The Other Liv

 Summer 1978 

 London  

I don’t have a plan, nothing in my head but the need to get away. Ravi hasn’t been speaking to me properly for the last week or so. Harbouring a grudge since my last little blip. That’s what I call them, blips. Times I pretend I’m not married, the kids aren’t mine, I’ve walked onto the set of someone else’s life. That it’s only a matter of time before whoever’s in charge will realise this is all a mistake.  

My life is a mistake.  

Easiest way to explain, or try to explain, is that there are times when being a wife and mother isn’t enough and all I can do to get out of my own head is the wrong thing. But then, I’m a sucker for a blip. 

‘Don’t know how much longer the kids and me can live like this, not knowing what to  expect one minute to the next.’ 

You and me both, Ravi. And it’s not that I don’t understand the implications of the way I’m behaving, more that I seem to have lost the ability to behave. Like now, because I’ve just slipped out of our red brick, semi-detached house in Wood Green, leaving him on his own with four children who need to be fed, bathed, put to bed. The packing isn’t finished, clothes for the holiday still on the clothes-horse in the kitchen. We’re meant to be going to Ireland tomorrow, two weeks in Mayo, Mom’s hometown, the place she ran to after Daddy died, trailing two kids and more than a whiff of desperation.  

A Number 73 swishes to a halt as I reach the bus stop. A sign: what to do next. I hop  on, slide onto the first free seat on the lower deck. Push back the hood of my brown wool coat, run my fingers through my hair. Gold red, shorter than I used to wear it, a halo of curls around my face. Mom says I remind her of Maureen O’Hara, my eyes the same green, my hair the same colour. But then, she also says I look like her, so it’s obvious what she’s getting at.  

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I gaze through the glass. Late summer fog, coming down in layers, streetlights fizzing a lemon glow, buildings on either side of the street almost spectral. There but not.  

Like me. Here, but not. 

‘Why won’t you talk to me, Liv. I can help, if you’ll only let me.’ Ravi thinks what we  have, used to have, makes him a ‘Liv Expert.’ He’s not, he knows nothing about me, the real  me.  

A friend from when Mom and Daddy were living in Lancashire found me the job in the mill. Mom didn’t want me to go, knew even then she couldn’t keep me, ‘I suppose it’s a start, Liv, you’ll do better, give it time. You can’t be so beautiful for nothing.’  

I was fourteen, with just enough money for the fare and utterly convinced my life  wouldn’t be the same as my mother’s. But then the accident happened so what Ravi got, and something he doesn’t understand, is the girl who survived. Not the girl I was before. 

A man moves up from a few seats behind. Narrow eyes, pockmarked skin. I saw him  notice me as I got on. Flash, but strangely attractive. He drops onto the seat beside me, closes the space between us and I feel his heat. Want it, the way I no longer want Ravi, his tenderness a guilt trip I can’t allow myself to take.  

‘Going far, my lovely?’ Cockney accent. Guessed as much from the sharp but cheap  pin striped suit, the slicked back hair.  

‘Haven’t decided yet,’ I shrug, deliberately offhand, but fizzing inside with anticipation. 

‘I’m Derek,’ he says, pulling a packet of fags from his pocket, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Maria.’ The lie out quickly, no need to give more than I want to give. 

He lights up, then leans in, breath hot on my neck, ‘I’m heading up West, a pub I know, care to join me for a few bevvies?’ 

‘Maybe,’ I say, turning back to the window. His face reflected in the glass, I see the  grin, as if my going with him is already decided. I want to slap the look off his face, the way I sometimes want to slap the children. But I don’t, haven’t. So far. Something else Ravi wouldn’t understand. Wouldn’t be able to forgive, and he’s forgiven a lot.  

‘We’ll get through this, Liv. You have me, the kids, you’ll come right again, I know you  will.’  

