Private Lives

Chapter 23

Abi puts on sunglasses and steps outside with Margot, Lily still in bed. Abi won’t suggest school to her older daughter today. It’s a beautiful morning, the kind that makes everything feel new, transformed – apart from, Abi realizes, a godawful smell, ancient like something’s been burning for a long time. It’s the somnolent smell of an ending, the chemical tang of things that were never meant to burn, burning. Like the cars the joyriders used to set on fire on the estate.

Margot takes Abi’s hand as they walk, chattering about one of the girls in her class who has a swimming pool at home. A parent Abi hasn’t spoken to before catches her eye as she crosses the road to Abi and Margot’s side of the pavement.

‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’ she says, sniffing the air like a rabbit, her tone suggesting that actually what she means is not ‘awful’ but ‘wondrous’.

Abi must look blank because the woman is smiling now, making her green eyes wide, showcasing surprise. She looks to Margot and back up to Abi as she says, ‘You haven’t heard, have you?’

Margot looks at the woman, reaches for Abi’s hand again.

‘What …?’ is all Abi needs to say.

‘Mr Kent – you know, the headmaster who shagged a prostitute? Well, someone burnt down his mum’s house last night!’

‘Oh my God!’

The woman nods.

‘Was anyone hurt?’

The woman shakes her blonde head. ‘Not really, nothing serious. But I have heard rumours’ – the woman moves in, closer to Abi – ‘that it was the prostitute who did it. Have you read some of the stuff they’re saying online about her?’ Then she glances at Margot and starts apologizing for talking about it with ‘small ears around’.

The woman spots a friend soon after, thank God, and pretends she has to cross the road again to get to her.

‘What does “shagged” mean?’ Margot asks next to Abi, watching the woman leave, and Abi squeezes her hand and says, ‘I’ll tell you later,’ and Margot, satisfied, goes back to the more interesting topic of her friend’s pool.

‘They found a frog in it once …’

Behind her sunglasses, Abi manages to avoid eye contact with anyone else at the school gates. Margot runs into school, pausing like always to give Abi a quick thumbs-up, and as soon as she’s gone, Abi walks away. Ignoring the clutches of parents standing in small circles, bouncing the news to each other, like Seb and Rosie’s personal life is their favourite new game.

But still, Abi isn’t immune. She too wants to see what she can smell, wants to know if the rumours are even true. She doesn’t know exactly where Eva lived, but she has a vague idea from when Rosie pointed it out once. As she walks, it becomes obvious which way to go from the people shaking their heads and walking in the opposite direction. She overhears one of them, turning worried eyes towards the man next to her: ‘We’ve got a fire alarm, Harry, haven’t we?’

The road itself is still cordoned off. A policeman, lightly holding on to the plastic tape, answers questions from people standing on the other side. He sounds bored by the questions, but Abi can hear a little thrill, too, like he’s puffed up with responsibility.

‘I can’t tell you any more, no,’ he says to one.

‘Only residents are allowed through,’ to another.

And finally Abi hears, ‘Well, today you’ll have to find another route.’

Abi stays at the far end of the cordon. Eva’s house, once in the middle of the terrace, looks like the stubby, blackened remains of a tooth, rotten down to the gum, in an otherwise healthy mouth. Abi stares and stares, transfixed by the smell, the smoke, the nothingness. Abi has never met Eva, but she remembers Rosie talking about her, that day they walked up to the viewing point.

She’s interrupted by a man next to her who, in a loud voice, enunciates, ‘Is this’ – he points towards the smouldering wreckage of Eva’s home behind him, before turning back to gaze into the blank round eye of a video camera – ‘a random Halloween prank gone wrong, or is it, as we’re starting to believe, an appalling expression of the anger and resentment that has been building in this usually mild-mannered place? This is Sam Beresford for BBC News, Sussex.’ Sam Beresford freezes, holding his sad, benign smile for a moment, before dropping it entirely and anxiously asking the squatting man holding the camera opposite him, ‘How was that?’

Abi closes the door to the flat and calls up the thin stairs, ‘Lil?’

