The Moment You Were Gone

by Nicci Gerrard

  ‘Who’s there?’ called a voice.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ Ethan said, though he could still see no one, ‘but I got a bit –’

  ‘What’s that? Come on out of the shadows and let me see you.’

  Ethan took a small step towards the house. The dog bared its teeth and let out a truly menacing snarl. ‘Your dog. Do you think you could call him off?’

  ‘Him? He wouldn’t hurt a baby.’

  Ethan took another step. The dog half squatted as if to spring. ‘Good dog,’ he said again, in a high, scared coo. ‘Good dog.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Come here, Tyson.’

  ‘Tyson? As in –’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s a softie at heart.’ The man who came loping out of the yard was tall and thin with long white hair that blew back from his face and sunken, pitted cheeks. ‘Here, Tyson,’ he said sharply, and yanked the dog by its collar.

  ‘Thanks. Sorry. I’m not used to dogs.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’ve lost my way,’ said Ethan. ‘I need to get back to Exeter, but there don’t seem to be any signposts – or not to anywhere I’ve ever heard of, anyway.’

  ‘You’ve come a fair way.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And it’s dark.’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t realize how late it was.’

  ‘Come in,’ said the man, and swung round, letting go of the dog, which scuttled towards the yard.

  ‘But I just wanted to know the way back.’

  The man didn’t respond, simply led Ethan through the yard, still wheeling his bike.

  ‘Really,’ said Ethan, ‘it’s very kind of you, but if you’d just tell me …’

  ‘Now then,’ said the farmer, as he opened the front door on to a small utility room full of old jackets, muddy boots and several torches ranged along a shelf. ‘Lean your bike there and step inside.’

  ‘I don’t think …’ began Ethan, wondering if he’d stumbled into some spooky fairy story ‘… I don’t think I really have the time to …’

  But he was inside and the door was shut behind him.

  ‘Look at the state of you,’ said the farmer. ‘In you come.’

  The kitchen looked as if it had been last decorated in the fifties and not touched since. It had a low ceiling. The walls were brownish-yellow and Ethan couldn’t tell if that was the way they had been painted, or if it was the result of years of smoke and grease. A small, antiquated Aga was against one wall; a clatter of pans hung above it and several pairs of socks were arranged along its drying pole. A small fire burnt in the grate.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I? You take the weight off your feet and sit by that fire now. Put some warmth back into you.’

  ‘Really, I don’t want anything to drink,’ said Ethan, hovering by the kitchen door, with the dog eyeing him suspiciously from across the room. ‘And I don’t want to sit down. I just want directions back to the main Exeter road.’

  ‘Reginald,’ said the white-haired man. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Ethan.’

  ‘You’re not from round here, then, Ethan?’

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘You’ll be from London, I reckon.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘My wife was from London. Enfield.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ethan.

  ‘She died five years ago. Cancer. She never took any notice of the pains and by the time she went to the doctor it was too late to do anything. Don’t look so anxious. I’m going to make you something to warm you up, then give you a lift to Exeter in my truck. How’s that?’

  ‘No! You don’t need to do that. Honestly, I just need directions. I certainly don’t want to put you to any bother.’

  ‘Bother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you think I’m going to do with my evening?’

  ‘Well, I –’

  ‘Wait for it to go by until it’s bedtime, that’s what. To have a young body like you in my kitchen adds a bit of life, even if you do look like something the cat brought in.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Ethan, weakly. He moved across to the fire and sat before it, holding his hands out to the warmth of the flame. The dog slunk over and settled by his feet. ‘I really am grateful.’

  ‘Do as you would be done by, that’s what I say. If I was wandering round like a lost soul I hope someone would do the same for me.’

  ‘The kindness of strangers,’ said Ethan. As clearly as if she was in the room with him, he could hear his mother’s voice as he uttered the words.

  Reginald looked at him. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s the thing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ethan. He stroked the dog’s flank cautiously and Tyson lifted his head blearily, then laid it on his paws once more.

  The heat was licking one cheek and his fireside leg felt hot under his jeans. Reginald put a mug of strong tea on the arm of his chair and he took it between both hands. Tiredness settled over him.

  ‘Now then, bacon and eggs or scrambled eggs – or I’ve got a bit of ham in the fridge?’

