‘Sort of. What’s up?’ He sounds furtive, as if he’s trying to prevent somebody else hearing what he’s saying.
‘Sean, you know you said you’d take me to Merron? Well, could we go now? Right now? Lucy’s baby’s ill. It might be meningitis. I need to get there quickly. I don’t know what to do about Connor. I need you, Sean, I …’
She hears him exhale.
‘Fen,’ he says, ‘I’m not in Bath … I’m, hold on, let me go somewhere I can talk.’
He sounds stressed.
‘If you’re busy,’ she says, ‘don’t worry. I’ll get the train.’
‘No,’ he says, ‘no, wait, I’ll come and get you. I just need half an hour to sort things out here …’
‘I haven’t got half an hour,’ Fen says, trying to keep the frustration from her voice. ‘I need to go now. How far away are you?’
‘Swindon.’
‘Are you with Belle?’ Fen asks. He hesitates. ‘OK,’ says Fen, and he starts to speak but she disconnects the call and turns off her phone.
She does not have time to think about Sean. She takes three deep breaths and then she goes back into the shop and tells Vincent she has to go back to Merron.
He passes her a sheet of paper. ‘Train times,’ he says.
‘Thank you.’
‘All you have to do,’ says Vincent, ‘is call Connor’s school and tell them Sheila and I will be looking after him for the next day or two.’
‘Oh, Vincent, I couldn’t ask you to do that.’
‘You didn’t. Go on, call them quickly. Leave me a key so we can pick up Connor’s things. If you go now, you might make the three-thirty.’
‘Vincent …’ says Fen, but she can’t finish the sentence because she is overwhelmed with gratitude and sadness. ‘It’s all right,’ he says, ‘I understand. Just go.’
There is no time to think, so the panic attacks that in the past have always forced her to turn back do not stop Fen this time. She goes to the station and catches the train and now the train is going under the Severn estuary.
She sits in the carriage, her forehead resting against the window. She feels the great weight of the water above her, the miles and depth of it, the immense, unstoppable expanse of it. The river has the second-highest tidal range of any river in the world. The estuary water is funnelled into the narrower channel of the river, invisible forces tug and suck it, and long after people have gone from the world, and when there are no trains and the tunnels have flooded and the bridges have collapsed, the water will still rise and fall and, on certain tides, the bore will still race up the river and elvers will turn the shallows black, as they used to.
The water weighs heavily on Fen. Only when the tunnel ends does she realize she has been digging her fingernails so hard into her palms that there are four perfect crescents of red gouged into the middle of each hand. She leans her head back, and exhales. If she narrows her eyes a little, she can stare into the reflection of her own face in the glass of the train window with the geography of Wales playing out behind it like a film.
Sean was in Swindon. He was with Belle. He didn’t say he was going to see her. He didn’t mention any plans or problems.
But he was in Swindon, with Belle.
And then Fen squeezes her eyes shut and hates herself for her self-centredness.
Baby William is in hospital, Lucy is worried out of her mind, the child might be very seriously ill, he might even be in a coma or something by now, and she’s thinking about her own selfish heart.
The sky is still light when the train pulls into Merron station over the raised section of line that gives the best views over the city that Fen used to love. Still she almost does not get off the train. She almost stays put and travels on. She is afraid she will meet somebody who remembers her. She is afraid she will have to look into the eyes of Emma Rees. Merron is a small city, made wealthy from silver and now in gentle decline. Its location and its lack of amenities mean it has never been a popular spot with holidaymakers or second-homers or incomers seeking work, so the population is largely indigenous, a people set in their ways, and their ways set in solidly hard-working, religious foundations. They are intensely proud of their heritage, the kind of men and women who boast of never having taken a penny from the state, who would rather go without than humiliate themselves by asking for outside help. Their children are imbued with good manners, taught the difference between right and wrong at an early age. The young people don’t go to church any more, but no matter how much they try to convince themselves, there’s always the niggling doubt that God might exist, and might be watching. Generally, this keeps them in check.
