I Couldn't Love You More

A Novel

Esther Freud

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780063057180
• eBook ISBN: 9780063057197
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

A sweeping story of three generations of women, crossing from London to Ireland and back again, and the enduring effort to retrieve the secrets of the past 

It’s London, 1960, and Aoife Kelly—once the sparkling object of young men’s affections—runs pubs with her brusque, barking husband, Cash. Their courtship began in wartime London, before they returned to Ireland with their daughters in tow. One of these daughters—fiery, independent-minded Rosaleen—moves back to London, where she meets and begins an affair with the famous sculptor Felix Lehmann, a German-Jewish refugee artist over twice her tender eighteen years. When Rosaleen finds herself pregnant with Felix’s child, she is evicted from her flat, dismissed from her job, and desperate to hide the secret from her family. Where, and to whom, can she turn?

Meanwhile, Kate, another generation down, lives in present-day London with her young daughter and husband, an unsuccessful musician and destructive alcoholic. Adopted and floundering to find a sense of herself in the midst of her unhappy marriage, Kate sets out to track down her birth mother, a search that leads her to a Magdalene Laundry in Ireland and the harrowing history that it holds.

Stirring and nostalgic at moments, visceral and propulsive at others, I Couldn’t Love You More is a tender, candid portrait of love, sex, motherhood, and the enduring ties of family. It is impossible not to fall under the spell of this tale of mothers and daughters, wives and muses, secrets and outright lies.

From Soho to London to Ireland, I Couldn't Love You More is a captivating novel that delves into the complexities of womanhood and feminism, earning it a spot among the best novels about women.

Rosaleen

ROSALEEN WENT STRAIGHT TO FELIX FROM THE BOAT TRAIN. Not a single person noticed! She could see his face when she gave him the news, but Felix wasn’t there. She rang the bell, and called up to his window. She leant against the door, and then, undaunted, sat down on her case to wait. It was cold, and getting colder. Where are you? They’d made a plan to meet. Here, on New Year’s Eve, and certain he’d appear at any moment, she slipped a hand between the buttons of her coat and held it over the warm bump of her belly. Her stomach had swollen in the hours since leaving Ireland, relief releasing her, all subterfuge gone, and she caught her breath as the scudding quiver of a kick rippled up under her skin.

A couple swung by, arm in arm. ‘Happy New Year!’ The man touched his hat, and the woman, leaning into him, smiled covetous.

‘And to you,’ she returned, and she blew on her fingers for warmth.

After half an hour Rosaleen rang the bell again. ‘Felix!’ She threw her voice up towards his window, and then not caring what anyone might think, she yelled louder. ‘Felix!’ She was sitting back down when it occurred to her. Of course. He was at Maida Vale. He’d be there with a bottle of champagne, cheese wrapped in white paper, crackers with poppy seed, the ones she liked best. There’d be a fire, and he’d be lying on the sofa, waiting for her to slide her body alongside his. A wave of longing propelled her up. Her feet had lost all feeling, and her hands, even inside her gloves, were ice, but even so, she ran, heaving her suitcase towards the bus stop. There was one old man, lost inside an overcoat, and two couples, dressed for a night out. They nodded to each other, shivering, but when the bus did come, its windows glowed warm as a lantern, and the passengers on board were festive. ‘Happy New Year,’ they greeted one another. Even the conductor was jolly.

Rosaleen sat behind the driver and tapped her feet. ‘Come on,’ she murmured, sighing each time they rattled to a halt. She stared at the curtained houses, flickers of light seeping at the seams, the occasional bright tree. When they reached her stop she ran, the case banging against her leg, her fingers so eager to unlock the door the keys flew from her hand. The stairs she took more slowly, winding up their carpeted width, the image of Felix flying up before her, his rackety Charlie Chaplin gait.

The flat, when she entered it, was cold as hell. ‘Hello?’ She flicked on the light in the tiny kitchen, turned on the gas and rubbed her hands. She switched on the oven, although there was nothing to put in it, but she knew if she waited long enough her legs would warm. The door to the bedroom was closed. Was that how she’d left it? She pushed it, hopeful, but the room was empty. She sat down on the bed and with a hollow lurch remembered she’d not eaten, not since that morning at the terminal when she’d bought herself a bacon roll. There was one potato in the larder, sprouting, but she peeled and chopped it and put it on to boil. There was a pat of butter, half frozen in a saucer, which she mashed in when it was soft, and spooning the food into a bowl she sat on the grey sofa and ate. Where are you? She had enough fuel now for outrage, and, still in her coat, she picked up her keys and walked out into the night.

