“Agoraphobia. You’re agoraphobic, Mum.”
Before Ellen could react, Sabine walked into the kitchen, dumping her bag on the table, her face set in an uncompromising frown.
“Ellen, I’m sorry, but I think Hannah is in trouble.”
It took Ellen a second to register what Sabine was saying, because she was still reeling from Charlie’s bombshell. This was why he was so angry with her and so distant. He’d got it into his head that she had agoraphobia?
“What’s wrong with Aunt Hannah?” Charlie asked Sabine before Ellen could.
“I went to see her today, to ask her to lunch—she hadn’t answered her extension or email—and when I got to her floor she wasn’t in her office, so I asked her assistant to leave her a message. He told me Hannah had left, that she had been summarily dismissed over a week ago. For that to happen, without a verbal or written warning, means that she must have done something… bad.”
Ellen sat down with a bump, struggling to process all the words that had been hurled in her face. First Charlie and now this… She looked at Sabine.
“What—wait a minute. You’re telling me that Hannah’s lost her job, that when she took Charlie out yesterday she’d already lost it—but why? Why wouldn’t she have told us, and what could she have done that was so bad that she didn’t even get a warning?”
Sabine shrugged, holding her fingers under the cold tap and then patting her face and neck. “The assistant wouldn’t say, but I asked around. There are rumors. They say she’d lost her focus, made some bad decisions that cost a lot of money and…” Sabine glanced at Charlie.
“What?” Ellen asked.
“They say she was… turning up at work under the influence.”
Ellen stared at her hands, which were pressed flat against the tabletop so firmly that the tips of her fingernails blanched white.
“Under the influence of alcohol?” Charlie questioned.
Sabine looked uncomfortable but didn’t reply.
“What do you mean?” Ellen asked.
“I heard… I heard she’d been caught drinking on the job, but like I say, they are only rumors. I don’t know anything for sure.”
Ellen and Charlie looked at each other, each equally disbelieving. Hannah liked to party, and she enjoyed a drink. And Ellen wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t imagine her sister had taken part in some of the other excesses that were prevalent in the city. But it was incomprehensible to her that Hannah would have let things get so bad that she was drinking during work. Her career, her professional reputation, the way she looked—all these things were paramount to her. Ellen could not imagine what could have happened to change that.
“That can’t be right, that doesn’t sound like Hannah at all. Her work has always meant everything to her. Something really bad, really big must have happened to make her throw that away.” Ellen thought of her sister’s ever-increasing visits over the last few months, her sudden, uncharacteristic desire to be around. Ellen had been so caught up in her own emotional maelstrom that she hadn’t stopped to think that Hannah might have problems of her own. “No, she would have told me if something really bad had happened.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Charlie said. “She knows you hate her.”
“Rubbish! We fight and fall out and she drives me mad, but we’re sisters. Hannah knows that I’d always be there for her. I mean, she’s the strong one, she’s the tough and together one.”
Sabine shook her head. “All I can tell you for sure are the facts. She doesn’t work for the bank anymore, that’s all I know. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I didn’t know what to do about it.”
“I’ll call her,” Ellen said, fetching the telephone from the hall.
But when Ellen called Hannah’s flat there was no answer, and her mobile went straight to voice mail.
“Perhaps it’s because she knows it’s you. I’ll try her,” Charlie said, fishing his mobile out of his pocket and dialing his aunt. Again, Hannah didn’t pick up.
“Maybe Gran and Grandpa have spoken to her?” Charlie looked disappointed that his aunt appeared not to want to speak to him, either. “Call them, Mum—see what they know.”
Ellen shook her head. “No, I’d better not ring, not until I know something. I don’t want to worry them, not with Mum’s blood pressure, and Dad’ll just worry. He’ll just want to come up here and look for her like he did that summer she ran off with that busker. No, Hannah is still Hannah; she’s still a grown-up. I mean we only saw her yesterday and she was a bit off—but she was okay. We’ll wait, she’ll turn up or call. If she doesn’t, it’ll be the first day in months that I haven’t heard from her in one way or another.”
