runaway london
Chapter 23
"You're looking tired", my mother says, as soon as I open the door.
"Nice to see you too, Mum. How was the ride?"
"Well, let's just say this certainly is a lively neighbourhood," my mother answers. She wrinkles her nose in obvious distaste.
I stand aside as she and Raul struggle past me. I watch Raul, red-faced and as slick with perspiration as a newborn, struggle with three, gigantic pieces of matching green and plaid brown luggage. I break out in a cold sweat, wondering just how long they plan to stay.
"Please, let me take your bags," Jules, his manners as impeccable as ever, rushes forward and has two of the suitcases in hand before either my mother or Raul can open their mouths to answer. He smiles at my mother.
"I know the area is a bit disarming initially, but it is very-up-and-coming," he says, disappearing into the master bedroom to discard the suitcases.
My mother makes a clucking sound with her tongue and glances cursorily around the reception room. Breathing loudly through his mouth, Raul wipes beads of perspiration from his brow with his shirtsleeve. I grimace inwardly.
"Did you hear that, Sylvia? A wise investment," Raul repeats, spreading his arms wide. He smiles as if he and Jules share some kind of genetic link. I wonder what Raul can possibly be thinking: his wisest investment consisted of an entire portfolio full of Nortel stocks. I watch him yawn, lifting his arms to reveal two dark patches that have formed under the arms of his shirt. The shirt itself is made of some slightly shiny fabric that looks as though it would be highly flammable. Ah, the joy of nouveau polyester blends.
"He's a smart young man, that Jules. He can see the potential for the neighbourhood despite all the immigrants. Same thing I always say. Look at Harlem, for instance. Bill Clinton moves in and the area is suddenly desirable. Predicting valuable real estate takes insight", he says, tapping the side of his head. I can't help wondering if he hears an echo. Smiling knowingly, he clamps a hairy hand down on my mother's shoulder as though she's a dog that might try to run away.
"Sure, it's fine unless your council estate has been torn down in order to free up space for condominium construction," I say. "It's called gentrification and displacement. This is still the 14th most deprived borough in England, for your information."
Raul chooses to ignore my comments. "Lucky for you," he says, wagging a finger at me, "that he does have such a good head on his shoulders. With you only caring about that damn cat and working for free. You'd be out on the street."
I imagine Raul under a bus. Double-decker. I decide not to inform him of the fact that pedestrians don't have right-of-way over motor vehicles in England.
I open my mouth and try to find some witty, yet cleverly sarcastic reply for Raul just as Jules reemerges from the bedroom. He's not speaking to me at the moment but I know he'll never let my mother and Raul know this. Maintaining a good public façade is of the utmost important to Jules.
"It will be brief due to size constraints, but how about a tour of the flat?" he asks Raul, putting a hand against my stepfather's back and steering him away. He shoots me a cardboard smile that doesn't reach his eyes. I don't bother to return the gesture.
The two of them head down the hallway and into the back room. I wonder if Raul will still think this flat was such a sound investment when he sees the patches of damp crawling up the walls.
My mother brushes imaginary dirt off the sofa with one perfectly manicured hand and then sits down.
"We do clean, you know," I say.
"Cat hair, dear. You might not notice it but it gets simply embedded in things. And as you know that can be a health hazard."
"Cat hair is not a health hazard, mother. I mean, just what sort of life-threatening diseases do you think are spread by cat hair? And anyhow, Jules just hoovered the sofa this morning."
My mother ignores my comments. I wonder if she and Raul conspired on how to best deal with me during this vacation.
"So where is Sophie?" she asks, a wide smile spreading across her face.
Thanks to Jules giving Raul a tour of the entire flat, there was going to be no way I could fake Sophie's presence. I had been hoping to say she was sleeping after a long night of work at the bar and suggest that the four of us have breakfast and a walkabout in Blackheath Village and Greenwich Park in the hope that she'd return in the meantime. But now that Jules and Raul were in the spare room, that plan was no longer an option.
"She's not here. Would you like something to drink?"
My mother frowns. "No, I would not like something to drink, thank you very much," she says, carefully articulating each word as though she were speaking to a very young child. "What do you mean she's not here?"
I swallow hard. This is the moment I'd been dreading.
"Um, she stayed the night at a friend's flat," I say, sitting back into the cushions of the chair. I hold my breath, waiting for my mother's reaction.
She smiles and I note a smear of lipstick across her cosmetically-whitened teeth.
"Isn't that just like your sister? She moves to a new city and gets herself a group of friends lickety-split. She's such a likeable girl, isn't she? Charming, polite."
"She's great, Mum. I'm a little worried about her, though."
I lick my lips. My mother stares at a Klimt print hanging on the wall opposite her. "Is Jules comfortable with pictures like that in his apartment?"
"Like what?" I ask. She's avoiding talking about Sophie. I begin to wonder what she knows about the whole situation.
"Mum, we need to talk about Sophie. I think..."
"It's practically soft pornography," my mother interrupts, wagging a red-tipped finger at the picture. "It's showing lesbians."
"It's not showing lesbians. It's called Women Friends. Can we please talk about Sophie?" I ask, leaning forward in my chair. Already she's making me feel completely exasperated.
"I really don't think it's necessary to hang pictures of naked breasts on your wall. It's perverse."
"I'm sure that's exactly what the Nazis said when they destroyed it in 1945," I reply. Try as I might, things always seem to take a nasty turn where my mother and I are concerned.
"I'll ignore that comment, Tara Marie," my mother says, as though she's doing me a favour. She hoists herself up from the chair. "And as for your sister, she's had a great deal of stress this year with her final exams and everything. She just needed to get away."
"I agree completely. She needed to get away but I don't think it had to do entirely with school. To be perfectly honest, I don't think it had anything at all to do with exam stress or any other academically-related cause," I say.
I want my mother to sit back down, to discuss this. I want her to shoulder the responsibility of being a parent for once. The pattern with her is always the same: ignore the difficult things in life or run away and pretend they don't exist. Well, now she has a daughter who is establishing the same pattern, only with extremely self-destructive behaviour included.
"When are you going to set a deadline to give up this acting business?" she asks, peering down the hallway toward the closed door of the study.
"I'm not. Stop trying to change the conversation. This is important."
"Of course it is. That's why Raul and I are here. Sophie is going to come back with us and she'll be fine. There are plenty of engineering jobs for women in Toronto. She'll be just fine."
"She won't be fine," I say, getting up so that I'm at eye-level with my mother. She's looking at her nails, her head bent forward slightly and I notice the way she's pulled her hair back so tightly that tiny strands have broken off.
Suddenly Jules and Raul emerge from the study.
"I've got a great idea," Jules says, "Let's take a run to Sainsbury's and I'll make us a jolly good breakfast to have in the garden."
Raul pats his ample stomach. "Sounds good to me. While the women are cooking, we can carry on our conversation."
I grind my teeth together, ball my hands into tight fists and dig my nails into the soft flesh of my palms in order to keep from screaming. It's going to be an excruciatingly long few days.