‘No?’
‘I just don’t think we love each other very much.’
I don’t look at her. I can’t. It’s too much, I shouldn’t have said it, but I was hurting too much to hold my tongue. I can feel Mum’s shock in the stillness that falls aching between us before she finds any words to offer in return. I feel like the party has gone silent around us. I’ve been too cruel. But then there’s another part of me that thinks maybe something important has happened; maybe this was what I came here to say. This was the secret I wanted to get out, the suspicion that has been growing all my life. It isn’t that Mum and I hate each other. There’s just an emptiness between us instead.
‘I … I’m sorry you think that. For me, it’s not true. It’s so not true.’
‘OK. Maybe we can talk about it later. I’m busy now.’
‘All right then,’ Mum says quietly.
‘I’ll be able to leave all this in a bit. I’ll come and find you and we’ll have a proper talk,’ I say.
‘All right. I’ll leave you to it then. Bye, darling.’
‘Bye.’
Mum turns and walks away, and I know she’s crying now. I hate myself for being so cold. I was cruel, really, I know I was. Dad asks me sometimes to try and imagine standing in her shoes, and I can see my coldness must be hard for her to bear. He likes to try and tell me that so much of the trouble between us could be scrubbed away if we just tried harder to understand each other. But I’ve never been very good at listening.
It was a lie to say that we’d talk properly later. I don’t know why I said it. Those kinds of talks never happen; they never get anywhere. They fall apart because no one ever knows how to say what they’re really feeling.
When have I ever managed to really say what I’m feeling? No one ever understands what it’s like to inhabit this place I’ve found my way into. I’ve never managed to communicate that. To be grieving so fiercely, unable to eat, crushed all the time by fear. People tried to make out what was happening, but there was a shore they couldn’t venture beyond. So they watched from the strandline and tried to imagine how cold the water must be. Then shouted out from time to time that I really should eat, I really should lift myself up out of the sorrow I was in, and hoped I could hear them over the waves, the storm raging.
I see Dad sidling towards me, trying to check I’m all right.
‘Kate?’
‘Hi.’
‘Are you upset?’
‘I’m OK.’
‘Did I see you with your mum? Do you want to talk?’
I don’t know what there is to say yet – I haven’t had the time to think about the conversation. ‘Maybe in a bit. I just need a minute, if that’s OK?’
Dad nods. ‘Of course. Sorry. Just wanted to check you were all right.’
‘I’m OK.’
‘I’ll leave you alone then.’ His face fills with love, and then he steps away from me. I step away from the bar myself, take a moment to stand at the edge of the flower bed and be on my own, and forget the people round me, and try to be calm again.
I’m probably standing in more or less the spot where Grandad fell.
He had the heart attack while he was gardening. He hadn’t been doing anything particularly taxing, just weeding one of the beds, and Grandma looked out of the window, and saw him lying on the lawn, and rushed out to help him, and called the ambulance. He said later that he didn’t remember any of what had happened for the whole of that day. Grandma hadn’t seen him fall and wasn’t quite sure how long he had been lying there. She only said he was very pale when she got to him. He lay there on the lawn like a fish plucked up out of the river and left on a bank.
I can’t stop thinking about the conversation I just had with Mum. I feel breathless, dizzy, full of shocked elation, like a child who’s just done something dangerous: defying a parent. A memory, I suppose, of other smaller defiances long ago, of what it felt like to answer Mum back when she was cross with me, or not to have come when I was called. I feel as though I’ve reverted to some previous age, having gone so long without seeing her, and fallen back into an older pattern. I can feel my heart pumping faster, the adrenaline coursing in me. My breathing’s quick, now I pay attention to it. It almost makes me dizzy, this sudden rush. I focus on the walls of the house across the garden, let my eyes rest for a moment on the stables, the light of midday making the bricks sing, and imagine all the stories that must have played out inside that simple brick building. People who died long ago who loved and sinned there, and felt just as deeply as I did, struggled like I did, in their own different ways. If I could only make out all of them, glimpse every day that has flown through this garden, that might be perfect happiness.
