Clara was alone in Pieter’s house when she woke – all pretence of the B&B having been abandoned weeks before – the bed half empty and cold since he left early for the Institute and an important meeting with his director.
Now she sits in the kitchen, having showered and dressed, with her diary open on the table, staring into her cup of clear, bright herbal tea. For the first time, Clara resents the tea. She wants murky, milky tea. She wants to feel at home, safe, comforted. Instead, she feels alone, abandoned and scared.
Will Pieter think she did it on purpose? That she sabotaged his precautions somehow? Will he resent her for the rest of their lives, for giving him the one gift he never wanted? Will he dismiss her protestations outright, or will he try to believe her but, every now and then, succumb to doubt? Clara can’t bear the thought of it, of him hating her or thinking that she’s deceptive and untrue.
Finally, unable to stand all the worrying any more, Clara realises that she simply needs to know for certain. So, casting the tea aside and stumbling across the kitchen, nearly slipping on several stacks of paper, she walks along the hallway in a daze and opens the front door. Once on her bike, Clara pedals as fast as she can, her thighs aching as she stands, pushing faster and faster, hardly noticing the wind in her hair, not feeling a single spark of joy at the speed as she soars along the streets, finally screeching to a halt outside the pharmacy.
It’s not until she takes the pregnancy test to the counter that Clara realises she has no bag, no purse. It’s then that she starts to cry. Mercifully, miraculously, the pharmacist takes pity, nodding as Clara makes desperate promises to return with money later in the day, directing her to his own private toilet and telling her to take all the time she needs.
After a hundred ‘thank yous’ and an awkward parting, Clara closes the toilet door. Five minutes later she’s staring at the unmistakable pair of pink lines on the little white stick she grips between sweaty thumb and forefinger. Clara sits on the closed toilet seat and shakes. How can this have happened? How the hell can this have happened? The timing is awful and the circumstances so far from ideal as to be disastrous. She’s not ready. She wasn’t ready for a baby as part of a loving partnership in which the father would fully and happily participate. She’s certainly not ready for single motherhood. This is not something she can do alone. She cannot. She simply cannot.
And yet, even though Clara would give anything not to be in this particular situation right now, nor can she contemplate the alternative. And she knows, even as she stares shakily, shell-shocked, at the twin pink lines, that she will not terminate this pregnancy. Even though the cluster of cells rapidly expanding inside her is now surely smaller than a pea, still she cannot. Instead, in such unthinkable circumstances, she will do the unthinkable and return home and ask her mother for help.
Clara dreads the thought of raising a baby with her mother’s assistance. The constant criticisms, the undermining of her every impulse and instinct, the decrees that she’s ruined her life. It’ll be unbearable. But still, probably slightly less unbearable than trying to do it all alone.
The other thing Clara knows, now that the reality of the facts have set in, is that she cannot tell Pieter. She cannot risk that instead of (or as well as) being angry he’ll also be noble and insist on raising the baby with her. And, inevitably, as the screaming days and sleepless nights pass, he’ll grow to hate them both with a passion, perhaps the same degree of passion with which he once loved her. And, although Clara imagines she could possibly endure that force of hatred being directed at her, she cannot allow it to be directed at an innocent party, the little soul she is now responsible for protecting, emotionally and physically, for the next eighteen years or so.
Clara sighs. And then, in a flash of mercy, she thinks of her great-grandmother who raised a baby in truly unbearable circumstances. Marthe would have, no doubt, embraced and kissed the ground in gratitude for a snippy mother, had one been offered to her, in exchange for freedom and food and a life without fear.
It is the thought of Marthe that enables Clara to get up and leave the safety of the toilet, to emerge out into the real world to face what needs to be faced. After thanking the bemused pharmacist several more times, Clara steps out onto the street to find that she’d forgotten to lock her bike and it has been stolen.
