by Karen Swan
‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, dashing from the room, the door slamming hard behind her.
She ran down the corridor, jabbing hard on the lift button. It came almost immediately and she stepped in just as she heard the suite door open and he called her name. But she didn’t turn round. She knew better than anyone that there was no point in looking back.
Chapter Seventeen
It was getting dark when she put her key in the lock. The sun had given up, making way for the moon, though it was barely mid-afternoon.
She dropped her keys on the table in the hall, able to see her father in the kitchen, still at work on the model ship. Had he been there all night? All weekend? Had he been waiting up for her?
‘Hello,’ he said in a tone that she recognized – relief obscured by jollity – dropping his tweezers onto the table as she walked into the kitchen.
‘Hi, Dad.’ She kept her voice light, her expression blank as she came over to him and gave him a brief hug. ‘You’re still working on that?’
‘You know what they say about idle hands.’
‘Soft skin?’ she quipped, wandering over to the fridge and peering in. It was more a force of habit than of need, but she wanted to avoid his enquiring gaze. No doubt he was registering she was still in last night’s clothes.
‘I thought we’d have lamb casserole tonight.’
‘Great.’ She reached for a can of Coke and closed the door again. ‘Want some?’
‘No, thank you.’
She grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured with her back to him, knowing he was staring. She felt oversized and over-strong, as though she could crush the glass in her bare hands, rip the door from its hinges. Everything in her felt too big – her loss, her pain, her heart . . .
‘You just missed Jules.’
‘Oh really?’
‘She said you were supposed to be seeing the new Bond film together.’
She took a deep gulp of the Coke. ‘Oh, that,’ Nettie shrugged, patting the back of her hand to her mouth for a moment, stemming the emotions, before turning to face him. ‘It was just a loose arrangement. We can go one day after work this week.’ Her eyes fell to the bare little Christmas tree on the table as she sipped her drink. She looked away again quickly.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Of course.’
‘You seem on edge, love.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said brusquely, her thumb tapping quickly against the counter. ‘So did Dan stay last night?’
‘No. He left shortly after you.’
‘Yeah. He probably went to meet Stevie in the pub.’
Her father glanced at her, as though debating whether to reply, before picking up the tweezers and resuming his painstaking work. ‘I must say I was surprised when Jules came by here,’ he said with deliberate levity. ‘I thought you were with her.’
‘We don’t live in each other’s pockets,’ she snapped, flinching as she saw her father startle from her tone, his hands slipping. ‘I see her all week at work, remember?’ she added more softly. She bit her lip and closed her eyes momentarily, remembering Jules with the guitarist last night and all her phone calls she’d rejected today, knowing all too well the post-mortem her friend wanted to conduct on last night’s events. But how could she face her – her best friend – when she couldn’t even face herself for what she’d done today?
There was a pause. ‘So what have you been up to, then?’ her father asked again.
‘Nothing.’
There was another pause, but her father didn’t stop working this time. ‘And by “nothing” I take it you mean walking?’
Nettie looked away with an irritated sigh, staring out into the garden, but the world had turned to shadows and her own brittle reflection was all that she could see.
Her father’s chin pushed into the air a little, even as he tried to tie a ratline to the rigging. ‘I thought you said you’d stopped. You agreed you weren’t going to do that anymore. It’s too upsetting for you.’
For her, or for him? ‘It was only today,’ she lied. ‘I just felt like it.’
Another pause. ‘So where did you go?’
‘Queen’s Park.’
He nodded. ‘Nothing, I suppose?’
‘Dad, do you think I’d keep it a secret if there was something to tell?’ she demanded, feeling something in her snap and replacing her glass on the wooden counter so hard he winced. ‘Of course there’s nothing to tell. There never is! This is it! It is only ever going to be this! Why can’t you wake up to that? Why do you spend all your time pretending that everything is perfectly normal when it’s not? It’s the very opposite of normal.’
