The Missing Pieces of Us

by Eva Glyn

  “She’s a sensible girl.”

  I smile. “I’m very proud of her.” And I prattle on about how well she’s doing at school and how brilliantly she’s coped with losing Connor. But I’ve fallen into a trap.

  “And how are you coping? Deep down.”

  “I’m fine.” My panini tastes like cardboard.

  “Do you think Robin came along a bit too soon? Is that why you’re holding back now?”

  I put it down and fold my arms. “You think he did, don’t you?”

  “It’s not my place to judge, Bella, I’m just trying to help.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She shifts in her chair. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this but are you drinking too much? Some mornings… well, you do smell just a little tiny bit of alcohol when you come into school. I mean, not enough for me to stop you teaching… I’m not saying you turn up drunk or anything…”

  Not enough for her to stop me teaching. The words drop through me like ice, even on this sweltering day. I gaze out over the sparkling sea towards the Isle of Wight. “Perhaps… it’s a side effect of the migraine tablets. I mean, I do have a glass or two of wine with my supper, but nothing… I’ll check with the pharmacist tomorrow.”

  “Why don’t you book an appointment with your GP? Explain. They might be able to give you something different.” She picks up her panini and puts it down again. “I mean, I think you should anyway. What if there’s something serious underlying these headaches?”

  Somehow I manage to look her in the eye. “It won’t happen again.”

  Our conversation haunts me, though, as I drift around Sainsbury’s after work. During the afternoon I’ve been able to focus on teaching: black and white, right and wrong. Numbers. But now that’s been ripped away from me for a whole week and I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get through it.

  Maybe Fiona was right. I should see my GP. Maybe it is an illness – a tumour, or dementia even. I’m rooted to the spot in front of the pasta, gazing blindly at the rows of spaghetti, penne, and tagliatelle until a woman nudges me with her trolley and I grab the nearest packet and flee.

  The aisle closes in on me, shelves toppling as it narrows, people ghostly as they back away. My hand is over my mouth as I cannon towards the light streaming in from the windows, swerving past queues of shoppers and finally into the fresh air and back to my car, where I promptly throw up.

  “Are you all right, love?” There’s a man in front of me in a store uniform and hi-vis jacket.

  I unfurl my fingers from the spaghetti. “I’m sorry… I didn’t pay… Can you take it back for me?”

  “Of course I will, but are you all right? We have first aiders…”

  “No really, I’m fine. It must be something I ate…”

  “Well, as long as you’re sure.”

  I watch him walk away, then I open the car door, perching sideways on the seat while I clean myself down with a tissue and some water from my drinking bottle. I have nothing for tea and Robin’s coming over. I can’t go back in there. I can’t cancel either, because if I do I’ll have to explain to Claire and she’s really looking forward to seeing him.

  Giving my hands a final wipe I pick up my phone and text him.

  Can you bring fish & chips? I’ll pay. Running late at school.

  It’s my second lie today. Or maybe my third… or maybe my whole frigging life’s a lie. I swing my legs into the car and turn on the engine, the aircon cooling my forehead as it rests on the steering wheel. Don’t think, Izzie. Drive. Just drive.

  After a shower and a gin and tonic I feel better. There’s no wine in the house but I convince myself that doesn’t matter. I’ll be dropping Claire at Jack’s tomorrow so I can go to Waitrose in Chandler’s Ford to stock up. I really don’t think I can face Sainsbury’s again.

  The doorbell rings and I hear Claire rush to answer it. I’m pulling on my jeans when she calls, “Mum, Robin’s here.”

  “Lovely. I won’t be a tic.” I don’t want them talking about me behind my back.

  Of course, they’re not. When I arrive in the kitchen Robin is laying the table while Claire pulls the warm plates from the oven. It’s like I’ve gone back in time to when Robin was living here. Even the warm oil and vinegar smell emanating from the neatly wrapped packages on the table summons up Friday nights before everything went wrong.

