Page 21 of We All Live Here
Gene’s smile is conciliatory, his voice soft. “C’mon, sweetheart. A lot of water has passed under the bridge. Can’t I just enjoy dinner with my girls?”
Bill says, in a voice Celie has never heard him use before: “They’re not your girls.”
Gene’s voice hardens slightly. “They’re not yours either, buddy.” The two old men stare at each other across the table, and Celie is overwhelmed by the weirdly exciting sensation that they are going to hit each other.
And then Mum reaches across the table between them for a bowl. “Who wants some more chicory salad?” And the moment passes.
Celie has never been at a supper like this. She has never seen that vein throbbing in Bill’s jaw, or heard the weirdly clipped tone to her mother’s voice. This is her grandfather! Her actual grandfather! She keeps sneaking glances at him, trying to see some kind of family resemblance, but with his unnaturally dark hair and his teeth and his tan he seems utterly unrelated to them. He keeps up a constant stream of chatter, his voice deep and rhythmic, talking about work he’s been doing (just small parts, they probably wouldn’t have seen them over here), reminding Mum of people called Hank and Betsy whom she doesn’t remember, asking Celie and Violet about school, their friends, what it is they “get up to” around here. It is both fascinating and interminable.
Finally Mum gets up and clears the plates, and Celie, who never helps unless she’s nagged, gets up and helps too: the atmosphere is so peculiar she feels the need to do something. She’s not sure Mum even notices. Behind them Violet clearly grows bored and switches on the television, tuning into some children’s channel that she’s not usually allowed to watch.
Finally Mum finishes washing up, places the dishcloth neatly on theworktop, and walks back to the table. She pauses, then rests her hands on the surface, like she’s letting everyone know that supper is over and she will not be sitting down again. “So. Gene. Where are you staying? We can get you an Uber if you don’t fancy walking on that leg.”
Gene’s smile wavers. “Ah, yeah, that’s the thing I wanted to talk to you about, sweetheart. Turns out my hotel was double-booked and I was wondering—”
“Oh, no,” says Bill. “Oh, no.”
“Well, hey, will you look at that!” Gene says suddenly, glancing up at the terrible picture of the naked old woman that Bill had hung on the wall. “Francesca as I live and breathe!”
•••
That was the point,Celie thought afterward, at which things had got really messy. Bill had leaped up, waved his hands violently backward and forward in front of the painting and forbidden Gene to look at it. Actually forbidden him.
“Are you kidding me?” Gene had said. “It’s a painting!”
“Francesca would not want you looking at her naked!” Bill’s voice was oddly hoarse. “Don’t you dare look! You relinquished that right many years ago!”
“But it’s okay to place her with her hoo-hah hanging out in a lounge where anyone else can see her? Jesus, Bill, get that stick out of your ass before it calcifies.”
At some point Violet had come away from the television. She was staring up at the wall as if she hadn’t noticed the picture until now. “That’sGrandma?” she’d said, and she looked as though she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “But—but you can see herpocket book!”
That was apparently it for Bill. He strode up to the painting, wrenched the frame violently from the wall, and walked with it out of the living room. They could hear him carrying it stiffly up the stairs, gruntingslightly at the effort. After a gap slightly longer than was entirely comfortable, they had heard his bedroom door slam.
Lila sits down heavily. “Jesus, Gene.”
“What? What did I do? He hangs a nudie of your mom on the wall and suddenlyI’mthe bad guy?”
“I think you should leave,” Mum says, and closes her eyes for absolutely ages.
Gene takes a step toward her and dips, both his knees cracking like pistols as he crouches so that he is looking directly into her face. “Honey. Sweetheart. I just really need a bed for tonight. The hotel I was meant to go to double-booked me and all the other central London places are a little heavy on the old wallet. And it’s kind of hard to walk around looking for a place now that my leg…”
“I don’t have a room.”
“I don’t need a room. I can crash right here on the sofa.”
Mum looks at him, and her face has this expression like when you’re going to do something you really don’t want to. Suddenly he seems a little pathetic.
“Please,” he says, perhaps sensing a momentary weakness. “I’m in a lot of pain here. It would help me out so much. And I would…I would really appreciate the chance to spend just a few hours more with the girls.”
Mum looks at Celie, and then at Violet.
“Heisour grandpa,” says Violet. Celie feels less certain, but shrugs. It might be quite useful to have the heat taken off her for an evening.
“Fine,” Mum says, throwing up her hands. “Fine. But you need to leave first thing, before the girls get up for school. I don’t want you and Bill winding each other up again.”
“Two nights?” he says hopefully.
“Don’t push it,” says Mum, and goes off to stand at the end of thegarden.