“But what if she’s in trouble, what if she can’t call or come round? We could go round to her place.” Charlie suggested. “It’s only a couple of tube stops to Ladbroke Grove.”
“She’s not there, Charlie, she’s not answering the phone,” Ellen said edgily, irritated that her son was picking this moment to illustrate his preposterous point.
“That doesn’t mean she’s not there,” he insisted. “She might be lying on the floor choking on her own vomit or something. She might be dying and really, really need rescuing.” As he spoke, he eyes filled with unshed tears. Ellen pulled him to her and put an arm around him. “I don’t want Aunt Hannah to die.”
“Charlie, Hannah’s better at looking after herself than anyone I know,” Ellen told him.
“So was Dad,” Charlie said quietly. “Can’t we just go and check?”
“Charlie,” Sabine said softly and calmly. “I’m afraid I’ve panicked you. I’m sure that your aunt is fine. After all, it’s been a week since she lost her job; you saw her just yesterday and she seemed okay, didn’t she? There is no reason why she wouldn’t be just as okay today.”
“Yes, I suppose…” Charlie sniffed, brushing the back of his hand across his eyes. “If anything, she seemed even happier than normal, really cheerful, full of energy. I didn’t say anything because… well, because I know you were cross, but she was talking about taking me on holiday to New York or somewhere,” Charlie said.
Sabine and Ellen exchanged a look.
“Then she is probably fine, maybe even happy about what’s happened. I expect she wants time alone to work out whatever is going on. She will tell you and your mum everything when she is ready. Your mum is right to want to wait.”
Charlie looked at his mother. “But if she rang you now and asked you to go round, you would?”
“Of course I would, Charlie,” Ellen told him levelly. “Look, I’ll try calling again in a little while. In the meantime, let’s get dinner on and get your tea sorted and try not to worry, okay? You go and play with your DS for a bit and I’ll call you when things are sorted.” Charlie looked to Sabine, who nodded—he seemed to need her extra affirmation—and then he picked up his school bag and slouched out of the room.
“How serious were these rumors?” Ellen asked her as soon as she heard Charlie’s footsteps on the stairs.
“There was talk of some CCTV footage showing her drinking from a bottle of whiskey at a reception after hours. But I don’t know, Ellen, it could just be gossip. It’s a big office, a lot of people are very jealous of Hannah, they’d like nothing more than for her to have left in disgrace. Keep trying to call her. That’s all you can do.”
“Perhaps Charlie is right, perhaps I should go round there.” Ellen pictured the street outside her front door, the yawning expanse of road that stretched to the tube station, with another four roads and an underpass to negotiate on top of that. Ellen didn’t want to go, that was true. She didn’t want to tackle the heat and noise and the throng of people who would be crowding the hot and stinking tube trains. She did prefer to stay at home, she did enjoy the quiet tranquillity of her house, and yes, the world that revolved around her here was enough for her. It always had been. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t go to Hannah if Hannah needed her. That didn’t mean she couldn’t go, if sh
e had to.
God only knew where Charlie had got this idea that she was agoraphobic.
“Ellen, forgive me, I don’t know you or Hannah very well. But I do know sisters, I have a big sister myself, and there is nothing I hate more than her seeking me out to tell me how wrong I am and how right she is—you should have seen her crowing over what happened between Eric and me.” Sabine went to the fridge and took two bottles of beer from her shelf. “If you want to be friends with Hannah, then it is best to wait for her to come to you. After all, if she wanted your advice now, she would have told you everything already, and she hasn’t. Beer?”