She hears Lily clattering from her bedroom before she appears at the top of the stairs, cradling the laptop they’re supposed to share under her arm and asking, ‘You’ve heard? About Mr Kent’s mum’s place?’

Abi swallows, nods.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Lily sighs. ‘Poor them.’

Abi realizes Lily is the first person she’s met this morning to express any sympathy, any real feeling out loud.

Lily’s long red hair shudders as she thuds down the stairs towards Abi. Abi opens her arms to her, but Lily doesn’t move in for a hug, so Abi has to be satisfied with putting her hand briefly on her shoulder as Lily moves past her saying, ‘Come into the kitchen with me? I want to ask you something.’

Lily puts the laptop on to the round kitchen table. It wobbles, so Abi bends down to adjust the piece of cardboard she’s rammed under one leg while Lily puts the cereal bowls Abi and Margot used for breakfast into the sink.

Lily sits at the computer and Abi pulls up a chair next to her so she can see the screen as well.

Before Lily opens the laptop, she looks at Abi and says, ‘You’re probably not going to like this but I needed to know, wanted to know more about your … um, old job. So …’

She opens the laptop and there in front of them are a dozen or so thumbnails of women’s faces, tits, crotches, legs wide open like butterfly wings. ‘Sex mad!’ one of them cries. ‘34GG all natural!’ ‘Hungry whore!’

Abi stands up like one of the women has slapped her. She wants to slam the computer shut, shout at Lily for looking at this stuff, send her with a disgusted face and pointed finger to her room.

But, of course, Abi can do none of those, would do none of those things; she just stares at her daughter, who stares back at her, noticing the angry flush Abi feels rising up her face, the sudden tension in her body, the taut way she asks, ‘Why are you looking at that shit, Lil?’

Lily’s cheek twitches. ‘I’m just trying to understand, Mum.’

Abi looks away, up towards the ceiling. She hates this. Hates the thought of Lily’s green eyes flickering over that pumped, pressed and airbrushed flesh. These women who, in London, Abi used to think were just like her. Women doing what they could to improve their lives suddenly seem so desperate to Abi, so vulnerable and one-dimensional, in this little, privileged town. Context really is everything.

Lily keeps her eyes on Abi and waits patiently, until Abi sighs and asks, ‘You were looking for me, weren’t you?’

Lily nods.

Abi looks away, up to the ceiling again, in the vain hope gravity will pull the tears she feels building back into her ducts. But it doesn’t work so she wipes her hand across her face and reminds herself that no matter how hard this is for her, it’s harder for Lily. She must get this right. So she looks back, into Lily’s wide-eyed, freckled face and, sitting back down, next to her daughter, says, ‘What do you want to know?’

Abi starts by typing in the password for her old website. She’d spent an afternoon before they moved down to Waverly removing links to www.theladyemma.com which she paid other websites for, before taking it offline completely. Without any sadness or regret, she thought that she might not ever see it again. It feels like years since she took it offline but it must be fewer than ninety days because she still has access. She watches Lily’s face, her heart frantic; it feels like something trapped inside her as Lily reads to herself the words Abi still knows so well:

‘Hello, I’m Emma. Your open-minded, discreet and passionate companion based in central London …’

The text is set in front of photos of Abi, images of her naked back, her clavicle, her feet lifted in the air, crossed at the ankle, some of her tattoos airbrushed away. She’d been proud of her website when she made it so many years ago, pleased she’d taken the time to get the wording, the tone exactly right. Diego helped a bit but she knew he worried about her, so she didn’t ask for him to be too involved.

When Lily’s finished reading, she turns to Abi and asks, ‘So, you were, like, um, high end?’

Abi looks at Lily. She has no idea what words to use, no idea how to tell her daughter that, really, it didn’t feel that different to Abi whether her arse was pressed up against the stale upholstery of an old car or against cold marble in a five-star hotel. The exchange was the same.

