Connor has a physiotherapy session in the pool. Fen is in the water, warm as a bath, watching what the therapist does so that she can replicate the exercises. Connor loves the water, and he is noisy and physical. Fen likes seeing him in this environment; he’s such a boy, naughty, splashing the therapist and then behaving as if the splash movement was involuntary.
‘I’m on to you, Connor Weller, ’ says the therapist, pulling a mock-cross face and wagging her finger.
Connor laughs again. Fen leans back into the pool. The ends of her hair float around her. She fingers the golden M and looks down at her legs which are distorted, white, rippling in the water. She thinks of Sean and she twists the chain round and round her fingers and she drifts.
She thinks of the things she can’t say aloud to anyone, and she wonders if Sean is right. She wonders if it is time to let go of her secret. She could tell Sean what happened the night Joe died. He would understand. But there is somebody else she should tell first.
Connor squeals and splashes and the noise echoes in the chlorinated, hot atmosphere of the hospital pool and yet Fen hears nothing. She thinks of her brother, falling. She wonders what was in his mind. The room, the pool chamber, revolves around her in slow motion as she bends her legs and immerses herself, then drops right down so that the water covers her face. She keeps her eyes open. Chemicals sting her eyes and she sees colours and movement, distorted, beautiful and unshaped, like underwater kaleidoscope patterns; in the bubbles and waves and currents she hears the underwater winds and the strange sounds that remind her of whale-song.
Her body wants to rise. The air in her lungs pulls her to the surface. Her feet won’t balance on the tiled bottom of the pool. She straightens her legs and emerges from the water. She pushes the hair out of her face with her two hands.
‘Watch this, Mum!’ says the therapist, and she lets go of Connor, who gamely doggy-paddles to the side of the pool, holding his chin high out of the water, laughing and gasping for breath all at the same time.
‘Hooray!’ Fen calls, clapping her hands together. ‘Hooray for Connor, the best boy in the whole wide world!’
thirty-eight
Amy has her nose pressed up against the window. She’s watching the sea lions dive and swim. Her hands are flattened against the glass on either side of her face. Each time she exhales she clouds up the window in front of her mouth. She is transfixed by the movement of the creatures, by their sleek, muscular ballet, by their eyelashes and their snouts. Sea lions are her favourite animals. She loves them in the water, and out. It is her ambition, one day, to be the keeper of the sea lions at the zoo.
Belle takes her camera out of her handbag.
‘Go and stand beside her,’ she says to Sean.
He obliges, feeling awkward, like a boy in a new school uniform.
‘Amy, Mum wants to take a picture. Turn round for a moment,’ he says, nudging his daughter.
She doesn’t hear him. Or else she ignores him.
Belle takes a picture anyway. Then one of the wardens offers to take a picture of the three of them together, and Belle comes to stand on the other side of Amy. The resulting shot, when they look at it on the little screen at the back of the camera, shows the two adults smiling selfconsciously, leaning their heads towards one another above the child, who stands oblivious, with her back to the camera and her fingers starfished against the window.
‘That one’s my favourite,’ she says. They all look exactly the same to Sean. ‘That one’s called Ariel. The big one is Nancy and the one with the cut on her tail is called Keisha.’
‘They’re all girls?’
‘Mmm.’
Sean watches for a moment. He can see why Amy likes the sea lions. They seem to be enjoying themselves in the water.
‘When I’m looking after the sea lions, I’m going to wear a wetsuit and swim with them,’ Amy says. ‘I’m going to be one of their family.’
‘What? You’re going to eat raw fish!’ Sean exclaims, raising his eyebrows. ‘You’re going to swallow them whole?’
Amy shoots him a withering look.
‘Just because you’re in the same family doesn’t mean you have to eat the same things.’
‘No,’ Sean agrees, ‘it doesn’t.’
He looks behind him. Belle is sitting on a bench, holding her bag on her lap. She is gazing into the middle distance.
