by Laura Elliot
‘Karin… what a surprise.’ He almost knocked over his chair as he rose to greet her. ‘You’re the last person I expected to meet here. How are you?’
‘Being stood up, I’m afraid.’ She waggled her mobile at him. ‘I was supposed to meet my friend Liam but I’ve just received a call. His car has broken down. He can’t make it.’
‘What a shame.’ Eleanor made a sympathetic moue. ‘Being stood up is not a nice experience.’
‘It’s a nuisance but never mind.’ Karin smiled and extended her hand. ‘I’ve seen you so often on television, Mrs Saunders. It’s a privilege to meet you in real life.’
Her teeth sparkled, white, small and even. Sharp too, she bit his neck last night, not once but many times. A necklace of love, she called it. If his mother knew what was hidden under the collar of his shirt. Jake’s palms began to sweat.
‘Thank you.’ Eleanor gazed speculatively at him. ‘Are you going to introduce us, Jake?’
‘Em… yes… this is Karin Moylan. She’s em… a friend.’
‘I’m an old school friend of Nadine’s,’ Karin cut across his faltering introduction. ‘How is she, Jake? I haven’t heard from her in ages.’
‘She’s fine.’
‘Why don’t you sit down and join us, my dear?’ Eleanor said.
‘Oh, no, I’d be intruding…’ Karin hesitated, toyed with her chunky blue necklace.
‘Not at all.’ Eleanor gestured towards an empty seat at the next table. ‘Bring that chair over, Jake. We’re celebrating my birthday.’ She gestured towards Louisa, who was waiting at a discreet distance for their conversation to finish. ‘Louisa, another menu, please. This young lady will be dining with us.’
‘I hope you’ve had a wonderful day.’ Karin pulled the chair closer to the table and accepted the menu.
‘It’s been a busy day like any other.’
‘But now you’ve a chance to relax with your son. Family is everything, don’t you agree? But of course you do. Your party was founded on that core principle. I’ve always admired your staunchness, Mrs Saunders.’
‘Call me Eleanor, my dear. No sense standing on formalities. I’ve ordered Dover sole on the bone. It’s always delicious here. I recommend it.’
‘Then that’s exactly what I’ll have.’
‘How do you know Nadine?’
‘We were best friends in school. Quite inseparable, actually. But we lost touch over the years. You know the way it is. I was focused on my studies and Nadine…’ She glanced down at the menu. ‘Nadine was lucky enough to meet Jake.’
‘Indeed.’
‘I’m sorry you’ve had a difficult time with your party colleagues,’ Karin said when their food was served.
‘Are you interested in politics?’ Eleanor filleted the sole from the bone with a few deft flicks of her knife.
‘I can’t pretend to be an expert but I do understand the politics of control and leadership.’ Karin attended to her sole with the same precision. ‘I don’t believe the younger members like Lorna Mason will ever have the strength of character necessary to lead a party like First Affiliations. You are the party, Eleanor.’
Jake watched the yachts gliding towards the marina and remained on the sidelines of their conversation. He had never seen his mother engage with Nadine in that way, as if everything Karin said was stimulating, important.
‘My treat.’ When the meal ended Eleanor whisked out her credit card before Jake could protest. ‘It’s been a most enjoyable night. I’d like to see some samples of your work, Karin. We’re considering updating the image of First Affiliation. Do you have contact details?’
‘Of course.’ Karin removed a card from her wallet and handed it to her. ‘Perhaps we can meet some time and discuss this in more detail so that I can fully understand the aspirations of your party.’
‘An excellent idea. I’ll be in touch, my dear.’
‘I look forward to meeting you again.’ She stood up and kissed Eleanor on both cheeks before holding out her hand to Jake. ‘Remember me to Nadine.’
Her audacity astonished him but he was forced to admire her tactics. Unlike Nadine, and, indeed, himself, she knew the exact approach that would charm his mother.
‘What an interesting woman.’ Eleanor picked up the business card and stared at the kingfisher’s vivid plumage. ‘And so knowledgeable about politics. I’m looking forward to seeing her work.’
