The House on Fortune Street Read online

  We made love that night, closing the door against interruptions and giving ourselves over to each other with abandon. I felt, once again, the good fortune that had guided me to this woman, and this life.

  WE DIDN’T SEE OUR NEW NEIGHBORS UNTIL AFTER WE RETURNED from our summer holidays, a fortnight in the Lake District with Fiona’s sister and her family. The following week I was at home with Dara and Fergus after school when the doorbell rang. I went to answer and found Iris. Beside her stood a slender girl, wearing a crimson top. Her dark blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her skin, beneath our hall light, had a golden sheen. Her eyes, staring up at me, were a grayish green, like that stone called peridot, which means lost. Later I would see that they were flecked with brown. Her full lips were pale.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” said Iris. “I was hoping your wife was home.”

  “She will be shortly. Would you like to come in and wait? The kettle’s just boiled.” I held out my hand to the girl. “Hello, I’m Cameron. I have a daughter about your age.”

  “I’m Ingrid,” said the girl, still looking up at me gravely and ignoring my hand. “Is she home?”

  I stepped back and opened the living room door. Dara and Fergus were lying on the floor watching television. “Dara, Fergus,” I said, “this is our new neighbor, Ingrid. And her mother, Iris.”

  “Hello,” said Iris.

  “Are you watching The Secret Seven?” said Ingrid.

  “Yes,” said Dara. “They’re about to go down to the cellar.”

  As she spoke, Ingrid crossed the room and lay down on the floor beside her. I stepped back, taking Iris with me, and closed the door on the three children.

  “This is their favorite show,” I said.

  “Ingrid’s too,” said Iris. She seemed to forget about waiting for Fiona’s return, and asked if I would mind watching Ingrid for an hour. She had to go to a meeting, and Carol, her older daughter, who normally babysat, had been delayed.

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m in the middle of making supper but it looks like they can entertain themselves.”

  In the kitchen the onion I peeled was suddenly a miracle of design, the potatoes more shapely, the parsley exquisitely curled. Sometimes Dara laid the table, but that evening I did it myself. I didn’t dare to leave the kitchen until I heard the sound of a key in the front door. Then I went to greet Fiona, wearing my apron, holding a wooden spoon. “Ingrid Bailey is here,” I said. “Her mother asked if we could watch her until her sister gets home.”

  “Did you invite her for supper?” said Fiona. She was already opening the living room door. The two girls were still sitting on the floor but now playing cards. Fergus was pushing a truck around them. “Hello, Ingrid. I’m Dara’s mum, Fiona.”

  Ingrid scrambled to her feet. “Hi,” she said brightly. “Thank you for having me.”

  “Fergus,” said Fiona. “What are you doing up? It’s way past your bedtime.”

  Like my mother, I had forgotten about my son.

  WITHIN A MATTER OF WEEKS DARA AND INGRID WERE INSEPARABLE. She still saw her other friends, but it was Ingrid with whom she would play for hours, giggling over private jokes and secrets. They both loved dressing up and inventing dramas. Sometimes Fergus tagged along—they found him useful in their games—but mostly it was just the two of them. We began to make joint arrangements with Iris about school, Brownies, ballet. The older daughter, Carol, became our main babysitter. Mr. Bailey never appeared and was never mentioned. Somehow the opportunity to ask about him came and went.

  Since our conversation about my doldrums Fiona had been nudging me about photography, and it was with her blessing that I started taking pictures of the two girls. Of course I was careful to also photograph Fergus and his friends, but I had only one real subject. The camera loved Ingrid. In everyday life she often fell short of what I had seen that first evening. Her skin could look sallow and she was prone to spots. She had the habit of chewing on a strand of hair that hung limply in front of her face, her teeth pushed forward—she would probably need braces—and her lips were usually chapped. But through the lens these faults vanished or became part of some larger whole that they enhanced rather than marred.

  As the girls grew more intimate our families became increasingly intertwined. Iris worked as an accountant for a large firm and was an energetic single parent. She volunteered at the primary school, she went swimming with Ingrid on Saturdays and attended Carol’s hockey matches, she became involved with the drama club. She persuaded Fiona to help with this last. Often after the weekly meeting the two women brought the girls home and then went out again to have a drink. On such nights Ingrid would stay at our house, sharing Dara’s room, and I would be responsible for getting the two excited girls into bed. There would be baths and much scampering back and forth before they settled down.

