by Lisa Jewell
‘And Beth?’ said Colin, breaking her train of her thought. ‘What’s going on with her?’
She flashed him a warning look, turned her eyes to Molly. Molly did not know. She had managed to protect her from that much.
‘I mean, have you managed to make contact? Is she coming?’
‘I’ve sent her an email. But I haven’t taken her calls.’
Colin nodded understandingly. ‘So, she could be on her way? In theory?’
‘Yes, I suppose she could be. But then again, she might be having another nervous breakdown.’ She shrugged dismissively.
‘So,’ said Colin, ‘just us. For now.’
‘Yes,’ said Meg, feeling a chill of dread running through her. ‘For now.’
September 2006
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected] [email protected]; [email protected]
Dear family of mine,
I am writing to you all, because I cannot bear to form the words with my own mouth, but yesterday morning, at 11.16 a.m., my precious Vicky finally passed away. I was honoured enough to see her pass and it was very peaceful and very sweet. Maddy and Sophie were both there, Tim and her mother were there too. It was a good end to a beautiful life. And now she is suffering no more.
But now, I have to ask you all something very important. I’ve tried my hardest these last few years to accept the beating wings of my baby birds as they flew, not just the nest, but in some cases the continent. I’ve let you all go. And now I need you all to come back. Please. For the funeral. FOR ME. I cannot stand by that graveside with somebody else’s children, with somebody else’s ex-husband. I need to stand there with my family, all together, at my side.
It’s going to be on Friday, 3 p.m., at the cemetery in Mickleton. And then a party after, at that nice pub next door. Vicky loved you all so much and she’s left some things, just little things, in her will, for all of you. It would make me very happy to be able to hand them over in person.
Beth: if you need some money for your flight, let me know. Meg: Maddy and Sophie say you and the kiddies can have their flat, they’ll be at Tim’s. Same goes for you, Beth, or, of course, you can always stay here, though it is a bit disorganised. AS EVER! Please write back as soon as you possibly can, girls/Colin, I need some support. I’m not as strong as I thought I was.
All my love, with all my heart, your Mummy/Lorelei
xxxx
Beth pulled her velvet jacket tightly to her throat and tried not to flinch when strangers passed too close to her. London looked warped and distorted. Its streets looked like odd memories. People seemed strangely post-apocalyptic in their appearances. Nothing felt as it should. The pavement gleamed with lurking puddles in its dips and cracks. Beth negotiated them, gingerly, with horror, as though they might be landmines. A fat woman with a double buggy suddenly loomed before her and Beth pulled herself tightly away, terrified for some reason that the woman might look at her and see something she didn’t like, that she would shout at her.
Meg’s road was the next on the left. She wanted to check on her smartphone, but was too scared to take it out of her bag in case someone mugged her.
Ridiculous woman.
She hadn’t been to Meg’s house before. She hadn’t seen Bill since 2003. She hadn’t seen her niece and nephews since they were tiny. She hadn’t seen the youngest one at all. She was thirty-four years old. Single. Too thin. Just shakily recovering from a breakdown the previous year that had seen her in her bed staring at the ceiling and crying for nearly six months. Tomorrow morning she was going to a funeral that would be painfully, unthinkably sad. She had many more worrying things to fret about than someone taking her mobile phone.
But still.
The last thing she should be doing in this condition of pathetic mental frailty was travelling across the entire planet to be reunited with her family. She’d tried to get out of it. She’d tried to persuade her mother that it would be better if she didn’t come. She’d invented logistical hurdles that her mother had batted effortlessly out of the way. And then she’d found an iota of strength from somewhere and persuaded herself that she could do it, that she should do it, that she would do it. Meg had booked her flights and insisted that she come with them. ‘Plenty of room in the people carrier.’
Beth had shuddered at the very concept. But also, upon reflection, quite liked the simplicity of it. Once she’d made it to Meg’s house she wouldn’t have to think about anything else until it was time to fly home again. Meg would look after everything.