  Robin beams at me. “Cod for us and scampi for Claire. I hope that’s still right.”

  He’s remembered. He would.

  After supper Claire beats a tactful retreat upstairs saying she wants to make a start on her economics essay because once her homework’s done she can enjoy half-term. I decide not to mention the word revision because I figure she’s old enough to know what needs to be done. She’s certainly matured these last few months. Maybe she’s had to.

  I make Robin a mug of tea and pour myself a gin, but only a small one because I feel as though he’s watching me, then we wander through to the sitting room and sit down at either end of the sofa.

  There’s an uneasy silence.

  “So, how are you?”

  I glance up into his eyes but they are so full of love that I have to look away. How can I love him back when everything’s crumbling around me? How can I not when I’ve loved him my whole adult life? But how could I have loved him when I blocked him from my memory for years? The memory I can no longer trust.

  “Izzie?”

  There’s a strange buzzing between my ears as the thoughts spin round and round, but then a shaft of light appears. Robin is the one person who really will understand about my memories being wrong.

  I shake my head. “You know how it is.”

  “I know how it was for me, but how is it for you?”

  “Like I can’t trust myself anymore. Like I don’t know what’s real. I had a panic attack in the supermarket. That’s why there was nothing for tea.”

  He stretches out his legs. “Then half-term’s come at just the right moment.”

  “No, it hasn’t. The only time I feel anywhere near right is when I’m teaching.”

  I’ve snapped at him and his eventual reply is cautious. “I found that… the gardening – working – it really helped. Made me feel grounded.”

  “Numbers do the same for me.”

  “It’s important. You need some sort of foothold. Maybe you could try to teach me a bit of advanced maths? But I warn you, the old grey matter’s pretty rusty.”

  I sink back into the cushions, cradling my glass. “You are just the kindest, kindest man.”

  A smile flashes under his beard. “But although distraction is important, you need to start to deal with it as well.”

  I shake my head. “You coped marvellously from what I remember. Always assuming I remember it right. I’m just…” The words are stuck in my throat. “I just feel… broken.”

  “But you’re not and that’s important. Your memories may be, but you are still you.”

  All I can do is shake my head. To fill the silence he tries a different tack.

  “Have you told Claire yet?”

  “I’m not that stupid. Honestly, think how worried she’d be. She must never, ever know and that’s the end of it.”

  “Then you need to start dealing with it sooner rather than later.”

  I desperately want another gin but if he tries to stop me we’ll argue and I can’t face that. Robin is my only ally in this battle.

  “The trouble is… I don’t know how big a gap I’m dealing with. I… I can’t be sure of anything… anytime…”

  “Finding proof was important to me and I think it would help you too. I got you to take me to Shirley, remember?”

  I nod. I do. And at least I really did live there, even if he didn’t.

  “And when I didn’t find evidence there I got to thinking where else I had been just once in my life, on that trip. The answer was West Bay.”

  “No wonder you were so… distant that day.”

  “Before we went I
sketched a little map of what I remembered, made some notes. And there it all was. Those flats being the right date clinched it.”

  “Why didn’t you say?”

  He fiddles with the handle of his mug. “Because much as I wanted to prove my memory right, I didn’t want yours to be wrong. Looking back, I reckon I really screwed up there. I should have been braver. It put a lie between us, a wedge… like when you split a tree trunk into logs. One hammer blow and we were ripped apart.”

  “We can’t be whole until I am.” The words come out as a whisper.

  “I know. But if you’re saying there’s hope…” He smiles at me, “And I guess, even if there isn’t, I’m here for you Izzie, I really am.”

  He’s solid and strong, and I want so much to creep into his arms but it can’t be that way. “So what should I do?”

  “Look for that foothold, that truth, then prove it. Old diaries, photographs, stuff on the web. Even a scrap of evidence and you’ll feel a bit more confident.”

  “And then what?”