  I didn’t get careless but my confidence grew. Surely there was no harm in occasionally opening the bathroom door to tell them it was time to get out. Was I to blame if I lingered for a moment, waiting to be sure they did my bidding? One night, getting out of the bath, Ingrid dropped her towel. Both girls burst out laughing. I must have stood there for five seconds, staring at her slender shoulders, her whole smooth body, before I went to fetch another towel. As she wrapped it around herself, I thought of asking her and Dara not to tell anyone, but even as I framed the request I recognized the trap: the mere consciousness of guilt was evidence thereof. Innocence was my best protection. Later the girls came downstairs in their pajamas to sit in front of the fire. While Dara dried Ingrid’s hair, I dried Dara’s.

  On special days, days when Dodgson had, for instance, gone for a glorious picnic, the sole adult with several children, he wrote in his diary, “I mark this day with a white stone.” Over several decades he took thousands of beautiful, focused photographs, including the ones of girls “sans habillement” which were his favorites. But even in Victorian England his behavior did not pass without remark. He was always aware that what he most loved could be taken away. His book Pillow Problems was designed to ward off impious thoughts before sleep. No wonder he wanted to fall down a rabbit hole into a world where the natural laws were suspended and a ten-year-old girl could be ten forever. In his late forties, he stopped taking photographs, claiming to be too busy. His will requested that all his nude photographs be returned to the sitters or destroyed. Four survive.

  A WEEK OR TWO AFTER THE MEMORABLE BATH, FIONA CAME HOME from the drama club and reported how grateful Iris was for my taking an interest in Ingrid. “She says it’s so good for Ingrid to have a positive father figure.”

  I had finally got the girls off to bed half an hour earlier and was sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper. Now somehow the paper was on the floor and I was sitting tensely upright. “A father figure?”

  “Also known,” said Fiona, sinking onto the sofa, “as a man who isn’t a complete wanker. You know how Iris talks.”

  Iris’s commitment to counseling and self-help books was a joke between us, though recently I’d noticed that Fiona had begun to refer to Dara’s self-esteem, Fergus’s Oedipal phase. I realized from her raised eyebrows that I’d overreacted. “How was drama?” I said as I picked up the newspaper. “I didn’t mean to sound so startled. I still have trouble thinking of myself as a father, let alone a father figure. My parents were always so certain about everything. Whereas I feel like I’m just bumbling along.”

  “So do I.” Fiona smiled. “Hopefully it makes us better parents that we let our children see that we’re not perfect.”

  “More fun,” I suggested.

  “Definitely more fun.” She described that night’s rehearsal of The Wind in the Willows. The boy who played Toad had fallen into the washtub and provoked much hilarity. Dara had taken a turn at being Rattie. “I thought she wouldn’t like being the center of attention but she loved it. She’s blossomed these last few months.”

  “And Ingrid?”

  “She was the front of the mo
torcar that nearly runs over Toad and one of the weasels. The director was asking for someone to photograph the dress rehearsal. I volunteered you.”

  “If we can find someone to watch Fergus,” I said.

  CAROL AGREED TO BABYSIT DURING THE DRESS REHEARSAL, AND I took my camera and tripod down to the church hall. I had not done this kind of photography before and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to anticipate the movements of a group, catching the children at felicitous moments. Ingrid was an excellent weasel and Dara was an eager water rat. The following night I happily joined in the standing ovation. Everyone came back to our house, and the girls, still wearing their makeup, pranced around, giggling.

  Only a week later they quarreled. Ingrid had copied one of Dara’s drawings, and the unwitting teacher had praised it more than she praised Dara’s. But what really vexed Dara was that Ingrid had lied. “She told Miss Hunt it was all her own work,” she said, blinking in the way she did when she was upset; my mother had used to do the same thing. For four interminable days we didn’t see Ingrid. By the third day my lungs ached as if I had inhaled one of the chemicals I was testing at the laboratory; I could barely lift a book. I told Fiona that I thought I was coming down with something, and on Friday she insisted that I stay at home. One of us had to be back by noon anyway because school finished at lunchtime. Fergus was going to play with his friend Paul.

