He was silent for several minutes and I finished my drink to fill the void.
Then he began to speak.
‘We went to the Isle of Wight for our honeymoon. A long weekend. Do you remember, Lou? We had tea and scones at Alum Bay. There were little tables with red-and-white checked tablecloths and I told you to pretend I’d taken you to Italy, like you’d said you wanted.’
I gripped my glass.
‘After that, we went to Blackgang Chine, and you nearly lost it in the room with the funny mirrors. People were giving us looks and I had to kiss you to stop you laughing. Then on the ferry home, we had just enough money to share a cup of tea, and you let me add a sugar even though you took yours without. That was you. My lovely girl.’
I thought my heart would break through my chest.
Dad ran a hand through his thinning hair and closed his eyes.
‘I’m tired now,’ he said. ‘I want to sleep.’
I made him comfortable and sat there for a moment, looking at the fading form of his body under the cover and the shape of his head on the pillow. I thought about how you never really know a person, that even when you share the same blood, all that connects you are the words you choose to say and the way you touch each other.
I reached out and held his foot through the blanket.
Silence is also a language. You just hope the other person speaks it too.
I woke to the sound of Sheila tapping on my bedroom door. It was still only getting light outside, but from the colours filtering through, it looked like it would be a beautiful day.
She was on the landing wearing her best brave nurse’s face, and I knew.
I arranged a funeral for the second time that year. I usually get immense satisfaction from things running like clockwork, but this was tempered by a kind of longing. Grief, perhaps.
Dad’s wishes were carried out exactly. There was no wake, a handful of us at the graveside, and no unexpected mourners at the cemetery gates. Stella held my arm the whole time.
Afterwards, we went back to the house and I sat at the kitchen table. Stella made tea and pulled out a chair.
‘When’s Laura back?’
‘End of next month.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Did she not want to come home early?’
I burned my lip on the tea. ‘She did, but I said not to bother. It’s not every day you go to South America on a three-month trip. What can she do, anyway?’
This seemed to be enough for Stella. ‘Laura’s a nice girl,’ she said.
‘Yes, she is nice.’
Stella looked around. ‘What are we going to do with all this? Bag it up and take it to the tip, I suppose. There’s nothing worth keeping.’
The sides were crammed with Tupperware boxes and tins from savoury crackers. The post-war generation seemed to hang on to every little thing, just in case the day would come when ten torches would be useful. The wooden sideboard in the kitchen was filled with similar tat, along with a handful of cheap supermarket cups and plates. As Stella said, there was nothing worth keeping. The best china had all been broken.
‘What happened to Mum’s things?’ I said. ‘I’ve always wondered.’
Stella put a spoon in the sugar pot and stirred it into her tea. ‘Well, I boxed everything up and told your dad I’d take it to the charity shop, but he insisted I leave it all. My head wasn’t in the best place. Maybe it would be dealt with differently now, leave it all out, perhaps. But it was another time. Nobody talked about things. Did you never ask him where it all went?’
‘Sal did once. It didn’t end well.’
We drank our tea and after a moment, she said, ‘Did your dad ever tell you about Grandpa?’
‘Grandpa?’
‘Our dad, he never knew his father. We think it might have been his mum’s employer – she was in service – or the son, perhaps. There were rumours. But there was a lot of shame about that kind of thing back then. All we know is she was kicked out when it was found she was pregnant with Dad.’ Stella poured more tea from the pot into her cup. She added a sugar, paused then added two more. ‘He adored his mum. She died of TB when he was ten, and at the wake it was asked of all the relatives who’d take him. None spoke up. He went to an orphanage in the end, but I often think of him sitting in that room with his family, listening to their silence. Poor sod. You just want your family to love you.’
I stared at my cup. ‘I never knew any of that.’
‘It was our mum who told us, crying, after a bad night when your dad came home after curfew. And who knows what details she left out.’
‘Dad used to fight with Grandpa?’ I pulled at the loose tufts of skin around my nails.
‘When you know love and it’s ripped away like that … What must that do to a person?’ She stared at the tablecloth, her mind lost somewhere forty years ago.
I heard the slow, faithful tick of the clock on the wall.
Stella pushed her cup away. ‘What I’m saying is, something like that, it never leaves you.’
I thought of Grandpa in his feathered cap and sheepskin. How he’d tug our cheeks and press a battered fiver into our hands when we left to go home each fortnight. Dad had known a different man.
These footprints we leave stamped on the next generation, the pieces of best china on the floor for someone else to pick up.
Three Days Later
I was back at work the following week. My boss said to take a fortnight’s bereavement leave, but I couldn’t see the point. I’d only spend it playing video games in my pants, and falling into a pit so low it would only leave me stuck.
Laura was still abroad. She emailed to say their expedition group was about to hike up to Machu Picchu. Rio had been insane. She’d had to wait ages to get a photo that didn’t include a stream of social media influencers in the background. I emailed back to say how ironic it was that pilgrimages to these sights were booming, yet the level of crowding made it impossible to experience anything remotely spiritual. We are all just seeing to be seen, I said. She didn’t reply.
