Pravda (29 page)

She didn't gather her small collection of things at her desk. And she did not stop to consider whether it was she or they who had the perception problem on her way out.

Her father, though, was the hardest task she had faced in her life. The hardest task since the last e-mail. Her twenty-second draft read:

Dad,

I am coming to London. Please don't feel that you have to write back. I really don't wish to interfere in your life in any way. I suppose I just wanted to let you know that I will be dropping in to Highgate to see Francis—I assume he is still there; neither Gabs nor I have heard anything to the contrary. I need to store some stuff if he is okay with that...

I have to admit, it feels strange to be writing to you like this. I'm not even sure you read e-mail. (Forgive me btw: Julian, at the consulate in SP, gave me this contact. I suspect that you still prefer letters but I'm afraid that I don't have your postal address.) I know we haven't been in touch for years ... and yet, now that Mum is dead, it all seems a bit sad. Of course Gabriel and I talk all the time. But you knew Mum before we were born, you knew Mum when she was a young woman, you knew Mum better than anyone else. And I think this whole thing is affecting me more than I thought it would. Time will pass, and I'll get used to it. But I suppose I would like to know more about Mum—and, yes, you too, Dad.

At the funeral, out there in Petersburg, I became more conscious than ever of who I am: half you, half Mum. And how little I know about either of you really ... Dad, I have been thinking back a great deal—it's natural, I suppose, at times like this—and if there is anything you would like to say to me now, about your life, about who you are, then I want you to know that I am ready to listen. Just that.

Yours,
Is

But having gone through the e-mail again, for the twenty-third time, she found it a cringing agony still. No matter what she did, she could not rid her words of their phony tone, their dishonest designs,
their awkwardness. The plain truth was that she could not plainly ask her own father anything that she wished to ask him. She squeezed her eyes shut. What was it with some people—that the very idea of them prohibits certain questions from ever being asked? How does their power, their charisma—if that's what it is—cast such shadows in other minds, even if they are halfway around the world?

Shitting hell.

She was back in the same Internet café. And this time, as well as the rotting carpet, she could smell the milk turning sour where someone had spilled it beside the help-yourself coffee stand.

Hey, Dad, are you gay? I've suspected it for years deep down. Francis is an old boyfriend, isn't he? Well, good. Great, in fact! It's fine. It really is. Nobody cares anymore. That's one victory we have won. You can tell me. You can trust me. If trust is what you need. Anyway, it explains a good deal, and thank you for your honesty.

Oh yeah, and were you in Petersburg before Mum died? Your friend Mr. Avery nearly gave you away, you know. Did you go to see her die? That would suit you, wouldn't it? The ultimate combination of pain followed by histrionic displays of affection, you sadistic bastard. See, she suffers almost to death! And see, I love her after all! All you who doubted my capacity for compassion. You were wrong. I held it back behind these castle walls of cold gray stone for dire moments such as this. So now ... now see the iron man s bleeding heart! See how I demonstrate my love. Hitler fondles his dogs. Stalin pats the children s heads.

Well, understand this, you vainglorious little shit: I'm not fooled. Because I do see, I see it all clearly: because still, still, still, it's all about
you,
isn't it? Even your own wife's, my mother's, cancer is nothing more than a stage on which you can strut and preen your narcissism. Admire me, admire the drama of the strongman s unexpected kindness. Admire his great reservoir of love released. Count yourselves lucky to see such a glimpse. Because you never ever forget how it plays, even if only to the rapturous audience in your head, do you, Dad?

Oh Christ. Christ. Christ. She felt the grief kraken rising from the deep, sending ripples through the underground lake of her tears.

Shitting hell.

She looked around. The Internet café was almost empty this afternoon. She bit her lip. This was going to be a long, painful process. She must ask her questions singly. She must win her father s trust. She must persuade the portcullis guard one ratchet at a time. Only
then ... With a tremendous effort, she gathered herself. And then, falsely calm, she deleted everything except the first paragraph (as she had always known she would) and let the phrase "I don't want to interfere in your life" stand as the most oblique invitation to a father's frankness that had ever been written.

Next, Sasha.

