Page 21 of Unlikable
“Drawing and horse riding.” Felix takes a sip of his water, and when he puts the chalice back on the table, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Those are two things I really unwind from.”
“Drawing as in architecture?” I ask curiously.
“Among other things,” he says. He shifts on his chair and comes closer. Our forearms, resting on the table, touch lightly. “I’ve been drawing since I was a little boy. Sketches of places I’ve never been. Many of those places I will never get to because I mostly draw what I dream.”
“Drawing? What are you drawing now, then?”
He looks at me. Really looks at me. His eyes seem to darken. “Mostly people.”
The words stick in the back of my throat under the pressure of his gaze. “P-people? As in portraits?”
He nods. “I also still draw landscapes, but in recent years I have been trying to understand human anatomy better.”
I take a sip of my water. “Can I see them?”
“Maybe.”
I clench the cup tighter. “Maybe?
“I don’t want to embarrass you. Let’s just say I often leave clothes behind.”
My head suddenly feels hot, and I almost spill my water as I set the cup back on the table, trembling.
Felix laughs. A warm, amused laugh.
I look at him tightly, but when that makes him start laughing even harder, I struggle to keep my face stoic. I don’t know if it’s because of nerves or something else, but his laughter is infectious, and before I know it, I’m laughing along with him.
After a while, he stops laughing, wipes a tear from his cheek and then gives me a penetrating stare. “You have a beautiful smile. Did you know that?”
I pull the corners of my mouth down.
“No,” he says quickly and brings his thumb to my lips. It lingers there in despair for a moment as he runs his eyes over my face. Then he presses his thumb lightly against my skin and slowly strokes my lower lip. “Don’t stop.”
Boom, boom, boom.
My heart seems to want to jump out of my chest.
His eyes slide to my lips.
Boom, boom, boom.
Felix clears his throat, withdraws his hand and rubs the back of his neck. “There was a breadcrumb on your face.”
“Oh,” I manage softly. “Thanks.”
He lifts the corner of his mouth and pushes the empty plate a little further away from him. “But you play the violin, then?”
I nod. “From a young age. My mother played the instrument, and since I wanted to be like my mother as a little girl, I asked if she would teach me.”
“You must miss her a lot.”
“It cannot be described in words.”
“I know that lack.” Felix turns his face away from me and stares ahead. “My mother died of tuberculosis two years ago. According to the man who named the disease, Mr Robert Koch, one in seven people die from it.” Felix shakes his head. “She was immediately taken to the guesthouse at the back of our garden to sit out her illness so that Father and I would not get infected. The last I saw of her was her pale face as she walked alone through the garden to the house.”
“I didn’t know about your mother.” I look at his hand resting on the table and hesitate to hold it.
He smiles sadly. “She was the best mother on earth.” He looks at me sideways. “Along with yours, I think.”
I smile at him.
He smiles back.
Then I put my hand over his. I don’t know what possesses me, how I dare, but I do it. Immediately he withdraws his hand, and I want to sink through the floor, but he only moves it so he can hold mine. He braids his fingers through mine and takes a deep breath.
“They are not gone,” he says softly, staring at our intertwined fingers. “They are still with us.”
“I feel the same way,” I reply softly.
“In every particle of dust,” he continues. “Every ray of sunshine. In raindrops. Even if it is still thundering so hard outside and you think lightning will catch you, they are there. I don’t believe they would leave us behind. Mothers don’t do that.”
I heave out a relieved sigh, grateful that there is still someone in this world who thinks this way about the deceased we miss so much. Felix orders two new chalices of water and starts talking about his drawings again.
We sit for hours talking about all sorts of things. Poppy seems to get grumpier by the hour and doesn’t even look at Felix when she comes to bring our orders. Slowly, the pub starts filling up with locals. More and more voices fill the room. A guest begins to play the piano at the back of the room, allowing a slow but welcome melody to enter my ears.
Returning from the lavatory—a shabby cubicle smelling of Poppy’s breakfast for me—I ask Felix about Jonathan.
“I’ve known him since I was fourteen,” he tells me. “He delivered the newspaper to our house every day and lived under the London sewers. We became friends, and when I found out he was homeless—his family could no longer care for him—I begged Father to take him in.”
“And your father allowed that?”
