At 6.45 p.m. Gemma clipped Mabel to her lead and walked through the village to call Louise. She couldn’t help but notice how many more waves and greetings she received compared to a couple of weeks ago – most people seemed to know her name, and everyone said hello to Mabel, making jokey comments about her exploits yesterday and checking she was OK. Gemma’s involvement in the Swap Shops had clearly helped her across the line from ‘visitor’ to ‘one of us’, and she had to admit it was a nice feeling. She had never really felt part of a community before; the only place she’d lived in for any length of time was Warwick Mews, and she’d never got to know her neighbours beyond a polite nod and wave. Like Aunt Laura, most of the owners didn’t live there much; next door was a Malaysian businessman in his fifties who worked away for weeks at a time, and the other side had been empty the entire time Gemma lived there – she assumed it was owned by overseas investors. Aunt Laura had once told her that Uncle Clive had talked about buying it and knocking it through to make one big house, but he died before that plan ever came to anything. Looking back it was clearly all bullshit; Uncle Clive talked a good game, but he didn’t have nearly as much money as he liked to make out.
Gemma sat on the steps outside the village shop with Mabel lying on the path at her feet, entirely unbothered that they were revisiting the scene of yesterday’s horror show. The air still had a hint of warmth to it, but Gemma zipped up her jacket – she would soon get cold sitting still outside. She put her headphones in and scrolled through her contacts until she found Louise – the international dial tone sounded a few times before she heard her sister’s familiar voice.
‘Hey, Gummer. Hang on, I’ll go outside.’
Gemma heard a heavy sliding door open, then close again. She could picture exactly where Louise was right now, on the patio of one of the officers’ married quarters on the south coast of the island. It didn’t matter which one, they all looked the same; the house Louise was living in now was only a few streets away from the one their family had lived in fifteen years previously. The Cyprus air at 9 p.m. in late April would be warm enough to sit in a long-sleeved T-shirt or a light jumper, with the sound of cicadas providing a gentle background hum. In April they would be just getting started – by June the noise would be a relentless, twenty-four-hour cacophony.
‘OK, I’m here, we can have a proper chat. How’s lockdown life?’
Gemma took a deep breath, not really knowing where to start. Other than their ninety-second chat and a few exchanges of daft WhatsApp messages, she hadn’t had Louise’s undivided attention in weeks. Her sister knew about Fraser, but nothing at all about Matthew.
Gemma talked non-stop for ten minutes and offloaded everything, from how she was feeling about Fraser to the details of her new village life. Then she told her about meeting Matthew, and was just getting started on the plans she’d been working on for the village when Louise interrupted.
‘OK, slow down, we need to back up a bit. Just let me get this straight. You’ve been living in this village for four weeks, have started fucking the hot guy next door, and are now head of the village fete committee or something. Jesus, Gem, you’re the reincarnation of Aunt Laura.’
Louise laughed, but Gemma was confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t you remember Mum telling us the story of how she met Uncle Clive?’ Gemma’s silence told her she didn’t, so Louise ploughed on. ‘Her first husband was some actor who ran off with his leading lady, so Aunt Laura moved back to Norfolk to lick her wounds. Uncle Clive was the wealthy widower next door; she’d moved into his place within months and started overhauling that theatre in Norwich for something to do. Mum thought her rebound was indecently hasty; I think she feels women should weep and wail over bad men for longer. How can you not remember?’
The story triggered a vague memory, but Gemma had chosen not to retain it, along with all the other disparaging tales of Aunt Laura’s behaviour that their mother liked to tell, her voice full of bitterness.
‘You’re right, I’d forgotten. How funny. But this is different, Lou. I’m not going to marry Matthew, it’s more like a holiday romance. I’ve got to go back to London, I can’t stay here.’
‘So why are you still there? You could have found a new flat by now, even if you can’t do normal viewings. What’s stopping you?’
‘I . . . I don’t know. I’ve been busy with all the village stuff, and I guess I thought I’d wait until . . .’ Gemma’s voice trailed off.
