by Carol Mason
I daydreamed about him after. But I was like that. All my report cards from school said the same thing. Alice never pays attention. Alice is always in a world of her own. Somehow, I made it grandly romantic – the stranger who had watched me as though we had shared something my mother and father were unaware of.
‘Will Dad’s friend be coming back?’ I remember the nervous glee in my voice. He was possibly my first crush. My mother was washing dishes. She stopped washing for a moment. ‘Why do you ask?’ she said, flatly.
I can remember the tiniest detail of a bluebottle hitting the window, as though it, too, felt the weight of my mother’s disapproval and was dying to get out.
‘No reason,’ I said.
I tell Evelyn all this, and say, ‘I wish there was a way I could know if it was him for sure!’
‘I don’t know if it was him,’ Evelyn says. ‘Stanley never said anything about him having gone there. I would have thought he’d have told me if he had.’
‘It probably wasn’t him. I’m probably just grasping at straws.’ I try not to feel too downcast. ‘How did it happen? The fight? Have you any idea?’
Evelyn’s face takes on that look of haunted melancholy again. ‘Well, according to Stanley, your father started going out a lot after your mother and you left. I think he was drinking a bit more than usual. He was in the bar. I think he knew the two men. One of them must have said something to him about it – you know, there’s the whole Northern male’s moral code when it comes to people messing around with their wives – anyway, Eddy threw the first punch. And he wasn’t like that. So whatever they said must have been something awful to provoke him.’ Evelyn places a hand over her mouth, momentarily silencing herself. ‘People think that in real life they can punch and kick each other like they do in the movies and nothing bad happens. People fall down, but then they get up and walk away. They never end up with a brain injury in movies . . .’
The words brain injury make me flinch.
‘He was in hospital for five months. He was in a very, very bad state. I only learnt this after – Stanley knew that if I’d known it at the time, I’d have upended my life all over again. He made a surprisingly amazing recovery, considering the extent of his injury. But he was never the same. He lost his driving licence, which impacted his job, of course. He suffered off and on with seizures and headaches.’
The man who had come to dinner looked healthy. It clearly hadn’t been him.
‘It was just such a terrible twist of fate. Whatever he’d done, he didn’t deserve getting his head kicked in. He didn’t deserve ending up like this . . .’ Evelyn breaks off and looks at me with alarm. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I think I just need air.’
Downstairs, in the garden, a fine mist of rain falls on my face, reminding me of my wedding day. I take a few long breaths, letting the cool gusts of wind blow the ghosts away.
A few minutes later, Evelyn comes out.
‘Did my mother know about his head injury?’
‘I don’t know.’ We stand shoulder to shoulder, staring out at nothing.
‘I caught her reading something from a newspaper once, and she was crying at the kitchen table. She put it away when I came in, and bucked up. Maybe my gran sent it to her.’ It’s incredible how all this stuff has come back to me.
‘It could have been anything.’ Evelyn looks at me.
‘If she knew he was suffering, and still she kept me away from him . . . Isn’t that heinous? Maybe I would have helped him get better faster . . . Motivated him to want to live.’
‘But he did live. And I’m sure you motivated him, whether you were there or not.’
I gently touch her arm.
‘I’m just scrambling to put this all together, and wondering why I can’t remember him. It really bothers me. How can I have no real memory of my own father?’
‘You were five years old. You probably hardly saw him. He was always working. When he came home, you’d probably already be asleep.’
‘I don’t even know how I felt when she took me away. I think I was just puzzled in general about why we had to move. I think I remember missing him and wondering why he wasn’t there, but then I must have just got used to him not being there, mustn’t I?’ I rub at the fug in my head. Once again, I am filling in so many blanks with assumptions. ‘I remember being sad a lot, and sort of cast adrift, and somehow that feeling never entirely left me.’ An old boyfriend once hinted at it – that I couldn’t be entirely happy for very long.
