by Adele Geras
‘Can I put them on now, Granny? It’s nearly time.’
‘In a minute. I’m going over to see to Bridie.’
She walked to the other side of the classroom where Megan was helping Bridie to get into her checked tea towel headdress. The lamb she was going to be holding on stage was lying on the floor of the classroom and Eva picked it up and gave it to Bridie.
‘Are you all right, Megan?’ she said.
‘Hmm,’ said Megan.
‘You look a bit tired.’
‘I didn’t sleep very well. But I’m okay. Can’t wait for the show, Bridie. Are you excited?’
Bridie nodded. ‘What happens if I make a mistake?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ Eva said. ‘Nothing will happen. But you won’t make any mistakes. Just hang on to your lamb and you’ll be fine. You remember the songs, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Bridie.
Eva dropped a kiss on top of Bridie’s head and said, ‘Then you’ll be all right, don’t worry. Megan and I are going to sit down near the front. We want a really good view. Good luck, darling.’
She and Megan walked over to Dee. ‘Good luck, Dee darling,’ said Eva.
‘Break a leg,’ said Megan. ‘That’s what the real actors say.’
‘That’s silly,’ Dee giggled. Eva had to blink because her granddaughter looked so beautiful. She left the cast to the attentions of various teachers, including Tom, who’d been busy sorting out a props problem and had only now come into the classroom.
‘Megan! Mrs Conway!’ he grinned. ‘We’re nearly ready. I wanted to thank you for the wonderful wings you made. They’re marvellous, truly.’
‘You can keep them for the school after this is over. I won’t want them back.’
‘That’s really kind of you but Dee’ll want them, won’t she?’
‘I’ll ask her. If she doesn’t, you can keep them.’
‘Thank you!’
Eva walked out of the classroom quickly, just in case Megan had something to say to Tom, but she’d only walked a couple of steps into the corridor when Megan caught up with her. They went into the hall together. The chairs were lined up in rows and the curtains were drawn on the stage and Eva could see Rowena and Conor already in their seats.
‘Was that awkward for you, with Tom?’ Eva asked.
‘No, he’s fine.’
‘You look happier than I’ve seen you looking for a long time, Megan. I’m so pleased.’
‘Well, it’s good to be back at Salix House and your news has made me really happy. I can’t wait to see Frobisher Court. Rowena loved it.’
‘You’ll see it very soon, I promise. I just wish the London house hadn’t fallen through.’
‘There they are,’ Megan said, pointing to Rowena and Conor. ‘Let’s go and sit down.’
*
I knew the Nativity Play by heart. Dee and Bridie had been singing the carols for weeks, and they’d made me sit and watch them rehearse at home. I’d been into school a few times and seen them going through their paces there and I thought that I knew how it would all be. But then the music started and Dee and the other angels came out to the front of the stage and began to sing and I felt tears coming to my eyes. The wings Eva had made were like nothing, surely, that had ever been seen on a primary school stage. Curls of ribbon: shiny, matte, glittery, textured, all sewn on to stiff white canvas made a kind of chain-mail effect that caught the light. Everyone gasped when Dee first came on. She looked wonderful, with her hair caught up in more ribbons and piled up high on her head. The cast did what they were meant to do. Bridie was the smallest shepherd and she and her lamb made everyone laugh and she remembered every word of every carol. I could hear her voice above everyone else’s, but then I suppose I was listening out for her especially.
I glanced at Rowena and Conor, both completely absorbed by the action on stage. Eva seemed to be concentrating too, and I felt suddenly elated. Luke wanted to see me again. That made me happy every time I thought about it. Eva had told me about her lunch with Rowena. She’d told her everything: every single thing she’d told me and a lot more besides and although she didn’t put it like that, I knew that the two of them were closer than they’d ever been and that Eva felt good about that. Her eyes had misted up when she was telling me about it. She said, ‘I could have loved my daughter properly much earlier, if I’d had more sense. If I’d tried to explain things to her. If I’d confessed long ago. But it’s happened now and that makes me happy. I don’t mind leaving Salix House now. Not at all. The last memories I’ll have of it will be good ones.’
