Love Always

by Harriet Evans

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah. It’s a good idea. If you’re sure?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go back there, honestly. How – how’re Jason and Lucy? You still staying with them?’

  A tiny hesitation. ‘Yep. They’re well. You still liking Jay’s?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. ‘Went back to the flat the other day to get some stuff, saw you’d been back too.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Oli said. ‘Needed a few more things. I guess we should . . .’

  ‘Yes, I guess we should,’ I said, not knowing quite what the next stage is with this. Instruct the divorce lawyer, say I’m going through with it? Proof of adultery, like in a creaky old thirties farce?

  ‘Anyway,’ Oli said. ‘How’ve you been?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

  It was as if we finally had something in common we could talk about. The breakdown of our marriage and how we’re both dealing with it.

  ‘OK too,’ Oli said. ‘Up and down, you know. I miss . . .’ He trailed off. ‘I don’t know what I miss. I miss you, Natasha. I do miss us, being at our flat. I miss . . .’ He scratched his head. ‘Ugh. It’s – yeah, it’s weird. Weird to think I failed. We failed.’

  I loved this Oli, the eager, kind person I fell in love with. I smiled at him. ‘I know. I think that’s what I miss. What I wanted it to be.’

  He nodded, and our eyes met, as though we understood each other. He took my hand.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose there’s no point in bullshitting any more, you guessed it. That’s Chloe in there. It’s her friend’s birthday drinks.’

  He was looking into my eyes, with such sincerity that it took me a moment to reconcile what he was saying with how he was saying it. And when I did I stepped back, gave a short laugh.

  ‘Oh, wow,’ I said. ‘Right then.’

  ‘It’s going really well again,’ Oli said. ‘That’s why – hey, that’s why I feel I have to be straight with you.’

  There was a roar of noise as the door opened and Cathy appeared next to us on the pavement. ‘So . . . ?’ she said, looking from one to the other. ‘We off then?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I turned to Oli. ‘I’ll be in touch about the loan. I owe you—’

  ‘Hey, Natasha, I mean it. Don’t worry about that for the moment,’ he said, nodding. ‘After everything, it’s fine, it really is. I owe you, not the other way round. Plus, I know you need some time to get on your feet again.’

  I thought of the new orders I’ve had lately, of me skipping up Brick Lane to drop the latest consignments off at various shops, of the meeting with the woman from Liberty . . . I smiled at him.

  ‘Not any more. Honestly.’ I held out my hand. ‘Thanks,’ I said, looking into his deep blue eyes one more time. ‘Thanks, Oli. Have a—’

  I wanted to say have a nice life. But it sounds bitchy, sarcastic, and in that moment, I really meant it. I did want him to have a nice life.

  ‘Have a great evening,’ I said instead, and Cathy and I went off down the street together, and the rest of the night was thankfully without incident. But I didn’t sleep when I got back, not a wink. I wouldn’t have asked for either of those encounters, you know. But that’s life.

  7:29, and there’s a sudden commotion, as the last people are flooding onto the train. I rub my eyes, trying to put last night out of my mind, and what happens next. This is what happens next, I tell myself, as the doors open again, one last time, and there’s Guy. He doesn’t look ruffled, like someone who’s run to catch the train. He looks as if he’s been casually waiting till the last minute, to avoid having to spend any extra time with us, I think to myself.

  ‘Guy!’ Louisa squeaks. ‘Thank God! We’d nearly given up on you! Miranda’s going to miss it, I’m afraid!’

  ‘I’m sure she won’t,’ he says, putting his battered leather holdall next to my overnight bag. ‘Hello, Natasha.’

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Hello – hi, Frank,’ he says. ‘Good to see you, Guy,’ Frank says, not really looking up from the Telegraph.

  Guy kisses Louisa. ‘Hello, old girl,’ he says. ‘You look wonderful. Thanks for booking these. Sorry I’m late. I was being rather stupid.’

  ‘You’re here now,’ says Louisa, practically weeping with relief. The train moves off, so slowly at first that I’m not sure whether it’s moving or the platform is. ‘Oh, dear,’ she exclaims. ‘Miranda – she is awful—’

  The doors burst open, and Mum rushes through. ‘My God!’ she cries. ‘My God. These damned – this stupid Tube! I left Hammersmith over an hour ago! Would you believe it!’