‘Until what? Until people in London stop getting sick? Until there’s a vaccine? This is bullshit, Gem. It sounds to me like you’re happy living there, and you like Matthew.’
Gemma couldn’t deny it. She was happy living in Crowthorpe, and she did like Matthew. But this wasn’t home. It was impossible to explain.
‘You’re right, Lou, but it doesn’t make any difference. I don’t belong here. At some point I need to go back to London. I feel like I’m in the wrong place, making the wrong decisions, and to be honest I don’t know which way is up.’
‘Then do it now. Before you end up with a broken heart and take that poor guy down with you. If you’re not in love with him you’re using him as some kind of comfort blanket, which is a shitty thing to do. And the reason I know this is because I’ve been doing it for years.’
Gemma was silenced. She’d been so busy offloading, she hadn’t had a chance to ask Louise how her life was. ‘Oh fuck. I’m sorry. How are things at your end? How’s Jamie?’
‘Jamie’s fine, thanks for asking. He has no idea that his wife is a secret lesbian who should never have married him in the first place. I, on the other hand, am utterly miserable. Work is a fucking nightmare – we’ve got a curfew from ten p.m. so I’ve got hundreds of squaddies who are bored out of their minds with nothing to do but make trouble. If you want to go anywhere outside the base, you have to call an automated service and get a text message that gives you permission. The kids are both home from school and all the beaches are closed. None of the married quarters have air conditioning, so if this carries on much longer we’re all going to boil in our beds. Basically everything is shit.’
‘God, Lou, I’m sorry. My problems feel like nothing compared to yours.’
‘That’s not true. Mine are circumstantial. Once all this mess is over I’ll have a heart-to-heart with Jamie and he’ll probably be incredibly supportive because he’s the nicest man on earth. We’ll resolve shared responsibility for the kids and we’ll both be quietly posted back to the UK.’ Gemma heard her light a cigarette and inhale deeply; it was a habit Louise had committed to fully as a teenager, but Gemma had always stayed away from. The memory of the final stages of Uncle Clive’s throat cancer were enough to put her off, even with the teenage pressure to look cool.
‘On the other hand, your issues are much bigger, because you’re searching for something that doesn’t exist. Some kind of fucking happy-ever-after utopia like the ending of all those fucking books you used to read. Tell me this: what’s in London that you can’t live without?’
Gemma thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know, I just can’t imagine living anywhere else. It’s where my friends are, my job is. It’s the only place I’ve ever properly lived. I don’t know how to live anywhere else.’
‘I notice you didn’t say that living in London makes you happy, or that London is the best city in the world.’
Gemma didn’t say anything. Her head felt like it was full of noise.
‘It’s just a city, Gem. There are lots of them. You’ve got to find what makes you happy, then live wherever that happiness is. My job makes me happy, so it doesn’t matter where in the world I’m based. Dad was the same, Mum learned to live with it. Give it some thought, OK?’
Gemma promised she would, and they talked for a few more minutes about their parents and when they might next see each other. Gemma had a vague plan to fly to Cyprus in September but hadn’t booked anything. Maybe it would be OK by then, or maybe Louise would be dealing with a messy break-u
p from Jamie and wouldn’t want her sister hanging around.
‘Thanks for the chat, Lou. I appreciate it.’
‘No bother. Think about what I said. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you have to stop pretending everything is OK when it isn’t. What did Aunt Laura used to say? Follow your heart . . .’
Gemma joined in for the second half, ‘. . . but bring your brain with you.’
‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ Louise lit another cigarette. ‘She really loved you, you know. Far more than she did me. I used to be really jealous about it, took me ages to realise that you needed her way more than I did. I saw an Army therapist for a while after Libby was born and we talked about it. The analogy she used was something about me being happy to set sail and see where the wind took me, whereas you needed to stay close to shore. Aunt Laura was your safe harbour, a refuge when things got stormy.’ Louise paused, her voice softening. ‘But she’s gone. Who’s your safe harbour now, Gem?’
