You Then, Me Now

by Nick Alexander

  ‘I wonder what happened to the car?’ Becky asked. ‘I mean, I wonder how they got rid of it.’

  ‘A crane, I think,’ Leif said. ‘I can’t see any other way.’

  ‘Or maybe it just rusted away,’ I said, another shudder rippling through my body as the image of Conor, dead in the car, forced its way into my mind.

  ‘No,’ Leif said. ‘No, the next summer it was gone.’

  We returned to the blocks and sat down in silence.

  Leif pulled his wallet from one of the many pockets in his hiking trousers and produced a tatty colour snapshot. It was a photo of Leif and myself in this exact spot, the one I’d imagined on our joint mantelpiece. In it, we were laughing at the self-timer business and behind us the sun was setting in an extraordinary display of colour.

  ‘My God, you kept it,’ I said.

  ‘I kept them all,’ Leif said. ‘The others are at home. In Norway.’

  ‘You look so young,’ Becky commented reverently. ‘And so happy.’

  I couldn’t speak to reply. My throat had constricted and tears were pushing at my eyeballs. Because I was remembering just how happy I had been that day – how full of promise the world had seemed to me back then. And how a terrible moment in this terrible place had taken it all away.

  Leif put his arm around me at that moment, and I began to cry properly, letting salty tears slide down my face. I think both Becky and Leif must have shed a tear as well.

  ‘I just wish . . .’ I managed to say, when the tears abated. ‘I just wish things had been different. It’s all such a waste.’

  ‘They still can be different,’ Leif said, giving me a squeeze around the shoulders. ‘It’s never too late.’

  A wave of anger rolled over me at the cruel hand fate had dealt us. ‘Only they can’t,’ I said, bitterly. ‘It’s all gone, isn’t it? Becky’s grown up, and you weren’t there. You missed the whole damned thing. And we can’t get that back no matter how hard we try. Conor . . . he stole our future.’

  ‘No,’ Leif said. ‘No, we still have a future.’

  ‘We have a future?’ I repeated dismissively, and Leif looked exactly as you might expect him to in the face of such cruelty. He looked hurt.

  I can’t explain really, why I was so mean to him in that moment, except to say I was feeling angry, not with Leif, but with life. Poor Leif just happened to be the person who was next to me at the time.

  He removed his arm from my shoulders and crossed to a patch of wildflowers. They had a crazy number of bees buzzing around them.

  ‘Don’t pick them,’ Becky said, as he did just that. ‘What about the poor bees?’

  ‘I only take one,’ Leif said, returning to the cliff edge, ‘For Conor. The bees have enough other flowers.’

  Becky followed him to the edge. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise.’

  I stood and joined them. ‘For Conor?’ I asked. ‘Are you having me on?’

  ‘Without Conor,’ Leif said, ‘we would never have met.’

  And in an instant, my whole point of view shifted, and I saw that Leif was right. Because yes, without Conor, I would quite possibly never have visited Santorini. And I would certainly never have met Leif. Even Becky, my beloved daughter, was a direct result of the twists and ricochets that happened because of my time with Conor. That moment, on the cliff – the three of us. Even that couldn’t have existed without Conor.

  ‘Sometimes the worst things make the best things happen,’ Leif said.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Sometimes they do.’

  Leif released the flower, and as it fell towards the sea, he said, ‘To Conor.’

  ‘To Conor,’ I repeated. And then, as one, as a sort of family, I suppose, we turned and began to walk solemnly back towards the main road.

  We were about halfway along the track before anyone spoke. ‘Your flights,’ Leif said. ‘They’re the day after tomorrow, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that. And yours?’

  ‘I don’t have one,’ Leif said.

  ‘You don’t have one?’

  ‘No, I’m retired. So I am thinking I will stay here for a while. I always wanted to see Santorini in winter, you know? To see what it is like.’

  ‘You’re retired?’ I exclaimed. ‘At fifty?’

