That night I wake at about four in the morning with a dry mouth and pounding heart, a great slab of grief pressing down on my chest. I haven’t drawn the curtains properly and from my bed I can see the moon, a perfect semi-circle of brilliant white, and beyond it pinpricks of light from hundreds of stars that may no longer even exist. And for the briefest moment I experience with sudden clarity, and with every fibre of my being, the vastness of the universe and my own infinitesimal span on this tiny spinning ball of dirt and fire, and I understand at the profoundest level what it will mean not to exist throughout the rest of eternity. The vision, if that’s what it is, lasts only a moment or two, and I am me again, lying in bed, drenched in sweat and worrying about death in the regular, abstract way that can be managed and keeps us all from madness.
I don’t see the Radleys again. Lexi has gone, Rad goes back to Durham, presumably, and Frances to whatever institution has offered her a place, and the next time I pass the house there is a For Sale sign outside.
I start at the Royal College and move into an intercollegiate hall of residence in Kensington. From my window I can see the Natural History Museum and the roofs of red routemasters. The rooms are box-shaped with brown nylon carpets that cause such a build up of static that every time I touch the door handle I get a shock. The bathroom is a windowless cell of streaming white tiles with blooms of black mould on the ceiling and growing up the shower curtain.
My cell-mate is a girl called Eva who is studying at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has a boyfriend in Saint Albans, and is almost never around. She has a coffee machine which she forgets to turn off and which hisses and gasps in the corner and emits acrid fumes. On the same corridor is a Welsh lichenologist and a hard-rock geologist who plays heavy metal so loudly that it makes the posters fall off my wall. He hosts Dungeons and Dragons parties to which I am invited, but never bother to go. The invitations soon dry up. These are supposed to be the best years of my life.
After a month or so mother forwards a letter from Frances. She is doing drama at a northern polytechnic and having a wild time. She and Nicky have split up and Frances has a new boyfriend. I can’t help resenting the triumphal tone of her letter, which makes no allusion to or apology for the past. I take some trouble to compose a reply that doesn’t reek of reproach and self-pity. A much shorter note arrives in due course, and then nothing.
I work hard for want of better things to do, and my tutors are pleased with me. They praise my technique for its control. Mrs Suszansky, my new teacher, says in her overblown way that I make the cello sing with a voice full of tears.
What of my much-prized virginity? I lost it to a fellow student called Dave Watkins in his bedsit in Dalston after a party on 28 January 1986. I remember the occasion particularly because it was the same day Challenger exploded and the spirit of mourning was already in the air.
It so happened that I was in Rome in August 1996 with the orchestra, and on the day appointed by Mr Radley all those years ago for our meeting, in a spirit of curiosity and nostalgia, I found myself drawn to the Spanish Steps and Keats’s last lodgings. Mr Radley didn’t show up, of course, but I saw Keats’s writing desk, and his death mask, and the branch of McDonald’s a few yards from his doorway, and I thought how much that would have infuriated Mr Radley, so I went there for lunch and drank his health in yellow milkshake.
V
* * *
44
One thing I’ve learnt: we never learn.
As the evening wore on I forced myself to mingle but my orbit didn’t cross Rad’s again, and he made no move to return. Every so often I would pick him out in the crowd – he was being passed around like a plate of sandwiches. All those girls with their swept up blonde hair and bootlace-strap dresses couldn’t get enough of his drains evidently. I’m not going to manage it, I thought. I’m not going to dredge up enough courage to approach him again, even though I’ve got a thousand questions to ask. I will hover on the fringes and if he catches my eye I will look away casually so that he doesn’t think I’m a sad, desperate, eaten-up old maid, and then with my dignity intact I will slink back home and churn with disappointment and probably give myself cancer.
I met Grace in the Ladies’. She was changing into a brown velvet dress. ‘God, you look sour,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Are you off home?’
I nodded. ‘Do you want to share a taxi?’