Ellen nodded, and Sabine slid a bottle over to her. She hoped that a drink would quell the niggling feeling of discomfort that wormed its way into her gut and the underlying sensation that something was very wrong with Hannah. That’s just the way I’m built now, Ellen told herself, pressing her hand against the fold of her belly as if she could physically quiet her concern. Anything, anything at all, that nudged her out of her daily routine set her heart racing as if she were balancing on a high wire. Something worse, something like Charlie arriving home late or Simon threatening to take her to lunch, made it pound and twitch, missing beats with reckless abandon, and for a fraction of a fearful second she felt nothing but a hollow, lifeless sensation in her chest until it thundered on, leaving her breathless and afraid. But that was her weakness, her legacy of losing her husband, not some prescient supernatural power. It couldn’t be, because she hadn’t sensed a single dark thing about the day that Nick had been killed. She’d been in the front garden, picking the dead heads off the roses, when the police car pulled up. There hadn’t been a moment of discomfort or distress even then, even when they had walked up the garden path, not quite able to look her in the eye. Not until she’d sat down on the sofa in the front room and looked in the policewoman’s eyes had the truth hit her like a sledgehammer. She’d felt short of breath, winded ever since.
“May I ask why things are so difficult between you and Hannah?” Sabine asked carefully, peeling the label off the beer bottle with her thumbnail.
“Half the time I don’t even know, Sabine. When she was little we were so close. I would have done anything for her, and then… the older we got, the more different we became. I always felt as if she didn’t want me to be good at anything, to have anything that was mine. Everything I did, she was always there doing it better; everyone I liked, liked her more; everyone I loved, loved her more. Mum and Dad always saw her as their sunshine girl—‘Sunshine’ is their name for her. They didn’t mean to play favorites, or treat me differently, it was just that Hannah is like… she’s like a single star in a dark night—you can’t help but look at her. Since she was a teenager I’ve felt like I was living in her shadow. That was, until Nick. Nick loved me, he wanted me—he was the only person who wasn’t seduced by Hannah, and I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. When I had Nick I finally had my life. And then Nick died, and now after years of barely ever seeing each other Hannah is here all the time, interfering, trying to take over. And I know I should be grateful that she cares and that she is trying, but you know what? I feel like she’s doing it again. She’s hijacking my grief.” Ellen paused, caught off guard by her outpouring; all the feelings that had been building in her over the last few weeks had flooded out of her.
“None of that makes me sound like a very good person, does it,” Ellen said as Sabine watched her.
“It just makes you sound like a person.” Sabine shrugged. “Do you wonder, though, if maybe the way you see things isn’t the way they are?”
Ellen frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean look at it another way and everything you’ve just told me could describe a younger sister who is in awe of her big sister. Who looks up to her and wants to be like her, who tries to emulate her, who wants the people her sister loves to love her. Maybe a woman who sees what a wonderful mother you are and what an amazing family you have and who looks at her own life and finds it wanting. A sister who understands how hard it is to lose something that she herself has never known and is trying in her own way to help you. You said you and Hannah used to be close—I don’t know what’s going on with Hannah now, but I do know if you want it, you could be that close again.”
Ellen pressed her hot cheek against the cool glass beer bottle. She felt as if she were almost, but not quite, on the verge of working out a riddle.
“I don’t know, Sabine,” Ellen said. “I don’t—she just… she drives me crazy. There’s something, something between us that she’s thinking and not saying, and whatever it is, just having her standing in the same room makes me… well, quite frankly it makes me want to slap her, so there.” Ellen sat up in her chair and lifted her chin with an air of defiance.
“Oh well, that’s just sisters all over the world.” Sabine appeared not to be shocked by Ellen’s latent violent tendencies. “If we are not tearing each other’s hair out or scratching out eyes, then there is something wrong.”
Ellen smiled. It had been years since she’d had any women around to talk to, and now she had two, three of them if you counted Hannah. Allegra’s fascination with her had forced her to really think about herself, not only her thoughts and feelings but her physicality, from the tips of her fingers to the ends of her hair. And Sabine—Sabine reminded her of that wonderful gift of female friendship that she had let slip away when she married Nick, believing that if she had him, she didn’t need anything else. But the truth was you never laughed so much, cried so hard, or talked so deeply as you did with your girlfriends.
“So, my husband received my list,” Sabine said, leaning back in her chair and running her fingers through her heavy blond curls.
