Your man … Had she really said that?
‘Edwin understood because he loved him too in a way. Mark and I splitting up was a shock to him, but he’s never taken sides. Never done that thing of encouraging me to think mean thoughts. Never dissed him, as Fergal would say.’
‘That’s amazing,’ I said. ‘Unusual.’
‘Unique in my experience.’ She sat down. ‘He’s put up with me and provided the proverbial shoulder. He gives good shoulder, not to mention clean hankie!’ She laughed again, this time with more feeling, and I joined in. ‘I can’t tell you how great it is that you’ve found each other, and how fucking envious it makes me!’
Still laughing, she burst into tears.
‘And now,’ she said through her sobs, ‘I shall butt out and let you get on with it …!’
Rachel hadn’t asked me not to tell Edwin about our conversation, but I didn’t, and was never going to. By the time she left that day we were friends, which meant I trusted her to do the same.
That was a strange, enchanted autumn. As the world turned towards the solstice Edwin and I both knew we were in one of those times-out-of-mind that exist in parenthesis to real, everyday life. We were heady with love, with discovery and the sweet exhilaration of sex, but nothing in our outward lives changed. Once it did, we would be public knowledge. While the door of our romantic hothouse remained tight shut, we flourished; beyond it lay the inevitable collision of our separate lives and worlds. He still knew almost nothing about the complexity of my relationship with my parents and, whatever he had jokingly said, I intuited that there was plenty he had yet to tell me about his life. Which, however cavalier he chose to be about it, was nearly twice as long as mine.
There are some people you can never fool. When I invited Elsa round for supper she was on to me before I’d said a thing.
‘You’re looking good,’ she remarked and then, when I glanced self-deprecatingly down at myself, ‘No, no – don’t give me that what-this-old-thing routine, I meant you, in yourself. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Let me guess. Life, as we must call him, is treating you well?’
‘He is, yes.’ I beamed and she put down her glass and flung her arms round me.
‘Hoo-bloody-ray! Oh, Flo – that’s honestly the best news I’ve had in I don’t know how long. So is it all loving and dreaming and unfettered bonking?’
‘For the moment!’ Laughter was coming so much more easily these days. ‘Please don’t tell anyone!’
‘You dropped it in a hole.’ She picked up her glass and raised it in my direction. We clinked. ‘I can imagine there are those out there who might shake their heads.’
‘Exactly. I rather dread going public.’
‘The important thing is what the two of you feel about each other. You’re not public property—’
‘I’m not, but Edwin is, rather.’
‘From all you’ve said he doesn’t sound like a man likely to be swayed by what other people think. And you certainly aren’t. Oh – what about the dark lady, whatsername …?’
‘Rachel. That’s all fine.’
‘No longer feeling unnecessarily threatened?’
My friend probably felt entitled to a bit more detail here, but I wasn’t ready to provide it.
‘Not at all.’
‘OK, OK, I shan’t be nosey.’ She chuckled. ‘Does he have scads of relations scattered about the place?’
‘No, thank heavens. He’s an only child, and his parents are dead.’
‘Flo – you’re free as birds!’
In theory, she was right. But there are no shackles as strong as those we put on ourselves, and I was beginning to worry about my parents – how they would react, and what Edwin would make of them. So much of my life to date had been conducted on what felt like shifting sands, I was scared of losing my footing and being in some way found out as a fraud. As far as I was concerned, the longer Edwin and I kept our relationship to ourselves, the better.
And then something happened which forced my hand.
Of course it had to have been on the loveliest day, with snow falling in the close, and a bottle of Madeira by the bed. We rarely indulged during the working day, but the softly twirling flakes and the thin covering of quiet had their effect, and we locked the doors and went upstairs without turning any lights on, or even drawing the curtains – let people think we were out. At four o’clock the floodlight in the close came on and from the bed we saw the silvery spires of the cathedral seem to leap heavenwards through the winter dusk. We lay spooned on our sides, with me in front, his thin, strong arms round me, his chin on my head, gazing in delight.