It’s a long, heavy walk back to Pieter’s house. Every few metres, Clara wants to sit down on the cobblestones and cry. But she thinks of Marthe and keeps walking. It’s not until she opens his front door that the full force of him returns to her: his smell, his eyes, his kindness, the way he looks at her with such unadulterated adoration. And then, Clara finds a space on the floor, squeezing between two stacks of papers and lets herself sob, great big, heaving sobs, fat tears falling into her cupped hands, for all that she’s lost, for all that she wants and will now never have.
Clara allows herself half an hour of self-pity and then she stands, wipes her eyes and walks up the stairs to the bedroom. She has to leave before he gets home. She has to write him a note, a letter, a lie that will, ultimately in the long run, prevent more pain than it bestows. She packs her bag quickly. She doesn’t have many things. She’d only been intending to stay in Amsterdam for three days and has ended up staying six weeks. She gives herself an hour to write the letter. She doesn’t want to rush it. She wants to be as kind and gentle as she can. She leaves the envelope on the kitchen table, since it’s the first place he’ll come, then picks up her bag, walking slowly along the corridor for the last time. And shuts the door behind her.
Dearest Pieter,
I’m so sorry to do this so suddenly, you’ll think it the strangest thing and it is. I have to leave you. I have to go home. We can’t be together any more. Not because I don’t love you, I do, with all my heart, more deeply and completely than I ever thought it possible to love anyone.
But you don’t want children and I realise – rather suddenly and unexpectedly, I know – that I do. And, of course, I can’t ask you to change. I wouldn’t want to. It’s an impossible obstacle, a dreadful one, an immovable one. I should have waited for you and told you tonight, in person, I know. But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t bear it. For this I’m deeply sorry and I do hope you’ll forgive me. Though, if you don’t, for a good long while at least, I understand. Completely.
I will always think of you with infinite love and affection. And I will think of you every day, for the rest of my life. Of this, I am quite certain.
Ever Yours,
Clara
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Edward stands in his bedroom, before his empty wardrobe and amidst a sea of suits scattered across the floor.
‘I’ve got absolutely nothing to wear,’ he moans. ‘Nothing at all.’
Greer laughs. ‘You’ve got plenty to wear; you just don’t want to. You’re worse than a woman.’
‘Hey,’ Edward protests. ‘I’m not nearly as bad as you used to be.’
Greer smiles. ‘Well, yes, I’ve got to give you that, I suppose. Although I’m pretty good nowadays.’
Edward regards his wife’s transparent form, in her favourite tight moss-green silk shirt that perfectly matches her eyes and a long light-blue skirt that puffs out to settle just below her knees. She is still the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. He sighs.
‘True,’ he says, regaining himself. ‘But I’ll bet, if you were given a choice of attire every day, you’d be just as bad as I am now.’
‘No doubt.’ She looks down at her clothes. ‘I am grateful that you buried me in this. If I have to wear only this for the rest of – whenever – it was a good choice.’
‘Well, thank you,’ Edward says. ‘It wasn’t a difficult choice. It was your favourite.’
‘Was it? I hadn’t remembered.’
‘How much do you remember?’ Edward asks. ‘About us, I mean.’
‘Bits and pieces,’ Greer says. ‘It’s all quite hazy, what we did, what we said … Even now, since I came back, it’s still
rather like that. Time is so – vertical, is the best way I can describe it, so different from how humans live, horizontally, with all their memories of the past and thoughts about the future. It’s rather amazing, actually: not to feel regret or fear.’
‘Yeah, it sounds great,’ Edward says, ‘I look forward to it. But since I’m still a mere mortal, it doesn’t help me out with choosing a suit.’ He sighs. ‘It used to be that you could make me a bespoke suit and I’d be the envy of all my colleagues. I wish you still could.’
‘So do I,’ Greer says. ‘Not being able to touch anything can be a little frustrating from time to time.’
Edward smiles. ‘I thought you didn’t have human emotions like that?’
Greer shrugs. ‘I guess, every now and then, a blast from the past sneaks through.’
‘Well,’ Edward says, ‘I’m sorry about the frustration but it’s quite nice to know that you’re not entirely above us all.’
Greer laughs. ‘Nearly, but not quite.’