  ‘No, really …’ He saw Reginald’s worn face. ‘Scrambled eggs, then. Just a bit, though.’

  ‘I never cooked while my wife was alive. Now I like it. It gives a shape to the end of the day, cooking. Especially when you’re on your own. I can do all sorts. I made steak pie the other day. I had to give most of it to Tyson, though. You don’t need much for one.’

  He pulled a pan on to the hob and put in a pat of butter, which sizzled briefly.

  ‘Do you have children?’ Ethan heard himself say, out of the muggy tiredness that was wrapped round him.

  ‘A son in America.’ Reginald cracked two eggs into the pan and stirred them briskly. ‘The trick is to cook them slowly. I read that in a colour supplement. Imagine, me reading recipes in a colour supplement! He’s in something to do with advertising. I don’t understand it at all. He calls me once a week and sometimes he comes over and I’ve been there a few times, though I prefer him coming to me. He’s got two children and a stepson. They’re good kids, but they grow up so fast nowadays, don’t they? And they have so many things. Computers and bicycles and TVs in their bedrooms and drum kits and – toast with your eggs?’

  ‘Just eggs, thanks.’

  ‘They don’t taste right unless they’re on hot buttered toast.’

  ‘Toast, then.’

  ‘I never knew I was happy until I wasn’t any more.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Ethan, awkwardly. If Gaby were here, she would know what to say and do in this room that was thick with loneliness.

  ‘You just take it for granted. People think it doesn’t matter when old people die. Not that she was that old, only sixty-eight. That’s not old these days, is it?’

  ‘No, I guess not.’

  ‘We had a good-enough marriage. Ups and downs. Now I think of all the things I didn’t tell her.’

  ‘I’m sure that she –’

  ‘I haven’t cut my hair since the day she died.’

  ‘Really? But why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I used to get it cut once a month, without fail. My son keeps telling me I ought to get it cut. He thinks I look – what does he say? Disreputable. Unkempt, like an old tramp. It makes him worry about me.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Ethan, on surer ground now.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘You look cool.’

  Reginald gave a wheezing little laugh.

  ‘Nobody’s ever called me cool before.’

  ‘Like a rock star,’ said Ethan. ‘Or the Ancient Mariner.’

  ‘Well. I’ll have to tell my son that. Here, your eggs are ready.’

  ‘You could tie it back in a ponytail sometimes, if it gets in the way.’

  ‘A ponytail?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Or you could grow a little goatee.’

  ‘What, like a beard?’

  ‘Yeah, on your chin,
here. These eggs are great.’

  ‘Not done too much?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or not enough?’

  ‘No, they’re perfect. Just what I needed.’

  ‘You weren’t properly dressed for a bike ride.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking properly.’

  ‘Girlfriend trouble?’

  ‘Yes.’ He fed himself a forkful of egg. ‘Or no. She’s not even my girlfriend. Just a girl.’

  ‘You’re sweet on her.’

  ‘So sweet my teeth ache.’

  ‘Your teeth ache!’ Once again, Reginald gave a chuckle and his weathered face creased into a map of all his smiles and frowns.

  ‘I’m like my mother. I can’t step back and take a long view. I’m no good at waiting for things to pass. I feel I have to do something now or I’ll go mad.’

  ‘What can you do?’

  ‘That’s it – nothing. Except cycle very fast until I’m completely lost.’

  ‘So here you are.’

  ‘Here I am. Can I use your bathroom?’

  ‘Up the stairs on your left.’

  Ethan put his plate on the floor by the chair and heaved himself up. The stairs were steep and narrow, the carpet threadbare. He was struck by the oddity of being in a stranger’s house, far from anywhere familiar, with night falling outside and the wind blowing over the moors. And when he looked at his face in the cracked oval mirror above the sink, he was unfamiliar to himself: young and distressed, with anxious eyes.

  On his way down, he glanced into the living room on the other side of the stairway. ‘I see you’ve got a piano,’ he called into the kitchen.

  ‘My wife used to play a bit,’ said Reginald, joining him by the stairs. ‘Just simple tunes. It’s not been touched for years. Do you play?’

  ‘I try to.’

  ‘Do you want to have a go now?’

