The Shades Read online

  “She wanted to be rich. That was her ambition. Her goal.”

  He saw Lakme’s stare intensify, a pulling of focus. He was satisfied that he had made her disapprove of Rachel too.

  “Do you have one? A goal?”

  “Of course,” he’d said without saying what, because this wasn’t entirely true.

  Lakme didn’t push him to reveal what. She was prioritizing. The directness of her next question surprised him.

  “What was your last memory of your sister?”

  Water, almost black. Silver reflection. Lights slashing the water like knives.

  “She texted me a picture of her boyfriend’s indoor swimming pool the day she died.”

  “She sent you a photograph?”

  “Yeah. From her cell phone.”

  “Why do you think she wanted you to see that?”

  “Advertising, I suppose.”

  “A swimming pool?” Her voice was level, he thought, to hide her incredulity.

  He wondered why therapists did that; they pretended not to have opinions when obviously they did, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. It was obvious what she wanted to know: what his sister was trying to prove by sending him that image. He could have said that she enjoyed provoking him, knowing that he didn’t approve of her Eurotrash friends. She liked to tease him with accounts of obscene wealth—who had the biggest houses, the biggest cars. When he’d point out that the bigger the car, the bigger the polluter, she laughed and said, “Who cares? I like them. They’re smooth.” He didn’t tell Ms. Lakme how she liked to embarrass him by calling him into her room when she was half-naked or when she was I-chatting with a friend who was also undressed, call him prude when he complained. Or that when she didn’t get into the secondary school of choice after hours of private tutoring, she had a fit and everyone was shocked—except him. He knew she wouldn’t get in; that was a no-brainer. She wasn’t academic or particularly studious. When he asked his dad why he was so amazed—“She isn’t exactly the sharpest pencil in the box,”—his father told him to stop being supercilious, adding, “Don’t ever tell her that.” Rowan tried to be sympathetic. He even gave up tennis and substituted running, a sport he didn’t like, because every time he won a tournament and she didn’t, she’d go into decline. Then she went to a suitably sloaney school, but somewhere in the transition she became hard—talk about supercilious! They got into the habit of sniping at each other—he was sure she started it. He didn’t need a therapist to explain why: she was shallow, a bit thick, and she minded. She wanted to be something else. But he withheld all that, and more. He had to give Ms. Lakme somewhere to go in their sessions every week, otherwise they would get bored. Also, he was watching the clock on her desk—it had a wide face and stumpy legs—his first-period environmental studies class was about to start and he didn’t want to be late. He’d met the teacher, Mr. Stewart, at orientation and he seemed all right. Instead, he responded, “She didn’t know she was going to die.”

  Ms. Lakme scribbled something on her pad.

  There was another reason that his sister’s deification bothered him. It was totally missing the point of the message of her death: the urgency of life.

  This and neon carnations he contemplated lying on his bed the first night he arrived. He was cautiously excited. He had the sense that something was going to happen. He was poised for something: not greatness exactly—he was too modest to have thought that—but verging.

  He had the beginnings of a manifesto.

  Do no harm.

  (He knew that was a given.)

  Live every day as if it mattered.

  That was harder to do and as important.

  He could hear manic fits of laughter next door. Osei and Freddie were yelling “Garnish the mushroom!” and crying with laughter. He heard a hollow thud that sounded like a head bumping against the wall.

  Morons, he thought with a smile.

  When Keira returned to Hamdean she wasn’t in the red car. She came on foot, as she didn’t drive—it turned out that when she’d visited before she had been given a lift to the house by a friend. When Catherine heard that Keira had walked three miles from the station, along narrow lanes with no footpath, where maniacs drove blind corners as if they owned the roads, she was appalled and told her that if only she’d known she was arriving, she would have gladly met her train. Seeing her host’s anxiety, Keira reminded her that as she’d never taken her email or number, short of communicating by snail-mail or carrier pigeon, without days of notice it might have been hard to arrange, making them both smile at the notion.