  She pulls strands of hair, which have glued themselves to her lip gloss, away from her face. She smiles brightly at all of us. Her pupils are dilated, her skin lightly tanned and perfectly clear. She could be my sister, not Cecily’s. I stare at her, transfixed all over again by her. ‘Hello! Well, here we are. Off for a lovely day back at the old homestead,’ she says, sliding into the seat next to Guy, so she and I are sitting beside each other, only the passageway in between us.

  ‘Hi, Guy,’ she says brightly.

  He doesn’t even look at her. Even in the midst of all this, alarm bells ring yet again; there’s something there. Something else she’s not telling us. What did she do to him to make him like this? ‘Yes,’ he says.

  The train draws out of the station, and the early-morning sun hits my eyes. I squint. ‘Hi, Mum,’ I say, and I’m annoyed to hear my voice shaking.

  She turns away from Guy and puts her hand on my leg, across the divide. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ my mother says. ‘Promise.’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Last time I was going to Cornwall, it seemed as if winter would never end. This time, it is glorious. We speed out of London and the trees are thick with new buds, sprouting like green fingers. There are even a few lambs in the fields, and white blossom smothering the black hawthorn branches. The countryside through the southernmost Somerset Levels is bright green, with a kind of alertness to it, as if everything is quivering with new life.

  I stare out of the window watching the countryside unfold, coming awake again. I am the sole occupant of my table, as it turns out, but at the next table an uneasy silence reigns. The Bowler Hat reads the paper, Guy hunches over, writing notes on an auction catalogue, and Louisa puts her reading glasses on and shuffles through a file of papers on the launch of the foundation. My mother is sitting upright, her eyes closed, but I know she’s not asleep.

  Somewhere around Glastonbury, Louisa puts her pen down. ‘Should we talk about what’s going to happen?’ she says. ‘I mean, I’ve deliberately kept this easy to manage, and of course Didier is really responsible for it all—’

  ‘Didier?’ I ask.

  ‘Didier du Vallon,’ Louisa says. ‘He was Franty’s – he was your grandmother’s dealer.’

  ‘Darling Didier,’ Mum murmurs, her eyes still closed. Louisa ignores this, and shuffles the papers again. I can see she is flustered. ‘Of course, it’s primarily the launch of the foundation at the house today, of course.’ She blushes at her repetition and it is strange to see her so unsure of herself. Normally she’s good at being in charge: organising trips to the beach, scooting people into cars, sorting out the house, the funeral. ‘There will be a few art critics there, a few local papers, some local friends, you know.’

  ‘No national papers?’ Mum opens her eyes. ‘I would have thought—’

  ‘It’s a six-hour journey to Summercove from London,’ Louisa says firmly. ‘And this isn’t the retrospective we’re announcing, anyway. You know that. It’s too soon after Frances’s death to have organised a proper exhibition: this is just a taster, the paintings Didier and the family had, and so forth . . . That’ll be in London, in 2011. Won’t it?’

  She looks at Mum for confirmation of this. Mum shrugs. ‘I suppose so,’ she says grandly. ‘Archie and I need to discuss it.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Louisa says, sli
ghtly thin-lipped. ‘So, the schedule is as follows: One p.m., arrive at Penzance, where Frank and I will pick up our hire car and go to Summer-cove—’ She turns to Mum. ‘Miranda, Archie is picking you up, and you’ll both go and collect Arvind from Lamorna House. OK?’

  ‘Mm,’ says my mother. I really can’t see how she can find fault with this. She’s being incredibly childish. Guy is still pretending to make the odd note here and there but I know he’s taking it all in.

  ‘Great,’ I interject, smiling at Louisa with my usual ‘She’s not normally like this!’ smile, which won’t work with my mother’s own cousin of course, but sometimes helps. ‘Then kick-off is at—?’

  ‘There are drinks, and then your mother makes her speech at three-thirty,’ says Louisa. ‘Just welcoming everyone, explaining the aims of the foundation as set out by her parents, and talking a bit about Aunt Frances.’

  Mum points to her bag. ‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘My moment in the spotlight.’

  Guy does look up then. He stares thoughtfully at her, then flicks a glance at me. I suddenly feel rather sick, as if the three of us are bound into this thing together.

