It doesn’t feel like the place where something terrible happened. It feels normal. She is amazed to find that there are no ghosts here.
It’s this, this normality, which gives her courage. She turns to her sister and touches her arm. She says quietly: ‘Lucy, what I said earlier … We never talked about the accident and I need to tell you what happened with Joe and Tomas. I need your help …’
‘Our doctor lives there now,’ says Lucy, moving her arm slightly to dislodge Fen’s fingers, walking on so seamlessly that Fen honestly is not sure whether her sister heard what she said or not. Something about Lucy’s posture, her demeanour, reminds Fen of Deborah. ‘She’s a specialist in mental health, she’s very nice. Her husband has written a book about model railways. They have twins.’
thirty-three
Sean walks up and down outside the railway station and watches the diggers and the men working on the redevelopment of the shopping centre; the old post-war, concrete shopping mall and the coach station were demolished months ago and now the foundations are being laid for replacements which will be more in keeping with the rest of the city. All the planners will need to do then, thinks Sean, is sort out the gasworks which dominate the western side of central Bath.
Wearing yellow hats, industrial gloves and boots spattered with concrete, the builders are working under artificial lights, to move things on. They seem to be acting independently, each focusing on his own job, but they’ve already moved so much, changed so much. Sean likes watching. He has enjoyed watching the mechanics of construction since he was a child. It’s not his line of work, the deep-piling and the steel-framing and the concrete-pouring, but still it gives him pleasure to watch. A concrete-mixing lorry is churning away in the corner, but the long arm of the crane is motionless overhead now. In its monstrous shadow the men, with their rolled-up sleeves exposing their sinewy forearms, gesture to one another and spit the dust out of their mouths. It’s like watching a film, but better, thinks Sean, because there’s so much going on at the same time and it’s real. It’s construction; it’s dynamic, creative. And all this activity takes his mind off Fen. It takes his mind off how he will feel when he sees her again.
After a while, an eastbound train rumbles in on the tracks behind him and stops at the platform with a screech of metal on metal. He tucks the newspaper he hadn’t been reading into the bin and steps forward to meet Fen.
She is towards the back of the crowd coming off the train and he doesn’t recognize her at first because she’s wearing unfamiliar clothes – an ankle-length green dress and a yellow top – and she is walking awkwardly, limping, and her eyes are downcast. He holds up his hand and waves to her, and when she sees him her step quickens.
He is still not used to Fen. He would recognize Belle anywhere because he knows her so well. If she was among a crowd, no matter how big, his eyes would find her, they would seek her out, identify the contours of her face, the cut of her hair and the arch of her eyebrows.
Fen is still new to him. He had forgotten how slight she is. He had forgotten how young she looks, the length and fairness of her hair, the shape of her eyes.
She reaches him through the crowd and smiles. He puts his arms around her and she leans into his shoulder. Her hair smells different. Somebody else’s clothes, somebody else’s shampoo.
‘It’s good to see you,’ he says.
‘And you.’
‘You look knackered.’
She scratches her ear. ‘I’m OK.’
‘God,’ says Sean. ‘I wish you wouldn’t go on about yourself so much.’
She watches her feet. They walk out of the station and along the street.
‘You’ve been so self-obsessed you haven’t even mentioned the baby.’
Fen relaxes against him. ‘The baby’s fine.’
‘We had something like that with Amy when she was tiny. She was burning up. I drove to the hospital in the middle of the night and we had the car windows open, and that cooled her down so by the time we got to A and E she was perfectly OK and screaming for a feed.’
Fen says, ‘It’s what they do, babies. To keep you on your toes.’
‘I guess.’
Sean exhales. ‘So what’s he like, this William?’
‘Cute. Ugly-cute. Where are the children?’
‘That nice lady from over the road, Mrs Amini, is looking after them. Connor was in bed before I left and she was teaching Amy how to play cribbage.’
‘We ought to get back.’
