She stepped into an embrace with that bald tosser she’d been talking to. There was a moment of physical closeness – were they talking? Or kissing? Were things being decided? Phinn felt that pain again, the pain that had almost become a friend when he was precariously hanging on to his marriage. A pain that said ‘you aren’t good enough. She’s got someone else, someone who’s more of a man that you could be, no matter how many drugs you take’. Now she was walking along at the edge of the green where it had been filed down by many years of rising rivers and she seemed to be staring into the water.
She doesn’t exactly look like she’s covered in rosy glow, he thought. More like she’s thinking really hard. Oh, hell, why did I do it? She liked me before, I know she did, why in God’s name did I have to take those tablets and come over all Captain Caveman last night? The self-doubt was joined by self-loathing as he remembered Suze’s reaction the one time he’d tried to take control in bed. How she’d first been startled, then amused by his attempts at being commanding, how she’d started laughing and been unable to stop when he’d tried to throw her down onto the bed. How it had ended, with him pleasing her as she told him to, where to touch, when to stop, at which angle to enter. But I gave Molly no chance to say any of that.
So, which course of action now would make him look less pathetic? If he simply told the truth about the drugs, said that he’d been out of control? Or if he apologised, prostrated himself before her and swore it would never happen again? Which was worse, to be thought of as a junkie madman or a sexual control freak?
When he looked up again she was standing beside the fast-flowing river, dropping what looked like pebbles from a clenched fist. He saw them fall, the tight circles of their impact immediately swept away by the water, all trace of their passage gone, erased. Maybe I should do that. Just go. Vanish. But she knew he was working for the BBC, she’d probably write to the Radio Times about him. Tell them all how I forced her.
I need to talk to her. To tell her. To say, what? That I’m really the wimpy guy too scared to make a move? That who I was last night was an imposter?
Before he could chicken out completely, Phinn pulled his jeans on, found a jumper lying over the back of a bedside chair and, in the absence of his own shirt, dragged it over his head. Grabbing his soaked jacket, he shoved his feet into his still-wet boots and headed down the stairs in search of Molly.
* * *
For the first time in my life I wondered what things must have been like for my mother. Twenty-eight years ago, having struggled to make herself a life – she’d not got on with her father and I’d never met my grandparents – being accepted to teacher training college, she must have thought things were starting to go right for her at last. And then, one night with a stranger and her whole life had become something else.
I’d never asked about my father. All I knew was that he’d been a student, a passing ‘thing’, not even a relationship, just a drunken party, a walk home and a mistake. And then, there I was and she’d been forced to deal with another life.
I threw a handful of mud into the receiving river and it swallowed it down. Swirled a deeper brown for a moment and then nothing. I shivered. She could have had me adopted, but she hadn’t. Could have just left me in the hospital, walked out with the visitors, pretended she never had a baby, but she hadn’t. Why?
She did her best Tim had said. So maybe she had loved me? Just hadn’t known how to show it, what to do with this awkward, careless daughter that nature had handed her? And now she was dealing with something else she’d never asked for, a disease that no one deserved. One she thought she’d beaten once.
‘Molly.’ Phinn’s voice made me jump. He was wearing his jacket, still sodden, over one of my jumpers, so much too small that it left his midriff bare. ‘I’m so sorry about last night. It was … I was … complete aberration. Not me at all.’
I sighed. My head felt full to overflowing. Last night, the way he’d been … ‘No, it’s okay. It was fun.’
I’d said the wrong thing, I could see it in his face. ‘I don’t know why … look, I’m not like that, Molly. I’m really not. Look at me.’ And he stretched his arms wide. The sleeves of the tiny jumper bunched under his jacket, leaving a long expanse of wrist poking from the leather like an overgrown seedling jutting from the earth. His jeans were buttoned up wrong and his boots had that murky grey patina of seriously wet leather. ‘This is the real me. Not whoever I became last night. This.’