He thinks I just need time, but he’s wrong.  

~~~~~~~~

I hated Lancashire. Brown stone buildings, chimneys spewing smoke, worn down cobbles.  Narrow corridors, multi-paned windows closing off the light, machines with too many  levers, the din that made my ears feel they were bleeding. Thick accents of other workers  making me more of a stranger. And everywhere, cotton dust.  

A familiar enough story: I was too young, too inexperienced. When my hair became  tangled in a machine, I was being pulled into the rollers until a quick-witted local girl  managed to operate the off-switch.  

Sad really. She went to England for work and died there within a few months. So young. Lots of accidents in those mills. People losing digits all the time, nothing ever said.  

That could have been me, a few words as gossip of the day in our small town. Instead, everyone said I was lucky, could have been worse. No harm done. Which logically was true, but in the months afterwards, logic didn’t stop the images in my head, re-runs of what  happened, the sticky, sucking sound as part of my scalp was torn away.  

In the twenty seconds it took for the machine to cut off, I had floated off, outside of  myself, watching from somewhere else. And then, when it was over, it wasn’t just me  anymore, another Liv had taken up residence. 

Derek puffs his fag, not saying much, no questions, always good. The bus stop-starts through evening traffic, stop-starting, getting nowhere fast. I ignore him, continue to stare  out into the evening. All the while telling myself, I’m not going to give him what he wants,  this is just me taking a bus ride, a breather from the kids. Ravi will hardly miss me before I’m back.  

I can feel my husband’s patience wearing out. Understandable really. He has the  children to think about, they need a mother who knows what she’s doing, not someone like me. Someone none of us can trust. 

Euston station emerges from the mist, a shadow of itself. Crude, squat. Brutal. My twin,  Andrew, worked here when he came to London, one of the navvies who recast its bones in a slick of sweat and fear, his fascination with danger fanned to life by a concrete box.  

And Euston is where I arrived when I came down to London after the accident. 1968,  more than ten years ago. Summer then too. Shielding my eyes as I stepped onto the  concourse, sun beating down on my head, my shoulders. Black cabs dropping fares then swooping off again. Diesel fumes and parched concrete, red buses blots of colour on the  Euston Road. And so many people, everywhere I turned. I wanted to be one of them,  anonymous, unknown, not someone who felt she had a note stapled to her forehead: 

She should be dead.  

Too much picking over the past isn’t healthy, Liv. Andrew, always with the opinion.

Thanks, Andy, I know, but tell that to the bogey man in my brain.  

He found me a place to stay with some girls from home. Said living together wouldn’t work. Too close for comfort, Liv. We need our own space.  

I asked him if he had any premonition I’d been in danger.  

Not a clue, Liv, until I got your letter.  

If it was the other way round, Andy, I’d know. 

So certain, so stupid. 

So wrapped up in my own head, I didn’t realise my twin was becoming ravelled in his. 

~~~~~~~~ 

I was only a few weeks in London when I met Ravi at the Galtymore. He asked me to dance. When he took me in his arms that night, I felt safe. 

Over a drink in the bar, he introduced himself, and I said, ‘You can’t be Irish with a  name like that?’ 

Turned out his mother was from County Clare and was friendly with an Indian lady  who lived next door. ‘Mom took a notion, called me after Mrs. Rushti’s husband, said he looked like Omar Sharif.’  

‘Isn’t he from Egypt?’ 

‘Yes, she didn’t realise that for a while,’ with a grin.  

And later, ‘Would I have to be Irish to marry you?’  

For someone so serious, he can be funny. 

Ravi is a joined-up human, Liv, not like us, mixed-up pieces of a jigsaw. Andy always saw us so clearly. 

I didn’t tell Ravi about the accident, not at first, but the nightmares were a giveaway.  Falling asleep, feeling awake. Unable to escape being dragged into the machine, unable to scream. Waking to find myself shivering in a cold sweat, the hair on my arms and neck standing up as if I’d just met a ghost.  

He didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to find solutions, just held me, let me talk.  

I told him I loved him, after he said it to me. How could I not, I’m not that heartless.  And anyway, maybe I did.  

Maybe I do.  

It was the same when he asked me to marry him, I heard myself say ‘yes.’ Out loud, no taking it back. No more running now, Liv.

The wedding was a small affair, Andy, always up for a party, was a witness, with Ravi’s sister, Angelica.  

Ravi is your person, Liv, he’ll keep you grounded.  

And of course, Andy was right. With Ravi, the accident became less raw, the nightmares less frequent. I was almost beginning to believe I had left it behind, buried in a box marked  Forget.  

Then Andy had to go and die.  

 ~~~~~~~~ 

We turn onto Tottenham Court Road and Derek stands, gives me an expectant look, ‘Ready, my lovely?’ 

This is my moment. I could shake my head, ignore him, get off at the next stop and  cross the road for the next bus home. Back to Ravi, the children. Say I’m sorry, that nothing happened. Not this time. Because it’s not too late, if only I can get myself to work again, somehow get rid of that other Liv, the one who only lives for the wrong thing.  

But I can’t, I don’t.  

‘Here we are,’ nodding towards the Rising Sun pub. Grabbing my arm, we thread  through stalled traffic. He holds the door open, I glance up, recognise the look. Cocky now he’s got me this far.  

As I move past, he pulls me back, whispers in my ear, ‘Just so you know, Maria, I plan  to bang your brains out later.’ 

‘Why wait that long,’ I murmur, already opening the buttons of my coat as I head  towards the bar, towards the noise. 

~~~~~~~~ 

The pub is all mahogany and chandeliers. Silvered mirrors behind the bar. It’s packed, mostly tourist types but with a few who look like regulars with their backs to the rest of the company at the bar. Derek finds a couple of high stools, sets them close together. I drop my  coat onto one, climb on. Catch my image in the mirror. Someone like me, but not me.  

The bar man grins, Derek winks back. I pretend not to notice, but there’s a flutter inside.

I’m alive, in control. 

 ~~~~~~~~ 

It’s later. I grab the rail, haul myself onto the bus, feel the driver’s eyes as I make my way towards a seat at the back. I ache from the inside out and my brain is muzzy. When Derek slammed me onto the sink in the toilet, I hit the back of my head against the tiles. The pain just another part of the excitement then, not so much now.  

I get off at the end of our street. Lean against the wall, put my hand in front of my  mouth.  

Derek, fags, piss.  

My body spasms and I throw up, onto the pavement and my fake crocodile leather sling backs. When I can catch my breath, I scrabble around in my bag, find my compact. Every  part of my face is too much. Eyes too wide, mascara too black. Lips too swollen. Me as I really am, the other Liv.  

~~~~~~~~ 

It’s the following evening. Fog has turned to rain, each plop skipping back up as it hits the concrete. The twins hop excitedly in puddles while Ravi drags our old leather suitcase stuffed with damp holiday clothes off the bus, then with the help of another passenger, lugs the pushchair with a sleeping Lucy onto the pavement.  

A taxi would have brought us almost to the door of Euston Station, but taxies are a  luxury a one income family with four children can’t afford. My husband is careful, conscious of money, the cost of everything. I tell him he's mean, even though it’s not true but being  cruel to each other is an easy habit to fall into.  

He hasn’t mentioned me going out yesterday evening, or that when I came in, I slept on the sofa. There’s been no opportunity for a row, not with the kids at home all day, but the silence is the coldest yet, his eyes so distant they look through me. My head is still throbbing and every part of me feels bruised. I’m just grateful not to have to talk, relieved I’ve managed to survive this far without throwing up again.  

So, I wait, handbag in one hand, picnic basket in the other as drips of rain slide down  the back of my neck.  

