by Alyson Rudd
‘But, Ryan, you’re a chemist,’ Naomi said. ‘You must have seen this already?’
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I never wanted to be hooked into a box set before, but now it seems I am ready,’ at which point Sylvie chuckled conspiratorially.
‘And I was waiting to date a chemist before I watched it,’ she said and Naomi rolled her eyes and pottered in the fridge, thinking that something was going on with those two. Something had changed, they were both so darned relaxed in each other’s company. It was cloying. It was cloying but it was not without ripples of concern. For several weeks Sylvie had wondered why Paul now behaved as if it was she who had saved Ryan rather than the other way around. She knew Ryan’s girlfriend at university had died but that had happened fifteen years ago and she assumed it was not something he wanted to talk about but there could be a sadness to Ryan, as if he was rehearsing in his head the lines from a tragic play.
It was now 7.45 p.m. and Naomi had rid herself of her headache and felt no guilt about how little work she had done that day. Instead she wanted to walk out of the front door and onto a street teaming with life, with noise, with jazz, with martinis, with adventure. She smiled. It was clearly the right time to send Donna a message.
Let’s do it again,
she typed,
from your new, slightly besotted, certainly intrigued, friend, Naomi.
She deliberately did not add a kiss. That would be too much. That would be cloying and she was trying to escape cloying rather than run into its arms. She returned to her room, partly because she knew she would be incapable of not uttering spoilers as Walter White cooked yet another batch of blue meth and partly because she wanted to be alone when Donna replied, no doubt with something cryptic or at least hypnotic.
Donna did not reply.
Naomi spent the next day feeling jittery and it almost amused her that even in the first flush of flirtation with Ed and, before him, the also, tall Cappi and, before him, the less-tall-but-captivating Hamish, she had not been so attached to her phone and its to indicate a new-message-ping. Three days passed and Naomi began to wonder if her initial text had been unsuitable in some way, that perhaps she had misjudged the mood, or misunderstood what Donna had been expecting.
‘You’ll know what I mean,’ Donna had said but now Naomi was convinced she knew nothing of wit or drama or suspense and then it was Sunday again and a full week had passed with no word from the cream-cardiganed woman. Just as she’d let her scarf fall to the floor, maybe she had left her phone in a bar or in the back of a cab, but there was no way for Naomi to find out for sure beyond sending a pathetic message asking if Donna was alive and well. She vowed to shrug it off, to try to simply be thankful for the brief adventure, the brief encounter, but every time her phone pinged her fingers would throb and over that she had no control at all.
‘What are the sad things you think about?’ Sylvie asked him when their Breaking Bad session was over.
‘I try not to think about sad things at all,’ Ryan said lightly.
‘But you do,’ she said softly. ‘They wrap you in a mist and you become distracted. Sometimes you look at a car or a tree or out of the window as if you have just seen—’
He finished her sentence. ‘A ghost?’
‘Well, not a ghost, but a reminder, a memory, a prodding, something like that.’
‘OK,’ he said.
She changed the subject but a few hours later, as she ironed a skirt, he loitered miserably.
‘I’m really happy,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t realize you could tell I’m interrupted by less happy thoughts.’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said, ‘except that, maybe you should tell me, in case I can help.’
‘That wouldn’t be fair on you,’ he said.
She lightly stamped her foot.
‘Really? I want to help. I need to help. It wouldn’t be fair not to let me try.’
She led him to the edge of the bed. They sat down and he wrapped a strand of her candyfloss hair around his index finger.
‘Grandpa said she was a reminder of happiness, but why do I need a reminder when I am happy? It was a nice thing for him to say but now I’m convinced – well, almost convinced – that I’m making her unhappy or cross or something.’
Sylvie wanted to nod encouragingly but was not certain what it was he was talking about.
‘I feel stupid asking, but who is she and what does she do?’
Ryan shrugged. He was both embarrassed and bored.
