Crystal. Of all people, the last person I would expect to visit me ever again would be my niece. It didn’t seem possible, and yet here she was. I contemplated whether I should play dead, stay still and quiet until she went away. But it crossed my mind that she might be bringing a message from Millie, or that, in fact, Millie might be standing there with her, and that thought propelled me off the sofa and across the room. The scary thought that an angry Kamal might be there instead of, or as well as, Millie also occurred to me during my short journey to the door, prompting me to keep the chain on as I cautiously opened it and peered out into the gloomy hallway. To both my relief and disappointment it was just Crystal, standing there in her tracksuit and trainers with her swimming bag over her shoulder. She always goes swimming after school on a Wednesday, so with one glance I knew what day it was and the approximate time – it’s funny how your brain keeps working even when nothing matters any more.
‘Auntie Sylvia, can I come in?’
She seemed genuinely concerned and looked so guileless that I took the chain off the door and let her in. I wandered back to the sofa and she followed me there, making her way carefully around the stacks of books and journals on the floor. Seeing there was no room for her on the sofa, she moved a pile of Prof’s papers gently on to the coffee table and then sat down next to me. We stayed like that for a while, her looking at me, me looking out the window opposite, having no idea what to say or do or why she was here and not being able to raise enough energy to start even the most banal conversation. She surprised me then by taking my hand, her warm skin a welcome comfort for my cold fingers. I turned to her and saw that her face was full of concern.
‘I don’t know everything about what happened, Auntie Sylvia, but I get the gist of it. Mum told me some stuff and how angry she is with you, but I know she can be over-dramatic and over-emotional about things, especially where Dad’s concerned. She told me I wasn’t to contact you, but that didn’t feel right to me. It was weird not having you there at Christmas. You’re family. We’re family, aren’t we? We should be there for each other, no matter what. You shouldn’t be frozen out.’ She paused and took a breath, steeling herself to say the next part. ‘You slept with Dad, right, ages ago, and then Mum found out and went mad?’
I nodded sadly, waiting for the recriminations, but none came. Instead Crystal squeezed my hand gently. ‘I get it. Stuff happens. And Dad’s no angel, I see the way he stares at Katya sometimes in the shop, when she wears her mini skirt. That’s just the way guys are, isn’t it?’
‘Not all of them,’ I said softly, thinking of Jonas and his devotion to Paula. ‘And your dad wasn’t all to blame, Crystal; he was so young and he was adjusting to a completely new life in a foreign country. It was both of us. It was a stupid, stupid mistake.’ My voice cracked and I bit my bottom lip to stop myself crying in front of my unexpectedly kind and understanding niece.
She shuffled along the sofa towards me, close enough for me to smell the chlorine from the swimming pool on her damp hair. She put her arm clumsily around my shoulders and said, ‘It’s OK, it’ll be OK.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, leaning into her, and we spent some time just sitting together and looking out of the window, watching the clouds break up and turn into a porridgey pattern against the reddish sky. When it started to go dark, Crystal told me quietly she had to get back for dinner or Millie would start to worry and that she would come and see me again soon. She kissed my cheek and let herself out, then I lay down on the sofa and fell into a deep sleep.
It was just after midnight when I got up and went to my bedside table to get the teabag Prof had given me. I made the tea and sat sipping it, feeling the warmth of the ginger and lemon filling my body. It had retained its flavour after all this time and I am taking that as a clear and comforting sign that Prof still cares about me. For as long as the drink lasted, I felt that I was with him again and that nothing had changed. I needed that reassurance to give me the strength to keep going. I slept again, then, waking around four as usual, and waited for the traffic to begin.
Friday 29 January
I went back to Prof’s house again this evening, I’m afraid, for the third time this week. It’s as if my feet have a mind of their own, I decide not to go and then I find myself taking my duffel coat down off the peg and winding my scarf round my neck and pulling on my gloves and hat. By the time I have picked up my door keys I have resigned myself to the long walk ahead, as if some higher power is requiring it of me. At least it’s a way of burning off calories, I suppose, as I get precious little other exercise these days. A light mist of rain was dissolving the snow on the pavement, along with the hundreds of footprints made by tired commuters on their way home from work. I imagined them all warm in their houses, greeted like returning warriors by their loving partners and children, secure in their place in the world.
