by Joanna Glen
Oh, abide with me, we sang together, nervously, fast falls the eventide.
Oh, abide with me, I sang.
Oh, abide with Billy.
Especially.
Please.
Chapter 62
The holiday to Mirabello Bay was cancelled, and Christine Orson went to Home Place for the summer.
My mother kept saying, ‘Poor woman!’ with a look that said I’m not a poor woman any more.
Mr Orson arranged a welcome party when Christine came home, and he put a bottle of champagne with glasses on a silver tray in the hall.
And there she was, with pale patches daubed under her eyes, and a smile she’d drawn with lipstick.
‘Welcome!’ said Mr Orson, as if this wasn’t her house.
I noticed that the chandelier was trembling.
Mr Orson said, ‘I’ve hired the lawyer Giles Morton recommended.’
Johnny raised his glass and then lowered it, awkwardly.
‘That school!’ said his mother with a face that didn’t move. ‘It’s unforgivable.’
How badly we need someone to blame, I thought.
I knew who I blamed, apart from myself.
But I couldn’t say.
I mustn’t say.
It wouldn’t help Michael.
It wouldn’t help anyone.
We started to drink our champagne, as Christine walked silently towards the staircase, and climbed the stairs, putting her right wedged foot, and then her left, carefully on each step.
‘Thanks for being here,’ Mr Orson said to us.
‘Why was your dad talking about lawyers?’ I asked Michael later.
‘He’s joined forces with Giles Morton, who’s suing for negligence. Two powerful fathers. They’re gathering evidence.’
‘Evidence?’
‘Apparently their safeguarding was up the creek,’ he said tightly. ‘Bullying. Drugs. Sexual stuff in dormitories.’
There were so many things I wanted to say, but I knew that none of them would bring Billy back, and nor would suing the school for negligence.
Billy’s dried-up swimming shorts hung in the pool changing room, with the tropical fish stuck at strange stiff angles.
Christine stayed in bed, talking for hours on the phone to Heather Morton about the way they were going to destroy that school.
‘Destroying won’t help,’ I said to Michael. ‘Destroying will destroy.’
‘When you’ve been through a tragedy this big, you’ll have the right to comment,’ he said.
I packed his comment away in the special safe, which was filling up again.
Did my life count as a tragedy, I wondered.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Michael. ‘That was mean.’
I didn’t say anything.
At the end of September, my period didn’t come, but I didn’t mention this to Michael, or to anyone.
Johnny and Antonina got engaged.
‘We needed some good news,’ said Mr Orson, tapping the fingers of his right hand, one at a time, along the pale underside of his left arm – such a vulnerable place, so much the opposite of the male forearm.
My period still didn’t come.
Then one day, by the Orsons’ swimming pool, two months’ worth of period came at once, and Michael had to escort me inside, swaddled in bloodied towels.
‘Is this normal?’ he said. ‘Shall I ask my mother?’
‘No, please don’t,’ I said, bending over and clutching my stomach.
‘We’ll have to buy her new pool towels,’ said Michael. ‘There’s a specific brand from Harrods she likes …’
Thanks for the sympathy, I thought.
Chapter 63
The day Michael left for Cambridge, I went for a walk in Battersea Park and I found I could breathe more freely.
I remember putting my arms out and running down the slope near the bandstand, feeling the breeze in my hair, and off I flew to King’s College, where I threw myself headfirst and gasping into the Hispanic Middle Ages, and where I made a few studious friends.
Despite my lack of a reply, Bridget wrote to me again from the kibbutz, and this time I wrote back and told her what had happened to Billy. I said I’d hoped to go to Edinburgh but was staying in London to support Michael. I was a tornado of pain and confusion at the time, but in the letter I sound oddly blank and unemotional. I’d shoved all my feelings down again and chosen to sound fine.
Bridget wrote back and said she was very sorry for my loss, and how loved Michael must feel that I’d changed my plans, despite wanting to go to Edinburgh so much – she hoped I was OK.
I wonder if Michael ever did feel loved by me.
I eventually replied to Bridget, saying nothing about my own feelings but banging on about the Spanish mystics, in particular the poetry of St John of the Cross, who was imprisoned in a tiny prison cell the size of a cupboard and flogged by his fellow monks.
In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God, I wrote. So perhaps there is hope in our suffering.
You’re getting way beyond me now, Bridget wrote back.
I moved on to St Teresa of Ávila, soulmate of St John, who said that our intellect was too small to understand either God or our own souls, so we should stop worrying and use our lives to love people instead.
I thought I must write to Bridget to tell her that the reason I had any chance of loving anyone else was that she’d taught me what love was.
But I never did.
I spent every spare minute reading mystical poetry or going obsessively to plays.
I met Carrie for the first time at a Spanish play in Southwark.
I remember she had a large orange feather hanging from one ear, but I’m not sure if we spoke to each other.
Remember that name.
I never stopped reading all through that first autumn term.
I wrote essays in a state of high elation.
I went to Cambridge, and Michael seemed distracted.
He’d stop talking in the middle of sentences.
I’d ask him if he was thinking about Billy.