  “I talked to Gareth…”

  “No. I couldn’t.” My heart thuds at the thought of actually telling anyone. But if I’m really ill… but I can research that too online. Look for evidence. Prove the equation.

  Robin’s touch on my arm is gentle and brief. “No need to worry about that now. First things first.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. I need to think. Or at least, try to think straight. Thank you, Robin. This has really helped.”

  He nods, then we sit in silence until he says. “Right, I’d better make tracks. Let me know how you get on. Anytime. Day or night. I won’t switch off my phone.”

  I look up at him. “I need to do this myself.”

  I stand to see him out. In the hall he calls to Claire that he’s leaving and she bundles down the stairs to give him a hug. “Are you coming over next week? We could all go for a day out.”

  He glances at me.

  “We’ll have to see. I’ve got a lot of work on at the moment, but of course I—”

  “Well at least let me cook that meal I promised you. You can come after work one day,” I tell him, and he smiles right to the corners of his eyes.

  Once the front door has closed Claire turns to me. “So how did you get on?”

  I shrug. “We had a nice chat.”

  “About anything important?”

  My heart thuds in my chest. He hasn’t said anything to her, has he? “Like what?”

  “Like getting back together properly.”

  “Claire, it’s much too soon. We both need time.”

  She shrugs and turns back towards the staircase.

  “All right.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  The sulphurous glow of the street-lamps illuminates the empty half of the bed. I’ve never slept in the middle; it doesn’t feel right. Not after Connor, not after Robin. I stretch my arm across and stroke the vacant pillow. My hand looks yellow but my wedding ring glints. There’s a yearning inside me that’s so unfamiliar that at first it’s hard to place.

  Robin talked about photographs, and in a box in the bottom of the wardrobe are the albums Connor put together. Every milestone of our lives was recorded. For when we get old, Izzie. For when we forget. I’ve forgotten now, but I haven’t been able to look at them since he died.

  It feels completely wrong to do so without him, but where is he? Where is the man, even in his own house? Not in this room – the empty half of the bed quickly became Robin’s. The gap yawns huge; it’s not what I thought it was.

  I struggle to carry the box and open my bedroom door at the same time. I listen on the landing, tuning in for Claire’s breathing. It is there, light and even, and I creep down the stairs.

  Connor’s car, sealed into the garage, suits my purpose. I put down the box and find the keys in the hall table. The concrete floor is cold and there’s a faint smell of oil. Robin again. Can he really be everywhere? Inside the car I will be safe from his intrusion.

  I pad past the bonnet and put the box on the passenger seat. A pipe from the engine… Is that how it’s done? The thought, unbidden, rocks me. I shake my head like a dog, making myself dizzy and my ears ring. Claire. Claire. Claire. When I’m sensible again, I leave the door between the garage and the hall open. Then I get into the car.

  The leather seat is cool beneath my nightshirt. I close my eyes and inhale. He is here – I was right – a half-eaten packet of mints in the cup holder. I pick it up and kiss the paper, just where his beautiful hands tore it. On that last trip to Heathrow, perhaps, juggling the sweets against the steering wheel, singing along to the radio or a CD. Which?

  I turn the key one click in the ignition and the interior light comes on. I fumble the buttons on the stereo, making sure the volume is low. Bryan Adams, ‘Summer of ’69’ – one of his favourites. I bought him the greatest hits CD years ago. He still listened to it, right to the end.

  I pick a photo album from the top of the box. April 1995. There’s Claire, tiny, fair-haired, wearing a bright green sweatshirt with the name of her school on. We lived in Hedge End and she was standing by the front door, trying not to fidget. I remember it now. “One for the grandmas,” Connor had said. I see him as clearly as I can see the picture, in faded jeans and a white T-shirt, his fringe falling over his eyes. I was dressed for work, waiting with the car door open, and swooped down on Claire as soon as he had finished, dropping her off in the playground before making my way to my own classroom.

