The Versions of Us

by Laura Barnett

  Sitting down, he says, ‘Lovely to meet you.’ He settles himself on his chair, smoothes out a crease in his jacket. ‘I know of you, of course. I mean, I did before I met Anton. My wife read every single one of your books.’

  He flinches, a little, at ‘wife’, and so, to spare his embarrassment, Eva says quickly, ‘How kind of you to say so. And did you read any of them yourself? Men are allowed to, you know.’

  Carl looks at her, judging her tone. He gives a short, dry laugh. ‘Is that so? I wish I’d known. I hid Pressed under a copy of Playboy while I was reading it. In case anybody saw.’

  It is Eva’s turn to laugh now. She can feel Jennifer, always finely attuned to the nuances of her mother’s moods, watching them from the other side of the table. ‘Well, now you know, you can reread it in public as often as you like.’

  Between the starter and the main dish, Eva learns that Carl Friedlander was born and raised in Whitechapel, to German (he doesn’t need to say Jewish) parents. That he joined the merchant navy in 1956, and remained there for thirty years, until he left to run his own shipbroking firm. That when Anton’s company took over that firm two years ago, he’d thought he would retire, but Anton had twisted his arm to stay on. That he adores Wagner, despite knowing that he probably shouldn’t. That his granddaughter’s name is Holly, and she is the brightest, most precious thing in his life. And that he is profoundly, inexpressibly lonely.

  This last, of course, is perceptible only to someone who can read the signs, who knows what it is to reach the latter portion of one’s life (morbid to think that way, but there it is) and find oneself suddenly, unexpectedly alone. Eva knows it is absurd, really, that this should come as such a shock: we are alone when we enter the world, and alone when we leave it. But marriage – a good marriage, at any rate – obscures that basic truth. And Eva’s marriage to Jim had been good: she can see that now, at a distance of more than ten years from its unceremonious finale.

  In the months after Jim left, Eva had experienced what she might now grudgingly call a breakdown, though the term feels imprecise. It was less a breaking down than a cleaving in two: she’d had the surreal sense that the route of her life had bifurcated, and she had found herself stuck on the wrong path, with no means of tracing her way back. Easy to think of Dante – and she had, of the via smarrita, the right road lost. She had been unable to work (her publisher had been forced to put out her survey of women writers without a single interview); quite unable to function at all. It had taken the combined efforts of Penelope, Anton, Thea and an expensive psychotherapist to shake Eva out of it: to remind her that there were things to be done, decisions to be made. That, and her overriding need to be present for her children; not to mention her determination not to allow Jim to see that she was failing without him.

  Eva would, she had decided, spare herself that last indignity. So she had roused herself, put the pink house they had loved so much on the market; bought a smaller place in Wimbledon, near the common, with a spare bedroom for Daniel, who was just off to university in York. She had even sent a card, when required, to Jim and Bella, to mark the birth of their baby daughter, Robyn.

  For a year or so, Jim had kept his distance. Jennifer had even withdrawn his invitation to her wedding. But then, gradually, he had reappeared in their lives: at Daniel’s graduation (Bella was at home with Robyn), Jim had taken Eva’s hand during the ceremony, leaned over and whispered in her ear, ‘Thank you, Eva. Thank you for not making it any harder than it had to be.’

  She had felt a rush of anger then, so powerful she’d wanted to shout out loud. You walked into my life when I was nineteen years old. You were the only man I ever loved – the only man I ever hope to love. You took everything we did together, everything we were to each other, and scorched it to nothing: left it a cloud of ash. But she had said none of this. She had simply squeezed Jim’s hand, and then let it go.

  When the main course has been cleared, Thea gets to her feet, and silence falls across the room. She proposes a toast to Anton, and there is the high glockenspiel ring of glasses, a ragged chorus of cheers. Then Thea looks over at Eva. She stands in her turn, and all thoughts of Jim, of loneliness, of this stranger seated next to her – a fellow traveller on the wrong road – fall from her mind as she speaks of her brother: the boy, the man, the father, the son. And of their parents, much missed.

  ‘Great job,’ Carl says when Eva sits back down; as she spoke, his eyes never left her face.

