by Alyson Rudd
Bob held up his hand.
‘I know why this is terrible for her. That’s the problem. It’s terrible for her, and for Andrea, who doesn’t want a baby and can’t let her parents know she wants an abortion and it’s terrible for me because I can’t let another child die.’
His voice began to crack and squeak.
‘And I can’t even do the right wrong thing and stick with Andrea because she’s the same age as Lauren and that’s really… so not right, so I’ll stay with Rachel and it will be nasty and hurtful and no one can be happy.’
Suki patted his hand and took a deep breath. She had lain in bed the night before thinking of the right words but now she was simply concerned that her brother was capable of listening properly.
‘Look, Bobby, it is crap, I’m not going to pretend it isn’t, but there is a way through, there has to be. There always is, you know, in the end. Because there are people who love you even when they think they don’t. Even when you think they don’t. And you need to talk to them, face their pain. Maybe you don’t know Andrea as well as you think you do?’
She had so much more to say. She had thought about little else. Her baby brother, who had been such an ordinary chap, was in the middle of an almighty crisis. Another almighty crisis. And she wanted to help; she wanted to help because Bob and his wife were her new life and she had never been so happy. She loved them and needed them. But Bob could not hear anymore, he had to move, be active, face the day.
‘We’ll talk properly later,’ he said. ‘I have to go.’
It was a soft, feathery sort of day with wispy clouds and a silent faraway tide. A group of bedraggled men sat with cans of beer, a couple in matching boots walked a German shepherd. Andrea was leaning against a dune, rubbing Walter’s chest.
Bob sat next to her.
‘I’m so sorry about all of this.’
She said nothing so they sat in silence until she muttered, ‘I can’t do up the button on my jeans.’
He took a deep breath.
‘I stayed with my sister last night and she said we should talk properly about what you really want. Are you sure, really sure, you want an abortion? Some women can do it and cope fine, just fine, and some struggle, I think.’
He stopped and groaned a little.
‘Shit, that sounded dreadful,’ he said.
‘I’m not exactly looking forward to it,’ Andrea said. ‘If I’m honest I could have done it easily enough the day I found out but as each day has passed, I’ve dreaded it more and more. Not sure why, really. Maybe I’m more of a Catholic girl than I knew.’
He held her cheek, tentatively, in his hand.
‘I’ve sort of realised it’s a baby. My baby,’ Andrea said. ‘But I don’t want a baby. Tricky, huh?’
He held his breath, the soft light gave her a halo, he could feel something important was about to happen.
Andrea unzipped her coat pocket and pulled out a piece of ruled paper.
‘I have some questions,’ she said, sounding very young and insecure. It made him feel like a bully.
She swallowed, licked her lips, tasted the salt on them, cleared some gunk from the corner of her eye.
‘Do you love your wife?’
‘Yes. I know that now. I don’t think I truly did before.’
‘Will she forgive you?’
‘I hope so but I can’t be sure.’
‘How long will you keep trying to make your marriage work?’
‘I don’t know. I’d like to think a long time.’
‘If Rachel got pregnant, would you keep it?’
‘Of course we would.’
Andrea stood up.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you here same time next week.’
Bob stood too, confused but intuitive enough not to pester her about what her questions meant.
Vera
She did not attend the funeral service but laid flowers on Karen’s grave and wondered if it was deliberate that Karen had asked to be buried in a different churchyard to where Lauren lay.
Karen’s will was simple. Everything was left to her husband and children apart from a savings account she had set up in Hope’s name along with a brooch that was encrusted with old but real diamonds.
‘You don’t have to wear the brooch,’ Vera said. ‘Just keep it somewhere safe.’
Hope was briefly envied by her classmates who all daydreamed of distant relatives leaving them castles or horses or a private beach as detailed on a scroll of yellowing paper tied up with a black velvet ribbon.
‘She was my godmother,’ Hope told them, and those unaware of who their own godparents might be pestered their parents for details.
Vera became quiet and contained. Bob and Hope gave her space. They were used to her withdrawing gently into herself from time to time and she would only spend a couple of days at most in her own sadness.
Bob assumed, correctly, the visit to and death of Karen was the trigger and that his wife was thinking about the terror of their journey to Cornwall that day but Vera was also pondering Karen’s question. What was it that Lauren used to see?
She made the beds with vigour to stop herself kicking the doors. How was it that she had never asked Lauren what she saw when she would stoop or stretch in that odd way of hers?
I was waiting until she was older, Vera thought bitterly. But she never became older.
That night she lay next to Bob, her mind racing, the notion swirling that Lauren had known she would die, that she had second sight. It did not bring her any comfort. She climbed out of bed and went into the room next door where there was an overflow wardrobe full of clothes she and Bob rarely wore. She pulled out the long crêpe dress with its silvery woven ribbons. It was such a beautiful dress but she had worn it only for Hope’s christening. What a waste.
