After You'd Gone

by Maggie O'Farrell

  The house empty, she pads around the rooms of the house in which she spent eighteen years of her life. It’s as though she’s in a slight time-warp, as if at any moment she might see Beth walking in as a gawky adolescent, or turn a corner of the house and find an enviably angelic nine-year-old Kirsty trailing her dolls behind her in a pram. Alice catches sight of herself in a mirror and thinks, how did I get here? How did I get to be this old?

  This is the first time she’s been here since Elspeth died and, unlike her room, she finds the house oddly cleared of all Elspeth’s traces. Her bedroom is unrecognisable. All her books and magazines, which used to cover the table in the sitting room, have been stacked neatly in the bookcase. Ornaments and paintings have disappeared; tables and footstools have moved. The chair she used to sit in by the window to read or write letters has been re-covered in a rather hideous beige velvet and relocated to the corner of the room. Alice sits in it for a few moments and wonders what Elspeth’s advice would have been over John. Would she have said hang in there or give up the ghost?

  There’s a note on the kitchen table from Ann, saying that she’s gone out. Alice thinks about calling Beth to see if she’s got any free time between lectures, then has a shower. She has just soaped herself all over when she hears the doorbell ring. Cursing, she rinses, winds a towel around herself, heaves up the bathroom window and cranes her head out to see who it is. Whoever it is is obscured by the wisteria that clings to the front of the house. Probably some awful friend of her mother’s.

  ‘Hello?’ Alice shouts. The person carries on ringing the bell. The blast of cold air is making her shiver convulsively. ‘Hello?’ she shouts again, in a louder and crosser voice.

  The gravel crunches and there, two storeys below, stepping back into the driveway, his face upturned to hers, is John. She is so astonished that she drops the towel covering her, giving what is half-way between a cough and a laugh. He looks up at her, his head on one side. ‘Did you know that you’ve got no clothes on?’ he says eventually.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she says, trying not to smile. She doesn’t reach for the towel, which is coiled around her ankles, holding instead his serious look. ‘What do you call this, John?’ she asks, pointing at him and the bag resting on the driveway at his feet.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘What do you call it?’

  ‘1 call it breaking the rules.’

  ‘What rules?’

  ‘My rules.’

  ‘There are no rules any more. I declare your rules null and void.’

  ‘Do you now?’

  He nods. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not sure if you have the power to nullify, let alone voidify, the rules in the case of Friedmann versus Raikes.’ John scratches his head. ‘Well, Ms Raikes, if I could refer you to the document drawn up on Sunday night between the two sides concerned, I think you’ll find that I do, however, have the power to nullify all rules and especially all ultimatums with regard to the case of Friedmann Senior versus Friedmann Junior.’

  There is a pause. Alice looks down at him, her body steaming in the cold air coming from the window. ‘Is that true?’ she says quietly. ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nods again. ‘Now, are you going to let me in, Rapunzel, or do I have to climb up to you?’

  ‘Don’t do that. My mother’ll be livid if you pull the trellis off the house. I’m coming down. Don’t go away.’ She slams the window shut, picks up the towel and runs downstairs.

  Ann walks up the slope of Bank Street, stepping through the wet leaves fallen from her neighbours’ tree. She’s asked them many a time to sweep this section of the pavement, but they never do. She has always been saddened by the fact that they had to sell large portions of the garden to a property developer in 1975: what had been the croquet lawn and the lower garden were now ugly, box-like bungalows. Elspeth said they had to, or they’d need to sell the whole house and move. No one had wanted that.

  As she turns into Marmion Road, she sees that Alice’s curtains are still closed. Ann expels a sigh. Sleeping in late will not help matters. She feels a stab of pure hatred for John Friedmann, fuelled by a fierce maternal protectiveness and something else as well that she doesn’t want to think about right now. She knew he meant trouble the moment she laid eyes on him at Elspeth’s funeral, she just knew it. Dark-eyed simmering types were all very well but they always ended you up here — broken-hearted, crying and sleeping late. But Alice had refused to listen, of course. Ann has a mind to phone him up and give him what for: how dare he lure her daughter into being in love with him and then turn round and say, sorry, I’m Jewish.

  She slams the front door behind her and feels a little better when the plates on the plate-rack running around the ceiling of the hallway rattle with the reverberation. She leaves her bags of shopping by the door and heads up the stairs to Alice’s room. She is going to tell her: forget that man, he’s no good, sometimes you just have to forget people, sometimes you just have to give them up and forget.

  As she comes up the turning in the stairs, she sees something that makes her blink. Is she having some kind of vision? There appears to be a naked man standing on the landing. Ann blinks again. On second look, it is not just any naked man: it’s that bloody John Friedmann with a towel wrapped around his waist. Him, in the middle of her house, in the middle of the afternoon. All but naked.

  Ann is for a moment speechless. The two look at each other. Ann is satisfied to see that he looks suitably terrified. ‘What,’ she demands grandly, ‘on earth are you doing here?’

  He fiddles with the tiny towel. Ann finds herself, despite everything, giving his body a quick appraisal. She can, at least, see what Alice sees in him.

