Out on a Limb

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  She looks appalled. ‘Gracious, Abs! this is so not like you! No. I won’t hear of it. I absolutely insist. I will not have you sitting in the doldrums.’

  I know about the doldrums. The doldrums are not a state of mind, but a place. A region somewhere in some part of the South Atlantic Ocean, where the weather conspires to be petulant and wicked and causes sailing ships to have, well, no means of transportation, because there isn’t any wind to blow them on their way. So they sit (or so they sat; I imagine these days, they’d fire the motor) completely without the tools, and thus the impetus, to leave. I don’t know where I learned that and I could be wrong about the ocean, but I remember it now, because that’s just how I feel.

  Tim drives Spike and me back in his prehistoric jeep, which is every bit as jolly and dishevelled as he is, and a part of what he does when he’s not inventing software. He works for a charity in his spare time, planting trees. I think I’m going to like Tim. He’s sweet and quite shy and he’s nothing like Malcolm, and I think he’ll make Dee very happy. He tells me a joke on the way home that makes me laugh. I know I’ll forget the punchline in twenty-seven seconds, but I’m grateful to have done so, for all that.

  He also talks to me a little about his brother, the alcoholic, and how meeting Dee – the silver lining in that black cloud, he tells me – has so comprehensively transformed his life. And also just a little – he seems not at all the sort for whining – about how difficult his own has been since his divorce.

  ‘But isn’t that just the great thing about life?’ he says as he drops us. ‘You slog along miserably, thinking things will never get better. But you never know what’s around the corner.’

  And even though I come away with the distinct impression that I’ve just been given a bit of a pep talk – God, now Dee’s at it as well – it seems Tim might be right, even so. Because when I let Spike and me in, still thinking dark thoughts about all the corners I’ve been round in the last six months and how most of them have involved me in crashing headlong into something I’d rather have avoided, the first thing I see is a small piece of card on the doormat. I pick it up. It’s a Cardiff County Council parking voucher, which, or so the scratched off panels tell me, was used at 10.45 on the 8th September. Which has absolutely no relevance to anything that I can think of. I turn it over, nonplussed. And then am altogether too plussed. Because there’s something of unequivocal relevance scribbled in ballpen on the back.

  Sorry I missed you. Tried to call but no luck. On way to Exeter for a few days to escape the paparazzi…Was hoping to catch you. Call me sometime? G xx

  I take it into the kitchen and put it on the worktop while I wonder at the mysteries of the endocrine system and whether I should ask for a refund. Mine’s now a shambles. A complete and utter shambles. I pick up my mobile. Which is also in cahoots. Two missed calls. I check them. Both from G xx too. I put it down. I consider. I feel sick.

  Proper sick. Sick, as they say, to the stomach. And as I don’t much like feeling sick at the best of times, I decide on an immediate salt water gargle. It’s just a simple transaction. Just the giving of a watch. Make the call. Get it over with. That’s the best thing.

  I pick my phone up again. I press reply. And then I wait.

  ‘Abbie!’

  The sound of his voice leaves me, somewhat frustratingly, utterly unable to speak. Which takes me completely unawares as well as firmly by the larynx. So by the time I do manage to get any words out, they all come at once, like the bubbles from a bottle of shaken-up Coke. ‘Gabriel? I’m sorry I missed you. I’d popped out and my mobile was at home on the charger and, well, I got your note through the door and saw you’d called and everything and, well, sorry. Um. Anyway, yes. Fine. Pop round when you get back from wherever it is you’re going…er…’

  I imagine their flight from the rabid photographers. How curious and alien a life they must lead. ‘Look,’ he says, his voice straining above the roar of the traffic. ‘I can’t talk right now. I’m driving down the M5 and we’re going through some road works. I don’t want to get arrested. Can I call you right back?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Of course. Absolutely. No problem. I’ll…um…well. No need to call, really. I’ll see you whenever I see you.’

  ‘No, no. I’ll get back to you. Soon as I can.’