The glimpses I caught into front rooms and kitchens as I walked down the suburban streets reinforced this fantasy. Couples cuddling on the sofa, fathers playing with their children, mothers feeding babies, all bathed in the reassuring glow of central heating and togetherness. It was a perfect night for being unseen, though; nobody wanted to go out dog walking or jogging on an evening like this. Making my way towards Prof’s neighbourhood, I had the odd sensation of being the only human survivor of some sort of apocalypse. I entertained the idea for quite a while, imagining the freedom of going into abandoned houses, exploring what people had left behind, eating whatever I wanted, being queen of my dominion. But the thought of no Prof was unconscionable, so I shook myself back to reality as I turned into his road. I sheltered in my usual spot behind a wide-trunked oak on the other side of the street and felt quite cosy in a funny sort of way. I could see into the basement kitchen of their large Victorian terrace, where Harry, or perhaps it was Sam, sat eating a bowl of cereal at the wooden table.
They are nice lads, Harry and Sam, tall and dark like their dad, although they both have a slightly sly look about them which they get from their mother. There were piles of papers and books either side of him – signs of Prof taking his research home with him, as usual. He really does work too hard. My heart truly leapt when in wandered Prof in his dressing gown, a navy-blue towelling number that looked a little worn and faded. The sight of it made me yearn to be the person in his life who could appropriately buy him a new one. He ruffled the boy’s hair, picked up a couple of papers and grabbed a beer out the fridge before leaving stage left.
Harry/Sam finished his cereal and started fiddling with something gold on the table, perhaps Prof’s watch? No, the wrong shape, this was more of a solid object. Maybe some new kind of phone? He put it down and called after Prof, wandering out of the kitchen after him, leaving the dirty bowl on the table. Such a scene of domesticity, although it does pain me that they have no woman to look after them. I should be there, cooking them all dinner, tidying up, bringing Prof his beer. I waited in the rain until all the lights had gone out in the house and then I walked home, happy in the knowledge that Prof has his boys for company and is safe and sound in his bed.
Tuesday 16 February
I am exhausted after today’s revelations, completely wrung out. Nothing is as I thought it was, and I am nothing but a fool.
The day started innocuously enough and I took myself to Dulwich picture gallery after breakfast for want of anything else to do. The weather has really turned arctic, now, and London is covered in frost and thick snow. It gives a nice peaceful atmosphere to my daytime meanderings and I rather enjoy the feeling of strangeness and light that covers the streets, untroubled by the need to be anywhere in particular. It took longer than usual to walk there due to the weather, but I didn’t mind. I used up a few hours, drifting around the rooms, gazing at the art, wondering why anyone has ever bothered to paint pictures of what people look like on the outside when everything that really matters is hidden inside. A centuries-old triptych of the Madonna and Child held my attention for a long while and I was lost in thoug
ht when at around two o’clock the gallery attendant came up to me, the sole visitor, and told me that they were closing early owing to the weather. Her apologetic tone met with my complete indifference as I let her shepherd me out into the corridor.
After hesitating for a moment outside the main door, I pulled my coat tighter round me against the wind and crossed the road towards Prof’s house. It had started snowing again and I stood, allowing the flakes to fall onto my face and into my mouth. Common sense told me to go back home to the safe and warm, but to borrow a phrase, I was ‘but helpless in the arms of love’. I climbed the hill up to his road carefully, not lifting my feet between steps unless absolutely necessary as I tried to avoid slipping over. I could sense something was different as I approached Prof’s house. There was usually little going on in the road in the afternoon and I generally contented myself with walking past his house, noticing the sort of small detail that can tell one much about a person’s life if you know where to look. For example, I know when he has had the boys because of the takeaway pizza boxes in the recycling, and I know if Prof’s been away for the weekend because there are no empty beer bottles left out on a Sunday night. Depending on when I come, I also know from the curtains what time Prof goes to bed and what time he gets up. But today his bedroom curtains were drawn at three o’clock in the afternoon. My heart lurched as I feared he must be ill and I had to hold myself back from running to the front door and pressing the bell, desperate to go in, look after him and nurse him back to health.
