The Moment You Were Gone

by Nicci Gerrard

  She went inside. Connor had put the greens into a pan, and the salmon, covered with pulped ginger, crushed garlic and coarse salt, into an oven dish. She could smell the potatoes cooking. Three glasses were on the table and a small bowl of olives. Everything looked so civilized and welcoming. All they needed was Stefan – and at that moment the bell rang and she went slowly to open the door, knowing he would be standing there with a smile already on his face and a bunch of flowers in his hand. And, indeed, there he was, and as if it was any other day, they kissed and hugged each other and he handed over his bouquet with an awkward, ducking bow and wiped his feet on the mat.

  ‘Connor!’ Gaby called up the stairs, before leading her brother into the kitchen. ‘Stefan’s here.’

  Connor had rehearsed his first sentence, but when he finally uttered it – after a swift glass of white wine and several bolted olives – it sounded high-flown and insincere.

  ‘Ever since I met you, I have always loved you, as Gaby’s brother and my friend, but I have also done you an injury.’

  There. It lay between the three of them. Gaby looked from brother to husband, then down at her wine glass. She twisted it between her fingers until she heard it squeak. Stefan gazed at Connor with a glance of benevolent inquiry, but said nothing.

  Connor swallowed hard. ‘When Gaby was ill …’ he said, then stopped, putting his hand over his heart and grimacing.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When she was depressed after Ethan was born,’ he said, looking away from both the faces opposite him, ‘I did something very wrong, which I have never ceased regretting. Wrong to Gaby and wrong to you.’

  There was silence. Gaby could hear the drip, drip from the tap in the kitchen. Connor took another deep breath but before he could say the next sentence, Stefan interrupted him: ‘I know.’

  ‘No, Stefan, listen, will you? I – with Nancy –’

  ‘I know,’ Stefan said again. He sounded quite calm.

  ‘You know?’ whispered Gaby.

  He turned his face towards her. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t understand –’ began Connor.

  ‘You mean, you’ve always known?’ interrupted Gaby.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Stefan.

  ‘How?’ Connor managed to ask.

  ‘I saw you together.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘I’d arranged to meet Nancy at yours and the meeting I was supposed to be at was cancelled so I came round earlier. I saw you through the window.’

  ‘But you never said – I never knew –’

  ‘I went away and came back at the expected time.’

  ‘You never told me,’ said Gaby, gripping his forearm. ‘Why, for God’s sake? All these years!’

  ‘Well.’ Stefan blinked and took a sip of wine. ‘That’s a complicated question. There are lots of answers to it, and some are more important than others. Do you know? I can barely believe I’m having this conversation. I’ve had it in my head so many times. I wanted it and dreaded it – dreaded it more than wanted it, I guess, because every time I thought I had to speak to you, I found I couldn’t. I quite simply couldn’t. One answer to your “Why?” is that you were so wretched and frail that of course I couldn’t say anything at the time, and then later – well, later it was too late and I couldn’t see that it would serve anything except some abstract, rather cruel principle of openness. Another is that I thought – I hoped – that if I said nothing and never let on to anyone, it would die down and disappear and we could go on as we were: me and Nancy, you two together. Which half happened anyway. And then I persuaded myself that it was for Connor and Nancy to decide what to do and I tried to behave as if I hadn’t stumbled across their secret. It was something I should never have seen, a bit like reading someone’s diary. It was easier than I thought it would be, actually. It slipped away into the background until I pretty much forgot.’

  He frowned. ‘No. Maybe that’s not quite true. I remembered, I always remembered, but the memories gradually became like a background to my life, rather than vivid, painful things that would stab at me, as they were to start with. I suppose you could say that I learnt how to live with them and in the end I almost forgot what it had felt like, before I knew, before I saw you together and before Nancy left me. It was a different life, and a different me who was living it. Does this make sense?’

  He stared at Connor, biting his lip.

  ‘I did once almost confront you, as a matter of fact. Nancy had left me, and you and Gaby seemed back on an even keel. She was Gaby again.’ He turned to Gaby and smiled at her with great charm. ‘Sorry – not she, you. You seemed happy again. I had been sitting alone in my room and I’d had a few glasses of wine. I guess I had been brooding over things and suddenly it seemed to me intolerable that you, Connor, who had behaved so badly and caused such suffering, should get away scot free, while I –’ he faltered ‘– I, who had tried to be good, to do the right thing by everyone, should still be unhappy, should still be alone. It was as if everything I had pushed down inside me, pretending to myself and to everyone else that I was all right, was finally erupting. I felt as if I should explode with terrible anger and despair if I did nothing. I actually ran all the way to your house. I remember it was a wet night and the rain was pelting down on to me and I still felt as if a fire was blazing inside me. I got to your house and it was the strangest thing. I heard Gaby laughing. She – you – have a lovely laugh. And I couldn’t do it. I still felt full of anger and misery, but I literally couldn’t bring myself to do anything to jeopardize her.’