Edwin said, ‘That’s us, that is.’ And I knew what he meant.
Some hours later he said simply, as he had before, ‘Stay.’
I wanted to, but I didn’t. I can’t even remember why not. Something trivial about not having clean clothes for the morning, about wanting to keep up the charade (for entirely notional observers) of a purely working relationship – no, it can’t have been any of those things. I put it down even now to what Elsa would have called Forces at Work.
‘I’m not going to argue you with you,’ he said. ‘’But I want it minuted that I never wanted to turn you out in the cold and snow; I wanted you here with me, all snug and sexy and available.’
Anyway, I left. He dragged on his terrible old joggers and came down to the hall with me.
‘Want to use the back door?’
He was teasing, but that is what I wanted. As we passed through the kitchen he said: ‘Sure? I could make you my pasta puttanesca – just the thing for the occasion?’
I’d had it before, and I knew it was delicious. But I still said ‘No’. I was already turning the handle when he leaned over me and placed his hand flat on the door, in what was almost a re-run of Declaration Day.
‘You don’t need to worry, you know.’
‘I’m not worried,’ I said, but I was lying.
‘Nothing bad’s going to happen if we stay together. On the contrary.’
‘Look,’ I said, stretching up to kiss him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He tapped, and then took his hand away. ‘Have it your own way. Goodnight, me proud beauty.’
He held the door open so that I had some light as I walked down the narrow path at the side of the house. When I reached the front I turned to wave, but the door was shut. I felt crestfallen: there was no pleasing me.
In the lobby of my block I opened my mailbox and took out the usual handful. Proper letters were a rarity these days, but there was quite a sheaf of envelopes, mostly junk mail and possibly bills. Upstairs the light on the phone was winking and I pressed ‘Play’. It was Edwin, wishing me goodnight.
I ran the message twice, while I took my coat off and glanced through the mail. Two catalogues, a credit card statement, a phone bill and – well I never – a handwritten envelope. I binned the catalogue, made myself a mug of tea and sat down with the letter. I didn’t recognize the handwriting and I wasn’t expecting to hear from anyone. On first reading I scarcely registered a thing, in fact I thought the letter wasn’t meant for me at all. But there it was, Dear Flora … so I made myself start again.
Dear Flora,
I’ve done a lot of detective work, so I hope this reaches you. I was very angry with Nick for not letting us speak at Jessie’s funeral, but that wasn’t the time and place for a row so I didn’t say. I came because I thought you might be there, no other reason. I don’t know what Nick’s told you, but even though it’s a bit late I’ve been thinking I want to set the record straight before it’s too late. Your mother was a hard, sick woman. Long before she went off the rails she wasn’t fit to bring up a child. I don’t mind saying I ran away from her, and I wasn’t sorry when I heard Nick did too. She hurt people and she didn’t care, she didn’t know how to. But I don’t let that be an excuse. She’d be off out doing whatever she liked, she used to leave Nick on his own, she’d have left both of y
ou kids in the end anyway …
I lowered the letter and closed my eyes. I was icy cold and my head swam as it did when I’d had too much to drink.
You kids …
The words were an echo, of something I couldn’t remember. With an effort, I returned to the letter.
… and not give you a thought. I’m sorry I wasn’t around, Flora, but I had to get out. I knew Nick would do something, he was a good lad then. I don’t know how much you know. You’ll have to ask him, I’m out of order writing this letter. It was seeing you at the funeral.
There’s no address on here so there’s no need to write back. I made a new life up north and this is ancient history, but it was seeing you like that. I hope you’re all right. Ask Nick if you want to know any more. I’m sorry. With love …
He’d signed it with one word. I just made it to the bathroom before throwing up in the basin.
I told Edwin that I wasn’t well and needed a couple of days off. He was loving and sympathetic but he didn’t press me, and I was glad of that. Any probing and I’d have buckled. I rang my parents’ number and they were out, so I left a message saying I was coming. This time I didn’t ask, but told them.
