Stop the Clock

by Alison Mercer

  ‘Yuck. What possessed her to do that? Thank goodness that bit the dust and she ended up with Dan.’

  ‘But I don’t think she is with Dan, is she? She was very emphatic that they were just friends.’

  ‘Oh, she’s definitely smitten, even if she hasn’t quite admitted it to herself yet. Bet you anything you like she gets together with him while we’re in Cornwall. If she hasn’t already.’

  ‘She did sound very pleased that he was coming,’ Natalie said.

  Lucy shot her a sidelong look. ‘It’ll happen for you, Natalie, I’m sure of it,’ she said. ‘There’s someone out there for you – someone who has no idea yet that you’re out there for her, and that you’re on your way.’

  Natalie shrugged. ‘Some of us just don’t get lucky. Look at your sister.’

  ‘Yes, but she’s happy,’ Lucy said. ‘Right now she’s about the happiest she’s ever been. You can’t knock that. She’s very impressed with you, you know.’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Says you’re really good at your job. She’s amazed that, you know, you can be going through all this complicated stuff in your home life, and you just never let it show, you’re always calm, always friendly. She thinks that even though you seem a gentle sort, deep down you must be as tough as old boots.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t sound terribly complimentary.’

  ‘I think it is, though. She told me she was really grateful you never mention Adam – she does know you know about that, by the way. And she was touched that you trusted her enough to tell her what was going on with Richard.’

  ‘It’s nice to have someone at work to talk to about it,’ Natalie said.

  She and Richard were still living together, more or less amicably, though not for much longer. Richard had found a flat to rent in a Georgian square in Kennington, and would be moving out soon; she hadn’t been quite so organized about finding somewhere, but had a few places in Lucy’s neck of the woods to look at. Their house had gone on the market, and they’d had several viewings, but no offers yet. She thought it would be a relief to both of them to see the back of it; it had never felt quite like home.

  ‘I told my parents why Richard and I are splitting up,’ she said.

  ‘How’d it go?’

  ‘I was expecting a scene. And it was a bit bumpy, but it wasn’t at all how I’d expected it. Dad went very quiet, and Mum wanted to know if Richard had been beating me up – she couldn’t believe that I thought what I’d told her was enough of a reason for us to split. Then she wondered if I’d had some sort of breakdown and had I talked to my GP, and then she asked if we couldn’t just quietly get on with whatever we wanted to get up to, and still stay married. After that she thought it over for a bit, and she talked about it to my brother, and then she said that all she and Dad really cared about was my happiness and Matilda’s, and I could count on their full support.’

  ‘Phew! Good for Pat. Are you relieved?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘I’m impressed with them, actually,’ Natalie said. ‘That probably sounds horribly patronizing. I expected moral outrage. But I think they only get like that about abstract things, and it’s just a way of letting off steam – it’s the great British hobby, isn’t it, moaning about stuff, complaining that the country’s going to the dogs? When it comes down to it, they’re very pragmatic.’

  ‘What about your brother?’

  ‘He rang up from New Zealand and said better late than never, and he’d always thought there was something not quite right with me and Richard and he was glad that we’d finally figured out what it was.’

  They reached the house. The gates were open, and a light glowed in one of the lower windows. Lucy pulled on to the driveway and parked behind Tina’s hatchback.

  ‘It really does look like a school,’ she commented.

  And it was true, the building was a little forbidding, but the effect was softened by the setting. As Natalie walked towards the door she noticed the hush and the coastal freshness of the air. She could just make out the red glow of the tulips blooming in the border in front of the façade.

  Tina opened up before she even got to the front step. She was in her pyjamas and dressing-gown, but looked surprisingly fresh and wide awake.

  ‘You made it!’ she cried. ‘I’m so pleased to see you. Come on in, you must be exhausted.’

  They embraced, and Natalie stepped into the hallway. Earlier that evening she wouldn’t have been able to recall it, and yet it immediately seemed familiar, and she knew it hadn’t changed a bit: the black-and-white chequerboard floor, the wide staircase with the red runner, the faded watercolours, the umbrella holder, the shelving unit for flip-flops and welly boots, the mahogany coat-stand with Tina’s padded jacket hanging off it – all exactly the same. The air had a static, closeted, anticipatory quality, as if the house had been waiting for them.

  ‘I’ve tried to air it,’ Tina said, ‘but I’m afraid the last guests left a week ago, and it’s still a bit stuffy.’

  Lucy came in behind them. ‘You know, at one point I never would have thought I’d say this,’ she said, ‘but it really is good to be back.’

