The Missing Pieces of Us

by Eva Glyn

  “It was messy. It was late before I had the chance to phone him and I wouldn’t leave you, so it all came out…”

  “Excuse me. You’re blocking the pavement.”

  I leapt up and started to apologise but the sight of the dumpy pensioner with unlikely jet-black hair stopped me in my tracks. “Auntie Jean!”

  Never before had I seen anyone’s jaw drop. “Robin! Oh my God! After all these years…” She gripped me so tightly that the air was knocked out of my lungs. I hugged her back and the tears that had been threatening for what seemed like hours escaped.

  She stood back and looked up at me. “Oh, you great big softie.”

  I smiled at her. “You remember me.”

  “Of course I remember you, you daft idiot. I’ve known you since you were in nappies.”

  Izzie spoke softly. “Do you remember me?”

  Auntie Jean peered at her, but there was no flicker of recognition.

  “I’m Izzie.” There was a tremor in her voice and my hand reached out and found hers.

  “Izzie… yes, of course. Sentimental old fool that I am I’ve still got your letter somewhere.”

  “My letter?”

  Auntie Jean beamed at us. “Well, there’s no point standing around on the pavement. Let’s go in and have a cup of tea. We’ve got so much to catch up on.” She hugged me again. “Oh, Robin, I just can’t believe you’ve come back.”

  The living room was not as I remembered, but that was hardly surprising after twenty years. A brown three-seater sofa was pushed against the back wall with a matching recliner positioned to have an equally good view of the road and of an impressive flat-screen television. One wall was filled with shelving and I studied the photographs displayed along it: a family Christmas, Uncle Len sitting in a deckchair, and numerous pictures of what I took to be grandchildren.

  Auntie Jean put the tray down on the coffee table then came to stand next to me.

  “That was the last Christmas before Len was taken. He had a heart attack, bless him – very quick. There’s our Sonia next to him, and her partner Mark, and Joel and Kelly. Her oldest, Michael, was with his dad – you remember, Phil? You and your mum went to the wedding just after she came out of hospital.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I do. And I’m sorry to hear about Uncle Len.”

  “Oh, I do miss him. But Sonia only lives in Woolston so she pops round every so often and Michael sometimes stays when he wants to get away from the other kids. He’s an apprentice at Hamble boatyard – thinks he’s very grown up.” Her laugh was the same raucous cackle and my mother’s echoed alongside it.

  “So where’s life taken you, Robin?” She turned to Izzie. “You found him before I did. Perhaps I should have given you a letter and not the other way around.”

  “It was only at Christmas,” I jumped in. “I hadn’t seen Izzie for years but we… we bumped into each other in Winchester.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been living in Winchester and you never came to see me?”

  I looked at my feet. “No, it’s worse than that. I’ve been in Curbridge most of the time.”

  “And you never came until now? Oh, Robin, why not? Didn’t you know I’d be worried sick about you?”

  “I couldn’t face coming back. I was ill for a long time, only I didn’t know it then. Depression they’d call it these days. I landed on my feet though; I lodged with a lovely lady until she died last year.”

  “You could have come to me, Robin. You knew I had a spare room. I’d have looked after you.”

  “I’m sorry, Auntie Jean.” I still couldn’t look at her.

  “Two postcards, Robin, and then you disappeared. That was harsh. And I didn’t know what to do when they came to clear your poor mother’s house.”

  I shook my head. “I did mean to come back but somehow I just kept on going.”

  “And it wasn’t only me you abandoned. It was this poor scrap of a girl here too. I’d never seen anyone so thin and pale when I went over to see who was knocking on your mother’s door.”

  Izzie was looking fairly pale now. The dark circles under her eyes were almost clown-like and her hands were shaking again as she clasped her teacup.

  “You didn’t remember me?” she asked.

  “Not at first, but I do now. Of course I do. You were the only one of Robin’s friends who ever came looking for him, miserable lot.”

  “No, I mean you didn’t remember me then?”

  Auntie Jean frowned. “I don’t think we’d met. You told me you’d had to track down his address through the register of deaths.”

  Izzie struggled to raise her head. “Robin, I’m so sorry… I don’t… feel very well.”

  I sat down next to her and held both her hands. “That’s OK. I’ll run back and get the car and I’ll take you home.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry Mrs—”

  “It’s Jean. Everyone calls me Jean – or Auntie Jean. But you’re not going to walk out on me again, Robin, are you?”

  I fished in my wallet and gave her a card. “You know how to reach me now.”

  She stared at it for a moment.

  “Gardener and handyman. Robin, your mother would have been… surprised.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  As soon as we reached her house Izzie made for the stairs.

  I hovered at the bottom. “Can I get you anything? A hot drink, perhaps.”

  She stopped long enough to shake her head but she didn’t turn, not until she was almost at the top. “Maybe… maybe in a couple of hours…”

  “OK.”

  I wandered into the living room and sank onto the sofa. Izzie was only yards away, upstairs, but she’d dismissed me. I could be no comfort. I could—

  The telephone shrieked in the hall. I rushed to answer it, dragging the offending object into the living room with me and closing the door, sending it clattering to the floor in the process.

