by Jill Childs
Around us, the crowd gradually dispersed. Only the two police officers remained at the entrance now, standing there at the top of the steps, surveying the mourners. I tried to keep out of their line of sight, using Elaine as cover. Just seeing that female detective, Johns, made me nervous.
The three teachers set off together down the drive and I trailed along with them, half-listening as they gossiped about the other teachers, about which ones had bothered to come along on a Saturday and which had not, about Sarah Baldini’s reading and the tribute that Ralph’s relative, whoever he was, had delivered so badly that Elaine hadn’t heard a word.
I gazed out at the grounds as we talked, at the memorial gardens with their small, solemn granite stones, some planted with flowers, one or two decorated with tethered balloons and streamers, as if they marked a recently lost child. It all felt unreal.
I kept repeating to myself: that was Ralph’s memorial. He’s dead. Really dead. I’ll never see him again. Even now, it seemed impossible.
A large crow landed on the grass ahead of us and hopped across it, ugly and ominous. I let my eye be drawn. Something moved in the trees beyond. I blinked and narrowed my gaze. More birds, perhaps. A shadow stirred and I stopped. It was a man. He was too far away for me to make out his face, but he was tall with broad shoulders. I had the sense of him looking right at me. I let out a cry. Ralph?
As I gaped, he shifted sideways into the cover of the trees and disappeared. I shook my head and tried to calm myself down. I was being ridiculous. I was seeing things. Not Ralph. It couldn’t be. Too short. Too thickset.
The other teachers paused, looked back at me. ‘What?’
I nodded towards the trees. ‘Someone was standing there, watching us.’
Olivia frowned and screwed up her features to stare. ‘I can’t see anyone.’
Elaine said, ‘Trick of the light. That’s all.’ She reached out a plump hand and patted my arm. ‘We’re all a bit jumpy.’
Hilary said, ‘Probably some poor chap caught short. I could do with a loo myself.’
Elaine said to me, her voice kind, ‘Come for a drink. I’ll come in your car, if you like. I know the way.’
I shook my head. ‘Thanks but…’ I hesitated. They were all looking at me, the three of them. Elaine seemed concerned. The other two had hard eyes. They didn’t like me. I didn’t like to think about it but deep down, I already knew that. I wasn’t liked. Abrupt Laura Dixon. I’d tried to keep myself to myself. I’d tried not to mind. But now I was frightened of them too. I couldn’t afford to draw attention to myself. I couldn’t afford to let them suspect me. If the sharks came circling, who here would protect me from them?
I swallowed. ‘I’m not feeling great. Sorry. I think I’ll just go home.’
Back in the flat, I opened a bottle of Shiraz and drank a glass. I unfolded Ralph’s memorial service booklet and pinned it on the fridge with the Shakespeare magnet he had given me, one of the small gifts I’d missed in my mad purge and couldn’t bear now to throw away. His dead eyes followed me round the kitchen. The magnet read, My heart is ever at your service.
Not anymore, I thought. Your heart’s stopped, Ralph. Cold in the ocean. I stopped it.
I switched the TV on and lay on the settee, my head on one padded arm and my knees hooked over the other, and worked my way through the bottle of wine. The TV picture blurred and swam. I thought about eating but I was empty, not hungry. An emptiness food couldn’t fill. Hours slipped by. Outside, the light was becoming soft and mellow as the day drew towards its end.
When the early evening news came on, I struggled to my feet and swayed across the room to the window to draw the curtains. The wall propped me upright. I put my forehead to the cool glass, then squashed the end of my nose there too. I was too high up for anyone to see me.
I grasped the edge of the curtain and started to pull it across. Then stopped. A man was sitting on a wall near the bus stop, there, further down the road. His head was craning forward, over a newspaper, his face obscured.
I frowned, struggled to see. He looked familiar. Not Ralph. Too short. Too stocky. I stared again, hanging now off the curtain I grasped in my hand. Was it him, that figure I’d seen in the shadows, in amongst the trees, as we left the chapel? I shook my head and reached for the window frame, nauseous. I was imagining things. What would Ralph say? Crazy loon.