  They unloaded their luggage and put the children to bed. It transpired that Tina and William were in the master bedroom in the tower, and Dan was in the little single room next to it; or perhaps Dan was in the master bedroom, and William was in the single. Tina wasn’t explicit – she merely gestured at the archway that led that way as they passed it, and said, ‘The three of us are in there.’ She looked so pleased as she said this that Natalie wondered if the getting-together Lucy had predicted had already happened. If not, it surely wasn’t far off.

  At Natalie’s request, Tina had put her and Matilda in the room she’d slept in when she’d come to stay for the millennium. It was at the back of the house and had bluebell wallpaper, on which was mounted a framed specimen of Tina’s cross stitch, a childhood project: Bless this house.

  Once Matilda was settled in her travel cot Natalie joined the others in the kitchen. There was an open bottle of wine on the table, and Tina said, ‘Would you like some? Lucy’s abstaining.’

  Natalie glanced at Lucy in surprise, and Lucy said, ‘Makes a change, doesn’t it? I kind of decided I’d had enough of drinking.’

  ‘Next thing we know, you’ll be running the marathon,’ Tina said.

  ‘Actually, I have started taking tennis lessons. I thought it might be an idea to get fit,’ Lucy said.

  Natalie drank half a glass of wine and then felt so sleepy there was nothing for it but to say goodnight – she’d never known where the other two got their stamina from. She went up to the bluebell room and got into her nightie and leaned over Matilda’s travel cot and listened to her oblivious calm breathing. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she could make out Matilda’s plump cheeks and still, serene expression.

  The curtains were stirring slightly in the breeze, and she realized that Tina had left the sash window slightly open. She pulled it right up and leaned out and breathed in deep lungfuls of clean air. The wash of the sea on the beach was clear and close, and she could hear Lucy laughing downstairs.

  Then she shut the window and fell into bed and into a deep sleep. Sometime before dawn, she dreamed that she and Adele were alone in the house, which was suddenly not the Old Schoolhouse any more, but had become her own home, though it was completely bare and empty.

  The building was almost immediately overrun by marauders, who pressed on the windows, climbed on to the roof, and invaded from all sides. She and Adele fled to the beach, ran down to a little jetty she’d never noticed before, boarded a ship; but its sails were torn and marked and couldn’t catch the wind, and their persecutors were now pirates, running amok, sinking them.

  As the sea closed over their heads and they drifted down into the gloom she saw the fear in Adele’s eyes and knew they were about to die . . . but Adele pressed her lips to Natalie’s and breathed air into her, and then she couldn’t see Adele any more, she was risin
g, rushing upwards, and the water was gleaming . . .

  She surfaced to the sound of Matilda chortling and gurgling, and saw that she hadn’t quite closed the curtains, and the room was flooded with light.

  When Lucy came to she checked the clock and did a double take. It was eight thirty already! And the girls hadn’t come in to find her! Well, that was strange . . . and a little perturbing.

  Over the last few months, Clemmie had got into the habit of coming into her bed for a cuddle first thing every morning. Lottie was too old for that, but given that they were in an unfamiliar place, Lucy would have expected her to want her mother too – even though things had been rather strained between them of late.

  Lottie had been keeping an exercise book in the old wooden box Tina had given her, and Lucy hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to read it. She had been appalled to discovered coded tales of shoplifting and bullying and underage sex, enough to make your blood run cold. She had confronted Lottie and been all set to storm up to the school and hand it over to the headmistress as evidence, until Lottie had persuaded her that it was, in fact, a story, and the names didn’t actually correspond directly to any of her classmates, and were merely figments of her imagination.

  Lucy still had a bit of trouble believing this, but she had decided to give Lottie the benefit of the doubt. After all, the sex parts had been rather inexplicit, and she suspected that if Lottie’d had any more than the basic anatomical knowledge she’d obtained from her biology classes, she might have made use of it. And anyway, she wanted to believe her daughter was still innocent. To be able to make such things up did suggest that worldly corruption was on its way, but perhaps that was inevitable.

  And Lottie was doing well at school, as was Clemmie, so there couldn’t be all that much to worry about, at least for now. They seemed to have settled, to be coping, to not be about to go off the rails; they had even got used to Emily. They both said she was all right, but Clemmie said she wasn’t a very good cook, and could only make pizza, pasta and packet burritos.

  Lucy dressed and made her way downstairs. She could smell bacon and fresh coffee. She pushed open the kitchen door and, sure enough, there was Tina, pinny on, washing up while Natalie dried, a little radio chuntering away tinnily in the background.