  Since her last visit the young woman had smartened up. With her hair combed down, blazer cinched at the waist, canvas weekend bag in hand, she looked more like a chic French student from a Boden catalogue than the arty punk she’d met several weeks before. Safety concerns aside, Catherine wasn’t fazed by her arrival, as her invitation had been sufficiently welcoming and open-ended to warrant a certain flexibility—although she wouldn’t have said no to the chance to organize herself: get food, check the guest bedroom, make sure there was toilet paper in the spare bathroom, and so on, but her lack of preparation didn’t diminish her cautious excitement at the young woman’s return.

  As there was nothing in the fridge, Catherine had to improvise supper. There was a small roast in the freezer but no time to let it thaw. She overestimated the defrost setting on the microwave. This probably accounted for the unappetizing gray hue of the beef. Not that Keira seemed to mind. Using her fork to saw her meat, she managed to put away a fair amount for someone with such a slight frame. While she was eating, Catherine plied her with questions. She wanted to draw her out, hear more of her story. She was moved by this waif with flickering eyes and acne-picked skin who had never known a family.

  After leaving school, Keira had made the conscious decision not to go to university. She hadn’t seen the point of trying. Since the financial meltdown there were no jobs, even for those with qualifications. She seemed to think that this had leveled the playing field. She had come back to the UK from France to go to sixth-form college and live with a host family in Reading. Her aunt had subsidized her rentrée on the understanding that once exams were done there wouldn’t be further financial help. As Keira’s father died of a stroke at the age of sixty-five (he’d been much older than his wife), and her mother a couple of years after, she had no immediate family left in the UK—not that she’d really known them or they had been much help. She told Catherine that she was glad to be getting a head start in the work arena while everyone else was loading their résumés with extra degrees, calling her decision “betting on myself.” Catherine listened sympathetically. Her argument showed drive, yet she could see the logic behind it was flawed. She was conscious that if either one of her children had tried to shelter behind such a naïve idea, she would have been obliged to point out the cold reality that fewer jobs meant stiffer competition; in the present economy, it was all the more important to get as many qualifications as possible, but she didn’t say anything as it was too late: Keira’s decision had already been made.

  Keira was temping through an agency. So far this meant a revolving door of offices, replacing sick receptionists, and doing basic secretarial work, but she was confident that sooner or later she’d get the entrée she desired.

  “Where would that be?” Catherine asked.

  “In design or fashion—I’d kill for a job on a magazine,” she said.

  Although her description was sufficiently vague to cover a multitude of options, Catherine immediately thought of Paige, who was in the best position to advise. She offered to text her in the morning. She would put them in touch; they could talk and, maybe, you never know, Paige might be of help. The suggestion seemed to thrill Keira. Connecting with the editor of Charisma she said would be major. She went as far as to declare the magazine “the best of the middle-aged glossies.” Seeing Catherine’s amusement, she quickly added, “Obviously, I wouldn’t say that to her face.”

&n
bsp; After dinner Catherine told her about Rachel.

  Keira paused for a moment, then said: “I knew there was something about you.”

  Catherine was grateful for her lack of commentary. There was nothing for her to add.

  Catherine also spoke about Rowan. “Losing his sister was harder on him than anyone. I’m understanding more now, why he needed to get away.”

  At the mention of his name, Keira got up from the table and moved toward the dresser, where ceramics, postcards, and photographs were displayed on a shelf. Keira peered at an image of Rowan and Rachel taken at a tennis tournament when they were aged eleven and twelve. They had been away at sports camp for several weeks that summer. Prolonged exposure to the sun had turned their skin gold.

  “He looks a lot different—he’s sixteen now,” Catherine added. “You can’t imagine a sweeter boy. Even when he was small, he’d ask questions: If ants were bigger would people still want to squash them? He’s perfect, except he doesn’t want to be around me anymore.”

