Page 37 of We All Live Here
“I’ll take ’em,” he says, beaming, and goes to give her a big bear hug before she can sidestep. Lila accepts it stiffly. “Lila,” he says, “you’re a mensch.”
I’m an idiot, she thinks, and heads downstairs with a heavy heart to tellBill.
Chapter Eleven
Marriage, I’ve learned over fifteen years, is a never-ending series of constantly shifting compromises. Your partner is not always going to behave in the way you want. You probably don’t behave in a way they want. The trick is to look at the big picture, and ask: how do we move this forward? To think in terms of “us.” For as long as you see yourselves as a unit, you have the same goal: to be together, and to be happy together. That’s essentially the most important thing. So does it really matter if you would rather be watchingSleepless in Seattlewhen he’s watching the rugby? Does it matter that he wants to stack the dishwasher in a way that irritates you? Will it make a huge difference if one of his parents comes to stay for a week, and you have to bite your lip and accommodate someone when you don’t really want to? It’s easy to find yourself viewing these things as a slippery slope: if I give in now, will I end up giving in on everything? Provided you’re in a relationship of mutual respect, the answer to that is no. The key, I’vefound, to moving forward, is asking myself, during these moments: do I want to be right? Or do I want to be happy?
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she says.
“I want to stay close to the girls. I want them to be able to walk to see me after school, like they do now. And the only way we can afford a bigger house around here is with a bigger mortgage. Like I told you, the lawyer said I’m currently paying more than I’m legally bound to.”
“Big of you, Dan.”
“So I’m sorry but that’s what I have to do. Hopefully you’ll get a new book deal soon, which will make things easier for you. But in the meantime I also have to factor in that Marja is going to have to take time off work once the baby arrives.”
“Fine. Basically we’d better hope I can get more work because Marja sure as hell doesn’t want to.”
“She’s pregnant, Lila. Not sitting around on her arse. C’mon, you know how hard it was when the girls were newborns.”
“I worked, Dan! I carried on writing, in case you’ve forgotten. I carried on working when I was on two hours’ sleep wearing a bra filled with cabbage leaves. I maintained a freelance career so that I could do both things. And now because your girlfriend doesn’t want to work, I am looking at a catastrophic drop in our income. That’s more than you said in the first place, and that was bad enough.”
“I’m paying you what I can afford.”
“We can’t live if you reduce it by that much!”
“Well, then, you’ll have to get a smaller house.”
He says it. He actually says it. There is a short silence as they both absorb the fact that, yes, he went there.
Lila’s voice, when it comes, is icy. “Right. Just so I’m clear. So you want me and your daughters to sell their family home and buy a smaller house, so that you can get a bigger house for your new family.”
“Oh, come on! Don’t twist my words—”
But she has already put the phone down.
•••
Lila writes anotherthree thousand words that afternoon. They come remarkably easily.
•••
It is fairto say that the first couple of weeks of Gene’s stay are not an unqualified success.
He sleeps late and rises like a bear out of hibernation, crashing into furniture and leaving wet towels and coffee spills in his wake. He seems incapable of looking after himself, beyond basic hygiene, and that is variable. He lives off coffee and cigarettes, cookies and potato chips. She has explained the washing-machine to him three times and every time he says, “Yes, yes, sweetheart, got it,” then boils his T-shirts into children’s sizes, or somehow manages to miss the spin cycle completely. He assures her daily that he is looking for work but is easily distracted, an old jester in constant search of an audience, heading out to the garden to divert Jensen with tales of Old Hollywood, or eagerly awaiting the return of the girls, so that he can watchStar Squadron Zerowith Violet snuggled under his arm. In the early evenings he is restless, heading out to the bottom of the garden to smoke cigarettes that Lila hopes are just tobacco or disappearing to the Crown and Duck on the corner of the high street where he soothes himself with a couple of beers. He returns, usually late, for dinner, now filled with a level of bonhomie and garrulousness that makes Bill’s jaw, already taut with tension, look like it might be about to grind itself into dust.
Lila is irritated that he goes, irritated that somehow he has the money for beer when he has offered her nothing for food or lodging. But the relief of having him out of the house for a couple of hours is greater soshe says nothing, other than explaining yet again that cans need to be recycled or asking him to fold up the bed so that she can get to her desk. She prays he gets himself sorted out soon.
Because even with the sofa-bed folded there is something about his presence in Lila’s study—the scent of his aftershave and the scattered piles of clothes—that makes her feel deeply unsettled. It is like being revisited by a ghost from her past. She often works in one of the girls’ rooms while they are out.
“How’s Bill coping with him?” says Eleanor. It is raining heavily and they are sheltering in a copse, while Truant looks out resentfully.
“Um, not great.” Lila thinks of Bill’s mouth, pressed into an ever-present line of disapproval, the way he walks out of any room that Gene walks into. The way he will often address Lila as an intermediary, even if Gene is clearly within earshot. “Do you think he will be eating with us this evening? If his drinking schedule allows?”
“Bill had your mum to himself for more than thirty years. Why is he so pissed at Gene?”
“Neither of them can let it go. It’s exhausting. Gene hates Bill because I think he always assumed he could pick up with Mum again, like he does with all his girlfriends. And Bill got in the way of that. Bill hates Gene for causing Mum so much pain in the first place, because I guess he actually did have to pick up the pieces. And Mum would have told him how awful Gene was again and again over the years. She really saw through him. So I guess he only sees Gene through that prism.” Lila lifts her hood from her head and shakes off the excess water.
“Wow,” says Eleanor. “It’s going to be a long few weeks.”
