After You'd Gone

by Maggie O'Farrell

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not? What do you mean, “why not?” I hardly know you, apart from anything else. You must be mad if you think I’m just going to drop everything and jump on a train for a dirty weekend with you.’

  ‘Who said it’s going to be dirty?’

  ‘There’s no point in even discussing it. I’ve got plans for the weekend anyway.’

  ‘Cancel them.’

  ‘No way. The whole thing’s completely out of the question.’

  ‘You must come. Please. We need to talk about things and I think we should both get out of London. It’s all arranged. It’s the most beautiful hotel ever. You’ll love it. It’s completely vegetarian.’

  ‘How did you know I’m vegetarian?’

  ‘You told me in the canteen when we did the interview.’ ‘Did I? I don’t remember that.’

  ‘Well, I do. Alice, please come. What do I have to do to convince you? Tell me and I’ll do it.’

  ‘You are the most arrogant person I have ever met. Give me one reason, one good reason, why I should cancel all my plans this weekend to spend a weekend, where it will most probably rain, with a man with a . . . a . . . dubious secret.’

  ‘Because,’ he says softly, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to bear it if you don’t.’

  Molly, the girl on duty that night, woke up at the sound, of a car crunching on the gravel outside. She sat up, still dressed in the flowered uniform of the hotel, and groped for her watch. It was 2.24 a.m. She stumbled out of bed, tripping on her shoes that she’d kicked off earlier and pulled on a jumper.

  Standing in the hallway was a dark-haired man. Youngish. Good-looking. They didn’t get many young guests. They tended to be older people here for the view, or bearded hill-walking types here for the mountains. He was holding a black grip-bag and a portable computer. He smiled when he saw her tiptoeing down the stairs.

  ‘Hi. I’m so sorry to wake you this late,’ he whispered. ‘That’s OK. Mr Friedmann, is it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Have you had a long drive from somewhere?’

  ‘Well, London, this afternoon, but I had to spend the evening in Manchester.’

  ‘Oh, right. On business?’

  ‘Yeah. You could call it that. I had to sit through one of the worst and most excruciating pieces of theatre I have ever seen in my life.’

  Molly laughed. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s my job. Somebody’s got to do it.’

  ‘Are you some sort of a critic or something?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Would you like anything to eat?’

  ‘Is that a real pain for you? I don’t need anything hot. Just a sandwich would be great.’

  ‘Sure. If you could just sign here,’ Molly passed over the registration book, ‘and here’s your key.’

  He recoiled as if she’d handed him some dog shit on a plate. ‘Key?’

  ‘Yeah. The key to your room. You could take your bags up while I make your sandwich.’

  ‘You mean this is the key to my room and it’s still down here at the desk?’ He was gabbling like an idiot now.

  ‘Well, that’s where we keep them.’ There was something decidedly strange about this guy. He looked like he’d just received the worst news of his life, like she’d just told him his mother had died or something.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Is there a problem with that, Mr Friedmann?’

  ‘A problem?’ He stared at her for so long she began to feel self-conscious. She began working out how loudly she’d have to shout to get the other girls to hear her. This guy was weird. ‘No. No problem,’ he said soulfully, and reached down to pick up his bag. ‘I’ll take this up to my room.’

  ‘Well, you’d better be quiet about it. Your wife went to bed hours ago.’

  ‘My what?’ he snapped.

  ‘Your wife.’ Did he not understand her accent or something?

  ‘My wife!’ he cried, suddenly jubilant. ‘She’s here? I mean, she’s come?’

  ‘Yes. She checked in earlier, had dinner then went straight upstairs.’

  ‘Did she? That’s great!’ He leapt to his feet, beaming like a madman, seized his bag and started up the stairs, two at a time.

  ‘Do you still want the sandwich, Mr Friedmann?’ she hissed after him.

  ‘No, don’t worry about that. Thanks for your help. Goodnight. ’

  Molly began thumbing through the bookings file. How long would he be here for?

