Life After Lunch

by Sarah Harrison

  Several long, inquisitive heads appeared over doors, but it was Misty’s we could see most clearly, pale and ghostly with shining dark eyes, at the end of the row. The children began to exclaim and run but Anthea caught Amos’s shoulder and put her finger to her lips.

  ‘Quietly. Slow down. It’s after lights-out.’

  We reached Misty’s stall and Verity picked Sinead up to stroke his nose. He whuffled and stretched long lips, nosing around the folds of her dress for a possible treat. Anthea produced a packet of Polo mints from her jacket pocket and distributed them between Sinead and Amos to give to the horse, showing them how to offer them on the palm of the hand.

  Jasper said, ‘Can I bring him out for a moment?’

  Anthea began to shake her head forbiddingly, but then said, ‘Just this once.’

  Jasper, in his smart striped trousers and braces, but without his tailcoat, went into the stall, put a headcollar on Misty and led him out into the centre of the yard. The sound of the horse’s hooves rang out purposefully on the concrete and his ears were pricked so stiffly with excitement that the tips almost met above his head. He was huge – bulky as well as tall – and Jasper looked very slight beside him, but I’d forgotten that of course Jasper had been raised with horses. He leaned confidently into Misty’s neck and soothed with his hand the massive nodding head. It was peaceful and pleasing to stand there full of wonder and respect in the dusky stable-yard My father linked his hands beneath his tailcoat and glanced briefly at the horse before gazing at my mother. My mother looked down at her great-grandchildren, enjoying their unspoiled fascination.

  ‘Want a ride, Ver?’ asked Jasper.

  Anthea sucked her teeth. ‘Don’t be daft, Jass, this isn’t a village fete and he’s not some bombproof old hack.’

  Verity shook her head. ‘I couldn’t anyway. I wouldn’t know how.’

  ‘I’m only talking to the end and back – go on, Ma.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Verity. ‘Really.’

  ‘I want to,’ said Amos predictably. My father, with a considerable expense of effort, picked him up.

  ‘You want to do everything, that’s your trouble. Just like your great-gran.’ He let Amos go again with a grunt. ‘Is he a bit of a handful, then?’

  Anthea shook her head. ‘No, he’s the willingest beast I’ve had in years. Oh, go on then, to the trough and back.’

  It was funny how easily she capitulated and how Verity, given permission, stood on the mounting block and slid on to the horse’s back in an easy but careful way that showed she had already imagined it, and had been dying to all along. It was as if we all wanted to see her up there, with her hands clinging on to the coarse white mane, and her legs hanging loose on his great smooth barrel, and the skirt of her green dress spread over his rump like that of a girl in a fairytale.

  Jasper led Misty away from us to the trough at the end of the yard. The horse’s tail and the girl’s hair were two silvery waterfalls in the dark. Even the other horses were quiet and beyond the gentle clop of hooves we could make out a distant, sentimental tune, like the music of the spheres.

  They reached the far end as Glyn appeared in the archway.

  ‘Jasper gave Verity a ride,’ I said.

  ‘Against my better judgement,’ added Anthea.

  ‘No, don’t say that …’ He walked quietly up to the horse and stroked its nose. His caressing hand and his dark head against Misty’s moon-coloured neck caused me a sharp pang of longing so bittersweet and intense that I had to look away.

  ‘Magic,’ he said softly. ‘ Magic.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Only once before had I known the true meaning of the word heartache. That was when we had lost Isobel, and it had been the agony of emptiness and loss, pain feeding on pain until the heart was like a husk, so brittle it threatened to disintegrate altogether. This time was different.

  We spent the night at the Ponderosa, but there were so many people staying that we shared a bedroom with Verity and Josh, and the dormitory conditions precluded intimacy, physical or emotional. The next day, when we’d found the story in all the relevant papers, and made the appropriate noises to the stoically overhung Steph, we drove back with Becca and the kids, all three peevish with tiredness. Verity was getting a lift with Jasper, and they’d promised to rouse Josh and bring him back with them – he had college next day.

  Glyn asked Becca if she wanted to come back with us to Alderswick Avenue. I hoped she’d refuse, but was still surprised when she did.