  After everyone had left and the house was quiet, I lay in bed trying to think what I would do if the two girls continued to be estranged. I did not want much from Ingrid—just more chances to watch her, more conversations about how electricity gets into houses or why cuckoos use the nests of other birds—but if she and Dara weren’t friends, how was I to spend five minutes in her company? The prospect of living so close and seeing her so seldom was unbearable. Could I tutor her in maths? Or teach her to swim? Everything I could think of seemed like a red flag signaling my acute need, the opposite of Dodgson’s cool white stone. I turned off the light and closed my eyes.

  I woke to the sound of voices, not one but two, high-pitched, girlish voices. I was still listening intently when there came a soft knock at my door.

  “Daddy?”

  “Come in.” I pulled myself into a sitting position and turned on the light.

  Dara stood beside my bed in her school uniform, her hair pulled back into absurd bunches. “How are you feeling?” she said. “Can I take your temperature? Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “I’d like some orange juice,” I said. “Who were you talking to downstairs?”

  “Ingrid. If you’re feeling better, Daddy, would you mind coming downstairs so we can make grilled cheese sandwiches?”

  I was already half out of bed. “I’ll be down in five minutes,” I said. In the bathroom I checked to make sure that I didn’t look too unkempt. There was no time to shave but I splashed water on my face, combed my hair, and brushed my teeth. Back in the bedroom I flung open the curtains and put on clean clothes.

  Downstairs Dara was searching the fridge. Beside her stood a familiar figure. “Are you feeling better, Cameron?” said Ingrid.

  “Much,” I said. “I just needed a lie-in. How are you?”

  “Fine. We got to use the trampoline in gym. I almost did a somersault. So did Dara.”

  “Do you want a grilled cheese sandwich?” said Dara.

  I’m sure our lunch was quite ordinary, but in my memory it stands out as a meal fit for kings: the tomato perfectly sliced, the cheese stretching right to the edge of the bread and lightly freckled, the glasses of orange squash perfectly mixed. The two girls regaled me with the details of their morning. Could Ingrid’s hair have grown in four days? She told us that her sister, Carol, had a new boyfriend who walked like a cowboy; she and Dara both tried to imitate this and collapsed in laughter. “Mum doesn’t like him,” Ingrid added, “because he’s so much older.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Three years,” said Ingrid, and the girls collapsed again.

  After lunch the three of us went to the garden center and bought bedding plants. Dara chose pansies and petunias and lobelias; Ingrid preferred impatiens and geraniums and marigolds. We spent the afternoon planting them, first at our house, then at Ingrid’s. We were kneeling in their front garden when Iris came home.

  “What a great job you’ve done,” she said. “This is lovely.”

  “Hi, Mum,” said Ingrid. “Do we have a watering can?”

  “I’ll fetch it. Would you like some tea?”

  It was when she brought the mugs of tea out to the garden that Iris suggested we go camping together at half-term.

  A FEW WEEKS LATER DAVY PAID ONE OF HIS PERIODIC VISITS. His mother had broken her ankle at Christmas and he and his sister were trying, yet again, to persuade their parents to sell the farm and move to a sensible bungalow in town. Fiona, whose parents lived out side a small village in Lancashire, was having similar conversations. Over supper she and Davy discussed their difficulties.

  “They’re in total denial,” Davy said. “When I ask what will happen the next time one of them falls, they say they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.”

  “My parents are the same,” said Fiona. “There’s very nice sheltered housing in the next town, but it has a huge waiting list and they won’t even put their names down.”

  “At least you have parents to worry about,” I said.

  “You have your mother,” said Davy. “How is she?”

  “If you saw her, you’d know that I don’t have her. She hasn’t just lost her memory; she’s turned into a different person. She makes spiteful remarks about the nurses and sometimes—I can’t tell you how weird this is—she tells dirty jokes.”

  “My theory,” said Fiona, “is that’s she’s always been this way. Now she’s lost her inner censor and it’s all out in the open.”

