Page 42 of We All Live Here
“AndI’m trying to play the piano!”
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it now? I thought Truant was murdering a cat.”
“Will someone in this bloody house just bloody shut up for one minute so I can take a bloody work call?” Lila bellows.
“I’m not even doing anything!” comes Celie’s outraged muffled voice from upstairs.
“I know, darling. Sorry, Anoushka, can you repeat that?”
There is a brief silence, before Jensen, who is wearing ear protectors, starts up again. Lila watches him as his whole body vibrates along with the drill, his jaw set with the effort.
“They want to see a sexytimes chapter. There’s none of the fun, all of the gloom at the moment. They just want an example of the naughty escapades you’ve been having. Have you started work on any of that bit?”
“Sure!”
“So when can you get it to me?”
Lila stares through the window at Jensen. “End of next week?” she says, without a clue as to why she says this.
“Marvelous. They love the rest of it by the way, but they say they just want to make sure it’s not too one-note. We also want uplifting and naughty! Like a kind of literary push-you-up bra!”
“Push-you-up bra,” Lila repeats.
“Wonderful!Soexciting. Can’t wait to read! Adieu, darling!”
It is all of seven seconds before the noise begins again. The iPad starts, the fuzzy electronic theme tune ofStar Squadron Zerofilling the living room, followed by Bill’s determined piano in the hall, now usingpedals for extra emphasis. From upstairs Celie decides to add to this with a particularly gloomy Phoebe Bridgers song. Lila can just make out the words: “I’m not afraid to disappear” and “The billboard said the end is near” before Truant starts barking again. Her head hurts.
Jensen stops the pneumatic drill. Lila opens the kitchen door and steps outside.
She texts Gabriel while standing on the patio. She does it quickly, before she can think about it:Do you fancy going for a drink some time?
I am a mature woman capable of asking for what she wants, she tells herself, as she presses send, adrenaline shooting through her body.It’s just a drink, not a big deal whatsoever.She lets out a short hiccup of anticipation, and waits, glancing at the screen. She peers up at the sky, then back at the phone, looking for the pulsing dots that tell her he has read the message, but nothing comes. She stands for a minute, two minutes, three, now unable to tear her eyes from her phone. Finally, a sinking feeling descending in her stomach, she shoves her phone into her pocket and walks to the end of the garden to sit on the bench.
•••
“Bill says yourex really is having a baby. I’d thought you might be joking.” Jensen has been putting his tools away. He sits heavily at the far end and takes a swig from a bottle of water, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.
“Nope. Not joking. The level of public humiliation wasn’t quite enough, apparently.” She smiles breezily.Why did I send that message? Why? What was I thinking?
She wonders if she can just use Eleanor’s experiences and not tell her. Eleanor will read the book eventually but maybe she can disguise them. It will be at least a year before Eleanor can see anything. She takes herphone out of her pocket and puts it face down beside her, feeling faintly nauseous.
“You okay?”
She stares at him. Nobody ever asks her that question. Nobody ever just says,Are you okay?Not Bill, not Gene, not her children, not even Eleanor. Everyone tells her what she should be doing, or that it’s going to be all right, or that she needs to be less miserable, less moody, less angry, but nobody ever asks her that simple question.
“No,” she says. “Mostly not, actually.”
“You know, when I was having a breakdown…” he begins.
It takes her a moment to register what she has just heard.
“Yup. Five years ago.”
“Oh, God,” she says, her hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a fun day out. But it showed me how out of whack my life had got. Now I’m at the other side, I try to view it as useful.” He studies his scuffed workmen’s boots. “Anyway. So when I was having my breakdown a guy I used to work with sent me a quote from Rilke: ‘Keep going. No feeling is final.’ Something along those lines. And I always think of that, when things are a bit rough. No feeling is final. The shitty times don’t last forever. Even if they feel like it.”
She smiles wryly. “Boy, do they.” She can feel his eyes on her.
