Then Gaby, asked, ‘Will he be all right?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’ Connor looked at her carefully in the gloom. Her pale face glimmered and her eyes were enormous. ‘Are you all right, though?’
‘Me?’
‘You did beautifully.’ Connor bent down and retrieved his coat from the ground. It didn’t seem right to put it back on, though the night was cold. He glanced across at Gaby. She had on slouchy boots under her long skirt, but only a black camisole top. ‘You must be freezing,’ he said.
‘I suppose I am.’ She sounded dazed.
‘Do you want to have my coat?’
‘No!’ She wrapped her arms round herself and shivered violently. ‘In the car, those bodies,’ she said, then stopped. ‘Well, I’ve never seen a dead person before.’
‘Nor have I – not like that, anyway. I’ve only seen corpses.’ He was going to say that it was like seeing chicken breasts shrink-wrapped in a supermarket, then coming across a slaughtered bird hanging by its legs in a butcher’s shop, but stopped himself. It would have sounded heartless.
‘But I thought you were a doctor?’
‘I’m not really a doctor. I’m only a medical student.’
‘You acted like a doctor,’ she said.
‘I didn’t do anything.’
Two men wearing yellow jackets and helmets, carrying giant metal cutters, came towards the car.
‘I don’t want to watch this,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Connor, although he couldn’t look away. ‘We should probably go. We can’t do anything here.’
‘Don’t we have to give our names to the police or something?’
‘Probably,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what the procedure is. But you’re right. We should wait a bit, I guess. Do you want a cigarette?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But first I want to be hugged.’
So he put his arms round her and she laid her head on his shoulder. Her hair tickled his cheek and he felt her full, soft breasts squash against him. His T-shirt was damp and he understood that she must be crying, and then he realized that he was too. Tears trickled down his cheek and into his mouth and he made no effort to wipe them away. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wept, and he didn’t know why he was weeping now.
Gaby felt his thin body pressed against her, his strong arms holding her, the scrape of his stubble on her cheeks. She felt his tears; a stranger sobbing in her arms while she sobbed in his. Perhaps it was then that something untied in her; she was falling and knew there was no stopping herself now; she didn’t want to stop herself and she didn’t want to step out of the circle of his embrace into the cold night where three young men had just been snuffed out. They should stay like this, holding each other, and never let go.
‘I was at a party kind of thing,’ said Gaby, into Connor’s shoulder, her voice muffled. ‘I didn’t really want to go – I was a bit tired and behind with work and besides, I knew that this boy would be there who I didn’t want to meet. But, actually, it didn’t really matter as much as I thought it would. I suddenly realized I didn’t care about him after all, and it was like a weight being lifted off me. The party was fun. There were some nice people there. This weird guy was doing magic tricks in the kitchen. He kept pulling aces off the top of the pack. I couldn’t work out how he did it. I keep thinking I should learn to do tricks like that, but I never do. And I danced. I love dancing. Don’t you?’
Her fingers found the tears on his cheek and wiped them away as she spoke. ‘Anyway, when I was biking back, I was feeling happy. It was dark, and there was a moon, and I was all on my own, between two places, just freewheeling down the hill with the wind and the trees and nothing else, and I felt that everything was OK. Then I saw that car. That’s how quickly everything can end. It sounds really stupid, a cliché, but they’ve just stopped. That’s it. They were driving along and probably talking and laughing, not paying attention, then everything was over for them. All their plans. Wiped out. It’s hard to believe. And, one by one, their parents and friends and lovers will find out and everything will be changed for them. Maybe right now there’s a phone ringing in a bedroom. They’ll jerk awake, and when they see that it’s still the middle of the night, do you think they’ll know at once that something’s happened to their son? My mother always says that once you’ve got a child, you always carry them around in your head and worry when you don’t know exactly where they are, even when they’re fully grown-up. And we’ll just go on our way. We don’t know anything about them. Except I’m always going to remember this – I hope I do, anyway. It’s almost like a responsibility, being the last witness.’
‘Do you always talk so much?’ He breathed in the softness of her hair, not wanting her to stop. Her words were like ribbons and scraps of silk that she was weaving round him, protecting him from what was happening beyond.