I didn’t know what I felt about the fact that the sale of Salix House was now on hold. Part of me was relieved that I didn’t immediately have to write to the agent managing my flat and ask him to give notice to the tenants who were living in it. Also, although I loved Dee and Bridie, I wasn’t really a nanny and I didn’t want to do that for ever. I was longing to start writing articles again. I couldn’t wait to apply for jobs. Since Luke’s phone call, I’d felt not only more and more as if I wanted to do things, but also as if perhaps the things I wanted to do were a possibility: not entirely out of my reach. As I sat in the dark and listened to the voices of the children singing the familiar tunes, hope filled me: the kind of hope that had been missing from my life for a long time.
As the Kings went through their gift-giving routine, I became aware of someone opening and closing the hall door very quietly. Tom, probably, I thought. I glanced over at the door, but it was too dark to see properly.
I’d left my handbag in the car and my phone was in my jacket pocket. During the singing of ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ it vibrated silently against my side. A text. I took the phone out and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. I read the message.
Am here. See you when it’s over. Luke.
Luke. Luke was away. How could he be here? I turned round and saw a dark shape outlined against the back of the hall, near the door. I hardly noticed the rest of the play. I sang ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ with the rest when it ended, but all the time I was conscious of Luke standing there, waiting for me.
When the lights went on again in the hall as the curtain came down, I turned round at once and saw him leaving. I was on the end of a row. I said to Eva, ‘Sorry, Eva, I must dash out before you. I’ll see you later.’ She smiled at me and almost pushed me out of my seat. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Go quickly. Before everyone starts moving.’
When I stepped out into the corridor I could see him standing a little way away, at the entrance to an arched passageway that led to the playground. The corridor was quite dimly lit. My mouth was suddenly dry. I didn’t know what to say, what to do. Luke stepped away from the archway and came towards me. He was smiling. Oh God, I thought, why have I never noticed what a lovely smile he has?
‘Hello, Megan,’ he said.
‘I thought you were still in Germany.’
He shook his head. ‘I came back a bit early. Eva told me about this Nativity Play. I didn’t want to miss it.’
‘You have missed most of it.’
‘Well, I got here in time to catch you. That was the important thing.’
Just then, the parents started to come out of the hall. In a few minutes, we’d be completely surrounded and I’d have to go back to Salix House. As though he could read my mind, he said, ‘We can’t speak here, Megan. Come with me. Let’s go and get something to eat.’
‘But I can’t just leave. I’d have to let everyone know. I think they’re expecting me to bring the girls home.’
‘Don’t worry. Eva will tell the girls and the Fitzpatricks what’s happened. Where you’ve gone.’
‘Eva? What’s Eva got to do with this?’
He laughed. ‘Eva and I are in cahoots. I spoke to her earlier and explained things.’
‘Explained what?’ I noticed that as we’d been talking, he was walking along the corridor towards the exit doors and I seemed to be walking along with him.
‘That I’m go
ing to take you out to dinner. That I wanted to see you.’
He held his hand out to me and I took it. We walked along quiet corridors towards the entrance hall. What had Eva told Luke? In cahoots! What a silly expression that was! Didn’t I mind the fact that the two of them were arranging my life for me? This explained why she’d practically pushed me out of the hall. Dee and Bridie would be waiting backstage for me to tell them how wonderful they’d been, how well they’d done, but I seemed to want to keep hold of Luke’s hand. Eva would explain to them, he’d said. She’d tell them. What would she say?
*
‘Really? Truly? Did she say that?’ Dee had taken off her wings and hung them back on the rail ready for tomorrow’s performance.
‘She did. She said she’d loved it so much and you were both so good that she was going to come and see the whole thing again tomorrow.’ Eva was sure she could persuade Megan to do that. She’d be feeling guilty now, knowing that the girls were anxious for her approval. She smiled. Rowena was helping the girls pack up their things and Conor was talking to Tom. ‘You were both marvellous and it’s easily the best Nativity Play I’ve seen in my life and I’ve been to dozens, you know.’