“No.” He laughs. “But my mother thought it was a good idea. Her argument was that it would be good for me to have a friend in the house because my other friends, who I knew from social gatherings, would not be good for my…How did she say that again? Oh, right. For my development.”
I look at him obliquely.
Felix laughs. “Young men who come from rich families take advantage of that. Treat other people like dirt. They didn’t really have the best influence on me. Anyway, I’m still friends with some of them. They’re fun entertainment, but Jonathan is the one who knows me best. Really knows me.”
“I understand.”
“Father did make Jonathan work. That was the compromise we made. He started in the garden, and more and more chores were added. I felt incredibly guilty. He was exhausted every day, and day by day I was losing my friend a little more to the work he had to do for Father. Fortunately, after three years, I was able to convince Father that it would be better if he served me.”
“Didn’t Jonathan want to do some real work?”
Felix raises his eyebrows. “Isn’t serving Felix Edmund Clifton a real job?” Seeing my “are you serious” face, he shrugs innocently. “No, I understand what you mean. However, Jonathan never received any money for his duties at our house. At least, only a little. Not enough for an education or his own accommodation. He is allowed to live with us for free in exchange for his services to me. That’s not how I treat him, of course. He is my friend, and I feel guilty every time I have to pretend to give him orders in front of my father. That’s not who I am.”
“And Jonathan is fine with all this?” I stare at my hands lying on my lap. Clean, smooth. Never before have I had to put them out to do any real work.
“I regularly ask him about his dreams,” Felix says. “He keeps saying he would like nothing more than to be my friend. That he wants to ease my life in the house under the pressure of my father. I also know that when I will be on my own and Father is no longer there, he will leave to travel around. He feels like a guardian angel; you know what I mean?”
I think of Cecile. She got offers to work elsewhere as a lady’s maid twice, but she chose to stay with me. As if it never occurred to her to accept such an offer. “I understand what you mean.”
We drink our water, and when Felix has paid the barkeeper, we walk out of the pub. As we stand outside, we hear Poppy sarcastically call after us, “I hope you will be very happy with your fiancée. Hope you don’t treat her like a thing you abandon after four times of pleasure!”
Then she closes the door with a loud bang.
I look at Felix, who is trying to avoid my gaze with a reddened head.
“Sorry you had to hear that,” he mutters.
“That’s all right.” I pull the cord of my cloak a little tighter to keep out the wind while trying not to visualise Felix with another woman…
“Where do you want to go next?” Felix asks quickly, which, thank God, prevents me from finishing my thoughts.
“Home?” I suggest.
“No.” He smiles briefly. “We are not going home. You are outside, and I am going to make sure you get to see more today than just the walls of our estate and this pub. I guarantee you will be introduced to the term “fun” today.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” A worrying feeling creeps up on me. “I can’t just…”
“Can’t what?” He turns to me and looks at me piercingly. “Can’t what, Miss Prime? Can’t be trapped? Can’t be yourself instead of playing the role of the perfect daughter? Can’t have fun?”
He takes the words out of my mouth.
“You have no idea what it’s like,” I say, irritated now because I know he’s right.
“You are not the only one in this world with pressure on your shoulders,” he says. “I thought that was obvious by now.”
“It is different.”
“Oh yeah?” He frowns. “I don’t think so. I just choose to think about myself every now and then. And yes, that’s easy to say because I’m a man, and I do understand that it’s different for you, but we’re here now, outside the house. We’re engaged.” He nods at the ring on my finger and continues to stare at it for a moment. “As long as you are with me, you don’t have to worry about what others think of you. If you misbehave, I will be the one who will be looked at.”
I laugh, but not because I find it funny. It’s because I feel myself slowly being won over, and with every word that comes out of his mouth, I find myself getting more curious about how this day will go if I give in.
Felix presses his lips together and holds out his hand to me.
I stare at it.
“Now don’t go telling me you’ve developed a fear of contamination,” he says monotonously.
The ring on my finger seems to shrink and beat like a heart at the sight of his long, outstretched fingers. An invitation, a chance to spend a day away from my obligations, is right in front of my nose.
When Felix opens his mouth to say something again, I quickly grab his hand and braid my fingers through his.
“Show me the way,” I say quickly, afraid I’ll reconsider otherwise.
“Where to?” He grins.
I shrug and grin back. “Wherever.”
· · ·
I didn’t know there were multiple types of beer.
