The Moment You Were Gone

by Nicci Gerrard

  Do you know what I think? I’ve just read through both lists, and the hate-list seems much more revealing than the love one. Why do you think this is?

  The real question, though, is what am I going to do next? And the answer is – I don’t know. I haven’t decided. It all feels too big and significant. It almost doesn’t feel real. It’s as if this is happening to someone else. Not me, Sonia.

  She closed the book and put it back in its place, but for a long time she went on sitting on the bed, staring at her hands, her whitened knuckles, until she collected herself and left the room.

  Six

  ‘Ticket, please.’

  Gaby handed hers over.

  ‘This isn’t for first class, madam.’

  ‘No, I know.’

  ‘And, here, it isn’t for this journey, either. It’s for London. I’m afraid you’re on your way to Penzance.’

  ‘Yes. It’s very beautiful here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘I got on the wrong train, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I’ll get off at Liskeard, shall I?’

  ‘But you’ve already passed Plymouth. Why didn’t you –?’

  ‘I was in a bit of a dream. It’s been a funny kind of day. My son – my only child – has gone off to university for the first time and my mind was on other things. Memories. But I don’t want to lie to you – I knew it was the wrong train all the time.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘I just suddenly got on it. It seemed the right thing to do, although I’m beginning to feel a bit foolish. Have you ever done anything like that?’

  ‘I can’t say I have.’

  ‘Do you want me to pay for this journey?’

  ‘If you get out at the next stop, I’ll turn a blind eye. Considering everything.’

  ‘You’re a very nice man,’ she said warmly, and he blushed and rubbed the side of his face in embarrassment.

  ‘But you’ll still need to go to the second-class carriage, unless you want to pay the extra, which will be –’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I’ll move.’

  But the train was already slowing and a voice announced over the Tannoy that they were coming into Liskeard. As she got out on to the platform, she noticed that it was already dusk. The nights were drawing in.

  She didn’t have an address or a phone number, just the name of a village a few miles from Liskeard. In any case, she certainly didn’t want to phone ahead. That was out of the question. Never mind, she’d have to get a taxi to Rashmoor, then wander about until she tracked her down.

  A few months previously, Gaby had been lounging on the sofa after supper, nursing a large glass of red wine and half watching the news. There was an item about the floods that had severely damaged several villages in Cornwall; some residents had even had to be rescued from their houses in boats. A female reporter, sloshing along in the muddy brown water and looking inappropriately jolly in bright red wellingtons that had obviously been bought for the occasion, said, ‘I’m here in the picturesque village of Rashmoor, where dozens of houses have had to be evacuated. It really is an extraordinary scene.’ The camera panned over images of a street that had become a stream, with the tops of cars, fences and lamp-posts poking out of its fast-flowing surface, and then of the inside of a house, water half-way up the stairs and a furious-looking woman standing a few steps up holding a bucket, before returning to the face of the smiling reporter.

  At that point Gaby had sat bolt upright on her sofa, slopping her wine. For as she watched, a woman wearing boots and an oilskin walked past. She glanced fleetingly at the camera and, for a surreal moment, Gaby had the clear sense that she was looking straight at her – and then she looked away and quickened her pace. Even as Gaby a gasped and leant closer, the woman was gone, and the reporter was saying something about climate change and insurance companies. She hadn’t seen her for nineteen years, yet the recognition was sharp and total: the square jaw and intense eyes, the colour of a gas flame; the way she had of carrying herself, back straight, head up, like a soldier on parade. She’d always done that, even as a girl. People had always thought she was taller than she was.

  For a few minutes Gaby had sat on the sofa, startled with the shock of it. Then she drained her glass of wine, stood up decisively and pulled the large road atlas down from the bookshelf. She turned to the index and found Rashmoor. And there it was, a tiny dot near Bodmin Moor, a few miles from Liskeard and not far from the sea. Without giving herself time to think, she rang Directory Enquiries and asked for the number of Nancy Belmont, Rashmoor, Cornwall. ‘Sorry, caller,’ said the voice at the other end of the line, ‘but that number is ex-directory.’ So she had seen her: she did live there. After so many years of not knowing where she was, not knowing if she was in the country, not even knowing if she was still alive, Gaby had found her. Or, rather, she had appeared to Gaby, like an apparition. She had stared into her eyes.

  But that had been many weeks ago now, and Gaby had done nothing about it. She hadn’t even mentioned it to Connor, although she didn’t understand why not. She’d practised the words – ‘Guess who I saw on television?’ – but never spoken them. Connor had told her often enough that she should let Nancy go. He had argued, reasonably, that whatever her motives Nancy had made it clear by her behaviour that their friendship was over. It was no good trying to persuade her to change her mind; you couldn’t beg someone to be your friend or plead with them to like you. And neither had she told Stefan, for what was the point? She’d let the image go and it drifted slowly to the muddy depths of her mind where it lay out of sight.