‘Button—’
‘And stop calling me that! Why do you keep calling me that? Like I’m some little girl when I’m not! I am twenty-six years old, not six. It’s my life.’ She stabbed her chest hard with her thumb. ‘It should be my life by now!’
Her father blinked at her, the tweezers falling from his hands again. ‘I’m sorry, love. I didn’t—’
‘No! You didn’t!’ she cried, her hand just catching the glass on the edge of the worktop and sending it crashing to the floor. Coke splattered all up the white units, flecking her mother’s cream handbag and the backs of the chairs, and seeping into the cracks in the floorboards. She stared down in disbelief at the tiny smithereens that were all that was left of her parents’ wedding crystal, her arms outstretched, her face contorted in a silent spasm. She balled her fists, fury at the sheer bloody cosmic injustice of it all overtaking her, and she let out a strangled scream that sounded like an animal in a trap – injured, terrified, imprisoned – her life not her own anymore, as she walked and waited and hinged her happiness upon texts that told her nothing. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever would.
Her father ran over to her, his arms closing round her rigid body as she cried angry tears that made her eyes sting and her cheeks burn; she couldn’t pull her hands out of the fists; she couldn’t relax her core. It was too much.
‘Look, come and sit down, love. You’re worn out. Let me make you a cup of tea and we can talk. You know there’s nothing a good cup of tea can’t remedy.’
Nettie shut her eyes, trying to block out his words. She thought she might scream if she heard that refrain again. Tea was not the bloody answer. It would not make this OK.
The abrupt ring of the doorbell made them both flinch, breaking apart to stare back at the door. A single figure stood silhouetted in the frost glass. ‘Fucking neighbours,’ she hissed angrily, fiercely wiping her eyes dry with the heels of her palms and making to stride down the hall. If they dared to ask her to keep the noise down . . .
‘Nets, I’ll go,’ her father said firmly, the rims of his own eyes reddened as he waited for her to calm down.
The tension in her slackened at the sight of his trembling self-control and she nodded, feeling ashamed as she watched him walk to the door, dignity in every step. Unlike her, he had never faltered, never crumbled once in these four years. He spoke to the neighbours in the gardens and around the square with a calm affability that she had never been able to replicate. When they asked how she was doing, she thought they were prying; when they didn’t, she thought they were indifferent. But he projected a quiet constancy all the time, even when it was just the two of them. She hadn’t once seen him cry or rage or stare mute at a wall looking for answers. He just kept on keeping busy, keeping calm, staying friendly. The same as he ever was, as though it had never even happened.
How could he do it, day after day, year after year? If she didn’t remember his face so clearly, that day when he’d walked in and found her sitting with the police in the kitchen, she might have thought he didn’t feel as much as her, that his love wasn’t quite as strong as hers. But she did remember that look; in fact, she would never forget it. It had been the proof she’d dreaded, that their lives had changed forever.
He opened the door. ‘Hello, Gwen.’ His tone betrayed his surprise.
Ne
ttie tensed as she saw Gwen’s russet curls and rosy cheeks. She was wrapped in a red wool coat and tartan scarf, her hands still gloved as she came to stand in the hall.
Nettie walked to greet her, her heart in her mouth, but before she could ask the question that began every single one of their conversations, Gwen turned to her with a smile. ‘So, are you ready?’
Gwen paid for the cab as Nettie and her father stared up at the fine steeple that dominated the angular church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, as though trying to outreach the famous column in the centre of Trafalgar Square.
‘You OK?’ she asked her father, noticing him fiddle with his tie again. He was looking uncomfortably smart in his grey suit and trench coat, which didn’t quite fit anymore. He rarely wore a suit these days and it sat upon him like a bad disguise today. All his anima and ebullience were gone and he looked diminished, aged and anxious on the church steps.
‘This is a waste of time,’ she said in a low voice, not wanting to be overheard as they watched the cabby hand Gwen her change and receipt.