With an unprecedented thirst, I drink the last sip from the mug and then hold it upside down. I pout when nothing more comes out.
“Maybe calming down is an option,” Felix says dryly, but then he bursts into laughter when he sees my face. “Are you hot?”
Yes, I am incredibly hot. I’m breaking out in a sweat, and the corset I am wearing seems to be getting tighter by the minute. I don’t worry about it because I’m having too much fun.
Never thought I would ever think like this.
It is almost nine o’clock in the evening. We have walked around all day. We visited shops, including a bookstore and a clothing shop where ordinary people buy their clothes. My clothes are always tailor-made, so I was incredibly curious to see what a clothes shop looked like on the inside. I tried on several dresses and even bought one. It will be delivered to the manor tomorrow. It is a turquoise cotton dress with beige frills and beads stitched on the collar and sleeves. The dress has two petticoats, so it falls in a sort of waterfall over my hips and slightly touches the ground. I immediately fell in love with it.
“You should wear this to the banquet,” Felix had said. He had had a satisfied smile on his face when the dressmaker pinned the dress on me.
And his eyes…He had stared at me intensely, as if this was the first time he had seen me.
Felix bought two books. One on architecture in Rome and one on the human body. I had stopped for a long time at a table where there was a book that appealed to me immensely. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, though this copy did not yet bear her real name. Only “By the author of Sense and Sensibility ”. I had often heard the ladies from the tea club talking about her books. Once, someone from the club had pushed one of Jane’s books into my hands to read. When Father found the book on my bedside table, he was beside himself.
“You don’t really read this nonsense, do you? It will damage your mind!” Then he had thrown the book into the fireplace. “We didn’t teach you to read to make you dumber. Use your reading skills for church.”
I dared not buy the book in the bookshop, afraid Father would see it and afraid of the strange look Felix might give me if he found out.
After visiting all the shops we wanted to see, Felix bought a piece of bread and a bag of plums. Famished as we were, we ate our lunch on a park bench, which overlooked a church tower and large oak trees whose leaves were coloured orange and red.
After lunch, I changed myself in a washroom. My period is pretty much over, thank God. We walked up and down the not-too-large village a few more times. We didn’t go anywhere else, but instead we held endless conversations about this and that. We only realised that we had already seen the village three times when I saw the clothes shop looming in the dusk for the umpteenth time.
Since Felix’s feet were hurting and he could not walk home yet—that’s what he tried to tell me—we decided to go into another pub before returning home.
And now here we are.
In the Red Oak of Kennington.
Where it gets busier by the minute and you can hardly hear the upbeat piano music through the laughter and noise of the guests.
Where the walls seem to spin when I look at them.
How much beer did I drink?
Felix gets up from his seat to walk to the bar. Behind us, chairs are pushed back and people climb on the tables to sing and dance. It is a large crowd. Men and women are dancing with each other, toasting to something I don’t understand and singing at the top of their voices, village songs I have never heard before.
It strikes me how different their clothes are compared to the clothes my tea club friends and I wear. These clothes are simpler, less detailed. Less…uncomfortable.
None of them wear safety collars. They all seem not to care that there is a dangerous killer on the loose.
Suddenly, I become aware of my overpriced dress and ridiculously expensive cloak. A feeling of shame and discomfort drowns out the pleasure and my carefree thinking. When Felix returns with another beer, I leave it only to stare at it.
“What is it?” Felix asks. “Are you finally going to drink more quietly?”
“I’m starting to get tired,” I lie and pull the safety collar from my neck. It comes loose and falls to the ground. I leave the ugly thing lying in the goo.
Felix is silent for a moment and then looks over my shoulder at the dancing company. “They sure aren’t.”
I remain silent. The beer starts to go to my head, and I don’t like it at all. It seems to intensify my feelings. When I look at people, I feel guilt and when I look at Felix, I feel a deep and sad longing for something I will never have.
And every time I even dare to think that he might share my feelings, the man with the hammer comes to knock me back to reality.
“Do you want to go home?” Felix asks me.
I look up at him and see concern in his eyes. “Indeed, I don’t think it would be wrong if we—” I cannot finish my sentence because I am suddenly grabbed by my arm. I let out a scream of terror, but when I turn around, I look into the friendly face of a woman. Her forehead is sweaty, and she nods at me encouragingly.