  When we pull in to Penzance a few hours later, my stomach is grumbling, so close to lunchtime. It is a long journey. There are fresh, frothing waves bouncing on the blue sea, St Michael’s Mount is glowing in a windy sunlit bay, and when we step off the train a warm wind – not tropical, but not icy – nearly knocks me sideways. I forget how windy it can be down here. When I was little, a gust of wind whipped my ice-cream out of my hand and into the sea at Sennen Cove, and I was so shocked I nearly fell in after it.

  We make a strange band, the five of us, emerging out of the station. We are polite to each other but the oddness of the situation increases, as though we are inexorably tumbling towards the heart of something, the nearer we get to Summercove. The closest way I can think of to describe it is on Christmas Day, when you’re all standing around in your best clothes, rather awkwardly waiting for something else to happen and it’s a Thursday, and you suddenly remember that and think how odd it is. The Bowler Hat strides off to the car-hire place, and Guy goes with him. He has barely spoken a word the whole trip. I glance at my mother.

  ‘When did you get back then, Mum?’

  ‘Oh, late last night,’ she says. ‘We got delayed, a problem with some of the stuff we’d bought in a market in Fez. Fez is wonderful, darling, you must go there.’ Suddenly her face lights up. ‘There’s Archie!’

  I want to say, I don’t bloody care about bloody Fez! What the hell are you talking about! I want to know about the diary, about you, about what you think of all of this! Jesus! H! Christ!

  But Louisa is with us and Archie is approaching, so I just say, ‘Hm, how interesting. Mum, can we talk later, please?’

  She pretends not to hear. ‘Archie, darling!’ She hugs him. ‘Mum –’ I say loudly. ‘You’ve been away for two weeks and there’s a lot we need to discuss. You know there is. I said, can we talk, please.’

  Louisa looks over at this, and even I am surprised at the tone in my voice.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Mum says, over Archie’s shoulder, and she steps back. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

  She smiles and Archie looks at me, instantly defensive of anyone challenging his sister. They are side by side, the grey sea turning behind them, and for a second they are the people in Cecily’s diary, and I can’t help staring at them. They are so eerily similar, their green eyes flashing, their dark hair shining, the same height, the same expression. I can see now, what has kept them so close all these years, closer than any romantic relationship. It’s Mum’s face as she sees him approach. How good it is, I think guiltily, that she has had one person in her life with whom she can completely be herself, Archie too: he’s never as stiff and awkward around her.

  ‘Hello, Natasha. We’ll see you at Summercove,’ Archie says loudly to the others – the Bowler Hat and Guy are walking back towards us, the former clutching a set of car keys in his hand. ‘We’re off to pick up Dad.’

  ‘Byee!’ Louisa says. ‘Don’t be –’ she begins, and then stops herself. ‘See you soon!’ The Bowler Hat raises a hand in farewell. Guy gets in after him.

  Just like February, I climb into Archie’s car.

  ‘Where is this place?’ Mum says in her normal voice, the one she uses when she’s with Archie and with me.

  ‘Lamorna House? Just along the Western Promenade, before you turn off for Newlyn,’ Archie says. ‘He’s doing well. I saw him yesterday. I brought him some food Sameena made. Lamb chops and butter chicken. He says it reminded him of home.’

  He stops outside a palm-tree-fronted esplanade, very English Riviera. He turns off the ignition and fiddles with his cufflinks.

  ‘Listen,’ he says, turning to his sister and then to me. ‘He’s fine, but I think he’s a bit confused about things. Perfectly natural, and all that.’

  ‘About what kind of things?’ Mum asks. ‘He never makes any sense anyway.’ She’s not a great sentimentalist, my mother.

  ‘You’ll see.’ Archie gets out of the car and we follow suit. ‘We’re not staying, someone should have got him ready, I told them when I came yesterday.’

  It’s so strange, walking up the neat path and into the overheated home. There are large safety notices everywhere, bright signs about breakfast and afternoon activities, and paintings of vases of flowers. There are a couple of residents in the hall, two extremely frail old ladies pushing walkers, both clad in baby-pink knitted bed jackets, and one of them looks up and stares at my mother and Archie as we walk in.

  ‘More foreigners,’ she says, with a baleful stare. ‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from?’

  Mum puts a hand on Archie’s arm. ‘We’re just looking for our dad,’ she says sweetly. ‘What a lovely jacket that is that you have on.’