One morning a few weeks after I’d returned to work, I went outside for my mid-morning break. I’m one of the only smokers in the building these days. There are a handful of others, mainly middle-aged, too along in years to care much about really changing. I guess you get halfway through life and accept the damage has been done.
I knew I should quit. One day. But my vice is also my pleasure, so I take my smokes in the side streets, where I avoid my colleagues passing with their oat-milk lattes and vegan sausage rolls.
On this particular morning, though, I opened the door and walked straight into Anna.
She drew a sharp breath when she saw me. ‘What the—’
I put the cigarette to my lips.
‘I didn’t know you worked here,’ she said, looking up at the building behind me. This was surely a lie, it being clearly displayed on every one of my social media profiles.
‘What brings you to the city?’
‘Oh,’ she said, tapping her foot, ‘I’ve a meeting with someone round the corner. A director. They need a set designer for a new show.’
‘That’s great.’ I lit up. ‘Sorry for not replying to your message, by the way.’
She shook her head and looked down at her shoes. ‘I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you. Your dad was nice to me once.’
I didn’t ask her source, but assumed the messages left on my profile had shown up on her own. This is a strange by-product of social media, the broadcasting of news we’d rather forget to people we want to remember.
I blew a plume of smoke into the air above our heads. We smiled at each other.
‘So when’s quitting time?’ she said. ‘We could do that drink?’
I thought of the lasagne-for-one in the fridge at home then looked at her face. A face I knew so well yet could never picture when we were apart. What if this was to be the moment everything changed?
I met her in the scruffy little garden behind my building. She
sat on a bench under the streetlight, beret on her head, gloved hand around a coffee cup. This is a mistake, I thought. I should just go. I should turn round and head for the station and go home for the night.
But my feet kept taking me to her.
She stood when she saw me approach, and I shuffled to a stop a few feet away. I felt that old, familiar ache stirring deep in my stomach.
She was the first to draw.
‘You cut your hair.’
I nodded and felt the sweetness of a fresh cut against my palm. It was worth the cost of a London barber and the indigestion from a rushed lunch. I get it cut when I feel nervous, I said once in my bed. It makes me feel better somehow, cutting my hair.
‘Let’s walk and talk,’ I said, brushing her fingers as I took the empty cup and dropped it into a bin.
Anna drew her scarf tighter and fell into step beside me. ‘I got the gig.’
‘I knew you would,’ I said, pulling out a smoke.
‘Did you have something to do with it then?’ she said, laughing.
‘I just know that if you want something then you usually seem to get it.’
She gave me a sideways look. ‘You hardly know me and yet you always have faith in me.’
I lit my cigarette and held it in the hand furthest away from her. ‘I know you,’ I said.
We walked to Exmouth Market. The sun had almost set and the breeze carried that familiar wintry scent of burning wood. It was getting closer to the clocks changing and I was looking forward to spring, to my workday being freed from bookends of darkness. Soon the air would smell differently.
‘How beautiful,’ said Anna, as we crossed the road. She pointed to the festoon lights strung between the terraces.
‘We should have come for lunch,’ I said. ‘They have great street food during the day.’
‘Next time,’ she said, and we smiled.
She chose a restaurant on the corner and the waiter seated us at a table furthest from the window, but as we began to peel off our layers, she looked past me and panic clouded her face.
‘There’s someone I know,’ she said, grabbing a fistful of my jumper. ‘Quick, go.’
We left the menus unopened and the chairs pulled out, and took the long way to the door.
When we turned a safe corner, she laughed and clapped her hands and her face was pink with excitement. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pressing a hand to her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t care any more, should I? You’ve just always been my clandestine friend.’
‘What are the chances?’ I said, shrugging my coat back on. Would it always be this way?
‘Wine,’ said Anna, looking at me. ‘Let’s try wine.’
I led us to a small pub away from the main thoroughfare, a place I’d sometimes visited for a colleague’s last day. It was small, quiet and comfortingly basic. She chose a table in the corner as I bought our drinks.
Her jumper fell from one shoulder, pillar-box red. Like a traffic light, I thought as I carried the wine and two glasses over. Red for Stop, Nick. Stop. I almost dropped the bottle.
‘You’re always nice to bar staff,’ said Anna as I sat down. She was resting her chin on her hand, watching me. ‘I remember that.’
I reached out and took the hand she leant on. She wore two rings and I brought them near for a closer look. I’d already clocked that her left hand was bare and this instantly made my throat begin to itch.
‘I have small hands, so finding rings to fit is a nightmare.’
‘Show me,’ I said, and we went palm to palm like at prayer. Two women at a nearby table threw us glances and I imagined how we must look from their angle. The way we leant towards each other with a respectable distance apart, the finding any excuse to touch each other. They could see us before we could.
I poured the wine and she chinked her glass against mine.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘A toast.’
‘To getting older?’
‘Hell, no. To us. All these years later.’
There was a brief silence as we drank and our eyes met. Warmth began creeping up my skin, warmth not from wine but from the glance of the person who sees right through you.
Anna set down her glass. ‘Someone said to me recently, You’re young, but you’re not young-young. I wanted to scream.’
