The Moment You Were Gone

by Nicci Gerrard

  He closed his eyes, but the knock sounded again, longer and louder, and someone called, ‘Oi, Ethan, I know you’re in there!’

  Harry’s voice. Ethan sat up and slid out of bed, narrowly avoiding a bowl of cereal that had been there for a few days and stepping instead on his half-finished assignment on Mussolini. ‘Coming,’ he said.

  He was only in boxers, so he pulled on a grey T-shirt before negotiating his way across the room.

  ‘We need coffee,’ Harry was shouting. ‘Hurry up.’

  Ethan registered the plural a second or so before he pulled open the door. Harry and Lorna stood before him, smiling and fresh. She smelt of flowers, he thought groggily.

  ‘Oh,’ he mumbled, stepping back to let them into the stinking chaos. His legs were trembling; he felt crumbs and grit under his bare feet.

  ‘Jesus, Ethan, I knew you were untidy but this is wild,’ said Harry, sounding almost impressed.

  ‘Is it a bad time?’ asked Lorna.

  Were those the first words she’d spoken to him? She had a husky voice and he let the few syllables sink into him, smiling beatifically at her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, come in, please come in.’ He caught his reflection in the mirror – the grubby T-shirt and boxers, his hair half over his eyes and stubble on his cheeks. He looked at the disaster of his room, then back at Lorna, her rippling hair and creamy skin. ‘I was just going to clean up,’ he said, stumbling across and opening the curtains; the shafts of light only made the mess look worse. He wrenched open the window, then kicked the overflowing bags of dirty clothes towards the edge of the room; he picked the women’s shoes and the saucepan off the chair. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Or on the bed. Here.’ He scooped away more clothes and pulled up the duvet, smoothing it. ‘I’ll make coffee. You both want coffee? Do you want coffee, Lorna?’

  There. He’d called her by her name. He was looking into her eyes and she was smiling at him and saying something back.

  ‘And then we thought we could all go to the sea,’ said Harry. ‘Marco’s got his old car. I said we’d meet him in half an hour. Are you free?’

  Ethan thought of his essay, due in tomorrow on a grudgingly extended deadline. He thought of the arrangement he’d made with friends to go to the cinema later, then out for a meal, and of the phone call he’d promised his parents. ‘Yes, I’m free.’

  ‘Good,’ said Lorna. She eased herself down on to his bed, pulling off her jacket. She was wearing a green shirt; her arms were smooth and strong and there was a bright bangle on her left wrist and a man’s watch on the right. Her jeans were old and worn at the knees and she wore scuffed baseball boots. Ethan stared at her, transfixed. Everything about her seemed mysterious: the tiny mole under her ear, the way her hair was soft and darkly chestnut, creating a shadow round her face. ‘You were at that meal, weren’t you? I’ve been wanting to meet you properly. Harry’s squash partner,’ she said.

  ‘I saw you,’ began Ethan, in a strangled voice. ‘I saw you before we ever met. I –’

  He found he was blushing – not just an ordinary flush to the cheeks but burning up from head to foot. He could feel the sweat on his brow; his face was on fire, his body was overheating like a boiler whose thermostat had broken. Harry and Lorna were both staring at him, Harry smiling ironically, and he felt that he was standing naked before them, pitifully obvious and exposed. He might as well have declared his love outright.

  ‘Coffee,’ he managed at last, turning away and letting the autumn air from outside cool his cheeks. ‘Milk and sugar? I guess I’d better put some clothes on.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Lorna was smiling at him and his cheeks flamed again.

  He picked up a pair of jeans, a shirt and his toilet bag, and left them in the room together. In the bathroom he scrubbed his teeth and gargled furiously with mouthwash, then examined himself in the mirror. His stubble was nearly a beard, but if he shaved he’d make himself look even more eager and ridiculous than he already did. Anyway, his razor was blunt – he was sure to nick himself and have to stick tiny shreds of tissue on to the cuts. He made do with running a nailbrush through his unkempt hair and splashing his face with cold water, staring into his eyes as he did so, trying to see himself as a stranger might – as Lorna might. His jeans were loose on him; he must have lost weight. He pulled on his shirt and a button flew off.

