by Adale Geras
Sunday
‘Why’s your book called The Shipwreck Café, Grandma? Is it about pirates?’
Isis was sitting up in bed, leaning against her pillows, legs stretched out on top of the duvet. It was a warm night. Joss was on the bed as well, with her back against the butterfly mural, and she wondered whether Zannah possessed such a thing as a summer-weight bed covering. That might be something she could put on a wedding list, if she and Adrian decided to have one.
‘No, not pirates, I’m afraid. It’s just a café I had tea in once. It was a strange place, because we had lovely china cups on crocheted tablecloths and everything was very … well, very pretty. But on the walls – all over the walls – there were photographs of ships going down in the sea, or breaking up on the rocks, or lying on the shore in bits. It was most peculiar.’
‘Were they real ships? Did they really break into bits? Did someone put bombs on them?’
‘No, my darling, not bombs. But, yes, the weather broke them into bits. Storms. Terrible storms, I expect. Each photo had a date on it and the name of the ship as well.’
Isis slid down in the bed and began to pull the duvet over her. ‘That sounds quite interesting. Can we go there?’
’It’s far away, chicken. Down in Dorset. I was there a couple of years ago.’
‘Hmm.’ Isis’s eyelids were drooping. ‘Are you staying the night?’
‘I’ve got to go and see my editor tomorrow. I think he’s going to give me a copy of the book.’
‘Will it be in the shops?’ said Isis. ‘Can we buy it?’
‘Not quite yet,’ Joss said. ‘Not till the end of August. This is what they call an “advance copy”. I’ll send you and Mummy one long before it’s in the shops.’ She stood up and went to the head of the bed to kiss Isis goodnight.
‘Are you going to read me a story?’
‘Chancing your arm, aren’t you? You’re practically asleep.’
‘I like hearing your voice,’ said Isis, ‘till I get properly asleep.’
‘All right,’ said Joss. She went to sit on the low nursing chair under the window and began to read. After a few minutes, Isis was breathing deeply, making a faint snuffling noise. Joss shut the book and stared at the butterflies Zannah had painted. If only, she thought, I could stay here. The love Joss felt for Isis was not something she’d examined or thought about very much. It resembled what she’d felt for her own girls when they were small, but Isis made her feel as though she were looking at the same time both at the past and at the future. Loving Isis, she realized, was uncomplicated. And of course, she’d spent so much time with her just after Zannah and Cal had split up that a specially strong bond had been forged between them.
That was the one good thing about Zannah’s breakdown. Mostly Joss remembered that time with horror. While it was going on, every other feeling was pushed to one side and all she had room for in her head and in her heart was agony at the sight of her daughter’s suffering and a determination that above all the baby, Isis, mustn’t suffer. When Zannah came home, Joss did cheery, grannyish things like taking Isis to the park to feed the ducks, and to story sessions at the library. She’d loved the purely physical tasks like feeding Isis, and bathing her and holding her close. The smell of her hair … Johnson’s baby shampoo made Joss feel weepy. But mixed up with those pleasures were the hours she’d spent sitting in Zannah’s room, by the bed, reading to her, talking to her and getting no response. She’d manage to keep a strong voice and a cheerful tone while she was with her, but as soon as she left the room, the tears welled up. How could her beautiful Zannah be so cast down? What would make her better? Em sat with her. So did Bob. They told her stories and played music for her and nothing helped. Nothing worked. Joss used every ounce of her energy that wasn’t devoted to Isis in thinking up strategies to bring Zannah back to herself and in the end it seemed that the passage of time made the difference. It was almost as though her unhappiness was a kind of fever she had to work through. Now, it was so good to see her happy again that Joss was determined to support her in having the kind of wedding she wanted.