‘Maybe it’s the shock. Have they finished getting them out of the car yet?’
‘Yes. They’ve taken them away.’
She gave a sigh, then stepped out of his arms. ‘Let’s have that cigarette.’
He shook two out of the packet and handed her one, then flicked the wheel of his lighter. In its flare, he saw her face differently – splotches of freckles, a full mouth, thick brows, a faint smudge of mascara beneath eyes that seemed almost black, a mole on her neck, sharp collarbone and the swell of her breasts.
And she saw him: sharp angles and planes, thin lips, exhausted eyes. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘Connor.’
‘Connor,’ she said, and took a deep drag, the smoke curling round her head. ‘What an odd way to meet.’
‘Here he comes.’
A police officer was making his way towards them. As Gaby gave a statement to him, he watched her. Her name was Gabriella Graham and she was twenty years old, a student at the university. She lived at 22 Jerome Street with four other students. She lifted her arms as she talked, leant towards the officer, pointed, pushed her hair behind her ears impatiently. The car had overtaken her at speed and crashed into the tree shortly after. No one else had been involved. She knew that two of them – the two in the car – were called Gary and Dan because the third man had called for them while he lay on the bank, but she didn’t know the name of the other. She thought – she turned to Connor for confirmation – that he had probably been the driver because he’d claimed it was his fault, but she didn’t know for sure.
‘Would you like a lift back to the city?’ the officer asked, when she’d finished. The ambulances were gone now; two men in luminous yellow coats were arranging cones round the wreckage.
‘It’s OK. I’ve got my car,’ said Connor. ‘I can drive us both.’
‘If you’re sure you’re in a fit state.’
‘My bike’s here,’ said Gaby. ‘And about your car –’
‘You can’t ride home. We can shove it in the back somehow,’ said Connor. ‘Or just put it in the boot and leave it open. It’s only a few miles.’
‘It’s up to you,’ said the officer.
‘I parked your car in a bit of a hurry,’ said Gaby. She gave a nervous cough. ‘Um, it might be a bit tricky to reverse out.’
‘Where are the keys?’
‘I think I left them in there. I can’t remember, it’s all a blur, but I haven’t got them on me, so …’
‘Let’s go and see.’
‘The thing is, I might have put them into my coat pocket, and I laid that over the top of him, remember, and it was still on top of him when they took him away, wasn’t it? So your keys might be on the way to the hospital.’
‘Right,’ said Connor, watching the police car leave.
But he found he didn’t mind. For once in his life he wasn’t thinking about consequences, schedules, the controlled execution of careful plans. He didn’t care what happened tomorrow, for the night had the quality of a dream, dislocated from the before-and-after, with its own internal logic. Indeed, he would have been almost disappointed to
find that the keys were in the ignition, had it not been that the car was tilted at a steep angle, deep in the nettle-filled ditch.
‘Sorry,’ said Gaby. ‘I was in a bit of a flap when I parked.’
‘Parked?’ He raised his eyebrows at her sardonically, feeling inexplicably cheerful all of a sudden. ‘How did you ever pass your test?’
‘Well, about that – when I said I could drive, I wasn’t being completely honest. I mean, I can drive, but I haven’t passed my test as such.’
‘As such?’
‘I’ve failed four times, so far.’
‘Maybe you should have got a lift with the police officer after all.’
‘Too late for that.’
‘You’d better take your bike.’
‘I want to help you.’
‘Help?’
‘You keep echoing me. It makes me nervous.’
‘Nervous?’
She stared at his deadpan expression for a few seconds, then laughed. ‘We’ll just have to walk,’ she said. ‘I’ll push my bike. It’s only a few miles.’
‘Probably about seven or something.’
‘Two hours,’ she said. ‘I walk fast and I bet you do. You look the type.’
‘What type is that?’
‘Driven. Terse. You probably sleep about five hours every night, get up at dawn to row or run or swim before going off to work for ten hours with only a cup of black coffee to keep you going. Am I right?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Whereas I’m a slob. I need at least ten hours’ sleep. I can sleep anywhere, any time. And I do. Once I went to sleep in the airport bus on the way to the plane, standing up.’