  It was cold by the time they arrived at the coast, and beginning to drizzle. They walked along the ragged hem of the tideline drinking beer from bottles. Harry and Marco had a stone-skimming competition. Lorna sat down cross-legged on the damp sand and shivered. Ethan ripped off his jacket and offered it to her.

  ‘Don’t be daft. You’ll freeze.’

  ‘I’m warm.’

  ‘Really? You don’t look it.’

  ‘Take it. Do you want a cigarette?’

  ‘OK, then.’

  ‘They’re in the pocket of the jacket.’

  She pulled out a squashed packet, handed it to him, and he tapped out a couple.

  ‘What else have you got in here?’

  ‘Nothing very glamorous. Probably just tissues.’

  ‘Coins. Matches. What’s this? A watch without a strap. How odd. It’s one hour behind.’

  ‘The clocks go back soon anyway.’

  ‘And a pen – it’s leaked everywhere.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  They leant together so their heads were almost touching while he lit a match into his cupped hand. She leant in to it and Ethan was a few inches from the crown of her head. He could smell her shampoo. He closed his eyes, didn’t breathe and didn’t speak. Harry and Marco seemed far away, bent double over the waves with their flat stones.

  ‘I love the sound of waves,’ she said dreamily. ‘I love the sea. I love its endlessness. Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ There must be something else he could say. For he did love the sea – its great waves, its glittering calm, its briny smell and knifing winds, the sound it made from a distance and the mystery of all the things that swam in its depths or sailed on its surface or flew above it in wheeling, crying circles. In his recent travels he had slept several nights on beaches, wrapped in his sleeping-bag; he would never forget how the moon hung above the ocean, throwing silver fingers across the dark waters and how close and thick the stars had seemed. Should he tell her that? No.

  ‘“Milly and Molly and Maggie and May,”’ he began, running sand through his fingers. ‘“Went down to the sea one day to play, and Milly befriended …” No, even that’s wrong. My mother used to recite it to me. I can’t remember how it goes now. That’s the thing with poems. I forget them. I learn one and it pushes the others out of my head. I know how it ends, though.’

  ‘How does it end?’ Her hair fell over her face.

  ‘“For whatever we lose, like a you or a me, it is always ourselves we find by the sea.”’

  ‘Who wrote it?’

  ‘I can’t remember that either.’

  ‘It’s nice. But strange as well. It sends a little shiver down my spine.’

  ‘Happy-sad,’ said Ethan.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Everything that’s properly happy has to be sad as well.’ I’m happy now, he didn’t say, and sad enough to weep. ‘Did you know,’ he said instead, ‘that there are more people alive now than there are people who have ever been alive?’

  ‘You mean we outnumber all our ancestors? Can that be true?’

  ‘I read it somewhere. Did you know that it’s a myth that you can see the Great Wall of China from the moon?’

  ‘No, but did you know that dust is mostly made up of dead skin?’

  ‘Or that the universe is infinite but bounded? Or that when we look at stars we’re seeing them as they were millions of years ago? Maybe they’ve all gone now.’

  ‘I saw the eclipse a few years ago,’ said Lorna. ‘It wasn’t a clear day. For professional eclipse-watchers, it was a bit of a disappointment. But I thought it was – it was so weird and scary. It made me think ab
out dying and being dead. The birds really did fly off. Everything went cold and still and grey, and then it went dark. Dark and silent. I was with my family and my cousins. Nobody spoke. Nobody made a sound. I think we all stopped breathing. Then the sun slid out again and the birds flew back and the cock crowed and the air became warm again and it was over. But for a moment it was like life had stopped. Oh, it was spooky.’ She gave a little laugh.

  Ethan moved his fingers through the sand towards hers, but he didn’t touch her. He didn’t believe in love at first sight, and he didn’t believe in soulmates. He knew this feeling would die away one day and that he’d look back on it with rueful amusement. He told himself, and knew it was true, that the torment would fade; it was just the rush of chemicals through his body. But his heart hurt and it felt like love. All he wanted was to put his arms round her and feel hers round him and press his rough cheek against her pale, smooth one.