‘She visits me. Ellen, I mean. You know, my girlfriend at uni. I see her sometimes, usually when I’m very happy. I don’t think of her and then see her. I see her when I haven’t even thought about her. I’m not summoning her out of guilt, she just randomly appears.’
‘And what… does she speak to you?’
‘No, she looks… sort of disapproving at how I’m living my life and then she vanishes.’
Sylvie said nothing. She tried to imagine all the ways someone in her position would respond and how they would all be selfish; all themes on ‘do you still love her?’, which were stupid because Ellen had died.
Ryan mistook her silence for cynicism.
‘Do you think I’m joking?’
She held his hand in hers and shook her head.
‘Can I think about it rather than say something tactless?’
That night she could not sleep. She had decided to believe him, not in the sense of believing he believed it but that she would take his word for it that it was Ellen who decided when to show up and that she was not controlled by Ryan’s subconscious.
She realized, slowly, that Paul – and maybe everyone who knew Ryan well – had assumed that now he had found a new, serious relationship, he would be free of the haunting by Ellen and that he must feel so isolated if she was still popping up out of nowhere. She realized too that she owed it to Ryan to break the spell, just as he had broken hers.
Chapter 29
‘There’s a Riya Mannan here to see you,’ one of Jonny Smalling’s underlings said. He frowned. He remembered the name but was reluctant to return to a case that was, for his department, concluded. Still, she was here, in the building, so, using the stairs, never the lift, he lightly tapped his way down to the reception area.
She was leaning on a buggy in which was, he supposed, the child who had almost died at King’s Cross. The toddler was sporting a pink dress with a lace trim over pink tights. She wore a pink heart-shaped hairclip in her dainty black hair. Riya, though, was dressed like a tomboy in frayed jeans and a faded green rugby shirt, her sleeves rolled up. She smiled at him and it was impossible for him to not smile back.
She held out her hand, which surprised him as so few people connected to his cases ever did. He was so often the enemy or a failure or an interfering git, or the people he dealt with were too ill-educated to feel any obligation of politeness. He had learned to accept a ‘Yo!’ as a handshake of sorts.
Jonny shook the small, wiry hand.
‘How are you, Riya?’ he said.
‘I’m OK, thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s my work-experience week next month and I wondered if I could come in here cos I might want to be a social worker.’
‘We, ah, well, that might be tricky, Riya, we don’t really offer that, given the privacy element, and it can be distressing too, especially for someone under eighteen.’
‘Then how am I supposed to find out if I really want to do it or not?’
‘Very valid point,’ Jonny said.
‘And I’m nearly eighteen anyway so I can sit in your office and watch and then do more active stuff after Christmas. When I’m eighteen.’
‘Right,’ Jonny said. ‘So you are studying for A levels now, I take it?’
‘Course,’ she said. ‘Psychology, sociology and maths.’
‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘And have you looked at universities?’
Riya rocked the buggy although there was no need as pretty-in-pink Nisha was serenely taking in her new surroundings.
<
br /> ‘Edinburgh’s the best but that’s too far from her,’ she said, pointing at the toddler, ‘so I’ll go to Bournemouth or Portsmouth. They’re on the sea,’ she added in case Jonny might not realize that.
‘Sounds to me like you are fairly sure you want to study social work regardless of being here,’ he said gently.
Riya frowned. ‘But it’s important I’ve got something to say at an interview,’ she said. In a flash Jonny saw how she was behind the curve, on her own, that maybe she overheard other students at an Open Day talking about their passion for the course and just maybe it was asking too much of such a young woman that she explain how it came to pass that her sister committed suicide and that that was how she had come into contact with the world of the social worker.
‘Leave it with me,’ he said.
‘So that means what? I can come here for a week?’
Jonny smiled. He had been having a tiresome morning and yet he knew, deep down, having Riya looking over his shoulder for a week would, rather than add to his misery, bring something pleasingly different to his job.