The warmth and chatter of the French pub hit her with force. Rosaleen reached out a hand to steady herself. ‘Hello, love.’ She was clutching at the shoulder of a man, big and leering, a feather in his hat. ‘Sorry.’ She made her way towards the bar, easing along the length of it, craning for anyone she knew. She came out in a little hollow beside a wooden table. They’d sat at this table, she and Felix, one night after hours, and the proprietor had come over with a tray of teacups and a bottle of gin. Cheers, they’d laughed as they clinked china, and the quiet photographer had snapped his shutter, and there they were, their faces blazing, their eyes lit by each other.

‘Hello!’ It was the tattooed friend of the painter. He laid a knuckled hand on her arm. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s New Year.’ Didn’t she have the right to be anywhere she chose?

‘So it is.’ But even as he smiled, his eyes were wary. ‘You’ve not got a drink?’

Rosaleen wasn’t sure she could manage a drink. ‘I’ll have a gin and tonic.’ She’d do her best, and she put her hands in her pockets and stretched the sides of her coat so the material didn’t fall too close.

He took his time at the bar. She could see him talking, teasing, at one point he got caught up in a scuffle, but it was warm in the pub, and she leant against the wood wall of the staircase and waited.

‘Rosie!’ It was Anastasia, her neck wound round with a fur stole. She cast her eyes down the length of Rosaleen’s body. ‘Oh darling’ – she kissed her savagely on the cheek – ‘now what the fuck are you going to do?’

Rosaleen was saved from answering by the arrival of her drink.

‘Nothing for me?’ Anastasia kissed him in turn, and he held out his pint of Guinness and watched her while she gulped the white froth.

The door swung open, and Rosaleen looked up.

‘Over here!’ Anastasia waved to her husband, who pushed his way towards them.

‘I’ve come from the hospital.’ He was breathless. ‘They let me see him. I said I was his brother. His bruzzer,’ and despite themselves they all smiled.

Whose brother? Rosaleen wanted to ask, but her voice lay swallowed.

‘They wouldn’t let me in.’ Anastasia took another slurp of Guinness. ‘I said I was his wife, but his wife was already in there. God! “I mean his wife’s sister,” I tried, but they weren’t having it – one more minute and they would have stretchered me out.’

Rosaleen pressed the cold glass against her face.

‘What is it, do they think?’ Another man had joined them.

‘Some kind of stroke.’

‘Or quite possibly exhaustion. There was a commission he was determined to finish.’

‘But he can speak?’ Anastasia raised a hand to her mouth.

Slowly the tall man shook his head.

There was a silence, and they all turned to look at Rosaleen.

‘What hospital is he in?’ Her voice was small.

‘Barts. You know it?’

She nodded, and they watched as she pushed her way through the crowd and out into the street.

THE WIND HAD RISEN, carrying with it the hints and drifts of celebration. Music through an open window, a car crammed with people cruising slow. Rosaleen reached a bus stop and studied the routes. There was one bus that would take her to St Paul’s, from where she could walk through side streets to the hospital. She waited, restless, quickly freezing, and after ten minutes she began to run. She kept in close against the buildings, cutting across the edge of Covent Garden, rising up at the broad cross of High Holborn, her eyes scanning the road ahead. A printworker from the Express had once been taken to Barts. He’d been sitting in the post room chatting to the girls when a wasp landed on his sandwich and, without noticing, he took a bite. He was halfway through a sentence when his mouth fell open, and a cascade of buzzing spluttered out. Sorry, he’d tried to say, but before the word was finished his throat was swelling closed. ‘Get an ambulance!’ Betty had shouted, and she’d manoeuvred him towards the lift.

Rosaleen thought about this now as she rushed on towards Chancery Lane. It was easier than thinking about Felix. An ambulance. Was that how he had arrived? And who was he with? And why? A taxi sailed by with its orange cube of light. What would it cost? The thought delayed her, and she stuck out her arm too late. Felix would have caught it, whistling, waving, but then if Felix was with her, she wouldn’t be out here in the dark, alone. She quickened her pace, her stomach hardening to a knot as wind whipped at her coat, flipping the hem in around her knees, so that she had to stop to wrench it free. A swarm of men poured out of a pub on the corner of Red Lion Street. ‘Happy New Year!’ they whooped when they saw her, and they caught her in the thicket of their arms and spun her round. Rosaleen felt a swell of fury. ‘Feck off,’ her cursing came out Irish. ‘I have to be somewhere! Let go!’ Affronted, they unlatched their hands and let her through, although their jeers followed her as she ran. ‘Nasty little bitch, what’s up with her then . . .’

‘Imbeciles,’ she shouted, but she didn’t look back.

