by Adale Geras
‘Well, I don’t. I’ve got to make do with emails and texts and the odd phone call. Is that right? Have I left anything out? Oh, yes, of course! Stupid of me. You’re still going to have sex with your husband. Is that a fair representation of what’s going on?’
Lydia nodded miserably. ‘I suppose so … but, Gray … ’
‘I don’t want to hear justifications. Okay? I don’t want to hear them. This is what’s happening. I’m going to cut this off now. Right here. Don’t get in touch with me. Don’t write to me, don’t text me, don’t email me. I won’t answer. I promise you I won’t. D’you understand? This is it, Lydia. It’s not going to work. It’ll never work while you’re … while you’re still … I’d rather have nothing to do with you at all than this. I can’t deal with what you’re suggesting.’
‘You can’t … Oh, Gray, please. Listen, please, listen. I don’t want … ’
‘So break your promise to your daughters.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Yes you can. Tell them you’ve made a promise you can’t keep and you want the right to act as you feel you must when it comes to your relationship with me.’
‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘Oh, God, we’re back to that again. I’ve heard it. Zannah will be in pieces. It’ll wreck the wedding. Em will be upset at her father being hurt. I know. Fine. You’re not moving and neither am I. Frankly, I don’t see what’s going to change after the wedding. How come you’re going to be so firm then and you can’t face it now?’
‘It’ll be easier, that’s all. Maybe I want the extra time to make up my mind. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, nothing. Maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe you’ll decide it’s not worth breaking up two households that have functioned perfectly well for thirty years and more, just on a whim?’
‘It’s not a whim, and you know it.’ Lydia was angry now. ‘You’re being unreasonable. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. Making sure we have nothing instead of simply less of one another. Anyone’d think you’re only in it for the sex.’
This struck Gray as so monstrously unfair that he stood up, and said only, ‘Right, I’m not discussing this any more. Goodbye, Lydia. Don’t contact me, please.’ He strode away towards Piccadilly. When had it started to drizzle? She would certainly run after him. She would come down the path shouting: Stop, Gray, don’t go. Come back … Nothing. Silence. She wasn’t coming after him. He was alone. This was the end of something. He could feel it. He allowed himself a glance over his shoulder and saw her, sitting on the bench with her head buried in her hands, not even looking at him. Not the end of something, the end of everything. That was what it felt like. The drizzle blowing against his cheek mingled with his tears. When was the last time he’d cried? He couldn’t remember. He was finding it difficult to remember anything except Lydia’s voice. Her face.
Monday
Charlotte and Edie were sitting at the kitchen table. Charlotte was wrapping Christmas presents, and Edie was busy totting up the cash from that afternoon’s Christmas sale at the women’s refuge and putting the piles of coins into small plastic bags from the bank. There was more than a week to go before she had to leave for Altrincham but it was impossible to break the habit of a lifetime, and Charlotte had always liked to have everything prepared well in advance. Besides, there were the gifts for everyone she was leaving behind here in Clapham and their relatives. She was in the habit of giving small but luxurious presents and she enjoyed choosing them throughout the year. They went into a deep drawer and came out at the end of the second week in December. The routine had been laid down over years.
‘What’s Val up to?’ said Edie, skilfully cutting some invisible Sellotape with silver scissors. Not for her, thought Charlotte, the undignified chewing of the tape with her teeth. Or for me. Edie had just stuck a rosette of silver ribbon to the parcel and held it up to be admired. ‘Jo Malone for Joss,’ she said. ‘The new one she said she liked so much … Pomegranate Noir.’
‘Lovely!’ said Charlotte. ‘She’ll love it. Mind you … ’
To give credit where it was due, no one was quicker than Edie when it came to picking up hints. Charlotte could see her friend’s eyes open a little wider and it wasn’t more than a second or two before she asked, ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘No, not really.’
‘That means yes,’ said Edie, ‘doesn’t it?’