In a rare moment of indulgent bonhomie he sent an email to Ryan Kennedy informing him that he had just found out that Riya was planning to become a social worker.
It’s another, small, way in which your friend Sylvie has made a difference and I thought you might like to tell her that in case she is still coming to terms with what she witnessed that day.
Ryan, though, hesitated to pass on the news. It was over, wasn’t it? He and Sylvie did not speak now of Isak, the boy who tried to jump, nor of Jaya, the girl who did. Much to his relief, Sylvie had informed him she did not want to work for the British Transport Police or take up a career on the Underground. He had pointed out to her a new breed of Trespass and Welfare Officer at Clapham Junction one day, assuming she might be drawn to such a role, especially as their primary job appeared to be to check that passengers were happy. No, she said. It was over.
His heart had run cold when Sylvie described the meeting with Ulla at Waterloo. Why Waterloo, why that booth? He had been distant with her for a few hours, annoyed at what seemed to him to be a childlike approach to serious matters, but as Sylvie was still splashing in the entrails of euphoria she did not notice and her happiness was too contagious for him to remain moodily wary for long.
There was another reason he hesitated. It was buried and he was not consciously aware of it, but it was there. News of Riya getting on with her life thanks to Sylvie might well prompt Sylvie to turn to Ryan and remind him that he had been the one to track down the young woman, he had been the one to inspire Riya, he had been the one to save Sylvie. Such reminiscences might prompt Sylvie to wonder why Ryan was at Waterloo that day. They might prompt Sylvie to wonder why a man who read so little fiction could recall the works of Mrs Henry Wood, a reasonably obscure novelist who died in 1887. They might prompt Sylvie to wonder how he knew before she told him about how she would spend a few hours on the platform of one Underground station almost every day.
There were practical reasons too, for hesitating. Sylvie needed to earn money, get back into the world of work beyond Vinyl Vibes. Even though Theo wanted her there and involved every day, he paid her very little. On the other hand, she could easily claim to be the manager or whatever title she chose to have depending on the next job she applied for.
Sylvie, though, was not thinking about returning underground and neither was she much concerned with the novels read by Ryan and the small discrepancies in what he knew about her and ought not to have known. She was thinking about Ellen.
‘You know,’ she said later that day, ‘I won’t be able to take much holiday in the first six months of whatever job I get so why don’t we go to Florida at Christmas? My parents will pay for my flight and the apartment and we can stay for a few days and see my nephew and wow everyone with our cute English accents and then go off on our own for a bit.’
Ryan wanted to object but there was nothing objectionable about what she had just said. He could not scoff at her sense of duty to family, of wanting to see her new nephew. He could not object to the price, he could not even claim his mother needed him given how often he visited her compared to the rare trips to Reading made by Sylvie, but, then again, if Grace was to be alone on Christmas Day, then they could not possibly leave.
‘Sure, I’m up for that,’ he said, ‘but I think Hana is away with Ed and that would leave Mum sharing a turkey crown with Jarvis for Christmas lunch.’
‘Not a problem,’ Sylvie replied. ‘We can fly on Boxing Day or the twenty-seventh. My parents are there for three weeks, for goodness’ sake.’
And then, very casually, she asked Ryan for a favour.
‘The next time you see Ellen, would you tell me straightaway. Please.’
Paul guffawed.
‘Sounds horrendous, mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll be filming on location in the Middle East. Congenital deafness. Fascinating. No prospective in-laws, just the very lovely Gani.’
‘I’ll not be getting arrested for having a drink or taking an aspirin,’ Ryan retorted but he was glum all the same. What little experience he had of Sylvie’s family did not bode well. He had found them rude and self-centred and in the only way a man in his mid-thirties can have a tantrum, he had a tantrum, telling Sylvie he was popping over to see Grace after work without suggesting she join him.
