by Helen Kitson
The one thing, the only thing I wanted to know was whether or not Simon had had any feelings for me at all. It was of no relevance to his future or mine, but it mattered. How could I ask him? How could I trust him to tell me the truth?
‘Shall we keep in touch?’ he asked.
‘What on earth for?’ The clean break would hurt, but it was better in the long run.
‘Not even the occasional postcard?’ His mother’s son.
‘Can’t stop you, can I? You know my address.’ The odd postcard, perhaps, but in time he’d move on, forget about me, and I would never contact him.
‘What will you do with my so-called confession?’ I asked.
‘So-called?’
‘You’ve destroyed the only real evidence that Madeleine wrote The Song of the Air. My confession was nothing more than a work of fiction you composed yourself from scraps of information, then forced me to sign. You resented growing up without your mother. In some twisted way you held me accountable and dreamed up a bizarre plot to suit your fantasies. You made me write it down. I was a victim of gaslighting. That’s all I need to say. No one knew Madeleine could write, but everyone knew I did.’
He hung his head. ‘I got out of my depth, lost sight of everything except my own anger and pain.’ Tears in his eyes. So young, so damaged. I was tougher than he’d ever be.
I reached out to stroke his hair. Sobbing, he let me take him in my arms. We clung together. I held him as if I were trying to stop him falling apart.
Mechanically I performed my duties for Mr Latham. A man of routines, he might well have appreciated having a wife who could provide a buffer between himself and the more emotionally needy of his parishioners. An unfair thought. He was well-liked, approachable, and participated in village activities with good grace and humour.
‘I think we’re in for a storm,’ he said when I took his lunch in to the study.
The rain began to fall while I was in the kitchen cutting up a lasagne into single portions for freezing. Mr Latham asked if I’d like to get home before the weather worsened. I felt safer in his kitchen, where I knew what was expected of me and where I knew myself to be useful.
‘At least take a break. Have a cup of coffee. You do far more than I pay you for.’
He switched on the kettle. ‘Well, I should like one, so you might as well join me.’
Small acts of kindness always had the power to move me. I gazed at the rain slashing against the window. Angry tears sprang to my eyes. Too much like pathetic fallacy.
‘Gabrielle – you’re crying.’
‘Am I?’ I tore off a sheet of kitchen towel and scrubbed my eyes. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’
He drew out a chair and invited me to sit down. ‘Coffee won’t be two ticks,’ he said.
‘Really, there’s no need, I’m perfectly all right.’ I didn’t want to be one of his emotionally needy parishioners, burdening him with problems any normal woman would have shared with a female friend over a bottle of Cabernet and a chick flick.
‘You’re upset. I’ve no wish to pry, but I’m equally reluctant not to attempt to help in whatever way I can.’
‘You’re very kind,’ I mumbled. ‘Kinder than I deserve. I dislike being the type of woman who can’t control her emotions. It’s undignified.’ At my age, I might have added. A young woman sobbing elicits natural pity in most people. Embarrassment is the more likely reaction to a weeping middle-aged woman, the assumption being that she’s either menopausal or drunk.
‘Dignity doesn’t enter into it,’ he said. ‘Is there anything at all I can do?’
Wipe away my sins? Make Simon love me? Marry me?
‘No, really, there’s nothing. I’ve got myself into a bit of a pickle, that’s all. It’s not serious.’
‘Serious enough that you should weep over it. And, as you said yourself, you’re not a woman whose emotions often betray her. One can’t always be stoical.’
‘I couldn’t explain if I wanted to. It’s a tangle – a mess. I’ve allowed life to pass me by. No, it’s worse than that: I’ve deliberately passed it by. I haven’t made enough of an effort.’
No guts, no glory.
He handed me a cup of coffee. ‘Take your time. I’d like to sit with you for a while, if I may. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.’
He sat opposite me, his own mug in front of him. The table was otherwise bare, and I couldn’t help thinking we looked like a study for a Victorian genre painting with a subtle moral message, although what that message might have been, I couldn’t decide.