  Later, when the meal is over, the round tables have been cleared from the ballroom, and everyone is a little drunk, Carl will ask Eva to dance. He will hold her a little self-consciously at first, and then closer, moving fluidly, elegantly, in a way that Eva will find entirely unexpected.

  Afterwards, she will break away, aware of the curious eyes of her son and daughter, her niece; and Carl will nod, disappear back into the crowd. She will feel his absence then, will scan the upper deck for a glimpse of him, even as she pretends she isn’t looking. As the party draws to a close – the guests spilling unsteadily back onto the embankment; the boat’s lights spreading washes of colour across the night-black surface of the water – Carl will come to say goodbye, will tell her that he would very much like to see her again.

  Then, Eva will find herself saying, Yes. Please. I’d like that too.

  VERSION TWO

  Detour

  Cornwall, July 2001

  Early on the morning of Anton’s sixtieth birthday, as Jim is packing his overnight case for his trip to London, he receives a phone call from his son.

  For a few moments after hanging up, Jim sits in silence, a slow smile creeping across his face. Then he dials his cousin Toby’s number.

  ‘So sorry,’ he says. ‘The baby’s come. Yes, a fortnight early. You’ll send my apologies to Anton and Thea, won’t you? Have a good time.’

  At the station, he attempts to exchange his train ticket to London for one to Edinburgh, but the clerk purses her lips. ‘That’s an advance return, sir. Non-refundable, non-exchangeable. You’ll need to buy a new ticket. And there’s only the sleeper from Penzance now.’

  ‘Fine.’ In his excitement, Jim forgets to be irritated. ‘Just book me a return from London to Edinburgh, then, please. First class. I need to get there today. My son and daughter-in-law have just had a baby. Their first.’

  The clerk’s expression softens a little. ‘Your first grandchild?’

  Jim nods.

  ‘Well.’ She jabs at her keyboard, waits as the ticket printer whirrs and sputters. ‘You’ve got it all to come, then, sir, haven’t you?’

  The next London train leaves in half an hour. Jim buys a newspaper at the kiosk, orders a large cappuccino with an extra shot. The morning is fine, bright, the promise of warmth leavened by the brisk Cornish breeze; standing on the platform with his overnight case, the coffee in his hand, Jim feels a tide of pure happiness rise up in him. His granddaughter, Jessica. (Dylan and Maya chose the name in the sixth month of pregnancy, after seeing a production of The Merchant of Venice.) He closes his eyes, feeling the wind on his face, breathing in the station smells of engine-grease, bacon and disinfectant. He thinks, I will hold on to this moment and remember it. I will catch it before it disappears.

  He has a table seat on the train: spacious, comfortable. He accepts fresh coffee from the waiter, though his cappuccino isn’t yet finished, and orders the full English. It is only then, as Jim sits back, unfolds his newspaper, watches the gorse and the slate cottages and the distant glittering sea, that he realises he hasn’t told Vanessa he’ll be away for longer than one night. He takes his new mobile phone (it was Vanessa who persuaded him to buy it; he is still rather wary of the thing, with its tiny keys and sudden inexplicable noises) from his overnight case. Slowly, painstakingly, he taps out a text message. Jessica’s come two weeks early. I’m on my way to Edinburgh. Not sure when I’ll be back. You’ll hold the fort, won’t you? J.

  Of course she will. Vanessa is bewilderingly efficient: she has quit
her job, as PA to the head of a London investment bank, for Cornwall and ‘a more creative life’. Jim isn’t entirely sure how managing his studio – ordering materials, archiving paintings and correspondence, preventing the relentless surge of email and paperwork from engulfing him completely – constitutes a ‘creative life’, but Vanessa seems happy enough. She’s no Caitlin, who left abruptly two years ago, after announcing that she’d met someone who would be ‘hers, and hers alone’. Vanessa is married, for one thing – not that Jim would have chanced his luck even if she weren’t. But he enjoys her company, and is grateful for the uncanny way she manages to anticipate his needs.

  Here she is now, popping up on the phone’s screen, asking whether he’d like her to send flowers to Anton Edelstein. Great idea, Jim types back. Thanks, V. Speak soon.