Her father placed a hand on her shoulder, his voice equally quiet. ‘Gwen’s been telling us about this every year. She obviously thinks it will help.’
‘I don’t see how. It’s just going to be depressing to be surrounded by all these other people who are . . .’ her voice shook, ‘just like us.’
‘No, not depressing. Reassuring. She wants us to see we’re not alone.’
She looked at him. They both knew that after the initial wave of condolences, they had been alone – left to get on with it, pick up the pieces and patch their lives together again. Yes, Gwen kept in monthly contact. Yes, people asked how they were getting on, but they both felt obliged to show a smiling face, not to appear to be defeated by their very public tragedy. It was the question in everyone’s eyes whenever she walked down the street or popped into the newsagent’s or helped out at the library; even at the Engineer it was the backstory that defined her. Why? they wanted to ask her. And she could never answer. It was what she wanted to know herself.
‘Let’s just give it a go,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll sit at the back and if . . . if it just feels wrong, we can leave without anyone noticing. OK?’
She sighed, her eyes scanning the square. She looked over towards the fourth plinth – empty today, as it was supposed to be, and she tried to envisage herself, her own ghost, scrambling up the ladder in the bunny suit, ready for a soaking, Mike parading around with his sash and megaphone, rounding up the tourists and students. To think that it had been only six days ago, to think it was one of the crazy ways she had come to be propelled into Jamie’s orbit . . .
Her chest tightened and she inhaled sharply.
Gwen joined them on the steps, a kind smile on her face. ‘Shall we go and get a seat?’
‘We’d like to sit at the back, if that’s OK,’ Nettie said quickly as her father protectively looped an arm through hers.
‘Of course. Although we’ll need to go in now, then. Everyone wants to sit at the back on their first visit.’
They walked tentatively up the steps. Small groups of people were milling about, no one quite sure whether to make eye contact, and Nettie and her father kept their own eyes down as they passed.
They stepped into the cool shadow of the nave, stopping at the sight of the filled oak pews, bent heads – hatted, bald, ponytailed, coiffed, bobbed – rippling in lines towards the front. There were so many . . .
They stood in silence, staring – aghast and reassured all at once by the sight of so much loss. If there was a loss for every two people here . . . Her eyes filled with tears.
‘Come,’ Gwen whispered, guiding her and her father to the back row.
They waited in silence for those on the steps to make the same pilgrimage, for the doors to close and the organ to start. Nettie listened with her breath held as the vicar spoke about hope and the light, of eternal promises that would one day be kept; she sang the carols she’d known since childhood, her eyes taking in not the gilded, panelled ceiling or the gallery, the chandeliers or the beautiful ivory walls but the backs in the crowd, wondering if their pain matched hers, if their story could possibly be as terrible as her own. Were they really like her – normal on the outside, broken on the inside?
Her father was silent beside her. He didn’t sing the carols; he didn’t bend his head during the prayers; he didn’t hear the eloquent and empathetic speech from the guest speaker, a former newsreader who had once been the voice of the nation, had maybe even read some of their tragedies from his autocue. Her father sat with his hands clasped loosely on his thighs, his eyes fixed on the east window, a modernist installation that – Nettie recalled from the headlines at the time – had been commissioned to replace the original stained-glass window shattered by bombs during the Second World War. It was ostensibly a striking metalwork lattice, with a crucifix form created by narrow placement of the frets, a simple circle – or hole – in the centre allowing the light to rush through like a flood of water. His eyes didn’t move from it once, caught – it seemed – in meditation.
People were coming to the lectern, standing in a quiet, patient line, some of them reading short prepared speeches about who they had lost and when, others speaking off the cuff, from the heart, their words spontaneous and raw.