‘Children just want to feel safe. If your mum was there and was telling you everything was going to be fine, you’d have probably just trusted that, and got on with living your little life.’
‘So you think his dementia is connected to what happened to his head?’ I think of what Michael said. I wonder if he knows I’m Eddy’s daughter? He’s aware of my last name. Then I think, Of course he does. Oddly, this doesn’t bother me the way it might have before. I seem to have accepted a lot of things remarkably fast.
Evelyn meets my gaze. ‘I’m almost certain his dementia was triggered by the attack. And none of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for me. He must have looked back on everything that went wrong for him – losing his marriage and losing you, and then his accident – and rued the day he ever met me.’
In that moment, I feel Evelyn’s pain as profoundly as if it were my own. Maybe some people could be angry with her. I am not one of them. I gently grip her spindly upper arms. ‘You don’t know it for a fact, Evelyn. Look at Ronnie and Martin, and so many others at Sunrise – they never had a head injury, yet they’ve all fallen victim to the same fate. You’re not responsible for what happened to him.’
‘Moderate to severe traumatic brain injury does predispose people to dementia, actually. I do know that for a fact, Alice. By the time I’d moved back here, Eddy was only seventy-ONE, and he was already too far gone to know me. There is not a doubt in my mind that his early dementia was caused by his head injury.’
I hate that she has this perception. ‘Evelyn, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe if alcohol was involved, he couldn’t turn a deaf ear when he should have. The fight could have happened for any reason. You don’t know what they said to him. It wasn’t your fault, and I can’t imagine he blamed you for one minute – not for anything.’
Evelyn surprises me by kissing the pads of her own fingers, then pressing them on to my lips. ‘Thank you for saying that. It means a lot that you’re trying to make me feel better. That you care enough.’ Tears roll down her face. ‘I just wish I could have got to tell him how sorry I was.’
I cite what Michael said – his touching words about our memory when it concerns love. Rain clings to Evelyn’s hair like an intricate, bejewelled hairnet. There is something beautiful about it. ‘I’m sure there’s a part of him that knows you feel guilty and that you’ve done your best for him – and for me. He might not be able to communicate it. But deep inside of him somewhere, he knows.’
‘Do you believe that?’ Her face is vulnerable, like a child’s. For a moment, Evelyn is no longer the one with all the wisdom. I am. I find it a disarming switching of roles.
‘I believe that wholeheartedly. Eddy knows.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
I am eating a smoked salmon wrap at the Theatre Royal café when I get a text from Justin.
Need to see U. 6 p.m. BB?
Bookshop Bar. One of our regulars.
I knew it. He’s cleared his head and seen sense. He wants to come back.
I stare at the words like I’m trying to crack a code. Trying to decide how I feel about this. What I will say. It takes me ages to work out how to reply. Then I simply type,
OK.
He’s seated at our regular table by the window. I spot him from across the road. The naturalness of this makes my heart somersault. He’s wearing one of his best suits. He has his head down, and is fiddling with his BlackBerry. How many times have I seen him like this? He was always th
ere first – the ever-punctual Justin. How many times have I knocked on the window, and he has looked up, already smiling, knowing it was me?
When it’s safe, I hurry across the road, unable to pull my eyes from him. We can do it. If that’s why he’s here. We can go back and make it work . . .
He must sense my eyes, because he looks up. We are separated only by the window. He smiles. But the smile is different: distant. For a second or two my feet slow down and I think, Oh my gosh! I can’t go in!
Walking here, I’d had it sorted. We’d take the baby at weekends – give Lisa a chance to find another man. We’d buy that house we’d been planning to buy, the one we had never quite found. Dylan would have his own room, of course, and a special set of clothes that he’d keep at ours. There’d be another room for when we adopted – maybe a little boy from Syria or somewhere; a child who would make Dylan realise how lucky he was. Maybe Dylan would even help us find him when he got a bit older.