  “S-Sorry about that.”

  The voice at the other end sounded hesitant. “Can I speak to Bella O’Briain please?”

  I almost didn’t recognise the name. “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s Fiona, her head of year.”

  “I’m afraid she isn’t well. I’d rather not disturb her.”

  The voice asserted itself. “Who am I talking to?”

  “I’m Robin.”

  There was a short silence. “I thought you’d split up.”

  “I’m here looking after her. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think to phone her work.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  I arched my back against the door. “I’m not a doctor.”

  “Robin, if I phoned back and said it was her friend Fiona, would you answer me then? I know she’s had her problems since Connor died – and I also know she has terrible migraines.”

  This was news to me, but I pounced on it. “I think it’s much more likely to be the latter, friend Fiona. Whatever it is she just wants to sleep it off.”

  “Can I phone this evening then, to find out how she is?”

  “Of course. I’ll let her know when she wakes up.”

  I balanced the phone on the arm of the sofa and ventured into the kitchen. Beside the inevitable empty wine bottle, the table boasted two half-eaten packets of crisps, two crumpled cans of tonic and the gin abandoned with its lid off. Not that there was much left anyway. Plates from a meal I assumed to be Sunday tea were pushed to one side and I packed them into the dishwasher. When I opened the fridge to put away the butter I started to peruse the contents, wondering what to make for tea. But would I be cooking it? I looked around the familiar room and found myself in no man’s land.

  Bottles in the recycling, plates and glasses in the dishwasher, I turned to scrubbing the wine rings and bits of stale crisp off the kitchen table. Wringing out the cloth over the sink, I glanced into the garden; the vegetable patch had not only been planted but was flourishing.

  I slipped out of the patio doors to take a closer look. The glossy-leaved perpet
ual spinach was almost six inches high and the runner beans along the fence would soon be ready for a net to climb. Fronds of carrot rippled in the breeze and the beetroot was every bit as advanced as my own. The lawn could have done with a cut and the shrubs were growing with gay abandon, but the vegetables were a paragon of garden virtue. It gave me hope.

  I left it a full two hours before disturbing Izzie. With a mug of tea in each hand and a packet of biscuits under my arm, I eased her door open. She was sitting up in bed staring into space.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I took some Nurofen when I woke.”

  “I’ve brought you some tea.”

  Her voice sounded dead as she thanked me.

  “Fiona called. She assumed you had a migraine so I let her.”

  She nodded.

  I put her mug down on the bedside table. “Shall I stay?”

  “Yes. I want you to read something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The letter I wrote you twenty and a half years ago. Jean gave it to me when you went to fetch the car.”

  I perched on the end of the bed and she handed me a piece of paper. I unfolded it carefully.

  “The address… is that the flat in Shirley?”

  “Yes. I’m glad… I did live there, Robin. I knew I had.”

  Like I knew I hadn’t. I started to read.

  Dear Robin,

  * * *

  I am leaving this letter with Jean in the hope you will at least contact her if you don’t come back. I have been to see her a few times and at first it helped being able to talk about you with someone who knows you well, but now I’m not so sure and I don’t think I’ll go again.

  * * *

  I am hurt beyond belief by the fact you are not here but then I tell myself it’s nothing compared to what you must be feeling about your mum. At least I have the tiniest hope of seeing you again, even if sometimes I wonder if you are dead as well. I wish you had told me what happened so I could have comforted you. I’m sure you would have if I had committed sooner.

  * * *

  In the end I told Paul we were finished part way through our holiday and got a flight home so I could be out of our flat before he returned. I think he had been half expecting it; he said he had sensed me moving away and had just hoped I would come back. But I can’t and he understood.

  * * *

  As soon as I went back to work I phoned your office and they told me you were on compassionate leave. I asked for your address so I could send a card but they wouldn’t give it to me. They said you were expected back soon, but you never came. I went in to see Felicity when they needed some stationery but it was so hard I cried and she took pity on me. She said she’d seen us together in the wine bar. Later she phoned me to say that the partners had announced you weren’t coming back and she’d seen the letters they’d sent you returned ‘not known’.

  * * *

  I found your address through the register of deaths and came straight away but I was too late. You had gone and the house was empty. Jean saw me and told me everything that had happened so then I knew. She showed me your postcards and she had high hopes you’d come home. But now it’s nearly Christmas and if you don’t come then, I’m not sure you ever will.

  * * *

  But just in case I wanted to write and let you know where I am. Robin, I am desperate to see you again. I didn’t know I could miss anyone like this. Please, please, if you read this get in touch. Just so I know you are alive and don’t have to keep wondering. Just so we can talk.

  * * *

  All my love (and I mean that)

  * * *

  Izzie xx

  My eyes were burning and my throat rasped when I spoke. “So now we know.”

  “Yes.”

  “What you wrote… about missing me… when I could, I don’t know, feel again I suppose… it’s how I felt about you. I couldn’t believe the pain.” I looked up. “I can’t believe it now.”

