At some point in the proceedings, I turned to find she was not there and I felt cold without her. She had wandered into the deserted beer garden, a windswept and rather un-welcoming patch of overgrown grass inhabited by a giant plastic tree which wore a hideous grin. There I found her propelling herself slowly back and forth on a child's swing, her lips pressed against the chain, her black clothing appearing ever more startling against the gaudy red and yellow of the seat and frame.
"I saw him, you know," I said.
She didn't look up at first, but kept on rocking herself as if for comfort. "Did you?"
"It was in the Dales."
She brightened a little. "He loved the Dales."
"He was heading up Goredale. He had that look in his eye. You know?"
"I didn't expect him to leave us so soon, Tom."
"Me neither. I'd've given odds on him outlasting most of those crabby bastards in there."
"Tom!"
"Well, they make me sick."
"They're still your family."
"Come on. I'll take you home."
"But the others."
"They haven't said a genuine word to us all morning. They'll not miss us now."
"That's because of me. You know how they feel about me. You go back in. They'll be fine when I've gone. I'll walk. It's not far."
I sensed she wanted to go, to go alone, so I let her and I watched as she strode off down the pavement, her dark coat filling out in the breeze. My father had seen in her someone special, someone who had suffered more than I could imagine. I didn't pretend to understand everything that had been between them, but I felt he'd given her more stability, more normality than she'd ever known - given her a place to be whoever she was.
It was later, having finally said my goodbyes to everyone and as I was returning to the car that Eric caught me up. I'd been avoiding his eye all day, afraid of him, of what might be on his mind. "Tom," he said pressing a card into my hand. "You'll be needing a good solicitor. Give this chap a ring."
"Thanks. But that's more or less all sorted now - me and Annie,… "
"Not your divorce, Tom."
"Then what?"
"Your father's estate."
"His estate?" I was amused. It sounded so grand, when all it amounted to was an old terraced house, and a five year old motor.
"He wasn't badly off, you know… ."
"Sure, I know. But, well, to be honest Eleanor's used this bloke called Hawksworth before. He sorted out my divorce stuff. He seems okay - we'll probably talk to him."
"You don't want to involve Eleanor," he said quickly.
Slowly, it began to dawn and I willed him with all my heart to say no more, but just to go away and leave me alone.
He pressed on. "Did Jack have a will?"
"I really don't know. It doesn't matter. Eleanor's his wife. It's all hers now, naturally."
He looked away. "Are you sure that's what he would have wanted."
"Of course."
"But what about you? You need something at the back of you right now. How long before you're out of work? Where are you going to live? What are you going to do, Tom?"
"Look, I suggest we drop this."
"You've got to think of yourself."
"I'll be fine. I'll probably end up working in France."
"Is that certain?"
It was the first I'd heard of it to be honest, but it seemed like a good idea now, if only to divert his attention. "More or less. If I want to."
He was not convinced. "Promise me, you'll ring this chap."
I shook my head, a little dazed, and deeply saddened that we were even discussing it. There was nothing selfish about his motives. He wasn't after a cut or anything like that. He was thinking of me, of family and it offended him, the idea of family money going to someone he'd never accept as family in a million years. I offered him my hand, trying to force a parting. "Cheers Uncle. But I'll be okay. There's a buyer interested in me and Annie's house. Once that goes through, I'll be fine for money."
"That's all debt," he said. "You'll be lucky if either of you get anything out of that."
"Look, I'll call you. Okay?"
He was right, though. All our married lives, Annie and I had paid interest on a mortgage, paid all manner of bills, bought two cars a every four or five years, and generally pumped as much money back into the system as we'd earned. Taking stock of my assets now, they amounted to surprisingly little and I couldn't help feeling as if the life we'd led had amounted to nothing more than an elaborate con. One had to survive, make it through to the higher levels of the game, stay married, keep going long enough to pay off the house. I saw that now, understood it at last but it was too late for us. Financially speaking, I was stuffed.