He’d say he was thinking about nothing.
I wondered if Billy was now the same as nothing.
But I didn’t say that.
‘Why isn’t it harder to kill yourself?’ I said.
‘I guess I could kill you,’ said Michael, laughing. ‘With this tie.’
‘Don’t say that,’ I said.
I tried to put his words in the safe.
‘But you know what I mean,’ he said, blushing.
‘Sometimes I dream of Billy,’ I said. ‘He’s wearing his tropical fish shorts and he’s walking in that way he had, with his skinny legs bowed out.’
‘Why the hell did he do it?’ said Michael.
There were so many things I could have said, but I didn’t say any of them.
That night, neither of us could sleep.
Michael said could I forget that comment about killing me with his tie. He said he loved me more than anyone in the world, and he clung to me and wept until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Chapter 64
At the beginning of my second year at King’s, there was a life-changing announcement: we were going to spend the summer term at the University of Córdoba!
Thank you God thank you God thank you God – it doesn’t matter who you are, you are great and wonderful and perfect.
Jean said, ‘Don’t tell your mother it’s Córdoba. Say it’s Granada.’
‘But what about letters?’
‘I post all the letters,’ said Jean.
Grandpa Green said that he’d pay for my flights and my rent, and he raised my termly living allowance, putting a lump sum in my account for unforeseen eventualities.
‘I don’t want you getting in a tight spot,’ he said.
I thanked him for his generosity.
‘You need to watch out for Spanish men,’ he said. ‘They’re only after one thing.’
Then something el
se amazing happened.
I was sitting, early one morning, in our cold, formal Chelsea courtyard, completely immersed in the construction of the great mosque in medieval Córdoba, when Jean brought me a letter.
I’d have recognised that writing anywhere.
Barnaby Blume!
Barnaby Blue!
‘I’m going to be passing through London,’ he wrote. ‘How about dinner?’
Thank you God thank you God thank you God – etcetera.
I was on the top bunk in Lyme Regis looking down at his long luscious eyelashes.
You’re being ridiculous, I said to myself.
‘Come to Cambridge on Thursday,’ said Michael on the phone.
‘I can’t come until Friday.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m seeing a friend.’
‘Well, cancel the friend.’
‘You’re the one who told me I should make friends.’
‘What’s she called?’
‘Barbara,’ I said, lying so deftly and so quickly that it scared me.
When Barnaby arrived, he was alone.
He looked just like Barnaby, except bigger and older – and he had exactly the same effect on me all these years later.
His hair was dark and wavy and a bit unkempt.
He still had the long eyelashes.
Obviously.
And the gold star.
Concentrate.
Calm down.
‘Eva!’ he said.
And his voice slid into my veins, and bubbled into the most private parts of me, catching me between my legs and on the surface of my skin.
Barnaby was wearing a tatty checked shirt with a slightly fraying collar, and his sleeves rolled up. His shoulders had broadened, and his forearms had widened, and were hairy in a nice way (not too much hair and not too little, and all heading in one direction) and I could see the shape of his biceps under his shirt, which was hanging over his crumpled jeans.
What did I actually like about Barnaby, I’m wondering as I write, except his forearms.
And what did Michael like about me – was it the shallow sliver of my personality which I chose to show him, or was it more my plum-breasts and caramel legs?
Because if it was, I can’t judge him, can I?
Barnaby held out those forearms, and I sort of collapsed into them, but forwards not backwards, unlike the trust game.
It was like hugging a bear.
A really nice bear who liked you.
It was really really lovely hugging Barnaby Blue.
Even when I was doing it, I knew it was a bit too lovely.
Neither of us knew what to do with our faces, which we twisted away from each other, as we hugged.
We stood back.
I thought that if Michael could see me being hugged by Barnaby, perhaps he actually would murder me with his tie.
Barnaby looked at me and I looked at him.
And he said, ‘So good to see you.’
‘I brought the locket!’ I said, taking it out of my jacket pocket.
‘Well, look at that,’ he said. ‘Anyone in it yet?’
I shook my head, and put it back in my pocket, feeling absurd.
‘I’ve asked a friend to come and join us,’ he said.
‘Great,’ I said, feeling that this was not great.
‘She’s always late,’ he said.
She she she – the word rang like a car alarm.
‘Well, let’s sit down,’ I said. ‘I hope you like it here. I thought tapas, you know, Andalusia. Your father’s family tree!’
‘You remembered,’ he said. ‘We’ve found out much more since then. And, well, so much to tell you. But this place looks great.’
‘How’s Bridget?’ I said. ‘I mean, we sometimes write to each other. But …’
‘Lovely as ever,’ he said.
‘We grew apart,’ I said. ‘I just can’t believe that happened.’
The enormity of it fell on me as Barnaby leapt to his feet.
But look, the she was here, and the she was wearing blue dungarees and DM boots, and dangly earrings, and she had long dark hair and big bosoms and a beautiful shiny face, and she definitely had a Blue Mother look about her – the same sparkly ease.
‘This is Naomi,’ he said.
‘Naomi!’ I said a bit too loudly.
