Come Away With Me

by Sara MacDonald

  They clinked glasses and Flo said, as if it were obvious what Ruth must have been thinking, ‘You must think we are still wallowing in Tom and Rosie’s deaths. We are not. We all kept incredibly busy afterwards working closely together as a team, so it was a huge shock to us both when Jenny had such a terrible collapse because she seemed to be keeping it reasonably together.’

  ‘She probably was,’ Ruth said. ‘It was meeting me and seeing Adam that tipped her over the edge.’

  ‘That was not your fault, Ruth,’ Danielle said too quickly.

  Ruth suddenly understood. ‘It’s me being here, isn’t it? The sudden realisation that Jenny isn’t coming back for a while? That I might be coming here to live in her space? It feels all wrong to you. I’ve cast a shadow you weren’t expecting, haven’t I?’

  ‘Not you, Ruth. Not you personally,’ Flo said firmly. ‘It’s just that the reality of having anyone else feels infinitely sad. Jenny not coming home is a fact both Danielle and I have to accept, but after many years together we are finding it difficult.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Ruth agreed. ‘It must be. Look, Danielle, you offered me a job on a wonderful impulse. I understand completely that you now regret it.’

  Danielle laughed. ‘But I do not regret it! I have read your CV. I have made enquiries to colleagues. You are what we need at this time. You could do this job standing on your head. We are tiny in comparison with some of the budgets you have handled. We would love you to work for us.’

  ‘We would consider ourselves privileged and blessed,’ Flo finished. ’Drink your wine and tell us what you think of us so far.’

  Ruth was taken aback and immensely flattered.

  ‘Help yourself to salad,’ Danielle said. ‘So, come on, what do you think?’

  Ruth sighed. ‘I’m immensely impressed with everything here. I would give my eye teeth to work with you, but…’ She held up her hands as Danielle whooped. ‘I would have to work out my notice in Birmingham. I would have to look into schools for Adam and I would have to know what financial package you are offering me.’

  ‘Of course. Of course. This is such good news.’

  Ruth held up her glass, sitting on her excitement. ‘I, too, would consider myself privileged and blessed to work here.’

  Flo touched Ruth’s arm. ‘My dear, don’t think you will be working in Jenny’s shadow. You are coming in quite a different capacity and doing a completely different job for us. We’ve badly needed someone like you for some time.’

  Ruth knew in that giddy moment of companionship that it didn’t matter what they offered her. Compared with loneliness in Birmingham, where she had worked too hard to make real friends, and a chance of living and working in this house with these women, she would take peanuts if that was what they offered, but she knew they wouldn’t. They wanted her as much as she wanted them.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I had difficulty waking because of the pills. The sun streamed into my bedroom every morning and I’d lie for hours reluctant to move, with the brightness causing coloured floaters behind my closed eyes. I would drift, feeling as light as air with the sheet tangled round me.

  Waking was the hardest part of each day. Memory was instant. Some days my mind veered off to places I did not want to visit, especially when I woke alone in the dark early hours. My brain would keep circling and coming back to the same place.

  What had Tom been doing when he died? Where had he been based? What sort of work was he doing? Why was my phone tapped for weeks after he was killed? No one would tell me.

  For the first two or three days after Tom and Rosie died the papers played with varying terrorist theories, then the story quietly died. At the time I wondered if a D notice had been slapped on the press and of course I will never know.

  It haunts me. Tom was on leave, but there is no way he would have put Rosie at risk. I know this. I do. He was fiercely protective of us both. When he was about to go to Iraq he warned me that the same rules applied as always in his job: he would vanish. Any mail would go through army channels in Baghdad or Basra. He would be permanently on the move and he wouldn’t be able to ring me.

  Before we married Tom was careful to explain exactly what life with him would entail until he reached the age when he would be put behind a desk. At first it scared me rigid every time he left on a mission to some unknown country. Then I realised that I could not live like that.

  I worked like a demon to stop dwelling on the terror of him dying, then gradually, somehow the anxiety was transmuted into my everyday life, there like toothache, but controllable.