  ‘Once,’ he said, in a voice that trembled slightly, ‘when I was little – just eight or nine – I went with my parents to the far north. My father was giving a lecture in Stockholm and then we went up above the Arctic Circle for a couple of days. My mother had this thing about being there on the shortest day of the year. She wanted to see the northern lights. We didn’t see them although she made us all sit up through the night waiting, but it was amazing anyway. It was so very cold, steamingly, blastingly cold, almost like walking into a furnace of ice. I’ll never forget stepping outside. Everything that wasn’t wrapped up in thick layers of clothing froze. My eyelashes froze and my hair turned to frost and there were icicles in my nose and when I breathed, my breath froze in the air. And it should have been dark. There was no sun at all, just the moon all through the day that never became day. But because of the snow, everything glowed with this blue light. Lunar beauty,’ he said, raising his eyes to her and hearing the phrase as he said it, absurdly poetic and freighted with too much meaning. Then he heard himself say, ‘How did you and Harry meet? Are you in love with him?’

  Lowering her eyes and letting her hair fall over her face, Lorna pretended not to hear. ‘“In the cold cold night,”’ she half spoke, half sang, in her husky voice, ‘would you rather die of heat or die of cold?’

  ‘Cold is better,’ said Ethan, authoritatively. ‘You become slow and dreamy and peaceful. It’s like dying into sleep.’

  ‘Slow and dreamy and peaceful sounds all right.’ They smiled at each other, then both looked away.

  That was what Ethan would remember, when he tried to reconstruct that afternoon later in detail. He couldn’t recall what he had said, and in truth he’d been largely silent, or what Harry and Marco and Lorna had talked about. He pushed from his mind the journey back in the dark, when he had sat in the front with Marco and Lorna and Harry had been in the back, not speaking. When he’d glanced behind he’d seen Lorna’s head on Harry’s shoulder and Harry’s hand on Lorna’s thigh. He knew where they’d go after they had dropped him off at his room and what they’d do. He mustn’t let himself picture that – the fall of her brown hair over bare skin, the swell of her breast in the curtained dark. No. Instead he held in his mind those few soft and unironic moments when he and Lorna had huddled on the beach with their cigarettes, sheltering each other from the wind. He still didn’t know much about her, but he had seen her close-up smile, he’d breathed in her perfume, he’d felt the brush of her hair against his cheek.

  ‘Mum?’ he said. ‘Mum? Did I wake you?’

  Gaby knew at once that something was up. His voice sounded so young. ‘No,’ she lied, struggling into a sitting position and pulling the duvet up round her. Connor groaned and turned on his back. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine, really fine. I know you tried to call me a few times and I just wanted to say hello. Um, hello.’

  Gaby squinted at the radio clock. It was twenty to one. ‘Are you really all right?’

  ‘Yeah, honestly. Great.’

  ‘Your work’s OK?’

  ‘Kind of. I need to catch up a bit. I’m writing an essay at the moment. I guess I’ll be up all night, but that’s OK. I’m not tired. I quite like going a night without sleep sometimes. It makes my brain fizz.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What about your social life?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Have you met people you think you can be friends with yet?’

  ‘Sure. A few, anyway.’

  ‘I’ll be coming down soon to collect the car, I expect. I’ll take you out to lunch or something.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘The house feels very quiet and empty without you. I can’t get used to it.’

  ‘I’ll be back in a few weeks. Then I can play loud music and keep you awake and give you lots of dirty laundry. I ought to go to the laundrette, actually.’

  ‘I’m trying not to imagine the state of your room. Did you ever unpack?’

  ‘Not as such.’

  ‘Not as such. Hmm. Are you cooking much?’

  ‘To use the word “cooking” is to glorify the heating of beans and microwaving of packets.’

  ‘But you’re OK?’

  ‘You keep asking that. I’m OK. I’m not lonely. I’m not starving. I’m not injecting myself with heroin. I’m doing my work, kind of, and I like it. And I’m having fun. I’m beginning to find my way around, to know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Good. That’s good.’