  ‘It’s the oil business,’ Leif said. ‘It’s very hard. But good money. And I never spend anything, so . . .’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Well, good for you. That must feel wonderful.’

  ‘It could,’ Leif said. ‘It could feel wonderful. If you’ll stay.’

  I glanced in embarrassment back at Becky, but she had paused to take a picture of a butterfly with her phone and was safely out of earshot.

  ‘Do you have to go home so soon?’ Leif asked, taking my hand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘When I come here, I’m always hoping I will see you,’ Leif told me. ‘Every year, I am hoping. And I always have this dream that we will just stay here, together. That we will rent that house you wanted. Or another one, the same. That we will live the life we wanted. Do you think that’s craysee?’

  I smiled, because he had pronounced ‘crazy’ craysee, exactly as he had on this same day, twenty-four years earlier. And that memory linked the Leif I had known back then, the Leif I had been madly in love with, to this gentle, hopeful man standing beside me.

  ‘No,’ I said, speaking with difficulty. ‘No, I don’t think that’s craysee at all.’

  ‘But your life,’ Leif said. ‘You need to get home?’

  ‘No,’ I said, after a moment’s thought. ‘No, not really. Not immediately, anyway. I’m not working at the moment. I just lost my job, actually. I mean, there are bills to pay. I have to go to the job centre and stuff. But, no. There’s no reason why I couldn’t stay for a bit.’

  ‘A while?’ Leif said. ‘Could you stay for a while?’

  ‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘Yes I could.’

  ‘Good,’ Leif said. ‘Because a while is longer than a bit, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, the strangest feeling of déjà vu washing over me. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  When we got back to Oia, Baruch came rushing out to meet Becky. ‘This is your father?’ he asked, and when Becky nodded solemnly, he stroked her arm and asked, ‘You want me to close the shop for an hour? You want to take time and we talk?’

  ‘Yes,’ Becky said, sounding close to tears. ‘Yes, I’d really like that.’

  ‘And us,’ Leif said. ‘Shall we go and get some food? I’m so hungry.’

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed, turning to Becky. ‘I’ll meet you back at our place later, OK? Have a nice time with your beau. But don’t forget what we said.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ she said. ‘My lips are sealed.’ And then she vanished into the shadowed interior of the minimart, closing the door behind her. A hand appeared, to flip the sign over so that it read ‘Closed’.

  I wondered if Becky and Baruch would find a way to carry on their relationship. I hoped so, because I could tell from the way Baruch had understood Becky’s mood, and from the way he had been worried about her, that there was a future in it if they’d just give it the space to blossom. And if fate would only decide to let them make their own way, of course.

  ‘Up here?’ Leif said, taking my hand and leading me gently towards the town centre.

  ‘No,’ I said, pulling back the other way. ‘No, let’s eat at the bottom of the Dreaded Steps.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘At the little port. Where you swam that first time.’

  ‘Oh,’ Leif said. ‘Yes, of course. OK.’

  As we started to walk side by side towards the start of the staircase, I could feel my shoulders relaxing. Some tension I’d been holding for years, for as long as I could remember in fact, was draining away.

  I’d been broken by what had happened – I’d always known it, even as I’d pretended that it wasn’t the case. M
y hopes, my belief in hope, even, had been decimated and I had struggled for the longest time to even continue. Leif had been a brief island of hope in the middle of a vast, terrifying sea, and once he was gone I couldn’t see anywhere on the horizon that I could even head for. I think, had I not had a daughter to look after, I might have ended my own life on more than one occasion.

  But I suddenly felt stronger, as if things were back on track, as if someone had closed the brackets containing the last twenty-four years and the previous sentence had resumed. Could it really be that simple? Had the joyous, hopeful Laura of twenty-four years earlier been simply hiding in a corner, waiting for real life to start again?

  As we passed by room 23, Leif paused. ‘Can we just go in here for a minute?’ he asked.

  ‘To your room?’ I said. ‘Why, do you need something?’