  When we had Rosie I watched as Tom began to change, to consider the life he was leading and the effect it was having on him as well as me. I thought he might have been working up to the possibility of returning to his regiment, of doing a safer job. Yet I knew he still got that adrenalin rush, the thrill for a life that was precarious.

  He told me once that the camaraderie of a small unit of very fit men, living and working in close proximity for a common goal, was seductive and testing in a way that was hard to explain. You had to have blind trust; you had to rely absolutely on the judgement of one another, but in essence you were completely alone.

  He said the buzz was a total reliance on your wits and expertise, and how far you could push yourself in hostile circumstances. You had to be a little mad, a little near the edge, perhaps, to do the job you did.

  Had he, somehow, got too near the edge, made a terrible misjudgement? Was this why I was questioned for so long and hard? Who had been to the house? Whom had he seen or spoken to on his leave? Had there been any strange phone calls?

  Day after day the army and police came, urging me to think about every single day of his two weeks’ leave. His movements. My movements. The movements of the whole household.

  Then they just went away and left me with this cold dark place that slowly eats away at me. After Tom and Rosie died, these dawn thoughts were so deep, so damaging, that death had seemed the simplest thing.

  I see Rosie’s small open mouth laughing in her car seat and then, wham! Her small body is blown apart in a second. The fabric of her dress is caught in tiny shreds on the jagged open skeleton of the car. There is nothing left of her to lie in a coffin.

  Was there a split second for Tom to be aware of what was happening? Was he singing to Rosie, as she bounced happily in the back behind him? I would never know if he experienced the horror of their imminent death. I hope not.

  I kept wondering if there was some small thing Tom did not tell me or a tiny area of danger he overlooked. The pills helped to block out thoughts that sometimes drove me mad.

  I knew I must focus on the one tangible thing Tom left me, a part of himself: this sweet boy he never knew he had; a boy who, like me, dreamt of a man he would never see or hear or touch now. But we had each other, Adam and I. We had each other.

  Today, lying in sunlight, I suddenly remembered Adam was staying and I picked up my watch anxiously. It was a quarter to ten. I struggled up and went into the shower. This was the worst aspect of taking drugs. Pills helped you sleep, but the mornings were like battling through treacle.

  Dad had fixed a kettle for me on the landing with a tray of tea and coffee to stop Mum climbing up three flights of stairs. I suspected she still climbed up to check on me while I slept. I switched on the kettle and thought of the London house.

  Ruth would be arriving in London about now. Flo and Danielle would take her around the home we’d all shared. It made me feel weak and strange. Ruth was considering taking my place in the house. Maybe she would even sleep in the bed I shared with Tom. Don’t be stupid, I told myself, Flo and Danielle would not think of it. It was a surreal thought.

  I made tea and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, then I sat on the bed and picked up the phone and rang Flo.

  ‘Jen,’ Flo said firmly, ‘no one is going to sleep in your bed or touch your room. It stays as it is. This is your home. I don’t need a sitting room. We can turn that into
another bedroom if necessary. Silly girl. What a thought! As if it would ever enter our minds.’

  ‘Sorry to be neurotic.’

  ‘That’s the last thing you are. I’m sure that you’ve made the right decision to stay in Cornwall for a while, but it’s going to be difficult. There will be days when you feel out on a limb. You’ve worked hard for so long. Designing has been your life. Promise me that when you feel low or lonely you will pick up the phone.’

  I smiled. I wasn’t sure Flo really did think I’d done the right thing. I think she was convinced that work was the best thing for me; work and resuming my life with those who cared about me in my own home.

  I couldn’t go back to the house. I couldn’t sleep in the bed Tom and I had shared or live a life that was over. That life was now empty of everything that had driven me to work hard. I could no longer bear a house echoing with the sounds of my child. Tom had come and gone like a beloved whirlwind, but Rosie had lived and grown inside me. She had been born in London. She had been part of every moment of every day. My constant. My joy.

