After You'd Gone

by Maggie O'Farrell

  Her hand is bandaged, stitched up, hurting less and held to her chest in a sling when, the next morning, she finds a small envelope in her pigeon-hole. It has ‘Anne’ written on the outside in blue ink. Strong, squarish letters. The misspelling makes her sure, makes her heart thud, makes her hand ache in a strange excitement. It has to be him. Ann’s never had a love letter before. Never wanted one before. In the library, she slits the top of the envelope open with a steel ruler. But out comes not a letter with love held in its folds or steeped in its ink, but lots and lots of paper squares, each with a letter on them. Ann stares at them, confused and disappointed, lets them fall through her fingers. Then she sees that in the corner of each square is a number.

  Electrified, she spreads them out before her like a croupier, turning over any that are face down. People around her circle the shelves, or turn over pages of books, or scribble lines of writing on paper. But Ann is forming words out of cut-up squares, looking frantically for the next number, the next letter, blood pounding through her body: Can’t stop read the first two. Can’t stop, can’t stop, Ann chants to herself, as she searches the slough of white paper squares in front of her. He can’t stop. Can’t stop what? thinking about. Then: you. Meet me at the Heart of Midlothian, soon as you can, Ben.

  Ann jumps up. Then she sits down. Then she sweeps all the letters back into the envelope. Then she goes over to the nearest person. ‘Excuse me, do you know what the Heart of Midlothian is?’

  Ann has never been to the cathedral, never noticed that in front of it, set into the cobbles, is a stone heart. She is worried, as she walks as fast as she can up the Royal Mile, that she won’t be able to find it among the chaos of the cobbles, that she might miss him, that he might think she never came, that he might have gone. But as she turns round the corner of the blackened cathedral, she sees him sitting on a bench, hunched into his coat, a book in his hands. Seeing her, he stands and gives a little wave. She thinks: he is smaller and thinner than I remembered. She thinks: my hand hurts. She thinks: do I love him? She thinks: he tied his shoelace around my wrist to stop me losing blood. She thinks: I wonder how long he’s been waiting.

  There are times when I am there and times when I am not -when I am elsewhere, blocked off, blocked in. But there are times when 1 am closer than others and I can hear and smell and feel the things I cannot see outside myself. It’s like a tide that bears my body up, taking me closer to the light and sound.

  Now that they are here, I am glad.

  My father used to tell us the story of how he met our mother (T looked up and there she was, red blood running down her arm and on to the floor’), and we used to get her to show us the scar, white like a fork of lightning across her palm. Sometimes she would — opening her hand for us like a plant reacting to light — and sometimes she wouldn’t.

  Throughout my life, I have imagined it over and over again — I have a perfectly constructed image in my head of the laboratory and how it looked; and my mother with the scalpel that slipped and sliced through her hand; and her walking through the room; and my father being the only one to jump up and help her; and him climbing into the ambulance with her. I see them so clearly: young, my mother’s hair long, pinned up; my father with one laceless shoe slack around his foot, and a linen handkerchief washed and ironed by Elspeth.

  But today, in this state I’m in, I’m somewhere up near the ceiling, looking down into the laboratory as if into a dolls’ house: I see my mother advancing towards my father, her sleeve stained red. And just at the point when he hears the hairpin drop and is looking up to see her for the first time, I want to take them up like Plasticine figures, lift them out and press them tightly together with the palms of both my hands.

  The only light now was from the fire which someone must have built up — a hissing roar leapt into her ears, Alice found, if she tilted her head towards it. The faces beyond it dissolved and reformed in the heat haze it threw up. Beyond them, she could still just about make out the line of the horizon and the shoreline. If she tilted her head the other way, away from the fire and the whirling, hard-edged, jangling music thudded out by the sound system, she could hear the rhythmic suck and crash of waves.