“Come dance!”
I look at Felix in surprise, and he is holding a fist in front of his mouth to hide a laugh. Then another woman walks up to him and pulls him upright, towards the dancing party.
More and more people in the pub are asked to dance, and before long, almost all the people in the room are dancing.
The woman holding my arm lets go and looks at me with a pout. “Not in the mood?
“I…” I bring out, bewildered. I blink my eyes, trying to clear my vision a little, but the alcohol is doing its job quite well.
“I think deep down you hope to taste more of life. You are not a person to follow rules. You need to see things, experience things. Taste food you have never heard of, discover cities you have only been able to dream about”. Felix’s words shoot through my mind. I grab the hand of the woman in front of me, only to pull her into the dancing crowd with me.
At first, I stand there awkwardly. I don’t know the moves these people make, or at least, I have never danced like that. My body twists a little awkwardly from side to side, and I make sure I stay stiff as a board because that’s how you dance. That’s how I’m supposed to dance.
The woman in front of me looks at me, giggling, and raises her hands in the air, signalling me to pay attention.
I do. I feel a strong compulsion to follow her movements very carefully. If I had had paper and a pen, I would have written everything down so as not to forget anything.
The woman throws her hips from side to side, twisting her body at odd angles. It looks…free. Carefree. Her feet do not shuffle slowly from left to right but make big strides and go in all directions. She claps her hands and then lets them move above her head.
I feel my face starting to get warmer by the second. I can’t do this. I am stiff as a rake.
The woman suddenly grabs my hands and starts shaking me back and forth. I stumble over my feet, but she is strong and keeps me upright. She smiles and calls something to me, but I don’t hear it. I am too busy concentrating on my feet, too aware of my own body.
“What is your name?” the woman asks me when she has returned me to position. “I am Agnes.”
“Eleonora,” I call back.
“Pleased to meet you.” Agnes grabs my hand to shake it. “Here, everyone is welcome, Eleonora. Everything that happens here stays between these four walls.”
I wonder if she realises my rank and that I am not entirely comfortable. I mean, my clothes give everything away, right?
Agnes chuckles, probably because my thinking face looks funny. “I’m going to use your first name from now on. Is that all right?”
I nod without thinking. A voice in my head tells me to stand my ground, to correct her on her cheeky behaviour. However, my heart and an inexplicable feeling, call it curiosity, tell me to let it all go. That no one will recognise me, no one will look at me strangely.
This is what I’ve always wanted to experience, right? It will only happen once. Father is not here, Everett is not here. No one I know will punish me for this. Felix…Felix has joined the dancing crowd and already doesn’t seem to care about anything at all. He throws his head in all directions. A smile from ear to ear adorns his face. His hair, which was so neatly styled, is starting to get tousled. Tufts shoot loose and stick to his sweaty forehead.
I feel myself grinning, and then I start moving. It may not look very smooth, but I start to feel more and more comfortable by the minute. After a while, I don’t even think anymore and let the music take over my body.
Agnes claps her hands happily as I start spinning around. She turns to a person behind her to whisper something in her ear. Then two more women join us, forming a small group. In a circle, we start dancing together.
My body gets hot, and I feel myself starting to sweat. My arms can hardly lift because the fabric of my robe is so sticky. With great difficulty—my fingers don’t seem to be my own anymore—I unbutton my dressing gown and throw it over a stool. New beer is pushed into my hands by someone I don’t know, and I drink it greedily.
I don’t know how much time passes while I’m dancing. It feels like time is irrelevant. It seems to creep by slowly but also go very fast again. I get more and more pleasure from dancing, grow more and more eager to talk to everyone, even though I can hardly formulate normal sentences and the answers I get are unintelligible. It’s cosy. It’s an atmosphere I never knew existed.
After a while, Felix suddenly stands in front of me. He looks dazzling, and my heart hurts just looking at him. His green eyes are dark. He has taken off his waistcoat and undone the top buttons of his shirt. The collar of his shirt is turned up, and his tie is nowhere to be seen.
“May I have this dance?” he asks overly politely, and he makes a half bow, which is not entirely smooth.
I giggle and look at my female companion, who takes a step back to give me and Felix some space. I ignore Felix’s hand and start moving around him. In my opinion, it looks like a strange mating dance, but I take that for granted. Felix observes me amusedly, and at the sight of his confused but curious look, I start laughing and throw my arms in the air to give more force to my movements.