A river that is smaller, politer and far more conservative than the Severn winds through the city beneath stone bridges topped with fancy ironwork. It has only flooded once in living memory, an uncharacteristic aberration that is still often discussed. The particular circumstances of the flood are the benchmark by which measures of contemporary rainfall are judged, memories of its inconveniences bring relief that nothing has ever been so bad since. The river is flanked by brick-built terraced cottages and factories that are derelict now because no investors have come along to convert them into fashionable apartments or unique office spaces. There’s nobody to buy the flats or work in the offices anyway so birds nest in the old chimneys and plants self-seed in the cracks and crevices, and all the windows are broken and the factories have a kind of resigned elegance about them, as if they don’t mind weathering away. They are as much a part of the natural landscape as the trees.
The cathedral still stands proudly in a city centre, and around it are the narrow shopping streets, although the shops are the usual mixture of discount stores, cut-price supermarkets and charity outlets. Merron College, where Fen’s father used to be headmaster and where Alan now teaches music, is situated in its own grounds beside the cathedral, and these two venues, together with a Victorian town hall, form the triumvirate of sights described in the mid-Wales sections of guide books as ‘worth seeing’ in Merron. The school, in particular, founded in the seventeenth century with money generated from the sale of silver mined in the surrounding area, and extended regularly ever since, is a glorious hotchpotch of buildings of various architectural styles, the only common thread being ostentatious ornamentation.
Beyond the centre are the main residential areas, but with a population of fewer than twenty thousand people the city does not take up much space.
Fen musters all her courage, every ounce of it, as she steps off the train and walks out of the station. Everything is the same as it was. She remembers the smell of the pink flowers on the bushes growing along the footpath that winds down the hill from the station. She remembers the colours of the taxicabs and the concrete litter bin outside the newsagent’s kiosk, overflowing with lollipop wrappers and discarded copies of the Merron Gazette. Fen is shocked at how familiar the city still feels. She had forgotten what kind of place it was but now everything comes back to her and engulfs her in a tidal wave of memories. Her legs feel weak and her fingers are cold. In her panic, her heart beats furiously, like the wings of a trapped bird, and she says a little prayer each time she turns a corner or sees a tired-looking, middle-aged woman walking towards her. Please, she prays, please don’t let me bump into Emma Rees.
At the bottom of the hill, Fen crosses the main road. She sits on the bench and keeps her head down so that her hair shields her face from the eyes of passing motorists. She holds her bag tightly on her lap and waits for the bus that will take her to the hospital.
She prays again, to no particular god.
‘Please,’ she whispers, ‘please let the baby be all right. Please don’t let anything bad happen to him.’
When she was young, Fen dreamed of leaving Merron, just as Joe and Tomas did, but her dreams were always vague. She was never one for making plans. She imagined, indistinctly, saying goodbye to her family as she boarded a train to Somewhere Else. She hoped she’d end up doing something worthwhile, prefe
rably something rather glamorously dangerous. She imagined people talking about her in voices tinged with admiration and jealousy. They’d say: ‘That Weller girl, do you know what she’s up to now? She’s rescuing South American street children!’ or ‘She’s protesting against Amazonian deforestation!’ or ‘She’s with Greenpeace, stopping the harpooning of whales!’
It didn’t happen at all like this. After her father died there was no reason for Fen to stay in Merron, and plenty of reasons for her to go. She slunk away, saying goodbye only to Lucy and Alan. She didn’t know where she was going, or what she was going to do. She never wanted to return. She thought it would be better for everyone, especially Mrs Rees, if she was not around: out of sight, out of mind. The reasons why she left are still valid. Fen is not sure if there will ever be a time when they don’t matter any more.