Maybe it’s my guardian angel, I thought, come to save me. Or the devil’s messenger, come to drag me off to Hell for what I’ve done.
My phone pinged. I went through to the kitchen to check the message, then stared at my phone. There was no listing there, just Number withheld.
It was a simple message. Two words.
Miss me?
I dropped the phone and staggered to the bathroom, acid in my throat, my outstretched hands banging against walls and doorframes as I lurched from one to the other.
Nineteen
That first night, when Ralph came for dinner, I cooked salmon en croûte. Shop-bought pastry, ready rolled. Stuffed with butter and flaked almonds, currants and chopped ginger. I’d made it the night before, giving myself time on Friday evening to shower after school and get ready.
My hands trembled with excitement as I applied make-up. I nearly poked my eye out with the pencil. I tried on one outfit after another. Black trousers and black silk shirt. Too tight. Same trousers and purple frilly top. Too low. A shift dress. Too short. A woollen work dress. Too frumpish.
I settled on a red cotton button-down dress with bold yellow flowers. Wraparound to show off my waist but not too low over the bust. Confident. Casual.
I had a gin and tonic to steady my jangly nerves, then put out a bowl of crisps and paced in front of them, eating the overflow each time I passed the table. I soon realised I’d eaten so many, the bowl was half-empty. I topped them up and had another drink.
By the time the door buzzed, my head was floaty with gin. His picture on the security camera was too grainy to recognise but I pressed the door release, then ran back to the bedroom, worried now about my dress.
The face in the mirror looked panicked. The make-up was too heavy. I wasn’t used to this. It had been a long time. I wasn’t ready. What was I thinking? This was a big mistake.
A rap on the flat’s front door made me jump. He must have bounded up the stairs, two at a time. I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together. A dark shadow loomed against the wavy security glass. I put a sweaty hand on the lock and opened it.
Him. Really him. Clutching a gold bouquet of autumn flowers. That smile.
He held out the flowers and I took them, buried my face in the yellow and gold, hiding.
‘Can I come in?’
I stepped to one side, so close to him in the hallway that I felt the heat from his body. He was slightly out of breath.
‘Did you run up?’
He handed me a bottle of wine. Shiraz. ‘I had to. I couldn’t wait. I wanted to see you, Laura Dixon.’
He opened his arms and I stepped right into them, squashing the bouquet. I felt the hard muscle of his chest through his cotton shirt, let his arms enfold me. I found myself smiling, crazy smiling. I was happy. I was home.
He pulled away a fraction and looked down at me, still holding me loosely in the circle of his arms.
‘I was worried.’ His eyes read mine, relieved and perhaps amused. ‘I wasn’t sure.’
I nodded. I knew exactly. But it was all right. He was here and we wanted each other, we belonged together. Nothing had felt so sure for a long time, not for me. His arms felt safe, wrapped around me, and his smell enveloped me too, that heady, sexy mix of soap and shower gel and fresh sweat, tying my stomach into knots. Nothing else mattered. I didn’t care that the salmon was drying out, that my head was already reeling with gin, that my body wasn’t as lean and taut as it used to be, that the only crisps left in the bowl were the broken, salt-encrusted scraps of the packet end.
Being with him was enough. I was full of hope, full of lo
ve, full of craziness.
We made love for the first time that evening. Later, much later, after the salmon and the Shiraz – a bad choice for fish but that didn’t stop us – he took me to bed. Well, to the floor in the sitting room. We discarded clothes, piece by piece, and he kissed every inch of me.
When I was dozing and already thinking how wonderful it would be to wake up next to him in the morning – to make love again, then sleep some more and finally, late in the day, go out for coffee and croissants, maybe in that café on the high street, full of loved-up sleepiness, huddling close together on our seats and clinging to each other as we ate, licking flakes of croissant from each other’s fingers, my face scratched from his stubble – it was only after all these thoughts and dreams of what lay ahead that I realised that he was easing himself away from me.