Silence falls between them.
‘I’m hoping,’ Greer says softly, ‘I’m hoping that one day, not yet, I know, but one day you might want to meet Finn … That we might all even have dinner together, with Tilly too.’
Edward regards her. ‘Seriously?’
Greer nods.
Edward takes a deep breath. He thinks again of hearing her laughter behind the kitchen door. He exhales.
‘I don’t know, G. Maybe, one day, when I’m … I don’t know, but not yet.’
‘Yeah, of course,’ Greer says. ‘I know it’s a big ask, but I just wanted to put it out there, let you mull on it.’
‘Okay, I’ll mull,’ Edward says. ‘I’ll mull for a good long while. But I’m still getting used to all this, okay? So don’t expect too much of me.’
Greer nods again.
‘I’m trying,’ he says. ‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Oh, sweetheart, I know you are,’ Greer says, floating towards him. Hovering above the sea of suits, she reaches out and holds her hand against his cheek. Edward closes his eyes, letting the heat and the calm sink in.
Slowly, he opens his eyes again.
‘Sometimes I can be all Zen about it,’ he says softly. ‘I’m just happy that you are, that you have what you want and I’m happy that I have you back. It’s a miracle and I’m deeply grateful for it. But, other times, I feel this anger rise up in me and I wish he was gone, that he’d never even arrived, and I had you all for myself again. Just like it was before.’
‘I understand, sweetheart. And I think you’re amazing.’ Greer gives her husband a little smile. ‘But I also think it’s time.’
Edward frowns. ‘For what?’
‘To get out there, to give yourself the gift of some aliveness, some happiness again.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I don’t.’
Greer gives him a coy look. ‘Sex.’
Edward laughs. ‘My wife is telling me to start dating, this is funny.’
‘Your daughter too.’
Edward sighs. ‘True.’
‘Hey, most husbands would love this,’ Greer says. ‘You get your family and you get carte blanche to go out and make sexy time with anyone else you want.’
Edward gives her a look. ‘Don’t joke, it’s not funny. This situation of ours is crazy.’
‘It’s a little unconventional, true,’ Greer admits. ‘But I believe we’re managing it pretty well, like Tilly said, better than many other “normal” families. Maybe that’s what creates so much misery for ordinary human beings – all the rules and expectations – no one can measure up but they keep trying, failing and hating themselves and each other for it.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Edward says. ‘But that still doesn’t mean I’m inviting your boyfriend over for dinner, okay?’
Greer smiles. ‘How about, he can come over when you have your girlfriend over for dinner too?’
‘Oh, because that wouldn’t be an absolutely insane setup,’ Edward says. Then he returns her smile. ‘I do love you so.’
Greer laughs. ‘I love you too.’
And then, before she realises what’s happening, Edward is kissing her. Their lips touch and blend and then, he steps forward to hold her but instead steps right inside her. For a few moments they are merged and then Edward steps out again.
He shakes his head, holding it, pressing his palms against his temples.
‘What was that?’ Greer asks.
‘I’m sorry,’ Edward says. ‘It was an accident, I didn’t mean, I didn’t – whatever it was, it wasn’t good. I’ve got the worst headache.’
‘I’m fine,’ Greer says, ‘just a little taken aback.’
‘Yeah, well, you’re lucky,’ Edward says, still holding his head. ‘I need pills.’
‘You need to get laid.’
Despite himself, Edward smiles.
‘With a real, live woman.’
‘Yeah, all right, okay, point taken.’ He looks up, giving her a mischievous grin. ‘Still, it was worth a shot, don’t you think? To see if we still had that old magic.’
Greer raises an eyebrow. ‘And what’s the verdict?’
Edward considers. ‘I need to get laid.’
They both laugh.
Chapter Thirty
Our Otto,
The Germans have withdrawn from the Ardennes. What a New Year’s gift! It seems, at last, that little progresses are building on each other, that a snowball is slowly starting to speed down the mountain, that the Allies are gathering momentum and weight and that a real victory is in sight. I am no longer hoping, imagining, that this will be very soon. The last great event like this was nearly three months ago now. How many people have been killed since? Too many to count. Too many to mourn. And yet, we fight on.
