Page 16 of We All Live Here
She barely hearswhat Jensen is saying about her garden. It’s an unseasonably balmy evening and the sun leaches gold through the gaps in the branches as he walks around, drawing images in the air of raised beds and shingle pathways. As he talks, her head is still humming with the ramifications of what Dan has told her. It’s not just the financial anxiety but the injustice of it. She wants to scream,How can you do this to us?like an unending lament, through his letterbox.
“And I thought maybe you could have a water feature here. There’s a salvage yard out in Kent, which has some really beautiful pieces that would look great. They’re not as cheap as they used to be—everyone’s worked out that salvage is the way to go—but it would provide a really lovely focal point.”
“We could put the bench beside it,” says Bill.
“The poo bench?” says Violet, hopefully. She has somehow found the diet cola, which Lila had hidden in the cupboard with the cleaning products, and is slurping noisily from the edge of a can.
“Poo bench?” says Jensen.
“Don’t ask,” says Bill. “Maybe we could have two water features. One each side of this lovelyAcer. I bet if we cleared away some of these climbers there’s a lovely shape under there.”
Oh, God, thinks Lila. What if Dan decides he can no longer live nearby? Marja’s son is young enough to transfer schools. If they want a bigger property and money is a problem maybe he’ll move to one of the outer boroughs. Then Celie and Violet will have to get buses to theirdad’s house. They will not be down the road but in another postcode entirely. What if he moves out to the country? What if Marja ends up with the house Lila always wanted in the middle of nowhere with cow parsley and log fires and a brick kitchen floor?
“Lila?”
Bill’s hand is on her upper arm. She looks up with a start and he is gazing at her, clearly awaiting a reply.
“Um…yes,” she says, not entirely sure what she is being asked. “Yes” is usually the answer.
It is then, out of the corner of her eye, that she sees Celie walking across the kitchen. She is wearing her short bomber jacket and her eyes are outlined in a smoky black charcoal liner. “Actually, no.”
“No?”
“Celie?” she yells across the garden. Celie glances toward her but turns away, clearly hoping to leave the house swiftly. “Celie! Where are you going?”
Celie stops.
“Out.”
“Where ‘out’?”
“Don’t you like water features?” says Bill. “You always loved the fountain at the other house.”
Lila starts to walk back toward the French windows.
“Celie! Don’t you dare leave before we’ve spoken!”
Celie throws her chin upward in the manner of the perpetually thwarted. “Oh, my God, are you my actual jailer now?”
“I just want to know where you’re going.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t have to be a water feature,” says Bill, his voice lifting. “I just thought a statue of your mother might be a bit much.”
“Are you smoking weed again?”
“Weed?” says Bill.
Jensen takes a few steps toward Lila. “I can come back if this is not a good time.”
“It’s never a good time,” says Lila. “There is not one single good time for anything right now. Not for my tree to fall down, not for my loos to block, not for my own book to make me a laughing stock every bloody day and certainly not for my husband to impregnate his much younger lover on top of her Noguchi bloody coffee-table.”
“Okay,” says Jensen.
Celie stomps up to Lila and faces off. “I’m going to get trashed in the park, okay? I’m going to get completely high on weed that you hypocritically say is bad for you, even though you’re quite happy to use it yourself. I’m going to drink lots of alcohol, and smoke a ton of weed, then get felt up by strange men while I’m in a state of drug-induced inebriation. Is that okay? Or are you going to be extra about that too?”
“Sounds like a good night!” says a voice. And Lila spins round. She stares at the man who has just let himself in through the back gate. He is dragging a battered wheelie case and his broad smile reveals a row of impossibly white teeth. There is a brief silence.