I opened my eyes, feeling the draught down my side. He was looking for the bathroom, perhaps. Or heading to the kitchen for a drink of water.
No. He was gathering together his scattered clothes, turning his underpants the right way round, starting to dress. Getting ready to leave.
My stomach contracted. The woozy dreaminess disappeared in a second.
‘Ralph?’
He crept across the floor and bent to kiss the tip of my nose.
‘Gotta go,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’
I hesitated, watching his deft movements, seeing his naked body disappear under clothes and wondering when and if I’d see it again.
I twisted to look across the shadowy room to the clock. Half past midnight.
Why did he have to go? I was afraid to ask.
He was fully dressed now. Keys and coins jangled in his pocket as he arranged the folds of his trousers and fastened his belt, becoming his outside self again.
He sat on the edge of the settee to ease on his shoes and lace them, then stooped again to kiss me, on the lips this time. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow.’
I tried to remember how much wine he’d had. ‘Are you okay to drive?’
He smiled. ‘I’m fine.’
I blinked. He’d kept refilling my glass. My head was spinning. Had he been more careful about his own?
‘Can’t you stay?’ I regretted it at once. Too needy. Too begging. No, Laura. Don’t demean yourself.
He didn’t look cross, just rueful. ‘I wish I could. Believe me.’
I opened my mouth. I nearly said it out loud, this thought that had just rushed in like a tidal wave, Is there something you need to tell me?
I couldn’t. I swallowed back the words. Not now. Not like this.
He whispered goodbye and disappeared, taking the air, the life out of the room. I listened as the door clicked shut behind him.
I lay there on the floor, my body cooling, too crushed for a moment to stir myself and crawl into bed. Why wouldn’t he stay? Doubts gnawed at me. We’d talked so much – about poetry and film and teaching and school but very little about him, about his life. I just assumed… well, he’d seemed such a free spirit and so keen to pursue me.
I closed my eyes. I was imagining things. I should trust my heart, my instincts. He was a decent man. My man. I nodded to myself. He was just being sensitive, giving me space. That might be it. He was wary of rushing me.
I shifted my limbs, feeling the imprint of his fingers, his lips, still lingering there, and stretched, letting myself smile again.
As I finally stirred myself and went into the bathroom to drink some water, then clean my teeth, my phone pinged. I rushed to look, then sighed. It wasn’t from him after all. There was no listing, just the words: Number withheld.
I opened it up to find a short message: Missing you already. When can we meet again? X
I hesitated, confused.
Who’s this?
Romeo. Password: salmon en croûte.
Wherefore art thou using new number?
Juliet hotline.
That made me laugh.
I put down the phone and carried on cleaning my teeth. My head was fuzzy with wine and tiredness but euphoric.
It was time to move on and to trust again. Time to forget those final, bitter rows with Matthew about ‘needing his space’ and ‘feeling shut in’. To forget the silence after the door closed behind him, that final time. To forget the hurt and fear and the lifelessness of being alone.
I put away my toothbrush and picked up my phone again. Juliet hotline. Where did that come from?
It would be different this time. He wasn’t Matthew. He was Ralph. He was special.
My fingers typed back: Soonest. Miss you too. Juliet. xxx
That’s the thing about falling in love. By the time you realise, it’s already too late.
I brimmed with energy that weekend, buoyed up by constant thoughts about Ralph. I cleaned the flat, imagining the next time he’d come round. That October was golden, mellow with warmth and fading sunshine. I went for a long walk by the river, seeing the dying trees, the squirrels, the light flitting across the water, with new eyes. Imagined having him with me. Imagined being happy together there, hand in hand.
I shopped and cooked, wondering what he most liked, and kept my phone close, in case.
On Tuesday, I dressed for school with care and found myself humming as I pressed through the day, the duties, the teaching, the lesson preparation. As soon as Upper School ended, I hurried up the hill towards the writing group classroom. I’d hardly eaten. My stomach was too knotted with excitement. I scurried down the corridor. The classroom door stood open as people wandered in, chatting. I hurried inside and found a seat in the circle, then dared, at last, to raise my eyes properly and search him out, knowing his eyes would already be doing the same.
