The Lost Letters of William Woolf

by Helen Cullen

  William played with the food on his plate; his appetite had absconded with Clare.

  ‘She’s a lot more fun than you think, Stevie,’ he said. ‘You’ve just never seen that side of her, because when you’re around she feels like she has to be the grown-up to stop everyone ending up in jail or the house getting burned down or taken over by squatters. She thinks you’re a bad influence. Obviously.’

  ‘So did your mum.’

  ‘She was right.’

  ‘How is the old dear? She never lost it, your mum. Still a cracker.’

  William sucked the last of his cocktail into the fluorescent tangerine-orange straw.

  ‘She’s gone. I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘What? Your mum?’

  ‘Huh? No, not my … It’s Clare. Clare’s gone.’

  ‘As in, a missing person? Like, with police looking for her?’

  For once, Stevie looked speechless; his mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ of pink lipstick.

  ‘What is wrong with you? Of course not. Do you really think, if she’d been abducted, I’d be sitting here with you, drinking cocktails?’

  William tried not to notice the faint look of disappointment that floated across Stevie’s face as the drama subsided.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you were going to ask me to do a benefit concert or something.’

  ‘Oh, for the love of … She’s left me, Stevie. Of her own free will. Run away to God knows where for who knows how long!’

  ‘What the? What did you do? Did she meet someone else? Some dapper gent in the law firm? That’s it, isn’t it? She was seduced by a nice suit with a yacht? She was always too much of a grown-up for you. How the mighty have fallen!’

  William clenched his jaw and pushed his plate away from him.

  ‘I’m already regretting telling you anything. No, it was me. It was my fault. Look, it’s complicated. It’s not really about anyone else.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, love. It always is.’

  Stevie leaned back on his chair legs, rested his shoulders against the grease-stained walls and summoned the waiter with a toss of his ponytail.

  ‘I think we should get a real drink.’

  ‘Agreed. It’s time for Mother’s Ruin.’

  William hadn’t told anyone else about the troubles he and Clare were having; pretending everything was normal made them seem less real. As he tried to put into words how fractured their marriage had become, it felt like he was speaking of strangers in a film or a book; this couldn’t be his story. Stevie remained surprisingly silent throughout, but his face registered reactions in waves of sympathy, incredulity and a particularly uncomfortable cringing. William couldn’t bring himself to mention Winter. He wasn’t sure the dream he nursed would survive the scrutiny of Stevie’s particular brand of cynicism. He wasn’t ready to defend something he struggled to understand or have faith in himself.

  ‘So, what happens now? Are you going to try to find her?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not as simple as that. I think she’s probably right that we both need some space, and I can’t force her to come home if she’s not ready. What good will that do?’

  This time, it was Stevie who reached for William’s hand.

  ‘That sounds like you’re accepting she’s not coming home, dear William. Because, if you are still hoping to resurrect your old life in a straitjacket, you’d better do something fast.’

  ‘Is it really all down to me? She’s the one who has run away, after all!’

  ‘Well, far be it from me to defend Her Royal Highness, but it sounds like not everything was perfect before that happened. Maybe she’s doing you both a favour by shining a light on where you are, instead of trying to bury it.’

  William drained the last of his gin and signalled to the waitress for another.

  ‘I’m finding your moral superiority a little hard to stomach, I must say. It’s not as if you’ve got the best relationship track record yourself.’

  ‘Nope. I haven’t, but I’ve never made promises I couldn’t keep or pretended to be something I’m not. What you see is what you get.’

  ‘Perhaps you should consider a career in relationship counselling.’

  ‘Darling, my mother has had me in therapy since I was thirteen, when she caught me trying on all her lingerie. It’s about time someone benefited from it.’

  ‘Your poor mother, how she has suffered.’

  ‘Haven’t we all?’ He rapped his knuckles on the table, as if calling order in court. ‘Now, I think we should shake off all this doom and gloom and seek out some sparkle. Let’s go dancing. Or, at least, you can hold my coat for me while I go dancing.’

  ‘Tempting as that sounds, I think I’ll just catch the last Tube home. Why don’t you head off, and I’ll get the bill?’

  Stevie was already standing as he snaked a black feather boa around his throat and drained the last of his glass.

  ‘Are you sure? If I run now, it’s still free admission to Spiders. You sure you don’t want to come?’

  ‘No, you go. But Stevie, thanks. Thanks a lot, for listening to me. Let’s not leave it as long next time, okay?’

  Stevie leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

  ‘William, my dear, it was you who vanished, not I. Let me know how it goes.’

  With a swish of his feathered coat, he sashayed out of the restaurant, casting a new darkness over the table. William called the elderly waiter over for the bill as he became aware that nearly all the tables were now empty. He left a generous tip and the waiter nodded his acknowledgement. As he began to clatter the plates together, William interrupted him.

  ‘I’m sorry, but could I ask you a question?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Is everything okay? You need a taxi?’

  ‘No, no. I was just wondering if you’ve worked here a long time?’

  ‘Six nights a week for fifteen years. My wife and I always go dancing on Sundays, and then Cracker’s in charge. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just know someone who comes here a lot and I thought you might know them. A lady called Winter?’

  ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t ring a bell, sir, but there’s always so many new faces around here, it’s hard to remember everyone.’ He smiled at William and shook his head as he balanced the dirty plates on his arm.

  ‘She has very long red hair and green eyes. An Irish lady. Does that help?’

  The waiter turned back to look at William again.

  ‘Don’t a lot of Irish girls look like that, sir? I can’t think of anyone in particular. I’m sorry, but perhaps you can come together another time and introduce me.’

  ‘Perhaps. Thanks again. It was all delicious, really.’

  William shuffled into his duffel coat and pulled the hood up. Finding Winter, if that was what he intended to do, was not going to be easy. As he stepped out into the crisp, frosty night, he thought about how much Clare would love this strange little restaurant. It occurred to him how much Winter and Clare had in common. It gave him a jolt: did Winter’s letters remind him of the old Clare? The constant flipping in his mind from yin to yang was exhausting. He was trying to compare home with a foreign land he had never visited but had only read about in books. And he didn’t know if the writers of the tale were telling the truth.

  VIII

  Despite the late hour, and the circumstances which had led Clare to find herself alone in a hotel room in Wales, she felt surprisingly light and hopeful. As she lay in the middle of the bed, legs and arms stretched wide, her mind wandered back to that morning. It felt like days since she’d said goodbye to William, instead of just the mere hours that had passed since the telephone call that had set her on this path. Maxi had been concerned when Clare was absent from work. Things had become confused between them; he was worried that she was avoiding him, said he desperately wanted to see her and had driven to her street in pursuit. Those words from him on the telephone had rattled her; she was already so anxious to escape, even if it was just for a sho
rt while. Maxi told her he would take her anywhere she wanted to go. On impulse, she settled on Wales, where she’d spent summers as a child. Somewhere calm and safe, where she could be alone. Her feelings towards Maxi weren’t clear in her mind. Had he become more than a friend? Or was she looking for a life raft to help her leave the lonely island of her marriage?

  After they arrived at the hotel, he looked crestfallen when she asked him not to come in with her. They had driven there together mostly in silence; she presumed he thought the talking would come later. Instead, she stared out of the window while Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love played on repeat. As she hugged herself in the car seat, her fingers found a hole in William’s Star Wars T-shirt, just below her ribcage. She stroked her skin through it like a baby playing with the label on a blanket. Every so often, she discreetly pulled the neck of the T-shirt over her nose to breathe in the lingering smell of him: the gentle aroma of patchouli and cedarwood from the beard oil she loved.

  Every so often, she stole a glance at Maxi out of the corner of her eye: his blond hair was cut short enough to kill the curl, his starched white shirt rolled to the elbows of his tanned arms. He drove like a man in control of a mission, staring straight ahead, weaving gracefully between lanes, accelerating rapidly when any stretch of road became clear. She liked him more for his silence; for not pushing her. After their awkward goodbye in the hotel car park, she was relieved to find a room ready for her and immediately called the office to see how her assistant, Nava, was coping in her absence. A little too well for comfort, it seemed, but Clare resigned herself to the knowledge that this time away was essential. Thinking of the pep talk the managing partner had given her when she had stopped at the office en route, she cringed. It was clear she hadn’t been herself recently; it seemed she needed a break. So mortifying after all these years with a perfect record; how frustrating the glee he took in patting her on the shoulder and saying, ‘You are only human, after all,’ as if confirmation had been pending for years.

  She unpacked her suitcase as slowly as possible, arranged her toiletries in descending height in the bathroom and perched on one side of the stiffly made bed, cradling the bedside telephone in her lap. She wanted to talk to someone but couldn’t think of anyone she could bear to confide in. All her friends had become their friends. None of her relationships with colleagues had graduated past breezy platitudes or repetitive rants about parking, working hours or the sub-par coffee in the staff kitchen. Flora was the only option; the only person exclusively hers. As much as William had immediately adored Flora when she eventually brought him home, Clare had refused to cultivate the relationship between her husband and her little sister. Maybe she didn’t want William ever to witness her through Flora’s conflicted gaze. No matter how much you evolve as a person, the extent to which you change or improve, your family holds such a fixed notion of who you are; they won’t allow you to leave your past behind you or become someone new. Clare had worked hard to grow out of the girl weighed down by their hefty familial baggage and she didn’t want Flora dragging her back into that room. She hadn’t really considered before why keeping their relationship separate was so important to her, but she was glad of it now. Maybe she would ask Flora to come and stay with her, after she’d had a day or two to think things through. First things first, though. She stood under the powerful hotel shower to cleanse the city of London from her hair and face. She polished her body with a scratchy flannel and appreciated the unfamiliar scent of the hotel’s lemongrass soap. With her hair pulled into a messy bun, she dressed in the most comfortable cotton dress in her possession and was surprised to find she felt hungry. Usually, when she was upset her appetite failed her, but she craved something hot and savoury and so made her way to the restaurant in the hotel conservatory.