  ‘Mrs Raikes,’ he stammers, ‘I—’

  At that moment, Alice’s bedroom door is torn open and Alice herself darts out on to the landing, completely naked. Ann raises her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation.

  ‘Mum!’ says the horrified Alice. ‘What are you doing here?’ Ann advances up the stairs. ‘What am I doing here? I live here. What I want to know is, what is he doing here?’ Ann jabs a finger in John’s direction.

  ‘Mum, don’t be rude,’ Alice says, in a shocked whisper, as if she doesn’t want him to hear. ‘Everything’s sorted. It’s OK now.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Ann barks loudly and rhetorically at John. ‘For the time being, I suppose. Meanwhile, you keep my daughter on a string so that you can reel her back in to you when it suits your religious conscience.’

  ‘Mrs Raikes,’ he begins, ‘it isn’t like—’

  ‘People like you make me sick,’ Ann continues, waving aside his interruption, ‘how dare you think you can play around with my daughter’s feelings. All this vacillating between Alice and your religion. It’s so weak. Don’t you think it’s a bit late in the day to be thinking about this? I ought to throw you out of this house right here and now.’

  ‘John!’ Alice grabs him by the arm, making him clutch wildly at his towel, and pushes him towards her bedroom. ‘Go in there. You don’t have to listen to this.’ When he has disappeared, she turns on Ann. ‘Why are you doing this? You’re so embarrassing. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. You can’t speak to him like that.’

  i can speak to him any way I like. This is my house and you’re my daughter. He’s bad news, Alice.’

  ‘He’s not.’

  ‘He is. I knew it from the first moment I saw him. Any man who doesn’t know his own mind is not worth the effort.’ ‘How dare you? He does know his own mind. What the hell would you know about that anyway? I can’t believe you, coming in here and shouting at John like some possessed harpy.

  I love him, Mum, does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Get rid of him, Alice. Make a clean break. It’ll be easier for you in the long run. You have to believe me. The more you love him, the more he can hurt you. He’ll break your heart and I can’t bear to see that happen.’

  ‘He won’t. For your information, he’s
just told his father where to go.’

  ‘Yes, but how long will that last? Alice, think about it.’ John reappears out of the bedroom, buttoning up a pair of jeans. ‘Now, look,’ he says calmly. ‘I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere by shouting at each other. There’s been enough shouting over this already. Alice, why don’t you get dressed and then we all can go downstairs and talk about this properly?’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘there’s nothing to talk about. We’re leaving. We’re catching the next flight back to London. I don’t see why we should have to listen to this.’

  Ann watches as he puts his arms around Alice’s naked shoulders.

  ‘Mrs Raikes,’ he says, holding Alice to him, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I’m here uninvited in your house, I’m sorry that I’ve caused an argument and I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know that I’ve done anything that’s hurt Alice. But I told my father last night that I love Alice and that he is just going to have to come to terms with that. It’s an end to all the vacillating. I promise.’

  Ann glares at him. A memory is beating somewhere behind

  a locked door that she won’t open. John holds her gaze. Alice looks anxiously from one to the other.

  ‘Who are you promising? Me or her?’ Ann says, after a while.

  ‘You, her, both, everyone, the whole family, the whole world. I’ll sign it in blood, if you want me to.’

  Ann feels a slight smile beginning to creep in at the corners of her mouth. The beating has stopped. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary.’ She half turns to go back downstairs, then takes another look at them standing there. ‘Alice, put some clothes on, for heaven’s sake, and let’s have lunch. John, you can come and help me while Alice gets dressed. You must be starving.’

  When they get to the hospital the next morning, there are cards and flowers lined up on the window-sill. Ann reads them systematically, starting at one end and working her way to the other, holding each just long enough to absorb the picture on the front, read the message inside and decipher the signature. They feel flimsy and crushable in her hands. Some of the names she recognises — friends or colleagues she’s heard Alice talk about — but there are lots she doesn’t know at all. These ones affront her. Who are these people who sign themselves off to her critically ill daughter with ‘lots of love and hugs’, or send ‘darling Alice’ their ‘very best wishes and prayers’? Someone called Sam — whoever he or she might be — has sent a huge bunch of lilies. As Ann is leaning over to read the small card stapled to their polythene shroud, she brushes against one of the protruding stamens. Grains of orange pollen burst into a rust-coloured stain on the sleeve of her white blouse.

  Behind her, Ben’s voice drones on. He is reading aloud an article about the Net Book Agreement. She turns, plucking at the stain. Ben has a newspaper spread out on the bed, over Alice s legs and middle. It is the paper John used to work for. This strikes Ann as an insensitive choice. The paper’s lower corner, she notices, is resting on Alice’s hand, in the V between her thumb and index finger. Ann is sure that feeling of a saw-toothed newspaper edge scratching at the skin of your hand would annoy Alice. Ann can feel the sensation in the corresponding part of her own hand. She can’t believe that Alice can’t move her hand out of the way, that Alice might feel it but is so trapped inside this non-functioning body that she’s unable to move, that Alice can’t move. Ben carries on outlining statistics, book sales figures, pros and cons for small businesses, comparisons with the US.