As for Bill. No. There was no room in her head for thoughts of Bill. Bill was just a man. Her sister’s partner. Nothing more.
She turned the next corner and found herself in a street of large semi-detached Victorian houses, each with off-street parking and mature trees and nice front doors. It was still fairly early. Her flight had landed at 9 a.m. She would not have to face Bill until much later and had already decided that she would claim jet lag and put herself to bed before he came home from work. Meg’s house stood before her. A huge step up from the garden flat she’d been living in the last time Beth had been to visit. Three storeys high, four windows wide, a gigantic people carrier parked on the driveway and louvred shutters at the windows. It looked as if it had been freshly painted and pointed that very morning. She rang the doorbell, adjusted the collar of her jacket, the thick flick of black hair that sat on her forehead. She glanced down at her yellow Mary-Janes and cleared her throat. She fought the urge to turn and leave. And then there she was. Her big sister. In a red Lycra dress with big square-toed boots, her curly hair cut unflatteringly short. And large. So incredibly large. Beth stared at her, open-mouthed for a moment. ‘Hi,’ she said eventually.
And then suddenly she was being squeezed between those big arms and squashed against that huge soft stomach and she could feel it underneath, the unyielding shield of a support garment, almost but not quite like flesh. And she thought, through the fug of jet lag and culture shock, that her sister had put it on for her. To look thinner and less lumpy. For Beth.
‘You look lovely,’ she said, once Meg had released her from the embrace.
‘No,’ said Meg. ‘I don’t. I look fat. Horribly fat. But thank you. And you –’ she stared into Beth’s eyes fondly and Beth wanted to shrink to the size of a dandelion seed and be blown away down the street – ‘you look amazing! I can’t believe you’ve just got off a long-haul flight. Look at you. I love the velvet jacket.’ Meg closed the front door behind her, removed Beth’s rucksack from her hands, placed it at the bottom of the staircase and led her into the living room. Cream sofas, cream carpet, framed photographs, marble fire surround, glass coffee table, everything just skirting the edges of modern, but not quite getting there. As though Meg was too scared to make any kind of statement in case she got it wrong.
‘This is lovely,’ she said.
‘Ah, well, it’s home,’ said Meg, plucking a red-haired baby out of a wheeled device and presenting him to her. ‘And this is Charlie Bear!’
The baby looked at Beth curiously. He was very fat, with a slightly angry look about him, but he wriggled his legs delightedly at the sight of Beth and delivered a winning smile.
‘And this is your auntie Beth,’ Meg twittered into the baby’s ear. ‘She has come all the way from Australia to meet you. Yes, she has!’
She bounced the boy vigorously in her big arms and he beamed with pleasure.
‘He’s gorgeous,’ said Beth. ‘Looks exactly like his brothers!’
‘I know,’ said Meg, ‘daft, isn’t it. Like I had triplets with eight years between them. Want a hold?’
Beth eyed the proffered baby cautiously. He looked so happy there in his mother’s big meaty arms. ‘Er …’
‘No problem,’ said Meg, pulling him back towards herself. ‘Some people like holding other people’s babies. I’m not one of them. I only like holding my own babies – isn’t tha
t right, Charlie Bear?’
Meg peered at Bethan over the top of Charlie’s head and smiled. ‘It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you so much.’
Beth smiled and yawned. ‘Me too,’ she said.
‘It’s crazy. We’re sisters. We used to do everything together. And now we never see each other. We don’t even talk to each other. Nuts!’
Beth nodded. Her vision was started to blur. Deep down inside the marrow of her she could feel liquid weakness spreading through her body.
‘I mean, I just never in a million years thought you’d suddenly bugger off to the other side of the world. I mean, of all the unexpected things to do!’
Beth could hear blood whooshing through her head, through her ears. She could see two Megs and two Charlies. Her mouth was dry. She tried to stand up, to go somewhere. She didn’t know where.
‘Bethy? Are you OK? Beth?’
The sides of the room started to close before her, like curtains. And then she blacked out.