  When Seb was small – two or three – he had a thing about balloons. A real full-on phobia, in fact. He loved them – what tiny child doesn’t? – but he was petrified about anyone popping them. So balloons didn’t get popped in the McFadden household. Just became retired. Put out to grass. Parked away in corners, under beds, into cupboards, or left to waft, abandoned, round the garden.

  That’s just how I feel right now, I decide. Like an aged balloon that never got popped. Just quietly deflating back into itself, till it’s nothing but a sad wrinkled shadow of its former self. Yup. That’s exactly how I feel. Damn, but I wish I hadn’t phoned him.

  I hang about near the phone for some time, even so. Stupid, really. Because Gabriel doesn’t ring back, of course. Not that I really expected him to. He’s on his way to…where was it he said he was going? I can’t remember. Well, whatever. No matter. I shouldn’t have rung him. Speaking to him is bad for my health.

  Cheesecakes, on the other hand, if taken in moderation, are unquestionably good for you. The making of them even more so, as it involves nothing more emotionally draining than the prospect of a less than tight seal on your tin. Which, in the scheme of things, just ain’t that tragic.

  So Spike and I compile our short list of ingredients and then we head off to the Spar. I could have hopped in the car and driven to the supermarket, of course, but the idea is distinctly unappealing. It will be too full of families, piloting huge trolleys. Filling them with giant-sized packs of comestibles, gallons of pop, packets of washing powder the size of small tractors and three-for-two flagons of liquid soap and shampoo. Reminding me that many of the things that must pass in this life have, for me, already done so. That I’m a lone woman (okay, only for four days, but I’m in a self-indulgent mood), with no one to shop for, no one to cook for, no one to look after except a middle-aged dog.

  Perhaps, I decide, I should get a cat too. Go the whole hog and start buying products that come in individually wrapped packets –’for freshness!’ – and those peculiar full-height-but-half loaves of bread.

  In short, I feel lonely, so the Spar suits us best. We can go there together. And shop with all the others who have no pressing need to buy twenty-seven loo rolls at once.

  And it does make me feel better. Better, that is, until I assemble my cache of ingredients in the kitchen and realise I’ve forgotten to buy biscuits.

  Thus it is that I’m in the hall, clipping on Spike’s lead for our second Spar sortie, when I become aware of a shadow in the glass in the door. And then movement, and shortly after, the bing-bong of the doorbell.

  So I open it. Expecting Mr Davidson, maybe. Or little Sam from the house on other side, who’s six, and often kicks his Bob the Builder ball into our garden. Or the man who sells onions. Or double-glazing. Or dusters. Or, well, someone. Not him. Not him.

  Yet that’s who it is. It can’t be, but it is. And he’s still got his finger on the button.

  ‘Good God – Gabriel! What are youdoing here?’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ he says, lowering his finger and frowning. ‘Have I come at a bad time again?’

  My mouth is hanging open. I close it with a snap. ‘No, no. Not at all. It’s just that I thought you were on your way somewhere.’

  He nods now. ‘I was.’

  ‘But now you’re here instead.’

  He has his serious face on. ‘I said I’d get back to you, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘So, here I am.’ He takes in my coat, my woolly mittens, Spike’s lead. ‘Except you’re off out somewhere, are you?’

  I peer out, past him, to scan the road for his car. Where’s Lucy? I can’t se
e her. They were escaping the paparazzi. That’s what the note said. She should be here. But she isn’t. Unless he’s bundled her up under a blanket in the boot, she’s absolutely not in his car.

  Perhaps he’s dropped her off somewhere else. I try to gather myself. ‘Only to take Spike for a walk down to the shops. I have to get digestive biscuits. I’m making a blood and guts cheesecake. I’m off to a Halloween soirée tonight. Have to make an effort. You know how it is.’ I don’t know why I’m telling him all this rubbish. No that’s not true. I know exactly why I’m telling him all this rubbish. It’s because I cannot right now think of a single thing to say. So rubbish it is, then. ‘And, er…well, goodness!’ I say, opening the door wider to wave him inside and behaving for all the world like a functioning mortal. ‘When you said you’d get back to me I thought you were going to phone. I didn’t think you were actually going to come back.’