  Anton Edelstein: sixty years old today. Odd that Jim should find this so difficult to take in, when he passed the sixty-year mark two years ago. (Caitlin had only just left him; he was still licking his wounds, and had a doleful celebration in an Indian restaurant with Stephen Hargreaves.) In Jim’s mind, Anton is still a thirty-year-old in flared trousers and paisley shirt, doling out rum punch in his Kennington kitchen.

  Jim has seen little of Anton in the intervening years – at a party or two at Toby’s; at the private view of Jim’s first solo show at the Tate. There, in the dim shadows of the gallery’s basement foyer, Jim had found himself asking after Eva.

  The question had taken Anton by surprise. ‘I didn’t realise you knew my sister.’

  ‘Not very well,’ Jim said quickly. ‘We’ve met a few times over the years.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose you would have.’ Anton’s gaze had shifted uncomfortably to the ground. ‘Well, in that case, you’ll know that it’s all been very hard for her. Very hard indeed.’

  Jim had nodded, though really he could hardly imagine how hard it was. He had first heard Eva on the radio two years before – he usually listened to Radio 4 while he was painting, and had switched on his set one morning to hear her voice, clear and eloquent and utterly unexpected. She was talking about a book she’d written: a book about caring for her husband, Ted Simpson, the former foreign correspondent, now severely disabled by the combined effects of Parkinson’s disease and several strokes.

  Jim had stood quite still, forgetting to breathe, thinking of what Toby had said at his own fiftieth birthday party – Ted Simpson’s not well at all. Thinking of the man he’d seen take Eva in his arms at Anton’s thirtieth, all those years ago: grey-haired, stockily handsome, with a firmness about him, a solidity, that even Jim could see was attractive. The heart-shaped pendant he was sure Ted must have given her, lying coolly against Eva’s warm skin.

  Now, on the train, eating his breakfast, Jim thinks again of Eva, allows himself to acknowledge the fact that he had been looking forward to seeing her at the party. His invitation hadn’t come from Anton directly – Jim doesn’t really know him well enough – but from Toby: Marie was taking their daughter, Delphine, to France for a fortnight, leaving Toby behind to finish the edits to his latest documentary. ‘Come with me, old man,’ Toby had commanded over the telephone. ‘We can be two old crocs together. Show those young things what we’re made of.’

  As he agreed to go, Jim had thought of Eva, whose voice he heard often on the radio, whose Daily Courier advice column he had taken to reading carefully each week. He liked the woman he had come to know through her writing: wise, self-deprecating, empathetic. He’d imagined seeing her again at this boat party of Anton’s, carrying this deeper knowledge of her. Ted had died just over a year ago: Jim had seen his obituary. He wanted to tell Eva how sorry he was. He pictured her eyes on him – dark brown, insightful – speaking (and here, perhaps, his imagination had departed entirely from reality, and yet he’d allowed himself that indulgence) of a possible future.

  But now he is travelling north, to his son, his granddaughter. Dylan insisted that Jim didn’t have to come right away – ‘We’re all over the place. You could wait a few days if you want’ – but his need to go to them was immediate, instinctive. He adores his clever, sensitive son, already making a name for himself as a printmaker; is fiercely proud of his talent, his vision; of the precocious maturity with which Dylan had, so quickly, adapted to his parents’ parting and his mother’s relationship with Iris, and found a way to keep them all close. Jim loves his daughter-in-law, too: loves Maya’s warmth, her intelligence, the many small ways – a glance; an encouraging word; the light touch of her hand on Dylan’s back – in which she shows Jim how deeply she loves his son. Jim wants to see his granddaughter now: that tiny girl, Dylan’s girl, looking out at this strange new world for the first time.

  And so it is of Jessica – with Dylan’s blue eyes and Maya’s dark skin and her own messy crop of black hair (Dylan has emailed a photograph of her, propped in the crook of Maya’s arm) – that Jim thinks now, as the train carries him north, past fields, over bridges, skirting the fleeting sprawls of towns; carving its silvery path through the life he is already living, not the one that might have been.

  VERSION THREE

  Sixty

  London, July 2001

  She finds Jim standing alone on the top deck, at the prow.

  ‘Darling, are you coming? Thea’s calling everyone in for dinner.’