  ‘No thanks – I’ve got stuff to do.’

  ‘It’s Sunday, Bex.’

  ‘No thanks.’ She closed the car door firmly. The children ran off and she made Amos come back and carry his Wallace and Gromit bag. He did so, gamely dragging it up the path. Looking back as we pulled away, I could see her rummaging irritably for her front-door key while the two of them waited. Sinead peeped round her mother to wave.

  ‘I hope they’ll be all right,’ I said.

  ‘Of course they will. Why shouldn’t they be?’

  ‘She’s on edge.’

  ‘She’s got a touch of brewer’s flu, like the rest of us.’ I felt my eyes fill with more than mere hangover tears. Suddenly I was in trouble, but Glyn handed me his hankie.

  When we got home Glyn made coffee and I took mine upstairs and ran a bath. The relief of standing naked and alone in the steam behind a locked door was intense. I took a long, bleak look at myself in the mirror and let the rest of the tears leak out.

  Lying in the hot water, with Chopin on the radio, I thought of a game Susan and I sometimes played. We called it ‘When I grow up’. We took it in turns to list those things we’d one day do which would mark our final coming of age. They were mostly trivial, like being in control of your hairdresser … understanding how the car worked … filing your bank statements … booking your holiday in January … refusing to tip if the service was poor … learning to do the crawl … and ballroom dancing … checking supermarket receipts … knowing your NHS number … Now, I thought, I was about to add another.

  I put on jeans and a sweatshirt and went downstairs. I was almost lightheaded with tiredness, but the jeans revealed that I had lost more weight and this trivial filip to my vanity inched my spirits up. The office door was open and Glyn was standing leaning on his desk, looking through yesterday’s mail. He handed me a letter, addressed to both of us, postmarked London.

  It was an invitation from Bunny: Come to my housewarming! High jinx and low company! All the old songs guaranteed! The RSVP address was in Pimlico, and she’d scrawled a few words underneath it for my benefit: Don’t mock – I’m going to make it fashionable again. Bx. I smiled as I went into the kitchen and tuned back into Classic FM. I poured myself another coffee from the jug and put the mug in the microwave for a few seconds. The bleeps of the timer coincided with the phone ringing.

  Glyn picked it up. I carried my coffee into the sitting-room and sat on the sofa. Sunshine poured in. The tears had drained away now, and tiredness made me calm. The lilting phrases of Chopin rose and fell conversationally in the kitchen, to a moment Glyn would come and sit in here with me, and it would be the first moment of the rest of our lives. Susan was right. Fine resolutions began with small steps.

  I heard him put the phone down, and turned as he appeared in the doorway.

  ‘That was Bex – I’m going to go over there.’

  ‘What?’

  He came and stood looking down at me, already holding the car-keys. ‘ Okay? I shan’t be long.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Mini won’t start. It’s probably only plugs, but the neighbours aren’t there and she’s stuck—’

  ‘Can’t she wait?’

  ‘Probably, but she’s all ready to take the kids swimming, and it won’t take a moment.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before.’ I was beginning to sound querulous. ‘The others will be back soon.’

  He sat down next to me. ‘ I’m sorry �
� we don’t get a lot of peace, do we? But then we never asked for it.’

  ‘She said she had things to do – why does she suddenly need to go to the pool?’

  He shrugged. ‘Search me. Does it matter? Maybe this is what she had in mind.’

  ‘And when Becca wants something, of course, we all have to jump,’ I said waspishly, but Glyn only laughed.

  ‘She wasn’t being like that. She said she wouldn’t have rung if the kids hadn’t been all wound up to go—’

  ‘Very touching.’

  He stood up. ‘I’m off.’

  ‘Glyn!’

  ‘What?’

  I tried to recapture my mood of a few minutes earlier. ‘Don’t go. Please.’

  ‘What is this, Laura-lou, the Ides of March?’

  ‘No, but we get so little time alone together—’

  ‘That’s families.’

  ‘They’re grown-up!’