  Over a dish of Welsh rarebit and a glass of Merlot, Clare watched the other hotel guests and indulged in a little eavesdropping. Her ears pricked up when she overheard dangerous words like ‘divorce’, or ‘cancer’, or ‘pregnant’ being whispered. She breathed a little more easily; the little titbits of other people’s lives were a salve to the upsets of her own; a reconnection with a world outside the claustrophobic space she had started obsessively inhabiting in her mind.

  ‘When we arrive at your mother’s, please don’t vanish off with your dad and leave me in the kitchen with her, Mike. Not again. Not after last time.’

  ‘Can you believe Kay still thinks I’m a vegetarian? After all these years! If she ever catches me with a kebab, she’ll keel over on the spot.’

  ‘Valerie thinks I should try alternative therapies, but I’m not so sure. It just feels like I would be swimming against the river.’

  ‘I just don’t think I can love a man who doesn’t appreciate the brilliance of Depeche Mode. It just shows such a fundamental lack of compatibility between us.’

  Clare felt nostalgic for the time when the greatest problems she and William navigated involved not loving the same bands. She smiled, remembering the night he refused to go to the pub with her because she was wearing a Frankie Says Relax T-shirt. She left without him, of course, and he followed her half an hour later. Was it inevitable that two people who had met so young would eventually grow apart? If she was no longer with William, who would she become? Their relationship defined her; she was the responsible one, the careerist who gave them security. How had her identity become so wrapped up with her job? A job she honestly wasn’t even sure that she loved. When was her time to follow her heart?

  When she thought of herself as the little girl who loved painting, music and performing, she could never have imagined she would grow up to become this rigid lawyer with no artistic outlet at all. In her younger years, she was afraid of following an insecure path that could keep her stuck in poverty, but she didn’t have to worry about that now. Her success to date would give her the freedom to do something different now, if she wanted. William refusing to allow them to take on a bigger mortgage had at least enabled her to save a significant sum. What was stopping her? She couldn’t blame William, or their relationship, entirely. It was just so hard to imagine herself doing something else now. What if she no longer had it in her? She had harboured these comforting notions of her own untapped potential but without ever really confronting whether she had any talent at all. It was easier to believe in the theory while it remained untested. Often, adults have to balance a conflict between what they think they are compelled to do as a responsible person and what they desire to do. Why had that never applied to William? The imbalance of power between them was of little concern to him. He never questioned if she was truly happy to keep them afloat with her job while he pursued his flights of fancy, his writing and his endless fascination with the work of the depot. Would it be different if she was with someone like Maxi?

  Perhaps if William had tried but failed, instead of just failing through what she considered an absence of effort, it would have been easier to accept things as they were. She remembered so clearly the day when his charade was exposed; the details were burned on her mind like a photograph kept permanently in her wallet. Sheets of rain collapsed from the skies as she drove her Mini home that day. The drops pounded on the tin roof; the windscreen wipers sploshed water back and forth without increasing her range of visibility at all. It made her nervous, driving through a storm so heavy, the sweltering air that fogged the windows from the condensation spreading, the blinking lights of other cars and traffic lights smearing before her eyes. When she finally splashed to a stop outside their house, she rested her head against the steering wheel in relief and released the tension she had been holding across her shoulders as she drove. Clutching a brown-paper bag of pastries, she doubled over against the onslaught as she dashed to the front door in the downpour. Just two houses away, but the rain soaked through her linen blazer, ran in rivulets down her back and clung to her eyelashes in the time it took her to reach home. The bag was disintegrating in her hands and puddles invaded her court shoes as she ran. She shrieked as she slamme
d the door behind her.

  Wriggling out of her soggy jacket, she kicked off her shoes and wiped a blouse sleeve across her damp forehead as she scuttled through the hallway towards the welcoming fire she anticipated would be glowing in the living room. Shaking off the sudden shock of the storm, Clare became aware of a voice floating from the kitchen. Who on earth was visiting at this time of day? She tuned into the sharp tone of a woman’s cut-crystal accent; it was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘I suppose there’s nothing else to say, but I hope you realize that this embarrassment is not exclusively yours. I have been covering for you for months, and you’ve made a fool out of me. I can’t say this isn’t a huge disappointment.’

  The door yanked open before Clare could reach it. Olivia Longworth, William’s literary agent, froze in surprise to see Clare standing there. She was flushed and agitated, unrecognizable as the elegant lady Clare had met previously, despite the uniform cream wool skirt and cardigan she always seemed to wear. For a moment, it looked as if she was going to speak, but instead she gave a curt nod as she brushed past Clare towards the front door. A curse exploded from her as she stepped out into the torrential rain. In the kitchen, William, pale and sickly-looking under the fluorescent light bulb, sat holding his head at the table.

  ‘William? What’s wrong with Olivia? Has something happened with the book? You look terrible. Tell me what’s going on!’

  Of all the possible explanations she may have expected, the one that he offered floored her.

  ‘There is no book,’ he offered quietly, without raising his head to look at her.

  ‘What are you talking about? Dear God, she hasn’t lost it, has she? I told you to keep making copies. Oh, no – they aren’t pulling out of publishing it, are they? They can’t do that – you have a contract …’