  She stood up, brushing the sand off the back of her long black skirt. Where was Katy? She’d disappeared down the sand dune a while back to find them something else to drink, making Alice promise to wait for her. Alice peered down into the gloom, scanning the faces, searching for the blaze of Katy’s red hair. She would go down and look for her. She flicked the trailing end of her feather boa over her shoulder and set off down the dune towards the fire and the main bulk of the party where bodies were standing about or gyrating to the music. Her boots sank into the soft sand and her feet were carried faster than she intended by the momentum of the slope. The sudden speed thrilled her and she held out her arms against the rush of air: she seemed to be whizzing past groups of people, her feet moving beneath her involuntarily, her hair and the ends of the feather boa flying out behind her. Giggling to herself, she came to a halt by crashing into someone at the bottom. Whoever it was had to grab hold of her by both arms to stop themselves from falling over.

  ‘Sorry,’ Alice said breathlessly, ‘sorry, 1 couldn’t stop.’ The person didn’t let go of her. She screwed up her eyes in the semi-dark. It was a boy, taller than her. Did she know him? ‘Sorry,’ she said again, expecting him to let go. The boy pulled her round to face the fire and both of them were staring into each other’s faces by the demonic, orange glow of the flames. She knew who he was — Andrew Innerdale, in Kirsty’s year at school. He had a brother in the year below Alice, or was it two years below? Their father, the kind of arty, ex-hippie type that stood out a mile in North Berwick, owned the antiques shop on the High Street. Still with his hands curled around her upper arms, he said, ‘I thought it was you.’

  Alice felt incensed, curious and flattered all at the same time. His face was very close to hers and she could smell the tang of beer on his breath. His eyes raked over her face in the semi-dark: there was something about his gaze that unsettled her. She put her hands flat against his chest and shoved him away from her. He staggered back a step, uttering a small, mewing cry of surprise. She turned and drifted away through the crowd of people, searching for Katy, nestling deeper into the mass of feathers coiled about her neck.

  She had found the feather boa at the back of Elspeth’s wardrobe. She had been half-heartedly groping in its dark depths for a cardigan her grandmother had asked her to fetch, when her fingers brushed against something soft, silky and springy. She’d snatched her hand away in surprise, examining it as if expecting it to be injured by what she’d just touched. Then she’d ducked down so her eyes were on a level with the shelf and cautiously inserted her hand again. This time she didn’t draw back her hand when she’d felt its imperceptible brush, but gripped it carefully and drew it out towards her. It uncoiled like a cobra from its resting place at the back of the wardrobe and, within seconds, a long spray of blackish-green feathers was travelling past her astonished eyes. On and on it came and when she finally placed it around her neck, its ends almost reached the floor. She looped it round and round her neck then surveyed herself in Elspeth’s mirror.

  The feathers, piled up to reach her ears, were the sleek, oiled black-green of a starling’s throat. At the centre of the boa, where they were woven into some invisible cord, they were gossamer soft before frothing out into the firm, spiky feathers with hooked filaments that caressed her cheeks like blades. Alice had never seen anything so beautiful and she had never wanted anything so badly: it made her weak with longing, the will to possess this thing. Why did her grandmother have it? Why had she never seen it before? Where had Elspeth worn it and would she let her have it?

  Alice had stood for a few moments in front of her mirror, her fingertips stroking the outermost feathers. Then she had picked up the cardigan Elspeth had wanted and gone downstairs, the end of the feather boa trailing down her back like the tail of a sea monster.r />
  Elspeth had, of course, given it to her, and tonight’s beach party was its first outing. She was being careful not to let it touch the sand, as she wove in and out of groups of people. The idea of wet sand among the sleek feathers made her shudder.

  Suddenly an arm was being passed around her waist. She whipped round, but it was a grinning Kirsty, materialising out of the dark. ‘Hello, girlie,’ Alice said, throwing an arm around her sister’s warm neck, ‘how are you doing?’