Justin looks at me again, as if to say, Why are you just standing there? So I walk to the entrance and go in, flooded with hope and dread. The bar is packed. I squeeze past bodies. A few men glance me over – how many times has this happened, too? I arrive at his table. He stands, kisses me cautiously on the cheek. As I pull out the chair, I have to catch my breath at the familiarity of it. It’s as though there never was a baby. Lisa is long in the past. It’s just us, meeting after work on a Friday, something I’ve looked forward to all day.
When we are seated, almost touching knees, he looks expectant, and I feel a confusing flurry of possibility again.
‘So . . . ?’ I say.
His gaze settles on my throat, on the small silver Tiffany starfish pendant he bought me for my birthday. I’d put it on this morning and hadn’t thought to take it off when I’d got his text.
‘How are you?’ he asks. He sounds like he genuinely needs to hear.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to talk about how I am. ‘If you lose any more weight you’ll disappear,’ I say, instead.
He holds my eyes. ‘Regular meals are a bit of a thing of the past.’
I am saved from adding anything by the arrival of the waitress. We order two apple martinis, as normal.
‘Can we have a bowl of spiced nuts?’ Justin asks the girl.
Our routine. The martinis – two of them each – would always be followed by dinner. ‘Why am I here?’ I ask. It might be direct, but I need putting out of my misery.
He sits back, and crosses his arms. His head tips back slightly. He sighs. Sally would have said he was being dramatic. I can’t help but think, For God’s sake, just be settled in your choice, now that you’ve made it – if you’ve made it!
Seeing him still looking like this – like he’s in emotional traction – I regret taking any pleasure in him not kissing Lisa. Life’s too precious for me to live it like my mother.
‘I really wanted to see you, Alice. I miss you, naturally, and I think of you so much, and I’m trying so hard to keep it all together . . .’
Sally would say, He’s playing the victim, when it’s you who is the victim! But in a way we are all victims.
‘Will you ever be able to forgive me?’ he asks. I’m sure this isn’t what he’s come here to say. ‘I know it’s insane for me to even hope that you ever could. I just can’t stand knowing how much I’ve hurt you.’
So I should forgive you to make you feel better? Or myself? ‘I’m not sure it’s something that requires forgiveness, Justin. It’s, well, it is what it is. That’s all.’ I hate that expression. But this one time it’s appropriate. Surprisingly, I feel no animosity toward him. I feel nothing. I stare out of the window at the rush-hour traffic sliding to a stop at the light.
‘I suppose, maybe I understand you, if that makes you feel any better. I understand why you did it. I mean, I think I do.’
He wipes a hand across his face. He looks as though he’s woken up from a long nap and hasn’t managed to pull himself together. Is he back to work now? Is he still sleeping in Lisa’s spare room? I remember what Evelyn said. You mustn’t care.
The waitress brings the drinks. She asks if we’re planning to order dinner, and Justin answers with a pretty straight-out no.
‘What’s been going on, then, in your life, lately?’ he asks when the girl leaves. The no is still echoing. He doesn’t even sound like himself. This isn’t something he says.
I imagine telling him about Evelyn, the gallery visits, the discovery of my real father: he would love this. It’s so odd to think he doesn’t already know about such a significant change in my life. The reality that I can’t really say any of this hits home with full force. We have passed the stage of sharing life’s dramas, great or small. I don’t want to do anything that will re-attach myself to him, now that I’m feeling a modicum of distance. So I tell him a bit about work, but it’s too strange to try to talk to him the way I always used to. Even casual conversation is a sore reminder for us.
‘How is Dylan?’ I ask.
I’d hoped he might look positive for a second, but instead he says, ‘He came through his surgery fairly well. But we still don’t know. He has another hospital appointment next week.’
If he knew I’d seen them . . . ‘Well, I will definitely keep my fingers crossed.’
‘Alice,’ he says quickly, so I know the real reason I am here is coming. ‘I wanted to tell you face to face. I’m looking into getting an annulment.’