She produced a tub of loose powder and a huge, splayed brush, and dusted her face violently. ‘No, I’m going to Ronnie Scott’s with some people. Why don’t you come?’
‘I would if I wasn’t got up like Mrs Danvers,’ I said, flapping my long skirt. The fluorescent light above the mirrors gave my face a mottled, purplish tinge. ‘I am definitely past my prime,’ I said, grimacing at my reflection. ‘Which implies I must once have been in it.’
Grace twisted up a chisel-shaped lipstick and began to paint her lips in firm sweeping strokes the way my mother used to, with no consideration at all for their natural shape. ‘Oh go on,’ she said, dropping it back into her make-up bag which she snapped shut, and giving me a significant look, ‘I bet you’re more attractive now than, say, thirteen years ago.’
There was half an inch of loose wet snow outside, and it was still coming down in fat flakes. A long queue had formed at the taxi rank, so I decided to walk up to the main road carrying the cello. My car could wait until tomorrow to be rescued. It would give me something to do. I was standing on the corner at Aldersgate when a motorbike rider pulled up next to me at the kerb and gesticulated with a gloved hand. Instinctively I took a few paces back and tightened my grip on my handbag. He was dressed in leathers, with a black crash helmet, which he started to remove. A taxi appeared in the distance, yellow light glowing, and I had just stuck my arm up when a familiar voice said, ‘I thought it was you,’ and Rad emerged from his carapace.
‘Oh,’ I said, with untrammelled relief. ‘I thought you were a mugger.’
‘Well, I’m not. Look, I’m sorry we didn’t have much chance to talk.’ The taxi drew up behind him, engine rattling, and the driver leaned across and slid the window down. ‘Vassall Road, Vauxhall,’ I said. ‘Can you hang on a minute?’ He glanced at his watch and nodded.
‘I would have offered you a lift,’ said Rad, ‘but …’ He looked from the bike to the cello. For a moment I pictured myself riding pillion, the cello bumping along at my side.
‘I meant to ask how your parents are,’ he said.
‘They got back together – that same summer. They’re fine. What about yours? How’s Lexi?’
‘She’s still with Lawrence,’ said Rad over the sound of the idling engines. ‘They live in Chiswick. I’ve seen them quite a bit since I’ve been back. Dad’s got a proper job – at the eleventh hour. One of his old colleagues from the Department of the Environment has wangled him something – it’s pretty low key, but …’
‘Has he remarried?’ I asked, brushing snowflakes off my eyelashes.
‘No. He was going out with a twenty-five-year-old quite recently, until she came to her senses. Mum takes him out to dinner every so often. Now that she’s married to Lawrence it’s Dad she goes out with.’
The taxi driver was tapping impatiently on the steering wheel. Presently he leaned towards the nearside window again. ‘I won’t be a second,’ I said beseechingly, thinking, you bastard, you’ve blown your tip, mate.
‘How’s Frances?’ I asked. ‘What’s she doing now?’
‘She lives in Brisbane.’
‘Brisbane?’ I had never imagined her straying any distance from home, but then once the house in Balmoral Road had been sold she wouldn’t have had a home.
‘She’s married to an Australian called Neville. They’ve got three kids and a couple of dogs.’
‘Neville,’ I said. ‘That’s fortunate.’ Rad looked puzzled. ‘I was thinking of her tattoo. Her semi-permanent tattoo.’
He laughed at the memory. ‘It wouldn’t be a problem. He’s a plastic surgeon.�
�
‘What does she do?’
‘She’s a kindergarten teacher.’ It took me a few minutes to digest this information. Frances, a teacher. Dimly I recalled something Lawrence had once said: ‘You wait, she’ll be a pillar of the community.’
The snow was falling faster now. Rad’s hair was speckled with grey flakes and the top of my cello was growing a lacy skullcap. ‘You haven’t got her address, have you? I’d love to write to her.’