If half my brain hadn’t been full of memories, of new, disturbing thoughts about the way I’d been as a child, I would have smiled. He looked fantastic, even with his glasses at an Eric Morecambe angle on his nose and the ill-advised clothing choices. And last night, with those galactic eyes and that stellar body he’d ripped up every book I’d ever read about sex and rewritten them all. I’d yelled his name more times than I could remember, in more places than I could remember, and the recollection of the sheer abandonment made me blush a little.
‘There’s nothing wrong with this. But last night was … extraordinary, Phinn.’
A smile made the corner of his mouth twitch. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I took … never mind, all you need to know is … it was like possession, like some kind of altered state of being. I don’t do that, Molly. I can’t.’ A shrug. ‘Like I said. Wimp.’
‘You’re too hard on yourself.’
‘Maybe. But some of the things I did … it was wrong. You had no say, I took you …’ A head shake now. ‘I shouldn’t have.’
‘But what if I enjoyed it?’
‘Then that’s worse in a way. Because it’s not who I am.’
‘I think it could be, Phinn. You could be so much more if you stop thinking of yourself as worthless and pathetic. You’re gorgeous, I mean, look at you, all hair and leather and … and …’
‘And wet. Wearing, if I’m not mistaken, a pink mohair sweater that doesn’t even reach my navel.’
‘But why does that matter?’
‘Because it does!’ he shouted. ‘It matters to me! I’ve never done anything normal. I’ve never been normal! Just this freaky guy with a brain too big for him to handle, all thoughts and ideas and theories and nothing of any fucking use!’ Now his voice was an almost desperate shout. ‘I’m in here, somewhere, the me that I used to be. It’s like I’m looking out through my own eyes. I’m shut in here, Molly, sealed in with the way I once was, and last night showed me that I can’t …’ He dropped his voice and stood very still for a second. ‘I can’t,’ he said again, and the quiet tone of his voice held a horrible finality.
I felt my stomach drop. There was a horribly resigned look on his face, as though he’d always known this day was coming and had been preparing for it all his life.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ I said, very quietly. ‘I know you don’t believe it, but you are an amazing man, Doctor Baxter.’
He gave me a sad smile. ‘I just …’ and then his words were coming in a rush. ‘You deserve so much better than me, Molly. And this really isn’t about you, it’s about me. I saw you with whatsisname, Tim, and you looked so … and it was the same when I thought you and Link … doesn’t matter, still not about you, and I thought – there was guilt and jealousy and you don’t need a man who thinks like that. You don’t need someone like me. What I’m trying to say … it wasn’t me that you had sex with last night.’
I opened and closed my mouth feebly. ‘Identical twin?’ was all I could ask. His expression was a sort of tortured dismissal that made my heart ache as much as my lungs did.
‘Those tablets … Maybe we should look at the multiverse theory, yes, it’s the only answer; they let some alternative version of “me” break through for a while there and … and …’ He turned his back as though not looking at me made the words flow more easily. ‘Not … not me, Molly. I’m sorry, I can’t … I just don’t do that.’
‘Phinn,’ I tried to start but he whirled around again, hands wringing around one another and finally cupping his face.
In the odd half-light that twitched and danced over the river’s surface he almost seemed to flicker, as though several of those overlapping universes were trying to claim him at once and he was only partially existing in this one. ‘You really are great at over-dramatising everything, aren’t you?’ I said, finally.
‘Over-dramatising. Good way of putting it, yes. I guess … yeah, that’s me. But that’s …’ He waved a hand. ‘The universe. It’s drama on an unimaginable scale. Makes EastEnders look like … actually I’ve never watched EastEnders, but I’d imagine the universe makes it look like an anthill. A really tiny anthill. Microscopic, possibly.’
‘Well, that puts things in perspective.’
‘I have to go, Molly. If I can’t even bring myself to trust you, then I certainly can’t trust myself.’
I dropped my gaze and stared at my feet. Mud was squishing up around my boots, claiming me an inch at a time for the river. I wanted him so, so much. But not like this. Not scared and disbelieving, and whatever I said here, I knew it could never be enough. He doubted himself too much.
‘I know.’ I couldn’t look up, even though I could see from his reflection in the fast moving water, that he’d started to reach out a hand to touch me. ‘Just go, Phinn. Before I crack completely.’
