Page 95 of We All Live Here
Marja’s bedroom has zero clutter: all the clothes are folded neatly or hung behind the doors of the fitted wardrobes that don’t even have handles. You have to press them in one place to get them to open. The bed is made neatly, with two color-coded cushions on each pillow and one of those blankets that isn’t a blanket covering the end of the bed. Celie opens the wardrobe and gazes at Marja’s clothes, which are nearly all cream or black or white. It is basically the most boring wardrobe she has ever seen. She opens the drawers, ready to be repulsed by sexy underwear, but all Marja’s knickers are plain gray or black, with only one bra-and-knickers set that is made of silk with some lace stuff. Marja doesn’t have a lot of stuff, not like Mum, but she does have really expensive skincare and perfumes.
There is a whole tray of makeup, laid out carefully with a magnifying mirror, on the dressing-table in front of the window. Celie sits down and picks up the different tubes and wands, opening them to try the different colors. She outlines her eyes with Marja’s Chantecaille eyeliner, then uses the Chanel eyeshadow palette. Marja’s skin is darker than hers, so the foundation doesn’t work, but she uses a little cream blusher and highlighter, then examines her face closely in the magnifying mirror, searching for pimples and open pores.
When she has finished doing her face, she sniffs the perfumes. There are eight different bottles, and she tries each on her wrist until the scents have all blended and she can’t tell which is which. She tries the hand cream on the back of her hand, rubbing it in with her index finger until it is absorbed. Then she picks up the really expensive moisturizer and sniffs it. It has a subtle, flowery smell. She gazes at it for a while, then gets up and walks to the en-suite bathroom. She squeezes the tube so that a manic white worm of cream wriggles its way into the plughole,and then does the same thing twice more, so that the tube is nearly empty. She puts the lid on and goes back to the perfumes, unscrewing the lids that will come off and pouring most of the precious gold-colored liquid into the washbasin. She tops up the bottles with water. She does the same with Marja’s luxe-looking cleanser and then her serum. Then she rinses away the residue, and replaces the bottles carefully on Marja’s dressing-table.
She looks around at the bedroom again, then heads downstairs and calls her mother.
•••
“Why your fathercan’t schedule her appointments around the times you’re with me, I don’t know.” Lila is shaking her head as she drives Celie home. “He only texted me about Violet ten minutes before school pickup.”
“I don’t mind,” Celie says.
Lila shoots her a glance and her face softens. “Sorry. I shouldn’t moan about Dad in front of you. And I don’t mind either,” she says. She reaches out a hand. “I get you for an extra night, after all. Hey, how about we order takeaway tonight? How about a really big unhealthy pizza with extra cheese and whatever toppings you fancy?”
Mum’s cooking has been so terrible since Bill left that Celie’sYesprobably came out more enthusiastically than she meant. But Mum doesn’t seem to notice. She hasn’t worn makeup for over a week now. Her hair is scraped back in a ponytail, she has big shadows under her eyes, and she is wearing the same sweater she has worn for three days this week. For a while Mum had looked like herself again, but now she’s mostly like someone who’s got out of her sickbed to answer the door.
“When is Gene coming back?” Celie says.
Mum keeps her eyes on the road. “I’m not sure,” she says. “He…he…I think his job may keep him away for a bit.”
Celie stares at her knees. She can smell the perfume on her hands and it’s making her feel a bit sick. She thinks she could have talked to Gene about what she’s done. There isn’t really anyone else she could tell without them freaking out. “Is he definitely coming back?”
Mum makes the face she does when she knows something she’s not saying. “I—I don’t know, lovey. I’ll talk to him at some point and we’ll work it out.”
•••
The following dayMum asks Celie to pick up Violet. She has an important work meeting, apparently, and even though Celie moans at her that Violet’s school is in the wrong direction, and she’ll have to wait ages because of the stupid play rehearsal, Mum is adamant that she cannot go herself. She is being really odd. She didn’t eat more than a slice of the pizza at supper, and she could tell she was on the phone with Eleanor all night because she could hear her murmuring,I know. I know. I just don’t know what to say to him, when she went past her closed bedroom door.
“Celie, I very rarely ask you for anything. But I do need you to do school pickup for me just now. Bill will do it tomorrow, but he can’t today, and your school finishes in time for you to meet her.”
Parents are so selfish.
Celie gets to the playground at a quarter to five, fifteen minutes before Violet is due to finish, and eats a packet of salt and vinegar crisps that she bought on the way over. She should really have bought some for Violet too so she needs to eat them quickly and throw the packet into the bin so that Violet won’t find out and go on all evening about how mean she is.
Celie has felt weird all day about the perfumes. She’s not sure what came over her the previous afternoon and part of her has been waiting for Dad to call and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, to tell hershe’s a horrible, horrible person. But he hasn’t said anything. She has carried the knowledge of what she did like an increasing pressure all day, pushing at the inside of her head, like something uncontainable. She texts Martin while she waits, her fingers pinking at the ends from the cold.
I did a weird thing at my dad’s.
She tells him about the perfumes, and the creams. There is a short pause, the dots pulsing, and she thinks he’s about to tell her she’s a freak, or that he doesn’t really want to talk to her any more. Maybe he’ll join Meena and the other girls in ignoring her. The dots go on long enough for her to regret even telling him. And then he says:When my mum got together with my stepdad I went through her drawer and threw all her birth-control pills out of the window into next door’s garden. I think I thought it would stop them doing anything. All it did was get me a baby brother, haha.
PS though no baby foxes this year so who knows what happened
It makes her laugh, and feel a bit less weird, but a few moments later the anxiety returns, a big knot in her stomach, like she’s waiting for something terrible to happen all over again.
It’s almost five when the doors to the primary school open, and the kids start to file out, dragging rucksacks or clutching creased pages of their play script. There are loads of other parents in the playground by then, and she keeps her head down, her hood up, focusing on her phone so she doesn’t have to talk to anyone about how they remember when she was at school there, how much she’s grown, all the stupid things adults say. It takes her a moment to notice that Violet, when she walks over, is not on her own. At her side, holding her hand, a big grin on his face, is Gene, chatting briefly to Mrs. Tugendhat, who has her hand pressed to her chest, like she’s literally trying to contain her heart. They talk for a moment and he nods vigorously, then puts his hand on Mrs. Tugendhat’s arm. When the teacher finally walks off she touches the place where his hand had been, like she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says, pulling Celie in for a hug. He always does this, like he doesn’t even notice whether you actually want one or not.
“I thought you were away working.”
He pulls a weird face. And then his grin returns. “Well, I am! But I had an early finish and I missed you guys, so I thought I’d just stop by and walk you home. I can’t stay long—gotta get back to work—but I just wanted to see your smushy little faces.”
And even though he’s really irritating, and he’s wearing his stupid Grateful Dead T-shirt, which makes him look like an old hippie, Celie feels something inside her collapse with relief.
Chapter Thirty-two
Lila