There was no one on the Holborn Viaduct, only the winged lions and the statues that they guarded – Science, Art, Agriculture, Commerce – all women, as if that was how it was. She stopped for breath in front of Agriculture, oak leaves and olive, a scythe curled in her hand. ‘Get the lunch on, woman!’ her father boomed between the lamp posts, and there was her mother, smoothing their life along. Soon she was on Fleet Street, her own street, the sparkling black building that housed the Daily Express. Rosaleen tilted her neck to where it was rumoured Lord Beaverbrook lived on the top floor, but there was no sign of him, nothing but the fluttering of a flag. At the junction of King Edward Street she rounded the corner. Towers and courtyards, windows in their faceless rows. But he can talk? Anastasia’s querulous voice caught in her chest, and Rosaleen put a hand to her own mouth. No words. She traced the outline of his lips, leant in against him, felt the nuzzle of his nose. Please God, she prayed, let me feel his hand in mine. The rain came down with a roar.

The woman at the reception was busy. Rosaleen stood dripping. ‘Yes?’ she said, eventually.

‘There’s someone here I need to see.’

‘A patient?’ She seemed unnecessarily surprised.

‘Lichtman. Mr. He’s . . . he was admitted . . .’

The woman’s eyes dropped to the ringless finger of Rosaleen’s left hand. ‘Visiting hours’ – she pointed to a sign – ‘are between two and four p.m.’ They both looked at a clock on the back wall which showed ten past nine.

‘The thing is I’ve only just now . . . ,’ Rosaleen protested. ‘I’ve been away. We were meant to be meeting . . .’ The woman’s eyebrows, plucked high above the bone, left her doubly surprised. ‘I have to see him. I need to . . .’ Tears stopped her voice.

‘Then you’ll have to come back tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow.’ She might as well have said next year, although of course it would be. A small hiccup of hilarity burst from her.

The receptionist bent to her papers and began to write, her pen scratching decisive strokes against a stack of forms. There was no other sound but the rushing of the rain.

A taxi was waiting in the street, its light holy as a shrine. Rosaleen stood at the window and asked if it could take her to Maida Vale. ‘Righto,’ the man said kindly, and she stepped into the shelter of his cab and closed her eyes.

THE FLAT WAS COLDER even than before. If only she’d thought to switch the boiler on she could have had a bath. She stripped off her damp clothes and pulled on a nightdress, a jumper, socks, and lay, shivery and fearful, a hot-water bottle in her arms. Soon she was running down a corridor, Sister Benedict fast on her heels, and when she heard the slam of the front door, for one terrified moment she imagined the nun had broken in.

‘Leave it.’ A high, sharp female voice, and in response a mumbling, too low to hear. Rosaleen sat up. It was morning, and the sky was full of grey. She slid out of bed and tiptoed to the wardrobe, but even as she pulled out clothes she feared being discovered, half naked, tugging a dress over her head. ‘Look at this place.’ There was a scornful gasp. What had been found? The broken saucer she’d been meaning to glue, or was it the kettle that hadn’t been descaled? Rosaleen peered into the cupboard. If she could hide in here she would. Instead she dragged her fingers through her hair, straightened her nightdress, and walked out as she was.

A boy turned to face her, pale eyes, Felix’s eyes. Behind him stood a woman in a smartly belted mac.

‘Who are you?’ the woman asked, although from the curl of her lip, she seemed to think she knew.

Rosaleen felt ridiculously young. She folded her arms, protective, and looked at the boy as if she might align herself with him. ‘I’m . . .’ What was she asking? Her name?

‘I’m just leaving.’ That was it. She retreated to the bedroom and pushed clothes, shoes, the still-damp garments from the night before, into her unpacked case.

There was silence, and then the sound of paper being ripped and scrunched, a scattering of coal as it was thrown into the fire. ‘I’m doing it.’ A match was struck, and there was the boy’s voice. ‘Done.’

When she next opened the door, Rosaleen was already in her coat. She’d made the bed and closed the cupboard. She’d found one of Felix’s socks, fine and silk, and pushed it into her pocket. Excuse me. She was moving towards the bathroom when she caught sight of a letter propped against the lamp, the blunt pencil print of Felix’s writing, her name in his hand. She needed to fold it in with the others – every note and sketch he’d ever sent her was in the pocket of her case – but the woman – it chilled her to think of it – his wife – had...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Prologue
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Rosaleen
• Aoife
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Rosaleen
• Aoife
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Rosaleen
• Aoife
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Aoife
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Rosaleen
• Aoife
• Kate
• Rosaleen
• Kate
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Also by Esther Freud
• Copyright
• About the Publisher