‘She’s got my number,’ Sean says, patting his pocket, ‘and she’s going to call if there’s any problem. I thought we could go and get something to eat.’
‘Are you sure she doesn’t mind?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Only,’ Fen says, holding out the skirt of the dress she’s wearing, ‘I can’t go out in these clothes. I look like a case study from The Watchtower.’
‘It’s all right,’ says Sean. ‘Prim, but sweet.’
‘Really? I feel like my sister.’
‘I’m sure your sister’s lovely.’
‘She is, but in a … cardiganny sort of way. And also I’m wearing her shoes because I lost one of mine when I fell over in the hospital. And they’re too small and my feet hurt.’
‘You fell over in the hospital?’
‘I fainted.’
‘God,’ he says, ‘you’re such a drama queen.’
He takes her to a little restaurant overlooking the river. They sit on the terrace holding their menus. Fen gives her order to the waiter and then, after sipping her water, she takes a deep breath and says: ‘Sean, why were you in Swindon with Belle the other day?’
He puts down his beer and wipes his upper lip.
‘It was Amy’s school sports day. And when she saw us there together, Amy’s teacher asked if she could speak to us in private. That’s what I was doing when you called.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Fen, ‘I’m really sorry if I sound like I’m being paranoid, but why didn’t you tell me you were going?’
‘I wasn’t going to. Belle said she and Lewis were going together and then she called me that morning and the plans had changed. She was upset and I wanted everything to be good for Amy, that’s all. I would have told you about it when I got back.’
‘Sean …’
He holds his beer in his hand.
‘I have to communicate with Belle,’ says Sean. ‘I have to be a team with her, for Amy’s sake. Her teacher’s worried about her. She seemed to be coping with the separation at first, but the teacher said that lately she’s become very withdrawn and quiet. We’ve got to try harder with her. We’ve both let her down. We were in the classroom when you called and Miss Simpson, that’s the teacher, gave me a filthy look when the phone rang as if I was failing to put my daughter at the top of my priorities again. If it had been anyone else but you, I wouldn’t have answered.’
Fen understands. She understands and is flooded with selfish relief.
‘What are you going to do, then, about Amy?’ she asks.
‘I’ll take as much time off as I can during the school holidays. We can do things together, you, me and the children. We’ll have some days out. Longleat, Cheddar, Wookey Hole … Christ, there are loads of places round here just waiting to take our money off us. It’ll be educational,’ he says, wagging a finger at Fen and putting on an advertiser’s voice, ‘and fun!’
They eat grilled prawns with their fingers, watching the moonlight rippling on the water and bats hunting moths. As the evening wears on, Fen relaxes. She laughs, she fidgets, she is animated and sparky. Sean is as attentive as he can be. He does his best to make her forget about Belle. He tangles his fingers in Fen’s soft hair and cups her cheek in the palm of his hand. The feel of her delights him. He feels her in his hand, and also in his belly, his brain, his toes. He feels her everywhere. He slides his hand down her cheek and she kisses it with oily lips, and then he leans forward and he kisses her. Her eyes are bright and sleepy, her smile l
opsided from the wine and the relaxing.
‘Do you know,’ he says quietly, ‘that you are a beautiful woman?’
‘If that was true, you’d have noticed me ages ago. And you didn’t. It took you months to realize I even existed.’
‘I was blinkered,’ he says. ‘I was an idiot. And you didn’t exactly make it clear that you were interested in me.’
‘I wasn’t.’ She smiles coquettishly. She is slightly drunk. ‘Not until I saw you in the shower.’
‘Oh, please, can we forget the bloody shower?’
‘It was an iconic moment.’
‘If I’d known you were looking …’
‘Sean, you couldn’t have been any sexier. You couldn’t have put on a better show.’
‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘And mine.’
They smile at each other in a congratulatory way. They eat lamb with sautéed potatoes and summer vegetables and drink more wine. Sean holds Fen’s hand in his lap and as he holds her hand he feels that he wants to look after her. He won’t let people hurt her. From now on, he’ll be there when she needs him.
