Page 6 of We All Live Here
“You have no poker faceat all.”
They sit together for a moment. Lila sighs. “Well, all right, it may feel a bit odd for a bit. For all of us. But I know your dad really does love you. And these things tend to work out in the end.”
Celie wriggles toward her, reaches out, and squeezes her hand. She slides it away again, but it’s enough. “Are you okay, Mum?” she says, after a minute.
“I’m absolutely fine,” says Lila, firmly. “I have you two, don’t I? The only family I’ve ever wanted.”
“And Bill.”
“And Bill. What would we do without Bill?”
“Even if he does make us eat really gross food. Mum, can you have a word with him about all the lentils? They made me do a really loud fart in morning geography and I swear everyone knew it was me.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Lila slips into her bedroom and takes a second citalopram before she heads back downstairs. The doctor was adamant that she should stick to the recommended dose. But the doctor’s ex-husband wasn’t busy impregnating half of north London. Lila grabs a second Citalopram.
•••
“All okay?” Billis washing up, classical music from Radio 3 seeping gently into the quiet of the kitchen. Even if she tells him she’ll do it later, he’ll start fidgeting while she watches television, then quietly absent himself from the living room, appearing half an hour later with a damp tea-towel and an expression of quiet relief. Bill likes order. And over the past few months she has come to understand that Bill needs to feel useful, even if she worries that a seventy-eight-year-old should rest more than he does. He turns to her, the tea-towel over his shoulder.
“Fine,” she says. And then she adds blithely, “Dan is having a baby. With the Bendy Young Mistress.”
Bill stands for a moment, digesting this. “I’m so sorry,” he says, in his clipped, stately-home voice.
There is a short silence.
And then he says: “I don’t really know what to say. Your mother would have known.” He walks up to her and she thinks he’ll give her a hug. But he hesitates, then puts a hand on her upper arm and squeezes it. “He’s a fool, Lila,” he says gently.
“I know.” Lila swallows.
“And he’ll be sorry when he’s struggling with all those sleepless nights and nappies,” Bill adds. “Teething. Toddler tantrums. All that dreadful mess and chaos.”
I loved that chaos, she thinks sadly.I loved being in the middle of it all, my grubby babies, my house of plastic toys and unemptied laundry baskets. I wanted five. A little tribe. And a house in the country filled with dogs and muddy boots and baskets of kindling we’d collected in the woods. “Yeah,” she says.
When she raises her head, Bill is watching her. He looks down at his highly polished shoes. Bill’s shoes are always polished. She is not sure she has ever seen him without a neatly ironed shirt and shiny shoes. “Actually, she would probably have called him a wanker,” he says suddenly.
Lila’s eyes widen. She thinks for a moment, then says: “She probably would.”
“A stupid fucking wanker. Probably.”
Bill never swears, and these words coming out of his mouth sound so unlikely that they stare at each other and let out a short, shocked laugh. Another follows, like a hiccup. Lila’s laugh becomes a half-sob. She has both hands over her face. “It never stops, Bill,” she says, crying. “Bloody hell. It just never stops.”
Bill squeezes her shoulder. “It will. That’s it now. That’s the three things.”
She sniffs. “Since when did you become superstitious?”
“Since I didn’t salute a solitary magpie and your mother got hit by a bus the next day.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, I have to blame something.” He waits until she’s stopped crying. “You’ll be okay, dear girl,” he says softly.
“We’ll be okay,” she repeats, and pushes her hair from her eyes. She sniffs, wipes away her tears. “Do I look okay?”
“You look fine.”
She studies his expression and screws up her face. “Jesus, Bill, you have a worse poker face than Ido.”
Chapter Three