He lets the word sit there for a moment, scrutinising me for my reaction. ‘This way, we don’t have to wait a year before we can divorce. If we both agree to it, it can take between six and eight months. But the grounds aren’t always straightforward, so I’m having to seek advice from a family lawyer to see if we qualify.’
Because I am so motionless, he says, ‘Are you following?’
I stare at him, blankly, then say, ‘Yes. I mean, I’m not sure. No – I don’t really understand. Why the rush?’ Because he wants to marry Lisa soon, to make it all neat and official?
‘There’s not a rush on my part. But I thought, perhaps . . . I thought you might want to be free sooner so you can . . .’
‘Run out and bag someone else?’ I almost laugh.
‘That’s not exactly what I was thinking. No.’ He looks almost annoyed and slightly hurt. ‘I was meaning . . . I don’t know. Just that maybe you wouldn’t want it hanging over you. The reminder.’
‘And an annulment is going to make it cheerfully go away, is it?’
I take a sip of my drink, and stare at the nuts we haven’t touched. The word keeps writing itself across my vision. I can’t meet his eyes, even though I know he is waiting for me to. When we quarrelled in the past – though it was never over anything much – and I refused to look at him, he would tilt my chin with his index finger until I did. It was his way of finding out if I was really upset with him, because he said he could read just about everything in my eyes. I never really was, of course. I imagine him doing this now – and him smiling, and us acknowledging that we are fine again: that all this was nothing. But, of course, it doesn’t happen.
‘Isn’t an annulment a Catholic thing? So that you can marry again in a Catholic church?’ It’s snarky, but I can’t resist it. ‘I think your mother once talked of someone getting one . . .’
‘It’s not that kind of annulment. Not to do with the Church. It’s simply a declaration by a court that the marriage was not legally valid, or has become legally invalid.’
Not legally valid.
I only ever want one wife.
The words become bold and underlined in my brain. How impersonal we are. The way he’s talking, it’s as though I’m a solicitor he’s consulting. I can’t drag my gaze away from a fixed spot on the table. It’s perhaps the cruellest thing anyone has ever said to me, and the fact that it’s Justin saying it makes it agonising on a whole other level.
‘I thought it would be better . . . Sorry. If you prefer it, we can wait for a divorce. It won’t be c
omplicated. It’s not as though we own property together, or have children.’
I look up now.
‘Sorry,’ he says again. ‘I’m not doing too well here, am I?’
I’m not even sure I believe him, and I have always believed him. Maybe Lisa put him up to it. I stare at his upper body. The wide shoulders. The blue-grey shirt, open at the neck, with the red tie yanked midway down his chest. He’d do that the moment he stepped out of his office. I once asked him about it, and he said, ‘Do you ever feel like work has got both hands around your neck and is strangling you?’ I’d smiled. I’d never felt like that.
‘Do what you have to do, Justin.’ I say it quietly, flatly. ‘Whatever you want, I won’t stand in your way. You’re the lawyer. You just let me know what you need from me.’
‘Are you sure?’
I nod.
‘Thanks. I’m . . . I suppose I’m grateful for that.’
And I suppose he’s finished now.
I stare out of the window, calmly picturing us divorced, or annulled. It actually doesn’t seem so huge. Mainly because I don’t feel married. Maybe he was thinking of me, not himself, when he thought of an annulment – to give him the benefit of the doubt. As if this isn’t ironic enough, tomorrow will be Saturday, a full month since our wedding day. The fact that we are initiating ending our marriage a month after we confirmed it is nothing to do with me, as I once – or a million times – feared. It’s a product of Justin’s complex moral character. His burden, not mine.
My mind skips forward to Christmas. If we do get this annulment, all this will be over for us. I’ll spend Christmas with my father and Evelyn, and Justin will be with the son he only recently learnt he had. This puts it into perspective.
‘Are you planning on marrying her?’