I have long wished that I could be on a battlefield. I know you’ll think I’m crazy for saying so, but I am certain that you wish the same. And why should I be any different from you? I am so passive here, helping no one and only, in fact, doing the opposite, every day putting in danger the lives of the two people who are fighting, in their own silent, secret way, to keep little Otto and me alive.
I think often of the day they took my parents. How I let them. How I hid in a wardrobe as my mother’s screams filled the house. I wish I hadn’t. Every night I wish this. I know you said I did the right thing, that I couldn’t have stopped it, that I would have died with them, that saving myself would at least give Mama and Papa some peace. But it feels wrong, not to fight, to let death and evil sweep through your land without holding up a hand to try and stop it. I would rip out a Nazi’s eyes before I let them take little Otto. I know they would take him anyway, I know it would do no good, really, but I would fight. I would fight with everything I have, with every breath, I would not give up before I was dead.
I’m sorry, I don’t think you’ll like to read such things. Perhaps motherhood has made me fierce. I have such anger and hate in me now, such force, that I sometimes have to scratch at my own arm until I bleed to keep from screaming out with rage, sometimes I have to dig my nails into my flesh to stop myself from abandoning little Otto and running out onto the streets and attacking as many soldiers as I can before they shoot me.
I think I shan’t read this letter to you. It’s probably for the best.
Ever Yours,
Marthe
Clara doesn’t get out of bed for forty-eight hours. And then, telling herself to pull it together for the sake of her neglected customers, finally gets dressed and goes to the shop. She has to put all her force behind the door to push it open, past the great tide of letters shoring it up. Surprised, Clara eyes the pile. Surely she can’t have had that many bills in six weeks? And yet, on closer examination, most of the envelopes seem to be handwritten. She bends down and opens one up. It’s short and written on paper – cream with flecks of gold – she recognises, paper she sells in the shop.
Dear Clara,
You probably don’t remember me. I came in a few months ago and you helped me to write a letter I was very scared to write – to my husband from whom I was estranged. I sent it. It changed my life, in so many amazing ways. I can’t thank you enough. I came to see you, several times, but you weren’t here. I hope everything is all right and that you come back soon.
Love,
Lucy Allsden xxx
Clara stares at the letter, perplexed. Then she opens two more letters at random and finds similar sentiments, if very different circumstances, contained within. It’s possible, even probable, she considers, that the rest of the letters do too. Clara smiles, quite overwhelmed. She rests her hand just below her belly.
‘Maybe this won’t be so hard after all,’ she says. ‘Maybe I won’t just have my mother to help.’ She addresses her non-existent bump. ‘Maybe we’ve got a few more potential friends here than I thought.’ Clara’s voice cracks and tears spring into her eyes.
‘Bloody hormones,’ she says, stepping over to the counter, suddenly eager to reacquaint herself with the pens she’s missed so much. She takes the long way round, doing a circuit of the shop, brushing her hand along her drawers of papers, over the letters embossing the walls. On seeing the pens in the little glass cases, the pens her grandfather made, Clara thinks again of Pieter. Not that she’s been thinking of much else since she left Amsterdam and, even when other thoughts rear, he never really disappears but just lingers in the background, ever ready to leap back into the spotlight when she’s not paying attention.
She will give him one, she decides. He will love it, treasure it. And he deserves a pen – her pen – much more than she. Perhaps, too, the gift would help him to think of her more fondly than he probably does right now. Quickly, before she has a chance to second-guess herself, Clara goes to the counter, opens the drawer and finds the pen her grandfather made for her, sitting in its black leather box, untouched. She lifts it out for a moment, a goodbye, an apology that she was never able to let the pen live its purpose, as her grandfather had so wished. Clara twists off the cap, kisses the pure-gold nib then returns the pen to the box. Then she goes to her hundred drawers to find the perfect writing paper to write to Pieter.
The Lost Art of Letter Writing Page 21