  ‘Well, to be scrupulously honest, neither did I. My initial plan of action was to ring you.’ He carefully wipes his feet on the doormat and steps into the hall. He doesn’t smell of coconut today. He smells of leather and crisp autumn air. ‘So I came off at the next junction and pulled over in a lay-by, and then I thought, what the hell. This is absolute madness. So I thought I might just as well get straight back on the motorway again and drive here instead. So that’s what I did.’

  I wonder what kind of a dictionary it is that he uses to define the word ‘madness’. I don’t think Dr Johnson had anything to do with it, for sure. But then I’m all out of trying to fathom Gabriel Ash any more. Plus I mustn’t. I must remember that it’s bad for my health. I pull off my gloves. ‘Well, you’re in the nick of time,’ I say, still trying to gather up the facts and assemble them into something I can usefully work with. Except I can’t. I’m at a loss. And my heart’s in my mouth again. ‘Five more minutes and you’d have missed me a second time!’

  He seems to find this intelligence difficult to digest. Either that or he’s got a heart in his mouth too. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he says, frowning again. ‘I wasn’t thinking. Do you want to get off?’

  ‘No, no. It’s fine.’ I shrug my coat from my shoulders and slip it over the newel post. ‘Hardly life and death, is it? A packet of biscuits. Come on. Come in. D’you want a coffee or something?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. No, not really.’

  And he says it in such a way that I’m immediately transported straight back to the last time we stood there. For someone so reticent when it comes to making words, he’s incredibly verbose on the body language front. He’s looking awkward. Uncomfortable. Even a bit shifty. He’s come all the way back here on God knows what whim, and now he’s here he plainly wants to be gone again. I feel silly that I’ve taken my coat off. ‘Well, then,’ I say, crisply. ‘In that case, hang on there. I’ll go upstairs and get the watch for you. I won’t be a tick.’

  I turn to mount the stairs, but am only two steps up them when his voice makes me stop. ‘Watch?’ he asks. ‘What watch?’

  I turn around again. He looks confused now. He’s spreading his palms. ‘The watch,’ I tell him. ‘Isn’t that what you’re here for? I assumed you’d called because you’d got my mother’s message.’

  He shakes his head at me. ‘Message? What message?’

  ‘The one she left you last week.’

  He shakes his head again. ‘I didn’t get any message. Mind you, I haven’t been there for a few days, so perhaps that’s why. What watch?’

  ‘Your grandfather’s watch. My mum had it. She found it when she moved.’

  ‘She’s gone?’

  ‘Yes.’ I nod. ‘Yes, she’s living with her friend now. And she found it in her jewellery box. She thought you ought to have it. Hang on there and I’ll bring it straight down for you now. It’s very nice,’ I add. ‘And it has your name on it, too.’

  With which I turn around once more and head off up to my bedroom, where the watch, in its pouch still, sits on my dressing table. Which means I catch my reflection as I go in to get it. Which means I see my face, which is very lightly flushed. And also my expression, which is trying to tell me something. It’s all of a fluster. It’s looking at me strangely. It’s saying, ‘Wake up, you silly woman. Get with the programme! Gabriel Ash has not come here for the watch.’

  And if not for the watch, then why is he here? I’d quite like to ask Spike but he’s still downstairs. As is Gabriel Ash. In my hallway, and waiting. But not waiting for the watch. Not waiting for the watch.

  I pick it up anyway and head back out on to the landing, every single bit of me that isn’t nailed to another bit, trying to make a bid for kinetic supremacy and in so doing causing the sort of physiological chaos that renders me a wibble of jelly. Thus it’s with no small difficulty that I make my way back, step by shaky step, down the stairs.

  He’s looking at me strangely. I lick my lips. ‘Did you escape, then?’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘The paparazzi. Your note. You said you were going to somewhere –’

  ‘To Exeter.’

  ‘That’s it. To escape the paparazzi.’ I’m back at the bottom of the stairs now. ‘What’s at Exeter?’

  ‘The Met Office.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course.’

  Of course nothing. ‘I’m going away for a fortnight. Some research I’m involved in there.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Anyway, did they catch you?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. I told you. I gave them the slip. I doubled back at Tiverton and came here.’