  ‘No, no!’ said Ethan, but he wandered into the dingy living room, which had a chilly, unused air, and lifted the lid. It had dust all over it. He ran his fingers over the yellowing keys of the upright piano. Several didn’t work, only gave a dull plonk as he depressed them. The rest were tinny and out of tune. He sat down on the stool and picked out the first few notes of the Intermezzo by Schumann, which he’d played for his grade-eight exam two years ago. If he’d been asked whether he still knew the piece, he would have said he didn’t – but his fingers remembered it long after his brain had forgotten, in the same way that he had remembered the words of Dr Seuss only as he had said them.

  Something touched him about the thought of this ropy little piano standing unopened for years, in a room that itself was clearly unused for months on end. Probably the last fingers to have touched the keys were those of Reginald’s dead wife. What had she played? Simple tunes, Reg had said. Ethan’s fingers drifted out of the Intermezzo, into ‘My Old Man Said Follow The Van’ and then, before the chirpy melody had properly taken hold, ‘How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down’. He stopped abruptly, closed the piano lid, using the tail of his shirt to wipe away the dust, and stood up. ‘Do you want to go now?’ he asked, as he went back into the kitchen.

  ‘I could make us some more tea.’

  ‘I ought to be getting back,’ said Ethan, trying not to see the need in the old man’s eyes.

  ‘It’s as you wish.’

  Ethan bent down and stroked Tyson’s muzzle. The dog looked up at him, then sank his head back on his paws. ‘He is a softie, after all.’

  ‘I told you. You shouldn’t judge by appearances.’

  ‘It’s been very kind of you.’

  ‘You can come again, if you want.’

  ‘Thank you,’ muttered Ethan, knowing that he wouldn’t and already feeling guilty.

  ‘I’m usually here in the evenings.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘When you’re feeling blue about the girl that makes your teeth hurt.’

  ‘I hope I won’t be,’ laughed Ethan. ‘They say time heals everything.’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Time and whisky.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘Time and whisky and keeping busy. You have to keep busy. Don’t stop. It doesn’t really matter what you’re doing, just do it the best you can and the hardest you can.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Chocolate’s good, too.’

  ‘Chocolate.’

  ‘It comforts you. And baths – long, hot baths.’

  ‘Chocolate, whisky, baths and being busy.’

  ‘Yup. You have to find ways of filling the time. When my wife died, I spent the first few months waiting for time to go by. Every morning I’d wake early, and I was looking out over the day and it was a desert. It stretched ahead with nothing in it except flatness and grief, and I didn’t know how to get across it. I didn’t even think to call it grieving – all I knew was that she’d died and now I had to get on with it on my own. One day and then the next and the next. What did they mean, all these days, going on and on and I couldn’t see the end? When I was young, I used to long for time to relax and do nothing, like you now, and when I had it, I found it was horrible. All the things you do together and take for granted. Habits that used to irritate you. Who makes the tea in the morning. Who washes the dishes. Who takes the dog out at night. How thick you spread your marmalade. Which bit of the paper you read first. What you both remember about the past. Silly jokes. Getting on with little things together. Being in the room and not having to talk. Making arrangements. Even the little squabbles are part of it. When all of that goes, there’s this great big space you have to fill up. And not just with memories and tears.’

  They stood by the door, looking at each other.

  ‘So you have to keep busy,’ said Ethan, lamely. He wished he could think of the right words, the ones that were like a thick blanket on a cold day, sun in winter, cool running water in the endless desert that Reginald had described.

  ‘And have a dog,’ said Reginald, recovering, trying to smile. ‘Dogs are good for lonely old men like me.’

  ‘Dogs, being busy, whisky, chocolate, long baths,’ said Ethan. He put his hand on the door knob. ‘And growing your hair, maybe.’

  ‘And that thing you said.’

  ‘That thing?’

  ‘The kindness of strangers.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on, then, let’s be getting you back. You need a good night’s sleep.’

  When he reached his room, he didn’t see the note that had been pushed under his door – just a scrap of paper torn out of the back of a diary. It was half hidden under the pile of notes he’d been working on from the night before. So he didn’t read, ‘7.30 p.m.: I came to see you but you were out – if you want to see me, please call a.s.a.p. Lorna xxx.’ He stumbled into his bed, pulled the pillow across his sore eyes and plunged into sleep, like a patient going under before surgery, sinking into a deep shaft of unconsciousness.