  He turns, and she is shocked for a moment by how tired he looks, how defeated. The situation with Sophie has aged him. In the weeks after her disappearance, it was as if Eva suddenly saw the decades written on Jim’s face, where before she had seen him only as he always was: angular, tousle-haired, fired by his own particular form of inner energy. Pulling her through that gap in the hedge outside Clare; squinting at her in the half-light of his attic room, as his pencil moved fluently over his sketchpad. Slowly tracing the line of her collarbone with his hand.

  ‘Just taking a breather,’ he says. ‘I’m coming.’

  They go down to the ballroom together. The family is seated at the top table, as at a wedding: Anton and Thea; Rebecca and Garth; Sam and his wife, Kate, their two daughters, Alona and Miriam, arranged between them, fidgety in their smart summer dresses. Thea’s mother, Bente, over from Oslo, sits beside Eva’s niece, Hanna. On Bente’s other side are Ian and Angela Liebnitz; and on Eva’s right, a man named Carl Friedlander, Anton’s new partner in the firm. (Eva is surprised, at first, to see him seated with them – later, she remembers Anton saying that Carl had lost his wife to cancer, and admires the gesture.)

  ‘You have a lovely family,’ Carl says to her, as the wine is poured, and Eva, thanking him, looks around the table, and thinks, Yes, I do. Rebecca is glamorous in a red sheath dress, her dark hair swept up into a chignon; Garth is leaning in close, sharing a private joke. Sam is quieter, more reserved, as he has always been. (How keenly Eva remembers him as a small boy: compact, chubby-kneed, patient; never grasping for things or issuing imperious demands, as his sister had done.) But Sam’s reserve, Eva knows, is the product of a certain innate shyness – he certainly didn’t inherit that from David – that he wears only in public: with Kate and his girls, and with Sophie, too, he is easy, open, affectionate. There he is now, reaching across to Alona, placing a firm hand on her shoulder: ‘Sit quietly, darling.’ And she, rather than scowling or complaining, inclines her head to meet her father’s hand, brushes her cheek against it, in a small gesture of love that touches Eva deeply.

  Their family: the family she shares with Jim, who now slips his hand into hers. All of them here but one: Sophie. She could not be persuaded, though Sam went to visit her in Hastings, told her how much it would mean to him – to all of them – if she would come; and bring Alice with her too.

  It was Sam who had found Sophie. She had phoned him, about six weeks after Eva and Jim’s fruitless trip to Brighton, and had given him an address, but told him not to pass it on. He’d kept his promise. ‘What choice do I have?’ he’d said to Jim, who had been cold with impotent fury. ‘If I tell you, she may not speak to any of us again,
and where would that leave us?’

  Painful as it was, Jim had been forced to concede that Sam was right. So Sam had gone to her – taken Kate, Alona and Miriam to Hastings, as if for an ordinary family day out. From the seafront, he had driven on alone to the address Sophie had given him. It was a small flat on the third floor of a rather daunting block: ‘Clean, though,’ Sam had reported later. ‘Very clean.’ Sophie, too, was clean, in every sense. She was also six months pregnant. ‘Tell them I’m not using,’ she’d urged Sam, and he had; but she hadn’t wanted them to know anything more.

  When the baby was born, Sophie had named her Alice, and emailed Sam a photograph. That is all Jim has of his granddaughter: a small, grainy image of a two-day-old girl, wrinkled, faintly cross-eyed. Sophie will not allow Helena to see her either – she has cut herself off from both of them, like a branch sliced cleanly from a tree. Eva had thought at first that the fact Sophie would see neither of her parents – that her hatred wasn’t reserved for Jim alone – might offer him some meagre comfort, but Jim takes none from it at all.

  It is an excellent dinner: lobster cocktail, rump steak, key lime pie. ‘Anton’s death-row meal,’ Thea explains, placing an affectionate hand on the back of his neck. She is still slender, unfussily elegant in a slip-dress of fine grey silk. ‘My husband should really have been born an American.’

  Anton smiles, strokes his wife’s arm. He is the image of a successful businessman in late middle age: sleek, signet-ringed, running comfortably to fat. Eva has to strain a little to remember the boy he once was, standing in the hallway of the Highgate house in his cricket whites; tunelessly intoning the Torah at his bar mitzvah. But then sometimes her brother will look at her, and she will see that the boy is still there: restless, mischievous, ready for anything.