No more words. Just a soft exhalation that sounded as if it wanted to be words but didn’t dare, and then his footsteps sucking through the sloppy mud away to the road.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Doctor Baxter? Doctor Baxter?’
The voice pulled him up from the laptop, although he kept his eyes on the screen, waiting for the download to finish. ‘Phinn,’ he said wearily for what felt like the fiftieth time that day. ‘Please.’
Through the crowded studio his assistant, Annie, was rushing towards him, her iPad held out like a jousting lance. He idly wondered if she was mounted on a camera dolly, but no, he could hear those perpetual heels she wore clattering against the hard lino of the floor
‘Did they get the message to you? About next season – we’re greenlit for next year, isn’t that great?’
He eyed her warily. Since he’d left Yorkshire, Annie had been something of a perpetual fixture at his side, rushing him from studio to interview to photo shoot, from hotel to dubbing session with the efficiency of a very well-trained sheepdog working to an inaudible whistle; she had something of the same sharp sense of purpose and single-minded determination to get him through the gate. Phinn thought he had something of the same attitude towards her as he would have to a real dog, wary friendliness.
‘That’s great,’ he echoed. ‘Yeah. Wonderful.’ He shut the laptop screen, not wanting her to see the picture of Howe End.
‘Research?’ Her eyes were bright, fierce. She liked him, he realised, was just trying to be pleasant, it wasn’t her fault he was so unsociable. That gave him a little tremor of memory of Molly and her gentleness, which he brushed away with a sudden twitch of an elbow.
‘Just filling in some time. Checking up on the estate agent’s progress,’ he added.
‘Oh, okay, cool.’ She rested a hand on his shoulder in an attitude of possession. He wished she wouldn’t do that either, but his attempts to move away from her touch led to her hand following him almost as much as her eyes did. ‘Well … that’s it you’re pretty much done here.’
Phinn felt the weight of being rootless settle on him again and the image of Molly’s eyes rose like a ballcock of guilt. ‘Great. I’ll get my stuff and …’ And what, Phinn? Where is left for you to go?
‘Would you like to come to my place?’ Her voice, answering his unspoken question, made him frown.
‘No, really, I should … I mean, now that I’m selling the place in Yorkshire, I should go round some London estate agents, look for somewhere here.’
He could feel the drag at his heart even at the thought of it. Howe End passing out of his family for the first time in generations, the horrible relentlessness of London living; being at the beck and call of the BBC with only the Bristol flat to escape to, no high purple hills between him and the horizon. But what else is there? Go back and watch her living a life you can never be a part of? Sitting at a distance cursing yourself for your cowardice and your weakness?
Annie laughed. ‘Oh, nothing like that! God, no, if I wanted that we’d have to go to a hotel!’ She stepped a little closer, the palm of her hand scraping his shoulder through his shirt. ‘No. My son, you see … he’s seven, and he’d very much like to meet you. I told him I’d ask you, but he wasn’t to get too excited because you’re very busy. But … I just thought …’
The first touch of vulnerability Phinn could remember her ever showing crept into her voice. ‘He’s seen some of the recordings of the series … not meant to, of course, but I had some childcare issues and he came into the studio with me when we were showing some rough-cuts to advertisers, and …’ She cleared her throat, lost the fast, breathless, self-justification. ‘He thinks you’re really great,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ Oh? I stand in front of a green screen, or in a hole somewhere, and talk about physics. That doesn’t make me ‘great’, it makes me ‘employed’.
‘Plus, you keep going on about how horrible hotel tea is. I can at least make you a cup of something you’ll drink. You know, you’re getting dangerously diva about tea.’
‘Well.’ Phinn did a whistle-stop mental check of the alternatives. Yorkshire? Nothing there to hurry back for, except some ritual humiliation and the thought of having to dash to the shop after dark so as not to risk running into Molly. And Link’s awful barrage of questions that would force him into weak excuses and another step down into self-hatred … or another hotel room. Another night with the TV turned up too loud, staring at tablets he was too afraid to swallow down.
‘What’s his name, your son?’
‘Lucas.’
