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15
Six Years Before I Do
As soon as Audrey heard Benedict’s voice, she knew he would spell trouble.
Audrey had picked up the house phone and accidentally overheard her mother’s conversation. Vivien always used the house phone. She didn’t approve of mobiles, and reception was often patchy in some parts of the house.
‘...So will I see you when you’re in London?’ she heard Vivien say, in that sultry voice she used when she wanted something.
‘I’m coming to see you, gorgeous, so I should hope so,’ said the man. He had an accent, maybe South African or Dutch. Accents weren’t Audrey’s strong point.
‘We’ll stay at my club next weekend...’ Vivien simpered girlishly.
Audrey slowly, ever so quietly, replaced the receiver. She felt a cold chill prickle her skin and a faint tapping sensation, chipping away at some foundation inside of her.
After splitting from Audrey’s father, Richard, Vivien had married a fashionable French journalist, Jean-Luc. She had picked up their lives and moved them to Paris, enrolling seven-year-old Audrey in a school where she didn’t speak the language. Audrey’s main memory of that year was of having no friends and spending Sunday nights on the Eurostar, shuttling back and forth between her parents. She remembered a French nactor named Elise, who would accompany her and who once let her try red wine on the train.
Neither Paris nor Jean-Luc turned out to be a good fit for Vivien. ‘That is the last time I marry a man who wears tighter trousers than me,’ was the only explanation Audrey was given for why they were moving back to Fulham, less than a year after they’d left.
Brian appeared on the scene when Audrey was ten. He taught a Saturday morning art class Vivien had signed up for. Audrey liked him immediately; he had a gentle manner and spoke to her like she was a grown up. In Audrey’s mind, Brian and Vivien had a wonderful relationship; they never argued, they were tactile with each other, they appreciated the same food and music. Plus, Brian took his role as a stepfather seriously. He knew the names of all Audrey’s friends, picked her up from parties, even took an interest in her stargazing. She clearly remembered the week after her father died, when she’d been just thirteen, sitting on her bed looking at her boxed-up telescope. Brian had gently asked if she would show him the night sky, to tell him about the constellations her father had taught her. He had made looking through that lens again possible.
Audrey pressed her forehead against the wall, willing her ears to unhear the conversation on the phone. Something in her mother’s voice took her right back to being a seven-year-old girl, who had to pack her life into a suitcase every other weekend.
A few days later, the man with the accent came to the house. Audrey recognised his voice straight away. He was slightly older than Vivien, perhaps in his mid-fifties, with a broad frame and fine, silver hair. He had thick pink lips that looked almost feminine, when everything else about him was staunchly masculine, with his bear-like gait and low growl of a voice.
‘Audrey, this is a friend of mine, Benedict; he’s a highly acclaimed sculptor. Benedict, my daughter.’
Benedict reached out a hand and took Audrey’s fingers, lowering his lips to kiss the back of her hand.
‘I see good looks run in the family.’
Audrey gave him a tight smile and quickly extracted her hand from his.
‘Benedict is taking me to an exhibition. Would you like to come? Broaden your education?’ Vivien asked. Audrey did not want to come. She needed to study, had a stack of statistics papers she needed to work her way through.
Vivien shouted goodbye to Brian, who was in the studio. Audrey noticed that when they were at the door, Benedict stroked his hand along the small of her mother’s back.
When Audrey reflected on her parents’ relationship, she could see that perhaps they had been too similar – they both had big egos, were jealous and fiery, they were north-seeking magnetic poles, too alike to connect. The dynamic with Jean-Luc had been similar. With Brian, Audrey felt her mother had found a perfect balance, he was her south-seeking magnet – calm and trusting, he softened her sharp edges. If balanced, temperate love could not last either, then what hope was there for anyone?
The next evening, as they ate one of Brian’s home-cooked toad-in-the-holes at the kitchen table, Vivien announced she intended to stay with her friend Sylvia in Margate that coming weekend. Audrey knew it was a lie before she’d even finished speaking.
‘Will you send her my love?’ said Brian. ‘I must buy her latest book; I did so enjoy her last one.’
Once Brian had retreated to the studio and Vivien had stacked the plates by the dishwasher, Audrey broached the topic.
‘I know you aren’t seeing Sylvia this weekend.’
Vivien’s back tensed at the sink before she slowly spun around. ‘Hello, Little Miss Marple.’
‘How can you do this to Brian?’ Audrey whispered.
Vivien sighed, tilting her head to a sympathetic angle. ‘Brian and I are excellent companions. I love him more than anyone, bar you.’ She paused, waiting for Audrey to meet her gaze. ‘But the lust part, you can’t keep that – no one can. I didn’t go looking for anything with Benedict, honestly I didn’t, but I don’t think I could have stopped it, it was beyond me.’ She blushed, biting back a smile, then said in a whisper, ‘It keeps me young, Audrey, I feel like a girl again.’ A silly grin lit up her face. ‘Do you remember when I played Blanche DuBois at the National, waking up to the reviews after press night, every one of them five stars? That is how he makes me feel, just being in his orbit. When you fall in love, you’ll understand.’
‘Well, I don’t like being your secret keeper,’ Audrey snapped.
‘Then stop earwigging on things that don’t concern you. I’m just embracing life before I get too old for anyone to love me.’ She pursed her lips. ‘He lives in New York; it can only be a short-lived thing.’
‘I think you’re being selfish,’ Audrey said, ‘and the people who really love you won’t stop just because you get old.’