Looking anywhere but at me, Ravi says with a clipped brightness, ‘Right, kids, we’ll  be drenched unless we make a big dash. Follow me.’  

The children are already running and I almost trip as Angie cuts out in front of me,  Mikey, just behind.  

Mom and her brother, Andy and me; now Angie and Mikey. Genetic pattern, on repeat.  

Brian, oldest at nine, has already reached the main doors of the station, hopping from one foot to the other. Long legs like Ravi. Impatient and anxious all at once, more genetic repetition, if character traits can be genetic. 

My raincoat is sopping and trying to run in strappy sandals with two-inch heels is not ideal. Not that I was going to change my costume after Ravi muttered, ‘Mutton dressed as lamb, Liv.’ 

As I said, he’s acquired a mean streak. The longer we're together, the meaner he  becomes.  

My feet are sliding around in waterlogged sandals but even without the heels, I’d have found it impossible to run, not when I need to save the picnic basket. His idea. A throwback to his childhood, a nice, ordinary life in a nice ordinary house with a mom who had a taste for exotic names and a dad who didn’t die. Ravi will have a picnic anywhere. I used to find  that sweet, something to love.  

‘Keep up, you’ll look like a drowned rat by the time we reach the train if you don’t get  a move on!’ Ravi lists past, manoeuvring Lucy’s pushchair with one hand, the other hauling  the suitcase.  

 ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ People pause to stare as he yells, ‘Pick the bloody stuff up, before it’s saturated!’  

Mikey has dropped his bag and is scrabbling on the rain splattered concourse, trying to rescue his comics. His bottom lip curls, he’s trying not to cry.  

‘Don’t take it to heart, Mikey, Daddy’s cross with me, not you.’ 

Dark eyes meet mine, Mikey nods, hiccups, then he bends down again to rescue his  comics. Ravi ignores him, ignores me, although he’s heard what I said. We trail him into the station, stand around just inside the doors. He makes a point of checking off our luggage, as if it’s likely we’ve lost something between the bus stop and here. Flicking open my handbag, I take out my compact. Check my lipstick. Smile to myself in the mirror. My show of not listening will drive him crazy.  

Last item for inspection: the picnic basket.  

‘You didn’t tuck the cover in around the edges, the sandwiches are ruined. Bloody  typical, Liv, can’t trust you to do anything right.’ Rage and frustration getting the better of him. And he’ll be annoyed with himself, too, feel he’s let himself down, let the children down, when really, it’s all about what I’ve done. About losing trust in me.  

‘Great start to the holiday this is,’ Ravi grinds out, still not making eye contact. He has  some idea that if he doesn’t look directly at me when he’s in a temper, then later, after he’s cooled down, we can pretend it never happened. Memory doesn’t work like that, I should know. 

He grabs the suitcase and Lucy’s pushchair, and after a last sweep of our bags, snaps, ‘Right, let’s go.’ 

The Irish Mail train to Holyhead is waiting on the platform, ghostly and insubstantial,  wreathed in fog, steam. There’s a belch, more steam, more fog and I fold into a world of grey and white where Andy is on a ledge, shivering. I reach for his hand, but it’s as if he’s made of air. My fingers slip through him, can’t feel him. Can’t hold him.  

And then he steps off.  

‘Mummy, what’s wrong?’ 

Angie is hanging onto my arm. For a little one, she notices too much. ‘I’m fine, darling, hurry up, let’s catch Daddy.’ 

Ravi is up ahead, counting off the numbers on the carriages. When he finds ours, we  follow him onto the train. I climb on last. Our compartment is second along the corridor. He busies himself stowing the pushchair into a space between the seats, then starts hefting our baggage onto the overhead racks while Brian and Angie bicker about who gets to sit by the  window. Mikey is quiet, eyes cast down.  