  He leaned over me. ‘They must like us. And anyway Amos and Sinead aren’t grown-up and they want to go swimming. I’ve said I’ll go, now, I’m not going to let them down.’

  ‘What about me?’ It was almost a wall.

  ‘I’ll see you when I get back.’

  Something, as they say, snapped. I stood up and yelled, ‘Don’t bet on it!’

  He turned in the doorway. ‘What?’

  ‘Just say no to Becca!’

  ‘I’ve already said yes.’

  Perhaps, even at that stage, if I’d been able to keep it simple, to tell him I loved him, to say that my need was greater than Becca’s, it could have ended there. The trouble was I wanted him to know without being told. Looking back, I believe he did understand, but this was grown-up time and the responsibility was mine. We confronted each other across the room.

  ‘You know your trouble?’ I said coldly. ‘You’re for peace at any price.’

  ‘What?’ He looked suddenly pale. ‘ I don’t understand – I don’t know what you’re accusing me of.’

  ‘I’m sick to death of you emerging from every situation smelling of roses because you choose to take the soft option.’

  ‘Laura – don’t talk to me like that!’ It wasn’t a reprimand, but a savage plea, full of anguished resentment. It was like being on some ghastly white-knuckle ride. I was out of control and unable to stop.

  ‘When have you ever been firm, taken a strong line, protected us?’

  There was one of those shrill, terrible silences in which my words, a shameful echo of Susan’s, reverberated in the air between us. A mockingly beautiful piano sonata rose and fell in the background. It was awful.

  ‘Us?’ he said. ‘What was I supposed to be protecting you all from?’

  ‘Ourselves!’ I turned away because I couldn’t bear to look at the pain I’d inflicted for another second.

  I believe Glyn said something else, quietly, but I wasn’t interested in hearing it. I went, before I could do any more damage. I brushed past him, picked up my keys from the hall and left him standing amidst the wreckage of our grown-up, peaceful Sunday afternoon.

  In my own defence I should say that I went first to Susan’s. Something told me that she would set me straight – that she would tell me what I needed to hear without fear or favour. Because in the last analysis we each of us wanted the other to win through – to do the right thing. Schadenfreude wouldn’t come into it when the chips were down. Susan wanted to look across the great divide and see my flag flying bravely in the sunlight. I wanted her to tell me what to do with all the astringency at her command.

  But she wasn’t there. It was as though she had slammed the door in my face just as I had slammed it in Glyn’s. I returned to the Morris and sat there, realizing through a mist of self-pity that I took Susan for granted.

  If she had been there I wouldn’t have gone near Patrick. If Bunny, or Lucilla, or Mijou – or even, God help me, Annette – had lived anywhere within striking distance, believe me, I would have sought them out instead. It even crossed my mind to hack out to Mutchfield and beat on the door of Gracewell to speak to poor Simon, but there were still sufficient shreds of pride left to prevent me. Instead I drove to Calcutta Road.

  Guilt turns the most reasonable person – which even in my calmer moments I didn’t consider myself to be – into a raving egomaniac incapable of believing that the world revolves around anything but her own discomfort. I’d left my key to Patrick’s at home in my handbag. When no one answered the door here either, I leaned on the bell like an Italian cabbie on his horn, as if the shrill, futile sound might eventually reach him, wherever he was.

  Josie came out of the basement and halfway up the area steps.

  ‘He’s out.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘Sorree,’ she said, with an apologetic grimace. That one word told me how desperate, and how desperately pathetic, I must seem. ‘He’s been gone since before lunch so I daresay he’ll be back soon,’ she added. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  ‘Okay.’ She went down a couple of steps and then peered up at me again. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes thanks.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be back soon …’ she reiterated vaguely, embarrassed, no doubt, by the whole encounter.

  As I sat at the wheel, trying to compose myself sufficiently to turn the key in the ignition, I saw Patrick in the rear-view mirror. He was strolling along the pavement with his leisurely, slightly duck-footed gait, two fat books under one arm and a supermarket carrier dangling from the other hand. I transferred my gaze from him to my own reflection, and it was not comforting – I looked exhausted, puffy, red-eyed, and every last unforgiving second of my age. There was no hiding place.