He wasn’t there.
I breathed deeply and steadied myself, trying not to let the anguish show on my face. Others took their seats. The science teacher with the beard stepped to the front.
‘I’m afraid Ralph can’t make it this evening, folks. Family crisis. He sends his apologies. So,’ he looked round the circle, expectantly, ‘who’d like to kick off?’
I stared at him in disbelief. Family crisis.
I shifted my weight, leaned forward, my body trembling. What was he talking about? What family? What the heck was going on? If I’d been calmer, I might have just got up and left, run down to the car park to call him. But I couldn’t move. I just sat there, flushed, struggling to think.
Already someone was opening a notebook and heading to the front to perch on the corner of the desk, as Ralph always did, clearing their throat and preparing to perform.
I don’t know how I got through it. I kept my eyes on my shoes, the new black shoes I’d chosen with such care that morning, wondering, as I picked them out of the wardrobe, if Ralph would like the spiked heels. That morning seemed a long time ago.
I tried to keep my face passive as they read, one after another. I had no idea what their work was about. All I could think about was Ralph. His eyes. His smile, so direct, so personal. The feel of his hands on my skin.
Calm. A family crisis could mean anything. A parent. A brother. A niece or nephew. So why did I feel such a sense of doom?
I think I knew, deep down. I just couldn’t admit it, even to myself.
I hung around as the others gathered together their coats and bags and surged into the corridor. I positioned myself next to the science teacher who’d led the session.
‘Sorry to hear about Ralph,’ I said as evenly as I could. ‘Hope it’s nothing serious?’
He gave me a short, sideways glance. ‘Anna’s hurt her arm. They’ve taken her to hospital.’
He turned away from me to speak to someone else.
Olivia Fry, coming up behind me, added, ‘She fell off the monkey bars, that’s all. They just want to check it’s not broken.’
‘Anna?’ My mind whirled.
Olivia nodded. ‘Anna Wilson. Year two.’ Her eyes were on my face. ‘His daughter. Didn’t you know? You must have come across his wife, Mrs Wilson. She comes in for rea
ding.’
I gazed at her vacantly. Mrs Wilson. His wife?
I managed to stutter, ‘That’s dreadful.’
Olivia said, ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine. They just thought they’d get it X-rayed.’
She turned and disappeared with the others, off to the pub. Leaving me staring after her, feeling a fool, my heart cracking and breaking into bits.
Anna Wilson. His daughter.
Why hadn’t he mentioned her? Why hadn’t he told me he had a wife?
He called me late that evening.
‘Did I wake you?’ His voice was a whisper. I wondered where he was. Hiding somewhere in the house, away from his wife, calling me furtively. It made me sick to think of it.
‘How’s Anna?’ My voice was strained.
He sighed. ‘She’s fine. Just a nasty sprain. Darling, I’m sorry. I need to explain.’
Darling? My heart twisted. I wanted to sob, to berate him. Why, Ralph? Why didn’t you tell me? I wanted him to know how betrayed I felt, that I’d just been sitting here, crying, feeling my heart break. Instead, I said stiffly, ‘Yes, Ralph. You do.’
A silence. ‘I’m sorry. Really, Laura. I wasn’t sure how much you knew about me.’
He sounded exhausted. I hesitated. Part of me didn’t even want to listen. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, to slam down the phone. But he sounded so desolate, so sad. I wanted to reach down the phone and brush the floppy hair from his forehead, to take him in my arms and comfort him. Oh, Ralph.
I waited, pressing the phone to my ear.
‘It’s complicated.’ He sounded hesitant. ‘Things with Helen…’ He broke off. I hardly dared breathe. ‘Things aren’t so good. They haven’t been for a long time. That’s no excuse. I know that. But, oh, Laura…’
I strained to listen. That catch in his voice, was he crying? I bit my lip.
‘You won’t leave me, will you?’ He sounded pitiful. ‘I’ll make it up to you, Laura. We’re good together, we really are. We haven’t known each other long. I don’t want to make promises but—’