  The day of the tournament they had both placed in their categories. Rowan was always modest about his achievements—he had won several times before. It’s only a game, his expression in the photograph seemed to say. It was Rachel’s first win after several years of competing, and she enjoyed every moment of it. She held up her racket by the paddle in both hands, in imitation of a Wimbledon Cup winner’s triumphal clinch.

  “Rachel cared more than she let on. She laughed anything that bothered her away.”

  “I get that,” Keira said. She turned from the photograph and dropped into a seat at the far end of the table, where Catherine’s laptop was lying open. “Rowan sounds cool. I’ll Facebook him.” She began to type with relish.

  Her sudden interest in Rowan was disconcerting. As much as Catherine was enjoying their friendship, it was premature for her to be making an independent connection with her son. Before she could demur, Keira had logged on.

  “Hm . . .” She peered at the screen. “Not the only Rowan Hall on Facebook. This one might be doing time. And this one is . . . a retired engineer.” She frowned, still tapping away at the keyboard. “Are you sure he has an account?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Catherine checked herself, knowing that resistance would be unattractive. She tried to compensate, “Actually I don’t know, as I’m banned from friendship on grounds of my age. He says that Facebook is only for the young. ‘Trust me I won’t be doing this when I’m twenty-five.’ ”

  “Wise child,” Keira said distractedly, still searching.

  Yes, he is, Catherine thought, but didn’t say.

  Soon Keira was defeated, slumping down at the table. “If he was on, he’s not anymore.”

  Catherine made no further effort to disagree.

  “Maybe I’ll meet him, one of these days. “

  “You would like each other,” Catherine felt obliged to say. Later, in the privacy of her room, she texted Rowan: “What’s happening with your Facebook account?” At one thirty a.m. he replied: “Cancelled. Total waste of time.” She made a mental note not to share his response with Keira. She didn’t want to say anything more to encourage her pursuit.

  They went to bed just after midnight and passed through the hall. This was Michael’s favorite part of the house, as it still had many of its original features: foliated fireplace, acanthus moldings, and stained oak paneling. He had bought a Regency drum table for the center, which he placed over a precious Isfahan rug that had been a gift to Catherine from the artist John Bramley. Behind the table was the oil sketch of Sutton Hoo that she’d seen on her first studio visit; the lilting rhomboids that she had perceived as vessels to be filled and floated—with her understanding of their destination to come beside the grave. On her departure the next day, he had given her the picture, wrapped in newspaper—an extraordinary generosity, all the more amazing as he had recognized her connection with the image when she had seen it only briefly. She accepted the gift; to refuse would have been churlish, foolish if she were viewing it in artistic or monetary terms; besides, she wanted the painting and appreciated the spirit in which it had been given. She had to consider the ethics of taking it off the market from Katz, but quickly waived the issue, calculating that this was a private gesture between her and John Bramley of greater importance than any commission, as it presaged their future together; the truth of this was borne out by their long collaboration, intimacy, and friendship. Their relationship wasn’t sexual, nor was it sexless. Occasionally she allowed herself to become something other, when he would politely say, May I look at you? and she undressed for him, allowing him to cast his eyes over her body with a gaze that was clinical, like a physician looking over a patient or anatomical model. She enjoyed those moments, as she could escape being Catherine, become flesh for him and forget who she was. There was also a sublimated pleasure in knowing that his interest was not just academic; for all his interest in the human form, he admired and desired her too. After these interludes, before the conversation could return to the order of the day, there was always an adjustment period while Catherine put on her clothes, fastened her blouse. His eyes became liquid as if he were dematerializing her image, dissolving and internalizing it to make it his own. His final look was always sorrow. Sometimes, she understood this to be sadness for the passing of time, the remorselessness of experience that made every second the obsolescence of the one before. In other moments, she saw his sadness was the mirror of her own: his eyes were the reflection of hers. These explorations ended with his failing health, but she remained steadfastly his representative and caretaker. The painting of Sutton Hoo and, later, a fine Isfahan rug were unapologetically hers to possess. Just as he had always occupied her mind, the painting and the rug had furnished her house, representing the life they might have had together, the one he had offered her but that she had declined.

