The Versions of Us

by Laura Barnett

  Over another expensive lunch, Jessamy had said, ‘How would you feel about being our new advice columnist?’

  Eva thought for a moment. ‘Agony aunt, you mean?’

  ‘If you like.’ Jessamy had smiled. ‘But “agony” sounds a bit gruesome, doesn’t it?’

  The irony, Eva thinks, finishing her soup, is that the more time she spends issuing advice and talking about care, the less time she spends actually caring. They now employ Carole for three full days a week, and to help Eva give Ted his bath. When he is in a particularly bad phase – there was a bout of pneumonia just after Christmas – they book her for nights, too, and she stays in the spare room.

  The book has made this possible – that, and Ted’s payout from the Daily Courier, which proved more than generous. Eva had been invited in to see the new editor, a recent import from the Telegraph whom Eva had never met; she had sat at a cautious distance from his desk, watching his small, rheumy eyes shifting uncomfortably around the room. ‘Great man, Ted Simpson. Much missed.’ But you never knew him, Eva had resisted the temptation to say. What do you know of how much he is missed?

  It would seem, however, that even Ted prefers Eva to keep busy with her writing. He had told her, back when he was still able to speak, that his greatest fear was not for himself, but for the fact that she might be forced to devote herself to his care. There had been a terrible incident – Eva had related it in the book – a few weeks after they’d returned from Rome: they had taken a train to King’s Cross one morning, and he had lost control of his movements as they crossed the platform. She had known exactly what to do – grip his arm tightly as she helped him inch backwards across the concourse, find a place for him to sit; above all, try to keep him calm. But a businesswoman – Eva can still picture her now in her trim black suit, her sharp spiked heels – had tutted as she passed; said loudly, ‘Fancy being drunk at this time of day. It’s a disgrace.’

  Ted had shrunk from the woman’s voice, as if from a physical blow. When they finally found somewhere to sit, he had placed his head in his hands, and said, ‘You should leave me, Eva. I’m no use to you. I’m ruining your life.’

  Eva had taken his hands from his face; they were cold, bloodless, so she had warmed them with her own. ‘Ted. I told you I wasn’t going anywhere. And I’m not. You’re stuck with me, all right?’

  And yet Eva could not pretend, in the deepest part of herself, that the thought of leaving him had not occurred to her. One afternoon a few weeks later, she had snatched a few hours for herself, made the slow climb uphill to Alexandra Palace. She had sat on a bench under a wide plane tree that made her think of Paris, looking down over the city. I am too young for this, she told herself. I never asked for it. It isn’t fair. And it wasn’t, of course – but then she made herself think of how much more unfair it was for Ted. She pictured herself leaving, handing his care over to a nurse of whom they could expect no more than a distant, anonymous kindness; leaving him in a hospital somewhere, reassuring herself with that terrible euphemism ‘home’. Ted was an only child – his parents dead, no children of his own – and she and Sarah were all he had; they would not desert him. And Eva loved him. That fact was beyond question.

  From the radio, now, comes the theme music to The Archers. Eva listens, closes her eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face, the soft farmyard sounds of summer in Ambridge. Opening them, she sees Umberto – a venerable old man now, scrawny and placid as an Italian nonno – stretch and turn in his favourite shady spot under the clematis. She goes over to him, tickles the cat under his chin. ‘What do you say, caro mio? Shall I go and see if your papà’s woken up?’

  He is awake. She replaces his lunch tray on the trolley, puts a hand to Ted’s face. ‘Gosh, darling, you’re burning up. Shall I open the window?’

  He blinks rapidly at her. She goes over to the window, lets in the street sounds, the faint promise of cooler air. She looks back at him, at his bad side, where, since the last stroke, his features seem to have slipped, resettled. His eyes watch her with an inexpressible sadness. She says, ‘My darling. Please don’t look at me like that. I can’t bear it.’ He blinks again, and then closes his eyes.

  VERSION THREE

  Missing

  Sussex, April 2000

  They have heard nothing from Sophie for six weeks when Jim comes in from his studio and says, ‘I think we should go and look for her.’