‘Did you see the lamb? Everyone laughed when I dropped him,’ Bridie said. ‘I didn’t mean to drop him in the manger, but Mr Shoreley said I must do it again tomorrow because the audience liked it so much. They thought I was supposed to drop him. Aren’t they silly?’
‘I thought you meant to drop him too!’ Eva said. ‘And Mr Shoreley is right. It was very funny and you ought to do it again tomorrow.’
Bridie beamed with pleasure.
‘Are you ready to go, Ma?’ Rowena said. ‘I do think it’s a bit much of Megan to let us down like this. And how come you know anyway? Did she tell you why she was going off?’
‘I’ll tell you everything in the car. It’s lucky Conor’s got his car here as well. He can take the girls and we’ll go in yours.’
Rowena seemed to Eva to be concentrating extra hard on driving through the snow that had just started to fall but she said, ‘Okay, tell me about Megan now, please. I’m listening.’
‘Well,’ said Eva, ‘I’m not sure I know where to begin.’
Rowena sighed. ‘I noticed her leaving before the curtain calls. What’s up?’
‘She went to meet Luke Fielden. He came to school to find her.’
Rowena drew her breath in sharply but continued driving as carefully as before. Without taking her eyes off the road she said, ‘How did he know she’d be at school?’
‘I told him. We spoke on the phone. He rang the house and asked to speak to me.’
‘Good Lord, Ma, I didn’t know you were into matchmaking.’
Eva smiled. ‘I had no idea either. It’s just sort of crept up on everyone. When I looked back on certain conversations I’d had with Luke, it struck me that he might have been keen on her for a while. But I thought that she liked Tom till quite recently, so I didn’t say anything. And now I think it’s a rather good match, don’t you?’
‘I have no idea! Honestly, Ma. It’s not any of our business is it?’ She looked suddenly worried. ‘She’s not going to go off with him and leave the girls, is she? Do you think she’d do that?’
‘I have no idea what she’ll do but we don’t have to worry about that tonight, surely?’
*
The restaurant was almost empty when we got there. I was glad I’d dressed up a bit for the Nativity Play because even though it was in the country, you could see it was the kind of place which wouldn’t have been happy with jeans and trainers in the evening. Luke had booked a table in the corner.
‘I like this place,’ he said, ‘because the tables are nice and far apart. I hate it when the next table can hear what you’re saying.’
‘I’m sorry about the other day, Luke. When I ran out … I can explain.’
‘I was just worried about you. I thought it might have been something I said.’
‘No, it wasn’t that at all. Well, not entirely.’
The food came and we ate it and all through the starter and most of the first course, I talked. I told Luke everything, every single thing about me, apart from the story of my abortion, and that was because I’d never in my life sat opposite a person who listened to me so attentively. I forgot that I hardly knew him and what he got was my entire life story, or the bits of it that mattered to me. When I’d finished I said, ‘I’ve never done that before. You should have chipped in, told me to shut up. You listen too well.’
‘May I ask you something?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘It’s about Tom. Are you sure it’s over? I don’t want you to regret anything.’
‘I told you. I should never have started anything with Tom. I was on the rebound and he was just … there. It was wrong of me, but it’s okay. We’re friends now. He made me feel better when I was in a really awful state. But that’s in the past now.’
‘Fine,’ he said. Then he took my hand across the table and I felt as if I might faint. ‘I want to know everything about you.’
I shouldn’t have said what I said next, but it was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. ‘Why?’ I asked him and he answered. I knew he would. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d duck a question.
‘Because I liked you from the start.’
‘Really?’
‘Then when I saw you the second time, I couldn’t make a pass at someone who was showing me round a house.’ He was smiling. ‘I was very keen to buy Salix House and that was, I must confess, more on my mind that day than you were. Though …’ He stopped.
‘Though what?’