Gemma sat on the step and cried for a long time after she and Louise said their goodbyes. She cried for Aunt Laura in a way she hadn’t since she died, working her way through the whole spectrum of emotions from fury that her aunt had left her, to the deepest kind of sadness that she’d never get to talk to her again. She cried for her sister, who had a world of pain ahead of her before she had any chance of finding happiness. And then she cried for herself, and this messy situation she found herself in. There were no safe harbours any more; one way or another, Gemma was going to have to learn to sail her ship alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thursday, 23 April
To Do
Make a plan?
Look at flats?
Hate everything
Gemma lay in bed and stared at the empty space beside her; it looked cold and unwelcoming. She ran her hand over the unwrinkled duvet, feeling the comforting softness of linen that had been washed and dried a hundred times, worn thin from years of warm, sleeping bodies. Fraser had preferred crisp, Egyptian cotton in the highest thread count he could find, like you’d find in a fancy hotel. He ironed it too, so the pillows retained the sharp creases of multiple folds on the ironing board. He used to make his side of the bed while Gemma was still in it, which always felt like a passive/ aggressive dig that she was still in bed while he was up and smashing the day. In books couples lazed in bed on Sunday mornings with coffee and papers, but Gemma had never done it in real life.
She rolled over to the pillow and breathed in the clean smell. It was a shame the warm bulk of Matthew’s body wasn’t there, but he hadn’t stayed over last night; he had to pick up some timber from a yard somewhere up in the Cotswolds. Chipping something, far enough away that he needed an early start. Finding materials was proving challenging for Matthew – a lot of his suppliers were either closed or running a reduced service to protect their staff. He needed some green oak to make a coffee table for a new client, and Chipping Whatever was the nearest he could find that could supply at short notice. He’d invited Gemma to go with him but she hadn’t really fancied the 7 a.m. start; now she was awake at 6.45 and wished she’d said yes, it would be nice to get out of the village for a few hours. She briefly considered seeing if she could catch him, but decided not to be annoying. He was probably on his way out and didn’t need her faffing around, holding him up.
It seemed like she might as well get up anyway, since she was awake. It would be a good day to take Mabel out for a long walk and do some admin – maybe start looking at flats in London and make some kind of plan. The thought made her feel heavy and lethargic, but she dragged herself into the shower and was dressed in leggings and a long jumper within ten minutes. Not the most glamorous look, but nobody was going to see her today.
Matthew was in the kitchen when she came downstairs, sitting on the floor playing tug with Mabel. He was wearing old jeans and his usual work boots, along with a heavy flannel jacket in blue and black check, hovering somewhere between a shirt and a coat. Underneath was his usual white T-shirt; the whole look was very lumberjack chic. Mabel’s jaws were clamped around a red rope toy, which she yanked at with a series of faux-menacing growls.
Gemma watched them for a second, torn between annoyance that he kept walking into her house without knocking, and an uncontrollable urge to get him out of those clothes as soon as possible.
‘Hey, you. I thought you were off somewhere?’
He looked up and smiled, his hair still wet from the shower. ‘I am, but I was just about to leave when I saw the light in the shower and knew you were up. So I thought I’d give you a second chance to come with me, in case you changed your mind. It’s a nice drive. Mabel can come. You want to come, don’t you, Mabel?’
Gemma laughed. Mabel was a shameless traitor and would follow Matthew to the ends of the earth. She leaned against the door frame and considered the offer. ‘I suppose I could, but I need urgent coffee first.’
Matthew stood up, and Gemma was once again struck by the sheer size of him. Even with the length of the kitchen between them, he seemed to fill the available space like expanding foam. ‘I’ll go and make you one, I’ve got one of those thermos cups. I’ll meet you by the van in ten minutes. Bring a jacket and some shoes you don’t mind getting muddy.’ He grinned and left through the back door, Mabel trailing behind him.