Sean feels not quite right, as if he’s drunk or dreaming. He and Belle are behaving with artificial politeness and courtesy. Conversation between them is stilted, every question seems loaded, every answer evasive. They have to be careful not to touch on subjects that could accidentally hurt the other, or prompt the memory of some lie or argument or even some good time that they shared. Belle seems to be finding the situation as awkward as he is.
Sean wanders over to the bench, sits down and offers Belle a piece of chewing gum. She shakes her head. Sean thinks they are behaving like a Victorian couple who have just been introduced and who know nothing about one another, not two adults who shared the same bed for eleven years. He rests his elbows on his knees and folds the gum wrapper into a tiny square.
‘You’re looking really good,’ she says eventually, with a tentative smile. ‘The bachelor life obviously suits you.’
‘I’m doing OK.’
‘Your shirt is ironed.’
Sean looks down. He hadn’t noticed. ‘That must have been Fen,’ he says.
‘You’ve got her well trained.’
A shiver of irritation Mexican-waves through his body, from one set of fingertips, via his brain, to the other.
‘It’s not like that,’ he says.
‘No. Of course not.’
She pauses then asks: ‘So is it serious? You and her?’
It feels entirely inappropriate to Sean to discuss Fen with Belle.
‘I don’t know,’ he says, to buy time, but even as the words come out he recognizes their ambivalence. ‘Yes,’ he says quickly, ‘yes, it is. I mean I’m serious about her. She’s been very good to me. She’s all that’s got me through these last months.’
Belle nods. ‘Thanks for rubbing it in,’ she says. ‘Actually, I know what I did to you.’
‘Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, but you asked and—’
Amy is beside him, patting his shoulder.
‘Daddy, the man said they’re going to feed the sea lions at three o’clock and I told him I wanted to be the person who looks after them when I grow up and he said I can give them a fish so I can practise!’
‘He never did!’
‘He did! And I said it was my birthday and he said I can give them two fishes! And I said I wanted to give Ariel the fish because she’s my favourite and he said …’
Belle stands; she walks away.
‘That’s fantastic, Ames!’
Sean watches Belle’s back, her defeated air. She walks away, out of earshot. Then she looks up, towards the sky, as if she is taking a couple of deep breaths. God, that woman knows how to wind him up. He puts his hand on Amy’s shoulder, then rubs her arm affectionately.
‘Amy, is Mummy all right?’
‘Mmm … only she cries sometimes when I’m in bed.’
‘She cries?’
‘Yes, she’s sad because Lewis has moved out.’
‘Oh.’
‘At first she cried all the time and then Nanna Amanda came to stay and she took Mummy to the doctor and he gave her some pills to make her better.’
Sean swallows. ‘Oh dear.’
He looks again at Belle, standing some way away. Then he takes Amy’s hand. ‘Come on, you,’ he says. ‘We ought to feed you before you feed those sea lions.’
They run to catch up with Belle, then they walk through the zoo gardens together.
‘So how is everything with you?’ he asks his wife.
‘Fine. Everything’s fine.’
‘I haven’t had any letters from your solicitor,’ he says, keeping his voice low so Amy can’t hear.
&n
bsp; ‘No.’
Sean waits, but Belle does not expand on this.
‘Amy told me Lewis has left,’ he says gently.
‘Yes.’
‘Was there somebody else?’
Belle bites her lip. She says to Amy, ‘See that giant tortoise over there? You run ahead and we’ll catch you up.’
When Amy is out of earshot she sighs. ‘No, there was no one else. It would have been easier if there had been. I asked him to leave. I couldn’t stand living with him.’ She laughs in an ironic and knowing way. ‘He turned out to be an arrogant pig,’ she says. ‘He never stopped talking about himself and his work. It was so … wearing.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t think he really cared for me. I was something of a trophy, that’s all.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Sean. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’
Belle glances at him sideways. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘It means a lot to me that you still care.’
They walk over to the tortoise pen where Amy is watching a giant tortoise eat a tomato, masticating with regal solemnity.
‘How’re your …’ Belle and Sean say together, at the same time, and they both laugh.