  I, I, I. Not we. I. My temples are thrumming. ‘Tiverton? But that’s miles away. You drove all the way back here from Tiverton?’

  He looks like I’ve accused him of the worst kind of felony. ‘Er…yes.’

  He manages the smallest, most fleeting of smiles.

  ‘But that’s such a…’

  Suddenly I stall. I’m about to say that it’s such a long way. Except I don’t manage to get any further because something else bursts into my poor beleaguered brain. A fortnight? Did he just say a fortnight? In Exeter? ‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘Aren’t you…well, I thought. I mean…I mean, aren’t you and Lucy supposed to be getting married next week?’ What smile that remained now disappears from his features. ‘I read it in Depth,’ I finish lamely.

  I think he’s probably about to chide me, as he’s already done before. About not believing what I read in the papers. Except he doesn’t. He nods. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘We were.’

  ‘But now you’re not?’

  ‘But now we’re not.’

  ‘Oh. I see…’

  ‘She’s already flown out to Antigua. Went on Wednesday.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I say again. But in truth I see nothing. Suddenly I’m a vole scrabbling round in a storm drain. ‘So,’ I say. ‘You decided to postpone after all, then?’ The watch, in its pouch, is growing warm in my hand. ‘I must admit, it did seem as if it would be a terrible rush. What with all those politics to sort.’ I pull a sympathetic face. ‘And so on.’ He doesn’t join in. And I can’t bear the silence. So on I go. ‘I guess it makes much more sense to postpone it till after. Though whether fur will still be de rigueur next year, I don’t know.’

  He doesn’t laugh. In fact, he looks as if this is actually no laughing matter. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, Abbie. We haven’t postponed it. We’re not getting married. Not now. Not at all.’

  Chapter 29

  MY HAND FLIES TO my mouth at this point, because that’s the kind of thing hands do in situations like this. All by itself. Whump. And there it stays. Stays long enough for me to allow all this to sink in. And, boy, it sinks quick. Like a stone. Then bobs back to the surface and brings a friend with it. Why didn’t it occur to me before? No wonder he’s looking so stressed. So unhappy. No wonder. It’s happened. Candice was right.

  And here’s me twittering on at him like a mad woman and cracking jokes. What an idiot I am. ‘Oh, my God, Gabriel,’ I say. ‘I am so, so sorry.’ And
then I’m all out of ideas of what to say next. Because what do you say when someone says something like that to you? You think you can, but when it happens, you actually can’t. You can hardly quip ‘plenty more fish in the sea’. Or ‘all for the best’, or ‘everything happens for a reason’. Platitudes, all of them. Useless bloody platitudes. The very last things he’s going to want to hear right now. And I can’t even offer him a bracing cup of tea, because I’ve already offered him a coffee. All I can do is stand here and say sorry.

  So I say it again. At which he points to the watch. Clearly he doesn’t wish to dwell. Shut up, Abbie.

  ‘Can I see that?’

  I’m all flustered. ‘Um…yes. Yes, of course.’ I pass it to him and he slides it into his palm. Then he opens it, reads the inscription inside, and another small smile comes to visit his features. Then he snaps it back shut and slips it back into the pouch. What on earth’s going on inside that beautiful head? All I know is that he’s here. And that I don’t know what to say.

  But I have to say something. So I haul out my standard physiotherapy default. I touch his arm. ‘D’you want to talk about it?’ I say.

  He considers for a moment then he shakes his head slightly. ‘Not right now,’ he says. ‘Later. Yes, later. Not now.’

  Later? What later? When later, exactly? I take a good gulp of air. Fair enough. Okay. But if not that, what now? What does he want from me? Sympathy? Marriage guidance? A hug? He’s come here for something. And it’s not for the watch. I gesture to it. In for a penny and all that. ‘Gabriel,’ I ask him. My head is now reeling. ‘If you didn’t come to get this, then why didyou come here?’

  His frown burrows deeper. Making waves on his forehead. He seems to be finding this question somewhat of a poser all of a sudden. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and then chews on his lip for a bit. As so often before, I’m immediately struck by the sense that he’s fishing around in that muddled male brain of his, and failing to find anything useful.