  But now here she was in Liskeard, on some madcap errand to find a friend who wasn’t a friend and ask her – ask her what? Why did you leave Stefan like that? Why did you leave me? Why did you never write? What happened? She wasn’t even sure any more that she wanted to know the answers. To make it worse, there wasn’t a single taxi. It was getting dark, and Gaby stood indecisively, pondering. Perhaps she should get back on the next London train. She could be home before too late, have a long bath and watch a film or curl up in bed with a book.

  But even as she was thinking this, she had turned her back on the station and walked towards the centre of the town. She had no idea of which direction to take – the atlas had shown that Rashmoor was north-west of Liskeard, but which was north-west, for goodness’ sake? Connor knew things like that. He would frown for a few seconds, considering, then point decisively. And he was always bloody right. It was extremely annoying – like the way when he was driving and she was failing to find where they were on the map, let alone where they were going and what road to take, he would jab the page and say, ‘We’re about there.’ Perhaps she could smell the sea and follow that, or perhaps she could orient herself by the North Star, if she knew which star it was. Wasn’t it the bright one, low on the horizon, or was that the Pole Star – or maybe the Pole Star and the North Star were the same? She squinted up at the darkening sky hopelessly. She should learn about constellations, she thought, knowing that of course she wouldn’t.

  She went into the first pub she came to, making her way through the fug of cigarette smoke to the bar.

  ‘Can you tell me the way to Rashmoor?’

  ‘Rashmoor – let me see, it rings a bell.’

  ‘It’s near here.’

  ‘Yeah – Vicky, do you know where Rashmoor is?’

  ‘Isn’t it the little village up past the old tin mines? The one that got badly flooded in the summer?’

  ‘That’s the one. I knew that, I knew it.’ He leant across the bar to Gaby. ‘Take the first left out of the town, drive up that road for a mile or two, then take the next right along a small road that follows the river. It’s a bit isolated, mind.’

  ‘Thanks. How many miles do you think?’

  ‘Not many. It’ll only take ten or so minutes I reckon.’

  Gaby didn’t tell him she was walking. She asked for a glass of white wine and a packet of dry-roasted nuts, and sat at
a small table near the window, sipping the wine slowly and popping nuts into her mouth, crunching them. Then she stood up, waved at the man behind the bar and left.

  Before long, she had left Liskeard. All around her stretched the moorland, scattered with the pale shapes of sheep, and above the great sky heaved with clouds. A bird flew low over the ground in front of her uttering a plaintive cry and once she thought she glimpsed a fox. As she walked, her feet becoming sore and blistered so she had to shuffle, she tried to plan what she would say to Nancy. But it was no good. Her mind refused to co-operate. She understood, but she still didn’t truly believe that in a short while she might be standing face to face with the woman who for years had been her closest friend and who had nearly been her sister-in-law. She’d used to imagine the circumstances of their meeting (the party, the wedding or funeral, the moment in the street when they would find themselves face to face), and she’d practised what she’d say – whole, eloquent speeches that would make Nancy realize what she had done, the pain she had caused not just to Stefan but to her as well. She had long, impassioned sections about the meaning of friendship, its unconditional loyalty. Sometimes the words she wrote in her head were delivered more in sorrow than anger – but often they bubbled with rage. Now, walking over the moors towards her, she couldn’t remember a word of them, and even if she could, she knew that they would be useless.

  She tried instead to think about Nancy in the past, but even that was difficult. She found that, all of a sudden, she could not properly remember her face, either as a child or as a young woman. She summoned particular events to mind to see if that would bring back the image of her friend (their first day at secondary school, when Nancy had turned up with cropped hair and her leg in plaster; that bike ride they’d been on together when they’d cycled through a shallow-looking puddle and found themselves pedalling deeper and deeper into it, until at last they’d both toppled off, screaming with laughter; the time Nancy and Stefan had announced to her, with awkward formality, that they were – er – kind of, you know, seeing each other; a rare time when she’d seen her friend cry, though she’d never discovered the reason, and she’d been extraordinarily moved by the way her fingers had clutched a sodden, shredded tissue, which she used to mop her swollen eyes; Nancy’s twenty-first birthday party when she’d worn a tux and danced salsa with Stefan to everyone’s applause). But Nancy was like the person in the photograph whose features have been pixellated out. She was a smudge. The years they had known each other seemed to run together, all the separate episodes leaking into each other like colours mixing on a palette. Nothing of Nancy was distinct in her memory any more; everything was murky and undifferentiated. The only image that remained clear was the brief glimpse that Gaby had had of her on the television screen, when for almost two decades she had been a stranger.