‘Then tell Lucas we’re on our way.’ It’ll be nice to meet someone who thinks I’m great and hasn’t had a chance to experience the many and varied ways in which I am a total failure of genetic material. Plus, she’s trying to be friendly, to extend something to me that no one else can be bothered to. They all see me as a commodity. At least Annie sees me as a person. And she’s right, hotel tea is awful.
* * *
My mother’s flat was beautiful. Pale grey walls and white woodwork were the perfect counterpoint to an arrangement of pink carnations which splayed from a white vase like a controlled explosion. The furniture was soft and toning and immaculate. I sat on an upright chair and tucked my feet in, legs crossed at the ankles – it was the kind of room that brought out the Finishing School even in someone whose idea of being Finished was brushing her hair.
Across the table sat my mother. Thin wisps of newly greying hair showed underneath the scarf she wore, tastefully wound around her head, her face looked softer somehow, for the adornment.
‘Well,’ she said. It was practically the first thing she’d said at all, since I’d turned up at the door. ‘I suppose Tim told you, then.’
‘Should I make some tea?’ I stood up, nearly crippling myself because the deep pile carpet hadn’t allowed the chair to slide back far enough to clear the table, and I caught both thighs on its Louis Quinze underside.
My mother did something surprising then. She smiled. ‘No. I think we should have a talk, don’t you?’ There was still a teacherly tone to her voice, one that made the word ‘detention’ flash in front of my eyes, and made me want to apologise for whatever it was that I’d done, but I stopped myself. This is just how she is. She’s as lost in the situation as you are, it’s nothing personal.
‘Yes. I think we should.’ And my answer obviously surprised her. Maybe she’d been expecting tantrums, although having a vase of flowers nearby wouldn’t have been the smartest move if I had lost my temper. Maybe, given the way I’d behaved whilst growing up, I’d given her cause to expect overreaction. ‘Properly. I’m sorry, Mum.’
And she was surprised again. ‘I
should have thought it was I who must apologise. We never meant to hurt you, Molly, it was …’ A head shake, momentary doubt in a woman who’d never shown a second’s hesitation in my entire life. ‘It was wrong. And yet.’ She smiled a smile that showed me the woman that she must have been all along. Underneath. ‘Some things are just meant to be.’
And then we talked.
There was no breaking down in tears on either side, neither of us was ready for that. But there were explanations, of a sort.
‘I never wanted children,’ my mother said. ‘But that didn’t mean that I never wanted you.’ And that pretty well summed up her side of the conversation, she didn’t try to excuse my upbringing but she did make me understand how it was to find yourself living a life you’d never asked for and trying to make the best of it.
And, in return, I tried … I really tried, to tell her that I understood. Neither of us really had the words or the experience to say what we truly felt, but I no longer blamed her for my older-man fixations, my teenage rebellions, or tried to pin a deprived childhood on her. I’d had riding lessons for God’s sake, how had I ever thought I’d been deprived? I’d never gone hungry, never had to wear outgrown shoes … and if she’d been distant and always working, well, now I was starting to realise, that’s what she’d had to do to keep us both. She’d really had little more understanding of the situation than I had, barely more than a child herself when I’d arrived and thrown her life plan out of the window.
I left when Tim came home. We might have reached a stage of tentative forgiveness but that was going to take a while to get over. My mother and I weren’t exactly falling into one another’s arms, but I no longer felt as though she resented me and, hopefully, she now knew that my off the rails behaviour was over. Done with. She’d even managed to mutter, albeit between slightly gritted teeth, that she’d read the book that won the Anderson Award, and appreciated my part in it.
I looked back when I got to the car. Up at the window of the flat that Tim had bought her. She’d retired from teaching when the cancer had returned, and was now doing a little exam marking and tutoring from home. Her home, all tasteful and soft and very much Tim’s style. The key rattled in the Micra as I started the engine, on petrol I’d had to borrow the money from Caro for, and it was my turn to grit my teeth. And yet … even the chilly cavernousness that was Howe End felt more welcoming than all those squishy cushions and colour-coordinated furniture. Maybe she deserved it, maybe she and Tim deserved each other?
How I Wonder What You Are Page 23