Charlotte sighed. She wasn’t sure whether it had been intentional on her part, but now that it had happened she was quite grateful for the opportunity to discuss Joss with Edie. She said, ‘Joss isn’t as happy as she ought to be. That’s it.’
Edie picked up some pretty, holly-sprinkled paper and began wrapping the flat box of Caran d’Ache crayons she’d chosen for Isis. She said, ‘How happy ought she to be?’
‘Happier than she seems now. She’s won that prize, and she’s had a trip to Paris. She should be looking forward to having her whole family around her at Christmas, yet when I speak to her, she seems … It’s as though there’s a shadow behind her. In her voice. Somewhere. Oh, take no notice of me. It’s probably nothing.’
‘What’s probably nothing?’ Val came into the room bearing armfuls of holly and ivy. ‘I’ve been in search of stuff for decorations. And I’m dying for a drink. Whisky, anyone?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Charlotte. ‘We’re talking about Joss. She doesn’t seem very happy.’
Val had her back to them as she reached for the glasses on the top shelf of the dresser. ‘Could be the menopause, couldn’t it? It’s hard for some women, I know.’
‘I don’t think it’s that. Or let’s say if it were that, she’d have told me.’
‘You could,’ said Edie, ‘ask her what’s wrong. She’d tell you, wouldn’t she?’
Charlotte nodded. ‘I might. If the chance presents itself.’
Val spoke soothingly as she poured drinks for all of them. ‘Don’t worry about it, anyway. Joss is very sensible. I’m sure it’s nothing too terrible.’
Charlotte wondered whether she’d have shared the details of her anxiety with Edie if Val hadn’t happened to come in when she did. Somehow she’d felt that if she told more than one person, her worries might acquire some sort of substance; some truth. As long as it was just Edie who knew what she thought, Charlotte could delude herself that maybe she was imagining things.
It was a careful reading of The Shipwreck Café that had first aroused her suspicions. After going through all the poems more than once, Charlotte had come to the conclusion that Joss was in love. Before the Madrigal Prize ceremony, she’d thought it might just be a terrific imaginative feat but after that dinner in the restaurant, there couldn’t be any doubt about it. It seemed to her that Graham Ashton was besotted with Joss. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her for more than a second. And Joss, for her part, had been flushed and agitated. As far as Charlotte knew, they’d never met, apart from once, briefly, in this house last May. And at that time, she’d had a migraine and hadn’t exchanged a word with him. Could they have struck up a friendship somewhere else? It was a mystery, and she meant to get to the bottom of it. She’d nearly asked on the phone, but something in her niece’s voice held her back. They’d been discussing who was going to be in Altrincham this year. Adrian, Zannah and Isis … It was then, at that point, that Charlotte had mentioned the Ashtons, and Joss had waited a long time before answering. At last she said, ‘They’re going to South Africa to see Jonathan, Adrian’s brother.’
Perhaps there was something on the line, but Charlotte heard a hint of anguish in that disembodied voice. She’d said, ‘Joss, darling, are you okay?’
She waited for the ‘fine’ but it didn’t come. Instead, Joss had answered enigmatically, ‘I’ll be all right.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Nothing. Really. It’s just … Never mind. I’ll be fine.’
Charlotte hadn’t pressed her but now, thinking back, she made up her mind. There would be a chance
to speak alone with Joss over the Christmas weekend, and she wasn’t going to be fobbed off. Joss was like a daughter to her and she knew she wasn’t simply being nosy. She pulled her thoughts away from this problem and tuned in again to what Edie and Val were discussing.
‘Something old, something new, et cetera,’ said Val. ‘Is Zannah going to be doing that? I’ve got such a pretty blue handkerchief. I must show her next time she’s here. It’s lace-trimmed. From Bruges.’
‘And I,’ said Edie, ‘have got something old that I think she might like. A very beautiful handbag that once belonged to my mother. Small, a lovely shape embroidered with a pattern of butterflies with tiny pearls dotted all over it. I’ve only ever used it a couple of times, not being the butterflies-and-pearls type, but I think it would make a wonderful present. Mother must have bought it in the twenties, and I’m sure it would be perfect with the kind of dress Zannah’s thinking of.’