‘Simon will be leaving soon,’ I said.
Mr Latham’s nod, his murmured, ‘Ah’, suggested he properly read the significance of that statement. ‘No doubt you’ll miss him.’
‘I’ve always thought myself a self-contained person, not the type who needs other people around.’
‘Perhaps you might consider getting more involved in village life? There’s always plenty going on.’
‘I know. But that’s not really what I want.’
‘Then perhaps you ought to think about looking for a more satisfying job. Not that I want to lose you, but you’re wasted on a dull old stick like me. Or is that not what you’re looking for, either?’
‘I’m not sure. I think I might try to write a book.’
‘I’m sure everyone would be pleased to see your name in print again.’
‘The first book,’ I said, choosing my words carefully, ‘was the product of youthful folly. It was written by a person who no longer exists.’
‘You feel you are no longer the same person?’
‘I never was that person.’ I looked him in the eye, daring him to probe, to ask the pertinent questions.
‘Surely… Is this something you really want me to know?’
I shrugged. ‘Does it matter any more? The book was written by a ghost.’
‘Ah… I see.’
Did he? Or was he taking the comfortable route of misinterpreting my words? My own fault for being elliptical.
No guts…
I gave him a rough summary of events, omitting Simon’s role in the story.
‘That is indeed quite startling. Naturally you will expect me to advise you to come clean about your – deception, I think we might reasonably call it?’
‘I suppose.’
‘I wonder if any good can be achieved from owning up at this late stage?’
‘What I did was wrong. That, I think, is clear. But the only people I could be said to have harmed are the Andersons, who don’t care about literature.’
‘And yourself,’ he murmured. ‘I think you are the person who has been most harmed.’
‘Don’t, please, tempt me into self-pity.’
‘Indeed I’m not trying to do any such thing. I’m trying to view the situation objectively. A great deal of time has passed since the book was published. Sleeping dogs are sometimes better left undisturbed, are they not?’
‘You don’t think it’s cowardly?’
‘I ask only what good would be achieved from confessing.’
He patted my hand and I felt comforted, almost blessed. He’d told me what I wanted to hear, yet I felt oddly disappointed.
Mr Latham gave me an uncharacteristically roguish smile. ‘You wanted me to tell you to blazon it from the rooftops so that you might enjoy your sufferings.’
I started a little, my mug listing slightly to one side. ‘Not to be forgiven? Isn’t that what Christianity teaches – forgive those who do wrong, or words to that effect?’
‘People, I’m afraid, can be terribly unforgiving. I think of myself as a pragmatic Christian, if that doesn’t sound impossibly wishy-washy. Barbara Pym, you know,’ he added in an apparent non-sequitur. ‘I hired you largely because you admire her novels. I know you to be a good person, a Christian in the broadest sense of the word. I want no further harm to befall you.’
I’d misjudged the man, thought him aloof, a cold fish, timid. He would never make a churchgoer out
of me; but an ally, a friend… it did at least seem possible.
‘I think the rain is easing off,’ he said. ‘Looks like we won’t get a storm after all.’
‘No. No storm.’ For a while, at least.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next day, Simon packed his bags. My skin clammy, teeth gritted, I couldn’t trust myself to speak without betraying my emotions. His face expressionless, he seemed equally disinclined to engage in small talk, and the time for anything more was over. This, then, was it; the day after which I would have to find a way to negotiate a life that had been tossed around, upended, splintered.
Pushkin on my lap, I stroked her fur, my eyes constantly straying to the clock. Simon intended to catch the ten-fifteen train. Just under an hour to kill until it was time for me to accompany him to the station. Those awkward few moments after he’d found his seat and before the train departed. The last feeble wave, the awful tug of watching the train pull away, and then silence, returning home to a house that would feel subtly but horribly different. I would talk too much to the cat, trying to fill the spaces, knowing the exercise to be a futile one.