Isis looked like Cal. Joss wondered whether it was grandmotherly blindness that made her think she was very pretty, but decided it wasn’t. Everyone agreed that she was lovely. And what fun she was having over the wedding! Her enthusiasm for the project was another reason Joss fell in so readily with plans she would have thought were quite mad in other circumstances. But I must, she thought, ask Zannah about how Adrian is with someone else’s daughter. It was at times like this that she wished she lived nearer London. It wasn’t easy to keep an eye on things from a distance. She made a mental note to ask Em as well. Zannah was probably biased where Adrian was concerned, but Em would have her wits about her. It occurred to Joss that if anything were seriously wrong, she’d have known about it already. She relaxed a little. Isis seemed happy enough. She slept well, ate well, and as far as Joss could see, she wasn’t displaying any signs of anxiety or stress.
She could hear her daughters talking in the kitchen. Their voices reached her here as a distant drone, punctuated from time to time with a dazzle of laughter. The wine at lunchtime, which was making her feel sleepy, had made them giggly. Outside, the summer evening was still bright with the last of the sunshine, but Zannah had done a good job of lining the curtains, and this room was beautifully dark. Isis, asking her about the Shipwreck Café, had brought that time back to her and she closed her eyes.
Gray had taken her there – only once, but it was enough. They went on the afternoon of the day that had ended with them spending the night together. The Day, she told herself. The capital-letters day. The best day. They’d walked down the path through what she recalled now as a tunnel of translucent green. They hadn’t spoken much and he didn’t even hold her hand, but Joss felt as though she were bound to him by invisible strings. She knew that at the end of this walk there would be a conversation: one she’d been dreading, in which she’d have to say something she longed not to say. She’d been aware of everything about him as they walked through the warmth of the afternoon: his shirt falling from his shoulders, his sleeves rolled halfway up his arms, which were smooth and brown. She was conscious of how near his hand was to her own. She glanced sideways and saw him leaning slightly forward, saw the left side of his face, half of the smile that touched his lips when she spoke to him. The café was Gray’s discovery and he was the one who called it The Shipwreck Café. Its real name was the Fairford Tea Room.
He’d found them a table in the corner and ordered two cream teas without consulting her. She didn’t mind. She’d been in such a stupor of lust and nervousness that she wouldn’t have been able to decide anything. The waitress set everything in front of them: a pretty, rose-strewn white china tea-set, like something from a dolls’ house; Earl Grey tea in the round pot; two scones each; butter, cream and jam in little dishes. Milk in a curved jug. She’d poured the tea, so as to have something to occupy her. Her hands were unsteady.
‘Have a look round, Lydia. What do you see?’
She’d wanted to say: You. I see you. ‘A tea room. It’s lovely. And the scones are so fresh. Just out of the oven. Delicious.’
‘Look at the pictures.’
She’d raised her eyes then, torn them from him, turned them to the walls of the tea room. Pink striped wallpaper. Photographs of ships. She stared at one after another. There were scores of them, covering the walls, with hardly any space between one frame and another. Not just ships, either, but ships in distress. Shipwrecks. Slabs of tormented ocean, cliff faces of water, broken vessels returning to the depths of the sea: the effect was overwhelming.
‘Awful,’ she said at last, feeling faintly sick. ‘Such destruction.’
‘I like the contrast,’ said Gray, ‘between them and the cream tea. It’s … well, it makes you appreciate the comfortable things in life.’
Joss had nodded. Gray went on, ‘Have you thought about what I said?’
How could she tell him t
hat she’d been thinking of little else? He had walked with her, after midnight on the previous night, to the room she was sharing with two other women. There had been no one else around. Everything was quiet. She’d been expecting it and there it was: his kiss. One swift, chaste kiss and then he left her at the door, saying, ‘I love you, Lydia. And I want you. Please. Come away with me. I want us to be together. Just say. I’ll drop everything – my work, everything. You love me too. Admit it. I can see it. Please, Lydia, think about it.’
She said, ‘I have thought about it, Gray, and I can’t. I’ve decided. It’s not fair … to my husband. I don’t seem to be the kind of person who can do things like that. It’s not … I mean, I want to. I do, but I’d never forgive myself for hurting him.’
‘D’you love your husband?’