* * *
After he had dropped Eleanor off at her bungalow he drove to Karin’s apartment. He used the key she had given him and entered her bedroom. She was awake and waiting for him. Her certainty that he would come directly to her from Louisa’s Loft increased his annoyance. He ignored the folded back duvet and sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Just what did you think you were doing?’ he asked.
‘Establishing my place in your life,’ she replied without hesitation. She lay back against the pillows and stared at him through narrowed eyelids. ‘You’re forty-three years old. Isn’t it time you stopped being afraid of your mother?’
‘I’m not afraid… I wanted to talk to her first, prepare her.’
‘It’s done now. Eleanor likes me, as I knew she would. She hasn’t got around to admitting it yet but she’s accepted the fact that you and Nadine are finished. This way, she’ll believe she instigated our relationship.’
‘You’re quite the little schemer.’
‘I’m a pragmatist, like Eleanor. What’s really bothering you? Are you still hoping Nadine will come back to you? She’s gone, Jake. But you’re here with me… in my bedroom. If that means nothing to you then I suggest you leave right now and close the door behind you.’
Perfume rose from the hollow in her throat, from the bend of her arms as she stretched them above her head. She enjoyed playing games, leading him on then resisting him until she saw something in his face, he never knew what brought about the instant of surrender, the moment he sank into the dark mystery of her desire, so violent and, at other times, so passive and teasing it was like making love to a different woman.
CHAPTER 34
NADINE
Stuart lied to me, lured me to Alaska on the pretence that he was a man on a reprieve. Instead, he was on borrowed time and had known that the span of life left to him could be measured in months. Pretence was no longer been possible when we returned to Juneau. Daveth drove us to the hospital where Stuart received a blood transfusion and underwent a series of scans.
‘Sinister,’ he told me when he was discharged from hospital and we’d settled into the lodge he has rented. ‘That’s what my oncologist in London called my cancer. I kept imagining it sliding through a dark street in a hoodie. So, I decided to outrun it.’ He paused. ‘Will you stay with me?’ he asked. ‘I need someone who won’t look away in disgust if things get…’ He hesitated, searching for the right words. ‘Hard to manage.’
‘You’d need a nurse… hospitalisation.’
‘In time, maybe. But that won’t be necessary until the end. This is my last photographic assignment. I’ve spoken to my agent. I always hated the thought of a posthumous exhibition but that’s what it will be. I’ve made peace with my death, Nadine. I know my work will be in safe hands.’ He smiled, forced me to smile back, which I did to hide my terror.
How does the mind process that kind of information? Probably in stages, in mood swings that veer from wildly optimistic to the darker reaches. Which is better? The slow acceptance of one’s death or the instant realisation that it’s all over, as Sara must have understood in that instant of collision. No time for terror or regret. No time to put her house in order. I dislike that euphemism, as if the approach of death requires a particularly strenuous bout of spring cleaning.
Stuart’s apartment on Canary Wharf is sold and he plans to end his days here. I listen as he tells me what must be done when I return to London with his photographic equipment and photographs, the framer and gallery owners I must contact.
I drive a jeep and learn to neg
otiate the roads around the lake. Stuart has worked out an itinerary of things we must do, places we must visit. Daveth has returned to sea and the photographs on his blog are of different voyagers leaning over the side of Eyebright to stare goggle-eyed at whales and calving icebergs.
Stuart, fiercely independent and proud, is still strong. We sit together on the glass fronted veranda and watch autumn die. Each day brings an added radiance to the forests. The leaves fall suddenly here, a breath and they are gone, says Daveth. Stuart, too, seems possessed by that same radiance. It shines through the grey pallor of his illness as he follows the flight of eagles with his binoculars, photographs a caribou glimpsed between trees, a moose swimming across the lake. Daveth, who lives nearby, calls to see us between cruises. Soon his season will be over and he will build his boats during the winter.