‘That’s enormously kind of you, Edie,’ said Charlotte. ‘Zannah’ll be thrilled. But what about your daughter-in-law?’
Edie smiled. ‘I love her dearly, but she’s even less butterflies-and-pearls than I am, if you can imagine such a thing. She’d think it was dreadfully old-fashioned. Zannah would appreciate it properly and therefore ought to have it. I’ll show it to her next time she’s here.’
‘That’s lovely,’ said Val, and turned to Charlotte. ‘Don’t you worry, though. Everything will work out.’
Outside, dusk had fallen. The winter solstice was nearly upon them: the longest night of the year. On the table, the whisky glasses stood among the scraps of wrapping paper and curling ribbons of scarlet and silver and gold. Val, in spite of her experience of neglect during her childhood and violence in her marriage, in spite of years in prison, always thought things would work out for the best. Charlotte tried to relax and be more optimistic. She would make a point of talking to Joss as soon as she could.
Friday
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Charlotte and Emily had arrived in Zannah’s car just after lunch and Adrian was driving up with Zannah and Isis. They’d be here very soon. Charlotte was at the kitchen table, helping Joss to make garlands of holly, ivy and assorted foliage, bound up with scarlet satin ribbons. The scones Joss had made that morning were set out ready for tea. Bob was up in the attic, getting the enormous decorations box, full of ancient treasures, ready for him and Isis to search about in after she had arrived. Emily had gone to the local shops to buy the last-minute bits and bobs that year after year she somehow managed not to get round to in London.
‘Sometimes,’ Joss said, ‘I wish I’d learned about flowers. Done a course or something. I love this. I’d happily spend every day putting garlands together. I like chatting to Zannah about her wedding flowers, but there’s a lot to be said for winter stuff, isn’t there? I love holly. Always looks dangerous … ’
‘Can we talk, Joss darling? This seems like a good time … ’
Joss pretended to be absorbed in a particularly difficult tying of one end of a ribbon to another. What was this about? Charlotte was so serious. In the last few days, Joss had been struggling with her feelings and had just about got them under control. She’d come back from London three weeks ago in a daze of sorrow, almost as though she were in mourning. Which, she reflected now, I was. I am. My love for Gray is supposed to be dead and I’m meant to have buried it. It’s not … it will never be … a part of my life any longer.
During the day, she’d taken to running herself into the ground with Christmas preparations. She’d cooked and frozen what felt like a thousand mince pies, she’d iced the Christmas cake, she’d gone on endless shopping expeditions as far from home as she could to use up the hours, fill them with stuff. The idea was to stop herself thinking. She wished she could write, but that seemed to be impossible and there were times when she wondered how she’d ever written anything. She was making an attempt to wipe her mind of everything except the item in front of her at any given time. She was doing quite well as far as the days went, but the nights were awful and she dreaded them. Often, she’d find something extra to do in the kitchen so that she could put off the moment when she was lying in the dark, with Bob asleep and oblivious next to her. In bed, she was completely alone with her misery, which was so real that she imagined it had a physical shape. It was a black fur coat, lying like some almost living thing on top of her, stifling her, weighing her down, burying her. She lay there, unable to move, and the tears kept coming into her eyes. There was now a hankie permanently under her pillow which she used to wipe them away.
Sleep arrived after what seemed like hours and when it did, it was even worse than being awake, staring into the darkness. She sometimes dreamed of Gray. When she woke, the dream evaporated and she couldn’t recall more than fragments of it, which surfaced from time to time as she was working and working at the physical things that wore out her body and were supposed to stop her dwelling on the past too much, but were pretty useless at doing that. She was starting to forget what he looked like. What he sounded like. Why had they never exchanged photographs? They could have sent one another photos by email, like the ones she’d sent him of her house and study, but somehow they’d never done so and now it was too late. How easy it was to leave things to another day when you thought you had all the time in the world. Now, she would have given anything, any money, just to gaze at a picture of his face. She’d tried to escape into words on the screen and found that none came to mind. She was incapable of expressing how she felt. When she opened her laptop, she stared at the image of Isis as a baby that was still her screen-saver and fell into a kind of stupor. One night, she had written to Gray. A long letter, spelling out everything in tedious detail. Vowing endless love. Justifying her behaviour. Trying to explain. When she read it over, it seemed to her so feeble and stupid that she deleted it at once.