His hand strayed to a zipped pocket in his jacket. ‘I used to know it by heart, but they’ve just moved. Look, give me your address and I’ll send it to you.’ He handed me a two-inch stump of wax crayon. ‘I’m not on the phone,’ he added apologetically. Resisting the urge to upturn my handbag on the pavement, I picked decorously through the clutter until I found an old cash machine receipt on which I crayoned my address, wiping snowflakes off its dampening surface. I didn’t put my phone number. I thought that might be pushing it.
‘I don’t suppose Growth is still around?’ I said.
‘No, he’s dead. When Dad sold the house and moved into his flat he wasn’t allowed pets so Growth had to go back to Bill and Daphne. But he escaped and tried to find his way back to Balmoral Road and was hit by a car.’
‘Oh dear.’ I wasn’t sure how far you could sensibly go in condoling over the death of a dog thirteen years ago. Poor Growth, I thought. One of the innocent casualties of divorce. ‘I’d better go,’ I said, as he put the scrap of paper carefully in the zip-up pocket.
‘Well …’ we both said and then laughed awkwardly. Then he put his crash helmet back on, gave me a wave with his gloved hand and swung the bike out into the traffic, at which point the taxi driver, seeing his moment for revenge at hand, put his foot down and roared off, leaving me standing on the kerb alone with the blizzard blowing around me like confetti.
Two days later a card dropped on to my doorstep. It was postmarked Staines and showed a pen and ink drawing of a house. ‘The lock-keeper’s cottage, Penton Hook’, said the caption. I noted the first-class stamp with relief. It would be hard to feel optimistic about someone who would be prepared to keep you waiting an extra couple of days for the sake of 6p. Along the top Rad had written an address of sorts: Wentworth, Riverside, Laleham, which made me think of a stately home with gardens dipping into the Thames, and the message itself was brief.
Dear Abigail,
It was good to see you yesterday. Here it is as promised: [followed by five lines of Frances’ Brisbane address] Do write.
Yours Rad.
I spent the next five minutes subjecting this bald little note to the most punishing analysis in an attempt to reinterpret it in an encouraging light. ‘Do write’ was ambiguous, wasn’t it, given that he had supplied two addresses, and he hadn’t attempted to rule a line under the past by using the name Marcus. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that there was no suggestion, however vague, of a future meeting. He hadn’t even thrown in a question which would give me an excuse for replying. I would reply, though.
I fetched down a box of postcards which had my address and phone number printed across the top, and hunted down my fountain pen from a drawerful of red Biros and broken coloured pencils. I wrote the name Rad a few times on a piece of scrap paper, and then Marcus, to see which looked better. Oh dear, I thought, I really ought to have grown out of this by now. My reply went through several drafts and took up most of the morning.
Dear Marcus
Thank you for sending Frances’ address so promptly. I will certainly write. I can’t quite believe she’s a teacher – and a mother of three. It was so strange to bump into you again after all this time. I hope you aren’t too depressed to find yourself back in the middle of a British winter. If you’re ever passing this way do call in. I’m often at home.
Best wishes
No, too blatant.
Dear Rad
Thank you for your note. It was good to meet you again. I often think of the happy times I spent at Balmoral Road. Do you remember Nicky jumping in the Thames? And Lazarus Ohene?
Ridiculous. Embarrassing. He’d think I was taking the piss.
Dear Marcus (if I may)
I’m sorry our interesting conversation of the other evening was cut short by a combination of foul weather and the uncouthness of London taxi drivers. If you would like to continue it I am available on the above number.
Yours very truly
Absolute dead loss. Pathetic.
Dear Rad
Thanks for Frances’ address. I’ll certainly write. Sorry we didn’t have a chance to talk properly the other evening. I was glad to hear that your parents are well. Remember me to them.
Abigail
I glanced over the four postcards before selecting the last one and chucking the rest into the bin. Even my handwriting wasn’t consistent from one to another – a sure sign of a weak personality. I put on my overcoat and boots and walked out into the freezing December morning, the snow creaking beneath my feet. The council salt trucks had been out in the night and the gutters were banked with gritty brown slush. The postman was just emptying the pillar box as I arrived, so I dropped my card into his open sack. There, I thought, as I watched the red Royal Mail van pull away from the kerb, sludge churning under its wheels, the ball’s in your court now.