  They walked on together through the crowd of people, arms round each other, Kirsty leaning heavily against her. ‘Just fine. How about you? Having a nice time?’

  ‘Mmm. I’ve lost Katy. You haven’t seen her, have you?’ ‘Um, no. Don’t think so.’

  Someone behind them shouted, ‘Kirsty! Kirsty!’ and Kirsty slipped out of Alice’s grasp, back into the gloom. ‘Have to go,’ she said, over her shoulder. ‘See you later.’

  ‘OK. What time are you going home?’ Alice called after her, but Kirsty didn’t hear.

  Alice climbed to the top of the other dune and, shivering in the stiff breeze that always returned at night, looked around again for Katy. She couldn’t see her. If she went home she’d be better to walk some of the way following the seashore, rather than take the more direct route over the golf course: it was too dark now and she’d be sure to fall into a bunker. She knew the way via the beach much better. She made her way down the slope, gripping handfuls of marram grass for balance this time, and walked off down the beach. A few people called after her. ‘I’m going home,’ she called back, her voice carried by the breeze, ‘bye-bye.’

  Without the contrast of the fire, it was easier to see down by the sea. The foam of the waves caught what little moonlight there was filtering through the thick cloud. Five hundred yards or so away from the party, she turned and walked backwards for a few steps, watching the small black cut-out shapes and the glow of the fire’s embers. Then she turned and faced the direction she was walking in. The first chill of nerves at the darkened, empty beach ahead of her passed over her skin. She crossed her arms, pushing her hands up into her sleeves and walked quickly, her head down, her boots slopping through the wet sand of the shoreline, the hem of her skirt absorbing salty water, sand, seaweed and tiny flakes of shell. When the jagged rocks of Point Garry appeared out of the pitchy black, she began to relax. She breathed into the feathers around her neck and began to sing to herself in a whisper a song that had been playing on the sound system at the party. Not far now.

  Alice stopped, her breath catching in her throat. On the rocks in front of her was a person, just standing there. She could see their outline, darker against the sky. She cleared the hair from across her face and called out, ‘Hello? Who’s that?’

  Whoever it was didn’t answer, but jumped down from the rocks and started walking towards her.

  ‘Don’t!’ she shrieked. ‘Don’t come anywhere near me! I’ll scream! Tell me who you are!’

  The person stopped and held up its hands in a supplicant posture. ‘Sorry.’ It was a boy. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he said. ‘Is that Alice?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, still angry. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘It’s Andrew,’ he said, advancing forward on the sand again.

  ‘Andrew Innerdale?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you scared the fucking life out of me, Andrew Innerdale,’ she said, and marched on. She could sense him somewhere behind her, hear his breath coming in shortened gasps as he caught up with her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.’ His voice was even, very close to her ear.

  ‘Well, you did.’

  They walked on in silence for a bit, then Alice stopped and said, ‘I’m going to cut across the golf course here.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  She hesitated. Blood was pounding past her eardrums. This male shape in the dark beside her made her nervous and excited and confused. What was it wound up behind his eyes that frightened her?

  ‘All right,’ Alice said.

  Over the golf course, they could see a necklace of sulphurous yellow street-lights. She felt more composed as they neared them, and they both gradually emerged from the gloom. He was tall and skinny, wearing thick-soled boots like hers.

  ‘You’re Kirsty’s sister, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t look like her.’

  ‘I know.’

  The manicured lawns of the golfing greens rolled under their silent feet and they bobbed in and out of the small artificial hillocks of the course.

  ‘Are you doing your Highers this year?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. What about you? Are you doing CSYS like Kirsty?’ ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What will you do then?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. My mum wants me to be a doctor, but I want to go to art college. Like my dad.’

  ‘Do it, then. It’s your life, not hers.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ He sounded miserable. Alice started to feel a bit sorry for him. He turned to her with a grin. ‘You don’t like hockey, do you?’

  ‘What?’ She stared at him. ‘No, I don’t. How do you know?’