‘I fancied you the very first time I saw you. When you blocked my car, do you remember? I made up my mind to find out more about you.’
‘What did you find out?’
‘Not much. Eva told me you’d written an article about her so I looked that up online.’
‘That article wasn’t exactly as I wrote it. It was … well, badly edited. And I Googled you, you know.” I didn’t tell him that I’d only done this after his last phone call. ‘I didn’t find out much.’
‘I haven’t got much of an online presence. That’s deliberate.’
‘But I saw images of you with lots of lovely women at parties and things.’
He laughed. ‘Lots of women, right? Not the same woman over and over again. What do you make of that?’
‘Should I make something of it?’
‘It means I’m unattached. Those women you found me with were wives of my colleagues and friends at various corporate events. Balls, fundraisers, and so forth.’
‘Good,’ I said. I couldn’t help saying it. Luke had stopped holding my hand and I found myself wishing he hadn’t. We were eating dessert. I looked at him and began to wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Suddenly I wished we were out of this place and somewhere alone together. He raised his eyes from his plate and smiled at me.
‘Let’s go, shall we? I’ll get the bill.’
There was no one in the car park. It was quite dark, apart from what little light was spilling out of a tiny window at the back of the restaurant. When we reached his car, I went to the passenger side door and he came with me, to open it. He was standing behind me as I leaned down and then I felt him put his hands on my shoulders and turn me round gently.
‘Megan,’ he said, or I think he said. I don’t know if he said it, or I imagined it. I know he kissed me. Every kiss I’d ever had in my life before was erased from my mind. I don’t know how long we stood there. Ages. Seconds. Time had disappeared and I couldn’t stop trembling. My arms were around Luke’s neck and he leaned forward so that my back was pressed against the car. If I could have made myself dissolve into his body at that moment, I’d have done it. When we pulled apart, he traced the outline of my mouth with one finger and then started to kiss me again: softly this time, then moving on to my hair where he kept on whispering my name. I wanted him to never stop. In the
end, we got into the car. Luke glanced at me and put a hand out and touched me briefly.
‘I wish,’ he said, ‘that I didn’t have to go back to London tonight. Will you email me? Can we speak on the phone? I’m in meetings, but I’ll email. I never write emails but I want to write to you. Okay?’
‘Yes,’ I said. My voice sounded shaky, uncertain. I was reliving his kisses. I couldn’t take in what had just happened.
‘Next weekend,’ he said. ‘Can you be away overnight?’
I knew what he was asking and I nodded. I didn’t want to risk speaking. How was the time going to pass till I saw him again? Till next weekend? He said, ‘I don’t exactly know how I’m going to get through till then,’ and I laughed.
‘Why’s that funny?’
‘Because,’ I said, ‘I was thinking the exact same thing.’
We arrived at Salix House at ten o’clock. When I waved him goodbye from the porch as he drove away, I glanced at my watch again. Ten fifteen. How was it possible for one kiss to last fifteen minutes? It must have been more than one kiss, I thought, as I went upstairs. Thousands of separate kisses merging into one another. I lay down on the bed and the only thing that I could see was Luke. The imprint of his mouth was still there on my swollen lips.
20
Eva sat at her desk in the study looking at Megan who was sitting on the sofa, typing furiously on her laptop and smiling to herself.
‘Is that comfortable?’ Eva asked. ‘I know they call them laptops but I find it amazing that you can balance it like that on your knees.’
‘I don’t mind. I’m used to it.’ Megan looked up smiling.
‘You’re happy,’ Eva said. ‘You can’t hide it. It’s Luke, isn’t it?’
‘How do you know? I thought I hadn’t given anything away. The girls still think Tom and I are an item.’
‘And you’re not, of course. I knew that. I could see how you felt about Luke when you told me about his wife and child. What a tragedy!’ She looked solemn. ‘Also, you’re texting much more often than usual. I’ve noticed that your laptop is always with you and whenever the girls ask you what you’re doing, you say: I’m checking my emails.’