Harriet Evans - The Love of Her Life

Venetia was born to be a New Yorker; it was hard to believe she’d ever lived anywhere else. Of course, Kate could remember her in London, but it seemed rather unreal, now. The mother she’d had until the age of fourteen when, the day after Kate’s birthday, Venetia had left, was like a character Kate remembered watching in a film, not her actual, own mother. She had to remind herself that it was Venetia who’d picked her up from school every day, Venetia who’d smoothed her hair back when she’d been sick after some scrambled eggs when she was eight, Venetia who’d collected her from the Brownie camp in the New Forest a day early after Kate had cried all night for her. The idea that she and Kate’s father had lived together no longer had any substance. That Venetia had taken Kate to the Proms to watch Daniel play, had entertained myriad friends of Daniel’s in their cluttered basement in the tall house in Kentish Town, had wiped down tables, collected up wine bottles, fielded calls from agents and journalists and critics and young, lithe music students: that Venetia had long disappeared. She was a New Yorker now, and more importantly, Kate thought, she was the star of her own show.

Venetia and Oscar’s apartment was straight out of Annie Hall, from the framed Saul Steinberg prints and posters of the Guys and Dolls revival that Oscar had done a couple of years ago, to the copies of The New Yorker on the coffee table, and the view over Riverside Drive from the long, low room that served as sitting room, dining room, den and Oscar’s office (he worked at home mostly; he was an arranger, a composer, and a conductor).

There were also pictures of Kate in silver frames that she always found hugely embarrassing: her as a baby, sucking her toes, sitting on a lawn somewhere (Kate never knew where; there was no lawn in the Kentish Town house); smiling rather rigidly outside her college after getting her degree; with her mother, the first time she came to New York to visit, when Kate was fifteen, just after Venetia had married Oscar. And there was one she always wanted to take down, just because: Kate, beaming, holding the first issue of Venus , the magazine she’d worked on in London. There had been other photos, other remnants of Kate’s life. They had been taken down – no one wanted to see them, now.

As Kate opened the door to the apartment, a smell of onions, something warming, hit her. Her mother was in the tiny galley kitchen singing; ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ was being played in the long room.

‘Hi!’ she called, injecting a note of jollity into her voice. ‘Something smells nice.’

‘Hello darling!’ Venetia appeared in the corridor, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I’m making risotto, it’s going to be lovely.’ She kissed her daughter. ‘Thanks for calling. It’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes. How was your day? Did you get hold of Betty? She rang earlier. She was wondering if you wanted to meet for a drink on Friday.’

Kate disentangled herself from her scarf, and from her mother, backing away towards the door to hang her things up. She pulled her long dark blonde hair out from her coat, and turned to her mother, chewing a lock of hair as she did.

‘I’m starving,’ she said indistinctly. ‘I’ll give her a call in a minute. Mum –’

Oscar called from the long room. ‘Hello, Katy! Come and say hi!’

Kate poked her head around the door. ‘Hi, Oscar,’ she said. ‘How was your day?’

‘Honey, I’m home!’ Oscar said joyously, launching into a ragtime version of ‘Luck Be A Lady’. ‘I’ve been home all day!’

Oscar made this joke roughly three times a week. Kate smiled affectionately at him.

‘What a lovely evening,’ she said, staring out over the Hudson, at the purple, grey sunset. ‘I had such a nice walk back.’

Oscar was only half listening. ‘That’s good, dear,’ he said. ‘Would you like a drink? Venetia, can I get you another drink, darling?’

Venetia appeared, carrying her gin and tonic. ‘I’m fine with this one, thanks, darling,’ she said, carelessly caressing the back of her husband’s neck as she passed by. ‘I’d better lay the table – darling, did I mention that I saw Kathy today? And she and Don can’t make it to your party?’

‘Dad’s ill,’ Kate said, suddenly. Her voice was louder than she’d meant. The room was suddenly deadly silent.

‘What?’ Venetia turned to look at her daughter. ‘What did you say?’

Kate gripped the side of the sofa. ‘Dad’s really ill. He’s had a kidney transplant. He’s in intensive care.’

‘Oh, my god,’ Oscar said, looking towards his wife. ‘That’s – well, that’s awful.’

‘I’m going home,’ said Kate. ‘On Saturday. To see him.’

‘Back to London?’ her mother said. Her face was white.

‘Yes,’ said Kate, shaking her head very slightly, willing her mother to do the right thing.

‘My god,’ said Oscar. He chewed at a cuticle, nervously. ‘Will he be – OK?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Kate, wanting to reassure them. ‘I mean – it’s dangerous, but he’s very lucky. I hope so –’ She swallowed, as black dots danced in front of her eyes, and a wave of panic swept over her at the thought of it, her poor darling dad. ‘Yes, Lisa thinks he will be …’

Lisa’s name dropped like a stone between them. It was Venetia who broke the silence. ‘You’re going back Saturday? What time’s your flight?’

‘Nine. In the evening.’

‘Right.’ Venetia put her drink down; she patted her collar bone, her slim white fingers stroking her skin. ‘We’ll drive you. Oh, darling. How long are you going for?’

‘Two weeks, probably,’ said Kate, coming towards her. She wanted her reassurance, for her mother to tell her it was going to be OK, not just Dad, but everything to do with it. ‘I’ll be back for Oscar’s party, of course I will – I’m just going to make sure he’s OK.’

‘Course you do!’ said Venetia. She put her arm around her daughter, squeezed her shoulders. ‘Darling, it’s just – well. It’ll be hard for you. That’s all.’

There was silence again in the room, as Oscar looked from his wife to his stepdaughter. Kate gazed out of the window. The sunset was almost over; it was nearly dark.

‘Yep,’ Kate said. ‘It will be hard.’ It felt strange; it felt alien here, suddenly. She hated that feeling. ‘I had to go back sometime,’ she added, and Oscar nodded and sat back down at the piano. ‘Just wish it wasn’t for this, that’s all.’

CHAPTER TWO

Kate had lived with Oscar and Venetia since she came to New York. She was always just about to start looking for an apartment of her own – or a studio, more likely, since renting in New York was still staggeringly expensive, even with the rental money she had from her flat in London. Still, it was ridiculous, being thirty, living with your mother and stepfather and when she’d moved to New York she’d thought it would only be a temporary measure, that she’d be moving out soon. But the right time never seemed to happen.

She and Betty often talked about getting a place together, but Betty’s love life was erratic to say the least, and whenever Kate was at her most desperate to move out, move on, move away from her domestic situation, coincided exactly with Betty and her latest five-star full-on love affair being at its height, whereupon Betty would say ‘… I think we’re getting married … or at least, moving in together … in a couple of months I’d say, so no Kate, sorry … I can’t!’ Then they would break up, awfully, and Betty would be too heartbroken to contemplate anything, and Kate would have to soothe her back to sanity with a variety of cocktails all over the SoHo area, and Betty would gradually perk up and say, ‘We should really look for a place soon!’ and Kate would say, ‘Yes!’ and then, without fail, the next day, Betty would go to a gallery opening, and there she would meet Charles (public schoolboy with nappy fetish) or Johan (Norwegian bike courier) or Elrond (poet with long hair), and the whole apartment thing would go quiet for a while … and Kate would tell herself to wait a little longer.