‘I suppose so, but really I was just careful to be safe …’ She thinks about how many times Lily, just by existing, saved Abi. Lily needed Abi so Abi had to be careful. She couldn’t ever risk any time in a hospital bed or a police cell because she always had to get home for Lily.

‘I learnt over time the kind of client I wanted to attract …’ Lily is looking at her quietly, frowning in that way she does when she’s concentrating hard. But there’s no disgust in her face, there’s no longer even any shock. She does, like she said, just want to understand. It’s the best response Abi could have hoped for, really.

Abi keeps talking. ‘I learnt a hell of a lot doing that job. I learnt how to market myself, where to advertise, how best to try and dodge time-wasters. I even learnt about boring stuff like bookkeeping and tax. But probably the most important thing I learnt was about boundaries.’

‘Like what you were prepared to do and stuff?’

Abi nods, remembering how she was pinned down once, only fifteen, Lily’s age now, by her friend’s older brother. He’d been unzipping his jeans, Abi crying beneath him, when Abi’s friend burst into the living room.

‘I actually found that it was clearer with clients than it was with other partners I had outside of work, because, you know, we’d discuss what we were going to do before meeting.’

Lily frowns. ‘Come on, Mum, what are you talking about, “other partners”? You haven’t been on a date in … Well, have you ever been on a date?’

Abi grimaces, widens her eyes, innocent, exclaiming, ‘I don’t have time!’

‘That’s what you always say.’ Lily glances back at the website and asks, a little sadly, ‘Is this the real reason why?’

Abi breathes out, rolls her lips together and says truthfully, ‘Perhaps. In part.’

Lily is quiet for a moment. Abi wants to stroke her hair, but senses Lily’s not done talking yet and she doesn’t want to disturb her.

‘How did you start? What happened?’

She’d anticipated this one.

‘You were six months old. It was the first time your dad had you for a night, looking after you at his mum’s place, which was on the same estate where I grew up. Anyway, I was pretty antsy, worried. An old friend from school was working in a bar in King’s Cross. She said she could smuggle me a couple of free drinks, so I decided to go along and distract myself from missing you. I met a man at the bar; he kept buying me drinks. It turned out he was staying at the hotel and … well, when I woke up, he was gone but he’d left cash on the side.’

He told her his name was Claude. He was probably in his forties, muscled and short, sunburnt although it was February.

‘So that’s it, you started doing it from then?’

Abi nods. Maybe, in time, she’ll tell her about how she went back to the hotel and was kicked out by the smirking security staff, the shifts she worked in a Finsbury Park brothel, the other women sneering and competitive. Maybe, one day, she’ll tell her how sometimes a girl working in the brothel would disappear without explanation. Deported? Kidnapped by a boyfriend? Arrested? The rest of them would ask briefly as they adjusted each other’s bra straps before never mentioning her name again. But she won’t tell her any of this, not now, not yet. Instead, she says, ‘I really am sorry, you know, for keeping all of this from you.’

Lily nods, accepting her apology before she says, ‘Well, I suppose all this bullshit with Blake’s mum going for Mr Kent just shows why you couldn’t be open about it.’

Abi nods; Lily’s right.

‘Does Uncle D know?’

Abi nods. ‘But even we don’t really talk about it.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, really. Maybe talking about it makes the whole thing more real somehow. Like I said, he used to worry. It’s why he always kept me in the loop with his restaurant work, always wanted to help me find my way out when the time was right.’

Lily sits back in her chair, tilting her body slightly towards Abi as she asks, ‘What are you thinking now, Mum?’

‘About …’

‘Waverly, all the gossip and stuff.’

Abi sighs again. ‘Honestly? I was looking at flats this morning.’

‘Where?’

‘London, mostly.’

Lily makes a face, shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to go back to London.’

Abi isn’t surprised. The cramped city with its noise and filth had never suited her dreamy, space-seeking girl.

‘The thing is, Lil, I’m not sure it’s safe for us here any more.’

‘You mean after last night?’

Abi nods and pictures their own flat desecrated. The girls standing outside, freshly homeless.

‘Brighton?’ Lily asks and Abi smiles.

‘Brighton could work.’