  It is a Tuesday, just gone eleven. Eva is standing by the kitchen window, holding a mug of coffee: her mid-morning break from writing. She is almost at the end of what, after all these years, she hopes will be the final draft of her collection of short stories. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea, darling?’

  ‘No.’ He places a hand on the door frame, steadying himself. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea at all. But it’s the only idea I’ve got.’

  Eva drives. The morning is bright, windswept; the trees that line the narrow lanes bend and sway as they pass, and blossom is falling from the hedgerows. Jim thinks about the last time he saw Sophie, just before Christmas. She had resisted all their attempts to invite her over for Christmas Day – her mobile never seemed to be switched on – and he had decided to take matters into his own hands. He’d driven to Brighton alone – Eva was in London for the weekend with Sam and the grandchildren, and Jim had stayed to finish a commission that he was meant to have ready for shipping the following week. He’d followed these same roads, slippery then with a fine layer of frost.

  The address he had for his daughter was on a road called Quebec Street: a tiny terraced house, its blue-painted facade cracked and peeling. For a long time, there had been no answer. He had begun to wonder if she had moved without telling them: it would not have been the first time. But then, there she was – or a shadow of her, bone-thin and shivering in a long-sleeved T-shirt.

  ‘Dad,’ the shadow said. ‘Didn’t you get the message? I don’t want to see you.’ And then she had closed the door in his face.

  Now, as they turn onto London Road, Eva says, ‘Quebec Street, then?’

  ‘Only place to look, isn’t it?’

  She reaches across for his hand. ‘Darling. Please don’t expect too much.’

  He grips her hand tightly. ‘I know.’

  They park at the far end of the street, in front of a neat, whitewashed house, a pair of wooden model boats beached on the living-room windowsill. On the short walk along the pavement, Jim feels his legs grow heavy; two doors down, he stops, suddenly afraid that they might give way. Eva takes his arm. ‘Do you want to sit down? Come back later?’

  Jim shakes his head. He will not be afraid of his own daughter. ‘No. Come on. I have to try.’

  For the second time, then, he rings the doorbell. They stand on the pavement in anxious silence. A girl passing on the other side of the street – leather-jacketed, her hair a luminous shade of green – watches them without smiling.

  He presses the doorbell again, waits. Then, finally, there is the sound of footfall on the stairs, a shape looming in the hallway through the frosted glass. Jim holds his breath. The door swings open. Here is a man he doesn’t know – a man wearing a black T-shirt, grubby jeans; his skin unnaturally white.

  ‘What?’ the man says.

  Jim regards this stranger; tries, and fails, to get the measure of him. ‘I’m Sophie’s father. Is she in?’

  ‘Got the wrong house, mate.’ The man has a strong London accent and a faint smirk. ‘No one called Sophie here.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Jim takes a step forward, but the man bars his way.

  ‘Mate. Don’t try it. I’m telling you – you’ve got the wrong house.’

  Eva places a hand on Jim’s arm, urges him back. ‘If that’s the case,’ she says, ‘we’re very sorry to have disturbed you. But we’re confused, you see. My stepdaughter used to live here. My husband saw her just a few months ago.’

  The man looks at her, openly smiling now. Jim would like to reach out and punch him, feel the crack an
d splinter of bone and tooth beneath his fist. But Eva’s restraining hand remains on his arm.

  ‘Well. I can see why that would be confusing. But she doesn’t live here now.’

  ‘Do you think,’ Eva says in that same reasonable tone, ‘we could come inside and see for ourselves?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Now why don’t you both run along back to your nice comfy middle-class lives?’ And the door clicks shut.

  Jim barely hears the man. He is looking at Eva, so brave, so dear to him. Suddenly it all seems dreadfully clear: he has chosen Eva – the certainty of happiness with her – over his daughter. He has brought this terrible moment on himself, on all of them; it is the logical conclusion. He should not have left Helena. He should never have tried to go back in time, to the moment when he and Eva had their entire lives before them. He has gone against the natural law of things: the law that says you get one chance at happiness, with one person, and if it falls apart, you do not get that chance again.