  He gave a smile.

  ‘I beat your shrub to the ground with my umbrella instead,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it ever recovered. And then I knocked at your door and you let me in and we had a pleasant evening together.’

  I saw you, thought Connor. I saw you on that evening. I should have known. I should have guessed.

  ‘The fact is,’ said Stefan, ‘you two seemed happy. I thought I’d made the right decision and that time had proved it so. You were happy, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Connor, in a voice of agony. He looked across at Gaby.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, wistfully and quietly. ‘We were.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Connor. ‘I don’t understand anything. I thought – I always thought – Christ, Stefan, didn’t you hate me?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Stefan was genuinely shocked.

  ‘Why not? I hated myself.’

  ‘I knew that. I could see it. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t,’ said Stefan. He looked across at Gaby and asked, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Kind of. Better now you’re here.’

  Connor saw the way they smiled at each other as if no one else was there. He poured himself a second glass of wine, took a deep draught of it, then got to his feet and left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

  Stefan half stood up to follow him, but Gaby held him back. ‘Let him go,’ she said. ‘He’ll be back in a minute. He’s pretty near breaking-point.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you? Have you been near breaking-point too?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve been worrying about you. I feel a bit more peaceful now I know that you know, I’m not quite sure why. Are you all right? Your hands are shaking.’

  He held them out in front of him. ‘So they are. I’m fine. Gaby, you do understand, don’t you, why I didn’t –?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do. Every time I think about it, it has a different meaning. To begin with it felt very close, too close to see properly, and very painful. Right now, it all feels far off.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘It’s a long story – which, now I come to think of it, shows me behaving in exactly the way you decided not to behave all those years ago. I pried and snooped and went to see her and dug up old secrets – oh, I behaved very badly all round because I couldn’t bear not to know. It’s wh
at I’m like. I can’t leave well alone. That’s what Nancy said to me when I went to see her and she was quite right. Once I knew a bit I had to know everything. Pandora’s box. Everything flew out, all the things that would have stayed under the lid if it hadn’t been for me. But listen, Stefan, there’s more to this story.’

  ‘More?’

  ‘Yes. Wait. Connor has to be here for this.’

  ‘How, more?’

  ‘There’s a reason why we’re speaking to you about this, rather than keeping it secret between us – keeping it secret from you like you’ve been keeping it secret from us. You knew and I knew but I didn’t know you knew and you didn’t know I knew … Oh, God, it hurts my brain, Stefan.’ She gave a giggle that turned into a sob.

  ‘What’s the reason, Gaby?’

  ‘Hang on, here he is. Are you all right?’

  Connor’s face was chalky, but he gave a nod and sat down. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The reason, Stefan, is that Nancy had a baby.’

  Gaby was watching Stefan’s face as he heard the news and she saw the expression that flickered across it – simultaneously horrified and full of hope. ‘Connor’s baby,’ she said quickly, to douse the hope before it grew any stronger.

  ‘I see. I see. Yes.’

  ‘She had it adopted at birth.’

  ‘Her,’ put in Connor.

  ‘Her. Sonia. She’s eighteen now and –’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stefan again. He blinked hard, took his reading-glasses out of his jacket pocket and started to polish them on the hem of his shirt. ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘She’s been in touch with Nancy and she knows about Connor. Probably she will want to meet him too. And Ethan – he and Sonia both have to know they have a sibling. So, of course, we had to tell you, too.’

  Stefan put on his glasses and peered over the top at them owlishly. He rummaged in his pocket and took out a length of thin, flecked rope and started to twist it in his hands. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said formally, as a knot formed between his deft fingers.

  ‘Tell me what you’re feeling,’ said Gaby urgently. ‘Please, darling Stefan.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Stefan. A little furrow knitted his brow. ‘A bit dazed, perhaps. But it’s all right, it really is. I think so, anyway. It’ll take time for this to sink in. I’ve lived so long with a different version of the past. So Nancy had a girl. I never – And you’re quite sure she’s Connor’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, well. Sonia, you say?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gaby. She reached over, took his fretting hands between her own and held them tightly. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Mm? Me? Yes. What about you two? This must have been an enormous shock.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody English and polite!’ Connor shouted, banging on the table hard with his fist so the glasses rattled. ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t be so nice and forgiving all the time, Stefan! I can’t stand it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Stefan.

  ‘There you go. Shout at me, hit me, anything but your terrifying kindness.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ said Stefan. He placed the knot on the table. ‘This is called a fisherman’s eye, by the way. It’s quite hard – I’ve been practising. I’ll teach you next summer, Connor, when we’re on the boat together. I lack the shouting gene.’

