‘Where’s Daddy?’ Hannah asked, but before Grace could answer Ayu reappeared to tell her the officer had arrived and that she’d shown him into the lounge. Grace asked her to take the children away and serve tea. It felt odd to be telling a complete stranger what to do – wrong, somehow – though she was grateful for the help, she had to admit. As she hurriedly dressed, she marvelled again at how long she’d been asleep.
In the lounge, a tall, middle-aged man with grey hair and moustache introduced himself as Officer George Hawkins. And as Ayu poured the tea he said, ‘The day before you came, Pete was on a training mission at sea when a sudden storm broke. He was being winched down from a helicopter to pick up two men in a dinghy when lightning caused the safety mechanism to activate, cutting the winch line automatically and dropping him into the ocean. The conditions were so bad the other men had to return without him. They couldn’t even see him, the waves were so high. We’re hoping for the best, obviously.’
She could hear a radio somewhere playing the Mandarin version of a pop song she knew. Tried to remember the title, singing along in her head, searching for the phrase that would name it, but it wouldn’t come. She was wearing the jade bracelet Pete had sent her from Aden for her eighteenth birthday. She slid it down over her hand. It felt solid and familiar, and she gripped it and looked at it.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Robinson. Rest assured we’re doing all we can to find him. There’s a search party out there now. Do you have everything you need?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said. Her stomach was rumbling from hunger, and the mosquito bites were beginning to itch. He said, ‘There’s a strong chance, of course, that he’s still alive. He was a very good swimmer.’
He looked awkward at the accidental past tense.
Pete was a good swimmer, it was true. A good dancer, too; Grace recalled, from a time that seemed impossibly long ago now, the memory of his body against hers as they danced. She thought about how much she’d loved him, and how it hadn’t been enough. Because all the love in the world couldn’t mend a broken bone.
She said, ‘So what happens now? Do we have to go back straight away?’
He stroked his hand down over his moustache before saying, ‘Not straight away. But eventually, if Pete doesn’t show up.’
‘Or if you find a body.’
They exchanged a long glance.
‘And how long till you give up searching, or waiting?’
‘This is the last day of the search, but we’re hopeful he could still be making his way back here if he managed to make it to shore. You can remain here for a few weeks, but I’m afraid if he hasn’t reappeared by then…’ He trailed off. ‘We’ll need the accommodation, you see. For another family.’
It was then that the tears came, though they weren’t born of sorrow so much as frustration and exhaustion, the intense physical memory of the journey she’d just completed and the sudden desperation she felt within. Then, just as quickly, the tears ran dry, and George Hawkins’ relief was palpable.
He explained there was a whole new arrivals procedure he needed to go through with her, and gave her an identity card and a handbook she never did get around to reading; she couldn’t see the point if they weren’t staying. She knew Pete wasn’t alive – could feel the world already readjusting to his absence.
‘Ayu will come every day during the week, but not at weekends. She’ll do housework and cook meals,’ he said, handing her a piece of paper. ‘This is the Baileys’ telephone number. Mrs Bailey – Marilyn, will be over to see you later today.’
This, it struck her, was women’s stuff: grief. Let the men play their war games; leave the women to clean up the mess. After she’d seen him out she leant her back against the cool glass of the front door, flooded with a mixture of fear and relief.
SHE’S STROLLING aimlessly across the Heath, recalling all this, when Luke steps out on to the path in front of her, nonchalant as a reed, and startling her half to death. He passes by, lost in some song playing in his headphones, sunglasses hiding his eyes.
The shadow at her feet is the only proof she’s even here. The birds are gossiping and the air is still. With a strange uplift of release, like the snapping of guy ropes, something shifts inside her, and anxiety gives way to recklessness, fear to indifference. If you see a ghost you should follow it; learn from it all you can. You may never see another.