The ball stayed there, and after a couple of weeks I stopped bothering to listen to the rattle of the letter box, and stopped being the first one into the hallway to sort through the daily drift of mail. For a while I regretted that I hadn’t made my message a little warmer, but then as time wore on I grew relieved that I hadn’t betrayed too much. Clearly that five-minute encounter had been enough for Rad. He’d come back to England to restart his life; the last thing he needed was some wraith from the past intent on dragging him down. I began to wish I’d never been to the bloody concert. Until then I’d been, if not exactly happy, at least normal and settled. Over the years I’d discovered that the key to contentment is low expectations. I wouldn’t wake up in the morning expecting to be happy, but sometimes, without any deliberate effort from me, the day might turn out well and I’d find that I was. Now I was agitated, discontented and unable to concentrate. That brief meeting had succeeded in chipping away at the protective structure that time and all the comforting rituals of my existence had raised around me.
It was a month or so before I remembered that the ostensible point of the exchange of notes had been to secure Frances’ address, and even longer before I got round to the job of writing. Where do you start when you haven’t seen someone for thirteen years? You can either say everything or nothing. You can attempt to give a chronicle of your experiences and achievements from then until now, or just keep it light and ask a few questions in the hope that you’ll get a reply.
Once I sat down to it, though, it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought.
Dear Frances
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you out of the blue, but I was at a charity concert the other night (playing the cello) when I bumped into Rad. We didn’t have much opportunity to talk, but we exchanged a bit of news and he passed on your address. I was really amazed to hear that you’ve emigrated – and that you’ve got three Australian children. If you have time I’d love to hear what you’re up to, and especially see some photos. I could only find one half-decent picture of me and it’s not all that recent. It’s a publicity shot for a recital I gave at the Wigmore Hall a few years ago, so naturally it doesn’t look anything like me. That was about the high point of my career, but I didn’t pull it off as a soloist and now I’m strictly orchestra material. I teach the cello too, which is unbelievably depressing as the children are mostly crap and completely unmotivated and the ones that are any good are good at everything else too and invariably give it up to concentrate on their exams. I’m living in a flat in Vauxhall at the moment – I don’t know why I say ‘at the moment’ because there’s no likelihood of this changing. My parents still live in our old house in The Close – they got back to
gether round about the time of Birdie’s death. My granny died about five years ago so they’ve got the place to themselves again and they seem happier now than they’ve ever been. They go off on these weekend breaks to cultural hotspots and visit art galleries and churches. Although these jaunts have been getting steadily less ambitious as my father can’t walk far without getting breathless. He’s given up smoking his disgusting old pipe, anyway, which is a good thing, though too late of course. They have abandoned all hope of grandparenthood as I’ve shown no sign of settling down. Perhaps I’ll end up like Clarissa – you know, golf and gentleman friends in the afternoons – though realistically I would say the chances of this are slight. I’m more likely to turn into Auntie Mim.
I’ve often thought about you and wondered how you are – I’ve half expected to see you crop up on television. I always imagined you becoming an actress. I don’t suppose with three small children that you ever manage to come back to England, but if you do I’d love to see you.
With love
Abigail
I posted this one, again, into the abyss, not knowing if it would ever be read.
45
On Mother’s Day I went over to my parents’ house to cook lunch. I first did it four or five years ago and in that short time the gesture has acquired the status of a cherished tradition. To try and dodge the ritual and just go back to daffodils would be a kick in the teeth now. I don’t mind doing it – I quite enjoy the challenge of preparing a three-course meal in mother’s kitchen without barking at her for tidying away the things I still need, and I like using all the old gadgets and pans that remind me of when I was a child. There can’t be many people who feel nostalgic about kitchen utensils, but I’m one of them.
Learning to Swim Page 31
