Page 35 of We All Live Here
“That’s very kind of you, Penelope,” Lila says, accepting the largewhite rectangular dish covered with a neat lid of foil. It is still warm at its base. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Shall I get him for you?”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to be any trouble,” she says, then stands expectantly on the doorstep, her smile painfully hopeful.
Lila calls Bill, who has been hanging an alternative picture over the television whereNaked Francescawas once situated. He walks down the hallway still clutching his hammer in his broad fist, and when she sees it, this apparent display of unfettered masculinity causes Penelope to go a little trembly. “Penelope,” he says politely. “How lovely to see you.”
Her head tilts to one side so that the butterflies catch the light. Lila picks up a faint spray of scent, something floral and sweet. “I just…It’s nothing. Just thought I’d drop this round. In case you were hungry.”
“That’s terribly kind,” he says. “I’m very honored. But, really, Lila looks after me very well here. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” He smiles at Lila, as if she does anything domestic to take care of him at all.
“It’s no bother. No bother at all. I see you’re busy,” she says, nodding at the hammer. “Making anything interesting?”
“Oh, this and that.” Lila stands between them, wondering if she should exit. But Bill still finds casual conversation difficult, especially with neighbors bringing gifts, so she feels obliged to stay.
“And how are the pupils?” he says, when the silence grows too long.
Penelope Stockbridge is the local piano teacher. Lila had once tried to sign up Celie but the wails of daily protest had proven too much for her and she had given up the fight after six lessons.
“Oh, mostly thinking up reasons why they haven’t done any practice. Sometimes I find their excuses rather entertaining. I had one last week who said she couldn’t find time because her goldfish needed daily skin treatments. Can you imagine?”
“Skin treatments for goldfish,” says Bill. “That’s inventive.”
Penelope’s glance flickers between them and then to her feet, in the manner of someone who is permanently concerned about outstaying herwelcome. She has a narrow, grave face with large, expressive eyes. She had been married once, she’d told Lila. He had died before they could have children. Leukemia. She still remembered the devastation of those early months of widowhood as if it were yesterday. She gives a brief, flickering smile. “Anyway. I don’t want to hold you up. I just…you know. I hope it’s useful. Do say if you’d rather I didn’t.”
“Of course not,” says Bill, gently. “It’s so very kind of you. And very gratifying to be thought of so generously.”
That brings a pink flush to Penelope Stockbridge’s ears.
“I’ll drop the dish back when we’ve eaten,” says Lila. “Thank you.”
“No hurry for the dish,” she says, waving a slender hand. “You can keep it till next time, if you like.”
Next time. Sometimes Lila thinks of Penelope’s hopeful expression at each doorstep drop, the tentative adoration implicit in these tuna-pasta bakes—which Bill doesn’t really like—and her heart aches. Will this be her in twenty years? So desperate for contact, or affection, that she is reduced to leaving culinary gifts on near-strangers’ doorsteps?
“Bye, then,” Penelope says. She brings a finger to one of the hairclips, perhaps checking that it is still in place. Lila wonders suddenly whether these eccentricities are not just a woman who dresses as she likes but tiny bids for attention, and her heart aches even more.
“Lovely to see you,” Bill says politely, and as soon as she heads back down the path, he turns and walks the pasta dish resignedly to the kitchen. He will feel obliged to serve it this evening. The girls will love it. It has saved them from fish and lentils for another day.
•••
She is waitingfor Gene when he emerges from the bathroom at eleven thirty. She has sat in her study, on the edge of the sofa-bed, whose rumpled sheets and crisps crumbs speak of a restless, post-weed-and-alcohol sleep, and he startles when he sees her. He is wearing a towelaround his waist which is too small for the broad trunk of him, and she registers his tattooed, slightly sagging body, and the way he suddenly sucks in his stomach as if he cannot bear to be seen like that even by his daughter.
“So,” she says.
He lets out a vague sigh, as if he is braced for a telling-off, and walks past her into the room. She sees him casting his eyes around for clean clothes and points wordlessly to the Grateful Dead T-shirt she has laundered, ironed, and hung on the back of the door.
“I’ve washed everything that was in your bag,” she says. “The woodlice had got in. And there were alotof crisps crumbs.”
“Thanks,” he mutters, and turns his back to her while he dresses.
“Look,” he says, when he’s finished. He sits down on the other side of the bed. “I—I know it was kinda stupid for me to crash in there, but like I said, I had some problems with the hotel and I can’t find my credit card, so it just seemed like a good solution for a couple of days. It’s just till I get paid by the production and you know how these things are. They always take forever to pay up—”
“What’s the production?” she says.
“What?”
“The production. That you’re starring in. I’d like to come and see it.”
It is the swiftest of hesitations, but it tells her everything she needs to know. She places her hands on her knees and lets out a deep breath. “There is no production, is there, Gene?”