I feel so incredibly free.
And happy.
Suddenly I feel Felix’s hands on my hips, and without any warning, he lifts me up, spins me around and puts me down again. My head spins from that movement, and I feel nauseous, but this is far too much fun and too new for me to just give up now.
We dance with each other, and the world around us seems to disappear into nothingness. We don’t touch each other much, sometimes accidentally. We laugh with pleasure and at things that are not even funny.
I stare at his hands again, longing for him to touch me again, to lift me up and spin me around again.
But he doesn’t.
He just looks at me as he dances. A girl about my age crams herself between us and starts dancing in front of Felix. With her buttocks, she pushes me away.
Felix looks at the girl, shouts something at her and then points at me. The girl turns to me, looks at me apologetically and then walks away disappointed.
I catch myself finding that very satisfying.
I walk over to Felix again, and he shrugs his shoulders, smiling. Then we dance again until our feet start hurting and our eyes can’t see any more beer without getting nauseous. We say goodbye to the group. I hug the two women with whom I danced earlier, thank Agnes and then fly around other strangers’ necks to say goodbye. I grab my cloak, and once Felix has found his waistcoat and jacket again, we walk out of the pub.
Once outside, the fresh wind hits me like a slap in the face. As I stare at the dark street ahead, it seems to be twisting and turning.
“That was great,” I say, laughing, as I button my dressing gown again and watch Felix rearrange his clothes. “Thank you, Felix.”
“Did you just call me by my first name?”
My heart skips a beat. “I…I apologise. It came out before I—”
Felix laughs out loud. “I’ve been happy to accompany you today, Eleonora .”
My mouth becomes dry, and I can only stare at him sheepishly.
“What is it?” Felix asks. “Have I gone too far?”
Eleonora. Eleonora. Eleonora.
Who could have ever thought that I longed to hear my name come out of his mouth?
“Miss Prime,” Felix now insists somewhat more seriously. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you—”
“Felix,” I interrupt him. Almost immediately after I say his name, I feel a huge wave of relief wash over me. I have said it. I have called him by his name. Something I had secretly wanted to do for a long time. It’s new, exciting, and…I want to do it again. “Felix,” I utter again, this time slower, so I can better absorb the sounds I form.
“Eleonora.”
“Feeeeeeelix.”
“Eleonooooora.”
We look at each other for a few seconds. Then we start laughing. Uncontrolled and carefree. Why is this so funny?
When I think I am done laughing, I look him in the eye again and start again.
“I can’t take any more.” Felix grabs his stomach and breathes a sigh. “What a night.”
I nod. “What a day.
“Do you see that marrying me has advantages too?”
I blink, suddenly completely sober. At least, that’s how it feels. I am aware of everything. The hairs on my arm stand up straight. Cautiously, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“Having fun,” he explained. “Like I said, you’ll soon be able to do anything you want. No father watching you, pushing you back into your shell if you make a misstep.”
“Marrying you doesn’t mean I can drop all my manners,” I remind him.
He shakes his head. “I don’t mean that either. I wouldn’t want that. You shouldn’t embarrass me.”
“If you don’t embarrass me either.”
“Friends don’t make fun of each other. That’s why this is such a good idea.” Felix puts his hands in his trouser pockets.
I look at him long and silent.
Friends. Yes, that’s right. Of course. His reason for marrying me is because we have a friendly relationship with each other and therefore we don’t owe anything to each other romantically.
“El?”
El. I have even been given a friendly nickname already.
All the pleasure of a moment ago is gone with one stupid word. Nausea takes hold of me, and I am suddenly tired. Very tired. Tired of everything. Tired of being scared. Tired of these stupid feelings.
“I want to go home,” I say softly and turn my face away from him to stare at the moving street and dancing lanterns.
“We’re friends, right?” Felix asks. “Or do you still hate me?”
I shake my head. “We are friends.”
He walks towards me, holds out his arm to me and when I hook mine through, he breathes a relieved sigh. “Let’s go.”
As we walk back through the dark village to our house, I feel a bigger lump forming in my throat with every step I take. I am very aware of his body heat. I feel my eyes getting moist, but I tell myself that the drink and a long day are the cause of that.
Friends.
Maybe hating him would make everything easier.