  In his mind, he spools back through the years, to Anton’s birthday party, to the moment he saw Eva standing in the kitchen in her long dress, her shoulders bare, her hair gathered at the nape of her neck. He should have turned away from her then, gone back home to Helena, to their baby daughter, to the life he had made his. But he knows he could never have done it. He could never have turned from Eva as he had that time in Cambridge, outside Heffers bookshop: she was pregnant with Rebecca, staring after him, watching the back of his departing head. It had taken all his strength then not to look back. He could never have been that strong again.

  ‘Jim? Darling. Are you all right?’

  He says nothing. He stumbles, and Eva catches him. ‘Come on. Let’s get back to the car.’

  She drives down to the promenade, parks on Brunswick Square; takes him by the elbow, like an invalid, and leads him to the seafront. Down a set of steps to a café: a hard metal chair, fish and chips in a yellow polystyrene box. The beach is bare but for a dog walker, throwing a stick; the agile arc of the dog; the sea wide and grey and angry.

  ‘Where is she?’ he says.

  ‘Somewhere we can’t get to.’

  ‘Drugs.’ It is the first time Jim has said the word aloud, but it has been there between them for months – years, even. Sophie’s erratic behaviour. Her weight loss. The sallow hue of her skin.

  Eva nods. ‘I think so.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ he says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is. Everything. Sophie. Mum … I let them all down, Eva. I wasn’t there for them. I’ve never cared about anyone but myself.’

  ‘And me.’

  He looks at her. The wind is whipping at her hair. She is everything to him: his whole world, or the best version of it. Surely he never really had a choice. ‘And you.’

  They are silent for a moment. Eva gathers up the empty boxes, carries them over to a bin at the path’s edge. He watches her small, deft movements. With her back turned, she could be twenty still; even when she turns, she does not really betray her sixty-one years.

  Sitting down again, she says, ‘Jim, you can’t blame yourself for everything. You just can’t.’

  ‘I should have put Sophie first,’ he says quietly. ‘I should have been a better father.’

  ‘Darling.’ Eva turns to him, cups his chin with her palm. ‘I don’t think there’s a father, or a mother, alive who doesn’t feel that way. You did the best you could.’

  ‘I wish I’d done better.’ He stands, and she does the same. Her hand drops from his face, and he reaches for it. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just so worried about her.’

  ‘Of course you are. And we’ll do everything we can to find her. When we get home, we’ll call everyone we can think of. Helena. The Ship: that’s where she was working, wasn’t it? Sam might have some ideas. It’ll be all hands on deck, Jim, all right? We’ll find Sophie, and we’ll bring her home.’

  Relief floods through him: the relief of having Eva, loving her, sharing a life. He takes in a great lungful of air.

  ‘Let’s go down to the sea,’ he says. And he leads her onto the pebbles of the beach, where they stumble as they tread, clumsy as infants taking their first steps.

  VERSION ONE

  Sixty

  London, July 2001

  ‘Ready for the big speech?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’ Eva takes a sip of champagne. ‘I’ve got cue cards in my bag.’

  ‘Clever girl.’ Penelope lifts her glass, chimes it against Eva’s. ‘You’ve had tougher audiences, anyway.’

  They are standing on the top deck of the ship, at the prow. Around them move men in dinner suits – men of their own age, mostly, with slicked grey hair (if there is any left to slick) and comfortable, reddish faces – and women in evening dresses, their décolletages gamely exposed. Watching a woman across the deck – her white hair piled into an elaborate chignon, the neckline of her red gown plunging deeply over the fine crêpe-paper skin of her breasts – Eva feels an odd blend of pity and admiration. She and Penelope have exercised careful restraint: Pen, now resignedly stout, is neatly encased in black spun through with fine gold thread. Eva is in dark green silk. Expensive: a treat to herself, bought on impulse.

  ‘Lovely dress. You look so tiny. Damn you.’

  ‘Hardly. But thanks, Pen.’

  Penelope smiles. She watches Eva for a moment, her head fractionally tilted, considering. More seriously, she adds, ‘You’re beautiful, darling. Age shall not wither you. It might have got to the rest of us, but it’s leaving you alone. Remember that.’