Then I saw two wine glasses and a bottle on the table in the bay window and felt a rising sense of alarm. I looked around frantically for Lola’s tatty old Fiat, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. She must have come by train, I thought, perhaps because the roads were icy. I stood stock-still, my eyes narrowed, every nerve alive, like an animal sensing a predator is near. I took several of the steps up towards Prof’s front door, full of indignation and searing anger – and then stopped myself. What was I going to say? What could I do? I knew I wasn’t supposed to be here, that I wasn’t allowed to be in contact with Prof. It was the faint sound of laughter from inside the house that spurred me on in the end. It was utterly unbearable to think of him in there with her. I had convinced myself that the Rome tryst was a one-off, a mistake by Prof that anyone could have made and that any burgeoning romance between him and Lola had been sullied and stymied by subsequent events back home. I had to know if it was still going on, had to see. I continued up to the top and pressed the doorbell hard. I still had my finger on it when the front door opened and I found myself standing face to face with Tig. She was wearing a black tracksuit and had her cigarettes and gold Zippo lighter in hand, obviously about to step out to have a smoke on the porch. I don’t know who was more surprised, me, Tig or Prof who was standing just behind her in novelty Star Wars boxer shorts and a grey T-shirt.
It was a moment that seemed to go on forever. I looked to Tig, she looked back at Prof, and Prof stared at me with an unpleasant, hard look in his eyes that I had never seen before. It was as if I had wandered backstage at a genial romantic comedy and discovered the cast members covered in blood, gutting a sheep. Somebody had to speak first and it was Tig, bold as brass, not an ounce of shame in her husky voice. In fact, she sounded amused.
‘Sylvia! Fancy seeing you here.’ She stepped past me onto the front step, lighting up as she did so, not waiting for me to respond. She at least had the decency to go down to the bottom of the stone steps and have her smoke on the garden path, leaving Prof and me to speak in private. I fully expected Prof to apologise and explain. Instead, he snapped at me in angry embarrassment.
‘What is this? What do you want?’
‘Why is she here?’ I indicated towards Tig, although it was pretty clear that she and Prof were having some sort of sordid fling.
‘For Christ’s sake, Sylvia, it’s none of your business.’
‘I thought … What about Lola?’
‘What about her?’ His eyes flashed in such a menacing manner at this point that the thought passed through my mind that he was not really Prof, not my kind, noble, wonderful Prof. Could he be ill? Have had some sort of brainstorm?
‘What do you want?’ he asked again sharply, pulling me back to the moment.
‘I want to protect you, to be with you.’ I needed to try and explain why I was there, but my voice sounded as if it was coming from somewhere very far away.
He scoffed loudly and I noticed some specs of spittle on his lips. His face had transformed into an angry red mask. The man next door, who was sweeping snow off his front steps, lingered on the top one, presumably to try and catch the drama. Prof glanced at him then came right up close to me and enunciated horribly.
‘Let’s get this straight, once and for all. I don’t need your protection, I don’t need your help in any way. I don’t want you anywhere near me. How dare you come to my house. I know you’ve been here before. I have let it go and I think I have been reasonable, but you are becoming an embarrassment. You clearly have problems, but if you ever come near me or my children again I will call the police. Do you understand?’
My head was spinning in confusion. ‘But … Our lunches and the way we talk and understand each other … And the teabag and the journal. I thought …’
‘You thought what?’ he spat. He opened his palms and shrugged his shoulders as if he was searching for the answer to his question. ‘That we had more than a working relationship? That you meant something to me? That I wanted to be with you?’ His voice sounded incredulous and my temples started to ache.