  As she spoke, the tendons in her neck grew taut. I got up to clear the table. Even after several years I found Fiona’s hardheartedness about my mother upsetting. Davy, with his usual tact, began to talk about her teaching: had she enjoyed her most recent placement? Presently she went off to bed, leaving the two of us alone with our nightcaps. I asked after Robert.

  Davy had been living with Robert for nearly five years, but last spring he had started an affair with a French boy. Everything had gone swimmingly until Robert, coming home early from a business trip, had caught them in flagrante. During the explosive row that followed Davy had promised to give up Jean-Paul. Now he confessed that he was seeing him again. “I didn’t mean to. He came into the shop, we went for coffee and…” He spread his hands, smiling, inviting me to imagine the details.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  His smile vanished. “I have no idea. Every day I swear I’m going to give him up, and then I think I’ll just see him one more time. It’s madness.”

  “Maybe you want Robert to catch you again?”

  “No. I want to grow old with Robert but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to stop me from wanting Jean-Paul.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I wish I understood why I keep doing this. Maybe it’s because our childhoods were so repressed.”

  “So can you keep it secret? Can you balance the two in a way that makes you happy rather than insane?” I leaned forward, waiting for Davy’s answer.

  “If Robert hadn’t caught us, perhaps. But he’s on his guard. Any slipups and—” He drew his hand across his throat. “You sound as if you know what I’m talking about.”

  I invoked a shadowy woman at work. “The children keep me on the straight and narrow,” I said. Beguiled by the intimacy of the hour, I was thinking that our situations were not really so different when Davy remarked that what he’d like was to be able to be open with Robert. That he could even voice the fantasy reminded me, abruptly, of how alone I was. I stretched and yawned and said it was time for bed. Following my example, Davy rose to his feet.

  In the hall he paused beside my photographs. “Who’s this?”

  He wa
s pointing to one of my favorites: Ingrid and Dara had been roller-skating in the street and I had caught Ingrid gliding along, arms outstretched. “Ingrid,” I said. “She lives three doors down. I like this one too,” I added, drawing his attention to a photograph of Ingrid alone. She was sitting on the lawn making a daisy chain. “You can’t see in this photograph but she has the most beautiful—” I was about to say “shoulders” when Davy’s curious glance stopped me. “She and Dara,” I went on, “remind me of us when we were young. The way they can spend hours together, doing homework and messing around.”

  “That’s nice for Dara. I worry sometimes that she’s like me, more sensitive than she looks. For some reason people tend to think you only have feelings if you’re thin. Everyone assumes a certain level of stoicism for the well-built.”

  In bed that night, lying beside the sleeping Fiona, I wished I had one of Dodgson’s pillow problems to distract me. For a few seconds I had almost confided, and for another few seconds Davy had almost guessed at, my inner life, perhaps not its exact nature but that I had something to hide. I wondered if I should follow Iris’s example and find a therapist, but I could not imagine voicing my feelings to a professional any more than to my mother. Unspoken they were lovely, pure; spoken who knew what form they might take.

  THE PLAN WAS FOR US ALL TO GO CAMPING DURING THE SCHOOL half-term in late May. Iris knew a place on the Fife coast, a little over an hour away and right by the sea. Fiona arranged to borrow a couple of tents from friends and we started to amass the necessary equipment. The children were excited and we invited Fergus’s friend Paul to join us. I wasn’t keen on having an extra child to take care of, but Fiona suggested that we offer to pay Carol to babysit. She had just lost her part-time job, and the bandy-legged boyfriend, after one outing to the cinema, had disappeared.

  The campsite turned out to be a grassy field bounded on three sides by hawthorn hedges and on the fourth, beside the shore, a line of rushes. To the west was a small wood; the battlements of a castle were visible above the trees. The farmer charged a pound a night per tent for which he provided a toilet, a shower, an outside tap, and a dustbin. Rough camping, Iris called it. When we arrived at lunchtime the only other occupant of the site was a small blue tent pitched in the shelter of the hedge. With much hilarity we set up our encampment right behind the rushes: a tent for Dara and Ingrid, one for Iris and Carol, and the largest one, big enough to stand up in, for Fergus, Paul, Fiona, and me. As we made the sleeping arrangements, it dawned on me that I was the sole adult male in this company of women.