I take my breakfast and my laptop to the veranda this morning. There’s an email from Ali. She has a leading role in the next Barnstormer’s production. Brian had also emailed. His Willow Passion ceramic boxes have been shortlisted for a prestigious craft award. I’ll miss both events. How glibly I promised to be with them, Jake by my side, for all family celebrations. I’ve already missed the first one. Eleanor’s birthday celebration never changes. It’s nighttime in Dublin. She’s probably back in her bungalow now. I wonder how she and Jake sustained their conversation in Louisa’s Loft for the night.
My phone rings. Separate continents are not a barrier to thought transference yet I’m surprised to see Eleanor’s name on my screen.
‘Thank you for the book,’ she says. ‘It’s kind of you to remember those of us back home.’
I ignore the remark and watch a bird hovering against the grey sky. It’s a sullen day in Juneau and the bird is too far away to identify. I suspect it’s a sharp-eyed eagle checking out its prey.
‘I believe Stuart is unwell again,’ she says.
He’s dying, I want to shout the words out loud in the hope of lessening their dread.
‘He’s coping and is still very active,’ I reply. ‘Did you have a nice meal in Louisa’s Loft?’
‘The food was excellent, as always. But what used to be a grand occasion has now been reduced to two. At least that’s what I thought.’ A meaningful pause follows. I know these pauses. They usually proceed a meaningful announcement and Eleanor does not disappoint. ‘We were joined by a third party.’
‘Oh?’
‘Your friend, Karin Moylan.’
‘She’s not – ’
‘She’d been stood up by her boyfriend so I asked her to join us. She’s quite charming… and so knowledgeable about politics.’
‘Is there something you want to say to me, Eleanor?’
‘I saw the way Jake looked at her. It’s only a matter of time, Nadine.’
‘Is that what you rang to tell me?’
‘I’m not trying to make trouble.’
‘Then why are we talking about this?’
‘Please listen to me.’ Her usual brisk manner is subdued. ‘I’m worried about Jake. I can’t get him to slow down and think seriously about his future. That awful band, the guitar courses he runs, the sessions he does in that studio. It’s all piecemeal work. And tonight he was jittery, on edge all the time.’
‘You should be discussing this with him. It’s nothing to do with – ’
‘He’s still your husband. Don’t you have any feelings for him?’
‘Actually, no. I don’t want you to ring me again unless we can have a conversation that does not include his name.’
‘The fact that you’re so angry means you do have feelings. Your friend – ’
‘Karin Moylan is not my friend, Eleanor. I left her behind a long time ago. And I’ve left Jake. I’ve no intention of interfering in his life. Goodbye.’
I fill my mug with coffee and drink it black. The life I left behind seems alien, petty. Stuart is my only concern. A boat moves through the lake, the water so still it seems to have solidified into glass. The eagle drops to the water, talons razor sharp. The silence is absolute.
Oh, Jake, you poor, deluded fool. I lean my elbows on the table and rest my face in the curve of my arms.
Karin Moylan drew my image on a blackboard and I self-destructed. I came home from school that evening and locked myself in the bathroom. Sara was cooking in the kitchen. The sounds were familiar, the radio playing on the window sill, the television rumbling in the dining room. A bird warbled shrilly on a tree outside, a harsh, repetitive note that kept me strong as I removed a blade from the razor my father used for shaving. Sara had bought him an electric razor for his birthday but he’d never taken it out of its box. He preferred the precision of a sharp blade.
I cut lightly into my wrist, watched beads of blood rise to the surface and flow. The sting of pain, the red splash on the white ceramic basin, the sickly-sweet sense of relief, I’ve never forgotten it.
Afterwards, I vowed it would not happen again. I scoured the basin and stuck a plaster on my arm. Such secrecy and stealth. The broken promises. I wanted to stop and believed I could until the urge overwhelmed me once more.
One evening I cut too deep. I was almost unconscious when Sara’s frantic banging on the bathroom door brought me to my senses. I staggered to my feet and turned the key, allowed her to enter into my pain. Eoin was unable to understand why I would deliberately harm myself. It was beyond his ken, he said, and reflected my shame back at me. Self-hatred, it grew like a snowball on a steep hillside. Sara did her best to stop my belief that I deserved to be bullied. Nothing made any difference. What if… what if… that same question always lured me back to the blade. The warm trickle of blood, the escape route from guilt.