After reading the letter I hadn’t been able to sleep. An hour into the drive down I had to pull over and close my eyes, and instantly fell into something like a coma. When a little later someone tapped on the window I woke in a blast of shock, with no idea of the time or place. The tapper was an elderly woman wearing a woolly hat and a concerned expression; she must have been even more concerned by my wild-eyed reaction.
‘So sorry!’ she mouthed, and stepped back warily.
I wound the window down. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I was going to ask the same of you!’ She laughed nervously. She was posh, a good citizen.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Good, only you’re parked rather—’ she waggled a hand – ‘you know? A lorry nearly took your wing off, and from his expression I got the distinct impression he considered it your fault.’
‘Well I’m going now.’
‘Are you sure? You only need to …’ I started the engine. ‘Drive very safely, won’t you!’
She was wasting her breath. I drove fast and without much care. If anything had happened, ‘reckless driving’ would have been cited.
My devastation of the night before had been replaced by white-hot rage. I had no plan except to throw everything – the letter, its contents, its implications, the lies and secrecy – at Nico, and let my fury light a fire under the whole lot. Let him feel the heat – let him struggle, and burn and suffer. I was going to stand there and watch, and wait until I had satisfaction.
That mood didn’t last either. By the time I arrived outside the house it was late afternoon and I was almost too exhausted to climb out of the car, and sat there in the gathering dark listening to the small clicks and creaks of the bodywork cooling. When I did get out I didn’t bother taking my bag, but picked up the letter from the passenger seat where it had lain the whole way down, slammed the car door and walked stiffly and unsteadily up the path. My father was on the phone in the living room. I saw his face – pale and preoccupied, then more focused as he spotted me, almost scared. I thought: He has no idea how much he has to be scared about.
I let myself in just as he came into the hall and for a second we both stood still, as if waiting for the other to speak. My head was so full of what I had to say that I half-wondered if he already knew. Then suddenly his arms were tightly round me, my own arms were pinioned, and he was talking, in a rush, into my shoulder.
‘Floss! God, it’s good to see you, I can’t believe you showed up … thank you!’
I was rigid and unresponsive in his embrace, but he didn’t seem to notice that, or when I didn’t answer. He kissed my cheek fiercely, and took my arm.
‘Come on in, have you got a bag? Are you staying? I can’t tell you how great this is …’
I followed him into the living room. His agitation had moved the initiative from me to him; I had no idea what the cause of it was. I was momentarily wrong-footed. The room was stuffy and untidy, there were papers on the floor and I noticed a smeary glass and a half-full ashtray on the side table by the sofa.
‘Bit of a mess, sorry …’ He began to pick things up in a desultory, distracted way, but then stopped. ‘The hell with it. Park yourself, Floss, you’re a sight for sore eyes. What brings you down here anyway, telepathy or something?’
I said, ‘There’s something I want to talk about,’ but he seemed not to hear.
‘Zinny’s not well, she’s in hospital right now as a matter of fact while they fire sonic rays at her or something. They tell me they’re on top of it, caught early and so on, but I can’t help worrying. She’s always seemed so bloody indestructible, I’ve probably taken her for granted. Got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and all that … I’m pretty good at the former and completely crap it turns out at the latter … fuck it … fuck!’
He looked about to cry. The prospect horrified me and (disgusting but true) flooded me with poisonous resentment. Because, yet again I found myself in the middle of the Zinny and Nico show. I had come all this way to say my once-and-for-all piece and even now they had spiked my guns. I had never, ever, been top of the list, and I still wasn’t, even though my life had been turned inside out.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. Inadequate words in a small, dull voice.
He’d collected himself, and was lighting a cigarette. ‘She’ll probably be OK.’
‘How long is she in for?’
‘Only twenty-four hours. But she’ll be in and out, you know … They won’t be able to zap it in one go.’
‘What about – how is she in herself?’
‘Bloody fantastic, as always. Rising above it, putting her war paint on. I’m the one that’s a mess.’ He picked up the empty glass, turned it round in his hand and put it down again. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like a drink.’