‘I want to keep going to school here, though. The art department and …’ Lily doesn’t finish her sentence, but Abi is pretty sure she was about to say Blake’s name.

‘That’s fine, Lil. I understand. We’ll find a way to make it work.’

Lily nods and reaches over for her mum’s hand. Abi feels an almost overwhelming rush of love. A love flavoured with something else now, something new. Respect, deep admiration.

‘Are you going to tell everyone?’ Lily asks, lightly.

‘What about?’

‘That it was you, Mum, who had sex with Mr Kent.’

Despite everything she’s just shared, those words from Lily are still a shock.

‘I … um … no, no. If we move to Brighton there’d be no point. We’d be mostly away from it all.’

‘Hmm. I suppose.’

Abi draws Lily closer then, towards her, puts her hand behind Lily’s silken head, kisses her face and says, ‘You’re amazing – you know that, don’t you?’

Lily looks her mum right in the eye, their faces still so close Abi can feel Lily’s tea-sweetened breath on her cheek as she says, ‘I know.’

Lily doesn’t know it but it’s the best response. She moves to stand, closing the laptop before Abi says, ‘Mind if you leave that here? I want to have another look at flats.’

Lily smooths her hair behind her ear and says, ‘Course. I’m going to go upstairs and give Blake a call, OK?’

Abi feels like her heart has trebled in size as she squeezes her daughter’s smooth hand one last time, smiling as she watches her leave.

She sits for a moment, stunned by Lily but also by a new feeling of wholeness. It isn’t bringing Emma into her real life, exactly, that’s making her feel this way, but rather the absence of something else. The release of the deep, smothering fear that the rest of the world was right, and she was wrong, that the things she’s done are a sort of stain on her soul. A failure of goodness in her. Now, it doesn’t matter. The rest of the world be damned; they can think whatever they like because Lily knows. Lily knows and she will still sit next to her and listen and hold her hand and call her ‘Mum’. Lily hasn’t only offered Abi her acceptance, she’s given Abi something even more powerful. She’s given Abi her freedom.

Abi and Lily eat lunch together at home – a creamy lemon and clam linguine, one of Lily’s favourites – before Abi walks to the restaurant. The burning smell is less obvious now, but still sulphurous, like decomposing eggs. She’d messaged Diego earlier to say that she was coming in and he’d replied with a thumbs-up. He hadn’t been in touch to tell her how the previous evening had gone, and she hasn’t yet asked. Lotte had messaged, a cheery one-liner: ‘Hope you’re feeling better!’ Followed by a stream of green-faced sick emojis.

Abi stops outside the restaurant just to look at it for a few moments. The gold lettering she chose with Lotte glints like fish scales in the sun, ‘PLATE’ glittering but still elegant in its simple, bold font. Staring at the place she’d had such hopes for, she starts to feel like secret doors within herself are slamming shut. Where just a couple of hours ago she felt a kind of awakening, she now feels like she’s being wrapped in layers of suffocating cling film. Wrapped and restricted like she needs protection against seepage and spoiling. She’d wanted it to work here so badly.

Through the window, she sees movement inside the restaurant. Diego stops whatever he was doing and, sensing her, turns. He smiles immediately, lifts his hand before he frantically beckons her inside.

‘Tell me now. Before Madam arrives,’ Diego says. ‘How is Lily?’

They’re sitting at Abi’s favourite table, a little two-seater tucked into the far corner by the window, drinking coffee.

‘She’s completely blown me away, D. I … I underestimated her.’

‘Hmm. Perhaps. But she is who she is because you are who you are. You must see that.’

Abi rolls her eyes, shakes her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know. That’s …’

‘Too much to hear right now?’

Abi wrinkles her nose, nods, but she does smile. Diego squeezes Abi’s forearm where it rests on the table between them. She places her palm on top of the back of his hairy hand and they both know what is coming. The words they must say next.

Diego goes first. ‘So, look, abuela, we survived last night without you but, honest to God, I can’t, I won’t survive another service like that.’