  When John closed the door behind him it was completely dark and he couldn’t see a thing after the luminous light of the corridor. He stood motionless, still clutching his bag ancj computer, waiting for his eyes to get accustomed to the dark. Somewhere in the room he could hear Alice breathing. He was suddenly seized with an urgent and inappropriate desire to break into hysterical giggles and had to put his bag down and clamp his hand over his mouth. The urge subsided, which was lucky. She probably wouldn’t take kindly to being woken in the middle of the night by a cackle of mad laughter. He was then struck by the thought that he couldn’t remember the name of the mad woman in Jane Eyre. Something beginning with B. Alice would know, but he felt that might be an even worse reason to wake her. Beryl, was it? Beryl Rochester didn’t sound right somehow. Beryl . . . Beattie . . . Beatrice . . . Bridget? No. Shit, what the hell was her name? This was going to annoy him all night unless he could remember. His brain carried on helpfully supplying him with women’s names beginning with B. Biddy . . . Beth . . . Bridie . . . Shut up, brain. Brain, sit. Lie dowyn. Stay.

  He could now discern a glow from behind the curtains. He could make out the white of the bed sheets and — ohthankyougodl ’ lldoatleastonegooddeedeverydayfortherest-ofmylifeforthislpromise — the white of Alice’s skin and the black of her hair. She was lying on her side with her back to him, her breathing regular. John sat down on a chair by his side of the bed and unlaced his boots. Did she always sleep that side of a double bed? Did the ex-boyfriend she’d mentioned sleep this side? Maybe he should go round the other side. Oh, for God’s sake, John, just get into the sodding bed, will you? He stripped down to his shorts — well, it wouldn’t do to appear too presumptuous, would it, he didn’t want to frighten the living daylights out of the girl. What was she wearing? He leant over the bed cautiously. It was hard to tell. Her hair was covering her shoulders. Maybe she was naked. The thought made him ^vant to leap straight into the bed there and then. But, hang on, if she was naked and he got into bed with his shorts on, she might think he was a bit of a sad git. Or, worse, a virgin. But if she wasn’t and he got into bed beside her completely in the buff, she could get the fright of her life and think he was pulling a fast one. Which he was anyway. He looked helplessly round the room for clues. Her clothes were strewn on the chair beside her side of the bed. He was struck with another thought. Where had he put those condoms he bought in Manchester? He was just about to start rummaging through his luggage when he envisaged a horrible scenario: Alice waking up and turning on the light to see him looming beside the bed dressed only in a pair of jockey shorts, brandishing a large box of condoms.

  He pulled back the covers and eased himself into bed. Please wake up now. Go on. It would be perfect. She would wake up slowly and sense him there. Then they could cuddle and maybe — no, for heaven’s sake, not yet.

  ‘Alice?’ he whispered. He couldn’t help himself.

  He edged over the bed towards her. She was wearing a nightdress. Thank the Lord. It was some kind of thin, pale, filmy material.

  ‘Alice?’ he murmured again. Please wake up, Alice.

  John realised in complete and utter horror that he was getting a huge and urgent erection. Shit, shit, shit. For fuck’s sake, what a way to wake her up - thrusting a large wanger between her thighs. Hi, darling. Missed me, did you? He broke out in a panicked sweat and moved away from her as fast as he could without bouncing the mattress too much. Oh, Christ, she was stirring and turning over. What the hell was he going to do if she woke up now?
Lie on his front and not move? She’d think he was retarded or at least decidedly odd. Hi, Alice. Yeah, I’m fine. Just have to lie here for a few minutes and not move. How was the journey up by the way? She was waking up, John was now convinced of it. Her breathing was distinctly shallower and his erection showed no sign of going down. What the fuck was he going to do? Think of other things, quick . . . er . . . cold showers . . . what else, what else . . . medical examinations at school . . . er . . . times tables. Times tables! One eight is eight, two eights are sixteen, three eights are . . .

  He sneaked a look over at Alice. Was she really still asleep or had she woken and was lying there, horrified into silence by the sex fiend in bed beside her? No, she was lying on her back, still fast asleep. John carried on looking. The sheet had slipped to her waist and through the thin material of her nightdress he could see the curve of her breasts and — shit, shit, he was back to the beginning. He was never going to get any sleep tonight and would be a blithering, sleep-deprived idiot in the morning. Great company for Alice, who must have had a good five hours already.