When she came round, she was prone on the cream sofa, her yellow shoes in a neat pair on the floor, her velvet jacket draped over her body like a blanket. Meg sat by her side with a glass of water and an expression of concern. ‘My God, Beth, you scared the total shit out of me. Are you OK?’
Beth nodded and sat up slowly, feeling the blood starting to pump regularly once more around her body. She took the water from Meg’s hand and gulped it. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said.
‘What’s going on, Bethy?’
Beth shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘just jet lag, I suppose. And I should probably eat something.’
‘Here.’ Her sister presented her with a cereal bar. ‘Eat it,’ she demanded.
Beth peeled it and nibbled at the corner. She hadn’t eaten on the flight. Only the crispy snack things that came with her drinks. She wasn’t sure why. Something about the smell of it, that vinegary, gravy smell. But that wasn’t why she’d passed out. It wasn’t hunger, it was panic.
The baby sat on the floor, playing with the buckles of her shoes. Meg snatched them up and said, ‘No, no, Charlie Bear, dirty shoes. Dirty shoes. Yuck!’
Charlie stared at her curiously. Beth wanted to say something to him, say, ‘Yeah, I know, she’s nuts, right?’ Instead she shared a complicitous look with him and ate some more cereal bar. And then, just as she was putting herself back together, starting to relax even, she heard footsteps down the stairs and she looked at Meg for some kind of explanation and then there he was. Bill. Standing in the doorway with his phone in his hand and a confused expression on his face. Then he looked at Beth and said, ‘Well, hello, stranger!’
He looked exactly the same. The thick whorls of guinea-pig hair, the soft features, the expression of wry amusement as though the whole world were just one big silly joke that he was too clever to laugh at.
‘Bill,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here?’
He pretended to look around the house for something and then laughed, his growling laugh, and said, ‘I live here!’
She felt annoyed but forced a smile. ‘I thought you’d be at work.’
‘Working from home today,’ he replied and then he turned to Meg and said, ‘Any idea where the charger is for my phone?’
Meg sighed and said, ‘No, darling man. I have no idea.’ She raised her eyebrows conspiratorially at Beth. ‘And aren’t you going to say hello properly to Beth? Who you haven’t seen for almost a hundred years?’
Bill frowned and then smiled and said, ‘Sorry, of course, lovely to see you, Beth.’ He strode towards her, clasped her shoulders and kissed her firmly on both cheeks. ‘Sorry it has to be under such sad circumstances. But still. Always a treat. You look lovely.’
Beth waited for it, the lurch in the pit of her stomach, the longing. She waited and it did not come. She smiled and said, ‘Thank you, so do you.’
She saw him puff up, almost imperceptibly. ‘I don’t. But bless you. And I’d better get on. But I’ll see you later. In fact …’ He paused. ‘It’s my turn to collect the kids from school today. Would you like to come with me? Give you something to focus on to keep your mind off the jet lag?’
Feeling herself, knowing herself to be cured, she smiled and said, ‘Yes! Sure.’
‘So,’ said Bill, his hands on the handles of the buggy, Charlie wrapped inside a grey blanket, his feet poking out of the bottom, fast asleep. ‘It’s been a long time, Beth.’
The first of the autumn leaves littered the pavement. Beth kicked at them with the toes of her Mary-Janes and smiled. ‘Yes. Thank God.’
Bill laughed. ‘It wasn’t that bad, was it?’
Beth glared at him disbelievingly. ‘Bill,’ she said, ‘she’s my sister. You’re my brother-in-law. Of course it was that bad.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said softly.
‘No. I know. But still. It’s not something I can look at in those terms. It should never have happened. I was sick.’
‘Charming.’
‘No, but I was. I wasn’t normal. I mean, I’m still not normal. I’ve got a long way to go before I can contemplate normal. But back then … I don’t know what I was thinking.’ She shook her head.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Bill. ‘You’re making out you were a basket case. I can assure you that you weren’t. You were charming. You were adorable. You were—’
‘Sleeping with my sister’s partner.’ She shook her head again. ‘No, Bill. I don’t know how you’ve processed the thing, but I can assure you that I have processed it to the point of negation. Do you see? It can’t have happened. It mustn’t have happened. There can’t be fond memories or, or, rose-tinted nostalgia. It did not happen.’