I shook my head. ‘Not my time of day.’
‘I just meant under the circumstances …’
‘No thanks.’
He got up, asked, ‘Mind if I do?’ and when I didn’t answer, went to the side and splashed in an unconsidered measure. When he’d sat down again I felt the beam of his attention on me for the first time.
‘Poor Floss – I do apologize. You come all this way to see us and have a few home comforts and walk bang into the middle of all this.’
‘You could have told me before.’
‘We could, but Zinny was agin it. She took the view that with a bit of luck they could sort her out without you ever having to know.’
‘Why would that be a good thing?’
‘We thought …’
‘Thought what? Why would I not want to know?’
‘I accept we may have got that wrong.’
‘You did.’
‘Floss …’
I said cruelly, ‘I’m really sorry about Zinny, but since you didn’t think it necessary to tell me, I’m going to take your advice and not worry.’
‘I don’t want you to—’
‘No! I want to show you something.’
Now I saw the anxiety creeping behind his eyes. ‘OK.’ He tried for a teasing note: ‘I think.’
I got up and went to sit next to him, the letter in my hand. ‘I got this yesterday. Read it.’
He put down his glass and balanced the half-smoked cigarette on the lip of the ashtray, before taking the piece of paper. His hand shook.
‘Terrible writing.’
‘But surprisingly easy to read.’
I couldn’t bear to look at his face as he read. Instead I sat there with folded arms, staring at my shoes and following the now-familiar words in my mind’s eye. Right down to the very last one, that two syllable body-blow.
Dadder.
I heard his intake of breath, and from the corner of my eye I saw him place the letter carefully on the sofa between us and withd
raw his hand, as though handling a venomous spider. The silence between us vibrated with shock.
‘Well?’
The silence stretched, agonizingly. His breathing became heavy and uneven. I still couldn’t look at him, not properly. My hands curled into fists; I would have curled my whole body into a fist if I could. He got up and moved to the window with his back to me. I heard the rustle of the cigarette packet and the staccato rasp as he took four stabs at lighting a match.
‘Oh God …’ He drew on the cigarette and when his voice broke he turned it into a cough. ‘We tried so hard not to let this happen.’
‘Well it has,’ I said. ‘So you had better explain.’
‘All right,’ said this man I no longer knew. ‘I will.’
SEVENTEEN
1969: Nico
The headmistress was a pleasant, principled woman well known for her liberal views and steely competence. Fifteen years later she would become a Labour councillor regularly referred to as a ‘firebrand’. For now Jacqueline Drew was working thirteen-hour days in an attempt to pull this deadbeat secondary school in the god-forsaken flatlands of east Essex up by its bootstraps. She had even initiated a sixth form and A Levels for the more able students (Jackie didn’t like the term ‘pupil’). Staff, governors and those parents sufficiently interested accounted her a success, though being a sensible believer in not counting unhatched chickens, she would never have said this of herself.
So it was doubly infuriating when a clever boy, Nick Sanders, announced he was leaving halfway through his A Level course for no good reason that anyone could see. She had summoned him to her office with the intention of finding out more about the background to his decision, and in the hope of dissuading him. With regard to the first, she had a pretty fair idea: chaos at home, no support, no interest, perhaps even pressure of an unpleasant kind. To the second, she wasn’t optimistic. In Nicholas’s six years at the school she had met the father only a handful of times, and just twice with the mother. The father was voluble with a barking laugh, not without charm, but a bundle of nervous mannerisms and with the dark complexion of a drinker. The mother was a strange, big woman who stared. Jackie didn’t like either of them, but of the two she preferred the father, with whom one could at least have an exchange even if she didn’t believe a word he said. The mother … well, Jackie wasn’t easily scared, but that woman scared her. She might actually not be well, but it wasn’t her place to voice an opinion on that. She felt sorry for Nicholas, but duty-bound, in his own interests, to motivate him to get his A Levels. And altruism aside, it was important for the school’s standing to have more successful sixth-form students and perhaps (Jackie dreamed of this) university entrants.
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