  Ann pushes through a side door into a garden, swearing as she catches the jutting bone of her wrist on the steel handle. The air feels close; a screen of grey cloud, hanging just above the glistening chimneys of the hospital, seems to press down on the city, trapping in the fumes and stale air.

  Ann leans on an ornamental breeze-block wall stippled with sharp plaster spikes. The hospital surrounds her on four sides. The garden in which she is standing is so prefabricated that she can see the lines in the lawn where they laid down the turf sods. It’s getting dark already. On her left-hand side is the corridor in which her daughter lies unconscious, shaven-headed, insensible to the world around her, lungs automated to inhale every four seconds.

  Ann opens her cigarettes, pulls one out and, gripping it between her lips, searches her coat pockets for her box of matches. She has to strike the match’s purple tip against the rasp of sandpaper three times before it catches flame. She holds the smoke in her mouth, watching the tip of the cigarette glow orange in the darkening air, then allows it to curl down into her chest, infiltrating each flower-like alveolus. She counts along the windows of the corridor, working out which one is Alice’s.

  Ann knows she should grind her cigarette into this wall, get back to the room, sit down next to her husband and daughter. But, for now, she doesn’t. She stands, letting her smoke drift away from her on the breezeless air, watching the light blaze out in strips through the metal blind over Alice’s window.

  Elspeth stands at the bay window at the back of the house, looking out at her granddaughters. On the lawn, Beth turns cartwheels and calls to Alice every now and again, ‘Were my legs straight then? Did you see? Watch this time.’

  Alice, who has recently razored the ends of her hair into uneven jags and dyed a long streak of it an alarming kingfisher blue, lies on her stomach along the edge of the patio, clad entirely in black, reading. In a flash of skinny legs, white knickers and a rumple of skirts, Beth does another turn. ‘That looked great,’ says Alice, not looking up from her book.

  ‘Did it?’ Beth says, her face flushed with exertion. ‘Did it, Kirsty?’

  Kirsty, in a bikini, sits in the sun with tufts of cotton wool jammed between each of her toes. She shakes her nail-varnish bottle and, unscrewing the lid, says, ‘Yeah. Perfect, Beth.’

  ‘It’s an absolute crime,’ says a voice next to Elspeth. Elspeth turns to see Ann standing next to her. Three days have passed since that day in the Lodge. It’s the weekend and Ben is out playing golf on the links by the sea.

  ‘What is?’ asks Elspeth.

  ‘That,’ Ann says, exasperated, pointing towards Alice. ‘It’s a crime to do that to hair as lovely as hers. I don’t know what she thinks she looks like.’

  Elspeth leans her hand on the window-sill and faces Ann. Above their heads are the black, sooty streaks from when, years ago, Alice inexplicably set fire to the curtains. ‘There are worse crimes.’

  Ann looks at her, surprised no doubt by the vehemence of her words.

  ‘Don’t you think, Ann?’ Elspeth persists.

  Under Elspeth’s fierce look, Ann flushes a hot red. They stare at each other, Elspeth willing herself not to be the first to look away. Ann’s head turns back towards the garden.

  ‘Do you know what the Greeks did to adulterous women, Ann?’

  There is no answer. Ann presses her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Do you?’

  Ann shakes her head without speaking.

  ‘They were strapped to the back of a mare in the middle of a courtyard, filled with the family of the man. A stallion was then let loose and they all watched as the woman was slowly crushed to death as the stallion mounted the mare.’

  ‘Please . . . don’t,’ Ann says.

  ‘And do you know what else? I always thought what an utterly barbaric thing that was to do to anyone. Until now.’

  ‘Does Ben know?’

  ‘No. And he won’t, if you can swear to me that you’ll never see that man again.’

  They look out, Elspeth at the girls, Ann’s eyes focused somewhere on the horizon.

  ‘Do you love him?’ Elspeth asks.

  ‘Who? Ben?’

  Elspeth gives a short laugh. ‘No. Not Ben. I know you don’t love Ben. The other one.’

  Ann shrugs defiantly. ‘1 don’t really think I have to answer that question.’

  ‘How long has it . . . have you . . . ?’

  ‘Years.’

