The Predictions (14 page)

I was speechless.

“I was going to tell you after the wedding.”

“Gavin,” I said. “There isn’t going to be a wedding.”

“There is,” he said. “It’s all planned.”

“I can’t marry you.”

“What?”

“I don’t know if we can make our lives fit together. We’re too different.”

Gavin laughed. “I know about your funny upbringing and I don’t care. That’s all behind you—in the past. What matters is our future. The way we live now.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I haven’t been myself. I haven’t been honest.”

It was as though Gavin hadn’t heard me. “Look,” he said. “Take some time, think it over. The wedding isn’t for another six months.” He reached across the yellow-flecked Formica table and took my hand. “It’s perfectly normal to get cold feet.”

When I told Fran about our conversation, she thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “So let me get this straight. You tried to call off the wedding, but he wouldn’t let you?”

“It was like he was deaf.”

“But you didn’t tell him about Lukas, did you?”

“I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

Fran snorted. “It’s a bit late for that, darling.”

In a very small voice, I said, “I know.”

For five consecutive days that week, I tried to break off the engagement with Gavin, and each time he would not budge. Even when finally I told him there was someone else, he said it was normal to fantasize about sowing a few wild oats before settling down to have a family. In fact, he said, it was better to get that sort of thing out of your system before the big day than to have it destroy the marriage later on, when you had a family and things were more complicated.

On the sixth day, I gave Gavin back his engagement ring. I would have returned it earlier but because I never wore it, it had taken me a week to find the thing. “Well,” he said, upon pocketing it, “I’m still not canceling the wedding.”

“But I’m not going to come over to your flat anymore,” I said, to which he shrugged, as though I had just told him I wasn’t going to finish the rest of my sandwich. “And no more sex.”

That’s when I finally understood. His course was set; he was incapable of changing direction. Nothing I said would make any difference. It was why he couldn’t eat Greek food, or fuck me from behind.

“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “we’ve broken up and it’s okay to see other people.” I didn’t know how much clearer I could make it.

“The wedding’s six months away,” said Gavin. “You’ll change your mind before then, I’m sure of it.”

Is this what the prediction had meant by true love—a love that would stick to me like superglue?

I stayed with Lukas every night that week. When we
were together, I forgot about my other existence. I was intoxicated by our reunion and there was much going on that was exciting and distracting. Fran had worked her magic on Marlon, convincing him to accept the help offered by his father, and within weeks, the Communists had gone into the recording studio to cut a demo of “Frozen Hearts.” Not just any studio, mind you, but Abbey Road. The Right Honorable Giles Andover QC was a huge Beatles fan, as well as a believer that if one was going to do something at all, one ought to do it properly. For three sessions that kicked off at the crack of dawn, when more famous bands were still asleep, he would have had to pull strings and fork out a considerable amount. The day before they went in, Lukas confessed he was terrified. He had done a bit of recording before, in New Zealand, but they’d only ever used shitty equipment and had never had enough time to get down anything decent. When the resulting record was awful, no one was dumbfounded, and there were plenty of factors on which to lay blame. This time, there would be no such scapegoats. If the record sucked it would be because the band sucked.

I was concerned the band did, in fact, suck but saying so would have been cruel. “You’ll be brilliant,” I reassured Lukas. “You guys are so tight. You saw everyone go nuts at that gig.”

“But we won’t be in front of an audience . . .” Lukas looked anxious. “It won’t be the same vibe. The same energy.”

“Isn’t that what the producer’s for? To give you that edge?”

“I hope so,” Lukas said. “I bloody hope so.”

While the Communists were recording, I went to work
as usual—when I saw Gavin, he acted as though nothing had changed. After work I caught a bus to the mews flat to wait for Lukas to finish. Neither Fran nor I had ever brought boyfriends back to the bedsit in Fulham. It was too small, just a room with two single beds, a kitchenette and shower cubicle, clothes strewn over the floor, and no privacy. Lukas had given me a key, and I let myself in and waited—and waited. I read a book, drank a glass of vinegary Beaujolais, watched
Dynasty,
ate leftover vindaloo, and then fell asleep on the velvet banquette. When I woke later on, Lukas still hadn’t come home, and I figured they had skipped an evening off and gone straight into the next session. The following morning I went to work, where he rang me midafternoon. He was sorry he hadn’t come home, they had recorded all night and crashed out in the studio, he couldn’t talk for long, it was going well, much better than expected, the producer was a genius, and he was looking forward to seeing me later.