‘I find it best to avoid mirrors these days. You still look pretty good, though.’
Anna looked down and I swear her face was pink. Feeling bold, I took her hand in mine again and inspected her fingers. ‘Still not quit that habit, though.’
Quick as a reflex, she snatched back her hand. ‘I spend an obscene amount on skincare and supplements, but yes, I still bite my nails. We control what we can, don’t we? Are your lungs still black?’
I slapped the edge of the table. ‘Like my heart.’
‘I never thought I’d care about getting older,’ she said, her finger tracing the top of her glass. ‘And I don’t, really. But there’s so much I want to do and now less time left to do it.’
‘I think this means we’re grown-ups.’
‘God, don’t say that,’ she said, laughing. ‘I thought I’d magically transform into a capable person when I hit my thirties. I’d know exactly which medicine was required for every illness, I’d be prepared in an emergency … But I’m thirty-five and still haven’t a clue.’
‘Listen to us,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Talking about the sand of time running out like we’re a couple of geriatrics. We’re fine.’
Anna rested her chin back on her hand and gave a wry smile. ‘I sometimes wonder if that’s what draws me to you. The longing for a time before I knew responsibility, before I had to spend an hour on hold to an energy company or wait in line at the post office. Perhaps you’re my way back to a time when I had nothing to do but sit on a boy’s bed and listen to “Karma Police”.’
I smiled. ‘I think you remember those days as being easier than they were.’
‘Seriously though, are you happy?’
I nodded along to imaginary background music. ‘What is happiness anyway, if not just chemicals in your head?’
She frowned. ‘You don’t really think that. Take your job. Do you love pensions? I thought you wanted to be a writer?’
I drained my glass and went to pour another. ‘Don’t you ever just fall into things without realising? I seem to make a habit of it.’
We spent the rest of the bottle talking about not very much at all. It was easy to be in her company, and yet there was a tension that kept us taut. We allowed silences to creep in, enjoying their quiet punctuation, while pulling at our sleeves or peeling the wine label. Everything was in balance, and yet everything was in flux.
When the bottle ran dry, we stumbled out into winter, our cheeks flushed with the glory of wine on an empty stomach. As we stood on the pavement and wondered what to do, a cab pulled up in front. The door opened and a man in a tux jumped out and turned to offer a hand. It was a bridal party, tipsy and laughing and whooping the air. The bride smoothed out her white dress and bunched her veil into a ball, then they all hooked arms – the bride, groom, bridesmaid and best man – and ran across the street to a restaurant with candlelit windows and faces pressed up against foggy glass. The door opened to a chorus of screams, and they were swallowed up into the fray.
We smiled at each other in the dark.
On a street corner, we bought a polystyrene cup of warm candied nuts that we shared as we walked to our train. There was a change to the tone of conversation as we looked at passing cars and people instead of each other.
‘I watched a programme the other day,’ said Anna, ‘the one where a celebrity traces their ancestors. You know it? It was so strange, all these stories they discovered of people from centuries ago. People just like us, with hearts and lives and desires. They thought they had forever, but they died like everyone else. And it struck me, sitting there on my sofa – why am I spending an evening watching a show about dead people, when one day I’ll be just like them? Why try to pa
ss the time when I hardly have any to begin with?’
‘We would probably do things very differently if we thought about death every day.’
‘My boy Joe asked yesterday if he’d be alive in the year 3000. I had to tell him no.’
‘Obviously.’
She gave a strange sort of laugh. ‘See, “no” is the normal answer, but I was told I’d live forever. The answer given to me was “yes”. My normal was not like everyone else’s.’
An ambulance screeched by and we stepped towards each other in the confusion, Anna brushing my arm.
‘You never ask me anything about my life,’ she said.
This was true. In all the years since I’d heard she’d got married, I’d never once mentioned her husband, and since the day she emailed to tell me she was pregnant, I’d never once asked after her son.
‘I’m never sure how much of your life I can take,’ I said.
There came the loudness of someone leaning on a car horn and I wished we’d taken a quieter route.
‘But you never wanted what I have,’ she said. ‘Marriage and kids … they were never part of your plan.’
‘I’m not good with the marriage thing, but maybe the idea of a kid doesn’t scare me like it once did. I would just want to be a good dad if I needed to be.’
‘You would be a good dad,’ she said, her voice soft.
I stared at the bottom of the cup. ‘Thank you.’
‘I could never have lived with someone without a ring on my finger. I would have lost half my family.’
‘I know that.’ I threw the cup in a bin. ‘It’s why I didn’t stop you from leaving me when I should have.’
‘But you would never have married me.’
‘We both know this.’
She threw up her hands. ‘Why don’t you just view it as a stupid piece of paper?’
I took a step towards her. ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t think about it with you.’
Long afterwards, when this evening and its subsequent days are over, I keep thinking of a particular moment. When we finished our wine, we paid the bill in cash and picked up our coats. Outside, before the bride’s arrival, I helped her into her jacket and wrapped her scarf twice around her neck. Then we stood there for a moment, quite still, looking at each other, and she said, ‘I’ve never seen you in the winter before.’
Another Life Page 23