  Connor groaned.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Gaby. ‘And the hitting gene.’

  ‘It’s not necessarily a virtue,’ said Stefan. ‘Some people might consider it a fatal flaw.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ asked Connor.

  ‘Drink?’ suggested Gaby. She topped up everyone’s glass. An unaccountable hilarity rippled through her and she felt as though she might open her mouth and let out a howl, a hyena’s shriek of mirth.

  ‘Eat?’ said Stefan.

  ‘You want to eat now?’ Connor stared at him with a glazed expression.

  ‘I can smell something in the oven. It’s making me hungry.’

  ‘That’s Connor’s potato dish. Shall I take the foil off the top so they go crispy?’

  ‘If you want,’ said Connor, dully.

  ‘And put the salmon in?’

  ‘All right. Top of the oven.’

  ‘There you go. What about the broccoli?’

  ‘The broccoli?’

  ‘Shall I cook it?’

  ‘I was going to steam it,’ said Connor. ‘I’ll do it. You sit down.’

  ‘Maybe we should have whisky or rum or something stronger than wine. What do you reckon, Stefan?’

  ‘Remember that I’m driving.’

  ‘No, you can’t. You’re already over the limit as it is. You’ll have to stay the night.’

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You two don’t want to –?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You might want to be alone for a bit.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Gaby. ‘No. You stay. Here, finish that wine.’

  ‘You’re both quite mad, you know,’ said Connor. He suddenly felt ill, or perhaps just so weary he could scarcely keep his eyes open. All he wanted was to crawl into a dark, quiet room, pull the duvet over his head and sleep for hundreds of hours.

  ‘In a good way, you mean?’

  ‘In the best way. I need to go and lie down for a bit. Can you keep an eye on the salmon?’

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ asked Stefan.

  ‘I don’t know. I feel odd. A bit –’ He passed a hand over his forehead and found it was clammy with sweat. His legs were trembling and there was a burning sensation in his throat. ‘I think I might be sick. Bad timing. I’m not running away. Sorry. Sorry for everything. So very, very sorry.’

  ‘Sometimes I imagine being on my deathbed. Not in pain or anything. When I picture it, it’s always very peaceful and solemn. I’m just slowly dying. I know that’s unlikely – I’ll probably thrash around in pain and terror and scream obscenities. Anyway, I’ve always imagined Connor and Ethan would be sitting on either side of the bed and holding my hand.’ She took another gulp of whisky and let it trickle down her throat.

  ‘The past is made up of many hidden things,’ said Stefan, taking a large mouthful of whisky as well. His voice was slightly slurred. ‘You think you know your life and yourself, but that’s an illusion. As a historian, I often have the sense that I’m looking through a peephole at a small segment of the past. It’s the same with life. Most of it is quite obscure. Probably better that way too.’

  ‘But maybe I’ll be alone,’ Gaby continued, ‘and recently I’ve been thinking that perhaps it doesn’t matter so much. Ethan and Connor can’t accompany me over the threshold anyway, can they? What do you think?’

  ‘What do I think?’

  ‘About dying.’

  ‘I don’t think about dying.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘I never think about dying. I think about being dead.’

  ‘Ugh, no, I can’t do that. The mind balks, it refuses. It’s like a physical impossibility to think about not being alive to think. To think about nothing.’

  ‘I think about being absorbed back into the earth and the air. In the end, I’ll be a raindrop.’

  ‘A raindrop!’

  ‘Yes. What?’

  ‘I don’t know. We haven’t had much of Connor’s meal, have we?’

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘I think there’s nothing left to be sick.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a virus.’

  ‘Maybe he literally makes himself sick. I’m serious.’

  ‘Are you two going to be all right?’

  ‘I can’t tell you the answer to that. I’m not furious. I don’t feel betrayed the way I would have felt if I’d known at the time. I’m simply – well, I don’t know, Stefan. Something’s changed, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘More whisky?’

  ‘I’ve had quite a lot already.’

  ‘Can I ask you somethi
ng?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you think you’ve never lived with anyone or married because of Nancy?’

  ‘I haven’t been unhappy, you know.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I was meaning.’

  ‘It was, really. You think I’ve missed out on something.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Only in the paths-not-taken kind of way.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘And I always thought I would have children.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve got nephews and nieces, though. That’s good enough for me. Speaking of which –’

  ‘We’re going to wait until he’s home for Christmas. It’s only a few weeks now. We wouldn’t tell him at all except – well, he’s got a half-sister. And she probably wants to meet him one day, and he’s going to find out sooner or later so we figured it had better be sooner.’

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily need to be made into a huge, tragic thing.’

  ‘No. That’s it. I mean, it’ll be odd for him.’