  Ann seizes the paper and pulls it off the bed. There is a long tearing sound. ‘Stop that,’ she says, rubbing the skin between her thumb and index finger, ‘just stop it . . . How do you know . . . She can’t hear you anyway . . . Face it, Ben, she can’t hear you.’

  Her tears, running down her face and neck, start soaking into her clothes. She is surprised how salty they taste. Ben has his arm around her now. Ann peers over his shoulder at Alice who hasn’t moved, who never moves, who — or so it seems to Ann today — will never move again.

  Alice comes into the living room to find John hunched over his computer, the keys clicking in a rapid, staccato rhythm. She drifts past him into the kitchen; he grunts to acknowledge her presence but carries on typing without looking round. Alice opens the fridge door, yawning. She has spent most of the day reading and is feeling rather out of touch with reality, as if her own life has become insubstantial in the face of the fiction she’s been absorbed in.

  In the fridge is a tired-looking lettuce, half a pot of yoghurt and a paper bag of dried-out, etiolated mushrooms. She lets the door swing closed and sits down at the table. She feels ravenous but can’t be bothered trekking round Sainsbury’s. It doesn’t look likely that John feels like shopping either. She drums her fingers on the table top and sighs, then gets up and approaches him on her bare feet. ‘John,’ she begins, just as she lays a hand on his shoulder.

  He leaps up in the air as if she’s electrocuted him. ‘What are you doing,’ he shouts, ‘creeping up on me like that?’

  She is so amazed that for a moment she can’t speak. His face is flushed and he’s jostled himself between her and the screen, as if trying to stop her from seeing what he’ s writing.

  ‘I wasn’t creeping up on you.’ She gives him a nonplussed smile and tries to see past him. ‘What are you doing that’s so top secret anyway?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He won’t meet her eye. She starts to laugh.

  ‘John, what is it? Let me see.’ She tries to push him out of the way.

  He resists and stands firm in front of the glowing screen. ‘No. Alice, don’t. It’s nothing . . . It’s just something ... I have to finish.’

  ‘Well, what? Go on, tell me.’ She has fastened her arms around him. He tries to disentangle her fingers and push her away. ‘It’s not a letter to another woman, is it?’ she asks teasingly.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  But at that close proximity, she has seen him wince, felt his body tense against her. After a few seconds when she registers nothing but a kind of stunned disbelief, she withdraws her arms and says, in what she hopes is a normal voice, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I just wanted to know if you felt like going out for something to eat. There’s nothing in the house — well, unless you count some old vegetables — and I don’t feel like shopping and I didn’t think you did . . .’ Alice is aware of a babbling noise that’s her voice, and she shuts her mouth. The noise stops and she turns and goes out of the room.

  She lies on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. John? Having an affair? The idea is so ridiculous she feels almost annoyed with herself for even entertaining it. But then why did he flinch when she asked — as a joke — if he was writing to another woman? Surely that was evidence enough that he was?

  As she lies there, things start falling into a seeming chain of events: last week, for instance. She had arrived home before him and, finding there was no milk in the fridge, had gone out again to the corner shop. As she turned on to Camden Road she passed the phone box on the corner and had been astonished to see him in there speaking into the receiver, fifty feet from their house, his hand clamped over his ear against the noise of passing traffic. She’d tapped on the glass with the pound coin she was holding. Then what had happened? She tries to remember. He’d looked up, seen her and hung up. Did he speak into the receiver again before hanging up? Or did he hang up straight away? She remembers that she’d meant to ask him why on earth he was using the phone box when he was two minutes’ walk from the house. Why hadn’t she? He’d come out of the phone box and started kissing her, right there in the street. He’d been in a good mood, Alice recalls, and, with his hand up inside her shirt, she’d kind of forgotten about the fact that he’d been in the phone box. ‘I’ve got to go and buy milk,’ she’d protested, when he’d started pulling her in the direction of the house. ‘Sod the milk,’ he’d said, ‘I want you at home, in bed, right now.’ Why, why, why had she let the matter slip? He’s been behaving oddly for a
while now, she suddenly decides — obsessively checking and rechecking the answerphone messages, constantly asking her if she’s got anything to post and then rushing out to the postbox late at night with mysterious missives. And he’s always hurtling down the stairs in the morning when they hear the post drop through the door. He always says he’s expecting ‘freelance cheques’ when she asks him what the rush is, but now she’s not so sure.

  She sits up crossly. Who on earth could it be? She runs through the list of their female friends, but can’t think of a likely candidate. It must be someone at work. He has been doing a lot of late evenings. This is stupid. She must just ask him straight out. As she hears his feet on the stairs, she is beginning to feel the first tinges of anger and outrage. How dare he? Who is this woman? Does he love her? How long has it been going on?

  He appears in the doorway and hovers there. ‘Hi,’ he says, with a forced jollity, ‘are we going out, then?’

  She watches him as he crosses to the window and begins fiddling with a cactus that she’s put on the sill.

  ‘This is a nice cactus. I like it. It’s nice.’

  She is still silent.

  ‘Are we going out, then?’ he asks again.

  She shrugs. ‘If you like.’

  ‘Great. You all right?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’