Gemma went into the dining room and gathered a few bits for Mabel – her lead, and a walking pouch that contained poop bags, dog treats and a bottle of water. She left everything on the side in the kitchen and went back up to the loft to put her hair into a bun, pushing the stray bits back from her face with a pair of sunglasses and adding the bare minimum of make-up so she didn’t look like living death. Returning to the bedroom, she pulled a large green box from under the bed that contained a pair of knee-high brown leather and suede boots, the kind of thing you might wear to ride a horse. She hadn’t brought any wellies from London and had seen half the women in the village wearing this particular style; it seemed to be very much en vogue for walking your dog in the countryside. Aside from being sleek and beautiful they looked super-comfy and practical, so Gemma had googled ‘brown leather country wellies’ until she found them in a Sunday Times article entitled ‘The best wellington boots for spring’. They were made by Dubarry of Ireland with a £329 price tag that made Gemma gasp, but by then she’d already imagined herself wearing them, which meant any resistance was futile. In Gemma’s experience once you’d made the emotional commitment to an item, you already owned it – actual physical purchase was just admin.
She’d also bought a black padded gilet from the same country goods store – her London coats were impractical for dodging into hedgerows to let tractors pass, and she liked the idea of being warm but still having her arms free. Both had been ordered a couple of weeks ago but only arrived yesterday; lots of things were taking ages to be shipped and delivered right now. She’d been undecided about whether to return them; neither would ever be worn once she was back in London, she’d look like a dick. But there was an opportunity now, and she rationalised that she could keep them for trips back to Norfolk to see her parents.
Mabel was waiting for her outside the back door when she came down, and she could see Matthew watching her as she walked down the path with Mabel trotting at her side. By the time she reached the van he’d broken into a giant grin.
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘You’ve gone full Cotswolds, and you look fantastic. Those boots are the sexiest thing I’ve seen all day.’
Gemma rolled her eyes and snatched the silver thermos cup from his hands. ‘It’s barely seven a.m. They’re comfortable and waterproof, which is all I care about.’
‘You look like you’re off to the stables. Can you ride a horse?’
‘Actually, yes, I can. Stop ogling my new boots, you pervert.’ She gave him a light kiss as she climbed into the van, slapping away his roving hands. There was a bench of two passenger seats, upholstered in faded grey and black fabric and smelling of damp t
imber and wood oil. Gemma shuffled over to the seat nearest the driver’s side, settling Mabel into the footwell nearest the door.
Matthew walked round to the driver’s side and jumped in, full of childlike enthusiasm. It was one of the things Gemma liked about him – his total lack of self-consciousness, his guileless relish in something as simple as a drive out in the countryside. It was hard not to find it infectious. And refreshing, she thought.
They turned left out of the driveway on to the lane, then left again towards the village past the front of West Cottage.
‘Wait, can you stop?’
Matthew slammed on the brakes, causing Mabel to slide sideways into the back of the footwell. ‘What’s up?’
‘There’s something in the mailbox, the flap hasn’t been closed properly. I just want to grab it.’
Gemma climbed over Mabel and opened the door, then jumped down into the road. She extracted the envelope from the mailbox and briefly glanced at it, before closing the flap and running back to the van. She’d expected it to be for Caro, but it had nothing but Gemma’s name on it.
‘Sorry, I just didn’t want to leave that sticking out all day.’
Matthew raised his eyebrows. ‘Anything interesting?’
Gemma pushed the note into her pocket. ‘No idea, I’ll read it later.’
The village was still and silent at 7.30, with just a handful of locals out walking their dogs and the odd jogger passing through. Matthew waved at a couple of people, who raised a hand and gave them both a smile. After a mile they passed his parents’ house, but the curtains were closed and there was no sign of life. At the crossroads the van slowed next to the BP garage, purveyor of condoms and local gossip, then turned left towards the motorway. Matthew smiled, reading her mind. ‘I bought a big box in Sainsbury’s.’
Two Metres From You Page 21