  Tina wished her a good morning and offered to fix her up some breakfast. Lucy, who couldn’t remember the last time someone had cooked for her, settled at the table and said yes, that would be lovely.

  ‘Clemmie and Lottie have gone into Port Maus with Dan, by the way,’ Tina added. ‘Dan wanted to get a paper, and I think Clemmie wanted some sweets. I hope that’s all right.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lucy said.

  What a blissful morning . . . a lie-in . . . breakfast all made for her.

  It did occur to her to wonder how early on a Bank Holiday morning it would be acceptable to phone Jack, but five minutes later the girls came back, looking fresh and happy, and keen to get down to the beach, and she forgot all about him.

  Tina seemed to have decided that Lucy shouldn’t be expected to sort out any of the meals during the course of their stay. It was lovely to be looked after for a change, but when the time came to prepare the roast for Easter Sunday lunch, Lucy insisted it was her turn.

  Natalie made the pudding in the morning – a pavlova, unusually ambitious – and Dan impressed all of them by baking a cake. When it came out of the oven Tina said, ‘Wow, have you ever thought about becoming a house-husband?’ and Dan said, ‘Frankly, no. Who wants to be taken for granted?’

  Then Tina cosied up to him and whispered something in his ear, and they looked at each other and exchanged a secret smile, and Lucy had to suppress a pang of envy. She was still getting used to the novelty of seeing Tina so publicly loved up.

  But she should count herself lucky to have the ideal occasional lover. Maybe she could let Jack stay overnight once in a while, when the girls were at Adam’s. Perhaps one day she would even introduce them to him . . . but then again, maybe not. What was the rush? She’d let him in when she was good and ready.

  Anyway, she had to get her lodger sorted, and she needed to suss out whether the woman whose maternity leave she was covering was likely to return and, if so, she needed to find another job . . .

  Besides, if she ever felt lonely, there was always the cat for company. Pomfret would never come any closer to infidelity than sneaking across the green to Mrs Meadows for extra treats, and could be relied on to give her and the girls a warm welcome when they got back home the next day.

  First things first: she had Sunday lunch to see to and she was determined that it was going to be a feast. And it was. Even Lottie and Clemmie contributed, having baked and iced little fairy cakes to serve with coffee – spring colours, yellow, pink and blue.

  It was early evening by the time they finally got round to going out for a stroll.

  ‘Let’s go down to the beach,’ Natalie said, ‘there won’t be time in the morning, will there? I know we all need to get away early.’

  And so they followed the path that led down to the sea, and walked out towards the water’s edge. The day was poised on the cusp of twilight, the colours fading and flattening as the sun withdrew, and the air was cold. The sky was clear and pale with a hint of stars; the sea was shadowy grey, its daytime blues and greens already gone.

  Dan produced a camera and, ignoring all protests about wayward hair and general unpreparedness, marshalled them all into a group photo.

  Lucy had taken Matilda, to give Natalie a rest; now she passed her back. She stood in the middle, with Natalie on her left and Tina, who was carrying William in a sling, on the right, and Lottie and Clemmie in front.

  ‘OK,’ Dan said, fiddling with the camera, ‘everybody ready now . . .’

  Lucy linked arms with her friends and did her best to smile into the camera, knowing that such photo opportunities didn’t come along all that often, and it might be months or even years before all of them were once more in the same place at the same time, lined up in front of a lens; aware that the resulting snap would quite possibly find its way into albums and emails and frames, and come to stand for something: the preservation of a lost moment.

  She imagined the years ahead of them opening up like a series of gateways, suddenly telescoped, and simultaneously visible: ten years from now . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . their lives would change, their jobs and addresses and love interests and maybe even their names . . . there might be more children, who knew? . . . grandchildren . . . and they would age, and stoop, and nobody who didn’t already love them would ever think of any of them as beautiful. But they would remember the way they had once been, they would remember each other, and they would remember this; until eventually even memory lapsed, and was lost, and only mementoes remained, passing into curious or indifferent hands, little scraps and leftovers of life.

  The camera clicked and flashed and whirred, and they moved away from each other, freed from the constraint of posing for the record. They crowded round Dan to inspect the image on the camera screen, and pronounced it good. Then they left the darkening beach and headed back to the warmth of the house.

  About the Author

  Alison Mercer was born in Reading and studied English at University College, Oxford. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and two children.

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  First publication in Great Britain

  Black Swan edition published 2012

  Copyright © Alison Mercer 2012

  Alison Mercer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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ibrary.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446497074

  ISBN 9780552778183

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