A Perfectly Good Family

I liked to think it inevitable that, as we haggled over 19 across, his hand would eventually drop the pen for mine.

I liked to think it equally inevitable that, on a later night, Andrew off to bed, Peter would burst into the flat when I was only wearing a kimono, let the cup of coffee I fixed him cool as he poured the last of his White Horse for me, until at 4 a.m. the flaps of my kimono would fall open.

Improbably, this went on for months. I counseled each of them in turn that to keep our household amicable it was paramount they neither blurted to the other about any indiscreet flat-mating. Though the two had little in common, they liked each other, and agreed. Andrew said he could see how Peter might feel left out; Peter said, that poor lad’s not getting any crumpet, no reason to shove our sheets under his nose. I doubt two women would have been capable of it, but judging from the ease and hilarity of that period those chaps must have kept their traps shut.

About that time I feel wistful, though I know I shouldn’t—playing double-footsie under the oilcloth; rushing to throw on my jeans when Andrew and I heard a key in the door; pretending wakefulness so that Andrew would lumber off to bed before Peter stumbled jovially in after last call. I knew our trio couldn’t last, but somehow neither man encroached emotionally on the other in my head. Peter was rambunctious and liked to wrestle; he spent no time analysing “our relationship” and he still didn’t tell me where he went on holidays from our flat. Peter would slam-bam; Andrew was tender, solicitous and adventurous in bed. While Peter was oblivious to the crudest details of my existence, Andrew made meticulous inquiry into my past and grilled me on whether I wanted to have children.

Although I’d never have expected appreciation, from Peter in particular, they both adored my sculpture. I fashioned and fired my pieces at a ceramics cooperative in Clapham, but bubble-wrapped them back to the flat, where I unveiled them to my fans in our spare room, to gratifying oohs and ahs.

Good news seems always paired with bad. A fortnight after the three of us had polished off four bottles of champagne to celebrate my coup with the Curlew Gallery, the phone rang again. It wasn’t the middle of the night, which might have prepared me. Truman was admirably factual. He had found my mother in our parlor at ten in the morning, surrounded by old photos of my father. Undoubtedly, her heart.

Both boys were terribly sweet. Andrew got right on the phone to BA, and I hadn’t known there were special rates for emergency bereavements—I got on a flight at half price the next day. He fixed me tea while Peter, predictably, ran for vodka. They both saw me off at Heathrow, while I assured them I’d be back in a few days; I had to put up my show at the Curlew when I returned. Take care of my darlings in the spare room, I said, and kissed each of them, daringly, on the mouth.

They may not have been gossipy girls, but if you put two people of any sex in a room by themselves for long enough they will tell all.

I’d been flirting,” I told Truman, “with both of them. I guess while I was gone they had a few beers with each other, and … well, they must have been mad.”

“So they kicked you out.”

“That’s not all they kicked. Or one of them. When I flew back, no one met my plane. I took the tube, and came home to the flat empty. I was restless, and headed for the back room thinking I could start swathing my pieces in bubble-wrap for transport to the Curlew …” I sighed.

“The hand,” twigged Averil.

“Oh, nobody had taken a pickax to them. I might have preferred that. No, all the hands were lopped off. Every one.”

“Couldn’t you glue them back?”

“Not for a tony London gallery, and the breaks weren’t clean. No, the sculptures were ruined all right. Three, four years’ work at least. I’m back to Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

“I find it hard to believe,” said Truman, “that those guys would destroy all that work for flirting.”

It’s true that I sanitize my stories for Truman, but like his mother he’s so gruelingly good.

“You said it was only one of them,” said Averil. “Which?”

“I was surprised. Peter was given to drunken rampages. Andrew was the sensitive, cerebral one. Then, I don’t think Peter would have cared so much. He was savvy, he was wild and casual and had other women. Andrew …”

“Was in love,” said Averil.

“Maybe,” I conceded. “I hadn’t noticed. I probably didn’t want to.”

That night, my spindly lover had returned, having given me just enough time to discover his get-out-of-my-life present. Behind the glare of his horn-rims, his eyes were anthracite. For once, he did look knowing.

“Why the hands?” pressed Averil.

“Because my hands,” I said, “had lied. But they hadn’t really. I liked each of those men. I liked each of them, in a different way, a great deal.”

Whenever my father was asked if he wanted pie or ice cream he would smirk and say he wanted pie with ice cream, so I was raised with the idea I could have both.

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