  Without Tom and Rosie the heart had slowly drained out of all that was left. Without them my work seemed vacuous and without value. How could I explain this to Danielle and Flo?

  I had never taken my life with Tom for granted in case the worst happened. And it had, the very worst.

  ‘Are you still there, Jen?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. I promise.’ I felt a sudden panic. ‘Flo, Rosie’s room is not to be touched. I don’t want anything touched in there.’

  ‘My dear girl, we locked Rosie’s room together. Remember? Nothing has been touched. You mustn’t think of Ruth or anyone else as replacing you. We are just getting help with promotion and selling. It’s important you remember this. No one can replace you.’

  I could hear the sound of the girls trudging up the stairs into the workroom like familiar noisy sparrows. I felt an ache for a life that was gone. It seemed so innocent now, that life, with its plans for the future.

  ‘I must let you go, Flo, I can hear the day going on behind you.’

  ‘I’ll ring you tonight.’

  I put the phone down. I wondered where my insecurity at the thought of Ruth working with Flo and Danielle had swooped from. But I knew really. Ruth was ambitious and clever. She would promote and sell our clothes far more efficiently than I ever had. It was complete hypocrisy on my part to choose to opt out, then realise I did not actually want anyone else to opt in. At least not Ruth.

  I went downstairs. Bea was sitting at the table, peacefully reading the paper with a cup of coffee at her elbow.

  ‘Don’t you dare get up and wait on me,’ I growled, kissing the top of her head.

  ‘Darling, Adam and your father have gone in to St Ives to buy fish hooks or something. Then they were going up to the Symonses to see if Harry, who is about Adam’s age, wants to go fishing with them. James takes him out in the boat sometimes.’

  I poured myself coffee and sat down opposite her. ‘I feel guilty, I’ve slept too long. I don’t want Dad to tire himself out.’

  ‘He’s quite happy. You haven’t forgotten you have a session with Naomi Watson at midday. I’ll drive you in, and go and do a bit of shopping in Hayle while you talk.’

  My heart plummeted. I had forgotten. ‘Oh, bugger. I hate going. I absolutely loathe going to see her.’

  Bea folded up the newspaper. ‘Your father has great confidence in her.’

  ‘I know he does,’ I said. ‘I think he’s blinkered.’

  ‘Could it possibly be, darling, that Naomi gets too near the truth of your feelings for it to be comfortable for you?’

  I looked at her. ‘Mum, should I be made uncomfortable by someone professing to want to help me?’

  Bea sighed. ‘I’m sure that she does want to help you. It’s not just about Tom and Rosie’s death, darling. It’s also about Ruth and Adam. I was so pleased to see you and Ruth talking together yesterday, but it is a tricky situation, especially now Ruth’s husband has left her. She always was a funny, mixed-up little girl who longed to have a family like ours and here we are again, easily, effortlessly to her, enveloping Adam into our household, as we did with her long ago.’ Bea pushed muesli my way. ‘My love, I know you’re suffering more than we can ever comprehend. But if you hide the truth of your feelings about Adam being Tom’s son, if you are dishonest even to yourself about your ambivalent feelings for Ruth, there is going to be so much more suffering for all three of you. This is why I beg you to go on seeing Naomi for a little while longer, just to help make life more normal, to see the whole from a different perspective.’

  I felt the tears coming, swift and sudden as they did these days, and I bent my head on the table and wept. Bea stroked my hair and shushed me gently.

  I wanted to be a child again, to have the chance of my young life all over again. I wanted to marry Tom and persuade him to come out of the army. I wanted to have Rosie living and breathing and growing inside me. I wanted my real life to spring out of this nightmare. I wanted it all to go away. I wanted my old life back.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  James drove the two boys to Lelant and sat below the old station house watching them lying on their stomachs birdwatching. It was an RSPB reserve, the tide was out and the mudflats exposed, and Adam was in seventh heaven. Harry had borrowed James’s binoculars and was catching Adam’s enthusiasm. James was impressed with Adam’s knowledge and the careful way he imparted his expertise to Harry without seeming a know-all.