‘My parents are good. They went on their first cruise,’ says Belle, ‘in the Med. Spending my inheritance. How’s Rosie’s fashion business doing?’
‘It’s just a cover for her unhealthy obsession with the early 1970s. I don’t think she makes any money but she gets to email David Essex fetishists worldwide.’
Belle laughs. She clutches her handbag.
‘Darragh puts up with it,’ says Sean. ‘It leaves him free to play unimpeded golf.’
Belle laughs again. It’s a false, brittle laugh.
Sean does not like to see her like this. Oh, it’s true that she drove him mad with her superior, supercilious, patronizing act when she was with the Other, but he prefers that to this nervy unhappiness.
As they walk through the gardens Belle wants to stop and look at the flowers and read the labels, but Amy is impatient and neither parent can refuse her any whim today. Their joy in their daughter is the only thing they have left that is mutual and pure. Amy bobs between the two of them, insisting on walking in the middle and holding their hands; she is the link between her disconnected mother and father.
They walk among similar families, men, women, children. They are part of the pattern. Sean finds the conformity intensely relaxing. He fits. He belongs. He knows how to act this role.
Amy looks sweet today, in yellow shorts and a yellow T-shirt appliquéd with daisies. Her hair has been cut into a shorter bob. Her eyes and her eyelashes are so pretty, so dark, her little features so neat. Sean squeezes Amy’s hand and feels a swell of pride in his heart. She won’t be a child forever. He determines not to waste a moment of his time with his daughter, no matter what the circumstances.
‘It’s nice to be together again, as a family, isn’t it?’ says Belle.
‘Yes.’
‘We should do this more often,’ says Belle, smiling down at Amy. Amy is skipping, swinging on their arms.
‘I would like pesto for my lunch,’ she says. ‘Pesto and pasta and tiramisu.’
‘It’s her Italian phase,’ says Belle.
‘Per favore,’ says Amy. ‘Ciao. Mi chiamo Amy Scott. Ho sette anni. Yesterday I only ho sei anni.’
‘Very good!’ says Sean. ‘Where did you learn all that?’
‘Lewis taught her.’
‘Oh.’
‘And,’ says Amy, ‘I’ve got my first wobbly tooth. Look, Daddy!’ She stands in front of him and opens her mouth wide, using her forefinger to press one of her front teeth. Sean detects no movement but pretends that he does, and praises her to the ends of the earth.
They eat a pleasant lunch in the zoo’s delightfully old-fashioned restaurant and then Amy badgers to go on the play equipment until the adults give in.
‘Amy, the whole point of a zoo is the animals, not the slide,’ Sean says. ‘We might just as well have gone to the park if all you want to do is play.’
‘I don’t want to be in Bath today,’ says Amy.
Sean nods. He strokes his chin. He watches as she climbs the ladder, agile in her yellow sandals. She is growing. Her legs are long and slim, tanned. She’s going to be a beauty, like her mother.
As the day wears on, Sean relaxes into it. The sun warms the air; even the animals seem sleepy, content. The flamingos, with their exaggerated, salmon-pink, question-mark necks, pose as if enchanted by their own reflections, and the inscrutable but friendly-faced okapi stands dreaming of open spaces it will never know.
Amy puts on an apron and a pair of comically large, heavy-duty rubber gloves and helps a thin young man with a bucket and a microphone feed the sea lions. She holds a decapitated fish by the tail and one of the sea lions, perhaps Ariel, claps its flippers to beg for the fish. Amy drops it, the sea lion catches and swallows it and the assembled audience applauds. Afterwards, Amy tells her parents that it was the best moment of her whole entire life.
Sean and Belle slip back into how they used to be, together, sharing the same space comfortably, predicting each other’s movements because they know one another so well, and have done for so many years. More than once, Sean has to stop himself from reaching out and taking Belle’s hand. It’s the way his brain and body have been wired. It’s a difficult habit to break, but habit is all it is.