  Elspeth sees that Ann is turning to go. She puts out a hand, grips her tiny, fragile wrist and drags her back to the window. ‘People have always remarked — idly, I always thought and now I wonder just how many people do know — how odd it is that we have two small blonde girls and one tall dark one.’ Elspeth pulls her round and forces her to look out of the window with her. ‘And as I was standing here, I too was just thinking how odd it is. Look. Alice looks like a different species next to her sisters, she could be from a different family. Or a different father, perhaps. Odd, too, how Alice isn’t in the least bit scientific like everyone else in this family, how she spends all day reading or playing the piano. Strange that her nature is much more tempestuous and impulsive than anyone else’s. 1 can’t think of anyone in my family who’s like her. Can you? Can you think of anyone she reminds you of? Anyone at all?’ Ann fights against Elspeth’s strong grasp. Elspeth releases her at last. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘Is Alice Ben’s?’

  Ann looks out at Alice through the window. She is standing now beside Beth on the lawn, ready to catch her ankles when she does her handstand. ‘Slowly,’ she is saying, ‘slowly, Beth. Otherwise you’11 kick me in the face.’ Kirsty is painting her toenails in laborious strokes, her personal stereo clamped over her ears.

  ‘I ... I don’t know ... I can’t be certain . . . I’m almost sure she is.’

  ‘Almost? What does that mean?’

  ‘Exactly what it says.’

  Alice wakes with a start. Something is not quite right. She swivels her eyes suspiciously from left to right. It is morning. Sunlight is streaming in through a large bay window. It’s very quiet. No traffic. She can hear birds singing. Birds? Her clothes are on an antique chair just in front of her. She moves her head fractionally. The pillow case is white cotton with lace borders. She looks up; she’s in a four-poster bed. She looks down; there is a male arm curved around her ribcage. She stares at it blankly. It is strong-looking, tanned, with black hairs. Its fingers are curled round its thumb. Its owner appears to be lying behind her, pressed up against her back.

  Before she can investigate further, there is a knock at the door. She opens her mouth to say come in, but no sound emits from it. A few seconds later, she stares in astonishment as a girl with a mass of curly hair wearing a long, flowered skirt comes into view carrying a huge tray. ‘Morning, Mrs Friedmann,’ she says. ‘Here’s your breakfast. I’ll leave it by the window.’
/>   Alice is about to ask her why on earth she’s calling her Mrs Friedmann, when the full truth suddenly hits her. Oh, Christ, oh, God, what is she doing here?

  As soon as the door closes, she springs from the bed like a startled antelope, wrenching herself free of John’s grasp. He grunts and topples into the dip her body has left in the soft

  mattress. Alice waits nervously, balancing on one leg. He opens his eyes. ‘Hello,’ he rubs his face groggily, ‘you look lovely.’ She feels that there is a strong danger she’s grinning foolishly. He certainly is. ‘Breakfast’s arrived,’ she says, crossing the room to the window.

  ‘Good. I’m starving. I didn’t have any dinner last night.’ For something to do, she pulls back the curtains, feeling horribly conscious of the shortness of her nightdress. It barely covers her bum, for God’s sake, but it’s the only one she’s got. She also suspects that against this strong sunlight it’s very see-through. When she turns back to face him she can see from his glowing expression that it definitely is.

  ‘What time did you arrive?’ she asks him, in a rather formal voice.

  ‘About three, I think.’

  ‘How did you get on last night?’

  He looks mysteriously panicked for a moment and then says, ‘Oh, the play, you mean. Awful, actually.’

  ‘Do you want some toast?’

  ‘Come here,’ he says, and holds out his arms.

  ‘John,’ she says, in a strangled voice, ‘I can’t. It’s too . . . weird. I can’t cope with all this,’ she waves her hand around the room, taking in their bags, their crumpled clothes, the huge four-poster bed, ‘before we’ve even ... I mean, I haven’t even kissed you yet. Not properly, anyway.’

  He lets his arms drop on to the bedclothes. ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘And,’ she says, ‘I’ve still got to hear about your mysterious secret. I mean, that is why we’re here, isn’t it?’

  John is silent. Alice fidgets with the teacups on the breakfast tray and pretends to be admiring the view of Easedale.

  ‘I’m very glad you said “yet”,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Pardon?’