‘You look nice in a silvery silky dress, Mummy,’ Lauren had once said. It had spooked Vera at the time but when Lauren died all her words became precious. Vera felt the lump of grief she carried in the pit of her stomach at all times swell dramatically. And with it a bubble of guilt that she had not spoken properly to Lauren about the strange things she’d said. Lauren had been so certain about the dress, so happy, so proud. Vera slumped to the thickly carpeted floor wondering if Lauren had been delivering a message. That it would be OK for her to look pretty even after Lauren was gone. Vera carried the dress to her main wardrobe and hung it on the outside of the door. She would wear it again soon, and again and again.
The next morning was Valentine’s Day. Bob had left the house quietly and there was a box of chocolates on the kitchen table with a tiny card that said, ‘I love Vera.’
She smiled. Bob was busy. It was lovely of him to remember. Lauren had, up until the age of ten, always made her parents Valentine’s cards. Big bold red hearts, pink hearts made of carefully scrumpled tissue paper, heart-shaped trees and heart-shaped doors.
She walked into the garden. The morning mist had not lifted and as she looked at the glistening sleeve of her rib-knit jumper she wondered if the house was surrounded by something more akin to freezing fog. It was so cold it wasn’t cold.
A bell sounded.
‘Gracious, Jack,’ she said. ‘It can’t be safe for you to cycle in this.’
‘Probably not, Mrs Pailing, but it was supposed to have lifted by now.’
‘Well, I insist you come into the kitchen for a warm drink while it does lift,’ Vera said.
‘That’s very kind of you and I won’t say no,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve no Valentines for you among the post, though,’ he chuckled.
‘I would hope not,’ Vera said and she wondered if Lauren had made a Valentine for Simon, if she really had developed a crush on him as Karen had said.
‘Have you lots of Valentines in your post today?’ she asked.
‘Not as many as you might think,’ he said. ‘It’s more of a hand-delivery thing, I suspect.’
Jack spotted the chocolates on the table and felt a pang of envy which took him by s
urprise and caused a deep crimson circle to appear on each of his cheeks.
‘It’s cocoa weather, isn’t it?’ Vera said. ‘Would you like a warm milky cocoa?’
His cheeks coloured more deeply and he pictured, involuntarily, the two of them sat at the table, their hands touching.
He paused and so Vera nodded towards the window.
‘Non-negotiable,’ she said.
They did not sit at the table after all but stood looking out at the lack of a view.
‘Miserable weather but interesting weather,’ Vera said. ‘I like that about Britain. It could be mild and sunny by the weekend.’
Jack was tongue-tied. He was smitten and because it had hit him so suddenly he was unprepared and a little frightened.
‘Do you have children, Jack?’ she asked dreamily.
‘Er, no, I’m not married, Mrs Pailing,’ he said.
Vera stared down at her mug of cocoa and wondered, not for the first time, whether it was better to have known Lauren, loved her so much and lost her than to have never known her at all. Was Jack happier for a lack of the love of a child? If she was to find out today that Hope had died would she prefer never to have had her?
‘I’m pondering big questions, Jack,’ she said suddenly. ‘Or meaningless ones, depending on your point of view.’
Jack was out of his depth, keen to escape, keen to stay for ever.
‘I think it’s lifting,’ he lied. ‘Better be on my way. Letters don’t deliver themselves.’
‘Please cycle carefully,’ Vera said. ‘I doubt any letter has ever existed that is worth risking your life for.’
Jack felt a rush of indignation and embarrassment that his career was being belittled and then a surge of gratitude that Vera cared for his safety.
She stood at the door and watched him cycle away, waiting, amused, for a parting tinkle of his bell. He had, if not quite cheered her up, broken her moroseness, and when Bob came home it was to find she had baked him and Hope heart-shaped gingerbread.
Lauren
For Tim, his wife’s keeping of her name was in the same box of mean tricks as the wedding in Cheshire. It was mean in that he had no riposte. Of course, as an only child she had to stay as Lauren Pailing. Of course, he said, but it made no sense at all to Tim. It may be the nineties, but he would have loved to make her Mrs Lewis. The taking of his name would have been the start of a new unit, a proclamation that they were a team.
‘What will our kids be called?’ he wailed.
He was especially disappointed because of the alliteration. It had all been part of the sense of fate he had when it came to his new wife. If they were to marry, he had thought, after their first date, she would be Lauren Lewis, which suited her much better anyway.
It meant that at work he called her Lauren and at home he called her Mrs Lewis. Far from exasperating her, Lauren was tickled by the inversion.
‘I do daydream sometimes of us starting our own firm,’ she said. ‘Pailing Lewis sounds good, doesn’t it?’
He had to agree that it did.
Gregory married Lydia and Lydia, as a not-very-famous-writer, kept her name too. Marriage made no difference, she still sniped at the end of every evening and both Tim and Lauren were relieved when they abruptly moved out of London to Kent which gave Gregory a long commute and the opportunity for post-work dinners diminished.
* * *
One late summer’s day in 1994 Lauren was told there was a man in reception who wanted to see her. ‘Something to do with the Peter Stanning display,’ the receptionist said.
Lauren expected, although she had no idea why, to see a policeman. Instead there stood a tall, intelligent-looking man.
‘I’m Peter’s son. George,’ he said, and she flushed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t have done this without your permission, should we? I’ve only just thought of that. I’m really sorry.’
George smiled.