He tells her about the waiter who left in tears, no one knowing why, the main courses that had gone cold, the errors on bills and parties being seated at the wrong tables, among many other mistakes. They’d had to comp five starters and three main courses.

‘I know you can’t,’ she says, looking right into his dark chocolate eyes, ‘and you shouldn’t have to. But …’

‘Ah.’ Diego winces. He knew there’d be a ‘but’.

‘But I can’t be here any more, D. It’s not good for me, and after what happened last night it might not even be safe.’

Diego blows out through his mouth. Abi knows he thinks she’s overreacting; he grew up in Mexico City – what happened last night was mild as milk compared to the things he’s seen.

‘I can’t work here any more, Diego,’ she says, plainly.

‘You won’t go back, will you?’

She knows what he’s asking; he’s asking if she’ll become Emma again. And it’s a good question but not one she can answer – not yet, anyway – so Abi lifts and drops her shoulders.

‘Lily and I were talking about moving to Brighton. I’m going to go and see a flat there tomorrow.’

‘Hmm,’ Diego says, lifting his hand to scrub his palm against the stubby bristle on his jaw. His eyes seem to journey elsewhere suddenly; she can’t tell what he’s thinking, whether he’s already scrolling through his internal Rolodex, trying to think of any contacts who might be able to replace Abi, or planning next week’s menu. It’s a surprise when, blinking, he returns and says, ‘A recruitment guy – someone who works in finding chefs, that sort of thing – contacted me a while back asking if I’d be interested in Sabor, that new place in Brighton.’

Abi nods, she knows it; the reviews weren’t ecstatic, but they were fine. The food is much less exciting than Diego’s, but she will need a job and likes where this thinking is leading.

‘I have his number somewhere; I could call and ask if they’re looking for someone?’

Abi doesn’t need to say yes, she just smiles at her friend and says for the second time that day, ‘You’re amazing.’

Diego nods, pushes out his bottom lip and looking sadly at Abi says, ‘I’m going to miss you here.’

And suddenly Abi feels herself crying again because this place, that for so long represented a new freedom for her, has become not a jail exactly, but a closed room, and she feels like she’s just found a way out.

‘Come here,’ she says to her old friend, their shared dream lying crumpled at their feet as they hug.

Lotte arrives soon after with a large bag.

‘Ooff,’ she says, pointing at the contents. ‘Candles.’

She stands, pressing her palms into the small of her back, and looks at Abi, a little sly, a little suspicious. Abi remembers Lotte giving her the same look during her interview months ago. Lotte had been worried about Abi’s lack of recent references on her CV, but she knew she was going to have to overlook the issue if they wanted Diego. Which they did. Badly.

Today Lotte squeezes Diego’s shoulder and turning to Abi asks, ‘You feeling better, Abs?’

All Abi has to do is smile and nod before Lotte, due diligence done, looks away from Abi and, pulling out her phone, addresses Diego as she says, ‘Oh, guys! I was interviewed this morning! By the Beeb! So exciting – my fifteen minutes …’ she adds, lifting her eyebrows like she actually believes she’s worth – no, owed – much, much more than just fifteen measly minutes.

She frowns at her phone as she searches for the link and, holding the phone away from herself and gesturing to Diego to lean in, she presses ‘play’.

Lotte is standing outside the school gates, her hair neatly arranged over her shoulders, her lips shellacked, her expression one of studied seriousness. Abi immediately recognizes the reporter standing next to Lotte: Sam Beresford, the guy she overheard outside the remains of Eva’s house earlier.

‘I’m standing outside Waverly Community Secondary School, joined by Lotte Browning, a parent whose son attends the school where Mr Kent is head teacher. Good morning, Lotte.’

Lotte looks briefly at Sam before, smiling, she turns back and says direct to camera, ‘It’s not, Sam – no, not a good morning. I’m afraid me and my family along with the rest of our community here in Waverly are still trying to comprehend what happened last night.’

Lotte, transfixed by herself on the screen, mouths along, repeating the words silently as Lotte in the video says them.