But later, the same thing happened. I waited and waited. Lukas didn’t come home, and then I fell asleep. Not long after, I woke with a start. Someone was banging on the back door of the mews. I went to answer it, thinking it was Lukas, that he had forgotten his key. Only it wasn’t him. Standing silhouetted in the moonlight was Serena. She had on an elaborate dressing gown, monogrammed at the breast with her initials, and she had put on gumboots to make the trek through the soggy garden. Her expression was improbably one of fear.

“Mummy and Daddy are away,” she began. “My room is right at the top of the house and I . . . well, I can’t stand being home alone at night.”

“I thought you had a housekeeper—a maid of some sort?”

“She doesn’t stay over.”

I said nothing, wanting to make this hard for Serena.

“Look here,” she said. “The thing is I’m scared to death. I thought I heard someone trying to break in.”

“You can stay here,” I offered. “In Marlon’s room.” I had tiptoed up there earlier, surveyed the disarray, and then retreated.

Serena screwed up her nose. “Eww, no. I couldn’t possibly. I was rather hoping you’d come up to the house.”

“Me?”

“You’ve been up there before, surely? Lukas has, many times.” Was she gloating?

“No,” I said. “I’ve never been invited.”

Serena hovered in the doorway. I hadn’t complied yet and I could see that it pained her to have to beg.

“Do you think you could stand it?” she said. “I’ll make us breakfast in the morning—or rather, Aggie will. She comes in at seven.”

Aggie, short for Agnes, was the housekeeper and cook, who had been with the family for decades. I had heard Marlon telling Lukas what a jolly good sport she was, especially for someone so ancient. Not that long ago, he had tried to bake hash cookies in the basement kitchen of the big house, and Aggie had come in halfway through his experiment and suggested an improvement to the recipe. When Marlon had asked if she would like to eat one, the old cook had laughed heartily at his mischievousness and told him she would take one home for her dog. I had never met a
domestic servant before and was curious what one might be like, not to mention the fact that she would be serving me breakfast, an offer too glamorous to turn down.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me get my things.”

I followed Serena up a garden path bordered with pebbles, admiring the profusion of neatly clipped rosebushes, each one a perfect globe. At this time of year, all the branches were bare, exposing all the thorns. A square pond had been dug into the lawn, and in the center of that stood a fountain, flowing for no one but the moon’s benefit. There was a gazebo too, furnished with steamer chairs, and dozens of bulbous Grecian urns, carefully arranged to simulate disarray.

Serena guided me up a set of wide terra-cotta steps and through a heavy black door. Inside, the house was even more impressive than I’d imagined. First the kitchen, vast, with acres of counter space and a range, then wide stairs, the carpet so plush it purred under my feet. The ground-floor hallway was tiled in checkered black-and-white marble, and off it, a series of heavy paneled doors, thick with varnish and sporting ornate brass handles. A few of these were open, revealing large, lofty rooms and antique furniture, the polished surfaces glinting even in the dead of night. The carpet was an impractical ivory, pristine like fresh snow, its powder broken by thick Persian rugs. Weighty brocade and tassels adorned every window, and each wall was crowded with portraits of somber men and women in wigs and crinolines and breeches. “Who uses these rooms?” I asked.

Serena was puzzled. “What a strange question.”

“It’s just that everything’s so old, so valuable—like it belongs in a museum. What if you broke something?”

“We never did,” said Serena. “Even when we were children.” I could tell she was proud of that fact.

“Where do you watch TV?”

She pointed upward. “In my room.”

What she should have said was in her
suite,
for she had a bedroom and a bathroom and a dressing room all of her own. It was on the top floor, next to Marlon’s abandoned teenage bedroom, which she showed me, still decorated with various medals and cricket cups and rugby shirts in frames on the wall.