While his back is towards me, I set the picnic basket on the table, give the children my  brightest smile, ‘Be good for Daddy, darlings, I’ll be back soon.’  

 ~~~~~~~~ 

I’m hurrying from one carriage to the next as the final whistle blows, stepping aside to make  room for stragglers racing for the doors. It’s always like this on the Irish Mail. As many packing the aisles and carriages as actual travellers, the London version of an Irish Wake, the big goodbye for even the shortest journey.  

The buffet car is packed, but there’s a space at the end of the counter and I squeeze in. The waiter grins and I’m about to smile back when I notice he has a look of Andy. Freckles across his nose, similar grey green eyes.  

I order a gin and orange, sip slowly as stations come into view, fade behind. Roll the  drink around in my mouth, the warmth a comfort as it slides down my throat. Tring, Watford. There’ll be a stop at Crewe, at least ten minutes, enough time to leave the train. Run. Always running, Liv. 

Andy and I didn’t see each other much those last few weeks. I had the kids, he had  excuses. The odd Saturday morning at the Angel market, a quick drink snatched at the local pub. He rarely called to our house. The children unsettled him somehow. Worked now and again, on buildings that grew ever taller, ever higher. Stairway to heaven, Liv, a crooked smile, gaze fixed on his pint glass. 

And then, almost a year ago now, drunk and alone, Andy broke into a building site,  scrambled onto the scaffolding. I have an image in my mind of his silhouette, inking the sky, delicate as a ballet dancer, sure footed as a tight-rope walker.  

And even though I should have known, I didn’t. Had no premonition he was about to  die. No idea that what he had in this world wasn’t enough to keep him here.  

The knock at the door the following morning came early, the children were just up,  sleepy eyed, heavy heads leaning into their cornflakes, Ravi searching for a navy tie.  

‘Does Mrs Olivia O’Sullivan live here?’ 

Two policemen followed Ravi into the kitchen. I flipped an egg I was frying, sunny side up, still no clue, even when I turned and registered their faces. Both young, looking as if  they wanted to be anywhere else in the world.  

‘A body’s been found in a building site, close to King’s Cross, Mrs O’Sullivan. We have  reason to believe it may be that of your brother, Andrew May.’  

That’s how I learned my twin, the other piece of me, was gone. Without telling me,  without giving me a chance to save him.  

Without saying goodbye.  

And if I do the same now to Ravi, to the children, is that what I want? The question  suddenly in my head, as if I’ve never considered it before. When of course I have. But in a distanced kind of way, as if leaving or staying is about someone else, as if my mind can’t  compute what it would mean, really mean.  

Maybe Andy was right. Maybe we were always meant to be just odd pieces of a jigsaw, never enough to make the full picture. 

Suddenly I can’t get out of the buffet car quickly enough. I’m hurrying back, shoving  past drinkers, then into the corridor, scanning numbers on compartments, searching for ours. Andy’s voice in my head. Don’t run, Liv. Stay. Put it back together. 

They’re asleep, Brian and Mikey lying top-to-tail one side, Angie snuggled against Ravi opposite. He doesn’t open his eyes, but I know he’s not sleeping. Lucy, still in her pushchair, flame coloured hair framing her face, pink lips parted, chest rising and falling softly.  

I lean over, brush a curl away from her beautiful face.  

Gently, I lift Brian, squeeze into the space he leaves, settle him on my lap. His eyes  flutter, he yawns, then he’s asleep again.  

The picnic basket gapes wide. One triangle of cheese sandwich left, edges beginning to curl. My teeth hurt as I take a bite. The tomato slices are soggy, the cheese is cheap sliced  from our local Sainsburys, but together they taste good.  

I drift into the sound of my family breathing, the rumble of the train. Dark outside,  vague impressions of buildings, fields. Suddenly, my reflection, framed in the window. Insubstantial, shadowy and yet more real than it’s been for a long time.  

Dawn is coming up, we’ll be in Holyhead soon.  

Almost tomorrow. 

Want to learn more about the story and author? Visit our interview with Máirín Stronge!