After dinner Fen takes off her shoes and they walk along the river back into the city centre. The reflections of the fairy lights strung along the moored boats dance in the rippling water, and everywhere there seems to be music. Laughter comes from rooms whose doors are left open to admit the cooling summer air, from outside pubs and clubs, from upstairs rooms and from basement flats. There’s laughter and music and light everywhere. Even the traffic seems to be cheerful tonight. The leftover warmth of the sun radiates from the pavements, walls and balustrades. The city is alive and beautiful.
She holds on to his arm.
‘I’m tired,’ she says. ‘Will you carry my shoes?’
‘Of course I will, Fen,’ he says. ‘Of course.’
They walk the usual route, up Snow Hill and along Tyning Lane past the health centre. They stop every now and then to catch their breath and to look back over the city, to see how far they have travelled, and also to make the walk last a little longer. Their fingers are linked.
Sean is amazed.
He is amazed at how easy everything is with Fen.
Everything is easy.
Mrs Amini is asleep in the armchair when they get back, her book face down on her lap and her spectacles on the chair arm. Sean is touched to see that she has had a little clean round, but doesn’t thank her. He hopes Fen thinks he alone is responsible for the tidier-than-usual state of the house.
Mrs Amini refuses to take any money.
‘They are such good children,’ she says, holding her hands to her heart. ‘Both so polite, so obedient. You must be very proud.’
‘Are you talking about our children?’ asks Sean.
Mrs Amini gives him a flirtatious little push to the chest.
‘Oh you,’ she says.
They watch her across the road, back to her own house, and then Fen locks the doors. Sean checks the windows quickly. Then he holds out his hand to Fen.
‘Oh, Sean,’ she says, ‘I’m tired to the bones.’
‘It’s all right. I’m only going to wash your feet.’
She sits on the edge of the bath, her sister’s skirt trailing in the water, its hem darkening, while he, sitting beside her with his trouser legs rolled up, cleans each of her feet in turn with the shower head. Every now and then he glances at her face and he sees that her eyes are heavy, she is almost sleeping. He works the soap between her toes.
‘Filthy,’ he mutters, leaning forward for a kiss. ‘You can’t get into bed with feet like that.’
He runs out the dirty water and goes downstairs to fetch the wine that he left in the fridge, and when he comes back she is standing, naked, under the shower. The curtain is drawn, so her lines are not clearly defined, but he sees the shape of her and the way her wet hair travels down her back. She is using her own shampoo, pulling herself back into her life, out of the past and into the present. He opens the window a fraction to let out the steam and pulls back the shower curtain. She is bruised on one side of her back, a blooming, spectacular bruise like a flower running from her shoulder to her spine. She can’t have seen it, so he says nothing. He does not want to alarm her.
Instead he asks gently: ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
‘This is where it all started,’ she says.
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
He does not undress. The desire to touch her is too strong. He climbs into the bath and steps under the shower fully clothed and she laughs, but only for a moment, for he finds her mouth with his, and he finds her breasts, all slippery and warm. His shirt is clinging to him, and they’re both soaked and soapy and kissing, with water in their mouths.
He whispers, ‘Can I?’ into her ear and she whispers, ‘Will you rinse my hair first?’ so he does. He unclasps the shower head and rinses her hair carefully, and when the suds have run down her body and are all congregated around the plughole, he lifts her, still soaking wet, and carries her the short distance to her room and he lays her on the bed, on her unbruised side, her wet hair soaking into the pillow, and he climbs onto the bed beside her and stares at her and thinks: I cannot believe this beauty is all for me.
Then he stops thinking. He says: ‘I will be so gentle you’ll hardly know I’m there,’ and she smiles and holds out her hand to him, and everything blurs into the hot, sweet, man-woman healing thing that is sex.
thirty-four
He fetches a towel from the airing cupboard and rubs her hair, because she’s shivering. He lifts the duvet for her and she wriggles beneath it. Then he climbs in beside her and holds her tightly, to warm her, his body knuckling into hers.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Sean combs her hair with his fingers.