  Keira stopped in front of the picture and stared at it with an intensity that made Catherine hold her breath. Then she looked toward the stairs. “In this direction nothing’s changed.” With that quick shift of attention, Catherine detected a French accent in her four-syllable pronunciation of direction. Before that she had only spoken perfect estuary English.

  Her new focus of interest was the wooden paneled staircase. It had been hung with murky Jacobean ancestral portraits, purchased in a half-dozen lot at Christies South Ken. These dark, padded dandies rose up incongruously to a portrait of Michael’s father that was painted on his retirement. He stared out wearily from the frame in a plain gray suit.

  She looked down at the flagstones, “Or here. We walked all over this floor without noticing it, yet here it still is, the same. Incredible. . . . But when I look there”—she stared at the wall at the end of the hall where their apartment ended and the partition began—“it’s weird. There was a green baize door in the paneling.” She moved toward the area. “All gone.”

  “That would have been torn out when the developers did the conversion,” Catherine rued. “I don’t know why this building wasn’t listed.”

  Keira didn’t seem to hear. “A maze of corridors. Everything smaller. Rooms, windows, low ceilings, old kitchen with an iron range.” She turned to Catherine, eyes bright with intent. “We could get a hammer, see if it’s still there.”

  Catherine laughed. “I never knew how it was before, so I don’t have the same . . .” She joined her at the wall. “But now you mention it . . .” She slapped the partition and heard a hollow thud. The construction was low-quality and had been done on the cheap. Even so, her palms stung at the affront. She hit the panels again: another empty thud. “My neighbor must be wondering . . .”

  “Who?” Keira said innocently, before giggling with mischief. As a parting gesture, she thumped the wall as well.

  As they went upstairs, Keira rapped the panels with her knuckles. “I’d do this every night. I was convinced there was a secret passage. I thought a door would spring open if I could find it.”

  “You sound as though you were trying
to escape.”

  “Yeah.” She shrugged wryly. “Be careful for what you wish for, right? They sent me to live in bloody France and they knew I didn’t want to go.”

  Her lack of self-pity was impressive and demonstrated strength of character. Yet, behind all her bravado, Catherine could see the effort it was taking for her to resist becoming the victim of her story. She’d been cast out once, but she was refusing to be reeled back in.

  “They thought going away would benefit you, surely?”

  “I don’t think anyone noticed I’d left. There were always so many people around. Here one day, gone the next.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  Keira nodded solemnly. “When you are as rich and semi-famous as my father was, you always have somebody to play with and you always have guests.”

  The way she said “guests” made them sound like locusts or pests.

  She pursed her lips, indicating that was all she wanted to say.

  Catherine would have liked to ask more about this strange circus of a household, complete with vanishing players and infestations, but didn’t probe further. She wanted to respect Keira’s privacy much as she had hers when she’d spoken about Rachel. Catherine credited Keira’s survival to her brave attitude and reckoned there was much to be learned from this young person.

  At the top of the first landing, Catherine led her visitor along the corridor to the guest suite—she never considered putting her in one of the children’s rooms. Brief as their occupancy had been, the top floor would always be Rachel and Rowan’s domain.

  Seeing the spare bedroom again, Catherine was pleasantly reminded of its elegance and charm. The room had been kitted out to a higher standard than any other in the house, with pale-blue damask draping the length of the tall windows, linens of an even higher thread count than she had on her own bed—but never used. Finally, here was someone to enjoy all its comforts. Keira nodded and began to unpack. She threw down her jacket, where it splayed over the low upholstered chair, and pulled out a sponge bag from her hold-all, leaving Catherine to hover at the door, waiting for words of approval or thanks that didn’t come. Instead, they said good night. Only later, when she was about to fall asleep, did she realize that this had been as satisfying as any words of gratitude. Being taken for granted was underrated; it was, perhaps, one of the greatest luxuries of all.