Through the grimy windows of the bus she watches Merron city centre travel in a leisurely, stop-start fashion that is in keeping with its personality. Her memories are everywhere, lurking in the shadows on the pavements, tangled up in the railings, at the bus stops and in shop doorways. She sees small groups of teenagers, and they remind her of her younger self and Joe and Tomas. The young people are sharing chips from the paper, standing slouch-shouldered in the cinema queue and sitting on the steps outside the Spar, nudging one another, pulling at their sleeves and socks and hoods, their heads so close they share the air they breathe. She watches them. She feels a great tenderness for them with their brave insouciance and their shy bravado. She sees a group of boys in Merron College uniform, the grey trousers and blue blazers. They are carrying cricket bags and waiting for a coach. These boys stand taller. They are more privileged but no less vulnerable. She touches the glass of the bus window, but she can’t touch the past.
Fen remembers her sister; she remembers why she’s here. She wishes the bus would go faster, and at the same time she does not want to reach the hospital, in case she has to look into Lucy’s face and see the worst.
She tries to be calm. She knows that babies are resilient. She knows that, mostly, high temperatures do not indicate serious illness. Only sometimes they do. She wishes Sean were with her; he is good at taking the logical, rational viewpoint while she is apt to imagine all kinds of terrors. He says she is an expert in dreaming up worst-case scenarios, and he is right, but he doesn’t know that it’s not her fault. She can’t help it. She feels a twinge of pain in her heart.
Fen asks the driver to drop her at the hospital entrance, and she thanks him when the bus judders to a stop and she steps down.
An emaciated old man in striped pyjamas and a blue dressing gown is standing outside the doors speaking to a girl who is wearing a green dress that strains at her waist and is stained under the arms. The man is attached to a drip. He is smoking a cigarette. As Fen passes he doubles over, wracked with coughs, and the cigarette burns between the yellowed knuckles of two fingers on the hand that clutches his stomach.
The automatic doors open. Fen steps aside for a man with a cast on his leg coming the other way.
‘Sorry, ’ she says, ‘sorry.’
It is getting late now, but still people are coming and going: a pale, acned teenager with no hair or eyebrows, a woman in a burkha holding the hand of a child, and two young men in combat gear, one of them weeping, the other rubbing his fist between the shoulder blades of his friend. Fen scans the area quickly but there’s no sign of Alan or Lucy. There’s no sign of Mrs Rees.
She crosses to the reception desk and waits for the attention of the woman behind it. ‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ she says to herself, but the woman takes her time.
‘Yes?’ she asks, after an age.
‘I’ve come to see baby William Kelly. He was admitted this morning.’
‘You’re family, are you?’ asks the woman.
‘He’s my nephew,’ says Fen. Her palms feel clammy and her mouth is dry. She wishes she’d bought herself a drink at the station.
‘Are you all right?’ asks the receptionist. ‘You’re looking a bit pale yourself.’
‘I’m fine,’ says Fen.
‘William Kelly …’ The receptionist’s face has a greenish tinge from the computer screen in front of her. ‘You say he was admitted …’
‘He came into A and E. I don’t know what happened after that.’
‘Ah yes. Here he is. William Kelly, Thomas House, Merron College. Oh …’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, dear, he’s been transferred to the Special Care Baby Unit.’
Fen feels the blood drain from her. ‘Oh my God,’ she says. There are pins and needles in her fingers and her knees go weak. The hospital reception tilts suddenly and she holds on to the ledge beneath the window to stop herself falling.
‘Sit down,’ says the receptionist. ‘Sit down, love. I’ll call someone to come and look after you.’
thirty-one
It’s midnight. Sean stands in the living room, drinking coffee.
He cannot sleep.
There was a note on the kitchen counter when he came home. It was signed Sheila, and it said: ‘Connor’s with us. Food in fridge.’
Sean does not know who Sheila is. He does not know where Fen is, only that she’s in Merron. He hopes to God that the baby is all right. He knows he has let Fen down and he is furious with himself for this, but he’s also annoyed that she didn’t give him a chance to help. He would have taken her to Merron, of course he would. She should have let him speak. If she’d let him explain, she would have understood. Now he feels lonely, he feels useless, he feels as if something has been torn from him. He does not know if he should drive to Merron anyway. He would find the hospital, but he is not sure if he would find Fen. Her family might regard it as wholly inappropriate if he were to turn up in the middle of their crisis. He doesn’t know if they even know about him. He does not know what to do.