  ‘I have double history first thing Friday morning, and you have games. I’m in the history block, here,’ he demonstrated with his hand, ‘and you’re on the playing-field here,’ he put his other hand next to it, ‘right beside the window.’ He grinned again. ‘I sit by the window. You always look well pissed off.’

  She laughed. ‘I am. I hate it.’

  ‘I could tell,’ he said. Then he stopped walking and took her elbow. ‘Alice . . . um . . . why don’t we stay out here for a bit?’

  She shifted uneasily, pushing her hands up farther inside her sleeves. ‘I don’t know. I should be getting back, I think.’

  ‘You can stay a bit longer.’ He put his arms around her tentatively. She felt his body pressing against hers, felt various points meeting with the corresponding points of hers — his chest against her breasts, his thighs against the length of her own, the gentle bulge of his groin pressing against hers through his trousers and the thin material of her skirt. His arms were whiplash thin, but strong as he held her more and more tightly to him.

  She stood still, unsure. He began to speak. ‘I really like you, Alice. I’ve watched you at school and I think you’re really . . . you’re really . . . nice. I know you’re a bit younger than me and everything, but I think it would be OK, don’t you? I mean, what do you think?’

  Unease slithered in her stomach. The feathers of her boa crushed between them cracked and pricked her through her clothes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alice said, and wriggled away from him. ‘I don’t know.’ She began walking towards the town again.

  He caught her by the arm again. ‘Alice, will you kiss me? Please? Will you?’

  She looked at him in wonder. Where did this passion come from? His face was suffused with embarrassment and urgency. She thought he might cry. He bent towards her and she found herself again looking straight into his eyes. An awkward, nameless fear leapt within her and she planted the heel of her palm in the centre of his chest. ‘No,’ she said, pushing him away. ‘No.’

  Then she turned and, drawing her feather boa about her, ran towards the houses at the edge of town and didn’t stop running until she got home. As her feet thudded rhythmically on the tarmac pavements and her ragged breath burnt in her chest, she replayed over and over in her head what she thought she’d seen. His eyes — they were the same dark brown as hers, with lighter flecks at their centres. Looking into his eyes gave Alice the sensation that she was looking into her own.

  Dr Mike Colman pushes a fifty-pence piece into the thin slot of the coffee machine and waits. A plastic cup is ejected forcefully into the metal tray and topples on to its side. Scalding brown liquid squirts out of the nozzle, over the fallen cup, down the side of the coffee machine and on to his shoes. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

  He
feels his temper fraying at the edges and takes a deep breath, inserting another coin into the slot. In the corner a woman flicks violently through magazine after magazine, ignoring her companion, an older woman, who asks over and over again, ‘How did you think he looked? I thought he looked better. How did you think he looked?’

  Two nights ago, Mike had got back well past midnight, desperately needing sleep, and had met Melanie on the landing, sobbing into the worn neck of her teddy bear. The nanny’s door had been resolutely shut and he’d lifted her back into bed. ‘Why can’t Mummy live with us any more?’ she’d demanded between hiccuping sobs. He’d stroked her hair — ‘We’ve talked about this before, Melanie, do you remember? Mummy lives with Steven now and you can visit her whenever you want’ — when what he really wanted to do was throw back his head and howl like her. She’d gone back to sleep eventually, her hair tangled and her thumb hanging slackly in her mouth.

  But then, of course, he couldn’t sleep. Fucking Steven — his so-called best friend.

  Mike swills the acrid coffee around his mouth, wincing as he swallows. The older woman has subsided into silence and is staring up at the yellow strip-lights. He hates waiting rooms, especially at night. The tiny mathematics of human life. But nothing, nothing was as bad as the period between three and five a.m., when all visitors and day-workers have gone, most of the patients are asleep, and a terrible, breathing hush descends on the wards and corridors. It’s during those hours that most deaths in hospitals occur. Mike hates that shift more than anything.