  Instead, Gaby found herself remembering Stefan’s face on the day that Nancy had left him. That still lay clear in her mind. It had been a weekday night. Ethan was asleep in his room, the night-light glowing softly beside him, and Connor – who had been on duty for thirty-six hours had been in bed for an hour or more. Gaby was lying on the sofa reading a book (she even remembered which: Innocence by Penelope Fitzgerald, a lovely novel that she would associate for ever with betrayal). The rain had hammered down outside, but inside it was warm and messy, and she was sipping a mug of hot chocolate that she had made – with a sense of luxurious self-indulgence – with cream and chocolate melted over a double-boiler. She had been feeling as contented as a lazy cat. And then there had been an urgent rapping on the front door. She had pulled the belt on her dressing-gown tighter, taken a last thick gulp of her drink, and gone to see who it was. Stefan had stood on the threshold in the pouring rain, his hair flattened on to his skull. He had stared at Gaby, but she had had the impression that he wasn’t really seeing her. A small frown puzzled his brow, but under it his eyes were empty. The skin round his mouth was slack, and he looked old, drab and hopeless. Gaby had tried to hug him, but he stood passively in her arms in his thick wet overcoat, his arms hanging by his sides.

  Walking along the empty road now, Gaby felt the old anger flare up inside her, making her quicken her pace. There was one image of Nancy that she could vividly remember from the past, after all, and she held on to it. She had gone round to Stefan’s flat, which until then had been Stefan and Nancy’s flat, the following day, knowing from Stefan that she would find her friend there. Nancy had arranged a time when Stefan was at work to collect her possessions and drop off the keys. Gaby was struck by how efficient she was being – telling her brother in the evening, moving out lock, stock and barrel the next afternoon, not even keeping a key in case she should want to return. They had been together for five years, they had planned their future together, but now in a single day she was clearing away all signs that she had ever been there. Gaby was nearly too late. Nancy had arrived earlier and spent less time in the flat than she had anticipated, so Gaby came upon her pulling her last case into the back of the van, the engine already running and ready to go. She was wearing dark jeans, sneakers and a black leather jacket, and her hair was covered with a bandana. She looked agile, streamlined, vaguely piratical. When she saw Gaby she seemed neither startled nor guilty. She slammed the back doors shut, rubbed her hands on her jeans and stood back. ‘Gaby,’ she said, ‘I thought it was better this way. A quick, clean break.’

  ‘Better?’ said Gaby, raising her voice and making Ethan, asleep in his buggy, jerk awake for an instant. ‘Better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Easier, you mean. Creeping away like a thief in the night so you don’t have to see the pain you’re causing.’

  ‘I know the pain I’m causing.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You don’t know. You’ve got no idea.’

  ‘But it doesn’t matter anyway, does it? Pity doesn’t make you stay with someone.’

  ‘Why?’ Gaby had said. ‘Why, for God’s sake? I thought you loved him. He certainly loves you. I thought you were going to stay together. It was all so good.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘Stefan thought it was.’

  ‘Stefan would think things were good even if he was drowning, as if hoping can make it so. I know you adore him. I know he’s adorable – but that’s what he does, isn’t it? It’s what you both do, and always have.’

  Gaby gazed at her for a moment, her mouth open. Ethan stirred and she rocked the buggy violently until he whimpered in protest. ‘Do you think I’m going to stand here on the pavement and discuss what’s wrong with Stefan and with me?’

  ‘That’s not –’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Weren’t you going to tell me? We’re friends, aren’t we? We’ve always been friends.’

  ‘You’re right. I should have said. The truth is, I didn’t know what to say, and I had to tell Stefan first. I was going to write to you later.’

  ‘Write – what? A postcard or something, saying, “By the way, I’ve gone away. It’s been nice.”’

  ‘Not a postcard, of course not. Gaby –’

  ‘And you’re Ethan’s godmother – non-godmother, whatever.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll miss me.’

  ‘Have you met someone else? Out with the old and in with the new.’

  Nancy made a small gesture, palms up, but didn’t reply.

  ‘So – that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘It’s very cruel.’

  ‘Life’s very –’

  ‘Oh, please, don’t start spouting clichés at me!’ She heard her own voice, ugly in its humiliation, then watched as Nancy fished her keys out of the jacket pocket, walked up to the door of the flat, and pushed them through the letterbox.

  ‘Will I see you?’ Gaby asked. ‘You don’t have to chuck me, too. Things can’t just go like this, as if they’ve been washed away by the tide. After all these years. Can they?’

  There was a pause.

 
‘I should go, Gaby,’ said Nancy. Her voice was unwavering.

  ‘You haven’t even said sorry!’

  ‘If it makes it better, I’m sorry. More than you’ll ever know.’

  ‘It doesn’t make it better.’

  The two women stared at each other. Gaby watched as Nancy stepped into the van, and revved the engine, then pulled out. That was the image she remembered now, Nancy’s face behind the glass, implacable and composed. Seeing her face separated from her by the windscreen, Gaby had thought that perhaps something had always set Nancy apart – the same something that had drawn people to her, like a magnet with metal filings. She had a strange and alluring quality of being able to seem both intimate and distant; there was a kind of doubleness about her. She had never met her since.