I was angry when I arrived back in Arkwright Street, angry with myself for not having made a better job of managing my life, angry with my pompous uncle for reminding me that for all my years of earnest application, I had very little to show for it. And I think because of him, it felt strange then to be knocking on the door of my father's house to have Eleanor answer and let me in.
"Don't you have your key?" she asked.
I had it, but I'd not wanted to use it. This was her place now, her space, and though every room had once thundered to the sound of my infant footsteps, it felt as if it was no longer a place I could casually return to.
"I left it upstairs," I said.
The house seemed so quiet. I glanced at the hall table, like I'd done a million times before, all through my life, looking for a message, a letter, something that was going to guide me through to the next stage. I don't know what I was expecting now. Eleanor leaned upon it heavily and blew her nose. She'd been crying, the red rings around her eyes standing out against her white cheeks.
"How were they?" she asked.
"Fine."
"Tom?"
"No, really. They were fine."
She sighed. "I've just made coffee. Has Rachel not rung yet?"
Rachel! It was over a week since I'd seen her, but by now it seemed so long ago I felt I might easily have dreamed the whole thing. "I wasn't really expecting her to," I said. "I think she was giving me the brush off. I should be pleased. It was what I'd wanted."
"I thought she'd been called into meeting."
"That's what she said, but I don't know - anyway now's not the time to be thinking about it."
"So she's a liar as well as a tart?"
"You know what I mean. I must have come across as a bit of a prat, you know? A bit intense - I'd've done the same myself."
"No you wouldn't. You're far too polite."
"But that's what polite people do, Eleanor. They don't say 'in your dreams' or 'get lost, loser'. They say 'maybe', then make an excuse and disappear. I do it all the time."
She forced a smile: "I'll have to remember that," she said. "So, anyway: you think the way ahead is clear for you, now? It's all resolved?"
"Maybe."
She looked surprised. "You've never said anything. What's your plan?"
"I'm going to put my name down for an interview with the Paris office. Stavros thinks I have a good chance."
She didn't look so pleased as I'd thought she might. "Paris? It's a bit sudden, isn't it? When did you decide all of this?"
"Just now actually, but it seems the best way. And, knowing me, if I think about it too much, I'll probably never do it." I said it again, as if to convince myself: "Yes, it's definitely the best thing."
She turned away and drifted into the kitchen, looking troubled. I followed her and we both sank down at the table.
"When will you go?" she asked.
"They're interviewing next week. The job will start in the new year, if I get it."
"Will you be selling the house? I'd hoped to stay on a while."
"No,.. hold on,… Eleanor, this place is yours. Everything that was my father's is yours."
She seemed confused. "Is it?" She rose then and turned her back.
"You know it is."<
br />
"But,… I might not want to live here."
"Okay. I can understand that. But I'd give it a while, just until you get over the shock. Then sell it and move somewhere else if you want to."
She ran the tap and began banging pots in the sink. "And you?" she said with uncharacteristic briskness. "What about you? I don't know if it's right any more, you being here. I mean what if I want to get married again? I'm still young, I might you know? And what's he going to think with you hanging around all the time?"
"Who?"
"My boyfriend."
"You have a boyfriend?"
She turned impatiently and there was a fire in her eyes, but at the same time they were unfocussed, betraying a desperate confusion.
"No, you idiot. I was just supposing."
All of this was crazy. Her not wanting to stay, me suddenly wanting to quit the country - it was the shock. It was not the right time to be thinking about anything at all. I knew all of this, but even so her impatience stung, and it was a moment before I could gather myself.
"I'll be in France," I said. "So it won't matter. My being here was only temporary anyway. I'll get a place over there."
"Damn it!" she cursed.
"What? "
"We're out of bread. I'd better get some."
"Eh? No. Forget the bread. Sit down. I'll go for some later."