  James loved this stretch of estuary. He had watched it change over the years. There were modern buildings now at the other side of the water and the village was slowly getting swamped by developments, but so far the estuary and the long stretch of sand and cliffs towards St Ives remained unspoilt.

  He had brought his children here, especially Ben and his friends who liked to surf on the beach. James thought of all the times he had been afraid of losing his fearless son in the treacherous waters two minutes from where he sat. In fact, he and Bea had lost their one son to the lure of California and an extraordinarily shallow daughter-in-law.

  James felt an ache as he thought of the skinny little blond boy who had been born a bit wild. Sometimes the life he had lived, between a busy medical practice and a house bulging with little girls, seemed now as if it had belonged to someone else.

  In summer, at Easter and Christmas, the house was full, not only of various grandchildren but also of step-grand-children and extended families. Two of his daughters had divorced and remarried men with children. Sometimes it was difficult to keep up and remember who was who. You got used to one and suddenly, after endless agonising telephone calls to Bea, a daughter eventually came home with another strained man and more small bewildered children. Really, it was exhausting and James was very glad he and Bea had happily stayed together.

  ‘What’s Birmingham like?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Crap,’ Adam answered.

  ‘Come on,’ Harry said. ‘It must have some wicked shops and cinemas and stuff. Not like Cornwall.’

  ‘Yeah, the shops are OK. School is crap.’

  ‘Yeah? Big, is it?’

  ‘Huge. I hate it.’

  ‘Are you bullied?’

  ‘Not really. Well, a bit. I’m called a nerd.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I play an instrument and belong to a music club. It’s like a little orchestra. Because I like birdwatching and I fish, and I get good marks and don’t like football, only rugby. Because I don’t play truant and won’t shoplift. So I’m a nerd.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to a private school? I do.’

  ‘Do you?’ Adam was surprised. He and James had collected Harry from a small house in St Ives. They didn’t seem rich.

  ‘Yeah. My teacher at primary school put me in for a scholarship and I got one.’

  ‘You mean you don’t pay anything?’

  ‘No, we don’t have to becàuse my mum is a single parent. But I think it depends on how much yo
ur parents earn.’ Adam stared at him and Harry added, ‘We live with my grandad, my mum and me. He’s retired. Mum works in a delicatessen.’

  ‘My mother doesn’t believe in private schools, even though she went to one,’ Adam said. ‘She thinks one system should benefit everyone and if bright kids are streamed off, state schools will never get any better.’

  ‘Yeah, my grandad’s a bit like that, but my mum says that it’s not fair to sacrifice your own kids to an educational system that seems to be going backwards.’

  Adam was intrigued. ‘So what’s your school like?’

  ‘Truro School? It’s OK. I’d love to board, that would be wicked, but you have to pay to board so I get the train each day. It’s a bit of a drag sometimes.’

  ‘How…how do you find out about scholarships?’

  ‘I’ll ask my mum if you like. There are only so many they give each year. I think all public schools give scholarships. You should ask your mum to find out about schools in Birmingham.’

  James called out, ‘Would you boys like to go and fish for an hour off the quay? I’ll set you up, then come back here to wait for Bea and Jenny to bring our picnic.’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Ace!’

  James smiled to himself. He did enjoy the uncomplicated company of boys.

  THIRTY-NINE

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you looking so much better, Jenny,’ Naomi said.

  ‘I am better. I’d like to come off the antidepressants. They make me feel as if I’m buried in treacle until midday.’

  Naomi looked at my notes. ‘I don’t want you to come off them yet, it’s too soon, but I’ll alter the dose. How are you sleeping?’

  ‘Fine,’ I lied.

  ‘Right. Good.’ She obviously didn’t believe me.

  There was silence in the room while she regarded me quizzically. I didn’t help her. I knew she was there to help me, but I also knew Dad was paying for these sessions and I couldn’t get away from the feeling that she wanted there to be a problem where there was none. I guess that for people who have no one to talk to and don’t have families or backup she must be a godsend, but I didn’t need her.