‘What?’
‘Why you never talk about your family.’
Fen shrugs.
‘Go on,’ he says. ‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’
‘I can’t. It would change us.’
‘How would it?’
‘Because you wouldn’t feel the same about me.’
Sean sighs. ‘Try me.’
Fen turns away from him a little. He feels her tense. Her fear is like a presence in the room, it’s like somebody else is there, watching them.
‘You don’t know what happened to us,’ she says.
‘No, I don’t. So tell me. It’s your brother, isn’t it? Something happened to make your brother go away?’
She makes no sound but her head moves a little. It’s a nod.
‘What was it?’
‘There was a car accident. Joe – Joe was Tom’s … his best friend – and he … Joe died in the accident. Tom went away because it was the only way to protect me because … Oh, Sean, it was all my fault …’
‘Hey –’ her hair is cool as it slides between his fingers, cool and silky – ‘come on, it can’t have been all your fault. I know you, Fen. I know you would never do anything to hurt anyone. Not on purpose. Whatever you did, it can’t have been that bad.’
‘Oh, it was,’ she says. ‘It was the worst thing you can imagine.’
Sean holds his breath for a moment. ‘Tell me,’ he says.
Fen shivers. She thinks back to the previous day and how she wanted to confide in Lucy, and she remembers what Lucy said.
‘No,’ she whispers. ‘I can’t.’
They are both quiet for a long time. Sean says: ‘When you’re ready, you can tell me. Whenever that is.’
Fen says nothing.
‘Are you tired?’
‘Terribly.’
‘I’ll watch you,’ he says, ‘until you sleep.’
‘Thank you.’
He kisses her and puts his head on the pillow beside hers so that his cheek rests on her hair and he waits. But later, when he looks again, her eyes are still wide open and she’s still staring at the wall.
thirty-five
&nb
sp; Sean is walking through a tunnel, down the middle of a railway line, the tracks polished by wheels on either side shining in the light of his torch. It’s pitch-black inside the tunnel, dark as death and strangely warm, the air static. It’s a long, brick-lined, Brunel-designed Great Western Railway tunnel. It’s more than a century and a half old, and soot from the furnaces of the old steam-engined trains has stained the interior a black that’s deep and as plush as velvet. Sean flashes his torch on the arch-shaped walls as he walks and the project manager walks beside him, the two men stepping from sleeper to sleeper, as the manager explains about the seepage through the brickwork, and what kind of structural repairs are needed.
Behind them the engineers who were safety-checking the rails are clearing the track, ready for when it goes live again and the next train comes through.
‘This is where the problem starts,’ says the project manager. ‘This is where it’s really bad.’
Sean crosses to the wall, flashes his light up at where the water’s coming through. The soot has been washed away, and there’s slime on the brickwork which has eroded and loosened.
‘That can be fixed,’ he says. He checks his watch. ‘How much longer do we have?’
‘Twenty minutes.’
‘I’ll take some pictures but we’ll need to come back next time the line’s closed. When’s the next possession?’
‘Not for a couple of weeks.’
‘Let me know. We’ll do a proper survey.’
Sean finds his camera, angles it so that the water won’t reflect back into the lens, and takes some pictures.
The manager’s radio crackles. There’s a testy exchange of words. Sean nods; he understands that they have to get out.
‘There’s a tunnel at Box,’ says the project manager, ‘and it’s said that if you stand at the western end you can see the sunrise at the eastern end on Brunel’s birthday.’
‘Is it true?’
‘Don’t know,’ said the man. ‘But it’s a beauty of a tunnel. Two miles long, perfectly straight. Thirty million Wiltshire bricks lining the inside. And all of it blasted by hand and the spoil taken away by horse and cart.’
Missing You Page 19