Though maybe she didn't plan to end it forever. After all, she liked the guy. He was sweet. He was intelligent. He was on the same side. Lazy, immature—yes; but good-hearted beneath all the pretentious film-industry jargon he talked; and all he needed was some confidence, someone to take him seriously out there so that he could take himself seriously too.

When she had met him, he had just sold a scene from one of his screenplays—something to do with a dog being set on fire by accident—and he was riding high. He made her laugh—properly, wholeheartedly, like the young Woody Allen made her laugh. He had a nice line in existential incredulity. Since then, he had seemed to grow younger or more puerile. And either she d begun to see the banality of the form for what it was or he had started to write more banal things. In any case, his work had foundered. And his mother, she knew, was now giving him money. Which wasn't good for him. He was turning in on himself. She suspected he was spending hours online in chat rooms. He needed someone to draw him out again, to love him without secret reserve, to whisper reassurance to him in the night.

Their recent antagonism, which had started a good few months before her mother had died, was officially about space. Sasha worked at home, and he needed some undisturbed zone of his own: namely, the main table. This she duly ceded, accepting the piles of papers, the ostentatious laptop, the stacked books, the newspaper clippings, the printer on the floor with its wretchedly too-short cable stretched lethally taut from desk to socket at shin height. In return, the sofa was hers. She lived around his mess. She did not complain.

Beneath this, though, she had known that there was a second and more truthful level of the argument. Sasha thought that she did not believe in his efforts. Did not really believe in his talent. Did not believe in the persona he wanted her to believe in. Did not, in fact, believe in him. And the more he thought that she did not believe, the more the paper and the mess expanded, as he tried to seek her affirmation by subconsciously forcing his work again and again back
under her retreating nose. Because in some furtive way, Sasha also knew that this was the real argument, and so he wanted to prize her out into the open to challenge her. And yet he was also a coward. So, having goaded her out with his mess from time to time, he would then devote all his energy to pretending that the argument was only about space after all and what the hell was she getting so crazy about when, sure, if it was a problem, he'd tidy up every night and she could use the goddamn table.

All this changed in the weeks after Petersburg. After Russia—dear God, the endless false floors—after Russia, a new and even deeper level had gradually revealed itself to Isabella: that Sasha was beside the point. Simply, she didn't care. She didn't care about the space. She didn't care about his work. Not really. Not in the way you are supposed to care about the people you love. All of it was ... was irrelevant. Because really this argument was with herself: where she was, who she was, what she was doing. And she was determined now to fight her way clear of the emotional wreckage of her parents (and their whole spineless generation), and Sasha would never understand this. She could neither count on nor confide in him. Either go in repetitious circles or break free: this was the choice. Fondness but not love.

Having left work in the morning and despite the hours at the Internet café, she was home early—it was only just three. She climbed the narrow stairwell with no plan of what to say but knowing that she must say it.

Her keys caught him out. She put her bag down by the sink. She did not look over again, to save him that indignity at least. Instead, leaning against the doorjamb, she bent awkwardly, her skirt restrictive, and removed her wretched shoes as slowly as she could, while he did himself up.

Fifteen bad seconds passed. The apartment smelled close, fetid.

"Hi, baby," he said.

He was crimson. Torn between candor and dissembling. Uncertain of her reaction. Trying to click screens shut surreptitiously now.

"Sasha, I resigned from work today and I'm going back to London as soon as I can. I m not sure for how long." She did not advance but remained on the threshold. "I don't want you to wait for me, though. I don't want you to wait for me to come back, I mean."

His face was blank, then bewildered. His attention divided. He was still trying to shut down whatever it was he had been looking at.
And she could see that he was not sure what exactly she was saying. Understandable. So she had better just say it.

"Sasha." She had him now. She had never said his name like that before. "Sasha, this is over for me."

"What?"

"I don't want to say..."Clean break, cruel to be kind: she felt the clichés gathering like a circle of bitchy teenage girls. So she stood her ground. "I don't want to say that this is about me and not you, because it isn't. This is about our relationship together ... coming to an end." She almost said "for now"—anything to make this easier. "But it is true, I have so many things I have to get straightened out—on my own. Partly about my mother and father and all that, but I think also about me. My life has been on pause for too long. I feel like I can't move on until I have ... okay, until I have sorted out who I am. And until then, I can't be anything to anybody. I can't be anything to you. I'm sorry."