‘No, no, I was, literally, just walking past on the way back from a meeting and something made me look through your window. It’s good to know Dad is still being thought about, really.’
Lauren looked at her watch and then at George’s expensive suit.
‘I don’t suppose you have time to stay for a coffee, do you?’
‘No but yes,’ he laughed.
She asked Bella on the desk to find someone to bring them takeaway cappuccinos from the new coffee shop next door. Bella, who had been at Pilot for three weeks, and dreamed of being so efficient she became indispensable, sprinted from her desk, shouted through the coffee-shop door she needed an urgent delivery and sprinted back again before the phone had rung four times.
Lauren and George both glanced quizzically at her then turned their attention to the art project that had so captured Gregory’s imagination that it was almost part of Pilot’s logo.
‘I was really young when I started it, and I wouldn’t have carried on, but my college tutor was insistent and we thought it would be good to support a new charity – especially as lots of people come to London and then their families lose touch with them.’
‘Yes,’ George said. ‘It is a lot more common in London than in Cheshire.’ He squinted closely at some watercolours, which were framed by tiny bicycle wheels.
‘Did you ever meet my mother?’ he said. ‘Because in that one, you’ve captured a likeness of when she was much younger.’
‘Oh,’ Lauren said. ‘I suppose I must have seen a photograph.’
George continued to gaze, his brow furrowed.
‘Can I ask,’ she said, ‘is there any news on your dad?’
George shook his head.
‘You and I met once when I was about seventeen,’ she said. ‘But not properly.’
‘Probably we did,’ George said distractedly.
‘Is anyone still looking?’ she said.
At this George looked stunned. Lauren wondered if she had been rude but she knew if her father had vanished she would never stop trying to find him. Wouldn’t she? When would she give up?
‘I call the local police every six months and…’ George frowned. ‘And I call, but I don’t demand anything. He’s gone.’
‘At the risk of being cheeky, I have heard from my dad that you are madly successful, which means you must have money – so couldn’t you pay for someone to help? Do things the police can’t do or won’t do?’
‘Pay who?’ George said looking flustered and wondering how this woman had taken ownership of his father’s fate, used his disappearance to fuel her artwork, to inspire the hunt for others who go missing.
‘A private detective, or someone who specialises in missing persons? I don’t know for sure, but there must be an agency that can do things the police can’t.’
George stared at the cartoon strip depicting the shock on the faces of his father’s colleagues and he felt the floor in front of him fall away. Instinctively Lauren guided him to the chairs in the furthest corner.
‘I’m sorry to be so blunt,’ she said, ‘but I have this sense that if your father was searched for in a… different way, you would find him.’
George did not seem to hear her.
‘We haven’t buried him,’ he said, ‘it’s weird, but one day I just stopped needing to find him alive. I want to say goodbye to him, that’s all.’
Lauren had more she wanted to say but she stopped herself. It was his father. Peter Stanning was a concept to her, to George he was love, loss and unhappiness. It was none of her business what he did next.
‘Right,’ George said, ‘I need to get to my next appointment.’ He stood up. ‘People have always been shy about speculating in front of us. Even Mum has never suggested what might have happened. What do you think? You must have thought about it when you painted him.’
‘Well, my dad, Bob, you know Bob very well, of course. Well, he said years ago that there would have been an accident, maybe a hit and run, or a sudden illness, and he just ended up where he was not to be found easily. Dad was
certain Peter would not have done something reckless or vanished on purpose.’
George nodded. ‘I agree, of course, but when you don’t know for sure you can imagine all sorts of things. It was tiring. It still can be.’
He wanted to add that he sometimes so earnestly wished that his dad would walk into the office and all that had happened was that he had lost his memory. Instead he shook her hand and shouted thank you to Bella, who was already hoping he would be a regular visitor and take her to lunch one day and, now he had bothered to remember her name, had developed a full-blown crush.
The following week a billowing bouquet arrived for Lauren with a note:
‘I forgot to say I was moved by your display about Dad, thank you, G.’
Lauren was pleased and relieved and then pondered how flowers were in effect a full stop. To phone him to thank him for them would be odd, a never-ending stream of gratitude. Thank you for saying thank you. So she hoped, simply, their paths would cross again and she fervently hoped, too, he would be proactive about the missing Peter Stanning. On a level that was hardly helpful to anyone, she sensed there was more that was knowable about his disappearance. She peered at the watercolours and the bicycle motif which seemed to be both mocking and encouraging her stance that there was more to come.
Bob
He had an appointment to visit his wife and his dog at his home. The black bricks loomed over him. Should he knock or use his key? He knocked.
Rachel opened the door with an impassive expression. She wore no make-up that he could tell and looked younger and more vulnerable.
He followed her into the kitchen where she pulled two mugs from the cupboard and gestured towards the teabags.
‘Yes, please,’ he said, instantly convinced he sounded effeminate.
They moved into the living room, where she curled up on the sofa. He sat opposite her, his stomach cramping with nerves.
She narrowed her eyes as he ran his fingers through his hair. She had assumed she would be disgusted by him but she still found him attractive.
‘I’m sure you’ve got some speech rehearsed,’ she said, ‘but let’s get to the point.’