As much as I want to ignore it, the truth is that Mum wasn’t completely wrong about this place, this house; it isn’t all beautiful. A sadness has fallen over it since Grandma died, and everything’s very different now from how it used to be. Almost all of Grandma’s things were cleared out when she died. And the toys in the barn, and the lost things in the attic, lying forgotten for so long, Grandad got rid of all of them. No one ever really said why that had happened, that striking of the camp. He simply ordered in removal men, gathered things together, and gave them to family, or to charity, and got it all out of the house as quickly as he possibly could. Perhaps he couldn’t quite cope with the reminders of his wife all around him. He needed all of her to go if she was going, not just the body she had lived in. I’ve heard the same story elsewhere, from other mourners. People cope with loss in their own ways. Some cling to any reminder of the person they loved that they can hold on to; leave rooms untouched, that sort of thing. Some determine that they have to go on, they can’t get lost in the remembering of what has been. So they strip away all the props and supports of their old life.
It’s as if a great storm has swept through all these buildings, crumbling away whole generations of memory and belonging and home. Layers and layers of time have suddenly washed away. Now all that’s left of the treasures that once filled those little treehouse rooms in the barn is memory. Now the only place I can still see my face in Grandma’s dressing-table mirror is in my head. Only in my mind, and the minds of the others who saw it as it once was, is there any trace of the old glory of this place when it was happy, when it was the heart of a family, because no one ever thought to take a photograph of anything as ordinary as a stairwell or a storage space, to show the life in it and how it really was. I wish someone had thought to do that before it was too late. Instead a time will come when no one will have any reason to suspect that a child once doubled over laughing in those little attics, that sequins and rhinestones sparkled like jewels in the dim light of that barn. Someone will store hay or Land Rovers in there, or simply knock it down, and they will never think of its history, because the world never remembers anyone who passes through it, not really. The world is impervious and indifferent to all of us in the end, and it comes to feel like all the stories that ever rained down on us don’t even add up to the names on a list of visitors, the names on a family tree.
Perhaps Grandad didn’t know what else to do, or how to cope with the loss, because he never imagined it happening to him. Everyone had assumed he would go before her, after all.
I make my way back to the bar, feeling guilty that I’ve been standing in the corner of the garden not helping anyone. Chris, whom I also call an uncle but who is yet another older cousin, is helping himself to ale from the trestle table. He smiles when he sees me, and I smile back.
‘Don’t mind me,’ he says.
‘You’re all right.’
‘Your mum being a bit tricky, is she? I saw you were having a bit of a set-to.’
‘I think it’s probably me, really.’
‘People always argue at parties, don’t they?’ Chris smiles again, and moves away.
I watch the crowd under the marquee. Fewer than eighty people have come, by the look of it. It’s still a lot of mouths to feed, but there’s undoubte
dly an air of decline about the gathering. In my pocket I feel my phone vibrating – a text from Sam. Sorry I missed your call. I know you’re busy now, don’t worry about replying. Hopefully speak to you later. Hope you’re having fun. Xx. I could just ignore him, but I decide I want to reply. I wish you’d told me earlier that you didn’t want to come. I woke up thinking you were going to be here. Then I put my phone on airplane mode, because I’ve got enough to deal with already today.
I have to be careful, to manage my life, to try and make sure I don’t give myself too much to deal with. I’m still in a fight, after all. I still have to will myself into staying well; it’s just that these days I’m able to do it, whereas once I wasn’t. And that’s not nothing, that’s a big change. So much has become possible. I’m able to live on my own, and have a job. Perhaps these aren’t extraordinary achievements, but they feel extraordinary to me.