She hung her head miserably, wanting to shout: But I love you too. It’s different. I can’t breathe when you’re near me. It’s not the same.
‘Then we shouldn’t discuss it any further, Lydia. It’s not fair on either of us. We’ll just stay as we were, then. Friends?’
She was unable to think of anything to say, wondering why she felt so desperately unhappy when she had made the decision. He continued, ‘If I thought you were going to stop writing to me, I don’t know what I’d do. Promise me at least that you’ll go on writing to me.’
‘Every day. Every single day, I promise. And you must write to me, too’
‘I will. And maybe we could meet from time to time … we could have lunch? Tea?’
Joss had shaken her head. ‘I don’t think I could, Gray. It would be too hard to … Well, I’d be so guilty. Churned up. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my time with you.’
‘So that’s it, right? Is that what you’re saying?’
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
‘What’s that?’
‘Michael Drayton. A sonnet, that begins: Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.’
Gray smiled. ‘Is that what we’re going to do? It hurts, Lydia. I have to tell you, I’m … well, I’m sick about it.’
‘So am I.’
‘You’re not eating those delicious scones.’
‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
As they left the café, Joss had glanced back at one particular ship: its long body upended into a jagged black diagonal on the triangular pale mass of the rock on which it was impaled. She shivered and followed Gray into the sunshine. On the way up to the house, before they were in sight of it, just as they were passing under the low-hanging branches of a tree, he pulled her to him and she fell against his body in a storm of tears. ‘Oh, Gray, what can I do? I want … It’s so … ’ The words she was struggling to speak wouldn’t come out.
‘Tonight. Just tonight, Lydia. Please. If you spend the night with me, I’ll never ask you for another thing ever again.’
She’d turned her face up to his and wound her arms round his neck. Yes, she said, over and over again and wondered whether he could hear her. Oh, yes …
The door of Isis’s room opened and there was Zannah, outlined against the light.
‘You okay, Ma?’ she whispered. ‘We’re ready to eat, if you are.’
‘Fine,’ Joss whispered back. ‘Just fell asleep for a moment. I’ll be down soon.’
The door closed and Joss sat open-eyed in the dark, pulling herself together. Her mobile was downstairs in the kitchen. She wanted to send Gray a text now, this minute, telling him about the shortlisting. She could imagine his reaction. Instead she would try Bob again, after they’d finished eating. He was bound to be home by then.
Monday/Tuesday
On the way home on the train, Joss looked and looked again at the image she and Mal had chosen for the jacket and wondered whether she could send one of her six gratis copies to Gray. No, that would be madness. She was so thrilled with the book that she even looked forward to showing it to Bob. Would he have anything celebratory waiting for her? Perhaps he’d booked a table for a meal. Maybe the house would be full of flowers. There might even be a bottle of champagne in the fridge. It would be too much to hope for all three, but she found herself excited at the prospect of a treat.
‘Hello, darling! Where are you?’ Joss said, as she let herself in.
‘Here, love,’ said Bob, coming downstairs from his study. ‘Good journey?’
‘Not bad. How’s everything here?’
‘Fine, fine … busy of course. When aren’t I? Marking’s a bugger as usual.’
Joss said, ‘Fancy a cup of tea? I’m going to make one.’
‘Good idea. You go and put your case away and I’ll get the kettle on.’
Joss went upstairs and came down again. She made a pot of tea before she turned to him and, unable to bear the suspense any longer said, ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘You’re not saying anything, Bob. Why’s that?’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
Sure enough, he looked quite bemused. His hair was sticking up. He’d been working and he always ran his hands through his hair when he was concentrating, focused on what he was doing.
‘I’m talking about my shortlisting … ’
‘Oh, gosh, yes, that’s terrific!’ His puzzlement increased. Joss could tell by the deepening of his frown. ‘I told you it was terrific on the phone yesterday, when I spoke to you at Zannah’s?’
‘So you did. I kind of expected … never mind. Anyway, this is it. The book.’
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry … I should have said something again. I’m really sorry … I’m preoccupied, you see. This looks fantastic, darling and I really, really hope you win. Any chance of that?’