“And?” Ellen asked, touched that Sabine chose to confide in her. “What did he make of it?”
“He thought it was a little long. He said if he’d known that we were going to nitpick over every little thing, then he could have made my list much longer. He could have included things like I let my bikini line grow out or that I stopped putting makeup on for him, which isn’t true. I just don’t like to slap it on like a prostitute, that’s all.”
“So, what did you decide?” Ellen asked, sipping her beer and wishing she’d added some for herself on her supermarket delivery.
“I told him to go to her,” Sabine said.
“To the woman he’s been writing to?” Ellen gasped.
“I have to, Ellen. I thought about it and I realize I have no choice. After all, as Sting says, if you love someone, let them go. I’ve told him to go and see her, to see if he can be with her. How can I be happy living with a man I know is always dreaming of someone else? I can’t, so I told him to go to her.”
“And what did he say? Is he going?”
“Yes.” Sabine nodded bleakly. “He is going to take leave next week and go and see her in Austria. She is Austrian, Ellen,” Sabine added, as if that added insult to injury.
“And that’s it, your marriage is over?” Ellen asked.
“Not quite.” Sabine glanced at her watch. “We have an appointment for a Skype chat in a little while. To talk about my decision.”
“So he’s not rushing off to be with this woman then, even though you told him to go?” Ellen asked, as curious as she was shocked. “He still wants to talk? That’s a good sign.”
“Is it?” Sabine sighed. “Or is he just absolving himself? After all, if I’ve told him to go, given him my blessing, then he has no reason to feel guilty, does he?”
“Goodness,” Ellen said. “Are you sure you want to give him that freedom?”
“Not really.” Sabine sighed again. “But what other choice is there? If I force him to stay, I will always be wondering if he would rather be somewhere else.”
“And you wouldn’t think of, oh, I don’t know, finding someone here to have a revenge fling with, or something?”
Sabine looked appalled at the idea. “Englishmen leave me very cold,” she said, adding as an aftertho
ught, “Well, Matt is very sexy, and you can tell by looking at him that he knows his way around a woman’s body.”
“Do you think so?” Ellen leaned a little toward Sabine, realizing that the third of a bottle of wine she had drunk earlier at lunch combined with the strong German beer had made her a little tipsy, almost tipsy enough to numb her body’s physical tic. “Do you think he’d be a passionate lover?”
“Do you?” Sabine asked, amused.
Ellen leaned her chin into the heel of her hand but missed her mark, so that her head slipped and her neck jarred. “Allegra thinks I should take him as my lover, as if I could just sort of lift him off the supermarket shelf and get him to satisfy my every whim. Stud on a stick sort of thing.”
Sabine spluttered beer as she laughed. “Allegra is probably right—Matt would go to bed with you. I’m sure you wouldn’t have to go to much effort if that was what you wanted. But don’t think it would be love, Ellen, or anything like it. For him it would be a sexual experience and nothing more. Don’t go down that road unless you are prepared to accept that.”
“Oh, God, I’m not going to go down that road at all.” Ellen laughed. “Going down roads is the last thing I want to do, at least according to my son! No, I’m a widow and a mother. I’m thirty-eight, boring, and old. Besides, I have a lot more things to worry about. A sister who’s lost her job and a son who thinks I’m agoraphobic, can you imagine?”
“Agoraphobic?” Sabine repeated the word as a question. “Interesting.”
“Yes—you know, someone who is afraid of going outside. He’s got it into his head that that’s me. That I’m scared to set foot outside my own front door. Just because I’m a homebody, and I don’t like people or crowds or a lot of noise. But that’s just me, I’m quiet, and shy. I am a very quiet and shy person, Sabine. I am not at all the sort of person to be having emotion-free sex with a much younger man.”
“Really? Are you sure?” Sabine looked in turn amused and then thoughtful. “Actually, Ellen, I have lived here nearly a month now and I hope you don’t mind me saying that I don’t think I have seen you go out once, not even into the garden.”
The Home for Broken Hearts Page 21