Stuart talks a lot about Sara. The childhood they shared and the years that followed until she was taken so suddenly from us. I remember the strength of her arms as she struggled to free me from my demons. The voices only I could hear. Unrelenting voices that demanded pain as their reward for silence.
At Stuart’s request I drive him to the Shrine of St Theresa on the outskirts of Juneau. The retreat centre is peaceful and quiet. He spends time in a small chapel and we walk together around the circles of stones that create the Merciful Love Labyrinth. He is silent on the journey back to the lodge. Daveth brings armloads of logs from the back of his pickup truck and I build the fires high.
We visit the Mendenhall glacier where ice as turbulent and textured as a flow of lava cuts through the rocky valley. It seems imperishable, indestructible, yet the slow drip of mortality is active here too. There is a skeletal starkness about Stuart’s photography. I know it’s my imagination but I see limbs writhing within the ice, as if bodies are struggling to be freed from their glistening tombs. Death is here with us, soundless and invisible. I sense it taking a step nearer each day yet we’re comfortable in the silence that has settled between us. I buy art materials in Juneau and, while Stuart works on his photography, I sketch the slumbering lake and forests.
CHAPTER 35
JAKE
He adjusted Brian’s bow tie and ran a clothes brush over his son’s hired tuxedo. In a few hours’ time Brian could become the youngest-ever winner of the R.E. Spencer Ceramics Award. Brian’s love affair with clay began at the age of two when Nadine gave him a lump of play dough to distract him while she was feeding the twins. He was six when he told his parents he was going to become a potter. While Ali flounced around in a tiara and princess dress, and the twins raced each other up and down climbing frames, Brian filled the kitchen shelves with lopsided mugs and fantasy creatures with bulging foreheads. Fast forward to what seemed to Jake like only a skip in time and he, along with Eleanor, were Brian’s invited guests at tonight’s award ceremony where, if Brian was even luckier, he would be chosen from the category winners to win the overall, prestigious R.E. Spencer Craft and Design Award.
‘I reckon the goldsmith will get it,’ he told Jake before they left Sea Aster. ‘His work is awesome. But winning the ceramic category would give my work brillia
nt exposure.’
The reception room was already crowded when they arrived. A harpist struggled heroically to be heard about the babble of voices and waiters eased through the crowd with trays of champagne and canapés. Eleanor checked out the room at a glance, her political antennae primed for potential contacts.
‘Is that Jessica Walls over there?’ she asked when Brian was being interviewed by the media. ‘I do believe it is. Remarkable woman. All those magazines. I still don’t understand why Nadine gave up such an amazing opportunity to build a new career for herself. She won’t get that chance again.’ She moved towards a small cluster of people and eased skilfully into their circle. Jake never failed to marvel at her ability to infiltrate the most resistant group.
‘Isn’t this a wonderful opportunity to celebrate such amazing young talent,’ he overheard her say. ‘You must meet my grandson, Jessica. Unfortunately, Nadine is still in Alaska so I’m here in loco parentis, so to speak. I’m assuming he’s going to win but as a doting grandmother I’m allowed to be totally biased.’
Polite laughter greeted this remark and Jessica Walls, dramatic in a gold lamé evening gown, accompanied Eleanor across the reception room to where the contestants were being interviewed. Had Eleanor ever expressed such pride in him, Jake wondered. He tried to pinpoint an instant that he could hold up to the light and recognise as a gesture of affection, a memory to cherish. But his recollections of his childhood were cluttered with her busyness. Her constant energy and ambition. Her face on posters, that bland yet determined smile.
‘Jake and Eleanor Saunders. I’d never have put the two of you together.’ A man who had been speaking to Jessica before Eleanor’s interruption nodded at Jake. His thick, brown hair glistened with gel and his aftershave reminded Jake unpleasantly of horse liniment.