  Thirty-two

  Stefan knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped in through the front door and saw how tidy everything was. That wasn’t like Gaby. Even after Connor had thoroughly cleaned a room, she managed to put her mark on it at once – maybe a scarf trailing across the floor, shoes left at the bottom of the stairs, the contents of a bag emptied on to the kitchen table, mugs unwashed on the mantelpiece. It was as if blank surfaces bothered her and she had to mess them up, just a bit, to feel comfortable. But this evening, the living room was immaculate and in the kitchen everything was clean and ordered. The orange and bronze chrysanthemums that Stefan had brought stood on the bare table. Even the fridge, when Gaby pulled open its door to bring out a bottle of white wine, was half empty and pristine. It felt as if Connor and Gaby were going abroad for a long while and had left the house ready for strangers to occupy.

  ‘Are you going away?’ he asked.

  Gaby looked startled. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It’s so tidy.’

  ‘Oh – that. I
know. It’s surprising, isn’t it? Wine?’

  ‘Please.’

  At first, Gaby had planned to be out when Stefan arrived. She thought it might be easier for Connor to talk about what had happened without her present, and perhaps it would be easier for Stefan as well. Yet what had happened had involved her as well as him. She was part of the story. And she wanted to be there to comfort Stefan if that was what he needed. Connor had always wanted her to be there – not to make things easier for him, though, rather the opposite. He seemed intent on not sparing himself, like a medieval flagellant welcoming pain. So she had returned home from work to the unfamiliarly tidy house, hung her coat on its hook in the hallway, rather than slinging it across a chair as she normally did, and waited for the two men to arrive. Connor had said he would cook, though Gaby couldn’t imagine how anyone would eat a proper meal this evening. She felt both hollow and nauseous, as she had for several weeks now. Her clothes hung off her and her face, which usually glowed with health and vigour, was thin. Sometimes she would stand in front of the mirror and be shocked by the middle-aged woman who looked back. She felt furious with her appearance – she was like someone who had suffered, like a hollow-cheeked victim of a disaster. That wasn’t her at all, to lose her greed and her delight. She tried to continue as before, eating chocolate in the bath, making herself bowls of pasta that she couldn’t finish, pouring large glasses of wine that she pushed away. She painted her toenails, daubed red on her lips, hung jangly earrings on her lobes, wore her most colourful clothes and ridiculous shoes. But it couldn’t disguise the change in her.

  Connor had arrived back with salmon fillets and purple-sprouting broccoli. He’d kissed her cheek and asked about her day. She had made him a cup of Earl Grey and asked about his. They were very polite with each other, considerate and self-conscious. While he was slicing potatoes thinly and layering them in a dish with salt, black pepper and knobs of butter, she went into the garden, because she didn’t want to sit and watch him in the way that she used to – quizzing him, mocking him, flirting with him, making him feel foolish and warm.

  Outside, it was dark and cold. It had been a beautiful day, one in a long, shimmering string of beautiful days, and now it was a still night, full of stars. Ethan had once told her something about how the night sky proved that the universe was infinite but bounded, because if it wasn’t, all that we would see would be dazzling light. She hadn’t understood that then, and didn’t now. She tried now to make out the Great Bear or the Seven Sisters, but couldn’t, only the North Star, just above the chimneys and trees. Looking up at the sky always made her feel vertiginous and – in a tranquil kind of way – scared. She asked herself what point there was in the frantic emotions of the past few weeks if in the end she was just a pinprick on a dot in a galaxy that was itself negligible. All the scrabbling around, the desperate search for happiness, meaning and union – while around us the millions of stars shine on, implacably distant and remote. We desire and love and hate and quarrel and deceive and weep – and in a short while we’re gone and our lives leave no trace, and all those tears and all that laughter might never have happened. Even those who know us forget us soon enough, and then they are snuffed out in their turn. How strange, to care so passionately and yet to mean so little and to die alone and go where no one can follow. She shivered and turned back to the house. She could see Connor’s face through the window and it brought back the memory of watching Nancy as she stood in her kitchen, kneading bread with an expression of concentration.