She stalks him down those bosky lanes, not allowing herself to think about what she’s doing or why. She just walks, her head as empty as her heart is full. When the voice inside her tells her Stop, go home, leave the poor lad alone, she ignores it. Because she can’t stop; she’s too caught up in a new sense of thrill. When he turns into the entrance to the Men’s Pond, though, she halts, unsure what to do. The sun is hot and there isn’t a cloud in the sky; he could be twenty minutes, or he could be planning to spend hours in there. She looks at her watch: 2.35. Well, it’s not as if she has anything else to do, she thinks, pushing to the back of her mind all the chores she’s been neglecting. Spotting an empty bench opposite the entrance to the pond, she heads over and sits down, nearly laughing out loud at the whole ridiculous situation. Just as quickly she feels like crying.
Is this what you’ve become?
With the sun on her skin like a caress, she pictures Luke undressing… and then Pete shedding his clothes at the foot of the bed every night; how she’d lie there and marvel at the sight of him, recalling the intensity of the pleasure he could bring. That dark charge of desire, so long dispersed, now gathers.
The sudden sound of barking draws her attention to a young man being dragged along by half a dozen dogs of different sizes and breeds, all straining at the leash. Her gaze meets his long enough to exchange a brief smile before he is pulled away: the walker walked. A chime of blue laughter makes her look around and there is Luke, leaving the pond with a tall, brown-skinned man in a red T-shirt and blue denim shorts, a tweed flat cap on his head. She looks down at her feet: six dog-ends, crushed into pale orange commas. She busies herself rooting around in her bag, sneaking furtive glances across at them. ‘It’s insanely good. You have to go!’ she hears Red T-shirt say, and Luke is saying, ‘I will, definitely,’ as they begin to stroll along the path, away from her. She stands, more alive than she’s felt for a long time. It’s now or never.
At the exit by the tennis courts, at the bottom of Highgate Hill, the two men turn left out of the Heath and cross the road to a parade of shops. She loiters, watching them enter a green door at the side of a newsagent’s. The street takes place around her; cars pass by. Then with a jolt she sees sense, if it can be called that, and heads towards home. If it can be called that.
Making her way across the Heath, she finds herself at a fairground, its bright lights and clutter of noise drawing her into the crush, a memory of that first meeting with Pete filling her mind… the heady kisses… An impulse – a sudden, inexplicable command – directs her to the rollercoaster. She rides it three times in a row, feeling crazed but loving every minute of it, till she reaches an exhilarated rush that seems to provide some kind of release. A burst of life like a firework. The opposite of death. No longer a sad old woman, but – for too brief a spell – a teenager, falling in love for the very first time.
DAY FIVE
FOR A MOMENT Grace doesn’t recognise the young woman, cannot place her at all. All she sees is Hannah’s face, and a wave of disorientation hits her hard. It’s the blonde from outside the pub with Luke. She is touching
Grace’s arm and saying, ‘Are you OK?’ pulling her from deep within some dark and muddy absence. Grace looks around for co-ordinates with which to locate herself. She is in the supermarket – with no memory of even having entered the shop. It’s as if she’s been magically transported here. She can remember leaving the boat, but, after that, nothing. It is the oddest feeling. She becomes aware of the tight wetness of tears on her skin, wondering how long she’s been standing there, by the fruit and veg, clutching an empty basket
, weeping?
‘Would you like to sit down?’ the young woman says.
‘No, thank you,’ says Grace, more than a little embarrassed, ‘I’m OK now. Thanks.’
‘What happened to your face?’ she asks, and Grace lifts a hand to touch the scab on her cheek, remembering the fall.
She is slightly ashamed of how she’d injured her cheek. Last night, finding herself wide awake at her usual bedtime and not having any sleeping tablets, she’d swallowed six painkillers, hoping they would make her drowsy. This was on top of the bottle of wine she’d consumed and the Valium she’d forgotten she’d taken earlier. It certainly did the trick, plunging her into a full-fathomed sleep. Waking in the small hours parched and groggy, she’d climbed out of bed to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen. But when she tried to stand up she had collapsed, smashing her face on the floor and passing out. When she’d regained consciousness, unsure how long she’d been out, she’d made her way back to bed.