Eventually I would get used to Simon’s absence. I would find the courage to enter his room, confront the fact that no traces of him remained. I toyed with the idea of advertising for a lodger, but it wouldn’t do. Better to learn to cope without him than seek desperately for some kind of replacement, however unsatisfactory.
I heard the soft thud of his rucksack hitting the carpet near the front door and braced myself. Pushkin jumped from my lap and trotted over to greet him. He knelt down to stroke her. Don’t say goodbye to her, I pleaded silently; say nothing, nothing at all.
Coffee. I would make coffee. Must keep busy. Perform each task slowly, carefully, concentrate on the moment.
‘Coffee?’ I shouted through to Simon, my voice shrill.
‘Might as well.’
The last time I would ever make him a cup of coffee…
That was not the sentimental road I needed to be travelling down.
‘Biscuit?’
‘Sure. Why not?’
Another glance at the clock when I took the coffee in to the living room. Still fifty minutes to get through.
‘Well, it’s been—’
‘Don’t.’
‘Okay.’ He grabbed a biscuit from the plate. ‘So we’ll sit here in silence, shall we?’
‘I’m sorry. But you must realise… This is difficult for me.’
‘Me, too. You know how tempting it is to stay here? I know I couldn’t – it would be hopeless – it wouldn’t do you any good, would it?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I snapped.
He shrugged. ‘We need to get on with our real lives. I mean – none of this has been quite real, has it?’
‘Where do your parents really believe you to be?’
‘Told them I was going to Wales with a mate. It’s not like they care.’
And then we did sit there in silence, drinking coffee neither of us particularly wanted, uncomfortable as two strangers forced to share a table in a restaurant. This was worse than waiting to go in to the dentist, or into an examination hall, for there would be no resolution, no freedom from pain, no sense of accomplishment. Maybe if we walked very slowly to the station… But I doubted that would help. We must simply bear them, these long minutes, conscious this was the last time we would sit together in my house. Never again would we recite Baudelaire over too much red wine. Never again would I hear him banging out useless words on the typewriter. Never again…
‘Shall we get out of here?’ I said, unable to bear the thoughts that wouldn’t stop. ‘Take the long route to the station?’
‘Okay.’
Take the mugs into the kitchen. Rinse them. Put the uneaten biscuits back in the tin. Make sure the back door’s locked. Don’t think. Don’t think…
Cruel sun. Where was the rain now I wanted it to fall?
‘Nice day,’ Simon said without enthusiasm.
I didn’t care about warmth, sunshine, the birds in the trees. Those things weren’t for me; they offered no comfort, no consolation. The sun was too harsh, the birds too loud.
All the things we said. All the things we never said…
‘Are you going in to work today?’
‘No. When you – I phoned Mr Latham. Explained. He said to take the day off.’
‘Thoughtful of him.’
‘He’s a good man.’ And you, Simon, you’re not, but that isn’t enough to prevent me from wanting you, even now. Still. Always.
‘A friend?’
‘Maybe. I’d like to think so. I could do with one.’
We reached the train station with ten minutes to spare. Here, at least, was somewhere that suited my mood. I’ve often wondered if stations in other parts of the world are as bleak as the British variety. Soot-blackened bricks, Victorian wrought iron, chipped paint on the wooden benches. Morevale being a branch line, the station didn’t even boast a refreshment room.
‘You’ll have to buy your ticket on the train,’ I said.
‘I know.’
I kept my eyes on the pigeons without which no train station is complete and read every word of the two posters in front of me, one advertising a romantic novel set in war-torn Budapest, the other a “God needs you” Christian poster (Seven days without prayer makes one weak).
Clever, I thought; then, no, silly.
The next train to arrive would be Simon’s.
Big metal bitch come to take him away…
‘Here,’ he said, handing me a torn scrap of paper. ‘It’s my home address. Just in case I’ve left anything behind.’
I shook my head. If he’d left anything behind, that was too bad.
He stuffed it into my jacket pocket. ‘Just take it,’ he muttered. ‘Otherwise I’ll keep posting cards to you with it on.’