  ‘I bet I know which one he is,’ says the old lady. ‘Through there.’

  ‘Charming,’ Mum mutters under her breath, looking down at the old woman. ‘Have a lovely day, won’t you?’

  ‘Stupid bi—’ Archie starts shaking his head. He’s flustered. ‘She can’t talk to us like that. To Dad like that. I’m going to make sure she’s not talking to Dad like that. Where is the bloody nurse, anyway?’

  ‘I’m sure Dad wouldn’t notice if she came back with a huge sign saying “GO HOME” on it,’ Mum says. ‘Archie, she’s old and mad.’ She turns back to the old lady. ‘We’re from here like you are, by the way, madam,’ she says. ‘Not that it matters, but it’s not very nice of you, to greet people like that. Bye.’

  The old lady, who is not as confused as one might think, purses her lips at this. I smile at my mother, impressed, as Archie pushes open a swing door into the conservatory, and we troop in. A group of men and women is grouped around the TV, the sun streaming in through the glass roof. There is a glare on the TV which means you can’t see the screen. It is very hot. There is absolutely nothing here that makes me think of Arvind. It’s the diametric opposite of him, in every way.

  ‘There he is,’ Mum says, and her voice drops several octaves. ‘Dad, hello, darling Dad.’ She swoops down on Arvind, who is sitting motionless in a wheelchair, a blanket over his legs. There is a photo album on his lap.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ says Archie loudly. ‘It’s Miranda and Archie, come to pick you up for the ceremony at Summercove.’

  Arvind doesn’t move. Fear squeezes at my heart. ‘And me,’ I add. I step forward and kiss him. ‘Hi, Arvind.’ In a clear voice, but still not moving, he says, ‘Cecily.’

  ‘Father, no,’ Archie says, as if Arvind is five years old and has just tried to steal some sweets. ‘It’s Natasha.’ He says this very loudly. I can feel perspiration breaking out over my body. ‘Look,’ he says to Mum. ‘They should have got him ready. I’ll go and find someone, tell them we’re taking him. Stay with him.’ He is shaking his head, and not even looking at Arvind.

  ‘Ah yes, Cecily,’ Arvind says.

  The sun is shining right ont
o us. I stare at him. I look down at the photo album. ‘Is that her?’ I say.

  It’s a black-and-white photo of a girl leaning against a woman who has her arm around her. The girl is a teenager, long gangly legs, shorts, a shirt and a big smile. She has a longish fringe, which falls into her eyes. Her face is heart-shaped. The woman hugging her is Granny.

  ‘It’s her,’ says Arvind. Mum is standing stock-still, staring at the photo.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she says. ‘I’d forgotten that. That’s the day we got home from school.’

  It’s deathly quiet in the hot room and we are the only ones speaking.

  ‘I’m going to go and find Archie,’ Mum says. She leaves before I can look at her, tossing her hair out of her face, and she is gone, in an instant. I turn back to Arvind.

  ‘How are you?’ I say. ‘How are you settling in?’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘It seems nice here,’ I say, lying. There is a slight stirring in the background, as one of the TV watchers shifts slowly in her chair.

  ‘Do you like cold porridge in the mornings?’ Arvind asks. ‘No.’

  ‘Neither do I. That is how I am settling in.’

  I don’t know if this is an actual issue or not, as so often with Arvind. ‘Can’t you have cereal?’ I suggest, thinking what an Arvind-style conversation this is. I stare down at the photo again, greedily. I saw the sketch in Arvind’s room, but I’ve never really seen her before. There were never any photos out at Summercove, apart from the one I saw Granny with, all those years ago. Paintings and sketches, yes. Family photos, no.

  ‘Cereal does not agree with my digestion. But when you get to ninety, not much does,’ Arvind says, interrupting my train of thought. ‘To be fair to cereal.’

  ‘But you don’t miss Summercove?’ I instantly berate myself. What a stupid question, what a stupid thing to say, how could he not miss it, here in this overheated white-and-yellow prison smelling of antiseptic?

  ‘No. I don’t miss it,’ he says, to my surprise. ‘I am very happy here in most ways. As I say, the porridge, the cereal – these are things which need to be satisfactorily addressed . . .’ He trails off. ‘But up here –’ he taps his head – ‘I have everything I need up here. Have you heard of a memory palace?’