  Next is a holiday in Ireland. Paddling in the sea with Connor’s sisters, the breeze taking our hair away and carrying our laughter across the beach. Then there was a sudden squall and we went for fish and chips: seven adults, five children, two tables pushed together in the steaming café. Claire spilt vinegar down her dress and cried because it was her favourite.

  Memories, one after the other, so crystal clear it isn’t in my heart to doubt them, come flooding in. Connor, oh Connor, where are you?

  It’s not fair. There was so much more living you had to do.

  When Claire wakes I have been crying for a long time. I found him. I found him in his car, in the middle of the night, with the comfort of our memories. I found him, and we travelled through the years together – a journey that was long overdue.

  “Mum, what are you doing?” Panic edges her voice.

  “Looking at old photos. I wanted to be somewhere… somewhere your father was. Does that make sense?”

  “You’re crying.”

  “It’s not fair. It’s just so not fair. He was too young…”

  We take the photographs to the kitchen and empty the box on the table. The sky lightens over the garden as I make tea and Claire puts the albums in order. We pull our chairs close, wrap our arms around each other, and reconstruct the story of the O’Briain family. We laugh a lot and we cry even more.

  And then a picture appears which triggers a string of memories before and after it. In minute detail. It was my fortieth birthday and Claire took the photo: Connor and me, leaning against the rails on Brighton seafront, his arm over my shoulder pulling me close.

  I try to sound casual. “Claire, do you remember what happened next?”

  She smiles. “Of course I do. There was a man dressed as a clown and he gave you a plastic flower when I said it was your birthday. You were so embarrassed but Dad and I couldn’t stop laughing. Then we went into that posh hotel for afternoon tea and Dad made you wear it in your hair. The waitress kept rolling her eyes but even you were creasing up by then.”

  And that’s my foothold. So I cling to it.

  All weekend we talk about Connor and I only realise how much we haven’t before when Claire hugs me and tells me how brilliant it is to be able to say his name. We’re in the garden at the time, crouching to encourage the young runner beans up their poles, and I am so astonished I topple onto the carrots.

  “Careful, Mum.”

  I stand and dust myself off, sticking my hands in my pockets. “I hadn’t realised… Have
you been not talking about your father deliberately?”

  Her fingers wrap around a bean. “I didn’t feel I could with you. That’s all.”

  “Well you can. In fact, I’d like you to. I’m missing him so much…” And tears start to roll down my cheeks again.

  It’s later, when we’re making supper, that she drops the bombshell. “I’m not really sure I should be going to Newquay. Not with you this upset.”

  I had been about to pull some wine from the rack but I turn to face her. “That’s over a month away. I hope to goodness I’ll stop randomly bursting into tears well before then.”

  “It’s not just the tears though, is it?” She’s looking pointedly at the bottles behind me.

  “There’s no reason at all you can’t go. Assuming you still want to?”

  “I do, but not if I’m worrying about you all the time.”

  That is so wrong, just so wrong. It’s me who should be worrying about her, not the other way around. My hand hovers over the wine rack but I stop myself. A meal isn’t a meal without a drink and an evening isn’t an evening… But the last thing I want is a row with Claire. I can have a quick gin later when she’s talking to Jack – or sneak one up to the bath and enjoy it there.

  I walk over to the hob and prod the potatoes, then give the parsley sauce a stir. Claire is still watching me so I join her next to the draining board and wrap my arm around her shoulders. “I know I wasn’t keen on this trip at first and I’ll still worry about you every moment you’re away, but you’re growing up and I have to get used to the fact that you want a life of your own.”

  “I had hoped, you know, you’d be back with Robin by then so he could, you know, be there for you.”

  “He is there for me, Claire. Very much so. But at the moment it’s as a friend and I couldn’t want a better one.” It’s the truth. The absolute truth. Another foothold.

  Claire squeezes me. “Well all right. But let me know if you change your mind.”