  ‘Yes, I need something,’ Leif confirmed. ‘I need to kiss you.’

  I laughed embarrassedly at this but Leif insisted. ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘It’s OK? It is your birthday, after all. You can’t have a birthday without a kiss.’

  ‘OK,’ I laughed. ‘Why not? But just a kiss. And then we eat because I am way too hungry for anything else.’

  I watched him as he slid his key into the door and felt overcome by an unexpected eruption of happiness. Out of nowhere, everything felt right in the world. Becky had met her father; she perhaps even had a boyfriend. I was in Santorini and the sky and the sea were deepest blue; the sun was shining but thanks to the gentle breeze it wasn’t unbearably hot. There, smiling at me, was Leif. And maybe that meant there was a future, after all. Maybe there was a future for me that didn’t involve the old age of cold, drizzle and loneliness I’d been increasingly imagining, but one of love, laughter and blue skies. I had that same feeling I’d had all those years before, a feeling I’d forgotten up until now, almost certainly because remembering it without being able to recreate it had been unbearable. But here it was again: that sense of belonging was back. Against all odds, I found myself in the right place at the right time with the right person, all over again.

  Leif had opened the door and was bowing theatrically as he gestured towards the interior. ‘Your palace, madam,’ he said, grinning so broadly that his face looked split in two.

  As I stepped into the room – that very same room – I half expected to find Olav there smoking a joint.

  But it was just us. We were alone together, at last.

  EPILOGUE

  BECKY

  We travelled home, as planned, on the fourth of September.

  Changing our flights had turned out to be not only a nightmare, but outrageously expensive, the equivalent in fact of three full return flights at the price we’d originally paid. Plus, Mum needed to sign on almost as soon as we got home, otherwise her benefits would get stopped. But I got to spend two gorgeous nights with Baruch and one full day with my father before we left.

  On the final day, Mum and I joined his group for one of their hillwalks, a gentle amble from Akrotiri to the Red Beach, a route which I’m pretty sure had been downgraded due to our virgin status as hillwalkers. The six of us rode out to Akrotiri on our random collection of scooters, which was fun. Leif’s friends seemed to be really young at heart and kept overtaking each other as we rode.

  It was a sunny day with a hazy blue sky and a gentle breeze blowing, and initially Mum, Leif and I walked together, out front. But I soon got into conversation with a woman in the group and ended up dropping back, while Mum and Leif strode ahead. Her name was Anita, and she asked me all the usual questions – you know, how long we had been there, and what we’d been up to . . .

  Out of the blue, because I was struggling to think about such ordinary things that day, I asked her what he was like.

  ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Oh, you mean Leif? Your father?’

  I pulled a face. ‘That seems weird, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Asking a complete stranger what my father’s like.’

  ‘It would be,’ Anita said. ‘But not in your case. Your case is kind of special, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Yes, I’m a very special case. So, do you know him well, or is he just, like, a walking buddy?’

  Anita laughed again. ‘I’ve known Leif since I was five,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure I can be . . . what’s the word? Neutral?’

  ‘Objective?’ I offered.

  ‘Yes, objective. Sorry, my English isn’t great.’

  ‘Your English is amazing!’ I said. ‘And neutral is fine too.’

  ‘Well, thanks. But no, I’m not sure I can be objective. I think I love Leif more than almost anyone else in my life.’

  I frowned. ‘You’re not . . . ?’ I asked, wiggling a finger to indicate the two of them.

  ‘God, no!’ Anita said. ‘No, I’m gay. I have a wife. She’s in Oslo. But she’s working, so she couldn’t come this year.’

  ‘Oh, cool,’ I said.

  ‘No, I’ve known Leif since I started school. He’s an amazing person.’

  ‘How?’ I asked. ‘How is he amazing?’ I think that deep down I was still hoping to discover a Superman suit hidden beneath his hiking gear.