‘Like a horse.’
‘Did you know that horses’ knees lock into position while they sleep?’
‘I can’t say I did.’
‘I have a friend who’s got a big car – well, it used to be a hearse. I don’t know why he gets such a kick out of driving around in a hearse – he thinks it’s ironic, though I don’t get the irony myself. Anyway I’m sure he can come out and tow you out of the ditch tomorrow.’
‘I can do it,’ he said. Connor felt clumsy, anxious, inarticulate, older than her. He thought he knew the kind of background she came from – middle class and probably a bit Bohemian; loving parents who had always given her lots of praise, several siblings, lots of grandparents and godparents and cousins; a big, untidy, ramshackle old house; noise, laughter. She was careless, expansive, uncensored, light-footed; she didn’t mind spouting nonsense or fear that she was making a fool of herself. She’d always been herself, had never had to invent the woman she was to become. She belonged to a different world, one that had always been out of his reach, and he felt a spasm of familiar, sour resentment. But then it struck him that she was, through her kookiness, actually and deliberately taking care of him. She was trying to draw him out, and her words were like a trail she was scattering in her wake, hoping he’d want to follow. And he did want to; he did.
He wished that he could go on walking with her for the rest of the night, and deliberately slowed his pace. He pushed her bike, and when she shivered, he insisted on draping his coat round her shoulders, buttoning it up into a cape, carefully pushing her hair out of the way as he did so. He wanted her to feel safe with him, and he wished that she would stumble so that he could support her, or that she would cry again so that he could hold her in his arms to comfort her. There was a half-moon; there was corn stubble in the fields on either side of the hedges, and bales standing in massed shapes on the horizon. It was like a landscape in his mind and he knew he would remember it later. He matched his footsteps to hers, heard their joint rhythm pulsing behind their conversation, stored away her words. He knew he would bring them out when he was alone; that he would return to the image of her glowing face as it turned towards him. She said she had three brothers and she was the baby of the family. She mentioned someone called Stefan, but he ignored it. Stefan and Sally didn’t belong to this night. He knew very well that his heightened feelings were caused by the particular circumstances – his father was dying, his mother was drinking, he was tired and had been working too hard, there had been a car crash. Gaby had come to him like a figure out of a dream. Like a dream, she would fade with morning and his old life would resume.
‘What are you studying?’ he asked, as they walked.
‘Physics and philosophy.’ His expression must have altered because she looked at him shrewdly. ‘What? You thought I was doing, let’s see – psychology. Or maybe English and art.’
‘No!’
‘Yes, you did. Scatty girl.’
‘I didn’t mean –’
‘Never mind. Do you always pull on your ear-lobe like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you never talk much?’
‘I don’t know. Probably not.’
‘Is that because you don’t want to?’
‘Well,’ he said, then stopped.
‘I mean, are there things you want to say but don’t know how to, or do you want to keep your thoughts private inside yourself? Or maybe there are a select few people you confide in.’
‘What I hate,’ he said, ‘is saying something that seems important and feeling that the person you’re saying it to isn’t really hearing it. Not hearing it the way you want it to be heard, if you see what I mean. That makes me feel – well, I hate it. I’d prefer to remain silent.’
‘I see,’ said Gaby. Then, after a pause: ‘Listen, Connor, I lied to you – I’m not studying physics and philosophy, I only said that to impress you. English literature, after all.’
‘You never needed to try to impress me,’ said Connor. He felt intoxicated by sudden happiness.
‘And the car swerved to avoid me,’ said Gaby.
‘You mean –’
‘It swerved to avoid me. I was in the middle of the road, going down the hill. It swerved, skidded and went out of control round the bend. And I didn’t even say that to the policeman.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s my fault.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Connor. ‘He was probably drunk, and –’
‘Don’t try to comfort me. I know. If it hadn’t been for me on my bloody bike, they would still be alive.’