This is the first time since he has been lodging with Fen that she has not been here, at home at night. And it’s weird. It’s only a small house, but without Connor, without Fen quietly doing what Fen does, it feels like a mansion. It is full of empty space where Fen and Connor should be. It has dark corners and heavy hollows. It echoes like a cave.
Sean has called Fen a dozen times, but each time he has been connected to the digital voice of her answerphone, asking him to please leave a message.
He said: ‘Hi, it’s me. Hope everything’s OK. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.’
He said: ‘Fen, please call me, please let’s talk.’
He said: ‘I could drive over and meet you, if you’d like me to.’
He said: ‘I miss you.’
Her phone may not be ringing because its battery is flat. Fen’s charger is still plugged into the socket behind the armchair in the living room, where she always leaves it. But Sean knows that’s not the reason why the phone is turned off.
Earlier, he went for a run. He ran to release all the stress hormones from his body. He ran to get rid of the excess adrenaline in his bloodstream, to diffuse his anxiety, to make himself think straight again. He ran along the rim of the city, keeping to the roads that run straight along the side of the hill that curves around the westerly edge of Bath. He ran past elegant terraces, past the backs of hotels where the maids still wear ankle-length dresses and aprons, past shopkeepers watering their newly planted hanging baskets, past groups of teenagers sitting on walls, talking selfconsciously and spitting on the pavements. Sean ran all the way to the top of the golf course, and then he stood panting in the shade of one of the grand old trees, his hands on his knees, catching his breath. He bought a bottle of water, then sat on the grass and watched the families playing pitch and putt while expensive cars purred up the hill to the exclusive houses behind.
He jogged back more slowly, showered, and went to the pub for chicken and chips and a couple of beers.
He should be tired after all that.
But he isn’t.
Everything goes round and round in his mind. He takes his guitar out of its case a
nd plays a few tunes. More time goes by and eventually Sean dozes on the settee covered by his leather jacket, his legs curled up behind him and his face on a cushion.
He is woken by the trilling of his phone, and spends an age finding it in the pocket of his jacket.
‘Hello?’ he mumbles. ‘Hello? Fen? You OK? Fen?’
There is silence at the other end, but there’s somebody there, Sean knows there is.
‘Fen … ?’
The person at the other end disconnects.
‘Shit,’ says Sean. He squints at the face of the phone, but his eyes are still sleepy and won’t focus. After several attempts, each tetchier than the last, his fumbling fingers manage to find the call log. It doesn’t help. The number of the last call received was withheld.
‘Shit,’ says Sean again.
He yawns, scratches his crotch and shambles into the kitchen, switching on the light and screwing up his face against its brightness. The back door is ajar, and moths speckle the outside of the light shade. Sean pushes the door shut and locks it. He pulls the window closed and locks that too. Then he draws down the blind.
The room is chilly. He switches on the kettle, and is leaning on the counter, his eyes closed, waiting for it to boil, when the phone rings again. This time it’s on the counter, jumping with its vibrations. Sean stares at the phone. Number withheld, it says on the screen. He lets it ring five times and then he picks it up and answers but says nothing. There is silence at the other end too, but he can hear somebody holding their breath.
‘Fen?’ he whispers eventually and immediately the call is cut off.
Sean switches the phone off with his thumb and bounces it down on the counter. It spins on its face.
It was Belle. He knows it was Belle.
thirty-two
The two sisters sit in the light and airy day room attached to the SCBU. Lucy is feeding William and Fen keeps her sister company, sipping lukewarm tea from a cardboard cup.
‘Thank you for coming,’ says Lucy, for the twentieth time. ‘It means the world to me that you’re here.’
Missing You Page 17