Surveying her reflection in the mirror this morning, she had contemplated trying to conceal the marks. She’d been good at that, once. The blood had dried, forming a scab it would be difficult to hide, so she’d decided to leave it.
‘I fell. It’s nothing. Really.’ She smiles and the woman walks away, inserting earphones before disappearing down an aisle. Once she is out of sight, Grace puts down the basket and leaves the shop, the sense of being pursued so strong she very nearly breaks into a run. She makes straight for the Prince Alfred, wondering what on earth is happening to her. All certainties are gone, except those of the past and the losses that shaped them. The present and the future blur into a scratchy panic. The Alfred smells of polish and yesterday’s beer, and at this time of day – it has only just opened – there’s only a handful of customers, mainly men. She orders a glass of white wine and sits at an empty table. The only other woman in the place stares forlornly at a half-empty pint glass. The woman’s age is indeterminate, her face only partly visible between lank falls of orangey bleached blonde hair with a good two inches of dark roots: the thin line of the mouth and the darkness of her shadowed eyes. Her shoulders are slumped as if all the world’s sorrows weigh upon them. Grace thinks about Hannah and the pain she had been numbing. She considers approaching the woman and starting up a conversation, longing, suddenly, for some human interaction, but shyness delays her. The woman finishes her drink in one swift move and walks unsteadily out of the pub, taking her stories with her.
What happens to all the pain you refuse to feel? Grace thinks. Does the body store it, perhaps, for a future date?
On her way back to the boat she drops into the newsagent’s for a loaf, some milk, a bottle of wine and twenty Mayfair. Unsettled by everything, and fearing she might start crying again at any moment, she needs to retreat into the boat’s haunted shell as soon as possible.
She notices a luridly decorated narrowboat she hasn’t seen before, and sitting on top reading a book is the blonde woman from the supermarket. Grace nearly turns back, but the girl has already spotted her and is waving hello, leaving Grace no option but to return the greeting and approach.
‘You OK now?’ the woman asks, closing the book and climbing down to the towpath.
‘Yes, thanks. Much better.’ Though she isn’t.
‘I’m Linden,’ she says.
‘I’m Grace,’ says Grace, scanning the designs covering the boat’s exterior: swirling spirals of vibrant colour; flowers, spaceships and anchors, stars and planets; she spots a phallus spurting like a whale. She wonders how she could have walked past it earlier without noticing it.
They both start talking at once and Linden insists Grace go first, so she says, ‘How long have you been here? I don’t think I’ve seen your boat before.’
‘We’ve been here about a week, but we did that last night,’ Linden says. ‘We were off our faces and it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ She lets out a short laugh.
‘It’s certainly distinctive!’ Grace says. There is something about the brazen, primitive lines and colours that makes her want to smile. The incongruity, the difference, seems somehow to make the world a better place.
‘Where are you moored?’ Linden says.
‘Just over there.’
‘Is it permanent?’
‘Yes, me and my husband Gordon have been here about five years now.’ Where did the time go? What did she do with it?
‘You’re lucky,’ Linden says, ‘they’re almost impossible to get.’ Grace thinks of the strings Gordon pulled to secure it.
‘We’ve got to move soon,’ says Linden.
‘Who else lives here?’
‘Luke.’
Grace feels a sudden nausea, as if just hearing his name had conjured him, the sound of it as unsettling as his presence.
‘He’s out at the moment.’
She wants to ask if Luke is Linden’s boyfriend, but instead asks where they are moving to.
‘East, over to Springfield. Do you know it?’
‘Yes, it’s lovely there.’
‘We leave Sunday,’ Linden says, which makes Grace realise she hasn’t the slightest idea what day it is, time having evolved or dissolved for her.
‘What are you doing later?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Wanna come over for a drink?’
‘I’d love to. What time?’
‘Around seven? And bring your husband.’
‘My husband’s away,’ Grace says, realising with a start how close she’d come to saying, My husband’s dead.