There was no one home, though. The dog-walking community of Gladstone Park had enveloped Grace and Jarvis, and Ryan’s mother was in the pub along with three other live-alone dog owners including Ron, a gangly, slightly stooped former local bank manager who had, thought Grace, the eyes of someone hoping to be amused but rarely getting the joke. He was just offering to buy her another drink when Grace – although enjoying the evening – experienced a tug at her heart and declined. Neither Ryan nor Hana had indicated they would be visiting her today but, as she would tell Ryan as she found him about to walk away, back to the station, she just had a feeling one of her children would be at the house.
They went, without Jarvis, for their first-ever curry together and Ryan was able to talk, also perhaps for the first time, without thinking first whether what he was saying could be upsetting. She was not so fragile, this sixty-five-year-old woman who had lost a child and a husband, and she had shed some of her anxiety over his future. He even considered telling her about Sylvie wanting to meet Ellen, but as he had never told Grace that he sometimes saw his dead girlfriend, it all seemed too complicated, so instead, he simply smiled fondly at his mother.
‘You seem very happy, son,’ she said as she broke in half a poppadom.
‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘well, that’s strange, given I’m a bit miffed at having been railroaded into a trip to see Sylvie’s Florida family this Christmas.’
‘As long as you don’t have to go by the actual railroad,’ she said, chuckling at her joke. ‘But that is what I mean. Only a happy person can be unhappy about a holiday in Florida.’
‘Maybe you could come with us,’ Ryan said absently, and Grace wondered, later, as she lay in bed, Jarvis at her feet, whether they might have been the most beautiful and heartwarming words ever uttered by her younger son. She fell asleep, Jarvis snuffling and snoring, a distant fox barking, with more contentment than she had felt in a very long time.
Hana had been bold and carefree. She had suppressed the desire to ask questions she knew most men would hate to be asked.
Did you leave me for Naomi? Did she dump you or you did you dump her? Did I win or did I come second?
She had no idea because she did not ask but as she carried the last box into his tall, quaint home, she was overcome by the nausea of jealousy. This, she thought, is a mistake, this is not who I am.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ Ed said.
‘Last-minute nerves, I think,’ she said, unable to prevent her voice from quivering in what must be, she thought, a most unattractive fashion.
He took hold of her hand, led her out of the front door and then scooped her up into h
is arms and carried her over the threshold.
‘I’ve never done that for anyone before,’ he said. ‘I have a history but so have you. We start now – in love, I hope – and just enjoy life, yes?’
‘What happens when one of us can’t hike any more?’ she said, unable to digest what he had just said.
‘Then we will walk, then we will walk slowly, and then we will let people drive us around or push us to the bathroom. Or you will push me or I shall push you. That’s called growing old together.’
‘Oh,’ Hana said. ‘Or we can defy the aging process and have a baby together.’
‘Now you are making me get cold feet,’ he said, but tenderly, and she wondered who she was and who he was and whether it mattered if she admitted to ignorance about both of them. In that moment she decided Ed could very well hurt her again but as he had already given her more happiness than the sloth she had married – and if he was highly unlikely to be capable of hurting her the way the sloth had hurt her – then she was prepared to be strict with her jealousy, fight it if necessary, and start living dangerously.
Donna never did return the message. The wording of it haunted Naomi and she was convinced she had failed a test by not realizing sooner that she was taking one. She inwardly groaned at having indicated she might be besotted because no one wants to be friends with someone who is besotted. And to say she was intrigued, that might have been a little unkind or at least unthinking given how generous Donna had been over their enchanted evening. Naomi could not help it, she would compose different messages that were more intellectual, more grateful, more amusing and send none of them. She began to believe herself condemned to discover enigmatic people of similar height only to be dumped by them. She began to doubt her ability to be sufficiently interesting until, having decided she would have to buy Sylvie a Christmas gift – given she never scowled when Naomi shared the living room or asked to be part of her and Ryan’s supper – she stopped off at the Oliver Bonas store on Ealing Broadway.
