lighting technicians, sound men, gaffers, and runners. These were the people Gene had always felt most comfortable with, instead of the other actors (competition), directors, and producers (he had always had a problem with authority figures). She began to relax, nestled into the booth beside him, listening to the chatter around her as the drinks arrived again and again, the conversation flowed, funny stories were traded about other productions and badly behaved actors. Film gossip was always the best gossip, and Francesca was happy not to be the center of attention, just lodged neatly in another world, enjoying thisholiday from her own, not having anybody’s expectations or judgment around her.
There was a live band at nine, and they had ended up dancing to the Irish fiddle music, Gene swinging her round and round until she was dizzy, laughing, his large hands so familiar on her waist, his smile incessant, his enthusiasm joyous. She felt young again, silly, exchanging jokes with him about their life together, turning what had once been painful into performance. These people liked her, she could tell, leaning over the crowded table with their drinks, laughing with her as she told stories about Gene, against his vanity, his unreliability, and his chaos. He laughed the loudest, and without bitterness, no matter what she said. One of the things she had always enjoyed about him was his inability to either hide what he felt or bear a grudge. The past was the past, and all that mattered was that they were here now, two people who were once dear to each other, enjoying the moment.
The crew began to thin out at eleven, at a point when she was not drunk, but definitely merry, and he walked her a little way around Dublin to show her the sights, stopping under the sodium lights to acknowledge the people who recognized him, to share a joke or pose for a picture. It was as if performance was in his blood. Gene had always drawn his energy from the people around him, and Dublin suited him, because people met him where he was, with equal life, equal jokes, equal ready affection. He had handed her an envelope of money—proceeds from the film work—that he said he owed her. She didn’t want to accept it but he insisted “I’m doing good just now. Put it in a savings account for her, if nothing else.” He wanted to talk to her about Lila, about her baby, but she hadn’t wanted to be reminded of that part of their lives together, so she had switched the conversation. Gratifyingly, it had been only a matter of minutes before another group of people leaving a pub had recognized him, and stopped to shoot the breeze and he had been distracted again. Perhaps that was the point at which she should haveremoved his arm from around her waist, but it was so pleasant just to lean into him, to remember the ghost of her youth. She felt giddy, adventurous. It was the shortest leap to suggest they go back to her hotel for a drink, the laughter of the evening still ringing in her ears. An even shorter leap for that to become two drinks. And then taking him into her bed hadn’t felt like a decision at all. It was, after all, what her body wanted.
•••