She fixed me, wild eyed and furious, riveting me to the chair with her look. "I SAID, I'LL GO!"
She didn't mean any of this. She was upset, screaming at me, railing against the injustice of it all, but I felt it knotting me up inside. I couldn't bear to be shouted at by Eleanor. In a moment she was gone. I heard the door slam, I heard the squeal of the gate. But she'd left her coat and her bag and I knew she hadn't gone for a loaf of bread.
Ours was a peculiar relationship at the best of times but even more-so now, and there were things we needed to understand, things which needed stating for the sake of clarity. I think that's what she'd been driving at, but I was too dense to see it at the time.
She returned an hour later. It was raining by now and she was soaked, her long hair hanging in rat tails, and her black mascara having run to form a Halloween mask, a strange painting - the smear of her life's tears. She looked in on me for moment, long enough to say quietly that she was sorry. Then she trotted upstairs to run a bath. She was embarrassed, but calm and I couldn't say if that was good or not.
Chapter 25
Eleanor came down from her bath, wearing a white towelling robe. She’d stripped off her usual black paint and it came as a shock to see her like that, not so Gothic,… more like a pasty model from a T.V. advert for shampoo.
"You look much better," I said.
"I feel awful. I'm sorry I shouted. It wasn't you I was angry with."
"I know. Things are difficult. But we're okay, aren't we? You're my best friend, Eleanor."
She pressed my hand, then sat down by the fire. "I wouldn't wish a friend like me on anyone," she said.
"You're too hard on yourself."
"Did Eric get around to speaking his mind when I wasn't there?"
"You knew about that?"
"He's been wearing it like a hair shirt all week."
"Well, he mentioned a few things about the house and such. I reckon we should see your solicitor right away."
"As bad as that is it? "
"There's nothing you need worry about. "
She gave a wry smile, then began to comb out her hair. "Perhaps it's better if I just move on," she said. "You know, move out. I know what Eric and the rest of them are thinking. Who gets the house, the car, the money? They can cause a lot of trouble, a lot of upset and I don't want that. It simply isn't worth it, Tom."
"Eleanor, the only person who can gain anything here is me. And I'm not going to go against what Dad would have wanted. We'll see Hawksworth together."
"I'd rather just melt away quietly, if it's all the same."
"But I don't want you to melt away. You can't."
"Give me a reason why I shouldn't. "
"You're,… family."
"No. I'm just some sad creature you father brought in out of the rain and married out of pity."
"That's rubbish. You know it is. He was a mess before you came. The house was falling apart. You held him together."
"He just needed someone," she said. "Of course it helped that I could cook and sew - he was hopeless with all that."
"Like me then."
"Oh, you're not so bad - at least you know where the kitchen is. It sounds as if he had the better end of the bargain doesn't it? I mean, what did I get? A roof, a bed? But believe me, Tom, he gave me more than I've ever had before. He gave me space to live, space to simply be."
"Then why throw everything away you've built here? He wouldn't have wanted that. And I don't want it either."
"Does it make any difference to you what I do or where I go? You'll be in France. We'd never see each other."
"We could write. "
She thought for a while, her eyebrows knitted together with intense contemplation of something unpleasant. "Are you really set on going? I don't think you should go, Tom. Really I don't. It feels wrong."
"You're thinking I can't survive over there?"
"It worries to me that there'd be no one looking after you."
"I'll find myself a nice French lady."
But who would be looking after Eleanor, I thought? There was always Phil, but the last we'd heard of him he was in the South of Ireland with his van - something to do with cheap diesel. It could only be a matter time before the authorities caught up with him and he could hardly take care of Eleanor from behind the bars of a prison cell.
Which left me.
"We still need bread," I reminded her. "And some other stuff by the looks of it. I'd better drive over to Tescos and stock up for the week."
"Let me dry my hair," she said. "I'll come with you."