‘You didn’t bring much. What could you possibly have left behind?’
Me. You’re leaving me.
I heard the rumble in the distance, getting closer. I stood, Simon did likewise, hiking his rucksack on to his shoulder. The grating noise of the train coming to a halt. The insistent beep indicating the doors were open. I looked away from Simon.
‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘You can get in now.’
‘Yeah…’
I stepped away from him, couldn’t bear it if he tried to give me a goodbye kiss.
‘Go on, then!’ I repeated. ‘They don’t give you much time to get on.’
He pressed the button, boarded, found a seat, dumped his rucksack on the table.
I shouldn’t have come. Too awful.
Simon gazing out of the window at me, his face blank.
The train began to move.
Away, for ever and ever…
My timid wave. No answering one from him. My arm dropping to my side. Such desolation.
Everything was the same as it had been before. The sleepy station, the pigeons, the posters. I picked up a sweet wrapper, deposited it in a bin. Now what? Return home to a house that was far too quiet. Dry and put away the mug Simon had drunk his coffee from. Feed Pushkin. Find something to occupy myself until it was time to – to do what, though? Make another cup of coffee?
Not yet. I couldn’t face all that just yet.
In a daze, I walked away from the station, the sun glaring down on me, everything too bright, hurtful.
‘My dear, are you all right?’ Viv caught hold of my arm.
‘What?’
‘You were walking a little unsteadily. Migraine, is it?’
‘Yes… yes, that’s it. The sun—’
‘Would a cup of tea help? Nice and refreshing. My treat.’
I allowed her to steer me into the nearest café. A sympathetic face. Someone to talk to. A friend.
She ordered a pot of tea for two. ‘Coffee’s all well and good, but it doesn’t quench your thirst, does it?’
‘No; no, it doesn’t.’
‘Get a lot o
f migraines, do you? Codeine’s the only stuff that works for me. Not that my GP approves. Thinks I’ll get addicted to the stuff. Get them to find a cure, then, I tell him.’ She paused, frowned, shook her head slightly. In a softer tone of voice, she added, ‘You’re very out of sorts, aren’t you?’
I nodded, my hand pressed against my right temple, though I had no headache.
‘Is it just migraine, or something else?’
I clutched a paper napkin in my left hand, afraid I might start to cry. I wasn’t all right and couldn’t pretend I was. I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
The waitress brought over our order.
‘I’ll let it stand for a while,’ Viv said. ‘Unless you particularly like weak tea?’
Another shake of my head. I had a pain in my throat from keeping my tears in check.
‘I’d like to say I’m not the type to pry,’ Viv said quietly, ‘but I probably am. Except I really don’t want to pry, but I am concerned. I’m aware we don’t know each other very well, and I probably feel I know you better than I do because of your book. Though it’s a mistake, isn’t it, to read autobiography into fiction?’
I nodded.
‘Hard to resist, of course. And I know you’re a quiet person, and probably a lot thinner-skinned than an old loudmouth like me.’ She chuckled and gave the pot a stir. ‘Shall I pour? It’s roughly the right colour now.’
‘Thanks,’ I managed to say.
‘Now. I saw you walking from the direction of the train station. You don’t have any bags or parcels with you, so I’m assuming you were seeing someone off. Bit of a Brief Encounter moment, was it?’
I managed to smile, not because she’d read the situation more or less correctly, but because of the absurdity of the thing. Brief Encounter was a film I’d seen only once, but I recalled the clipped accents, the repressed passions, the noble, uncomprehending husband.
‘Something along those lines.’
‘Will he be coming back, do you think?’
I shook my head and added a dash of milk to my tea. ‘I doubt I shall ever see him again. I expect it’s for the best.’
‘That’s neither here nor there, is it? You might not think it, but I’m a very emotional person myself. Gets on my husband’s wick, but I don’t think being all stiff upper lipped about things is helpful. I don’t say we should carry on like the Italians or the Greeks, but I’m sure bottling things up is unhealthy. You’ve never been married, have you?’