  ‘I went to the sea today.’

  Gaby heard the change in his voice. ‘Did you?’ she said carefully. ‘How lovely. Who with?’

  ‘Oh, just some friends. Harry – I’ve told you about Harry. And this guy Marco. I hadn’t met him before. And Lorna.’

  ‘Lorna,’ Gaby repeated.

  ‘Harry’s girlfriend.’

  Gaby grimaced tenderly down the phone. So that was why Ethan was ringing. He was a young man of heart-break and extremes.

  ‘What about you and Dad? All OK there?’

  ‘Dad’s a bit overworked.’

  ‘What’s new?’

  ‘And I’ve been working quite hard too. Not just with the cultural groups – I’m trying to get this idea of working with truanting kids off the ground. It’s quite exciting, and it would be good for me to have a challenge like that. An adventure.’

  ‘But you’re OK? You’re not sad or anything?’

  ‘I’m not sad, my darling.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘I’ve just seen the time. You were asleep, weren’t you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter at all. You can ring me up whenever you like.’

  ‘Sorry. I was just feeling a bit – you know – Sunday nightish.’

  ‘I wish I could click my fingers and be there.’

  ‘Hmm. Even you wouldn’t like to be in my room right now. Once I’ve finished my essay I’m going to have a binge clear-up.’

  He took three bags of clothes and bed linen to the laundrette and for an hour sat on the bench and watched as they churned sudsily round. Then he went back to his room, made his bed, unpacked his remaining clothes, put his shoes in pairs at the bottom of the wardrobe. He emptied all the ashtrays, collected plates, bowls and mugs from under the bed and washed them in the kitchen. He sorted scattered sheets of scrawled-on notepaper into piles; later he would get round to buying folders and files. He opened the windows wide, then hoovered the crumbs and grot off the carpet. He even wiped down the washbasin with some lavatory paper. The room still didn’t look immaculate, but it was no longer squalid.

  Then he showered, shaved, dressed in clothes still warm from the dryer. He made himself a cup of coffee and sat by the window with a cigarette, watching the smoke curl out into the cold air and dissolve. Now Lorna could visit. He was ready for her.

  Eighteen

  ‘Nancy?’

  ‘Speaking.’ Nancy knew at once who was on the other end of the line, but she waited to hear her say it.

  ‘It’s Gaby. We ha
ve to meet.’

  ‘I don’t think that –’

  ‘It’s not a request. We have to meet.’

  There was a silence.

  Gaby imagined Nancy’s frowning face as she assessed the situation; Nancy pictured Gaby’s flushed and emotional one.

  ‘All right. When?’

  ‘As soon as you can make it. I can be flexible. Name a day, and we can join up somewhere in the middle. Where’s the middle between Cornwall and London? Or I can come to you. Whatever.’

  ‘No. Listen, I’m going to a conference about boys’ literacy in Birmingham next Tuesday. If it suits you, we could meet there at lunchtime, middayish. I think it’s only about an hour away from London and –’

  ‘Tuesday in Birmingham’s fine. Where?’

  ‘Perhaps you could come to the hotel.’

  ‘No. In the station is best. There must be a café. I’ll meet you at the end of platform one at half past twelve, all right? Shall I give you my mobile number?’

  ‘No need. I’ve said I’ll be there.’ Nancy paused. ‘By the way, I know you were in my house. You never were very good at tidying up after yourself. That was wrong, you know. Very.’

  ‘Twelve thirty on Tuesday.’

  The line went dead.

  On Saturday Gaby went skating with two friends. She was even more exuberant and reckless than usual, and fell over thirteen times, eventually twisting her ankle so that she had to hobble off the rink and sit at the side. She and Connor had people round for a meal in the evening. Gaby lit candles so the room glowed mysteriously. Dressed in a long silk skirt and a shirt with widely flared sleeves that she’d forgotten she owned, she sat in the softly guttering candlelight, ate with gusto and drank several glasses of white wine; at the end of the evening she recited ‘The Highwayman’ from beginning to end without a falter, to great applause. Everyone agreed that she was on fine form.