Bill slowed his pace and looked at her. He looked as if he was going to say something. But then he sighed and turned back.
‘I can’t be that surgical about it, I’m afraid. It was a terrible mistake. I should be shot for the risk I put our relationship at, for what I could potentially have done to my family. And believe me, I’m glad it’s over, too. Really. But it was also amazing. Wasn’t it? At the beginning, you know. I mean, do you remember—’
‘Stop!’ Beth spun round and pushed her hands against Bill’s chest. ‘No.’
He smiled, put his own hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep my memories to myself.’
‘Good. Yes, please.’
He sighed theatrically and for a moment they continued in silence.
‘So,’ he said, after a moment, ‘anyone in your life at the moment?’
She shook her head.
‘What happened to the Aussie?’
‘Jason?’ she asked, slightly surprised to be using his name again after so long. ‘God, nothing, no, that lasted a nanosecond.’
‘But it got you out of your rut?’
‘It did. Yes. Just in the nick of time. And then there was Richard.’
‘Ah, yes, I think I remember Meg mentioning a Richard …’
‘Yes, he was British. Lovely, too lovely. Everything was lovely. I had a great job, I got my citizenship, nice flat, and then … I had a nervous breakdown.’
Bill raised a pale eyebrow.
‘I think, if I’m honest, I’d been on the cusp of a nervous breakdown since I was a teenager. Since Rhys died. I think I’d been hanging on to this precipice. Without even realising it. If I hadn’t met Jason, if he hadn’t been so bloody insistent, I’d probably never even have left home. Isn’t that terrifying? That I could have just let myself stay there, in that disgusting house, for ever? So, anyway, the whole “new me” thing in Sydney, it was all a total facade, none of it was real. And it was like the foundations beneath the dream house were made of sand and the whole thing collapsed. And that was me – six months in bed. Bye-bye, job. Bye-bye, Richard.’
‘He didn’t stick around?’
‘I didn’t want him to!’ she replied crossly. ‘He was part of the problem. He was a prop. On the stage set. That was my life.’ She shuddered. ‘I’m n
ot recovered,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t be here. I should have stayed at home.’
‘Home.’
‘Yes. Sydney. Home. But Mum insisted.’
‘Might do you good.’
Beth glared at him. He was an idiot. She had no idea, no idea what she’d been thinking for all those years. They were in front of the boys’ school. It was a red-brick Victorian block, five storeys high. It looked very urban and very imposing. Clusters of parents stood around the playground and the gates. Some of them were smoking. Beth would not send her children here. She would want them to go to a small village school, cosy and cartoonish, like the one she had been to.
‘Are you going?’ she asked, as Bill negotiated the buggy up the three steps into the playground.
‘To the funeral?’ he asked, nodding hello to a mother in a headscarf.
‘Yes.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t, really. Work is nuts at the moment. But, Vicky, I don’t know, I always had such a fond spot for her. We were quite close. In a way …’
‘Mmm,’ she said, non-commitally.
‘I’ll decide tomorrow.’
‘It’s going to be horrific,’ she said. ‘Those girls.’
He nodded. And for just a moment she saw something in his eyes, something that reminded her what she’d loved about him for all that time. They clouded over, for just a second, with a film of tears. He was a human after all. He pulled Charlie out of his buggy and held him tight.
‘I kicked him out,’ said Meg later that evening over a large glass of wine. ‘About three years ago.’
Molly was watching TV next door and the boys were in the back garden playing cricket with Bill. The baby was asleep. It was a watery evening, early dusk, the tired tail end of summer. Beth had a can of Coke on the counter in front of her and was idly watching Bill charging about in shorts, socks and trainers through the bi-fold glass doors, thinking what a fool he looked.