  ‘All right, Pen. I’ll try.’ Eva places a grateful hand on her friend’s arm. She has always been there when Eva needed her; and how many times, in recent years, has Eva had reason to be thankful for that? ‘I’d better nip to the loo before dinner. See you down there, OK?’

  ‘OK. Good luck with the speech. Picture them all naked.’ They stare at each other; Penelope is the first to laugh. ‘Actually, on second thoughts, don’t.’

  The toilets are on the lower deck, beside the ballroom, where waiters in white jackets are flitting between round tables heavy with glassware; in the centre of each table rises a single calla lily in a tall white vase. Through the wide glass windows, the chimney of the new Tate Modern thrusts up against the darkening sky; across the river, the answering dome of St Paul’s is stately, palely glowing. Eva stands for a moment in the doorway, watching her city; taking it in.

  ‘Eva. There you are. Thank goodness.’ Thea: greying hair discreetly highlighted, the fine straps of her slip dress exposing the taut contours of her upper arms. Fifty-eight years old, and she still works out every morning in the basement gym of the house in Pimlico. In the weeks after Jim left – those first terrible days, when time had seemed to collapse in on itself, and Eva couldn’t even bring herself to change her clothes – Thea had tried to instil a similar discipline in her sister-in-law. Three mornings a week, she had come to collect Eva, bundled her into the MG, and set her going on the rowing machine. ‘Exercise cures everything,’ she’d assured Eva, in her brisk, Norwegian way. But it wasn’t true: Eva had not been cured. She had simply redistributed the pain around her body.

  ‘It all looks wonderful,’ Eva says now.

  ‘Do you think so? I’m so glad.’ Thea comes over, lays her head on Eva’s shoulder. She is given to such sudden gestures of affection; at first, Eva found them a little disconcerting – not very British, and certainly not very Austrian – but she has grown to like them very much. ‘There’s someone on our table we’d like you to meet.’

  Eva steps away, stung. ‘Oh, Thea, you haven’t …’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. Just keep an open mind.’ Thea lifts the neat arc of an eyebrow. ‘Now it’s almost time for dinner. Will you come and help me round up the troops?’

  The family is seated together at the top table, as at a wedding: Anton and Thea; Jennifer and Henry; Daniel and his new girlfriend, Hattie, a fashion student with a small lace hat of her own design
balanced elegantly on her cornrowed hair. Thea’s mother, Bente – a retired neurosurgeon in her eighties, with her daughter’s excellent bone structure and formidable intelligence – has managed to make the journey from Oslo. She sits beside Eva’s niece, Hanna, now twenty-six and in the final year of medical training. On Bente’s other side are Anton’s old schoolfriend Ian Liebnitz and his wife, Angela, who have grown, like many long-married couples, faintly to resemble each other. Between Angela and Eva, an empty seat, and a name Eva recognises, etched in careful longhand. Carl Friedlander. Anton’s new partner in the firm, the man who, if Eva remembers correctly, lost his wife to cancer, not more than a year ago.

  Across the table, she catches Anton looking meaningfully at Carl’s vacant chair. ‘Just you wait,’ she mouths at him, ‘until I do my speech.’ Eva is angrier than she’s letting on: angry that, rather than simply enjoying her own brother’s sixtieth birthday party, she’ll be forced to endure the agony of a set-up in plain view of her son and daughter, and just about every friend she and her brother have ever had (excepting Jim, of course. Jim has not been invited). But Anton smiles at her, shrugs. He is suddenly so like the little boy he used to be – chubby, red-cheeked, forever seeking out some new source of mischief – that Eva is unable to resist the urge to smile back.

  Carl Friedlander arrives just as the starter is being served. He is extremely tall – more than six foot, Eva surmises, as he offers breathless apologies to the table: he was coming in from his daughter’s place in Guildford, and the train had simply sat outside Waterloo. A spare, fleshless face, almost gaunt; a crop of thick white hair. Shaking his hand, Eva is reminded of a photograph of Samuel Beckett that used to stare out across the Daily Courier office from above Bob Masters’s desk: a Cubist composition of monochrome planes, cross-hatched with blocks of shadow. But Carl Friedlander’s expression is not, she notes with relief, quite so severe.