They stop beside the meerkat park. Amy gazes over the wall. Belle takes a compact from her handbag and touches up her lipstick. She raises her chin and purses her lips and peers into the little mirror. There are only a few years between them, yet she seems infinitely more adult than Fen. She’s confident and graceful and elegant in her movements. She feels Sean’s gaze on her face and turns to smile at him. She gives him one of her best smiles, one of her all-encompassing, beautiful smiles.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she says very quietly.
‘Don’t,’ says Sean.
‘I’m so sorry for everything. I wondered if we—’
Sean shakes his head. ‘No, don’t,’ he says. ‘Don’t say any more.’
‘You don’t know what I was going to say.’
‘Whatever it was, there’s no point. It’s too late.’
She nods, and then turns away again. Her eyes are glassy. Sean feels helpless. He does not want Belle to be unhappy, but how can he help her? Frustration digs its claws into his back. After all she’s put the family through, after so much heartache and grief, why can’t Belle be satisfied with what she has? If he had let her continue, would she have asked him to come back to her? Is that where this whole day has been leading? Was Belle’s intention to entice him with a snapshot of his old, perfect family life and then seduce him with her remorse and vulnerability?
She’s walking away again, on her own, with an air of abject resignation.
Amy looks up at Sean over her shoulder.
‘What’s wrong with Mummy?’
Sean does his best to give his daughter a reassuring smile. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’
But Amy’s buoyant mood disappears. She deflates in front of him.
‘Then why is she crying?’
Sean sighs. He doesn’t know what to say. He holds his daughter’s gaze; he can’t lie to her but he can’t tell her the truth either because the truth is far too complicated.
The zoo is starting to empty, there are strange animal calls in the air and Sean’s sense of being in a dream mutates slightly. Now he feels uneasy. He feels as if he’s in some kind of nightmare. He feels responsible for his daughter. He has to do something to make things all right again.
He squeezes her shoulder.
‘Come on,’ he says, ‘it’s time we were off.’
‘We can’t go yet. We have to go to the reptile house.’
‘We’ve been to the reptile house.’
Amy shrugs off his hand. Now her voice is high and whiney. ‘Yes, but we didn’t see the … thing … you k
now the thing we didn’t see because they were cleaning its cage.’
‘The iguana.’
‘Yes.’
‘I think the reptile house is probably closed by now.’
‘And we didn’t see the gorillas.’
‘We did.’
‘No, we only saw one, and there’s a whole family, you said. You said there’s a baby gorilla, Daddy. You promised!’
Sean looks across the gardens. Belle is some way away now, standing on her own again. He crouches down so that his eyes are level with Amy’s. From this perspective it hurts him to see the anxiety in her face.
‘Come on,’ he says again.
He stands, picks her up and puts her on his shoulders as he used to when she was a toddler. Her legs come down almost to his waist. She squeals and holds on tightly to his hair.
‘The plan,’ he says, ‘is to find Mummy and then we’ll go to the shop and see if we can buy you a toy sea lion, and after that we’ll go somewhere nice for dinner.’
thirty-nine
The lights are off and Fen is curled up in the armchair watching an old Hitchcock film on television when he comes in. Her sewing box is on the carpet beside her, its lid open, different fabrics and threads spilling out. She enjoyed a thrill of anticipation when she heard his car pull up on the road outside – she recognizes the sound of the engine – and her heart skipped when she heard the clanging of the gate, his feet on the steps and his key in the door. Now she smiles at him sleepily, her chin in her hand.
‘Hi,’ he says, leaning down to kiss her. He smells of baby powder, of Amy.
‘Did you get my message?’ he asks.
She nods. Her eyes flick back to the television screen.
‘Amy asked me to go back and read her a story and …’
Fen looks back at him. ‘I know. I’m glad you were there to tuck her in on her birthday.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Is there any beer?’
‘I think so.’
‘Are you having one?’
Fen glances at the television. Cary Grant has just found out that Eva Marie Saint is in mortal danger. He’s hiding upstairs in the house she shares with evil-but-charming James Mason, who is moments away from killing her.
Missing You Page 21