‘So good to meet you,’ she said.
We ordered tapas.
‘So, Naomi, tell me about you,’ I said, feeling a bit scared of that sparkly ease.
‘I’m a potter,’ she said. ‘I’ve just found a way to make this incredible fade …’
She pulled out some photos of gorgeous pots, fading turquoise and aquamarine, from her messy bag.
‘She’s selling loads of them,’ said Barnaby.
‘Finally,’ she said. ‘After not selling anything.’
‘And I’m doing a bit of sculpture,’ she said.
‘Women with holes in their bodies,’ said Barnaby.
‘I haven’t got too far with them …’ she said.
‘Because you’re always off,’ said Barnaby.
‘Off?’ I said.
‘I can’t resist an adventure,’ she said. ‘I have a Masters in Anthropology.’
‘Brilliant,’ I said, feeling enormously un-brilliant.
‘And you, Barnaby?’
‘Everyone calls me Barny,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘I’m just doing my Masters, and then I’ve got funding for a PhD next year.’
‘Brilliant.’
Can you stop saying brilliant, I said to myself.
‘And you?’ he said.
‘Oh, I’m doing a degree in Hispanic Studies,’ I said, gabbling slightly. ‘I’ve got totally wrapped up in Medieval Spain, you know, Córdoba, the era of tolerance, the Convivencia, because it turns out that’s actually where I was born. You know, my story! And where I’ll be going. For the summer term!’
‘No way!’ he said. ‘That’s such a coincidence!’
‘You remember your dad saying we had something in common. When we got back from Lyme Regis. When he heard from the family tree people,’ and I was gabbling again. ‘And I wasn’t sure then, weirdly, whether I was born in Jerez or Alvera or Córdoba but—’
‘I don’t remember that,’ said Barnaby.
I blushed. (Why did I blush? Because I knew that, unlike him, I remembered every word he’d ever said to me.)
‘D and I got totally wrapped up in our Sephardi ancestors,’ said Barnaby. ‘So when I was thinking about my PhD, it had to be Córdoba …’
‘I’m just reading about the building of the great mosque,’ I said.
‘Well you must have heard of Medina Azahara,’ said Barnaby, eyes alight.
‘I have!’ I said, eyes also alight.
‘Well that’s what my PhD’s about,’ he said.
You can probably guess what I said.
‘Brilliant.’
I finally wrote to Bridget, but I didn’t tell her she’d taught me how to love.
I asked her what she thought of Naomi.
Chapter 65
I was like a child counting down to Christmas.
I was going home.
To the place where I was born.
To the answers to my questions.
To almost-guaranteed certainty and happiness.
Before I went, I had a laparoscopy.
This is when a surgeon passes a thin tube through a cut in your skin to see if they can find any patches of endometriosis tissue. He did find patches of endometriosis tissue, lots of them, so he had to cut them all away.
After the surgery, he called me in for a meeting to discuss the fact that my chances of getting pregnant in the future were very slim. Very slim indeed. He asked me if I wanted counselling, and I said, whether I did or I didn’t, I was off to Córdoba in the south of Spain, and did he know that this was the last Moorish kingdom in the whole of Europe?
He looked very serious and said t
hat at some point I might need to consider a hysterectomy – which would involve the removal of my womb.
I thought of Naomi’s clay women with a hole in their middle, and I stared at his bald head, and I mainly thought, I’m going to Córdoba.
He said that coping with endometriosis was difficult both physically and emotionally and I should contact a support group such as Endometriosis UK.
I gritted my teeth and stared at his bald head again.
He asked me if I had a partner. I said yes. He said I should talk about it with him.
I didn’t.
I didn’t talk to one single person about it.
Every time I thought about my endometriosis, I flapped it away and said to myself, I bet the surgeon wishes he wasn’t bald, we all have our problems, and I’m going to Córdoba.
Obviously, this approach was never going to work long-term.
But it did for now.
I was packing for Spain.
In the front pocket of my huge rucksack, I put my Quest Books, my five photocopies of the photo, my Spanish-English dictionary, The Rainbow Rained Us and Peter Pan.
On the day I left, my mother took to her bed.
Jean said, ‘Don’t worry about her. We’ll pull her through.’
I nodded.
‘Lap it up!’ said Jean. ‘This is your moment!’
When she said lap it up, I tried not to think about the laparoscopy.
Or the surgeon’s bald head.
I smiled, and I thought that yes yes yes, it was my moment.
Then I thought that, if there was anyone I would tell about my endometriosis, it would be lovely kind Jean.
‘You’ve probably noticed that something has changed in your mother,’ said Jean, and she opened her mouth, then closed it.
‘It’s Nigel,’ I said. ‘He’s making our house into a home – I can’t explain it.’
There was just a little tremor of emotion in Jean’s eyes.
‘You’d better get going,’ she said, and she reached out and clutched my hand, then let it go. ‘You’ll miss the plane.’
I walked down the steps and set off, with my backpack on my back.
She yelled at the top of her voice, and I had never ever heard the top of Jean’s voice, ‘Have fun in Granada!’
I turned around.
She winked at me.