“There,” said Serena, pointing to a surprisingly small television set, bunny ears atop a neat black cube. “Marlon has one too.”

“Television was banned from the commune,” I said. “And we weren’t allowed to make friends with children who had one, in case it corrupted us.”

“We wouldn’t have been friends then,” said Serena, flopping down on one of two single beds in her room, both dressed up in doilies and covered with teddy bears and cutesy heart-shaped pillows—like a very young girl would have. Her walls were decorated with pony club rosettes. “Lukas told us about the commune. Was it really that awful?”

“Is that how he described it?”

“He likened it to being in prison.”

“It wasn’t that bad. We thought it was paradise when we were kids.”

“Paradise,” repeated Serena. “Lukas didn’t use that word.”
She pointed to the other single bed. “You can sleep there.”

I had not brought anything with me to sleep in, and was wearing a going-out dress. “Can I borrow a T-shirt?”

Serena gave me a queer look. “Whatever for?”

“To sleep in.”

“You mean a nightgown?”

“I guess so. I’ve never worn one.” On the commune, boys and girls alike had worn T-shirts to bed.

“You’ve never worn a nightgown? That’s so funny.” Serena opened a few of the drawers in her dresser and held up something pink and frilly. “Hmm, I don’t think this will fit you,” she said. She rummaged some more and found a pair of silky pajamas. They looked about my size, but Serena said, “No, these won’t either.” She shut the drawer. “I don’t seem to have anything. Sorry.”

“So not even a T-shirt then?”

“Actually, there is this.” She went over to another dresser and took out a folded black garment, which she carried over and threw, gauntletlike, onto the bed. “You probably recognize it.”

Serena stood over me, waiting for my reaction.

I unfolded the T-shirt—it was one that had belonged to Lukas, a favorite from our Auckland days, bearing the logo of the Flying Nun record label. I had worn it myself once or twice, though Lukas had always asked for it back. We were strangely possessive of our clothes, the minute we had some of our own. “Thanks,” I said, masking my disquiet. I did not want to get changed in front of Serena and asked if I could use her bathroom.

“Of course,” she said, smiling. “Help yourself.”

I went in and shut the door. The T-shirt seemed tainted, but I put it on anyway, noticing that it had been ironed, probably by Aggie. Had Lukas given it to Serena or had she “borrowed” it from her brother’s flat? From the triumphant way she’d handed it to me, I guessed the former, but I tried not to let it get to me.

Quite why anyone needed her own exclusive bathroom was beyond me until I clocked the obscene amount of grooming paraphernalia she had: dozens of lipsticks, lids carelessly thrown aside; lip liners, eyeliners, pantiliners, and pencil sharpeners; eye shadows of every hue and texture; at least three hair dryers; a set of curling tongs and another hair tool whose metal teeth joined in a perfect zigzag line. There were skin creams and depilatory creams and hair pomades and razor blades, a dozen cans of hairspray, some lying on their sides, others with broken nozzles. And in among all this was a long flesh-colored plastic tube with a tapered end, the likes of which I had not encountered. I picked it up to take a closer look and found a switch on the side, which I flicked on at exactly the same moment as I began to have an inkling what it was. The thing hummed loudly in my hand, startling me, and I dropped it on the vanity unit, where it skittered among the lipsticks, its sound amplifying against the marble to a loud buzz.

Seconds later, I had switched the thing off, but when I came out of the bathroom, Serena was smirking.

“I see you found my vibrator,” she said. “Did you have fun with it?”

For so many reasons, I was profoundly embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that’s what it was.”

Serena laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’ve seen . . . other ones,” I lied. “But not one like that.”

“Gosh,” she said, “so Lukas wasn’t making that up.”

“Making what up?”

For a tantalizing moment, Serena looked like she was about to tell me, before changing her mind. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

I climbed into the bed opposite and pulled up the covers, her words whirring in my head as she turned out the light. What had Lukas told her that had to do with a vibrator? I wasn’t sure we had ever talked about one, but then I began to see that was the point. One by one, and against my wishes, the pieces of a puzzle started dropping into place. However unlikely it seemed, had Lukas’s education, the one I had already benefited from, been at the hands of this toffee-nosed little bitch?