Connor didn’t reply. He took one hand off the bike, reached out for Gaby’s, and put it under his on the handlebar. He knew that she was crying again, although he didn’t look at her but ahead, at the road that wound like a ribbon through the cornfields. They walked in time, and in silence. He could hear the thud as their feet slapped against the earth. At what they estimated to be the halfway point, they stopped to have another cigarette. They sat on the side of the road, their backs against a tree; Gaby drew her legs up under her and wrapped the coat more tightly round her against the cold. The tips of their cigarettes glowed.
‘I told myself I wouldn’t smoke again,’ said Connor. ‘My father’s got lung cancer.’ He had the sensation of being slightly drunk, although he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol, and painfully awake, though he had not slept for over twenty hours. His skin tingled and his throat ached.
Gaby turned towards him, tented by the coat, her face half hidden by her hair. She was barely more than a shape, splashed with moonlight. Connor forced himself to think of Sally, lying trustingly in his bed and waiting for him to come home. He’d ease himself in beside her and she’d open her arms and hug his chilly, tired body and murmur into his ear. He knew how lucky he was to be with Sally. He didn’t deserve her. He was twisted and thorny and full of deceit; he didn’t deserve anyone.
‘That’s where I was coming from,’ he said. ‘When I saw you.’
Gaby let her cigarette fall on to the ground and put the heel of her boot on to its red eye. Say nothing else, he told himself. Stand up and start walking. Now, before it’s too late. But he didn’t move.
‘I thought I was dreaming you,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m still dreaming you.’
He, too, let drop his
cigarette, watched it glimmer and die. He could hear himself breathing raggedly as she sat motionless and half invisible beside him, and he imagined what must happen next: he would push his hand into the tangle of her hair and hold her face away from his, drown in the darkness of her eyes. For a moment they would stare blindly at each other, then he would pull her urgently towards him and they would kiss each other behind the protective curtain of her hair. Her arms would be round him, under the thin shirt, and his hands would be on her breasts. And then – he half shut his eyes … He put out a hand and with one finger traced the shape of her mouth. He felt her lips open and the pattern of her breathing changed. He touched her cheek, which was still damp from tears. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, ‘but you’re lovely.’
A shaft of light fell on them, almost dazzling them. For an instant, Connor saw Gaby’s face clearly in the headlights, like a hallucination. Then the car roared past, sending up a shower of grit, a horn blared twice, and it was gone, tail-lights disappearing round the bend.
Connor sat up straight and blinked.
‘Wake-up call,’ said Gaby, lightly brushing the grass and dirt from his back. He shivered at her touch but pulled away.
‘Yes, sorry. We should go.’
‘We don’t need to, you know.’
‘It’s late.’
‘It was always late.’
‘I mean to say,’ he replied, very formally, ‘that I’m involved with someone.’
‘Oh.’
‘Gaby –’
‘You’re right. We should go.’ She stood up in one easy, fluid movement and held out her hand, hauling him to his feet.
‘Thanks.’
‘Still miles to go before we sleep,’ she said. ‘It’ll be dawn before we get there. Come on.’
He didn’t come. Day after day, Gaby waited for him. She would wake each morning thinking, Perhaps it will be today. She would dress with care and stare anxiously at herself in the mirror, to see the face that he would see. She would pretend indifference, pretend not to start every time someone knocked at the door or the telephone rang. She would go out and steel herself not to look for him in every face she passed. Gradually the certainty she had held wavered, became a dim hope, almost died. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter – who was he, after all? Just a stern young man who was going to be a doctor. But he’d wept in her arms and she could still feel his tears on her skin. And he’d looked at her so attentively, as if he recognized her; she had felt beautiful under his rapt gaze. He’d grazed his thumb along her lower lip, half closing his eyes, and told her she was lovely. And he’d nearly kissed her, so very nearly. Just one tantalizing second more – and how she wished now she could turn back the clock and be there again with nothing to stop them this time. She could see his serious face coming towards her, his lips parted, his eyes looking into hers, and she could feel the way she had melted, ready for him; the way she melted still, just thinking of him. In her dreams she drew him into her and wouldn’t let him go.
The Moment You Were Gone Page 3