Though it was true enough, she hated herself for the way it was coming out.

The poor man was visibly reeling. "Is ... Is ... Izzy, where did all this come from? You
resigned?
What are you saying—what's happened? I mean, come on, baby, you can't just walk in and do this, just say all this out of nowhere. Out of totally nowhere. Jesus. Baby."

He sat back, shaking his head, white-faced, his hand still on his mouse. But even in this moment she thought she detected a hint of melodramatic self-indulgence in his aspect. And already he was trying to make out that she was mad, an irrational woman. That old, old male gambit. And yes, it
was
all gambits with Sasha. She let this feed her determination.

"What I have just said is a little bit bullshitty, Sash, I know. I'm sorry. I do have a lot of stuff to sort ... but that's not the reason I'm saying that I want to bring this to an end. I—"

"We have to talk. Like, we have to talk right now." He was up, reaching for his jacket. "Let's get out of here. Let's go somewhere. Right now."

He was coming toward her. She had to say it. She had to stop him before he tried to hold her.

"I want to end it because I am not in love with you. That is the truth. Sasha. I am sorry."

He was very close now—suddenly handsome again, suddenly
sweet, suddenly a man she could learn to love after all. But she met his gaze directly. Ordered the ducts of her eyes dry even as she felt her tears rising. Continued to hold his eyes with hers for a moment. Let her words find their way in. Let him hear. Let him know. There was no way back from that sentence.

Then she was passing him, heading by the sofa, carrying her shoes, exhausted. And in that moment, their bedroom was the saddest thing she had ever seen. Their shallow closet, their clothes mixed up on the chair, the cartoons that they had bought together, their photos, Sasha and Isabella swapping cocktails, Sasha and Isabella arm in arm on the cable car in San Francisco, Sasha and Isabella kissing for the camera she was holding at arm's length, Sasha and Isabella dancing together, this duvet they shared, these pillows, this bed, this life.

Over.

"Hello."

"Hello. Gabriel Glover?"

"Yes."

"It's Frank. From Quality Kitchens."

"Hi."

"Erm ... can you come out? Don't want to leave the van .. . Have you got the parking permit?"

A minute later, in jogging top and shorts, he was face to face with Frank Delaney himself: fifty-five, swept-back, dyed black hair, string vest, and hand-rolled cigarette; six-two, big hands, big shoulders, potbelly, long, fridge-carrying arms, wearing the default smirk of a man who has seen it all before, knows a thing or two (especially about women, so he'd have you believe)—a maverick, but still the best in the business, and already right at home in Gabriel's entrance hall.

Without really thinking (he
couldn't
think), Gabriel confessed that he did not have a parking permit. He must have looked blank or panicked or in need of leadership or something, because Frank nodded slowly and then said, "Oh, bollocks. Well, you'd better go and get one, mate. I suppose I'll have to wait here in the van."

"Right. Where do you get 'em?"

"Kentish Town. Spring Place. You know it?"

"No."

Three minutes later, knees creaking to the off-beat of the never-oiled chain, he was cycling crazily across, through, between the furious morning traffic—rigid arms, rigid knuckles, rigid handlebars, rigid face set against the rigid city's petrol rush.

Fifteen minutes after that (head like a sack of sickened Moscow rats), he was queuing with fat sassy gasmen, stick-thin chippies, wiry sparkies, bum-wielding builders. He was the only private citizen in the city, he noticed, to be collecting a parking permit on behalf of his workman.

Twenty minutes more were lost (and forty much-lamented quid) before he had filled in all the forms, signed everything, survived the looks, the jibes, the scorn, and was back on his bike pedaling furiously home, fearful both that Frank would have departed in disgust at the delay and that Lina would have arrived off her dawn flight back from a weekend in Stockholm. And perhaps these thoughts or the sudden rain (or the memory of his mother's war on cars) distracted him.