We took my father's Rover. It had more room than the Midget for a week's shopping, and as I drove I had the eerie sensation of being a married man once more, doing the things that married people do. Eleanor had dressed in her familiar style. She had repainted her lips and lined her eyes with precise strokes of charcoal, and of course underneath the dress would be underwear of the blackest black. So many layers of mourning, layer upon layer, all the way down to a heart she kept warm for the benefit of those who loved her, but otherwise seemed barely capable of keeping herself alive.
People looked as we walked through the doors of the supermarket, me with the trolley, Eleanor gaunt and tissue thin at my side. Even the suited greeter's benign smile sagged at her passing. I had been used to people gazing at Annie, at least the men, helplessly drawn by her blonde hair and her good looks. Eleanor was beautiful too, but there was an air of something tragic about her, like a shredded rose. That's what struck you, the conflict of a beauty spoiled. It could provoke sympathy, or it could be repulsive.
We were lost in the maze of aisles, impossibly caught up in a crush of people and clattering trolleys when suddenly there came a voice calling my name. Then a trolley was pushed in front of mine, bringing me to a jarring halt. "Tom. Hi!"
For a moment I regarded the stranger before me, this bubbly looking woman, her looks, her voice familiar from another place. Yes, I had slept with this woman. I had made love to her, a woman whose hair I had ruffled and on whose soft neck I had left the bites of an unexpectedly urgent passion. Her name? Yes… Her name?… God forgive me.
"Carol. Hi."
She was wearing a short skirt that showed off her tanned legs. There was an expensive leather jacket and her hair was newly permed, hanging in ringlets. She appeared exotic,… stunning,…
"What have you been up to?" she was saying, but her tone translated this as: why haven’t you called?
It was a measure of Eleanor's detachment that it took a moment for Carol to register we were actually together. She was embarrassed, then horrified as she jumped to the wrong conclusion. "
Is it… Annie?"
"No, no.This is Eleanor," I said, hastening to reassure her. Carol repeated the name, her eyes still seeking clarification. "Eleanor?"
"Yes. Eleanor's my - erm… "
"Mother," chipped in Eleanor. "I'm sorry," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm not really with it today. We've spoken on the telephone."
"Of course, Eleanor. But I imagined you being… a bit older."
Eleanor smiled and took command of the trolley. "It's a long story," she said. "Why don't you two go and have a coffee. I'll see you later, Tom."
She took over the trolley, drifted off and turned a corner, casting me a brief glance before she disappeared. There was something strange in it. Something I did not understand.
"She’s a bit upset," I said. "We all are,… my Dad died."
"Oh, Tom,… I’m so sorry. Are you all right? "
Was I? Yes,… I supposed so. "Look,… I’m sorry I’ve not been in touch."
I suspected this might not be true because I was wary now of pursuing things, and anxious in her company in case she invited me round - though she looked so sweet and lovely, and I knew she could make me feel good. I'm not sure what was going through Carol's mind, if she could read me or not. She smiled. "I understand," she said. "Look, I’d better go - all my frozen stuff’s thawing out, but call me. Okay?"
"I will,… and,… "
"Hmn?"
"I don’t know - I just,… " I felt unworthy, unable to let her go, yet unable to give any hint that I really wanted to be with her either.
"Call me," she said.
"I will,… soon."
The next thing I remember is sitting in the restuarant with Eleanor, sharing the coffee I might have been sharing with Carol. Eleanor sat a while, lost in the swirls of her cup as she stirred it slowly.
"Carol was very,… . sensual," she concluded eventually. "Good looking. Pretty face,… not beautiful but very,… sensual. Some women are like that aren't they? It's in the way they move, the way they hold themselves, rather than their physical appearance. You can get a woman who's physically very attractive, yet completely sexless." She smiled. "I can see why you were interested in her. And you say she’s your age? She’s lead a clean life, for sure. I can see you together,… she’d be good for you."
The Road From Langholm Avenue Page 18