Back on her own boat, she warms up a tin of tomato soup and toasts two slices of bread. Looking at the calendar to check what day it is, she notices it’s less than two weeks till her birthday, 65 TODAY written in red capitals against the date. She pours herself a glass of wine and lets her thoughts linger on the prospect of meeting Luke in a couple of hours, feeling a stupid excitement grow. The ring of her mobile dislodges her thoughts and she scrambles in her bag for it. When she sees that it’s Gordon, she pauses a moment, considering whether or not to answer.
‘Hello, Gordon,’ she says in a gruff croak.
‘You sound awful!’ he says.
‘Nice to hear from you too!’ she says, sounding more irritated than she’d intended, her voice not yet under her command. She clears her throat.
‘You want to cut down on the cigarettes,’ he says.
‘Is that what you rang up to tell me?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘How’s the fishing? Caught anything yet?’ She pictures her thoughts as fishes, swimming inside the bowl of her skull; pictures herself casting a line to catch them.
‘Jerry has, but I’ve not had one bite. What have you been up to?’
‘Oh, the usual.’
‘Been to the allotment?’
‘Yes. I’m there now,’ she lies, not knowing why.
After that there is nothing to say; or rather, there is so much to say that it all remains unsaid, for fear of undoing the fine balance of their life together – even though this is happening anyway, without their knowledge, in silence and in haste. Some truth has entered undetected, like a spy under a fence, preparing to confront them both.
SHE MET GORDON the Saturday night before her departure from Singapore. Marilyn Bailey and her husband Norman had thrown a farewell party at which Grace had had one drink too many; one minute she felt light and happy, the next nauseous. It was the first alcohol she’d had since leaving Manchester, and, already doped up on the tablets the doctor had prescribed, she had felt it go straight to her head. Stepping out on to the clubhouse veranda to get some air, she watched the fierce violence of a sudden thunderstorm cracking the night sky with flashes of blue-edged white against rolling black. The kind of storm in which a man could drown, lost at sea, weighed down by angry water.
A young man appeared, in a tuxedo and smoking a cigarette, and introduced himself as Gordon Wellbeck. ‘I’m your escort for your flight back,’ he said, offering his hand with a shy smile
. He had crooked teeth and the kind of transparent hair that suggested he’d be bald within a couple of years. She took in his strong jaw and boxer’s nose. If the light had been brighter, she might have seen the adoration in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry about Pete,’ he said.
‘Did you know him?’
He said they didn’t know each other well but had worked on helicopters together once or twice and drunk with the same crowd sometimes. From within the tales he told, she tried to extract new knowledge, a new perspective of the man she’d loved and hated with equal fire.
‘I was with him in the helicopter that afternoon. A storm just like this one appeared out of nowhere. Fast and fierce.’
‘Terrifying.’
‘Yes. They don’t last long. End as suddenly as they begin.’
‘Good. I want to get back. I don’t feel well.’
‘I’ll escort you home as soon as the rain stops,’ he said, and, oddly, as he said the words, it stopped. Grace went inside to say goodbye to Norman and Marilyn.
Riding home in a rickshaw with Gordon, she felt safe and relaxed, though through the fuzz of drink she couldn’t help thinking, I shouldn’t be doing this, I’m a grieving widow…
The following day, unlike Ray, Gordon stuck around to help for every leg of the journey. Once the children were settled and the plane started its take-off, he offered her a cigarette and asked what she was planning to do when she got back home.
‘I don’t know. I’m moving back in with Mam and Dad for the time being but I don’t want to be there too long. I need to get Hannah and Paul into a school. I could try and go back to work, I suppose, but who’s going to look after the kids? I just don’t know what I’ll do, to be honest. I suppose I’ll cope. That’s what I do. Cope.’
She didn’t want – on some level felt unable – to think about the future; it was too uncharted, too out of focus. The weeks in Malaysia had kept it in abeyance, but now it had returned, the truth slapping her in the face. The relief she’d felt after Pete’s death had given way to a relentless panic about exactly what she would do now. It was hard to put her faith in a future whose shape she couldn’t properly discern. ‘What about you?’ she said, to divert attention from her indecision. ‘Where are you off to?’
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