For a time after I moved back out of the hospital, I liked to go out and stand on the side of the flyover roads that ring round Bristol, and look up to the hills, and think about freedom. Then I’d look down into the river and the road, and up at last to rest my eyes on the stark silhouette of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, watching over everything. Bristol is a suicide’s city, the image of that bridge always waiting at the edge of your vision, hanging there like a voice speaking into your head. But there’s a story in the city of a woman who fell from the bridge a hundred years ago, and lived, because her petticoats made a parachute and saved her, and I have made that woman my patron saint. I like to think of her falling figure when I go and stand on the flyover. I like to imagine that she was me, because we have something in common – the fall didn’t kill either of us.
The man whose arrival took Grandad away from the party comes out into the garden, blinking in the sun. He’s looking around, like a boy on the first day of school. No one else seems to notice him where he stands, and he doesn’t look like he recognises anyone. He spots the bar, and starts making his way towards me. Halfway across the lawn his eyes adjust to the day, and he realises I’m watching him, and smiles, and raises an open palm in greeting.
‘I’m afraid I’m something of a gatecrasher,’ he says in a gentle Irish accent.
‘I know. I’m Robert’s granddaughter. He said he had a bit of business to do with you. I’m supposed to help make sure you don’t get interrupted.’
The stranger gives me a searching look. I wonder what he’s thinking.
‘I see. What’s your name?’
‘Kate.’
‘I’m Frank.’ He holds out his hand, and I shake it.
‘You’re a colleague of Grandad’s then?’
Frank smiles ruefully. ‘Something like that. I’m an academic myself, but we’re consultants on the same project, sort of thing. You know how it is.’
‘Sure.’ I’m not sure I do know how it is, but there’s no helping that. It’s strange Grandad was so evasive, if this is all he was doing: talking with some retired academic.
‘Grandad was sort of secretive about it,’ I say and Frank nods absently, looking over the different drinks on offer on the table.
‘I’m sure he was. It’s a relatively secret project.’
‘Intrigue and high drama?’
Frank smiles and shakes his head. ‘Not quite. Just confidential, you know.’ He picks up a glass and starts examining a box of wine.
‘Do you want me to do that for you?’ I gesture to his glass.
‘No, don’t worry.’
‘It’s what I’m here for.’
Frank considers this for a moment.
‘Well, would you mind? I can’t see how to do this, I’ve never poured from one before. That makes me sound very grand, doesn’t it?’
‘Perhaps you are.’ I take his glass from him, and fill it, and hand it back. ‘As you suspect, it’s not very good. But it’s drinkable.’
‘I’m sure it’s great.’ Frank looks around the garden. ‘These are your people then, are they?’
‘Some of them, I suppose,’ I reply.
‘You don’t feel much like you belong here though?’
‘Not really, no.’
Frank appraises me more closely, his eyes narrowed as he takes me in, and seems to be searching for something.
‘It’s a very interesting area, isn’t it? The way we used to build our lives around our families, and don’t any more.’
‘I’ve been thinking the same thing.’
‘So what’s your story?’
I wonder which story I should tell. ‘Me? I’m the usual. A twenty-something looking for something to do.’
‘What did you study?’
‘English.’
Frank winces. ‘That’s the worst. You’d be more employable with a degree in surfing studies.’
‘I know.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Royal Holloway.’
‘Oh, yes. I like it there, it’s all right.’
‘It’s all right, yeah.’
He carries on looking at me, taking me in, and his eyes seem clear and focused. ‘What are you doing for work then, at present?’
‘I work in a call centre in Bristol.’
Frank whistles. ‘Jesus. Do you mind me asking how old you are? You don’t seem so young to me that you still want to be working in a call centre.’
‘I’m not,’ I say, and leave it at that.
Frank empties his glass quickly, and puts it down on the table. ‘Would you relocate for decent work?’
I look at him and he stares back, seeming serious and sincere.
‘I might.’
‘Well, I work at Oxford. My college library needs an assistant librarian, I think. Would you come for an interview if I could swing you one?’
‘God, I’d love to, yeah.’
‘There’s a lot of specialist training you have to do to be any good at the job. But I wonder whether we could work something out. I’d be glad to see what I can manage?’