‘Joss, darling,’ Charlotte spoke again. ‘I want to tell you something. Look at me.’ Charlotte was smiling. She leaned across the table and took Joss’s hand. ‘I’ve looked after you since you were a child. You’re like my own daughter. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. You’ve been my mother for years and years.’
‘Then I want you to know that you can trust me. Completely.’
‘What d’you mean? Of course I trust you … ’
‘I mean … whatever you say to me when I ask you what I’m going to ask you will stay private between the two of us. I’d never tell anyone … anyone at all … what we say to one another.’
‘I … I don’t know what you mean, Charlotte.’
‘I think you do. Graham Ashton. I want to know about you and Graham Ashton.’
Joss sucked her finger. She’d pricked it on a holly leaf as his name was mentioned and she was grateful for the sharp pain. What could she say? She stared at Charlotte.
‘What about him?’
‘I’ve read your poems carefully, Joss. They’re written by someone who’s in love. I think … forgive me if I’m wrong about this, but I’ve been worried about you … I think you’re in love with Graham Ashton. I’m almost certain he’s in love with you.’
Joss put aside the garland and said, ‘I don’t know what to do, Charlotte. I’m in agony.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I don’t know if I can … I haven’t – I mean, no one knows. The girls suspected something. They asked me about it and I fobbed them off. But it’s true, Charlotte and I don’t know what to do. It’s … I’ve never … ’
‘I’m going to make some tea,’ said Charlotte, getting to her feet. ‘Start at the very beginning. Don’t cover up, don’t lie. Don’t make light of things that are serious. Tell me everything.’
It was astonishing to Joss that it took such a short time to explain and unravel the enormous mass of feelings, doubts, lies, everything that she carried inside her. The complications of the relationship, of all the relationships, and especially the love: what it felt like to be swept away by the force of the passi
on were all laid out in a few minutes. She spoke and as the words left her lips she was filled with such relief that by the time she’d come to the end of her account she was weeping. Charlotte took a clean handkerchief from the pocket of her cardigan and handed it to her. ‘There. Good girl.’
Charlotte makes me feel like a child again, Joss reflected. As though I’ve handed over my troubles to a grown-up. She said, ‘No one else knows about this, Charlotte. Not the whole truth. The girls don’t know that we’re lovers. And no one knows he’s left me now. He’s never going to come back, Charlotte. What am I going to do?’
Charlotte sat for a long moment saying nothing. Then, ‘We don’t know what’ll happen in the next few months, Joss. Things change. What I care about is that you, Bob and the girls should get through this in a way that hurts everyone least.’
‘So I’m never to see Gray again? I just accept … this … my life as it’s been so far. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Breaking up a marriage that’s lasted more than thirty years isn’t going to be easy, Joss. You’ve got to recognize that. I’m not saying it mustn’t in any circumstances be broken up, and if you and Graham Ashton genuinely love one another … well, I wouldn’t stand in your way. I’d help however I could, but the truth is: you’re my main concern. You’re my child. I have to acknowledge what’s best for you, for your happiness, even though it might strike everyone else as … well, as though you’re discarding poor Bob in favour of someone else. People can’t understand these things from the outside. It’s hard for them.’
‘It’s academic at the moment. Gray’s on his way to South Africa. I think Adrian was going to take them to the airport before he drove everyone up here. Gray’s the one who’s broken it off. He won’t accept that I can’t break my word to Zannah.’
‘But you might change your mind … ’