‘We’re all in shock and our hearts go out to Eva and her family.’

Sam moves the microphone back under his own chin as he says, ‘Does that include Sebastian Kent, Eva’s son?’

Lotte frowns, smiles and shakes her head gently at Sam. ‘Of course it does!’ Before she adds, ‘Listen, it’s important that everyone understands the community here doesn’t have a problem with Mr Kent as a person. We would never condone or want to incite violence against anyone.’

‘Yes, but last night …’

‘The terrible things that happened last night were the misjudged actions of … I don’t know, a few crazy people. But they do at least highlight the strength of feeling here. We’ve seen it happen in neighbouring towns and villages, the slow corruption of a once beloved place. We will protect our community. And part of that means ensuring the people who are at the forefront of our community – the leaders or elders, if you like – share our values. Which Mr Kent clearly does not. It’s as simple as that.’

‘And what about the woman who supposedly recently moved to Waverly – what would you say to her?’

‘Mr Kent’s prostitute, you mean?’ Lotte checks. Sam nods, his eyes flaring, unsure whether that is a banned word on air, and Lotte turns back, fixes her eyes once again, straight on the camera. She breathes out, sadly. ‘I’d say first that we’re sorry. I’m sure none of this is your fault and, please, if you need help, we’re here. We are here,’ she adds more softly, before her plastic mouth lifts into a saccharine and carefully produced smile.

The video ends with Sam thanking Lotte.

Diego sits back in his chair, his jaw hanging open. Lotte leans forward, thinking his reaction is something other than what it is – shock, worry for Abi, bemusement.

‘What do you think, D? Did I talk too quickly? Did I smile enough?’

Diego can’t meet her eye as he stands up from his chair and says, ‘Wow.’

‘You liked it?’ Lotte asks, a little shy.

Diego looks at Lotte, his dark eyebrows closer to his hairline than Abi’s seen them before, and he says, ‘You’re something else, Madam, you really are.’

And because Diego is Diego and because he calls her ‘Madam’ and because this is just his adorable Mexican way (isn’t it?), Lotte beams at him before he says, ‘I’d better get back.’ And as he turns, heading towards the kitchen, he looks at Abi and she knows in that moment that he understands. He fully understands and even though she never needed his permission, not really, to leave, she has it and their friendship will continue.

When he’s gone, Lotte starts unpacking her candles, telling Abi how she and Richard are having a security camera fitted outside their front door because, ‘It just feels like we can’t trust anyone any more, you know?’

She doesn’t notice Abi staring at her, wondering what it’d be like to be so fearful of things she knows nothing about. Because what, really, does Lotte know about threat and violence?

‘Lotte, I need to tell you something …’

‘What was that?’ Lotte asks, adding, ‘Look at this. £10.99 for a candle and they stick the price over the wick!’

‘I’m handing in my notice, Lotte.’

Lotte looks up sharply then, her eyes little knots of disbelief, betrayal.

‘What?’

‘I’m leaving the restaurant.’

Lotte squints at Abi. ‘That’s insane. Diego’s going to get us a star next year – why on earth would you want to—’

‘I don’t want to be here any more.’ It’s the truth, Abi thinks, why complicate things?

‘We’ve only just opened! And Diego, oh God, he’s not going too …’

‘No, no. It’s just me. He already knows. I’ll work this weekend and then we can figure out my leaving date. I’m still in the first three months of my contract and we agreed, didn’t we, that either party can terminate with immediate …’

Lotte isn’t listening; she’s too invested in her own sense of betrayal. She comes towards Abi, hands at her waist, her face a twist of rage. ‘I defended you, do you know that?’

‘Lotte …’

‘To Anna and Vita – they both wanted to keep you on the list. Especially Vita …’

‘List?’

‘No, no. It doesn’t matter. Don’t come in this weekend. We don’t need you. In fact, don’t ever come here again.’

Abi stammers, but Lotte’s face is blanched with anger, and she starts walking towards Abi again, forcing her backwards and saying, ‘Get out. Go on. If you don’t want us, then we sure as hell don’t want you.’