After the ninth, Nettie closed her eyes, wishing she could close her ears too. She didn’t want to hear these variations on her own theme. Gwen had been wrong. It didn’t make her feel better to hear other people’s pain; it only swelled hers. What world was this where so much loss could be borne? How had any of them ever come to be in this position? What had they done to deserve it? She shifted position, restless and agitated, feeling like a bird in a cage.
Her father’s hand found hers and she looked at him, her eyes shining, her lips rolled tight. He nodded. ‘We’ll go in the next song,’ he said under his breath, squeezing her fingers.
They both looked over at Gwen, who simply nodded in understanding.
Nettie tried tuning out again as the people continued to talk, trying to exorcise their ghosts, but the details filtered through – a son, drugs; a sister, mental illness; a husband, money troubles . . . Common, everyday troubles that millions of people suffered – and endured. Why hadn’t their loved ones managed it too?
She swallowed a hiccup. Her body was still jangling from the outburst in the kitchen, her nervous system flayed from the emotional assault; she saw Jamie’s reproachful face with every blink, and she pressed the beads of her spine hard against the unyielding pew. How much longer?
She looked to the front again. The last person was standing at the lectern now, a woman in her fifties with thin blonde bobbed hair and glasses, wearing a navy overcoat with a silk scarf. Her voice was timid and tremulous as she read from a sheet of lined A4 paper, all her longing and devastation captured and pressed into that page like a dried flower. Nettie held her breath as she listened to this last story – a horror story told by a neat middle-aged woman, of drug offences and prostitution arrests, the words tripping off her tongue, sleek from practice. How had this tale become her narrative? The woman looked like she should run a book club, listen religiously to Woman’s Hour every morning while she did her ironing or took tea and a biscuit.
She watched as the woman walked back to her seat, head bowed, the man she sat down beside putting his arm round her shoulder and whispering something in her ear.
Nettie didn’t notice the cello had started up. Not immediately.
It was only the shuffle of the choir rising to stand that made her look front again. To her surprise, it wasn’t the choristers, who had made the procession past earlier in their red-and-white cassocks, hymn books opened in their palms, but instead an ensemble cast wearing black trousers and red T-shirts with the charity’s logo across the front in yellow.
The cello’s song rose and swelled like steam. The cellist was out of her line of sight, but the notes from the honeyed strings filled the arched space like sunlight
and Nettie felt the fibres in her muscles tighten and quiver, as though they were being pulled up on pulleys.
‘Come on, then,’ her father whispered, patting her hand, as eager as she to escape, and sliding along the pew, keeping low and trying to remain unnoticed.
The choir began to sing.
‘In my dreams, I see your face, walk with you, hold you safe . . .’
Transfixed, she reached for her father’s sleeve without looking, holding him in place, as the words fell like rain. ‘I’m so empty and silent without you . . .’
Most of the singers were women, but not all, their arms hanging empty and still at their sides, eyes on the conductor as they sang in precise synchronicity. Nettie straightened, trying to get a better look as the purity of sound swirled around her like a wistful wind. They didn’t look remarkable, these people; she was quite sure that to hear them sing individually, they would probably be nothing special, but together they were more than the sum of their parts, their voices gathering her up and folding around her. She felt held.
Her father felt it too, relaxing back into the bench again, his hand falling warm and heavy over hers. They sat like that together, at the back of the church, unseen and unknown as the song put exquisite voice to the loss that both filled them up and hollowed them out. It was the first time . . . the first time since that day that she didn’t feel alone.
And when the voices hushed, when the singularity of their collective loss and pain began to fade to an echo, her father stood up. And after four years of denial and pretence and soldiering on, he finally began to speak.
Chapter Eighteen
Daisy was loitering by the lifts and filing her nails when the doors opened and Nettie stepped out into the office the next morning. She immediately noticed someone had put up a blue LED-lit Christmas tree in the corner by the loos and strung it with silver tinsel; a couple of empty red foil boxes sat at the foot of the tree like they’d been kicked there by the cleaner and all festive feeling deserted her at the sight of it.