  I was in the act of starting the engine when he knocked on the window. He put the carrier bag on the ground and made winding-down motions. I did so and he peered in at me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Passing by.’ You could say anything to Patrick and he accepted it – he didn’t care enough not to.

  ‘Want to come in?’ I shook my head. He was as he’d been when I first met him, in Sunday mode, unshaven and probably unwashed. His breath smelled of beer and fags. There was something written in biro on the back of his left hand. The fingers of his right tapped out a tattoo on the roof of the car.

  ‘During the week?’ he asked. ‘Wednesday?’

  ‘All right.’

  He terminated the tattoo with a brisk tap. ‘See you then.’

  When I got home the others were back, as I’d predicted. Josh was hogging the phone, but looked up long enough to say, ‘There’s a message on the answerphone for you. And Dad left this.’ He handed me a yellow stick-it.

  I read it quickly, and went into the office to play the message. It was from Susan.

  ‘This may not make the papers,’ she announced, her voice bubbling over with relish, ‘ but it’s definitely news. Give me a ring for the trailer and I promise to present the main feature over lunch …’

  I called her on the fax phone. She picked it up after three rings and said, immediately, without asking who it was, ‘Sorry to disturb the serenity of a family Sunday, but I simply had to tell you, I met this man!’

  After five minutes during which she scarcely drew breath, I replaced the receiver with her shriek of triumph ringing in my ears.

  I re-read Glyn’s note: Laura – I’ve gone over to sort out Becca’s car. If no joy I’ll take them to the pool. Be back soon. Glyn.

  I wasn’t sure if the last sentence was a promise or a request.

  The car didn’t respond to treatment, and Glyn did, of course, take them swimming. When he got back we didn’t exactly behave as if nothing had happened, but we let the matter rest, like an unopened parcel left in the corner of the room. I remember I fell asleep quickly, but slept badly, with one confused dream following on another. The next morning, with Josh’s return to college for the autumn term and Glyn’s early departure for two days of meetings in Newcastle, there
was no opportunity to talk.

  I’d had one chance, and blown it. My second would come on Wednesday. After lunch.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I pity the poor souls (whoever they were – I can’t remember) who came to me for advice that morning. It was a chronic case of ‘Physician, heal thyself. I went through the motions, but my mind was elsewhere and my heart wasn’t in it. And I was poor company for Susan at the Tiffin House, though that scarcely mattered because she was on such a roll herself. My farewell to Patrick more than made up for everything else. Copybook stuff, and all his own fault – if he’d washed a bit more often I’d never have been able to read Susan’s phone number on the back of his hand … The only thing I lacked was a brass band playing as I marched down the road to the car.

  I threw his corkscrew and bottle-opener into a skip on the way home.

  What I hoped to find at Alderswick Avenue was a house busy with independent, uncaring life. I was like a child who leaves a warm bed for the thrilling, cold terror of a nocturnal exploration and tries, on her return, to slip into the exact same cosy space she left behind, to make believe the night-fright never happened. Glyn would be back from Newcastle – I wanted to catch his eye across our crowded life, to let him know that I was back where I belonged …

  But it wasn’t to be. There was no comforting biological sludge to burrow back into. No family, no grandchildren. No Glyn. The house was empty.

  Its emptiness was a slap in the face, the silence intense and unforgiving. Life had gone on without me. There was no note, and the answering-machine was not on. Everywhere was untidy. In the kitchen there were unwashed plates and glasses on the table and the draining-board, and the garden door stood wide open. In the sitting-room some books of Josh’s – Adam Bede, A Companion to the Metaphysicals, To the Lighthouse – lay sprawled on the floor, with a lined notepad and a chewed biro. The CD player was on, though the disc – Human Condition – had finished. There was a footprint on the notepad.

  I went upstairs and changed. The repetitive mewing of a Suzuki violin class filtered through from next door. Starkle, starkle, little twink. From our window I could see next-door’s garden, an immaculate micro-landscape of curving lawns and paths, with islands of patio and border, and a cupola still, in mid-September, frothing with old-fashioned roses. It had been a good year for the roses.