  ‘He’s just so nice,’ Anita said. ‘That sounds . . . it sounds like nothing, I suppose. But he’s calm and generous. He’s very helpful. He’s the person you can call at midnight, yes? Because your car’s broken or a pipe is burst, or just because your girlfriend’s left you and you need a cup of hot chocolate and a cry. You know, I’ve never seen Leif say he’s too busy to help someone. And I’ve only ever seen him get angry once, and that was against someone who was . . . mistreating? This is right? Yes, mistreating one of his friends. He’s just the best, most reliable friend you could have. You can always count on Leif. Always.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘It must be nice. To have a friend like that.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Anita said. ‘Having a friend like that changes your life. It really does.’

  ‘So he’s nice,’ I said. ‘He’s extra nice.’

  ‘I often think nice is underrated these days,’ Anita said. ‘Do you know what I mean? We value cleverness and intelligence and strength. Money, too. But nice is incredibly special. And it’s not so easy to be this way all the time, you know? Other people are very difficult. It takes a lot of effort to understand them and stay nice despite everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Yes, I definitely know what you mean.’

  ‘So, yes, Leif’s very special to me. I think you’ll really like him. I hope you get the chance to know him better, now.’

  ‘I’ll certainly try,’ I said.

  A man in the group, Jens, joined us, and after a few minutes both he and Anita began chatting in Norwegian, so I sped up until I caught up with Mum and Leif.

  We were walking along a coastal path cut into the rock face. To our left the sea was sparkling in the sunlight like a million tiny jewels. It looked amazing. Mum and Leif were chatting easily, and he was making her laugh quite a lot.

  Thanks to Anita, I began to think about Leif’s niceness. Because it was true that he really did seem to ooze good humour. There was something incredibly open and honest about him that I’d picked up on the first time I’d met him, when I had suspected he’d never lie to me. And I got to wondering if being happy and helpful and nice wasn’t perhaps my father’s superpower. At any rate, it seemed a nice idea to hold about him.

  We picnicked on the Red Beach – it was far less busy than the previous time we’d come, because it was now September, I suppose.

  Mum and Leif splashed around in the shallows like kids. It was the most relaxed, by far, that I had ever seen her, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad as I imagined how different my childhood could have been if they’d only been able to be together.

  On the flight home the next day, Mum began to shut down again. I could sense it happening almost as soon as the plane left the tarmac. And by the time we disembarked at Gatwick, where it was raining, she was the same friendly, efficient, but slightly brittle mo
ther I had known all my life.

  We hadn’t had any kind of conversation about Leif, quite probably because we both felt talked-out about it all, and really a bit emotionally overwrought. But I was beginning to regret not having discussed the future with her while she was in open, relaxed mode. Because I could sense the walls going back up.

  I thought about this all the way home, and then, back in Mum’s flat in Margate, until the early hours of the morning, as the rain drummed on the roof.

  Finally, over breakfast, I decided that one of us was going to have to make an effort to keep the channels of communication open, and that person would have to be me.

  ‘Mum,’ I said. She was sipping her tea. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Do we?’ she asked. ‘What about?’

  ‘About Leif,’ I said. ‘About Leif and you, and what happens next.’

  ‘OK, honey,’ she said in her fake, upbeat voice. ‘What do you want to say to me?’

  There was something so false about her – it was as if she was a bad actress in a play. And yet this version of her was entirely familiar to me, and I realised that for much of my childhood she’d essentially been acting. She’d been playing a role – the role of a woman who, despite having lost the love of her life, despite having abandoned all hope, was holding it all together.

  ‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Come back to me.’ She looked puzzled, so I insisted. ‘This isn’t you, Mum. This is fake.’

  She worked her mouth for a moment, then the confused expression faded. I could see she knew what I was talking about. Her eyes started to water and she formed a fist with one hand and raised it to her mouth. She stopped looking at me and her glistening eyes roved the ceiling and the corners of the room.

  ‘You love him,’ I said. ‘He loves you. So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, still avoiding eye contact. ‘I don’t know what to do.’