‘But our special kiss, under the mistletoe …’ I said, looking straight into his eyes and nodding, trying desperately to find our connection again. He regarded me blankly.
‘At that Christmas party,’ I continued as he shook his head, bemused. ‘You must remember?’
‘No, I don’t remember, Sylvia,’ he said dismissively. ‘Why must you make so much of everything? None of it is important. If I did kiss you that night I was probably pissed and you were there giving me the glad eye, as usual. I think I might have even had a snog with Margaret too. It was a party, for pity’s sake. No. Big. Deal.’ He emphasised the last three words distinctly.
I stared at him, aghast, mortified that Margaret could have had a romantic moment with my Prof.
‘I don’t understand. Why did you give me such a beautiful bracelet on my birthday?’ I couldn’t make any sense of it. I needed him to explain.
‘Well, it was your fiftieth, wasn’t it?’ he snapped. ‘Imogen told me I should give you something special.’
‘No, it was my fifty-second. I’m fifty-two,’ I said slowly, part of me still not believing that I had really got that old.
‘Well, whatever. You need to leave,’ he said decisively, and started to close the door.
‘I love you.’
I had to say it out loud. Maybe if he knew that for sure then it would change everything, would be enough to stop all the pain and loneliness and misunderstandings. That on hearing those words he would hold me and kiss the top of my head and make me feel right again.
The door opened fully and he went to say something, then he shook his head and shut the door hard. The movement of it dislodged some small icicles on the porch and I watched them fall silently to the ground and lie on top of the snow. All was quiet apart from the noise of the man next door still scraping his top step.
I turned and climbed slowly down towards the path, clinging onto the handrail as I went. It suddenly seemed to be of utmost importance that I look after myself, like a baby bird with a broken wing or a little motherless hoglet. I had temporarily forgotten about Tig and coming face to face with her at the bottom of the steps was a jolt.
‘Get a life, Sylvia,’ was all she said to me, grinding her cigarette stub out on the frozen ground. Then she turned and went back up to the front door. I watched her ringing the bell and knocking for what seemed like a long while until Prof finally let her in and closed the door again behin
d her.
As I made my way home in the dark, through the freezing streets, I knew what I had to do. It had all gone on too long and it was over now. There was no point any more to any of it and there was a release in the realisation that I no longer had to struggle with it – that it would soon be over. My feet were soaking and numb as I walked up to the flats, but I didn’t go inside. Instead I made my way round the back and found the small key on my set that opened the padlock on the communal storage shed in the garden. The lock had frozen solid and I had to hold it in my gloved hands for a long time before I was able to coax the key to go in and then turn. Once unlocked, I dragged the door open and blinked in the darkness trying to identify the bulky items from their general shapes. The barbecue was right at the back, put out of the way as nobody expected to need it again until the summer. Propelled by some inner strength, I managed to move aside the various pieces of patio furniture and power tools, pick the barbecue up and take it out into the garden. I dropped it down, making its lid clang, and hauled it across the snow to the middle of the lawn. I was aware at this point that Mr Goldberg was watching me from an upstairs window. In no mood for an audience, I turned and stared back at him, holding up my middle finger until he disappeared back behind his curtain.
It took four trips up and down the stairs to my flat to fetch all of Prof’s articles and books, and then a final trip to get the matches and brandy from the kitchen. I doused his work and watched it burn, throwing in handfuls of paper at a time, rejoicing in the warmth it generated and holding my hands close to the flames. The snow around the feet of the barbecue began to fade away, exposing long-hidden patches of grass and a little cluster of indomitable snowdrops. All those words and ideas, meaningless to me now, disappeared up in smoke into the wintery London sky. When there was only ashes left, I took off the bracelet and threw it on top of the smouldering pile, watching as the last small licks of fire reflected on its links and the fake gold started to shrivel and peel off, drifting away on the breeze.
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