  “Now it’s my turn to feel numb.”

  The front gate creaked and there were footsteps on the drive, culminating in a clatter of envelopes through the letterbox. A passing car drowned the postman’s retreat but he whistled as he made his way up the road. A bird sang in reply. In the distance a radio played.

  “I’m here for you, Izzie. This time I’m not running away.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to… resume… I’m scared, Robin, scared for me and for Claire that one way or another I’m a very sick woman. Although I think… we both need you. But perhaps that’s not fair.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get through this. I know what it’s like, remember, to have part of your past ripped away and I’m here. I’m still standing.”

  “Perhaps your roots are stronger than mine.” She gazed beyond me, out of the window.

  “I didn’t have any roots – but I made them all the same. Jennifer helped me to grow them and now I’m going to help you.”

  She was a long time in replying. “Why?”

  “Because our time wasn’t then, Izzie. It was never meant to be then. What I need you to believe is that our time is now.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Izzie

  There is certainty in mathematics; it is solid, reliable. Teaching calculus to my A-level group, coaching my adult class towards their numeracy certificates, I know the answers and it grounds me. Right and wrong, black and white. Real.

  It gets me through the day. And part of the evening too, when I’m marking. I’m exhausted but all the same I wish I had a thousand scripts in front of me, because once I put down my red pen my grasp on the world around me slithers and slides away.

  The house is quiet. Claire’s staying over at Sasha’s to prepare for a sociology presentation they have to give tomorrow. Last week she wouldn’t have gone. Now she thinks Robin is back in my life and everything’s fine.

  I stand and stretch, carry the bag of books down the stairs and place it next to the back door so I don’t forget it in the morning. Is there anything on television? I wonder. Anything to distract me? Oh yes, it’s all factual: Chelsea Flower Show, the news, The Apprentice… I wander into the kitchen to fetch the gin and a bottle of tonic from the fridge.

  I’m halfway through Alan Titchmarsh dissecting a show garden when I remember I haven’t eaten. Or at least, I don’t think I have. I hug my knees to me, trying to stop the trembling deep inside. I can’t remember twenty years ago, I can’t remember tonight… What the hell can I be sure of in between?

  Don’t go there. I mustn’t go there. But the thought follows me into the kitchen. There is no dirty plate on the table and everything in the dishwasher is clean. My heart thuds a little less as I make some toast and spread it with Marmite. As an afterthought I take a banana back to the sofa as well.

  The toast sticks to the roof of my mouth, claggy and dry. I am about to pour myself another gin but wine goes better with food so I get up again, return to the kitchen and open a bottle of red. It’s the last one so I’ll need to go to the supermarket on my way home tomorrow.

  Practicalities are good. I make a list on the back of an envelope and it soothes me. I’ll buy some lasagne for the weekend, one of Claire’s favourites. Wine, bread, salad, maybe some steak for when Robin comes over tomorrow, tonic water. We probably need loo roll as well.

  My tumbler is empty so I fill it with wine. The television burbles. Connor’s photograph glares at me so I look away. What would he make of this? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

  I have a strange sensation of insects crawling up my neck and over the back of my skull. How much of our marriage was as I remember it? When did the wrong memories end and the right ones begin? Some of them have to be right, I’m almost sure of it. A holiday in Rhodes when Claire was ten; staying in a house in the old town; cool, dark, tucked under the massive walls. We visited a valley full of butterflies and one rested on Claire’s arm.

  But what about Connor and my whirlwind romance? How could I
have been on the rebound from Robin if I never even went out with him? And later, through all the years… Every argument I backed down on, every time I held my tongue… All built on the premise of wanting to make it up to Connor because he was second best.

  I look at his photograph again. He was a good man. At least, I remember him as one. I reach for the wine bottle but it’s empty. The kitchen is too far to fetch the gin. I curl myself into a tight ball on the sofa and try to will my whirling thoughts away.

  Fiona’s invitation to grab lunch at the café on Hill Head beach is unusual but it sounds innocuous enough, and after all, it is the Friday before half-term, we both have a free period last thing in the morning, and the weather is glorious. But as we settle at an outside table with our coffee and paninis she launches her assault.

  “Bella, I’m worried about you. You haven’t been yourself since you had that migraine. It’s as though you’ve been in some sort of daze.”

  “Sometimes they’re hard to shake off, that’s all.”

  “Have you seen anyone about them?”

  I falter. “The pharmacist gave me some pills and they work most of the time. Monday was a total aberration.”

  “What happened?”

  “I woke up with it and it wouldn’t go away.”

  She flaps her hand at a seagull trying to land on the edge of the table. “Do you think… anything to do with seeing Robin again triggered it?”

  “Why should it? And anyway, I’m not really seeing him.” The seagull attempts a return and I channel my annoyance into brushing it away.

  “But I thought… He answered the phone when I rang for about the third time and said he was looking after you.”

  “Claire called him. They kept in touch. When she couldn’t reach me she panicked and she thought he still had a key.” There, that was easy enough. But it’s another falsehood, even if this time I created it deliberately. Does that mean I created the others?