Joss answered quickly, ‘Not much,’ then asked what was preoccupying him. She wanted time to think. To unpick everything that was wrong with what he’d just said. With how he’d behaved when he’d picked up the book for about thirty seconds and given it no more than a cursory glance, and hadn’t even commented on the picture on the cover. Preoccupied, she thought. That means: to the exclusion of something he must know is important to me. He hopes I win, but isn’t sure I will and winning’s the important thing. The implication being, I’ll pay proper attention if you’re a winner. He is clearly not interested in the book, nor in what’s in it. Now he was talking on and on about going away. Perhaps the shadow of the conversation they’d had about Gray was still there in the back of his mind.
‘So I’ll be away towards the end of September for two weeks. You’ll be okay, won’t you? I can’t let this opportunity pass me by. Good connections for the future. Excellent prospects for more work.’
Joss nodded. He’d be in Egypt for two weeks, she’d grasped that much. External examiner to some university in Cairo.
‘I’m tutoring a poetry course at Fairford for some of that,’ she said. ‘That’s five days I won’t be at home.’
‘That’s fine, then, isn’t it? We’ll both be busy at the same time. Right. Nice to have you back. Must go and do some more on my paper.’
He’d wandered out and left her on her own. I’m going to bed early, Joss told herself, and if I’m still awake when Bob comes to bed, I’ll pretend I’m fast asleep. She knew he wouldn’t wake her to make love. He’d never done that, in all the years they’d been married.
*
Next morning, after breakfast, Bob went straight to his study and Joss stood at her desk and read a few poems from The Shipwreck Café. Then she put the book down and stared at her laptop screen, wanting to write an email to Gray. She sent one instead to Maureen, assuring her that she had every intention of sorting out the stationery very soon. Joss imagined her opening her email, reading the message. Would she mention it to Gray? Oh, I had such a nice email from Joss … What would he think when he heard her say that?
Th
e sun was out. Joss closed her laptop, and went to lie on the sunlounger in the shade of the laburnum tree in the back garden. Bob didn’t even realize she was still sulking. That’s the problem, she thought. It’s not that he doesn’t care, it’s just that he’s unaware of most of my feelings. And perhaps a fraction more withdrawn than usual since her confession about Gray. She looked round the garden. It was a small square of lawn edged by narrow borders containing nothing very remarkable: roses, honeysuckle growing against the high fence, and two mature camellia bushes, one white and one pink. In the spring, their flowers, thousands of them, filled her with pleasure, though it was always a shock to see how quickly the petals grew brown. Almost the very first poem she’d ever written was about that: This is a flower to tuck into your belt/or wind into your hair with satin bands/before the fire of growing in the world/has scorched the edges of the petals brown.
The trees that drooped their branches over her fence and made patches of welcome shade belonged to the house adjoining theirs, but Joss regarded them as part of her own garden. They’d been able to afford this big house early on in Bob’s academic career because even for those days, it had been very cheap. A property of this nature, the estate agent had explained, usually had far more land at the back, not to mention a garage. They’d managed to build a garage about ten years ago, but the garden had remained tiny. When the girls were small, a climbing-frame took up most of the lawn. Bob wasn’t a gardener and this never bothered him. As for Joss, she felt as though Charlotte’s garden, which had been part of her youth, part of her life, was still hers. That must be, she thought, why the idea of Zannah’s wedding reception being held there gives me such a kick. Joss and Bob had not wanted a big wedding. They’d opted for a register office in Manchester, saving what little money they had for a few days in the Lake District. Charlotte had come up for the ceremony and a few friends were there too, but the occasion had been low-key. Now that Zannah was going in for the full works, Joss acknowledged that she was quite pleased to see Maureen’s nose put out of joint about the venue. There was, though, something else: it would be as though Zannah was marrying from her mother’s house, not the one she lived in today, but the one she used to live in, which could still make her feel nostalgic for a time when she was young, with nothing but possibilities before her.