I wonder whether I hate that idea at some level. This is exactly how nepotism happens: it’s all as well natured as this; it’s just meeting people because you go to the right kind of parties. And it’s still corrosive, even if people do it with the best intentions. But I shouldn’t be turning down this kind of opportunity because of some principle. Everyone else takes their chances, after all. That is how to be alive.
‘Well, if there was a chance to be interviewed, I’d love to be considered.’
Frank picks up his glass again, and refills it himself. ‘All right then,’ he says, thoughtfully. ‘I’ll see what I can do. It was good to meet you. I’ll get your number off of Robert and let’s speak again, if you want to.’
Frank smiles, then excuses himself, and leaves me on my own again. I wonder whether he meant any of what he said, whether I’ve genuinely just been offered an interview for a job at an Oxford library.
from Interview 66
After the bomb went off, I went back to the same café where I’d been given the go-ahead. Right by Southwark Cathedral. I was probably mad doing that, but I was shook up, I’ll admit that, and things all felt different before CCTV. I almost expected the guy might still be there, sitting with his briefcase. So strange, a little nondescript gent like that causing so much chaos. That was how I felt about myself as well, little old me doing all that damage. Of course, we weren’t really responsible. We just passed the message on, we carried out the will of the leadership. But I felt shook up. I watched this woman walking down the pavement outside while I had my cup of tea. She was looking shell-shocked herself, everyone was, and this young woman was in a daze, when a motorbike pulled up beside her. The guy on the bike took his helmet off, a young guy with a beard, and I could see they knew each other. Not that well, but he’d recognised her, so he’d stopped to see whether she was all right. They talked; I couldn’t guess what they were saying. But while I was watching I thought this kind of poetry came into the moment, came out of nowhere and took them over, then took me over too. Because it w
as amazing, really, in a city of so many souls, on a day like that with the ash from the bomb in the air. He’d recognised her, so he stopped to say hello. And because of that, even the smallest talk was so intense, so beautiful.
Robert
GEOFFREY ARRIVES AN hour later. He must have got straight in the car and headed down as soon as our first call was finished, to have arrived so quickly. Someone in government clearly thinks this is important, too. His driver waits in the lane outside the house, engine running, ready to spring, and Geoffrey walks in through the gates on his own, scowling at the people he sees milling before him. I intercept him at the front door.
‘This is a superb atmosphere in which to discuss state secrets, I must say,’ Geoffrey mutters by way of greeting.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t plan it this way, you know.’
‘I suppose not. Where is he then?’
‘In the garden with everyone else.’
Geoffrey arches back, recoiling in theatrical surprise. ‘You’ve left him alone with that lot?’
‘He’s not going to go round telling people why he’s here and what he thinks about it, Geoffrey. It wouldn’t be in his interests, would it?’
Geoffrey appears to give this some thought before responding.
‘No. You’re right, of course. Is there anywhere private round here, or should I grab a drink and sit down under the apple trees with him?’
‘I don’t actually have any apple trees, more’s the pity. I’ll take you to my study.’
I lead Geoffrey through the house, running the gauntlet of the kitchen again, confident Frank won’t have seen the arrival. In the study, Geoffrey sits down heavily in the chair Frank previously occupied, and eyes up the whiskey.
‘Helping him feel at home, I see?’
I don’t reply for a moment. My eye has been caught by a tiny rent in one of the pictures on my wall. I have seen it every day for years; I can’t tell why my thoughts have snagged on it now. A sunset landscape, an empty field, a wood in the distance, a river running through it: a painting I was given long ago by my piano teacher, whose father, an RA, painted it a few years before I was born. There is another painting that Hattie liked which came to me the same way; it’s hanging in a room upstairs, in a grander gilt frame: an image of two poachers stalking through a darkened wood. It is the first sketch of a better-known work that was eventually painted on to a larger canvas. Hattie always loved the speed with which our draft had been done, the urgency, the energy in the way the paint was layered on. She loved the life of it. I, myself, always preferred this unobtrusive sunset. I love the light in the sky, the feeling of dream about it.
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