The Girl Below(82)

I had never been out with a lawyer before, or anyone even remotely professional, and I noticed that my friends took the relationship more seriously after I told them what he did. However, I was more interested in his passion for films. He followed only the work of what he called “true auteur directors,” and he delighted in educating me on all that I’d missed (which was nearly everything). One of Edward’s favorite things to do was to invite me over for curated movie marathons. These he took very seriously, and once one had begun, there was no question of it finishing early, even if I was tired. One night, it was after midnight when he took the final DVD out of its box and put it into the player. Five minutes into the film, the subtitles blurred into a hairy black line, and my eyelids tanked.

I remember Edward tried to prise them open, but to no avail. When we got into bed, I found that I couldn’t pass out like I had on the couch. Edward was lying too close, and my limbs found ways to slide in his direction. He had his back to me, and I caressed his slim, smooth hips.

“I thought you were tired,” he said.

“So did I.”

“Then what are you doing?” His voice was flat, and my hand retreated. I had not known what I was doing, but whatever it was, I kept doing it, like a puppy that returns to the owner who beats it. One night he asked me to name my top five albums, and when I had picked the Dirty Dancing sound track, which I had liked very much growing up, he’d laughed, unkindly. I should have laughed too, at his pretension, but instead I doubted my taste.

My hope was kept alive by the times he would soften and take me to bed, where he would whisper intimate confessions about his life. As an eleven-year-old he had been sent to boarding school, where an older boy had raped him with the handle of a cricket bat. He had never told a soul, and the secret had almost devoured him. When he was sixteen, he had tried to kill himself. He was only telling me these things, I reasoned, because he trusted me, because he loved me, and on the promise of that, I trailed around after him for another few weeks.

Sometime around then, a letter arrived from Rowan.

Dear Suki, it began, It’s not my thing to write letters, so that should tell you how upset I am by what’s happened.

I knew I should stop reading, tear up the letter and throw it away, but I couldn’t help myself.

Your father and I have worked bloody hard to provide for our children, and we don’t want you to take it away from them. Considering your past behavior toward us, Ludo’s offer was extremely generous, and it just shows your selfish attitude that you turned it down. The money is more than you’re owed, given what your parents’ flat sold for in the eighties. You probably don’t realize this, but houses in London weren’t worth much then. If it had been up to me, we would have offered you less. Don’t think that by holding out for more, the amount will go up. It won’t. Ludo doesn’t know about this letter, so there’s no use ringing him up to talk to him about it. He said he was going to try giving you the check again, but I don’t know why. I know you’re too greedy and won’t take it.

There was more, but it was more of the same. I had to read the letter a few times to work out why she was so angry. From what I understood, my father had taken more than his share from the sale of the London flat and there was some kind of deficit that she was worried I was angling to take back from them.

When I showed the letter to Edward to ask for his legal opinion, he agreed. “She’s trying to buy you out of Ludo’s will.”

“But I don’t want any of that,” I said, thinking of the ugly ranch and muddy paddocks and the stables full of twitching horses. “And besides, he’s still alive.”

“She must think you’re waiting to make your move.”

“I have a move?”

“You’d be surprised by how many people do.”

That was one of the last sane conversations I ever had with Edward. That same week, he started accusing me of fucking his friends, and the more strenuously I denied it, the more proof he seemed to find of my guilt. I had always thought jealousy might be flattering, but the look in Edward’s eyes when he accused me of cheating was sheer lunacy, not affection. A few weeks later he dumped me, though it should have been the other way round.

Breaking up with Edward took me to a level of devastation I had never known before. Not because he had been a great love—we had been together barely two months—but because I believed it was the end of love, that he had been my last chance, my last shot. I was not yet twenty-seven, which I knew was hardly old, but I felt worn out. On the day we broke up, I experienced what felt like a power outage in the region of my heart. It was done with being battered, had decided to shut down for good.